Game Changers

by Jane Cuthbertson

  Bree whistles in approval, and when I glance over, Nickory is more neutral than grim, but still not convinced.

  Well, bummer for her. I have Jaye’s approval, and Jaye’s approval conquers all.

  

  We prepare to drive back to the hotel after the Royals’ game ends. I’ve only had a couple of glasses of wine over the course of the evening, but three times as much water. I’m sure of my sobriety. Bree questions the expense of a hotel room when Jaye has a perfectly good bedroom here at the town home, but I have a ready answer.

  “If we stay here,” I say, “you will not get any sleep tonight.”

  I may have sounded matter of fact at the time, but I know for sure I was blushing like crazy while Jaye held my hand and restrained herself from ravishing me right then and there.

  Ravishing me. A fifty-two-year-old hermit, and somebody can’t wait to get me into bed. I wonder, idly, if it’s getting a little chilly in hell.

  We don’t attack each other at the hotel door this time but walk calmly into the room and all to the way to the foot of the bed. Then Jaye actually picks me up in a bear hug.

  “God, I missed you.” She puts me down so she can cup my face in her hands. She pulls me into a series of long, deep kisses which only nibble at the edges of a long separation. We help each other out of our clothes and take the bed by storm.

  Confession (pun intended): I grew up Catholic and was flat out repressed in my younger days. The few times I had sex with someone else I tended to let my partner take the lead, tended to quietly defer to what they wanted. Even in Portland, with Jaye, I had held back a little. Tonight, though, I make up for lost years. Tonight the part of me craving, loving, adoring women and sex sets out to indulge herself, and make Jaye thoroughly happy.

  I am awed to find out how erotic a lover’s cries can be. To bring someone to such heights of pleasure, feel the thrill of connection as she calls my name—as well as a few god and goddess names—is almost enough to make me come myself.

  Of course that happens, too, as Jaye more than returns the favor over the course of the night.

  By morning every other guest on the hotel floor knows that “Rachel! Oh, God, Rachel!” and “Jaye! Yes, yes, Jaye!” are, shall we say, in the honeymoon stage, and a large part of me is glad to be making up for the times I traveled alone, kept awake by the sounds of others’ lovemaking coming through thinly-insulated walls.

  My eyes wait until almost seven-thirty a.m. before snapping open. Despite the long drive from Denver, despite the game and the dinner and the rattle-the-windows lovemaking, I’m wide awake, deliciously entangled with another. My head is pillowed on Jaye’s chest, and I hear her heartbeat,

  feel her steady, even breathing. I lose myself in this chance to listen to the life coursing through her, as if given the keys to a secret treasure.

  Whatever I’ve managed to convey of intimacy in my writing, I know now I was winging it. I had no real clue at all.

  Jaye stirs and slowly comes conscious to the day. I greet her with a long, slow good-morning kiss.

  “I don’t think we should show our faces at the breakfast buffet,” I say, the echoes and sounds of last night’s pleasure still ringing in my ears.

  Jaye giggles uncontrollably. Before I know it, we’re both in a full-blown laughing fit, then we’re kissing again. We collapse against each other, lying side by side on some very finely wrecked sheets.

  “How did I get so lucky?” she asks me.

  “I’m the lucky one.”

  “We keep saying that.”

  “Then it must be true.”

  Jaye gets serious suddenly. “I knew. I knew the first time I saw you, you were special.”

  I blink. Throw out my usual defensive joke. “Even though you didn’t get my phone number?”

  She caresses my cheek. “I got your license plate number. That day in the cemetery.’’

  “You did?”

  “I thought if I had a name and a plate number then I could get your address and figure out how to contact you without sounding like a stalker. But I didn’t need to, did I?”

  “Wow.” My heart suddenly fills to bursting with affection and desire and, OMG, this big scary thing called love. Whoa. This is only the second time we’ve slept together. It’s not supposed to happen this quickly, right?

  I cover my emotions by rolling back on the bed and laughing. “You realize I met you two days after I wrote the ‘On Being Single’ blog?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I shake my head. “Truth.”

  “Is that why you didn’t call me for so long?”

  “No. I took the encounter for what it was, something short and sweet.”

  “And full of potential.”

  I shake my head again. “Not for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Exactly. Why would a woman twenty years my junior be interested in me?”

  Jaye frowns. “You keep bringing up the age difference like it means we’ve got no chance.”

  She’s irritated, and she has a right to be. I roll toward her again, give her a quick kiss. “After last night? I think we have a chance.”

  This does not mollify her. “But if we don’t, it’s because I’m younger than you?”

  Yes, frankly. But I’m not about to say that. I frown, not quite certain how to proceed. “I don’t know. I suppose we could be like Bogart and Bacall.”

  “Huh?”

  Oh, please, please, please let her not be too young to know who Bogart was.

  “Humphrey Bogart was twenty-five years older than Lauren Bacall. They married when he was forty-four, and she was nineteen. And they were happy for,” I pause a second, “for the thirteen years they got before he died of cancer.” I give Jaye a hug. “I don’t intend to die of cancer any time soon.”

  “Good,” Jaye says. Then, “Humphrey Bogart was the one in Casablanca, right?”

  Thank you, Universe. “Yes. He and Bacall met on the set of To Have and Have Not. We’ll have to watch it sometime.”

  “For sure. Especially if it helps you believe anything’s possible.”

  “After last night, I think everything’s possible.”

  Those must be the right words because Jaye rewards me with one of those deep searing kisses we’re getting good at. Heavenly, wondrous. But even so, when it’s done I’m still thinking seriously. “I’ve been alone all my life. It’s hard for me to believe that can change.”

  Jaye holds me, silent for a long, long moment. “Okay, confession,” she says finally. “You’re the first person I’ve spent more than one night with since I was seventeen.”

  I am astonished. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not proud of it, but yeah. So this is change for me, too.” Something in her expression tells me there’s more to learn here, but she continues before I can ask for details. “I know this is only our second time together, but I want a lot more.” Jaye grins. “Bogart.”

  I grin back. “You can have all the days you want. Shweetheart.”

  

  We do not do the breakfast buffet. Bree calls to suggest brunch and we quickly agree. I send Jaye off to shower while I pack up my clothes.

  When I come out of the bathroom after my own shower, I find Jaye staring at the luggage. “How long is ‘a few days’?” She asks.

  I come up next to her, put an arm around her waist. “Um, through next Saturday’s game? If that’s okay?”

  Her expression is one hundred percent surprise and delight. “Totally!”

  Worth the price of the trip right there, though the looming shadow of the warrior queen tempers my enthusiasm somewhat. Still, this is time with Jaye. This is why I’m here.

  As we drop the key off at the front desk the clerk confirms the room number and the wisdom of our leaving the premises.

  “342?” she says. I nod, and she gives us a long, knowing smile. Her expression reminds me of an “I’m-on-to-you” smi
rk I saw in a movie once.

  “I hope you enjoyed your stay.” Her tone is too perfect, too neutrally modulated.

  I smile back, accepting my gotta-be-obvious blush with a zen calm. “It was great.”

  “Fantastic!” Jaye chimes in. I push her toward the door before the desk clerk verifies her statement, and we barely make it to the car before bursting into laughter. I have a sudden vision of sharing laughter with this woman for the next thirty years, and it makes my heart pound almost as hard as last night’s orgasms did.

  I give Jaye a quick but thorough kiss.

  “Nice,” she says, pleased. “Can I get more of those?”

  “Whenever you want.”

  “We’re going to have a great week.”

  Chapter Five

  Fyrequeene’s Blog: May 22

  “Nickerson’s Hair”

  There have been many, many forms of self-expression in this world. One of the more unique ones: Kathleen Nickerson’s hair.

  Nickerson, for those of you who do not follow women’s soccer, is the greatest goalkeeper of her generation. National Team stalwart, World Cup and Olympic veteran, she has accomplished things on the pitch others can only dream of. If she were a guy they’d have her right up there with Michael Jordan and Tom Brady.

  Or maybe Dennis Rodman.

  Nickerson’s hair is discussed in soccer circles, lesbian circles, sports channels, and gossip magazines. Everyone, at one point or another, has talked about Nickerson’s hair. Even my seventy-year-old therapist who hates sports knows about The Coif that Captured CONCACAF.

  First photographic evidence of this futbol phenomenon appeared in the late 1990s, when a young New Hampshire goalkeeper made the national Under-17 team. The tall, gawky-but-graceful teenager wowed the coaches with her skill between the posts, her ability to anticipate the movement of a soccer ball—and her electric blue ponytail. Asked to tone down the display, Nickerson went “Mohawk,” leaving a smaller but still vivid vision of blue atop her head. When she proceeded to allow zero goals in her first five international matches, the coaches left her alone.

  The only person who doesn’t talk about Nickerson’s hair is Kathleen herself. A surprisingly reticent woman, “No Comment” Nickerson simply changes hair color every couple months or so (and always right before big tournaments) and goes on with her life. If it isn’t easy being green? A power red might do. In the mood for subtle? Navy blue almost looks natural after a few months of neon yellow.

  Her stats reveal a woman dedicated to being the absolute best at her craft: 165 caps, three World Cup teams, two Olympic gold medals, and an astonishing 21-game international shutout streak, including every match of the 2008 Beijing Games. But they do nothing to explain why Kathleen Nickerson seems compelled to explore the limits of palette possibility.

  I, however, have a guess or three.

  One, if Nickerson has a tattoo, it’s well hidden. I’m thinking she doesn’t; she chooses to mark up her hair instead, thus making a variety of statements she can later eliminate when she tires of them.

  Two, Nickerson is a stubborn woman. From those first U-17 coaches up to and including the infamous US National Team Coach who told her in 2007 she was off the squad if she didn’t dye her hair a “normal” color, Nickerson’s rebellion spawned a monster I suspect she no longer controls. She initially did as commanded, only she used all the “normal” colors, showing up with hair in locks of blonde, brown, black, silver, gray, white, auburn, and carrot-red. She was benched and watched the US get humiliated in the World Cup. The coach was fired shortly afterward. Nickerson is still with the team, and she’s worn her hair her way ever since.

  Three, Kathleen Nickerson has a long-time companion, a most attractive African American woman. Between the two of them, they have said “no comment” more often than both houses of Congress during budget battles. Nickerson does not deny their relationship, and by corollary does not deny her lesbianism. But she doesn’t talk about it either. Yet even the most reticent of us need to talk sometimes, and Nickerson talks with her hair.

  To which I raise a glass of blonde champagne and say, “Hair Hair!”

  

  “‘The Coif that Captured CONCACAF’?” Jaye says with some incredu-lity. “Do your readers even know what CONCACAF means?”

  “Hell, I don’t know what CONCACAF means,” I counter calmly. “It’s a soccer group or something. It was alliterative. It worked for me.”

  Jaye wraps her arms around my waist. “Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football.”

  I wrap my arms around her waist. “Forgive me if I don’t rush out and amend my original sentence.”

  Jaye laughs. “Nickory’s going to kill you for that blog.”

  “Is any of it not true?”

  “No. You’ve kind of nailed it.”

  “Then I can die with a clean conscience.”

  It is Wednesday afternoon. Bree is at work, Nickory is off doing goalkeeping drills, and Jaye has come in from doing midfielder drills. I’ve pulled her into the bedroom with the intention of completely unmaking the bed.

  For the first time in my life, I’m spending a week under the same roof with three other women. Surprising, perhaps, but true. I always lived alone in college, could always afford my own place after I started working. I never played a team sport and never traveled or roomed with teammates. And does anyone ever count living with their parents?

  Early reviews about my presence are mixed. Jaye and Nickory’s schedules revolve around soccer: gym workouts, individual practice, team practice, men’s soccer on TV at night. Bree is a nurse at one of the big hospitals on the Missouri side, and she’s on day shifts this week, which means I usually have the townhome to myself late mornings and early afternoons, allowing me to get a great deal of writing done. Today’s effort is my latest blog, which reflects the fraying of my wary truce with Nickory.

  I’m getting along fine with Bree, and with Jaye, too, duh. But Nickory and I clash ever so subtly every time we’re in the same room. I used my pen as a sword and a pressure release, and now, having heard what Jaye thinks, I’m ready to let it go and change the subject.

  I smoothly pull Jaye’s shirt over her head and off her body. I’m getting good at the clothes-removing thing. “I am so glad you like sex,” I tell her.

  Jaye pulls my shirt off of me, equally smoothly, and lets the blog go. “I wondered, you know,” she says, going for the button on my jeans.

  I put my hands on her shoulders for balance, and she slides the jeans off one leg at a time. “Wondered what?”

  “When you surprised me in Portland, but wanted to wait until after the game, I wondered if—well, I guess it was the only time I thought about your age. That you thought you might be too old, um, for sex.”

  I laugh at the ridiculousness of this idea as I tug at the elastic of her sweatpants. “I’ve never thought that. In fact, I always worried if I ever met someone special they wouldn’t want sex as much as I do, and then where would I be? All this pent-up libido and nowhere to express it.”

  Jaye has a smug expression as she unhooks my bra. “Not worried now, are you?”

  “Not anymore. I’m glad you can keep up with me.”

  Our mutual laugh turns into a long, deep kiss. A slow heat builds up inside of me and starts radiating out. The fire emerges as a blush, I guess, but I feel its depth, how far it has to travel to surface. For me, a new and slightly scary phenomenon. I tremble a little, then slip my thumbs into Jaye’s underwear and slide them down to her ankles. She falls onto the mattress, and I pull the bikini briefs free. “Come here,” Jaye says, trying to pull me down on top of her.

  I remain standing. “Indulge me for a minute.” I spend that minute, and more, slowly and thoroughly perusing my lover’s glorious nakedness from head to toe.

  Jaye watches me, a little wide-eyed. “What are you doing?”

  I pull my eyes away from this wondrous sight
to meet hers. “Looking. Okay?”

  Bemused, but game, she nods. “Sure.”

  “Good. Turn over.”

  Jaye complies, and I take in her sculpted shoulders and her back, admiring every inch of muscle and smooth, fair skin. Geez, even the minor bruises and scrapes that come from playing soccer for a living draw me in. I bend over, start at the back of her neck, and gently lay a trail of kisses down her spine. By the time I reach her hips she is breathing hard.

  “Keep going, Bogart.”

  I laugh, shooting for low and sultry and probably failing. I stand up again and run my fingers along the backs of Jaye’s thighs, then all the way down her calves to her feet.

  “Okay,” I say. “Turn over again.”

  And she does, the glint in her eyes now decidedly aroused. “If you’re trying to torture me, it’s working.”

  I put a finger to her lips. “Shh, almost done.”

  I go back to my perusal, moving toward the foot of the bed so I can run my hands along her calves again. They are sturdy and firm, rounded muscle set up tight against the bone, and I don’t know why but I find them sexy as hell. I run a series of kisses along each one, from ankle to knee. Jaye opens her legs up, invites me inside.

  “Keep, going, Bogart,” she says, breathless now.

  I climb onto the bed, kissing my way up her inner thigh, almost but not quite arriving where she most wants me to be, then shift slightly and come back down the other side, a slow, leisurely descent, my lips tasting her skin, savoring the feel of her. Adoring her.

  Driving her crazy.

  “Rachel, please!” Jaye’s voice is a half-whisper, her tone is full need.

  I raise my eyes to meet hers. “Don’t worry,” I say softly. “You’re coming.”

  I settle myself between her legs and kiss her again, this time at the apex of leg and hip. One to the left, one to the right, then directly to the center of her. Jaye’s sex is a wet, silky paradise, and I run my tongue along the length of it, exploring all of her with a thoroughness born of thirty years of pent-up libido.