Going for Gold (17 page)

Sunday

Bryce

I didn't know how early Tim had left for the arena that
morning, but when I got to the locker room, it became clear he had been there
for hours. He had folded each backup dancer's outfit in front of their locker
and left a hand written note of encouragement on top.

"Hey, Bryce," said a voice behind me.

I turned around and nearly screamed. Tim was dressed from
head to toe in a super tight American flag morph suit. I couldn't see any of
him, just his silhouette covered in an American flag.

"What do you think?" he asked. The tone of his
voice told me he was probably grinning like an idiot under the morph suit.

"I think it's creepy as hell. Why didn't you just pick
some normal pants and a button down or something?"

"All the backup dancers being silhouettes will shine a
spotlight on Kristen's beauty. I think they turned out awesome."

"If you say so. Are you still feeling confident?"

Tim put a hand on my shoulder. "Bryce, trust me. Kristen
is going to win gold and Em is going to be fine."

"I hope you're right."

"I am. Kristen knows all the moves and the dance is
choreographed especially for the judges. It's going to be perfect."

I heard the door to the locker room swing open. Tim looked at
the clock.

"The other dancers are even arriving early. I knew I was
teaching them well, but..." Tim stopped dead in the middle of his
sentence.

I turned to see why. Kristen was standing behind me. Using
crutches.

"Guys, I can't perform. I sprained my ankle," said
Kristen.

Tim laughed. "Nice try, Kristen, but I'm not falling for
that."

Kristen shook her head. "I wish I was joking, but I'm
not. I twisted my ankle during the rehearsal this morning."

"This is a disaster," Tim said. He looked a little
pale.

"Alina knows the dance," Kristen said. "She's
going to kill it."

"No, it's not that. I'm sure she'll do great." He
stared at me for a second. "It's just...I think I'm gonna be sick,"
muttered Tim. He started to unzip his morph suit as he ran towards the
bathroom.

"Oh God, I hope he gets that thing off in time,"
said Kristen. "And by the way, what the hell is he wearing?"

"That, unfortunately, is what the backup dancers will
all be wearing," I said.

Kristen scrunched up her face. "Weird."

"So you really can't perform?"

"Nope. I can't put any weight on my ankle. Alina's going
to do awesome though."

"You think she's ready for it? I'm just worried about
her going against Gabriela so soon after that bullshit yesterday. Those fucking
refs..."

"God, don't even talk about that shit." Kristen
shook her head. "I think she's ready though. She just killed it in
rehearsal. As long as you're out there to give her encouragement, I think
she'll do great."

"But I'm not going to be out there. Not unless one of
the other backup dancers gets hurt or doesn't show."

"Yes you are," said Tim. He had unzipped his morph
suit and pulled the top down around his waist.

Kristen leaned on one of her crutches and fanned herself with
her hand. "Now that's what the backup dancers should wear."

"Tim, I can't let you do that," I said. "I
know how much doing this dance means to you. You're the better dancer, you
should be out there."

Tim waved his hand dismissively. "No way. Trust me, you
need to do this now. You being out there to support Alina gives us the best
shot to bring home the gold."

"You sure?"

"Yes." Tim picked up the morph suit in front of my
locker and tossed it to me. "Now suit up."

Sunday

Alina

"It's starting," said Kristen. She turned up the
volume on the TV mounted on the wall of our changing room.

It was a good thing I was scheduled to dance last, because
Judy and Cindy were still working on my hair and makeup and I was still wearing
my bathrobe. I turned my attention to the TV.

The cameras panned over the thousands of people in the
audience cheering as Owen Harris walked out onto the stage. He was dressed in a
tux rather than the suits he usually wore in the studio.

"Ladies and gentlemen," began Owen, "welcome
to our final event here at the 2016 International Tournament of Athletes.
Incredibly, after two weeks and over 900 medals, Brazil and the United States
are both even with 41 gold, 27 silver, and 29 bronze. It would be against the
spirit of the games to end with a tie, so we have the pleasure of seeing one
final event: the strip dance."

Owen stopped and repeated everything he had just said in
Portuguese before continuing.

"To ensure a proper level of competition, athletes from
the five countries with the most medals will be competing. The order has been
predetermined based on a random draw. Germany will go first, followed by
Russia, China, Brazil, and the United States. The scoring will be determined by
our panel of five esteemed judges. Each judge will give the performances two
scores on a scale of one to ten. The first score will be for technical aspects
and the difficulty of the dance routine. The second score will be for
creativity and sensuality. The top and bottom scores for each category will be
discarded, and then the total score will be the sum of the remaining scores.
The maximum possible score is 60. In the event of a tie, all scores will be
taken into account, including the highest and lowest in each category."

Owen again stopped to translate his speech to Portuguese and
then the camera zoomed in on the first judge.

"At the judging table, we have Mi-sook Park from South
Korea, famed instructor at the Seoul University of Performing Arts."
Mi-sook Park nodded her head curtly.

"Next we have Dean Smith from South Africa, award
winning choreographer for countless movies and music videos." Dean gave a
toothy grin and turned around in his seat to wave to the crowd. He seemed a
hell of a lot more fun than Mi-sook.

The final three judges were Leon Green, a Jamaican performer,
Lucas Ramos, a TV personality on a Chilean dancing show, and Corinne Bellerose,
editor-in-chief at a hoity-toity sounding French dance magazine.

"Done!" said Cindy, spinning my chair away from the
TV so I could look in the mirror.

"Holy shit," I muttered. I barely recognized
myself. My hair had been curled, but in a way that made it look a million times
better than when I do it. And somehow Cindy had done my makeup to accentuate
all my best features and make my imperfections disappear. She had turned my
eyes into mini American flags by applying sparkly blue eye shadow and adding
red and white striped eyelash extensions. She also made my lips appear way more
full than they ever had before. My upper lip was blue with white stars, and my
bottom lip was striped red and white.

"Wow, you look incredible," said Kristen.

"Can you guys always follow me around and do my hair and
makeup all the time?" I asked.

My stylists smiled. "We're glad you like it."

"Ready to get dressed?" asked Annie.

"Yeah," I said. I got up and walked over to a
raised platform in the center of the room. It seemed so fancy, like I was at
one of those boutiques on the shows where girls try on $10,000 bridal gowns.

Annie untied my robe and hung it up on a hanger, leaving my
completely naked. I didn't know if I should cover myself or not.
Is it rude
to have my tits everywhere? Or will it make everyone uncomfortable if I act
like it's a big deal and cover myself?

Before I could come to a conclusion, Annie handed me a lacy
blue thong. It didn't cover much, but it was better than me standing here
completely naked.

Then Annie grabbed two sparkly blue stars about two inches
wide and peeled some white paper off the back of them.

"Are those pasties?" I asked.

"Yup."

"If you think I'm going to prance around stage wearing
pasties, you're crazy. Taking my bra off isn't part of the dance."

Annie laughed. "Well that would certainly get the judges
attention. But no, that's not what they're for. They're more of an insurance
policy against any unfortunate accidents. Things can move around when you're
dancing. Wouldn't you rather everyone get a peak at one of these blue stars
than at your nipples?"

Oh God.
I was already nervous enough about this
performance. Now I had to add a nip slip to my list of horrible things that
might happen. "Yeah, I guess so."

Annie positioned the stars on my nipples, somehow without
actually touching my breasts. "Hold those there for twenty seconds."

I reached up and pressed the stars onto my nipples. It felt
so strange having them there. While I held them in place, Annie pulled a lacy
blue push up bra off of a hanger and brought it over to me.

"Arms out," she said.

I put my arms out and she slid the bra onto me. Then she went
around and hooked it in the back. Next came the red and white striped garter
belt and stockings. One of the stockings was red and the other was white.

Annie took a step back and admired her handy work. She tilted
her head and tapped her finger against her lips. "Can you pull your garter
belt down a bit on the left? And adjust your breasts."

"You mean push them up?" I thought I knew what she
was talking about, but I didn't want to be awkward and grab my boobs unless
that was what she wanted me to do.

She nodded.

I tugged on my garter belt and then reached into each of my
cups and pulled my breasts up. I hadn't looked in a mirror yet, but just from
looking down I could tell that this was the best pushup bra ever. My cleavage
had never looked this good before.

"Perfect," said Annie. "Alright, Cindy, time
to work your magic."

"Huh?" I asked. "I thought my makeup was
already done?"

Cindy walked over and put a few makeup containers and brushes
on the floor next to me. "Your face is done, but you still need a little
body makeup. Believe me, you'll like how it looks."

"Body makeup? That's a thing?" I looked at Kristen.

She shrugged.

"I'm just going to add some foundation and highlight a
few areas," said Cindy as she brushed make-up onto my legs and ass. Then
she added a few strokes with a different brush around my ass and blended the
lines with some sort of sponge thing. The next area she focused on was my
cleavage. When I looked down a second later, my boobs looked even bigger.

"Whoa," said Kristen. "Can you teach me how to
do that?"

Cindy smiled. "It's pretty simple. It's like face
contouring, only for your body. I'm sure you can find a tutorial on
YouTube."

"Alright, ready to put your dress on?" asked Annie.
She had already taken it off the hanger.

"Wait, this is what I'm stripping down to?" I
twisted my neck to look back at my ass. The thong covered nothing.
Oh my
God. No.

"Yup," said Annie.

"You look freaking hot," said Kristen.

"But...my ass is everywhere. Are you sure I'm not
supposed to wear some boy shorts instead? This seems wildly
inappropriate."

"Asses aren't a big deal in Brazil," said Annie.
"Thongs are just the norm for bikinis down here. Anyway, I'm just
following Tim's orders."

I turned to Kristen. "You need to have a talk with your
man. Why did he want to show your ass to everyone?"

"He's just doing his best to make us win. You really
think Gabriela isn't going to be strutting around in a thong? Hell, we'll be
lucky if she keeps her underwear on."

"Fuck my life." As much as I hated to admit it,
Kristen was right. We needed to go all out to beat Gabriela, because Gabriela
would sure as hell do whatever it takes to beat us.
Like bribing the refs in
the final.
So many shitty calls...

"For what it's worth, your ass looks beautiful,"
said Kristen. "Cindy did an awesome job. Go look in the mirror."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes. Go look."

I stepped off the platform and got between the mirrors.
"Damn," I said. Somehow, Cindy had made all of the stretch marks on
my ass disappear. I still wasn't comfortable mooning millions of people, but at
least it would be slightly less mortifying than I anticipated.

I got back on the platform and Annie helped me slip into my
dress. Then she helped me strap my blue stilettos on, slid some red, white, and
blue bracelets on my wrists, and put dangly earrings in each of my earlobes.

"All done," said Annie with a smile.

I carefully stepped off the platform and walked back to the
mirror. I didn't want to twist my ankle like Kristen had.
Or maybe I should
to get out of this horrible performance.
The thought was tempting, but I
couldn't do it. I had to beat Gabriela.

I looked in the mirror and twirled around. The blue dress was
covered in sparkles, had a super deep V neckline, and had slits practically up
to my hips. If I wasn't going to strip it off anyway, I would have been
horrified at how revealing it was.

"You have to admit," said Kristen, "Tim has a
great eye for fashion."

"His eye for fashion was never what was in question."
I turned to my three stylists. "Thank you so much for all the magic you
three just pulled off. I've never felt so pretty in my entire life."

"You look beautiful," said Cindy. Judy nodded in
agreement.

"You're going to do awesome," agreed Annie.

Kristen smiled at me. "Time to go win gold."

Sunday

Alina

"By the way, there's a high probability that you'll be
totally freaked out by Bryce's outfit," said Kristen as we approached the
door to go backstage.

"Oh God. Did Tim put all the backup dancers in man
thongs?" A picture of Bryce wearing a man thong flashed through my head.
"Actually, maybe that wouldn't be so bad."

"Uh, not quite."

I held the door open for Kristen and then went through. I
immediately saw what she was talking about. In the corner, Tim was leading a
group of men in American flag morph suits doing jumping jacks.

"Please tell me that's not them," I said.

"Who else would it be?"

"Fair enough. How do I know which one's Bryce?"

"Just look for whichever one gets a boner first when
they see you. Those suits don't exactly provide much coverage down there."

My eyes immediately gravitated to their crotches. Kristen was
right - I could see a pretty clear outline of all their packages.
So that's
why Tim chose these suits.

One of them turned to look at me. "Hey, eyes up
here," he said.

"I'm sure she would say the same thing to you if she
could see where your eyes were looking under that creepy mask," said
Kristen.

The guy shrugged. "Alina, you look stunning."

"I hope you're Bryce," I said.

He laughed. "Of course I'm Bryce. How could you not
recognize me?" He gestured toward his morph suit.

"Maybe because all I can see is the outline of your
penis?"

"Then after the dance we need to get you more familiar
with that part of me." Bryce didn't bother to hide the fact that he was
looking me up and down.

"Just because I'm dressed like a whore doesn't mean
you're going to get lucky," I said and touched his arm. I would never get
tired of feeling his biceps. Despite my playful banter, Bryce was 100 percent
getting lucky tonight.

"How else would we celebrate you crushing
Gabriela?" He put his hand on the side of my face.

I wished I could see his eyes. They always seemed to comfort
me. And I was so nervous. "Good point. Did her scores come in yet?"

"No, I think she's still dancing. Let's take a
peek." Bryce pulled me towards the curtain and pushed it aside the tiniest
bit to give us a look out on stage.

We were on the side of the stage rather than the back, so I
couldn't see the audience, but I had a perfect view of Gabriela dancing around
like a slut with a bunch of shirtless, oiled up men. Shockingly, she still had
her skirt and her bra on, but it took all of three seconds for her to go to
center stage and rip her skirt off. Her thong was just as revealing as mine,
but she made it way worse by immediately turning around and doing some samba
move that made her ass jiggle all over the place. As much as I hated to admit
it, she was a great dancer.

"Ew," I said.
Shit, does Bryce like watching
this?
"You better not have a boner right now."

"If he doesn't now, he definitely will after he sees
your lingerie," said Kristen.

I turned around and looked at Bryce's package. He put his
hands up to prove that he wasn't getting turned on. "Don't worry,
Gabriela's disgusting."

I smiled at him. "Good boy."

"Kristen's right though," said Bryce. "I'm not
sure how long I'll be able to contain myself when you're out there
dancing."

"Are you sure you're okay with me doing this? I'm
basically going to show the entire world my ass."

"I want you to do whatever it takes to beat Gabriela,
even if it means showing the entire world your ass. They can look all they
want, but as soon as the performance is over, it's all mine."

I swallowed hard. "How soon after the performance?"
I asked with a wink.

He shrugged. "I dunno. I might not be able to wait for
you to get off stage." He put his hands on my hips.

Oh my God. Is he serious? He seems kind of serious.

"Alright you two," said Kristen. "Keep it in
your pants for another five minutes. I think Gabriela's performance is almost
over."

I looked back out through the curtains just in time to see
Gabriela unclip her bra and throw it into the audience. She shimmied for a
second and then turned back around to walk back to center stage. I was happy to
see that she was at least wearing pasties and hadn't just completely flashed
the judges. No one seemed to care, but it was pretty obvious that her tits were
fake. Just like everything about her.

She danced around a little more and then finished by making
out with one of her dancers.

"I hope that guy realizes he just contracted AIDS,"
said Kristen.

As soon as the music stopped, Gabriela put her arm over her
chest and laughed like she was actually embarrassed to be half naked on stage.
Owen Harris came out and was about to start talking when a hand on my shoulder
pulled me away from the curtain.

"What are you three doing?!" asked Tim. He looked
exasperated. "I've failed as a teacher if you don't know that you should
never watch the performance right before yours. You should have been
meditating."

"Sorry, I just wanted to see the competition," I
said. "Do you know what scores the other girls got?"

"China forgot about the whole strip part of the dance
and ended up with a score in the low twenties. Germany got a 37 and Russia got
a 41. Those are good scores, but they're both beatable with the routine we have
planned."

"Good, because there's no way I'm walking away with
anything less than gold."

"That's the spirit. Okay, one quick thing before we
begin. You know how we practiced ripping shirts open for that one part?"

"Yes."

"Well, instead of that, during that part you're going to
pull these tabs." Tim felt around on Bryce's morph suit until he located a
little piece of fabric sticking out. "Got it?"

I reached out and felt the tab Tim was talking about.
"Yeah, okay."

"Great. Kristen, take Alina to the curtain behind center
stage. Bryce, follow me. I have a last minute change I want to go over with
you."

"What's the last minute..." I started, but Tim had
already pulled Bryce away. Not only was I curious about the last minute change,
but I had hoped for a few final words of encouragement from Bryce.

I walked with Kristen around the perimeter of curtains until
we were on the spot marked as center stage. I peered through the curtain to
look for Gabriela's scores on the jumbotron, and...
Holy fucking shit.
The
auditorium had been intimidating when it was empty, but now that it was
completely full, it was a million times worse. Kristen was right that I
couldn't see the faces of the audience, but I could still tell that they were
there. The cameras were just as intimidating. Not only were they showing HD
close-ups on massive TV screens mounted on the wall, but they were broadcasting
those same images to millions of people around the world. My knees started to
feel weak and I grabbed onto Kristen, nearly knocking her over.

"Oh God," I said.

"What's wrong? Shit, did she get a perfect score?"

"What? No. I didn't see her score. I just saw the crowd.
Kristen, that's so many people. How am I going to do this?"

"Alina, you're going to be amazing. Just focus on
hitting your first few moves and you'll be fine. Now, let's figure out what
scores Gabriela got so you know what you have to beat."

Kristen and I looked out through the curtains again and
located her scores on the jumbotron. It wasn't broken down by judge, but it was
split into the two categories. She scored 28 out of 30 for technical
difficulty, and only 15 out of 30 for creativity and sensuality.

"Damn," said Kristen. "Only 15 for sensuality
after she pulled her tits out and made out with someone?"

I shrugged and scanned the other scores. Gabriela had scored
the highest of anyone for sensuality. The Chinese girl had only scored a 4 in
that category, and the other girls both had sensuality scores in the low teens.
"It looks like that's the best score yet in that category though. And
overall she's winning with 43 out of 60 total points."

"That's great. That means she'll be on the silver medal
podium to watch you get gold. You ready to crush this bitch?"

"Yeah, let's do this," I said as confidently as I
could muster.
Or maybe I should pull a fire alarm.

I moved the curtain again to see the spotlight focus on Owen
Harris.
Oh my God, I'm going to be performing a strip dance in front of Owen
Harris.
I wasn't sure why I hadn't realized it before. My heart started
beating even faster. This was going to be absolutely mortifying. "I can't
do this with Owen Harris watching. I'm going to embarrass myself."

"Whatever," Kristen said. "He's no Professor
Hunter."

I laughed. I remembered Professor Hunter's marketing class at
the University of New Castle. Kristen had always been so nervous whenever he
called on her. I looked back at the stage. Kristen was right to a certain
extent. But I wasn't thinking about Professor Hunter. I was thinking about
Bryce. And one thing was damn sure. Owen Harris was no Bryce Walker.

Owen Harris raised the mic to his mouth. "Ladies and
gentlemen, Alina Smith performing for the USA!" The crowd cheered as Owen
Harris left the stage. The spotlight dimmed to black. In the darkness, my
backup dancers rushed on stage and formed two lines from the front of the stage
back to the curtain. One by one, blue spotlights focused on each of them as
they stood up and pointed towards me behind the curtain.

"Go show Gabriela how to dance," said Kristen as
the dance track started playing over the loud speakers. "I'm going to go
watch from the audience to get a better view. You got this, Alina. Make that
bitch wish she never fucked with you. "

It's time.

I didn't have time to think. I just had to burst onto stage.
The crowd erupted in cheers as I strutted towards the front of the stage.
Hearing that applause and not falling on my face within the first three seconds
of my dance was a huge confidence boost. In fact, the applause was electric.
And unlike volleyball where people were cheering for the entire team, this
applause was just for me.

My confidence grew with every move I hit. For a second I even
tricked myself into thinking that it wasn't going to be bad at all, but then I
remembered that Tim had choreographed it so that the start was fairly tame. I
tried not to think about what was coming.

Grinding was the first sexy thing I had to do, but luckily it
was with Bryce.

"You're doing awesome," he said as I dipped low and
then pushed up on him. It felt like he was starting to get that erection he had
promised me. I wasn't sure if I could do this without him here for support.
Or
without his hands on my waist.

My mind started to wander to what I would do with his
erection after this dance. God, I was so horny.
Focus, Alina!