The Strongman
13
It’s All New
MY TIME WAS my own now. I could really focus on my individual routines. Well… and massage. I was definitely too far into my training to back out of that. According to Coach Dawson, he was planning to book massages every morning so I wouldn’t be practicing much in the a.m. Massage was proving to be one of the top selling services offered at the gym.
Jennifer no longer felt it was necessary to be in the room with me for every massage, which made me proud, but was also a little scary. I didn’t really know most of the people I was working on. We usually had a brief sit-down and talk session before their first massage, but mostly that was to get them used to me and to find out if there were any special needs, injuries, or sore spots.
My increased massage schedule meant I was finally earning a dependable income. Since I was still new at it, Coach sold the sessions for $50 an hour. I got paid $25 per hour-long massage. It was a real bargain. I had three and sometimes four each morning. Up to $100 a day in income. That would go up eventually.
I knew Madison was going to want more training time with me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend time on being a base instead of doing my own thing. And dealing with her coach wasn’t conducive to a good relationship.
There were so many things up in the air at the moment that I really needed to talk to my family. I headed home on Sunday.
“I wondered if we were going to see you here again,” Mom said when I came in for Sunday lunch. “I know you’ve been back because you didn’t have enough clothes with you to stay forever. And all your toiletries are gone.”
“I let you know where I was,” I defended myself.
“Yes. That was all we asked,” Dad said.
“My little brother has a lover!” Mikey exclaimed, grabbing my hands and dancing around. “He isn’t a virgin anymore.”
“You’re making assumptions,” I growled. “And I’m your older wiser brother, not your little brother.”
“And what makes you wiser than me?” Mikey teased.
“I only have one lover and intend to keep it that way.”
“Ouch! I’m just trying to find the right guy.”
“Come and eat,” Mom said. “Tell us all about this week.”
“Well, we’ve spent nearly the entire week at Target Center. It was good to watch the competition and Tara got a bunch of requests for information on becoming a coach. I think she’s going to end up with a few students. That’s cool. We’ve been so tired after the day that we’ve just gone back to her place to collapse and start over the next morning.”
“Pooh!” Mikey interjected.
“And stuff,” I sighed, causing her to grin.
“As long as you are both okay and being careful, we don’t need to know about the stuff,” Dad said. “Is everything okay with her?”
“Yeah. You saw the review Wednesday?”
“They seemed to like you,” he nodded.
“Mostly. The thing is, they also pronounced the end of her gymnastics career. While praising her recovery and her courage and the example she has set for recovering gymnasts, the guy also basically said she’d never be a real gymnast again. That hit pretty hard.”
“Is that what led to you spending the night?” Mom asked.
“No. We didn’t read the article until the next day. I think we always wanted it to work out that way. She’s so sweet and loving.”
“A big responsibility,” Dad said. “I understand she has recovered to the point where she might no longer need a full-time caretaker, but she still has special needs.”
“Yeah. That’s one of the things we need to figure out. Her apartment is a little crowded with three of us in it. I don’t think I can just stay there. And having me there might impact the terms of her lease negatively. It’s an assisted living complex. It was fine with her and Jennifer because Jennifer was a full-time caregiver. I don’t think I qualify.”
“Well, we could certainly make some accommodations here,” Mom said. “But wherever you decide to live, you’ll need to start sharing in the expense.”
That was one of the big issues. My income at the gym probably wouldn’t cover half of Tara’s rent. And Mom and Dad had been up front all along about supporting me through high school and my competition. I couldn’t expect to live at home for free either.
“You aren’t making me pay to live at home,” Mikey insisted.
“You are not yet eighteen,” Dad said, scowling at her. “And you have an internship that doesn’t pay well.”
“Paul is training for a career.” Mikey was pushing a little hard and I patted her hand to get her to calm down.
“How is your training going?” Mom asked.
“Good. I’ve got about a hundred hours or so left before I can take the certification test. Jennifer has been great about keeping a log of my time and coursework. Usually, I have one session a day when she’s in the room and quizzing me on some aspect of massage or the human body. She had me recite the muscles as I rubbed them. The next day she had me recite the names of all the bones.”
“Are you earning anything from your massage work?”
“A little. It’s pretty cheap because I’m not certified yet, and the gym keeps half of what people pay for a massage. I only get about $25 each,” I said. “I talked to Jennifer about all the time she’s spent teaching me. I haven’t paid her a cent—and neither has the gym.”
“That doesn’t seem right. You have some educational funds available. Get her to tabulate the bill,” Dad said.
“That’s just it. When I talked to her, she said I didn’t really understand their whole relationship with the gym. She knew I wasn’t being compensated for any of my work with either Tara or Madison. When Tara and Jennifer negotiated training at the gym, they paid for their gym time, therapy time, my time, and other miscellaneous fees. She said she was of the opinion that as long as I agreed to it, she could use my time as she pleased.”
“They paid the gym to have you work with Tara?” Mikey exclaimed.
“Yeah. And the gym never even talked to me about it. All my conversation was with Tara asking me if I’d work with her. I was pretty enthusiastic about saying yes,” I laughed.
“That still doesn’t sound like a very ethical thing for the gym to do,” Mom said.
“The thing is, there have been hints that Madison paid the gym for my time, too. I’m not really happy about that because I felt coerced into working with her. I don’t know what I’ll do about that. I mean, I learned a lot working with Tara and I know I could improve Madison’s and my performance. I’ll keep working with her for a while and see if we can work out a balance that allows me to go back to work on my own apparatus routines and get ready for competition this fall and nationals next year.”
“What’s next in life?” Mom asked.
“I don’t really know. Part of why I wanted to be here for lunch today is to talk that out. It’s like everything for the past few years has been leading up to this week. Now I need to figure out the whole meaning of life in a day or two.”
“Good luck with that,” Mikey snorted.
I started laying out the pros and cons of my options. I was especially confused over how committed I was to continuing as Madison’s base in acrobatic gymnastics and how to allocate enough time to what I loved in artistic gymnastics with what I needed to put in for massage. I already had a partner waiting to be my top. And if I started working with Madison more, Tara had already said she’d help coach and choreograph. There was little Tara could do with me when I was working on the pommel horse or stationary rings.
Then I had the classes and coaching that I was doing at the gym. I really liked working with the little kids and teaching them how to roll and tumble. And even though I only had one class a week, it paid pretty well. I could probably pick up more of that, but it would conflict with my massage time or my training time.
Of course, in the background was how to most effectively make Tara’s and my life together work.
Tara and I had begun that talk a couple of times, usually just before we fell asleep after making love at night. As a result, we hadn’t gotten very far. We were going to have to dedicate some daylight hours to the conversation. I thought perhaps we were moving a little too fast by having me spending every night with her. She hadn’t really invited me to move in.
But I sure loved being there.
“Um… We’re kind of in a new phase of our relationship,” I started at dinner Monday.
“Yes. We’re lovers. Are you happy?” Tara asked when we sat down.
“Unbelievably happy. I never had a notion of how truly wonderful it would be. I love you, Tara.”
“And I love you. But that’s not why you started this conversation. I can tell.”
“Yeah. Well… um… New in something I have no experience with. I don’t know what the… I don’t know… rules are?” I ventured.
“Rules? Do we need a tariff sheet?”
“No. I just don’t know how it all works.”
“Okay. Rule 1: Don’t fuck Madison.”
“Oh, God no! That isn’t even… No way!”
“Or anyone else but me. Okay?”
“Of course that’s okay. There’s never been anyone but you. Ever.”
“I know. I was sort of teasing. But I do want you all to myself.”
“Agreed.”
“What else?” she asked.
“Well… um… Did you want me to move in with you? Or to move in with me?” I asked.
“Oh! Wow! We have been spending a lot of time here, haven’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“How do I put this? Uh… Even though our lives overlap more completely than other couples, we do have lives apart from each other, right?” she asked.
I grabbed a sheet of paper and drew two overlapping circles on it.
“What’s that?”
“Venn Diagram. Mom made me draw one after lunch on Sunday. You’re this circle and I’m this circle. Some things we have in common. Um… Like being pairs partners and um… making love.”
“Yeah. That is definitely in this area,” Tara laughed pointing at the overlap.
“Then we each have things the other isn’t exactly part of. Like, for me, learning massage. We overlap when you get a massage from me.”
“Which we might want to do here instead of the gym next time. I have ideas.”
“I like the sound of that. But at the moment, my home is over here and your home is over there. We don’t share a residence,” I said.
“Gotcha. And don’t think I’m trying to maintain distance from you or something bizarre, but I think for now we should keep it that way. We’re in this part when we visit each other’s home, but we live in these parts,” she said. “Before you say anything, let me explain. My apartment here is in assisted living. Since I moved here, I’ve continued to get stronger. I’ve had Jennifer with me, but she needs a break now and then. Bob is pretty understanding and he doesn’t come here to spend the night. But Jennifer goes to his house once or twice a week. If I need something, I have a call button that will bring a staff person to me fast. I am technically not allowed to shower alone. I think that will change soon because I’m so much more stable these days. Except after we make love. I swear the muscles in my legs turn to jelly. But you’re here then.”
“I understand, and that was one of the things I was concerned about. I know a lot about your body and want to learn more, but I certainly don’t know all the things you need help with or the things you want me to keep my hands off of,” I laughed.
“I don’t mind where your hands are now,” she whispered as she leaned over to kiss me. I stroked up and down her bare thigh. I didn’t mind, either.
“Also, there’s the privacy issue,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Like, I’m always a little embarrassed when Jennifer catches me coming out of your room. I know it’s the same when you visit my house. I mean, my parents’ house. They’d welcome you there, but it’s still a little strange to me that they know I have this beautiful girl in my room and the door is shut and anything they imagine we might be doing probably falls short of what we’re really doing.”
“I can take it in small doses, but I don’t think I could live with it.”
“Same.”
“So, let’s plan on spending time together at one of our homes to do all those unimaginable things and spend the night, but let’s not make a formal declaration of living together. I’d like you to leave a toothbrush and a change of clothes here, so you don’t have to rush home just because you need something, but otherwise, don’t move all your precious items—medals and diplomas and model airplanes and stuff—over here. I’ll do the same with you. A couple changes of underwear and my overnight bag at your place so if we’re watching a movie late at night, we don’t have to close everything down and go home.”
“I don’t have any model airplanes,” I said, puzzled.
“It was just an example of boy stuff,” she giggled.
“Oh. But you should have things you might need… um… like tampons or stuff… at my house. I know that’s girl stuff, but it’s living necessities, not options.”
“So kind of you.”
By this time, we were kissing as much as we were talking. Dinner was forgotten. No matter what our living arrangements turned out to be in the future, it was the first time we really started talking about having a future together. It was pretty damn sexy.
I left the Venn diagram on the table and picked Tara up to carry her to the bedroom.
One of the things we discovered pretty quickly was that our schedules were significantly different. I had to be at the gym by 7:30 in the morning to be ready for my first massage client. Sometimes they scheduled one even earlier. I was used to being at the gym early because I always did a workout before school. There was no way to get a workout in before I started with massage clients. Some of the kids had training starting as early as six-thirty. Their parents were frequently my clients.
Tara didn’t rise so quickly in the morning. Jennifer started working with her physical therapy about nine. I was happy to see that even though Tara said she was retiring from gymnastics, she was still working on all the moves and exercises. Sometimes we did a little together, but we weren’t really practicing a pairs routine. About one o’clock, after I’d had a bite to eat, I was demanded by Madison and Coach Daniels.
Daniels pointed out there were competitions late in the summer and she wanted us ready for them. Everyone was focused on the Olympics in July and the small fall competitions weren’t getting much publicity. The good news for me was that Coach Daniels had attracted a couple of younger pairs and couldn’t spend all her time with Madison and me like she wanted to. We got our two-hour session and instructions on what to work on, then Coach was off to work with a poor ten-year-old waif and her burly fifteen-year-old base—both girls. The little one was quick, agile, and cute. I identified with the base, of course. She was a rock that the little girl climbed on, jumped on, jumped off of, and left exhausted.
I got some time to work on my apparatus routines, and then my sweet girlfriend spent an hour working with Madison and me. Coach Daniels had finally consented to use an ‘artistic’ coach and figured I’d respond well to Tara. I did. And our routine advanced. We actually got better at a lot of things, but especially getting in touch with each other emotionally. Nearly all the critiques of Madison and me as a team had cited our lack of connection and emotion. I was beginning to feel more relaxed about working with Madison without Coach Daniels yelling at us all the time.
I was ready for my first appointment on Friday morning late in July. The Olympics would begin that day and Tara and I planned to watch the opening ceremonies and parade of champions in my family’s home theater. For the most part, the past month had been good. I felt I was progressing with my artistic routines. I was nearing completion of my massage curriculum. Even Madison and I had made good progress on our mixed pairs routine. Mom and Dad weren’t collecting a huge amount of rent for my space in their home, but I was able to contribute.
That all changed when I opened the door of the massage room that Friday morning.
Madison lay on the table, completely naked and uncovered.
“I’m yours this morning,” she said smiling at me.
“No!” I practically yelled. I never let the door close behind me. “Absolutely not!”
I backed out of the room, closed the door, and headed for the front of the gym where Coach Dawson was looking at the day’s schedules.
“I will not take her as a client!” I shouted at him. “You have to get her out of the massage room. I won’t do it.”
“Whoa! What is wrong, Paul? You work with Madison every day. There shouldn’t be a problem with giving her a massage,” he said. I swear that I think my coach is sometimes more clueless than I am.
“She’s lying on the table completely naked without so much as a sheet covering her. It isn’t a massage that she wants,” I fumed. “That is completely against the rules.”
“Well, Paul, did you knock before you opened the door?”
“Of course. She said she was ready.”
“And you’re sure she didn’t just misunderstand how she was supposed to be covered?”
“You gave her the instructions. I didn’t even know who was on the schedule this morning.”
“Coach Daniels and I thought it would help the two of you connect if you worked on her as a massage therapist. Tara concurred. You’d learn how to communicate with each other better.”
“Oh, she communicated, all right. I’m having no part of it. That’s illegal!” I screamed.
“Really, Paul…”
“She isn’t even eighteen. If I’d gone into the room she could accuse me of anything. And whether the accusation stuck or not, I’d be ruined. If you think it’s all fine, you go in and massage her. I’m out of here.”
I didn’t bother to change clothes from my slacks and T-shirt that I worked in. I went straight to my car and drove away.
I drove around for an hour, ignoring the phone calls that were buzzing my phone non-stop. If this was the way my coach was going to try to get me to connect, I was through. I couldn’t believe Tara had thought I’d connect better with Madison if I massaged her. Jennifer would be upset to hear what had happened. Maybe I was over-reacting. I didn’t think so.
Madison had taken every opportunity to let me know she was available as more than an acrobatics partner. Why was it that everyone seemed to think my relationship with Tara was expendable in order to become a better pairs partner with Madison? I didn’t trust any of them.
I finally found a place to park near the rose garden at Lake Harriet and just answered the next call that came in.
“Hello.”
“Paul! Honey, are you okay?”
“How could you think that having me massage Madison would be a good idea?” I barked at Tara.
“I didn’t say that! Coach Daniels asked me if I thought having you work on me with Jennifer had improved our connection. I thought it had.”
“Jennifer never let me massage you without her present. Even that was hard enough. After we became lovers, I massaged you at your apartment and it was a kind of foreplay. I mean, I love just massaging you and would do it without any thought of having sex with you, but we do have sex after most of the time and it’s great. I walked into the massage room and Madison was just lying face-up on the table with nothing over her.”
“That slut!”
“I don’t know if I can even go back there.”
“I’ll talk to Jennifer about what happened. I know Coach Dawson and Coach Daniels have both been in touch with her about your ‘unprofessional conduct.’”
“Fuck them!”
“Don’t worry, honey. We’ll get it straightened out.”
I disconnected and continued to sit there in the parking lot as calls from Coach Dawson, Coach Daniels, and Madison continued to ring on my phone. When I saw Jennifer’s call, I answered again.
“Hello.”
“Paul, you should have stayed here to defend yourself. Did you assault Madison on the massage table?” Jennifer demanded.
“I didn’t even go into the room! When I saw her on the table, I backed out and just yelled, ‘No!’ Then I went to see Coach Dawson.”
“That’s what I thought. I’ve had an uneasy feeling about Madison and Coach Daniels for a while now. Like they might be looking for some leverage over you. I’m at the gym now and will settle things down here. Why don’t you come to the apartment… No. Better yet, go home. I’ll come there to meet with you. Take whatever time you need. I’ll be a couple of hours yet before I get there.”
“Jennifer, I really abide by the rules just like you taught me. I didn’t do anything to Madison.”
“I believe you, Paul.”
I got home a little before noon. I’d stopped and had a Big Mac and fries on the way. Really off my training diet. I didn’t care. I hardly remembered what they tasted like; it had been that long since the last time I had junk food.
I didn’t know what to do while I waited. I was always at the gym all day long. Being home alone in the middle of the day was strange. Even after eating, I decided to go back to some of my routines from when we were in lockdown.
I started with pushups. After a hundred, I switched to sit-ups. Then I did squats, vee-ups, and went back to pushups.
By that time, the lunch I’d eaten caught up with me and I ran to the bathroom to throw up. My body just wasn’t used to that measure of grease. I almost missed the doorbell ringing while I was in the bathroom.
I opened the door to admit Jennifer.
“It’s okay, Paul. When Tara got to the gym and confronted Madison, Madison admitted that she made up the story about you assaulting her. She definitely wanted more control over you. There was very nearly a catfight on the tumbling mats.”
I wanted to laugh at that thought, but Tara would have come out on the short end of that stick.
“I’m through, Jennifer. I’m not going back to work with her again. She’d just try something else,” I said. “All I want to do is work on my artistic routines and compete with those.”
“I don’t blame you for that. You’re a great base, and with the right partner, I think you’d go far. I don’t think Madison is the right partner.”
“She and her sister are both unbalanced,” I said. “Mentally. They’ve got pretty good physical balance.”
“Tara and I are leaving the gym. I told Dawson that if his facility wasn’t safe for the therapists as well as the clients, I didn’t think massage should be offered there,” Jennifer said.
“I agree. I just don’t know what I’m going to do for clients and training now,” I said. And massage had been most of my income since I graduated from high school. I really needed that.
“Well, for one thing, I’ll sign off on your hours and you can take the certification test. With a certificate, you can go to work most places in Minnesota. Offering massage is a big thing at most health clubs these days. And they pay better than what you’ve been earning.”
“It’s good for that part. Maybe I can find someplace else to train. I’ll have to look over the various clubs and see if I can find a new coach.”
“Tara will be looking for a place as well. She has two other teams besides you and Madison that she’s been working with, but most of her inquiries have been out of state.”
“You mean, you think you’ll be leaving?”
I was near panic. Tara leaving the state? What about us?
“I will be. I’ve been talking to Tara for quite a while now. She hasn’t really needed me much since she stopped training for a new routine. The physical therapy we do in the morning could be done by any competent therapist. She doesn’t really need a live-in caretaker any longer. Not one who’s a doctor of physical therapy, at least. You’ll have to talk to Tara about what she wants to do, but you really need to decide what you want to do.”
“Right now, I want to go to bed and hide under the covers. I can’t believe Coach just let Madison and Coach Daniels walk all over me.”
“Maybe she has something on him, too,” Jennifer chuckled.
With Madison’s actions that morning, I had to take that notion seriously.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
