Authors Note
This is my first story published, here or anywhere. While I understand the passion of the community I please ask that any feedback is constructive and not abusive. Any negative feedback will not be read. I do encourage constructive feedback on my work, via the comments or DM's as I want to be able to grow within a positive community.
Fingers crossed, MrJ.
....
At last I've managed to just get away. Two weeks on this remote farmhouse is what I need. No one to "watch out for me." No one to "just drop in to make sure you are not lonely." No one to ask "how you doing?"
How the fuck did they expect me to be doing?
My first full day to just have solitude. Silence to think and see how I'm really doing. No distractions. For the first time in over four years, I feel like I'm off unofficial suicide watch. Not that I would ever want to hurt myself or anyone else. But those around me knew the story and knew the effects it had.
But right now, no one. Just me sitting on the front porch of this old farmhouse in the middle of a thousand hectares of farmland and native forest. The nearest people are the owners, their homestead is thirty-five kilometres away. When I booked for two weeks they asked if I needed anything. I told them solitude. I think the owners wife picked up on something, but was nice about it, telling me there could be the occasional station hand that travels past to check the stock or fences so she will have them drop fresh supplies every few days in an old cooler at the front gate of the small garden that surrounded the farm house. I suspect this is to make sure I'm alright out here on my own. Plenty of ways to be hurt. The most common being the snakes. They told me to keep the doors closed and make sure the screens are not torn as the next most dangerous creatures are the bird sized mosquitoes. Ah the Aussie outback, would not have it any other way.
I sit on the porch of the renovated one room farmhouse looking over the slow slop of the valley in front of me. The slop extends over a grass paddock for five kilometres before a nature corridor filled with regenerated forest stretches over ten kilometres through the base of the valley linking national parks on one end with pockets of natural vegetation on the other.
Around lunch time I notice off in the distance the first puff of white smoke. The property is bordered to the west by the vast temperate rain forests of the great in-land national parks. With climate change they have slowly started to dry out to the point that five years ago was the first time they experienced fires. By mid-afternoon it looks to be gaining momentum, yet still some ways off. The fire looked like it was still in the national park, but I knew over many years the owners had undertaken a re-generation program on the national park side of their property so the native forest extended much closer.
As day turned to night I watched the red glow in the horizon. The wind seemed to change direction and intensity once the sun goes down. And when the day changes to night the sky starts to glow. It was almost erotic and at times I think I can see a red headed woman dancing over the skyline. I tell myself it had been too long without intimate contact so it is my mind playing tricks.
Around midnight my phone get a few moments of data connection, it pings. I check the message, it was the owners telling me to stay put as the fires are over the other side of the property, but could cut off the access road if the wind changes so safer to stay in the farm house. I do as I'm told.
I kept an eye on it all night getting sleep in hour shifts.
In the early hours of the morning, I think I must be delusional from the broken sleep. As I stand leaning against the post of the porch I imagine I can see the women again in the clouds of smoke billowing into the night sky. The red of the fires reflecting over the landscape and into the clouds seemed to produce naked red women dancing in the night sky. But not just dancing, it is very erotic. Almost sexual in the way the forms dance on the hot flames of the fires raging below.
The next day dawns with a wind change that seemed to blow the mile high billowing clouds of smoke in the other direction, I relax and return to reading a book on the porch.
I must have got so engrossed in my book that I did not notice the standard issue white Toyota four-wheel drive until the door creaked open at the front gate. I do quickly, however, take note of who get out of the Toyota. My mind just says to itself. "All woman".
My eyes start at the small but sturdy work boots and work their way up. Her work worn blue jeans hugging the curves of her farm working toned legs. The blue of the denim worn to almost white on her thighs and hips. As she turns to get something from the back seat I get a look at her tight round arse in the jeans, again wear marks at the back pockets give away a life of rubbing dirt from her hands. Her shirt is a light blue colour, sleeves rolled up to show toned forearms from wrestling with animals or wire fences. It is tucked into her jeans that are held up with a worn brown leather belt secured tightly to show off her small waist. This contrasts with her round hips and wide strong shoulders. I marvel at her nice round breasts that strain the buttons of her shirt as she turns back around to enter the gate. I think I saw her undo an extra button at the top of her shirt as she spied me through the back window of the Toyota four-wheel drive.
That walk. From the four-wheel drive, through the gate and up the front path holding a bag on one hand. Her auburn red hair hidden by the large farm hat on her head that shows signs of many hours protecting her pale skin from the hard outback sun. As she gets to the bottom step of the porch, just in front of me, she looks up to give me a smile with the freckle covered face of a redhead who spends her whole life in the sun.
What comes next is not unsurprising given my stares, but more forward than expected. She takes two fingers and taps then on the bottom of her chin to signal I should close my mouth. As I slowly do she gives me a smile of an early thirties woman who has seen a lot of men give her that look.
'Hi I'm Rose. Mum and Dad asked me to come out to check on you because of the fires. Still a ways off, but they noted you do not have a Sat-phone so may be out of communication. I put together a pack for you.' Rose says in a flurry of words as she puts the bag she brought on the porch at the top of the short three steps of the stairs.
'There is a CB radio and an AM radio. I assume you know how to use both. Not many city folk use AM radios anymore.'
I assure her I'm old enough to recall what an AM radio is.
'Great. Plus, some medical items, water cans and a map of the area. If the fires head this way you have no way to drive out, but over the back there is a waterhole that will give good protection. I'll show you if you like.'
'Thanks, but I took a walk down there early this morning.' I assure her.
'Pity, kind of felt like a swim.' Rose says with a little too much confidence.
She realises what she said was very forward, so quickly changes the conversation telling me the fire are being monitored. That she lives with her parents, just her. She works the farm with some workers as her parents are getting old. And on, and on. I get the feeling she is filling time or maybe its nervous chatter. I'm guessing from the fires in the area, her parents probably asked to hang around to make sure I was comfortable before she left.
It is another hour of talking, and a cup of tea, before Rose seems to be happy to leave. Before leaving she tells me she is heading over to open a few gates between paddocks to let the stock move freely if needed. So, I should be careful walking down to the waterhole as I may come across some of their larger bulls, who like the water. She also shows me how to use the CB Radio by checking in with her parents to let them know I'm all good and what she is leaving.
I watch her climb into the four-wheel drive and slowly drive off.
"She is maybe ten years my junior, five if she has aged well. But certainly an attractive woman. Think James. No ring. But no jewellery is not unusual for a working person. She said she lives with her parents. No man or just living separately? Which also could happen out here in these large stations.
Oh well, I came here to be away from everything. So, try to put that, her, out of your head."
....
"
Fuck, what is it with you. Are you on heat?
And the vibrations on the corrugated dirt driveway are not helping right now.
Fuck. I know I have not had a lot of men lately, but you just got hornier than a dog on heat.
