America’s Darlings

 

By Gail Bridges

 

 

 

 

     “Whore! Whore of Babylon!”

 

     I turned.

 

     A red-faced woman stood behind the barrier rope, screaming.

 

     I recognized her. She had been lurking at the airport late the night before when I had arrived in Mexico City with the sexual gymnastics team. Despite furious coaches and horrified airport personnel, she had flung her sign reading “Save our Olympics!” back and forth, pointing and jeering and calling us dreadful names as we passed by her on our way to catch the subway to the Olympic Village. Her worst insults were directed at me. I am, you see, the female half of America’s Darlings.

 

     Surely you’ve heard of America’s Darlings?

 

     Benson and I earned the moniker last year when we won the Internationals in Moscow. The media went crazy for us, couldn’t get enough of us, wouldn’t leave us alone. The sportscaster covering the event, a guy named Ryan Markham, had coined the name America’s Darlings—and it had stuck. No-one had asked Benson and me whether we liked it or even wanted it. Luckily, we do like it. At least I do. The extra attention earned us the adoration of a nation enchanted with our brand-new sport, millions of fans intent on following our every move.

 

     I’m still not used to it.

 

     It throws me when people recognize me. Complete strangers call me by name, act as if they know me, comment on my performances, give advice or offer to help me to practice, and it gets me every time.

But I like it. I do.

 

     As America’s Darlings, the nation’s highest-ranking sexual gymnast duo, Benson and I were the team’s best hope, probably the only hope, for a gold medal in the Olympics—and the public never let us forget it. My face—and Benson’s—had been plastered everywhere for months.

Of course the woman knew who I was. How could she not?

 

     Now here she was again.

 

     “Jezebel! Porn-Monger! Sex fiend!”

 

     Sex fiend? Really?

 

     The Team and I were making our way through the Olympic Village to the Olympic on-site training facility, the “Oostif” as everyone called it, for an early workout. We were nervous and excited, all of us. The Olympics! Finally! Everything we’d worked so hard for was coming to fruition! We were the vanguard of a new sport, the first wave of sexual athletes to be included in the Games. The Olympic Guidance Committee had at long last seen the beauty and athleticism of sex.

 

     This was history in the making. I couldn’t afford to let the woman distract me, not after all I’d been through to get here.  She was right about one thing, though. I did have sex. A lot of it.

 

     How much?

 

     Let me give an example. During our upcoming practice session I would have sexual relations—I would “couple”, as we called it—with Benson, my duo partner. Time permitting, I would also perform simple exercise routines with various men on the team, and perhaps with one or two of the women. Maybe I’d even practice difficult moves with a coach.

 

     Real sex. Even during practice.

 

     Because I know you are curious, yes, I have orgasms. And yes, I do enjoy them. Very much.

 

     Sex in the Olympics.

 

     It’s not a big deal. Really.

 

     But some people just can’t get their heads around it, such as this obnoxious, horrible woman. She was a throwback to an earlier time when people had been prudish about sex, especially about public sex. What had she been doing during the Second Sexual Revolution? Hiding under a haystack? Obviously she’d missed the train. She and people like her—we call them Fringe Dwellers—reject our current sexual culture. They abhor the fact that humanity proudly and publicly reclaimed its sexuality in the wake of smart anti-STD drugs. Fringe Dwellers, poor things, do not understand anything about sex. They are ignorant. They have no idea that sex is a natural function of being alive, no more deserving of shame and ridicule than, say, a handshake.

 

     It’s hard to believe that they willingly deny themselves something so beautiful.

 

     Why did this awful woman hate modern-day life so? Why did she condemn people who have joyous sex with multiple partners, who engage in homosexual relationships, who love each other in public places or who perform beautiful choreographed performances for others to enjoy? Why, when she didn’t understand any of it?

 

     I didn’t—I couldn’t—understand.

 

     I knew she was Fringe. I understood her vitriol was nothing but the spewing of a misguided soul. I tried to ignore her, but it was hard.

     You see, I am easily upset.

 

     Benson says I’m delicate. My head coach—Coach Bob—uses the word “fragile”. My mother calls me highly strung. My sister, when we were younger, accused me of being high maintenance. Lord! Who wants to be high maintenance? I try not to be those things. I don’t want to be delicate. I hate being fragile. I strive to be the strong, confident woman my adoring public thinks I am.

 

     I’m not oblivious.

 

     I do see those things in myself, when I try. But more often than not my self-destructive behavior has to be pointed out to me. I know my teammates and coaches have learned to protect me, to gather around me, to manage me and do their best to keep me functioning. I’m not supposed to know, but they’ve invented a list of “Leah rules”, things to help them to help me. I know I take up more than my share of the team’s energy, and because of that I drive myself to distraction trying to prove to them and to myself that I am worth it.

 

     I try so hard to be like them!

 

     I would give anything to do what they do, to laugh off an ugly remark, to let a bad rehearsal go, to ignore a petty jealousy, to better care for my mind and body—but there’s always something sending me into a tailspin, something throwing me off balance, something illicit to tempt me, something to make me doubt myself.

 

     My only solace is sex.

 

     It doesn’t take much for me to become desperate with need. An ache fills me, body and soul, and I won’t be right again, I won’t feel like myself again, until I can lose myself in lovemaking and be cleansed in the magnificent joining of bodies.

     I have come to understand that I find healing in sex. Others may call it an addiction.

 

     I must have sex.

 

     This Fringe Dweller threatened my well-being. Her insults cut me to the core.

 

     She had three friends with her. They screamed and shouted, waved banners, chanted. Supposedly these protesters were “vetted and bonded” by the Olympic security detail—it was all explained in our orientation packet. Each protester wore a bright-red limited access pass hanging around his or her neck, complete with photo and identifying information.

 

     My pass was green.

 

     This ridiculous protest was legal—I knew that from the sixty-eight page Olympic rule book I’d read cover-to-cover, then read again—but I wished security would keep them away from us. Other athletes—the swimmers, the runners, the chess players—didn’t have hecklers following them around. Why should we?

 

     It wasn’t fair.

 

     My favorite coach, Coach Debbie, thought the sole purpose of the protesters was to drum up interest and controversy in a public wearying of the Olympics.

 

     Maybe she was right.

 

     But it was me this woman was calling names.

 

     “Game Polluter! Moral deviant! Whore!”

 

     Her sign—“No smut in our Olympics!”—looked like it could do double duty as a club.

 

     Let me be clear. I am not a whore.