Evening Wednesday, August 30th, 2023
Headlights circled, tires burned smoke as souped-up cars spun donuts in the intersection. Paulo had taken Lyrou to a takeover. It wasn’t the sleek beige tank top and high-waisted tailored black shorts, or her momness, or her vertiginous nerves, or her language barrier that made her feel like a tourist. It was Paulo himself; he was so much this scene that he made the cultural ethno-linguistic bulk core of the people there seem like tourists in their own tradition, their own event. He led her through, fist-bumping and smile-pointing a dozen locals along the way to the intersection, “You’re going to ride with me, OK?”
Cell phones glowed, clout-chasing spectators filmed. Puerto Rican, Dominican, Venezuelan, and Mexican flags waved out of car windows, draped on hoods, worn like capes. A nineteen-year-old who knew too much about torque and still lived with his abuela rolled in a car plastered with anime decals and the Puerto Rican Lamb of God coat of arms on the rear window. An OG in his late 40s or early fifties leaned against a car with a blunt, telling long stories no one asked for. He’d been doing this since the ’90s. Still respected. Neon undercarriage lights flashed, rims spun, spoiler wings sliced the air. Lyrou asked Paulo, "You have a car here?”
Brown and Black women danced on car roofs, dressed in mesh, body glitter, and no shame.
Cops lingered in the distance, lights swirling but still, just watching. A blond dude with a bodycam strapped to his chest narrated the chaos for his online docuseries. Skateboarders weaved through the scene, occasionally slipping into someone’s shot. “I used to, I sold it to a friend, I gave him a real good deal too. He wants me to have a spin around with it for old times.”
Bass had dropped hard enough to quake your ribcage, drill, dembow, remixed classics. A queen bee in a crop top, big hoops, acrylics sharp as blades. Some Colombian girls in sundresses stood at the edge, their boyfriends in long tees and vintage pro-baseball gear. They didn’t join in. Just observed, judged, envied, fantasized. Tires screeched, engines roared, and sneakers slapped pavement as people broke into sprints. Lyrou had doubts, "I can watch.”
Shouts rang out en español: “Dale, cabrón!” and “Bendito, no te metas ahí!” There was laughter, whoops, and drunks talking over each other. A siren wailed in the distance, instantly snapping the crowd to attention like geese, before collectively returning to their honking. Paulo took charge of her, “You can watch? Yes, you can watch from the passenger seat.”
The air filled with burnt rubber, thick and acrid. Gasoline and motor oil clung to skin and clothes. Weed smoke hung skunky. Coconut-scented body oil, cologne, sweat. Arepas, tacos, pastelillos, vendors hustled hard at the edges of the madness. Lyrou shrank still, "I’d rather not get thrown out in a rollover. It would take 8 hours for a paramedic to get in and out…”
The pavement radiated heat and a purple feline of a car rolled in. A driver in dreads with doodles inked across his hands and face, jewel-studded grill flashing, steered with one hand, flexed rings with the other. He revved, then stepped out, leaving his door hanging open. He saw Paulo and came in for the big dap, “Hiram! This is Lyrou.”
The blond docuseries guy reappeared, silently filming, capturing the scene as this e-celeb driver, Hiram, took and kissed Lyrou’s hand, led her around the vehicle, opened the door for her, and allowed her in. Paulo jumped in, took the steering wheel, flashed devil-horns at the tuber, and then glancing to see that Lyrou had buckled in… roared the engine and took off before she could speak a word, "Waaaooo!"
Her arms and legs splayed across the Interior of the vehicle for bracing, her body being pulled one way then the next by the ever-shifting g-force, her hair in her mouth, the sight of Paulo both hands alternating over one another on the wheel and his tongue poking between his lips, the seat belt strap cutting into her cleavage, the smoke, the sight of pedestrian crowds so near the car as it spun past she shouted in fear they’d be run over, and her adrenaline maximizing every sensation. Her hand leapt off the center console and onto his lap, she squeezed his thigh in fright and fun. Paulo took a violently sudden right, but with an application of momentum and talent, he popped the car up onto two wheels, hoisting Lyrou on the higher half of the vehicle, and they went down the avenue sidewall ski driving. He looked over and up at Lyrou as she held dearly onto her seatbelt strap and grab-assist car-ceiling handle not to fall out and onto him, “Tafheet-style!”
⚜
Morning Sunday, September 3rd, 2023
They had been fooling around in his car when she commented unsolicited on men’s length, eyeing his own hard-on in her hand, “If a woman can stack one hand on it, and nothing comes out the top, then that’s a useless, pathetic, baby penis. He should never get to put his hands on a real woman.” Andrea said with practiced disgust and disdain in her voice.
Then softening her tone on a dime, “Um, erm, but if a woman can stack both hands on it and there’s still some D coming out the top, then it’s long enough to hit everything fully tented back to her A-spot. And that feels soooo good.”
Garin watched Andrea’s eyes crossing subtly as she regarded the top portion of his member reddening, emerging engorged out of the top of her double-hand-stack, proudly meeting and then surpassing her metrical minimum. She looked more intensely as if her young-but-vast experience qualified her as a judge, “And if she can just barely touch her index and thumb tips around it, without squeezing, that’s a girl’s Goldilocks-of-girth.” She looped her little fingers around his shaft like so.
Garin remembered. “When we were just high school virgins, my friend snuck a DVD over to my place, sharpie writing on it; Maximum Penetrations IX.”
Andrea smirked, “Oh? Did you two watch that when mom wasn’t home?”
“Sure did. Women putting two arms up their holes.” Garin ran his finger along Andrea’s forearm even as she played curiously with his manhood, “Halfway up to their elbows.”
Andre’s eyebrows raised, “Wow, but there’s a lot of storage space in an ass...”
Garin shook his head, “Please. Not through the back entry, in the baby-maker. Then they jammed a bunch of other crazy stuff up their muffs; wine bottles, eggplants, candles, a dildo they fashioned on a pottery wheel.”
Andrea tsked and smiled big, “Did you like seeing that, or did it make you two boys feel very small.”
Garin nodded, “Both, for sure.”
Giving his dick a quick shake and speaking to it, “But how do I make you feel?”
Garin was pleased his dimensions passed her requirements, “You know how to make a man feel like a horse.”
She tapped the top of his dick with her fingertip, rubbing his precum around like lotion, “Why? Are horse dongs huge?”
Garin winced and grinned, “You didn’t know? They’re horses. Reared up on two legs, they stand 8 to 10 feet tall and weigh 1,000 to 1,800 pounds.”
Andrea shook her head, and Garin’s, “Height and weight don’t correlate with length or circumference, trust me.” At last, she took his dick in her mouth, lowering on it, meeting her lips to her hand as both worked in sync. Garin looked about the park. He saw a few people here and there walking their dogs or elderly parents, but they kept to the trail where they couldn’t see him. Still, the possibility of being seen getting a blowjob by a brat-slut such as Andrea, her bleached hair with its black-black roots bobbing in his lap, put him over the edge, and he cummed sooner than he meant to.
She leaned out the passenger side window and spit, swished her mouth with a sip from a plastic water bottle, and spit again. Garin slapped his steering wheel with an idea, “I’m going to take you for a horseback ride. Now.” He tucked himself away, put it in drive, and found the route on his phone mounted to the dash.
And so, the two of them, having rented 2 hours with a couple of mares, to curious Andrea’s disappointment, no stallions were available, they rode the trail: tall grass, woods, creeks, mosquitoes, a tomato field, then a cornfield. “I’m going to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks.”
She had said it so suddenly and blasé that it broke the peace out there in that all-American landscape oil painting. Garin took a minute to think, popping open that same plastic water bottle and pouring it over the overheating fur-hides of his steed and hers, “What’s happening there?”
“An adult entertainment expo. I need to promote myself, so I have a table.” She said with such responsibility and gumption.
“It’s not going to cost you a cent, is it?” Garin reckoned.
“No.” She smiled, lips together, dimples formed.
“What do I get? I’m not even going with,” Garin negotiated, riding down the trail beside her.
She pet her mare’s mane. “What do you want?”
Garin already knew. “If you can go the whole trip without getting entertaining for any man, then when I see you again, give me the receipts for your hotel and flights.”
Andrea, wrists conjoined, clapped tiny claps. “Full imbursement?”
Garin wobbled on his horse going downhill. “Don’t splurge wantonly, and keep yourself mine, then yes.”
Andrea sighed pleasantly, “I like it that you trust me.”
Garin, hands in the air. “Woah, I didn’t say I trust you. You’re going to install a tracker, a remote mic, and a camera access on your phone.”
“ZaddyCam?” Andrea was intrigued.
“If I catch you in breach, you’re stuck with the whole tab.” Garin made scissor fingers and snipped, a quick cut at the connection between them.
Andrea, her hands together over her mouth, her eyes sparkling. “So... controlling!”
Garin reached between their horses to take her hand. “You have a nice, clean time in Vegas. I mean that.”
Andrea laughed, hooking his fingers with hers. “Wow. Controlling. I can obey, I think. I think so, Garin, I think so. I’ll try, I really, really, will try.” She teased, as if she might not be able to help herself from getting laid.
⚜
Afternoon Monday, September 11th, 2023
Lyrou had spent the afternoon with Penny, taking her to a 9/11 memorial blood drive and demonstrating good civic-mindedness. Penny asked a lot of questions, to which Lyrou explained she was just a girl when it happened, “I came out of class, met my friends, and headed to the gymnasium. Along the way, we saw people gathered outside shops and cafés to watch the television news. There was a lot of concern about war because France is a NATO ally of the US, and then fears of Islamophobia and Arabophobia, and of course, there were vigils and wreaths for the victims.”
Penny’s final matter before deciding if she’d learned enough for the day, “Alan said, people jumped out of the buildings. He said they jumped after calling their kids. Is he lying?”
Lyrou shook her head. “That happened. But Pin-Pin, you don’t need to be afraid of that.”
“Dad works in a tower.” Penny worried.
Lyrou reassured her, “There are many reasons terrorists attacked the old World Trade Center, Penny, and none of those reasons are true for the tower your tata works in.”
Penny pressed, “Why not?”
Lyrou sighed, thinking of a good one-shot for any fear Penny had about it. “OK. Do you know the British army once burned down the White House?”
Penny winced. “They did?”
Lyrou nodded. “A long time ago. Do you think the British army will come and burn our house?”
Penny laughed, “No! That would be crazy!”
Lyrou. “Why is it crazy? The White House is a house, our house is a house.”
Penny laughed harder. “It’s different.”
Lyrou resisted playfully. “But I’m so scared! Save me Pin-Pin!”
Penny blushed. “OK. I get it!”
⚜
Evening Monday, September 11th, 2023
Lyrou was in Tom’s 12th-floor riverfront Hoboken condo. She looked from his balcony, wind in her face, onto Manhattan at the pair of white light beams cutting upward into the clouds. Tom joined her, holding the rail, “You didn’t know anybody in that towering blaze, did you?”
Lyrou turned to put her arm around his waist and put her cheek to his chest, “Non. Not directly. Did you?”
Tom gave the rail a quick tap of his big hand, “My older brother dropped out of college, rushed to join, came back from Kandahar with both feet amputated in 2010.”
Lyrou didn’t want to hear more tragedy; that’s not what Tom was for, and she gave the least response she could, “Sorry.”
Tom, though, his love of confrontation was excited by the sight of those beams, “I envied my bro, I would’ve given both feet to kick them up a terrorist’s ass.”
Lyrou wouldn’t object; he’d dismiss her as a conflict-averse woman, or an appeasing, surrendering Frenchie, or an Ivy League idealist, or something. Rather, she’d call him on it, “Why didn’t you join, chickenhawk? I’m sure you would’ve been the bane of Kabul.”
Tom’s hand dropped from her waist down to her butt, “Big bro called home sometimes. I asked if he duct-taped a grenade in an Al Qaeda merc’s mouth yet, like he said he would, and he told me all he’d done was drive, dig, and master pooping without a toilet and toilet paper. I told him I thought there were suck-you-long-time girls as there’d been in every armed conflagration the US had ever barreled into from your Paris to formerly-your Saigon. He said Yeah right, in that dusty opium exporter, all the men were pederasts into bacha bāzī boys, and all the women waddled around beaten black-and-blue covered under dirty black-and-blue blankets, and you didn’t want to see what toothless illiterate inbred was under them sheets anyway.”
Lyrou, speaking softly, sardonically, and taking one last look at the commemorative beams, “Then it’s fortunate for him he wasn’t captured, he was deployed to the Sotadic zone.”
Lyrou turned and grabbed at Tom’s package, sending him stepping backward into his condo with a big deep laugh, “That’s good! I’ll tell him that.”
⚜
Morning Thursday, September 21st, 2023
Garin had both Wayne and Terry visit his office before his coffee was cold, and on totally unrelated matters. Not a slow start, and he would need to visit at least Wayne’s office before leaving for the day. Working through what Terry had asked him to come in on first, Garin had a minute here and a minute there to pop out his phone and see where Andrea was on a map of Las Vegas. He didn’t concern himself much when he saw that she was in transit, her ping moving along the streets, or when she was at a breakfast diner, but when she arrived at the adult entertainment expo, he popped an ear-pod in and remote-activated her phone’s mic. It felt stupid and wrong to him to do this, but he’d wanted to try it since Lyrou first begged him for a helicopter spouse marriage. With Andrea, she could have said no if she didn’t like it, as there was so little at stake for her; she could’ve told him to F-off, but she agreed, and that made it square in Garin's book.
Working as he listened in to the wide-open sounds of a convention center, people speaking as Andrea walked past them, a few greeting her. He listened as she prepared her table. And then, as he worked at his desk, he listened to her working at her table. Networking, she spoke to a growing traffic of people in the adult entertainment business, and then to some people who might’ve had little purpose there, but they were big fans of that kind of product. Andrea repeatedly asked for contact info where she could send her links, and in a few instances laughingly promised a complimentary nude mirror selfie. She also made conversation with several of the others who had tables of their own, surprising to Garin, a couple of them male, and more surprising to him, that they had sizeable female followings. Garin turned her phone camera on remotely, and while it gave a clear picture, it was a dizzying whip-view of floor, blur, face, blur, clothes, blur, table as Andrea kept it in hand, at one point her finger partially obstructing what would have otherwise been the first straight ten seconds of no motion. He met these people by proxy as she met them; adult film stars as famous as any big screen academy award winner, up-and-coming performers, cam models, ASMR girls, porn directors and producers, photographers and videographers, makeup artists and stylists specializing in adult shoots, adult film editing post-production crew, talent agent managers, PR publicist professionals, and a delegation of JAV representatives looking to do an international talent exchange.
Garin had to give up monitoring her as he went into a series of calls, an update from a secretary, and noticed that his food delivery had arrived at the reception. He gave it a rest, though, checking her ping to see she was still at the expo.
When he started driving home, he popped the ear-pod back in and listened in on her doings as he crawled through traffic. She was with an indeterminate number of young women, all speaking Spanish, and could barely follow except to hear that they were outside, then in a restaurant, then outside again.
At home, Garin exercised in the basement rec room, listened to Andrea for so long by then he was hardly really tuned in, and put more of his focus on his workout. In the bathroom and preparing for bed, he heard her on a call to an older woman. He knew enough Spanish to know she was her mom. Garin lay in bed alone and almost fell asleep when his earpod rang loudly. He startled up, reaching around for his phone and answered, “Yeah?”
The same sweet voice he’d listened to for hours and hours, “Do you want to see around my hotel room?”
Garin sat up and double-checked that he was alone in his bedroom, and looked into his phone as Andrea walked her phone around her hotel room, showing the shower, the closets, the entire space. Taking him to the window for a high view of the Strip, “You’re really creepy.”
Garin did a breathy stalker voice, “Doo you like it.. hhhhheeuuu-heeeuu?”
Garin saw her in the reflection of her window. Andrea shivered, hands crossing up to her shoulders. “No, stop! I’m out here by myself. The only person I knew today was you. You made me feel safe walking tonight.”
Garin both liked and disliked that she would say that. “What will you do tomorrow?”
Andrea flopped into her crisply made hotel bed, “I have a Grand Canyon bus tour I need to make. Will you listen in? I can show you a view or two there, too.”
Garin nodded. He heard Lyrou talking downstairs. “Yes. That’ll be nice. Goodnight.”
She also heard, "Is that her?" Andrea pried.
Garin with his mouth in the phone mic, "Yes. Sleep a lot."
"Oooooh. OK. Goodnight. Later.” And she hung up.
⚜
Evening Friday, September 29th, 2023
Lyrou was vroomed off to Monticello in Tom’s sports car. He turned a 90-minute drive into 50 minutes and would have made it 40 if she hadn’t demanded he take it easy on slick tar, “Drive like a civilian, please!”
There in that past-prime resort town, trying to pull itself up by its bootstraps and elbow grease, the mafia played unmolested by officials they owned. A casino-hotel, looking renovated but with more empty parking spaces than the owners would like to see, Lyrou stretched, closing her door, and beet-beet Tom remotely locked it. He almost walked ahead of her, but slowed to take her hand, "I need to make a stop before getting us seated. Come on."
Tom led her in under his umbrella, then passed the VIP area, the slot machines, and gaming tables, and into the employees’ locker-room. There, jogging Lyrou out of her underwhelmed perception of the venue stood completely naked a tall, pale, muscular man with limbs long, carved and trunk-like as some kind of beautiful extraterrestrial, “Mestre Tom!” he bowed his head.
Tom returned the bow, “Lyrou, my student and one of tonight’s fighters, Kyrylo.”
Lyrou’s gaze moved from the fighter’s exposed pendulous meat to his Yamnaya face. “Salut, Kyrylo. Good luck tonight.”
Tom exclaimed in his deep voice, “How do you lose?”
The big pupil recited what his coach had gone over with him several times in the last months, “I’ll lose because I won’t close the space, because I count on my reach and ignore my golden opportunities to go in close. I lose because with my height, I don’t expect him to touch my chin, and it’ll come out of nowhere.”
Tom nodded, hand patting the big youth’s upper arm. “How else do you lose tonight?”
Kyrylo, ignoring Lyrou’s presence and standing before Tom like a robot being programmed, “I will lose because I got submitted, I submitted because in the pain I panicked and forgot that with a little work I could break his hold.”
Tom gave him a reassuring slap on his upper arm, “And what’s the last reason you lose tonight?”
Kyrylo’s eyes didn’t dare look at Lyrou, or they didn’t seem to want to look at Lyrou; they were the dead-alive eyes of a person with one objective: “I lose because I won’t think about what he’ll have after he defeats me.”
Tom was satisfied, “You can’t let him have that instead of you. Do not lose.”
And with a final bow, they parted. Tom led Lyrou to their seats in a repurposed ballroom, close to ringside, and she had questions while they waited for the opening event: “He looks young.”
Tom’s answers were short and came between standing to shake hands with acquaintances and partners as they came in and took their seats: “18 years old.”
Lyrou asked, “Too young. What were you telling him?”
Sitting down once more, he said, “It’s visualization. He can’t lose if he sees all the ways he can lose.”
Lyrou tucked that away in her memory bank. She liked it. “6 foot 6?”
Tom answered, aware she was asking as much out of lust as athletic interest, “6 foot 8. 246 lbs... beast.”
Lyrou scrunched up her forehead, “And he’s afraid he will lose a jiu-jitsu match?”
Tom corrected her, “It’s mixed martial arts, jiu-jitsu is just one discipline here. His opponent is 6 foot 4 and has Muay Thai credentials. Dutch kid that kicks a car tire around like a soccer ball to train.”
There were four fights before Kyrylo’s; a couple of American welterweights who grappled until one ended it with a trio of elbows to the back of the head. Then, a Vostoko-Slavic vs Ciscaucasian middleweight match with plenty of kicks to the shins and thighs before a flying punch put the Slav down for a nap. A pair of Black heavyweights, one Caribbean and the other from deep down in Dixie, seemed to meet boxing with boxing until a spinning elbow caught a chin and was followed up with a hail of downward hammer fists. With that fight ended, Tom leaned into Lyrou’s ear and repeated what he’d explained in the ride from Jersey, “I need to bring him out.” And he removed himself.
Lyrou remained in her seat to watch another heavyweight match. The underdog, an obese Korean who took blow after blow and then endured a choke hold from a steroidal red-headed Ozarks man before he caught the hillbilly’s hairy, freckled Cro-Magnon arm and twisted it back for a surprise submission win. The crowd rumbled.
Finally, Kyrylo and his opponent. Tom and an older squish-faced man followed and took up their places at Kyrylo’s corner. The crowd clearly recognized and anticipated these fighters in a way Lyrou couldn’t; the cheers were almost stupid in their exuberance and infectious. She pulled out her phone and searched ‘Kyrylo MMA Monticello’ and in seconds found an article featuring his photos with interview quotes from him and his two trainers, one of them Tom, the other a Ukrainian, the same squish-face in his corner now. There were big expectations, and it occurred to Lyrou that tonight this giant kid was to live up to the hype and gain fame, or he was going to deflate a lot of balloons.
With both of his coaches at his back just beyond the ropes and the referee giving the signal to commence, Kyrylo began by letting the Dutchman come to him and begin some light-probing kicks. Tom spoke into the older coach’s ear, who then shouted, “Zamknut’ vidstanu!” and Kyrylo marched straight into the footloose dancer’s rubber grill, jabbing his way in.
The Dutchman pushed at Kyrylo to rewiden the distance and between coaches on both sides, shouting Tom was again in the older coach’s ear, who then shouted, “Yoho liva stopa zletytʹ vhoru, koly prava noha pіde vpereed!”
The Dutchman brought a lightning-fast left kick into Kyrylo’s waist, but his movements were well-informed by his corner, so he avoided it going into his ribs. The fight went on like this a while longer, jabs, pushes, kicks. Then, just as it seemed to have grown quiet and careful, the Dutchman’s right foot flew straight upward and stamped Kyrylo right center into his chest, sending him stumbling backward into the ropes. The older coach, “Lezhy na spyni, Kyrylo! Zakhysna poza, ne namahaysya vstavaty... vin zakinchytʹ, poky ty balansuyeshsya. Dobré, vin ne khoche lezhaty z toboyu. Zakhyst!”
Tom locking eyes with Kyrylo’s opponent through the ropes, “Try Kyry on the floor, keep coming, join him.. you have no ground game.” And the Dutchman, knowing it was true, stepped away, giving Kyrylo the space to get back up.
Lyrou observed the audience around her, they were on the edge of their seats. They cheered as Kyrylo’s tall marble-hewn frame re-erected and then gasped and winced as the Dutchman returned with new energy. He was quite pitilessly kicking Kyrylo up and down his body one after the other with a musical series of moist-slaps and wet-cracks. Tom had had enough of the Navajo code talking and coached Kyrylo directly, not caring that the Dutchman would understand, “Arms up! Head low! Move in! If he crouches, his knee is coming up, duck it, move in! Move in!”
Kyrylo’s big body took the successive strikes, and the pain was written on his face, and yet he pushed in. Vindicating Tom, the Dutchman tried to bring a knee up into Kyrylo’s mouth, but he ducked it as trained. Then, at point blank, no forecasting, without warning, and to the crowd’s silence, Kyrylo sprang onto the Dutchman. His long arms opened and swallowed his enemy up. Kyrylo leveraged his weight and a leg tripping movement to get the contest on the ground, and then, sitting atop the challenger, set punch after punch into his helpless face, each one bouncing that head off the mat until the eyes rolled back and the referee called it. Tom and his co-coach flew under the ropes and across the ring. Lyrou leapt out of her seat and squealed in a noise she didn’t know she could make.
⚜
Early Morning Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Garin lay watching Lyrou as she slept beside him. She lay with her back to him, and he saw that her nightshirt had bunched up high enough to expose most of her back. Quietly lifting the blanket, he saw her purple panties, and was instantly aroused by the proportional contrast between her large, almost overfilled ass cheeks to her narrow waist. Holding the blanket up with one hand, he began stroking himself with his opposite hand.
Garin thought about how he had taken two lovers since he and Lyrou had opened this marriage, and how knowing their bodies put his wife’s body in context. In the best way, in a way he had partly forgotten from years of being accustomed to her body, Lyrou really did have a big ass. Jia and Andrea, as beautifully formed as they were, didn’t come that close to what Lyrou hauled in rear mass. Was that her blessing, her inheritance from having an African grandparent? He did his best to jack-off without shaking the bed and waking her, almost like a game, but she did wake. Without turning over, she scooched back, pulled her panties off, big spoon to little spoon, and they fucked lying on their sides. From this angle, his penetration wasn’t deep, but rather he rammed directly into her anterior wall, sometimes slip-mashing a bit before retracting for another thrust. He buried his face in her black, bushy hair, took as much of her exposed ass into his hand as he could palm, and grunted out a load.
⚜
Late Morning Saturday, September 30th, 2023
Alone in a hot bath, her husband and two children about the house up to whatever they were up to, Lyrou fantasized about tall, muscular, hung Kyrylo, to herself. Staring into a blank space of shower tiles, she dreamed up a likely scenario, that she might somehow visit him wherever he was staying, find that he was sore and recovering from the injuries he sustained in his victorious fight, and then she would remind him that 'masseuse' is a French word. He would express interest, in his Ukrainian dialect, complain that the busty blonde Slavic masseuses in his home country are too rough to trust with his bruised and swollen parts, and she would invite her hands to his arms, shoulders, and legs to demonstrate how gentle and precise her technique was. He'd lean into it, she'd get his shirt off, and then his pants, softly working the tender muscles spanning his towering frame. She would rub his calves, then up his shins to his quadriceps, and then down his thighs, closer and closer to his groin, eliciting no objection. And then, his hanging, sweaty, veiny, white-pink cock would bust under-and-out the lining of his briefs. She would go mad for it.
She liked to imagine what sex with her would be to him;
Would he reject her before it got that far out of respect for "Mestre Tom"?
Would she be his first woman of color? He's so young and simple, she'd be surprised if he'd had more than a couple of potato-eating girlfriends from whatever Soviet era apartment block he grew up in. If he does become a famous athlete as he dreams, then he's going to be overrun with groupies soon, and Lyrou would be getting the last days of the innocent, lesser-known Kyrylo, she thought.
Would he see her as a cougar? Probably, as that's what she would be, right?
Would that giant fucking cock of his even fit full length inside her before bulging out a mound just below her navel?
Questions.
There was a knock on the bathroom door and a boy’s voice, and speaking over him a girl’s voice, altogether, “Maman, I’m going to Calvin’s!” and “Maman, Dad is dropping me off at Carla’s!”
“Oui! OK!” she called back, watching their foot shadows depart through the gap under the bathroom door and hearing them run down the stairs.
⚜
Noon Thursday, October 5th, 2023
Garin skipped lunch, deciding to spend it walking around downtown for a big think. Some blocks from HQ, he saw a huge group of East Asians in suits coming out of a Szechuan private party room. He’d have to cross the street to make it around them, but then, as he checked both ways and stepped off the curb he saw Jia come out among them, immediately spotting him too. She smiled and, expecting his approach, broke from the group. As Garin neared, he called out to her, “Are they here to buy Jersey City?”
The men in the group, overhearing him, looked to Jia and Garin with a big collective laugh, ”We’re comparing prices with Newark!” the old man in the bunch declared, to more laughter.
Jia giggled along with them and excused herself in Mandarin, joining Garin on his walk, “I’ll take your course with you, if that’s OK. I need to walk, I’m very, very full.”
Garin agreed, “Sure. Don’t let your guests eat less than you.”
Jia confirmed, “That’s right. How have you been, Garin?”
Garin’s thoughts ripped through with a torrent of the visions, sounds, and feelings he’d been subject to in the short span between meeting her last and now, “I’ve been like a new man. How’ve you been?”
Crossing with him past a busker, between parked cars, jaywalking through cars stopped at a light, Jia’s thoughts rushed with the conflicted emotions, interactions, and mental gymnastics she’d been subject to in the short span between meeting him last and now, “Also good.”
Garin sometimes tapped into the autistic cortex of his brain for what he thought to be the greater good, and here he did just that, “Let’s not be wonked out with one another. I want us to be a version of close friends and have an approachable, easy way about it. Do you agree?”
Jia blushed and smiled, “Yes. Me too. I agree.”
Walking beside her, he made a flick-wristed gesture as if throwing a deck of cards to the air, “And what comes or doesn’t come, it’s fine.”
He held the door for her, and she nodded, “That makes sense. We should meet after work. Today?”
Garin clasped his hands together and went into the lobby with an echo. “That works. 4?”
Doing a little quick stepping to catch a closing elevator, “4? Yes, 4 is good.”
Sharing the elevator with several people and stopping at multiple floors, they were quiet until just before arriving at Jia’s floor. Garin asked, “Do you play pool?”
Her door opening, she turned and stepped out backward, “Table pool? I can. Let’s bet money! See you soon.” And the doors closed to the narrowest sight of her smiling, gone.
⚜
Noon Monday, October 16th, 2023
Lyrou rode with Tom and Kyrylo to Penn Station. She had to take the cramped back seat because Kyrylo had to put the front passenger seat all the way back and still had his legs bent up against the glove-box. She didn’t mind, with his seat so far back, his head was about parallel with hers, eye-to-eye with his square-jaw, thick neck, and young face. Between his limited English and Tom’s help deciphering she was able to learn his story; Odessa, broke 6 foot tall at age 12, never had more than some playground scraps coming up, nobody in real life had wanted to fight him obviously, was recruited by the squish-face coach, did well in the Kiev fight circuit, left for the UK with his family when the Donetsk war got too intense, did well fighting around England, Tom got hold of him, brought him to Jersey City, and it’s been the stuff of an inspiring sports movie since. Now he was catching the train to Houston, and Tom would fly there to join him later that week. He was excited to watch out the train window and see America, and apologized to “Mestre Tom” that it would be the longest stretch of hours he’d gone without training since he’d come to the US.
Lyrou expressed to him that his recent victory was the first fight-sport event she’d attended, to which he felt honored. She began to “joke” that she was grateful to modern civilization for making “such violence a rarity relegated to entertainment spectacles”. Kyrylo was perturbed somehow by her statement, looking to Tom as he drove, then politely agreeing, “Yes. It’s a good thing, isn’t it?” to which Lyrou nodded, one-shoulder shrugging, “Of course! Life would be so scary if we didn’t have security in the law. Anybody could attack anybody at any time; we’d all have to train as much as you do just to survive. As a woman, it’s reassuring that mankind is essentially neutered.” Tom and Kyrylo exchanged a look and said nothing. Kyrylo moved the topic, “Which states have you been to, Lyrou?” and she began counting them on her fingers, “MA, NJ, NY, FL, VA, SC, DC… if that counts… PA and I’m sure I rode through some more.”
Parking and helping Kyrylo with his luggage, Tom and Lyrou navigated the station and found his train already boarding. Kyrylo and Tom exchanged a head bow on the platform. Lyrou then gave him a sincere hug, her head coming only up to his abdomen. With a big goofy smile, the titan gave the victory sign, his long fingers a promise, “To Texas! Yeehaw!” and he was up the stairs to find his seat in the carriage, ducking as he entered.
Tom and Lyrou retraced their way through Penn Station, and she walked with such wonder, deep down inside, she wished him endless victories, she hoped to see him on television, she would like to attend another of his fights if possible. She began gleefully painting the sky with the biggest fame for Kyrylo's future, walking but not really paying attention to much as she envisioned it; "He could be in sportswear ads all over Europe and Manhattan, he'll have half of the gamblers on Earth stressing over him winning or not, he could be in interviews about his training and talk about you, and then he might get calls to do a movie... like those underdog fight movies, and... eemmmppph!”
Tom shoved her sideways through a closed panic door, his hand about her waist and belly kept her from tripping onto the cool epoxy, and before she could speak, he shut it back behind him. Before her was another set of panic doors, locked, with an Authorized Personnel Only sign, “Tom? That kind of hurt. What’re you doing?”
He stood silent, his eyes on her body, he seemed to be another man than he was a few seconds ago, “Where are you now?”
Her bladder almost released and had to clench her pelvic floor muscles not to piddle her panties, “What do you mean?”
Tom took one tiny step forward, nearing her, “In public? But we’re alone. When? The false safety of day. This is a service hall; it gets used at night. All these people and activity? But their noise and business make them deaf and blind to anything that could happen to you. CCTV? They’ll watch it later, too late for you.”
Lyrou’s face half angry and half terrified, “Tom? Stop.”
Tom cracked his knuckles, “Violence is always possible, everywhere, anywhere, never think you are out of the jungle...”
She looked up into his apex eyes, deep-set in shadow, “I…”
Tom came toe-to-toe with her, brushing her cheek lightly by the back of his hand, “… civilization is a light, sheer bridal blusher veil on a lioness, and she’s always ready to tear it back for a biting, mauling kiss.”
Her mind cleared of any Kyrylo, any future, anything other than Tom here in the now, and her total vulnerability.
⚜
Afternoon Friday, October 27th, 2023
Garin met Andrea at her membership gym. She came out from the floor to get him signed in as her guest, then led him back. He stood next to her machine and chatted, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, as she neared 30 minutes on the stair climber.
Andrea, finger to his chin and resetting his eyes on her, “Your head is spinning like a wind vane. Are you an owl? How is your neck doing that? Where are your eyelids? Damnnnnn.”
He hadn’t noticed himself noticing, “I’m that bad?” Garin snickered.
“You’re worse than this fella. He thinks that while he takes a drink or wipes his face, he can look anywhere undetected, like putting on sunglasses.” Andrea panted, sweat running down every part of her.
Garin looked at the fella seated there doing quadricep raises, a fella not unlike himself; about the same age, demographic profile, kind of the same jogger physique. Garin turned to address Andrea as she came off the stair machine, “That gentleman is not looking at you, dear.”
Andrea, with both eyebrows raised and enunciating, “Yes. He. Did.”
Garin speaking louder, enough that the fella could overhear them, “No, he didn’t. I think you looked at him.”
Andrea shrugged. “I did… because he was looking at me.”
Garin, with his arms folded. “You looked at him.”
Andrea flustered, but oddly liked the jealousy. “Whatever. Why don’t you ask him, then?”
Without hesitation, Garin turned and approached the fella mid-rep. “Excuse me.”
Letting the quad-machine rest, and looking up at Garin as he neared. “Yeah?”
Garin folded his arms, feet apart. “Who looked at who first? Was it you or her?”
This fella removed his legs from the machine and set his feet on the floor, but not yet standing. “I mean.. I saw her. I didn’t check her out or anything.”
Garin pried, “That’s cool. But did you see her looking at you first?”
Shaking his head slowly. “Nah, man, or I don’t really know. Sometimes I want to come to the gym with a blindfold on.”
Garin nodded. “Like swipe your membership card, put the blindfold on, release an extendable white long cane, sweep it around as you make your way through to your machine, feel for the leg presser, hope they got braille on the plates so you can set the weight... like that?”
The fella stood. “Yeah, you know, that would be easier, wouldn’t it?”
Andrea listened before stopping them, doing her impression of a man peeking around corners. “It’d be a better style for you both than this, though! Where’s the lie?”
“Fuck both those styles, take your camel-toe back to the oasis, this is the style now.” Garin yanked up his running shorts so high that the full crack of his butt was defined, then rolled up and tied his shirt to show his belly.
The fella chuckled. “Now I do wish I were blindfolded.”
Andrea protested with a grin, doing a deep male voice, “If you look like a whore you deserve it! That’s asking for it!”
Garin twirled. “I’m not asking, I’m demanding!”
The fella piled on, “I’m demanding everyone find Jesus. OK? Please!” and he playfully yanked Garin’s shirt back down.
Garin pulled away back to Andrea. “I’ll get you kicked out of this location!” And he fixed his shorts.
The two gym-coupled, taking turns resting and working, side-by-side; Garin doing weighted pull-ups, inclined sit-ups, bicep curls, and lateral raises on the cables, and Andrea doing deep squats, back raises, jump rope, and hamstring curls. That last was a great visual treat for him until he had to look away for the obvious activity in his shorts.
⚜
