Five Months Later
Matty watched the scores flash onto the boards at Worlds. Rage swept through him followed by a much more painful emotion, one he’d sworn he would never experience again. Humiliation. It was a feeling of nausea, burning shame, and deeply wounding hurt.
He hated knowing that his face revealed every swell of it. He hated the cameras he’d been waving and smiling at only moments before. They recorded every second of this shunning. Because that’s what it was. There was no other explanation. He’d skated clean. His scores placed him firmly in fourth behind Babikov, Hampton and Alban—usually a fair, if disappointing, place to be ranked.
But he’d been perfect.
He’d been amazing, and Babikov had slipped up on landing his quad, Hampton had splatted twice, Julien had popped a triple Axel, and was this really happening?
“Scores are shit,” Valentina whispered, rubbing a hand over his hair and smoothing it back from his sweaty forehead.
She smiled at him, the first time he’d ever properly seen her teeth, which were coffee stained. Her voice frightened him because it was warm and motherly.
“You my good boy. Scores baloney. I talk to judges. Find problem.”
Good boy. He heard the words he’d longed for but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough to wipe away the finality of the scores on the board.
In the locker room, he ignored the other skaters and found a toilet stall. He didn’t remove his skates and he didn’t give a damn about the fact that he was sitting on a toilet in his costume. Valentina had gone to ferret out some kind of answer to the question of why Matty’s scores didn’t reflect his performance.
Matty already knew. He was too gay for the judges. He’d been too lazy in the past and he’d disappointed them too badly with his prior screw-ups. The bar they wanted him to meet wasn’t just out-performing Hank Babikov, but out-performing the impossible. Now that they had their macho man on the ice, if they could find any possible reason to count Matty down, they would. If Hank had been around before Matty was injured, Matty wouldn’t have won a single medal. He knew it. The only reason he’d won any to begin with was the judges hadn’t had a choice.
Matty felt the tightness in his throat, and he bit the inside of his cheek hard. He would not sit in the crowded locker room and cry in a toilet stall. He wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.
Wiping his nose and eyes with the rough toilet paper, he stood up and flushed the toilet. He felt eyes on him when he walked out, but he didn’t look at anyone. Instead, he headed directly to the locker he’d been assigned and worked to get it open. His fingers felt numb and clumsy, and at one point he punched the locker next to him, causing a brief quiet to descend and then dissipate.
“Great skate tonight, man.”
Matty looked up to see Hank Babikov’s bright hazel eyes shining down at him. “I know. Feel free to forfeit. Don’t you have a medal ceremony to go to?”
Hank’s face flushed. “Yeah.”
Another skater shot Matty a dirty look and congratulated Hank on his first world championship. Matty quickly got changed, eager to get the hell out.
The thing that bothered him the most, what ate at him as he waited outside the locker room for Valentina to return from her fact-finding excursion, was how damn sincere Hank had sounded. It made his fantasies of hiring a hitman seem even more disgusting. It was a reflection of what a terrible human being he was that despite Hank’s empathy, Matty still wanted nothing more than for him to walk out the door and be hit by a Mack truck. Or a Volvo. He wasn’t sure he wanted Hank dead, but good and injured wouldn’t be bad.
Christ, he was awful. Even Rob wouldn’t love him anymore if he knew the kinds of things he was thinking about.
Tears filled his eyes and Matty bent his head, blinking rapidly. Deep breaths in and out finally put an end to the risk that he’d start to sob backstage, and when Valentina returned with an expression cold enough to make dinosaurs go extinct all over again, he simply followed her silently from the building. He didn’t know where Julien was, but it didn’t matter.
When they reached the waiting car, Valentina pulled him against her tall body and wrapped an arm around his waist. “You skate good today, Matty. Proud of you. You be proud too. Don’t let the bastards shoot you down.”
“Get you down,” Matty murmured.
“When they have gun aimed at career of my figure skater, then I say shoot you down.”
Matty’s face crumpled, and Valentina wrapped both arms around him, drawing him close to her small bosom.
“Must make nice with the judges,” she whispered in his ear. “Bronze, silver can be yours. Gold even, if Babikov make bad mistake. You must be more manly. Not so girly. Never give up. Proud of you.” She pulled back and her clear brown eyes gazed down into his as her messy, dark hair swirled around her face. “Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow we skate. And next day. On we go. That is how we deal with it. My champion. Got it?”
“Yes.”
He hugged her fiercely, and she kissed the top of his head.
Still, when Matty was finally alone in his hotel room, after a long, sobbing cry in the shower, he lay down in his bed and took out his phone. He ignored the calls and texts from his mother, brother, and Elliot.
Instead, he broke down and did something he’d sworn he would never do.
The email to Rob was a long, winding message that took him an hour to peck out on his phone. It explained the insult of his scores, the impossibility of ever coming out on top when going against a skater like Babikov, the politics that left him in a position little better than shit on the shoes of the judges, and the complete humiliation of being shunned by the judges.
He described his hurt and rage, and he questioned everything, including leaving Montana and Rob. For what? For this ruse? At the end he suggested he should quit and leave skating for good, because if he couldn’t even hope to medal, what was the point?
He waited nine hours for an answer.
At first, he’d been full of excitement and hope, thinking that Rob would tell him to quit. To come home and forget the whole thing. Then he waited with fear that Rob would tell him to quit. Then he was devastated to think that Rob wasn’t going to say anything at all.
He drove himself nearly wild with panic for several long hours, imagining Rob was dead, because that was the only excuse Matty could think of for Rob’s lack of reply, forgetting the time difference between Sweden and Montana. Even if Rob had moved on and met someone else, he’d still reply in Matty’s time of need, wouldn’t he? Unless he was dead, right? It was the only explanation that made sense.
When the answer came, it was a single sentence. Matty stared at it for a long time. He hit reply and then canceled out. He looked at the message some more, and he imagined Rob’s fingers putting in each letter of each word. It was a command, and Matty could feel it down to his bones.
Do what Valentina tells you.
That was all. Nothing more. Nothing less. But Matty read that sentence every day as the year went on, and it became his mantra. His marching orders. His battle cry. Sometimes he loved Valentina and sometimes he hated her, but as the months went by, he did what he was told.
***
“Mama,” Matty whispered into the phone, burying his face into the pillow and pulling up the soft green and white comforter over his body.
“Matty? What’s wrong, honey?” Donna asked, her voice sounding strong and stable.
“He has a boyfriend, Mama.”
“Who? Elliot?”
“No.”
Donna was silent for a few moments. “Oh honey. Rob?”
“Yeah,” Matty whispered again, his throat aching and his eyes tearing up again.
“Matty…” Donna’s sigh was sympathetic and also weary. “You knew this could happen. There were no promises. You were clear about that.”
“I know.”
“Did he…well, how do you know, honey? I thought you weren’t in touch with each other.”
“We’re not. It’s an email from Ben.” Matty reached out from his cocoon of blankets, grabbed his phone and forwarded the message to his mother. “There,” he said. “See for yourself.”
“Ben sent you an email telling you that—”
“Just read it, Donna.”
“Don’t call me that,” Donna murmured. “Let’s see…‘Matty, I hope you’re training hard. Dad doesn’t know I’m writing to you, but I had to because I won a medal! Gold! It’s only the local summer pre-season, but it’s still gold. I had to tell you. Please tell Yuliya. I hope you’re both proud. Oh and here’s a picture of us with the medal. I’ve grown since you saw me, can you tell? I miss you. Love always, Ben.’ Okay, let me look at the picture. Oh…oh, I see. Honey, you don’t know that—”
“He has to be. Look at him. He’s Rob’s type. Rob’s got his arm around him. They look…happy.” Matty felt as if he was going to vomit. “The guy has really ugly teeth. Did you see that? Has he never heard of an orthodontist? It’s bad enough to be replaced, but to be replaced by someone ugly is such an insult.”
Donna sighed and ignored his ungenerous comments. “Matty, it’s a photo. For all you know, they’re just friends.”
“They aren’t just friends.”
“What makes you think that?”
Matty shrugged.
Because his mother knew him so well, she said, “I see. Okay. What are you going to do about it? Give up skating? Beg him to take you back? It doesn’t change anything, honey. And don’t you want him to be happy? He deserves that, don’t you think? He’s a good man, Matty. You’re a good person, and I know, if you love him, then you want him to be happy.”
“Yeah,” Matty said, finding it so hard to breathe he couldn’t say anything more. When the tears came hard and fast, he clung to the phone and listened to his mother say all kinds of ridiculous things about his future, his skating, and his happiness. He cried until he couldn’t breathe.
“Oh Matty, honey, it’s going to be okay.”
One thing he knew for sure—when he had an Olympic medal around his neck, and he felt the certain surge of victorious joy race through his body, he would still miss Rob, and he would still know that being okay was completely relative. Because no matter what, there was part of him that was never okay. Part of him was always at war—always missing something, someone, and needing him badly. The only time that part of him had been satisfied was on a bed with ropes and a whip and Rob’s steady hand. But now the ravenous need—the ruthless war—was back. Matty had to fight it for himself, and now he was so very far from okay.
The distance between New York City and Montana to be exact.
***
Matty could still feel Julien’s cock jerking inside of him, and he already knew it was a mistake. It was a stupid, ridiculous mistake. Training had ended for the day, and he’d been fresh from the shower when, still swamped by jealousy, rage, and frustratingly uncontrollable tears, Matty had stood there naked for too long. Far longer than he should have.
Julien had been in the locker room, too, all French and beautiful. Matty wasn’t even sure exactly how it had happened, but he’d dissolved into Julien’s empathetic arms. Somewhere in the midst of Julien’s attempts at sympathy and comfort, there had been kissing, and somehow Matty had shoved Julien onto his back. Julien had a good mouth, and it had been easy, so easy to grab the lubed condom he kept in his bag just in case, and climb on top of him and ride.
There hadn’t been anyone since Rob, and it had felt so good to let himself go and have a dick inside him again. He’d closed his eyes and forgotten about everything else.
After they disentangled, Julien handed him a towel to wipe away the come on his stomach. “This was great, but…well, this wasn’t anything more than feeling good together, right? Just friends having some orgasms, yes?”
Matty snorted and fought hysterical laughter. Friends having some orgasms—God, the absurdity of it all. If he wasn’t completely a mess inside and out, covered with come and despair, he’d probably just give into it and roll on the floor laughing his ass off. But someone was bound to start banging on the locked door any minute now, and Valentina was going to know. She was going to look at them both and simply know and, Christ, they were going to pay for it.
Matty swallowed. “Just orgasms. I don’t love you or anything like that.”
“Très bon. Dieu merci.”
“Yeah,” Matty said, feeling the awkwardness descend.
Julien unlocked the door to the locker room, and Matty was relieved no one immediately barged in and caught them looking filthy and fucked.
Julien started toward the showers. “We stink. If we take a shower now and scrub up well, so we smell clean as a field, Valentina will never know.”
Matty thought of Montana and cows and shit patties in the snow. He smiled sadly. “Fields aren’t clean, Julien.”
As Julien scrubbed away the sex they’d just had in his shower stall, Matty turned on the water in the next one over. Julien’s voice echoed oddly off the shower walls.
“Being loved by you wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it? I bet your love is huge and strong. Bigger than you. Bigger than the sky, even.”
Matty turned his face into the water, memories washing over him, and his tears lost in the rush.
“I think anyone would be proud to be loved by you.”
Matty said nothing, thinking of the sky in Montana and knowing he could be flying in it right now if he had only wanted it more than ice.
***
Four Months Later
This was it.
Matty was in a precarious third after the Olympic short program. Hank Babikov and Akihito Tanaka were ranked first and second respectively. Julien was in fifth, and Alex Hampton rode hard on Matty’s ass at fourth. Matty still had a chance for the gold if Hank and Akihito faltered under the pressure. It was unlikely, but possible, and even if they didn’t, all he had to do was out-skate them both by a mile.
That was all. It was what he’d trained to do. It was imperative that right here, right now, Matty give the skate of his life.
Matty circled the rink as the crowd cheered for the long-program scores of the previous skater, a young Russian who wasn’t in the medal hunt. As he shook his limbs to loosen up, his feathers rustled. The feathers and sequins on his chest were blue on his right side and black on his left, and his pant legs were blue and black as well.
One side represented sky and the other earth. In the interviews he’d done after his silver medal at Nationals, he’d explained that his piece was about the marriage of the two—the kiss of the horizon, the desperation of gravity, and the weightlessness of joy.
He returned to Valentina at the boards and she took his hands.
“You can do this. Believe it. Believe it, my good boy.”
He could do this. He could.
The crowd roared when his name was called, and he smiled as he circled the rink one more time. The necklace Ben made for him was tucked into his costume, but he could feel it resting against his skin as he briefly closed his eyes. This was it. His moment. He was ready, unlike the last time he’d stood on Olympic ice and destroyed any chance he had for a medal.
This time he’d trained harder than he’d thought humanly possible. He’d fought against every impulse of laziness, overcome his insubordination, and sucked it up and kissed the ass of every judge who had ever docked points for any reason at all.
This was the moment he’d given everything for, and it was truly now or never.
Matty’s heart throbbed so hard that the feathers of his costume trembled with each beat and he could see his chest rising in his peripheral vision as he took his position.
He brought his arms up, cradling the palm of one hand against his cheek, striking the tender opening pose his choreographer had chosen for him. Matty took a slow, deep breath and pulled up every beautiful memory he could from Montana.
He remembered the scent of horses, the sound of goats, and the white of snow. He recalled Rob’s smile, Ben’s old skates, and Yuliya’s wig hanging on the peg in the Pages’ guest room closet. He remembered cup after cup of hot water and bitters, and the scent of cow shit in the pasture. He brought to mind Rob’s hands, laugh, and the tenderness in his eyes as he’d gazed at Matty for the last time in the airport. He recalled the promise Rob had asked Matty to make.
Here I am. I made it. I did it just like you said.
This time, I won’t screw it up.
The rustling of the crowd was silenced by the roaring of his pulse.
The first delicate notes of a variation on Bach’s Sonata No. 2, Siciliana, struck lightly, like a music box with Matty the ballerina in the center. Matty turned to it, a twirl that ended with a shift out from the center, moving with long, sure strokes of his blades over the ice, turning his back as he rounded the corner to push up into a triple Lutz, landing easily.
His body took over, his mind watching as though from a hazy distance as he moved with the music. His heart pounded in his chest as he gained speed, and vaguely he heard roars of approval from the audience as his body took him high, rotated four times, and landed cleanly.
Changing edges as he weaved and twisted was like breathing. The ice was the sky, the rink vanished and he was flight and motion, bright and pure. He danced through the circular step sequence and crouched into spin variations, rising again to skim across the ice effortlessly. Delicate footwork poured through him like the sparkling, tingling air of Montana, his arms floating like threads of clouds over mountaintops. Emotion flowed up through him, lending artistry, expression, and passion to every glance, turn, and jump.
He jumped, twisted, and landed combinations without a trace of strain, and reached the end of the required elements with a distant sense of unreality.
The pace of the music picked up as the program built to its climax, and he gave over to the sound. The practiced movements were more certain than his breath and he flew across the ice as graceful as a bird. The roar of the audience rattled through him like thunder. He bent left, then right, his body limber and loose as he did his final spin. Then he rose again, turning slowly, slowly until he returned to his opening stance, his hand cradled against his cheek.
The noise was deafening.
Matty’s throat ached painfully as he blinked hard to hold back the tears of joy. He pumped his fists and waved, taking deep bows to each side of the rink, his eyes drawn up to the American flags and the signs bearing his name. He’d skated clean. He’d hit every point and aced it. It had been almost surreally effortless after all the years of training. It was impossible, wasn’t it, that he was here now waving and smiling, bowing and crying, and hearing his fans chant his name?
He gave one last grin, his mouth trembling, and skated to the boards. Valentina was waiting for him, her eyes alight and her mouth turned up in a brilliantly toothy, happy smile.
Matty burst into tears, unable to hold them back a moment more. He’d given up Montana. He’d given up food and a normal life with friends. And he’d given up Rob. But he’d done it. The hard work and sacrifice had paid off. For this moment of joy—this moment of intense satisfaction and glory—it was all so very worth it. Now he just had to sit with his broadly smiling, terrifyingly happy coach and wait for the scores to come in to validate what he already knew to be true.
He was a beautiful bird and he wasn’t too mucked up to fly clean.