Double Team
PART XVIII: RECONCILIATION
Chapter 220
“I don’t think there’s too much normal out there anymore. Though there’s still plenty of average to go around.”
—John David Anderson, Standard Hero Behavior
EVERYTHING RETURNED TO NORMAL. Except I had no fucking idea what that meant. I’d been caught up in politics and service reform for the past year and a half, ever since the president quoted my meme and I became an expert witness to the National Service Reform Commission. Maybe we’d been campaigning even before that—back when Cindy and I auditioned for the National School of the Arts. Or maybe before President di Marco took office when we did our rendition of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Maybe campaigning for change was my new normal.
That would suck.
We took Wednesday off and just quietly went about trying to piece together life in the huge house with our mates.
“It’s November,” Emily said.
“Yeah. And after that is December,” Desi said. “Do we get winter here in DC?”
“This is it,” Remas said. “Cold and wet with several inches of snow that can’t decide if it will stay or go.”
“Holidays,” Emily continued. “We need a plan for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And that means coordinating time off, as well. Are we going back to Indiana? Inviting parents here? Staying together? Splitting up? Or can we simplify things and just go on the road to tour again?”
“I never thought I’d hear that called simplifying things,” I said. “I’m pretty ambivalent about the date we celebrate things. I mean we were all here in town this weekend and together. We could have celebrated Christmas then. We all need to take care of family, though.”
“I think Jacob has the right idea,” Nanette said. “We can celebrate as a pod on any day we set aside as special. We need to take care of parents and siblings, though. I’m good with people staying here or going home, whichever suits your family best.”
“What about you, Nan?” I asked. “Do you have family to celebrate with?”
“I figure I’ll get an invite to be with one or two of my mates. My brother is in Alaska. I don’t think I want to try that trip.”
“You can come with me,” Brittany said brightly.
“I do hope so,” Nan answered with a twinkle in her eye.
We debriefed with Simon and Jo on Thursday. That amounted to Rachel, Em, Donna, Desi, Remas, Cindy, and me sitting around a table talking about the tour venues and what we liked or didn’t like about them. Mostly, I felt our style was better suited to the smaller venues. Playing in arenas and amphitheaters just strained the sound too much. We were primarily acoustic and adding pickups to the instruments was fine for recording but I didn’t like what it did to the music when pumped through an amp adequate to let 7,000 people hear.
The strange thing was that even in the wake of our election victory, no one said word one about anything I said during the concerts, starting the party, or campaigning for reform.
Jo had a list of dates for half a dozen performances before the end of the year—all local DC venues—and told us that aside from those, we were to take care of our responsibilities at the National School. I had expected her to be a lot more aggressive about booking us and she laughed at me.
“Don’t worry. There will be another tour. It’s just too hard to book it during the end of year holidays,” she said. “And your work at the National School is part of your service duty. Don’t think you can just goof off.”
So, we headed for the school after our meeting at the OCS.
“Cindy, your schedule will be the most rigid,” Dr. D said. “We need to get you to high school graduation by spring. We’ll pull out all the stops to help you get there, but you need to complete your senior English, Science, and Math requirements. That means classes and homework, in addition to lessons and practice on your instrument.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“To help you along, we’ve assigned Jacob to be your tutor and make sure you are caught up in all subjects.”
“Me?” I squeaked.
“Not only you. We’ve a couple of others to help, but you can make sure Cindy passes her exams and is ready to graduate. Of course, that’s not your only assignment. We’re auditioning two groups and two individuals in the next month for admission in January. We’ll want your input. I’ve also slated you for an actual class on arranging with Mr. Ferraro. And your lessons on guitar, mandolin, and viola da gamba. I think you’ll be plenty busy.”
No kidding. Desi already had her class schedule and went straight to it. Brittany and Sophie were focused on forming a new Young America Dance Company. Beca’s classes in marketing and web development were held at the University rather than the National School.
There was no time to sit around wondering what was normal.
Friday night, Cindy and I did a practice session broadcast to our patrons. Not to practice broadcasting, but broadcasting our practice. We’d been streaming all our performances over the past two months, but we hadn’t had an exclusive broadcast for patrons where we talked to them afterward. We discovered they really liked watching us practice and work together on new material. We did the stream right from our practice room in the house and had about 500 people tuned in. That’s nothing like the thousands we’d had before we started service, but at least we hadn’t significantly lost subscribers. After the practice we sat and chatted with patrons. Joan continued to do a great job of selecting and highlighting questions for us to answer.
“Jacob, now that you’ve had a victory in getting your party elected, what comes next? Are you planning to run for office?”
“No!” I laughed. “God forbid. I never intended to get so political in our performances or to start a political party. I just wanted to get the reform bill heard in congress. Cindy and I are musicians. We aren’t politicians. Politicians are people with flexible ethics. I wouldn’t last a minute.”
“Cindy, you’re always so quiet. Do you agree with Jacob’s political stand?”
“I’m quiet because I have a tiny little voice, not because I don’t have an opinion,” Cindy said. “Believe me that Jacob knows those opinions and what he’s said comes from both of us.”
“When are you going to start writing your own music?”
I looked at Cindy and she made a funny face and shrugged.
“Things have been so busy for us, we haven’t considered writing our own. I don’t know if we have that talent or not. If we can get through our first year of service and Cindy’s senior year in high school, I’ll see if I can get her to try her hand at it. I’m kind of a hack at that sort of thing.”
“You aren’t a hack,” Cindy contradicted me. “Sometimes we just jam and try things. Something might come of that eventually.”
It seemed like everyone had something going on all the time. We were a busy pod. Lyle met me at the door Saturday morning and the two of us took a leisurely run through Rock Creek Park. He was a good running companion and didn’t interrupt my thoughts with idle chatter. When I deviated from our normal pattern and crossed the creek to run on the other side, he was right with me. We had to run all the way to the south end of the park to find another bridge, so our run was more like fifteen miles than ten.
I got my shower and sat at the table with Amanda to do some research on music for guitar and flute. She had been great at providing me with a lot of information on the political campaign but her search functions weren’t limited to that. I’d saved the parameters and Amanda had found thousands of entries, categorized them, and had them ready when I started asking questions. I was amused to find some of our own arrangements, like Mozart on Fire, were included in the results. The other thing she was good at was searching the music by similarities to other pieces. So, when I asked if there were other pieces like our Mozart that we could adapt, she found some fifty different compositions. I filed those away for consideration in my arranging class.
I was becoming so comfortable with our conversational searches that I almost missed a third voice in the mix.
“Jacob, come dance with me,” Sophie said. I could hear salsa music playing in the living room where we’d long-since pushed the furniture back so we could dance.
“Save my place, please, Amanda,” I said as I stood and went to join Sophie.
She flowed into my arms and we began with a review of the twenty-some steps before we started just moving to the music.
Let me just say that salsa dancing with Sophie is sex. Salsa dancing with Sophie naked takes it to a whole different level. I’m sure she was adding moves that enhanced the body contact when we slid across each other. I didn’t remember those little belly-thrusts from when we danced before. And the fact I was standing out like a flagpole gave her an added handhold when she spun away and back. Her shoulders were pressed back against my chest as her butt muscles worked their way up and down my cock and I caressed her breasts and spread kisses down her neck and shoulder.
I don’t suppose it is actually possible for a woman to spin under a man’s arm and then launch herself back at him with such accuracy that she impales herself on his erect cock in one leap. I think, though, that with a little more practice, Sophie could come close. It only took a little adjustment when she lifted her left leg to wrap it around my waist for me to find the entrance to heaven and accept her invitation to come in.
That changed the shape of the dance a bit as I couldn’t spin her away and back, though the motions did slide her up and down. Sophie is small, but because of the incredible muscle density the dancer has, she is not the lightest of my girlfriends. As I held her butt in one hand and her shoulders in the other, dipping forward to lift and drop her on my erection again, I reminded myself to pick up my upper body exercises a little. This was definitely an experience I wanted to repeat with my Latin lover.
The music continued, but our dance slowed as we began to focus more on the joining of our bodies than the movement of our—my—feet. Her right leg joined her left around my waist as I pressed her against a wall and focused on thrusting into her lava love box. We kissed and she put as much spice and fire into the battle of our tongues as we had in our dancing. And as I pressed my full length into her, she screamed and bit my lip. I fired into her and could feel the excess running out and down my balls as we held our position against the wall and kissed some more.
“Take me to the nearest bathroom before you pull out,” she whispered. “Otherwise we’ll have a mess all over the living room floor.”
I duck-walked toward the downstairs bath, which even though smaller than all the others in the house, still had a shower. The three-point connection with my cock in her pussy, one hand on her butt, and one hand holding her torso tightly against mine, didn’t make it easy to walk, but it was stimulating. My cock decided not to soften quite so quickly. By the time I had the water running in the shower, I was also lifting Sophie up and down on my renewed erection.
“Give it to me, lover,” she rasped. “Touch me, love me, kiss me. Tell me I am yours forever. Come in me again!”
I couldn’t believe she had never relaxed her grip around my waist with her legs or around my neck with her arms as I slammed her against the wall of the shower and started seriously pumping into her again. She put all her muscle control into milking my cock and moving her own body on my shaft. And beneath the warm water spattering our faces and sluicing down our bodies, we came again.
We let all the parents know that we were having a family Thanksgiving celebration for our pod but that the week from Christmas to New Year’s was reserved for traveling to our various families and celebrating holidays. We decided we’d open the house in Indiana over the holiday and make sure all our families were visited and knew they were loved. Except Remas. She needed to go back to Georgia to be with her family and I could tell she was bothered because she wouldn’t share that reunion with the rest of the pod. She still hadn’t put on the ring or joined the partnership, though for all intents and purposes, she was treated like a full member.
“Hey you,” I said one evening as I caught her around the waist. “I was wondering if I could join you for some of your visit to your parents over the holiday. I really enjoyed our time with them in June. And I want to get to know your family better.”
“You’d do that for me?” she asked. I seldom heard Remas use such a tiny voice and she reminded me of small vulnerable Cindy when she did.
“Of course I would, love. You are part of my family, whether you’ve taken vows or signed a legal paper or not. Don’t you know how much we all love you?”
“I do,” she whispered. “I do. I do.” It was almost like she was speaking a wedding vow.
Our Thanksgiving celebration was as low-key as you could have with thirteen people all trying to prepare family favorite recipes, share stories, and sample each other’s food—and bodies—as we worked in the kitchen. We all, including Livy, had the entire weekend off.
I wasn’t sure how it would work when Donna suggested I put the turkey on the grill and smoke it for the day. I followed the instructions and checked the temperature, but even starting at six, I doubted it would be sufficiently cooked by dinner time. As soon as it was late enough that I didn’t think I’d interrupt anything, I called Dad. When in doubt, talk to an expert.
“Who are we cheering for today, son?” he asked.
“The Snoopy balloon seems to be a favorite,” I laughed.
“Football, not the parade.”
“Well, normally, I’d say the Lions are due after the past couple of years. But I don’t think they’re going to pull this one out.”
“You really think that bunch of kids stands a chance to take out seasoned pros?”
“Well, I guess this will be the test of how good the service training program is. No matter how the game goes, those kids are going to be in high demand when their service ends.”
“I’m sure you didn’t call just to talk football with your old man. Want me to call your mother to the phone?”
“In a minute. I was wondering if you could give me some advice. Just trying to be prepared, you know.”
“My son, the political revolutionary, needs my advice?”
“Yeah. You remember a few years ago when the turkey came out of the oven not quite cooked?”
“Oh, yeah. Your poor mother has never quite mastered the art of baking a turkey. This year we got just a breast with one of those pop-out thermometers that say when it’s done.”
“You saved the day on that one. I was just wondering if you had any advice on how to… um… rescue a turkey at dinner time that hasn’t quite been cooked.”
“You should have plenty of time to cook a turkey before dinner today!”
“They convinced me to put it on the smoker.”
“Oh. I see. First of all, make sure your biggest cast iron skillet is ready and well-seasoned. You’ll have to turn out a lot of slices of turkey in a short period in order to stay ahead of the game.” I listened to dad as he told me what seasonings to use, how hot to make the frying pan, and what kind of oil to fry the partially cooked turkey in. I felt almost prepared to avert the disaster of the day.
“You should make a YouTube video of that, Dad,” I laughed. “You’d get a million hits from men and women trying to avert Thanksgiving Day disaster.”
“You’re the YouTube star. You do it.”
Now that was a consideration. I talked to Joan and she got a video camera to start recording.
“Clever,” Donna said. “You turned our Thanksgiving Dinner into an instructional video on rescuing an undercooked bird. Do you have releases from all the women who made comments on your cooking?”
“Releases? You’re all… We’re all… It was just for fun.”
“So was that comment, Jacob,” Beca said, scowling at Donna. The two women started giggling. “You and Cindy need to insert a few interludes playing music. You’ve got all those short pieces that you’ve never worked into a program.”
“Yes! Let’s do it,” Cindy said.
I guess I kind of turned the holiday into a workday. But you know? We were all having fun. Our whole pod was laughing about things we’d said or done and it was good for us to have a lighter look at all the taping and music we’d played for the past year. And I think you could see in the video that we were all into it and not just performing. And Joan did a good job of not showing any naughty bits since we were all mostly naked all day. Beca’s round little butt made a guest appearance, though.
On Friday after Thanksgiving, when the stores are supposed to be packed, Cindy and I were ‘invited’ to the Spanish Embassy for dinner and to play a few songs. It was an official National Service event or we couldn’t have gone. Jo made sure we understood that. While we could accept ‘non-work’ engagements, entering a foreign embassy was considered the same as leaving American soil and service corps members were expressly forbidden to leave the United States unless on official assignment. I was already thinking the first year after service, Rachel and I should take an around-the-world trip just to see what was so dangerous out there that the government was afraid we wouldn’t come back.
Livy was already being recruited for a two-year extension so the national team could use her at the 2023 World Athletic Championships in Budapest. Her official two years of service would end in July and the competition wasn’t until August. She considered blowing it off and registering to compete as an independent instead of part of the national team, but the Olympics were the following year and Livy had reached a point where she was in the running. She’d turned a fifteen-flat 5k this fall in Oregon which put her among the top contenders in America. If she’d run in the London Olympics, that would have been a gold medal, but the Africans seemed to keep speeding up the world record.
It wasn’t so much a problem of not being able to compete or join the national team without being in service. The big thing was the utter devotion to training. Her entire NSO was devoted to improving her 5k time. V1 remembered Ethiopia as the place where they showed pictures of babies with bloated stomachs, poverty, and starvation. Suddenly, they burst onto the world track scene with both men’s and women’s world records in the 5k. Livy would probably never match Tirunesh Dibaba’s blazing 14:11.15 world record, but no one in the past fifteen years had. Still, she’d have to cut another thirty seconds to come close to the podium in the Olympics in Paris in 2024. It would take 14:30 to become the US record holder. But if she reenlisted for two years, that was two more years of only leaving the country on assignment and she would not be able to compete independently. We were facing some tough decisions in the coming months.
Which brings me back to leaving the country by visiting the Spanish Embassy.
Donna and Sophie went with us as our producer and manager. Neither were members of the service so didn’t need to be assigned. It didn’t make a difference to the Ambassador or staff at the embassy. We were treated like honored guests, even though we were the hired entertainment. We stood in a receiving line to meet important guests, including a dashing couple of Flamenco dancers. We discovered they would be dancing to one or two of our pieces as we played.
What none of us were expecting was that the man—an incredibly handsome Spanish devil—would ask Sophie to dance with him when we played Boccherini’s Fandango. Sophie had worked with us on this and I was always amazed at how facile she was with castanets while she danced across the floor. The Spanish dancer added foot stomps and handclaps and before long, the two were truly playing off each other as we continued the music. He was a master at catching and moving Sophie in dance steps while not impeding her use of the castanets. And she… I think I said before, dancing with Sophie is sex.
As we wound down our performance, I glanced up at Cindy and could see fire in her eyes. A glance at Donna and I saw she was fixated on Sophie. We packed our instruments and bid goodnight to our hosts. Emily drove up to the gates of the embassy and we got in the car. From the way Donna and Cindy attacked Sophie, I could tell this night was far from over.
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