by Ivy Smoak
"God, don't even talk about that shit." Kristen shook her head. "I think she's ready though. She just killed it in rehearsal. As long as you're out there to give her encouragement, I think she'll do great."
"But I'm not going to be out there. Not unless one of the other backup dancers gets hurt or doesn't show."
"Yes you are," said Tim. He had unzipped his morph suit and pulled the top down around his waist.
Kristen leaned on one of her crutches and fanned herself with her hand. "Now that's what the backup dancers should wear."
"Tim, I can't let you do that," I said. "I know how much doing this dance means to you. You're the better dancer, you should be out there."
Tim waved his hand dismissively. "No way. Trust me, you need to do this now. You being out there to support Alina gives us the best shot to bring home the gold."
"You sure?"
"Yes." Tim picked up the morph suit in front of my locker and tossed it to me. "Now suit up."
Chapter 34
Sunday
Alina
"It's starting," said Kristen. She turned up the volume on the TV mounted on the wall of our changing room.
It was a good thing I was scheduled to dance last, because Judy and Cindy were still working on my hair and makeup and I was still wearing my bathrobe. I turned my attention to the TV.
The cameras panned over the thousands of people in the audience cheering as Owen Harris walked out onto the stage. He was dressed in a tux rather than the suits he usually wore in the studio.
"Ladies and gentlemen," began Owen, "welcome to our final event here at the 2016 International Tournament of Athletes. Incredibly, after two weeks and over 900 medals, Brazil and the United States are both even with 41 gold, 27 silver, and 29 bronze. It would be against the spirit of the games to end with a tie, so we have the pleasure of seeing one final event: the strip dance."
Owen stopped and repeated everything he had just said in Portuguese before continuing.
"To ensure a proper level of competition, athletes from the five countries with the most medals will be competing. The order has been predetermined based on a random draw. Germany will go first, followed by Russia, China, Brazil, and the United States. The scoring will be determined by our panel of five esteemed judges. Each judge will give the performances two scores on a scale of one to ten. The first score will be for technical aspects and the difficulty of the dance routine. The second score will be for creativity and sensuality. The top and bottom scores for each category will be discarded, and then the total score will be the sum of the remaining scores. The maximum possible score is 60. In the event of a tie, all scores will be taken into account, including the highest and lowest in each category."
Owen again stopped to translate his speech to Portuguese and then the camera zoomed in on the first judge.
"At the judging table, we have Mi-sook Park from South Korea, famed instructor at the Seoul University of Performing Arts." Mi-sook Park nodded her head curtly.
"Next we have Dean Smith from South Africa, award winning choreographer for countless movies and music videos." Dean gave a toothy grin and turned around in his seat to wave to the crowd. He seemed a hell of a lot more fun than Mi-sook.
The final three judges were Leon Green, a Jamaican performer, Lucas Ramos, a TV personality on a Chilean dancing show, and Corinne Bellerose, editor-in-chief at a hoity-toity sounding French dance magazine.
"Done!" said Cindy, spinning my chair away from the TV so I could look in the mirror.
"Holy shit," I muttered. I barely recognized myself. My hair had been curled, but in a way that made it look a million times better than when I do it. And somehow Cindy had done my makeup to accentuate all my best features and make my imperfections disappear. She had turned my eyes into mini American flags by applying sparkly blue eye shadow and adding red and white striped eyelash extensions. She also made my lips appear way more full than they ever had before. My upper lip was blue with white stars, and my bottom lip was striped red and white.
"Wow, you look incredible," said Kristen.
"Can you guys always follow me around and do my hair and makeup all the time?" I asked.
My stylists smiled. "We're glad you like it."
"Ready to get dressed?" asked Annie.
"Yeah," I said. I got up and walked over to a raised platform in the center of the room. It seemed so fancy, like I was at one of those boutiques on the shows where girls try on $10,000 bridal gowns.
Annie untied my robe and hung it up on a hanger, leaving my completely naked. I didn't know if I should cover myself or not. Is it rude to have my tits everywhere? Or will it make everyone uncomfortable if I act like it's a big deal and cover myself?
Before I could come to a conclusion, Annie handed me a lacy blue thong. It didn't cover much, but it was better than me standing here completely naked.
Then Annie grabbed two sparkly blue stars about two inches wide and peeled some white paper off the back of them.
"Are those pasties?" I asked.
"Yup."
"If you think I'm going to prance around stage wearing pasties, you're crazy. Taking my bra off isn't part of the dance."
Annie laughed. "Well that would certainly get the judges attention. But no, that's not what they're for. They're more of an insurance policy against any unfortunate accidents. Things can move around when you're dancing. Wouldn't you rather everyone get a peak at one of these blue stars than at your nipples?"
Oh God. I was already nervous enough about this performance. Now I had to add a nip slip to my list of horrible things that might happen. "Yeah, I guess so."
Annie positioned the stars on my nipples, somehow without actually touching my breasts. "Hold those there for twenty seconds."
I reached up and pressed the stars onto my nipples. It felt so strange having them there. While I held them in place, Annie pulled a lacy blue push up bra off of a hanger and brought it over to me.
"Arms out," she said.
I put my arms out and she slid the bra onto me. Then she went around and hooked it in the back. Next came the red and white striped garter belt and stockings. One of the stockings was red and the other was white.
Annie took a step back and admired her handy work. She tilted her head and tapped her finger against her lips. "Can you pull your garter belt down a bit on the left? And adjust your breasts."
"You mean push them up?" I thought I knew what she was talking about, but I didn't want to be awkward and grab my boobs unless that was what she wanted me to do.
She nodded.
I tugged on my garter belt and then reached into each of my cups and pulled my breasts up. I hadn't looked in a mirror yet, but just from looking down I could tell that this was the best pushup bra ever. My cleavage had never looked this good before.
"Perfect," said Annie. "Alright, Cindy, time to work your magic."
"Huh?" I asked. "I thought my makeup was already done?"
Cindy walked over and put a few makeup containers and brushes on the floor next to me. "Your face is done, but you still need a little body makeup. Believe me, you'll like how it looks."
"Body makeup? That's a thing?" I looked at Kristen.
She shrugged.
"I'm just going to add some foundation and highlight a few areas," said Cindy as she brushed make-up onto my legs and ass. Then she added a few strokes with a different brush around my ass and blended the lines with some sort of sponge thing. The next area she focused on was my cleavage. When I looked down a second later, my boobs looked even bigger.
"Whoa," said Kristen. "Can you teach me how to do that?"
Cindy smiled. "It's pretty simple. It's like face contouring, only for your body. I'm sure you can find a tutorial on YouTube."
"Alright, ready to put your dress on?" asked Annie. She had already taken it off the hanger.
"Wait, this is what I'm stripping down to?" I twisted my neck to look back at my ass. The thong covered nothing. Oh my God. No.
; "Yup," said Annie.
"You look freaking hot," said Kristen.
"But...my ass is everywhere. Are you sure I'm not supposed to wear some boy shorts instead? This seems wildly inappropriate."
"Asses aren't a big deal in Brazil," said Annie. "Thongs are just the norm for bikinis down here. Anyway, I'm just following Tim's orders."
I turned to Kristen. "You need to have a talk with your man. Why did he want to show your ass to everyone?"
"He's just doing his best to make us win. You really think Gabriela isn't going to be strutting around in a thong? Hell, we'll be lucky if she keeps her underwear on."
"Fuck my life." As much as I hated to admit it, Kristen was right. We needed to go all out to beat Gabriela, because Gabriela would sure as hell do whatever it takes to beat us. Like bribing the refs in the final. So many shitty calls...
"For what it's worth, your ass looks beautiful," said Kristen. "Cindy did an awesome job. Go look in the mirror."
"Do I have to?"
"Yes. Go look."
I stepped off the platform and got between the mirrors. "Damn," I said. Somehow, Cindy had made all of the stretch marks on my ass disappear. I still wasn't comfortable mooning millions of people, but at least it would be slightly less mortifying than I anticipated.
I got back on the platform and Annie helped me slip into my dress. Then she helped me strap my blue stilettos on, slid some red, white, and blue bracelets on my wrists, and put dangly earrings in each of my earlobes.
"All done," said Annie with a smile.
I carefully stepped off the platform and walked back to the mirror. I didn't want to twist my ankle like Kristen had. Or maybe I should to get out of this horrible performance. The thought was tempting, but I couldn't do it. I had to beat Gabriela.
I looked in the mirror and twirled around. The blue dress was covered in sparkles, had a super deep V neckline, and had slits practically up to my hips. If I wasn't going to strip it off anyway, I would have been horrified at how revealing it was.
"You have to admit," said Kristen, "Tim has a great eye for fashion."
"His eye for fashion was never what was in question." I turned to my three stylists. "Thank you so much for all the magic you three just pulled off. I've never felt so pretty in my entire life."
"You look beautiful," said Cindy. Judy nodded in agreement.
"You're going to do awesome," agreed Annie.
Kristen smiled at me. "Time to go win gold."
Chapter 35
Sunday
Alina
"By the way, there's a high probability that you'll be totally freaked out by Bryce's outfit," said Kristen as we approached the door to go backstage.
"Oh God. Did Tim put all the backup dancers in man thongs?" A picture of Bryce wearing a man thong flashed through my head. "Actually, maybe that wouldn't be so bad."
"Uh, not quite."
I held the door open for Kristen and then went through. I immediately saw what she was talking about. In the corner, Tim was leading a group of men in American flag morph suits doing jumping jacks.
"Please tell me that's not them," I said.
"Who else would it be?"
"Fair enough. How do I know which one's Bryce?"
"Just look for whichever one gets a boner first when they see you. Those suits don't exactly provide much coverage down there."
My eyes immediately gravitated to their crotches. Kristen was right - I could see a pretty clear outline of all their packages. So that's why Tim chose these suits.
One of them turned to look at me. "Hey, eyes up here," he said.
"I'm sure she would say the same thing to you if she could see where your eyes were looking under that creepy mask," said Kristen.
The guy shrugged. "Alina, you look stunning."
"I hope you're Bryce," I said.
He laughed. "Of course I'm Bryce. How could you not recognize me?" He gestured toward his morph suit.
"Maybe because all I can see is the outline of your penis?"
"Then after the dance we need to get you more familiar with that part of me." Bryce didn't bother to hide the fact that he was looking me up and down.
"Just because I'm dressed like a whore doesn't mean you're going to get lucky," I said and touched his arm. I would never get tired of feeling his biceps. Despite my playful banter, Bryce was 100 percent getting lucky tonight.
"How else would we celebrate you crushing Gabriela?" He put his hand on the side of my face.
I wished I could see his eyes. They always seemed to comfort me. And I was so nervous. "Good point. Did her scores come in yet?"
"No, I think she's still dancing. Let's take a peek." Bryce pulled me towards the curtain and pushed it aside the tiniest bit to give us a look out on stage.
We were on the side of the stage rather than the back, so I couldn't see the audience, but I had a perfect view of Gabriela dancing around like a slut with a bunch of shirtless, oiled up men. Shockingly, she still had her skirt and her bra on, but it took all of three seconds for her to go to center stage and rip her skirt off. Her thong was just as revealing as mine, but she made it way worse by immediately turning around and doing some samba move that made her ass jiggle all over the place. As much as I hated to admit it, she was a great dancer.
"Ew," I said. Shit, does Bryce like watching this? "You better not have a boner right now."
"If he doesn't now, he definitely will after he sees your lingerie," said Kristen.
I turned around and looked at Bryce's package. He put his hands up to prove that he wasn't getting turned on. "Don't worry, Gabriela's disgusting."
I smiled at him. "Good boy."
"Kristen's right though," said Bryce. "I'm not sure how long I'll be able to contain myself when you're out there dancing."
"Are you sure you're okay with me doing this? I'm basically going to show the entire world my ass."
"I want you to do whatever it takes to beat Gabriela, even if it means showing the entire world your ass. They can look all they want, but as soon as the performance is over, it's all mine."
I swallowed hard. "How soon after the performance?" I asked with a wink.
He shrugged. "I dunno. I might not be able to wait for you to get off stage." He put his hands on my hips.
Oh my God. Is he serious? He seems kind of serious.
"Alright you two," said Kristen. "Keep it in your pants for another five minutes. I think Gabriela's performance is almost over."
I looked back out through the curtains just in time to see Gabriela unclip her bra and throw it into the audience. She shimmied for a second and then turned back around to walk back to center stage. I was happy to see that she was at least wearing pasties and hadn't just completely flashed the judges. No one seemed to care, but it was pretty obvious that her tits were fake. Just like everything about her.
She danced around a little more and then finished by making out with one of her dancers.
"I hope that guy realizes he just contracted AIDS," said Kristen.
As soon as the music stopped, Gabriela put her arm over her chest and laughed like she was actually embarrassed to be half naked on stage. Owen Harris came out and was about to start talking when a hand on my shoulder pulled me away from the curtain.
"What are you three doing?!" asked Tim. He looked exasperated. "I've failed as a teacher if you don't know that you should never watch the performance right before yours. You should have been meditating."
"Sorry, I just wanted to see the competition," I said. "Do you know what scores the other girls got?"
"China forgot about the whole strip part of the dance and ended up with a score in the low twenties. Germany got a 37 and Russia got a 41. Those are good scores, but they're both beatable with the routine we have planned."
"Good, because there's no way I'm walking away with anything less than gold."
"That's the spirit. Okay, one quick thing before we begin. You know how we practiced ripping shirts open for that one part?
"
"Yes."
"Well, instead of that, during that part you're going to pull these tabs." Tim felt around on Bryce's morph suit until he located a little piece of fabric sticking out. "Got it?"
I reached out and felt the tab Tim was talking about. "Yeah, okay."
"Great. Kristen, take Alina to the curtain behind center stage. Bryce, follow me. I have a last minute change I want to go over with you."
"What's the last minute..." I started, but Tim had already pulled Bryce away. Not only was I curious about the last minute change, but I had hoped for a few final words of encouragement from Bryce.
I walked with Kristen around the perimeter of curtains until we were on the spot marked as center stage. I peered through the curtain to look for Gabriela's scores on the jumbotron, and... Holy fucking shit. The auditorium had been intimidating when it was empty, but now that it was completely full, it was a million times worse. Kristen was right that I couldn't see the faces of the audience, but I could still tell that they were there. The cameras were just as intimidating. Not only were they showing HD close-ups on massive TV screens mounted on the wall, but they were broadcasting those same images to millions of people around the world. My knees started to feel weak and I grabbed onto Kristen, nearly knocking her over.
"Oh God," I said.
"What's wrong? Shit, did she get a perfect score?"
"What? No. I didn't see her score. I just saw the crowd. Kristen, that's so many people. How am I going to do this?"
"Alina, you're going to be amazing. Just focus on hitting your first few moves and you'll be fine. Now, let's figure out what scores Gabriela got so you know what you have to beat."
Kristen and I looked out through the curtains again and located her scores on the jumbotron. It wasn't broken down by judge, but it was split into the two categories. She scored 28 out of 30 for technical difficulty, and only 15 out of 30 for creativity and sensuality.
"Damn," said Kristen. "Only 15 for sensuality after she pulled her tits out and made out with someone?"
I shrugged and scanned the other scores. Gabriela had scored the highest of anyone for sensuality. The Chinese girl had only scored a 4 in that category, and the other girls both had sensuality scores in the low teens. "It looks like that's the best score yet in that category though. And overall she's winning with 43 out of 60 total points."