An Itsy Bitsy Favor
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The Three Signs - Book 1 - CathyChapter 35: It's A Long Way To The Top free porn video
When Cathy and Lori arrived at the Mirage, I escorted them to the table I had arranged for them, to the side at the front. They were both dressed up in their nicest formal dresses; although Cathy looked tired, she had worked a long week.
“Will I get a chance to dance with you?” Cathy asked.
“Sure, during the breaks, when we put on taped music, we can dance,” I said.
During the first break, I was good to my word, and while the tape was playing, Cathy and I danced.
“We should do this more often,” she suggested.
At the second break, Cathy told me to dance with Lori, as she was feeling a little tired. Lori rested her head against my shoulder as we danced; I stole a few glimpses down the front of her dress at her breasts; as was her habit, Lori was braless. She caught me peeking, I tried to apologise, but she told me not to bother, that I could look anytime I wanted to.
Near the end of the third set, I introduce the song we were about to play.
“Well, summer is over, for many of us it’s not only the start of a new year, but a new phase in our lives. Some of us are moving away, starting a new job, or studying. This song is for all of you, from your loved ones who are staying behind.”
We then started playing ‘You Belong to Me’. I tried to look over where Cathy was sitting, but the spotlights made it almost impossible to see.
See the pyramids along the NileWatch the sun rise on a tropic isle
Just remember, darling, all the while
You belong to me.
At the end of that set, I went across to the table where the others were. Cathy wasn’t there, and Lori was looking a bit worried. I sat down, and spoke to her.
“Where did Cathy go?” I asked.
“She’s gone home,” Lori said. “I don’t know what her problem is, but that song; you know the one you dedicated to people going away, that really upset her. She said to me, something like ‘who the fuck does Will think he is? I don’t belong to anyone, least of all him!’ Then she stormed off.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “It was just a song, one we play almost every night.”
“Well, I think she’s very tired, and probably had a little too much wine,” she said.
“Fuck! I’ve screwed things up again, haven’t I?”
“Give her a call in the morning, once she’s had a sleep and cooled down,” she suggested.
I was in a bad mood for the rest of the night; I had no idea what Cathy’s problem was. I was pissed off that she couldn’t have been bothered to wait until I had finished the set and talk about what had upset her, no, she had to play the drama queen and shoot her mouth off to Lori.
The next morning I woke up early, had a long showed and breakfast, then called Cathy.
“How are you this morning?” I asked. “You left early last night.”
Well, she exploded.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing, dedicating THAT SONG to me!” she shouted. “What gives you the right to tell the world that I belong to you, like I’m some possession that you own? You make it sound like my going to Canberra is just a temporary trip, or something. You can’t understand that I’m going there permanently; my future is there, working for the Government.
“You’ve done everything possible to make it so you aren’t able to come there with me, you could just as easily have studied computer science at the ANU, but no, you wanted to stay here in Sydney. Now you are talking about not just four years, but another three for a PhD, then even more in research. So all I can assume is you don’t want to be with me, or have so little regard for what I want in my life that you think I will forget about what I want to do, drop that, and stay with you.
“Well, as far as I am concerned, you can just fuck off. Go play you music, act the rock star, ignore me, don’t worry about using your talents to improve the country, just live in your own little cocoon. I’m sorry I even thought you might care about anyone but yourself.”
She slammed the phone down; probably just as well that I didn’t have a chance to reply, and really say what I thought. I was still fuming ten minutes later, when the phone rang. I guessed it was Cathy, calling back to apologise.
“Yeah?” I grunted down the line.
“Will?” the voice said. “It’s Lori, did you speak with Cathy? How is she? Are you okay?”
“Sorry, Lori,” I said. “I did speak with Cathy, well, it was more a case of her dumping on me; she’s somehow royally pissed off with me.”
I gave her a brief rundown of everything she said.
“How about you come out sailing with me today,” she said. “You’ll enjoy today’s race, it’s up the river to Juno point and back. Can you get here soon, and we’ll take the boat up to the clubhouse.”
“Okay, that would be good,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few.”
Once up at the clubhouse, I was greeted as a long-lost son by most of the other sailors; they went out of their way to welcome me back. Lori, Don and I took the tender out to ‘Koolong’, and we started rigging the boat. Don showed me how to pack the spinnaker into its bag – he called it a ‘turtle’. We discussed tactics; the race had a handicap start, we would be the second last boat to start. Given the wind direction, we would tack up Pittwater, once we were abeam of Barrenjoey headland; we would turn downwind and hoist the spinnaker for the run to Juno point and the turning mark.
“We have to stick to the northern side of the bay there,” Don said. “You’ll be able to see the darker brown of the main current flowing from the river. But of course, once we turn and head back, we want to be on that side, and have the current helping us.”
With the boat rigged, we sailed off the mooring, and out to near the start. We took a few practice runs; Don and Lori getting a feel for the wind angle and speed. I was given my place next to Lori, with the jib sheet in my hand. I made sure my feet were hooked into the hiking straps so I could lean out to help balance the boat.
We counted down the time to our start; once again Lori had judged things to the second, the time board flipped over right as we crossed the line. I pulled the jib sheet in, watching the tell-tales to keep them streaming properly as I had been instructed last time.
“Okay, our first job is to get past Norm and Wendy on ‘Fat Cat’,” Don said, pointing out the boat ahead of us. Plus, we don’t want to let Ron past us; Will, you keep an eye on ‘Sama’, let us know if he does anything.”
I made sure I could see where the light green hull of Ron’s boat was, he was the only boat behind us, and the only one likely to pass us; unless we made a stupid mistake. We powered up Pittwater, catching ‘Fat Cat’ and two others before we bore away for the run down to Juno point. I followed Don’s instructions hoisting the spinnaker; setting the pole, and dropping the jib. Back at my position, I held the spinnaker sheet, and watched the top edge to keep it trimmed. Lori steered us down each wave; as each green roller came in through the heads, she turned slightly and Don pulled in the mainsheet to speed us up, so we surfed down the face of the wave.
Approaching the turning mark, we had already passed another two boats, leaving four still ahead of us. Don went through the steps we (I) would take to drop the spinnaker and get the jib back up for the tack back to Pittwater. On his command, I freed the brace from the pole, unhooked the pole from the mast and handed it back to him. As soon as the spinnaker halyard was released, I pulled in what appeared to be square miles of sailcloth; bunching it up to stop it blowing over the side. I stuffed it in the bottom of the cockpit, unfastened the three ropes, and tied them together at the bow, ready for the next hoist.
“Well done, that was a smooth drop,” Don said. “Do you think you can repack it, we’ll need it for the run back to the finish line?”
I found an edge of the sail, and traced along that to each clew, making sure I had the bottom corners with the red and green grommets. With that done, I put each clew under the corresponding cheek of my backside to keep them in place, and started packing the turtle. The foot was stuffed in first, and then after making sure there were no twists in the body of the sail, the rest went in, until I had the three corners sitting at the top. I tied them together with a lace, pulled the cover back over the turtle, and went forward, clipping the turtle to the pushpit.
“Make sure all of the lines are clear, and outside everything,” Don reminded me. “Then attach each with a neat bowline and we are ready.”
Just as well I remembered Jack’s instructions, the bunny coming out of his hole, around the tree, and back down. I pulled each one tight, making sure there was minimal excess line.
“Well done, Will,” Don said.
“You’ll be a fully-fledged member of the fore-deckies union before you know it,” Lori said.
“Is that a good thing?” I asked.
“As long as you remember to be respectful of the afterguard,” Don said, and I raised my eyebrows.
“The afterguard are the crew members that are normally at the back of the boat,” Lori explained. “They are typically the helmsman, mainsheet trimmer, navigator, tactician; the ones that will normally determine what’s done; course choice, tactics, all that stuff.”
This time, we stuck close to the southern shoreline, right below West Head. Sticking to where the current was strongest we managed to pass another two boats before we rounded West Head and re-entered Pittwater.
“Okay, we’ll start to ease sheets,” Don said, as we gradually turned to starboard. “Get ready for a hoist, Will.”
As he passed the pole to me, I clipped it to the mast, attaching the topper and downhaul, and fastened the brace in the beak at the end. I untied the lace around the corners of the spinnaker, and stood by the halyard at the mast, waiting for his command to hoist. When he called “Hoist”, I pulled on the halyard, getting the head of the spinnaker almost to the top in a few seconds. Don winched home the last little bit, we dropped the jib, and I secured it to the rails with some bungee cord.
Back at my position in the cockpit, I stood up on my seat, so I could better watch the spinnaker luff. ‘Sama’ was probably 200 metre behind us, just starting their hoist.
“Look!” Don said. “Ron’s got a wineglass!”
I looked where he was pointing, and there must have been a twist in the centre of the spinnaker when they repacked it; it ballooned out in two parts. We could hear them yelling at each other; after a minute, they dropped the sail, and eventually rehoisted it, this time cleanly. We had gained a good 150 metres on them while they fixed that problem.
“I feel for them,” Lori said. “You did a good job repacking it, Will, it came out cleanly without any twists or catching on things.”
We continued powering down Pittwater; I was constantly trimming the spinnaker sheet to keep the sail shape perfect. I could feel my shoulder and arm muscles start to burn, the wind had picked up a little, and was now probably at the limit for the boat’s large spinnaker. Not that we even thought about a sail change; there was still one boat ahead of us, and only a kilometre to the finish. Ron was slowly reeling us in, but I didn’t think he would be able to pass us before the finish line.
As it was, there was just too much distance between Neil and Dianne’s boat and us; we almost caught them, but they got the finish gun maybe ten seconds ahead of us. Ron was maybe another thirty seconds behind us, with others not all that far behind. We dropped the spinnaker, and sailed back slowly to the mooring. When we were secured on the mooring, we started packing things up; folding the sails and putting them in their bags, coiling all the ropes, and finally attaching the cover over the cockpit, before rowing back to the clubhouse. We sat out on the upper deck; I had a well-earned cold beer.
Neil and Dianne came up to talk with us; we congratulated them on their win.
“Another hundred metres and you would have had us,” Neil said. “You did well, pulling us in from our big start.”
“I had my secret weapon today,” Don said. “I had my ace bowman with me,” and he pointed to me.
“Good to see you back with us, Will,” Dianne said. “So, will you be sailing with Don and Lori full time now?”
“I’m not sure; University starts in a month’s time,” I said. “I’ll just see how things go with that.”
We talked with a number of the others, commiserating with Ron about his misfortune with the spinnaker wineglass; others congratulated me on my good trimming work. Finally, it was time to head back home.
“Will, thanks so much for all your hard work today,” Don said. “You did a great job, and I really hope you can come out with us every race day.”
He shook my hand, and I told him if I was able to, and had the time, then I would be there.
Back on the boat, Lori and I slowly made our way back to her place.
“So, Will, what are you going to do about Cathy?” she asked.
“I just wish I knew what her issue was,” I said. “Between you and me, things haven’t been right for a while. There just hasn’t been that, I don’t know, emotional connection for a month, perhaps. Maybe it was because of that stupid contest I suggested, us having sex in every suburb in the shire, or maybe she was upset about the election result. What if she found out about Hannah and Jenny, or Janelle?”
“It’s been going bad long before you slept with any of the others,” Lori said. “Maybe it’s just what she told you, she feels that you don’t want to be with her and you aren’t taking her future career wishes seriously.”
“So it’s my fault, for staying here?” I said.
“No, it’s not anyone’s fault,” she replied. “It’s just life; the two of you are changing, growing apart. It stinks, but that’s just how life is. If you want my advice, let her cool down and maybe by the middle of the week, she will listen to you. Don’t ask me how that will go; since the fundamental problem - you staying here in Sydney while she moves to Canberra – isn’t going to be resolved.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want things to end the way they did this morning, not with us yelling abuse at each other. We’ll see what happens; I’ll call her probably Wednesday, see how she is.”
She reached across and squeezed my hand.
“Thanks, by the way, for inviting me sailing today,” I said. “I really enjoyed it and I had a great time. But I know my muscles will be aching tonight and tomorrow!”
“We need to get you into proper condition,” she said. “Working out, making you stronger, getting those muscles developed. If you come every week, you’ll soon get into condition.”
“Like you?”
“Well, I couldn’t do an afternoon’s trimming, hoisting spinnakers, all the stuff you did,” she replied. “I don’t have the strength in my arms and shoulders.”
“You look in damn good shape to me, Lori. Nice, well-toned muscles in your arms and legs.”
“Oh, well, that’s just from all the sailing; I don’t do any special working out or whatever. I could, I guess, try to make my arms and shoulders stronger. But if you want to, I know they have a gym at the Alfreds, we could go there one night a week, and exercise together. They have a fitness coach, too, who can advise on exercise programs and all that.”
“More stuff to try to find time for,” I said.
We tied the boat up at the jetty, and walked up to the main house. Jack was impressed with Lori’s report on the day’s sailing, particularly all my work with the spinnaker, and how Don called my his ‘secret weapon’ and ‘ace bowman’.
“We’ll make a yachtie of you yet, Will,” he said.
Lori and I grabbed some of the dinner that Chris had cooked, her special goulash, and took it downstairs to the family room.
“I could give your back and shoulders a good massage,” she said, when she saw me stretching.
“Thanks, but no, I’ll have to be heading home soon,” I said. “Would it be just my back and shoulders?”
“Well...” she said, blushing. “I might be tempted to massage more. You could return the favour; I’m feeling a little stiff myself.”
“And if you massaged me that way, or if I massaged you, I would be more than a little stiff...” I said, and she blushed even more.
“I wasn’t thinking of massaging you like that!” she exclaimed.
“Why do I not believe your protestations?” I replied.
“Well ... if you were to massage me,” she said. “I recall when you did that before, it was particularly nice...”
“Given my situation, maybe that’s not the best idea,” I replied. “Probably time I was heading off, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
And I didn’t want things to develop further, either, although I suspected that was in the back of Lori’s mind. If only she wasn’t so damned sexy and attractive!
We took our plates back upstairs, and I said good night to her parents. She walked out to my car with me, and we hugged before I got into it.
“Thanks, Will, it was great sailing with you,” she said. “Any time you want to come out, there’s racing now every Sunday until the end of April. Don would more than welcome you on ‘Koolong’, and Dad’s finding it hard to race every week, his work is really busy.”
“Yeah, let me see how things go,” I said. “There’s talk of a tour promoting the album, just around Sydney and the East Coast, but if I can make some days, I will.”
She pulled my head to hers, and we kissed. It was one of those soft, long Lori-special kisses, with the sparks of electricity flowing between us, the soft probing touches of our tongues, and the pressure of her body against mine. I almost felt like saying ‘bugger it, let me give you that massage right now’, but decided I had to get home. Her kiss had left me with a huge, hard erection; I had to adjust the position of my stiffy so I could sit in the car seat.
The thoughts of her, and the resulting arousal were still there when I got into bed. For the first time in weeks, I closed my eyes, picturing her naked body, and started stroking my cock. I pictured her, sliding down on my cock, imagining what it would feel like making love with her. I came quickly, even before I realized it was about to happen, spurting all over my stomach, chest and hands.
The next morning I put my guitar and amp in the car, and drove around to Mike’s studio. The guys were all there, and I asked them how the cruise went.
“Mate, you missed a fantastic time,” Pete said. “The single women ... I don’t think I spent one night in my cabin, it was a different bird every night.”
“We missed having you with us, too,” Roger said. “I’m picking up that black Strat for you this arvo, too, do you want to come with me and check it out?”
We spent the morning playing, nothing all that serious, just some random jamming. After lunch, Roger and I drove to his mate’s place to check out the Strat he had for sale. When we looked at it, I was a little disappointed. It was pretty scuffed up, it needed restringing, and when we plugged it in, the sound was terrible.
“Mate, you’re killing me,” Roger said. “The middle pickup’s fucked, the pots are all noisy, what’ve you done with this? I can’t have Will playing this shitty axe next to me!”
“Yeah, well, I told you it had seen better days,” Geoff said.
“Better days? Fuck, mate, I’ll have to rebuild everything completely! Will ya take three-fifty for it?”
They agreed on the price, and we then went to the guitar shop in Brookvale. With Roger bartering with the sales manager, we picked up three new pickups, a new five-position switch, pots, and all the wiring and strings. The pickups and mounting screws were gold plated, the same as the lead socket.
“You doing anything this evening?” Roger asked. “If you’ve got time, we can go back to the studio and rebuild it. Good for you to learn how it goes together, too.”
Guitar and parts in hand, we headed back to the studio. Mike was there, with some news for us.
“We’ve got another gig,” he said. “Bondi Lifesaver, next coupla Thursday nights.”
“The Wifeswapper?” Roger replied, using the colloquial name for the nightclub at Bondi Junction.
“Yeah, they want us on, for a ninety minute support act before the main band,” he explained. “This Thursday night and next week, starting at 7:30. Can you guys make it?”
We both said we could do it, and Mike said that tomorrow we’d work on a revised set list for those evenings.
Then we starting rebuilding the guitar; Roger showed me how to remove the strings, and we started taking out the interior electronics. We pulled the cover plates off, and Roger groaned when he looked inside. We removed all of the wiring, the switch, pots and pickups.
“Now, take this penknife, and scrape that entire gunk from inside,” he said. “When you’ve done that, we can polish up the body; I’ve got some polish that will brighten it up.
I used a soft cotton cloth and the polish to do the body; some light rubbing had all the scratches rubbed out. Before we started to put the new electronics in, Roger got some copper self-adhesive tape, and he lined the hollowed out areas of the body with the tape.
“Stops it picking up electrical interference and static,” he said. “A faraday cage they call it; it’s like a dirty great shield on everything.”
We then mounted the new pickups, routed the wires to the new five-position switch, and he got a soldering iron.
“Do you know how to use one of these?” he asked, and I shook my head. “The secret is to heat the area around the joint, and let the solder flow onto it. Don’t put the solder on the iron, but where you want things to join.”
We soon had things wired up; we replaced the cover plates, strung it with the new strings, and then plugged it in.
“Damn, that sounds good,” I said. “The tones a little brighter than my other one, it seems to have more mid-range punch, or something.”
“All in those pickups,” he said. “Now you’ve got a good backup; all you need is a more powerful amp; I might know where there’s a good, cheap Marshall 100 watt stack. We’ll probably need that for Millers.”
I thanked him for all his help, and drove home, now with two guitars.
After dinner, I spent time practicing, listening to the difference between the two guitars, and going over the songs we would be playing for the next gig. I was half expecting Cathy to call, when the phone rang, I answered with some excitement.
“Will?” Lori said. “How are you today?”
“Oh, it’s you, Lori,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed. “I’m fine, just trying out a new guitar.”
“Don’t sound so let down,” she said. “So I guess Cathy hasn’t called?”
“No, not yet,” I replied. “There’s always a chance she might be working back late; like she was last week. They seem to be getting a lot of work there.”
“Uh huh” Lori grunted. “So what’s news?”
I told her about the new guitar, and the gigs at Bondi. She asked if she could come over this Thursday night to see us play, I told her I would pick her up about five, provided she wouldn’t mind helping us set things up and pack away at the end.
“I’ll have to get you an official ‘Will Morris’ groupie shirt,” I said, and she laughed.
“I know what the duties of a groupie are,” she said. “I’m not sure if I want to fulfil them completely, at least, not for the whole band! I’ve already told you that.”
“Yeah, well, I think those stories about groupies blowing the band members are just that; wild stories,” I said.
“So, back to Cathy,” she said. “Are you going to call her?”
“Well, I was thinking that if I hadn’t heard from her by tomorrow evening, I would call her myself,” I said.
“Give her until Wednesday,” Lori suggested. “Don’t appear too desperate; you haven’t done anything wrong; Cathy just needs to accept what’s going to happen later this month, and take advantage of the time the two of you have together.”
What she said sort of made sense; we talked a little longer, and I told her I would see her Thursday night. She said she would call Wednesday evening, to see how things went with Cathy.
The next morning we were working on compressing our three sets into one, ninety minute set. We picked the best from each, stuff that we knew were the most popular, the ones received with the positive audience reaction. We ended up with the two Easybeats covers from the ‘rock’ set; two Stones (‘It’s only rock and roll’ and ‘Paint it Black’), ‘Sunshine of your Love’ and ‘Space Truckin’. Then ‘Treat her Right’ and ‘In the Midnight Hour’ from the ‘soul’ set, and the first four from the ‘blues’ set; ‘Midnight Special’, ‘Crossroad Blues’, ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ and ‘Before you Accuse Me’. If we needed an encore, we would do the Easybeats ones again.
We spent the morning working on those; I experimented with the different guitars, working out what sounded better for each song. I christened the rebuilt new one ‘Blackie’ – for obvious reasons, and the original red one was called ‘Bluey’.
“Why Bluey?” Gunter asked.
“Because that’s the nickname you give a redhead,” I replied.
He just shook his head, muttering how he would never understand how Aussies spoke.
By lunchtime we had decided to take ‘Space Truckin’ out of the list, and replace it with ‘Gloria’; we felt that made a better transition from the heavier rock into the soul pieces. We reworked some of the horn parts for ‘Midnight Hour’, to give it more punch. We broke for lunch; burgers and some refreshing cold beers in the beer garden of the Mona Vale hotel.
“You know who we are warming the crowd up for?” Mike asked us. Of course, none of us knew. “AC/DC; they’re playing there this week and next; normally Dragon does the support act, but we’ve been asked to do the two nights.”
“Fuck me!” Pete exclaimed. “We’re playing with the big boys now!”
Talk about pressure – we would be performing for a crowd who had turned up to see one of the big, up and coming heavy rock bands. I would really have to sing my heart out; those guys were really good. I would have to tell Lori just who we would be seeing that night, too.
The afternoon’s practice session took on a greater level of intensity; we all knew how critical it was going to be to be at our very best; playing for the AC/DC fans. I started to notice a problem with ‘Blackie’; the tuning would go out after ten minutes or so of playing. Roger suspected the machine heads were worn; I would need to replace them before Thursday night.
At home that evening, I did some more practice; wondering if Cathy would call. She didn’t; but Lori did, sometime after nine. She was excited when I told her who we were supporting on Thursday; and wondered if she might be able to get some photos, and maybe even an autograph.
Wednesday was another day of practice; we ran through the set in its entirety four times, each time making minor changes to the arrangements, trying different styles until we finally felt we had things right by lunchtime. That gave me time to drive to the guitar store in Brookvale, and purchase a new set of machine heads; I paid the bit extra to get ones with a gold plated finish, to match the finish on the pickups. Back at the studio I replaced the old, junky ones, tuned the guitar, and played for half an hour; hard playing. The guitar stayed in tune – another problem solved. Roger was impressed; he told me I could always try for a job as a guitar tech with a major group. I wasn’t all that sure I would want to spend my life replacing broken guitar strings and tuning guitars.
After dinner, I sat down at my desk to update the tab sheets and set list card. I had been working at it for maybe fifteen minutes when the phone rang; a bit early for Lori to call, I thought.
“Will, it’s me, Cathy,” she said. “I’m just calling to say I’m really sorry for my behaviour the other day, and the stuff I said to you. I was completely out of line; all I can say in my defence is that I’ve been upset about us parting, and, well ... I guess I just lashed out at you.”
“I should have been more sensitive, too,” I said.
“No, I was being hypocritical,” she shot back. “I know what I want to do with my life, I want to go to Canberra, get my degree, and then work for the Government. But I never really thought that you had your own plans for your life, things that you wanted to do, and I just assumed that those weren’t important enough to you, that you would just put aside what you wanted to do, and follow me, and not do the things that you really want to do.
“We will just have to work around us being in different cities for a while, finish our studies, and see what happens after that. I’m not going to ask you to give up the things in life that you want to do; just as I know you haven’t asked me to give up what I want to do. If it’s fair for me to expect you to respect my future plans, and what I want to do with my life, then it’s only right that I treat you with that same respect. I didn’t do that on the weekend, and I’m really sorry that happened. I should have thought more before I reacted, but I guess I was just tired from the long week working, and maybe I had a bit more wine than I should have had. Do you forgive me?”
Mei
- 21.09.2020
- 8
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