New Kahala

Sequel to What are the odds?

Dear reader. This is set in Australia. We spell colour, with a 'u'. We have arses. We are sometimes arses. OK, most of the time we are arses. 'Shit' is one of our most versatile words. 'Fuck' is punctuation and sometimes 'Cunt' is a diminutive sobriquet. "Naw, lookit the little cunt." I'm sorry in advance for the legwork you may have to do to google search 'Ozzy slang'.

This also follows my recent entry in the Valentines Day comp, What are the odds?. There is sex. But if you're here for a wank, try a more, "I never thought this would happen to me" story.

And thankyou so much for caring about one of my characters, "Trina" as much as I did when I wrote her. Here is her story.

I reserve all the usual publishing rights and all characters are fictional, all persons consenting adults.

For my wifey who insisted that Trina deserved happiness.

*

Somewhere back in your sheltered eyes I see a secret garden.

Around a cottage long since lived in, flowers scream their Technicolor rage.

Twisted trellises torture roses and a pissing-boy fountain fills with your tears.

A pathway bleeds from a wound in the open front door

And inside, tables and chairs lie where you kicked them;

Ornaments litter the floor.

Mumbles of lies and secret violations echo from the trust-spattered walls,

And I wonder....

Do you ever come back and sit by the fountain,

bury your feet in the never-mown grass and wish

that spring would someday return

to the garden inside of your heart?

HAPPY EVER AFTER

It's been a fucking long week. One of those weeks where I've made too many withdrawals and too few deposits into the relationship bank. Sasha is understanding. She had a week like that a fortnight ago with one of her big cases. Walking home from work I stop in the mall and pick up some flowers from a little shop.

She loves daisies.

Six months ago, I didn't know that. All I knew was I liked her a shit-tonne, she was dynamite in the sack and fucking stupid enough to want to share it with a clown like me. Now I know all sorts of things.

I know sometimes she goes quiet and it's not because she's angry. It's because she's day-dreaming. Dream building, creating a future in her head or simply just enjoying the peace and wonder that she's experiencing. Her favourite colour is pink. Dogs not cats. All sorts of tiny details too and I love them all.

We started using the "L" word a few months ago. A lot. I feel it too. A lot. She's my thing and I'm her thing. Two parts to a puzzle that didn't make sense until we got them together. And trust me, we get our parts together as often and as furiously as we can.

Life and work conspire to keep us busy and tired, like they do to most couples. It's hard to reconcile our need for each other and our availability and sometimes it spills over into jealousy. Not ridiculous accusations or suspicion but jealousy for others demands on our time. Our disappointment is usually turned inward with genuine feelings of loss instead of damaging feelings of neglect. It's the cost of being with someone you love and still respect on an intellectual level. Someone whose career is as important to you as it is to them.

It's still hard though. Like tonight. My heart burns to see her and my mouth swarms with words that I haven't been able to tell her because she's been in Townsville all week with a rape trial. She'll probably be asleep when I get home. Sasha says she never sleeps well when she's away and every time she gets home, she stretches on the bed we share and falls asleep, savouring the remembered smell of us; sometimes even in the clothes she flew in.

This week I was swamped too. Bogged down in bloody spreadsheets and dodgy cheap accounting software trying to unravel three years' worth of embezzlement. I worked too late, missed her calls, missed her and felt like shit. I hope she's still awake when I get home.

There's a busker in the mall with a small crowd of onlookers. I hear the music lilting over the bustle and noise of people. It's one Sasha's favourites. "Beautiful Wreck" by Shawn Mullins. I jockey through the people and lean against a storefront listening to the boy crucify it enthusiastically. When he's done, I flip a gold coin in his guitar case and glancing sideways I see a jeweller's display.

Do you believe in signs? I've always struggled with the concept that a higher power is leading us somewhere. But there in the display case is the most beautiful ring I've ever seen. It's pink and shaped like a small heart. Why have I never bought her jewellery?

At the unit I untie my shoes and slip them off. This is another of life's sheer pleasures. Stretching my toes and clearing my throat I call, "Home darlin."

There's no answer and peeking around the closed bedroom door a snuggled mess of dark hair and perfect curves lies naked on the bed. There's a note on the bed near her feet, "Wake me up roughly. I've missed you."

So inspired, showering takes me all of a minute. Drying off, maybe thirty seconds and getting to the bedroom less than three. My weight on the bed alone is enough to rouse her and sleepy eyed, she smiles and pushes me down to mount me.

"Fucking far too fucking long." She growls as she works me into her slowly; advancing and retreating until her lubrication welcomes me to the hilt.

"Far too long." She groans and works her hips to a rapid and sharp orgasm, then slumps back against the bed. I slip from her and hustle to reclaim my prize. Kissing her gorgeous lips, I press insistently inside her and buck my way in short succession to a hurried repossession of our union. All too quickly I cum inside her and fall away myself.

"Hey." I cradle her face with my hands.

"Gidday idiot." She dimples at me.

"Love ya."

"Hold me tight, I'm really fucked."

"Well..."

She punches my shoulder and snuggles off to sleep again.

At the first hints of drool and snoring I rise and find food. We've reached that stage of partnership where bodily functions lose their surprise, but we still try to fart privately.

Sitting on the couch watching drivel on the telly, I can see her through the open door and only close it when Mum and Dad come home after dinner. Deprived of my favourite view, I take some bourbon to the balcony and stare out over the city.

Life is good. Once that would have worried me with thoughts of sudden downfalls, but this seems to be my new normal. My happy ever after.

It's not a fairy tale any more. There are bills and responsibilities and interruptions and sickness and all the usual ways that life tries to fuck you in the arse but I'm really quite content. Not new lover happy but real-life content. We display our love socially and include our friends in our new 'normal', not frightened any longer by its fragility.

Trina worries Sasha when she's away and I sleep over now and then. Going to their Strathpine duplex and hanging out with the little enigma sort of works for me too when I'm missing Sasha. Trina is a playful distraction and I can sleep better in Sasha's bed with the smell of her skin still on the pillows. We share our memories of Sasha and Trina fills me in on just enough grotty secrets to embarrass the fuck out of Sasha when I get the chance.

She's started growing her hair too and looks cute in a tom-boy sort of honey blonde way. Her bob cut locks curl wildly and frame her precocious face with hints of femininity that I think she struggles to contain. Most of the time she has it tied tersely in a hair band or squarely kept under a cap but sometimes when she thinks no one is looking (me included) it gets away from her.

It's good to see her looking happier too. Sometimes dark things trouble her; I've no idea what and Sasha just shrugs and says, "don't ask." But generally, she seems to share our new happiness and loves when we include her in our lazy, much less frantic now, kind of unplanned dates.

The following day is Friday and in a silly way, I still get excited for our standing lunch date. Today is my turn to grab coffee and treats so I leave the office to visit the little coffee shop nearby. On the way, I pass the jewellers where the busker was yesterday and, on a whim, decide to inquire about the pretty ring in the window.

"Who's the lucky woman?" asks the jeweller. "Must be pretty special."

"Oh... girlfriend, she is special."

"Well you must be feeling pretty nervous."

"Oh? Why's that?"

The jeweller passed me the trinket and I turn it carefully in my hands. Thousands of tiny lights twinkle in the faceted pink stone.

"I remember asking my own wife to marry me. I was terrified she'd say no."

"Ah." Now I understand, "No, I was just looking for a gift."

"Ahuh. Well perhaps you'd like to consider some other items."

"No, I like this."

"It is quite a special ring. I admire your taste for fine jewellery. Sir, that is three quarters of a carat of vivid Pink diamond. Perhaps one of the created sapphires if you are drawn to the colour would be more affordable as a gift. That stone alone is valued at around thirty thousand dollars and set in platinum like that, well we're asking thirty-four, nine ninety-nine. It was a one-off design that the buyer defaulted upon."

"Holy shit." And I almost drop the thing I'm so frightened by its value.

He smiles understandingly at me and holds out the box for me to return the ring.

"Well. Thank you. I'll need to re-consider things." I'm a little embarrassed and smiling awkwardly I leave to fetch coffee and cheesecake.

Sasha rambles about the rape case and her stay in Townsville while she drinks her coffee and takes hungry spoonful's of her cheesecake. Her honey brown eyes dance on mine occasionally and her dimples catch me staring.

"What?" she asks between mouthfuls, "You okay?"

It's been almost eight months since that Valentine's date, far too soon for the things I'm thinking and caught off guard I blush. "Nothing. Just thinking about some things."

"Anything kinky?" she asks cheekily.

"Well now I am."

"You're insatiable mister." She giggles.

"Are you complaining?"

"Hell no." And then like we do more and more these days we slip into comfortable silence, just satisfied with each other's presence.

I wonder, as I watch her eating and flicking through the newspaper what she'd say if I proposed. We practically live together but keep separate houses. Through the week she stays at the unit with my parents and I and on weekends we're very seldom apart. Usually we take Trina up to the farm but on weekends when either of us has commitments in town we stay at her place.

"You're staring at me again." She tells me suspiciously.

"You're beautiful."

"I know right." She laughs, "This silly bloke I know keeps telling me."

Not in the next few days, but the time will come. I check my savings account while we lunch, then log into my portfolio.

"Well my lover, I'm back to the grindstone. Will you be coming over tonight, or picking me up in the morning?" The sultry look she fixes me with leaves no question about it.

"I'll bring pizza and beer."

"You're so easy." She smiles victoriously.

We kiss and she leaves.

Back at my laptop I drop some stock and watch as it sells quickly and later on, I walk out of the quite surprised jeweller's store with a very different investment in my pocket. The little hard box taps against my thigh with each step and fills me with nervous excitement for when the right day comes and terror that I'll be mugged before I make it home. As I unlock the small gun safe in the unit and slide the box in beside my Glock 35, I wonder if I'll ever have the balls or the opportunity to propose. Knowing Sasha, she'll get around to it before I do.

On the drive to her Strathpine unit I'm stopped for a random breath test and as I blow in the tube for the nice young lady cop, I can picture Sasha in a uniform. We'll have to try that out sometime and I make a mental note to ask if she still has any uniforms.

Domino's is busy and it takes about fifteen, twenty minutes for them to cook the two pizzas. One is ham and pineapple with jalapeno's for Sasha and the other is seafood with extra anchovy. I'll eat both but Sasha won't touch the anchovies and Trina won't touch the jalapeno's. Two garlic bread and a bottle of coke complete the meal.

Delia, my Statesman De-Ville, smells like an Italian feast for the remaining ten-minute drive and I'm salivating like Pavlov's pups by the time I pull into the drive of the little duplex Sasha owns. Trina is in the yard swinging a whipper-snipper like the grim reaper harvesting the grassy souls of the garden edges.

"Pizza Boy is here!" she yells over the two-stroke noise and shutting it down she crosses the lawn to give me a sweaty hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Good to see you stranger."

"Same Kitty-Kat." It's been a couple of weeks.

"Sassy is in the pool. Pop that in the oven and join her. It's fucken hot. Soon as I'm done, I'll take a shower and find ya's."

So I do. I pop the cardboard pizza boxes and the al-foiled garlic bread in the oven at 80C to keep it warm and take two bourbon and cola cans out to the pool area where I strip to my undies and bomb dive into the sheer bliss of cool water.

"Fucking arsehole! Look at my fucking phone. Fuck me." Sasha growls at me wiping her phone on a towel and scowling with a smirk. "Get over here."

So I do that too and love the sloppy tongue filled connection of happy face and sweet smelling mouth and woman that I know.

Sighing she pulls away, "Such a fucking long week. Love you idiot."

"Love you too."

Then we're both surprised by, "Gross. Yuck. Can you two just like 'not fuck' for a few minutes please? I want to get in there before you mank it up with lovey stuff. I'm HOT!"

Trina stands poolside in her usual black one-piece.

Sasha blushes but I give it back, "I don't know about 'hot', maybe I'd stretch to pretty. Maybe just 'sweet' like a Kit-Kat." Kit-Kat is a brand of chocolate covered wafers, it's also the nickname I've settled on for her after learning her name is really Katarina. It's half truth, half tease. She hates the girly attention thing. As her hair has grown and she's relaxed around me she is really starting to look more... well more... girly; attractive kind of girly.

And there it is, a deep Bronco's maroon flush to her pretty little face. For a moment, her blue eyes are almost purple.

"Stop it Jimmy." Sasha tells me, "Don't be an arsehole. Now, I was kissing you mister, get back here and stop perving on my big sister."

Later as we eat pizza in the balmy December evening air, I become aware that Trina is watching me very closely. Not staring but constantly watching whenever she can.

"What Kitty-Kat? What's bothering you?" I ask her and Sasha turns her face in question too.

Trina stands and leans on her hands on the table her attention turned completely now to Sasha and in a trembling voice peppered with low menace she says, "You have until Monday to tell him bitch. Then I will."

There are tears in her eyes as she tidies up the empty boxes and takes them off inside.

"What was that about?" I ask and Sasha's eyes drop in sadness.

"Don't worry for now, we'll talk this weekend. Work stuff." There is mystery tainted with sorrow in her voice and her eyes are far away for a few moments. "Hey Jimmy?"

"What?"

"I always wanted to do it in the pool. Fancy some skinny dipping?"

"Last one in is a rotten egg."

I chase the giggles through the dark.

WINTER IS COMING

Sasha has been working with Dad on something or other all weekend, so we've taken the opportunity to get a bit more work done on the F350. Presently, we're wire framing the inner guards on Effie, Trina and I. To fit the big block motor, we've had to cut out the original wheel wells. Now with the front springs out we turn the wheels through their full movement and tack weld wire to mark the range of free movement required. Later I'll have Dad roll a one mil sheet to the shape of the wire frame and I'll weld it into the guards.

"Think that'll do it Kitty-Kat." I wipe my hands on a cloth and lean against the driver's door where Trina sits holding the wheel. "Time for lunch?"

Looking up through her fringe with those purple blue eyes she gifts me a lopsided grin and nods. There's a fridge in the shed near the door. I grab two beers and the sandwiches Mum made this morning and we sit on the tailgate of the ute and eat in silence. A lot of what Trina and I do is done in silence. She has an uncanny way of knowing what I need before I ask and I guess we work a bit like Dad and I do, communicating in shorthand with looks and gestures.

We're startled by a noise behind us and looking to the roller doors I see Sasha leaning against the door frame smiling at us.

"My two favourite people in the world." She says with tears on her cheeks.

"I guess that's my cue." Trina says and leans up to kiss my cheek. "I'll leave you two alone."

"What's?.." I ask not really knowing what to ask but knowing something is up.

Trina walks toward the garage door stopping only long enough to give Sasha a meaningful glare before she leaves towards the house.

"What's this?" I turn the envelope over and search for clues. Sasha wipes her eyes and sits beside me.

"Just open it."

Taking the stapled pages from the envelope I read the first few paragraphs slowly.

Contractual agreement between Royce, O'Sullivan and Bourke Pty Ltd (hereinafter 'the firm') and Sasha Louise O'Sullivan regarding tuition, retainer and tenure subject to terms and conditions as regards:-

1. One year full time LLM International and Transnational Criminal Law, Amsterdam Graduate School of Law.

2. One year internship UNICEF Manhattan, New York City.

3. All expenses, travel and yearly retainer equivalent to current salary financed by the firm conditional upon satisfactory completion of study.

4. Five year minimum tenure to the firm upon completion of studies.

Conditional requirements:-

My heart is in my throat. "You're crying because you've accepted this aren't you?"

Sasha nods.

My feet move and my mouth won't work. I just look at her with welling eyes and walk. I'm not sure where I'm going until I find the end of the little jetty and sit. I don't sit because I want to. I sit because I can no longer see and my feet don't feel trustworthy. Sasha's footsteps echo along the wooden planks and for the first time since I've known her, I wish she wasn't there. She sits beside me and hands me a beer.

Her tears stopped long ago and the beer ran out too but it's sunset by the time my tongue works.

"So what happens now?"

"Oh god Jim, I don't know." She puts an arm around me and it feels awkward. "If you asked me to stay..."

"I can't. You know that."

"I know. Part of me wishes you could."

"It's just chance in a lifetime stuff."

She nods and starts crying again.

"When?" My mouth asks the question my heart dreads.

"January sixteenth."

"So soon."

"Hold me Jimmy, I'm broken inside."

I'm not usually an overtly emotional sort of man but when I look at her eventually, I break all over again and we sit there crying in each other's arms for far too long until mosquitoes and hunger lead us eventually back to the house. Mum is waiting on the verandah watching us walk back and her red eyes tell me that once again I am the last to have known.

Dinner that night is solemn. The only thing worse than the leaden weight in my chest is the reek of empathy around the table. Later when we make love it's like the first and the last time. Like I want to memorise every inch of her and savour it, commit it permanently to memory. When she bucks and shudders on me, she is crying, sobbing against my chest and moving me inside her. My chest is wet with her tears, my body wet with sweat and the love we've made. It's like our bodies are crying in pain. Sasha sleeps but I watch her long into the night before I slip into hollow dreams beside her.