Amazon Slaughter and Curse of the Ninja Piers Anthony

  Tonight I knew I was in for it. The luck of random selection matched me with a husky yellow belt named Jeff, seventeen or eighteen years old, and we started with matwork. No way could I match his strength; it took him about fifteen seconds to put me in the kami-shiho-gatame or smothering hold, and it was aptly named. His chest was pressing my head into the mat, and it was all I could do to breathe. My struggles were useless; he seemed to weigh three hundred pounds, and to be anchored by metal bolts driven into the foundation. Might as well try to lift the building!

  "Try to break the hold," Jeff told me, unconsciously adding insult to injury. What did he think I was doing?

  After a time he let me go. "You put the hold on me," he said. So I put it on him, sliding my forearms under his shoulders from above and gripping his belt. I shoved my chest down on his face and clung so tight he'd never get out. Let him smother a while! "Ready?"

  He hadn't noticed my hold? He was teasing me. "Yes." And he simply rolled over sidewise, and I was on the bottom again. "You didn't spread your legs," he explained. "You had no side stability."

  Another forgotten detail! Why did it come so easily to him, and so hard to me? Yet he was only a yellow belt. What did it take to get beyond that?

  "Where's Mr. Campbell?" I gasped when I was too exhausted to make even a show of resistance. Oh, the resiliency of youth!

  "Didn't you hear? He fell off the roof of his house, sawing a branch from a tree. Broke his arm in three places. He's in the hospital."

  "Oh, no!" I exclaimed, almost as concerned for myself as for Mr. Campbell. If I had to work much longer with Jeff, my arm would get broken in three places. Or feel like it, anyway. Right then I decided to undertake a program of exercise, for self defense. Against judo class workouts. I could no longer depend on someone like Mr. Campbell to throw me gently. I had to be able to take a hard fall, or to prevent my opponent from throwing me. At the moment I could do neither.

  "Line up," Steve said. "Uchikomis, loading practice."

  Uh-oh. If there was one thing worse than matwork, it was loading practice. Because we didn't just load one or two times; we'd do twenty five loads in quick succession, then twenty five more with another technique, and so on, until our gis were sopping with sweat and we were staggering like drunken folk.

  Jeff had to go show a new student the breakfalls, so I was alone again. I had only moments to take any partner available—and the only one free happened to be little Penny.

  You'd think it would be an unequal match, a grown man and a six year old braid-headed girl. Yes indeed, but not quite as expected. We loaded ippon seoi nage, the one-arm back-carry throw. She just grabbed my arm and leaned forward; no trouble at all for her as she was not tall enough to take any of my weight. But when it was my turn, I had to squat down almost to the mat, in order to get under her arm. She thought it was great fun, by my legs were killing me.

  Steve walked by. "It's good for you," he said. Yeah, sure; that's what they used to say about cod liver oil and tetanus shots. But maybe Steve had mercy, because then he had us change partners. Some more people had come in; I hadn't seen them, but how could I see anything with a face full of sweat and waves of pain radiating from my knees? Penny got someone closer to her size, which pleased her not at all, and so did I.

  "O soto gari!" Steve announced, and started counting off that impossible rapid Japanese cadence. "Sho! Ni! San! Yon! Go!" My new partner swing into it without seeming difficulty while I took my turn as dummy. I mean, as Uke. "Roku! Shi!" Twenty fine pulls and sweeps, just like that.

  "Other partner," Steve called, reminding me of a square dance. Some of those exercises were indeed like dances, especially when we had to move around in semi-randori style and alternate techniques. I imagined music playing, couples circulating, only instead of "swing your partner" it was "throw your partner." Might be possibilities there!

  In o soto gari you step out to Uke's right side, swing your right foot up behind him, then sweep it back, knocking his right leg out from under while you smack him down with good shoulder contact and a yank on his right arm. It is a very effective throw if you can ever get into position for it. In competition, Uke never lets you get close enough. But in loading practice, he's not resisting, of course; you sweep your foot back to the side of his foot so as not to throw him, and give a good hard shoulder or chest-to-chest thunk.

  Well, I tried it. I didn't do everything right the first time, of course; I never do. I stepped across, swung my leg out, looked down to see if I was doing it properly, and saw my partner's belt. Up until now I had just sort of blissfully rested, eyes half closed, while Tori buffeted me. You get that way in uchikomis pactice, kind of shell shocked. So I hadn't actually looked at my partner. The belt was black.

  I blinked, faltering in mid effort. The film of sweat over my eyeballs must've distorted my perception of a green belt. Gave me a scare, there for a moment. I looked again, and it was definitely, shockingly black, with a white stripe through it.

  Now black belts are rather like the officer corps in the military; they don't mix much with the peons. The only black belt I'd seen was Steve. What was this one doing here? And why the added decoration of the stripe?

  Well, I was stuck in the middle of loading practice. I had to carry through. But suddenly I had the shakes, knowing how utterly clumsy I was. Now it was important that I do it right, somehow. Step to side, sweep with leg, pull down with left hand, shove with right hand, smack shoulder to shoulder, thunk!

  Lo and behold, I did it right. Desperation must have given me temporary skill. Only my shoulder contact was not a hard, bony smack; it was more of a right chest to right chest collision that felt wrong. I tried at again, and again it was wrong, more of a cushiony contact. What was the matter?

  I studied the situation, amidst the repeated loadings. Slowly it came to me, despite the present dullness of my mind. I was doing it more or less right, but my partner had a very soft chest under the gi. In fact my partner was a woman.

  A female black belt? I must be dreaming! I wasn't even sure such things existed, and certainly they didn't do loading practice with male white belts like me!

  At last the count stopped; maybe Steven's voice was getting tired. Breathless as I was, I still didn't want it ended. What in the world could I say to my partner—"nice day"? Matter of fact, it wasn't a nice day; it was night and it was raining. The water was sluicing down the window panes.

  "O goshi!" Steve cried. Nope, he hadn't lost his voice. Pity. There was a crack of thunder almost overhead, and the lights went out. It was a real storm!

  Now it was pitch black in the dojo. There wasn't much to do except wait it out; no doubt the power would return in a few minutes. I had read that central Florida was the thunder and lightning capital of the nation: more noisy weather here than anywhere else. Could be; here was some evidence.

  "How do you do?" my partner inquired. Her voice was low, and for me it had an oddly suggestive quality. It must have been the notion of a female black belt. I had worked out with female white belts and yellow belts, one of each, but they were more or less on my level. A black belt—obviously she had had a hell of a lot of judo experience, though she didn't seem older than I. And a hell of a lot of skill; I had felt her easy competence during the loading, now that I thought back on it. I had in my innocence supposed that only Steve did such things so well they seemed natural, but probably it was a quality of all black belts. The thought of a young woman with all that skill did something funny to me. What other skills might she have?

  "Are you there?" she inquired with the hint of a smile in her voice. Obviously I was here physically; she had hold of my lapel. "Uh, hello, I'm Caesar," I mumbled, embarrassed. What was I doing, thinking like that about a woman I hardly knew? Who was like an officer, while I was a lowly recruit.

  "So it's Caesar, now," she murmured.

  "What?" It almost seemed as if she knew me.

  "I'm Susan."

  Even a female name! Yet what had I expected, a M
artian name? Now I was aware of her presence in more subtle ways. She was hot, too, after the exercise, but she wasn't drippingly sweaty as I was. She gave off a gentle glow of warmth, and she smelled nice. The darkness prevented me from looking at her, so I was more aware of the non-visual aspects. Somehow they made her seem twice as feminine as before. Of course I hadn't even noticed her gender at first.

  Still the lights did not come on. There were noises of impatience around the hall, but I was hardly aware of them. Underneath all my amnesia and inexperience I discovered that I was still a male. This warm closeness in the dark, this alarming but exciting concept of a female black belt who just might have known me from somewhere before—no, I must have misheard or misinterpreted. I tried to keep my thoughts in line, but I kept remembering the feel of those o soto gari chest contacts, too soft.

  "Let's finish the uchikomis," she suggested.

  "In the dark?" I asked dully.

  "Judo is balance and feel. You don't need to see." And she stepped into me, put her arm around my waist, leaned forward and lifted me off my feet.

  Startled, I almost flailed the air. But she set me dawn again with complete control. Then she swing into another o-goshi. At first I was amazed at her strength, then I became aware of the fine balance and limberness of her body. She could lift me because she was doing the technique correctly, in contrast to my efforts. That way it required very little brute strength.

  "You try a few," she murmured.

  "Okay." What else was there to do? I stepped into her, too close, in the dark. She was almost as tall as I. "Sorry." She did not deign to acknowledge my obvious clumsiness, which made me feel even more awkward. If only this was some other venue than judo!

  I backed off and tried again. I stepped across, slid my right arm around her waist, bent my knees, turned away, and lifted. Up she came; she was feather light.

  "Very good," she said. It was a verbal pat on the head. Had I been a dog I would have wagged my tail. I felt like doing it anyway. What do you know: I could do o goshi in the dark. Maybe better than in daylight. I put her down, then tried it again. That gave me a chance to note other details, such as the pleasing swell of her hip as my hand slid across, and the supple accommodation of her body to my effort. I had been able to lift her because she cooperated perfectly. A white belt would not have known how, especially in the dark. The lack of loading sounds elsewhere in the dojo suggested that the yellow and orange belts were similarly challenged.

  I lifted her again—and it didn't work. "You have to bend your knees," Susan reminded me.

  Damn! I always forgot one of those details when I didn't concentrate. She had corrected me exactly in the manner of any other instructor. Right when I wanted to think of her in some other vogue. I was probably blushing, hoping the light did not come back on right now.

  I tried once more, bending my knees-but this time my balance was all off, and instead of drawing her up, I fell back into her, my head banging into her chest. Fortunately it was not a hard landing; she was female, all right.

  "Let me show you," she said, unperturbed. She must have had eons of practice dealing with duffers like me. "Draw on Uke's right lapel, bringing him off-balance. Duck down low, bring him close across your hip, then straighten your knees." She demonstrated, her posterior rising to catch me across the crotch.

  The complete darkness made me dependent on touch, and hyper-aware of bodily contact. There was something about that smooth lifting pressure in that area by that pneumatic derriere. I knew it wasn't supposed to happen in Judo, but I suffered a specific reaction. It was necessary that we stop this practice before that reaction became rigidly evident. I opened my mouth—

  The lights came on. "O goshi!" Steve called immediately. And Susan proceeded to load twenty five o goshis in rapid order, every one perfect, every one catching me right where it counted. Ooooh!

  My exercise program went reasonably well. The first time I did pushups at home, I almost made it to nine, which was better than I expected. Judo must have built me up some already. I found a child's swing in the yard and did chins: the first three weren't bad, but the fourth was uncomfortable, and I barely made the fifth. My arms remained fatigued for an hour or more after each exercise. I also did squat jumps, and fell over after twelve, my legs knotting in agony. And sit-ups—after the twentieth the pain in my stomach was so bad I had to quit.

  But my body responded. Every three or four days I found myself able to do another chin, and I recovered more rapidly from the effort. In about six weeks I made it to fifteen, with the other exercises increasing similarly. My weight increased, and it wasn't fat; one day I stepped on the scales and discovered to my amazement that I had gained thirty pounds. I still couldn't match Jeff in matwork, but I could hold my own against women, children, and white belts.

  But meanwhile I was still learning things in class. One day I worked with a big brown belt named Bo. We were doing randori, but I had absolutely no chance to throw him. Yet he could throw me without seeming effort; in fact, I seemed to throw myself. He didn't actually throw me, knowing I was afraid of falls; he'd just load me.

  "How come I have so much trouble, while you do it so easily?" I asked him, frustrated. "I know you outweigh me, and you're a brown belt, but I can't even turn in for a throw unless you let me, and can't perform it anyway."

  "Kuzushi," he said.

  "God bless you."

  He smiled. "Kuzushi. You move your opponent about, offbalancing him. That way he sets himself up for your technique. Like this." And he guided me around with so natural an imperative that it seemed pointless—until I found myself straddling his leg in an o uchi gari reap. He had hardly moved; I had walked right into it.

  "Kuzushi," I repeated with new appreciation.

  One day a new student came: a man about my own age. He had no partner and looked lost in his brand new gi. I well remembered the feeling, so I went up to work with him. I showed him some of the breakfalls and talked him through the ippon seoi nage throw the way Vonnie had done for me with o goshi. He was amazed to discover that it worked; he had actually done a throw! And I was able to take the fall all right because I knew he couldn't throw me hard.

  He was Mr. Taylor, and he made his living selling potato chips. He became a regular judo student. I had a partner again.

  Chapter 4

  Roofer's Affair

  But much of my judo was no longer in the dojo. Because Susan, the black belt, took an interest in me. Why, I had no idea. She had an almost boyish figure, with small breasts and comparatively lean muscular body, large hands and feet, but she was undeniably feminine, with ample posterior and thighs. She was bronzed by the sun and exuded health. A woman like her could have her pick of black belts, and I was a stumbling white belt. But there it was.

  Had I known what she had in store for me, I might have walked out the moment she first entered the dojo. Then again, maybe not. I'm a man, after all, and men are traditionally foolish about women. It's in the job description.

  She came to the club several times, and always worked with me. Though her demeanor and judo were always proper, there was something entirely female about her that always stimulated me embarrassingly, and she could hardly have been ignorant of the effect. Maybe it intrigued her.

  I was a lonely man without a past, only a lot of fantastic dreams. Here was an attractive woman showing an inexplicable interest in me. How would any man in my situation have reacted?

  So when she invited me to come help her on a weekend chore, I accepted. It would give me a chance to know her better, and who could say how far it might go? After all the suggestion of the judo practice, I really wanted to find out the reality.

  Saturday morning I reported to her address, and a princely estate it was. She was evidently rich. But she didn't invite me in; she had her car out front, a sporty Mercedes-Benz. It seemed that the chore was not at her home. She was wearing a man's shirt, some kind of tight brown riding pants, and boots. She looked good in them; the pants molded th
e buttocks and the rest just seemed to suit her.

  We drove north out of town, the car purring like a contented tiger. Half an hour passed without arrival. "How far are we going?" I inquired.

  "That depends on you."

  What did she mean by that? I hesitated to ask for a clarification, so was silent another half hour. Now we were well out of town, in fact out of the county, still proceeding north at a good clip.

  She pulled into a drive-in eatery. "This is where the chore is?" I inquired dubiously.

  "No. This is where we get a bite to eat. It's a long drive."

  I shrugged. "Just so long as we're back by dark. My landlady worries."

  She gave me a sidelong glance. "We may be. But you're a big boy now. What'll you have?"

  "Tell you in a minute." I struggled to get my wallet out of my back pocket, which was hard to do with the seat belt holding me securely down. I wasn't sure how much money I had, but knew it wasn't much.

  "My treat," she said with a smile. "I'm well off."

  She must be. Her house had been palatial, and the car was an import of luxury, not economy.

  The carhop came up. Susan rattled off an order for hot dogs, potato sticks, onion rings, and milk shakes, to go.

  So we ate while driving, me handing her things as she needed them. "Uh, if you have so much money," I began, balancing this and that on my knees.

  "Why do I gobble cheap food on the run?" she finished. She sucked on her straw, swallowed, then continued. "Because at home I can't get away with this. My cook would die of shock; she's a nutrition nut. I get so tired of formal meals. This is the only chance I have to eat on the run. Fun, isn't it?"