TRACEY'S ACCOUNT
In Tracey's account we fill in a bit of background information. Admittedly it's not as steamy as part one but I needed to flesh out Tracey's character a little more. I like the way it's turned out though and there are ideas floating around in my evil little brain for other spin off stories, like Anita's first time. The character Saoirse is also very appealing as well, I may look at doing more with her in the future once I can get a handle on her character. Kim will also reappear in another series at some point in the near future along with Sandy from Sandy's Destroyers. I'm also looking at Carla and maybe even her mother, so there's a fair few stories that could spin off from this one.
Author's note: Saoirse is pronounced, ser-sha.
*****
I liked reading Charlie's account because it brought back pleasant memories. I've agreed to write my side of the story but I guess because Kim is going to be reading this it feels kind of strange, I mean Kim is my best friend. In that way she's closer than a girlfriend because I tell her literally everything. I've been sitting with this document on my laptop for the last week trying to write something that might help Kim write her thesis and it's like my brain is wired backwards. I've written several accounts but deleted them all and started again and so here I am trying to do it all again on a Sunday night. My eyes are hanging out of my head because I was up all night watching
Breaking Bad
with Kim. The night before that we went out with Charlie to see Sandy's Destroyers playing at the Manhattan hotel in Ringwood. Afterwards we followed Sandy back to her house in Sandringham, so it's been a hell of a weekend.
Where to start? I'm Tracey Smith, the only child of James and Gina Smith. I was born on July 1st, 1996. It was a difficult birth and mum had her tubes tied. She was a doctor and no doctor could talk her out of getting that done at such an early age. Because of that twist of fate I became the only child and I agree with Kim, it has had a major impact on my life. I had the full attention of both parents, I never had to compete with a brother or sister for attention and my parents raised me with the belief that I could do anything I set my mind to. Admittedly some things are impossible, I'll probably never walk on Pluto but who wants to go there? But you get the picture, I was encouraged to try lots of things.
I started taekwondo classes when I was fourteen and I excelled at it. I loved the comradeship of the class and more importantly I was competing against my peers in a very real way. You learned that you couldn't be the centre of someone's world all the time, other people need their time in the spotlight, your turn will come. It taught me discipline and the importance of exercise. While my girlfriends were mooning over boys, I was sparring with boys. Don't get me wrong, I did go out with boys but I was much more aware that I was their equal. I didn't have to be schooled in feminist ideology at school, I was raised to believe I was born equal. Thus, when teachers tried to drum that kind of stuff into my head it felt strange. I knew I could beat boys in physical fights at the club and I damn well knew I could get top marks in school.
I remember taking offence when a male teacher once told me I could be just as good as a boy. We actually got into an argument because I wanted to know if he was inferring that men were the ideal human, like something we had to aspire to instead of just the male of the human species. Poor Mr. McCainsh just didn't get it. Mum used to say he's so dumb he had to study three days for a urine test. Mum was born in Louisiana and she used to crack dad up with some of her sayings. She could come across as a little too forward but she had a heart of gold and that brings me to the subject of her death.
Mum's cancer was kept secret for about six weeks before she finally came out but in that time she'd learned it was terminal and so she didn't bother with the chemo even though her family and friends begged her to get on it. She just wanted to spend as much quality time with dad and me as possible before the pain got too bad. She lasted three more months before she was too ill to get out of bed but in that time we helped her with her bucket list. One of them was flying a plane, dad arranged for her to sit beside a pilot and take the joystick for about ten minutes on a flight out of Tooradin airport. I was sitting in the passenger seat with a camera and afterwards we emailed it to her family in Louisiana. They came back with, 'I thought you was sick?'
My mother was the strongest female influence in my life, for obvious reasons but with her death I began to wallow a bit, I was heading into my last few months of high school. I managed to hold it together until the very end and then I closed everything down. It was like my world had ended. I still had my taekwondo and there were people at the club who reached out to me in their own way, I had some friends at school but no one older. Dad has brothers but his only sister lives in Perth and while I saw her once at the funeral she was busy with her own life.
I could have gone off the rails, but then one of dad's friends dropped by about six months after mum had passed away. Analyn had known dad for years. She used to be a detective but quit the police force after a near fatal shooting. She became a social worker and eventually adopted three kids from overseas, Kim was my age and although she was born here, her mother was from Vietnam. Gizella and Ilona are from Hungary and a good twelve years younger than Kim.
Analyn became a lifesaver because she was about mum's age but she wasn't the kind of woman to just move in. She and dad were probably involved then but I never saw any evidence but I was too involved with Kim. She became my best friend, we were both at Monash university, she is studying social work and I'm in medical school studying be a doctor. I spent a lot of time at her house and on weekends we'd head into the city to the clubs. It was through Kim I met Meghan who ran a night club out in King Street and ended up working as a part time bouncer.
Meghan is out and out gay, she's not the first gay person I ever met but she was the first gay person I got actively involved with, on a professional level at least. She's a few years younger than mum would have been and a few pounds heavier but she reminds me a lot of mum because she won't take shit from anybody. She and I connected because I was looking for older women to fill the gap left by mum. I did have a crush on her at first, although Meghan will never mix business with pleasure, it just complicates matters when you're running a club. It might look good on the big screen or on tv but in real life it's messy and usually ends in tears.
Because of my qualifications, I was a black belt by then, I was hit on by quite a few women. The club wasn't strictly gay exclusive but it was certainly LGBT friendly. Meghan always had the idea that the club should be for everyone, regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation. I always said no to the rather generous offers but I became very aware that I was attractive to other women, it's just that I wasn't attracted to them in the same way.
I liked boys, they were simpler and easier to predict. I had four serious boyfriends between the ages of eighteen and twenty. One lasted thirteen months and the other three were six, three and two months respectively. By the time I broke up with Kevin, my last serious boyfriend I'd started to see a pattern. Guys were fine with me for the first few months or weeks but the fact that I was a bouncer kind of got to them. However, to be honest I was never 'into' relationships with boys in the same way as my girlfriends. At the club I was exposed to a great cross section of Melbourne society, I had the respect of older people despite my age as well.
Thus hanging out with a local guy or even someone from uni did bore me, I'd find excuses not to be with them and most of the time they were great excuses. I had my training at the club and that was another thing guys didn't like, a girl who could beat up other guys. Kevin actually walked out on a demonstration at a country show out at Yarra Glen when I did my routine there. I had to call dad to come and collect me because he literally drove away. When I asked him why over the phone he just mumbled that he couldn't do this any more.
"So, why did you just drive away then? My dad had to come and pick me up."
What Kevin did teach me though was that I shouldn't get hung up on the whole happy ever after thing. I'm young, I can make mistakes and as mum proved you can wait until you're older. Make all your mistakes before you turn thirty because that's the age when most women start to hit their peak, sexually. The fact that men hit their peak at eighteen means Mother Nature has a sense of humour after all!
Charlie mentioned Carla in her story and I do have to clarify the relationship between us. She did have a thing for me and probably still does but Carla is one of those high energy people. Her parents are quite wealthy. Her father is an investment banker in Singapore, he lives there six months of the year with his mistress and her mother has her own mistress. Yes, you read that right. They both like women and their marriage is one of those strictly platonic affairs. Carla once told me it had a lot to do with keeping up appearances and reducing their tax burden. Her mother is a film producer and has a house in Daylesford where her girlfriend lives. The fact that Carla sees nothing wrong with that weird arrangement worries me because I couldn't live like that.
Admittedly, after I got with Charlie I did consider 'outing' myself to her but chickened out because I thought she might get the idea that she and I might get up close and personal. Don't get me wrong, I do like Carla but I feel for her the same way I feel for a person with a disability. You're aware of it and its side effects and learn to accept that they are the way they are. You don't make a big deal of it but you're aware that they may not react to certain things the way the rest of us do.
Up until I slept with Charlie I was dating guys on a regular basis but many times it was just a date without sex. Matty for the record did call me the day after to apologise, I said that was cool but that perhaps he should find someone else. I never mentioned Charlie to him. I did tell Kim because I tell Kim everything. Her reaction was comforting.
"That's cool, so are you still coming around tonight?"
We'd arranged to binge watch the latest
Vikings season.
This was after Charlie and I got together at the drive in but at the time our arrangement was very casual and loose. There was no hard and fast commitment and we were both free to see other people, but the offer had been left dangling like a carrot. Some people did seem surprised later on that I got naked with Charlie rather quickly but even Kim didn't know that I had checked out women at the club over the last few months. There were women I was attracted to but because I was working and trying hard to act older than what I was, I never let it go far. It was one of the reasons I'd gained respect from older colleagues at the club, I was never one of those dippy girls. When I was on duty I was focused on the task at hand. However after that night with Charlie things did change in an obvious way and I found myself actually acknowledging looks and smiles from gay women at the club that following Friday night.
