The Fencer Who Made Me Lower My Guard

Renata couldn’t remember the last time she’d finished a bout wanting to take off her mask. It had been so long since metal and sweat were her only skin that she no longer even noticed the difference between the uniform and herself.

Since the first day of the qualifier, she hadn’t spoken to anyone beyond what was strictly necessary. She stepped onto the piste, won, and left. Her bouts were surgical, swift, almost clinical. She struck and pulled away before the other woman even understood where she’d been wounded.

All it took was one bad step from her opponent for that cold hunter’s instinct to ignite. She made them cry on the piste and never regretted it. In fact, there were nights when she wondered whether she even enjoyed it, as she took off her jacket with her hands still tense from holding back the whole world.

That afternoon, however, something went wrong. Not with the result. Afterward. When she left through the sports center’s loading area toward her car, she thought she’d finally escaped all the eyes watching her. And then she heard footsteps. A name spoken under someone’s breath. Hers.

Selene.

She didn’t turn around. Not out of arrogance, but fear. She didn’t know what made her dizzier: Selene’s voice, or the way she looked at her as if she were still worth saving.

Even so, she felt the urge to stop. Just for a second. Just to check whether she was really there. But she got into the car without looking back, and that night, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t sleep.

For the first time in years, someone didn’t want to defeat me. She wanted to stay.

And for Renata, that was more dangerous than losing.

***

The residence at the high-performance training center had a different kind of silence from anywhere else. It wasn’t calm. It was tense anticipation, the kind belonging to an animal that didn’t sleep, only stalked.

Renata took off her jacket with meticulous movements. Beneath it she was still wearing the uniform’s mesh, stuck to her body by dried sweat. She hadn’t bothered changing since the tournament. Her foil rested on the desk as if it could still wound simply by being there.

The room was austere: a single bed with the sheets stretched to perfection, a shelf holding medals that didn’t shine any brighter than the scars she had learned to hide. She sat on the edge of the mattress without turning on the light, letting the darkness enfold her. That darkness seemed more honest to her than all the day’s rigidity.

“Selene,” she whispered, and something like a smile brushed her mouth.

The name had been circling her mind for hours like a note held too long. It wasn’t just the resemblance. Those honey-colored eyes had thrown her off balance from their first crossing of blades, yes, but there was something more. An echo, as if that woman wasn’t a stranger at all.

And then she remembered.

***

Six years earlier. A university final, the pavilion packed, the spotlights blinding her at times. Renata had just put on the national team’s new uniform, and Daniela stood beside her, laughing before pulling on her mask.

“You have a gorgeous admirer,” she’d said with a laugh. “The one in the blue uniform in the stands. She hasn’t taken her eyes off you since you walked in.”

Renata had searched for her with her eyes. In the third row, right in the center, a girl of about twenty, her hair pulled back in a tight braid, was watching her with an almost solemn intensity. She had those huge eyes that seemed to drink in every movement, like someone studying a myth in motion.

She didn’t react. She only felt uncomfortable. Daniela, on the other hand, let out a little laugh of feigned jealousy.

“Hey, you don’t even look at me like that.”

Renata laughed and gave her a gentle elbow.

“Shut up, idiot.”

“You’ll see,” Daniela continued mischievously. “That girl’s going to be at every tournament. Don’t you see her? She’s even taking notes, like you’re a master class. You matter more to her than you do to your coaches.”

Renata didn’t think much more of it. Just another aspiring fencer, another kid with idols. But it wasn’t the last time she saw her. The same girl appeared at two more regional tournaments, then at a national final. Always in the stands, always with that mixture of devotion and nerves. She never came closer. Never spoke. But she was there, with those honey-colored eyes Renata never quite managed to forget.

“Was it you?” she murmured now, in the darkness of her room.

Selene. The name took on a different meaning. This wasn’t a new apparition. It was an echo that had been waiting years for Renata to realize it. Maybe that was why, from the very first touch, it had been Renata’s body that recognized her before her mind understood anything.

***

Someone knocked on the door at two in the morning.

Renata knew who it was before opening it. She knew from the way her pulse sped up, traitorous and idiotic. When she turned the handle, Selene was leaning against the frame, her hair loose over her shoulders and a sports jacket that wouldn’t quite fasten.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Renata said.

“I know.” Selene didn’t move. “And yet you haven’t closed the door on me.”

She was right. Renata hated her a little for noticing, and hated herself even more for not stepping away. She moved aside just enough, and the other woman entered as if she’d had the right to do so for years.

The room seemed to shrink. Selene smelled of cheap soap and something warmer beneath it, of skin after exertion. They stood there, too close, sizing each other up as they had on the piste, except this time neither of them wore a mask.

“I’ve watched you for six years,” Selene said softly. “I learned fencing because of you. I learned how to lose because of you. The only thing I never learned was how to stop wanting to get closer.”

“I’m not what you think I am.”

“I don’t care what you are on the piste.” She lifted a hand and slowly brushed her fingertips along Renata’s jaw, as if checking that she was real. “I care about how much you’re trembling right now.”

Renata was trembling. She hated Selene for noticing and hated herself more for not pulling away.

Renata was the one who closed the distance. She kissed Selene with the same dry precision she used to strike in a bout, quick and unannounced, seeking the exact point. But Selene wasn’t a target that would fall. She kissed her back slowly, opening her mouth, biting her lower lip until she drew a sound Renata hadn’t known she was capable of making. She thrust her whole tongue inside, twined it around Renata’s, and sucked it as if she’d spent years licking her lips while thinking of exactly this. Renata felt her panties flood in two seconds, just like that, with a wetness that hadn’t asked permission.

“Slowly,” Selene murmured against her mouth. “You’re not competing.”

Those two words dismantled something inside her. Renata let her hands fall onto Selene’s waist, tugged her jacket down, and let it slide to the floor. Beneath it she wore nothing that hid much: a thin shirt, no bra, her nipples hard against the fabric. Renata pinched them through the cotton, one first and then the other, twisting them between her fingers until Selene opened her mouth in a silent gasp. She lifted the shirt with both hands and crouched to suck them directly, without preamble, taking one whole nipple against her palate while pinching the other between her forefinger and thumb. They were small and dark, so taut they pressed into her tongue.

“This is what you wanted,” Renata said hoarsely, the nipple still between her teeth. “All these years?”

“This and everything else. Everything, fuck.”

She gently pushed Selene toward the bed. Selene fell back onto it sitting and dragged Renata down with her, and suddenly Renata was straddling her, still wearing the uniform mesh while Selene tugged at the zipper to lower it from her shoulders. The fabric yielded to her waist. Selene kissed her collarbone, the hollow between her breasts, then moved lower with her open, hot mouth until she closed it around a nipple. She sucked it slowly, as if she had years of hunger built up, pulling it upward until she released it with a wet sound that made Renata’s cunt clench hard.

Renata threw her head back. A current shot up her spine, abrupt, almost painful in its desperation. She buried her fingers in Selene’s hair and held her there, feeling her tongue circle, her teeth barely graze, the wet tug that traveled straight to her belly, lower still, until it lodged between her legs. She began rocking on Selene’s thigh without realizing it, rubbing her soaked cunt against the fabric of the sweatpants, leaving a dark stain that burned itself into both their memories.

“Don’t stop,” she begged, and the words tasted like surrender.

Selene didn’t stop. She finished lowering the mesh and pulled Renata’s panties off by the elastic with deliberate calm, like someone dismantling a clockwork mechanism, although when she finally saw Renata’s cunt spread open for her, a low, animal growl escaped her—nothing about it calm. She laid Renata back on the sheets stretched so neatly, separated her knees with her palms, and paused to look at her in the darkness, taking her in with her eyes before her hands. Renata’s lips gleamed with how wet she was, her clitoris already swollen and visible between them, as if asking for a mouth.

“I’ve spent half my life imagining this,” Selene said.

“Then stop imagining it. Eat me already.”

She ran her tongue along the inside of one thigh, then the other, moving upward slowly, deliberately avoiding the place Renata needed her most. She bit her groin, licked the fold right beside her cunt, blew over it, and only when Renata lifted her hips to seek her out, when she grabbed the back of Selene’s neck and pushed her down, did she finally do it. When she at last kissed her there, slow and deep, her flat tongue tracing her from bottom to top, from entrance to clitoris in one stroke, Renata had to bite the back of her hand to keep from waking half the residence. Selene pulled away for one second just to taste her from her palate, lips shining, then bent down again with her mouth open, sucking Renata’s entire clitoris, trapping it between her lips and making it vibrate against the tip of her tongue.

Pleasure came in waves that never quite broke, sustained by that mouth that seemed to know her from before, that knew exactly when to press and when to ease off. Selene licked her hungrily, her chin already soaked with the juice Renata couldn’t stop releasing, her nose pressed against Renata’s pubic bone, her tongue pushing inside as far as it could before returning to her clitoris. She was eating Renata as if she’d spent years waiting for permission, and muffled moans escaped Renata that she had never made for anyone.

Renata grabbed her hair, arched her back, and stopped controlling her breathing for the first time in years. Selene pushed two fingers inside her without stopping her tongue, curling them upward, searching for the spot that made her convulse. She buried them to the knuckles and began fucking her with her hand, slowly at first, then faster, pulling them out shining to the tips and plunging them back in with a thrust. Renata’s cunt sloshed around them, obscene, and she was dying of embarrassment and desire in equal measure. Selene added a third finger, opening her wider, and Renata’s whole body closed around the gesture. Her orgasm shook her silently, jaw clenched and eyes full of tears that had nothing to do with sadness, squeezing Selene’s fingers inside her with such force that Selene had to hold still and let her finish. Renata came, soaking her entire hand, pressing herself against Selene’s mouth, feeling every pulse of her clitoris collide with the other woman’s tongue until she couldn’t take any more.

When she could breathe again, Selene had climbed up to lie beside her, chin resting on Renata’s shoulder and fingers still shining. She ran them over Renata’s lips so she could taste herself. Renata sucked them one by one without taking her eyes off Selene.

“You’re not made of ice,” Selene said. “You never were. You were just afraid of melting.”

Renata didn’t answer. She rolled onto her side, pushed Selene onto her back, and yanked off her shirt. She wanted to give back every year of silent staring. She kissed Selene’s neck, bit the curve of her shoulder, licked the place where her breasts began, then lowered herself to suck them with the same hunger with which Selene had sucked hers. Selene’s were fuller, rounder, and her nipples hardened like stones between Renata’s lips. She bit them just hard enough to draw a sharp gasp, then ran a hand down Selene’s taut belly and slipped it inside her leggings.

Selene’s cunt was as soaked as Renata’s. Renata confirmed it with her whole palm, sliding it up and down, and felt the sticky heat climb over her fingers.

“Look at you,” she murmured. “Eating my cunt got you this wet, huh?”

Selene moaned, this time without trying to hide it, opening her legs for Renata. Renata yanked the leggings down to her knees, stripped them off completely, and opened Selene’s thighs with both hands to get a good look at what lay before her. The pink, shining cunt, the clitoris already peeking out between swollen lips. She ran two fingers over it, gathered up the moisture, and brought them to her mouth before lowering herself again. She caressed Selene with her whole palm before focusing on a single point, making slow circles that she sped up each time Selene dug her nails into her back. She knew her without knowing her. She read her the way she read an opponent, anticipating the next move, only now she wasn’t seeking the touch that would bring her down, but the one that would make her shudder.

She lowered her head and returned the favor. She opened Selene’s cunt with her thumbs and plunged her tongue inside, pulled it out, curled it around her clitoris, then thrust it back in. Selene writhed beneath her, choking against the pillow, hands clenched in the sheets. Renata pushed two fingers inside her while continuing to suck her, found the exact spot where the flesh grew spongy, and began pressing it in a firm rhythm that made Selene lift her hips off the bed.

“Keep going, keep going, fuck, don’t stop,” Selene repeated, falling apart, her voice already broken.

Renata didn’t stop. She fucked her with her fingers faster and faster, sloshing between her legs, her tongue fixed to the swollen clitoris, feeling Selene’s cunt squeeze her fingers in waves that kept intensifying. When she thought Selene was close, she lifted her head without removing her fingers.

“Look at me,” Renata asked.

And Selene looked at her, those honey-colored eyes opened wide, without a braid, without the stands, without distance, while Renata bent down again and sucked her clitoris hard, driving her with her fingers to the edge and holding her there, trembling, until she let her fall. She felt Selene contract, felt her entire orgasm spill into her hand, heard her name spoken in broken pieces against the pillow, and for a moment she thought she had never won anything that felt like this. She kept licking her slowly, cleaning her up, while Selene writhed through the final spasms and begged her between moans to stop because she couldn’t take any more.

***

They stayed tangled together long afterward, their breathing slowly settling, thighs sticky and sheets a complete mess. The darkness no longer weighed the same.

On the bedside table, almost forgotten, lay a simple silver ring with an engraving inside. Pilar had given it to her weeks earlier, in a hallway, her voice breaking: it had belonged to Daniela, who had entrusted it to her before leaving forever, with instructions to return it to Renata if she ever lost herself trying to be the woman everyone expected instead of the woman she truly was.

Renata had kept it without daring to touch it much. Now she stretched out her arm, turned it between her fingers, and for the first time, the metal didn’t burn her.

“What’s that?” Selene asked sleepily.

“Something someone I loved very much left me.” She swallowed. “She made me promise I wouldn’t stop feeling.”

Selene found Renata’s free hand and laced their fingers together.

“And did you keep your promise?”

Renata looked at the ceiling, then at Selene, the rival who had grown up watching her from afar and who now slept half-naked in her narrow bed.

“Tonight, I did.”

The next day they would return to the piste, facing each other, masks on and the crowd shouting. They would have to pretend to be cold again, to make clean touches, to maintain their professional distance. But Renata already knew something no victory could take from her: beneath the steel, there was still a woman capable of surrender. And surrendering, with the right person, wasn’t losing.