Spring fancy

'Will I sound ridiculous if I ask you to play a game of racket ball at this hour of the night?'

'I'm already tying my Adidas.'

'My club is open till midnight. It's closer than yours. I'll meet you there. Ask at the desk which court, and I'll tell them you're my guest.'

'Let me go, so I can hurry.'

He ran through the house searching frantically for anything to throw on, grabbing the first thing he found-a pair of sawed-off blue jeans and giving up when he couldn't find a shirt fast enough, so heading out without one, only his shoes in his hand, and his racket.

At the club he careered to a halt before the sleepy night-desk attendant and impatiently whacked a palm down beside the registration book. 'What court is Winn Gardner in?'

'Number six.'

He jogged down the long corridor and panted to a halt before the only court in which the lights were burning.

She was waiting in the middle of the floor, huddled, arms to knees and forehead to arms, facing the front wall. He stepped down onto the wooden floor and paused.

'Winn?'

Her head snapped up, and she spun around on her buttocks.

'Oh, Joseph, thank you for coming.'

He crossed the distance between them with a strong muscular stride. 'Don't you dare thank me for coming, Winn. Not me.'

She swallowed hard and had an awful, belligerent set to her jaw as she rolled to her knees and looked up at him, standing above her. 'Work me hard tonight, Joseph,' she demanded sternly. 'Don't give me no quarter. Promise?'

Their eyes dashed, and he wondered what this was all about but let her carry it to whatever end she desired without enlightening him in the meantime.

'I promise.'

She leaped up and stripped her sweat shirt off almost angrily, flung it out into the hall and slammed the door. He watched, frowning as she strode to the center of the backcourt, dressed in a white T-shirt and green shorts.

'Serve!' she ordered, disdaining warm-ups, staring at the front wall almost as if she'd forgotten Joseph was there except as an instrument to do her bidding.

He strode to the serving lane and gave her what she wanted. He worked her like a slave driver, giving her everything he had. She smashed the ball with a vehemence that was awesome. She drove it and backhanded it, and all the time her teeth were clenched and her jaw bulging. She rushed forward to meet each oncoming ball as if her life depended upon meeting it in time. She was vicious and at times almost ugly in her grim fanaticism. But in that ugliness lurked a true beauty, that of the athlete who pushes her body to its physical limits. She arched her back to a torturous angle as she reached for high shots behind her head. She lunged with a pure surge of might and sometimes climbed two steps up the concrete walls in her frantic effort to wreak whatever vengeance she must upon a dumb blue sphere of rubber.

The sweat flowed freely. She swung at a shot and missed, then when the next serve came, cracked it dead center while gritting for emphasis, 'Goddamn you!'

They played at the torturous pace for thirty minutes, then Joseph had to know. He stood at the serving line with his back to her and stubbornly refused to turn around while asking, 'Did you send out the wedding invitations?'

'Yes!' she barked. 'Serve, dammit!'

Joseph felt as if she'd stabbed him in the back with a broken blade.

They played fifteen minutes more, but now he was attacking each shot as recklessly, as angrily as she. Tonight it mattered not in the least who won or lost. It only mattered that they slammed the ball against the concrete walls and got even with the world's injustices and demands.

'Why?' he growled as his racket punished the innocent ball.

'Because I couldn't stop it!' She, too, performed an injustice to the game of racket ball with her next return.

'Is that why you're doing this?'

The whistling return he'd expected to fly past his ear never materialized. Instead, behind him all was silent. He whirled, white lipped now with fury. Dammit, he loved this woman! They stared each other down-she was poised as if to turn her racket on him while he gripped his own racket with a fist so tight it made veins bulge like blue rivers up his arms.

'Is that why?' he demanded angrily.

'No!' she bleated. Then, without warning, Winn Gardner collapsed to her knees, hugged her head and broke into a torrent of sobbing.

Jo-Jo's racket clattered to the floor. He was bending to her in less than a second, knee to knee, grasping her arms in a painful grip. 'Winn, please tell me what this is all about.'

Her hair was strewn and wild, for it had not been pampered after its last washing. It prodded the air around her face while her mouth yawned in anguish and tears streamed from her tormented eyes. Her fingers plucked at Joseph's chest as if searching for a shirt to grasp.

'Oh, God, Joseph, she died.' And then he understood.

'Winn… Winn…' Gently he embraced her, kissing her temple, wanting to slip her inside his very body to protect her from further pain. 'I'm sorry, darling. I'm sorry.'

Her body jerked. Her arms clung. The salt of sweat and tears intermingled upon his neck as she buried her face there and wept. Incoherently she babbled out her sorrow while he quietly held her, understanding the meaning if not the words. Joseph and Win were bound together wherever their bare skins touched by the sweat they'd forced from each other's bodies during the grueling combat of the past half hour. He ran his hands as far around her as he could and drew her in as if his arms were attached to a winch, and only she could release its catch. Their knees were widespread now, their stomachs and breasts molded flat together. Her hurt became his. And because she cried, his eyes misted, too.

When her sobbing grew terrifying, he plowed his hands through her hair and forced her head back, covering her mouth with his in a blessed surcease of solitariness. Their tongues, like the ball they had just battered, drove and smashed and volleyed, continuing to fight the fight of the living against the invincibility of death. Their heads moved as if they were fighting each other with their open mouths, when there was truly no fight at all, only enormous relief from tensions both emotional and sexual.

He pushed her back and fell with her onto the middle of the vast empty floor, covering her hard-muscled body with his own. His elbows struck the floor, then her head was cradled in his arms in a half awkward, half meshing embrace while their well-matched bodies fused. His hips shifted to one side, and a knee nudged hers open. She complied with profound defiance of everyone and everything save Joseph Duggan, placing her soles on the floor, widening her straddle until he was couched securely within her thighs, and she could freely and angrily thrust up against him.

At first their breaths were ragged, hers still shredded by the last vestiges of weeping. But soon they became conscious of the faint hum of the overhead lights in the otherwise still room. Neither their lips nor hips had separated when the writhing and lashing out stopped.

Their kiss grew tender, the movements of their heads mellowed into those of lovers exploring something wondrous. Her knees were still flexed, but they relaxed now, and one of them slipped down to lie flat against the floor while the other caressed his hip.

Combat became caress.

Grip became greeting.

Anger became accolade.

They moved as a wave moves upon the shore, one upon the other, slipping up to explore, cover, then receding to await the next nudge of nature.

His body was hard. He used it to encourage, to invite, but not to assault or punish. She lifted rhythmically in acceptance, and he backed away the shortest distance possible, only enough to see her wide blue eyes, filled with