AmericasDarlings (7 page)

“No, Mom—I don’t fuck Coach Bob.”

“Calm down, honey! You’re breathing too hard. You’re going to pass out.”

“Listen to me! I don’t
fuck
him! I don’t
sleep
with him! We
couple
! And only when he teaches me something new!”

She shook her head. “It’s the same thing.”

I snatched the sleeve from her and tossed it into my bag. “It is
not
!”

“Sex is sex, honey, no matter what they’ve been telling you in that training camp.”

I stuffed the green ball of yarn into the bag.

“Sit down. Please.”

“No. I’m leaving. You can go screw yourself. Or Bob. I don’t care!”

“You’re hurt. You’re jealous. I understand. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

“You’re fucking my coach. That’s not right!”

“Please stay, honey. Eat dinner with me. I came all this way to be with you!”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m a grown woman. You’re a grown woman. You can handle this.”

I tossed my bag over my shoulder and stalked off between tables, wishing I were anywhere but here. Handle this, my ass! How could my mother do this to me when she knew it would tear me apart? Couldn’t she keep her cunt zipped up long enough for me to finish competing in the Olympics? What was so marvelous about Coach Bob that couldn’t wait a few days? Was she
trying
to make me crazy when she knew better than anyone what I could and couldn’t handle?

A betrayal, that was what it was. My mother had betrayed me.

She half rose from her seat and called after me. “I’ll call Bob, honey! Wait! He’ll talk sense into you.”

Coach Bob.

He’d betrayed me too.

If my mother had betrayed me, my coach had betrayed me even more.

Black patches crowded the edges of my vision. Shoving an empty chair out of my way, I lurched toward the exit. I tripped over something—a table leg—and it lodged itself between my toes. I gasped as shooting pain stabbed up my foot—but I couldn’t stop my flight! I had to leave! I stumbled away, barely noticing the restaurant patrons’ horrified faces.

A realization. They didn’t love me enough to wait.

Another realization. I’d probably just broken my little toe. My foot was probably shattered. I probably had sixty-seven fractures—you know a foot is full of little bones—and I wouldn’t be able to compete tomorrow.

All their fault!

I was nearing the door. A woman pulled a chair out of my way.

Goddamn!

How could Coach Bob sleep with my mother? What kind of coach would do such a thing? Didn’t the coach-athlete bond mean anythingto him?

Didn’t it?

Because it meant something to me.

A low, anguished sound escaped my lips. My toe throbbed but that was the least of my pain.

“Don’t leave! Let’s talk about this. Leah!”

Talk about what, Mom? How you ruined the Olympics for me?

Near the exit, a white-haired lady who looked a little too much like my grandmother tugged on my sleeve. “May I have your autograph? Please?” she warbled.

You have to be nice to little old ladies.

Feeling horribly unbalanced, I dug a pen from my bag and scrawled my signature on her placemat, trying to pretend everything was all right when
nothing
was all right. From across the restaurant came my mother’s voice. “Wait! I’ll come with you. You’re overreacting! Wait!”

“Is that your mother?” asked my fan, smiling sweetly. “How nice for you!”

“Leah! Calm down—don’t do anything stupid! Okay?”

“Well? Is she?” the lady asked, clutching at my hand with her birdlike fingers.

I pulled my arm free and made my limping, ugly escape. I didn’t even have the decency to claim my own mother.

I had to get away.

I had to talk to someone.

Talking would be good. Touching would be even better.

But I didn’t want to be around my teammates, much as I loved them. They’d want to manage me and I was in no mood to be managed. Who could blame them? Their ridiculous “Leah rules” had been breached and there was a good chance I’d be breaching them even more. Even I could see that.

At least my toe was feeling better. Not broken then. No broken skin, no bleeding, no substantial bruising—my foot didn’t display any of the things that, according to the rule book, would disqualify an athlete from competition.

It was scant comfort.

In the gathering darkness, I scurried away from the Marisco Palace Restaurant, wondering what to do with myself. It was a nice evening. Maybe I’d roam the village pathways. Maybe I’d find someone I knew, someone not on my team. Perhaps I’d run into the rowers! Maybe I should look for the rowers. That would help my mood substantially. Or maybe I’d go back to my special bench hidden in the bushes. In the comforting evening darkness I could touch myself, love myself, help myself feel better.

Yes. That was what I’d do.

I started down a path leading away from the Wagon Wheel. I didn’t get very far.

“Leah!”

I spun around. “Dmitri!”

He hurried toward me and pulled me into a warm hug. “Beautiful Leah! How are you? I remember Moscow! You, also?”

For an answer, I kissed him with tongue.

“You remember! This is good! I go for drink. You come too.” He didn’t wait for my response. He tucked his arm in mine and whisked me down the path in the opposite direction from the one I’d been heading.

He was lucky. I was in a mood to be whisked.

“Where are we going?”

“My friend Alexi. He has drinks!” Dmitri laughed, a full-throated, happy thing. “He made bar in the common room of our dormitory!”

Ah.

Perhaps Alexi and his buddies were the partiers Soraya and I had heard the night before. They were lodged in the same dormitory as us.

“I’ll come but I’m not going to drink. Not until the competition is over.”

“You Americans! You are
babies
!” He squeezed me and I felt his ropy muscles around my shoulders. And I liked it. “Do not worry, my baby American. Is not necessary to drink! We will have other types of fun!”

I looked at him, interested. Other types of fun?

According to Coach Bob—
Bob
—I wasn’t supposedto let loose, not yet. But hehadn’t waited, had he? He hadn’t followed his own decree. Why should I? My old buddy Dmitri and his friends would be a distraction and I was sorely in need of a distraction.

I heard my mother’s voice.
Don’t do anything stupid.

Shut up
,I told her voice.
I’ll do what I want!

I heard the party before we reached the common room. Loud throbbing music and laughing voices, a woman’s shriek, a shout, more laughter. Dmitri grinned at me. “We have good party! Yes?” He opened the door and ushered me in.

People turned toward us. The sound level dropped.

“Hello, all my friends! Dmitri and Leah the Darling are here!” he announced, throwing his arms wide in a theatrical gesture. Then he kissed me—
smack
—on the mouth.

Leah the Darling?

That was a new one. I kind of liked it.

I kissed him back, remembering how much fun we’d had in Moscow.

A man yelled something and lifted a beer bottle in the air. Dmitri answered in a long string of Russian, gesturing at me, and the whole room erupted in raucous laughter. Dmitri made a lewd thrusting with his hips and a raven-haired woman—Nina, his partner—sidled up to him and met his thrusts with her own. Dmitri pulled me close and plastered his mouth over mine, kissing me full-on, still play-humping with Nina.

She looked me up and down.

I smiled.

She took my hand and intertwined her fingers with mine, a sweet gesture in the midst of so much raunchiness. Then she reached over, lifted my shirt, took my breast in her mouth and began to suck. My hips leaned into her, almost of their own volition. I felt the nibble of her teeth. My insides lurched. Her incisors worked my nipple, sending delightful twangsof almost-pain through me.

Oh
my
.

These people knew how to party.

Any more and she’d break the skin—but, oh, how wonderful it felt! Wonderful and painful at the same time.

Kind of how I felt. The painful part at least.

We broke apart amid gales of laughter. We found places on the couch nearest to the door, Dmitri’s arm still comfortably around me on one side, and Nina on the other. I cuddled into him, looking around, taking in the festive mood, allowing myself to be there, to be part of whatever was about to happen.

It was exactly what I needed. I shoved my knitting bag under the couch, leaned back in Dmitri’s arms and took it all in. I was content to watch everyone else, mostly because I didn’t understand one word they were saying.

I let my mind wander.

The room was dim but I could see that the Russians had shoved the room’s furniture against the walls to leave an open area in the center. Couches, several well-cushioned chairs and a square table had been moved, which made the room look somehow bigger. They’d brought in an ice-filled tub to chill their drinks and had dinner delivered. I wrinkled my nose at the empty food containers and beer cans and used napkins and torn candy wrappers littering the floor—the Russians might know how to party but they certainly weren’t very neat. At the far end of the room, under the now-dark window, was a sturdy-looking coffee table. Two men—straining thighs and lovely shoulders and sweaty chests and all—were practicing on top of it.

Nobody paid them the slightest bit of attention.

The room seethed with people. I studied them. Men and women took up every square inch of seating space, some sitting on one another’s laps or lying draped on top of each other. Others sat on the floor cross-legged.

Sexual gymnasts, every person there.

Men. Women. People I recognized. People I didn’t. A groomer. An assistant coach or two. A choreographer.

I narrowed my eyes.

It was a very attractive bunch of people.

Like I said, we have a body type.

We’re tall. We’re graceful. We’re narrow-hipped and narrow-waisted. We women tend to have small, tight breasts with dark nipples and the men tend toward long, slender cocks and big ball sacs. All of us have full, lush butts. We complement each other beautifully, we sexual gymnasts—we’re like opposite sides of the same coin. It’s one of the reasons we look so luscious when we perform. To a person, we’re proud of the way we look. And—I’ll be the first to admit this—we have more than a touch of exhibitionism. Voyeurism too.

We’d have to, wouldn’t we?

Time passed. People came and went. Dmitri held me close, kissed me, felt me up, improved my mood. Someone passed me a bottle of flavored water. Dmitri acquired a beer. I ate stale nachos and a chicken something-or-other—a burrito perhaps. I leaned back on Dmitri’s lap, enjoying his cool hands on my breasts, enjoying his accented voice whispering into my ear, enjoying the strong, hard feel of him.

It was nearing midnight.

I should leave soon. I should try and get some sleep. I had a big day tomorrow.

“Leah!” said Dmitri after a while. “Pay attention. We play a game now!”

I sat up.
A game? What game?

A man—I was pretty sure he was a Russian contortionist—yelled and gesticulated and shooed everyone out of the central area. Two more women wiggled their way onto the crowded couch where Dmitri and I lounged, playfully shoving Dmitri over a few inches then kissing him, and me, in apology. A man cleared the central area, kicking stray containers and plastic silverware and beer cans to the side while someone else shoved chairs with laughing occupants in them even further back.

The contortionist—Yuri Something-or-other, I didn’t catch his last name—stood at the end of the cleared space where we could all see him. He let loose a long string of Russian. People nodded, smiled, laughed then nodded again.

I tugged Dmitri’s arm. “What’s he saying?”

“We play a game!”

“I know that
.
How do we play?”

“Just watch. Is easy.”

Yuri said something to a round of cheering and suddenly everyone in the room was tearing off their clothes. Okay. I could do that. I disrobed and Dmitri did too. We crammed our pants and shirts and underwear under the couch next to my bag. Then I snuggled back, naked, to sit in Dmitri’s arms. I felt his cock against my back. He ran a cool finger over the American flag emblem on my arm, pinched it playfully then slid his hand around my side to rest causally between my legs.

Yuri grew quiet. He was thinking. Even I could tell that.

“Now, we begin,” whispered Dmitri.

Yuri said two words. He repeated them.

Then he clapped his hands once, loudly, and the room erupted into chaos.

I turned to Dmitri, a question in my eyes.

“Watch this time,” he said. “We play next time. Yuri said…ah…he said ‘drunk tigers’…and the players…us…we must couple like we are drunk tigers! See?”

I saw.

The people around us were indeed coupling. Women with men. Men with men. Women with women—it didn’t seem to matter. I put my hand over my mouth, enchanted. It seemed that this simple little game called for grabbing the person closest to you, leaping to the center of the room and coupling as if you were…drunk tigers. Roars and hisses and tiger screeches filled the room. The two women who’d crowded their way onto the couch only a few moments before were entangled in a drunken mess of arms and legs, slobbering wet kisses on each other. The man and woman next to them were clumsily trying to fit penis to vagina and failing.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one around here who liked to act.

I tugged Dmitri off the couch. I wanted in! Right now! In what world would I sit on a couch watching passively when I could play this charming game and couple with my handsome Dmitri?

He grinned.

Then he snarled and swiped an addled tiger paw in my direction. I hissed and swatted it back. Dmitri-the-drunken-tiger thought for a moment. Then he touched a tentative paw to my breast. He purred and tilted his head in supplication, an obvious change in tactic. He begged for approval, thinking that perhaps he could get into this cat’s pussy by being a nice drunk.

I approved.

Or rather, Leah-the-drunken-tigress approved. Cross-eyed, I invited him to touch other, more interesting things on my tiger body. He complied, slobbering, purring, working his fingers between my legs as I found his cock and worked it between my fingers.

Oh yes, I could play this game.

I rubbed my furry body against his. Another moment and we’d try to fit drunken penis to drunken vagina. If I could wait that long.

But then Yuri whistled. Everyone froze.

Dmitri and I stood frozen in place in front of each other, our hands clutching each other’s genitals, laughing. We hadn’t gotten very far. We hadn’t even coupled yet! Amused, cheating just a little by pressing Dmitri’s cock between my index finger and my thumb, I looked at the bizarre tableau surrounding us. Two men, caught in an impossible position, crashed to the carpet. Another couple lay on top of a third person, a man, the three of them caught mid-writhe.

Amusing, most definitely.

But I was far more interested in the couple to the left of us. They were so close to me that I could have reached out and touched the man’s thigh. His partner lay on the couch, her knees raised and spread, her pretty lady parts exposed at the perfect angle for me to appreciate them. Her lover hovered above her, poised for action but frozen.

I studied them as I stood unmoving in my own tableau.

I’d never seen anything quite like it. They were caught in that delicious moment when the penis is just beginning to thrust, when the tip of the cock sits quivering on the woman’s vulva, prepared for its big move. Motionless, they preserved the
exact moment
when the cock is almost in the vagina…but not quite, not yet. I held my breath. What an exquisite torture, not to be able to finish what they’d started! Not to be able to do it!

Frozen in place, they trembled with need.

And I, in the ideal position to see it all, trembled with need as well.

A ball of fluid seeped from the tip of the man’s cock. It rolled onto his partner, making a slick trail across her skin. She shivered.

I shivered.

I was witnessing something special, something meant only for me, and I knew it. I breathed in the cleansing, sex-infused air of the Russian common room and felt myself relax. Dmitri’s fingers found my clit and I was almost happy. I smiled at him, allowing my eyes to leave the wonderful scene at my side. Maybe—just maybe—my life as an Olympian wasn’t over after all. I felt better than I had when I’d arrived. Much better. Even my toe didn’t hurt anymore.

I looked back at my special couple. They hadn’t moved.

But then Yuri blocked my view. He crouched, giving them a good long look. He stood again and shook his head, grinning.

I squeezed Dmitri’s cock.

We weren’t the only ones cheating. Other couples also moved in subtle ways, giving each other pleasure whenever they could get away with it, whenever Yuri wasn’t looking. Maybe this rampant cheating was part of the game? I liked this game more with every moment. Yuri moved around the room, weighing the creativity of the frozen couples. He stopped next to the “almost-but-not-quite” couple. He clapped his hands and said something in Russian.

“They win,” translated Dmitri needlessly.

The winners cheered.

I cheered.

A man from across the room shouted something that made everyone else laugh. The winners—finally, joyfully—completed their coupling with the entire room as an audience. After a few up-to-the-hilt thrusts they separated, panting and laughing. They pulled themselves from the couch and picked their way to the center of the room where they huddled together, whispering. They would be the leaders for the next round.