Stocking Tops Pt. 05

He enjoyed watching Wendy's face turn pink.

"As I said, I know no one else in all of Utah except you and your family. May I ask where is your husband?"

"In Canada for another three weeks."

"Children?"

"No."

"Lonely?"

"Yes."

"These things happen, don't they? Will you be my companion during my stay here, subject to your parent's consent?"

"Yes. But no sex."

"Whatever you say. Call your father now and let me talk to him."

"He'll be busy with VIPS."

"But not too busy to talk to this VIP and his daughter, surely?"

Looking uneasy, Wendy made the call and handed the phone, still ringing, to Lee.

"Hi Hal, Lee Peach. I'm fine thanks and yes it was a good flight. Listen, I've just been met by your daughter Wendy at the airport. I've embarrassed her by asking would she be my companion to social events etcetera while I'm here, subject to your approval. I'm not putting you on the spot Hal because whether you say not or yes won't alter my relationship with you and Frances and I do know Wendy is married. So it's over to you buddy, I'm handing the phone over to Wendy and I'm walking off so she can talk to you in privacy. Yeah, you too. Look forward to catching up with you and Frances."

Wendy took the phone, highly colored and didn't smile. Lee walked off with his luggage trolley some distance away. A minute later Wendy called to him, "He wants to check with mom; she's in the same room with him."

Lee held up both hands with crossed fingers. She smiled and looked quite attractive. Lee decided he wouldn't mind if she didn't turn it up for him. But then again he would be the last to complain if she weakened.

Within two minutes Wendy took his arm. Lee was talking to a guy with a broom.

"Looks like the missus is ready to go," grinned the broom guy, showing many gaps in his teeth.

As the walked to the exit Wendy said, "Hosting you is fine by dad but to watch out for you because you look predatory. He said if mom said no then that was it. Mom said she was walking away from dad to talk privately and then she said the most extraordinary thing. She said to have a great time with you and to make sure I get you to...god, I can't believe this...to get you to lick my stocking tops."

Lee grinned and squeezed Wendy's arm. "I'll fill you in about that -- it's quite a story and obviously you mom has heard about it."

"Oh really, I can't wait. I still can't believe mom said that to me. She does get a bit coarse at times when she's been drinking."

"She may well have had pre-lunch drinks. Will you eat with me at the hotel and later go swimming with me?"

"Lunch yes and thank you."

"Stop at a swimwear shop and I'll by you a modest one-piece swimsuit."

She laughed. "I bet you have black and tight in mind."

They parked not far from the store Wendy had in mind. She wouldn't take money from Lee who waited in the car.

Returning to the car Wendy said, "Grandma would screw my neck if she knew I intended swimming with a guy I really didn't know."

"Grandma's have to set standards. It's up to granddaughters to decide which rules are for them."

Wendy shook her head. "You have a rather unusual way at looking at things Lee Peach. Quite refreshing really."

Wendy pointed out the convention venue, the huge Salt Palace Convention Center.

"This is only a major regional convention -- will there be enough delegates to justify use of that huge venue?"

"Delegations from other regions attend and the space taken up for trade exhibits is huge," she said. "You will see computerized graphics equipment still under development and not yet on the market as well day to day equipment. Dad says the industry has a voracious appetite for anything new that gets the job done and competition to supply the industry is high. It also includes new model vehicles and equipment from coffee machines down to office supplies. Well, here we are at the Marriott Downtown."

"It looks okay, making a bold statement."

"Lee, tell me -- why this emphasis on going swimming?"

"I get to see your body."

Wendy blushed and turned so allow him to see it full on. "I really don't know how I'm going to handle you," she almost scolded, and turned crimson when he murmured, "Softly."

The welcome and registration went smoothly and Lee invited Wendy up to see the room but she declined primly. He returned within ten minutes looking very relaxed wearing just his trousers, scuffs and a terry robe.

"Lee, I've decided against going swimming."

He just smiled and stood took her arm and walked back to the elevators.

As they entered she asked where were they going.

"To my room. It comes with a Jacuzzi. It appears you are shy about going into the water in public."

"It's being stripped off and going into the water with you that was a worry to me."

"No worries Wendy, I'm as passive as a koala bear."

"Oh koala bears -- do you have any in your garden at home. They are so cute."

Conversation about Australian wildlife continued until they were in Lee's room when Wendy's mouth closed abruptly. She was nervous again.

"The room is not too bad," Lee said, as if anxious to get talking again.

"It is okay but for me, I don't think so. I like the comforts of home and I would imagine you think similarly.

"Is that an invitation to share your home?"

Wendy looked at him and sighed, shaking her head.

:"Right, you under no pressure. Let's hit the Jacuzzi."

"Lee I don't..."

"You get changed and get in while I get the drinks. I anticipate it's a soda or juice for you?"

"A light dry wine would be lovely thank you."

Wendy boggled when Lee appeared with the drinks in his Speedos.

"God, that swimsuit might only just past the scrutiny of the morals police."

"That are very acceptable in Australia because our minds are wider."

"And your tan -- that can't be natural."

"It is. Thanks to my mother's olive skin I take to the Aussie sun very well. We spend a great deal of our leisure time outdoors for most of the year. What do you do here in Salt Lake?

"I have an executive position in gathering, processing and distributing statistics on visitors to the city"

"Sounds a dry sort of occupation."

"Only if you don't have the mind for it."

"Ouch," Lee said, touching his nose and grinning.

"Lee, you really are quite cute and as I said before, project in quite an unusual manner. I haven't met a man who relies so much on humor and light patter as you do. You say offensive things and yet they don't seem to land offensively but you do appear to give a girl a hard time."

"Only if she's sexy."

"I thought as much. This is all about sex, isn't it? The truth Lee."

As Lee slipped into the water, sitting opposite Wendy and placing a leg on to her left thigh that she pretended not to notice, he said, "Re your mother's reference to stocking tops Wendy. Let me tell you about that.

Wendy listened, not sure whether she was disgusted or enchanted. No, enchanted was quite the wrong word. This guy was using a cultivated interest in stockings that had developed into a fetish under the tuition of his mother to forge an interest between women who wore stockings and himself and then he'd sexually bop them. Although he didn't say it, she gathered he would have bopped his mom as well. She was heating up -- not because of the hot water -- and feeling very uncomfortable and thinking what an immoral man he was when he launched into the story leading up to Stockings Day Australia. She was fascinated by that story and amazed that the drive and belief of just one person could motivate perhaps four million females and those who watched them with apparent obvious delight.

He stopped. She said nothing. Then he said, "In Sydney your mom expressed an interest in me licking her stocking tops. I noticed at the airport that you wear stockings Wendy."

She was shocked...no...deeply surprised, she thought, to learn that about her mother. But then she'd long heard her dad referring to 'the bit of rebel in your mother' and actually had never wondered what he meant by that although admittedly it did show after her mom had a few drinks. There was a bit of a naughty girl in her mom and persisted even now.

"I can't believe what I've just heard."

He grinned and said he'd expected her to say that. "I'll never lick your stocking tops Wendy...not unless you insist."

God, he was making her feel like touching him. Her mind roared and she wondered what he was like in bed. So she bit her lip until that hurt enough to settle her. Oh no, her vagina was now tingling. She'd not defied him and had purchased a tight black swimsuit. Her breasts were swelling against the fabric and that wasn't the only thing swelling. Why had she stupidly allowed herself to be lured into this situation?

Lee stood and her eyes widened at the size of his bulge. Then, incredibly, he saved her. He said, stay here while I dress and go down to the lobby and make some calls. I am aware I have put you under stress but you are such an attractive package I can only apologize but I cannot say I'm sorry for my behavior because to me it seems so appropriate. Leave when you are ready and don't return if that's the way you feel. Otherwise I would be delighted if you return around 6:00 nicely tooled up and partner me at the cocktail party being held for us in this hotel. May I kiss you?'

Wendy nodded, dumbly she thought, so she made sure she kissed him back. God, what a mess.

* * *

Lee waited for a few minutes and went into the venue, deciding Wendy was a no-show. He was talking to Hal and his wife when Frances, looking beyond Lee, grabbed Hal's arm and sighed." For goodness sake Hal, just look at your daughter."

Hal's mouth dropped opened. It must be Wendy, Lee thought, spinning around and his jaw almost hit the floor. Conversation around them died. Wendy had her hair piled high, the little black dress appeared painted on her and it was so short the bottoms of the lacy bands of her stocking stops were visible. Her stockings were black sheer and her black shoes with black bows had six-inch heels.

"Please Lee, keep your hands off her -- my daughter is married," Hal groaned in a whisper.

"Easy darling. You daughter is a big girl. She and she alone will determine her behavior."

Lee said hoarsely, "I can leave right now and hide if you think I should Frances."

"You stay, and that's an order."

"Frances, I don't think..."

"Shut up Hal."

Wendy glided up and greeting her parents kissed them on the cheek and then turned to Lee said hi and stood beside him. He placed an arm around her waist, dropping the hand over the start of her butt. She didn't buck.

"A drink?"

But Lee didn't have to move. Two male waiters approaching from differing directions were homing in with a selection of drinks on their trays.

Two expensively dressed younger women began talking to Wendy and later she collected Lee and they went off to dinner with those women from California and their husbands and an older couple from Montana. They chose a nearby restaurant. Hal and Frances in a large group came in and had to wait for tables so Lee excused himself and went and joined them for a drink and was introduced to some of the movers and shakers in advertising out west.

As the cab neared Wendy's home she said simply, "I want you to lick my stocking tops Lee."

The cab swerved and almost swiped a parked car.

Lee grinned and said, "You place or mine?"

"I was thinking tomorrow evening after the dinner. You will have delivered your speech at the afternoon plenary session so will be more relaxed by then."

Lee smiled and said good idea. He kissed Wendy at the door, unlocked the door for her and as he gave her the key and she began walking inside he was temped to slap her butt but decided he was going fine so should not take unnecessary liberties.

On the way back to the hotel the cabbie said, "This licking stocking tops. Is that a perversion?"

"It depends on intent," began Lee with authority.

The bar was full of guys talking women, sport and advertising, their partners leaving them to it. So Lee enjoyed an entertaining four hours and met guys who could become his buddies, most of them drunkenly promising to visit him in Australia.

CHAPTER 4

Lee walked to the rostrum amid warm applause, being billed as and Englishman who became an Australian citizen after becoming a household name in that nation after an incredible thirty-minutes of mind-bending control of women. He possessed no qualifications in advertising but held a degree in business management. He was principal of an almost flamboyant boutique advertising agency in Sydney, Australia, that each year took home at least one national award in advertising and this year collected four open national awards. Lee's creative people were fed their impetus ideas from Lee, every time.

The guy reading that introduction then announced, "Those words were supplied unknown to Lee by his business partner and director of Creative, James Krug who says Lee doesn't think and act like ordinary guys so don't expect the usually learned presentation from him."

There was polite applause and Lee noticed his hostess Wendy sitting near the front with her parents. He winked at them.

"Within minutes of first meeting James Krug, who shared an apartment with three women, one of whom is now my wife, he threatened to punch my lights out because I dared to ask the three women to show me their stocking tops. My wife-to-be told James she'd wop him one if he didn't sit down and behave with tolerance. My wife's name is Claire Cobb and her wealthy farmer father flew his own Lear Jet that was black and in typical Aussie humor he had it boldly painted with the name, Cobb Airlines. You know it's the only name of any private airline I know and why? Because it was an aircraft painted entirely in black and with its name in white, and the name was only two words -- Cobb Airlines. Simple huh? Well that is the theme of my address -- Keep it simple huh?"

"I suggest those women rising to leave ought to return to their seats because this soon becomes interesting. Thank you."

"I fled England for the benefit of my immediate family after appearing in court charged with committing an indecent act with a woman in the grounds of Parliament in London. My sharp-ass lady lawyer took my case to appeal and won on technicalities, the main two being licking stocking stops was scarcely an indecent act, at least not for the woman receiving it, but the killer submission was proving beyond all reasonable doubt the space where Lady Somebody and I were engrossed in being gross was on public land set aside in Elizabethan times for the pleasure of courting couples."

I holed up in Australia, met my wife-to be-Claire by chance and called on her at her apartment. In talking with James and the girls I found the answer to a problem that had been dropped on to by lap by a Flying Preacher who landed his single-prop aircraft on a highway in response to a radio call to pick me up as a hitchhiker as I wanted to return to Sydney. He had some responsibility with a privately funded systems of schooling for young kids living too remotely to be funded by the federal or state authorities and donations were drying up because money was tight as the drought gripping the land entered its second year."

"Rather than me tell the story, let James tell it. He was creative director at an advertising company at the time and made this three-minute clip for me on the project, Stockings Day Australia. A year later, commemorating that event, he presented this clip me as part of my wedding present."

James narrated the clip, documentary style, with shots of the outback schools and Lee with the Flying Vicar/Preacher, shots of donors flashing to expose their stocking tops and shots of the after-event party with Lee relaying news that the half-hour of fund-raising throughout Australia had raised more than $3 million and it was likely when counting finished the proceeds would exceed $4 million. "Australia took their hats off to this guy," James said, with the camera panning Lee with his arms around two busty, very attractive women in tiny bikinis. "That is Sheila now my wife on the left, and Lee's fiancée Claire Cobb. We four shall always remember Stocking Tops Day Australia when even grandmas stood up and flashed after making donations to the outback education centers' appeal."

The audience laughed and clapped hugely as the clip ended.

"The message from that campaign," Lee said, "was keeping it simple, although the background organization was massive and anything but simple. We set the giving of donations to a time frame, noon to twelve-thirty in whatever time zone citizens were in. We placed mail boxes within easy reach and all they had to do was to address their donation for the appeal, mail it and turn and flash, feeling they had donated to a worthy cause and got something back in a moment of madness by publicly flashing, prepared to do it because other women around them were doing it."

"After my marriage we returned to Australia because Claire was keen to return home and I really didn't mind where I lived and had the bonus of Australia was the place where women didn't mind flashing."

"Curiously, it was stockings that won our agency its first major national award. Although not seeking credit, I came up with the idea, executed it and insisted our people keep the advertising campaign simple. Well as you'll see in a moment, it was almost too simple for words."

Lee described how he persuaded a women buyer at a department store, who had great legs, to import stockings from France that had thin lateral stripes in a series of five colors.

"Did I hear cries of 'ugh!" Lee said, hearing that reaction.

"Ugh!" yelled women and some men in the auditorium.

"Good. And that's what made our campaign work and established our agency as a cut-above the average advertising agency. The department store refused to approved the draft of the ad we submitted or to increase its budget to place the ad for two successive issues in two girly ...er... teenager and young women reader magazines. Because I'm unprofessional with lax morals I went ahead and placed the ads without authority and added my own money to bridge the gap required. As I anticipated the campaign was a runaway success."

He turned to the screen and the ad was displayed. "Like as limited number of ads that really hit the button and motivate reaction, heaps of it, the wording of this ad was starkly simple. We had a teenage model in our unhappy client's big-selling Meyer pinafore, wearing the stockings with her legs bowed, and sucking a finger. There was no heading, just the wording, 'Mummy will space out if she sees me in these ghastly stockings.' Below that you see the department store's logo.

Some delegates began clapping immediately and other people when it was explained to them that young people tended to love what older people disliked, they joined in and clapped.

"The store urgently shipped in another 150,000 pairs of stockings from France. Interestingly, that product received many votes in a consumer survey, ending up being named as the third best new consumer product for that year."

"My daughter is almost five, and for some years I have been listening to her ask things like, "Why do leaves fall from trees or why do clouds move?" It took me quite some time to learn she didn't expect an answer from Einstein. "Leaves fall because there are heavier than air' and 'clouds move because the wind blows on them' were all she wanted to know."

"Friends, if I may call you that. My daughter Vicky exposed me to one of the great secrets of the universe...I was telling her all she needed to know."

"Okay, I know some of you know that and practice that but I'm telling you we are in a minority."

He turned to the screen. An ad was displayed of a talking fish giving consumers the message they should eat fish twice a week. The fish in the first ad was highly colored on a blue sea with the sun shining brightly above the fish, a trawler passing behind it and hordes of little fish swimming the foreground. In the second ad, the simply colored fish in blue and gray was suspended against a white background. The only thing that stood out was the message: Healthy, happy people eat fish.