Doggo shook his head, his lips curling into a sly smile. The look on his face transported Hamish back to high-school, when they’d hidden behind the girls’ toilets and perved through the cracks in the brickwork. ‘Nah, mate. We’re talking real girls who want to get off in front of you. I’ve got a lady friend in the Ukraine now, Nataliya. Bored housewife with some wanker of a husband. We communicate when Tina’s in bed. She’s got the prettiest tits you’ve ever seen, mate. Brown nipples, as big as dinner plates.’ He splayed his fingers for emphasis. ‘You can see everything with a webcam. And it’s not like it’s cheating or anything.’
Hamish gawped at his friend, practically salivating.
Doggo smirked at him. ‘She’s gagging for it, buddy.’
Doggo, you dog.
‘How’d you find her?’ Hamish was almost croaking.
‘Online forum.’ Doggo swigged the last of his beer and planted the schooner on the table with a flourish. ‘Horny housewives dot com. Chicks wanting an audience. Suits me just fine, takes the pressure off Tina. That’s what you call a win-win-win.’
‘Fuck, mate.’
Hamish had watched his fair share of internet porn over the years, but it was too staged for his liking. Drug-stunned bimbos with fake tits pretending to cum while some hung-like-a-horse bloke boned them senseless. Hamish got off when he watched it, of course—all blokes did—but he craved the real thing. Maybe Doggo was on to something.
Hamish left the pub that Friday night determined to learn more. Here he was, at forty years of age, with a successful career, two kids and a problem he’d been repressing for years.
I still want sex: just not with my wife.
Not always, anyway.
I need something more.
As luck would have it, Paula was still soaking in the bath when Hamish arrived home; it was her weekly ritual. Every Friday night she locked herself in the bathroom to battle the passage of time: waging war against cellulite, stray grey hairs in her brown bob, the curly wayward pubes poking out beneath her panty line. He admired her persistence with all that plucking and preening, and her dogged conviction that she could somehow halt the inevitable decline. He could hear her rinsing her hair, filling and refilling a stainless-steel jug, tipping the water over her head.
Hamish looked towards the children’s rooms—both were unlit—then booted up his laptop in the dining room. He could escape to the caravan, his personal refuge for the past three months, but there was no real need; Paula took forever in the bathroom.
He paused, fingers hovering above the keyboard, trying to recall the name of the website Doggo had mentioned. Their fifth beer had addled his brain.
He keyed some random words into the search engine.
Real girls webcam sex.
Then he added online forum.
A results catalogue of more than eleven million pages appeared. He clicked on the fourth item in the list, a website called Hotties at Home. Was that the site Doggo had suggested?
He scanned the thumbnail images that appeared on the homepage. They were young, mostly. Big hair, big eyes, bigger tits. But real, not Barbie look-alikes. Girls that probably had dimples on their arses, one tit smaller than the other, an inverted nipple maybe. Imperfections he could work with.
He clicked on a thumbnail, and was immediately prompted to register as a new user. He used his Gmail address and paid the annual membership fee with a credit card he kept for emergencies. Then he created a log-in he often used, Hamo95, and keyed in 1995, his universal password. Some uptight IT geek from work had once told him never to use the same username and password across multiple accounts, but Hamish couldn’t be arsed trying to remember different profiles.
On the form, he filled in his nationality and city, Skype handle and interests.
Cycling, boxing, hanging out.
Then he listed his physical attributes.
Tanned and sporty six-footer, blue eyes, blond hair.
He was about to complete his profile—zodiac sign, age and sexual preference—when the bathroom door opened and Paula stepped into the hallway.
He snapped his laptop shut and forced a smile.
‘Hi.’ She sounded peevish. ‘I thought you’d never come home.’
She didn’t usually wait up for him.
‘Doggo had . . . something happen at work this week. We stayed for a few more beers.’ Did he look guilty?
‘Oh.’ Her expression changed to one of concern. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Fine,’ Hamish lied. ‘Just a problem with a dodgy contractor.’
‘Well, it was good of you to talk it through with him.’
She padded across the dining room bare foot. Damp skin and chin-length brown hair; the long, glossy mane of her twenties had been clipped shorter and shorter over the years, until it became the sensible length for super-mums. Her bathrobe gaped at the chest. Hamish’s eyes drifted downwards, and there they were. The same tits he’d been groping for years; soft, warm, sagging a little now.
He smiled and reached out, pulling her playfully onto his lap.
‘Hamish . . .’ she objected.
He nuzzled her neck and inched his hand inside her bathrobe. Picturing a pair of massive brown nipples, swaying and bobbing above him like firm, round saucers. Nataliya from the Ukraine pounding up and down on his hard-as-a-rock cock.
Paula batted his hand away.
‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘And you’ve had too much to drink.’
She stood up and, without another word, stalked off in the direction of their bedroom.
Hamish watched her leave, his fury building.
That arse of hers moving beneath her pink terry-towelling bathrobe. He hated that bathrobe; the fabric, its feel, how she looked in it. Whenever he suggested she try something more flattering—sexier, even—she always banged on about how damn comfortable it was.
Comfortable. That’s what we are. Middle-aged and too bloody comfortable.
He reached for the remote and sprawled out on the couch. The effect of the beers soon numbed him to sleep.
When Hamish opened his eyes again, he was still in hospital.
It was only ten-thirty, according to the clock on the bedside table—Sid and the kids had visited barely two hours ago.
Assuming it’s still the same day, Hamish thought suddenly. He squinted at the clock again, with its helpful date indicator: 20 Oct.
Yes, still the same day.
The day after the bike accident.
But it felt as if he’d been floating in and out of a half-drugged state for weeks. What painkillers did they have him on, anyway?
Hamish craned his neck to read the bag hanging on the IV pedestal, but couldn’t read the writing for buggery.
The Asian nurse swept past the doorway to his room, pushing a trolley.
‘Hey,’ he called out.
She popped her head around the door. ‘Yes?’
‘Is my phone here?’
The nurse smiled, as a vet might at a castrated dog. ‘Your wife will bring it later. Just rest for now, Mr McInnes.’
She whirled away.
He sank back against his pillows, remembering Lachie’s words—Mum said you need to rest.
It might be days before he got online again.
If only he could be back in the caravan, alone with his laptop, the way it had been before old Sid moved in.
3
He’d bought the caravan on eBay for a bargain price, just before the winter school holidays. Thinking that Lachie and Catie would use it for hanging out, by themselves or with friends. Hoping that maybe, by getting the kids in the backyard on weekends, Paula might be interested in a bit of daylight sex again. But the kids weren’t having a bar of it, preferring their bedrooms or the TV room. And Paula wasn’t amused by his ‘hide-the-salami-in-the-caravan’ jokes, either.
Bugger it, he thought, a month or so later. I’ll use the caravan myself.
He’d started taking his laptop over to the caravan at night, to do some ext
ra work.
Until Doggo’s tip-off about Nataliya from the Ukraine prompted him to try it for other nocturnal purposes.
‘We’ve got eighteen new clients this month,’ he said to Paula, the night after he’d registered on the Hotties at Home site. ‘I’ll go finish some stuff in the caravan.’
‘Really? It’s a Saturday night.’ Paula looked put out.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It won’t happen every week.’
‘Alright,’ she replied, with a snide little told-you-so smile. ‘You might as well use the caravan.’ She’d been unimpressed by his ‘teen den’ idea from the outset.
‘Mate, help your mother with the dishes, please,’ he called out to Lachie, who was lying prostrate in front of the television. Lachie grumbled a little before propelling himself off the couch.
‘What about her?’ Lachie pointed at Caitlin, who was sitting at the island bench, thumbing through a textbook.
‘Caitlin’s two years above you at school and she’s got more homework,’ Hamish replied. ‘Just help your mother.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Lachie objected.
‘Life’s not fair, mate.’
Paula turned and looked in her daughter’s direction.
‘Catie, come and help too, please,’ she called.
Hamish watched, irritated, as Caitlin closed the textbook and joined her mother at the sink. Paula was always cutting across his authority; it did his head in. Lachie was smirking, the little shit, as he dried a saucepan with a dishcloth. Hamish hovered for a moment, tempted to pull Paula aside and say something.
Don’t override me in front of the kids.
You’re always talking down to me.
My authority counts too.
But there was no point pursuing it, not after so many years. He was never going to change her; all he’d get was some sermon about favouritism and chores.
You spoil Caitlin, Hamish.
You’re too hard on Lachie.
Everyone has to pitch in.
He took his laptop satchel from the bench and headed down the rear stairs, stepping out into the night. He knew his way up the steep side path and across the backyard without a torch, even avoiding the extension cord supplying electricity to the caravan. It was cool for November, more like an evening in June. He looked up at the sky, at all the faded miniscule stars millions of light years away. They were up there when he was born, and they’d be up there when he died. None of them aware of the tiny cosmic burp named Hamish McInnes.
What the hell is it all for? he wondered. The whole world spinning in space, everyone too busy eating and shitting and working and sleeping to see that we’re dying all the time.
His head tilted so far back it hurt.
The thick silver handle of the caravan door was reassuring in its solidity.
Inside, it was pitch-black and musty-smelling. An old-man smell, with traces of talc and turpentine. The caravan’s elderly owner had been fastidious in maintaining it over the ten years of its life before it wound up in their backyard. In fact, when Hamish had gone to collect it, he’d asked why it was being sold at all.
‘Lost the wife a few months back,’ the old man had replied, his eyes watery. ‘She was my travelling companion. Drove all around Australia in this van, we did. Married for fifty years, before the cancer took her.’
Hamish hadn’t known how to respond.
‘My mother-in-law’s got breast cancer,’ he’d blurted, before paying his money and leaving quickly, towing the caravan behind his ute.
He hadn’t thought of the old man since. But tonight, as he inhaled the caravan’s fusty odour and fumbled around for the light switch, the old man came to mind again. The look in his eyes when he spoke about his wife, even after fifty years of marriage. Or because of those fifty years, perhaps.
What will I be saying about Paula in thirty years’ time?
Hamish found the light switch and closed the caravan door behind him, pushing the lock into place.
He removed his laptop from its case and booted up.
Opening the bar-sized fridge, he took out a beer and flicked off its lid with the bottle opener conveniently affixed to the bench. That old guy had thought of everything, Hamish mused, sucking back the stubby. And it would’ve been some trip around Australia, too. He and Paula had planned a holiday like that, once upon a time.
He sat down on the seat in the kitchenette, with its thick furry cushions covered in shit-coloured fabric. You wouldn’t want to get naked on those cushions, he thought, you’d get rug rash on your balls.
The website took a while to load. Hamish didn’t mind; he was still getting used to the idea that some Hottie at Home might take off her clothes and touch herself, just for him. Leaning back against the curtained window, he felt his dick pulsate at the prospect.
A moment later, he keyed in his username and password.
A map of the world appeared. There were 46,753 hotties online, it said, and more than 30,000 of them were women. He rolled his mouse over the map, watching the numbers change with the geography. There were 3953 hotties online just in the former Soviet Union.
Holy shit, he whispered, scrolling through dozens of thumbnails of Russian women. Some of them were dog ugly, some of them were too old. But most of them were hot as fuck.
He scanned his options: pre-recorded video, private viewing or online chat.
Pre-recorded videos he could watch any time. A private viewing was what Doggo had described.
Selecting this tab narrowed his options to just over eight hundred women. He saw the one he wanted immediately, in the first set of thumbnails: blonde hair, blue eyes, a voluptuous mouth. A Russian Claudia Schiffer. Her username was Valeria87. If the numerals referred to her birth year, that made her twenty-five. Perfect.
He clicked on the ‘request private viewing’ icon and waited.
An image of a clock appeared, its hands whirring around its face.
He swigged on his beer and leaned forward, scrutinising the thumbnail. Valeria wore too much blue eye shadow, but she was a natural beauty. Should’ve visited Russia when we backpacked through Europe twenty years ago. He’d been a second-year mechanic, and Doggo a carpentry apprentice. They’d flown direct to Rome with enough cash to cover them for four weeks of annual leave. They’d spent three of them in Italy, France and Germany, then tossed up between crossing the border into Austria or taking a discount flight to Russia. Doggo had been keen on Vienna—something about his pianist grandmother—and Hamish hadn’t objected. So they’d ended up doing a Mozart by Night tour, when they could have been doing girls like Valeria. What the hell were they thinking?
Several minutes passed, and the clock icon remained static.
Come on, Hamish muttered.
He clicked on his emails and scanned the inbox. Nothing interesting there. Four emails from bloody Nick-the-Dick Bridge, the junior operations officer in the national office, trying to curry Hamish’s favour by systematising things that didn’t need it. He had a policy for everything, that bloke. Since his arrival two years ago, he’d created eight new operational policies, with trendy titles like Values-Based
Supplier Selection and Ethical Communication. Hamish was too busy getting the real work done to bother with any of them.
Come on, he urged again.
A noise from the house made him spring up.
‘Daddy?’
It was Caitlin, at the caravan door.
‘Yes, angel?’ He tried to sound composed.
‘Are we riding tomorrow?’
Sunday morning, he remembered suddenly, watching Caitlin’s jeans through the slats at the base of the door.
‘Sure.’
His laptop made a pinging sound.
Oh shit, he thought, I’m connected.
‘Wake me up, okay, Dad?’ Caitlin called.
‘Okay, angel.’
He listened to her retreating footsteps, waited for the sound of the back door closing.
A bead of sweat trickled down his n
eck.
He sat down and looked at the screen. Nothing had changed, but his Skype icon was now flashing. 1 new message.
Disappointed, he clicked on the icon.
Lisel17 wants to share contact details with you.
He clicked ‘allow’. The username was unfamiliar, but Skype was in common use between the interstate offices at Crossroads.
Seconds later, an instant message appeared.
Hi Hamo95, I’m Lisel. U sound cute
Who was she?
U should put ur profile picture up
He hesitated, then typed a reply.
Where?
The response was immediate.
On Hotties . . . just saw ur profile there. Tried 2 chat but site 2 slow. Found u on Skype instead, but no pic here either . . .
Hamish suddenly understood. His unfinished profile summary had appeared in the ‘recently registered’ section of the Hotties homepage, then she’d searched for him on Skype.
Another message popped onto his screen.
Maybe u dont look like u say u do?
That riled him.
About to upload pic to Skype, he typed. What do you look like Lisel?
Check me out on Hotties, came the reply.
He clicked back into his browser; the Hotties website was still loading his ‘private viewing’ with Valeria.
Screw that.
He clicked the ‘cancel’ icon and returned to the Hotties homepage. He found the search bar and typed Lisel17. An image appeared that made his jaw drop.
A leggy redhead, sitting by a swimming pool in a pink and white polka-dot bikini. Her head was thrown back, auburn hair falling behind her shoulders. Green eyes, ivory skin, pert breasts. A perfectly flat stomach leading down to the bikini bottom, tied at the hips with sexy little bows. In her twenties, by the look of her.
Location: Western Australia.
Star Sign: Scorpio (with a sting in my tail!).
Interests: Skinny-dipping, naked chess, Brazilian waxes.
He’d tried to get Paula to have a Brazilian wax once. She’d refused, accusing him of infantilising her, whatever the hell that meant. University-speak, the clever words she sometimes used to make him feel stupid.
No way will this chick be interested in me, Hamish thought.
Wife on the Run Page 5