In the Army V

One night, she was on her combat training at the gym when Kane was passing by and saw the light. She stopped the workout at the moment she saw him enter the gym. Somehow she felt uneasy with his presence.

- Sir!

- As you were, soldier! …Always working out! You may be addicted, you know?!

She smiled.

- I guess you could use someone to workout with, you’re lucky I’m here! – He said smiling and taking away his hat.

- Thank you, sir! It’s not necessary!

- Yes, it is. Finally, I’lll have the chance to fight you on the mat. …You’re not bad at all on that, you know?!

- Really sir, I was just finished…!

- I wasn’t asking… soldier.

- Yes, sir.

And they started the workout, fighting. She felt strange; after all he was the authority! She was just defending herself from his strikes.

-  There’s no doubt you defend very well, Tollman! The question is: can you also attack?

She smiled and accepted the challenge.

Kane fought very well, she thought. Well, he should. At a certain point she finally knocked him on the floor and used her elbow to threat his throat like he has already seen before. She smiled, looked him in the eyes and somehow started loosing the smile. Boy, she was never that close and it felt… well, it felt like some kind of chemistry set! She quickly left the uneasy position.

- No! – He said. – Come back here. Let me tell you something.

She was confused for a moment.

- Really, come here! Put your elbow back. Let me show you something!

And so she did.

- …You have the wise habit of keeping a safety distance from your opponent – that’s clever of you! But I’ve seen you doing this move before and you loose your safety perimeter here! One can easily grab you, see? – He said putting his hand on her neck. – If your opponent has big strong hands, you don’t stand a chance! And in this place, well, you will surely have a man on the other side, so the odds of it happening are very high. I don’t know if your hand’s strength is a weakness or if you just prefer it that way but you could grab my neck instead of using your elbow. – He said guiding her hand to his neck. - This way, you weaken your safety but you don’t loose all of it and you get to see easily if something else happens. Got that?

She nodded. She was listening to him at the same time she was listening to her body and her mind. She finally got up.

- Thank you! – She said with a hint of a smile on her face.

As he was standing up, she was prepared to leave.

- I think…

But he continued the training interrupting her. She was just defending again and so he was kind of pushing her behind. It was a funny dance of hands.

- You think…? – He asked her to go on while keeping the fight. And her back reached the wall with him all around and nowhere to move.

- I think it was very good today… productive! …At least for me…! The training, I mean!... – She ended to say a bit confused, not to say threatened, by his eyes… that kept looking at her and kind of smiling with her uneasiness.

For some moments they just kept looking at each other. Then his eyes were attracted to her mouth, to her lips, that were saying: - I think we better call it off for today…

But his eyes looked into hers and there… there just was a different message. Then he kissed her. She rationally started to resist it and even struggled but then she just let herself go with that feeling inside.

At the end of an intense kiss, they were closely looking at each other, maybe trying to make something out of it. And worried about several things that suddenly came to her mind, she broke that silence.

- You shouldn’t have done that…sir!

That word brought him back to the place they were in. There were different kinds of thoughts in his mind and he didn’t quite know what to do. He stepped back.

- No… you’re right! I shouldn’t have…! – He replied.

He started walking to the door and after a few steps he turned around to her again. Then he seemed to have decided what to say.

- That never happened!… soldier. – He said acknowledging what she would have meant by that and leaving.

Her heart was beating fast and her breathing was still heavy. She couldn’t forget the moment his lips were getting close to hers, almost touching, and her heart beating fast!… She knew he was hot, she had already caught herself with one thought or another about him but she wasn’t being reasonable, she thought. She came a long way to get there and, boy, she was loving it! She wouldn’t jeopardize all that for some silly weakness! Even wanting to repeat that moment, she couldn’t allow that to happen.

In the following days, first sergeant Kane didn’t know if he would nag her or not. Sometimes he exaggerated, others almost ignored her. Concerning her workout incursions into the night, sometimes she didn’t even go trying to avoid him.