Lost Girls (29 page)

He was there in
the bar again the next night. This time he stayed for two drinks,
though he refused her offer to buy him one and did not offer to buy
her one in return.

However she
sensed that she had intrigued him too, just a tiny bit, but he was
now conscious of her and intrigued by her interest. He told her a
small bit about his work as a jack of all trades across the vast
open spaces of Australia. She told him she was at University in New
Jersey, just the other side of the Hudson River from New York and
had decided to take a gap year and travel and see the world. Now
she said she was enjoying life in Northern Queensland.

She knew as she
spoke that he had seen through her shallow lies, not that he seemed
to care, but his manner told her he had a nose for scenting out
things that were not fully truthful.

He said, “We
all have our stories; I have given you a tiny bit of mine, true but
telling nothing. You have given me a tiny bit of yours, part true
and telling even less. That’s how it goes.”

With that he
stood up and left again.

The next night
he was not there, Amanda asked around and found he had departed to
the mainland on the last ferry. She felt disappointed that he had
left without her knowing or saying goodbye.

A week later
her Canadian friend left. Now she had no more drinking partners and
there was no one else she found interesting at the resort at
present. She decided she needed to do something to pass the empty
nights. She went to the bookshop and bought a novel with good
reviews. It had stickers saying it had won a major prize, something
called “Man Booker”. It seemed like a big deal prize in England,
not quite a Pulitzer but still a big something.

Hopefully it
will be OK,
she thought as she settled in to reading it that
night, nursing a drink on a corner table of the resort bar.

She realised
that a person was coming up to sit at her table, she looked up. It
was the man, Mark. This time he was carrying a drink for her as
well as one for himself. He had ordered her regular mojito and she
wondered how he knew what it was, but his eyes were sharp, not much
went past him.

She looked him
up and down appraisingly wondering if tonight would be her lucky
night, the start of something new and exciting. She was confident
in her ability to bait the hook and catch the fish from here.

Amanda and Mark
talked for maybe an hour that night. When he looked at her she felt
like she had his total attention, his eyes looked at her with such
penetration. It made her a bit giddy and breathless, she would not
let him get away tonight without something more.

She asked him
what he was doing back on the island and where he was off to next.
He said he was just back for a day to service the new air
conditioners he had installed a week ago, make minor adjustments
and ensure that all were working well. Tomorrow he would return to
the mainland when he finished. Then after a night in Airlie Beach
he was off early the next morning to do some prospecting for opals
in central Queensland, a place he had been told about which was
promising. He would spend ten days to two weeks there, the length
depending on what he found and when that was done he would go
further west, across to the NT where he was booked to do a few
weeks of station work, contract mustering cattle.

She kept asking
him questions about his life and what it was like out in “The
Outback”, as he called it, was it like the American Wild West.

Finally, after
about her tenth question, he turned to her and looked at her with
eyes that bored straight into her soul.

“If you really
want to see it you can come with me for a week or two. It won’t be
exciting. I will be digging for opals. It is hard work. And once I
leave here I won’t be coming back this way anytime soon. So if you
get bored I can take you a four hour drive to the local town to
catch a bus if you want to leave. Or, when I am finished, I can
take you on to Mount Isa from where you can catch a plane. Or, if
you really want to stay on longer you can come on with me to the NT
and see a couple cattle stations at work. Then when that is
finished I will bring you to Alice Springs or Katherine which are
the nearby towns. By then I am sure you will have had more than
enough of the Outback and you can leave from there.

There was
something implacable and hard in his eyes when he said those words
that it gave her a little shiver. It was as if he had laid down a
challenge to her, a challenge for a trip and a challenge for
control. She liked challenges and she liked control.

She nodded, now
exerting her own control. It could be interesting. “What do I need
to do if I decide to come?

He shrugged,
dismissive; as if now regretful he had made an offer, but not
willing to go back on his word if the challenge was accepted.

“I will be
catching the last ferry back to the mainland tomorrow. If I see you
on the ferry I will take it you are coming with me.”

With that he
stood up and nodded a good night.

Amanda sat
there for a further five minutes, feeling wildly exhilarated,
thinking how the strangest things in life came when least expected.
She was determined to accept his challenge; she would be on the
ferry. She would give notice tomorrow saying she was leaving at the
end of the day, that a job offer had come up on the mainland that
was too good to refuse and she needed to start immediately. They
would make up her pay by the end of the day and she would be
gone.

She would say
nothing of her plan to travel to the outback with Mark. It would be
fun. She knew, despite his challenge, that she could control him,
the same way as she had always managed with other men.

Next day the
ferry was more than half way across before she saw him. She was
starting to wonder if he had done this just to tease her. But, sure
enough, there he was. He looked down at her gear in the bag, picked
it up and carried it to the car deck, dropping it onto the back of
a white four wheel drive.

“This is my
car,” I assume you are coming with me.”

That night he
booked them into a five star resort at Airlie Beach. He did not ask
her whether she wanted to share. He simply told her of his plans
for them to enjoy a final night of civilisation before heading out
the back of nowhere. He carried her bag up the room, a palatial
apartment looking far out across the beach to the islands in the
distance. It had a huge bed, a separate lounge areas, a bathroom
with a Jacuzzi and a wide terrace with a table and chairs.

He took two
beers from the fridge and offered her one.

She nodded and
thanked him.

After they had
both had two drinks and were feeling mellow, he suggested she might
like a bath and that after that he planned to go and eat in a new
restaurant in the town if she would like to accompany him. It was
not quite a dinner invitation, more a take it or leave it offer, he
was going and she could come along too if she wanted to.

She accepted
with alacrity, and decided that tonight she would wow him with her
sexiest dress. She asked if he needed to use the bathroom for the
next half hour.

He said “No, It
is all yours.”

She took out
her favourite soft silky dress from Paris, turquoise colours that
shimmered as she walked. She carefully did her make up to blend and
match, then slipped the dress over her head and walked back to the
terrace.

He looked up,
she could feel the sexuality exuding from her herself and she knew
it hit him full in the face as she stood there.

‘Wow, I wonder
who the lucky man will be who gets to take that dress off
tonight.

She gave him a
lazy smile and said. “I thought that might be you.”

A week passed.
The sex, beginning with that first night was wild. This man was
insatiable and brought her pleasure beyond what she had known
before. And she knew she turned him on big time too.

However the
trip itself was not so exciting, truth be told. It was like the
badlands of America; at least the way she had seen them on TV, she
had never been to those places.

The first day
had been OK; they had driven down the coast to Mackay, then turned
inland through hills. After a few hours they had come to a town
called Emerald. Mark told her it was in the heart of the good
cattle country of the Great Divide of Queensland.

It was a
pleasant bustling town and they stopped there for night in a local
hotel where they had taken a room and resumed their sexual romp
along with beer and steaks for dinner

On the first
night when they had come back to their apartment at Airlie Beach,
after undressing Amanda and fondling her in the most sensual and
intimate way Mark had produced a condom. She had decided she did
not want this so had told him she was on the pill and this was not
required, even though it was not true. Not that she thought she
would get pregnant, she was pretty sure it was past that time of
the month.

But she wanted
all the leverage she could get if it came to a battle of wills with
this man. It occurred to her that there might be leverage if she
was to fall pregnant or even claim to be, if she wanted to get
control of this man.

Mark had her
captivated, he was so goddamned sexy and wild, not just in bed but
in everything he did. She had felt a lump on his arm one night and
she had got him to admit it was from a bullet wound, it came from a
time when he was a mercenary in West Africa he told her.

She asked if he
had ever killed someone. He said, Yes, quite a few times.” She
found that fascinating too, there was a ruthlessness to him that
was unlike anyone she had been close to before. It gave her little
chills sometimes but she was sure she had his measure.

He was
consistently kind and gentle. So far she had not asked him to do
anything major as a favour. However he had anticipated and done
lots of little things for her, even before she realised she needed
them. He had done them with a smile as if he liked doing things to
please her.

She liked this
kind and gentle way that he treated her. She knew, if she insisted,
that he would fall into line with her other wishes.

The day they
left Emerald they had visited a little town called Ruby, named
after the gems. In the town he had gone to a shop that advertised
things bought and sold. The man who worked there was an old miner.
He had made Amanda a cup of tea while he and Mark talked alone at a
corner table. After a while the man started showing Mark things
that must be gems though from where she was sitting she could not
see.

At first Mark
shook his head but after being shown some more he nodded and pulled
out a roll of money. It looked like lots. He counted out a big pile
and gave to the man. It looked like several thousand dollars.

Then Mark
nodded to her that they were ready to go. As they walked out Mark
showed her what he had bought, two rich red rubies, each the size
of a large pea. The colour of them was like the glow of a fading
sunset or a dying coal from a fire, a very deep red.

Their beauty
was striking. Amanda could imagine one set on a chain between her
breasts. This thought made her smile as she looked up at Mark. He
was looking at her intently and said. “Perhaps I will give you one
of these when you go; the colour matches the fire in your
heart.

She smiled
back, thinking,
That is good, I would like that but I do not
plan to leave you anytime soon.

Then Mark put
the rubies in a little pouch of other stones. She could not see
what was in there. But it rattled and looked heavy; there were
obviously lot of jewels, worth lots and lots of money. That was
good, that would give money for the life together that she had
started to plan.

She just had to
bring him back to a city, civilise him a bit, dress him in better
clothes. After that he would really wow all the people they met.
She decided it was her life’s mission to rescue this man from the
Outback and turn him into something civilised. It felt like a noble
calling. But first she must build more trust and affection with
him, before she tried to direct him to the places she needed to
go.

She had heard,
back in America, that when one first caught a wild horse one needed
to smother it with love and affection until it trusted you. Then
when you had its trust you could take control.

That was her
sense of how it would be with Mark. She was glad she had been
driven to come to Australia as, without this, she would never have
met this amazing man.

She was not
sure if it was love, there was certainly lots of lust. But she
really did feel something deep and special for him.

The only
trouble was that, after they had left Emerald, they had really come
to the middle of nowhere. Now it was getting boring. She was not
sure how many more days she could stand of this.

She did not
mind helping a bit but the digging work was hard. She soon got sore
hands and a couple times little blisters started to come. After
that she stopped digging. There was not really anything else to do
out here. She had gone for a few short walks, but there were no
proper footpaths, and the grass was spiky to walk through and full
of prickles.

Mark had also
warned her to be really careful as the country was full of old mine
shafts, some of which were really hard to see in the long grass. He
did not want her to fall down one and injure herself. And even if
she went off walking wherever one went the scenery did not change.
So now she mostly just sat in the shade, trying to pass the
time.

Mark seemed
happy enough to let her rest, it was not really hot, and he had set
up a comfortable bed and chair for her to use. But there were so
many hours in the day to pass, they never seemed to end.