(Late Saturday Morning)
“Why is she here?” Yasmin asked me, giving a nod toward Buffy. Buffy was a good ten meters away, technically fulfilling her duty as my bodyguard. Yasmin had agreed to meet me at a park.
“Her name is Buffy Dubois and she’s my bodyguard for the weekend,” I explained. “At least I’m back at my apartment.”
“What happens with her if you don’t go back to work Monday?” Yasmin inquired. “Does your ‘bodyguard’ kill you?”
“Nah, not Buffy,” I gave a lop-sided grin. “My co-workers believe in overkill. I bet they’ll send at least three to make it nice, swift and quiet.”
“Why do you joke about this?” Yasmin studied me.
“As opposed to what?” I chuckled. “Lashing out is futile. Running isn’t much better. I chose to fight when I must, love when I can and laugh when I should be crying.”
“Do you think they will come after me?” she murmured.
What Yasmin really wanted to know was if her 3-year old son was in danger. From everything I’d learned and seen about Yasmin, she was tough as nails. I had given this some serious thought. I couldn’t read Katrina’s, or Hayden’s minds, so I had to go on my limited experience. Yasmin had seen and heard a great deal yet Elsa let her walk away, and that had definitely been Elsa’s doing.
Elsa was the worst kind of racial Supremacist – the benevolent one. She didn’t base her status on some pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. She based it on the feats of her ancestors, the training she had endured and the devotion she and her sisters dedicated to their craft – violence. She was better than the rest of humanity because she could kill us if she desired and take what she wanted.
We had what we had, even our lives, because she allowed it and she had no orders to the contrary. That was her generosity – her benevolent act.
“Might,” I sighed. “If I fuck up my balancing act, they might use you to hurt me, or as an object lesson.” Yasmin’s face clouded with anger.
“Why did you invite me over if you thought things would develop this way?” Yasmin glared.
“Not being insane, I cannot fathom the minds of the insane,” I reasoned. “As soon as I find a way around one challenge, they throw up something new. I certainly didn’t know there was a ‘members only’ facility along with a gym for the rest of us peons.” She looked down at her hands.
“They really are some kind of crazy cult,” she muttered. She sighed. “You can’t get out and now they know I exist… this is screwed up. What are we going to do?” She could be referring to herself and her son, or herself and me.
“I’ve got some money,” I said. “A few thousand. I can get you plane tickets and you two can take off somewhere safer than here.”
“You are a real man,” Yasmin slowly smiled. What? Sensing my confusion. “You take responsibility for your actions, protect the weak and those in need, and you are brave in the face of pain and adversity. Where I come from, that is the definition of a man.”
“Funny – where I come from that is the definition of bad Hollywood scriptwriting,” I grinned.
“Ha,” she laughed. She’d decided to stick around and fuck me despite the specter of eminent death. She was not callous to the fate of her child. Far from it. The only ally she had in this fight was me. She’d beat the fuck out of her husband with a bullet in her shoulder. When surrounded by hostile Amazons she still struggled to get to my side.
“What about your Jason Statham?” she prodded.
“He’s English. Besides, I prefer Chiaki Kuriyama,” I eyebrow pumped. “There is something about a chick with cast-iron balls.”
“Who?” Yasmin searched her memories.
“Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill Volume 1,” I informed her. Yasmin thought that over.
“That girl was clearly insane!” she thumped my chest.
“Believe me, female mental health issues have never stopped me in the past,” I shrugged.
“I’m beginning to think you have low standards,” Yasmin smirked.
“That implies you think more of me than most women who actually know me,” I snorted.
“Let’s go get something to eat. There is a place that serves authentic Acaraje and Vatapa close by,” Yasmin stood and took my hand. I went with her.
“So, what are those things you mentioned?” I asked.
“You’ll have to wait and find out. I owe you a few dozen surprises after what you’ve put me through,” she teased. After a few seconds, I started laughing. Yasmin was confused.
“As bad as it is going to be for me, think how rough it is going to be on Buffy,” I chuckled. “As far as I know, she doesn’t even speak Portuguese, much less traveled to Brazil.”
The restaurant taught me a few things. Yasmin was a regular, the men knew her and were afraid of her. A little bit of eye-ball psychology taught me that Yasmin was apparently a one woman domestic abuse arbitrator. Translation: if you were a man who hit your wife, or girlfriend, she pointed you to the closest Emergency Room after she was done with you.
In Brazil, men could use the ‘machismo’ defense; basically, the bitch had it coming because she threatened my manhood. In Yasmin’s New York City, machismo worked a ‘little’ differently. Essentially, there wasn’t a ‘straight’ Brazilian man alive who would admit that Yasmin, a woman, had beat the ever-living Hell out of them.
The Brazilian ladies who stopped by introduced me to another quaint Yasmin term. It was called ‘parroting’. Parroting was what happened when some butthole became a real, repeat problem. Yasmin dragged them to the roof of whatever building she found the dumbass in and threw him off – technically aiming for the closest dumpster. The men often flapped and squawked like parrots as the plummeted down, thus the term.
Women were stopping by because I appeared to be an aberration – a man on a date with Yasmin. Best of all, 80% of the conversation in a language I didn’t know. The first serious question thus caught me out of the blue.
“Do you date many women?” one sultry number purred.
“I’m not sure I would say ‘many’,” responded after some feigned concentration. “I only date women from Manhattan… and the Tri-State Area… pretty much the East Coast… and the Ohio Valley and the Mississippi Valley. I should include the Deep South… okay, maybe every women this side of the Rockies… and the West Coast… Hawaii and Alaska would be a change of pace as well.”
“I’ve met some nice Asian girls,” I continued to muse, “and South America is looking real promising at the moment. At this point,” I looked over the small clique of women hanging about, “ignoring Africa, Europe, India and the Middle East would be short-sighted.”
“Do you fuck as good as you exaggerate, (along with some pet name I didn’t know)?” the waitress asked. I could so do her.
“No,” I sighed. “I’m a virgin boy fresh out of Catholic School and have never known the intimate touch of a woman.” For a second, they all wanted to believe that.
Guys aren’t the only ones who want to ‘break in’ a virgin, believe me. I’ve used the ‘I’m a nervous virgin uncertain if I want to attempt sex’ mystique more than once. It is a win-win. Sexually under-confident women know they won’t be judged against any other women and when the sex becomes stellar, they think they are great teachers so they become more willing to experiment.
After all, if they get it wrong, I – the young virgin – won’t know the difference. Now, it is not that I always lie. It is just that the truth doesn’t normally get me what I want. As an example, if a girl is terrible at giving a blowjob – don’t tell her that. Tell her she’s doing fine, but maybe this (a technique you know works) might feel different (i. e. better/less painful).
Sure, I lied to her. Instead of making her upset and not want to continue in the art of fellatio, she learned a valuable lesson and will not only make me happy, she’ll make happy every other man she is with later. Others can keep their slavish devotion to honesty. I’d rather dispense happiness. Besides, I’ll give them other reasons to be pissed with me soon enough.
“Hardly,” Yasmin laughed. “I imagine the closest you’ve come to religion is thanking God when you’ve discovered your date had a horny sister and was willing to share.”
“Wow… break room talk much,” I had the decency to appear embarrassed.
“Why yes,” Yasmin smirked. “Ms. Reichmann was very expressive in her recounting of your bedroom antics with her and her sister after the sister’s date passed out.”
“To be fair, I hadn’t had sex all day and I was kind of wound up,” I offered up.
“Do you like toying with women’s affections?” my original questioner asked.
“Wha – wait,” I frowned. “You think I’m going out with Yasmin because I want to have sex with her?” Of course I was. “She’s interesting and we both practice Brazilian jujutsu.”
“Why would I hunt down a studio when I found a perfectly good practitioner on the job? Plus, my work place had the sparring mats,” I explained. Remember, when lying, tell a lie your audience wants to believe. Yasmin was a feminine titan, standing alone (with her son) against a hostile male world. The women around me counted on that. Dating a hot, physically fit hunk for the purpose of sexual gratification was totally realistic.
Dating me because I knew her martial arts style was far less believable, but made them happier, so they went with option B – the workout buddy.
“The truth must be like gold to you,” Yasmin snickered. “It is so valuable, you hardly ever use it.” She looked at her buddies. “I have wrestled him to the mat and he was VERY interested.”
“Yasmin, that wasn’t me hard. When aroused, I’m much bigger,” I pleaded.
“Liar,” she smacked me in the bicep. “I need to take care of something. Don’t run off with him,” she told the girls – in English – for my benefit.
Yasmin left our small table and headed for Buffy who was leaning against the wall right inside the doorway. I couldn’t overhear what they were saying. Buffy smiled, nodded and took a table.