The Fencer Who Waited for Me in the Locker Room

I had never wanted anything as clearly as I wanted to reach that final. Not for the medal. Not for the ranking. But because on the other side of the piste she would be there: Tamara, the woman I had spent years watching from the stands without daring to say her name out loud.

The tournament had entered its elimination phase. Direct bouts, one against one, no second chances. I had been placed in the south sector of the bracket; she was in the north. I understood it the moment I saw the board: we would only cross paths again if we both defeated every one of our opponents. Only in the final.

I took a deep breath. That fate seemed fair to me. Almost poetic.

During those days, every bout was a test of more than technique. My body hurt. My legs burned under the lamé. Sweat was not enough to cool what had lodged itself in my head. But I kept winning. One rival, and another, and another.

And yet I never saw her.

Tamara was not in the arena when I finished my duels. Not in the athletes’ area, not in the stands, not in the corridors between strips. Someone said she always competed in the morning and disappeared as soon as she was done. That she had a job calling her away. Another woman said she was a forensic doctor, arriving late with traces of her fencing kit still under her coat.

I confirmed it when I heard one of the technicians talk about “the doctor who fences as if she were cutting, and who never stays to celebrate”. That was enough to ignite something in my chest I couldn’t name.

It wasn’t anger. It was a sadness hard to swallow. It was also, though it cost me to admit it, a heat low between my legs every time I imagined her alone in a room, with her lamé half lowered and her nipples pressing through the damp fabric.

Tamara won all her bouts with the same surgical coldness that had inspired me so much. But something was off. One of the medical assistants commented, without realizing I was listening:

—Sometimes it feels like she’s not fully there. As if her body moves on its own and her head is somewhere else.

I clenched my fists. I was there, fully, present, fighting with every fiber to deserve that reunion. But she kept slipping away.

***

I won the semifinal on a Thursday afternoon, with the final touch scored with three seconds left. When I took off my mask and saw my name move up into the final slot, beside hers, I didn’t celebrate. I stood still in the middle of the strip, listening to my own heart.

We would see each other again. But no longer as admirer and idol. Not as shadow and star. We would face each other as equals.

Or so I wanted to believe.

The day’s matches were over. I was walking toward the inner locker rooms of the coliseum while outside the sky was beginning to turn orange. Then I saw her: a silhouette crossing the rear loading area.

I didn’t need to think about it. It was her.

She was alone, still in her lamé under her open jacket, the épée hanging from her hand. Her face was hidden behind dark glasses that did nothing to disguise her exhaustion. She walked with a steady step, as if she wanted to flee before anyone could stop her.

I felt the immediate urge to run after her. I didn’t know what I would say. I just wanted to catch up to her.

—Tamara! —I shouted, just a few meters before reaching her.

But just as I was about to catch her, a figure emerged from the side of the pavilion and blocked my way.

—Not one step more.

I stopped short. I recognized Mireia at once, another veteran of the federation. Hair tied back, calm eyes, though this time with a tension I had never seen in her before.

—Mireia? What are you…?

—I was going to ask you the same thing —she said without raising her voice—. What exactly are you after with her?

I swallowed, still breathless from the run.

—I’m not after anything bad. I just… want to talk to her. See if she’s all right.

Mireia narrowed her eyes.

—Do you know how many have tried to get close since she came back to competing? Some out of morbid curiosity. Others for fame. Others just to knock down the icon. Tamara doesn’t allow herself to fall. But when she does, she drags everything down with her. —Her voice broke for a second—. I’ve seen her fall once already. I don’t want to see her like that again.

I straightened, my gaze steady.

—I don’t want to beat her in order to destroy her. I want to find the real her on the strip. You saw it too: in the qualifier bouts, she wasn’t there. She seemed afraid. If she beats me, let it be because she became herself again. And if I win, let it be because I respected her enough to give everything I had.

Mireia watched me in silence, weighing every word, every gesture. Then, slowly, she lowered her guard. Her shoulders relaxed.

—She’s in locker room three —she said at last, almost in a whisper—. They cleared it out for her. If you go in… go in with a clean heart. I don’t want to see her turned into a shadow again.

And she left, leaving me there with Tamara’s name pounding in my mouth.

***

The locker-room corridor smelled of metal, rubber, and chlorine. My steps echoed too loudly. When I pushed open the door to number three, I found her with her back to me, sitting on the wooden bench, her uniform jacket already off and the white fencing lamé clinging to her torso. She had let her hair down. It hung damp over her shoulders.

—I knew you’d come —she said, without turning around—. I knew it when I saw you win.

—Tamara, I…

—Don’t say you admire me. —At last she turned. Her eyes were red, but her voice was steady—. Everyone says that, and everyone lies a little. Why did you run after me?

I ran out of breath. The truth was there, on the tip of my tongue, and I knew that if I swallowed it I would lose her forever.

—Because for years I haven’t looked at anyone else when you step onto a strip —I said—. Because I learned your advance, your way of breathing before you attack. And it wasn’t for the fencing. It was never just for the fencing. It was because of the way your ass outlined itself under the lamé when you crouched into guard. Because your nipples went see-through when you finished soaked in sweat. I acted hard in the stands, and then I’d lock myself in my room and touch myself thinking about you.

Silence grew thick. Tamara stood up. She was taller up close, or maybe I was the one who felt smaller before her. She took one step, then another, until she was so close I could feel the heat her body was still giving off after the effort.

—Tomorrow I’m going to try to destroy you in the final —she murmured—. Do you understand?

—I’d rather that than have you not look at me —I answered.

Something broke in her expression. She raised a hand and brushed away a strand of hair stuck to my temple, with a tenderness that didn’t fit the cold woman on the strip. Her thumb slid down my jaw, slowly, measuring me, as if she could still change her mind. It stopped over my lips and parted them slightly. I sucked her thumb without thinking, looking her in the eyes, and I felt her breath catch.

She didn’t change her mind.

She kissed me. At first only barely, a brush that was almost a question. Then, when I answered, with an intensity that made my knees weaken. Her mouth tasted of salt and fatigue, and I opened for her without a second’s hesitation. Her tongue slid in searching for mine, and she bit my lower lip with the same precision she used to score a touch. She held me by the nape with the same hand that gripped the épée and pulled me against her body, and I felt her breathing quicken against my cheek. Her thigh slid between my legs and pushed, and I pressed myself against that firm thigh with no shame at all, seeking friction like a bitch in heat.

—The door —I managed to say.

—No one’s coming —she answered against my lips—. Mireia makes sure of that.

***

She pushed me gently until my back hit the cold lockers. The contrast with the heat of her hands sent a shiver through me. She tugged the zipper of my jacket downward slowly, keeping her eyes on mine the whole time, and the garment fell to the floor between us. Underneath, I was only wearing the damp competition T-shirt, no bra. She noticed it on my face.

Her fingers found the hem of the fabric and lifted it. I raised my arms to help her. When the cold locker-room air touched the naked skin of my chest, she stopped for a moment to look at me, and that look lit me up more than any caress ever could. My nipples hardened instantly, swollen, dark, pointing toward her mouth.

—I’ve been running all tournament —she confessed, her voice rough—. From you too. From these tits. From the way I saw you in the stands last year in that red dress and couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the afternoon.

—Then stop running —I said.

She bent down and closed her mouth over one of my nipples. Her tongue traced slow circles around the areola before sucking it fully, hungrily, pulling with her lips and releasing it with a wet pop. I threw my head back against the metal and let a moan escape me whole, uncaught. I had been holding everything in for too long. She moved to the other breast and bit just enough for pleasure to spear through me from the nipple straight to my cunt, and I felt a thick drop seep out inside my panties.

One of her hands slid up my side while the other went down to the elastic of my pants. She yanked them open. She shoved them down over my hips and they dropped to my ankles with a dull thud. I was left in my panties, leaning against the metal, my tits wet with her saliva and my legs parting on their own.

—You’re soaked before I even touch you —she murmured, looking at the dark patch between my thighs—. All this for me?

—All this for you —I answered, without shame.

She slipped a hand over the fabric and pressed her open palm against my cunt. I pushed my hips against her, seeking more. She laughed softly, pleased, and at last pulled my panties aside with two fingers. Her fingers slipped in and found what they were looking for. I was drenched, and we both knew it. I felt her smile against my skin.

—So present —she murmured, repeating, without knowing it, the word that had been denied her so often—. So here. So wet for me.

She started to move. Two fingers slowly, tracing the outline of my lips, sliding between them, rising to my clit and down again, still not entering, measuring every reaction of mine the way she measured distance in a bout. I gripped her shoulders, dug my nails in, begged for more without words. I bit her neck. I licked her collarbone. I whispered in her ear to put them inside me already.

—Put them in me —I panted—. Please, put them in me now, I can’t take it anymore.

—Ask me properly —she whispered in my ear, with that doctor’s voice, that voice that had been killing me at every gala.

—Put them in me, Tamara. Fuck me with your fingers. Please.

When she finally penetrated me, my breath caught. Two fingers all the way in, curved exactly where they needed to curve. They filled me completely. The rhythm was slow, deliberate, exact. The same precision as her épée, now turned against me, undoing me from the inside out. She drew her fingers almost all the way out and thrust them back in, and with each stroke there was a wet slap that made me feel more ashamed and more aroused at the same time.

—Listen to yourself —she told me, biting my ear—. Listen to how your cunt sounds when I work it.

—More —I begged—. Put in another one.

She added the third without taking her eyes off me. I felt the stretch, that delicious burn, and I cried out against her shoulder so I wouldn’t cry out against the door. Her thumb found the exact spot and began to circle tighter and tighter, synchronized with the rhythm of the fingers fucking me. The bench, the lockers, the smell of metal—everything grew distant. Only her hand existed, and the tension growing in my belly like a rope about to snap.

—Come for me —she ordered—. Now. In front of me. No asking permission.

She held me when my legs started shaking. She sped up at the exact moment, not a second earlier, and the orgasm split me in two against the lockers. I convulsed around her fingers, clamping down inside with spasms I couldn’t control, and I felt a hot gush escape down my thighs to my stockings. I screamed her name, mouth open against her forehead, and she didn’t stop moving until the last tremor, milking me through every second of the climax, her forehead pressed to mine.

When she finally pulled her fingers out, she held them up between us, shining and dripping, and brought them to her mouth. She sucked them one by one, never taking her eyes off me, as if tasting the finest wine she had ever had in years.

—You taste like victory —she said—. Like a long time spent holding yourself back.

***

When I caught my breath, I was the one who pushed her toward the bench.

—Now you —I said.

She shook her head slightly, out of habit, that armor of never letting herself go. But I put a hand on her chest and sat her down. I lowered the straps of her white lamé slowly, revealing a pale scar under her collarbone that she tried to cover reflexively. I moved her hand aside and kissed her right there, over the mark, and felt her shiver. The lamé slid down to her waist and her tits were bare, smaller than mine, firm, their pink nipples already hard with anticipation. I took them in both hands and squeezed them, licked them, bit them slowly until she arched her back against the lockers and let out a soft moan that sounded like surrender.

—Let me see you fall —I whispered—. I’ll hold you.

I took the lamé off her completely. She kicked it the rest of the way off herself when it reached her ankles. Underneath she wore nothing. Her pubic hair trimmed, dark, and her cunt already shiny, swollen, the lips parted by desire. I knelt on the cold locker-room floor between her legs and kissed the inside of her thighs, first one and then the other, moving upward without hurry while she tangled her fingers in my hair. I scraped her skin with my teeth just before I reached her, and heard her let out a sharp gasp.

—Don’t torture me —she said, and for the first time her voice trembled like a mortal’s.

When I reached the center, when my tongue touched her for the first time, she made a sound that didn’t seem like hers: surrendered, human, unarmored. I ran my tongue over her from bottom to top, slowly, savoring every fold, savoring that thick, salty mixture that was her. I paused at the clit and sucked it as if it were the only thing that existed, giving short sucks that made her cry out loud.

—Fuck —she panted—. Fuck, fuck, don’t stop.

I tasted her slowly, learning her the same way I had learned her movements from the stands. I traced long, slow lines with the tip of my tongue, then insisted right where her breathing broke, writing the entire alphabet over her clit. When she was trembling all over, I slid two fingers into her to the hilt without stopping sucking. She was so wet they went in at once, and inside she was hot and tight, clenching around my fingers as if she didn’t want to let them go.

Her hips started seeking my mouth, and I held her by the thighs and let her do it, let her be the one who lost control for once. She fucked my face in desperation, her hand tangled in my hair pushing me into her. I pulled my fingers in and out at the same pace, curving them upward, searching for that rough spot that made her cry out uncontrollably when I found it.

—There —she gasped—. There, there, don’t move from there.

—Don’t stop —she gasped again, more urgently—. Please, don’t stop.

I didn’t stop. I sped up. I sucked her clit harder, rubbed that spot inside her without mercy, kept my whole mouth over her, and I heard her slowly come apart, release the breath she had held for years, say my name as if she were discovering it. Her whole body went rigid for a full second, that tiny instant suspended before the climax, and then she exploded. When she came, she arched completely, one hand gripping the edge of the bench and the other crushing my neck to her, and I felt a hot gush flood my face and run down my chin to my throat. I shouted against her cunt out of pure pride. I licked her through the last contraction, swallowing everything she gave me, and finally, finally, she stopped running.

When I lifted my face, soaked with her, she looked at me with half-closed eyes and a tired smile. She pulled me toward her mouth and kissed me, tasting herself on my lips, sucking my tongue with the same hunger with which I had sucked her cunt.

—Again —she murmured against my mouth—. Before dawn. Again.

And there was an again, and another one. We ended up both naked on the wooden bench, she on top of me, riding my thigh while I squeezed her ass with both hands and bit her tits. She came again like that, grinding against me, soaking my thigh all the way to the knee. Then she rode my face without asking permission, and this time she asked for it with dirty words, and I gave her everything with my tongue until she dug her nails into my shoulders and convulsed for the third time that night.

***

Afterward we stayed on the floor, backs against the lockers, her head on my shoulder. Outside, the coliseum emptied out. Inside, all we could hear was our breathing slowly finding calm. I had the mark of her teeth on my neck and her thick cum still drying between my thighs. Her hair was a mess and she wore a smile I had never seen on her on the strip.

—Tomorrow I still want to beat you —she said after a while, with a crooked smile.

—Try it —I replied, and kissed her temple—. But I’ve seen you fall already. You don’t scare me anymore.

She laughed softly. It was the first time I had ever heard her laugh for real. I don’t know who won the final the next day, and honestly it stopped mattering to me sometime that night. The only thing I remember clearly is this: the cold metal on my back, the heat of her body against mine, the taste of her cunt still on my mouth the next morning, and the certainty, at last, that the woman I had watched so long was watching me too.