All Alone - 1. Alo Chapter 1

It was strange being back to this spot again, after so many years of hardship personally and professionally, Sara and I had known each other since we were in high school and with all my personal battles, she still accepted me as a friend and later as her husband. Today I was saying my final farewell to her, at the place where she had proposed to me nearly nine years ago, as it was the place where she was the happiest in her life. It was a perfect way to say farewell.

Sarah Carter had gone through a very difficult family upbringing, with her father being verbally abusive to her and physically abusive to her mother, and older brother. Sarah’s brother – Davis, is 6 years older than Sarah, and left home at the age of 16 to avoid all the abuse and tensions at home, and by 18 he was married and living and working interstate.

With her father being in an out of prison for the past ten years, and mother dead from alcohol poisoning when Sarah was just 15, she lived with her maternal grandmother for the remainder of her teen years, till she was independent enough look after herself.

As always, today was like any other wonderful day in the Gascoyne region on the West coast of Australia, a mild 32 degrees Celsius, with a slight south westerly wind, the water as always, has that wonderful aqua clear colour that reflects everything below the surface to be a lot bigger than it really is, as the end of another wonderful day was approaching the Ningaloo coast.

I was standing in the water, knee deep with the funeral urn in my hands, looking out into the Indian Ocean, thinking back on the wonderful memories of times when we were together. I was not sure if I wanted to scatter her ashes into the ocean or to just lower the urn into the water and let it eventually sink to the ocean floor, as it has several holes in the lid.

As I thought about it some more, I saw something bob out of the water just ten metres away from me, at first, I thought that it might be a shark, as they are known to be in the area, but less than a minute later after it had disappeared below the surface, it had reappeared right in front of me, and it was a southern bottle nose dolphin.

I smiled and sighed in relief that I was not going to become shark food, and taking it as a sign that the dolphin was giving me the answer what to do, I slowly placed the urn in the water, letting it bob up and down with the small ripples of water caused by the light winds. “Goodbye my dear Sarah, thank you for being my friend, partner and wife, I will always love you and never forget you” I whispered.

I took a few steps back to let the ocean current carrying the urn out to sea, and I was surprised when I saw the dolphin approach the urn, and with its nose, the dolphin started to gently push the urn further out to sea, towards a small wave that was approaching the coast, just as the sun began to set. I watched as the dolphin disappeared under the water, just before the wave, and the urn was swallowed up by the wave, sinking down into the depths of the Indian Ocean.

I was moved at how the dolphin had assisted to sending Sarah's ashes to the ocean floor and had some tears on my cheeks as I continued to watch the sun setting, with it's amazing colours of red, orange and purple blending into the colours of the ocean. I was not aware that I had company beside me, until I felt a slight nudge to the side of my leg, and I sat down into the water, which came up to stomach height and placed a hand on my new friend as the last of the sun disappeared over the horizon.

It was starting to get dark now, and there was a slight chill in the air, as I suddenly found myself being propelled forward, having my hand caught up on the dorsal fin of my dolphin friend, and I hung on tight as I was taken deeper out to sea, until we stopped about fifty metres out from the beach, approximately where the urn had sunk to the ocean.

I began to tread water, not sure what the dolphin was trying to do, as it disappeared momentarily, reappearing about 5 metres away, where she began to circle me, and I got the feeling that she was telling me that this was just another part of me saying goodbye to Sarah.

As I looked towards the beach, I saw a lone figure standing on the dunes, and remembered that the station hand who brought me to the beach, was still waiting for me, so I splashed the water with the flat palms of my hand, and the dolphin came to me, allowing me grab hold of her fin, and brought me back to the beach.

Once there I gave the dolphin a hug and said thank you to her for making this an extra special event for me, and I watched as she swam away into the darkness. Slowly I walked back to the 4-wheel drive vehicle, parked just beyond the dunes and climbed into the passenger seat, not saying anything as we made our way back to the backpacker accommodation, located on the cattle station, about two kilometres away, from the beach.

The station is 1200 kilometres north of the capital city and is one of only a few that is located along the famous Ningaloo Reef, which stretches from just north of Carnarvon to as far as the North West Cape of Exmouth in Western Australia, it is very hot and dry in the summer with no drinkable water located for hundreds of miles in some places. The landscape is very harsh, with low growing shrubs and trees, plus salt bush, all which are suitable for stock food.

On this station, the underground water is Artesian, so it is warm and salty, and is only suitable for salt tolerant plants and animals, the station has its own desalination plant to convert salt water into drinkable water for the station owners and its staff and visitors, as well as its own solar and wind power station, with a backup diesel generator when required.

Sarah and I had been on a travelling working holiday along the West coast, when we came across this station many years ago, and I remember her words exactly, as we stood on that beach and she proposed to me. I was stunned and not sure how to answer her, and it was after some time of silence she said, “Just say yes silly, so we can get hitched”, and that made me laugh.

A few weeks later, surrounded by the beautiful gardens of Kings Park in Perth, we were married, with just a few close friends attending to witness the event, followed by a wonderful picnic lunch on the manicured lawns of the park overlooking the city and the magnificent Swan River, it was just a magical day, just like it was today on the Ningaloo beach.

Sarah and I were just 21 years old when we were married, my parents had returned to their home country of Scotland, 6 months earlier, to spend time with my very ill grandmother, and they had no idea of the wedding happening until they return, whenever that was going to be.

Because I initially had no real interest in farming, my parents had organised a long term lease of the family farm, which is located 474 km’s North of the outskirts of Perth, 107 km’s South East of Kalbarri, 68 kilometres North of Geraldton and 16 km’s North of the nearest town of Northampton, I had only visited home, twice a year during my high school years, living in a residential college near the city so I could attend a decent high school.

I had not returned home since I was 18, so I couldn’t remember how big the farm was, all I remember is that it is 6 kilometres West of the main North West Highway. The property boundaries are to the West boundary - Chilimony Road, to the East Boundary - Well Siding Road, to the north boundary - North Road, and to the south boundary - the corner of Chilimony Road and Well Siding Road, with the homestead paddock, sits on top of a small rise, with views of the all the surrounding farmland.

The homestead consists of a small cottage, the main house a little bit behind it, a machinery shed, hay shed, a couple of silos, a workshop and a power shed, with a diesel generator, and solar panels on the roof, that provide all the power for all the buildings. The nearest neighbours are 3.5 kilometres South on the opposite side of Chilimony Road, and they have taken up the lease of the farm, which is 2,238 acres in area.

From my early teens, I knew that I was a little different from most teenage boys at school, and for some reason that didn't matter to Sarah, she was my best friend in high school, and everyone just presumed that we were dating as we were always doing everything together, including attending school social dances.

Although I knew that I liked boys and girls, I kept my secret from everyone and never took any action on my desires, until I was in Year 11, when I was away on a hockey training camp for five days with the rest of the hockey team. There were 4 other hockey teams, that were lucky enough to be able to spend five days being coached by the Australian Hockey team, 55 high school hockey players from five schools around the state were participating, it was while I was there, that a goalie from one of the other teams made his move on me.

All 5 goalies had been doing our own training and coaching sessions away from the rest of the group on day 3 of the camp, and after a long hard afternoon I was looking forward to a hot shower. I had showered with the rest of my team members many times, and I was able to control my urges, even when I managed to sneak a peek at their packages without being caught doing so.

With these guys it was the first time I had showered with them, and I had a very hard time controlling myself, as I slowed down getting undressed so I would be the last to get in and out of the shower, hoping most of them would be finished by the time I went in.

I was surprised when just a few minutes after the last opposition goalie had left the shower room, that he reappeared, and stripped off his clothes again, he was naked and he was rock hard, and it took only a few seconds for me to be the same, as he came up to me and placed his hands on my chest began to explore my upper body.

I did not know what to do, I was stunned that my desires where actually happening at long last, and the boy in front of me is one very hot guy, standing at about 196 centimetres tall, tanned and well build in the right ways.

I left the shower room a changed person, knowing that I did indeed like boys just as much as girls, and in some way, this made me even more confused, for the remainder of the camp I kept well away from the opposition goalie, to make sure that what happened, doesn't happen again, and I was very happy when I finally arrived back at the residential college, after 5 days at camp, plus the one and half days of travelling.

It was at the graduation ball, a little over a year later, while dancing in the arms of my long-term girlfriend that Sarah announced that she had known that I was bisexual for some time, and that it did not worry her, that she still loved me, and wanted to be with me. I was shocked at her announcement and stopped dancing for a few moments to take in what she had just said to me, before shaking my head back to current time and continued to dance with Sara.

Two days later, on our first day of holidays since leaving school for the last time, Sarah and I had arranged to have lunch down at local café, and we sat in the furthest corner, so as to have some privacy to talk, and we chatted about our dreams and what we wanted to do with our futures.

We had both done very well in our studies and I wanted to go to university, while Sarah said she would be happy to work part time in an office and the rest of the time as a house wife for me. She decided to go to college to study business administration, in another city, and we saw each other, one weekend every two or three months, it wasn’t ideal, but we knew that it would be only for a few years.

Three and a half years later, we had married and Sarah moved into my apartment on the edge of the city, not far from the park where we were married, I had completed a three-year degree in Business Management and Computer studies, while working part time as an administration assistant for a law firm, soon after graduating I was given a promotion to Administration Manager for the law firm, responsible for the smooth running of the administration side of the law firm.

After completing her diploma, Sarah was given a job with an accounting firm, and she really enjoyed the challenge of the work she did. Unfortunately, with the pressures and long hours of work, along with my busy social life with the senior staff, our relationship soon began to crumble. Sarah was demanding for me to spend more time to be with her, and I was beginning to spend more time at work, so as not to be at home, as I felt that she was smothering me with too much attention.

Eventually just eight months after we had married, we mutually agreed to separate to seek other relationships and that after two years if we both felt that we no longer felt the same love as we did when we were married, that we would separate permanently and get a divorce.

Soon after this separation Sarah announced that her grandmother was ill, and that she was resigning from her job to look after her, and she agreed to stay in touch when she could. Over the next sixteen months, I concentrated on my work, and went on an occasional social event, sometimes finding a young man to meet my sexual needs, but it was never just a one-night fling, nor did it last for more than a few weeks or a month at the very most.

One day when I arrived back at my office from a business lunch, I found a vase of orchids on the desk, with a small card attached - “Can we please try again? Dinner at our favourite restaurant at 7pm tonight? Sarah”.

I picked up my phone and sent a short text message to Sarah, “Yes, see you there, but make it at 8”, before returning to my work. That night we had a wonderful dinner together and Sara spent the night at my apartment, on the weekend a few days later Sarah moved back in, she seemed a lot happier with herself and life in general.