View From The Top.....

Chapter 4-6

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How to Write: Hints on Writing
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Libby
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter 4-6
Chapter Five
The Studio
Chapter Eight: The Recruit
Chapter Nine: The Letter
Chapter Ten: The Stalker
Chapter Eleven: Karina
Chapter Twelve: Madeline
Chapter Thirteen: The Tattoo
Chapter Fourteen: David
Chapter Fifteen: The First Concert
Chapter Sixteen: Margaret
Chapter Seventeen: Murder Strikes
Chapter Eighteen: Vietnam
Chapter Nineteen: Serina's Party
Chapter Twenty: Norm
Angels in the world
Chapter 22 : The Fall
Chapter Six

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She considered her body again this morning standing there nude in front of the mirror, critically examining herself for any sight of something.

 

The contest was not even a week away, and she had been working so hard for so long now. Her whole life seemed poised on this one event.

 

Greg had promised her he would get a job and not depend on her so much. Her mother was waiting to hear about what was happening to her, and David was saying they should get married.

 

"I have no idea what I want to do," she said despondently as she considered all the others depending on her, and how sometimes the burden was getting too big to be carried.

 

"I wish there was someone I could even talk to," she cried to her reflection. "You are no goddam good. You agree with everything I say."

 

Smiling tightly, she grabbed the big fluffy white towel that she loved and completely nude walked across the open area to where the full sized pool was, being cleaned by Stuart, her trainer and sometimes friend.

 

He looked up as she arrived, and realised something was troubling her. He had that knack of seeing what she was thinking, and over the years he had worked for her, they had developed a strange bonding. He lived above the stables, in a perfectly designed apartment overlooking the arena and the stars at night, and he went his own way.

 

His duties were the pool and the running of the stables. Anna, the wolf eyed Lady, was a horse whisperer, possibly because she was half animal herself, and Dale the stable boy, lived and breathed the horses under his care, so Stuart had plenty of time for himself. Stuart did not bother them and they did their tasks without any fuss and the property ran smoothly under his control. Greatchen had the money, they did what they were paid to do, and if her maintenance and cheques came in as they should, everything would go smoothly.

 

However, despite the enormous figures that went through the accounts, there were months when things were lean.

 

It was then that Greatchen would come and spend more time where he was, and he would massage her tenseness away while he let her talk about what was on her mind. Sometimes she would take a hose and ride. He knew she rode them hard as they were covered in sweat and almost wild when they returned. On a couple of occasions he had gone with her, but she was faster and more aggressive and always managed to lose him somewhere along the trail. He hated tagging back alone, as Dale would see him when he came to attend the horse and snigger ever so slightly.  He chose to simply let Greatchen get rid of her fierce intensity with such driven physicals that he knew were her need.

 

He never had to offer much, just company and someone to talk at. She found she could organise her thoughts better when someone like Stuart was there touching her at the same time, and he was more than content to rub her with soft almond oil laced with a touch of peppermint, and simply let her think she was talking to him. He was soothing, and he knew it. Sometimes he felt like a marshmallow someone was licking softly ,so it wouldn't go away too quickly.

 

She brought the towel to the lounge that he pushed forward, and with one graceful movement turned and dived clean into the water and swam away.

 

He watched the figure underwater, and marvelled again at the lithe grace she had in and out of water. He smiled slowly and watched her lapping one after another until even she must have felt the pain of pushing herself so gracefully.

 

He saw that she was nearing the end of her relentless training, and went to get the Margarita that was already prepared and filled the tall crystal glasses she loved so much, with fine shaved ice, and took the already frozen and bleeding glass to her for approval.

 

She pulled herself from the water. Stuart was there, towel extended out to her, Margarita in the other hand. He marvelled at her body as the water cascaded from her head in large, pregnant drops, as she stepped from the pool's edge and took the towel.

 

It was hard for him to balance the very different relationships he had, one relationship with Anna and the other with Greatchen who was his boss. He knew that Greatchen would never stand for any type of romantic relationship between himself and another staff member. This is because, he realized it would erode the degree of intimacy and trust that had built up over the years.

 

Anna was relatively new to the staff. She'd been there just a bit more than a year. Stuart knew that Dale - the stud of the county, had of course 'tried it on' with Anna. But Anna, whose eyes not only were half animal, but also should a deep, perceiving, mysterious soul, had of course, seen Dale for what he was and rebuffed him. That was perhaps when Stuart and Dale's friendship began to erode.

 

Greatchen wiped her mane of hair a bit, and tossed it back. She put the towel behind her neck as so many athletes had done before her and reached for the Margarita. She gave Stuart an appreciative look, as she took the first taste.

 

"Stuart” she parted her lips in a wonderful, friendly, intimate smile at him. "This is fantastic!  Could you get me some water too, please?"

 

Greatchen was always polite. It was one of those things that had been drilled into her being through years of proper upbringing. She took the Margarita and walked over to the lounge. She carefullys et the drink on the lounge and sat down languidly. She leaned back on the lounge, and took her sunglasses, carefully placed there earlier by Stuart. She closed her eyes and soaked up the sun for just a minute.

 

She heard Stuart's steps as he come down the few steps to the pool level. She opened her eyes and watched him come toward her. Her mind drifted a bit. She wondered if he still thought that she had no clue about the romantic relationship he had with Anna. Greatchen was actually amused by the whole situation. She had recruited Anna from a commercial training stable in faraway Kentucky. Anna had come well recommended by a friend of hers who had used Anna to train, or actually repair the psyche, of a champion Arabian that had kicked some Emir over in Arabia - and been rescued and whisked away to safety in Kentucky. 

 

 

He admired her supple form, as she held her margarita, making no effort to hide her nakedness from him. She accepted the towel he offered, quickly wrapping it not around her body but around her head, downed the drink in one long pull, and then stretched out on the lounge the droplets of water still glistening on her supple body.

 

“How about a quick rub down, to loosen up my muscles Stuart? I’m so tight you could play me like a guitar.”

 

“Sure G,” said the trainer, pulling another lounge up beside her seat. You look worried this morning.”

 

He slowly began working the kinks out of her muscles beginning at her toes, working his way slowly over her body. While he worked, she talked.

 

“I am,” she confided. “There’s another screw up with my trust fund, or something and money’s a little short again. I think that shrew Daddy was married too is tampering with my inheritance somehow. These things never happened when he was alive.”

 

“Uh huh,” Stuart had reached her knees.

 

“I might have to go back to work, if things don’t change. There’s enough money in the farm account to carry it for a couple of months, but my private account is nearly drained. Daddy would have taken care of it by now. He always kept an eye on my accounts, but that bitch is more concerned with herself. She’d cut me off, think, if Daddy hadn’t left me that trust fund in perpetuity. I just wish he’d set up someone else to administer it.”

 

“Really?” and Stuart was working the kinks out of her hard tight thighs now.

 

“You know, I got a call from some Rock Star’s agent yesterday. She said he was looking for a full time body guard. She wondered if I would be interested in coming out of retirement for a while. They’re offering a lot of money. I’m not sure I’ve still got the skills. It’s been five years.”

 

Stuart was kneading Gretchen’s hips now. He had completely bypassed the one area where she really wished his fingers would linger. She spread her legs, ever so slightly, hoping he would notice her invitation, but he never made any sexual advances toward her. He never had. Even when they were teenagers growing up together on her father’s estate, with hormones rushing wildly through their maturing bodies, Stuart had never once made any sexual overtures toward her. Goodness knows she had given him ample opportunities, then and since then. She had done everything short of raping him, but he never took the bait. To this day she would have welcomed him, had he taken her in his arms.

 

She often lay alone in her bed at night, wondering why Stuart didn’t seem to feel the same attraction. He was her best friend, her confidant. Often he was her conscience, but he had never been and, she feared, never would be, her lover. She was beautiful, and she knew it. That wasn’t conceit, it was simple fact. She worked hard at staying beautiful, but, other than the odd admiring glance and compliment on her form, Stuart didn’t seem to notice.

 

Knowing she wouldn’t get an answer she asked the question anyway, “What do you think I should do?”

 

These were the moments Stuart hated. His mind had been somewhere else while Greatchen was confiding in him. That was what made him such a great confidant. He could never tell anyone else her secrets because he never really listened to her. While she thought he was hanging on her every word, his mind had taken him to his apartment over the stable, where he had shared his bed with Dale last night, last night, the night before that and for a hundred nights before that.

 

They hid their love affair well, as they both knew they must. Only Anna, the Wolf Lady knew, and she was more intent on talking to the horses than to any human. Both Stuart and Dale knew she would never tell anyone. She had rebuffed Dale’s attempts to seduce her, knowing he didn’t belong in a relationship with a Woman.

 

Since he was thirteen years old Stuart had known he was gay. He had learned to cover it well, dating some of the prettiest girls in High school, but it was always the handsome boys that made his loins quiver. Alone in his room at night it hadn’t been a playboy bunny that filled his thoughts as he relieved his sexual tensions, It had been thoughts of the other boys showering in the locker room and visions of what he would like to do to them, but Dale had only known that something wasn’t quite right, until that dreadful attempt with Anna.

 

Stuart gave Greatchen his standard reply for moments like this, the one she had learned to expect. “I dunno, G, go with your intuitions.”

 

Greatchen could have screamed. Stuart was a great listener, but she needed someone she could really talk to, someone who would give her advice, good advice. Not just someone who told her what they thought she wanted to hear.

 

“I’ve got to go,” she snapped, now fed up with Stuart. “I’ll talk to you later.” With that she stormed back into the house, leaving her best friend, hands covered in lotion, wondering, what he had done wrong.

 

Just because you’re gay, he thought, doesn’t mean you understand women.

 

 

6

Marilee looked at the television set in utter disbelief.

 

This cannot be true. It cannot be happening. The same numbers do not come up four times in a lifetime. The first time was at Broken Hill, when she gave that new teacher, her birthday and lucky numbers to put on the Lottery, on a sudden whim, and watched the numbers all roll up.

 

The teacher had forgotten to put them on, and lamely said, she thought she would save Marilee the money, and Marilee never forgave her, but there was nothing to do but realise fate never meant her to be rich.

 

She put the same numbers on again, for a few weeks, and gave up. The week she gave up, the numbers actually came in again. And she was to see the numbers once more, and that was when she was holding the winning ticket in her hand.

 

She had a dream where she won 44 million dollars, where she was given the winning numbers, and where she won the lottery... totally on her own.  Then she won it again the following week with the same numbers. It was so vivid, and so impactful, and so demanding, that Marilee joined every syndicate she could find, and also added the one extra ticket with her seven numbers and this ticket had the numbers she was now seeing on the screen.....for the second time in two weeks....

 

It was ironical that she was to invest in the future of Tom, because she loved him and would do everything and anything he asked, except collect the winnings. She still felt that twinge of delight, that her huge fortune had started him on his music career, and that he had never known..

 

"Tom, I have done it again".

 

“What are you talking about?'

 

"The Lottery...the numbers came up again."

 

"You have to be bloody joking, and you haven't even claimed the last one."

 

"I know...I have no idea what to do now."

 

"Oh, Marilee, you are just amazing... beautiful kind, talented, and now rich too," and he watched he blush and squirm, and it made him smile. She was really far more intriguing and attractive than she realised, and he had never been able to resist her. She would always intrigue him. " What are you going to do?"

 

"I have no idea. All I know is that I want to help people, but I am afraid of being swamped with requests and publicity, and you know how I hate that. I couldn't handle it."

 

"I know, I know. But the point is you have won that money, you have to claim it, and you have to work out what you want to do with it. You just have to claim it sometime."

 

"I know Tom. I know"

 

"You got into this and you know you can handle it. Don't you?"

 

"I am not sure. This was a game. I often have feelings and intuitions, but I never expect them to come true, and for this to happen twice is to be really unbelievable. I did not even really think it could or would happen. Oh Tom, I really don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do," and she shivered with a feeling that was far scarier than just being cold.

 

She knew that out of this win there was tragedy. One cannot have anything in life without earning it, and somehow she knew that this money had a price, which if she hadn't paid to date, she would have to pay sometime, and it was going to cost her far more than the millions, she was now refusing to claim.

 

They hugged close and rocked as they watched the last of the sunset outside from the balcony of his family home. His parents were in Melbourne and they had gone to Portsea for the weekend. They looked out at the waves beating the shore, and held each other even tighter. Somehow she knew even now, at this moment when he seemed more hers than ever before that he was going to ruin her life. She had no idea how or why, but she remembered the many times she had lay awake feeling him intruding into her dreams, and heart and soul, and she again felt the innate knowledge that she knew, that though he was her soul, he would never be hers, because she would never permit it. He was just a man, and the woman made the decisions, and she knew that though she would love him forever, she would never be his bride.

 

Sighing she pulled away and they made a hot glu-wine with some old cask claret that was not likely to be missed and added cinnamon and some cloves, and sat there in front of the fire, holding the warm glasses in their hands, sipping the wine, and dreaming different dreams.

 

He took her back to the pickup point, as he did every Monday in his small car, and she rode back the four hundred kilometre journey, silently thinking about Tom, sitting in the milk truck, wondering what was going to happen to her and him, and what was next.

 

Tom was called up and went to Vietnam, and Marilee waited and waited. There were no letters and no cards, and she should have understood from that alone that he had left her, but she clung to the dream that he was simply hers and waited.

 

 She met Greatchen at a dinner given by Paul in Surfers Paradise.

 

Greatchen was tall, blonde, solidly built and looked like she belonged on the female wrestlers ring, and it wasn't till later that Marilee discovered that not only did she belong there, but she also sponsored and owned several girls who did.

 

Greatchen was mesmerized by what she called 'Marilee’s innocence'. At the age of thirty something, Marilee still looked like an untouched virgin, which she virtually was, as she had had one disastrous marriage, which had resulted in one daughter, who was her pride and delight. She called her Sunshine, Sunni for short, because her father had hated the name. He said it reminded him of a whore in Sydney's Red Light District, and it may well be that did know. Marilee obstinately clung to the name, and Sunshine she stayed, but as she grew older, she was to prove that her father had been right.

 

Greatchen was drinking Rum and Champagne, which she claimed was a new cocktail, but which Marilee felt she drank because no-one else would touch the stuff. She gave Marilee a lift home from Portsea to Melbourne, and when the Police stopped them, she somehow managed to get a warning and get back into the driver’s seat, claiming she was still sober after two bottles of Rum and one of Champagne.

 

Marilee suspected she had bared more than an explanation, as she heard the teasing tones in her friend's voice and remembered the Police being far friendlier than they should have been, as she cowered in her seat and kept out of the way as instructed.

 

One other night the Police stopped them, when Marilee was driving the red Maserati back home from Portsea, with Greatchen drunkenly talking brightly next to her. It was a very sober sounding Greatchen, who handled the police, leaning out over the side window, with her breasts almost falling onto the paintwork. Marilee stifled a grin. It suited her fine. Somehow she had always managed to draw powerful women, and they were certainly great, and a load of fun, in a crisis, when they mixed power with potent sexuality.

 

Greatchen took her back that night, but returned next day with a business proposition, and listening to her, Marilee knew she had been talking to Tom, as only he knew about the win. She let Greatchen organise the collecting of her win, and the placing of half of it in a Swiss Bank Account, ironically called ToMar. She gave the other half to Greatchen, for her to use in the schemes she had itemised, and continued on with her life not even telling Tom what she had done.

 

It was a few months later that she read about the wedding of Greatchen and Tom in the Public Column of a National Newspaper, and felt a faint twinge of sadness that she had not been invited or even told of the event. Like all that was to happen, Marilee simply shrugged and continued on with her life.

 

It was only once that she lost her cool and her poise and her control. That was when Dale's Wolf Lady stole all her belongings, and despite the Police being called, Marilee was unable to get them returned while the Police was there. Later she was to discover Sunni's relationship with both Dale and the Wolf Lady, and when Sunni married and had Dale as her Father replacement at the Reception that Marilee was invited to as a guest, Marilee went crazy and screamed so loudly at the Reception that she had to be forcibly removed.

 

Nobody really ever knew why Marilee lost her poise, except Dale, and he understood, but it was too late, and the bitterness was to estrange Marilee from her beloved daughter, because she could never explain that she knew all their dark secrets, and this final act had both broken her, and the dam of feeling that she had so carefully packed away so it would not break. There is a limit, to what even someone as strong as Marilee, could handle, and it was unfortunate that she reached her breaking point, and broke at the Wedding of the Year.

 

The photographers had a ball. She was cast as the bitter mother jealous of her own daughter's youth and beauty, but Sunni was marrying her mother's lover, and her adopted father. How could anyone understand that when only the three of them knew their parts of the story that was yet another tentacle in the Octopus that refused to die and rest in the past?

 

Now Greatchen was handling her money, and her lover, and her daughter, and Marilee continued to live life as she had always done, refusing to let the world know that she was very much aware of what was going on around her.

 

Marilee was a very public person with a very private soul, and no-one really knew what was going behind the fluttering brightness that she presented to the world...no-one. Not even Tom who thought he knew everything about her.

 

When she first met Greatchen she and Dale were running an Introduction Agency. It was well patronised, and the service claimed 'money back if not satisfied on the first date.' What they did not tell the clients was that the first date was always with either Dale or Greatchen, or one of their lovers, and not one client was ever game to complain about their date. One night Marilee went on a date too, with an International Lawyer, who turned out to be an arrogant Indian sheik, wearing more gold than Marilee had ever seen on one person, and a turban, and bearing more hidden societal scars than the gold he so obviously displayed.

 

It was after this date that Greatchen confided that the Indian had already had a date with Greatchen in the past, and she could not date him and not having any 'classy' ladies on her books, could Marilee oblige. Marilee was more than happy to, and as the clients did not demand or insist on sex, this became a regular night out for her involving a meal, and some company on a Saturday night. The dating ceased abruptly when she was offered ten thousand Dollars for a double date with her daughter, and the offer was made by one of her best friends.

 

 She was to learn that the Introduction Agency was more than just a dine-out club, and also that her daughter was part of it too, and that she was one of the financial Investors.

 

During these ten years, she did not touch her 'inheritance', as she called it to herself. It sort of replaced the inheritance her grandfather had left her which had been gambled and embezzled by her father. She did not hold it against him as she knew that she had not earned that money either. She was to smile sweetly at the many times she heard herself described as a 'fortune hunter' when in actual fact, though she dated some of Australia's richest available, she had not shown the slightest interest in their family fortunes.

 

People found it difficult to believe that a girl from the suburbs could attract the big boys, but Marilee was no girl from the suburbs.

 

Her wealthy grandfather had seen from the very day she was born that she would always get and expect the best, and despite all her mother's efforts to beat the 'class' out of Marilee, she never succeeded. To her dying day, she complained that Marilee always thought she was better than her family, and in actuality she possibly was, for how could a woman who herself was a fortune hunter, understand someone who wasn't.

 

Her love for Tom was not based on the money his family had, or his potential to be rich, it was based on green eyes and thick dark hair, and a body that made Marilee weak at the knees whenever she thought of him. The family ties were more a burden, as Marilee always forget her cultured grandfather and her colonial past, when she sat at the crisply set linen covered dinner table in Toorak, and felt the cheap shoes and the lack of Private School Educational Ties that all the others seemed so casual about, and brought into the conversation so easily.

 

'You remember Dick don't you? He was at Scotch and prominent in the Cricket Team. Well he has now bought Claude's last business. Oh Sorry Dear...You would not know as you were never at the same schools we went to, but don't worry about it." Smile!! Smile!!! and a patronizing pat on the hand. "Have another spoonful of caviar. It’s the best Georges can provide."

 

Marilee was to ensure that Sunni went to one of Melbourne's top Private schools, and finish her training in Europe, but it had not helped Sunni anymore, than the lack of the same Societal hand-me -downs that Marilee had craved, that she presented to her daughter, to see them ripped apart and discarded when Sunni went Mafia.

 

Sunni was to marry a rich Iranian who not only owned and harnessed most of Europe's Mafia network, but also was the owner of Most of the Red Light District of much of Eastern Australia, with underworld links that made Marilee even more powerful than she already was. She was seventeen and so beautiful that it ached to look at her. Within five years she was remodelled and re-created into a Pamela Stephenson clone, and she now really considered that she beautiful. She was far more beautiful untouched than she ever realised.

 

Greatchen harnessed Sunni into modelling, and finally into small bit porn, and when Marilee protested, she was invited to view the houses and shows, and was berated for being 'out of touch' and 'old fashioned'. No-one told Sunni that her mother was the financier behind these houses, and Marilee had put the whole idea out of her mind.

 

Ironically, it was Marilee's money and influence, and contacts that her own daughter harnessed and used, years before Marilee herself knew what was going on. When you say Marilee was green, she was greener than grass that had never even grown, and yet she was the central core of all the evil that was growing out of her. She was the octopus network, that grew so fast, that she did not even know it was happening, until one day she woke up, and found that not only was she the central core, but that everything depended on her being exactly as she was.

 

That was the day Marilee cracked......the day she read the journal that opened up her whole despicable life, a life she was not even aware of. She read the lies, and deceits and cunning deceptions that she was intricately a part of without ever realising her role. Marilee was evil by association, and she could not handle the truth.

 

She screamed it out at the wedding, but no-one heard her. They threw her out, and she went back to her home in a Taxi, and cried into the night.

 

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