Chapter 142: More Demonstrations

Thursday, April 28, 2005 (Continued)

Leaving Katelin's transport arrangements aside for the moment, I followed up on an idea I'd just had. Knowing my tape recorder was still running, and hoping it could pick up our voices when it was in my pocket, I said, "Wayne, if I call the police, are you going to get caught up in the lies your father told them?"

"I'm not involved in that."

#1: <So there is a "that." I thought so.>

"Let me hazard a guess, it involves violence, and probably Don, or maybe Junior?"

"Lucky guess. I want to ask you a question. I don't understand your fights. The first ones took me by surprise, but I was watching Dad's carefully, and it was too easy. How did you beat him so easily?"

I was pleased that he hadn't said something like, "Dad was falling even before you hit him." I'd delivered my punches very soon after the trip happened because that was when my attackers were the most distracted, but also because I very much wanted no one to notice the impossible trips.

To divert him from his suspicion I decided to do something I'd thought of back when I'd intended to give a martial arts demonstration using various tricks, like the flies, so I said, "Wayne. Find a piece of something very small: a piece of lint, a piece of fingernail, anything like that."

"Umm. How about a coin?"

"No. I want something very light. So light I couldn't throw it farther than an inch or two. Lint, for example."

Wayne had found something on the sofa. "How about a hair?"

"Even better than what I was thinking of. If you can, tie a knot or two in it, to make it look totally unique."

While Wayne was doing that, I said, "Katelin, if you go stand by Wayne, you might enjoy this too. Mrs. Eaton. I have been verbally and physically attacked from the moment I arrived in your house, and not once have you said a word to stop your children or husband from behaving with deliberate violence toward me. I have a very low opinion of your character, and will quite happily never speak to you again. However, you don't need to cower behind that chair. I haven't attacked anyone yet, and won't do so. So join Wayne for this little demonstration of mine if you wish, or sit in the chair, or go make yourself a cup of coffee, or whatever you want. Feel free to move around; it is your home, after all. Or if your fear is because you're a victim too, then I'd suggest that this evening might be a perfect time for you to talk with the police about it."

I ignored her, instead turning to Don, who was now pushing his father off him. I was happy to see that his eyes were open and fully occupied by eyeballs. Having seen how long it took him to recover, I had used too much force, which was worth remembering for the next time I needed to NP someone's eyeballs. "Don, I'm glad to see you've recovered. I was worried I'd poked you too hard and had permanently damaged your eyes. That's not a technique I've practiced very often, for obvious reasons. Am I going to have any more trouble with you, or are you finally going to use your brain?"

"I'm not going to attack you again, if that's what you mean. You beat EVERYBODY?"

It wasn't really a question because he could see the bodies. I said, "Not Wayne, obviously. Wayne's the only nice one."

It took Katelin a couple of seconds, then she said, "Hey! That's what you told me off for saying!"

"Sure. You're not allowed to insult your brothers, because you want to build better relationships with them. I can call them assholes if I want. Actually, I honestly don't think they're that bad. They're just stupidly macho and their father has let them get away with it for years. Probably encouraged it, even. The only real asshole in this family is your father. If he hadn't attacked me, I'd still be sitting down with you on my lap, waiting for all the boys to recover from the 'martial arts demonstration' that they insisted I provide. I would've put the whole thing behind me and carried on chatting. Unfortunately your father's attack on me and his boasting that he lied to the police - and perhaps in court too - changed everything." I was looking at Wayne very carefully when I mentioned "court", and I got the impression that the lying had gotten that far.

^-- I turned back to Don to ask, "Don, do you want to watch this little martial arts demonstration. I was intending to show you guys a few things like this, before you went all stupid on me."

"Why are you still here? Why are you being NICE to us? You should have left ages ago."

"I can do whatever I want. I don't have the slightest fear of any of you, individually or collectively. I'm perfectly happy chatting to Katelin - she's pretty, although her ass is getting misshapen because she falls on it so often. I'm quite happy talking to Wayne as he's the only nice one. I'm even willing to talk with you. You've got a major problem with stupidity, so I'll try to clue you up a bit. Hopefully you'll start behaving like a decent human being. Can you see properly?"

"Yeah, I can see fine. They hurt though. How the hell did you do that to me? You were too far away."

"I'm a martial arts expert, just like Katelin told you. Not that anyone in this family will get good enough, but when you get good at martial arts, you learn to move FAST. I can move VERY FAST. That's what I'm about to demonstrate, in a much less painful way than you forced me to. Come and stand next to Wayne."

I turned to back to Wayne, saying, "Wayne. I do need to leave shortly, so let's do this quickly." I pulled my sleeves, so my forearms were bare.

[As an aside, back when I had first thought of visiting Katelin's family - which had been when I'd been in bed with Katelin a couple of evenings ago - I'd intended to wear my school clothes because I'd thought they'd provoke some reactions from her family. I'd been worried about not getting enough reactions from a brief visit to judge them by, so I'd thought those clothes would help. I'd forgotten all about that intention when I'd gotten dressed after Carol's very enjoyable blowjob, as I'd been distracted and running late. I'd quickly put on some of my ordinary, casual, shapeless clothes, and rushed out the door. As it turned out, I'd gotten plenty of reactions from the family, but - amusingly - might have gotten less had I been wearing my school clothes, as the boys might've been more cautious had they seen my physique as clearly as my school clothes display it. Gunner's first insults that I was a pussy and a pathetic wimp would have been obviously wrong, so the whole downward spiral might not have started. I must remember to tell Julia that clothes can make important first impressions.]

Facing Wayne and Katelin, with Mrs. Eaton still hiding behind her chair but looking less fearful, I extended both of my arms straight and angled down, so my hands were a little above waist level and angled to either side so they were about a yard apart. My hands were wide open and palms upward.

I said, "My hands are empty, just to prove I don't have a copy of your hair hidden in either of them. There's no way I could copy it, as I haven't gotten close enough to see it yet, let alone be able to knot one in exactly the same way. But to be perfectly sure..." I slapped my open-fingered hands together, brushed their palms quickly against each other to prove they were empty, then returned them to their previous positions.

Don had gotten to his feet a little while ago, and had stood where he was, presumably listening to me. Even after I'd invited him to watch my demo, he hadn't moved. A few seconds ago I'd heard him start to walk slowly around to join Wayne and Katelin, which had been fine with me. The way we were standing in the room, Don could've joined the audience by walking either in front of or behind me, but he chose to walk behind me. That didn't register as significant until he got close enough for my proximity sense to pick up that he was planning to punch me in my left side, then kick me in the same spot on my right.

[[I didn't know hardly anything about human biology at the time - NOTHING like what I know now - but Don was intending to damage both of my kidneys. There's one on both sides, slightly to the rear, at about the level of the floating ribs. Kidney punches are illegal in various contact sports (boxing, for example), because of how bad injuries to even one can be. What Don was intending to do to me was very bad. Had I known that, I would have reacted very differently than I did, but at the time I thought he was simply intending to hit me because that's what macho idiots do.]]

Don's intention was still an intention, as he wasn't quite in position to act on it yet (I can sense commitment to an action in its ki). I had time to decide what to do. My minds discussed it, and we decided to pretend to have no clue while we let him make his attack. I would move to a few inches to my right when he punched my left side, to make his punch miss in a way that Wayne and Katelin would see. Then as soon as he launched his kick, I'd duck beneath it, catch it, then raise it over his head, putting him on his ass. Then I'd take a couple of quick steps away, and see what happened. Ideally to talk him into calming down, otherwise to trip him and punch his lights out, as he'd missed that pleasure the first time.

I carried on as if I knew nothing, letting Katelin and Wayne check that my hands were truly empty.

That's when Don attacked. I did exactly as I'd planned, as I knew his plan hadn't changed. He was VERY quick, as he'd mentally rehearsed exactly what he wanted to do, but it wasn't hard for me to be even quicker, as I had forewarning and a superbly conditioned body. His first attack was a quick jab, rather than a punch which had a lot of follow-through, so his miss as I dodged sideways didn't upset his balance or even register on his thoughts as he was too focused on performing his more complicated kick. He was already swinging his upper-torso down to his left and his right leg up and around, to power his foot into my right side.

He was aiming at a point well above my waist, so it was easy for me to squat and duck under. I also spun around to face him at the same time. As his kicking leg passed over my head I reached up to grab its upper-thigh just below his buttocks, to be as close as possible to his center of gravity. I simultaneously stood and heaved very strongly upward, which sent Don flying up and backward, spinning sideways too, as a result of the considerable momentum of his kick.

I was several paces away, casually looking in his direction, while he was still coming down.

I had time, so I looked at Mrs. Eaton, and told her, "How could you possibly bring up your children to believe that it is acceptable to attack someone from behind and without warning. You and your husband are appallingly bad parents."

Katelin had exclaimed, "Oh no!" while I was lecturing the "Mother Of Year (Booby Prize Division) Winner."

Wayne waited until I'd finished, then he said, "Here we go again."

Not that I'd cared much, but I'd figured that Don probably had a reasonable amount of martial arts experience, so he should know how to land properly. As it turned out, he landed quite heavily. I guess the surprise, height I'd launched him to, and the twisting motion caused by his roundhouse kick had made things difficult for him. He'd landed on carpet though, so it wouldn't have hurt too much. After the loud, "Oof," of his landing, he jumped to his feet and adopted a fancy looking attack stance. I was VERY casually leaning on a chair at the end of the room, with one leg crossed over the other and resting on its toes. I like to think that my stance looked the scariest.

For the ankle-tapping technique to work (it's actually more of a push than a tap, but "ankle-tapping" sounds much cooler than "ankle-pushing"), my opponent has to be running, so I said, "You really are a stupid, stupid boy, aren't you?"

Don is, I would guess, 23 or 24. Being called a "boy" by a boy would be inflammatory all by itself, even without the two "stupids" which I'd used so the repetition would help his comprehension. I figured his comprehension needed all the help it could get, as he was demonstrably stupid. Probably surprised at his attack's failure too.

Wayne called out, "Don, I bet you $100 Katelin's boyfriend wins."

"He's NOT my boyfriend!"

"I bet you wish he was."

Katelin didn't answer that.

After a second, Wayne called to Don, "Do we have a deal?"

Don looked at me.

I looked at him, "You couldn't touch me when you attacked without warning from behind, so what makes you think you have a chance front on?"

No reaction, so I tried, "You attacked me three-to-one from the front last time. How did that work out for you?"

Wayne laughed, and even Katelin joined in. After a few seconds, Don relaxed his stance, in defeat.

I said, "Aww. I was hoping to knock you out. It would have been amusing to see how often I could use exactly the same technique on the same people."

Wayne laughed again. Don didn't, and probably not because he'd been covering his eyes during my previous uses of that punching technique.

I walked back to standing in front of Wayne and Katelin again, offering my back to Don. I had my ears strained to hear if he came running at me, and my eyes were studying Katelin and Wayne for any warning of an attack.

I extended my hands as I had earlier, saying, "Let's try to finish this, shall we. My hands are empty, right?"

Wayne said, "You're not worried about Don being behind you, are you?"

I loudly answered, "Shh, I'm hoping he tries again. I REALLY want to knock him out."

"Haha."

"Back to the demo. Notice what I'm doing to my right hand." I turned it palm down, then closed that hand into a fist. "If you two keep an eye on that hand during this demonstration, you'll see that it doesn't open and doesn't move."

Don hadn't moved, so I called back over my shoulder, "Don, are you coming to see this? Because if you don't come right now, you're going to miss it?"

"Fuck off, asshole," and he stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

I was tempted to say, "The asshole just fucked off," but I figured Wayne and Katelin had probably formed their own opinions about that by now. God knows what Mrs. Eaton thought.

I said, "Place the hair in my left hand please, Wayne."

He did so, and I said, "I want the two of you to watch my fists. Don't take your eyes off them." I slowly closed my fist over the hair, then rotated my hand so it was palm down.

"This little demonstration is an answer to your question, Wayne, about how I could so rapidly conclude the - shall we call it, 'fight'? - with your father. The answer is that I am FAST! I showed you that with the flies before. You should try catching flies yourself. Between your thumb and forefinger, and so gently that they are held but not damaged. You'll find it quite difficult. Anyway, back to my demonstration. I'm going to turn my left hand back over again now, nice and slowly, to make it easy to watch."

I did exactly that. "I'm going to slowly open my hand now. Watch closely."

I slowly opened it. "If you look, you'll see that the hair is not there anymore. There's nothing impressive about that, but I hope you'll be impressed when I tell you that the hair is now in my other hand."

Both of them made sounds of surprise.

I said, "I'm going to turn my right hand slowly over, then open it. Watch carefully."

I did so, they looked carefully, and were amazed to see the hair.

"How did you do THAT?" exclaimed Katelin.

"First, Wayne, please check it's the same hair, has the same knots, all that sort of thing."

Wayne picked the hair out of my hand and held it up to look at it closely. He declared, "It's the same hair all right. That's a great trick. How did you do it?"

While I was answering, I also reached up and took back the hair from Wayne. I said, "I told you, I'm FAST! I did that demonstration because there's no way to get the hair from one hand to the other without moving the hands together. You can spend as long as you want thinking about it, and I don't believe you'll find another way."

[My arms had been sloping downward at about forty five degrees, so it was trivially easy to open my fingers slightly (invisible from above), NP-fly the hair out of the left hand (I'd been holding it with NP-fingertips from before I'd closed that fist), fly it up to my armpit immediately under the underside of my arm where no one could see it, around my back, and down the underside of the other arm, then push the hair into my right hand.]

I held up the hair in front of me, and said, "You did a good job of knotting it." I said that not out of admiration for the knot, but so they knew that I had the hair.

Wayne said, "Thanks, it was tricky to do."

I'd already lowered my hand, grabbed the hair with NP, and was flying it around behind but to the side of Wayne, to where I could still see the location, otherwise the NP-fingertip would cancel. Hairs weigh almost nothing, so have almost infinite acceleration when NP'd. I can fly them as fast as my eyeballs can move to follow the NP-point. So all I needed to do was casually glance away from Wayne for a moment.

I turned to Katelin, and said, "Can you think of a way of doing the trick?"

Wayne turned his head to look at Katelin. I used that moment to fly the hair just inside the top of Wayne's shirt pocket. I very lightly NP-held it there, to make sure it wouldn't get blown out and lost. I was using so little force that if Wayne moved, he wouldn't notice the fingertip because it'd be moved with him.

Katelin started answering, "No, I've got..."

"Sorry to interrupt, Katelin, but I'd like you to do something for me. Please slowly and carefully pull the top of Wayne's shirt pocket open, in such a way that you and Wayne can both see inside it."

I moved to the side, ostensibly to get out of her way, but really so I could maintain line of sight to the pocket. (That hadn't been a problem under my forearms earlier as that was all done inside my proximity range.)

I didn't have to give them any more instructions, as both of them saw it and gasped in surprise. I said, "Pick it out carefully, Wayne, and check it's the right hair."

Shortly, "It is. That's incredible! How on Earth could you do that?"

"I told you: I'm FAST! Can I have the hair back please?"

Wayne gave it to me. I held it upright between thumb and forefinger, saying, "You can both see it, can't you?"

"Yes," x 2.

I slowly moved away from them, still holding the hair up in the air. When I was five or six steps away, I opened my fingers and simultaneously blew hard. Several times, to make sure. "All gone." I walked back to them dusting my hands together. The hair was, of course, NP-flying rapidly in the direction I wanted.

I walked back to them again. "Don's eyeballs found out how fast I can move. I took him down from the front while he was coming to attack me, but he never got a chance to even think about raising a hand against me, let alone land any sort of attack."

I had been looking at Wayne, and Katelin had been looking from me to Wayne. Specifically to our faces, which requires Katelin to look up as she's significantly shorter than both of us. While she was looking up, she was not looking down (you can tell why people think I'm a genius!), and she was wearing a blouse that had inspired my idea for this repetition of my trick. So while she was looking at Wayne, I quickly did something I've diligently practiced for several years: I surreptitiously looked down inside a girl's blouse. I was NP-holding the hair in the middle, so about half an inch or so from one end. I poked that end between her bra and breast, careful not to touch her flesh with an NP-fingertip. The hair was far too light and small for her to notice it.

I could only spare her a quick glance, so I soon lost the line of sight and the NP-points canceled. I glanced down her blouse again a few seconds later, and I could see the hair as the knot helped.

I said, "Wayne. I asked Katelin to do me a favor a minute ago by looking in your shirt pocket. Can you do me a similar favor please?"

"Haha, really? You've done it again?"

"Yes. Stand still please, Katelin. If you move you could dislodge it." Katelin froze. I suddenly realized that there was a problem with the place I had chosen, so I added, "It'd be a good idea if you inhaled. DON'T exhale; JUST inhale and hold your breath. Please do it now."

She did so. I backed away about three steps, saying, "I'll get well out of the way. Wayne, will you carefully undo the top two buttons of Katelin's blouse. The two that are already done up, I mean. HOLD your breath Katelin."

I was very tempted to joke about being a dirty pervert and all this was a cunning plan to see Katelin's tits, but Katelin might laugh. In the event that she did laugh, which people have sometimes been known to do to my jokes, the hair might move. As much as I would enjoy searching deep into Katelin's bra for the hair, it might have fallen out rather than in, which would be a pity.

Wayne checked, "You want me to undo Katelin's blouse?"

"Sure. I'm assuming there's no big deal about your seeing the top of her bra. Tell me if that horribly clashes with your family morals, although it's hard to imagine that this family has many morals, given the dishonorable violence demonstrated by most of its members and the parental tolerance and encouragement of it." I was hoping to shame the mother into doing something about the problem.

Wayne did as I'd asked. I said, "If you pull the right side of her blouse away from her chest, you should be able to see the hair tucked into the top of her right cup of her bra. In about the 2 o'clock position. I hope it's still there, as her breathing might have dislodged..."

"I see it." He reached in and pulled it out. I noticed he didn't ask permission, but then he didn't touch her either, so no biggie either way.

I was about to tell Katelin she could breathe normally now, but she beat me to it by suddenly exhaling.

While Katelin was doing herself back up, Wayne said, "There's no way in the world you could undo her buttons, tuck the hair in, then do them back up, without her noticing - no matter how fast you are!"

#1: <Oops. We got a bit carried away with the unbuttoning thing, didn't we.>

I laughed, "Haha. No, of course not. I tucked it in from the top, without undoing any buttons. If you look at her blouse from the right angle, you can see that I could easily do that. I don't know about you, but I've spent YEARS staring down girls' blouses. I'm a 'Make Love Not War' type of guy, so I'm more expert on breasts than fighting." I got some good laughs.

^-- "I got you to undo her buttons for either of two reasons. Either because I got carried away being overly dramatic, or because I'm not Katelin's boyfriend so I used the only opportunity I'll have to get a good look at her chest." To Katelin I said, "Thanks Katelin. You're very attractive." (That's what guys say when a girl's got nice tits.)

Katelin smiled in appreciation for my lying to her family, as I'd seen her naked when we'd been fucking two evenings earlier.

I said, "In all seriousness, obviously I'm sort of tricking you. You've got no idea how I did those tricks, and I'm not going to tell you. But I will tell you some things. I have NEVER done that trick before. I'm not a magician who spends hour after hour practicing some sleight-of-hand illusion. I used a martial art skill that I am VERY good at, in a deliberately amusing way. Now that I've invented it and seen how well it works, I'm looking forward to using it on other people. My girlfriend and sisters are definitely going to be teased by it.

^-- "You saw me grabbing flies. I've never practiced grabbing flies like that either. I've flailed around at them sometimes, when they're a nuisance, but I've never tried catching them that way before. I knew I could though, because I know my martial arts abilities. I am, as Katelin truthfully told you all, an expert in some aspects of martial arts.

^-- "Enough about me. I find it not only incredibly rude, but incredibly stupid, that virtually all of your family started attacking me from the moment I arrived. None of them had ANY idea of my capabilities. How can they possibly be so stupid as to attack someone, especially to seriously attack someone, when they had no idea what they were dealing with. The level of macho stupidity in this house has risen so high that it's far above any sane level. Your father is clearly at fault, with your pathetic mother - for whatever reason she's pathetic - allowing it to happen. My advice to you two is to make a serious effort to rescue the children of this family, but if you can't, then move out. There's heaps of cheap, student accommodation in this town, so get your own place, where you're not going to be sucked into the violence this family generates. Of course that's just my personal opinion. You'd probably get far better advice from some sort of professional family counselor.

^-- "That's it, I'm outta here. Somehow, saying 'It's been a pleasure' doesn't seem appropriate, so I'll just say goodbye."

Katelin gushed, "I'm VERY sorry for what happened, Mark. It's been the horriblest thing I've ever seen. My family are..."

"Katelin, you don't have to tell me what your family are. I know what they are, and I'd rather not think about it. You don't need to apologize to me either, you are the person LEAST responsible for this mess. It's you I feel sorry for. I know tonight was far worse than normal because I wouldn't let them beat me up the way they wanted. But although you may not see this much violence normally, it is clearly part of their personalities, and that's sick. I just remembered: do you want a lift somewhere else, or will you take your bike?"

"I'll bike."

"Good girl. I'll walk you out. Wayne, it was a pleasure talking to you. You are the only nice one, just like Katelin said. Probably the only one with two brain cells to rub together, from what I saw. Take care. I don't know what my parents will recommend, but my guess is the police will be here in an hour or two.

^-- "Mrs. Eaton. Words fail me when it comes to your abrogation of responsibility. On second thought, I doubt you understand big words like that, so I'll rephrase it. Bringing up kids is an important job that you're failing miserably at, because you're not even trying. That's what it looks like to me. Maybe there are good reasons for your lack of character, but no one here has offered me any excuse for your inaction, so I'm starting to think the fault is yours. That's all I'm going to say about you."

I took Katelin's hand, and walked toward the living room door.

I was amused that when I got close enough to proximity sense Gunner, I could tell that he was awake and busy being two different animals at the same time: a chicken playing possum. He was a truly gifted young man, haha. I hadn't hit him as hard as Junior or Mr. Eaton, so it made sense for him to wake first.

As I walked past him, I suddenly bent down and yelled "BOO!" into his ear.

His whole body spasmed in surprise. His eyes flew open in fright, so I raised my hands in claws and went "Grrr." I tried to look frightening, but it was very hard not breaking out into laughter.

Gunner scrambled to his feet and ran away in panic. It was very funny, and I had no reason to hold it back, so I started laughing as Gunner wrenched the living room door open and ran straight into a hand that plunged a large knife into his side.

"FUCK!" In Don's voice. | #1, #2, #3: <FUCK!> | Screams of agony from Gunner.

#1: <The fucking idiot. Let's get everyone way back from the door and ourselves too. We call 9-1-1, and wait for them. If Don comes after us we max-poke his eyes one at a time.>

#2: <Let's hold off on the eyeball destroying stuff if we can. There are going to be cops all over this house in a few minutes and we don't want to have any difficult explanations. We should poke his eyes just like we did last time and then knock him out.>

#3: <Let's get everyone to hide. If he comes into the room with a gun, we don't want him to have any targets. And if he has a gun, we fuck his eyeballs, no question!>

#1, #2: <Agreed.>

No one else had reacted yet. I grabbed Katelin by the back of her jeans, and RAN her down to the far side of the room, her feet never touched the floor, yelling, "WAYNE! Fucking stupid Don has knifed Gunner, thinking it was me. Grab your mom and hide behind something. Who knows what the hell Don will do now."

I flew Katelin behind a seat, pushed her down, and held her there. I looked back toward the door. Gunner was partly visible and screaming a lot. At least he was still alive. There was no sign of Don.

#1: <Should we run to the wall beside the door, so we can proximity sense if Don's on the other side, or maybe sense him if he comes?>

#2: <We'd get more warning, sure, but we can't do anything until he's in the room. I would much rather be as far from him as possible when he comes in, so we've got plenty of time to take him down before he gets to us.>