Fic: After all the boys... (skating RPF, Tanith/Charlie, Tanith/Johnny, Johnny/Charlie)
It's my posting day for this, so I'm dropping off fic. Back to work now!
Title: After all the boys and the girls that we've been through
Fandom: figure skating RPF
Pairings/Characters: Tanith/Charlie, Johnny/Charlie, Johnny/Tanith, Ryan Bradley
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex
Warnings/enticements: Brief reference to a bad first time. Johnny Weir having sex with a girl. Explicit description of sixteen-year-olds having sex.
Summary: If you've slept with both halves of the couple and they both still count you as a friend, you're automatically a bridesmaid.
Word Count: about 3,100.
Disclaimers: This is a work of fiction. The characters herein are based on real people, but the words and events are completely made up. They are not intended to be mistaken for fact, and no libel is intended. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post.
Notes: Thanks to callmesandy for interrupting her Farmville decorating for the speedy beta. Title is from Lady Gaga's "Speechless." Written for skategreat's Texts From Last Night challenge, for the following prompt: Do you think it'll be awkward standing up at their wedding knowing I've slept with both the bride and the groom?
*AUGUST 2011*
"I have an important question for you, Johnny," Tanith says on the phone.
"The answer is always a black dress and a classic pump."
"Probably going to be a white gown and a veil this time." She's holding back the squeal of elation. She's already shrieked on the phone with her mom and with Brooke, and she's getting hoarse.
"He asked? Congratulations! How's the ring? Is it perfect?"
"So perfect," Tanith says. "It's his grandmother's stone but a new setting. Princess cut, platinum band, just really elegant."
"That's so Charles. Classic."
"I know, I'm just - he always gets it right," she says. He doesn't actually: they miss each other's signals as much as any couple. She gets stubborn; Charlie withdraws. But her love for him is tenacious and makes her want to repair the cracks every time.
"Send a picture," Johnny says. "I need to admire your bling."
"It's going on Facebook, like, tomorrow. But first I have to ask - I have to ask if you'll be in the wedding." Her voice stumbles, and she's not sure why it's difficult to ask him. Everyone else has been easy.
"Can I be the flower girl?"
She laughs. "I was thinking more along the lines of bridesmaid."
"Can I pick out my own dress?"
"For the sake of my one remaining grandparent, make it a suit," Tanith says. "But that's a yes?"
"I'm not sure why you want me. You have closer friends. But yes."
"Johnny," Tanith says. "Who else can I trust to help me pick out my gown?"
*JANUARY 2008*
"Congratulations, man." Charlie gave Johnny the standard bro hug of victory. Some people thought the hug rules were different for the gay guys and congratulated them like it was a high school mixer in the '50s, but those people were schmucks. "You looked great out there. We all thought you won."
"I thought I won," Johnny said with a sad smile. "But what can you do? It's all politics."
"You're telling me." Charlie had sworn to Meryl that he wouldn't grumble when they lost. No matter how well they skated, it wasn't "their turn," and Tanith and Ben were next in line for a world title. Charlie needed to keep his mouth shut and wait until he and Meryl reached the front of the line.
"No disrespect to Tanith and Ben," Johnny said, "but I thought you guys had it, too."
Charlie patted Johnny's arm. "Thanks. That means a lot." He smiled, feeling vindictive and knowing Johnny would share in it. "Disrespect totally meant to Evan, by the way."
"Yeah, I'm just too tired to start another round," Johnny said. "I skated my best, I'll do even better at Worlds, it's not worth it."
"You're right," Charlie sighed.
Johnny furrowed his brow. "What's your deal with Evan?"
Jealousy, Charlie couldn't make himself say out loud. He'd always done well at keeping his feelings for Tanith secret. She was always with someone else, and those guys proved her tastes didn't run to short and nerdy. He loved her at a hopeless distance. But he couldn't keep himself from hating her boyfriends. It wasn't his turn and never would be.
Johnny nodded at Charlie's silence. "Want to join my pity party? I have an entire case of vodka in my room." He pursed his lips like he was proud of being naughty. "A gift. From my fans."
Jiminy Cricket sat on Charlie's shoulder, pointing out that Charlie was going to Johnny's hotel room alone to get drunk, and there was nothing homophobic about turning him down. Charlie wiped away his conscience. He wanted to be drunk, and he didn't want to be anywhere near Tanith or Evan.
An hour later, he was making out with Johnny, an empty vodka bottle on its side at their feet. The sequence of events leading up to the kissing was fuzzy, but there had been something about the federation sticking them with silver to make sure they didn't get laid, not that either of them was having sex anyway, and Johnny saying, "I can't believe everyone isn't having sex with you. Have you looked in a mirror?"
"Nobody's really offered," Charlie said.
"You're supposed to offer. You're the man." Johnny was leaning almost into Charlie's lap. Charlie couldn't tell if Johnny was angling for a proposition or if he was just drunk.
Charlie was drunk, too, and he'd left his conscience in the hallway, and that was how they were kissing. That was how they were undressing, how Johnny was on top of Charlie on the bed caressing his chest, their dicks rubbing together. Charlie grabbed Johnny's butt, pulling him closer to grind harder.
Johnny pressed his lips into Charlie's neck, stalling him. "Hang on, Sweetheart." He came back with a condom and put it on Charlie, coating it with a fistful of lube. Johnny lay down on his stomach, posing with his chin in his hands and his toes pointed in the air. Charlie leaped into him, too drunk to know his own strength, and Johnny grunted under his weight. Inside Johnny, Charlie held back and made it last. Johnny was loud and dramatic, performing, "Yes, yes, yes." Charlie's brain shut off, drowned in alcohol and testosterone, lost in sex. Coming surprised him, and so did Johnny's sated smile as he rolled onto his back.
Johnny purred, "You're so beautiful, Charles." He drawled Charlie's name, turning it into a new word. "I'm calling you Charles from now on."
"Okay," Charlie said. He didn't know what to do with himself, but it seemed rude to leave. He molded his body around Johnny's and pulled the covers over both of them. Silver medalists didn't have to sleep alone.
In the morning, Johnny was in a bathrobe, sitting in the armchair by the window, reading a book. "Good morning, Charles." It was a little menacing, actually.
Charlie fumbled his glasses on. "Yeah, I - Hi."
"We should still have time to grab Starbucks before the gala rehearsal," Johnny says. "Unless you want to risk the hospitality room breakfast."
"Maybe that's a bad idea," Charlie said, tugging on last night's pants.
Johnny gave him a slow once-over. "You don't have 'Last night, I fucked Johnny Weir' stamped on you anywhere. If that's what you're worried about." He smiled. "I know this is never going to happen again, and I know I'm not your boyfriend." He seemed oddly pleased about that - not just resigned, but like this was what he'd wanted all along.
"Well, then, I guess -" Charlie held out his hand. "Friends?"
Johnny turned the handshake into a hug. "Of course."
Charlie finished putting on his shirt and shoes. Johnny said, "But you have to promise me you'll look in a mirror sometime. For fuck's sake. You have no idea, do you?"
Charlie didn't know what Johnny expected him to see, but as he walked back to his room, his head swelled with the hope that someone else saw it, too.
*FEBRUARY 2012*
Ryan is going to be the best fucking best man in the history of weddings. He was blown away when Charlie asked him, and he's determined to rise to it. The problem is, there's not very much to do. Charlie isn't going to want a big deal bachelor party, and everything else - writing the toast, hanging onto the ring - doesn't require all these months of advance planning. Maybe someday he'll get to be a maid of honor, and then he'll really shine.
So he's actually excited when Charlie calls with a problem, even if it is, in Charlie's words, "Probably not a real issue, and I should let it go. But it keeps nagging at me."
"What's going on?" Whatever it is, Ryan is going to be perfectly supportive and helpful.
"I kind of... slept with one of Tanith's bridesmaids."
"Just now?" Maybe that wasn't so supportive.
But Charlie laughs. "No. Four years ago."
"So before you were together, when she was with someone else?" Ryan says. "You're fine, man."
"Yeah, I guess, but - you're right. Never mind. Thanks." There's a fairly long silence, but Charlie doesn't hang up.
"So are you going to tell me who it is?" Ryan says.
"Yeah. I, um, see, that's what the issue might be. Because they weren't really speaking to each other at the time, and -"
"This wasn't some kind of long-term thing, was it?" If it was, and Ryan never found out about it, Ryan feels a little betrayed, not to mention clueless.
"No, it was just, we got drunk at Nats, it was sort of a friend thing."
Ryan does the mental arithmetic. Four years ago was 2008, that was Minnesota, no way it was Meryl, Brooke was in a relationship, Lauren skated for Canada, and Sasha wasn't skating at all. Ryan's stumped for a moment, and then he gets it: not just the answer, but the many layers of underlying anxiety. "You let Johnny Weir get you drunk enough to fuck him?"
"Yeah, so you can see how it actually is a problem."
Ryan guffaws unsupportively. "Are you kidding me? Tanith'll think that's the funniest thing she's ever heard."
"So you think I should tell her?" Charlie's voice squeaks with apprehension.
"You don't have to," Ryan says. "But it wouldn't hurt."
"I don't know. What if she freaks? But she'll find out eventually, and I don't like keeping stuff from her, and -"
"Do you want me to tell her?" Ryan asks.
"No. That would be a disaster. But - maybe you could talk to Brooke? And make sure the coast is clear?"
It sounds like a hare-brained plan, unnecessarily complicated, but if it'll make Charlie feel better, Ryan's up for it. He calls Brooke right after he's off the phone with Charlie. "I'm calling on wedding business," he explains. He tells Brooke about Charlie's panic, how it's probably just generic pre-wedding nerves plus Worlds pressure, until he realizes he's stalling. He's as uptight about admitting this as Charlie was, and for no reason. Every male figure skater has, at some point in his career, had a few too many and let one of the gay guys blow him. But it's not something you discuss.
Ryan lets the words tumble out. "A while ago, before he and Tanith got together, Charlie slept with Weir, and now Charlie thinks Tanith is going to leave him or something."
Brooke has started laughing long before Ryan has finished his sentence. "She'll love that. She'll love
that so much. She'll marry him more."
*DECEMBER 2000*
Tanith didn't technically lose her virginity to Johnny, but in her mind, she revises her own history so he came first. It's been so long now, she's almost erased Johnny's single predecessor from her memory, a nervous Russian boy who she hadn't quite wanted to go all the way with. The blood afterward had scared her, and now she was steering clear of all straight boys, as a precaution.
Johnny was steering clear by her side, or maybe he just wanted someone to smoke with. Johnny always had cigarettes, even in foreign countries, even when the chaperones searched their bags and followed them outside. In exchange, Tanith filled an old birth control pill case with diet pills. They made a good team.
They had deep conversations. Well, Johnny did. He had ideas about Russian literature and the nature of God. Tanith mostly knew about makeup and Dave Matthews Band lyrics. To keep up with him, she'd started reading harder books.
They were doing a Christmas show in Chicago as representatives of figure skating's future, the stars of 2006. It was too cold to smoke. Bundled and shivering in the hotel parking lot, they blew smoke into each other's faces for warmth. "I'm gay," Johnny said out of nowhere.
"No shit," Tanith laughed.
"I'm trying to get used to saying it out loud. Instead of implying it with gestures and dance moves." He shimmied and flicked ash into the sky.
She applauded, then turned serious. "How do you know for sure, anyway?"
"I think about boys. All the time." He smiled, looking her over. "When I should be thinking of you."
"Thanks." She blushed. It staved off the cold.
"Seriously, how do you not know?" Johnny said.
Tanith shrugged. Whenever she met someone these days, she thought about what it would feel like to kiss them. But boys liked her, so she went along with them. She didn't not like boys. "I've never kissed a girl. So I can't completely know."
"Well, I've never kissed a girl, either, and I'm sure." He seemed proud.
Tanith felt like she'd been dared, so she kissed him. She kept her mouth closed, but she held the kiss for a few seconds. His lips were a little chapped but still soft, and he was small and yielding, nothing like a boy and not much like she'd imagined.
Johnny blinked at her. "Are you sure you're a girl?"
It felt like another gauntlet at her feet. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
He dropped his cigarette butt onto the snowy pavement and ground it out with his heel, melting a grave for it into the slush. "That sounds like more fun than dinner with my mom."
They went to her hotel room and messed around, although it was more like little kids playing doctor than the frenzied making out Tanith was used to. He said her breasts were neat. His kisses were warm and dry like a clean bedspread, his stale-tobacco breath bitter but sweet.
He knelt with his nose between her thighs. "So that's what they look like," he said. He poked the folds of her labia, and she squirmed at the tickle. He gave her a lick and said she was salty, then another lick, luckier, that made her yelp with pleasure. She wanted more of that but didn't know how to ask. When he fingered her, she tried to relax, but her muscles tightened. "Hang on, sorry," she said.
She sat up and pushed him down on his back. He wasn't really hard. She was used to guys being enormous and urgent before she saw their dicks. "I've never really seen one of these up close, either," she said. Balls were weird, wrinkly and stubbly, but he purred when she touched them.
Oral usually made her nervous, but it was a lot easier starting with a soft dick. He seemed to think she was good, or maybe he was keeping her calm. "Don't make me come," he giggled, and she released him.
He hopped off the bed and got a condom out of his wallet. "Oh," Tanith said. "I'm on birth control."
"I'm not," he chirped, making it sound like reason enough.
She lay back down, and he tried fingering her again. She attempted Pilates breathing exercises. He tried using his tongue, moving it around until it felt good, late night in a hot bath with Sports Illustrated good, grab his hair and thrash on the bed good.
The orgasm relaxed her, and he had no trouble getting inside her. He was gentle, which started out nice but got boring. He wasn't into it or didn't know what he was doing. "You're never going to get to heaven that way," she said. "Harder, maybe?"
He made an effort - a bunch of efforts. "Oh, screw it," he finally said. "I'm convinced." He pulled out and took off the condom.
"Hey," she said. "Come back. We'll do what worked."
He sat with his back against the headboard, and she went back down on him. This, he liked. She followed his hips and the rhythm of his moans until he came in her mouth.
"You can spit," he said. "I don't mind. It's so gross, I don't know how anyone swallows."
She hocked loudly and unromantically into the wastebasket. "I need a cigarette," she said. She pried the window open, and the freezing wind gusted in angrily.
Johnny came up behind her, lighting up. "Let's share one." He put his arm around her waist, and they looked out at the skyline together, their warm bodies comfortable and unmysterious.
*MAY 2012*
Charlie White is a married man. He stood at the altar and said his vows; he kissed the bride. He can't stop playing with his ring. He feels entirely new and entirely unchanged.
He feels exhausted. He is hiding in the men's room until he can handle all the people who want to talk to him. At the Olympics, they let him have half an hour in his room to decompress before the USA House party, but his wedding has been nonstop for three days. His mom likes to tell people that when he was a toddler, he would run around like crazy until he was out of energy and literally couldn't stand up anymore, and he'd fall in a heap on the rec room floor. Charlie doesn't remember doing that, but right now, he knows just how his two-year-old self must have felt.
He hears the restroom door open and pulls his feet up onto the toilet seat. But it's Tanith's voice crooning, "Where's my husband?" so he jumps back down. Even when he wants to be alone, he wants to be with her.
"Sorry, I needed five minutes," Charlie says as he comes out of the stall.
She drapes her arms around his neck and kisses him. "Well, hey," she says. "Here we are, alone in the men's room."
Instantly, Charlie gets his second wind. He boosts her up on to the sink counter, hard just thinking about it. She's wearing a crimson garter and blue lace panties under her gown, and Charlie repurposes them as armbands. He teases her clit with his thumb, because even for a quickie, she needs a little warming up. "Shit, hurry," she says.
It's fun to fuck her hard, to just get off. They'll save the lovemaking for the honeymoon. He keeps his thumb on her clit so she'll come as quick as he does.
The door opens just as Charlie's getting off. He says a feverish, orgasmic prayer.
It's Johnny, and he's literally doubling over with laughter. Charlie turns away from him to zip up while Tanith fixes her dress.
"Never mind," Johnny says. "I'll use the ladies' room."
"Oh, relax," Tanith says. "Everyone here's seen your penis."
Johnny looks the two of them over. "I hadn't even thought about that." He goes into a stall.
Charlie kisses Tanith's cheek. "We should go back."
Tanith slides down from the counter. "Better give me back my underwear first."
As Charlie rolls her panties down his arm, he whispers, "Throw the garter right at his head. Hit him between the eyes."
"Revenge?" Tanith whispers back.
"No," Charlie replies. "I want to dance with you at his wedding."
"Oh." He can hear her smile. "More like a reward."
Title: After all the boys and the girls that we've been through
Fandom: figure skating RPF
Pairings/Characters: Tanith/Charlie, Johnny/Charlie, Johnny/Tanith, Ryan Bradley
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sex
Warnings/enticements: Brief reference to a bad first time. Johnny Weir having sex with a girl. Explicit description of sixteen-year-olds having sex.
Summary: If you've slept with both halves of the couple and they both still count you as a friend, you're automatically a bridesmaid.
Word Count: about 3,100.
Disclaimers: This is a work of fiction. The characters herein are based on real people, but the words and events are completely made up. They are not intended to be mistaken for fact, and no libel is intended. This original work of fan fiction is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post.
Notes: Thanks to callmesandy for interrupting her Farmville decorating for the speedy beta. Title is from Lady Gaga's "Speechless." Written for skategreat's Texts From Last Night challenge, for the following prompt: Do you think it'll be awkward standing up at their wedding knowing I've slept with both the bride and the groom?
*AUGUST 2011*
"I have an important question for you, Johnny," Tanith says on the phone.
"The answer is always a black dress and a classic pump."
"Probably going to be a white gown and a veil this time." She's holding back the squeal of elation. She's already shrieked on the phone with her mom and with Brooke, and she's getting hoarse.
"He asked? Congratulations! How's the ring? Is it perfect?"
"So perfect," Tanith says. "It's his grandmother's stone but a new setting. Princess cut, platinum band, just really elegant."
"That's so Charles. Classic."
"I know, I'm just - he always gets it right," she says. He doesn't actually: they miss each other's signals as much as any couple. She gets stubborn; Charlie withdraws. But her love for him is tenacious and makes her want to repair the cracks every time.
"Send a picture," Johnny says. "I need to admire your bling."
"It's going on Facebook, like, tomorrow. But first I have to ask - I have to ask if you'll be in the wedding." Her voice stumbles, and she's not sure why it's difficult to ask him. Everyone else has been easy.
"Can I be the flower girl?"
She laughs. "I was thinking more along the lines of bridesmaid."
"Can I pick out my own dress?"
"For the sake of my one remaining grandparent, make it a suit," Tanith says. "But that's a yes?"
"I'm not sure why you want me. You have closer friends. But yes."
"Johnny," Tanith says. "Who else can I trust to help me pick out my gown?"
*JANUARY 2008*
"Congratulations, man." Charlie gave Johnny the standard bro hug of victory. Some people thought the hug rules were different for the gay guys and congratulated them like it was a high school mixer in the '50s, but those people were schmucks. "You looked great out there. We all thought you won."
"I thought I won," Johnny said with a sad smile. "But what can you do? It's all politics."
"You're telling me." Charlie had sworn to Meryl that he wouldn't grumble when they lost. No matter how well they skated, it wasn't "their turn," and Tanith and Ben were next in line for a world title. Charlie needed to keep his mouth shut and wait until he and Meryl reached the front of the line.
"No disrespect to Tanith and Ben," Johnny said, "but I thought you guys had it, too."
Charlie patted Johnny's arm. "Thanks. That means a lot." He smiled, feeling vindictive and knowing Johnny would share in it. "Disrespect totally meant to Evan, by the way."
"Yeah, I'm just too tired to start another round," Johnny said. "I skated my best, I'll do even better at Worlds, it's not worth it."
"You're right," Charlie sighed.
Johnny furrowed his brow. "What's your deal with Evan?"
Jealousy, Charlie couldn't make himself say out loud. He'd always done well at keeping his feelings for Tanith secret. She was always with someone else, and those guys proved her tastes didn't run to short and nerdy. He loved her at a hopeless distance. But he couldn't keep himself from hating her boyfriends. It wasn't his turn and never would be.
Johnny nodded at Charlie's silence. "Want to join my pity party? I have an entire case of vodka in my room." He pursed his lips like he was proud of being naughty. "A gift. From my fans."
Jiminy Cricket sat on Charlie's shoulder, pointing out that Charlie was going to Johnny's hotel room alone to get drunk, and there was nothing homophobic about turning him down. Charlie wiped away his conscience. He wanted to be drunk, and he didn't want to be anywhere near Tanith or Evan.
An hour later, he was making out with Johnny, an empty vodka bottle on its side at their feet. The sequence of events leading up to the kissing was fuzzy, but there had been something about the federation sticking them with silver to make sure they didn't get laid, not that either of them was having sex anyway, and Johnny saying, "I can't believe everyone isn't having sex with you. Have you looked in a mirror?"
"Nobody's really offered," Charlie said.
"You're supposed to offer. You're the man." Johnny was leaning almost into Charlie's lap. Charlie couldn't tell if Johnny was angling for a proposition or if he was just drunk.
Charlie was drunk, too, and he'd left his conscience in the hallway, and that was how they were kissing. That was how they were undressing, how Johnny was on top of Charlie on the bed caressing his chest, their dicks rubbing together. Charlie grabbed Johnny's butt, pulling him closer to grind harder.
Johnny pressed his lips into Charlie's neck, stalling him. "Hang on, Sweetheart." He came back with a condom and put it on Charlie, coating it with a fistful of lube. Johnny lay down on his stomach, posing with his chin in his hands and his toes pointed in the air. Charlie leaped into him, too drunk to know his own strength, and Johnny grunted under his weight. Inside Johnny, Charlie held back and made it last. Johnny was loud and dramatic, performing, "Yes, yes, yes." Charlie's brain shut off, drowned in alcohol and testosterone, lost in sex. Coming surprised him, and so did Johnny's sated smile as he rolled onto his back.
Johnny purred, "You're so beautiful, Charles." He drawled Charlie's name, turning it into a new word. "I'm calling you Charles from now on."
"Okay," Charlie said. He didn't know what to do with himself, but it seemed rude to leave. He molded his body around Johnny's and pulled the covers over both of them. Silver medalists didn't have to sleep alone.
In the morning, Johnny was in a bathrobe, sitting in the armchair by the window, reading a book. "Good morning, Charles." It was a little menacing, actually.
Charlie fumbled his glasses on. "Yeah, I - Hi."
"We should still have time to grab Starbucks before the gala rehearsal," Johnny says. "Unless you want to risk the hospitality room breakfast."
"Maybe that's a bad idea," Charlie said, tugging on last night's pants.
Johnny gave him a slow once-over. "You don't have 'Last night, I fucked Johnny Weir' stamped on you anywhere. If that's what you're worried about." He smiled. "I know this is never going to happen again, and I know I'm not your boyfriend." He seemed oddly pleased about that - not just resigned, but like this was what he'd wanted all along.
"Well, then, I guess -" Charlie held out his hand. "Friends?"
Johnny turned the handshake into a hug. "Of course."
Charlie finished putting on his shirt and shoes. Johnny said, "But you have to promise me you'll look in a mirror sometime. For fuck's sake. You have no idea, do you?"
Charlie didn't know what Johnny expected him to see, but as he walked back to his room, his head swelled with the hope that someone else saw it, too.
*FEBRUARY 2012*
Ryan is going to be the best fucking best man in the history of weddings. He was blown away when Charlie asked him, and he's determined to rise to it. The problem is, there's not very much to do. Charlie isn't going to want a big deal bachelor party, and everything else - writing the toast, hanging onto the ring - doesn't require all these months of advance planning. Maybe someday he'll get to be a maid of honor, and then he'll really shine.
So he's actually excited when Charlie calls with a problem, even if it is, in Charlie's words, "Probably not a real issue, and I should let it go. But it keeps nagging at me."
"What's going on?" Whatever it is, Ryan is going to be perfectly supportive and helpful.
"I kind of... slept with one of Tanith's bridesmaids."
"Just now?" Maybe that wasn't so supportive.
But Charlie laughs. "No. Four years ago."
"So before you were together, when she was with someone else?" Ryan says. "You're fine, man."
"Yeah, I guess, but - you're right. Never mind. Thanks." There's a fairly long silence, but Charlie doesn't hang up.
"So are you going to tell me who it is?" Ryan says.
"Yeah. I, um, see, that's what the issue might be. Because they weren't really speaking to each other at the time, and -"
"This wasn't some kind of long-term thing, was it?" If it was, and Ryan never found out about it, Ryan feels a little betrayed, not to mention clueless.
"No, it was just, we got drunk at Nats, it was sort of a friend thing."
Ryan does the mental arithmetic. Four years ago was 2008, that was Minnesota, no way it was Meryl, Brooke was in a relationship, Lauren skated for Canada, and Sasha wasn't skating at all. Ryan's stumped for a moment, and then he gets it: not just the answer, but the many layers of underlying anxiety. "You let Johnny Weir get you drunk enough to fuck him?"
"Yeah, so you can see how it actually is a problem."
Ryan guffaws unsupportively. "Are you kidding me? Tanith'll think that's the funniest thing she's ever heard."
"So you think I should tell her?" Charlie's voice squeaks with apprehension.
"You don't have to," Ryan says. "But it wouldn't hurt."
"I don't know. What if she freaks? But she'll find out eventually, and I don't like keeping stuff from her, and -"
"Do you want me to tell her?" Ryan asks.
"No. That would be a disaster. But - maybe you could talk to Brooke? And make sure the coast is clear?"
It sounds like a hare-brained plan, unnecessarily complicated, but if it'll make Charlie feel better, Ryan's up for it. He calls Brooke right after he's off the phone with Charlie. "I'm calling on wedding business," he explains. He tells Brooke about Charlie's panic, how it's probably just generic pre-wedding nerves plus Worlds pressure, until he realizes he's stalling. He's as uptight about admitting this as Charlie was, and for no reason. Every male figure skater has, at some point in his career, had a few too many and let one of the gay guys blow him. But it's not something you discuss.
Ryan lets the words tumble out. "A while ago, before he and Tanith got together, Charlie slept with Weir, and now Charlie thinks Tanith is going to leave him or something."
Brooke has started laughing long before Ryan has finished his sentence. "She'll love that. She'll love
that so much. She'll marry him more."
*DECEMBER 2000*
Tanith didn't technically lose her virginity to Johnny, but in her mind, she revises her own history so he came first. It's been so long now, she's almost erased Johnny's single predecessor from her memory, a nervous Russian boy who she hadn't quite wanted to go all the way with. The blood afterward had scared her, and now she was steering clear of all straight boys, as a precaution.
Johnny was steering clear by her side, or maybe he just wanted someone to smoke with. Johnny always had cigarettes, even in foreign countries, even when the chaperones searched their bags and followed them outside. In exchange, Tanith filled an old birth control pill case with diet pills. They made a good team.
They had deep conversations. Well, Johnny did. He had ideas about Russian literature and the nature of God. Tanith mostly knew about makeup and Dave Matthews Band lyrics. To keep up with him, she'd started reading harder books.
They were doing a Christmas show in Chicago as representatives of figure skating's future, the stars of 2006. It was too cold to smoke. Bundled and shivering in the hotel parking lot, they blew smoke into each other's faces for warmth. "I'm gay," Johnny said out of nowhere.
"No shit," Tanith laughed.
"I'm trying to get used to saying it out loud. Instead of implying it with gestures and dance moves." He shimmied and flicked ash into the sky.
She applauded, then turned serious. "How do you know for sure, anyway?"
"I think about boys. All the time." He smiled, looking her over. "When I should be thinking of you."
"Thanks." She blushed. It staved off the cold.
"Seriously, how do you not know?" Johnny said.
Tanith shrugged. Whenever she met someone these days, she thought about what it would feel like to kiss them. But boys liked her, so she went along with them. She didn't not like boys. "I've never kissed a girl. So I can't completely know."
"Well, I've never kissed a girl, either, and I'm sure." He seemed proud.
Tanith felt like she'd been dared, so she kissed him. She kept her mouth closed, but she held the kiss for a few seconds. His lips were a little chapped but still soft, and he was small and yielding, nothing like a boy and not much like she'd imagined.
Johnny blinked at her. "Are you sure you're a girl?"
It felt like another gauntlet at her feet. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
He dropped his cigarette butt onto the snowy pavement and ground it out with his heel, melting a grave for it into the slush. "That sounds like more fun than dinner with my mom."
They went to her hotel room and messed around, although it was more like little kids playing doctor than the frenzied making out Tanith was used to. He said her breasts were neat. His kisses were warm and dry like a clean bedspread, his stale-tobacco breath bitter but sweet.
He knelt with his nose between her thighs. "So that's what they look like," he said. He poked the folds of her labia, and she squirmed at the tickle. He gave her a lick and said she was salty, then another lick, luckier, that made her yelp with pleasure. She wanted more of that but didn't know how to ask. When he fingered her, she tried to relax, but her muscles tightened. "Hang on, sorry," she said.
She sat up and pushed him down on his back. He wasn't really hard. She was used to guys being enormous and urgent before she saw their dicks. "I've never really seen one of these up close, either," she said. Balls were weird, wrinkly and stubbly, but he purred when she touched them.
Oral usually made her nervous, but it was a lot easier starting with a soft dick. He seemed to think she was good, or maybe he was keeping her calm. "Don't make me come," he giggled, and she released him.
He hopped off the bed and got a condom out of his wallet. "Oh," Tanith said. "I'm on birth control."
"I'm not," he chirped, making it sound like reason enough.
She lay back down, and he tried fingering her again. She attempted Pilates breathing exercises. He tried using his tongue, moving it around until it felt good, late night in a hot bath with Sports Illustrated good, grab his hair and thrash on the bed good.
The orgasm relaxed her, and he had no trouble getting inside her. He was gentle, which started out nice but got boring. He wasn't into it or didn't know what he was doing. "You're never going to get to heaven that way," she said. "Harder, maybe?"
He made an effort - a bunch of efforts. "Oh, screw it," he finally said. "I'm convinced." He pulled out and took off the condom.
"Hey," she said. "Come back. We'll do what worked."
He sat with his back against the headboard, and she went back down on him. This, he liked. She followed his hips and the rhythm of his moans until he came in her mouth.
"You can spit," he said. "I don't mind. It's so gross, I don't know how anyone swallows."
She hocked loudly and unromantically into the wastebasket. "I need a cigarette," she said. She pried the window open, and the freezing wind gusted in angrily.
Johnny came up behind her, lighting up. "Let's share one." He put his arm around her waist, and they looked out at the skyline together, their warm bodies comfortable and unmysterious.
*MAY 2012*
Charlie White is a married man. He stood at the altar and said his vows; he kissed the bride. He can't stop playing with his ring. He feels entirely new and entirely unchanged.
He feels exhausted. He is hiding in the men's room until he can handle all the people who want to talk to him. At the Olympics, they let him have half an hour in his room to decompress before the USA House party, but his wedding has been nonstop for three days. His mom likes to tell people that when he was a toddler, he would run around like crazy until he was out of energy and literally couldn't stand up anymore, and he'd fall in a heap on the rec room floor. Charlie doesn't remember doing that, but right now, he knows just how his two-year-old self must have felt.
He hears the restroom door open and pulls his feet up onto the toilet seat. But it's Tanith's voice crooning, "Where's my husband?" so he jumps back down. Even when he wants to be alone, he wants to be with her.
"Sorry, I needed five minutes," Charlie says as he comes out of the stall.
She drapes her arms around his neck and kisses him. "Well, hey," she says. "Here we are, alone in the men's room."
Instantly, Charlie gets his second wind. He boosts her up on to the sink counter, hard just thinking about it. She's wearing a crimson garter and blue lace panties under her gown, and Charlie repurposes them as armbands. He teases her clit with his thumb, because even for a quickie, she needs a little warming up. "Shit, hurry," she says.
It's fun to fuck her hard, to just get off. They'll save the lovemaking for the honeymoon. He keeps his thumb on her clit so she'll come as quick as he does.
The door opens just as Charlie's getting off. He says a feverish, orgasmic prayer.
It's Johnny, and he's literally doubling over with laughter. Charlie turns away from him to zip up while Tanith fixes her dress.
"Never mind," Johnny says. "I'll use the ladies' room."
"Oh, relax," Tanith says. "Everyone here's seen your penis."
Johnny looks the two of them over. "I hadn't even thought about that." He goes into a stall.
Charlie kisses Tanith's cheek. "We should go back."
Tanith slides down from the counter. "Better give me back my underwear first."
As Charlie rolls her panties down his arm, he whispers, "Throw the garter right at his head. Hit him between the eyes."
"Revenge?" Tanith whispers back.
"No," Charlie replies. "I want to dance with you at his wedding."
"Oh." He can hear her smile. "More like a reward."