Free Kick Me by Paul Feig Page B

coming home from the war. Our first encounter the previous week had been a brief, fumbling union that found both of us inexperienced and awkward during our inaugural dip into the rivers of ecstasy, much like the virgin recruit who marries his best girl the night before he ships off.
    But on this day I had returned a savvy, worldly-wise Lothario, bringing a week’s worth of experience back from my travels and into the world of my braided cotton lover. As I ascended the rope that day, I knew what to expect and planned on taking full advantage of it. I had been struck with the notion that if, instead of freezing on the rope, I were to continue my climb as the feeling overtook me, I might find myself sailing into unthinkable new heights of pleasure. I was practically trembling with excitement and anticipation as I waited my turn to once again become one with my twenty-five-foot friend.
    “Think you can make it all the way this time?” chuckled Mrs. Handler. Oh, I can make it, all right. Just make sure you all have something to distract yourselves with because I might be up there a while. If it’s anything like it was last week, I might climb right up through the gym ceiling and take the rope with me.
    I nodded and headed up the rope. At first, nothing was happening. I reached the point where the feeling overtook me last week but still there was nothing but the unpleasant realization that I was climbing a big, stupid rope in gym class. What had I done? Had I run through my life’s limit of rope feelings in the past week? Had my momentous discovery revealed itself to be my Frankenstein’s monster, turning on its master and taking all that is precious from him? I started to feel as if life had lost all purpose.
    Fortunately, I found the fortitude to pull myself up one more time. There, at the ten-foot mark, I once again felt the stirrings that I had spent so much of the past week attempting to re-create. Another few pulls and the religious feeling returned. Boom boom boom.
    I froze. Keep moving, I told myself. Stick to the plan.
    But I can’t, came another voice. If I move, it’ll stop.
    It’ll get better, I swear.
    It’s already about as good as I can handle.
    That’s what you think.
    Okay, okay, I thought. I’ll do it. Muscles locked and tight, head spinning, throat clamped shut, I moved my hands up to pull. Unfortunately, my arms were Jell-o. My stomach suddenly seized into a cramp and my head and shoulders pitched backward. My legs flinched and contracted and the next thing I knew, I was plummeting downward. I heard a girl scream and Mrs. Handler yell “Stand back!” as I thudded heavily onto the mat.
    “Maybe climbing the rope isn’t your cup of tea, Paul,” Mrs. Handler said sympathetically.
    “No, I know I can do it,” I said, my voice trembling from the continuing contractions taking place in my body. “I just think I need to keep trying. Is it okay if I come back after school today?”
    That afternoon on the playground, my friend Brian came over to me with urgent news. “Paul, I felt it! On the ropes today!”
    “You did?” I wasn’t sure if I was pleased or not. I had been leading myself to believe that I was the Chosen, that “the rope feeling” was mine and mine alone, something that Mother Nature had given me to make up for the fact that I was so goofy and girls didn’t seem to really like me.
    “Yeah. It was weird. It felt really good.”
    I stared at him for a second, thinking. Should I let him in on the fruits of my bathtub research? All great scientists share their work in order to let others reproduce their results. And yet, was I hoping to have others benefit from my hard work or was I more interested in keeping this breakthrough for myself? Although I was convinced that I should probably just keep my mouth shut, the lure of bragging about my genius simply proved too strong to resist.
    I leaned in close to him. “I figured out how to get that feeling without a rope,” I said in the