Freestyle Flirting: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Read online

  “Marie,” said Dasha, looking up and meeting eyes with me. “In the pool, please.”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  Standing at my locker with a bright white towel wrapped around myself, my blonde hair wet and hanging down my back, I fished through my bag to dig out my panties with one hand, while my other hand held my towel against my chest. Finding my bikini briefs, I stepped out of my shower shoes, though remained standing on top of them, and folded in half, sliding my underwear up my legs and securing them in place underneath my towel. There was the usual din of a locker room echoing around me. Locker doors slamming, girls talking, the faintest sound of showers streaming down. While actual swim practice was over for the day, I was still scheduled to meet with the team doctor and nutritionist to figure out my meal plan.

  I was actually looking forward to hanging out around Ann Arbor. It was my home, after all, and since moving to Chicago I hadn’t come back very often. It definitely reminded me of some of the pains of my past, but there were good memories as well. It was such a beautiful little town, such a pretty campus, and just a great place to live.

  As I pulled my bra out of my bag, I felt a presence slide up on me and I turned my head to look at what it was. With a smile on her face, there stood Dasha, soft dimples in her cheeks, looking sporty in her polo and shorts. Dasha leaned up against the lockers and looked happy and pleased. The stern coach facade seemed to have melted for that moment as was instead replaced by the demeanor of a peer.

  “Hey Marie,” said Dasha. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure,” I said, letting a mimicked smile curl over my lips. Looking down to the bench behind me to make sure there was nothing on it, I lowered myself and sat, still wrapped in the white towel.

  “Great,” said Dasha. She sat down on the bench next to me, slightly turned toward me so we could talk. “First, I just want to let you know that I was reading your biography and I’m so terribly sorry about your last Olympic experience.”

  “Thank you,” I said, averting my eyes, my smile fading softly. “It’s been a difficult few years.”

  “You can always talk to me,” said Dasha, trying to persuade me to look her in the eyes once more. “I know all this can be immensely stressful and especially since we’re back in your home town, at your university. Oh, I imagine it’s very difficult on you.”

  “I’m good at pushing it all down,” I said, making a pushing movement with one of my hands. “You don’t have to worry about my work ethic. I’m here to win.”

  “That’s good,” said Dasha. “But don’t hide from your feelings. You experienced a pretty big trauma, it’s something that sticks with you. I know from my own personal experience.”

  “You do?” I said softly, surprised, wondering what Dasha might have experienced that could even compare to what happened to me.

  “Yes,” she said, looking down into her hands, folded in her lap. “My older sister was kidnapped and disappeared. Did you not know that?”

  “Oh my God, Coach Dasha,” I said, feeling mournful in my heart. “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

  “Yes,” Dasha affirmed. “It was a ransom thing, when my father was competing in the Olympics in the 80s. There was talk that he would leave the Soviet Union and defect to America, which was true of course, and my sister was a casualty in that mess.” I could tell Dasha was reliving the pain in her head by the expression on her face. “I was young but I felt it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, shaking my head. I reached over and took Dasha’s hand. She squeezed my hand in return and then offered me a smile.

  “It’s okay,” she said, our hands gingerly drifting apart though I yearned to continue our touch. “I just tell you this because I want you to know that I understand hardship and loss. I know how competition can help you forget about your troubles, even if for a brief moment, but I also know that it’s always there, buried within. And I’m here for you if you ever want to talk.” Dasha smiled simply, which caused me to return the tender expression.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate that.” I was so touched by Dasha’s commiseration that I felt my eyes begin to tear up. I didn’t want to cry, though, so I stifled it, taking a deep breath and steading my nerves. I had gotten good at suppressing those kind of emotions.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Dasha, moving like she was about to stand up.

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting her motion by placing a hand gently on her knee.

  “Yes?” she said, sitting back down and offering me a comforting smile.

  “Maybe we could get together outside of practice,” I said, not really sure where I was going with the suggestion. I just wanted to spend more time with her. “I know Ann Arbor pretty well and can show you around. And it would be nice to have a friend who understands me a bit better than the other girls.” Dasha released a small chuckle, still smiling, and she looked off slightly as she thought about my offer.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally, looking back toward me. Her dark brown eyes glimmered something feisty, immediately catching me off guard. Did she feel the same way about me as I did her? I couldn’t tell. But as she sat there on the locker room bench next to me, she certainly didn’t feel like my coach. She felt like my friend. She felt like something more. “We have a lot to focus on and very little time to do it,” said Dasha.

  “It won’t get in the way of training,” I said. “We can just catch dinner sometime and talk about the Games. I’d really love to hear about your experience.” The smile on Dasha’s face grew wider.

  “Okay,” she said, offering me a small nod. “I suppose we could get dinner sometime and talk Olympics. For now I should get back to work.” Dasha stood up from the bench, gave me one final grin, and waited there for an expectant moment. Remembering I was sitting there in just a towel, I suddenly felt a bit sheepish about our interaction but, hell, I was naked enough in locker rooms and rarely embarrassed. But when you’re interested in someone, it’s weird, it’s different. You don’t want to just drop your towel immediately, you know what I mean? You want to leave some mystery there.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dasha,” I said, happy to have gotten to know her better.

  “Yes,” she said. “Until tomorrow, Marie. Goodbye.” And with that, Dasha slipped off from me, coasting through the locker room and toward the bank of offices reserved for the coaching staff.

  I felt as though I could just fall backwards off the bench, my heels lifting high above my head. I was giddy, excited to have made the connection with Dasha. Even though I knew most of the girls on the team from various meets and invitationals, I was honest with Dasha in implying that I didn’t really connect with anybody else. It was her that I wanted to connect with. Sure, she was my coach and we would be working closely with one another. But my heart was telling me to ignore what my head was saying. I had to listen because my heart hadn’t always been the most vocal in the past few years.

  With a revitalized sense of self-confidence, I stood up from the locker room bench and let my towel fall off me and down to the floor below, leaving me standing there in nothing but my panties. I reached into my locker, yanked out my bra, and deftly slipped into it. Before long I was fully dressed, wearing a v-neck athletic fashion tee and some shorts, eager to get out of the gym and get my nutrition meeting over with.

  Just as I slammed my locker closed and affixed the combination lock, my eyes met with Amber’s, she too fully dressed and smirking at me, one hand on her hip, looking pretty much like a snot.

  Amber was blonde like me and quite pretty, well-toned, super athletic, just superbly talented, and a victim of the dreaded resting bitch face. It was exhausting to me that we couldn’t get along. I didn’t have anything against her. I didn’t care for our rivalry. I think maybe she just kept it going in her own mind because it drove her to work harder.

  “Hey Marie,” said Amber, letting a devious grin smear across her lips.

  “Hey Amber,” I said.

&n
bsp; “I just want to let you know that I totally support you as my teammate,” she said. “And in the relay, we’re going to kick ass together. But my goal is to win Gold in the 400 meter free and I can’t accept anything less.”

  “Whatever,” I said, hefting my duffel bag up onto my shoulder. “Look, I’ve got to go to my nutrition meeting.”

  “It’s just a friendly competition,” she said, lightly pushing my shoulder. “C’mon, we’re having fun.”

  “What is your problem with me?” I asked, feeling exasperated by how many years her thing with me had gone on. “We’re teammates going to the Olympics together. Can’t we just bury this drama?”

  “Drama?” said Amber, speaking like I was crazy. “There’s no drama. I told you I’m on your side.” Her voice just dripped with haughty sarcasm.

  “Amber, what about how you acted at the First Amalgamated Bank Invitationals last year?” I said. I released a deep breath. I had really grown tired of her act. “You beat me, you didn’t have to rub my nose in it.”

  “What?” she said innocently. Amber brought her hand to her face and smudged her index finger over her grinning lips. “It’s just a big fun game,” said Amber, shrugging.

  “I think you’re just trying to get into my head,” I said.

  “Is it working?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m done with all that crap. I want to win Gold, too, but I’m going to do it with hard work. Not silly mind games.”

  “Okay Marie,” said Amber daintily, spinning to one side on her heel. “Whatever you say.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, pushing past her with my duffel bag leading, moving Amber out of my way as I made my break toward the locker room door.

  “See you in the dorms!” called Amber after me. I could hear her laugh afterwards. She was really getting on my nerves. She was the kind of girl that was easy to hate but damn it if I didn’t still respect her talent and work ethic. I knew she was trying to screw with me, that was her jam, and I just wished we could leave it in the pool. Truth is, sometimes I even wished that Amber and I could be friends like we once were. I guess I wished for a lot of things to be like they were before my parents’ accident.

  Slipping my red canvas shoes across the tiled floor, I pushed through the locker room exit, squinting just slightly as the sun shone into the building from outside. It was still early and it was a beautiful summer afternoon. Michigan in summer is wonderful, nostalgic even, and it all brought back so many memories. I basked in them.

  Although I’m not too keen on talking about the death of my parents, I’ll share a little bit of it with you. I mean, it feels like it was yesterday. It was only 4 years ago. It’s one of those wounds that doesn’t heal very quickly and, honestly, I’m not sure it will ever heal. How do you get past something like that? I haven’t and I don’t try to pretend like it’s a possibility.

  My parents were wonderful people and both quite successful in their own right. My father was an executive for one of the Big 3 automakers in Detroit and my mother was a professor of psychology at U of M. They had met while attending U of M themselves, both of them, you guessed it, on the swim team. Although neither my mother or father made it as far in competitive swimming as I have, they both took the sport fairly seriously. They got me swimming at a young age, probably before I could even walk fully, and as I progressed in school it was an inevitability that I would gravitate toward competition. It was in the family. It was in my blood.

  I wasn’t just forced into swimming because my parents were swimmers. I really did, and do, enjoy it. It’s meditative. It allows me to exist in the moment. It inspires me to forget the world around me and just be. As Bruce Lee said, “empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.” When I’m in the water, I am the water. It’s magical. Like my parents, I found the magic of swimming and I latched tightly onto it. It was my reason for being.

  All my hard work, however, felt meaningless the moment I found out my parents had died. I was only 21 and my family had been ripped from me. I have to say that I was fortunate that my parents were well-off financially and that they each had hefty life insurance policies. Had that not been the case, their accident would have taken swimming from me as well. I really feel for people like me who similarly lost their family at a young age, yet don’t have the finances to fall back on while they figure out how to go on. I was lucky that, once the dust settled, I could slowly return to competition without worrying about money. I could train full-time, focus on myself, focus on my goals, focus on living my parents’ legacy.

  After wrapping things up in Ann Arbor and doing my Asia backpacking trip, I bought a condo in Chicago because I knew the Lakeshore Aquatics Club was a legit organization that could take my training to a new level. A few friends of mine from U of M swimming were also in Chicago and training at Lakeshore, so I knew I wouldn’t be alone. Everyone was really kind about my tragedy and about my pulling out of the 2012 Summer Games because of it. They helped me train harder, they all wanted me to see my Olympic dreams come to fruition.

  But there was always something missing. Some sort of inspiration that was once there had since vanished. It was like there was a hole in my heart. I was an orphan and no matter how hard I worked, something just wasn’t right. I still feel like something’s missing. I can’t help it. I just want to be happy again. I’m happy when I’m in the water, but when I’m out of the water my mood can be up and down.

  I aim to fill that hole with Gold. I know that winning a Gold Medal won’t bring my parents back. But I like to think that they might be proudly watching me, cheering me on, seeing me accomplish what I had set out to do. Their hard work and support wasn’t lost on me. I wanted to win this for them. Then, maybe I could start finding some lasting happiness.

  It doesn’t help that my love life has been pretty much nonexistent since their death. I had dated girls in college, and had just one relationship since moving to Chicago, but it’s definitely been hard to open up and give my love to someone else. You’ve got to be able to be there when you’re in a relationship and I’m not always all there. My mind wanders, I space out. Either I’m thinking about competition or maybe I’m dwelling on my loss and trying to figure out how to keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s just not fair to your partner. That’s how my last relationship ended. I wasn’t present enough.

  But I had a rejuvenated hope for love upon meeting Dasha. She easily stole my heart. It was true that she was objectively pretty, a wonderful Eastern European beauty. Austere features like classic royalty. You could walk into an art museum and see her face on some 18th century Russian princess. But it wasn’t just that for me. Her talent and dedication to the sport was inspiring. She had been in my spot, swimming for Team USA and she had succeeded in earning a Medal. It was inspiring.

  Dasha’s kindness was similarly inspiring. To find out that she had a story of loss similar to my own, it only made me feel closer to her. It had been some time since I felt I had met a kindred spirit, but Dasha was indeed that spirit. I was eager to know more about her, to see if the two of us could become closer, perhaps on a deeper level than simply coach and swimmer. And while I was quite aware that the thoughts creeping into my mind went against some of the governances of our sport, I couldn’t deny the feelings that were gurgling up within.

  Really, I longed for a friend. For someone who could genuinely understand me. It had been so long since I felt understood.

  After practice the next day, Dasha and I decided to catch an early dinner at a brewery in downtown Ann Arbor. If you’re unfamiliar with the caloric needs of swimmers, let me tell you that it can be quite crazy. You see our slim, muscled bodies and you may think to yourself, “I wonder if they’re on a restricted diet?” No way. My daily caloric intake wavers between 8000 and 10,000 calories, while some of the men on the team eat as much as 12,000 per day. Some days I find it hard to even stomach eating as much food as they want me to eat, but with the amount of calories you burn training in the pool,
if you don’t shove that food down your throat you wouldn’t be able to compete. Your body would just waste away to nothing.

  So knowing all this now, it should come as no surprise to you that our waitress slipped two burgers down in front of me, each with their requisite load of fries, and a lemonade. Dasha, on the other hand, had ordered a much more reasonable salmon caesar salad. I eyed her plate and longed for the a break in competition so that I could return to eating like a normal person.

  “Your salad looks so good,” I said. Dasha forked at her salad and then looked up to me.

  “Your burgers look…” began Dasha, letting a small smile creep onto her face. “On schedule.”

  “How many calories do you think this all is?” I asked, looking down at my plate, feeling a bit sick. I knew I had to get it all down, though.

  “Maybe 2500,” said Dasha. “I’ll help you.” Reaching across the table, Dasha plucked a single French fry from my plate and quickly stuffed it into her mouth.

  “Oh, thanks,” I said. “That’s a huge help.”

  “I am your coach and I’m always here to support you,” she said. Her humor was dry, her lines delivered straight. But this even speech often dripped in sarcasm.

  “Ugh,” I intoned, picking up one of my burgers with both hands and taking a bite.

  “I think your post-turn stroke is beginning to improve,” said Dasha. “We really need to focus on that burst of speed from the wall, which will be especially important in the medley.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I’m focused on it and I think I really made some strides today.”