The following story takes place in 2018, two years before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when the Games were expected to commence as scheduled.
Alyse Hutton and Nicole Lindstrom were Olympic weightlifters and teammates in the Rock Ridge Barbell Club. Both young women hoped to lift in the next Olympics. Tokyo was two years away, not exactly around the corner but close enough. They both competed in the 76-kilo class and were among the top female lifters in the country in that weight division. Nicole, twenty-five, had been top dog at Rock Ridge in her weight class until twenty-two-year-old Alyse came along, the “upstart” as Nicole said behind her back. Even so, she knew on some level that being challenged was a good thing. Competition in anything pushes one to be better, to reach heights greater than they would standing alone.
Nevertheless, in her more self-examining, honest moments, Nicole recognized that she was struggling with feelings of envy bordering on jealously. Alyse was eclipsing her and she didn’t like it one bit. After all, nobody appreciates being knocked off their pedestal. In a recent major contest, Alyse went six for six, snatching 111k and hoisting 138k in the clean and jerk. Nicole snatched 109k and clean and jerked 136k, missing her final two attempts at 138k. It was the first time that Alyse had beaten Nicole. The fact that Alyse hadn’t been lifting as long made it particularly galling.
Nicole Lindstrom, once called a “hot new lifting talent,” wasn’t used to losing. In fact, she’d been successful when it came to just about anything she tried. She did well in college, making the dean’s list every semester and then got into a highly selective grad school program for physical therapy. Besides gymnastics, she’d been a top CrossFit athlete before devoting her full energy to Olympic lifting. On top of all that, muscle guys found her hot. She stood five-foot-seven, had the requisite large quads and solid arms, though the arms of a female Olympic lifter, not the ripped, vascular arms of a bodybuilder. She had a fair complexion, with lovely skin, skin to match her face, soft and pretty, so pretty. When lifting, she often set her light brown hair in braids, looking like some sexy Teutonic fraulein.
Alyse Hutton drew her share of male attention also, if you were a guy who liked her body type and many muscle guys did. She stood a stocky five-foot-four, with big, curvy female quads, strong enough to back squat 170k and front squat 150k. She wore her dirty-blond hair in a ponytail when training, loose, in waves and below her shoulders off the lifting platform. And she looked so cute the way she alternatively puckered and pursed her pouty lips when she spoke. Nice skin also, too nice, she believed, to ruin it with tattoos, which she found hideous.
Both women had thousands of followers (mostly male) on Instagram. And that’s another thing that irked Nicole, because she once had more followers than anyone else. She still did but Alyse, her lifting star rising, was catching up. The thing is, she liked Alyse, knew she was a nice person as well as fiercely competitive and goal-oriented. She just couldn’t get used to the idea of no longer being numero uno, not in the prime of her lifting career, not as long as she was chasing an Olympic dream.
Then there was Nicole’s weird sexuality that contributed to her angst. She considered herself mostly heterosexual. Mostly, because she had had a lesbian encounter when she was nineteen and still involved in CrossFit. She and Sandra Worley had been casual friends on the CrossFit circuit. Nicole had a boyfriend at the time, and so her attraction to Sandra, a brunette built along the same lines as Alyse, had caught her off guard. She kept it to herself, thinking that Sandra, who also had a boyfriend, would slap her silly. What she didn’t know was that the attraction was mutual, something that Sandra revealed one day when they were showering after a training session. “I like you too, honey,” Sandra had said, noticing the suggestive way Nicole was looking at her. Under jets of warm water, they began to fool around. Nothing too heavy, soaping each other off, then light kisses and touching in private places. But that was it because neither of them felt comfortable enough to take matters to a more serious level.
That was Nicole’s first and last lesbian experience, filed away and kept secret to all except Sandra, who she had lost touch with years ago. Nicole chalked it up to some sort of aberration, a one-time thing. But was it? Because, for all her jealousy, she couldn’t deny what she also felt for Alyse. It was so baffling, if not disturbing, that she considered seeking therapeutic help. She didn’t think of herself as a lesbian. She had a boyfriend–she had always had boyfriends. And she was tight with her current boyfriend, tight enough to where she could see them getting engaged in the near future. Maybe she was bi. But that didn’t ring true either. She liked guys, she loved her boyfriend and she didn’t go around checking out or fantasizing about girls. Except for Alyse. Except for that one time in her life years ago. She pondered this thing. Maybe by seducing Alyse, if she ever could, it would be a way of gaining the supremacy that she felt was slipping away. A way to dominate this amazing athlete, perhaps more gifted than she. The old power thing, in other words. That DID have the ring of truth. But so did the physical part of it. She admired Alyse’s body, curvy, compact, strong but also feminine. And that face, so cute, the face of a little girl, one that could hoist heavy weights. Being naked next to Alyse, being on top of her, getting her hot, turning her on…Oh, my, she got wet just thinking about it.
What an outrageous, crazy idea. It made her question her own sanity. Maybe she should seek therapy. Then again, maybe not. Sexual attraction, even to one’s own gender, didn’t make one crazy, did it? But to actually move forward, putting fantasy into action–now that might be kind of crazy. Alyse could charge her with sexual harassment, get her kicked out of Rock Ridge, not to mention what it could do to her wholesome, All American-girl-next-door image. She tried to repress all this, with little success. Some thoughts just won’t go away, no matter how hard one tries to make them.
*****
Rock Ridge Barbell was located in a big garage that stood next to a Goodyear Tire/full-service automobile outlet. The garage had stood empty for years until new owners purchased and renovated it into a well-equipped, climate-controlled gym, geared toward the needs of power lifters, CrossFit athletes and Olympic lifters. Three lifting platforms lay across the concrete floor. There were power racks, Olympic bars, racks of dumbbells, kettlebells and stacks of bumper plates of various colors. There were dip bars, chinning bars and rings and ropes that hung from the ceiling. This was a “serious” gym, where athletes trained for serious competition.
Nicole and Alyse usually trained at the same time, in the late afternoon, after Nicole had gotten off work from her physical therapist job and after Alyse had finished her college classes (she was in her last semester) for the day. They were training partners as well as rivals, although the rivalry was more of Nicole’s making.
Nicole greeted her with a hug in the small locker room adjacent to the gym. She wore what she normally wore for work, khaki pants and a loose-fitting, blue short-sleeve sports shirt. Alyse dressed like the college student she was, jeans, a V-neck pull-over and sneakers.
“Front squats today,” Alyse said. “Ugh.”
Nicole could empathize. Front squats were uncomfortable but necessary. “I hear ya, but we gotta do ’em.”
“Yeah, I know,” Alyse sighed as she bent over and began to peel off her jeans.
Nicole couldn’t help watch while she began to take off her own street clothing. “Hmm…mint-green panties today, huh?”
Alyse straightened up and grinned. “Um, yeah. You look surprised.”
Nicole shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. In fact, she was becoming aroused at the sight of Alyse in those mint-green panties and no bra. Unlike herself and many athletic women, Alyse had boobs; size C would be Nicole’s guess. “I just never saw you in mint-green panties before.”
Alyse drew a confused look while she focused her blue eyes on what Nicole was wearing. “And if I’m not mistaken, I never saw you in red panties. So I guess we’re even.” She giggled.
“Guess we are,” Nicole said, pulling up her tight blue training shorts that weren’t much longer than her underwear.
Alyse wore a similar outfit when she was training, which included a sports bra and bare midriff. The pants were an alternative to the long spandex pants she sometimes wore both in training and in competition. The shorts drew more male attention, something that both Alyse and Nicole had mixed feelings about. Yes, it was nice to be admired, but they also wanted to be taken for the serious, elite strength athletes they were. It was a way of keeping their feminine image in a traditionally male-dominated sport.
No surprise, a few of the guys looked up when Nicole and Alyse came into the gym. They didn’t even try to be discreet, gawking at that luscious female muscle, flexing with every step.
After a few minutes of stretching, Nicole placed an empty, 20k Olympic bar on the squat rack. She did a set of twelve warm-up reps, then rested while Alyse did the same. Both women had good shoulder flexibility, which allowed them to rack the bar high on their shoulders. They worked up to 140k for three reps, a relatively light weight for Alyse, not so light for Nicole who struggled to stay with her.
Nicole knew that Alyse wasn’t stupid, knew that she probably sensed her insecurity of watching her once dominant position at Rock Ridge being challenged. Nicole could see that Alyse had the potential to make tremendous gains in the next few years. She could even see her standing atop the podium in Tokyo with a medal hanging around her neck. Gold, silver or bronze, she couldn’t be sure, of course, but she could see Alyse brimming with the sort of self-confidence one needs to get there. If the American Olympic trials for weightlifting were held today, she knew that Alyse, barring injury, would earn the number one spot at seventy-six kilos. Nicole might be an alternate, depending on where she stood internationally, though taking alternates these days were a luxury most teams could not afford. Nicole hadn’t given up her own Olympic dream. Far from it. But seeing what Alyse could do had weakened her once heady confidence. Peculiarly, it made her even hotter for this cute blond “upstart.”
“Okay, time for snatches,” Alyse said after her last set of front squats. “I’m shooting for what I did at our last meet. If I can do that one-eleven after squatting, I figure I’m good for much more. How about you, girl? Feeling strong?”
Did Nicole detect a smug tone in her voice? She couldn’t be sure, though she didn’t rule it out either. Either way, she wasn’t about to back down to what she perceived as a not so veiled challenge. “Feeling great. Let’s do it.”
They took off their lifting belts (not needed for snatches), grabbed another bar and took the center platform. As always, they’d begin by doing repetition snatches from the hang. Then, as the weights got heavier, they’d do singles from the floor. They began with a routine of stretching amid the usual sounds of this place that echoed off the concrete walls and high ceiling–shouts and grunts, the clang and thud of weights being loaded, unloaded and dropped. Then they loaded the bar to 61k to begin their exercise. Standing in front of her, Nicole watched Alyse do her first set, paying close attention to her form but also catching an eyeful of cleavage when she bent over, plus her chunky, powerful legs propelling her out of the squat like she was lifting cardboard instead of steel.
When they reached the 100k mark, it was all singles from the platform. Nicole had big strong thighs also, and had no trouble keeping up with Alyse at this point. She had snatched 111k herself in training. Unfortunately, she had failed to do it at that last contest. Today, however, she was determined to match Alyse lift for lift. She followed her with 104.5, then 109k. Her legs were tired from squatting but she still made it, albeit with more effort.
“Okay, it’s time for that one-eleven,” Alyse said. “Are you with me?”
Nicole, hands on hips, nodded. “Bring it on.”
Alyse made it. Not only that, she looked strong doing it, looked good for more. “Come on, Nikki, you can do it,” she said, knowing that Nicole would take the same weight.
Nicole chalked up, stood over the bar, let out an abrupt shout, then stooped down and hooked her hands around the bar. After a slow pull from the floor, she exploded on her second pull, jumped into the squat and…She couldn’t quite lock out and the bar came crashing down. She shook her head, then stood up. “I’m taking that again.” She did, but again she missed. “Damn it,” she said, kicking the edge of one of the 25k red bumper plates. She sounded almost annoyed when she said to Alyse, “I suppose you’re going higher.”
“Got to, at least two more kilos,” Alyse said. She then proceeded to load the bar to 113k.
Nicole knew that this was pushing close to Alyse’s personal best–after front squats yet. “Easy weight, let’s go,” she said, while hoping she’d miss. She hated herself for feeling that way, although she realized that every competitor felt that way, hoped their competition would fail, whatever the sport. It made sense. Someone would have to fail for someone else to win. It was a natural reaction, human nature.
Alyse not only made 113k, she made it look easy. As if to rub it in, she slapped on a half-kilo plate on each side. “Might as well make it an even two-hundred and fifty pounds,” she said.
“Might as well,” Nicole said through clenched teeth, her tone skirting on the edge of hostility.
Moments later, her insides were roiling with envy. Nevertheless, Nicole hugged her for succeeding with 114k. Once again, Alyse had done something that Nicole couldn’t do, at least at the moment. “Good show,” Nicole said, struggling to hide her negative feelings. She then kissed her on the mouth, right on those sexy pouty lips of hers.
“Wow!” Alyse cried after pulling away. “You kissed me like you meant it.”
Nicole did mean it, though on a level that she doubted Alyse would welcome. “Well, that was some effort,” she said. “Very impressive, considering that we just did front squats.”
“Thanks, although I’m starting to pay for it.” She winced as she bent forward and touched her lower back. “I think I might have pulled something.”
Nicole stepped closer and placed her hand on the area. “Here?”
“Yeah.” Alyse arched back, then forward. “Shit. Maybe I should call it a day. Rest up and ice it down.”
Nicole nodded. “Good idea. I’ve pulled muscles in my back before and tried to push through it. Only made things worse.”
Alyse looked despondent, looked the way all athletes look who sense they might be forced to lay off. “Well, I know you have incline presses to do,” she said, picking up her equipment bag. Anyone of these guys can spot you. See ya.”
“That can wait,” Nicole said. “I know it’s not easy getting dressed after that sort of injury.”
Alyse managed to smile. “Sounds like the physical therapist in you coming out.”
“It’s what I do.”
Nicole followed her into the locker room. Alyse sat on a bench in front of her locker, arching her back, trying to assess the extent of her injury and wincing, not only from the physical pain but the pain of not knowing how long it would take to heal.
“Here, let me do that,” Nicole said, watching Alyse strain to unbuckle her lifting shoes. After slipping them off, she reached out to slip off her training shorts.
“Oh, I can do that much,” Alyse said. She stood up, then began to slide them down her bubble butt and bulging thighs. “It even hurts to do this.” She stepped out of them, leaving on her mint-green panties and sports bra.
“I bet,” Nicole said. “It might feel better if you let me massage it a bit. Is that okay?”
Alyse shrugged. “You’re the therapist.” Per Nicole’s direction, she lay on her stomach on the bench.
“I’ll be gentle,” Nicole said, rubbing the palms of her hands over her friend’s sweaty skin. “Too bad I don’t have any methyl salicylate handy.”
“Methyl what?”
“It’s an ingredient in creams that some therapists use for muscle pulls and the like.”
“Does it work?”
“It helps. Rest and time help the most. Ice and heat, too. In that order.” Her hands kept moving. “By the way, you smell good.”
“Thanks. So do you. I noticed that when you kissed me. But, you know, I felt kind of weird saying it.”
“Weird how?”
“Well, some girls might take it the wrong way. If you know what I mean.”
“Yep, I think I do,” Nicole said, smiling to herself while she slipped a hand under her panties and then onto her butt. When Alyse picked her head up, Nicole assumed it was to protest and she jerked away.
“No, that’s okay,” Alyse said. “Keep going, it feels good.”
Nicole did, massaging her friend’s lower back and butt at the same time. She almost couldn’t believe she’d gotten this far. Maybe she should drop the urge to go further. It wasn’t the right time or place and somebody could walk in on them any second. Even so, it was hard to resist. She was in charge now, attending to her injured training partner who just minutes before had bettered her on the lifting platform. But it wasn’t a dominatrix thing at all. She really wanted to make Alyse feel better–and herself in the process. At this moment, she felt almost motherly toward this athletically-gifted girl, as well as sexually charged. “Look, Alyse, I’m about to do something that might make you feel even better. If you don’t like it, tell me to stop. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Moments later, a CrossFit woman came in to use the bathroom. In response to her concern, Nicole said, “My friend here pulled something in her back. Just giving her a massage.”
The woman nodded, then went into one of the two stalls. Upon exiting, she asked if there was anything she could do to help. “Thanks, but I think we’re okay here,” Nicole said.
Tactfully, Nicole pried Alyse’s legs about an inch apart, nudged aside the edge of her panties and then used her index finger to apply a gentle massage between her labium. “Feel good?”
Alyse laughed. “Girl, you’re so bad. Yes, it feels good. Makes me forget about my back, that’s for sure.”
“That’s what I was hoping.” Nicole’s own panties were soaked. ‘Oh, if only we were in my place right now,’ she thought. She glanced toward the entrance. Then, seeing that the coast was clear, she got on her knees at the edge of the bench. “Okay, Leesie, my tongue should feel even better. El Supremo.”
“Wait, you’re going to lick my–” Alyse couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to, for the erotic, sensuous feel of Nicole’s tongue spoke for itself. “Ohmygod! Ooo, that feels good! You’re such a bad girl, Nikki, and I’m even worse for letting you do this. “Ooo, you’re too much, keep going.”
Nicole did for about a minute more, swishing her tongue furiously over her clit and into the juices that gushed forth from between her friend’s legs. Then she stopped, fearful that Alyse’s moans would carry out to the gym. “Look, we better quit while we’re ahead.” She bent over and kissed her back.
Slowly, almost in slow motion, Alyse sat up, then shook her head in disbelief. “Ohmygod, that was wonderful to the max, Nikki. I’d always heard that guys can’t compete with girls doing that. Now I believe it. Whew! Did they teach you that, ah, therapeutic technique in grad school?”
A tongue-in-cheek question deserved a tongue-in-cheek reply. “They did. In fact, it was on one of our midterms. I got an A.”
“Oh, I bet you did,” Alyse said, sliding a hand over her crotch. “Ooo, baby, you almost made me come. Seriously, where did you learn to do that? I mean, you’re not a, well, um, a–”
“Lesbian? No. Not even a closet lesbian, although I have to admit that I think you’re cute. But no, I just wanted to relieve your pain, if only temporarily.” Nicole saw no point in telling her about that adventure in the shower years before. Nor did she dare tell her that what just happened went beyond simply wanting to relieve Alyse’s back pain. Even Nicole didn’t understand all the emotional and psychological reasons for doing what she did. She enjoyed it and wanted more. That much was as clear as the soft skin on her friend’s adorable face.
“Take care of that back,” Nicole said after Alyse got dressed. “Remember, don’t push it. Apply ice, then heat. And rest.”
Alyse stood with her equipment bag slung over her shoulder. “Thanks, doc. But besides the ice and heat, maybe you could apply more of what you did here? If that’s okay. I mean, talk about the ultimate pain reliever.”
“Apply a different kind of heat, you mean,” Nicole said, chuckling. “Sure, that can be arranged. Only don’t tell Jim about it.” She meant Jim Sparks who had coached both women for the past couple years. “Meanwhile, I’ve got a workout to complete.”
After Alyse left, Nicole took a detour into one of the stalls to relieve herself. In her over-heated, erotically-charged state, it didn’t take long.
*****
What took place in that locker room had Alyse Hutton wondering about her own sexuality, as she drove home in her Honda Civic. She was no lesbian either. Unlike Nicole, she’d never had that sort of encounter with another girl. Like Nicole, she also had a boyfriend. What was going on? She wasn’t quite sure. But, as she told Nicole, she looked forward to more “pain meds.” The seats in the Civic, never that comfortable to begin with, were even less so with her kind of injury. She felt a sharp pain, as if she had an icepick jabbing into her back.
Home was a garden style apartment complex that she shared with another college girl, Lacy Ward. The complex was a de facto college dorm located about a mile from the college. Maybe after college she’d be living and training at the USA Olympic Training Complex in Colorado Springs. She felt confident she’d get there. Since that last contest, she was ranked the number one female weightlifter in her weight division in the country. As a teen in a lower weight class, she had held all the junior national records, snatch, clean and jerk and total. By next year, if she stayed healthy, she expected to hold all the senior records as well. She sensed that Nicole wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with that. Alyse wouldn’t be if the roles were reversed.
She struggled to exit her car, then walked stooped over to her apartment door and turned the key.
“Oh my, what happened to you?!” Lacy gasped, seeing Alyse in obvious discomfort.
Alyse dropped her bag on the carpeted living room floor, then tried to straighten
up. “A training injury. I’ll be okay once I get on a cold pack.”
“I’ll get one for you,” Lacy said, and then hurried into the kitchen, opened the freezer and took out a cold pack, a bluish substance wrapped in thick clear plastic. Thin, with short, dark-brown hair, Lacy was in her third year of college. The green sweats she wore hung loose on her small frame.
Alyse was already in her room, lying down when Lacy entered with the cold pack. “Here, I’ll take that,” she said. She tucked the pack under her back and then bent her knees over a couple pillows.
Lacy sat on the edge of the bed. “So, what the hell happened?”
Alyse told her the story, about snatching 114k and then feeling the pain. “That’s what I get for showing off in front of Nicole.”
“Nicole, your training partner…”
“Right. She was good enough to curtail her workout in order to help me get my clothes back on. She, well, being a physical therapist, she knew something about pain relief. She helped me with that also.”
Lacy drew a curious, open-mouth smile, watching Alyse break up. “Must have been a pretty funny procedure from the way you’re giggling,” she said. “What did she do, stand up there in the gym and tell you jokes?”
Alyse clamped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle the laughter, the vibrations of which aggravated her pain. “Not exactly. She gave me a massage. It took all the pain away until she stopped.” More laughter.
Lacy narrowed her brown, almond-shaped eyes and flashed a comically clueless look. “Huh huh. She must have been a real scream. Well, look, I’ve eaten but there’s still dinner in the fridge. I’ll heat it up and bring it to you if you’d like.”
Alyse thanked her but said that was unnecessary. “I’ll get it after lying on this for a half-hour or so.”
Lacy went to her room to study, while Alyse stayed put. She was beginning to feel the cold, soothing compress against her back, reducing the inflammation she figured was there. She felt anxious, anxious about the training she’d miss and anxious about what had transpired in that locker room. Man, did it feel good, much better than when Caleb, her boyfriend, did it. She was beginning to sense that Nicole’s massage had been something more than just an effort to relieve her pain. Making a big tadoo about her mint-green panties and that kiss on the mouth…Did Nicole Lindstrom suddenly have the hots for her? It sure seemed that way. And what if she did? Could they still train together? Alyse knew that it was her own dedication to weightlifting, plus talent, plus Jim Sparks’s fine coaching that had pushed her to new heights. Yet she also knew that Nicole deserved some of the credit also. If not for Nicole, she might not have even attempted that 114k. Something else, too. She wanted more of what Nicole gave, and not just motivation to lift more. She was almost ashamed to admit it. ‘But I’ve got to be honest with myself,’ she thought. She pictured them going further, doing things they couldn’t in the locker room, doing things that would brand her a lesbian, however much she denied it.
Just as she was getting up to get some dinner, her cell went off. It was Nicole, asking how she felt.
“Oh, about the same. I just iced it down and popped a couple Advil.”
“Atta girl. Stick with the ice for another day or two, then heat. Wet heat. And look, if the Advil doesn’t help, I can, um, provide you with another kind of pain relief. The kind that doesn’t come in pill form. Know what I’m saying?” She giggled.
Alyse started laughing again, thinking about Lacy’s ‘real scream’ comment. “All too well, Nikki. I suspect that your kind of therapy and the Advil could make for a great pain-relieving combo.”
Now Nicole began to laugh. “Took the words right out of my mouth. Gosh, Leesie, are we like, bad girls or what?”
*****
Alyse took the following week off. Not an easy thing for an elite athlete. In fact, it took just as much discipline, if not more, to rest as it did to follow a strict training regimen. She did the ice and heat thing, did some light stretching and updated Nicole on her progress. The pain eased up enough to where she could return to the gym for light workouts. She didn’t need Advil anymore or Nicole’s special brand of “therapy.” Except that she wanted it, more like craved it, and she felt a twinge of guilt over that. Here she had a boyfriend, and yet the idea of fooling around with Nicole felt incredibly exciting. “I’ll try anything once,” she was wont to say about a new experience. She had said that about gymnastics and weightlifting and the hang gliding that she had done with Caleb. And now she was saying that about an experience that had not even been on her radar until last week.
And so, on a late Thursday afternoon, following a training session at Rock Ridge and dressed in her all-white warmup suit, she followed Nicole back to her place, a newish, split-level suburban single house with a two-car garage. Nicole had turned part of it into a spartan mini gym, equipped with a platform, a Rogue Olympic barbell set and power rack. She trained here when it wasn’t convenient to drive to Rock Ridge.
Alyse was impressed. “I can see that physical therapy must pay pretty well,” she said, looking over the equipment and her friend’s 2015 green Subaru Outback.
“Not bad,” Nicole said. “I got into PT not only because I like to help people, athletes especially, but because it was on the so-called hot careers list.”
“You sure helped me,” Alyse said, shooting Nicole a wink and gawking at her legs, long and bare. Nicole had not bothered to change out of her revealing workout shorts. Like Alyse, she had big quads. But where Alyse had short legs relative to her upper body, Nicole’s proportions were the opposite. It was an anatomical detail that Alyse hadn’t focused on until now and one that hadn’t produced sexual arousal. Until now.
Nicole draped an arm around her friend’s thick shoulders and kissed her on the side of her head. “Let’s go inside, Leesie.”
They entered though the garage side door and into the kitchen. “Before I give you a tour,” Nicole said, “how about a glass of wine? Or beer, I’ve got both. Me, I love beer after a workout.”
“Beer sounds great,” Alyse said, examining the room, the yellow walls, white ceiling, stainless steel appliances and wood table that sat four.
Nicole broke out two bottles of Coors Light from the fridge and popped the caps. Sipping their brew, they drifted into the dining room and living room, both fully carpeted and only half-furnished. A china cabinet and sofa were “on order,” Nicole said. When they got upstairs to the master bedroom, Alyse noticed men’s clothing piled neatly on a chair. “Oh, that’s Burt’s stuff,” Nicole revealed. “We stay over at each other’s places.”
Alyse never met Burt but she knew about him, had seen his pics on Nicole’s phone. “A hunk and a half,” as Nicole described him and as the pics confirmed. Burt, twenty-nine, was a rugby-playing lawyer and did CrossFit off and on. Alyse had no intention of telling Caleb about her new-found experience and wondered if Nicole had said anything to Burt. So she asked.
Nicole shook her head. “No way, honey. This is between you and me. Besides, he wouldn’t get it. I’m not sure if I fully get it. Do you?” In fact, Nicole had a pretty good idea of what this was about, at least from her end, but saw no point in revealing everything; specifically, her psychological motivations.
Alyse reached out and stroked one of Nicole’s smooth, bare thighs. “Only that you gave me quite a thrill in that locker room and that I’m an adventurous girl willing to try new things.”
Nicole took Alyse’s bottle, then set them both down on the night table beside the queen-sized bed that was fully made. Then, taking her head in her hands, she said, “You’re really cute. I’ve already told you that, I know, but I felt like saying it again. And you’re also, I’d bet, a future Olympian. Let me kiss you.”
Sweet, soft and warm. It was the way Alyse would describe the way Nicole kissed her standing by her bed in the fading sunlight of this early Thursday evening. She’d never in her life kissed a woman this way, never in her wildest dreams thought she ever would, least of all a woman who most likely she’d compete against for a berth on a future Olympic weightlifting team. When they decoupled, she unzipped her warmup jacket and tossed it on the bed. “It’s getting warm in here.”
“Yes, it sure is,” Nicole said. She slid her hands under Alyse’s shirt, moved them to the back and unsnapped her bra. “Beautiful. You’ve got some nice boobies, baby.”
Alyse lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it on top of her jacket. Already she was wet and getting wetter as Nicole’s tongue roamed over her entire chest, then zeroed in on her nipples. Softly, she moaned, barely standing on knees, buckled and weak–knees that could support close to four-hundred pounds but now were barely holding her up under Nicole’s sensuous touch. Breathing heavy, she said, “Look, I’d better lie down before I fall down.”
“Feeling light-headed?”
“Kind of, but a good kind of light-headed. Not the kind you feel holding a heavy barbell against your neck, when you’re about to pass out.” Alyse eased herself down on the edge of the bed, kicked off her sneakers and then slipped out of her warmup pants, dropping them on the floor. “See, I wore my mint-green panties for you.”
Nicole pursed her lips and grinned. “I see. And I wore a red thong for you.” She wiggled out of her training shorts. “Well?”
“Wow…sexy. I bet you drive Burt wild. Because I know what it’s doing for me.”
Nicole threw off her top. She wore no bra. She often went braless because she didn’t have much to support. “These can’t match what you’ve got, I know.”
“A minor detail, Nikki. You’ve got some great assets, girl. I might be cute, but you’re beautiful.”
She was, too. She possessed a face that was conventionally beautiful, though understated and classical as opposed to drop-dead striking. She had emerald eyes that seemed to sparkle and a body that some would call the ideal aesthetic for a female strength athlete–if such an ideal actually existed, and apparently enough guys thought so to make her Instagram site the most popular among female Olympic lifters.
Alyse knew that and now she, too, was among those admirers, though one in the same room, far removed from cyber space. She reached out, gripped her hands onto the back of Nicole’s thighs, and pulled Nicole toward her. “I’d like to do for you what you did for me at Rock Ridge.” She was shy about slipping her fingers inside Nicole’s red panties, grinning like a little girl caught doing something naughty. “Sorry, it’s my first time doing this with a woman,” she said.
“I understand,” Nicole said. “Take your time. You can feel how wet I am.”
Alyse could indeed. Still tentative, she kept her fingers still for a few moments, wading into this novel experience like someone learning how to swim in the deep end of a pool. Then, seeing Nicole becoming more aroused, buckled knees, heavy breathing and all, Alyse got bolder and began to slip her fingers inside.
“Mmm, ahh, yes, you’re doing fine,” Nicole moaned. She cupped her hand to her forehead. “Now it’s me that’s getting light-headed. I think we both should be lying down.”
After they both stripped bare and slipped under the covers, Alyse got between Nicole’s legs. But then, with her mouth just inches from its intended destination, she looked up and shook her head. “Guess I’m not as adventurous as I thought. Fingering I can do. Eating pussy? I’m not quite there yet. Sorry.
“That’s okay,” Nicole said. “So how about if we continue where we left off in the locker room?”
Alyse loved that idea. She had been looking forward to it even as her pulled back muscles were on the mend. “I’m like, so onboard with that,” she said, drawing circles around Nicole’s pussy with her index finger. “I was so close to climaxing.”
Nicole pulled her up, then kissed her. “This time you will. I can almost guarantee it. But this time lay on your back.”
Alyse gleefully complied, then gleefully absorbed Nicole’s deft touch on this most sensitive part of her anatomy. Now she could relax and enjoy it without the angst of someone walking in on them. It took only moments before she knew that this had been worth waiting for. What Nicole was doing and the way she felt because of what Nicole was doing, made what happened in the locker room pale by comparison. “Ohmygod, Nikki, you’re incredible! Yes! Yes! My pussy’s on fire!”
The “fire” did a fast burn. Alyse climaxed in just over a minute. “Ohmygod, Nikki, you’re so good, like you’ve had tons of experience. With girls, I mean.”
Nicole finally felt comfortable enough to reveal the shower incident with Sandra Worley. “But that was the extent of my experience. Believe it or not, Leesie, I never thought about doing it with another girl until you came along.”
They faced each other propped up on elbows, touching each other with their other hand–fingers alternatively and tenderly combing through hair, massaging breasts, running over lips.
If their relationship had been complicated before–being rivals as well as training partners–Alyse realized that it was exponentially more complicated now. “Nikki, you called me a future Olympian. You think? Really?”
“Absolutely. With the gains you’ve made in the past year and the steamroller you’re now on, don’t you think so? Come on, don’t be modest.”
Alyse lowered her eyes, then looked up. “Yeah, I do, to be honest. But you’re just as ambitious about going to Tokyo, and only one of us can go.” She paused, groping for the words to express further what she felt.
Nicole had no trouble picking up on her friend’s trend of thought. “So now that we’ve become intimate, where do we go from here, is what I think you’re trying to say.”
Alyse nodded and Nicole continued. “Look, Tokyo is two years away. A lot can happen between now and then. Jim Sparks has suggested that I might make faster gains moving up in weight, to the eighty-ones. So we might not have to compete against each other after all.”
“Okay, but now we are competing against each other and…” She took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts. “I don’t know, it feels weird doing this with you and then going out on the platform trying to beat your ass. I mean, there’s this huge conflict of interest, it seems to me.”
“Okay, so we won’t have sex except maybe with our boyfriends the day before the contest,” Nicole said, chuckling. “Seriously, Leesie, I don’t know, we’ll just have to see what develops. Right now, I hope we can be lovers as well as rivals.”
“I hope we can, too,” Alyse said, not quite believing it. She knew that Nicole’s competitive zeal was just as strong as hers, perhaps stronger, now that Alyse was forging ahead of her and even moving close to what the elite Chinese women were doing. She hoped they could remain friends, could maintain their intimacy. But she sensed Nicole’s envy of her success, so that might not be possible. But maybe it was–she didn’t know at this point. Like Nicole said, a lot could happen between now and 2020.