Chapter 18: Towards the Exams

The Final Weeks of University

October 5 – October 31, 1976

The final month of the semester was jam-packed; not only were lots of assignments due, but I started on a serious revision of all my course notes. I went over all the tutorial assignments, lab sessions, and fitting as much study into each evening as possible. During the first week of October, we moved Megan’s piano from her old apartment into the music room; and got the last of the items she still had around there.

We quickly adapted to having all three of us living together; we had to coordinate our use of the bathroom in the mornings as we were all getting ready to leave around the same time. Showering together helped; but with only one small washbasin, there wasn’t much room for all three of us to be doing things at the same time.

Tuesday morning we were all sitting around the table, having breakfast, and I decided to mention something to Megan.

“I should mention, that as well as the ‘naked at night’ rule, there is one other that I don’t think we told you,” I said to her. “Lori insists that things get put away immediately after they have been used; we don’t leave clean clothes on the bed; we wash the dishes immediately after a meal; groceries go in the pantry as soon as we get home from the shops. A place for everything, and everything in its place, as she says.”

“What’s wrong with wanting the place neat and tidy?” Lori said.

“That won’t be a problem,” Megan said. “Living in my tiny apartment, I had to keep things neat; otherwise there wouldn’t have been room to do anything!”

Tuesday afternoon I had a call from George, at Alberts. He wanted Megan and me to come into the studio one afternoon that week so we could re-record the vocals for two of the tracks. As he was producing the final version for the master tape, he wasn’t completely happy with how some of the vocals sounded. Megan and I went in to the studio on Wednesday afternoon; he had things set up so that we could listen to the playback through headphones while we redid our vocals. We spent an hour going over ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’; eventually we had a take that he was happy with.

“What if we call that a day, let you go home and rest your voices, and tomorrow we can redo ‘Till There Was You’.” he said. “Once we’ve got that in the can, Glenn, Garry and I can work on the final mix down to get the master ready.”

On the way out, we went via the office, where Fifa had our monthly statement and cheque ready. We had sold just over nine thousand copies; with the money from that, plus the extra payments for the ones we had sold at the Mirage, and some other royalty payments, the cheque was for just over nine thousand two hundred dollars.

“My reports are suggesting we will do better than that for this month,” she said. “You’re appearance on Double-J created some interest.”

We were pretty stoked with the amount of money we had just received; Lori would put that into the bank account, and once we had paid some outstanding bills, it would mean around a thousand dollars for each of us. If we could keep sales at that level, or higher, for the next two or three months; plus what Megan and I would get for our album, that would make my bank account look really healthy. Which, unless we could find a new gig to replace the Mirage for next year, that money would be essential for me to get through the coming year.

That lunchtime, David and Claire had asked if I would like to join them and some of the others for dinner on Friday evening; there was a new restaurant that had recently opened on Parramatta Road in Annandale; called (rather cutely I thought) ‘Anne and Dales’. I said that Lori and Megan would probably want to come with me; which was fine by them.

“It’s just going to be a casual dinner,” Claire said. “Us, you three, Barry, Trevor, probably Linda Wong and one of her friends; what if we say seven pm?”

We could have dinner, and then drive back to Mona Vale afterwards; it sounded like a good opportunity for us all to get together before the craziness of the final exams consumed our time. Lori and Megan sounded keen to go out.

“Are you sure you want me to come with the two of you?” Megan asked. “I mean, how will you explain having me with you, as well as Lori?”

“Of course I want both of my girlfriends with me,” I replied. “I don’t have to explain anything; and none of the other people coming with us would be overly concerned about me having two girlfriends. It’s not like Greg and Jenny, or any of their clique will be there.”

“That’s good; although I would love to stick it into their faces, just how all three of us can be in love,” Lori said.

Thursday afternoon, Megan and I were back in the studio, re-doing the vocals on ‘Till There Was You’. It only took a few takes until we were all happy with the result; George said that he hoped to have the master tapes ready by next Tuesday or Wednesday; we should come over on Wednesday to hear the final product, before he cut the master disk and production of the records started.

That evening, as we were getting ready for bed, Megan announced that her period had started.

“I wasn’t expecting it until tomorrow, at the earliest,” she said. “For the last year or two, it’s been like clockwork; Friday night or Saturday morning...”

“Are you like me, and get incredibly horny during it?” Lori asked.

“I don’t know; since I’ve been living with you I’m incredibly horny all the time!” she said. “At least we know Will isn’t squeamish about having sex while the other person is on their period. Should I get one of the old towels, to protect the bed? I think I really need to be fucked tonight and again when we wake up in the morning.”

I did my best to satisfy Megan’s needs; I rather enjoyed the fact that both girls wanted lots of sex during their periods. Not that they were reluctant to have sex at other times of the month, but I did enjoy the more demanding, primal nature of their desires when they were menstruating. It did put me in a particularly good mood for Friday; even getting a tutorial assignment back in Maths with a lower than expected mark didn’t spoil my outlook.

Megan was already at home when I got there; I had finished the Computer Programming lab early, so it would be about an hour before Lori arrived home. As soon as I had got undressed, Megan dragged me up to the bathroom, knelt on the floor in front of me and sucked my cock until I was hard. She then bent over the side of the bathtub, spreading her legs for me.

“I want you to fuck me really hard,” she said. “I’ve been so horny all day; it was getting hard to concentrate in classes.”

“Maybe we need to get you a set of those Ben Wah balls, like Lori has,” I suggested. “I could help put them up inside you, and as you walked around during the day, they would move around inside your cunt.”

“Oh, I would love that. I would get home demanding that both you and Lori fucked me into a stupor. We should get some, soon! Now shut up and fuck the living crap out of me!”

I stood behind her, positioned my knob at her opening and drove deep into her.

“Harder. Fuck me really hard!” she said.

I gripped her hips, and plunged in fast and hard. She grunted as I rammed into her and she gripped the edge of the bathtub and pushed back against me. We fucked fast and furiously; Megan groaned loudly, crying out with deep grunts as she came. I kept thrusting, I wasn’t all that far from my own orgasm, and I caressed her breasts as we fucked. Megan reached underneath her, and rubbed her clit, her fingers brushing my shaft. The extra pressure took me over the edge; I cried out as I spurted inside her. We stayed locked together; I held her hips and pulled her tight against me. After a minute or two, I could feel my prick start to soften, and I withdrew from her. I turned on the hot water, and started the shower running.

“Did you know I had a lovely second orgasm, just as you were spurting inside me,” Megan said. “Do you like it when I am all wild and primal, like Lori is when she’s on her period?”

“I want you to be just how you feel like you should be,” I replied. “You don’t have to try to pretend, or act as if you think I want you to wild, not if that’s how you are actually feeling.”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little upset. “So you didn’t like what I did then? I was just trying to make it exciting and fun for you.”

Shit. Once again, I had said the wrong thing, or said something the wrong way. Megan looked like she was about to cry; I had better fix things up quick smart.

“No, that wasn’t what I meant. I enjoyed what we did; it was a great way to be greeted when I get home. I just don’t want you to feel that you have to act in a certain way, or be particularly explicit with what we do. Be yourself; just be the lovely woman who I fell in love with several years ago.”

“Do you really mean that? Did you really fall in love with me back when we started singing together?”

“Of course I did; has your period made you forgetful, or a bit dense? Do you remember in that first week, when we talked about having a relationship without strings attached, fuck buddies I think you called it. One morning we went up to the family planning clinic at Brookvale so you could get on the pill, and when we went into talk to the doctor, she asked you if I was your boyfriend, and I said that I was. Remember all of the stuff we did together, planning where we could sneak off to and have sex for our first times? Of course I was in love with you, back then, and I’m even more in love with you now.”

She wrapped her arms around me, covering my faces with wet kisses.

“Oh, I love you too, Will. How do you think people will react to us at dinner tonight; seeing the three of us together?”

“I don’t think it will be a big issue for those who will be there. I think we should just act as if there’s nothing out of the ordinary for the three of us to go out together. We shouldn’t be all over each other; maybe we can just hold hands as we walk into the restaurant. There’s no need to go over the top, showing that we are intimate.”

Lori, Megan and I arrived at the restaurant just as David and Claire arrived; as I had suggested to Megan, the three of us were holding hands, with me standing between the two girls. We all entered the restaurant; Claire at one end of the table, Lori, myself and Megan along one long side, and David opposite Lori. Trevor arrived a minute or two later, and sat next to David, opposite me. The other two weren’t all that far behind; Barry sat at the end next to Megan, and Linda was sitting opposite her, next to Trevor.

While we were waiting for our food to be served; Trevor asked Megan and me how the new album was going; we told him that we had finished the final recordings yesterday, and we expected the album to be out on sale in a few weeks’ time. I mentioned who we had working on the album with us.

“That must be exciting for you, being with those famous musicians,” Linda said.

“We’ll probably get to work with more over the summer holidays, too,” I said. “All going well, we will have work as session musicians; working with other groups on their albums, or recording various bits and pieces.”

“Selling ourselves by the hour to whoever wants us,” Megan added.

“You make it sound like you are getting into prostitution,” Trevor said.

“It’s a bit like that,” I said.

I explained how as session musicians, you often have little control over what is done; you are given the music, and the producer will tell you exactly how it is to be played. There’s no scope for any experimentation, or adding your own interpretation, and even if you don’t really like the music, you have to do your job.

“It’s not always like that though,” I said. “During the mid-year break, I did some work with a few groups, and that was more working on new songs, trying different styles, all of that. But you’re pretty right, Trevor, you have been bought in to do a specific job, to play a certain style, to add a particular element to the music. You generally don’t get to have much of a say in the end product. Still, the money helps; you get paid for what you do, irrespective of how well or not the album sells.”

“Now here’s a question,” Barry said. “You two will be selling your skills, by the hour, to anyone who wants your services as musicians; and that’s a perfectly acceptable career. But if someone sells their body for sex, to whoever is prepared to pay money for it, then that’s not just undesirable, but it’s actually illegal. Seems like there’s a double standard there; even if someone works as fashion model, they are using their body, having it on show, and that is fine ... but as soon as anything sex related gets involved...”

“Well, there are some crime figures that pretty much have some girls and women enslaved, kept in a virtual prison to service whoever they want,” Megan said. “But excluding that, look at a typical massage parlour worker, or escort; I mean, who is that really hurting? Assuming the person involved is doing it of their own free will.”

“It’s not something that I would choose to do,” Linda said. “Well, maybe if I was flat broke, and had no other option, I guess there are worse things in life, but...”

“But at least if you wanted to do that, why shouldn’t you be able to do what you want to with your own body?” I said. “Too many people like to run other people’s lives for them

The food started to arrive, so we curtailed our discussion, and started eating. Trevor had ordered the kangaroo pot pie, and as he started to eat, he made a joke.

“Skippy; you’ve seen the TV series, now eat the cast,” he said, much to the protests of Linda and Megan. Lori didn’t understand the joke; until Claire filled her in, telling her that in the late ‘60’s, there was a kids TV series, ‘Skippy the Bush Kangaroo’.

“That’s terrible, Trevor,” Claire said.

“Well, the only trouble is you have to eat it quickly, before the little bugger hops off your plate!”

“You are so BAD, Trevor Kelly,” Lori said. “I don’t know how Will puts up sitting with you in class.”

“Just my natural charm, I guess.”

After we had finished our main course, the discussions started again. I was listening to Claire asking Lori about our new living arrangements.

“So, let me get this right; you are completely happy with Megan living with you and Will? I mean, the two of you are ... sharing, is that the right word, sharing Will?” Claire asked.

“Sharing is probably a good term,” Lori replied. “And both Megan and I are very happy with the arrangements. It also means that Will has to share both Megan and I with each other, if you get my meaning.”

“Oh, I wasn’t going to go into that,” she said, turning red. “But I would never ever let David look at another woman; there’s no way I could consider letting him sleep with another woman. I mean, aren’t you worried he might one day leave you for Megan?”

“If ever Will leaves me, then the fact that we’ve had Megan in our relationship won’t be the cause of that. I don’t consider Will my ‘property’ who I can tell what to do, who to look at, or how to live his life. If he really loves me, then he will treat me with love and respect, because he loves me, not because I tell him to.”

“I guess so; it’s just a strange relationship to me. I hope it works out for you, for the three of you. It’s just not what I would want for me.”

“Well, you have to live your life the way that feels right to you.”

I decided not to chip in; Lori seemed to have the situation pretty well in hand. Besides, dessert was about to arrive; a selection of various fruit gelatos; so they needed my complete attention. The gelatos were particularly good; David mentioned a ‘gelataria’ on Norton Street, Leichardt that was particularly good; well worth a visit to try out their home-made products. Once we had finished the meal, it was time for the three of us to make our leave, and head back to Mona Vale.

“Poor David,” Lori said. “Claire really keeps him on a tight leash, doesn’t she?”

“They remind me of Peter and Maria, back at high school,” Megan said. “With the exception that Claire lacks Maria’s impressive boobs.”

“Not that Peter got to experience all that much of those boobs from what I understood,” Lori said. “Anyway, that was a fun evening; the food was pretty good, and they are a nice, friendly bunch. I thought Claire might have given us a bit of grief over our living arrangements, but she was of the view that as long as all of us are happy, that’s the important point; and she said the lifestyle we chose was really no big deal to her.”

During the rehearsal, we decided to work on some of the new songs that Megan and I had recorded on our album; we felt that ‘Lady’, ‘Reminiscing’ and ‘You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’ would work well in some of our sets. I wasn’t completely sure about ‘My Eyes Adored You’; but we worked through that one, in case we wanted to have it in our repertoire.

Lori arrived just before we started at the Mirage; everyone agreed that we should not pay out all of the money from last month’s record sales. Keeping something in reserve; particularly with the future of our gigs post-Mirage still pretty uncertain would be good; we might have to have some money in hand to do some promotion, or even hire a venue and do some advertising. Still, everyone was happy to get the decent cheque from the record sales.

Sunday racing was the first heat for the ‘Archina Cup’; a scratch start shortish course all within Pittwater for the smaller yachts in the fleet. The larger boats sailed a concurrent race, the ‘Blue Water Shield’, which took them outside Pittwater to a turning mark at the entrance to Broken Bay. We had most of our regular competitors in the division with us; ‘Sama’, ‘Ed Ake’, ‘Jay Walking’; so the racing was going to be close and competitive. The wind was up a bit; certainly over fifteen knots, and the Officer of the Day had chosen a challenging course for us; tacking up Pittwater to Mackerel Beach, then down to Taylors Point, across to Lovett Bay, up to Stokes Point before finishing with a brisk run down to the finish.

Don said we should be conservative, given that the wind strength was right at the limit for the large spinnaker. There were also frequent ‘bullets’; little stronger gusts that would blast over the Avalon Peninsula, and hit almost without warning. The start time for our division was five minutes after the larger boats in the Blue Water Shield; we kept well clear of the starting area until they had crossed the line, then Lori positioned us for a start at the committee boat end of the line.

We duelled with the other leading boats all the way to the top mark off Mackerel Beach, then it was a tight reach back down, at least until we had cleared Soldiers Point. It was hard work trimming the spinnaker in the fresh breeze; we all kept a weather eye open for the evidence of each little wind gust; just as they were about to hit us, I would ease the sheet, Lori would steer slightly lower and we would harden up as the gust moved through. ‘Ed Ake’ wasn’t quite so lucky; Jeff and Ian had been brave and gone with their big spinnaker, which allowed them to pull ahead of us. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t spot one of the bullets; it hit them hard, causing them to broach wildly; they rounded up into the wind, and they were pushed right over, with the top of the mast touching the water.

We could hear Jeff yelling at Ian to dump the brace; as we sailed past them we could see them frantically trying to let off all of the ropes. By now, their spinnaker was completely submerged; the boat was at ninety degrees with their keel completely out of the water. Don asked them if they needed any assistance, but Jeff said they would be right. We sailed past, and I watch them try to recover.

“That’s probably screwed that big spinnaker of his,” Don said. “I hope for his sake, there’s nothing major broken.”

“I was on ‘Kalori’ once when we had a broach like that,” Lori said. “That was before I was skipper, thank God. But it managed to shred the spinnaker, and we needed to replace several of the sheets and shackles. Pretty scary, too.”

We continued on; we still needed to stay ahead of ‘Sama’ and “Jay Walking’; we ended up finishing first over the line. We noticed that ‘Ed Ake’ didn’t continue racing after their broach, she must have suffered some damage. Back in the clubhouse, we checked to see how they were, but Jeff had taken Ian to the hospital at Mona Vale; he had a rather nasty cut to his arm and a gash on his head where the spinnaker pole had hit him.

“All the more reason to be conservative when the wind is up like that,” Don said. “Well done, both of you, it was a pretty challenging race today.”

By the time the handicaps had been applied, we ended up third on corrected time, behind Neil and Diane Mattes Cole 19 ‘Iluka’ and Ron in ‘Sama’.

“Still, that’s better than a DNF,” Lori said. “At least Jeff can hope that can be his discard for this series. I just hope he’s able to be back next week, and Ian isn’t too badly injured.”

With the racing finished for the day, we headed back to Lori’s place to pack the car. We picked up Megan, and headed back to our place.

Gresham Terrace

October 12, 1976

Tuesday evening I decided to go to the ALP meeting; I really wasn’t in the mood for any more study. That afternoon was Chemistry lab, and it had gone even more disastrously than usual, which for Barry and I was saying something. One of the final stages of the experiment was to slowly drip some acid into the solution that we had spent the previous hour creating, distilling, and carefully producing. We had to add ten millilitres of the acid, a drop at a time from a graduated pipette. To enable this, there was a rotating glass stopper at the bottom of the pipette, and we would turn it just ever so slightly, until the hole through the stopper just aligned with the shaft of the pipette. As I turned the stopper, it came completely out of its fitting, and all of the acid in the pipette poured out into the flask containing our solution. It reacted violently, bubbling up, emitting foul white smoke, until the flask shattered, spilling acid and alcoholic stuff all over the bench. Needless to say, the experiment was ruined, two of the lab assistants came running up and roundly abused us.

“Didn’t you read the instructions, to only add the acid very, very slowly!” one of them yelled at us.

“Well, if you had done your fucking job properly, and made sure the lab equipment wasn’t faulty, the stopper wouldn’t have come out,” I yelled back at him. “See!” I said, showing the faulty piece of equipment.

“You should have checked the equipment before using it,” he replied. “That’s your job.”

Needless to say, neither Barry nor I were in a good mood after that. When I got home, I did a bit of study until dinner time, and then headed off to the meeting. Both Lori and Megan tried to cheer me up, Megan saying that her period had just finished that morning, so if I wanted to have some fun with her, we could head off to bed. I told her I really wasn’t in the mood; maybe when I returned home. I was starting to worry that I could well fail Chemistry; I didn’t know what the effect of that would be, whether I would have to do it again next year. The problem was; my heart really wasn’t in the subject. I couldn’t understand why it was still there in first year electrical engineering; it was probably a carryover from the early days of the University when students probably didn’t have the same rigorous high school chemistry classes as they did now. It was really going to be of little benefit to a career in Computer Science; and it was made worse by Doctor Bishop’s lecturing style; listening to someone reciting pages from the telephone book would be more interesting.

When I got home; I looked through the course notes to see how the overall assessment would be done for the course. Thirty percent would come from the half-year exam; and an “A” for that meant I had at least twenty-five marks already. Another twenty percent from assignments throughout the year; I already had fifteen from those. Twenty percent was from lab work; where we would hand in our lab books throughout the year, and get an assessment on the quality of how we wrote up our work; despite the disasters of late, I had already earned ten marks. The final exam would make up the balance of the marks; up to thirty percent. So even without the final exam, I was already at fifty percent; a bare pass.

I guess despite that I had already done sufficient work to pass Chemistry, I still wasn’t completely happy. I hope to get at least a credit result for every subject; in order to get into the honours science year after my third year I would have to show consistently good results. Still, a ‘pass’ was better than a ‘fail’; and if I wanted to get anything better, I would have to put all my effort into studying for the exam.

I headed up to the pub for the ALP meeting; I saw Nick at the bar, and bought beers for the two of us. As we sat down to drink, a guy in his mid-twenties came up to us.

“Excuse me, but are you Will Morris?” he asked. “G’day Nick, nice to see you.”

I nodded.

“You’re renting Costa’s old place, next to Nick, aren’t you? I’m Paul, Paul Ramos, my brother and I have a building company, and the guy who owns the place now has contracted us to renovate it for him.”

“Okay, we’ve been told that we need to be out by the end of November, so you can start work,” I said. “Do you need access earlier?”

“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about. The owner, well, he doesn’t know much about the building industry, and there’s no way I’ll be able to start on it before mid-January; I’m about to start a big commercial project over in Petersham, and I won’t have the workers available for his job until January at the earliest. So, you can stay in the house until after the New Year; I’ve spoken to your agent, Melissa, and she’ll be contacting you to see if you want to stay on the extra two months.”

“That’s great, we were worrying about trying to find another place over the university exam period,” I said.

“Are you looking for something similar; a one bedroom place?” he asked. “There’s a few of those around, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find one.”

“Well, actually we are looking for something larger,” I said. I explained how we would be getting other people sharing a place with us, up to seven people. He seemed to get interested; particularly when I told him about how ideal it would be if there was a garage or some area for the band to rehearse.

“I might know just the place for you,” he said. “If you can hang around after the meeting, and take a walk with me, I could show you something that might be just what you’re looking for. Your timeframe would work, too.”

It was time for the meeting to start, so we took our places in the back room. The meeting was pretty much the same as the other ones that I had attended; a call for people to get involved on a major protest next week against the federal government’s plans to wind back Medibank, calls to help the families of several members who had recently passed away, and a reminder of issues coming up at the State Party conference. At least Peter hadn’t asked me to speak to any controversial issues this time.

After the meeting, Nick, Paul and I went back to the bar. Nick said he was heading off home, and we said good night to him. Paul started to tell me about a potential place for us.

“The place I have in mind is my house; at least, my parents. My father worked for the railways in the carriage shop as a carpenter. After my parents moved from the migrant hostel, and he started work there, they saved up and bought the house, and I, and my brothers and sisters grew up there. He died earlier this year; my older sister got married and moved out, another sister is getting married and moving out in December, and my mother is finding the stairs all a bit too much for her.

“My younger brother, Chris and I have a building company; we started out making kitchen cabinets, but soon moved into general renovation and construction. We have been working out of the big garage at the back; I think when the place was originally built maybe a hundred years ago it was a boot making place. We now need more space, and we’ve found a site over in St Peters; and we are moving all of our company stuff there. My mother will move in with my sister, she’s got a kid on the way early next year, and the rest of us will live in an apartment over the factory.

“So, that will leave our place vacant; my mother really doesn’t want to sell it, not with all the memories and that. It’s got five bedrooms on the three levels, and there’s a huge garage out the back, and above that a big area that we’ve been using as our design office. If you want, come down with me and have a quick look; it’s only a few minutes down the street.”

We finished our drinks, and headed down towards his house, which was on Flora Street. His place was the end terrace of a row of maybe eight; a laneway lead down the side to the rear access.

“The group you are in, that’s the one that plays the old time dance music, isn’t it?”