1 comments/ 18569 views/ 2 favorites Slow Train to Oblivion By: Cromagnonman I sat in my sleeper compartment as the train carried me inexorably towards oblivion, a place where I could make the choice between starting a new life, and ending this one before that could happen. I was not just running away from my old life, I was running away from my old memories, old hurts. Okay, so I'm a coward, what's wrong with that? Someone once said 'he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.' I'm doing the first part, I've fought and bailed before I got too hurt, and I'm about to decide whether I want to fight another day or not fight. I chose the Ghan for two reasons; as a train it took its own good time getting from Adelaide to Darwin, and that suited me fine, and it crossed some of the most desolately beautiful countryside in the world. The Ghan was named after the Afghan cameleers who, with their ships of the desert, helped to open up the lines of communication through the centre of Australia. Its predecessor was a slow, rattly, un-airconditioned series of wooden carriages hauled by, firstly steam locomotives and then diesel, along desperately unstable tracks that would buckle under the oppressive heat or disappear under oceans of brown flood waters on the rare occasions that it rained, stranding the train and its passengers for days, sometimes weeks. The new Ghan was well appointed and airconditioned, it had lounge cars, buffet cars and dining cars, none of which were of particular interest to me. I went to the dining car for meals and stayed only long enough to eat what was put in front of me and not long enough to get involved with my fellow passengers. I was travelling light, having sold or given away my past life, my memories. I had not much more than the clothes that I wore and a book that I had wanted to read for years but had put off until I saw it on a rack at the rail terminal at Adelaide. After several attempts to get into the book I began to wonder why I had wanted so much to read it, so it sat, without a bookmark, on the table in front of me. The further the train travelled, the further it took me away from the hurt that was all that was left of my life. A marriage where my wife failed to recognise the potential for a good life, and chose to gain as much, financially, from the debris that she brought about, deliberately. "I want nothing from you." She had said, "It wasn't my money that bought us the house so I won't ask for anything from you. This is not about the money." Bullshit! Then, "I want something but I'll leave enough so that you can start over." Crap! To finally, "I'm entitled to half of everything, so that's what I want." That was more like her! She wasn't entitled to steal from me the cards that she had given me from before we were married, and that I wanted to keep as precious memories of the good part of our life together. That hurt, just as much, if not more, than the separation. By now you have probably decided that I am a bitter and twisted person who has no redeeming virtues to warrant you reading any further, and if I were in your shoes I would have to agree with you, but, like the book that I have been trying to get into, the rewards for perseverance may just be worth the effort. The train pulled into Alice Springs just after lunch on Monday and I got out, more to stretch my legs than see the sights. I walked from the platform and stood outside the station building looking around me, trying to decide how I would spend the next four hours. "Can't you decide either?" "I beg your pardon, were you talking to me?" "Do you see anyone else? Of course I was talking to you. You look like you need someone to talk to." "Looks can be deceiving." I began to look at her. She was dressed in tailored slacks and a blouse that looked as if it had been starched. She had a wide brimmed hat that shaded a face that looked as if it saw little sunlight. She was tallish, slimmish and middle ageish. "I've noticed you," she wasn't about to give up on me, "you spend only enough time to eat your meals before scurrying off back to your compartment and hiding from the rest of the world. I always thought that part of the attraction of coming on these long train journeys was so that you could meet new people, not hide away." "When the world has beaten you hard enough, and often enough, it takes a stronger man than me to face it. I would like to be left alone." "Pardon me if I disagree, I know enough about human nature to realise that the last thing a person should be when he or she is going through what you have obviously gone through, is alone. I tell you what, you and I will see the sights of this place for the next four hours, we might even have a drink somewhere, or if you don't want a drink, a cup of coffee, and we won't talk about your problems, and, when we get back on the train, if you decide that enough is enough, then so be it. Is it a deal?" What the hell, there was no stopping this woman, and it would take my mind off my miserable life, at least for a little while. "Okay, deal." I let the exasperation hang there, just so she knew that I was doing it under sufferance and that there was no hope of me wanting to be with her any longer than necessary. It was depressing, I picked up yet another souvenir, from the stand in the souvenir shop, which looked as if it was hand carved by one of the indigenous people of this land, only to find that it was made in China. Why does the rest of the world have to take advantage of the uniqueness of this country, why can't we? Cassie, short for Cassandra, we had gotten that far in our relationship, saw me looking at it. "I know, I know, you'd think that the government would whack such a heavy tariff on the importation of these things that it would be cheaper to produce them locally." For some reason I had a vision of Meatloaf looking at, I think it was Ellen Foley, and singing 'You took the words right out of my mouth.' I stopped the vision right there because I didn't want to remember the next line. I also didn't want to admit that we were thinking along the same lines, that would end in disaster. "While the punters are prepared to buy them they will continue to import these phoneys." "Let's make a stand! Let's refuse to buy any souvenirs that aren't made in Australia!" She shouted, the whole store screeched to a halt and all eyes were on us. Revolution! Anarchy! Futility. But we did it none the less. We walked from the store souvenirless. At around 2 o'clock Cassie grabbed my arm. "Brian, I'm just about ready for a cup of coffee." We were, as it happened, standing outside a coffee shop. So, of course we went in. The coffee was passable, the cakes were an improvement on passable and the conversation was refreshing until it got to this. "I don't mean to pry on your private life," Bullshit! "But I think that I can help you. I might have it all wrong but I think your troubles stem from a relationship break down, one that has hurt you more than you thought possible." "To quote the classic line, 'I refuse to confirm or deny that assumption.' How could you possibly understand what I have gone through." I was just about to add 'because you're a woman', but thought better of it. "I thought that we had a deal." "Oh all right, we have a deal. If we can't talk about your problems, maybe you can help me with mine." I said nothing and she took that as agreement. "The reason that I'm on this trip is because I've reached the point in my life where I need to get away, have a break, to decide whether I should continue in my present job with no prospect of being able to break through the glass ceiling, or quit and make a fresh start somewhere else." "And what makes you think that I can help you make that decision." "Because I get the impression that you've seen a fair bit of the world in your lifetime and experienced the exasperations of not being able to realise your goals or your potential, work-wise that is." "How could you know that?" "Because I have seen many men who have experienced your frustrations, enough that I can recognise them a mile away. You have worked in the same job for most of your life and have recently had to face up to the prospect of the young, computer savvy hot-shots, leapfrogging over you when it comes to promotions. You have tried to get your head around the technology but have concluded that the ship has sailed and you have missed the boat, so to speak. To your bosses and workmates alike you are 'Good Old Brian' the guy that gets the job done. Unless you can learn at least the fundamentals of computers you will find yourself on the corporate scrap heap. Am I right so far?" "Yes. But if I can't solve my own problem, how can I be expected to solve yours?" "By looking at the options that are open to me. My problem is similar in that you are limited by your lack of computer expertise while I am limited by the very fact that I am a woman. You know more about the mechanics of the job. You were doing it as efficiently, if not more so, before the dependence on computers and could probably run rings around these young guys when it comes to problem solving. I know a lot more than the men in our company because I have been doing it a lot longer than they have. I know the way that the clients wish to be treated, as humans, not numbers, but that doesn't seem to bother the Board of Directors. I believe that reciprocal loyalty with the client is far more desirable than the bottom line." "Unfortunately that loyalty doesn't always work." I interjected, she had hit on one of my pet subjects, "The bottom line mentality, based as it is on greed, results in both your company, and my former company, looking to maximise the profit potential at the expense of client loyalty, which of course results in the client adopting the same attitude, which also means that if they can get the product that you are selling cheaper elsewhere they will go down that path, and you lose out Everyone goes in ever decreasing circles until they eventually disappear up their fundamental orifices, or is that orofi?" "See, I knew that you'd understand." "Understanding the problem doesn't solve the problem. I don't have an answer." "Yes you do. You have made a decision to leave that situation, it may not have been the main reason that you are on this train, but if you hadn't decided to cut your ties with that company you wouldn't be here, you would have stayed in Adelaide and suffered through the constant reminders of your previous life." She had a point there. I could have handled my hurt if I had been happy in my job, but because I wasn't, I used that as a catalyst for change. "So, what is holding you back? Why can't you just pull up stumps and leave as I have? What is keeping you in your job?" "Fear more than anything. Fear of the unknown, fear of making a mistake, fear of losing everything that I have worked for." "So you're afraid of taking that step? Let's look at the positives. You could find a better job with a company that appreciates your thinking, your concerns for the relationship between the company and the client. You could even take the money that's coming to you in retirement benefits and invest it in your own company. I know," I said holding up my hand to forestall her objections, "that this would be a major leap of faith, but it should be considered." "If that is your answer, why haven't you done that very thing?" "I guess I'm feeling that sorry for myself I haven't been able to think straight." She'd managed to turn the subject around to my problems in spite of our agreement but what the hell, we're here now I might just as well keep going. "Depression is a funny thing, the more depressed you get the harder it is to realise that you are depressed and need to do something about it I thought that I was handling things well enough until my boss took me to one side and told me that unless I lifted my game I would have to be 'let go'. I pre-empted that decision by leaving. I thought about investing the money that I salvaged from the property settlement and my retirement package in my own business but, like you I was scared of the next step." "What business were you in?" "Transport and logistics, I worked for one of the largest freight companies in the country, I was in charge of the transhipment area where goods was off loaded from trucks onto trains or ships and vice versa. I knew my way around bills of lading and invoices and customs procedures. Now of course everything is bar coded and tracked by computer." "I was in a similar industry, I was in the travel and tourism industry, and had been since leaving school. That industry sees the role of women as eye-candy in the agencies, selling packaged tours at an inflated price. I thought that we should have been concentrating on client based tailored packages where the client set the agenda and the timeline and we negotiated on his behalf for the best deal." "Your bottom line was different to your company's so you got no great satisfaction out of your job." "It got to the point that, in the time it took me to park my car in the employees' section of the shopping mall car park and walk to the office, I had developed a stress headache and would have to take something to get me through the day. To make matters worse, the guys in the office were always going out of their way to promote themselves to the boss, they would go to the hotel for lunch with him, buy his favourite wine for after work drinks, anything to crawl up his arse. I hated it and them." "Let's get out of here and do a bit more sightseeing before we head back to the train, otherwise we'll end up a couple of jibbering fools crying on each other's shoulders, not that the thought lacks merit." We spent the next couple of hours just wandering the streets looking in shop windows, checking out the Todd River, the site of the only dry river regatta in the world. We arrived back at the railway station about fifteen minutes before departure. "I need to freshen up before dinner. I'll see you in the Dining Car at six." Cassie seemed to assume that I'd agree to continue our acquaintance. She was right, I enjoyed our time together and was quite looking forward to having someone to talk to over dinner. Getting back to my cabin I picked up the wretched book and found that I got into it straight away, it was me that was the problem. I devoured forty or so pages before I showered and prepared myself for dinner. Cassie was already seated at a table when I walked into the Dining Car, I looked at my watch and found that I was actually early. She stood and smiled at me as I approached. She caught me by surprise when she flung her arms around my neck and kissed me hungrily on the lips. "Wow! What have I done to deserve this sort of welcome? Not that I'm complaining mind you." "I just felt the need when I saw you come in. Oh, and it was also for the benefit of those two guys at that table over there who have been trying to hit on me, I had to show them that I've been taken." "Have you?" "Been taken? Yes, I believe I have." She reached across the table and took my hand, "You were a great help to me this afternoon, whether you meant to or not, you have helped me to make a decision on my future. When we get to Darwin I am going to Email my resignation to the company. "I hope that you aren't being a little hasty." "No. I thought about it after I left you and I came to the realisation that it was what I had already decided to do, I just needed the impetus to set the ball rolling, and you gave me that." I don't know whether it was the rhythmic movement of the train, they don't go 'clickety clack' along the tracks any more, not since the concept of continuous long track laying was brought in, but there was still a rhythm about it, or the excellent food, the excellent wine, or just us, the two of us, that made the time together special for me. I have not felt this good for a very long time. And we didn't even talk about our problems, not once. It was quite late, the Dining Car was almost empty and the tables were being set for breakfast, when we left and I walked her towards her cabin. We walked slowly, I don't think that either of us wanted the evening to end, until we arrived at her cabin door. "Would you like to come in for a little while?" "Do you think that would be wise?" "No. But the invitation still stands." "Much as I've enjoyed our time together this evening, I don't think that this would be a good idea just now. I might be tempted to..." I let the thought hang there. "I know. I probably would be tempted as well, but, you are right, now is neither the time nor the place for this. I'll see you at breakfast, I'll look forward to seeing you at breakfast." With that she stood on her toes and kissed me, passionately, on the lips before breaking away and slipping through her door. It was just as well that she did that because I had just begun to close my arms around her and hug her to me, the embrace might not have stopped there and we might not have stopped there. What is sleep? Sleep is when your body relaxes to the point where all thought leaves you and you shut down to regain your strength. Sleep is not lying awake with your thoughts alternating between was has been and what could be. My thoughts inevitably, as they had done for so long, went back to my miserable past, but then galloped to the now, to the imagined future; what if Cassie and I could get together? What if we could build a relationship together? What if that relationship should move beyond the business, self supporting, self sustaining, into the personal? Could I cope with this? Was I prepared for this? Did I want this? I can remember at one time, it must have been just before my body cried out to my brain 'enough already' and shut down, I saw the red numerals on my alarm clock telling me that it was 2:30 in the morning. My next waking thought was the alarm going off at 6:30. Time to drag my body out of bed and shower before breakfast, before Cassie. "You couldn't sleep either." Cassie was somewhat subdued from a lack of sleep. "Is it that obvious?" "Yes. What are your plans for today?" "We have a four hour stop at Katherine from 9:00, do you want to do the tourist bit here?" "Only if you do. There probably isn't much else to do, and I wouldn't mind a trip down the gorge, I'm told it's spectacular." "Okay, we'll do that then. Now, apart from coffee, what would you like for breakfast?" We picked at what was a perfectly good breakfast and had seconds and thirds of the coffee. As we left the Dining Car Cassie took my hand. "Brian, will you come and sit with me until we get to Katherine, I have something to discuss with you." "Sure, what do you want to discuss?" "When we get there." She had a double cabin with an en-suite, it was very nice, and expensive. "Sit with me." She sat on the edge of the bed and I sat next to her. "Brian, will you kiss me, I mean really kiss me?" I thought about it for a nanosecond and kissed her, kissed her as I had imagined I would in the early hours of this morning, kissed her as I'd never kissed anyone before. My tongue found her open mouth and waiting tongue, we played tonsil hockey for I don't know how long, but eventually had to surface for breath. "Wow! You obviously have the same thought as I do. For hours last night I lay in bed thinking about yesterday and how absolutely great it was to be speaking to someone who wasn't trying to get into my pants, or trying to prove how much better he was than I. You have no idea how much I appreciated that time with you." "I have a pretty good idea, the same things kept me awake for most of the night when I was trying to get to sleep and, believe me, I need my beauty sleep." "Part of me, my stupid brain, told me that I was to lure you into my cabin and make mad passionate love to you, rape you even, but not to let this opportunity slip, while another part of me said to play it cool, take your time and see what develops, and an even other part of me said to stop deluding yourself, that you wouldn't be thinking the same things as me and that it will never progress beyond two lonely people spending a little time together on a train trip." Slow Train to Oblivion "Have you quite finished?" "No. When you kissed me just now my brain clicked into gear. I know what I want to happen. I don't have to make mad passionate love to you, or even rape you, just to hold on to you longer than this trip. Your kiss told me that. I know now that I want to progress us, this relationship, further. I also know that I want to take my time, our time, so that we don't make the same mistakes with this that we have in the past. Now I've finished." I took her in my arms again and kissed her. This time the passion moderated, it was no longer a lust thing, it was much more, it was an 'I want to get to know you better' kiss, and it continued for some time while her body melded into mine. It was the application of the train brakes as we approached Katherine that brought us, reluctantly, out of our kiss. Cassie grabbed her hat and purse and followed me to my cabin where I collected the necessaries, wallet, camera, and we left the train. The scenery was spectacular and in the Katherine River gorge the guide showed us the watermarks high up the cliff face which was the water level when the river was in flood during the Wet Season. The Northern part of the Northern Territory has two seasons, bloody wet and bloody dry. This was the dry season so the river level was low. Cassie and I did the tourist bit, taking lots of photos, some that included her, much to her horror, you know women, they pretend that they hate having their photo taken but as soon as a camera is pointed in their direction the pose happens. I was sneaky, I had, from practice, developed the knack of lining up the camera without holding it to my eye, so I was able to take her picture without her knowing, until she heard the shutter click. We reboarded the train for the run into Darwin. At her invitation I travelled the rest of the way In Cassie's cabin. Very pleasant it was. We sat side by side and I draped my arm, casually, over her shoulder and she snuggled into me and we watched the countryside slide past. We talked about our previous lives, I told her about my wife and two kids and she told me of life as a single person who had not wanted to get married to any of the men that she had a relationship with. She made it clear that, with me, she was contemplating spoiling the habits of a lifetime. I didn't want to broach the subject but, as the train slowed coming into Darwin, I couldn't wait any longer. "Where are you staying in Darwin?" She gave the name of a quite good hotel, she should know, that wasn't far from the self catered suite that I had booked until I made up my mind what to do. "If you like, and to save me a fortune in cab fares, or wearing out good shoe leather walking back and forth, you could always stay with me." I put on my best hang dog look, pleading with her to agree. "Is this a decent or indecent suggestion?" "Which would you prefer?" "If you'd asked me that two days ago I would probably have slapped your face so hard it would still be red, but seeing as how we have gotten to know each other I'll give you fair warning, duck!" She swung her hand at me and at the very last moment she caught me around the neck and pulled my head to her, giving me a huge kiss. "I must warn you, I sleep with nothing on so you'd better behave." Her deep chuckle left me in no doubt as to what she thought of as behaving. It was just after 10:00pm when we checked into the hotel. The suite was well appointed with two double beds and a full kitchen. We checked out the mini bar and had glass of wine each and watched a little TV, it was boring so I turned the set off. Cassie stood up, "I'm going to have a shower and then try to catch up on the sleep that I lost last night." I heard the shower hiss into life and then a cheerful, if not tuneful voice, accompanied the splashing sounds. Figuring I had a while, I turned the TV back on and flick through the cable channels looking for something exciting. I heard the door open and Cassie sprinted from the bathroom and jumped quickly onto the bed. I caught a glimpse of her body before she disappeared under the covers, only her eyes peeked above the sheets. "Don't be too long." I wasn't, it took me all of one minute to shower and another to brush my teeth, before I strolled, casually so that she could get the full benefit of my magnificent body, across to the bed, and before I pulled the covers back, revealing her in all her splendour, and climbing into bed. She came immediately into my arms and kissed me. "I hate to think what those guys at work would think if they could see me now." "We could always take a photo and send it to them with a message like 'look at what you've missed' or 'wish you were here, NOT!' "Shut up and love me." "Yes Madam," I put on my best obsequious waiter voice, "and how would Madam like her love today?" She grabbed Little Dick, who was well into the process of becoming Big Dick, and guided him to the entrance of her pussy, "I want him inside me, right inside me, as far as he can go, and what he does after that is up to him." I would probably never win prizes for size, he wasn't over long or very thick, or for endurance for that matter, but what I did to her certainly won her vote for satisfaction. We achieved something else that, from the complaints that I have from other people was rare, a gloriously simultaneous orgasm. I felt her clench her muscles just as I pushed Dick into her for the last time before he came. Cassie held me to her so tightly that I thought that she was trying to break my ribs, and only released the pressure when she started to come down from her orgasmic high. She made me feel like some sort of super stud lover. "You do realise, don't you, that now that I've found this magnificent beast I'm never going to let him go. In a year's time someone will come into this room and find us, all dry and mummified, and you still with your dick inside me." "I can't think of a better way to die. But you and I, that's the two of us, individually and collectively, have to think about more mundane things, like what are we going to do, apart from the obvious, are we going to give life a second chance and take on the world on our terms, or are we going to drop from site and sit around somewhere growing old gracefully?" "Can we talk about this in the morning? I want some more of this, you don't know, because I haven't told you, but that what we just had was the first sex that I've had in well over a year. I have some catching up to do." "Join the club. The last sex that I had was with my then wife, and it was horrible, for all her enthusiasm I would have been better off with one of those blow up sex dolls." We caught up, we caught up missionary, we caught up doggy, we caught up cowgirl, we caught up soixante-neuf, I ate pussy and she sucked cock. You know that sleep that we were supposed to catch up on? Well we didn't, not until well into the next morning. We surfaced in time for a late lunch before venturing out for essential supplies to maintain our stamina, and check out the restaurants for dinner. After that we went back to the suite for some very heavy talking and future planning. Cassie and I worked up a proposal for an agency that specialised in individually designed tour itineraries, where we would discuss with the client what it was that they were interested in, and put together a package that provided transport and accommodation, meals, sightseeing and whatever they needed to enjoy themselves at a pace that would allow that enjoyment. We put together a list of hotels that we would approach, limousine and hire car companies that would provide us with the type of transport that we wanted, from airport transfers to the actual tour itself. We would insist that the chauffeurs would be well presented and knowledgeable. Cassie would call on the contacts that she had made within the industry while I put together our office, the publicity material, and talk to the limo services. We had a very pleasant dinner, mainly fresh seafood, oysters for entrée, grilled barramundi for mains and fresh tropical fruit, mango, papaya etc, for dessert. Back at the hotel we showered together, Cassie washed parts of my back that I couldn't reach comfortably and I made doubly sure that her breasts and pussy were scrupulously clean. She then decided that Dick needed a thorough cleansing and that the only way to do it was with her mouth. After Dick had spoken his piece, we dried each other and adjourned to the bed. The lack of recent sleep caught up with us after an hour or two, and we fell asleep, me behind her with my arms around her and an exhausted Dick nestled in her arse crack. When I woke in the morning I was still lying behind Cassie with my arms around her but Dick, the little devil, he was standing up ready for action. She must have felt him because she wriggled her hips so that he slipped between her legs and his head stopped at the entrance to her pussy. "Someone's awake early." She mumbled as she fed him inside her moist pussy and began pushing back, forcing him inside, not that he needed much forcing. I grabbed her hips and positioned myself for maximum penetration and began thrusting deep inside her. "Oh that feels so good, oh god, I don't know how long I can last. Oh fuck me, fuck me, fuuuuck meeee!" Cassie turned in my arms and kissed me softly and passionately on the lips. "You're going to have to run out of cum sooner or later, surely. I'm swimming in the stuff." "Well I did warn you that I had some catching up to do." "If we keep going on like this we'll never get anything done." "And that's a problem, how?" "Down boy! I'm going to clean you off me and then I'm going to make us some breakfast. And then, my randy man, we are going out somewhere we can't fuck each other for several hours and start sorting out our future." Over the next week we sorted, we fucked, we ate, we fucked, we slept, we fucked, we did the touristy bit, we fucked, and we sorted. By the time we had booked our flight back to Adelaide we had a plan well established. We had one night left in Darwin and we made the most of it. We went back to a place where there were literally dozens of food stalls where you could buy food from a myriad of ethnic backgrounds, part of the cultural mix in Darwin. We ate food that we had never tried before, and some that we had and enjoyed, and finally, replete, we went back to our hotel and our bed. Cassie was love, Cassie was passion, Cassie was mine. I staked my claim on her in several different ways over the next few hours until, utterly exhausted we crashed and went to sleep. We were glad that we had settled our account before we went to sleep because we only just managed to get dressed in time for the cab to the airport and, even then, we almost missed our flight. Our business was up and running, and while it wasn't a runaway success immediately, the response was encouraging and more and more bookings were coming as a result of word of mouth recommendations to hotel staff from our customers. I had moved in with Cassie and our relationship was running smoothly, we worked well together but, because of our different roles, we weren't falling over each other at work and when we got home we had much to tell each other. Life was pretty good. I had just left the office and was walking down the street to where I had my car parked when I felt someone grab my arm. I turned and looked into the face of my daughter Celia, who, along with her brother had sided with my wife during the acrimonious end to my marriage. "Dad, can I have a word with you, please?" "Sure thing, walk with me." "Look, I know I took Mum's side when you two split up, but that was because we only got her side of the story. You didn't say much about the whole episode." "I didn't say much because I didn't want to put your mother down." "I know that now. Mum is in a real mess. After the divorce she took up with this guy who, it seems she had been seeing for some time before the split and was probably the cause of it. He promised her the world, money, security, you name it he promised it. Anyhow, it turned out that he was in debt to his eyeballs and was hoping to use Mum's payout to pay off some, if not all, of the money he owed." "I suppose you are going to tell me that the money is all gone and he has gone too." "Yes. Mum's in a bad way. After he left she couldn't handle that she'd been used and tried to commit suicide and is currently in a psychiatric hospital. I tried to find you so that I could see if you could help us, but your work told us that you had left, sold up and gone, and they didn't know where. I gave up after a while." "What can I do? Your mother made it abundantly clear that she never wanted to see me again and I took her at her word. It took a long while, but I have moved on. I have a new job, a new life, and a new woman in my life." "So, I suppose that you can't or won't help Mum then?" "I didn't say that, but if I am able to do anything I'll have to run it past Cassandra, she's my partner in life and work." I took a business card from my packet and gave it to her. "Be there at 5:30 tonight, you'll get to meet Cassie and we can have a chat." "Thanks Dad." She walked off. I spoke to Cassie when I had a break, and warned her of the meeting. "Why didn't you invite her home for dinner?" "I didn't want to impose my previous life onto my new life without warning." We were just going over plans for the next day's tour when Celia walked through the door. She looked so terribly unsure of herself and the reception that she would get from the new woman in my life. She needn't have worried. "Hi, you must be Celia." Cassie walked up to her and hugged her, "I've heard so many good things about you. Sit down, would you like a cup of coffee? Your father makes really great coffee." "Actually the machine makes the coffee, all that I have to do is push a button, which is just as well because, as you might recall, I was hopeless at anything to do with food or beverages other than booze." "Tell me about it, you could hardly boil water properly. I remember the time that you left the kettle on the stove and went off to do something and, by the time that you remembered it all there was on the stove was a mass of molten metal with a handle sticking out the top." "All right, we've established that I have the odd shortcoming or several. How would you like your coffee?" "Can you do a latte?" "One latte coming up, Cassie, a top up?" "Thank you, yes." I walked out back to make the coffee leaving them together. "How is your mother, I understand that she's not feeling well?" "She's had better times. I'll fill both of you in when Dad gets back. Have you known Dad long?" "Not more than a couple of months, we met on the Ghan on the way to Darwin. We just sort of clicked and here we are. I think that we are good for each other." "I could tell that when I saw him earlier. I can't remember when I've seen him looking so happy." We sat and drank our coffee while Celia brought me up to speed on her mother, I no longer considered her to be my wife, which doesn't mean that I was not concerned about her. Cassie invited Celia to have dinner with us, but she declined, instead promising to take us up on our offer the next day. "You should do something for her." Cassie said as she lay beside me in bed. "Like what?" I was reluctant to commit myself at this time. "The least that you can do is to talk to her treating doctor and find out if there is anything that we can do for her." "I'll make an appointment tomorrow." I was idly circling her left nipple with the tip of my finger, it was making her squirm, "You are an amazing woman, do you know that? Here you are encouraging me to help the woman who had so totally screwed up my life." "Look at it this way, if she hadn't screwed up your life, you two would still be together and I would never have met you, how bad would that have been?" I took her in my arms, "Don't ever lose your ability to always see the positive side of things." I kissed her, "I love you so much, you realise that don't you?" "Words, they're just words. You are just going to have to show me, you and Dick are going to have to prove to me how much the two of you love me." She caressed him until he was fully erect, which took no time at all, and led him to her pussy. Dick was getting to be the showman, he teased her, her pulled almost out of her and held station until she was begging for him to get his arse back inside her. He went at it with power, he went at it with finesse, and most of all he enjoyed the things that Cassie and her pussy did to him. In that one act, the act of the physical bonding between two people, two lovers, I had completely, for the moment at least, forgotten about the woman that I'd tried so hard to forget. The news of her condition wasn't good. I stood outside her room looking at her through a small window in the door. She looked terrible, she had lost a lot of weight and had a gaunt haggard appearance that wasn't helped by the gown that hung loosely from her shoulders. Her hair, now grey from a lack of chemical colour, hung limply over her shoulders. Her skin was a pasty colour and on her arms there were lesions where she had, in her drugged condition, torn at the skin trying to drag out some imaginary lump. It appeared that when she was admitted she was hooked on crystal meth with its associated problems. They were part way through the detox program, but it would take time. I promised to help in any way that I could, but was cautious about getting involved, given our history together. At the doctor's suggestion I decided to play it by ear, to take each stage of her recovery at a time. Celia called by the office that afternoon and spoke to Cassie. "I know that Dad has had a hard time of it over the past couple of years, what with the separation and divorce, and the whole property settlement thing, but he seems to be coping quite well now and I can only assume that you have played no small part in this. I don't expect him to help Mum but there must be some way that we can do something for her." "If you wait a few minutes we can discuss it, he has just been to see her in the hospital and he rang me a couple of minutes ago to tell me that he was on his way back here." A minute later I walked through the door into my lover's arms. "Wow Dad, you never greeted Mum like that." "She never wanted that sort of greeting, Cassie on the other hand has told me that the mouth may lie but the actions of love are a reflection of the heart. Sex is sex but love, on the other hand, is everything." "How was she?" Cassie asked. "I'm not going to mince words here. She looked terrible, and her doctor says that she has a long way to go before she's out of the woods. They are best equipped to look after this phase of her recovery but when she's clean and out of hospital, she is going to need a lot of support. What I want to do right now, well not right this very minute, but you know what I mean, is for the four of us, you'll have to contact Tim I don't know where he is, will sit down and work something out." "We can't ask you to do that," Celia said, "after all it was she that abandoned you, and you have a new life with Cassie, how do you think she'll feel about you devoting time and effort, not to mention money, to help the woman who hurt you so very badly?" "Cassie wouldn't have it any other way." Cassie said, before I had a chance to say anything, "We believe in a principle that to stand back from helping someone, for whatever reason, that the person was a stranger or, in this case had hurt you, is the same as inflicting hurt on that person. It is not something that either of us feels comfortable with. By helping your mother we are showing forgiveness, we are showing concern for others who, either by choice or circumstance, need help." Slow Train to Oblivion I took Cassie in my arms and kissed her. "Thank you, thank you for being so understanding." I felt an arm around me and turned to find Celia with tears streaming down her face. "I love you Daddy, I love you Cassie. I'm sorry for believing the lies that Mum told about you. You are a good man, the two of you are good people and I know that we can do this." I remembered then the thought that crossed my mind as I left the clinic; 'The train I was on wasn't going to oblivion, it was going in the opposite direction.'