Chapter 12: Re-Discovery

Marcia was the first to leave the house. She had a breakfast appointment with another aspiring author. Matt grabbed some toast spread with peanut butter and left for work. I had already told my boss that I would be keeping ‘uneven’ hours that week because I had house guests.

Stella and Lexi dressed and the three of us had scrambled eggs together. After breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen, a job that also dealt with the prior evening’s dishes, we got in my car and drove to the dojo.

The karate school was located about a mile from my home in the largest store in a strip mall. The ‘store’ used to be grocery store, but the company had closed. The man that ran the dojo, put in walls, and also turned a large area into a competition arena that drew visitors from all of the other dojo’s within a fifty-mile radius about once a month.

Wan Suh ran the school and he met the three of us at the appointed time that morning. Although I had not met him except by telephone, I introduced each of us, pointing out that Stella had a brown belt, and that Lexi and I were neophytes to the sport.

Wan Suh led us into a padded room after we got barefoot. He then lunged into an attack on Stella. She countered to his lunge, and he actually went down, but rolled back to a fighting stance. She had already adopted a defensive stance facing him.

Wan Suh bowed to her. “Miss Stella, you very good and very quick. I look forward to having you in our advanced classes. Are you willing to work with the lower level belts?”

Stella bowed, “Yes, master. As my time and commitments will allow. I am honored to be asked after so brief an encounter.”

Wan Suh looked over Lexi and me, and then disappeared for a moment. He came back with three gis, and handed one to each of us. “You wear these. Here is also a DVD that I made. It contains the entry-level kata you must learn to be in the starting class. There will be others also starting with you – all ages from eight years old to ... you two. Many teenagers. Is that all right with you?”

We both nodded and said, “Yes.”

“Yes, master, please,” Wan Suh instructed. You start off with white belts. That is most basic level. You progress from there - white, orange, yellow, blue, purple, green, green plus a stripe, brown, brown plus a strip, and then black. Can you come twice a week?”

We nodded. I said, “Usually, depending on work or school.”

“I see you then on Monday evening and Thursday evening at seven p.m. Be ready to start then, dressed in gi. There are locker rooms and you can bring combination lock if you wish. See you on Thursday evening.” He bowed to us and left the room. That was the extent of our prep. Wan Suh appeared to be a no-nonsense kind of guy.

I set the gi down, and glanced through the papers that Wan Suh had given us. The details of a twice a week lessons were costed out with instructions about how to pay, preferably by personal check. I wrote out a single check for Lexi, Stella, and me, put it on the desk in ‘Master’s’ office, and we then left the dojo with our initial gear.

Stella explained that we had chosen a Goju Ryu school, and also talked about the initial karate moves that we’d be making to help us with the fundamentals of punching, blocking, and kicking. Those all were linked together, most likely, into a short kata. She also pledged to help us learn the beginning kata.

At home we put the DVD in my player and Stella helped us with the initial moves. I didn’t realize how out of shape I was. The initial kata was ten steps, but each step required precision, speed, and finesse to execute perfectly. There were also options in each step, such as the target spot on a potential opponent’s body where one’s fist thrusts were aimed. We stopped practicing about noontime, and prepared lunch.

After lunch, I went into work. Stella had homework to do based on her meetings with the editing team the day before. She set up on the dining room table, as she had on her last visit.

Lexi was at loose ends, and I made a couple of suggestions for things to do. I didn’t mention the university. When I got home about six p.m., I found that Lexi and gone to campus and spent the afternoon getting to know the campus and the interior of the various buildings.

Moreover, Lexi had met the head of the computer science department, a man I didn’t know named Taylen Furbish. He told Lexi he was writing three books at the same time, but took a few minutes to talk to Lexi about her burgeoning career in computer science.

I guess she impressed him, because he offered her a provisional job to help him with his books, serving as his editorial assistant and gofer. She accepted, even at only $15.00 per hour. She’d be paid by the university with some grant money he had that included some admin funds.

Lexi said, “The job will help me get to know the department, the university, and also give me some credentials in the computer science arena. He also offered to be my faculty advisor. He was so nice to me.”

I felt glad for her. Stella rolled her eyes and pulled Lexi aside for a little ‘older sister’ advice about men and their possible ulterior motives when they’re especially nice to a pretty girl. Lexi was ‘hot’, she was a dish, she was sexy to a fault, and since Stella brought it up, I could see the older professor subtly hitting on her with the hopes for a piece of ass sometime in the future.

The computer science department was really a spin-off from the electrical engineering department. The school created the new entity so they would sound more in keeping with the times, but in fact there were only about twenty students spread across the four years of the program, and three faculty members dedicated to the department. The school relied on the EE profs to fill in the gaps in the program. I found out later that Furbish got the department head appointment because no one else wanted it. He was new to the school.

Stella spent the rest of the week going to Tampa to the publisher each day. She was juiced up about publishing the book, and at this point didn’t want to be the person that was slowing down its publication.

Lexi spent each of the next few days working for Tay Furbish at the university. One evening she showed me the book she was reading for him and editing. It was complex and if she could master that material, she could probably graduate in record time.

Stella brought a bottle of champagne home on Friday night. She had finished with the book’s galley proofs. Tampa had finished with the book. Everything was now in the hands of the Texas operation where production was planned for the following week. The initial printing was to be 20,000 copies. That was a lot, especially given the digital era.

Marcia and Matt had also arrived. We did hors d’oeuvres and toasted Stella and the book Starling. It was a joyous occasion, and we expected there’d be more to come.

Of course, the five of us had a sex-filled evening after we got back from eating out at a casual restaurant. Matt, especially, was in seventh heaven getting to fuck all three women. He had that special attraction to Stella – always thinking of her as the Nation’s porn queen that he got to make love with.

Three weeks later, Marcia reported that Stella’s book had been rushed into production and distribution to bookstores across the country and online. A massive promotion campaign had started as the book hit the stores just before the weekend. We all got copies of the newly published volume and Stella had fun autographing them for us with salacious remarks and sexy sketches. She was a passable artist.

Fundamentally, Stella disappeared after that. Marcia wasn’t around all that much either.

Stella started a book ‘tour’. She was in a different city each day, sometimes appearing at three or four bookstores in a day, and traveling at night. Often, she was on television on some talk show. The first cities on her list were Tampa, Miami, Atlanta, Raleigh, Richmond, and Washington.

When we could, Lexi, Matt, and I would watch one of the programs that Marcia would get a link for on the Internet. There’d be Stella getting interviewed on television by some famous person. Of course, Stella was famous in her own right, and that was well before the book was published.

Stella had adopted the name Alicia Kane as her pseudonym. She laughed because she’d chosen the name based on two other porn stars that were her friends. Stella’s fictitious name had minimal links on the Internet to any other person or organization, but was composed of one friend’s first name and the other’s last name.

Book sales were rated as exceptionally healthy, and good enough to put Starling in the Top 10 for sales for the opening week. All that PR and hype were working.

Stella had a gig in Washington at a Barnes & Nobel bookstore when the shit hit the fan. Fortunately, Marcia was with her as well as a rep from the publisher.

‘Alicia’ was sitting in a corner of the bookstore autographing copies of the book that people had purchased when a man recognized her from her other pastime – porn.

As a group of people stood around her table, he asked, “You’re really Stella Manning of adult entertainment fame, aren’t you?”

Stella was primed for the question. She smiled at him and said, “Yes, in fact, I am. I’m making a life transition into writing starting with Starling. I hope you like the book. May I sign your copy for you?”

He nodded and said, “Sign it with both your names, please.” He looked quite pleased at having placed her within the porn genre.

One of the other people standing in line waiting for a signature happened to be a reporter for the highly respected Washington Post. David Jensen also got his book signed and asked a few pointed questions based on what he’d heard. He went home and did his homework about Stella Manning. Sure enough, from the videos and photos he’d found online, he knew that Alicia Kane and Stella Manning were one person.

The newspaper had a premier place around the world as a source for news, including book reviews. Jensen was a respected and oft-read contributor, often on the Op Ed pages of the paper.

His editorial about Stella was published on the following Wednesday. The piece was entitled ‘Star or Starling’. The article explained about Stella’s career change from pornography to authoring, starting with the ‘blockbuster’ Starling. He drew parallels to a couple of the characters in the book. He also applauded her career shift.