Two Skid Marks

by April Ryder

  I waggled my soiled shoe in his direction and whimpered pathetically. He jumped back, afraid I would use it to assault him with.

  "Is that poo?"

  I nodded forlornly.

  "On your shoe?"

  "Poo shoe," I confirmed. "I have poo shoe."

  "Who did that?" he asked, eyes glued on my shoe, just in case.

  "I don't know," I replied and started wobbling. I couldn't put my foot down, not unless I wanted to spread it around. Sharing would not be caring in this case.

  Adam eased me against the wall so I wouldn't fall over and rushed into my apartment. He came back out with a pair of cute sandals that I had forgotten I owned—they were about two years old—and ordered me to change my footwear. I dropped them on the floor and stepped into them. Once that had been settled, we locked up and he rolled my stinky mat up and dumped it in one of the rubbish bins on our way out to his car.

  "Get in," he said as he rushed around to the driver's side. "Come on, we can still make it."

  "Pancakes?" I asked, ever hopeful.

  "Sorry sweetie," he told me with a shake of his head, "But shit happens."

  * * *

  Friday night arrived way too fast. Adam had to push me into the team's changing room. He pried my fingers one a time from the doorway as second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts wracked me. One of the other newbies sat sullenly on a bench, half-dressed in her costume. She looked like she would puke and I knew if she did I would be right behind her, face-first in a loo. The other newbie didn't seem bothered at all. She happily chatted with anyone near her, grinning all the while. But the closer I got the more I saw the cracks in her facade. Of the three of us, she would be the first to blow chunks. We were all doomed.

  Hello Kilty took pity on us—or rather saw easy targets. I swear I saw her rub her hands together in glee, channelling her inner Mr. Burns.

  "Skid Marks!" she called, singling me out from the small herd. She unzipped her bag and handed me various articles of clothing. "It's your costume. Put it on."

  I looked down at the girl on the bench who still sat frozen, in the middle of putting on her fishnet stockings. Rather her than me. She had the right shape for them. I think I remembered her being christened Ms. Skellington at practice. A Halloweeny pseudonym, but still preferable to my unfortunate nickname. Damn the dick…

  I drew in a deep breath before I unfolded my costume. How bad could it be?

  "Oh my God," I murmured as I held up the uber-short, pleated skirt. My knickers covered more of me than the skirt ever would. Then it got worse. The white shirt they wanted me to wear had…well, it looked like a car had run over it. Black tyre tracks adorned the front and back. What was worse was how shear the material looked under lighting.

  I looked at Kilty, gobsmacked. "You told me to wear red underwear."

  She nodded. "Yeah, it'll totally go with the skirt."

  I could tell that Kilty didn't understand what I was trying to tell her. "And a red bra."

  "Oh," she said but it still took a moment for that to sink in. "Ohhh."

  "I'm wearing a red bra too," the chirpy newbie added.

  Kilty placed her hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eye and tried to reassure me. "The tyre marks will hide most of it. Don't worry. You'll look hot. Just trust me, okay?"

  What choice did I have? Besides, the only person I knew who would see me was my bestie. He wouldn't make fun of me. Well, he would, but he wouldn't mean it. And if he did, I'd find a way to get my revenge. Or he would buy me pancakes and I'd forget my grudge.

  I nodded reluctantly and Kilty smiled, obviously relieved. She left me to deal with Chirpy. I moved away to get changed, because if that girl did blow I didn't want to be in the line of fire. Seeing other people's bodily fluids sometimes made me puke. So if she started there would be no stopping me. I could almost see the puke going back and forth like a tennis match. Even thinking about it made me gag.

  Dressed, with skates and safety equipment on, we lined up. Ms. Skellington had unfrozen, Chirpy—while still looking a bit green—had stopped flapping around. Pretty Vicious stood before us and I waited for the expected tirade. But she said nothing, and didn't call us names or liken us to maggots, genitals, or anything like that. Instead—and now this did surprise me—she hugged each of us in turn.

  When she reached me, she murmured in my ear, "If we don't win I'll blame you."

  My eyes bugged out of my head. The newbies looked just as shocked and I wondered if we had all received the same pep talk.

  Pretty clapped her hands together and ordered our sorry fat arses out. I turned and followed the line as it snaked through the door and into the raucous noise of the stadium. I hesitated but had no chance to back out now as the girl behind me jabbed me in the kidney, forcing me to skate out into the bright lights of the derby.

  The crowd cheered and the sound was deafening. I thought I caught glimpses of faces as we did warm-up laps around the rink but after a while became a blur. The fear I had initially felt melted away with each crossover of my outer leg. One face did jump out at me though, and I just about tripped over my stopper in surprise. Jake sat front and centre with perhaps half the hockey team around him. So much for Adam being the only one I knew to see my make a fool of myself.

  "Skid Marks!" someone yelled.

  I cringed and tried to ignore whoever it was. But they were insistent and not only that, others had taken to calling out my derby name as well.

  With an annoyed sigh, I looked around. My gaze landed on the opposing team—The Wicked B*tches of West Auckland. I'll leave it to your imagination as to why they had named themselves that. One hint: they were from West Auckland.

  One of the girls slowly ran her finger across her throat as she stared daggers at me.

  "Holy shit."

  "Ignore them," Kilty told me.

  I did my best but failed miserably, so she grabbed my hand and hustled me off the rink to our seats where we waited for the referees to check the track and the announcers to explain the rules and introduce the teams.

  Pretty looked at us sternly and waited for an explanation. Kilty, thankfully, answered for me.

  "Looks like your ex has it in for Skids."

  I was taken aback by that revelation. The woman who had mimed slicing her throat was the same one who had left Pretty for a man. Pretty snarled at the mention of her ex and I internally eeped when I saw her claws flash. Why was I not surprised by the fact her fingernails had pointy ends on them? This girl was aptly named.

  "Don't worry," Pretty told me. "If she does anything to you, I'll cut her."

  I gulped and surreptitiously located the nearest exits in case I had to make a run for it. That wasn't comforting at all.

  I was going to die.

  The derby started and Pretty had me sit out the first couple of jams. It seemed I wasn't the only one the B*tches had it in for. That or this was how they approached all matches. It was nothing like the match against the Manukau Maulers. No, that team was tame in comparison. Tonight the Selby Slammers were getting slammed by the B*tches. They hadn't yet drawn blood but they still had heaps of time to do that. Several of their skaters were sin binned early, leaving them with a skeleton team on the rink, which made things easier for our blockers and allowed us to accumulate heaps of points when it was our jam. But I couldn't sit on the bench forever. Pretty knew that and so did the B*tches.

  Pretty's hand was finally forced after the first injury. Chirpy landed on her chin after tumbling over a B*tch who had fallen in front of her. While the refs argued whether she had fallen on purpose, Kilty helped Chirpy to the St. John's ambulance officers for first aid. Chirpy looked fine but a little shaken.

  As for me, I almost shit my red knickers when Pretty called me to take Chirpy's place. I skated into the group, happy to see that the girl who the refs now agreed had fallen deliberately had been sent to the sin bin. I wasn't so happy to see her staring straight at me as she sank to one knee at the side of the rink and waite
d. Biding her time.

  The whistle blew, startling me. I pushed forward on one stopper and managed to keep up with the rest of my team. We were densely packed, allowing elbows to be freely thrown by both sides. When Adam had taken me to my first derby the other week, we had sat in the stands, which meant I had missed seeing the violence. But now that I was in the midst of it, feeling the tension and aggression wash over me, I found it intoxicating. I could see how easy it was to lose yourself and be swept up in the moment—and I was. Normally I would never have thought of body slamming someone, but I did it. I did it without a second or even first thought. The primal part of my brain had control. I was acting on instinct and no matter how hard they came at me, I came back harder. Any shit they gave me, I gave it back just as good.

  Blood pumped through my ears so loud that it drowned out the crowd. The adrenaline high I rode kept me going, and before I knew it I had survived five jams. I was pissed at being ordered off for a rest but that was short-lived.

  Kilty slapped my helmet and waited for me to lock eyes with her. "Pretty wants you to jam next. You up for it?"

  She was giving me a choice. It was my first derby and we both knew the other team had it out for me, but this team—my team—needed me. Half our regular jammers were either sin binned or sidelined due to injury.

  "I can do it," I told her and I really did believe it.

  "Good."

  I skated back onto the rink, brushing low fives into the hands of my blockers as I coasted past and took my place behind them. The B*tch's jammer snarled like an animal next to me and I did my best to ignore her scare tactics. I chewed on my mouthguard as we tried to get our stoppers in front of each other before the jammer whistle blew.

  I wiped sweat from my nose with my wrist as time slowed. My breath came in short bursts through my mouth. I stood like the Flash frozen in midstride. My whole body tensed except my right knee, which shook uncontrollably.

  Finally the shriek of the jamming whistle pierced the air and time collapsed on itself, back to normal. I sprang into action, putting as much force as I could into pushing off. The only thing I hadn't counted on was no one else moving. For a split second I thought I had misheard the whistle but then I saw my blockers skating away around the bend. The B*tches had remained in place, keeping themselves between me and the relative safety of my team. They had surprised us all and I was trapped.

  I desperately tried to skate around them but they stepped right into my path but I couldn't stop. I flashbacked to when I had skittled Rick and whimpered. This would hurt. I smashed into them with so much force that I took most of them down with me. Those that I hadn't, dogpiled on top, squishing me into the rink. They were definitely heavier than Rick and they smelled worse too.

  I started to panic. They were too heavy and I couldn't breathe. Arms and legs were everywhere. I never thought it would end this way, asphyxiated by a pile of girls in short skirts and skates.

  The weight on top of me might have lessened and I think I heard yelling but that might have been the lack of oxygen getting to my brain. The bright lighting of the stadium suddenly blinded me as the last stinky body was removed.

  I gulped in precious air and starred dumbly up at Jake.

  "Is it time for the hockey?" I asked, not sure what he was doing on the rink. "I want to watch you—I mean—it."

  Someone out of my view snorted and I knew it was Rick. I let Jake lift me to my wobbly feet, still not sure what was going on. It took a moment for the scene around me to come into focus. I was right, it had been Rick who had snorted. He currently had his hands full with Pretty, who bared her teeth at one of the B*tches. I wasn't surprised to find it was her ex. The refs looked just as dazed as I was. I counted four other members of the men's hockey team corralling players or helping the rest of the B*tches to their feet.

  "Are you all right, Princess?" Jake asked.

  I stared up starry-eyed—from my near-death experience or because I was lust-struck—at him. He was perhaps the only sane person on the rink.

  I said the first thing that came to mind. "Why are you so hot?"

  He smiled and slowly escorted me back to the Slammers side of the rink. "I don't know," he said, humouring me. "I spend a lot of time in the gym, though."

  "That's probably it."

  He paused before easing me into my seat. "I've never met a girl like you. You're different."

  "Oh," I said and dreaded where this was going. I reached under my chair for my water bottle and took a fortifying slug of what I was surprised to find was vodka.

  "I kinda like it," he said then thumped me hard on the back as I coughed and spluttered on my unexpected sports drink.

  "Oh good," I wheezed. No matter what anyone tells you, that stuff is not smooth. "I kinda like it too—I mean, you. I like you!"

  And of course, half my team heard my admission. Some egged me on while others—mostly the other jammers—glared daggers at me. Just what I needed, more enemies.

  Thankfully one of the refs skated over and gave us a quick heads-up on what was going to happen next, ending the figurative death threats.

  "We've got five minutes left on the first half, so we're gonna finish them then break for fifteen. Got any objections?" he asked.

  When everyone shook their heads he nodded and zipped back to the other refs who congregated in the centre of the rink.

  The men were forced off the rink and back into the audience and I was grateful to be sitting out the rest of this half.

  "Them be crazy bitches," one of my teammates muttered as we watched the last five minutes play out. I couldn't agree with her more.

  The end of the first half was a joke. One of the blockers for the B*tches had been disqualified and the rest—save for two—were sin binned. So for the majority of those five minutes, the Slammers were the only ones scoring points. There was no way the two blocker B*tches could stop the Slammers' jammer and we eased into the lead when the halftime whistle was blown.

  I had fifteen minutes to find Jake and try to explain to him what I had meant when I'd blurted out that I liked him. Instead of finding Jake though, I found several of the B*tches lying in wait for me. They bustled me into an empty changing room and set their evil sights on me.

  The one who had non-verbally threatened to slit my throat—who was incidentally also Pretty's ex—stepped forward. She wasn't as big as me but she had a hardness in her eyes that told me she could easily take me. Tonight had been my first taste of violence, but she was a hardened criminal in comparison.

  I found my voice and tried to work out just what the hell was going on here. "What the hell is going on? Why have you got it in for me? This is my first match—"

  "You're a slut," she said.

  I blinked rapidly. "What?"

  "You fucked my boyfriend."

  More blinking as I tried to make sense of what I was being told. "Paul is your boyfriend?" She didn't look anything like the blonde stick insect Adam had described.

  "Who the fuck is Paul?"

  Now both of us were confused.

  "My ex fiancé. He left me for another woman. And he's the only man I've ever um…had sex with."

  "You lying bitch!" she said and jammed her hand into a pocket.

  I flinched, expecting her to pull out a knife or something. Instead, out came a cell phone. She tapped at it and to my horror I heard myself—on loudspeaker—having a very familiar orgasm.

  The girl looked smug as she watched my reaction. I could feel the all-over blush of embarrassment.

  "I can explain," I said.

  She raised an eyebrow and dared me to try.

  "I…have you ever used a detachable showerhead on yourself…down there?"

  A few of the girls behind her nodded. I saw one click as to where I was going with this.

  "Well, the disabled shower stall has one and I, um…this is really embarrassing…called him Jake. So technically the only one I was cheating on was Shawn."

  "Who's Shawn?" she asked, looking mo
re confused than before.

  "That's the name of my shower at home."

  I held my breath as she glared at me. "Is that what you were doing the other morning? Wanking in the shower?"

  "What? The other morning? Wait, are you the one who pooped on my welcome mat?"

  "No. Maybe. Yeah. Dammit," she sighed and shoved the phone back in her pocket. "I can't believe I dumped him over a recording of you wanking in a shower."

  "You broke up with who?" I asked but then realisation hit. "You're Jake's girlfriend?"

  "Was," she corrected. "He won't take me back. Not after I took a dump in his car."

  "You took—never mind," I said stunned at the lengths this girl had gone to over a perceived wrong. Perhaps I should have pooped on Paul but the opportunity had never presented itself, and I'm not that creative.

  "I suppose I should apologise," she said.

  "You believe me?" I asked then mentally kicked myself.

  "Yeah, what you said about your ex. Trish had told me about him. Real scumbag. She tried to tell me you'd be the last to steal another girl's man. I should have listened."

  "Wait, you're Trish from work's derby friend?"

  She clapped a hand on my shoulder and assured me that, "The second half will be clean. But don't take that to mean we'll go easy on you. We're the Wicked B*tches of West Auckland, after all. We have a reputation to maintain."

  The B*tches left me alone in the changing room and I tried to understand what had happened. I had no idea that the derby and hockey teams had such incestuous relationships. It did, however, mean that Jake was currently single. But that could wait for now. I had something more important to deal with first. Someone had recorded me in the shower last week. Someone had recorded me calling out Jake's name as I came. Then somehow Jake's girlfriend had gotten it. They were responsible for the pain my fellow Slammers and I had suffered at the hands of the B*tches. They were the reason I had poo shoe!

  My anger boiled over to nuclear. Only one person who had been in the changing room other than me. The Dick. He was a dead man.