Chapter 3: Oh Dear!

Pauline and I emerged from my room both feeling, and obviously looking well fucked.

Frank smiled indulgently. “You look like you had a nice time. How’s the patient?”

Pauline grinned. “A full recovery. My treatment was clearly effective.”

“Pleased to hear it. How are the supplies holding? Do you need more condoms?”

“Not for me. I’m on the pill.”

“WHAT!” Frank was very surprised and apparently very unhappy.

“I’ve been taking the pill for two months now. Mum made me an appointment where she works. I told the Doctor I needed it to regulate my periods, but when he asked I told him I was having sex.”

Frank stayed unhappy. “And you don’t think you should have talked to me about this change? We had a deal!” He was getting red in the face, and his voice was getting louder. “We had a bloody deal to keep everyone safe!” I was taken aback.

So was Pauline. “But I am safe!”

“I’m sure you think so. But I have a stake in this – and so does Emma. We had a right to be consulted!”

Pauline felt niggled. “Sounds like you think you have a right to control me and my contraceptive choices.” Bad idea! Frank got even angrier.

He banged down his mug. “Look. We had a deal! You’ve broken it. Don’t give me that control shit!” He turned to me. “Our deal’s off. No one in your bedroom! Find somewhere else to have sex.” He stood up from the table and stalked into his room, closing the door behind him with some emphasis. Pauline and I were left looking at each other in amazement. The situation had escalated very quickly and was well and truly out of control.

“What do we do now?”

Before she could answer, Frank opened his bedroom door, and eyeballed me. “Do you understand that you are not allowed to have anyone else in your room?” He paused. “At least until we have had a meeting with everyone. Got that?” I nodded and Frank retreated again. Pauline’s anger seemed to have evaporated.

She was bummed. “Shit. That all fell apart pretty quickly!”. I had been around a grumpy, short tempered, and sometimes unreasonably angry Dad for fifteen years, and a lowly pupil at Boys High for two (though never caned), so I was able to take a broader view.

I reached out to take her hand. “It was still worth it!”

Pauline lightened up. “It was amazing! I’m pleased our first time was bareback.” She paused, and looked serious. “And I’m pleased my first time bareback was with you!”

Wow! That felt pretty nice. For a moment or two, anyway. Then I started to wonder if things weren’t getting just a wee bit out of control. Amazing sex, Frank throwing a wobbly, and now declarations edging towards troo lurve?

Pauline picked up my slight hesitation, and she pulled back a little and at the same time tried to reassure me. “No troo lurve. Friends who fuck. But I’m still really glad you thought it was worth it.”

“You sure were.”

“What about tomorrow?

“What about tomorrow? You mean working here?”

“Yes – is that still on?”

“Dunno.” I had a thought. “Bang on his door and ask him!” She did.

Frank had calmed down somewhat. “There’s work here if you want it. Look – I got really upset, and I think I had good reason because I am running a small, but still real risk, and you getting pregnant would fuck up everyone else’s life as well as yours.” Pauline had enough sense to keep her mouth firmly shut and Frank went on. “I meant what I said about no sex until we have had a meeting, but as far as I am concerned, nothing else has changed.”

“See you tomorrow!” Frank retreated to his room again, we had a smooch, and then Pauline went home.

Frank and me were ‘delicate’ around each other for the next few days, even though he seemed fine organising Pauline and Robyn and Aapi.

The ‘meeting’ was late on Friday afternoon. I didn’t arrange anything, and neither did Pauline, so it was something of a surprise and also something of a relief. We had worked on the house in the afternoon, and at Frank’s suggestion, had knocked off a bit early and cleaned ourselves up and changed into clothes suitable for our ‘Mary’s World’ shift.

We emerged from the bathroom – no sex, to find Emma, Robyn, Aapi, and Alison had all arrived, and crowded into the newly finished parlour. Pauline and I sat on chairs brought through from the kitchen.

Frank came straight to the point. “We have a problem. Pauline has been on the pill for two months and believes she is safe, and David had bareback sex with her last Monday.” He looked around. “I feel ripped off because we had a deal that no one would have sex without condoms, spermicide, and a safe part of a cycle, and David and Pauline went ahead and did something different without consultation and without agreement. That is not okay!”

Pauline had clearly been thinking since our interaction on Monday. “You are right. I got shitty ‘cos you were demanding control over something that I saw as my business, but you do have a stake, and you did have a right to be consulted.”

Emma looked relieved. “I’m pleased you can see that.”

Frank looked at me. “What about you?” I had lived with Dad’s temper for fifteen years, and the ‘Yessir! Nosir! Three bags full sir!’ of Boys High for two.

I understood power, particularly as it related to me. “It’s your house. You are right. You have a stake and we should have consulted you.” I paused and Frank waited. “I’m sorry that I didn’t do that.” He looked at least a little relieved, but Emma had lots of questions.

“How did you get the pill? It’s not generally available except through gynaecologists, and then only to married women.”

Pauline hesitated, and then evidently came to some decision. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, but I guess this is a special situation?” She looked doubtful again, but Emma smiled and nodded, while Robyn and Alison made encouraging noises. “Mum works for Erich Dove in Remuera. She’s his practice nurse.”

Alison recognised the name. “Doctor Dove – he’s the abortion campaigner that Archbishop Liston condemned.”

“Yup. But lots more than that. He has a Diploma in Obstetrics from some German University and runs a ‘family practice’. He’s into home birth and he provides medical services to the girls at Bethany.”

Alison was onto it again. “That’s the Salvation Army home for unmarried mothers.”

Emma still had questions. “If he’s just a GP, how come he can prescribe the pill, and how come he can prescribe it to women who aren’t married?”

“With Dad at Middlemore and Mum in Dove’s practice, I hear lotsa medical gossip – and this is just gossip.” Pauline paused and we all leaned forward as she went on. “There’s a bunch of Catholic consultants at National Women’s Hospital who are hard line against abortion and contraception and who believe that women’s function and role is to marry and have lotsa babies.” There was a chorus of snorts.

“So how come this guy Dove can get away with what he does?”

“The conservatives have always controlled GPs access to hormonal contraception and still do mostly, but Erich Dove trained in Germany so he’s an outsider. Mum says he doesn’t give a rat’s arse for the National Women’s establishment, and there are some consultants there who want change, so they support him to be able to prescribe because he has an O&G Diploma. He only prescribes for married women for contraception, but he prescribes for unmarried ones to ‘regulate their menstrual cycles’. That’s me!”

Pauline looked delighted, Robyn and Emma looked openly interested, and Alison retreated into what I thought of at the time as ‘oriental inscrutability’.

Frank was, as ever, practical. “So what rules can we agree on?”

Robyn was clear. “I’m with Jack, so this is really about Pauline with David and Aapi.”

Alison agreed. “Yes – it’s an issue for Pauline. Aapi and I are doing sexy stuff, but I’m nowhere near ready to go ‘all the way’.”

I had a suggestion. “The pill is supposed to be very very safe. Would you be ok with the pill plus spermicide?” Everyone looked at Frank and Emma.

She reached out and took his hand. “We’ll need to do some research.”

Frank looked at his watch. “Right now some of us need to get to work.” He nodded at me. “We’ll get back to you – but in the meantime – no sex.

“What about with condoms and spermicide?”

He smiled, but grimly. “It will do you no harm to keep it in your pants for a day or two longer – perhaps it will help you to remember that a deal is a deal!”

I figured I should quit while I was ahead, so I just nodded, but Aapi was keen to know where he stood.

“What about me? Does that apply too?”

Emma looked at Frank and took control. “It’s Pauline and David that crossed the line. It’s them that the consequences should land on, but you are suffering what my boss calls ‘collateral damage’. It wouldn’t apply to you and Alison if you were to get to that place.” Alison smiled at Aapi with a touch of regret, and shook her head as the meeting broke up.

By now, our shifts at Mary’s World were routine, and all of us were familiar with them and skilled enough to work in any of the roles involved, so the evening was cruisy.

Pauline had AYD with Alister leading on Saturday morning, but since it was still school holidays, there was no cricket, so I expected to work with Frank and Aapi all day. Aapi biked over after breakfast, and Frank told us to get into his van. He brushed off enquiries about where we were going, so I climbed in the back and sat on the cushion that had replaced the mattress when he bought our house and had another place to conduct a sex life. I was sharing the back with buckets, mops, and scrubbing brushes, but Frank was less than forthcoming when I asked about them.

“You’ll see! Very soon!” I did.

We didn’t go far, and he stopped the van in front of another dilapidated old house in Kingsland, on the ridge above Newton Gully. It was about the same distance from the centre of town as ‘our’ Newmarket/Grafton one, but further West along the rail line.

I was apprehensive. “You haven’t have you?”

“Yup” He grinned. “Me and Emma fifty fifty. Another deceased estate. Got it for just under three grand.”

Aapi was interested. “How come it was so cheap?”

“It’s disgusting inside. The old guy who died was trying to get into care because he couldn’t look after himself. There’s shit all over the place.”

“Real shit - stinky?”

“Only in the bog. Everywhere else is just dirty.”

“So a huge clean before we do anything – like the other house?”

“No – when I brought that one, I was keen to live there. With this one, we’ll just clean up the stinky shit, and then we’ll renovate. Remodel the kitchen, bathroom and laundry, then reline the whole place. Then we’ll paint inside and out, and she’ll be ready to rent.