Maisy

I didn’t fuck anyone else.

I suppose I should be insulted or at least surprised by the text on my phone from Blaze, but I’m neither. It makes me smile. Not that I could’ve been angry at her for being with someone else after I’d turned my back on her at the snowboard cross finals and didn’t answer her text. Her lovely, lovely text that made me feel so fucking special.

Now what to say to her? I feel ready, I suppose, ready to see her again. Would very much like to touch her and celebrate much the same way we drowned our sorrows in Sapporo. With days of the filthiest and most delicious kind of sex. And gin. Maybe some champagne this time. For variety. Bottom line is that if I feel as though she’s really understood and is truly sorry for what she pulled, I want to give her another chance, much as she did for me. I want to trust and believe in her because that’s one of the things I like about Blaze, how faith and forgiveness seem to come easily to her. Not that I’ll ever be quite that freewheeling, but loosening up a bit has proved to have its perks.

So I text her back.

Neither have I ;) Want to meet in my room when you’re free?

It’s less than a minute before I have her answer.

You bet your ass I do.

It’ll likely be an hour or more before Blaze is knocking on my door—or more likely, trying to push it open and pounding on it when she finds it locked. Since I’m still supposed to skate in the exhibition in a couple of days—which I’ll now be doing to what was supposed to be my free skate, along with a couple more tricks thrown in perhaps—I put on my music and run the program through in my mind while I check my last dress for loose sequins or crystals, and start to organize my things for the trip home. Yes, we have a few days, but I don’t want to bother with packing all my stuff when I might be able to do more . . . fun things.

I practically jump out of my skin when there’s a banging on my door, and my heart and perhaps other areas of my body, flutter. It’s her. It’s got to be her. When I open the door, it is.

She looks glorious, her hair spikey and wet. I want to scold her that she shouldn’t be running around in freezing weather because she’ll get herself sick, but before I can, she’s striding through and kissing me. Which, on the one hand, is amazing. Her mouth on mine is hot and demanding, and I want so badly to give her what she wants because I want it, too. But on the other hand, part of me still needs an apology. Not in a text, either.

I don’t want to worry that she’s going to do something like that again because she didn’t fully understand what it did to me. Yes, she’s been on her best behavior since then, and came to my performances without saying a damn word, but . . . I want her to understand. And as much as we’ve been enjoying each other as fuck buddies, I’d like to think maybe this won’t be our last hurrah. And if we’re in this for longer than the next few days, I need to know she respects and understands me. Not that she’ll never fuck up again ever, because that’s not possible for any human alive, never mind one as impulsive as Blaze, but . . . dammit, I want to know that she’ll think of me. If she even wants that. What if she doesn’t? Only one way to find out really, and I should do it before we have sex I’ll remember as a bittersweet swan song.

Pushing at her chest, I separate us, and we’re both already breathing hard and fast. “Blaze—”

“Maisy.”

“We need to talk.”

She curls a hand around the back of my neck and gives me a come-hither smile to die for that’s dripping with sexual intent. “Do we? I can think of other things I’d rather do.”

“As can I, but I need this, okay? Can you give me a few minutes? Because we need to clear some things up.”

Blaze nods and drops her hand. “Yeah, we can do that. What’s up?”

I hate that I’m wringing my hands in front of me, but now that it’s here, I’m not entirely certain of what to say.

“What happened at the snowboard cross—”

“Hey, I’m sorry about that, okay?”

She reaches for me again, and I stop her. “No, not okay. I believe that you’re sorry, but it’s a bigger issue than oops, I messed up. It’s important to me and I want you to listen.”

“Can I listen after we fuck? Because I’ve been dying, Mais. Especially after watching you skate.” Yeah, there’s a special gleam in her eye, and it makes me feel sexy, wanted, proud. But . . . I can’t. Not yet. “You’ve been the only thing on my mind when I wasn’t getting ready for my race. I . . . I want you. Please.”

She takes a step toward me again, which is when I lose it.

Blaze

“Do you grant the premise that I’m owed as much bodily autonomy as you are?”

“But—”

“Do. You?” Yes, I’ve seen Maisy look fierce before. In her own way, she looks particularly fierce on the ice. How badass do you have to be to contort yourself like a pretzel and fucking smile about it? But this is beyond that. This is her gaze looking as sharp as her skates. Like she’s going to eviscerate me.

“Of course I do.” To say anything else would be hypocritical in the extreme. Everyone should have control over their own bodies to do with them whatever they want. Piercings? Fabulous. Tattoos? Ink your bad self. Dying your hair? Clearly, I’m all for it. Pretty much anything you can do to yourself unless you’re doing it to self-harm? I’m down. And give others permission to do whatever they like, as long as everyone’s consenting and of legal age and all that good stuff.

“If that’s true, you can’t be okay with taking away my choices because they look different than yours.”

It’s possible that the point of Maisy’s chin quivers, but she shuts that down before it can go full tremble. And what she’s just said . . . it renders me speechless. Is that what she feels like I’ve been doing to her? Is that, in fact, what I have been doing to her?

People telling me what to do with my body—the people who side-eye my hair and my clothes, the ones who shame me for posing mostly or completely nude for magazine shoots but then look at them anyway, the people who tsk at how many sexual partners I’ve had but still want to claim my glory for their own? Those slut-shaming, narrow-minded hypocrites, they infuriate me. Completely infuriate me.

But have I gone too far? Yeah, Maisy and I don’t make the same choices, because she’s way more modest than I am, but then so are 98 percent of people I’ve ever met in my whole life, and she’s more private, too. I’ve never called her a prude out loud, but I may as well have with the way I’ve dismissed some of her concerns, and that’s not fair. I’m as bad as the people I hate.

“I don’t appreciate being used as a pawn in your games. I’ve only ever asked you for two things when we’re together, and that’s for you not to be with anyone else and not to mark me where people could see. Now I’m going to ask you for something else. To keep me out of your press stunts and your attention mongering. I don’t want to be involved in them. If you can’t or won’t, then we’re done here because you talk a good game, but I don’t think you actually respect my choices.”

Bam. I have been hit and hit hard on the track, but this is one of the most painful blows I’ve ever suffered. I’m guessing it’s cut especially deep because it’s true, and I’m finding I don’t like that about myself.

I take a few breaths, because I owe Maisy. I owe it to her to think this through, to figure out if I can do what she’s asking, because she deserves to be respected as much as I do. I do believe that, fundamentally, but when you start to poke at it . . . No, I do, but I need that minute to set myself straight and to allow for the argument. I’m not proud of it and hopefully I’ll get better, but for now, it takes me conscious thought to get there, and I’m really, truly sorry for the position I put her in and for not giving her choice as much weight as my own. That was shitty in a massive way. And you don’t do that to someone you love, which is maybe how I feel about Maisy. Yep, pretty sure, actually, but I’m not sure if that’s how she thinks of me.

“I am so, so sorry. I understand why you’re so upset, and I will do my utmost to be as respectful as your choices as you have been of mine. It’s not fair to hoist my baggage on you, and—”

“Baggage? What baggage? You’re the freest person I know. Most people have got a 747’s worth of luggage they’re hauling around, and you’re that asshole who carries on a bottle of water and a book.”

Maisy cracks me up. She seems so innocent and wide-eyed, and then she says shit like that. But unlike most of the time, she’s wrong about this. “That is so not true. I mean, I really do believe that people should be able to fuck whomever and whenever and however they like, and look the way they want to, and blah blah blah, but if you think I can’t hear the shit people say about me? If you think that doesn’t make me feel shitty sometimes? It absolutely does, so I’m carrying around some stuff, too.”

There’s something I should say to her, but I don’t know if I can hack it. I mean, competing in a dangerous sport at an elite level, sure, but telling someone about my deepest insecurities? No, thank you. But I wasn’t lying when I told Maisy that part of what makes poly relationships work is communication. I should—for once in our relationship—set a good example.

“One of the things I carry is being worried that the people I’m with are ashamed of me. So sometimes when you wanted to keep stuff quiet, it didn’t feel like you were shy and wanted privacy, it felt like you were embarrassed to be with me. Not just anyone, but me in particular.”

The breath Maisy inhales is audible. I might even call it a gasp, if I wanted to be dramatic. Which I usually do, but not now. Now, I’m trying to be earnest. It’s not easy. Even though it’s killing me not to make a joke and move on, I wait for her to say something. Because I want her to—need her to.

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I am not ashamed of you. You’re marvelous and I admire so many things about you. My parents can be really shitty about me being queer, and I’m still figuring out how to deal with that, so that’s part of it. But part of it is that I’m shy, I like to keep my private life private. I would with anyone, not just you. I swear.”

She said I’m marvelous. I’m going to turn into one of those cartoon characters whose eyes turn into hearts and beat out of their heads. It sucks that her parents are homophobic wankers, though. I know how toxic that shit can be and that it takes time to work through it. It’s like she said before, but in a way that makes me feel better instead of awful: it’s not all about me.

“Okay. If you could, maybe, remind me of that sometimes. And we can talk about your parents sometime, if that would be helpful. If you can try to keep my sore spots in mind, too, I’ll do the same and this could be even better.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But my point is that you might have to smack me upside the head sometimes, but I’ll do my best to smack myself before you have to. If you think you might be willing to deal with me in the future?”

Hope gurgles inside me like one of those broken water fountains. A trickle, but with volume. It just needs a bit more power behind it to turn it into a pretty arc that a person could actually drink from.

Maisy eyes me and I try to stand still. She can look at me as long as she likes. “How long are we talking? Until the SIGs are over?”

Is that what she wants? Is that all she wants? I could do that, but . . . “I was kinda hoping, maybe you might be willing to put up with my loud ass after that? You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, and I can’t say I’m in a big hurry to give you up. I know it’ll be crazy and weird with our schedules, but maybe it’s worth a shot? I don’t know exactly what it’ll look like, but . . .”

I trail off, because Maisy’s stopped meeting my eyes. Is in fact, looking at her fuzzy-sock-encased feet. Wow, maybe she really does not want to go there. This was meant to be a SIG spouse thing, and we’re supposed to split amicably. Okay. I can do that, even though the idea leaves a hole in my heart.

But when she looks at me again, it’s not with that super-awkward, it’s-not-you-it’s-me bullshit kind of look. Her eyes are wide and she’s blinking too much, as if she’s afraid. Afraid of what, though?

“What if I’m not enough for you?”

My head rocks back on my neck, because what the hell is that even supposed to mean? She said it a few days ago, but I thought I’d made it abundantly clear at the time that she is in fact enough. But maybe her fears are cropping up again because we’re talking longer-term here. On some level, I get it, but I’m not sure that even my answers meant to reassure her will do it. But what’s the worst thing that can happen? Oh, just losing the best thing that’s ever happened to me forever and ever. No bigs.

“Hey.” I reach out, cup her face in my hand, slide a thumb across her cheek, taking a tear that’s leaked out from between her lashes with me. “This might sound crazy, but . . . no one is? That’s not even something I’m looking for.”

Her chin trembles and I want to stop it. The only way I know how is to grip her jaw on both sides with my hands and make her look at me. “I’m not trying to say it’s hopeless, I’m trying to say . . . I know I’m a lot to handle, and I don’t think any one person could. Even if they could, I don’t think I only want one person. I need truly excessive amounts of attention, and god do I need ludicrous amounts of sex. I’m like three average people’s worth of partner.”

“But do you even want one? Or is your idea of happiness always being with different people and never settling in any way, in any part of your life?”

I’ve thought about it, sure, have thought some day when I’m not skating competitively anymore that I’d find some nice person who was poly, too, and we’d have a home with a rotating cast of bedmates or however poly happened to look for us at the time, and it’d all be fine. Maybe some cats. The idea of Maisy being that person I share a life with, though?

“Why are you asking?” Hope is starting to creep up on me, and if it has no business being there, I want to beat it back before it gets any ideas.

“I . . . I want you to be happy. I would really like it if your version of being happy included me. For kind of a long time. I know since we’ve been here I’ve asked for you to be just mine, but I don’t think it would always have to be that way. I want you to be sated, I want you to have enough, and if . . . if other people could provide some of that, maybe I wouldn’t feel as though I was letting you down?”

Something sticks in my throat. I’d say it was a reptile, but a spikey one, because I can’t clear it. “You’re not, and you never have let me down. You’re incredible, and it makes me feel good that you like me enough to let me into your world even though I’m so . . . disruptive. I thought maybe this was SIG mania. You know, temporary competition-induced insanity? But if you’re telling me you’d like to be around me longer than that, more than that . . . That makes me really fucking happy. But what exactly are you proposing?”

“I feel like maybe you’re poly, and I’m not? But it’s possible I’ve been doing some research on this because I clearly had some misunderstandings. From what I can tell, it’s maybe not easy, but people can make this work. There would be some times when I’d want you, need you, all to myself, but as long as I got first dibs, I think I’d be okay with you having other people?”

Okay, now the hope has climbed up to my shoulders and has wrapped its desperate limbs around my head. Which would explain why I’m feeling dizzy, lightheaded. Definitely not the head injury at all. “That sounds a lot like a question.”

The corner of Maisy’s mouth tugs up in a smile, and she half-rolls her eyes in that self-conscious way she has. “I mean, it is. I’ve never done this before; I don’t know how I’ll feel about it for real. I might get jealous, but right now, I can see how it might be a relief. I can have you, you can have me and like, bonus sex, or date someone, and if I ask for it, I can keep you for a while. That sounds pretty good to me. I don’t want to change you, and I don’t want to shame you. I want us both to be happy and to figure this out. I love you exactly the way you are, and I’m hoping you feel the same way, and not as though I’m trying to take what I want and ditch the rest.”

I roll my lips between my teeth and shake my head. “I absolutely do not feel that way. I actually feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Especially because I’m pretty sure you just said you loved me. Was that a thing that happened?”

Now that she’s not on the verge of tears, I think I can find a better use for my hands. So I slide them down her neck, over her narrow shoulders, and past her shoulder blades, all the way to her waist, which I use to steer her even closer to me, because I want her closer. Close enough to kiss. But not quite. I want to hear her answer in words, not in the language of physicality we’ve always found it so easy to communicate in.

“Yes. Is that okay?”

“That is way better than okay. Because I totally love you back.”

I love how she bounces on her heels and launches herself at me, her hands spearing into my hair that she cut, her mouth sloping over mine, and the nip to my bottom lip that follows. Doesn’t take much to rev my engines, and here she is, starting me up with no more than a kiss. I hope she’s prepared for what she’s started, but a hand suddenly grabbing my ass to grind our pelvises together says yes, and that’s precisely what she wants, too. As much of me as she can possibly handle, and the trust and freedom for me to seek out other sources for the remainder while she rests up to take me on again.