Haven Pt. 01

'Parents, friends and lovers each use it in a specific way, Yvie. So will we,' said Ngaire.

'Your lady requires something special up her sleeve for this one, Miss Brown,' said Lydia as they watched Zoe step into position in generic sports underwear and socks. 'My girl is a uniquely unbreakable biscuit. I've known her since she was 27 and in the last five years don't believe I've ever seen her smile.'

'She's not the first fitty I've seen on that cross,' said Ngaire. 'Let's just see how it goes...'

CHAPTER 3

Kisi began in much the same way as before and drew slow, snaking strokes with her fingernails from Zoe's wrists to her underarms. Zoe showed no signs of responding. In fact, both women continued to talk as casually as if they were discussing business matters over coffee.

Kisi lightly dragged her nails up and down Zoe's sides, then criss-crossed over her chest before slowly sweeping down between her breasts and towards her firm stomach.

'Is she trying to interrogate her or turn her on?' asked Yvette.

Ngaire didn't answer. She noticed something the others didn't: the merest of involuntary retractions by Zoe's tummy as Kisi grazed a single nail along the waistband of her knickers. Kisi noticed it as well and repeated the action, but it had less effect the second time round and was gone altogether on stroke number three. Undeterred, Kisi lightly scratched her fingers around Zoe's waist. She had to stand close in order to trace up and down her back before crouching to draw her fingernails over Zoe's buttocks and forward over her hips.

With one hand, Kisi released the lower section of the frame, which smoothly lifted Zoe into a seated position with her legs straight out in front. Without breaking contact, Kisi locked the frame into position and proceeded to gently and repetitively claw, hand-over-hand, down Zoe's legs.

Zoe blinked fast and stirred in the seat, as though trying to relieve an ache or push an unwanted thought to the back of her mind. Her legs tensed slightly, displaying the muscle definition in her thighs as Kisi's hands stroked her leg over and over again, edging a little lower each time.

Eventually Zoe took a deep breath, rested her head back and focussed on the ceiling lights. Kisi continued the same technique all over and down her knee and shin before expertly inserting a finger into her sock and effortlessly slipping it off. Without skipping a beat, she arrived at the top of Zoe's other leg and began again.

As the second sock popped off to bare the second of Zoe's unsurprisingly large feet, Ngaire glanced at the clock. 15 minutes had passed.

Kisi stood between Zoe's feet and drew her nails slowly over the top of them. Zafirah held her breath. Then Kisi swept gently down the sides, around her ankles and swiftly back up her soles.

'Oh, dear God,' said Zafirah, averting her eyes in empathy.

'What's wrong?' asked Yvette.

'I couldn't take that!'

'It doesn't seem to be affecting Zoe,' said Lydia. 'I'm not sure Miss Baidoo has many options left.'

Ngaire held her tongue and kept watching. Kisi's fingers sped up on Zoe's soles and then stopped suddenly. Ngaire couldn't see her expression; she hoped Kisi was not losing her patience.

Kisi moved behind Zoe, slowly dragging her nails up her leg and across her stomach as she did so, which for some reason reminded Lydia of a she-devil's tail. Nails scratched lightly up and down the skin of Zoe's back with one particular area on both sides provoking an almost imperceptible wriggle.

Yvette hummed softly with her own empathetic appreciation. Lydia glanced at her: she appeared to be turned on by the spectacle in front of them. 'Are you all right, Yvette?' she asked.

'Oh yes,' said Yvette, her eyes glued to the scene.

Lydia sighed. 'How long until she gives up?'

'Which one?' Ngaire responded.

'Look, it's obvious this isn't--'

She was interrupted as Kisi thrust the second knuckle of both index fingers into the muscles of Zoe's back. Zoe arched forward and threw her head back in a startled snarl.

'That's not what she was doing before!' said Lydia, angrily. 'Get her out of there!'

'Look again,' said Ngaire.

Zoe pulled hard at the restraints, her teeth gritted and her eyes wide as she attempted to evade the pressure being drilled into her.

She had nowhere to go. Her reaction wasn't the same as Sarah's, but Lydia was still concerned. Kisi grabbed at Zoe's torso, which made her yelp in surprise. She grabbed at her lower ribs; her upper ribs; her waist; her armpits, all with firm pressure and intense wriggles and, just as she thought she might be able to withstand it, Kisi pressed with the same intensity into those vulnerable spots on her back.

Zoe spasmed and twisted in the frame. She was wholly unfamiliar with this kind and concentration of touch and swapped between squeezing her mouth and eyes tight in an attempt to maintain her composure. She found herself all the more sensitive due to the light strokes and scratches that had been lavished all over her body and which had given her a false sense of security. She tried all she could to zone out the sensations, but an unfamiliar feeling of anticipation was building inside her.

Suddenly, Kisi pinpointed two sensitive spots deep in the muscles either side of her waist and she realised that her impending reaction was inevitable. She turned to the mirror with an apologetic expression.

From the other side, Lydia could tell Zoe's look was intended for her. She watched as her head bodyguard's tough persona contorted into a beautiful laugh.

Kisi was expressionless as she spoke. Zoe shook her head and continued to laugh. Kisi shrugged and doubled the speed at which she wriggled her grip into the flanks of Zoe's belly. Zoe bellowed with a laughter so loud that Lydia could hear it quite clearly.

Kisi stepped swiftly to Zoe's feet and, without a break, scrabbled her long fingernails all over Zoe's soles. Her reaction was in stark contrast to what it had been before: she jerked forward with an instinct to clutch and protect her feet, which, of course, she could not. Instead she laughed with enforced glee, her eyes wide as though if she stared hard enough she could create some kind of barrier. Kisi spoke again, but Zoe's response was the same as before -- she shook her head, but this time with that frozen wide-eyed and open-mouthed clownish expression.

Kisi leaped back to Zoe's upper body and began scratching erratically at her tummy. Zoe was again surprised by the intensity of the sensations and she screamed with laughter and protest. Kisi was now in her face, talking at her non-stop. Zoe was shaking her head and trying to speak between bouts of laughter until, with 22 minutes left to go, she nodded.

Yvette turned to Lydia. 'I sink your cookie just crumbled, no?' Lydia was unable to look away, unlike Zafirah who had her back to the window.

Kisi kicked off a flip-flop and lifted her foot effortlessly into the air to tap a button on the control panel with her toe. A speaker came to life in the main room and Zoe's laughter filled the basement.

'Miss Goodman, your head of security has something to tell you,' said Kisi. 'Go on,' she ordered with a quick press into her waist.

'AH-HAAHKLLL!' wailed Zoe, 'OKAY! OKHAY-HAY! M-Madam! I admit ittt! I'm... I'm t-ticklish!' As soon as she spoke the word, her head flopped forward, ashamed that a vulnerability had been discovered and exposed in front of the powerful women at the window.

Ngaire held a button on the touchscreen, 'Thank you very much, Kisi. I think that's enough.'

Kisi nodded. The speaker was silenced and the window again misted over.

'Different people require different approaches to break down their defences,' said Ngaire. 'And that's why Kisi is an expert. She can train up an entire team.'

While Zafirah felt compassion for anyone who was being tortured, she understood the benefits of this method. Yvette was surprised at her own reaction -- she hid how turned on she had became while watching the demonstration. Meanwhile, Lydia felt a little stung at the fact her head of security had been broken by tickling, but her curiosity was satisfied.

'There's just one additional piece of information we need to know,' she said.

'What's that?' asked Ngaire.

'Do you have a name in mind?'

Ngaire smiled. 'Yeah. I'd like to give a nod to its French history, so I thought we could name it L'île de la Paix: The Island of Peace.'

CHAPTER 4

As soon as the deal was agreed, progress was swift. L'île de la Paix quickly became a country with which everyone was familiar and with a very strong economy -- both factors due to an extraordinary oversight on the part of the French government and extreme stroke of luck for the founders: when work began on the site that was due to be home to L'île de la Paix's second largest city, construction crews discovered what turned out to be the world's seventh largest gold mine.

Consequently, France's president failed in his re-election bid and the Paix Dollar became established as a strong new currency on the world market.

In less than a year a constitution had been agreed and strict but fair processes were established, exactly as Ngaire Brown had envisaged. The island became a melting pot for 7.5 million women from almost every country in the world; from the poor and in need of asylum, to the talented, independent and wealthy.

Four years later, the island exceeded everyone's initial expectations and, while there were cries of inequality because men were not permitted to reside or holiday there, it lived up to its name as The Island of Peace because crime was virtually non-existent and the newly-established lifestyles created a true sense of community among most of the residents.

...among *most* of the residents...

PART II

CHAPTER 5

'You can't!' said Mikey. His eyes were flooded with tears.

'I can -- it's all arranged,' said Olivia, pulling on a jacket with the most dispassionate expression he had ever seen on her beautiful face. 'You can't stop me.'

'And you can't just calmly announce that you're pregnant with my kid and leavin' the country!'

She recoiled in disgust as strings of saliva formed in his mouth. 'Do you have to salivate so much when you're upset? Be a man, for Christ's sake!'

'Why are you doing this to me!?'

'Look, I told you we were over weeks ago. That doesn't change just because you didn't pull out in time.'

'You said you were taking precautions!' he yelled.

'Please don't get aggressive with me!' she said, raising her voice toward the neighbouring apartment. 'You can't stop me living my life! Now, if you want what's best for your baby and if you ever want to see it when I visit my folks in Melbourne, I suggest you pay me child support every month! You have my account details.' She opened the door to leave.

'Can't we just give it another go? For the benefit of the kid!?' he pleaded.

'No,' she said flatly. As she pulled the door shut, her final snapshot of Mikey was of him sinking to his knees, head-in-hands.

'Fuckin' imbecile,' she muttered to herself.

Outside, Brianna Woroson's pokey little Ford, which Olivia Jenson suspected may be the rattiest-looking car in Australia, was idling. Olivia exited the apartment block and got in. 'Let's go.'

Brianna pulled out into the evening traffic. 'How did he take it?' she asked.

'Like the loser he is.'

'Ah, jeez, you can't blame the guy.'

Olivia winced at Brianna's turn of phrase. Although they had both grown up in the same area, it grated on her that Brianna had never made a concerted effort to lose her outback accent. But Olivia had never come across anyone else who was as willing to accept her personality or bend to her will as Brianna. She hoped that moving to L'île de la Paix would give her the opportunity to find a decent social group and drop the dead weight.

At 24-years-old, although she was taller and slimmer than Brianna, Olivia supposed they were both on the prettier side of the girl next door description and she was happy with that because she knew how to utilise it: she knew how to dress down when she wanted to merge into the background. Conversely, she knew how to wash and condition her long, straight dark hair until it swayed as she walked and the shine drew attention; she knew how to highlight her deep brown eyes so that they hooked whichever man she flashed them at; and she knew how to dress and carry herself so as to turn every head in the room.

Sadly, Brianna placed more importance on eating McDonald's than appearing hot. That, plus her deficit in the intelligence department and her lack of ambition, meant Olivia had no choice to take the initiative in every situation.

'I *can* blame the guy -- he needs to take control over his emotions. If not, women will be walking over him his entire life. That said, at least I now have a steady income stream.'

'But that money will have to go to the kid, won't it?'

Olivia looked to Brianna as though this was the world's dumbest statement. 'I said I was going to *tell him* I was pregnant with his kid. I didn't say I was *actually* pregnant with his kid.'

There was a long pause before Brianna simply said, 'Oh, wow.'

'Survival of the smartest, Brianna -- I keep telling you.'

'You're not going to do anything like that on the island though, are ya? I mean, we were lucky to get our applications accepted. Plus, I hear they come down pretty hard on crims.'

'Everyone over there is so high on life that they wouldn't notice or give a toss if someone was robbing them blind. Especially the Africans and Indians; they're just happy to be there!'

With two grandparents who were Aboriginal, Brianna had never been comfortable with the way Olivia referred to ethnicities other than her own caucasian-defined variety, but she kept quiet about it and changed the subject. 'Still, it's a fresh start, eh?' she said.

'An untouched orchard is always ripe for the picking, Brianna. And we're going to fill our baskets!'

CHAPTER 6

Ten months later Brianna found herself driving Olivia along the Ngaire Brown Highway to L'île de la Paix's central mountain, Halcyon Peak, in the middle of the night.

'We won't be able to drive all the way to the top,' said Brianna as the looming silhouette of the mountain carved a black triangle into the ceiling of stars. 'But there's a car park about half-way up.'

'I know,' said Olivia.

'You still haven't told me why you wanna go up there.'

'As I said: I'll tell you when we get there. It isn't for the bloody sunset.'

The 2-hour trek from the car park to the summit took place in virtual silence, not least because Olivia strode on ahead and so two-way conversation wasn't an option. Brianna marvelled at the number of shooting stars she saw in the cloudless sky and the golden-pink sunrise that lit the ocean and cast impressive shadows over the east coast houses and green areas as she neared the top. The only thing that tainted her enjoyment a little was how cold it was. She had forgotten to pack a suitable coat and so her hoodie was the only thing she had for warmth. When she arrived at the summit, she found Olivia surveying the west coast with some binoculars.

Olivia was irked to hear Brianna's chattering teeth as she joined her. 'Why didn't you bring a coat like I told you?'

'Forgot,' Brianna sniffed. 'What you lookin' at?'

'Opportunity,' said Olivia.

'Oh,' said Brianna.

'What's the one thing this island doesn't have?'

'Men?'

'Right,' said Olivia, a little deflated -- she had expected the guessing game to go on for longer. 'I was in a cocktail bar last week and got talking to this lesbo who works on harbour security. I schmoozed her into giving away that there's a serious hole in the island's systems.'

'Really? I thought security was quite tight.'

'Not over there. There's a blind spot for at least six months of the year.'

Brianna followed Olivia's finger as she pointed towards the north-east coast. The windows of a lone cliff-edge mansion twinkled in the sunlight. Beyond it was the seemingly unending expanse of the Coral Sea. 'That's Yvette Baudelaire's home, ain't it?'

'That's right.'

'Why's that an opportunity?'

'Every chick I talk to on this island complains about not getting laid. Some of us are used to getting fucked on a regular basis. They touted this place as "a land of great opportunity". Well, every opportunity I see is already well-covered by foreigners and immigrants...'

Brianna was about to point out that every single person on the island was a "foreigner and immigrant" but Olivia continued: 'but there's no opportunity to get laid. That's where I come in: I've got an old boyfriend in Sydney who organises boat tours. We're gonna get boatloads of lads to come here and spend the night with our girls. Both sides will pay top dollar for this and, by the time the security systems are up-and-running, I'll be sittin' on a pile that will put the lottery to shame.'

'You're gonna hold orgies in the home of one of The Founding Mothers?!'

'"The Founding Mothers",' Olivia repeated with contempt. 'No, I'm not going to hold orgies there, even if she is in France for six months of the year. I just need the land for access and I'll hire a villa further down the road.'

'When?'

'Soon. I need the money.'

'What about the cash Mikey was sending you?'

'He stopped.'

'Why?'

'He did an image search and found one of the photos I sent him of "our baby" on someone else's blog from a few years ago. He cut me off. Finished with your questions?'

'Yeah...' Brianna said tentatively, although they both instantly knew she hadn't. She tried to form her next enquiry in a way that didn't sound like a question. 'So...you...brought me up here...because...?'

'Because while I go to meet the boat, I want you to keep watch.'

'I don't want to get into trouble, Liv. I'm doin' alright with me job at the supermarket--'

Olivia turned sharply enough to cut her short. She spoke with deliberate calmness. 'You do know that I'm the one who pulled the strings to get your fat arse here, don't you? If you're not going to assist me, then maybe I don't need you.

'There are millions of people who want to get on this cockless island. If, for example, you were to take a spill off this mountain, in less than a day I could bring someone else here who would owe me a massive favour.'

Brianna didn't know what to say. Her jaw quivered as she stood open-mouthed although she couldn't tell whether it was because of the cold or a sudden fear. Olivia had never taken this tone with her before.

'Are you going to do as I ask, Brianna?'

Brianna nodded. 'Yeah-yes. Yes.'

Olivia again looked through her binoculars.

'Won't the house have some sort of security?' Brianna asked.

'Nothing I haven't come across before. Besides, the "Founding Mothers" believe in things like trust and community spirit. She probably leaves the key under a plant pot outside the front gate.' She lowered her binoculars. 'I'll book the villa and we'll start next week.'

Brianna's instinct was to protest but she stopped herself and switched expression to one of agreement as Olivia faced her. 'Right-o,' she nodded.

CHAPTER 7

A week later Brianna was once again behind the wheel as she chauffeured Olivia from the short drive from the private villa--where a stocked bar, a plethora of rooms and 24 young women were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the men on the boat--to the driveway of Yvette Baudelaire's mansion.

'It's not like you to be so quiet,' said Olivia.

'I'm alright,' said Brianna.

'Then why are your hands shaking? You need to take control of yourself, girl -- none of the guys are gonna chat you up if you're a nervous wreck. Mind you, it might mean I can have two to myself tonight.' She smoothed down the shimmering silver gown over her body, partially to catch Brianna's attention, which she achieved. She knew there were feelings of envy towards her on the nights she made a real effort to look good but that was Brianna's fault; she was the burger muncher. Just because there were no men in the country, it didn't mean she could completely let herself go!