Fire in Her Belly

The brute said, "Sorry, I apologize. I haven't yet had time to tune-in to your, um, sensitivities. Please forgive me and accompany me to lunch as your equal business associate and you drive in your company allocated vehicle."

Finn and Di walked in silence to 'her' car, and she held the passenger door open for him, making sure there would be no misunderstanding by standing squarely behind the open door.

Walking around the vehicle, Di seated herself behind the wheel and took off at her self-imposed 3 km/h above the 10 km/h that applied to everyone driving on the company's property.

"Fuck, that reprimand brought our let's-be-friends lunch close to disaster," Finn said, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

They both laughed loudly and again when Di giggled and said that he will have discovered that her top technique to gain her own way was to indulge in brinkmanship.

"Has any one threatened to punch you for resorting to such a boneheaded tactic?"

"No, much to my dismay as I have taken boxing three times a week ever since I turned 14 as part of my martial arts training that I do for fitness and I'm permitted by trainers to use all non-lethal skill in absolute self-defence."

Di drove all the way to the restaurant, where possible, at 5 km/h above the speed limit on city streets, and noticed that her passenger was silently observing her driving and the vehicle's speedometer.

Otherwise, Di's driving appeared faultless.

"Have you raced cars?"

She replied yes, extensively and mainly as a co-driver.

He nodded.

Lunch turned out as Di had expected: a fucking waste of time and a further deterioration of their fledging relationship.

Upon sitting, leaving Di to seat herself, 'Soldier Boy' as she began to call him privately, immediately ordered two larger beers.

"I don't drink beer," she said.

"Please yourself," he grunted, doing nothing to amend the order.

She let the 2-beer order stand and added a vodka on ice.

"Yes Miss Cooke," said the waitress, who recognised Di as a regular.

"You are come here often?" murmured Finn, either believing he'd made the deduction of the century or was merely engaging in small talk.

"Finn, with this display of lack of charm and manners socially, may I ask have you every managed to swing a leg over any woman who has interested you sexually?"

That shook arrogant Soldier Boy. He sat gaping at her.

They finished their drink in silence and ate in silence until right at the end, Di said, "You pay."

"No, you pay Miss since you ruined my lunch meeting with you."

"Denise," Di called loudly to their waitress, who came racing over as if expecting an emergency of some nature.

With half of the restaurant watching, Di said loudly, "Make sure that my companion who invited me here pays; he has a habit of slipping out without doing the decent thing."

Finn, looking humiliated, handed Denise a fist-full of dollars and stalked out ahead of his companion.

Di sailed out of the establishment in queenly style and found red-faced Soldier Boy standing at the door of the hard retractable-top sports car.

He flared, "I'm driving. Hand me the opener. My master-opener won't work."

"That's because I had the electronic-adjustments returned to normal mode as this is my designated car, operative only by me, Louise and her two deputies."

"I'm reporting this to your father," thundered Soldier Boy.

"Go right ahead and my defence that my father has a high tolerance level of when it comes to me and heaps me with privileges as I'm his successor as chairman of this company. I will further explain that you regard me as inferior to you because I'm female, and therefore am weak. Therefore, I ran a wee adjustment programme to alter your perspective of me, to which my father will cry, Bravo!"

"I-I can't believe this," whined Soldier Boy.

"Step away from that door please, Finn. Allow me to get us back to work, forthwith."

He grumbled his way around the vehicle and as his door slammed shut, he was propelled into the back of his seat, and hastily scrambled to clip up his seatbelt as the vehicle was powered into a wheelie on the tarmac in practically its own length and shot out and onto the highway and accelerated to twice the speed limit and they began weaving among slowest cars.

Soon and probably against his will, Finn was smiling and enjoying the wild and illegal ride. He cheerfully confessed, "This is great and I feel safe. Fuck, you really can drive. You ought to be working in the automotive industry selling cars."

"That humour gains my respect for you, Finn," Di said sweetly as she coolly flicked the white BMW 4 series 430i convertible vehicle across two lanes on to the emergency stop lane, around a long fuel tanker and just ahead of a tourist bus returning to that lane from the outer lane after overtaking the tanker in copybook fashion and she flashed by two astonished motor-cycle hoons and on to the fast lane.

They entered the caryard at precisely 13 km/h and, looking as if he were surprised to have arrived back uninjured and without having been in a car bailed up by highway police, Finn said in awe, "Never again will I utter the misguided belief that girls can't drive."

"Girls, don't you mean females?"

"That paints too wide a brush, so I deliberately said girls," he said nervously and immediately got thumped just above his seat-belt buckle and partially winded by Di.

She said delightedly, "OMG, that suggests a huge and generous advance in humanities from you that leaves me practically over-whelmed. Very good boy. Sorry I stuffed up your lunch."

"That wasn't too bad, Di. But the outing ended well."

Just before 5 pm, Angus called on his new recruit to find how his first day had gone.

Finn said, "It was largely enjoyable and a real eye-opener, thanks. I have to report that I did find that your daughter really does have fire in her belly. At the same time, she appears to have good control of herself, is intelligent, knowledgeable and appears to be well-liked. She operates as a natural leader. This may seem rather premature to you Angus, but I instinctively know that you should abandon your scheme to have Di and I compete for the second in command position in your company."

"Di has the strength, the power the background preparation and apparent ability to fill the role and so should be offered it when you are ready. Above all, it is her birthright."

Angus scrubbed his chin with his palm and said to Finn, "Wow, that's powerful argument and I must admit my thinking is along similar lines. Meanwhile, tomorrow the three of us will begin the first of many meetings to explore that possibility of this company establishing a new commercial rental business on the other side of the river where most of the city's industrial development is and, of course, our city's airport is located."

"Oh boy, that's something to get our teeth into, boss. I look forward to that."

After Finn left for home, an apartment in a new block on the northern riverside, Angus went to Di's office and told her that Finn was no longer in the leadership contest at his request.

"He didn't say this explicitly, but my impression is he thinks you are an all-round excellent business woman with a mix of being a juvenile brat."

"That's a fair summary, dad. I'm gradually shedding at least some of my brat characteristics. He's a good find and I will be happy for him to be my lieutenant when the time comes for you to shed your managing-director role and semi-retire in the chairmanship role. If we proceed with the new commercial rental division, we should look at basing him there."

"Good thinking, darl. Um, is he likely to share a bed with you?"

"No, he's too conservative to ignite me. I notice in Business News that Cliff Shelley of Shelley Vehicle Sales and Vehicle Rentals has appointed his son Daryl as the company's new managing-director. Daryl banged me a couple of times when we were at university and we thought we were good together."

"Perhaps we should examine the benefits of plotting a company merger as an alternative to establishing a commercial division. Shelley Motors is already located across the river and the two of us would strongly have the entire city covered."

Angus sat back in his chair, scratching behind an eye as he asked, "For goodness sake girl, learn to relax some of the time, remembering there's always tomorrow.

The End