Description
by C.E. Turner
It was a wet, black night. On Wakehurst Parkway in Sydney’s Northern Beaches there had been a hit-and-run, but despite the utter terror of the young man driving the car when he realised what he had done, it might not be all it seemed.
Meanwhile, teenage Lorry, better known to some others of her age as Queen Bitch, was having a party and at the same time trying to embarrass and humiliate a new student from her college. Bethany discovered Lorry’s plan, but could she mount a rescue mission before it was too late?
As if that was not enough, the local police had spotted a dog that appeared to have a human arm in its mouth, drug dealers were running amok, young tearaways were stealing cars and someone was shooting at them, one of the more senior residents of the area was doing his best to shock a local politician into taking action to protect wildlife, someone was spiking the drinks, and even with all that going on there might actually be love in the air.
And, bizarrely, all these events were linked. It was going to be one hell of a job to sort it out, and that was before the dawning of the Orange Day…
41,000 words
The newly purchased Maxi dress fitted her lithe figure lovingly, accentuating her height and her gracefulness. Long tanned arms reached over her shoulders and bright plum painted nails deftly cut off its tag. Alice had a feline quality about her, and the dress’s strappy shoulders and ankle-caressing length highlighted it. Her black patent leather high heels gave her another inch in height as she fastened them into place. Ready to sit at the dresser and apply her make up, Alice changed her mind and headed downstairs into the modern, stainless steel dominated kitchen. Locating her mobile, she touched one and the phone quick-dialled immediately. A busy tone reached her ears, and a stormy look rose to sit steel-like in her flashing green eyes.
“Late. We’re going to be late…” she told the empty kitchen, saying it with a tone that would have made anyone listening think that “late” was a dirty word.
“How unusual. He knows I hate being late.” Alice’s normally sensual mouth was pouting petulantly. Alice hit one again, hoping in vain it might actually ring. The compact phone clattered across the smooth counter top as she tossed it carelessly away from her.
“He doesn’t care any more. He just doesn’t care.”
“Meooowww,” came a reply, the kitchen no longer an empty gallery as the couple’s chocolate and cream tomcat ambled towards her.
Alice reached down and stroked his large, lean frame.
“Don’t pretend to be sympathetic. You just want me to feed you”
She pushed at him, gently untangling him from her legs and reaching for the plastic container his food was stored in. Cat fed, Alice went back upstairs and sat at her dresser in front of the mirror. With a practiced touch, she applied just enough make up to highlight her features. Her mind was brewing its own stormy thoughts. True, she had known his work would always come first when she married him. Alice, blissed out in way only new love can bliss, had thought she would be able to handle the late nights, the endless phone calls, the drop-of-the-hat call outs. The couple, after five years of marriage was lately experiencing some problems. Alice’s partner was aware of it to some degree, but because of Alice’s lack of communication he did not know the depth of it. If truth be told, it was more that Alice had problems. She had begun to grow insecure in her relationship. She was sure her husband loved her but no longer sure he was in love with her. Because she never discussed it with him, it was left to eat away at her, festering into avoidable arguments and general bad temperedness on her behalf. Her habit of taking his work’s demands as a clear sign of his lack of interest had grown to a point where she was close to exploding. Tonight, she told herself as she layered a plum polish on her lips, was no different.
Her stormy green eyes checked herself over once more in the mirror, and then she headed downstairs to try her husband’s number again. When the bastard finally picked up she would let the storm inside her break.
* * * * *
Lorry was not the only one who was thinking she looked hot in her short skirt and plunging green top. Though she stood alone in her garage, she was still being admired but unfortunately not by anyone Lorry would have wanted it from. Her admirer was devoted in ways Lorry might have appreciated if they would not have creeped her out so much. Her devoted watcher had been doing it since Lorry was just over 14 and would have sworn on his life the girl got more lush and more beautiful with each passing day. Lorry’s admirer was pretty damn sure that she, Lorry, was the perfect expression of womanhood. He would even go so far as to entertain the thought that when God created women he meant them to look like Lorry. This would have been scary enough for Lorry, (as well as feeding her ego) to realize her 40-year-old neighbour felt this way. Had she known he had also installed his security cameras not so much for security but more for Lorry-watching, the young lady might have sensibly been a lot more than just creeped out. The fact the same neighbour had a daughter only a couple of years younger than Lorry should have clinched it.
This particular neighbour’s name was Lance Straussburg, a man who, right now, was alternating between the footage on one of his small black and white security monitors and the telescope that had been pointed at the Blakesfield’s house for the last three years. Lance had just passed the forty-year landmark in life, and lived in his modest two-storey house with his fifteen-year-old daughter Bethany Rose. When standing, he was six foot two inches, with a lanky frame and grey-spiked blonde brown hair that often fell and shadowed his light blue eyes. The shaggy look tended to make him seem younger than he was. The girl’s mother had left so long ago now that Lance could hardly recall her face, though anger still rose if her name was mentioned.
Lance made a modest to fair living in the computer software industry. He had bought in the suburb before its land prices rose and the new, richer crowd that now mostly populated French’s Forest had moved in. He and Bethany had a pretty good life, he would have told you, assuring you misguidedly that he gave his daughter most of what she needed. In truth, if he had been able to give her even an eighth of the attention he afforded Lorry, life might not have been so hard for his daughter. For one thing, she might have felt more loved and more worthy of attention. Of course, Lance never saw this. Indeed, he did not want to see it or he might have to grow up and act responsibly, a thing Lance’s own daughter had given up on hoping might happen a long time ago. So instead of enquiring what his daughter might be doing this Saturday evening, if she needed money or dinner, for that matter if she was even home, Lance Straussburg was doing what he usually did: he was watching Lorry and enjoying the familiar stiffening response of his body gazing at the teenager’s thighs always produced. Lance felt blessed by the falling rain that was making the party more accessible to his sight, happy to let his eyes follow the hemline of the minuscule skirt as Lorry readied the garage for her party.
