A Question of Fate

Edited by michael-leonard

Sometimes no matter what we do, things have a way of working out for the best.

Prologue:

David Richardson slammed his locker door shut; he had just enough time to get to his homeroom before the late bell sounded. Not that he was really worried; after all, it was the last full day of the school year. They just had three half-days next week and school would be over. He turned and took one step down the hall before he was practically bowled over by his neighbor and best friend, Awilda Colone.

"David, I'm glad I caught you. Can you do me a huge favor? The guy from my father's dojo who was supposed to help me with my demonstration this afternoon called me this morning to tell me he can't make it today."

"Hi to you to," he said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "What do I have to do?"

"It's simple; you just have to follow my instructions and try to attack me while I show the girls how to protect themselves."

"No way; the last time I fought you I ended up with my arm in a sling for two weeks and walked around school with sun glasses trying to hide my black eye. Do you know how embarrassed I was having to tell everyone that you beat me up?"

"Oh stop bellyaching, that was years ago; I said I was sorry didn't I. Besides, it was your own fault. If you had just done what I asked you to do, I wouldn't have been so mad at you and taken you up on your challenge."

"When I said 'make me' I didn't mean it literally."

"Was it really so awful kissing me?"

"No, but back then you were just 'Willie', my friend from next door. I didn't think of you as a girl, and I certainly didn't realize how tough you were."

"Please, won't you help me; I can't do this by myself? I promise I won't hurt you. Besides, this time you might enjoy it."

"Okay, okay, I'll do it."

"Great! Here's your pass getting you out of your seventh period class. I'll meet you in the gym. All you'll need to wear is your gym shorts and shirt, no socks or sneakers. Thank you for doing this David; I really appreciate it."

She was about to head back from where she came, hesitated, and then taking his head in both of her hands, she planted a toe curling kiss right on his mouth. She ended the kiss and ran down the hall before he opened his eyes.

The rest of the day seemed to drag by slower than normal. After his sixth period class he dropped his books off at his locker, and gave his pass to his teacher, who was more than glad to have one less student in her stifling hot classroom. He practically ran down the hall to the entrance to the boys' side of the gym and into the locker room and was surprised to find the locker room empty. There was normally a gym class before his eight period gym class; where were they?

He retrieved his basket of gym clothes from the cage, found his usual locker, and began to strip. He dressed like he always did for gym, his jock, under his shorts and his gym shirt. He left his sneakers and socks in his locker, placed his basket on top of the locker and went in search of Willie.

He didn't have long to wait. Five minutes later she came out of the girls' locker room, dressed in her "gi" which reminded David of a white bathrobe and a matching pair of white baggy pants. What caught his attention was the black cloth belt holding the robe in place at her waist. He knew what that signified; that she was an expert at her particular form of martial art, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

As she walked confidently across the gym floor to the large matted area centered in front of the two sets of bleachers, he couldn't help but admire her. She was beautiful: about five feet eight inches tall, solidly built, with long dark brown hair pulled tightly into a pony tail. Her expression always gave the impression that she was in deep concentration until she smiled, then her whole face seemed to glow. Thanks to her Puerto Rican background, her skin was dark; as if she had a perpetual tan.

David was about five feet six inches tall. He was what the clothing industry called husky. Not that he was sloppy fat; he was just big all over. He was a good, but not great, athlete. He played football as a middle linebacker; basketball, a guard with a good outside shot; and baseball, a right-handed pitcher and right fielder because of his strong throwing arm. He could throw a softball through the goal posts of their football field and would have been their quarterback if he was quicker.

"Willie, remember your promise; don't hurt me especially in front of all the kids. By the way, where are the gym classes that are supposed to be here now?"

"Didn't you hear the announcement this morning? Everyone who has gym seventh period today, was to report to their eighth period class now and then come to the gym for the demonstration."

"Great! Now about two hundred kids will get to watch me get my ass kicked by a girl. Maybe they'll forget about it by Monday."

"I hope not. This is great publicity for my Father's Dojo. He hopes it will bring in some extra students for his summer classes. You should think about joining; then I could kick your ass on a regular basis," she said with a gleam in her eye.

"We'll see."

"I've got a few props to help with the demo," she said as she pulled out a rubber knife and a plastic gun from her gym bag. These will be yours. When I tell you I want you to threaten me with the knife or the gun. I'll show them how to disarm a mugger with a weapon; first, a couple of times in slow motion and then at full speed. Then we'll simulate a rape attack and a purse snatcher. And if we still have some time left, I'll show them some advanced moves I've been practicing."

David didn't like the sound of this, but he kept his concerns to himself. Soon the bell sounded ending the seventh period and kids began filing into the gym, the girls on one side and the boys on the other, taking seats in the bleachers, and both gym teachers instructed their combined classes to fill in all available space. When the bell rang starting the eighth period Awilda began with a speech.

"Welcome, most of you know me and my assistant, but for those who don't, my name is Awilda Colone and I represent the Colone School of Self Defense. I will be demonstrating various techniques of defense against would-be muggers, rapists and boys who don't understand the meaning of the word 'no.'" She paused while the both sides of the bleachers reacted to her last statement. "I will be assisted today by David Richardson, a good friend of mine who volunteered to help me. Let's give David a nice hand."

After a polite smattering of applause Awilda began her demonstration.

"The most important thing that you, a potential victim, must do is to set boundaries for yourself. If you are alone at night and you see someone approaching you, you don't know what their intentions are until you set boundaries.

"Say something like, 'Stop, don't come any closer, stop.' If he continues to approach you, you know he has bad intensions and you can react accordingly. You also have to judge what level of violence you should use in any situation. If you are at a party and one of your classmates has a little too much to drink and starts making unwanted advances towards you, you really don't want to gouge his eye out or permanently disable him. You just want to get control of the situation.

"David move over there and start walking towards me."

"Stop, don't come any closer, stop," she said in her authoritative voice. Then, addressing the audience: "Notice I'm backing away from him, but I'm also taking up a defensive stance. If he continues to approach me I know he has bad intensions. If he takes out a piece of paper and asks for directions. I tell him to stop, drop the paper, and back away. When he is safe distance away, I check the paper to determine its validity; if it's legitimate, I tell him to keep his distance and help him if you can. If it's just a ploy I prepare to defend myself and make as much noise as possible. Attackers don't like audiences."

"I've determined David is up to no good. David, reach out with one hand to try to choke me; and let's pretend that I've retreated as far as I can go and that my back is against a wall. Notice how he's grabbed my throat with his right hand; his thumb is the weak point in this grip. I'm going to grab his wrist with my left hand, pivot on my left foot, and strike his forearm with my right hand. His hand will be forced off my neck and I can either continue my pivot and flee, or twist his wrist and force him to his knees and attack him with my feet."

She demonstrated the technique in slow-motion. "Watch again: grab the wrist, pivot, strike the forearm, turn and run... or again, grab the wrist, pivot, strike the forearm, twist the wrist and kick, either the face or the groin. One more time; now, at full speed."

Even knowing what she was going to do, David was helpless to stop her. He felt her grab his wrist, strike his forearm with such force that he knew he'd have a bruise by morning, felt his arm being twisted, forcing him to his knees, and her foot appearing suddenly within an inch of his face.

While noting the crowd now seemed to be a little more attentive than before, especially the girls, she helped him to his feet and continued.

"In this scenario an attacker has come up behind you. He throws his arms around you and has your arms trapped in a bear hug. Some people will try to use their head as a weapon against the attacker's face. That works sometimes, but only if the attacker is approximately the same height as you. If he's taller than you, you hit him in the chest, if he's shorter than you; you hit him in the forehead and probably hurt yourself more than you hurt him. What I want you to do is bring your arms together in front of you at the same time that you bend forward. Grab his ankle and step to the side and backward and pull the leg up. I guarantee he will lose his balance and fall over backwards. Now grab hold of both feet and spread his legs open. You can either stomp his stomach or his groin. Do it again and again until he is incapacitated and then run. He won't be getting up anytime soon. David, if you please."

She ran through it twice in slow motion. On the third try at normal speed, David held her for a fraction of a second, the next thing he knew he fell hard onto his back, his feet firmly in her grip and her foot resting squarely on his crotch. She looked down on him, gave him a quick wink, and blew him a kiss.

"Here is a variation of this counter attack." Before he could respond, he felt her leg shift slightly around his and felt his leg being trapped by her body as she moved forward.

"Notice I have his leg totally under control and yet both my hands are free. I can lean forward and strike him at will and at the same time dislocate or break his leg."

Suddenly David began to feel unbearable pain in his knee joint, his hands instinctively moving to support his knee as Awilda's fist repeatedly stopped inches from his face.

"I give, I give! Please stop," he screamed.

Aware of the low murmur emanating from the boys side of the gym, and the mesmerized expressions on the faces of the girls, Awilda felt her confidence growing. After she helped him to his feet, Awilda went through five other scenarios. Each one escalating the violence used to subdue the attacker. In the final one David was sitting on her stomach with a knife at her throat. The counter attack came so quickly that David never saw it coming. Before he could force the rubber knife onto her throat, he felt his knife hand being forced up and to his left. At the same time her right leg came up under his left arm-pit and her left leg pushed his hip backwards and then continued over his shoulder. Suddenly he felt excruciating pain in his right elbow as her legs pushed down on his body, her hips moved upward as she pulled his knife hand down onto her chest.

"This is called an arm bar. It is extremely painful and can result in permanent injury," she said as she released his arm.

Once again she helped a very weary David to his feet.

"That's nearly the end of my demonstration for today. Remember in today's world everyone needs to be able to defend themselves, especially you ladies out there. We at the Colone School of Self Defense can teach you to take care of yourself in any situation. Please take a flyer on your way out.

"Now I want to show you two of the more advanced moves we teach at the school. David, please try to attack me, anyway you wish." David's response was a headlong charge to try to take her off of her feet. As he made contact with her very muscular body he felt her arms close around him like a giant python. Her arms and legs seemed to be everywhere at once, making him collapse to the ground and squeezing him into a tighter and tighter ball, his arms and legs useless to defend against her. Out of eyesight of the audience, Awilda was slowly manipulating his lower body until she could feel his growing erection against her leg. She gazed deeply into his eyes and blew him a kiss and she felt it begin to twitch. Being sexually active herself, she knew what was happening. She didn't think that David realized what had happened; his senses were already on overload trying to escape her deadly embrace.

After a minute she turned to the audience, "Do you think I should let him go or hold him for a while longer?" Half the boys and nearly all of girls shouted out to hold him. "You people are mean."

She helped David back to his feet. It was a good thing that his gym shorts were black because there was a small wet spot near his crotch. Not wishing to cause him any more embarrassment than she already had, she announced she had one final move to show them. She turned David sideways until he was facing her and then pulled on his right arm as she fell backwards, throwing her right leg over his head and her left leg against his chest and twisted her body taking David off of his feet doing a somersault in mid-air before ending up flat on his back with Awilda's heel resting on the tip of his nose. A collective gasp escaped from most of the crowd.

"Let's give David a nice round of applause for being such a good sport and taking so much abuse."

As the crowd, especially the girls, showed their appreciation for both of their efforts, Awilda shouted, "Thank you, thank you; I hope we'll be seeing you all this summer at the Colone School of Self Defense."

Just then the bell rang and the crowd of students filed slowly out of the gym.

Awilda helped a dazed David onto his feet and gave him a bone-crushing hug.

"Thank you David. I apologize if I hurt you today; it wasn't intentional I assure you. I just wanted to help my Dad in any way that I can. Plus, I really believe that more people, especially the girls, need to feel more in control of their lives, especially when it comes to the boys they interact with. Why don't you go on in and take a long, hot shower. It will help with the soreness. I'll do the same and then wait for you and we can walk home together."

David made his way to the boys' locker room, took off his shirt and shorts, and was in the process of removing his jock strap when he felt the slimy substance that coated the inside. He wasn't sure what it was; he was not yet sexually active and had not even experimented with masturbation yet. He knew one thing, he had a lot of reading to do; or maybe he could have a long talk with Willie.

Neither Willie nor David could have known that soon they would be separated by nearly thirteen hundred miles, seemingly never to meet each other again.

Chapter 1

Less than a week later, David was in the back seat of the family car heading south on Interstate 95. He, his Mother and Father were heading to Orlando, Florida and Walt Disney World for a week's vacation in celebration of his graduation from junior high school; next year he would be attending high school. Little did he know, and his parents wouldn't be telling him until after their stay at Disney World, that they were moving to Boca Raton, Florida. Mr. Richardson had been asked to begin preparations for a new product line of IBM computers. It meant a vice presidency for him and a lot more money if the project was a success.

David would be attending the Boca Raton Christian School, a small private school with classes from K through 12 and a 100% acceptance rate into college upon graduation. Of course, it meant that he'd be leaving behind all of his friends and classmates, many who he had known from the first day of school. One person he would especially miss was his best friend Willie.

"How could he just leave me without even saying good bye," she cried as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. "I thought he really liked me, I thought he really cared."

"Awilda, he didn't know; his parents didn't tell him before they left. In fact, I'm not even sure he knows now. His mother said to me that they didn't plan on telling him until they left Disney World. She begged me not to tell you until after they left. His father was especially insistent about that. They wanted him to enjoy their vacation and knew he would be upset the whole time if he found out beforehand. If the moving van hadn't come this morning, I probably wouldn't have told you until next week. I'm sorry, but that's the way it had to be. Maybe he'll write to you when they finally find a place in Boca Raton, Florida.

Awilda spent much of her time during that first summer at her father's dojo. She improved her skills to the point that she qualified as a second degree Black Belt and began taking lessons in Taekwondo, a Korean form of Martial Arts. When she began school in September, she spent the first several days defending "her David's" honor.

"No, he did not change schools because he was afraid of me. His father was transferred to Florida and they had to move to Boca Raton right after school ended last year. No, I haven't heard from him, maybe he's just been too busy to write. I'm sure I'll hear from him soon."

But she didn't hear from him, not a telephone call, not even a letter. It was like he wanted to forget all about her.

In fact, David had written several letters to her. He had left the letters with the other bill payments that his Father was mailing. What he didn't know was that instead of mailing his letters, his Father, wanting David to make a clean break from his past so he could devote all of his efforts towards the future, had removed them and had fed them into the shredder at work. After several months with no reply from Willie, David just assumed that she wanted no part of him. Disappointed, he reluctantly, went on with his life.

Sadly, each missed the other's metamorphosis.

Awilda grew into her beauty gracefully. She grew nearly two and a half inches in height and added twenty pounds of solid muscle to her already powerful body. She became a dominant, self-assured young woman, eager to take on the new challenges of a rapidly changing world. Not being a very good student, she set her sights, not on going to college; instead her path in life would be cut through the male dominated world of the United States Marine Corps.

David's changes were even more remarkable. It was like his body had been storing energy in the form of fat, just waiting for the right moment. Seemly overnight, he grew eight inches in height, while actually losing nearly ten pounds. With his model-like good looks and his tall trim physique, he had no trouble attracting members of the opposite sex. He had plenty of dates, but no lasting or deep relationships. Instead, he spent much of his spare time sitting with his Father; picking his brain, learning about how IBM worked, its corporate culture, its proud history of innovation, and how best he could prepare himself to join this global giant. He accomplished the first part of his plan with his acceptance into the Stanford University's School of Computer Science.