A/N: Disclaimer: I know nothing about Tom Cruise! This is fiction! Nothing is based on fact! I know he’s a lovely man who rescues puppies and stuff don’t sue!
Chapter 321: Katrina X—Primitive Animals
Joe Sakic, to Katrina did not match at all the image that everyone attributed to him. Decent man, a good man, quoteless, boring, vanilla, almost everyone used to describe him. Hogwash, as far as Katrina was concerned, the fact alone that he played hockey meant that he belonged in the same primitive class of animal that the rest of his teammates resided in. Of course he presented a more attractive package than most others, but she knew that he probably hid his inner core from everyone, perhaps even from himself, and it was only a matter of time before that animal inside surfaced. Why else would anyone play hockey and be successful in it other than to feed a certain animal within.
Scoring for instance. Katrina saw scoring on a goaltender, the phrases, “through the five hole”, “the sweet spot”, “scoring”, as a polite little form of rape and a goalie’s aggressive territoriality, a polite form of warfare. No form of mercy belonged in this sport and therefore, decent men didn’t play it. She wondered if her saintly little cousin realized this at all yet.
A form of animal, Katrina thought when she saw Joe approaching her from across the hotel restaurant, albeit a purebred one. His pockets bulged where he had his hands shoved in them and he had a sort of sideways glance when he caught her attention. His eyes had asked if he could come over, Katrina swiveled on her seat, crossed her legs and rested her chin on her palm, smiling at him. If he wasn’t completely daft he would know that she had just told him, yes you may come over without saying a word.
Not completely daft. Joe took the hint and continued to her table. He cleared his throat, he looked over his shoulders. Edgy and nervous, Katrina surmised, easy enough to read, his hands shook a little, she wondered if he had ever dealt with a stutter or some other form of nervous tic.
“Are… are…
are you waiting for someone?” he asked. His accent usually a slow impeccable
choir boy clip, had lowered to a rather guttural, nasal,
“Now what would you be nervous about?” Katrina asked, she let the words fall slowly from her lips, she tasted each letter. She had pride in herself for never picking up French or a Southern accent. Accents were weakness; they showed an inability to completely adapt.
Joe’s cheeks tightened, perfectly chiseled man, but she could see the slight crookedness in the line of his nose. She wondered if his teeth were real. “I’m not nervous,” he said clearly, this time with no trace of an accent, his eyes paled serious.
“Good,” Katrina said. “Now who would I be waiting for? No one except the waitress with my lunch. Have a seat Mr. Sakic.”
Joe sat down and he intertwined his fingers on the table’s surface. No emotion remained in his eyes now, a dagger’s glance. She had a wonderful image of him with a red handkerchief tied around his neck and dusty leather draping his body, a cowboy’s hat and a dueling pistol in hand, at High Noon Mr. Sakic, at High Noon. “I have a favor to ask of you, Katrina, feel free to refuse it at any time, I’m not obligating you to anything, but if you would like some payment I would oblige you.”
Katrina
clasped her hands in her lap and lifted her chin. She couldn’t stop smiling at
him. “Now this sounds interesting, what services could I provide you other than
what I am paid for?”
“Oh… it’s nothing completely degraded or anything,” Joe said quickly, his eyes betrayed a bit of concern, for her feelings perhaps or for her misconstruing his. “It’s part of a… a … well it’s part of team discipline, that I’ve thought up but if you were there it would be really…”
Katrina lifted one eyebrow as she cut in. “I’m not touching a spanking paddle, so you can forget that, Babe.”
Joe’s eyes widened and for a moment, Katrina could see a glimmer of a frightened boy. “A…a spanking paddle?” he choked.
Primitive animals, dogs, boys, not particularly bright at times, thoughts like that fluttered through Katrina’s mind as she worked with Parker on the team. Fortunately, Scott learned quickly and eagerly. Those big meat hands of his actually could be put to good use and now as they worked on her back, she could enjoy it immensely.
More amusing than Sakic’s apparent interest in the intricacies of her massage, she over heard the bored, pliant team discussing the state of Peter Forsberg’s atrocious nails. She didn’t bother to even lift her face from the massage table as she cut into their conversation about locating a manicure kit, “Lucky day, I have a kit in my purse Robbie, go on and help yourself, but if I see any cash missing I’ll hamstring ya.” She thought to herself with some amusement about the time she had once caught Rob Blake sifting through teammate’s pants and jacket pockets in an empty locker room, pocketing extra change. When she had confronted him, good naturedly, he had helplessly told her he needed vending machine snack money.
Surprisingly enough, Rob took up her offer and she peeked over as he extracted her nail file and clippers and set to work on Peter’s hands. She laughed, “Hey you pansies might as well start spilling your secrets.”
“What?” Keane asked. What a ginger haired monstrosity he was!
“Cause you’re collected in a circle, you’re doing nails, you’ve totally got a game of Truth or Dare just dying to happen.” Katrina replied, miffed that his dirty eyes would even look in her direction.
“Oh yeah like we’d do that!” Drury snorted. “Get real we’re not girls.
Ah yes, the other one! Drury reminded her of a snot nosed, psycho terrier, sulky and generally unpleasant. “Fine, coward,” she said gamely, relaxing even more as Parker’s hands demolished the tightness in her muscles.
“Heh that would be a fun game to play!” Blake laughed, “Truth or Dare.”
“Hehehe,” Alex Tanguay laughed. “Yeah sharing dirty secrets.”
“Coward?” Drury exclaimed. “I am not! What?”
“Well,” Katrina replied and she peeked at him, “You’re obviously afraid of sharing dirty little secrets; I thought a hockey team was all about brotherhood and sharing everything.”
“It is!” Alex Tanguay exclaimed. “She’s right.”
“What would you know about brotherhood?” Drury asked testily over the scraping whoosh of her nail file going over Peter’s fingers.
“Oh I’m just saying that you’re probably afraid of a game like that because you wouldn’t want anyone to find out stuff about your past you know, like what if you diddled the goalie’s wife or somethi….”
“Hey I’ll
start, once when I was in
Katrina grinned.
“Hey,” Patrick Roy snipped. “I’m the only married goalie you’ve known!”
Amazing enough, the entire team actually took to this schoolgirl game. No one was stupid enough to take dares but Katrina did hear enough dirty little secrets to last a lifetime. In fact they seemed to have forgotten about her presence in the room. She really wasn’t surprised that Patrick took the cake for tasteless and tacky dirty secrets. Best to forget that little tidbit about his life….
As for interesting, well, of course it would be little Alex Tanguay and Dan Hinote to cap off the day.
“Tom Cruise hit on you?” Katrina giggled and the fiery damn sheen on Dan’s cheeks signaled the authenticity of this little blurb.
So Katrina
relaxed more and let Parker rub on her back perhaps a little longer than he
should be as the team began to drill Tanguay and Hinote on the events of this
It barely registered on her brain what Mike Keane said, “Hey come on Scott, how come you get all the fun, let me have a turn!”
“Not after me,” Kirk Muller added.
Katrina felt her skin blister indignantly. “Don’t let them touch me,” Katrina breathed to Parker.
“YEAH!” Parker barked. “Back off.”
“Hey I’m a veteran I should be able to…” One of the men said and Katrina could sense his presumptuous footsteps approaching.
“Protect my body,” Katrina murmured to Scott who immediately roared at the would be violator to fuck off in such an aggressive voice, that Katrina actually felt somewhat thrilled in her belly.
My own personal attack dog, how sweet.
“So he massaged you?”
Katrina
grinned and she sank into the soft recliner sitting in the far corner of the
room. “Yes he did.”
“Did you like it?”
“Of course, he actually has more talent with his hands than people give him credit for.”
Lacroix frowned, his eyebrows straightened and he sat heavily on the wooden chair at a desk. He turned away from her and pulled out a notepad from his briefcase.
“Are you jealous?” Katrina asked.
“No,” Lacroix said sharply in English. “Why would I be?”
“You are, and keep speaking French it’s my first language.”
“It is?” Lacroix asked and he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
And you don’t remember me, she thought. I like you better then. “Yes.”
“Why were you even with them, I thought you didn’t like them?”
Katrina leaned forward on her knees. “Don’t be jealous, why should we be jealous of anything, I share you with a wife and why would you complain if you had to share me with someone else.”
“But am I?”
Katrina shook her head. “No, but I don’t like the idea of having no freedom all of a sudden.”
“Am I smothering you little one?” He asked, “Are you tired of me?”
Katrina rolled her eyes. “None of them are my type, my dear, I do not get any satisfaction from those animals, and I don’t like oversexed overworked muscled primates. There is no need for worry. Your gallant captain asked a favor of me and I did it for him, I thought you would approve and find it amusing.”
Lacroix half grinned. Katrina knew she would get up and mess up that hair of his, brushed over his bulldog head like the over-mothered coiffure of a six year old boy.