Awkward Beginnings

"Take your hands off me."

Appalled to find what he was doing, Hogan muttered sorry and mounted his horse.

"Come back," she called. "I want to point out the Darling River to you and some of the wet and dry lakes and the town of Menindee. Lake Boolaboolka and Lake Menindee are living museums of ancient civilizations of the Aboriginal people."

But she was ignored and Hogan was off downwards, breaking his horse into a gallop.

"Get fucked,"' she yelled standing amid mulga and belah, brown and red-streaked soil and stones. Some incoming Pink Cockatoos veered away upon hearing her shout, watched by two circling Black-breasted Buzzards.

Suddenly Melissa found it too much, such loneliness amid such desolation. She jumped on to her horse and went after the aggravating bastard. She'd knock him off his horse and kick the shit out of him.

But she'd delayed too long and she had only admiration for the aggravating bastard as he seemed to unerringly pick out the return route. He even instinctively took the two short cuts across rougher terrain that she'd aimed to use to make up ground on him. She reached the stables in a sliding stop to find Kate already unsaddling his horse. Melissa heard the Falcon start up and she ran yelling but too late.

"Did he abuse you?" Kate queried, hoping to hear details of the latest attack on her sexy boss.

"I wanted him to touch me but instead I rejected him and then I only wished to kick the shit out of him."

"Oooh, Melissa Sutton has finally fallen for a guy but amid her sexual excitement screwed up."

"Can it Kate. Tell me what to do."

"Send him flowers with a note that simply says sorry and kiss it with an imprint of your lipstick."

"I rarely use lipstick and certainly not for that purpose."

"Kate is you want to be fucked you should do what I say."

Melissa blew off steam and then, "Okay but I'll make that a bottle of wine instead of flowers."

"No Melissa. Sending booze is a message to get drunk. Flowers will tell him you have some affection for him and although, going on present evidence, he and even I would find that difficult to believe, it will make him think. He'll probably put them in his bedroom and stare at them while jerking off."

"Don't be so disgusting."

"But we women really know how to be disgusting, don't we Melissa?"

Melissa groaned, kissed Kate and said thank you.

Kate smiled. "Go home and jerk off. You'll feel a lot better."

Kate groaned.

Next day a bunch of flowers were delivered at the office for Hogan. One of the female reporters found an empty jar that had been packed with large gherkins and placed the flowers on his desk. She tore off the note, read it, and handed it to him. She smiled as she walked off but make no attempt to share the information with everyone in the office.

Hogan opened the homemade card and grinned. On one side of the opened card was the daintily written word 'Sorry' and the other side was the beautiful imprint of kissable lips.

He stared at the flowers and felt like jerking off but went back to preparing the Tuesday edition of the twice-weekly newspaper instead.

At 4:00 he received a call from Melissa who sounded tense. "I'm in town. I'll meet you over at the pub in the lounge bar. You finish at 4:30 don't you?"

"I'll be over a few minutes earlier. I can't wait to see those heaving breasts again. Please be very angry when I arrive."

Hogan heard Melissa suck in breath. Grinning he switched off his phone.

This time he had a plan. He'd walk up to her smiling and say good afternoon Melissa and sit down, back straight and ask politely was she well.

Hogan walked over to her smiling.

Melissa jumped up, kissed him and then bit his ear and whispered, "I've booked us into the bridal suite. The only difference from a standard suite it the décor is all white with a laced edged bed head and a vase of red silk roses."

Hogan, rubbing his ear, sat down and looked at her tits.

"Two champagne cocktails please," Melissa said to the hovering bar waitress.

"Certainly Melissa. Are you pregnant?"

"Fuck off Annie," Melissa giggled.

That little exchange had given Hogan time to gather. Gather what he had no idea so he accused, "You kissed me."

"Yes would you like another one? Why do you stare at my breasts instead of my face where most clues about my character are indicated?"

"Your breasts make me think of sex."

"Omigod, you men and your pea brains. What if I had a flat chest and yet I were pulling up my skirt and opening my legs?"

"That would be fast-tracking sex."

"I see and how do you like sex."

"Foxtrot."

"Silly that's a dance."

"In out, slow-slow-slow, in out, slow-slow-slow."

Melissa's signs of facial character were buried under a rampant blush. "God you are funny."

The woman Melissa knew arrived with the drinks.

"Annie do you know if Tom is thinking sex when he looks at your breasts."

"Now give your own man attention Melissa rather than bother about Tom and me. All I can say is he more than looks at my breasts when we're having sex and I know he's thinking sex when he looks at the breasts of other women. It's how men operate. They don't care who they have sex with when looking around like that just as long as they have sex soon. Tom and I tend to have our best sex when coming home from a dance when Tom has spent the night rubbing up against other women and looking down their dress."

As Annie walked away Melissa said, "That is really interesting information. What do you think Hogan?"

"I really have no idea," he yawned.

"Omigod you're hungry. I'm not taking your upstairs hungry. Fortunately the dinning room here opens at 5:00. Please look at my tits as much as you desire darling."

Hogan appeared quite shocked. "You called me darling."

"Well yes, I guess that indicates my sensitivity. I rode after you yesterday to try to catch you and beat the crap out of you but you rode so well I made little headway on you and you were just leaving when I arrived. Kate told me my anger was me reacting badly to me body telling me I wanted to have sex with you."

"Eh?"

"I'm saying your sly ways and abrupt confrontations had demolished my resistance Hogan Harrison. Kate read what was wrong with me but I when she explained it I knew I should have grabbed you up near the point and groped you."

"Feel Mr Ace," Hogan croaked.

"What?"

"Feel what's waiting for," he said, pointing, and already sweating in the heat in anticipation.

"What you want me to touch that in a public place?"

"Actually I want you to go on to your knees and gobble it."

"Christ Hogan, why don't you clearly explain what you want? Let's go."

"The key, hand me the key," he bleated at the door of the honeymoon suite.

"Oh fuck, I left it on the reception desk," Melissa wailed.

"It's okay," her hero said. "I'll run down to fetch it. That will give you time to get into a mindset about stripping off and laying back with your legs open."

EPILOGUE

The ailing newspaper folded before Hogan had the chance of being invited to succeed the retiring Bruce Payne as managing editor.

It was touch and go what would happen. Melissa promised him she would go whether he went. He'd been unable to find work in the vastly unpopulated region that interested him enough or paid enough to induce him to stay. But Penny Payne found a buyer for their home and she and Bruce purchased the horse and cattle farm from Melissa to give the Payne's a retirement interest and income.

Soon after that agreement was reached, Hogan answered an advertisement for a deputy editor at a large prospering country town north of Sydney and won selection. He accepted the offer after calling Melissa and she said she'd like to live on the coast. It was only when Hogan arrived back to collect his belongings that Melissa told him she was pregnant.

Three weeks later when they were settling into their rental home Melissa suffered a miscarriage. Two weeks later she found work at a farm supplies store and today the mother of two is deputy general manager of the company that operates that store and five others it owns in smaller centers in the region. Lane and Stella are at primary school. Hogan was head-hunted by the city council and left the newspaper as deputy editor to become the council's director of publicity and information, a responsibility that includes heading the part council and part local business funded office of tourism.

Melissa has found the freedom she so much enjoys, as they now live in a gated community on The Point overlooking the river and marina where their boat is moored She is vice-commodore of the boating club and holds the Northern New South Wales water ski record as fastest female 30-plus over a measured mile and two game fishing records for women fishing out of the club, a 9.8 Albacore on class 3 kg line and a 109.2 kg Black Marlin on class 15 kg line.

Hogan prefers just to steer the boat or fish off the bottom with a can of beer in his hand. He and Melissa are teased a lot by their friends who find those two still act like newly weds.

THE END