A Spit in the Wind...

“Can you talk?”

Her sensual laugh, soft and alluring, enters his ear through a mobile phone, excited daringly sinful and disturbed that this once potential lover has the courage to remain on the phone.

“Where are you?”

She laughs again. “I’m in the back yard watering the plants away from the crowd inside the house.” Her tone changes. “And if you ever call again I’ll kill you.”

Thoughts of their encounter the night before refuse to remove themselves from her memory, the images, everything fills her fragile soul. She cannot steel her heart from this gorgeous, drunken and sadistic man.

Considering the time and place, the two new lovers’ managed to meet in secret, a rendezvous at a well known train station in Melbourne. As the train grinded to a stop, she did not see him at first, though turned her head around as he began to run in her direction at the end of the platform, calling her name above the chaos of a typical Friday night.

She turned her head and seeing him revealed her soul to him, softness in character, a beautiful smile and a tinge of fear.

She looked absolutely magnificent. Feeling like a young man, he kissed her as the grinding train left the station, the young people looking their way. The kiss, as all lovers know, tells all, and only time will resolve the immensity of their current feelings.

“You actually are here!”

“Did you ever doubt me?” she whispers.

Feeling slightly drunk, due to the few wines he sipped before her arrival, he lands in the Moment, total present time, and wonders why he has been so blessed.

She laughs again and kisses him on the lips, and asks, “Where are we going?”

Like all men who are truly loved, out of his ego or lack of confidence, he acts in bravado, a man; a little boy really, announces that a luxurious room is awaiting and a dinner that will be remembered for many lifetimes.

What this has-been adolescent has missed, is that the woman he now holds, is a lady of experience and taste. She understands the young, the naïve, the inexperienced in love. But somehow this particular middle-aged man, his strange ideas about life, his past and his strange demeanour, is a mystery, something to be explored. She decides to go along with his romantic overtures, his poetic view of love and life; a man from a distant past or some deranged character from a bad novel. She finds him curious and this experience will prove or disprove her expectations about him. Thus she cautiously follows.


Only two minutes from the station, they enter the pub/hotel, full of the regular Friday night crowd, expressing their frustrations about a meaningless existence. The pub is loud, happy and has an atmosphere of the unexpected.

They enter the room and she is delightfully surprised. High ceilings, 19th century décor and a comfortable bed; following his lead, he shows her to the spa, something she, as a woman of class, would never do. What impresses her is that he made the effort to create “ambience”, candles and low lamps light the room in a soft glow.

He offers her a glass of wine for the mini-bar that tastes like sour apples, the poor grapes having spent their short lives in the hot sun.

Her expression tells all, and they kiss, continue to kiss passionately, until she pushes the ‘boy’ away stating that dinner would be a good idea.

Through dinner their conversation turns from the ideal to the absurd. She asks him about Mozart, Shubert and Brahms; he looks confused and changes the subject to his “mates’ at work, abusing the new apprentice on the job. He laughs embarrassingly loud, telling the cruel antics’ played upon the young apprentice.

She realizes that this was not the man she thought she knew…

He becomes belligerent, his new love, a sideline to his pseudo-masculine bravado, shouting, abusing the waiters’, demanding service, complaining about the wine, as if his new lover, sitting across from him, might be impressed with his adolescent and cruel antics.

‘He’s changed’. she thought. He has transformed into a stereotypical vulgar male, the type of person she has had to put up with all her life; a bully, thug and a man who has never grown, matured, stopped, mentally, somewhere in adolescence. She feels a stab of fear as he stands up and demands that they go back to the room.

He stumbles to the register to pay the bill. Their waiter and the manager of the hotel spot the drunken lout, and make a note.

He literally drags the lady to their room, stumbling with the lock as his eyesight has permanently blurred for the night.

He grabs, pushing, slapping and demands she do his will or “You can get fucked whore!”

Under the circumstances, as had happed too many times before, it was best forgotten, she relents, and the deed is over in a matter of moments. He turns away, instantly snoring, asleep for the remainder of the night.


As the light from the dawn enters the small window of their hotel room, she carefully leaves the bed, finally after a few minutes, finding her shoes. She did not want to wake him, perhaps beginning the whole terrible scenario again.

It had happed too many times before…

Grabbing her bag, she opens the door like a thief in the night, leaving the drunken rapist to his convoluted dreams.

Would my life ever change? Is it possible to free my self from these self-obsessed men, whose existence is so shallow, a mere spit in the wind?

And why am I so different?

Haggard, tired and feeling sorry for herself, she waits for the train back to the suburbs, back to her normal life.

Only a few stations from her stop, she dials a familiar number and her reliable daughter picks her up from the station.

“How was your night, Mum?”

“A great night with the girls…we had a good time.”

The woman winces at the memory of the experience, her daughter oblivious to her plight.

As she enters the front door, that incredible emptiness about her long marriage stings like sunburn. Her husband greets her with his usual probing questions like she is a suspected terrorist from a third world country: he is another bully in a long line of bullies.

She has all her bases covered and he seems to be satisfied.

Life continues as usual, ignoring the real issues and carrying on as though nothing has changed.

A good friend rings, and she finally breaks down, sobbing into the phone.


Ends.