A Message to Cane Toads

This story is partly auto-biographical, I'll leave it up to you to work our which is fact and which is fiction.

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I don't know if the brain of every male of the species Homo sapiens works as mine does but if it does then the species will die out within several generations. The mating urge in my brain is strong, it would need to be given the number of times it has got me nowhere, it urges me to home in on the most attractive female of the species at whatever function I happen to be and move to separate her from the herd. But, as life would have it, as I make my move, the female of choice who, up to that moment has been carrying on an animated conversation with a couple of other females of the species, catches my eye and her expression changes and, in that instant that heralds my doom, in her eyes I now have the looks and personality of a cane toad.

Maybe I set the bar too high given the impediment of an appearance that is obviously unattractive to women. Tonight was no different to any other (Friday) night so I retreated to the bar and got myself something strong. "You blew it again didn't you?" I looked around at the source of the interruption to find myself confronted by a mid-bar female. I should explain the bar system, the object of my desire is definitely 'high bar', your supermodel or film star while at the other end of the scale are the 'low bar' and they just are too horrible to contemplate, what is known to the less sophisticated of the Aussie male population as a 12 beer shiela (girl), in-between are the 'mid bar' and they make up the vast majority. "Why is it that every male heads straight for the one female that he has no prospect of catching and in the process succeeds in pissing off every other female?"

"Was I that obvious?"

"Jesus effing Christ you might just as well have had a flashing neon sign over your head that said 'Warning incoming cane toad'. Yes you were that obvious." Had she been reading my thoughts? How else would she have known about me and cane toads? "Men like you should target women who just might be interested in them, not some drop dead gorgeous female who has her choice of what's on offer."

"So you're saying that I should concentrate on someone like you for instance?" Let's see where this leads, she looks interesting enough.

"Well I wouldn't go that far just yet but get me a drink and we'll see, but I'm definitely not what you guys consider a twelve beer girl." This is in reference to the saying that after twelve beers any girl is attractive.

"Before I get you a drink I think I should at least know your name, I'm Maurice Allen." (Not my real name by the way.)

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Rebecca Courtney.

I got her a drink. "So, do you make a habit of confronting men at functions and expounding your behavioural psychology theories on them?"

"Not really, I just observe behaviours at shows like this, it's interesting and you learn a lot about humans, men in particular."

"I know what you mean, I do a similar thing myself but in a different way for a different reason."

"How so?" Now she was curious rather than dismissive.

"Well I look at people and make up scenarios about them, take for instance the woman you thought to be the object of my lust. I would picture her as a sad and lonely person, maybe not now but in the future."

"Go on, I would disagree with you but I'm intrigued to hear your reasons." Intrigued is a jump up from curious.

"Okay, to look at her is to look at perfection personified and the problem with that is that she will always be looking for the perfect partner hence the 'don't even think about it' look she gave me. She's and egoist and because of that if the chosen one doesn't live up to her high standards she will say to herself, 'I don't have to put up with this, I can do better.' And she will end the relationship. For me the success of any relationship is compromise, I know that I'm not perfect so why should I expect my partner to be perfect, but for her that isn't the case, she'll probably go home with some lucky guy tonight but in the morning something will be a turn-off, his morning breath or he farted in bed, it doesn't have to be a major turn-off for her to want nothing more to do with him. End of story."

"And what do you do, if anything, with these fantasies?"

"I use the observation in a story, sometimes it's just a thread while at other times it is the story bridge, it links the elements of the story just as a bridge in music links the elements of a song."

"What sort of stories do you write and have you had any published?" Now I really had her interest.

"I write erotic romance stories, I'd hardly call them porn, and I post them on a porn website. I don't get paid for them but it helps to develop me as a writer."

"Have you ever thought bout becoming a serious writer and getting work published?"

"Of course, in fact I have actually written several novels but I've never actually had any published, oh I did try at one stage, I submitted a novel to a publisher who told me that it would be successful and that I was a great writer but the bottom line was that they probably told that to everyone, the author had to pay for publication and market the book himself. Do you realise what the competition is like out there at the moment? Unless you can attract the attention of a mainstream publisher, and they will only look at your work if an agent tells them that it's good, it will never see the light of day."

"You said that you've written several novels, what are they about, are they erotic romances like your short stories?"

"Now that's a field that is over-populated. No, nothing like you see in the romance section of bookshops with Fabio on the cover and heaving bosoms inside. No, they were serious books about serious matters."

"Such as?"

"Well the first one was part of my therapy after the breakdown of my first marriage, the original draft of some sixty thousand words took all of ten days on an old typewriter and this from someone with dyslexic fingers. It was a science fiction novel about this couple from the future coming back to the present to try to stop World War 3 and during the process the emphasis shifted from the futility of war to the futility of trying to prevent war."

"That's a defeatist attitude isn't it?"

"Not really, what it was saying was that there are forces at play, very powerful forces, whose raison d'être is to keep war happening. The business of war is a very profitable one for a few who see the loss of life as collateral damage. You realise that there are two major causes of war, the first is greed pure and simple, a country has a commodity such as oil that another country wants but doesn't want to pay the high asking price for it, or wants guaranteed supply, so it attacks the other country on patently spurious grounds such as say, weapons of mass destruction, to achieve its goals."

"And the other?"

"Religion. Most of the world's major religions espouse peace and love but on their terms and if others do not, or are unwilling to, comply with these terms then war breaks out. This dates back to Old Testament times when the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, every tribe the encountered they beat the crap out of because this was their land, God chose them to rule over it. Then the Christians arrived on the scene and set up their holy sites Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the middle of Israel demanding free access to these sites. The advent of Islam didn't cause too many problems for this even though they controlled much of the region, what really irked the Christian nations of Western Europe was that the trade routes from the East, India and China, all passed through this region, greed set in and an excuse was found to mount a 'Crusade' the reason for which was to guarantee continued access to the holy land, an access that they already had. Since that time the Christians, Jews and Muslims have been at each other's throats even though they all worship the same God and regard the same man, Abraham, as their Patriarch. Go figure."

"That sounds heavy going."

"That is the background for what begins as essentially an amusing 'fish out of water' story of people from the future trying to adapt to living in the present of the story."

"So you can't stay serious for long, is that it?"

"No, although one of my maxims is that the day that I lose my desire to learn and my sense of humour then it is time for me to shuffle off this mortal coil because life has become meaningless. My second novel is a murder mystery with a twist."

"Most murder mysteries have at least one twist otherwise they aren't mysteries."

"The twist in this one is that there are two murders committed in the same location twenty odd years apart by different people but using the same method. The first murder is not discovered until the time of the second murder but no cause of death is established, the location of the body is the only reason that it was declared a murder. The second murder, and murder it was, was declared an accidental death, the link between the two was, and this is not revealed to anyone other than the readers when there are some, is that the perpetrator of the second murder witnessed the first and used exactly the same method."

"And the reader is told how it was done?"

"Yes, but don't worry it is highly unlikely that it will happen again."

"But you're not going to tell me."

"You'll have to read the book if it's ever published."

"How about you let me read the manuscript?"

"No, I don't think so. One of the reasons that I haven't submitted any of my books to publishers is that I don't know if I can handle the criticism or rejection, my feelings are easily hurt."

"I'll accept that but I won't stop trying. What about number three?"

"This one required a lot of research, it is based on the bombing of the Hilton Hotel in Sydney in 1978, you see I never believed that the Ananda Marga were involved other than in a very minor role. My research looked deeply into the political climate in Australia and globally at the time, in particular the involvement of the spy arm of a major world power who were alleged to be major players in the world drug trade as well as the attempted destabilisation of various governments, including Australia's. My fear is that if this book ever sees the light of day I will have to continually look over my shoulder because of my analysis of the disparate threads led me to reach a conclusion that I believe is very close to the truth."

"I think I should walk away now, you're too dangerous to know."

"The next two won't change that situation much. The next is a thriller centred on an author who is encouraged to invest money through a broker. He finds that his money has been invested in a scheme to import a large quantity of cocaine and demands the return of his investment. This leads to a couple of murders for which he is the prime suspect, him being beaten up a couple of times in an effort to find what he did with his money, a kidnapping and what is thought to be his death in a car bombing in the middle of New York. The fact that this was unsuccessful gives him the opportunity to take on the persona of 'the Avenger' and provide evidence and facilitate the arrest of several high profile investors and the downfall of several organisations. He even attends his own funeral."

"So you've again trod on toes, huh?"

"You could say that. My last effort could have even wider reaching repercussions for a high profile branch of the Christian church. A disgruntled member of an evangelical Christian church, one of the 'Prosperity doctrine churches, has had enough with the continued promises of an increase to his wealth in response to his diligent tithing that he sues the church for its failure to honour that promise on the basis that God never made such a promise therefore it is a church promise."

"I presume that you're talking about a large sum of money here?"

"Let's put it this way, the man in question has contributed a hundred dollars a week for the last twelve years not actually because of a promise of a scripturally based seven-fold increase in his wealth, but he hit on this as a way that he could challenge the church's teachings in an open forum. If you simply multiply what he contributed by seven, the amount in question is four hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred dollars, not to be sneezed at. If you multiply his contribution by the power of seven the amount is considerably higher, some thirty five trillion dollars. Now if you calculate the amount on the basis of a seven hundred percent per annum increase, which is what was promised, with the interest compounded monthly the amount goes right off the Richter scale, so yes you could say there is a large sum of money involved. What the people who have been sucked in by the prosperity doctrine don't realise is if God had the money to commit to this promise He wouldn't need to borrow from his followers in the first place."

"That is a very large can full of very large worms you've kicked over here, you realise that don't you?"

"Yeah, the legal ramifications for these churches are huge and there have been precedents of a sort in the States where people have had their contributions refunded on the basis that the return wasn't forthcoming in the promised time frame."

"So I gather from all of this that you're something of a shit stirrer."

"If you mean that having a go at a situation that's not quite right makes me a shit stirrer then I suppose I am and I make no apology for that, too many people are so complacent that these people can get away with murder. Hey, enough about me what about you, what do you do?"

"You guessed right when you said something about behavioural psychology because that's what I do and the difference between us is that you invent stories around the characters you observe while I try to establish the truth to them."

"Okay smarty pants, how would you classify me?"

"Where do I start? You're obviously an intelligent man and when you get a bee under your bonnet about something you are very dogged in your pursuit of the truth even though it may take ages. You can string together two or more sentences so I'd say that you're articulate even though you'll disagree with that because of the limited size of your comfort zone and your fear of stepping outside that. You live on your but not from choice and you're afraid of entering into a relationship for fear of rejection which is why you head for the unattainable girls, because you know that you're going to fail it's no big deal to you when that happens, failing when you should succeed is much more painful for you. Until you overcome that fear you'll never find a lasting relationship. How am I doing so far?"

"How many years have you been studying me?"

She looked at her watch. "About half an hour. Moving on now, you've been married more than once and your view of women is based on those experiences. That you've chosen the subject of the Evangelical church for your last novel suggests that your last wife was a member of that church and she hurt you badly because you revealed to her the truth as you saw it of the business called church as opposed to the Christian religion but she chose to not understand you."

"You've got that right, even when I was to show her in her blessed Bible that I had scriptural support for my beliefs she would agree that I was right but then say that she couldn't go along with my stance because it went against church teaching and that I should take it up with leadership. I did on a number of occasions and the Pastor that I spoke to on these occasions agreed with the individual examples of where I could justify my position, but when I attempted to lump several examples in one general discussion I was told that no further discussion would be entered into. One example in particular was when I contended that they could not tell me that if I did not worship under their rules I would not get into heaven no matter how good I was, I pointed out that they had no say as to who got a guernsey in the great hereafter and to suggest otherwise was to put themselves above God, I even gave them scriptural validation for my view (Romans 11;34) where it basically 'who are you to tell God what to do." I realised that I was on my soap box again and this wasn't good if I was to proceed this relationship any further and I'd just about reached the decision that I wanted to.

"I can understand your passion but even you will have to concede that it's a Quixotic tilting at a very powerful windmill and you will probably never be allowed to succeed."

"I don't like to admit defeat but I guess that you're right."

"I'm not telling you to give in, what I would suggest is that you seek another way of tackling this. If you continue to bang your head against a brick wall all you'll end up with is a headache and a wound on your head that never gets a chance to heal."

"What would you suggest?"

"As I see it we have a couple of short term choices, we could totally legless and when we wake up in the morning we'll realise that there are worse things in the world, like a throbbing hangover, the only problem with that is that we have to find our way home in that drunken state, not a pleasant thought, what with RBT's everywhere. (RBT's are random breath testing units that seem to bob up whichever way you decide to drive home and the cops that operate them have no sense of humour and no sympathy for anyone over the .05 blood alcohol limit).

"I don't think that I like that."

"Another choice is that we could adjourn this interesting conversation to my place where, with the help of copious quantities of booze we'll probably solve all the problems that beset this world of ours and be unable to remember a thing in the cold light of sobriety."

"That seems to me to be a complete waste of time."

"Or. . ." She looked at me with an interesting expression. "We could adjourn to my place and make mad passionate love into the wee small hours and wake up mid-morning and after a quick breakfast to restore our depleted energy resume where we left off."

"That I like the sound of but I must warn you that there's a limit to how much punishment you'll be able to stand from my monster twelve inch cock."

"Twelve inches eh?" She grabbed a handful. "More like twelve millimetres."

"Oh he'll rise to the occasion when the time comes."

"We'll see, come on." Grabbing my hand she headed for the front door and the anticipation of what was to come encouraged me to follow. We made small talk while waiting for a taxi and during the trip to her apartment.

Her apartment was not what I would have expected, I guess that I generalised that someone of her profession would be ordered bordering on the obsessive but this was not the case, there were books scattered over the dining table as if she would have an idea and need to investigate there and then and when she finished she moved to the next thought in the progression and the research became a past left standing. "I need to pee, there's a bottle of white wine in the fridge can you open that while I'm gone."

I heard her flush but she didn't return straight away, that would be because she had changed from her party clothes to her p-a-r-t-y clothes, nothing more than a robe held closed by a belted tie that looked as if it would it would come apart if I just pulled on one end of it. "Wow! That leaves little to the imagination."

"If you need to lighten the load, the loo's down the hall. Second door on the right, and please, if you stink the place out give it a squirt with the deodorant before you leave."

After a splash and squirt I returned to find her seated on the 3-seater with her legs tucked up under her and sipping on a glass of wine, the robe parted giving me a glimpse of what appeared to be on offer. I wasn't getting carried away just yet so I picked up my glass and sat. "Now where were we?" She touched my glass with hers and took a healthy swig from her glass, it would appear that she approached life in the same way, taking it in gulps rather than tentative little sips, this could be an interesting night for me.