Chapter 154: Soccer Game Versus a Salem Team

Saturday, April 30, 2005 (Continued)

I drove to the school, and then got on the bus with the rest of the team and our coach. There was a great deal of laughter and high spirits during the 45-minute trip north to Salem, as this was the first real game we'd gone to with the expectation of beating our opponents' socks off. I'd only played two games since I'd discovered my proximity sense. There was no special anticipation before the first of those two, because no one had known that my soccer skills had improved, not even me. And the second game had been a 'friendly' that didn't count in our league. This time we had a 45-minute bus trip to a real game, so we whooped it up all the way. I even did some whooping myself, because my teammates' enthusiasm was infectious. Occasionally the coach managed to get us to discuss some tactics, but the team didn't think it needed tactics when it had me, whoop!

When we arrived at the field, we had some spare time before the game. Coach had no hopes of getting us to listen to anything serious, so he let us do whatever we wanted. I went in search of the Wests. I was pleasantly surprised to see the three of them standing in a larger group of my supporters, although I was a little worried what Mr. and Mrs. West thought of all of my supporters being girls, other than the two older Chinese people standing with Lily; presumably her parents.

I joined the group, greeting Ava and her parents first; kissing Ava and putting my arm around her waist briefly, so her parents had no doubt as to my priorities. Next I greeted Pat and Lily, then Lily introduced me to her parents. I'd not met her parents before, not even to see them from a distance, so I was a little curious. In short (partly because they both were, haha), they were "very Chinese" in their look, size, accents, mannerisms and lack of English. Mrs. Cheng was even standing a little behind her husband; beside him, but several inches back too.

Lily was effusive in her introduction of me. "Father, Mother," (Lily used the Chinese words for these, but their meanings were obvious), "meet Mark Anderson." Lily then said a brief burst of Chinese, which I obviously had no comprehension of at the time. [To be more accurate, it was Cantonese. Much later I learned what she'd said included, "You'll see that I'm right."]

After a firm handshake with Mr. Cheng (he was no softie), and a small bow from Mrs. Cheng, which I bowed back to guessing that a handshake wasn't appropriate, Lily said, "Father's business has fitness. That is why they come. Favor please Mark? Take shirt off so Father see please?"

"Umm..."

"YES!" from all my female supporters. | "Come on Mark. We want to see too." | "Yeah, come on Mark."

There were several more encouraging calls, and it wasn't that big a deal, so I took my shirt off.

All the girls quickly expressed their approval. Mr. Cheng was silent, walking around me and studying my body critically. His intentness was unsettling, but proximity showed him to have no intent other than walking around me. Three-quarters of the way around he spoke more Chinese ["You are correct about his physical form, Daughter."]

Lily translated for me, "Father say you be model, Mark. In magazine."

"Haha. I DON'T think so!"

Mr. Cheng returned to his original spot, then spoke in heavily accented English, "Thank you. Dress please."

I put my shirt back on, to the sound of several "Aww's."

I hadn't finished greeting everyone, so I wandered around doing that, ending back with Ava, with my arm around her waist again. All the girls had made a point of proudly telling me that they'd come to watch me play. I worried what Ava's parents would think of the obvious interest all these girls had in me, but they seemed aware but unconcerned. Given my importance to their daughter, this surprised me. I whispered to Ava, "Your parents aren't worried about other girls wanting me?"

"They're okay. I'll tell you later." [Ava did so. It was a combination of several influences, one of the best ones being that her parents had several times heard the girls saying things like, "You're so lucky, Ava. I wish Mark was my boyfriend." My concentrating on Ava was very good too. Ava had also extended one of Vanessa's points, telling her parents that my helping her in the future didn't depend on her being my girlfriend. She told her parents that she was very happy to have the support of the Andersons and Williams families, her romantic relationship with Julia and me was more of a very welcome bonus than a necessity.]

Despite Ava's reassurance of her parents being okay, I chose not to act on my idea of a couple of days ago of inviting Pat out on another date. Necessarily with Lily, as those two girls went hand in hand these days, including right this instant. That was something I was initially surprised Lily would do in front of her parents, until I remembered that Asians don't make a big deal out of same-sex handholding. Asking Pat out in front of Ava's parents probably wouldn't be welcome, but asking Lily out on the same date in front of her parents would be a HUGE no-no. I didn't know much about Chinese culture, but I knew it was very conservative about sex. Asking their daughter out on a threesome date right in front of them would NOT be a good idea! Asking that could wait until we were at school.

The group chatted about inconsequential stuff for a few minutes ("Did we think we'd win?", etc. - the "we" was because my teammates hadn't been slow to join my group of pretty girls), and then it was time for us to start our warming up, as Coach has a bee in his bonnet about warming up properly.

The game started, and it rapidly proved itself to be entirely consistent with the strategic consensus we'd expressed during the bus trip up: "Whoop, whoop, we're going to whip their asses." It was a repeat of our previous two games. If I got the ball, there was something like an 80 to 90% chance I'd get a goal. Salem saved a few, but nowhere near enough. My little group of a dozen supporters, counting the four parents, had a lot of fun yelling their huge approval at me whenever I was anywhere near them. Mr. and Mrs. Cheng weren't the yelling type, but Mr. Cheng was filming the game on the tiniest camcorder I've ever seen, less than half the size of any of the others around the field.

In case you worry about it, right from the first game in which I used proximity I've been aware that some of the parents record the games. There's nothing to see when I use proximity, so my successful dodging around the defenders so often looks like I've either got excellent reactions (which I do), or make lucky guesses if my zig occurred before my opponent's zag. If pressed for an explanation, I'll just say that my genius allows me to read their body language signals faster and better than most players can, but it's subconscious so I can't really explain it. If pressed REALLY hard, I can make reference to my Aikido training, because detecting people's movement is a publicly acknowledged Aikido skill, albeit a very advanced one, usually requiring many years of training. Having NP recorded on videotape would be a very different issue, but since my first couple of in-game experiments with it, I've never used NP during a game. There's no need to, because I "whip their asses" anyway.

One unexpected event occurred during the game. After I'd scored my first couple of goals in the second half, and was going for my third, one of the defenders 'lost it', he came charging at me, fists swinging. His new 'tactic' caught me by surprise, and he almost managed to hit me. I had to dive to the side to avoid him, automatically doing an Aikido roll, which - rather coolly - almost instantly had me back on my feet ready to dodge again. He came charging after me, chasing me around the field, leaving the ball completely forgotten. The ref was repeatedly blowing his whistle, but my angry opponent wasn't listening. It wasn't uncommon for our opponents to try for some very hard tackles on me, but they were hampered by having to look at least a little soccer-like. This was very different; he simply wanted to punch me.

I could easily have put my would-be attacker down, either by punching him or just by ankle-tapping him with NP, but I had a whole field to run around in so there was no pressing need for such tactics. I avoided running near any of his teammates in case they decided to help him, instead angling toward the ref.

It didn't last long. He could see that he wasn't going to catch me, especially as plenty of players, some of the spectators and his coach were heading for him. Plus the ref was blowing his whistle REALLY hard AND waving the red card wildly. My attacker slowed to a walk, then allowed himself to be led off the field. We restarted the game, with his team having to finish with one less defender. That made no difference to their chances, as they had none.

They were visibly glad when the game was finally all over. Being humiliated is no fun, but having the humiliation last one and a half hours is... , well, I guess it's also no fun, but you know what I mean.

My team, on the other hand, were of the opinion that humiliating the other team for an hour and a half was a great deal of fun, and it deserved to be celebrated with plenty of whoops. My team would have plenty of time on the bus to celebrate together, so I didn't bother celebrating with them now. Instead I moved to meet my personal entourage of supporters.

The eight girls were running toward me, with the parents following with more decorum, so the girls met me first. They used my victory as an excuse to kiss me. I used it as an excuse to accept their kisses.

Mr. and Mrs. West arrived and effusively expressed their astonishment at my performance, "We were told you were good, but that was AMAZING. You single-handedly... ," etc. I wasn't listening all that much, because there were still plenty of excited girls who wanted more kisses. Some were on their second or third turns, which was delightfully greedy of them.

Mr. and Mrs. Cheng arrived, and Mr. Cheng waited for a gap in the girls to shake my hand. While shaking my hand he looked at me carefully, then spoke Chinese to Lily, who translated his question, "Father ask you not tired?"

I answered Lily, "No, sir. I'm quite fit."

His next question, via Lily, was, "You are both sides equal? Not left, not right?"

"The word is 'am-bi-dex-trous'. Yes, I am ambidextrous."

Mr. Cheng understood. He smiled very happily, put out his hand to shake mine, so I took his. He pumped my arm up and down quite a few times, saying, "Very good. Honor meet you."

He was still holding my hand - now long enough to start feeling uncomfortable to me - and he added to my uncertainty by bowing too. I have no idea about Chinese bowing etiquette, but bowing back seemed reasonable, so I just copied what he'd done. He pumped my arm a few more times, then finally let go.

The Chengs withdrew a few steps, leaving the opportunity open for more kissing.

I snagged Ava with one arm, holding her, and started giving her the mirror of every other kiss from other girls. After the third such duplication she realized what I was doing, so I said, "I think it's fair that you get what every other girl gets, don't you?"

"Haha. I think that's VERY fair."

I couldn't say anything like, "And if the other seven girls all want sex with me, then you're going to be a VERY tired girl," because of her parents being within earshot. I did, however, think it was an interesting method of keeping a girlfriend happy about me getting physical with other girls. The more the other girls got, the more my girlfriend would get. That should stop her being jealous, and even make her want me to get sexy with other girls.

(I don't need such a system since my girlfriends already have wonderful attitudes, but if any of my male readers are having trouble with a jealous girlfriend, then you have my permission to give it a try with her. Let me know how you get on? Being a very moral guy - just as Julia - I must point out that this system is very logical, and that your girlfriend is not only a girl, but a jealous one. You have been warned.)

There were many interruptions from other spectators congratulating me, and stuff like that, but I'll leave them out of the following: A few minutes later a very happy - even beaming - Lily approached my little kissing group. She said, "Mark, Father and Mother want invite you to dinner, you choose day."

"There's no need for that..."

I was thinking what else I could say, as that didn't seem enough, but I wasn't sure what the etiquette was for turning down dinner invitations from complete strangers of the Chinese persuasion, when Lily said, "Father think you VERY special. So we have VERY special Chinese meal. VERY! Big honor to me and you. You first my friend they invite special dinner for. Very important. Very fun too. You invite many girlfriends, your family, Julia's family, anyone. Many people good. Food very, very special. I tell Mother you like roast chicken. Mother say she make many different roast chicken dishes. Number one delicious food in Corvallis. Everyone very happy. You say yes, please?"

Lily's voice had started with a sense of urgency, and had moved into beseeching. It sounded important to her, although I had NO idea why. What do I know about Chinese culture? And although it doesn't seem possible, I'm sure I know even less about Chinese females than I do about American ones. It sounded like something much more important than a casual dinner, especially because they sounded like they wanted to invite everyone I knew, but I was completely in the dark as to why. The talk about roast chickens had caught my attention too, especially as I was feeling hungry. Lily's saying "Food very, very special" sounded very, very interesting.