AmericasDarlings

by Gail Bridges

  “I know.”

  “I can’t lose his gift, I can’t!”

  “We’ll find it.”

  “It’s so close to being finished!”

  “I know.”

  “How will I get to sleep? How? I can’t go to sleep if I’m not knitting!”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Where is it, Benson? Where?”

  “Maybe someone came to get things for Soraya and took your bag by mistake?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ask Soraya when she calls.”

  “Yeah.”

  I shoved aside two pairs of pants, a pair of shorts, a sports bra and one ankle sock. Then I flopped onto my bed, groaning. It was only ten o’clock and already I was exhausted. I’d barely slept the night before. Here I was, proving I could be a good girl, trying to get my beauty rest, but I wouldn’t be able to. I needed my knitting!

  Benson went into the bathroom.

  I sat up, my heart in my throat. The bench!

  My special bench, where Benson and I had become girlfriend and boyfriend! We’d been there that morning, for sure, after Coach Bob had inspected my bruises. We’d had a nice long practice. Maybe my knitting bag was there! It was the one place we hadn’t looked. I didn’t rememberleaving it behind, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. I could almost see it, forgotten, slumped on its side, perhaps, or shoved under some bushes. It had to be there! It must be there! I launched myself to my feet, slipped on my shoes and was at the door in three steps. I flung it wide and yelled over my shoulder. “I’ll be right back!”

  I went into the hallway.

  The bathroom door banged open but Benson didn’t appear. “Wait for me!” he called, sounding panicked. “I’ll be out in a minute. Hey! Where are you going? Don’t go without me! Leah? Leah!”

  I turned around. “I’ll be fine! I know where it might be! I’m going.”

  “No! Leah—wait!”

  But I was already halfway down the hall. Benson could catch up—he knew where I was heading. The knitting bag might be on the bench! It was where we’d become girlfriend and boyfriend! Maybe I’d had my bag with me? I had no memory of it, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have it. I darted down the hall, took the stairs two at a time, dashed through the foyer and sprinted into the night.

  The village looked different in the darkness. I slowed. Lights illuminated the many pathways, throwing bizarre shadows that made me feel disoriented, made me feel anxious. I scurried down one path and then another, looking for the hidden, winding, special path that led to our bench.

  Maybe I ought to have waited for Benson.

  Finally I saw a tall hedge, a flowering bougainvillea—although the fuchsia blooms looked gray and colorless in the dim light—and a familiar branch hiding the entrance to a narrow trail. The path to the bench! I turned into it. So close! In a moment, I’d know whether my bag was there.

  It wasn’t.

  Despondent, I dropped onto the bench and sat with my head in my hands. I’d been so sure! I’d convinced myself it would be there, even though I didn’t remember leaving it. I took a deep breath, glad that the powers that be had thought it necessary to place a lamp in this secluded place. Sighing, I stood up. Time to get back. I was taking one last look—maybe I’d missed the black bag in the dark shadows under the bench—when I heard someone coming down the path. Benson—he’d found me!

  “It’s not here!” I called out, before he even made an appearance.

  “No? Is not? But youare…”

  I froze. I stopped breathing. This wasn’t Benson, this was Dmitri.

  Here. At my bench.

  I spun around to face him. “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?”

  “I saw you, my little American baby, and I think you are lost. You are lost?”

  “I’m not lost! I’m leaving.” I made to move around him.

  He held out his arms toward me. “Why you do that, Leah? Why you leave? I have fun with you again! We play gorilla game again?”

  “Fun? You had fun?”

  His mouth dropped open, making him look like a child. “Of course! You did not?”

  I turned on him, glaring. If my eyes could throw sparks, he’d have been reduced to cinders. “What do you think?”

  “I think…yes?”

  “No! No! I didn’t! You bruised me! You tried to disqualify me! You hurt me and you did it on purpose!”

  He spread his arms. “I not do that! Never!”

  “You did. You and your friends. You tried to get me out of the competition—”

  “No!”

  “And you almost succeeded. But I’m still here! You failed. You failed, Dmitri!”

  “I am not trying anything! I only want to couple with you!”

  “Did you plan it from the beginning?”

  He half fell, half sat down on the bench and looked up at me. Hurt clouded Dmitri’s features, making his eyes seem even darker than usual.

  “Did you?”

  “No. I did not.”

  I stared at him, not knowing what to think. Would Dmitri be this offended, this horrified by my words if he were guilty? Could he fake that? I didn’t know. I couldn’t rely on my own judgment. As I’d heard from several people today, I was a horrible judge of character.

  To make it even harder, this was my sweet, funny Dmitri I was trying to judge!

  “Leah the Darling! I liketo couple with you. You have very beautiful body. You are very nice woman—very superb woman! Why be so angry? I like you. You do not like me? Why? You like me in Moscow. You like me yesterday. Me and Alexi. You were matryoshka doll, remember?”

  I remembered.

  Goddamn it!

  I wanted to like him. Even now, even after what he’d done to me.

  Maybe he wasn’t guilty.

  What if Coach Bob was wrong? And Benson and Coach Debbie too? What if Dmitri was innocent and my injuries were only the unfortunate by-products of a wild night of sex?

  Was it possible?

  I bit my lip. Dmitri pushed his hair from his face and smiled tentatively at me.

  I looked away.

  “Leah?”

  “Be quiet. I’m thinking.”

  I paced back and forth in front of the bench.

  I liked Dmitri, I couldn’t help it. But I had to think this through. I couldn’t let my soft spot for him cloud my evaluation of what had happened between us.

  Truth. I was a poor judge of character.

  Another truth. I had bruises and injuries. Proof that something had happened.

  And another. Dmitri would never do to a teammate what he’d done to me. I believed that with all my heart.

  His eyes followed me as I paced in front of him. Would he be here, would he have followed me down the path to this secluded bench—my bench!—if he’d done the things I’d accused him of?

  Would he be that determined, that calculated?

  The voice in my head was clear. Yes, if he were trying to finish the job.

  He stood up, stretching his long body. Then he ran a sensual finger down my arm. “Leah? We couple again? Right here? What you think?”

  “Don’t touch me!” I slapped his hand away but I couldn’t stop myself from remembering what that very same touch had done to me the day before, the places it had taken me. I stepped back and crossed my arms over my chest. “No, we’re not coupling! You’re full of shit, Dmitri. I’m leaving now. Let me pass.”

  “You do not like me anymore?”

  “No!”

  His face fell.

  How is it possible, dear God, that I still like him, that I still want to couple with him?

  Because I do.

  “Leah…my very good friend? What are you saying?”

  “You were never my friend!” I pointed a long, accusing finger at him. “A friend would never do what you did!”

  “But I did not do anything!”

  “You want to win pretty badly, don’t you?”

  He looked confused. “But yo
u also want to win!”

  I ignored that. “You must have been annoyed that I was still around today! I bet you were pissed off that you didn’t do the job properly! Isn’t that right? Isn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Then I saw it. A quick something flickered across his face and then was gone. In that instant—even to me—he looked guilty. In that split second he had committed every last thing I’d accused him of. It was enough.

  My voice turned cold. “Stay away from me. I mean it.”

  He still didn’t say anything, just narrowed his eyes.

  “Stay away from me. Don’t even look at me!”

  Finally he nodded.

  We stared at each other. Dmitri dropped his eyes.

  Then I left.

  * * * * *

  “Holy shit,” breathed Benson, “that must have been wild.”

  I leaned into him. “It was.”

  I’d found Benson outside our dormitory, searching for me. Now we were back in my room. He held me tight and kissed me on the sweet spot on the bridge of my nose. “I wish I’d been there—you should have waited for me. But I’m so proud of you! Dmitri won’t come after you again. I bet you were amazing.”

  “You think?”

  “I bet you handled him like Coach Bob would have. But gentler.”

  “Really?”

  He brushed his hand down my head, playing with my hair. “And I bet it was sexy.”

  “You think everything I do is sexy.”

  “You’d be right. I take it your knitting wasn’t there?”

  I’d forgotten about the knitting. “No! I’ll never get to sleep. Too much excitement.”

  “We’ll see about that. I can work miracles, you know. I’m a Leah expert!”

  And he proved his expertise by giving me the world’s best backrub. He had me lay down on my bed then he sat beside me. “Take off your shirt. Turn onto your stomach.”

  I did. I threw the shirt into the corner to join the pile of shoes. Then I took off everything else for good measure.

  I closed my eyes.

  His strong hands roamed over my back, on my shoulders, down my rib cage. He worked his knuckles on either side of my spine. He pressed his fingertips into the tender space under my shoulder blades then made his way down to the small of my back. His touch grew lighter, skimming over my bruise. One by one my tight muscles started to unclench.

  Then he massaged my tight, aching neck. I moaned in pleasure and gratitude.

  “Benson?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I think I’m going to miss him…” I shifted around, trying to look up at him. He gently pushed me down again. “Am I crazy? Is that okay?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Do you think I should have turned him in?”

  Benson’s hands were motionless for a long moment. Then he placed them gently on either side of my head. “I don’t know. He didn’t admit to anything, did he?”

  “No. But it’s weird. I don’t know if I would have turned him in even if he had confessed.”

  “Oh? Why? I thought you were pissed at him.”

  “I am. I am! But I still like him. Kind of. What would you have done?”

  His fingers pressed gently into my scalp. “It doesn’t matter what I would have done. You did what was right for you. You’re kindhearted. You didn’t want to ruin his career.”

  Kindhearted.

  I digested his words as his hands left my scalp and roamed over my body. I was kindhearted? Hadn’t Soraya said something similar? Maybe I was kindhearted! Could they be right about me? For the first time in my life, I believed—I truly believed—that it might be true. That I might have admirable qualities as well as my crazies.

  And it felt good.

  His hands moved over my shoulders. “Like that?”

  “Mmm. Yes. I do.”

  “I can feel your muscles relaxing. Give me your arms.” He pulled my right arm gently to my side then the left. He moved on top of me. I felt his weight settle on my butt, his knees slide into place on either side of me.

  He was sitting on me.

  I liked it. A lot.

  He knew. He always knew. He patted my butt. “The better to reach you, my dear.”

  His hands went back to work. He massaged one arm then the other then worked on my shoulders again. I didn’t know which I liked more, him sitting on me or the massage. I liked it all. I liked it so much that I almost forgot about my missing knitting bag and about the Russian hitman who had failed to hit me hard enough.

  “Hey, babe,” he whispered.

  “Hey.”

  “Do you want it?”

  He knew I did, and badly. I nodded anyway, my face mashed into my pillow.

  “How much do you want it?”

  I squirmed, which was no easy thing with him sitting on me.

  “Your mom told me we ought to practice more,” he said, sliding back to sit on my thighs so he could knead my ass. His palms pressed into my butt cheeks, mashing them together then spreading them apart. Then his fingers slowly worked their way around my hips, my waist. They wriggled their way underneath me, getting nearer and nearer to the places that ached so badly for his touch.

  “She told me that too,” I whispered, breathless.

  “I think she’s right.”

  “I think my mom should stay out of our bedroom.”

  He laughed. His hands left me. His weight shifted. I heard a plop of something hitting the floor—His underwear? His pants?—then he was sitting on me again and his hands were on me again.

  “Spread your legs,” he said quietly, “but only a little.”

  I did. Only a little.

  “Lift up your ass. But only a little.”

  Still sitting on my legs, he spread my butt cheeks. I felt cool air on my womanly parts. Was he blowing on me? I let out a long breath that was almost a moan. Then his cock, his sweet, beautiful cock, was resting between my butt cheeks, looking for home, looking for the place it knew so well.

  Still massaging my back, he entered me slowly.

  I gasped.

  He sucked in air through his teeth. “Oh my God. It’s so tight! There’s barely room for me. It’s good like this…”

  I raised my butt and pressed against him, helping his cock to find its way in. He was right. It was good like this.

  “Now close your legs again. Squeeze me with your thighs… Oh! That’s sweet!”

  I caught his cock between my legs, like a prisoner. It wasn’t very far inside me in this position, maybe two inches, maybe three, but still, it felt wonderful. We lay on the bed, hardly moving. Just tiny advances and retreats, minute joinings and separatings of cock and pussy—delightful shifts amplified by a delicious position. So relaxing! Even more so than when we’d coupled on the bench earlier that morning, and I’d thought that was the most relaxing, most beautiful coupling ever.

  I let out a deep, cleansing breath.

  Benson moved on me, slowly, sweetly, making my eyes heavier with each gentle thrust. He slowly shifted his weight until he was lying full-length on top of me, like the talented gymnast he was, and this time we suffered no sexual malfunction. He brushed my cheek with his lips then whispered into my ear, “Now go to sleep, babe.”

  “What? Like this?”

  “Like this.”

  He found my hands and held them in his own as if there were no tomorrow. But there was a tomorrow and it would be the most important day of our lives. We moved together on my bed, my boyfriend and me, practicing and practicing and practicing…until first he, then I, fell asleep.

  Together.

  Chapter Eight

  And finally it was our big day, the final round at the Olympics. And amazingly we were still there.

  We were still there!

  It was minutes before our turn.

  Minutes.

  We would be the last team to perform and we would have our work cut out for us. The Israelis had just stunned the crowd with a creative, vivacious perfo
rmance. The judges loved them. The Israelis had become the team to beat.

  Not so the Russians.

  Dmitri and Nina’s unfortunate score had relegated them to the middling wastelands where no medal has ever seen the light of day.

  What a shame.

  We were warmed up, suited up, ready to go. My concealer was applied, my hair pulled back, my bush combed into submission, my fingernails trimmed. Benson, standing at my side, was confident and handsome. There was nothing he could do that would hurt me. If he had any lingering doubts about my health, last night’s wonderful little taxi ride must surely have dispelled them. We stood on the side of the central performance mat in the arena, holding hands, waiting for our moment to shine. I experienced things in sharp little snippets.

  Crowds cheering.

  Cameras circling.

  Reporters hovering.

  Coach Bob shouting. Debbie gripping the edge of her seat. My mom clapping her hands. Benson’s fifteen family members in seats all in a row, wearing identical Benson shirts, stomping their feet. And—amazingly—Soraya, yelling from the sidelines. She was here, supporting us, because she categorically refused to leave Mexico until after we performed. My eyes flickered from thing to thing, trying to take it all in at once.

  I glanced at the big screen. Benson and me, as big as houses, our smiles pasted on.

  I glanced at the scoreboard. Took note of the score we needed to beat.

  I glanced at the judges, at that horrible woman judge who laughed at me yesterday, the one who thought my cannon blast was so funny. “Forget her,” Debbie had said only a few minutes ago. “She doesn’t matter.”

  I swallowed, almost believing it.

  Benson’s hand felt sweaty in my own.

  There was a throwing-up sort of feeling in my throat.

  I heard Benson’s ragged breaths at my side.

  An announcement came over the loudspeakers. Announcing us. The time had come.

  I stood up straight, thrust my breasts out. Benson did the same, his chest manly and strong and somehow bigger than it was three seconds ago. We shared a look. We were ready. We were more than ready! Everything in our lives had led to this point. Everything in Mexico City had led to this point. Marion Lewis and that appalling interview—where had she gone off to, anyway? Mom and Coach Bob screwing each other and then telling me about it. The Russians and their games. Meeting Baby Luke then losing his darling little sweater—which, by the way, I wasn’t over, but I must not, I would not dwell on it. Jim collapsing and scaring us all to death. Coach Debbie becoming Debbie, our lover. And, most of all, infusing every moment, my boyfriend, the love of my life—Benson.