Chapter 6 - Teaching Natasha

Rule number one of chucking a sickie in a country town is don’t go anywhere other than the chemist, doctor’s surgery, or if it’s genuinely required, the hospital emergency department. You don’t go to the pub, club, shops or beach. You stay home or fuck off to another town and hide there.

But here I was in my dingy hotel room holding a picture of my ex-girlfriend Natasha with the word ‘Surprise’ as a caption on my phone. The message had been sent only 30 minutes earlier and by my reckoning she’d been in town for a good 20 minutes by now. What she didn’t know is that rather than being at work, I was holed up in my room thinking of Raul and I fucking the teens Georgie and Erin.

I had to respond as if I was at work and that I would meet her later in the afternoon. A simple text was all it took to at least give me four hours of thinking time.

‘Hi babe, wow, this is a surprise!’ I wrote, “Of course, I’m at work so how about we meet this afternoon? There’s a nice cafe near the bridge, they do a fair pizza, how does that sound around 4?’

‘Sure, can I drop my stuff off at your place?’

Again, my capacity to lie on my feet had improved. ‘Hey you’re in luck, I’m actually getting the keys to my place later this afternoon so you can help me move, accommodation is really tight at the moment.’

At least the last sentence wasn’t a lie, accommodation was hard to find in Coolamein.

‘Oh wow,’ she wrote back, ‘I didn’t know that. Lemme know when ur finished.’

She sent a row of kiss and heart emojis and I left her hanging for a good ten minutes before responding with a heart emoji and the line, ‘Sorry, year 8 are being a bunch of dicks. See you at the Bridge Bar and Pizza.’

I closed that channel of messaging and immediately called Sharon and explained to her the situation, to which she responded, “You really are a total fuck-up, anyway that should put any Georgie and Erin plans to bed, so to speak.”

She followed with the obvious advice of not leaving my room, not even for a drink downstairs or a trip to the nearby supermarket. “Go nowhere, do nothing until you go to meet Natasha.”

“By the way,” she concluded, “Marcus has found you a place, and it’s not Natasha’s, it’s a six month rental of a nice old fully furnished home. It’s Jenny’s friend Emma’s place. She’s gone overseas for six months. Natasha will love it.”

I didn’t want Natasha to love it, I wanted her to just piss off back to her urbanite friends and let me fuck myself to either destruction or elation, or both.

But then, I did want her to love it. As much as I enjoyed the ludicrous amount of sex that I was having, kissing Jenny was nothing like kissing Natasha. Natasha came with a backstory that I was a part of. Jenny was a wild, wild fuck, don’t get me wrong, but Natasha was different.

I hate getting soppy and all, but what I had with Natasha, despite her refusal to even visit Coolamein, was love. It had ended badly, but in the subsequent weeks I had really begun to miss her. I longed for her company, her sense of humour and how we could just talk about any subject for hours on end. She wasn’t a bad root, not at all, but she was only really uninhibited when she’d had a few drinks too many...

Ignoring Sharon’s warning to not go out I decided to make a quick dash to the nearby bakery and get a pie, a pastie and maybe a lamington to see me through the day. If needed I would limp all the way there and back again as if I had pulled a hamstring, but as soon as I reached the top of the stairs an all too familiar voice floated up the stairwell.

“Excuse me,” Natasha said. “I’m sorry but I’m here to meet Julian Horneman, is he staying here because I just noticed his car in the car park.”

With a belly full of crazed moths I leaned over the balustrade and could see the top of Natasha’s head. Her copper red hair was as luxurious and beautiful as it had ever been. Soft, curly and at least another two inches longer than when I’d left. I wanted to wrap myself in it.

“I’m sorry,” Erika, who I couldn’t see, said, “But you are?”

“Natasha, I’m, well, Julian’s partner.”

To her credit Erika played along extremely well.

“Oh,” she said, “Talk of the town school teacher, Julian?”

I saw Natasha’s head nod.

“Yeah, yeah, we all know Julian, he actually helped us out here last night. He did well.”

“Is that why his car is here?”

It was at that point I decided to call Erika on the pub’s landline, a phone she always answered.

“Yeah, I suppose so, I didn’t notice. He sometimes rides his bike to work.”

The phone began its life saving trill behind the bar and I headed out of earshot.

“Could you just excuse me for a minute,” I heard her say before in a weird delayed stereo she said. “Federal Hotel, Erika speaking.”

“Erika, it’s me Julian, I’m upstairs, please don’t let Erika know I’m here,”

“Table for four at 7 tonight?” she said, “I’ll just go and check. I’ll put you on hold and swap phones.”

The phone went dead before she quickly picked it up again in the kitchen.

“What the fuck?” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

“Well,” I recalled our chat in the bar the previous night, “I’m pretty sure I did.”

“No, you dickhead, about her coming here to see you.”

“I honestly didn’t know. She sent me a text message this morning.”

“What are you doing here anyway?” She asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I said, obfuscating, “Just tell her that I have found a place to stay and in fact tonight is my last night here.”

“That’s bullshit though.”

I had to delay for a moment before I said, “Well, actually I have found a place for six months.”

Now she pressed pause on the conversation.

I could only hear her breathing before she said. “Where?”

“I have no idea, the agent just called me, someone’s gone overseas. Apparently I’m going there tonight to check it out.”

That was it. No response apart from the sound of the phone in the kitchen being put down. Needless to say, panic set in and I dashed back, as quietly as I could, to the stairwell.

“Sorry about that,’ I heard Erika say as she came back into earshot. “We’re very busy at the moment, you’re not looking for work are you?”

“I don’t know just yet,” Natasha laughed, “That will depend on how things pan out over the next couple of days.” “Why? I imagine that Julian will be stoked to hear from you.”

“It,” Natasha sounded quite sad from my point of hearing. “It didn’t end well between us both, I had some stuff going on and Bathurst would have been okay, but here, it’s a bit far away from Sydney.”

“Tell me about it. Seriously, we should be part of Victoria with Melbourne as our capital.”

I had to agree, and took a mental note to mention it when Erika and I were to chat next.

Erika then took the conversation down a path I wasn’t expecting.

“Julian and I actually had a bit of a chat after his shift last night, he’s still a bit confused as to what was going on with you both.”

There was a pause before Natasha said, “Please don’t say anything, let’s keep it in the girl’s club, but there was someone else I was seeing, a friend of his.”

Just as Erika said “Whoa,” I took a lean over the balustrade and could see that for a short moment, Erika had seen me, and Natasha was about to turn her head towards me.

“Does he know,” Erika distracted her, “Julian?”

“I don’t think so, I mean it had been going on for a while.”

I was gobsmacked. So this is why she didn’t want to come, she was fucking one of my mates! The problem for me was, which one? I really wanted Erika to ask.

“So what happened, why are you here now?”

It never ceases to amaze me how some people will just unload their personal crises onto a complete stranger.

“It was all really weird, it had been building up between us for quite some time. I was really confused.”

“Say his name, say his name,” my mind begged. “Was it Ben, Alastair, Trent, Macca or Jack?”

“Ah well, confusion, that’s not unusual, let me tell you that straight up,” Erika. “Look, tonight is his last night here because he’s finally been able to find a nice place for six months.”

Natasha nodded. Clearly she was crying.

Erika continued “This bloke in Sydney, what’s his name because if anyone rings or comes in here, I can say you’re not around, or just to fuck off.”

“No, no, no...” Natasha cried before she fell into Erika’s arms making her response illegible, all it was was a tearful muffled word.

Was it Matt McRae. Old Double Beef with Cheese, Macca. The weight-lifting dreg from our school days who managed to hang around purely because of his access to illicit gear at a reasonable price.

Or was it Alastair the gangly red-head with freckles as big as a penny on his face, or was it Trent, the suspected closet gay Kiwi?

Ben was out because he was in the army and had been posted to Townsville for the past six months, or was it Jack? But he was in a solid relationship with the uber hot Amy...

I almost went to make my way downstairs to comfort her, but fortunately Erika wrapped her arms around her again and whilst doing so looked up towards me and mouthed the words “Fuck off.” and took Natasha into the bar area where there was no chance of me hearing a word of what was being said.

I went back out to the balcony and it was about twenty minutes later that once again I saw Natasha’s head crossing the road and heading straight into the bakery that I was intending to visit.

“You!” Erika said down the hallway. I turned towards her silhouette. A very sexy and inviting silhouette at that.

“Explain yourself,” she said, in a strangely calm manner. Of course, I had to lie.

“Yeah, I’m chucking a sickie because, well, I was fucked after last night.”

“If I’d known that I would have come in for round two this morning,” she said with a smile.

I was about to say, “I see where your daughter gets it from,” but I resisted. Instead I said, “Who is he, who’s the fucker that she’s been screwing?”

She just looked at me with a wry smile and said. “That’s girl’s club business, you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I said. “You fucking women.”

I told Erika how I was meeting Natasha at four and that I’ll get it out of her then, to which she responded, “You’ll be surprised. And by the way, I was going to ask you if you wanted to work again tonight because I’m going to drop my useless brother down to Melbourne.”

I just shrugged as she continued. “I’ll get the girls to look after it, there’s no big groups booked.

Then that all knowing secretive smile came back and she said. “If she tells you everything that she just told me,” she giggled. “You’re a lucky man.”

And she was right, I was taken quite aback by what Natasha told me that afternoon.

I arrived about 10 minutes late and she was sitting forlornly in the corner of the cafe bar well away from everyone else. Half a bottle of white wine sat in front of her and as she clocked me her smile, and mine, were genuine. She stood up to meet me and we embraced like the long lost lovers we kind of were. Our kiss was long, sensual and inviting stares from other patrons. I held her thin petite waist for maybe a bit too long before we sat down and began the most trivial of chats.

We spoke of her drive down, her parents, work and everything that had no real meaning. That was until I just upped the ante and said it.

“So what the hell are you doing here Natasha? I’ve had plenty of time to think about this, and to be honest, the only reason I can think of why you wouldn’t come is because there was someone else.”

I was lying of course, and I even choked up a bit at the end with emotion, but I had never suspected that.

That was when she fell silent and had to muster up the courage to reveal to me just what had happened. Turns out it wasn’t any of the lads at all, sort of, it was Amy, Jack’s girlfriend, who started it all.

At around the same time as I was told of my posting, with the help of copious alcohol and illicit gear, Amy seduced Natasha after a night out. Hence why she started carrying on before I left.

What made it even more interesting was what that startling revelation was followed by.

“I may as well tell you what happened just recently though,” she began. “I...” She paused for a moment and looked towards the sound of footsteps behind me.

I turned and to a mix of horror and delight I saw Erin, Georgie and another gorgeous young girl, wearing the work uniform from the pub, walking towards me. They all sported huge grins.

“Hi mister Hornyman,” Georgie said. “Are you going to introduce us?”

“Well I’m fine thank you girls, it’s been a long day, and this is Natasha.”

The three of them waved their hands as they checked her out, and she did them.

“These are my finest students, and school captains, Georgie and Erin, and their friend...” I pointed at the cute Audrey Tautou lookalike behind them.

“Kim,” Erin said.

“Oh,” I said with maybe a touch too much enthusiasm. “The elusive Kim. These two are always talking about you.”

“Are you working tonight, sir?” Erin asked, with an extremely cheeky grin. “Or are you still sick, because we missed you today.”

Quick as a wink I said. “I had training today girls, I was in the admin block with Mrs Hogan and other teachers from around the region.”

For whatever reason this seemed to end the chat and with another smile towards me the three of them sauntered off.

“Wow,” Natasha said. “They’re beautiful.”

With that statement, and her admission of being bisexual, my mind raced with the image of all four of them naked and surrounding me.

“Well you keep away from them,” I said jokingly, “They’re still at school.”

She did laugh gently at that before I said, “You were saying?”

What she said opened up all sorts of possibilities.

“Amy and I were at her place, you know, having fun when Jack and one of his workmates called Brett turned up.”

“Wow, what the hell Natasha, what the very fuck are you going to tell me?” I was so happy to hear about it that feigning anger was quite difficult.

Natasha went on to tell me how Amy had organised the whole thing as a way of Natasha getting over me leaving, to fuck me out of her system, or something like that. She left nothing out and thanks to our isolated spot in the cafe she told me all about how the two guys fucked her at the same time.

“It was really intense,” she said quietly. “And with Amy there as well...”

“Well,” I entered, “Amy is your hottest friend by far.”