George Christensen & Cory Bernardi vs Safe Schools: A Love Story

I was a last minute addition to the bill of Erotic Fan Fiction at the Wheeler Centre the other night and had just a few hours to invent a coupling that could capture the imagination of the audience. I’ve spent the last couple of years feeling pretty uninspired when it came to writing and had made a conscious choice to take a break from banging anything out on the ol’ keyboard — but for some reason when the idea of George Christensen and Cory Bernardi finding love hit me? I couldn’t stop the inspiration from flowing. It was like I was born to pen this rubbish.

Anyway. Obviously as a disclaimer I would like to mention that of course I don’t REALLY believe Cory and George are secretly same-sex attracted and that is what fuels their shared obsession with vilifying the LGBTI community. Even though, you know, there are studies out there that claim “individuals who are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views may themselves have same-sex desires, albeit undercover ones”. I’ve no doubt the pair of them enjoy nothing better than a vigorous bout of love making with human females who know their place and are appropriately submissive to the superior gender.

But just imagine for a moment a world where their intense focus on all things rainbow might actually indicate some flexibility when it came to their Kinsey scales. Imagine if despite everything they’d ever told themselves about who they are or what love should look like, they found themselves overcome by a same sex attraction. WELL IMAGINE NO MORE, COS THAT SCENARIO IS BELOW.

In conclusion… I’m sorry? Here it is.

— — — — — — — —

George Christensen loved being a politician. He woke up every morning feeling confident he was making a real difference in society, and knowing that his job meant he had the ability to make the country he loved better for all the heteronormative white people out there was not a responsibility he took lightly. For goodness sake, someone had to look out for their interests in a country where being a straight Anglo Saxon male at times felt like a crime! George wouldn’t rest until he knew that he had done everything he could to ensure that people like him would actually get a fair go for once. 
 
 He spent many a night working back late in his Canberra office reading important and tax deductible books like Militant Secularism, and While Europe Slept: How Racial Islam is Destroying the West from Within, and sure — while at times he felt a little lonely, not having made many friends in the nations capital, he reminded himself that he had a greater purpose than socialising. He wasn’t looking for friendships at Parliament House. And he certainly wasn’t looking for love. But sometimes, when you least expect it, love finds a way…
 
 It was late one night in his parliamentary office, long after most people had gone home, while he was doing some extensive online research on lesbian fisting for important political reasons that George was first visited by… him. He heard a knock on the door, and after a quick readjustment and slightly out of breath, he called out his signature comic workplace greeting: “Halal? Come in if you’re not a muzzie!”

He heard a surprised laugh on the other side of the door, and as it swung open his saw that his late night visitor was armed with a breathtaking grin George knew well from combined Liberal and National Party gatherings — it was Cory Bernardi.
 
 “Sorry to bother you mate, it’s just… god, I’m just all worked up and I saw your office light on, and I just thought…”
 
 “It’s fine, Cory. Sit down, please…” Cory’s strapping frame approached George’s desk and took a seat, and George offered him a shy, tentative smile. “What’s up?”
 
 “I just got a text from a concerned friend of mine who gave me the heads up about this program, this indoctrination program, that it turns out we’re spending MILLIONS to push onto school students around the whole bloody country!”
 
 “The National School Chaplaincy Programme? Geez Cory, to be honest I kinda thought you’d be on board with it?”
 
 Cory chuckled affectionately. “Bloody hell Georgey, I know we haven’t spoken much but I thought you knew me better than that!”
 
 Hearing the most handsome man in the whole Liberal Party refer to him as Georgey had a funny and unexpected effect on George, but he pushed it to the back of his mind and instead nodded, a bit embarrassed, muttering “Of course, of course…”
 
 Cory continued. “It’s something called the ‘Safe Schools’ program, and look, I’ve only had a quick look at the website but I’m just ropable about this! From what I can gather it’s basically a bunch of Marxist homosexuals trying to train defenceless kids to tuck their dicks between their legs and wear burqas! Just massive, massive poofterism — government funded poofterism at that!”
 
 George’s jaw dropped. “You’re fucken KIDDING ME mate!”

Cory shook his head. “I only wish I was. Turns out this program has been running covertly without any objections whatsoever, with only the students and teachers and education department and both Labor and Liberal Governments on national and state levels knowing about it.”
 
 George reached over, put a hand on Cory’s own. “Well, sounds to me like some objections are well overdue — and if you want to put together a posse to tackle this? I’m in, one hundred per cent”
 
 George didn’t like fringe groups ruining things for everyone else — he dedicated a fair bit of his time trying to expose the evils of militant extremist groups like the Mackay Conservation Society, North Mackay Pensioners Gardening Group, and the Mackay Scale Modellers Club, and just hearing about how — yet again — leftist forces were conspiring to make it harder for good Aussie kids, this time trying to remove their god given right to make sure burgeoning poofs and baby lezzers knew their place in society… well! He felt flushed, angry, his heart beat faster and when he looked at Cory he could see that he felt the same way.
 
 “I could really use a hand with this George,” Cory said, leaning back on the chair and absentmindedly stretching, something which caused his shirt to loosen itself from the grip of his trousers and raise just enough to reveal some of the glistening six pack he’d worked so hard for at Boot Camp. It didn’t go unnoticed by George, but he refused to let his eyes linger. There was no time for envy. Instead, he nodded enthusiastically and replied, “You’ve got it Cory.”
 
 Cory straightened up, and shuffled back upright into his seat. “I’ve asked someone else, Eric Abetz, to maybe join us in taking this on…” and as he spoke George felt an unexpected pang of hurt, that he hadn’t been the first person Cory had talked to, but then Cory continued, “but I dunno how much use he’ll be. He definitely agrees it’s wrong, but people don’t listen to him as much ever since they found out his great uncle was a Nazi.”
 
 “To be fair,” piped up George, “yes, Otto Abetz may have participated in the deportation of the Jews during the Holocaust, but he also did some really positive things — he loved French architecture and classical music!”
 
 Cory smiled, “I hear ya — but in any case, while I told Eric that it’s important we all speak out, between you and me? I really want you and me, George and Cory, to be the two that really get this movement going. I want us to team up, work closely, and let’s agree right now that we’ll stop at nothing to get what we want. We may go down doing so, but at least we go down together. You know?” Cory extended his hand, ready to shake on it. 
 
 George gulped, and returned with a sweaty palm of his own. This was how it would begin.
 
 — — — — — — — —

Sometimes they worked together on their Safe Schools project (or, as Cory amusingly called it when it was just he and George in the room, Freaky Dog Fuckers Inc), sharing the couch in Cory’s office with a laptop between them, searching for evidence that the program’s website was the work of a super gay Satan. And, sometimes it felt… well, it kinda weird being nestled in such close proximity to another man while reading all that poof propaganda, but George and Cory were professionals. They knew their boundaries, as clearly defined in Leviticus, and they weren’t shy of making sure everyone else knew those boundaries too. They’d order their favourite takeaway — Thai Sweet Chili King Prawns (yes, technically being crustaceans this was also an abomination in the Lord’s eyes, but George and Cory knew that so long as you had faith it was okay to pick and choose which abominations you avoided and which you could indulge in, especially if you were pretty hungry) — and they’d share it together, all the while prepping their public statements on the Safe Schools issue. 
 
 Other times due to conflicting schedules they’d have to work separately, but throughout the night they’d message each other constantly on WhatsApp and exchange any particularly good evidence or one liners they thought they could use for the cause. Cory fancied himself quite the writer, and he spent a lot of time online perusing thesaurus.com for big new words he didn’t quite understand but knew enough to know they sounded seriously smart, digging up brilliant and inspiring quotes he could later mistakenly attribute to Voltaire, or trawling through old Andrew Bolt columns for particularly catchy phrases that caught his eye so he could insert them into his own work. 
 
 One night he messaged George: “mate, wot u think of this?? ‘indoctrinate children into a Marxist agenda of cultural relativism’?? i cut n past sum good words i read in bolt’s archives :)”
 
 George heard the beep, checked his phone, and furrowed his brow.

“but wot it mean?” he slowly typed back. 15 seconds later, a loud ping indicated Cory had an answer: “dunno but sound heaps clever?” 
 
 Occasionally, when their online research sessions had dug up something particularly worthwhile, they’d send each other screen shots of the filth they’d uncovered. For instance, one night George was on the Safe Schools website, and from there he followed a link to a YouTube channel for transgender kids, which let him to the Google search bar, which led him to RedTube, which led him to a video of two South American rugby players enjoying a spot of rimming in the showers. Unbelievable, thought George, as he took a screen shot and sent it to Cory. Just five clicks from the Safe Schools website, and here he was, watching this rim job video for the 5th time! It was truly troubling.

BEEP! Cory had replied. “So hard” was all his message said. A quiet voice George had been trying desperately to drown out for weeks piped up in the back of his head, what does he mean by hard, George? What’s he saying? Is he finding this gross and difficult, or could he mean… something else?

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” screamed George to the ghosts in his head, the words booming in his empty office, and he pummelled his head with both his fists in frustration. This uncomfortable feeling, these inappropriate thoughts — they reassured him why he had to fight so hard against Safe Schools. He was beginning to know for a fact that prolonged exposure to all that gayness could even make a man like him, a normal heterosexual slab of 100% top choice masculine beef, start having…. questionable thoughts.
 
 He wrote back: “Yeah I no. Heaps hard.” He hoped that was ambiguous enough to pass muster no matter what Cory’s original message had actually meant. What did he want it to mean? It was late, he was exhausted, things were getting so muddled. 
 
 BEEP! “R U savin all these vids n stuff?? 4 evidence??”
 
 Well, of course he had been. George was a thorough kind of guy. He had a hard drive full of the stuff at home. You can’t fight what you don’t know intimately, George, he’d tell himself, as his internet research led him to the Tumblr page BigRowersDicksinZootSuits and he began right clicking and saving the foul imagery on display.

George tapped out: “Yeah, got disk at my house full of it” He closed the browser tab. BEEP. Cory had responded… “mayb we need 2 go 2 ur house rite now, watch some 2gether n make notes!!” George’s heart skipped a bit, but he told himself it was just an ongoing cholesterol issue.

“Meet u there in halfa??”

“U bet”

— — — — — — — —

It was strangely appropriate that it all went down in the Canberra suburb of Dickson, where George lived when work took him from his beloved electorate of Dawson He pulled up to his home just as Cory arrived, and the two made their way up the driveway together. Both seemed nervous, and there was electricity in the air. George fumbled with his keys trying to open the front door and made some jokes about AIDS to distract them both, even just briefly, from the growing tension that neither of them knew how to define, nor could they deny it. 
 
 They made their way inside. “So where’s this hard drive?” Cory asked, straight to the point, and then in an almost flirtatious way added, “because at this point I think we’d better start readying ourselves for a full blown parliamentary inquiry, and I wouldn’t want any elements of this to not be… adequately explored.” George shuddered with delight at hearing Cory’s mouth wrap around the words ‘full blown’ and he gestured down the hallway. “Oh, I do most of my online research in my bedroom,” he explained, and beckoned for Cory to follow him.

A faint glow emanated from under the door, and when George opened it, Cory simply had to gasp. It was the most beautiful bedroom he’d ever seen! Every inch of the ceilings and walls were draped in fabrics and it was obvious the man knew a bit about interior design, except instead of the soft Moroccan jewel-toned cloths one might expect in a room clearly inspired by a harem, the entire room was decorated with Australian flags of various sizes. It was a patriotic love nest, and tiny tea lights — a hundred of them, at least — gave the room a warm and cosy luminosity.

“So THIS is how you managed to spend $5127 on Australian flags which you later claimed as a tax deduction,” said Cory, with a fond twinkle in his eyes. “But all these candles, Georgey, you could’ve set the house alight!”

George grinned, walked over to his bedside table, and picked up a tea light to bring over and show Cory. He held it up in the small gap between them, and it illuminated the space they desperately wished to fill. “See? LEDs. Battery operated.” His face suddenly turned deadly serious. “You know how I feel about burning flags, Cory. Not in my house, not now, not ever!”

They were standing so close together, and it was impossible to deny the energy (the one not fueled by a high power lithium button cell but instead by their mutual sexual desire) that radiated between them. George could hear Cory’s breath becoming more rapid, and there was an urgency in the air. Someone had to say or do something, yet both of them were rigid, simultaneously terrified someone would escalate what was happening between them, or even worse, stop it. 
 
 “George… I just… I, can’t… I don’t know how to explain it but…”

George looked away, his face falling. “I get it. It’s me, isn’t it? I know I’m not as fit as you. I’ve had to watch hundreds of those bloody videos, I know what a good looking man looks like, and I know I’m not ripped. I wish I was a twink, but I’m not, and I know you probably want something more like…”
 
 Cory gently extended his finger and pressed it against George’s lips to stop all the negative talk, and his dark little wombat eyes gazed affectionately at the big beautiful man in front of him. “Shhh, it’s not that. I promise you, it’s not that. I see you for what you really are, Georgey, I think you’re perfect… I do, I really do. Maybe I didn’t know how much until right this moment. And I… I want to make love to you.”
 
 George flushed with pleasure, ached with it.
 
 A tender Cory continued, “It’s just… I’m not used to dealing with another penis, not in the bedroom, not yet. Do you know what I mean? I’m only just at the crest of the slippery slope.”
 
 George took a moment, his brain running over the last few weeks of intensive research, all the things he’d read, all the clips he’d viewed, all the propaganda that suddenly might in fact turn out to be surprisingly rather hand. His mind raced back all the way to the beginning, that first night in his office at Parliament House when Cory had knocked on his door and first suggested teaming up to take on Safe Schools… what was that phrase he’d used?
 
“From what I can gather it’s basically a bunch of Marxist homosexuals trying to train defenceless kids to tuck their dicks between their legs”
 
 The words began ringing in his ears….

Tuck their dicks between their legs.

Tuck their dicks…

Tuck the dick…

Tuck… dick.
 
 “I have an idea!” whispered George. “But I need you to close your eyes, Cory.”
 
 A trembling Cory did as he was told. George slowly unbutton his shirt, unbuckled his belt and dropped his trousers and underpants, and tried to remember the guide to tucking he’d forced himself to read over and over. He fiddled around with his nethers for another minute, and then, looking down and seeing the almost magical change to his appearance, he was done. 
 
 “Open your eyes, sweetheart!” he purred at Cory.
 
 Cory’s lashes fluttered open and he blinked a few times, his eyes soon bulging as he looked his soon-to-be lover up and down. He began to nod in approval as he cottoned on to what had happened, and what this now meant — how completely not all that faggy love making with George could now be! He was certain this had changed everything. It seemed to him this was now the Thai Sweet Chili King Prawns of sex, something the Almighty could quite reasonably turn a blind eye to! He flashed a thousand watt grin back at his dear Georgey, and stepped toward him with his arms outstretched. 
 
 “Babe, now… now you are perfect. Now, at last, you can be mine.”
 
 THE END