Foreword
These stories are based in Australia and deliberately written in the idiom the characters would use.
I know from previous comments many readers have enjoyed that very aspect of it. Some issues in language variations I anticipated and built translations into my narrative, others - especially on this site - have caught me by surprise especially in their intensity.
Crutch/crotch has caused an awful lot of hassle. But the Macquarie Dictionary defines a meaning of crutch as "the crotch of the human body". "Crutch" is most commonly used in Australia and to our (my) ears, crotch has a much harsher (unintended) tone.
"Swimmers" was another that caught me by surprise. In Australia that means swimwear (not sperm).
More amusingly, in Australia "root" means have sex and "thongs" refers to flip flops. So never tell an Aussie you're rooting for a team! And when a club says "No Thongs" it doesn't mean they'll check your underwear.
Generally Australians shorten words or expressions by ending them in "ies" (cossies, boardies, townies, Aussies etc).
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Story
In the last edition, we left our lovers as they emerged from the surf after a second passionate root on the water's edge on the day Karen gave up her virginity to Greg...
I invited Greg back for lunch at our house. My mother was reliably good about unexpected friends her kids dragged home. On the way back I played some mental games on how to introduce him.
"Hi guys, meet the guy who's just defiled your daughter." No, too medieval.
"Hi guys, this is a virtual stranger who's screwed your erstwhile virginal daughter twice since you waived goodbye to her this morning." No, maybe a bit too confronting.
"Hi guys, this is a guy I sort of know from Uni who has just given me the most incredible introduction to penetrative sex." A bit clinical but close to the mark. I wondered how they would react to something like that. If it was an American movie scene the father would no doubt go chasing after the guy with a shotgun; blasting away at his car as he drove off down the road. Australians are a bit more in the reserved British mould. You can just hear mum going "That's nice dear, did you use a condom?" Just like a skit out of a Monty Python movie (sorry to the rest of you under 40, my family are all fans - look them up). Probably in the Australian version of the movie, there'd be a bigoted dad piping in with "What footy team does he follow?" and when I answered "He's not a fan of footy dad", throw back with "He's not a poofta is he?" Hmm. Think about that for a minute dad.
When we got there, everyone was still at home, sitting out the back in the sun. Enough mental frolics, I was going to play a safe dead bat.
"Mum, Dad, this is Greg. He's a good friend of mine from Uni I've just discovered lives in the town. Do you mind if I invite him for lunch."
If my parents thought there was some incongruity between Greg's description as a mere 'good friend' and the fact I had his hand clamped in mine like they were stuck together with araldite, they didn't show it. The more diplomatic approach worked, and Greg was welcomed for lunch. But it did strike me how little parents really know about their kids. It wasn't I was being deceptive. I've never made it plain to my parents how far my relationship with boys has gone. For all I know they might assume I lost my virginity years ago. Still, I've just experienced the most magical changing moment in my life and they'll never know. In a way I regretted I couldn't sidle up to my mum later on and tell her what had just happened. Maybe there are some families where that happens but I suspect my situation was the more normal. I don't think she'd freak out if I did; indeed given her condom precaution I'm sure she wouldn't. I suppose it all comes down to the words my mum used when she raised the condom issue. The job of a parent is to try not to encourage their children to embark on things like sex before they are ready while at the same time trying to protect them if they do. Of that ambiguity parental relationships are made, even if at 20 it might reasonably be argued I was by any standard ready.
I also regretted I didn't have the sort of friends I could spill the beans to; the sort of girl relationships that Sex and the City show. You know, one where I'd send out a little broadcast text to the effect of "OMG just got laid for the first time" and get back a whole lot of "Go girl" and "Good on you girl" replies. Maybe that's why I'm writing this book.
The lunch with my family went well enough. Inside I wanted to act like any other new lover; be all over my partner like a rash to the point of inducing nausea in those around you and barely able to keep my hands out of his intimate spaces. We managed to play it a bit cooler than that. Sitting next to me, Greg and I usually just had our shoulders overlapped and touching; his arm resting behind my back, my hand occasionally on his thigh. Even that was clearly enough to make my family wonder what was going on as I saw mum and dad exchange raised eyebrow looks from time to time. As far as they knew at the start of the day their daughter didn't even have a boyfriend and now she was acting like she'd been in a relationship for years. If only they knew.