Vertigo Milf

Indulgent Author's note...

Some people think a lot of themselves. So much so that they introduce their stories like they're Stephen King returning from head injuries. Alas, I've no such excuse for my lax writing lately. I've simply started working full time again and I've felt kind of daunted by Dream Small's success. Pretty sure it's hard to meet expectations after that.

But yet again, a thing I had planned for a Valentine's Day Comp sort of took its own path and scampered off with the faeries. I was exploring the way that new relationships turn your world upside down sometimes and how unsettling and frightening that is when you've left your twenties behind and are well dug into your existence. And well, here we are.

I've been strongly criticised in the past for the vulgarity used in my stories. (Ironic that on an erotic story site, people don't like vulgar language but they're okay with Susan over there pissing on her husband's lover.) Also, for the slang that has people googling like those funny eyed goldfish. Well, here it is all over again.

This is set in Australia. What some read as vulgarity is just conversational speech. We use the words, Cunt and Fuck like American's use salt, the British use tea and the French should use deodorant. They are simply part of a vocabulary that falls from our tongues like drop bears from gum trees. To further confuse you, I'm introducing our mates from across the channel on the little islands of 'UnZud', the 'Kiwis'.

A quick warning also for those of you wishing to achieve dislocated wrist levels of self-pleasure... While there is sex, it's contextual and sparse. There are no throbbing members described in their veiny glory plundering the sodden love flowers of smut talking stepsisters. There are however a couple of people who get to know each other in and out of the bedroom.

This is an original work that may not be reproduced etc, etc. I reserve all the usual rights. If you see this or any other story of mine elsewhere, please let me know. Never pay for my stories. They are all published here free. I might get around to monetising one day but I struggle to take myself seriously.

Read on, cuzzy.

Man, I love fishing.

There's a little wooden jetty at the end of the boardwalk that runs down between my neighbour and I. The boardwalk lets people access the canal-side parkland at the back of my place. At this time of day, it's free of the lycra-clad joggers, the squabbling kids, the tourists and the dog-walkers. It's just me, my fold out chair, my little esky and my fishing gear. Oh, and the mosquitos.

I drown bait and watch the sunset over the dark rippling water and some nights a fish annoys me by requiring my attention. Not too often but often enough that I seldom buy protein at the shops. After ten years fly-in fly-out on the mines, it's nice to enjoy gentleman's work hours.

Work starts from home at eight each morning with video conferencing, goes mobile at midday for interviews or office time and always finishes by three in the afternoon. It gives me time I never had before to enjoy a social life. If I had the remotest notion of how to.

So, I fill my afternoons with gentle exercise; usually a bicycle ride to the shops and back and some days a gentle paddle on my surf ski in the calm canal waters listening to the cling-clang of rigging on masts and the hubbub of suburban living. It's serene.

But it's also empty.

At six I enjoy a light meal of cereals and fruits. I eat backwards for whatever reason, protein and carbs of a morning, traditionally a sandwich at lunch and then breakfast for dinner. There's no-one to criticise me and frankly it's what I feel like. On social nights where I have business meals or functions, I feel so bloated and gross by bedtime. But anyway, after dinner, I put six Boags long necks in a little blue foam cooler with a bit of ice, then I put some beach worms in a plastic bucket with my tiny tackle kit and take my handline down to the jetty.

Each evening, swarms of mosquitos remind me to slather myself in Neem oil and I set up my contraptions and go about my own version of fishing. My mind drifts on the far-off noises of ocean and traffic and I feel very removed from the busy coastal strip a kilometre away. It's like a meditative moment. My worries fall away and I'm washed clean with the lapping of the ripples on the wooden poles below. My mind winks and blinks with the waking mast lights and all that matters is here and now.

That's probably why she scared the absolute shit out of me with her polite, "Excuse me. Hello."

Beer unceremoniously splashes all over my face and shirt courtesy of my spastically jerked arm movements. I kicked my bait bucket into the water and fell sideways off my little stool onto the foam esky, crushing it and setting long necks rolling left and right over the wooden boards. To make things worse, at that precise moment, a tug on the line announced a much larger than normal piscatorial interest in my nightly bait.

"Oh shit. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." My clearly identifiable by vocal tones as female intruder scampered around trying to salvage my possessions while I laughed like a wombat and tried to get my feet under me all the while, trying to keep pressure on my catch.

I watched in distracted amusement as she stretched to rescue my bait bucket and used it to put my corralled long necks in, then started trying to reassemble my destroyed esky.

"Shit, your chilly bin is wrecked."

"Haha, my what?" I ask over my shoulder as I pull what I believe is going to be a good-sized flat head closer.

"Your chilly bin. It's broken. I'm so terribly sorry. I just didn't want to startle you and... Now look. What a mess. It's proper munted."

"S'alright, I just got a bit of a fright love. Cheap as chips anyhow. Can you pass me that net there, yup that's it. Look at this fucking beauty. Shit. Sorry for the French." It is indeed a beauty. I reckon it's about sixty centimetres long or two feet for you old buggers. I haven't caught anything this spectacular since I moved here eight years ago. Not much else matters to me in the moment except my sudden hunter-gatherer glory and self-appreciation.

She's bent over with her head down scrambling to get the beer out of the bucket in anticipation of me wanting to use it for my catch and in a moment that will be forever etched in my memories, she stands and offers me the bucket and the long curly dark hair that had hidden her, is swept from her face by the gentle night breeze.

I've never met a princess. Or a queen. But in the moment, I imagine that this is what they look like.

Her features are strong but equally delicate and fine. She has a proud brow and nose that are balanced by the softest smiling lips and cutest dimples. Her deep brown eyes wrinkle with mischief in the corners and sparkle with reflections from the sunset.

My grace, poise and ability to speak all pack their bags and exit stage left, and in a moment of epic clumsiness, the fish slaps my face, throws the hook and splashes back into the water. To cap things off, a sharp burning pain tells me that in my failed attempt to rescue the moment, the big flathead has spiked me with a gill raker.

"Oh god. You must hate me. I was just tramping down the shops and... My brothers are fishermen. I wanted to see if you had caught anything. I'm so sorry. Are you okay, is it hurt." She grabs my hand and pulls it to her to examine where the blood runs down my index finger.

"Ah. I'm alright." I manage to get out between laughs. "Just a little prick."

"Do you tell all the girls that? You're a bit short to start with, no wonder you're fishing on your own."

That just starts my laughed out loud joy all over again and I have to sit on the wooden jetty and open another beer while she inspects my fatal wound.

/`-------------------------------------------------------<><

"So... Let me get this straight, okay. You actually had a conversation with a real live female? A pretty one?"

"God you're judgie. It was just funny. I'm telling you 'cause it was funny."

"You're such a fucking wanker... Did you get her number?"

"Siss... No. I just. It was just a funny thing. Stop doing this match maker thing."

"She was pretty, right? And I quote..." I can hear her fingers doing physical quotes six hundred kilometres away in the Queensland scrub where she lives, "You've never met a princess."

"Yeah. Well... Her face was just..."

"Just?" I can also hear her standing with one hand on a hip and her left eyebrow perched near her hairline.

"She had a gorgeous face. That's not the point though, I was telling you all a funny story before you took me off speaker."

"Kat doesn't need to hear about your sex life."

"What sex life?"

"Exactly, fuckwit..." Her eyes roll audibly enough that I can feel the seismic shock from here. "She sucked your finger..."

"Oh... Yeah... That..."

"She put your finger in her mouth."

"I'm aware."

"And you don't have her number? There's a bus for people like you and it has special windows you can lick all the way your very own school."

"It wasn't like that."

"You know chicks practice sucking cock by using their fingers, right?"

"What the fuck Ebby?"

"Jesus wept, you're daft as fuck mate. As we become sexually aware, older girls demonstrate fellatio by sucking on our fingers and showing us the tongue movements. Am I being literal enough for you captain fucking oblivious?"

"No she... it was like a fucking owey or something you crack-head cocksucker." Only a brother can talk to his sister like that. If you ever say that to her, I will go to prison gladly and surrender my anal virginity to 'Bubba, the cell block bully' unashamedly, whilst remembering having beaten you almost to death...

"A fucking 'owey'-" I can hear the phone drop to a bench or something and clearly she is laughing while sitting doubled over somewhere nearby. Disgusted, I put my phone on speaker and sit it on the countertop while I fetch another beer.

I've checked my digitals and scrolled my notifications by the time she returns to ask me seriously, "When are you visiting your girls again? We seriously all miss you and you need some fucking adult supervision you drongo."

By way of explanation, Ebony, my older sister is gay. By 'girls', she means herself, her wife Tanya, their daughter Kat (a gender-neutral name I'm informed) and my ghosts. It's a massive guilt trip and it works every time.

"Soon siss. Soon. How about Saturday next? Pick me up from the airport?"

"If you back out, I'll ring you like I ring the lambs." Tanya threatens. She has such a raspy blokey kind of voice. You know how they all say that one is the boy and one is the girl in a gay relationship? Well, they're full of shit but Tan sure sounds like the blokey one. She's a dainty little thing that can rip your soul from your body with words alone but she is very feminine. She also does pretty much all of the farm work including the castrating of the wethers. "We miss you, Dave. All of us. You're our little cis rock in a world devoid of decent men."

"Cheap shot, Tan. Love you too. See you Saturday morning."

"Oh my god, Ebony! Stop pretending to blow the carrot. Jesus Dave, your sister... I'm gonna have to go give her something proper to suck on."

"Please put the little glass pipes away before I get there girls."

"Only if you bring us some weed, hon. You know how hard it is for schoolteachers to score weed don't you? Seriously, we don't even like you, just need you for thc."

"You fucking love me. Gotta go."

"Alright, let you go."

/`----------------------------------------------------<><

I like quiet weeks like this one. Mostly I'm just sifting through pre-interview selection criteria. We are interviewing this week for two major positions and otherwise just filtering general applications for qualified personnel; you know, tradies who need to tick all the health and physical boxes, provide appropriate qualifications, do pre-employment orientation modules and undergo crim-history checks.

Most of that information crunching is done by the girls at the office but all of the final applications come over my desk for oversight and approval. The two major positions are strangely not what you'd expect. We discovered long ago that key personnel on mine sites are not necessarily management and tradies. People like the convenor and the nurse are infinitely more important.

The convenor on our sites runs the kitchen and stores. They are responsible for provision levels, menus, operations and the invisible, non-quantifiable 'something' that they need to bring that keeps crew's morale up. Imagine if you will an old-fashioned camp cook that brings banter and the familiarity of home to a bunch of displaced men.

The nurse position while simple to fill with qualified persons, requires its own non-quantifiable. The nurses on our sites are perhaps the most important link in the chain of mental health management. Imagine the old school matron, stern but with a soft heart and a sharp mind. A person who can pick up changes in behaviour, indicators of stress and depression and who can gently guide gruff, tired workers toward better self-care.

It's always the non-quantifiables that require an actual interview.

And not one of those new-age interviews with questions that take a degree in advanced translation to answer. Not an interview where you perform circus acts and sideshow drama skits, either. The sort of interview that makes us successful and retains my firm's contracts with eleven mine sites, two shipping companies and some major corporations which I can't name due to confidentiality agreements.

While I shuffle my notes on the first two applicants for the convenor position, I'm mostly daydreaming about my planned trip to the farm this weekend. It will be good for my heart to soak up time with my girls. I miss the physical intimacy of close family. My skin needs touch and while content with my own company, I admit loneliness. It's that little achy spot that tells me it needs filling one day. That spot that tells me I've healed enough to know I need to move on.

"Well, she was... er... pert." Trish laughs. "Kinda Katy Perry in a cheerleader costume. Qualified but..."

"Fucking ditz." Laura scowls. "She'd be fucking half the crew before lunch on the first day."

These are the things you can't say in a corporate boardroom. They are also the things that make the three of us really successful at final interviews. Trish is my empath, my Yoda. She's really intuitive and sees personal qualities that elude my mechanical mind. Laura is my razor. She smiles and nods and portrays the perfect professional then cuts right through the fat and looks at the meat of things.

"I liked her enthusiasm." I offer off-hand.

"You liked her tits. You need to get laid." Laura laughs. "She was quite motivated though; I'll give her that and she's perfect on paper. I still prefer number one."

"Too old. Too bossy. The boys will mutiny."

I nod slowly in agreeance with Trish. It wouldn't be the first time we've had whole crews walk because the convenor was a nazi.

"Oh well, let's hope..." I glance down and read out number three's name. "Hahana Maria Scott, is something special then. Otherwise, it's Barbie versus Bossy."

"Number three please." Trish tells the intercom.

I almost fell off my chair.

Seriously, when the essence of grace and beauty smiled as she opened the door and I recognised her as my fishing disaster from earlier in the week, I physically recoiled for some instinctive reason which brought a laugh to her gorgeous lips and a mischievous twinkle to her deep brown eyes. Trish looked at me like I was insane and Laura reached to grab the arm of my swivel chair to steady me.

"Shit, look out for his chilly bin, cuzzy." Started me laughing far too hard. Moments later, I composed myself, dried my eyes and shook my head.

"I'm guessing you've met David, Hahana?" Laura asked politely of Hahana.

"It's just Hana please, and yes. I frightened him while he was fishing the other night." Then to my absolute disgrace she recounted the whole debacle.

"Oh my god... I was so embarrassed." She's blushing as she laughs through the story. Trish and Laura are laughing along with her and I'm just mimicking beetroot and hiding my face in my hands. "I just grabbed his hand where the fish got him and put it in my mouth. I mean, I've got two little boys and when they hurt themselves... Bloody hell, I've got this stranger's finger in my mouth and I just died a little and mumbled something then ran away like a muppet."

When the ladies eventually stopped laughing together, I took a long swig from my water bottle and tried to salvage any shred of professionalism I could.

"So... usually we ask a few questions." I direct at Laura who is still snorting like a convulsing pig.

"It's alright. I've probably munted this whole interview anyway. I'll just let myself out. Nice to see you again, David. Maybe next time, I'll wear a cat collar or something when I'm out tramping about."

"You just sit down again right now, Hana." Trish smiles. "I haven't had this much fun in an interview in ages. We do have some serious questions for you. Firstly, I want to hear about your children and how you think fly in fly out will affect them."

"Oh... It's going to be hard on all of us. Hunter is only six and Thomas is eight. We've spoken about it a lot and they know Mumma has to get a job. We're living with my sister at the moment. She has a daughter who is seven and they all get along fine. They go to the same school and we're really settled in. I'm confident that they'll be well loved and secure but I'm gonna cry like crazy being apart from them. They're my whole world."

"So, looking at your resume, you've run kitchens in shearing sheds, in pubs, you've got all your HACCP, ISO, Auditing and some other tertiary qualifications, why not find a local job in a restaurant or something?" Laura brings her razor out.

"Money."

"Money?" I volunteer and find myself swallowed whole by her smiling brown eyes.

"I have a plan, David. Six years on mine money and I can comfortably set my boys and I up in a nice house and then find something local to maintain a lifestyle. It will be hard, but it will be a sacrifice that gets the three of us a wonderful new start."

"What are you running from? Why the new start?" I cringe at Laura's intrusive question. This is why our agency is good though. Saddened, I watch the lights go out in Hana's eyes and her beautiful face fall to a look of resigned despair.

"Hunter's father. He was violent. Mongrel Mob. I'm sorry... I just." There are tissues on a nearby servery, so I stand and find them for her. She smiles shyly as she accepts them and a thing deep inside me rises with protective anger at seeing this proud woman low.

"So you made your way to Australia to protect yourself and your children and to make a new life?" Trish phrases it as a question but is clearly summarising what we all assume. Hana nods and takes a breath to compose herself.

"I wanted my boys away from that life. I left while he was in hospital one time and my sister took me in. I can look after myself, but I wanted my boys to have a different life."

"Hana. We're going to take a break for a moment. I don't know how you feel right now, but I need to ask a few more questions and I want you confident and composed like you were when you walked in. Okay?" I ask hesitantly.

"Thank you, David."

Trish, Laura and I stand and leave Hana in the room. I use the men's room and return a few minutes later to find Trish and Hana looking at photos on Hana's phone.