AmericasDarlings

by Gail Bridges

  He did too. His face lost the mockery of a smile that had so unnerved me a moment before. He looked ready, whether or not he truly was.

  The arena quieted.

  The music started.

  And then everything went wrong.

  Well, not at first. At first everything was fine. More than fine. We moved through the opening sequences with verve and energy, with almost no effort at all, bringing the audience roaring right along with us. The tease was just about perfect—Coach would be proud. We nailed the mount. Benson said the magic words to me, I answered and we shared our bodies with each other. Yes, I admit it—I loved that mount! I loved the exquisite moment when Benson’s cock drilled into me, like a homing missile to its target. I gasped and gasped again as I thrust my hips to meet his. The audience responded, the noise level growing as the first people began, I was sure, to have their VOs. And Benson! So confident and sure and handsome. It was as if we’d never exchanged those worried looks.

  We felt good, both of us. We could do this!

  The nerves were gone, vanquished, excised and I didn’t feel tired at all. My back didn’t ache, my nipple didn’t hurt. As Benson’s cock probed my depths, as I responded to his movements and felt my fear recede, I let myself believe that my night out partying wouldn’t affect our performance after all.

  It was, of course, premature.

  We moved on to the difficult part of the routine. We aced the first acrobatic position. The second as well. The crowd was into us and we were into each other. Then the third and the fourth. We felt the burn! The passion! The excitement! The joy of sex. We performed the fifth and sixth and seventh positions, sharing our personal interpretation of making love—because, for the first time in public, America’s Darlings were making love as girlfriend and boyfriend.

  My boyfriend smiled at me.

  And that precise moment was when it all came crashing down. When we transitioned from the seventh position—Raging Volcano—to the eighth position—Courtesan Treat—it happened.

  That horrible thing every sexual gymnast dreads. Benson’s cock slipped out of me.

  We fell off the balance beam.

  We lost ten points.

  We were stunned, poleaxed, stupefied. How could this have happened? We’d practiced this move!

  We’d nailed it in the bathroom twelve times in a row. Thirteen if you counted the first time. Our sexual malfunction had happened so fast I wasn’t even sure which of us was at fault. I’d followed the new choreography to the letter. Hadn’t I? Had Benson? We shared a horrified glance then—what else could we do?—we got back on the balance beam. But it was worse than a simple malfunction. Much worse. Oh, the horror of it. The utter humiliation of it. The malfunction had occurred at the exact worst time! We were tangled up in such an unlikely position-between-positions that we were forced to do the unthinkable.

  We had to use our hands to get his cock back into me.

  Like teenagers. Like the untrained masses.

  Ten more points for using hands.

  We stumbled through the seventh position and into the eighth, our performance neither brilliant nor awful. Things were bad but not beyond salvaging. Then, adding insult to injury—I must admit to this even though it’s exquisitely embarrassing—I produced an earsplitting cannon blast.

  Benson and I froze.

  If you must know, “cannon blast” is insider jargon for pussy fart.

  Soraya told me later that one of the judges had hidden her mouth behind her hand and giggled.

  She’d giggled.

  If I thought I’d been embarrassed at breakfast, that had been nothing compared to this.

  Nothing.

  And it cost us seven points for a total of twenty-seven points lost.

  Benson and I finished the routine to a hushed crowd. We completed the dismount without a single misstep, landing squarely on our feet, our poses perfect. If it even mattered. White-faced, we bowed for the judges. There was no wild clapping from the audience. No cheering. No chanting or foot-stomping. Only shocked silence, a solitary clap here and there. Probably from my mother.

  How different from yesterday.

  We hurried off the mat. We staggered to the nearest seats ringing the mat, stunned.

  Benson sat next to me, away from our teammates, holding my hand. We were a black pit of misery. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “It was my fault. I forgot the new choreography!”

  “No. I’m sorry. If not for me, there wouldn’t have been new choreography.”

  “We practiced that move, Leah!”

  I couldn’t look at him. “I know.” My knees jiggled so hard it made my chair wobble. “But the rest of it was okay. Wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “We could still make it through to the final round…right? The rest of the routine had been good enough to get us in, even with all the deductions…hadn’t it?”

  “Cameras,” he warned, pressing his lips into a thin line, his face white. They swarmed, surrounding us.

  The ONN woman grinned, showing her big white teeth. She shoved a microphone into my face.

  Goddamn.

  Just Goddamn.

  “What went wrong out there, Leah?”

  I bit my lip, hid my breasts behind my arms, tried to turn away. “Everything. Everything went wrong.”

  She took a step closer. “Who lost control? Was it you? Or was it Benson?”

  “Both of us.”

  “What made his…ah, penis fall out of you?”

  I didn’t answer right away. She shoved the microphone at me, touching it to my chin. It gave me a small shock. I jumped.

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.”

  “Was it your fault? Did you squeeze him out of your vagina?”

  “I don’t think so. It just happened.”

  She shoved the microphone at Benson. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know either.”

  “We’ll know soon enough! I’m sure we’ll be watching it on TV tonight. Your malfunction will be dissected with a fine-tooth comb by every expert who’ll talk to us!”

  Benson looked like he would throw up. “I hope not.”

  “Oh, believe me, it will! So, what caused Leah to make that awful noise? That…flatulence. Was it something you did?”

  Benson stuttered a non-answer, his face white.

  “Was it what you people call a cannon blast?”

  He nodded, looking away. “Yes.”

  “Caused because you filled her with air, right? Isn’t that something they train you not to do?”

  “Uh…yeah.”

  “What do you think, Benson? Will your score be too low? Will you and Leah be eliminated?”

  Benson and I just looked at each other.

  ”Leave them alone, now!”

  Thank God for Coach Bob.

  He may have been screwing my mother, but he came through when it mattered. He bulldozed his way between us and the camera, blocking the lens with his hand—the same hand that had held my breast with such outrage and concern only a few hours ago, the same fingers that had greeted and comforted my pussy as I lay sobbing on his lap. Coach Bob threw the considerable force of his personality and his even more sizeable lung capacity at the reporter. “This interview is over. Go away. Leave.”

  “But I have full access!”

  ”Leave us!”

  With a reproachful look, muttering, she left.

  Coach Bob didn’t say anything. He just folded our almost naked, stunned selves into a giant, protective group hug. After a minute he stood us up and turned us toward the scoreboard. “You have to know. You have to see what they gave you. It’s part of competing.”

  I bit my lip.

  I tried to hold back tears—Crying for the second time today!—but a trail of cold tears slid down my cheek and dripped off my chin anyway. I made the mistake of looking up at the big screens and saw a waterfall of a tear ca
scade from a cliff of a chin. Me. Crying on the big screen.

  Wonderful. At least they’d moved away from my breasts.

  Coach Bob put his hand on the small of my back. “The concealer is starting to rub off,” he whispered, “I’ll cover it for now with my hand, but Debbie needs to fix you up. Benson! Tell Debbie to get over here.”

  It was a distraction.

  As we waited for the score to come up, Coach Debbie dabbed and patted and rubbed my back then rubbed some more and patted some more, much longer than was necessary. Bless her. Her touch helped me to regain my feet. Finally she rested her hand on my shoulder. “You’re still the best,” she said calmly, looking into my eyes. “Believe me, I know.” She hugged me then Benson. “Both of you. No matter what. You’re still the best.”

  I had a hard time believing her.

  How could we possibly be the best if we couldn’t keep ourselves linked for long enough to finish our routine?

  “Look,” Coach Debbie said, “the score is up.”

  My breath froze in my chest. It was too low. Not horrible. Not catastrophic. It hovered weakly in the middle, not quite good enough to be better than half the other teams.

  “We won’t make it into the final round,” whispered Benson.

  Coach Debbie frowned. “There’s still a chance.”

  “Not really,” I said, looking anywhere but at that scoreboard.

  Our wretched score had been enough to bump us into the final eight—for now. For the next minute or so.But it wasn’t enough to keep us there and we knew it. There was still one team to go. Soraya and Jim hadn’t competed yet and they were sure to pass through.

  They would take our spot.

  Benson put his arm around me tightly. He buried his head in my shoulder, shaking. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Leah, I ruined it for us!”

  “Not your fault,” I mumbled, my lips gone numb along with the rest of me. I rested my head on his. “Don’t be sorry.”

  “It is,” he said, his voice muffled. “I’m the one with the penis. My fault. All of it.”

  “It’s not.”

  “It is. I forgot the new stuff.”

  “It’s both our faults. Like I said. I’m the one who went out last night. If I hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been any new stuff.”

  We shuffled to the bench along the sidelines to sit with the rest of the team. Naomi patted my knee. I leaned back, resting my head on the wall behind us that separated athletes from the paying public, my hand in a death grip with Benson’s. We’d blown our chance. It was over.

  Soraya and Jim began their routine. We watched, dazed.

  They posed. They began the tease. The audience cheered. He mounted her. We clapped along with everyone else. I could hardly bear to watch.

  Then Jim collapsed.

  He hit the mat with a smack, his leg twisted at an impossible angle.

  He didn’t move.

  His wide-open dark eyes, gigantic on the big overhead screen, stared at nothing. He lay still on the mat, his bald head shining in the lights. Soraya towered over him for a split second, swaying, holding her pose—then she fell to the mat next to him and screamed.

  “Jim!”

  Thousands of people gasped as one.

  “Jim!”

  The music ground to an abrupt halt. The lights came fully up.

  Her shrill shriek filled the Arena. “Someone help him!”

  Game officials shouted into walkie-talkies.

  “My shadow gazelle”, she called him.

  Red lights flashed, sirens sounded, a door opened, paramedics rushed in.

  I awoke from my stupor and sat bolt upright in my seat, as did Benson. Our own misfortune was nothing compared to this. Coach Bob and Coach Debbie sprinted onto the mat and Dr. Chung too. Paramedics rushed to Jim’s side. Cameras hovered, reporters flocked, announcements were made.

  Soraya knelt over her naked lover, howling.

  Jim.

  Our own Jim.

  He wasn’t breathing. Then he was.

  We sat on the sidelines, helpless, holding hands in a long chain of terrified teammates.

  Jim was loaded onto a stretcher and whisked away. Coach Bob and Soraya—someone threw a windbreaker over her shoulders and thrust shorts into her hands—went with him. And Dr. Chung. Then they were gone.

  It was all so fast.

  Two minutes ago, Jim and Soraya had been posing, beautiful and strong, on their way to the final round of Olympic competition and maybe even a medal—and now, so suddenly, he was on his way to the hospital and his Olympic dream was over.

  And so was Soraya’s.

  My mother met us at the arena’s exit.

  She held out her arms and I walked into them as if nothing had passed between us the day before. She rocked me from side to side, smoothing the hair from my face as if I were the child who used to live in her home.

  Maybe I was still a child. Because I definitely still needed my mother.

  “Mom…” I said, sniffling.

  “It’s okay. Whatever you want to say, it’s okay.”

  “Jim. I feel so afraid.”

  She sighed. “Yes, of course you’re afraid. We all are. Who would have thought?” She held out a hand to Benson. “Come here. You need a hug too.”

  He joined a long, rocking hug, the type my mother specialized in. The two of us dwarfed her.

  “I knew he was sick,” I said, “but I didn’t say anything. Soraya wouldn’t—”

  “Dr. Chung checked him out,” said Benson, interrupting me. “Debbie told me. Jim was cleared to compete.”

  “Oh.”

  But I wondered how much he’d hidden.

  Crowds swarmed around us. A man passed by, raising his eyebrows in recognition.

  “We’re behind you, Leah! You can still do it! I believe in you!” said a woman. My own image, printed on her T-shirt, smiled triumphantly back at me. They must be selling those things somewhere. An hour ago I might have bought one.

  A cheer, small at first, then growing. More people joined the small crowd surrounding us.

  “Leah! Benson! Leah! Benson!”

  I waved. So did Benson. We smiled wanly.

  Our crowd yelled in appreciation. The T-shirt woman waved back, her face aglow. She blew me a kiss.

  Halfheartedly, I pretended to catch it. “Thank you. We’ll do our best tomorrow.”

  Benson nodded. “We will. I promise.”

  “In honor of our friend Jim,” I added.

  “Yes. In honor of Jim.”

  Then we turned away.

  “Come on,” Mom said. “Let’s get you two away from here.”

  We took one of those sleek new driverless taxis to Mom’s hotel. She asked if we wanted to eat and without waiting for an answer she herded us into an elevator that zoomed nonstop up to her room on the twenty-third floor. “Of course you’re hungry. Athletes are always hungry. We’ll order room service.”

  I tried not to think about the last time we’d had dinner together.

  I helped her to clear off the table under the window and Benson dragged over the room’s two armchairs—one of us would have to sit on the bed. I claimed a chair and looked out of the huge windows that were the hotel’s claim to fame. I couldn’t see an end to the city. It went on and on, crawling up neighboring hills and valleys until it faded away in the distance, rather like the view from the airplane when I’d first arrived. The fabled pollution of the past century was gone and the view was crystal clear, but I couldn’t appreciate the panorama that spread out below us. How could I, when Jim was near death—as far as I knew—and my best friend was out of the competition?

  Benson sat on the bed and folded his legs underneath his butt, looking like a child because he was so low to the table. His laughter lines were gone. His eyes were tired, hooded. He pushed his hair behind his ears, which I usually found charming but which now struck me as a nervous gesture.

  Oh Benson!

  I reached out and held his hand. He clutched it, pul
ling it toward him. He met my eyes and tried to smile.

  My mother watched our exchange, her head tilted. “You okay, honey?”

  “I guess,” he said, shrugging.

  We weren’t out of the competition, but it felt like we ought to be. How could two people who’d just made it into the final round of the Olympics feel so worthless?

  We studied the room service menu.

  “Bob will call us as soon as he knows anything,” Mom said, breaking the silence.

  Bob, she’d said.

  I sighed. I’d just have to get used to it.

  Benson shifted his legs. “I tried to call Debbie but I couldn’t get through.”

  “She’s probably at the hospital,” said Mom.

  “What happened to Jim, do you think?” I asked, “Dehydration? A virus? His heart?”

  But none of us knew.

  A waiter came to my mother’s room to set the table and take our orders. Obviously we were getting special treatment from the hotel. I stared at a menu full of European dishes. I sighed again. I wasn’t hungry. How could I eat at a time like this? “The steak,” I said finally, “with roasted herbed potatoes. Thank you.”

  The waiter smiled at me.

  I smiled back.

  Then it hit me. I must be the world’s shallowest person. How could I be too upset to eat but not too upset to notice a good-looking guy? And, if I were to be honest, to want to screw a good-looking guy? Some friend I was.

  Self-loathing. Something new to add to my list of problems.

  The waiter left, taking a little too long to clear away the menus, taking every opportunity to linger near me and Benson. He recognized us. Of course he did.

  Mom waited until the door clicked shut behind him then sat up straight in her seat. “I have a surprise for you, Leah. You can have it now or you can have it after we eat.”

  “I don’t care. Whenever.”

  “Now? Good idea.” Mom tugged her purse onto her lap and pulled out her phone.

  “You have a superphone?” asked Benson, perking up, leaning toward her.

  “It’s new.”

  She fooled around with her superphone. She punched in a code or turned something on or maybe even put a hex on it, grumbling the entire time. “I’ve never done this before,” she said. Finally she set the phone on the table and spread her napkin in front of it. She ran her hands over the heavy fabric, getting rid of wrinkles.