Chapter 13: It’s All New

MY TIME WAS my own now. I could really focus on my individual routines. Well ... and massage. I was definitely too far into my training to back out of that. According to Coach Dawson, he was planning to book massages every morning so I wouldn’t be practicing much in the a.m. Massage was proving to be one of the top selling services offered at the gym.

Jennifer no longer felt it was necessary to be in the room with me for every massage, which made me proud, but was also a little scary. I didn’t really know most of the people I was working on. We usually had a brief sit-down and talk session before their first massage, but mostly that was to get them used to me and to find out if there were any special needs, injuries, or sore spots.

My increased massage schedule meant I was finally earning a dependable income. Since I was still new at it, Coach sold the sessions for $50 an hour. I got paid $25 per hour-long massage. It was a real bargain. I had three and sometimes four each morning. Up to $100 a day in income. That would go up eventually.

I knew Madison was going to want more training time with me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend time on being a base instead of doing my own thing. And dealing with her coach wasn’t conducive to a good relationship.

There were so many things up in the air at the moment that I really needed to talk to my family. I headed home on Sunday.

“I wondered if we were going to see you here again,” Mom said when I came in for Sunday lunch. “I know you’ve been back because you didn’t have enough clothes with you to stay forever. And all your toiletries are gone.”

“I let you know where I was,” I defended myself.

“Yes. That was all we asked,” Dad said.

“My little brother has a lover!” Mikey exclaimed, grabbing my hands and dancing around. “He isn’t a virgin anymore.”

“You’re making assumptions,” I growled. “And I’m your older wiser brother, not your little brother.”

“And what makes you wiser than me?” Mikey teased.

“I only have one lover and intend to keep it that way.”

“Ouch! I’m just trying to find the right guy.”

“Come and eat,” Mom said. “Tell us all about this week.”

“Well, we’ve spent nearly the entire week at Target Center. It was good to watch the competition and Tara got a bunch of requests for information on becoming a coach. I think she’s going to end up with a few students. That’s cool. We’ve been so tired after the day that we’ve just gone back to her place to collapse and start over the next morning.”

“Pooh!” Mikey interjected.

“And stuff,” I sighed, causing her to grin.

“As long as you are both okay and being careful, we don’t need to know about the stuff,” Dad said. “Is everything okay with her?”

“Yeah. You saw the review Wednesday?”

“They seemed to like you,” he nodded.

“Mostly. The thing is, they also pronounced the end of her gymnastics career. While praising her recovery and her courage and the example she has set for recovering gymnasts, the guy also basically said she’d never be a real gymnast again. That hit pretty hard.”

“Is that what led to you spending the night?” Mom asked.

“No. We didn’t read the article until the next day. I think we always wanted it to work out that way. She’s so sweet and loving.”

“A big responsibility,” Dad said. “I understand she has recovered to the point where she might no longer need a full-time caretaker, but she still has special needs.”

“Yeah. That’s one of the things we need to figure out. Her apartment is a little crowded with three of us in it. I don’t think I can just stay there. And having me there might impact the terms of her lease negatively. It’s an assisted living complex. It was fine with her and Jennifer because Jennifer was a full-time caregiver. I don’t think I qualify.”

“Well, we could certainly make some accommodations here,” Mom said. “But wherever you decide to live, you’ll need to start sharing in the expense.”

That was one of the big issues. My income at the gym probably wouldn’t cover half of Tara’s rent. And Mom and Dad had been up front all along about supporting me through high school and my competition. I couldn’t expect to live at home for free either.

“You aren’t making me pay to live at home,” Mikey insisted.

“You are not yet eighteen,” Dad said, scowling at her. “And you have an internship that doesn’t pay well.”

“Paul is training for a career.” Mikey was pushing a little hard and I patted her hand to get her to calm down.

“How is your training going?” Mom asked.

“Good. I’ve got about a hundred hours or so left before I can take the certification test. Jennifer has been great about keeping a log of my time and coursework. Usually, I have one session a day when she’s in the room and quizzing me on some aspect of massage or the human body. She had me recite the muscles as I rubbed them. The next day she had me recite the names of all the bones.”

“Are you earning anything from your massage work?”

“A little. It’s pretty cheap because I’m not certified yet, and the gym keeps half of what people pay for a massage. I only get about $25 each,” I said. “I talked to Jennifer about all the time she’s spent teaching me. I haven’t paid her a cent—and neither has the gym.”

“That doesn’t seem right. You have some educational funds available. Get her to tabulate the bill,” Dad said.

“That’s just it. When I talked to her, she said I didn’t really understand their whole relationship with the gym. She knew I wasn’t being compensated for any of my work with either Tara or Madison. When Tara and Jennifer negotiated training at the gym, they paid for their gym time, therapy time, my time, and other miscellaneous fees. She said she was of the opinion that as long as I agreed to it, she could use my time as she pleased.”

“They paid the gym to have you work with Tara?” Mikey exclaimed.

“Yeah. And the gym never even talked to me about it. All my conversation was with Tara asking me if I’d work with her. I was pretty enthusiastic about saying yes,” I laughed.

“That still doesn’t sound like a very ethical thing for the gym to do,” Mom said.

“The thing is, there have been hints that Madison paid the gym for my time, too. I’m not really happy about that because I felt coerced into working with her. I don’t know what I’ll do about that. I mean, I learned a lot working with Tara and I know I could improve Madison’s and my performance. I’ll keep working with her for a while and see if we can work out a balance that allows me to go back to work on my own apparatus routines and get ready for competition this fall and nationals next year.”

“What’s next in life?” Mom asked.

“I don’t really know. Part of why I wanted to be here for lunch today is to talk that out. It’s like everything for the past few years has been leading up to this week. Now I need to figure out the whole meaning of life in a day or two.”

“Good luck with that,” Mikey snorted.

I started laying out the pros and cons of my options. I was especially confused over how committed I was to continuing as Madison’s base in acrobatic gymnastics and how to allocate enough time to what I loved in artistic gymnastics with what I needed to put in for massage. I already had a partner waiting to be my top. And if I started working with Madison more, Tara had already said she’d help coach and choreograph. There was little Tara could do with me when I was working on the pommel horse or stationary rings.

Then I had the classes and coaching that I was doing at the gym. I really liked working with the little kids and teaching them how to roll and tumble. And even though I only had one class a week, it paid pretty well. I could probably pick up more of that, but it would conflict with my massage time or my training time.

Of course, in the background was how to most effectively make Tara’s and my life together work.

Tara and I had begun that talk a couple of times, usually just before we fell asleep after making love at night. As a result, we hadn’t gotten very far. We were going to have to dedicate some daylight hours to the conversation. I thought perhaps we were moving a little too fast by having me spending every night with her. She hadn’t really invited me to move in.

But I sure loved being there.

“Um ... We’re kind of in a new phase of our relationship,” I started at dinner Monday.

“Yes. We’re lovers. Are you happy?” Tara asked when we sat down.

“Unbelievably happy. I never had a notion of how truly wonderful it would be. I love you, Tara.”

“And I love you. But that’s not why you started this conversation. I can tell.”

“Yeah. Well ... um ... New in something I have no experience with. I don’t know what the ... I don’t know ... rules are?” I ventured.

“Rules? Do we need a tariff sheet?”

“No. I just don’t know how it all works.”

“Okay. Rule 1: Don’t fuck Madison.”

“Oh, God no! That isn’t even ... No way!”

“Or anyone else but me. Okay?”

“Of course that’s okay. There’s never been anyone but you. Ever.”

“I know. I was sort of teasing. But I do want you all to myself.”

“Agreed.”

“What else?” she asked.

“Well ... um ... Did you want me to move in with you? Or to move in with me?” I asked.

“Oh! Wow! We have been spending a lot of time here, haven’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“How do I put this? Uh ... Even though our lives overlap more completely than other couples, we do have lives apart from each other, right?” she asked.

I grabbed a sheet of paper and drew two overlapping circles on it.

“What’s that?”

“Venn Diagram. Mom made me draw one after lunch on Sunday. You’re this circle and I’m this circle. Some things we have in common. Um ... Like being pairs partners and um ... making love.”

“Yeah. That is definitely in this area,” Tara laughed pointing at the overlap.

“Then we each have things the other isn’t exactly part of. Like, for me, learning massage. We overlap when you get a massage from me.”

“Which we might want to do here instead of the gym next time. I have ideas.”

“I like the sound of that. But at the moment, my home is over here and your home is over there. We don’t share a residence,” I said.

“Gotcha. And don’t think I’m trying to maintain distance from you or something bizarre, but I think for now we should keep it that way. We’re in this part when we visit each other’s home, but we live in these parts,” she said. “Before you say anything, let me explain. My apartment here is in assisted living. Since I moved here, I’ve continued to get stronger. I’ve had Jennifer with me, but she needs a break now and then. Bob is pretty understanding and he doesn’t come here to spend the night. But Jennifer goes to his house once or twice a week. If I need something, I have a call button that will bring a staff person to me fast. I am technically not allowed to shower alone. I think that will change soon because I’m so much more stable these days. Except after we make love. I swear the muscles in my legs turn to jelly. But you’re here then.”

“I understand, and that was one of the things I was concerned about. I know a lot about your body and want to learn more, but I certainly don’t know all the things you need help with or the things you want me to keep my hands off of,” I laughed.

“I don’t mind where your hands are now,” she whispered as she leaned over to kiss me. I stroked up and down her bare thigh. I didn’t mind, either.

“Also, there’s the privacy issue,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Like, I’m always a little embarrassed when Jennifer catches me coming out of your room. I know it’s the same when you visit my house. I mean, my parents’ house. They’d welcome you there, but it’s still a little strange to me that they know I have this beautiful girl in my room and the door is shut and anything they imagine we might be doing probably falls short of what we’re really doing.”

“I can take it in small doses, but I don’t think I could live with it.”