Queermance Anthology, Volume 2

by Queermance Anthology- Volume 2 [MM-FF] (retail) (epub)

  With his grandparents home for a month, Sam crashed with me more often. It was fine, because it wasn’t like I could sleep over Sam’s house while they were in the next room. Not if I wanted to get laid, I mean. Sounds travel and I have trouble holding in the moans of delight that happen between Sam and me.

  Sam’s camera stuff migrated to my house and his favourite food items regularly turned up in my cupboard. In my opinion, the man had an unhealthy ability to eat chilli sauces. They must’ve dulled his tastebuds, because he put that shit on everything. He often teased me about it.

  ‘I’m going into business and will create a chilli and Vegemite spread. It’ll sell like hot cakes,’ he mused to me one morning with a twinkle in his eye.

  I pointed my knife in his direction. ‘There are certain boundaries you don’t cross, and messing with Vegemite is one of them. You cannot improve what is already the nectar of Gods.’

  He laughed. I was a bit of a Vegemite addict.

  But it was the Siberia trip that caused me pain. He brought it up over dinner one night.

  ‘Moe? I found out today I’ve got a new job. It’s going to be good one.’

  By this time I had learned Sam saw jobs as good or bad in terms of financial reward to him. I’d asked him if he even like the good jobs, and he’d stared at me as if I’d asked a dumb question. ‘I have a camera in my hand and I’m taking photos - what’s not to love?’

  But a job usually meant he left me for a bit. ‘Yeah?’ I answered cutting up my steak - my prime Angus steak produced by Mitchell Angus Stud, washed down with our Cabernet Sauvignon from two years previous. ‘Where?’

  ‘Siberia. Photographing methane holes.’

  That stopped me. ‘It sounds dangerous.’ I frowned in his direction. ‘No amount of money is worth your life, you know.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he assured me. ‘But it’s going to be a long one.’

  ‘Oh. How long?’

  ‘Six weeks.’

  Damn. That would mean it would be September before he was back. I was peeved at the thought.

  ‘Moe?’ he questioned quietly as I was internally stewing over the information.

  ‘Yeah?’

  I could feel his hesitation. ‘Will you��� will you be here when I get back?’ he asked.

  It was a stupid question. ‘Of course I’ll be here. Where do you think I’ll go? I have sixty cows up the duff to look after and pruning starts in two weeks.’

  Sam put down his cutlery and looked at me seriously. Uh oh.

  ‘No, I mean will you and I still be able to do��� this. Are you still going to be��� with me.’

  That stopped me. This as in casually hanging out and sleeping together and spending��� oh shit! I suddenly understood what he meant. He meant this as in spending most of our time together. When did this get so serious?

  Thoughts were running through my head at a mile a minute. I was thinking about all the times we’d been together and how much fun we’d had. I was thinking about how happy I’d been with Sam over the last - I stopped to calculate - five months.

  Then he hit me with the hugest broadside ever. ‘Moe? Have you been with anyone else while we’ve been��� together?’

  ‘I-‘ I opened my mouth to tell him that it was none of his business, because this was just a casual thing. We’d agreed that it was casual, and I didn’t need to name all the people I’d slept with during our friendship. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And the people I slept with were none of his concern. He didn’t need to know about-I thought hard.

  I always had casual encounters. Sex was just a way to have fun and let off steam, and there was always plenty to find. I wasn’t being boastful, but I knew people found me attractive and there were always men and women who made it clear they were available. And all I had to do was smile and we’d be at it. But when was the last time I’d done that?

  There was the guy out at Dunsborough, the German dude, but that was before Christmas. And the older woman with the tattoo had been before that. And���

  I looked up at Sam with shock. I was speechless. Five months? Five months and I’d only been with Sam? How had that happened? I had never made it five months, even when I’d been trying.

  And dammit. I’d been hanging out with Sam so long he knew my expressions. I saw him watch me closely, then an expression of smug glee came over his face. He tried to hide the smile by looking down at his plate, but I knew Sam’s expressions too.

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I growled, angry at myself more than anything. I didn’t do serious relationships.

  Sam speared another piece of meat with his fork and popped it in his mouth. ‘Okay. We said casual, I remember. I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry.’

  We did say casual. But now he had me thinking hard about it. How many other men had Sam been with? Up until that very moment, I had never thought about it, but now that I was thinking about it, it was bothering me. Had Sam been sleeping around while on his trips? Did it matter to me if he did?

  Ugh. With a grimace I realised that it did. I wanted Sam’s attention and body all to myself. Fuck. I wanted it all.

  Somehow the word casual had moved out, and serious had moved in and had even brought his toothbrush. Just like Sam’s toothbrush was resting beside mine in the bathroom.

  The meal progressed in silence until Sam looked up at me. He’d let his hair grow a little longer since he’d figured out that I liked to twine my fingers in it. It flopped over his eyes that I loved to lose myself in as he was thrusting into my body. ‘Just so you know,’ he told me. ‘I haven’t been with anyone else either.’

  He left for Siberia three days later. When people say that Siberia is the end of the earth, they mean it. Internet connections and mobile phone reception were patchy and poor quality. I researched methane holes and then fretted if I hadn’t heard from him. Which was most of the time.

  Winter surfing was great, if you could stand the cold. Only the diehards could. The girls usually didn’t hang out at the beach like they did in the summer, and the tourists were almost non-existent, so I didn’t even have loads of people to chat with and try to forget my misery. Stuart was doing well with his breeding, and Grandad was happy. So was I. I mean I was happy that my baby was doing so well, but even that couldn’t lift the funk I’d fallen into since Sam left. I spent hours in the paddock with Stuart, teaching him crazy things like how to jump over pony jumps. Teaching a 900 kilogram stud bull to hurdle? I was in trouble.

  Ricky threw a party and I gladly went to try and forget about Sam. I drank too much, which meant I couldn’t drive home and was going to have to crash on Ricky’s bedroom floor. That pissed me off even more.

  Katrina joined me on the row of plastic chairs Ricky had set out around a drum fire. Most people were huddled near it for warmth, or were inside the house, out of the cold.

  ‘I can drive you home, if you want?’ she offered. ‘Then I can bring you back in the morning to pick up your car.’

  I knew what she was implying - she was looking to sleep over at my house. But sleeping wasn’t the only thing she wanted.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said, turning her down. ‘It’s fine.’

  She studied me for a moment, and I felt like a bug on a stick. ‘He’s turned you gay, hasn’t he?’ she said.

  There wasn’t any question of who “he” was. “He” had been on my mind all night. ‘You already knew I was bi,’ I refuted.

  Katrina shook her head. ‘Bi, yes. But you’re no longer interested in me. You don’t like women anymore. He’s turned you gay.’

  I looked at her in shock. It was true, I was no longer interested in Katrina. Sam had been gone for nearly four weeks and I should’ve been going stir crazy, looking to get laid somehow. Instead I was sitting in the dark staring at a fire. Had I been turned gay? I thought about Katrina - she was beautiful and that top she was wearing was sexy as. And Josh had brought his new girlfriend to the party. That woman was sex on legs. Did I f
ind them attractive still? Yes. Did I want to sleep with them?

  No.

  I stared at Katrina uncomprehendingly. She stared back, and then her jaw dropped.

  ‘Oh, my God! You’re in love with him. It’s not the gay thing at all. It’s the faithful thing.’

  My teeth were stuck together and I couldn’t speak. Love? Holy shit. I’d just got used to the “together” thing, and that it may not be a bad thing, and now Katrina was throwing the words “love” and “faithful” at me? What was next? “Honour” and “cherish”?

  Not that I would ever do anything to dishonour Sam. And I loved���

  Holy smokebombs.

  I was in love. With a man who was on the other side of the globe standing next to something that could kill him. My heart sank and burst with knowledge all at the same time.

  Katrina stared at me for a long moment, and then a smile transformed her face. It was happiness. Genuine happiness. For me. She grabbed me up in a huge hug.

  ‘I’m so glad it finally happened to you, Moe. You deserve to have someone special in your life. Just make sure you tell him. Soon.’

  Finally the text came through from Sam to tell me that he’d arrived in Singapore. He had an overnight stopover, but he would be back in Perth the following day. I immediately told him I’d pick him up from the airport. He refused, telling me that a bus fare home was part of his pay, but I insisted.

  The next morning I was at the airport, pacing the arrivals area, while glancing at the flight board every two minutes. Sam usually took ages to make it through customs, because his bags couldn’t be X-rayed due to the photographic film he often had. It meant his bags had to be searched by officials. But his plane had landed an hour ago.

  I threw myself into the uncomfortable chair the airport provided and scowled irritably. A middle-aged woman sitting two chairs down smiled understandingly. She had a large bag with her and was knitting something in pale blue. I wish I’d thought to bring something with me. Even knitting would be preferable to going mad with impatience.

  ‘Are you waiting for someone special?’ she asked mildly, the rock to my storm.

  I crossed my arms across my chest and jiggled my foot. ‘My boyfriend.’ My voice was growly with pent up energy. I wished Sam would hurry the fuck up. The delay was killing me.

  She nodded. ‘Has he been away for long?’

  My other foot joined the jiggle. ‘Forty-one days.’

  She clucked her tongue and nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s hard.’

  Hard.

  Damn. That wasn’t a word that I wanted to be thinking of in an airport full of strangers. I’d been hard most of the morning. I remembered my words to Sam all those months ago - casual and no hard feelings on either side. I had really broken my rules. There were hard feelings all over the place now.

  The doors swished open and I looked up for the two hundredth and eight-ninth time. However, this time I wasn’t disappointed. There he was, his black hair slightly dishevelled, and his red shirt wrinkled badly, but that was my Sam. He was pushing an airport trolley loaded with bags, struggling to get around the corners with it. My grin split my face and I jumped to my feet, bounding toward him, and going around all the people milling in the arrivals lounge.

  ‘Sam!’

  He looked up at my yell and his answering grin was as wide as mine. I threw myself at him and embraced him in a bear hug. He clutched at my waist and laughed his joy. His arms were home. It was the familiar, the adored, the safety, my heart. I buried my face in the material on his shoulder and I couldn’t contain myself.

  ‘I love you,’ I blurted, my words muffled against his shirt. And I did. For two weeks I’d thought and worried about Katrina’s words. I didn’t want to love someone. Loving someone sounded scary. But it had happened. Without me looking or expecting or even wanting, love had blossomed. I was in love with Sam, and I couldn’t wish it away.

  His arms tightened around me. ‘I love you too.’

  NETTLES AND LILLIES

  Marion Adams

  Alexis Martin slammed on the brakes and dodged yet another roo as it loomed up at her out of the dark, rainy night. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the main highway to Brisbane ahead, but sighed again as she pulled out onto the highway and saw a small hatchback on the road shoulder. A stooped figure was huddled under an umbrella, crouched down in the pouring rain. Alexis swore as she glanced in her rear-view mirror and realised there was fairly good chance one of the trucks roaring up behind her was going to obliterate both the car and its driver in the poor visibility.

  She swore even harder as she pulled over to the side of the road behind the car and realised she did not have her drizabone with her. She considered for one moment pulling out and driving on, then saw the driver of the other car as she turned towards her in the harsh blue street light.

  ‘Christ!’ she exclaimed. The driver was a white-haired woman of about eighty. It seemed to be her lot to help old people. She switched on her hazard lights, knowing she wasn’t going anywhere. She glanced behind, opened her door and ducked out, grabbing the woman’s arm as gently as she could and helping her over to the shoulder side of her car. The ground sloped away suddenly, and she held her so she didn’t slip and fall.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ she said over the noise of the wind and rain. Her jumper was quickly becoming soaked through with the freezing rain.

  She called back in a croaky voice, ‘I think I have a flat tyre. It went all wobbly.’

  ‘Okay.’ Alexis inspected the tyre the woman had been looking at. It was dead flat. ‘Is your spare in the boot?’

  ‘Yes.’ The old lady handed Alexis the keys when she held out her hand. ‘Thank you, dear, for stopping.’

  ‘That’s all right. Listen, you hop back in the car and stay warm, okay?’

  ‘I could hold the umbrella over you,’ the woman said.

  ‘No, it’s fine, you jump in the car out of this rain. Can’t have you catching pneumonia. I’ll jack the car up with you in it, just don’t move about or you’ll bring the whole lot down on me, okay?’

  ‘If you say so.’ The woman looked worried, so Alexis patted her on the shoulder and opened the front passenger door for her. She saw a towel on the passenger seat.

  ‘Here, grab that towel and wrap it around yourself. Now remember, stay there until I come and get you, okay? Don’t you open that door! These trucks probably can’t see a damn thing in this rain!’

  The woman nodded. Alexis closed the door and went to get the spare out of the boot. She found it under four bags of shopping and what looked like a canvas knitting bag. She pushed them aside and tested the spare. Thankfully, it was pumped up. She doubted the old woman could have lifted it out of its well. She pulled it out easily, grabbed her own jack from her car boot and began working on the tyre.

  Trucks barely missed Alexis in the pouring rain, sending sprays of water up and drenching her back as she jacked up the car, removed the wheel, and tried to put the new one on. She grunted when it got stuck, realised she needed to jack the car up further to allow for the full tyre, and finally managed to lift the new wheel into place. Rain dripped down into her eyes as she tightened the wheel nuts, lowered the car down onto the tarmac, then re-tightened the nuts. She put the flat tyre back in the boot and packed up everything neatly, put her own jack back in her car, and then went over to hand the keys back. A pink umbrella opened in her face as she opened the door, and Alexis took it off the woman and held it above them both to talk to her.

  ‘Oh, dear, you’re soaked through, young lady!’

  ‘I’m fine. All done, let’s get you going.’

  ‘Thank you so much!’

  Just then a car swung off the highway and pulled over behind them. A woman jumped out and ran up to the driver’s door. ‘Mum!’

  The old lady turned to look at her. ‘Oh, Patricia, hello! What are you doing out here in this?’

  ‘You were late home, so I came out to check. Are you all right? Has
there been an accident?’

  ‘No, I had a flat! This woman changed it for me.’

  ‘Oh!’ Patricia looked relieved as she turned to Alexis. ‘Thanks. I’m Patricia Sherman. This is my Mum, Lily.’

  ‘Alexis Martin.’

  Patricia nodded gratefully at her, then turned to her mother. ‘Mum, I don’t think you should try to drive home in this. You’d better hop in my car.’

  ‘But what about my car?’

  Alexis asked, ‘You’re not far away?’

  ‘No, just a few blocks west,’ said Patricia, pointing into the pitch darkness and swirling rain.

  Alexis suggested, ‘How about I follow you home and then bring you back for your Mum’s car?’

  Patricia said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to put you out.’

  Alexis said, ‘This car’s just going to get totalled if you leave it here all night. And it’ll take five minutes, it’s no trouble.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure?’ asked Patricia.

  ‘Sure. Come on, let’s get this done before we all dissolve,’ said Alexis.

  Patricia ran to lock up her own car, then hopped in the driver’s side of Lily’s car. Alexis went back to her own car, then followed them up the road. The visibility was awful, the rain still pounding, but obviously Patricia knew her way well. Alexis and Patricia helped Lily into the house, then headed back to get Patricia’s car.

  As Alexis pulled up, Patricia turned and looked at her. ‘Thanks for your help tonight.’

  ‘Couldn’t drive past her when she was in trouble like that.’

  ‘But, dozens of people did. You stopped.’

  Alexis didn’t know what to say to that.

  ‘So thanks,’ said Patricia, then opened the door and disappeared into the pouring rain. Alexis left her headlights on until she saw the other car start up and move, then pulled away for the drive home.