Klick's Shorts. Milam Smith

managed to pick it up right before the blow landed, but it still caught me. If my leg had been planted the kick would have blown my knee out.

      He kept coming at me.

      I stopped, slapped his punches away, blocked his kicks by raising my knees. A flurry of punches and kicks. A slew of blocks. I didn’t counter for a few seconds, enjoying the ‘pak’ feeling.

      Finally I countered, a back fist landing hard on his nose. He stepped back, his hands still flying at me. I waited, then countered with a move, sliding in and giving him a roundhouse knee into to his ribs. He grunted and stepped back. His punches slowed and his kicks stopped. I countered again, a back fist, then an uppercut. Again Cha Yu was forced back. Then I gave him three counters. He backed up.

      Now I was the aggressor. I was punching and kicking, he blocking. Except his blocks were ineffective or late, and his face began to turn red from the blows. Welts began to rise on his legs.

      I caught him with a low round kick to the side, re-cocked and snapped my foot into his head. A good roundhouse muy Thai kick that brought me all the way around and spun Cha Yu around about three times.

      When he stopped spinning he shook his head. His eyes turned into black holes and he screamed and charged.

      “Uh oh,” I said. I waited ‘til the last second and then showed him ‘the trick’, a favorite move. All fighters have a technique or punch or kick or move that is their favorite because it is the best thing they may have in their repitoire. It could be a hook, an overhand right, an uppercut.

      I stepped into Cha Yu as he threw his punch, a stiff right that he cocked like a golfer winding up for the swing. I spun completely around, my right leg rising, knee-to-chest. Just when I had turned 360 I leaned back, my head almost touching the ground. My right leg shot straight up, the heel of my foot slamming into Cha Yu just as his punch reached full extension. Just as his head and chin came as far forward behind the punch as possible, all his weight there behind the punch.

      Snap your fingers. It was that quick.

      There was a crack and a grunt. Cha Yu’s feet came completely off the ground. His forward momentum was stopped with my heel. His body spun out from under him and when his back hit the ground it sounded like a bag of sand falling from ten stories. Except instead of the sound of sand spilling the noise was his breath as it burst from his lungs.

      Chan was already there. He’d seen it coming. He was no stranger to my spinning back kick.

      “That was rude,” Chan said. “This guy came all the way from Korea to meet you, and this is how you treat him.”

      “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little tense.”

      The girls giggled. I turned. They stood right behind me, wearing only the water dripping from their…well, let’s just say dripping.

      They weren’t girls, really. Women. Huh.

      Chan scooped up Cha Yu and stood there, gazing from me to the ladies. “I promised these gals,” Chan said in his best Texas twang, “a good time, so you’ll have to ‘fill’ in for me the best you can.”

      “I’ve seen you naked, remember. You mean ‘overfill’ don’t you?”

      Chan smiled. “Why Clyde, so crude! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

      I pushed him towards the door, slipping the tank-top off with my other hand, the delicate fingers of the ladies helping me. “You better get him something to bring him around.”

      “Clyde, this just isn’t like you. But…I like it. Hell, you’re almost human.”

      He laughed as the door shut behind him. I turned towards the tub, a woman on each arm, giggling like sillies. The stripped my shorts off, then the pads on my shins and feet. Their ivory fingers danced up my legs, my sides….

      We climbed into the tub.

      Then something came over me I hadn’t felt in a long time. A very long time. It was a heat that could only be cooled one way, and that way wasn’t with a cold shower or a good fight.

      Well, in this case there were two ways. One was named Sue and the other was Rachel. Very un-Korean names.

      Hell, what’s in a name, anyway.

      Later, much later, Sue and Rachel rose gingerly from the tub. They stalked to the windows facing the city and stood there, water dripping and pooling on the floor.

      I heard the door open behind me and Vicki entered the room. She was wearing a blazing jade kimono - very un-Chinese - that was cut short, almost to her, uh, the top of her legs. The color of the kimono contrasted sharply with the whiteness of her limbs and face.

      She carried several towels.

      Vicki walked over to the other two women. She set the towels aside, except for one, which she took and used to dry off Sue and Rachel. Then they each took a towel. Squatting down they mopped the floor. When they had finished the came over to the tub, took me by my hands and led me out of the tub. They led me over to Vicki. She picked up another towel and dried me. Sue and Rachel left.

      Vicki pulled me down to the floor, laid me flat on my stomach. Then she pulled a bottle of oil from the last towel. She rubbed me down as I looked out at the darkness, the lights of the city twinkling like stars.

      “So, I see you met my cousins?”

      The only answer I could muster was an “Uhm.”

      Her kneading had lulled me almost into sleep. Then the motion of her hands, their pulling and pinching, became different. My skin became invigorated. My muscles flowed with fresh blood. The way her hands danced over me filled me with that feeling again.

      She stopped. I raised up on an elbow, expectant.

      Vicki smiled. With a delicate tug her kimono slid off. She held up the bottle of oil.

      “My turn,” she said, as she lay down on her belly. I let the oil slowly drip out in select spots on her body. Her eyes looked up at me in the darkness, the only light that of the life of the city outside. “So, your are skillful in ways other than fighting,” she said.

      We paused a moment, then both of us laughed at how that sounded. Finally, I began the rub. The energy she had given me seemed to feed into her as I worked my hands over her body. Finally she turned over.

      Again I lay the oil down and drips. Then I rubbed. Then the rubbing stopped as her body began to curl and twitch. Our arms became entangled as we groped and pulled…

      A long time later we lay together, her spooned in front of me looking out at the city. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to.

      Time slipped by. Vicki said, “Chan said your were a little stressed when he left.” She paused. “So, you still stressed?”

      I nibbled her shoulder, down into her neck.

      “Stressed,” I said, right as I turned her face to mine, “isn’t the word for it.”