Chapter 22

Sunday 5 June 2022

After doing yoga with the family, they sat around the breakfast table, and Steph got them all looking at the news. The news was full of articles about the impending electricity grid crisis. Were they because of Layna’s video? Steph thought they were. Then there was more coverage of her campaign, but the only actual new thing was an opinion piece by Peter Nutter. Larissa had to read that one.

It was Peter Nutter’s usual fare, full of inflammatory language and stinging criticisms of popular culture. But to her surprise, he was right on board with the campaign. Quite reasonably he pointed out that no one in the world could be in favour of domestic violence, or it’s hidden sibling, emotional abuse, and there was no question that alcohol was fuel on the fire, and he was explicit that he was quoting his friend Larissa directly there. He said that he had to be an favour of any campaign to reduce the consumption of alcohol, as long as it wasn’t taking people’s freedom away, and this one wasn’t. And as for the no sex after alcohol part, that made complete sense - why would you settle for less than the best? Wow. He finished by expressing the hope that Larissa shared: that this would reduce the amount of domestic violence out there. Well, how about that. She fired a message off to Cass asking her how she was going, and asking her to thank her Dad for his column.

She had piles of invitations, demands to do things as part of the campaign. Anything that didn’t come by email, she said to email her, and sent a message to Suzy: she wasn’t saying yes to anything, they’d talk about it later in the week after Suzy had reviewed them all with Deanna’s team. Suzy replied with a series of smily faces.

Then they all went to church. Larissa wasn’t sure how that would go after youth group on Friday night, so Sophie and Steph were going to stick to her like glue in case someone got into her.

To her surprise, Tim and Vicki were wearing ribbons. When she thanked Vicki, Vicki said, “Oh, but of course, how can we not? We have to support you on this. And look.” She pointed around, and Larissa could see that the church was way more crowded than usual. “We’ve got a lot of extra people today, and from talking to them, it’s a flow on from Friday night. Maybe they’re here to see what we say about you, and your photo, but what we’re hearing is that they want to be part of a church that’s doing something, like during covid. Of course, success isn’t just how many bodies are here, but it’s still good.”

“Oh. Did you get much criticism?”

“Sure, we got some comment, but it was mostly positive. You know who’s going to be negative.” Larissa sure did.

“By the way, we have to leave before the end today, to go off and set up a lunch.” She didn’t want Vicki to think that they were upset or anything.

Tim’s sermon was all about her campaign. Explicitly so; he explained what the campaign was, and explained what the Bible said about sex: a gift from God to enjoy as a basis for a loving marriage, and then pointed out that what the campaign was really about, when you stripped out the marketing hook, was building better relationships, and that’s what Jesus was about. And he quoted her saying, Jesus was a party guy, as long as it was a party done right, and challenged the church to do that: invite people to share a party done right with them. Families, friends, work mates. No alcohol, and link that to the campaign, but still have a good time. Not the sex bit, of course, that was only appropriate in the right time and place. Then he talked about Jesus building relationships right, and the price that sometimes had.

Julian gave him a thumbs up as they walked out, and then they drove off towards Traralgon. In separate cars, since they still had the one from Wednesday night to return to the airport at Traralgon. Larissa spent the entire trip on the phone to Tui, talking about Larissa’s Friday night which had even made it big on social media in New Zealand, and Tui’s night the night before, her dancing party in the barn with her local friends and band, and with Sandi. Tui had had the best time ever, and she was thrilled to pieces. Also, to her surprise, Tui was driving home from church up at her favourite Marae - she’d been talking to Sandi about that, and the two of them were in the car together. Tui told her that quite a bit of the discussion at her church had been about Larissa’s campaign, because the older women she’d met there knew only too well that alcohol was a huge problem in New Zealand too. Would she come over and launch it with Prime Minister Jacinda? Tui had txted her friendly minister to find out if that’s something they’d be interested in. What? Things were way out of control now! Of course, she didn’t say yes to that immediately, but that did sound like something that would happen.

Julian picked her up at the airport, and she looked at her messages. There were some from Cass, so she answered Cass.

✉ Cass: Things are OK at home. Not great. Dad’s still a stubborn asshole sometimes
✉ Cass: I’ve been watching you. You’re spectacular! Steph tweeted to watch the footy so we did
✉ Cass: Mum and I talked about it and laid down the law to Dad on this one. He doesn’t much like the sex bit - specially for me - but he accepted that he had to be on the right side
✉ Larissa: Thanks. I’m still just trying to do the right thing. Glad your dad’s on board. But ... haven’t you moved on the sex bit?
✉ Cass: Yes kinda. But he doesn’t know. Mum does
✉ Larissa: Glad your mum does. Your boy looking after you nicely?
✉ Cass: Y. Very happy!
✉ Larissa: Great. Blow his mind. I never regret doing that
✉ Cass: You blew my mind Friday night. How close did you come to going down on Julian on live TV?
✉ Larissa: Sigh. That moment was so intoxicating, and it was on for about half a second before I thought better of it
✉ Cass: It was very fleeting but also very seductive. I did it on your behalf ;-)
✉ Larissa: Thanks and you weren’t the only one!

They had arrived at Louise’s place by this stage. They were walking up to the door when Amara and Charlene burst out of it and made a run at Julian and just about jumped on him. Larissa smiled at them and hugged Louise instead. She let the girls hang on Julian while she had a quick discussion with Louise.

“Great news about your job!”

“Yep. I really am happy about it, it’s just perfect. But I decided you’re right about my position with Bob and Mary and your mum, so there’s a tinge of regret there. I talked about it with them, and they agreed with your logic.”

“I understand.” Larissa gave her a sad smile. “I hope that you can find something more solid and enduring here, and that you can remain friends with them.”

Louise gave her an enigmatic smile. “We’ll talk about that tonight. For now, thanks. I really think that it’s you that’s transformed my life, and my daughters.” She grinned. “They were so thrilled to have you recognise them on Friday, just gave them so much standing in front of their peers, and they listened to you and sucked in everything you said, and what you said is now their concrete reality. Which is lovely, but also, they did rather get into me about my past decisions. So I had a big heart to heart with them yesterday, and then they went off to a friends place for a girls sleep over last night, heaps of friends, and I’m told that they had a huge hug fest and did dancing in their underwear, and the mum whose house it was at it was thrilled because she would have had problems with alcohol sneaking in in the past, but this time they were all militant about not having any. So that’s your work.”

Sweet. “Great. I’ll ask them about it. Anyway, we gotta run, see you later.” She kissed Louise goodbye and then went and grabbed Amara and Charlene and said, “Hey, where’s my cuddle?” They laughed, let go of Julian and hugged her tight, and she got two very solid kisses from them.

“We saw you Friday, and not Julian, but we love hugging you too.”

“Great. And did Julian get very nice kisses like that too?” Of course. Larissa laughed and said, “But I didn’t see them, so do it again!” They were only too happy to do that, and she smiled at them and said, “Great. OK, we better go.”

In the car, Larissa said, “So your mum tells me you had a sleepover last night. I love sleepovers, so tell me how it went. And don’t hold back because Julian’s here, he never went to a girl’s sleepover, you can blow his mind!”

They laughed and launched into an explanation of how the tweet of them with Larissa and Julian, and with just Julian, had gone around their peer group like wildfire, and everyone had wanted to talk to them about what Julian and Larissa were like and they’d suddenly turned from wallflowers into girls who had friends everywhere they turned, and then they’d gotten invited to that sleep over, which was the biggest deal ever, with the cool girls. Then after Larissa’s talk on Friday, the lead girls had dragged them into a planning session with the others, and they’d abandoned the plans to sneak some vodka in past the mum, and collectively decided that they were doing an underwear sleep over, and it was hugs, grooming and dancing all night, and they’d gotten to sleep sometime around 4am, and it was the best night ever.

“Sounds great!” Larissa said, “and the idea of twenty of you girls in undies having fun all night has blown Julian’s mind!” They laughed a lot for that. “I really like the idea of a big hugfest. Do you reckon that my friends are too old for that?” They laughed more for that.

“Actually,” Julian said, “I think it sounds sweet and lovely, and very trusting. I’m really glad you got to experience it. You’ll be much better friends after that, I reckon.”

There was silence from the back of the car, and then Charlene said, “We are. But I also kissed some of them.”

“Great! I love kissing my friends,” Larissa said. “If we did a hugfest, I’m sure it would turn into a kissing-fest. Oh, I need to do that!”

“Umm, Larissa, I liked kissing them. Does that make me gay?” That was asked in a pretty serious tone.

She turned and looked at both of them.

“Oh, Charlene, not at all. I like kissing everyone. Boys, girls, younger people, older people. I love it. I call myself a pan-kisser.” They laughed for that. “But that doesn’t mean I want to have sex with them. I’ve done sex with girls and liked it, but really, I’m into boys. I’m really into Julian. So just because you like kissing your friends doesn’t mean anything. Not that it matters. Maybe you like doing it more with boys, or with girls, or both, when you get to that later. It’s no one else’s business but the people you do it with.”

Charlene thought about that. “Mum does it with both boys and girls.”

Larissa nodded seriously. “She does. And maybe you will, maybe you won’t. She won’t mind whatever, but you do know that your mum hasn’t always made the best decisions, right? She’s trying really hard now though.”

“She said she’s going to help run your campaign at school,” Amara said. “Do you think the fact she made bad decisions will be good or bad for doing that?”

“That’s a very grown up question,” Julian said. “Very perceptive, Amara. Larissa told you all her history, right?” She did, Amara confirmed. “And Larissa didn’t always make good decisions?” No, they agreed, she very much didn’t. “So I think the fact that your mother hasn’t always made good decisions might make her a very good choice for helping with Larissa’s program, right?” The girls solemnly agreed that it could very much be that way, yes. “Great. And it’ll be super important for people to find out about her past in the right way, at the right time, and you, my friends, you’ll make sure people find out in the right way, right?” That was critical, because poorly timed ill-chosen words from Charlene and Amara could be pretty damaging.

“Oh, yes,” Amara said, “we want to do everything we can for the campaign. Larissa, you’re awesome. The other girls were talking about you and we all watched you on YouTube. I think half the school has a crush on you. Boys and girls.”

Larissa laughed. “Well, it’s good that you have crush on Julian, not me, then.”

“Oh, you know?” It was all Larissa could do not to laugh. She knew? Ahh, the innocence of youth.

“Sure, I know. And I’m OK with it. I have a massive crush on Julian, big enough to marry him, so of course you do too, he’s a really great guy. And I don’t mind him sharing hugs and kisses with you. You haven’t really had a dad to give you those things, have you?”

“No, we never did.”

“Well, hug and kiss Julian all you like to make up for it. Like you, I didn’t have a dad I could hug, as I told you, so when I found a man I could hug like a father, I hugged him really tightly and it made a big difference for me. Connected me to my feelings and my principles really well.”

Silence to that, because they’d just turned up Bob’s driveway, and Julian had spoken to security. Yeah, that was pretty overwhelming. “OK. We’re nearly there. It’s just us kids, all the adults have gone out, and we’re just going around the back to the gym and the pool area. I like that part of the house because we can look down and see all their farm animals.” They were still nervous. “Remember, if you’re nervous, you can hug one of us. There’s two of us, so you can have us as much as you want, and you can swap whenever you want. And here’s a game for you to play: which of the boys is the most nervous about yoga?”

“What?”

“Serious, none of the other boys have done yoga before, so it’s their first time, like you, and they’re nervous, they don’t want us girls to laugh at them. So see if you can agree with me over which one is the most nervous, but don’t say anything, OK? I bet one of them goes on a fartfest because he’s so nervous.”

They burst into laughter for that. Good, mission accomplished. When they parked, the girls got out and hugged Julian tight, one on each side, and they walked around the side of the house. Larissa understood how they felt; this was a very imposing mansion and walking around it took way longer than made sense. Happily, there were some sheep up against the fence near the house, so she led them down to pat the sheep - these ones were usually pretty tame and happy to eat grass out your hands, and the girls enjoyed that.

Lunch was in the glass atrium they used during winter beside the pool, which got closed up and covered after Easter. Her siblings were busy setting up lunch when they arrived, which had taken a little coordination to achieve, and first she introduced Charlene and Amara to Thomas and Jane, who were the nearest, and then the others. Then they sat down at the table, with the girls in the middle on either side. Lunch was deliberately a meal that required lots of passing things around, to keep everyone busy, and the girls most of all, and conversation flowed nicely. Larissa gave her siblings an appreciative smile - they knew how to do this stuff, and they were all doing their best to keep the flow easy and natural, laughing and joking with girls about getting to know Traralgon, and getting to know each other as they were doing that. Most of them had been to Traralgon High School, so that gave them something in common to talk about, and it also led to the first real question from Charlene.

“Hey, all this,” she waved at the house, “you guys are even richer than I realised. Why did you go to a public high school then?”

“Good question,” Matt said, “and plenty of people asked us that when we were there. We were so over that question.” Isabella nodded enthusiastically. “Mum and Dad weren’t that wealthy when I started kinder, and so I started at the local school, they didn’t really think. And then Isabella did too, and we had friends, and it just made sense. But Mum and Dad did think that it was good for us to know a wide range of people. And I was always happy, there were better teams to play on.”

And lots of girls desperate to have a shot at Matt, so that was another reason he was happy, Larissa knew, but she wasn’t going to say that.

“But we could still act like rich kid snots,” Isabella said. “For example, Thomas was in my class, but I never even noticed he existed. He’s a really great guy, but when Larissa introduced us, I didn’t have a clue we had been in the same class. Like, so embarrassing.” She saw the look on the girls faces, so she said, “Oh, Larissa and Thomas, girls, they were dirt poor. Really, I only knew about her because my friends used to laugh at her, she didn’t even have enough money for hairspray, and we didn’t even notice Thomas.”

They could see Charlene thinking that over. “That’s weird,” she said, “you two were the richest by miles, and you two were the poorest in the school, yes?” Yep. Pretty much, they were nodding. “And now you’re really good friends?”

“Sure,” Matt said. “When Mum and Dad said we had to get to know Larissa we weren’t much happy about that, cause what was the point of getting to know her? Poor, drunk, useless, that’s what I thought. And I don’t think Larissa wanted to much either, but she did it for her mum’s sake. But now we’ve learnt ... it’s not about money, it’s about how you live your life, your principles, and we’ve become very good friends indeed. And I think that it’s been good for all of us, getting our heads around each other’s background.”

“Right,” Amara said, “Larissa told us about your holiday together.”

“Which one?” Ella asked her. Well, of course, after telling her their perspective about visiting Jane’s family’s secret beach, Ella and Isabella had to explain their other holiday to Charlene and Amara. Larissa listened, laughing to herself as she listened to Ella and Isabella carefully describing that holiday to the girls. Because they had to avoid the R rated parts of that one, and really, what was left? That was one wild fucking long weekend.

That met down on the lakes on the Thursday night before Easter. Matt had organised a boat for all of Easter, and the weather forecast was perfect, the last beautiful weather of summer, warm and calm, and they had a 4 berth cruiser to explore the lakes all Easter, just the four couples. They’d planned a pretty wild weekend as it was, and Larissa had come prepared. But the weekend had started with rather a big disaster, because the 4 berth cruiser had suffered a catastrophic engine failure while they were getting it ready, and there was none other available. What the company could produce was a very nice 3 berth boat, could they work with that?

Matt hadn’t dealt with that very well but the girls had got together and decided that since the weekend was going to be pretty wild anyway, why not just do it, and each night one of the couples would split up and sleep with the other couples in a threesome. It hadn’t taken them long to sell the guys on that, and then they were off.

Matt and Isabella had done wild boat holidays, talked them up, so they’d agreed in advance what the rules of the weekend were: anything above the waist was on, and hands anywhere were a go too. Even between real siblings; Isabella had done it before, though a long time ago, and Thomas had grinned at Larissa and said he reckoned he could suck it up for that. Even Ella said she was in, and happy about it.

Larissa had started the first night off with a bang: she brought remote controlled vibrators for Isabella and Mason, and got them to stick them in each other. Then she’d tied their hands behind their backs and the rest of them had spent all evening passing the controllers around to each other, so they all had a go driving one of Mason or Isabella nuts. The rest of them unpacked all their stuff, and sorted the boat, and ran their hands all over Mason and Isabella whenever they wandered by. At the end of the evening, Larissa untied them and told them to go for it. When the storm was over, they both said that they’d never been that desperate, and could they do it again, now? Larissa grinned and made sure they didn’t get it again, but several others did. Even Ella had a go. Larissa spent a long two hours sunbathing naked on the front of the boat, waving to people going by, while the others took turns putting sunscreen all over her and controlling the remote vibrator inside her. At the end of that, Jane blindfolded her and let her inside. She rode Julian while someone else held her butt, finger inside, controlling her movements, and someone else kissed her and stuck their fingers down her throat. Wow, she’d only come harder than that twice.

The first night, they’d split Isabella and Mason up - Julian and Larissa had Mason, and Thomas and Jane had Isabella. Larissa had loved lying between her two men, both of them feeling her up and kissing her, and then she rode Julian while Mason ran his hands all over both of them. Then she gave Mason a very passionate kiss good night, and left him hanging. In the morning, she said he had to bring her off, and then Julian said it was his turn, and Mason brought Julian off, a thrilled look on his face for that, and then the two of them lay on either side of Mason and played him very slowly until he blew. Larissa had been surprised Julian would do that, but he said that while it wasn’t his thing, he did want to make Mason happy.

The next night, she’d been in bed with Matt and Ella. That had been very gentle and loving and she’d felt very close to them. Julian had Mason and Isabella, and the two of them had Isabella coming ‘nearly continuously’ all night, according a very satisfied Isabella. The next night Mason and Isabella entertained Matt, and Isabella said that she really did love her brother very much when the morning came. Thomas and Jane hosted Ella, and made sure that she was as satisfied as Isabella had been. The last night, Jane slept in with Matt and Ella; all she said was that she’d never known kissing could be that good for that long. Thomas slept in with Julian and Larissa, and Larissa finally got her hands on her brother, all night long.

The days had been pretty similar as well. The most the girls had worn the entire easter until the weather changed on the last day, was a thong. They explored, waved to the other boaters, swam from the boat, and walked across the beach spit to the surf a couple of times, and they hung around the boat and played with cards and each other all day. Really, that was a very favourite holiday, and they were super close at the end of it.

But almost none of it was suitable for Charlene and Amara to know about. And Charlene probably picked up on the missing details too. Oh well. Then Jane asked Charlene and Amara whether they’d gone anywhere interesting for holidays before. Sort of - they got carted around the country going wherever their mum went for coaching, but they’d got to some pretty nice places they were happy to talk about.

The discussion about coaching led back to talking about the local school, and how they were fitting in. Both Isabella and Ella had cousins or friends who had cousins that were still in school, and they said they’d make sure that those cousins made time for Charlene and Amara.

“Thanks, that’s really nice,” Charlene said, “but we’re wondering, are we going to be friends? We don’t know how long mum will be, umm, friends with your mum and dad. And Larissa’s mum.”

Isabella smiled. “We just call them mums and dad.” She laughed. “I don’t know anyone else who can do that, and really, it’s cool. We can pick which mum to talk about something. My mum has never cooked once in her life, but Larissa’s mum always did, and loves making cakes, for example. And if I get in trouble, I can talk to Larissa’s mum too, she never minds. Anyway, how long will our mums and dad be umm friends with your mum? I think, from what they said last weekend, that they’ll be friends enough that we’ll see you around plenty, whatever they get up to with each other. Parents!” She said, exasperatedly. “Can never keep a close enough eye on them, who knows what trouble they’ll get into!” The rest of them burst into laughter for that, including Charlene and Amara who had more reason than the others to enjoy how she said that. “So we’ll be friends,” Isabella said. “I’m sure we’ll run into you occasionally, and you can also ask us for help with things, right?” She looked around the table, and they all nodded.

“For instance,” Isabella said, “Jane’s going to be a nurse, nearly is already. Thomas is an engineer, a very good one, can fix things that are broken. Mason’s really good at music and computers. Larissa’s a vet, Julian’s the smartest and fittest guy and a famous martial artist. Don’t tell anyone, but Matt’s super good at shopping.” She said that like it was a secret, and got more laughter. “And Ella ... she’s a world class expert at cosmetics and make up. She’s going to win an award!”

Charlene and Amara wanted to know all about that, and when they’d finished, Amara said, “So, Isabella, what are you good at?

Isabella shrugged. “Oh, me, I’m not good at anything in particular. Not compared to all my wonderful brothers and sisters. Except for the one thing I’m good at, which is the most important thing in the world.” She paused, enjoying the suspense. “School social dramas amongst friends, and boyfriend troubles ... I’m the world champion at that.” She grinned at them. “You have any trouble like that you don’t want to bother your mum about ... I’d love to help you out.”

The rest of them laughed for that. Isabella had done a very good job there.

Larissa looked at her watch, and said, “Hey, it’s time for yoga. We all doing yoga?”

“Yep,” Ella said. “Even Matt!” Matt pouted. “Come on Matt, remember when you didn’t want to do dancing in your underwear?” Matt shrugged. “Right. And who loves that now? You’ll love yoga in your underwear too. Oh, sorry, Charlene and Amara, I probably shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“Nah,” Charlene said, “it’s cool. We did it last night, so we know how much fun it is.”

“Oh, I know. Dancing in your underwear is nearly my favourite thing. We even named one of Larissa’s non-alcoholic drinks after it!”

Larissa laughed. They had done that too, and it was one of her favourites, even. A nice simple mocktail, sparkling water, lime juice, a dash of salt, and some crushed fresh blackberries in the top. “All right everyone, move to the gym, and get your gear off while I set up the camera.”

“What’s the camera for, Larissa?” Charlene asked.

“Oh, I’ll just set it up at the back, and give you a copy of the video so you can do yoga with each later and know how to get it right, and maybe your mum can do them with you too.”

While she was setting up the camera, Julian laid out yoga mats for them, and they all stripped down to their uniform - sports bra and undies for the girls, and tight black briefs for the guys. Yummy. Larissa started by showing them some basic stretches, and she explained what they were doing. “OK, we’re going to do quite a few pairs exercises,” she told them all. “Charlene, you and Amara can take turns doing them with me and Julian, and you others can do them with your partners. You guys probably have really tight hamstrings, I’ll come and help you stretch them out.”

Once they were loosened up, she gave them a mix of strength and flexibility exercises, mostly pair ones. Maria had worked with her to build up quite a collection of them, and they got a good workout today, and the girls got lots of solid body contact with Julian. They were good about sharing him, swapping between Larissa and Julian, but there wasn’t much doubt where they wanted to be. She could see the others smiling at them while they were doing it. Nice. She kept a close eye on time, and at the end she threw in a couple of advanced things in that she’d been working on with Julian - that impressed them all; they were physically demanding as well as quite intimate poses. Her current favourite was when they kissed while doing handstands, their fronts together. Then she gave them a warm down sequence.

“Ok. Done. How was that?” The guys had been pretty good, actually. She’d helped them a bit, but less than she expected to have to.

“Oh, Larissa, that was the best!” Amara said. “And we can do that anytime?”

“Sure. I’ll give your mum a copy of the video so you can follow it, and you can just do it with each other no problems. Charlene, you liked it?” She was nodding her head wildly, but didn’t say anything - somehow, she’d finished up sitting in Julian’s lap, and Julian had his arms around her. “What about you others? We do yoga every Monday night, a little bit of peace in our crazy lives.”

“We’ve done it a bit before,” Isabella said, “and loved it, and now I’m wondering why we didn’t keep doing it. You’re a good instructor, Larissa.”

“Oh, thanks. I did it with Steph while she was pregnant to help prepare her, and we just kept doing it.” Isabella noted that with interest, she saw.

“I loved it,” Thomas said. “Jane, we should do that weekly or something. I really like the peace part.”

“One of my sisters does it,” Jane said. “We should do it with her. Charlene and Amara, can I have a copy of the recording too?” Of course.

“OK. I agree,” Matt said. “That was nice, and good for me, and I really liked doing it with Ella. Someone tried to get me to do it before, but it was all these weird stretches. Today was just really fun and made us really close.”