Scuba Gear Sets

“Have you propositioned any of the other female sport media?” Belinda the sport writer whispered when she and the swimmer were nestled together in the taxi’s back seat.

“You already know the answer to that one.” The swimmer intoned. “And from here forward, all I expect to hear from you are intelligent and purposeful questions.”

“Agreed.” Belinda thought for a spell. ‘Yes, it would’ve become public news overnight if this were the swimming star’s normal night pickup routine.’ “I do have a question that other sports journalists have continually asked without receiving a satisfactory reply from you. Why didn’t you compete in the four-by-one hundred swimming relay event?”

“I’m not a team player.” Scott spoke softly with his lips next to her ear, to keep the night driver from overhearing. The warm breath of his words fluttered her shimmering hair slightly and he felt the sports reporter quiver from the pleasurable vibrations on the nape her neck. “Water polo is a team sport and that’s why I don’t play it, even though I swim well enough to excel at that game.”

“You were accepted onto a nation’s Olympic swimming t-e-a-m,” she stretched the word out, “and that gave you an obligation that you didn’t meet.”

“I won a berth on an Olympic swimming squad on the basis of my having swum qualifying heats faster than anyone else the nation could field and I then proved my merit by taking first place in every swimming event that I entered. Had I considered swimming a team sport, I wouldn’t have tried out, for the same reason that I don’t go out for water polo.”

“What’s wrong with team sports?” The night taxi driver asked over his shoulder.

“If one enjoys playing in or watching a team sport, then nothing is wrong with them. But I prefer individual sports where my own performance is all I need to rely on. The swimming relay event bastardizes the solo pursuit of competitive swimming to create a mockery of a team endeavor. The end product is a farce that returns false results.”

“Four swimmers each race one quarter of the total distance and the combined time is measured against the other teams.” The sports reporter said. “How could that be a false result?”

I Live in my Scuba Gear

Chapter 1 – Day 4 of Tweets and Posts

The people surrounding him looked at her oddly: then they skittered away.
“I’m not sure if that’s better,” Scott smiled again when commenting on her adjusted look, “or worse for my reputation.”

Sport reporter

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“Are you planning,” Belinda didn’t know him well enough to accurately read his face, so she equated his expression to smugness, “to repeat your amazing performance at the next Olympics?”  Internally, she vowed to somehow shove that condescending look right back down his throat: Belinda Lyle would do whatever it took to wrest what she wanted from him.

“No.”

“Why are you so reticent with the media?”  The sport reporter had noted that the dishwashers and cooks had been beaming, indicating that the swimming star had been genial.

“Because I only tell the truth, and that’s not what the sports reporters want to hear.  It’s also not what sport reporters seem to believe their insipid sport readers are interested in either.”

“And you haven’t memorized your handbook of ‘win one for the Gipper’ platitudes.”  The verbal exchange had happened so unexpectedly that Belinda didn’t realize that this was actually something she could use, until it was finished.  But then, she was stuck for a way to prolong the full sentence conversation.

“Nor will I.”  Scott effectively terminated the verbal thread.

The meal arrived and the talk was confined to bland remarks on the food’s flavor and requests to ‘pass the salt’.  Belinda finished several more glasses of wine.  The female sport reporter finished the whole beaker by herself because the swimmer hadn’t touched his glass after that one first sip.

“If you’re not going to drink that,” the girl reporter indicated his glass with a glance, “may I have it?”  This nearly valueless meal was costing her plenty and she resolved to at least get a glow from it.  She was already feeling somewhat tipsy.

Scott Wagner wiped the corners of his mouth while she drank his wine.  Then he set his napkin on his plate and watched her savor the final drops.

“Will we,” the swimmer set his both elbows on the table and leaned towards her, “have sex?”

“Why—?”  Stunned by the query, Sport reporter Belinda couldn’t quickly compose an appropriately indignant reply, so the lonely word was left hanging as a blunt question.

“Because that will be the price of the insightful interview you’re so anxious for.”

Sport reporter Belinda Lyle’s head spun with the effects of the alcohol and from a conflicting swirl of her thoughts and emotions.  The swimmer’s expressionless eyes were those of Satan as he waited for her to sign away her immortal soul.  The inner demon of her sport reporting ambition and the angel of her conscience scratched, bit and eye gouged one another.  The internal fight’s non-impartial referee seemed to be her body—that suddenly gave a favorable gush of hormones in response to her admiration of his physique.  Then in the midst of her turmoil, the host presented the check on a silver platter and the sport reporter fumbled out her credit card.

“Yes.”  After a very long pause the sport reporter girl scrawled her blood ink onto Lucifer’s contract.  The sales slip arrived and she signed it without noticing the amount.  Swimmer Scott took the female sport reporter by the elbow and guided her wordlessly outside to catch a cab.

I Live in my Scuba Gear

Chapter 1 – Day 3 of Tweets and Posts

Belinda Lyle found her way to the ladies room through moisture welling up in her liquid brown eyes. When there, she examined her face and watched a big tear trace a black mascara trail down her left cheek.

“Why did I think I could pry open his mental oyster shell when nobody else could?” She asked her reflection but it didn’t reply. She didn’t see her image as the raving beauty that some of the other girl reporters were but she felt she had a pleasant look. She took a tissue and daubed at the dark smear on her freckle-strewn cheek. Belinda then pulled out the elastic bands from her pigtails and combed her mid-back length hair. ‘I look frumpy now.’ She thought. Without the pigtails, her schoolgirl look had lost its charm and her one shirttail was untucked.

“This misadventure has just cost me money that I don’t have.” She recalled the taxi fare being larger than she expected and the bill for the meal would be another pricey hit with nothing to show for it. She could imagine her successful accountant brother saying ‘it can be written off as a legitimate business expense.’ “Against what?” She retorted to the fleeting thought. “I need a work related income to deduct it from.”

Belinda wanted to fix her face but realized that she had left her handbag at the table. She made do by cleaning the mascara smear and sponging up the tear’s remains. The aspiring columnist modified her clothing’s impression from ‘schoolgirl’ to ‘tart’ by tying her shirttails to display her midriff and tugging the skirt down to ride low on her hips. She practiced her bravest smile before leaving the mirror and returning to the disappointing ordeal.