Blind Landing (Flipped #1) (9 page)

T
he scale looms
in front of us, its dials and measurers glimmering in the harsh neon light. Four brown ponytails stand between it and me, and I can feel the rage already boiling in my veins.

“One hundred and seven pounds, Grace!? You gained two since last week. Cut back on dinner, or you may just be sitting at home instead of in the Olympic village in Rio!”

Grace steps from the scale, her face white as a sheet and her fingers practically carving slits into the sides of her thighs.

One hundred and seven pounds. That was practically malnourished by American standards. If Grace was fat, I was obese at one hundred and twenty pounds. But I didn’t care about numbers or a scale or any of that shit.

I care that a grown man was subjecting young girls to body shaming. Making them get on a scale every week and be picked apart, every inch of them measured with a BMI measurement caliper. I care that he is mentally screwing with Grace, a sixteen-year-old who I’m pretty sure is throwing up the measly two meals a day she even picks at, let alone digests. I care that Novak has created these harsh limits, has turned a sport I love into something that neglects and harms young women.

I’ve watched him over the years. Berate and demean his gymnasts at meets. There have been rumors that he’s locked girls in their hotel rooms with no food all weekend when they are away from their parents at meets.

I just never saw it firsthand. Until I got here.

The scale comes to rest at the tips of my toes, and I step up, Novak working the dials and weights.

“One hundred twenty. Same as last week, still heaviest one here. Can’t you stop getting your period?”

My mouth drops open, but I shut it quickly. I can’t believe a fully grown man who has been tasked to take care of my well being is actually suggesting I stop the normal flow of my body parts. That I should sacrifice being healthy in order to lose some more weight to … what? I am already an elite gymnast, headed for the Olympics. I hone my muscles and my conditioning every single day. I’m as strong and as in-shape as I will ever be.

What Novak does … it’s sick. Twisted. He wants to warp and brainwash these girls into listening to whatever he tells them. And sadly, most of the times it isn’t true.

And times like today, and every single day until I’m standing on that platform winning gold in Rio, I have to perpetuate it. Keep my mouth shut. Because he calls the shots, he names the team.

How badly would I like to punch Novak in the face right now? How badly would I like to call him out for creating these girls’ horrible lack of self-esteem?

I would fucking love it.

But all I’m allowed to do is roll my eyes. Nod my head. And move on. Put my shorts back on and get on my way, dragging myself to another gym.

“You think I can make him get on that scale? I’d love to weigh that beer gut.” Julia whispers into my ear as we walk out.

“I hate that shit. We’re gymnasts. We have muscles and lean fat. Do they think these eight hour a day workouts are just not doing anything? I’ve had ripped biceps since I was five.”

We both roll our eyes in unison.

“I’m worried about Grace. These weigh-ins are not good for her.” Julia chews on her thumbnail.

“I know they’re not.” Even I can hear the worry in my own voice.

It’s this nonsense that makes so many elite athletes, not just gymnasts, quit before they can see glory. The bullshit, the red tape, the hoops to jump through. When you get up to this level, it’s not just about the sport you love and being the best. There is ass kissing and an image to maintain.

I never wanted this part, but sadly, you can’t escape it.

But I know that soon enough, my time will come. I will stand with my hand over my heart, a medal around my neck and listen to them play the Star Spangled Banner.

And then I’ll come for Novak. I want to return my sport, the sport I love so much, to its proper place. Uplift both girls and boys, show them how to healthily compete and make it fun again.

Because as serious as being an elite athlete is, they need to be here for the right reasons. Not because they’re scared. And not because they feel like they’ll end up as disappointments in their coaches or parents eyes.

But because they truly, truly love it.

* * *

I
try
to shake off the morning’s annoyance and get focused on my workouts for the rest of the day. With only about a month left before Olympic Trials, and only two months left before Rio, I needed to throw myself full force into being the best I could be.

I thrived on competition energy, reveled in it. I was like a soldier ready to do battle, putting on my leotard armor, securing my weapons, my bare hands, with tape and chalk each morning. I’d been preparing for this since I could walk, and it was almost surreal that all of my training, all of the blood, sweat and tears was going to,
hopefully
, pay off in just weeks.

Pushing open the Vault Gym door, Aerosmith hits me full force in the chest. The rock music wound around my limbs and made my heart beat. My lips spread into a goofy grin.

And he was the reason why. Rourke Bosco.

I spotted him, his fist pumping in the air as he stood on a spotter’s block in the middle of the lineup of vaulting tables at the far end of the wall. Rourke was the sole vault coach at Filipek’s, and rightly so. He was a fucking vault genius. And he was a maniac. And I loved him.

There were coaches you instantly clicked with, either because their philosophy inspired you or their personality clicked with you. With Rourke, it was both. I’d admired him in the community for a while, but being able to train with him was a whole other level. He was fun, motivating and just a great teacher.

It also didn’t hurt that he was a total DILF. Or … a dad I’d like to … well, you know.

“Rock on, ladies! Bow down to one of the greatest rockstars of all time.
Walk this way, talk this way
!” Rourke formed the rock symbol with his hands and sang at the top of his lungs.

Oh yeah, and he blasted nothing but rock classics in his gym at all times.

“He’s so freaking cool,” Anna giggles as she pulls her Tiger Paws out of her bag and begins to strap them on.

We all walked in, dropping our gym bags by the cubbies against the wall and making our way up the “lanes,” as we called them. The vault gym was nothing more than a large rectangle. Running the length of the gym were a dozen or more vault runways, thick felt carpets that feet could grip to and assisted in giving each gymnasts’ legs more power as they ran at the stationary object in their path. At the end of each runway was a red and white regulation springboard, and a tan vault which either emptied into a pit, or onto hard, solid ground.

The vaults always reminded me of the Painted Ladies in San Francisco. Sure, they weren’t colorful, but each vault got higher as you looked at the next one, making them look a lot like stairs, or the famous houses on the hill. The larger the height you vaulted on, the bigger balls you had. And guess who vaulted on the highest setting?

“You know the drill ladies. Four run-bys, four one legged runs on each leg, four walking handstand passes, four half-ons, four Tsuks, and then we get into real vaults!” Rourke jumps down from his block and makes his way toward us, his wavy brown hair flopping in his eyes as he takes lengthy strides.

Rourke might be one of the most fun coaches at Filipek’s, but he was still all business when it came to his regimen for workouts. We did about an hour or two of warm-ups before he even let us start practicing our competition vaults. We had to run down the runway, get our legs nice and loose. Then we had to walk it on our hands to warm up the power in our shoulders. Then four elementary vaults, which were supposed to not only get our bodies used to the springboard, but also help us focus on our form. Pointed toes, pretty hands and straight legs were, after all, the fundamentals of good gymnastics.

And finally, we had to complete four Tsukaharas, a vault that required a gymnast to jump off of the springboard and turn her body one hundred and eighty degrees onto the vault so that she was in a handstand with her back facing the runway. Once there, you had to explode off of the table into a back tuck, using nothing but the power from your shoulders and hands. For most gymnasts, it was hard. For elite athletes like the girls who had made it here, we’d been doing them for years in our sleep.

Julia shook out her shoulders and ankles as we stood side by side at the end of one of the runways. “God, I love these hours.”

Vault was her favorite event. But I had a feeling she wasn’t just talking about the gymnastics of it all as she stared moony-eyed at Rourke across the gym.

“Me too, especially after that show of tyranny back there. Vault is just mindless, easy and exhausting.” I looked forward to getting lost in the monotony of the afternoon.

“Hey now, I’m obsessed with this ‘monotony.’ We can’t all be floor superstars.” Julia was a power gymnast, dancing and artistic ability didn’t really interest her.

She began jumping like a boxer about to get into the ring, pushing through her toes and charging up the raw power in her calves and thighs.

Then abruptly, she stopped, and I swore I saw her wince.

“What’s wrong?” Wincing a month before Olympic Trials was a very bad thing.

Julia bent down, rubbing the tender spot at the back of her ankle that houses the Achilles. “Just this damn heel and ankle. They still hurt even after all of the physical therapy and rehabbing I did. I’ll be fine.”

She stood up straight again, checking around us to see if anyone had noticed. Acknowledging your injury in front of competitors was like taunting sharks in bloody water.

“Just make sure you go see the trainer after this. You might just need to ice bath that.” Was it sad that most of us hadn’t even hit twenty yet and we were regularly soaking in freezing cold tubs to heal our bodies quicker after endless days of workouts?

“Or maybe they can give me something. Maybe a shot.” Julia looks off into the distance and I could see the gears turning in her brain.

I grab her wrist, making sure she’s making eye contact before I talk. “Cortisone? Be careful with that shit, Jules. It’s not a cure, it’s a mask.”

I’d seen dozens of gymnasts shoot the pain-erasing drug into various parts of their bodies. Sure, it was a miracle at the time, but most of them either couldn’t walk now because of the damage it had done, or they had serious arthritis, bone damage and muscle numbness.

“It’s the Olympics, Nat.” She shrugged and brushed me off, walking to the opposite end of the gym to go start her warmups on a different runway.

Her rationale made sense, soothed the part of my soul that was warring with telling her not to do it. Not to inevitably get the shot. Because she was right.

And I’d do the same thing.

T
wo days
of watching myself and my routines on YouTube and Spence has me throwing Arabian dismounts off the regular competition beam easy as pie. He’s even stepped off the spotter’s block a couple of times, and no mental noise has fucked up my head.

Spencer had done the impossible; he’d cured the fearless gymnast of her fear. Though, I was knocking on wood anytime I saw it. I didn’t want to jinx anything.

But so far, there had been no back stepping; I hadn’t reverted back to the fear and the mental block. It took me a second or two to work up the courage while I stood on the other end of the beam … but every time I’d run full force and sent my body twisting and soaring through the Arabian dismount.

“I know I’m no fashion expert, but I’m pretty sure that is the ugliest fucking leotard I’ve ever seen.” Spence laughs as he falls backward onto the mat underneath the rings.

We’re sitting side by side, his arm touching my knee as we watch yet another video of my beam routine before we get started.

“God, yes. You’re right. My old gym wanted us to wear those brown and gold things … they were so awful. One of my old teammates kept calling us the Flipping Poops all day.”

I stop the video and look around us at the Olympic gym. It’s modeled after the competition stage from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the year that Filipek brought the USA team gold after years of drought. It’s how he made his name in the gymnastics community here.

Glancing back at Spence, I see him staring up at the rings. “Do you miss it?”

He doesn’t look at me, his green eyes still following the gently swinging rings above his head. “With every single breath.”

I smile a small smile at his use of my words from a couple of days ago. I remember his injury, everybody does. When one of the greatest gymnasts of all time falls to the mat with a resounding crash and doesn’t get back up, it reverberates through the community like a stone thrown in a lake.

“And there is nothing they can do to fix it?”

He sighs, still not making eye contact with me. I probably shouldn’t ask this, get into any of his deep, dark shit. So far all our relationship has consisted of is flirting, teasing and the occasional fucking. Asking him about his injury may be crossing a line.

But to my surprise, he answers me. “If the tear was even a partial one, they probably could have saved it. Given me back my full mobility and arm strength. But when I was up on those rings, in that competition, the thing tore straight through.”

Spence’s voice echoes in the empty gym. “Gymnastics was my life, you know? The thing that made my blood pump, the thing that made it possible to breath. I would have never stopped. Didn’t even know my shoulder was in trouble. There was no warning signs, no pain, no tenderness or tightness. I went into that Olympic Trial thinking I was going to do nothing but secure my spot as the USA’s top gymnast. I went up onto those rings as one man. The gymnast who would never feel anything better than swinging around that equipment, than pushing his body to the limit. And I came down as another. Blindly falling into the abyss of all of the other former washed up athletes. It felt like my shoulder had been ripped clean off. They couldn’t save it. Couldn’t repair it to any semblance of a usable shoulder for an elite athlete.”

Tears clogged my throat as I listened to him. Not because I felt sorry for him, though I did. But because I could never imagine something like that happening to me. Gymnastics was my oxygen too. “And why stay here?”

I can’t stop the disdain in my tone. Knowing that Spence is one of them, one of Novak’s coaches, is starting to wear on me. He’s a good person, obviously loves this sport.

He sits up, the golden tanned skin of his strong jaw clenching. “Like I said, gymnastics is my life. Where else would I go? What else would I do?”

He’s right. This is the premier training center in the entire United States. Working here, with this caliber of gymnasts is the top of the top for coaches. But I still wish it wasn’t.

I nod my head, feeling the weight of our conversation float over my shoulders. Spence looks so distraught and perturbed that I feel the immediate need to erase that expression from his face.

I’m not sure what’s happening until I feel my body scoot over slightly, my hands latch onto his firm biceps. I guess I don’t really even know what I’m doing until my lips find his, hoping to soothe the battle he’s waging with himself inside his own head.

The gym is silent, the whole campus is really, nothing and no one making a sound except for the rusty old fans that turn day and night in the high corners of the ceilings. My lips slide over Spence’s, unhurried and hoping. Hoping to be a balm for him. I hold myself there, positioned awkwardly next to him but also in front of him, kissing and caressing his mouth while my fingers rub the smooth skin on the underside of his bulging muscles.

It’s a minute or two before he reacts. But when he does.
My lord
.

I think it finally registers to both of us what I’ve done, that I’ve made the first move in a public place. A place where any coach or gymnast could walk in and see us, sitting under the rings latching onto each other’s tongues. It’s the first time either of us has used any kind of physical touch to comfort the other.

That might be alarming. It might mean something.

But I push it to the back of my brain when Spence starts to push me back onto the chalky mat, fisting his hands in my tightly-pulled hair, pulling and ripping strands from the neat ponytail. He all but tackles me, moving with the grace of a lion but the bluntness of a rhino, until his naked torso lays over every inch of my upper half.

“I knew you were kinky. We could get caught, you know.” His lips move to my jaw, causing my whole stomach to tumble right down to my feet.

I hook my fingers under his waistband, playing with the deep V-lines that paint the way towards his most prized possession. “Are you scared?”

Spence leaves one brawny arm pinned beside my head, the other coming down to wrench my thigh up and around his waist. “Never. But maybe you should be.”

He flashes a devil-may-care grin at me a split-second before he hefts my entire body off the mat. My legs wrap around his solid waist as he crushes his mouth to mine, plunging his tongue in. Sparks zing down my spine and into my core, causing my clit to throb and whine for attention as it rubs against my leotard and his shorts.

“I’m going to teach you how to work the horse.” Spence whispers in my ear as he sets me down on a hard surface.

I peek down to see I’m sitting on the pommel horse. Bolted to the ground by two steel beams, the rectangular wooden block covered in leathery canvas sits underneath my body. My butt is square in the middle of the two curved handgrips, and Spence’s hands rest snuggly on the dips in my cheeks.

A grin spreads across my face as I look back up at him, the tent in his pants catching my eye. I pat the pommel horse sitting under me. “I thought you retired from spinning your hips on this thing.”

He brings his gaze down low to meet mine, his fingers digging into the flesh of my thighs. “That doesn’t mean I don’t still know a few tricks.”

His fingers tiptoed across my leg, and my feminine instincts had me dropping my knees to either side, so spread out that they practically touched the leather of the horse.

“See, the thing you have to learn about performing on pommels is … your hands. They have to be quick and precise.” Spence inches the crotch of my leotard aside, the velvet of it brushing the inner part of my thigh and sending shivers through my pores.

As soon as the tepid gym air hits my wetness, we both gasp. Gymnasts didn’t wear panties under their leotards. You weren’t a real gymnast if you did. And I was as real as they came.

“And were yours?” I choke out, Spence’s fingers so close to my dripping opening now that I can’t concentrate.

“Were mine what?” He toys with me, brushing up and down the inner part of my left thigh with a solitary finger.

“Were your … were your hands quick? And precise?” I’m trying to hold my ground, keep up the game. But his attention to my thighs is driving me mad.

“Oh, Nat. Don’t you know? I was the best.”

Spence presses a blunt fingertip to my pulsing clit, rubbing a slow small circle. I hear my careening moan echo off of the walls, filling the empty Olympic Gym with my sounds of pleasure.

I latch onto his neck, suckling and biting down when he pushes a thick finger inside of me. His masculine smell fills my nostrils, and I keep my face pressed there, his stubble tickling my cheeks. It’s the only way I’ll stay quiet, the way Spence is working me up to tumble off the ledge causing my entire body to tremble.

He slides one strap of my leotard down, freeing my shoulder enough that he can roughly stick a hand inside, tweaking my nipple and causing a whole new series of lust to roll through my body.

“On the pommel horse, you can never second-guess yourself. You just have to give yourself over to the motion of the routine. If you don’t … your hand might slip.”

Spence removes his fingers from inside of me, my orgasm so dangerously close that I scoot my body forward, seeking the pleasure he just took away.

“Please, Spence …” I choke, desperate for relief.

“Or your hips. If you stop to think, your entire flow will be out of rhythm. You just have to do it, give in.” He pulls the waistband of his pants down ever-so-slightly. Just enough so that his cock is exposed, springing out of it’s cage like an animal ready to pounce. It’s swollen and stiff, the length making me almost swallow my own tongue.

Sure, I felt it in my hand the other night. But it was dark, the only light in my tiny dorm had been the moonlight streaming through the windows. Now that I could see it, the veins popping along the surface, the tip bulging, my stomach was doing somersaults.

Spence kneels down, rooting around in his own bag close to the legs of the pommel horse. My head is spinning, I feel trapped, like I’m in a perpetual state of flipping and twisting but my body won’t let me land. My orgasm pushes so close to the surface, that just one touch and I know I’ll come crashing down, pulled back to earth by gravity.

The crinkle of foil has me focusing, Spence’s face now close to mine, his body lining up.

“Are my tricks gold medal worthy?” He rubs the tip of his cock against my slit.

I bite my lip hard, pushing forward for just an ounce more of friction.

“Top of the podium,” I pant through a smile.

Spence pushes in, a low growl emanating from his chest, through his limbs, and into me where I feel it settle in my chest. He thrusts in, all the way, until I can feel his head hitting the back of my walls. And he doesn’t stop.

His hips thrust, up into my body as I hold on to him. My lips, teeth and fingernails are probably leaving marks. But then again, I know my tailbone will be sore for days after the pounding he’s giving me into the pommel horse.

It’s illicit, the way we’re going at it in public, anyone could walk in and see us half-dressed, Spence’s shorts around his knees as his tight butt flexes over and over while he drives into me.

He hits the exact spot, grinding down on my clit while he’s lodged inside me, and I lose it. My body, mind and soul start to fall, spinning out of control and tumbling through layers of ecstasy and pleasure. What started as an act to soothe Spencer has morphed into something else.

Something more.

And then he’s joining me, groaning with release into my neck as we hold each other, my body pinned to the horse.

Spence lets out a rough chuckle. “The last key to pommels is the landing. And I think we definitely stuck that.”