I am standing on the stage, singing to the bright lights and the shouts of the crowd. Sweat stings my eyes so badly that I can barely see the set list. Occasionally, some of the dancers will come right up to the footlights at the bottom of the stage and I can glimpse them for a moment. Young. Energetic. Tanned. Guys in shorts and floral shirts. Girls in bikinis with sarongs wrapped carelessly over them. We are separate from the world as we cruise up and down the Brisbane River on a humid, summer night. In the distance there are flashes of lightning. There will be a storm in the city later. We play our psydeco tunes till our fingers hurt and our voices are hoarse. If only all gigs could be like this.
There is a woman who now and then comes to lean on the edge of the stage. She is clearly older than the rest of the crowd. Stringy, grey hair. Face lined. Her body isn't so much flabby as shapeless beneath a tie-dyed, shift dress. She has an essence though. She seems to have remnants of the same spirit that drives these young people to dance frenetically on such a night. I am at once attracted and repelled by her as my fingers continue to fly along the accordion.
At last we take a break. The sound system begins to play some calmer tunes. I mop my forehead with the cool washcloth and head towards the bar. Pete and Jason head into the throng. We are all forty. Married men with children. That doesn't stop Pete and Jason from flirting their way through gigs. I just like to sit at the bar with a quiet beer and watch the circus unfold. Occasionally, some pretty blonde will come up and start chatting, ask me to sign our CD. Occasionally, I will allow myself to pinch her on the bum if she's drunk enough. I partied hard with the band when we were much younger. It all becomes old in the end.
"Johnnie?"
A wrinkled, spotted hand places itself over mine.
"How are you these days Johnnie?"
I look at the face closely. It is the woman I saw from the stage. She is vaguely familiar. I search her intense, green eyes. Then, I know who it is. I have dreamed about her. Worried about her. Even written a song about her. It is Joanie. Bicycle Joanie as the boys in town all knew her. My first love. My first fuck. My first lesson in life.
My youth is a collage of mangoes, beaches and bone-dry heat. Bowen is the sort of sleepy coastal town that most travellers pass by. It has cattle and small crop farming but years of drought have ravaged its small economy. I don't go back there any more. The same boys and girls I went to school with walk the main street on a Saturday morning and talk about the same things as their parents did. And their grandparents did. The heat. The flies. The mango season. Where to go drinking on Saturday night. Bowen is a thirsty town.
Every town has its characters and when I was eighteen, the boys all knew Bicycle Joanie. She was thirty-five, still achingly beautiful. She had once been crowned Miss Mango Princess and feted through the town on a float which had her placed on a giant mango throne. Old photographs showed her waving a golden wand that matched her golden hair and the intense sunlight as she smiled at the cheering crowds. All that had been very long ago. When I knew her, she had become famous for other attributes which could be obtained for the price of a six pack of beer.
Joanie could always be found dancing. It didn't matter if there was a band playing or just records, she would gyrate around the floor without a partner, swaying her hips in perfect time to the beat. She always wore tight leather skirts and high boots that emphasised her long legs. Not many girls chose to wear leather in the Bowen climate. Her tanned skin and pale, pink lipstick made her look like a magazine model to an eighteen year old.
The first time I saw Joanie perform her "act" was in the car park of the Grand Hotel. I was drunk and rather weary from banana picking at the time and had decided to go home early. As I walked to my car, I noticed that a group of my mates had gathered in a circle. A fight probably. Mr. Stronglow the dentist always did brisk business on a Monday morning. When I edged closer however, I realised that there was no shouting and cheering and barracking. The circle stood in a deathly hush.
There on the hard bitumen, in the middle of the circle, was a naked Bicycle Joanie. Her legs were spread wide to reveal that she was indeed a natural blonde.
"You like beer do ya?" Big Dave who was training as a mechanic was saying. "Well, we can give you a whole bottle."
Big Dave was leaning on the ground beside her, holding a stubbie of beer close to her cunt. The men around me sucked in their breath in anticipation as Big Dave used his chubby, grease-blackened fingers to pull her cunt lips far, far apart and place the bottle at the entrance to her glory hole. I had never seen a naked woman up close before. I remember being mesmerised by her curves, the way her stomach rippled, the sun-tanned tits that poked up high on her chest. I remember that her eyes were closed and her face remained almost frozen throughout the entire performance, regardless of the reactions taking place elsewhere in her body. Now and then, her lips would twitch slightly.
Big Dave, with an air of expertise, began to slowly slip the narrow neck of the bottle inside Joanie. He would twist it in a little way, sit back on his haunches to view the effect, then use his repugnant fingers to pull her even wider apart before recommencing. I would like to say that I was repulsed by the event. At the very least I could have walked away. However, I stood and watched as her cunt eventually sucked up the base of the bottle, the thin skin around her cunt lips stretched to breaking point over the unnatural intrusion.
"Don't you worry dear. We're just gonna get you nice and wide and sloppy for the real thing," shouted Harry Jenkins whose Dad owned the local bakery.
A murmured chorus of assent followed Harry's outburst.
Big Dave reconvened proceedings.
"Well, who's going to do the honours tonight. Who's going to get her juiced up?"
Then he spied me at the back.
"Johnnie. Well if it ain't banana boy. Let's see you peel your own banana tonight boy. Come over here."
I made my way through the pack in a daze, leaning over Joanie as instructed.
"See this here little magic lamp?" Dave said as he placed my clammy palm on her clit. "Give it a little rub. Let's get the genie out of the bottle."
There was laughter now. Raucous laughter and then shouting as though it really was a fight. The cacophony deafened me so that I heard no distinct phrases. I really didn't know what to do, so I ran my palm roughly up and down her pussy lips, being careful not to nudge the base of the bottle which peered from her hole. I was stunned by the softness of her pussy hairs and the heaviness of her breathing as I continued to rub with inexpert rhythm.
"Tongue. Tongue. Tongue." The men cried in unison.
"For God's sake."
I felt Big Dave pushing my face into her downy hairs. I'm pretty sure I bit her with my teeth once or twice before instinctively licking at the hairs, then around the base of the bottle, then lapping up and down her lips. This sent the group into a frenzy. I looked up once or twice to see that some of my mates had their cocks out and were stroking madly. I wanted to lick inside her pussy. With more than a little effort, I pulled the sopping bottle from her cunt. It kept slipping from my fingers, it was so slick with her wetness. The hole remained distended as I easily slid my tongue inside. Sweeter than mango juice. I sucked willingly. Then, she was bucking into my face and making tiny moans. I leapt up, sure that I had hurt her. More raucous laughter.
When I recovered, her taste still glorious on my lips, I became aware that the men were queuing to plop themselves on top of her. They each pumped up and down a couple of times before grunting and farting and moaning a bit, then heaving themselves up red-faced to tuck their sticky cocks back in their jeans. Eventually, they were all done. Joanie remained on the ground, her eyes open, barely blinking. Her chest moved up and down but otherwise she was still. Her cunt was streaming out onto her legs and the ground below. The skin around her cunt looked inflamed and sore.
"See you next week," Big Dave was saying. "Johnnie will buy you a six pack."
Not quite sure what to do, I reached out a hand to help Joanie up.
"You haven't had your turn yet," she murmured.
I looked around. With the group gone, I felt very exposed. The hard-on I had developed when watching the bottle being inserted had disappeared in a flurry of hairy asses and the sight of Joanie's damaged cunt.
"S-someone might see."
Joanie allowed me to help her up, then she walked to her car. She opened the door to the passenger seat and climbed inside. Her surprisingly strong arms insisted that I join her.
I lost and gained my manhood as I straddled Joanie on the front seat of her car. The sex itself wasn't incredibly quick, nor was it particularly pleasant. My cock kept getting serrated on my zipper. I found myself fighting a river of slop as I sought to plunge to her depths. With greater experience, I realised that her much abused muscles were no longer really able to gain a firm grip on a cock. In the dim light of her car however, I blamed myself as I continually slipped out of her soaking hole. Eventually, nature prevailed and I experienced that first blissful moment of oblivion where the rest of the world disappears and there is only you and cunt and the need to plant your seed.
What was memorable about the night, that I would seek for the rest of my life and never find, was the kiss that she gave me afterwards. While my cock was still softening in her cunt, she had placed those pale, pink lipstick lips on mine and pouted gently into my heart. Her lips started off as a whisper, skin barely touching skin. Then, they became a conversation, her lips and tongue pressing against me, forcing my mouth open till her saliva blended with mine. Her tongue caressed mine, spoke to it, led it in a frenzied debate with her sugary breath and butterfly wing mouth. Until it was upon me, I didn't realise that I had become hard again and was once more shooting into her.
"I love you," I had said as I spent the last of my money at the bottle shop buying her a six pack.
She had thrown her head back and laughed.
I do my mental arithmetic. Joanie would be fifty-seven now. Just a little younger than my mother. She looks much, much older than my mother.
Joanie drinks the glass of beer I had ordered for myself in a long, steady gulp.
"Would you like to dance Joanie?" I ask.
She shakes her head.
"Joanie don't dance no more."
I watch Joanie as she shuffles away, her swollen legs protesting beneath her.
"Wait. Let me sing you a song."
She returns to the bar, lurches herself onto a stool. I order her another. Around me everyone is laughing and falling over and popping E. Only Joanie hears as I struggle to remember the words to the song I never performed.
Oh Joanie was a Princess, the belle of the ball
She wore her crown proudly in the old Union Hall
And the farmers and townies alike they did cheer
For she was crowned Queen of the Mangoes that year.
And she danced in her dress of satin and lace
Her hips swaying in time as each young man's face
Lit up with delight as he asked her to dance
The belle of the ball at the Union Hall dance
Oh Joanie was a Princess, the belle of the ball
She wore her crown proudly in the old Union Hall
And the farmers and townies alike they did cheer
For she was crowned Queen of the Mangoes that year
Time moves so quickly and under the crown
Who could have known she was wearing a frown
A father who beat her and a mother who died
Beneath that big smile who'd have known that she cried
Oh Joanie was a Princess, the belle of the ball
She wore her crown proudly in the old Union Hall
And the farmers and townies alike they did cheer
For she was crowned Queen of the Mangoes that year
In leather and boots she danced every night
All alone under the sparkling light
Her hips swaying in time while the men cheer and leer
You could have private dances for a six pack of beer
Oh Joanie was a Princess, the belle of the ball
She wore her crown proudly in the old Union Hall
And the farmers and townies alike they did cheer
For she was crowned Queen of the Mangoes that year
I'd give anything to taste those lips so rare
Over the years I have searched and I swear
I've been to France and they're purer than wine
Sweeter than any fruit found on the vine
Oh Joanie was a Princess, the belle of the ball
She wore her crown proudly in the old Union Hall
And the farmers and townies alike they did cheer
For she was crowned Queen of the Mangoes that year
I finish my song as Joanie finishes her glass. She deliberates, then puts it down on the bar. Her eyes lock with mine. Those green, intense eyes. The only part of her that have not aged. For a brief moment I had truly loved her. I do not see her weathered face. I see her leather skirt and her swaying hips as she struts alone on the floor. Her lips lock with mine and for the second time in my life, I experience a kiss from heaven. I am young again and the world is at my feet. I have yet to travel and form a band and marry and have children. There is only me and Joanie and first love.
The kiss ends. In the distance, I hear the first rumblings of thunder as the storm closes in. I look at my watch, realise it is time for the next set. Joanie lumbers away through the crowd of youngsters who remain oblivious to the Bowen Mango Princess, 1962. |
