Double Twist
Chapter 155
“Run. Run as fast and as hard as you can back to your dorm.”
—Richelle Mead, Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy 3)
IT WAS SERIOUSLY A PROBLEM to take my hands off the two round butts cuddled up to me in the morning. I lay there with that soft smooth flesh in my hands and a rising erection as Nanette paused in the doorway of our bedroom.
“Come on, Jacob. I have to go to work this morning. We need a hard run. I think you’re getting flabby.”
Right. I hadn’t run in Washington, though I was told there were some great parks to run in not far from campus. I’d been getting regular runs in most of the summer. Except while I was in Kansas with Emily. And while I was at the Ren Faire. But until the middle of June, I was getting regular runs in. That’s only been… a month ago. Shit! Cross country practice starts in ten days.
I reluctantly let go of the booties and pushed myself up in bed. I got a cheek kiss from Beca and Cindy and then they collapsed back on the mattress and cuddled together. I sighed and grabbed my running gear. If we didn’t get outside soon, the temps would make it hard to run.
“Jacob! Three-count your run. You’re coming down hard on your right leg. Is it giving you pain?” Nanette shouted from right behind me. My leg? Damn it! It didn’t feel sore but now that Nan had pointed it out, I could feel the limp creeping in. Am I going to fight this my whole life? I started humming a three-count music piece and then started laughing when I realized it was Beethoven’s Minuet in G major, the cornerstone of Professor Harold Hill’s Think System in The Music Man.
It served to even out my step. When the downbeat continues to switch from left to right, it’s really hard to have a limp beat competing with it.
“Faster!” Nanette hollered. I picked up the pace while I contemplated whether my musical career was as fraudulent as the professor’s. I practiced hard and had accomplished a lot in the two years I’d been playing guitar. I was learning the viola da gamba and the mandolin. But the hard work—training my fingers and developing muscle memory—had been done before I inhabited this body. I felt bad about that. And angry. That stupid kid should have been happy with what he had. He was talented. He had potential. Hell, he’d already contracted with Desi for her virginity. And he just threw it all away.
Because of some nightmares and an unnatural lust for his big sister. I remembered the nightmares. I remembered how many times I thought I was dying and was brought back only by the touch of my sister. It was brutal. And even though Em and I had found our way together, I knew that she would never have done that if she believed I was really her brother. And I’d torn down the barrier from my side because I couldn’t recognize her as the sister I’d known in V1.
And that was enough.
“Now sprint!” Nanette yelled, still right behind me. We were still at least two hundred yards from the driveway and it was two hundred yards long. I wondered if I had it in me to push for a quarter mile after however long we’d been running. I hadn’t kept track.
We pelted down the driveway, Nanette pulling even with me. I wasn’t about to let her pass and ran harder. We cut into the yard and stumbled to a walk.
“Every morning,” she panted. “We’re going to do this every morning. And this year you are going to run the half at Noblesville and again in Bloomington. That means we’ll start running halfs on Mondays to get in shape.”
“I’m going to have cross country practice on Mondays. And meets on Saturday!”
“You get an easy loosening up run on Sundays. You’ll be fine.”
I groaned but I was thankful for the training Nan encouraged me to do and her company on the trails. I missed having Livy with us but Em said she’d run with us at least some of the time. I had a feeling, though, that Em was going to start working with Desi, Beca, Brittany, and Cindy now that we all figured we were a year away from basic training.
Nan and I stretched. I didn’t usually fall between her legs anymore. But when I pushed forward it wasn’t unusual for us to make light contact between my erection and her soft center. When we touched, I looked into her eyes and was overwhelmed by the amount of affection I saw there. I let her legs stretch and laid down beside her.
“Nanette, if we do this thing and start service together and all get to serve in Washington DC, will you join us?”
“What?”
“I know you have a career. I worry about you and Donna and Sophie. You’ve put down some roots. You own a house. I worry about Em and Joan, too. They need to have jobs. But I don’t want to leave you behind.”
“Oh.” She sighed and then leaned close to kiss me lightly. “Do you know how hard divorce is?” she asked. I shrugged. V1 had been near divorce after my affair with Sharon Long but it never was completed. “Of course not. Divorce, even if you are on amicable terms, is like having your body split down the middle and everything that makes you who you are scooped out of the cavity. Then you get sewed up and walk around pretending that everything is the same with you as it was. But it isn’t. It never is. If you are really fortunate, you find someone who fills that cavity with their love and you find a reason for being again. If I didn’t come with you, it would be like being divorced eleven times at once. Do you think I could survive that? No. I’ll tell you. I couldn’t. I know it’s old-fashioned and that it was never meant to apply to a group marriage, but whither thou goest, I will go. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
“Oh, Nanette! I love you so much! We need to keep in mind how all these plans affect us, though. I don’t want to cause you pain in the guise of preventing pain. We need to know you will be happy.”
“Jacob, I love you. I love all ten of our girlfriends. When we first started getting together—Rachel and Beca—maybe they weren’t planning far ahead for the future we face now. But as the rest of us clustered around you—Emily, Desi, Brittany, Livy, Joan, me—we knew we were building something specifically to protect and unify us during the times of service, whether it was for two years or a career. We would all be there to fall back on when needed. I would no more think of leaving our pod than fly. I’ll find something to do in DC. Think of all the tight-asses there who need a massage.”
We had a little laugh and helped each other off the ground and into the house for breakfast. I didn’t even ask how far we’d run.
1 August 2021
We’ve been going over the proposal and alternatives presented by the National School of the Arts all week. Ray has analyzed it and is excited that there are options opening up in service that he’d not seen before. We’ve put together a packet on our pod with profiles on each member and where they are expected to be on July 15, 2022, the day Cindy turns seventeen. The biggest unknowns as of that date are Rachel and Livy, who will still have a year of service left. No one knows for sure where they will be serving or even what they’ll be doing. We won’t even hear from Rachel for a week yet. And Livy will be home that weekend transferring between basic training and NSO training.
The release of our Jefferson Memorial video last night went pretty well, I guess. Cindy and I answered a good half-hour of questions and Sophie even got asked a few questions. We told everyone we’ll be releasing an hour-long special Labor Day weekend and our patrons were enthused about it. We’re using that to launch our fall season of monthly performances.
One thing these post-program discussions have revealed is that Cindy needs to get more confident in her presentation. I guess I’m just too easy to hide behind. But if she doesn’t start taking a lead in the conversations, she’ll be seen as second in the performances, too. That’s not what I want. We want. I need to talk to Donna about what we can do to help her.
Sometime along the line, Cindy is going to want to go all the way. We approach that point and then back away and I know she does the same thing with Beca and with Donna, and maybe others. But she’s not going to get what she wants unless she learns to ask for it. I guess it’s the same as the conversations. I don’t want to make Cindy into something she isn’t, but she needs the self-confidence to be what she is.
And then I ran. I was truly grateful that Nan spent the past two weeks running my tail off. For our first run, Jock had all five teams take two turns from school to Indian Trails Park. That was boys’ and girls’ varsity and JV and mixed ultra cross, though we only had boys running it. The route isn’t exact, but twice around is about three miles. Everyone was pretty tired by the time we beat feet around the football field track. The football guys had been practicing for a week, but this was their first contact practice and you could see as we walked the track that they were already exhausted.
“Okay, everybody. There are some more changes this year due to the increased popularity of our sport,” Jock said when he had us all assembled in the bleachers. “We have nearly a hundred men and a hundred women sitting here. And twenty iron men who have decided they want to press for the long-distance runs. Obviously, we can’t run everyone in every race—even with both varsity and JV. Some of you don’t care about competing but are here for the PE credit. That’s fine and if you don’t want to compete you don’t have to. You WILL train just as hard as a competitor.” There were a few groans from guys who were just arriving at the bleachers at the finish of their runs.
With the new rules indicating that all students had to complete a credit of PE each year in order to be ready for basic training, schools had more people trying out for organized sports rather than complete a standard gym class. There were more options for Gym, too, with a new fitness center that was added this summer. It had more weight rooms, spin classes, dance fitness, and even yoga classes being offered. But we have 2,500 students. That requires a lot of options.
“There are three significant differences in our program and these are reflected in four-A schools around the state. First, in addition to varsity and JV teams, we are splitting freshmen off on their own team. Eight meets this fall will have freshman-only races.” There were a few cheers for Jock’s statement but he continued right on.
“Second, there will be more split meets and our teams will be competing against bigger fields. All but one of our contests will be on Saturdays this year. Every contest will have at least six teams competing, and sometimes we’ll be competing in seven different locations.” We all groaned at that. How were we going to manage it? “It shouldn’t be quite that bad. Usually, it will be boys competing at one venue and girls at another. Sometimes it will be split varsity, JV, and freshmen at different venues. And the iron men will almost always be competing in a separate location in either 10k or half marathon. Yes, you heard that right. There will be three half marathon competitions this year, so we’ll find out what you’re really made of.”
Well, crap. No wonder Nanette was pushing me on the long runs. Competing at both the 10k and half marathon lengths would really tax me. Just to put that in perspective, a half marathon is 21.1k or over twice a 10k. My fall was going to be brutal.
“Third, we’ll be traveling farther for competitions, which means your Saturdays belong to me from now on. This is an effort to balance competition between four-A and lower division schools. For some reason, they expect us to have faster runners. Tell that to Culver and Columbia City, right, Jacob?”
“Right! Those guys were wicked fast.”
“So, pick up your training kits in the locker room. No hazing in the locker rooms, got it? There’s too many of you who will be crammed into that space to put up with your shit.” We moved to head out but Jock stopped me. “A minute, Jacob.”
“Sure, coach.”
“You know the new race isn’t about high school competition, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“The word I have—which is so unofficial you would never find another person to verify it—is that the service is adding selection criteria. Pushing half marathons on high school students doesn’t make sense otherwise. We were all enthusiastic about having the 10k added last year. But a lot of coaches are scratching their heads trying to figure out if they even have someone who can run thirteen miles. It’s a long hard race.”
“Nan’s been pushing me to run it,” I said. “We put in ten miles this morning.”
“And then you came here and ran three more? Nice work. But I wanted to tell you… You have options. You don’t have to run the half if you don’t want to. You should consider whether it would be in conflict with your better interests in other areas. I know you are working on a music career. Check with your advisors and find out if excelling at running could interfere with your prospects at a music school that has no athletic program.”
“Even if I run it, that’s no indication I’d excel at it. I can turn six six-minute miles, but I don’t know that I could come close to that for thirteen miles. Guys are running halfs at 1:20. I can’t run 5k at that pace.”
“It’s up to you, Jacob. I just want you to know you can sit out half marathons as long as we have you giving your all for the 10k.”
“You’ll get that, coach. I’ll let you know about the halfs.”
Now I had something else to worry about. I’d effectively torpedoed my math aptitude and since I refused to take calculus, hadn’t had any pressure to continue in math. I didn’t receive any calls from the guidance office when I submitted my fall class schedule. My reqs were covered and I was cutting back one class to have a first period study hall again. That would give me more time to practice. I’d have the Constitutional Government class I wanted last year, Senior English, Physics, Orchestra, Business Accounting, and Latin 3. With my PE waiver for cross country, that was all I needed to graduate.
I guess I should check with the National School to see if it was adequate as far as they were concerned. And I wanted to know if running could adversely affect my offer from the National School. It was so weird that we still had such a division between arts and athletics in this age. Everyone was being encouraged to a higher level of fitness but it didn’t seem a lot of people were being encouraged to play music, paint, dance, sing, or act.
All that was put aside when I got home. Em was there to get me into another shower and make sure I was dressed neatly. I thought carefully about it before I acted and grabbed my practice guitar. Em smiled at me. We drove to Mom and Dad’s. They were ready and got in the back seat of Em’s Prius. None of us said anything. We just drove out to the cemetery.
Today was Pey’s eleventh birthday.
We went to the columbarium where her ashes were and busied ourselves with making sure everything was clean and tidy. Cut grass had blown in on the floor but there was a broom kept in a corner. I guess sweeping is something a lot of people do when they visit a grave. Mom took the broom and swept the whole thing while humming a little lullaby. Dad had a rag and some polish and made sure the latches and hinges were polished and the brass nameplate shone.
Em brought a teddy bear and when everything was clean, she put it and the flowers Mom brought on the little shelf in front of the niche. We each had a little time with my sister, just telling her how much we missed her. Then I sat in a corner of the mausoleum and played Händel’s Sarabande. I’d once played it while Pey leaned on my shoulder and went to sleep. While I was playing, Mom, Dad, and Em all sat on the floor next to me and leaned in.
We went to Red Robin for dinner. It was Pey’s favorite place. The waiters were a little confused when we asked them to sing the birthday song for the balloon and empty plate at our table. I don’t think any of us were able to finish our meals.
She’d been gone four months. Usually, I functioned pretty well. I was kept so busy I didn’t have time to dwell on our loss. I had to deal with Washington, music, Cindy, girlfriends, and running. Sometimes I was blindsided by the sudden sense of loss and I found a place by myself where I could cry.
And sometimes when I was playing, like today, I could feel her presence as if she was still leaning on my shoulder, waiting for me to carry her to bed and tuck her in.
Emily and I slipped in late that night. We’d stayed with Mom and Dad as long as we could, then hugged them and went to our own home… Donna’s home. We went straight to our room and got ready for bed before settling and just holding each other. We didn’t make love. We didn’t really cry a lot, either. We just lay there thinking about our little sister.
Good night, Princess.
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