Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 06:52:19 +0800
From: James MacMannis <james_macmannis@hotmail.com>
Subject: Aboriginal Farmboy / aboriginal_farmboy_10

Author: James MacMannis <james_macmannis@hotmail.com>
Subject: aboriginal-farmboy-10 (adult-youth, interracial, rural)
Archive; 'Aboriginal Farmboy #10'{James MacMannis}(BB, interr, rural)[]
Homosexual, young male sex
Adult-youth
Interracial
Rural setting


ABORIGINAL FARMBOY - PART TEN

Copyright (c) 2004 by James MacMannis
This document may be downloaded for your personal pleasure; however, you may
not place the document on a website or reproduce the story for distribution
in any media whatsoever without my permission.  Please email me at
james_macmannis@hotmail.com with constructive comments or criticism.  You
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December arrived with no fanfare whatsoever.  Summer had settled in fairly
steadily.  Nights were pleasantly warm in the high teens to mid twenties and
day temperatures climbed to 40 degrees or more.  Because of the ambient
temperatures we took to wearing little or no clothing in the house, donning
whatever was required for protection from the hot sun when we worked
outdoors.  At this time of the year the weather is influenced by large
high-pressure systems that lodge themselves off the southern coast of the
state, pouring a massive counter-clockwise wind stream northwards into the
Nullarbor where it rapidly heats.  The pressure systems then force the wind
towards the agricultural districts gathered along the west coast.  This
"Easterly" or "North Easterly", as it is variously known, brings with it
soaring temperatures and air so dry it crackles.  Everything gets dusty and
very, very dry.

I remembered when I worked with Nikolas at Sandplains Station how hot it
would get out there.  One day it was so hot I recall Nikolas telling me to
watch as he fried an egg on a clean shovel that was sitting in the sun with
no other heat source.  We ate the eggs for lunch between thick slices of
farm bread, squatting on the hot ground, our own bare feet impervious to the
high temperatures that had just cooked a meal for us.  Many times in the
intervening years I have used this method to cook a meal.  We would often
get vast dust storms blowing up at this time of the year, directly under the
influence of these immense weather systems.  So common are the effects of
this type of weather that it is not unusual to have a red Christmas.  In
fact, at least one Australian Christmas carol records this for posterity:

"The North wind is tossing the leaves,
The red dust is over town,
The sparrows are under the eaves,
And the grass in the paddock is brown.
As we lift up our voices and sing,
To the Christ Child, the Heavenly King!"  (words by John Wheeler)

The soil where my farm is located is not red, but greyish brown, the result
of degenerated granite rather than degenerated ironstone as is more commonly
found in Australia.  We do not get red dust over the town, but we certainly
get brown dust.  It seeps in through closed windows and doors, it covers
machinery and cars with a film of grit, it builds up a dull surface on the
leaves of trees that remains till the welcome rains later in the new year.
The affect of the wind and the dust on exposed skin is equally drying.
Thumbs split around the top of the nail, tips of the toes crack open and
heels fissure.  The skin on the shin and calf regions of the legs gets so
dry it becomes powdery and flakes off at a touch.  Manual work becomes
difficult with the hot, dry weather because of skin splitting, making it
hard to hold things without enduring a sharp pain, making it hard to walk,
making even the most mundane tasks a burden.

All of this is quite ordinary if you have grown up accustomed to it, and you
learn to take precautionary measures as a matter of course.  We took to
massaging olive oil into our hands and feet every morning and night to help
retain as much moisture in the surface skin as possible.  There are, of
course, proprietary products that will moisturise the skin quite
effectively, but the old ways often seem to work just as well, and are far
cheaper!  I had been a young boy in Queensland and was quite accustomed to
the heat - far more so than the cold, to which I never have adapted.  My
boys, on the other hand, were born and bred in this region of WA where they
experienced each year the extremes of below freezing winters and half
boiling summers.  Yet, still, the skin splits every year at the change of
season, causing painful and annoying sores at the very parts of your body
where seem to make the most contact with other things.

Nick turned fifteen years of age on a typically hot day in the second week
of December.  We had no celebration, even though I was going to put on a
little private party for him, because the boys explained they had not ever
had a reason to celebrate birthdays since the death of their father.
Eventually I agreed to postpone the party and join it with our Christmas
celebration just a few weeks off.  He did, however, have his own private
celebration of the end of the school year.  His exam results had been very
good and he received his graduation to third year.  Nick asked a few of his
school friends to stay over one Thursday night so they could have a party.
School had finished for the year, and we made the arrangements to collect
his friends (two of them lived near our farm, but there were five others we
needed to pick up from town) and Chris and I played hosts as these young
lads had a pleasant evening together, eating the food of Nick's choosing and
drinking a few beers while they watched the latest movies on VHS and DVD.
Rather than try to accommodate this mob in beds, we arranged mattresses in
the sunroom and they all, Nick included, camped out these.  It was a
pleasant sight to see this group of naked and semi-naked boys sprawled
around the room.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for Nick was a little gift that I thought
seemed appropriate for him.  During later October and November the
Department for Conservation and Land Management, who controlled the reserve
land between my property and the boys' home, had been putting in some
much-needed work on firebreaks and access roads.  They worked on absolute
grid lines, meaning that the roadways followed straight lines without
consideration for the terrain they crossed.  Of course, the idea was to
ensure access in case of fire outbreak, not for public access, so these
kinds of roads were purely functional.  Nonetheless, they did provide a new
means of access between our two properties.

I left Chris and Nick on the farm after lunch to take his friends home and
so I could collect my purchase, hooking my heavy duty trailer on to the back
of the Toyota wagon before I left.  The trip was not far, so I was able to
take delivery and be back at home late in the afternoon.  When I pulled in
to my yard, the boys were pottering around the workshop, engrossed in some
discussion.  They barely looked up until I came to a stop right near them.
"What is that you have got?" Chris asked when I got down from the car.  My
purchase was under a canvas cover and they could not see what I had on the
trailer.  "How about you help me unload it?" I asked them.  Ropes and canvas
flew off in no time and soon the new piece of gear was visible.  "Wow!" said
Nick, "What a beauty.  What is it for?"  I pulled him to me as a sudden
emotion gripped my throat.  "It is for you, Nick.  You are still too young
to get a car licence, but I thought that with the new tracks in the reserve
you might be able to get up and down between our properties a little easier
and quicker with this.  It is a sort of birthday present and a
congratulations gift from me to you for attaining your graduation to third
year."

Nick hugged me back.  "Can I try it out now?" he asked excitedly as we began
to wheel the off-road motorcycle down from the trailer on purpose built
ramps extending from the rear of the deck.  "Yes, but there is one thing I
have to insist on."  I reached into the back of the car and grabbed a large
cardboard box.  "You must promise me that you will always wear a helmet for
safety protection.  I don't want you to come a cropper and do yourself some
head damage.  Promise?"  Nick ripped the box open and put on the new helmet.
  I had a reasonable idea of the size he would need and it was a good fit.
"Oh, Dad, this is just great.  Yeah, I promise to wear the helmet."
Tightening the strap, he was about to get on the bike.  The motorcycle did
not have electric start, so I showed him how to pull out the kick-starter
and to get the machine underway.  He quickly got the idea and after just two
tries, the bike was idling under him.  "Take it easy, Nick.  Learn carefully
and treat it well.  It will last you a long time and not give you any
trouble if you do."  I cautioned as he prepared for his first ride.

Letting out the clutch, Nick rode slowly but confidently around the yard,
Chris and I watching with some trepidation.  Nick rode further out into the
property, kicking up dust as the knobbly tyres bit into the dry earth.  Like
anything else he did, he seemed to be a "natural" when it came to riding the
bike.  He was effortless in controlling the machine and graceful in his
manoeuvres, bringing the bike back to us a few minutes later, a broad grin
creasing his face.  "Thanks, Dad.  I don't think I really deserve this, but
I do appreciate it.  Can I go down to show Connie?"  I agreed, and he took
off again, this time somewhat faster and with a display of flair.  Chris and
I smoked as we waited for him to return, sitting in the shade of the
workshop, the heat of the day causing ripples of distortion as we looked out
over the paddocks.  "Can I park it in the shed?" Nick asked when he came
back to us.  I showed him a place to park the machine and he came off it,
flinging himself into my arms to hug me in his thanks.

The next day, Saturday, Nick had a district run at one of the outlaying
towns about 100 kilometres away.  Chris was going to take him there and they
would stay overnight, because some of the events were being run on the
Sunday morning.  This would be the last time Nick could attend a junior's
race, even though he had already turned 15, because of a dispensation given
in favour of his recent completion of second year high.  He was keenly
looking forward to the run and regaled us with stories about some of his
schoolmates and their antics at the race days.  Bedtime came, and I pushed
Nick off to sleep by himself so that he would have a full night's sleep in
preparation for the heavy day tomorrow.

Chris and I sat together and enjoyed a final drink before we would go to bed
ourselves.  "Do you ever think what would have happened if we had not met at
the petrol station that day, James?"  he asked as he lit his newly rolled
cigarette.  "Yes, Chris, I think of it every day.  And the thing that appals
me most of all is that I would never have found your love and the love of
your family.  Just think, I was here by myself in this big house thinking
that my world was fine, and then all of a sudden along came the most
gorgeous bloke who knocked me off my feet, brought in two other gorgeous
guys with him, and then one of them brings in another gorgeous guy.  Yes,
Chris.  I do think of how poorly my life would have been without this great
experience."

"I think of it, too, James."  I heard a more serious tone in his voice and
realised he was not replying in the same flippant way I had commented.  "I
think that we would have kept going somehow, never knowing that inside us
lay this pent up love we did not know how to express and to whom we could
express it.  We would have stagnated somehow, just like a pond that can't
flow out, and it would have destroyed us.  But you gave us a look at a new
kind of life and a new way of love.  I cant say how important that is to us,
and to me in particular, because the words have not been composed to express
this."  He put down his cigarette and came across to where I sat, easing
himself down on to my lap, his bare skin against my own.  "Thank you for who
you are, James.  Thank you for your encouragement to us.  Thank you for your
acceptance of us.  Thank you for your love to us.  Thank you for being my
lover."  He wrapped his arms around me in a gentle embrace.

I thought, too, about how each of these boys possessed a different aspect of
my emotional spectrum.  Chris was, without doubt, the one whom I loved
foremost as my lover.  Every atom of my being was focussed on loving him for
who he was.  Yet, mixed with that emotion was the undeniable fact of him
having become my son, and I loved him in a separate way for that.  Nick, on
the other hand, was the one I loved foremost as my son.  Entwined in that
relationship was the love for him at a different level of emotion and
feeling than the way I loved his older brother.  Then there was Connie, my
newly found big son and business manager.  These boys had redefined my
reason for existing; recharted my purpose for life.  How remarkable it was
that in the short space of six months my very being had been turned upside
down and inside out.  How rich the feeling that flowed through my veins each
time I thought about the boys, which was my every waking moment.  How
amazing were the aspects of love I was discovering, layer upon layer,
somewhat like an onion with it's many skins, and all of this somehow
contained in my simple thought and emotion process.

I hugged Chris back.  "Lets go to bed," I suggested as I eased him off me
and myself up from the chair.  We put our mugs in the kitchen and went to
the bedroom.  Chris immediately took my penis into his mouth when we got
into bed.  I was not yet fully hard, but his ministration brought me to
rigidity in seconds.  Chris had become very skilful at knowing how to offer
me pleasure, and also in knowing what was the most appropriate form of sex
for my moods.  I do not mean to say that I am a moody person, far from it,
but I did have levels of operation and Chris seemed to interpret them well.
I needed to feel his warm mouth on me this night.

He used every skill he possessed to entice the tiniest sensation from every
nerve in my sex organ, tonguing the hard glans, feeling the ridge at the end
of it and pushing into the valley were my foreskin began.  He ran his
darting tongue under the head and found my frenulum, teasing it till I felt
I could scream with ecstasy.  Then he worked his way over my head with his
tightly pressed lips, pushing the skin till it rolled back onto the shaft of
my rod.  Still his tongue darted around, finding a taste here, a ripple
there, and a nerve ending where I had not even imagined there could be one.
Down he travelled, seeming to revel in every square millimetre of the
surface, till at last he could go no further.  My pubic bone pressed into
his forehead as my own glans lay deeply embedded in his throat.

Chris did not need to bob up and down to stimulate me further.  His did not
need to apply suction to make my feelings increase.  He had already
performed in his sex play a ballet of precision and style, so that when my
head found his throat it was well primed to discharge the white fluid that
he had been seeking all along.  This ultimate gift of mine became at once
the ultimate treasure of his as my penis jerked in the uncontrollable throes
of its orgasm, squirting my seed into him.  He swallowed the first amounts
of my deposit, then drew back to allow another volley run down his tongue,
allowing him to taste the nectar of my loins.  In the process of tasting me,
Chris began an undulating motion with his tongue, drawing sensory reactions
from my distended organ that I had not felt before.  He sucked quickly,
drawing the foreskin back into place over my glans, then took me back to the
depth of his throat where I continued to pump my semen.

My body, thirty years older than his, had not enjoyed such splendours for
many years.  Yet now it seemed I was capable of several episodes each day as
these boys gave of their love to me.  Chris, in his youthful desire, now
sought to have his needs met.  He climbed on top of me, pulling himself
along my body as he made his way to where he could find my lips and kiss me.
  I felt his stiffness near my knees, then slowly explore the space between
my thighs until he reached the cave of my groin.  There he climbed out of
the leg area and began a new exploration as he worked past my penis and up
my lower abdomen.  Chris was already panting when he found my lips, so I was
not surprised to feel the thrusting of his hips as the automatic response
took over and drove him to his climax.  Wetness flooded my stomach as his
strong flow washed on to me.  He collapsed with the effort and we clung to
each other to stop from drowning in the sea of our love.

Soon he was ready for his second release.  Chris, I found, could do this
three or four times in one day, meaning that he would often ejaculate a full
load perhaps as many as eight or ten times in the space of 24 hours.  Maybe
Nick and Connie were capable of similar exploits: I had not given them the
opportunity to practice with me, although both had shown similar stamina in
the times I had slept with them.  Chris would often find a way for us to
have sex in different places and at different times of the day.  Sometimes
he would lay in wait for me and pull me into a shed.  Sometimes we would be
using a tractor or some machinery and he would find a way for us to share
together.  Sometimes we would be sitting enjoying a cup of tea or a
sandwich, and another appetite would also be sated.  More amazing was that I
could manage to perform each time he did, although mine was a single shot
rather than multiple orgasm like his.

I wanted to take him in my mouth, and indicated he should straddle my chest
with his legs.  He worked himself into position and placed his beautiful wet
penis in my mouth, beginning a series of long and slow thrusts, taking
himself in and out at his own pace, fully the length of my tongue and
thrusting into that tight place deep in the throat on each lunge.  I held
his legs to me, and then let my hands wander down to his feet, now drawn up
by my waist.  The texture of his tough soles played under my fingertips as I
massaged his feet.  I let my fingers slip into the gaps between his long
toes and I could feel the different, softer texture of that skin.  I rubbed
my hands around his heels, feeling some of the heat cracks there in spite of
the perfect roundedness, and the beginning of the thick skin of his sole
pads.  I enjoyed feeling his feet, and Chris enjoyed letting me roam there,
all the while keeping up his steady tempo of thrusting up and down my
caressing tongue.

I felt the building of his orgasm in his feet first.  He tensed his feet
just a second before his penis swelled.  Moments later he erupted, firstly
squirting over my tongue with the first two or three shots then pushing
deeply down to finish his ejaculation in my throat.  I knew he was spent and
was surprised that he quickly began to deflate in my mouth.  Holding him
there, I sucked the last of his discharge from him, cleaning him with the
tip of my tongue, before letting him collapse on the bed beside me.  He
draped an arm over my chest and fell almost immediately into a dead sleep,
leaving me to think again of the wonder of this remarkable intrusion into my
life.  I, too, slept.  Dreamlessly I navigated the night and woke fresh in
the morning.

The boys left immediately after breakfast, Connie and Wayan having come up
to the house to wish Nick well and say goodbye.  The three of us had planned
a day's work, mainly in maintenance of the irrigation systems on both our
properties, so the day passed quickly.  We had dinner and, because it was a
warm night, we were sitting comfortably on the front veranda, drinking
coffee and smoking.  Earlier in the day I had asked Wayan if he would like
to tell us about his background, and when I encouraged him to begin now, he
produced a small photo album that he had bought to the house.  Flicking
through the pictures, he began to tell us about his life in Indonesia.  He
told of his home in the mountainous central north of Bali in the Buleleng
district.  I had travelled the area quite a bit over the years, as there are
several high-frequency communication stations scattered among the mountains.
  My contract work in Indonesia had often taken me to these out of the way
places.

His village, Gedeg, is almost 1000 metres above the northern city of
Singaraja and about 20 kilometres inland from it.  "Although you can see the
city, it takes nearly half a day to drive there because the road is so
windy," he told us.  "Not like your wonderful roads here in Australia where
you can go anywhere fast and safely.  Many people are killed on our roads
each year because they take too many risks trying to go fast."  I knew the
narrow winding roads cut, quite literally, out of the precipitous and
crumbly mountainsides.  I knew of the jungle clinging to the steep slopes,
occasionally cleared away to reveal extensive plantations and farms.  I knew
of the beautiful mountain lakes and the busy villages that sometimes were no
wider than a single building each side of the roadway because of the sheer
steepness of the mountain, dropping off on one side hundreds of metres and
rising to the sky on the other an equally dazzling distance.

Wayan related to us about his childhood in the small village perched on the
side of a deep valley, clove, tobacco, banana, coffee and nutmeg groves
ranging off to the far distance in every direction.  He showed us a photo of
a group of a dozen or more little kids in a dusty roadway, mountains looming
in the background.  "Our area had a travelling district health nurse, and
she took this photo.  That's me in the red and blue shirt in the right."
The album was one of those plastic books with photos inserted back to back.
"There was just one little shop in our village, so if we wanted anything
particular, Mum would send us off to Kayuputih, about 4 kilometres down the
mountain road, where there was a large market and collection of shops.  That
is also where I began my schooling.  Bali is a much more highly educated
province of Indonesia than most of the others, so we enjoyed really good
teachers and a great school environment.  The schoolkids in our village
would meet near the village shop early each morning and we would walk down
the mountain to the school in town, stopping along the way to pick up other
kids from other small villages dotted around the countryside."

Primary school in Indonesia usually starts about 0730 hrs in the morning
(7:30am) to 1300 hrs afternoon (1:00pm), so the kids would begin the
laborious trek back up the hill homewards in the heat of the day.  Wayan
told us that the road really was very steep and in my mind's eye I could
imagine it well.  "Some days the tar on the road would melt, it was so hot.
We used to get black hot tar all over our feet.  I remember my mother
getting upset with us because we would try to walk inside with the tar still
stuck to us.  When we got older we realised it was more sensible to walk off
to the side of the road so we didn't get the tar on us.  There were a few
streams that ran down from further up the mountain and they made waterfalls
and pools along the roadside where they came out of the jungle.  We used to
stop there and bathe ourselves under the cold water and to smoke, because it
was cooler than out on the roadside."

"So you started smoking young, too?" Connie asked Wayan.  "Oh yes, all boys
start smoking when they are very little.  I know that nowadays it would be
seen as the wrong thing to do, but fifteen years ago my parents did not know
any different.  We had plenty of tobacco around, and it was natural that we
would smoke it.  I can't remember when I began smoking, but it was probably
when I was 5 or 6, about the time I started going to school.  We used to get
some of the chopped up tobacco and rolled it up in leaves to smoke.  At
school only the teachers were allowed to smoke in the classrooms and yard,
but we kids could smoke in the roadway outside the front gate, so we would
all go there at the break times for a smoke.  My friends and me smoked there
before school started also.  It was just the way of life we lived.  I guess
here in Australia the thing kids do would be to have a snack of some sort in
the breaks, but none of us could afford that kind of luxury.  Girls hardly
ever smoked, at least not in public, but it was expected for the boys."

He showed us photos of some of the events of his young life.  One showed him
working in a field with some older boys, houses of the village visible in
the background.  Another showed him working on what I thought was the roof
of his father's drying shed, but he corrected me by showing how the roof
actually slid across the top of the work area to protect it from the
sometimes unpredictable tropical weather that would bring a sudden heavy
shower of rain.  The elevated work area was designed both to prevent
flooding and to stop animals damaging the tobacco and cloves stored for
drying.

I stopped Wayan to make something else to drink.  It was hot and we were
thirsty.  Coffee did not seem to be the appropriate drink, so I bought some
beers out to the veranda.  Connie and Wayan gladly drank from the frosting
bottles before Wayan continued his story.

"Well, when it came time for high school I had to go all the way down the
mountain to the town of Banjar each day.  We had a school bus from
Kayuputih, so I had to walk down the mountain to there, then catch the bus
to high school.  Banjar is an old town, very important in the history of the
Buleleng Kabupaten because that is where there was a meeting of the old
Rajah and his court when they tried to make a treaty with the Dutch in 1846.
  The treaty was not successful, and the district came under Dutch
administration in 1849, 250 years after they first took colonial control of
Indonesia.  I liked going to the school there and I did well."  He showed us
another photo of himself as a teenager swimming in one of the pools with a
friend on the way home up the mountain from high school.  "Banjar is also
famous for two other things," Wayan went on to explain.  "There is a working
Buddhist monastery there, probably the last one still functioning in
Indonesia, and they have some great hot springs fed from deep in the volcano
and captured into a series of pretty pools where a lot of people go
swimming."

"By this time my father had begun to prosper in his business.  The world
markets were demanding more and more of the high grade coffee like he was
growing, there was more and more demand for cloves for the production of
kretek cigarettes, and the tobacco market has always been very lucrative in
Indonesia.  He saw an opportunity to establish a cooperative among a number
of local villages and, when it proved successful, he was in a position to
take over the market in Kayuputih and Banyuatis, the two biggest towns in
our district with their infrastructure of villages and farmers.  Later he
took on the market at Tunjuk as well.  Tunjuk is a long way down the
mountain from our home, but still part of the local district.  It was like a
monopoly, but the major difference was that as my Dad got richer, so did all
the other farmers. They liked the idea and supported him wholly."

"At Banjar is where I first learnt about sex with another boy.  I did not
have any brothers, and so it was only the occasional bit of playing around
with kids in my village that gave me any idea about sex.  I suppose I was
not very interested, because we all swam naked, played naked, and, when it
was raining, we walked naked between the village and town.  But in Banjar I
sometimes stayed overnight with a cousin.  One time I remember walking into
the washroom of his house and I found him wanking himself.  I didn't think
much of it, but he seemed very embarrassed to be seen.  I told him it was
something everyone did, and pulled my pants down to show him.  He got very
excited by this and wanted to hold my penis.  When he did, I found that I
liked the feeling and let him continue wanking me, pushing into him till I
shot my load over his hand.  He shot his load just watching me - he didn't
even touch himself.  After that, we often would find a chance to wank each
other, sometimes we would do it several times a day."  Wayan went on with
the story, saying that the short relationship ended with his cousin when he
turned 16 and his Dad bought him a motorcycle so he could get to and from
school without depending on the bus ride.  He would drive home every
afternoon to help his father with administration of the business until
eventually he graduated from high school.

"When it was time for me to go to university, I was horrified.  I would have
to start wearing shoes!  None of the kids in our area had ever worn shoes,
none of the farmers or traders ever did.  In fact the only people we ever
saw wearing shoes were government officials and public servants and the
occasional tourists that came through the area.  I never even thought I
would have to wear shoes, until one day Dad took me down to Singaraja, the
capital of North Bali, to enrol me at the campus.  The people there kindly
but firmly explained that it was a requirement for students to wear shoes
while they were on the campus.  It was a nightmare for me.  I had never
imagined such pain and discomfort, and I couldn't do it.  I lasted just two
days and had to go home.  I missed out starting at the university, as I had
not even completed the enrolment process."

Dad understood, but he still wanted me to get some business education.  He
could see that his own business was getting far to complex for him to
manage, and he did not want to relinquish the reigns to anyone else.  He
believed in my ability to learn modern business and to eventually take over
from him.  So he got in touch with someone who had connection with the
University of Western Australia.  He knew the education system here is
better than in Indonesia, and he saw this as an opportunity to get me the
best degree I could."  Wayan went on to say that he had to practice wearing
shoes, a little a day, until he could tolerate the feeling of it.  By time
he flew to Perth to begin his first semester, he was able to wear shoes for
several hours each day, although he threw them off at the first opportunity
he could find.  Also, at UWA it was not always a requirement to wear
footwear, so he was often able to attend class barefoot.

Wayan spoke in an enticing manner.  I guessed Connie had been coaching his
spoken English, because he clearly enunciated each word and phrase, the end
result being something like a reproduction of Connie's speech mannerisms
although with a distinctive, and not unpleasant, accent.  He had been
talking without a break for a long time, except to renew his cigarettes from
time to time, so I suggested a break for a snack and another drink.

When he resumed the story, Wayan told us of the huge adjustment he had to
make when he arrived at the university.  Customs were different, people were
different - even other people from Indonesia were different to him, mainly
because most of them came from Java where there is a predominant Muslim
religion whereas he came from Bali with it's unique Hindu religion.  He
could not find anyone to be his friend even though most people were quite
friendly.  He took to walking for hours a day in Kings Park so that he could
get away from the others in his College and also because, in a way, it
reminded him of the countryside around his home.  Regardless of the weather,
he would wander the trails in the park, his bare feet comfortable on the
varied terrain in their direct contact with the soil.

He had seen Connie a few times around the College and was too shy to make an
approach at friendship, even though he felt comfortable with what he had
seen of him.  He was quite surprised one day to have Connie discover him
sitting in the bushes.  "I just didn't know how to react.  Here was the one
guy that I thought I liked in the College and I didn't know how to make an
approach at friendship.  I am so glad Connie saved me the trouble, and I
have been eternally grateful ever since."  He turned to some final photos in
his little album.  "I was not going to show you these, but Connie took them
when we were in Kings Park one day.  This is the place where we would go and
escape from the College and the noisy kids there.  You can even see a little
bit of the university buildings behind me."  The photos showed a naked Wayan
sitting on a brick wall somewhere in a thicket of bush.  I was impressed
with his appendages, this being my first opportunity to appraise them.

I made us a cup of tea, much more refreshing than coffee late at night, and
we sipped it silently to the accompaniment of the occasional clicking insect
or distant dog barking.  "Dad," Connie began.  "Would it be alright with you
if Wayan and I slept with you tonight?  We have talked about it, and he
wants to as much as I do."  I wondered what this was about.  Wayan had not
entered the equation between us before, and I was concerned this may
complicate matters unnecessarily.  However, I trusted Connie and felt that
he would know how to orchestrate things.  I agreed and soon we were cleaning
teeth and using the toilet in preparation for the night's sleep.  I
remembered Connie's need for a cigarette before going to sleep and would not
have been surprised to discover that Wayan did too, so I had the foresight
to grab the paraphernalia from the kitchen and take it to the bedroom where
I set it up on the bedside cabinet.


This story, along with supporting photographs, may be viewed by members of
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