Girls Who Score

by Ily Goyanes

  “Relax,” Claudia says after the fact. “I took a crash course in crashing.”

  I open my eyes again. Claudia is in my lap, one leg wedged beneath my thigh, the other lounging in my lap. It looks like we’re scissoring.

  Claud grins, readjusts her helmet. She’s wearing her uniform now: Tin Man–silver shorts and a dove-colored tank top. Starlight Express meets Xanadu. It’s practical, though, if not carefully calculated to show off her clout and her curves.

  “It’s my turn to warm up.”

  I didn’t wait my turn to warm up. “Break a…uh…um, drive safely?” Jeez, I didn’t mean to get so het up over that getup.

  Claudia gets to her feet and takes me with her. “See you during halftime,” she chuckles, and pecks my cheek. “Enjoy!”

  Before retreating to my seat, I order lemonade from the concession stand, and by the time the bout begins, I’m no longer in a jam, although Claudia is. That’s what’s supposed to happen, she says—if I remember correctly, each thirty-minute play period consists of two-minute jams, during which the skaters score points. Claud’s a blocker, which I guess means she’s supposed to block her…and her…and, yeah, the rest of the details are kind of fuzzy. But Claud’s glowing, so either she’s having a blast or her team is doing great. From the looks of the scoreboard, both assessments are accurate.

  I try to relax and enjoy. The game is so theatrical. The choreography is amazing—the way the pack of players careens around the track like a human roller coaster. After ten minutes, I’m cheering for Claud, not fearing for her.

  I want a better view. I want to be able to keep track of Claudia. I move out of my seat and into one that’s closer.

  God, she looks beautiful out there, all nerve and verve, hustle and muscle. I can see why she likes this sport so much—it promotes agility over fragility, demands physical strength and strength of character. I love the way her body moves: wending and bending and sending her opponents offtrack.

  But it’s not brutal. It’s…hot.

  Claudia’s movements may be propelling her around the track, but they’re also impelling my one-track mind, and by halftime, I’m half crazed with longing.

  “What do you think?” Claudia asks, draping her arm across my shoulders. She’s panting and perspiring. That makes two of us.

  “You’re doing a bang-up job,” I answer, clapping her on the backside.

  Claud blushes a bit. “Thanks.” She removes one wrist pad and takes my cup of lemonade.

  “I can think of better ways to swap spit,” I remark as she pokes the straw between her lips.

  Claud’s eyebrows head toward her helmet. “Are you okay, Val?”

  My fingers make their way under Claud’s tank top and crawl up her back, as if she’s a hand puppet. “I’m a little…libidinous.”

  This cracks Claud up. “I blame myself. I’m the one who told you to enjoy the game. I probably should have set some limits on that, huh?”

  My gaze zips around the field house. Where can we…? There! An abandoned booth. One of the vendors didn’t show, I guess. The booth is pushed up against a wall and dressed in a long, purple table skirt. “Perfect!”

  I grab Claud’s hand. She has to speed skate just to keep up with me. “You’re no sissy, missy,” she murmurs as I pull her inside our frilly fort.

  My body is a spiral of sensations, lust whooshing and whipping and whooping it up. I shove my hand into her shorts, head straight for her cunt.

  “You’re rough,” she says, as my fingers collide with her clit.

  “That’s tough,” I say, though it sounded more like a compliment than a complaint.

  Claud rips my zipper open, jams her hand inside my jeans.

  The combustion continues, intensifies, until we’re reduced to smashing lips and thrashing hips.

  “I’m really glad I came.” Claudia giggles. I do the same. “To the game,” I clarify, and we giggle some more.

  Claud taps the cap of her kneepad, leaving behind a damp dot. “What was that all about, anyway?”

  I finger the straps of her helmet. “Your wheels were spinning,” I answer, my knuckles nuzzling her chin, “and so were mine.”

  THE OUTSIDE EDGE

  Sacchi Green

  Suli was fire and wine, gold and scarlet, lighting up the dim passageway where we waited.

  I leaned closer to adjust her Spanish tortoiseshell comb. A cascade of dark curls brushed my face, shooting sparks all the way down to my toes, but even a swift, tender kiss on her neck would be too risky. I might not be able to resist pressing hard enough to leave a dramatic visual effect the TV cameras couldn’t miss.

  Tenderness wasn’t what she needed right now and neither was passion. An edgy outlet for nervous energy would be more like it. “Skate a clean program,” I murmured in her ear, “and maybe I’ll let you get dirty tonight.” My arm across her shoulders might have looked locker-room casual, but the look she shot me had nothing to do with team spirit.

  “Maybe, Jude? You think maybe you’ll let me?” She tossed her head. Smoldering eyes, made even brighter and larger by theatrical makeup, told me that I’d need to eat my words later before my mouth could move on to anything more appealing.

  The other pairs were already warming up. Suli followed Tim into the arena, her short scarlet skirt flipping up oh-so-accidentally to reveal her firm, sweet ass. She wriggled, daring me to give it an encouraging slap, knowing all too well what the rear view of a scantily clad girl does for me.

  I moved into the stadium and watched the action from just outside the barrier. As Suli and Tim moved onto the ice, the general uproar intensified. Their groupies had staked a claim near one end, and a small cadre of my own fans were camped out nearby, having figured out over the competition season that something was up between us. Either they’d done some discreet stalking or relied on the same gaydar that had told them so much about me even before I’d fully understood it myself. Probably both.

  Being gay wasn’t, in itself, a career-buster these days. Sure, the rumormongers were eternally speculating about the men in their sequined outfits, but the skating community was united in a compact never to tell, and the media agreed tacitly never to ask. A rumor of girl-on-girl sex would probably do nothing more than inspire some fan fiction in certain blogging communities. That didn’t mean there weren’t still lines you couldn’t cross in public, especially in performance—lines I was determined, with increasing urgency, to cross once and for all.

  But I didn’t want to bring Suli down if I fell. That discussion was something we kept avoiding, and whenever I tried to edge toward it she’d distract me in ways I couldn’t resist.

  Suli’s the best, I thought now in the stadium, watching her practice faultless jumps with Tim. You’d never guess what she’d been doing last night with me, while the other skaters were preparing for the performance of their lives with more restful rituals. She’d already set records in pairs skating, and next year, at my urging, she was going to go solo. It was a good thing I wouldn’t be competing against her.

  I won’t be competing against anybody, I thought, my mind wandering as the warm-up period dragged on.

  It had taken me long enough to work it out, focusing on my skating for so many years, but the more I appreciated the female curves inside those scanty, seductive costumes, the less comfortable I was wearing them. Cute girls in skimpy outfits were just fine with me—bodies arched in laybacks, or racing backward, glutes tensed and pumping, filmy fabric fluttering in the breeze like flower petals waving to the hungry bees—but I’d rather see than be one.

  I’d have quit mainstream competition if they hadn’t changed the rules to allow long-legged “unitards” instead of dresses. That concession wasn’t enough to make me feel really comfortable, though, and I knew my coach was right that some judges would hold it against me if I didn’t wear a skirt at least once in a while. This year I’d alternated animal-striped unitards with a Scottish outfit just long enough to preserve the mystery of what a Scotsman
wears under his kilt, assuming that he isn’t doing much in the way of spins or jumps or spirals. I knew this for certain, having experimented in solitary practice with my own sturdy six inches of silicone pride.

  So why not just switch to the Gay Games? Or follow Rudy Galindo and Surya Bonaly to guest appearances on SkateOut’s “Cabaret on Ice”?

  If you have a shot at the Olympics, the Olympics are where you go, that’s why. Or so I’d thought. But I was only in fifth place after the short program—maybe one or two of the judges weren’t that keen on bagpipe music—and a medal was too long a shot now.

  I knew, deep down, what the problem was. Johanna, the coach we shared, had urged me to study Suli’s style in hopes that some notion of elegance and grace might sink into my thick head. Suli had generously agreed to try to give me at least a trace of an artistic clue. But the closer we became, the more I’d rebelled against faking a feminine grace and elegance that were so naturally hers, and so unnatural for me.

  This would be my last competition, no matter what. Maybe I’d get a pro gig with a major ice show, maybe I wouldn’t. If I did, it would be on my own terms. “As God is my witness, I’ll never be girlie again!” I’d proclaimed melodramatically to Suli last night.

  “Works just fine for me,” she’d said, kneeling with serene poise to take my experimental six inches between her glossy, carmined lips and deep into her velvet throat.

  Ten minutes later, serenity long gone, I stood braced against the edge of the bed and bore her weight while she clamped her thighs around my hips and her cunt around my pride, locked her hands behind my neck and rode me with fierce, pounding joy. I dug my fingers into her asscheeks to steady her and to add to the driving force of her lunges. Small naked breasts slapped against mine on each forward stroke. When I could catch one succulent nipple in my mouth her cries would rise to a shriller pitch, but then she’d jerk roughly away to get more leverage for each thrust.

  My body ached with strain and arousal and the friction of the harness. My mind was a blur of fantasies. We’re whirling in the arena, my skates carving spirals into the ice, her dark hair lifting in the wind…

  “Spin me!” Suli suddenly arched her upper body into a layback position, arms no longer gripping me but raised into a pleading curve. Adrenaline, muscles, willpower; none of it was enough now. Only speed could keep us balanced. I stepped back from the bed and spun in place, swinging her in one wide circle, then another, tension hammering through my clit hard enough to counter the burn of the leather gouging my flesh.

  Suli’s voice whipped around us, streaming as free as her hair. I held on, battling gravity, riding the waves of her cries, until, as they crested, the grip of her legs around me began to slip. In two lurching steps I had her above the bed again, and in another second she was on the sheets. I pressed on until her breathing began to slow, then covered her tender breasts and mouth with a storm of kisses close to bites until I had to arch my back and pump and grind my way to a noisy release of my own.

  When we’d sprawled together in delirious exhaustion long enough for our panting to ease, I raised up to gaze at her. The world-famous princess of poise and grace lay tangled in her own wild hair, lips swollen, skin streaked with sweat and most likely bruised in places where the TV cameras had better not reach.

  “And you lectured me about never jumping without knowing exactly where I was going to land!” I said. “How did you know I wouldn’t drop you?”

  “Aren’t you always bugging me to let you try lifts?” she countered drowsily. “You’ve spun me before, on the ice; you’re tall and strong enough.” She rolled over on top of me and murmured into the hollow of my throat, “Anyway, I did know where I was going to land. And I knew that you’d get me there. You always do.” Then her head slumped onto my shoulder and her body slid down to nestle in the protective curve of mine. In seconds she was asleep.

  I always will, I mouthed silently, but couldn’t say it aloud. Giving way to tenderness, to emotions deeper than the pyrotechnics of sex, was more risk than I could handle. Wherever I was going to land, she belonged somewhere better. How am I going to bear it? How can we still be together?

  I shook my head to clear it. Suli and Tim were gliding with the rest of the competitors toward the edge of the ice and I realized suddenly that it was time to take my seat in the stands. The final grouping of the pairs long program was about to get underway.

  Suli and Tim skated third, to music from Bizet’s Carmen. Somebody always skates to Carmen, but no one ever played the part better than Suli. The dramatic theme of love and betrayal was a perfect setting for her, and today the passionate beat of the “Habanera” was a perfect match for my jealous mood.

  Watching Tim with Suli on the ice always drove me crazy. When his hand slid from the small of her back to her hip I wanted to lunge and chew it off at the wrist. His boyfriend Thor, a speed skater with massively muscled thighs, would have been highly displeased by that, so it was just as well that I resisted the impulse.

  It wasn’t really the way Tim touched Suli that burned me. Well, okay, maybe it was, with every nuance of the traditional lifts and holds pulsing with erotic innuendo. Still, my hands knew her needs far better than he ever could, or cared to. But he was allowed to do it publicly, artistically, acting out scenarios of fiery love—and I wasn’t. Knowing that the delectable asscheeks filling the taut scarlet seat of her costume bore bruises in the shapes of my fingers was only small comfort.

  His other hand rested lightly on her waist as they whirled across the ice. Any second—in six more beats—she would jump, and with simultaneous precision he would lift, and throw… Now! For all the times I’d seen it, my breath still caught. Suli twisted impossibly high into the air, and far out…out…across the ice.

  Yes! Throw triple axel! A perfect one-footed landing flowing into a smooth, graceful follow-through, then up into a double loop side by side with Tim in clockwork synchronicity.

  It was the best. The audience knew it; the judges knew it. I knew it, and admiration nearly won out over envy when Tim lifted Suli high overhead, her legs spread wide, in the ultimate hand-in-crotch position known as the Helicopter. Envy surged back. Her crotch would be damp with sweat and excitement, not the kind I could draw from her, but still! Then she dropped abruptly past his face, thighs briefly scissoring his neck, pussy nudging his chin. I shook, nearly whimpering, as Suli slid sensuously down along Tim’s body. As soon as her blades touched down she leaned back, back, impossibly far back, until her hair brushed the ice in a death spiral. I tensed as though my hand, not Tim’s, gripped hers to brace her just this side of disaster.

  A few judges always took points off for “suggestive” material. What did they think pairs skating was all about, if not sex? But it was a technically clean and ambitious program, beautifully executed. Suli and Tim won the gold medals they deserved.

  I got no chance to go for the gold of Suli’s warm body that night. When I came up behind her in our room and reached around to cup her breasts, she wriggled her compact butt against me, then turned and shoved me away.

  “No,” she decreed, putting a finger across my lips as I tried to speak. I nibbled at it instead. “You have your long program tomorrow, and I know better than you do what you need.”

  I tried to object, with no luck.

  “Sure,” Suli went on, “fast and furious sex and complete exhaustion were just what I needed, but you’ll do better saving up that energy and channeling the tension into your skating.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said sulkily. “I can’t medal now anyway. I was thinking, in fact, that this might as well be the time…”

  She knew what I meant. “No!” Her scowl was at least as alluring as her smiles. “You can still win the bronze, if you want it enough. At least two of those prima donnas ahead of you have never skated a clean long program in their lives. Medal, and you get into the exhibition at the end. That’s the time to make your grand statement to the world.” She saw my hesitation and gripped my
shoulders so hard her nails dug in. “Think of Johanna! You can’t disgrace your coach during actual competition. And think of your fans!” Her expression eased into a smile she couldn’t suppress. Her grip eased. “Okay, your fans would love every minute of it. I’ve seen the signs they flip at you when they’re sure the cameras can’t see. ‘We Want Jude, Preferably in the Nude!’” She drew her fingers lightly across my chest and downward. “Can’t say that I blame them.”

  Suli was so close that her warm scent tantalized me. I thought I was going to get some after all, but the kiss I grabbed was broken off all too soon, leaving me aching for more.

  “Please Jude, do it this way.” She stroked my face, brushing back my short, dark hair. I wasn’t sure I could bear her gentleness. “Even your planned routine comes close enough to the edge. One way or another, it will be worth it. I promise.”

  So I did it her way, and skated the long program I’d rehearsed so many times. Inside, though, I was doing it my way at last, and not much caring if it showed.

  I skated to a medley from the Broadway show Cats. My black unitard with white down the front and at the cuffs was supposed to suggest a “tuxedo” cat with white paws. The music swept from mood to mood, poignance to nostalgia to swagger, but no matter what character a song was meant to suggest, in my mind and gut I was never, for a moment, anybody’s sweet pussy. I was every inch a Tom. Tomcat prowling urban roofs and alleys; tomboy tumbling the dairymaid in the hay; top-hatted Tom in the back streets of Victorian London pinching the housemaids’ cheeks, fore and aft.

  Suli had been right about storing up tension and then letting it spill out. Like fantasy during sex, imagination sharpened my performance. Each move was linked to its own notes of the music, practiced often enough to be automatic, but tonight my footwork was more precise, my spins faster, my jumps higher and landings smoother. I had two quad jumps planned, something none of my rivals would attempt, and for the first time I went into each of them with utter confidence.