Triptych
Forty-three
ALLIE TOOK HER SECOND OPPONENT fifteen-five and fifteen-zero. The poor gal didn’t stand a chance. Not only was Allie winning, she was piling up a point spread that would be hard to beat, even if there was a tie. She stayed to watch Lissa and me struggle against our second round opponents from Wisconsin. We won by two points in straight games, but we were plenty worried. It felt like they were on the same wave-length that we were. What great energy. We showered and I fed Lissa a light lunch. Before her first Open match, Melody and I cornered her and molested her until she could hardly breathe. Lissa came out with a two straight victories against a Korean competitor by four and by ten. We kissed Melody and headed for the showers as Melody headed back for our clothing display.
“We have to iron!” Melody exclaimed.
“What? What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I’m talking about the fact that Lissa and I only got seventy-five outfits ironed on Monday and we’re down to twenty on the rack. We need outfits for people to buy tomorrow. We’re increasing sales every day someone wears one of our outfits onto the court—win or lose. We need to iron more.”
“Do we need to have Amy ship us more?” Lissa asked.
“No. I think we have enough stock and it’s okay if we sell out on the last day. Amy and Kate are filling orders at night from our website. We’re selling almost as well online as we are live!” Melody said.
“Well, I know how to iron,” Allison said. “Geez! What a girl will do to get laid!”
“You’re doing enough on the court,” Melody said. “Everyone is reeling from the new Division A Lady from Kansas State. You sell as many outfits as Lissa does.”
“Well, if we need to iron, we’d better get going so we don’t spend all our tease time. It’s my night with Allison!” Lissa crowed.
“Oh god! I just started dripping. I need to go mess someone up on the court, right damn now,” Allie said.
She did mess someone up the next morning. The girl who faced Allie didn’t stand a chance in straight skunks. She never scored a point.
“Fuck, girl. I’m glad you aren’t competing in Open Division,” Lissa said. It was our semi-finals day for Mixed Doubles and we were on our way to meet the top-ranked pair from Ontario. After that match, Lissa would have three hours of recovery time before her quarter-finals round in Women’s Open. Allison sidled up against Lissa outside the locker room before she went in to shower and change.
“You’re the first one I want on Sunday when this is over and we can come,” Allison growled at Lissa. “I want to bury my face in your pussy and eat you until the Ice Queen melts.” She glanced at me. “While you pump my snatch with your cock.”
That was enough to put Lissa and me on edge for our match and we played like one person. We were so in synch that when I hit a spike, Lissa hit the floor before I’d finished my swing. The ball sailed an inch over her head and dribbled onto the floor before the Canadians could react. From that point on, they were on the defensive and never caught us. We won by three and by eight.
I’d just come out of the men’s locker room and was feeling pretty hot. I was semi-erect and couldn’t wait to rub up against Lissa’s pussy before her match. She was taking extra time to cool down and stay limber before her match this evening, so I figured I’d go up and help Melody and Allison in the booth until she was ready for me.
“Tony Ames,” a voice whispered. It came from the alcove where Lissa and I had made out. I spun and looked into the shadows.
“Tony, can I talk to you for just a minute? Please?” There was something about the voice that I recognized. The face was hidden in shadows, but the guy was scrawny. When he reached out his hand toward me, I almost dove back into the locker room. It was like the bony hand of death reaching out to clutch me. “Please.” The voice rasped.
“Yeah,” I said, harshly. “What do you want? Who are you?”
“It’s me, Harold Anderson,” he said. “Melody’s father.”
Shit! The guy was a shadow of the man I met last spring. I thought back to when I saw him in July and realized he’d been thinner than in May, but nowhere near what he was now.
“Mr. Anderson. Are you okay?”
“You’ve got to help me, Tony. Please. You’re my only hope.”
Who am I? Obi-Wan?
“What do you need, Mr. Anderson?”
“I want to… want to see my daughter. I’ve made such a crock of things. I just want to see my little girl and tell her that it’s all right. I was so stupid, Tony. I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Hey. You know Melody loves you. Come on up to the lobby with me. She’ll be thrilled to see you.”
“Not like this. She won’t even know me. That’s why I need your help. We talk every week or two, but she doesn’t know I look like this.”
“What’s happened, Mr. A?”
“I’m dying, Tony.”
I had too much to process all at once. I was in the middle of a tournament. Lissa was about to face a new challenger in the quarter finals of the Women’s Open. Melody was up in the lobby selling sportswear and Allison had just joined her after the last match. Now here was Melody’s father, telling me he was dying. Fuck!
I had to think fast. There was nothing so important as getting Melody and her father together. I had to come up with something fast.
“All right, listen to me,” I said harshly. “If you are fucking with me, you are going to wish you were only dying. You are here right in the middle of the most significant thing Melody and Lissa and I have done since we met. Our whole business is on the line, not just Lissa’s title. But there is nothing… do you hear me?… nothing more important to me than family. My family and my family’s family.”
“I promise, Tony…”
“I don’t need promises. Do you know the coffee shop in the Hilton lobby?” He nodded. “Go there. Just find a table and wait. When you see Melody, make sure she sees you and comes to you. It’s going to take me half an hour. You’ve got that long, don’t you?”
“The doctors say soon, but I should be able to last at least half an hour,” he chuckled. “Tony? I know you don’t like me and I don’t blame you. I’m an ass. But thank you.”
“I hope you can still say thank you after you’ve met with Melody.”
Melody and Allison were selling like crazy. There were no changing rooms, but people were buying the outfits as quickly as Allison could hang them up.
“Hey, Tony!” I spun around. What now?
“Karl? Hey man. How you doing?”
“I’m just preparing to get creamed in the quarter-finals tonight. My first Pro tournament and I’m not going to make the finals. Or even the semis,” he laughed.
“That’s a hell of an attitude,” I said. “Why so certain?”
“Luck of the draw. I’ve got Lauerman in the quarters. Man, he is in a whole different league than you and me.” Karl Higgendorfer included me in the same league as he was! Shit!
“So you’re really just hanging out?”
“Yeah. Want to go practice?”
“I need something else. You know how to run a credit card?”
“Look, Allison. I’ve got a new strategy that I’m going to spring on Lissa. It’s only going to work once and this is it. I want you to go to the locker room and find her.”
“Now? You want me to go tease her now?”
“I want you to go and tell her that I decided the best way to keep her on edge is if I don’t show up. Yes, I want you to tease her. I want you to get her right to a peak. I want you to tell her I’ll be waiting for her when she comes home victorious. Anything you need to do to get her head in the game the way yours has been the last three days. Can you do that?”
“Oh, Tony! It’s going to be a pleasure!” She took off at a run to the locker room.
“What’s that all about, Tony?” Melody asked. “I could really use the help.”
“I’ve got more help for you. You’ve never met Karl Higgendorfer, have you?”
“Oh my god! I mean, you are like a god! Oh wow!”
“Take it easy. You know Karl and I compete in a lot of areas, but I’d rather not compete against him for you,” I laughed.
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Melody. You really did these fabric designs? Way cool. Makes me wish I was a woman.”
“Um… hang in there. We’ll be coming out with Ice Queen for Men next spring,” she said.
“We will?” I asked. I hadn’t heard about that plan.
“Not Ice King?” he asked.
“Hey, no one would believe there was such a thing as an ice king. And every man wants to wear something the Ice Queen touched.”
“Okay. I’m there. Where’s the price list? Show me a transaction.”
In ten minutes, I had Melody away from the booth and Karl was charming the pants onto every woman who passed the booth.
“What’s going on, Tony? I mean, Karl is nice and is going to make some sales, but I should be there.”
“I’ll take care of the business for the rest of the day, darling. Listen. Something has come up that only you can take care of. You’ve got to listen closely, Melody.”
“Tony, when have I ever not…?”
“Shh. Your father is here.”
“He’s what? Now?”
“Honey, trust me on this. You need to go talk to him. Oh, Melody. You know how I feel about family.”
“I have a family.”
“And your family all has family, including you. Sweetheart, you need to go talk to him. God! I wish there was some easier way to say this.” I know I had tears in my eyes and Melody was beginning to focus on them. I could see terror building up. “Melody, your dad’s been really, really sick. He’s been hiding it from you and your mom. He desperately needs to see his little girl and tell her that he loves her.”
Melody threw herself at me and buried her face against my chest.
“Why now?” she cried. “Why does this have to be now?”
“There’s never has a convenient time for this. I’m so sorry.”
Karl and I sat and chatted together in the booth for a couple of hours as I kept looking up at the boards where they were posting results as they came in. He was in his first term of Med School and figured that the Opens was his last hurrah on the competitive circuit for a while. School was heating up and he wasn’t going to have time to even practice, let alone compete.
He noticed that I was distracted and that I nearly came out of my seat when they posted the women’s Open quarter-final results.
“Hey, the Ice Queen is your coach, isn’t she?” he said.
“Yeah. And my lover,” I answered. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist saying that. She won her match. Oh, hell!”
“No shit? Congratulations. Uh… maybe I shouldn’t be here when she gets back.”
“Why? Don’t you want to meet her?”
“Well. I sort of met her last October when I was competing in Men’s Open. She kinda… uh… shot me down.”
“Were you trying to put the make on the Ice Queen?” I laughed.
“I was afraid you’d slug me,” he said. “Damn! She is just so unbelievably beautiful. I couldn’t help myself.”
“You and about a hundred others, from what I’ve heard. She got pretty good at shutting guys down.”
“But you?”
“Don’t ask me how. I’m still recovering. You should see us play in mixed doubles.”
“I wondered what you were doing here since I didn’t see your name on the singles roster. Mixed with Lissa?”
“Killer, man.”
“I’ll catch your next match before I head back to Baltimore.”
“You bastard!” Lissa screamed at me when she and Allison arrived in the lobby. The kiss she floored me with, though, was anything but angry. Literally. I was on the floor behind our table with Lissa on top of me as Karl faced off with Allison.
“All-i-son?” I heard him say. “What did you do now?”
We sat in our room. None of us had anything to say. Allison and Lissa kept ironing outfits as I hung them on hangers for display tomorrow. I’d stopped long enough in the lobby to verify that Melody and her father were still in the café. But we didn’t disturb them. We ordered a light meal from room service and then started ironing.
Lissa had nailed her opponent in the quarter finals. Allison had been right there to keep her focused and it worked like a charm. None of us was happy that neither Melody nor I could see her performance, but we got another surge of business at the booth after their match and stuck around to watch Karl get clobbered in his match. He was up against the top pro competitor in the world who had won the title three years running. Karl took it in good humor and played a heck of a game. But, as he said, “Every time you level up you start from the bottom.”
We’d been pretty somber since dinner and it was after eight already with no word from Melody. I was beginning to worry that Harold had kidnapped her and left town. Yeah, I’ve got an active imagination. We hadn’t been teasing each other much, though I tried to give little touches to Lissa and Allison when I passed and they did the same. Low-key only begins to describe it.
The door opened and we looked up to see Melody walk in. She leaned against it as it closed and kept sinking until she sat on the floor with her back against the door. Once she was fully down, the dam burst and she began crying inconsolably.
Lissa and I almost fell over each other trying to get to her. I hope we have better coordination than that on the court. We managed to get down next to Melody and both of us held her tightly in our arms as we rocked back and forth. Allison quietly put away the ironing and hung the remainder of the outfits as we sat rocking back and forth.
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