Chapter 1.
It's strange how friendships form, isn't it, reader? Often, when your children are young, their friends' parents become your friends. Still others form from work relationships, some from sports or club affiliations, and even from groups like Rotary or The Lions.
Some just are.
Jim Monie and I became friends because our wives worked together, and they were friends. My and Jim's wives were nurses at a now defunct hospital on Brisbane's east side. They're both Sagittarians, and that somehow made them bond. I have no idea why. My wife, bless her big heart, is the kindest, most generous, most spiritually beautiful person I've ever known.
Whereas Jim's wife, Ellen, is a bitch. A stone cold, raving lunatic bitch. How he stayed married to her until he, with my help, sorted her out is beyond my ken. She's pretty, though, so maybe that was the reason.
When our wives worked together, Jim had taken time off to complete a teaching degree, and I drove cabs. Because we needed the money, I worked the more lucrative Wednesday to Sunday night shift. This meant that my wife and I required someone to babysit our two boys on the weekends when Vanessa (my wife) had a shift. Jim offered to babysit for us because, with only one income, they needed the extra money we paid for babysitting duties.
Jim and Ellen have four kids. When I met them, their ages were Larry, 9. Tanya, 7. Isla, 6. And Jason, 4. Even back then, the girls were both very pretty. They both had startling blue eyes, blonde hair, and beautiful, upturned noses over pouting, cupid bow lips. Even at less than ten years of age, it was clear they'd be heartbreakers when they reached their majority.
But think about it, all by his lonesome, Jim babysat six children under ten: his four and our two, Gary, 8, and Aaron, 5. The man is a saint! Although he did say that none of the kids caused any real problems. They were all polite and respectful, and the occasional spats quickly ended.
The Monies and we Shephards became close friends, often hanging out and taking holidays together when we could. Watching our six children play, I wondered if my boys would pair with Jim's girls. Gary and Tanya seemed to spend more time playing together than with any of the others, and Aaron and Isla were the same.
I seemed popular with the two Monie girls, but I guessed it was because they were both 'daddy's girls' and saw me as kind of a co, or brother, daddy. Isla, especially, would immediately climb onto my lap and plant a big, sloppy kiss on my cheek as soon as I sat down at her parent's house. "Hello, Daddy Liam," she'd say before snuggling onto my lap, confirming my thoughts that she saw me as a kind of co-daddy.
If I didn't move her, Isla would stay on my lap until we went home. She only ran off to play with the other kids if I lifted her off and sat her on the sofa beside me.
We were tight with Monies for four years, but when Jim completed his degree, he took a teaching job in Rockhampton. The distance, plus family and time commitments, meant we hardly saw each other until Larry's eighteenth birthday.
Eighteen is a significant milestone here in Australia. On your eighteenth birthday, you get the right to vote, drink in licenced venues, join the armed forces, go to war, and die for your country.
Fortunately, Australia has never been stupid enough to instigate a war with another country. Unfortunately, we have blindly followed our Colonial Masters and Yankee Cousins into every conflict since our federation.
Vanessa, me, and the boys drove from Brisbane to Rockhampton to attend Larry's party. Being relatively young, seventeen and fourteen, the trip griped at them. To try and alleviate our boy's frustration, we allowed them to play whatever music they wanted. So, for the nearly seven-hour journey, Vanessa and I were subjected to an endless cycle of The Spice Girl's 'I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah' followed by Miley's dad singing 'Achy Breaky Heart'.
By the time we got to Rockhampton. I would have cheerfully strangled every Spice Girl and Billy Ray!
After unpacking the car into the two rooms Jim and Ellen had prepared for us, I noticed that Ellen was in one of her 'moods'. So, once my boys had settled into their typical relationship with the Monie kids, I cornered Jim and asked if there was a pub or club we could walk to.
Jim revealed that the Rockhampton Leagues Club was within easy walking distance, so we slipped away from our wives' gaze and walked there. Buying some beers, I found an empty table. Then, sipping my beer, I asked, "What the fuck is going on, brother? You're miserable. Your kids are miserable. And fuck me, we've only been here an hour, and we're miserable, too!"
Grimacing, Jim explained, "Ellen hates you, Liam. When I'm with you, I'm different. More confident and aggressive, I suppose. When you and I are together, I won't let her push me around as I usually do.
"Then stop being a fucking pussy and push back when she's being a bitch," I growled.
His eyes filling with tears, Jim muttered, "If only it were that easy, Liam. She becomes unhinged if I push back at her increasingly ridiculous demands. She starts yelling and screaming, chucking things at me, and threatening to take the kids away from me."
"It might be better for you all if you let her, brother," I softly replied.
But before I'd even completed that thought, Jim was vehemently shaking his head.
"No, Liam, I can't," he stated firmly. "The kids have all, every one of them, begged me to stay. They fear being in the house without me being there to protect them."
"So stay and kick the fucking fruit bat out," I said, offering the obvious solution.
"Yeah?" Jim scoffed. "With our leftist/feminist/lesbian/poof-riddled Family Court, just who do you think will be given the kids?"
"But if Ellen is as deranged as you're saying, surely the counsellor will recommend you get full custody?"
Jim laughed derisively again, "Sure! And when little Mrs Purity does her Good Christian Woman act and lines up half her church to declare that when I kneel, my devil's horns show and that Ellen is a devout Christian and a good and loving mother? Who does the dyke or poof on the bench assign the kids to then?"
"Yeah, you're probably right," I replied.
I hate to admit it, but our Family Courts are so biased against men that unless the mother is certifiably insane and committed to an institution or homicidal and an immediate physical danger to her kids, they get the children in virtually every instance.
"Don't the kids get a say?" I asked.
"Larry is now legally an adult, so he can do whatever he wants. Tanya is sixteen, so she might be able to choose, but the other two are under sixteen, so even though the counsellor will listen to what they want, they don't get a say in the court's decision."
We sipped our beers in quiet contemplation before Jim dropped a totally unexpected non sequitur, "Larry's got the hots for your wife, by the way. He asked me how I thought you'd react if he asked her to be his first."
My beer halfway to my mouth, I froze. Unfortunately, my subconscious mind kept going through the motions of tipping the glass so I could drink, and I poured half the glass into my lap.
"Where the fuck did that come from?" I bitched, trying to wipe the beer away before it soaked my trouser front. "Brother, you just don't go casually dropping that your son wants to fuck a man's wife into a conversation without preparing the poor prick first!"
Laughing at my discomfiture, then laughing harder when I stood to wipe my pants off only to see it looked like I'd wet myself, Jim said, "Well, mate, how was I supposed to do it? Chat about some stupid bullshit, then say, 'Hey, mate, look, you know my son Larry? Yeah, well, he's got this thing for your wife, and I think he wants her to be his first.'"
"That would have been better, brother! Much damned better," I replied. "So, yeah, next time, do that!"
"Wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny, though," Jim declared, laughing his fool head off.
In the end, I realised it would have been funny if it had been someone else! So grinning, I said, "I will get you for this, you know that, right? Maybe I'll lie and tell you one of your daughters wants me to be her first!"
Jim looked at me levelly for a time before dropping my gaze and looking down at his beer. Then, as he brought the glass to his lips, I'm sure he muttered, 'That might not be a lie." But, he couldn't have, or wouldn't have, even if it were true, so I immediately dismissed it from my mind."
Accepting that I had no choice but to face the knowing grins of the other patrons, I stood to go to the bar and refresh our beers. Handing a glass to Jim, I sat and mused, "Larry has the hots for Vanessa, huh? How does one even have that conversation with one's son?"
"Look Liam, it's not like Vanessa isn't hot! I mean, those sparkling green eyes under that tangle of dark red hair? Wow! Plus, she's got a body to die for! What about her tits? Surely, they have to be at least a C-cup? And on a body that's lean and toned? Jaysus! What is she, 163 cm (5-ft 4), and maybe 54 kg (120 lbs)?"
Nodding, I admitted, "About that."
"Then she wears that bikini that hides nothing! I expect her boobs to fall out with every step she takes, but they don't because they're that firm! And her ass doesn't wobble at all when she walks as it's that toned and taut! Then, as if all of that wasn't enough, she has freckles sprayed across her nose and cleavage. Mate, I'm telling you, your missus is a walking, talking erection maker!"
Getting a little heated, even though I loved the attention Vanessa got from men and women alike, I growled, "Been looking much?"
"Oh, give it up," Jim smirked. "You love it when guys look. You always have."
"Your wife's pretty hot, too," I pointed out.
As I said earlier, Ellen is pretty. Being quite tall for a woman at 175 cm (5-ft 9) and weighing a toned 65 kg (143 lbs), Ellen looks almost Teutonic. She has flaxen-coloured hair over pale blue eyes and high cheekbones over an almost square jaw. Her body is muscled instead of toned, as Ellen lifts weights and has competed in amateur bodybuilding competitions. Her breasts are high, firm granny smith apples on her thin chest.
"Yeah, but where your missus has a sweet, innocent, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth personality, mine is an absolute bitch!"
Exasperated, I snarled, "So leave the bitch!"
Holding my gaze steadily, Jim replied, "No. I promised the kids I'd be there until they left home."
"Well, you're fucked, then," I muttered.
"Yup," Jim morosely agreed. Then he looked at his watch and said, "Ellen will have started dinner, and I'm already in enough shit as it is. Do you mind if we go back?"
On the walk back, I ventured, "Larry and Vanessa?"
Jim sighed, "I asked who he wanted to invite to his eighteenth, and Vanessa was the first name he said. Then he grudgingly said the rest of you could come too if Vanessa came. I asked, 'What the fuck is that about?' He admitted he had the hots for her and wanted her to, in his words, 'show me how to be a man!'" Jim shook his head before saying, "I agreed I'd broach the subject with you because he thought you'd 'rip his head off and spit down his throat' if he asked. So that's what I'm doing."
"You do realise it's not only up to me, right? I'm pretty sure Ness will want to decide for herself," I pointed out.
"Yeah, but even if she were willing, and I doubt she will be, she'd never do it unless you told her it was okay."
I thought about what Larry wanted all the way home. Very early in Vanessa's and my relationship, I realised Ness' sexual appetite was as voracious as mine. Underneath her innocent façade lurks a seriously sensual woman that adores sex in all its forms and willingly indulges in them all.
