Inner peace

No Disclaimer is necessary, because none of this happens on camera.

It cost a little to hop a plane back to Denver, but it was worth it. Brandon Macdonald has excused Corey and me from having to do any of the usual hype-up type stuff for this week’s pay per view, so at least I won’t get fined in addition, but he said if I wanted to go home, it’d be out of my own pocket. This could very well be my last match, so you’ll forgive me for wanting to prepare for it under my own roof. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t forgive me. I really don’t give a fuck. I’ve been in 16 world title matches in my career and I’ve won 14 of them. I’ve headlined shows on five continents. I’ve wrestled some of the biggest names in the world. I’ve been in the ring with Corey Bull, Kaden Kessler, Brock Lesnar, The Great Muta, Ruben Ricardo Leon, Chuck Matthews, Brandon MacDonald and James Shark, amongst others. I’ve wrestled in 46 states, with the only exceptions being Alaska, Idaho, Montana and my native Arizona. I’ve main-evented some of the most famous arenas in the world: Madison Square Garden, the Tokyo Dome, the Staples Center, the Bell Center and Estadio Azteca to name a few. I’ve been blown up by C4, flayed to the bone with barbwire, hit in the head with a baseball bat, set on fire and buried alive. I’ve done all of that…and nothing scares me as much as this match does. I shouldn’t take it. I should fake an injury. A sane man wouldn’t get into this match.

But I want this. That’s the damnable thing. It’s not the five million dollars. It’s not the money on my contract. I’m really not the mercenary Corey Casey makes me out to be. I’ve played the part because it pushes his buttons, but if my life was all about money? I could have made a lot of it going from the military right into the private sector. I could have held back the Skybreaker designs and sold them to the highest bidder the second my discharge papers came through. Hell, I won’t even need the money in a few months. During my break from wrestling I invented a man-portable weapon that shoots a ten-thousand degree fireball and mounted a universal accessory rail on the stock. They say it’s going to be the premiere breaching weapon of the 21st century. Apparently it also has anti-armor an explosive ordinance disposal applications. Shit, I just built it to win a twitter bet with Adam Savage. Now the bidding on the patent rights are up to $45 million and all my youtube videos were taken down because Homeland Security deems them classified.

So no, it’s really not about the money. The truth is, I realize I’m in over my head. I wanted a match with Corey, no doubt. I wanted a high stakes match with him. But I lit a fuse when I scammed the belt out of IWF headquarters. I realize that now. I wanted to get under his skin, don’t get me wrong. I wanted to get under his skin and I realized that there were only two places to hit him. I could have hit him at home. I could have made threats against his soon-to-be wife and his young children. Well, I say I “could have”. No, I couldn’t have. I’m a bastard. I’m a reprehensible human being, but even I have standards. Jessica Matthews isn’t an active in-ring competitor. I don’t know if she ever was. But she’s not one now. I don’t like beating up on women anyway. But it’s different Baneblading Anna Stone in the middle of the ring at the end of a match. Anna is a wrestler, and a good one. She accepts a certain risk when she puts on her tights, laces up her boots and walks the aisle. She is voluntarily signing up for competition and accepts the risks. Jessica Matthews is the mother of Corey Casey’s children. She’s a housewife in waiting. Her only mistake was enabling Corey Casey’s reproduction, and while that is probably transgression enough to warrant some kind of a beating…it’s just not in me to go after a man’s family. Maybe I’m still too much of a soldier. Yeah, I never saw combat, I was an engineer, but still. Even if you’re a desk jockey in the Pentagon, you’re taught the rules of engagement. For me it goes even deeper since I was originally going to be a Raptor pilot. It is supremely unlikely that you’re going to encounter an enemy in the sky who doesn’t want to be there. People on the ground? Yeah, they’re threatened and coerced into service all the time. But you can’t just hold a gun to a man’s head and make him climb into the cockpit of a MiG. Poor bastard probably wouldn’t be able to get it off the ground. No, Jessica Matthews is a no-fly zone, far as I’m concerned. Unacceptable collateral damage.

In many ways, Corey Casey is IWF. I know there’s the “rule of three” the “holy trinity” but in reality? Chuck Matthews is the brain of the company. Chuck’s the steady hand. Chuck’s the man at the rudder. But IWF isn’t a way of life to him. IWF is yet another business venture. He wants it to succeed, but he handles it objectively. People are hired, people are fired and decisions are made with the bottom line in mind. If I had stolen the IWF World Title on Chuck’s watch? Chuck’s reaction was probably to try and get in touch and book a champion vs. champion match with me against James Shark. Chuck would have seen the potential. James and I had a great match last time we hooked up. James and I have great, conflicting styles that would have blown the hype through the roof. That would have been a big gate and a big buy. Chuck wouldn’t care that I stole the belt, as long as I let him make money off of trying to get it back. That’s Chuck Matthews, the brain of IWF.

Brandon Macdonald…I still struggle to find his role with the company. I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I just don’t know why he agreed to become a partner. You see, Brandon is the guy who’s always looking for what’s next. He wants to use his talents to take the next step. I really think Brandon would like to be a movie star, all told. I think he’s a frustrated entertainer. He used his MMA career to jump to wrestling. He used his wrestling career to jump to TV. Now he’s trying to jump to the NFL. Brandon’s got a hole deep down in his heart and to be honest, I don’t think anything can fill it. He wants to be loved and adored, and he just keeps seeking out more and more fame. To be honest, I think he’s compensating or something, but I don’t know what. I just know it’s never enough for him. He’s always looking for more. I think somewhere, way back down the line, someone hurt Brandon deeply. Maybe it was a woman. Maybe it was his parents. I know little of Brandon’s life. We’re not particularly close backstage. It has nothing to do with me retiring him, I honestly think he was quitting anyway. We’re just two very different guys. So I don’t know much about his home life, or his background. But someone, somewhere slighted him and he’s been trying to get their attention ever since. That’s my theory, anyway. Brandon really was the poster boy of the company. He was the smiling face on TV. Brandon was the cornerstone of IWF’s media presence. I can see why. Good wrestler. Good looking guy. Can string complete sentences together. Probably gets a lot of asses in seats. Makes a lot of women wet in the pants, makes a lot of guys want to be him. Clean-cut all-American hero type. He’s probably too busy looking for the next rung on the ladder to stardom to care about my stolen belt.

But Corey Casey…you know, I think Corey would be less angry at me if I’d gone after his family. Maybe because unlike his children, Corey helped conceive IWF on purpose. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he loves his kids, but I don’t think they were planned. Most people opt for marriage, then family. Usually when children are conceived out of wedlock it’s because mommy fell into that 1% of birth control that doesn’t work. I’m guessing here, I wasn’t there when it happened. Maybe I should ask Steel? Nah. I think Corey loves this company so much because it’s all he’s ever wanted. Corey Casey has only ever wanted to be a professional wrestler. Hell, around here, that makes him unique. Brandon is a celebrity looking for the next step to further fame and fortune. Chuck is a businessman who found a way to turn his millions into a billion-dollar multimedia empire. James Shark and Cody Taylor are washed out fighters. Hell, if I hadn’t grown seven inches in my freshman year, I’d probably still be in the Air Force. But Corey Casey has never wanted anything more than to be a great wrestler. Corey Casey was a great wrestler in NLWF, until Nick Ridicule fucked over the company. I’m sure like many when it went belly-up, Corey wondered where his next paycheck was going to come from. He wasn’t looking forward to a new company, a new boss and having to prove himself all over again. But then Chuck Matthews came up with IWF, brought in people he…well I wouldn’t say he necessarily liked them. But Chuck brought in people he could expect the best from. He brought in people to balance out one another, and even himself if needs be. He put together the holy trinity and set up shop.

Corey Casey threw himself into IWF. He took his role seriously, both as an executive and as a wrestler. In this company he saw his future. He saw potential for his legacy as a wrestler and as a man. In the ring, he could prove just how good he was, better than most who have ever challenged him. Out of the ring? Out of the ring he could prove Nick Ridicule wrong. I think that’s how it started for Corey. He wanted to prove he could beat Nick Ridicule on the mat, and on the bottom line. I think that’s how he sunk so deep. Once he’d done that? He couldn’t stop. He had to keep going, keep pushing himself in the ring, and he had to keep pushing IWF as high as it would go. Look at all the talent that’s come in. Look at the guys they’ve brought in. Not just NLWF guys, either. Some of the best wrestlers in the world have been put to the grindstone in IWF. Some have made it. Some have been spit out the other side. All the while, Corey Casey has had his hand on the throttle and jammed it forward. He’s put so much of himself into this company that I don’t think he knows who he would be without it. Jessica could take the kids and leave tomorrow, and Corey wouldn’t blink. Oh, he’d feel bad about it, he’d drink, but he would get over it. But if IWF ceased to exist? Corey Casey would need a rubber room and a straightjacket.

I set out in this company saying I was going to destroy the Holy Trinity of IWF. I wanted to do something nobody else has done in the Insurgency: beat all three of them. I’m sure it’s been done in NLWF. Even then, though, there are probably only a handful of guys. I want to be one of them. Funny thing? Corey Casey is actually one of the guys who wanted me back here. After Rick Christian sent me packin, he was one of the guys who was in contact with me. I think he gave up when I went back to Japan. Hell, if it hadn’t been for a drunken challenge to a lesser company one night on Twitter, I might never have come back. I agreed to take one match, with the idea that contract negotiations would be reopened if it went well. Went well? We housed them in that elimination tag. I thought for sure I would be welcomed back. But I committed the cardinal sin. Once upon a time, when I first was on the market, I fielded an offer from WEW. I mentioned in the weeks leading up that if WEW had met my terms, I would have signed with them. For me, it was a throwaway line. But for Corey Casey, it was an affront to Insurgency Wrestling Federation and everything Corey held dear. What can I say, sometimes Corey’s passion gets the better of him. Instead of the new contract offer I was expecting, Corey called me out on national cable television and told me to hit the road and never come back.

I hadn’t planned for that, but I had a plan in place that just happened to work. You see, I saw the writing on the wall, I saw Corey Casey was getting married. I saw the wheels slowing down. I knew he was getting out, and soon. And I knew the last thing he would stand for was for someone to smear IWF’s good name. I wanted a match, I wanted to be one of the last men, if not the last man to step into the ring with him. Did I steal the belt? Well, since there’s no cameras or wires here…yes. Do I feel I have a legitimate claim? Yes, but that’s not why I stole it. I stole it to leverage Corey Casey into a match. It was brilliant, too. Brandon called a big meeting the night of the IWF/WEW supercard and rallied the troops. I used the opportunity to surreptitiously clone Corey Casey’s phone to a dummy iPhone. I purposely booked a red-eye out of Barcelona and touched down in Boston about an hour after the start of business. We detoured by a mall, stocked up on 5 Hour Energy and bought Lilah a shirt two sizes too small, a skirt about an inch beneath her ass and a red wig. While Lilah occupied the security station in the lobby, I slipped into the server room of IWF Headquarters. I sent building security an email as Corey from the cloned phone and then planted a little internet scrambler in the building mainframe. Hmm, maybe I should see if the pentagon wans that, too. Anyway, since the phones in the building are all VOIP, I knocked the whole system out for five minutes without anyone any the wiser. It was all the time I needed to go upstairs and collect the belt which “Corey Casey” had ordered to be delivered to me. Genius? Yes.

The plan all along was to take the belt back to Japan and defend it in New Japan. I wasn’t going to lose it. I had six dates left, and only two “title” matches. Failing all else, if I needed them to, Tina and Amber could get me disqualified. Of course, I didn’t need it. The plan was to let Corey think I was serious about tainting his precious belt. Of course, the plan was to have an IWF contract and goad him into a match. I wasn’t counting on being blackballed. So I had to step it up. When I cut that promo? When I said I would take the belt to another company? You cannot believe how my phones lit up. Name a promotion, they wanted me to bring it to them. I even leaked a few of the offers to the dirt sheets as a “source close to Stygian”. Would I have done it? I don’t know. Did Corey buy it? Yes, he did. He grudgingly sent me some offers. I couldn’t just give in, he’d see through it, wouldn’t he? So I had to find an angle. The I remembered what he called me. He called me a mercenary. He said I was only loyal to my wallet. I had my in. I held out for more money. I made him up the ante three times before I agreed to show up at Isolation to negotiate. That was the night I realized just what I’d bit off. I slow played him. I bluffed him. I drew him out and I even dropped Chance Rugani’s name. I was expecting him to offer me the chance to pick the match. Instead he put up five million of his own money. He called my bluff. I had to take it, even without controlling the match selection, or he would expose me as a fraud. So I signed up, knowing I would probably have to climb into the double cage. As soon as he had the contract secure, I saw the true toll of the wounds I’d inflicted on the man. He lunged across the table like a mad man and attacked me like a rabid wolverine! I realized in that instant I’d done something to Corey Casey. I had wounded him more deeply than Chuck Matthews, Brandon MacDonald, Dan Alexander, Gunther or even Nick Ridicule ever had or could ever hope to. Nick Ridicule and I could Eiffel Tower Jessica Matthews in front of Corey’s kids while forcing her to wear a Bill Bucker jersey…and we wouldn’t have wounded Corey as deeply as I had by threatening to tarnish his dream.

I was reeling after Isolation. I needed to think. I knew if I stepped into the double cage with Corey, that he was going to end my career. He was focused, he was on his game, he was angrier at me than he’d ever been at any opponent in his life…and he had a warm up match against Dan Alexander. I needed to throw a monkey wrench into his brain. Lilah suggested I interfere in that match and cost him his precious double cage horror streak…Lilith, being the genius that she is, had a better idea. She suggested I attack both men and leave them helpless, then I rig the match for Corey to win. It was brilliant. Costing him the streak would just add fuel to the fire. But taking his fate in my hands? Crushing his dreams before his very eyes and handing him back the broken pieces? I love my wife. Suddenly I owned the two thins Corey Casey values the most in his professional life. I had control back, because I had broken him. I’d taken away his greatest pride. I knew I wouldn’t have to get into the double cage with him after that. He couldn’t risk losing to me. I already figuratively owned “the streak”, if I literally owned it? He wouldn’t be able to look at himself in the mirror.

I needed a match. I knew Corey wouldn’t let this be any ordinary match, and I needed to come up with the match first. I needed to have some kind of home field advantage. I knew there had to be a casket involved. My first stint in New Japan, I was forced to impersonate a more-famous wrestler over here; macabre themes, dark clothes, spooky music and of course, casket matches. I’m actually 9-0 in casket matches. I knew Corey would know that, and wouldn’t accept. Even though I owned his pride and held his legacy in the palm of my hand in the form of the IWF World title…I knew he wouldn’t accept a casket match. I first thought of a double cage casket match…but that wouldn’t be exotic enough. I needed to come up with something better. I needed the kind of a match that was a test of manhood just to accept the challenge. So I took the most violent matches I could find…hell in the cell, casket, double cage horror, Clockwork Orange house of fun, first blood…and I added another cage on top of it and I put them all together. Triple cage, conventional weapons around the ring, even more horrifying weapons in the second cage, a necessity to go to the top cage to win the match…toss in first blood and end it with a casket. I had my match, my match Corey couldn’t refuse. A match that might well end his career. A match which might end my career. Ready So yeah, I came home to Denver to get ready for it.

My white Air Force tank top is so sweat-soaked that it’s nearly transparent. That would be hot on Lilith or Lilah. Hell, I’m sure there are people who think it’s hot on me. I don’t know. I’ve never looked in the mirror like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs and asked my reflection if he would fuck me. Tina and Amber are bi, I’m not. At any rate, the drenched white fabric clings to me like skin as Steel Prophet’s cover of “Neon Knights” blares through the home gym in my basement while I finish out a set of lat pulldowns. It’s one of my best lifts, so good in fact that I had to order a special machine just to get heavy enough weights that I couldn’t do. I’m finishing out my last set of 8 at 345. I groan as I pull it down one last time and then let it up. I hold the bar until my arms are fully extended and the weight hangs about five inches off the stack. When I can’t stretch anymore I let the textured rubber grip slip from my hand and the weights fall with a loud clang. I hunch over and rest my head in my hands, elbows braced in my lap. When my breath finally comes back, I reach down for the battered Gatorade bottle at my feet. I twist the cap and stand up, lifting the bottle and drinking from it as the song switches to “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. For some reason the song doesn’t feel right. I amble over to the digital control panel embedded behind plexiglass in the far wall. I open the plastic door and hit “SKIP” a few times until Helloween’s “Mr. Torture” comes up. I tell myself that’s better and make for the last exercise.

If anyone else has an apparatus like this, I’ve never seen it. I custom-built it for my personal favorite exercise. There’s a small padded trapezoid bench at one end, about 30 inches off the floor. The rest of the machine is joined with a long steel tress that ends in a T. On either end of the T is a set of parallel, elevated rails running parallel to one another on a slanted grade. Each set of rails runs uphill, away from the center at a slightly greater than 45-degree angle. The rails are about eight inches apart, and each set has a rubber handgrip mounted on a pin joint so they can roll within my grip. I’m the only one who uses this machine. Lilith won’t even look at it unless I’m on it. Lilah can at least mount it correctly, but the exercise is beyond her. I set the Gatorade on the seat of a nearby unused machine and turn back to my custom apparatus. I kneel on the padded back end of the machine and bend forward, walking on my hands until my body is parallel with the ground. One by one I grab the handle grips where the rest, at the center of the T. My thumbs slide up and disengage the safety locks so that the grips can roll freely. I call them Dragonwing Pushups, but I didn’t invent them. A Marine showed them to me one morning at Edwards. As I lower, the handle grips slide up along the incline. The incline lets me get lower into the pushup, lets me break my arms past the lie of my shoulders, and then I push back up until my hands come together at the bottom. The Marine used to get the motion with a pair of modified push-up rollers on two weight benches. It was sloppy and prone to frequent error. I made this rig for the first time in Japan. I installed my second version in the courtyard of our old apartment building. This is my third design. The rolling joints inside of them so I don’t faceplant if my arms give out. It also has a thick mat that runs under the length of my body so I can drop out of the exercise if there’s a problem. Not that I anticipate one. I usually do this strapped into my 100 pound weighted vest. I’m taking it easy this week. All my lifts are cut back. I don’t want to risk an injury so close to this match. I’m actually only training at all to burn off nervous energy. I can’t do anything between now and my flight Friday night that will make me any more ready to step into this match. I’m not going to put on that extra bit of muscle, or burn off that extra ounce or two of fat that’s going to make the difference. But I at least have something else to do besides sit around and wonder what the hell is going to happen Sunday.

After fifty dragonwings I brace myself on my hands, spin around and flop onto my back on the mat in the middle of the machine. A raging fire starts somewhere in the middle of my back, burns through my deltoids, takes a sharp turn around my shoulders and surges down my arms to flare through my hands. The fiery tendrils even wrap around my fingers and flicker in time with my pulse. I glance over to what’s left of my Gatorade. It’s only about nine feet from me, but at the moment it may as well sit atop Everest. I lie there, staring at the flicker fluorescent lights in the ceiling as Helloween gives way to Queen and “One Vision”. I fold my arms over my forehead and concentrate on catching my breath through the string section that precedes the intro. But about the time Brian May’s guitar kicks in, I shoot up like Dracula in an old vampire movie, stepping clear of the machine. I grab my Gatorade and take the cap off. Wearily I make my way upstairs, chugging the cool red liquid as I go. The stairway comes out behind the kitchen. I step onto the stone floor and make my way to an enclave just before the kitchen; the laundry room. A huge, black double-stacked Kenmore washer/dryer sits in the back corner of the room. A trail of multicolored hampers line the walls trailing away from it. Lilith has a system all worked out for what goes where, so that we don’t have to sort the wash when it comes time. I’d mock it, but it’s remarkable efficient.

I peel of the sweat-drenched tank top and throw it in a red hamper. After staggering out of my shoes and my black mesh workout pants, they go into the same one. I deposit my socks and my black briefs into a pale blue hamper. I’ll come back for the shoes later. The stone floor is cool beneath my bare feet as I pad out through the kitchen. I look out the window above the sink. The Rocky Mountains look beautiful. It’s a mild summer day here in Colorado. I hear water running upstairs. Probably Lilith in the shower. She was headed out for a hike when we last spoke about two hours ago. I shrugs and step out the back door onto the deck. I curiously glance off to the right, and the stained wooden fence there. Lilith, Lilah and I have all seen eyes glancing through it at various times when we’re out here in the hot tub. I’m pretty sure any and all of the members of the family have peeked in from time to time. Usually cause the girls are at least topless when they’re out here. That’s why the father and his 15 year old son peeks over. I’m constantly shirtless as well. That’s probably why the 17 year old daughter snoops. I know she’s got a crush on me. I’ve seen her in more than one Black Dragon t-shirt. She’s even snuck over and asked for me to autograph various pieces of memorabilia a few times. It’s kinda flattering in a way. She’s a pretty little girl, but she’s a little girl. I wouldn’t ever act on her little crush. Try telling that to her snoopy mother. She’s the real perv. She watches because she’s trying to get ammunition. She’d like it very much if the three of us wouldn’t fuck in our hot tub. What can I say, Lilah isn’t quiet and Lilith’s worse. She’s had the police over here several times claiming “public indecency”. She even tried to circulate a petition around the neighborhood. Everyone pretty much told her to quit spying on her neighbors. Nosy bitch. I hope she’s looking through the fence right now. Yes, I’m standing here, naked, junk proudly flopping about. It’s my fucking back yard. If I thought she was watching, I might do a trick. Well, my tricks are limited to shaking my dick and making the “woo-woo” noise. I’d do it if I knew she was there. But I’m not going to stand here shaking my dick and making a goofy noise for nothing.

Instead I plod over to the hot tub and fire up the jets. Once they’re up to speed I slip over the side and sink into the warm, churning water. As an afterthought, I turn and reach down to the red button over the water tight plastic shell. It’s the same MP3 control system as in the house. Integrated house-wide music streaming, I designed it myself. You can stream from a central music library, or from any of the music services; Amazon Cloud, Pandora, Last.Fm, Slacker, Spotify, you can even integrate terrestrial and satellite radio. It’s all in the software. I wrote it myself when I couldn’t find a house-wide music system that had all the features I wanted. I really should sell this damn thing to Apple or someone. Alex is right, I don’t need the money. I’m probably sitting on a billion dollars’ worth of inventions. The only reason I don’t sell them is to have an excuse to keep wrestling. My hand hesitates as it hovers over the button. Instead I do that sort of lazy kick-off float across the hot tub to the other side where the integrated phone is. Not my invention, for once. They’ve been around for years. I bring up the contacts list and scroll through to the one I want and press the SND button. Somewhere on the upper floors of 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, a phone is ringing. The man to whom that phone belongs picks up on the second ring. “Maxwell, System Software Concepts,” he says.

Do you know how many software designers would kill to have a direct line to Apple’s System Software Concepts director? “Shawn, it’s Jason Gabriel.”

“Jason?” he sounds perplexed. “Have you called to taunt me with another piece of software you’re not going to sell to me?”

“Actually, Shawn,” I pause for effect, “I’ve called to give Apple first crack at the software you did want.” The line is quiet for several seconds. He wasn’t expecting this. “Shawn?”

“Uh…yeah…yeah I just thought you didn’t want to sell it,” he finally stammers out. “We are talking about the integrated MP3 controller, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well when you called the last time, you said you were testing the market, but then you opted not to sell it,” he recalls.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I tell him. “I mean, unless Apple isn’t interested anymore. I’m sure I can find someone who…”

“WE WANT IT,” he blurts out, before clearing his throat. “Sorry, Jason. No, we want it. I just…I’m curious what brought about your change of heart. It’s not the match, is it?”

“Shawn, shut up and let me sell you my software,” I warn him. “I’ve got Mountain View, Seattle and Osaka on speed dial if you don’t.”

“There won’t be any need for that. I’m sorry, you’re right, it’s none of my business,” he says sheepishly. “So, before you decided not to sell it, we were looking at 20 and 35.”

“Sounds about right,” I concur.

“Now I know on the surface selling it exclusively to us sounds like a loss,” he begins. I settle back into my original spot and fold my arms behind my head, letting the pressure of the jets and the temperature of the water do their work. “Because you could cash in and make 80, 100 mil really fast by selling it to everyone who makes an MP3 player. But without signing exclusivity agreements, you don’t get royalties. We would integrate your software with iTunes and bundle it with…” his voice trails off for a second before I hear his sigh as he gives up, “well, with everything we sell that comes with iTunes. You’re looking at fifteen cents off of every piece of equipment Apple sells going into your pocket for, probably the next ten years. On iPhones alone that would have been…let me look here…times point one five…that would have been 10.8 million into your pocket, and it’s only the end of the second quarter. If our iPad predictions live up to our expectations, that’s another 9.9 million. That’s over 21 million you pocket from two devices alone. Not to mention every time someone downloads iTunes. This is ‘never work again’ type of money, Jason.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to convince me,” I tell him. “Fine, 35 Million now, royalties, in the future, I have one or two things I want to add to the contract.”

The man groans on the other end of the phone before he finally speaking, “Jason, I think we’re being very generous here.”

“I can always call…”

He interrupts me before I can get out whoever I was going to threaten him with, “Ok, ok, I can at least hear you out.”

“Very good,” I say. “First, I want to retain independent development rights. I still get to play with it and tweak it. Anything new I come up with, or anything I improve, Apple gets first crack at. If you use my new feature, I get a standard consulting fee. Anything you don’t want I can sell independently as an add-on.”

“That’s actually not that bad,” he admits. “What else?”

“My estate retains the royalty rights if I die,” I tell him.

“Jason, that’s a little more complicated,” he whines.

I cut him the fuck off right away, “I could get that from Google, no questions asked. Right now you’re just a hair above Android, do you want them to catch up?”

“Okay,” he says. “It’s not our usual outside contract, but this isn’t your typical software. I’ll include a perpetual royalties clause. The royalties will go wherever you will them to for as long as we use the software. Is there anything else?”

“Nope,” I answer. “Get your legal team cracking, I want it on my lawyer’s desk by noon tomorrow.”

“Why so soon?” he interjects.

“Because I want this final before Sunday,” I inform him.

“Sunday?” he exclaims. “Jason, this kind of stuff takes at least four-to-six weeks.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” I snap. “You’ve been drooling over this program since I first sent you the beta. I bet you’ve been pirating it all around your office and trying to figure out how to rip it. I know you’ve had a contract just sitting in a drawer waiting for me to call back.”

“Sunday is a little soon,” he reiterates. “Even though I have had a proprietary contract sitting handy. At least give me seven days.”

“TINA,” I yell, whether she can hear me or not, “WHAT WAS THAT NUMBER FOR GOOGLE?”

“Okay,” he barks, “okay,” he says again, more calmly. “I’ll have a draft to your lawyer by tomorrow, and if it needs revision, we’ll do what we can to have it by Sunday. I’ll have to pay legal some overtime.”

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiit negro, that’s all you had to say,” I joke.

“Jason, I’m not black,” he informs me, before pointing out the obvious, “and neither are you.”

“Shawn, have you never seen Pulp Fiction?” I inquire.

“I’ve…” he chuckles as he gets it. “You ain’t got to worry Jase, I’m on the motherfucker. Go back in there and chill them niggas out and wait for the wolf who should be coming directly.”

“That’s more like it,” I tell him.

“Alright Jason,” he begins, “I’d love to sit here and BS about old movies, but I have to get the wheels turning on this. I’ll fax a draft over to your lawyer tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell him to expect it,” I assure Shawn.

“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

I hear the telltale click of the call disconnecting and reach for the red button once more. There’s the sound of a Mario Mushroom, which Apple will likely have to change for copyright reasons—they’ll probably replace it with that ding-a-ding sound all their other stuff makes—when they release the software. I clear my throat. “Play playlist ‘Black Dragon’.” The first song up is “Spacelord” by Monster Magnet. I lean back once more, spreading my arms along the side of the tub and drum with the fingers in time with the music until a voice cuts through my newfound clarity.

”What the hell were you screaming about?”

My eyes drift open and I look over to the owner. Her blond hair is still damp as it hangs down, the runoff soaking the tiny purple and white cut off tie-dye cutoff shirt she’s barely wearing. He skin is still damp enough that the flimsy cotton clings to her in the most delightful way. The summer breeze hitting that water must be making her cold, too, from the looks of it. She’s also wearing purple booty shorts with the slits up the outsides. She has panties that cover more, truthfully. I lick my lips as I feel something race through me. Starts in the lower forty and courses through my whole body. Robin Williams once said, “God gave man a penis and a brain, but only enough blood to run one at a time.” Well, my blood flow is changing. My wife is an uncommonly beautiful woman, I know this. She’s a real woman. She’s not some starving stick insect. She’ got boobs, hips, ass, thighs…she’s built like a classic pinup. I’m sorry, I totally forgot where I was. I forgot what Tina said, too, so I give her a ubiquitous and vacant, ”Huh?”

”Your screaming,” she reiterates. She’s just irritated enough that she has no idea what thoughts are forming as I stare at her. ”What the hell were you hollering about?”

”Oh that,” I recall. ”I was on the phone with Shawn Maxwell. I was bluffing him.”

”The guy from Apple who wants your MP3, uh, software?” she asks. She’s a brilliant woman, she really is. She’s about a semester short of her PhD from Stanford, but she’s totally lost in the intricacies of software and electronics.

”The very same,” I tell her.

”When is he going to get it through his head that you don’t want to sell it and quit calling here?” She whips around and vanishes back into the house, shaking her head.

”Actually I called him and sold it,” I announce. Tina nearly dislocates her spine turning back around and stumbling back to poke her head out.

”You did what?” she asks flatly.

”I called up and sold it to him,” I repeat.

The though takes a moment to digest, and she cants her head to the side as it does. ”How much?”

”35.”

Her jaw drops and her eyes shoot open. ”Million?” she half-whispers in disbelief. I nod. ”For a program?”

”Plus royalties. They’re going to integrate it into iTunes. Every device they sell, every time someone downloads a new copy of iTunes, we get fifteen cents,” I announce.

”Is that really a big deal?” she asks.

I laugh and nod. ”They’ve sold 72 million iPhones this year already. If I was getting fifteen cents for each one?” My voice trails off as I roll my head back and do some quick math. Then it occurs tm me Shawn already did that on the phone. ”That’s about 11 million. And that’s just off of iPhones alone. That’s not even counting iPods, iPads, Macs, TVs, MacBooks...” I let that hang a moment. ”Shawn thinks they won’t come up with anything to replace it for ten years.”

”Jason that’s…” she has to stop and actually catch her breath. ”That’s like, ‘set-for-life’ money.” I nod. She smirks, and turns back into the kitchen, but the pokes her head out once more. ”This isn’t…we’re not quitting wrestling, are we?”

”Not anytime soon,” I assure her. ”I just wanted something in place in case something happens.” Lilith frowns and steps out onto the porch. Dammit, Tina, don’t start a serious conversation right now. I’m totally not in the mood for a serious conversation. Not with you dressed like that.

”Jason, I haven’t said anything about this match,” She sighs. ”I know why you have to do it. And I know it’s not the most dangerous match you’ve ever been in. I just…I don’t know…

”You don’t like being reminded that this could be a life-changing match.” I guess. Really, that’s what I’m thinking.

”Something like that, I guess.”

She ducks back into the house. I give her a few seconds head start before I rise up out of the tub. I push the red button again. There’s the sound of a Mario mushroom. ”Last.fm. Artist radio, Def Leppard. First song: ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’. Send to living room.” From out here I can only hear the faintest trace of the song. I turn and open the Rubbermaid cabinet we set up out here and retrieve a long, white fluffy towel from the top shelf. I catch a glance of Lilith trying to dance and keep that shirt from riding up. The sway of her hips, the subtle bounce of her breasts. That surge renews, and brings a flash of inspiration. I reach into the pocket inside the door and dig out a bag of zip-ties that I keep out here just in case I need them to latch up something. I just need one. I tie the towel around my waist and stuff the flimsy plastic strip down the back.

She’s still dancing as she empties the dishwasher’s silverware caddy piece-by-piece into the silverware tray concealed in the drawer at the end of the counter. Despite grabbing a towel, I’m still dripping wet. I leave big footprints like sasquatch that rest on the surface of the polished stone floor. She doesn’t turn around to look. She doesn’t know I’m there, and yet, she does. Deep down she can feel me, I know she can. She and I have that connection. She knows I’m watching her, but she’s still surprised when I press in behind her and put my hands on her hips. ”Jason!” I don’t say a word to her. My lips start in on her neck. She leans into it, and makes a show of trying to finish putting away the silverware; but it’s taken her ten seconds and she still can’t figure out where that fork goes. I press her up against the counter and draw my hands up her flanks. He skin is soft, cool to the touch after I just spent half an hour in the hot tub. Water drips from my hair down her neck. If gives her goosebumps, makes her gasp softly and close her eyes. By the time my hands vanish underneath her shirt, she’s closed her eyes and dropped the silverware caddy to spill its contents all over the counter. She reaches back and rubs her hands along white terrycloth and under, getting a familiar grip. I groan softly into her ear and rest my hands on the counter. After five years together, she knows what buttons to push. Although in this case she’s more pulling a lever than pushing a button.

”Christina…” I whisper softly. There’s only one time she likes being called by her full first name, but when she likes it, she loves it. She squeezes just tightly enough. Then I take a half step back and pull the zip tie out of the bunched band of the towel. If you’re wondering, she was the kinky one. She got me into it, and we’re getting Lilah into it. But she was the one who got the ball rolling. I came home one night when we were still living in Tokyo, shortly after we started dating and she was there, on her knees in a purple corset and thong, her hands cuffed behind her back, and a blindfold over her eyes. It’s a dark and thrilling element to our love life, one that makes us, us. I grasp her wrists and cross them behind her. Her knees go weak, because she has an idea of what’s coming. She jolts as I wrap her clasped wrists in plastic and pull the slack tight with a high-pitched whine of the one-way clasp being drug over the ridges in the outside of the plastic strip. I spin her around and press my lips against hers. She trues to maneuver onto the counter, but I stop her. I grab her by the arm and lead her into the living room, stopping to unclasp my towel and hurl it down the hall towards the laundry enclave. It can be properly relocated later.

I drag her over in front of my favorite chair. She likes being a little roughed up. She gets off on it. I pull her in front of me and run my hands up her thighs. She’s trembling with anticipation. My hands slide up her stomach and pull her shirt up. I start kissing a light line up from her bellybutton as she struggles against the strip binding her hands. She knows she can’t get free, but part of the turn on for her is making sure she can’t. Once she’s sure it’s secure, she tries pulling down her tiny shorts, but between the tightness of the bindings, and the way I’m teasing her with my tongue in long slow circles, she doesn’t have the ability to get it done, or the acuity to offer more than a futile effort. Finally my hands slide back down and pull the flimsy purple things to the ground, and she steps clear of them. She gives them a little kick towards the laundry room, but they don’t make it a fifth the distance as my towel did. Finally I steady her as she straddles into my lap and settles into place with a sharp intake of breath. She closes her eyes and moves slowly. My hands glide over her hips lightly, resting there.

I let her have this small measure of control. Lilah’s been teaching her this dance-workout stuff. I can feel it in her hips as she rocks in time with the backbeat of Danger Danger’s “Crazy Nites” blaring out of the speakers. I’d be lying if I said she wasn’t better for it. Not that this has ever been a problem for us. She starts moving faster, grinding against my hips harder with her own. I reach around and smack her ass. ”Again,” she pants. I oblige, and she rewards me by throwing her weight down onto me sharply. ”Harder,” she implores, a little more breath in her voice. I give her another one. ”HARDER!” I carefully snake my free hand around her and lift her bound hands out of the way and let her have it with the kind of palm strike usually reserved for when I have another wrestler backed into the corner and the crowd gets real quiet so they can hear it and yell “whoo” after the fact. She cries out, partly in pain, partly in delight. ”Again! Don’t stop!” It turns into part of her rhythm. She’s near breathless now. Hey eyelids are heavy. Somehow I just know when to stop. I can feel the tremors coursing through her. My fingertips rake up her spine and my fingers curl in her still damp platinum tresses. I pull back hard. She arches into it. ”Jesus, you’re like a rampaging beast…what’s gotten into you?” My other hand presses on her ass. She likes to draw it out, hold off her climax as long as she can. It gives her a charge. Of course, since she likes being mauled, it gives her just as big a charge when I force her over the edge when she doesn’t want to go. Her eyes squeeze shut. She fights to find breath beneath the panting and the moans. ”No!...Jason!...Stop!...Not yet!…please, don’t make me…oh god…” Whatever else she might have said is lost under a loud moaning scream that erupts from deep inside of her. She rests her head on my shoulder as it floods over her quaking body. She finally takes deep, calming breaths an picks her head up, looking me in the eye. Her cheeks are still flushed. Her heart is still racing. Her legs are still shaking. She smiles and nuzzles her forehead against mine, before her lips find that spot on my neck for a second. ”You didn’t…” She frowns for a second, but it turns upside down really quickly. "So you’re going to make me work for it? Just give me a minute.” She whispers.

Before I can answer the front door opens and Lilah walks in, laden with shopping bags. Her sister is in town for some kind of workshop for a summer class she’s taking. Lilah decided to take her out to lunch and then shopping. She’s dressed respectably. Despite how they dress on camera and in the ring, Lilith and Lilah are usually politely modest enough. She’s wearing a white blouse buttoned just above her bra line, and a black skirt that, while short, is still a respectable length. She closes the door behind her and sets her bags on the floor. She pulls off her sunglasses and gets a look at us. I can see her flinch. There’s always a little pang of jealousy between the three of us. She gets it when she walks in on Lilith and me. Lilith gats it when she walks in on Lilah and me. I get it when I walk in on the two of them. It’s something we shuffle away though, cause the good times the three of us have outweigh those awkward little moments.

”Oh…I’ll just go put this stuff away…” she stammers. Even when you’re used to it, it’s still a little awkward when you walk in on two people having sex in the living room. ”As you were.” Lilith smiles as Lilah turns away. She leans forward to untangle herself from me and stands. She’s still on Shaky legs, but she makes it over to flop onto the couch facing Lilah. ”Tina, what are you…oh no, I know that look.” Her hair whips as she snaps her dark eyes towards me. ”And I know that look. Don’t you dare.”

”Darling,” Lilith says in a low, sultry tone. ”He’s truly in rare form today. It would be terrible manners if I didn’t share.”

”No…” she says, stumbling back into the wall like a cornered animal. ”That’s okay, you keep it.”

”Nonsense,” Lilith taunts.

Lilah goes wide-eyed and looks between the pair of us. ”Lil, you’re crazy! You’re both crazy.”

”You’re probably right, darling,” Lilith concedes, turning to me. ”Get her!”

I’m to my feet on one motion. Before Amber can move I step from the floor to the couch cushions to the back of the couch and land on the floor in front of her. She turns and tries to run, I grab her by the shirt and shove her back into the wall had enough to knock the wind out of her for a second. She grabs my wrists and tries to pull herself free. If I thought for a second she really wanted to run, I’d have let her go by now. Hell she doesn’t need to run, she has but to speak the right word and I’d turn her loose. But here’s the secret to Lilah: she loves the rough stuff. She loves it every bit as much as Lilith. But Lilith gets turned on giving up to it, surrendering. Lilah gets turned on by pretending she doesn’t like being man-handled. She gets off on pretending not to want it. I grab her blouse at the neckline and tear, popping ivory-colored buttons free and sending them ricocheting off of me and bouncing all over the place, revealing tanned skin and black lace underwire. When I grope her, she slaps me in the face. Again, she knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t want me to stop. She knows that pisses me off more than just about anything. She doesn’t want me to let up, she wants it harder. I grab her by the hair and spin around, throwing her into the back of the couch and bracing her there with a hand on either side of her before she can move. I put my elbow in the small of her back to hold her down as my hand shoves her skirt up. Black satin and lace torn away in one motion as she screams protest…protest, but in that low, savory tone she gets when she’s ready to rumble. And she is ready. She cries out at first. I lean tight against her, pressing her hip bones into the padded wooden cross member of the couch. It isn’t as gentle as it was with Tina, not that it was gentle, but this is even more primal. I didn’t even bother to undress her, I just muscled her over the couch and took advantage of her. One hand had been wrapped in her raven air since it started, the other has been around her neck. I don’t squeeze, she’s not into that, but she likes the feel of it. It makes her feel even more overpowered.

When it’s over, we’re both spent. She’s shuddering and struggling to keep from breathing audibly, I’m lucky to be standing. I brace my hands on the couch just outside hers as we both catch our breath. She looks up over her shoulder at me with a worn-out smile. ”Fucker! You’re lucky our dry cleaner doesn’t ask too many questions about all the ripped buttons she has to fix,” she laughs.

”Damn, maybe I should have fought him a little more. He was a lot nicer to me.” Lilith says, still watching with her hands tied behind her back. I can tell that this display has lit her fuse again. It’s going to be a long night for all three of us.

The next time I manage to look at a clock, it’s about 2:30 in the morning. I don’t know what day it is. I’m covered in sweat, every muscle in my body has given up the fight, and I’ve got so many endorphins coursing through my pounding veins that coupled with the weariness, I feel like I’m floating in a sea pure, unadulterated bliss. I can’t describe the day I’ve just had. It was at times brutal, at times savage, at times whimsical, but I could live another thousand years and never have such a day again. The balcony doors are open to let the Rocky Mountain summer breeze in. The screens are drawn to keep the Rocky Mountain summer bugs out. I’m lying in the triple bed we had especially made for all of us. The last rays of twilight are slowly retreating over the jagged ridge of mountains off in the distance. The sky is awash in a deep purple, fading into a warm pink closer to the ledge which the sun vanished over a few minutes ago. Purple and pink; their colors. Of course, neither one of them is here to see it. Lilith is somewhere off over my left shoulder, behind the closed bathroom door, soaking in the tub and singing, from the sounds of it “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” to herself. Lilah is over in the second master bedroom taking a shower. No, it’s not a guest bedroom, it really is the second master. It for those nights when one of us is the odd man out, or sick, or usually for me to rest in and patch up after a particularly brutal match. It’s a hard lesson we learned when we had the penthouse, that we needed two main bedrooms.

It’s laborious to even lift my limbs and make them work, but I manage it. It feels odd, alien, like I’m not even controlling my own body as I get my arms under me and push myself up. I look out the window and down to the deck below. I should go down and cover the hot tub. Actually a good, long soak sounds like a not shitty idea. Swim trunks, this time. Yes. I dig my knee-length black trunks out of the dresser and grab a towel off the shelf just outside the bathroom. Lilith has moved on to “Barracuda”. I have to lean on the bannister as I descend the stairs, but eventually I make my way out onto the deck with a towel over my shoulder and an ice-cold Diet Pepsi in the hand. I turn on the lights in the hot tub, fire up the jets, and set the music to one of my softer playlists, picking Van Halen’s “Dreams” as an opening number. As I’m relaxing, sipping diet soda, I hear Lilah curse under her breath. I lift my head and see here standing there in one of my Dragonforce T-shirts. It hits her just above the knee. "Amber, what’s wrong?”

”I wasn’t counting on you being here,” she admits.

”I live here,” I remind her.

”I meant in the hot tub,” she clarifies. ”I’m not wearing anything under this. Look, I don’t think I have anything left. If I take this off, are you going to…you know, get…”

It’s endearing. In the heat of the moment she’s one of the most passionate, sexual women I’ve ever known. But she gets so tongue-tied talking about sexuality any other time. I give her a smile. ”Amber, I think we can safely declare a cease-fire for the rest of the night.”

”Oh thank god,” she exclaims and disrobes, hanging her stolen shirt and her towel on the back of the same chair I tossed my own towel into, and slipping into the frothing water. She floats over and lands next to me. She pulls my free arm around her and rests her head on my shoulder, breathing softly before what seems to be a troubling subject is finally given voice. ”Tina…” Lilah calls Lilith both interchangeably away from the ring and the cameras because she’ll answer to either, in fact she rather likes the name Lilith; but Lilah likes to be called Amber almost exclusively with we’re not on the clock, ”Tina, said you sold that thing to that guy from Apple.”

”I did.”

”She said she wasn’t sure why,” Lilah adds, before crooking her neck up to look at me pointedly. ”But I am.”

”Really? Do tell,” I say lazily between sips of soda.

”It’s the match. Don’t pretend it’s not, Jason,” neither of the girls ever call me Stygian, but on the right night I can get them to call me Superman. ”It’s this crazy fucking match against Corey. You’re worried you won’t come back from it.”

”Are you?”

”Of course I am. Tina and I both are,” she exclaims. ”Look, Jase, I know…I know a lot of things. I know this,” she holds her left hand out of the water, showing off the ring Lilith and I picked out for her when we had out makeshift little ceremony with her, ”Isn’t a real wedding ring. I know that wasn’t a real wedding, but dammit, after two years of this, I’m every bit as married to you as she is. Hell, I’m married to both of you, in my heart, if not on paper.”

”Amber, Christina and I have told you time and again we feel the same about you,” I assure her. ”I love you. Tina loves you. You never have to justify your place in our lives to us.”

”I know, I just sometimes have a hard time keeping it all straight,” She says with a sigh. ”Sometimes I want to say something to you and then I go ‘oh, a wife should say that’ and I shut up.” She slaps the water in frustration.

”Amber…” Painful as it is, I twist around and prop myself against the side of the tub, facing her. ”You need to quit feeling this way hon. Tina and I picked out that ring and had that wedding to bring you in to our lives. You’re not ‘the extra girl’ anymore. You said it yourself, up tight fucking laws be damned, you’re as married to me as Tina is. So whatever is bothering you spit it out.”

”Ummm…okay…” she takes a deep breath and turns to face me. ”You know in baseball, when a pitcher has a…thing…that’s he’s…like when nobody hits the ball and stuff?”

”A no-hitter,” I clarify for her.

”Yeah, that,” she says with a nod. ”And like, nobody talks to him cause they’re afraid to mess it up?”

”It’s a common baseball superstition that if you talk to a pitcher who has a no-hitter or a perfect game going, you’ll spoil it,” I clarify.

”Yeah,” she bites her lip. She’s either trying to think of what to say, or work up the courage to say it. ”That’s like when you wrestle. Let me…what I mean is, like, you could get hurt. We know that. It’s always a danger. You could get hurt every night out there, there are like a bazillion things that could go wrong and you might get hurt. And we could get hurt just standing by the ring. I know that, Lil knows that. But like, your chances are a lot bigger and stuff. You could get hurt in a regular match, much less one of these crazy matches. It’s always a chance, but we never talk about it. You never talk about it, and the one time you did, it happened! You got buried alive and wound up in a coma and Lil made us leave because she said you needed to decide what was important and stuff. Then today you’re like this wild animal pouncing on us and going crazy and then you’re selling that thing that you saud you weren’t going ot sell and it just feels like…” she doesn’t end the run-on sentence she just spat out at a thousand miles an hour, she just looks up at me like a small child, seeing reassurance from a parent that everything will be ok.

”This isn’t like that, Amber.” I brush the backs of my fingers over her forehead. She closes her eyes and nods, poor girl is fighting back tears. ”I’m planning to come back from this match against Corey Casey. I’m planning to win. I’d be a fool to go into it expecting to get hurt and lose. If I go in that way, that’s exactly what is going to happen. But I can’t…” I drum my fingers idly on the side of the Diet Pepsi bottle as I think of how best to phrase this. The wrong word choice will have her crying her eyes out til noon, and then crashing out and fucking up her sleep cycle. ”I can’t ignore the danger either. I’ve pushed Corey Casey, maybe further than I ever should have. I’ve wounded him deeply, I’ve attacked the one thing in the world he has never questioned his faith in. I attacked the Insurgency. I stomped on his dream. I put a golden knife deep into his heart. This is the one thing in his life that he could believe in for the last two years. Jessica almost left him when he fucked off to Nepal. She almost took the kids and left him. But he still had this company and its integrity intact.

“I wounded him when I threatened the sanctity of the Insurgency and even I didn’t know how deep that wound would go. Corey’s got a history of violence, of crippling and breaking men. I didn’t want to get into this crazy match, but I needed something. I needed to throw things so far out of whack that the scale of it would be beyond even his imagination. I need an environment I’ve prepared, that he’s never been in. Because this isn’t just another match. I wanted it to be, but it’s gone beyond that. I realize that now. This is going to be a violent confrontation. This is going to be a war. And the only way I can go to war with Corey Casey is to eliminate fear. I sold that software to Apple because I knew what it was worth, and I don’t have to worry who will take care of you two if the unthinkable happens, or how I’ll make a living if I am horribly crippled. I was afraid of getting buried alive, and that’s why Kaden Kessler beat me. I’m not afraid of this. I took this week here so I could enter into this match without any fear. That’s why I’ve taken this week. To spend it with you two. Having fun, spending time, making love…I’m reminding myself of why I need to walk out of that arena after that match with Corey Casey. Walk. Not be carted out or carried out. But I need to walk out of that arena. I need to be the better man, and I need to be the more violent man. Corey Casey isn’t afraid of what happens if he doesn’t walk out. He’s not afraid because he knows exactly what he’s fighting for. Now that I’ve taken care of that software and sold it off, I’m not afraid. And I want to have another five days just like today was, so I remember what I’m fighting for.” Amber smiles and presses her lips to mine, I wrap my arms round and draw her close. When she’s finally ready she breaks the kiss and looks up at me with a knowing smile. About that time, Lilith comes out of the house, wrapped in a purple towel.

”I hope you two aren’t starting up without me,” she says coyly.

”Tina, I think we’ve decided on a cease-fire for the night,” I tell her, much to her chagrin.

”You two have no stamina,” she pouts.

”I think you somehow suck the life out of us orgasmically,” Lilah says, resting her head and floating on the jets.

”I’m with her, some kind of energy transfer definitely takes place. We’re beat down, and you’re ready to go run a triathlon,” I concur.

”Fine, you two can have the night off,” she says with fake mercy. ”But only tonight.”

She divests herself of her towel and lowers into the water. She sets my Diet Pepsi on the deck and slips under my right arm. I look back and forth, between the blonde under my right arm, and the brunette under my left. Lilah’s half-asleep, so I keep her close. Lilith is probably going to get antsy and set something into motion, or at least try. But for now, I’ve taken an important step. They say before a particularly important battle, a warrior has to find peace. Some do it through meditation. Some do it through medication. Me? I do it with copious amounts of violent sex with the two women I love. I’ve found my inner peace. Sunday, Corey will find my outer violence.