The whirring fan was a triumph of optimism over effectiveness, not a skerrick of breeze cut through the treacly mugginess shrouding my skin. That humidity, redolent of molasses, mango, and frangipani, continually asked: Always the outsider in this fugging hell of a town? 

A bead of sweat pursuing its predecessor down my cleavage further dampened my décolletage. Despite wearing less, here, laundry is time-consuming. All of life’s rhythms are in the thrall of the sultry weather.

This is as good as it gets: it's officially winter. Welcome to the fucking tropics. 

The front door slamming as Jade returned from lunch didn’t distract the afternoon’s postprandial torpor from weighing on my eyelids. No plans before three, apart from another shower, and this somnolence was of the tropical kind, uninterruptible.

With the gangliness of a young filly, Jade’s enthusiastic naivety reflected her sheltered upbringing. Yet from her first day at work, that desire to please had dog-whistled latent submissiveness fit for the harness.

It’s not her mother’s style to go down on bended knees. But Monica had made an exception when begging me to give Jade, who’s still remotely studying criminology at my alma mater, Sydney University, work experience. 

It’s not my style to say no to Monica.

Jade lunching on Asian street food at the markets had been my idea. It’s authentic, well apart from being botulism free, and the dumplings are particularly tasty; the perfect place to start networking with her opposite number at Marlow’s.

Yes, Marlow’s, the competition. Not that they’d see it that way, they’ve self-styled as Cairns' oldest and only reliable detective agency.

We’ll see.

The guy in charge is Col fucking Angelos, a good ol’ boy, which, hereabouts, translates as lecherous arse hole. He’s as much a privates’ investigator as a private investigator if you get my drift.

You’d think an older guy with the size of his beer belly, the strength of his body odour and the minuscule length of his dick would struggle to get laid. Apparently not, seems an encyclopaedic knowledge of who's up who and who’s paying has resulted in the tropics edition of George Clooney. The XXXX rather than the Nespresso version, that is.

It’s totally a man’s world hereabouts. I know, I know, misogyny is here, there, and everywhere. But, there’s something genuinely neanderthal about North Queensland; here, mate, men are still men, mate, and her indoors should know her place, mate.

That said, Col had surprised me, offering me a leg up when I’d been driven out of dodge for the second time; on this occasion rebooting my life far, far away from Melbourne.

In the tourist brochures, the locals promote Cairns as: “Where the world’s oldest rainforest meets the world's largest coral reef.” That had sure sounded inviting, but, there again, Dr Jekyll wasn’t one to say much about Mr Hyde.

Like, in reality, lush rainforests abut pristine white beaches, and you can’t fucking swim. The world’s most poisonous fish, disguised as a rock, awaits the unwary. Then there are the saltwater crocodiles. I’d rather get close and personal with a great white shark than a saltie, they’re even less forgiving than the ex-girlfriend who’d made life unbearable in Melbourne.

Add in the ubiquitous stinging jellyfish, the all-too-common poisonous snakes and spiders, plus the occasional cyclone, and you’ll get the idea. Nature up here’s a beautiful but harsh Mistress: Gaia the scorpion carries a sting in her tail.

Col gets off on telling newcomers that nature’s duplicity is contagious; the tropics are programmed to short-circuit outsiders’ moral judgement. It's so typical of him, swimming against the nurture not nature tide.

Won't be blaming upbringing for his patronising tone, then; he’d been born hardwired to know a successful woman private investigator was a contradiction in terms. Also, sure my degree in criminology was about as useful as tits on a bull. “Nothing beats the school of hard knocks,” had been Col’s exact words.

Astoundingly, then, my short pixie cut, a flag not an intimation of lesbianism, hadn’t been off-putting at all. It’d taken me longer than it should have to twig that he too was of a mind: the greater the challenge, the more enticing the chase.

He’s not without a rat’s cunning, drip-feeding information that helped me establish my detective agency. That had kept me interested and, importantly for him, in his debt.

I’m not so religiously butch not to get with the programme when an occasion calls for femme-flirting. Modelling Salome, my verbal dance of the seven veils had hinted at an ongoing interest. Col, becoming more confident of being in with a chance, had ponied up larger and larger information antes to keep playing my game.

But putting up or shutting up had eventually come to a head after I’d mistakenly gotten over eager for intel on the corruption index of today’s senior police. It had been Queensland's boys in blue, aided and abetted by state politicians under Bjelke-Peterson’s leadership, who’d set an all-Australian high-water mark for malfeasance thirty or more years ago.

The names of the so-called old-school coppers still plodding these pavements were key for me. Old-school being the good ol’ boys’ historic euphemism for racist, sexist, homophobic, and corruptible shitheads.

Getting Col to open his mouth, meant opening my mouth. That had been how, by delivering the quid pro quo, namely a blowjob, I’d become au fait with the size, or lack thereof, of his dick.

While gross, I’d gotten by with fantasising about fellating a Feeldoe jutting lewdly from a Cara Delevingne lookalike’s gorgeous cunt. That and another trick kept up my sleeve. Mouth bobbing up and down on shrimp-dick had saliva oozing over his hairy balls. Having scooped up the spit, my finger smeared the stickiness onto the sensitive ridges of his pucker.

My thinking had been good ol’ boys would consider bottom play totally gay, in the pejorative sense they’re used to using that word. Having figured that, by shocking Col, I’d avoid a mouthful of jizz, you can imagine my surprise when he’d whimpered, “Fuck yes, babe. Massage my prostate.”

Being called babe had been yucky enough, but worse was to follow. As my finger had fossicked in his arse, desperately searching for the elusive gland, I’d suffered, for the first time ever, an outbreak of straight-bloke empathy, reflective of their legendary inability to locate a g-spot.

On finally striking anal gold, had there been any thanks? Hell no, just a mouthful of salty boy-goo and the discovery I was definitely a spit not swallow sort of girl.

But beggars back then couldn’t be choosers. Gross as it was, that insight into today’s police force had been crucial to my most gratifying case.

It had all been so very cloak and dagger. A call had come out of nowhere, the number untraceable: fly down to Brisbane and visit a gynaecologist about my irregular periods and discharges.

Periods are, as it happens, the one regular thing about my pussy. But it transpired that, if you need a conversation killer, menses are magic. Women had nodded emphatically, men just stuttered, but helpfully the conversation had quickly found itself elsewhere.

I’d ended up in Professor Giulia Calogero's consulting rooms at Brisbane hospital. On time, a first for me and the medical profession, the cute-as receptionist had shown me into the good professor’s consulting room and closed the door behind me.

The front door, as it turned out. The doctor had put a silencing finger to her lips and ushered me through a second door behind her desk. There I’d come face to face with the Queensland police commissioner; a woman, and, as you might imagine, her gender alone meant the appointment hadn’t been, to put it mildly, met with universal acclaim in my part of the state.

Those who’d been outraged because she didn’t have the balls for the job were then infuriated when she’d grown them and imposed recruitment equity targets on every police command, plus demanding more emphatic treatment for victims of domestic violence than the perpetrators. 

“But,” as she’d explained, “there’s resistance. I need to make an example of a recalcitrant command pour encourager les autres and where better to start than North Queensland.”

The commissioner had been accompanied by her chief of staff, Brenda, who, while I’m loath to stereotype, totally presented as the BBC brought to you by central casting. If you’re into buxom butch constables, she’d be right up your alley.

But she also had that saltie-like aura of unforgiveness about her, a butch-fatale look that had me making a mental note to discover who her favourite femmes were and to keep my fingers far away from those kittens’ knickers.

Brenda had given me a burner phone to keep in touch and helped me open a bank account at a reputable Indonesian bank, which she assured me wasn’t a contradiction in terms, into which she’d pay my surprisingly generous fee, plus expenses of course.

Then, after the good doctor had given me a gyno prescription, made me promise to flush the pill down the dunny once a day before food, and a follow-up appointment in a month, I’d boarded the Qantas flight back to Cairns sipping a couple of XXXX’s while pondering how best to approach the assignment.

Which, as it turned out, didn't need overthinking or incurring chargeable expenses. Not that I’d ever be seen in gumshoes, hereabouts open toe sandals are the go, but footwork hadn't been necessary. Whatever sense of righteousness comes with being a good ol’ boy had seemingly inoculated them against any insecurity as to their vulnerability, which quickly had me discovering a senior police WhatsApp group.

It was obvious why they hadn’t risked the coppers’ IT boffins making the commissioner aware of what was in those chats. But, as they’d clearly missed the point of why a police force values a secure messaging system, worse had followed.

Stupidly, a link into the dark web had been left on WhatsApp. Oh God, you get to see some misogynist shit in this job, but this was the ‘winning’ trifecta of patriarchal hate vomit, racist, sexist, and homophobic beyond belief.

The lowlight had been discovering senior North Queensland cops’ torture fantasies about their boss, the commissioner. And even more extreme ones about Brenda, just because she was, on top of the usual bullshit grievances, a butch dyke. 

Relaxed post blowjob, Col had regaled me with the nicknames the local old-school coppers used for themselves and others behind their backs. Cuntsable traded sexual favours for turning a blind eye to traffic violations, Vagina Whisperer fancied himself as God’s gift to women and Nasty, the district commander, was just plain nasty, even by their lowball standards.

Identifying who was who on the dark web had been dead easy as the stupid fucks actually used those nicknames in chats. For the money paid, it had taken an unconscionably short time to finalise my report. No need for many conclusions, the chat transcripts had spoken for themselves.

On my return to Brisbane, the good doctor had resumed standard medical practice and was running late. I amused myself by making eyes with her cute-as receptionist, mentally high-fiving myself when a passion-pink blush blossomed across her neck.

Shortly thereafter, she’d conspiratorially whispered, “You’re bad,” as she let me into Professor Calogero’s consulting room.

“It’s bad girls who make good girls' panties damp.” At that, she’d invitingly battered her eyelashes before closing the consulting room door behind me.

Blushing must have been contagious; the good professor’s cheeks and neck had also been flushed. You don’t have to be a private investigator to recognise that look, all women know the classic just-been-fucked face.

In the adjacent room, a whiff of cunt-cream had confirmed my suspicions. Then eagle-eyed, I’d spied the top of a Feeldoe, no doubt recently cleaned, tucked discreetly into the gap between Brenda’s taser and Glock 22 pistol. 

“Gives packing heat a new meaning.”

She’d smirked. “You're observant. Usually, I don't mix business and pleasure. But sometimes needs must in this job. Fortunately, the professor has secrecy in her blood; Sicilian and married.”

“Unlike the boys in blue up my way. Can jail innocent Aboriginals; can’t lock up guilty secrets.”

“You found a smoking gun, then?”

“Took a bit of digging, but yeah, eventually. Detailed in the report. Trigger warning: contains violent sexual fantasies.” 

“You know who’s involved?”

“Yeah, they used nicknames.”

“Seriously? Like Vagina Whisperer and Nasty?”

“You knew?”

“Not letting much past me is how I protect the commissioner.”

Having told Brenda the document’s password, she’d sped-read. “Dear God, Vagina Whisperer thinks a good fucking will get me off my feminist high horse.”

“He's deluded, but at least imagines your consent. Worse follows.”

“Jesus. Nasty’s part of the commissioner’s senior management team and signed up for affirmative action policies. And here he’s talking smack with junior staff about criminally assaulting her.”

“He’s the real shithead. What happens next?”

“Castration hopefully. We’ll see; the commissioner’s a bit of a softie. She’ll be thinking, ‘due process.’”

“Open and shut, surely?”

“Rarely is, Annie. Might all too often triumphs over right.”

While settling the doctor’s account with her blond bombshell of a receptionist, I’d grumbled about good old Qantas rescheduling my flight home to the next morning. Their excuse, “Staffing issues with the incoming airliner,” as content-free as my ex’s, “It’s me, not you.”

Charlene, for that, was her name, and one that, let’s be honest, screams barbie-bogan, had brightened and offered to book me into the Cystalbrook Vincent eco-hotel in the Howard Street Wharf entertainment precinct.

Eco-hotel? As if, “We’re going to charge two hundred plus smacks and still not change your towel,” really made a difference to anything other than the hotel’s bottom line. The rest had been double Dutch to me, but Charlene, eager little puppy that she was, had volunteered to walk me to the hotel and show me a buzzy Greek restaurant nearby.

Never could say no to a drama-free seduction, and this had the potential to distract me from depressing thoughts about the po-lice up north getting away with being total scumbags.

On checking into the hotel, I’d been asked, “One room key or two?”

Seduction be damned; Charlene had interrupted to snaffle first dibs on my bed. “Two.”

It’d become clear she had an ulterior motive for suggesting we go Greek. At the café entrance, she’d slipped her arm through mine and smugly strutted past a sultry, buxom server. “Oh, hi Simone. Long time, no see.”

That’d sorely tempted me to ditch her and play the greater risk-reward game of hitting on Ms Simone Sex-on-legs, especially after Charlene confirmed she was indeed her ex.

But there’d have been no upside from the good doctor’s receptionist going all psycho-femme on me, especially as she’d confided that hospital colleagues had seen the police commissioner around the hospital. Although, fortunately, the receptionist gossip coven hadn't worked out which specialist she’d visited. Brenda had been totally grateful for that intelligence.

Charlene had lived down to my expectations, a typical Barbie-femme pillow princess. Previously I’ve got into fuck toys as much as the next domme, but over time those whose byword is, “anything,” more often than not, don't seem up to truly satisfying me.

That said, she’d been willing, tonguing my cunt until smothered in cum-cream, and then wantonly spreading herself while droning on about having her fuck-holes owned. Not one to look a gift pussy in the mouth, I’d pounded cunt and arse with the well-travelled black Feeldoe that lives in my handbag. Not unexpectedly, the subsequent cums had been way short of intense enough to rid me of Brenda’s depressing lack of certainty in our victory over the misogynist arseholes.

The buzzing alarm had roused me way too early, given the night before. But not Charlene who, in burying her face into the bottom sheet, had exposed a peachy derrière still rouge from a sound spanking.

It said so much that, rather than wake her, I’d rubbed out one in the shower with Jade on my mind. Final proof that bratty kittens-in-training growing into their skin and not the Barbie-bogans of this world had become my preferred lay of the day. Tempting as it was, not leaving Charlene the usual glib catch-up later note had seemed unnecessarily provocative as my phone number was on the medical notes she could access.

I’ve discovered a truism in the far north: the deeper your slide into tropical postprandial torpor, the greater the seepage.

Pore by pore, your skin blossoms with a damp sheen. Inexorably, beads of sweat take turns to bombard your décolletage. Then a bead slips the moorings of a now damp bra. It's expected, anticipated even, that salacious tickle-trickle down your stomach that confirms seepage intends to colonise your panties.

Somnolent still, the squirm is instinctive. The damp cotton now glued to your slit teases your sex. That's the moment eyes flick open; a tropical orgasm, as regular as the wet season’s daily downpour, has brewed.

An assistant can make one’s fingers redundant. “Jade!”

“Yes, boss. As if I didn't know.”

“Who me? Just asking how lunch went.”

“If you say so. Legs spread, showing off sodden panties, isn't evidencing a different story?”

“A test of your investigative skills.”

“Have it your way. Lunch went well. Jasmine’s smart and sweet; learning heaps.”

“Any new cases?”

“One mentioned. A man with my surname consulted Mr Angelos this morning. Turned out to be my dad.”

Seriously; that wasn’t good! Tugging off my sticky knickers, I tossed them at Jade. “Alright, you win. Got to be showered and on the road by three.”

An alluring hip wiggle puddled her dress on the floor. Bra and freshly stained panties followed. Jade’s ripe body was tauter than her mother’s had ever been, though Monica had been well into her twenties when we’d first met. Jade, smiling coquettishly at my intake of breath, added, “Enough libidinous kitten time, then,” and crawled under my glass-topped desk.

Sliding forward, my legs spread in the way that has honey dripping down my perineum and pooling on my pucker. Jade’s tongue tip flicked those excitable anal nerves; my sighs were stronger for knowing how long she’d taken to convince herself of her need to please me that way.

Wrapping my hands in her hair squashed her face against my sex. “Fuck toy, Jade!”

She whimpered as her curled tongue explored the velvet walls of my slick cunt. Her nose mashed against my clit. Squelching sounds as her fingers impaled her tight snatch echoed off the walls.

Grinding and grinding I brewed a monster orgasm from the pretty kitten who’d come to idolise my cunt. Cresting, my pleasure waves flooded her face and dripped onto her full tits. Totally satisfying me threw her over the edge, her orgasmic screams vibrating through my pussy triggered aftershocks.

In Sydney, after taking a deep breath and creeping out of the closet, my masquerade of dresses had found themselves on coat hangers. But, given the humidity, my frocks were coming back into vogue. Not every day, but, when it’s Monica, shorts and t-shirts definitely take a closet break, and a not-too-femme dress gets coordinated with this season’s black Tigress Wicked Weasel thong-bikini that she adores me in.

Was fidelity the reason Jade’s dad consulted Col? Driving up to Port Douglas, a blaring police siren interrupted my thinking. According to Senior Constable Harrison, otherwise known as Cuntstable, my fifteen kilometres an hour over the speed limit was a fair cop as the winding and narrow road is an accident black spot.

But I’d too many carryover demerit points from Melbourne; like I’d defy anyone to drive within the rules when my ex had one of her nit-picking moments. Another ticketed violation could mean losing my driver’s licence.

Fortunately, my friend Krystal had Cunstable’s measure. She likes to motor sans underwear, showing off in her Porsche, even at the risk of losing control of the car. She’s all in, however, when that means losing control of her cunt. It's so her to ambiguously claim, “Just because it's hot and sticky.”

Krystal had discovered that flashing the fuzz resulted in a spot of pistoning and consequent violation forgiveness. Having established Cunstable was armed with an impressive joystick, she’s taken to accelerating the Porsche past his police car safe in the knowledge that she’ll not only avoid demerit points but also merit a good truncheoning.

No choice, really, a private investigator needs her licence. “Officer,” my bogan little-girl-lost voice grated on my ears, “Apologies for speeding. Krystal’s implied a get-out-of-jail card you might indulge. But I just have to get to Port Douglas. How might we both get satisfaction?”

To give him credit, Cunstable Harrison gave credit, who knew that was in the police manual? In deferring my truncheoning to the next day, he explained that, as a devoted family man, we’d be done by four as he wasn’t one to miss his daughter’s school concerts. Just one of those times when it's wisest to bite one’s tongue.

Being unable to park close to the Sheraton Grand Mirage resort had me running late. After finally discovering a parking space by the beach, I darted across three holes of the Peter Thomson designed golf course and took the palm-lined back path through the luxury bungalows.

Breathless and sweltering on arrival at the resort’s large pool, I spied Monica well ensconced beside the swim-up bar. A couple of deep breaths helped corral the bittersweet feelings that nowadays swirl through me upon seeing her.

There’s an expression I rarely use: femme fatale. It's goddamn awful, reeking as it does of sexism. Women are straightjacketed into influencing men by physical temptation alone. Add in that femme-fatale-fatality noir trope, and you’ll see my point. After all, one can’t have a shelia, even a fictional one, upsetting the patriarchal apple cart. It’s sort of like the lesbian death count in today’s Netflix series.

Yet, for me, there’s that generalisation. Then there’s Monica.

At Sydney University’s Manning bar two decades ago, her magnetic sensuality had enmeshed sophomore-me in her web, and then she, more than anyone, helped me to come to terms with who I was. That aura still works in spades, the only difference nowadays is she’s even more precise in maximising her leverage over others by using a retinue of stylists and trainers to manage her to-die-for brunette hair, gorgeous face, and taut bronzed body.

It’s so fucking typical. I’m described like Ruby Rose, a super-cool butch with a harem of femmes, though it has to be said, Ruby’s way more generous with engagement rings. Also, a decade younger and, for Monica, had chosen Australia’s hottest bikini brand which totally highlighted my slender figure. Yet no one gave me a second glance while wading towards the pool bar. With Monica, it's like being the moon, every day destined to be blotted out by the sun’s radiance.

Surrounded by newbie admirers, she sipped what presumably was a margarita, Patron tequila, of course, no doubt bought by whichever of the moths drawn to her flame had the greatest delusion of grandeur about getting into her bikini thong.

I’d show those fuckwits. My fingernail traced Monica’s spine. Smirking, she turned her cheek, allowing my lips to brush her soft skin. “Sorry I’m late, baby. These guys disturbing you?”

“Warming me up for you, Annie. Margarita?”

As usual, it took time for her admirers to connect the dots. Finally, accepting they’d bought a cock to a hen party, they scanned the pool for suitable chicks. I ordered two lychee margaritas, Patron tequila, knowing, as always, the tab would be mine. Sipping our drinks, we alternated a catch-up, Jade first-up of course, with our usual flirtatious innuendo. Though my enthusiastic review of her daughter’s work performance, which deserved its proud mamma smile, carried no hint Jade’s job description now included the word, fucktoy.

“Jade discovered her dad met with Marlow’s, the biggest private investigator in Cairns.”

“Oh fuck. Checking my virtue again?”

“Suppose so. Col Angelos won’t be as economical with the truth as I was.”

Who knows the extent of marital harmony in Botswana, but, at the Cairns No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, we’re kept in clover by clients who develop an inkling their spouses might be playing away from home.

Not long after I’d started building my business, a dapper silver fox from Mount Isa, pores oozing entitlement-laced sweat, had swaggered into my office.

He’d got straight to the point: I had to investigate the goings-on of his wife. Get him proof that she knew other men in the biblical sense, and he’d be triggering their ironclad prenuptial agreement.

A long-time Sydney-based mining engineer, they'd moved to Mount Isa where he managed Australia’s biggest mine. My heart skipped a beat as he’d added his wife had made her name at Riversleigh. 

David Attenborough has waxed lyrical about Riversleigh: “One of the four greatest fossil sites on earth.” Monica had not only been all over those digs, but she’d also indulged my less-than-stellar contribution to palaeontology. Sometimes literary, “Alas poor Yorickasaurus,” and sometimes smutty; think jumping your bones and lots of gerontophilia innuendo, fucking fossils, boom-boom.

That said, the bones, “How many times do I have to tell you, Annie; they’re megafauna not dinosaurs!” unearthed by Sydney University’s palaeontologists make today’s salties and great whites seem benign. The giant flesh-eating platypus and wombat, the carnivorous killer kangaroo, and all four metres and half a tonne of thunderbirds-are-go. But scariest were the drop-crocs that Monica had actually discovered. For fuck’s sake, a crocodile that climbs trees and dives onto unsuspecting prey doesn’t bear thinking about.

Monica’s dry seasons were usually spent on digs and lecturing. News to me had been she’d taken to spending the wet season at their pied-a-terre in Port Douglas; apparently, a better place for writing up research as the humidity gets dulled by the sea breeze.

In my experience, nothing ameliorates the fucking humidity. So, her husband’s suspicions that staying away from home had more to do with straying away from home hadn’t felt paranoid to me.

There’d been no need for his proffered photo, after all, similar pictures of Monia will always be on my mobile. Oddly, meeting him had felt like the last step in putting Sydney behind me. Accepting it wasn’t his fault that my girlfriend had decided, “Look Annie, fucking men, that’s advancement; women, that’s pleasure. We’ll still be good friends.”

When, immediately after the wedding, she’d got pregnant with Jade to fully lock herself into his life, enough had been enough. I’d left Sydney for Melbourne, determined to reboot my life and try to forget about her.

There, much to my surprise, Monica had become my Melbourne ex’s bête noire despite never having laid eyes on her. When, more frequently as time went by, my ex got irritated with me, there’d be that familiar snap, “You're half-heartedly in love; she's on your mind.”

“We’re just old friends,” hadn't provided comfort, so I hadn’t dared offer the more accurate, “Ungrateful bitch; for you, we’ve put off resuming being fuckbuddies.”

Establishing my Cairns business had kept me super busy, so I’d been totally into surprising Monica with a text:

Guess why I’m outside your apartment?

When she’d sashayed, naked, into the wet season’s monsoon thundering onto the poolside balcony of her Sheraton Grand Mirage apartment, she’d just shaken her head. There I’d been, texting from the other side of the pool, hair plastered to my face and my clothes nigh on transparent in the rainstorm.

Making a speedy recovery from being flabbergasted, she’d waved her mauve Feeldoe at me and messaged:

Because I still make you wet, Annie.

Never has a truer word been texted.

A little later I’d found myself in her bed, both of us using a farmer’s wife called Emma, who’d apparently left the outback and headed for the big smoke to expand her horizons. Call me cynical, but that had seemed to be code for having both arse and pussy simultaneously Feeldoe-expanded and calling us both, Miss.

So, clearly, one answer to her husband’s question was, “Yes, Monica is indeed fucking. At least one farmer’s wife…. Oh, and me too.”

But, ever the pedant, Monica had been clearer. I’d been asked to find out if she’d been fucking other men, and she could unambiguously assure me the answer to that question was, “No.”

So, on reporting back to her husband, “I found absolutely no evidence that she’s been intimate with another man,” he’d arched his eyebrows. Surprised, unbelieving; I hadn’t really been able to tell.

To be honest, it did feel a tad fraudulent banking my fee, but, in my defence, I hadn’t told an untruth.

“Apartment time, Annie.” A command, not a question. Sucking the tequila-infused lychee into my mouth, I savoured the sweet and sour taste, the perfect metaphor for the next few hours. Then, imagining the bar flies’ green eyes boring into my back, I followed Monica, half swimming, half wading, across the pool, holding my bag and phone above my head.

The apartment’s balcony door slid shut. Monica’s arms went around my shoulders. Her tongue invaded my mouth. Goosebumps broke out; the passionate kiss was so redolent of previous monster orgasms.

“On your knees,” she whispered.

If another femme tried that stunt, I’d hit the road. But never Monica; I knelt, tugging her bikini thong down, my pussy leaking as the scent of her lasered cunt cut through the pool’s chlorine aroma.

With a finger under my chin, she lifted my head. I supplicantly gazed up into her eyes. She stepped over my face. Hands gripped my head. Folds docked with my lips and smothered me in oozing cunt.

Monica’s painful tugs on the roots of my hair while riding my face accentuated the magic of being reduced to putty in her hands. I knew her triggers; my tongue probed her wet sex as she ground her clit against my nose.

Momentarily, she loosened her grip, her signal for me to clamp my lips around her clit and curl fingers into her liquefying cunt. As my knuckles scissor-stretched her velvet walls, she bucked her sex against my face.

Her body tensed.

She squealed. Held her breath. Shuddered.

A squirt of cum-honey gushed into my mouth. With kitten licks, I savoured her cream, taking care to extract every last quiver of pleasure for her.

Sitting back on my heels, I smiled up at her, my face sticky with her juices.

“Handbag,” she ordered.

I opened my bag, so she could extract my black Feeldoe. “On the bed, Annie.”

Just as well there’s not a Society of Dommes; I’d risk my membership by helping a femme to twist the pony end of my own Feeldoe into her cunt. But my toy jutting lewdly from Monica’s pussy had my sex aflame, that lusty hunger that overwhelms all rational thought.

On shedding my bikini and crawling onto the bed, Monica consummated our symbiosis by thrusting the doe deep into my needy opening. For twenty years, off and on, me relinquishing the control I insist on with others unlocks an all-consuming buzz for her. No one, certainly not her husband, has ever given her the rapture she gets from owning my cunt.

As always, she pounded me hard, her hips slapping against my arse. Our releases were out of this world. But incredibly, this time mine was even more perfervid; there’s clearly something so deliciously illicit about fucking mother and daughter on the same afternoon.

Snuggled into her breasts is my post-orgasmic heaven. Monica’s fingers traced heart shapes on my sensitive skin. “I’m addicted to your cums, Annie.”

“Likewise; I felt obliged to give you up once. Never again.”

Her fingernail circled my areola, teasing my engorged nipple. “Hey, remember Emma?”

“That country bumpkin you were fucking?”

She rolled my stiff nipple with index finger and thumb. “Still am. There’s something I haven't told you about her.”

“You got Emma pregnant?”

She giggled adorably. “Did you know, a hundred million years ago, before Riversleigh, inland Australia was actually underwater?”

“Yes, idiot; I passed school geography.”

Smirking, she softly spanked me. “Well, an inland sea has two coastlines.”

“No shit, Einstein.”

Firmer spanks echoed off the bedroom walls. “On the eastern coast around Winton, they’ve found dinosaur skeletons.”

“So?”

Her fingers spider-walked down my stomach. “Emma’s property is on the unexplored old western shore, near Mount Isa.”

“And?”

Fingers sliding between my puffy, slick lips had me whimpering. “Well, she kept refusing to go back. Her husband killed himself.”

“Sad, but how’s that relevant?”

I moaned as she twisted her fingers deep into my cunt, knuckles scissoring hard against my super-sensitive walls. “Their daughter won't give Emma the time of day, blaming her.”

“Your point?”

Her fingers paused; her eyes lit up. “I’ve seen dinosaur bones, Annie. Exhumed on their property by that flood six years ago. I’d so want that land; just imagine, a site all of my own will so enhance my reputation.”

I ground my cunt against her fingers. “Don’t stop.”

Pressing her thumb against my clit, her curling fingers sought my spongy spot. “Emma’s daughter, Rose, sure could do with the money, the land’s been desiccated by drought these last five years. Will you see if you can buy it?”

“Fuck …. Why me? I’m a private investigator, not a land agent.”

Thumb and fingers bumped an irresistible synchronised tattoo on my g-spot and clit. “She’s lesbian. You’ve only fucked her mother once. I trust you. Pretty please.”

I orgasmed; achingly hard, gushing all over her hand. Then agreed to visit Emma’s daughter, Rose. “One condition, Monica. Promise me you won’t fuck anyone while Col’s on your case.”

“Sure, I can do that. Academic papers to write and lots to lose by pissing off my husband.”

The next day, Cunstable Harrison informed me truncheon shenanigans would be taking a back seat as he’d been detained by urgent police business. That wasn’t surprising, Queensland’s Fairfax papers had published an exclusive report into the barnacle-like persistence of the local police’s anti-women culture. Brenda had given me a heads-up, and it felt great seeing my work bear fruit, albeit under a journalist’s byline.

It didn’t take Nasty long to tee off. “Irresponsible journalism peddling fake news,” attributed to him by the Cairns Post. Subsequent way over-the-top comments went close to nominating the North Queensland constabulary for the Nobel Peace Prize. He’d clearly thought the commissioner blind to his part in the violent dark web misogyny.

But then, curiously, late the next day, Col, personifying that line from Virgil: “I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts,” burst into my sweltering office. On one hand, I was stunned by his wokeness, he’d clearly been contemplating what a butch shelia might drink. On the other hand, choosing that day for conviviality had my defences on maximum alert.

He handed me a libation choice. Plainly, he perceived a New Zealand sauvignon blanc as a quality girl’s drink at an affordable price point. But just in case I had way-too-femme thoughts about wine, he’d covered his bases with a flask of Jack. I passed the Jack back and had the sauvignon. That kind of surprised him. He also had the wine. That kind of surprised me.

Patting his sweaty brow with a handkerchief, he swigged his wine and pitched me a curveball. “With so much dangerous fauna around here, it pays not to overlook the strangler fig.”

“Only if you’re a tree, surely.” The fig tree started life as a windblown seed in a rainforest tree’s highest branches. It took years for tendrils to grow down to the ground and then develop into roots and a trunk that cannibalised the original tree, leaving the strangler fig standing tall and proud in the rainforest.

“As a parable, Annie.”

“Do tell, Jesus Christ.”

He smiled, the smile of a crocodile. “I’m sure you’ve seen what the Fairfax wankers wrote about our police force.”

“I did. Misogyny always shocks me.”

“Not accurate, the area commander tells me.”

“You’ve talked?”

“Unfortunately. Nasty’s convinced the scurrilous accusations came from up here. I was his first port of call. I have an advantage though; I know it's not me ….”

“Of course, you’d hardly tell the press inaccuracies.”

That gave him pause. Taking time to think, he refreshed our glasses. “Just between the two of us, there might be more to this than meets the eye. But I repeat, I know it's not me.”

“Surely, you don’t think it's me.”

“Consider it a compliment, no one else in this town has the skills. Nor the time; you went to Brisbane a while ago.”

“Dodgy periods, my friend.”

“I concede you visited a specialist gynaecologist. But her receptionist reports another door shutting after you went into the doctor’s consulting room. There are contemporaneous reports of the police commissioner around the Brisbane hospital campus. By the way, was Charlene a good root?”

How could Col get all that in a day? Fuck, Charlene’s such a big mouth. “That’s a long bow, Col. And I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Circumstantial evidence is often all we have. This isn't a court of law, in our business it's enough.”

“But …”

“Of course, there’s a but. In this case, the dark web.”

Seriously!

My face, I hoped, reflected my words. “What are you talking about?”

He stared at me in that creepy and condescending way of his, finished his sauvignon and carefully picked up the Jack, saying, “Take care, Annie. Always remember the strangler fig.” He then skedaddled away as fast as an overweight sweaty guy is capable of skedaddling, leaving me to pour the rest of the sauvignon and slowly sip it, deep in thought.

Weird ending, but one penny dropped. Col must be so far up someone’s arse that the key to the strangler fig parable wasn’t that I’d cannibalise his business by nicking his clients. There was something else, something they thought I’d gotten a sniff of, something worse than the violence of their sexism, something that made someone so vulnerable that Col had gone fishing about the dark web.

Not that he seemed afraid of what would happen if I actually hadn’t known and ventured into the dark web. That must mean they’d cleansed the data. But what they didn’t know, I hoped, was that appended to my report to the commissioner were screenshots of all I’d read. After outlining my late afternoon to a flabbergasted Brenda, she undertook to re-read the dark web transcripts while I set out towards Mt Isa.

We Aussies are a weird mob; cheek by jowl, living the Uber-eats lifestyle in coastal urban conurbations, yet we mythologise the outback as the real Australia.

The, “She’ll be right, mate,” larrikin cut legality’s corners and eked out a precarious living. The Akubra-wearing stockman, drove cattle on horseback, no doubt happily humming Waltzing Matilda.

Yet, once the lush sugar cane plantations near Cairns vanished from the Rav4’s rear mirror, the red-dirt reality of the wide-open spaces became clear. The skinny livestock were few and far between, the stations increasingly lifeless, apart that is from the ubiquitous termite mounds. Only the avian way of life, road train’s road kill, still seemed good to go.

As much as I loathe the femme fatale expression, outback Gaia has always been the real deal. Her red and orange sunsets burn with seductive gorgeousness, but her days are precarious in their harshness. And she won’t tolerate those who don’t respect her: the drought years have scarred the people and the land. The infrequent tiny settlements reeked of destitution, businesses either boarded up or for sale. Only publicans make a living when farming is hand to mouth.

Closer towards Mt Isa, more silent sentinels to the outback’s capacity to shatter dreams became starkly obvious. Like latter-day Vikings, the Europeans, a mere forty thousand years late in claiming this continent as ours, decided looting and pillaging was the answer. God knows what the question was: “Sustainability? Never heard of it, mate.”

The corroding skeletons of abandoned mine machinery mark the fields where dreams come to die after the spin of the lottery wheel that is mineral prospecting. Not just a gold rush, but all sorts of minerals.

Nowadays, the unproductive remain as graven images, pointing towards Mt Isa. There the chimneys of the Satanic mills of mammon brood phallically over the town. That’s the reality of outback success, Australia’s biggest mine, fifty-seven levels underground; dirty, hard fucking work, but world-scale extraction of lead, zinc, silver, and copper.

Rose’s station was a hundred kilometres short of the town. The access track to her homestead was so rutted I’d run late. She’d gotten on with business, and was leading a cute little Brahman calf into pens between her barn and small house.

In Sydney and Melbourne lesbian bars, a checked Swanndri shirt and tight jeans can pass muster as butch-chic. Not Rose’s threads though; work-ripped not designer-ripped, therein lay the difference. Her R M Williams boots, however, were a tribute to the craftsmanship of that iconic Australian brand; despite years of brutal work scuffed into the reddened leather, they were, seemingly, the only thing on the station not on the precipice of falling apart.

The peeling paint, the rickety-repaired fences, the broken glass, hardly a plant to be seen; all a testament to how marginal the drought had made the station.

That stress laced most of what Rose said with negativity and cynicism. She only brightened when I outlined how the university could purchase some potentially fossil-rich land, though the pain of diluting her father’s dream to, “Have a go, mate,” etched her frown deeper into a prematurely lined but still handsome face.

“There’s some land with bones visible, Annie. I’ll show you tomorrow. Better get on with preparing dinner.”

Rose emerging from the barn, rough as guts and rifle in hand, triggered Duelling Banjos in my subconscious. Obviously too long as a private investigator; but I needed to help out. “What can I do, Rose?”

“Thanks for asking. Best work naked. Way easier getting blood and offal off skin than clothes.”

Without ceremony, Rose cleanly bulleted the calf, blood splattering over the pen’s half-rotted fence posts. “No point in wasting scarce silage on boys; only girls worth keeping around.”

“Your life philosophy, too?”

She mirrored my knowing smirk. “Can you return my rifle to the barn? I’ll make a start on butchering this little guy?”

Rose had lost her clothes by the time I returned from hanging her rifle in the gun rack. Like me, she was slim and small-breasted. Yet compared to my city girl trainer-tautness, her body’s hard-work-wiriness seriously deserved the second glance she’d rarely get. After all, a life spent outdoors, likely with supermarket soap as the only affordable skincare, meant lush pubes and underarms, calloused hands, and leathery sun-scarred skin; not the typical features of even the most butch of Vogue profiles.

But no model could compete with Rose’s skilful knife work. She carefully started dissecting the calf, totally unfazed by the oozing blood and guts smeared over her. “Just taking what me and the dogs need. Too isolated for the renderer; we’ll bury the rest over yonder.”

While I got naked, she got safety conscious; stopping whittling as she couldn’t stop her eyes from repeatedly surveying my curves. I then helped by wrapping and freezing the chunks of meat. We both ended up even bloodier and sweatier after double-teaming on carrying the remains over to a pit and burying them under shovelfuls of red soil.

She turned on an outside shower beside her back door. “It's cold, but who wants blood and guts traipsed through the house?”

As the bore water diluted the gore smeared into our skin, my nipples hardened. Rose couldn’t contain her lustful glances, finally muttering, “You’re so fucking hot.”

“Thanks. You too.”

“Seriously?”

She jerked towards me, lips pressing against mine, our firm nipples bumping. “Fuck, sorry. Carried away. Nine thousand square kilometres, thirty ghost mining settlements and fewer people. If there’s another lesbian within two hundred kilometres, she’s so deep in the closet, she’s underground.”

I threw my arms around her, our breasts crushing together, as rivulets of bloody water dribbled from our skin. “Yes, seriously hot. Never be sorry.” My tongue plunged into her mouth; our tongues roughly duelled in a desperately hungry, breathless kiss.

All couples have a sexual equilibrium, and that kiss told me all I needed to know. Opening my car door, I grabbed the black Feeldoe from my handbag. Rose, eyes ablaze with lust, licked her lips on seeing me stuff the pony end into my cunt. Stepping back under the water, I turned her around, crushing her tits against the shower wall and tapping her legs apart with my instep.

She whimpered, and pushed her arse back, presenting herself to me.

I took her; stretching her slick cunt with the Feeldoe. But, repeatedly thrusting the toy deep wasn’t enough. “Harder, Annie. Fucking use me.”

Getting leverage by wrapping a hand in her hair, I tugged on her scalp and proceeded to fuck the shit out of her, my hips slapping against her arse as the doe relentlessly impaled her wet squelching cunt. “Hurt me.”

My other hand slid around her body; finger and thumb twisting her nipple. She bucked against my Feeldoe driving it even deeper. “Harder, fucking destroy me, you bitch.”

As I brutally tugged her other nipple, she gasped at the intense pleasure-pain, her body shuddering as she was wracked with a super intense orgasm.

I wasn’t stopping anytime soon. Frenetically rutting, the doe slammed deep again and again while my fingers abused her nipples. Harder, faster, stronger; building until we both crested in waves of delicious pleasure.

Holding each other, panting, our cum, mixed with water and calf’s blood, swirled down the drain.

“So fucking good, Annie.” Rose cried, wrapped in my arms. One of those times I realised why I’d been born to be a private detective and not a counsellor. Though, Rose eventually giggled as my butterfly kisses brushed the salty tears from her skin.

Delicious fresh fillet and a second round of fucking almost rounded out my evening. But Brenda called late; an endgame can begin when you least expect it. “Who’s Mary Kathleen?”

“Dark web mentions. Some random that Nasty and his cronies know. Didn’t seem relevant.”

“Can you dig around? Better understand all the dark web transcripts.”

Rose already had breakfast on the go as dawn’s red rays crept around the curtains. My tracking of Mary Kathleen through the coppers’ social media cesspool had run into more dead ends than the Keystone Kops.

Yawning, I idly typed her name into google. Alarm bells rang; gobsmacked at my stupidity, I realised Mary Kathleen wasn't a woman! Rather a successful, now exhausted, uranium mine, which, as the crow flies, was maybe fifty kilometres from Rose’s property.

This neck of the outback isn’t the place for vegetarians; at least you can tell it’s breakfast by the fried egg topping your steak. As we ate, Rose nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders when I randomly asked about uranium. “It's about, I guess. An entitled mining guy from that big Mt Isa company took a gander a while ago. Low price, so I told him to fuck off.”

Hanging around Monica off and on for twenty years, you can’t help but absorb palaeontology by osmosis. So, following Rose through the foothills inside her property, I was stoked to see an almost intact skeleton emerging from a desiccated stream bank. Its size suggested Australovenator wintonensis, first discovered thirty years ago on the opposite coast of the ancient inland sea. Yet, to my untrained eye, the bone structure wasn’t identical; Monica would be in seventh heaven, maybe Australovenator Monicaensis, here we come.

“Yeah, I’ve seen other bones around too,” Rose added, “but Geiger counters apparently pinged hereabouts; there’s also uranium.”

“Surely, a potentially important historic site will be protected from mining. The university is bound to pay you a tidy sum.”

Surprisingly, Rose cried again when I hugged her goodbye, despite me saying I’d be back. Monica on the other hand couldn’t hide how super excited she was as we chatted on my way home. Her only concern was the uranium interest from Mt Isa; it had to be her husband’s company, which certainly could pay more. “But getting the land gazetted as a historic site means no mining. I’ll just have to use my feminine wiles on him, Annie.”

Back in Cairns, Cunstable spelt out, foxtrot uniform charlie kilo, the time had finally come for me to put out or put up with losing my licence. He proposed a lunch date the next day, though I’m sure good ol’ boys don’t toss your salad, in a secluded woodland on the city’s outskirts.

I almost brought an emery board; but resisted that temptation as he’d be thinking, ‘taking the piss,’ if, while crushing my tits against his police car’s bonnet as his sausage impaled my cunt, he’d noticed me focusing on my nails.

Nevertheless, Cunstable, in fucking filling me as I’d never been filled fucking before, did have me making a mental note: were thicker Feeldoes available? When your pleasure’s limited to keeping your licence, it’s a bonus to daydream about your kittens’ whimpers as an extra-large girl-cock stretches their owned fuck holes.

Four hours later, Krystal, only her morals looser than that scandalously diaphanous dress, sashayed past an open-mouthed Jade into my office. “Got a taste for cock nowadays, you slut!”

A somnolent eye half-opened. “Moi? Pot calling kettle black.”

“Never denied it. But never used the L-word. You, however; turning into Dick Van Dyke, are we?”

I couldn’t help but snigger. “You’ve come to this view, how?”

“Not just a slut, you know. Voyeur too.”

“Just how a gay girl retains her driving licence. You seriously watched?”

“And masturbated. Want to see the pics?”

“Of you, you wanker?”

“No, you, you whore.”

Uncrossing her legs, she gave me a Sharon Stone-like flash of her puffy cunt and passed me her iPhone. “Scroll past your truncheoning if you wanna see me being a tad slutty.”

After the vivid portfolio of a certain private investigator’s shafted privates, came Krystal, multiple times apparently, the centre of attention in a Dungeons and Dragons themed bisexual orgy. “More slutty methinks. I didn’t go beyond one cock.”

“What, more than one and you lose your lesbian licence?”

“Needs must. The occasional cock's just business. Pussy, pussy, and lots more pussy is the business.”

“Including your cute assistant?”

“Mind your own business.”

“Private investigator Krystal’s taking that as a yes. Now you’re doing cocks, wanna do cocktails?”

Too many drinks, a good meal, and some serious all-in fucking with the only woman I know who’s more multi-orgasmic than I am, had me waking, shagged-out, snuggled with Krystal, and late for work.

Her husband, assessing the situation on returning from his night shift, conjured up avocado toast plus peppermint tea, then amused us both by getting into fellating my black Feeldoe which was still slick with his wife’s juices.

That sexual energy and openness are why they’re among my favourite people. Kissing them goodbye, I shamelessly strutted my walk of shame in yesterday’s clothes. Typically, Krystal was still on a roll; I left their apartment to the bed squeaking sounds of a vigorous marital fuck.

Slamming their apartment door behind me, effectively tolled the passing bell. Those chimes foreshadowed that the funeral bell for my time in Cairns was about to ring.

Entering my detective agency, a chill ran down my spine. A maelstrom of angry-grief was palpable. I was surprised to see Vagina Whisperer, Nasty’s deputy; then numbed by shock as he formally advised me of Monica’s murder the previous afternoon.

Jade was sobbing on the shoulder of Col’s assistant, Jasmine. My tears flowed on reaching out to hug her. But the hard slap of Jade’s hand across my cheek stopped me in my tracks. “Crocodile tears. Fucking motherfucker.”

Col, attempting solemn but coming off as creepy, added, “Let's take Jade over to Marlow’s, Jasmine. Better she waits for her dad with us.”

As Jasmine led her through the front door, Jade turned to me and spat. Stunned and upset, I called Brenda. She, like Vagina Whisperer, was unusually formal. “Monica was shot yesterday, around one in the afternoon, in Port Douglas. You’re subject to police inquiries.”

“What? I was with Constable Harrison then.”

“No. He said you sped past his patrol car an hour earlier, heading towards Port Douglas. Another witness identified you in Port around the time of the murder. A fingerprint, matching one allegedly yours, taken from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, is on the rifle that is the murder weapon. Formal fingerprinting will happen shortly.”

“Fuck…. Been set up. Cunstable was fucking me. I’d keep my licence. Only rifle I’ve touched, Rose passed me. Don't drink Jack…. God, Col, his bottle. Day of the strangler fig warning.”

“You’ve got proof?”

“Krystal! Yes, embarrassing pics, but time stamped. I’ll send you. The fucking happened over an hour from Port.” 

“And Mary Kathleen?”

“A fucking uranium mine. Rose’s property is uranium rich too.”

A while later, Brenda rang back. “I believe you. These bastards are serious, Annie. Cops are lying; uranium mining is way more political than you can imagine. You've just gotta get out of there.”

“No. I’ve got a fucking watertight alibi.”

“Whatever. You won’t get bail with fingerprints on the murder weapon. Then, in prison, you’ll slip on a bar of soap in the showers. And your cellie gets early parole.”

“Means leaving Australia?”

“Yeah. The commissioner is on the nation’s Border Security task force. A fishing boat from Merauke in Indonesia sneaked a group of self-described refugees through our defences last night. Ended up at Nanum, not too far from you.”

“They’ll still be there? Take me without a visa?”

“I’ll make it okay, Annie. Just hurry, cabin luggage. Too many Aussies in places like Bali; staying in Papua is as safe as you’ll get.”

No one on this planet is as callous and cynical as refugee smugglers. They seduce the stateless by overselling deliverance to a promised land overflowing with milk and honey.

These Merauke bastards knew with certainty that the families they’d extorted exorbitant sums from, some of whom would have barely survived the journey, were predestined to find themselves constrained behind barbed wire in an isolated outback detention centre. That’s not living the Australian dream, rather it’s being locked into a callous, caring-antithesis of a nightmare.

Yet when the alternative is death, even I’m up for the fucking unthinkable. Prepared to slip a large wad of Aussie dollars to the most loathsome of the leeches suckling on the tit of human misery.

They were disconcerted at first by a totally weird idea: a visaless sheila seeking asylum in Indonesia. But there’s nothing like cash to keep lips zipped; is it woke when there are more eyes on your pistol than your arse? Stowing my bag down below, I settled into the most easily defended corner as we set sail. I got on with preparing food, there was no way I’d be letting unboiled water close to anything I ate.

On deck, the arseholes found time to wave at a Cape Class navy patrol boat, machine guns and all, going about the business of defending Australian borders. Who, outrageously, waved back; any moral qualms about interacting with people smugglers clearly diluted by our boat having disembarked its desperate cargo who, no doubt, had already begun helping Queensland police with their enquiries.

From Merauke’s fugging hell I won’t be escaping anytime soon. The humidity here is just as treacle-like as in Cairns, but redolent of spices and fruit I still can’t identify. Everything about this place screams: I’ll always be a stranger in this strangest of lands.

Beads of sweat dribbling down my cleavage have totally soaked my conservative décolletage, in the world’s biggest Muslim country you don’t want to stand out by dressing inappropriately. Here religion even more than the weather dictates life’s rhythms.

Aimlessly angry on arrival, I was stunned to find a small community of nuns who made me welcome. They were certain my Catholic education would never be wasted and so, by helping give my life direction, they’d be assisting me to save my immortal soul.

Days, I pitch in on their good works, often with refugees. I’ve developed a reputation with the arseholes, a badge of honour worn with pride: ‘Fucking Aussie Bitch.’ Just because I’m into keeping the desperate out of the clutches of rip-off merchants and people smugglers.

At night I’m mostly on the web, fossicking around for who’d known what and who’d killed Monica. And wondering, always wondering, what did I miss?

Rose had been in on the plot. I thought I was helping her; she was screwing me over. Her post-fuck tears were probably Judas Iscariot-ish. She’d taken the money, but me using her as she’d dreamed of being used bought betrayal regrets to the surface.

The po-lice were knee-deep in the fucking bullshit, Cunstable wasn’t alone in pushing a lie that I was in Port Douglas when in reality he was shafting me. Col too was wedged up someone’s arse, setting up fingerprints on the Jack. He’s such an amoral prick, but even so, I despise what he did to Jade, feeding her enough crap to be convinced the person least likely to pull the trigger had actually murdered her mum.

It gnaws at me that maybe my mentioning Mary Kathleen to Rose precipitated Monica’s death. I’m guessing Monica’s husband was the overlord. Monica and I shouldn’t have jumped to the misguided conclusion that he'd consulted Col about his wife’s faithfulness.

Maybe Emma showing Monica dinosaur bones baited her death warrant. If he’d discovered they were fucking, then it’s not a stretch to believe he’d think his wife realised the fossil potential of Rose’s station. Even more than me, he’d know how much a site of her own meant to Monica.

So, my turning up in the outback could have confirmed Monica as the competitor for uranium-rich land that the government would likely protect when lobbied by a renowned palaeontologist.

Rose was desperate for money, and Monica’s husband would have convincingly whispered that mining companies pay better than universities. The profitable land could still be his, albeit with the non-financial cost of neutralising a cheating wife and the private investigator who’d aided and abetted her infidelity.

That leaves the good ol’ boys; how do the Queensland police really benefit from getting a uranium mine moving? God knows; maybe it's just that fine fucking Australian tradition of mining companies greasing palms.

Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever get it. Private investigators don’t live in an Agatha Christie novel; we’re rarely Monsieur Poirot, so there won’t be a tidy dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on this murder fucking mystery anytime soon.

Until this plays out, even though, with Cunstable a busted flush, I’ve dropped off the suspect list, I’m still not safe in Australia. Fortunately, thanks to Brenda, and the good nuns charging me zip, my Indonesian bank account will last a fair while longer.

Meantime, I’ve become tight with a novice, she’s actually really sweet. I’m improving her English; she’s teaching me so much more. Theology; well, we’re still working through that.

Yeah, of course, I couldn't resist; we’ve slept together. She’s a gentle giving screw, more upmarket than Charlene, Rose too. But there’s too much Catholic guilt for her to develop Krystal’s sexual energy. And I guess I can live without that Jade-like kittenness.

Nowadays, she’s the best I can hope for. That’s life it seems; a dime-a-dozen menu of fast-food fucks.

Love fucks? Well, they’re rarer than a happy ending.

Fate always has the last word: in missing Monica this much, I’m now destined to live unhappily ever after.