Five

WE GOT INTO LAX at eight in the morning before the rest of the team arrived so we could meet Kate and Wendy. After we got checked in by Copa Airlines, we went to the gate to meet the rest of the team transferring to the same flight.

“No Ice Queen?” Coach Elliot asked.

“She’s in London at the Olympics,” I said. “She sent these delegates in her place. This is Wendy and this is Kate. Coach Elliot.”

“We all have our little entourage,” Coach said. “Welcome to Team USA.”

About twelve hours later, after a four-hour layover in Panama, we landed in Santo Domingo. By the time we were out of customs, it was after one in the morning and fortunately Coach had transportation passes to hand to the cab drivers that got us all to our hotel. The concierge looked at us a little strangely when Kate, Wendy, Allie, and I all checked into the same room. But it was beautiful. We were told to sleep in, relax in the morning, have lunch and meet as a team at six for dinner. Sleeping with four of us in a bed felt like home and I dropped off to sleep listening to Kate and Wendy softly making love.

We took the day on Friday to go to the arena to warm up. Then we all changed into our uniforms and went to dinner with the other competitors. Being mostly English speakers, we hung together. Allie conversed with some of the other contestants and I nudged Kate and Wendy to point out Portia Lupino, the Mexican queen of the courts. I have to say, she is pretty damned cute. Kate was scanning the room like she was waiting for someone specific. A young man and woman sat at a table nearby and looked totally lost. Kate got up to go talk to them—in some language that I didn’t recognize. Allie and Wendy both shrugged and shook their heads. We watched as Kate invited them to join us.

“This is Bianca and Costi Stanescu,” Kate said by way of introduction. “They are here from Romania and don’t speak any Spanish or English. Please be friendly.” Then she turned to the couple and rattled off a phrase in the language that I now assumed must be Romanian that her mother taught her and introduced us. I leaned over to Kate.

“How did you know?”

“I was looking at the program and saw them listed. I saw them come in alone and they looked uncomfortable. So I guessed,” Kate said.

“And you happen to speak Romanian,” I laughed. “One more reason to love you.”

We laughed and Kate translated the conversation to our guests.

“You know, it’s called a World Championship, but there is hardly ever anyone from Europe who comes. There’s a team from Ireland and one from England. The competition draws several from Asia. I think everyone else who is here is from the Western Hemisphere,” Randy commented. “We won’t see most of the European competition until the World Games next summer.”

Kate was so busy translating that she wasn’t getting anything to eat. There was a good speaker—in Spanish with an English translator. Kate did her best to keep up translating the translation to our new friends. All of a sudden, Allie and Wendy erupted in laughter. I was a little nonplussed because what I heard didn’t completely make sense. I glanced at Kate, who looked just as confused.

“He mistranslated,” Wendy said. “It sort of made sense, but the speaker said ‘sportsmanship’ and the translator said ‘deportment.’ Technically you could use that word, but it came off sounding like we should ship everyone out.”

“You speak Spanish?” I said.

“Yes sir,” Wendy said softly. I squeezed her hand, but people were talking around us and beginning to move. We headed toward the hotel with the team and our new friends. Kate was talking to Randy and Hannah on one side with the Stanescus on the other. She was saying something about how excited they were to meet the greatest players in the world and hoped they won the championship. If this kept up, Kate was going to be very busy this week!

“I’m so sorry, master,” Wendy said softly as we stood in the shower. She pulled away from my raging hard-on and left it dangling. “If I go any further, I will be in violation of the family rules for tournament play. I have noted, however, that the singles tournament ends on Tuesday and you are not entered in the team competition that starts on Thursday. Therefore, I will be most pleased to serve you in any way at that time.”

Allison and I had been playing so much with each other during our time in Stockton that I’d conveniently forgotten the “tease but don’t come” tradition of competition. I don’t like Wendy acting so submissive, but it was obvious that she was playing up the role today precisely to enhance the teasing. And it was working. I seriously wondered if I’d be able to take the court without having my boner point the way.

My first match was with the Irish champion. He was ranked twenty-second in the tournament and played with both fervor and style. It wasn’t like playing Randy, where everything he hit couldn’t be returned. He handled me in straight games, even though one of them was tight. My first match at World’s and I was out.

Well, out is a relative expression. We were playing Olympic brackets, meaning that even though I was out for the championship, I wasn’t done playing. I moved to the red bracket with a match early Sunday.

Allison stood up well in her first match, taking one of the three games from her Honduran opponent. At the end of the match, though, Allie had also moved to the red bracket. I was waiting with water and a towel when she stepped off the court. She spoke in Spanish to congratulate Rita and then turned to look at me with a big grin on her face.

“We played in the World Racquetball Championships!” she said, laughing. “You and me, Tony. We played in World’s!” It was infectious. I was laughing, too, and soon we were joined by Kate and Wendy as we headed back for the hotel. It was amazing. College kids from Nebraska and Kansas who were unknown a year ago, and we just played in the World Championships. How freakin’ cool is that?

We spent the afternoon at the courts watching the second round of play in the top bracket. Randy demolished his Guatemala opponent. Then we watched Hannah take out her Panamanian opponent 15/1 and 15/0. Hannah was leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was here to win a World Championship. Unfortunately, Mexican champion Portia Lupino, who had beaten Hannah in Opens, took out her Peruvian opponent by the same score. We were already seeing a preview of what the final match would be like. Super Girl meets Wonder Woman in a replay of the Opens final. That alone was going to be worth the trip to the Dominican Republic.

With a match under our belts, we were more relaxed at dinner. We connected our phones to the hotel WiFi and sent half a dozen messages to London. Lissa said they’d been following the live results and she was proud of us.

Costi had also fallen in the first round and would be playing in the red bracket. Bianca had survived her first match, but fell in the round of sixteen and would be in the women’s red bracket. We’d all be playing near the same time, though none of us had checked to see what the lineups were. Coach Elliot brought the news to us at our table. Allison and I would both be playing against Koreans who had looked tough during close first round matches.

Coach was great. He followed Kate’s lead and adopted the Romanians as part of our extended group. With Kate translating, he told Costi that he’d face the Dominican national champion. He even gave Costi a couple of tips for playing him, which Costi took seriously. Bianca would face the Peruvian, who was still stinging from her loss to Portia Lupino. Coach complimented Bianca’s play and encouraged her.

Bedtime was both easier and more intense than it had been the night before. Somehow, it was easier to tolerate the teasing that Kate and Wendy inflicted on us mercilessly. But the excitement of having played our first matches made it harder to sleep.

My first match in the morning was a disaster. My Korean opponent lit me up like a pinball machine. I got a few points in, but not enough to tell. I dropped to the white bracket and would play the first round in the afternoon. Allison fared little better, lasting through three games, but still dropping to the white bracket. Costi got slammed, but Bianca pulled out a victory to move to the round of sixteen.

That meant that we were all playing again in the afternoon.