Dad's Girlfriend & Her Friend

"Thanks for the warning. I realize that everything will become automatic over time but as a new-start descender that I need to maintain sharp focus on what I'm doing."

"Great, with that attitude, this short descent ought to be a piece of cake for you."

Ella nodded in affirmation and prepared to purse her lips should he decide to kiss her and wish her a safe and satisfying descent. He probably wouldn't use the term 'quick drop'.

Keegan clipped a short rope attached to the side wall to the back of his harness and then clipped a thin rope to that back of Ella's harness and held on to it, saying it was a safety measure so that, if necessary, he could control her rate of descent while she was under tuition.

"You mean if I fuck up and begin to drop too quickly."

"Aye."

"Great, and thanks."

"Thanks, now step out into the gap and control your rate of descent."

She panicked.

"What, just step out?"

"Yes."

"I was expecting we would step out in tandem, with me being in the arms of an experienced abseiler."

"Okay. I thought you were so confident that we could skip that step for beginners."

"But we can do that a couple of times and then you could go solo."

"I'm off," she said, and stepped out into the gap, heart pounding. Nothing happened. By design she was stationary, swaying slightly in suspension. She released suspension slightly and began moving downwards slightly and eased the friction controller more and moved down faster.

"Great," Keegan called. "Look down constantly and increase friction as you near the ground and then full friction as your feet are about to hit the ground as we practised earlier, keeping your knees relaxed to bend to help absorb any impact."

The descent went well, and Ella unclipped in delight and headed for the ladder to the loft, and did four more descents.

What followed was an anti-climax.

That began when Keegan came down from the loft after Ella's fourth practice descent and she took his arm and smiled, "Has your student earned a congratulatory kiss?"

"Err, no. You are my father's girlfriend. However, when you are ready to return to the city, I'll give you a friendly kiss if you find that acceptable."

She snapped, that request was not a precursor for having sex.

"Glad to hear that."

"Bastard," she muttered too softly for him to hear as he was unbuckling his harness.

After morning tea at the cottage, they donned their harnesses, helmets and gloves again and crossed two paddocks to where a steel column was concreted in near the edge of clifftop to support a welded and braced steel arm with a cross section to support on which to attached abseiling ropes.

Keegan explained the former owner of the farm had been a keen mountain climber/abseiler and built the facility to get down to the beach quickly as the cliffs ran from that point for 460 meters back towards the city and for 1.7 km in the other direction where there was a camping ground and public access including a boat ramp to the sea. Much of the foreshore at the base of the cliffs was rocky.

He attached the ropes they had carried to the site over their shoulder, and after attaching Ella's harness to a double rope, she looked over to the beach 52 metres below and retreated hurriedly after seeing an outcrop about a third of the distance down and a steel frame drilled into the outcrop, obviously needed to keep the ropes pushed out beyond that obstruction.

"I'm not going down there," she said.

"Why not?" Keegan said. "Although it's a drop of about seven times longer than the drop in the hayshed, the principals to use in abseiling are the same apart from requiring some footwork to swing out a couple of times beyond that patch of slower weathering outcrop."

"The height scares me."

"Fair enough, then I support you; don't do it unless you would like to go down in tandem."

"That might make me become aroused."

Keegan began pulling the ropes up and said, hurriedly, "I'm calling this training session off. You've done well."

As they returned to the hayshed, Ella asked, "Why did you withdraw the offer of a tandem descent so abruptly?"

"The last thing that I wanted, would be to arouse you."

During lunch, Ella raised that subject again.

"Keegan, I often experience the sensation of arousal. It doesn't mean that I'll look to have sex with the nearest male."

"Okay, and thanks for that."

"Anyway, I am your father's girlfriend, not your stepmother."

"I know, but mere girlfriend status in my book still means no touching by me."

Ella said may they continue on and talk about girlfriends.

"Of course."

"What type of unattached young woman would appeal to you best?"

Keegan said almost a replica of Ella.

"By that I mean she had your slim but obviously womanly-shaped body, shortish hair like you, preferably not blonde or red hair, she dresses well even in basic casuals, is immediately affable when meeting someone new like you were when meeting me, intelligent, independent, talented, warm, great as a conversationalist and appears to have a decided interest in sex."

"Almost a replica? Keegan, you have described me."

"Yes, but before you swoon, it was the preferred type of woman for me that I had in my mind long before meeting you."

Ella said tersely, "Therefore, if I left your father..."

"Don't even think about it, as my attitude would remain the same: No way. As far as I'm aware, you are the best thing that's happened to my father since he and my mother split almost six years ago, though still remaining married."

Ella said, "His behaviour initiated the estrangement and he says that any divorce proceeding would have to be initiated by your mother."

"Yeah, and that figures, Ella, and actually it's news to me. Both were becoming crusty lawyers when it happened. People around us commonly commented that my parents were too close to being the same to be a perfect matrimonial match."

"Note that comment; it would fit perfectly into one of your upcoming novels."

He grinned and smiled.

"It's only fair, Ella, that I ask what type of male might particularly suit you?"

"You may not like this reply, but I'm not overly fussy and I may never marry. I work long hours as a senior supervising nurse in hospital orthopaedic operating theatres."

"Following your parents' decision to sell off A. and J. Cameron Law after they separated, you father finally found the niche that suits him as a head of a department in the university's Law School. James keeps busy running a side practice with most of his clients being the partners and children of university professors and senior lecturers. Lawyers at the School of Law, even part-timers, are specifically prohibited from performing private legal work for professors and lecturers attached to the university."

"Well, all of that was very informative," Keegan said. "However, enquiring about my top preference for my ideal woman for a near-perfect companion will have been a waste of time for you."

"Perhaps, perhaps not."

Keegan eyes her, expected an explanation of that comment, but Ella smiled and began clearing their lunch dishes away and said she would leave soon as going ahead of the post-school and early work leavers would mean she might be home just inside three hours."

At the car, Ella held up her chin and was kissed lightly and heard herself being called a lovely young woman and he then kissed her lightly.

"Thanks, you flirt."

Keegan rode that provocation and said, when she was seated and had wound down the window, "Call me if dad presents you with a continuing problem and I'll come and sort him out for you."

"Thanks, but that won't be necessary. If he needs disciplining, I have the knowledge to safely give him a thump on his repaired spine and to have him scream in innocence, 'Omigod, I'm sorry'."

She waved and left at speed, leaving the contumaciously labelled 'flirt' smilingly waving into her vehicle's trail of fine dust from the farm's rear-entry access track.

Chapter 2

In bed and almost asleep five weeks after that fascinating day visit by his father's girlfriend Ella something, Keegan heard a vehicle draw up quietly nearby at 10.22 pm and then silence.

Naively or perhaps lazily, deciding it would be the Arthur the farmer or one of his farmhands, perhaps attending to the birthing of a calf. he relaxed, waiting for sleep possess him.

Next morning at pre-dawn, Keegan prepared for his fitness run, packing a container of chilled water and a soft container of mixed nuts and dried berries, called a 'Trail Mix', into his bum bag, routinely closing the back door of the cottage and in satisfaction noting his smart swatch timed his exit at 5.54.

He liked setting off on the grassland circuit of approximately 5 km just before 6.00.

In the narrow bright beam setting of his rechargeable headband torch, Keegan easily picked his way along the dirt path of his large vegetable garden and he vaulted the low boundary fence with east, barely slowly his gait.

That's when his torchlight faintly illuminated a distant twin reflection from beside the haybarn. Deviating to inspect the 'foreign' intruder, its presence being new in that location, Keegan jogged closer and identified the reflections as coming from the switched off headlights of a vehicle.

What the fuck, he thought, wondering if the intruder was a hobo or lost drug-courier or simply the vehicle of an exhausted motorist seeking unauthorised over-night accommodation and would be sleeping on the top of stacked haybales.

Question: Why hadn't the person or persons unknown knocked on the door of the cottage to request permission to stay overnight in the barn for whatever reason?

Be careful champ, he thought, stopping to dim the brightness of his head torch and to pick up a rock on the side of the rough driveway to bash the intruder with if attacked.

"The arrogant bastard," he fumed, aware that he rented only the cottage but had free access to the nearby hayshed. "Fuck, that's where my expensive car is parked."

He discovered the vehicle in front of him wasn't the near-wreck of an unemployed or unemployable person. It was a near-new VW Caddy 'Runner' Van and his tension eased when he read the signwriting on the side panel now in view, 'Tess Tyler - Commercial Freelance Photographer'.

This was acceptable providing the van wasn't stolen and if the real Tess Tyler was inside the barn and with an acceptable reason for being there, all was well.

Um, presumably.

After finding the van was locked, Keegan eased open the small door beside the huge main barn doors quietly and checked out his vehicle, also locked.

All appeared okay.

There was no sign of the intruder.

Ah, the loft? That would be his choice night on midnight in dossing down in an unfamiliar barn. As he climbed the ladder, he pictured the self-employed photographer Mrs or Miss Tess Taylor, err Tyler, as a messy black-haired woman in jeans and wearing a male's long-length tartan shirt hanging down over her over-tight jeans with part of her belly slumped over her belt, but her black eyes were sharply focused, fitting for a pro photographer.

Stepping off the ladder on to the loft, he first saw the figure of a reclining blonde female on one of the old horse blankets and under her own colourful rug. He turned his head to illuminate her possessions nearby - a large camera bag, a handbag and carry bag.

Suddenly, he was temporarily blinded by very powerful torch light and the supposedly sleeping female, obviously now standing, shrieked, "Who the fuck are you?"

Rude interloper, he thought, demanding, "Turn that powerful torchlight away from my eyes."

She responded, now centring the beam on his knees.

"I occupy the cottage, and am checking out your intrusion into my space."

"Are you Keegan Cameron?"

"Yes," he confirmed, startled, and blinking heavily a few times and then noting her long torch was a military-style one capable of being used as a defensive weapon. Clever woman, err young woman, standing in front of his just in panties and a well-filled bra.

Wow, she was far from being a frump.

"How come you know my name?"

"Your virtual stepmother Ella Mannering some weeks ago suggested I visit you if I was ever working down this way. I was heading back to the city after being on a day-long commission and decided to drop in an cadge dinner from you, you being described to me as a Cool Hand Luke recluse type of guy, who is a successful fiction writer and very photographic."

"I thought why not drop in, and if you offered me a bed, I could stay the night and talk you into allow me to do a photographic portrait essay next day and knock it off to the highest bidder, either a literary magazine or a women's mag."

"But I got amid the network or rural roads in this district, with many of them little more than unnamed farm tracks, making my van's GPS location system next to useless. I ran out of fuel and walked for miles to finally find a jolly farmer who refuelled the van with diesel and he and his wife invited me for dinner after a couple of drinks. I finally got here, too late I reasoned, to wake you when noting your cottage in darkness."

Keegan smiled, checking out the bra again.

"Well, welcome Tess and a very plausible story. I accept it as the truth because virtually no one else would know of the thin-line connection between me and Ella Mannering, and we've only met the once and then only for a few hours."

"Impressive figuring Mr Author, who looks as sexy in torchlight, who apparently writes books that according to Ella, practically drip at times in very heavy descriptive sex."

"Then are you here for romance; you looked dressed for the part," Keegan sniggered.

"Omigod, I'm practically nude," Tess shrieked. "In the tension associated with your unexpected arrival, I just swung into defensive mode, not having a thought about my personal appearance."

"Then, it wasn't an attempt to lure me?"

"Not, certainly not, you conniving dreamer," she practically spat, turning off her torch and shouting, "Turn off that fucking light attached to you head or else I'll knock it through your skull."

"Hey, calm down. You'll have correctly assumed I'll seen one or two females in their underwear in my time and Tess, you'll also know that Ella told you that I'm difficult to successfully seduce."

He could see the coming evasive response etched on her face before she opened her mouth.

"How the hell do you know Ella told me that... err, I mean even indicated such a... such an unlikely event. I mean outcome... Oh, hell, yes she did indicate you'd be difficult to crack."

"Tess, that was something so significant that it should have been unladylike to deny when pressed."

Her head dropped and she said meekly, "Yes, I agree and I apologize for being deceitful."

"Thanks, and my headtorch illumination remains where it is, as you'll need to dress fully and gather your things and come with me to the cottage. Do you run?"

"Yes, of course. Doesn't everyone?"

"No not by a long shot; get real," Keegan said, glancing at his watch. "At the cottage, change into your running gear and I'm make coffee and a piece of toast for each of us while we wait for the start of sunrise in a few minutes and we can jog over paddocks without need for supplementary lighting."

"How do you know it will be light in a few minutes?"

"With the same certainty that I know that you have a lovely shaped body."

"I cannot see the connection between those two entirely different things, Keegan."

"Well it exists. Both sunrise and me seeing you in your underwear are factual occurrences. You are aware that I've only seen you in your underwear and minutes ago I checked the time and knew today's first light occurs at 6.22. I rest my case, madam."

"We are not in a courtroom and I'm Miss, not Misses."

"Does that have some relevance to our current conversation, Miss?"

"Omigod, your virtual stepmother told me that you are a tricky conversationalist and you can become verbally complicated at times," Tess said, sitting back-on to him and pulling on her jeans in a sitting position.

"And did she also tell you to visit me and you just might get lucky."

Keegan grinned when hearing her mutter, "How the fuck can he possibly know that?"

He thought of saying it was because he knew women, but dropped that urge because the utterance would only add to her opinion that he was a smart prick.

As they left the barn, Tess said in surprise that Keegan was correct that dawn was about to break.

"Thanks."

"I said that as confirmation of what you said minutes ago, not as a compliment."

"Nevertheless, I interpreted so-called confirmation as a compliment and that remains unchanged."

She muttered, "Definitely a smart-arse prick."

Then she realized he was walking back into the barn.

"Where are you going?"

"Back inside to open a barn door for you to drive your Caddy in, as you'll be staying overnight."

"I'll be doing no such thing."

"How can you be so sure when you hadn't decided that yet? First, answer me this, have you done any rock climbing and abseiling?"

"Yes, I regularly climb the 10-metre imitation rock wall in the gym I go to and we climbers have been trained to abseil down."

"And does that mean you are beyond being a novice at both of disciplines?"

"Yes, I would class myself as having medium experience at both events and have participated in speed competitions on the rock wall at the gym with some success, Further, I've climbed and abseiled the rock faces of up to 19 metres high at the city's former rock quarry. Therefore, I'll managed with ease the drop to the beach that Ella said she chickened out from doing."

"Then you'll go abseiling with me?"

"Of course,"

"In that case you'll be staying here tonight and possibly will press me for sex."

"I'll bet you 100 bucks that I'll do neither."

"Nah, how can I possibly tell whether you'll press me for sex?"

"You can't because it's not going to happen," she giggled. "However, I'll bet you that 100 bucks that I'll NOT stay in your cottage tonight."

"Accepted."

"Confirmed. And why are you smiling?"

"Because you are already relaxing in my company, throwing off your uncertainties about being here, confirmed when you giggled when making that bet with me," Keegan said, re-entering the barn to open one of the huge doors.

As they walked to the cottage, Tess said. "I parked my vehicle in the barn simple for daytime security while we'll be away. And that's the only reason."

"As you say."

"And what does that ambiguous response mean?"

"Confirmation for you and Ella that conversationally I can be difficult to comprehend."

She giggled and called him a clever asshole.

He was carrying her travel bag in one hand and he swapped hands so he could hook his free arm through her free arm.

Tess made no comment about that, continuing what she was saying, and making no attempt to free her encircled arm. They separated to enter the backdoor and she commented: You didn't lock the door."

"No need to. This location is remote and anyhow it is neighbour-friendly countryside and for security I have my valuables in a floor safe."

"Goodie, is there room for some of my camera gear in the safe?"

"Yep and I'll give you the combination now: it's 8778."

Tess removed one camera from her bag before dropping the bag into the roomy floor safe at the back entrance, next to the washing machine coffee inside the storage cupboard under the laundry tub.

"Ah, repeating what I indicated when we first met, "I'd like to shoot the photo essay of you that Ella suggested, starting with a shot of you drinking coffee before heading off for your dawn run."

"Okay, but first how sizeable is my fee, or are you offering a percentage of your sale to a publishing house along with my signed consent release?"