Canberra
Copyright© 2020 by Peter H. Salus
Chapter 4
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 4 - After nearly two years, the CSIRO moves Gordy from Brisbane to Canberra. Over the next three years he encounters a number of individuals and situations, largely in eastern Australia.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Heterosexual Fiction
I was four years out of graduate school. I was becoming known to a certain extent. One of my notes – on Rhytidoponera metallica, the green ant or metallic pony ant – appeared in Australian Entomologist. Another appeared in Austral Entomology, the journal of the Australian Entomological Society. I’d done my bit in Hobart and taught at ANU in 1998. I received several verbal ‘pats.’ It was a good beginning to 1999.
I was invited to give a Tuesday talk at the Entomological Society of Queensland in Brisbane and at the end of April I flew to Townsville via Sydney to represent the CSIRO at the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (seriously; they’re very concerned about insect pests and Kevin knew of my paper on detrimental arthropoda).
When I got back to the lab on May 3rd, I found a heavily engraved envelope: it was a formal invitation to Laura’s wedding, to ... one of the princes of Liechtenstein! Well, I suppose that was what she wanted ... she couldn’t manage a Grimaldi. I would send my “regrets,” of course. I thought about my crazy weekend last year. Was I Laura’s frolic among her inferiors? Her bit of rough?
I was invited to give a paper in Adelaide, at the South Australia Museum, and dug into my (old) notes from my trip to the Great Victoria Desert while I was at Long Pocket. I went to Merchant of Venice at the Theatre Centre, but it wasn’t the same without Bettina. I realized that Shakespeare was far more when you discussed the play afterwards. In August I saw the Australian Ballet’s version of Don Quixote with music by a nineteenth century Russian composer named Minkus. The dancing was terrific, but the music just wasn’t my thing.
At the end of September 1999, Kevin appeared in my office. “Have you ever been to Western Australia?”
“Not since I was at Long Pocket, and that was to a bit of desert bordering South Australia.”
“Well, I need you to fly to Perth and from there to someplace called Laverton. A bushpilot claims he saw anthills in the Great Victoria. There shouldn’t be any.”
“OK.”
I knew it would be dry and hot, so I didn’t pack much. I ended up with my backpack and my collection kit. I took a reasonable amount of dosh – in a town of under 500 there would be few credit card machines or ATMs.
Canberra to Sydney to Perth was easy. In Perth I opted not to take Skippers and found a bushpilot.
I flew into Laverton from Perth in an arthritic Cessna 152 on a nice early October day.
It changed my life completely.
