The Contract Ch. 05

She responded, returning the embrace. Our lips locked and then opened to allow for a lingering French kiss. I closed my mind to everything around me, and felt her tongue exploring mine. Then, I heard sobbing.

We broke our kiss to find Mary collapsed against the wall of the shipping container, barely keeping herself upright. Sherri rushed over to her.

"Baby, it was only a kiss."

"No it wasn't, I'm losing you to him!"

"No Baby, I love you!"

"You can say that now, but after you have his child growing inside you, I'll never be able to compete!"

"But you will also have his child inside of you. We'll be connected by him."

"I know what you're saying, but the blood bond between you two will be stronger than the blood bond between us. I don't want to lose you Sherri! I won't be able to take it!"

Sherri supported Mary as she sobbed. "Paul, please. Find my purse, and bring it here."

I went to the van and brought back the purse. "Good, now hand me the black box."

I opened the purse, and retrieved a box.

Sherri straightened Mary up, and reached for the box. She went down on one knee, and opened the box. "I swear to you Mary, Paul and I will not happen. I want to be with you, for the rest of my life. Lala made these for us before she went out of town. Please take this ring, and be my wife.

"I don't know Sherri, I didn't know I could have such feeling for a woman as I do with you. This makes it real, but I'm still not sure you won't abandon me."

"But Mary, you do know that and that's what is important. I waited for you to come back when you went to Ben, and I'll be there forever if you'll just say yes. If sharing me is a problem, then we'll only use sperm samples. I'll never be with my sperm donor, if that's what you wish. I want us to become a family, and have children together."

Mary continued to sob.

"You don't have to say yes right now, but, please, take the ring. I won't bring up children and will concentrate on your happiness. You know I want children, but I want you more than that. You don't have to say yes, just take the ring. Let me prove that you are the most important person in my life."

Mary took the ring, and put it on her finger. Sherri removed the second ring, and put it on. They embraced. I had learned a lot last night, about being intimate with a lover. I felt humbled by the tenderness displayed between the two of them.

"Is that better?" Sherri asked. Mary nodded. Once again, I became a spectator, as they merged their souls into each other.

The rings were amazing. Sherri's sister was a master. A lily motif covered the base of the rings, with a floret extending up to hold the diamond.

They dropped me off at the hotel. It was early afternoon, and I still had one more thing to do. This would be my last night at the hotel. Tomorrow would be the start of my new life at the farm. My last act was to see how my golden Dojo membership would pan out.

I usually just paid my Kempo and Kendo fees, but the Gold membership covered all the different clubs at the dojo. I decided to take a 4 hour basic knife skills class. It started at three o'clock, and would last until seven. I showered and got ready.

***** *****

Knife skills my ASS! I know that this Dojo was a cultural center for the Japanese community in our town, but this was NOT what I had expected a basic knife skills class to be. Here I was standing with a pink apron on, cutting up Carrots, Onions, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes, and Mushrooms. There was one other guy in the class of twelve, and I felt out of place. Did I mention that this wasn't just a pink apron; this was a pink FRILLY apron!

To make matters worse, the owner's daughter was there, Ran Himaki, right next to me. She made me look like an incompetent fool. Of course, I had never actually HAD a cooking class. Don't get me wrong, with a microwave, I can cook up a bowl of instant Ramen noodles as well as the next guy. But I didn't see myself becoming an Iron Chef. This didn't seem to have much value to me.

The three lady instructors took the things we chopped and started mixing the ingredients. By six thirty, we were done, and cleaned up our work tables in the kitchen. We were then taken into the dining hall and served a meal made from the things we had chopped up. The hall was just that, a wide hallway with a series of tables against the outside wall. The hall had a series of picture windows all along the outside wall, giving a good view of the sculpted garden. The window faced west, towards Japan. There was a sweet potato soup, a salad, and a noodle pasta main course.

During the meal, I sat across from Ran. She was slightly taller than the other Japanese women in the class, and comported herself with grace. She was an herbalist, and ran the Pharmacy in the Dojo, offering traditional Japanese medicines to patrons. I knew that Ran was a few years younger than me, but I couldn't remember how many; And NO, I wasn't going to embarrass myself and pry.

"Mr. Beckson, I've heard that you are leaving."

"Miss Himaki, My wife and I are separating. I am just moving out of my house."

"I am sorry that you have to go through such an experience."

We didn't say much, we ate, drank tea, and watched the sunset from the dining hall. Ran excused herself, got up and came back. For most of the meal, we ate in silence and watched the sun go down. When the sun was one diameter away from the horizon, Ran showed me the items she had taken from the pharmacy.

"Mr. Beckson, I have some incense, and a luck charm for a safe journey. Would you care to come with me to the Shrine and pray for your new life?"

We went to the shrine, clapped, rang the bell, placed the charm near an altar, and lit the incense. Each of us bowed our heads, and then we sat just outside the shrine and finished watching the sunset. It was a tranquil way to end my marriage. I never cried, which many people would expect at a loss. I felt more like I was renewing myself. I breathed the cool autumn air, and smelled the scent of fallen leaves about me. The tension, which had come between Tonya and I, started to fall away from me, like I was a tree shedding leaves. Instead of leaves, I was shedding the endless arguments that Tonya and I had gotten into. Over the last three years, and maybe more, we had stopped communicating, and were simply defending our positions. I needed to let go before I would be able to move on.

After the sun had set, Ran went back and retrieved the charm that was placed next to the incense, and gave it to me. I thanked Miss Himaki for the charm, and drove back to the hotel. Considering the last four days of turmoil, I really needed an evening like this.

***** *****

After Paul left, Ran went back into the pharmacy. She removed all the white extra large aprons from the closet, and took them back into the kitchen. Paul had comported himself well during the knife skills workshop, even about wearing a pink frilly apron. She remembered him as a strong and peaceful man, and she had to know if he had changed. The gossip in the Himaki ladies bath was constant, and Ran only had to soak for a half hour to hear everything that was going on around town. She knew of the fight, and Paul losing his job. She also knew that he had asked the Kendo team to help him load up a U-Haul.

Ran met Paul when he joined the Dojo. Paul was a freshman in high school, and Ran was a 5th grader. She had slipped and fell that year, twisting her ankle on the way home from elementary school. Paul was on the way to the Dojo, and found her. She remembered the strong young man carrying her home. She was now 26 years old, a full grown woman.

She now knew that Paul was about to become available. She had heard Paul's name come up several times as a Kempo and Kendo Instructor. She didn't know how her father would take it, but she felt that Paul had a chance.

She smiled, "He may be the one."

***** *****

Kenji Himaki was puzzled by a class roster that day. His daughter had signed up for an elementary cooking class. He decided to stay around and walk in the garden that night. Ran had the course when she was 12 years old, and was a good cook. He sat on an inconspicuous bench and saw Ran and Paul going up to the shrine together. Paul had kept his distance, and was respectful of his precious Ran. "Aah, so that's it."

Kenji had three children, two boys and a girl. Ran was the youngest, and was his treasure. His two sons grew up, and left home for their careers, one became stock broker in New York, and the other started a software company in Silicon Valley.

Ran came later and grew up a tomboy. She loved American food. Pizzas, Cheeseburgers, Chicken fried steak became her staple. At home, she ate traditional Japanese food, but she relished going out. Her high activity kept her thin, even though she drank three cartons of milk every day a lunch. When she entered puberty, the milk, sold to the school by the lowest bidder and loaded with dairy lactation hormones, started to have an effect on Ran.

It's been said the average American breast has grown a cup size in the last two decades. Ran easily surpassed the average and her hips flared out to give her an abundant hourglass figure, which, in Japan, would be called Bon Kyu Bon. By the time she was a freshman in high school; Kenji started to worry about his daughter embracing the American lifestyle a little too much, and became worried about the too abundant figure.

He took drastic action. During the spring break of her freshman year, he sent her to live with his cousin in Kyoto. The school year in Japan start at the end of March, and Ran failed to place in any of the upper level high schools. She repeated her freshman year at a junior high, and was sent to cram school. Ran was angry for having to repeat her freshman year, but mostly angry at herself for not scoring high marks on the entrance tests.

When Ran started school, she immediately noticed the difference between her body and the slender bodies of the other girls. She felt self conscious and adopted the much lower fat diet of her classmates. Her body responded but the hormones that slipped through the American dairy system had many permanent results, which caused boys around her to lust after her. Even after shrinking, her breasts settled into a generous American C cup size, or, with the finer metric graduations, a Japanese E cup. Ran's figure screamed that she was a kitsune, a vixen.

Classes were difficult, and she ended up going after school to a second school, a cram school designed to get her into the elite high schools. The year paid off, and Ran spent three years at a premier high school. Her hot Americanized body made tutors out of almost every boy in the school. Ran kept her distance as best she could, because she knew that she was going back to the Ozarks one day.

At first she hated her father for sending her away, but she ended up embracing the culture of her ancestors, and found much to improve at the Himaki cultural center back in the Ozarks. She spent four years at Tokyo University studying herbal medicine before returning home.

Kenji was pleased with the change in his daughter. She left a wild tomboy, and came back a graceful woman. Ran came back and dove into making the cultural center the best in the United Stated. Now, it seemed, she had fallen in love. Kenji knew he would need to know more about this man that Ran had feelings for.

***** Monday 10/23/2006 *****

I checked out of the hotel and went to the farm with some bug bombs. I put three in the trailer, set them off, and left to meet Tonya at the bank. We had instructions from Carol and Tonya's lawyer on what we were to do today. Tonya was to put in a "sell" order for her stock, and have the entire amount put into my account. The stock was more than I was supposed to get. Once we had the total amount, we had a formula to figure out how much money I needed to transfer back into the joint fund. This gave Tonya instant access to the funds that she would have.

We did a lot of going into one office, talking to one guy, signing a few forms and then being sent to another office. We signed paperwork to refinance the house, and put it in Tonya's name. When our lawyers showed up, we broke for lunch. We went to different restaurants across from the bank, Tonya and her lawyer had Italian, Carol and I had Mexican. We went back and spent another hour running through paperwork until everything was complete for today. The final paperwork would be done on Friday.

I went back to the farm. This afternoon would be spent cleaning and scrubbing down the trailer. I opened every door and window to air out the bug bombs and went back into town for supplies. When I returned, every piece of furniture came out and all the floors were either scrubbed or shampooed. Finally the walls were scrubbed down. I got the bedroom put back together just before going to the dojo for my first lesson in Jujitsu.

The Dojo had four forms of martial arts, Kempo , Jujitsu, Kendo, and Kyudo. Kempo is direct force, which is punches and kicks, and is mainly derived form Kung Fu. Jujitsu is indirect force, which involves throws and hand locks, which includes Judo and Aikido techniques. Kempo is a hard technique, and Jujitsu is a soft technique. Kendo is sword fighting using bamboo blades, Kyudo is archery. I had originally started out learning Tae Kwon Do version of Karate. I switched to the Himaki Dojo to do swordplay. I switched to Kempo, the Dojo's form of hard techniques at the same time.

This was not all that this Dojo had. The Himaki dojo was a cultural focal point, and included other arts. Tea Ceremony, Calligraphy, Japanese, Flower Arranging, Asian Cooking, and Tradition Musical Instruments were taught also.

The Dojo was placed over a hot spring found by Takumi Himaki in 1905. Takumi was the son of Ambassador Himaki, sent to procure weapons during the Meiji Restoration in 1866. The Himaki family was a highly ranked clan in service to the emperor. The ambassador could have sent for a dozen women from Japan of high clan rank for Takumi to choose his wife from, but Takumi chose Charesse Dean, an American woman of French decent. He was on a family vacation, and traversed a creek in the Ozarks when he felt the water change in temperature. He had felt this same change in his native Japan, and knew what it meant. Takumi went back to New York, and invested money heavily in the stock market. In 1926, Takumi pulled all of his money out of the market, to retire in the Ozarks. He traced the spring back to its source, and went about purchasing the land.

I live in Quartz Springs, Arkansas, a small town of about 7000 people, but at least 1000 of them are of Japanese decent. Weird, don't you think? It has to do with the interment camps during World War II. Over 19,000 American citizens of Japanese decent were interned in two camps in Arkansas, Rohwer, and Jerome. Some of the families that were living in different parts of the country bonded in these interment camps. Many liked the Arkansas climate, which is similar to the mountains of Japan, and which also have hot springs. The Himaki family made many contacts and once World War II ended, a group of thirty four families decided to come to the Ozarks to live near the Himaki hot spring. These families had other members in other parts of the country, who, in turn, decided to move here too. With a huge base of families to work with, the Himaki family built a shrine near the hot spring they discovered, and the rest is history.

I had not worn a white belt in 15 years, but here I was, learning soft techniques in a beginner class. We trained on the basic forms for most of the day, a prescribed series of movements, sometimes called Kata. My first day went well; At least I thought it did.

After dinner I rented a U-haul truck and six members of the Kendo club helped me empty out the rest of the garage. I ended up packing 30 feet of the forty foot shipping container solid with stuff. I thanked the team and returned the truck. I was glad that the bedroom was at least finished in the trailer, I was exhausted.

***** Tuesday 10/24/2006 *****

I set up the rest of the trailer, and organized the shipping container. I had moved all my clothes first, and they were now twenty feet behind all sorts of things. By the end of the day, I had a thin hallway going all the way to the rear of the shipping container.

***** Wednesday 10/25/2006 *****

WHAM! I was flat on my back again. I had pissed off the Sensei big time.

"And that waza is called yoko goshi gatame, or the side hip lock, which is required for a second degree Brown belt. OK, Mr. Black Belt in Kempo, come at me again."

He was not holding anything back, and was destroying me. Many boys want to go into martial arts because it's cool to hit things. The hard techniques tend to get four times the enrollment as the soft techniques. This instructor was taking it upon himself to demonstrate how the soft techniques were superior to the hard ones. I was the focus of all of his anger of having children choose Kempo over Jujitsu. My God, this was my second day in class!

WHAM! I was getting used to looking at the ceiling. I looked over at the other white belts watching the Sensei rip me apart. They were glad that it was me, and not them.

"That waza is called uki otoshi, or the floating body drop, which is a requirement for a second degree black belt. Your Crane techniques are no match for me!"

What is this? I was now living some sort of cheesy Kung Fu movie! I did use two crane moves just then, but that was not all that I had used. Oh, well. At least I was working my way up to more difficult throws. I looked over at the clock, nine more minutes. The class would end in nine more minutes. Come on Paul. Just keep it together for nine more minutes.

***** *****

Mr. Sato was frustrated with Paul. He could not tell anyone about the struggle he was having. He had given Paul several openings to take him down, so that Paul would save face, but Paul would simply return to a defensive stance, and allow Mr. Sato to recompose himself. Sato finally figured out that Paul would not allow the head Sensei in Jujitsu to lose face in front of the class to a white belt. Paul would continue to block and respond, forcing Mr. Sato to use more and more difficult techniques to defeat him. Paul was learning at a record pace.

Just stay down, I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to. Stay down. No! Don't get up! Think of something to say. I have to delay this.

"Your Crane Techniques are no match for me!"

Heavens, how corny can you get? Nine minutes, there are only nine more minutes of class left. Please Mr. Beckson, just stay down on the next one.

***** *****

All the white belts are supposed to clean up the dojo after class. The other students let me lay on my back, as they cleaned up the practice hall.

I staggered into the locker room and went into the bath. I simply sat on the stool for a while before turning on the shower. After I did manage to wash off my body, I poured myself into the soaking pool. I was barely conscious.

I heard a yelp, and opened my eyes. There was Ben Everson, all spindly 5 foot 9 inches of him.

"Hello Ben, it's OK. Come on in."

"Are you sure Paul?"

"Ben, I really don't care what happens to Tonya anymore. Right now I would hurt myself if I tried to hit you. You see this ring finger. That's the only part of my body that doesn't hurt right now."

"What happened?"

"I told Mr. Sato, my Jujitsu instructor, that I was just here to get a yellow belt. I think I insulted him. Remind me never to say "just a yellow belt" ever again. Did you know that there are over thirty two different throws that you have to learn in order to get a black belt in Jujitsu? I think the Mountain Storm Throw sounds the coolest, what do you think?"