Chapter 7

Rice woke as soon as it was light enough to see, and watched for awhile until Spiffy woke up. He focused on seeing the progression of thought and emotion cross her features until full awareness came to her, whereupon she beamed a smile at Rice and proclaimed “You were right, that was the best night’s sleep I have had in a long time!”

They left their bed-bags stashed inconspicuously under the tarp, just in case any infrastructure inspectors happened by, whom would have to use special equipment to do, being constrained by safety regulations unlike Rice. It seemed an unspoken agreement that they were hanging out together.

Rigging the rope, Rice offered the carabiner to Spiffy, but she had learned how to rig for descent using only the rope, although she complained that it was rough nylon, so Rice went down first, and Spiffy followed easily, Rice noting the way she had rigged the rope under her butt, and that retrieval of the rope was a snap. Dusting her slightly reddened hands against her jeans, she accepted her accolades graciously as she stowed the coiled rope in her bag, another claim on together.

“So where is your gym?” Rice asked, feeling a bit grungy, more so in the presence of Spiffy, although his clothing was cleaner than hers, being so new(used). She explained “I have a trial membership at a club, but there are a lot of parkour bores that belong, and we’ll get you a guest pass this morning, and then come back a few times in the afternoon. In a few days you will seem like a regular, and they never check unless they don’t recognize you.”

So first off they went to a local branch of a national gym, got Rice a guest pass on the strength of Spiffy’s familiarity and fast talk, and after a short tour took showers and re-dressed, meeting in the lobby shortly after.

“I think the shift changes at noon, so any time after lunch we can get the familiarization process started to make you a regular in the minds of the staff.” announced Spiffy. “But for now, I want breakfast!” she continued assertively.

“I could go for that.” Rice surrendered willingly.

“Good, there is a informal breakfast at the Unitarian church, so informal they hand out sandwiches from the back door. I hope you don’t have a peanut allergy or anything.” she asked. Rice assured her he was good, and they joined the small line as it was too early in the day for much of a crowd. Thanking the nurturing philanthropists with a calling for the sammies, they meandered along, enjoying their sammies and each other’s company with no destination in mind.

Rice happily finished with the ‘meal’ Spiffy had used as inducement to join the cult of Spiffy, his guide, mentor, partner, friend, - hmm, Rice thought to himself, ‘I much prefer Spiffy’s version of sticky trap’ as he remembered how she had trailed him and accosted him and had attached herself to him as if he was a life preserver in the middle of an empty ocean. Rice was familiar with survival mechanisms, and happy that this amazing dynamic woman-girl had chosen to connect her path to that of ‘Squirrel Boy’, regardless of her reasons.

She was too genuine for Rice to have any paranoia about her, and he was emotionally starved as well, and so easily allowed the growing intimacy, as unfamiliar (which equates to uncomfortable) as it was.

For her part, she found Rice non-threatening sexually, being just a bit too young to be pushing himself on every female possibly receptive. She craved comfortable interaction with a male who was friendly with out exuding sexual predation, although she didn’t realize it. Aside his age, Rice existed closer to the top of the Maslow needs scale and had plenty of other things to worry about than ‘getting some’. Besides which, being a virgin he didn’t even know what he was missing anyway, and so wasn’t highly motivated to seek it.

Reconnecting with those of the practice troupe who were dedicated enough to show up so early (it was light, after all!) They continued to train with a motivation inspired by the pure joy of movement exhibited by ‘Squirrel Boy’, and Rice also continued to learn as well. After they quit for lunch, every one splitting up and wandering off to their own sustenance, Spiffy and Rice hit up the soup kitchen, getting a bowl of minestrone soup and a plain cheese sammy each, which they wasted no time in consuming, as they were late to the line (and didn’t have to wait very long at all) so the soup was cooled to reasonable eating temperature.

Afterwards Rice was surprised when Spiffy deferred to him, asking what next? He indicated that he wanted to check up on something about kinesthiology at the library, he had something that had reminded him of something which happened during practice, Did she have anything to research as well? It seemed Spiffy was partial to current and missed back issues of Natural Science, Popular Mechanics, and Hand-gunner magazines. A truly practical young woman.

Rice forced himself to re-emerge from the stacks after only two and a half hours, having only followed down five or six side trails, led by the blazes of Mr. Dewey. He had learned most practically about fast twitch and slow twitch muscles, and certain exercises to use to train for each kind as wanted. Rice could already see how he would alter his routine, although the natural movements of his daily life hadn’t left him especially weak to begin with. He wouldn’t turn up his nose at small changes that could help his explosive take-off (or charge) or would help his grip strength exceed mere flesh and bone. He had also come across a reminder in his meanderings that nutrition was one of the keystones to health, and planned out his next foray into the stacks.