Paths Straight and Twisted

In late 1960 I had been in Australia for three years, already one year longer than the two years I was required to stay by the contract I had signed to come out here on an assisted passage.

By then, I was sure that I wanted to stay and that my future was in Australia. However, my prospects were uncertain. What I had achieved in the past years did not promise much. I had frequently changed jobs, most of them had been poorly paid. I had no savings and had acquired no property. I could not consider myself a success. Three years seemed too long a time to have achieved so little.

But I intended to change. In mid-1960, I secured a clerical job with the Victorian Public Service which I hoped to build into a career, I decide to enrol the following school-year in night-school. The completion of the Leaving Certificate would place me on the Professional Role of Victoria's Public Service and secure for me, I believed, a promising future. It was a good plan. However, whether I could realise it was uncertain and, in my eyes, far in the future. Having failed before and disappointed me and others, I was not over-confident.

The motivation for reforming my life came from Inge, my unhappy first love back home in Austria. She had, I thought, betrayed me and I ended our relationship. Shortly after, with little to hold me back in Austria, I left for Australia. Not long after arriving in Melbourne, I posted a picture-postcard showing St.Kilda's beach to Inge. It was meant as a provocation, but she surprised me with a letter in reply. She had visited my sister to get my address.

From then on, we wrote to each other at least once a month; often including photos. It grew into a relationship that was, in my mind, at least, much warmer and more promising than our tentative love-affair back in Austria had been. A year ago, Inge wrote that she was going to English classes and thinking of also coming to Australia. The prospect of Inge joining me, motivated me to reform my life.

As I write about this now, I regret that I have lost all of Inge's letters. As one did then with love letters - so much more substantially real than mails and text - I carefully bundled them so that none were lost. When I left the marital home for good in 1981 - Inge was not the wife I left - the bundle was in a box left behind in the attic. I would love to read them now and find out, safe in looking back, how much love for me I read into them. Were my hopes misplaced?

A full year would pass before I collected Inge of the boat on Melbourne's Station Pier. There began a story that I will leave for later.

What the 'reformed me' got up to during the year's wait for Inge's arrival would not find everybody's applause. Unsought, I got involved in two extraordinarily sensual relationships. One was lengthy and strangely beautiful. The other was meant to be a brief, opportunistic tryst between two people bound to somebody else. Supposedly brief, no long-term consequences were expected.

The best excuse I can offer is that neither of the two affairs resulted from my predatory behaviour. Nevertheless, should I not have resisted when tempted and waited faithfully for Inge to arrive? Would my life have turned out different?

In Acland Street, the continental delicatessen where I was a regular customer, had a new girl behind the counter. She was not really a girl, but a comely woman of about thirty or so, friendly and efficient. She spoke both German and perfect English, the latter with a pronounced American twang. As I shopped there almost daily, we got to know each other quickly. Her name was Helga, and she seemed to favour me more than other customers.

In talking to her when no other customers were in the shop, she told me that she had only recently arrived with her daughter Evie and that she lived close by. One day I asked her, without ulterior motive, whether she would like to come to the Austrian Club. Helga happily said, Yes.

We had a pleasant night out talking and dancing. We really enjoyed each other's company. As a quid pro quo, Helga invited me to her flat for dinner the following Sunday.

Helga's accommodation was even for me - I considered myself then a local that knew St. Kilda - a surprise. It was a semi-grand, Italianate style mansion, now darkened by age and neglect. Soon after being speculator-built in the 1880ies, it must have fallen on hard times. Now, except for the ground floor, it was in a derelict state. The still inhabitable ground floor was divided into two apartments of two rooms each. A huge 19thCentury bathroom - with added toilet and laundry-facilities - was shared.

Helga and six-year-old Evie lived in the front rooms. Their friends, a German couple with a daughter of Evie's age, lived in the back apartment. Helga had met them on the boat-journey out when their girls became friends. As newcomers with little money, they had been lucky to secure this accommodation.

A relative of Helga's boss had recently bought this place. He could not get a second mortgage to renovate and convert the building into a boarding-house. While it was left in disrepair, Helga and friends could live there at minimal rent. The rooms were huge. Helga's living room had an old cast-iron Kookaburra gas stove in a corner. For dinner she had invited me to, Helga cooked on it a surprisingly good meal.

So, began our relationship. A fortnight later I took Helga and Evie on a day's outing to the Dandenong mountains. Evie, after a day of chasing around, ice creams and cakes, was tired out on returning home. Invited to stay, we shared a light meal.

When Helga returned from putting Evie happily to bed, she stood next to the side-board. I stepped up to her turned away from me back and put one hand on her arm. Bending down, I brushed aside Helga's hair and pressed my lips on the nape of her neck. As I drew in the warm, heady smell of her body, Helga stood still, not pulling away. So I risked sliding my hand under her arm to cup a lovely, voluptuous breast. When I straightened up from my kiss, Helga slowly turned. She raised her face and offered me her lips. Nestling into my arms, Helga smiled up at me and said: -

"I've wanted to kiss you all day. I'm glad you are no longer shy."

After drawing me into a long, telling-all kiss, Helga slipped out of our embrace. She lit two candles, turned off the lights and, with a hushed "Come," drew me to her bulky, Victorian-era sofa.

With little Evie in the next room, we had to be quiet. There was something very sexy and touching in Helga's immediate openness about wanting to make love. Her lips and tongue promised all as she pressed her body against my hands. Pulling back and out of our kiss, she stroked my cheek and whispered: -

"I am sorry we can't undress. I would love us to be naked but ... Evie might just wake-up."

Moving away from me on the sofa, she reached under her top, undid her bra, and pulled it out. Lifting her skirt, she wriggled out of her panties. Hiding both bra and panties under the sofa, she stretched out next to me. With her dress barely covering her crotch and a starting, embarrassed giggle, she said: -

"That's the best I can do tonight. We can still make love like that, can't we?"

We could and how! Helga and I had a fantastic, only heightened by our conspiracy, first fuck. Of course, we tried to stay in positions from which we could quickly pull apart to sit innocently on the sofa if Evie should emerge from the bedroom. We also attempted to be as silent as we could. We failed at both and were equally guilty. Time and time again, forced by the sofa's unhelpful shape, we slipped into contortions from which a quick separation would have been difficult. Neither could we always suppress our appreciative noises? Then, hearing ourselves moan or cry out we stopped, pulled apart, sat-up! The ridiculousness of our dilemma made us burst out in poorly suppressed laughter. But we were quickly carried away again in our irrepressible lusting for each other.

With the stops and starts and catching our breath to listen for sounds behind the door, we took a deliciously long time to get to know each other. And this first night with Helga was for me an absolute revelation. We left nothing hidden in our desire to enjoy each other. In the very awkwardness of having to fuck stealthily on the sofa, we surrendered all possible reservations in peals of shared laughter.

It was only three days after our first wicked tryst that Helga when I saw her in the shop, took me aside. She invited me to come to her place later tonight for a meal. I could bring some wine, perhaps? She smiled and, I thought, blushed a little.

I went home, showered, and was at her grand mansion at eight-thirty. Her living-room dungeon was beginning to look quite homey. The table was set, the food on plates nicely arranged, two candles burning, and the ugly ceiling light turned off. When I kissed her and tried to embrace her properly, she turned quickly away to shift some things on the table. With her back turned, she said: -

"I am sorry, mein Schatz, Evie is not here. She has a sleep-over with her friend."

As once before I stepped behind her. I pressed my lips on her neck and slipped both hands under her sweater. Her breasts were lovely bare, straining into my grip. After a few seconds, Helga twisted away and murmured: -

"Better stop! Let us eat first."

We sat down for the meal and did not spare the wine. We talked: Helga, mostly about her friends at the back, about Evie, and about their hopes for the future. About all this, Helga spoke in a calm, cheerful way. There was no hint of complaint or self-pity in her voice. After clearing the table, she stepped up to the lumbering sofa, smiled, and gave me a suggestive wink: -

"Want to join me?"

I sat down, and Helga slid into my arms. When I kissed her, she tasted of wine and desire. Eventually, Helga put her lips to my ear to jolt me with a swift swirl of the tongue and a hot breathy whisper: -

"We are alone tonight. Did you enjoy our dinner? "

"Yes, very much. But what about After-Dinner-Treats?"

- "Well. They are already starting, here on our favourite couch! Can you guess what more I have in mind?"

Helga threw her head back on the sofa's stiff backrest and laughed. I bent forward and slowly, inch by inch, with two fingers slid Helga's skirt up her thighs. She stretched out, just lifting her bottom enough to allow it to slide higher. Before all was revealed, I stopped. I knelt-down facing her. I began to kiss my way slowly up her beautiful thighs. At the skirt's hem, which just covered her groin, I passed over to kiss my way down. I repeated my up-and-down journey quite a few times, while I held her legs together. And I felt Helga straining against my arms.

When I released my hold, her legs, quivering, slowly opened. I allowed my tongue to wander up and down the soft inside of her thighs. As Helga began to stretch her crotch to meet my approaching lips, I pushed her skirt up to her navel. There were no panties. She had not worn them all evening, wanted me to find her shamelessly naked and ready to be loved. And now her beautiful cunt lay before me. The sexy smell enticed me in almost putting my lips on its glistening, half-open lips.

Later in the night, I realised that it was what she wanted and expected. Of course, I knew about oral sex but had never kissed and tasted a woman's pussy. Now, I shied back. Instead, I looked as I finger-stroked her pussy's fleshy folds until they opened to show a glistening pink. One finger, then two slipped into a slippery-hot welcome. Helga moaned, and her thighs twitched as they pressed together to force the invaders in as deep as they could go. Kneeling still, my face so close, I watched. And Helga's hand was in my hair holding me there; she wanted me to see her pussy so pleasured. I don't know if she knew that after revealing herself like that, I would never just fuck her blindly. The sight and feel of my fingers in Helga's hot-glistening, pulsating cunt was now fixed in my mind. It made all our love-making, forever after, exhilaratingly sexy.

Breaking into my reverie was Helga's low, sexily hoarse and tempting voice: -

"Please, mein Schatz, stop! You drive me crazy. God, I love what you are doing to me here on our sofa. But after this, I want you in my bed. I want to be properly... treated. In bed! ... treated in bed!"

I looked up, she cradled my face in her hands; she smiled, had blushed over the twice swallowed 'fucked' on her lips. With shining eyes, she whispered: -

"God, Alf, you made me ravenous for more. Much more! Aren't you too? God, I hope you are!"

Helga struggled out of my embrace of her thighs and stood up. The crumpled-up skirt she let drop to the floor, stepping out of it. Now naked to her waist, she walked to the table, picked up one of the candles, and walked to the bedroom door. Her stance, upright-straight, highlighted the beautiful line of her legs up to her dimpled buttocks. She looked at me over her shoulder. Grinning broadly, she asked: -

"Aren't you keen to come to my bed?"

In the bedroom, she placed the candle in front of a half-blind mirror. Then she turned, pulled her top over her head, shook out her hair, and looked at me. She had beautiful, firm round breasts and was proudly showing them. "Hurry up and undress," she said, "now you strip for me!" She got onto the bed, resting sideways on her elbow, her eyes never left me.

I undressed as quickly as I could. Then I remembered and fumbled in my trouser pocket for the condom. When I tried to open the envelope, Helga laughed: -

"You did not wear one of these last times. Why now?"

I stammered an excuse, but she just giggled: -

"Don't worry about it. I trust you. You are healthy, and I have a lovely golden ring."

My confused expression amused her even more. Waving her hand at me, she spread her ring-less fingers and said: - "Silly, not here. Here!" Her hand stroked over her pussy. I decided not to wait for a full explanation.

While undressing and fumbling for the condom, I had gone limp. With Helga, however, recovery was assured. Her mouth was shamelessly hungry, and her quickening breath signalled her pleasure at being touched. Everywhere. I loved her firm breast, and how quickly her nipples hardened under my lips and tongue, while my fingers were stroking her pussy's lips open. They also found and circled a magic spot while I kissed my way down to the edge of her bush. From the way her belly heaved against my mouth as her frantic hand in my hair tried to push me lower, I thought Helga was close to coming.

I did not want it to be over so quickly. I was greedy. I wanted so much more of Helga. I stopped, drew her into a soothing cuddle and withdrew my fingers from her pussy. I also gripped her wrist to stop her hand from masturbating my throbbing cock.

Helga sensed that I had not stopped to tease or to show her that I was the master. Holding her close, she almost purred like a kitten as I stroked, for calming minutes, her back. Eventually, one of my hands began to wander, past her midriff, down onto her sexy-firm ass. Then, I gripped and massaged her buttocks with two, without pressing her groin too suggestively onto my rampant cock.

In mock-resignation, Helga murmured: -

"Don't you want me? Aren't you a little bit excited?"

To find out the truth, she pressed and wriggled against my cock. My hands gripped her buttocks and pulled them apart. Then the tips of my fingers began to trace up and down the cleft. Helga gave a shrill cry of surprise, before diving on my mouth. Her tongue thrust in to fight mine as her groin twisted in search of my cock. Letting go of her buttocks, I lifted her legs high. And my cock, in a long, breathless motion slithered into Helga's quivering pussy. And her excited breath and tongue filled my mouth.

I wanted this to be the ultimate fuck. Although there was only the light one candle, I wanted to see. I turned on my side to fuck Helga side-on so that I could freely touch all of her body. But what I desired most of all was to see her face. None of our previous love-making had happened in the dark, and I loved Helga facial expression when gripped by pleasure. She hid nothing.

When I leant away from her to get her in view, she smiled. She sucked in her bottom-lip and stretched out, voluptuously arching her back to offer her boobs to my hand. I cupped them and caressed them, switching from one to the other, feeling the nipples harden under my palm. I pinched them hard into a pointy erection. Then I moved my hand slowly, just touching the skin, down over her belly to her bush. Lightly brushing over it with my fingers, in passing it almost touched her clit. Then my hand moved up again, caressing Helga's straining belly and tits. Finally, when my fingers found her lips, Helga sucked them hungrily in.

All this time we fucked. Helga's hips pressed and gyrated against my deep thrusts. In almost withdrawing, the teasing of her pussy's hypersensitive lips and entrance made her whimper. When my fingers, slippery and wet from Helga's sucking, dug in on her clit, she cried out. Reaching out with both hands for my face, her eyes sought mine as her hips lifted and ground against my cock. At the same time, my fingers played a wicked game of lost and found over her throbbing clit. It rushed Helga into an explosive climax. Like an avalanche, her in orgiastic convulsion twisting and arching body swept me away too.

Locked together, we slowly recovered our breath. Stroking lovingly over my dishevelled hair, giving me a mischievous grin, Helga asked: -

"You have", she paused, "treated me well, Alf. Was it good for you too?"

Thinking that she expected me to ask how it was for her and if she had 'come', I replied: -

"Well, I thought it was somewhat disappointing!"

Helga pulled away from me and scrambled out of bed. Turning around, she stared long and pointedly down on my wilted manhood. With a disparaging grunt, she pronounced: -

"Doesn't look like there will be a next time to make up for it. Does it? Whose fault was it?"

Tossing back her hair, Helga turned and haughtily stalked out of the room. God, her sexy ass alone invited to be censored!

Helga returned with a face washer and a towel, sat down on the bed, and cleaned me up. She took rather long and dried me somewhat too hard. I complained, she shrugged her shoulder.

As we were getting so personal, I told her I had to go to the toilet. She told me she would check first whether her neighbours were still up and about. Putting on her dressing gown, she went to reconnoitre. Everything next door was dark and silent. Helga slipped out of her dressing-gown, and I put it on. With her standing there naked, I could not resist to give her a hug, a kiss on her brow and a sly grab of her sexy bum. The hussy barely flinched, just telling me calmly that she had turned on the light in the bathroom.

In the hotels I had worked in Austria, I had seen 19th Century bathrooms. This derelict mansion's bathroom, however, was something else. It was huge and elaborately tiled. To the original, luxury bathroom-fittings and the throne-like toilet had been added the utilitarian fixtures of a cheap rooming house: A concrete laundry-trough and boiler. All of it was linked together by an undisguised jumble of make-shift plumbing. All the pipes fed into a sizeable gas-heater with an attached, coin-fed meter-box. The original centre of indulgence had obviously been the bath itself. It was huge; the most magnificent bathtub I had ever seen. The small chips and blemishes in its enamel disfigured it less than the galvanised brutality of the added-on shower.

When I returned to Helga, she was partly dressed in a shirt. Fortunately, it barely covered her lovely dimples. She had made coffee, and we settled down with our mugs on the sofa. With her so seductively dressed, I could easily have been distracted. However, the night was still young, and we settled to enjoy our coffee and a chat.