Larissa's Pledge
Copyright© 2022 by Oz Ozzie
Chapter 9
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 9 - Larissa is married, and her life is good. But what about her friends and family? And will Julian her husband and her best friend Layna be able to sway the Australian election, and make a difference to the environment? Will she hold true to her family and friends and her values when she’s challenged?
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Mult Romantic BiSexual Heterosexual Light Bond Swinging Exhibitionism Massage Oral Sex Nudism Violence
Monday 23 May 2022
She woke early again, before it was light. Seven hours of sleep ... lovely, and more than she expected given the camping mattress. She looked at her phone, and sighed again. Should she have lit that fire about the sex ban for alcohol? Last night, she’d worried that it was going to be an enormous amount of grief and pain for her. Now she looked in her heart and thought about it. She was right about the grief and pain, she decided, it really would be a challenge. But then she thought about her life. Micky’s life. Layna’s life. Her mum’s life. Toni’s life, even. Sal. Kat. Ruby. Zara. Amanda. She could just keep listing women. Brave, passionate, loving. And all deeply damaged. No, if there was any chance she could made things better, it didn’t matter what the price was, she’d pay up. After all, she had Layna’s example to emulate. And Julian was right, she wouldn’t pay it alone. Though if she wasn’t going to pay it alone, then, she shouldn’t decide alone. She’d have to try and get as many of her friends together when she got back to Australia, and decide with them. Yeah, that was the right decision. Oh, and Julian’s friends too - they’d all be as affected as her friends would be. She sent a bunch of messages off, asking everyone to join her for a big party Saturday night, and asking Sophie if she’d host it.
Julian woke up, so she told him what she decided. “Love it,” Julian said, and kissed her hard. He wanted to get it on, but she had a better idea. They went out and had a hard swim out from the beach and back again. Then they did it on the beach, rolling around in the wet sand. If anyone was watching, she wanted them to know that Julian filled her up just right. It turned out Layna was watching, and awake enough to get some photos. Today’s kissing photo, she told them, and then when Joe emerged, Larissa and Julian ran cover so Layna and Joe could do it too - they weren’t cool with anyone seeing them like Julian and Larissa, but it was still Joe’s fantasy. Well, one of them, and they were both all smiles when they were done. They were getting the fire going again before their hosts emerged, though Lisa’s smile told Larissa that she knew exactly what they’d been doing.
They were eating a hot breakfast when Layna burst into laughter. “Wow. You know we posted that picture of us kissing for our patreons, last night.” The others nodded. “Well, it took to about the third comment for them to start wondering where we were. By the tenth, they’d decided it wasn’t in Victoria - not cold enough. Then someone posted that they saw us leaving the country at Sydney airport. It took them a while, but they narrowed it down to one of the three islands right here. Impressive! Now they’re discussing what on earth we’re doing in the Chesapeake. They have no clue, fortunately.”
“How on earth did they guess that?” Lisa wanted to know.
“A combination of things. The vegetation pointed them to mid-US eastern coastline. Then there’s the wave strength, the position of the sun, the fact that there’s a cargo ship in the background, and a US Navy something or other, and then finally the layout of the lighthouses in the distance. Someone even identified the ship - apparently there’s an app you can see them all with.”
“What?” Julian said, and set about finding the app. “Awesome!” He said when he had it going, and identified the ships they could see in the channel.
They packed up and made their way back to the same dock by a different route, exploring the islands and still counting birds as carefully as they could following Dan’s method. Mid-morning, Layna’s phone rang. She fished it out of her bag carefully, and answered it.
“Hi, Madeline.” Larissa frowned, Madeline was the PA to Niall, the billionaire who’d organised the trip with them.
“How’s it going?” Then there was a delay while Layna was listening to Madeline.
“Really?” Layna was genuinely surprised. “Well, it’s not like we can say no, but what do they want?”
“Oh no, we’ve got nothing appropriate for that, none of us. Of course not.”
“Well, we don’t get in to late tonight.”
“No, that could work. That’d be Jo. I’ll get Jo to send you our measurements. OK, see you tomorrow. Bye.”
By the end of that discussion, they were all stopped and looking at Layna in amazement. What on earth was that conversation about?
Layna looked at each of them, shaking her head with a wondering smile on her face. “You guys will not believe this. And you’ll never guess either, not in a million years. Lunch tomorrow has been moved from the hotel to the White House, in the West Wing.”
Right, she got collective disbelief for that. Larissa had shivers down her spine. Lunch at the White House? She could only ask what Layna had asked: “What do they want?”
“Well, beyond a photo op, which they definitely want, Madeline doesn’t know. But no doubt more of the same, turned up to the max.” Right. Political games. “Lunch is in the Navy mess room, where the President eats. So it’s right up to the top, though she’s sure we aren’t going to meet the President or the VP - that requires much more security clearance than we’re getting. But the photo op.” She frowned. “The White House wants glamour. And we don’t have anything like that. So she’s going to put Jo in contact with someone in Washington, and figure out what she wants for us, and we’re doing a fitting first thing tomorrow, and they’ll come to the hotel to dress us. And when we get back to the dock, the first thing we have to do is the paperwork for our security clearance. And don’t say anything to rest of the team for now, OK?”
Larissa was shaking her head. “This is exactly the sort of stuff I was worried about last night,” she said. “What do we know about all this? It sounds like trouble to me too. They want something. Something very specific. Someone set this up, why?”
Layna nodded. “I have no idea either. Julian?”
“Nah. Not me. I mean, it could simply be the celebrity thing, everyone scratching each other’s backs off your presence, but I wouldn’t have thought you two were important enough here. No, I expect that there’ll be more, something specific. But I have no idea what it will be.”
“Right. We’ll have to be super alert.” Layna shook her head. “I’d never have agreed to all this if I knew this was coming.”
“I don’t understand,” Lisa said. “You’re invited to the White House, and you’re not jumping for joy? What’s wrong with you?! That’s like the pinnacle, right there!” Dan and Vi were nodding and agreed strongly.
“I think we’d be happier if we knew what the agenda is,” Joe said. “But we won’t. If it’s purely social, that’d be ... interesting. But it’s probably not. Anyway, it’d probably be more exciting for us if we were Americans. Sorry. Maybe we should invite you along?”
Lisa just about fell out of her kayak at that, and her face suddenly got a terrified expression on it. Larissa almost laughed, but that wouldn’t be fair. Then Lisa said, “Oh, you can’t do that, but OK, I get the point.”
When they got to the dock, they all got their computers out and looked in their email and spent half an hour filling out the tiresome paperwork for the WAVES system, whatever that meant. Who they were, where they’d been, who their families were, what jobs they’d had. Any criminal convictions etc, no none of them, though both Julian and Layna had been arrested for protesting twice but not charged. Larissa was last to finish, since she had to find details about her employer that weren’t obvious - she didn’t even know whether it was a company or a government department. She found that she was officially an employee of a foreign government, which meant another section had to be filled in.
Once that was done, they were back on the road, girls in one car, and guys in the other. Lisa drove the rental car, fingers crossed that worked out OK, but she was the safest option. They spent a lot of the trip speculating - well, dreaming - of how they’d be prettied up for the White House the next day, or if they were ever invited. Larissa sat in the back, and listened and joined in a little, though she’d never been super-invested in that sort of stuff. Too poor when she was young, really, to have options other than the simplest, and she’d come to like the simplicity. And she felt that tomorrow it would be an excellent idea to stick to that, since it worked for her.
While she was listening, she looked at her email. James, Dave and Bob had discussed it and recommended that she not get involved with the corporations, just to politely decline to talk to them directly, so she did that, bcc:ing Zali. Twice, since she had another email that was pretty similar. Then she had an invitation to talk to an AFL football club in Melbourne in the week after they got home about her idea, from their head of player performance, who’d been at the dinner. She shook her head; she hadn’t thought that idea through at all when she said it. In fact, she almost made it up on the spot, though she’d been thinking about the general idea for a while. Too late now, so she went with what she decided that morning, and said she would plan to do it, but could only confirm once she got home. She got an email from Jackie, that journalist from the dinner, wanting to do something, and do it as soon as she could - Larissa had lit a fire that was spreading rapidly. Well, she had no choice on that one now, she had to say she would do it.
But this was all spinning out of control rapidly, and she felt breathless, as if she was about to fall off a cliff. There was no way she could have a life, have friends, and manage all of what was coming. She said something about that to Layna, who nodded. “Yes, I feel the same way quite often. You need a Chez, an executive assistant that does as much of this stuff for you as possible. And it has to be someone who’s judgment and commitment you really trust. Given the reason, a friend, too.”
Larissa frowned. That made sense - but who would it be? And where would the money come from? She asked Layna about that. “That’s the price of all this for Deanna. She’ll understand, and they have to support that.” Larissa nodded. That made sense. But who would it be? She thought about that for a little while, but she needed to talk to whoever it might be in person. She re-sent her invitations for Saturday night, but upgraded them to an invitation to a ‘council for declaration of war’ which would get their attention more than just an invitation. Sophie confirmed she’d host but said their house wasn’t big enough - and it wasn’t - so she’d invited them all to Dave and Kat’s place. Yes, that’d do it. Actually, that had some real poetry. People in Australia were waking up, and telling her they were coming. And she had more tweets about the dinner and the fall out from it. She ignored that; Steph would tell her if she really needed to pay attention to it, like if some guy popped up claiming he’d fucked her. It hadn’t happened yet, but surely it was inevitable.
By this time they were at Annapolis, and Lisa found them a park right down by the dock. Dan parked close by, and then they had a short walk to their restaurant which was right by the dock. Julian pulled her back from the others, and said, “Babe, are you OK?”
She told him what emails she’d got, and what Layna had said. He gave her a hug and said, “Babe, she’s right, we’ll talk about it later. You right for dinner?” She was, she grinned, and they caught up with the others.
In the restaurant, there were eight people from Dan’s department, and a few more still coming. They were introduced to a professor, a research lead, a couple of post-grad researchers, and some undergrads. Layna was organised to sit with the two senior people on either side of her, but Lisa organised for Larissa to sit next to another student; this was her candidate guy then. After introductions, one of them wanted to know about the kayaking, so they talked about that, and they did their best to be appreciative for what was a lovely opportunity. But discussion was only ever going in one direction, which was their invitation for the White House tomorrow. And the magazine article, which was passed around for consumption on an iPad. But the focus was around the visit to the White House, and what was going on. The younger students were excited - climate change getting recognition at the White House! - while the older leaders frowned and frowned some more. Right: politics coming their way.
At one stage they were asked where they were staying in Washington. “Oh, some old place,” Joe said. “I’m not sure why, but that’s what they organised for us.” What place? “It’s called the flower something?”
Larissa looked it up fastest, and said, “The Mayflower.” Suddenly all the locals were laughing at them. “Some old place?” Lisa exclaimed. “That’s The Mayflower, the grand old dame of Washington. You really have made it if you’re staying there.” Had any of them stayed there, Joe asked, know what it was like. They all laughed, as if!
Most of the discussion was focused on Layna’s project, naturally, and Julian was the middle of that, so Larissa could chill a bit, and she had a good chat to the young guy next to her once the restaurant got a bit noisier, along with Lisa, who was sitting next to him on the other side. She liked him - pleasant and polite, and sociable, without being a jerk, and still living at home along with some siblings. But also, fit and really intrigued to learn about Australia. He passed that test, so Larissa went to the ladies with Lisa and they agreed, and when they got back, Larissa gradually upped the flirting with him, and then gave him a subtle and not-so-subtle come on, right in front of Lisa. He stayed polite, but he didn’t engage, didn’t get interested. Now that was a top class response, and she backed off. She didn’t need to say anything to Lisa, she saw: Lisa had seen exactly what happened, and grinned her thanks. Finally it was time for them to hit the road, and they thanked the department for their support by paying for the dinner, and all gave Lisa big hugs for looking after them for a couple of days.
In the car, they all agreed for Larissa to sit in the front and hook her phone up to the car so they could all listen to the two phone calls she was making on the way to Mayflower: Deanna and Zali.
First, she called Deanna. “Hi Deanna, it’s Larissa here!”
“Oh, Larissa, thank you so much for calling me. Where are you right now?”
Larissa told her quickly about their day, and what they were doing now, and what they were doing tomorrow. Without mentioning the White House. No, there was enough going on. When that was done, Deanna said, “OK. So let’s get to business, since we don’t have long. When you suggested your sex ban after alcohol, I was skeptical. How long have you been planning that, by the way?”
“Oh, I hadn’t been planning it at all. I mean, I’d been thinking about the alcohol problem but I just decided while I was up there to not just describe it as a problem, but say we should do something about it.”
Deanna laughed. “You really didn’t sound like it was a spur of the moment thing, but I believe you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been trying to decide ever since whether I regret it or not.”
“I can understand that. When you first said it, I was sceptical, you know. It’s just too big an idea. I said to myself, nah, no one will go for that. Too radical, too invasive. I’ll be honest, I said nice things about what you said afterwards, that quip about the bar, just to be polite. But then all night, I had woman after woman coming up to me telling how good an idea it is. How they agree it’s impossible to imagine, but impossible for us to not to try. What was your feedback like?”
“Oh similar. I mean, mostly I had women telling me that they were going to tell their guys their new minimum performance expectations, and I couldn’t tell how serious they were, though I enjoyed that anyway. I got more than a few questions about how well it would work as a media campaign but what do I know about that? But then Layna’s project team, the next day, they all signed on to that, and promised me to make it real in their lives. And I keep getting tweeted about it, the same. And now it’s in the magazine. How did that happen?”
“Well, that was me, actually,” Deanna said. “The editor was there, they always get invited, but I asked her to mention it once I saw what reactions were like, and we had an emergency board meeting the next morning to talk about it. See, this is a unique time. With a new government coming in, they’re in a hurry to do certain things, and one is to do something about violence to women. They know that they need to draw a line in the sand and be obviously different about that. And a bunch of their policy makers were there last week, and they watched the responses to your idea. They loved it. The government could never run with that idea, but we could, and they’ll support us if we do, make it part of their overall response. I talked to the Labor member who’s going to be the new minister for women’s affairs, she’s a friend, and again, it can’t be official policy, but she’ll support it, and she wants to meet you.”
Larissa was just shaking her head. This was way beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Seriously way beyond it. “Umm, OK.”
“But all this depends on you, Larissa. It’s your idea, but is it just an idea, or will you take the lead in executing it? Will you step up and make a difference? So that’s the discussion we need to have. You don’t need to decide right now, though you need to decide soon. What I really wanted to do was to talk to you as soon as possible before the big corporates start chasing after you. They will, and you’ll have to decide what you care about.”
“Umm, they already have. Two of them already did, wrote to me and said that if we could align our vision somehow, they could help me out. We know that that means, Layna’s had the same, and I won’t be selling out to them, there’s nothing they can offer me that’ll change my mind. So I asked my dads how to respond, and then I politely declined to talk to them directly. I bcc:ed Zali on those responses because she also warned me about it.”
“Oh, that’s great.” And her relief was palpable over the phone. “I’m really glad you did that. And I’ll follow you up once you’re back home, and do my best to convince you to be involved. Do you have any questions for me now?”
“I do. I assume that someone will dig dirt on me, and as you could tell, there’ll be plenty to be found. That’ll hurt, but I’m willing to take it on the chin if it makes women’s lives better. And my answer to all of it is, that’s why you shouldn’t drink. So can you wear that? And also, they’ll just try to grind me down, and that’s already happening, I can’t deal with what’s going on now. Layna says I need an executive assistant who can handle it for me so I don’t go crazy, that’s how she survives. In fact, Layna has a whole team.”
“Yes, I totally understand. The dirt, I expected that from your story, and I think we can handle that the way you say - I’m glad you’re thinking about that. And I know what you mean about trying to grind you down, they do that to me too. I can give you someone...”
“No. That won’t cut it. It has to be someone I trust, I pick, I know they’re committed and they’ll share deeply in my life. But of course, I have no money for that.”
“OK. I understand what you’re saying. I’ll think about that, and have something to tell you about that early next week. Anything else?”
“Hang on.” Larissa put her on mute. “Anything else? What do we make of all that?”
“Seems reasonable so far,” Layna said. “I think you just say that you’re thinking about it.”
“Agree,” Julian said.
She put the phone off mute. “I’ll think about it, but Julian pointed out that I won’t be doing this alone, my friends will have to back me up. So I’m going to talk to them about it, and a group of us are getting together to do that on Saturday. evening. So I’d like to call you on Saturday about what you might be planning. Is that possible?”
“Sure. Unless you want to talk to me in person. I can do that if you want to. I’m in Melbourne on Saturday.”
“I’ll think about that, thanks.”
Well, they finished up the call, and Larissa had a few minutes to think about that before she called Zali. Well, decompress. “I feel like this is taking over our trip,” she said to the others.
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