CHAPTER FIVE
Craig's Crime
It was company-reporting season in Sydney. All the big listed companies were firing up their PR firms to get the message out that profits were up, their contribution to the economy was improving and their executive bonuses were in line with international standards. For the unfortunate companies whose profits were actually down, this was the time to announce a restructure, which was typically to “align the company activities more closely with its customers”, i.e. get more money from them. Craig’s insurance company was not immune, and rumours were rife in the office that ‘management’ were going to get rid of hundreds of staff in the biggest ‘restructure’ the company had seen for years. If you looked closely at the numbers, both worldwide and locally, it was pretty clear that this was a plan by management to use the actually quite minor downturn in profits as an excuse to get rid of a large amount of cost and shore up their bonuses for another year or so before anyone looked too closely at the real data on customer revenue and service.
The news when it came, was greeted with a wide range of responses. Many people with large mortgages and school fees were immediately terrified and stopped working almost entirely to focus on spreading the gossip about who was going to go and who would stay, as well as brushing up their resumes and calling up their recruitment mates. Others, especially those with long service and small personal debts, stopped working to calculate their redundancy payments. Craig was firmly in the latter camp. He realised very quickly however, that he had a bit of a potential problem.
Despite his occasional overseas surfing trips, Craig was a very patriotic Australian, even verging on jingoistic. He loved his Aussie beer, Aussie pies, Aussie footy teams and the Aussie surfing culture. At no time had he considered retiring to anywhere other than the Gold Coast, as it had the perfect compromise of having some great surfing beaches, plenty of willing chicks, fabulous weather and even though it was in Queensland, it was close enough to his home state of New South Wales to make him feel like he wasn’t really deserting the Blues. His problem was that he now had ten ‘loose ends’ and should he be made redundant himself, would be in no position to tie them up if there was a repeat of Brad and Alice situation. Clearly he needed to sort them out before he left. Given the smooth execution of the first ‘loose end removal’, Craig was confident that he could finalise the remainder with little or no trouble.
After all, he didn’t even have Brad’s junkie sister to make any fuss, as none of the others had turned up anywhere to date, so the only time pressure he was under was the redundancy program. That was likely to take at least six months according to the briefing that HR had given the senior management team, so that would be plenty of time to carefully plan his ‘retirement risk reduction’ program. He wished that his mother was here to see what a success he had made of his life.
Craig Sellars was an only child. His father Bob was a narcissistic bully who married Craig’s mother Mary because she was pregnant and that’s what you did at the time. Since his marriage to the needy and not very bright Mary, Bob found solace in a string of affairs with other women and never made any secret of it, putting Mary down and insulting her, calling her useless, thick, ugly, fat and telling her he wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole. Bob was seen as quite a catch, being the local footy star with plenty of money from the family construction business.
Mary was over-protective of her son, and in an attempt to counteract the insults that his father threw at both of them, she constantly praised Craig for everything he did, telling him he was special, talented, better than everyone else, regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. Mary told Craig every day that he would be successful and wealthy when he grew up and everyone would see how wonderful he was and adore him.
Craig was a very average student, and his mother made constant excuses for his less than stellar academic results, blaming the teachers and the other students for her son’s shortcomings. Craig believed her and he would never forget the time he tried to explain this to a group of boys in the playing fields during lunchtime.
“The only reason I’m not at the top of the class is because all my teachers are shit.” He announced boldly to the mob of fascinated boys, “My mum reckons they are only teachers because they are shit at doing a real job.”
“Yeah, well they might be shit, Sellars, but that doesn’t mean you’re not stupid as well, dickhead” was the quick-witted response of Dave, the leader of this particular pack.
“You saying I’m stupid?”
“No, mate, just a bit thick. Everyone knows, dunno why you even bother turning up to school, although we always like a bit of a laugh”, Dave’s banter was interrupted by Craig’s fist to his face and after a short and painful melee that stopped when it was broken up by a passing teacher who reckoned he should probably intervene before Craig was carted off in an ambulance, even though he, like the rest of the boys, was actually quite happy to see Craig on the receiving end of some violence rather than just dishing it out.
Craig was big and strong, like his father, so far from being bullied; Craig became the school bully, dishing out physical torment to boys and girls alike. Bob, sick of being hauled into the school to bail Craig out, hit Craig with his belt every time this happened. Craig was moved from school to school in the Sydney private school system, each time to a school with a stronger reputation for dealing with boys like him. This made his academic results poorer each time he moved.
Bob proved finally that he was in reality no catch at all, drinking the family money away over several years and ruining the business, leaving him and Mary broke and having to move to the holiday home on the NSW mid North Coast and leaving the Sydney Mansion behind. When his father’s business failed, at the age of 16, Craig was taken out of the private school in Sydney and had to attend the local public high school up the Coast.
His behaviour continued to deteriorate and despite his physical prowess, he was booted off the school rugby league team for on field violent behaviour, kicking another boy repeatedly in the head after he scored a try against Craig’s team, and having to be dragged off by the PE teacher. It was then that he learned to surf, that being the only sport in which he could now participate on school sports days. He immediately fell in love with surfing and it became a life long obsession. It was only when he was screaming down the face of a wave or flying out of a barrel that he was calm and happy.
He spent as much time at the beach as he could get away with, further ignoring his studies. Another major advantage for the hormone-filled Craig was the seemingly endless supply of bikini-clad adoring young girls who were impressed with the skill and daring that he now displayed. Gone was the angry violent Craig they knew from school, to be replaced by a confident, athletic and grinning tanned young Adonis. It was here that he developed his habit of smoking marijuana, as it appeared to be an inextricable part of the surfing culture.
Unfortunately for the girls, when they succumbed to his advances, often the old Craig resurfaced. Knowing only how his father treated his mother, Craig was fortunate to escape rape and assault charges. It was only because attitudes at the time tended to blame the girls who were seen to be ‘asking for it’ with their dress and ‘loose morals’. After a few months, Craig had to travel out of town to other beaches to find both new breaks and unsuspecting girls. His father continued his womanising, and father and son developed a nasty reputation up and down the coast. It was only then that Craig received any guidance from Bob. After a few visits from irate fathers of the girls Craig was having sex with, and occasionally the Police, Bob finally gave Craig some heartfelt advice. “Lay off smacking these bitches around, mate, and take it easy on the dope – it brings out the worst in you. Try to stay out of trouble – there’s still plenty of fun you can have, especially for a chip off the old block”. He followed this up with a smack across the head, just so Craig didn’t forget who was boss.
Craig was very angry at his father, who he now blamed for ru
ining his life. He managed to scratch out a reasonable HSC result and secured a place at Wollongong University, mostly through paying or bullying brighter kids to write assignments for him. After less than a year, he dropped out, unable to keep up and ostracised by his fellow students who were now old enough and smart enough to keep well away from this angry and violent young man.
He returned home to find his father in hospital with terminal liver cancer and his mother drinking herself slowly to death at home. Desperate to escape, he packed his bags, moved back to Sydney, and found himself a job in a call centre for an insurance company – a job that paid the rent and allowed him enough free time to surf and smoke dope, all the while working his way through the fresh crop of Sydney girls, keeping his temper and drug habit mostly under control.
At the same time that Craig was reminiscing about his childhood, Persephone was pulling her plan together. She had a long history of working with major corporates as a consultant, and she had her own business that she had started after doing her ‘apprenticeship’ in one of the big international firms about 15 years ago. Given her broad experience across a wide range of businesses it wasn’t surprising that she had useful contacts to help her get underway. As it turned out, she had met Matt Aitkenhead when she was on the board of a small listed company that Matt’s firm was auditing. He had since moved to KPMG who were the auditors of Craig’s insurance company and he even led the audit team. Persephone gave him a call and asked him to introduce her to the local CEO. She told Matt that she was looking to pick up a consulting gig helping them with the restructure. Matt agreed and even promised to talk her up as the greatest restructure expert in the history of Australia.
Persephone was delighted to get her introduction so easily, and even agreed to the long-promised dinner with Matt.
That night over a candlelit meal at one of Sydney’s fabulous restaurants, China Doll at the Woolloomooloo wharf, next to multi-million dollar yachts with their rigging gently clinking in the still evening, she pumped him for details about the company.
“So what’s the CEO’s major objective from this restructure? Does he have a target headcount reduction number in mind? What’s the head of HR like? Painted bitch or fake earth mother type?”
Matt was a bit taken aback. His plans for dinner hadn’t focused much on the job, and he had thought he was getting Persephone liquored up for a night of passion in the room at the hotel just above the restaurant in the room he had secured earlier in the day.
“Hey, slow down babe. Thierry is cool about you doing the job – you will have to ask him about the target numbers, but just be careful of Sophia – for God’s sake don’t call her Sophie, she is married to Thierry’s CFO and an uber-bitch in stilettos. Now, how about a top-up for your bubbles?”
Persephone had known about Matt’s plans for her before she even called him. For years he had made it clear that he wanted to sleep with her – actually ever since she met him, but so far Persephone had always gently turned him down. It looked like she was going to have to put out this time, so she might as well relax and enjoy the whole night. The dinner and champagne was going to set him back hundreds of dollars, and the W hotel was certainly not cheap. Even if Persephone felt this was turning into a bit of a transaction, she rationalised that it was her choice to go there, and was determined not to feel too cheap. They finished their dinner and agreed to have dessert upstairs.
Matt had checked in earlier so they both just went straight up to the room. He opened the door and gestured for Persephone to enter. The room was pretty standard five star hotel fare, and he had organised more champagne, which was sitting in an ice bucket next to the enormous luxuriously upholstered king size bed. Persephone paused, feeling quite awkward for a minute. Up to this point, their physical contact had been limited to handshakes and socially acceptable cheek kisses in public. She was wondering how they were going to cross the gulf that separates handshakes from sex. Luckily she didn’t have too long to worry about what was going to happen next as Matt took the initiative.
“Christ Poppy, you are absolutely gorgeous! Do you know how many years I’ve been waiting to do this to you?”
Persephone realised that this was not a question that required her to answer, so she wandered over to the window and gestured at the bottle of Cristale. “What are you planning to do with that?”
Matt walked over to Persephone, grabbed both her shoulders and pressed his stubbly cheek against hers. He whispered in her ear, “First I’m going to make sure you’re really thirsty.”
He moved so that his lips brushed Persephone’s and gently kissed her. As Persephone surrendered to his clearly well honed technique, her curvaceous body moulded itself to his. As they came closer together, she could feel him hard against her stomach. Not bad, she thought to herself, this could be fun. Matt ran his hands down her back, slowly unzipping her tight red cocktail dress. Using his teeth, he slipped the straps from Persephone’s shoulders, and the dress fell to the floor at her ankles. Persephone was now only wearing a bra and her 5-inch studded Louboutins, having never seen the point of wearing knickers in summer.
She stepped back. Take a good look Matt, she thought, and peeled off her bra, dropping it on top of her dress. Matt looked very impressed and quickly unbuttoned his shirt, dropping it on the ground behind him and stepping over Persephone’s tangled dress, he pulled her close to him.
“You are amazing” he growled softly into her ear, “I’m so hard I hurt.”
Persephone pulled away an inch or so, “Slow down cowboy, let’s make this fun.” Running her fingernails down his washboard stomach, she slowly sank down, crouching elegantly on her 4-inch heels until her mouth was level with his waist. She unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his trousers and with one hand, ever so slowly drew down the zip. As his erection sprang forward from his navy silk boxer shorts, Persephone pulled his trousers and shorts down to the ground, trapping Matt where he stood. Looking up at Matt’s face, Persephone put her scarlet-polished index finger in her mouth, sucked it and then touched the already glistening end of Matt’s penis. His face contorted as his body jerked and shuddered. Persephone then stuck out her tongue and licked his shaft from the bottom to the top, and then took him into her mouth, lowering her head to take him all. As she sucked and moaned, Matt tried to hold back, but in an instant, he lost all control.
Persephone smiled to herself. She could now enjoy herself, having established who was in control. She stood up and walked over to the bed, leaving Matt to disentangle himself from his shoes and other clothing. She laid back amongst the brocade and cotton pillows and gestured to the champagne. “A glass would be nice….”.
Matt, with slightly shaky legs, hurried over and poured her a glass of the exquisite bubbles into the tall champagne flute. Persephone took a small sip, savoured the feeling as the bubbles ran down her throat, then slowly poured the rest of the glass onto her chest, where it ran in rivulets between her breasts, over her stomach and into her bush. She shivered as the cold champagne reached her clitoris. “Oops, what are you going to do about this?” She smiled at Matt.
Matt needed no more encouragement. He put down the bottle and leaped onto the bed, burying his head between Persephone’s thighs. With strong, sure strokes, he lapped at the champagne-soaked crack until her clitoris stood up and vibrated. Persephone lay back, and let the warm buzzing build to a crescendo. As the orgasm ripped through her body, she arched her back, screaming.
Looking down at Matt, who was now kneeling at the end of the bed looking pleased with himself, she spotted that he had fully recovered from her earlier ministrations and was again fully erect. “Come here, gorgeous” she patted the pillows next to her. “Let’s see what we can do with that.”
Matt laid back on the pillows as Persephone climbed on top, lowering herself gently onto his quivering cock. She started rocking slowly backwards and forwards, feeling him grow inside her and watching his face as he moved clos
er and closer to coming.
“Now!” she panted, “Hard!”
Matt plunged into her and Persephone screamed again.
“Don’t stop!” she demanded. Matt drove himself into her again and again as they both raced towards a sweaty, shuddering, breathless climax.
Lying spent on the soaked bedclothes, they each looked at the other, temporarily incapable of speech. After a few minutes, Persephone got up from the bed and started to gather her clothes.
“Where are you going, babe?” was the puzzled question from Matt, who was still bathing in the significant post-coital afterglow.
“For a shower before I head home.” was the matter-of-fact reply from Persephone, although inside she was feeling far from the detached cold-hearted woman she was trying to portray. She was really quite shaken about how she had nearly lost control when Matt was pounding her. She strolled into the shower and cleaned her body off, careful to keep her hair dry – she would have to just touch up her makeup a bit, then she should be fine for the walk of shame through the hotel lobby. When she came back into the bedroom, Matt was tucked up in bed watching a football match on the television, so Persephone went over and gave him a tender kiss.
“That was fantastic, Matt. Enjoy the footie, and feel free to give me a call some time if you want a re-match.”
Matt grinned. “Sure thing babe. You know, I’m going to stay here and watch the game and maybe even stay the night. Marika always wants to discuss shit about the kids or her mother or some other crap when the footy is on and I never get to watch the game in peace. Have a nice night.”
Persephone left Matt in his version of bloke heaven and caught a taxi home to her flat in Surry Hills to start her planning for the insurance company job.