Huxley and Pierce just bought "Defense" for their MEN ON THE EDGE anthology. That's three of the six hockey stories that have sold, and as much as I joke around about hockey smut this and that, the fact is these stories mean a great deal to me. The whole series does.

Huxley called "Defense" a "fascinating allegory for dangerous sex."

That's nice to hear. It's one of the most experimental things I've ever written. It's good to know that it stands as it is, and works, and is understood.

**


So you know, I think I'm in decent shape. I'm on the ice five, sometimes six times a week, sometimes twice in a day. I can play two games in the same afternoon and not feel it that much the next day.

Today I'm wrecked.

Not from hockey, although hockey on top of it probably didn't help.

No, this is the old familiar uneven ache of too much bladework.

Bec laughed at me as I limped into the kitchen and informed her: "My right quad is locked solid. And my left ass cheek."

She also fenced sabre, and remembers. Back in her day, Maestro Burchard used to take them down to the beach and make them do footwork in two feet of water and wet sand.

On Sunday, Harry gave me a saber and a main gauche and stopped trying to get me to do the proper theatrical combat form. He trusted me to keep a safe distance--given we don't use any protective equipment--and not kill him, and the two of us just went at it.

He claims I scare him. Harry, who eats scary things for breakfast and much of his day, and I think is just trying to make me feel good. But still, he claims that Orion's big and hits hard and scares him, and Carl's mean and scares him, and me? Well, apparently I'm scary because I'm something of a wild card.

Which I can see, given that when we later picked up two shinai and started bashing on each other and everyone else there, I was using nice, clean kendo cuts with good old Italian fencing footwork.

I love this stuff. I love edged weapons, I love taking fencing straight out of that stupid het-up sport context that always made my teeth grind. Teeny target area. Miniscule strip size. No body contact. That stupid rule about right of way.

(You know, right of way is just dumb. It means that if someone has their arm extended first, regardless of whether or not your blade makes the first contact, they get the point. If you reapply that rule back to fighting (which in theory is the point of the sport), it's like saying "well, I had my arm out first, so despite the fact that you've just skewered me through the heart, you're dead and I win.")

And that's coming from me, queen of the beat attack. I digress.

Harry is not going to Iraq for the moment. They want him (who wouldn't?), but apparently we're sending fewer troops, and for the moment, not him.

It makes me stupidly, crazily happy. Happy enough that I bounced around with weapons in my hands and got blisters everywhere and wrecked my knees and was completely spent before my game.

But had fun.

And am glad he's still here.


**

Sunday's game highlight: pinning some guy against the boards until he was really pissed off and we got possession. Until the ref gave me a warning, on the verge of a call, and I got pushed hard as the guy got out from under me and skated away.

The rest kind of sucked. I had a nice breakaway which I promptly dumped before I even hit their blue line.

I lost my temper when Chris skated through me for the third time, pinching up through my position without looking at me, passing to me, or having anything to say.

I yelled, and came off swearing and snarling about him being a selfish fuck.

Poor behavior, and Sparks wasn't afraid to tell me so.

Being in the right and knowing everyone thinks so... still doesn't make that stuff okay.


**




- posted by Kate @ 8:51 AM