Page 125 of Queenslander
Next to the towering wooden waterfall, Nev dismounted and tied Uni to a gum tree. Smiling, Ronnie followed suit. The hollow behind the vines looked black as a tomb.
This is exactly where I wanted this to happen,Ronnie realized.
Ancient vines had fused together in a tree-shaped lattice, engulfing a giant tree, weaving a living basket around it and then strangling it to death. A fatal, parasitic hug. The original tree had rotted away to nothing, leaving a hollow chamber as wide across as Ronnie was tall that extended up to the sky. As a kid she used to climb it like a ladder and eat a bagged lunch among the high branches.
She followed Nev inside, discovering that it was harder to squeeze through now, and knelt in front of her on the wet leaves. Nev threaded a broom through both sides of the tree above her head, then played Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” on her phone.
Several times since coming home from the hospital, alone and bored, Ronnie had daydreamed about unbuttoning Nev’s trousers and pulling them down over narrow hips. Nev stopped her.
“Get up,” Nev said. “There’s leeches.”
In the heat of anticipation, Ronnie had forgotten that the forest floor crawled with the little bloodsuckers. She unbuttoned her work shirt.
Her phone buzzed. She ignored it. The vibration in her pocket felt nice. Cool night air became warm and sticky, subtropical. She watched Nev thread the second broom through the tree at knee height.
Nev pointed at the low bar.
Ronnie stepped onto the lower broom, which bowed slightly but held her weight. That brought her shoulders up to the higher broom. Moonlight filtered through wet leaves, dappling them like a disco ball that jiggled instead of spun.
She laughed. “I’m glad we’re doing this.” She hadn’t trusted someone to do this to her in a long time. “I hope this will be kinky.”
“You like it?”
Ronnie perched on the lower broom. “It’s headed in the right direction.”
She wrapped her arms around the broom behind her shoulders and watched Nev take off the Akubra. Nev had brought a rope. Ronnie grinned, watching her unroll it.
Nev remained fully dressed. “I call this the Strangler Fig Special.”
Ronnie would take whatever Nev was willing to give her at this point. Nev didn’t jump into new things willy nilly—she would take it slow and be a perfectionist. She approached this the way she approached everything else around the farm when she was sober—frowning in concentration.
Maybe Nev was a virgin.
Ronnie wished she had loosened her up beforehand with shots. Probably too late now—she hadn’t brought any alcohol.
Ronnie stepped down off the broom, resting her hands on Nev’s narrow shoulders, then leaned down to nuzzle her cheek and breathe against her ear.
“Go on,” Nev said. “Get back up there facing me and grab hold of the tree behind you.”
Ronnie did. Reaching behind her head, she found fused vines that fit her palms like the handles of her motorcycle. Snake-trunks tangled upwards in a wall of knots. Fig bark was smooth and cool. The broom pressed her upper back.
Nev stepped up into the tree and reached around Ronnie to tie her wrists.
Ronnie’s cheeks hurt from smiling. “You got me excited when I saw the brooms, mate. There’s other things you can do with them, you know, just saying. I wouldn’t mind. This is nice, though. Relaxing.”
Rope tightened around her wrists. Near her cheek, Nev snorted. “I knew you would be hard to please. What you want is more than a reasonable person can give.” Nev was probably right.
“I appreciate that you’re willing to try to meet me halfway, babe. No one’s done this for me, like, ever.”
“I believe that,” Nev said. Ronnie watched Nev drop the coil of excess rope, heard it hit the ground. “Abuse isn’t consensual power play. In a minute you’ll step down off the bar. Your feet won’t touch the ground. The broom will stay there the whole time. I’m not going to take it out. If you start losing feeling in your hands, or if you want to stop, step back up onto the broom. You can pull your hands free from up there. I didn’t tie you tight.”
Ronnie looked down at her Blundstones on the lower bar. She still had her jeans and workboots on. “Got it.” The feeling she wanted would come from her own weight when she stepped down off the lower bar. That would be a yummy stretch.
Nev stepped closer, hair silver in the moonlight. Cool hands slid down Ronnie’s sides and rested on her lower back. “Comfortable?”
Ronnie’s smile widened further.
Nev’s eyes were dark. “You like being uncomfortable.”
