May Bernadette O'Brien

They all sat on the front bench seat on the way over and once there Martin backed the van expertly up the driveway, turned the motor off and went round to help the girls down. He didn't need to but it was in his nature to be a gentleman. He led the way to the front door and knocked.

May's mother answered with Jason in the background.

"Mrs. O'Brien is it?"

She nodded.

"My sister and I are here to help May get her stuff. It's alright if we come in?"

Mrs. O'Brien had gone pale. She hadn't really thought May would take her at her word and besides she needed May's board to make ends meet. Jason, for all his fancy plans was on a benefit and things would get desperate if she had to make do on her widow's pension. Perhaps she would be able to get a moment alone with May and put a stop to all this nonsense.

She had nodded to the imposing man and all three of them had made their way past her to May's bedroom.

"I don't need the bed or the chest of drawers mum," May called out, "do you want to keep them? You could rent the room out maybe?"

She sounded so cocky Mrs. O'Brien thought; that bloody dyke she's with has been feeding her head with all sorts of rubbish.

"Yes dear, that's a good idea. Need any help?"

"No mum; thanks."

That sounded far too bright May thought and perhaps it was but her mother was too caught up in her own problems to notice and didn't take advantage. Kim noticed; she tensed and when she looked down she saw she had made a fist which she quickly put down unclenching her hand before May saw it.

Martin, with that wonderful male focus simply got on with getting May's belongings into the back of the van and as fast as the girls could pack things in boxes he was carrying them out the door. Once the last carton was taken out May looked around. This was her room. Only now it wasn't. Now it was just a room. A room in a house in which she didn't feel welcome.She shivered then looked up to Kim who had been staring intently at her. The only clue to her intensity being how tightly she held her wrist.

'Ready?" she asked.

"Ready," came the reply and May walked out with out a backwards glance.

Her mother didn't come out to see her off and Kim made a point of leaving May's key on the kitchen bench.

And suddenly it was over. It had felt an age for Kim and as for May well she felt that she had spent the whole time without having taken a breath. Marty unlocked the passenger's side door and gallantly helped May up first. Brother and sister were in tune on that; May would be in the middle. Having closed the door for his kid sister Marty went round the back of the van, checking that the tail gate was shut then got in his side; the door having been opened by May.

Belted in, he reversed out on to the roadway and headed up towards Tripoli Road. Kim threw her arms around May.

"Its done and you were fucking fantastic babe and fuck I love you."

May was close to tears anyway but the words and the intensity with which they were spoken sent her over the edge. She was followed almost immediately after Kim while Marty kept his eyes on the road despite having a slight wetness at the eyes himself. It was an ordeal May would have done anything to avoid but now she had done it she was glad. It wouldn't have been fair to have left all her stuff there. It wasn't junk- she didn't keep junk- and Jason would have sold what he could for sure.

It wasn't that though; it was her mother. She was moving out because her mother had told to go. She had always resented May for not being a boy. That had been the start of the end of her parent's marriage with May being made to feel despised (by her father) and resented by her mother. It was in her nature to want to please and she had done so much, paid much more board than any of her friends did but none of it was enough. There had been no more babies after May- "complications" the doctors had said.

She lay in Kim's arms and thanked God and her own St Bernadette for having put this miracle in her life. Kim was a rock. An absolute rock and when she had wanted to flee she had seen Kim standing so firm with her brother just as resolute there with her she that she had stopped and carried on with what she had to do imagining that she was hiding behind them.

It wasn't, she thought ruefully, terribly brave but she got through. And that was enough.

The trip home was just fifteen minutes. They all carried the stuff up into Kim and May's place with Marty making his excuses to take a rain check on the coffee but being quite unable to escape the hugs and kisses both girls insisted on giving him. Then he was on his way. Kim and May sat on the sofa together and for some strange reason both started to giggle. In front of them was a huge pile, much bigger than either had imagined possible, of May's stuff; all wanting to be put away. Somewhere.

"Lets get naked," Kim suggested cheerfully and in a trice they were.

"Let's leave this for the morning," May suggested knowing she should be getting on with it.

"Tell you what," Kim told her after some reflection ", how about we do this; we get your stuff out you want to wear tomorrow to work and when we get home from work tomorrow we make a start. We'll go through both our stuff then we'll have it all in the bedroom and what we can't bring ourselves to chuck out we can put in the second bedroom wardrobe."

That was a plan as far as May was concerned and now, after all this, she was so horny. Kim got shoved back, her legs got spread and her pussy got pulled wide open so her girlfriends tongue could lick as deeply as possible. Kim thought fleetingly about getting the marks off the fabric before she came. May knew the spot for her so well and once she had her off the once kept going back to it after letting her simmer down.

Dinner was scrambled eggs on toast, May rinsed the dishes and left them in the dishwasher then a shower for two later they hit the hay.

This, of course, was a special moment to May, cuddling together under the covers, and she snuggled up good and tight with her Kimmy. Kim was asleep almost immediately May noticed. She was so relaxed when she was in May's arms- which brought May no end of satisfaction and now, after a short prayer of thanks to her beloved Saint she closed her eyes and drifted off. Both slept like the proverbial log through the night and were up at six the next morning to get ready for work.

At the bus stop they were surrounded. The nosy strangers of two days before were now their friends Kim realized as she and May chatted with them and accepted their congratulations.

On the bus past the first seat on the right as you face down from the front there are two seats facing each other. On the seat facing backwards was a chocolate cake (sliced)a large box of chocolates and card "From Management and Drivers Howick And Eastern Bus Company." The seat opposite had reserved signs which the smiling driver took away with a flourish for the love birds to sit down.

And it went from there. Everyone congratulated them and a good many had brought a gift- flowers were popular. Kim sat by the window while May did most of the hugging and hand shaking and accepting of congratulations. She glowed. The trip flew and those standing in the aisle would have seen that for all her chatting May never lost sight of what Kim was doing.

Kim was overwhelmed and had retreated into her shell. Finally May had had to smile at the well wishers and turn into face Kim. She took her face in her hands and kissed her and when she did the entire bus went "Ohhh."

The driver told May to leave what they couldn't carry and if she gave him her address the Bus Company would have someone deliver them later that day. It sounded like a very decent proposition and May duly obliged with the address. Soon though they were at two double seven Broadway Newmarket and the bus stopped and with everyone getting their i phones or old fashioned cameras out to catch the moment, they kissed. And kiss they did with Kim looking just a bit forlorn, many thought afterwards, as she exited the bus.

The Newmarket shopping center caters to Auckland's affluent and the shops always had things in them that had May thinking "if only." This time it was a travel poster- a cruise of the Mediterranean. At the lights going into Khyber Pass Road her Saint Bernadette struck again.

What were they doing, she and darling Kimmy? Was she going to carry on doing the same old same old for the next thirty years and Kimmy. On fire last night with this restructuring thing at her work and she had encouraged her so. For what? more money, they had enough. Work satisfaction? Ask that for a hug on a cold winters night.

Suddenly it was so clear it hurt- as someone witty in her family used to say years ago. They would travel. They would live in places. Not just visit: live there. Greece, she loved the idea of Greece. Or Italy or maybe Spain. They would live there, learn the language, experience something else.By the time she had arrived at work with as many gifts as she could carry and cheeks covered in lipstick she knew exactly what to do- having first thanked her beloved Saint Bernadette of Nevers.

Pauline, May's boss, was waiting for her. It was always so damned hard to stay angry with May she had decided. Honest as the day is long, heart on her sleeve always the peace maker and it was just a day off for heaven's sake; plenty of those occur- especially Fridays.

She asked her into the canteen for a chat just after work started for a bit of a catch up and a general clearing of the air-namely that she wasn't in any trouble. Instead May was on fire. She had met this girl Kim who was so beautiful and had a high powered job in Newmarket somewhere and they had fallen madly in love and now May was sleeping with her and they had had relations and she though they might have been a bit 'you know' but they weren't they were so sensual and so erotic and the moment could last for ever.

She looked so happy as she paused for breath at last.

'we're going to go and live in Europe. We have to go to France to visit the shrine for my Saint Bernadette but the French scare me so I want it to be Greece or Italy. I can't speak either language but I'm sure if you want something enough and you work hard at it you'll get the hang of it."

And suddenly Pauline was leaning over and hugging her with tears in her eyes and she was telling her that of course she would pick up the languages and of course she and Kim must do this but would they just remember to drop her a line from time to time because she thought May Bernadette O'Brien was pretty darn special and she hoped this Kimberly Sinclair girl knew how lucky she was to have got their May. And then May was in tears too and they blubbered into each others' shoulders until the emotion had passed and they worked out a plan for May's resignation.

They stood and Pauline gave her another hug. She told her to run along back to work and she would be along soon. Then, on her own she cried for the hell they had put May through, the bitch she had been and the totally undeserved forgiveness she had had in return. That night she Googled Bernadette of Nevers. She didn't ask for any intercessions because in her view only the believers had the right to ask for such things; she had chosen her path and the only help she could expect therefore was from herself. It was a lonely life sometimes.

Kim had gone into her office and the whole restructure project; the rationale, the physical restructure, the cost and cost benefits flowed from her mind.

By eleven she was ready to present this crucial work (as her Managing Director had called it)to the Board. The Board wouldn't be here until Monday next week but she could give the bones of it to young Herb Scrivens who was giving him a hand.

"Young Hank Scrivens wouldn't have an original thought in his body Charles. Is it your intention to use my work to advance young Hank?"

She had him dead to rights and when, at three she was summoned in to receive a check in lieu of notice she smiled at him and handed him a plastic bag containing the shredded plan.

He had smiled at her as he knew what was happening to her career and she was easily the cleverest person he had had there. Still, she wasn't male and to drive this thing needed a male not some young dike.

Kim had left in tears; she allowed those only once she was down the footpath and no one from back there could see. Her whole life's work, her crowning achievement and it wouldn't have been hers anyway. Her mobile rang, it was May and she was a breath of fresh air. Kim put her bad news to one side as May told her what a fabulous day she had had and when she asked her how hers was she cried. She couldn't lie to May and she couldn't put it all into nice logical coherent sentences and so she cried and longed so much now to have darling May to cuddle up to but instead she was on a side street in Newmarket and passersby were giving her strange looks but instead of retaliating she felt crushed.

May told her she would make a few calls and to keep her phone on, oh and that she loved her to bits but she guessed she already knew that. To which she answered that she did but she would never, to her dying day, tire of hearing it.

Her mobile rang five minutes later. It was May, again, They were going to stay a night at The Regent, she had paid for the suite and a taxi would pick her up so she would see her soon at the Regent and she loved her every bit as much then as she had five minutes ago.

"Just as well," Kim had told in her best growlly voice and then she was walking up to the end of the road where the taxi would be waiting. Only now she was smiling.

May told her the plan as they lay naked in each others' arms and Kim too had a blinding realization of the brilliance of the work of May's Saint Bernadette. She loved the idea of scouting round then settling down in a little place in Greece or Italy- she wasn't too struck on France either as it happens.

They left New Zealand a month later after tearful farewells; May and her Mother had reconciled with Justin an unpleasant memory. Well it was a good plan and like all good plans some saintly person couldn't leave well enough alone. The Qantas Flight landed at Heathrow, they had three days of being over awed by London then caught a flight to Athens. They walked out of the airport and fell in love with Greece.

Sometimes things just happen- even without Saintly intervention. A night at a restaurant while these two Kiwi chicks tried to speak a few words of Greek and the fair haired one with the big boobies had come out to the kitchen and tried to ask how they made the dishes.

She had obviously known her stuff and quickly had their respect. So it was that the four of them had had a conversation comprising bad Greek, terrible English, some school girl Latin, hand drawn sketches and lots of hand gestures. It was wonderful Kim and May had agreed afterwards but it also gave them somewhere to stay because the restaurant owner's cousin and his wife had a restaurant in a little place down here on this coast just past there and his cousin's wife needed help with the kids so they would be welcome there.

They were too. May quickly had the children under control to the relief of their father who had become used to being up at all times through the night. She loved kids did May but she would tolerate no nonsense. With the kids in a routine she turned her attention to the menu and improved the fare out of sight.

May had looked at helping in the Kitchen while Kim reorganized the entire operation with the result that soon the struggling business was growing and making money. The owner's wife went off on the ferry to Athens one day and came back with a beautiful evening gown and expensive designer shoes and her beaming husband then produced a small case he had been keeping on the quiet for just such an occasion. It contained a set of pearl earrings and a pearl necklace which she put on as he watched proudly then they were down to the taverna with our Kiwi Girls included in the invite. Also, six months after leaving New Zealand they managed to visit Nevers and May knelt before her Saint and cried.

They are still there, in the village, Kim has reorganized most of the businesses in the village and all of them are doing a lot better than before. The people understand their relationship and accept them as part of the community. May does front of house and the Greeks and any tourists love her but she steers a tight ship and woe betide anyone slacking on her watch. She also picks up the village kids from School and has mentioned the workings of her beloved Saint in her life which has the Kids all nodding politely because, being Greek, they understand such things and you only have to look into May Bernadette's eyes to know her guardian angel is looking after her.

And that, after all, is how it should be.