Chapter 26: Justice or Vengeance?

Arrivals and Departures

Early September 1985

“Will! Oh, Will, I’ve missed you so much! It’s great to be back here with you, we have so much to catch up on!”

Fiona wrapped her arms around me, kissed me hard on the lips. She squeezed me tight, almost as if she was trying to get my body to fuse with hers.

“So much has happened; you went and got yourself shot ... when I heard, I was sick with worry, I was about to jump on a plane and fly back, just to make sure you were okay, but Lisa told me to stay there ... we must have burned through so much money in international calls over the few weeks after that. It was so hard, being in the other side of the world ... And when Lisa told me about her miscarriage, I wanted to be there with you. Now it turns out you can’t have kids ... God, Will, I wanted to be back here for you then ... But now I’m back with the two of you, and I want to stay here in your lives...”

Fiona eventually paused to take a breath; I had forgotten just how she would talk non-stop when she was excited. She kissed me again, there were tears running down her cheeks. When she released me, I took the opportunity to look at her face closely, she still had those cute freckles on her cheeks, and I tried to recall how her breasts looked, with some freckles around the upper parts of her breasts. I was sure I would become reacquainted with them, and her shock of red pubic hair before the day was out.

She kissed me again, this time softer, gentler, and she pushed her tongue between my lips, swirling it around the tip of my tongue. She ground herself against my body, and I could feel my prick starting to respond. I thought we should move to the car and make our way home before things got more out of hand.

“I had forgotten just how lovely it is to kiss you, Will,” she said. “Lisa, can we get back to the car, before I rip his clothes off right here in the station?”

“I think that might be a good idea,” I said. “And it’s so lovely to see you again, Fiona.”

“Let’s get back to the car; you two can ride in the back and catch up on the way home,” Lisa said. “Try to keep your clothes on, at least until we get home; I don’t want to get pulled over!”

“I do have some self-control!” I exclaimed.

“I’m not sure I have enough though,” Fiona said. “I hope you can skip lunch, Will, at least for an hour or two!’

I picked up my case from where I had dropped it on the ground, and we headed out to where Lisa had parked the car. I put my case in the back of the car, Fiona and I got in the back seat, and Lisa headed up towards the Bridge, and home. I put my arm around Fiona, and she pulled my face to hers, kissing me deeply; it wasn’t until we had crossed the bridge that I was able to look out the window and see where we were. She took hold of my hand, and slid that up inside her top, over one of her breasts. Her nipple was hard and erect – I wasn’t surprised that she was braless; I’m sure that was Lisa’s suggestion.

We kissed again, and I gently massaged her breasts, rolling my fingers over her hard nipples. She pulled her top up, exposing her breasts, and pushed my face down so I could suck them. Fiona started moaning, and I reached down to rub between her legs.

“You two aren’t misbehaving back there, are you?” Lisa said. “Stop that, we’ll be home in a few minutes ... I don’t want you to stain the seats, Fiona!”

“Don’t be rude, Lisa!” Fiona said. “And if there are any wet stains, it will be Will’s fault!”

We restrained ourselves for the remainder of the drive home; and Fiona led me directly to her room; until Merry and Ange moved out, she was staying in the ‘Gum Nut’ room upstairs. She closed the door behind her, latching it, and started to remove her clothes. She tossed her tee shirt over in one corner of the room, and turned to face me, giving me a full view of her lovely round breasts; I held her waist as I leant forward to kiss each hard nipple.

“You look even more beautiful that I remember,” I said softly.

“Mmm, thank you, it’s been so long, Will...” she murmured as she removed my shirt.

I unfastened her shorts, and they dropped to her ankles, I hooked my thumbs into the elastic of her panties and slid them down her legs. She stepped out of her shorts and panties, and I had a close-up view of her lovely red pubic hair. She had trimmed it neatly; it still looked just as I remembered. She looked at me as she put her hands to the buckle of my belt, I nodded and she unfastened it, then unzipped the fly of my trousers, sliding them and my undies down. She wrapped her arms around my body, kissing me as she stepped back closer to the bed. I stepped out of my pants, and as she moved back further, her legs reached the side of her bed, and she fell back onto the mattress, pulling me down on top of her.

I steadied my fall with my elbows so that I didn’t land with my full weight on top of her; she had opened her legs, wrapping them around my thighs, and as I tried to move up, my erect prick slid into her. Fiona moaned, and gripped my thighs tighter.

“Oh yes! I love the feeling as your knob pushes me open. I want you inside me, Will, fuck me, please!”

Since I was now quite deep inside her, I had little choice. I raised myself up on my elbows and started moving in and out, Fiona kept up a steady stream of soft moans, interspersed with commentary on what she was feeling, how much she wanted me to come inside her, and how much she had missed making love with me. I had almost forgotten just how she would constantly talk during sex, describing everything that was happening. She sounded like she was getting closer to coming; more and more of her words were replaced with moans; and the sentences were much shorter, and consisted of mainly ‘Oh yes’ and ‘keep doing that’.

Fiona tensed her muscles, gripping me tighter around my thighs, groaned loudly, and her body shook.

“Oh yes! Don’t stop, keep on going!” she cried out.

There was no way I was going to stop what I was doing; I could feel myself getting closer to coming; I raised my body a little higher, to change the angle that my prick was entering her, and kept pumping in and out. I moved my position slightly, raising my upper body slightly, and I could feel the underside of my shaft pressing harder against Fiona as I plunged in and out of her. The additional pressure took me right to the brink of coming; I arched my back, raising myself even higher, pushed hard inside her, tensed my muscles, and ... I groaned loudly as I exploded inside her; jerking with each spurt, Fiona moaned, she possibly came a second time as I came.

I rolled off her, somehow we were lying diagonally across her bed; we moved around so we were lying lengthwise along her bed, my head on a pillow, and Fiona’s head on my chest. She ran a hand lightly over my chest and stomach, while I caressed her backside with one of my hands.

“That was so good, Will,” she said, still slightly out of breath. “It’s been over two years since we were last in bed ... I haven’t had sex with a guy since then.”

“Really? Not even when you were in Limerick?”

“No, I just never met anyone who I thought was worth pursuing. It was no big deal; I had some good friends, the others that I was sharing the terrace house in Leicester with, who were doing the same course as me, and others I met there. Plus I was studying pretty intensely, and there was playing music, too. Believe it or not, I can get by without having sex all the time! Seriously, I did miss the physical closeness of having a regular partner ... well, two regular partners.”

“So when do you have to go back to work? Any idea on what they will be expecting you to do?”

“I’m not sure; I’ll call the director tomorrow morning, see what plans he has for me now that I’m back and I’ve got my Master’s degree.”

“Now ... as interesting as all that is, might you be interested in a second round? You could ride on top of me if you want to.”

“I want that ... let me get you ready for action! I love sucking your cock, and there should be an interesting mix of flavours on him.”

Fiona knelt up over my body, and lowered her face to my groin. She held the base of my prick, and licked around my glans, cleaning the last vestiges of the fluids from our love making from it. Opening her lips, she let her mouth slide down, enveloping my knob, and pressing against my shaft as she took almost the full length of my prick in her mouth. As she bobbed up and down, she sucked on my prick, and the moist warmth of her lips and tongue had me hard quite quickly. She sat upright, then straddled my waist, and guided my prick into her as she slid down on me.

This time, Fiona took her time, fucking me slowly, rising up slowly so just the tip of my prick was inside her, then slowly descending, letting her hot, moist cunt slide around my prick. She held my shoulders, and angled her body forward, so that my knob would rub against her g-spot. There was less pressure against the underside of my shaft; but she felt tighter around my knob. I reached up to caress her breasts, rubbing my thumbs across her nipples, feeling the little bumps around each nipple, and every so often she would lower her body so I could suck on a breast. I tuned out of Fiona’s running commentary, so I was almost taken by surprise when she cried out loudly as she came. When she had finished coming, she rolled off me.

“Can you finish off doing me doggy style?” she asked.

She knelt on the bed, and I moved around behind her. She lowered her chest onto the mattress, with her backside and pussy exposed, pointing towards me. I moved closer, holding my prick with one hand, steadying myself by holding her hip with the other, and I rubbed my knob along her wet pussy, letting the head spread her lips open.

“God, Will, stop teasing me! Stick that cock inside me!” she cried out, pushing back against me.

I pushed into her, feeling my knob spreading her walls open. I pushed completely into her, holding her hips to steady me as I thrust into her. I quickly got a good rhythm going, steadily in and out. Fiona started describing the sensations, softly mumbling to herself, and telling me to come inside her.

“I want to feel you spurting inside me,” she moaned, reaching up to rub herself.

I could feel her fingers brushing against the underside of my shaft as she was rubbing herself, her fingers were getting me closer to coming, as well as herself. After a few more thrusts, Fiona groaned softly, and I felt her vagina contract around my prick. The extra pressure was enough for me, I held tightly to her hips, forced myself all the way inside her, and came. As I spurted, I groaned loudly, both of us were groaning and jerking our bodies.

I pulled out of her, and let myself collapse over onto my side, next to her; Fiona turned over to lay with her head on my chest. We were both flushed, our faces covered in sweat, and breathing heavily.

“Damn, you’re a great fuck, Fiona,” I said. “Putting it crudely, of course!”

“I don’t care how crude you are, Will; I love having you fucking me like that. When you plunge into me, damn, it’s so good,” she replied. “I think we – the three of us – will be sleeping together tonight, for sure. I will need you to give me at least another three or four good, hard fucks like that!”

“I guess we should have a shower, and get back downstairs to see the others,” I said. “We can’t be totally anti-social!”

“I like how there’s the shower and toilet right next to this bedroom,” she said. “I think I prefer this room to the one I had before, downstairs. Those little windows, between the benches are so cute. If Tracy moves out, though, I might move to her room, with the balcony looking out at the street.”

“When we were planning the additions with Paul and Chris Ramos, and Ian and Celia Craig, Lisa pretended she was Juliet, from Romeo and Juliet,” I said. “Started reciting her soliloquy, ‘wherefore art thou Romeo’.”

“Those balconies are sort of like that,” Fiona said. “Even more reason to move to one of those rooms, if one becomes available. Now, shower time, the others are waiting.”

We showered, got dressed, and headed back down to the basement, Allison (and Sandra) had just arrived, Rachel and Mandy were there already. We were just waiting on Traci to arrive, and we could start planning for a possible few nights playing folk music at the Three Weeds, in Rozelle. Fiona had her recently acquired mandolin with her; and I was told to go and get my squeezebox accordion from the studio. While I was up there, I got the folder of sheet music, set lists and arrangements from the last time we played at the Weeds. I also picked up my acoustic/electric guitar, since I would also be playing that.

Back in the family room, the others were sitting around, working out what each person would play. Allison had her fiddle (fiddle sounded more appropriate for folk music than ‘violin’), Fiona her mandolin, plus a ‘penny whistle’, a simplified recorder flute. Tracy Mann would be playing rhythm guitar and singing, Mandy on flute and tin whistle. Rachel would play her bodhrán drum, largerphone, and other percussion instruments.

“Now, what will we need to run through Will’s amp, and what will just need mikes?” Allison asked. “I know putting my electric violin through the amp gives it a better sound compared to just playing through a mike.”

“Well, we’ve got the two acoustic electric guitars,” I said. “Provided we can use the same channel for them, we can run them through the ‘normal’ channel of the amp, and leave the reverb channel for your fiddle, Alli. Your guitar has a pickup connector on it, doesn’t it, Tracy?”

“Yeah, not that I’ve play much through an amp, I’m really not all that sure how to set the controls on it,” she said. “I’m sure you or Garry can show me how to use it with the amp.”

“When are the gigs likely to be, Alli? We probably have a while to plan for that,” I said.

“Probably not until November sometime,” Allison replied. “How is that going to fit in with when the next album is scheduled to be recorded, Mary Beth?”

“We don’t have a definite schedule for that,” Mary Beth said. “George and Fifa are coming around next weekend to talk with all of us. But go ahead and make a booking, Allison, and we can plan around that.”

“Okay, do we want to try some songs, get warmed up?” Allison said. “You’ve got the sheet music, Will? What if we start with ‘heel and toe polka’? That was always hugely popular.”

I had checked the tuning of my guitar; but for this I would play the accordion, at least when we were at the gig. I could call out the chords for Tracy and Fiona; Allison counted us in; Rachel would be the ‘caller’, calling out the steps for those who wanted to dance.

“You right for an eight bar intro, Will?” Allison asked, and I nodded. “Okay, on four ... one, two, three, four.”

I played an eight bar intro; basically the main melody theme, Allison picked up my lead, and I softly called out the chords for Tracy and Fiona.

“Heel and a toe, heel and a toe

Slide, slide, slide, slide”

Rachel called out the steps. Mary Beth and Chris, along with Garry and Michelle were dancing, so at least we weren’t playing to an empty room.

“Now back out,” Rachel said, repeating the instructions.

“Right hand clap, left hand clap, knee clap clap, both hands clap”

“Swing right elbows ... pass to the left...”

I thought we sounded reasonable; pretty rough, but that was only to be expected as it was our first time playing it together, at least for quite a few years for some of us. I was impressed that Fiona picked it up almost immediately, but I guess playing most night with an Irish folk group in her local pub had really honed her skills.

“Now we’ll try a traditional Irish reel,” Allison said. “You probably know this one, Fiona, St Anne’s Reel?”

“Sure, it was a popular one in the pub. What key?” she asked

“Um, D, I reckon. Will, is that right?” Allison asked me

“Yeah, D. A good Irish key, I think!”

“I’ll lead the first time through, Fiona, then if you want, you can take the lead,” Allison said.

Allison counted us in, she played it a little slower that we had played it before. Again, we sounded pretty rough, but no one really cocked things up. Fiona played some pretty fancy embellishments when she had the lead.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played it that slow!” Fiona exclaimed once we had finished. “And short; when we played we would go fifteen, twenty minutes on each song, swapping the lead around so everyone had at least two goes at it. But we can work up to that.”

We ran through another half-dozen or so songs; Fiona had a few suggestions, songs that were popular in the pubs in Ireland, we would work on those over the next few weeks. It ended up being a fun, enjoyable afternoon; I hadn’t played that style of music for some time, and it was great all of us getting together for what turned out to be a big folk music jam session.

After dinner that evening – and watching ‘Countdown’, of course, Lisa, Fiona and I went to bed together. The three of us spent several hours making love, before falling asleep sometime after 10 p.m.; only for Lisa to wake me up just after midnight for some semi-awake sex. As I slowly slid in and out of her, I could feel Fiona’s warm body pressed against my back; as nice as the sex with Ange, Merry, Tracy and some of the other women who had been in our bed (and in our lives), there was something special about Fiona being with us. I didn’t know why I had those reservations about her after our weekend away together to Mudgee; maybe in early 1982 neither of us was quite ready for a relationship? Whatever the reason, I felt truly satisfied being with Lisa and Fiona; and I knew Lisa had really missed Fiona while she was away.

When we woke up in the morning, both Fiona and Lisa wanted some love-making from me, I started with Lisa, and finished off in Fiona. Then it was time to shower, get dressed and have breakfast before heading across to the university. The Electrical Engineering School meeting was its usual boring hour; I guess it was a necessary evil that being a member of the academic staff meant I had to attend meetings like that every week. At least Professor Rees kept the discussions on topic, and didn’t allow any frivolous talk to waste time.

After giving my Computing I lecture, I called David at his desk at Bitola, just to get an update on how the project was progressing. He told me that he and Judy had successfully installed the software, and were now working on some of the basic configuration and customization. I asked him if there were any issues that needed my attention, and he said everything was going smoothly at the moment.

The next morning at the thesis review meeting, I told all of the students that their focus now should be directed towards the final report.

“I can tell you that when your thesis report is being evaluated, whether or not the project actually worked, whether the experiment was successful, and you got the desired outcome isn’t that important,” I said. “Now, that might seem counter-intuitive, but just think about what the scientific method implies. You have a proposition, and you come up with an experiment to either prove or disprove your hypothesis. If your experiment proves it, then you are one step closer to turning your proposition, your hypothesis into a theory. If your experiment disproves your hypothesis, then that is also a valuable result.

“What the assessment committee is looking for is as follows. Firstly, how well did you understand what the project or experiment involved, what did you have to achieve, what should the results prove or disprove. That was all covered in the ‘project definition document’ that you all worked on at the very beginning of your work. So the first thing that you will need to do in your dissertation is convince the committee that you understood what your project was about, and how your research will either prove or disprove the proposition, or achieve the intended result. In other words, did you know what you were doing in your thesis?”

“I wonder how many students don’t know what they are meant to be doing,” Jill asked.

“You would be surprised,” I replied. “That’s why I stressed the importance of the project requirements definition document at the start of the year. That will go to make up the introduction to your thesis report.

“Now, the next part of the report, and the bulk of the document, will be what you actually did; how you designed your solution, how you tested things to see if they worked. For example, in your case, Jill, with the quad helical antenna design, comparisons between actual measurements and theoretical calculations, and an explanation of and significant differences would be included here. Expressing the purpose of this part of your report bluntly, it’s basically saying ‘was this worth the effort?’ If the results weren’t as expected, don’t be afraid to say so. Provided you can demonstrate that you did everything correctly, but maybe this wasn’t the best approach to solve the problem, or the proposal didn’t take certain considerations into consideration, or whatever. This provided a lead-in for further research into the subject. What you would have done is still valuable, because if you’ve documented everything properly, then it means in the future, someone won’t be tempted to try the same, failed approach again.”

“So at least we can serve as a bad example?” Simon asked, facetiously.

“That’s one way of putting it,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s going to apply to any of your projects; everyone seems to be working as expected. Anyway, here’s some information on how to structure the final sections of your report. In our meetings next week, I want you all to have a draft of the final structure of the report ready, and by now you should be able to write up the first, introductory sections, based on your initial project documentation. I’m sure you’ve come to appreciate having all of your work on line, in TeX source material; you can copy it from the report into the files you are using for your final report.”

They all seemed pretty happy with what I said; all of them were in a good situation with the thesis projects; none of them seemed to be in the position where their work would serve as a ‘bad example’, as Simon put it. I was actually impressed with the progress that each of them was making; I didn’t think any of them would be in contention for ‘University Medal’ status. Not that there was anything wrong with their project, but I couldn’t see it being of that ‘exceptional’ standard. All of them would achieve good results though, which was the main thing. I felt that if any of the thesis candidates I was supervising failed, I would take that as being on me, that somehow I failed supervising them properly.

Lisa and I had quickly adapted to Fiona being back with us; despite Fiona having the ‘Gum Nut’ room as her own, she hadn’t spent a single night sleeping in there. Instead, she would sleep with Lisa and me. One night Tracy joined the three of us; but I enjoyed it with just Lisa and Fiona. Fiona had yet to start back at the museum, so there was the temptation to stay in bed in the mornings longer than I normally would. So far, I hadn’t been too late and missed the start of the thesis review meetings, even though I had come close on one day. Thank goodness for having my own car parking space not all that far from the building.

Thursday, the main TV evening news was filled with the leadership coup in the federal Liberal party; as rumours had predicted, John Howard rolled Andrew Peacock for leadership of the party, and hence became Opposition Leader. Neil Brown, the shadow Attorney-General was elected deputy leader; beating a field of ten other candidates. As had been predicted, the federal Liberal party was taking a big turn to the right.

Friday morning, after running my Computing IIC lecture and tutorial, I headed across to Marrickville for my regular meeting with Alexa. The first thing I did there was get up update from David; he said everything was going well.

“One thing, which you are probably aware of, is that Alexa is changing the structure of all the companies. Rather than having the five companies, all reporting to Bitola Investments as a holding company; they are becoming divisions within the one company structure. Support functions, like accounting, payroll, finance will be consolidated. So some of my initial plans have to change.”

“Is that going to affect the project schedule?” I asked.

“No, not really; the five companies under one holding company was going to be a bit of a complicated set-up,” he replied. “It can be done, with a bit of kludging around; they say the next version of the software will support such a potential configuration much better. But with the current version, it’s not an easy task to get that sort of arrangement working properly. So what we lose by everything changing, and the disruption that will cause to the staff, we make up for in a simpler software configuration. Roundabouts and swings, as it were.”

“That’s good; I would hate to go to Alexa and say that we will have to increase the project time and costs,” I said.

“She would be pretty cool with that if it had to happen,” David said. “She’s great to work for, she knows the sort of things she wants, has a clear idea of her objectives – unlike other jobs I’ve had, management were so clueless. But, so far, things are looking good.”

“Great; but let me know as soon as you think there might be problems or difficulties ahead.”

I stuck my head in Alexa’s office, and she suggested we go out for a light lunch. She said that as well as the regular project update, she had a few things that she wanted to float past me.

“There’s a bunch of things I need to tell you about how the company operates; I mean some of the ‘less than strictly legal’ side of things, but that can wait for another time,” she said. “The first thing I want to say, I’m impressed so far with both David and Judy, they seem to understand business processes as well as the techy stuff. The questions they’ve been asking the staff show that they know what’s really important. I know I’ve thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, changing the corporate structure right when they are trying to set up the basic system configuration.”

“Well, better to do that now that in six or nine months’ time!” I said. “I spoke with David about your corporate restructuring; he said that the disruption with the restructuring will not cause delays; and having a simpler corporate structure will make setting up the accounting software much simpler.”

“Well, let my throw another spanner into the works,” she said.

“Just how many spanners do you have?” I asked, and she laughed.

“This one might be a big one,” she said. “There’s another company that we are going to bring into the fold, so to speak. Let me give you some history, first. When my grandfather, George and his wife came here, his older brother and his wife came over as well. Frank and Katya also had a market garden in the Warriewood valley, they only had a daughter, and when she married, her husband didn’t want to take over the farm. They had two sons, who set up a business carrying produce from the farms in the valley to the growers co-operative. I guess you remember the original co-op in Mona Vale, the big tin shed at the corner of Mona Vale Road and Pittwater Road? My Grandfather, George Ramos, and his brother Frank were instrumental in getting that set up, so the local growers had a convenient way to sell their produce. Back then, it was a long, slow trip to get into the main markets in the centre of Sydney, and eventually Frank’s two grandsons set up ‘Nikolic Produce Suppliers’, buying from all of the growers in the area. As well as supplying the co-op, they had deals with lots of small grocery stores and restaurants, allowing them to bypass the main markets in the City.

“That didn’t sit well with the two crime syndicates who controlled the markets – the Italian Mafia and the Chinese Triads. Every so often that comes up again, and we put an end to it, but that’s something to talk about another time. Anyway, the children of the two Nikolic brothers are running the business now; they have expanded to other growers, mainly in the north-east of Sydney, the Hills district, Dural, and areas towards Wiseman’s Ferry and Portland, and also on the central coast, Tuggerah, Wyong and places like that.

“I was speaking with them last weekend, and they need to expand the business even more, with most of the farms in the Warriewood Valley being sold and the land redeveloped. They have an opportunity to expand to some of the farms west of Campbelltown, near Badgerys Creek and close to Penrith, but they will need a capital investment. I offered to buy into the business, which they agreed to; and they will become another division of Bitola. Their main warehouse is up in Terrey Hills; and they have depots in several places around the city.

“They were quite interested in the computer system you are putting in here for me, and wondered if it could also help them manage things, the producers they buy from, the retailers and restaurants they supply, fleet management, things like that. Do you think that’s possible? It would be a new, separate contract, of course.”