It's highly recommended that you read part one of this story before this one. Cheers.
If it hadn't been for the plume of dust that lingered above their driveway, I would have got lost for sure. Sharon Arnold, my immediate boss in the English faculty, lived with her husband Marcus on a property about eight kilometres out of town. Eucalypts lining the drive and a cow letter box were the only clues I'd been given other than 'It's just down Maynard Lane.'
My car, still full of my humble possessions, rattled down the corrugated dirt driveway. A cold six-pack of beer added a treble high to the mid-range of the boxer engine and the bass of the weary suspension.
Their home was certainly impressive. Unlike many others I drove past on the way, this was a modern home with large glass north facing windows that looked out over an in-ground pool and the farm beyond.
With nothing to distract me other than buying a cheap steak, a tub of salad and some beer, I arrived right on time.
A few guests were already wading in the pool, children ran about screaming and the barbecue was smoking. I was introduced to everyone by Marcus, a tall likeable man who took my beer and passed me one of his own homebrews. I'm usually reluctant to drink homebrew, I've had some paint strippers in my time, but this one was superb.
Once I'd discovered that Marcus was one of the local real estate agents I asked about local rentals and was pleased to discover that he managed the Teacher Housing units.
"Are you flying solo?" he asked me as he topped up my third beer.
"Yeah," I sullenly replied, "Bit of a back story there."
"Let me guess," he said "You've been going out for years but when she found out you were going out the back of woop-woop she bailed on the whole relationship."
My open mouth and wide eyes answered better than words could.
"You're not alone there sunshine, believe me," he said. "You may not like it now, but it's a lot better that she never came here rather than she show up, complain about everything and then deciding that she wants to leave. That causes all kinds of bloody headaches."
"Here, here," said Geoff, a sandy-haired Physical Education teacher. "My ex-wife moaned and whinged for two years before she finally left."
"How long ago was that?" I had to ask something.
"Five years now," he said and winked at Marcus, "Life's been damned fine ever since, let me tell you."
"Do you have a partner now?"
"Inquisitive fucker aren't you?" he said humorously, "Typical English teacher, always asking the questions."
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
"Yep. That's Kim over there," he pointed with his bottle to a group of women sitting watching children in the pool. "Short brown hair, white top, black skirt."
I followed his beer-pointer and Kim must have felt our eyes upon her as she smiled and waved. She was a damn fine looking woman. Olive skin, tall and fit, without being muscled.
"Is she a teacher too?"
"The questions never end," he popped some chips into his mouth, "No, she's a nurse at the hospital."
People kept pouring in and soon enough there was about thirty people all milling about like it was a Saturday night.
When the principal of the school wandered in I was immediately introduced to him and his very tall, somewhat commanding wife, Kelly.
Almost as tall as me, and I'm nearly six foot, she was attractive, yet in a very conservative way. Her shoulder length light brown hair had streaks of blonde running through it, her body was thin and lithesome.
Whilst he was small and fragile looking, and apparently a strong Christian, Kelly had that distinct edge of someone with secrets.
When Kelly and I shook hands she held mine for just that bit longer, and when she finally released mine, she looked me up and down as if she was examining a horse.
Marcus kind of gave me a wry smile as I stood there, uncertain of what to do, but it was the principal who spoke first, easing away the weird silence that had befallen our corner of the world.
"I can't stay long tonight," he said, "I have our first combined churches gathering tonight."
He took a bottle of soft drink out of his bag and proceeded to drink it as if it was a nice cold lager. I didn't like him at all.
"Six churches all coming together to really try to change some things in this town, to try and bring some of god's love to the town."
I really, really didn't like him at all.
Oddly his wife made no reaction whatsoever. She just opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. I noticed that she had a tattoo of a rose on her ankle. I know it's wrong to generalise, but Kelly was a very interesting person, with no doubt, an interesting past.
"Am I the only new teacher here?" I didn't recognise anyone from the workshops.
"Probably," Marcus said, "Most of them are more likely than not at home panicking about tomorrow. Begs the question as to why you're not, but anyway, each to their own."
"I'm staying at the pub," I said "It's not really conducive to lesson prep."
"Fair enough," Geoff said and stood up, "I'm going in for a dip. Did you bring your swimmers?"
I nodded in the affirmative. "I did, but I think that they're in the car somewhere."
"You're probably the same size as me," Marcus said, "I've got some spares inside."
I didn't really want to wear another man's swimmers so I excused myself, knocked the beer down my gullet, and went back to the car. I nodded to a few of the assembled guests as I passed them by, checking the female staff members as I did so.
I had to half empty my car in search for my swimmers and board shorts, and my repacking was a haphazard affair. I was keen to check out their home, so rather than sneak a change behind the car, I headed towards the house. For such a hot, dry climate, the lawn was lush, doubtless watered from either the nearby river, or from deep within the earth.
The house was an interesting blend of the old and new. An older home had been nicely extended towards the north where what appeared to be mud bricks had been rendered and teamed with naturally oiled timber windows. I noticed some movement down the long hallway so I tentatively pulled the chrome lever handle down and opened the door. The internal pressure of the evaporative air conditioner initially made opening the door more difficult than normal, but after a good shove I was inside enjoying the cooler air. I could hear some voices coming down the hall so I headed in that direction.
I passed the kitchen where the benches were scattered with empty wine bottles and chip wrappers rocking under the air conditioners breeze. A cat looked up at me from its chair, a look of evil intent on its face. An overweight dog of indiscernible breeding pulled itself to its feet, and after giving the cat a cursory glance and a sidestep, quickly sniffed my legs, checked to see if I had food in my hands, and after discovering that they were empty, turned and went into the laundry and exited through the doggie door.
I heard a giggle come from the end of the hallway and I was naturally drawn to it. Fortune, they say, favours the brave, so being the coward that I am I didn't go forth and listen in, rather I turned into the bathroom and very quickly got changed. It was on my exit that the cocktail hearing, that ability to recognise your name when it's whispered in conversation, kicked in. I'd just passed a room that looked like a study when I heard it.
"His name is Julian," is what stopped me dead in my tracks. "He's from Sydney."
I recognised the voice as Sharon's, but the other person's voice was a mystery. I edged closer to the door, eager to discover what they were talking about.
"I think he'll go alright," Sharon said, "I mean he's a lot hotter than that other bloke in maths."
"Is he good looking?" the anonymous voice asked.
"Yeah," Sharon said, "I'd fuck him."
I almost laughed out loud at my supervisor's audacious behaviour, but I internalised my hysteria and kept on listening, the next few lines nearly had me guffawing.
"But," the stranger's voice said, "you'd fuck anyone."
"Well," Sharon said, "If he's as big as, and as dirty as, his predecessor, we'll both be fucking him."
I threw my head back in shock and smacked it on the wall behind me. The noise in my head from the collision seemed louder than it probably was, but when I heard the next line from the unknown woman, I simply panicked.
"Let's go check him out then," she said.
The adrenalin suddenly kicked in my usual flight response. I had to hide so I headed back down the hallway, quickly ducked into the study and hid, like some pathetic spy, behind the door.
I heard them open the bedroom door and come down the hall. Just outside where I was hiding the stranger asked a question that at the time, seemed completely unrelated. "Do you think that he's the kind that will join the boat club?" the stranger asked Sharon who immediately preceded her answer with a chuckle.
"Well maybe," she said "Let's just hope so, shall we?"
I couldn't quite make out what they were talking about and I halted all thoughts about it when I heard Sharon stop walking and reverse back towards me up the hallway.
"Hang on a sec," she said with a suspicious tone to her voice.
I curled my toes in terror as the footsteps became closer and closer. I was about to step out and surrender, try to charm my way out of my conundrum, but Sharon grabbed the handle of the door and muttering 'Bloody Marcus,' quickly closed it.
I realised that I'd been holding my breath, and I quietly let it dissipate as their voices disappeared with the closing of the door to the outside world.
My heightened awareness of all around me thankfully allowed me to catch, ever so quickly, movement in my periphery. Marcus was running at a fair clip across the yard towards the house and I suspected that he had somehow seen, or sensed, my presence in the room.
As I went to leave my clothes brushed against a pile of post packs and other stationery items causing them to cascade down onto the keyboard, bringing the sleeping computer to life. As I opened the door to leave, the image of two naked women lounging by the pool that was just outside the window, one a stunning dark-haired woman with a short haircut, and the other, namely Sharon, shone brightly and arousingly from the screen.
Marcus was almost at the front door as I reluctantly, and gently, closed the office door. Keeping low, as if I was taking machine gun fire in a trench, I ran down the hall, sidestepped into the laundry, and bolted out into the backyard.
