Heather's Exquisite Map of Tassie

She smiled. "It's okay, no pressure." She drank her own beer and they sat admiring the view. "It's amazing here on New Year's Eve. They have fireworks down at the waterfront across the river and I get a great view. One year I came back down here to Hobart for New Years and was invited to a friend's party. She was living over this side with a similar view to mine. It was an extremely hot day, like almost forty, and a storm rolled in across the mountain in the evening, with lightning lighting up the sky and the fireworks display down below. It was...spectacular."

"Sounds like it was pretty special. Forty degrees though! I didn't think it got so hot down here."

"You'd be surprised. It's not like Queensland with constant oppressive humidity throughout the warmer months, but there can be hot days, with a dry heat here. Did you know Hobart's actually Australia's second driest state capital city after Adelaide?"

Tim raised his eyes in surprise. "True? That explains why schooners are the size of pots in Adelaide, cos they're conserving their liquids." Tim took a pull on his beer and gave Heather a thoughtful look.

Heather chuckled. "You're such a dag. But it's true about Hobart. It rains quite a lot on the west coast, but the mountains make a rain shadow over here in the east."

"The weather down here does seem crazy at times. Like, it doesn't know what it wants to do. At least in Brisbane it's either sunny or raining, and not much in between."

"Yeah, like we keep telling you, it's four seasons in a day down here."

"So you grew up on the other side of the river?"

"Yep. Up in the northern suburbs. It's very working class up there. Which reminds me, I have to visit Dad tomorrow. If you want I can drop you in town or something, or you can come and meet Dad. Whatever you like."

"Sure, I'll come with you if you like. But only if you're sure." He recalled Heather's story from their first day of walking on the Overland Track, where her father was injured at work when she was young. He hadn't asked what happened, but clearly he was an important part of her life.

"Of course it's okay. I'm sure Dad would love to meet you. He doesn't often get to chat to people these days. But you have to keep an open mind. He's been through some rough patches over the years."

It was dark now and they finished up on the deck, retreating to the house. After a week of camping it felt strange to be able to turn a light on, or the television, or simply staying up late. Tim stretched and yawned. "I'm totally rooted, ay. I could go to bed and it's only a little after eight."

"We could go to bed, but we don't have to sleep," Heather said invitingly.

"I guess not," he said with a grin. "Perhaps we could sit and read books for a while. How does that sound?"

She gave him another look of mock contempt, something she'd clearly mastered, and with a sarcastic tone she said, "Are you serious, Tim? People don't ignore each other with books these days. We're going to go and sit in the bed to stare at our phones, scrolling aimlessly through Facebook or watch videos on YouTube and pay no attention to each other."

"Yay, sounds fucking amazing. Just like real couples do!" They were having fun and he'd spoken before he thought about what he was saying, and this time she looked at him with an expression he couldn't decipher. Still, she approached him and took his hands.

"I know you're going back to Brisbane in a few days, it's okay. Let's make the most of our time together. Better than real couples do." She smiled at him and began to lead him to the bedroom. They fell on the bed, kicking off their shoes, kissing while undressing one another. Tim sucked her skin, from her lips to her neck, then down her shoulders and breasts. He sucked her hard nipples, running his tongue around her areolas at their base, and she gasped in pleasure, then kissing her hardened belly abdominals, tonguing her naval stud, and finally mouthing through her wild triangle of dark blond tangles to kiss her vagina with sensual passion. He gave her clit a vigorous work over, and breathily, she said, "I'll shave for you tomorrow."

Tim looked up her body, his chin covered in her wetness. "I love your bushy map of Tassie exactly how it is, thank you very much!"

"Do ya just love it?" She grinned.

He returned her grin and said, "No point beating around the bush, because I sure do love beating around your bush. You're fantastic." He refocused on her pleasure, running the tip of his tongue up her labial minora and tickling her clit again.

"Ohhh, I love what you're doing." Heather shifted on the bed, propped up on her pillows, with her lips slightly parted and watching Tim go to town on her lady parts. Occasionally he'd look up and they'd make eye contact and she'd smile, glassy-eyed.

Attending to her clit with the flat of his tongue, then looked briefly up her body again, he informed her, "I love pleasuring you." She smiled at his words and he kissed her cunt again, flattening his tongue over her clitoral hood, which he'd found pleased his partners more than flicks or other licks, and pushed down, harder and harder. He could hear and feel her breathing increase, and she shifted again as her muscles began to contract.

"You pleasure me so good, Tim. You, spoil, me. Ohhh, so, good."

Lapping her flowing juices, like nectar from a flower, he drank her in. His face, with its weeks' worth of stubble growth, was wet with her and he loved it. Tim pushed his lips against her cavity entrance, licking her hard and smearing her soaking wetness around his mouth and chin. She was close now, gripping onto his arm, and he knew how to bring her to climax. Pushing his tongue into her, he ran it hard over her labia and clit, harder and faster, up and down.

"Ohhh, Ohhh, OH, OH, OH." Heather's grip on his arm tightened to the point it hurt and then she was cumming, twitching, throbbing and loving every moment of Tim's attention. She breathed hard, and Tim growled her out till she was finished, then he kissed her thigh near her python tattoo, then her waist, tonguing her navel stud again, then kissing her tits, sucking them hard, giving them extra attention, and finally reaching her mouth. She kissed him as passionately as he kissed her, then looked into his eyes and smiled, "You really do spoil me. I'm not sure if I deserve it."

"Why wouldn't you deserve it? I think you're the most amazing person I've ever met."

"Stop it, please," she said in a whisper, shutting him up with a kiss. After a while Tim, began to kiss Heather all over again. "You're not going to spoil me again are you?"

"I hope so. But let's try something different?"

"Okay."

"Tell me at any stage if you want me to stop." He pulled a pillow down under her pelvis and lifted her legs in the air, exposing her tight little bum hole. Kneeling in front of her, he placed the head of his dick in the general region, playing it over her bum cheeks. "Let me know if you're not okay with this?"

She smiled up at him. "I'm okay with you doing this. I'd love for us to experience each other in every way possible."

He smiled back, pushing his hard cock against her anus, and spreading his pre-cum about her tight entrance for lubrication. It took some pushing, but he gently managed to work the head of his cock past her sphincter, and rocking slowly back and forth in missionary anal, with her knees back to her chest and feet up near his shoulders, his cock shaft made its way into her back passage. She winced but gave him a smile, maintaining eye contact throughout. With the entire length of his dick shaft penetrating her bottom all the way, he spoke softly, lovingly. "Are you comfortable, my gorgeous one?"

"As comfortable as I could be with your fat cock up my arse," she replied with a wincing smile.

Now he pushed firmly against her, with small movements, enough to gain the benefits of her tightness stimulating his fatness. The feeling was sensational, and he told her so. "You're incredible. The best." He began thumbing her clit, rubbing it in unison with his slowly sliding cock. They felt the pleasure building, and he increased his cock and thumb rhythms.

"Okay, that's so good," she breathed with a quiver. "Take me, Tim. Fucken take me there. Go for it." He smiled and pumped harder, his cock a piston thumping in her bum, and his thumb doing its magic work on her pleasure button. "Arrgg, keep, going, Tim. Have me! I'm nearly, there!"

Tim was nearly there too, and he pushed himself into her harder, her buttocks against his groin and her legs up his body. Breathily, he groaned, "ARRRR, ARRRR, ARRRR," then kissed her right calf, sucking down hard on her taut skin, and the pleasure began to flow, pumping his load of cum up her rectum while she spasmed in pleasure from his thumb.

"Oh. My. God," she said, grinning wildly up at him. Breathing deeply. "You're a fucken animal! I love it!"

They collapsed against each other, panting and cuddling, hardly saying a word. He looked up at her with a smile, and gave her a long kiss before heading off to the toilet to clean up. There was a little chunk of her shit on the end of his knob, but he wiped himself down with toilet paper. She joined him in the ensuite, and they showered, their third since arriving home, before towelling off and jumping back into the now unmade sex-stained bed. He laughed, completely happy. "Bloody great to have showers again, ay."

And there they kissed and cuddled and ended up making love, in good old regular missionary style, slowly, generously, without orgasm, simply giving themselves to one another and joining their bodies as one for another hour, before falling into a deep sleep in each other's arms.

FRIDAY

Tim woke to Heather kissing the top of his hair as she left the bed empty next to him. She smiled and whispered, "Sorry I woke you, gorgeous. I'm just about to do some yoga out the back. I'll be a while so feel free to sleep in."

"Okay, goddess," he replied with a groggy smile. Taking some time to wake properly, he lay about for twenty minutes, thinking about all the time he'd spent with Heather and all the sex they'd been having. His cock engorged at the thought and he'd have had a wank if it weren't for his nearly empty testicles and the knowledge he'd likely make love with Heather several times later that day. After waiting to go limp again he took a long piss, then wandered out to the living room. Through the glass sliding door Heather was on a blue mat on her deck, facing the mountain across the river. Her right leg stretched out in front with toes pointed forward, while her left was stretched all the way behind, and her hands on hips.

He watched her yoga for a while, admiring her physique and wondering how he'd ended up so lucky. Conscious she might consider him creepy for staring if she caught him in the act, Tim decided to prepare their breakfast. He turned, noticing the timber framed map of Van Diemen's Land on the living room wall for the first time, obviously the inspiration for Heather's exquisite tattoo on her upper back. He examined it, appreciating the talent of the tattoo artist who'd copied the detail so perfectly onto Heather's skin.

There were two similarly framed photographs hanging beside the map; one was of a young Heather and a man sitting in tandem on a paddle board in the water at a beach, both grinning at the camera. In the photograph Heather was maybe ten years old and her hair was long and very fair, almost platinum blond. The man, who was clearly her father, had curly dirty blond hair and a huge drooping moustache. He was muscular, with highly angled trapezius muscles from neck to shoulders, bulging biceps and pectoral muscles, looking as if he'd be perfectly cast as a stereotype Viking warrior in the movies. Tim could see more than a passing resemblance to his housemate Ryan, who of course was the man's son. However, Ryan would need to work out obsessively to match his father's physique.

The other photograph was a family portrait, with a young Heather, Ryan, their father and a beautiful woman with straight sandy blond hair who Tim supposed was their mother, plus another fair headed teenager and a large Alsatian beside him. Tim examined the photograph, noting they stood on a neatly mown suburban lawn beside a small tree with white bark and leaves starting to turn gold, and behind was the façade of a small beige weatherboard house. If Ryan took strongly after his father, Heather was a good mix of both parents. The mystery kid looked more like Heather's mother, and Tim deduced he must be Heather and Ryan's older brother. While everyone else wore seemingly genuine smiles, the teen's smile looked forced. I didn't even know they had a brother, he thought.

After inspecting the photographs, Tim turned and examined her bookcase full of numerous volumes. She clearly liked reading fiction, having shelves full of novels. He read the titles along the spine of several, recognising a few he'd read such as George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, the entire Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, and several Stephen King novels. He recognised authors of classic literature, but hadn't read, including George Orwell and Jane Austen. Then a number of authors he whom he wasn't so familiar, such as Jodi Picoult, Gillian Flynn, Kate Grenville, and Richard Flanagan. The bottom shelf held mostly non-fiction, with several Lonely Planet guides, a number of history books on Australia's settlement and convicts, plus a few on Indigenous Australian culture, and a number of photo albums.

Three photo albums caught Tim's eye, professionally printed and bound, their titles in gold letters down the spine: The Australian Army -- Operation Astute -- East Timor -- 2009; The Australian Army -- Operation Slipper -- Afghanistan -- 2011; and The Australian Army -- Operation Slipper -- Afghanistan -- 2013. He picked out the Timor album and began to thumb through pages of photographs showing young men and women soldiers with rifles and machine guns, patrolling or working with the locals, or simply posing for the camera.

Tim's heart skipped a beat when he came across a photo of Heather at the rear of a large armoured vehicle, speaking with an older Timorese woman and a girl who was perhaps the woman's daughter. Heather's hair was pulled back tightly and she wore an Auscam camouflage uniform with its distinctive orange, brown, olive, green 'bunny ear' leaf patterns, and sporting patches of an Australian flag and a large red cross on white background, both on her left sleave. The expression on her face suggested complete professionalism; the same expression she'd given when working on Javier's snake bitten arm. He recalled Heather's story about the child who'd lost his life to a snake bite on the very deployment in the book he was viewing. The caption below the photograph stated, Paramedic Private Heather Coughlan consults with villagers during routine health checks.

Wow, Tim thought, thoroughly impressed. She looked so young and yet so mature and responsible in the photograph. Several pages later he instantly recognised Heather again, this time with seven fellow diggers in loose camouflage and clearly not on duty because of the beer cans in several soldier's hands, most having arms linked around shoulders and looking at the camera smiling or grinning. Heather was a grinner, and the caption stated the young soldiers were letting off steam after a humanitarian operation in the region.

The albums for Afghanistan were of the same quality, but the photographs were rather different in nature. Most photos were of heavily armed men in desert camouflage of various shades of tans, greys, olives, and browns, wearing grimly professional expressions, conducting patrols and other operations across deserts, wheat fields and villages. They were on foot, in armoured vehicles and helicopters.

Flicking through, he found only one picture of Heather in the last book. She was holding the duel grips of a large machine gun, wearing ear muffs and sunglasses. Standing behind her right shoulder was an extremely tough looking older man, also wearing earmuffs and sunglasses, and with sleeves rolled tightly back exposing his folded meaty tanned forearms. Heather was looking down the weapon's sights with a serious expression, while the other soldier was watching her. The caption stated: Warrant Officer Steve Timms instructs Paramedic Corporal Heather Coughlan on the correct operation of a captured Taliban DShK heavy machine gun on the firing range at Tarin Kowt.

Jesus, thought Tim, impressed and shocked at the same time. He'd not followed Australia's military involvement in Afghanistan, and the few time's he'd paid attention he'd been quite against it. He'd never even touched a gun in his life, and now he was involved with a girl who'd been there and done that, putting her life on the line in the thick of a war-zone.

He also couldn't help but wonder about all the men Heather would have known in the Army. She'd indicated previously her type used to be AJs, or army-jerks, and the pages of the albums showed many tough looking men, some of who she'd obviously known well. Like Warrant Officer Timms, for example, who, despite appearing much older than most soldiers photographed in the album, looked like a seasoned warrior who knew his trade. Did she sleep with the bloke? How can I compete with men like him?

Tim never considered himself the jealous type and tried to dismiss the thoughts. Who cares who she's slept with; she has her past, like I have mine. Heather liked him and he knew it, and there was one thing he knew for certain: he was the man she was currently sleeping with. And she more than liked him, he was sure. What was it Kathy told him back on the Overland Track? I think you punch above what you think yer weight is. Or something similar. Heather must see something in him which truly appealed to her.

Moreover, he definitely admired Heather, there was no doubt. And these pictures of her former life increased those feelings. He couldn't quite explain it but feelings of great pride welled in his heart, seeing the girl he was falling for in action, doing serious military things in a conflict zone. And he definitely was falling for her. Or rather, had already fallen for her.

"I see you found my albums." Heather's voice almost caused Tim to jump out of his skin, as if he were caught doing something he shouldn't. She stood at the door in her tightly stretched yoga leggings and top, looking like heaven.

"Yeah, I hope you don't mind. This is some seriously impressive stuff."

"I don't mind at all. But it's all a past life now."

"You do miss it sometimes, don't you?"

"I miss my mates, sure. But not the army life so much. It's a young person's game."

"Cos you're heaps old, right," he said sarcastically.

"Sometimes I feel it."

"Thirty next month. Time to settle down, maybe start a family?"

"Something like that. If I can find someone worthy of settling with."

"Sounds like a challenge."

"Maybe it is. I'm gonna have a shower." She left her comment hanging and walked into the bedroom.

Mulling over Heather's comment, Tim cooked them a simple breakfast of mushroom, spinach and egg on toast. At twenty-six he'd had two serious relationships and a number of flings, but he'd never experienced feelings developing as quickly or intensely like they were between he and Heather. He'd fallen for her, no doubt about it.

But she also lived about two-thousand kilometres away from his home, work and family in Brisbane. Could he try the long distance thing again? He and Abigail tried long distance for six months, and they'd been living together in Brisbane for three years before they began traveling across the Tasman Sea. Could he do all the air travel again, or moreover, simply up and move from his life in Brisbane for a new one in Hobart for someone he'd only known for a little over a week, risking a broken heart again? People do crazier things for love, he supposed.