Overlooed Bride

SO FAR: Jilted days before the wedding in Melbourne, Biance White returns home to Auckland to throw herself into work, setting up as a consultant to people with business problems. Her first client is a honey, or so it seems as romance begins to swirl around them. But when Marty Young fails to drive through her proposals for business reform at his college for immigrants she walks away from him to silence the possible ringing of wedding bells.

*

Bianca White was about to turn down into the basement of her apartment building when lights on a SUV parked outside the building doubled-blinked and her phone went.

"Hi, it's Marty flicking lights at you."

"I guessed – the black vehicle looked familiar. What are you doing here?"

"I just had to return but I am confused about why I'm here. I just had to return; don't think of me as a stalker."

"The soft bunch of thigh above my stockings wants to be kissed and licked."

Bianca heard a groan and smiled. "Wait at the front doors – I'll come up internally and let you in."

"How far can I get in?"

"Only you can determine that," she said, making noisy kisses and switching off the phone as she went underground.

Inside the apartment the wet kissing stopped as her client Marty Young lifted Bianca on to the dinning table.

"Oh my, what do you intend doing? My shoe heels will dig into the wood."

"Stay still and the indents will remind us of this night."

"I'll have to spread my legs."

"Then spread."

"What else?"

"Pull the hem of your dress up high."

Being in an obedient mood, she obeyed.

Marty's tongue erotically followed a pathfinder trail made by the initial scouting party: his kissing lips.

"Oh," she groaned. "I'm about to lose control."

"Don't," he ordered. "If that's to happen I need my mouth in position."

"Oh gawd," she bawled, bucking and gasping. "Sorry, it's been such a long time."

"Think nothing of it," he said, snaking his tongue forward on a reconnaissance mission.

"Oooh, that's lovely."

"Are you good for any more?"

"Oh yes, provided I'm lovingly worked like a Stradivarius."

"I do better thinking double bass."

She sighed and said anything light-fingered would produce encores.

"You're sexy," he said, unintentionally making her body heave in staccato again.

"This has the makings of a long night," she sighed. "You better stay."

Bianca was invited to stay at Young's Meadows on Saturday night. After dinner that evening they kept themselves and the dogs awake for half the night because of their groaning and the sound of a banging headboard.

Next day Marty proved to his lover how fearless he was at jumping – taking a high stone wall on the gallant Beckett that had Bianca's heart in her mouth. Marty beamed when she ran forward to hug Beckett and call up to Marty what a heroic rider he was.

She helped rub down Beckett and put a reward of two scoops of oats into the old washing machine bowl for him.

"I need to do a couple of reports," Marty said. "It will take a couple of hours or so. You watch TV or take a kip."

They kissed and parted.

Bianca went into the paddock with a bridle where the horses were – Beckett and Sheba drifted away deceptively, at a pace faster than Bianca could walk. No problem, she caught her target lazy Savannah with ease.

Savannah followed her lazily to the tack room and was saddled without any problem. Bianca swung into the saddle and all hell broke loose; Savannah hadn't been ridden for months, didn't know this rider and had to show who was boss. Bianca managed to keep her seat but had blood flowing from the corner of her mouth where her teeth had caught the inside of her bottom lip during a jarring descent from a cantankerous stiff-legged buck.

Finally Savannah decided she'd had enough and submitted – a little. Bianca worked her from a walk into a trot and into a canter but the mare refused to gallop. She was returned to the tack room and didn't see the riding crop being tucked into Bianca's new riding boot.

Away they went again, from a walk into a trot and quickly into a canter that seemed to suit them both although Bianca wanted more. She attempted the meter high jump slotted into the fence line but Savannah served away from it. She was taken around in a semi circle and felt the whack of the crop. Her ears shot up. As she was driven forward towards the fence again she received another whack and realized this rider meant business so sailed over the jump in honest endeavor.

Half an hour later Marty was pulled away from his almost completed Staff Newsletter by a piercing 'Yippee' that drew him to the widow in one leap. He knew before he saw horse and rider by the thumping of hooves it was the heavier mare and that Savannah was being really cranked up. He groaned as he saw the speed of them as they flashed by: "Beckett, we're in big trouble unless we choose a route that includes a fence and water jump; Savannah is a shy jumper."

Away from the farmhouse Bianca walked the mare to give her a blow. Leaning forward she patted the neck: "Savannah, you're bit of a nervous jumper; you and I must spend time jumping and learning to trust one another."

On Tuesday Marty called Bianca and invited her to lunch. But she was lunching with the head mistress of Crucible School.

"But I have something urgent to tell you."

"Tell me now."

"Face to face would be better."

"Well, I fly to Wellington late this afternoon and am away for two days – remember?"

"Oh yes. Bianca, this is difficult to tell you but the staff has voted almost unanimously asking that I terminate you as a consultant. The only grouch is you are too radical for their comfort; you seem to regard the college as a business rather than a centre of learning."

"A mutiny, eh. That's something to get your teeth into."

A silence followed.

"Oh God, you've buckled."

"Don't be too hard on me, Bianca. I'll have to take out a $435,000 loan to buy out Basil; he wants to make a clean break. I've failed to find a partner. With that debt hanging over me I require a loyal staff more than ever. I have to comply with their combined demand."

Bianca offered no comment.

"You understand my position, don't you?" Marty said nervously.

"No."

"But Bianca..."

"You've lost control, Marty. You should have been in there, capturing the feeling. You missed that opportunity and now what have you spawned – a Hydra, ready to pounce at the slightest bit of dissatisfaction."

"That's unfair."

"Is it? I'll send my invoice in due course. Meanwhile it's goodbye, Marty."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't understand the meaning of goodbye? It Marty, you're not the man I thought I was choosing. Don't phone; don't send flowers or anything else. I know I'm angry but know deep down I'm not over-reacting. I'd mistakenly though you were staunch. Our relationship is over, goodbye. Make sure Savannah is ridden competently at times, Marty. She's staunch but weakens a little from neglect.

Terminating the call Bianca screamed "Fuck!" and threw the phone at the door just as it opened and the woman somehow managed to catch the missile against her bosom.

"Having a bad day at the office, are we darling."

"Oh Fiona," wailed Bianca, identifying Sara Bloom the tourism executive's daughter. Fiona held out her arms, holding the phone in one hand and closing the door with her ass. "Come to mummy," she cooed as Bianca ran around the desk; "It's man trouble, isn't it?"

After Bianca's temporary rocky skid on rampant emotion, she recovered under the sympathetic hugs and the two women had a satisfactory reunion after a separation of almost six years. The two-month's pregnant Fiona was supremely happily married to an importer of road-making machinery with service centers through-out the country. After two hours of non-stop chat Bianca had to send Fiona on her way – politely of course – and attend to urgent calls, emails and clear the mail.

Lunch with Dr MacFie was an unexpected delight. The headmistress spoke with a Scottish accent "My girls expect me with a name like Morag MacFie to speak with a Scottish accent," she explained.

"Although I am New Zealand born and bred I did finish my doctorate in Edinburgh so I returned one summer during our six-week Christmas-January holiday break here and studied intensively under a tutor who actually came from the Isle of Lewis. She'd spent ten years in Glasgow before arriving in Edinburgh so even the Scots have difficulty of picking my regional accent inherited from her. Of course I claim I originate in spirit from the ancient lands of the MacFie family of clans, and that always satisfies everyone."

"Och, we must start lunch with a single malt over ice – we have a pretence to maintain, or at least I do."

The whiskey bit into Bianca's stomach so for the first time in several hours she felt great.

"You eyes are red-rimmed my dear. I'm thinking he's done something bad."

Bianca nodded.

"You wear no wedding ring my dear," said the spinster in her early fifties. "I'll let you into a wee secret. Most women have men trouble and survive, with or without the little beastie. Take heart. I've fallen in and out of love so many times I canna' remember some of their names. Take my advice – get it oot of yer mind."

She persuaded Bianca to have another wee whiskey before ordering. Before long Bianca was almost ready to sing. She talked long and earnestly to Morag, who at first resisted, saying it was not proper for her to become involved publicly in a landlord's choice of tenants whose activities had been legalized by law. But Bianca pushed on relentlessly.

"What is more important to you, Morag – avoiding being linked to unseemly behavior of protesters or fighting tomaintain excellence in environment for your girls? What is more important to you, Morag – being linked to unseemly protest action or watching parents pullout their daughters from your school if the battle against the establishment of the brothel is lost?"'

Morag looked at her companion and shook her head: "Bianca, you are so resolute, so difficult to rebuff. Your mother must have been a formidable person?"

"My mother is creative, boisterous and fearless; she is French."

"Ah, the French. Ill-disciplined and—ohmigod; your name is White. Yvette White is..."

"My mother's name, Yvette White nee de Beauvoir."

"Oh my darling, how wonderful to meet you like this Morag said excitedly, suddenly losing her fake Scottish accent.

"It's so astonishing. At university I had a student exchange to France and stayed six weeks with your mother in the home of your grandparents in Dijon. I had such a rewarding time culturally living with that family. I also met your mother's friend from England Alice Baker who would become your mother's best friend. I lunch occasionally with her when she'd living in Auckland."

They talked excitedly, at times lapsing unconsciously into French and finally Morag said firmly: "Bianca, because of your mother, I'll do anything within reason for you."

Bianca leapt around the table and hugged the older woman. They toasted their agreement with water because both had work ahead of them that afternoon.

Back at her office Bianca launched into the anti-brothel campaign, arranging the 'New Zealand Herald' civics reporter Jacqui Starr to interview the celebrated children's novelist Tammy Winslow who enjoys international sales in numerous languages of her adventure series of two loveable and risk-taking schoolgirls, Meg and India. Jacqui had attended Crucible School.

It was a stirring interview with 31 year old Jacqui posing dramatically for the camera outside the school gates and holding a banner, "Man the barricades, ladies."

The following day the newspaper ran three letters to the editor from influential Auckland women crying shame on the city for allowing Crucible School to have its traditions and stature compromised by a brothel being located nearby. That enticed 'for and against' letter writers out of the woodwork and the public debate that had died rather soon after the proposed location of the brothel was ignited in a war of vitriolic excesses – the kind of controversy the media adores.

On Thursday the media was advised that 'a protest of enterprising significance' would take place from 8:00 next morning outside the gates of Crucible and outside the location of the proposed brothel. The letter on letterhead of the office of the city's deputy mayor was signed, 'Brenda Coddingham, a proud and disgusted ex-pupil of Crucible Private School for Girls.'

What happened that Friday morning caught the attention of Auckland, with publicity spreading into parliamentary corridors in Wellington and overseas media published photographs and run film clips that created a tiny embarrassment for the New Zealand Government.

Precisely at 8:00 six ex-pupils of Crucible with high public profiles lined-up outside the school gates with another six emerged from a mini-bus parked outside the proposed brothel location. All twelve women were in theatrical make-up and costumes organized by former actress Morag MacPhie – they were dressed in the romantic concept of theatre producers as prostitutes in styles through the ages.

Horrified parents arriving to drop off their children at the school did what the big sign said, 'Toot in Protest."

Up in the village traffic slowed to a crawl and stopping with minor nose to tail collusions as drivers rubber-necked to eye the 'prostitutes'. The snarl-up caused peak hour traffic chaos leading to traffic gridlock over a much wider area as motorists diverted to head into Remuera to confirm what the radio reports were telling them.

Breakfast TV was taking a live feed from its reporter-on-the-spot, Shelley Robinson, who identified herself as a Crucible old girl and declared viewers could expect very biased reporting. A decision to pull Shelley off-air was cancelled when the head of programming called from her home to let Shelley be – the executive, of course, being an Crucible old girl.

Morag attended to media enquiries outside the school gates while school parent's liaison committee chairman Ruby Williams performed the similar duty in the village.

By 8:30 there was a carnival-like atmosphere in the village, with people jamming the street, reducing the usual four lanes of slow-crawl peak hour traffic to a stop-start crawl reduced to two lanes because of the crush of pedestrians. The police arrived in force headed by an assistant chief commisioner, an old girl of the school, who ordered her force to concentrate on keeping vehicles moving and attempt to open up the other two lanes.

'No Brothel' banners appeared from nowhere but obviously had been screen-printed and attached to holders well before the start of this protest.

Ruby was being interviewed by Channel TV-3 when she spied two faces she recognized in the crowd. "Oh look, she said – there are the Larkin brothers who own this building where those out-of-area investors have applied to have licensed for a brothel."

Magically the crowd around the brothers melted away, leaving them standing exposed to Ruby's accusing pointing hand. The TV team hurried over to the brothers.

"Do you remain defiant?" the male TV interviewer asked hopefully.

"We may have to reconsider," said one of the brothers. "We thought the protest was coming from a couple of old spinsters and three or four warped divorcees associated with the school. We had no idea feeling was this intense. The problem is we have a tight contract with these guys wanting to pile babes into our premises to earn big bucks."

Ruby, who like Morag was not dressed as a prostitute, pushed into the interview. "The school's parent's liaison committee will supply you guys with the best female legal brains in the city, which means to best legal brains in the city, to unravel your contract obligations at no cost to you. Start looking for a new tenant today. As for those investors in this brothel project we plan to publicly identify them as people providing a wonderful service for the community."

"Don't you mean two guys and three women who are scum of the earth in bringing their wicked business into close proximity of your school, thereby risking corrupting more than a 1000 girls?" asked a journalist.

"Oh no, if we ridiculed them like that they could sue us for tens of thousands of dollars. But when we expose them with praise the public will know what this is about and shame those people in their own way with the probable result that the commercial activities of those five business people will disintegrate around their wallets. They have two weeks from today to abandon this project or else we launch our campaign praising their enterprise."

"This is weird."

"It's called protecting our butts, Sonny Boy. If you can think of a better way, call me."

Traffic flow through the village was back to normal by 10:30. The twelve 'prostitutes', Morag and Ruby were brought together for a group photograph and the fourteen of them appeared on live on TV-1 during the news that evening.

Morag was brilliant, borrowing from the novel and film character Miss Jean Brodie and calling her students in a heavy Scottish accent, "My girls who deserve a clean start to life and by God these mothers of theirs are determined they'll get it."

The pro-school interviewer asked "The organizer of this fabulous protest; who is she?"

"An awesome young woman who wishes to remain anonymous." Ruby said. "She says she's simply a paid consultant who didn't attend the school so has no wish to take credit about from our tight bunch of pro-school ladies who, as she says, put our hearts and butts on the line."

"So her name will never be known unless a reporter uncovers her identity?"

"Oh, it will become known," Ruby said. "On Founders Day in two months she'll be installed as an honorary life associate of our school. Morag and I believe this is such an outstanding contribution by an individual that we'll easily attract 3000 present and past pupils to the ceremony. Then people who need to know will know who this woman is."

The interviewer tried again. "This is most unusual – such people working in that arena usually crave public attention."

"Not our benefactor in this context."

"Just a moment please," said the interviewer, pressing his ear plug."

"I've just been instructed to advise we believe the consultant who lead you into this astonishing display of inspired public protest today is Miss Bianca White. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. May your campaign succeed."

"Oh it will," Morag said. "As soon as that first parent saw our prostitutes this morning I knew by her horrified look that we had a winning campaign underway."

"Just a moment please," said the interviewer. We are switching to a news flash. Look over here at the big monitor."

Newsreader Jessie Drake came on screen, smiling, the big yellow sign 'News Flash' running across the bottom of the screen.

"A few moments ago, Mr Jonathon Speight, QC, announced that the syndicate attempting to establish the brothel near Crucible Private School for Girls in Remuera, Auckland, have decided to withdraw their application for licensing and to abandon permanently that locality for a brothel. Back to you Martin."

Martin the interviewer was filmed grinning as the twelve 'prostitute' mothers and Morag and Ruby were shown in a huge joyous hugging melee.

"This is amazing – these women, wives of some of our most influential men in our city – are bawling they eyes out. Good luck to them and we acclaim their wonderful highly motivated campaign. I understand a big party is being hastily arranged in the Lotus Room of the Orient Towers Hotel, but security will be tight, so people are advised it will be a waste of time attempting to gate-crash. It's for Crucible girls only – only one exception I'm told and I guess that's Miss Bianca While. Back to you Jessie.C