He pursed his lips and gave me another, more skeptical once-over. “Here’s what I see,” he told me. “You’re cute, you’re family, and you’ve at least got enough dedication to get on an airplane and come here. I’m not making any promises, but if you’ll make a real effort, and if you have any skills, I’ll see what we can do.”
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until it whooshed out of me, and I smiled so big I laughed. I threw my arms around his elegant neck and squeezed. “Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he said, laughing too. He handed me the rifle again, and helped me shoulder it correctly. “Now,” he announced in what I would come to think of as his coach voice, “the first rule of shooting is the most important one.”
“Okay,” I said. “And what’s that?”
“Never lie again to someone with a houseful of guns who’s a better shot than you are.”
He grinned, I exhaled, and thus began my first shooting practice.
* * * *
To Marcel’s relief, and my own amazement, I didn’t suck. I’m not trying to act like I was setting the world of competitive shooting ablaze by the end of that first practice, mind, but I was shortly able to tell the trigger from the sight, and I hit the target as often as not, once I got a feel for the weight of the rifle. My absolute best round at the end of the week Marcel said would have earned me maybe millionth place at the Olympics had they been held that weekend, but he did say that I shouldered my rifle like a natural, and I took direction well. After I begged him to say it, he conceded that he saw sparks of potential, and he didn’t put me on a plane back to L.A., which was, at the end of the day, all I really cared about.
Marcel’s greatest strength, and one of his Olympic medals, was in the Men’s Three Position, wherein shooters compete from the standing, kneeling, and prone position in the same event. He excelled from the prone position, but wanted me to at least get an idea of how to shoot and what to shoot at before he tried to teach me how to do it all lying down. I had to beg him to even demo the prone position for me, which I mostly did for the occasion to ogle the swell of his ass in the air without getting caught.
One day, though, about a half an hour into a spectacularly unproductive practice, he stopped me. “Where is your concentration today?” he asked, noting the way I practically threw the rifle down at the first whisper of his command to ‘stop.’
“I don’t know, Marcel, I’m sorry. This just isn’t happening for me today.”
“Yes, well, I can see that,” he said. “Let’s take a break, maybe go for a walk. You’re not even trying to act like you care.”
“I care, Marcel, I do. It’s just, it’s the same thing every day. Stand here, shoot at this. Now stand here again, and shoot at this again. And now“
“I get it,” he said, staying me with his hand. “You’re bored, is that it?”
“Well, right at this moment…”
“Okay,” he said. “I know what we’ll do. We’ll go for a little walk, clear your head, then when we come back, we’ll mix it up a little bit.”
“Like, I’ll stand over there and shoot at that?”
“Like I’ll lay you down and we can try it with you prone.”
Well, I liked the sound of that, even if he was talking about shooting.
But I had a hard time getting the hang of it. There was a fair bit of Wait, do what with my elbow? and I thought I was doing that with my knee before he eventually lowered himself to the floor and snuggled up next to me.
“See, I kinda like this,” I teased. “Is there a team event?”
“They’re not that kind of Olympics,” he joked. “Scoot over and give me the rifle.”
I complied, and he flew up onto his elbows, instantly assuming a photo-perfect position like a pointer dog in an old cartoon. “Like this,” he said, sliding the rifle over to me.
I took the rifle—”Like this?”—and replicated his position, with some effort, exactly. Or so I thought, before he collapsed onto the floor laughing.
“What am I doing wrong?” I asked, rolling over onto my side.
“I don’t know,” he laughed, “but you sure keep doing it. Here,” he said, beckoning for the rifle. “I’ll do it again. You climb up onto my back, see if you can sight it with me, at least see what you’re going for.”
“Um, okay,” I agreed, making my best not-getting-hot face.
Again, like something in a pop-up book, he took the position instinctively, then said, “Okay, up you get.”
I put a hand between his shoulders and leaned in. “Like this?”
“No, not like that,” he huffed. “Get up on my back, put your knee on mine, put your elbow where mine is, and come look at the sight with me.”
“Um…”
“I’m not made of glass, Beau, climb up there. Isn’t your whole mission to be climbing on top of as many Olympic athletes as possible?”
I laughed. I mean, it was, but a cousin wasn’t necessarily on my list, no matter how long-lost. But he had said that my knack to follow directions was an attribute, and so up I scrambled. He was the coach, after all.
It took me a second of sliding and nudging around to line up, at which point my front was rubbing pretty definitely against his rear. He felt it, too, because every time more blood surged into my boner, he pressed his plump rump against it, which shortly facilitated an infinite loop of surging and pressing from which there was generally only one escape. “Knock it off,” he scolded, bucking me gently. “Now come here; put your face by mine,
