Breaking New Grounds

by Amy DeMeritt

  “Do you think you’ll have this done in two months? Will the restaurant be able to remain open while you’re doing this?”

  “Definitely. It’s pricier, but some of these stone wall elements will be constructed off site and installed afterwards. We’ll do everything in phases and do it outside of operation hours. If all goes as planned, this should be done in less than a month.”

  “Ok, if my wives are happy with it, then you have our approval to start. While you’re here, you should check out our attic. We want to finish it and convert it into bedrooms.”

  “Ok, but you do know that a regular contractor could do that for you, right?”

  I smile and nod as I nuzzle in Malana’s and Helaku’s necks. “Yeah, but you’re like a mega-expert, so it would be nice to get your opinion and have you here to make sure they do it right. There aren’t any windows up there, so we’d need to have them installed. I want to make sure it’s structurally sound and all that good stuff. If it’s beneath your expertise that’s fine. I just thought I’d ask.”

  Hayley leans forward to put her closed laptop on the coffee table, saying, “I’ll take a look, but I don’t know if I’ll have time to be able to monitor that on top of the restaurant and the cultural center.”

  Before I can respond, Awenasa jumps in, saying, “Kayla, I don’t want any contractors in the house till you are home. We’ll wait till after you finish the movie to do anything with the attic.”

  “Actually, yeah, I agree. I wasn’t thinking. I don’t want any random people in the house while I’m gone. So, how are we doing with the cultural center?”

  With pride and excitement, Hayley says, “Great. We have all of the required permits and our team is ready to start on schedule. The gala we did in December raised enough money for both locations, so Sorina has been in talks with her tribe about selecting a site for us to build in North Dakota. We should have our piece of land for the sister location very soon. Then we’ll start the permit process.”

  “That’s awesome. Anything you need me to do?”

  “I have a long laundry list for Sorina to take care of in California. If you could help her accomplish it that would be great.”

  “Sure. We’ll get your errands done, boss. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to get a drink. Anyone else need anything?”

  “I’m dying for some water and some food would be good. We should probably have lunch.”

  “We’ll cook. You need to go finish packing.”

  I quirk an eyebrow at Sara as she stands up to go to the kitchen. “How do you know I haven’t finished packing yet?”

  “Because I know you. You procrastinate on packing every time you have to leave your family.”

  Awenasa comes over with a loving smile and takes Malana from me and takes my hand.

  “Come on, puppy. I’ll help you.”

  Chapter Five

  I’ve spent two weeks reading lines with the entire movie cast around a giant conference room, and now we’re finally getting to work on the stunt choreography. I walk into the gym expecting to be the last one here because traffic was really bad, but I’m the first to arrive. In fact, if the door wasn’t unlocked, I’d think I was the only person in the entire building. I don’t hear a single sound or see anyone at all.

  I drop my bookbag on a bench alongside a large open room with the floor covered with thick black training mats. I slowly spin around, looking around the facility, and as I’m turning a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, a woman in a pair of black martial arts pants, a black sports bra, and holding a long black staff starts walking across the mat towards me.

  The back of my neck tingles and my adrenaline surges in my veins. The woman is staring at me unblinking, walking with an even, slow pace, and her facial expression is hard and fierce. She’s built strong with highly defined muscles in her arms and abs. Her rich cocoa skin has a light sweat sheen, and her plump lips are pinched slightly. Everything about the way she’s approaching me tells me to be ready for anything.

  “Uh, hi. I’m Kayla Johann. I’m supposed to be meeting Ritz Kelly here. Are you Ritz?”

  “Ritz is a cracker. Do I look like a cracker?”

  My jaw drops and before I can figure out how to answer her, she lunges forward with her staff like a javelin, trying to pierce my stomach. I quickly thrust my hips back and sweep my hand across the front of myself to block the staff. She’s fast and pulls back, only to twist and swing the staff at me, trying to clock me on my head. The staff is padded, but her attacks are still forceful enough that it hurts to block with my arms.

  “Either this is a test, or you really don’t like me.”

  I dodge and block a rapid series of attacks, but she doesn’t let up, nor does she say anything. While I’m evading another long sweep of her staff, I notice a barrel of similar staffs in the back corner, where she had first appeared. I jump to avoid a foot sweep, then immediately block and spin away from another forward thrust. I take off running for the barrel and I get a staff in my hands just as she’s reaching me and swings for my head.

  I block her strike and counter her. Her mouth curls into a smile, as if she approves, then she comes in harder and faster. I can barely keep up with her enough to block her attacks, let alone strike back. We spar up and down the entire length of the mat for several minutes before she bests me. She fakes a lunge, followed by a fake to the left, then quickly spins and thrusts the staff backwards under her arm and gets me in the right side of my stomach.

  “Shit. You got me.”

  The woman smiles, and turns to face me with her staff planted on the floor.

  “My name is Kelly Ritz. Those asshole producers love to flip the names to fuck with me. Sorry for the racial slur before – it was just to try to get you off guard. You’re good. Have you had martial arts training?”

  “It depends on what you mean by training. My dad had training growing up and he taught my siblings and me how to fight. My sister Sara and I have always liked to incorporate different fighting techniques in our dance battles, and long staff sparring often found its way into our battles, especially when we build a fire. We have a special fire dance we do with long wooden poles.”

  “Fire dance, huh? Is that like a rain dance?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “It’s nothing magical or shamanic or anything. It’s just us goofing off and having fun.”

  “Sounds very entertaining. Your goofing off will pay off in the training for the film choreography. You have a really good base for how to move with the staff, but we’re going to clean it up and make you look like a true expert. Ready to get to work?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure. I thought several others from the cast were joining us?”

  She shakes her head as she turns her back to me and starts walking to the center of the floor, saying, “I’m training each of you individually first. Then we’ll bring all of you together to work out the fight scenes. Come stand next to me. Give yourself about ten feet and face the mirror.”

  I’m really hot from our sparring match, so I pull my tee shirt off and toss it up against the mirror.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  She’s much better than she gave me in our sparring match. She was really holding back. She’s very sharp in everything she does, and her body moves so fluidly it’s as if the long staff is a part of her. I feel honored to be training with her. With each technique she shows me, I start to look more like a martial artist and less like I’m doing a dance battle with Sara. While my moves are still fluid, they look less graceful and become deadlier. Being able to see the difference in the mirror is exciting and spurs me to work harder.

  Without warning, Kelly turns on me and engages me in a sparring match again. Shit. She’s really trying to attack me. Our feet and arms move quickly to evade, block, and strike at each other. She lands a hard strike against my calf while spinning in towards me and pushes out, getting me off balance. She brings the other side of her staff around
to try to smack me in the face, but I recover my footing and block her.

  I spin out and plant myself back to back with her. If she lifts her left arm, I follow and keep my arm against hers – same if she lifts her right arm.

  “Very good. You’ve put me in a good position to attempt to level the playing field. However, this will only work to gain you a few moments of rest. A fighter at my level will get an edge up on you again very quickly. I’m going to make my move now and you’re going to need to react very quickly or you’re dead.”

  “Dead? Shit…”

  She didn’t even give me a second to think about what she’s going to do. I duck, barely getting out of the way as she jumps away from me and swings her staff at my head. She thrusts down while I’m crouched and I have to roll sideways to dodge it. She lifts her staff and comes down hard, like she’s going to slice through me, and I get my staff above my face just in time to block her.

  She’s fast and determined. I flip backwards onto my knees, block her swing, then thrust for her gut, but she spins and lands a strike on my shoulder.

  “Shit.”

  I laugh and fall over, trying to roll away from her. She presses the butt of her staff into my chest, not hard, but firm enough to prove her point. She smiles and offers me a hand, pulling me off of the floor.

  “That was fun.”

  She laughs hard and takes the long staff from me to return them to their storage barrel. “I wish all of my students thought sparring is fun. It would be nice to see them improve as quickly as you did. We won’t need to do another session before we bring everyone together to learn the choreography. So, I won’t see you for at least three days, depending on how well the others do. If they don’t do well and need more time, then I’ll let you know when you should come back.”

  “Oh, we’re done already?”

  Kelly laughs and starts to walk away, but then quickly spins back and throws a right hook punch at the side of my face, which I block. She smiles and nods once.

  “Yeah, we’re done. You’re a formidable fighter – well beyond what is necessary to fake a fight scene for a movie.”

  “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”

  She laughs again and places her hands on her hips. “Are you attempting to get this session to last longer? Do you want me to take the kid gloves off for you?”

  “Well, I was promised a two-hour session,” I look up at the clock to check the time, then tilt my head to look at her with a cocky smile, “and it’s only been an hour.”

  “You’re going to wish you had accepted my generosity and left when you had the chance. Get your ass back on the mat. I’ll be right back.”

  Kelly walks away with a cocky switch in her hips. I smile and walk to the center of the mat.

  The past two weeks of only working on reading lines has been fun, but not being able to move and actually physically act has been driving me crazy. I need action and physical exhaustion. I need to feel like I’m being pushed to my limits. I haven’t been working out much so I’m not too exhausted for the hectic schedules and once we get into training. I have a lot of energy to burn.

  Aside from needing the physical exhaustion, being able to take advantage of this opportunity and learn from a master is not something I can pass up or take lightly. So, even though I really need to burn up the energy, I mostly want to learn as much from her as possible.

  “Catch.” I turn and catch a pair of black sparring gloves, just before they hit me in my face. “Put those on and take your shoes and socks off. The producers would have me killed and dumped in a desert if I mess up your beautiful face so no head shots. And it should go without saying, but no back shots either.”

  We face off in the center of the mat. We bow to each other, bump gloves, and she starts bouncing on the balls of her feet with her gloves up in front of herself. We circle each other a couple of times, looking in each other’s eyes and watching for the slightest movement that could indicate an attack.

  I allow her to make the first move, but as soon as she moves in, the fight becomes intense. She’s really fast and strong. Each time I block or dodge her, it’s just in time, barely getting away from her, but I also sustain many light hits.

  Each time I throw a punch or a kick, she is fast to block and counter it. As I’m lunging in to take an opening for her left ribcage, she smiles and grabs my shoulders, pulling me in to knee me in the gut. I grab her leg and lean into her. I wrap an arm around the back of her waist and sweep her other foot out from under her, sending her onto her back. But just as I think I accomplished something, she somehow gets me on my back with her knees pinning my shoulders down. She sits on my chest and pats my head with an amused smile on her face.

  “Nice try.”

  I laugh and shake my head. I quickly lift my legs and wrap them around her chest, ripping her backwards.

  This moment is so reminiscent of the time Sam showed up on campus to try to win me back after she broke up with me and I was dating Madison. We wrestled like this on the front lawn of someone’s house after she walked out of Josh’s party.

  Unlike my wrestling match with Sam, Kelly is not easily taken down. It takes a lot of straining to get her off of my shoulders and chest, but even though I get her off of me, I can’t get her pinned down. We grapple on the floor, trying to best each other, but she’s too fast and skilled. She gets me pinned again, but this time I’m on my chest with my arms twisted behind my back and she’s sitting on my ass.

  “Shit. How did I end up like this?”

  She laughs and releases my arms. As she starts to stand up, she smacks me hard on my ass.

  “Get up. Let’s go again. Maybe you’ll figure out where you went wrong.”

  I stand and shake my arms out, trying to loosen the pinched muscles from being pinned and contorted by her in our grappling match. Sweat drips down my forehead and hangs from my brow in my vision. I take a deep breath, brush my forearm over my forehead, wiping away my sweat, and we bump gloves to start a new match.

  Not even a minute in, she has me on my back with her knees in my shoulders again.

  “Shit.” She laughs and spreads her arms out. “Ok, little monkey, swing those legs around me.”

  I laugh hard, which makes it hard to breathe because she’s sitting on my chest. I contract my abs, wrap my legs around her chest, and we start grappling again. I see it – where I messed up. As she’s about to turn me onto my chest, I grab the back of her thigh and pull hard while I lift up with my shoulder against her chest. I stand up with her draped over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and she laughs. She smacks my ass hard and I set her down on her feet.

  “You learn quickly from your mistakes. That was a good counter move. Now, try to figure out why I keep getting you on your back in the first place.”

  She bumps my gloves and immediately comes back in hard and fast. I’m becoming exhausted so I feel like I’m moving much slower than before. She gets me on my back, but before she lands both knees in my shoulders, I’m able to divert her stance and get her off balance. I grab her foot and in a fluid motion I twist us and get her on her chest. I try to straddle her to hold her down, but she gets up on her knees and stands up with me on her back. Both of us laugh, and as I’m stepping down off of her back, she sweeps my legs out and gets me pinned down with her knees on my shoulders.

  “Shit. That is impossible.”

  I try to lift my legs again, but she blocks them. I laugh and let my legs drop.

  “You’re going to need a new trick, little monkey.”

  “You know I’m a wolf, right?”

  “Prove it.” She looks up at the clock and looks down at me with a cocky smile. “You have twenty minutes to figure out how to get out of this position and to prevent me from getting you back into this position again.”

  She lets the rest of her weight sit heavy on my chest, causing me to groan and my oxygen supply is greatly reduced. I try to twist up to send her rocking to the side, but it doesn’t work and only strain
s my lower back. She shakes her head and pats my head.

  “Oh, poor little monkey, you can’t swing your body when half of it is immobilized.”

  I grab the front of her thighs and try to pry her backwards, but she leans in harder, digging her knees into my shoulders. I groan in pain and stop. I glide my hands down her thighs and down her calves. She quirks an eyebrow at me and her lip curls into a curious grin.

  “What are you trying to…?”

  I grab her ankles and pull hard, which pulls enough of her weight off of my shoulders that I can get my arms free from her knees. I quickly sit up, wrapping my arms around her waist, and we land hard with her on her back and me laying on top of her, between her thighs. She smiles and pats my head.

  “Good job, Wolf. However, you didn’t plan well enough.”

  She wraps her legs around my waist and squeezes hard, locking me against her. She pries my arms off of her and rolls us, getting me pinned down again.

  “Shit.”

  She laughs hard and places her hands on the mat on either side of my face. A drip of sweat drops off of her nose onto my cheek. She smiles and brushes her thumb over my cheek, wiping it away.

  “Have anything left?”

  I smack her ass as my answer, startling her and making her laugh hard. She stands up, pulling me up with her. We face off and start a new match.

  We fight three more matches, all of which end with her pinning me on my back or chest. I lay completely exhausted, face down on the mat, with her straddling me and her hands holding my shoulders down.

  “Had enough?”

  “No.”

  She laughs and sits on my ass, releasing my shoulders. “If you can get me off of you, we’ll go again. But if you can’t get me off of you in three attempts, you’re done.”

  I buck my ass against her, but all she does is laugh and snap the back of my sports bra, as if to punctuate my helplessness. I groan dramatically while I flail my arms and legs like a squished cartoon character.