Page 29 of Coach Me

We made finished the laps in record time, and by record, I mean astonishingly slow. It was right around the end of the lap cycle that I realized I was drunk. Not tipsy. Drunk.

Now, a thing I don’t like to bring up about myself is that I have something of a drunk alter ego. You know how some girls get really vicious, or cry a lot? Yeah, that wasn’t me. I get sort of notoriously horny.

Surprising, no? I’d made the discovery in my orientation week of college, otherwise known as the first time I drank to excess. Three Smirnoff Ices later — don’t make fun of me, I was young — I started grinding on a guy in the middle of the dance floor and attempting to unbutton his pants. He laughed and called over my friends who took me home and plied me with water the rest of the night.

Like I said, alter ego.

So this new realization about my level of intoxication was, you might say, no bueno. Simon’s very existence already made me horny. Compound that with alcohol lust, and there was no telling what I might try to do. Here’s hoping I kept my shit together.

The laps were finished, and Simon asked us to get down and do some pushups. The rest of the girls dropped to the ground, but I sauntered over to him like some kind of pirate wench. What was I doing?

“Yes, Catya?” he asked in a low tone, his voice filled with that which could not be said.

“I don’t feel like doing the pushups,” I sniffed.

More than anything, he looked amused. “Oh yeah, and why’s that?”

“Because I don’t feel like getting on the ground, and getting all dirty,” I replied, and in a horrible moment of impulsivity, added, “unless it’s with you, that is.”

My words stunned us both — me, because I hadn’t expected to say them, and Simon because… well, maybe because he’d always hoped I would say them. His face flitted through a score of different expressions, before settling on consternation.

He growled, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Catya, but go do the pushups.”

I inched closer to him, my drunk persona entirely taking over. “Oh yeah?” I said. “Are you gonna make me?”

Simon wasn’t having it. He moved in, formalizing our standoff.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I will make you.”

I was about to serve up a witty comeback, or at least a comeback, when I did something that wasn’t just in my drunk persona, but in all people’s drunk persona.

That is to say, I tripped.

My wavering feet got tangled up, my cleats hit my shin guards, and I tumbled face first onto the grass. Er, not quite the grass.

More like, onto Simon’s crotch.

He must not have seen the fall coming — I did go down hard — and thus couldn’t catch me. Meaning, I had to catch myself. Which, to my credit, I did!

Using his trousers, that is.

“What the hell?” he yelped, as my descending hands caught hold of his thighs, in a vain attempt to steady my fall.

My knees hit the ground, but I was able to keep my hold body from eating shit through my vise grip on his legs. For those who weren’t following along, this meant that my face stopped just inches from Simon’s dick.

Half a second after I’d avoided a face plant, I was unable to stay upright on my knees, probably just because of the shock of it all, and thus, I plopped right down on my ass. I looked like a broken marionette, splayed out on the ground.

“Jesus, Catya,” he snarled. “What’s going on with you?” Then, softer, “Are you okay? You seem… out of it.”

He didn’t have to say the rest of it — that I was crossing lines that we might have accidentally or not crossed behind closed doors, but never in public, never in front of the team.

“Sorry, so sorry,” I apologized. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

A lie. A bald-faced lie.

Simon shook his head. “Snap out of it. I expect more from you.”

With that, he pivoted on his sneaker and walked away, leaving me on my ass and humiliated.

Chapter 13

Simon

Something was wrong with Catya. I didn’t know what, or why, but I was starting to get seriously concerned.

My attitude to her had been snappish, true. I couldn’t defend that. I suspected it was, in part, because she got so close to my… ahem, and I’d spent all day trying not to think about her going down there. It was like the universe, and Catya along with it, kept throwing impossible challenges at me, such that I could never quite get my sea legs.

That aside, what the hell was going on?

She was always the consummate professional. Well, except for last night. Even then, though, that had been one-hundred percent my fault. She hadn’t been doing anything technically wrong. Catya had fairly assumed that the locker room was empty. So I stood by my impression that she was a pretty serious athlete and all-around upright citizen.

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