AmericasDarlings

by Gail Bridges

  “I’ve got a headache,” I said, not even trying to keep the whine out of my voice.

  “Me too,” said Soraya, “it’s the altitude. Mexico City is seriously high. It’s like seven hundred miles up or something.”

  I plumped up a second pillow and shoved it under my head. “Right. Seven hundred miles. Funny girl.” It was always “a hundred this” or “a thousand that” with Soraya. She would exaggerate anything, even her own performances. Her flourishes gave her routines a delightful comedic edge and I admired her for it even as I worried that the judges would take away points for deviating from the script. I turned on my side so I could see her better. “How can it possibly be altitude? They gave us Alti-Clear. You’ve been taking yours, haven’t you?”

  “Of course. You?”

  I nodded. “Every morning and night with my Vitamin S. Yeah. So it must be excitement.” I gestured toward the end of her bed. “Hey. Could you hand me my knitting?”

  She grabbed the bag and tossed it to me.

  I took the pattern out. Then I reached in for Luke’s tiny sweater, still attached by a row of stitches to a slender purple knitting needle. I remembered the surge of pride I’d felt when I showed it to Coach Debbie—it was such a cute little thing. I’d have to show it to Mom—she’d love it. I’d chosen the most difficult pattern I could find, one covered with cables. And it was two-colored, which meant I was forever untangling knots and switching between baby-blue yarn and baby-green yarn.

  I’d deliberately made it hard on myself. I’m like that.

  Cables. Ribbing. Counting stitches. Repairing mistakes.

  A labor of love.

  Would Constance understand that my gift was an apology for not being there during her own labor of love when Luke was born?

  I rearranged myself on the bed, leaning against the wall. I took up the needles, pulled yarn from the skein, consulted the pattern and made my way knitting and purling across the top of the sweater piece. I wasn’t far from finishing that section. Only a couple of inches.

  Soraya flicked her sandal off and it landed by my knee.

  I jumped.

  “So. You and Benson…and Coach Debbie! What about it?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. Yeah. And yeah.”

  “Mmm. I like Coach Debbie.” She kicked off her other sandal. It fell to the ground at the foot of her bed. She closed her eyes. She yawned again. “I’m worried, Leah. Jim said his stomach hurt at dinner. He barely ate anything.”

  “Oh?” I said, looking up. “Nerves?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He gets this way before a competition, right? And this is the Olympics.”

  “It had better be nerves,” she said.

  The alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

  I turned the knitting around and started another row. It was quiet in our room, and cozy, although I could hear sounds of revelry coming from not far away—a room on a different floor, perhaps—even though it was near midnight. I’d heard rumors of such goings-on among athletes, but Coach Bob forbadeus from joining in until after we’d won our gold medals.

  When Coach Bob forbade something, we didn’t do it.

  I glanced up from my knitting for a moment, looking around. Our room was better than I’d been led to expect. The vase of gardenias on the dresser—a gift from my mother—went a long way toward sweetening it. I liked the artisan carvings on our bedsteads and the matching framed mirror. Too bad the beds were so narrow. And so short. My feet hung off the end.

  I felt myself relax a little. I wasn’t in a hurry. These things took time.

  I knitted my way back along the needle then turned the sweater over again. I yawned. One thing at a time, my body gave up its fight. My leg stopped twitching. My eyebrow stopped jumping. My mind stopped racing in a thousand directions at once. A day’s worth—a year’s worth—of pent-up energy drained slowly from my hands, leaving me ready to face another day, another practice, another competition. Ready to face the first round of the Olympics.

  That was why I knitted.

  I thought Soraya was asleep, but she wasn’t. I heard her soft voice, so quiet it was almost lost. “Good luck tomorrow.”

  “You too.”

  “I won’t hate you if you win.”

  “Ha. And I won’t hate you if you win!”

  “Liar.”

  I laughed. “No, really. One of us has to win! We can’t let the Russians in.”

  “Or the Chinese.”

  “Or the Argentineans.”

  “I saw the Israeli team after their practice,” Soraya said. “They’re ravishing. They’re ten thousand times better than they used to be. It’s scary.”

  “Ten thousand?”

  “At least ten thousand.”

  “Well then. We’ve got our work cut out for us, haven’t we?” I yawned hugely and checked the clock. Midnight. I tucked Luke’s sweater back into the bag—I’d just finished the back panel. Tomorrow morning, early, before Soraya even woke up, I’d begin the right sleeve. I changed into pajamas and turned off the light. Then I turned it back on again and set the alarm for five o’clock in the morning, for team practice at the Oostif.

  Only five hours away.

  In five hours it would all begin.

  Chapter Three

  The team and I arrived early at the venue.

  “Look at that!” said Naomi, pointing. “Three days from now maybe one of us will be up there!”

  I gazed up at the main entrance to the gymnastics building. Above the multi-door grand entrance an enormous holographic poster displayed a woman’s too-close, too-pink face. Three-foot high lettering scrolled below her image. Congratulations to Delia Cromwell of Australia, winner of the gold medal in women’s vault!!!

  We stood in place—athletes, coaches and groomers—taking in Delia Cromwell’s joyous grin as she accepted her bouquet of red-and-white roses and her gold medal.

  “Hell yes!” shouted Soraya. “We’ll all be up there on that fancy billboard! Every single one of us!”

  Jim laughed and pulled her close. He kissed her. “Soraya,” he said over her shoulder, winking at me, “you know most of us won’t win a damn thing.”

  She didn’t answer.

  Seconds later, Delia’s face disintegrated and was replaced by that of a handsome young man—but I didn’t catch his name or what team he was on or even what event he’d won. What I did catch were angry shouts not far in front of us.

  I stiffened.

  Marion Lewis the crazy protester and her cohorts were already there, waiting.

  They held those ghastly pornographic posters—we’ve all seen examples—appalling images from a hundred years ago, back when fully grown women shaved their pubic hair so they’d look like little girls, back when people didn’t yet know what beautiful sex was.

  They waved those things in our faces.

  How could they think we had anything to do with that?

  “Out of my way, woman,” growled Coach Bob. Unruffled, he led us into the athletes-only entrance and, closing the door, left the protesters behind. If he could put them out of his mind so easily, so could I.

  I could try, anyway.

  He signed us in. We were told to wait in a corner for our escorts.

  Ah, the famous Olympic escort! How the other athletes complained! How they compared stories of escorts both wonderful and horrible! Now we were to have an escort of our very own. Two escorts, actually—one for men and one for women, unlikely as that may seem. Separating the sexes was an old-fashioned, quaint Olympic tradition.

  I thought it was completely unnecessary, but no one had asked for my opinion.

  We stood in our corner, waiting.

  Coach Bob paced, complained, checked the time, paced again. We couldn’t leave until our escorts showed up.

  “I feel like a kindergartner,” whispered Jim.

  “Me too,” said Soraya.

  “Teacher?” said Benson. “Can I go potty? Can I? Can I?”

  “It’s
not that bad,” Coach Debbie said, laughing.

  But it was. They were serious about it. Our identity passes gave us entry into the arena, but they didn’t mean we could go anywhere we wanted. According to the orientation brochure—and yes, I’d read the thing cover-to-cover even though no one else on the team had—it was immediate grounds for ejection if one of us left the performance floor and headed to a bathroom without an escort. They were so worried about doping that they’d lost all common sense.

  But what if I have to go really bad? What if I’m so nervous I have to throw up? What if no escort comes to my rescue? What then? Has anyone thought of that?

  They must have.

  A tall, balding man introduced himself as Juan Carlos. Then a short, severe-looking woman with a sharp nose told us her name was Agatha. We followed their hideous green vests down a hallway and through a set of heavy fire doors. On the other side were the locker rooms.

  Benson gave me a quick hug. “See you on the other side.”

  He followed Juan Carlos, our male teammates and Coach Bob into the men’s locker room, leaving me behind with the women. As always, I felt bereft. I hated being separated at the vulnerable time right before a competition, when I needed to be near my partner. I should have been used to it. What competition hadn’t separated us like this? But I wasn’t.

  Why did they even bother?

  Who cared if—heaven forbid—we saw each other naked?

  I followed Soraya into the locker room. “Check it out, Leah,” she said. “These lockers are huge. I could put an elephant in one!”

  We claimed side by side lockers and the slatted bench in front of them and disrobed. We put on our uniforms and, along with the other women on our team, Soraya and I began our pre-performance routine. We pulled our hair into bands. She trimmed her fingernails and I plucked my eyebrows. We put on our makeup. We used slender little bush combs on our mounds. We spread Olympics-approved body oil on each other with long sensual strokes of our hands—my favorite part. We applied dots of personal lubricant to our vaginas and assholes. We tweaked and pinched at our nipples until they stood out.

  I felt myself flush with anticipation, my vulva growing warm, my clit tingling.

  Almost ready.

  Then Soraya stood up, stretched and reached for her toes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “You’re frowning.”

  She sat down again and glanced behind us. “I don’t want Coach Debbie to hear.” She leaned in close, whispering. “It’s Jim. He had the runs all night.”

  “What? Oh no!”

  “Shh! He says he’s better now. He says it’s gone. He took something for it. But I’m worried, Leah. I’m really worried.”

  “You’re going to compete?”

  “Yes.”

  I touched her shoulder. “Trust him. If he says he’s better, he is.”

  She hugged me. Our almost naked bodies touched in about fifteen different places but I didn’t notice. This was a comfort hug, not a coupling position.

  “Thanks,” she whispered, “I do trust him.”

  The female members of the Sexual Gymnastics Team filed out of the locker room behind our escort and into the arena. We took a moment to gaze at the sight before us. The noise! The light! The palpable excitement! It took me by surprise. I’d been in so many gymnastic venues that I’d long ago lost count, but this was bigger, louder, brighter, more everything than any place I’d ever competed in. Of course it was. This was the Olympics.

  My nipples stood out even harder…and nausea threatened.

  Calming myself, I took a good solid look at the place. The arena was enormous. Rows of stadium seating rose from the floor where we stood to almost touch the ceiling. How could the people way up there—I looked up at the highest seating—see what was going on way down here? Did they use binoculars? Did they watch the huge screens hanging from the roof? Did they feel like they’d got their money’s worth?

  Coach Debbie took my arm, smiling. “C’mon, honey.”

  The team was moving on without us. Coach Debbie and I hurried to catch up then we joined the procession of teammates following Agatha in single file along the edge of the arena. We met up with the men at the central mat, where we’d be performing.

  I went to stand beside Benson. He reached for my hand.

  A roar of sound rose from the stands, a sound so all-encompassing, so present, that I felt it reverberating within my chest. We’d been spotted.

  Coach Bob grabbed my shoulder, turned me toward Benson. “You two! Give your public what it wants! Now!”

  My insides clenched.

  It felt almost like an orgasm.

  Benson squeezed my hand and we stepped away from our team to the edge of the mat. The sound level rose even higher. A roving camera operator circled us, coming in for a close-up.

  I caught a glimpse of us overhead on the big screens. They’d zoomed in on my breasts.

  Of course they had.

  Smiling widely, throwing our chests out, we raised our hands to the ceiling. We turned in a circle, including the entire audience like the good little sexual gymnasts we were. Benson pulled me close and plastered a kiss on my mouth. It hurt. It mashed my upper lip. He groped my breast and gave it a quick squeeze.

  The audience loved it. They pounded the floor with their feet.

  “Sorry,” he mouthed, wincing as he pulled away. “Nervous.”

  “It’s okay. Me too.”

  Of course he was nervous. He was afraid of the same things I was. That he’d forget the routine. That he’d go blank during competition and have to improvise. That he’d freeze halfway through and not be able to finish. That he’d suffer a sexual malfunction.

  None of those things would ever happen. Not possible.

  We stepped back into the safety of our team. Coach Bob slapped me on the butt then Benson. “Nice job. Liked the kiss.”

  Coach Debbie tugged on my arm. “Leah! Listen.”

  A chant rose from the stands. “Lee-ah! Ben-son!” Clap-clap. “Lee-ah! Ben-son!” Clap-clap.

  “They love you,” she said.

  “They love America’s Darlings,” I said. “It’s all propaganda. We still have to compete.”

  She pointed. “Look over there. Those guys are trying to get your attention.”

  A group of young men was waving wildly in the stands, whistling and jumping and hollering my name. The rowing team from yesterday! They were there! Just like they’d promised. I waved and stepped toward them but Coach Debbie stopped me.

  Right. Not without an escort.

  I blew them a kiss.

  Where was Mom? I couldn’t see her. The place was too big, too overwhelming.

  Our escort led us to a long bench. We sat. I stared down at my lap, trying to center myself. I would not let myself get nauseated.

  I would not.

  After a few moments I looked up. On the far side of the mat were the judges. Okay. Important to know where they were. I saw six cameras positioned around the mat’s boundaries, maybe seven. Roving cameras would bring the number up to…what, twelve? I wasn’t used to so many. But it was good to know about them before beginning.

  The chanting died down.

  The announcements and introductions started.

  “Five minute warning,” said Agatha.

  “You and Benson are first,” said Coach Bob. “Then Soraya and Jim. You know the drill. This is the preliminaries. The elimination round. Narrowing the field to sixteen. Nine teams have already performed.”

  I already knew all that, but it was comforting to hear Coach Bob state the obvious as he always did just before we were to compete.

  “Okay, Coach,” said Benson.

  Coach Debbie gripped my elbow. “You’ll make it through, no problem.”

  My palms tingled. They felt sweaty. I rubbed them on my thighs. I told myself it was excitement, not nerves. I stood up and began my stretches, as did Benson. We didn’t look at each other.

  We were not nervous.

&nb
sp; “Three minutes,” said Agatha.

  They announced us. The crowd cheered again.

  Benson and I touched our toes, did leg extensions, did side bends.

  “Follow me,” said Agatha.

  Coach Bob clapped his hands. “Show ’em what America’s Darlings are made of!”

  Benson and I walked behind Agatha, who checked us in with the event manager then led us to our starting positions. “Good luck to you! I’m a big fan, you know.”

  Maybe Agatha wasn’t so bad.

  Benson and I walked to the side of the mat and bowed to the judges. Then Benson moved off to a corner and I walked to the very center. Benson and I were set to perform Bathing Beauty, a wonderful, atmospheric piece created especially for us by our very own Coach Debbie. If—when we made it through to the next round, we’d perform Wood Nymph, the routine we’d worked on the day before. And for the final round, Amazon Queen. Our three unique performances were perfected and ready to go, conforming to the rules of sexual gymnastics, which specified that each level of competition must have a different routine.

  I took a deep breath.

  This was it.

  I let the actress in me take over.

  Slowly, languorously, I allowed my body to adopt my opening pose. I transformed myself.

  Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, I am a siren. I become a beautiful mythological creature. I am femininity personified. The noisy arena fades as I thrust my butt out, extend a leg and bend at the waist to caress my outstretched leg with both hands.

  The siren at her bath.

  A private moment. A sensual moment.

  I don’t look at Benson but I know he is posing too.

  Then the music starts.

  A swell of instruments. A familiar yet elusive tune. Drawing us in, putting sound to our actions. The crowd cheers.

  The siren closes her eyes and touches herself. On her leg, on her breast, on her stomach. Then a caress of a private place that she isn’t yet ready to share. She lifts her face to the falling water, for it is a waterfall in a secluded glen where she washes herself, and her face shines with radiant joy.