was a willing student. After her summer of love, as she called it, Donna used sex to control her world.
Mike and Donna walked to his truck without talking. She felt this guy was ripe and knew just how to pluck him out of his tree. He opened the door for her and she held out her hand for him to help her in. She knew he had to feel like he was protecting her, like she was a real lady and expected to be treated like one. She could see right through him - this guy was a real boy scout.
She watched him move around the truck and get in. As he started the engine, she said, “If I had given you my phone number, you would have called and cancelled. After that, I would have never seen you again. Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”
He was surprised. “How did you know that?”
“Mike, I can read you like a book. That’s why I didn’t give you my phone number.” She lifted up the fold down divider on the seat and moved over beside him. “Does this make you nervous?”
He could smell her perfume and feel her sexuality. It had been a very long time since he’d been alone with a woman. “Yes. But I think I like it.”
“Good. Like I said, I won’t bite until you’re ready. However, I am told I’m very good at it.” She looked at him and, even though it was dark, she saw him blush and laughed. “I’m only messing with you, Mike.”
She directed him to a restaurant with a back deck extending over the Sacramento River. The spring evening was cool but not cold. There was a freestanding gas fireplace on the deck and smoking torches to keep away the river’s bug population. They ate baked salmon and drank wine and talked about many things. She could sense him growing more and more comfortable and turned on the personality. They watched the moon progress across the night sky and listened to the crickets and frogs mix with the mood music from the deck speakers. She didn’t push sex, sensing he wasn’t ready. She just let the evening play out and made sure he had fun. She could do that – it was easy. When he walked her to her door, she kissed him once to see his reaction. Then she kissed him again and gently pushed her tongue inside his mouth. She was going to ask when he could see her again when he beat her to it.
“Can I take you out again?”
“I was just about to ask you the same question.”
He smiled. “Wow. I did pretty well tonight, huh?”
She turned and unlocked her door. “You did great, pal. Tell me when and I’ll be ready.”
They decided to have lunch the next day, a Sunday. They went to the Hard Rock Café on the Downtown Mall and had a couple of excellent steaks. They walked around the Mall and talked. She sometimes put her arm through his and sometimes put her fingers in his back pocket. They even held hands.
When he took her home, they made a date for the following Saturday night. She felt confident that she could get him to have sex with her, or, if not the next date, then the next. When she could do that, she was positive he would be hers. After all, no man stood a chance against her.
Chapter 5
The following Saturday, Willie ‘the Hawk’ Hawkins stepped into the ring for the fifth round. It was an informal bout with his best friend at the YMCA downtown. He looked across at Mike Valentine, the sweat on Mike’s broad chest making him look even more powerful, if that was possible. Mike used to be on the SWAT team with Willie until he lost his eardrum. Even if Mike had been hurt, he was still the toughest man Willie ever faced. He was just a stand-up, come-at-you Irishman with granite for muscles and jackhammers for fists. Willie the Hawk loved to fight Mike because it made him improve. Willie could have been a professional heavyweight but instead chose a career in law enforcement. The two men had been friends since they met as kids in Golden Gloves. He had never beaten Mike, but he had never lost to him, either. They were well matched. Very few White men ever gave Willie trouble in the ring. But nobody, Black, White, or any color, had ever given him trouble like Irish Mike Valentine.
The bell rang and they came out and touched gloves. There was never any ego between them - no anger ever surfaced. They were fighters in the ring and friends always. As they started circling each other, Willie threw some jabs and connected on the first one. On the last jab, Mike followed Willie’s left back and countered to his ribs. Then he moved in with a left, right, left, right. Willie rolled away from him. He didn’t want to get into a slugfest with Mike Valentine. He was quicker than Mike, but Mike could out-punch him. Mike could out-punch anybody. He’d seen Mike alternate a hundred push-ups and twenty-five pull-ups four times back to back, skip robe for twenty minutes, and then spar ten three-minute rounds. Nobody was in shape like Irish Mike.
Willie kept circling to his left, knowing that if Mike had a weakness, it was moving to his left. Mike blasted out jabs to stop him. Willie slipped most of them, but the last one connected and rung his bell. Mike sensed weakness and moved in for the kill. Willie tied him up to give himself time for his head to clear.
“You all right?” asked Mike.
“I’m fine, White boy. It ain’t over yet.”
He heard Mike laugh. That was a going joke in the gym, a heavyweight White boy who could really fight.
The referee came in and broke them up. Willie launched a vicious attack straight at Mike. Willie was the quickest man Mike had ever fought, and a solid right hand landed on the side of Mike’s head. Mike buckled a little and Willie increased the pressure, thinking he really had Mike this time. But Mike slipped and countered with a vicious left hand to the body that would have cracked the rib of a lesser man.
The round continued in punishing but controlled techniques. Both men landing punches and both men taking them. When the bell finally rung, they embraced and congratulated each other.
“You just keep getting better, Willie, no matter how old you get.”
“Who you calling old, Valentine? I’m in my prime.”
There was still applause as they left the ring and Greta came running up to Mike. She had asked her father if she could watch her friend box and he had consented. Ludmilla thought it would be too violent for her but Greta talked her into it.
“Mike, Mike, are you hurt?”
He leaned over to her and smiled. “Yes. This mean man beat me up something fierce.”
She smiled, knowing he was teasing. Her parents stood behind her.
Mike stood up. “Rolf and Ludmilla Hermann, this is my best friend and former SWAT lieutenant, Willie Hawkins.”
Willie had his gloves off but his hands were still wrapped. He shook hands anyway.
“These are my neighbors and good friends,” said Mike. He patted Greta gently on the back of her head. “And this is my little buddy, Greta.”
Willie kneeled down and extended his hand. “Hello, Greta. I’ve heard good things about you.”
She smiled. “Are you a real policeman?”
“I am.”
“Wow,” she said. She turned to her parents and said in Russian, “A real American policeman!”
Willie looked confused and Ludmilla laughed and explained. “She is very impressed that you are a real American policeman.”
Rolf spoke. “And I am very impressed with the boxing I just saw. Both of you are exceptional. I boxed at the university but I was nothing like you. It was a pleasure to watch both of you.”
“Thank you,” said Willie. He motioned to Mike. “This is one guy I have never been able to beat.”
Mike smiled. “Oh, I don’t know about that. My body always feels like I get the worst of it.”
“That’s not what my ribs are telling me.”
“Well,” said Ludmilla. “We must take our little Greta home and feed her. And you have a big date tonight with a beautiful lady. So, we will see you tomorrow