Seduced by the Game

by editor Lisa Hollett

  “Shut up, George,” he grumbles. “She wants me. She’s just playing hard to get.”

  “Whatever,” I reply in a singsong voice, mocking him. Bryan and I get into a yellow cab, and I rattle off my address, thinking that Bryan can handle the rest of the trip on his own. However, he’s practically falling asleep against the windowpane, and I’m afraid that if I don’t do something, he’ll never be able to make it home safe and sound. Lord knows I won’t be able to live with myself if something happens to him. So I coax him out of the cab with me when we get to my place. “It’s okay, Bryan, you can sleep on my futon.”

  When we get inside, he looks tired and drunk, but there’s something else there, too. He looks drained, defeated, and sad, like the day has finally caught up to him, and his travels as well as the game and the mental effort have totally exhausted him. My heart feels for him; I may not really know him yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be empathetic. Maybe it’s because I’m drunk and my inhibitions are lowered, but I reach out for him again. It’s not that I don’t touch the other guys, because I do—but most of those are playful arm punches or nudges, the same way I treat my two older brothers. Something in Bryan calls out to me, calls out and begs me to comfort him, and alcohol has numbed my ability to think that maybe, quite possibly, this isn’t exactly appropriate.

  His body is toned and firm, and I can feel how strong he is. When I touch him, the heat he throws off warms me straight to my core. I fit up against him, like my body belongs right next to his.

  I don’t see a problem with this until it seems like Bryan misinterprets my gesture. As I wrap my arms around his middle and lift my head to say something to him, to say those magical words that I’ve been diligently searching for all day since I met him to erase the misery that’s written across his face, he puts my lips to use in a different way. He kisses me.

  * * * *

  I don’t know if this is something instinctual because I’m seeking a feel-good moment or if this could possibly be something else—something more. But when George puts her arms around me, I kiss her. It doesn’t involve any thinking whatsoever; I just do it. Only after my lips touch hers do I realize that I’ve made that move.

  Or maybe George has made the move, because she’s the one hugging me. She’s been close all day: picking me up from the airport as the first friendly face I saw in Dallas, arranging everything she could for me to help me transition to the Comets, and then just generally being a constant calming influence on me throughout the day with her presence, especially at the bar where I was sulking. When I met my new teammates and coaches, I felt like they were sizing me up and analyzing my every move. George wasn’t like that. She’s been encouraging, like she can already see my strengths and how I’m going to improve the team—because I will improve the team. She’s sure of it, which makes me kind of sure of it, too. Or at least it makes me want to be sure of it.

  Once we start kissing, we don’t stop. There’s no awkward pause in which we pull back and look at each other like we’re making sure that this is something we mutually like and want to keep doing. We just do it. I cup her face in my hands and kiss her without considering any potential consequences, because my brain doesn’t care about any of those silly things. All my brain cares about is forgetting where I am and what I’m doing here. And as I feel George’s body pressed again mine, the only thing I’m thinking about is how good it feels, how I want to do it some more, and how to take this further.

  As far as I’m concerned, there are no negative consequences. I’m consumed by the way I feel. It’s been a shitty two days, with getting the news of the trade on Monday and then traveling on Tuesday and immediately having to play, and my life has been completely turned upside down by the brutally few words it takes to deliver a devastating blow: “You’ve been traded.” So the fact that I can feel remotely okay, like my world isn’t crashing down around me, is a miracle in my eyes. If this is what it takes to make me feel human again, then I’ll do it. Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve had sex or had something sexual initiated that wasn’t routine and boring, which is a whole other ball of wax but no less motivation to see where this takes me.

  Her fingers knead into my back as I run my hands up from her ass to her soft breasts. The more I feel her, the more I want her. After all the stress of the day—packing, flying, playing, dancing—my body feels renewed and ready for anything. George grabs a handful of my dress shirt and pulls me in the direction of her bedroom. I guess I won’t be sleeping on her futon tonight. Which is great, because I don’t really like uncomfortable futons anyway, and my new bed at the townhouse isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing I’ve ever slept on either.

  It takes longer than expected for our drunk fingers to unthread buttons and disengage zippers, but we get each other naked. I’m so hard that it hurts. I reach between her legs and feel between her folds, and she bucks against me. George places her hand over mine and manipulates my fingers so I’m touching her how she wants to be touched. She presses the pads of two of my fingers against her clit and applies firm pressure. I like a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to demand it. She moans and writhes, so I know she’s enjoying herself. Once I get the hang of it, she lets go of my hand and grabs my cock again.

  That’s foreplay enough for me. I pant out, “Are you ready?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Do you have a—”

  “Here,” she says, reaching into her nightstand and producing a condom. I take it from her and roll it on. Then I push her down on the mattress, ready for the next phase. As she pushes herself up onto her hands and knees, I crawl up behind her and grab her hips. George sticks her ass out, and that’s all the invitation I need. I take my dick in one hand and aim it right toward her center.

  It feels so good once I’m inside her. She feels so good. Everything is just really, really good. When I mumble her name, I know I can’t call her by her nickname, because it would feel too weird to call out the name George when I’m inside of that person. And G just doesn’t feel right either. So instead I call her by her full name. “Georgiana.”

  “Bryan,” she whispers throatily, and it’s the best thing I’ve heard all night. Better than the shouts of my new head coach, better than the announcer introducing me to the team in the arena, and way better than the country music being played at the bar while I tried to learn to line dance. When I hear her say my name like that, it makes me wanna go all night and rock her world, but the alcohol has made me lethargic, and instead I want to gain maximum pleasure with minimum expenditure of energy.

  While I slide in and out of her and concentrate on how great she feels, so warm and wet and tight, George reaches down between our joined bodies and touches herself. I like that, because I want her to take her pleasure from this, too. In a matter of strokes, she’s panting and moaning and arching her back like she hasn’t had sex like this in a long time. She’s calling out my name, over and over again. I feel like a stud.

  My fingers dig into her soft flesh, holding on to her tightly as I pound away, moving in and out of her as fast as I can go. She tightens around me, and by sheer dumb luck we come together in a sweaty mess of contorted bodies. We collapse on the bed, drunk, exhausted, and sated. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out for the night.

  * * * *

  When I wake up in the morning, I wake up alone. At first, nothing seems wrong or out of sorts because my head is killing me and I have the worst hangover I’ve ever experienced. All I can possibly care about at that moment is drinking some water, popping a handful of ibuprofen capsules, and crawling back under my covers. I check out the time on the clock and deem that it would be best to consume my remedy and try to sleep some more, so that’s what I do.

  Except that plan kind of backfires on me. I can’t sleep even when the Motrin kicks in, because I remember that I told Bryan to sleep here with me instead of go back to the townhouse. And that he did more than just sleep here—he slept with me. Lord knows I’ve
never crossed that boundary before, sleeping with someone I work with, and I have no idea what ramifications will come from my actions. The most important thing, though, is that I’ve got to find out Bryan’s opinion on the whole matter. Will we chalk this up to a drunken mistake, or is it more than that? And, regardless of the answer to that question, what will we do about our working relationship?

  If I’m being honest with myself, I certainly wouldn’t mind doing that again. Not the getting drunk first part, but the sex with Bryan part. It had been a long, long time since I had sex that good and a while since I had had sex, period. Sex was like fast-food: when I first stopped having it, I missed it. But the longer I went without it, the more I forgot what it was like so I didn’t crave it as much anymore.

  It was just too hard to try to make a relationship work when the guys I met were all intimidated by my job as well as by the Dallas hockey players themselves. Any potential boyfriend would be worried either that the guys would come after him if he broke my heart or that there was something going on between me and at least one of the guys, like they couldn’t trust a woman who could work with a bunch of hockey players. But I always had a strict rule about being professional and not dating absolutely anyone I worked with. Well, at least I did. Now I’m not so sure. I’m awfully confused now.

  My alarm goes off, and I force myself out of bed, still feeling like hell. I shower and get ready for work. It’s supposed to be another warm day, so I’m left with the problem of trying to find something to hide the bite mark on my neck. Of all the things that I remember about last night, being bitten isn’t one of them. I choose a scarf to strategically cover the bruise and hope that no one questions my wardrobe selection during this February heat wave.

  When I get to work, Adam is waiting for me outside my office. He asks me what the plan is for Detroit.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him, opening my office and sinking into the seat behind my desk. I still feel like hell, and Adam is too much to handle sometimes when I’m completely sober and alert. “Why?”

  “I’m just checking. I want to know what time I need to catch the flight.” He’s smiling from ear to ear.

  “That’s great news, Adam!” I respond as enthusiastically as I can muster considering how badly my brain hurts. “It’ll be great to have you with the team again.”

  “Yeah, I’m really excited about it,” he begins to ramble. At some point, though, I tune him out. It’s not that I don’t care, because I do—I’ll be really glad to see lucky number seven back out on the ice, and we need all the intangibles that he brings to the team. When he notices that I’m no longer listening attentively, Adam asks, “Are you okay, George? You seem...I don’t know, off or something.”

  I mumble, “Sorry. I’m recovering from last night.”

  “Yeah, you were pretty drunk,” he laughs. I try to laugh, too, but I can’t. “I’ve never seen you like that before. It was kinda funny, I have to admit. Stock is pretty rough looking, too. I don’t know which of you is worse, but at least you don’t have to skate this morning.”

  Frowning, I don’t say anything more. I feel bad for Bryan because I can tell that he desperately wants to make a good impression on his new team—and he obviously didn’t feel like he was successful in doing that last night since the team lost—and showing up for practice hungover couldn’t really help his cause. Then again, I think to myself that maybe if he had stayed the whole night at my place instead of leaving at some point, he would have gotten more rest and might be less worse for wear.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Adam asks me again, a glint of concern in his eyes. It’s weird, seeing that expression from him.

  “Yeah, sure,” I tell him, crossing my fingers behind my back so he can’t see. Southern women don’t lie. “I’m just out of it.”

  * * * *

  When I wake up in the morning, I feel pretty good. I’m in a warm, soft bed with a beautiful woman. Her naked breasts press against my arm and her leg is entangled with mine. Ask any guy: there’s nothing better than this.

  I roll over, wanting to nuzzle my face in that mess of brown, curly hair. But her dark hair throws me for a loop—Corinne’s hair is blonde and straight. This isn’t Corinne. Shit. This is George. Shit fuck!

  Not only did I just have sex with someone involved with my new team, which could severely compromise the opportunity I’m supposed to have out here, but I also just cheated on my girlfriend. One night away from Corinne, and I sleep with someone else. I feel horrible. I am horrible. After all the persuading it took to have her come with me to Raleigh, I screw it up.

  The last thing I want to do is tell her and feel the wrath of her reaction, but it’s the first thing I do as I leave George’s apartment. I leave as quietly and as stealthily as possible because I can’t face George until I talk to Corinne. It’s early in Raleigh, but I know it can’t wait.

  “Bry? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” she asks immediately, knowing that something is wrong if I’m calling so early. There’s tension in her voice, maybe annoyance or worry—I can’t quite tell for sure.

  “No, Cory, baby, I’m sorry. I fucked up,” I confess in the cab, not even caring that the driver can hear me at my worst.

  “What happened?” She pauses, and when I don’t respond right away, she presses, “Come on, tell me. What is it?”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “But I...I had sex. With someone else.”

  She isn’t really angry or even disappointed with my actions or me. I could have been able to handle that, I think, if she had blown up at me or started crying over the phone. No, instead she’s resigned. Corinne sighs heavily into the phone and asks, “Who was it?”

  I don’t want to make excuses for myself. I’m not going to tell her that I was sad or upset or miserable at having to be in Dallas, or even that I’m struggling to cope or deal with being traded. But most of all I don’t want to drag George into this. George has done nothing but nice things for me and treated me with sympathy without making me feel ridiculously pathetic, and she doesn’t even know that I have a girlfriend. She had no part in this, so I’m not going to implicate her. “Someone I met yesterday. I’m really sorry, Cory, I want you to know that I feel horrible about this.”

  Corinne pauses for a long time. Finally, she tells me, “I need some time to think things out, Bryan. I’ll finish things up here for you but... I don’t know if I want to move to Dallas. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  The things she says to me ring in my ears. “What?” I’m stunned. “You don’t want to be with me?”

  “I would like to be with you, Bryan, but this is all so much. I moved with you to Raleigh because you asked me to, but I don’t like it here. And I don’t know if I can just pick up and follow you around wherever you get traded. And, to be quite honest with you, I don’t know how I feel about having to move to Texas.”

  “It’s...nice,” I say to her. Not that I really know; I haven’t seen much of the city.

  She huffs, “I don’t know anyone in Texas.”

  “You’d know me,” I say quietly, avoiding noticing that the driver’s looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve been thinking a lot about this since Monday and especially since you left yesterday. You’re so serious about the game now that you’ve gone pro, and it’s stopped being fun for me. I love you, Bryan, I love you lots, but I don’t know if this is really working out for me anymore. Things have never been as good as they were in college, and I think you know that, too.”

  Yeah, I know that. Life was different after Corinne had graduated from UND, but I figured our relationship had changed because we were maturing and becoming adults and that’s what adults do.

  Now I have a brand-new opportunity for me in Dallas, and I have to seize it. This is important; it’s my future. It’s not an easy transition, but trades take time. I’ll mesh with my new teammates. It would help to have my girlfriend with me, but not if she’s going to be upset and hold a gr
udge against me, like I’m forcing her to come with me. Especially since she’s already made it clear that she wasn’t happy in Raleigh, either.

  Corinne promises me that she’s going to think about the move some more and call me in a few days when she makes up her mind. However, I don’t hold out any hope that her decision is going change. I know it won’t. She also tells me to contemplate where my heart’s at, because she thinks I don’t really love her if I cheated on her on my first night away from her in Dallas. I assure her that I do in fact love her, but I don’t tell her that I think we’re not “in” love anymore. We just didn’t realize it until now. Maybe we can salvage our relationship though; we’ve been together for five years, and I’d hate to waste that. I try not to think about all that during practice, because I need to focus on what’s happening on the ice. After practice, I head into a lot of meetings with different coaches to learn all about the Dallas system.

  When that’s all said and done, I’m mentally exhausted. I really want to go back to the townhouse, but I have another stop to make. I head down the hallway toward George’s office even though, after the morning I’ve already endured, it’s the last thing I want to do. But I have to.

  * * * *

  There’s a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” I say, knowing before the door even opens that it’s going to be Bryan. I’ve been bracing myself all morning—especially when I knew that their practice was over—for this confrontation with him. But I’m still not prepared, although I don’t think I ever would be.

  He pokes his head in sheepishly and offers me a shy smile. “Hey. How’re you feeling this morning?”

  “Not so good,” I tell him honestly. My head’s still throbbing, and now my stomach’s in knots from worry and anxiety.

  “I brought you some Gatorade,” he tells me, placing the yellow bottle on my desk for me. It’s a nice gesture, to bring me something to make me feel better, but it says a lot already that he doesn’t hand it to me. He sets it down on my desk so I have to pick it up. I already feel like I know where this is headed. In some ways, I’m relieved, but in other ways, I’m sad—and also, I feel like I should have known this was going to happen since he wasn’t there when I woke up. I mean, men don’t usually run out of my bed first thing in the morning; southern men are more chivalrous and respectful than that.