Building Inspection

Thanks for the tips Waratah!

Hope you all enjoy ;)

~~~~~~~~~

From the moment my sister dropped them back at our house, the girls were whining and pleading to go back to the pub. On Monday the younger one gave her classmates an account of what life is like in a country pub, complete with instructions on how to replace a keg. I'm not going to lie; I was glad it was Sarah's turn to pick them up that afternoon.

'Their teachers must think we're the worst parents in the world,' Sarah told me.

The girls were watching television. I'd gotten home, showered, and was in the process of drying off and getting dressed while Sarah bought me up to speed about the day's events.

'Nah, we're not that bad,' I said, rummaging around in the cupboard for some old training shorts. 'They have shoes on their feet, right?'

'Oh wait, no, I forgot to tell you that part. Abbie broke her shoe at morning tea and the groundsman duct-taped it back together to see her through the day. I had to take her to Amart after school.'

I laughed because, as I said, I wasn't the one who had to pick them up that day. Sarah tried to give me a dark and dirty stare, but her smile gave her away.

'High five,' I said, holding my hand out. 'We've hit a new low.'

She high-fived me. 'I was supposed to be good at this mothering business Caleb. I was supposed to have a blog, and they weren't going to know what soft drink was, and they were never going to fight with each other.'

'Pipe dreams, Sarah. Pipe dreams.'

My phone started ringing. It was Sunny. I picked up the phone and sat on the edge of the bed.

'What's up sis?' I asked. 'Are you ringing to find out about how wonderful it is when your daughters tell your teachers about their weekend spent at the pub?'

Sunny laughed, but she sounded nervous. 'Oh no, that's too funny,' she said. 'They weren't in the public bar when anyone was serving, but they did help your Dad get everything ready. He was paying them five cents for each glass they washed.'

'He never used to pay us,' I grumbled, watching Sarah leave the room to go hang out with the kids. She always gives me privacy when I'm on the phone, as if I might actually be discussing something confidential or interesting. Trust me, those days are long gone.

'So, um, there's no easy way for me to say this,' Sunny said. 'I know we've talked about this in the past, and keep in mind there's no hard feelings if you've changed your mind, but Lisa and I were thinking about having a baby. We want to know if you're still happy to provide the baby batter.'

A few years ago my sister, Sarah and I had had a few too many drinks and started having the sort of conversation that you can't have sober. Sunny was single at the time and she and Sarah were talking about kids. Somehow, the three of us had agreed that if Sunny ever met the right woman, and her partner wanted to have a baby, I'd donate my sperm.

'Don't answer now,' Sunny said. 'Talk to Sarah. If you're both okay with it, let us know, but if not, you don't have to tell us. We won't ask you again.'

'Um... sure,' I replied.

Sunny laughed anxiously. 'Sorry to have to ask. We just thought it would be nice if the baby had a genetic link to both of us.'

'I understand.'

'Well, cool. Hey, on another matter, did Mum tell you about the building inspection?'

I nearly choked at the words 'building inspection'.

'No,' I replied. 'I thought that had already been done and everything was okay?'

'That's what we thought, but the buyers had a gut feeling their initial inspection wasn't done properly and ordered another one. There's about fifteen bits and bobs that need fixing, some of it serious. Mum and Dad are having kittens.'

'Have they got a builder lined up?'

'Apparently someone's coming tomorrow to get started.'

'If they get it fixed, are the buyers still keen?' I asked.

'Yeah, definitely,' Sunny assured me. 'The buyers are just a bit finicky. I get it, too, it's a big investment.'

'I suppose that's alright then.'

'Yeah. I hope it works out for them.' She paused. 'I'll let you enjoy your evening. Say 'hi' to Sarah and the girls for me.'

'Will do. Say 'hi' to Lisa.'

We ended the phone call and I pulled on my training shorts and considered Sunny's request. I didn't really see an issue with it. I'd come thousands of times in my lifetime and only twice had my jizz actually ended up doing what it was designed to do and fertilised an egg. The rest of it had been washed or wiped away, the sticky remnants of a good time had by me, but of no use or consequence to anyone.

Neither Sarah nor I wanted any more children. The girls were enough. We felt very lucky to have been blessed with two, healthy children, and although there had been a few occasions where we'd debated trying for a third, we'd both decided against it.

Later that night, when Sarah and I were lying in bed and the girls were asleep, I told her why Sunny had called.

My wife didn't immediately respond.

'Wow,' Sarah remarked eventually. 'I thought they were serious, but that's... really serious.'

'Mmm.'

'Shit,' she said. 'Okay, well, what do

you

think? The kid would biologically be yours, wouldn't it? How are you going to feel if it's a boy?'

That was a possibility I hadn't considered. I'd just sort of assumed that if I were to father a child for my sister, it would be another girl.

'Fine, I suppose,' I replied eventually.

'You suppose?' she asked, not unkindly. 'Tell me serious, without worrying about sounding PC, or sensitive, or feminist, or whatever. Tell me seriously how you'd feel if you fathered a son.'

'Jealous,' I admitted, facing a side of me I didn't want to acknowledge. 'Probably kind of shitty, too. Boys need a father figure.'

'So do girls.'

'Not the way boys do,' I argued.

The night was oddly silent. I waited to hear a train, but none came. They were less frequent at this time of night.

Sarah rolled over so that she was laying on her side, facing me. She kissed my forehead. 'It's your body, your sperm. Whatever you decide, I'll support you. The only thing I ask is that you don't ever have sex with Lisa. I want you to have a wank and give her the proceeds. No sex. I couldn't cope with that.'

'You can cope with me and Deb, but you can't cope with me and Lisa?' I asked.

'Mmm.' She twirled her fingers around in my hair. 'Deb knows how to keep things strictly sexual. She's a professional, after all, so I have a lot of faith in her.'

I wanted to ask about Mark's ability to keep things strictly sexual, but was intrigued by what she might mean by 'professional'.

'Professional?' I asked.

Sarah nodded. 'Yeah, her escorting work.'

'She

escorts

?'

'Didn't she tell you? Oh, wait, no, it was Sunday morning after you'd left that we were talking about it,' Sarah said, correcting herself. 'She said you reminded her of a younger version of one of her favourite clients.'

'Oh. Is that a good thing or not?'

'Definitely good,' Sarah assured me. 'She said the fun part about you is that you'll have the sort of sex she

wants

to have with this guy, but won't because he's paying her. It was really interesting listening to her talk about her work. You should ask her sometime.'

There was no way that was going to happen. It'd just feel weird and intrusive.

'I like Deb,' Sarah remarked. 'But I don't like her as much as Sunny as Lisa, and I can see why men are attracted to Lisa, I really can. I'm scared that if you sleep with her, it'll mess things up. I don't know. There's just a barrier there.'

I took a deep breath. I felt confused. I wanted to help Sunny out, but Sarah's question about how I'd feel if I fathered a son was making my heart hurt a bit. I felt awful for making assumptions about how well two women could raise a child when God alone knows Sarah and I weren't winning any parenting medals.

'No sex,' I agreed. 'I was kind of assuming that it would just be a wank into a cup arrangement, anyway.'

'Do you want to do it?' she asked.

'I don't know. I'll have to think about it. I just need a few days to make sure I'm making the right decision.'

She leant over and kissed me. 'I love you.'

~~~~~~~~~~~

By Friday morning I was no clearer on what I wanted to do about Sunny's request, but the girls' appeals to go back to the pub had made me nostalgic about my old home. After a quick discussion with Sarah we agreed to make one last trip home before the place was sold, and I put a call in to Mum to see if we could come around that night.

'May as well join the party,' Mum said tiredly.

'Is something wrong?' I asked.

'Builder showed up, did two hours work, then got arrested.'

'What'd he get himself arrested for?'

'Assault, theft, not showing up in Court.'

'That's impressive,' I remarked.

She made a short, frustrated noise. 'Well, we'd paid this turkey a twenty percent deposit, and now that's gone down the drain, but worse still, we can't find anyone to take over.'

'Ouch. Never mind us coming around then, I'll give you a wide berth.'

'No, no, sweetie, please come. It'll take your Dad's mind off things.'

'Our neighbour's a builder,' I said. 'Do you want me to ask if he knows anyone out your way who's free?'

'I wouldn't say 'no', but don't stress if he doesn't. We're a long way from anywhere,' she said.

From my backyard came the sound of barking intermingled with the harried squawks of chickens.

'Shit, gotta go,' I said to Mum. 'Someone's dog is out again, and it's in our back yard.'

'Just shoot the damn thing. That'll teach people to keep their animals contained.'

I didn't tell Mum that sort of thing was frowned upon in suburbia. I hung up the phone and went out the back to see a young man in jeans and thongs, with a beer in one hand, trying to entice a large tan dog to leave the chickens alone and return home.

'Oh fuck,' he swore when he saw me. 'I was hoping nobody was home.'

'Any casualties?' I asked, trying to count the chickens.

'None that I can see,' he replied. 'Bandit, come

here

you stupid animal.'

Bandit bolted in between his owner and I. We both lunged and grabbed him, and although the dog tried to wriggle free, he was flat out of luck.

'Fuck, spilt my beer,' his owner remarked. 'Sorry about my dog. I'll make sure he doesn't get out again.'

'No worries,' I told him.

'I live four doors up,' he said. 'Come and tell me how much I owe you if any of the chooks are dead. I won't be able to pay you until Monday, but I'll make sure you're not out of pocket.'

'Don't worry about it,' I told him.

After he left, I checked over the birds for signs of injury. All were fine.

'Everything okay?' Mark called out from his veranda.

I hadn't realised he was at home.

'Yeah, just another bloody dog getting loose,' I said. I hadn't seen him since last Sunday morning, when I said good-bye to him, Sarah and Deb. 'How you are going?'

'Yeah, just another fucking glorious day in the building trade,' he said.

'That good?'

'You could say so,' he replied, not giving any details.

I walked up to the fence. 'My folks had a builder come by this week to do some work on their pub and he got arrested two hours into the job.'

'I've seen that more than once,' Mark remarked. 'Where's their pub?'

'Out past Toowoomba, near Oakey. You know the area?'

He shook his head.

'Shit. I was hoping you might actually know someone in that area who'd be able to help,' I said. 'The pub's up for sale and the new owners won't finalise the sale until a dozen or so minor issues are fixed.'

'How much work's in it?' he asked.

'Four days' worth apparently.'

'You want me to have a look at it? I've just been told the contractor I'm subbying for won't be paying anyone this week. He already owes me three grand, and I've told him I won't be coming back until he fixes me up.'

'Sarah and I are heading out there tonight. Do you want to hitch a ride? Mum and Dad'll be able to put you up for the night.'

'Sure,' he agreed. 'I'll follow you out in my ute.'

My parents were thrilled at the news that I'd found them a builder. Sarah seemed happy that Mark was coming, too, and the girls all but demanded to travel in his ute, and were disappointed when they found out it was only a single cab and had no room for them.

I introduced my folks to Mark, all the while thinking how odd it was that I was taking my wife's lover to meet my parents. My parents wasted no time showing Mark what needed to be done, and he wasted no time pricing everything up. By the time dinner was served he'd provided a quote, which they'd quickly agreed to. I'm not sure there have been too many men who have been in my position before. Really, how many husbands have sat down to eat at a country bistro with their wife, two kids, and the man who is fucking their wife?

There were a number of rooms at the pub; some singles, some doubles and one family room. There were no private bathrooms, just two shared facilities, one at each end of the hall. It had been built back in the days when it was appropriate for children to stay in pubs, but I'd never felt it was the right environment for my girls, so after dinner they went to my parent's house with Mum, to have a shower and a sleep.

Sarah, Mark and I stayed in the bar and had a few drinks. There were a few groups of men hanging around, most of them single or widowed or married to a harridan, and they asked who Mark was and what he was doing. They sensed - correctly - that he was 'not from around here', and pried and prodded information out of him until they were satisfied.

Mark took the interrogation with good grace, but it drove me around the bend just listening to it. The moment I arrived in Brisbane for university, I knew I was never going to leave. I was sick of country life, sick of the isolation, sick of everyone knowing everyone else's business, sick of everything in life always revolving around the damn pub. I liked the anonymity of Brisbane, I liked the facilities, and I didn't mind the crowds or pollution.

I'd travel back to the pub every month or two just to keep Mum and Dad happy. I'd been seeing Sarah for all of six weeks the first time I took her to visit. She was a real city girl, and on the way out she stared at the fields and told me it was beautiful. She didn't understand why I'd left. I was probably a bit gruff with her, because I was nervous about taking her to meet the folks, and fed up with being told I should move back 'home', and that kind of got things off to a bad start.

It didn't help that despite me telling her to pack jeans for dinner with my family, she dressed up. She was stunning, not slutty at all, just really pretty and put together. Far too glamorous for a Saturday night dinner in a country pub, and my family and a few of the patrons gave her a bit of friendly grief over it. Sarah got cranky, I told her to calm down, and the long and the short of it was that she and I ended up having a barney in the car park while twenty odd locals watched on.

The story used to get recounted every single bloody time Sarah and I went to the pub. Then everyone mercifully forgot about it for a while. Mark's presence seemed to trigger the memory, though, and one of the locals told him all about the time Caleb bought his fancy city girlfriend home for the weekend only for her to end up yelling something unrepeatable at him.

Mark laughed and asked if the story was true.

'Oh yeah,' I replied. 'Let Sarah tell you the rest of it. It gets better.'

Sarah blushed, tucked a leg under her body and told Mark and the others her version of the events that followed.

'I was still angry at Caleb the next morning,' she said. 'I thought 'stuff you, we took my car out here, I'll drive myself back home and Caleb can figure out how he's getting himself back to Brisbane'. I crept out of bed at five in the morning, dressed, and went to outside. It was the middle of winter and the whole car was covered in ice. Living in Brisbane, I'd never had that happen before, but damned if I was going to wake up Caleb and ask him what to do.

I went back inside the pub and had a look in the bistro for something to scrape the ice off. I saw a kettle. I boiled a jug, took it outside, and poured it over the windscreen. Of course, the windscreen had to crack and shatter into a million pieces, and that was it. I was done. I sat down and burst into tears.'

I laughed, Mark laughed, several of the men laughed.

'I found her crying in the middle of the carpark,' I told Mark. 'I felt bad, so I asked her to marry me. She said 'yes', and on Monday we went to Cash Converters and bought her a second hand engagement ring. We were both broke at the time and it was all we could afford, especially after we paid to get her windscreen fixed.'

Mark was bemused. 'That was brave of you.'

'I was only upset because I loved him and I thought that I'd messed everything up,' Sarah explained, as if that explained why a woman would tell a man that he was a dickhead with an audience of people who were never, ever going to forget a word she said. She held up her hand. 'I still have the same ring.'

'A hundred and eighty bucks' worth,' I agreed.

Sarah leant over and kissed me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the expression on Mark's face. It was the same one he'd worn when he'd caught sight of Sarah at Deb's apartment last week. I realised he definitely had feelings for her, but it was somewhat oddly not jealous or angry about it. It was just...curious. I didn't understand. He seemed to be very fond of her, and yet he didn't resent me, and nor was he resentful of our love.

Last drinks were called at quarter past ten, and the pub closed at ten thirty. That might seem early to you, but this was the country and by that hour there were only a few stragglers hanging back. Most were sober enough to drive home, or had a wife or son they could call to come and collect them. Only one of the men was not only too drunk to drive, but not enthused about going home to a housemate he didn't much like. He worked at the butcher shop two doors down from the pub and was expected to work in the morning, so he booked a single room and trudged upstairs for a kip.

I told Mark to go follow Floyd upstairs while Sarah and I helped Dad wipe everything down. Then we, too, made our way upstairs.

The pub was eighty years old and it creaked and rattled in the night. Our room was tiny, and it was almost entirely taken up by a Queen size bed, a chest of drawers, a hanging rail and a sink. It was quite stuffy, so Sarah opened up the window to let some air in. The room was lit only by the light from the hallway which filtered in underneath the door.

We undressed and climbed into bed. We were quietly laughing and talking about that first time I took Sarah home when there was a knock at the door. I was naked, and Sarah was in panties and an old shirt. I told her to stay in bed while I pulled my jeans back on and went to the door.

'Hi,' Mark greeted. 'Can I come in?'

'Sure,' I replied, stepping back.

Due to the room's size, I ended up back on the bed next to Sarah while Mark sat on the side of the bed alongside my wife.

'Thanks for coming tonight,' I said. 'I really appreciate it.'

He shrugged. 'It's not like I have anything else lined up to do next week, and your folks have agreed to put me up at the pub so I don't need to have to pay for accommodation while I'm working here.'

'It's a bit different from the Queenslander,' Sarah remarked.

'That it is,' he agreed. Then, without saying anything further, he reached over and pulled the covers down off Sarah, exposing her legs. He traced his fingers from her knees upwards, until they disappeared under her nightshirt. He was seducing her. In front of me, and without asking me permission, he was seducing my wife.