Fishing for Stars

by Bryce Courtenay

  While I might only have been a man, I was their man, and one rule was inviolate. Marg had suggested it, and Anna had agreed at once: if ever it was discovered that a third woman had entered my life, no matter how fleetingly, both of them would leave me immediately. I was involved in a female duopoly I didn’t dare abuse. Had I ever done so, I hasten to add, it would have been a case of greed and not need. Marg and Anna between them were enough in every sense to satisfy any imaginable desire, carnal or otherwise, I might have, except occasionally for an hour or two of peace and quiet, when one of them had a particularly loudly buzzing bee in her bonnet about the other. Two women in any man’s personal life is a double armload of problems; I cannot imagine the extra burdens a third might bring.

  When Marg had come to Beautiful Bay that first time after the agreement to share what was laughingly known as my body – I have to be frank, and crude – I was shitting myself. Thirty years is a long time between drinks, so to speak. Marg had taken my virginity at the age of eighteen after I had promised it to Anna, then sixteen. Anna and I had solemnly and tearfully agreed as we parted company on the wharf in Batavia in 1942 that no matter how long it might take to consummate our love we would wait for each other, until the war ended or, if necessary, until the end of time. I recall feeling only momentarily guilty as Marg’s tongue entered my eager mouth for the first time and it became obvious that she was about to steal something I suddenly regarded as having no value to me whatsoever and, in turn, she was about to reward me with an experience of tremendous worth.

  In fact, I had simply capitulated at the first deep kiss from another woman and broken my solemn promise to beautiful Anna with alacrity and not a twinge of conscience. In such moments the one-eyed snake rules supreme and I would be a hypocrite to pretend that I regretted my unfaithfulness for a moment. If ever a young lad was blessed with a loving, generous and exquisite plundering of his manhood, then it was Nick Duncan at the hands of Marg Hamilton.

  I confess that in the glorious process Marg did take all the initiative, doing and directing while I happily performed whatever muscle work I was instructed to perform. Left to me it would have been all mumble, fumble and grope and I would have had no idea how to go about seducing her.

  In the few weeks that followed I was her eager pupil and if I managed to gratify her, the plot, the plan and the peak of perfection reached was all under her control. By the time I went to Melbourne to join the navy, Marg had taken me from ingenue to someone with a small degree of competence in bed.

  More importantly she had inculcated in me the notion that loving sex is not complete until both partners are equally gratified. I was also helped to understand that gratification usually took a lot longer for a woman than it did for a man and should be regarded as a serious undertaking as well as a joyous task.

  I have been fortunate with the women in my life, but I honestly felt that none of my experiences had compared with the sheer exuberant joy of sexual intercourse with Naval Intelligence Officer Marg Hamilton. Perhaps I should change that to loving sexual intercourse because there is a difference, no matter how skilled the partners. Or so, thanks to my early instruction from a good woman, it has always seemed to me.

  And now, on a bright moonlit night at Beautiful Bay, thirty years after that glorious first experience, I found myself at the age of forty-eight about to face my old lover again and, despite all my subsequent experience, I was absolutely terrified.

  The love, the lust and the longing seemed suddenly to be overtaken by a fear that after three years of relative celibacy I would fail to have an erection or, worse still, that I might suffer from premature ejaculation. On the surface, this seemed patently ridiculous. I continued to respond to Anna’s generous mouth and clever hands as eagerly as ever, but then I told myself that bringing Anna the gratification she sought was an entirely different skill from what I believed Marg would require. Heavy petting followed by a spanking wasn’t quite how I saw myself bringing Marg to the point of ultimate satisfaction. I became convinced I’d be rusty and clumsy, over-anxious and in need of specific instruction – a terrible disappointment in bed. Or, to put it into male parlance, a dud bash.

  After all my talking and cajoling Marg would expect me to be a regular gigolo or, at the very least, after all my experience with my so-called scattered surrogates, a highly competent lover. It takes a woman to tell a man if he’s any good in bed and while my surrogates had always been generous in their praise, perhaps they had been bolstering my ego. Maybe Nick Duncan wasn’t the lover they’d always made him out to be.

  Throughout all this, it never occurred to me that Marg might also be experiencing her own sexual angst. She’d hinted, that first time at Beautiful Bay when I’d rejected her generous proposition, that except for the first half-dozen years with Rob Rich, the boudoir hadn’t played an important part in their relationship. Though there would have been nothing to stop her having an affair after he’d died, she told me she’d been virtually celibate. Later I would recall something she’d said that was very poignant, particularly if, like Marg, you’d always been a head-turner, accustomed to being noticed whenever you entered a room. ‘Darling, you can take all the care in the world with your figure and your grooming, but a woman over fifty goes from being noticed and admired to being practically nonexistent, from turning heads to turning invisible.’ I hadn’t taken into consideration her own anxiety that, at fifty-six, Marg might also have been feeling anxious. I guess men are entirely self-obsessed in their anxieties and so I imagined Marg, horny as hell, raring to go, wanting me as explicitly and lovingly and demandingly as when we’d both been young but with me unable to perform, slack as a salamander, failing her, falling down on the job. As one gets older the one-eyed snake’s power is often undermined by the brain; perhaps this is nature’s revenge for the many times the cautioning brain has been overruled and disregarded in the past.

  Marg had asked to be excused from dinner and Gloria the cook had taken a tray – scrambled eggs and toast and a pot of tea – in to her. I ate very little and was scolded by cook, then she’d giggled. ‘Masta emi needim plenty kai-kai long dis time. No good yufella weak tumas tonight.’ I have no idea how women know these things; after all, Marg was a frequent visitor and the servants would have known there had been no hanky-panky between us. When I thought about it, Gloria had as good as given me her approval, unusual because she was a Seventh Day Adventist and regular churchgoer who sang in the choir and was strict on moral rectitude. How could she possibly have known that Anna and I practised unorthodox sex? But she must have done, because normally when she disapproved of me, I might have expected burnt chops, lumpy mash and a generous serving of stony silence.

  After dinner on the big frightening night, I repaired to the verandah as usual, though this time somewhat nervously, where cook had placed cheese and biscuits, a fresh sliced lime and ice before retiring for the night to the servants’ compound. I mixed Marg her usual gin and tonic and poured myself a brandy and sat down to wait. As I said earlier, the tropical moon was the full James Michener and you could clearly see Madam Butterfly rocking in her mooring at the bottom of the garden. We’d been sailing that afternoon and had come back at sunset, when Marg had declined afternoon tea or a drink or dinner. Seeming tired and happy she had retired to her room for a nap.

  When she appeared with a soft swish of silk she was wearing a simple low-cut dress in the azure blue that both Anna and Marg mysteriously chose as their favourite colour. Marg always changed and brushed up prettily for the evenings, but like everyone else at Beautiful Bay, she normally went barefoot in the best tradition of the islands. Marg had once laughingly remarked that days before leaving Tasmania for Beautiful Bay, she’d leave a note on the fridge – PAINT YOUR TOENAILS! Now she swept onto the verandah with her bobbed chestnut hair catching the light, the silver streaks untouched and very attractive, her make-up perfect so that her eyes, heightened by the careful use of eye shadow, appeared brilliant. Her tall figure, lightly tanned and
slightly muscled from bushwalking, gave her the appearance of a much younger woman, and if her breasts were somehow cunningly up-holstered to appear firm and true, nothing showed through the thin silk except the suggestion of her nipples and they looked perfectly wonderful. But it was her long, tanned, shapely legs and her feet encased in a pair of light grey court shoes with stiletto heels worthy of a stilt dancer that set my heart pounding and sent a flush of tumescent heat to my thighs. So much for post-fifties women being invisible. Had I been required to get to my feet thirty seconds after her entry it would have proved highly embarrassing.

  ‘Marg, you look wonderful!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘A girl does the best she can,’ she laughed, sitting down in a swirl of silk, her magnificent pins brought together and to one side so that the elegant shoes touched.

  ‘No, no, I . . . I . . . er, mean it, the shoes . . . legs . . . ah . . .’ I involuntarily glanced at her breasts, ‘. . . everything,’ I stammered stupidly, handing her the gin and tonic.

  Marg smiled at me fondly. ‘Thank you.’ Then she said, ‘Nick, do you remember the first time?’

  ‘As if yesterday, encoded into my every synapse.’

  ‘You were so impossibly young and beautiful, a boy so innocent, tall, bronzed, skinny as a rake, entirely delectable and furthermore completely unspoilt, oblivious of the hero you were. You’d seen the horror of a brutal massacre on a lonely beach and sailed virtually single-handed across the Pacific, and even though you’d showered, I recall your skin tasted of salt and of the sea. I simply couldn’t wait to have you all to myself.’

  I glanced down at my clearly defined paunch. Fortunately my arms were suntanned from sailing, which concealed the first signs that the once ropey forearm muscles and biceps were not worked as hard loading cargo as they had once been. I possessed only a shaving mirror in my bathroom, so looking down when I came out of the shower was no way of assessing my physical condition and, besides, it did nothing for my old fella. But skinny I definitely was not, nor innocent, nor a hero. I took a gulp of brandy, conscious of the warmth suffusing my body. Brandy was a stimulant, wasn’t it? I knew I wasn’t going to suffer from brewer’s droop. Fortunately trousers are equipped with zips, otherwise my fly buttons would have been pinging off the ceiling. Anna would sometimes joke in bed, ‘Nicholas, is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?’ But I am ashamed to admit that, just like the first time I lay with Marg, Anna never entered my mind.

  I grinned. ‘I still lie in bed some mornings and think of those glorious three weeks with you in Fremantle. It was as if I hadn’t reached land in Madam Butterfly, but had drowned in the last big storm and gone straight to heaven,’ I said, trying to sound vaguely in possession of my wits. C’mon, Duncan, it’s only sex! But it wasn’t.

  Marg laughed, then rose and kissed me on the lips. ‘Nick, come, darling, it’s been too long. One admiral, two children, twenty-nine years and fifty-one weeks.’ She reached out and took my hand.

  We entered her bedroom, a large room like all the bedrooms at Beautiful Bay, except for my own – I preferred a very small room, not much bigger than a monk’s cell. It had nothing to do with self-denial, but I’d spent so much of my life sailing or on freighters that I’d become accustomed to sleeping in a small space and liked a bedroom that wasn’t much bigger than a ship’s cabin.

  Marg had left the curtains open so that the moonlight streaming in made it unnecessary to switch on the light. To my surprise she simply pulled her dress over her head and in the soft light stood naked before me, neither bra nor panties in evidence, the divine V of her pubic area clipped close but not shaved as it had been when we’d first made love.

  Still in her stilettos (corny perhaps, but just about every man’s fantasy) she was simply beautiful as she moved up to me and kissed me lightly on the lips, adding just the tip of her tongue, a suggestion of things to come. Then she slid down, her hands on either side of my body until she was on her knees, where she unzipped then unbuckled and in a single movement pulled every encumbrance but one down to my ankles. As I was barefoot it was a simple matter to step clear and then to pull the cotton shirt over my head. It seemed to take only moments before I stood naked and rampant, looking down at her lovely neck, strong shoulders and back, the sharp tuck of her waist and the elegant curve of her thighs. She was even lovelier than I’d imagined. Marg reached out and took me in her fist, giggling as she did so. ‘Nick, I’ve waited a long time to have the man I’ve always loved finally back within my grasp.’

  ‘Keep doing that and your grasp will come to a sticky end,’ I laughed.

  Marg chuckled with delight, any tension between us gone; we were back where we’d been so very long ago and her mouth slipped over me and the loving began. Sex with Marg was delightful fun, playful and arousing, but soon she pulled away and announced, ‘Nick Duncan, I want everything and I want it now!’ I drew her to her feet, picked her up and placed her on the bed where she raised her shoes towards the ceiling. ‘Last look,’ she said, kicking them off, then, spreading her gorgeous legs wide she murmured, ‘All’s fair in love and war. One mouth deserves another.’

  That was the wonderful thing about making love to Marg – it was exuberant, vigorous, soft and hard, joyous, open, demanding and funny, and we talked between the groans and moans and laughed a lot. When I finally entered her she was surprisingly and gorgeously tight. ‘Marg, this is a nice surprise! You’ve had two kids . . .’

  ‘Exercises,’ she gasped. ‘Oh God, that’s so good!’

  ‘Exercise? What, bushwalking?’ I said, laughing.

  ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘Exercises with an “s”. Harder, Nick, oh yes, yes, that’s lovely.’

  ‘What, pussy exercises?’ I laughed again. Marg was obviously enjoying herself, thrusting and gripping me tightly, using her pelvic muscles skilfully. Thankfully I felt I still had a fair safety margin before I exploded. The great advantage of the subtle non-penetrative loving I’d been receiving for so long was that control for long periods was what heightened the ultimate experience and I had been expertly tutored.

  ‘Oh, a dildo!’ she gasped. ‘Oh! Oh! I’m going to come. Now! Now! Hard! Nick, Nick! Bastard! Hard!’ she screamed.

  ‘Dildo, eh!’ I roared. ‘Here, take this then, bitch!’ I shouted in mock arrogance, then joyfully got my back stuck into pleasing her.

  After this we made love several times, easily and happily exploring, getting to know each other, her wonderful breasts, the sudden delicious curve of her hips, her thrust and grip, the tenderness of her mouth and lips, the soft folds of her labia, her arms and legs folded about my body, the laughter and joy of the way of a man with a maid, of a girl and a boy (good love always seems young). Making love with Marg was, as it had previously been, a sharing between two people with a single purpose, each to please the other, but at the same time with the self-serving reward of maximum personal pleasure. This time, though, I’m happy to say, I needed a great deal less specific instruction.

  Afterwards as we lay back in each other’s arms, a soft kiss of air from the ceiling fan cooling our naked bodies, moonlight streaming through the French windows, a whiff of frangipani blossom carried on the hot tropical night, I couldn’t resist the question contained in the word. ‘Dildo?’ I said.

  Marg disentangled herself and, leaning on her elbow, kissed me on the nose. ‘A girl has to do what a girl has to do.’ I was silent, not quite knowing how to react to so open and honest a response. ‘Why? You don’t approve?’ she asked.

  ‘No, no,’ I hastily assured her. ‘I most certainly do! The results of the exercises with an “s” are truly remarkable and I’m a very grateful recipient.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t all pleasuring,’ Marg said.

  ‘There is a downside to a dildo?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t the standard joke that using one a woman meets a better class of lover?’

  Marg smiled, the joke obviously not new, and then replied equally flippantly, ‘Nick, the only downside to a dildo is
that it doesn’t put out the garbage.’

  The old forthright Marg Hamilton was, I decided, much better than Mrs Rich, the admiral’s wife. ‘I can’t say that does a whole lot for my ego,’ I laughed.

  ‘It’s all about the transition from sausage-roll queen back to Marg Hamilton. Rob and I had an indifferent sex life after the kids came, you know, the obligatory birthday and Christmas bonk, the full ho-hum. He had his career, I had his career, and also the kids, school, sport, a man who needed constant reassurance and direction. Bed was a debate, not a delight. In short, ours was what so many marriages seem inevitably to become.’

  ‘Marg, whenever we met, you always seemed so upbeat, a successful woman and wife, with lovely children, well in control of your destiny, the future . . . it was almost scary.’

  ‘Now that I think back on it, it was scary, though in part I was to blame.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said, surprised. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

  ‘Nick, child-bearing makes a mess of the parts that count with a man. We go from tight to sloppy, breasts sag after breastfeeding, tummies don’t tuck back quite as tightly and we tell ourselves – that is, if we think about it at all – well, that’s life, having kids, the physiology of marriage, the body beautiful sacrificed for a higher cause. I did, and so Rob, who wasn’t the rampant stallion type to begin with, gradually lost interest in me.’

  ‘And so you found another way?’ If this wasn’t exactly a romantic post-coital conversation, it was pleasant to be reacquainted with the original ‘tell it how it is’ Marg.

  ‘Of course not!’ Marg protested. ‘I simply felt unwanted, unloved, taken for granted, resentful, the admiral’s factotum, the whole sad-sack story.’ She paused. ‘But then Rob had the accident and the kids were flying the coop and I was suddenly on my own, in a sense my own responsibility.’