El Rancho del Corazón
13 Forms
“DRINK SOME MORE WATER, BRIAN,” Rose said, refilling my glass. I must admit, the water out here was delicious.
“Why are you pushing so much water on me, lover?”
“You need to hydrate. You’re going to lose a lot of fluids tonight. There isn’t a girl in the clan who isn’t going to try to climb on your cock tonight. I’m only glad that I get you first,” she laughed.
“Come on. Not every girl,” I laughed. “Maybe a couple from my casa.”
“I’m giving you a list of the current ages of every girl in the clan so you know what is and isn’t legal, cónyuge. I don’t think you should plan on getting any sleep tonight.” She raised an eyebrow at me and I realized she was at least half serious. Oh shit!
We were all sitting around the fire in our lightweight gis. I still loved the look of the different colors and the belts. Rose had a ritual for presenting a symbolic key to the two casas for their houses. Of course, they had the real key long ago. This was strictly for show. I wasn’t expecting Lionel to join them and then call for me. Carl spoke for the group.
“Patrón, mi casa es su casa.” He handed me the key Rose had just given him. Doug did the same thing and then Lionel produced a matching key and repeated the words. I couldn’t help it. I was crying. I hugged the three to me and repeated the phrase myself.
“And if we ever have a key, you’ll get one!”
Sunday morning, Whitney nudged me and I reluctantly let go of Rose, Hannah, and Samantha, who had all managed to sleep part of the night on top of me. Rose groaned.
“We should,” Hannah moaned. “Come on. It’s good for us.”
With the four of us up, it wasn’t more than a couple minutes before everyone in the tent was stirring and pulling shorts and T-shirts on.
“Do we need bras for this exercise?” Jennifer asked.
“I don’t,” Whitney laughed. “We’re only putting clothes on because the younger clan is here. They might stumble out, too.”
“We should insist on it,” Rose said. She went to the trailer where the girls had mostly ended up. They mumbled and griped at us, too, but before long they were all standing with us following Whitney in some basic stretches. I noticed Leonard had come from the trailer with the girls. That made me snort and Jennifer gave me a dirty look.
“Is this reveille?” Doug said as he stumbled out of his house. George, Rhiannon, and Doreen followed him. He stepped to Carl’s door and knocked on it.
“Okay. We’re on our way,” Lexi said as the younger Casa de la Tierra kids came out.
“What about Carl, Brenda, and Louise?” Doreen asked.
“Last I heard they were coming,” Judy laughed. “I think they’re going to join us, too.”
It was too bad Lionel, Lamar, Renee, Sugar, and Rich weren’t out here with us. That would be everyone. Maybe they’d consider spending weekends out here for the summer.
There was a fair amount of groaning as we all stretched and got woken up. Whitney had me join her to lead those who were familiar with the routines as she worked with those who had never joined us for workouts. Once we were warmed up a little, I found the forms to be incredibly relaxing and freeing. My mind opened up, my stress just left my body. For a few minutes, at least, I wasn’t worried about anything.
“While I’m at camp, Brian will lead the forms in the morning. If he’s not here, just come out and get some exercise if you are here. Run a couple of miles. There’s no sense in us putting on the freshman fifteen before classes even start… Carl.”
“Hey! What can I say? They both cook. And I eat,” he complained. He’d definitely put on a few pounds already this summer.
“You want a roly-poly guy who dies of a heart attack in the middle of taking care of your needs, Louise?” Whit shot at the surprised girl. She shook her head. “If you’re going to feed him, you’ve got to make sure he gets exercise and stays fit.”
“I can’t wait to fight with someone like you and Brian did,” Monte said. “Pow. Pow. Wow! You guys were something else.”
“No sparring!” Whitney said. “Brian, make sure you enforce that. I worked with you on forms for a year before I started beating the shit out of you.”
“I remember!” I said. “And I agree.”
“Can you do it again and let us watch?” Susan asked. “I don’t want to fight anyone, but I agree with Monte that you were so awesome. Would you do another demo for us?” Whitney grinned at me. I shrugged my shoulders. Might as well.
“The first thing to remember and to watch for, is that all the moves that we are teaching you in forms are the same moves we use when we’re sparring. You learn the forms first and then sparring is all about speeding them up and learning when to use which one and how to improvise on them,” Whitney said. She squared up with me and we bowed. “To first fall.”
“As if we don’t know how that will end,” I laughed. And ducked. Her hand came so fast at my face that I barely slipped around it. And that’s all it took. I was back in the same space I’d been in while doing forms. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. Just her flashing hands and feet and my counter to her beautiful moves. Even when I knew she could kill me with a single blow, she was so sexy while she was doing it. I slid past her in our sensual ballet. “Ow!” I yelled. I spun around to face her again. She’d slapped me on the butt so hard I knew I was going to have a handprint there.
“If you leave yourself open like that again, you’ll land in the next county when you come down. Focus!”
I focused. We went on. She was doing some moves I’d never seen before and I recognized one as her ‘air style’ that could knock me on my ass without touching me. I don’t know how I escaped it, but I slid around her and rammed my elbow into her chest. There was a thump and as I turned to face her again, I found Whitney lying on the ground looking at me.
“Ow! Where did you learn that?” she demanded.
“I think you taught it to me. I’m sorry, Whitney.”
“Are you all right, young lady?” another voice demanded. I looked up into Sheriff Donaldson’s eyes.
“Hi, Sheriff. I’m fine. But he has to kiss my titties now. I think they’re bruised.”
“Do you beat all of your women?” he turned on me.
“Sheriff, usually it’s the other way around. The kids wanted a demo at full speed,” I said. “Whitney and I are the only ones who ever spar. We’ve been working together for four years.”
“Demo? Spar? You mean you weren’t fighting?”
“I would never fight Whitney, Sheriff. I have no death wish.”
“You can’t imagine what it looked like when we drove up.” Sandy said coming around her dad. “So fast and it looked lethal.”
“What can we do for you today, Sheriff?” Whitney had her arms around me and I squeezed her waist.
“We had the notion that maybe we could get a tour of the new duplex if we asked nicely,” he laughed. “I didn’t mean to come out so official. We just get used to breaking up fights, not watching them.”
“We’d be happy to show you the duplex, Sheriff. It’s so cool to have a home of our own,” Rhiannon said. She spoke to the sheriff, but she caught Sandy’s arm and the six permanent residents led them off.
“Wow!” Susan said. “That was really awesome.”
“You need to know something else,” I said grinning at her. “We also call that foreplay. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take my cónyuge to our tent and gently rub arnica into her bruises.” I led Whitney to our tent and we were undressed in seconds.
There was a general evacuation taking place Sunday evening. Sora and Whitney had to check in for training and would be staying on campus during the week. All the younger generation were headed back north, along with Cassie and Josh, George, Nikki, and Liz. Mary had decided to stay for a few days until another group of us went back. Sarah had to leave to go back to Chicago but planned to be back each weekend for Saturday night. As everyone was packing up to hit the road, the whole younger clan came to say goodbye to me.
“Patrón,” Leonard said. The girls were pushing him forward. Apparently, he’d been elected spokesperson. “We all want to thank you for inviting us to El Rancho del Corazón this weekend. We love our clan and we don’t want to lose you when you all move away.”
“Leonard, you are all part of our clan. We aren’t just going to leave and forget about you. Whenever there is something happening here at El Rancho del Corazón, you are invited.”
“That’s what we wanted to ask you about,” he continued. “We’re all sixteen or seventeen. Well, Pam will be sixteen next month. We wondered, if we got permission from our parents, if we could spend the summer here with you and help remodel the barn. We all want to help.”
I choked. Crap. They were still all smaller than us—well, than everyone else in the older clan. A couple of them were taller than me. But they could help if I could get Ron to agree and get some money together. I couldn’t speak because of the lump in my throat.
“What Brian’s trying to say and can’t, is that we’d love it if you came for the summer,” Rose said. I looked gratefully at her. “We can’t pay anyone. And if this all pans out, we’re going to be working our buns off. But tell your folks that you won’t need food money. We’ll feed you. If you decide to go into town, what you do there will be on your own nickel. But as long as you can live in tents with us, we want you here with us.”
“That goes for us, too, Brian,” Cassie said. “Our summer jobs are just meant to keep us out of trouble, which we’re getting into anyway.” We all laughed. “If the project is approved, we’re coming down to help.”
“Lamar and Lionel are in basketball camp, like Sora and Whitney,” Sugar said. “But Rich and Renee and I are in. We’ll be here every day.”
“You guys are too much,” I said. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
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