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A Trip of a Lifetime

By: Cromagnonman



I have become a grey nomad, you know, one of those guys who have packed up, bought a 4WD and caravan or motorhome and headed off into the wild blue yonder. I had set out from my home in South Australia on the trip of a lifetime, to travel around Australia. If you should come upon a caravan on the road with 'double disco' on the back, that's me, so stop me and say g'day. The name comes from the fact that I use a Land Rover Discovery to tow a Jayco Discovery van and, as the Land Rover is known as a 'Disco', I figured that I had a double disco. Being a diesel it wasn't the fastest rig on the road, but then I wasn't in a hurry.

I was two months into my trip, having hugged the coast through South Australia, with a short stop at the Coonawarra wine region to sample and stock up on some Cabernet Sauvignon for which that region is famous, before crossing the border into Victoria. The Great Ocean Road was spectacular, but I skirted Melbourne and spent a week on the Mornington Peninsular before heading to New South Wales. The fishing at Bermagui was good, as was the side trip from Batemans Bay to Canberra, our nation's capitol where I based myself in a caravan park so that I could spend a week visiting the National Gallery, War Museum and the National Archives where I did some research into the family history.

Not wanting to be a mobile chicane up the escarpment from Wollongong I took the Hume Highway route from Canberra to the southern outskirts of Sydney then the M7 and M2 to miss the heavy city traffic until I reached the freeway to Newcastle. From here on I hugged the coast and it was a month later that I crossed into Queensland where I blended in with the thousands of other retirees who had made this part of the world their home and enjoy their declining years.

It wasn't long before I was growing tired of all of the retiree focussed activities and decided that it was time to head across the top to the Kimberleys in Western Australia. This involved driving across some spectacularly desolate country. Because I wasn't exactly set up for serious off-road travelling, any deviation from the bitumen had to be well planned, a check with police on road conditions because rains in the gulf country can affect roads hundreds of kilometres away. It was also advisable to let the police know where you were travelling and when you were likely to reach your destination.

I headed west from Townsville with stops at Longreach for the Stockman's Hall of Fame and the QANTAS aviation museum before I reached Mt Isa. I spent a day there setting up for long distance travel, extra fuel and water, fresh batteries for my Sat Nav and satellite phone, test the EPIRB just in case, make sure the vital fluids in the Disco were okay and spend several hours in the Laundromat making sure that I had clean jocks and socks for at least a week. It was early in the morning when I drove out of Mt Isa on the Barkly Highway towards Tennant Creek, reaching Barkly Homestead mid afternoon. I decided to overnight there giving me an easy run to the Three Ways intersection with the Stuart Highway just north of Tennant Creek.

I was chatting to some fellow travellers who asked me where I was headed, "The Kimberleys via Darwin, why?"

"It's just that there was a woman in a Kombi, you know one of those really old ones with the split windscreen, we didn't like the sound of it and tried to stop her, but she insisted. I think that you should keep an eye out for her."

"Okay I will." I thought little of this as I hit the road the next morning but about 120 kilometres down the road, just past the 41 Mile Bore rest area I saw the burnt of shell of a Kombi a couple of hundred metres off the road. Stopping, I walked towards it fearing the worst. As I neared it I heard a sob and when I looked inside I saw her, covered in soot, sitting among the ruins quietly crying.

"Are you okay?" I realised as soon as I said it that it was bloody obvious that she wasn't okay. I waited for the abuse at my stupidity.

She looked at me, weighing up whether to waste any anger or frustration on me and decided against it. "My father will kill me."

"I can see that your bus has seen better days, but how are you?"

"If you really want to know, I'm tired, I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do now, everything I have has gone up in smoke."

"Do you have any burns or cuts?"

"No, I got well away before she really went up. I've heard stories about these things spontaneously combusting but I didn't think she would, Dad really looked after her and it was he that convinced me that I should use her for this trip. Shit, he'll kill me."

"Have you contacted anyone yet?"

"No, my phone is out of range and no-one has come past this morning and it's far enough off the road for anyone driving past at night to miss it."

"Did you manage to salvage anything?"

"Just a bag with some clothes that was in the front with me." She pointed to a backpack some fifty metres away.

"Look, there's a rest stop back up the road a bit, why don't you grab your bag and we'll head back there and I'll fix you a cuppa while I see if I can get through to the police to let them know what has happened and that you're okay." She threw her bag on the back seat and climbed in. I hadn't realised until then just how tiny she was, she wouldn't have been any more than one hundred and sixty centimetres, (about five-four) and probably no more than fifty kilos dripping wet.

I started the disco and did a U turn and minutes later pulled off the road and parked next to the windmill at the bore head. There was a picnic table and bench but not much else. I unlocked the van door and popped the roof to get to the makings. I filled the kettle and placed it on the gas stove while I got out two mugs and a couple of tea bags. "You're pretty well set up here, aren't you?" She was looking around at the van with its double island bed at the back, table and bench seats that converted into another bed at the front and the kitchen at the side.

"Yeah, it's comfortable enough and there's an annex that hangs off the side so I have a bit more room when I need it." The kettle boiled and I poured the water into the mugs. "Could you get the milk out of the fridge?" The fridge ran full time off solar panels on the roof so I wasn't using my gas for anything other than cooking. Minutes later we were seated at the table sipping our refreshing tea. "I'm Tom, by the way, Tom Collins."

"Julie, Julie Branson." She held her hand out and I took it in mine and shook it. "Where are you heading?"

"I was going to turn right at the Three Ways and head for Katherine and then across to the Kimberleys, but now I guess we'll have to stop in Tennant Creek and check in with the police, I can give them some details over the phone but they'll want a statement for their records." I got on the satellite phone and gave a brief statement to the police as to what had happened, that the driver of the vehicle was fine and not in need of medical attention and suggested that they contact Barkly Downs and let them know so that other travellers were aware that the police knew of the incident and were not bothered by enquiries from them. 

"Do you feel like company? I know that right now I don't want to be on my own."

"Sure, I think that I'd enjoy some company, I've just spent the last two months putting up with all the geriatrics on permanent holiday."

"And you're not one of them, right?"

"In a way I am, but in other ways I'm not ready to be a part of that crowd. I believe that we each have three ages, there's our chronological age that we can't hide from because it's on our passports and drivers licenses. Then there's our physical age which, depending on how I feel at any given time, varies from fifty to a hundred and fifty, and lastly there's our psychological age, and I've only recently given up on adolescence."

"Aren't we the philosopher?" She smiled at my attempt at comedy. She had a nice smile that spread to her eyes. I took the opportunity to take a closer look at her. She was a very tidy package, all the bits were in the right places and neatly put together. She was slim but not skinny and from what I could see, her breasts were bigger than I would have expected on such a small body.

"We'd better make tracks, we don't know how long we'll be with the cops." I stood up and rinsed the empty cups and put them back in the cupboard. I put the teabags in the rubbish bin, pulled the top down and locked the door. We were back on the road within minutes.

In Tennant Creek we made a full statement to the police and arranged for a tow truck to go out and collect the wreck, there was nothing worth salvaging so it would go straight to the wreckers yard and probably end up being crushed. We checked into a caravan park so that we could use the facilities and I could empty my portaloo (Portable toilet). I didn't feel like cooking so we had a meal at a pub and at around 9.00 we were back in the van watching one of my DVD's on TV, Julie chose it from my collection, I don't remember what it was because I was thinking about how to broach the subject of sleeping arrangements. Should I be gallant and offer her my bed and make up the spare bed or should I offer it to her? She looked at me as the credits scrolled across the screen. "Do you want a hand to make up the spare bed or can you trust me not to rape you if I sleep with you?"

Problem solved, but could I be trusted? "I can trust you but are you sure that you can trust me?"

"We'll have to see, won't we?"

What a weird night. We had been in bed for no more than a couple of minutes when she snuggled against me and kissed me on the lips. "Thank you for all that you've done for me." Then she kissed me again, this time with more passion.

"Didn't you say something about me trusting you not to rape me?"

"Am I raping you? I thought that I was trying to seduce you, there is a difference you know." I felt her hand on my cock and it was something that I hadn't felt for some time, a hand other than my own on my cock that is, so I let it stay there. I was glad that I did because she was good at what she was doing and in very little time I had a hard-on like I'd not seen or felt for years. I decided that two could play at her game so I reached for her pussy. I found that I hadn't completely forgotten what I was supposed to do and she was responding as I would have expected. She sucked my cock so I licked her pussy and when she was ready she opened her legs in an invitation that I couldn't have refused if I'd wanted to.

What happened next took me completely by surprise. After what I had believed was the best sex I'd ever experienced, after we'd both come, she burst into tears. "What's the matter, didn't you enjoy it? I know I did, that was the best love making I've had in years, possibly forever."

"It was fine, the best, it was all that I'd dreamt it would be, you are a great lover, it's just that, I have never had loving this good, ever. I was married for years to a man who had no concept that the woman should get some enjoyment from sex, it was a case of 'whip it in, whip it out and wipe it'. That was a small part of what I had to endure and this is just so different, so much better. My tears are tears of joy."

I held her to me and made appropriate consoling noises until she stopped crying. "You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to, but it may help to get it out in the open. I get the feeling that you haven't been able to talk to anyone about it." 

"Oh I've talked about it, I've talked to psychologists and counsellors who nodded sagely and told me all of the same positive things like I have my whole life ahead of me, but they couldn't accept that I was totally trapped in that life. I've talked to my mother and father who couldn't understand why I'd put up with it for so long, why I didn't just walk away from him. They didn't understand that I had walked away from him, several times, but each time her tracked me down and beat me. Each time was worse than the last until he flew into a jealous rage because he had misunderstood a situation and I ended up in hospital and he ended up in gaol. That is why I'm out here in the middle of nowhere. He's due for parole any day now and I don't want to be around when he gets out."

"Why don't you take out a restraining order so that he can't hurt you?"

'I've done that before but he doesn't care about them, they don't exist as far as he's concerned. If he wants to beat the crap out of me he does and to hell with the consequences. I'm not safe while he's around, I just hope that he can't find me. Oh shit, I've just realised that I've involved you in my problems, I'll leave in the morning."

"We'll leave in the morning, I can't have you running scared because of him. Now what was that you were saying about me being a fantastic lover?" I drew her to me and kissed her. She was stiff at first but eventually she relaxed and we were soon making love again. 

Julie eventually drifted off to sleep but I just lay there beside her trying to come to terms with this whole thing. At first I thought that it was because the sex was great after the years of a single and lonely life since my wife died. I hadn't sought another relationship because I thought I'd never find one as good as the one I had with Suzie. Then I thought that it was because I had felt sorry for her having lost everything when her van went up in flames, but then I realised my feelings for her could go a lot deeper than those, I really liked her, her smiles though few and far between, when they appeared lit up her whole face. It was as if, after years of misery and suffering, she saw a glimmer of hope for a new and better life, hopefully with me. Then the reality of the situation kicked in, who was I kidding? She was a good twenty years younger than me, could she ever contemplate a life with me? The doubts set in and my mind went into freefall and I was still struggling to get some sleep when I felt her stirring against me, then I heard her voice, softly, almost as if she was talking in her sleep. "If you're worried about whether we have a future, let's just take it one step at a time. Right now I couldn't think of a place that I'd rather be than here, with you." Who needs sleep anyway?

I was self conscious about being seen with her, I even thought of introducing her as my daughter but she told me over lunch after we had checked into a caravan park at Katherine that if I even thought of doing that, she'd walk. "Look Tom, at our age the difference means little. You said yourself that you have a physical age that differs from your chronological age, for which by the way, I'm grateful. So the fact that I'm forty-five and you're eleventy-seven means nothing to me. If other people have a problem with that, then it's their problem, not ours." To reinforce her statement she stood up and came to me and stooping, she kissed me, gave herself to me.

We very nearly missed the boat for our trip down the Katherine River gorge. I was a little out of breath after the hundred metre sprint from the car park, or maybe it was the energy spent in the caravan before that had sapped my strength. In between gasps I managed to get some words out. "Eleventy-seven was ten years ago."

"Were we making love that long, it certainly felt like it," she looked at me with a most lascivious expression on her face that had some of the other passengers jealous, "I enjoyed every minute of those ten years." This was followed by a kiss that left little doubt as to her expectations for the future.

Two days later, not all of which was spent in sight-seeing, we headed for Darwin. It was an easy enough drive although the road trains barrelling past at speed tossed the van around a little, I was glad that I had fitted stabilisers to the draw bar. As we approached a truck stop on the southern outskirts Julie suddenly ducked her head. "Don't stop, keep driving! Shit, bugger, bum and fuck!"

"What's the problem?"

"Did you see the man talking to the driver of the road train nearest to the road?"

"Yes."

"That man is, or was, my husband. How the fuck did he know that I was up here?" We checked into a caravan park and I opened the van so that she could take her mobile phone off the charger and call her parents. She dialled their number to be transferred to their message bank. "That's strange, my parents aren't answering. I don't like the sound of that. I think I'll call my brother to see if He's seen or heard from them." Another call, this time it was answered. "Hi Jase, have you seen or heard from Mum or Dad?"

I watched as the colour drained from her face. "My god, no, how are they? I've got to fly home." She turned to me. "Could you lend me the money for the plane trip back to Sydney? I know that it's asking a lot of you but my parents are in hospital. Wayne, that's my ex, he beat both of them until they told him where I was. Dad is in a bad way, his spleen is badly damaged and he has a broken jaw. Mum is badly bruised but nothing is broken. The police are looking for him but I doubt if they have thought that he would have breached the conditions of his parole by leaving the state, so they're concentrating on his friends and known associates."

"Okay, first things first, I won't lend you the fare." I saw he face drop. "We are going to the airport and book seats on the first flight out." Her face rose again. "Then we are going to go to the police and report the sighting and hope that he doesn't find us before we leave. Come on." Minutes later we were at the police station. "We would like to report a person who has breached the conditions of his parole and is a threat to Julie here."

The sergeant looked disinterested, he reached for a pad and pen and looked at us. "This person that you believe has breached parole, what is his name?"

"Wayne Branson, he's my ex-husband and he was released on parole in the last couple of days from prison in New South Wales. He was doing ten years for assault causing grievous bodily harm to me. At the time of the assault we were separated and I had taken out an AVO that was supposed to keep him away from me. It didn't. The police in Sydney are looking for him in connection with a serious assault on my parents. He beat them to force them to tell him where I was, it must have worked because we saw him at a truck stop just south of the city. I would like to have the AVO extended to cover me here, although I don't think it will do much good."

"Let me see if Sydney is interested in him, don't go away." He went off, presumably to call his NSW counterparts. His expression when he returned had changed from indifference to concern. "My colleagues in Sydney would indeed like to have words with your ex-husband, so you'd better give me more details."

Julie told him as much as she could and it was while she was speaking that I came to fully understand what she had endured for so long and why she was as scared as she was when she saw him. We finally left the police station and headed back to the caravan park. We had only just got out of the Disco when he stepped out from behind the neighbouring van. "So you slut, you thought that you could escape from me did you?"

"Who are you and what do you want?" I tried to sound as calm as possible.

"Why don't you fuck off and let me speak to my wife."

"No, I think I should stick around."

"Suit yourself, it's your funeral." He turned towards Julie. "You didn't really think that you could hide from me forever did you? What did it take me, two days to find you across the other side of the country? Now are you coming back with me or not?"

"No I'm not. You aren't my husband any more, you gave up the right to call yourself my husband when you beat me senseless."

"I had every right to beat you, you were fucking another man."


A Trip of a Lifetime



"How many times have I told you, I was not fucking another man. The man you claimed I was involved with was my boss who gave me a ride home from work because you came and borrowed my car and didn't bring it back in time for me to drive it home. He was just doing me a favour because you were off doing something or someone, and forgot all about me. This all came out in court."

"You were all lying just so that you could get rid of me, send me to gaol."

"You did beat me so badly that I ended up in hospital, or don't you remember that?"

"A couple of love taps, if you hadn't been listening to your boss, or whoever that was, you would have accepted your punishment like you'd done before. He put you up to this and he lied so I'd go to gaol."

"I think that you should leave Julie alone, go back to where you came from and leave her in peace."

"And who the fuck do you think you are? Oh I get it, she's fucking you and you're her knight in shining armour come to save her from the nasty villain, what are you going to do, hit me with your Zimmer frame?" He stepped away from the caravan he'd hid behind and it was then that I saw that he had a knife in his hand, not just any knife, it was a fishing knife with a long, thin and presumably razor sharp filleting blade. I stepped in front of Julie and handed her my mobile phone, I'd already dialled 000. He saw what I had done and lunged towards me. That was his first big mistake because, years ago, when I was playing rugby union my coach taught me a trick or two about bringing down a larger man without damaging myself while rendering him temporarily harmless. As he rushed me I dropped my shoulder and buried it into his stomach. I used his momentum to lift and turn him so that when he crashed to the ground he was on his back, and with the point of my shoulder in his solar plexus all the wind was forced from his lungs. 

"Call the police, it should already be ringing." Julie looked at me in shock, and then she reacted. I rolled him onto his stomach, grabbed one of the guy ropes from the annex pole and, forming a loop through the eye-splice, I looped it over his forearms and pulled it tight just above his elbows. I made a couple of loops and also pulled them tight before looping the rope around his neck and, pulling his legs up as far as I could, looped the rope around his ankles and tied it off. He was trussed up like a Christmas turkey and there was no way that he could escape.

"Oh my god you're bleeding." Julie pointed at the blood stain on my shirt that was growing bigger by the minute.

"Yeah, I though I felt something." I tried to sound calm but inside I knew that this wasn't good. "Under the driver's seat of the Disco is a first aid kit. Grab it and get out as many bandages as you can find, then I want you to place it over the wound and press it as hard as you can to try and stop the bleeding. 

We could hear the rapidly approaching siren of the police car and pretty soon one screeched to a halt next to my van. "Please help us, call an ambulance, Tom's been stabbed." One of the policemen was on the phone to the ambos while the other had a look at Wayne who had just managed to regain his breath. He struggled a few times before he realised the futility of it all and stopped.

"Your work?" The cop asked, pointing to the restraints.

"Yeah. It was the best that I could do under the circumstances."

"When did you realise that you'd been stabbed?"

"After I'd finished tying him up. Oh I felt something after I'd tackled him but it was the least of my worries at that time."

The ambulance arrived and the news got worse. "The entry wound has stopped bleeding but there's internal bleeding. We have to get you to hospital ASAP." He then proceeded to destroy a perfectly good shirt just so he could stick a pad over the wound. I was loaded onto a stretcher , a Jellco was stuck into my arm and I was hooked up to a drip. I was strapped to the stretcher and lifted into the back of the ambulance.

"Can I come too?" Julie asked.

"Are you a relative?"

"Fiancé, almost." Those were the last words I spoke before the lights went out.

My next conscious moment was Julie holding a newspaper in front of me. "You're something of a hero, do you know that?" The Banner read; 'CITIZEN ARRESTS DANGEROUS CRIMINAL'. "You were great, I've never seen anything like it, one minute he was charging at you and the next he was on the ground and you were trussing him up. It was all so quick, I couldn't believe it." She put the newspaper on the cabinet next to the bed and bent over me to kiss me. "You are my hero."

"What happened to Sydney?"

"I cancelled the flights. I wasn't going to leave you here like this. You very nearly died, the knife ruptured some serious things inside you, and you were in the operating theatre for hours. I've spoken to Jason and he told me that Dad is out of danger. He told him about what happened here and Dad smiled and told him 'great'. I promised Jason that I'd, we'd get back to see him as soon as possible. There's a court hearing tomorrow and the NSW police have sent a team up to apply for extradition. I'm told that the lawyers will be here tomorrow to get evidence about what happened to us. It appears as if Wayne is claiming that you attacked him."

"There's something seriously wrong with him if he thinks that." I put out the arm that wasn't attached to anything important and drew her to me. I was smothered in kisses and tears of joy and relief, that chapter of her life was almost a thing of the past and she allowed her feelings to pour from her.

The mood was interrupted by the arrival of a doctor and nurse. "Awake at last. How do you feel?"

"At the moment pretty good but then that may have something to do with what's been shoved into my arm. Tell me, was it as bad as Julie would have me believe?"

"It could have been worse, he missed your kidneys and spleen, just. But the knife penetrated the small intestine and it was leaking fluids into you body cavity that had no right to be there. It could easily have been fatal but for the fact that you got to the hospital when you did and some pressure was brought to bear on us to save you, and it wasn't just this lady here pleading with us, the police wanted you alive as well. Now," he looked pointedly at Julie, "I think that you need some peace and quiet to regain your strength, against my better judgement you have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow." He scribbled some notes on my chart and headed for the door. I grabbed Julie's hand to stop her leaving and she looked pleadingly at the doctor. "You can stay for a while, but no excitement."

There isn't a lot of room on hospital bed but I didn't care because it meant that Julie and I were almost as close as we had been while we were making love, only a sheet and one of those cotton blankets separated us. She was gentle with me, not wanting to cause me any more pain than I was feeling at the moment, but then I wasn't feeling any pain. A combination of her kisses and the pain medication took care of all that.

I wish that the next day had never happened. My hospital room was packed to the rafters with lawyers, policemen, reporters, a manacled and angry Wayne and the only redeeming feature, Julie. Hovering in the background was the doctor, looking about as unhappy as me. After all of the introductory bullshit it boiled down to who got first crack at Wayne. The purpose of all this mayhem was to get a statement from me so that a decision could me made as to the next step in what was fast developing in to a saga of monumental proportions. It would also clarify what happens next. The Territory prosecutor claimed that as he had broken the law and been arrested in their jurisdiction, they should prosecute him in Darwin and he should serve whatever sentence is handed down here. The NSW lawyers argued that as he had breached the conditions of his parole and additionally offended in their jurisdiction before he travelled to Darwin, they had first claim on him.

A spanner was thrown into the works by the court appointed lawyer who claimed that his client had not in fact assaulted me but that I had attacked him and that he was merely defending himself. This matter had to be resolved before any criminal trial could take place. 

"Mister Collins, could you tell us in your own words what happened the day before yesterday when you returned to your caravan after you and Ms Branson made a statement to the police concerning Mister Branson here?"

I related in as much detail as I could what had happened, how we had arrived back at the van to find Wayne waiting for us and how he had lunged at Julie and I intervened, disabling him but receiving a knife wound in the process, all very straight forward I would have thought." A knife was produced. "Do you recognise this knife?"

"I can't be sure but it looks like one that was in my tackle box, but then it is a very common brand of fishing knife that is available from any tackle shop or department store that sells fishing tackle."

"We looked in your tackle box and there was no knife there, can you explain that?"

"No, I haven't had cause to use my fishing gear for about a month so I can't be sure whether it was there or not. Are you suggesting that I deliberately stabbed myself so that Wayne would be arrested?" I looked at the doctor. "Doctor, the path of the knife blade, could that be consistent with me stabbing myself?"

"If, as I assume, you're not in any way double jointed, there is not way that you could have inflicted the wound on yourself."

"She did it, that's what happened." Wayne shouted.

"No! I would never do that, not to Tom."

"So I was right you slut, you have been fucking him!"

Added to this I got the impression that Wayne was attempting to work the temporary insanity angle because, while all of this was going on, he was blowing kisses at Julie and miming the fact that he loved her and desperately wanted to be with her in between trying to chew through the handcuffs or banging himself on the face with his clenched fists. Julie studiously ignored his antics while the others were busy trying to sort out the legalities of the situation.

The matter came to a head when Julie notice that I was looking pale and came to my side to care for me. The doctor had also noticed the change in me and was trying to push his way through the crowd. Julie wiped my face with a cloth and bent to kiss me. Wayne went absolutely ape shit, he tried to lunge at Julie and me and had to be physically restrained by the police. "All right that's it, I'm going to have to ask you to sort it all out somewhere else, my patient is clearly not well enough to continue with this. I'm sure that the legal niceties can be sorted elsewhere so I'm asking you all to leave, now!" there was considerable grumbling among the lawyers while the media contingent was heading off to file their story, complete with lurid details of the proceedings.

Julie sat on my bed and kissed me again. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, now. I was really getting scared of Wayne, I had visions of him breaking free and hurting you and I wouldn't have been able to stop him."

"I was thinking that he was going to try to get you. There is a minor problem with the case. The knife that he used was yours, it came from your tackle box, and he's claiming that all he wanted to do was talk reasonably and rationally with me but you attacked him. I think that when you took the annex out of the luggage compartment in the front of the van you must have left it unlocked and he had a look in there for a weapon."

"Those locks are only to keep the honest out and I don't think that Wayne is all that honest. I don't suppose that the good doctor has given any indication of when I can get out of here, has he?"

"No. You're not able to eat proper food yet and you have a drain in your back. When everything has stabilised he'll think about it, he's talking days not hours." She put a hand on my cheek and kissed me again. "Don't worry, I'm not going to run away."

Two days and many visits from Julie later I bade farewell to Darwin Hospital, at least for a week. I was to have a check up in seven days before they would give me a clearance to continue my, our, trip. So we did the tourist bit and made some tentative but satisfying love in between times. Life was getting good again.

Question: When you were a kid did you ever get caught balancing on a stool reaching for your mother's cache of chocolates on top of the kitchen cupboard and she snuck in and kicked the stool out from under you? Can you remember what it felt like when you came crashing back to earth? It took one phone call for those memories to come flooding back. It took one phone call from the police for my world to come crashing down in a screaming heap. "Mister Collins, Sergeant Roberts here, I have some bad news for you. For some inexplicable reason known only to him, the Magistrate has released Wayne Branson on bail pending his trial. He totally ignored the NSW police application for extradition and ruled that, as there was some doubt as to his guilt on the charges arising from the assault on you he would not remand him in custody. We are sending a police car to collect the two of you and you will be placed in a hotel under close guard. You are to pack just enough clothes for a few days, leave everything else as it is, I'll explain when I see you in five minutes." 

Ten minutes later we were in the back of an unmarked police car weaving around the streets of Darwin in the belief that Wayne could somehow be following us. When he considered it to be safe enough Roberts headed for a small boutique hotel well away from the CBD. "You'll be safe here." He said as we unpacked our meagre possessions. "There will be police stationed in the rooms on either side and an officer has taken over the role of receptionist. We've done this before without trouble so you will be safe."

"Can we go out, or are we stuck in this room for the duration?" I asked.

A smile came over his face. "You are to stay here except for meals in the dining room. I would have thought that you would have welcomed the opportunity to be together for some uninterrupted recuperation and, you know." He left no doubt as to what he thought we would be doing, and the look on Julie's face confirmed his thoughts.

By the time that we had to go downstairs for dinner Julie and I had found perfection in our lovemaking. Because I was still a little stiff and sore from the repair work done on me we had to search for methods that placed no strain on me. She became the most proficient cowgirl, both forward and reverse although I preferred the forward, the sight of those magnificent, larger than they had any right to be, breasts bouncing up and down in time to her movements was enough to keep my saddle horn rigid for longer than I could ever remember. 

The culinary interruption was pleasant enough. We were joined by Roberts who had decided that he just couldn't turn down the opportunity of a restaurant meal at police expense. "We have your van staked out just in case he decides to pay you a visit tonight. In a way I hope that he does because we can go back to the magistrate and plead that you are not safe while he is at large.

We had both drunk a glass or several of an excellent wine and were feeling really happy for once. A long communal shower complete with mutual sudsing of important body places put us in the mood for the night to follow. I don't know whether it was the numbing effect of the wine but I was much more adventurous in my lovemaking and Julie responded enthusiastically. If there had been a CCTV camera on our performance I would expect it to go viral on the NET. I hope that there isn't a camera in the room.

We almost missed breakfast next morning and Roberts commented that we looked as if we had not had any sleep. Could there have been a camera? "Well guys, I have some good news and some bad news, which would you like first?"

"We'll start with the good."

"We arrested Wayne just after midnight and have charged him with attempted murder." 

"That's great! Now I suppose it's time for the bad news."

"Tom, Double Disco is no more."

"What happened?"

"Well, you know we had the caravan park staked out in case he showed up? He second guessed us and slipped in another way. The first that we knew of it was when he torched your van. He'd used an accelerant, probably petrol, and splashed it liberally over the van. After he set it on fire he stood outside the door yelling abuse, he thought at you."

"Burn you fucking cunt! Burn along with that old bastard you've been fucking. This is the last time that you'll fuck anyone you two-timing bitch! I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget!" He was surprised when the police appeared and arrested him. He was even more surprised when he was told that neither of you were in the van and gave a great impression of someone who had completely lost it. He was still ranting and raving when he was locked up."

"When does he front the court?"

Roberts looked at his watch. "He should be in front of the Magistrate about now."

I poured another cup of coffee and looked at Julie. "What a mess. I guess I'll have to contact my insurance company and lodge a claim. I can't remember if the fine print has anything to say about arson, but I'll find all of that out. In the mean time we'll see what there is to salvage, then I guess we should fly to Sydney to see your parents and decide what the future holds."

"After Sydney we are coming back here and continue our trip, that's what the future holds." She reached across the table and took my hand. "Let's finish breakfast and check on what there is left of our stuff."

One Disco was dead and the other badly burnt but salvageable, if the insurance assessor agrees, if not I'll have to look for a new one, and a new van. I rang the company's Darwin office and they sent an assessor out straight away. He was not impressed given the amount of damage, declaring both to be write-offs and, given that both were insured for an agreed amount which was more than their market value, I could understand his lack of enthusiasm.

I then contacted the airline to arrange for our flight to Sydney. We had several hours to kill so we went shopping to replenish our severely depleted wardrobes and get cases to put the clothes in. We returned to the hotel in time to see Roberts emerging. "Good I've caught you. I have great news, this Magistrate was not as lenient as the previous one and I think that he was glad to see the last of Wayne because he'll be on the next flight out to Sydney."

"Which flight is that?"

"There's one at six, why?"

"We're going to have to change our plans because we've booked on the same flight and I don't think that's a good idea, do you?"

"No. Leave it to me, I'll see what I can do." He went inside to the reception desk and spent several minutes on the phone. We had followed him in and when he replaced the receiver he turned to us. "You are booked on the first flight out in the morning. I spoke to the airline and explained the situation, under normal circumstances if you'd cancelled at the last minute the airline is under no obligation to refund your fare so you would have had to pay twice. When I told them it was because of a court decision that made it impossible for you travel on the same flight as Wayne they agreed to waive that rule in your case. I'll see you in the morning and give you a ride to the airport. That will save you trying to find transport yourself."

"Thanks, would you like to join us for dinner tonight?"

"Sorry, no can do, thanks all the same." With that he was gone.

We unpacked our shopping and packed the clothes into our new cases. "Oh, you're not going to wear your sexy new PJ's tonight?" I had lashed out and bought new pyjamas to wear in Sydney and they were anything but sexy. Since Julie and I began sleeping together I hadn't bothered about wearing anything to bed, or at anytime we were in private. We were comfortable in our bodies and I particularly loved the way her breasts seemed to move independently from the rest of her body when she walked and anytime she got close enough I would reach for them. She spent a lot of time walking close to me, like now.




A Trip of a Lifetime



Roberts rang from the foyer and we had to scramble into our clothes. "I came early because I figured you two wouldn't be out of bed, I had to give you time to make yourself decent for your trip." He was getting all too familiar. 

The flight passed without incident and Jason was at the airport to meet us. "How's Dad?" Julie asked after planting a platonic kiss on his cheek.

"He's out of hospital but he's in a private clinic because he needs special care during his recovery. Mum is lonely and not happy, she'll be better when she sees you. Something about you isn't the same as the last time I saw you."

"For starters I'm happy now and it's thanks to Tom. If it wasn't for him I'd probably be dead by now, what he did to Wayne was amazing. We are happy now that this is all over."

"That reminds me. Wayne arrived back last night, as you probably already know, and he was sent straight back to gaol pending his trial on the assault on Mum and Dad. I don't think he'll see the outside for a good many years. According to the news, once he serves whatever sentence he gets here he goes straight back to Darwin to face the charges against him, including attempted murder. He'll probably die inside."

We arrived at Julie's parents' house and her mother was already out of the door by the time we had stopped in the driveway. She and Julie met half way in a huge hug. There were tears of joy and a lot of incoherent babbling from both of them for several minutes until Julie stepped back and grabbed my hand. "Mum, this is Tom, the man I owe everything to."

I held out my hand. "Pleased to meet you." I looked closely at her mother and the future looked bright for me. Julie looked exactly like her mother would have looked thirty years ago and she was still a very attractive woman.

"Call me Sylvia. I have to thank you for looking after my girl. We owe you a lot."

"Think nothing of it, if anything I should be thanking you and Julie for saving me from a life of boredom, Julie's a wonderful woman and I don't know what I would do without her."

We had lunch and during the afternoon the family was regaled with tales of derring-do, of how I had single-handedly arrested a dangerous criminal. She embellished the facts somewhat and I tried to play down my contribution to the outcome with little success. Late in the afternoon we called into the clinic to visit her father who looked in a bad way but brightened considerably when he caught sight of Julie walking quickly towards him. More tears of joy and incoherent babbling. "Dad, this is Tom, the man I owe my life to."

I held out my hand and he shook it with his one free hand. "Pleased to meet you." His response was muffled by the fact that he couldn't open his mouth more than a couple of millimetres, but his eyes thanked me. We stayed for half an hour until the nurses started rattling things to let us know that they had work to do. 

Dinner was a pleasant enough affair, the food was good, the wine was good, the conversation relaxed and informal and it was around ten before Julie and I found ourselves in bed. During the post coitus hiatus, just when I was feeling that all was well in the world, Julie said something to me that shook me. "Darling, my mother fancies you."

"What?"

"My mother fancies you, she thinks that you're a great guy and, going on what I've told her about us, she thinks that you'd be a great lover."

"Okay, answer me one thing; are you telling me this because you want to palm me off on her so you'll be free of me, or is there some other reason, because let me tell you something. I love you, and when I love someone I practice monogamy very seriously. I believe that if I were to even to contemplate another woman it means that I cannot truly be in love. If you don't love me in the same way now would be a good time to tell me." 

"I do love you, it's just that, well, I thought that. . . . Maybe I should start again. Wayne led me to believe that it was every man's fantasy to do it with two women and when I refused he would get angry and beat me. But I dug my heels in and he went looking elsewhere for his fantasies. I don't know whether it was that he couldn't handle me not giving in to him or that beating me all the time was getting boring. I needed to see if you had the same fantasy. That doesn't alter the fact that Mum fancies you."

"I'll settle for her just liking me as a prospective son." I held her to me and we went to sleep. But I was unsettled by this turn of events, so much so that in the morning I spoke to her again about it. "I know that you love me and I love you, but I need to be sure of myself and of you. I have to see the insurance company today to follow up on my claim and then I want to have a look for a replacement caravan and probably another Disco to pull it with. I'll arrange for them to be freighted to Darwin to continue my journey. Now, if you are sure of your feelings for me I'll see you at the airport, but if you're not there I'll understand and cut my losses." I took her in my arms and kissed her to reinforce my feelings for her and she responded as I would have expected. I left it at that.

It was a busy day and the insurance company paid out on both Discos so I went to a Land Rover dealer and bought a new S3 Disco ex Darwin and then contacted the caravan company and found that they had a similar caravan in stock that they would ship to Darwin for me. Business transacted I had lunch and headed for the airport.

By the time my flight was called I was bored stiff with killing time and worried because Julie hadn't arrived. I dawdled to the departure gate but still no sign of her. I boarded the plane and settled into my window seat over the wing. A trick for plane passengers; if you can get the seat immediately behind the emergency exit you will get more leg room and this is really helpful on long haul flights. I'm telling you this, not because I think you should know it, but to take my mind off the fact that Julie has missed the flight.

There intercom burst into life; "Ladies and gentlemen, there will unfortunately be a short delay due to a checked-in passenger failing to board the plane. The ground crew will have to remove this person's luggage from the hold before we can proceed. The crew apologises for this delay and we will be airborne as soon as possible." Damn, more time to think about what's her name not being here.

It was about then that I thought I heard someone walking down the isle from the rear of the plane. Then I thought I heard someone sit in the seat next to me. Then I felt someone's hand on my arm and a soft voice. "That was close, I didn't think that I'd make it. I got to the gate just as it had closed and took a lot of pleading and tears to get them to let me board. I think that they felt sorry for me missing the flight that my fiancé was on so they invented a story about a non-boarding passenger so that they could delay departure. If I'd had check-in bags you would have been on your way to Darwin without me." I turned to her to see those tears of joy again. We somehow resisted the temptation to join the mile-high club but as soon as we got back to our hotel room we were at it like a couple of randy rabbits.

"Mother told me I was a bloody fool." I was getting used to comments out of left field after love making. "When I told her that I had raised the topic of her fancying you and your reaction, she said that I was a fool to risk my relationship with you with that suggestion and that to think that she would have been interested in a three-way involvement with us was equally stupid."

"Your mother is a wise woman. I like her."

"I don't mind you liking her, just don't let it develop any further."

"No chance of that." I was caressing her again, my fingers playing seductive tunes on her nipples making her squirm and sending her hand once more to my quickly responding cock. "That brings me to another topic."

"Oh yes, and what might that be?" She had me by the balls and was applying gentle but threatening pressure to them.

"I know that it is acceptable in this day and age for couples to live together, to travel together, without being married, but that's not my scene. I feel that if we are to continue on this trip, to live together even, we should think about getting married."

"Is that your feeble attempt at a proposal?"

"No, it's me raising the prospect of marriage for us to think about. I'm not rushing you for a decision or anything, within the next five minutes will be fine." She let go my balls and began to stroke my cock again. My hand moved down her body to the entrance of her pussy and a finger slipped inside causing her hips to move, encouraging me to greater efforts, and before you could say 'Bugs Bunny' we were at it again, only this time there was a new purpose to our love making. Half an hour later, while I was puffing and blowing like an out of condition marathon runner, she whispered in my ear. "Does that answer your question?"

"What question?"

"Didn't you ask me to marry you, or was I just dreaming?"

I held her to me. "No you weren't dreaming. Now can we get some sleep, if we keep this up I'm in danger of being shagged to death before we can get married."

"Is that all this is to you, shagging?"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

The next few days were almost controlled mayhem. The caravan arrived by train, it had travelled from Sydney to Adelaide and then to Darwin because, even though this would appear to be a long way around, it was the most direct route. It and my new Land Rover Discovery had to be registered and prepared for the next part of our journey across the top of Western Australia to the Kimberleys. But it wasn't all work and no play for us, we took in the sights around Darwin and absorbed as much of the diverse culture and food as we could in the time available between our preparations and our bed. There's a lot to do in readying our vehicles for the trip. We had to replace all of the bedding and utensils lost when the old rig was torched, we had a couple of short shakedown runs to get the feel of the new rig. There was a considerable difference in performance between the old Disco and the new one, the little four cylinder diesel was almost pedestrian compared with the new V6 turbo charged diesel, so I had to be careful I didn't overdo it.

When we eventually left Darwin for Katherine we were as prepared as we could be for the trip ahead, we had planned our itinerary so that we didn't travel more than a couple of hundred kilometres a day and the places where we would base ourselves at a caravan park and undertake day trips off-road such as the stop at Halls Creek so that we could explore the Bungle Bungles, an amazing group of bee-hive shaped rock pillars jutting out of the landscape that featured alternating strata of contrasting coloured rock. There was also the stay at Derby and the scenic flight over the 'horizontal waterfalls' where the tidal ebb and flow between the ocean and Lake Talbot is forced through a narrow choke on the cliff. The tidal range can be as much as 10 metres (30 feet) and the sheer force of water rushing through the narrow gap into an impoundment then through a second narrow gap into the lake creates this awe-inspiring phenomena.

We checked into a caravan park at Broome and Julie rang her mother to be told the good news that her father was now home and able to eat properly. Julie seemed a little homesick and missing her parents so I took the opportunity of, while she was resting one afternoon, calling them and suggesting that they come and join us for a holiday. I had an ulterior motive and when I explained what I had in mind Sylvia agreed. We planned for their arrival to be a surprise for Julie and, along with the other surprise I had planned, it would be a memorable day all round, I hoped. 

We spent our days exploring the museums and galleries that told the story of the pearling industry that thrived in Broome for many years. I marvelled at the stamina of the pearl divers who had to stumble around in massive diving suits scooping up the pearl shells from the bottom of the ocean. The cemetery was crammed with the graves of those divers from many countries that lost there lives pursuing the rewards available to them.

Late one afternoon we stood on Cable Beach watching as the sun slowly dipped into the Indian Ocean. I had my arm around her and she was hugging me. "What could be more perfect than this, being with the man I love in this magnificent setting?"

A man standing near us overheard her comment. "My thoughts exactly, it is the most perfect setting, I don't know how we mere mortals can top this."

"I know how. Julie, how would it be if we were to get married, right here, right now?"

"What! How? I'd love that more than anything, but how?"

"Darling, this man is a Marriage Celebrant, and he can perform the ceremony."

"But we'd need witnesses, we can't just go up to someone and ask them to be witnesses."

"Would we do?" Julie spun around to see her parents standing behind us. She was torn between rushing to them and hugging me. I won.

"You Tom Collins, are the most hopeless romantic I have ever met. How long have you been planning this?" Turning, she ran to her parents. "And you two, you said nothing when I spoke to you."

"We were sworn to secrecy." Frank, her father, spoke in a much clearer voice than when I had met him not that long ago, there was little sign of the damage caused by Wayne's violent attack on him, and his smile told of his happiness that Julie had found her own happiness.

It was the most perfect ceremony, but then I'm biased, and following a celebratory dinner Julie and I found ourselves once more in a hotel bed. It appeared to me that some of our best work was done in hotel beds, maybe I should sell the caravan and we use hotels instead. "You are without doubt the most amazing man, my darling husband." My new wife whispered as she proceeded to explore me from head to, well not quite toe, but heading in that direction. "And he is the most amazing cock, so strong yet gentle, so soft yet hard, so . . . . " She stopped talking to suck him into her mouth. She had a very expressive mouth, and I had to take her head in my hands and gently ease him from her so that I could ease him into her pussy.

If her mouth was expressive her pussy had the power to hold my interest for much longer than I had ever experienced in my life, we swapped position several times and each of the new positions was better than the one that went before. We took our time, savouring every subtle nuance until eventually, inevitably, the floodgates opened in a prolonged and glorious mutual orgasm. Replete and depleted we drifted off to sleep and bade farewell to a perfect day. This was indeed the trip of a lifetime, and it wasn't over yet.