The French backpackers who worked on the farm and in the café quit. They gave only a couple of days' notice, which went down like a lead balloon, but it was a fact of farming life that it is foolish to risk hiring a couple. Even big farms don't generally love to hire people in pairs; if one is useless and one is excellent, you either have to put up with a bad worker, or fire a good one, because you can't just offload one.
Job ads were placed, but it was impossible for the Atkinson's to quickly hire and train up replacements. Most workers wanted consistent hours and the ability to earn big dollars in a short amount of time. The Atkinson's offered an hourly wage in line with award rates, but the work was casual and hours could and did vary from week to week.
The lack of staff came at a terrible time for Cameron, who was supposed to attend a school concert on Friday afternoon then head off for a dirty weekend with Andy. Andy had earned a bonus that came in the form of a weekend away at a very nice resort, and the weather was perfect for a short beach escape.
He cancelled the weekend away, and ended up falling asleep during Xavier's concert. Xavier was mortified, and Andy, while understanding, was frustrated. Cameron felt like shit; yeah, he was really father of the year, wasn't he? And he got the impression it would be a while before Andy planned any vacations in the future.
The icing on the cake was on Sunday, his mother announced that Cleo had very kindly taken a week off work to come and help out at the café. To make life easier for Cleo, who would otherwise have to travel ninety minutes to and from work each day, it had been decided she would stay at Cameron's place.
Cameron argued that if his mother wanted Cleo to stay, she could stay at Susan and Brad's place. Susan refused, and became tight-lipped, refusing to disclose why her house wasn't appropriate, but Cameron knew; his mother was worried that Cleo would sleep with her husband under her roof.
Cameron was so tired he felt drunk. He felt like he was on the edge of a mental breakdown. He was utterly exhausted and once again, there was no end in sight.
Cleo followed Cameron into his house, carrying her suitcase. You might think Cameron is a bit of a dickhead for not taking her suitcase for her, but he was pissed off with Cleo and fed up with her hassling him. There was no way in this world a hot little thing like him could genuinely be interested in a bloke like him. He had no idea where her obsession with him had come from, but he was completely sick of it.
He went to bed early on Sunday night, and again on Monday night. On Tuesday, he had Xavier for the night. Lila raised an eyebrow when she realised her ex-husband had a houseguest. She asked if something had happened to Andy.
'No,' Cameron replied shortly. 'This was Mum's idea. Not mine.'
'Most men would kill to share a house with her.'
'Not me.'
It was the truth. Sure, Cleo was being pleasant enough, but she was also making him uncomfortable. She'd shower and exit the bathroom in a towel, making sure to walk past him. She wore tiny little pyjamas that left little to the imagination.
On Wednesday night, when he was stretching out his shoulder, she came up and started massaging him.
He felt a bit guilty about the massage, because he didn't exactly stop her straightaway. She'd been in her skimpy nightwear and hadn't been wearing a bra. Her boobs had been touching him. She had fantastic tits; they were absolute spectacular. Andy and Lila were attractive women in their own right, as had been the other three women he'd had sex with, but none of them had titties anything like Cleo's.
Cameron asked her to stop, but they both seemed to sense they were teetering on the edge. He was only human, and although he was tired, he was also horny. He'd assumed his non stop urge to fuck would lessen once he was in a relationship, but if anything, the infrequent sex with Adrianna just made his lust even worse. He felt like he was always ready to go.
The other reality for Cameron was that sex hadn't been something that women just offered up to him. It was flattering to have the attention of a very sexy lady, even if that sexy lady was mentally unhinged. There is a saying 'you can catch any fish with the right bait' and Cleo was very close to being the right bait.
Maybe Cameron has better self control or stronger morals than most men. Or maybe, it was a well timed text from Andy that broke the mood. When his phone dinged, he glanced over at it and saw her name come up. He thought of Andy and how devastated he'd be if she cheated on him.
'Hey, thanks for that, but we should probably go to bed,' Cameron said to Cleo.
He went to bed and wanked, thinking of Cleo. Fantasizing about fucking her until she screamed out his name. Afterwards, with post-orgasm clarity, he realised he didn't have the self control to last a whole week with Cleo.
The next night, he stayed at his parent's house and let Cleo have the house to herself.
~~~~
The week passed and Cameron stuck to his morals and didn't have sex with Cleo. His father, who had assessed the situation with Cleo as potentially calamitic, put a significant amount of effort into recruiting a new farmhand, and the following Sunday, a hard-working lesbian started work on the farm.
Susan, who was also smart enough to realise that Cleo was a troublemaker (though at this stage, actually firing the little heathen seemed a step too far for the matriarch), employed a young school leaver who'd earned poor grades and had little other prospects to work in the café.
Cleo was again relegated to weekend work only, and the family all sighed a big sigh of relief.
Cameron took Saturday afternoon off to spend with his son, and that evening, he went to an industry dinner with Andy. It was some way away from the farm, and it was time off he really shouldn't be taking. They were still training the new hires and the weather had been ideal for growing, so there was a lot of work to be done. The farm prided itself on always looking picturesque, so it wasn't just the flowers and fruits and vegetables that needed attention, it was the ridiculous amount of mowing that needed to be done.
Plus, he'd had a market agent call him that afternoon screaming for passionfruit. There was a gap in the market with very little fruit around, and had Cameron not had to rush off to get ready for dinner, he would have checked how much fruit was actually on the vines. He'd put in four hundred plants a year ago. He'd assumed most would die; he normally had no luck with them, but they'd flourished and, bizarrely, decided to produce fruit at a time when no one else's plants were.
Andy, sensing his tense mood, had assured him he didn't need to attend, and Cameron in turn assured her that it was okay, he would make it work. He'd bailed out on her dirty weekend two weeks prior, and he felt guilty about not telling her that Cleo had stayed in his house for a week. He had no idea how to broach that topic, and figured it'd probably be safest if he kept his mouth shut and pretended the whole thing had never happened.
Although he wanted to spend time with Andy, Cameron's desire to attend the dinner with her wasn't simply about wanting to see his girlfriend. If you are a man, you might understand what I'm about to say. If you work in sales or are a politician or have some other job that involves charming people, you will probably get frustrated with Cameron, but you have to understand that he is a country man and can be a bit insecure about the number of men Andy interacts with.
Andy is generally very well liked and respected. Working as a sales rep involves going to a lot of dinners and field days and workshops and farm tours. It involves building relationships and getting people to buy your message.
From the very beginning, Cameron had noticed how physically close people would get to her. It was nothing for her to greet people with a half-hug or kiss on the cheek (though the latter was women only), or to not move away when men stood a bit too close to her. Australians don't lend themselves to physical closeness, but a good ten to twenty percent would hug or kiss or stand very, very near to her and the vast majority of that number were men.
It had been their third or fourth meeting when Andy had touched his arm and he'd realised he'd become one of those men who was physically closer to her than entirely appropriate. He'd enjoyed the touch, as, no doubt, all of the other fellows did.
