Mike & Karen Ch. 11

"You're not a fan?" she queried.

"Hell no," he almost spat. "I may be aware of the deep flaws of capitalism, but I'll be damned if a bunch of self-righteous, anti-intellectual farmers are going to tell me how to think and act. They're about as likely to get punched as Nazis are. And I do so love punching me a Nazi."

Karen looked up at him and nodded, still assessing him. "Interesting, and not altogether unwelcome."

"I'm not opposed to millionaires, Gordon. I just object to the ones who go to the trouble profiting off the hardships of others, and the belief in keeping the little man in his place," Mike said. "As far as I can tell, your parents are okay. That cousin of yours needs a good reprogramming, however."

"You'll get no argument out of me," she muttered. "He gives impeccable breeding a bad name."

"Genetics speaks for itself, and I respect that," Mike said readily. "But I'm gonna be late, and you need to get Red back to your room, before she hyperventilates and faints."

"Oh, right, I'm supposed to be mad at you about causing this," Karen said, remembering suddenly. "And here you thought you could weasel out of being in trouble for causing my current predicament."

"One was hoping," Mike sighed, shaking his head. "Fare thee well, Gordon. Have mercy on the Lilliputians, they frighten easily."

He nodded and then strode down the hallway, disappearing quickly with those giant strides of his. Karen rolled her eyes as she shook her head and then looked at her shoulder.

"You can come out now, Scooby, the monster is gone."

"You don't need to be sarcastic," Lisa grumbled, pulling her face away from Karen's silk blouse and looking sullen. "You know he scares the bejeezus out of me."

"How many times has he been your knight in shining armour?" Karen asked.

"More than I care to remember," Lisa sighed. "He's the nicest guy we know, Kar. He's just damned annoying, too."

"Tell me about it," Karen said readily. "I have to admit, I'm used to being the only shining star in the sky, or at least the brightest one."

"And he's a supernova. Yeah, I get it. Well, let's get back to the room and forget our troubles with wine and women."

"Women?" Karen queried, looking at her lover.

"Well, me for you, and you for me," Lisa explained, blushing slightly. "You're all the woman I need."

"Best offer I've had all day!" Karen laughed, taking her friend's hand and leading her out of the building.

***

Today, in a condo living room...

Alex sat on the plush chesterfield, trying not to laugh too loudly as Jeanie sputtered and cursed cutely while attempting to play a video game. Freja sat in a chair nearby, watching in amusement. She had opted to sit out this round and simply observe, while encouraging her hapless wife.

"Dammit!" the brunette blurted, rocking her controller back and forth, as if the added motion would help her chosen character move. "Son of a monkey-tit! No! Watch out for the banana! Swerve, you pink bitch!!"

"Wow, Jeanie," Alex mused, still staring at the large TV. "You're so far behind, even last place is looking like it's outta reach."

"Oh, shut your dick holster, DeBourne!" Jeanie hissed, throwing her arms and the controller left to swing her princess around a corner. "I'll find a way to tie you down inside the game and have Bowser run your ass over in his stupid little car!"

"Maybe a different character?" Freja suggested. "What about Toad, or Toadette?"

"Pass," Jeanie sneered. "If I wanna play a character that looks like Trump's dick, I'll play a character that looks like Trump's dick. If I want hot monkey lovin', I'll play as Donkey Kong. I am a pink princess, and I'll play as one, tyvm."

Alex looked over at Freja, who simply shrugged. Whatever Jeanie's shortcomings might be, decisiveness in picking her video game characters was not one of them.

"Gnnnnn, dammit, Luigi, get the fuck outta my way!" Jeanie almost yelled out the screen, her brown eyes flashing, and her hands weaving about as if she were trying to cast a spell while passing her foe. "Get your green Italian plumber ass off the road!"

She sent a hail of various projectiles hurtling forward, finally knocking the offending character from the screen.

"You really get into this," Alex observed.

"You should have been seeing her play the last game she was obsessed with," Freja mentioned. "She was taking great objection to the premise."

"Ninjas shouldn't be allowed to play basketball!" Jeanie protested, still flailing about to summon a victory demon while she drove. "It's not fair! They're ninjas!"

Predictably, Jeanie came in dead last, having been lapped by the non-player characters at least three times. She put down her controller, crossed one leg over the other, folded her arms, and glared petulantly at the wall. Freja borrowed the controller, selected a different character, and began playing, with considerably better results.

"Why d'you even play, if it makes you so angry?" Alex asked.

"I refuse to be the only non-hipster millennial who can't play video games," Jeanie announced, still looking at the wall defiantly. "I'll get better, you just watch."

"Trust me, I wouldn't miss it," Alex chuckled, causing Jeanie to huff, but relent in her posture and stare down the far wall. She relaxed back into the couch beside him and began watching her wife. Before long, her own failure was forgotten, and she was cheering enthusiastically for Freja, who was in a dead-heat race for first place, playing as Rosalina.

"Bam! Got 'im!" Jeanie crowed, jumping up from the couch and pumping her fist in the air as Freja blasted Wario off the screen just before crossing the finish line. She certainly got engaged easily in the success of others. Alex watched quietly, sipping from a bottle of Tuborg he'd been furnished with by the girls.

"I knew you could do it, Fre!" Jeanie gushed, rushing over and giving her wife a big, squishy hug and many kisses on the cheek. "Mmmmm, you're the bestest!"

"Thank you, yndling, one does try," replied the Danish girl, handing the controller to Alex, who promptly selected Luigi and proceeded to destroy the field. The girls both watched in fascination.

"Damn, you're evil," Jeanie muttered as Alex gleefully continued to utterly humiliate the other characters, all the while making sure that the Luigi Death Stare was blatantly obvious. "Okay, doing the barrel roll while flying over that jump was a little much, grandstander."

"Nobody can touch me in this game," Alex said simply. "Yeah, maybe I'm a troll, but I have fun."

"Wow, you really have it in for Daisy, don't you? Got something against tomboys?"

"No, she just happens to be the one getting in the way this time around," Alex said simply as he blew her up yet again. He breezed to victory in all three heats before passing off the controller again to Jeanie, who simply turned off the system. She'd been crushed enough for one day.

"Wish I was a tenth as good as you at games," she sighed. "I might be a little more fun at parties, then."

"Jeanie, I can't imagine you not being fun at parties." Alex laughed. "No lie."

"Why, because I'm always flat on my back for the audience with a guy on top of me?" she grumbled, scowling.

"Well, no," he replied. "I just meant that you're always fun to be around. You're genuine, you're easygoing, you laugh a lot, and you just brighten up a room."

She gave him something of a wry look. "You're married to Alexa Blackwell, y'know. Nobody in this hemisphere is the dazzler she is, Alex. Y'don't need to try and make me feel better for not measuring up."

"Freja may be insane, but I don't think she'd make a dumb choice," Alex pointed out. "And she's crazy about you, meaning you're awesome, and she's one of the luckiest women alive. Simple."

Jeanie blushed hard and looked at her lap, silent for several seconds and playing with a lock of her curly hair. Freja smiled slyly and stood up.

"I am thinking I should go and check on your father," she announced, putting on a light fleece coat. "I did promise Karen I would look after you both, after all."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Fre ..." Jeanie said in a tiny voice from the couch, still looking at her lap. Freja winked at Alex and let herself out, locking the door. After a few seconds, Alex looked over at Jeanie curiously.

"Was it something I said?" he asked.

"Now that you mention it, yeah," Jeanie replied, nodding, still looking at her lap, but the blush of embarrassment leaving her cheeks. "She's giving us some alone time."

Alex blinked: "Well, not that I object, but I thought you two did everything together."

"We do, mostly," she said, finally turning her head to look at him. Her soft brown eyes shone as she seemed to gaze upon him. "But she wanted this to be special."

"I'm not sure I follow, sorry ..." Alex admitted, although clearly it involved sex, since just about everything with these two did.

Jeanie took a breath, getting ready to explain herself. "I ... we've talked before, about my issues, right?"

Alex nodded: "I guess."

"Alex, I know I'm not smart," she said, turning her body to face him now, the expression on her face earnest. "I know I'm downright dumb, in fact. It's okay, I know I'm an idiot. And yeah, that's hard to accept sometimes, but I try. And I spend my whole life expecting everyone not only to judge me or look down on me, but to use me."

He listened quietly.

"Okay, I love sex, but yeah, my whole life, I've used it to try and make people like me, because I feel like ... like I don't really have anything else," she confessed. "If I'm not flat on my back, I'm not very much good. I just sit around and suck the oxygen out of trees."

"You're more than that, Jeanie," Alex said encouragingly.

"Just ... lemme try to explain ..." she said, closing her eyes. When she opened them, they were glistening, like she was controlling tears. "Yeah, fucking everyone wasn't likely to get me the respect and love I craved, but it was my best shot, as least as far as I was concerned. You, Alexa, Freja, the profs ... you're all so smart and talented. You can do things. You have purposes, you have ... functions."

He took her hand, but kept listening. Jeanie looked off at the ceiling and her lip trembled. "It didn't work out too well for me, I gotta admit. People fucked me, used me, laughed at me and left. And it hurt. But what really hurt was knowing that it was still my best shot. I started early, using my body to try and please people. I was young. But it was also like I was ... exposing myself, begging them to not hurt me."

Then she was looking back at him, and he noticed an emotional depth to them that he'd never considered before. Sure, it was still Jeanie, the lovable, ditzy brunette everyone adored, but he could see something in there now. It made him want to take her seriously.

"Here I am, this is all of me. Love me, don't hurt me," Jeanie murmured. "That's what I've done my whole life. And no matter how many times I'd convinced myself I was in love, giving myself hope, it was always an illusion. And then ... you guys came along. The profs, you, Lexi, and Fre... and you proved over and over again that I am worth loving, that I have things to offer, no matter what kind of dolt I am."

"Jeanie, I -" Alex began, but she put a finger on his mouth, shushing him.

"You're so kind to me, Alex," she said quietly, looking at him. "You don't judge me, you accept me, and you see worthwhile things in me. It still amazes me sometimes, but I've grown to believe it about myself, finally. I oughta say I can't thank you enough."

Alex watched as she stood from the couch and looked down at him, her eyes soft and full, with an emotion he knew only too well.

"It was kind of Fre to give us this time alone," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "What you said to me means so much, and tonight, I'm going to show you exactly what it means for me to be in love with a person ..."

***

1986, somewhere on campus ...

The weather was cooling, but not yet crisp as Karen walked across the sward of grass the campus was centered around. Some stalwart students were still throwing a Frisbee, and the sounds of popular music blared from radios: Madonna, Whitney Houston, The Bangles, Falco, Queen, Bon Jovi ...

While she didn't despise pop music in and of herself, she rarely found it compelling. She found herself agreeing with Orion DeBourne's assessment that music "stopped being real by the mid-Seventies." Her own musical tastes would be considered old-school, ranging from Renaissance and opera, to big band, jazz, swing and Motown.

She pressed her textbooks to her chest as she breezed across the campus, performing calculations about Fermi energy in her head, when she heard a clattering rolling sound. It was below and to her left. She had just stepped onto the concrete sidewalk, when she put her foot up and felt something thump against it, stopping abruptly.

She glanced down and saw a skateboard resting against her shoe. She looked up in the direction it had come from and espied a group of students some six meters away. One of the boys grinned at her.

"It's called a skateboard, princess," he called out. "Ever heard of one?"

A few people in the group chuckled.

"Yes, I am familiar with them," Karen replied.

"Oh, I doubt that," he laughed. "I don't think you've ever seen one up close, unless it was made of diamond dust and mahogany."

Karen simply stared at the student while the others laughed again. He seemed to be getting uncomfortable with her scrutiny. Those unreal tawny-amber eyes, almost like a wolf or a hawk, framed by her patrician features and silken bronze hair.

"What?" he asked nervously.

"You do me a disservice, thinking I could not possibly know anything about skateboards or popular culture, just because of my social status," she remarked, bending down and picking up the skateboard and walking it back to them. She put it in his hands, still looking at him. "Why would you assume that I don't know how to ride a skateboard?"

"Oh, c'mon, babe," he said, trying to recover his nerve. "You have a chauffeur take you everywhere; some of us have to get here by skateboard. Why would you know anything about how the rest of us live?"

Karen coloured slightly as he smirked at her, while the others laughed again. The boy passed the skateboard to another fellow, who pushed through the throng and set it on the sidewalk. With a laughing whoop, he did a handstand on the skateboard and rolled off down the sidewalk, travelling a good nine or so meters before bumping into the grass and laughing as he tumbled onto it. Everyone (except Karen) laughed and applauded.

"And what, exactly, makes you think I don't know how to do that?" she asked, looking at the length of sidewalk he had traversed.

"You're joking, right?" the guy who had teased her asked almost incredulously.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" she asked pointedly.

"Let 'er prove it then," said the boy who had ridden the skateboard as he returned, tossing it to the owner. "Put up or shut up, right?"

There was silence as everyone looked at Karen. She knew better than to delay in responding and reached out to the side, staring at the boy holding the skateboard and dropped her books onto the grass loudly. She then held out her hand for the skateboard expectantly.

He handed it to her. Without a word, she turned to face out at the stretch of sidewalk ahead of her. Already, she was doing the calculations inside her head, with a speed even DeBourne couldn't match, and he was as fast as they came. She looked down at the skateboard in her hand, feeling its composition and subtly flexing it between her fingers, determining the give in the material.

Please, Lord, don't let me fall on my head ...

She'd taken the dare, and there was no sense in hesitating. She'd claimed she could ride a skateboard, and that's what she would do. After all, that nerdy kid had done it in the movie "Back To The Future," so how hard could it be?

She took a few measured steps forward, looking at the surface of the concrete, seeing if there were any obstacles, even tiny pebbles, to be wary of. Convinced there were none, she stooped as she pushed forward and pressed the skateboard to the pavement, rolling forward. Her hands still on it, she closed her eyes and turned herself upside down, standing on her hands and committing her soul to the Almighty...

***

The knot of people all watched in shock as Karen Gordon rolled down the sidewalk, doing a handstand on the skateboard she'd been given. She'd showed no hesitation whatsoever in the challenge. She glided forward expertly, not wobbling or swerving in the least.

"Holy shit, dude ..." breathed the boy who'd done the handstand stunt moments before.

"Jesus," said one of the girls looking on, gaping in wonder. "Did she forget she's wearing a dress?"

***

Fifty-three point six kilograms ... mass of my body ... distributed on the front and kicktail of the board ... is it called a kicktail? Focus! You'll kill yourself if you don't focus! Okay ... hands on front of back of the board ... the mass of my body directly above and in the middle ... no flexure through the length of the board ...

She opened her eyes and turned her head, bending her elbows ever so slightly so she could see past them. She already knew that she could handstand and even walk on her hands for extended lengths of time, because of gymnastics, but the physics of bracing oneself on a moving object required more concentration.

She wasn't moving terribly quickly, somewhere around one hundred eighty centimeters per second, but she hoped she'd calculated her movement speed properly, with her additional weight on the board. If she stopped short of the grass, she'd probably fall.

My body velocity is not as great as the board because of my mass ... keep straight above it to minimize ...

The nine-meter ride took an eternity, her mind racing the whole time, calculations whirling through her head. She didn't know how to skateboard at all, so math was her only friend. She'd finally passed the five-meter mark, and knew she'd hit her final velocity, assuming no micro-inclines or shifts in her body's position. The grass crawled closer at an agonizingly slow pace - it might as well have been Kapuskasing, the way it felt.

Shit, how do I get off this thing?

While her subconscious kept her balanced and the board going forward, she began considering her dismount as she hit the grass. Did she tumble off and laugh, like the other kid had done? No. That was an amateur move. She'd dismounted gymnastic equipment before, so she could do this.

Three meters ... two meters ... one ...

A split second before the front wheels touched the slightly raised turf and grass, Karen bent her front elbow and pushed with her back hand, beginning a cartwheel that carried her gracefully off the skateboard. If she thought time had crawled slowly before, it wasn't a patch on this. She felt, rather than saw, the world spin around her and moved her legs like she would in any normal cartwheel, accounting for the extra few centimeters her hands were off the ground.

Looking down at the ground as she rolled upside down, she smiled as she saw her skateboard. On impulse, she clutched her fingers on the nose of the device and used her momentum to allow it to be pulled along in her flip. The cartwheel brought her upright to her feet, but her velocity was still a factor. She brought her arms in, slammed the skateboard to her chest, ignoring the sting and holding it close as she spun on the spot twice, exhausting her momentum.