Week 2 / Friday

They rode up to the project office not long after 9am on their new ebikes. They enjoyed them so much that they rode around the block a few times just for fun. Just as they were getting to the project office, Tui called. There was a grass verge, so they both pulled over, and Larissa answered Tui on speakerphone.

“Hi Tui! It’s lovely to hear your voice again!”

“Hi Larissa! How was your trip?” Larissa told her about their trip home, and how happy she was to see her family. “But how are you? Did you talk to your mum?” She still hadn’t heard anything.

“Oh, yes, but I have to tell you in order. The first time she called, I was reading your report, and a bit of a mess, and we had to get to Christchurch, so I said I’d call her later. So then we, stupid, we went the same way. Those roadworks. But you know what? I can get Marty off while we wait in the line.”

Larissa could positively hear Tui’s grin. “Well done!”

“He just didn’t quite have enough time to get me off, we kept getting interrupted to move a bit. And maybe that was a mistake, because I was still wound up. Maybe that explains what ... well, anyway, we stayed at that same hotel south of Christchurch.” Wow, Larissa thought. “And yesterday was hot, Australian kind of hot. I stripped to my undies in the car. Anyway, Marty said I should wear the warrior outfit for dinner again but it’s hot, you know. So I wore that corset and stockings, and just the hoodie dress, so I could drive Marty wild.”

Larissa looked at Julian, shaking her head. “That’s ... even hotter than the silk thing you saw,” she whispered to him.

“We went down to the bar, and some of those same guys were at the bar, and as soon they saw us, they invited us over and said drinks and meals were on them, which was lovely. And then they called Robert to drop in, and he did, and he was really happy cause you know that girl he was playing pool with?” Sure... “Well, she is his dream girl, maybe. Not quite what you said, but close. And once those bitches were out of the picture, she’s really nice. And I talked to her, and I liked her. We sat at the bar and had dinner with them, and then the guys wanted to know, what did you do with your captive? So I told them. I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have but I got carried away. So say sorry to Julian, I think.”

“That’s OK, I don’t mind,” Julian said.

“Oh, you’re listening too? Great. Hi. And of course I could see that they’re all trying to control themselves. And looking at Marty, so I said he had to tell them what he did too. So he did. And your mate, he says, maybe Julian was right about sane guys keeping away, but they were all going crazy, how crazy did they have to get?” She laughed. “Anyway, then Marty tells me that Robert told you guys that there’s a strip pool deal at that hotel there, and what about it? Right in front of them all. One game, winner takes clothes, and loser ... well, he pulled your silk ties out of his pocket. Damn.”

Larissa gave Julian a surprised look. But she had noticed they weren’t around when she washed earlier that morning. Julian had the biggest grin.

“So I couldn’t say no, but straight away I knew I was going down. Marty’s really very good. He had to pretend to let Robert win the other night. I tried, but he hammered me, and then there was silence and he says, ‘Pay up! Just your dress.’ Fuck, Larissa, everyone was looking at me, and I’ve just got that corset and thong and stockings under it.” Julian whistled.

“I’m going to have to try to explain to Julian just how fucking sexy you looked in that,” Larissa said.

“Yeah. Well, I gave him my hoodie right there. Fuck, Larissa, everyone watched. He could’ve had me on the pool table. I know why you get your gear off so easy. Instead he walked me back over to the bar, sat me on my seat with all these guys around me, and tied my hands behind my back, just like you did with Julian. He told me later he let Julian tie him up so he knew what it felt like, knew how to do it.”

Larissa gave Julian a very surprised look, and Julian gave her a very cheeky grin back. She had no idea about that. Wow.

“Anyway, then he tells the guys at the bar what he’s going to do to me, take me upstairs, strip me, tie me to the bed, play with me every way you can, and leave me tied until I’ve come enough times. And all that time he’s telling them that, they’re all looking at me, in my face, and I’m wondering whether that’s really what he was going to do. I was going insane, Larissa. Then he says goodnight, walks me up to our room, and proceeds to do just what he said he was going to do. Very slowly. Very very slowly...” Tui took a deep breath. “Yes, Marty, you’re fucking amazing, and I did come lots. And yes, I’ll do what you said. He came on my tits twice. Julian, he said I had to tell you that.”

Larissa was looking at Julian and he was as turned on as she was. That was super-hot, way hotter than she’d expected. What had they unleashed here? She knew exactly what they were going to do when this call finished, go straight up to Steph’s room and pull her bike shorts down, bend over Steph’s lounge, and get nailed by Julian.

“Right. So you like that story?”

“Tui, you need to give us warning before something like that. We’re sitting on the side of the road and we can’t screw here, but we can’t not screw right now after listening to that!”

Tui burst into a peel of laughter and they could hear Marty laughing in the background too.

“But it gets better!” Fucking how? “So he finally tells me he’s done, and he’s going to untie me. And we’re kissing, and it was lovely. And then my phone rang. Mum. So he answered my phone, put it on the speaker on my chest. In the middle of his come. And then while I talked to mum, he massaged me, caressed me, kissed me all over. And I thought I was done, but no, he went down on me, and I had a massive one right while I was talking to mum. And only then did he finally untie me, and I finished talking to mum curled up in his lap. Larissa ... maybe I understand getting tied up in front of your mum now.”

Larissa was just shaking her head. What had they done?

“And I’m sure you want to know how I went with mum. So I just told her what happened. Told her about my meltdown about going to the politician’s house. How you saved me, what that warrior outfit meant. And then what you did on the ferry, and then how it made a difference through the week, and then all the sex we had, and how we both totally lost it with each other, so far in over our heads and how great it is. And also, how we loved you completely, and yes, you could’ve had us both if you were like that, because we...” she paused. “Because we both fell in love with both of you. We know, we talked about it. But you didn’t do that and that was right for you and completely right for us, and then I told her about the massage and what followed, and Marty went down on me right then, and Mum said, ‘what’s he doing?’ and I said he was going down on me, and she said I should stop him, we were talking, and I said I can’t. I had to tell her, I’m tied up, and he’s going to make me come, and I can’t even hang up on her, but she can if she wants. She said, just get back to your story then. And then I’m telling her about you looking me in the eyes when I came, and I think I got more and more disjointed, but Marty kept making me try, and then I came. Marty says I was noisy too. Then Marty untied me and I told her about yesterday, how you talked to me, and how I’m going to go and build better friendships with my girlfriends. We talked about that a lot.”

“So, she’s fine. Obviously it could’ve gone all wrong, but it all went perfectly right, and she’s going to thank you herself. And she said it was a unique experience, being on the phone listening to me go off like that, and she’s really glad for me that I’m finally experiencing really totally losing myself into a relationship the way we are, and why did I think that mum and dad got married in spite of fierce resistance from nearly everyone? So she’s totally on board.”

“Oh, that’s just all so lovely,” Larissa told her. “You wouldn’t believe how good all that makes us feel.”

“Oh I might because I know how good I felt last night, sexed out and talking to mum about it. Just wonderful. I should’ve called you earlier but we slept in and screwed and I had to drive up to uni so Marty could prep for his meeting and then we had a quickie in the ute after it and now we have that project call in twenty minutes. So I bet you don’t have time to screw beforehand.”

Shit she was right. Damn. And the look on Julian’s face! She’d caught him big time there. Tui burst into laughter.

“See you soon!” and she hung up.

But Tui was wrong. There was a garden out the front of Steph’s place and some grass, no one could see. Well not from the road. When she stopped her bike, Julian lifted her off it, pulled her shorts down, put her on her knees, kissed her from behind like Marty did to Tui, bent her over and fucked her hard. She came before he did. The whole thing must have taken less than a minute, done. She pulled her bike shorts up and then they locked their bikes up and walked into the project office. She could feel the wet spot in her bike shorts. And she also felt great.

They opened the door and the whole place went ballistic – they were all cheering, and they all rushed over to the door to say hello. None of this social distancing either, she was hugged, very hugged, by the whole team, and there were quite a few partners too – Joseph, one of the theatre girls, and Chez’s guy, Jon, as well. Sweet.

After they’d said hello to everyone, Suzy said to Larissa, “You’ve got grass on your knees – did you fall off your new bike?”

“Nah,” Larissa said casually, “we just had emergency sex on the lawn. Anyway, how is everyone?”

Suzy burst into laughter, and then the rest of them followed. “Good one Larissa! You’re quite funny.”

But Steph knew better, she could see. And Layna did too, from her smile. Everyone said that they were good, but they all wanted to tell Julian and Larissa about their covid experiences – everyone had friends and family who’d had it, and five people in the room had it and were newly out of isolation. They were just all surprised that they were all in the room together at once. And everyone was long done with worrying about it, she could see: no one had masks one, or held back from hugging her tightly. Surely she was going to get covid sooner rather than later, but whatever.

Then Suzy called out, “OK, everyone! Meeting time, Marty’s on the call waiting for us.”

Once they were all seated, wedged in around the meeting table, with Marty and Tui on TV at the end, Chez called them to be quiet and said, “OK, Introductions. We’ve got Marty on zoom, and we all know Marty, but we don’t know Tui, though we’ve all heard all about Tui. Tui, hello!” There was an instant chorus of “hello” from all around the table.

Tui smiled and said “Hello! It’s really lovely to join you all.”

“Ok, everyone, we’re going to go around the table introducing ourselves to Tui. Tui, I’m Chez. I’m kind of director/producer of this thing.”

They went around the table. Layna was sitting next to Larissa, and said, “hi Tui, I’m Layna, and I’m really pleased to meet you. Thank you for looking after Larissa in New Zealand, it really took a load off my soul!”

Then it was Larissa’s turn and she said, “I’m Larissa, and I’m just Julian’s wife.” She got a really loud cheer for that, and she realised – that was about the ‘wife’ bit. She grinned at them all. “And yes, I had a lovely honeymoon. You guys all heard about the fun stuff we did, and you all got Julian’s technical reports. So that leaves one question you all want to ask, I know. Yes, we did get a little bit of sex during our busy honeymoon. Enough.”

Tui responded to that with a peal of laughter. Of course, they wanted her to elaborate but she just gave them smirk and said, “it was definitely enough!”

“Oh, and I know some of you want to know, after yesterday, because people did ... are Tui and I lovers?” No surprise around the table. “I totally love Tui, and we got on super well, much more than just friends. So yes, lovers. But no, not in that way people meant. Not that I care. Tui, love you!”

“I love you back!” Tui said with a smile. Larissa looked around the table, and at least Layna, Joe and Suzy were completely unsurprised by that, but some others were trying to figure that out. Steph knew, had just been sure it would go that way from the middle of the week before.

Next to her was Steph, and she said, “hi Tui. I’m so excited to meet you, and I’m the official big mouth of the project. I’m totally looking forward to getting to know you, and thanks for your contribution to Larissa’s daily reports, which were the best part of the day for all of us.”

Lots of cheering for that.

“All right, everyone,” Chez said, “We’ve got four things to talk about today. New Zealand, Larissa’s wedding video, and planning for this week. But first, the other subject. Over to you Suzy.”

“Thanks, Chez.” Suzy looked up from her laptop where she was keeping notes. “I just wanted you all to know that Nathan and I are going on a date tonight.” She turned to Nathan, next to her, and smiled at him.

There was silence, and Suzy looked around, surprised. Then Callum said, “Umm, we thought you were? What did you call what you were doing then?”

Suzy looked at them, not sure what to say.

“No, dumbos,” Steph said. “She means that tonight, she’s going actually to screw him this time.”

Then everyone was laughing at the surprised look on Nathan’s face, and yelling and cheering for them. They must have planned this, Larissa realised, because now they were very excited indeed.

When they calmed down, Chez said, “Suzy, we were going to hold an office sweepstake on when you were going to tell us all, but no one would pick any day other than today, when Larissa came back. Except, apparently, Nathan didn’t see it coming.”

Suzy smiled ruefully at them. “Well, I suppose it is a little obvious, really. I think he just didn’t know I was going to announce it in advance. Anyway, I made a cake, and here it is.” She pulled a box of the shelf behind them and opened it up and gave it to Chez.

Then Layna said, “Thanks for the cake, Suzy, and it’s just wonderful news. We’re so happy for you both. Obviously, we all figured it was coming, and we’re really impressed that you’ve been so patient, and we know that you were patient because you work together and need to be sure, and because you both so strongly believe in what we’re doing here. You’re both already part of our family, and it’s our real pleasure to welcome you together.” She stepped around Steph, and hugged both of them tightly, and then kissed them both. Then she knelt down behind and between them, her arms around both of them, and looked around the table. “Everyone, we all think that Nathan and Suzy are made for each other, but, still, creating a loving and stable relationship with someone you work with will be a challenge for them. Are we on their side to support them and love them, whether it goes really well or they have challenges, or even if it doesn’t work out?”

Yes, everyone was. That got very strong feedback, everyone very strongly promising to love them whatever and support them, and Nathan and Suzy had tears in their eyes. Nathan leaned over, and with Layna’s arms around them, they kissed, and the kiss turned into something very meaningful.

Larissa’s phone buzzed, and she looked down to see a message from Tui: “That’s really lovely. I see what you mean about Layna.” She looked up at the screen and gave Tui a thumbs up.

When they stopped, Layna said, “I’m not sure it’ll actually be tonight, Steph!” More laughter, and then Layna stood up and said, “OK, pass the cake around, and let’s move on. Marty, Tui, I’m afraid we didn’t line up cake for you.”

Tui grinned and held up her own cake. “Larissa gave us a heads up!” No one was surprised that Larissa knew in advance, she could see.

“OK,” Chez said. “New Zealand. You’ve all read both the technical reports from Julian and Marty, and also the wonderful passionate daily report from Larissa. Yes?” Some grumbling at the length of Julian’s reports, but yes. “There’s one report we haven’t yet got, so we’ll get that now. Marty, you met with the professor about the whales today. Can you report verbally?”

Sure. Marty told them about what he’d said. A convincing story, but the questions focused on: how would you turn that into convincing video footage given their capabilities? Larissa discovered that they were bringing a new person on board, an animator. They’d just decided last week but hadn’t chosen anyone yet. That might make a difference.

Then Chez lead them through each of the story candidates – any questions? They worked through the candidates, asking questions around how the storyline would work on video, what visuals there were, what ‘babe’ opportunities the story offered for Layna, the value of the story itself, and what the weather risks were. Many of the questions were for Marty, though Tui sometimes answered, particularly about visuals – she had a much stronger visual memory, and she often answered the weather questions.

When that was done, Chez went around the room asking for people to rate the possibilities, for her and Suzy and Nathan to pursue and get all the ducks in a row for a story. She asked each of the project members, except for Layna. Then she asked Marty, who was surprised to be asked, but gave his opinion. Larissa watched with interest, but she thought they were missing a perspective, even Julian. Then Chez gave hers. Layna’s turn, but instead, Chez asked Larissa.

“What? I’m not in on the project, I don’t have an opinion.”

Layna, who’d mainly been listening, said, “Larissa, you were there, and more, I really value your opinion. You, more than any of us, get in people’s hearts.” Larissa nodded, that lined up with what she’d been thinking.

“Thanks. Well, obviously you have to do a whole video around the minister. You can throw in stunning visuals of Wellington, it’s amazing. Good or bad weather, stunning, according to the locals. And the zoo told me, they’ll do anything for Layna, baby animals, whatever.” Layna was nodding. “I don’t think much of that as a story, but you have to.” Layna clearly agreed with that.

“And you have to do the main storyline. The whole story about property prices, that’s political dynamite for the kiwis. Getting into that billionaire, screw him. So that’s a given. Layna in that house from the good-guy billionaire, swimming in that pool, on Hot Water Beach, babed up, sure. But that story doesn’t really move me. It’s good, probably good hit counts, but it’s not a great story. Unless you go to war with all the billionaires, and that’s ... probably not a good idea.” Layna nodded.

“For me, you have to do the story with David. Sixty years in the environment movement, doing biodiversity in the wild? Such a unique individual. Layna looking at the birds, the talk about predators and their long-term consequences, then in that mud, the bird hide, then skinny-dipping with David to clean up, and then a campfire chat, passing the torch across generations. That’s dynamite for me, and something you can market hard to the older audience. I’m sorry, Layna, that mud stinks, but for me that’s a story that has visuals, it has real heart, and you’d be crazy to pass it up.”

“Thanks,” Layna said. “As soon as I saw that mud, I knew you’d convince me to get in it, and that was pretty convincing. What do others think? Would David get naked on Youtube?”

“Yes!” They heard over Zoom, from Tui. “He’d love to. I saw his face when he was in the water with us, and then Larissa saw his little bum dance. He’d do that for you guys.” Larissa laughed.

Layna grinned. “Other opinions?” Chez agreed with Larissa, and so did Julian. Joseph said he agreed with Larissa too. “OK, Larissa...?”

“I think you have to do the story at that Manga place.” Maungatautari, Marty volunteered. “Yes, that place. But for me, it’s not the story you were talking about. The park’s great, but that’s not the story. It’s Tui’s story, a story about a heritage, a people, preserving cultural diversity without being oppressive, navigating the modern world at the same time, and how that’s like having an environment and an economy. It’s a story that starts with Tui’s own family story, and on the Marae, her spiritual home, and it’s only secondarily about the park itself. Chez, you’re the one who can pull those threads together. And the visuals are the park and people, Tui’s wonderful farm, and the mountain, and Layna singing with Tui’s people. Layna, sorry, you have to sing. And dance. Haka! But Tui, it’s you, you’re really the story, with Marty, so you have to decide to put yourself and your family out there if you want.”

That created a silence, while they thought about that. Eventually, Chez said, “That’s a pretty interesting take, but super ambitious. I’d like it though. I’m interested in opinions, but the very obvious question is, Tui, what do you think?”

Tui’s answer was simple: “Yes.” No hesitation at all, and it was very final too. Even Marty was caught by surprise, Larissa could see.

“Why, honey? Are you really sure?” he asked her.

“Larissa told me who Layna was, what she’s about, and that’s what I’m seeing. And I want the story of my people told by someone that compassionate. And I’m all in on the environment. And my family will say yes at least enough to do it, and maybe enough to do it really well. So I’ll put myself out there for that.”

“What about me?” Marty asked. “I have to agree to it too?”

“Yes,” Tui said with a grin, “but you will, because I’ll give you one blowjob for every second you’re on Youtube.” Hysterical laughter for that from everyone, but no one could question Tui’s commitment now.

When it stopped, Marty grinned and said, “She knows I’d say yes anyway!” Tui nodded for that.

Chez said, “Well, good. Other opinions?” There was general indication that people agreed with this idea, so Chez said, “Layna?”

“I already pretty much was thinking along those lines, and I already told Larissa that the two of us are going to see Tui the first day we’re able to, and that’s why. Thank you very much, Tui, I am very honoured. You’re one of us for sure now.”

That really moved Tui, Larissa could see. Very deeply.

“Well, Larissa,” Chez said, “you’ve been pretty persuasive so far. Keep going.”

“Well, then there’s the whales. I totally enjoyed it, and I wrote my daily report to do my utmost to convince Layna to want to do it. And Marty has the theory sorted. But I’m afraid I don’t see the heart in that story. If you want to do it as a puff piece, sure, it’ll be popular, and defensible, but it’s not going to move the needle. And I feel bad saying that because Kaikoura was a great place, and Josh’s wife is a local teacher who was really keen to get you and I to talk to the school, Layna, and the kids there adore you.”

“And the same for kayaking in the sounds. We had an exceptional time, such a lot of fun, and it had amazing visuals. But what’s the actual story? Wasting time unless you just want the fun. Though we mainly enjoyed it because we were naked nearly the whole time.”