Predominantly Concerned with Sex

Indulgent preface.

Trigger warning. References to suicide. No description.

I'm just not sure you all understand the Australian country girl. She's a bit like that Garth Brooks song 'She's Every Woman'. Leather, lace, fire, ice, and the softest thing on the planet when she lets you inside her guard. I'm also sure there are girls like that all over the world. But I really like our outback version; the dusty Valkyries.

Please read Janey with a slow country drawl. And Bobby? Make your own mind up about him. In my mind he was a little bit every man searching for meaning and a place in the world. Might also have been a little bit me in there too.

© Copyright claimed. Don't be a cunt. All my stories are free.

~* *~

Sing to me of redemption,

Paint me a sky full of love.

Fill a heart with boiling gold and

Smear it with a crimson flood.

"I just sat there, Dad."

"Bullshit, boy." He looks sideways at me sternly.

"True. I could hear one man's balls slapping against her as he fucked her like a dog and her choking on another's dick."

"The fuck is wrong with you? Why would you just sit there?"

My beer doesn't know the answer when I sip it. My beard can't help either when I scratch it. "I just... didn't want to give her the satisfaction of thinking she'd gotten to me, I guess."

"Shoulda punched a cunt. I would have. If I ever saw your Mum... Jesus wept, that's just disgusting. I can't even imagine..."

"She was nothing like Mum, old man."

"You sure can pick em." He baits his line and casts it back under the mangroves across from us. "Why the fuck would she even do that? Didn't she... like self-respect? She seemed like a nice kid. Not like those other girls. I thought you'd finally settled down."

"She was drunk."

"No excuse. A person won't do something drunk they won't do sober, in my experience."

I nodded. "Nope. She just finally let me see her as she was."

"And you expect me to believe you were surprised? You're not a stupid man, Bobby."

"I blame myself. She was like all the others. Really sexual. It's like I have a thing for oversexed emotionally broken women."

"The two can go together. It's easy to stick your dick in crazy once son, but you make a habit of it." He laughs gently. We don't mince words and we don't pull punches, Dad and me. He's the same with all my brothers. Poor old Mum had six of us before she gave up on having a daughter.

"She told me the next morning that she was sorry. She didn't think I was in the cabin. She looked quite ashamed."

"Can't have been that drunk then."

"Nah, I think she was just pissed off she got sloppy and caught. I'd had suspicions she was er... getting about a bit, but..."

"Hoy! I'm on!" I watch as he pulls in a nice little bream.

He looks at me funny as he washes his hands and wipes them on his trousers, "So what's it like then? Watching your fiancée getting spit roasted?"

"Weird." I laugh a little. "Like watching porn a bit. After I got over the immediate shock and fury, it was a bit hot really."

"You liked it?" He frowns sideways at me.

"Well... No. I didn't like that it was my fiancée, but she's a hot chick and was taking it like a champ. It was weird."

"Like having an angry boner?" He chuckles and baits his hook. "Maddy Jackson back in high school. I had such a huge crush on her but prom night she got with David Peters. She was fucking him in the back seat of his car and we could all see through the windows. Fucking hot. Had tits like this. I'd always wanted to see them one day. But..."

"Well, she did me a favour I reckon. I need loyalty, Dad. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"Ha. That's rich."

"What?"

"You've been doing the same damn thing your whole life. Don't tell me you expect new things to happen?"

"Get fucked. What do you mean?"

"Remember your 'fucket' list?"

"Oh Jesus... Poor Mum."

"Don't be so worried for your mother, lad. That list gave her a few good ideas, you know."

"Gross Dad." I pretended to sick in my mouth a bit and got a chuckle out of him. Friends and I in high school had decided childishly to assemble a sexual bucket list of sorts inspired by the porn we consumed and shared like popcorn. Stuff like, 'throat fuck', 'bgb', 'insertion'. Just weird porn stuff we wanted to try.

"Just... It's always been about fucking for you boys. I'm glad you're not fighters but, if you guys came with a rating it would be, 'triple x - predominantly concerned with sex'. Your brothers are the same. It's like you're all trying to high score over each other with who got the most, the best, the wildest sex. Then sooner or later you want something more and don't know how to get it. Look at Pete."

"Yeah, bit rough. Poor cunt deserved a bit better after ten years."

"Did he though?"

"Fuck off, what does that mean?"

"Well. He finally found his 'big titted blondy who fucked like a rabbit' that he'd been searching for his whole life and then expected her to be a good life partner and mother to boot. It does happen. Your Mum was my dream woman and god knows she went alright, but you're all coming at it wrong. You go straight for sex and expect loyalty and commitment and love and all the fairy-tale to just magic itself up. It doesn't work like that. You have to find the romance and if you get all the rest of it right then the sex is icing on the cake. Not the whole fucking cake like you boys think."

"Hmmmpphh." Mostly I'm still pissed off. I'd saved six months for that damn cruise so I could propose, just for her inner slut to ruin my imagination of her. "Shut up and fish, old man."

His laughter blesses my outburst.

"You'll work it out buddy. You've always been the thoughtful one. My big old softy."

"Fuck you!" I laugh. "Seriously, you're on again? That's like five to my none."

"Someone once told me, 'shut up and fish'. Maybe should take his own advice hey?"

~* *~

I was nervous returning to work after the weekend back home with Dad. The city is so damn big and busy after the quiet of his place up in Noosa. It didn't help that everyone in the office probably knew by now that Abigail and I had split. I have completely ignored my socials since I flew home, but knowing her, she's painted the digital world a nasty colour of me.

Maybe.

Maybe if she's finished fucking her way around the Pacific Ocean long enough to use her fingers for posting stuff. I took a water taxi to one of the islands after speaking with crew and flew home from there. It just seemed self-flagellating to share a room with her and finish the cruise.

"Sorry to hear about you and Abby." Terry, the supervisor patted my back and shared how sad he thought it was but that it was good we were still going to be friends like Abby said on facebook.

"Oh, you poor darling. Here's my number. You call if you want to talk or anything." Amelia kissed my cheek, "I mean, anything."

"Cool, so you're up for clubbing Friday?" Nelly asked.

"Um..."

"Come on, we're a top team. We always pull when we're out together. I hook you up, you hook me up. It'll be like old times."

"Nah... I'm just not feeling it yet, love."

"All good, player. I get it. Let me know when you're back in the game."

By Friday afternoon, I'd decided that if my girlfriend of two years and fiancée of two days could double team some rich older dudes in our own cruise ship cabin, then maybe I could grant myself a little consolatory coitus.

"A pity hook up?" Nelly laughs. "So like, you feel sad for little Bobby inside you and big Bobby is going to go out and get him laid?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"Works for me. Meet you at The Callie for a meal and pre-drinks. Maybe seven'ish hey?"

"Sure."

We hang up after she's grilled me for the gruesome details of 'Abby's cabin stabbin' as she called it jokingly and I let out a deep sigh of something like relief and gratitude for my old friend, Nelly. I met Nelly in university and we... Well, we hooked up a few times before recognising how horribly similar we were in the shallowness department. It was kind of the backwards version of what Dad had suggested.

Nelly and I started off as casual lovers and discovered a great friendship.

"Now Robert Ruben Holmes, why can't you just find a friend who one day makes a great lover?" I chastise myself as I fuss over a microwave dinner.

Friday night came and went in a blurry half remembered haze of alcohol and doofy music, loud voices and an empty wallet. So many smiling faces dance behind my eyelids as I drift into Saturday afternoon and my aching brain throbs with flashback moments. A scent of woman arouses me and in my dozy dream state I rub at myself until I'm hard and wonder at the wetness still lingering on my member.

"Oh god, did we fuck again, Bobby?" My half sozzled hungover head registers Nelly's voice.

I don't think we did. I remember getting home and helping her up the stairs and into the apartment. After that it gets blurry but, "No... I fucked someone but I'm pretty sure it wasn't you. You were spewing last I remember."

"Damn... I fucked somebody. My bum hurts and my puss-puss feels like a traffic accident."

"Not me, Nelly. You were asleep on the lounge when I came to bed. You want coffee?"

"Like an infusion, babe. God. I'm such a slut." She yawns disinterestedly as she says it like it's nothing at all. "Hey... That blonde chick with the impossible tits... She fucked you at the taxi stand while we waited. I'm surprised the cops didn't come."

"Oh yeah!" I laugh as it all comes tumbling back. "She had a fans thing or something. And god... flexible or what?"

"Haha and her friends all recording. You're a porn star."

"Fuck my life. At a taxi stand... And you think you're a slut? I felt like a human dildo by the end. Still, those tits, eh?"

"Hurry up with the coffee. A couple of Codral too please. My brain is set to splodey mode."

"So, who did 'you' fuck?" I ask as I present a still totally naked Nelly with a cup of povvo-dirt-water-instant-regret.

"I was hoping it was you, but I think it was the uber dude."

"Oh..." Gross, he was solidly wedged into the driver's side of the Prius. I don't think he could have got out to do the deed in any case.

"No Nelly, I remember getting home. It must have been at the bar."

"Oh god no. Shit... That dude that was buying our drinks. I remember now. Thanks a fucking lot. I can cross 'old Asian man with a bad singing voice' off my fucket list."

"Yeah, haha. Fuck! I remember now." I giggle remembering her drag the surprised gent away from the microphone where he'd been delicately rendering Pink's "Cover me in sunshine."

"Do you still have those Diazapam?"

"Yeah."

"So, I'm going to cook omelettes. Then you're going to shower that skank off you and go back to bed. I'm going to try and scrub every regret I've ever had off me and join you and we'll wake up tomorrow and play old school Nintendo games until it's time to go back to work, Ok?"

"Like a charm, Nelly."

"God, I wish I loved you, Bobby. We'd make a brilliant couple." She yawns and stares into the open fridge. "Instead of loser fuck toys."

"I know, Nelly. Me too. I just... I think that bits broken."

"Mine too... So, omelettes, Valium-snuggles and Nintendo? Sound like a plan, besty?"

"The best."

She kisses me quickly on the lips like we always do and the pong of her almost overpowers the smell of me. That shower sounds like a grand idea.

~* *~

My brother Andrew is my favourite. He's about ten or eleven years older than me. His wife Angela is a gorgeous little round goofball with the loveliest smile and pores that weep kindness and love. One day, I think I'd like a wife that loves like Angela does. Their kids, Adam and Annie are just like you put Andrew and Angela in a blender and tipped out some little 'A' people.

Once a quarter at least, I take my old ute up to their place in the northern suburbs and Andrew does a service for me while I soak up their version of happy family. The kids clamber on me and tell me in excited voices about their little lives and big imaginations. Angie cooks a huge meal and fusses over me like I'm another kid come home from school or something.

"Seeing anyone, Bobby?" She asks putting a plate of lasagne and salad down in front of me. "It's been a little while now."

"No... Kinda jaded a little, I think."

"Bullshit, bro. Tell me you haven't hooked up since." Andy laughs.

"Ok." I make surrendering hands. "But... not dipping my feet back in that whole commitment mess."

"Why honey? Still hurting?" Angie pats my arm.

"No... Not that really. I think... I don't know, I'm still getting my head straight. I was fishing with Dad a couple of months ago and he made a bit of sense."

"I hate when he does that." Andrew agrees.

"I just think I get what I deserve because... well, I'm looking for the wrong thing and I'm the wrong thing too."

"Oh shit." Andy passes me a beer. "Dad got right in there, the old bugger. Just relax. Be happy. Sooner or later some angel will come along and fuck that up for you."

"Arsehole!" Angie thumps him. "He's got a bit of a point though, Bobby. Do 'you' for a little while, honey. Work on you. Get happy. Nothing as attractive to a woman as a happy man."

"God. I work ten-hour days, five days a week and every other weekend. I wouldn't go out with me."

"So, make changes man. What are you slaving away for anyway? You good for bucks?" Andrew points his fork at me. "I thought you had a house deposit all put together last time we talked money matters."

"Yeah. Nah, that's all good. Kinda dodged a bullet I reckon. Abby could have taken me a bit but she just... We weren't living together thank god and..."

"Bobby hun, take a holiday. Do some you time. Work out what you want and work out who you want to be. You look stressed as f- er... very stressed. We'll talk more when the kids are off to bed."

"You've always been such a stress-bunny, little mate." Andy scruffs my neck.

It feels a bit like torture before I get into it, but every time I visit, the kids beg bedtime stories and Angie and Andy laugh like they've been given a royal reprieve. I finish reading and kiss them each goodnight and they shame me a little with their innocent love for me. The world gets to be such a grotty fucked up kind of shit show when you grow up. Especially in this giant city. It's so damn anonymous and busy and feels like a coral reef full of little polyp high-rises and passing moray eels.

"I'm a clown fish." I announce and laugh at Angie and Andy jumping apart like they shouldn't be kissing like teenage lovers on their own back deck.

"You're a fucking clown, alright." My brother laughs and blushes.

"Sorry honey. I got a bit carried away with the big fella. We've been thinking about another niece or nephew for you."

"Eww... Angie, really..." I giggle at her teasing eyes. Then I fetch beers for us from their deck fridge and watch the sun set over the range. "I just need to make some changes. I'm not happy with who I am. I'm never gonna find something like what you two have if I'm this weird little fish zinging about this giant coral reef picking up bottom feeders and boggle eyed eels. I need to be better. I think I have to become the sort of man that the sort of woman I imagine deserves."

"Cheese and rice, blokey. You have some fucking deep old thoughts while you read little golden books to tired kids."

"I think you're on to something, honey." Angie smiles. "But I think you have it backwards. You're already something awesome, you just have to see it in yourself and demand better."

I laugh at her beautiful heart and embarrass her by leaning over the table and kissing her on the cheek.

"Thanks for tonight guys. You really are my island of sanity and nice, in this dirty old world. Love ya guts out."

"Back at ya, bro." Andy bops my shoulder.

A couple of beers later, I excuse myself before I've had too much to drive home.

"Get at that baby making you lovely people. I'll have another niece this time, please."

"You'll get what you're given and love it either way." Angie hugs me.

"You're a good bloke, little mate." Andrew hugs me. "Life's a conspiracy to make us better people. Take your time with it and don't be too hard on yourself."

"And wear a condom." Angie giggles.

"What like all the time?" I ask.

"Well, maybe just put one on before you go out, you he-slut." Andy joins her in chortles, "Go on, fuck off now. See you in a couple of months when that beat up piece of shit needs looking at again."

"Thanks guys."

My phone beeps with a message as I let myself out the side gate, but it can wait until I'm home. I don't want to let the world in just yet.

From my balcony in the unit, I can see down below where cars scurry about the city like ants in a giant colony. All of them holding people who are busy in their own minds with the logistics of their lives. It's humbling and frightening at the same time, but the breeze out here is fresh and the night air cool on my skin.

"I'm sorry. I just hurt. Love you." I read Nelly's message one more time and wonder what the fuck she's on about. She goes on these melancholy meanderings every now and then. One moment, she's million miles an hour two tonnes of fun stuffed in a tiny woman and next moment, she's Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and red wine. Some dark things peck at her I guess, and she sends weird messages. I tried calling but she's probably asleep now, so I try to think of what to send back.

"Back at ya, besty." Is about all I can come up with.

She told me once when I really pressed her about her moods that there was stuff from her childhood that bothered her. I couldn't get her to open up any more than that. It was part of why we didn't work as lovers. She really didn't want anyone to get that close to her, I think.

"This thing we have." She kissed my cheek. I can almost feel it now, as I remember. "This is all I can do, Bobby. Friends has to be enough. I don't want to hurt you and if we... Well, I will hurt you."

And being her friend was good. She understood me in some sort of way that other people don't.

My work week was frantic and by Friday afternoon I craved a blow-out of epic proportions. I wanted to crawl into a bottle in a loud room full of pretty people and noise and forget the world of adulthood for a while. I hadn't heard from Nelly but that was normal too. Maybe she'd be up for a night in the Valley.

Her phone rung out the first time as I drove home. When I rang the second time, it picked up quickly.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Who is this?"

"It's me, Nelly." I laugh at her confusion.

"This is Therese, Nelly's sister. You are?"

"Oh... Bobby." Weird. I didn't know her family were visiting. Maybe that's why she hasn't messaged this week.

"Oh... Bobby... Nelly spoke about you. Listen... Nelly's gone mate."

"Gone? Where?"

"She took her..." Her sister just started sobbing and I pulled over into the emergency lane.

"Nelly's gone?"

"Sunday last, mate. Listen, I'll get Mum. I'm just a mess right now. Sorry."

"Bobby?" I'd met her mum and knew her voice.

"Mrs Jackson."

"Barbara please. Buddy, do you think you could come around? There's a lot to- not over the phone. And... she left some things for you."

A giant rock starts forming in my chest. I'm starting to believe she's dead, not missing or left home.

"Nelly?"

"Pills, Bobby. Last Sunday. A whole bottle of Valium."

"Fuck." I whisper as the tears start. "Fuck. She messaged me... I should have-"

"There was nothing anyone could do, Bobby. She didn't give any of us a chance. Y ou did more than enough over the years. We're just here for another few hours tidying up. Are you right to drive?"