Post by Amy Jo Smyth on Nov 25, 2017 23:57:21 GMT -5
I gotta get myself
Off the side of the road
I gotta get myself up off the side of the road
Things are lookin' clear as they've ever been
Don't know how it'll end but I know where to begin
Off the side of the road
I gotta get myself up off the side of the road
Things are lookin' clear as they've ever been
Don't know how it'll end but I know where to begin
___________________________
It’s fun being at the top of mountain - nothing short of sheer jubilation, actually. Especially for a competitor who hasn’t been this high up in a long time. Even better when you’ve been there for such a long time, seemingly untouchable.
For as good as it is, it’s also a daily challenge and a very dangerous place to be. There is no greater height to fall from than the top of the mountain. There was a time when I stood at the foot of the mountain, looking up at the champion atop it, longing to be in his or her spot. To say that I didn’t want to be a top champion, to stand there would be an outright lie. I did, I still do, and I have. The desire got me there and it’s keeping me there to this day. I want to be the very best and so I make sure I am the very best, never ceasing because even though I might be the best right now, there is always room for improvement. And, more importantly, someone is always chasing down their own dreams, rushing toward their goal, dreaming of being exactly where you are, ready to dethrone you at any moment.
They are pushing their rock up the mountain, ready to fight you at any moment. For some, myself included, the quest has a Sisyphus vibe to it. With all this talk of mountains and rocks, I couldn’t resist bringing up the analogy. Don’t make me explain the myth in full, please, but basically a dude named Sisyphus was cursed with pushing a rock up a mountain for all eternity, getting near the top only to have it fall back down again, destroying all that progress.
That can feel like the sport of wrestling at times, especially if you’re only goal is reaching the top of the mountain. For some, championships aren’t important. At least they like to claim this, generally when they’ve been unable to win one and need a suitable, logical excuse that most people would believe. Let’s be serious with ourselves, a large part of this sport is about the titles. There needs to be a goal for people to work toward and that happens to be the gold and perches atop the mountains.
It’s what most of us are fighting for.
But when you get there, you had better be ready to keep your own rock from falling down. Guard the mountain and hold your shit firmly in place. I have to hold myself firmly in place again. The harsh reality is simple - I’m in a dangerous place. For all that I hold, and I hold a number of titles right now, I’m about to defend them all one after another. By next week, I could have nothing. From the top of the top straight to the bottom. There are people chasing their dreams coming for me, there are women who are determined to not just knock me off this mountain but crush me with their rocks as well - crush me with a boulder and then throw my lifeless carcass off the peak so I can hit with a splat These are women who think they’d be a much champion than me.
Yes, right now, I’m divesting my time, a double world champion, but somehow able to seemingly do it all. You’d think I would be distracted, especially with the goings-on in my personal life that seem to spill over into my professional life. You’d think. But nope. I’m holding it all together and I’m doing it well, even when people think they’ve figured out what actually goes on in my living room and even so far as my bedroom. That’s because of my devotion to this sport, the respect I have for it, and my unwillingness to give up, to keep rising. And I’m having fun, too. I couldn’t ask for more.
But, do you what I’m focused on right now, what has all of my attention?
Now I wouldn’t want her to feel disrespected or left out.
This very angry woman wants to crush me with her rock and her reclaim what she thinks is her rightful space on the top of the mountain.
Well ain’t she in for a surprise.
___________________________
In the Continuing Adventures of Our Hero...
◀◀ Be Kind, Rewind
“Bonjour, mon cocotte d'or,” someone says cheerfully. As the words register, so does my realization; it’s not just someone, it’s Theresa Guyon, the DGSE agent. I might be having a vivid auditory hallucination. To be sure, I open my eyes and after a brief moment, it all works itself out. The beautiful Guyon is leaning over me, smiling, almost sparkling in the sun.
“Did you just call me your golden pot?” I ask.
She laughs. “No,” she answers.
“Wait,” I say, moving my mouth more than usual and pressing my tongue against my cheek. “I can talk!”
Her laughter continues. “Could you not talk before?” she asks, extending her hand to me. “Come. Asseoir.”
I take her hand and with a tug, she pulls me up to sitting. The movement makes my arm sting. “Fuck,” I grunt, remembering the incident.
“You’re bleeding,” she says, moving quickly to inspect my arm.
“I’m fine,” I say, trying to deflect in this strange knee-jerk reaction to her offer to help.
She shakes her head at me. “You are not fine,” she scolds me. “Se lever. Up.”
I try to get up, I really do, but my feet still aren’t much for cooperating. Thankfully I can feel them and they move but just not the way I need them to. Standing is fine, walking is another. My French ally in this business known as espionage hooks my arm over her neck, wraps her arm around my back, and guides me along, holding on to me until we reach the sofa. A dead man’s sofa. She releases me and plops me down on the sofa.
Before I can protest, she starts to remove my shirt, pulling at the bottom hem and getting it over my head.
“Hey, hey,” I shout, blinded by the fabric and tied up in the sleeves that keep my arms above my head. “Is this really the time for that?” The last time she took off my shirt and saw me in just my bra, we were in throes of passion, deeply entangled in each other, moments away from sealing the deal.
“Silence,” she instructs in a serious tone, reverting back to her natural French, as she tears my t-shirt off my head. My eyes go right to her face. Theresa wears a very earnest expression, eyes locked in heightened focus, examining my upper body and the very prevalent wound on my bicep. The late afternoon sunlight in streaking in through the window hits her face in just the right ways, creating peaks and valleys of lights and shadows that accent all the sharp corners and rounded corners of her features. It’s her eyes, though, they are what makes her stand out. These bright blue eyes that seem to give her away but never actually do, having this strange ability to be a thousand different people when needed and only herself when that facade comes down.
Right now, I’m having the pleasure of seeing her concerned and caring side. As her doctor like visual examination of my body continues, I wonder if she would do this for anyone else. Then something else dawns on me.
“How did you know I was here?” I ask, tightening my eyes.
“I was in the neighborhood,” she answers mindlessly, getting closer to my bicep, more interested in my injury than giving me an explanation of the how and who and what. “You need stitches.”
She’s up and moving in seconds, combing through the empty kitchen cabinets, leaving them wide open as she goes. There’s an string French expletives as she moves into the bathroom, where one would assume first aid supplies are kept. I hope she doesn’t expect to find the materials to stitch up my arm in a random guy’s house. Because it’s something we all keep in our homes, just a thing we do in North America. Things bang and crash in the bathroom, the French ramblings of frustration come out louder, and in a final act, she slams something closed.
She appears in the hallway holding a half crushed box of off-brand flesh colored band-aids. “Que diable? Comment est-ce? Que suis-je censé faire avec ça? Comment cela peut-il être? Je ne peux rien faire avec ça! Merde,” she rambles, expressing her anger vocally. “You need a lot more than a fucking band-aid.” The box goes flying.
“Wow,” I say softly. “You care. You really care.” I say this sarcastically but in a way, I know this is exactly why she’s so upset. Theresa actually does about me, developing an attachment to me, perhaps in a romantic way, but definitely in a platonic way. She cannot handle seeing me injured and feels the distress I’m in, disappointed and frustrated by her inability to relieve my pain and keep me safe, something we all feel at some point in our lives about family, friends, and the world as a whole. My friend feels helpless, is basically helpless.
God helps those who help themselves.
“My bag,” I say, pointing with my good arm toward my messenger bag sitting peacefully on one of the kitchen chairs. She looks at me. “Get my bag.”
Theresa retrieves my bag and holds it out for me.
“In the side pocket,” I explain, continuing to point at it.
Without anything more from me, she roots through my bag, going to the wrong side pocket first, finding an peppermint Altoids tin that actually contains, shock, peppermint Altoids. Spying on people requires fresh breath. Seeing them makes me crave one, actually, especially to clear out the rotten taste in my mouth. Theresa finally finds the first aid kit Birdie makes me pack for every trip, an improvised, home built IFAK that he put together based on special forces and Ops team kits. It may look small, but it packs a punch, containing everything from an Israeli field dressing and surgical kit. The whole survival kick the government conspiracy nuts have got on has done wonders for the improvement of the tactical first aid kit.
Her investigation yields bandages, monofilament, tweezers, cleaning fluid, and the ability to put stitches in my arm. The procedure begins with her positioning me and herself in a place that makes it easier. Her careful, attentive eyes and hands work carefully. Each and every step in the process stings worse than the last. That is until the whole things goes numb, a natural reaction from my body. Endorphins kick in.
“How do you even know any of this?” I ask, wincing, trying to forget about the needle and thread going in and out of my flesh.
“They didn’t teach you how to do this?” she asks me, answering me with a question of her own, focused on keeping her knots perfect and causing me more pain than needed. “Sit still.”
I do my best to remain motionless but it’s no easy task with the sensations running all through my body. “They didn’t teach me much of anything, honestly.”
“Did you not go through, what is it, boot camp?” she asks.
“Not really,” I say. “It’s…” A stinger of pain trips me up. “It’s complicated.”
“I see,” she answers.
“They teach you that in boot camp,” I say, flinching. “Medical grade stitches?”
“Oh, no,” she answers. “Sergent in the French Foreign Legion. Combat medic.” She finishes up the final stitch and places the tools of the job on a towel behind her. “My parents wanted me to be a nurse, a good profession for a country girl, but I wanted to be a soldier like my father.”
“Ah,” I say, “so a trade off.”
“Deux pour un,” she says and then ever so carefully places a piece of gauze over the wound. “Then I joined the DGES. Now we are here.”
We sit in silence while she examines me further, finding another wound on my back, probably from what I was slammed into the table. She pushes me forward, sits behind me, starts to do what combat medics do, treat her patients injuries.
“This is where you tell me your story,” she says. “I do not know anything about you…”
“And yet you've seen me half naked,” I announce.
She chuckles. “Even more reason to tell me.”
“I don't have a fun story to tell you, I'm sorry,” I answer.
“Why did you join the CIA, then?” she asks.
“I didn't so much join as I was..” I pause to think of the right words. “Forcefully recruited.”
“What does that mean?”
There's a sudden prick in my back, something being yanked out of my flesh. “It means nothing,” I rebuke sharply.
“I see,” is all she says. We go silent. She pushes a bandage against my skin. “You will get a scar.”
“Add another to mix,” I say, unconcerned.
“You know what they say about scars,” she starts, pauses for effect. “They're sexy.”
Theresa begins to kiss my upper back and shoulders. Gentle little things sweeping my skin, forcing goosebumps to rise all over my body. I swallow hard, let the moment take over. Her hands find their way to my waist, start moving upward to my ribs, and stay there, holding me in place. With a quick sweep, she slides her lips to my neck and pushes my hair out of the way. It feels so good, too good, probably too good for a moment such like this.
Her hands move upward to my breasts. It’s this sensation that brings me back to earth. “We can’t do this and you know that,” I say with severity, pulling myself away from her and jumping to my feet. Her fingertips linger on my waist somehow, stretching her arms to their furthest reach. I turn and the fingers finally fall away. She looks back at me, half a grin on her face and seduction still in her eyes. This is a woman who knows what she wants and she’s going to have it, come hell or high water.
“C'est tellement facile de t'embrasser,” she coos. “Almost too easy.”
My eyes tighten. “Did you just call me easy?”
Her laughter echoes in the room. “You may be easy to kiss but you are anything but a pute,” she says as she stands. She reaches out to me, touches my face, pushes my hair out of my face. I’m drawn in, lean my cheek against her palm. “You have been one of the most resistant women I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing intimately. “Obstine, almost stubborn. This only makes me want you more.”
“Hm,” I moan, smelling the soap on her hands and perfume on her wrist.
“Mon tournesol doré,” she says softly, “in full bloom.”
Theresa leans in, ready to kiss me. I turn my head, avoid the kiss. “We can’t.”
“I know, I know,” she says, releasing me. “Mon petit bœuf.”
“Stop calling me really weird things in French,” I say, grabbing my shirt. “It’s freaking me out.” I slide the generic white men’s t-shirt back on, the fabric catching on the adhesive of a bandage for only for a second, but long enough to cause a twinge of pain in arm.
“Ca va?” she asks, leaping forward, ready to aid me in any way possible.
I wave her off, “Fine. Tres bien.”
She looks around the room. “You did this all by yourself?”
The words trigger my brain. “Padro!” I shout in a sudden realization, having all but forgotten about the man who lead me here and is meant to help me in this guest.
Theresa shakes her head, utterly confused of who I’m talking about and why I’ve yelled with such a panic. “Padro?” she asks, the name sounding really wrong coming out of her mouth, altered heavily by her French accent. “Should I know who that is?”
“Shit, shit,” I scream in a fluttering panic, gathering up the goods that came with the first aid kit and trying to shove them back into the bag they came in. Things don’t go well, my hurry and the uncooperative package make the whole thing nearly impossible. I growl with anger. “Why does shit never go back the way it came?!”
Theresa grabs my hands, stops me. “Haste makes to waste,” she says calmly. “Let me do that for you, please.”
I release the thing into her charge, watch her put everything back into the correct compartments with careful precision, making certain that each tool fits just right. The flaps close up exactly as they should, possibly even better than they did before. Theresa holds out the kit for me, smiling easily.
“Thank you,” I answer, sighing heavily and taking it from her hand. It fits into the side pocket of my messenger bag without any issue.
“We will find Pardo,” she says, again so calm and collected, seemingly unphased. But this isn’t happening to her so how worked up can she actually be? She’s just an outsider and to her, he’s nothing more than a stranger, a man she’s never met and a man she probably hates because he managed to put me in harm’s way, let me here alone, unconconscious on the floor of a dead man’s floor. I still can’t figure out what took me down or how but that’s a mystery to be solved another time.
“I need to call Birdie,” I say. I pat down my body and search my bag. My phone is missing. “Fuck!”
“What? Why so many fucks from you? What is it now?” she asks, stressing that last question.
“My phone,” I say. Where did I have it last? When? Did my assailant steal it? The bedroom. I almost run to the bedroom, Theresa giving chase.
“What? What’s wrong?” she begs.
I toss the room, looking for my phone, desperate for contact. It’s only when I get down on my hands and knees that I find my phone hiding under the bed. I don’t even get off the ground before making the call.
“AJ!” Birdie answers.
“What’s going on?” I ask, leaning back against the wall.
“I should be asking you that,” he says, sounding almost slighted. “You didn’t make your check-in, neither did Pardo. What’s happening?”
“I wish I knew,” I say. “I was attacked with some kind of poison and I’ve been unconscious since. Oh, and Padro is missing. Just typical mission for the newly promoted agent.”
Theresa lifts her eyebrows in impressed happiness and gives me a little sideways bow of her head in a silent gesture of congratulations. There’s a wink, too, right before she moves to the bedroom window. She moves the curtains to the side, peaks downstairs.
“Are you okay? Do you need extraction?” he asks, worried. There is heavy, rapid typing from his end of the line. “We can have you out in… Less than an hour.”
“No, no,” I quickly rebuke. “I’m fine… All stitched up.”
Theresa glares at me, shakes her head, mouthing the words no and don’t tell.
“Stitched up?” Birdie asks, confused.
“That first aid kit was very handy,” I explain, backtracking.
“Knew it would,” he answers. I know he’s smiling with pride back at Langley.
“Where’s Pardo?” I ask.
Theresa’s facial expression changes with a sweeping suddenness. There’s no more charming, amused smile or glistening eyes spiked with seduction that go from undressing me to longing for me - in fact, she doesn’t even look at me anymore. She tightens her eyes, moves closer to the window. There’s a flurry of panic across her, one that she quickly extinguishes in the hopes that I don’t see it. There is something outside that has her grabbed all of her attention.
“We have to go,” she whispers.
“His GPS is…”
Theresa grabs me by the shoulder, urges me to my feet. “Now,” she hisses.
I’m on my feet, urged forward. “I - I have to go,” I sputter ito the phone. “Text me.”
“What’s going on?!” Birdie screams into the phone. “Smyth! Amyth, answer me! AJ!”
I cut off the line and were scrambling out of the apartment, damn near tripping over each other. There’s only one way in and one way out. Big men stomp their way up the stairs, making quick work on the flights of stairs.
“Merde,” Theresa says. “Merde, merde!”
I give her a look. “Look who’s got a potty mouth now,” I quip.
“These are not good men,” she says in her hushed hiss. “C'est mauvais.”
My French ally spins around, looking for an exit. I consider bum-rushing them, knocking the one in front down and letting the rest go tumbling down like dominos. They’d never see it coming. The lead guy is usually either the biggest or the smallest. If the smallest is leading, he’ll easily lose his balance and fall backwards, hitting everyone behind him, offering at the very least, a distraction. If the biggest guy takes point, he’s going to fall and crush everyone behind, taking them down and creating a somewhat clear path for us to escape. Hell, at this point, it wouldn’t matter what size the lead guy is, only that he’s leading.
This could all go to shit real fast. One variable off, if there’s too much space between the men, if they’re bigger than I anticipate, if they’re braced for impact, the whole thing is a recipe for death capture. At this point, I don’t even know who these men are and I’m working solely off of what Theresa’s information. I have no reason not to believe her, considering everything going on and considering how scared she is of these men. C’est mauvais.
I’ve decided to just go with it, the plan to run a straight shot at these, aiming at them like a cannonball, going directly for their center of gravity. I turn to Theresa, far too aware that the seconds are ticking away and that decisions are being made for me by the cruel master known as time. “When I say go, charge and aim for their waist,” I explain. “A football tackle.”
“What?” she says, finally looking at me. “What?”
“La taille,” I say in her first language. “Viser le la taille. La Hanches.” For some reason, maybe just to get one last feel of female hips before I go running into what is possibly certain death, I grab her hips and squeeze them, hoping the physical touch is enough to get the message through. “On my three, charge them. When I go, you go.”
I count the steps from our position to the landing,run some quick math, hoping it all works out and my PhD wasn’t for naught. As soon the point man lifts his foot to place it on the landing, we’ll make contact. Or at least I hope. Now would be a horrible time to trip.
The first man comes up. A beefy guy of maybe three hundred pounds, covered in tattoos from head to toe, face included, is about one step away from where I need him to be.
“Un,” I start. “Deux.”
“C'est de la folie,” she mumbles.
“Trios!”
We take off just like cannonballs shot from a culverin. The guy doesn’t even know what hit him, my right shoulder slamming into his hip with near perfect precision. A cornerback would be proud, jealous even. This wasn’t just a quality block, but a clean tackle that follows every rule in the book.
The man tumbles back, the other two behind him doing exactly what I predicted, lose their footing and fall. Theresa and I keep running, forward momentum both fighting us and working with us. We have to leap and jump, turning into parkour masters. Soon I’m sliding on the railing, praying to whatever Aztec God handles this sort of thing, and before I know it, I’m at the main entrance, or the exit in his case. Theresa lands next to me in a bumbling heap, cursing in French.
“You are crazy,” she says. “C’est fou.”
As I lift Theresa to her feet, the stitches in my arm remind me of their presence and suck more strength out of me. It doesn’t stop me, though, and I’m dragging Theresa with me as we exit onto the bright street.
“C’est fou,” she shouts again, running with me now, clearly out of breath. Sh has got to keep up. The more space we put between us and those guys, the better. I have no idea where we’re going but we’re going.
...To Be Continued…
Gabriel Camacho, I can’t imagine, is a happy woman. Whether it be that I usurped her and have been unstoppable since or the glitter or any little fucking thing I’ve done. I’m pretty sure that that woman dislikes me so much that just me breathing annoys her. Maybe it’s personal for her, some kind of bitterness from all the things I’ve done, but oh well, that’s the way it goes. If she wants to get that worked up over little things and forget about bigger things, what can I do? This is woman is so high strung and uppity and arrogant that everything is an offense to her.
See, that’s what happens when you’ve got a stick up your bum and forget that a partial requirement for this sport is having fun. You can’t get all wrapped up in certain things and forget about all the other aspects. We all have our own reasons for getting into the ring and winning titles. For me, in winning the L.A.W. Title, my reason was to dethrone a woman that had a stranglehold on the title and was summarily killing it. Much like what Ms. Roberts was doing with the Marquee Title. Since then, we’ve had two different Marquee Champions. Before that, the division was mostly dead. The L.A.W. Title was not very different.
Oh how things have changed.
That seems like so long ago - in reality, it has been a long time. Nearly a year. In that time, jesus, what hasn’t happened? Good, bad, and a lot of ugly. We are in a new era and for as much as some people hate what’s happening, at least things are happening. Can’t say that I’m all that keen on certain people and I know they hate me. She wanted to push me off the mountain real fast then set me on fire. All in, though, I outclassed them, out-wrestled them, and outlasted them.
That’s what a champion does.
They also have a way of getting everyone all fired up. Metaphorically, of course.
I’ve aroused a lot of passions in a lot of people for a number of reasons, mainly because I’ve been doing so well or tell them the truth even when they don’t want to hear it. But at least I’ve stirred up something in them which means I’m doing something right at champion. Which, aside from me, Camacho, you, failed to do in a lot of people.
No one can deny that when you were champion you weren’t stirring up much of anything or drawing attention to yourself or the title. To you, that’s more than acceptable. To me, that isn’t acceptable. Not of any champion and especially not of myself. But yet you remain so sure of yourself, so completely in this belief that you can make people care about you or what you’re doing or that you’re even the number one contender or Queen of the Ring.
So fucking sure that you’ve done enough.
Pardon, but I don’t think you’ve done enough. Not even close to it. You won’t be able to do enough to beat me, either. Your rock is going to get close but I’m going to put my arm out and send you tumbling back to the bottom. You’ve gotten so close just to watch it all go falling down. That’s some tragic shit, breaks your heart, demoralizes you, and leaves you shattered. I was there once, wrecked and battered, and I didn’t want to be there anymore, like that anymore. I rose up. I suggest you do the same when Night of Glory is over. Give yourself a few days to recoup then start to rise up. Just don’t aim for me again, because after this, I will have made it really clear that for as long as I have this title, you won’t be getting near it.
If you want to become an educational myth, I’ll leave that all up to you. I’ll be too busy making myself a legend, carrying on forward with this historic title reign. See, my friend, we are moving forward, not backwards. You can come with us or get left behind. After all, I never promised anyone the world or sheer perfection and perception is reality for a lot of people.
I, honestly, believe that is a lot of Camacho is living off of, her own skewed perception of the world. The harsh reality will get her in the end. She can stand there and think she’s done something right or that she can defeat me, that she can be the one to stop me dead in my tracks, take the title, and end my streak, but oh, reality is a bitch. A bigger bitch than her. If she thought what I did to her our first bad, ha! If she thinks what I did to Roberts was bad, ha! There’s a lot more where that came from.
Why?
Because this is my fucking mountain and this is my fucking streak and this title deserves a lot better and I’m going to defend it with everything I have. You’re at the very top of my list, of highest importance. You are just as determined to win back this title as you were to keep it almost three hundred days ago. I know what I’m in for. I can’t say this again, because it doesn’t seem to get through that woman’s thick skull - I respect her as a competitor. I won’t shake your hand - it’s just not what I do and you shouldn’t take it personally but you probably will - but I’ll off the fist bump and butt pat.
Golly. What am I saying?
This is a disrespect to the sport and everything about it. If it isn’t her way, stamped by her, then it clearly isn’t good enough and disrespectful. She just loves to throw around that word. But I don’t think she actually knows what it means. Just because it isn’t your way doesn’t make it wrong, just because you’re not at the top doesn’t make it wrong. Your arrogance is astounding. Your ignorance is just astounding.
The people want action, entertainment, a good time, something more than a woman who just runs her mouth. I ain’t trying to be rude but shit, I’m being rude. You had every opportunity to turn words into action, get this thing rolling, give the people what they want - a preview of things to come, a little action. But nope. Your mouth did all the work and it wrote a lot of checks the rest of you can’t cash.
I’m hoping you’re not more interested in talk come Night of Glory. I’m not interested in talk anymore. I’m going to guard this mountain and keep those that don’t belong off of the mountain, to send rocks tumbling down and Queens back to their place on the ground. This isn’t a throne and you were already here once before and that was more than enough for a lifetime. You’re going to have to damn near kill me to get this title back because I can’t handle your tired, self-aggrandizing, arrogant ass. The sheer boredom that follows you around is unbearable.
Change has come. I promised change and the biggest change is that you’re not champion anymore and so help me God, you never will be again. Maybe L.A.W. didn’t get sheer perfection but I’ll say this a thousand times over, it’s better than you. Your little stunt means nothing. Queen of the Ring is the last thing you get, just a pretty title. How does that make you feel, Camacho? Huh? Am I burning you up inside? Gotten under your skin.
Good.
That’s only the beginning.
I’m going to have so much fucking fun with you and by proxy, you’ll have fun too.
I’ll see you then, Camacho.