Chapter 7

Gail and I first met at the local school at the beginning of the girl's kindergarten. Between the kid who was holding onto the front school fence and screaming his guts out and the ones whose parents didn't seem to want to let go ours looked pretty ordinary. I was in the original denial of all things female and was acting more like one of the mothers than all of the other mothers combined. I attended every volunteer position available or invented even to driving things like chess clubs and sports chauffeuring which Jocerlyn and my Angel were too young for. When Gail had to work away or start early Flubberguts would stay in the spare room. Like she'd just turn up straight after school with Angel and I'd throw another chop on or whatever and cease doing so when she didn't appear after school. As mentioned previously she'd also appear at all different times of the night after another mother-daughter brawl. She'd just walk in and go straight to bed and we never brought the subject of why up. I'd given her her own front door key when she turned seven - along with a lecture on security. At her own home she was more or less a latchkey kid anyway.

According to Gail, told to me during a drunken spree we both attended, she became pregnant at the ripe old age of fifteen to a bloke who was basically the male chauvinistic sperm donor to the local underage female community. She was inexperienced, he was a louse, she got pregnant, he laughed and said it was nothing to do with him 'you little slut'. Her parents kicked her out because she 'was a slut' and she had to find work damned fast.

I was at the local pub one night at a P&C do, not long after she told me her story, and the bloke was there drinking schooners with his mates. He was now nearing forty, laughing and calling another little girl a slut-the exact description used was 'life support system for a cunt'. When he left the pub that night, drunk as a skunk, he found all four tyres on his car slashed and deep gouges down both sides of his brand new Holden V8 utility's duco. Someone must have really had a grudge as, to my knowledge, it has happened no less than ten times since on, or around, Jocerlyn and Gail's birthdays, on a few different vehicles he owned during this time. Due to my philosophical bent I don't get mad I get even - though that first night I was as near to seeing red as I am willing to get. Although it had nothing to do with me at the time, once he was attacked and the word rapist burnt on his forehead and chest with lit cigarettes. Another time he had all his fingers broken by an outraged father. The police who attended told the father that the injured bloke should be more careful whom he tried to attack and miss twice, and hitting a baseball bat with his fists instead. They took it no further and told the father that they'd see him at work next day before they finished shift.

Our friend left town and headed north for the warmth and his health about a year ago and no one around here has heard from him since. I have at times considered having a short holiday up north on an annual basis and taking my Stanley knife with me. A few of us have an idea where he had escaped to.

Over time I have had severe arguments with Gail disputing the description of slut given to her and the self-loathing she felt for herself due to it. She no longer believes it about herself I hope, but it is still a sore point.

I had a restless night. It wasn't the same as having Angel beside me; this other body was less fidgety. I eventually fell asleep about one-ish I think, but it wasn't a restful sleep. Something eventually annoyed me to wakefulness, a fly or something was crawling on my nose and I woke and opened my eyes just to stop it. Hairy bloody fly, or really some hair from the body I shared the bed with last night. "You know, you didn't have to carry me to bed and strip me naked while I was asleep to get me into bed. All you had to do was ask." She didn't seem annoyed, she sounded amused.

I turned on my side to face her and frankly she looked rather good, in a first thing in the morning just brushed the sleep out of her eyes sort of well-tousled way. At some time she had lost the sheet, which I had carefully placed over both of us the previous night, and it did not seem to matter to her that neither of us were wearing anything. Or should I say, she wasn't wearing bra and panties after the girls had finished with her last night! Actually she was still wearing them when I got into bed and covered her over, so maybe being naked in bed with a strange man isn't as big a surprise as it might have been. "You look rather good at this time of the morning, in a blatantly erotic kind of way that is."