Sequel to
What are the odds?
Dear reader. This is set in Australia. We spell colour, with a 'u'. We have arses. We are sometimes arses. OK, most of the time we are arses. 'Shit' is one of our most versatile words. 'Fuck' is punctuation and sometimes 'Cunt' is a diminutive sobriquet. "Naw, lookit the little cunt." I'm sorry in advance for the legwork you may have to do to google search 'Ozzy slang'.
This also follows my recent entry in the Valentines Day comp,
What are the odds?
. There is sex. But if you're here for a wank, try a more, "I never thought this would happen to me" story.
And thankyou so much for caring about one of my characters, "Trina" as much as I did when I wrote her. Here is her story.
I reserve all the usual publishing rights and all characters are fictional, all persons consenting adults.
For my wifey who insisted that Trina deserved happiness.
*
Somewhere back in your sheltered eyes I see a secret garden.
Around a cottage long since lived in, flowers scream their Technicolor rage.
Twisted trellises torture roses and a pissing-boy fountain fills with your tears.
A pathway bleeds from a wound in the open front door
And inside, tables and chairs lie where you kicked them;
Ornaments litter the floor.
Mumbles of lies and secret violations echo from the trust-spattered walls,
And I wonder....
Do you ever come back and sit by the fountain,
bury your feet in the never-mown grass and wish
that spring would someday return
to the garden inside of your heart?
HAPPY EVER AFTER
It's been a fucking long week. One of those weeks where I've made too many withdrawals and too few deposits into the relationship bank. Sasha is understanding. She had a week like that a fortnight ago with one of her big cases. Walking home from work I stop in the mall and pick up some flowers from a little shop.
She loves daisies.
Six months ago, I didn't know that. All I knew was I liked her a shit-tonne, she was dynamite in the sack and fucking stupid enough to want to share it with a clown like me. Now I know all sorts of things.
I know sometimes she goes quiet and it's not because she's angry. It's because she's day-dreaming. Dream building, creating a future in her head or simply just enjoying the peace and wonder that she's experiencing. Her favourite colour is pink. Dogs not cats. All sorts of tiny details too and I love them all.
We started using the "L" word a few months ago. A lot. I feel it too. A lot. She's my thing and I'm her thing. Two parts to a puzzle that didn't make sense until we got them together. And trust me, we get our parts together as often and as furiously as we can.
Life and work conspire to keep us busy and tired, like they do to most couples. It's hard to reconcile our need for each other and our availability and sometimes it spills over into jealousy. Not ridiculous accusations or suspicion but jealousy for others demands on our time. Our disappointment is usually turned inward with genuine feelings of loss instead of damaging feelings of neglect. It's the cost of being with someone you love and still respect on an intellectual level. Someone whose career is as important to you as it is to them.
It's still hard though. Like tonight. My heart burns to see her and my mouth swarms with words that I haven't been able to tell her because she's been in Townsville all week with a rape trial. She'll probably be asleep when I get home. Sasha says she never sleeps well when she's away and every time she gets home, she stretches on the bed we share and falls asleep, savouring the remembered smell of us; sometimes even in the clothes she flew in.
This week I was swamped too. Bogged down in bloody spreadsheets and dodgy cheap accounting software trying to unravel three years' worth of embezzlement. I worked too late, missed her calls, missed her and felt like shit. I hope she's still awake when I get home.
There's a busker in the mall with a small crowd of onlookers. I hear the music lilting over the bustle and noise of people. It's one Sasha's favourites. "Beautiful Wreck" by Shawn Mullins. I jockey through the people and lean against a storefront listening to the boy crucify it enthusiastically. When he's done, I flip a gold coin in his guitar case and glancing sideways I see a jeweller's display.
Do you believe in signs? I've always struggled with the concept that a higher power is leading us somewhere. But there in the display case is the most beautiful ring I've ever seen. It's pink and shaped like a small heart. Why have I never bought her jewellery?
At the unit I untie my shoes and slip them off. This is another of life's sheer pleasures. Stretching my toes and clearing my throat I call, "Home darlin."
There's no answer and peeking around the closed bedroom door a snuggled mess of dark hair and perfect curves lies naked on the bed. There's a note on the bed near her feet, "Wake me up roughly. I've missed you."
So inspired, showering takes me all of a minute. Drying off, maybe thirty seconds and getting to the bedroom less than three. My weight on the bed alone is enough to rouse her and sleepy eyed, she smiles and pushes me down to mount me.
"Fucking far too fucking long." She growls as she works me into her slowly; advancing and retreating until her lubrication welcomes me to the hilt.
"Far too long." She groans and works her hips to a rapid and sharp orgasm, then slumps back against the bed. I slip from her and hustle to reclaim my prize. Kissing her gorgeous lips, I press insistently inside her and buck my way in short succession to a hurried repossession of our union. All too quickly I cum inside her and fall away myself.
"Hey." I cradle her face with my hands.
"Gidday idiot." She dimples at me.
"Love ya."
"Hold me tight, I'm really fucked."
"Well..."
She punches my shoulder and snuggles off to sleep again.
At the first hints of drool and snoring I rise and find food. We've reached that stage of partnership where bodily functions lose their surprise, but we still try to fart privately.
Sitting on the couch watching drivel on the telly, I can see her through the open door and only close it when Mum and Dad come home after dinner. Deprived of my favourite view, I take some bourbon to the balcony and stare out over the city.
Life is good. Once that would have worried me with thoughts of sudden downfalls, but this seems to be my new normal. My happy ever after.
It's not a fairy tale any more. There are bills and responsibilities and interruptions and sickness and all the usual ways that life tries to fuck you in the arse but I'm really quite content. Not new lover happy but real-life content. We display our love socially and include our friends in our new 'normal', not frightened any longer by its fragility.
Trina worries Sasha when she's away and I sleep over now and then. Going to their Strathpine duplex and hanging out with the little enigma sort of works for me too when I'm missing Sasha. Trina is a playful distraction and I can sleep better in Sasha's bed with the smell of her skin still on the pillows. We share our memories of Sasha and Trina fills me in on just enough grotty secrets to embarrass the fuck out of Sasha when I get the chance.
She's started growing her hair too and looks cute in a tom-boy sort of honey blonde way. Her bob cut locks curl wildly and frame her precocious face with hints of femininity that I think she struggles to contain. Most of the time she has it tied tersely in a hair band or squarely kept under a cap but sometimes when she thinks no one is looking (me included) it gets away from her.
It's good to see her looking happier too. Sometimes dark things trouble her; I've no idea what and Sasha just shrugs and says, "don't ask." But generally, she seems to share our new happiness and loves when we include her in our lazy, much less frantic now, kind of unplanned dates.
The following day is Friday and in a silly way, I still get excited for our standing lunch date. Today is my turn to grab coffee and treats so I leave the office to visit the little coffee shop nearby. On the way, I pass the jewellers where the busker was yesterday and, on a whim, decide to inquire about the pretty ring in the window.
"Who's the lucky woman?" asks the jeweller. "Must be pretty special."
"Oh... girlfriend, she is special."
"Well you must be feeling pretty nervous."
"Oh? Why's that?"
The jeweller passed me the trinket and I turn it carefully in my hands. Thousands of tiny lights twinkle in the faceted pink stone.
"I remember asking my own wife to marry me. I was terrified she'd say no."
"Ah." Now I understand, "No, I was just looking for a gift."
"Ahuh. Well perhaps you'd like to consider some other items."
"No, I like this."
"It is quite a special ring. I admire your taste for fine jewellery. Sir, that is three quarters of a carat of vivid Pink diamond. Perhaps one of the created sapphires if you are drawn to the colour would be more affordable as a gift. That stone alone is valued at around thirty thousand dollars and set in platinum like that, well we're asking thirty-four, nine ninety-nine. It was a one-off design that the buyer defaulted upon."
"Holy shit." And I almost drop the thing I'm so frightened by its value.
He smiles understandingly at me and holds out the box for me to return the ring.
"Well. Thank you. I'll need to re-consider things." I'm a little embarrassed and smiling awkwardly I leave to fetch coffee and cheesecake.
Sasha rambles about the rape case and her stay in Townsville while she drinks her coffee and takes hungry spoonful's of her cheesecake. Her honey brown eyes dance on mine occasionally and her dimples catch me staring.
"What?" she asks between mouthfuls, "You okay?"
It's been almost eight months since that Valentine's date, far too soon for the things I'm thinking and caught off guard I blush. "Nothing. Just thinking about some things."
"Anything kinky?" she asks cheekily.
"Well now I am."
"You're insatiable mister." She giggles.
"Are you complaining?"
