It was the middle of July, the day of the Summer Festival. The entire farm was journeying to the Mayopelley village to celebrate the season. There would be games for the children and the adults, and of course food and drink.

They utilized every conveyance they owned, the flatbed truck, sides installed, filled with hay bales for the children, the two pickup trucks filled with older children, the van carrying the babies and moms, and all the horses were ridden; everyone else walked. The vehicles were driven at less than five miles per hour. Vincent and Catherine walked alongside, fingers interlaced.

"Vincent, you seem sort of sad," said Catherine. "Isn't this supposed to be fun?"

"Summer Festival," he answered, "the Mayopelley call it Shicotaddes Verao, 'Summertime Spanking'. We walk over there, and we challenge each other to some game, it's not important what game we play. And it's humans versus Mayopelley. And humans lose, every time. The games always depend on strength, so the Mayopelley win. Over the years, a rivalry has developed."

"It's more than a rivalry," said Kanin. "The last ragged scrap of friendly competition fell away long ago. We have a penalty for losing. The losing team has to serve the winning team two bottles of beer. The Mayopelley rack their tiny little brains for the most humiliating way they can make us do it, and that's what we have to do."

"They've made the men wear dresses, and they've made the women wear swim suits," said Jamie. "But they did let us wear a one-piece, if we wanted to."

Catherine tried, but failed to stifle her laughter. "Are there pictures?" she asked, wiping her eyes.

"It's not funny, Catherine," snapped Cullen. "They made us say, 'Enjoy your beer, drink in good health, my mighty Mayopelley lord'."

"It's not funny, Catherine," echoed Vincent, kindly. "You may not have noticed, but there's a lot of jealousy between the human males and the Mayopelley. We're competing for a limited resource, human females."

Catherine's jaw dropped. "Oh, no, I did not realize…ooo," she recalled dinner at Vincent's parents' house, with his family. The Mayopelley males did have a certain amount of bluster. They let you know, non-verbally, but not too subtly, they out-powered you, maybe by invading your personal space, or interrupting you. Of course, continually trumping the men at feats of strength would be embarrassing, but then for the men to have to grovel to them would be emasculating.

"Why don't you quit playing?" asked Catherine.

They all stopped and stared at her. "Quit?" echoed Kanin. "That would be admitting that they were in fact our mighty Mayopelley lords. We'll never quit."

They walked for awhile in silence. Then Vincent began speaking.

"When in July, the days are warm and mild,

A call is heard by every flower child,

To make pilgrimage over dusty roads,

To get our asses kicked to obey an ancient code."

"Yeah, but you play with the Mayopelley, Vincent," objected Cullen, but he had softened up.

"But my heart still aches for my human brothers," he answered. He continued:

"But none the less, whilst I have time and space,
Before yet farther in this tale I pace,
It seems to me accordant with reason
To inform you of the state of every one.

"A knight there was,

and here he extended his arm to indicate he was talking about himself

"and he a worthy man,
Who, from the moment that he first began
To ride about the world, loved chivalry,
Truth, honor, freedom and all courtesy."

Father said,

"As I may walk," our Host then laughed and swore,

This goes all right, the bag's been opened well.

Let's see who's next now with a tale to tell,

For truly has the game been well begun.

So tell us now, Dame Olivia, if you know one."

"Oh, me?" said Olivia, caught off guard. She was sedate, usually happier to listen to the conversation rather than lead it. "Hmm," she said, "okay…"

"Olivia am I, at the farm I was born,

I would be lost if I was ever torn

Away from this place, my family, my life.

My husband's my hero; I am his wife."

Kanin spoke:

"A lost man was I, until I met her.

My journey with her, my greatest adventure.

Time spent with her, my greatest pleasure.

She's my blessing from God, and my greatest treasure."

They stopped to kiss, and the entire company sighed, "Awwww…"

Scott went next:

"Scott Henry am I, a miller by trade,

That flour you bake with is something I made.

Brooke, Lisa, Claire, I hope you feel sporting!

Jamie, Jen, Em, I'm coming courting!

Jamie was next:

"I'm Jamie, hi! Hi! I think I met a guy,

He's pretty smart, and has a kind heart.

My life before was tough, I grew up pretty rough.

But livin' at the farm is just the right stuff!

Catherine laughed. "It's turning into a rap!" she cried.

Mouse moved closer to Jamie and breathed down her neck. She looked up at him and whispered, "It's you, stupid!" Mouse smiled and put his arm around her shoulders.

"We have the games four times a year, as the seasons change," explained Sarah. The women were sitting and standing together around a picnic table on the green. They were watching the Mayopelley and the men setting up the croquet field. "I thought we'd try croquet this year," she continued. "I know I'm grasping at straws, but I'll try anything to stop the fighting."

They watched Vincent and his brothers experimenting with the mallets and balls. The mallets were only about three feet long, so they were trying to figure out how to stoop down and swing them. Ultan shot his ball through the center wicket and the corner wicket. Rori shot his ball through the center wicket, but it stopped just before the corner wicket. Tierney shot his ball through the center wicket, but it stopped just before Rori's ball. Vincent shot his ball through the center wicket, and it hit Tierney's ball, which hit Rori's ball, which hit Ultan's ball. An argument ensued about which balls could be roquetted. They started shoving, and yelling in Mayopelley. Soon Ultan and Rori each had a foot on Vincent's chest, pinning him to the ground, while Tierney's foot was on his forehead as he lined up a shot using Vincent's head to roquet a ball.

Just as Vincent grabbed their legs and rolled, pulling his brothers down to him, Cindy (Tierney's wife), tapped Catherine on the shoulder. She led her a few steps away, to where Joan (Ultan's wife), and Lynda (Rori's wife) were standing.

"Welcome, Catherine," they greeted her severally.

"Let's hold hands…" said Cindy. She was standing in between Cindy and Lynda, so she took their hands, "…close your eyes, and concentrate on Vincent calming down. Think about images like a calm lake surface at twilight, water lapping the shore…do you hear the bird calling?...a campfire, burning at night, the woods quiet and still…do you smell the smoke from the fire? hear the crackling?...a quiet brook, flowing under a footbridge you're standing on…are there ducks or geese swimming under? are you throwing them bread?…watching a few clouds float by in a clear, summer sky…one or two birds flying…"

They stood quietly for a few minutes. Catherine opened her eyes. Vincent and his brothers were quietly pushing wickets into the grass, pacing off distances.

"Amazing," she said.

"We balance them," said Cindy. "We started off holding hands to support each other emotionally when they fought, and over time we discovered that we could help them calm down with a little directed imagery."

"What else could we get them to do?" asked Catherine.

"We're still experimenting," answered Joan. "And I like your pragmatism!" They laughed.

The field was ready for play to begin, so the men and the Mayopelley gathered to review the rules of the game. The women drew closer as well, to decide where to spread out their blankets.

"Where does the time go?" yelled Donal. "It seems like we just finished punishing you, and here it is time once again for your seasonal spanking, humans!" The Mayopelley laughed.

"Croquet?" sneered Kanin. "And what will the non-homosexuals be playing?"

"This game was my mother's choice!" yelled Vincent angrily.

"She can play with the queers if she wants to, but I'm not wasting my time on a bullshit game for babies," Kanin retorted.

Several Mayopelley restrained Vincent; Catherine started directing soothing thoughts.

"Well, what the hell do you want, Kanin?" asked Garrett. "You humans are too frail to play lacrosse."

"We broke Pascal the last time we tried," said Colm.

"Okay, then. Capture the Flag," said Cullen coolly, but his anger was obvious.

Jarlath laughed derisively. "Your luck's not much better at that than at lacrosse." All the Mayopelley laughed.

"Capture the Flag!" yelled Kanin.

"Okay, Capture the Flag!" said Murtagh. "But when you lose, you will be wearing a frilly apron to serve us!"

"Yeah, ONLY a frilly apron!" added Hugh. A roar of laughter went up.

"Yes," said Pradic, "and address us as 'Lord'!"

"Fine!" Cullen yelled. "And when you lose, you can do all that for us!"

Catherine felt her anger mounting. Did the Mayopelley have to be so obnoxious? Did they have to get so much pleasure from humiliating them? She looked at the men. Some of them were so angry they were close to tears. In that moment, her kinship with the commune grew a hundredfold. In that moment, she opened her heart to them, and shared their resentment of Mayopelley ridicule. In that moment, a desire was born in her, to protect them, to defend them, as much as she could.

She stepped forward. "We don't play today. We need time to prepare. We play one week from today. Show us your team." She turned to the humans. "Who plays for the humans?" Kanin, Cullen, Winslow, Mouse, Scott, Michael, Pascal, Randolph, Lisa, Jamie, Jennifer, Brooke, Claire, Emily stood forward. Catherine nodded, satisfied with the team.

On the Mayopelley side, Alby, Colm, Hugh, Jarlath, Tierney, Rori, Vincent, Ultan, Donal, Garrett, Lorcan, Pradic, Canice, Murthagh and Daithi stepped up.

"Wait," said Rori, "Vincent, Catherine, you play against each other?"

"I'm okay with it," said Catherine. "It's just a game."

Vincent remained silent.

"Let's review the boundaries," said Catherine. "We'll walk the field." The field was green space bordered by woods on three sides, a lake on the fourth.

They walked the Mayopelley side of the field. At the far end, there was only a small amount of land and shoreline, then two small islands at about one hundred feet and one hundred and fifty feet out in the lake. Mid-field were the ruins of an ancient mansion, the four stone walls of the exterior. At the boundary line, from east to west, there was a hill, flat land for maybe one hundred feet, then a small waterfall with a six foot drop. Just trying to infiltrate their territory would be very difficult. Running for a flag, then escaping didn't even look possible.

The human side had a few ground swells, and one hill, but it was basically level ground.

They returned to the flat land on the boundary line to discuss the rules. "We will have two jails, one in the water by the far island, one in the basement of the ruins," said Ultan.

"Two jails?" challenged Catherine. "In that case, if we tag one of our team being held prisoner, we get a jail break, all the prisoners from both your jails go free. We'll have one jail deep in our territory. You have to tag each prisoner individually to free him."

"How is that fair?!" roared Ultan.

"It's totally fair," said Catherine evenly, "given that you have two jails, unheard of in this venue, and beyond that, one of them is subterranean! You've increased the difficulty and risk to our players minimum tenfold!"

"Fine then!"

"Fine. However, we will need some additional concessions from you, since you have an enormous advantage with the terrain."

"Nooooooo! Impertinent human, how dare you-!"

"Would you like to move the boundary line, instead, to run north-south instead of east-west?"

"No!"

"So you admit you've attempted to gain unfair advantage over us."

"No!"

"You'll need to reduce the size of your team down to ten players."

A huge roar went up from the Mayopelley. "Arrogant, brazen female human! We'll have fourteen, not one less!"

"Do you have any confidence in yourselves, at all? How much advantage do you think you need? You have inaccessible terrain and two jails, versus our one jail and flat land. You can't call it a game if you have more than eleven."

"It will be twelve, human, and count yourself lucky you leave this debate in one piece!" Ultan yelled, and would have gone on, but Vincent growled; Ultan backed down from whatever else he had to say.

"We each have five minutes at the start of the game to hide our flags. They have to be in plain sight. When a prisoner is tagged free, they get free passage back to their home territory, but they have to go directly to their home territory. If a player finds the flag of the opposing team, then gets tagged, the flag will be played from where the player was tagged. The game starts at two p.m. one week from today. I'll have a transcript of the rules emailed to you by end of business Monday. May the best team win."

The farm folks were spending the night in the village with their families, a few staying at the inn, and returning home after breakfast in the morning. At dinner, Vincent's brothers were, predictably, regaling Catherine with projections of the degrading defeat the humans would suffer, and the further humiliation they would suffer at the hands of the Mayopelley, mwa, ha, ha.

Catherine smiled and nodded, but didn't bother trying to answer the bluster. Rori became frustrated with her lack of emotion. "What's wrong, human? Have you run out of conversation? You had plenty to say in the park this afternoon."

Catherine shrugged. "Maybe you guys are writing a check with your mouths that your butts can't cash. Maybe you'll see Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane. Because, frankly, I've seen quite a bit of your 'athleticism', and you're not that good, fellas. So maybe it's you that needs to be worried. Jus' sayin'."

They put up such a roar that Vincent invited Catherine to go for a walk, to the green, to watch the sunset. "Catherine," he began, "let me ask you about something I've noticed that you do."

She seemed a bit miffed. "I don't think I'll be apologizing. If they're going to dish it out, they need to be able to take some back."

He chuckled. "No, Catherine, they don't have any apologies coming. But it was a beautiful illustration of what I want to talk to you about. You don't get angry easily. I admire that about you."

"Thank you, Vincent, that means a lot to me." She squeezed his hand.

He stopped and took hold of her shoulders. "I also admire your courage, your determination, your intelligence," she lowered her head, and he lifted her chin, "your creativity, your depth of feeling, your patience, your beautiful eyes and your delicious lips. That's the short list." He started walking again. "Come on before I start kissing you.

"My brothers ran their mouths for almost an hour, but nothing they said disturbed you. The handful of words you said to them tore their hearts out. I remember when you were still on bed rest, and you would disagree with me about a philosophy or…"

"…the exercise of compassion?" she supplied.

He smiled and patted her hand. "Yes. And Catherine, again, I apologize, I would lose my temper and yell at you and even call you horrible names—"

She patted his hand.

"—but you never lost your temper. You never got angry. My brothers were badgering you, and the only thing you got emotional about was asking for a dinner roll."

"I had four; did I look like a glutton?"

"No. Let me ask you, how do you not get angry when someone provokes you?"

"Hmmm, good question. When I was in law school, we'd have mock trials. You know I'm competitive, so I wanted to win. And as soon as I heard my opponent's voice rise, I knew I would win, because they were getting angry. So I would focus on pushing their buttons, making them angrier so they would focus on being angry and forget about trying to win. So I guess I didn't try to win as much as I tried to make them lose.

"Then, over time, it became a habit. I'd notice someone was getting angry, and I would analyze it. Why are they angry? When I figured out why, I knew their weakness, and I played on it. Now, it's so automatic, I analyze everything everyone says. Why did they say that? What do they want? What do they hope to accomplish? When would it be logical for them to make a move? Where would they make a move? How do they usually go about getting what they want? It never occurs to me to take personally what people say, because I'm figuring out what it says about them."

He considered his next words carefully before he said them. "What did you think of me when I was ranting at you for not measuring up to my expectations?"

She stopped and pulled him to face her, then pulled his arms around her waist. "I think you still feel guilty about that, so let me remind you about something. It's this very thing we're talking about. I never took anything to heart, never. All those stories you read to me, about people behaving with kindness and love to their fellow man, that was nothing more than debate fodder for me. You didn't reach my heart until you raised your voice, and had you not done that, you and I would not be standing here right now. I'd be back in New York. You know that's true, Vincent." She paused, but continued to look into his eyes. "I don't want you to feel guilty anymore, okay? And to answer your regret-laden question, when you became passionate, I realized that the weak, the vulnerable, people who have no voice are very important to you. That you wanted to be their champion. And I thought that you must be a very wonderful, very beautiful person."

"I am going to kiss you," he said, and he did.

They had reached the green, not far from where they would play Capture the Flag.

"But you did get angry when we were on the green this afternoon. The humans and the Mayopelley were going back and forth about what game to play."

"No, it wasn't about what game to play," she said. "That's not what I heard. What I heard was the Mayopelley rubbing the men's noses in the fact that they're more powerful. I heard the Mayopelley shaming and humbling the men, and yeah, that made me mad." She sighed. "Can we change the subject?"

"Yes."

She put her arms around him. "I want to sleep in your arms tonight; I don't want to sleep dorm style with my sisters in law."

He returned her embrace. "I want to sleep holding you in my arms."

"Vincent, I want—"

He buried his face in her neck. "Please, don't say—"

She sighed. "I can't help it, I want you to make love to me—"

"You're going to break my heart, begging me for what I want so much to give to you—"

"I miss your parents' cabin…I loved that time with you…"

He squeezed her tighter, then eased off. "Sorry, I don't mean to hurt you."

She used both hands to grab his mane, pulled his mouth to hers, and bit his lower lip, hard. He laughed, squeezed her tighter, and kissed her.

"Should I bite you back?" he whispered in her ear, and nuzzled her neck.

"Only if you tie me up first," she whispered back. He moaned and nipped at her neck.

"Oooo, baby, are you nibbling at me, before my spanking?" She moaned.

He pushed her away abruptly, and held her at arm's length. He closed his eyes, and worked to catch his breath. "You," he said, "you and me, we're taking a swim." He started moving with her in tow, toward the pool of the waterfall.

"Now?"

"Right now."

"Don't you think the water will be cold?"

He caught her wrist. "Oh, I know it will be."

"Noooo!" she squealed, and tried to break his grip.

"Resistance is futile. Get those clothes off or I'll throw you in with them on."

"Noooo!"

"This is your fault. You did this. I am so hot for you right now, I have got to cool down, and I'm cooling you down, too. Get 'em off."

They were beside the pool. He sat on her to pin her to the ground. He stripped himself, then her.

"God, Vincent, what if someone sees?!"

"You should've thought about that before you started talking about spankings."

He picked her up and jumped in. The water was cold, and very deep, even close to the bank. They surfaced.

"You are a fucking bully," she said, making an observation.

He pushed her head under.

She surfaced. "You know, this cold water…it's actually invigorating…I'm feeling…frisky…my nipples—" she pointed her index fingers straight out.

He pushed her head under, and when she surfaced, he pushed her under again.

She came up laughing. "Okay. Two laps and we go home?" she asked.

"Three."

In bed that night, he dreamt of holding her sweet-smelling, lovely body, just before his brother pushed him off the bed.