Do ya ride? A tale about an Australian middle-aged male "handling it" as best he can.

"Do y' ride?" Max asked the attendant.

"Bikes? Yeah?" she replied.

Max was, of course, asking if she fucked - sorta straight-up, "without the bullshit" as they say, but subtle enough to be mistakeable if she baulked, while a brick-line enough to punch holes in walls.

She knew and responded to his put-out with "Bikes? Yeah!" showing her "flag" of availability.

Max is inclined to be nuts sometimes, and women know mostly not to show their hand or knockers too early - exposing any eagerness to get-it-on with this type of bloke, has him jump straight back on the highway he's been on for thirty years. "Fuck 'em!" he's sings as he slips away from their covetous claws.

A bit of a name, soft-and-hard-in-one, a loner, a dangerous face, and angry.

Passionate might be how he'd call it, if he were pandering to diplomatophants, the politically-correct egg-shell-egos, shit-scarred of losing their wine cellar or "their" local-latte-lickarse-lollypop-lubrication-lounge dwindle because some fucking Truth got out there - to the marginal Australian Aborigines, to the marginal western suburbs and the flooded deltas of Bangladesh.

No - Passionate - even "big-P" isn't enough to sell Max - HE'S ANGRY.

"Well, I haven't got one - but....." the much-better-looking attendant continued, "I'm gonna get one - soon".

"Shit-hot!" Max managed, trying not to look at her , on-top-of-him - nekid - on the Byron beach - full moon, y'know - fifty thousand Watts of doof underneath him - OOOMMFF!, while he hid his eyes in the dust of his wallet, looking for a note.

Micro-seconds ROAR passed!!!

Tone matters, he's decided, him being 49, desperate for 3-head-jobs-a-day-for-one-or-two-decades, without a bike of his own anymore, an impoverished nomad and, in hidden reaches of his heart - shattered - too heavily-hard-to-handle-damaged in the Hard Knocks Hotel of life.

He lives with it, and closes right-down when his thoughts or conversations - rare as they are - loiter towards "living with a woman", - a partner, - FUCK? - a friend.

Torn, as we all get sometime in life, between what he knows is a vital part of a healthy life, and his awareness of his aura - energy - power, something 'spooky'?

Damaged, yet, or perhaps because of, Max bears a Strength (still) just in the air around him.

He stinks - he refuses to wash - hates soap AND other smelly people!?

no - not really - although his nomadic life limits a good-hot-looong-shower to once-or-twice-a-month in winter and that a fortnight in summer. But he does hate soap.

Even after a shower Max exudes a power (of raising other male's jealousy) which has frightened women for, about fifteen years, as far as he can recall.

And perhaps too many bumps on the head, bike accidents, fist fights, grog, drugs and passion, have had him, helped him marginalise himself?

He writes a novel's-worth everyday just thinking about it.

"You got one?" continued the attendress "or undress" rattled-on Max's brain.

"Nuh!" he breathed. "Was ripped. Three of them actually."

"Oh no-o?!" she poured with come-and-kiss-me sympathy.

All this was happening as she scanned-wrapped and gave change to his coupla' stubbies - VB - mayte!

He's trying - to get out of his "shell" - be some vague-fuckin'-thing like he was before he started shooting Hurricanes across oceans.

Bah! It's tooooo complex and stra-ange to put-on any fuckin' woman!?

So 'tone', he decided, matters, and so does "talking straight".

Max is a bridge-burner, and only keeps talking to people if they show no "airs" about themselves.

If he drops them - it's usually forever.

"Fuck 'em!" is one of his reknown calls.

"Fuck 'em!" responds the Soulful Nomad from Melbourne.

"To their graves, huh?" she said, finishing a sentence for him.

BOOM - his ribs cramped as his heart went - BOOM.

Blokes like Max fantasize over a woman striking their hearts like that - and it happened! (like this!)

His mind blew into overdrive on the hearts explosion - micro-seconds spoke volumes - "Shit? Am I being allowed to fall in love?" he asked himself.

"What make bike you gonna buy?" he added.

Now she's revved-up - having to fake an answer based around her vaguely-hidden want to engage this handsome wierdo - and thus a bullshit conversation about no such want, other than to pillion him.

"An old British one!" she profered with some stekato in her voice.

POP! Another button explodes off his chest, even though he knows she's sorta fibbing, and as likely isn't interested in more than being polite.....

"True!?" he covers.....

"Had a few of them" he says playing the game rules as best his extinct social skills can pheonix, knowing at once he'd gladly martyr himself as the Messiah if she offered him a head-job.

Well - he thinks about it later.

No - she's pretty...., like he likes 'em.

"'Em?" Three or four women in sixteen years?

Talk about? talk about? FAARRK!?

"Well!" he says, attempting a smooth wind-down, "...you ain' got one, and I ain' got one - so.......?" (whack!!!) the line ignites in his mind as he's saying it, seeing at once the double-meaning of the end of the sentence; "....what're we gonna ride?!"

BOOM! Bottleshop attendress's heart goes KA-BOYNG! - in combination with the question's arrows to her errogenous bits.

Twitching her left knee up and across her groin, the really pretty attendress looks cautiously eye-to-eye with Max.

Max has frozen mentally, not game to think another though until she marries him -----.....well, until she responds with any "grace" befitting her own, more refined aura.

"I'll buy you one if you like?" she said as she slid around the counter and femme-fataled him against the Ginger Wine display.

"Hmmmm?! On special aye?" he putted-out (piss-taking himself), as he grabbed a bottle from the display.

So....., his mind did have a few thoughts..........

...........micro-seconds - nano-! He's counting the NANO-seconds!!!

No, she didn't offer to buy him a motorbike, nor did she slide out from behind the counter, and he wasn't backed-against the Ginger wine display, nor did he grab the bottle, or say anything at all.... dumbstruck!

.....gallons of nano-seconds wash over him......

With a perfect smile, in cautious warmth (knowing full-well, Max's mind was registering in fractions-of-nano-seconds), keeping down her conditioned-but-reasonable and typically-feigned affrontedness to Max's borderline-line, while at the same time riding the thrill it gave her to hear him say it, our attendress, uncertain, but not faltering said "Maybe we should go surfing, instead?"

Maybe....... to be continued.......