Chapter 6

Tessa opened the door and ushered Susie and Sam in.

“Nice digs!” Susie exclaimed.

“Yes. I thought we might spend some time here.”

“Three of us?”

“Wedge-tail’s two wives were black swans.”

“I’m not a wife-candidate.”

“I didn’t think so. But I thought you and I might share Sam.”

“Kinky?”

“Doesn’t have to be.”

“Why hasn’t he said anything?”

“Largely because ‘he’ wasn’t asked about this. Tessa is surprising me,” Sam said.

Susie looked at Tessa. “I’m not like Janet. I’m not easy. And my mum wasn’t a hooker. She liked my dad. And I’m not giving up my career.”

Tessa said, “Well, I’m not shy,” and doffed her shirt and pulled down her shorts. She stepped out of her trainers and stood bare but for her briefs.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” said Susie, pulling her tee over her head, revealing an over-filled bra and unhooking it. Her grapefruit-sized breasts were topped by large areolae and nipples like the tip of a child’s finger. Sam could see the hair in her armpits as she unbuttoned and pulled down her jeans.

“You, too, Sam,” said Tessa.

Sam complied and as he looked around he was immediately erect. It wasn’t merely Tessa, but Susie’s pis were a mere hint at the luxuriant brush on her lower abdomen. And the air was heavy with the smell of sex. Sam took two steps and cupped a lower cheek in each hand. Tessa reached over and tweaked an erect nipple, Susie grasped Sam’s penis firmly but gently.

“This isn’t working,” said Tessa. “Let’s move into the bedroom.”

“Tell us what you want,” Sam said. “You’re the boss.”

“Lie down.” Sam did. “Susie, do you do cowgirl?”

“My favorite.”

“Up you go.” She did. Sam felt as though he was being enveloped in hot silk. Susie sighed and swayed a bit. Tessa straddled Sam’s head, he licked her lips and she took a breast in each hand. After a few seconds, Susie palmed Tessa’s smaller breasts and began to ride Sam. They didn’t come together, but it was close.

“Can you do me now?” Tessa asked.

“Another minute or two. I need to recover.”

“I’ll get you ready,” said Susie, diving between her legs.

“Not too much!” Tessa interjected. “I want to be able to cope with Sam.”

About two hours later, they all showered and tumbled together on the bed. In the morning, Susie said she had to get to a ten o’clock lab.

“Will you join us again?” Tessa asked.

“Sure. I really enjoyed it. But I’ve classes tomorrow and Friday.”

“Come by Friday afternoon and spend the weekend.”

“Can I drive you anywhere now?” Sam offered.

“The dorm. I’ll change my clothes.”

“Right.”

“Friday?” he asked as he parked as near as he could get to the UNE residence hall.

“After 17:00.”

“Great!”

Sam waited till Susie was inside and drove home.

“Wasn’t that fun?” Tessa asked.

“Interesting more than fun.”

“What?”

“Am I just another whitefella taking advantage? What we heard about Janet’s mum and about Susie’s dad was horrifying. Your family was just too isolated to be preyed upon. And Australia still doesn’t recognize what’s been done.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is. I’ve read the stats. As of a few years ago, Australian aborigines were the ‘most incarcerated people on earth’ and they had the ‘worst life expectancy rate’ of any indigenous people.”

“That’s why you get so angry in history class.”

“Exactly. Even some glib excuse of the status quo would be better than ignoring it. And just using the women like Janet’s or Susie’s mums is part of it. And it’s not just here, a study published in a 2003 edition of the journal Social Science and Medicine showed that 70 per cent of prostitutes working in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver were Aboriginal women.”

“You shouldn’t say ‘prostitutes,’ dear. It’s now ‘sex workers,’ we were told in sociology.”

“Bah! Anyway, here’s an article that says [Sam picked up a paper from among his notes] ‘the process of reassessing Australia’s place in the world was intimately connected to a reassessment of Australia’s domestic policies, both in relation to prostitution generally and the sexual exploitation of Aboriginal women.’ It goes on at length.”

“When’s that from?”

Sam looked. “1999. It’s titled ‘Sex Workers or Citizens? Prostitution and the Shaping of “Settler” Society in Australia’ and it’s by Raelene Frances.”

“Oh! I saw a book by her! It’s in my notes.” Tessa searched in her laptop. “Here it is! Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution, 2007.”

“So she used ‘sex workers’ in 1999 and ‘prostitution’ in 2007. I wonder where she is.”

“I’ll google her ... Oooh! She was Dean at ANU a few years ago. She’s from Western Australia.”

“Maybe we should have gone there.”

“No, I don’t think so. We might not finish here, but birds migrate,” Tessa pointed out.

“And wedge-tails cover large areas prior to nesting. But it’s important to recall that totems are symbols, they aren’t predictive of behavior.”

“Yet you’re Bunjil and see from above.”

“But I don’t prey on rodents nor lizards.” He laughed. “Anyway, what’s for lunch? I’ve class at 13 and you’re on an hour later.”

By dinner time, Sam had more-or-less listened to a lecture on the first Labor government in Queensland (1899) for a whole six days and on the new rise of radicalism and nationalism. Both Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson were mentioned, as was the profound racism against Chinese, Japanese and Indian immigrants. Indigenes weren’t mentioned. He then went to the Library and read some articles by Geoffrey Blainey, including a piece in The Australian in 1987, where he read