Prologue

Dave was a tall, fit and healthy widower who looked more like he was in his mid to late 40s rather than his actual age of 55 when he set out from Canberra to drive around the coast of Australia. He had seen a young couple with a surf board, trying to hitch a ride as he left Nowra. This was eight days after he had left Canberra on his Australian odyssey in his large RV with a small 4WD vehicle on a trailer behind.

He and his late wife, Chloe, had planned this trip for many years before her sudden death from cancer just before Dave turned 54.

Both Dave and Chloe had planned to take advantage of the early retirement provisions of the Commonwealth public service, which enabled them to retire at 55 with very generous superannuation. Consequentially, although he missed her dreadfully, he was at least financially well off.

Dave offered the young couple, Peter 22, and Jill 20, a lift for a while, welcoming some company. This stretched into more than eight months as they meandered slowly right up the east coast of Australia, across to the top end, before coming down the west coast and finally back east including the red centre.

After a couple of months, Dave had left the couple for a few weeks once they reached Cairns. During this time he befriended a lesbian couple in their mid 20s, Wendy and Kellie, by saving them from being raped. They travelled with him for a while until Wendy's favourite aunt died, leaving her a fortune. He later attended their 'wedding' celebration and was persuaded by the couple to make the bride (Kellie) pregnant.

Dave had also saved the life of an 18 year old beauty, Gail, who also fell in love with him and joined the trio briefly in some complex sexual relations. Dave had prevented her from falling overboard after she lost her balance on the top deck of the catamaran coming back from the Great Barrier Reef. It had been a fairly rough sea at the time and if she had gone overboard she would almost certainly have drowned.

Eventually a very satisfying ménage a trios had developed and Jill had fallen in love with Dave as well as Peter. Dave found that he too had fallen in love for only the second time in his life, indeed only the second girl he had ever been intimate with. He realised that, while his time alone with Jill had been something special that he would remember for ever, he had also really enjoyed being together as a threesome. There was certainly no suggestion of anything sexual between Dave and Peter, they just enjoyed each other's company, but they both really enjoyed sharing Jill.

When the trio decided they wanted to make their relationship permanent, it was agreed that Jill should legally marry Dave, so that she would be financially secure, but that they would have a similar ceremony to what Wendy and Kellie had done, enabling Jill to be informally married to both men.

When Wendy heard about their plans, while confirming that Kellie was pregnant, she offered to organise the whole event in Brisbane. Because Gail was now living in Brisbane with her cousin Tony, they had both been invited to the wedding and Gail was to be bridesmaid, seeing that there were to be two grooms. The only other guests for the reception that Wendy organised apart from the celebrant, were to be Tanya, Kellie's heterosexual bridesmaid from their 'wedding' and Sam, Wendy's best man', a nice but very 'butch' lesbian.