Читать книгу Auditions for Love.Com - Oliver Cross - Страница 5

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." ~ Oscar Wilde

It was about 3 am that I awoke to the paramedic shaking me. “Oliver, something’s wrong, someone is being sick out there”. I heard it immediately. It was a low and deep drone of moaning, followed by a strained gag and retch. I jumped up fearing something had happened to mum. I scurried out of my room wearing only my briefs, where I saw mum standing over her friend Megan, who was lurched naked in the bath, vomiting and defecating simultaneously.

I didn’t join the army because I was intensely patriotic or idolised the brutality of war. I joined for two reasons. First, like many eighteen year old men, it appeared to be the ultimate physical challenge. I read books like ‘Bravo Two Zero’ which told the story of British SAS soldiers behind enemy lines, cut off from friendly support and having to fend for themselves. One soldier in particular travelled over three hundred kilometers by foot across the Iraqi desert to safety in Syria. It may seem insanely odd, but this excited me. I had total belief in myself and wanted to embrace the challenge. The second reason I joined the army, was because I was a terrible student in high school and didn’t get the marks to go to university. Life works in mysterious ways, because there is no way on earth I had any idea what I was interested in at eighteen, so choosing a degree, without any particular passions or interests, would no doubt have proven fruitless. Only at twenty five was I close to figuring out my interests, and what a life I would have missed out on had I gone straight into another educational institution. It’s true what they say about the armed forces, you learn to live your life by a certain code. Upon entering army recruit training, the intent is to break you. To break down all of those lazy habits you acquire as a teenager. Then, after you have been humbled, they re-build you into a new person, with purpose, structure and discipline.

Loving the army and all its shiny kit is referred to as being ‘green’. After almost five years of service, I lost my ‘green’. I know it sounds odd, but I was disgruntled because I had not been sent on operation. Iraq and Afghanistan were only just heating up in December 2004, and no one from my regiment had yet been deployed. I was sick of training. The analogy commonly used, is that it’s like training for a game of football, but never actually getting to play. It was never going to be a life long career for me as I knew I wanted to travel and study.

After an adventurous and rewarding five years of service, I walked away with lifelong friendships and rich experiences, well equipped for the next chapter of my life abroad. First though, I was to move back in with mum for two months before flying to Thailand to instruct on diving in Koh Tao. The thought had me mildly concerned, because when I left home, mum was very much the typical mother of a teenage boy, angry, moody and a perpetual nag. Upon my homecoming, I was in complete shock, in fact I think we both were. It was as though we did not recognise each other from our former selves. A lot had happened in those five years for the both of us, but what was best of all, was that mum stopped mothering me, no doubt because I no longer required mothering, and we became friends.

I was twenty three and had more energy than a nuclear reactor, so keeping active in a sleepy beach town with no job and no friends was going to be my greatest challenge. Mum had moved interstate since I joined the army so she was all I had in this new beachside paradise. During the day, however, she would go to work leaving me to entertain myself. I fought the notion for a few days, but the boredom got the better of me. Slowly but surely, I was back online seeking company. To my delight, there was an imbalance of opportunity on the Sunshine Coast, favouring the men. There were multiples of women on ICQ, who were fed up with the man drought on the coast and taking matters into their own hands. Within minutes online I started receiving interest. Before long, my stock was in demand. I had about seven different conversations all going on at once, occasionally confusing the wrong conversation with the wrong person, which was never a good look, and generally punishable by instant dismissal from their contact list.

After lying sexually dormant for many years in the army, I felt there was much training needed to catch me up. Mum and I both had our day jobs during this short term stay. She would be off to her gallery from nine until five, and I would have ‘visitors’ from half nine to four in the afternoon. Some women were on holidays, some were single mothers looking for some midday shenanigans but one lady in particular was a paramedic. As these were only casual relationships, I didn’t expose mum to them. The poor thing held me on such a mantel after soldiering so I thought it best to keep her from learning I was becoming a hedonist.

Mum was still in a fragile state following the recent passing of Dad, a few years back. She would rent out her spare room to women about her own age for company and companionship. The woman who occupied the spare room during my brief tenure was Megan. She was a gentle soul and had become a great friend to mum. Like Mum, she too had had a life of hard knocks, which made her both resilient and vulnerable. Megan had been feeling ill, and would stay in her room for most of the day, occasionally venturing upstairs to warm some soup. She rarely slept too. I would awake in the early hours for the bathroom and notice her bedroom light beneath the door, and hearing faint activity from within. Mum phoned in one afternoon, explaining that she was filling in for one of her staff and would not be home until late. With Megan cooped up and mum occupied at the gallery, I sent a text to the Paramedic to stay the night with me, knowing that she would be out before sunrise for her shift, and with mum none the wiser.

It’s funny how the occupation of a person can spice up the romance. It adds an element of fantasy and role play. She would always come straight from work, costumed up and ready for fun. The paramedic was young, vibrant and voluptuous. She would often push my limits, confidently taking me where I had dared not go before. My great challenge on this occasion would be to keep her quiet so as not to disturb the sick hermit down the corridor. I had busied myself through the day, which often consisted of a beach swim and run and preparing an elaborate dinner for mum and Megan in the evening, or in this case, the paramedic. My three months in Noosa would have been a perfect time to learn the art of surfing. What I learnt quite quickly though, is that it’s not as easy as it looks. Everyone has a surf story. Mine lasted thirty minutes. Like most Aussies though, I now claim to surf based on this experience.

As darkness fell, and my anxious heart beat intensified, a knock at the door signaled the arrival of my fantasy. I clumsily stumbled downstairs to greet her. We embraced passionately in the doorway, massaging each others curves. “Come on upstairs, I’ve cooked us some dinner”.

“Oh, where can I put my things”?

“Sorry of course, put them in here”, I motioned, leading her into my room. As I flicked the lights the bedroom door closed behind me. I turned and smiled, the look in her eyes suggested she wanted dessert first. She unzipped her duffle bag and turned it over, the contents of which began falling, bouncing and shaking all over my neatly made bed. “Holy crap”, I thought to myself, as I analysed the colourful and quirky sex toys scatted across my quilt. “Do you know what I want you do with these Mr. Cross”? She huskily enquired. I lied, I actually had no idea what you did with most of those things, but unlike surfing, I knew it wouldn’t take me long to figure out. We must have been fast asleep by the time mum came home. The paramedic shook me awake in the early hours. The sound of someone writhing in pain was shocking and grotesque. Megan was delirious at this point, bordering consciousness. Mum waved me to stay out for the privacy of her friend. “Call an ambulance Oliver”, mum instructed. “Oh boy”, I thought to myself. This is about to get weird. I paced back into my room to fill in the paramedic on the situation. She had overheard and dressed herself, which of course happened to be her uniform.

I’m certainly not the person to grant miracles, but the look on mum’s face when I walked back in with a paramedic thirty seconds later would suggest otherwise. I introduced the two sheepishly, and retreated outside to the driveway. The situation was all but too awkward for me. I phoned in an ambulance and within fifteen minutes they had arrived to my nightmare. A short time later Mum had escorted Megan to the hospital, and the paramedic had collected her toys and returned home for her shift. As the sun rose, I sat on the doorstep, just me, my coffee and the shit which trailed from the toilet, around the corner and into the bath. I’m not a parent just yet but I can attest that cleaning poo is a humbling experience. It turns out that Megan had run herself into the ground with anxiety and depression. The poor thing was dehydrated, weak and incoherent. It was a relief for me as I thought she may have simply overheard the shenanigans from my bedroom earlier that evening.

Mum and I sat up the following night, talking through the traumatic events of the eve just passed, a mixture of laughter and confession. Mum further enlightened me to the person she had become, insisting that we were both now adults, and that having a ‘guest’ over was okay. The two months of rest and relaxation passed quickly. I had become stir crazy on the sleepy Sunshine Coast, and was ready to head out into the world.