Chapter 38: Tripping Again at Last

Time seemed to fly the following week. Very soon it was Saturday again and I hadn’t been fishing or diving for more than a fortnight. I kept wondering how Pauline’s efforts to arrange another mushie trip were proceeding. Leslie was the only one of the six of us with a regular schedule, but I had made the assumption that our trips would be weekend adventures.

Pauline surprised me. She rang in the late afternoon, while I was thinking about rowing out for a fish, and told me that the Vaughans were hosting everyone for the afternoon on Monday, with mushrooms for lunch. That was fine by me. I asked about her efforts to coordinate a dive, and she reported that Ryan had seemed to have his head stuck up his arse the previous week and she hadn’t got far. I explained that Stephen’s family were going to Perth and that Ryan was conflicted about Jeannette. Pauline agreed to keep trying.

That new schedule for our trip changed my plans for the weekend, and I hurriedly arranged to spend Sunday with Jane, Michael and the kids, and Sunday night with Leslie. Fatherly/grandfatherly duties were cruisy, and after homegrown mutton for dinner, I decamped to Leslie’s place. I was only a little surprised to find that Carol and her parents had come over for ‘a chat’ about the situation. We settled down in Leslie’s lounge.

“So what do you want to know?” Carol took the lead.

“I told Colin I never wanted to see him again, but he rang me and texted me until I blocked his number. I’ve blocked him on social media too, but last week he parked across the road after school a couple of times, and last Thursday he followed me halfway home. “I’m scared of him!” Carol’s Dad grunted. He was red in the face and his knuckles were white on the arm of his chair.

“Slimy little bastard needs a bullet!” I looked at Carol. Her Dad’s reaction wasn’t helping. I made a snap decision to refrain from telling him so, but Carol’s Mum Rosemary wasn’t similarly inhibited.

“John! Please! We know what you have always thought of Colin, but Carol doesn’t want to be with him anymore, and we need to move on.” He ‘Humpffed’, but sat back a little in his chair.

“A ‘Protection Order” from the Family Court would be enforced by the cops. You could undoubtedly get one.” I turned to Carol. “Have you got any bruises left?” She nodded, and John half rose before his wife reached over to put her hand on his arm.

“Go with Leslie and get some photos.” They moved towards the bedroom and I turned back to Rosemary and John. “A lawyer will charge somewhere between three and five grand to get an order. Our local Womens Refuge will do it for free.” John was emphatic.

“Money’s not an issue!” He looked at Rosemary for confirmation. She nodded equally emphatic agreement.

“Okay, Michelle Hart is probably the best local lawyer for this stuff. I’ll just send Leslie her number.” I scrolled through my phone and did that. “Meantime, I’ll try and put the fear of God into Colin. Have either of you got his number in your phone?”

“I have.”

“Can you dial him and hand him over?”. Rosemary scrolled and dialled and then handed over her phone. It rang for a while, then went to voicemail. My message was short and to the point.

“I am a lawyer using Rosemary’s phone. Carol’s hair analysis has provided evidence of her P use. Carol has sworn an affidavit describing where and when you supplied and administered it. Sometime in the next week you will be served with a protection order prohibiting you from contacting her or going anywhere near her. If you leave her alone, there will be no problem. If you break the order, the cops will arrest you and then we will give them the drugs report and the affidavit. Stay away.”

I terminated the call, and was handing the phone back to Rosemary, when it rang. Same number. I answered, but gave whoever was on the other end no time to say anything.

“No one wants to talk to you. Listen to the voicemail. We have enough on you to make sure you go down if you fuck with us. Stay away.” I cut the call and spoke to Rosemary and John. “The Protection Order is the main thing, and you should ring Michelle Hart first thing tomorrow to get that under way. Hair analysis and affidavits might be useful as a backup but you can talk to her about that.”

Rosemary looked relieved, and John relaxed a little, and stayed that way until Leslie and Carol emerged from the bedroom with some quite graphic photos of bruises on Carol’s abdomen, breasts, upper arms, and buttocks. They were a variety of colours and sizes indicating a number of beatings over an extended period. As she looked at the images on Leslie’s phone, Carol’s dam broke again. She started to cry.

“He used to hit me where it wouldn’t show!”

Leslie and Rosemary hugged her as she sobbed, and John stormed out to the porch, where he paced up and down muttering darkly. I joined him.

“You tried really hard to protect her. Maybe even fought with Rosemary about what to do.”

“Failed there too!”

“Parents these days have an impossible job – especially men!”

“Too bloody hard for me!”

“We still have the traditional responsibilities, but not the traditional power.” He nodded emphatically, so I went on. “It’s particularly bad between fathers and teenage daughters.”

“I don’t want to control her and I didn’t get upset when she started to have sex – I just wanted her to be happy. I still do!” There was an edge of desperation in his voice.

“I’m pretty sure she’s always known that, but she was stuck. It’s insidious. Family Violence has been fucking over women’s heads for ever, but in combination with P, there’s an addictive potential that’s terrifying.”

“We seem to have dodged the addiction bullet.” There was a hint of a question in his voice, so I gave him the bad news as far as I knew it.

“Tell me that in two years if she’s not had any more P.”

“Where can we get help with that?”

“You can help, but it’s Carol’s battle if there is one. Community Alcohol and Drug Services will provide help and support. Your GP can refer you as a family, or Carol can refer herself.”

We went back inside, and after multiple hugs, cuddles, expressions of undying gratitude, and promises to ‘stay in touch’, Carol and her parents departed, and Leslie and I went to bed with rum ‘n milk.

“You turned on to Carol the other night, didn’t you?” Her tone was interested, rather than accusatory.

“Sure did. Was it that obvious?”

“No, but she told me on the way home. She was feeling a bit guilty.”

“I wasn’t. She wasn’t holding anything back. I noticed my lack of guilt at the time. Thank you, Grandad!”

“That’s relevant. She said it was at least partly relief at being up close and personal and still feeling safe.”

“Thank you for telling me that. It’s really nice to hear.”

“Wouldn’t you like to fuck her?”

“Of course. Seventeen, gorgeous, who wouldn’t? Bad idea though! Not where she is right now, and not where she needs to be.”

“Yup. Terrible idea. Besides, you have at least two women who have kinks that match your thing for young teenagers. I don’t know about Sarah yet.”

“Dunno either. Haven’t talked with her as far as our deeper fantasies go.”

“When you are exploring that space, she’s too old for you anyway!”

“Sarah?”

“No you dickhead – Carol!”

I sensed we were about to further explore our mutual interest in extreme intergenerational attraction, so I just Hmmed. Leslie reached for my length as I hardened, and she jacked and stroked me with all the skills acquired in nearly sixty years of sexual activity. At the same time, she stirred the erogenous zone between my ears with her ‘young girl’ role.

“It’s awfully big.” It got bigger. “I really like touching you, but it’s too big to go right inside me.” She kept jacking, and I started to twitch and pant. “When I’m older, you can fuck me properly, but for now I’d like to make you spurt on my pussy. I’m really wet.” She straddled me with her very slippery labia rubbing along the underside of my cock as they jammed it against my belly. I got one thumb on the area around her clit and eventually on it, and the other hand on her nipples, and away we went. We moved sensuously together for quite a while before Leslie started to cum. I lasted through three or four of her orgasms before I groaned and spewed all over my belly. We sixty-nined for a while, cleaning each other up before cuddling up to sleep, but our contact was tender and sensual rather than sexual.