Chewing the Fat

Gregory Black, ditched by the second female in 27-days, arrived at the bus stop to catch the 7:50 into the city. For the third day running a female in the same soft fleece hat and thick military-style coat and scarf was already in the skinny shelter.

Noting that this time they were alone, he said cheerfully, "Morning."

She eyed him and looked away without replying.

"Are you aware it's spring and yet you are dressed for winter?"

That was ignored.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware you had a limited wardrobe."

That goaded her into a response.

"Did your mother bring you up to be this rude and disrespectful?"

He doubled-blinked exaggeratingly and said, "Wow, it talks."

She stared at him disapprovingly and said, "You are so rude. Do you habitually start your mornings in this mood?"

"Yeah well I've been dumped twice inside a month by women I've tried to bond with. Perhaps they thought I was grumpy and uncouth and have a smart mouth."

"Yes that's probably the case and perhaps you confuse a word like bonding with seducing."

Gregory gave her a full minute to bask in her self-anointed superiority and then said, "Do you enjoy verbally putting down males and giving the impression you are frigid?"

That knocked her confidence.

She said back-pedalling, "I am sorry if I offended you and my excuse is you've persistently provoked me."

"Okay I accept your apology. Are you available to have sex with me and perhaps a meal to follow if you have performed impressively?"

Her mouth opened and closed as if she was practising to blow bubbles.

Gregory pulled out his phone and asked her for her number and she automatically recited it and then said, "No please delete that number; I had no intention of giving it to you."

He ignored that and said, "Here's the bus. I'll wait for the next one since I appear to rile you."

"No that's unnecessary. Just board after me and sit well behind me."

"No that's being treated like scum."

The bus stopped and she said, "Well board and sit next to me if we find an empty double seat."

There were no empty doubles and she sat beside an older woman. Gregory smiled at the older woman and said, "Ma'am I would be grateful if you could find another seat to allow me to sit by my pregnant wife."

"Oh yes certainly," the fat woman smiled and went further back to a vacant seat.

"My god, you are something," giggled his accidental companion.

He kissed her cheek and said hi, he was Gregory Black.

"What the newspaper columnist?"

"Yes unfortunately. I wanted to be an editor but there were no vacancies and the managing editor thought I was over-qualified to be a reporter and offered me the weekday Chewing the Fat column. I found out later he'd been unsuccessful in getting that writing vacancy filled because reporters said they were unable to supply a daily column starting off with nothing and here was I thinking I was being offered a plum job as a wordsmith."

"Oh god, you intend to fill tomorrow's column by chatting with me?"

"Yes."

"Oh god."

"Do you chat with Him often?"

"Who?"

"Never mind. What is your favourite position for sex?"

"Never you mind about that thank you. My name is Linda Ross and I still live at home and my father is Chief Superintendent Arthur Ross, who heads our city's police force."

"Why did you say with a weary tone that you still live at home?"

"Because no guy has asked me to live with him and my dad won't allow me to flat with other girls because they might deprave me by leading me into a life of sex, gambling and late night boozing."

"Gee most young females would jump to be in an environment with those incentives."

"Yes but in my case my father suffering from anxiety would order his drug or vice squad to raid the place and arrest everyone but me and that wouldn't be fair on my flatmates."

"I agree and taking such a stand as you have is being b ethical."

Linda brushed her great-looking chest with a hand and said, "Obviously you understand what is meant by ethical behaviour."

"Yes and I said that to impress you about my understanding."

"Oh."

"Sorry I must get out at the next stop. Give me a kiss."

Linda kissed him automatically and sighed, "Oh god what is this dopey woman doing? If you must know, I'm often off to a slow start in mornings."

"Yes and that's why you dress like you are, because you automatically put on the outer garments you wore the day before. I know a very sweet way I could get all of your muscles, your brain and your emotions firing after you wake in the morning."

Linda blushed and looked out the window.

They sat in silence for the next two minutes and then he stirred, placing a hand high on her nearest thigh. She looked at the offending hand but said nothing.

"I get out here," he said. "I like walking the last mile to the office. I'll call you this evening about lunch tomorrow."

"Ah but you don't have my phone number," she said smugly and as he left the seat she groaned, "Oh god, he made me give my number to him earlier."

Next morning Linda went down to breakfast and found the morning newspaper folded open on page three and on the right-hand edge of that page was the Chewing the Fat column. She smiled knowing it wouldn't be about her because she'd given him not a single thing to chew over. She began reading, expecting Mr Black would have found some other poor sod to write about.

She chose to sit on a bus with me posing as my pregnant wife. Lindal as we'll call her, began chatting to me comfortably as everyone tends does to do to the person sitting beside them when riding to work on a bus, beginning by asking what position do I prefer when having sex.

Linda opened her mouth to shout "That's an outright lie" but remained silent when noticing her parents were watching her intently. She had mentioned her unusual encounter with an uncouth guy on the bus the previous morning.

We chewed the fat with Lindal asking why I hadn't answered her opening question. I ignoring her attempt to deny me of my right to stay silent and she sat quietly, a hand lightly on my thigh, until I asked what racket was her old dad in. She looked disapprovingly at the hand on her thigh and said daddy had an all-day interest in crime, well a 24/7 interest in fact, but she wasn't allowed to talk about his racket because security was tight to avoid giving tip-offs to the news media and rival gangs.

I wondered if her mom was into prostitution, perhaps she ran the brothel near where I live, but Lindlal was busy adjusting her stay-up stockings, modestly I might add. Gee her fingering was sensitive.

I found out her mum was an area manager for delivery of hot food to older gang members, the food probably being a great way to deliver dope and condoms and perhaps even stolen gambling chips right under the noses of watchful cops prowling looking for the chance to launch a drug bust or to arrest ladies on the suspicion of prostitution just to enjoy the women ranting and raving about their innocence and claiming they were no more prostitutes that Lindal's mom was a brothel-keeper.

Lindal had explained that her mom supervised crews engaged in the distribution of food to people just out of hospital from treatment who lived alone. Gee what a great cover for her workers allegedly delivering dope and condoms oh and stolen gambling chips.

Linda's phone on the table rang. Her mother picked it up and announced "Linda's phone" and listened momentarily and then handed it to her daughter and said, "The caller identified himself as Greg Black.

Linda dropped the phone and said cussed and picked it up, looking at the disgusted look on her mother's face and at her father's grin and apologized for using bad language.

"Yes?"

"I just heard you use the f-word emphatically. Is that what you want from me?"

"It is too early in the day for pathetic humour. Why are you calling me?"

"Because I'm driving to the airport this morning to interview a woman whose company makes jockstraps for sportsmen. I need to make a time and place for the lunch date you urged me to have with you."

"Mr Black, I'm not having lunch with you today or no other day, ever."

Her father cut in: "Perhaps I would have less of an issue with you for talking yesterday to Mr Black so frivolously and damaging to the reputation of your parents if that stumbling new relationship between you two became strong enough for you to accept his invitation to lunch today."

"Um Greg I've changed my mind. I will have an intimate lunch with you today."

He said he'd made the booking yesterday and gave her details and cut the call.

Linda's parents looked as if they were about to deal with a problem child.

"Say nothing," she urged. "There's simply no way I can explain how he twisted things I said and he placed his hand on my thigh and not the other way around."

"I understand," said her father with professional experience. "Everyone knows how journalists twist things to produce a better story."

"Thanks dad."

"Did you have sex with him when you'd only just met him?"

"Thanks mum for your confidence in me. No I did not. We met for the first time yesterday morning at the bus stop and did most of our talking on the bus."

"Omigod you had sex with him on a crowded bus."

Linda sighed and said she was going back to bed but her father looked at the kitchen clock and said her bus was due in ten minutes.

"Oh god," Linda screamed and heard her mother yell to wear something soft and sexy.

* * *

Greg, as she apparently was now expected to call him, was sitting at the table and remained sitting when she said hi Greg and automatically kissed him and sat opposite him. His knees quickly found hers, or had hers found his knees? She was confused.

"Do you have condoms?"

She smiled indulgently and said, "I tossed two into my handbag but mummy said I should pack a 10-pack because you are so debonair and have such an awesome reputation as a seducer."

He looked startled but only for a tenth of a second and then smiled and said she was becoming used to him already.

During lunch he invited her to go away with him that weekend.

"I'll think about that Greg but first show me what you've got."

Her head was spinning in fear that taking him on would come unstuck and he'd humiliate her in a crowded restaurant.

"What now and here?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "You've acted like a big dick to me so my reasonable expectation is you'll have a big dick but I need confirmation."

He turned pale.

Linda, who'd not seen any guy's dick for quite some time, waited for him to deliver, squeezing her thighs together and feeling her nipples tighten.

Greg stood, looking excited, kissed her and said he must rush, he had a column to write and he said he'd pay on the way out.

"Kiss me again, properly," she demanded and Greg visibly jumped when kissing her soundly and she grabbed a firm feel of his flaccid dick tucked away beneath his pants.

* * *

What happened next morning was like the replay of a movie.

Linda went down to breakfast and found the morning newspaper folded open on page three and on the right-hand edge of that page was the Chewing the Fat column. She smiled knowing it wouldn't be about her because Greg with the flaccid dick had gone to the airport yesterday to interview the jockstrap woman.

She arrived at the restaurant to arrange our weekend assignation, dressed softly and sexily, her mouth pouting beautifully and before I could even offer her a cocktail to lubricate her motor, she threw a 10-pack of condoms on to the table.

"You probably don't even know what these are, you mummy-boy fairy."

She rubbed a hand over me and asked, "Where is it?"

Confused I asked where what was and she slammed into me hungrily with a gentle kiss that women around us in the crowded restaurant observed whimsically knowing at least one guy in the city was being prepared to dish out what every woman deserved.

I asked my lunch companion what was her name and in the noise of women talking with their mouths full I thought she said 'Mata Hari'.

"Take me," she sighed exotically.

Confused I asked where to?

Linda had had enough and her fingers worked in a throttling motion. She couldn't bear to read another word of his playful way with her and sharing it with the world.

"Daddy please, take a squad an arrest him in his office for writing lies about your daughter."

"Are those lies?"

"Absolutely. I don't know anyone called Mata Hari or where she works."

"And was it you he was writing about?"

"Absolutely."

"Right those are grounds for taking him in for questioning about obscene writing and character assassination. Are you sure you've never discussed a possible sex assignation with him or touched his dick?"

Confused, Linda said, "Who me?"

Mid-morning in her job as PA to the city's most feared and most successful criminal defence lawyer in the city Arnold Cudmore, Linda had second thoughts about having her father walk in on Greg accompanied by a couple of cops and invite Greg to accompany them to Police HQ. She phoned Ted the principal call-out manager and asked him to call off the raid that she'd initiated on the City Mail.

"Gee Linda, we thought that degrading column the day before yesterday may have been about you and your parents was brilliant tongue-in-cheek stuff. This morning that writer was at it again in the condom story and if that was you he was writing about. We knew that was a pack of lies because you'd never offer to supply condoms to a guy because everyone knows you don't fuck."

Linda boggled. Oh god, that was the extent of her reputation, that Linda Ross didn't have sex?

Inspector Ted Bruce said, "Just a minute I'll call your father."

He returned smiling.

"It's all over. Your father and his team of twelve from the Crime Squad are returning from the City Mail with that nasty columnist for questioning and with the managing-editor restrained and coming in to be charged with disturbing the peace by attempting to reconfigure your father's head with a computer screen but fortunately your father ducked the throw."

"Oh god, I feel sick."

The sergeant said she couldn't be pregnant because she didn't have sex. He asked should he call an ambulance.

"No thanks Ted. I'm coming over to try to sort out this mess."

She succeeded in defusing the situation, firstly by withdrawing her complaint and confirming that everything Greg had written about her was almost true and certainly she accepted it was tongue in cheek stuff and written without malice.

Her father suggested Greg should cut the crap when writing and instead produce 'pertinent observations'

"And now you Harold," the chief superintendent said, asking a constable to remove the handcuffs.

The editor said, "Arthur, I admit becoming hot-headed and became defensive because I thought you guys were raiding us to get back those adult DVDs you guys loaned us some months ago and we forgot to return them."

"Nah we don't want them back Harold. We have several thousand of them confiscated during raids on houses of ill-repute and the dens of crims. Take away another box full when you leave."

"Aren't I being charged with attempted assault of a police officer?"

"Nah, you apologized."

"When?"

"When you admitted to becoming hot-headed."

"Oh."

"Off you go and now you young man."

"Chief Super, I admit..."

"He admits to nothing daddy. Everything he's written about me and my family is based on what I said or did to him. He could admit to writing tongue-in-cheek but according to my boss it has long been accepted by the courts that columnists and broadcasting commentators are free to use tongue-in-cheek-style communication providing it's not blasphemous or is offensive to the average man on the street."

"Yes that's what is said, but define average citizen on the street."

"Mr Cudmore says anyone with a spare $100,000 and willing to wait a year for a panel of three judges to return their learned decision on the legal definition of what constitutes the average citizen on the street might get that term defined to the satisfaction of the courts. But then that could lead to further debate about which street the average man would be standing on and when that's confirmed as meaning any average street. Then, in all probability, the courts would refer the poser about what is average to Parliament to debate."

The chief superintendent sighed and said, "Harold thanks for your friendly involvement here and please take your riding-close-to-the-wind columnist with you."

"Thanks Arthur, I'll see you on the tee at 9:00 on Saturday as usual. This week our match for the senior championship is against Cuddy Cudmore and Judge Johnny Johnston."

"Yes of course, and let's cream them."

Next morning there was anger in the city then the City Mail appeared with nothing in the Chewing the Fat column apart from a brief message in tiny type announcing 'This column has been suspended indefinitely'.

Talkback Radio was crammed with hotheads braying for the managing-editor's blood and during the midday lunch break a crowd estimated at 5000-6000 gathered in a side street outside the fortress like Newspaper House.

Steel shutters not used since the miners' strikes of the 1930s and WWW2 were in place and armed security guards were at the still opened main doors but no one was entering or leaving the building. High above that scene were men at the ready on the roof with high pressure hoses looking down at the crowd eager and waiting for the order to douse the ardour of troublemakers.

Managing editor Harry Piper appeared on the balcony on the second floor where election results used to be announced in the old days when newspapers were king.

Harry called, "I'm prepared to invite in a deputation of no more than three people to come in and talk to me. Let's try to resolve this issue amicably."

The centre of the crowd parted and the General Security of the Allied Smaller Unions Alf Duff pushed forward a woman in a soft white sexy dress and he called, "We nominate Miss Linda Ross as our spokesperson. Linda says she's Gregory Black's fiancée. I want her to speak from here."

"Very well, let it rip Linda."

Using Alf's loud hailer, Linda said, "Harry you're not a bad guy; I know that because my father wouldn't have anything to do with you if you were."

"I make no threats."

"I'll not even mention tarring and feathering."

The crowd cheered.

"We citizens love and admire our newspaper Harry so please don't goof over this."

"Harry just make sure Gregory Black's Chewing the Fat column resumes tomorrow without censorship. We citizens like it the way it is and we trust it because we believe nothing in it is probably true although everything is based on fact, if you get what I mean."

"It's over to you Harry. We make no threat and never will. Oh someone suggested if the column fails to be reinstated in tomorrow's City Mail we'll meet again at midday and storm the building. But that's idle talk by dickheads. You just do what you think is right Harry and what's right for our beloved City Mail."

"Come on everyone, back to work or continue your on with unemployment if that's your thing. Thanks everyone for backing the freedom to read the Chewing the Fat column and supporting my man."

"Three cheers for Linda Ross," shouted the minor unions' boss.

The cheering was heard beyond the city up to 4.25 miles away.

"Thank you and now three cheers for editor Harry Piper."

A few in the crowd cheered.

Linda said severely, "Come on everyone, three cheers for editor Harry Piper or I won't lead the storming of this building at midday tomorrow.

The cheering was almost deafening and caused birds to drop from the sky.