Mr Computer Cleaner Ch. 04

Mr Computer Cleaner Pt 4

The setting is a small city in New Zealand. The hero with the odd name of Dio falls into an usual occupation that connects him to an assortment of offbeat characters; it becomes apparent that Dio is enjoying a life richer in many ways than most people around him. Dio is between girlfriends when he meets a damsel in distress on the roadside, with a puncture to her mom's car. Dio helps out and the twenty year old Carra invites him to accompany her to a function the next evening. The couple gradually break-down the hostility of Carra's parents over the 12-year age difference between Dio and their daughter and finally the resistance crumbles and become lovers. Dio apprehends a scoundrel witnessed by the police and newspaper journalists and Dio is hailed as 'town hero'. The couple flee to the Flemings' retreat at the lake to escape the fuss.

*

Carra Fleming was aware that her position with the Council was "under review" as part of a cost-cutting initiative. She went to the events manager – her immediate boss – who made an urgent application for five days' leave. The manager was obliged to state whether death, sickness or any other extreme family emergency was involved.

Fifteen minutes later the manager phoned Carra. "They want to know the reason."

"Tell 'they' that my boyfriend Dio Wellington, the town hero, is going into hiding and I need to be at his side."

Five minutes later the manager phoned Carra to advise the application for leave had been denied.

"Thank you Gavin for doing you best," Carra said. She emailed her resignation to him and began packing her things. As she left her office Gavin rushed to her.

"This is entirely unnecessary," he said. "I am appalled at the treatment you are receiving; you are destined to become a star performer. Although the position is under review I've contacted the CEO and he's told me confidentially that you will be offered seven/tenths of your position in terms of hours as a permanent job."

"Thanks Gavin," she said, rising on her toes to kiss his cheek. "You have been a real sweetie to work with, but being denied leave and being regarded as only seven/tenths of a so-called valued employee with star potential, my resignation stands. Keep up the good work and give my regards to Mrs Smith, who now doubt will be relieved that a sweet young thing like me will no longer be flitting into your office."

"Damn Mrs Smith," he pleaded. "I want you around for your imaginative mind."

"Bye, Gavin."

Outside the District Council offices Carra made a phone call. "Hi Dio, give me twenty minutes and then pick me up at home and we'll hit the road; Lake Edge Cottage, here we come!" Dio didn't ask had she experienced difficulty in having leave granted at such short notice and Carra assumed it wouldn't occur to him that because leave wasn't granted she'd given up her job just to be with him.

Carra rode home in a cab – usually she walked, but this time she had cleaned out her office and had personal things packed into two cartons. She wouldn't tell her mother that she had resigned but knew Mama would find out in due course.

Carmen was waiting on the terrace for her and as Carra came up the steps she cried, arms outstretched, "Oh my poor lamb." She dropped her arms, realizing she couldn't get to Carra who was carrying two cartons, plus her handbag and the raincoat and umbrella she'd kept at the office.

"Mr Smith phoned, telling me what had happened, and saying that Council administration has reversed its decision and has granted you unlimited leave on the condition you withdraw your resignation. He wanted you to return immediately and withdraw your resignation but I said if my daughter has resigned, she'd resigned and would not contemplate returning. I know my daughter, I said."

Carmen began giggling. "I remember something Caleb told me last week about what one of his workmen had said when walking off the job muttering naughty things. 'Mr Smith', I said. 'You and the Council can stick your job'."

Carra dropped everything to hug her mother, both laughing themselves into tears.

"It was naughty of you to say that mama."

"I know, but I don't know what it means."

"Oh mama," laughed Carra. "You can be so funny, so adorable at times."

"Adorable only at times? Perhaps it's my daughter who doesn't know me!"

Twenty minutes later Carmen waved Carra and Dio farewell, tears running down her face.

Dio said, "She knows doesn't she that we'll only be away for two nights and you have your cell phone with you?"

"Yes," replied Carra, wiping away her tears. "I have a little Latin temperament in me, but mama has heaps of it. She just loves to cry."

"Oh my God," cried Dio, "All this rampant emotion, what am I getting myself into?"

"Ooh. I love it when you try to wind me up," Carra said, draping her right arm around his neck and scratching his ear. "Let's hurry and hit the shower. We haven't done at it in the shower yet."

"We could go leisurely, stop at the first roadside picnic area where nobody is parked and make love slowly, go for a bush walk, then drive on to get something to eat, then we could..."

"Listen Buster," growled Carra. "Step on it and get to the lake fast. If you don't I'm going to squeeze something you have great pride in until you go blue in the face and scream for mercy."

"Oh no, not the horrendous five finger squeeze. I'm going light blue in the face just thinking about it. Tighten you seat belt, my girl. Here were going!"

They stopped at the Almost There store to pick up bread, milk and the local paper as well as a trout fishing license for Dio. The Holden then scattered pebbles under heavy acceleration.

In the shower after much hugging and kissing Carra dropped to her knees and took Dio in hand, sliding him slowly into her mouth but she stopped short of triggering him into ejaculation. She stood, water streaming on to her face and hair and said, "Go and roll it on now – I'm very ready."

He returned wearing a stud and ribbed pink natural rubber condom.

Carra licked her lips involuntary. "Is it made like that to make me go wild?"

"Something like that and the woman in the pharmacy said I should feel more sensation as well but not to mind if it doesn't because my partner's heavier squealing will add to my excitement."

"You and the assistant spoke that intimately?"

"Yes – and why not? If they sell something they should be able to talk authoritatively about their product."

"How old was this poor sweet girl who must have been highly embarrassed."

"About sixty I would think."

"Oh God, a poor grandma; she must have been highly embarrassed. I had been thinking about this anyway – let's both be tested just before the wedding and on our honeymoon we could start having sex without a condom."

"This academic talk is making my dick lose interest."

"Here, allow me to stroke it...ooh, I can feel it going stiff. Let's get on with it."

Dio backed Carra against the back wall of the shower and lifted her high.

"Oh Dio," she sighed. "You are so strong – lower me a bit, slowly, and I'll guide it in; this is so exciting."

Dio no longer had a worry about his dick losing interest; it was hard – almost painfully hard; he bit her neck and she howled in delight and then screamed, "Fuck me," indicating a tigress he been set loose.

A few hours later the lovers were on the porch watching the sunrise beyond the eastern end of the lake. Both were nude, sipping coffee.

Carra sat precariously on the top of the railing at the edge of the porch, the lake edge only twelve feet away. She was leaning against a post that supported the roof overhand, knees drawn right up with her head resting on them, leaving a breast showing on either side of her legs.

Dio stood four foot away, his back resting against the end support post facing her/ He sipped his coffee, his eyes never leaving Carra and her very exposed body.

"My God, look at me," she said softly. "I never dreamed that I would sit like this in front of a man with no inclination to cover myself; I've become depraved."

"I think you are becoming more beautiful ever day that passes, you body seems to have become firmer, and there's a glow about you and..."

"Oh follow me this instant!" ordered Carra, thumping to the ground and racing off. "Come on," she called from the bed. "You have me all worked up; come here and complete the job."

"Just finishing my coffee; everything's ready at this end – be with you in a tick."

An hour later Carra was at the kitchen bench, looking across the lake at the first of the breeze fluffing the water surface. She was wearing a very short silk dressing gown that her mother had bought a couple of years ago in Paris. It was a type of gown and matching pair of knickers that Carra simply could not believe that her mother would ever purchase. She smiled, remembering that conversation.

"The Paris air in spring and the streets do something to you as if you wish to express yourself," mama had explained vaguely.

"Well, these clothes don't look like an expression of my mother – they look as if they belong to someone who's found the joy of sex again."

"Carra! Go to your room!" her mother had shouted happily.

Re-emerging from day dreaming, Carra said to Dio: "Look, stop reading that magazine. It will be another twenty minutes before the breeze gets here. Why don't you take your rod and do some fly fishing from the lawn?"

"Please rephrase that last sentence."

"Take dad'sfishing rod and do some fishing on the lawn," she said, giggling. "He's spent hundreds of hours doing that; it's a bit late for the morning rise but I want to see your technique."

"I thought you wanted me to go casting?"

"Take your one-track mind and go fishing."

After starting breakfast, bacon under the grill, hash browns in the toaster, eggs in the pan with mushrooms and later tomatoes to go into the pan, Carra leaned on the bench, resting her face in her hands, watching. Her focus was on the town hero dressed only in battered khaki shorts, his back muscles rippling and he made some tentative casts, using the method she had described to him on the way to the lake.

After about twenty casts, he looked as if he were getting the hang of it. She turned the bacon over and looking out of the window she shouted, "You've hooked one, you've hooked a trout!"

"Oh, is that what it is?" he shouted back. "I thought the fly had woken up and was now fighting back."

"Keep the rod tip up."

"I always do."

"Liar! Let the fish run whenever it has the inclination."

"I know. Get off your ass and bring the net quickly."

"I beg your pardon! I'm getting breakfast you know."

"And I'm topping your father by getting a fish from right here on the lawn. Tremendous!"

"Oh you men. You're so competitive; little wonder women really don't like men."

They sat at the bench on stools eating burnt bacon, something resembling fried eggs but the hash browns, being in an automatic toaster, and the later added mushrooms and tomatoes were perfect.

"Sorry about the bacon and eggs. You had me so excited on the lawn I almost peed myself."

"Me too."

"What, peeing?"

"No you fool – excited."

"It's a fine looking trout, in excellent condition."

"Yeah, I feel like a champion."

"You can't tell dad where you caught it."

"I know. He's invested in this place, spending hundreds of hours getting everything just how he wants it. He also has that challenge on the brain: to be the first to catch a trout standing on the front lawn. I've no wish to take that heroic image from him, and if you gush out our secret when you get pissed, I'll keep you off sex for a week."

"Oh, Dio. You are so right; it would devastate daddy."

To the astonishment of the man who invariably gets the wrong spin on things, he heard her add, "How can you be so right all the time? And so sensitive when your job is rabbitting after porn? You are an amazing bloke."

"Really? Any more burnt bacon?"

Alec Simpson, a neighbor, called out a warm greeting to Carra, Her parents and the Simpson's had been neighbors at the lake for some fifteen years.

"Hi, Uncle Alec. I'm sorry dad is not here to go fishing with you."

"Bugger him. It's your young man I want to take out fishing," said Alec, walking right over to Carra. "I have to find out if he's good enough for you."

"I really don't think..."

"Don't care what you think in this regard, Carra. I'm practically your godfather. He has to pass muster. Anyway, you're all grown up now. No more Uncle and Auntie please; we're Alec and Melissa."

"Very well, and I guess I will surrender him over to you. He'll love to go fishing but I would not advise you telling him that you're looking him over. He could be a tad stroppy if he finds out."

"I spent a few years in Special Services, Carra. He won't have a clue that I'm sorting him out."

Special Services? Carra wondered what sort of outfit that was. Government spy department? Police undercover outfit? Armed Forces' interrogation unit? Perhaps the Employers' Council higher salaries survey committee?

She had no idea, but thought that Dio would like to go harling on the lake.

The two fishermen returned at 4:30, triumphantly, with six trout. Carra and Melissa had just returned from shopping down in the tourist town at the northern end of the lake.

Carra and Dio accepted an invitation to dine with the Simpson's. Dio went to the Almost There tackle and supplies store to buy two bottles of wine.

Melissa Simpson served smoked trout with plain crackers and a yoghurt based dressing of horseradish mustard, capers and black pepper. Alec's flint dry Riesling provided a perfect match.

Thick vegetable soup followed then trout with a salad and thinly sliced vegetables and then came old fashion Mom's apple pie, with Melissa forcing a third helping on Dio. She said with a huge wink, "You've got to keep your strength up, my boy."

After dinner Melissa and Dio ate chocolates, washed down with cognac while the other two loaded the dishwasher.

"Well?" Carra asked.

"He's A-one , Carra. Of that I've absolutely no doubt."

"So did he answer all your questions?"

"Um, I never got the chance. He seemed to take over and had me either fascinated with his stories and his jokes or was asking me all the questions. You've picked a fine young man for yourself, Carra, I'm telling you."

"Well, that's dandy for you Alec, I was hoping that with your MI5 techniques of interrogation you would have uncovered something that Melissa and I could gossip about."

"Steady on, Carra. We were fishing you know."

"Oh, silly little me. Of course, I should have known."

"Hullo, hullo, what's going on here?" asked Melissa, with her brandy in her hand. "Hop it, Alec. Carra and I want to talk."

"But..."

"Go, Alec," Melissa said patiently. "You've got your riding instructions."

He departed and Melissa sat down on a cane chair at the small table. "Want to tell me about him?"

"It's the perfect setting here, Melissa; absolutely perfect. He's been such a wonderful companion and we've been living happily like an old married couple, if you know what I mean."

"That, I do know about, but happily like an old married couple? I believe such a euphoric state of cohabitation still awaits discovery."

"Oh, you tease. You know what I mean. I'm a bit worried, though. We go home the day after tomorrow and I am beginning to fear that he's not going to mention the possibility of us really going steady and perhaps...well, you know."

"Well, my dear," Melissa said, turning and looking at the sweet young woman beside her with great affection. "What else do you expect? He's probably getting more than he can handle right now without the worry of shouldering extra responsibilities."

"I don't think he's like that."

"Is he a male, with everything working and in excellent order?"

"Yes."

"Well, he will think like that."

Carra's phone went, so Melissa left the room, saying she'd be back in five minutes. Digging around in her handbag, Carra pulled out her phone.

"Hello, mama," said Carra, observing the details of the caller on the screen of her phone.

"How clever of you to know it was me," said Carmen brightly, still not aware of the finer points of audio technology. Are you having a wonderful time?"

"Yes, it has been magnificent. We are dining with the Simpson's, and to avoid you having to ask how they are, both look extremely well."

"And how are Melissa and Alec?"

"Melissa has come down with rabies and Alec has had his heart removed and is waiting for a replacement to come alone in the next month or two."

"Oh, that's nice. Alec's heart is fine you say. That's really good news. Has Mr Handsome proposed?"

"Oh mama, put the phone in tight against your ear and really listen. No he hasn't and I don't think he is going to say such a thing."

"Obviously he is getting everything he wants and has asked himself whatever more he could get if he committed to accept greater responsibilities."

"Melissa said exactly the same thing."

"Look dear, we're moving on to another bar so I better go. But listen to Melissa, she's an expert."

"How do you know that?"

"She conned Alec to propose to her when he was already engaged to someone else. Bye dear, but I'll keep my phone on all the time, waiting for the good news. Just listen to Melissa."

Carra sat twiddling her thumbs until Melissa returned.

"That was mama in such a hurry she couldn't talk to you, which must be a first. Anyway, she said I must listen to you, that you are the expert."

"Oh, really? You mother does have a silver tongue. Well, I sorted it all out while in the loo, and have made all of the arrangements. You are booked in at Lakeside Manor for dinner tonight. I know it will cost your lover an arm and a leg, but not everything he gets is free. Reception will ask him for his car keys for security reasons. I shall drive Alec over and he will drive Dio's truck thing back to your place, lock it and put the keys on your kitchen bench. Then at 11:00 you take your big darling out and tell him there's been a change of plan – that we've taken his vehicle home and that you're returning on Lady Lakeside. We are paying for the boat charter because it's for you and also Dio's given Alec so much pleasure at being such an excellent conversationalist and entertainer and being a great fisherman."

"Oh Melissa, how brilliant," said Carra. "You are a wonderful darling. But calling him a great fisherman is a little bit rich, isn't it?"

"Then he didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"About who caught the fish?"

"No, but he's not a boastful type. I assumed he caught one, perhaps two."

"Yes, so did I. Alec is reputably the best semi-permanent fisher on the lake, but today your man caught six, Alec hooked two but they were under-sized so were freed. He was simply gob smacked, he told me, and was extremely grateful that Dio didn't crow about it; you see Alec is proud of the legend that surrounds him."

"My God, how could he not tell me something like that? I'll never trust him again."

"Now young woman, you listen to me. I am virtually your godmother; sometimes when something good and even great happens to a man, he prefers to sit on it, not saying a word. It lights something up inside him. Then one day when Dio gets old, he'll call his oldest boy to his side, or grandson if there are only daughters, and will whisper to him about the day he secretly became the greatest fisher on the lake. It won't be true, of course, because my Alec has hauled in hundreds of trout from this lake, but who cares? In telling a descendant, a new legend has been born."

Carra felt like crying. What a beautiful thing to happen! Whoever came up with the notion that men with insensitive, thick-headed bastards? That's Women's Lib thing of last century has a lot to answer for!