Odalisque
Forty-eight
I DIDN’T THINK I’d done my best work on either Dennis’s or Strait’s final, but I was confident that I had saved my grade-point average and my scholarship. My scholarship was also contingent on competing. The most we had was inter-club competitions in Seattle. Next week, though, was National Intercollegiate Championships. I didn’t feel ready, but at least we were taking a team this year. And we’d see Allison.
Melody didn’t have a break at the same time we did at SCU. She and Kate wouldn’t be able to join us in Tempe. That meant we were in trouble regarding Ice Queen Sportswear. Intercollegiates were to be the introductory venue for Ice Queen Knights. Wendy’s quarter break was at the same time as mine and she spent hours with Melody going over the stock and booth management. Wendy could handle orders and take money—she was a pro at that with all her restaurant experience. It would be too exhausting to only have one person, though. I was really surprised when Amanda volunteered to work for us that week. Not that it was a volunteer position. We were going to pay her and pay her expenses, but the fact that she would be there was great. Rio complained that she’d promised to go home over break and wished she’d known we needed help before she committed. With both Amanda and Wendy to manage the booth and Bree, Lissa, Allison, and me to fill in, we figured we would manage. All of us had Melody on speed dial.
The boys were with us for the weekend before we left for Tempe and that was a treat. I hadn’t been able to spend much time with them the past few weeks and I devoted Saturday to boy-play. They wanted to drum on Sunday and I called in all the drummers I could think of to help us burn off our post-finals stress. The whole racquetball team showed up. It was a like a team-building exercise. They all enjoyed beating the drums and several had drums of their own to bring. A few boyfriends and girlfriends joined. It might have been more people than we had at New Year’s. Of course, Kate led all the women in dancing.
We were all getting nervous about the big tournament. Last year, we didn’t have a team—it was just me and I was an unknown player ranked as Elite. This year, with eight of us competing, we would be eligible for team trophies. That was cool, even if we didn’t win anything.
Coach Jacobson arranged to take us to the airport in a team bus. Sam was coming down with us and was in charge of all the official stuff like paying for the hotel and approving our registration fees. He’d been kind enough to tack on the reservations for Wendy and Amanda even though Lissa and I had to pay for their tickets, hotel rooms and expenses. There were pretty specific rules we all had to follow regarding how much food could be charged to our rooms, no booze, and no pay movies. But since the NIC was the only event we were traveling for this season, we had a pretty generous allowance. No one complained.
We had a team dinner and all went to bed. Play started first thing Tuesday morning.
I won’t go through everything in Intercollegiate play. There are six men’s divisions based on level and test scores. Division 1 is the elite players. That’s what I played in. Walt, our other men’s singles competitor was playing in Division 4. Franklin and Brent were Division 2 Men’s Doubles out of three divisions. They looked really strong. Rachel and Bree were both competing in Women’s Division 6 Singles. They had the least experience and were the smallest players on our team. The big threat on the women’s team were Tonya and Whitney playing Women’s Division 2 Doubles. Whitney had decided to play singles as well and was registered in Women’s Division 3 Singles. She was going to be a busy girl.
I was surprised to find that I was ranked eighth by way of my points in last year’s championships, National Singles, and Opens. I’d acquired a few points in local tournaments that were USAR sanctioned. Believe me there were guys who played sanctioned competitions all year and had a lot more points. But being ranked in the top twenty-four meant I drew a bye in the first round. Tuesday afternoon I faced my first opponent from Texas. We played hard and had a good match. I won by three and four in two games. I was feeling pretty good. Unless I dropped a level, I only had one match a day to worry about.
If you lose in the round of 64 or the round of 32 in the Gold Bracket, you automatically drop to the Red Bracket. If you lose in the round of 16 in Gold, you drop to the Blue Bracket. If you lose in the either of the first two rounds of the Red Bracket, you drop to the White Bracket. The top eight places in each bracket get points and are considered to have placed in that bracket. The only prize that meant anything to me, though, was going up against Brian Summers for the national title. But Summers didn’t come to the tournament. He’s from out East and apparently considered it too far to come for a tournament. The first time I could possibly meet him would be at National Singles.
There were a few guys I’d met in the tournament last year, but for the most part I couldn’t watch anyone else in my division play before I met them on the court. I did have time to help my team and split some responsibilities with Lissa so that when we had players playing at the same time, like Bree and Rachel, we could each coach one of them.
And ref. In Intercollegiate sports, upper division players are all expected to take a turn each day refereeing a match in a lower division. Twelve matches are going on at all times. You can’t expect to get thirty-six officials—three for each court—to work non-stop from eight o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night.
Brent and Franklin won their first match. Bree won her first match, but Rachel dropped to the Red Bracket after her first match. I hoped she would win at least one match. Walt lost his first match, but said he’d do better in the Red Bracket. He was too nervous to focus.
The real surprise was in Tonya and Whitney. They tore up their first opponents in Doubles. It took them three games, but they took the duo from West Point in a strong battle. Whitney came right back half an hour later to totally destroy her first Singles opponent by four and by thirteen. The girl came off the court and crushed Lissa to her with a kiss that turned a lot of heads.
By dinnertime, we were all exhausted and running on adrenalin and caffeine. Lissa got us settled down and Sam took the team to dinner. I checked on Wendy and Amanda. They were collapsed in chairs behind our table with a glazed look on their faces. I guess our team uniforms had been a hit. They’d sold a couple dozen outfits, including the new Knights outfits for guys. But more importantly, they’d been on the phone with Melody for an hour writing up two custom team orders. That was a big deal.
We closed up the booth and grabbed a bite to eat. We were doubled up in the rooms. In fact, the guys were bunked in a single room with an extra bed in it. I was lucky to share a room with Lissa. Wendy traded rooms with Rachel so she and Bree could room together. Rachel was okay with that since she knew Amanda and they got along great. I had a feeling that wasn’t the last trade that would be made. Lissa and I had a king-sized bed that we were sharing with Allison, who had cleaned up her first opponent. Both Wendy and Bree had looked longingly at our bed. I saw them whispering to Amanda and Whitney, too. Oh boy.
There was something special about snuggling into bed between Lissa and Allie. We hadn’t seen Allie since Christmas. We didn’t make love. We didn’t even try to tease each other much. We were too exhausted from the excitement of the day. They sandwiched me between them and both lay partially on top of me while we drifted off to sleep.
I woke up with a hard-on in a familiar place and Lissa was moving back against me. I let my hips thrust forward a little and could feel her moist center at the tip of my prick.
I wasn’t expecting the covers to be thrown off and someone to smack my butt.
“You get that out of there, young man!” Allison shouted, pulling at me until I rolled away from Lissa. “You have a competition and you aren’t allowed little treats like that until after you win it. I’m on edge and by god you will be, too.”
“Yes, yes!” I screamed as she swatted me again. “I’m not doing anything. I’m just going to get up and go to the bathroom. Okay?”
“I’m coming with you,” Allison said as Lissa started laughing. “I don’t trust you not to rub one off in there.” Lissa and I were both laughing as we all staggered toward the bathroom and took turns as the shower was warming up.
“Who made you the Nazi general?” I asked. “You know, it’s not going to go down so I can pee if you keep staring at it like that.”
“But I haven’t seen it in so long,” Allie moaned. Lissa turned her around and kissed her long enough for me to relax my butt muscles so I could let go of my stream. I jumped in the shower while they each used the pot and then joined me.
“Has it been difficult all by yourself?” Lissa asked Allison.
“I have never used so many phone minutes in my life as talking to Beth,” she answered. “She’s so sweet, but we both know it’s going to get more difficult when I graduate.”
“When is your commencement? Maybe we can all come,” I said.
“May 12. But don’t bother. I don’t think I’ll even attend. I’ve got an audition that week in Portland and I’m coming up to Seattle as soon as I’m done. I hope you’re ready to have me around for a while. I think I’m going to be in the dinner theater playhouse for the summer,” Allie said. “It will be awesome, but poor Beth will be on the other coast.”
“Well, maybe we can get her out to Seattle for the summer, too. Are you still getting on okay?”
“Long distance relationships suck, but not in the right places.” We all laughed and went to join our teams for breakfast.
Brent and Franklin survived their second match first thing in the morning and were headed to the quarter finals. They were so stoked I think they were flying. They were also panicked about officiating their first match later in the day. They’d be working separately, but on the same round as they did the first round of Men’s Division 6 Red Bracket. About the same time, I was going to be a line judge on the Women’s Division 2 Gold Bracket. Before we had our refereeing assignments, we had to tell the tournament officials what matches we might have a conflict of interest in. I ruled myself out of anything my team was competing in, including Allison.
Bree dropped to the Red Bracket with a spectacular loss to a girl I honestly thought should have been playing about two divisions higher. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be allowed at this level again. When they posted the draw for Red, we saw Bree was going to play against Rachel. Now that sucked big time. Fortunately, the two had worked long enough together as cheerleaders and friends that they were each determined to beat the other and still be friends.
Walt took his first round in the Red Bracket and headed into the semi-finals. Whitney and Tonya won their second match without breaking a sweat and were headed to semis as well. If they lost tomorrow, they would play the consolation game the next day. If they won, they’d be in the finals. Whitney played hard in her quarter final, but just couldn’t quite pull it out. Instead of competing in semi-finals in the Gold Bracket, she’d be competing against the other three quarter final losers in the Blue Bracket semis. She still looked mighty good.
And that brought it to me. There was another guy there from Clarkson. I just pretended he was Brian Summers and went to work on him. The whole contest was between me and the ball. I didn’t even notice the guy. I allowed him four points in the first game and none in the second. It took twenty-two minutes. Send that message back to Brian. I was ready for him at National Singles.
Allison was still dominating the women’s side and we were all pretty jubilant as we picked up Wendy and Amanda and all went to dinner. We had a lot of fun with a couple of the other teams who were in the same restaurant. You know, there’s college rivalry, but when it comes down to it, we were all there to have a great time. I did find out that the reason Brian didn’t show up wasn’t because of distance, but that there was a death in his family. I couldn’t fault him for that. We’d never met, but after watching him play Karl last spring, I was anxious for the showdown.
I was headed back to the room when Bree and Wendy grabbed my arms and hauled me into their room.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Surrogates,” Bree explained.
“Kate and Melody can’t be down here, so they asked us to take care of you tonight,” Wendy said.
“Um… well… yeah… but…”
“We know you can’t have sex, Tony,” Bree said. “We’re all still competing. But you get to sleep with us tonight and we’ll make sure your testosterone level is high when you head for the court tomorrow.”
“I need to let Lissa know and get my toothbrush,” I said, lamely.
“Everything you need is already here and Lissa and Allison are probably already in bed buried in each other’s tits,” Bree declared. She showed me to the bathroom and my Dopp kit and tomorrow’s clothes were all laid out for me. Oh well. I sent messages to my lovers to tell them I loved them and got “Have fun” texts from each of them.
It was pretty awkward. We’d all been intimate to some degree with each other. But sharing a bed with just Bree and Wendy was a little weird. I came out of the bathroom in my sweats and a T-shirt to find Bree in a T-shirt and Wendy in one of my painting smock white shirts. We looked at each other and all broke out laughing.
“We’re going to be some teases, I can tell,” Bree said.
“Can we just cuddle up and go to sleep?” I asked. Both girls just nodded their heads. We got into bed with me in the middle and the girls snuggled up against me. I got a very nice goodnight kiss from each of them. I lay on my back and wrapped an arm around each and they both threw a leg over the leg nearest them, knocking knees in the middle. There was another round of giggling as we settled down.
“Maybe one of you could explain what’s going on,” I said.
“You’re my hero,” Wendy said. “I’d do anything for you.”
“I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations, Tiger,” I said. “But it is kind of exhausting to be a hero twenty-four-seven.”
“I trust you.”
“What about you, Bree? I’m not your hero,” I said.
“Maybe not the same way,” Bree said. “You’re like a brother to me, except I still want to have sex with you. How weird is that?”
“But…” I started.
“And Melody…” Bree said at the same time.
“Yeah. And Melody,” I prompted.
“We really got off to a bad start. Can you believe it was just a year ago that I came prancing into your room naked and attacked Allison?” Bree asked. “I came so close to screwing up all of our lives so frequently that I can’t believe Melody let me live. But she did. And I love her for it. I’ve never considered myself particularly into women. They’re okay for a little entertainment or to double-team a guy, but not for a relationship. But your women—and especially Melody—really get to me. I prefer to have a guy, but I don’t want to be without Melody.”
“Geez. I think my wives each have a girlfriend. Except Lissa. Is she getting cut out of things with you guys?” I asked.
“No, Tony,” Wendy gasped, pushing herself up so she could look at me. “Lissa is… so understanding… and kind… and…”
“And we all love her,” Bree said softly. “Just like we all love you. And you might have noticed the girl sharing Lissa’s bed this week… Allison?” Yeah. I remember her. “But if I was you, I’d be watching out for Whitney. I think she’s got plans for later.”
“Oh man. I’m so glad you two are sane. The world has gone crazy.”
“Don’t count on it, Tony,” Wendy said. “Just because we’re reserved and respectful doesn’t mean… well… that…”
“That we don’t want to have sex with you,” Bree finished. Wendy buried her head in my shoulder. I hugged both girls to me and they returned the pressure. “You are both very special to me. Now I need sleep if I’m going to play well tomorrow.”
“’Night, Tony,” they chorused.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
