Week 1 / Friday

In the morning, Larissa woke up feeling wet, and it was cool. It hadn’t rained but there was dew everywhere, including in her hair. She shivered and crawled out of bed and dragged her clothes and the thick woollen shirt on as quickly as she could. The sun was up but behind the hills and they wouldn’t see it for ages yet. She checked her phone – they had a little while before they had to leave. When she got back to the camp after weeing, David had the fire going again, and the billy hanging over it, so she sat as close to the fire as she could, warming up.

Soon, they were all gathered around a blazing fire, sharing a coffee, and agreeing that they slept better than they expected, and all felt very good. Then it was time to say goodbye to David – he was heading further into the mountains, and while they’d all have liked to go with him, Julian and Marty had meetings all day down in Wellington, the second of three days that were primarily work.

They said goodbye to David, telling him how much they had enjoyed their tramp in the bush with him, and then crossed the river and headed down the track beside it. As David told them, after about half an hour, they came to a lovely swimming hole and picnic place, and then the track broadened out and the park rangers had put gravel down, so they started running. Not too fast – they still had their packs on, though they were much lighter, since all they had was their damp clothes from the day before, their sleeping bag and warm shirt, and their phones. The rest of the food, David had kept for himself.

After a little less than an hour of gentle running, they came to a carpark, and David’s granddaughter was waiting for them there with Marty’s ute. There was no one else around this early in the morning, so they all stripped, dunked themselves in the river quickly to cool themselves down and get clean, and then they dressed, and the guys shaved. They gathered all their damp clothes in a pile in the back. Larissa sighed – they really needed to do laundry that night somewhere, surely they could find a laundromat near their hotel.

Then they all piled into the ute, the granddaughter in the back with Larissa and Tui. “Can’t believe you all just stripped like that,” she said.

“Oh,” Tui replied, “I would never have done that before this week, but Larissa ... she’s infectious.” Then she laughed and told the granddaughter about the shower at the billionaire’s house.

They dropped the granddaughter at David’s home, said goodbye, and then headed down to Wellington. Larissa talked to Tui and wrote her report for the day for everyone at home, since they’d been offline the night before. Today’s kissing photo: a photo that Tui took of Julian and Larissa, covered in mud and kissing, before she even cleaned her face.

Also, they did their last covid test that they’d forgotten about the day before. While she was at it, she got around to checking the news for the first time since they left Tui’s farm, and saw that Covid had escaped in Auckland, and new restrictions were being introduced up there. Larissa grimaced – it was almost certainly Omicron, and no restrictions were enough to stop that. At least she knew that they weren’t the source. Luck, more than anything else.

They talked about it, and Julian pointed out an upside: the fact that Omicron had escaped would bring forward the day Layna could come to New Zealand. But New Zealand would still fight it, they’d won several times before. As for the news from home ... covid was everywhere now, sweeping across their friend network. Maria, Aaden, and Sarah all had it, like a nasty flu, and had declared that their home was a covid open house for anyone who was sick and didn’t want to pass it on to older family members.

She got a message from Steph about the kissing photo: “That photo’s even dirtier than the last one, which I didn’t think was possible!” By the time she’d caught up on all her messages from her families and the project team – her daily reports were super popular – they were stuck in peak hour traffic in the approaches to Wellington, yuck. But it wasn’t as bad as they expected, and they pulled up out in front of the building for Julian and Marty’s first meeting with a little time to spare. Larissa tidied Julian up, and said he looked ready for business meetings, and kissed her man good luck.

For the first time, she was sitting in the front of the ute, with Tui driving. She stretched her legs out and gave a satisfied sigh of pleasure. Tui laughed, and then they went and found a free car park in front of a café and had a leisurely breakfast. Nice. Good food, coffee, music, and lots of happy people around them to watch while they ate. Such a contrast to where they were a couple of hours before.

Then Tui drove them to the Wellington Zoo, and they were met by the head vet. His son was another Layna fan and had organised this for them: a private tour of the zoo with the vet team, and then lunch with the vets, for Larissa to speak to them about the vet rescue service.

This was a weird experience for Larissa: she was just a young female undergraduate, but they treated her like a visiting dignitary, so she did her best to play the part as they got a guided tour of the zoo from a vet’s perspective. That meant that they went where the staff went, looked at the service entrance to the enclosures, and then for each animal, they’d tell her about their handling approach, and then the typical health issues that they had to deal with, and how they handled the question of reproduction. Really interesting, much more than any other zoo visit she’d made. She loved animals anyway ... but this: it was awesome. Wellington Zoo wasn’t that big, just the right size to cover the animals in the morning. The vets had different specialties, and they were joined by different vets as they walked around the zoo. They had a few kangaroos and wallabies, and Tui got to feed them by hand while Larissa talked about their care – at last, something she had a vague clue about.

Then it was lunch time, and Larissa and Tui sat down in the zoo staffroom with about thirty zoo staff, mostly the vets, and shared a meal with them, and while she was doing that, she ran through the presentation that she’d done at Waikato Uni. Doing it conversationally like this and letting the group interrupt and discuss as she went was much better, and they quickly used up her allotted time. She could tell that some of them were thinking about what a rescue service would look like here in Wellington.

Once they were done, Larissa and Tui thanked the staff – so much fun – and walked back to their ute. Tui glanced at her watch and said, “great, we’ve actually got a few minutes up our sleeve,” and they were on their way towards Clyde Quay to get on a yacht for their afternoon cruise around the harbour.

Larissa was looking around with interest at the downtown shops when she suddenly cried out, “Stop! Stop stop stop!” She quickly looked around and saw a free car park. “Tui, park over there.”

“What?” Once Tui had parked the ute, she said, “You gave me a heart attack! What’s going on?”

Larissa grinned at her. “Sorry, but I saw a dress in a shop window, and it’s a must stop dress!” She dragged Tui into the shop, and found the shop assistant was free, fortunately. She knew she didn’t have long so she said she wanted what was in the shop window. While the assistant was getting the clothes she wanted ready after checking her sizes, she had a quick look around, and saw some more. She just looooved the clothes in this shop, and it was all she could do not to jump for joy, really. Tui was laughing at her, no doubt she looked just like Steph had back in the stripper shop in Melbourne, but this shop ... it was awesome. The shop assistant came back and measured her feet, and then went off and returned with more, and Larissa took it all into the change room. As quick as she could, she put the outfit on, and then swept the curtain back, and said, “Well, what do you think?”

Tui hadn’t seen the outfit in the shop window, and didn’t really have a picture of what Larissa had tried on, so her eyes bugged out of her head. As well they might, what Larissa was trying on was as radical and amazing as Sharon’s dress. The clothing she was wearing was like a Hollywood take on a medieval warrior princess, with retro almost steam punk or gothic styling, and the heavy material and colours were straight out of Lord of the Rings. And when Larissa looked at herself in the mirror ... wow wow wow. What she was wearing was a thick black corset top with ornate lace on it, some thick leggings, high black leather boots, and a very dark blue hoodie dress with a tree like the white tree of Gondor on the front of it. Also, some fingerless leather gloves with buckles that looked exactly like an archer would wear on their arms.

She hummed to herself. She really felt awesome wearing this outfit, like she was ready for the adventure her life could be. Even Sharon’s dress, classy and sexy as it was, was nothing compared to this outfit. Not sexy, but so ... exciting, empowering. Feel me roar, she wanted to shout out. Fuck wearing this was an experience, and she just knew that it would absolutely knock Julian’s socks off, even without the whole Lord of the Rings thing going on. Hell, she had to buy all this, cost was totally irrelevant.

Tui didn’t know what to say, couldn’t express it, but her face said enough. Larissa smiled at the shop assistant, and said, “I’m definitely getting this. Do you think the corset is the right fit?” She took the dress off, and the shop assistant adjusted the corset for her – she’d look even better with bigger tits, but it worked enough for her. After a bit of poking and prodding, they agreed that it was right, and then she grabbed a little lace mini-dress that they had in matching material and colours. That with the high boots ... just as out there, and very sexy too, when she tried it on, especially without her bra on. Woo, she really liked this shop. She put her shorts and t-shirt back on, and said she was buying all of it. Then she turned to Tui and said, “What about you? You buying anything?”

Tui looked at her in a surprise, and said, “Oh, no, I couldn’t. This is not my thing – way too out there.” And then, realising that might sound critical, she said, “But you, you look absolutely sensational! That look really works for you, and I love it. Julian will too.”

Larissa gave her a long look. If she loved it...? Tui was an awesome young woman, she really needed to feel more confident outside her comfort space. Something for her to keep in mind, she decided. Then the assistant told her the total – less than she thought, though certainly not cheap. Well, of course not. What she was buying was real clothing suitable for hard work, good quality: she’d looked at the seams while she was at it – Sharon had taught her a bit. She saw Tui wince at the price and realised that money was another reason she wasn’t buying. Well, at least it wasn’t a problem for Larissa, so she happily handed her credit card over.

“You can spend that much without talking to Julian?” Tui asked.

Larissa shrugged. “Not usually, but for this? I’ll wear it as a surprise, and he’ll just love it, and he’ll be OK with it. This is only the third time I’ve bought something like this. And don’t say anything! It has to be a surprise.” And then, because she could see Tui’s expression, she said, “I’ll make sure to do it this week sometime. Maybe when we’re in a hotel for dinner.” Yeah, Tui grinned, and she knew that she’d read that expression right.

Back in the van, she looked at her watch – that took twenty-five minutes. Totally worth it, but now they were a bit late for the sailing, and she’d give them an abject apology.

Tui parked in their reserved car park only a ten minutes late, and their host was waiting for them there – another fan, her dad owned a sailing boat and they were sailing around Wellington harbour. They’d had something else lined up if it wasn’t a nice day, but today was glorious, so the sailing was a go. Abi’s dad was waiting on the boat, and she said they should expect to get wet, did they need to get changed? Sure did, so Larissa changed on the spot, a sexy bikini and then her damp t-shirt over the top. Tui gave her a funny look, and did the same thing, but with a wry smile on her face. By the time they’d finished, Abi was laughing at them because they had an audience – a few teenage guys had magically appeared from nowhere. “Show’s over, guys.” Larissa told them, and they walked along the dock to the boat.

Quickly they were out on the harbour running on the outboard, and Abi’s dad Peter showed them around the city docks; Wellington harbour wasn’t that big, but it was busy. Once he turned away from the docks, he stopped the motor and the three girls helped him get the sail up, and then Larissa and Tui took turns learning how to steer the boat.

Wellington harbour was magnificent – sparkling blue water surrounded by lush green hills. Abi told them the local Maori legend of the Taniwha, the massive sea monster that carved the harbour out of the hills, and then they passed one of the inter-island ferries they’d be going on the next day. Larissa was stunned by its size; she’d imagined something very much smaller, but this was a full ocean-going ship. In fact, Peter told her, the bottom level of the boat was reserved for goods trains, six huge trains in there.