Chapter 18: Losing Myself

I WOKE UP EARLY Monday morning with Lena looking into my eyes in my narrow dorm room bed. We were both very naked. Our adventure had begun on the beach, but it continued late into the night once we got back to my room.

“I ... um ... Hi,” I said.

“Hey you,” she answered. “That was some night.”

“It sure was. I ... uh ... really don’t have much experience with this. I mean, like, the morning after stuff.”

“Mmmhmm. That’s okay.” She cuddled closer to me, as if there was any choice. I found my hand stroking her breast. “I suggest that we fuck one more time and then get our buns in gear to get cleaned up, fed, and off to our training sessions. I’m a firm believer in building all the memories I can. Who knows if we’ll ever do this again.”

“That’s like ... um ... You don’t expect to be my girlfriend now?” I asked. She’d moved my hand from her breast down to her crotch.

“God, no. You shouldn’t have done that with Tara,” she said and then hastened on. “I’m not criticizing. I know you fell in love and it seemed like it would last forever. I’m not going to fall in love with you, Paul. I hope we’ll stay good friends and maybe we’ll even repeat some of what we did last night and ... mmm ... right now. But I know our paths lie in different directions. I don’t know when, but I know we’ll be going our own ways. Oh! Yeah! Push into me. Ahh. Mmm. Better not to get too involved with each other. I’m going to want more massages from you and they need to be just as professional as you’ve always been. More. Yes. Faster. It’s like ... a special thing that we did once one night. Or half a dozen times. If it happens again, great. But don’t be watching for it. We’ll know if it’s right. Right there! Yes! Now, baby. Now! I want it!”

We kissed some more and finally rolled apart. Wow! I finally got a really good look at Lena’s body as she stood up to head for the bathroom. She was thin and muscular. Like me, she was probably only two or three percent body fat. That meant small breasts, but you’d never mistake this woman for a little girl.

“You can join me in the shower,” she called. I did, gladly, and we washed each other thoroughly. “No more of that!” she giggled. “We’d miss our training sessions and have to explain to everyone that we were fucking in the shower.” She pushed my hand away from her pussy and then kissed me before getting out of the shower. I finished washing my hair and stepped out to use the damp towel she’d used before me.

“I had a really great time,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”

“Everything?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t want to leave out the grouper sandwich.”

She pulled her shorts and top on and carried the rest of her things as she scampered down the hall to the stairs and up to her own room.

I don’t really believe sex is a cure-all for whatever ails you. I felt guilty about having fallen into bed with Lena—having fallen into Lena—the same day Tara broke up with me. I still missed and mourned my relationship with Tara, but I had to be honest. It ended when she drove off to California and I decided to call the academy in Florida. I’d been living a fantasy that she was still my girlfriend. If we’d been more honest with each other at the time, we’d have broken up right after we made love that morning.

An unfortunate side-effect of my encounter with Lena, though, was that I started noticing the other girls in the academy. The numbers in the adult dormitory were slightly more evenly divided between men and women, but no one seemed to have a permanent relationship. Maybe some of the mixed pairs had something going on like Tara and I had had. But I didn’t think any members of mixed pairs were currently in adult housing.

Then there was Sydnie and Eva. I hadn’t really figured that one out before Lena filled me in on it. The two girls had become lovers nearly as soon as they met four years previously. Sydnie would have been only fourteen, but there were only two years difference in their ages. I’d once commented about Sydnie’s ‘friendly’ kisses being incredibly enthusiastic. Eva had said, “Yeah. The first time she planted one on me I nearly sucked her tongue down my throat. We control that a little better now.”

I guess that should have been a clue. But Sydnie planted that kind of kiss on just about everyone. Eva didn’t seem to get upset by it at all.

I knew there were some adults who were in training every day but lived off-campus. Some of them were married or in long-term relationships. I’d read an article online (with the help of my screen-reader) that talked about how many female teammates transitioned into being a couple. Not just in gymnastics, but in basketball, hockey, soccer, and other sports. I guess it made sense and figured that there were probably just as many guys, but the media didn’t dare talk about that.

Still ... Tara. I was irrationally angry with her, hurt by her, in love with her. As much as I rationalized the sense in breaking up—who knew when we’d see each other again?—I still didn’t want to break up. I wanted her as much as I loved her and I didn’t see that changing soon.

I’d been at the academy for two full semesters when I was called into a meeting with ‘the committee,’ which included Dr. Davis, the director, and several of the coaches.

“Paul, most of us have had a chance to work with you this year and we’ve all observed your dedication and skill,” Dr. Davis said. “It’s time, though, to narrow things down a little. At this stage of the game, you need a single coach who will guide you through all your training and competition heading for LA28. We have assessed your skills and believe you can become a successful part of Team USA. You’ve medaled in a couple of competitions and improve every time you are out. The four coaches I’ve brought to this meeting have all agreed they would like to work with you as your primary coach, starting this summer. Of course, the others will still be participating on specific events. We want to know if you have any preferences regarding coaches you’d like to work with.”

“Wow! I feel like one of those competitors on The Voice who have to choose their coach. I really appreciate all you’ve done for me this year. I feel more confident than I did when I moved here in October. You’ve each helped me more than I can say. Coach Desmond, you’ve brought my pommel horse and parallel bars to a whole new level, and I thought I was pretty good on those two before I got here. Coach Pleshenko, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me on the high bar and rings. I feel stronger every day. And thank you Coach Devault for your work on the vault with me. I learned almost as much the first day you gave me instruction as I had in all my training up to that time. I think I need to follow my love of floor exercises, though, if I have to choose a single coach. If you’re willing, Coach DiCello, I’d like to keep working with you as my primary coach.”

“Oh, I’m willing,” Coach DiCello laughed. She was the only one of my coaches who was female. Nearly all male apparatuses are coached by men, but she’d been the first coach to work with me on my tumbling and floor exercises. “You understand that we’ll be consulting with the other coaches on the other apparatuses, though. Are you sure you don’t want one of them as your primary?”

“If I can continue to work with them periodically, I’d be pretty happy to have you as my primary.”

“Let’s do it, then,” Dr. Davis said. “It’s not a surprise to any of us. We wondered why you seem to get along so well with women. We have that report regarding the athletes and coaches both. What would you say was your primary influence in that direction?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe it’s because until I got here, the only women who ever paid attention to me were my mother, sister, and Tara White. Everyone else ignored me as much as possible or tried to take advantage of me when I couldn’t be ignored. When I got here, Coach DiCello, Coach Li, the trio of Sydnie, Lena, and Eva, and just about everyone else I met were accepting and became friends. I’d have to say the academy was my primary influence in that direction.”

“We’ll meet together later this week to start planning out your training direction and competition schedule,” Coach DiCello said. “Welcome to my team.”

There’s a point in Anansi Boys—I finished reading it back in December—at which Fat Charlie discovers that Spider is a part of himself that was exorcised. Up until that time, all the fun and charming and magical side of him had been lost. I identified at first with Fat Charlie. I felt sort of like what Dad called a Sad Sack.

You’d think that doing what I loved and being accepted by the women and other male athletes around me would have made me as happy as I could be. It was really everything I ever wanted. But in that way, I was also like Spider. The fun and magical side of me was empty and had no relationships. There was nothing there that could really define me. I felt hollow and empty.

And I guess that my attempt to fill that hollow part of me spilled over into my training. I devoted twice the energy to it that I had before. Maybe if I won a gold medal at the Olympics, I’d feel validated, I guess. I’d be whole.

I didn’t sleep with Lena again that summer. She, Eva, and Sydnie spent a lot of the summer in Europe, attending training camps and competing in the European championships. They did very well.

I competed in four domestic events that summer. They were all in the Southeast. It was nice that Mom, Dad, and Mikey came down for one of them in Atlanta.

“Tell me when there’s a competition down here over one of my school breaks in the winter,” Mikey complained. “How do you stand this heat?”

“It isn’t the heat, it’s the humidity,” Dad chimed in. “We get days this hot in Minneapolis—once or twice a year—but it’s a dry heat.”

“I spend most of my time in the gym or massage rooms. The academy has good environmental controls. I even have air conditioning in my dorm room,” I laughed.

At the word “environmental,” Mikey’s ears perked up. She was two years into her education and intended to become an environmental engineer. She hadn’t quite decided what she intended to do with her degree, but a lot of her study had been on natural solutions to interior environmental control so the necessary pollutants of air conditioning, heating, and waste management were mitigated to some extent.

And that was everything I understood about what she was doing.

Mom and Dad put their foot down and told her it was too far to go visit the academy so she could just drop in and offer to assess their pollution quotient.

It was nice seeing them, and I sent a few of my medals home with them. I didn’t keep any of my medals or awards at the academy. I didn’t really have anything that personal or sentimental there.

There were, however, a couple of interludes with the women I knew. I still made frequent Sunday afternoon trips to the beach with several of the women who had gone when the three girls had invited them. It was kind of cool to be a muscular guy on the beach surrounded by three to five athletic beauties in skimpy bikinis. Occasionally, we’d do some acrobatics on the beach. That always attracted a few watchers, even though we were just clowning around.

I’ve talked about how young some of the pairs performers were or at least looked. That is not just dependent on size. I mean, the reigning world champion in women’s gymnastics was twenty-eight years old and no one would mistake her for a little girl. Still, she’s only four feet and eight inches tall. And women gymnasts do incredible balance and acrobatic routines on the beam, floor, and vault.

So, it was no big deal for a couple to balance on me or have me throw them into a somersault. And those girls who had moved to circus training could do almost anything, including incredible contortionist exercises while supporting themselves with just one hand on my head. We weren’t really performing or practicing, though. We were just playing and having fun. Sometimes, our antics were in the water and sometimes on the beach.

And once or twice, they led to acrobatics in bed. Lifting and balancing a girl is always filled with the awareness that someone could get hurt with a bad move. When we were both naked and balancing, it added a level of adrenaline rush that was otherwise missing. Most of these girls can do splits at more than parallel to the floor. That in itself can be an experience if you happen to be embedded in her as she stretches out!

But these occasional tête-à-têtes grew from our just having fun and carrying it on into the bedroom. There was nothing serious about them.

I was surprised one afternoon to see my coach waiting for a massage in the training room.

“Coach DiCello? Are you here for a massage?” I asked.