Going for Gold (24 page)

Sunday

Alina

After I received my scores, the stage crew quickly set up the
three-tiered medal podium while the girls who placed fourth and fifth were
escorted off stage. A few guys in suits appeared on stage, as well as three
women in traditional Brazilian outfits holding silver platters with the medals
and flowers.

"Can I put on some clothes before we start?" I
whispered to Owen.

He shook his head. "Sorry, we're already way behind on a
tight schedule. The closing ceremonies can't begin until we're done here."

Oh well.
I figured it was worth a try, but it really
didn't matter that much. What mattered was that I was going to be standing on
that gold podium, looking down at Gabriela. I held my towel firmly around
myself.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Owen Harris.
"Tonight, we've witnessed history being made as these women competed in
the first ever tiebreaker event of these great games. Without further ado, let
me present our medalists."

"Winning bronze, and representing Russia, Irina Alexandrov!"

Irina was greeted with warm applause as she stepped onto the
lowest of the three podiums. One of the men in suits stepped forward along with
the girl carrying the bronze medal tray. Dramatic music played as he put the
medal around her neck and shook her hand. Another one of the suits approached
and handed her the flowers on the tray.

Owen let her wave and enjoy the moment before moving on.
"Winning silver, and representing Brazil, Gabriela Santos!"

The applause was louder for her, but the look on her face
made it clear she didn't care. She was pissed that she didn't win gold. Her
frowning face was a million times better than her smug smile.

She received her silver medal and flowers and then it was my
turn. It felt like I couldn't breathe.
This is really happening.

"And finally, winning gold for the United States of
America, Alina Smith!"

I was met with thunderous applause as I waved to the audience
and stepped onto the gold medal platform. I had imagined this moment a million
times, but never quite like this. In my dreams, I was always fully clothed and
surrounded by my volleyball team.
Oh well.

I bent down to allow the old guy in the suit to put the gold
medal around my neck.

"Congratulations," he said, shaking my hand.

"Thank you," I said.

Another guy came up to give me flowers.

The suits walked away and the crowd cheered some more. I
waved back at them and looked around, soaking in every detail of this moment.
The crowd cheering, the American flag above my head, the pissy look on
Gabriela's face. It was all perfect.

Except one thing. I thought about the first thing that Bryce
had done when he had won his gold. He had run toward me. Would he want me to
run toward him? After everything I had just done to win? I looked toward the
side of the stage. A few of the backup dancers were standing there with towels
around their waists. Their masks were off. But none of them were Bryce.

"This is bullshit," Gabriela said. "You should
be disqualified." She was still trying to wipe away the cum that I had
gotten on her.

"I would have thought a slut like you would be used to
being covered in cum. Or are you not good enough to make guys cum?"

"Fuck you." She looked like she was about to cry.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Owen. "Please
stand for the national anthem of the United States of America."

The Star-Spangled Banner started playing in the speakers. I
put my hand over my heart. Luckily the towel was covering up my chest so that I
wouldn't be sticking my hand in cum.

As I stood there listening to the music, my horniness subsided
and a horrible realization swept over me.
What the fuck did I just do?
Before
the performance I had been horrified by the thought of stripping down to my
underwear in front of the cameras. And then I had come out here and had sex.
No, sex wasn't a strong enough word for what I did. I got fucked by a bunch of
strangers and took an insanely big dick in my ass. Those things would forever
be available on the internet for anyone to view, if they hadn't seen it
already. Images flooded into my head of me introducing myself to someone and
them saying, "Oh, I know you. You sure are good at taking a cumshot."

And what is Bryce going to think of me? He had to have been
one of the guys fucking me, but I didn't understand why he didn't take his mask
off to stop me. It was super weird that I didn't even know if the man I love
had just had sex with me.

The national anthem ended and the crowd cheered again for me.

The man I love.
I was in love with Bryce. But there
was no way he'd want me now. Not after everything I had just done.

I turned toward the side of the stage again. And there he
was. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and his lips were set in a
straight line. He had a black eye. And there was blood under his nose.
Oh my
God.
My chest started to hurt. It felt like I couldn't breathe.

It wasn't "dance fighting" or whatever the hell I
had called it. It wasn't part of the routine. He had been trying to stop it.
And I was too stupid or too horny or too something to notice. He looked so
upset. He looked so hurt.

Bryce dropped my gaze and looked down at the ground.

Oh God.

All I could hear was this weird buzzing in my ears. I was
numb to the cheers of the crowd. It felt like my heart had just broken into a
million pieces. I needed air. I needed to not be standing on a stage in just a
towel. And I couldn't look at Bryce being hurt. Knowing that it was my fault.

I felt the tears start to run down my cheeks. I jumped off
the medal podium and ran in the opposite direction of Bryce.

I could have sworn I heard him yell my name. But clearly I
didn't know his voice. Because Gabriela was right. I was a total slut.

I turned down a hallway, trying not to break my ankles in my
heels. I stopped for a second and pulled them off so I could run even faster.
When I reached my dressing room, I threw open the door and locked it behind me.
Luckily my stylists weren't there. They had probably been watching the
performance too.
Ugh.

I immediately went into the bathroom and turned on the hot
water. I felt so dirty after what I had done that all I wanted to do was take a
shower. I imagined this was how it felt after a bad one night stand. But this
wasn't dinner at Olive Garden followed by subpar sex with a selfish lover. This
was a gangbang being broadcast around the world while Bryce got beat up trying
to stop it from happening. Even though I could wash the cum out of my hair, I
could never wash away what had happened.

As I let my cum-soaked towel fall to the floor, I accidently
caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
Oh my God.
I looked like such
a whore. My eye makeup had run everywhere, there was cum splattered in my hair,
my stockings had runs in them, and the lace on my garter belt had been torn
from when Python grabbed it while he was fucking me in the ass.

Fucking Python.
My ass still felt weird from his
enormous cock. Why did I ever agree to his stupid challenge? Doing the other
guys was bad enough, but there was no excuse for what I did with Python. Could
Bryce ever forgive me for that? I didn't think so. I wouldn't if I was him.

More tears formed in my eyes and I looked away from the
mirror. I couldn't look at myself. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to look at
myself again.

I stripped off my destroyed lingerie and got in the shower.
The water was way hotter than it should have been, but I didn't adjust it. The
hot water helped distract me from the shame of what I had just done. And maybe
it would help sanitize my filthy body.

I wasn't nearly done showering when I heard a loud knock on
the door to the dressing room. Someone had been knocking earlier too, but I had
ignored it. I wasn't ready to talk to anyone, not yet.

Go away.

Another knock. But this time, it was accompanied by someone
with a Brazilian accent yelling, "Security, open up."

Security? Shit!
I had been so focused on how much I
hurt Bryce that I hadn't even thought about the legal implications of what I
had just done. I had probably violated a dozen laws on public decency, and now
they were coming to arrest me.
Will I spend the rest of my life in some
Brazilian prison?

"You have 5 seconds before we open the door
ourselves," yelled the security guard.

Shit, shit, shit! I have to get out of here!
I jumped
out of the shower and ran out into the dressing room.

"Hold on," I said. "I'm not dressed." In
a panic, I pushed the makeup chair under the door handle, threw on the clothes
I had worn to the arena, and grabbed my purse. Thanks to my mini panic attack
before the performance, I knew that the window in the bathroom was the perfect
escape route. And I intended to make good use of it. Right before crawling out
the window, I shoved my stupid gold medal in my purse and grabbed one of the
luxurious towels to dry my hair on the go.

I got a few curious looks from the locals as I lowered myself
onto the sidewalk. Usually I would have been concerned that they'd think I was
weird, but after what I had just done, people seeing me jump out of a window
was the least of my worries.

I ran a few blocks to put some distance between me and the
security guards, and then I took a quick inventory of what I had in my purse.
My cell phone, my wallet, some makeup, and most importantly, my passport. I
wouldn't have usually carried it around, but it was required as photo ID in
order to board the train from the athletes' village to center city Rio.

While I waited for an Uber to arrive, I got on Expedia.com
and searched for the next flight out of Rio. There was only one flight headed
to the US with any empty seats left, and it was leaving in ninety minutes. Not
nearly enough time to go back to the dorm and get my stuff. Kristen would have
to just bring it home for me, if I ever went home. Assuming I made it out of
Brazil without being arrested, which at this point seemed to have about a 50/50
chance of happening, I didn't think I could ever go home. I couldn't imagine
how awkward it would be to see my parents. Actually, I could imagine it, and it
was mortifying.

***

My heart was pounding the entire time I was in the customs
line. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but it seemed like there were way more
police officers than was normal for an airport. It didn't really matter how
many officers there were, though. I was always going to have to show my
passport to one of them to get through the line.

On top of that, I felt like I was walking funny from getting
ass fucked. So even if they didn't recognize me, they'd probably stop me and do
a full cavity search to find whatever drugs were hidden in my asshole. The good
news was that Python had stretched me out so much that I probably wouldn't even
feel it.

I focused all my energy on walking like a normal person with
no contraband in my ass as I approached the front of the line.

The bored looking officer at the desk said something in
Portuguese and waved me over to his desk. I tried to avoid eye contact as I
handed him my passport.

He flipped it and then held it up to compare me to the
picture in the passport.

"Do you have valuables with you worth more than 10,000
Real?"

"No." At first I thought I didn't have anything
with me at all, but then I realized I had my gold medal with me. "Well,
actually..."
Shit, will showing him my medal make him realize who I am?
"Never mind. Nope. Nothing over 10,000 Real."

He gave me a funny look and then stamped my passport and
handed it back to me. "Here you go."

I grabbed it and immediately walked away. I was just letting
out a sigh of relief when the officer said, "Miss, wait." Another
guard stepped in front of me and put his hand up.

Oh shit. I'm being arrested.
Will they have to read
me my rights, or will they just throw me in a prison to rot? Maybe I'll get one
call to the embassy...

"You forgot this," said the officer.

I turned around and saw that I had left my purse on the
counter. "Oh, thanks," I muttered.

"Are you okay?" asked the officer. "I didn't
mean to scare you."

"Yeah," said the other officer. "Unless you're
a fugitive or a smuggler, Gustavo is just a big teddy bear."

"Well I'm definitely not a smuggler," I said with a
nervous laugh. "Or a fugitive. Nope. That's not me. I haven't done
anything illegal at all. Nothing to fuge from."
Fuge? That's not even a
word!
I turned to walk away and tripped over someone's luggage.

By some miracle, the officers just helped me to my feet and
let me pass. I immediately found a souvenir shop and bought a Brazil hoodie and
a pair of the biggest aviator style sunglasses they had available. Once I was
suitably disguised, I followed the signs to my terminal.

Flight 786 - Nonstop to Miami - On Time - Boarding in 5
minutes.

Five minutes.
If I could avoid arrest for another five
minutes, I'd be home free. I'd still have to face the horrors of what I had
done, but that was better than facing the inside of a Brazilian prison.

I glanced up at the TV to pass the time. It was the local Rio
news, and the top story was of course about the ITA tiebreaker. I wanted to
look away, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was too curious to see if
they'd show my...performance. I was relieved when they just cut right to the
medal ceremony. It didn't make it all worth it, not even close, but seeing
Gabriela up on the silver medal podium looking so pissed did make me smile for
a second.
I had finally beaten her.
Or had I? Sure, I had won gold. But
at the same time, I had sacrificed everything I loved. I had lost Bryce, I had
lost my dignity, and I could never speak to my Dad again, so I surely had lost
the bakery. At best, it was a pyrrhic victory. At worst, it was the stupidest
thing I had ever done.