Page 4 of The Cocky for Cody (Mulligan’s Mill)

“You know… snorkeling. Goggles on your face, hose in your mouth, flippers on your feet. Snorkeling.”

“But I’ve never been snorkeling. I have no idea what to do.”

“Do you know how to breathe in and out?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to float?”

“I think so.”

“Do you know how to kick your legs?”

“Who am I kicking?”

“Nobody. You kick your legs to propel yourself through the water… while you’re floating… and breathing. And before you know it, you’re snorkeling.”

“But isn’t it dangerous?”

Cody chomped on a grilled tomato and caught the trickling juices with his tongue. “Only if you panic and drown. Or get taken by a shark. Or eaten by a big saltwater croc.”

“And what, exactly, is the likelihood of those things happening?”

“Shark attack? Minimal. Croc attack? Even less chance. You panicking and drowning? Now that’s the one that’s got me concerned.

But don’t worry, I’ll be there to protect you.

You’re in safe hands, I promise. Come on, it’ll be fun.

It’s something you’ve never done before.

Every visitor to Queensland needs to see the reef.

It’s a chance to get close to nature, see all the turtles and starfish and those adorable little clownfish up close. Don’t you wanna go find Nemo?”

“Are you referring to the crazed and conflicted captain of the submarine in Jules Verne’s seminal classic?

Or do you mean the Disney cartoon character?

I’m not seven, Cody. If you want to entice me to come along on these little adventures, you need to do better than dangle an animated fish in front of me as bait. ”

“You’ll get to see me in a wetsuit,” he toyed. “Skin-tight, black and bulging. Trust me, they leave nothing to the imagination.”

Suddenly he had me… hook, line, and sinker.

I had never seen an outdoor shower before, let alone washed in one, but Cody assured me the bathroom out back of the shack—complete with a rustic wash basin, clawfoot bathtub, and fresh water running from a tank to a shower head fixed to a pole—was completely private.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop peering into the surrounding bush for peeping Toms and predators before dropping my towel and stepping under the shower.

I was expecting to jump as the water cascaded over me, assuming the temperature would be freezing. But instead, the island sun had warmed the water in the tank to a perfect, soothing temperature.

Insects hummed their soft hymn to the bright, beautiful day.

Leaves rustled in accompaniment.

I closed my eyes and let the water caress my skin, let it ease away any anxieties I had over sharks or crocodiles or whatever else might endanger my life in this beautiful, perilous paradise, knowing that Cody would be there to keep me safe from harm.

Until—

“ Squark! Check out the glare bouncing off that lily-white patootie! Someone bring me my sunglasses!”

My eyes shot open, and there right above me I saw Kevin the cocky, perched on the shower head.

I squealed in panic.

Kevin squawked with glee, but before he could shit on my head I’d grabbed my towel, juggling it over my private parts before bolting back into the shack.

“What’s the matter?” Cody asked urgently as I fled inside. “Are you okay? Did you get bitten by something? What color was the snake? The medics will need to know so they can bring the right antivenom. I’ll call the emergency chopper now. Just breathe, slow and steady. Slow and—”

“It wasn’t a snake. He’s back!”

“Who?”

“ Him! That flying gargoyle of yours! Beelzebub in bird form! Hannibal Lecter with feathers! Kevin!”

At the mere mention of his name, the demonic creature flapped through the open window near the ceiling, settled in the rafters, fluffed up its feathers, and proceeded to turn its head almost all the way around.

I screamed again and threw myself on the bed. “Oh my God! That thing is Linda Blair! Someone call an exorcist!”

Cody was instantly beside me on the bed. “Shhhh, babe, it’s okay. Cockatoos can do that.”

“Do what? The work of Satan?”

“No, they can turn their heads, like, one-eighty degrees. They have more vertebrae than we do.”

“ Squark! We can also shoot poison spines from our wings!”

I blinked at Cody in terror. “They can? Is that true?”

“Absolutely not.” Cody stood from the bed and pointed an angry finger at the cockatoo. “Kevin, that’s enough! Brooks is a guest in this house… he’s a guest in this country… and you’re not going to ruin his first time here.”

“First time?” Kevin ruffled his feathers so violently some of them fell out and drifted to the floor. “Are you suggesting there’ll be a second? You mean, he’ll be coming back?”

“We both will. We’ve decided we want to spend our time between Maggie Island and Mulligan’s Mill. Now be nice, would ya!”

Kevin strutted along the rafter. “Oh, I can be nice,” he said in a sing-song voice. “I’ll even tell your precious pookie when a drop bear’s about to fall on his head and eat his ugly face off.”

Another shudder ran through me as I whimpered to Cody, “I thought you told me drop bears weren’t real.”

“They’re not.” He glared upward. “Kevin’s just being a total arsehole. That’s enough now! Stop scaring our guest and buzz off!”

“ Squark! You buzz off,” Kevin screeched, before flapping his wings and flying out the window like one of the Wicked Witch’s monkey minions.

Cody looked at me. “Are you okay?”

“You mean other than being stalked by that pterodactyl? Yeah, I guess so.”

He sat on the bed and gripped my hand. “I’m sorry. He’s clearly jealous. I didn’t think he’d take this so personally.”

“Just promise me he’s not going to fly in here in the dead of night and smother me with a pillow.”

Cody laughed. “Oh, God no.”

I sighed with relief.

“No, if he wanted to kill you, he’d slit your throat with one of his talons. You know their ancestors were velociraptors, right?”

I gulped. “Oh shit. He really is a pterodactyl!”

The boat was small and had been leaning up against a tree so any rain from a storm would drain away, and was secured with a chain, not to deter thieves or koalas, but to ensure the vessel wouldn’t turn into a flying missile during a cyclone.

I helped Cody carry it across the deserted beach and down to the water’s edge—well, he did most of the carrying while I did most of the grunting and panting—before he returned to the shack and came back with an outboard motor which, I learned later, he kept in a storage cupboard under his kitchen sink.

He fastened it to the back of the boat, the propellor raised up out of the sand, before making one last trip to the shack, returning with two oars, a bag containing all his snorkeling gear, and the key to the outboard which was attached to a large wooden block painted bright yellow.

“It floats and you can see it from a hundred meters away,” he explained. “Nobody wants the key to their outboard sinking to the bottom of the ocean.”

He unzipped the bag and pulled out two wetsuits, one for him and a spare for me.

He pulled his T-shirt off over his head, revealing that tanned, toned, traveled torso of his. In the next moment, off came his shorts. With no shoes or underwear to speak of, Cody was suddenly standing naked on the beach before me.

“Cody! What are you doing?” There was panic in my voice.

He looked at me weirdly. “Um, I’m putting my wetsuit on. Is that okay?”

“But you’re naked. On a beach. For all the world to see.”

He gestured all around us. “Cody, the world’s somewhere else. Ain’t nobody here to see me except you. And there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before.”

“But… but… what if…”

“Brooks, there’s nobody around.” He cupped his hands to the sides of his mouth, then twirled about in the sand, shouting into the bush and across the waves, “Is there anyone out there? Hello? Woohoo? Cooee?” He looked like Tarzan calling into the jungle—naked but for the silver compass he always wore around his neck—which, I had to admit, was a total turn-on.

There was no response from the bush or the sea, just the distant cry of an osprey circling the sky.

He lifted his palms out to indicate he’d come up empty. “See? Nobody there. It’s just you and me, babe, so why don’t you get your kit off and slide into your wetsuit. I’ll even help you shimmy it on if you like.”

Cody proceeded to pull his own wetsuit on like it was a second skin.

Meanwhile I bashfully shed one item of clothing at a time. First my shirt, then my shorts, then my boxers, all the while peering around as though Bazza the policeman was about to leap out of the bush at any moment and arrest me for lewd and wilful exposure in a public place.

As soon as I was naked I quickly grabbed for my wetsuit.

Unfortunately, that’s where any speedy attempt to cover my nudity ended.

Trying to pull on the right leg of the wetsuit was like having my shin waxed. Getting the left leg in wasn’t much easier, as I hopped along the beach, the wetsuit squeaking against my skin before I lost my balance and fell on my bare ass in the sand.

“Oh, that’s bad,” said Cody, suddenly standing over me, his perfectly fitting wetsuit clinging to his muscular form.

“What’s bad?” I fretted, flailing around like a lizard trying to get back inside the skin it had just shed.

“Well, see, now that you’ve got sand all over your arse, pulling on that wetsuit is gonna feel like getting a scrub down with steel wool.

” He yanked the wetsuit down my legs, shaking the sand out of it before helping me up and brushing my back down.

“Let’s get all this nasty sand off you,” he said, slapping my ass in a way that turned me on even more.

“Sand in your wetsuit is like having ants in your pants. Nobody wants that.” Slap, slap, brush-brush-brush . “There, how’s that?”

He turned me around to face him and raised his eyebrows at my now rock-hard dick. “Oh my. It looks like someone enjoyed their pat down a little too much. Although I gotta tell ya, this poses a whole new challenge when it comes to getting your wetsuit on.”

“Oh God, is it always this hard?”