Welcome Down Under

Ansley Vaughan

There was nothing but desert as far as the eye could see. Nothing but red, dusty scrub and the occasional stunted tree. In front and behind, the road stretched, straight as an arrow. The sky was blue and cloudless, and high above birds wheeled in silent flight. He squinted up at them. They looked like vultures. Did they have vultures in Australia?

Looking into the steaming depths of the engine, he shook his head. He thought the water tank was cracked.

What had the hire-car woman at the airport said? He remembered her telling him to watch out for kangaroos. But how could you, when they sprang without warning into the road, hit the car, then bounced off into the bush?

Damn it, he was so close. He leaned into the car. It was blisteringly hot and sweat rolled from under the brim of his hat, smudging his sunglasses. He studied the map he'd bought in Alice Springs. The Saint-Claire station was clearly marked, by his reckoning about a mile ahead, off the track. If he walked, he could cut across.

Charles scanned the highway, not expecting to see another vehicle. The last had been about four hours earlier, a road-train pulling dozens of trailers. He got his briefcase and a bottle of water, closed the windows, locked the car, and adjusted his sun-hat. Then he began to walk across the scrub at an angle to the road; a lone Englishman pitted against the might of Australia's red centre.

***
"Charles, I'm sending you to Australia."

As he walked, he could hear his boss's high-class accent.

"It's this Saint-Claire business. There are papers to sign, and we need him in London. He's digging his heels in. Go and get him, dear boy. There's a hell of a lot of money at stake."

A lot of money and an Earldom. Charles stumbled and stopped. He'd been walking for over an hour; he'd expected to reach the Saint-Claire property by now. Behind him there was nothing, just red dust from here to the horizon. The car, the road, had disappeared from view. Ahead, haze hung over sparse brush. He sat on a boulder and got out the water bottle. The liquid was hot, but like nectar.

He thought about the man he was meeting. The offspring of a rebellious aristocrat and a Aboriginal woman. No wonder the late Earl had gone mad when he'd discovered the boy's existence; no wonder his fury had quadrupled when he found there'd been a rock-solid, genuine marriage ceremony conducted in Alice Springs.

God, it was hot! He looked around, seeking cover, thinking he'd like to lie down.

Nothing.

"I should have stayed with the car."

It was so obvious now. Still, it didn't matter; he'd walk back. He had another swig of water and got up.

All around him, the desert looked the same. Which way had he come? He started off towards the road. Then stopped. Turned around, walked a few more steps.

Fuck!

Which way was it?

He should be able to tell by the position of the sun, but he couldn't remember where it had been when he set off, and now, of course, it had moved. Far in the distance was what looked like a ridge of trees. He set off towards it, his steps slow and unsteady.

The young Saint-Claire had spent his early years here on the sprawling ranch. When his parents split, he divided his time between Australia and England. He'd gone to smart schools, and a good university, but never met his grandfather; neither of them had the slightest desire to make contact. And when the boy's father died, that should have been the end of it. Except that fate scowled on the bad-tempered Earl, and the next year, his eldest son, the exemplary heir, was killed, with all his family, in a cable-car accident in Switzerland.

Charles was stumbling badly, sweat soaking his body. Up ahead he could see the trees, with their blessed promise of shade, and he drove himself onwards.

In the office, they'd said, "So you're going on a jaunt? Australia! Lucky devil!"

Some jaunt. As he reached the trees, his brain acknowledged defeat. His last conscious thought was, "I'm going to die, here in this dreadful place." And, still clutching his brief-case, he fell heavily to the red earth.

***

When he opened his eyes, it was dark. And blessedly cool. He lay on his back, on some sort of a bed, but near the ground. All around echoed the insistent sounds of the bush.

Close to him a man crouched, staring. Naked except for a strip of hide around his hips, his skin was dark and his hair was black, tinged with ochre.

"Where am I?" Charles asked, with startling unoriginality.

The man moved forwards swiftly, like an animal, making Charles flinch. But he merely took a tin cup and held it to Charles' parched lips. Charles drank awkwardly and lay back. He was in a tent, made of bark; well, that's what it smelled of. His naked body was covered by a flimsy cloth.

Naked.

His glance flew to the man. "Do you speak English?"

A smile, dazzling white against brown. "Yeah, I speak English,"

"What happened?"

"You come, fall down. I put you to bed."

"My clothes…?"

The man indicated a neatly folded pile of clothing.

Panic entered the lawyer's voice. "My brief-case."

"There too."

He subsided, exhausted. A cool hand felt his forehead.

"Now it not so hot, you bathe."

The man pulled him to his feet. Naked, Charles let himself be led out into the centre of the clump of trees. Their shelter was like a child's drawing of a wigwam.

"Humpy," the man said. "Fixed to the tree, see? Come."

A small water-hole lay before them, the surface green and scummy.

"It doesn't look very clean," Charles said.

"Nothing here's clean. But it's cool."

The man leaned Charles against a tree, and with graceful movements removed his loincloth. Charles glanced at the dark genitals, a large, flaccid cock nestling in wiry pubic hair. His own cock responded instantly.

"Name?" the man said.

"Name? Oh, Charles. And you…?"

"Kolya."

Charles thought Kolya was the perfect representation of the noble savage. Hand in hand they moved down the slope and into the water.

It was warm and brackish, lit by shards of sun which fractured the overhanging branches. Kolya began to wash Charles's body, using huge hands to scoop the soothing water across his back and shoulders.

"You didn't burn." The hands had moved down, washing efficiently around cock and balls; reaching behind him to slide along the crack between buttocks. They were pressed together, growing cocks dueling for attention.

On the far side of the water-hole something splashed. Charles looked up to see a brown-colored snake swimming easily along the edge.

"Oh my God!"

Kolya laughed. "It won't hurt. Come."

On the bank, he dried Charles carefully, leaving the area between his legs. Finally he applied the rough towel to the fast-inflating penis.

"Beautiful," Kolya's voice was thick with lust. "You want?"

Charles's whole persona, his life in London, his anxiety about the trip, dissolved. He was in the outback, with no means of transport, naked, being masturbated by an unknown aboriginal. And it was bliss.

"I want," he breathed.

Kolya fell to his knees, mouth cool, lips broad and wet and engulfed the straining cock. Charles closed his eyes, feeling as if all his anxieties were being sucked out of him.

When he'd come, Kolya stood, and they kissed, an intimate exchange of tastes and textures. One of Kolya's hands stroked the fair hair, the other reached around, a strong finger entering him a little way.

In the humpy, Charles lay with knees bent, whimpering as he smelled the familiar odor of eucalyptus. The oil made his anus sting in pleasant anticipatory sensation.

Kolya was on top of him, fingers working to open him up, lips trailing across face and neck, licking, kissing, biting.

"You ready?"

The Australian drove inwards, not rough but not gentle either, until he was deep inside. It was still hot, and as they began to move, sweat poured from them, making their bodies slide against each other. Kolya fucked him with single-minded determination, hard and concentrated, his whole body focusing on the thrusts, making Charles yell.

Eventually, Kolya gave an almighty heave, and fired great spurts into him. The two men lay, embracing and sobbing, knowing they had gone through something significant and profound.

All night, they made love, Charles entranced as his tongue made trails across the glistening flesh, and the whiteness of his cock was swallowed up in the smooth brown of Kolya's bottom.

The next day at dawn, they swam and fucked in the waterhole.

Kolya said, "I take you to car. Send truck."

The walk back was nothing. Charles opened the car's windows and doors in an attempt to get it cool.

"I go," Kolya said.

"We'll meet again?" He tried not to beg.

"If the Ancestral Spirits will it," Kolya said, eyes dancing, "yes."

Suddenly and roughly he pushed Charles against the bonnet of the car and kissed him hard.

"I bend you over and fuck you here," he said.

Far away the tow-truck came into view, throwing up great clouds of red dust.

"Damn!" He leaned forward for one more kiss. "See yah," he said, with heartbreaking casualness, and walked off into the bush, never looking back.

The laconic driver hitched the car to the truck. "The Saint-Claire place, is it?" He eyed him. "You the tight-arsed lawyer from London?"

The Saint-Claire ranch was a spacious villa, a combination of Australian colonial and old fashioned British architecture, set in vast grounds.

The door was opened by a man Charles recognized at once as one of his own kind. "I'm
Barry Jenkins, of the Earl's legal team. Hear you had some trouble."

He took him to a sitting-room overlooking a formal Australian garden.

"I'll get him."

Charles examined pictures and ornaments, wondering what kind of man could have been formed by this mixture of British aristocracy and rough outback culture.

The door opened.

He wore skin-tight denims, boots and a leather jacket over a white shirt which showed up his dark skin. Wild black hair tinged with ochre.

"Good morning. I'm Nicholas Saint-Claire. Everyone calls me Kolya."

There was a stunned silence. Of course. It was so obvious that Charles couldn't
imagine how he'd failed to identify his rescuer.

Kolya looked anxious, as if he thought Charles might be offended by the deception.

"I'm sorry. I use the humpy when I want to escape. When you came along, I couldn't resist…"

Charles held out his hand. "Your Lordship. I'm the tight-arsed lawyer from London. Though not, I fear, as tight-arsed as I was when I arrived."

Kolya laughed delightedly and moved to embrace him; but just then, Jenkins bustled in.

"Now, you've got papers for us to sign, that's fine. But your firm is nagging the Earl to go to London and that's a no-no. The Earl doesn't like the UK."

"Hang on,' Kolya said. "I've got some questions. Charles, you're in charge of my affairs in Britain?"

Charles nodded.

"You want me to visit my estates?"

"They're suffering from having an absentee landlord."

"And if I came you'd accompany me always?"

Charles's heart did a little skip, but he maintained his professional calm. "Absolutely, my lord.

Kolya flung himself into a chair. "Don't glare at me, Jenkins. When things are inevitable, one might as well accept them. Don't you agree, Charles?

Charles nodded, his face and body flushed with heat, embarrassment and desire.

"Now why don't you hand the papers over?"

"And then?"

Kolya hitched one leg over the arm of his chair, the outline of his erection clearly visible through the denim. "You can come to my room. See the view." His hand on his crotch, the grin broadened.

"Welcome Down Under."

end

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