Week 3 / Sunday

The next morning, Ross and Amelia joined them for yoga and breakfast, all smiles at being let out again. And Larissa wasn’t working – a few staff had come out of isolation, so they’d offered her the choice, and she’d decided to finish off her social stuff in a single go. After breakfast they headed off to church. More masks, but it was nice to be back, and she waved to both Tim and Vicki and blew them a kiss. Hopefully she’d have time to catch up with them after, but lots of people wanted to talk to her.

Announcements caught her attention solidly. Pastor Tim said that the church was putting in a big effort to support the local community through the covid crisis. They were doing five things for sick or isolating people: looking after their pets – walks etc, doing their shopping, watering their gardens, cooking meals, and running a phone service helping coordinate more services if needed. They wanted as many church members and friends and family to sign up to help. Kids as young as twelve could sign up for pet walking and watering gardens, and older than fifteen for anything. And if you were too old for those kind of things, you could sign up to drive the younger kids around. And covid had slammed the local community, and the need was desperate, so anyone that could help out, please please.

Larissa was pleased to hear that Cheryl was coordinating the dog-walking efforts – if you volunteered to help with that at the desk in the entrance, she’d call you with the details. Sweet.

Pastor Tim said that the response last week was amazing, but the need was overwhelming and you didn’t have to ever come to church to help out, so please hit up any friends you have that are not sick, and we can really make people’s lives better.

After church finished, Julian and Larissa ignored everyone who wanted to talk to them and went and signed up. They found Amelia on the desk, and she said, “Julian, here, sign up, thanks. But Larissa – can you go find Vicki? She wants you for something.”

Larissa found Vicki, but she was super busy, so she waited in line, and talked to a few people while she waited. Then Vicki found her. “Hi Vicki, I wanted to sign up to help, but Amelia sent me over here.”

“Yes. So firstly, we said that we don’t want first responders signing up, and that’s you. But actually, all week I’ve been having a problem that you can really help us with. Two in fact. But I’m not asking for easy here.” Larissa took a deep breath and said, tell me about it. “So first, the pet carers keep running into pets that look like they have problems, but they’re mostly just kids. But twice there have been real problems. So I was wondering, if there’s a problem can they ring you to get advice?”

Larissa screwed up her face. Tough call, but what else could happen? She sighed and said that would be OK.

“Great, that’s such a relief for us. Now the other problem ... people are getting stuck isolating at home together. If things are good, and they’re not too sick ... it’s good for the relationship.” Right, a sex holiday, and that was clearly what Vicki meant by her intonation. “But if things aren’t good in the relationship ... Larissa, it’s bad out there, alcohol and domestic violence. We were referring people to the help lines, but...” she shook her head. “They’re overwhelmed too, days behind. And these aren’t problems to just talk about it. I need people I really trust to talk to whoever, and make a snap judgment call – leave it to helpline, call the cops, find some accommodation, whatever. I know that’s all wrong, but it’s happening today, and what else can we do? And who can I trust to talk to teenage girls? That’s you, if you can. But I understand if that’s too much. Larissa, I’ve just asked you for a lot, I know.”

That really was too much. Larissa could imagine those phone calls ... it took a couple of hours to pry Cheryl apart. Different but still, it wasn’t going to be quick, or easy. On the other hand, what else could anyone do? The cops were having as much problems as any other first responders. In fact, they were already working even if they were supposed to be isolating.

“Vicki, I can’t say no, of course. But ... it could easily destroy me. So I’ll try, and see how it goes. Can I recommend someone else?” Vicki nodded enthusiastically. “I have a friend Maria. She’s got a similar personal background, though she’s not really religious – lapsed catholic, I guess. But she’s loving and practical. And it would be good for her. She’s had covid and she opened her house to anyone else with it who didn’t want to get their family sick, and really liked helping people.”

“If she’ll say yes, she’ll save lives, so please ask her, I have to trust you on this that she’s appropriate. Beth will send you messages for this, and you’ll get messages about the pets from Cheryl’s mum.” Sweet – she knew Beth, a lovely older lady. And good for Cheryl’s mum to be involved.

Well, it what it is, she thought. Good that they were having lunch with Maria and household, since they’d finally come out of isolation today.

So many people wanted to know about their honeymoon that they agreed to show their presentation on the spot. Larissa sat down and tried to figure out what to do about the photos of the porpoises – that was really the only place where the photos weren’t appropriate. But there were no other photos ... what to do. She showed Vicki, and explained quickly – they were naked and they were the only photos – what should she do? Vicki said that she was fine with it, looked like fun, but ... maybe she could drop the video that showed Julian naked, and put a box over the interesting bits of the photo of her, and apologise for being caught topless? Larissa did that and dropped the photo of them kissing on the beach after their swim. The selfie in The Virgin’s End never made it into presentation at all. “But it’s your honeymoon, so people are going to expect that. Particularly from you,” Vicki told her with a smile.

The Julian grabbed her laptop and went up the front to set things up. It seemed to take him plenty of time but finally everyone was ready and he started the presentation. Yay, they were allowed to take their masks off for this.

Early up in the slides was a photo of them cuddling in that lovely big bath. One of the young teenage boys at the front couldn’t contain himself and called out, “What was going on here?” in a suggestive tone.

Larissa felt sorry for his mum who clearly wanted to curl up and die, possibly after murdering her son, but she remembered what it was like being around young guys, so she smiled at him and said in a calm voice, “We were having sex. That’s what you’re supposed do on a honeymoon, so we did it a lot, because we always try to do what we’re supposed to do. You’ll see other photos like this.”

That line got her plenty of smiles, and she shared a look with Willow, who rolled her eyes very theatrically. Then she said, “Vivian, would you like me to beat on him now or later?” Plenty of laughter for that too, but also, it really helped the mum, and the kid got the point.

They worked through the first week letting people ask questions as they went – there were about a hundred people watching. Julian made a big deal of helping Amanda, to the point that Larissa grabbed the microphone off him and said, “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about how we helped other people?” she asked him.

“Umm, babe, I suppose we’re not, but ... you did real good for her!”

She shook her head at him, and she heard some titters of laughter in the audience for her frown at him. But he did a good job talking about David, except whoops, she left a photo of skinny-dipping in the river in there. It didn’t show anything but it was still clear. She shook her head in apology to Vicki.

Then he got to the porpoises, and she jumped and explained that she was sorry about this photo, but it really was the only one and she’d been lying in the sun and didn’t have time, sorry. Julian looked at her and shrugged and talked about the excitement of the porpoises. Then he showed a photo Marty had taken, the two of them swimming side by side, making a lot of splash, and talked about their race.

The next photo was one Larissa hadn’t seen before, and hadn’t put in the presentation – it was a photo of their naked church. Marty must have taken it, from across the beach. Tui’s back was to the camera, and Julian and Larissa were partly obscured, so it was technically decent but it was extremely obvious that they were all naked.

Larissa gasped, put her hand over her face and shook her head. What the hell was Julian doing? What he was doing was starting to tell everyone about their prayer session, thanks for their blessings. He tailed off in confusion... “What?” he said to Larissa.

“Julian, we’re naked,” she said to him.

“Oh. Umm. Whoops.” He looked at her, still confused.

“You didn’t think?” she asked him, and he just looked at her stupidly. “You didn’t even notice!” she exclaimed exasperatedly. “Vicki, Julian put that picture in. I didn’t know anything about it. I’m sorry, I’ll beat him up later.”

Vicki was just looking at her, shaking her head, a wry smile on her face, even through the mask, and there was plenty of polite laughing in the audience, though she could also see a few disapproving faces.

“Sorry everyone. As you’ve no doubt now figured out, we didn’t bother with any clothing while were on that beach since there was no one else around. I took out the other photo that let on about that, I wasn’t going to bother you with that detail. I’m sorry that my klutz of a husband added that one on his own accord. Did you add any more photos?” Julian nodded. “Are they appropriate?” Julian nodded again. “Yeah right. We’ll see. And you might as well go back to that slide now, everyone’s already had a good look at it. Don’t worry, everyone, Mum and I will have a little ... chat ... with my clueless husband later.” That did get them a real laugh. “Now, on with your story. Keep making stuff up for everyone...”

Julian gave her a wounded puppy dog look, but got back on with his story. Larissa listened, trying to imagine what else he had added. What he had added wasn’t out of her photos, and Julian never took photos except for work. So it must be from Marty or Tui, and who the hell knew what they had photos of? Tui was going to laugh and laugh about that one. And Steph had just messaged her on their joint chat to tell her about it, damn.

It turned out that he’d only added two more photos, and they were ones that Julian had definitely taken himself. One was of the plane controls and Josh, obviously taken from the side as they flew over the mountains, which let Julian talk about how exciting that was, and then one showing Larissa sitting next to the patient, reaching over to wipe her forehead. She did not know Julian had taken that one, but she was fine with it, and he told everyone about that woman.

And that was it, no more surprises, and they finished up with that lovely photo of them kissing in the airport when they left Queenstown. Then time for any more questions. The first one wasn’t really a surprise, she supposed: “So you really did your little church naked?” Well, she was sure as hell letting Julian handle that one.

“Yep. We did,” Julian said. “Maybe that was wrong; you can take that up with Tim.” He shrugged. “But we were there, and feeling thankful, and just wanted to pray, like Tim says we should, so we did.” Larissa laughed to herself; she could see both Tim and Vicki shaking their heads. Then they had more questions about other things that happened. Finally, she looked at phone and saw the time and pointed that out to Julian. “OK, last question,” he said.

Tim stood up for this one. “This has been a wonderfully interesting presentation, Julian and Larissa, thanks, and we can see that you had a great time, and we’re happy about that. But it has had a couple of surprises in here for everyone, though people who know you mightn’t be that surprised. But perhaps you could clarify something for us – you obviously got very close to Marty and Tui.”

Julian let Larissa answer that one. Thanks pal. “Sure. We had a lovely friendship, and we ended up very close to them indeed, and they were lovely about letting us have our honeymoon while we were with them. It’s lovely to have really close friends as well as the person you’re married to, and they’re definitely that. And you told us that we should do that, when we talked to you about marriage, and here we are, doing what we’re supposed to do. We love both of them a lot, and we’re missing them, but we’ll see them again. And I know you’re asking the lovers question, for everyone. No. We didn’t, and it wouldn’t have been right thing to do for them or for us.”

She got a smile of thanks for that from Tim.

There were lots of people with questions, but they had no time. She dragged Julian over to James and Sophie, and said, “Mum, what should we do with him?” She was still expecting a bit of a jokey response but what she got instead was dead serious.

Sophie said, “Julian, if you’re going to live the way you do, you have to be much more careful. It doesn’t really matter here, but you’re out in public, on the record, all the time. You could really hurt Larissa unless you’re a lot more careful than that. Putting a photo like that up, and not realising ... that’s a shocking lapse, no matter how well-intentioned you were. Is that what you want, how much do you want to hurt her?”

“No, I don’t want to hurt her at all.” Julian whispered shame-facedly. Sophie hadn’t been quiet and quite a few people had heard that little take down, including the rest of their family. Larissa had joked with him in the past about Sophie ripping him up, but she hadn’t expected to ever watch it, and Sophie was way more effective than she’d expected, perfect tone and facial expressions to match her words. Julian was in tears now. “Mum...” he stopped. “Babe, I’m sorry. I...” He sat down like a deflated balloon, looking down at his feet.

Sophie smiled at him and indicated to Larissa to hug him, and she understood. Sophie did that for effect. She sure didn’t want to ever see Sophie actually get angry. She squeezed into his lap and held him tight. He wasn’t quite crying but he was pretty affected, and she waited for him to calm down. When he’d calmed down enough, Sophie hugged both of them. “Julian, we know how much you love Larissa, and you don’t want to hurt her, and I know you can be more careful.”

“I’m damn well going to be more careful in the future,” Julian muttered.

When they were back in their car, she asked him if he was OK. “Yes, I am. It wasn’t nice getting that in front of everyone, but it goes with the territory. And I really did deserve it.” Well, she couldn’t argue with that, even though it was a lovely picture.

When they finished talking about it, and Julian was feeling better, she turned to her phone, and looked at the thread with Tui.

✉ Steph: Tui, Julian and Larissa are showing their holiday to everyone at church
✉ Steph: They’ve been showing photos and talking about them. Larissa cleaned up the photos for church
✉ Tui:? what’s left?
✉ Steph: none of the good ones
✉ Steph: but Julian added one in, and it’s you three, sitting on the beach naked having your church!
✉ Tui: No!
✉ Steph: Larissa didn’t know about it, just ripped him one
✉ Tui: I can imagine. It’s very obvious we’re naked. But no rude bits
✉ Steph: But it is a lovely photo. Almost my favourite. I didn’t know you were Christian?
✉ Tui: I wasn’t
✉ Steph: Wasn’t?
✉ Tui: I’m thinking about it. That changed my perspective. I’ve got another friend who’s Christian – I’m having lunch with her this week, and that’s something we’ll talk about
✉ Steph: good. We love sex – you can tell – but we’re really serious about Jesus as well
✉ Tui: I didn’t know you could be both. And I also discovered how much I love sex on that beach
✉ Tui: Maybe we’ll get married there
✉ Steph: You didn’t know?
✉ Tui: I did, sort of. But not just how much! 
✉ Steph: Either of us will be happy to talk to you more about Jesus
✉ Steph: Also about sex. But you know that now
✉ Tui: 
✉ Steph: Oh, the pastor just had to ask whether you were lovers
✉ Steph: cause of that lovely photo of you are the airport. And that one of you with the necklace. And the spa
✉ Steph: Those are very lovely photos, and you have a beautiful smile. Even when you’ve been crying
✉ Tui: Thanks. Lots. Did you think we were lovers?
✉ Steph: no. I know Larissa. And your smile wouldn’t have been so pure if you were
✉ Steph: And your smile was lovely. Did I say that already?
✉ Tui: Y 
✉ Steph: Ouch. Mum just ripped him a new one. right here in church. Seriously. He’s in tears
✉ Tui: Sad 
✉ Steph: Oh no, he deserved it. He didn’t even realise you were naked! Dumbo
✉ Steph: She’s right, he can’t be careless like that. Social media ... no mistakes like that possible
✉ Tui: Is he OK?
✉ Steph: He will be. Mum can be real scary. She just rips your heart right out and shows it to you, and you know you screwed up big time. She’s done it to me too when I deserved it
✉ Steph: But we know she loves us and she only does it when we earned it, and now he’s wrapped up in their love
✉ Tui: My mum too. I love her. Tell Julian I love him
✉ Steph: Ok. Anyway, how’s it going there?
✉ Tui: Great! I had a lovely evening with mum and my SIL
✉ Tui: We even talked about her love life
✉ Tui: I got my eyes opened. And closed!
✉ Tui: And mum’s really happy with Larissa. She wasn’t for a while, until I talked to her
✉ Tui: And Amanda’s about to turn up
✉ Steph: Amanda?
✉ Tui: The mum from Hot Water beach
✉ Steph: Oh yes! Good luck with that – Larissa’s very impressed you’re doing that
✉ Tui: Thx
✉ Tui: Amanda’s here. Back later

Nice. Larissa was feeling a bit better herself. Steph was right about Sophie.

✉ Larissa: Thanks, I feel better now. Good luck with Amanda. We’re driving for an hour in a few hours – maybe we can talk then? Also: get Marty to send me all the photos he gave to Julian. No more surprises!
✉ Steph: You feel better? Wasn’t your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong
✉ Larissa: But Julian ... mum really ripped him. I hurt for him
✉ Steph: Sweet
✉ Steph: We love you both. Even when Julian’s being a dumbo
✉ Steph: And don’t tell anyone, but we laughed our heads off in our hearts when he put that awesome photo up in church

Larissa laughed. Well, it was time for lunch.

They hugged Maria, Aaden, Lucy and Sarah tightly. Lovely to see them again, and then talked about what had happened since they’d last seen each other at the wedding. Larissa went through their photos – the original slides, not Julian’s hacked version – and they told them about their honeymoon. They gave them the raunchy version, though not that much detail. Lucy and Sarah loved how Larissa had nearly made Julian come by telling the others about what they did to him.

But ... were things right with Lucy and Sarah? Larissa wasn’t convinced. So as quickly as she could she moved on past their honeymoon, and asked about the last two weeks. Well, the story was pretty simple. Maria and Aaden had gone out clubbing after their wedding with Sarah and Lucy and Aaden’s two gay mates – Julian and Larissa had met them. They’d gone to a rave, and nearly everyone at the rave had got infected. Aaden’s mates had wanted to be together when they were isolating, and neither could do that at their own home, so Maria said that they should come to live with them. Things had snowballed and they’d ended up with twelve people at one stage, and it was mostly pretty fun. Not entirely – two of them – Sarah and another guy – had ended up getting pretty sick and at one stage they’d taken it in turns to nurse the two of them through the night. But other than that, Maria had really loved nursing everyone. And for those who were not feeling too bad ... well, their place had kind of turned into a continuous sex pad for the couples.

“Wow,” Larissa said. “Where did everyone sleep?”

“Well, Lucy and Sarah moved into our bed, and we had four in their bed, and two on each of the lounges, mostly.” Larissa looked at Lucy and Sarah in surprise ... that was pretty intimate. And honestly, they felt like they were trying to be happy to her.

“Oh, sounds like fun,” Larissa said, “and I’m really pleased that you helped look after people. We were stuck in New Zealand feeling bad. Sarah and Lucy, how did you deal with all that?”

Lucy looked a little downcast. “It’s weird, you know, Sarah got really sick but now it’s me who’s just not getting better – just prone to getting really breathless suddenly, and kind of feeling weird and confused a lot. But I’m glad Sarah’s doing well. I was fine when she wasn’t, and then she’s fine when I’m not, and we really were busy looking after everyone else.” But Larissa couldn’t help herself, it just sounded like that sentence was going to continue with “except us.”

“It’s fine,” Maria said, “we’re all looking after Lucy.”

“Oh? So what’s happening with work?”

“Well, I’m back and full time this week, since other people are sick. And Aaden’s got a promotion, and Sarah’s back at work from tomorrow. Aaden tell them about it.” Aaden smiled and excitedly told them about his promotion, getting some real responsibility. And Larissa was super pleased for him, and did her best to look excited. But Lucy, not happy now. Not happy at all.

Suddenly Lucy stood up, and said she was going to the toilet, and Sarah got up to follow her. Larissa grabbed her phone and sent Julian a message. “Very soon, I’m going to make a scene, and you’re going to get upset with me and storm off to L&S, and then you’re going to take them outside and ask them how they’re really feeling.” She nudged him to look at his phone, and she could tell he’d read it when he stiffened. He grabbed her hand and squeezed once – confirmation. She waited a couple of minutes ... needed to get the timing right here. Suddenly she saw action at the loo. She leaned forward and interrupted Aaden. “Hey, Aaden hang on, I’ve just remembered I was going to tell Maria something, and I forgot. Maria, Julian showed a naked photo of us to the whole church – how stupid! And then his mum absolutely destroyed him, it was great. Make sure I tell you about it.”

“What?” Julian exclaimed. “Larissa, I told you I didn’t want to talk about it. Man, you just don’t know when to stop. It was just an accident, so let it go!” His voice was rising ... damn good acting.

“Huh. You did it. Suck it up and man up and say you’re sorry, and let me tell my friend, she’ll love it!”

“Fuck! Maybe I just need a break from you.” Julian jumped up, and his chair dragged across the ground. Very noisy. He hit the table. Woo, that was really going for it. He shook his head, kicked his chair out of the way, and walked across the café. Straight into the surprised faces of Lucy and Sarah. He stopped in front of them, and looked downcast; they took one hand each and led him out of the café. Good work Julian. Now, to do damage control.

She turned around. Maria and Aaden were looking at her in shock. She gave them a nervous smile and took a deep breath. “Umm, I don’t know what that was about. Sorry, maybe that wasn’t the cleverest thing I’ve ever done. He’ll be fine. I hope. Sarah and Lucy will calm him down, and I’ll grovel in apology when he comes back, and it’ll all be fine.” She hoped, but maybe that hadn’t been a very good idea. “But I guess that’s what happens when you’re cooped up with people and never get any space to talk, and think. That wasn’t a problem for you guys?”

Maria took a deep breath, and started talking. It was a problem. She’d had a barney with Aaden, locked in the bathroom, both of them whispering but beside themselves with rage. What was it about? They honestly didn’t know. Aaden nodded, true story. Because they couldn’t shout, and someone had the runs, they didn’t finish it, and it took them nearly a day to sort things out. But they had, and since then it was fine. And how surprising it was to see Larissa, the most expert relationship person they knew, have a biffo like that. Larissa shrugged, she tried but sometimes ... she didn’t think. Live and learn, and she promised herself to learn. Did anyone else in their home have problems?

“Lucy and Sarah ... something went wrong. We don’t know what, and they won’t talk about it, and we can’t ask them. They’re not the same.” Maria shrugged. “But they’ll get over it. They always do. And if the others did ... we didn’t know about it. Actually, two of the girls, not a couple, but they slept on the foldout lounge with each other for seven nights in a row. Very good friends at the end, it was really nice. I mean, they had to be, they both had a fever and ended up pretty much naked cause the aircon wasn’t keeping up. Said that they liked the porn show they got on a regular basis, they didn’t know they’d like gay porn that much. Anyway, are you OK?” Larissa nodded. She was fine. “Great. Now tell me about whole church seeing you naked!”

“Umm, maybe that’s not a good idea. Not given how Julian reacted. I’m sorry.”

Maria shrugged. “Another day, then. When are you going back to work?”

“Well, Julian never stopped, and I’ve already been back, did a full day yesterday, and looks like I’ll work the next few weeks pretty much straight. And how’s your job going?”

Great, Maria was really liking working in the vets, and she was getting to do more and more actual vet work – super exciting, and she told Larissa about some of the dogs she’d seen.

Julian came back with Sarah and Lucy. They were both holding his hands, laughing, and they had a spring in their step. Sweet.

Julian knelt down in front of her. “I’m sorry, babe. I was right out of line. I did it, and I should suck it up. Can you forgive me?”

Larissa kissed him. “I’m much sorrier, sweetie. I should totally have known not to bring it up. I was further out of line. You’re a magnificent man and I never want to upset you.”

Julian smiled, and then they kissed.

“Ohh, so sweet,” Lucy said. “Aren’t they a lovely couple?”

Julian stopped the kiss, and whispered to her, “I think they’ll be fine. For now.” And they were – much happier. All sunny now, and they had a good laugh at some of the crazy things Larissa did on their honeymoon. They really liked how she made him come in the ute and then made him suffer in his jocks. Aaden rolled his eyes, sure that it was going to happen to him.

Then Maria looked at her watch and said it was time, but this was fun and she was super glad Larissa was home.

In the car, Julian said, “Babe, you’re pretty convincing. I know you told me it was coming, but it was very easy to get upset given what you said.”

Larissa laughed. “You were damned convincing. I really thought I’d screwed it there. But then I knew I hadn’t.” How? “You had to go out of your way to need to kick your chair. But it was very impressive. Anyway, how’d you go?”

“Good. I wondered why you wanted to make it a barney, but it was such an effective way to open them up quickly. I explained what I’d done, and they laughed and then told me about them. They told me not to tell you, so you don’t know, OK?” She nodded – they never had secrets between them. “Sleeping in the same bed as Maria, while sick ... not a good idea. They both have a clear sense of personal space, and they don’t like it being intruded. Even between themselves. They agree to cross the line when they make love, and then they go back to it. They think it goes back to people not respecting their choices when they were younger. Anyway, Maria ... totally foreign to her; they were in her bed, so she felt free to touch them however. Not sexual. Mostly. And not without their permission; they were sick and needed to say she could do whatever, but still, she didn’t respect their space. And she nursed them really well, really loved them a lot. So they’re really conflicted, because saying something ... it’s just such a sensitive thing and it could totally blow up completely, and they’re desperate for that not to happen.”

Larissa thought about that. Really difficult thing for them to deal with. “So how did you change their mood that much?”

“Well, they’ve been hoping that Lucy will get better, and then they can just put it behind them. But that post-covid thing ... it can last and last, which is also part of the problem. Lucy’s kind of a bit freaked out about that, naturally. So when we talked, they accepted that waiting isn’t going to work. But they hadn’t talked to anyone about it, they were just sucking it up. Once they started talking ... it all burst out of them. That alone was most of how I helped, but I did let them rehearse some things they can say, very gentle but clear ways to get some of their boundaries back. Some stuff between them, and I suggested a couple of physical strategies. And I said they can come visit us anytime they want, even if we’re not there, they can hang out on the deck, just the two of them, lots of space.”

“Sweet. You’re a very good man. I couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to them than you.”

“Thanks, babe. I really believe in you, and I’m so lucky you believe in me. Anyway, you want to talk to Tui?”