A Romance Flips

Chapter 1

Elizabeth Carrington, husband Hugh and daughter Ronni were at dinner on the patio and the conversation resumed after the maid disappeared into the interior of the home.

"I repeat," Elizabeth said to 22-year-old Ronni. "Why can't you get a decent boyfriend of the quality that all your girlfriends appear to have landed?"

"Does it occur to you mother that potential suitors do not parade themselves like cattle?"

"Hugh!"

Her business tycoon husband busily shorting green beans on his plate before loading them on to his fork according to grades and lengths, didn't need to know the nature of that urgent demand for support.

"Ronni!" he called, sounding infuriated, that of course he didn't have loaded.

"Sorry dad, mother," Ronni said sounding angelic, although saintly she was not.

"Mother, let me switch to a structural design degree at the School of Engineering and I'll bring home the bacon that you and your society friends can bestow with your fake attempts of verbal seduction."

"Ronni, I'm sick of the time this sorry mess has been dragging on, ever since you were fifteen. Never once have you produced me with an outstanding male worthy of being approved as your dating girlfriend. Promise me you'll produce a noteworthy candidate from that mass of commoners and that means the majority of lads at engineering school dear, and I'll have Mrs Sweetman (the housekeeper) manage the switch for you."

"Is that a deal, mum?"

"That's a deal. I'll wind up Mrs Sweetman in the morning."

The university eggheads attempted to block the switch, with Mrs Sweetman receiving a letter that the esteemed university did not allow students to switch degrees mid-term on a sheer whim.

Furious, Ronni wrote to the registrar of the Selection Board (in recess) demanding that the board re-convene immediately so that she could make representations in person.

The registrar said to his two secretaries, "Who the fuck is this student?"

Secretary one: Veronica Elizabeth Carrington, a 4th year architectural student.

Registrar: That doesn't explain her status in our society and society in general.

Secretary two: Ronni otherwise known as Veronica, is the only child of Sir Hugh Carrington who graduated from this university but there is no record of him ever being a substantive donor. The mother is named Elizabeth.

Registrar: What the aggressive socialite?

Secretary two: Indeed.

Registrar: Get me a print-out of all the information you have on this lass and her father's association with this university. I'll get the chairman of the board to sit with a subcommittee to hear this lass' submission.

Ronni attended the meeting of the subcommittee without the knowledge of her parents. There was an adjournment of the meeting while she had a private meeting with the chairman, and after that she was advised she could make the switch immediately.

At dinner that evening, Ronni told her parents although the university year was almost three months underway, she had been given approval to switch to her chosen degree course at the School of University on Monday.

"Good for you dear, I'm delighted," said her mother, blowing Ronni a kiss. "When will I see this new Roman god-like man of yours, darling?"

"For fuck sake Elizabeth, first allow the girl the chance to step through the door at the School of Engineering on Day One on Monday."

"I would think three weeks max, mum."

Hugh said, "What's the catch regarding your switch? There's always a price to pay for a mid-year switch at my old university."

"It's virtually nothing, and so relax. There are three conditions:

- I must complete my architectural degree that I proposed doing anyway.

- That I work hard to catch up on my course work. As it happens, I've already done architectural design studies so that condition is well underway.

- That I persuade you to make a donation to the Engineering School's library extension."

"Ah, there's the catch. No problem. I'll regard it as an investment in my daughter."

Two weeks and two days after starting at school of engineering, Ronni called Mrs Sweetman the housekeeper to say she would be accompanied by a male guest for dinner that evening.

Mrs Sweetman reported that information to Lady Elizabeth who erupted angrily when Mrs Sweetman admitted she hadn't asked for the name of the dinner guest and essential personal details.

"All Ronni said he was a male guest."

"Yes, you silly woman, of course she said that. But how much more information would she had provided had she been asked?"

"Perhaps nothing more as she wanted it to be a surprise."

"That sounds like a plausible statement to me, dear," said Elizabeth's mellow husband. "I suggest you accept it."

"Well at least that part of your brain is working, Mrs Sweetman. Off you go back to your duties."

"Yes ma'am; straight away ma'am."

"That's right, make me sound like an Ogress."

Hugh and Elizabeth emptied half the bottle of gin waiting for their daughter and first new boyfriend in many months (that they knew about). Elizabeth was drinking to cope with anxiety, Hugh was drinking to cope with Elizabeth unable to cope well with her mind virtually in orbit.

Eventually, on the dot of 6.30, normal dinner-call time, the front door bells chimed.

"They're here," Elizabeth said, grabbing Hugh frantically and kissing him all over his face.

"Of course, they're here, that was the front door bell," Hugh said pragmatically. "You weren't expecting anyone else at dinner time. were you?"

"I don't know what I'm expecting except from not another pregnancy," she wheezed.

He complained, "You'll have lipstick all over your face and mine and..."

"No, we don't Diddles, I'm thoughtfully wearing sealed gloss."

"What the fuck is that?"

"Exactly what I said, sealed gloss."

"Eh?"

"Miss Ronni with her dinner guest, Mr Nick Creek," announced the butter, Alf.

"Nick what?" Elizabeth shouted in shock.

"It's okay, mum. He's Australian."

"He's also wearing shorts," Elizabeth shouted. "No one has worn shorts to this historic table in 500 years."

"There's a first time for everything," said her husband, earning a murderous glare.

"Please don't get overly-excited, Elizabeth. It's only me, Nick. And I feel obliged to say that you'd be lucky if the table is even 100 years old. You'd be surprised if you knew of the level of fidelity used as gospel by antique dealers to secure a top price. I know, because I worked for a couple of dealers during my school breaks."

"Mother, I suggest you take Nick as you truly find him," Ronni said. "Be warned, he's not your usual young male wagging his tail and looking for his next conquest. I mean, take this evening for example. Have you ever experienced a young male called you Elizabeth without you yelling to Alf to fetch you the shotgun?"

"I... uh... no actually, and yet while I was aware he took the liberty, I had no urge to flail... Omigod, what am I saying?"

"It's cool mother; it's quite a usual female reaction to Nick. He naturally treats females as he does the males except, he looks as their bosom rather than their groin."

"W-what do you t-think of my b-bosom, Nick?"

"You ought to let them hang a little looser, Elizabeth. Having them strung up tightly like that with padding to make them appears in a shape that they aren't will be making them perform as if they feel they are being strangled to death."

"Omigod, what useful advice."

Nick said not a problem, and pulling out a pocket knife and opening it, he went behind Lady Elizabeth and cut her bra shoulder straps.

"Omigod, I feel free," she crooned into the sky. "Mister Creek, you may be our house guest for as long as you wish and as far as I'm concerned, you may have our daughter which-way, whatever-way, you wish."

"Thanks Elizabeth, but actually that's for Ronni to decide."

"Whatever, and should she be slow coming across, you may try tapping me on the hip."

Surprisingly, despite those initial shocks, the evening meal cruised along rather well.

The parents found that their daughter had met Ronni at the School of Engineering where he was completing a masters degree in structural engineering design and he worked occasionally as a junior lecturer to first-year undergraduates.

Late night, Elizabeth went into Ronni's room half-expecting to see Ronni and Nick banging away in abandonment. But all she found was Ronni reading in bed.

"Where's Nick?"

"Mum, despite your off-the-wall thoughts about the morality of young people, Nick and I haven't done it yet. He requested Alf to find him a bedroom and mom, you are to stay out of it."

"Why?"

"Well... um well... um Nick is too young to be corrupted."

"Oh, that's pretty impressive reasoning, darling. Do you think I should go to your father and asked him for sex?"

"Mum!"

"What?"

"You expressed that without love or affection making it sound as if you were about to embark on a visit to a sausage factory."

"That's a rather impressive description of the process, darling."

"Whatever, mother. Don't forget to insist on a condom being used, for reasons of hygiene."

"Oh, we ran out weeks ago."

"Mother, in the morning ask Nick for a handful. He always has a box of 144 on hand."

"Darling, may I ask how is it you know that?"

"Goodnight mother, I must get my eight hours of relaxing sleep," Ronni said, putting her book aside and reaching for the bedside lamp and obviously paused. waiting for her mother to leave the room, a significant question about condoms hanging unanswered.

Chapter 2

Next morning, Elizabeth found out which of the eleven guest rooms that Nick occupied and rushed there with coffee.

She lightly kissed him awake, threw open the curtains and said brightly, "How is the morning boner?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's how Australians speak isn't it, straight from the shoulder?"

"I don't believe so, Elizabeth, not even the riff-raff that you think I've associated with all my life."

"Oh, what employment does your father work in?"

"He's self-employed and in fact employs between 350 and 380 people depending on the current state of the building industry in New South Wales. His business is aluminium structural prefabrication."

"Oh, did he win lotto to land in that elevation."

Nick smiled and said, "No, he and two pals from high school began working for dad's father who produced hand-made aluminium window frames that were really beginning to take off in Aussie then. Ten years later the trio purchased the factory from granddad, persuaded their families to lend them money to expand and rode the start of the great building boom of the 1960s."

"Well, I never."

"Elizabeth, going back to my boner, I deal with it an hour ago manually. Ronni usually deals with it by mouth but she's terribly uptight about what you might think of me and one of the things I have to do is to pretend that she and I don't fuck yet."

"Omigod. Are you asking me to relieve you?"

"Oh, great idea but no. Elizabeth. Instead of having sex with me could you please just relax, and treat me just like you used to treat your friends when a kid, without being overly fussy of who they were, or how they behaved within reason -- in other words you generally accepted who they were. Ronni told me you lived in the back streets of Liverpool until you were ten and then came to London with your sister when your mother began an affair with an insurance salesman when he was transferred here."

"Ronni had no right to tell you that. It's a family secret."

"Get off your high horse, Elizabeth. Be like Ronni and live in the real world rather than a partial make-believe world that she says that you choose to flitter in and out of."

"That treacherous bitch said that," Elizabeth wailed, bursting into tears, absolutely humiliated.

Nick, nude, jumped out of bed and hurried to comfort her, Elizabeth staring through her tears in awe at the long slack member swinging from side to side so electrifying that she began to dribble -- from the mouth.

He hugged her and she said, "Can I... can I..."

Noting where she was looking down between them, Nick guessed what this was about. Somehow. he was managing to cut through years of her self-imposed repression.

He stood apart slightly and said, "You touch it and I'll handle a boob. Deal?"

She nodded, slobbering.

He pushed a hand down her dress front and grasped a surprisingly soft and warm boob. That triggered her into seizing his dick that by then was firming into an erection.

"Omigod, omigod she was reciting softly and he had to let the boob go to use both arms to stop her from dropping to her knees.

"Sorry... have to retrain you... otherwise you may suffer deep regret," he said, breathing heavily.

He almost let her drop thinking it would be interesting to find if she slobbered juicily when engaged in fellatio, but at the risk of Ronni attempting to wring his neck when her mother confessed would lead to him being tossed out on the street on his ear.

"Then can I just lick it once?"

"No."

"Mean bastard."

Nick replied inventively, 'Liverpool slut'.

To his astonishment she straightened, laughing and eyes shining and worked at pushing the man-handled boob back into her bra.

He said, "Truthfully now, how was it?"

"Omigod," she said in awe. "I let myself go. Amazingly, I almost came without my vulva being touched."

"Wow," he said, genuinely impressed.

After that momentous unveiling of 'decent boyfriend' to her parents, Ronni suggested to Nick that they move in together but he nicely and sensibly suggested that because one of his reasons in coming to England and Europe was to 'sow his oats' and tour 'here, there and everywhere' with his academic male mates drinking beer, hitting social drugs and screwing hot females plus indulging in genuine adventures as well as studying, they should put off the possibility of moving in together for a couple of years.

"And miss the peak horny years," Ronni sighed.

"Yeah babe, but call me from time to time because even I know that socially correct young women can't live without occasional sex."

"How convenient for you," she said, Nick apparently missing the sarcasm. "Okay, sounds good."

As time went by, they had really drifted apart and after the first two years, Elizabeth had stopped asking her daughter had she seen Nick lately. By then it would have been difficult because he'd graduated with his masters and had returned to Sydney.

Although Ronni assumed that while Nick would be working for his father, he would be taking every opportunity to roam around Australia with his mates having adventures and shagging women and, of course, drinking beer, he phoned her occasionally.

Once she asked why did he keep calling her occasionally. She involuntarily dampened her panties when he said laconically, "You're sometimes on my mind, simple as that."

She blurted something like 'That's nice' and recalled the conversation drifted on to something else.

When Ronni was just under a month of finishing university, she received a call from a guy with a heavy Australian accent saying he was Tony Creek.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Nick's father."

"Good grief. He described you to my wife Hailey and me as being very bright. Nick is fine, I'm calling you on business. Rick said you are about due to graduate."

"Correct."

"Good results."

"They've been okay."

"Where do you stand in your intake in engineering design?"

"Invariably in the top five. Why, are you recruiting?"

"Yep."

"What?"

"Rick intends to marry you one day, if you'll have him. Well, that's what he told us when he arrived home 21/2 years ago and we know he keeps in touch. Hailey and I were talking about this over a wine last night and she suggested we bring you over here to see if it happens. I can offer you a designer's job that so far I haven't managed to fill with an Australian, and so it possible could become a package of job plus approved immigration."

"Omigod."

"You like the sound of that, do you Ronni?"

"Bloody oath."

"Ah, you sound Australian already. You know Ronni, I can tell just from this short conversation that Emma and I will come to adore you, even if you don't take up with Nick. You have that appealing light pitch to you voice that suggests a nice, happy person."

"Go on, Mr Creek. You are a metal fabrication engineer, what would you know about voice tone and pitch]?"

"Ah, playful humour too. For most of my adult life I have sung tenor in Opera."

"Omigod, I apologise for being so rude. I am..."

"You weren't to know, lass. And anyway, I regarded it as more challenging that rudeness."

They chatted on and finally Tony said he would send full details and took Ronni's email address.

"Are you calling from your office?"

"Yes, why?"

"Oh, I thought I could say hi to Mrs Creek if you were calling from home."

"No chance. It's Monday morning and she was off at 6.00 to our local hospital where she's a surgeon specialising in knee and hip replacements."

"Omigod. Well, please tell her I said hi."

"Will do, babe. Lovely chatting. Bye."

Ronni called her mother.

"Hi mum, thought you'd like some big news, I'm likely to be going to Sydney to live soon."

"What!" Elizabeth shrieked but Ronni had anticipated that and was holding her phone away from her ear.

Chapter 3

On an early Friday morning, Ronni walked out into the arrival greeting area as Sydney International Airport with a racing heart and mind filled with expectations. She was wearing baggy travel clothes but had spent time getting her hair and make-up as good as practical, knowing that her face and smile would be what she would instantly be judged on.

She noticed a lithe blonde woman a little older than her jump the barrier and come running forward and then at the last moment realized that she was the target.

"Ronni," screamed the charger as she slammed into the new arrival.

"Emma!" Ronni yelled, kissing Rick's sister a year older than him, knowing she had her first Australian girlfriend, and what a babe she was and what a physique. Nick had said his sister Emma was an avid surfer and cyclist.

They kissed on the lips, hugely. God, this one's not a shy Aussie girl, Ronni burbled to herself.

She looked over Emma's shoulder and saw Nick laughing and waving, recognised the family likeness of his father Tony, and immediately recognised where Emma got her looks from when waving to her mother Hailey.

Omigod, what a memorable moment and this might be her new family. She was worried though that Mrs Creek appeared devoid of emotion, but Emma soon answered that.

Emma whipped Ronni trolley from her and capturing her arm in her free arm, steering her over to the side barrier to meet her family.

"Mum's practically wetting herself in excitement and dad of course is playing it cool."

Ronni's heart soared.

Emma said breathlessly, "Your father is a Knight. How impressive."

"Yes, he is, no it isn't particularly impressive. They have about twenty friends who visit us periodically who are peers."

"Omigod."

"Darling, just think of it as theatre."

Emma almost lost control of Ronni and her trolley through laughing so much.

"Christ, I took no notice when Nick attempted to tell us that you are nothing like the stuffy staid twits that is the impression that many Australians have of the English."

"Oh, but I must be staid. I read library books for pleasure and spend reflected moments looking at cloud formations."

Emma was back into deep laughter.

"Everyone, meet the hilarious Ronni without an E. Mum, kiss her on the mouth and see experience what Nick has been missing."

Hailey kissed Ronni lightly on the mouth and pulling away said, "Welcome to Australia and to the family, beautiful. You smell so lovely."