Desk Jockey Jam

by Ainslie Paton

  “You with us?” said Dan, as Freddy Mercury and Queen started singing We Will Rock You over the loud speaker and the stadium exploded into movement towards the food vendors before the next bout.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it work?”

  Now would be the time to tell Dan he’d lost the bet. “No.”

  “Bree?”

  Now would be the time to tell Dan about what happened last night. Get his take on it. “No.”

  “Family?”

  “Yeah, all good.”

  “Drugs?”

  “What?”

  “You’re on another planet. You were this morning too.”

  “Didn’t get much sleep.” Truth is he’d had a decent amount because he’d ended up home early after one drink at the bar. But he’d been out surfed that morning by grommets, even a fricking knee-boarder and they didn’t call them cripples for nothing, so he was definitely stewing in his own juices.

  He’d been so mad for Bree last night, so sure she felt the same. He’d thought she came on to him first, but maybe that was what he wanted to think, because she’d ended things right about when all logic got bent out of shape and his ability to think clearly had gone to Disneyland. And she’d been distressed about it.

  He was clear only on two points: she didn’t have a bloke, she’d told him that, so it wasn’t about cheating. And it wasn’t about the public nature of the hook up, because, yeah, circular argument, she started it. Didn’t she? All the rest was a mystery.

  He knew he’d come on strong, but she’d had her hands under his shirt and her tongue so far down his throat she could’ve tasted spring lamb. Usually when things went that far it was a sure bet. No, not usually—always. The fact he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t forced himself on her made him feel gut sick. Especially because he couldn’t blame the drink. He might’ve been a player, but he wasn’t the kind of bloke who’d force a woman into physical contact. Whatever the truth of this was, there was no avoiding it. Monday morning was going to be interesting.

  Dan put his fingers to the back of his neck and squeezed. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think a chick was responsible for this.”

  He shifted to pull out of Dan’s grip and tried to keep his expression attached to the roughhousing and not give away how close the guy was to the truth. Dan dropped his hand and laughed, so that was an epic fail. Bugger.

  “What happened?”

  “Fuck off. I’m not getting all touchy feely on this.”

  Dan faced the track again. “All right.”

  They sat there together while the others were outside getting drinks and food and Prince sang Let’s Go Crazy. Dan could use silence like the hammer of Thor.

  “I might’ve gone too hard. I might’ve forced myself on her.”

  “We’re talking Bree, right? What did you do?”

  “I pashed her.”

  “This is Bree, the woman you don’t like? Who you think someone is knocking around?”

  Ant watched a referee’s convention on the otherwise empty track. In their black and white striped shirts they looked like a herd of zebras. On wheels. “What of it?”

  “Well, first is she safe?”

  “She says so.” The refs were all blokes. Some of the coaches too. He wondered why that was, given this was an all female league. He couldn’t think of a single male contact sport where female refs or coaches would be tolerated. He’d never noticed that before.

  “How’d you go from spitting at each other to swapping spit?”

  “She held my hand. She touched my face. I told her she was beautiful and she liked it.”

  “The usual stuff, so why do you think you forced it?”

  “She bolted.”

  Dan went, “Hmm.” He knew immediately where Ant’s problem was. Chicks didn’t bolt. Apart from Fluke, and Fluke was clean a girl up and get her home safely, the boys were smart enough only to hit on chicks who knew the rules of the game. He’d thought Bree knew what she was doing. “And you don’t think it’s the whole work with each other thing?”

  That was one of the many things Ant was unsure about. Maybe that was all it was. But if that’s what Bree was worried about, the speculation started the moment she took his hand and left the restaurant with him. They didn’t need to make out to raise the gossip stakes.

  He shrugged. He felt the weight of not knowing hanging over him like an avalanche of water. “Could be.” He’d have said more but the gang was back.

  Mitch handed him a coke and a burger and sat beside him. “When’s dinner?” From further down the line Fluke piped up, “Yeah, when is dinner?”

  Next to Dan, Scott said, “I deserve to be in on this. I had to suffer your last bet.”

  Ant groaned. There was no point even trying to fob them off. He might as well get it over with. “I lost, okay. Bree won. She wiped the floor with me.”

  The amount of noise that came out of people he counted as friends rivalled anything any of the derby team’s cheers quads served up. People all over the stadium looked at them including the zebras still on the track.

  “Making a new habit of losing bet’s, eh, Ant,” said Fluke, from safely out of arms reach of a backhander.

  “Yeah, laugh it up, Fanta-pants.”

  “We’ll get back to you with our availability, mate,” said Mitch. And the digs continued to roll in, but so two did the next two teams, Tricks and Housework Heroines.

  The Heroines skated in waving toilet brushes and their cheer squad had them too, the sound system played Sadie the Cleaning Lady, one of those old joke songs. Bree had once mentioned it. Funny she’d know that song.

  The Tricks were trying to encourage the non Heroine fans to boo and the biggest wag on the track was Toni. She made Ant forget about his issue with Bree and laugh while she hammed it up, at one point standing in front of a pack of Heroine fans and mocking them with a pantomime of sweeping, ironing and scrubbing. They threw toilet brushed at her. She caught them and threw them back.

  But once the whistle blew to signal the start of the bout, all the fun and games were over. It was war on wheels. Toni was in the thick of it, just like the Toni who’d dared him to brand her with a tennis ball. She even sat on the Heroine’s jammer, in what the announcer describes as a booty block that stopped the skater going anywhere and cleared a path for the Tricks’ feisty little jammer with her helmet with its two stars looking too big for her head, to score again. She was the smallest person on the track, the fastest and the trickiest. Her roller girl name was Kitty Caruso.

  Ant sat forward to study her. What made a little girl like that want to play in a rough and tough game like this? Scott had said earlier that like women’s cricket, roller derby was code for lesbian. Scott had been quick to say that was as stupid as suggesting all male dancers were gay, which made Dan grab Alex and bend her over Scott’s lap to kiss her stupid. Alex didn’t seem to mind. Scott squirmed and eye-rolled.

  Ant watched as Toni sweat it out in the penalty box and wondered if there was something in it, and why all of a sudden sexual politics was following him around like a stray dog that could bite his hand off if he let it get too close.

  He slurped his coke and focussed on Kitty Caruso again. She flounced into the penalty box, her skirt flipping up so the words Bite Me printed on her pants were visible for a second. She passed her star helmet cover to Toni as she was re-entered the track, her pants flashing Back Off. There wasn’t a shy bone in the bodies of these girls they were all show, all performance. They were gladiators as well as being incredible athletes.

  Now the little roller doll was still he could see she had bruises on her thighs under her fishnets. She had her head down on her pink and black skates. He was fascinated by her. So gutsy. Come on baby, let me see your face. Nope, she kept her head down as if annoyed with herself for being sin-binned.

  When the jam ended, with the point going to the Heroines, Kitty was back in the game. Now he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She avoided being taken out by
another player’s stumble by going down on her knees and spinning a full three-sixty degrees, she was back on her feet before he had time to wonder how she’d done it. Two seconds later, she’d scored by breezing past all the Heroine’s blockers as if they were standing still and called the jam off by putting her hands on her hips, ensuring the Tricks won the point.

  As the two teams reassembled to start a new jam, she skated close by the edge of the track and looked up into the crowd, and that dog shadowing Ant bit him hard, that avalanche of water he’d felt above him came crashing down. Unless he needed glasses, under the padding and black war paint, Kitty Caruso was Bree Robinson. She was bruised because she was a roller derby jammer, and she bolted on him because like Toni, she liked girls.

  12: Soul Crush

  Toni didn’t tell her Ant and his gang had come to watch again, so when Bree thought she spotted him in the audience her concentration catapulted out of her brain. She turned to look back and check it really was him, and clipped the skate of a Heroine’s player behind her. It was a rookie, cherry popper thing no fresh meat graduate would’ve done. When she crashed to the track, she came off her knee and her hip went down so hard she bounced, sprawled on her hands and caromed straight into a group of Tuck Shop Ladies Arms fans in the suicide seats, knocking several of them over.

  Oh fuck!

  She hadn’t had a fall like that in years and she’d hurt more than her pride. She lay flat on her stomach while everyone around her scrambled to their feet. She didn’t think anything was broken, but since even her teeth felt sore that wasn’t yet clear. A hand came down on her back: a medic asking if she was all right. He helped her sit, made her flex all her joints and looked in her eyes to check for concussion.

  “Are you hurt, Kitty?”

  She rolled her neck and rubbed her hip. She’d be bruised big time by the morning, but she was lucky it was only bruising and no broken bones. “Only my reputation.” She got to her feet and applause broke out. The DJ on the sound deck played her personal theme song, Gin Wigmore’s Black Sheep, cutting in at the chorus. She skated back onto the track to Gin singing about being a bad woman not here to please. She tested her ankles and knees while playing up to the crowd and making a determined effort not to look towards where she thought she saw Ant.

  They reassembled for the next jam and she tried to centre her thoughts past the sting still in her hip, a pain in her elbow, and the burning need to know if she’d skittled spectators for the heck of it, or because he really was there. It would wait, she could ask Toni. It would wait, the whistle, winning the next jam and the bout was more important. She glanced to the side not expecting to be able to pick Ant out, but not being able to help herself looking.

  There was a sea of faces and torsos sitting in the stands and one man standing, arms folded across his chest, staring her down. He shook his head at her, mouthed something she couldn’t pick that had a sweary look to it, and was enough to tell her the jig was up.

  He knew.

  The whistle went. She pushed off her toe and started forward, muscles complaining, heart thumping harder now than it had when she’d face-planted the track. When Toni’s hand came out she took it and was whipped forward. There was no time to think about anything but getting through the pack, becoming lead jammer, scoring and winning the bout. She blocked the tide of panic squeezing her lungs and focused on staying on her feet and keeping her head because when Monday rolled around doing both those things in front of Ant was in a whole new league.

  When Monday did roll around, it was on squeaky wheels with rusty spokes and a stiff chain. Her body was thoroughly battered, though fortunately only from knee to shoulder, and she could cover all the purple and green patches and the waffle weave grid—the roller girl equivalent of gravel rash—blossoming on her hip, with a pants suit. What she couldn’t disguise so easily was the limp. One knee was so swollen it went on strike. She had to lie on the bed and stick her legs in the air to get her underwear on. But it wouldn’t be the first time she’d arrived in the office with more aches than enthusiasm for sitting for hours behind her desk. Thankfully she felt better than the time she’d bruised her tailbone and had to invent excuses for standing up for a week because sitting was too painful. That was the first time she’d noticed Ant could be a moody bugger. He’d taken it as a slight she’d chosen to stand instead of taking the last seat around a meeting table next to him.

  If that could put him in a snit, what would the aftermath of rejecting his kisses and throwing her secret in his face bring out in him? She was going to find out, and sooner than she’d expected. She wasn’t the first person in the office. He was waiting for her. As she walked to her workstation, she tried to slow her gait so her waddle was less noticeable. He was across the room before she had a chance to put her bag down.

  “Jesus, Bree, are you all right? Should you be here?” He wore a frown which was probably concern, but could as easily have been irritation. He was hovering like a mother hen and she didn’t know what to do about him.

  “I’m fine. It’s just swelling and bruising. It’s nothing. It’s been seen to. You don’t need to worry.”

  “You could’ve broken your neck.” He was definitely irritated; she could hear it in the crackling tinfoil quality of his voice.

  She shook her head as much to demonstrate her neck still worked as to warn him off. “No. It wasn’t that bad a fall.”

  “You should’ve told me.”

  “Why did I need to tell you?” Why did she feel like she wanted to? That maybe behind his irritation was a more caring intention.

  “Because I was genuinely concerned someone was hurting you and you were hiding it.”

  And there he went again, ruining things with his ‘I know better’ routine. “So my word counted for nothing. I told you I was fine.”

  “Bree, that’s what people who are being hurt say.” He said that so softly it was almost a caress. “Anyway, I get it now.”

  “The bruises?”

  “Yeah, and I think I get what happened Friday night.”

  “What happened was...” How to tell him what happened was wonderful and terrible and not to be repeated, because he was a player and she was happy being alone, a rival who’d continue to compete with her, and a colleague she was meant to lead. Because despite what he said about understanding equal opportunity, he was still full of resentment and distrust. It was all too horribly complicated, like being soul crushed on the track.

  “Wait.” Ant held a hand up and looked over his shoulder towards the main door. The lift let out a bunch of folk and they weren’t alone any more. He said, “Copier room,” and stalked off without checking to see if she’d follow.

  She watched him go; attitude and expectation in a charcoal wool suit. He took the cool scent of the sea with him and her body screamed a new set of messages on top of the pain. Stay, go, stop, start, right, wrong. Want. She stood at her desk while colleagues filtered through the room to their workstations, exchanging casual comments about their weekends. She longed to be at ease enough with Ant to laugh about Kitty Caruso, to know he’d keep her secret. If she followed him, there’d be nothing easy about the exchange, but if she didn’t he was a wild card draw, she had no idea what he’d do next.

  He’d disappeared inside the copier room before she started across the office. When she cleared the doorway, he shut the door and backed up against it.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was a small room with just the massive printer come copier and storage for paper and stationery. There wasn’t a lot of room for two people to manoeuvre, but she had no intention of being a prisoner.

  “Making sure we have this conversation.”

  “Get away from the door. I know how to hurt you if you don’t.”

  He didn’t flinch, but judging by the way he settled his shoulders he was considering it. “I reckon you do.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  Standoff. Why didn’t he just send an
email this time? It would’ve been simpler. “What happened on Friday, I can’t...” She still didn’t have the clarity to know what to say, but he saved her the effort.

  “Of course, I understand.”

  Some of the tension in her chest released. He didn’t intend to make this hard for her after all. Harder than watching him stand there looking suddenly more wounded than warrior. “I’m sorry.”

  His brows shot up in surprise and his shoulders lowered. He looked miserable. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. I came on too strong. I guess I read your signals all wrong. I’m the one who’s sorry. My radar really is off lately. You’d think I’d have worked out—ah never mind—I’m sorry. That’s what I wanted to say.”

  “Ant, you didn’t do anything wrong.” There was no good reason not to be adult about this, to be truthful. It’d be more mature than hiding half her life. “I think I started it.” Ant’s expression said confused, she clarified before she could stop herself. “I know I wanted it.”

  He squinted at her, then his lips narrowed. “Well, that’s a first for me. Was I some kind of experiment?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know a walk on the wildside.”

  She dropped her eyes, embarrassed by remembering how far they’d gone in a public place, and how far she’d wanted to let it go. “I wouldn’t normally do something like that, and no and it’s not because we’re colleagues.” She shrugged. “We wouldn’t be the first to decide to hide an office romance.”

  He pushed a hand through his thick hair. “I just wish I’d known.”

  “Known what? About derby? You have to get why I don’t want that to get out. Underwear that says Bite Me is hardly compatible with my day job.”

  He grinned at that. “I get it, though I think you’re wrong to keep it secret. It’s no different from one of us boys playing football. I don’t get why you’re so sensitive about it. It’s another demonstration of what a fierce competitor you are, how gutsy.” He sighed and did the thing with the hair again. She knew how thick and soft it was, her own hand twitched to follow his. “I just wish I’d known your sexual preference.”