Striking Back from Down Under

1. Cruelty and Compassion

Young women are a sweet agony, a toyshop I’ll never enter. I’m a moth, forever singeing the wings of my soul, stupidly circling toward destruction.

Courting ridicule, courting rejection, I instruct my prison on wheels to advance across the Esplanade, stopping against the wrought iron railing.

And there’s my other love, the one giving me nothing but joy. Way out, the rollers rise, turn from azure to turquoise, relentlessly rush the shore until their front is an impossible incline, and their tops boil with foam, until they break and fall with a roar of thunder. The concrete under my wheels vibrates with the shock of their ever-repeated assault.

A thousand times have I seen the beach, in all its moods, and always it is different. A dozen times have I tried to capture the grandeur in my paintings. Others praise my work, even with the ultimate praise of a purchase, though they know nothing of the twisted wreck I am. To me, my attempts are ever short of the real: the living sea meeting the immovable shore.

The beach is an expanse of gold sprinkled with people. Wherever my eyes roam, they light upon rounded breasts seeking to escape skimpy restraints, flaring hips, flashing legs, hair of gold and chestnut and anthracite blown by the breath of the sea.

Torture.

Someone casts a shadow. A head intrudes between me and the sun. “Disgusting,” a cold female voice says. “They should lock things like that away.”

“Don’t be unkind.” This is from a higher voice, perhaps even younger. “He can hear you.”

A tinkling laugh follows, a musical sound of amusement that chainsaws into my heart. “Who says he can even hear? Or if he can, would he understand? That thing?”

I should pretend. I should be the idiot of her supposition. I should sit, mute and immobile and invisibly bleeding, and wait for them to move on before returning to my lair. But my lips click the control and my tongue turns the little ball. My chair spins on the spot, and I face them.

Long, shapely, suntanned legs end at tomato-red panties so brief that little blonde pubic hairs peek out each side, mocking me. Smooth brown abdomen stretches to luscious red-clothed swellings above, the nipples outlined against the material. Still higher, a heart-shaped face is framed by hair of deep gold, lighter at the tips. The cruel, scornful eyes are blue, blue, bluer than the sea. A little, pert nose, a grimace of distaste on the full lips I’ll never kiss.

Beyond, long straight hair of burnished bronze partly hides a plain face, covered with freckles. Her eyes, same color as her hair, look through thick blue-rimmed glasses. She wears a shapeless white T-shirt and a pair of shorts, but even these don’t hide the chubbiness of her torso. There is no cruelty here, but I see worse: pity.

Language is a snail. Better than a picture, better than a photograph, all this I’ve seen in an instant, and it will be with me for all of my life. Fate has imposed the cruelty of cerebral palsy but was kind with eidetic imagery: whenever I choose, one glance gives me a record I can see at will, and later examine in the minutest detail. This is my liberation, my sanity, my ecstasy, the tool of my work.

During that instant, I see the red-haired girl start forward. She is past her friend, then between her and me, and she bends. The salty breeze strokes my face with the tips of her hair, then her lips touch my cheek. “Please forgive her,” she says, her breath on my skin, then she is past, she is gone, and the two of them walk down to the beach, down the stairs, that impassable barrier to wheels.

Not pity. Compassion. I can accept compassion, the hand of one sufferer held out to another.

That night, and for many nights after, my futile dreams are about red hair and a freckled face.

I turn my chair to face the beach once more, to track them across the sand. The red-head turns, her glasses flashing the sun into my eyes, and she raises a hand in farewell.

When their shapes have dissolved into the distance, into the crowd, I work my little control wheel, telling my chair to return home. I trundle up the driveway, up the ramp, and bump through the back door.

I pass Harker, who is helping himself to some milk. “G’day, Wyn,” he says, open face smiling. Harker is two years younger, my brother, my mate, my liberator. He chose his occupation, his life’s work, so he could design electronic wonders for my use: the chair, the bed, the six devices that together allow me to paint.

I spit out the control. The chair stops. “I’d like to start a new painting,” I tell him. Of all the people in the world, only two understand my words: Harker and Mother.

He carries his glass and walks beside me to my room. From here, the beach is a distant background through the eastern window that’s half a wall. My wonderful bed is against the west wall, under the ceiling rails of the lifting machine, now parked over the bath.

He takes the current, part-finished painting off the easel. It’s four A4 sheets, the top left-hand quadrant complete. One day, if ever I return to it, it will be a yellow rose with bright sunlight caught in little droplets of water.

Harker leans the board against the wall, and looks at me with a question.

“Eight by four,” I say, and he whistles in surprise. I’ve just asked him to set up several months of work.

While he is fetching a board of suitable size, and adjusting the easel, and tacking up sheets of blank paper, I stop the chair at my work station, facing the screen. This screen is worth more than the house.

The computer control sits on a flexible stalk. I spit out the chair control and after a few attempts “swallow the mouse,” an old family joke. And for hours at a time, every day I work on the two girls. Each of thirty-two sheets is eight frames, and a frame might take me an hour, or a day.

I look at the easel with its numbered pages, and I can see, projected onto it, the painting as it will be. I choose a page, and a segment of it the size of a business card. I start a blank frame, which is a ten times magnified white sheet on the screen. Click, click, I use the marvelous tools of my graphics program to create electronic brush strokes that fill the screen with living color. Three hours pass, as pixel by pixel I create the left lens of the glasses, half a minute to modify a mirror image for the right.

When the eight frames of a page are done, I activate the printer, Harker’s printer that uses acrylic paints, and when all the layers are dry, Mother or Harker glues the sheet into place, and I move onto another tile of my mosaic.

***

I’m resting. Through the window, I admire the winter storm that’s lashing the sea into fury, so that the house shakes in sympathy with the pounding surf. Behind me, on the easel, the painting is all but complete: two blank pages remain, both of them mostly background.

Headlights stabbing through the rain, wipers working hard, a white Mercedes eases to a stop before our house. A blue umbrella pokes its tip above the driver’s door, on the far side, then advances with quick little bumps around the front. I can now see it in full, providing inadequate shelter for Ingrid, who is wearing a matching blue raincoat. She scurries toward the front door, and passes out of my sight.

Ingrid is my agent, a middle-aged fount of enthusiasm and energy, encouragement and advice, the buffer between the world of art and the secret of my accursed body.

I turn my chair and wait. The door opens, and Mother leads Ingrid into the room. She has shed her raincoat, but her cream-colored slacks are wet below the knees. She is rubbing obviously cold hands together, her face a friendly smile. “Been a while, Wyn,” she says. I watch her face as her eyes are captured by the easel. She stops, even her hands stop their rubbing. She takes a deep breath. “Cruelty and compassion,” she says at last. “It’s your best so far.”

The painting shows heads only, both in three-quarter profile. The girls face away from each other. On the left is the blonde. I’ve painted her beautiful, even more beautiful than real life, but as you look at her lovely face, it becomes ugly: cold, rejecting, crippled within as it is perfect outside.

The redhead on the right is the opposite. At first, your eyes slide over her plain, ordinary visage and are instead captured by the other. But when you return, you see Goodness, and Love, the universal Mother though she is young; I’ve painted her younger than she is.

“Wyn, I love you,” Ingrid says. She hurries to me, and bends to give my cheek a kiss. I breathe in her perfume. She straightens, stroking my hair with a delicate hand. “Finish it, and we’ll enter it in the Archibald.”

The Archibald Prize is an annual event. Artists from all around Australia submit portraits, mostly of the famous. But the identity of the model doesn’t matter. It’s a painting competition, not a parade of people.

Of course, I won’t win, but I’m happy to be in it.

***

More months have passed. I have completed two more paintings, and last week Mother had taken me on an outing to the bush. I’ve absorbed the Spring awakening of the Australian landscape. Oh, it’s not as showy as that of other lands, its beauty is subtle. Giant, gnarled gumtrees turn red at the tips with new growth, and one of them is taking shape on the canvas of my computer.

Concentrating, I’m barely aware of the phone, ringing in another room, in another reality. But then Mother’s little shriek pulls me back into the world. Is something wrong?

She rushes in. “Love, that was Ingrid. You’re shortlisted for the Archibald!”

I wish they hadn’t told me. I wish they’d kept it a secret. Now, I have hope. I lose sleep, can’t concentrate on my work. If I could, I’d chew my fingernails, the way Harker does when he’s worried. Time now becomes a cripple like me, walks in glue.

Weeks pass. I finish my tree from a sense of duty, but then lack inspiration for a new project. Harker sets up the ancient yellow rose, to give me something to do.

At last, Ingrid lets us know. No, I didn’t win, not even a minor placing, of course not. But, a few weeks later, an official invitation arrives in the mail, forwarded through by Ingrid with a newspaper clipping: a review in the Sydney Morning Herald of “the compelling, intriguing, vibrant masterpiece, titled ‘Cruelty and Compassion’, by mystery artist Wynstanley Thompson.”

And so I take a momentous decision. For the first time ever, I’ll risk being seen by my public.

Travel is a chore, but at long last we’re there. An elegant crowd swirls around the exhibits. Harker makes way for my chair, Ingrid and Mother flank me as I head for the winner.

I can see why it won. It’s a wonderful portrait, in a way non-representational, with little distortions that bring the Deputy Prime Minister to life. I’ll study this painting at home, within the gallery of my mind, and learn from it.

The paintings are arranged in order of merit, and to my surprise, my girls are in fifth place. “Excellent, for a first try,” Ingrid tells me.

People jostle each other, my chair is a reef in the tide as I move to the sixth painting. Over the constant hubbub of the crowd, I hear a shriek, “That’s me!”

I can’t help it. I spin my chair.

It’s the blonde, though of course wearing a stylish dress, sparkling jewelry. She is holding the hand of a large older man in a dark suit. Her eyes are upon her likeness, at first with pride, and then, as she looks, her face freezes over.

She must feel my eyes upon her, for she turns. Naked swords, our eyes cross. “Oh. The freak,” she says. Then she turns away and jerks on her escort’s hand. They disappear in the crowd.

Revenge is sweet, at first. For days, I see the dismay upon her face, the hurt I inflicted by forcing self-knowledge upon her. But then doubt comes, for am I not as bad? Perhaps she is a helpless victim of the handicap of her emotions, as I am a helpless victim of the handicap of my body.

One morning, I look out my window, at the empty weekday beach, seagulls over surf, when the phone rings. And then, Mother calls, “Wyn, it’s for you, love!”

I trundle over. Mother’s activated the speaker, and Ingrid says, “Wyn, darling, a young woman has tracked me down. She met you once, and has often thought of you since, and wants to meet you again. Her name is Cybil Martin.”

My heart dances a mad pitter-patter, and my voice is slurred, worse than ever, as I ask a question. Mother translates, “Ingrid, what is the color of her hair?”

Ingrid laughs, in surprise. “I haven’t met her, just talked with her on the phone. I can ask.”

But I know. It is the color of burnished bronze.

This story won first prize in Donard Publishing’s short story contest, July 2003. 1587 people voted for it.

2. Game Planet

Prologue

Durio settled into the seat of the Game console. He heard the machine’s thought, Admitted. Welcome, Durio Makkell. You have 54 minutes and 17 seconds Game time remaining.

Connect to Pawn, Durio thought at it. He wriggled with impatience while the machine made the immense jump through the Galaxy, selected the correct time, and found the one person out of, how many were there in this time period? Six billion? who was now tethered to Durio for the rest of his miserable lifetime. This second time, Durio had chosen the period the Game Planet catalog labeled “The Autumn,” because it came not long before the Collapse.

Of course Durio had again chosen a tall, muscly, handsome blond bastard with a rich family and brains and the women falling all over him; just the kind who’d been giving him a hard time all through his life, back here. He’d slaved and scraped for nearly a year, to save up for another hour, with a brand new Pawn. This time, this time it’d be different. This Andy didn’t seem to react so squeamishly to the fun bits as bloody Etienne had.

Durio thought back sourly to that waste of credits, his first Pawn. He’d seemed to be a good choice at the beginning. Durio had gone for an exciting period in Game Planet’s history, when the victorious Napoleonic armies raged though Europe, sweeping all before them. Etienne Cosieau was the son of one of the newly aristocratic families, a lieutenant fawned on by his men and favored by his superiors. If he’d been a guy here on Tegilong, he’d probably just look through Durio, never even notice his existence. But, thanks to the Game, Durio had the power over him.

Things went well at first. Durio wasn’t at all interested in prizes or points in the Game, so had avoided other Pawns. What he wanted was fun, things he couldn’t do in real life without risking interference from bloody busybodies. Mind-cleaning is such a permanent change, no way was he going to risk it! He’d used Etienne’s charisma to lead his soldiers into enjoyable situations. And in war-ravaged Europe, there were plenty of women to relish, prisoners to play with, peasants to string up and burn alive.

But that wimp Etienne went into stupid fits of depression and guilt, whenever Durio fast forwarded a few days. The bastard had even tried to kill himself, and that would have wasted Durio’s hard-earned credits. So Durio had to be firm, and he’d blundered a little and was definitely too firm, and scrambled something in the Pawn’s brain. After that, Etienne heard sounds and saw things that Durio hadn’t put there, and became uncontrollable. Durio’s commands got lost in the crowd of other voices.

So, there it was. Durio had found himself a loser in the Game as in real life, shackled to a useless failure.

At last, Durio’s credits had got used up in a frustrating conflict with the damaged Pawn. Trouble was, he was still tied to the wimp. He just had to pop him off before being allowed to choose another Pawn. So, somehow he’d scraped together the credits for another five minutes, and managed to get Etienne to charge a patrol of Gendarmes. Durio had hoped to slice up a couple of the cops, but even then, Etienne stuffed up. At the last minute, he actually fought off Control, and allowed himself to be cut down without inflicting any damage.

The machine’s thought came at last, Contact established at end of previous episode.

Fast forward to springing the trap on the girl Rilla, Durio thought. He hooked up to Andy’s mind, pleased to note that the Pawn waited with considerable eagerness.

1. Happy Birthday, Dear Tigel

The outer door dilated, and Gadir walked through with a broad grin on his face. “Happy birthday, son!” he shouted over the racket of sixteen teenagers having fun.

Tigel retrieved his hands from around Murian’s waist, though she continued to rub her backside against him. “Welcome home, Dad,” he answered. “Join the party!”

“Yeah, keep me company before I go crazy,” Nolin called from an easychair she’d ordered into a corner.

Gadir hugged his son around the shoulders. Glancing down, he noticed with an inward grin that a suspicious lump raised the boy’s kilt. He was not at all surprised that his son welded himself back to his girl again before he’d crossed the room to his wife. She thought at the easychair and it expanded. Gadir sat down and stretched his legs. “They certainly are a noisy bunch!” he shouted.

“Yeah, that’s how kids have fun. You only turn eighteen once. Oh, did you buy it for him?”

“One hour. You bet.”

She sighed, but not sadly. “It’s a great heap of credits, but he’s worth it.”

“Yeah, we’ve been lucky with our kids.”

A loud chime sang over the human noises, and everyone looked up in anticipation. A hole dilated in the ceiling and a shimmering ball descended. It hovered in the air, a rainbow glow that sang as it spun.

Nolin raised her voice, “Right, kids, let’s sing ‘Happy Birthday’!” She led them and her husband in the traditional song.

At the last “…to you,” the ball exploded into eighteen equal fragments, each instantly forming a smaller ball, and these neatly shot into waiting hands.

Tigel caught his piece of cake, took a bite, swallowed and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mom and Dad, and you scruffy lot, it’s great to have you here.”

Gadir stood up from the easychair’s embrace to announce, “Tigel, you are now an adult. And this bestows certain privileges. Such as controlling a car — and being allowed to play the Game.”

A collective gasp came from sixteen young throats.

He just couldn’t keep up the pomposity. “Yup, son, I bought you an hour. Happy birthday.”

***

“So, which period do you want?” Gadir asked as the car emerged from a low cloud, only to duck into another. “The fierce nomadic warrior of the steppes? Or a medieval knight in armor? You can have anything from the pre-human apes herded into the radiation-zone of the Rift Valley, to the scattered survivors of the Collapse.”

“Nah. Those primitive times’re dirty and smelly, and the houses are cold, and you’ve got to go outside to go to the bathroom. I know from school. I’d prefer something a bit more high-tech.”

“They never got decent technology. I guess the Autumn period was the highest, but even then the best they had was voice operated computers. They never managed thought-control.”

“Dad, I’ve been meaning to ask you about something. Why ‘was’? I mean, when are they, relative to us?”

“Meaningless question. Time’s not like that. We can enter their time line anywhere.”

“Or anywhen.”

“Yeah, something like that. Anyway, all right, you go for the Autumn. So, what kind of a Pawn are you looking for? A film star? A politician? A business magnate?”

“Actually, Dad, I’ve been thinking.” He stayed silent for a while, looking out at the ground below.

“Go on.”

“You won’t laugh at me?”

Gadir laughed of course. “I promise.”

“I… I thought of using a woman.”

“Why not? But why?”

“I want to feel what it’s like from their side… you know!”

Gadir did laugh, but in a friendly way. After all, it didn’t seem to be that long ago that he was eighteen himself. “Go for it, boy. But look, we’re there.”

The car started to spiral down, joining the traffic entering the huge Game Building.

***

Tigel felt nervous as he sat down in the Game seat. Disappointingly, it seemed to be just like any other easychair, automatically adjusting to his body. He said, “Dad, join me?”

“Sure, this first time anyway.”

Tigel made room for his father, who sat beside him.

The machine’s thought came, Gadir Ktona, you have been identified. New person, please identify yourself.

Tigel heard his father’s thought, transferred through the machine, He is Tigel Ktona, I paid for one hour for him.

Welcome, Tigel Ktona. You have sixty minutes and no seconds Game time. Please select a period.

Autumn, Tigel thought.

Please specify search parameters for a Pawn.

Female, young, very attractive. He visualized Murian, her smooth olive skin, liquid brown eyes and curly dark brown hair, but then played around with her appearance, giving her fuller lips and a more symmetrical face, making her taller, with bigger breasts and long slim legs. Beside him, Gadir chuckled.

Tigel continued, I want her to be very intelligent, a good, kindhearted person, in a very difficult situation. Preferably, I want her to be in conflict with someone else’s Pawn.

2. Rilla

It’s dark outside, and quiet, after the happy warm bustle of the restaurant kitchen. Marianne the chef calls after her, “Now, look out for the Romeos, little Rilla!” Compared to Marianne’s six-foot-tall bear-body, every other female is “little.”

Rilla smiles inside as she half-turns back. “They wouldn’t dare to bother me, Big Jim’d skin them!”

She turns toward the alley again, thinking that it’s good to live in Myrimbah. Everyone knows everyone else, you wouldn’t know it’s part of Sydney. So, although she glances each way along the dark back alley, this is only from habit. She carefully picks her way past the trash bins, smiling to herself about that group of businessmen with the American guest. He hadn’t believed that she with her light skin was an Aboriginal. And it was certainly good to see a black man treated as an equal, and with money for the fat tip he gave.

Then she reluctantly thinks about her English assignment. It’s so hard to study, what with work and helping at home! But give it three more months, the torture of the exams, and then on to University: full time study funded by the Government. It’s the road to becoming a social worker, someone who will be able to help her suffering People. And she can ring Jack for advice tomorrow.

Her being warms up when thinking of Jack. Now he is a real Abo! Chocolate all over, a face from the Dreamtime, and more power in his chunky body than white blokes twice his size. And he’s been getting High Distinctions in everything.

She has reached the corner, and there is her little 120Y, parked all alone, just to the left. She unclips the clasp of the little handbag that swings off her left shoulder on a strap, and reaches in for the key. And six tall shapes form out of the darkness. One was on the far side of the little car, others in dark doorways.

“Hello, Rilla,” the one in front of her says, “hello, black bitch.”

She knows his voice, from school. He used to be a decent enough guy then. “What do you want, Andy?”

“Now be polite, little Abo.”

“And you be polite too. I’ve done nothing to you.”

“But you will, you will!”

“Andy, you know who Big Jim is?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“When he finds out you’ve bothered me, you’d better move to Timbuktu.”

Another boy speaks up, “And how will he find out?” She recognizes his voice too.

“Tony. I should have known, you were always a coward and a bully.”

His fist is coming for her in the darkness. She sways aside, so the punch barely grazes her ear. She turns to run. But big, rough hands grab her, many hands. She struggles, throws herself side to side, her foot shoots out and she feels it sink into something soft. At the same time she opens her mouth to scream, but a hand smacks her face from behind and stays there, muffling her open mouth. Then the thick fingers pinch her nose shut.

Hands pummel into her, tug at her clothes, maul her breasts, and a whisper growls into her ear, “Stop struggling, bitch, or I’ll suffocate you!”

And she can’t get air, she can’t breathe, she tries to bite the hand but can’t, and a speeding battleship thumps into her midriff just below her ribs and she is submerged in a sea of pain. Her body sags, and she’d fall except for the hands that hold her.

***

“Oh the bastards!” Tigel gasped in agony, his hands pressed to his solar plexus. He leaned forward in the seat, which of course automatically molded to his new position.

Gadir was also in some distress, though he felt less pain, being the shadow of the shadow. “Take a few deep breaths,” he advised, doing it himself. “Poor girl. Well, you wanted someone in a difficult situation. We’d better rescue her before they damage her too much.”

Tigel could sit up again. “I think they’re planning to kill her after.”

“Yeah, I agree. And there goes your hour, a small fortune gone up in smoke. But listen, did you notice the fellow Andy?”

“I sure did. Green aura. He is the Pawn.”

“Right. Fast forward to where the girl has recovered enough for action, but before they’ve done any significant damage. Then get her to hurt Andy, badly. That’s her one chance.”

***

Rilla faces the dark cavity of a sedan’s back seat. The inside stinks of tobacco. They shove her, hard, and she tumbles in. She has a sudden, unexpectedly clear thought that cuts through the panic and despair: I must pretend to be beaten. Make them think I’ve got no fight left. Then…

So when the big rough male hands push at her bottom, pinching and squeezing at the same time, she puts her knees on the seat and crawls in. The door she is facing opens, and a dark figure crowds her. She sits up and lowers her feet to the floor, and two more big solid male bodies squash in. Both front doors open. Andy climbs in behind the wheel, two other shapes get in the other side, shuffle along the bench seat.

She can’t get enough air, though she has largely recovered from the vicious body punch. The boys each side of her crowd her, hard, and again unwanted hands grope all over her body. Large male hands squeeze and stroke and pinch and probe. She wants to strike out, to scream, but Let them, I mustn’t show any resistance yet, the thought comes, and somehow she manages to sit still. “Please,” she says in a small voice, “can we have some air, open a window?”

Andy starts the engine, the car settling into the throaty gurgle of an idling V8. “No fear,” he says, “we don’t want you screaming to somebody, do we?”

She opens her mouth to answer back, but again a thought comes, I must bide my time. Just act defeated.

Through the dark streets they drive. Mother will be worried about her by now. She is sure she’ll never see Mother ever again, or George or Paul or Tina, and how will those littlies survive without her? And Jack. Oh, if only Jack was here, he’d destroy these monsters, even if it was six to one. I’ll survive. I must. And I can.

She doesn’t know where these thoughts are coming from, but she is glad she has found this inner strength.

A thick-fingered male hand pulls her knickers aside and is fiddling with her private parts. The inside of the car stinks with the smell of male sweat and excitement, but the thought comes, Let him, for now. What does it matter? She forces her body to stay unmoving, though it’s a terrible effort.

The car suddenly turns into a driveway and stops. Rilla knows where they are, exactly. It’s Jemison Street. All the big, expensive houses are dark.

Without turning around, Andy says, “Gag her,” and switches off the engine.

I mustn’t resist yet. Let them gag me. If they think I’ve given up, they won’t tie my arms and legs.

The boy on her left has a strip of cloth ready. He ties it around her mouth. She does nothing to fight him off, and at the same time, the thought comes, Andy is the leader. Andy is the one. If I can put him out of action, I can get away. And I must. They must not get me inside that house.

All four doors open, and the pressure on Rilla is eased. Before anyone can grab her, she shuffles to the right, the driver’s side, and puts her feet out.

“That’s a good girl,” comes Tony’s gloating voice.

But Rilla has no attention for him. She is a coiled spring, a cobra ready to strike.

Andy’s feet are on the ground, the top part of his body still within the car. He steps back and turns toward Rilla as he starts to stand. She doesn’t know where the impulse to act is coming from, but her left arm is a piston, her second and third fingers rigidly extended, and then she feels the awful yielding of his eyeballs against her sharp fingernails.

A terrible scream rends the night, and Andy staggers back against the open car door. But by then Rilla is past him, then ducks around the hot nose of the car, and sprints down the dark driveway. She feels a hand touch her shoulder, and hears feet thudding on the ground, but it’s the merest touch, and he can’t keep up with her terror-fueled flight. She used to win running medals in school. As she turns out of the driveway, into the dark deserted street, she whips the gag over her head.

***

“Well done, son!” Gadir gave Tigel a great hug. They were both laughing in relief and pride.

“Yeah, we’ve got a Pawn again. Besides, I’m glad I got her off, no girl should be treated like that. Though it’s a bit sad for that Andy fellow.”

Gadir suddenly became very serious. “Now, don’t make that mistake. They are Pawns. They were created by Game Planet, Inc. for our entertainment. They wouldn’t exist except for us. If it wasn’t for Game Planet, Inc., the marine mammals would still be ruling that planet, and what have been made into people would be no more than mindless apes.”

“Sure. But they look like people, and they certainly feel like people inside.”

“Of course. What fun would it be otherwise? But tell you what, I’ll bet the bastard who is Controlling Andy has something to think about! Did you see the aura flash from green to red?”

“And serves him right. Dad, why would anyone use his Pawn to do a nasty thing like that?”

“Well, it’s better than if they do it on Tegilong. Imagine if he got at one of your sisters.”

“Yeah. Hey Dad, how about lunch?”

“All right, Tigel, you can return tomorrow for another session.”

“You’ll join me?”

“Thanks, I’d love to.”

3. Session 2

Fast forward to next contact with other people, Tigel told the machine. He hoped this would be contact with Jack. After all, wasn’t that the reason he’d chosen Rilla as his Pawn? Also, he wished she’d look into a mirror or something. He still hadn’t seen her from the outside, only from within her thoughts.

“This wait for contact always seems to be forever,” Gadir said, but then they were with her.

***

Starved of air after her long run, lungs on fire, Rilla turns the corner into Redley Street. All the houses are dark here too, except for one. The windows of Number 15 blaze into the empty street, and as she nears Rilla can hear music, and the cheerful buzz of voices. It’s as usual.

She stumbles through the open doorway. A big dark-skinned hand reaches out to steady her. The intention is kind, but she fights him off with a sudden panic. “I’m… all… right…” she pants. “Where’s… Uncle… Jim?”

She turns, to see that the hand belongs to Dennis. He’s a sort of a cousin, a good bloke, tall and gangly, all arms and legs but a beaut boxer. “Rilla, what happened to you?” he asks.

She has some air now, though her chest is still rising and falling with the rapid tide that follows the storm of her run. “Got attacked, managed to get away. Where’s Uncle Jim?”

“In the kitchen as usual. Go on through, love.”

The room holds a dozen people, chatting, listening to the Country and Western CD, several with cans of beer in their hands. Rilla knows them all, they’re all Family even though four of them have blue eyes and light colored hair. Their voices stroke her in a flood of encouragement and comfort as she walks through. It’s great to belong.

There are three other people in the kitchen, but Big Jim fills the space. He is big. He sits in his specially constructed rocking chair which is tilted back, his feet on the bare laminex table. If he stood, he’d be six foot four inches. A photo of him in his buck-riding days is framed on the wall, and there he was as lean as a gatepost, but now he seems as wide as tall. His skin is a muddy brown, the whites of his black eyes are bloodshot. His curly hair and beard have gone snowy white, but his grin exposes a row of faultless white teeth. “Hya, there, Rilla,” he calls.

“Oh, Uncle Jim!” and suddenly she is crying, great uncontrollable sobs shake her body. Jim just manages to get his feet down onto the floor as Rilla throws herself against him. He lifts her around and cuddles her just like when she’d been a little child.

After a short while, she is able to tell her story.

***

“Don’t waste Game time on this,” Gadir advised. “Tell you what, let’s look up your score instead.”

So Tigel disconnected and thought at the machine, and the report was projected on the far wall.

Tigel Ktona has used 18 minutes and 11 seconds, defeated opponent by permanently crippling Pawn. Rating so far 97%, to receive 500 credits. Congratulations.

Well, this was a cause for great celebration. They couldn’t sit still, but had to jump up. Gadir grabbed his son’s hands and danced him around the room. Both of them laughed and shouted with joy.

At last, they steadied down, mostly because Gadir ran out of wind. “They’ll be playing recordings of your win for weeks!” he panted. “Think of all the royalties!”

“Beginner’s luck, Dad.”

“No need for false modesty. You did well!”

4. Session 3

I want to see Jack, the thought comes. It’s a clear thought, somewhat different, Rilla muses, just like the thoughts she’d had during the emergency. That’s what she calls the attack to herself, it’s easier to cope with than “attempted gang rape.” But actually, the thought is very true. She is aching to be with Jack.

She shudders again, then almost vomits at the remembered feel of eyeballs squashing under her fingertips. What came after was pretty bad too, Mother’s hysterics, and the interrogation by the hard policewoman. Rilla could almost read her mind, “Bloody Abo slut, probably asked for it.” Then she was made to look at Andy’s bandaged face at the hospital, and without meaning to she remembered him as he’d been at school, the tall, blond basketball hero. How could he have become a monster?

Yes, she needs the comfort of seeing Jack. She picks up the telephone.

***

Rilla is sitting in the front room of the dingy but clean old house, looking out at the street, and hooray! here is Jack’s battered old Holden coming around the corner.

He parks neatly, the way he does everything, and gets out. He locks the car, though who’d want to steal that old bomb? Then he looks up and sees her face in the window. The dark face shines with the happy smile that had won Rilla’s heart over a year ago, when she’d gone to the Open Day at the University and he was there from the Aboriginal Students’ Association and gave a speech before hundreds of people. Afterward, she’d teased him about his future as the first Aboriginal Prime Minister of Australia, and he’d answered, “I’ll have to pass second year Law first. One step at a time.”

Later, she’d found out from other people that he had got High Distinctions in every first year subject.

The front door creaks open, and she jumps to her feet to welcome him. “Oh Jack!” she cries.

He holds his arms out to her and she rushes into his embrace. His strong arms close around her. But suddenly, unstoppably, she must fight free. She cannot breathe. She cannot think. Her insides are heaving, and she stops herself from vomiting with difficulty.

Jack lets her go. “Rilla, darling, what’s wrong?”

“I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“What? What did I do?”

“Nothing, Jack you’ve done nothing. It’s me. I can’t. Please. I can’t stand a man touching me. Any man. Even you.”

“I understand, love. But it’s very fresh. You’ll get over it. We’ll get you counseling.”

“I’ll never get over it.”

She turns and races into her room, and sobbing, throws herself across her bed.

***

“Bugger,” Tigel said.

“Never mind, son. Jack’s probably right. She’ll get over it. But tell you what, we need to go. And I’ve ordered something for tonight’s entertainment.”

Tigel stood and stretched. “What?”

“The recording by that woman, Barinan Kobo. You know, where she beat Hundoy Karif?”

Tigel laughed with joy. “I’m looking forward to it.”

On the car ride home, they talked about Hundoy, who was almost a legend. It was said that he’d made millions of credits from his prizes, and the royalties from replays of his recordings. Not that he’d get any from this one!

Hundoy specialized in finding a Pawn who seemed to have no chance at power, then making him into a world-beater. His first Pawn was the Pharaoh Ammahotter I, who was the bastard son of one of Pharaoh Gitemagel’s younger sons, and turned him into the founder of a two hundred and fifty year dynasty. Others were Agamemnon, Genghis Khan, who’d been the third youngest of seventeen brothers, Horatio Nelson, and Lenin. He’d used all his Pawns to trounce several other players.

His latest Pawn was true to form: a boy from an ordinary family who’d become the President of the United States. Several of his episodes had been prize winners, but now he’d found his Pawn entrapped.

At home, the family settled into their favorite easychairs. Gadir commanded, Start playback, and Tigel was suddenly and realistically on Game Planet. Because this recording had been made by a woman, he wasn’t in her Pawn, but experienced the action from outside. He watched the President and the lovely dark haired young woman have their fun, and then just couldn’t keep contact, he had to laugh so hard, as she carefully put away the semen-bedabbled dress.

He had a real hard-on, so, as the recording ended, he asked, “Mom, Dad, can I borrow the car?”

“Why?” Nolin asked.

“I’d like to play a bit of my Game.”

“It’s a bit late, son. It’s dark outside already.”

“It’s all right,” Gadir chipped in. “I’ll come too.”

As they walked toward the outside door, both glanced down, and saw the front of the other’s kilt lifted. They burst into new peals of laughter as the door dilated in front of them.

***

“Darling, you’ve seen the psychologist, how many times, ten?” Jack’s voice is patient, warm, but with a hopeless edge to it.

“Eleven,” Rilla answers in a low tone of voice.

They are wearing swimming costumes. Rilla’s is a bright red bikini. They sit side by side, not touching, in a secluded and lonely little bay. The hot Australian sun is drying the seawater on their bodies.

After a long silence, Rilla continues, “She says, the only way I’ll get over it is to let you touch me, to force myself to accept it. So, go on.”

Jack sighs. “It feels wrong. I want to give you pleasure, not have you grit your teeth so you don’t scream.”

“Do it!”

Jack raises a hand and gently strokes her dark brown curls. She looks at him, saying inside, It’s Jack, I love him, it’s Jack… on and on. But her body is trembling, and she clenches her fists to stop herself from getting up and running away. Then a thought comes, It feels nice, like I was a cat and he was patting me.

Jack’s chocolate face is so close it’s almost out of focus. She looks into his black eyes and feels his hands touch her shoulders, gently, hesitantly. She leans toward him until their lips touch. Then he is kissing her, hungrily, she feels his tongue, and then his hand is on her left breast.

It’s good, it’s lovely, the thought comes, but despite this a panic wells up and she is back in the dark street and the hand on her breast is a maul not a caress and she is away, running and sobbing at the same time.

***

Tigel’s erection was so hard it hurt. “We blew it,” he said, wanting to hit something. “Jack and I, we went too fast. I should’ve got her to tell him to go slow.”

“Never mind. Get the machine to do a scan, son. She’ll get over it, surely. Then we can fast forward to then.”

The scan showed a further sixty-eight interesting years for Rilla. She did become a social worker, and an activist for her People. She was the godmother for Jack’s children, and his Chief of Staff when he became a Senator for New South Wales and later Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. She’d actually survived the Collapse, and died fifteen years after it, from the complications of an osteoporotic fracture.

She considered herself to have lived a good life. But not once during those sixty-eight years was she able to endure a sexual caress from a man.

Poor Tigel.