Something about Elle Ch. 03

On the afternoon Donovan had his near collision with that huge man carrying the water jars as if they were pint bottles, Elle had been checking on Hannah about progress on ditching her married lover.

"It's done, within an hour after you left the apartment. I met him in a nearby park - I had to do it face to face.

"I lied about us starting up a lesbian relationship, and found how easily it was to tell him that; I guess because I accepted it was an easy way of affecting a clean break," Hannah had said.

"And that was it?"

"More or less, but watching his face crumple wrenched my heart a bit. We said our goodbyes and I staggered home and had a modest measure of neat brandy. Perhaps it's rather over emotional saying this, but as the brandy soaked into me I no longer felt as if I'd just gotten out of jail."

"Oh Hannah," Elle said softy, hugging her and patting her back. "You brave, brave woman and I'll help you find someone more suitable."

"How?"

"We'll go to a singles bar, you bra-less and your hair piled up high and..."

"Good heavens no. Ohmigod, I'd rather die. I..."

"You evil woman; you shouldn't be teasing my when I'm feeling so sad."

"Laugh, laugh and laugh Hannah. Life's too short to mope."

"Well said. Off you go; I've work to do. And thank you, thank you. I've done the right thing."

Elle thought that was a clean break for Hannah, and then hours later Elle was very close to being seduced in Hannah's apartment. She'd realized Donovan was trying ever so hard to be a good boy but he probably had caught her scent as she felt aroused. It must have been very hard for him, so she decided to reward him, just a little. He seemed to regard it as being rewarded. She knew she'd only have to whisper two words and he would have begun consuming her in a flash.

Consuming? Well the poor boy was rather pent up; she could almost see steam coming out of his ears. He wanted to seduce her, she had no doubt of that and it would have been on his mind that first time they met outside the bus in Christchurch. If she hadn't just become engaged...

Elle sighed and was irritated that she was tormenting herself. She'd had her chance to go all the way with him and decided not to because that was the right thing to do at present.

She decided to stop thinking about it.

But within seconds she thought what wondered what would she say if he tried again and came on to her hotly? If she succumbed would he ever think of asking her to marry him if he thought she was that damn easy to bed.

Of course he would if she proved so good at it that he couldn't keep his hands off her.

She groaned and said aloud, "Oh I'll go crazy thinking like this. I must seek a diversion."

Elle made a call.

"Hello mum."

"Elle have you any idea what time it is?"

No I don't know."

"What is it and there are you?"

"I'm in LA in America. Mum I want you to get back with dad."

"What on earth for when I'm happy with my life as it is right now?"

"Oh I don't know why, mum. It just seems the right thing to do."

"I have someone else now Elle."

"Yes, I know but you're not married to the guy are you?"

"No we are just lovers."

"Good then dump him and go back to dad."

"I can't an anyway he'd think I was after his money. Just how wealthy has he become?

"He has amassed a few million dollars I guess but it doesn't matter. You've loved him before and you'll love him again. Just go to Christchurch and find him mum."

Her mother asked sleepily did Elle think it really was the right thing to do.

Elle sighed thinking it was like talking to a fence post. Her mother was discussing this entirely without exhibiting emotion.

"Definitely the right thing to do mum is for you to go to him and begin talking. That will sort it out between you both one way of the other. He was shattered when you walked out on him."

"And now he's been at you to try to negotiate reconciliation between us."

"No mum I haven't spoken to dad for more than a week. This is just something that came into my head explosively."

"Yes you and your head or rather you vision as he calls it and you always were a wet emotionally. What you need to develop is a stiffer backbone."

"Mum!"

"Get off my back darling. Very well, I'll contact him about this. I agree it does seem the right thing to do."

The call finished a couple of minutes later, both mother and daughter saying they loved each other.

Elle stood looking at her phone.

She couldn't believe she'd just had that conversation. For goodness sake, it sounded like slapstick, with her being the country yokel. Was that really me? She decided it was, and that behind it all she was wrought over her tantalizingly close sexual relationship with Donovan.

"I better take a cold shower," she said aloud and went to her bedroom, going to bed instead of taking a shower and was asleep peacefully, seconds after her head hit the pillow.

Next day Elle was steady as a rock. She met Donovan at reception, called out brightly, "Good morning Donovan" and sailed by, leaving him with only a whiff of French perfume.

He phoned her later and suggested lunch.

"I really cannot afford the time today - sorry," she said, ending the call before he could argue.

On Sunday at noon Hannah was pacing the room, really anxious to leave she muttered "It's rude of them to keep me waiting."

A minute later she was at it again: "Oh Hannah, they will be talking about your non-appearance, thinking you may have messed up on the time, even the date. So when you arrive they will be so relieve they will rush you. Huh, my children appreciate me to that extent? That will be the day."

She arrived at Donovan's apartment two minutes late.

Donovan, Kate and Annie cried out "Hi mom" and crowded her, saying why was she late, was she all right and the girls saying they were so pleased to see her, although they were twisting their heads to eye up the New Zealander who had just walked in.

"Girls this is my friend Elle. I've told you about her. Elle this is Kate and this energetic bundle is Annie."

"I'm thrilled to meet you, I've heard so much about you," said Annie, holding out her hand.

Elle smiled.

"Where I come from males shake hands. Women hug lightly or hug and kiss if they're friends. Let's skip the preliminaries huh?"

Kate and Elle hugged and lightly kissed each other on the cheek watched by Annie who was waiting for her turn impatiently.

"Ohmigod you are so beautiful," said the very attractive youngest girl, when stroking Elle's cheek.

Elle had spent almost two hours in the bath and getting ready, making sure her personal presentation was close to perfection.

"You are a charmer," she said to Annie, who blushed happily,

The group took the elevator to the roof top where Donovan popped a bottle of sparkling wine and poured it over peach schnapps and ice in three glasses and poured a beer for himself.

The rooftop function was underway.

As the afternoon wore on Annie cornered Donovan and whispered, "She's lovely, Donny. You have to win her and keep her. She's exactly right for an extension of our family."

"That is a mature and perceptive remark from you."

"Pull your head in, big brother."

Kate was even more direct: "Marry her Donny; she'll be a fabulous sister-in-law and for you I say you are unlikely to do better."

At one stage the conversation died and Kate gave it a crank up.

"How on earth can someone be engaged as a visionary Elle? You can't see anything more than anyone else."

"Careful Kate," smiled her mother. "You'll be pulled out of your depth."

Annie said she was also interested in the answer.

"Well visionary was just a tag Donovan attached to me. We spent several days on a tour when he was in New Zealand - I being the tour director, and because he was the only unattached person, in that he was not traveling with a companion or part of a larger group, he sat by me and walked, skied and tramped alongside me. We even ate together. So we talked a great deal and things I said surprised him"

"I did this on auto really by sometimes completing his sentences. It's just something that just comes to me; I don't have to think about it. Then he started feeding me information about business issues his company had solved for clients and seemed surprised by what I said."

Donovan said, "In some cases Elle reached conclusions the whole team of us had combined to reach and on occasions her suggestions appeared to offer alternative fixes that could have been faster and either more economic to achieve or may have been more profitable, though that would require analysis to establish. I eventually became aware that she had an amazing ability to see the total picture and just either accepts or knows the interrelationship of things in a generalized sense without being an architect or an engineer or scientist."

"Give us an example of your extrapolated thinking Elle, because that's what it is isn't it?"

"Yes basically that's what it is Annie Why not outline a personal problem to me."

"I don't have a complex one; at least I don't think I do."

"I do," said Kate. "I have taken on a heavy workload at university and work in a restaurant to earn money for extras, and I'm turning down dates if they cut into my study time or I'll be scheduled to work at the time of that date. I also have the pressure of girlfriends wanting to go out on hen's nights. It's all too much and I get bitchy under the pressure."

"Do fellow students have similar problems?"

"Yes."

"The core problem is your workload."

"I know that."

"Of course you do, but it's where you have to attack if you wish to free up time to use elsewhere. For a young woman of your age your girlfriends are paramount and giving guys some time is not a bad idea either. They way to advance on this is to remodel that core mass."

Kate and the others were listening attentively.

"The obvious answer is to cut your study problem, but also look beyond that to see is better management is the key."

"First, review your entire study program and sort out essential elements and then examine all other to ascertain what would be the likely repercussions if you drop any of them. It's little use taking a paper or whatever you call them here if it's unlikely to be very useful in taking you to your goals. For instance, you may have simply taken a particular paper because you are interested in that subject - but is that 'interest' more critical to you than your girl friends or a date with a lusty lad?"

The girls giggled, Hannah frowned while Donovan smiled.

"Next are you working in a restaurant that allows job sharing, or can you quit and go to one that does? That is an option."

"But without really studying your situation I can only look at the big picture and I see this option, one that I would take. Cut one shift from your restaurant schedule and arrange to transfer a couple of papers or whatever you call them from university attendance to on-line study, being careful that the on-line completion at least matches the quality of face-to-face university attendance study."

Kate looked impressed.

"Ohmigod, my own university offers some options of online study. I never thought about it, wanting to be a fulltime student. But yes, you're brilliant Elle; it would provide much greater flexibility."

Elle smiled. "It's like a jigsaw - you need to have a vision of what the finished puzzle looks like and then figure out how to place the pieces into an integrated whole. It's not rocket science."

Annie switched the conversation. "Mom said you are engaged to a guy back home. May we see your engagement ring?"

"Ah and that catches me on the hop. You see he wished to buy a ring immediately we decided to become engaged but I wanted more to think about my potential life with him through to the grave before I agreed to go that next step and we buy that ring. He's still waiting for my decision because I dropped everything to come here after Donovan offered me employment. From that night we agreed to become engaged the only time Dunlop and I came face-to-face was when he rushed in at the last minute at Christchurch Airport to join my parents in saying goodbye to me. "

"Really?" said Annie. "I'm sure those of my friends who've taken the plunge thought no further than showing friends their sparkling ring."

"That's the trouble with young folk today," Hannah said.

"Mum!" cried the girls.

"Perhaps we should talk about something I'm interested in?" Donovan suggested.

"It's difficult to converse about nothing," Annie teased.

"Bitch."

"Donovan."

"It was used as an endearment mom. You saw me smile."

"That doesn't matter. It is the principle that counts."

"Principles - particularly ethics - now that's a complex topic for discussion," Elle suggested, receiving a grateful smile from Hannah.

Later back in her bedroom Elle at last accepted she had a problem.

Whenever alone Donovan often popped into her mind. Her attempts to persuade herself there was nothing unusual about that as she worked with him had finally had her conclude that in denying she was interested in him on a personal level was pathetic.

The issue was twofold - why wasn't she thinking about her fiancé Dunlop and why images of Donovan were infiltrating her mind with growing intensity.

There was a saying, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder'.

Well, that must have been composed by a romantic with a heart and mind build like a reinforced concrete bunker. She has one of those minds that's vibrant and scanning constantly for creative substance and until now she'd not expected to be facing making a personal choice between men.

Ohmigod, she was entrapped within her own mind!

She'd believed she could never be unfaithful; it was abhorrent to her beliefs and completely out of character. Oh yeah!

Although these thoughts had quickened her heartbeat, Elle was aware she was not distressed - in fact she was very calm, considering. Considering what? That she was on the brink of becoming a two-timing opportunist.

Well, she decided coolly, there is only one thing to do. Return home and be an honorable woman. With a jolt she realized that did not appeal.

Ohmigod!

"Hannah I'm going for a walk."

"You go alone dear, I'm resting...too much liquor methinks. Keep to the straight and narrow out there."

Hannah meant keep to main thoroughfares and in sight of many other people to maximize personal safety. Keep to the straight and narrow... oh yeah.

It wasn't her fault; Donovan has crept into her life without any sign of attempting to possess her, to win her away from Dunlop. Their extension of friendless had been inevitable - being together a lot, thinking similarly, being young with bodies attempting to keep sexually active.

She had a great desire to touch herself, a breast; instead she thrust her right hand under her hair and gently slid it down the back of her neck, tilting her head against that hand and almost sighing.

God, she felt sexy and on the public sidewalk!

Not a problem, it wouldn't show. Everyone would know she was on a late afternoon stroll. Everyone?

The reality was in that huge city virtually no one would notice her, she was on her own. But that just it, she didn't want to be alone; she wanted...

Elle shut down that thought, not wishing to proceed further with that thought and produce a name.

She paused to peer into the display window of a store, only vaguely aware that the principal product on display was a range of household appliances. She mused whether if this were a similar window display in Christchurch would she be as deeply in love with Dunlop as she had been a couple of months ago?

The answer evaded her... not really; she just didn't want the answer in her mind. That of course was utterly stupid because the answer was already in her mind but she was blocking it coming to the forefront of thinking.

"Ohmigod!" she cried in frustration.

"Are you in trouble?" asked an elderly man, his wife tugging his arm, attempting to hurry him off.

"It's an emotional issue I'm grappling with. Thank you for asking."

"Come on Anthony, let's go; she's probably on drugs."

"Goodbye Tony and thanks for your concerned."

Anthony smiled like a gentleman; her ladyship scowled with an expression as if she was alone holding the fort.

That incident lifted Elle's spirits, especially after she laughed, hearing the old tart muttering to Tony, "I've told you that prostitutes these days look exactly like really decent, well-dressed and well-mannered women."

Elle wished Tony would be a smart-ass and ask, "What's a prostitute?"

But he didn't; he just continued ambling on and doing his duty which was to accompany his lady and listen to her.

Elle looked back sightlessly into the window - she had her eyes clenched closed and cleared her thoughts. With that done she examined what emerged, and wasn't a least surprised, considering her present state of mind.

She was in Donovan's office; he had his shirt off and she was stroking his chest and blowing hot breath on to his left nipple. The image faded within a fraction of a second and her chest began heaving slightly. Well there was the answer she'd tried unsuccessfully to ward off when in denial.

Elle decided she should return home.

By the time she returned to the apartment she'd modified that decision. Over the next couple of days she'd think seriously about returning home to extricate herself from her dilemma.

Two days later on she called Dunlop - she phoned him usually on Saturdays and he sometimes called her midweek.

A woman answered and called Dunlop to the phone.

"Hi how are you?

"I'm good."

Elle asked what was he doing?

"Working on paying bills which is rather an unwelcome chore."

"At least you have assistance available."

Elle noticed the pause before Dunlop said carefully, "What the woman who answered the phone?"

"Yes and no doubt she brings you coffee."

He said yeah and laughed awkwardly.

They talked for a couple of minutes, Dunlop saying he was still trying to tie in a free trip on an airfreight charter to Los Angeles to see her; it was a matter of finding one that fitted into his own schedule.

Hannah was on her bed, fully dressed down to her shoes, very deeply asleep.

Elle made herself a chicken sandwich she really didn't want and wondered why Dunlop had been evasive about the woman. He acted as if he didn't know who the woman was. She thought Christchurch was 19 hours ahead of the time in Los Angeles and that meant it would be about 7:00 in the morning. She recalled they really had not talked intimately and reasoned he had a woman living with him. The jerk!

Elle called Dunlop back and asked outright was he living with that woman who'd answered the phone. He admitted it, saying she was a trainee pilot and claimed he was entitled to seek other female company because he was lonely.

They discussed this, quite amicably really but she was scoring the points hands down until he finally broke and said stuff it, he wanted to break off with Elle.

She fought back the tears of rejection but she was glad she'd found him out in time.

"Goodbye, forever!" Elle cried emotionally.

She was upset by the thought of Dunlop possibly giving 'her' ring to someone else because that would add to his the betrayal.

Okay, she'd been teetering but had resisted; on the other-hand Dunlop the weak-ass was doing something Elle had declined to do. She needed comfort and called Donovan.

He arrived within minutes, and when her tears flowed again when he took her into his arms and wiped her eyes with incredible gentleness. He then stroked her hair and whispered into her ear "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter" until those whispering lips touched her ear and became gentle kisses.