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SEAN STEPPED OUT OF the shower, dried his face, and toweled his hair. If there was one thing he really didn’t care for, it was water in his eyes. He ran the towel with yellow sunflowers –
a gift from his sister – up and down his bruised arms, his knuckles still sporting remnants of healing scabs. Going down his trunk, he could feel bruises, old and new, along his ribs. Even farther down, an occasional blue mark from a kick developed into a sickly yellow above his knees and on his shins. Shin bruises were the most painful and the slowest to fade.
He still remembered their private sparring session three days ago. For the first, time, Asbjorn’s rakish grin turned into a cold, predatory stare. The startling blue eyes lost their sunny sparkle as though a sheet of polar ice came over them, impenetrable and hard.
“What’s wrong, Asbjorn?” he asked, feeling foolish with both of them standing in Asbjorn’s small living room, with the coffee table pushed against the far wall. They were on neutral ground. Neither one of them was in charge of a class outside of the gym, and any dirty fighting trick was fair game.
Asbjorn answered with a punch to Sean’s floating ribs but remained silent, his expression unchanged.
“Asbjorn?”
Another punch, but this time Sean was ready and moved in an elegant evasion, grasping Asbjorn’s wrist. A wrist lock. A simple wrist lock – yet the wrist just would not bend.
Asbjorn reached for Sean’s throat, but Sean got hold of the right hand in midmotion with his own right, brought it up to his shoulder with a well-practiced flourish, and bowed.
“Arrgh!” Asbjorn crashed to his knees by Sean’s feet, his arm bent in an unnatural zigzag, and slapped the floor with his left hand.
Sean released the pressure on his pinched nerve, respecting the tap-out signal.
Asbjorn stood up, rubbing the pain out of his wrist. “Better. Again.”
They went over everything. Grabs and kicks, punches and elbow strikes – Sean’s self-defense skills being tested and analyzed by not only Asbjorn, but also by Nell and Dud. He picked up a few good moves, but Asbjorn gave up on teaching him how to punch properly.
“It takes years to develop a good fist. You’re just ripping your hands up. Here, use the palm strike. Like this. And use your elbows. If you decide to punch later, you can start coming to class.” Their fighting was dirty and mean, and the only moves they didn’t do full out were head butts and eye gouges. It wasn’t aikido, but Sean secretly found the unrefined violence of street fighting strangely liberating.
After weeks of hard training, Sean welcomed the relative peace of midterms. He was prepared, his assignments were completed, and his body had a chance to relax with both aikido and karate classes cancelled for the week. Others would cram to the last minute. Sean only reviewed, and did even that at a stately, comfortable pace. Now he slipped into his black stonewashed jeans and a green and white striped rugby shirt and loafers without socks, mocking the dropping temperatures outside. It was hot in the classrooms, and if he dressed too warm, he’d fall asleep over his work.
Last week had found him sprawled in the solitary corner nook of the library, his location concealed by stacks of reference books. The warmth of the generously heated building permeated every fiber of his body coaxed him to loosen up. He leaned back in his chair . His muscles, sore and bruised by practice, slowly began to uncoil. He pulled out his electronics design materials and got ready to solve the next circuit.
“Sean. Sean. Hey, Sean.”
The smooth, metallic coil of his notebook lay under his cheek, and long fingers combed through his hair. The hushed, familiar voice reassured him there was no cause for alarm. The hand toying with his hair felt so good, so comforting.
“Wake up, Sean.”
Blunt fingernails scraped up the back of his neck and into his hairline, sparking a shiver, and he heard a soft moan, then quiet laughter. He tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. He was bespelled by the talented fingertips and was languid with comfortable fatigue.
He felt a soft, moist touch under his ear – a kiss – and there was that whisper of a moan again, except this time he realized the sound had been his.
His eyes flew open in alarm.
Asbjorn’s blue eyes twinkled at him from underneath pale blond hair grown too long to stay up in obedient spikes. His lips were upturned in a mischievous smile.
“Asbjorn! Was that you?”
“Hard to tell, sleeping beauty. You better practice your situational awareness. Want to study at my place?”
Sean shook his head, a blush warming the bridge of his nose. His jeans felt uncomfortably tight. He must have had one of those dreams.... He took a deep breath and waited for the unwelcome reaction to subside.
“Okay, your place, then.”
His color rose at the recollection of Asbjorn’s fingers in his hair. The kiss, gently deposited on his neck, was a sophomoric prank. Nothing more. Just a way to demonstrate Sean had been reckless. Next time, he’d end up duct-taped to the library chair. He had started to pay more attention to his environment – that that was a good thing, except it was starting to make him feel paranoid.
Paying attention, exercising what Asbjorn had called situational awareness, made Sean feel like he was being watched. He felt under surveillance while walking from one building to another, while teaching aikido. He even felt as though anonymous eyes gazed at him through the glazed windows of his group-living home. He considered mentioning the curious phenomenon to Asbjorn but decided against it. Appearing weak in front of his new, intriguing friend was not in his best interest. It was just in his head, a mere figment of his overactive imagination, and therefore nothing to worry about.
His group-living home was exactly where he and Asbjorn settled for the evening. The old Victorian pile on the edge of the campus used to be a fraternity but now afforded discounted housing to students who lived together. All eighteen of them shared housework, shopping, and cooking chores, and Sean liked being able to control his own food instead of being dependent on the insipid dishes offered at the school cafeteria.
“Come down to the basement!” He led Asbjorn through a storage area to a white-painted door with his name on the attached erase board. He unlocked it and clicked the light switch. The private, almost secret basement room was huge, with two windows and its own, never-used door to the outside. “Welcome to my kingdom,” Sean said, waving his arms at a cozy collection of reading armchairs around a beat-up wooden table. He watched Asbjorn take in his thrift-store bookshelves and pictures on the wall, the mattress on the floor, and the computer nook.
“Nice. Can I settle anywhere?”
“Yeah. I’ll make some tea. Want any?”
“Tea, coffee if you have it. Sweetened, with milk.”
Sean returned with a pot of tea and a French press of coffee on a tray with all accoutrements only to find Asbjorn sprawled on his mattress, belly down, his nose in his textbook and a set of electron microscope images on the notepad under his hand.
He raised his eyebrows but decided to live with the incursion into his personal space.
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SEAN’S MATH MIDTERM was finished and checked over once. He waited to be called so he could hand the test in together with other students. He wondered how Asbjorn was doing on his “Physics of Solid Surfaces,” and whether a bad grade for Asbjorn would be partially due to the way he had distracted his guest.
Sean had settled himself in seiza on his cheap carpet and bent to place the drink tray on the floor in front of his friend. He pressed the plunger of the coffee press down and poured a mug for Asbjorn before pouring a cup of jasmine-scented green tea for himself. “Do you have everything you need, Asbjorn?” He blushed at the awkward phrasing. His eyes strayed across broad shoulders and down the dip of the spine where the flannel shirt had disappeared under the waistband of Asbjorn’s well-fitted jeans.
“Sean?” He felt his friend’s eyes on his face, while his gaze was riveted to Asbjorn’s fine ass.
“Here... I brought whole milk and sugar. Suit yourself.” Sean felt the blush growing hotter.
Both reached for Asbjorn’s cup at the same time. Their fingers brushed and it was different from before – the electrifying feeling was nothing like their interchanges of strikes and blocks.
Their eyes locked. A sense of vertigo overtook Sean, a sudden weightlessness as he yielded to the gravitational pull. His face and Asbjorn’s drew closer and closer until their foreheads touched. Asbjorn tilted his face up and their lips brushed in a tender caress before Sean sat up again.
That had been a week ago. He replayed what had happened over and over, and there seemed to be no handy excuse for it. It wasn’t just casual touching in the course of practice nor Asbjorn’s eccentric way of showing him that he should indeed broaden his martial arts repertoire. There was no prank excuse like when Asbjorn woke him up at the library. Sean was a man in possession of an analytical mind, and the only possibility was the seemingly impossible one: he had leaned down to kiss Asbjorn.
Right after he was caught appreciating his friend’s fine physique, too. He didn’t know what that made him or what it meant. He had never felt more than friendship for another man before. He loved to hit Asbjorn and be thrown by him, to receive his attacks and throw him back – and throw him hard, because few things were as sensuous and erotic as a good fight, but –
Sensuous and erotic.
Sean scowled. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore. All he knew was he wanted it again, and he wanted a lot more of it.
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NELL WALKED THROUGH the door to find Dud and Asbjorn in what could be construed as a compromising position in the middle of her living room floor. She assessed the situation, noting the boys had pushed all furniture to the walls and Dud was on top of Asbjorn, his left thigh pinning Asbjorn’s hips crossways and his fists pushed into the sides of his neck. As she reached for her cell phone, she saw Asbjorn struggle to bend at least one of Dud’s elbows before he blacked out.
Click.
Asbjorn tapped out as his eyes began to glaze over.
Dud rolled off him with a jubilant grin on his face, but his cackle died in his throat as Nell, whose baby girl he was watching that night, looked at him. “Oh. Hi, Nell.”
“That looked quite interesting, Dud. So interesting I even took a picture.” She smiled so wide, Asbjorn saw her eyes crinkle.
“Aww, Nell, that man of yours totally trashed me. And you have to take pictures of that?” he whined.
Penelopye Thorpe shot a glance in his direction and then took an assessing look around. At least they’d taken care not to break anything this time, Asbjorn thought with relief.
“Stella’s asleep?” she asked.
“Yeah, and we fought quietly.” Dud stood and wrapped Nell in his long arms, bending his head down for a brief kiss. “We already ate. Dinner’s in the oven.”
They moved to the kitchen and settled down. Nell forked some baked ziti, eyeing the two of them from the corner of her eye. They were dressed in hunting-camo fatigues and black, long-sleeve T-shirts, and they already wore thin-soled running shoes.
“Are you just waiting for me to finish so you can leave?” she said after she swallowed another bite.
“Nah... take your time,” Dud said. Asbjorn winced. The very air was abuzz with the excitement they were trying to suppress.
“So tell me,” she said with a wry look. “What are you up to?”
Dud looked up with guarded innocence. “Oh, not much.”
“Where might you be going?”
Asbjorn barely suppressed a groan. He felt like a teenage kid again, and he knew she would get her way in the end. Except Dud didn’t know it – not yet. The signs of her patience wearing thin were written in the tension of her shoulders and in the way she pressed her lips together. It wasn’t like she was new to being given half-assed answers. There had been times she had quizzed Tiger mercilessly after every bar fight, dissected his strategies and tactics and techniques as well as their motivations, and tended to his scrapes. Asbjorn had been present to her inquisition even when he didn’t take active part in the fights themselves.
“There’s a party,” Dud allowed.
“At the warehouse?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“And I wasn’t invited because...?”
“Who’d watch Stella?”
“I see.” Nell picked up her phone and found a name on the touch-sensitive screen. “I’m sure I can find a sitter for a sleeping baby.”
Dud and Asbjorn exchanged a look. They were doomed.
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SEAN WORE LOOSE BLACK pants, sneakers, and a tight red Under Armor jersey under his brown winter jacket. Midterms were over, and he was waiting for his ride. Friday, November 13th was a fine day to try something new, which is why he was waiting for his ride to party.
Dud’s black Jeep coasted to the curb and the rear door opened. He slid in next to Asbjorn, surprised to see Nell riding shotgun. “Hi, guys. Hi, Nell. You’re coming too. That’s great!”
He noticed Asbjorn’s barely suppressed groan.
“Pull over at the store, Dud,” Nell said in a calm, motherly voice. He did, and Nell slid out of the cab and disappeared inside. Few minutes later, she returned with a case of Powerade and some bottled water. “Just something to supplement that case of beer you guys are bringing along.”
Dud cleared his throat. “You realize no spectators are allowed, right? You’ll have to play.”
“You bet.” Her expression was serious, with only a hint of glee in her eyes.
Asbjorn’s excitement for the outing wasn’t really dimmed by Nell’s presence. He was mostly confused about the way he felt when Sean’s knee accidentally brushed his in the back of the car. They had been avoiding one another carefully since the time Asbjorn had attempted to study in Sean’s room. Attempted, and failed. Relentless in his pursuit to an answer of their bizarre dynamic, his mind flitted to what happened few days ago.
He watched Sean settle into a seiza with the sort of liquid grace he had seen in a teahouse entertainer in Japan. His tan, long-fingered hands moved with precision as he poured the coffee and the tea with measured deliberation, and it was only after a long pause that he felt Sean’s rather heated look on his shoulders, searing its way down his back.
Their eyes met and Asbjorn had been unable to look away from him, basking in that warm, captivating gaze as Sean slowly bent forward. He remembered tilting his head up in quiet fascination, and then their lips met, and he was glad he was laying on his front. Whenever the presence of another man affected him like this, he had suppressed it. Now his whole back of his neck tingled, and a shiver washed down his torso.
He enjoyed the very good coffee while thinking of cold, windy runs along the river, recollecting the shock of freezing ocean water through his wetsuit while diving, and the frigid morning showers in basic training. He finished his hot coffee along with his cold thoughts, and once he got himself under control, he made his excuses.
“I forgot some materials I really need. Thank you for the coffee, Sean, but I really cannot stay.” Their eyes had met but briefly as he bade him good night.
And now Dud had suggested they include Sean in their outing and he just couldn’t say no. They traveled south on Route 95 and took the second exit for Jamaica Plains. He surveyed the ill-lit streets, the houses in poor repair. The car swerved as Dud avoided the potholes, approaching a semi-industrial part of town. They soon pulled into the bay of a large, run-down warehouse. Dud honked and the garage door scrolled up to let them in.
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DUD TURNED TO CONSIDER Sean with a lopsided grin. “There’s something you should know. You’ll be asked to throw some people around, but don’t worry about it. Asbjorn’n I thought it would be good practice for you. You’re ready for this.”
“Where are we, exactly?” Sean asked, fighting to keep his voice sounding bored and nonchalant.
“We’re in gang land. This is a bad part of town. Don’t leave the warehouse. The gangs and us have an agreement of sorts.” Asbjorn’s voice was a bit too clipped for Sean’s liking. Like he didn’t want him to be around people who could get rough.
“Whatever,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “What are we waiting for?”
Dud pulled a case of Duck-Rabbit Winter Ale from the trunk of his Jeep, Asbjorn quickly grabbed the water and sports drinks before Nell could get to them, and Nell reached deep under the backseat and extracted a flat, olive green shoulder bag. Sean had nothing to carry and extended his arm, offering to carry her gear.
“No thank you, Sean. I’m in charge of this one.”
“What is it, Nell?”
“The first-aid kit.”
They deposited their offerings at the edge of a large circle neatly painted on the smooth concrete floor. Their hosts numbered close to twenty. They were dressed in a motley of assorted articles of clothing, all of which seemed comfortable without being overly loose. They clustered around Sean and his friends, mobbing them, invading their space.
A shorter blond man in a green jersey greeted them. “It’s been awhile. Good to see you back.”
Nell stepped up as the leader of the pack. She bumped fists with him. “First time since Tiger died, Mark.”
Mark looked her up and down. “You sure you’re ready for this? No spectators, remember? And no tourists, either,” he added, pointing with his chin toward Sean.
“Stella’s six months old already. If you give me any flack about this, I’ll zap you with some white stuff, I will.” Her green eyes gleamed with the glare of the overprotected and the willfully independent.
“You had a baby and shouldn’t be fighting, Nell.” Mark jutted his hip out, his expression determined.
Nell made a show of stripping the long-sleeve thermal shirt off her athletic body. She wore a black sports tank underneath, equipped with the best suspension engineering money could buy. She reached under the bra, flipped her right tit out, and squeezed it with considerable expertise. A stream of warm, pale white liquid shot out, spanned the five foot distance and zapped Mark right in the cheek.
The men stood speechless. The few women present grinned.
“Oh, oh yuck, woman, that’s so fucking gross! How the fuck could you do a thing like this. Have you no shame?” Mark wiped the milk off his red face with his sleeve.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Nell tucked herself back in and grabbed a bottle of water, then walked to the center of the circle, and as she looked around, she uttered the words most of them knew so well. “Who will share drink and blood with me?”
“Oh, I’ll be happy to!” A bespectacled woman in a ponytail folded her glasses and tucked them into the spine of her book before she joined Nell in the middle of the ring with an open bottle of beer in her hand.
“Hey, Lisa!” Nell touched her bottle to Lisa’s with a smile, who then responded with the traditional response: “Hold your liquor while your blood curdles in fear.”
They drank up and squared off.
Sean thought he’d be attending a party, not a hard-core sparring session free-for-all with heavy-duty drinking involved. He watched Lisa, the girl fighting Nell, lead with a quick kick to the knee, which Nell avoided by moving her hips back.
Lisa launched a punch at Nell’s face, which she blocked and counterpunched with a simultaneous dig up Lisa’s floating ribs. It would have been a great hit had Lisa not slammed her elbow down Nell’s forearm, going after her exposed throat with a strong, clawed hand. Yet Nell stepped back just the smallest bit, causing Lisa to overreach, and overreaching was bad. It was greedy – it caused nothing but bad alignment, as Asbjorn so often tried to emphasize – and Lisa balanced forward just enough to allow Nell to bump her shin with a light, swift kick, and Lisa’s face slammed right into Nell’s waiting elbow.
Sean gasped as Lisa stumbled, a bit of blood streaming from her nose.
“You new to this?” asked a quiet voice next to him.
“Yeah,” Sean admitted, sizing up his neighbor. He was about Sean’s height, but his slender arms showed hard-earned muscle definition.
“I’m Adrian Rios.”
“Sean Gallaway.” He extended his hand, but Adrian presented him with a fist to bump. “We don’t shake. Too easy to get thrown.” He grinned. “I’ll challenge you next since you’re new and all. If they brought you along, you can’t totally suck.”