I barely took in her appearance. It was a safety mechanism for me. I could consign all these people to oblivion when we left. They became ghosts to me. Gone. It made my head hurt less.
But… she had gray hair and a frail figure. This was the widow. She chose to stay here, in town, but owned a small farm that had been left to itself. I hoped she was living here for the neighbors and that they were her friends. That made me feel better.
Maybe she would sell the farm one day, assuming Isak let her, move to the Bahamas and make more friends? I could dream for others.
Today, the place was his, and for however long he wanted it.
“Let’s go.” He turned from her and stalked back to the car. I unleaned myself from it, stretched muscles that felt frozen from the long drive.
I pitied her, though. Perhaps she was losing less than most who came into Isak’s sphere of influence.
The roads leading to the property deteriorated as we drew closer. The sky was pale, hazy, and blue with few clouds. The surface became potholed dirt after we entered through a steel and wire gate. Luckily the ute had big tires and a high clearance.
“It’s a small place, she told me. Those cows are here on what’s called agistment.” He pointed out the windshield at a scattering of brown beasts behind a fence, on the slope beside us. The grass was pale like everything else, but the cows munched on it placidly.
“Agistment?” It was a new word.
“Means somebody pays to leave their cows here to get good grass. I gather it’s drier where they came from. We don’t have to do anything to them, unless they escape the fences. Someone will check them every so often.”
He kept driving, rolling the wheel to avoid the bigger holes in the road, jarring my teeth, and churning up dust, but not too much as we had slowed.
An excitement stirred in me though I’d never yearned for a country life. Isak seemed more laidback – the cows’ attitude must be infectious. This place all by its lonesome felt different to where I’d lived in the cities and towns. The water came from a tank, though the property had power and not a generator. The ride back to town would take nearly half an hour.
“There it is.” He raised a finger to the house that had appeared as the road topped a rise.
It seemed a quintessential Aussie outback house – biggish with a verandah all the way around, a windmill on the skyline, and one wandering cow. The roof was red, and everything looked battered, old, and mildly neglected.
It felt like a home, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.
A small plane flew overhead, the engine making a distant muted whir. It was low enough to make me think it was landing soon.
“A crop duster uses the place as a fuel and storage depot. An air strip is over the hill.”
I nodded. We were not as alone here as I imagined.
We pulled up beside the house then drove into the double garage which had only two walls. The front and a side were open to the elements.
“Let’s get unpacked.” Isak exited along with the dog that took advantage of his open door. He began pulling cases off the back. We had accumulated a few things on the way here – boxes of food, new clothes and riding boots, even a rifle. I guess even Isak could not mind control a cow or a dingo. No bears, pumas, or large predators lived in Oz though, barring men and the sharks in the sea. And there was Isak.
I entered the primitive kitchen, where almost everything had a layer of dust, as well as chips, scratches, and pieces falling off – the benches, the oven, the chairs, everything was a mess. To my utter shock, a bunch of fresh red flowers popped against the bleakness, in a vase on a rectangular table.
“For you.” Then he pulled me to a chair and sat me facing him, on his lap with my legs to either side, and… he kissed me.
No sadism, no cruelty, nothing but the most earnest of kisses… okay it did turn into hair pulling and neck biting as well as kissing. I was clutching at the chair back at first, then at his shoulders, digging my fingers into those delicious muscles, and kissing him back.
Kissing made such intimate and private sounds – the breathing, the small moans, the nudge of lips to lips…the creaks as our weight shifted the chair. Man, this always felt like a betrayal of myself to respond like this.
When the snarl of a motorbike split the air and grew abruptly louder, pulling to a crackling halt somewhere nearby, he stopped and let me regain my feet.
Flustered, I brushed at my mouth, backing away but recognizing that delicious hypersensitivity in my lips. The mouth could be so sexual. He sat on the chair, manspreading his legs, with an eyebrow kinked upward as he saw how I studied him. I had, however, not felt his mesmer power.
“Why?” I asked, voice betraying my confusion.
“The flowers? I thought you’d like them. This is a new start, remember. I’m finding myself and my humanity.” Grandiosely, he opened his arms.
“You mean the list I gave you?”
Good deeds and helping others had been on it, not gentle, normal-ish kissing and bouquets.
“That too, as well as other things. Be kind to others, especially your loved ones – that has
