Chapter 45: The Karass Curse Strikes Again

Femke

By now we all had one of those newfangled mobile phones, and Lydia’s kept buzzing for hours, with everybody and his dog congratulating her on her big win. It came as a surprise to absolutely nobody that one of the messages came from the Playboy. We had joked for days who of us would get the first offer from them.

In the end, we all did – Meri, Lydia and I – in the exact order in which we had won our medals. If nothing else, the article in Het Nieuwsblad had given them the idea of grouping us together, but right now we couldn’t give less of a shit about such things, it was party time!

Lydia was already well tipsy from the long race and the Champaign she had drunk during the team’s celebration in the Olympic village. Staggering out of her clothes somewhat clumsily, she fell on the bed – face first – and demanded that Mark fucks her ass until she farts the Hallelujah in C-minor. The world had truly lost a poet when she had gone into competitive sports instead.

It didn’t take him long to indulge her.

“Hm, I think we should make that a veritable sandwich,” Regina said with an impish grin and fixed a strap-on around her hips. Mark let out a satisfied grunt when the black-haired beauty shoved a well-lubed rubber dong into his rear-end.

Meri and I watched the spectacle for a while, Lydia, the smallest of all of us, lying at the bottom of the pile with Mark in the middle. It was wild.

“Mind if we have some fun of our own?” Meri asked and ran her finger along the length of my already well-drenched pussy.

Mark

The next day was a quiet one. Lydia required a lot of massaging her wrecked muscles, and an Aspirin for her ringing head.

Since we were getting in and out of the jacuzzi all day, none of us wore anything all day, and much fun was had, especially when we called Femke’s bluff on her ever more outrageous ‘I could ... because I’m Dutch’ claims.

Never one to spurn a good challenge, she had actually done it – meeting the flabbergasted page at the door, completely naked, to take delivery of our lunch.

“You know, you could have at least let him cop a feel,” I teased her. “That boy’s eyes were all over you.”

“Best tip ever,” Regina added with a giggle.

“He’ll have to buy a copy of the Playboy then,” Femke said. “Or does anyone think we’re not going to do the group gig?”

“I’m not sure,” Lydia answered. “Meri and I have unpacked our assets for the Playboy and FHM before, and we all did the gig for the German magazine, I ran a naked marathon and a charity race with body painting. My manager John is getting antsy about it, because female athletes think that getting naked is part of the package and are reluctant to sign with his company.”

“I forgot, we are in America,” Femke said dryly. “If you asked me which top European athlete hasn’t been in the Playboy, I had to think for quite a while. Probably Steffi Graf, and she wasn’t exactly a looker.”

“Do you think the guys would have looked at her face?” Regina added with a giggle.

“I’ll talk to John,” Lydia said. “I don’t need the money, but you all know that getting naked isn’t exactly something that comes hard to me. Heck, I’m thirty-six and I could still hide in a crowd of naked 22-year olds. Well, at least if they hide my face. I do start to develop crow’s feet.”

We all cackled at that.

“You still run faster than anyone else over an unreasonably long distance. And those tiny little crow’s feet. I like them,” I said.

“You have such a charming way to beg for a blowjob, my love,” Lydia cooed.

“Would I need to beg?”

“No,” all women answered in unison, and we all started to laugh.

Regina

Back when I first met Mark a little over three years ago he had told me that fate had a penchant for fucking the Karass family up whenever they were too happy, and I started to understand what he meant. In the early morning, on the day before Lydia’s 10K final, news came that Grandpa Ernst had died, aged ninety-one.

From what I could make out from Bea’s tear-filled talk to me on the phone, he had died two hours after watching Lydia’s win in the marathon, apparently with a happy smile on his face. As if that was any consolation. Dead is dead, whether you smile or not.

Poor Jenny was completely beside herself with grief, but Bea urged me to stay with Lydia, saying she had the little one’s back. It was a terrible feeling to know that my daughter was devastated and I was at the other fucking end of the world, not able to do anything.

The only good thing was that Femke had chosen that very day to spend with her team in the Olympic village, fulfilling media obligations. Mark had lost his shit entirely when he heard the news. It would have blown his cover story completely. If we had drained the jacuzzi, the tears of Mark and Lydia would have refilled it easily.

Femke

News had reached me by the evening and I pushed the taxi driver to disregard every traffic law and then some. We arrived at the hotel in record time and the terrified driver made the sign of the cross several times before driving off – very cautiously.

To say the mood was funereal was an understatement when I arrived in our suite, quite fittingly so, considering that someone had died. My knowledge of Lydia’s history was still a bit sketchy, but I knew that her grandfather had effectively stood in for the father of hers and her deceased son. Maybe it was sharing the same first name that made Mark look like he had been quite badly affected as well, although he did his best to console a still hysterically crying Lydia.

The phone rang and since everyone was busy caring for Lydia I took the call.

“Travis Carrington, USATF,” a stern voice at the other end told me. “I was told Lydia Karass resides at this address?”

“Femke Ten Haage,” I introduced myself in return. “Yes she resides here, but I’m not sure she’s in any condition to speak to you right now. She got some very bad news. The last thing she needs right now is an official with a complaint or other.”

“I know,” he replied, his voice a great deal softer now. “I know this is shit timing, but I need to know if she will compete tomorrow or if we should withdraw her nomination.”

I looked over at Lydia and she gave me an expectant stare through tear-filled eyes. “He wants to now if I run, doesn’t he?”

I nodded.

“I will,” she managed before burying her face back into Mark’s chest, heaving with sobs.

“She’ll run,” I said. “But keep the media away from her. Her composure will be brittle at best. In and out of the stadium and that’s it, or I’ll have your guts for garters.”

I heard a chuckle at the other end of the line, although it sounded rather sad. “That Belgian article didn’t exaggerate, did it? It’s good to know she’s in good hands, and you have my word, we’ll do our very best to protect her.”

Regina

It was heart-wrenching. Lydia had asked us not to come to the stadium, fearing that seeing us in the stands would make her too emotional. Only Femke had gone with her, determined to dish out some violence, should USATF go back on their word to keep Lydia away from inquisitive questions.

We could just as well have sat in the stands, as she was standing at the starting line, and she was crying – hard.

“A heart-breaking moment moment,” the TV commentator said, his voice audibly emotional. “Less than twenty-four hours a family tragedy has befallen her and yet, she is determined to represent her country.”

Some cautious applause went through the so far dead-silent stands, when an opponent, a woman called Fedorova from Russia hugged Lydia tightly. I knew the two of them had a history of sorts, but I had never gotten around to ask Mark for details, and right now I couldn’t. He was bawling his eyes out.

The officials and the audience proved very patient. It took nearly ten minutes before Lydia had regained some modicum of composure and the race could be started.

Mark had told me a year ago about a race that Lydia had won, years ago, running on pure rage, during the time before they finally accepted their illicit love for each other. It didn’t take a fortune teller to see I was witnessing such a moment. Whatever emotion she was running on, it was potent.

I had Meat Loaf’s “Bat out of Hell” running in my mind when she took off like the devil himself was chasing her. By the end of the first lap she already had a sizable gap on the rest of the field and from what little I knew about that discipline, I could tell two things – she wouldn’t be able to keep up such a murderous pace, and none of the other competitors felt stupid enough to try and keep up with her. They were all waiting for her to falter.

“She’s gonna kill herself,” I muttered.

“She’s done it before,” Meri whispered at me. “She’s gonna win this thing. When the time is right, ask her about the race during which she fled to West Germany ten years ago.”

The race was utter pandemonium, at least in the stands. The audience had noticed they were witnessing a rare moment. Lydia was running like a woman possessed, tears streaming down her face, blurring her vision. An official gently nudged her back on track every time she came round to finish a lap, as she kept drifting towards the outside lane due to her poor vision.

By now all three of us were weeping as the crowd was cheering wildly, trying to infuse an almost supernatural will-power in her. The commentator had given up actually commentating. By lap three he had simply said: “Ladies and gentlemen, just soak up this moment. Just watch this feat of sheer will.”

Since then there had been silence for them commentary booth.

And she went through with her lunacy, finishing the race a whole ten seconds ahead of the chasing group. Fedorova, the Russian girl who had consoled her before the start finished second and a ridiculously skinny Chinese girl finished third.

Lydia had collapsed on the ground, curled into a ball, desperately gasping for air and crying at the same time. Immediately the media tried to encircle her, but they had not factored in her bodyguard. With a bodycheck that would have made a hockey player proud, she sent a cameraman flying and made her way towards Lydia.

Under loud cheers from the crowd, Femke gathered her up and carried her out of the stadium.

Meri

“That were quite unprecedented scenes,” the reporter asked Travis Carrington, the USATF official in charge. “What is your take on this.”

“I’m going to say something that could cost me my job, Bill, but if anyone has some explaining to do today, it is your profession. We had asked all media to give Lydia all the space she needed. She has suffered a very hard personal loss, and she still insisted on doing her job as the nominee for this nation. And she won the bleep thing. And all she gets in return is a bunch of vultures trying to get some pictures of when she was at her most vulnerable.”

Bill Rodgers, a man experienced enough to not having even flinched when he had to commentate a race in which Lydia had run naked a few years back, was visibly shaken by the harsh reply.

“Well, when it comes to pictures of her, your organization doesn’t have the proudest of histories, does it? Don’t you think it is a wee bit hypocritical to pose as her staunchest defender when your very organization has given her a hard time more than once over the years? That doesn’t mean I don’t agree with your criticism of the vulture, mind you.”