Chapter Six

Warriors

When Dooley dropped by the next afternoon after school, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d screwed up his chances with Vario. So I gave him a list of things to do before his first training session. What I hadn’t found online, I made up on the spot. Dooley sat on the couch beside me taking notes, writing everything down word for word. I felt a little guilty, but what else could I do?

“You’re sure about this detox stuff, Ms. T? Do I really need to eat this much fruit?”

I nodded. “That’s the program, Dool. No junk food, no wheat, no sugar. No meat, no milk, no dairy. No soy, no corn. Lots of fruits, veggies, water. Don’t drink tap water, the city water’s toxic. Get your mom to buy you bottled water.” I hesitated. “She will be okay with all this, right?”

I was a little scared of Mrs. Nudstein. My tush still smarted from our last conversation. If she knew her precious son was still hanging around a degenerate fuck-up like me, she might really go ballistic.

“Yeah, she wants me to get in shape. But she wants me to start playing sports. I hate team sports. I suck, and everyone laughs at me.” His mouth formed the babyish pout I’d grown used to seeing on Dooley’s child-man face.

“Feeling sorry for yourself is the first thing Vario will train out of you. He doesn’t approve of pussy behavior. You’re a Vario Warrior now. You have to act like one.” I made that up on the spot, too. I liked the sound of it. Vario Warrior.

His face lit up. “Cool. Okay, I eat the vegan detox diet for a week and walk for twenty minutes every morning and every evening. I can do that. Then I’ll get to meet with him?”

I nodded. Shit. Lie dee lie lie lie.

“No dope, no booze, no partying either. It weakens your resolve, and you might give in to the munchies. Okay?”

“Aiite,” he said cheerfully. Dooley’s enthusiasm was adorable. Heartening. He’d never acted this charged up about studying math. I liked this personal training work. Too bad I was such an unhealthy slug.

“You getting training, too, Ms. T? You look different.” He smiled at me, and I wondered what he saw. My markedly reduced alcohol consumption? The unrequited lust I had in my pathetic little heart? Or my budding desire to do something else with my life besides drink and dive?

“I’m detoxing, too, yes. Thanks for noticing.”

We talked school and homework, and I helped him with a few simple algebra problems. “Don’t tell your mother,” I said.

“Course not,” he promised.

Then I ushered him to the front door with a gentle reminder to call if he felt the urge to go off the program. “Think of me as your detox buddy. I’ll talk you out of screwing up.”

Too bad I didn’t have someone to call when I was about to fuck up. Right?

Out in the kitchen, I whipped up a fresh fruit smoothie in the blender and drank it while I went through my fridge. I dumped all the unhealthy foods and set the beers on their sides in a vegetable drawer. Then I cleared out my cabinets, removed the junky items—microwave meals, canned soups, chips, packaged cookies—and stuffed them in a big black trash bag. I was done with consuming junk. I was jack-on-it, man. I could train, too. Maybe I would never look like Candy or Taffy, but I certainly could get myself into better shape.

After I changed into a pair of ripped denim shorts and a tight white tee, I went in the living room and stretched out. Wow, I was tight. The arm? Forget it, like a salami had grown out of my shoulder.

But I was determined to fix myself, so I went on my laptop to google specific exercises for tendonitis. Pendulum swing, arm curls, wall crawls. I did a set. I did two. Ouch.

After I iced the arm, I drove to the beach and took a twenty-minute walk on the clean white sand. It was terrific. I felt so much better I almost didn’t want a drink.

On my way back from the beach, I passed a sign for a store I’d never noticed before. Trader Joe’s. On a whim, I pulled into the crowded parking lot and went inside.

Wow. The organic food market was straight out of 1969. Hippie bins of grains and nuts, mountains of ugly produce, throngs of long hairs in tie-dye. I felt like I was having an acid flashback. But the place was clean and the prices weren’t bad. I grabbed a hand basket and strolled the aisles, stocking up on fresh fruits and veggies, thinking about how Mrs. Nudstein should hear about this store. So Dooley could get the right foods into his body.

A middle-aged woman with strawberry-colored hair waterfalling down her back was conducting a class on vegan cooking. Whatever she had burbling on a hot plate smelled delicious. So I picked up a flier and looked over her recipe for kale soup.

Suddenly, an image popped into my head. Maybe the vision of me as domestic goddess bumped into all the endorphins that were floating around in my brain, released after my sudden bout with exercise. Whatever it was, cooking something healthy appealed to me, and I took advantage of the feeling. I picked through the fresh greens for a full head of kale. Then I hurried to the checkout aisle.

When my doorbell rang an hour later, soup was simmering on the stove. I was sweaty and happy and kind of high. Not on beer, but on this weird new feeling I had. About myself, about life.

“Dooley,” I said as I opened the front door. “I told you to detox first, then we’d talk. Why are you—”

“Dooley? As in hang down your head and cry, Dooley?” Vario stood on my front steps. He held a bouquet of bougainvillea, which have bright purple and crimson flowers, gorgeous buds, when they aren’t dead and thorny and sticking into your tender skin. He grinned at me. “Hey, somethin’ smells good. You baking cookies again?”

His smile was more cute than snide, so I stepped back and invited him in.

“Kale soup,” I told him. Except for the fact that my body was caked with dried sweat stuck with sand grains, his timing could not have been better. “Organic kale soup. I’m detoxing.”

When Vario laughed, I realized I had never heard him laugh before. The sound was deep, like it burbled up from underground. I couldn’t help it, I laughed, too.

“I am,” I protested. “I’m detoxing with this former student of mine, Dooley. We want to get in shape. I told him maybe you’d train him. After detox. And he’s psyched. To be a Vario Warrior. I think it’s doing good things for the kid.”

“Vario Warrior? Ha. I like that,” he said with a wide, intoxicating grin. Then he laughed again. I loved his laugh.

He followed me out to the kitchen and handed me the bouquet. “Careful of them prickers. They’re fucken sharp.”

I did as he said and, at the same time, examined his face, neck, and arms for damage from yesterday’s tumble. His chest was covered by a wife beater tee, his legs in faded jeans. There were several long, ugly scratches on his cheeks and forearms, but nothing that looked too serious.

“You okay? How’s the knee?”

“Knee’s fine. But my ass is embarrassed. I never shoulda said that to you. Like it was your fault I’m a klutz.” When he shook his head, his glossy hair tumbled across his forehead. “Sorry ‘bout that. I’m kinda a narcissist. And I got anger issues.”

He held my gaze so long I felt like jumping into his big, brawny arms. Instead, I turned away to find a vase.

“Well, that makes two of us.” I crammed the flowers into a tall ceramic pot and filled it with tap water. “You want some soup?”

“I’d love some soup. Some of your soup, Theresa,” he said.

I was at the sink with my back to him when he put his arms around me and held me close. I leaned against his thick warm body, and the feeling, the good new feeling intensified until I felt like I was having an all-over body orgasm. I turned to face him, wrapped my arms around his broad chest, and pressed myself against his wonderful body. I fell into him, into Vario Fumesti, and the fit was perfect. Just perfect.

Lucky for us, I remembered to turn off the soup before I led him down the hall to my bedroom.

Clouds slid across the sky, darkening the room enough that I didn’t die of shame when Vario began undressing me. I was older than him, not some young chick. And I wasn’t fit. I knew he was used to hookers, strippers, dancers, and Barbies. Freaked by this thought, I closed my eyes and hoped he’d do the same. Off came the denim shorts, the tank top, the sports bra. Off with the cornflower blue silk panties. Thank god, I wasn’t wearing a pair of white cotton granny undies.

I peeked at his face, and he seemed to be liking what he was doing. He even moaned a little, like he wasn’t a bit turned off. My heart was scooting around, but I felt less scared. I kicked off the panties and stood there, allowing him to look at me.

He smiled, his eyes lidded. Then he reached for me and began caressing my skin with his warm palms. My heart thudded and I dampened. He grabbed my ass with both hands and pulled me close. He smelled clean, man fresh. I raised my face to his, and he kissed me like he meant it, his pretty Italian lips as soft and sweet as I’d imagined.

He kissed his way down my neck to my breasts and dropped to his knees. Then he kissed my soft belly and swirled his tongue in my navel until I gushed. I held onto his head while he licked his way down to my soaked crotch. He nibbled a little, and the tension built quickly. My legs wobbled. It had been so long since I’d been with a man. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had sober sex. My vagina throbbed hard, harder, like I might burst whatever dams I’d built up over the years. A flood was certainly due. I groaned. Oh. My. God.

Vario positioned my hips and lunged inside me, licking and sucking until I cried out, on the near edge of coming. Just when I was about to scream with release, he stopped.

“Gotta get offa this knee,” he mumbled. Then he stood up and looked down at me. Tousled, whimpering, my eyes at half-mast, I was literally swooning. I couldn’t help it, though, I grinned. Maybe I purred a little.

He grabbed my shoulders. “I want you to know I didn’t sleep with all them girls. They’re my clients. I work them out, help keep ’em in shape for Dream Land. I’ll party with ’em; they’re fun girls. But I don’t have sex with my clients.”

His dark eyes were serious, so I held back a chuckle. “Please, can I not be one of your clients?” I said in a small, whispery voice.

Vario laughed. Then he picked me up and carried me over to my bed. “You got no need to be a Vario Warrior,” he said as he pressed me to the mattress with his massive chest. “That’s what I love about you. You’re Theresa the Celtic Warrior.”

I started to laugh. But then he was inside me. Talk about torpedoes! I rocked with him, eyes wide open, loving what I was seeing and feeling. We smiled at one another, melting into each other’s heat.

Yes, Vario Fumesti drove me crazy, but that was, it turns out, a good thing. I loved his differentness, his hard ways, his alphaness. And his hugeness, his larger than life body god body was so good, so perfect, that I cried out. With joy.