December 8th was the launch of Bent Street 3, a publication covering exciting developments within the broader Australian queer community, including the strengthening of public displays of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQA+ pride and visibility, views on ‘gay conversion’, historical perspectives on Stonewall, queer cabaret, religious discrimination, and much more. Bent Street 3 brings you ‘The Year in Queer 2019’.

ZOE:
I’d finished stacking the dishes on the draining board when I first noticed the palms of my hands were red and itchy. Nath was out, had another special job on, Ralph was staying over at a mate’s so it was just me and Samantha home for a change. My hands were aching too. I must be allergic to that new detergent I’d bought at IGA on a whim. I forgot all about my allergies after Nath got home, but a few days later when I was at work it happened again.
I was working a late shift and the train was coming into Waterloo when I got the SMS from Samantha: ‘Mum, come home, cops here with Ralph.’
I calmly made an official conductor announcement on the train and held my breath.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, unfortunately there will be short delay due to circumstances beyond our control. I do apologise for any inconvenience.’
There’s never a prescribed formula for this sort of situation so I just made it up as I went along. It was all pretty easy. I explained to Roger the driver and he radioed ahead for a new conductor. Rage contained is unemotional when you are as used to it as I am, what with two moody teenagers and, oh yeah, a husband who doesn’t say a lot. I only had to wait about ten minutes to get the other train back into the city from the opposite track.
I tried phoning Nath but he must have been on a job, his phone was switched off. So I phoned Samantha back and she said the police were waiting until I got home.
I couldn’t believe how bloody calm I was. Hah! ‘Circumstances beyond our control’, nice easy words to describe a stuffup at home. I knew Samantha would call only if it was a real emergency.
Ralph had been caught shoplifting at the local Safeway’s that afternoon. He’d been stacking shelves there during the previous holidays. The manager knew him and didn’t want to lay charges, just got the police to bring him home to give him a fright.
I think that worked but Nath needed to be there too. Ralph took more notice of his father.They were both risktakers at heart.
Nath never turns his phone off when he’s working in case it’s another job so where the hell was he?

NATHAN:
‘I know you’ll never leave her.’
Rob’s comment was perfect timing – post-coital I think is the official term. A real kick in the balls – painful and accurate. I tried to think of a smart-arse answer but nothing came to me.
He went to sleep then anyway as he sometimes did afterwards, his meaty leg slung over mine. I had to get back to work soon but I liked lying back in Rob’s big Queen size bed after we’d been on the job – all that damn space. We only had a double at home and Zoë and I were always banging our arms and legs against each other, scrabbling for room. Here I had a bit of peace for a while, the afternoon shadows from the blind criss-crossing Rob’s naked body. He didn’t have a perfect body. His smooth stomach was marred by the scar of a botched appendix job and his cropped hair was already greying at only thirty-five.
It had always been more than just lust with us. We talked and we laughed a lot too. I’d come to need something he gave me as much as I needed Zoë. Needed or wanted? I wasn’t sure. But when there was this urge, it sure dominated everything. Zoë didn’t seem to need or want me as much after the kids came along. Mostly she was one independent woundup dynamo,until she’d crash from work or the kids. I had no plans to leave them. I still loved her;we’d been together almost twenty years and even learnt to tolerate each other’s faults. That was some accomlishment. Wasn’t that real love?
Reluctantly I dragged myself out from under Rob and went in search of my overalls and jocks abandoned earlier on the floor. My phone showed five voicemail messages. It was only when I’d left the flat and was back in the Ute that I saw that three were from Zoë.

ROB:
He’d always go back to Zoë. I knew that. The question was, was it worth my being his bit on the side? The trouble was that Nathan really made me laugh in a good sort of way and I’d always had the hots for guys with a sense of humour. Once the fucking was over there had to be something else. Sex with Nathan was a blast, no worries. Sweaty and intense but I often came too quickly. The funny stories he told me afterwards about dickhead clients, lying beside him with my head resting on his chest, were more about feeling close to someone you trust, giving each other something we needed. He reckoned Zoë never had time anymore to listen to him, so I was his agony aunt, but one with a dick and balls. Was that enough?

ZOË:
It was after the cops had left and when Ralph was sitting white-faced on the sofa that my hands started to ache again. I’d lost my cool with him, got a bit overexcited I guess and now there were these two bright red spots on the palm of each hand. Then I felt a bit sorry for Ralph so I’d gone into the kitchen to give him space and start getting tea ready but I had to stop cutting up onions because I scratched my hands so much I thought they’d bleed.
And of course a week later that’s just what happened. Nath had a plumbing job over the border and was away for the night. Before he’d left he read the riot act to Ralph,but with a patience I’d never managed with the kids.
He called from his motel in Albury while I was watching ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and when I tossed the mobile down on the sofa, my hands felt sticky.I turned on the main light and saw blood on the sofa. Both my hands were red and wet with what looked like blood. I got a shock but didn’t panic. They hadn’t bled too much so I bandaged them up, took a couple of Panadol, went to bed early and as my old Mum used to say ‘hoped for the best.’

NATHAN:
We’d never had that much time to spend together before, almost a whole twenty-four hours. Rob didn’t need much convincing for me to swing by his place. He had the afternoon off school and lived just off Sydney Road so it was on my way.
A hot north wind was blowing across Coburg, dust and plastic bags scudding tree-high so it was a relief to clear the city for broad paddocks and my Ute eating up the ks like it should. I knew Rob liked R’n’B so along the Hume we soaked up Billy Boy Arnold and Junior Wells -‘Don’t stay out all night'(even if I was) and ‘Vietcong Blues’, stopping only at a South Albury pub for a beer. Listening to someone else singing the Blues was easier than talking about us, about where it was all heading. We mostly managed to avoid that topic. Maybe we were just smart, living in the moment, or cowards, evading the question.
I dropped Rob off at the motel and went to check out the job I’d be doing the next day. He was a bit pissed off being abandoned but I couldn’t take the risk of us being seen together.
‘ What am I supposed to do, just sit around the motel pool in my little red speedos and suck off a few truckies?’
That was the trouble with Rob. He was too out there for my liking, unpredictable too. It was always easy for him but not for someone in my situation. This would only work if we flew under the radar.

ROB:
That night away in Albury showed up a few cracks in our ‘arrangement’ as Nathan euphemistically described our situation. Everything for him was just ‘cool’ if it was all discrete but being in public together made him very nervous. He preferred to hide me away like one of Bluebeard’s wives.
The tiles at the end of the motel pool were scorching against the soles of my feet. I swam a few laps. It felt like swimming in cool lemonade and not a horny truckie in sight. It’d serve Nathan right if I did go off with someone else. Then for some reason, I started thinking about Zoë whom I’d never met. I sliced through the water of the pool – a melting dreamland of distorted shapes. It was a cliche I’d never say out loud but I’d really fallen hard for Nathan. Zoë knew nothing about me but that still didn’t make it OK. If she ever did find out about us I could imagine her pain, because I’d feel that sort of pain too if he ever went back to her. True I was a lapsed Catholic but I still had an idea of what was right and wrong.
After about twelve laps I calmed down but I was still no clearer about what to do. Funny though, after I’d got out of the pool and was drying myself, I noticed how sore the palms of my hands had become, aching, itchy and bright red. Too much bloody chlorine in the pool. Time for a shower and a change before we grabbed a bite to eat. Who knew if I’d ever have Nathan to myself again for another twenty-four hours.

RALPH:
I freaked out when Mum woke me up and got me to ring the ambos. Her hands were bleeding and she couldn’t stop the flow. Sam and I went with her to the hospital. Dad was away overnight so I was the man of the house for once. That felt good. In the end they sent her home after a couple of hours. They said it was nothing physical, nothing to worry about, it sometimes happened when people were too stressed. One of the nurses told me while another nurse was bandaging Mum’s hands that it was called stig-something. Dad’d be surprised when he got home. He’d just say what he always says to me: ‘Shit happens, just deal with it.’ Suddenly there seemed to be a lot of shit for our family to deal with. But my ol’ man will know what to do. He always does.