The Three Signs Book 4 LisaChapter 10 Party Party Party
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After our overnight cruise to Castle Lagoon, we discussed where we might take our next cruise. One option was to go up to Lake Macquarie, we could go up for a few days at the start of the mid-semester break; I would have to be back in time to take the midday train to Canberra for my Labor Party policy steering committee meeting. But with some planning, we could sail up on the Friday afternoon, reach the Swansea bridge at high tide, spend the next three days exploring the lake, and return to Pittwater on the Tuesday. One of the cruising group members at the sailing club said that there was a good chance of getting a mooring at the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club, at Belmont; it was only a few miles in from the Bridge. I was given a phone number of their club president, and I called him to make arrangements for an overnight mooring on the Friday evening.
The club president was particularly helpful, as well as reserving a space in their floating marina dock for me, he asked what time we planned on going through the Swansea bridge channel. He said the best time to go through would be just before full high tide, which on that Friday would be around 4:00 p.m. He told me that it’s far better to drop the sails on the approach to the channel, and to motor through what is a pretty tight stretch, through the bridge and then to the main part of the lake. In fact, we arranged to stay on the mooring every night; spending the days cruising around the lake, and returning where we had a secure mooring, and the on-shore facilities and electric power connection for each night.
“Make sure you follow the channel markers and stick to the left of the channel, the western side where it’s deepest,” he said. “Have you got the MSB chart of Lake Macquarie? That’s a pretty good one, shows all the navigational marks, the leads for Swansea channel, depths, all that you will need to know to get around the lake.”
I thanked him for his assistance, then called ‘Boat Books’ to see if they had a copy of the MSB chart, which I would pick up on the way home from work. But right now, I had a large pile of assignments to grade, these were the first assignment for 6.633 Data Bases and Networks. Of all the subjects I taught, that was probably my favourite, particularly the Computer Networks part of the subject. Second would be the Data Structures part of 6.641, Computing IIC. Of course in the next few years these subjects would change as we transitioned to the ‘Computer Engineering’ course.
I had also found the first ‘target’ file format for my experiments with steganography; the computer graphics lab had a number of ‘Apollo’ workstations, together with a high resolution flatbed scanner, I would be able to have files of scanned images that could be displayed on those workstations. The image file format was suitable for what I wanted to do; each pixel of the source picture was converted to three bytes, one each for red, green and blue colour value. I felt that I could embed the file data to be hidden by replacing the least significant bit of each of those RGB bytes, that should make a negligible different to the resulting image. A quick visual check showed that this was the case.
I started the detailed design specification for how each ‘codec’ should work, I decided that before the actual ‘hidden data’ would be embedded into the target file, there should be some sort of header / metadata information, including the total data size in bytes, the type and version of the codec used, and the date it was embedded. This would add a little bit if overhead, but would make decoding the data easier. Each ‘codec’ would have a number of methods associated with it, including a ‘read metadata’, ‘check available space’, ‘encode’ and ‘decode’. These were fairly self-explanatory, the ‘check available space’ would analyse the target file and return the maximum data file size that could be hidden within that file, based on how the encoding was done for that target file type. For the raw rgb image file, that would be the number of individual colour bytes, as the total ‘data bits’ that could be squeezed into the target. Dividing that number by eight would convert it to bytes; this way the encoding program could quickly make sure that the target file was large enough to contain the source data.
It didn’t take me all that long to write the codec for the image file; I then scanned some sample test images, and tested the process. After a few trivial programming errors were corrected (no program ever works perfectly on the first try!), I could do some subjective ‘before and after’ visual comparisons on the quality of the image, to make sure the steganography process didn’t degrade the image too much. To my eyes, I was unable to tell any difference, I asked David and Michelle to look at both sets of images, and they couldn’t detect any difference, either. I felt that so far, the work was a success; I would need to find more suitable target file types; there was some information on digital audio files that I was looking at. I got a copy of the ‘CD Audio’ file specification from what they called the ‘Redbook’, I initially thought it might be a suitable candidate, but the actual audio data bytes were stored in frames of twenty-four bytes, which are subject to error correction codes, to allow for read errors to be corrected. I wasn’t sure whether the resulting data file would be suitable for ‘tampering with’, to allow the file to be encoded to be inserted into the data stream. I would have to spend more time looking into the actual data stream that the ‘Read CD’ program returned from an actual audio CD. That would be the next stage of the project; but at least now I had the framework of the program written and proven. As more suitable ‘target’ file formats became available and popular, I would write a codec for that file format, using the same design outline as I did for the raw image file format, and the same programming interface as was designed for the raw image file. I was happy with the progress so far, I felt I had come up with a fairly solid and extensible architecture.
On the next Saturday, during a break in our rehearsals, I told Rose what I had been working on. As I described how the raw data stream would be modified to have the source file secretly embedded in it; I noticed she was getting more and more ‘uncomfortable’, squirming in her seat.
“I’m not boring you, am I?” I asked.
“No ... but...”
“Ohhh ... so my little girl is starting to get a little needy? Are you starting to get all messy?”
“Uh huh ... I’m sorry, do I disgust you?” she said, still squirming.
“No, but I think you and I need to have some time to play after our rehearsal is finished,” I said. “There’s a lot more I want to tell you about my encryption program, and how I’m designing the codecs, and that will only make you more needy. If I keep going on now, everybody will be able to tell that you are all messy and needy.”
“Ohh ... yes, please ... master,” she said, meekly. “I’m sorry that I got all ... all messy now. I think you need to punish me for that...”
“Yes, I think I do. After the rehearsal session, I’ll meet you in my bedroom...”
Rose had her head down, and her face was red, but she was smiling as she walked away, no doubt looking forward to some playtime later. When we finished the session, I led her to the bedroom, and told her to undress, and sit on the chair – I put an old towel down first – facing me with her legs spread. I then described, in minute technical details, the structure of the raw image file, how I would set up the metadata, how each byte would have its least significant bit stripped and replaced with the next bit of the data file. She was getting more and more aroused; squirming, opening and closing her legs. At one stage she went to reach down to touch herself.
“Just what do you think you are doing?” I said sharply. “Did I say you could touch yourself, pleasure yourself? Take your hands away, right now!”
“I’m sorry master,” she said, meekly. “I won’t do it again.”
I continued on with my description of the file formats, and I could see Rose getting more and more aroused, her labia were fully engorged, spread apart, showing the wetness of her opening; her clit was now erect, pushing the hood away from it. I finally decided I couldn’t keep teasing her, as I kept talking, I moved from the bed, and knelt down in front of her, and gradually pushed her legs wider apart. She moaned softly as I planted my lips on her pussy, licking between her labia with my tongue. Rose was incredibly wet, and I shifted my position so I could bring a hand up, and slide two fingers inside her as I kept on licking.
I could hear the squelching sounds as my fingers plunged in and out, forcing her juices out over my hand. She was moaning constantly, and when I bit gently on her swollen clit, she groaned loudly.
“Oh my God, keep doing that! Harder, bite on my clit!”
I kept my teeth around her clit while I fingered and licked her, and was soon rewarded with her having a loud and vigorous orgasm. As she came, more of her juices gushed out over my hands and face.
“Do you want me to breed you, Baby Girl?” I asked her.
“Oh yes, please, I want you inside me...”
I picked her up, and laid her on the bed, her legs hanging over the side. I moved in between them, my prick right at her pussy, and guide myself into her. She sighed loudly as I entered her, and could feel her wet, slick walls sliding around my knob. I reached forward, grabbing her breasts as I pumped in and out. Rose was moaning continuously, she wrapped her legs around my thighs, pulling my body into her. I increased my speed; it wasn’t a ‘hard, fast and furious’ fuck, but it wasn’t slow and gentle, either. My hands on her breasts stopped them from bouncing back and forward with my thrusts, and I played with her hard nipples.
“Fuck me, Master,” Rose moaned, just as she started to come. “Fill me with your seed!”
I felt my own orgasm was close, only a few more strokes ... Rose’s moans were exciting, and also helping me to get close; I pushed in hard, deep, and felt myself erupt inside her, on in her words, ‘taking my seed’. Not that there was any actual ‘seed’ in what I was spurting into her, but...
“Take my hot seed, Baby Girl,” I said to her, and she moaned with pleasure.
“Fill me, master,” she replied. “Fill me with your seed!”
I finished, and kept my prick deep inside her, feeling the contractions of her vagina as she had another orgasm. We were both breathing heavily, and I leant down to plant a kiss on each of her nipples.
“I love being inside you, Rose,” I said, when we had settled down.
“I love you being inside me, too,” she replied. “What do the westies say? You’re a good root, love!” she said, in a rough ‘ocker’ voice.
I laughed at her comments, she could pick the accent of the stereotypical western suburbs, uneducated Aussie yobbo ‘westie’. I couldn’t do accents anywhere as good as her, but I gave it a try.
“Yeah, luv, you’re a much better root than Cheryl,” I said, imitating her accent. “Now, can ya get me a pack of Winnies? I need a smoke after that!”
She burst out laughing, and I started laughing too; I had to sit down, so I pulled out of her, and sat on the bed next to her.
“God, I would hate to be called Cheryl,” she said. “Same as a guy being called ‘Wayne’, those names seem to have that negative connotation. Seriously, making love with you is pretty damn good though, I love how you know just how to play the roles that I want.”
“I enjoy playing those roles with you,” I said.
“Now, when you were licking me, no one else was in the room? Not Lisa, or Fiona?” she asked. “I thought I could feel some hands on my breasts.”
“No, it was just us alone in the room.”
“I must have been imagining it; what with your tongue on my clit, and your fingers inside me, then when you bit ... I was in ecstasy, I lost all sense of what was going on, I have no idea what my mind was doing, all the thoughts rushing through my head!”
I wondered to myself if it was somehow Jillian checking up on things; I wished there was some way that I was able to contact her when I wanted to speak with her, but I was totally dependent on her timetable, she would see me when it was convenient to her, when she wanted to see me. I didn’t say that to Rose, I still had no idea how to tell other people about Jillian, and her continued presence in my life. With our ‘playtime’ over, we showered, got dressed and joined the others for dinner.
The next day, Sunday the 17th was the ‘Annual General Meeting’ at the sailing club; after the official part of the meeting was done, a number of the other members asked us about ‘Young Lovers’. We said that next weekend we would be sailing up to Lake Macquarie for a few days; one of the other couples in the cruising group suggested that we make sure we have at least one meal in the dining room of the Lake Macquarie Sailing Club. Since we planned mooring at the club dock on the Friday night, we would see about eating there. Others recommended the best time – relative to the tides – to go through the bar and the bridge, making sure I followed the leads through the heads, and to look out for the crossover leads, showing when to turn to starboard to follow the channel to the bridge. Lots of good advice from those who had sailed up there before.
During the week, the Federal Budget was handed down on Tuesday night, I wasn’t impressed with it at all. I could see the hand of some of the right wing cabinet members in it; it proposed significant cuts to the Federal Public Service, along with increasing government charges, in an attempt to slash the deficit. I hope to address some of those at the policy steering committee meeting the following week; along with the caucus vote to resume uranium sales to France, which had been suspended following the French Government attack on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ in Auckland Harbour, in July of last year. Just about all of the members of the left faction voted against the decision, but they didn’t have the numbers to kill the decision.
On Friday, I left after giving my Computing IIC tutorial, drove home, picked up Lisa and our supplies for the weekend, and drove up to the Sailing Club. We had the boat packed, and were under way just before noon, the wind had shifted to just south of east, probably an ideal direction for the run up the coast. Once we had cleared Barrenjoey headland, we set the sails for a broad starboard reach; we headed out to sea on a bearing of 65 degrees, until we were clear of the northern headland to Broken Bay, then turned more to the north, 25 degrees magnetic, past Terrigal, The Entrance, Norah Head, until we were opposite the entrance to the lake as Swansea. We turned around Moon Island, and spotted the entrance leads to give a line into the bay. Once we had entered between the two breakwalls, I dropped the sails, started the engine and we followed the channel to a mooring buoy just before the bridge. I called up the bridge control on their radio channel to let them know we were waiting for the next opening, and they said it would open at 1600 hours – in fifteen minutes time.
“That was a really nice sail up the coast,” Lisa said. “I enjoyed taking the compass readings, and plotting our course on the chart. I guess I should have paid more attention to my math classes at school, all of those calculations with the magnetic variation, but you showed me how to work it out.”
“Well, we got here, and with time to spare,” I said.
Just after 4 p.m., the bridge opened, and we got the call to go through, staying to the left side of the channel, which wasn’t very wide. We followed the markers, through the bridge, up past the airport at Pelican, and into the main body of the lake. It wasn’t that far to the yacht club, not worth hoisting the sails for what would be a few minutes’ sail, so we motored up to the club jetties, tied up at the dock that had been arranged for us, shut down the motor, and headed up to the main club office. We paid the rental fee for the mooring, and enquired about having dinner in the club dining room. We were given keys to the changing rooms and the electrical power lock box. Back at the boat, we ran a power cable to the external 240 volt plug, and I switched the refrigerator over to 240 volt operation. The cabin lights were also switched over to the 240 volt power supply, rather than using the main battery. We then had our showers and dressed for dinner.
The dining room lived up to the expectations that some of the others had set; I had some grilled flathead, it had probably been caught earlier that day in the lake; Lisa had the barbequed prawns. Both meals were excellent, the service was attentive without being overbearing; all in all, one of the best club meals we had experienced. Back on the boat, we cleaned things up a little before retiring to bed, and some more shipboard love-making.
When we woke, we had a quick breakfast, and finished straightening things up, my cousin Dianne and her husband were meeting us at the club, and we would be going fishing – Graham had promised to bring his fishing gear, and some for Lisa and I to use. He was going to take us to one of his secret fishing locations, and said we were almost guaranteed to reel in plenty of bream and whiting, and if we were lucky, a good flattie or two. They arrived just after 7:30, after quickly showing them around the boat, Graham showed the location he wanted us to go, in Chain Valley Bay. We prepared the sails, and when Graham untied the mooring lines, Lisa motored us away from the dock. Once in the main part of the lake, clear of the sailing club jetties, I hoisted the sails, and we headed down, past Wangi Wangi Point, and to the fishing location. It was a lovely day to be out on the water; Dianne and Graham pointed out various locations as we sailed past.
He directed us to a location that he felt would be good for fishing, once we were at that point, I dropped the sails, and Graham threw the anchor overboard. I stowed the sails, and we started fishing. It didn’t take long before the fish started biting; several were too small, and they were tossed back in, but by lunchtime we had four nice sized whiting in the icebox, along with three bream.
“I told you we would get some here,” he said. “But after we have lunch, we should move cross to the other side of Wyee Point, that’s usually better in the afternoon.”
We temporarily put our rods away, and we brought lunch up to the cockpit. Graham had brought some bottles of beer, and we enjoyed a drink with the cold chicken and salad that Dianne had provided. The afternoon fish spot proved to be just as good as where we had been in the morning, and we added another eight nice sized fish to the catch. When we decided we had done enough fishing, I raised the sails, and we returned to the club dock.
“Did you want to take any of those fish?” Dianne asked us. “We’ll take them home, clean them, and drop some around here for you if you want.”
“That would be good; if you can freeze them, and get them to the club before we have to go back home on Tuesday, that would work,” Lisa suggested.
“This might sound silly, but could you keep the heads frozen for us, too?” I said. “Fred might like a treat, and what he doesn’t want, I’ll bury them under the tomato plants when I put them in next month. That’s what Nanna Morris would always do.”
“Not a problem, Will,” Graham said. “I’ll drop them off here on Monday afternoon, after work. Do you want bream, whiting, or a mix of both?”
“Just some whiting, I think,” I replied. “They are nice eating fish, and the ones we caught look like a good size.”
“As Pop Morris used to say, we threw the squeakers back,” Dianne said.
“Squeakers?” Lisa asked.
“The small ones, because in his words, they would squeak when you put them in the frypan to cook them!” I answered. “He was a funny guy, I have no idea how Nan put up with him all those years.”
“Yes, as lovely as she is, she has no sense of humour,” Dianne replied. “Anyway, Lisa, Will, thanks for the lovely day out on the lake, you’ve got a really nice boat, we had a lot of fun, didn’t we Graham?”
“Yeah, it was pretty good, I like the boat, even though it does have sails. It must have been fun sailing up here from Sydney, out in the ocean.”
“Yeah, we wanted something large enough to cruise up and down the coast; the guy who we bought it from sailed it across from New Zealand, so it’s pretty strong. But it’s also good in club races, we’ve got a crew together for the coming season, so we’ll see how she goes.”
After they left, we decided to eat in the club dining room again for dinner, so we had our showers over in the club facilities, then had a light dinner before returning to our boat. Since we were using the 240 volt shore power for the lighting, we had all of the cabin lights on; we didn’t have to worry about the battery capacity powering them and the fridge. I pulled out the material for the Policy Steering Committee meeting, I wanted to read over everything again, and prepare notes for my comments.
There were several items up for discussion; one was a proposed restructuring of the Federal public service, another was the quasi-privatization of Telecom, making it a government-owned company, with shares made available to the general public. There was also one close to my heart, changes to the Federal funding of universities and the tertiary education sector, with a ‘student loan’ scheme, called the ‘Higher Education Contribution Scheme’, and allowing universities to attract foreign students who would have to pay a full fee for their courses. I already knew a fair bit about the ‘HECS’ proposal, an economics lecturer at the ANU, Bruce Chapman had been pushing this idea for several years.
I knew I would be up against strong opposition to keep tertiary education free, both major parties were of the view that because more and more students were undertaking tertiary education, maintaining ‘free’ courses was becoming economically untenable. It wasn’t that there was no money in the federal budget to cover the cost of running the universities and colleges of advanced education, it was just that other areas of the budget were seen as ‘more important’. However, the ‘full fee paying student’ proposal was, in my mind, even more dangerous; it could quickly degenerate into an expectation that someone was ‘buying’ a degree. While the initial proposal was for overseas students, I could see that there would be strong pressure on the government to all local students who didn’t qualify for a government-funded place to bypass the entrance requirements by paying a full fee. Of course, these were generally students who didn’t meet the academic requirements for a course, and would probably not do well at university – but what would happen when they were failed out of the course? There would be a huge outcry – ‘I paid for my degree, and now you’re not letting me get it’. I suspect there was also a sense of ‘the wrong people – those who are underserving – are taking up places in our tertiary education system’ behind some of this. I’m sure the opposition parties would support these changes, since they felt that the system that had been in place since the Whitlam reforms, abolishing fees back in 1974 was a bad move. That meant that courses were now available to anyone who met the academic requirements, not just those who could afford the fees. And those who could afford the fees were generally from the well-off families; owners of large rural properties, and the upper classes of society. Meanwhile, those without the money had to rely on scholarships or cadetships, and often the most capable students had missed out on the chance of a university education.
I spent about an hour working on my comments to the tertiary education proposals; there were also proposals to merge institutions, where in the same regional location there was both a university and a CAE – like the University of New England and the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education, and the ANU with the Canberra CAE. I was unsure how successful that would be, given the very different environments of those institutions. I knew that staff at the affected institutions would not be happy about it, the university staff would feel that there would be a ‘dumbing down’ of the university courses, while the CAE staff would be unhappy about being combined with what they felt were the ‘snobby and elitist’ university academics.
With that out of the way, I read through the public service restructuring papers. The main premise was to reorganize the current Federal Government departments and statutory authorities into three broad types; core ‘policy’ entities, basically the same as the current Departments, to provide policy advice to the government and assist with the drafting of legislation. There would be regulatory and monitoring agencies; they would carry out tasks like issuing licenses and permits, monitor compliance with laws and regulations, and tasks of a similar nature. Then there would be ‘service delivery’ agencies; those that provided a direct service to the public, like paying pensions or benefits, operating a ‘government business enterprise’, like Telecom, Australia Post, the Snowy Mountains Authority; anything which had a whiff of a ‘commercial operation’ about it.
I had a sneaking suspicion that this would be the first stage in a massive government privatization process, these ‘service delivery’ agencies – Social Security, the Commonwealth Employment Service, Air Traffic Control and Airport Operations – would be prime candidates to be sold off to private interests. The regulatory agencies would be headed up by a board of directors, no doubt packed with ‘industry representatives’, giving control of regulating industry sectors to the big players in that area themselves. All in all, it was a very depressing proposal, I could see the hand of the anti-government, libertarian groups behind it. These were the people who had a fundamental objection to governments doing any functions that could be done (even at a greater cost to the public) by the private sector; the less government organization and regulation there was in society, the better, in their opinion.
I looked through some of the material I had collected, including some comments on ‘libertarianism’, I’m sure that was the philosophy driving some of these policies. I was curious as to why policies like these were being pushed by the party, I suspected it was some of the major players in the right faction flexing their muscles. There were a few people I suspected were behind this, probably led by Senator Peter Walsh – and I was number one on his list of enemies. Other cabinet members behind it would be Kim Beasley, Michael Duffy, John Button, and Barry Jones, the latter three prominent ‘anti-left’ members from Victoria, all members of the group ‘the participants’ who worked hard during the 1960’s to reduce the influence of the left in the Victorian branch of the party.
I was starting to get a stiff back; I stood up to stretch.
“Fucking libertarians in the right wing!” I said out loud.
“What’s the problem?” Lisa said, looking up from where she was reading a book.
I gave her a brief summary of the proposal, and who I thought was behind it. I explained how there was a faction who wanted to reduce government activity across the whole economic sector. They reject the premise of Keynesian economics, which is that in times of economic downturn, the government should stimulate demand, managing the fluctuations that cause recessions and inflation.
“I can recall my Economics lecturer talking about ‘Supply and Demand’, and said ‘If you can teach a parrot to say ‘Supply and Demand’, then you have made an economist,” she said. “So these people reject the foundation of Keynesian economics, the concepts that helped pull the world out of the Great Depression, and the expansion of the economy in post-war years?”
“Pretty much so,” I said. “They claim the oil crisis and resulting stagflation of the 1970s showed that the theory didn’t hold water.”
“But don’t they realize that the oil crisis was caused by political actions, in particular the West’s support of Israel over the Palestinians?” she replied. “When you get the price of one of the most important resources in the economy jumping by several hundred percent almost overnight, no system could take that in its stride.”
“True, but these people don’t want to admit that the west’s support – particular the US’s support – of Israel had any impact. The same as the Iranian revolution, kicking out the Shah, and the strong anti-American, anti-western views, they have nothing to do with the US and US engineering a military coup, ousting their democratically elected prime minister. All to maintain the monopoly of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, with profits going to Britain. The American’s didn’t like the idea of a democratically elected country that had vast oil reserves that wasn’t closely allied with them, they thought Iran would fall into communism. Hence the US – who in theory supports democracy world-wide – participated in deposing a democratically elected government.”
“No wonder the Iranians hate the Americans,” Lisa said. “But, of course, you won’t hear political leaders in the west saying that was the cause of the revolution, they won’t admit they were behind the coup, and what a disaster it was.”
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When I woke up, I gathered some documents to show to John about how we would tackle the project. My main aim with today’s meeting was ‘project qualification’, that is, to get more details about John’s requirements, what were the key deliverables and results that he wanted to see, plus some feeling on what was he felt was a reasonable budget and timeframe for the project. I was also wanting to get some idea about how the project would run; what accommodation would be provided, would there be...
We woke up with the alarm; made love, had a shower together, then ate breakfast before we drove into Surry Hills and the recording studio. When we reached the studio; I parked at the side in the loading area, and went inside looking for George. We found him in the administration office, speaking with a brunette. “Hey, Will, good to see ya, Mate,” he said. “And this is...” he asked, looking at Lori. “You remember my girlfriend, Lori?” I said to him. “Of course, I remember now. Will, here’s...
The lead up to the end of the semester was busy – really busy. Not only did we have to get ready for the contract with Alexa’s company, preparing the ‘Banksia Room’ as our computer staging area, tweaking the training notes from the university to suit the contract, but there were examinations to prepare for – not that I had any, the last two ‘Science and Society’ subjects had their assessments based on the assignments and class work. But I still had to vet the papers, make sure the questions...
It was late on Saturday morning when I woke up, still feeling down in the dumps. I looked at the clock next to me bed; 9:30 am. I guessed Cathy would already be on the road; they wanted an early start, getting to Goulburn for lunch, and then on to Canberra by early afternoon. She hoped to get everything up in her dorm room before dinner time. I deliberately averted my eyes from the photo of her on my desk; the fact that it was Valentine’s Day didn’t make me feel any better. After a quick...
It took a while for us to wake up on Christmas morning, by the time we had all cast off our sleep it was close to eight; leaving little time before the others arrived for some yule-tide fucking. Just enough time to have a shower, and start to prepare things for breakfast. Lori had suggested we make pancakes; scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and her ‘home fries’. After we had finished our showers, I started to prepare the potatoes for the home fries; peeling them, dicing them, and chopping up...
The weeks leading up to the final exams were busy; not just studying for the two exams that I had, but helping Fiona get her internship report finished and ready for submission; last minute coaching for some of my students, and trying to fend off a potential war between some people at Sydney University and other participants in the AARNET project. Independent of the AARNET project, Sydney University had developed a simple store-and-forward network, but they wanted to use the country-level...
After our early morning love-making, shower and breakfast, I dropped Cathy off at the bus stop. She wasn’t sure just how late she would be working, and I suggested that she let me know maybe 45 minutes before she was due to finish, and I could drive in and pick her up, to save dealing with the night time buses. At Mike’s, we started talking about the actual sets we would play. “We want to start off with something to really get them going,” Mike said. “Something to kick them in the balls, so...
With the New Year’s Eve only a few days away, we spent the Saturday afternoon reviewing the set lists for that gig. We had been asked to play for a total of four hours – well, four fifty minute sets, with a ten minute break between them. Then at midnight, we would lead everyone in singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, then play a final thirty minute set before calling it a night. It was going to be a pretty intense, tiring evening, and right after that we would have to travel to Gosford for the first...
We pulled up in the car park for Lilianfels, it was more in Katoomba itself than Leura, close to Echo Point lookout and the Three Sisters. It wasn’t all that far from some of the other scenic lookouts over the Jamison Valley, or some fairly energetic walks, including the ‘Giant Stairway’, some 800 or so steps descending into the valley. There were some more leisurely walks, including one around the cliff top to the ‘scenic railway’, and Katoomba falls, or the other way to the Leura Cascades....
Chapter Four – Slumber Party Disclaimer: This story does not reflect the attitudes or characters in the Harry Potter series, nor does it have any affiliation with its author. Story Codes: mmff, mmf, ncon, cream pie, hp, grope, magic, orgy, preg Harry was furious; he’d lost the Spellbook of Desires. He had looked everywhere, and he knew now that someone had stolen the book. Because the Weasley household was so large at the moment, it would be impossible to interrogate the entire...
“Mr. Morris, glad to see you’re awake and back with us. I am Doctor David Pickett, and I’m one of the cardiologists here at the Prince of Wales hospital. I guess you’re wondering what it was that happened to you? First, I need to make sure you understand just how the human heart works; it’s basically a pump whose purpose is to circulate blood around the body.” I nodded; that was pretty basic human anatomy. “The blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the rest of the body, and also carries...
Lori was overjoyed to have us back home; as was Tracy. Even though we tried to be quiet, we woke them as we got into bed. Despite being tired, we made love, and then I slept soundly until nine in the morning. I would have preferred to have gone back to sleep, but I had to get across to the university to enrol. I grabbed a quick breakfast, got my organizer folder from the study, and drove across to the University. I parked behind the Electrical Engineering building, and went up to Professor...
After a busy few weeks filled with gigs most nights of the week, it was back at University. The fibre optic installation was proceeding; there had been a few minor issues, but the company supplying and installing the cable had worked around them. The University – mainly through the School of Physics – had a long term relationship with Crown Corning; they had worked together on a number of projects, particularly in developing reliable connectors for their single mode fibre. The first set of...
“Hey, Will. Paul Ramos here,” the voice on the phone said. “I guess you’re at home at the moment, I called your office at the University, but that cute short girl in your office said you weren’t in over the summer break.” “Paul, comrade. Great to hear from you,” I replied. “No, I’m taking a couple of weeks off; we’ve got a bunch of gigs heading up to Christmas, and into January too. So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” “I’ve got a proposal I’d like to discuss with you; are you going to be...
The words that Mary Beth was saying to me somehow didn’t register, everything after the ‘she’s dead, Will ... she was drowned in the floodwaters’ was just noise. I understood what she told me, the troubling dreams I had experienced the night before made sense. There was a loud rushing in my head, and I was wracked with loud sobs. I was aware of Traci standing next to me, her arms around my shoulders, and Mary Beth was on the phone, talking to someone. “Let’s get you down to bed, Will,” Mary...
I was half awake, and remembering that I was in Dianne’s old bedroom at Cathy’s place, I rolled over to look at the clock next to the bed. 5:30! Far too early to get up; but I needed to have a pee, so I quietly crept out of bed and into the hall, not wanting to disturb anyone. I tiptoed down the hallway, and tried to open the bathroom door quietly. Not being completely familiar with the house yet, I had already started to open the door when I remembered about the squeaky hinges. Oh well, too...
With the wedding out of the way, we got back into the work on the songs for the new album, as well as various gigs around the place. They were starting to take shape, but the real challenge was to ensure that the songs were musically as good as our previous work, and could stand alone as rock songs. We didn’t want the lyrics to be too ‘preachy’ and turn people off. There’s no point in making a protest song, if people don’t like it and refuse to listen to it. After my talk with Alonzo’s...
“It’s on,” Mary Beth said. “Their baby is on the way!” “Oh, I had better get up to the hospital then,” Mrs. White said. “Where should I put my case?” I showed Mrs. White where her bedroom would be; told her that this afternoon we would get the bed made with fresh sheets, and put some towels out for her. Mary Beth was ready to take her up to the hospital; I would clean the bedroom and make her bed with some fresh sheets. At least the room was ready for her when she returned from the...
We spent the morning going over the ‘Sister Angela’ scenario with Lori; she wrote down all of the lines that we could recall, our descriptions of what happened overnight, even my rather sacrilegious thoughts on nun-fucking. While Megan and I would be out of town on the tour, Tracy and Lori would flesh out the story, even starting to write it. Around lunchtime some of the others returned home; Mary Beth was pleased to see us. She showed us the final schedule for the first country tour, we...
The next day, Sunday, I spent time playing the piano and swimming in the pool. After dinner, I walked down to church; hoping Cathy would be there. I wasn’t disappointed; both she and David were there; David, of course, sitting with Gina. “How was your lunch?” I asked. “Not too bad,” Cathy replied. “But I kept thinking about what we may do tomorrow. Are you sure you are comfortable with being with the other two as well?” “Yes, but can we talk about it afterwards?” I said. “You don’t have to...
For our visit to Brisbane for our week-long gig at Expo, most of the people were flying, leaving Sydney early on Saturday morning for the hour and a half flight to Brisbane. Lisa and I were taking the train, the XPT left Central at 2:40 pm on Friday, getting into the main station in Brisbane just before 5:00 am on Saturday. We had booked a sleeper cabin for the trip, and the return journey would leave Brisbane just before 6:00 am in the following Sunday, arriving at Central just after 8:00...
I was dreaming, I must have been, lying in my bed, when I felt a person slide under the sheets next to me. A hand slid over my mouth, and I heard a voice whisper in my ear. “Quiet, don’t make a noise,” she said. “I just want to lie next to you for a while, and feel our bodies together.” Lori? It couldn’t be her, but it certainly felt real; her body was pressed against my back, and I could feel her warm breath on my cheek. My buttocks were hard against her lower stomach. “Lori?” I started...
Don’t ask me what my name is I know what your game is It’s just a casual encounter It’s just a casual encounter It’s just a casual encounter Christina Amphlett & Mack McEntee Free Falling Late September, 1982 I landed with a hard thump on the ground, knocking all the air out of my lungs. I felt a stabbing pain in my shoulder, and then more pain as my foot slammed against the back wall of the house. I heard Lisa scream, and come running towards me. “Everyone! Help, please! Will’s...
On the last day of July, we took Alonzo, Paul and Patrick to the airport. At least for Patrick and Wendy, it was only a temporary separation, he would be back in two weeks’ time; but for Ros it was a very tearful farewell. The five months before Alonzo was back for his sabbatical job teaching at the University would really drag out for her. Patrick said that one of his first projects would be to get a remote data link set up in our study going back to the office at St. Leonards, ostensibly so...
“Hi Lori, Will here,” I said when she answered. “Will Morris, where have you been these last four days?” she yelled down the phone line. “I’ve been worried sick about you; every time I called it was just that stupid machine, I even drove around to see if you were at home; your car was in the garage, but there was no answer. What have you been doing?” I told her briefly that on Monday morning, I had been hit by a car as I was crossing the street. I quickly told her that I hadn’t been badly...
Late December 1996 – January 1997 We had the big Christmas Day party at Banksia Lodge, much as we had done in previous years. My father again played ‘Santa Claus’, handing out presents to all the children present. On Boxing Day, we watched the televised start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, there were some impressive boats; a huge Reichel/Pugh maxi, owned by the head of the software company SAP. ‘Morning Glory’ was first out of the harbour, followed by ‘Condor of Currabubula’,...
Cathy and I had a late breakfast on Sunday morning; it was still overcast outside, and looked like there could be more rain later in the day. Actually, despite having slept together the whole night – just sleeping, too – our mood was a sombre as the weather. “I miss her already, you know,” Cathy said out of the blue. I didn’t have to ask Cathy who ‘her’ was; I was also feeling sad at not being able to be with Lori for the next few weeks. “Me too,” I said. “How come Janelle gets to go with...
After the New Year’s Eve gig, we had a very lazy New Year’s Day. I think I slept in until close to noon; and did nothing that afternoon until Janelle came around just before dinner time. Or breakfast time for her ... stupid shift hours. We had time for a quickie, before she had to eat, and get ready for work. She promised that she would spend more time with me over the weekend. With the New Year’s gig out of the way, it was time to concentrate on the extensive schedule that Fifa had for us...
We pressed the intercom button, a voice answered and we said who we were and that we were there to see Bob Hudson to appear on his show. A minute later a man came to the door, unlocked it, and let us in. “G’day, I’m Marius, Bob’s producer. Come on in, you’re all a bit early, but we can go up to the studio,” he said. He led us up two flights of stairs, down a dimly lit corridor, and into the control room or the studio. The place looked like it was a dump, there were boxes piled in the...
My lips were so close to Cathy’s; I could feel her breath on me. Her eyes looked directly into mine, and I felt a huge yearning. I was about to pull her to me, letting my lips lock on hers, wanting to feel her tongue against mine, when I stopped myself, realising what was happening. “Think, William Morris, use your head, don’t blindly rush in!” I heard a voice in my head. “Don’t you remember what you told yourself, what you told Lori? You know what will happen if you give in to your desires,...
Just as everyone had warned me; second year electrical engineering was full on, right from the first day. In each of the subjects, the lecturers didn’t waste time reviewing what we might have studied in the previous year; it was head first into the deep end. I had some doubts about one of the subjects; Solid State Physics. To me, this looked like the sort of subject material that graduate students at Oxford University or MIT would cover; quantum mechanics, atomic particles, and similar...
The August school holidays were only three weeks away; these were going to be the last break before the HSC exams at the end of October. At lunchtime one day, we were all discussing the plans we had for the two weeks off school. “Well, I’ll be going over all of the previous exam papers,” Cathy said. Some of the others groaned, called her ‘swot’. David wasn’t being anywhere near as studious as his sister; he had arranged to take a train up to the Gold Coast to renew his acquaintance with his...
We managed to get all of our stuff into the back of the car; but it meant all four of us had to squeeze into the front seat. We worked it out; Megan sat in the centre next to me, then Lori was on the outside, with Jillian on her lap. At least it didn’t take all that long to drive back to Mona Vale, where we dropped Megan and Jillian off with their bags, before heading to Lori’s place. On the drive back to Mona Vale Megan told us about her experiences with the publicity photo shoot yesterday...
“I have no idea what’s got into my sister,” Mary Beth said as she sat across the table from me. Since this Monday would be the last time for over a month that Mary Beth and I would be able to have our regular lunch date, I had made a point of catching a bus into the city to meet her. Rather than eat at our usual location at the Quay, we had gone to a nice steakhouse in Phillip Street; just a short distance up from her office in Macquarie Street. It was going to be an expensive meal, but I...
I pulled up in the driveway of Jenny’s place, and knocked on the front door. Jenny answered; pulled me inside, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me deeply, even before I had a chance to put my stuff down. When she finally released me, I asked her where I could hang up my clothes for the evening, and she led me down the hallway to her room. Hannah was waiting there; she was just wearing a long white tee shirt, sitting on the double bed with her legs curled up underneath her. “So, how...
Late on Saturday afternoon Dave shifted into his job as one of the bartenders for the Circle. Just as he was ready for a first customer, Emma came racing up to the bar. She was alone and only wearing a monokini, unlike a few hours earlier when her parents and younger sister had visited and she was dressed conservatively. She extended her body over the bar and kissed Dave. “Thank you for being so nice to my parents and sister.” “Of course. They’re nice people. I take it they don’t know a...
“Good morning, I am Doctor Will Morris,” I said to the assembled class. “I assume you are all here for subject 6.710, Introduction to Computer Engineering. If anyone is in the wrong place, I suggest now you leave quietly, and get to wherever it is you should be.” I looked around the lecture theatre, there were maybe two hundred and fifty people, none of whom looked like leaving. Most of them had been in the previous lecture, the introductory lecture for Computing 1A. The challenge we had...
After the great Election Day results, Lisa and I had a fun day sailing; it was a Quartet Bowl race, our favourite. Lisa steered us to another win across the line; we were looking good for a first place in the series. On the way home, Lisa asked me what my thoughts were about Georgina. “You know she wants to sleep with us,” she said. “And both Fiona and I would like to sleep with her, too.” “I guess that’s two votes out of three in favour for it already,” I said. “No, that’s not how it...
I woke up early, feeling slightly disoriented until I realised where I was – in Cathy’s old bedroom, at the Parsons’s place, where she had slept until she took over Dianne’s room. It wasn’t yet six o’clock, and I could hear the sounds of the surf through the open window. Elsewhere in the house, all was quiet. I suspected Mr and Mrs Parsons would be sleeping in, and I didn’t know what time David returned, but I was well and truly asleep when he did. I was lying there, wondering whether to get...
Monday morning was dismal, pouring with rain, and I was waiting to hear from Cathy. She should have arrived home last night, and I thought she would have called me then. Maybe she got in late, and was tired, I told myself. By mid-morning, I hadn’t heard anything, and I was going to call her, when I saw the mail arrive. There was a break in the persistent rain, so I walked down to the letter box to see what had arrived. There was a letter for me; in Cathy’s writing, postmarked from Wednesday....
Foreword from the author This is Book II in the "Party of Five" series of novellas. That means, there's definitelt at least one more book out there that needs some love as well. Plus, it's really good to learn a bit more about the main characters and read their story, their first adventure together. Not that you really have to, me thinks, but I hope you'll like it. It's also good for the soul. In book II, there might not be so many funny moments (the definition of funny is always up...
I woke up refreshed and excited about the start of the new semester; once I had finished breakfast, and packed my notes and papers for the day’s lectures in my backpack, it was on my bike for the quick ride across to the campus. The first two sessions were the introductory lecture for Numerical Analysis, and a tutorial session; it looked to be pretty interesting (at least for a mathematics subject), the material that we would cover seemed quite interesting. The lecturer, Doctor Opie, appeared...
There were several additions to the entourage; Robyn and Sally were coming, along with their two kids; and of course the other two young kids, Bruce and Rachel’s son, Robert, and Andrew and Mandy’s daughter, Debbie would be coming along. Given that all four kids were a bit over a year old, they really couldn’t be left behind, and neither Paul nor Phil wanted to be away from their wives and kids for the three weeks. I could see in the future organizing tours like this one would become more...
February saw life start to return to normal. Back at Uni, we started to prepare for the upcoming semester. Preliminary enrolment figures for Computing I indicated we would have slightly over three hundred full time students, and another sixty or so in the part time class. During the summer break another large room had been equipped with terminals connected to the Department’s PDP 11/70, which had also been upgraded with additional memory and disk storage. As well, another 11/40 had been...
As Cathy and I had agreed, we spent the next few days apart. I did my piano grade exam practice for several hours each day, it was boring, but it had to be done. We did speak to each other every night to talk about the things we had done that day. The rain that had cleared on Monday afternoon had returned, so we would not have been able to do much outside anyway. Actually, thinking about it, may have led to more inside activities, including more of what we might discover in Cathy’s copy of...
After the first month or so of school, memories of the summer holidays had faded quickly. The study workload had increased dramatically, and I was glad I had taken the time to set myself a strict program. With schoolwork, practice for my next piano grade exam, and rehearsals and playing at the Mirage, Friday nights were my only regular free time. After the blow-up with Katey Jackson, I didn’t bother going to the youth group meetings on Sunday nights, which gave me some time to get things...
“Hey, Will, it’s Martin here,” the person on the phone said. “Just a reminder, it’s coming up time for your company’s Annual General Meeting, and there’s a few ideas I want to run past you.” He suggested it was time we appointed a ‘Board of Directors’, four or five people who I trusted to provide ‘corporate governance’ and review the major decisions of the company. “I assume at the moment, you’re pretty much running things by yourself, with input from Lisa, Michelle, Mary Beth?” he...
Dave kept hearing about various exploits his wives and friends enjoyed at the party. Heather admitted to doing five young men at the same time in the mattress room midway through the party. She said, “I was so horny, and I knew lots of hard, young cock was going to be the only way to sate my feelings.” Dave said, “I heard you pulled a train.” Heather snickered, “I went mega-slut last night. Before the train, I’d already fucked three guys from the Circle. After the train, I stayed available...
Tactics on this year’s Coffs race were quite different; the wind was a steady twelve knots from the southeast. Therefore, it was a spinnaker run all the way to Coffs; the perfect test for the new hounds asymmetrical number one. The larger boats made the best of the ideal conditions, we were twentieth across the line, several hours ahead of the next Young 88. We sailed reasonably well in the three short courses, but our overall result for the regatta was a tenth on scratch, fifth on handicap....