The girl I love, she got long black wavy hair

My baby, when she walks, ya know
She shakes like a willow tree.
That mean, mistreatin' baby, she know she
Walks all over me.
- Led Zeppelin, 1969

I needed a break. I needed to get away from Jeff, who like all younger brothers was really getting on my tits after a week living out of a suitcase together, and I needed to get away from McCarthy, whose mournful distress over ‘losing’ Andrea - Jesus Christ, she was only refusing his calls, he’d inevitably get to plead his case again once he got home - was becoming pretty fucking tedious.

Salvation came in an unlikely vehicle: a 1975 Holden Premier station wagon, beige-gold with a vinyl rooflining and a string of ethereal, earth-motherly bumper stickers. Madeleine and Artemisia were heading south via the Atherton Tablelands, planning to detour through the hinterland to rejoin the Bruce southward down around Innisfail. I’d been up there years before with the family, and jumped at the chance to tag along, even going so far as to willingly entrust the keys to the postie van to my delinquent brother and sulking best mate, at least until our planned rendezvous in Airlie several hundred kays south. Imogen, for her part, had bravely joined her new paramour Marty in the big truck, with the rest of the boys on their best behaviour - amazing how relationships blossom on the road. What happens on tour, stays on tour, as common wisdom says. (Noone had seen fit to enlighten McCarthy of this wisdom, of course.)

We spent the morning winding up the range in the old Holden, coaxing it through the sinuous twisties and pausing every so often to enjoy the gorgeous view from the rainforest to the reef, usually when the temperature gauge began bouncing off the letter 'H' a little too regularly. We explored the rainforest around Atherton and Kuranda, tramping along short bushwalks, splashing around under waterfalls, and generally acting like silly kids. Madeleine was definitely the ringleader when it came to spontaneous lunacy, but as I’d long suspected, Artemisia wasn’t as serious as she was made out to be. After all, she was the one who instigated the waterfight under the Millaa Millaa falls. Can’t say she looked bad in a soaked, clingy T-shirt, either. Bras weren’t her thing, evidently.

Before we knew it the day had run out and we needed somewhere to stay. We considered a few local options, but the truth of the matter was the thriving metropolis of Cairns was only 30-40 kays away back down the range, and there’d probably be more last-minute accommodation options down there than up here - we could head back up the range next morning and knock off the rest of the sights, I suggested, and the girls agreed. Of course, this didn’t account for one small detail. The road from Kuranda to Cairns isn’t overly long, but it’s probably one of the steepest and sharpest sections of Australian road north of the Snowy Mountains, and it was too much for Harry the Holden. The brakes went halfway down, meaning I had to slow the car on the gearbox, which started to pack up three-quarters of the way down. Somehow, we made it to the base of the range without centre-punching a guardrail and sailing off a cliff, and staggered into Trinity Beach, lobbing into a random backpackers’ near the shoreline. Which, miraculously, featured (a) enough room at the inn for all three of us, and even better, (b) a hapless trio of Austrian backpackers, fresh off the big bird from Europe, staying at the hostel who were absolutely delighted to hand Madeleine four thousand newly-converted Australian dollars for the privilege of taking Harry the Holden off her hands. Sorting our transport from here was pretty straightforward; the boys in the postie van had only made it as far as Cairns city, about 20 km south, for the night, so I asked them to double back for us in the morning. I wasn’t entirely sure how all Sagittaria’s shit was going to fit into the Skyline, but as I pointed out, we could always occy-strap Jeff to the roof racks.

“So what will you spend the four grand on?” I mused. “Reef dive? Trip to Europe? Witness protection plan once the Austrians figure out how completely stuffed the old Holden is?”

Madeleine thought for a moment. “I think I’ll probably give some of it to my boyfriend,” she said sweetly.

“Awww,” I said. “That’s very romantic of you...”

“Not as much as you’d think,” observed Artemisia wryly. “It’s actually his car.”

It wasn’t going to be as cramped aboard the postie van as we’d predicted. “No need to lash Jeff across the roof after all,” I noted, once we’d finished packing.

“Mind if I do it anyway?” Madeleine quipped, with a flirtaceous wink directed at the Jeff. She’d made me promise not to tell him she actually had a boyfriend, which she’d managed to keep quiet to date, in case it dissuaded him. She quite liked the attention. I figured it was a victimless crime.

The reason we had room to spare (even if we had to strap Madeleine’s cello case into the back seat with the centre seatbelt) was that McCarthy had bailed on us at his earliest possible convenience, even before the Jeff had doubled back for us on the Tuesday morning, and had clambered aboard Marty’s LandCruiser - now almost as full as the Three By Three bus service - for the trip down to Airlie.

It was a very different vibe with two-thirds of Sagittaria on board. The music selections were a little more diverse, and the level of conversation finally clambered out of the gutter. It was almost like a bizarre double-date - the Jeff was still bravely advancing his cause with Madeleine, to the point where most of his conversation was directed towards her. Out of the car, they ended up going off together more often than not - even if it was just into the servo shop at fuel stops to pick up some drinks or other ‘road’ supplies - which left Artemisia and I spending quite a bit more time in each other’s company. I can’t say it was any great imposition. I enjoyed her company, particularly the calming effect she seemed to bring to our (often shambolic) environment. You knew every word was carefully considered and every situation was completely under control; you suspected there was a lot more going on beneath those intense green eyes of hers than she chose to let on, but she always remained professional, unflustered, unaffected by the chaos that went on around her.

We decided to head straight for Airlie and spend an extra day there before our gigs later in the week, as we were all rather enamoured with the place. The on-site vans upon which Kretin had spared no expense (or was that spent no expense?) were aging and shabby, but the view down to the beach made up for it. In an odd kind of way, it reminded me of our Schoolies camping trip to Ten Mile Beach south of Woodburn (particularly once the rest of the touring party rolled into Dodge) except we actually had girls with us this time. Airlie was smaller and more relaxed than Port Douglas, the pace wasn’t as intense - less frenetic partying in backpacker bars, more kicking-back on the beachfront with a cold beverage in hand and watching the world go by. After our insane week in Port Douglas, it was much-needed detox. It gave me time to reflect on important matters of state, such as whether Artemisia had a boyfriend or not, or what the hell I was going to say to Jessica once I got home. She’d been eerily calm and composed when I’d ‘fessed up over the phone, in contrast to the ear-bashing Uncle Sam had received; she’d also strongly suggested she didn’t want to hear from me again for the rest of my time away, so I hadn’t called since.

Like the town itself, the venue was smaller and lower-key than in Port - there was only one of them this time, another Terry Kurtin investment (he’d only recently bought it, hadn’t even had time to slap a chintzy ‘theme’ onto the décor.) Whitsun, as its rather unoriginal name went, faced onto the main street of Airlie Beach, such as it was. It seemed a popular spot, if a bit confused as to its identity - part bar, part café, part nightspot, laid-back and not overly touristy, but still trying to attract the backpacker dollar, which it was mainly doing by cheap drink deals. Very rarely fails, that one.

Whitsun attracted a small but enthusiastic crowd on the first couple of nights we played there. They’d billed it as a mini-festival, basically, with all four out-of-town bands each playing an hour set (or thereabouts) each night, though we were swapping order each night so nobody would get sulky about opening for everyone else all the time. To be honest I preferred to go on first, it left the evening open for enjoying oneself, but I knew McCarthy took it as an insult to be considered the warm-up act, even if the perceived slight remained solely in his own tortured mind. The more intimate venue also required a change in approach from some of Seek’s stable, particularly the flat-out assault of ACME Industries, who ended up perched on stools playing acoustics (or at least their amps turned down and fiddled-with to sound like acoustics) like they were on MTV Unplugged. As for us, we couldn’t be arsed changing much, so we just backed the master volume off a couple of notches and confiscated McCarthy’s overdriver pedal. Didn’t help his mood much.

Our last night in Airlie, the Saturday, had a real end-of-term feel. It was the end of a great trip, everything had gone far better than we could have hoped - apart from yours truly getting onto a random barmaid in Port Douglas, breaking Sagittaria’s car and waking up with a hangover for eleven consecutive days and counting - so we decided to make a bit of an event of our last show. We decided to mix it up nice and early in the piece. Three By Three opened the night and laid down some very cool tunes, with Krusty guesting on beats; apparently he could play less than 120 of them per minute after all. I climbed aboard to help out on one of their Supergroove covers – they did some of their best work covering Supergroove stuff, along with Reel Big Fish. Their usual set-ender, a Darrell-Eastlake-huuuugge version of James Brown's I Feel Good, went off like a frog in a sock. ACME took up the challenge with McCarthy subbing for the Jeff on lead axe, bringing a little hair-metal tosserdom to the boys’ punk rock riffage. To be fair, Welcome To The Jungle actually worked pretty well as a punk rock song. Sagittaria’s wall of sound swelled with the presence of Martin di Biagini on the ivories, with perhaps a frisson of romance in the call-and-response between his keyboard and Imogen’s electric viola.

Finally, there was us. Lineup appeared to be as-per-program, or so I figured at curtain-up - Marty was still behind his keyboard stand, the Duffer primed and ready to inflict violence on his kit… but McCarthy, I realised, seemed to be a late scratching: no sign of our mercurial axeman. Still sulking, presumably, or he’d shredded his fingertips with all those earlier ludicrous tapping solos we wouldn’t let him play in Flange Gasket.

Then the Jeff emerged from side-of-stage, tatty Strat slung casually over his shoulder, and gave me a big grin. He leaned over McCarthy’s mike and announced, “Hi, my name’s Jeff, I’ll be your guitarist for this evening.” He slapped my hand in a high-five as the well-lubricated Saturday night crowd cheered - many of whom had dropped by earlier in the week, and realised what was going on tonight. Strange as it sounds, despite all our history, the Jeff and I had never actually played together before in public. And, erm, it showed. But we warmed up after a few songs, shook the cobwebs out, stuck to the simpler Gasket songs (i.e. the ones I’d had a big hand in writing) and covers we both knew, given that I was in the unfamiliar position of lead guitarist, while the Jeff cranked out the riffs like a good punk-rock axeman should. It went well, apart from me running out of ideas for solos after about five or six songs. Hard work, this showboating lead guitarist job.

The guesting continued apace. Drunken Duncan Duff, doing his best Lemmy Kilminster impersonation on his old Fender Precision bass, took over from Marty’s bottom keyboard hand for the high-voltage triumvirate of Harold Holt, Sketchy and Angus Young. He and the Jeff herceforth retired to the bar, whereupon we were joined by the brass section from Three by Three, who filled in admirably for Bon Scott’s bagpipes in a raucous version of It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock And Roll. Howling backing vocals and struttin’ rhythm guitar were kindly furnished by Sagittaria’s own Artemisia Bailey, swaggering around extravagantly on Jeff’s black Strat - a novel change from her usual Rickenbacker 12-string acoustic. To our amazement, she even chimed in with a solo which put my derivative efforts to shame. Where’d she been hiding that? I was suitably impressed. To everyone’s vocal disappointment, our new favourite rock chick (and I lurrrrve rock chicks) handed the axe back to its owner at the conclusion of the number and declared, “Never again!”

As the clock neared midnight, I found myself on stage (not to say I ‘found myself’ on stage, just that I happened to be there) with Artemisia, leaning elegantly against the mike stand in one of her long, flowing daughter-of-Aquarius frocks; she’d even managed to procure a tambourine from somewhere (“It’s my Linda McCartney look,” she’d observed, before anyone else had the chance to.) We had Marty, who’d finally come out (ahem) from behind his keyboards, at Imogen’s side-of-stage insistence, and was making his acquaintance with Duncan’s sweat-streaked P-bass; and of course the Duffer, steady as a rock behind his kit (because the bar staff in these parts weren’t as accommodating in terms of pumping him full of free grog.) Given McCarthy’s crappy outlook on life at present, I wouldn’t have been disappointed had this been announced as the future lineup of the Gasket ‘going forward’, as tedious management types (and Kretin) would have said. As it was though, this lineup had a projected lifetime of about twenty minutes, so we had to decide what to play pretty sharply. This is where having markedly different musical tastes from your new lead singer can be a little problematic. We started with some Hendrix, something we all knew well: Red House. Hey, any idiot can solo in 12 bar blues. Just as well, because this idiot had to; there weren’t nobody else with a six-string electified gee-tar in the vicinity (let alone an iridescent metal-flake orange Ibanez with a ‘Holley Equipped’ sticker.)

“Know any Ben Harper?” was her next question.

A sour voice from side-of-stage pointed out that I’d recently learned Faded, ‘’for some reason or other.” I rolled my eyes. Not only was McCarthy still cranky and sulking, blaming me for ‘encouraging’ him with the other barmaid up north, but now he seemed to be getting offended on Jessica’s behalf that Artemisia and I were spending time together (was it that obvious, I wondered? And since he was convinced something was developing between Artemisia and I, what the hell was he seeing that I wasn’t, given that I could read Artemisia about as well as I could Mandarin?)

“Yeah, we can do that,” I said, glancing around the other lads for affirmation, and grabbing an empty Corona bottle for the slide guitar part (stealing McCarthy’s intellectual property as well as his thunder). “Faded it is. Good idea, sir, whoever you are.”

I loved Artemisia’s voice when she really leant on it in the more soulful, bluesy numbers in Sagittaria’s repertoire. Her vocals were made for that sort of stuff. The girl made Joss Stone sound like Kermit the Frog.

Faded, so faded. Like a memory gone, there’s no recollection.
Um…In hindsight, a rather ironic choice of ‘our’ song, hey Jessica?

The songs were talking to me. After Faded, we ventured off into our Led Zep ‘blooze’ medley Git The Led Out which Artemisia had complimented us on the night I’d met her. Midway through, I found myself singing one of the tracks off their BBC Sessions double CD - a personal favourite of mine, it sounded like a cross between The Lemon Song and the riff from the non-drum-solo bit of Moby Dick. It was just the title that was likely to get me in trouble.

“The girl I love,” I declared, “she got long black wavy hair…”

Hmmm. Maybe McCarthy had a point. Anyway, press on. I did, while the girl I loved (from the waist down at least) who got long black wavy hair proceeded to shake what the good Lord gave her in a most appreciative (and appreciated) manner. She could send signals with her eyes than most girls would only be able to deliver with acres of exposed flesh. Right now, as near as I could tell, those signals were directed at noone else but me.

Sometimes, there’s a spark. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, there’s a big fuck-off bolt of lightning.

Of course, I had no way of knowing whether this was just on-stage chemistry for the benefit of the punters, or something more meaningful. God alone knew what she was really thinking. But I did plan to have a decent go at finding out, before the night was complete.

We finished the night, and the tour, with Marty jumping back behind the keys and half the ensemble cast joining us on stage to thunder through Good Times by the Easybeats. A sure sign we’d run out of ideas, but it flew. Today’s tip for bone-lazy covers-band guitarists: if you can’t be arsed learning a load of new songs, Good Times has the same chord progression (basically) as Rocks by Primal Scream, Shoot To Thrill by AC/DC (Angus and Malcolm’s excuse would be that their brother George co-wrote the original), and at a stretch, Kickstart My Heart by Motley Crue (but do ask yourself before you proceed, ‘Must I?’.) Furthermore, the lyrics or chords to any Oasis ballad are interchangeable with the lyrics or chords to any other Oasis ballad. And Noel ripped off T-Rex when he wrote Cigarettes and Alcohol, but we’ll let that slide because it’s a kick-arse riff.

We packed up amongst hugs and handshakes from all concerned, and even some grudgingly positive words of congratulations from Kretin - hard to know which of our performances he was basing his compliments on, since we hadn’t seen him at a gig either here or in Port Douglas, but we all had to admit his tan was very impressive - particularly the magnificent snorkel mask imprint across his face from his last four days on Lady Elliot Island. Slightly pink 'n' crispy on top of the old dome, however.

The old Viscount van was unlocked when I reached it. I rather wished it hadn’t been, having opened the door to be presented with the Jeff in his scungiest Reg Grundies, rifling through his suitcase.

“Busting out your patented muff-attracting jocks again tonight, then?”

He laughed without deviating from his search. “Yeah,” he confirmed, “laundry situation is getting a bit grim. Already worn these twice. Inside and out. You coming out later? Last night on tour…”

“Think I’ll stay,” I replied. “Gotten myself in enough trouble on this trip as it is.”

“Fair enough,” he grinned, dousing a rather second-hand collared shirt, and then himself, in spray-on deodorant, a.k.a. ‘Shower-In-A-Can’. “Got anything planned?”

“Yeah,” I said, “our guest vocalist and I were going to go sit on the beach, crack a bottle of cheap bubbly and celebrate the end of the tour.”

“You and Les Mis?” he chortled. It was his favourite nickname for Artemisia, now that he’d finally figured out her name wasn’t Anastasia. “Thought you wanted to stay out of trouble?”

“Oh, fuck off, not you too. First McCarthy’s bitching at me because I got him into trouble, supposedly, then he’s offended because he thinks I’m spending too much time with Artemisia and hence cheating on Jessica again...”

“Fuck it, he’s just jealous because he copped a flogging from Andrea and all you got was a few stern words. If he could get away with it, he would.”

I nodded my assent at the Jeff’s reading of events. “What’s that you ACME boys say?”

“Those that can, do; those that can’t, whinge. Mind you,” he reflected, “doesn’t look great for the future does it? If Jess can’t even get angry at you over shit like this, how much of a shit does she actually give?”

I was trying not to follow that line of logic, though it had occurred to me. Trust bloody Jeff to cut to the crux of the matter.

“We’ll see, mate, we’ll see. We’ll sit down and have a nice little chat about things when we get back.” Good moment for a change of topic, I felt. “So, should do you want to organise some sort of signalling system to tell me whether its safe to enter the van later, or whether you’re busy banging some silly backpacker chick with low self-esteem?”

“If you like,” Jeff offered. “Would a pair of warm, wet black lace panties hanging over the doorhandle be enough to get the message across?”

“Thought you’d given up wearing that stuff? Couldn’t stand the chafing, I thought you said…”

He grinned. “Just fuck off and behave yourself, bro.”

I’d finally admitted to myself what was nagging at me: I just didn’t want to go home. It wasn’t that home was so bad - sure Jeff and I had to go back to the farm and work like bastards for the rest of uni break to justify our existence and pay off our debts, but it’d be good honest work, we’d never be lacking for a decent feed (our mother has consistently overcatered every meal for the past thirty years), and there’d be beers with the old man and the Jeff at the close of the day. It wasn’t the start of semester a few weeks after that I was dreading; compared to working in a research lab, this was piss-easy. It wasn’t even that inevitable ‘discussion’ with Jessica that I was trying to avoid. I didn’t want to go home, because I’d had so much unbelievable fucking fun. I’d finally admitted this to myself, in the process of admitting it to Artemisia. Quite the confessor, our Les Mis.

“Tell me about it,” she concurred. “The last thing I want to do when Monday comes around is to head back to work.”

It occurred to me that I didn’t actually know what Artemisia did for a day job. Or whether she was still at uni, or had ever gone. Or what part of town she lived in. Or even how old she was - early twenties? Younger than me? Older? We’d been practically living in each others’ pockets for two weeks and I felt barely any closer to really knowing her, in the Biblical sense or otherwise. Furthermore, she seemed to like it that way; Artemisia wasn’t one for small talk. Her words carried the same crafted intensity as her personality; you almost felt beneath her for daring to descend to the level of everyday inconsequentialities in conversation.

She’d managed to unearth a couple of wine glasses from the cupboard in the van she was sharing with Madeleine and Imogen (hey, they were smaller than us, they could fit three to a van.) Sure, they were chipped, scratched, and were actually made of plastic, but it was a little classier than taking turns to swig from a bottle of Yellow. In any case, Artemisia carried herself with enough poise to even make sipping from a plastic champagne flute look elegant.

She raised her ‘glass’ to mine. “To the tour,” she proposed.

“To the tour,” I concurred. “To the benevolent drunks of Port Douglas and Airlie Beach,” I added.

“To the benevolent gods of feedback and distortion,” she said.

I’d drink to that. “That was an awesome solo, girl,” I proffered.

“You thought so?” She let the champagne flute dance between her fingertips, as she glanced over to me. “You say the sweetest things, Andrew Young. Have to tell you,” she added breezily, “I’ve never had a guy dedicate a song to me on stage before.”

Hmmm. A little spark there. The girl I love…

“I’d like to take credit,” I said, “but it’s an old Zep song, like the rest of 'em.”

“I know,” she replied, “but I’ve seen you guys play that Zep medley at least half a dozen times over the last two weeks, Andrew. And you do it well. But you’ve never thrown that one into the mix before, now have you?”

“What can I say,” I offered. “It’s an awesome riff.”

We were stretched out on the sand, watching the phosphorescent surf crash onto the sand about twenty feet away. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly crashing onto the surf, a certain Great Barrier Reef slowed it to a gentle, rhythmic tumble. But the water glistened in the moonlight - it was late, maybe one or two AM, but the moon was full and still cast a lunar glow over the beach and the ocean. Few sights are as captivating as a deserted beach by luminous moonlight. Unless it was the beautiful Artemisia Bailey on an otherwise deserted beach by luminous moonlight. Particularly if the beautiful Artemisia Bailey is taking advantage of the whole deserted-beach-by-moonlight thing to set her champagne flute down, lean over, press her hand against your chest, look deep into your eyes, and kiss you like you’d not remembered being kissed in a long time. I cast my empty ‘glass’ aside, and swept her up into my arms and into my lap, my fingers tousled in her glossy black hair as I kissed her deeply in return.

“So,” she began with a knowing smile, “just an awesome riff, then?”

I grinned, and pressed my mouth against hers again, hungrily, just to keep her quiet. Words were redundant anyway. Her eyes burned with intent. I wanted her more intensely than I could ever remember lusting for Jessica. That’s a lousy thing to admit, but it was true. Jessica was an open book; she had no mysteries, no secrets. Even right now, as Artemisia regarded me with those level, feline eyes of hers, I still didn’t really know what she was thinking. I just hoped it was the same as what I was.

“Come for a swim,” she said, stretching langruously behind herself to reach the zip on her dress. My fingers found it first, but she slapped them away. “Naughty,” she scolded. I was pretty sure she was naked underneath, or at least bra-less; there’s only so much restraint that a gypsy-girl dress can impose on a curvaceous little thing like Artemisia when she’s gyrating on stage, but she wasn’t in any hurry to let me known one way or the other. Perhaps she was just enjoying the feeling of me getting hard underneath her. I know I was.

I knew we were out of sight, even if any lights were on back at the caravan park; we were a little way around the corner from the beach which fronted onto it, hidden by a little promentary of rocks. The zip on her dress relinquished its hold on her, and she peeled herself free of the flimsy cotton. Her bare skin was pale, almost translucent in the moonlight; her luscious breasts milky-white, crowned with broad chocolate-brown nipples which she ushered against the palms of my hands, then the roughness of my mouth as she surrendered deliciously to the moment. She wrestled my shirt off and fought with my belt buckle as I devoured her mouth, neck and breasts.

Then she stood. For one terrifying moment I feared second thoughts, but no chance of that; she wanted only to allow her dress to glide the length of her bare thighs to pool at her feet. All along, she’d been naked underneath. I stood also, slithering out of my jeans and boxers. Artemisia pressed the flat of her hands against my chest, closed her eyes, and kissed me again, letting my hard-on press against the soft flesh of her belly. Then she opened her eyes and looked up at me.

“Last one in has to go down,” she said impishly.

And was off and away, dancing into the surf. I never stood a chance. By the time I got there she was splashing around in the warm Whitsunday waters, flicking a generous handful of water at me as I dared approach. My eyes were irresistably drawn to the dark triangle of soft down which teased from between her thighs. This is what comes of growing up with illicitly-gained seventies’ Playboys and eighties’ Penthouses as fantasy fodder: Jessica’s home-made Brazilian left precious little to the imagination, compared with Artemisia’s ‘natural’ presentation. And, let’s face it, the imagination is a very potent thing when it comes to sex.

I grabbed her and swung her up into my grasp, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and her lithe legs around my waist. My hands found her round, pert backside; my fingers searched further below, seeking and finding her sticky warmth.

“You don’t mess around, do you?” she marvelled, grinding against my touch, feeling my hard-on lingering bare millimetres from her aching pussy, and just willing me to bury myself deep inside her, protection or none. I wasn’t waiting around for second thoughts; in a heartbeat, I was there. She whimpered desperately, her lips biting against my mouth as she proceeded to take me as deep inside herself as she dared. She wasn’t quite wet enough yet for her liking, but near enough for mine. I hadn’t been inside like this, bareback, for longer than I could recall - since the early, morally flimsy days at college. Compared to ‘protected’ sex, well, there was no comparison.

“Good?” I inquired.

Those piercing green eyes opened again. “Forgetting something, aren’t we?”

Fuck. I didn’t actually have protection. I mean, why would I be carrying any? I was in a long-term relationship, after all.

She read my expression, and smiled using just her eyes.

“Not that,” she cooed. “I meant, you were last into the water. And we had an agreement…”

I was almost relieved when she dropped down from my waist to her feet, then guided me down, until I was back on my heels on the rough, granular sand, waves lapping around my thighs and cooling my undercarriage somewhat. I say almost relieved because going downtown isn’t necessarily my favourite pastime. She was so hot now though, and I was so insane with lust, that I didn’t care. Her pussy was directly at eyeline; she dangled one elegant leg over my shoulder and pressed my mouth hard against her slippery, sultry opening. I closed my eyes and delved as deeply as I dared, my tongue searching out her sweet spots. She tasted of the ocean around us, of saltwater and a teasing hint of seaweed; nothing more astringent than that, which I was more than happy to work with. I ran my tongue vigorously along her opening and over her desperately swollen clitoris. She gasped sharply, clawing her fingers against the back of my head. I liked the response I was getting, so I did it again. And again. And again, sliding a finger deep inside her as I tortured her relentlessly, while her hands tousled and gripped my hair. Then, without warning, I grabbed her thighs and dragged her down to my level. She looked at me askance, almost pleadingly.

“Sounds like you’re having too much fun, Artemisia,” I told her.

She responded by slapping a hand over my mouth and pushing me back into the water, as she straddled me, reaching behind herself to position my hard-on against her pussy. The contrast between the cool of the water and the urgent heat inside her was electrifying. I could feel every last squeeze of her insides, every little flutter and ripple of excitement. It took the focus off drowning, for which I was thankful. She leaned over me, pressing her mouth against mine and exhaling a lungful of her air into mine.

“I’ll make sure you breathe, baby. Just you make sure you come inside me.”

Sounded like a fair exchange, I figured, as she closed her eyes and began riding me, waves surging over her creamy thighs as she coaxed herself into pushing harder against me, biting her bottom lip, the fingers of one hand stretched out against my chest, the fingers of the other delving helplessly through her glossy black thatch, rubbing herself desperately as she bucked and moaned and scratched her nails against me.

This wasn’t much of a long-term strategy, I reasoned. For one thing, I could only hold my breath for so long - about two minutes was my record, and not under such, erm, unique circumstances - and while Artemisia seemed to draw some spiritual gratification from breathing for the both of us, I wasn’t quite drawing enough of what we like to call ‘oxygen’. Not that I’d have cared, had I suffocated there and then, and floated out to sea to be nibbled on by reef sharks. Just so long as I could last long enough so we could both reach our climax.

It was close, but Artemisia beat me there by moments, her own fingers almost a blur as they betrayed her aching desire to crest the summit of her orgasm as soon as she possibly could. She came more intensely, and more beautifully, than any girl I’d ever been with. And with barely a moments notice, I reached my peak as well, pouring myself into her. She seemed to appreciate that just as much. I didn’t think to ask myself until much later where she’d developed her taste for ‘bareback’ sex, and I’m glad it didn’t occur to me at the time.

She tugged at my shoulders, pulling me up into a sitting position as she settled back into my lap, my hard-on still reassuringly hard inside her. Artemisia linked her arms behind my neck and searched deep into my eyes; hers were sparkling, and streaked with tears. Up to then, I’d never had the privilege of making love to a girl who cried when she reached her climax.

“You’re so beautiful when you come,” I told her. She sniffled apologetically, as another tear traced a path down her cheek. I waited for her words.

“Again,” was her first.

I raised both eyebrows. It was a two-eyebrow job to register that much surprise.

“Again,” she insisted, more boldly this time. “Take me over by the rocks and fuck me like you’ve never fucked anyone in your life.”

I was about to protest that even the postman only comes once a day, so twice in twenty minutes was perhaps a bit beyond me, when I realised something. I was still hard. No sex in two weeks (not even solo, I should point out - some weirdos like his missus might get a kick out of sharing quarters with Jeff, but I certainly didn’t) appeared to have left me with some margin to spare. Or maybe it was just that breathtaking feeling of sensing every little post-orgasmic tremor and flutter deep inside her pussy, coaxing and insisting that I stay hard for her. Whatever it was, I had no plans to retreat from it.

With some effort, I eased forward onto my knees, then hoisted myself onto my feet, her legs wrapped around my waist again - still buried inside her. Cupping her firm arse, I carried her giggling and protesting weakly out of the surf, across the sand, and laid her down on her discarded dress over by the rocks. And then, as she made me promise to do, I fucked her like I’d never fucked anyone in my life. Never so intensely, never so passionately, never so soulfully - almost verging on tantric sex, whatever that is. When she came again, eventually, the tears flowed freely and I kissed them away as they streaked her beautiful face, while she told me she loved me, over and over again in her breathy little voice, almost like a mantra. My reply was the same as I’d already foreshadowed. The girl I love, I told her, she got long black wavy hair.

And the morning? Uh, not so good.

The Jeff, courteously as ever, whipped the curtains open with a practised flourish. Mid-morning light screamed in like Japanese Zeroes on final approach (and I do mean final approach) to the USS Nimitz off Midway Island. “It’s nine-fifty, champion,” he chirped, like that was any excuse. “Gotta clean up and check out by ten.”

I think my first word, or words, were Whafuck?

“Hasn’t helped that you’ve tracked half the fuckin’ beach in here either, when you stumbled in at four in the bloody morning. What the fuck were you doing out there?” He slapped his forehead theatrically. “Oh yeah, how could I forget. You were doing Artemisia.”

“That obvious, was it?”

“Sound carries, old son. Particularly on quiet nights, and particularly,” he added, “when your girl for the night is as vocal as young Les Mis. Christ, that girl comes like a freight train.”

At least I could draw some bitter satisfaction in having force-fed the Jeff some of his own medicine (to wit, the entire week in Port Douglas when he’d had half the United Nations in session in the adjoining room.) And that he’d been tucked up in bed all on his lonesome when I’d swaggered (or at least staggered) in earlier this morning.

I gingerly clambered out of my berth and squinted into the sunlight, trying to see whether other members of our entourage were still on-site. Particularly the girls in the van next door, in whose affairs I’d latterly taken an interest. But the Jeff had made that mental leap already.

“Hate to break it to you,” he observed, “but they packed up and headed for the border two hours ago. They’re in Marty’s Toyo, crammed in with Krusty and Team Duff.”

“Oh good,” I said flatly. “I’d hate to think they were in danger of being hit-on inappropriately.”

With that, I wheeled around and kicked the aluminium door. It didn’t break or even dent much, but it did swing around violently and connected with the outside van wall with a resounding thwack, which I was fairly content with.

“You OK?” Jeff asked.

All I could come up with was a rueful sigh, and three-fifths of a laugh.

“Guess this means she doesn’t love me, yeah?” I figured. Not that I’d ever believed her anyway. Sounded good at the time, though.

The Jeff draped a hairy arm over my shoulder.

“Never mind, bro. These things are sent to try us. Uh, just one thing though…”

“What’s that?”

“You reckon you could teach me some of those obscure old Led Zep songs? Just in case, you know, I ever need a killer seduction move to pull on some girl with long, black, wavy hair…”

I found the other two-fifths of that laugh.

“Just get in the fucking car,” I directed.