Chapter 11

January is a quiet month on the speaking and engagement tour in Australia. This is because the schools are closed for the summer holidays, and only a few students are doing ‘catch-up’ work at the Universities. In addition, our boys are at home and on school break at this time, so we typically take a family holiday. I was tempted to take us to see the Monies but resisted as I didn’t want to tempt my friend’s wrath. Instead, we opted to book into a resort on the Gold Coast and toured the various theme parks down there.

We all enjoyed Sea World and Wet and Wild, but MovieWorld didn’t impress me much, although Ness seemed to have fun.

In the AFL’s preseason, January is an important month as it’s when the clubs try to lay the fitness foundations necessary for the players to survive a twenty-three game plus playoffs game season. I’d followed that routine for all of my fourteen-year AFL career, so I often found myself re-joining my Brisbane Bears ex-teammates as they circled the oval, trying to run enough miles into their legs to ensure they’d survive the year’s rigours.

I’d set the club’s two-kilometre trial record during my first year at The Bears. Interestingly, I beat that time the year after I retired, but as I wasn’t a player anymore, it didn’t count. When the then Fitzroy Lions (In 1996, the Brisbane Bears merged with the Fitzroy Lions to form the Brisbane Lions, but by then, I’d been retired for nearly two years) recruited me, I was tossing up between trying to qualify for the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the 800 and 1500 metre events and joining an AFL team. My disgust at Australia’s government trying to force the athletes to boycott those Olympics led me to choose an AFL career—something I’ve never regretted.

But, because the month was quiet after our two-week holiday, I had little to do but watch my stocks grow on the market, usually about as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow and/or think about May Fourth. Therefore, instead of seventeen days, it took an aeon, or so it seemed, for the calendar to finally click over to February fourth.

Vanessa had been unusually quiet and restrained after our holiday, too, with no sign of her usual flirtatious nature and no excitably descriptive commentary about how hot some guy she’d flirted with was. However, she was loving toward me and her usual responsive self in bed, so I wasn’t concerned.

I read our calendar on the morning of February fourth. Ness’ note said three-quarters of the year has passed since Tanya’s first photo, yet your hands still shake as you excitedly view the next one. I wonder, will your head explode when you finally see your paramour naked?”

“Most likely,” I muttered, looking for something to distract me until the mailman arrived.

Unfortunately, my wife was on an early, so I couldn’t indulge in any sex games with her or use her to wind the postie up. I practised pool for a time, but I was already pretty good, so that got old quickly. I took my clubs up to the driving range, but I’d hit a plateau. I’d gotten my handicap down to four but couldn’t seem to improve from there. My ‘driving range form’ was its typically brilliant self, so I doubted I’d done anything to improve my game by the time I’d run out of balls.

Sighing, I redirected my Maserati to the Coffee Club at West End, ate a ‘big breakfast’ meal, and drank several cups of coffee. The waitress for my table was a pretty woman, probably only a few years younger than me, and I briefly contemplated accepting her flirts and taking her somewhere to have some fun. I knew Ness wouldn’t mind if I phoned her and asked for a ‘pass’, but it felt like I’d be cheating on Tanya, weird though that sounded, even to me, and didn’t take the waitress up on her offers.

Finally, it was late enough that I could head home without spending too much time anticipating the mailman’s arrival. So I gently refused the waitress’ latest advance by showing her my wedding ring and saying that if I weren’t married, I’d love to have ‘played’ with her, and walked from the club.

The postie was walking back from my front door when I returned home, but, recognising me, he blushed, then hesitated before coming over with his pad for me to sign for the letter.

“Sorry, buddy,” I commiserated. “Unfortunately, my wife is working an early today, so you don’t get to cum on her cunt.”

“Ahh, shit!” The postie groaned. “You saw that, huh?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “You did well to get her off that quickly.” Not mentioning that Ness was so het up that anyone could have played with her cunt that day, and she’d have cum.

“Fuck, mate,” the mailman asked, “You’re okay with what I did? Playing with her pussy and then cumming on it?”