Indian Summer

'Yeah well, my eye is elsewhere, and I think I've made that pretty clear already. Plus, you told me you want to get to know me better!'

'What did Anika mean when she told me not to hurt you?'

'That's not a 6am story for texts! And there's no tl;dr version!'

'I forgot you're an hour behind with no daylight saving, sorry if I woke you.'

'I'm actually just back from a run!'

'Well have a lovely day! Hope it is an awesome one!'

'Same to you- hope you have a great adventure with Steph!'

Steph and I spent the next few days getting ready for her to return to school. I remembered how much I hated covering books with plastic sticky stuff, but I was also told I was the coolest sister for choosing funky book coverings.

We saw a couple more movies and I taught Steph to bake my famous brownies.

"Why aren't you married, JoJo?" Steph asked out of the blue.

"I haven't met the right man I suppose."

"But you'd be an awesome mum, like you're all cool and funky!"

I pulled Steph in for a hug. I really was enjoying spending this time with her.

"Now I know your Mum and Dad have booked for you all to come up in July to visit, but if you wanted to fly up by yourself at Easter, I'm sure I could arrange some time off and we'd find something fun to do!"

Dad and Meg loved the idea. We were talking about it that evening when my phone rang.

"Josie, I know you said you'd come back if a cyclone was coming, but I just spoke with Mike and it looks like Bella has doubled back and is threatening this coast again."

My phone was set to send me alerts, but it had twigged I was interstate and I had not been following the path of the cyclone as I would have at home.

"Shit, let me grab Dad's tablet and I'll have a look." Dad passed me his tablet with the weather app open. The prediction was Cyclone Bella would hit the coast near us in the next few days."

"Are they evacuating the hospital?"

"What the?"

"Yeah, they did that a while back for another cyclone. Don't worry, I'm on the airline site and booking a flight home for the morning."

"Just tell me what to do, Isabella and I will be fine." Rishi's voice did not sound calm and measured as usual.

"Rishi, I'm heading home. The yard is mainly clear. I'll need to put the pot plants in the garage and any other loose objects. Are you working tomorrow?"

"No, it's Saturday, day off."

"Cool. I have just booked the 7am flight home- I'll be home by lunchtime."

Dad and Meg were looking at me.

"I'm sorry, but the cyclone looks like it's heading for us and I need to get back."

"Of course you do! I mean, you've done so much already- Steph is totally ready for school and your Dad can look after her next week. She's coming up at Easter anyway!"

"She's asleep. I'll catch a taxi to the airport."

"No, you won't!" Dad interrupted, "I'll drive you. Now go and pack and try and get some sleep."

Dad dragged a half-asleep Steph to the airport too and she was sad to see me go and worried about the cyclone heading my way.

It was a bumpy ride. A cyclone watch had been declared overnight and we were located in the middle of the watch zone. It meant we had more than a day to prepare. My heart exploded when I saw Rishi and he threw his arms around me and embraced me in one of his amazing hugs.

"So, you willing the cyclone back worked!"

"I'm sorry, but I'm not at the same time because I'm so glad to see you!"

"Yeah, well I'm glad to see you too!"

"I just feel bloody useless, I know nothing about cyclones!"

"They're the same thing as a hurricane or typhoon- it's just that in these parts we call them a cyclone- lots of rain and wind that will peter out once it crosses land. Being on the tropical coast, we're susceptible to them though. Dad reminded me this morning that my house has seen many cyclones and is still standing, but I'm bloody nervous."

"I put the pots under the house and the hose and anything else I thought might fly around."

"We're still on watch, not warning, it could still go anywhere!"

"I've looked at lots of different data and it shows it heading near us at least on three of the maps."

"See, you sound like a local already!"

We stopped at the hardware store on the way home to pick up tape for the windows. It seemed the rest of the city's population had the same idea.

I was amazed at the preparation Rishi had completed before my arrival. Not only had he moved things in from the yard, he had cleared the second side of the garage so both of our cars could be parked undercover. It was clear there had already been a lot of rain, but the new guttering I had had installed the previous Winter looked like it was working beautifully.

Isabella did not even acknowledge my return. She went straight to Rishi and wrapped herself around his legs. Her demeanour did change when I poured some more kibble in her bowl, but it was clear she and Rishi had formed a strong attachment.

"I hope you don't mind, but I've done a few odd jobs around the place whilst you were away. The bathroom tap kept dripping so I just put a new washer in and the squeak on the back door was irritating me so I oiled the hinges."

"I've been meaning to get a plumber in to fix the tap- I didn't realise it was just a washer! Thank you."

"Sit, I'm making tea!"

I did as I was told. I checked for the latest cyclone update and the trajectory had moved a little south. It was currently a category 1 system and they did not expect it to intensify beyond a category 3 system. This still meant strong winds, but it was not as bad as it might have otherwise been.

A general text message came from the hospital:

'Tropical Cyclone Bella is predicted to cross the coast near us early Monday morning. Cyclone protocols have been enacted. Staff who have indicated they are available during cyclones should immediately contact their line manager.'

"I don't think I've ever said if I'd be available or not, unless it was something they covered in orientation when I was thinking of other things." Rishi told me.

"I've always said I'm a maybe because of Isabella. I'd feel awful if the department was short staffed. I'm calling Nicola."

Nicola would not hear of me coming in. She reiterated I was on leave and managed to convince me the department was fully covered. Rishi rang James who suggested he stay put. His team was not on call that weekend and James said that if he was needed, he would be contacted.

"We'll probably lose power for some time if it does come near us- last time I lived near the hospital and that was the first grid switched back on after less than twelve hours. This time, who knows. Is there anything in the fridge or freezer that we should think about? I honestly don't know if the solar system will be able to keep up or even work if there is a power outage."

"I've been cooking and freezing stuff- I'm still not used to just cooking for one. You've got gas so we can reheat if necessary, can't we? Plus, I've got chicken out to make you the original of the dish you ate last weekend!"

Had it only been a week before? I knew I was still scared of entering into a relationship with Rishi, but I could not help but admit how much I enjoyed being with him. He brought our teas through and sat across from me, Isabella jumping up to sit on his lap.

"I'm glad she likes you!"

"She's a good keeper of secrets I hope."

"And what secrets have you told her?"

Rishi was quiet and sipped his tea, scratching Isabella's neck.

"You told me before you left that you were broken and told me some things about Tim. I have a past too, except her name was Clarissa."

I listened as Rishi told me about the girl he had met at medical school and fallen for, his first real girlfriend. She had come from a private school and her parents were well connected, both of them doctors themselves. She'd had boyfriends before, but they had all come from her school friendship group of elite privileged young men.

"I thought she was out of my league, I mean, I'd gone to the local high school and my parents owned a restaurant! No one in my family had been to university before. Clarissa's parents weren't keen on me being Indian, despite me being born in Australia. They'd make snide comments about me when I visited them, telling me they didn't know how to cook any Indian dishes, knowing my mother grew up in Australia and is as blonde as you, even if it comes from a bottle these days! Her father told me one day he still couldn't imagine having any 'caramel' grandchildren and acted like it would be the worst thing in the world."

"They sound like charming people, not!"

"Yeah, well I loved Clarissa. Or I thought I did, and I thought she loved me. Looking back, I now recognise she was with me to annoy her parents. In our final years of medical school, I worked as much as I could at the restaurant to save to buy an engagement ring for her. I worked every weekend and Anika and my other sister Indira gave me all their tips so I could buy a beautiful ring."

I could imagine Anika doing something like this. I had only met her briefly, but it was clear she was fond of her brother.

"Anyway, before I purchased the ring, Clarissa came to me and told me she was pregnant and going to get a termination."

"That sounds hard, I mean, I would support any woman who made that decision, but it must have been hard on you." I was a firm believer in a woman's right to choose and hoped this would not be the thing first thing we would disagree on.

"No," Rishi was crying, "I'm with you on that, but she told me she was having a termination because it wasn't my baby. We'd always been super careful and never had sex without a condom. It turns out that often when I was working at the restaurant, she was off at parties and would often hook up with guys there."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, well, she tried to spin that she'd been raped, but she didn't want to press charges and wanted to put it all behind her. I wanted to find the guy and castrate him, but she told me to leave it."

"It sounds horrible."

"I wanted to believe her, but your Dad's words from his lecture were never far from my mind. A few months after her termination I was working, and she said she was going out with friends to a party we had been invited to. The restaurant was uncharacteristically quiet, and Dad told me to go and enjoy myself at the party. I arrived just after 9 and went looking for Clarissa. I found her in the laundry with a colleague of ours fucking her on the washing machine, with her telling him that he was 'So much better than Rishi.'"

"I'm sorry."

"Shit happens!"

"It sounds a bit like Tim. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn't when confronted with the evidence. So med school, we're talking what eight or nine years ago?"

"About that. I went and did my intern year in rural Victoria which I enjoyed and went back to the city to study orthopaedics. I moved back in with Mum and Dad and focussed on my work. I helped Dad in the kitchen and that was where I first cooked the infamous curry! I refused to give Dad the recipe, so he tried to replicate it and then put it on the bloody menu! It only lasted a week before I discovered it and I told him to rename it. He tried to tell me he gave you old copies of menus last weekend, but I don't believe him."

"But you're not exactly bad looking or anything, you must have been able to have any woman you chose!"

"Yeah, but my self-confidence was pretty wrecked. I tried to focus on work. Occasionally I'd go out and take a girl back to a hotel or something for the night, but it never meant anything, and I always felt empty afterwards."

"I know that feeling. So how did you get over it all then? I mean, you seem pretty together these days, unlike me!"

"Therapy and to a lesser extent, travel."

"I was only mentioning to Soo-Lee the other day I wanted to start therapy."

"It really helped put things in perspective. Clarissa was never right for me. Her family hated me and in the end she would have too."

"You went to India to trace your roots then?"

"No! I've not been there yet. It's one of the other things I've addressed in therapy, my cultural heritage. I mean, I was born in Australia, but I don't look like the majority of Aussies!"

"Well we're such a melting pot these days that who does, apart from the traditional owners, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people?"

"You probably weren't teased at school for being called Josie! I went through a phase of calling myself Richie because it seemed so much easier, but then the teasing started about my skin colour, even though we lived in an area with a large Indian population. I was lucky, Mum packed sandwiches for my school lunches, imagine how my friend Jeethu coped turning up to school with samosas in his!"

I listened to Rishi and realised how my preconceptions and experiences influenced how I saw the world.

"So, tell me more about your time in Melbourne with Steph, she sounds like a fun kid!"

"Yeah, she is. I think it was my evenings chatting with Meg though that helped change my thinking a little."

"Thinking about?"

"Well, relationships for one." I looked up to see Rishi smiling. "I was scared when the sex we had wasn't meaningless for me, so, so scared. I was glad I was flying out, but I'm also glad, and still a little, no, a lot scared about my feelings, but I can't hide anymore."

"I had a few meals with Mike and Soo-Lee when you were gone. They both care for you a lot."

"They are good people."

"They are indeed. They both told me at separate times without the other there that I needed to be patient with you."

"Meg made Dad wait six months I found out last week!"

Rishi stood and collected our cups. He leant towards me and kissed me on the forehead. "That's a thank-you for the kiss you gave me the night before you flew out when you thought I was asleep!"

The curry was amazing. Rishi reminded me it would be even better the following day, but I told him I doubted that was possible. I showed him the photo I had taken of his father's version and he told me it looked nothing like it! We sipped water throughout dinner. I was tired after my early start.

There was still an obvious sexual tension in the room as we did the dishes and loaded the dishwasher.

"Last time you loaded that I scored a kiss!" Rishi joked.

"I've been thinking of how I can thank you for fixing my dripping tap and the window and all the other things you've done, but if it only takes a kiss..." and with that I leant in and gently kissed him on the lips. Rishi kissed back and soon we were exploring each other's mouths with our tongues.

We were interrupted by our phones signalling the latest cyclone update had arrived. Our area had been moved to a cyclone warning meaning they expected it to cross the border in less than 24 hours.

"So much for Monday morning!" Rishi exclaimed.

"Yeah, map shows her moving south too which is better for us, but she's upgraded to a category 2. We probably should tape the windows tonight though, just in case."

It would have been a quicker job if we had taken half the windows each, but Rishi insisted on leaning from behind me and helping me smooth down as much tape as he could reach until he ended up fondling my breasts.

"You know I find these magnificent, don't you?"

"Nah, they're too big!"

"Not possible. I love how they feel in my hands."

"I'm not complaining about your treatment of them!"

With the windows taped in the living areas and bathroom, I moved to my home office area, then to Rishi's room and finally to mine.

"Are you going to sleep in here with me tonight?"

"Sleep?"

"Well, you know, kiss, cuddle, fondle, suck, lick, fuck, you get the idea?"

"Is that what you want?"

"I want you."

"I want you too." Rishi was smiling his incredible smile.

"I just, well it's been a long day and I need a shower, but I could use some help soaping my back!"

We showered together and explored each other's bodies with our hands. Rishi had the most amazing musculature. His back was as toned as his chest and his butt was perfect, round and waiting to be held onto. Rishi discovered all my ticklish areas, but also areas I had forgotten I enjoyed having touched.

Switching off the water we towelled each other down. It was hot and humid, and we were soon perspiring again. We brushed our teeth and walked hand in hand towards my bedroom. Poor Isabella was curled on Rishi's bed and we wondered how long it would take for her to realise he wasn't sleeping there tonight.

I was exhausted from getting up so early for my flight, but I was excited to be naked in Rishi's presence again.

"The licking and sucking and everything else can wait until morning, because you look exhausted" Rishi told me as he held me tight at the foot of my bed.

"You aren't going to tell me that you are going to be able to sleep with a boner like that, are you?" I had started stroking his beautiful manhood.

"I don't want to make a mess, we just showered!"

"I think I can manage something!" I told Rishi as I dropped to my knees and started kissing along his shaft.

Rishi held my head with his hands as I swirled my tongue over the tip of his cock before taking as much in as I could. I used a free hand to stroke his shaft, still allowing a good amount into my mouth. It did not take long for Rishi to warn me he was close. I removed my hand and focussed my tongue and mouth on him. Feeling him squirt down my throat and fill my mouth with his seed gave me as much satisfaction as him.

"Amazing!" he said as he shook his head in almost disbelief.

"I haven't done that in a while, I'm glad it was ok."

"It was perfect! Now can I..."

"Not tonight, I'm exhausted, but I'd love you to hold me."

I woke several times during the night to the sounds of winds roaring past my window. I checked my phone and the cyclone map had not changed a lot. It was comforting having Rishi pressed against me feeling his breath on my neck.

"More news?" he mumbled soon after 4.

"Yeah, she's back to a category 1 system and heading further south."

"That's good for us then?"

"Mm, suppose so."

Rishi was fondling my breasts and despite it being dark outside I could feel his arousal. I turned to face him, and our mouths again locked. I was sleeping naked and I rolled his briefs down his legs. Reaching into my drawer I produced a condom and he rolled it down his shaft.

"Climb on top," Rishi whispered.

I did as I was instructed and lowered my pussy onto him enjoying the feeling of fullness. Like our previous time, our bodies were in sync and few words were spoken. We were both still vocal though with moans and grunts showing what we liked. After I had cum riding him, Rishi flipped me onto my back, still balls deep inside me and placed my legs on his shoulders. Although he brushed my cervix, the pain was mixed with pleasure and every time with every stroke he would touch my g-spot. His pelvis was brushing against my clitoris and I could feel my climax building. Rishi noticed too and slowed his thrusts despite me begging him not to. I lowered my legs from his shoulders and wrapped them around his legs.

"I can't hold on," Rishi percussed with short breaths and knowing I was close I lifted my mouth to his and we kissed as he filled the condom, leading me into another intense orgasm. Something felt different, but Rishi stayed and kissed me as his dick shrivelled.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed as he removed the condom, "It broke. I've never had that happen before, I'm so sorry."

"Don't stress, they're possibly out of date. I do have an IUD in situ and from what we've talked about we're both clean. Perhaps we could try without one next time?"

"I've never not used one, I'll probably cum in less than a minute!"

"Then we can go again!"

"I'm sorry."