Along the outer walls, there were three push buttons next to each of what looked like more elevator doors. You requested either a four, eight or sixteen passenger car.
The door opened immediately, and inside there was a map in front of the first seat with all the possible destinations on it—about four hundred of them. You pressed where you wanted to go and it took you anywhere on the island nonstop in under five minutes.
The private car that had been waiting for us when we first got to San Sebastian had not been a special privilege. Everybody used them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Another Race and a Party
Getting into the car, Ian bumped his head four more times that I noticed and doubtless more besides that I didn’t. He hit his head again as we left the car under my place.
“Hey, maybe if you bash your head enough times, all the lumps will grow together into sort of an organic crash helmet, and . . .”
“Laugh all you want,” he said. “It’s a magnificent body!” He put his hands under the butts of two of his girls—Merry and Jodi—and lifted them at arm’s length up to shoulder level. “Look at this, will you?”
“Hell, I can top that!” I duplicated his feat with Barb and Mary, then crouched down on my haunches and went into a high kicking Cossack dance—with suitable verbal accompaniment—that I had learned when I was sixteen and on a diet.
Ian tried it and dropped himself and friends backwards on the thickly padded carpet.
I roared out with laughter.
“Damn you, Tom, I never said I was a dancer, but I can outrun you anytime!”
“Ah hah! Do I hear another wager in the offing?” I was still holding the girls out in the air.
“You’re damn straight! Once around all three of the palaces and each of us carrying two women.”
“Two women? I presume they don’t have to be held at arm’s length.”
I let my two ladies slide to the floor.
“At a dead run, it’d be a bit much, not to say dangerous.” Ian remembered my supposed “cheating” at the boat race and lapsed into a “legalistic” tone of voice. “We shall each carry two ladies in any manner whatsoever, except that should any part of their bodies touch the ground, the defaulter shall forfeit the wager. The course shall be outlined by floodlights that someone shall set up around the aforesaid three palaces, and said course shall be free from any dangerous obstacles. The ladies in question shall be chosen among our own here present. . . . Oh. And we each shall move on foot entirely under our own power and without any external assistance. I think that defines it.”
“Sure. What about the bet?”
“I want my Harley back.”
“Okay. What are you putting up against it?”
“My Corvette.”
“Hey, that’s not your Corvette, that’s group property.”
“Then my share of the Corvette and my entire library back in Michigan.”
“Done!” And we shook on it. I started stripping down to nothing. The soles of the feet on my new body were heavily calloused and all else was useless encumbrance.
“Okau. The lightest two of you girls front and center. Go to the bathroom and then strip.”
“Tom! What are you doing?”
“Well, the bet is that I have to carry two girls over a maybe two-mile course. Nothing says that I have to carry clothes or urine.” Naturally, I had a secret scheme for victory.
Ian told his ladies to follow suit, and we went outside to find a starting line set up. Word had apparently gotten around, because the entire population of all three palaces—sans Hasenpfeffer—was waiting for us, cheering. We had apparently made nudity the uniform of the day, because they were all as naked as we were. When a full-sized, ornate and highly polished brass cannon signaled the start, every one of them joined in the race. I set off with Barb over my right shoulder and Tammy over my left. As I ran, we tried other positions.
It was an absurd, hilarious, and riotous affair! We were all laughing hysterically and running as fast as our legs could push us. A few score of the girls quickly took the lead, the bulk of them paced Ian and me with our double loads, and eventually, an increasing number of them fell behind.
It was wonderfully glorious, fantastically exhilarating! It was a magnificent joy, pushing a perfect body to its absolute limits! For the first time in my life, I was an athlete! Ian was stronger than I was and his legs were fully six inches longer than mine, but I was better coordinated—he hadn’t learned how to use his oversized body yet. We raced evenly over the soft beach sand until we rounded the Taj Mahal. Then he started to pull ahead. I was a hundred yards behind when we rounded Hasenpfeffer’s glass and concrete thing and got onto the better footing of a well-tended lawn.
Only a half dozen girls were in the lead now, and I saw my grand strategy starting to work. Ian’s huge wong, slapping back and forth between his legs, began to tell on him, doubtless assisted by the lovely naked ladies running and bouncing around him and clinging to his neck. I caught up with him halfway back to Camelot. His erection was huge, and must have consumed a pint of blood that could have been used in oxygenating his muscles. Also, I don’t think that his mind was entirely on running a race.
When I passed Ian, there was only one woman ahead of him—one of Hasenpfeffer’s—and she never dropped out. I passed her a hundred yards from the finish line.
Throughout the race, I’d been shifting Barb and Tammy around, trying to find a comfortable position. There wasn’t one. As we approached the finish line, Barb was on my back, with her arms around my neck and her legs wrapped tightly around my waist, and Tammy was on her back, with her legs under my armpits, her feet in my hands. I was bent over nearly horizontal, and pumping my legs like the devil himself was after me with two pitchforks, and we won!
We crossed the finish line to four hundred cheers and a second booming of the brass cannon. I promptly stumbled and spilled Barb and Tammy sweating on the sand.
We were up in time to cheer Jennifer into second place and Ian into third. They had a six-quart solid gold loving cup, already engraved with my name that said “First Place” and “San Sebastian National Invitational Mini-Marathon.”
Jennifer got a similar “Second Place” prize, a two-quart solid silver cup. Ian got a tiny, chrome-plated plastic thing that read “Last Place—Male Division.”
“I’ll get you, Red Baron!”, he shouted, because whereas our cups were filled with champagne, his held cold Lipton tea.
After taking a long pull, I passed the cup to Barb. It went from her to Tammy and then into the crowd. Three dozen dozen champagne bottles were popped besides, and musical instruments were starting to appear.
“Inadequate!” Ian shouted above the crowd. “I may be a loser, but I’m a rotten loser! Let’s break up the party!”
The girls all booed.
“So we can have a bigger one!” he shouted.
They all cheered.
“You’re all going to have to get dressed!”
“Boo!”
“In grass skirts and flowers!”
“HURRAH!”
“Me and Tom can’t handle all of you!”
“BOO!”
“So you’ll have to invite in the guys!”
“HURRAH!”
“Hey, they can only invite three hundred!” I shouted.
“BOO!”
“Well, we gotta have enough left for ourselves!”
“HURRAH!”
“McAndrews from the docks has to be here!” Ian yelled.
“HURRAH!”
“Yeah, and Fitzsimmon of the Navy!”
“HURRAH!”
It was like party time back in college, with one big exception. Ian was getting involved and taking the lead like he never had before. I was starting to get pretty worried about it. Had they worked over his head as much as they had enlarged his body? But I had had the same treatment, and I wasn’t acting any different, except for maybe being more physical, and that could be explained by the way it felt so good to move this new body. Then again, would I know it if I was thinking differently? I’d have to get Ian alone and talk to him about it, next time I got a chance.
Which wasn’t now.
Grass skirts and flowered leis were being passed out. Bonfires and torches were already being lit down on the beach where we’d raced not ten minutes before. On a raised area, a platform with seats was set up for the island’s “royalty,” namely us.
Female royalty seemed to consist of only those girls we’d actually laid—four of mine plus Ming Po on Ian’s side.
A tourist-style luau was in full swing by the time we got there. Booze was flowing free, served in coconut shells, hollowed out pineapples and, in a few cases, the entire rinds of watermelons.