Chapter 6: Making a Home for Us

Garry

Monday, November 15 – Wednesday, November 17, 1999

I was surprised to see Michelle already in the office when I arrived; I also noticed that she was wearing a blouse with a high collar – quite different from her usual outfits. As I turned to greet her, I could see why – down low on her neck was a purplish bruise. Was that a love bite, and did Michelle get lucky over the weekend?

“I guess you had a good weekend,” I said to her.

“Oh, that,” she said, putting a hand up to her neck. “In fact, it was a fantastic weekend.”

She followed me into my office and pulled the door behind her. Not that anyone else was in yet, but she obviously wanted to tell me something in private.

“You will never guess,” she said. “I picked up a young Irish backpacker on Friday night at the Mercantile.”

Well, a good place to find Irish backpackers was at the Merc – it was a good pub to go to, my favourite at the Rocks.

“And now I understand just what young guys have to offer,” she continued. “I took him back to my place on Friday night. Four times that night, before we had breakfast on Saturday. Then twice again that afternoon, and another four times on Saturday night. Not to mention twice yesterday morning. I could hardly walk last night!”

“Wow,” I said. “And what about last night?”

“That’s the best part,” she said. “Sunday afternoon, I dropped him off at the airport, since he was flying back to Ireland.”

“You mean, just a weekend fling?” I asked her. “You’re happy about that?”

“Hell yeah!” she exclaimed. “He was a good – no, a great fuck. I think the best I have ever had. I lost count of how many times he made me come; it was incredible. But I wouldn’t want him as a steady boyfriend, his prick, tongue, and fingers were fantastic, but his mind was something different, he made rocks look intelligent! No, that was exactly what I needed; some mind-blowing, earth-shattering fucking. No questions, no obligations, just pure wild sex.”

“Well, I am happy for you,” I said. “Truly, that is great. Now I guess you will be at the Mercantile every Friday?”

“I don’t think my pussy could stand too many weekends like that,” she laughed. “It is still really tender now! At least I can walk this morning!”

We both laughed; I was glad Michelle realised that she could get a man, even if it was just for a casual weekend of non-stop sex.

“Anyway, Will, what is the plan for this week?” she asked me.

“More work on the final report,” I said. “I’m doing the final certification for SSTS at Transport tomorrow morning, I’ll have Garry come across and assist us, Michael will be there, and I assume you are coming along. Thursday afternoon and evening we have the final readiness simulation testing, I hope there won’t be any issues from that, but you never can tell. How are we going with all the financial summaries?”

“Sure, most of it is in a reasonable state already,” Michelle said. I didn’t doubt her at all, and I pitied the responsible person at those agencies that hadn’t yet provided their final figures. “Plus, do you want me to sort out the details for the company Christmas party coming up?”

Since I no longer had the great backyard at my old house in Lane Cove as a venue for the annual company Christmas party, we had decided to hold a function at the Metropolitan Hotel, at the corner of Bridge and George Streets. They had an upstairs function room that would have space for everyone in the company.

“That will be great if you can handle that, Michelle,” I replied. “I’d be lost without you, you know – just don’t think about flying off to Ireland anytime soon!”

“No chance of that,” she said, as she left my office. “No chance of that!”

Trying to put all thoughts of Michelle and her Irish backpacker lover from my mind, I dove back into writing up the final report. By the time I took a break for lunch I had made significant progress; of course, there was still the proof-reading and final checking to be done, but I was happy with the writing I had done so far. I decided to take an early lunch, then take the train up to St Leonards and catch up with Garry.

“You’re looking really good, Mate,” he said as I entered his office. “Looks like you’ve lost a bit of weight and toned up your muscles, too. So, what’s the goss? Who is this woman you’ve moved in with? Mary Beth said she seems pretty nice.”

“I thought you’d want to hear how the company is going, whether we are on track for the Y2K issue, work stuff. Instead, you’re asking questions about my love life...”

“Nah, fuck the work stuff, I’ve spent all morning in Mary Beth’s office being brought up to speed, I know you and Michelle have all the business stuff under control. So, who is the woman, how did you meet, and what’s been going on?”

I guess he was right, he didn’t need me to echo what Mary Beth would have told him about how the company was going and an update on all the projects. I wouldn’t be able to escape satisfying his prurient interest, so I gave him a summary of how Angie and I began our relationship (“You mean you pissed your pants in front of her? Only you could turn some super-embarrassing event into a romantic relationship!”), how we got another two women involved (“Three women at once? Of course, you have”), one of which was Sue Brown, back from our school days.

“So, do you think this Angie, might be ‘the one’?” he asked.

“Not sure, it’s still early days,” I replied. “But things are looking promising.”

“Okay, as long as you know what you are doing,” he said. “Now, I don’t want to tell you how to run your love life, and you know just how long we’ve been close friends, what is it, since 1963? You know how much I care for you, and I never want to see you hurt again, not like you’ve been in the past. I just want to make sure you know what you are getting into, you’re not just making your old mistakes of just drifting along through life, and suddenly finding yourself caught in something that you didn’t realize you were getting into.

“All I’m going to say – and I have no idea what this Angie is like, but Mary Beth assures me that she seems really nice, and you two look happy together – make sure you know what you are getting into, and that Angie, Sue and whoever else is involved know what you are expecting and wanting from the relationship. Remember, we are starting the band back up in a week or two, and who knows what might come from that. Assuming civilization doesn’t go to hell at the turn of the century, who knows what will come year. Don’t rush in and commit yourself to something before you know what’s likely to happen.”

“Nah, that’s good advice,” I said. “I’m not rushing into a full-blown relationship, not yet. I’m still trying to sort a lot of things out in my head, work out what makes me happy, and what I want in a future relationship. On a completely different topic, did you know Cathy Parsons is moving back to Sydney, around Christmas? She’s had it working for the current Federal Government, and the State Government seems like it’s offering her a decent position.”

“Fuck me, Mate, you’re not going to be stupid and try to re-establish a relationship with her?” he said, shaking his head. “She’s completely the wrong person for you, I thought you would have realized that by now.”

“I have, don’t worry, there’s no way I would consider that. Besides, she ‘plays for the other team’, so I doubt she would be looking for a relationship with me.”

“So, she’s a lesbian, or at least bisexual?” he said. “I could be unkind and say you have that effect on lots of women, but...”

“She was probably that way well before I got involved,” I said. “Just like most people who are gay or bisexual, that’s just the way they are.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a dig at you.”

“Well, that’s enough about what I’ve been up to, how about you tell me about your time in the UK, and Kate being pregnant. By the way, before I blab my big mouth, what’s your plan to tell people about the news?”

“You were the first we told, outside of family,” he said. “But I told Mary Beth this morning, and I’ll let everyone else know in the next few days. We are now past the period when things could go wrong, so there’s no reason to keep things a secret.”

He then told me about their UK vacation, the places they went to, things they did, and some of the more interesting sights.

“Mate, a question for you,” I started. “How did you know that you were in love with Kate? I mean, was there something – some event – that made you realise she was the one for you?”

Now, ‘the one for you’ was a little misleading as far as Gerry was concerned. I had lost count of the number of ‘serious’ relationships he had had over the years, and Kate was his second wife – and had Michelle not had to have her hysterectomy because of her cancer, they probably would have married. But this relationship seemed far more serious and long lasting than all his previous relationships.

“Hmmm, that’s a good one,” he started to reply. “I mean, we had been going out together for a while, nothing serious you know, we had slept together several times, but I wasn’t sure if she was right for me. But I follow what you are getting at, at least I think I do.”

Well, that summed up Garry – ‘nothing serious’, but they had slept together a few times.

“You remember that weekend about three years ago last winter – when we had all those wild storms, and torrential downpours for a few days in a row?” he continued.

I knew the time he was talking about it threw the city into chaos.

“Well, that Friday night a bunch of us were going out, Kate and I got to the restaurant, not far from the place at Lane Cove, that Chinese place at Artarmon. Well, none of the others had arrived, and then my phone rang. Keith and his wife were stuck on the train; a rock fall had blocked the train line north of Chatswood. Then the others rang, they were caught in the traffic pile up on the bridge approaches, the tunnel was closed because of flooding, and they weren’t going anywhere.

“Well, we decided to grab a quick meal, just the two of us; this was the first time we had been out together alone. The food was good, but as we left the restaurant, this car screamed along the street, and sprayed a huge sheet of water over both of us – we were completely soaked. So, we tried to work out what to do – Kate thought about getting a taxi back to her place, the trains were still disrupted, and there was no way she could easily get back to Ashfield. The traffic over the bridge was still a mess, so we drove back to your place where I was staying. I think you might have been out of town, Canberra, or something. So once inside, and both of us chilled to the bone, I ran a bath, and well, the rest is history, as they say. So maybe it just took that event to make us realise things.”

“Yeah, I think it often takes something out of the ordinary to wake us up,” I replied. “Sort of like hitting us over the head with a four by two.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t as if I realised ‘wow! She is the one! My perfect match!’ or any of that stuff,” he added. “I think over the years, I had somehow expected that I would find the ideal woman, you know, and we would both be perfect for each other. You even said that yourself when you asked me that question; what was it? ‘How did I know she was the one for me?’ Well, I had spent the last twenty something years looking for ‘the one’, and each woman I hooked up with, well I expected her to be ‘the one’, if you know what I mean.”

“Uh huh,” I grunted.

“Of course, every time I found a new woman, and started going out with her, well, she was ‘the one’. And when, after a while, as it always does, something would come up where she wasn’t everything I thought, well, I assumed that I had made a mistake, and she wasn’t the one. That cost me the first divorce, and the relationship with Michelle, you know.”

I nodded silently.

“Well, what I did realise was that I was a fool to believe there was one perfect woman for me, and I would be the perfect man for her.” Garry looked hard at me. “I realised that there are probably lots of women ‘good enough’ for me, just as I would be ‘good enough’ for lots of women. So, I realised how stupid I had been not considering a serious relationship with Kate, because of, well, because of a few silly things. So that’s the story.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” I replied. “I think I start to understand.”

“So, about this new woman of yours,” he continued. “About time you found someone, we were starting to worry about you.”

I laughed at his comment. For Garry, being without a woman for more than two weeks was akin to a national emergency.

“No need to worry,” I replied. “I was just a bit leery of jumping back in, so to speak.”

“So, is she ‘the one’?” he asked, laughing at me.

“And after all you just told me about not wasting your life looking for ‘the one’, you want to know if Angie is ‘the one’ for me?” I punched him lightly on the shoulder.

I also suggested that he and Kate come over for dinner on Wednesday night, so they could meet Angie, and we could catch up on everything that had taken place over the last twelve months. I made sure what restrictions Kate had on foods that she could and should not eat, he just advised against shellfish or particularly spicy foods.

“Plus, no alcohol, of course,” he said.

Before we realized it, I had to leave to get back home for dinner; I caught the train back to Town Hall and changed there for the Eastern Suburbs line. That gave me time to think about what Garry had told me about how I should think carefully about my relationship with Angie, not getting involved too deeply too quickly. He also made some vague reference to how things might change in the New Year, with the band getting back together. It reminded me a little about what Doctor Sleigh said with regards to Angie, how there was something she knew about the future involving her, but she couldn’t tell me. Maybe Garry knew something about what could happen that he didn’t want to share with me. I wondered if there was something to do with Cathy’s return. Time would tell, I would just have to be patient.

The next morning, Garry arrived at my office about 8:30, he wanted to go over the test plan for the Transport SSTS acceptance testing prior to us going over there. I told him that Michael and Sarah would be running the tests, we would just be there to observe, and Michelle would be there as well, to make sure we had all the documentation required, everything was completed and signed off properly, so we wouldn’t have to go back for something that we had forgotten.

“It all seems pretty comprehensive,” he said, perusing the test plan. “I think everything is covered, and if Sarah was supervising the program changes, then the chance of any bug getting through is next to nothing, knowing how thorough she is.”

“Exactly, this morning’s exercise is just a piece of theatre, mainly to cross the ‘i’s and dot the ‘t’s,” I said. “Of course, if we didn’t do it, and come January, payments to parents or the bus companies were screwed up...”

“I agree, we’re not wasting our time, now isn’t the time to be slack,” he said. “I’m glad it’s you that has to write up the overall project report though, there’s only so much bullshit I can tolerate!”

“Tell me about it!” I said. “Now, on another completely different topic, how did you know that Kate was the one for you, what was it that made you realize that you really loved her? I know we talked about this yesterday, but I’m still not completely sure of things. I’m not wanting to be snarky, but I can recall Sarah when we were at high school, Jill Murray when we were first at University, then there was Jenny, Michelle – and I’m sure a bunch of other women. So, what was it about Kate that made the difference?”

“Wow, that’s a deep question,” he replied. “I guess it was a realization that built up over a while. We’d been going out for a few weeks, and I found I would be constantly thinking of her, wondering what she was doing, how she was feeling. I’d wake up in the morning, and feel a sense of loss, that I was missing something, and I wanted to be with Kate. I don’t recall feeling like that about any of the others; when I was with any of them, that was great, but when we were apart, there wasn’t that sense that I was incomplete, or alone.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “I know what that feeling is like.”

“Then after a few more weeks of feeling like I was somehow lost or incomplete without Kate, I sat down, and tried to work out how a life with her would be,” he continued. “Could I see the two of us being together long term, what was it about her that I liked, were the things that annoyed me – maybe ‘annoyed’ is too strong, but the little nits – were they going to be a showstopper. Could I see us having children together, would I want to raise my kids with her? All of those came out in favour of her being ‘the one’ for me. Does that help?”

“It does, it certainly does,” I replied. “When I saw my counsellor last week, she challenged me to work out at what stages in my life did I feel ‘content’, and what was it about my life at that time that made me feel that way. Now that’s not an easy thing to answer, I mean, how do you know if you are content with your life?”

“That’s another tough one,” he said. “Content? What does that really mean? That you don’t believe life could get much better, that you are happy and satisfied with how things are at the present time? That’s not easy to work out, I mean, we are all conditioned by society that we need to have more than we currently have, possessions, like clothes and cars should be replaced every few years with the latest style or model.”

“But if you are with the right person, you’re not wanting to change them every year or two for the latest model,” I said. “Maybe that’s part of the answer, when you have someone as a partner that you would never want to replace with anyone else, that means you are content with them?”

“So, by that argument, would you say you were ‘content’ with Lisa?”

“Absolutely, she was – and I know this is a trite and corny expression – but she was my soulmate.”

“I think that was obvious to everyone,” he said. “So, since she was your soulmate, and I’m not saying this as a criticism or having a go at you, if that was the case, why were there all the other women – Fiona, Alexa, and more – involved with you. Wasn’t Lisa enough for you?”

“Well, it wasn’t as cut and dried as ‘wasn’t Lisa enough for me’,” I said. “For as long as I have been in relationships, I’ve always felt a need for multiple women. Each person brings something different into the relationship and helped me learn something new about myself. I know that sounds like a bit of a cop out on my part, trying to justify having multiple women in the relationship, but in every situation, it was something that we all wanted and enjoyed.”

“I wasn’t trying to criticize or condemn you; I know that Lisa really wanted Fiona involved in your relationship, and when Fiona was overseas, she was initially quite sad. I just can’t see Kate wanting that, and I’m happy with how things are with just the two of us.”

“Of course, what’s right for one person, or one couple, may not work for anyone else. What you and Kate want is quite different from what Chris and Mary Beth want in their relationship, and that’s also very different from what Lisa and I wanted.”

“But did that make you ‘content’?” he asked.

“Yes, I was content with the relationship; well at least for that part of my life,” I said. “What I have to work out, is what was it about that relationship that made me content, and how can I reproduce that, obviously with someone other than Lisa?”

“Well, I think you are part of the way to getting the answer, the easy part has been done, just work out what you need to replicate. Good luck!”

“Thanks – no, I mean it, I always get a lot out of talking things over with you,” I said. “I guess it’s time to make our way up to Transport, let me see if the others are ready.”

I gathered Michelle, Michael, and Sarah, and together the five of us walked the short distance up to Transport’s Elizabeth Street office. Once we arrived there Perry Hammond took us into the IT Department’s area, and we sat down at some PCs, and Sarah stared to run the tests with him. She had Perry run a sequence of operations, entering new data, running update jobs, producing bank payment data files, and printing off reports. At each stage, Michael would run a query into the Informix database to ensure the values were stored and updated correctly. All the tasks were completed successfully, the expected values were stored and updated appropriately, and I was pleased to note that in every location where a date was displayed or printed, it was in the format ‘DD-MMM-YYYY’. Spelling out the abbreviation made sure there was no confusion between the date display format used here, and the strange US convention of putting the month before the day. If they kept the format as pure numeric, there would be confusion if 1/12/2000 was December 1st, or January 12th. But showing it as 12-Jan-2000 left no room for confusion; we had set that as one of our inviolable programming standards for all systems we worked on.

At the end of the test period, we were satisfied that the application was working correctly and was fully Y2K compliant. Michelle completed the compliance documentation, and we all signed off on it.

“Great job, everyone,” I said. “Now, how about lunch, is there somewhere in the Piccadilly centre we can go to?”

“There is a great place that has some really tasty paninis,” Perry said. “Garry, you should remember that place, we would often have lunch there.”

We agreed that would be the ideal place for lunch, it was less than a ten-minute walk down Castlereagh Street towards the State Office Block. Perry’s suggestion was a good one, my chicken parmigiana was excellent. Working at the north end of the city had its disadvantages; there was nowhere near the range of good, cheap eating places. There was the food court in the office building on Bent Street, just behind the Lands Building, but that was pretty much it, apart from some rather expensive restaurants, and a few touristy places around the Quay. We finished our lunch and made our way back to the State Office Block, while Perry headed back to the Transport Department building.

Just after 4pm, an email message arrived from Sue.

From: Sue Brown <s.brown@filmation.com.au>
To: Will Morris <will.morris@itsd.nsw.gov.au>
Date: 16/11/1999 3:03:48 PM
Subject: From the Great Wet One

Hi Will

“Oh Great Wet One” – I love that description. I can see I will have to show you just how wet I can get. Mind you, things are very wet here right now; but I am referring to the conditions outside – not the state of either my panties or my pussy.

OK, on to serious stuff initially. That project I mentioned – how would you like to be a movie star? Well, not quite that exciting, but I need someone who looks and sounds like a “typical Australian” for a series of international advertisements we will be making for the Tourism Commission in the lead up to the Olympics. I don’t want a “Crocodile Hunter” or Paul Hogan ocker type – just a regular guy.

We have been commissioned to produce a series of short adverts, showing that there is much more to Sydney and Australia than just the games – we want someone to show “My Sydney” and “My Australia” – and I think you would be ideal. We can talk about it when I am back.

Glad you and Angie liked me telling you about the wet walk; and I wish the two of you were here to share that with me – I am getting so fucking horny, and I am sure my fingers will give out before I get home, I have rubbed myself so much. I was never that bad – not until the other weekend, at least. Even thinking about it is making me wet – maybe I will go for a long walk outside. The rain has stopped for the moment – perhaps I can find a way to get very wet again?

I will do that – I can feel myself getting full, so I will go and top myself up, so to speak, and then see just how wet I can get.

I promise to email you later and let you know how it went.

Wet Dreams,

The Great Wet One.

I had to admit, Sue made me laugh; and turned me on, too. The film (well, advert) role sounded interesting – I had never done any acting work before, but I guess all my playing in public was good preparation for that. As it was getting close to time to head off home, I ripped off a quick reply.

From: Will Morris <will.morris@itsd.nsw.gov.au>
To: Sue Brown <s.brown@filmation.com.au>
Date: 16/11/1999 4:18:26 PM
Subject: Re: From the Great Wet One

Glad you like the title I have given you. The project you mentioned sounds like a lot of fun – no nude work though? I have had some nude photos (and even more) taken of me, but quite a while ago.

Please, tell us how this evening’s walk ended up. I will have to try to remember a story or two for you as well – although in your present state, that may not be a good idea – I don’t want to completely ruin your fingers.

About to leave work for the day, will think of you when I have my next pee.

Will

That should do until I have the time for a more complete email. I should try to recall some wet events from the past to share with her, too. I shut down my computer and made my way home.

I decided to cook a casserole for dinner, so once I had changed, I started to prepare the ingredients, dicing some steak, and putting that in the casserole dish with some vegetables. Just as I was about to put it in the oven, Angie arrived home.

“Oh, that looks nice,” she said, “how long will it take to cook?”

“Well, probably an hour and a half, or two,” I replied. “How about we go for a walk, maybe down past the yacht club, since it is twilight racing tonight.”

“Great, let me just get changed quickly,” Angie replied. “It is a lovely afternoon for a walk, anyway.”

While Angie got changed, I put the casserole in the oven, and set the timer. Two hours would be a about the right time for it to cook, even though we would eat rather late.

A few minutes later, we were walking out of the apartment towards the main road. “Tuesday Twilights” at the CYCA were originally a friendly racing afternoon on the harbour during daylight savings months; but there were regularly over 100 yachts of all sizes competing in some serious racing. As we walked towards the harbour, I told Angie about Sue’s latest email, both the offer of the film role, and her frustrations.

“That would be great, if you would be in those adverts,” Angie said. “Have you done any acting before?”

“No,” I replied. “But being up on stage, performing can’t be much different. But I did go to some ‘murder mystery weekends’, where we had a role to play. They were fun, but no acting in the traditional sense, not even any modelling. What about you?”

“When I was at university I did some modelling for art classes,” Angie said. “A lot of it was nude modelling, too; it paid well, and was pretty easy work.”

We continued talking until we reached the small park at the end of the road, and sat on the stone sea wall, watching the boats racing. It was a great summer’s afternoon; well, almost summer, anyway; and it was quite warm sitting in the sun, watching the action. After a while, most of the boats had finished racing, and we decided to head back for dinner. We walked past the area where come next September, all the Olympic sailing action would be; there were already new marinas in place for the boats, and a space had been cleared for the various team areas.

After we had gone past the CYCA clubhouse, Angie started to walk slower.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

“Yeah, I just need to have a pee,” she replied. “I guess I forgot to go before we left home.”

“It isn’t that far to the apartment,” I said. “We should be back in about fifteen minutes; can you hold on?”

“I will try,” she said.

We walked on a bit further and had just reached the large park near the main road.

“Oh bugger,” Angie said out loud. “I just squirted a bit in my pants. I don’t think I can hold on much longer, Will.”

“Well, we are almost at the park,” I said, “and there isn’t anybody around. Maybe we can find a place there.”

“What do you mean, find a place,” Angie said. “It is all out in the open, I can’t just squat down on the ground.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “See that bench across there?” I pointed to a wooden bench about fifty metres away, next to a large tree. “You could sit there, quickly slip your panties off, and just pee while you are sitting down. Your skirt is short enough not to get wet.”

“Well, I guess so,” she replied. “I know I can’t get back to the apartment in time. Oh fuck, I leaked a bit more.”