Push

It was the Darling Downs, not Wolf Creek, so I followed him to his car and got in the passenger side. Chris wore a plain gold wedding band and had a travel mug in the cupholder that read 'World's Best Daddy'. I couldn't read the writing but I'd recognised the design. Keith had the same one; our daughter had bought it for him last year for Father's Day.

'How old are your kids?' I asked.

'We just have the one. Ricky. He's six.' He put the car into reverse in preparation for a u-turn. 'We were going to have more, but he has cerebral palsy. It wouldn't be fair to have another. Besides, Kitty went stir crazy being at home. She's worked her whole life, from when she was old enough to walk and talk she was bought along to shows and stuff, and being at home didn't suit her. That's why she opened the clothing store. She doesn't make much, but she loves the work, and people come from several towns over to support a local business.'

I mentally re-wrote that as 'men come to bask in the attention of a pretty girl' but that would have been unkind. Kitty was significantly more attractive than her husband, and she - peculiarly - hadn't hesitated to tell a complete stranger her relationship with him hadn't been motivated on her part by love, but who was I to question or sneer at the way she responded to other men? It was none of my business, and nastiness wasn't a trait I wanted to foster.

'She dressed my husband better than he's ever been dressed before,' I replied. 'You must look a million bucks when you're out of work clothes.'

It was meant as an innocent comment, a compliment to Kitty if anything, but that wasn't how Chris received it. He gave me the oddest, confused look, as if taken aback, before starting to talk and joke with me in a way that could only be described as 'awkwardly flirtatious'. Kitty could flirt; her husband could not, but thankfully it was only a short drive back to the farm house and during that time he didn't cross any boundaries or physically touch me.

Normally when a man is flirting with a married woman he's smart enough to tone it down if her husband comes into earshot. Not Chris. When we arrived back at the farmhouse and Chris walked me to the door, coming face to face with Keith didn't slow him down even a bit. The only thing that did was his mobile ringing. It was Michael, the farmer, and he was on his way back to the property.

'Business beckons,' Chris said. 'See you on Saturday.'

'See you then,' I replied.

Keith didn't say anything, because Chris hadn't been speaking to him and he knew it.

The moment our visitor was out of earshot, Keith asked me what it was I'd said to Chris. His tone was grumpy, irritable. He'd used the same tone numerous times during our relationship, but most frequently when I'd first started working for him and he'd been unsettled by the way I'd spoken to his employees - all male - and his clients - also mostly male.

'Nothing,' I said. 'I just said that his wife knows how to dress a man and he must look good out of work clothes.'

'Oh for fuck's sake,' Keith snapped. 'Why would you say something like that?'

'Because we were talking about his wife and how she'd managed to find you clothes that made you look nice,' I replied. 'It's not my fault he misinterpreted me.'

'You could have done something to get him to cool his jets.'

'Right, the same way you could have asked his wife not to button your shirt up for you yesterday,' I pointed out. 'Imagine how you'd react if Chris had buttoned up my shirt.'

Keith stared at me. 'Right.'

'Right?'

'Right,' he repeated. 'You have a good point. They're both flirts. Kitty is, Chris is.'

I blinked. This wasn't how this conversation normally went. Normally Keith would continue to dictate to me how I should speak to men, I'd fire up, and we'd have a barney. An hour or two later it would be over and for the next week, I'd be careful how I spoke to everyone and Keith would send me out with the best looking employee he had, just one of them and me, as if to prove that he actually did trust me, despite what he might have said earlier.

'Think about it,' Keith shrugged. 'I know what you're talking about with Kitty. I didn't encourage that. She just... took over. And Chris, let's be frank, I can't imagine him being your type. Normally you flirt with the rougher blokes.'

'I don't...' I trailed off.

A grin tugged at the corner of my husband's mouth. 'Penny, if you're going to tell me a lie, at least tell me a believable one,' he said.

I felt myself flush. 'Sorry. Really. I know I probably embarrassed you, and myself, a few times.'

Keith was chuckling. 'There were times where I wanted to kill you.'

'Probably,' I agreed, embarrassed. 'But let's not forget the pie van girl's reaction when I started working for you and she realised I was your wife. She hadn't even known you were married. Funny,' I said, smiling at a memory that had sprung to mind. 'Isn't it, that someone who you'd bought a pie from several times a week for the past six months never knew you had a wife?'

'It hadn't ever arisen in conversation,' Keith said, sounding guilty as sin.

I giggled. 'Imagine if I'd tried that excuse with you.'

'That's different. Kitty, Eliza...'

'...Eliza,' I interrupted. 'You remember her name. The name of the pie girl who didn't know you were married.'

'Shush you,' Keith said, whacking my arm and ducking his head with a combination of amusement and embarrassment. 'All I'm saying is that those girls weren't serious. Some of those blokes... they would have been only too happy to screw you.'

'I doubt it.'

The expression on Keith's face told me he thought I was being incredibly naïve, but he didn't comment.

'Chris was probably just being friendly,' I offered. 'Remember the country dance story? They're different out here.'

'Or they're unhappily married and looking for attention elsewhere,' Keith suggested.

'Maybe,' I said. 'But I don't think they're unhappy. It's as though I'm missing the obvious here. There's something I'm not picking up on. The only thing is what is it?'

~~~~~~~~~~~

On Saturday morning, the client who had been rethinking their options decided to withdraw from the contract.

Keith had been expecting as much but the news still left him defeated. He drank coffee and smoked and rubbed his face tiredly, but when I asked him if he wanted me to cancel lunch with Nora, and dinner with Michael and the others, he shook his head. He wanted, no needed, a distraction.

We were on our way into town when Nora rang to say she'd been held up, and did we mind pushing lunch back an hour? That wasn't an issue, but Keith and I were already closer to town than the farmhouse and it wasn't worth driving back and then driving back in, so we decided to have an amble through the main street.

'Maybe we should go to Kitty's store again,' I suggested. 'See if she can recommend any more shirts for you.'

'I'll be right. I have enough clothing.'

'Keith,' I said.

He surrendered. 'Fine. Let's go have a stickybeak.'

A sign on the door advised the store shut at one on Saturdays, but it was only a few minutes to twelve, so we went on in. Kitty was helping an elderly woman find a suitable outfit to wear to a grandchild's wedding. She told us she'd be with us soon, but both Keith and I told her not to worry, that we were more than capable on our own.

The selection wasn't huge and most shirts only came in a few, random sizes. That wasn't surprising, and I doubted she could afforded to keep a full inventory, but it meant I was soon lost in my own little world as I tried to find the right combination of style and size.

Keith wasn't at all interested in the clothes. He was standing near the men's jackets but he wasn't inspecting them.

'Penny,' he whispered.

I glanced up. 'What?'

'Listen.'

Kitty and her elderly client were talking hushed tones. The client was worried. She was old, on the pension, widowed and funds were tight. She would have worn one of her older outfits, but she'd lost a lot of weight in the past year and nothing fitted.

Kitty was telling her not to worry, that the dress she wanted was only twenty dollars and she could pay it off over the next few fortnights when her pension came in. A payment plan was agreed upon; ten dollars up front, five dollars for the next two fortnights. The Australian aged pension is far from generous.

Keith and I pretended to be busy as Kitty wrapped up the elderly woman's dress and wrote out a receipt for ten dollars, but I knew Keith was watching carefully. As the shopkeeper led her client out the front and held the door open for her, Keith went over and picked up a tag that was lying on the counter.

'Keith,' I hissed. 'You can't just pick up Kitty's stuff.'

Keith ignored me and turned to Kitty. 'You cut this off the dress that woman bought.'

Kitty smiled at him. 'She didn't need to go home, put on her glasses, and read that,' she said.

Keith showed me the tag. The price of the dress had been sixty-nine dollars. Kitty had given her client a forty-nine dollar discount.

'Oh, don't be like that,' Kitty scolded Keith. 'All my stock is last year, or the year before's, fashions. We're far enough away from anything important for the manufacturers to care about the town's locals. They'd never be able to market to them, anyway. I buy their old stock for a song and sell it for a fair price. Some people pay full price, some get a discount.'

We'd paid full price.

Keith nodded slowly, and I saw she'd earned his respect. 'Sounds like a good business model.'

'It's not too bad. I won't buy seconds. I won't buy anything faulty. I won't buy poor quality. My stock isn't new, but it'll last and most people want something that will last.' She gave him a cheeky smile. 'Are you here to buy something?'

'Sure,' Keith agreed. 'Penny reckons you're a pro at dressing me, so knock yourself out.'

Kitty's eyes lit up as she proceeded to do exactly that. Not that Keith minded. No, the man who normally despised clothes shopping seemed perfectly happy to laugh and joke with her as she bought him a selection of jeans, tees, shirts and shorts to sample. She was extremely touchy-feely with him, and at one point even jokingly patted his bum while asking me how I thought it looked in a pair of moleskins, while Keith, to my surprise, lapped up the attention.

I only knew it was coming up to one o'clock, and time for the store to close and for us to head to Nora's, when Chris came in with his and Kitty's son. The boy was fair haired and freckle faced like his father, but thin, painfully slim, and had a leg brace on.

'My babies,' Kitty beamed when they came in. 'Take a seat and wait. We'll be finished soon.'

Chris was as well dressed as someone who was on their day off, taking care of a young child, in a small town could be. He caught my eye and smiled, and I blushed, smiled quickly and looked away.

Kitty finished helping Keith, and we were walking towards the counter with the 'keep' items when a dusty, middle-aged man came in through the doors.

'Kitty,' he called, not caring who he was interrupting. 'I need new work pants.'

Kitty didn't miss a beat. She obviously knew him, because she told him that she only had khaki pants in his preferred brand and size, not the blue that he ordinarily chose.

'What's the fucking good of you, then?' he asked irritably. 'I thought you had good stock.'

'I do, Harry, but you're just a fat bastard and that limits your choices,' Kitty said cheerfully. 'So either take the khaki or fuck off.'

Hank took the khaki. And Keith, that was when Keith fell just enough in love with Kitty to allow the rest of this story to proceed.

~~~~~~

Perhaps by now you've joined dots that I hadn't. I thought Chris and Kitty were a bit weird, and probably both a bit inappropriate, but I figured that was just what happened with a carnie girl from Adelaide marries a public servant from the back of beyond Queensland.

I was also distracted by Keith, and worried about his business. I'd wanted him to relax. I'd wanted to do nice, romantic things with him, and so far, other than the initial roll in the hay we'd had when we arrived, there hadn't been much romance.

Keith figured it out. He'd deny it later on, but he figured it out sometime in between leaving our house Saturday morning and arriving at Aunt Nora's. I could tell by the faux surprise on his face when Nora apologised for not telling us earlier, but that the friends she had arranged for us to have dinner with weren't ordinary people.

'She always was a bit slow on the uptake,' Nora told Keith. 'Did she ever tell you about the poor cunt at the dance who tried to be a gentleman and walk her back to her seat?'

Keith nodded. 'Poor bloke.'

His answer met Nora's approval.

'You two look bloody miserable,' she told us. 'You need some break from reality, something so different, so taboo, and so fun to break the funk. Otherwise, it's gonna continue to eat you alive. Keithie will smoke more and more and lose more and more weight and you, Penny, you'll keep simpering after him, trying to make him feel better.'

It was a brutally frank assessment of our relationship.

Nora folded her arms over her chest. She'd been beautiful once, and you could still see the remains of it in her face. Her daughters were stunningly gorgeous, the type who didn't need an Instagram filter even when they first woke up in the morning and took a selfie, and her sons weren't half bad either. And they loved her, her kids loved her, even though she didn't hide the fact that they'd grown up poor as bloody church mice, basically raising themselves while she pulled beers and cleaned to bring in an income.

Nora knew people. She knew a lot. And maybe that, combined with Keith's interest in Kitty, made me listen, because I sure as shit wouldn't have been interested in swinging otherwise.

'I thought normal people around here who were struggling joined a church,' I said, thinking of all the fundamentalist religious signs I'd seen.

'Well shit love, you don't need to go to those lengths,' Nora said in disgust, reaching for her cigarettes. 'God is just another man, and I've had enough of them telling me they think they know what's best for me. You know what men are good for? Lying on their backs with a hard-on.'

'What if we want to be on top?' Keith asked, pretending to be wounded.

'Don't flatter yourself Keithie, men don't know what they're doing,' Nora said.

Keith looked to me for support. I tried not to laugh.

Nora lit her smoke. 'Penny, you need a man who isn't a bundle of stress, and Keith needs a woman who'll put him in his place when he starts carrying on like a pork chop.'

Chris and Kitty.

'I heard a whisper you two had already made friends,' Nora said, taking a drag. 'And isn't the convenient all around? The four of you can pretend you're visiting the other for some country hospitality.'

I blushed at the thought. 'What if we don't want to go?'

'Then don't,' she said. 'It's not your second cousin's third wedding. You're not obliged.'

Keith cleared his throat. 'Is dinner actually served at this... event... or is it just a matter of people getting their kit off and going hammer and tongs with each other?'

'Men are involved, Keith. Of course there's food,' Nora said. 'If you don't like how things are progressing, or you've had a chance of heart, or you can't find suitable people - and the last point is normally most likely to happen, trying to organise that sort of thing out here is a nightmare - you say good-bye and go home.'

I didn't look at Keith. I couldn't bear to. I knew he, too, was avoiding looking at me. How could we possibly meet each other's eye when we were doing something so weighty as deciding whether or not we'd like to commit adultery? I can't speak for certainty on Keith's part, but there had been no dalliances on mine. Sure, I'd flirted. Possibly inappropriately at times. But it had always been harmless fun and I'd never had any interest whatsoever in breaking my vows.

'The mind boggles,' Keith said suddenly. 'How exactly does this sort of thing get organised out here?'

'With huge amounts of caution and care,' Nora replied. 'They hold five meet-ups a year. Two are held here, two are held at another location, and the last is held at a third. There are anywhere between six and sixteen people at each party. Each couple sets their own rules.'

'Is this how you met Rob?' I asked.

'No. Single men aren't invited. Too much room for complications and emotions,' Nora explained. 'Only happily married couples and self sufficient single women are invited.'

'Why did they consider us?' I asked.

Nora took a pull on her cigarette. 'You're a good-looking couple. Relatively young. You're also from an entirely different locale, so even if you do the silly thing and talk about it, it's unlikely the gossip will filter back to their respective communities.'

I tried to imagine what it might be like to sleep with Chris. My stomach churned at the thought. It wasn't that I found him unattractive. If I'm going to be frank, it was the unsettling realisation that he wouldn't know and accept my flaws and quirks that worried me. He might be disgusted by my body. I'd turned forty-one a few weeks ago and shit just wasn't as it used to be. Kitty was a beautiful woman.

What if I couldn't him hard? What an emotionally disastrous thought. Alternatively, what if Keith slept with Kitty and decided he preferred her to me and decided to woo her away? She might be happy to consider that. After all, she'd openly admitted the only reason she married Chris was because she wanted to escape carnie life.

I'd tell you how the remainder of lunch passed, but it contained nothing of note and not much sticks in my mind anyway. I was too busy things about Keith, Chris and Kitty.

When Keith and I were on the way back to the farm, he asked me what my thoughts were.

'On what? Swinging?'

'Yep. Crazy, isn't it? Out here? That they'd do it.'

'There probably isn't much else to do,' I replied. 'Other than hunting, fishing and drinking, what are you really going to do?'

'Sex,' Keith agreed. 'I suppose we should be grateful they're not involving farm animals? I went to school with some transplanted country boy who once sang a song called 'Bestiality's great, mate' while we were drunk on the train. I told the cunt I was going to sit somewhere else, but we both got kicked off at the next station.'

'How old were you?'

'Sixteen.'

'Not an age of male wisdom and good choices,' I said.

'I don't think we come good until we're twenty-five, thirty. Even then it's a bit hit and miss.'

'I thought you were pretty good when we met.'

'Unemployed and angry at the world.' Keith laughed softly. 'What a fucking catch. I wanted to kill everyone and everything that night, but then a little blonde hottie came up and told me her name was Penny and I was a goner.' He reached over and patted my leg. 'I love you. You know that? I love you so much.'

I gripped his hand in mine. 'I love you too.'

Keith smiled and we continued to drive back to the farm.

'So,' he said, as we neared our destination. 'Tonight. What are your thoughts? Do we go or do we not?'

'I don't know. What are your thoughts?'

'My thoughts are irrelevant. The whole thing just seems crazy. Swinging. Out here?' He shook his head slightly. 'Imagine the consequences if someone decides to break ranks and blab?'

'But that's not a problem for us,' I replied. 'No one back home would ever find out about it. The only thing we need to look at is 'do we want this or not?' And the thing is, every time swinging has come up in the past, when it's been on TV or in a magazine or someone we know has admitted to doing it, you've baulked. I've baulked. What puzzles me is why this time it's different, and why we're even entertaining the idea. Because we are, aren't we? I'm thinking about it. You're thinking about it. Why? What's making this so different, so worthy of consideration?'