Journey through Desolation

She felt she was floating on air as she moved down the line of the TrainLink XPT coaches toward where a conductor was standing and waving the overnight passengers onto the sleeping coach. Liam was in Sydney now, 550 miles northeast, in New South Wales. She hadn't been this far away from him in the three years they'd been married—in the three years he had been smothering her.

She liked the sound of her new red high heels clicking on the concrete as she marched along. And she liked the swishing sound and feel of her skirt. She felt sexy for the first time in years. She was only twenty-five. She didn't see why should couldn't feel sexy occasionally.

She had changed before leaving the hotel to come to the Southern Cross station. She had timed the dressing to almost precisely 4:30 p.m., when Liam's Virgin Australia flight was scheduled to lift off from Melbourne's airport to fly to Sydney. Liam would never have approved of her wearing something like this to travel in. He'd laid a frumpy blue pants suit and white blouse out for her to wear. He'd have said he didn't want men flirting with her. She wondered if that came from the insecurity of him being nearly fifty to her twenty-five.

It had been a brilliant idea for her to say that she'd been nauseous for the whole plane ride down from Sydney and didn't want to get on a plane again if she could avoid it. Liam only wanted to fly, but he had relented and said she could take the overnight train.

"You could go on the day train," he'd said, "but there's nothing but desolation between Melbourne and Sydney. Ten minutes beyond the city and you will have seen everything there is to see until ten minutes before arriving at Sydney Central."

A "journey through desolation" perfectly fit a description of her life for the past three years.

A tall, slim, dark-skinned man, dressed elegantly in a silk suit was in front of her when she drew near to the steps where the conductor was motioning to passengers to climb up into the coach. The man apparently sensed her presence close behind him and, rather than stepping up in the coach, he turned away and allowed Charlene to embark first. As he did so, he gave her a warm smile.

He was quite a good-looking man, maybe in his thirties. He was dark-skinned but wasn't purely African. He seemed to be of mixed heritage, reaching a handsome mix indeed. Charlene felt an immediate affinity for him, as she was mixed race as well. Her father had been Australian, but her mother was a Singaporean Chinese, and Singapore was where her parents had met and Charlene had been born.

She stumbled a bit on the stairs and both men put out a hand to take her elbow, the conductor on one side and the dark-skinned man on the other. They steadied her and helped her ascend into the coach.

"Careful," the dark-skinned man had murmured in a low, melodic baritone. Charlene gave him a shy smile. She felt feminine. She felt like a young woman of twenty-five for the first time in years. She was pretty; she knew she was.

They had come to Melbourne because there was a meeting of winegrowers Liam had wanted to attend. He had brought her because he didn't want to leave her home, not with the men working in the vineyards this time of year, a time when seasonal help was required, workers Liam didn't know well. He had taken her to some of the meetings, but she begged off on always being there—from always being at his side—although she hadn't put it that way.

He had granted her a couple of hours of rest in their hotel room, which she had used to go to the shops instead. She'd bought this dress with the swishy skirt and a rather low-cut bodice buttoning down the front, and the red high heels, and the lacy panties and bra. She had no idea where she could wear them again, as this wasn't anything Liam would let her wear at home, and he rarely took her anywhere. But as soon as she'd gotten him to let her return to Sydney on the train by herself, for just these twelve hours, she wanted to feel free to be a woman again and to have nice clothes to wear—to pretend she was someone else, someone she once was and was no more.

The coach steward met her at the top of the stairs, asked to see her ticket, and then, when he looked at the ticket of the gentleman behind her, the handsome dark-skinned man in the elegant silk suit, he said, "You are in side-by-side compartments. I will show you both to your places. The café car will be open for packaged meals as soon as we leave the station. But, you're in luck. They've put a bar car on this running of the train. It's just through the café car and will be open at 8:00 p.m. We are underbooked tonight. You won't have much company. Here we are at your compartment, Mr. Pillay. Berth number five. You won't be needing the bunk lowered, so number six won't be in use. And here, across from Mr. Pillay, the two of you sharing this bath, I'm afraid, is you, Mrs. Larson. Berth one, with berth two also not needing to be lowered. There we go now. I will be along sometime after 8:00 to set your compartments for the night."

When the steward had gone back down the corridor to help another passenger, Charlene and the dark-skinned gentleman, obviously Mr. Pillay, stood, awkwardly smiling at each other, in the doorways of their respective compartments. The man broke the silence. "I guess we will be neighbors then and share a toilet." Again the melodic baritone voice. Charlene was a musician; she tuned into melodic speaking voices.

"I guess so," she said.

"I won't use the unit until I've heard you have done so tonight," he said. "You may use if first and neither of us need worry about who will use it when. Have you been on this train before?"

"Thank you, you are kind. No, I haven't been on the train before."

"You'll notice that the wall between your compartment and the corridor is all glass, but there is a shade you can draw for privacy."

"Thank you, Mr.—"

"Pillay. Shaka Pillay," he said, but he didn't linger. He gave her slight bow and backed into his compartment.

Charlene went into her compartment and sat and watched the departure of the train from the Southern Cross station and the cityscape it traveled through as twilight set in. By the time they had passed through the first station to the north, Broadmeadows, the view out of the window was pitch black with only an occasional flash of lights. She lay her head back into the back cushion, closed her eyes, and dozed, luxuriating in not having to do anything at all. Liam was a demanding man—except, perhaps, where it counted most with her.

At 8:15 she went back to the bar car. She had eaten her evening meal before she got on the train. The concierge at the hotel who had helped book her train passage had warned her not to get her hopes up at the food she could get from the café car. There were only a few seats available in the bar car, high stools at small-service round tables set against one side of the car.

"Here, you may have my seat," a melodious voice said. Shaka Pillay.

"I wouldn't dream of taking your seat," she answered.

"I can stand here if you don't mind and share the table with you. It probably wouldn't be wise for either of us to set our drinks down anyway. The train will lurch unexpectedly when it gets further into the countryside and picks up speed. But you don't have a drink. What you like to have? I'll get it for you."

"A gin and tonic, if they have that," Charlene said, and when he returned, she said, "How much was it?"

"Never mind," he said. "It's a treat to serve a lovely lady, like you."

Lovely lady, she thought, and blushed. How long had it been since Liam had addressed her in anything like these terms? "I'm Charlene, by the way. Charlene Larson. I think I have you at a disadvantage, as you already told me your name. And an unusual one it is."

"I'm from South Africa—but an Australian citizen now. 'Shaka' means 'tribal chief.' I think my parents had much too high expectations for me." They both laughed politely. "My father was Australian, serving as a road engineer outside of Cape Town. My mother was from South Africa."

He didn't have to say that his mother was African. She could tell. But then she felt embarrassed for having that thought. The mix had produced a handsome man. She was off balance enough to say something like that. "The mix worked out very well," she blurted out, and then when that seemed too forward, she added, "I am of mixed ancestry too. Like you, an Australian father, but my mother is Singaporean Chinese."

"And that was a lovely mix," he said, but then, as if he'd been caught revealing too much of what he was thinking as well, he followed up with, "Were you born here or in Singapore?"

"Singapore."

"A great place. Vibrant."

"Yes, it is," Charlene said, revealing something in the wistfulness with which she said it. What she'd come to in Australia, at least where she now lived, had seemed stark and desolate compared to tropical Singapore. "Have you been there? Singapore?" she asked, to cover what she had revealed.

"I often go there. I own a cruise ship and provide cruises all around the region. Group charters. High end. We go to Singapore when groups want to go there—and farther than that, if they like. Fiji even."

"Fiji," she said, her eyes sparkling. "I've always wanted to go there."

"And so you should someday."

"You must have a large ship to be going that far."

"The 'Chakra' is a reconverted superyacht," he said, the pride showing in his voice. "She's my baby. Twenty-one cabins for passengers. A crew of twenty. She has a range of 10,000 miles, and everything is plush. I bet you'd love it."

"I would, but how can you tell?"

"You're a lovely lady, in a knockout dress. Exotic and, if I might say . . . but I mustn't say. Sorry, I always go off into musical flights when I talk about 'Chakra,' and that's the vibe I get from you—musical."

A shiver went down Charlene's spine. Was he about to say she looked sexy? She would have died and gone to heaven if he had. The shiver was what his melodic voice was doing to her too—making music. She hadn't thought much about music for more than a year, and it once had been so much a part of her life. "Interesting that you mention music," she said. "That's what brought me to Australia. My aunt taught music at the University of Newcastle. I was giving master classes on the cello in Singapore and she wanted to open a school in Australia. I came to Newcastle to teach cello and to play in the Orchestra Nova there."

"Yes, I know that orchestra well. I live in Sydney. That's where the cruise business is berthed. I've gone to concerts up in Newcastle. More at the Lake Macquarie Performing Arts Center than at the Civic Theatre right in Newcastle, though."

"Do you play or are do you just like to listen?"

She blushed. "Just." Why did she have to say that, talking down to him like that? He was much too beautiful a man to be talking down to—as if the color of his skin . . . no, she wouldn't go there, even in her thoughts. But then she went right there. She'd never slept with a black man, and she'd been around the block a couple of times before Liam came into her life. She'd heard about black men, the rumors of being specially endowed. And she'd been curious. But she needed to push that out of her mind. This was just a polite, interesting gentleman she'd met on a train. A handsome man, of course—well, OK, a hunk. And a musical voice that could make her clothes float right off her.

The question hadn't fazed Shaka, though. "I play the violin. Haven't done it in an orchestra for a while, but I play it for entertainment on the cruises sometimes."

"That sounds divine," she said, glad that she hadn't upset him.

"I can almost imagine how much better it would sound as a violin and cello duet," he said, giving her a big smile and touching her forearm, which was resting on the table top, with his fingers. She looked down at the hand—long, but thick fingers, beautifully manicured. She shivered. Liam's nails were always broken and his fingers were stubby and calloused. Age spots had started to show, but he was twice her age, so she had to expect that. And he worked hard—in the vineyard. But he worked her hard there too. Their vineyard was out at the edges of the valley. You had to work twice as hard in the desolation there than those in the center of the valley did for half the grape yield.

"I'm surprised I haven't seen you in the orchestra when I've gone to their concerts."

"I haven't played for three years now," she said. "I don't live in Newcastle anymore, and it's a long drive from where we live—at least longer than I can do-to anywhere with musical programs." A longer drive than Liam lets me do, she thought, not longer than I'd be willing to go to keep up with the music.

"We?" he said. "That's right. The steward called you Mrs. Larson. So, you are married?"

"Yes," Charlene said. She didn't want her voice to be sad when she said it, but she could see from the expression on his face that Shaka had caught the nuance. She became aware that he still was touching her forearm with his fingers—awareness because the touch had become more of a firmer stroke. She didn't pull away. "My husband is older than I am. We met at a party after a concert in Newcastle. I think that's that last concert my husband has gone to."

They paused, as Shaka absorbed that. Why was she being so revealing, she wondered. Was it because she was momentarily free and had no prospects of ever being free again—of wearing nice, sexy clothes like this, of being with a handsome man who wasn't her husband but who was paying attention to her—who was stroking her forearm suggestively with long, thick, manicured fingers?

"Are you visiting Sydney? Is this a vacation trip? If so, you must come to the harbor and see 'Chakra.' She's in, being provisioned for a cruise around New Zealand. Have you been to New Zealand? It's really close for being so far away."

He laughed and she smiled. She didn't feel like laughing, though. There was so much she was missing out of in life—because of the choices she'd made. More because of the misrepresentations that had descended on her, she thought bitterly.

Liam had been so handsome at that party where they first met. He could clean up well when he wanted to—and dress well and woo her well. The first sex they'd had was that very night, in a posh hotel. The sex had been good. She was young and he was experienced. It hadn't been that good since he'd taken her out of civilization and imprisoned her at the end of the valley. He didn't bother to dress up for her—or clean up for her—anymore. Or bed, her for that matter. She was only twenty-five, for Chris' sake.

"I've not been to New Zealand, no. I've always wanted to go, though."

"You could go," he said, his voice low, more serious now. "You could go with me there on this coming cruise. You could play the cello to my violin in the evenings and we'd say that covered your passage."

When she didn't answer and just looked down at his fingers stroking her forearm, he backed off.

"So again, are you coming to Sydney to visit from where you and your husband—and how many children—no you look too young and vibrant to be saddled with children—live? Or do you and your husband live in Sydney?"

Children. Fat chance of that, Charlene thought. Liam hadn't touched her in months. He'd been too worn out trying to keep the vineyard from going belly up. And he'd worked her to exhaustion too. And what would children do in that desolate land at the end of Hunter Valley, she wondered.

"Neither," she said. "We live out at the end of the Hunter Valley. We have a vineyard and small-production winery that barely break even—and only do so because we work hard. All of our energy goes into the winery. I haven't been into civilization in years. This is the first trip I've taken since I got married. My husband has always been right there, at my elbow. This is the first time I've been able to breathe, truly breathe, in three years. And I had to lie about flying making me nauseous to be able to take this train trip alone." Why was she gushing out all her secrets and gripes? But, shit, it felt good to let them out.

"It could turn out to be a memorable vacation. A night trip on the train," he said, "the train journeying through desolate countryside in the dark. No distractions. Private compartments. Two people of mixed heritage." He laughed, perhaps to take the edge off the direct proposition.

"Yes," she said, feeling that she now was out of breath, ironically, after having talked of being able to breathe at last. She knew what he was saying, what he was offering her. Why didn't she cut this off?

Because she didn't want to.

"You've worked hard for so long. You'd like to be free to play hard too, wouldn't you?"

"Yes."

"You have needs, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Your husband doesn't take care of your needs, does he?"

"No." She was panting softly now and his hand was gripping her forearm, his thumb rubbing along the throbbing vein running up the middle of the undersurface of her arm. His thick, chocolate-brown thumb.

"I think the bar will be closing soon," Shaka said carefully, smoothly. "I could have our drinks replenished and we could go to your compartment or mine for a bit and continue this interesting discussion. It's too early to be turning in and no reason for us both to be alone in our separate compartments."

"I don't need another drink," Charlene said.

* * * *

Charlene's compartment was dark and the shade was drawn down on the window opening onto the corridor. Lights were flashing all over the compartment walls, ceiling, and floor in no discernible pattern as the train chugged through the night into New South Wales from Victoria past lights in and on buildings that streamed by. The train itself was rocking in a rhythmic pattern combining motion and the sounds of steel wheels on uneven iron rails.

Charlene was reclining into the back corner of the bed that had been made up while they were in the bar car. Shaka, his jacket and shirt already off, his chest muscular, his puffy nipples black on chocolate brown revealed now in reflected light coming in from the window and covered by darkness when the light had flashed by, was encircling Charlene's back with his left arm. The bodice of her dress was unbuttoned down to the waist and her frilly bra was open. She had the presence of mind to be glad she bought one that hooked in front so that there hadn't been any awkwardness in unsheathing her breasts. He was an expert in this, though, so it probably would not have been an impediment. He obviously was a determined man; he would have worked it out.

She was thrusting her chest up to meet his mouth. He was sucking on her nipples, going from one to the other, and nuzzling her breasts with his cheek in his travels. His right hand was snaked up under the hem of her dress and had traveled up, up, and up, moving under the leg hole of her frilly panties. He had a thick thumb thrumming her clit and a beefy index finger inside her cunt. Charlene was moaning and rocking on the finger. Her head was arched back, her eyes watching the pattern of lights flashing from outside the window and murmuring, "Yes, yes, yes" over and over.

Shaka's mouth moved down Charlene's torso, and he repositioned himself kneeling on the floor of the compartment between her thighs, which he spread with his hands after he'd gathered the hem of her dress around her waist, slipped her panties off her legs, and pressed his face into her cunt. He had dexterously inserted her red-slippered left foot into the loop of a safety-grab strap on the wall by the bench and was holding her right leg spread and raised with his left hand. She rocked her pelvis against his face and softly mewed her surrender. He had pulled his left arm from around her back, no longer worrying about keeping her in place and under his control. He knew that she was in for the long haul now—the long, thick slide inside her. Indeed, there had been no resistance from her. He loved fucking needy married women. They all craved black cock.