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Ten Nights in Lyra

Chapter 7

Toward the Ball Game

Caroline woke up aching. "Mmm," she moaned. She'd forgotten how sex could be a form of exercise, and she was not that in shape. Yesterday was fun, but if she pushed that hard the rest of the vacation she would die. Hopefully Matt wouldn't get it in his head that this was going to be the pace for the trip.

Speaking of, Matt was already awake. He had a pot of coffee brewing. The smell helped rouse the tuxedo cat from the bed. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Ten-thirty," he remarked.

"Oh, wow, I'm surprised I didn't sleep all day. Unless you meant p.m." Enough sun was seeping around the blackout curtains to confirm otherwise. "Or I slept through an entire day."

"No," Matt chuckled and handed her a cup of coffee. He knew how she liked it. "I wouldn't have let you sleep in today, anyway."

She had to think. "Oh, yes, the game. That is today." She sipped the coffee, then gagged. "Damn, that is awful."

"I know. First strike against this place."

That it was hot caffeinated liquid was all that could be said in favor the substance. "Well, we'll have to find somewhere good. And also find something to do before the game. We've got quite a while."

"Oh, uh," Matt began. Caroline bristled. "I figured we could go over to the area. Just stay around the stadium, of course. Check out some of the shops and things."

She winced. Of Lyra's three main teams, he had to pick the one in the bad part of town to fawn over.

The wince didn't go unnoticed. Matt deflated, "You're still on that aren't you?"

She sighed, "Look, I know the rhetoric. It's not something I want to argue about, but I really don't feel comfortable being there any longer than we have to."

He threw his hands up. "I don't know why you keep clinging to this outdated belief that East Lyra is horrible. I showed you the stats. Their crime rates have gone down over the past however many years. And even at their worst they were barely as bad as Xetu is now anyway."

"I said I'm not going to argue about it," Caroline tried to keep from raising her voice too high.

"The area around the stadium is all gentrified anyway."

"That's even worse. At least the muggers can only take what I have on me that day."

"There's no reasoning with you." He stormed into the bathroom to take a shower.

Caroline huffed. She didn't care what the statistics said. She was responsible for their safety. His more than her own. She knew she was being unreasonable but one didn't just change something built into their bones with a few charts and graphs.

Still, he was firm on this. It was her own fault, too. She had taught him to stick to his guns when he knew what was right. If she didn't give up some ground it would put the rest of the week on rocky ground.

She had a proposition for when he came out. "Okay, I'll give you this. We can go to the stadium early and check out the area close by it. But if anything gets remotely hinkey, and I reserve the right to say when that is, we go to the stadium and wait for the game. Even if it's a three hour wait."

Matt sighed. "Fine, that's fair."

"Good. It's settled. Now let's go find some coffee that's actually potable."

**

On the subway eastward Caroline stared out the window at the darkness. She thought of the crushing weight of the Lyre River above them, praying the tunnel walls held. She wasn't one to worry over that sort of thing normally, but it compounded her anxiety. She worried about it for three stops past the river.

This was in no small part her dear ex-husband Timothy's fault. Sure, they'd been back on good terms for a few years now. He knew of the trip and knew of Matt's fandom for the East Lyra team. So he got them tickets to a game as a birthday present for Matt.

She'd confronted Timothy about it after the fact. He said she wouldn't be able to avoid it regardless. She said she hoped to come up with something to dodge going there directly. He went into a similar spiel of Matt about her fears being unjustified. Come to think of it, their pitches were remarkably close. Were they communicating behind her back about this? No, it was far more likely that they'd just watched the same documentary or fluff news piece.

Still, it stoked her ire that Lyra had three damn teams and he had to pick the one on the east side of the city on which to fanboy. There was the Lyra Silvernotes in the heart of the town. They were the big popular team that everyone who wasn't a fan hated because of their popularity. Then there were the West Lyra Swankeepers. They were the team of the affluent far west Lyra boroughs. They were more hated than the Silvernotes, but they generally didn't do well enough to attract much attention.

The East Lyra River Rays, on the other hand, were the underdog team. They tended to be up and down in how they were doing, so had a regular tide of fair-weather fans. Unfortunately for Caroline Matt was not among those. He remained faithful to the team despite them being on a bit of a losing streak. Regardless, the team prided itself on using local talent as much as possible, and not spending large sums of money on recruiting.

Caroline grumbled to herself. Thinking it through like that, she'd pick the River Rays to fan over if she had a choice of the three. She took a breath reigned in her judgment. It wouldn't be gone with just a bit of rationalizing. But she could hopefully rein that in enough to give the town the benefit of the doubt.

**

The stadium area was as advertised to Caroline. The park surrounding the stadium held many folks engaging in the tradition of grilling and picnicking before the game. With vehicles being quite restricted in most cities this is what took the place of tailgating. The smoky smell had Caroline's mouth watering, despite just having had breakfast.

"Pity we didn't think to do this," Matt looked enviously at someone's burgers.

"Yeah, I wasn't going to drag a grill on a train, though."

"That's a good point," he chuckled.

"We'll do some tailgating at a local game sometime, if you'd like."

"Yeah, maybe."

They headed toward the shops that ringed the stadium. Lots of pubs advertising tailgating specials to those who hadn't been able to bring their own equipment. These places knew their audience. They'd definitely be grabbing lunch at one of those.

Caroline had a schedule now. Look around at a handful of shops. Get lunch. Look around at a few more. Then lure Matt to the stadium a bit early with the enticement of getting concessions before the game.

She had to admit, though the shops about seemed pleasant. Certainly things were cleaned up for the touristy stadium area. There were plentiful restaurants and pubs as already noted, a few art galleries, some specialty food shops. The architecture of the shops was mainly pleasant white buildings with brown trim and triangular awnings over their doors. They were refreshingly different than the typical boxy style of other gentrified areas.

They popped into some of the art galleries first. Beautiful paintings, sculptures, and tapestries were for sale. A lot of the works claimed to be from local artisans, which would be cool if true. They unfortunately couldn't purchase anything as that would be difficult to deal with while at the sports stadium.

The specialty food shops were worse for that problem. Fine cheeses, meats, and, of course, the local specialty olives were sampled. In addition to not being able to take any to the stadium they were extremely limited on what they could store and take home. The shopkeeps were keen to point out that they provided shipping options and provided them with business cards containing the website.

That brought the cats to hunger for a proper meal. They sought out one of the nearby gastropubs, River advertising tailgating fair. Caroline treated herself to the alleged specialty burger of the place whereas Matt had a spiced sausage of somekind. They both had a tall mug of beer with which to wash it down. Caroline's burger, while a good quality burger, had the problem of too many things piled atop it. Matt seemed to enjoy his meal, though.

"So, you like some spicy sausage, heh heh," Caroline chuckled like she was twelve.

"I've told you I did." He licked the bun of his hot dog.

Caroline blushed, "Stop that. That's weirdly turning me on and I hate it."

"You started it," he laughed.

Stuffed full, they headed out for the second round of window shopping. Nothing stood out to Caroline's eye until they reached The Black Notebook, a relatively unassuming shop other than its blacked out windows.

"Ooh, fun," Caroline headed that way.

She didn't have to tell Matt twice, who sheepishly followed her into the store.

The bell over the door chimed as they entered. The badger taur behind the counter was the only other one in the store. Caroline had never seen one before. She tried not to stare.

Sounds of sexy sex came from the t.v. the badger watched. He paused it on hearing them enter. "Let me know if you need help finding anything."

"Sure, Caroline said."

The store was impeccably clean. The sort of place generally classed as sex-positive. That said, there weren't many items with which Caroline was unfamiliar. She slipped up by the counter while Matt wandered about.

"So, what are you watching?"

"Tiger Taur Anal 6," he smirked.

"That's to the point," Caroline chuckled.

"The way I like it, heh."

"Heh. I generally like the dumb plots. At least when the cast is having fun and not taking it seriously." She chuckled. "That said a good bit of to-the-point yiff is good as well." She winked.

"Indeed. If this is your sort of thing I recommend it, as well as the other five of course."

"I trust you have them in stock?"

"In the video section, of course."

She thought it a bit glib of him to stay seated during that, but given what he was watching there was probably a reason he didn't want to stand.

"So, you folks here for the game?" he asked.

"Indeed. I suppose you get a lot of business from the ballpark?" Caroline asked.

"Sometimes. Been a bit slow of late with the team in a slump. Hopefully they'll turn around and I'll get more of the fair-weather fans back in here." He laughed.

"Yeah, my friend here is far from that," she noted. Given the amount of River Rays gear he wore that should be obvious.

"I gathered," the badger chuckled. "You know," he called to Matt, "if you're interested, I've got gold editions of the Fluffhut issue from last year with Allicia in it. I was going to hold on to a few to let them appreciate in value, but I think I could part with one now for cover price."

"Who's she?" Caroline asked.

The badger chuckled. "You're joking right? Allicia Darling? Star forward of the River Rays?"

Caroline shook her head.

"I thought you were fans!"

"He's the fan. I'm just along for the ride."

"Still, I'd think you'd have heard of her just in passing. It's like not knowing Perry Knocks."

"Who?"

"Oh, you're kidding me. Is she for real?" He asked Matt.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Karli Melyana? The croquet legend? Tell me you've heard of her."

"Nope."

"I'd give up now," Matt advised.

He shook his head. "Takes all kinds, I guess. Anyway, hot naked snow leopard footballer, special edition with extended interview, and of course more pictures. You buying?"

"I'd, uh, rather not. It just seems, I don't know, voyeuristic?"

"That's the idea with all porn, dude."

"Exploitative?"

"She's a frikkin' sports star. I don't know how they could exploit her."

Caroline could see where this was going. Given a good chunk of her reason for coming on this trip was to keep Matt from putting his foot in his mouth, it was time to step in before he did just that. "Matt, could you come back here with me for a bit?"

"Uh, sure."

"We'll be right back, sir." She led Matt back to the slightly more private DVD section.

"I know where you're going with this," she said. "You're thinking this sort of thing is beneath her. That's problematic thinking, though, because it implies sexy sorts of work like that are demeaning. You don't think low of those ladies we watched yesterday, do you?"

"No, of course not."

"I figured. Those ladies did that job for fun. Same reason this lady had pictures taken of her for this magazine. I know it feels different because you're used to seeing her in a different light. But it's really not. So if you like this lady and would like looking at pics of her she did of her own free will you should get the magazine."

Matt nodded. "Okay."

He headed up to the counter. She heard the badger ringing up her friend. She meanwhile took advantage of her locale to grab Tiger Taur Anal 6 and 4, as well as a couple other sexy looking things for if they had a calm night in.

Minutes later they stood in front of the store holding their indiscreetly discrete paper bags. "Well, shall we head to the stadium? Might be a bit early yet, but we could get comfy in our seats and grab a couple of concessions?" Caroline asked. While she was feeling more comfortable in this section of town, she decided to stick with the plan as she was wanting to get snacks.

"Uh, sure, but, uh, what do we do with these?"

"Take them with us?"

"You said about not getting anything at the stores today."

"Well, I was mainly talking about big things that would be rather awkward to have in a stadium. These won't be any trouble."

"They have bag checks, though."

"Pfft. We'll be fine, come on."

Matt whimpered.