Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.
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INTRODUCTION & DISCLAIMER - When Rachel, a former cop and now a private investigator from Adelaide, South Australia gets a call from her mother at work, she is surprised to find that her parents are worried that Sammi-Jo, the wife of Rachel's younger brother Daniel, is cheating on him.
Rachel is cynical about her parents' claims, as Sammi-Jo although hot is an extremely annoying person, a vain and attention-seeking mummy blogger and social media influencer who overshares just about every aspect of her family's life online. How could she be discrete enough to be having an affair? When Rachel reluctantly agrees to do some unofficial surveillance on her brother's wife, will the concerns of her mother and father be proven correct?
All characters and events in this story are fictional, with any similarity to real persons living or dead coincidental and unintentional. Only characters over 18 are in any sexual situations. For any North American readers unfamiliar with Australian slang, fanny means vagina and a bogan is similar to a redneck.
Please enjoy 'Sister-In-Law Surveillance', and rate and comment. Given the theme of the story, I've thrown in an Easter Egg with regards to the character names. Can you find it? If you do, please advise in the comments section.
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Two really bad things happened in Australia on Thursday, 28 December 1989. One took place in Newcastle, New South Wales when a powerful earthquake struck the steel city mid-morning. It killed 13 people, injured many more, destroyed and damaged scores of buildings and left a damage bill of over 4 billion dollars.
The second bad thing happened in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. In the maternity ward of a hospital around the same time the earthquake struck a woman named Hilary Maclean gave birth to a baby daughter who would be named Sammi-Jo.
An earthquake in Newcastle and a woman giving birth to a baby girl in a maternity ward had no effect on me at the time. I don't distinctly remember that day being four-years-old then. I think that my older sister Fiona - then aged six - and I were playing with some of our Christmas gifts in the back garden of the house in the Adelaide suburb of Woodville owned by our parents Raymond and Bev Burgess.
Quite possibly, my sister and I spent the day responding to our two-year-old brother Daniel's pleas of, "Fiona, Rachel, please throw the ball!" and we would bowl the cricket ball for him to hit with his bat, our parents having purchased him a cricket set designed for small children for Christmas that year.
Growing up, I did of course learn of the Newcastle Earthquake at school and thought it was pretty bad for such a terrible disaster to happen especially at Christmas, but had no concept of earthquakes having not experienced one first hand. Nor did I have any knowledge of Sammi-Jo Maclean, who grew up in the Port Adelaide-Enfield area, not far from Woodville but Adelaide was a major city not a country town, so I did not know she even existed during our childhood and teenage years.
This was until the 1990s turned into the 2000s which then turned into the 2010s. Early in 2011, I decided that New Zealand would be a great destination for my vacation, so jetted off to the Land of the Long White Cloud. While walking through the City of Christchurch in the Canterbury region and admiring the historic cathedral one fine February morning, I felt the ground shaking under my feet and hundreds of people - myself included - ran for cover as everything swayed.
The devastating earthquake killed 185 people, injured scores more and destroyed or severely damaged thousands of buildings. I was unharmed but pretty badly shaken up by the experience, and as I returned to Australia thought that travel overseas travel was jinxed for me. A previous trip to Bali had resulted in two weeks of Bali belly. A holiday to Singapore with my partner at the time was intended for us to relax and enjoy ourselves and try to work through some of the problems we were having in our relationship, but all we did was squabble the whole time and break up soon after returning to Australia.
About two months after my earthquake experience in New Zealand, my sister Fiona - at the time sporting a considerable baby bump - and I sat together in Adelaide's pretty parklands close to the banks of the River Torrens as our younger brother Daniel - now a professional cricketer - exchanged vows with and married the love of his life Sammi-Jo Maclean and she became Sammi-Jo Burgess. It had been a quick progression, they had gone from having never met in early 2010 to engaged to married in some 15 months. Sammi-Jo was now the sister-in-law of Fiona and myself. What a delight.
Now, it was April 2018 with seven years having gone by since Daniel and Sammi-Jo's wedding, and I was making my way into the city for Sunday morning brunch to celebrate my father's 69th birthday. I drove across the King William Bridge across the River Torrens, looking at the historic Adelaide Oval across the way, the tall buildings of Adelaide's CBD directly in front of me and the Mount Lofty Ranges visible in the background, the yellow sun rising into flawless blue skies across South Australia.
Driving down King William Street, I could see some people out jogging and others looking the worse for wear after maybe enjoying Adelaide's nightlife a bit too much on Saturday night. My destination was Gouger Street, on which were located the historic Adelaide Markets, Chinatown and a variety of restaurants, one of which was where we were having brunch this morning for my father's 69th birthday.
Parking my car and paying for the ticket at a public car park near the Adelaide markets, I walked across Gouger Street carrying a birthday card and small wrapped gift for my father and caught sight of my sister Fiona, her husband Paul and their daughter and son - Emma aged seven and their son Liam aged four - making their way to the restaurant, also with a card and a gift for Dad.
Fiona, who contrasted from me by having red hair and green eyes opposed to my dark brown hair and brown eyes, had met her husband Paul Philby relatively young in life and they were a devoted couple, responsible and great parents to their son and daughter. Liam shared his father's light brown hair and brown eyes, while Emma had picked up the recessive red hair and green eyes from her mother.
In contrast I was still single at age 32, which was one of the reasons I retained my maiden name Burgess. Fiona had changed her maiden name from Burgess to Philby when she married Paul, while Sammi-Jo had changed her name from Maclean to Burgess when she married our brother. My parents didn't see this as a good trade-off.
"Hi Fiona, hi Paul," I said as I greeted my sister and brother-in-law, lightly embracing them. I then turned to my niece and nephew. "Hi Emma, hi Liam," I said to my niece and nephew, giving them both hugs. "You grow taller every time you see us."
"Hi Aunty Rachel!" exclaimed Emma and Liam. They were such great kids, always well-mannered and polite thanks to the good parenting of Fiona and Paul.
"So, have you ever been to this restaurant before Rachel?" Fiona asked as we walked towards the front door.
I shook my head. "No. How about you?"
"No," said Paul. "My sister has though, for her office work dinner last Christmas."
"Well, Sammi-Jo was the one who arranged everything," I said. "She says it's really good."
Fiona laughed and rolled her eyes. "I think I'd trust that ibis's taste in fine cuisine above Sammi-Jo's." She indicated across the street, where outside the markets an Australian White Ibis, colloquially called a 'bin chicken', was dumpster-diving into a wheelie bin, trying to extricate food scraps.
"Do you know if Sammi-Jo, Daniel and the kids are here yet?" Paul asked.
I nodded. "Yes they are, I saw Daniel's car in the car park as I drove in."
"Swell," said Fiona sarcastically.