Fences
by Bill Reed

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just so we’re clear,” he said, “this isn’t a penis metaphor.” He twirled the slender sword in his hand like an arthritic Errol Flynn. His clumsy fingers fumbled the flip and he lost control of the foil. It clattered to the floor.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I would hope not,” she replied, keeping a firm two-fingered grip on the hilt of her blade. “Are you going to take this seriously or not?”
    He bent down and recovered his sword. “If you wanted to take a poke at me, we didn’t have to leave the house,” he said. “Or spend all this money.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just put your mask on,” she told him. She slipped her headgear on and assumed stance—heels at 90 degrees, feet apart, knees bent and pointed out, left arm up, right relaxed, hand clutching foil. He imitated, unsuccessfully—mask askew, feet crooked, knees shaking, arms drooping, death grip on the hilt of his sword. He mimicked her like a child copying a parent, only without any enthusiasm.
    She advanced, her movements precise. He retreated, dragging his feet, but moved too slowly—she lunged, the point of her foil going straight for his heart. He stumbled backward and flailed his sword arm, batting her blade away, but also tumbling rump-first onto the floor.
    She sighed and pulled off her mask. “Your form’s atrocious.”
    He hefted himself to his feet. “Well for God’s sake, Helen, you could’ve taken my nipple off!”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I’d wanted, I could’ve aimed for something a little tenderer,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I learned my lesson last time,” he told her, and rapped a knuckle on his nethers. “I’m wearing a cup.”
    She did not retort, choosing instead to slip her mask back on so that he wouldn’t see her face. “Can we try this again?” She effortlessly resumed stance.
    He did his best, but his legs began to wobble. He shifted his weight forward.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Your knees aren’t far enough apart,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If they go any farther, I’ll fall on my ass again,” he explained.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re tensing up too much,” she told him, maintaining her perfect stance. “Relax your muscles. You’ll pull something if you don’t. Same with your arm, too. Relax your shoulders or the foil’s going to feel like it weighs a lot more than it does.”
    He adjusted, but only succeeded in looking like a marionette with tangled strings.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Try to get down lower, take the weight off your knees,” she said. “It’s almost like sitting. And stick your pelvis out a bit—you don’t want to be leaning forward.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“How’s this?” he asked.
    She stepped out of stance and walked up to him. “Your legs are better, but you’re holding the foil wrong,” she said. “Basically, pinch it between your thumb and index finger, and keep your palm up.” She rotated his wrist for him. “Pommel against wrist. I’ll tell you what my teacher told me, and what his teacher told him.” She stood behind him and put her hand on his. He gripped the sword tightly, as if it were a loved one dangling from a cliff. “You want to hold it as if it’s a bird,” she told him. “Too tightly, and you’ll choke it; too loosely, it’ll fly away.”
    His relaxed his grip, and the foil teetered in his hand. “Hold it steady with your other fingers,” she said. “Fencing’s mostly about finesse. You have to let it flow out of your arm.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Very Zen.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“When you’re in the sixth position, like you are now, you want to make sure the guard of your sword is the farthest thing from your body. Keep your elbow in, and then point the blade toward your opponent’s throat. In the old days, the trick was to keep it at their eye line so they couldn’t tell how long your sword was.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right,” he said. “Any advantage you can get, yeah?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exactly,” she said. “Okay, you’re good enough for now. Let’s try something else. Advance towards me.”
    He stepped forward onto his right heel and then, just as his right toe hit the floor, brought his left foot forward and down. He didn’t quite have the actions synchronized. By the time he landed it, his stance had shifted and his feet pointed in wrong directions.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now extend.”
    He put his arm straight out, directing the point of his blade inward at her chest.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, lunge at me.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Helen—”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What is it now?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t want to do this. What if I hit you in the boob?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Trust me, Greg, you’re not going to hit me. Just lunge.”
    He thrust his right leg forward and plunged his sword toward her. She deftly moved to the fourth position, a basic defense that brought her sword across to deflect his.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was pretty good,” she said. “Your feet landed crooked and you’re leaning forward too much, but it wasn’t bad.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yay me,” he said, retreating. “Do I have to stay in stance?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just hold it for a minute, I want to show you something.” She advanced toward him and extended her arm simultaneously. “Okay, say I come at you like this. What do you do?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Cower?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Here, you do the same.” He extended his blade. “Alright,” she said. “Now, if I wanted to attack, I’d need the right of way. To get that, I just do this.” She loosened and then tightened her grip on her foil quickly, smacking his to the side, and pointed her sword once more at his chest. “That’s called a beat. It puts me into the position to lunge.”
    He nodded, but realized she probably couldn’t tell from behind his mask. “Right.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, but you can take the right of way back. So you do the same.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Beat you?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just get it over with,” she told him.
He swung his foil to collide with hers, “You’re leaving yourself wide open for a dirty joke, there.” He leveled his sword at her sternum. “I’m not going to go for it, though. I know better.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m glad you’ve matured that far in your thirty years,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can we quit? My legs are killing me.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Try another lunge first,” she said. He hurled himself forward with the tenacity of a narcoleptic accountant. She parried easily and lunged back at him, jamming the point of her foil into his right pectoral muscle.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ow!” he said, breaking stance to rub his new sore spot. “You got me in the boob.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t jump out of stance like that,” she said. “And try not to bob up and down when you’re advancing and retreating. Stay level.”
    He sat back down into the en garde position. “It’s hard to do that when you’ve been stabbed in the chest.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It happens.” She eyed him up and down. “Check your legs. How are they holding up?”
    He looked down. “Shaking,” he said. “My thighs are kamikazes.”
    She removed her mask. “Okay, take a break,” she said. She fetched a bottle of water and sipped from it.
    He groaned as he stood upright, and punched himself in the thighs in an attempt to lessen the pain. He then pried his mask off and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”
    He wasn’t sure, but he could’ve sworn she screwed the cap back onto her water bottle with extra ferocity. “I’m doing it because I enjoy it. You’re doing it because you need the exercise. We’re doing it because we barely get to see each other anymore.”
    He kicked his legs out in the air like a drunken Rockette to stretch his pained muscles. “Hon, if that’s all you wanted, I could just take you to dinner and a movie.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s not all,” she said. She dropped back into the en garde position. “Okay, let’s try something new. Remember to relax your shoulders.”
    She hadn’t put her mask back on, so he tossed his to the side. “Forget my shoulders. You’re avoiding the subject. I’m the one that’s supposed to do that.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not avoiding the subject, I’m moving the lesson along.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Couples therapy would’ve been cheaper,” he said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We don’t need couples therapy.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we need to fence?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do, yes,” she said. “And you’re going to fence with me. En garde.”
    He did as she commanded, but his knees continued to quake. “Sewing machine legs,” she’d called it.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Stop leaning forward or you’ll lose your balance. Keep your back upright, and put your weight on your heels. Sink into stance. Remember, it helps if you stick your pelvis out a bit.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re right,” he said. “That’s always served me well.”
    She ignored his attempt at wit. “Don’t shift your weight too much. You want to keep things smooth.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If only,” he muttered, before raising his voice and saying “Finesse. Zen. Gotcha.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And for God’s sake, don’t tense your shoulders,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t help it,” he replied. “My muscles won’t let me. And honestly, you’re intimidating.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You always told me you liked strong women,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Strong women, maybe,” he said. “Women that can stab me six times before I can blink, I’m not too sure about just yet.”
    She advanced, seemingly without even noticing. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
    He retreated. “Will it get you to talk about what’s wrong with you?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nothing’s wrong with me.”     She advanced toward him and extended her arm. “So if I come at you like this,” she said, “you’re going to move to block me, right?” She waited a second for him to act. “That was your cue.”
    He gave into her avoidance and haphazardly swung his arm to the fourth position, expecting to move her blade with his. “Right.”
    Moving faster than he could take notice, she seemed to flick her wrist, dropping her foil under his for only a second, and bringing it right back up where it’d been originally, with his sword now off to the side. “That’s a disengage,” she said. “I deceive you by moving out of the way ever so slightly in order to maintain the upper hand.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So I’m screwed, is what you’re saying.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, you could come back to six.” He moved his arm back to the default en garde position, but she simply repeated her earlier action and kept the point of the sword inches from his aorta. “I’d just do the same thing, though. And now I have you right where I want you,” she said. “At my mercy.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “If I can score a touch on you, you tell me what’s really bothering you.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re actually offering to bout with me?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s the only way I’m going to get past your defenses, right?”
    She lowered her sword and retrieved her facemask. “Okay,” she said. “You’re on.” She held the mask under her arm and stood with her heels together at 90 degrees. “Don’t forget to salute,” she reminded him, holding her blade straight up in front of her and then swiftly whisking it downward, cleaving the air. “It shows respect.”
    He repeated her actions. The foil produced a noise reminiscent of wind through a wiffleball. He took his mask and, like a knight armoring for battle, delicately placed it onto his head. He then hefted his sword much like he imagined Zorro would (though he quickly realized Zorro fenced sabre, not foil), and readied himself for combat.
    Together, they entered stance. The muscles in his legs began to complain immediately, but he refused to let them get the best of him. “Ready when you are,” he dared her.
    She quickly advanced toward him, and he threw himself into a hasty retreat, suddenly forgetting almost everything he knew about fencing. Elbow in, he told himself. Knees apart. Come on.
    She hesitated for a moment, giving him the opportunity to advance upon her, but he figured she wanted him to do that. He wouldn’t let her have it so easy, and didn’t budge.
    She kicked her foot up and stamped upon the ground. He retreated, but she did not follow him. She must’ve been toying with him. In fact, she’d never mentioned that move before. He felt like a ball of yarn. “Crafty vixen,” he said.
    She did not reply, choosing instead to keep him on the defensive by quickly advancing once more and extending her sword. He stepped back, but beat her sword to the side and leveled his foil at her. She moved to parry, but he dropped his blade under hers—not as gracefully as she’d done before, but it got the job done—and threw himself into a lunge. Kick forward. Land on the heel.
    He nailed the lunge, and she, perhaps not expecting him to perform so well, nearly fell victim to his attack. Her instincts saved her as she almost galloped backwards with a double retreat, performing counter moves with her sword. He was too slow to follow her, however, and she regained her advantage over him. Still, he felt swelled with pride, or perhaps pain from his legs.
    He decided to take the offensive this time, and advanced toward her with arm extended. She seemed to retreat, at first, but her front foot had barely touched the ground when she pushed forward into a lunge, accompanying it with a verbal outburst that was half grunt and half yell. She’d suckered him in.
    Surprisingly, he felt his arm move to parry her, and blocked her attack. His glory proved short-lived, however, as she came back to en garde by bringing her back leg forward, rather than her front leg backward—another move she’d neglected to teach him—and lunged again, this time catching him in the upper right quadrant of his chest, the point of the blade bowing upward. “First blood.”
    In tandem, they stood and realigned themselves for another round. He steeled himself for further action, waiting for her to make the first move, as always. With his free hand, he motioned for her to come at him, hoping bravado would throw her off her game.
    She advanced slowly, testing the waters. He retreated, but she quickly advanced in order to outpace him. She extended, telegraphing a lunge. Retreating, he rotated his wrist ever so slightly and moved his hand across his body, putting his foil into the fourth position. She disengaged and slipped her blade under his without coming into contact with it, and continued pressing her attack with an advance. He countered, dropping his sword and bringing it back up into the fourth position while retreating at the same time. They continued these motions, their foils circling each other like blades on an antique lawnmower.
    He soon found himself about to retreat into a wall, and realized he had to switch to offense. Praying she wouldn’t see it coming, he quickly extended and lunged. She easily parried, and riposted with a lunge of her own, catching him once more in the chest.
    They walked to the center of the room again. “I think my teaching is actually working,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Surprised?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“A little. En garde.”
     They assumed stance. Now or never, he said to himself. Be a man. He double-advanced, extending his arm, but she moved into the fourth position as she retreated, blocking his blade. He advanced and extended again, but she shifted back into the sixth position with a retreat, rejecting his attack. He retreated, hoping he’d lure her in, and she came after him, reaching out with her sword. He swept at her foil, swiftly but clumsily. With but two fingers, she moved her blade up and over his—a coupé—and fluidly lunged.
    He retreated, though it felt like more of a leap, and, wincing from the pain in his legs and the anticipation of being stabbed again, swung his foil out of sheer panic. It caught hers, batting it out of the way. Seeing the opening, he thrust forward with all his might. She began to parry, but too late. The point of his sword landed just next to her armpit, on the very edge of the valid target area.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Holy crap,” he said, standing up and pulling his mask off. “I got you.”
    Stunned, she said nothing.
    He sat down on a bench against the wall and beckoned for her to sit next to him. “We had a deal,” he said.
    She remained standing. “I didn’t expect you to actually score,” she admitted.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know.”
    She lifted her mask off with one hand and cradled it to her chest. “So,” she said.
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is this conversation going to be like pulling teeth?” he asked. “Helen, I swear, let’s just talk about it.”
    She pressed the point of her foil to the floor. “I want to try for a baby.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh.”
    The section of her sword closest to the tip—the foible, it was called—bent from the pressure. “Caught you off guard, did I? I’m good at that.”
    He looked down. “A baby.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ve been together for five years,” she said. “I’m ready to start a family.”
    He yanked his glove off and clasped his hand over his chin. “I’m—”
    She screwed up her face. “Yes?”
“I don’t know.” He waved his arm through the air, his hand performing small loop-the-loops. “I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t think we’re ready. And I don’t think we should be talking about this right now.”
She lifted her sword and pointed it at him, placing her hand into the sixth position. “You’re the one that wanted to have this discussion!”
He saw that she held her foil at his eye line. “No, I wanted to have a discussion. I didn’t know it was going to be this one.”
    She whipped her foil through the air, producing the swooshing sound again. “I wish you wouldn’t put up a fence every time I try to have a conversation!”
    He threw his arms out in frustration. “What do you want to hear? I’m not ready to have a kid!”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“For God’s sake, Greg, we’re married. You’re thirty years old!”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know,” he said. “I know. But I don’t want to be. I can’t be an adult.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Helen, if we have a kid, then we’re old. Then we’re stuck. How am I supposed to take care of a baby? You know me. Path of least resistance, remember?”
    Her hand became a vise as she clutched the handle of her sword tight. “We’re husband and wife. We’ll work it out together.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Will we?” he asked. “What do we do together? You said yourself, we hardly see each other anymore. We barely talk.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re talking now,” she said. “We fence.”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No, we’re fighting. It’s all just fighting.” He tugged at his hair. “I mean, do you love me? Are we still in love? How can we have a kid if I don’t even know?”
    She slipped her facemask back on. “What are you saying?”
    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m saying we shouldn’t have a baby just to stay together. I’m saying that this fencing isn’t helping to work out our issues at all.”
    She raised her sword at him and sunk into stance. “Come on.”
    He stood up. “What, is this it? Do you want to fight again? Is that the only way we can interact?” He put his mask on and picked up his foil. “Okay, then. Fine. En garde.”
    She advanced and lunged at him straight off. He caught her blade with his and they came together, swords crossed. She pushed out of it and retreated, but he advanced after her. He moved in for the kill, missed his first lunge, and tried to immediately lunge again, throwing his weight forward. She deflected his sword, but his lunge became a tackle as he lost his balance and collided with her. They fell, twisting in a midair tango, and landed on the hard floor, her on top of him, their faces close enough to kiss were it not for the wire mesh of their masks.