Chapter 2

My journey with men was very limited, yes I know it was the ‘swinging sixties’ but in little old Adelaide we were still some way behind the Carnaby Street set, where the Beatles were god like figures to us all. We were conservative by nature, not religious by any means, but just very old school. It was during our courtship, if you can call it that that I learnt about my true sexuality.

A beach party late in the summer of 1968 was my awakening. The usual crowd of us were enjoying some time down on a beach foreshore, a place called Taperoo, where you could drive your cars down onto the beach, form a wind break with them, build a large open pit fire, sit around, drink and listen to the music.

The boys would get drunk and us girls would be laughing and giggling at them. Allison McKenzie, or Macca, as she was nick named, before the golden arches group stole her name, came and sat next to me, and looked into my eyes, smiled and took a little sip out of a bottle of Southern Comfort, then handed me the bottle. I took the bottle and had a pretty heavy swig, which nearly choked me, we both laughed.

Macca was in her late-twenties, one of the older girls in the group. She was a hippie, kind of, but hung out with a group of semi-conservative guys, most of whom she had fucked, or fucked over. I liked her, she was a typical wild child of the 1960’s. She knew all of the music and the bands, was into Bob Dylan and Donovan. But also pointed out some emerging bands coming out of England, Deep Purple and Led Zepplin. Smoked pot and slept around. Yeah I liked that she was her own woman.

She looked around the group all singing or dancing, a couple of girls were topless, and their boyfriends were loving it. Macca grabbed me by the hand as she got up, then helped me up. Again she looked into my eyes, smiling and said we should go for a walk to look at the stars, away from the noise and the light. I shrugged, muttered why not and headed off walking down the beach into the darkness.

It was obvious she was topless under her multi coloured beach coat and I had a damp beach towel draped over my shoulders, my bikini not quite dry from an earlier swim. She grabbed my hand and we swung our arms like kiddies did as we skipped off away from the madding crowd of half drunken boys and semi naked girls.

She asked if I had ever taken the time to just stop and look at the stars. I hadn’t, it just never occurred to me to do such things. She stopped me, lifted my head back and held it there while I took in the millions, no billions of tiny sparkling, lights dancing in the empty blackness of space. She said to sit down, and lay back. I laid down my towel and sat lady like crossed legged, and leaned back. No I was told, lay back and just look up. I did, I was used to doing as I was told.