In this second part of the series we continue Helena's journey as she returns from Sweden and starts at a new school but her intimate encounters with women haven't ended yet as she teams up with a colleague for a night of passion.
I'm in two minds as to how to continue this mini-biography because I have to compress so much into such a short space of time and that means a lot will be left out. Nevertheless, I'll try to condense it as best I can.
After finishing my contract in Stockholm, I could have gone onto other schools and I did consider that for a few weeks whilst exploring the countryside. Despite the fact I'd 'broken' up with Kristina I still had a fondness for Sweden and yet I found myself looking back at Australia and feeling quite homesick. There's a song written and sung by the late Peter Allen,
I Still Call Australia Home
that was used in a well known airline advertisement. I'd always thought the song schmaltzy but once you've lived outside Australia for a period of time it does bring a lump to your throat. I made the decision to head back home via Europe and Britain, a trip that took the better part of five months. I visited eight European countries in total.
My love life during that period of time could be accurately described as bisexual because I slept with men and women, but I still felt a strange magnetic pull towards women and this continued when I arrived back in Australia and accepted a position at a school in Frankston and it was there I met Odette.
However that despite my bisexual orientation I never came out to my family and it was not out of shame or fear. I was still struggling with my sexuality because part of me still put my attraction to women into one particular woman, Kristina. I'd slept with women in Europe and Britain but these were one night stands, much like the men I slept with. You could compile my affairs with women under the title; Searching for Kristina because every woman had to fit into her image, an impossible task, and now that I've set that in stone let me tell you about Odette because while it was one of the most exciting and alluring encounters I'd had since Kristina the aftermath left me feeling shall we say a little cold.
Odette was a department head at my school and a good twenty years older than myself. I'd moved into my own place in Lilydale. My parents gave me money for the deposit and now that I was on the property ladder I was feeling more confident.
Odette was a department head at my school but it was a different department, she taught maths and I taught English and other languages. Odette lived on her own, now that her children were out of home I gravitated towards her because she was older than me and she reminded me a little of Kristina with her inclusive world view. Like me, she'd travelled when she was younger and she still went back to Europe once a year at least. We also found common ground because we'd both worked in foreign countries, whilst our colleagues had only been tourists.
Odette was a physically attractive woman, her hair was darker than mine and whilst she had lines around her eyes they only served to accentuate her clear blue eyes. In fact it was the thing about Odette you noticed first, they were quite bright. Her dress sense was always sophisticated and sensual, I know for a fact that she was the subject of many a schoolboy crush and indeed that fact alone didn't cause her any concern. She accepted that humans were essentially sexual creatures by design and she first posited the belief that sexuality was actually fluid and not stuck in one mode, and it was that attitude that ticked boxes with me because whilst I couldn't quite go the whole gay thing I admitted that sex with a woman was an attractive option.
Another thing that drew us together was the fact that she lived in Chirnside Park, which is one of those upmarket suburbs and not far from Lilydale. We started car pooling because as anyone who lives here knows, the daily commute can be expensive and the length of the journey quite taxing, it was so much easier with company.
However despite what I've just mentioned about sex, our first topics of conversation revolved around travel and my new house, because while I'd moved onto the property ladder I still needed things like furniture, curtains and a host of other things. Some of that was supplied by my parents, others by friends and the rest by Odette. Her main contribution was a very expensive sofabed that had been in her daughter's room for years. I had no idea how to get it back home but Odette had a lot of male friends, and some of them had utes. The ute is a particularly useful vehicle because it has a partially enclosed tray at the back for carrying all sorts of things from furniture and tools to dogs and even sheep.
It was whilst we were waiting for Dan to turn up with the ute that she opened up her daughter's wardrobe to display an entire rack of clothes.
"I need to get rid of these as well."
"But aren't they Cassie's clothes?"
"No, Cassie took all her clothes when she moved out, this is now my spare wardrobe for all the bloody clothes I don't wear."
"Some of these are beautiful," I flicked through them.
They ranged from blouses and trousers through to skirts and dresses, and she moved up behind me as she plucked a blouse out at random. It was a particularly elegant pussybow blouse made of red satin, I instinctively thought of Kristina.
"It would fit you too."
"I couldn't," I stared at the label, "it's too much."
"Oh, I don't know," she glanced over her shoulder at the sofabed, "that fucking bed cost my ex husband a small fortune, I'd say all these clothes might equal the price of the sofabed."
"Exactly, you should sell these."
"To whom?" Odette put the blouse back, "I've thought of putting the lot online but then I'd have to take pictures and wrap each garment as well."
"So, what do you want for them?"
"All of them?" Odette took a step back, "well if you're not going to offer your body I'd take four hundred dollars for the lot."
I laughed at that, both for the suggestive remark and the price, which was ridiculously low, the blouse I'd just been looking at was worth at least $80 or more.
"Maybe I'd go both."
"An indecent proposal?" Odette sat on the sofabed, "now that's a new one. Imagine putting that up as a price on the site, I'd be banned in minutes."
The sound of a vehicle pulling into her driveway put an end to that conversation but it was revived the following day as I drove her to work. Odette was pretty keen to get rid of the clothes and I'd seen an opportunity to upgrade my wardrobe. Admittedly some of the clothes were quite old but fashion is a cyclical thing, eventually it always comes back into fashion, which is why I've still got most of those clothes.
"Tell you what, I'll reduce the price to two hundred and fifty if you throw in one night."
"One night," I glanced at her, "wasn't that in a movie a while back?"
"Stop it," she chuckled, "but seriously, you're still paying money but you're also having sex with me. In the movie she got a million dollars for sex with Robert Redford's character, this is not like that."
"I'll sleep on it and let you know in the morning," I chose my words carefully.
It was the most restless night I'd ever known. What had started as a joke had now grown arms and legs. I couldn't deny the sheer idiocy of such a trade, nor the dubious morality of having sex in exchange for clothes. Even sex workers demanded money and she was technically above me in the food chain but countering those solid arguments were my sense of adventure and desire. Ultimately the more adventurous side of me won the day and I agreed to it on the way to work.
