Fenton Mauer
IRONMAN CHRISTMAS
by Yoru Lamourfou
(Editor's note: this story was co-winner of the Commune Utopia's Christmas Writing Contest in 2012.)
Floating high on the beautiful summit of Mount Utopia, overlooking the myriad delights spread out below for commune lovers of all lands, I searched for inspiration for a Christmas story. Dawn broke over the bays surrounding our island, and the distant glistening of breaking waves brought me back to a childhood experience in Hawaii.
Have you not been to Hawaii for Christmas? Oh, then you must go! From atop the green island slopes of Mount Hualalai, your gaze will fall far below to her lava toes stretching until submerged in warm turquoise reef waters. Her overlapping ocean skirts lay painted blue with incoming lines of northwest winter surf. Sparse white clouds crown her, reaching slender fingers of gathering mist flown thousands of miles across deep, deep sea. Every afternoon she sheds light rain for an hour or two, like teardrops, and oh, how I wish I had never gone.
On vacation with my parents, I was a school newspaper reporter. It was a kid's job, but I took it very seriously. My big idea seemed simple: I would find an ironman, one of those superb, top triathletes who grace Hawaii every fall, get my first story, and maybe my first romance. Who would have a better chance of attracting a mountain of muscle than a virginal Japanese-American high school girl dripping honied wetness like a Hawaiian flower?
But, how would I meet such a world-class athlete? I planned it carefully. The flight there allowed my racing bike as baggage. To find my story, I would pretend to be an "irongirl" on a bike. It did not matter that the race was in October and it was now only December. I was sure I would meet my man. To be made of iron, one must work out year-round, and where better to keep in shape than the glorious Big Island?
So up majestic Hualalai I went, straining at the pedals. Although I am very fit, I soon discovered the weakness of my plan: I am not an ironwoman. The roads are narrow, the traffic bottlenecked, and the cruel slopes much steeper than I imagined when watching the race on TV. After stopping to catch my breath maybe five times, I felt sick. I was hot and needed to stop. I needed shade.
At that moment, the ocean mercifully threw me a touch of breeze. It bore the fragrance of a small grove of flowering plumeria trees nesting in the bright sunlight on a black lava shelf along the road ahead. Sweat dripped from my helmet, blurring my vision, and it was so dark under the exuberant canopy of pink and yellow flowers that at first I didn't notice the bike already there. I knew immediately it was a super-lightweight racer. Next to it sat my ironman.
Leaning in the cool shade, he motioned me to sit. I took a drink of water, and looked up startled as the NNAAAAaaaAAOOoooOOMMM! zing! zing! of two cars passed us close by, hurtling down the mountain. I blinked where the cars had been.
He noticed my startled jump. "We ironmen are fast, but automobiles are like screaming boulders!" he said. I let the "we ironmen" stand, and got out the journal from my saddlebag. He looked at me curiously then, and asked, "Are you a writer?" His accent was European. He was utterly blond, and you know how I feel about blonds. I couldn't help myself. I was already infatuated with this Norwegian athletic god.
"Yes, I am a reporter. You are an ironman?” I was catching my breath, but breathing harder because my story, and his body, were near. He shook his head up and down mechanically to indicate, "Yes." I write "shook mechanically," not "nodded his head," because he shook it in a peculiar manner, as though signaling his teammates without removing his hands from the handlebars. After years of training, his neck muscles could make his head talk! He had lots of other muscles, too. He was what the Hawaiians call "cut," chiseled like a Michelangelo statue.
He inclined his head at the asphalt road cutting through the lava and said in a low tone, "Write about triathletes and traffic accidents." I smiled, knowing I would not write about it, since that was the kind of sensational hit-and-run topic every newspaper published. I wanted to be different, and I told him as much.
"Well, then, I will tell you what happened to me yesterday. I was working my way up the mountain when I was almost run off the road by a delivery truck, the driver blaring his horn horribly! It's a narrow spot and I was shaken right to the edge of the shoulder. I could see his grimacing face in the side mirror and I indicated with my shoulders, 'Why did you honk at me?' but he drove on, frowning."
He paused, and for the first time looked at me from head to foot. Sweet man, he was trying to help me with a story. "Sure," I said, "maybe I will write an article about this. Were you resting when I came over? It's awfully hot today."
"No, I was writing, well, composing a poem in my head." He explained that he always remembered his writings but never wrote them down, because he couldn't take his hands from the handlebars to write while biking, and it was while biking that inspiration came to him.
"Oh! Can I hear it?" Searching for my first story and first lover, I had found a poet and philosopher. He grinned sheepishly and recited:
Resting cool in the shade
Of a roadside plumeria glade
All yellow-white and jade
Vanilla heat it made
Of sunfire unafraid.
This poem moved me like a haiku, and I became bold. I pulled out a piece of rich dark chocolate, peeled off the wrapper, and asked, "Won't you share it with me?" He tipped his head "yes."
But I did not give it to him yet. I clutched it with my lips, half in, half out of my mouth, and leaned closer to him. He moved his head back slightly until he bumped it softly against the tree trunk. Now I had him pinned. Offering the chocolate with my puckered lips, he closed his on it, he could hardly do otherwise, but I did not let it go. Both of us fondled the small sweet piece, lips just brushing, just touching, trembling not at the sweetness of the chocolate, but at this soft contact of flesh. Then suddenly I sucked the chocolate into my mouth completely and at the same time pressed my kiss down hard on his surprised mouth.
I felt his strong heart quicken through my breasts, which I had pressed snugly against his skin-tight shirt. After a few seconds I pushed my tongue back between his lips, herding the dwindling piece of sweet brown chocolate, now a gooey mix of our saliva, cacao, and sugar, back into his eager mouth. Our tongues met, rolling over and under, playing, pursuing the chocolate, which by now had become an almost spent object of love. It shed its viscous layers, warming and softening in this intimate game of chase. As the thick brown liquid melted in our kiss, the chocolate dissolved into desire itself. We kissed long after the chocolate was gone, long after the taste of it had disappeared, agonizing in the sweetness of each other. He put his hand behind my neck, took me in his strong grip, and gave me the Christmas present I desired.
When our lips finally parted, I was a different animal. I had never kissed anyone this way before, unending, never stopping throughout our caresses, our tongues never ceasing to repeat and expand on and reflect the dance of love between our bodies. We got up at last and took our bikes to the road. I felt my throat choking back the welling up of deep tears when he brushed his lips on my cheek to say goodbye.
He pushed off down the mountain. I followed, half in the trance of his body, half in fear of the speed I rapidly built as I descended. My gears slipped in with a loud "thunk!" as I applied brakes with little effect. I saw my triathlete, already far ahead, through the dizzying waves of asphalt heat, his graceful figure weaving to avoid uneven spots and fallen rocks on the road. Cars, screaming boulders he had called them, careened past me, and I became a swirling pebble in that avalanche of steel.
As I went further down the mountain road, the cars accelerated, gravity and gas doing what they do together. My hands became tired of braking. I eased on the grips, but gained speed so quickly I gasped in fear and reapplied the brake handles. Still, I couldn't help myself. A huge grin spread across my face. I felt the thrill of dangerous speed mixed with the knowledge that now, if I should die, I will have known the passion of a man's body in mine.
It was then I saw a truck hit my triathlete. I saw his perfect body far below, twisting as he flew like a broken bird against the wall of the mountain. His blood never even broke through his perfect skin. He died on impact. He had wanted me to tell his story, and only now, five years later, have I been able to tell it.
Fenton Maurer
