Chapter Twelve: Part Four
The runners stormed in only a few minutes later. Rick and JC came in neck and neck. They stopped under the bar and bent over double, fighting for air. Dom and Juanita raced in next, followed by Edison; Mason brought up the rear and he raised his hands in surrender, gasping, ‘Go.’
As one, the competitors jumped to hang from the overhead bar. JC called a cruel cadence as they all pumped up and down, dropping to continue the same cadence for their push-ups. The only concession to Juanita was one less chin-up and two less push-ups per set. The women watched in fascination as muscles rippled and sweat poured.
Edison and Juanita both dropped during the fourth set, and Dom dropped two sets later when his last chin-up simply wouldn’t happen. Now it was just Rick and JC, working like machines. Starting their eighth set, Rick started showing some humanity and slowed. JC still pumped his body up and down easily, looking as if he had just started. After another set, Rick was struggling to get up on the third chin-up of his set whilst JC started his push-ups. Rick battled to the last, straining to complete his fifth chin-up when Juan-Carlos leapt back onto the bar and flipped himself up in an easy motion to finish sitting on the bar, grinning down at Rick.
‘Prick!’ Rick gasped as he dropped from the bar, falling to his hands and knees, gulping for air.
Everyone clapped in appreciation as the competitors lay panting on the sand. After a few minutes of recovery time, Natalie walked out and in wicked tones said, ‘Ready? Blue and back… GO!’
Dom, Rick and JC cursed as they sprang from the beach, hitting the water at a full sprint. Watching them go, Mason gasped with theatrical conviction, ‘I am, seriously getting, too old, for this, shit.’
‘We all are,’ Edison replied in short breaths.
‘Speak for yourselves boys,’ Juanita said defiantly before her panting resumed.
‘My money is on JC today,’ Natalie said. ‘He’s still a part-machine cyborg freak!’
They watched the swimmers round the buoy and head back, all neck and neck. Almost halfway back to shore, Rick faltered first when he hit the three-hundred metre wall known to all four-hundred metre swimmers. It was that point where enthusiasm succumbs to fatigue and everything gets heavier as the water somehow seems to become thicker and less buoyant. The other two pulled away from him. Dom was stroking hard, but hit his wall with the beach still thirty metres away. JC had the edge and pulled clear, sprinting up the sand to claim a solid first place, slapping Natalie lightly on her backside before falling heavily beside Juanita and Mason, breathing hard. Dom did the same only five seconds later, with Rick bringing up the rear by a few more seconds.
‘Good race bro’,’ Rick gasped to JC as he landed exhausted on the sand. Affirming grunts came from Dom and the others.
Natalie looked at the three amigas and said for the benefit of all, ‘If seeing all those delicious bodies prostrated and panting like that doesn’t set your blood racing… you are probably dead.’
The amigas laughed aloud, nodding. ‘Are you guys insured?’ asked Dee, still smiling at the total commitment they’d shown to their competition.
‘This is our insurance!’ the five chorused automatically.
Edison looked over and asked, ‘Are you okay, Mason?’
Mason was still breathing hard and he waved a thumbs-up in response. Rick’s face darkened and he lifted his head to look at Mason. ‘Dad, count it out.’ Mason looked at his son and counted clearly from five to one and back. Rick relaxed, as did everyone there.
Madison looked at the girls and said, ‘There is no point asking or telling him to take it slower.’
‘What do you mean?’ teased Edison, ‘He was!’ He ducked a slow backhand from Mason that ended in a theatrical flop back to the sand.
‘Of course, part of that may be my fault,’ Madison teased, looking at her husband with a meaningful smile. He returned her look with a slow scan of her body from her toes up, finishing with a smile and a wink before he flopped back and breathed deeply and slowly, allowing his body to recover.
The afternoon passed happily. Carrie and Dee slipped away at midday, only to reappear with a platter stacked high with huge and tasty salad sandwiches for everyone.
Kate looked at Juanita in a new light, understanding more of why she drove herself so hard now. She said to her, ‘I can’t believe how strong you are, Nita. You give the boys a real run for their money.’
‘I can’t compete with their brute strength, but for fitness, heaven help them if they’re not on top of their game. I haven’t beaten Juan-Carlos since he was twelve years old.’
Glowing in paternal pride, Edison said, ‘JC was the first RC, that’s Regimental Candidate, to make every single one of the regiment’s PT instructors throw in the towel. It’s a tradition with each new intake of regimental candidates. The PT instructors and RC’s start doing laps of the base on their first day. You have to understand that every candidate is already an elite soldier. The standard practice is for them to keep up the same crazy pace until only the instructors are still moving. Then, from that position of authority, they can go back and tell those already fit men to shape up. JC was still with them after close to three hours. The whole base was lining the fence and cheering, commanding officer to cooks… everyone.
‘When JC started to pull ahead of them, they all stopped to put on full packs, full combat load, weapons, everything. They went until only Ironface and JC were moving. It was dark by then and both were literally crawling, still holding their rifles. Every time Ironface moved, JC would crawl twice as far. Well, when Juan-Carlos got to his feet again and started putting one foot in front of the other, the most feared PT instructor in the regiment rolled onto his back and dropped the magazine from his rifle.’
Rick said, ‘Snowflakes are notorious for being too thick to know when they are beaten. They lack the intelligence to understand odds and they lack the imagination to lose. It comes with the mind-set that abandons a sound aircraft in mid-air.’ JC smiled in response, acknowledging the backhanded compliments. The loving pride in Rick’s voice was unmistakable.
‘Snowflakes?’ Carrie asked.
‘Delicate little things that float down softly from the sky before melting.’
‘Say that standing in front of an avalanche!’ teased Mason, punching his son on his shoulder with a smile as they all laughed.
When the afternoon shadows began to draw over the beach, everyone headed back to their cabins to rinse off the salt and freshen up. Carrie had started a number of chickens roasting earlier in the day, along with plenty of vegetables. Madison had insisted on doing the stuffing for the birds. The ringing of the bell that announced the evening meal was a welcome sound to all. A fresh wilted salad and toasted corn bread rounded out the simple and delicious fare that was consumed with gusto and happy conversation.
Rick walked Kate out of the maloca at the evening’s end. Their small talk was casual, strained, nerve-racking, and wonderful. Each was trying to say things that they feared saying, faltering and stuttering. When Rick made to kiss Kate’s hand at her doorstep, she made her decision.
Standing on the step of her cabin for extra height, Kate grabbed Rick and kissed him as deeply as she could. She wanted to inhale him and to drown in him. He was hesitant for the first moment but then responded. Their passionate embrace grew increasingly urgent until the need to breathe took over, forcing them to reluctantly break apart.
‘Kate… My God…Thank you. I feel I must say good night now. Thursday week, please come to my home and let me cook for you?’
What? Goodnight? What? Kate thought. Confused, she asked, ‘Don’t you want to come in?’
‘Kate… Catherine,’ he said carefully, ‘to join you tonight is my penultimate desire. Alegria can be an overwhelming experience and I have to know that your decisions and desires are the same off the island as they are here. Ultimately, I need to know that you have had time to consider fully your thoughts, feelings, and actions without pressure. I am going to walk, quite badly, back to my cabin and attempt to not picture you with far less clothing than you wore today. I expect to fail gloriously. You are by far the most intriguing and- ’
Kate’s thoughts raced. Tell him, he will not make the first move. Kate reached out and took Rick’s hand, holding it to her breast, massaging herself with his fingers. ‘A week from Thursday then, my lord.’ A quick thought later, she added, ‘I need to check to see if we are free, sorry Rick.’
There was a smile on Rick’s face. ‘Dee told me it’s your next night off, I asked her this afternoon.’
They kissed again, needfully, passionately, and then gently. Kate kept trying to pull Rick into her cabin but Rick would not allow himself to go with her. Kissing the whole time, it ended up becoming a giggling game. After reluctantly removing his hands from her breast and bottom, Rick departed for his own cabin, exaggerating a wide, stiff-legged limp until she laughed happily. He turned and beamed a smile to her before he vanished into the night. Still chuckling, she opened her door and found a note. It was from Natalie.
~
“It’s about time! I am glad for both of you. xox Nat”
~
Alegria! Kate’s mind exulted as she shook her head in amusement, knowing that Natalie had to have slipped the note under her door earlier in the evening. She found sleep elusive as her mind raced around the central memory of Rick’s hand on her breast. He had automatically squeezed her nipple a few times as she held his fingers in place, encouraging him. It was still sensitive from the morning’s activity with Natalie, and his attentions had sent waves of sensations through her body that were far out of proportion with the physical reality. She could still feel how good his other hand had felt massaging her bum as well.
Comfortable in bed, she found that imagining him imagining her was too much. She sought and found her pleasure’s freedom, falling into a blissful sleep soon thereafter. She dreamt of Dom and Natalie’s play under the tree, except in her dream it was her and Rick. For only her third time ever, she awoke still climaxing. She sunk back into a pleasant doze for a few hours more, still smiling when she awoke fully in the early dawn light, enjoying every last moment of her remaining time on the island.
~~~~~