“Okay.” Stella waves and then the door swings shut behind her.
“Oh, finally.” Joe drops the cone she’s holding, skates over to me, and wraps her arms around my waist from behind. I relax into her embrace. “I’ve wanted to touch you all night.”
“Me too,” I murmur. “Well, touch you, I mean. I touch myself whenever I want.”
Her laugh vibrates through both of us. “Hmmm, maybe later you can do that while I watch. Bet it’s sexy.”
My exhaustion fades and my heart rate speeds up. I turn around and lower my lips to hers, bending my knees a little to bring us closer to the same height. She takes the hint, slides her hands up to my neck, and opens for me.
I don’t know that I’ll ever get enough of the noises she makes when we kiss. I yank her tank top up so I can splay my hands out against her skin, feel her warmth and her sweat, the way she shivers from head to toe at the contact.
“Hey, did you guys see my—” Lauren’s voice startles us apart. We spin away from each other and stare, horrified, at the door.
Lauren stares back, her face turning red. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know—I mean. I need to find my phone.”
She practically runs up the stadium seats, taking them two at a time and looking both ways. “Found it! Okay, I’m gonna—I’m gonna go.”
“Lauren, if you could maybe keep what you saw between us, that would be—” Joe glances at me, apology in her eyes. “I haven’t figured out how to tell the team yet.”
“Okay. Good night.” Lauren doesn’t meet either of our gazes as she books it out of the gymnasium.
The door swings shut again, and I let out my breath in a great whoosh.
“Well.”
“Shit.” Joe sinks to the floor and sits. “I’m so sorry.”
I sit next to her and pick up her hand. “What are you sorry for? It takes two, you know?”
“I should have known better. People come back for stuff they forgot all the time. And we got caught by Lauren. The straightest straight girl on the team. I don’t think she can even say the word ‘lesbian’ without blushing. I mean, at least if it were Stella or Bex . . .”
Remembering Stella’s response to seeing Chloe at the scrimmage, I shake my head. “I don’t think it would have been a good thing if Stella had caught us.”
“Stella’s cool, she wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”
“She probably wouldn’t say anything, but I don’t think she’d be too cool about you sleeping with someone on the team.”
Joe drops her head and then meets my gaze. “You don’t think—”
“Did you hear the way she talked about Chloe?”
“You have to understand, those two—”
“No. Whatever that was, it was about you.”
She frowns, then scrubs a hand over her face. “Okay, yeah. There’s some history.”
“Want to fill me in?”
She sighs. “Not really, but I guess I should. We all three used to skate together. I was a blocker, the two of them were both jammers, so they had a friendly rivalry thing going on. Before Chloe and I broke up, we were fighting all the time, and I left the team because it wasn’t any fun anymore. Stella blamed Chloe.”
“She blamed her for you leaving?”
“Yeah. You know all those little rivalry jokes she makes? They weren’t funny anymore because since then she’s sounded like she meant them.”
There had definitely been an edge to Stella’s commentary the day I met Chloe. “Go on.”
“I started the Lake Lovelace Rollergirls six months later because I missed derby like crazy. Stella, because she’s my friend, went from being on the best team in the league to being the only veteran skater on a new, unseeded team that can’t even field fourteen skaters.”
“Oh.” But that seems all the more reason to keep us a secret from Stella. Wouldn’t she be afraid of something like that happening again? What does this mean for me and Joe? Before I can ask, Joe continues cheerily.
“Anyway, Chloe and I fixed our friendship after our breakup, but Stella never forgave her—or maybe she never liked her to begin with, and didn’t have to pretend anymore now that Chloe isn’t dating her best friend.”
“And you don’t think she’d be mad at me for dating you?”
“Of course not. What reason does she have to hate on you?” She lets go of my hand and stands, her voice and expression falsely bright as she says, “Come on, nothing to be done about it now. Let’s finish up here and get home. Will you come over? Elvis is welcome, of course.”
“You are in total denial, but yeah. I’ll come over.”
Joe’s shoulders slump and she lets out a broken little noise—not exactly a sigh or a sob, but something in between. “She holds me to a higher standard than maybe she should. I’ll figure it out.”
Then she holds open the door to the gym, making it clear that conversation about Stella is over.
At home, a steaming-hot shower washes away my sweat and sore muscles. I linger in my closet, trying to decide what to wear, and finally settle on a short-sleeved shirtdress. Comfortable, cute, and—most importantly—easily removed.
I gather Elvis and his food and drive over to her place, worrying the whole time about how Stella would react to Joe getting involved with me. But wouldn’t anger be hypocritical since she’s sleeping with Bex? I’ve gotten to like Stella and trust her, and it would hurt to lose her friendship.
However, all thoughts of Stella disappear when Joe answers the door in a pair of striped boxer briefs and one of those white tank tops of hers with no bra underneath. I unclip Elvis and toss his leash aside, unable to take my eyes off her.
“Wow. Goddamn, you look sexy in men’s underwear.”
She laughs and throws her arms around my neck. “I love that you like me in men’s underwear, because that lacy, girly stuff you wear would drive me crazy. It suits you though.”
“Mm-hmmm. Too bad I didn’t wear any tonight.” I push the door shut behind me and let her press me up against it. “Where were we, back at the gym?” I slide my hands up under her shirt, tickling the still shower-damp skin there.
“Ooh, we were definitely getting there.” She unbuttons the top button of my dress. “I love buttons. I love opening each one—” then the second “—and seeing each tiny little bit of your skin appear.”
She presses her lips to my clavicle, and my eyes drift closed. The next button slips free and she buries her face between my breasts. “I love the way you smell. I get wet when I think about biting you here.” She sucks a red bite to the inside of my breast. “So wet.”
“I want you to fuck me,” I blurt out, and she draws back.
“Are you asking for me to strap on my dick, Tina?” Her lips curl up in a sexy smile. “Want to feel me deep inside you? Want to ride me?”
Oh God, hearing her talk like that in her raspy voice makes me feel hot all over. “Yeah. God, your voice is pure sex.”
“You want to eat my pussy? I want that. I want you to lick me until I come on your face, then take my dick like a good girl.”
I could come just from listening to her talk. The things she’s saying, yeah, they’re filthy hot, but it’s the crude, bossy way she says them that makes me moan.
“Or maybe I’ll finger you first, but I won’t let you come. Maybe I’ll keep you right on the edge until you ask me nicely.”
She cups me low, the heel of her palm pressing into my clit and her fingers teasing my entrance. Looking into my eyes, she smiles that dirty smile of hers, and I shudder all over.
“Do whatever you like to me.” I gasp. “But don’t stop talking.”
She bites the side of my breast again and shoves the dress off my shoulders and down my body. A button skitters across the floor, and holy shit, she’s actually ripped my clothes off. I shove the heel of my hand into my mouth to keep from crying out.
“You’re a tiny bit kinky for the dirty talk, aren’t you?” She brings her hand from my pussy up to her mouth and li
cks it in one long, slow, deliberate movement. “Mmm. Come on, let’s go to bed.”
She leads me, naked and stunned, to her bedroom and shoves me down on the mattress. Not gently, but I don’t need gentle. It’s not like I’m going to break. I need her.
She reaches into the drawer beside her bed, but she doesn’t pull out the strap-on. Instead, she grabs a blue vibrator and a bottle of lube and sets them next to me on the bed. She strips off the tank top and boxer briefs and crawls up my body, sliding one of her legs between mine and bracing herself there.
“Kiss me.” It’s half command, half plea, and I’m powerless to resist either. Her tongue slides into my mouth to feint and fight with mine. My breasts press against hers, and I rock my hips so her thigh rides along my sex.
“Mmm, that’s good.” She picks up the vibrator and holds it to my lips. “Suck my dick; get it nice and wet.”
I take the blue silicone into my mouth. It feels weird, and not sexy, but I’m still riding her leg and she’s looking at me like she’s proud of me, and I want her to keep doing that. So I moan around it, getting it sloppy with spit. She pulls it away and then sits back and studies me.
“Spread your legs.”
A hot flush washes up my chest as I do what she asked. She turns on the vibrator and presses it to my clit.
I nearly shoot off the bed, the rush of sensations shocks me so much.
“Ooh, my girl likes that,” she croons, sliding the vibrator around my clit until I moan and relax against the pillows. My hips won’t stop moving. Her other hand comes up and squeezes a breast, teasing at my nipple. My brain doesn’t seem to be able to choose which to focus on: the intensity of the vibe or the pinch on my nipples.
“Good girl,” she rasps, then takes my hand and moves it to the vibrator. “Hold this while you lick me.”
Her words make me shiver as she positions herself over my face, and I remember what she said downstairs. “Lick me until I come on your face, then take my dick like a good girl.”
I almost come. It’s too intense, so I abandon the vibrator to spread her open with both hands and run my tongue along the underside of her clit.
“Fuck, yes.” Her hand slides into my hair—a caress and a demand. “Don’t stop. Such a good girl.” Her voice gets raspier and I cling to her thighs, holding her still against my lips. “Tina, God, Tina.”
She shudders with the force of her orgasm, and repeats my name over and over. As her body quiets, I loosen my grasp on her legs and ease her down for a kiss.
Clearly unfazed by the taste of herself on my mouth, she wraps her arms around me, laughing. When she catches her breath, she whispers. “Ready for my dick now?”
I can’t speak, so I nod, and she kisses me again, a quick press of her lips to mine.
Closing my eyes, I bite my lip as she touches the vibrator back to my clit. God. And then she opens the lube bottle and starts talking and I nearly lose it.
“Good girl. I’m going to wet up my dick for you. Get it nice and slippery. You want me to fuck you?” The vibration disappears for a moment, but then she slides the slick vibe into me, and I about come unglued when it hits the perfect spot. Oh God, am I coming? My shoulders fall back against the bed, my hips lift, and the orgasm seems to well up from some deep place inside me. There’s so much pressure that when it releases, I can’t stop shuddering, and she angles the vibe so it hits that spot again. I cry, I beg, I babble, and I ride that amazing orgasm to the depleted end.
All while she tells me I’m her good girl.
When I’m nothing but a warm puddle of satisfied bliss, she turns off the vibrator, pulls it out of me, and stretches beside me, covering my face with kisses. “Oh my God, that was . . . I’ve never talked so much dirty in my life, but the way you kept getting more and more turned on, that was incredible.”
“You’re so filthy. I love it.” I don’t know if I can move my legs, but I love it.
“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t get the strap-on out.”
“Is that what started this? I don’t care if we never play with the strap-on. As long as you never stop talking dirty.”
“I promise.” She kisses me, long and hard and deep, and then tucks me into bed.
After turning off the lights, she joins me under the covers. I fall asleep with my arms around her waist, my head pillowed on her breasts, and her voice teasing my ears. Cherished.
I can’t think of anything more perfect.
“Tina, thank you so much for coming.” Amber greets me at the local television station with a smile and a hug. In a simple blue suit, pearl earrings, and low heels, she is unrecognizable as the bedazzled beauty queen I met a year earlier.
“You look great, Amber.”
“Thank you. So do you. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you back to makeup.”
It occurs to me, as we make our way through the maze of hallways, that she seems a little young to have landed a job at the station.
“If you don’t mind my asking, how are you working at the TV station if you’re still in college?”
“It’s an internship. I mostly research sports stories and help write them, but my mentor here at the station is allowing me to do a special-interest segment once a month. Since you represent old-school Lake Lovelace wakeboard royalty and the hot new sport in town, you make a super fascinating story.”
“So who’s going to be interviewing me?” Panic sends my blood racing.
“Oh, that’s me. I’ll be on set with you, and Scott—my mentor—will be producing the segment. We’ll have three cameras on set—one on me, one on you, and one pulled back to get both of us at the same time.”
Forty-five minutes later, both of us are wearing heavy TV makeup and sitting in oversize chairs under a bank of hot lights. The producer, a balding, beak-nosed man with hipster glasses and a graying goatee, comes over to introduce himself before the interview begins.
“Ms. Durham, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Scott Sorenson.”
I barely manage to croak out a “Hello” over my sudden onset of anxiety, but he just smiles.
“I know this is nerve-racking. But the segment will be prerecorded and packaged, so don’t worry too much. This isn’t like a press conference, where we’d be asking tough questions or trying to get a scoop. This is a feel-good story.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean. If it’s a feel-good story, shouldn’t I feel better about it?
“Weekend Sports airs in the evenings, so Amber is going to say ‘Good evening’ when she opens the interview. I know it’s morning now, but just roll with it. We’re going to cut in with footage of you wakeboarding, as well as footage of you playing derby. We’ll be recording your practices this week, and we’ll likely interview some of your teammates and friends as well. So I’m clear—you do prefer female pronouns, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And when we speak about your past career, prior to transition, which pronouns would you prefer we use?”
“My pronouns are still female pronouns. I was assigned male at birth, but I am not male, and I have never been male. Thank you for asking, by the way.”
He nods, then continues, “When we talk about your wakeboarding career, we’ll do what we can to refer to you only by your last name. Should we need to use a first name, we’ll only use your dead name if it’s absolutely unavoidable.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Thanks again for being here.” He smiles and returns to his position behind the cameras.
It’s go time.
“Good evening, and welcome to Weekend Sports. I’m Amber Wilson. My guest tonight is a two-time winner of the Lake Lovelace Wakeboarding Tournament—but postretirement, her athletic career has taken an exciting turn. Welcome, Tina Durham, aka ‘Hoochie Glide’ of the Lake Lovelace Rollergirls, to the show.”
The butterflies in my stomach give one last lurch, then I smile.
“Thank you, Amber, I’m happy to be here.”
Saturday morni
ng on Labor Day weekend, I wake up to the bed shaking. I roll over and Joe is curled onto her side, coughing into her fist.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“Stupid summer cold.” She flops back onto the bed. “I had the smallest tickle in my throat yesterday, and now I feel like death warmed over.”
Poor thing. Her eyes are glassy and her face red—from fever? Or from the exertion of coughing? Oh God, her voice.
“Is coughing going to do something bad to your vocal cords?”
She shakes her head. “Nah. I might lose my voice, but it should come back. It’s really unlikely that any further paralysis will happen.”
“You’re flushed.” I put my hand on her forehead—it’s hot to the touch. “I think you have a fever. Stay put, I’ll get you some Motrin.”
“Thanks. It’s in the medicine cabinet over the sink. Left-hand side.”
I get up and head to the kitchen, start a pot of coffee, and pour a tall glass of water from the pitcher in her fridge. On my way back down the hallway to the bathroom, I fetch the bottle of Motrin and bring them both to her.
“You’re a lifesaver, thank you.” Sitting up, Joe takes the water and drains half the glass before opening the medicine bottle and swallowing down two pills with the rest of the water. I sit down next to her and take her hand.
“I’m making coffee. Do you want any?”
She shakes her head. “I hurt all over. I’m going to try to sleep some more.”
“I’m supposed to go hang out with Eddie and his boyfriend today to watch the double-up contest. I’ll call and cancel.”
“No, don’t. I’m just going to sleep all day. Go be with your friends.”
Elvis jumps up on the bed and noses his way between our joined hands. We both laugh, but then Joe’s laugh turns into a cough, so I grab her empty glass and take it back to the kitchen for a refill. When I get back, she’s stopped coughing, and Elvis is curled up against her side.
“You have totally stolen my dog.” I hand her the glass.
“Can he stay with me while you’re off watching your contest thing? I’ve got the chills and he’s so warm and snuggly.”
Roller Girl Page 10
