The Ghost of Timor Ch. 01

January 2023

The Hotel Realm wasn't a recognisable Canberra landmark. Even for someone with a tourist's knowledge of Australia's capital. The most iconic image of the city is that taken from Mount Ainslie. From that vantage, one looks down ANZAC Parade and across Lake Burley Griffin toward old and new Parliament Houses. If the camera shot was wide enough, you might detect the Realm at the extreme left of the frame. Not that it stood out.

The Realm sat atop the block once occupied by the notoriously cheap Macquarie Hotel. Both faced inward on National Circuit, in the government enclave suburb of Barton. The Macquarie had once been within easy walking distance from both parliament buildings. Despite its condition, it had been much favoured by Australian politicians and their staff until the day it finally closed. Its cheap rates helped them pocket as much of their taxpayer funded travel allowance as they could.

Hotel Realm was one of only two 5-star hotels in Canberra. The other was the Grand Hyatt on Commonwealth Avenue. The Realm opened in 2008 and had a decidedly 'business hotel' vibe about it. When opened, people complained about the Realm's minimalism. Strips of red metal suspended around the atrium formed a central sculpture. They were a cheap but effective, distinctive and dramatic signature look for the hotel. There was no central expensive artwork, sculpture, or lighting fixture. Nor was the foyer wreathed in armfuls of expensive blooms. But the interior, full of grey and faux suede, deep piled, rust-coloured furniture, edged with steel and dark wood, was comforting enough.

The outside of the Realm was little different from its interior. Stark glass and concrete in style, the Realm proceeded much of Canberra's rapid urban infilling from the early 2000s, more function than form. The advantage of this design, however, was that it maximised interior space and views. Floor to ceiling windows in large, well-appointed rooms were standard for the Realm.

And on a mid-January day in 2023, rain streaked those window panes of a Realm's guest room that looked out towards the Australian Foreign Ministry. Sheets of rain were a more accurate description. A summer thunderstorm was lashing the capital, and from inside that room, the Realm seemed to bear the brunt of it. The ancient oaks and imported deciduous trees of old Canberra were being thrashed by the wind. After a long absence, the storm had broken.

Like the rain pouring down the hotel windows, perspiration also streaked Alison. Sweat was bubbling up on her skin everywhere. It ran down her back, forming a little puddle on her spine or cascaded down her flanks. She could feel it trickling down her breasts, momentarily cooling them. It flicked off her nipples to the floor as they swayed back and forth, back and forth.

"Some respite from the heat," she thought. She hadn't had a workout like this in years, at least not in this position. Since her separation from her husband two years earlier, she'd run, lifted, cycled and starved herself. She now approximated something approaching her twenties. But her body was reminding her now that she hadn't done any of this type of exercise, not in a very long time. Marital sex was one thing; a good fuck was another altogether!

For Jeremy's part, he couldn't believe that he was here again. He'd sent Alison a letter months earlier. He hadn't imagined that the result would be a naked Alison bent over a chair in front of him, taking everything he could pound into her. Maybe he wished it. No, he had definitely wished it. But after 25 years, he'd never expected to see her again, let alone rekindle old flames. He'd told himself that he was just trying to get his own house in order. But he wasn't complaining about this latest development.

After reuniting with Alison two hours earlier, she'd left her room card and a small key on the table in front of him as an invitation. He had taken her hint and, after waiting a whole five minutes, followed her back to her room in the hotel above the Realm's lobby.

He opened the door and announced his presence just in case he accidentally startled her. "Alison?"

"Through here," Alison called. Not that he needed directions. She had left him a trail of clothes from the door to where she was waiting for him; shoes, dress, bra, undies, Alison.

The sight that greeted him in that room was welcome and not entirely unexpected. Alison had left a big enough hint of what would wait for him if he followed her to her room. He was already hard in anticipation by the time she'd left him downstairs. Seeing her now, waiting for him as she had foreshadowed, almost ruined the moment. He wasn't a young man anymore, after all.

Alison was stark naked. Her arms resting on the back of a chair that she'd dragged from the desk to the middle of the room and positioned in front of a large mirror. She was staring at him with the biggest grin he had ever seen on anyone. His mind turned back to the touch football match where they had broken the ice 25 years earlier.

"More like 'please grope me' football," he corrected himself. What a way to get someone's attention.

"Why Lieutenant Holland, is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Alison quipped.

Seeing that Alison was in no position to cover herself or escape, Jeremy returned service. "No, just my mobile phone. I thought I might take a few photos for my blog. And that is 'Colonel' Holland to you, Private Benaud."

"Get fucked!"

"If you insist," he said, as he removed his tie.

________________________________________

The sweat from Jeremy's exertions was stinging his eyes. Whenever he'd played sport, he'd always encountered the same problem, sweat getting in his eyes and obscuring his vision. So much so that he'd been forced to carry a cloth in his pocket during exercise to clear his vision. "Old man" his teammates called him back then, back in his twenties. He was an old man now but, at this moment, he'd been transported back to 1997.

From where he stood behind her, Alison was still a catch. Not the limber 21-year-old he'd first met years ago--age had come to them both--but for a 46-year-old with three children, she was in remarkably good condition. She was a knockout from the front too. No longer the short blonde bob of her youth. Her hair was longer now, falling down past her shoulders. She was leaner too, her arms were more defined, biceps and triceps clearly visible as she held herself between the chair and his thrusts.

He hadn't been slack either. The gym had given him strength that'd he hadn't known in his twenties, and he'd discovered running later in life. He would not break any records these days, but at this moment, he was very grateful for the path he'd chosen. And it was definitely better than sitting on his ass watching TV in to an early grave.

He started to the feel the end coming about 20 minutes in, the change in his breathing signalling to Alison that their dance was ending. She couldn't do much more from her position but turn sideways and look in the mirror, but he could tell that she was happy with how it had gone... so far.

He came in the usual way, Alison giving her approval earlier that there was nothing to worry about; trust going both ways. But he had one more surprise in store for her that day. Instead of collapsing over her and resting, Jeremy used his new posture to reach between Alison's thighs and find her clitoris. She was already flush with excitement, so the sudden attention of his hand didn't cause her to flinch as it might have if she had been 'cold'. Finding the right spot, Jeremy stimulated her; causing an instant reaction. He didn't ask her for permission, and she hadn't wanted him to.

Pinned beneath him and unable to move, Alison was effectively his toy. From there, he could do anything to her he wanted to. But again, instead of thinking of himself, he now only sought her pleasure. She could have protested, but she didn't want to. After all, no one else had tried to get her off in almost a decade.

As her pleasure built, Alison could feel Jeremy's cum sliding out of her and slowly trickling down her leg. She didn't care; this wasn't a job interview, and she was pretty sure that she had already passed the physical. The wrongness of her situation just made this moment even more right.

"Where have you been all my life?" She asked herself rhetorically. She knew full well that answer to that one. And although there were no do overs in this lifetime, she questioned the reasons for some of her decisions that she had made in the last century. Her rising feeling of pleasure snapped her out of her introspection and brought her back to reality.

"Reflect later," her body told her. "Right now, we're a little busy."

When Alison came, it wasn't in the usual way. A decade of self-service when her husband had been out on the town at night with his mates had been just a matter of survival. Something to relieve an itch or help her get to sleep at night. This was something different. It was pleasure. This was a fuck!

And when it happened, she thought she was about to faint. The pleasure was intense. Akin to the first time she had ever cum. A sensation so pleasurable and foreign that she hadn't understood what was happening to her. A confusion of guilt and ecstasy had overwhelmed her mind then and now she was feeling it again.

"I guess it's not like riding a bike after all."

Alison felt her legs beginning to give way. She cursed Jeremy for having so much stamina despite him being on the wrong side of 50 and her punishing post-marriage fitness regime. Then she cursed herself again for her ingrained competitiveness. But it wasn't fatigue that was causing this loss of function; it was fornication. This was involuntary, and no amount of willpower was going to keep her upright. She was cuming; she was cuming hard, and she was cuming now and she could do nothing to stop it.

With a low guttural moan, Alison finally let go and gave over to ecstasy. She crumpled to the floor, still clinging to the chair which had been supporting her. Jeremy followed her down, his fingers refusing her pleas to stop. When he finally decided that she had had enough, he ran his hands up her steaming torso, over her breasts and along the length of her outstretched arms and back down. Each hand repeating its journey as she panted in front of him.

"She was like a statue come to life," he pondered. A statue that could only be appreciated by touch. He ran his nails down her back, causing small parallel red welts to rise on her pale skin and Alison to shiver. He let her pant a few moments longer, then turned her face toward him and kissed her.

Recovered, Jeremy stood up and left Alison against the chair. He walked over to the bar and picked up the Tanqueray 10 and Nolly Prat that he spotted earlier when he was ploughing into Alison from behind.

"You came prepared," he said.

"I couldn't find our blindfold," she said cheekily.

Jeremy mixed two martinis and carried them over to the lounge, closer to Alison, sat down and drunk. "Can I get you anything?" he said sardonically.

"The key might be nice."

"All in good time." Jeremy sipped his drink and looked her over, smiling.

"Well, if you aren't going to uncuff me, then you could at least tell me what you have been doing for the last 25 years."