Driven from Normal .

Simon McKenzie started his week normal enough, but after a series of events he now finds himself standing in a bar wearing a cocktail dress. Chapter 13.

Big Red was still sitting beside me but hadn't said much for a while. I glanced at him and he was looking down with his hands holding up his head, I just assumed the drink had all caught up with him and he was now suffering the consequences.

"Bit crook?" I jokingly inquired.

He shook his head. Without looking up he mumbled,
"I'm sorry for being a tosser."

The tremble in his voice sounded like he was about to burst into tears. The smile also disappeared from my face.

"You alright there big fella?"

He shook his head again, sitting in silence for a few moments before raising his head. I leaned over, curious to see if he was crying, not far off at a guess with his eyes red and glistening with moisture.

"I'm sorry. I found out this week my missus has been rooting a guy from her work…. I might have got a bit carried away trying to drink all the memories away".

I really felt bad for him, I'd had mates in similar situations in the past and knew he'd be doing it hard, one mate had ended up taking his life over it. I put my arm over his shoulder but before I managed to say anything one of the other guys spoke up,

" Hey Ging, fuck Christine and the horse she rode in on!… Remember, chin up Shag! Don't let her ruin our night!"

Big Red sat upright right and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. He nodded and forced a smile.

"She'd shit bricks if she saw me hangin' out with a supermodel!" he laughed, staring at me.

"Ya reckon? And, I'm hardly a supermodel."

"Well you could be! And yeah, she'd be super jealous. She rates herself pretty highly! She told me I'd never get anyone better when I kicked her skanky arse out"

"Frig! really? what a nasty bitch." I had an idea pop into my head seemingly out of nowhere. "Grab your phone, let's get some photos and wind her up a bit then."

Mel wanted in on the action when she heard what I had suggested. The other girls thought it was a cunning plan as well and all exited the spa to join in. It was Evie in the end that came up with the ultimate plan, a plan so devious, but brilliant in its simplicity.

Rather than one or two photos on his social media page, it would be way more effective for his mates to take candid photos and post them, tagging him in each one. So that's what we did, a few photos of me in my bikini flirting with him to start with. Then progressing onto photos that looked like we were really getting on well. Brad and the boys did the rest, posting to Facebook and adding comments to emphasise the drama. They tagged him in each photo then one of the other guys would add another photo in the comments section from a different angle.

The perfect social media "make the ex jealous" plan. His ex partner would have no idea who I was, so it couldn't be traced back to anyone and be disproven as a set up. Mel had a turn as well, she did a similar photo shoot, but with them both in the spa, flirting.
Dylan posted a photo saying, (The big fella is on fire tonight. He's got all the babes lining up)

Someone suggested a few three-some photos, but Liam said to actually keep it realistic, joking that Big Red was too ugly to be able to pull off anything like that. It wasn't very long at all before the likes, reactions and comments started rolling in, nothing from his ex but her friends had seen the posts and had been tagging her.

Big Red, whose actual name was Craig, had perked up and returned to the loud, over the top personality he was when we had arrived. It didn’t seem as annoying now though, he was still a bit much at times, but to his credit, he could take the shit as well as he gave it.

Now that everyone's phones were out, the selfie game was strong in the group, Mel included. I had to think fast when Evie asked to send me a friend request, all my accounts were obviously all for Simon McKenzie, and not Simone.

I have to say, I was a little impressed with my off the cuff reason to avoid it. Sometimes my brain and mouth worked completely independently of each other, especially when booze was tipped in. Mostly it got me into trouble or a fight, but occasionally it worked out for the good. I opened my mouth and was as surprised as anyone else when I said that I had deleted them, due to “inappropriate attention from an unwanted admirer”. Then adding, I didn't really want to talk about it anymore.

Wow, way to go mouth! That was perfect!
It even worked! The girls all understood and nodded and the boys didn't push it further. Even Mel was impressed, the exaggerated wink would have given the lie away, had anyone else seen it.

She had already added me as a friend a few days ago, but wasn't tagging me in her posts to avoid me being caught out. I had to be careful not to like or comment on her posts to stop my contacts seeing anything as well. Facial recognition had even picked up that it was me on a couple of her photos, and asked if I wanted to tag myself. It was like being an undercover operative on a top secret mission at times.

It was Dylan's idea to start a brand new account now, and just use a different name, he suggested my middle name, and as proud as I was to share Dad's name as my middle name, Arthur wasn't really an option I could offer up.
The obvious choice was Mum's name, Lilly. A real good idea I thought, at least that way no one would see my actual profile and I could maintain the secret undercover identity without worrying. And, the new friends I'd made over last week could stay in touch, I was also quite keen to see how Craig's posts turned out.

I spent about twenty minutes setting up a new profile for (Simone Lilly). Lilly McKenize was too obvious, and could have possibly been linked back to me somehow. I used all my birthday details to make it easier, a photo of me in the sparkly black dress for the new profile picture but deliberately leaving most of the other details blank, in case someone put two and two together.

Within minutes of finishing the set up, Simone had a list of pending friend requests from everyone at the party. Mel went through and tagged Simone in all of the photos she had already posted. All in well under half an hour, (Simone Lilly) had an online presence, a number of new friends and a bunch of photos, showing a life that really only existed from Tuesday afternoon on.

Simon McKenzie was even suggested as a possible friend, I ignored him with a grin on my face. I added some photos from my phone of the film shoot and the car etc. they quickly had likes from my new online friends, which in real life sat just opposite me on the deck. Simone was getting tagged in all sorts of things; Dylan tagged me in a post from the karting. Liam tagged some on-set photos he'd taken. Mel tagged the most, including the head shots from Anna's work page, even Kamyla tagged me in a photo from her shop, wearing the sports bra and running tights I brought.

"When did you take that?" I asked her, genuinely amazed that I hadn't noticed at the time.

Kamyla winked "I'm a very sneaky spy lady too!"

So much for avoiding being the center of attention but at least everyone was looking at phone screens and not actually at me. After about thirty minutes of friend requests, likes and comments being swapped around the group, the novelty started to wane and the focus returned to back the partying. The music got cranked up and the spirit bottles spread out across the width of the outside bar beside the inbuilt barbeque. Rows of small shot glasses lined up with random mixtures filling them up. I stuck with Bourbon and coke, I sure as shit wasn't doing shots with the others, I could already feel my stomach churning just watching them being poured out.

The evening rolled along brilliantly; more laughs than I'd had in a while, and the warm weather set the perfect atmosphere.
The sun had well and truly set and the moonless sky made an impressive display of the stars and Milkyway above us. I wandered down to the edge of the deck on my own and looked across the lake towards the lights of Queenstown.

Dylan appeared beside me,
"Impressive view, aye"

"It's stunning!" I replied.

"You sure are!" Dylan chuckled and nudged my arm.

"Shit! That was smooth" I burst out laughing.

Dylan and I talked karts for a while until the wind dropped off very suddenly and everything went very calm and quiet.

"And….. wait for it" Dylan said, looking to the south.

"What for?" I asked.

Dylan just held his finger up, then it hit.
A sudden, very strong blast of cold wind hit, knocking chairs over and blowing towels into the pool. The Southerly wind was very fresh, my short skirt and the light hoodie did nothing to keep the cold air out, instantly giving me goose bumps on my hairless legs. I started to shiver as we turned and headed inside following the others. They'd all grabbed armfuls of stuff as quickly as they could, and started setting back up inside.

A huge flash of lightning lit up the dark sky followed almost instantly with a loud boom of thunder that rattled the windows around the house. A collective "Faaarrrrk!" was followed quickly by another flash and boom.
We all had our faces pressed against the windows waiting for another flash, the crystal clear view of the stars had all but gone. The low cloud had moved in fast, already starting to obscure the top of the Gondolas, and Skyline restaurant on the hill directly across the lake.

Another two bright flashes and loud crackling boom almost directly out in front of us startled everyone. I actually jumped, Mel grabbed my waist and held me tightly. Dylan, standing on the other side placed his arm around my shoulder, I was too focused on the storm watching to really notice anything else.

The next booming flash was the biggest yet. The brightness of the flash hurt my eyes and I flinched, stepping back slightly.
With Mel still gripping my side, I sort of moved sideways and ended up pushing hard into Dylan's side, he tightened his hold then leaned down and kissed the side of my cheek. It must have been the static electricity in the air or something, the hairs on my neck stood up and I felt an odd tingle.
Yeah! Static electricity. That's absolutely what it will have been!.

The three of us stood looking out the window, holding each other and laughing each time we jumped after another strike.
We watched as the rain started hitting the pool surface, just a few spots to start with but it quickly turned to a heavy downpour. The noise of the rain even drowned out the music, an impressive feat, but the hail that fell shortly after, was another step up again. Within minutes the ground was white, covered in a layer of tiny round balls of ice.

The ambient temperature inside dropped considerably as well, Brad lit the big gas fireplace in the middle of the living room and the group moved around closer to it for warmth.
The drinking and laughing started up shortly after, with most of the chat centred around the storm outside, or stories of other more impressive storms people had been in, or knew a "friend” that had experienced something amazing. General waffle mostly.

Just after midnight the rain eased off to a steady drizzle with the strong wind still blowing it in hard against the windows. The lightning had calmed down as well with just an occasional flash now and then, followed by the low rumble a few moments later that echoed around the mountains.

Separate, smaller groups had split off to spots around the living areas and kitchen. Most of the boys hung around the breakfast bar talking a lot of shit, from what I could hear. Another group had moved outside but staying under cover for a quick smoke. The rest of us had well embedded ourselves near the fire. Normally the cold didn't worry me, but I was really feeling it tonight, I also hadn’t ever sat around in a bikini and miniskirt before either, so it was hard to get a handle on how much I was really feeling the cold.

Big Red Craig was loving the drama we’d created on Facebook, he was getting messages through faster than he could read them from his ex’s friends, all trying to find out who the two girls were. .
He’d decided to ignore all of them, to make it look like he was too busy to respond. That said, one message was too much for him and he burst out laughing then carried the phone over to show me what it said.

(Whos paying for the blonde whore?) was all it had, I thought that was a bit nasty so I made Craig sit beside me on the couch and I moved in close beside him for a selfie, which I posted straight away tagging him in it.

I typed (Great night relaxing with a sweet new friend after a big week filming in Queenstown) and hit the post button.

“Fuck her!” I announced doing so.

There were several new notifications on the new Simone profile, but the one that caught my attention was a confirmation for “Kantar Media” wanting to tag me in a post. I opened it for a better look and there in all its magnificent glory was a spectacular, close up photo of me from Gerry’s photo shoot. I looked amazing, the drama, lighting, everything was perfect.
I had a smouldering look in my eyes that was fierce. I skim read the accompanying story on the post, which basically said the company had now wrapped after filming the new Mitsubishi advertisement, and a thank you to the crew, with a special mention at the bottom that said, (A huge thanks to the amazing @Simone Lilly, for stepping up to be our new face of the campaign.)

I wasn't sure how they had tagged me in it? My profile was literally only an hour or so old, and I only had a handful of contacts. Mel had no idea either, she had tagged me in a post for Annas but that was it. It really had me stumped, the theories Mel and I came up with were getting more and more far fetched, possibly fueled with Bourbon with none of them really sounded plausible.

Liam has been quietly sitting there listening to us the entire time without saying a single word, just occasionally letting a hint of a smirk escape the corners of his mouth. He must have grown tired of our theories and finally told us it was him, completely straight faced. The big git had sat there without giving any indication that he was aware of what we had been discussing for the past five minutes. It was as painful getting the full answer out of him, it was like he’d been trained by the SAS in not giving away intel. Turns out that he had messaged a production manager, who was his boss, a link to my new profile and she had then asked if she could forward it to the media department.

Having another look at the post, it appeared that it had been put up yesterday afternoon, so they must have just added or edited the bit about Simone later. It already had hundreds of likes and dozens of comments, mostly in different foreign languages that I didn't understand.

Mel was scrolling through them all and liking some of the ones about me she thought were nice, we also browsed the list of likes to see who else may have seen it. Again, it was mostly foreign looking names with a few businesses, including a few that looked like model or talent agencies scattered amongst them.

I saved the image then used it as my new profile picture, just because!

The night was already starting to wind down, the drinking had slowed to a crawl, even the boy's laughter and jokes had been replaced with discussions and serious opinions on how to fix the world and everyone in it.
Big Red Craig was very pissed but still holding in there, just. He had propped himself up against the fireplace leaning on a big angle. Nursing a bottle of beer, while he scrolled through his phone, letting out an occasional loud barking laugh. Evie's boyfriend had fallen asleep sitting almost upright in a chair and Liam and Kamyla had retreated to a secluded couch to whisper sweet nothings to each other.

Mel and I were snuggled up on the couch and had been talking with Dylan and Sophia when the lights all went out, plunging the room into complete darkness! The fire died down and started to go out as well.

“You’re up Ginga” Brad yelled to Big Reg Craig from somewhere across the room.

“Mate ya dreamin! The powers off! There’s no lights next door either” came the reply through the dark.

The phone torches turned on like little fireflies around the room as we all tried to work out what was happening, no internet or cell reception on the phones either. It was pretty obvious the passing storm had taken the power out and probably a cell tower somewhere close.

So, no phone, no heat, no light! I suggested we head home but a lack of phone meant we couldn't even call a ride and we were certainly not in any shape to drive, frig, even walking was challenging enough with the amount of grog in my bloodstream.

Brad hunted for candles and Kelly went looking for rugs to keep us all warm, the expensive high end, down filled duvets off the beds did the trick for warmth. The equally expensive, designer scented candles that Brad produced did bugger all, apart from smell nice. 

“It won't be off for long, there's still light in town” Evie mentioned looking out over the lake.

Big Red Craig said it would more than likely have been a substation to take all the power out and the cell network, and that would take ages, maybe even a day or so. It looked like we were going to be here for a while I thought to myself, the lights momentarily flickered and gasps of relief rang out. That was short lived as we quickly dissolved back into the black. 

My hand quickly found Mels crotch, I figured I'd get in before she did with me, with the dark room and big cozy blanket it was the ultimate cover for some discreet fun. Mel wiggled and squirmed around to better position herself then her hand found me. As much as I was enjoying her attention, the rapidly approaching orgasm would have meant a hard to hide, sticky mess in my bikini and miniskirt if the lights came back. I shifted her hand off and softy sighed,

“Mmmm, That ’s enough for me”

The muffled “Ok” followed, as I continued working my fingers inside her, with her Bikini pushed away to one side. She was trying hard to stifle her delight and keep our adventures secret. 

The wee jolt and twitches let me know I had achieved what I had set out to do and she relaxed on to my shoulder, shuffling in closer. 

That left me at a loose end however, my tucked equipment was desperate to get in on the action and Mels gentle hand wrapping around my waist added to the throbbing inside my gaff. An awkwardly timed distraction appeared from the dark as Dylan dropped onto the couch beside me. 

“It's not overly warm is it ?” he asked.

“No, it's getting pretty nippy” I replied, hoping he hadn't worked out what we’d just finished doing.

He lifted the edge of our blanket up and slid under it beside me, he was very warm and I could feel the heat coming from his leg against mine, as much as I didn't want to admit it, the extra warmth was nice. 

“You’re still warm” I said. 

“Yeah, compared to your leg I am. Gez, it feels like you're dead!” 

He put his hand on my thigh, giving it a rub. 

“Woah, woah, woah! Keep your hands in ya pockets there cowboy!” I joked, he started to pull away and stand up. 

“Hang on! Don't get all carried away. Stay here for a bit and let me warm up first” 

“That'd be right, you just want me for my body!” he mocked.

“Yeah, well your personality is shit, so obviously!” I quickly fired back as a joke. 

We both burst out laughing, Mel was chuckling as well and Dylan seized a chance and put his arm around my neck, playfully pushed my head down. 

“What a pair of smart arses!” 

His arm stayed around me, reaching further out over to Mels shoulder before pulling us both in for a tight squeeze, the extra body warmth felt nice and the booze in my system made me relax, I snuggled down under the thick blanket and dozed off shortly after.

At some point I stirred and felt the warmth from Dylan against the side of my head. I was resting my head on his shoulder, he was also fast asleep as well with his head leaning on mine. Mel had buried herself in behind me with her arms wrapped tightly around. The concerning thing was I shifted to try and get more comfortable and turned in towards Dylan, my arm now draped across his chest. Worse still was how comfortable I was. 

This really isn’t right! I considered moving, very briefly, but with Mel blocking me and how warm I was, I thought Fuck it, relaxed and went back to sleep until the power came back on just before five, waking everyone up. 

The sudden brightness of the lights, and the sound system bursting back into life scared the shit out of me, I wasn't alone there, pretty much everyone reacted the same. It took a few seconds to gather myself back up and work out where I was. And where I was looked suspiciously like being wrapped around Dylan, tucked under his arm in a cuddle.  

I was holding him tightly with a leg pulled up on his lap, he had an arm across the back of the couch resting on Mel's shoulder, the other hand was holding my thigh. 

What the hell am I doing?!  

I pushed my way up, clearing myself away from his grasp. Dylan cracked his neck side to side and smiled,

"Ahhh, I was enjoying that!" he mumbled.

I think that I was as well, but I'll be taking that information to the grave with me!

...to be continued.