The Littlest Member of the House - A Rat's Tale

Tonight is Rappy's night.

And, in a way, also Rosie's and Mambo's.

Three unique little members of our little family, each one of whom wove some unfathomable and subtle magic upon our household, and on all who met them.

Mambo was with us for only a very short time, his departure a story mixed with deep sadness and grief (especially on the part of Monsterman) and a bizarre and almost surreally comical slapstick finale. But Mambo was the first pet Monsterman could truly call his own, and was a cute and manageable pocket sized bundle of fragile snuggliness with whom my lad, the weight of his world on his young shoulders, could lavish and receive boundless amounts of affection.

Rosie's yarn has been unravelled elsewhere. She joined our house and took over where Mambo left off. There was not a waking moment in this house when there was not a small white fluffball perched somewhere on Monsterman's person. Some might think it's daft to say so, but I credit Rosie with the majority of Monsterman's coming through a rough time for him - confident in himself and open and cheerful and eager to explore on the other side of his travails. Losing Rosie left a great hole in our home life - and it took the better part of a year to find someone who could step into her shoes.

Enter Rappy.

Rappy had not had the easiest of beginnings - at least as far as one can count such things with a domesticated pet rat, though I'm sure it was the life of Riley compared to that of rats in the wild or the street rats running rampant in their leather jackets and riding their miniature motorcycles. Still, Rappy had her upsets early on. Born as potential snake fodder, rescued in timely fashion from a brief life as a laboratory experiment, she moved in with a family in a town not all that far from here - the young girl of the household for a year and a half until, with the welcoming of teenage hormones, Rappy was given her marching orders.

Fortunately for Rappy, there are some people on this planet who are more than able to fall in love with what most would (in their more charitable moments) call domesticated vermin. Rani is one such person. Rani runs a one person "rodent rescue" operation: taking on unwanted pet and lab rats, feeding and caring for them until such time as she can find what she sees is a perfect match between rat, home and owner. Rani cared for Rappy for eighteen months, unable to find the right home for Rappy, and unable to resist Rappy's many charms. After a series of e-mails where they discussed their love of all things ratty, and how much he missed Rosie, Rani decided she had the perfect new friend for Monsterman. The new friends name, was Rappy.

There was a rushed and excited flurry of activity as Monsterman made sure he had everything looking just perfect for Rappy's first night with her new family. It was, without question, love at first sight. Unlike Rosie, Rappy was full of energy and curiosity and was, from the very start, an extremely talkative and chattery girl. When she wasn't eating or sleeping curled up with Monsterman, she was busy exploring and insisting on telling everyone just what she'd discovered - and how much she could really do with a museli bar right about now.

For over a year Rappy kept us informed of her doings and Monsterman kept her informed of his love and care of her. She in turn, demonstrated repeatedly that he was the number one love of her little life - other people might be tolerated, but it was him she always sought out and chirrupped at when the time came for safety and snuggles, or for her to make her little kangaroo-like hops up the stairs for her evening food and sleep time. Sometime around eighteen months after she became part of our family, Rappy developed a lump on her side - what appeared to be a small cyst. It didn't stay small for long though, and it grew and grew until it pushed at her foreleg when she walked and caught on things when she climbed. More than once it was the cause of an ungainly and un-rodent like clumsy fall and tumble.

It was time for Rappy to become the most expensive rat in Tasmania.

Off to the vet she went for some surgery, and back she bounced, more lively than ever and proudly boasting a scar - a war wound to regale vistors with.

Unfortunately, that lump was just a precusor of the things happening to Rappy's now aging body. In the space of five short weeks, two more lumps had developed - one under her throat and one between her hind legs. The latter grew with astonishing and disturbing speed until only weeks later, it was pushing her back left leg off the ground, dragging along under her like the keel of a small furry boat. And this time we knew from the vet and by her age, that surgery wasn't an option.

Yet still she climbed and explored and snuggled and chirped away at us merrily - sometimes with even more enthusiasm than before - we were handy now for scratching those increasingly hard to get at places (like under her chin). On the nights Monsterman would spend with his mum, Rappy would come downstairs to keep me company and help me relax and doze while she chomped a bit of museli bar until I was ready to face the day. She'd chirrup at me irritatedly from Monsterman's bedroom while I showered, as if to complain about the absence of her man and having to put up with just the help. And of course, the first thing Monsterman would do on coming home would be to make sure his little girl was doing OK, and he would, of course, be greeted in turn by her excited chattering and squeaking.

Tonight though, there was no squeaking, not nattering or chattering, no scramble sliding over cushions or doonas. Tonight we came home to find Rappy lying quiet and still and cold.

The littlest member of our house had left us.

And just like Mambo and Rosie, we are going to miss her greatly, and just like them, she is never really going to be far from us and will always be loved.

Because like them, Rappy has been an integral part of the healing and growth and love and strength of our small little family.

Farewell Rappy. We miss you and love you. Sweet dreams little girl.

Tales Of An Upside-Down Traveller, Part 2: Churros and Los Angeles By Foot

I’ve always felt that you get to know the soul of a city through the soles of your feet.

At seven o’clock on a Monday evening, it felt like I was going to come away with knowledge of the soul of Los Angeles that would have made Lucifer jealous. Of course that is an exaggeration, but as Next and I looked at the long stretch of lights lining South Sepulveda Boulevard that climbed gently away from us and fell away just as gently behind us, my feet believed it completely.

Oh how we’d laughed and mocked when, with our bellies full of take-away Mexican food, the response to our request for directions to the cinema was, “Oh you’re gonna want to drive or take a bus. That’s a long way. Bus stop is up over the other side of the road, on the next block. I sure as hell wouldn’t be walking. It’s way too far to walk.”

We walked. Laughing smugly, we walked. And walked. And walked some more. At about this time we started swearing – mainly at whoever the fucked up excuse for a cartographer was who drew the small map we had purloined from the reception desk of our hotel.

And as we walked, Los Angeles spoke to me through the soles of my feet, making clear the subtle and the overt hints it had presented all my other senses from the moment I had arrived.

“Here,” it said, “Is a place that stands in direct denial of the ground it sits upon. Here is a place that exists where it ought not and announces its defiance loudly.”

It was a distracting yet compelling message and, as we strolled hand in hand, laughing and bantering along the long slightly undulating stretch of road, I opened myself up to it.

Everything we passed and moved over spoke of artifice imposed upon the landscape without concession. L.A was not a place that had evolved to meet the demands of its surroundings, but rather in spite of them.

It was the flat, harsh yellow glare of the early morning sky that had first brought me up from sleep that morning into a state of disoriented semi-consciousness. Gradually other sensations filtered through my bewilderment: the light weight of the slightly coarse linen sheet that wrapped around my limbs, warm in the open space beside me; the mixed scents of sex, perfume, shampoo and burning tobacco; the dry, slightly metallic, burnt and used taste of the air that was being carried to me from an open doorway; the slightly muted sounds of cars made odd to me by the lack of the accompanying hiss of tyres on bitumen.

I opened my eyes and breathed in deeply, absorbing the thrill of excitement and disbelief. It was true, it was reality. I’d made it. I was actually in America.

When I had first made my weary way from the belly of the Qantas Airbus, through the dull sheen of LAX customs and officials and into the dizzyingly thrilling kiss and waiting arms of Next, I had little energy or presence of mind to indulge in my curiosity about my new surroundings. Instead what was uppermost in my mind were five things: my urgent need to go to the loo, a desperate longing for a strong coffee and something to eat, the necessity for a long, hot shower, the overwhelming need to fuck Next until we had saturated every bit of furniture and bedding we came into contact with and we were no longer able to move, and sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

The elevator shuddered and issued a feeble, “Bing!” as it came to rest at the main concourse. The doors slid open reluctantly and I could see that the construction that had been taking place on the lower levels of LAX was doing its level best to creep into every bit of extraneous space available. Everywhere I looked people were being pressed in against each walls, desks, tapes and each other in wide, slow moving queues and squirming, multi-hued bunches. About a third of the distance between the top of the massed heads and below the high ceilings, I could see signs that showed there were in fact some toilets in this place and, even better yet, a place that served food and coffee.

Her fingers gripped my hand tighter and dragged me into the mass towards the signs that held so much latent promise. My bags juddered and bounced behind me, just as I juddered and bounced through the crowd.

We gained our primary destination and I left Next standing guard over my belongings while I performed my ablutions. I’m sure that were it not for the support of my bones I would have melted into a puddle on the floor out of sheer relief. That done, it was time to address my next most pressing urge: coffee and food. In that order. And fortunately the solution to that lay only a few metres away to our left.

The coffee was, not to put too fine a point on it, abysmal. It was warm...ish, and it was brown...ish and to this day I’m still entirely unconvinced as to the right “creamer” has to any claims for existence. But the “coffee” did contain the requisite amount of caffeine to suit my needs. Aside from Next, America was not doing a grand job of advertising its attractions so far.

That was when she introduced me to churros. Oh. My. Oh my, oh my, oh my. Welcome to the world of junk food - the land that invented takeaway and corn syrup. That churro (actually there were two of them in a paper bag that I’m sure was only there to absorb a tiny portion of runaway grease) was so obscenely and sinfully delicious that my tongue wanted to leap out of my mouth and do a lap of honour around that little airport café. It was so wrong and so bad and entirely scrumptious. A crunchy, sugary, cinnamony, doughnutty, custardy, fatty blend of all that makes arteries go clang and bowels go on strike. It was that good.

“I told you,” she said, her words dripping more smugness than the churro dripped grease and sugar. “I told you you’d love them. Didn’t I tell you they were good? I did, didn’t I? I told you.”

“Mmmhmmm,” was the only reply I could muster around the mouthful of deep-fried dough and sugar and the all-encompassing replete feeling of fullness emanating from my belly.

I kissed her then with my cinnamon lips. Her kisses tasted infinitely better than the churros.

Time then, to see to the urges that remained - our hotel beckoned.

Standing outside the entrance to the airport reminded me again that I was no longer on my home sod. Even though I had thought I had prepared myself for the sight of cars driving on the wrong side of the road, it still caught me by surprise. I managed not to be a complete idiot about it for all of fifteen seconds – that lasted up until the moment I had to cross the road. Of course I had looked the wrong way for oncoming traffic and then jumped in surprise when I was nearly bowled over by a minivan coming from the other direction. She was chuckling about that on and off the whole time we waited for out shuttle-bus to arrive. And when she wasn’t laughing aloud, her eyes were showing me that given the chance, she’d be rolling on the ground cackling until she passed out from lack of breath.

But standing on that traffic island, in the hot and pre-cooked air, underneath the rumbling overpass above us, surrounded by roadways and buildings that edged out any glimpses of the sky, pondering the goodness of churros and watching the traffic roll past us, I had confirmation of one major American stereotype: Americans like things to be big. Everything was huge and oversized – of particular note to me at that moment were the cars.

Now, Australia is a car-loving country. In point of fact, you can more readily divide most Australians into two competing religions – Ford worshippers and Holden idolisers - than you can by any other distinction. Big, petrol-guzzling, loud and thundering, and above all, fast cars were the highest of aspirations for pretty much everyone I grew up with. “You just bought a three million dollar apartment in Double Bay? Huh. But I bet you don’t have a Torana XU-1 with triple barrel double overhead carbies, do ya?” That though, has changed over the years as the price of fuel - and the big cars that chew it - has climbed and climbed, outpacing wage growth like a Saturn V rocket outpaces a pensioner climbing a step-ladder. These days, cheap, small to medium sized cars dominate the roadways of Australia.

The result of that was that I experienced an overwhelmingly surreal sense of disconnect from reality as I watched one gigantic hunk of metal thunder past after another – the occupants of each behemoth dwarfed to the point of looking like they weren’t old enough to drive – even if the blue rinse said otherwise. I laughed when I saw a tiny woman of about five foot nothing climb up into the driver seat of some fuckoff huge black SUV pickup like she was scaling K2, and I laughed when some seemingly tiny bloke climbed down out of a similar vehicle only to realise that he probably topped out at six and a half feet tall. It was like being inside a living M.C. Escher drawing.

The shuttle bus drew up to the curb beside us. I laughed with childish delight again. It looked just like a miniature version of every school bus I had ever seen in American movies or television – only with a more subdued and tasteful paint job. We clambered aboard, stashed the bags in the rack behind the drivers seat (shit, that was on the wrong side of the bus too, and fuck me sideways if it didn’t look better kitted out and more luxurious and comfortable than my lounge room) and collapsed into our seats. The driver plonked himself down in his recliner chair, closed the doors and started off. Next hooked her arm in under mine, wrapped as much of herself as possible, gave me a few more better-than-churros kisses and nuzzled her head down on my shoulder. The bus broke out from under the masses of concrete onto a very, very wide stretch of concreted road and into the harsh and hazy sunshine.

I gawked like a proper tourist and made a mental map of our progress as we bundled our way through the up-sized traffic to our hotel as Next quietly instructed me as to the proper amount and way to pay and tip our driver.

Between us and the far-off low hillsides and mountains, everything was so flat it looked like the landscape had been steam-pressed and covered in concrete. Somewhere off in the distance was a cluster of high-rises that looked like a handful of needles stabbed into the middle of a dancehall floor. Of course, like most areas that surround airports, this area was largely industrial, which added to the sense of temporary and impermanent newness of the city we were travelling through. It reminded me rather unfavourably of Brisbane and all the reasons I left it.

After that, the hotel itself came as a delightful surprise. In amongst all the wide flat roads, the flat concrete landscape, the intermittent concrete, steel and glass blocks of taller buildings, the slapped together and temporary but functional look of industrial buildings, the Embassy Suites South LAX Hotel made a mockery of the impression given by its name and looked both astonishingly incongruous and immensely inviting. It looked like it belonged in an old episode of Zorro; like a building that was still locked in a time before California was dragged into the union and still looked to back Spain as home.

We walked through the heavy glass and brass doors into the cool foyer, and the illusion of time travel deepened. Terracotta tiles beneath our feet, tiled mosaics along the walls in bright azures and jades, trickling and splashing fountains and cool and verdant green of ferns and palms and all those plant things that I don’t know the name of for fear that my knowing will cause them to instantly wither and die. The foyer opened out into a tranquil inner courtyard, wrapped around by four floors of wrought-iron balconies and walkways, the blue of the sky visible through the skylights up above. We pilfered a dozen or so flyers, maps and guides - placed by the foyer specifically to tempt wayward tourists like ourselves in such pilfering and hopefully (I guess) to indulge in whatever salacious and arcane pleasures might be had in the city of Los Angeles – and made our way through the courtyard to the elevators. More glass here, and more better-than-churros kisses before the doors opened up on our floor.

On the short walk along the walkway balcony to our room, I divided my time between looking down into the green atrium below, and unrepentant and libidinous perving on Next’s arse as she sashayed along in front of me. Her arse won the contest for my attention well before we’d reached the halfway point.

I followed Next and her arse up to the door and over the threshold into our room, or rather, into our suite. The suite was a subtly confusing mix of typical hotel furnishing combined with some large solid antiqued wardrobes and the illusion of space created by the division of the space into two rooms. The sliding glass door that opened onto a small balcony, newspapers on coffee tables and two fuck-off huge flat screen TVs added to the unexpected “homely” feel. I watched Next sashay into the adjoining bedroom and made to follow. I almost missed a step as I passed the bathroom and saw the shower. Oh gods, I needed a shower. But more urgently than that…

I closed on her and my hands were in her hair, at her throat, on her body, my lips were on hers and I was kissing her with all the urgent hunger, all the hurtful longing, the breathless lust and the overwhelming love that had built up over the seemingly endless time we had been separated. Thought vanished from my mind, my body felt light and hyper-sensitive to every touch. Aroused is too small and meek a word for the feelings kissing her and having her in my arms brought to life in me. Her kisses and her hands and her body and the moans that escaped her lips spoke the same things to me, “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this, I want this, I need this. Always. I love you, I want you. Always, always, always.”

Somehow, time started again. We came back from somewhere the other side of the Andromeda galaxy and found, somewhat to our surprise, that we still needed to breathe. She buried her face into my shoulder. Her hair smelled of coconut and pineapple, like a tropical escape, and her cheek was soft and smooth against my neck. Her small fist thumped down on my chest. She lifted her head to look up at me.

“You made me dizzy.”

I grinned and peppered her face and lips with light kisses.

She grinned back and wrinkled her nose.

“And you need a shower.”

“Oh hell, yes. A shower. I definitely need a shower.”

“Well why don’t you do that and I’ll make you a coffee. They’ve got these lovely little coffee bags in the kitchen.”

“Screw the coffee, I want you.”

“Go on,” she laughed. “Go have your shower, stinky man.”

“I suppose that’s not a bad back-up plan. Tell you what, why don’t I have a shower while you have a smoke and make us coffee.”

She thumped my chest again. Grinning, I made for the shower.

There is nothing like a shower to make me feel human. A swim in the ocean comes close, but no amount of coffee or food or sleep approaches a shower for helping me feel awake, alive and functional as opposed to a scruffy, smelly, diurnal zombie. I stepped from the shower, towelled myself dry, wrapped the towel about my waist and padded barefoot past a steaming cup of coffee, across the lush carpet to the balcony where Next stood, wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed and nipped at her neck.

I looked over her shoulder, out across a busy roadway and the planes rumbling in and out of the airport, to the haze covered hills beyond.

“I’m here baby. I’m actually in America.” I chuckled at a sudden incongruous thought. “I never imagined I would say that. See how much you’ve corrupted me and how much I love you? I willingly and happily came to the land of the great Shaitan to be with you.”

She laughed, turned in my arms and kissed me. I kissed her right back, of course. I looked down onto her smiling face and instantly I was back out beyond the Andromeda again. Gods I love this woman. I knew that the coffee was destined to go cold and unappreciated.

The towel hit the floor somewhere between the balcony and the bed.

There is, I think, something that goes beyond sex. It’s that feeling of intimacy where all sense of boundaries and separation between two people disappears and “I” becomes “We” as everything else melts away. Not just your own drives and desires, but time, the surroundings, thoughts, become not so much insignificant, but rather all merge together into one singular, timeless and overwhelming shared Now. For all the disparaging of such a concept as being hopelessly flavourless and “vanilla” or irredeemably Mills and Boon romantic, and for all the increased social drive to push for the extreme edges of sexuality since the birth of the Pill and bell bottoms, nothing comes close to that sensation for me. That’s not to say that I don’t get a hell of a lot of pleasure out of indulging in some of those extremes, or that those extremes or even the most simplistic of forms of sex exclude such intimacy, but more that that feeling of the shared now is the pinnacle.

We found that eternal eye blink of a moment once again in the middle of the day, in a hotel bed in Los Angeles, with the roaring and rumbling of cars and airplanes playing in the background and it was, quite simply, glorious. Clothes and bedclothes were scattered over the entire room and the air reeked of sex. We could feel it on our skin, on the sheets; we could taste it in our mouths, on our lips and with each breath.

We curled up against each other, and slept.

We only slept for a couple of hours, but I hadn’t slept so well, so deeply and so comfortably in a long, long time - in truth, not since the last time I had slept with her in my arms. I stretched languidly as I woke, my body remembering the feel of our bodies moving against and with each other, of being inside her, of hands clamped on her wrists, her nails digging into my back, the smack of my palm on her bare skin, the hot liquid gush of her orgasm, the strong rhythmic squeezing of her cunt as I filled her, her hungry lips sucking our cum from my fingers, my arm across her throat, my fingers in her hair, her teeth in my shoulder, her heels pulling my closer, our bodies shaking and trembling. I stretched again and opened my eyes to see her watching me.

“Hey baby,” she said.

“Hey sweetheart,” was my reply.

“This place smells like someone’s been fucking. I think we should complain to management.”

“Dirty bastards,” I laughed. “But I reckon I can live with it. We’ll find a way to have our revenge. Know what I’d like right now though? I’d love a coffee, or maybe even something to eat as well. Is there somewhere nearby we can get a feed? Anything in those brochures?”

She sat up on the edge of the bed, sheets wrapped around her and hunted for the flyers and her clothes.

After rifling through the pamphlets, we reluctantly agreed that though it would be a suitably bizarre LA kinda way to enjoy an evening meal, the Medieval Recreation gig was a bit too rich and a bit out of our way to indulge in. Instead, we settled on the age old stand-by of dinner and a movie.

“You know what this means though, don’t you?”

“Mm?”

“I’ll have to have another shower.”

“Oh no! How will you cope? Two showers in one day? You’ll melt!”

“I’m livin’ on the edge, baby.”

Showered and dressed, we made our way back down to the lobby and prevailed upon the fella at the desk to give us some directions and a map. We looked at the map and the cinema didn’t seem that far away and it was a nice balmy evening we decided to forego a taxi and go by shank’s pony.

With my arm about her waist, we pushed open the hotel doors and walked out into the concrete landscape veneer that is Los Angeles and began to make our way along South Sepulveda Boulevard.

An Upside-Down Traveller, Part 1 - Arrival

I was fairly sure I reeked as I shuffled my way along the queue that wound back and forth through the rats' maze of bollards and tape that stood in front of the customs booths at Los Angeles airport. Tasmania was an hours drive, four meals, seven movies and four hours sleep behind me. There was no humanising shower anywhere in that twenty-odd hours of being crammed in various tin boxes. I'm certain I stank, but then, I'm certain everyone else around me did as well, but we'd all been breathing in the miasma of each others' stench for so long I think we'd all become immune to it.

That may have been a contributing factor to what I initially took to be a stern and superior gaze from the bloke sitting at the booth nearest me. Decked out in his blue uniform with all the obligatory shiny bits and badges of borrowed authority, I thought at first he was sneering at everyone who offered up their passports for the attention of his rubber stamp and highlighter pen. On reflection, he was probably just having trouble holding down his lunch in the face of such large concentrations of body odour.

Being the backwards, backwoods, bantering sort of bastard I am, and unaware of his need to avoid suffocation, I tried in vain to engage the fellow in conversation. I had about as much luck as he had had in trimming his moustache, which is to say, not a whole hell of a lot. My index finger and thumb made their own smears and smudges on the fingerprint reader, my eyes had a lovely portrait taken of their retinas, my passport was stamped, stapled and scribbled on, my entry permit decorated with luminous green swirls and I shuffled on in search of my bags.

I looked around at the barriers, the low ceilings, the fibre-board walls that spoke of on-going construction, glossy tiles on the floor and everything else made from brushed steel. Here and there, customs officers waddled past in full kit, seeming to struggle with trying to look menacing, disinterested, and approachable all that the same time, but only coming across as bored and not overly bright.

Somewhere in amongst bored uniforms and brushed steel was my baggage, and though it took me a while, I eventually rescued them from their dizzying journey along the winding conveyor belt. By this time, I was starting to tire of all the steel and just wanted some fresh air in my lungs and Next in my arms, but there were more rat mazes and bollards and barriers to go. Beyond those though, I could see a doorway that looked to open out onto something other than steel and tiles.

I shuffled onwards. I probably still stank to high heaven, but no-one seemed to comment. Maybe the higher ceilings in that section helped the smell disperse to less toxic levels.

Finally free of the paraphernalia and personel that buzzed and hummed and beeped and grimaced and sulked and scowled and occassionally smiled in the name of a nation's security I made my way through the gates and at last, felt fresh air moving on my face. Well, relatively fresh anyway. I felt a thump behind me, grumbled a little and turned to once more set my poorly stressed baggage on its wheels again.

When I straightened back up again and lifted my eyes up alongside the upwards-slanting walkway, a splash of auburn caught my eyes. Five steps. Ten. At thirteen I heard the excited squeal and at thirteen and a half felt the unmistakeable impact of a patented Next full body hug. At that moment, with her body against mine, her arms around me and her lips saying hello to every part of my face, I neither knew nor cared where I was standing. I was where I wanted most to be.

"Oh baby," she said between molestations, "I'm so glad you're here. And you smell so good!"

I couldn't help but laugh at that, so I did. And so did she.

I looked around us, at the bustle of people caught halfway between where they came from and where they wanted to be, kissed her again and took her hand in mine.

"I need coffee. Let's get some."

I was officially in America.

The Adventures Of The American Sofa

Before I bring us further up to date on an Australian's foray into the wilds of America, I thought it best to revisit the adventures of an American in the land Down Under. Enjoy.

The Adventures Of The American Sofa. Part 1

I felt a little like I should have been some sort of Australian Paul Revere, running through the streets shouting, "The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!"

She'd claimed our sofa as surely as if she'd swarmed in with the Marines and planted a flag.

"It’s the American Sofa now."

A lot of time was spent on that American Sofa and that piece of furniture experienced a lot more that it had ever expected to. I think its still in a state of recovery. But the name has stuck, the American Sofa it is, existing as something akin to a furniture based consulate.

I waged a bit of a guerrilla war on that now foreign soil. I became an insurgent of sorts and the American Sofa became witness to a couple of firsts for me.

I was nervous about a lot of things regarding her visit. Small, daft stupid things to many, no doubt, but the things I was nervous about hunkered down in the basement of my skull just so they could peek out every now and then to toss spitballs at me. It all boiled down to one thing.

Experience. Or rather, the lack thereof.

I knew bone deep what things turned me on. Knew what it was I wanted and craved with an implacable certainty. Only, there was so damned much of it and so little time and the big question that nagged above all of them.

When push came to shove, could I do it?

I'd posed that question and voiced those concerns with others and got the answer I knew was right, “Just do it, enjoy it and have fun. Stop second guessing yourself.”

I'd voiced the same concerns with her.

“Don't worry, “she’d said, “I'll help you overcome any reluctance. Believe me.”

99% of me believed them and believed her. That one percent? That was filled with excuses and rationalisations galore.

They were and she was, of course, right. Damn them.

The kissing was amazing. Intense, passionate. Lustful and loving at the same time. Hungry and delicious.

We were, of course, on the American Sofa.

My hands were locked in fists in her hair, holding her to that kiss. I could feel the line of her neck with my forearm.

I knew what I wanted.

“I don't ever want to say no to you. I want you to know you can take what you want. Whatever. You. Want.”

I wanted to feel her struggling to breathe as we kissed. To suck the desperate breaths out of her. To feel her body weaken as it was slowly deprived of oxygen.

My right fist opened up, dragged downwards. The heel of my palm the first to brush across her throat. My thumb and fingers finding the place, feeling the fit. I could feel her pulse thumping under my fingertips. I felt its quickening in response to the kiss and my hand.

My eyes were wide open, drinking in every second of this.

“Whatever. You. Want.”

I wanted.

I squeezed. Her eyes flickered open. I felt the gasp released into my mouth. I felt her body press closer to me. Felt the fear. Tasted it. With my lips sealed over hers I breathed it in. Felt the small shakes and shudders in her hands on my back, felt the beginnings of the fight for air. Felt her body weakening, going limp.

I relaxed my handhold a little and watched intensely as she dragged air in hungrily and met that hunger with an even more hungry kiss. Felt that intensity returned and tightened my hand once more.

I was insanely hard.

And I have to admit, having a lot of fun with this new found toy. Tighten. Relax. Tighten. Relax. Now you can breathe. Now you can't.

It was all there. The stuff of life and death coming and going in her at the whim of the grip of my hand.

And the feel of her oxygen starved body beginning to fold limply upon itself even as her cunt was spasming and milking me in her orgasm?

Exquisite.

Bet you didn't see that one coming did you, American Sofa?

One boundary crossed. One hurdle overcome. One fear gone. One cherry busted. One fantasy realised.

There were more to come.

And even now, many more to look forward to.

The Adventures Of The American Sofa - Interlude: On The Subject Of Firsts

Where were we? When last we met the protagonists of this quaint little tale of discovery, our hero, the American Sofa, had been testing the absorbent qualities of its sturdy upholstery, all the while being engaged as the unobtrusive observer and supporter of some choking fun. And it proved more than equal to the task.

I’m beginning to see the value of the ongoing mythology of the couch in a shrink’s office. Sofas are powerful bits of furniture folks - underestimate their psychic powers at your peril.

Where to from there then? What other surprises did the American Sofa have tucked away behind its cushions? Stay tuned, some answers to those questions after this message from our sponsor...

Firsts.

Firsts are interesting things. All that shiny newness and astonishment, all the possibilities of reward or disaster, all expectations, imaginings and anticipations, all the delight and disappointment that are all tied up in a tangled mess before that barrier has been breached coalesce into one solid memory. The First Time. It is now an experience that is not going to be matched again. It becomes something to savour or to repeat or avoid or improve. Now true, it could be argued that every experience is its own first, but The First seems to stand unique in our memories.

Many of the firsts in my life have been abject disasters. Some have flitted through my life in stealth, unnoticed until I encounter or recall a similar experience much later on. Some have been so rich and rewarding that just the thought of them has me instantly back in that place and time and I smile and shiver with a wealth of emotions.

For me, there is a weird mix of liberation, anticipation, pleasure, regret, fear, frustration and even some small amount of envy at what appears to be an endless number of firsts that I opened myself up to some six or seven years ago.

Recognising yourself is a tough gig. Realising, making things real, isn’t always a simple matter either.

In some respects, I’m glad that this has all been, by nature of circumstances, a slow unfolding and exploration of the person I found lurking in that titanium box locked in the cellar of my brain. Or perhaps I’ve just been fortunate that it has followed an almost organic and easy upward progression (though I guess given the nature of some of the things being explored some might say it was a downward progression, but that’s another matter entirely), each step leading smoothly into the next, with plenty of time to reflect and absorb before going further.

There are other times though when I’ve been anxiously champing at the bit, wanting to dive deep into the muck and completely immerse myself in it; wanting it all to be NOW. Or better yet, to have already been in my past and a full and active part of me. Sometimes too, the lies the recognition that the time for some of those things, those firsts, is truly behind me lost in the myriad choices and decisions of my past, beyond the ability to recover.

There’s this little social dance people do when they first meet. It’s a little bit more decorous than dogs sniffing at each others’ arses, but it amounts to much the same thing: “Who are you? What do you do? What are you into? What do you like? What don’t you like? Who do you know? Where have you been?” It’s not a dance I’m particularly adept at. I get hung up on the quick grab answers and labels. I don’t know how to fit myself into them. And that little social dance takes place everywhere people gather; in clubs, streets, schools, social gatherings, rallies, meetings, conferences, pubs, stores, and yes, and especially here in the online world.

I’m much more at ease with the longer drawn out conversations where all those questions get asked and answered, and when answered, discussed, dissected, questioned and when that’s done, discussed some more.

Perhaps that is in part due to seeing myself as someone constantly undergoing change - evolving, growing, learning and the quick-grab answers keep being revised with each new awareness, insight and experience. It’s very likely as well that it’s because I don’t have the answers readily at hand – that at the moment I’m asked I don’t know the answers to what surely ought to be very simple questions. And then lastly there is that sense of wanting to be honest with my answers as well as myself that has me admitting uncertainty in some of my responses. Responses that tend to be filled with qualifiers along the lines of, “Well I like the idea of deep fried monkey spleen, but I don’t know for sure as I’ve not tried it yet.”

It’s probably a very annoying character trait.

So there I am. Staring in gobsmacked astonishment at new landscapes opening up before me, looking at flight confirmations and once more pondering just who the hell I was. At just how deep these things ran in me. Filled to the brim with assurances and sensible advice all mixed up with questions and reservations.

So many of those questions were answered instantly, some remained to be confirmed.

And that was where the Queen of Chickenfeed and the American Sofa stepped in.

Choking? Check that one with a big almighty, “Fuck yes!”

And now, for the next instalment…

Mancini knows

There was something very surreal and melancholic about this particular Saturday night - a night somewhat like O-bon or All Hallows Eve. A crossover point where lines of reality blur and paradigms shift.

The Queen of Chickenfeed was about to bring her peregrination to an end. It was the last night of Renee’s visit.

From the moment she had set foot in this little flat, she had fit with such ease that it was as though she had always been part of our lives and our home. For those two weeks, it was like living reality as it had always meant to be and that everything before had been simply time passing waiting for us to catch up to that point.

No matter how often the realisation that this was to be her last day with us occurred to me, my mind hit a blank wall of refusal. No thank you. That wasn’t the ride I signed up for. I was signed up to the one where she had always been here and didn’t have to leave at all. I’ll take that one thank you very much.

The day had been light hearted and fun. The Queen, Monsterman the newly anointed King and I passed the warm winter’s day with laughter and smiles by the bucketload.

The very next day, she would be leaving, turning back the clock as she flew back half a world away.

It was to be an early flight. 6am, meaning we would have to leave here by 4am at the absolute latest.

It was time to make the first step of that difficult process. Monsterman was to spend the night with his Pop so that he would be able to sleep the night through – and so that he wouldn’t have to be subjected to his father’s failed attempts at keeping a brave face on.

As he and I drove to his Pop’s house, he asked quite brightly, “Does she have to go Dad? When is she coming back? Can she come back tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow mate, but soon as she can. She’s got to make sure the King is looking after the Kingdom after all.”

I’m still not entirely used to Monsterman staying elsewhere – his nights with his Mum being predictably unpredictable had meant that it had been quite a while since he stayed with her. So even without the knowledge that our reality was shifting again I was feeling disjointed. With that knowledge my head was floating somewhere completely other.

I drove back homewards in silence, the headlights on as the night-time descended... The one thing I knew was that this night, this last night, was to be ours. Ours to drink in every last breath of time we could squeeze out of it.

I turned right off the bridge and drove alongside the river through town, the lights from the docks and the cross-Strait ferry doing their usual night-time dance on the water.

Coming through town with precious few cars on the road for a Saturday evening; a few faces looking out from the pub windows where people were enjoying a few late afternoon ales or early evening meals, green lights at the intersections the whole way though another right turn at the round-about along the home stretch of road that goes beyond my home to the mouth of the river.

At the point in the road where my home lies, the river widens. Directly across from that point is a rocky breakwater that is almost fully submerged at high tide. At regular intervals from that point northwards the red beacons stand above the water, marking the port-side of the channel for incoming ships.

The tide was full, the water still with barely a ripple to mar its black satin surface. Floating in the very middle of the river was the pearl disc of the moon.

I looked up from the water and saw the owner of that reflection hanging in the clear sky. A full moon.

I blinked, taking a snapshot of that image to hold in my mind, felt a sudden weight in my chest as though I had just attempted to swallow the moon itself and then turned the car into the driveway.

When I opened the door to the flat, she was asleep – held comfortably on the American Sofa. She stirred, lifted her face towards me as she stretched into wakefulness.

“Hey baby. Is he settled in with Pops O.K?”

“Yeah, he’s happy as Larry. He’s with Pop after all. Come on, you need to get up. I’ve got something I want to share with you.”

An arched eyebrow gave a little emphasis to a hint of suspicion.

“What for? What is it?”

“I’m not telling. I have to show you. Just something I want to share with you.”

I didn’t realise her eyebrow could arch any higher, but it did.

“I need to have some sort of clue you know. Will I have to get dressed up? Do I need my purse?”

“No, you just need you. It’s not far. But you might want your jacket, its getting a bit cold outside.”

There was a moment’s hesitation as she gathered herself on the edge of the sofa and wrapped the gay white scarf about her neck. Then as she stood I took her hand in mine and walked to the door.

Outside, the air was still calm, with the sharp edge of the winter wrapping itself around our faces and she leaned into me as we walked down the drive towards the road.

“Where are we going?”

I gave her pretty much the frustrating answer that is standard for Dad’s the world over, “You’ll see.”

We crossed the road and walked towards the river bank, feeling the grass soften our footfalls, and came to a place between two she-oaks.

“There it is baby. That’s what I wanted to share with you.”

I placed my hands on her shoulders and turned her to face the water, then wrapped my arms about her from behind.

I heard a soft intake of breath and then her voice quiet and yet full.

“It’s so pretty.”

“A special light show, just for you on your last night.”

She turned in my arms and her lips floated across mine like the moon kissing the water.

“Thank you baby. That’s beautiful.”

I blinked, and took another snapshot.

The warmth and fit of her in my arms, and the moon kissing the water.

Popcorn and laundry

“Guess what I’ve got?”

There was a delighted, almost girlish excited glee to her voice. A tone that sounded like barely suppressed laughter and even though I could only hear her, I felt her smiling, could see her face lit up with it.

“I have,” and she paused for dramatic effect, “A cardboard tube. From Australia. Want me to open it?”

“Yes!”

Then I felt a flicker of concern. Only the postal tube?

It had been a hard month. Weeks of almost every form of pressure that could be thrown at two people. Finances, work stress, fatigue, time changes, the cessation of smoking, communication issues, mail seemingly vanished from the ken of mortal men, frustrations, annoyances, a family death and always, always, always the glowering spectre of distance hovering over it all, threatening to obscure the reasons that made pushing through worthwhile. For every momentary glimpse of the joy of it we had, something would rise up and demand recognition as a somehow greater and harsher reality.

An image springs to mind. In times and places where there isn’t or wasn’t the luxury of electricity or the wondrously convenient technology of washing machines with all their impressive buttons and noises and a multitude of wash cycles to chose from, women gather at the water’s edge with their bundles of clothing. Standing knee deep in the water, they spend hours bent over rocks, lifting water laden clothes onto the stones; scrubbing, scouring, grinding, swinging, slapping shaking the material against the hard surface of the rock.

There was a feeling within me that I had become unravelled. The ends and edges, cuffs and seams of my surety, of my confidence, my self, my purpose, my arrogant pride and convictions were tattered rags I clung onto but no longer saw as fit raiment for public scrutiny. I was irritable, I was confused, I was bewildered, I was angry, I was resolved and resigned and humourless and cautious and bold and careless.

I was tired.

So tired.

I had no idea what else could be done to bridge the distance; all I knew to do was endure and remember why.

The all night pyjama party video night was, of course, her idea, and like so many of them, a damned good one. In the end, we made it two nights. Two nights and two days, skiving off work to make the time that we both knew was so sorely needed.

We went into the first of those days on the tail of more frustrations, both of us emotionally and physically depleted. The movie was the perfect tonic. The tone and message of it gave the tone to our night, and then later after Monsterman had woken and been bundled off to school, to our day. We slept that night with the sound of each other’s breath in our ears and were held. The second night and day held more sleep, and more comfort and for the first time in what felt an age the sound of our true, untarnished and unrestrained laughter was our soundtrack. And there was a second movie and popcorn, of course.

It seems like such a small thing, to spend two days sleeping and eating popcorn and watching movies, but it gave us back our memory of the why of it all. We remembered the full moon over the river, and the feel and scent and taste of each other. We remembered days and days of laughter and smiles and that feeling of things being right. We remembered being wanted and desired and loved.

Not really a small thing at all.

The scars of the month were still there however. Not to mention the process of weaning off nicotine addiction. In some ways, I still felt a certain brittle fragility, like that of an ancient parchment exposed to air for the first time in millennia. I felt happier and somewhat reinvented, but still wary of the blindsides that life might throw at me. The horrible emptiness of my bank balance loomed at me in the face of the most expensive time of year. Likewise, the lack of employers knocking down my door to hire me mocked me.

The pyjama days slid into Friday and Friday slid into a cold and rainy Saturday, with Monsterman off with a mate watching, of all things, the racing of V8 Supercars. The gloom of the skies seemed to coincide with the news that yet again the mail service had failed to make good its promised function of actually delivering mail. Renee and I talked and slept and passed our day quietly together punctuated with moments of music.

Finally into Sunday - her Saturday. Sunday was glorious. Warm, sunny, calm, with more than just the promise of Summer, but the taste of its dryness in the air.

I hung laundry on the line outside and for the first time, realised that I felt good. I felt relaxed. I felt rested. I felt proud of my accomplishments – of my work and study, of my son and even of the small things like keeping the housework done. I felt I had purpose once more. This Sunday, I felt good about myself once more.

I remembered then something I had once told someone when they too were in a place of feeling assaulted by distance.

“When I think of all the things life might throw at us to make it harder or keep us apart, I also remember that life threw us together.”

“Guess what I’ve got?” her voice all smiles and laughter.

“I have,” and she paused for dramatic effect, “A cardboard tube. From Australia. Want me to open it?”

“Yes!”

Then I felt a flicker of concern. Only the postal tube?

“Is the other parcel there, or a letter?”

“No. Don’t worry about it; I’ve got this right now. Can I open it?”

“Yes!”

I listened to the scraping sound of the heavy paper being slid from their container.

“It’s a white butterfly! And oh! There’s Sally and Ralph! Hello Sally and Ralph. And a wombat!”

How to describe the tone of her voice? There was still the excitement there, and the delight, but there was also a softness, a quite surprise and wonder.

“Happy birthday, baby.”

A new member of the household

There is now a new addition to my household.

Sitting atop my filing cabinet looking down at me as I type this is my "congratulations for quitting smoking" present.

Poo-Diddy, the all dancing, all singing rubber gnome, resplendent in his little Quakeresque beard, red cap, blue vest and black belt - and what appears to be a moderately indecent lack of trousers (it'd be indecent if the poor fella had any tackle to display, but he remains sadly a rubbery neuter).

But the dude can sing up a storm.

I have spent pretty much the whole day pressing on his big toe and dancing along with him as he gets his groove on.

And laughing. Lots. Long and loud and from deep down in my shoes. And being laughed at while I groove along with him looking somewhat like the bastard son of Axel Rose and Stevie Wonder.

Now is not the time to mention the belly button dance.

He's all kinds of silly and kitch and wrong, but damn I think he is fucking awesome.

Poo-Diddy, the funky gnome ROCKS!

The Absence Of Gerard

The knock on the door wasn't a surprise. Nor was Next's response to the sound of the knock.

"If its Gerard Butler, can I come in and feed him cookies?"

"No!"

"Can I listen?"

"Oh alright, but you'll have to be quiet. I'll talk to you afterwards, k?"

The surprise was opening it to find not the Gerard Butler look-alike, but my younger brother at the door.

Turns out he was up this end of the state for work and just wanted to drop in and say hi.

So he did.

It’s an oddly uneasy relationship I have with my younger brother - a weird conversational mix of shared experiences and total strangers. Our conversations tend to be somewhat awkward and a little forced.

The middle child out of three boys, my brother is a decent, quiet, subdued and almost unstintingly acquiescent. Much as I hate the adjective being applied to people due (to the way it is often used as a backhanded compliment) if I had to sum up my brother with one word, the one word would be: nice

Incredibly, astonishingly, deliberately, constantly, painfully saccharinely nice.

I think it came from his unenviable position in the household as the favourite child of our grog imbibing old man. In the times when he couldn't physically escape the confines of the household, he became somewhat of a non-person, a social chameleon mimicking whoever was the strongest personality around him. Watching him morph from one personality to another before your eyes when there is a gathering of the family is quite mind-boggling.

There is the feeling that I am never quite sure who I am talking to when I am in conversation with him. Is it his wife? Our father? His father-in-law? His boss? Or is it something that is solely him? The end result is usually a conversation that peters out and dies when we have finished talking about our kids. Our common ground is exhausted.

"Hey Bro!"

There was a strong sense of deja vu in going from a light hearted conversation with Next to opening the door to see my brother grinning at me.

It threw me back to a night Next had decided to introduce Monsterman and I to the delights of her grandmother's spaghetti and meatballs. Monsterman and I kicked back and relaxing in the loungeroom, Renee and I talking across the space between us and over the sounds and smells of food sizzling in pans.

A knock on the door, a grinning face and a greeting of, "Hey Bro!"

There recollection and reality diverged though as, for the first time in many, many years, I found myself in long, deep, light-hearted, drawn-out conversation with my brother. And this time it was my brother’s words I was hearing. Not the words of another parroted back. But his words, his thoughts, his feelings.

And the most peculiar aspect of that was that it came from a place of annoyance for him, though it lightened greatly as the talk went on. How odd it seemed to find such delightful conversation with my brother through such an essentially negative catalyst.

We talked of times shared together as kids, two ratbag teenagers escaping the house to get up to mild levels of mischief.

When he left I was still filled with that sense of mischief, of giggle and chuckle filled sneaky wrongdoing, and of the feel of Renee within my home - and our own indulgence in teenaged behaviour.

Which is a whole other story.

Tales Of The American Sofa - Part 5: Speaking of Gerard

Movie night.

A spur of the moment thing. Bit by bit, I'm gradually being introduced to elements of the cinematic world that had slipped me by, but have held stories and characters that have found some resonance with Next.

In due time, there will be a flow in the other direction as well.

Tonight movie was, I'm sure, in part inspired by the discovery that one of my regular massage clients is a Gerard Butler look-alike - and Scottish to boot. The film? P.S. I Love You.

Oh yes. Chick flick heaven. Swoon and pass the kleenex.

But she knows just the mix of humour, story and character that I'll enjoy, regardless of genre, lightness or depth.

DVD's cued up, I'm lying on the American Sofa, bundled up under the footcheese blanket, my guitar lying face down on the floor beside me, a glass of water close to hand.

Cradled on my chest and held close is a pillow. The pillow case has her scent on it. I lift it slightly, closer to my face and inhale deeply.

"Ready?" Her voice in my ears. "On Three. One. Two. Three."

The movie begins.

It’s an easy thing for me to suspend reality and sink into a world created by others. To drift in music, travel through stories and swim in images. The more expertly crafted, the easier the slip into that other place.

And there was something of reality in the way the characters were written in that movie that made it easy. The small idiocies and mishaps, the posturing and avoidance, the grand hopes and imaginings meeting with necessary compromise.

We laughed a lot, with me holding that pillow close.

And then came that one moment that nearly undid me.

"I can feel you holding me." Words spoken to one who wasn't there.

Until that moment, I had no care for the reality that surrounded me; that what I was holding was a pillow scented with her perfume and that she was not here with me but lying in a bed half a world away, watching the same movie on a different screen, hearing my laughter through the ether and a set of headphones. I had suspended reality and given myself to the illusion.

Until I saw that moment portrayed on the screen and heard those words. Words I'd heard spoken to me many a time.

The distance, the time, came crashing down on me without remorse or regard and for a time, and uncountable heartbeat of a time, I was crushed by the weight of it.

She had been here. Right in this very spot. On this very sofa. In my arms. The fit just right in so many ways.

In that moment, I could feel the hard edges of her absence. The places her body wasn't touching, that my arms didn't cradle. The breath I couldn't feel on my skin.

The laughter came again, and the enjoyment of the story and the characters, but the spell had been broken.

Though I know the number of days till she is here once again is growing smaller, tonight I am missing her more than ever.

A bloke could learn to hate Gerard Butler, I tell you

I remember snow

It's a white Christmas where my heart is today.

A very white Christmas.

It’s hard to get my head around that. No matter how many films, songs or stories where snow is falling on Christmas day I have experienced in my life, it still remains something foreign to me. Something faintly mythical.

It was actually Christmas yesterday, though I know for her it is happening now.

The day started with Next as I played at being macho manly dad, putting together Monsterman's present the wrong way around and having to start over again - this time reading the instructions. I wrapped presents for him that Next had sent for him as Next and I kept track of Santa's progress via the bright sparks at NORAD and NASA.

The dead hours of the night, the early morning in fact, and I unwrapped her gifts to me.

She was cold, and shaking and ill and trying desperately to control her stomach even as she was steeling herself to venture in amongst the walls of snow to man the fort at her work.

Apparently in some places, insane amounts of snow and illness isn't a fair reason not to go in to work.

Bastards.

The amount of time and thought that went into each gift I unwrapped moved me more and more as each one was unwrapped; each present making me feel more blessed, more close and more aware of how far from me she was.

Next performed a small miracle of her own last night - she made Christmas magical once more.

My eyes and heart were full and burning.

She left to battle her way in to work and with a plan to make a mess of some wastepaper baskets in the offices of the powers that be.

In Tasmania, the day that followed the dawn was clear and bright and warm.

And still her magic continued as Monsterman worked his way through his gifts, his eyes and smiles getting wider and wider with each one. Which made my smiles grow too.

There were calls to family far away; there was Renee toast for breakfast and a mad dash to the one service station that remained open so we could replenish our supplies of milk.

The magic was undiminished.

It had such strength that it even carried me through the part of Christmas I have learned to dread these past six years - the encounter with the dread tribe of the ex-in-laws (Pop, of course, doesn't count in any aspect of the dread).

All that day, while Monsterman and I wandered about in warm summer sunshine, Renee was shivering and sleeping, imprisoned in her home by more and more snow.

I had no magic to give that could compare to hers. The knowing, understanding, thought and love she had shared with us to make this one day so special was not something I could duplicate.

Not that she expected it, simply that she is deserving of it. Not that I wasn't willing or wanting to, as much as it was lacking the...imagination...to find that one just right thing that would say to her, "You are magic to me." Find something I did, but I knew I was cutting the time line fine.

Then came the snow.

I hadn't even begun to think of snow as a necessary part of time calculations.

Derrrrr.

I remember snow though. I remember being snowbound and cut off from everything. During my first Tasmanian winter I lived and worked at a wilderness lodge. That year, we experienced the largest snow falls in thirty-two years. Three people went missing in the wilds of the national park: one who was found after having 'miraculously' survived a week on a stash of chocolate bars, two who were only found when the snows melted.

I remember how many times I slipped and fell on my arse before my brain figured out that as soft and powdery as that stuff looks; it is in fact slippery as all fuck.

I remember learning to drive in the snow and ice and being part of the team that manned tractors to drag vehicles back onto the road after the owners had discovered their four wheel drives were just as apt to falling victim to the deceptive softness of snow as my feet and arse had been.

I remember lying on top of a car in two feet of snow, drinking port and Stones green ginger wine from the bottle as I watched the Aurora Australis set the sky on fire.

I remember being unable to open the door of the staff quarters due to the weight of snow pressing against the door, and having to climb out through a window instead to be able to start work for the day.

Yeah. I remember snow.

It just doesn't happen at Christmas.

There should be magic at this time of year. No matter what beliefs people may hold, it is a potent time. The shifting from one year to another. The shortest day and the longest day. The longest and shortest night. The dead days in the old calendars, where life was on hold and the world of spirit had a stronger sway. Hanukah and Christmas and their own tales of magic. Through all of them, a time when people learned to hold together and celebrate life and each other.

Hobart 1990. Christmas morning, early. Summer. I was on my own, and knew no-one in that town. I'd just come down from the wilds of Tasmania to try a small taste of civilization again and was wandering the streets by the river, exploring the town and my thoughts in equal measure.

It was cold and growing colder by the minute.

It’s supposed to be summer for fuck's sake!

Above me, the clouds were dark and heavy. Ominous. Across the river, I could see the hills bathed in bright sunlight.

That's bloody insane.

The wind dropped and everything went still.

I stopped moving and stood mesmerized.

Snow.

Snow was falling.

In Summer. On Christmas day in Tasmania, snow was falling.

A light fall that lasted all of five minutes worth of scattered snowflakes dancing their way to the ground where they melted on contact.

But snow fell on Christmas day.

Both nature and Renee make magic look easy.

Reading Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator is a poor stand-in.

I'm going to have to study magic making with more diligence. She deserves it.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

Sometimes, it seems there are no beginnings, no endings, just an infinite procession of moments and nows and middles and iterations.

"Come back to me. Come back to us. You belong here."

I spoke those word six months ago.

Six months ago, it felt like an ending, it felt like the beginning.

Every magical thing that had lead to that point, those last words she heard in my presence, had, in the course of those two weeks of impossibly right connected togetherness, somehow altered from beginnings to setting the scene for the true beginning.

Now, it seemed in the aftermath of the two weeks, we knew. We knew it was worth attempting the improbably, of daring the difficult. We knew the feel and the scent and taste of the truth and rightness of it. We knew the certainty that from here on in, everything would be bent towards a more permanent reality.

In our arrogance, we knew too that it would be hard.

The Catholics wrought well when they created purgatory.

In five days, thirteen hours and nineteen minutes our brief six month eternity in purgatory will be ended, and we will face the middle of our beginning. Twenty-three days after that we will plunge head-long into that place-without-place one last time.

Once more into the breach...

Six months have passed. Six months of contradictions. The shortest and longest six months I've known. Six months of certainty and confusion. Six months of contact without touch. Six months of bravery and fear, of tears and laughter. Six months of selfishness and selflessness. Six months of love and tenderness and six months of pain.

I cannot conceive of a way of over-stating how much she has given or given-up for this small parole from limbo and for what will lie beyond it. And any attempts to describe how profoundly that has affected and amazed me will only ever be an understatement.

That we have done this - survived this - together is not something I doubt. But for us both, there have been moments that came perilously close. There have been rages and tears, frustrations and misunderstandings. There have been ever increasing demands and restrictions on the time we could steal back from that part of life that isn't "us, together" and ever diminishing resources of money and energy and emotion and resilience. And weaving in and out, over and under and throughout it all, the most difficult of things to accept: that some parts of this drive towards the truest of beginnings and being are beyond our ability to control.

There is not a part of her home that doesn't scream at her, "I'm not THERE! I'm not HOME!"

There is not a part of this place I'm in that does not wail and cry, "She's not HERE! She's not HERE! She's not HOME"

Yet we have survived. At times, we have thrived.

Day after day, we share all our every spare moment from those places that are not "us, together" filled with the sound of each other. We share our days and nights with talk of the mundane and surprisingly wondrous that fills our time apart and we dig and reveal and unbare and explore and share more and more and more of who we are with one another.

We laugh. A lot. We talk. A lot. We read to one another, we sleep with the sound of each other in our ears and the scent of one another filling each inward breath. We find ways each day to show one another that this person, this one person, is who we most want in our days.

Every morning at fucking-insane-o'clock for her, I hear the sound of her alarm. She wakes herself at that mad time just so we can do all of that. Sometimes, she will drift back into sleep, sometimes I join her in that slumber and others we fill the remainder with enjoyment of each other. She rushes home from work, to catch what time she can with me alone between finishing her workday and Monsterman's return home.

My day doesn't begin until the moment she returns from work. No matter how we use that short space of time alone together, that time is like stolen time - somehow rare even though it is a constant. She will share the afternoon with Monsterman and I - sometimes busying herself, sometimes dosing, sometimes joining in the banter that is unique to our small kingdom of three. Once he sleeps, and the time is ours again, I sit or lie with the sound of her in my ears and the scent of her filling each inward breath until she wakes once more - first at fucking-insane-o'clock, then later again as she begins her preparations for her workday. At fucking-insane-o'clock for me, once she has been forced to return to the world that is not "us, together" I can let myself drift into sleep.

I don't know how we have kept all that together and still managed to fill our days and time out of contact. She has started and finished a course, moved house, worked her job, walked and exercised, helped her mother, written emails and letters, shopped and paid bills somewhere in amongst all that. I have finished my study, and worked and given every moment with Monsterman my all as he deserves, researched and gathered information for our truest beginning, applied for jobs and attended interviews and meetings, coached Monsterman's basketball team through all of that.

And still, we have survived and sometimes thrived.

Yet every moment since I spoke those words, "Come back to me. Come back to us. You belong here," has been purgatory.

That was not the beginning. It was a beginning.

In five days, we get to reaffirm the truth of our reality, to renew our knowledge of our impossibly right connectedness and to further explore and express who we are with and for one another.

To see. To touch.

To give added life and strength to our resolve to make the truest of beginning happen, to be able to survive and thrive through that one last taste of purgatory. I cannot wait for that day when we say farewell forever to limbo.

We have waited long enough for it.

This is not the middle - it is the timeless eyeblink of that eternal nothing moment between seasons.

But it has an end.

And that end is not the end, but the beginning.

Until that day...

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...

Displaced

We moved around a fair bit when I was a kid. Being an Air Force brat does that to you I suppose. My memories are catalogued and ordered by each new house, new town, new school, new friends and the losses of the old. The constancy that I saw in the lives of the "civvies" - the long term continuity and connection they had - simply wasn't there.

All those rituals and rites of passage, the reflections of the "normal" and "average" life and home that flickered out, first in grey tones from the large HMV box and later in vibrant colour, from the small Sony TV never quite seemed to make sense to me. It was a source of the odd melancholic bout of longing for the greener grass through those angst-ridden teen years.

From that, the concept of "home" became firmly attached to people more than place. Home was always where I lived, where those I love and care for live with me. The place itself became irrelevant - those were just places, houses, flats, apartments, even hotel rooms could be "home" as long as I were there with someone I cared for.

The sound of plovers shrieking early is the sound of home to me – to comfort, security and constancy.

That was the sound that woke me whenever I cam to this town as a child to holiday with my grandparents. In all my childhood, that house was the one thing that never changed. The walls were always that odd faded seventies yellow. The smell of lavender was always in the house and the bedclothes always smelled of apple scented laundry detergent. The best biscuits were always in the brown canister on the shelf above the breakfast bar, the green cordial in the cupboard below it. There were always fish fingers and chips available for dinner and toasted bacon sandwiches for breakfast. My grandfather could always be found woodworking in the garage, my grandmother was always perched behind the desk in her bookshop, reading a romance novel and smoking a cigarette and my great aunt could always be counted on for spontaneous bursts of rhyme, a sneak supply of chocolate, long walks with Snowy – the massive and gentle walking shag-pile carpet of a dog – and to be found wearing slacks, a skivvy and a terry towelling shirt.

The cry of the plovers in the morning was the signal that the day was close to beginning each day Next was here. It was never long after that that we’d hear the thump of Monsterman’s feet hitting the floor beside his bed. The cry of the plovers was the signal for that last openly lustful or passionate kiss, the last grope, fondle, pinch, smack, bite or close snuggle before he came to join us and inform us that the day was wasting.

Home is the people I love.

Until she came into our lives, a home of just we two lads was perfectly possible, welcome, comfortable, secure, safe and enjoyable.

Now, in her wake, it no longer is that comfy and snug bunker home. It is fractured. Our family is fractured, and the home has become a house, waiting for her return and while knowing that this is the last stretch before we are all brought together as a whole once more ought to make that more bearable, it doesn’t.

This time it is hard and filled with a loss that I struggled to put a name to.

I hear the morning cries of the plovers when she cannot, when she is not here for me to wake and turn to. I wander through the flat, going through the motions of making lunches, coffee, shower, dress. I brush my hand over the two cupboards where her clothing now lives and stand in the doorways of rooms wondering why they look so empty.

I feel fractured, disjointed. Displaced. I feel like that Air Force brat looking into other peoples lives with an unquiet envy, counting the months and days till I could once more visit the unchanging home of my grandparents.

And I know now what it is. I miss her here. I miss being home.

I’m homesick and I ache to go back to that place and that time that I was home again.

Let it be soon.

Please, let it be soon.

Jigsaws and Goosebumps

At this moment, her toes are high above the Pacific Ocean. She is cocooned safely from the thin air and she moves through the night, just ahead of the chasing sun.

Soon, very soon, her tomorrow becomes our today once more.

That arbitrary line sketched in a zigzag through the ocean has been as strong a dislocator as the distance. When I think of the moment to come, some seventeen hours from now, that we touch once more, embrace once more, it feels almost like the jagged pieces of a jig-saw locking into place.

A momentary spark as time and geography and realities merge.

For some reason the spark as I see it in my mind is the same rich electric green as the southern borealis.

And while she was jumping from plane to plane and launching herself into the skies and the future with equal courage, what was I doing?

Living the day as every other weekday. Getting Monsterman off to school. Doing a massage. Washing dishes, doing laundry. Vacuuming the damned carpets and scrapping the crud off the bottom of the damned shower. Fighting yet another battle with the providers of this magic far talky device. A curse on ISPs and telcos. Picking the young lad up from school, kicking back for the afternoon - laughing, playing cards indoors and handball outdoors, wrestling on the once-more clean carpets. Driving over to his Pop's place to make sure he was OK after Wednesday's car accident which wrote his car off, taking Pop to the stores to buy his weekly lottery tickets. We saw a rainbow as we walked back to the car from the shop - already she was touching our days. Cooking the evening meal, taking him to his mother's house for her newly rediscovered weekly attempt at spoiling him wretched.

Driving home without him.

Limbo is still wrapped around me like a shroud. I feel...numb. Numb and nervous and thrilled and excited and impatient and concerned and eager and distant and urgent, all at the same time. Underneath that numbing cloak of limbo, I am shivering with barely suppressed energy and emotion.

This time tomorrow, she will be here, he will be back home and I can grab that taste of life once again.

I'm sure the hours between will be filled with more frantic cleaning of things that don't need to be cleaned and much procrastination.

Is it wrong to want something, someone, this much? To hope that the intuition, the feeling, the memory, the knowledge, the surety can be right enough to overcome and survive all that still lies ahead just below the horizon?

I don't think so. Right is right.

And tomorrow, we get to experience and know that once again.

Seventeen hours. Gods. I think I'm going to go mad before then.

Adventures of the American Sofa: Part 7 Furniture Sex and Popcorn

The loungeroom was dark, the only light coming from the flickering of the opening credits playing on the television. She bounced up in a way that suggested a sudden surge of electricity tripped a catch on a coiled and locked spring and looked over at me.

"Do you want some popcorn?"

"Oh gods no! I'm full up to the eyeballs. I couldn't eat another thing."

"Of course you want popcorn. Popcorn is always good."

"No, really, I don't."

"Well, I want some popcorn. I'm going to make some."

"Go for it, knock yourself out. But I really don't want any."

The American Sofa had already undergone its magical transformation into the American Sofa-bed, extending itself out across the lounge room floor, doing its level best to dominate the floor space. It loomed in a quietly understated and self-assured manner.

Sounds of sizzling and popping and the pinging of steel came from the kitchen. I watched as she half walked, half danced her way back to the sofa, already eating the white puffs of corn from the bowl she carried in front of her.

She settled in as the movie rolled on.

I really didn't want the popcorn. There was absolutely not one iota of room in my stomach for it.

But it was there. Right. There.

And it smelled so damned good.

"I told you you wanted popcorn," she laughed as I began to munch my way through another handful of those light, crunchy bits of salty, popcorny goodness.

"I don't. I don't want any at all. Its horrid stuff."

OK. It may actually have sounded like, "Uh oan." Crunch crunch. "Uh oan on ehee," Crunch. "Ah aww." Crunchcrunch. "Ih ohih uph." Crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch.

She fed me those last wonderful, crunchy toasted kernels at the base of the bowl.

"I must love you," she said. "I don't give these away to just anybody you know."

I tasted the salt on her lips as she kissed me.

I licked the traces of salt from the corners of her mouth as my salty fingers pressed up between her thighs. Her legs squeezed together on my hand, trapping it there against her already wet cunt.

"Popcorn is pretty important," I replied and pushed my fingers inside.

She arched, moaned, ground herself onto me.

"Oh fuck! No! More. I need more," growled out between hungry savage kisses and bites. She bared her breasts to my hands lips and teeth and screamed as fingers and teeth made their marks on her flesh. Her legs spread wider and she shook wildly.

I felt my palm filled with the warm, rushing spill of her orgasm.

There was no finesse, no subtle, slow and gentle stretching and build up, just a firm, hard push until the back of my hand was being gripped tight.

"Again," my own voice a determined, low and steady growled demand. "Again and again and again. I want it all. Take it all. Fuck me like you mean it."

She screamed and bit hard into the hand that covered her nose and mouth. Her heels dug in to the thin mattress, the springs on the bed frame squealing in concert. Her nails dug into my forearm and the blanket. Her body shook and twisted as she ground down harder and harder on my hand, squeezing and sliding over my knuckles.

Again and again and again.

The blanket and mattress were soaked.

I pulled my hand out and knelt between her legs. The air felt cool on my hand. I put it to my lips and again tasted salt before wiping it across her breasts. My hips dropped down and then pushed forwards and up.

"Oh fuck yes. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease! I want it, I want it, I want it!"

"More," Still demanding. "I want more. I want it all."

We were lost to all sense of everything but this moment. The feel of every movement, the wet slapping sounds, the overpowering smell of sex. Fingertips dug in hard, her fingernails scratched up and down my back, my legs, my arse. Teeth met hard on pliable skin and I could taste the traces of her cunt my hand had left on her breasts. I watched her face change in response to it all. My hand covered her mouth and nose once more and I watched her eyes widen as the need to breathe became more urgent, an urgency matched my our thrusting and grinding. Watched as my hand came away and she gasped and desperately dragged air deep into her lungs.

"Again," A lower, insistent growl this time. "Now!"

This time there was the smell of us both as our continued fucking drove our mingled juices out of her.

We slowed, slowed, slowed and then stopped, collapsed into one another, somehow even closer than at the peak of our abandoned fucking, our breathing coming out in ragged, deep gasps.

"Need. Air. Hot."

I eased myself off her. The mattress and blankets became even wetter.

I rolled onto my back and turned my head to look at her.

"Know what?"

"Mmmm?"

"I feel like some popcorn."

"Popcorn is love," she replied.