couldn’t yet separate the loving act from the brutal one and hence the involuntary vaginal resistance. I convinced myself that with time, gentle handling, love, patience, tenderness and trust, I would eventually prevail.
I truly loved Anna; moreover, in a much more basic way, I craved a mutual sexual experience and the sense of sharing that comes with two lovers coupling, being as one, generous with the sheer joy of knowing and exploring each other’s bodies.
But I was getting absolutely nowhere. Anna rejected my tongue as she had my finger, sobbing as she tried to accept me, but failing, her tears and her flinching expressing the depth of her distress. ‘Please, a little more time, darling,’ followed as usual.
After the fourth time she had rejected cunnilingus I finally lost patience. ‘Christ, Anna! How long is a little more time? Don’t say that! I’m sick of hearing it! Fucking sick and tired of hearing . . . Please, a little more time, darling ,’ I cruelly mimicked.
‘Oh, Nicholas, I am so sorry. Maybe I can go away. I am no goed ,’ she said tearfully. Anna, so strong in most things, trembled like a child.
Despite my frustration and eagerness for the ultimate satisfaction of possessing her, I felt a right bastard for being so impatient. If I’d known what the Nips had done to her in captivity I’d have gone out and killed a few more of the little yellow bastards.
I also couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving me a second time. ‘Anna, I love you!’ was all I could manage just then and even this was said with a lack of gallantry or graciousness.
Anna continued to care, to leave me physically satisfied, and her tenderness went some way to appeasing my ardent desire to please her sufficiently to at least bring her to a spontaneous orgasm. As the weeks merged into months it became apparent to me that she was damaged, possibly beyond recovery.
I hadn’t ever thought of finding the ultimate pleasure I sought from another woman, even though in moments of stress Anna had begged me to do so. ‘Nicholas, I understand, we can still be together!’ Then one evening sitting on the verandah watching the moon coming up over Beautiful Bay and enjoying a glass of what had now become Anna’s favourite champagne, she turned to me and said, ‘Nicholas, do you remember the first night, when we sailed to the small island in the moonlight?’
‘Anna!’ I exclaimed, jabbing my forefinger to indicate my neck. ‘You mean I’m supposed to forget?’
‘No, not the coffee! What happened next.’
Was there no end to this woman’s lack of remorse? For a moment I thought to chasten her further. But her gorgeous smile and show of wide blue eyes was all it took to forgive her clumsy question. Despite myself, I was forced to chuckle, recalling Anna across my knee, her wet shorts stretched tight across her dear little bottom. Whack! Whack! Whack! ‘You got what was coming to you, Madam Butterfly, a damn good spanking.’
She pointed across the bay to the glorious, impossibly big moon. If there had been a string attached to it I would have described it as dangling just above the arched rim of the ocean. ‘Tonight it is a full moon, Nicholas. Would you do it again, please, darling,’ she asked softly, eyes demurely downcast. Then she looked up and grinned wickedly. ‘I haven’t had a decent orgasm since that night.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘Dat you, Nick? Dat cockamamie nigger, he’s costin’ us all our profits! You gotta pull him into line! We ain’t in the fuckin’ soul-counting business. We in the fuckin’ scrap-metal business. No more tithe fer da Pope; he got plenty already!’
Kevin Judge, Brisbane
THE DECADE FROM 1950 to 1960 may be described as a slow walk down to the village garden for the various islands in the Pacific. Some periods are like this; you think you’re making progress but it’s basically more of the same, each year much like the one preceding it. However, in the early 1960s there
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