The New Competitor

Jay was certain that he didn’t know a single person in the bar. The Rathskeller had not been his kind of place the previous semester and he was remembering why. Next Saturday, he would return to one of the bars in Carrboro. There, the beer was cheaper, and the music had a beat. He leaned toward the bartender. “Another Budweiser, please."

Fifteen minutes later, he knew he should have eaten something. Two more swallows. Then, he would go back to that cold dorm room.

Rather than hearing her, he felt her as she stepped close. Close, but not touching. She didn’t turn away when their eyes met in the reflection in the mirror. Jay stepped away from the bar. He needed to really see her. Her dress was black. Solid black. Up to her neck in the front with a turtleneck kind of collar. Her back was bare from that collar all the way to below her waist. He had a strong impulse to touch the muscles that ran down her back, to put his fingers into the small indention where her backbone lay. His fingers imagined how she would feel. Smooth as velvet. Her hair was so black that it seemed to absorb light. He was sure that no comb could scratch its way through that mane, but his fingers could. He looked again to the mirror. Jay liked the way she looked at him, hoping she liked what she saw, hoping she would say something.

She did. “You’re the freshman runner.” It wasn’t a question. She was telling him. “You’re the runner from Alabama.”

It had been a long time since Jay had felt his heart jump a beat, stop, kick twice, and start thumping again. What could he say so that she would not laugh and walk away?

“Hey!” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Hey.” He was sure that she already knew that he was a tongue-tied, inept, social misfit. He extended his hand. She laughed gently and took it in her left hand.

His face felt hot. “Everybody here know that? That I’m the Alabama runner?”

Her eyes laughed. “I heard that Coach Blackwell had a new runner training for the London Olympics.”

Jay leaned down on the bar, then looked back at her. “Yeah. I’m new here. And I am going to London." He paused, watching to see if she reacted. She didn't. He turned back to the mirror. "Coach wanted me to stay during Christmas holidays and start on his training schedule." Jay waited. Nothing. He shrugged. "How’d you find out? Do you know somebody on the track team?”

“Hmm.” She pulled her hair over her right shoulder. “I looked around the room for a guy who didn’t have much meat on his bones.”

Jay looked at his reflection in the mirror. His sun-bleached hair was curling over his ears. He ran both hands through the sides, pulling his hair back, too. Then a smile formed on his face. “My legs are big. You want to see?”

“Sometime.” She picked up his beer and took a sip. “Budweiser.”

“Yeah.”

“I hear one of the dancers out at Carrboro got you onto the stage with her. You gave her your shirt. Why wouldn’t you show her your legs?

“Ah, shit!” He turned and looked out over the room. “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Thank God I was sober enough not to give her my pants, too.”

She turned and leaned against the bar. “What’s your name, Runner?”

He snorted. “Jonathan, but I’ve been Jay since grammar school. Yours?”

“They say your pulse rate is only in the low forties per minute. Can I feel?”

“What? Who told you that?”

She reached up and started to unbutton his shirt. There was nothing he could do but watch. She put both hands under his shirt, fingers spread on both sides of his chest. “It doesn’t seem so slow. Beats hard.”

“God!” Jay gasped. “You keep that up and . . .”

“You’re perspiring.” She was watching her hands as they slid over his chest.

“Perspiring? No. Sweating. That’s pure, jumping out, man sweat.”

She reached over to his beer, dipped her finger in, and held it to his lips. He took her finger into his mouth. For a moment, she left it there as he caressed it with his tongue. It tasted like more than beer. And, strangely, while it was there, he felt the hair on his chest stir as it does when he is standing shirtless in the wind. On his legs, too.

“I want to watch you run,” she said as she pulled her finger from his mouth. She turned and walked away.

“Say when,” Jay called.

Kenny! He was that junior cross-country runner! Jay hadn't seen him come in. What was going on between that girl and Kenny? And why did Kenny laugh when she nodded to him?

Jay decided to follow. He knew Kenny was watching him. Didn't matter. Maybe something could happen if he caught her..

This story was published. See http://www.akashicbooks.com/the-new-competitor-by-jim-herod/