And in retrospect, my dream of the jungle harem seemed ludicrous, for a whole new set of reasons. I had never even thought of how the girls might feel about the matter. I had supposed I was performing heroically, when in fact I had short-circuited the real potential of the act. I hoped I would remember this lesson, next time I dreamed of a harem.
We had cold bean sandwiches for supper; the rain had made an outdoor fire impossible, and there was no electricity or gas. When this rich girl roughed it, she went all the way, so to speak. But I was hungry, and beans and milk from a thermos were delicious.
We took an evening walk out in the forest, marred only by the barbed sandspurs that kept sticking to our legs. Our clothing was still wet, so we went naked, like true children of nature; there was no one here to see. And what is so indecent about such exposure? There is nothing so beautiful as the unadorned human body in good health. If you ask me, the indecency is merely in the minds of those who scream about indecent exposure. But of course my opinion wasn't worth much; I had, pretty close, been born yesterday.
About a quarter mile to the east there was an old railroad cut, with three tracks running through a man-made chasm forty feet from top to bottom. Much higher than the cabin roof, but it didn't bother me despite the steepness of the slope. All in the perspective, I suppose. We climbed down and up the other side, scrambling four legged like animals, and I flipped down a little clod of dirt that hit her on the left breast, and she chased me until we both got grounded by the ubiquitous sandspurs. By then it was all the way dark, and we limped back to the cabin.
We slept naked in the bag. I was so tired I conked right out, believe it or not, before my hand got much farther than her left breast. (She had washed the dirt off it.) As with everything else, multiple sex sounds great from a distance, but in practice it becomes too difficult to be worthwhile. I know that's not the way the male magazines would have it, but I wonder how many of their writers and editors have actually tried it? An endless hunger is generally endless because it is unsatisfied, not vice versa.
The last thing I remember before I faded out was belated confusion: what was the name she had called me, earlier, as we undressed? She had told me I had lost weight, which meant she must have known me before. What had she called me? My fogged brain would not bring it back, and I didn't care to inquire directly. I feared she would get angry at the slip, and refuse to make love again. I did not want to risk that. Tonight I was sated, but what of tomorrow? Whereupon I slept.
In the middle of the night it rained again. I had not gotten the felt to stay over the ridge, and so the roof leaked. Drip, drip—right onto our double sleeping bag.
Susan woke up and said something unladylike. She scrambled out and found a poncho in the dark; I felt her body sliding past me. We spread the poncho over the sleeping bag so that the drips ran off.
Now I had been recharged somewhat by sleep, and my interest in her body was renewed. I ran my hands over her breasts, stomach, and thighs, growing more excited. She murmured appreciatively. Slow and mutually fulfilling—yes, that was the way.
And would you believe, I fell asleep again before coming to the point. I think I heard her chuckle in my dreams. The white belt had muffed another technique despite the cooperation of the black belt. That's one thing that really gets me, in retrospect. There was absolutely no excuse!
I woke before dawn, needing to relieve myself outside. I slid out, found the ladder, went down quietly, and opened the door. The night air was chill on my bare skin, but not too bad. I moved out from the cabin, looked up between the trees, and saw the stars.
They were magnificent. They shone like diamonds in the cleared, washed sky, so many there was no counting them. I saw the three bright lights of Orion's Belt, and up to the north the Big Dipper. That exhausted my knowledge of the constellations, but I must have stood for ten minutes admiring the splendor of the heavens. It was an experience that reached right into my being. I almost forgot to do what I had come to do.
When I returned, Susan was awake. "Now you hold the fort while I go out," she said. Which set me back a bit; like many men, I had sort of thought that women got along without natural functions. It's that pedestal we put them on; we want them to be sexy but nothing else.
As dawn came, I tried to get a fire going in the crude stone hearth outside, but the wet wood made the effort as frustrating as my latter sexual ones. So we had cold cereal and milk, and it was really quite adequate.
"Oops, I forgot!" she said. "I have a bag of charcoal. Pour a little kerosene on it from the lamp and get it started; we need a fire to dry out our clothes."
So we had a fire of sorts after all, an almost flameless one that we shrouded in hung clothing. With luck the sun would also be out soon, and would help.
Meanwhile, that roofing job remained unfinished. I took a look at the ladder, and realized that I had lost the courage to go up again. Oh, I tried, but the moment I put a hand on the rung, I thought of Mr. Campbell, falling from his roof and breaking his arm in three places. If I went up again—
I went back inside, disheartened. "I haven't got the nerve," I said, expecting to get bawled out. She had, in a fashion, already paid me, and now I was reneging on the job. "I can't go up again. I know the roof needs doing."
"Take it easy," she said. "When that felt thunked down last night in the storm, for a moment I thought it was you. I could never have forgiven myself. I was just glad to get you safely down."
"I'm a coward," I said glumly, not much cheered by her understanding attitude. "I came here to help you do a job, and I can't do it."
"You did a job," she said, smiling.
"Damn it, I'm going up!" I exclaimed, turning about. I went to the ladder, put hands and feet on it, ascended—and balked at the second run from the top. The nerve was drained out of me; fifteen feet was too long a fall to contemplate. The stupidity of it made me almost as mad as the fact of failure.
Then I had a small inspiration. I descended and approached Susan. "Throw me," I told her.
"What?" She was washing dishes with a sponge and Kleenex—another thing her cook would have bawled her out for.
"Three feet to a mat is nothing compared to fifteen feet to the ground. I'd much rather take a controlled judo fall than an uncontrolled roof fall. Throw me."
Bemused, she spread out the sleeping bags and threw me. I took an imperfect fall, and bounced up. "It didn't hurt me!" I exclaimed, rubbing my shoulder where it hurt, some. "Throw me again."
"Here he has me alone in the woods," she muttered, "naked, miles from help, and what does he want? To be thrown."
I had forgotten: we were still naked. But it didn't matter. She threw me again with the ippon seoi nage, one of the few throws that will work naked, and it was evident that I had lost much of my fear. Whenever I started to worry, I visualized that roof, and that made it all right. I had conquered another hurdle, of a sort.
After that I made myself useful working on the foundations, mixing concrete and troweling it into the stacked concrete blocks on which the cabin perched. The work was tedious but worthwhile.
Susan washed me off when I finished. Her attention caused me to react again. "You know, I wish I'd been less sleepy in the night," I said ruefully.
"You lost your turn," she agreed. "Now it's my turn."
"Your turn?"
"To do you. Passive mode. Lie down."
"By daylight?"
She laughed. "I love your naïveté!"
I lay on the impromptu mat, and she addressed me with slow strokes and kisses. Before long she had me worked up to a fever pitch, but she wouldn't let me act. Instead she spread herself on me, tantalizing me, keeping me from taking any initiative, and at her leisure took me in and milked me with her body. When I finally came, it felt like a volcano erupting. What an experience! She got up, having done me, and looked out the window.
"There was supposed to be a delivery by now. Must be late."
"Someone was coming?" I asked. "Suppose it had hap
pened when—"
She half smiled, and I realized with a certain chagrin that this had been part of her game: the excitement of possible discovery. It was just as well I hadn't known.
Near noon the clothes were dry and we made ready to drive back after dressing. At that point a pickup truck pulled up. It was a man from a lumber company, bringing a load of interior paneling for the cabin. So the delivery had made it after all.
"Better get that roof shingled before it rains," he observed. "Water will ruin this stuff."
"It already rained," Susan said. "Our ladder's really too short."
"That so? I've got a larger one."
"You know how to roof?" Susan asked.
"Sure. It's part of the business. But I have to unload this stuff and tack it in and get back to the shop."
Susan delved into her purse and came up with a hundred dollar bill. "Can they spare you a couple more hours? We could use the help."
"We already been paid for the paneling job. Gotta do it."
"In addition."
"Lady, roofing labor ain't worth—"
She tucked the bill into his shirt pocket. "It is to us." She smiled persuasively.
He melted. "You've got a deal!" And he took his ladder off the truck, leaned it against the cabin, put a heavy bundle of shingles on his shoulder, and proceeded right up. "Come on," he called to me. "We can polish this off in an hour."
Seeing him so casual about it, there was nothing I could do but mount the ladder. I hesitated at the top, and he put out a strong hand to steady me. I crossed over to the roof—the thing I thought I'd never do again.
"Lay out the shingles; I'll nail them down, soon's I get the felt laid." He was down the ladder and back with the felt, and in a few minutes accomplished what I had failed to in much longer time.
Then he started in on the shingles, holding with the soft side of his fingers up so that a hit would not hurt as much, striking each nail four time with perfect aim. I had had to strike a dozen times, and I had lost numerous nails from bending or flipping out when they struck impervious knots. Here was a real professional, every bit as skilled in his area as the judo black belts were in theirs.
In his presence, surrounded by his confidence and competence, I found my own fear of the roof diminished. I moved about on hands and feet rather than by crawling, and I didn't even notice the wind. I laid out shingles and he hammered in the nails. And in an hour we had finished the whole top section of that roof. "Thanks," I said. "You have no idea how relieved I am to have that done."
"Glad to help. Not just for the money." He winked. "Girl like that—you're lucky."
We descended the ladder, and as my foot touched the ground I realized that I had been relieved of the charge of cowardice, and had done what had terrified me before. All I had needed was a longer ladder and a confident companion.
How many seemingly insuperable obstacles of life could be overcome by just that formula? The proper tool and proper approach. What of my worst one, the amnesia? My memory of my past remained closed, but somehow I felt I was closer to the breakthrough now.
The man finished the paneling with the same efficiency and drove off. Probably the extra money had contributed to his positive attitude; he could have a considerable party with that. Soon we followed. It had been quite a weekend, and I had a lot to think about.
Chapter 5
Eighty Per Cent
Every month or so our dojo had a team tournament with one of the other Taizo Sone dojos in town. Half a dozen of our students would be matched with their students, and each winner got a medal or ribbon. After the tournament there would be testing for promotions.
I had watched these little tournaments with fascination, seeing how different competition judo was from normal randori practice. I had not entered any matches, however, knowing that would be utter folly. Now I had learned the basic throws and holds, and felt I was ready to try for the lofty eminence of Yellow Belt. So I was present and garbed in my gi, and nervous as hell.
The students of the other dojo were there, with their instructor Tom, a sandan or third degree black belt. Black belts didn't compete in these affairs, but served as coaches and referees.
Tom and Steve got together and picked out one child from each class, little white belts. They were carefully matched up by size and skill, to make it fair. The idea was to give them experience in matches, without the outcome being certain. Then two more, larger boys, yellow belts. And so on up, sometimes matching yellow belt with a larger white belt so that it was skill against size. In real tournaments, I understood, it was pot luck, and white belts frequently came up against black belts, almost certainly doomed. But here the emphasis was on good matches, or at least fairness.
"Caesar," Steve said.
Huh? I looked at him. Steve indicated a place on the mat where the other contestants were sitting. Already a white belt my size was coming from the other side.
I was going to compete in a match.
My mouth went dry. My knees felt rubbery. How could I go out there and actually fight? I didn't know anything! I glanced wildly around.
And caught Susan's eye. She was one of five black belts who had shown up for the tournament. I remembered the cabin roof, and the cabin loft. And I was more afraid of being a coward in her eyes than I was of being a coward in fact.
I walked to the mat area and sat down beside my teammates. It was amazing how deadly serious this innocent little meet had become, merely because I was now a participant rather than a spectator. I guess a lot of life is like that. A person pays a whole lot more attention when his own neck is on the block.
Jeff came to sit beside me, and after him a green belt. They didn't seem worried; why was my gut squeezed and squished like a Rorschach blob? We were seven all told, and opposite us were seven from the other dojo.
Nervously I watched the first match. Our boy was smaller than his opponent, and that was bad, because size does count in judo when skill is equivalent. The lighter player has to work harder to lift the heavier one, and can more readily be lifted himself. Our champion tried hard, attempting an o soto gari leg throw to the rear, but the other boy pushed him back, grabbed him around the neck, and fell on the floor. No art to it at all, and the referee, a large black belt named Shawn, gave no score, but now the larger boy got the kesa gatame or scarf hold. This was clumsily applied—even I could see that—but decisive. In thirty seconds it was over. The outlook was bleak; we were behind one match to nothing.
But lo! We won the second match, and the third, then lost the fourth. It was two to two—and suddenly I was up.
I was scared stiff, which may have been just as well, because otherwise my knees might have buckled. My opponent was smaller than I, and a good deal younger, but he might as well have been a giant. I only hoped I would not lose too quickly.
I grabbed his left lapel and right sleeve in approved manner, and looked into his eyes—and realized that he was just as scared as I was. It didn't help; now I was afraid we'd both make fools of ourselves.
We moved around, neither daring to try anything. All my confidence in the techniques I had practiced was gone; I knew nothing would work. "Attack! Attack!" someone yelled, and I didn't know which one of us he meant.
Shame, not courage, drove me to it: I attacked. I tried to turn into an o goshi hip throw, but he had hold of my sleeve and I couldn't turn. That never happened in practice throws. So it was nothing, not even a spoiled attempt, as far as anyone could see.
But he had felt my effort. So he jerked me forward, and I stiff-armed him, not meaning to but simply unable to make my arms bend. That, as it turned out, was a good defense. At least at this level. So all we did was move a little more.
We were both getting tired. I was panting, and so was he, and his handsome long hair was getting in his face and God knows how I looked—and we hadn't done anything.
Time was running out. I realized it was not going to end with a bang but a whimper, a draw, and indecisive match. No credit to e
ither of us, no medal or ribbon. People on either side were yelling up a storm of encouragement: "Throw him, Caesar!" "O soto gari, Alan!" "Attack!" "Take him to the mat!" But we were stuck in a morass of inability. We were too evenly matched, too inexperienced.
Never again would I watch someone else's match and think myself superior; fatigue and uncertainty changed the whole picture. Sure we had been taught the techniques—but this was real. I saw the brown belt with the stopwatch lift the beanbag he used to signal the end of the match. When he threw it onto the mat, it would be over. A hell of a poor showing.
This couldn't be tolerated. One of us had to win, or we'd both lose. I wrenched about and dropped into a seoi otoshi, the throw Mr. Campbell had taught me, my last attempt. But I didn't have my balance, hadn't used kuzushi to break his balance, and had my right elbow in the wrong position. As a result the attempt was a disaster. Alan resisted, hauling me back. His counter was better than my effort; I fell backwards, my feet going up in the air—and I came down on the back of my head, hard.
The room spun. I felt no pain. Just shame.
When my head cleared, Susan was mopping my face with a wet paper towel. "Some breakfall, Caesar," she muttered disgustedly.
I sat up and stared at her. "Susan! When did you get your black belt?"
Her eyebrow raised. "Beg pardon?"
"You were a brown belt in my class."
Now she stared at me. "Uh-oh. You remember?"
I looked down. "What the hell am I doing in a white belt?" But as I asked, I remembered. I was a white belt—but also a black belt. I had two sets of experiences, and for the moment I wasn't sure which was real.
"What is your name?" Susan asked me.
"Jason Striker, of course." I paused. "No, Caesar Kane. No, both."
"That blow to your head," she said. "It brought you back!"
"Did it? I still seem to have a gap. Between leaving my own dojo up north and coming to this one. What happened?"