Off-Limits: Part Three

Jude and Gia are now on texting terms (devil face)

Hi, all! If you’ve been waiting on this for a while, I’m sorry. I’ve sustained my fourth concussion of the past year (seriously) so I was a bit out of it for a while. But I’m back with part three of Gia and Jude’s story. If you need to catch up, here are Part I and Part II for your reading pleasure.

I know how expensive it can be to have many subscriptions, which is why I don’t put a pay wall on my posts. I want you all to have access to what I write, even if that means doing it for free. To that end, if you have the means and enjoy Jude and Gia’s story, I won’t be mad at a pledge or two. Thank you for reading.

Part 3: June Alexander, Temple Basketball #11: 2009

I still wish Gia De Luca would leave me the fuck alone. Ever since she gave me her number last week, I’ve been unable to focus on anything but her and her cocky, albeit sexy self. Even playing doesn’t banish her from my mind, not completely anyway. It’s like there is this ghost of her body with me, constantly, that I’m reaching for and touching and being touched by. It’s maddening.

I don’t even know what I want with her, if anything. Nor do I know what she wants with me. She says she wants to know me. Tell me how it feels to be you, she says. But there are no words for that feeling, those many conflicting feelings. Why me? What do I have to offer to someone who has everything?

My first text to her last week, after making her wait a day, was: “I’m not going to fuck you.”

“I didn’t say you were,” she said.

“Then why are you texting me?”

“Is your real name Judith?”

“Gross,” I said. “Fuck off.’

“I’m really asking,” she said.

“I changed my name in high school. Not like, legally or anything, but”

I thought about being fourteen again, my gender-clumsy self. Hell, I’m still clumsy. Still a doe on wobbly legs. Only my parents and my brother, Marcus, know I’m not a woman. It was hard enough explaining it to them when I hardly understand it myself. I only know that I shrivel up when my coach says, “Gather round, ladies” or the student section chants, “Let’s go, lady owls.” The men are the owls—why do we have to be ladies about it?

“Why?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Witness protection program?”

“Yeah,” I said. “If the witness is me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Nothing. It’s complicated.”

“Ready for your game tomorrow?”

“Yeah, we got this.”

“What else goes on in your world?”

“What you mean?”

“Are you a robot? Lol is ball all you think about?” she asked.

I wasn’t about to admit that yeah, pretty much, the answer was yes, with brief bouts of sex and drinking, but still, basketball loomed large.

“No, being the best is all I think about,” I said.

“If you were the best, you wouldn’t be thinking about it ;)”

“So you’re telling me you don’t think about it?”

“Are you calling me the best?”

“I take it back, someone stole my phone.”

“;)”

“I’m done, leaving, bye.”

Then we continued to text all night long, until the birds were up, singing their songs about us.

Now, I sit in bed with a blue Gatorade and my headphones in, watching Gia’s game against Xavier on my laptop. They announce the starting line-ups. Her coach has switched it up this game. Cooper—I think her first name is Liv—starts this game at the three spot. She’s a senior but doesn’t see much time. She’s had a tough career, full of ankle injuries that won’t let up. Hard not to feel bad for her.

Gia’s small headshot appears on the screen. Hair down and straightened to death. Smiling big for the camera. I can’t help but imagine her smiling that way for me, but without the added layer of performance and spectacle. A private joy, a private light-up. I can’t tell if I want her to have a career night and win the game or if I want the lack of sleep to catch up to her. To leave my mark on her in some tangible way. Is that the only way to make it feel real for me? If she suffers? To desire is to suffer, and to suffer as a result of desire is to simultaneously relish and resent the distance. To block your own shot just to keep the feeling going longer.

Natalie, my roomie, marches into our room and chucks a package at me.

“From your brother,” she says.

I tear it open. It’s a jar of homemade cherry jam with a note that says he is still perfecting his recipe and wanted my input. Must be his new obsession this week. “Share it with Natalie too,” says the note. “Don’t be greedy, big bro <3”

Big bro, a small gift. The biggest gift.

Natalie takes her pants off and climbs into bed in a t-shirt and thong, her usual outfit. She turns on the TV and finds the Suns game to watch our boy, Steve Nash, one of the greatest playmakers to ever do it.

“Did you see that mid-season rankings came out?” she asks.

“No, what’s up?”

“Well. De Luca is number eight. She was number three in the pre-season rankings.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Thought you’d be thrilled about that.”

“Yeah, yeah, I am,” I say. “I don’t get why everyone thinks she’s hot shit anyway.”

I look up the list to check the seven ranked above Gia. Sitting at number one is Sarah Miles from Alabama. A versatile forward with guard hands who is light on her feet for how big she is. I call her twinkle toes whenever I catch a game on TV. It’s a no-brainer that she’s still at number one but a few of the others who creeped in above Gia surprise me. I wonder if she’s upset; I wonder if she’s even seen it. She seems like the type who is above it all.

Gia tucks in her jersey at center court before the jump ball. She wears her hair different this game. Not a ponytail, but a braided pony. I wonder if she’s trying out a new style; I wonder why I care so much. It’s fucking hair. Suddenly, I notice everything about her. Or rather, everything about her is suddenly more interesting than it was a few weeks ago. God, how to cure myself of this ailment?

I decide to live text Gia to throughout the game so that she has a million texts from me to come back to. I hope her breath snags in her chest when she sees my name. She knows I’m watching. I hope with every step, every dribble, and every shot, she wonders what I think, wonders if the impressed parts of me are able to temporarily quiet the guarded, competitive parts. I hope she hopes I’m going to fuck her despite my refusal. My refusal that feels more like an opening up if you know what to look for.

The Richmond center tips the ball to Gia, and she’s off to the races, taking advantage of Xavier’s slow defense. She claims an easy layup to start the game.

“Nice read,” I say. “They didn’t know what hit them.”

I don’t want to be so complimentary, but I can’t help myself. Her game is like the most explosive sex. To deny that is to watch a woman undress in front of you only to decide to turn around and head out the door, leaving her turned on and unfucked.

She pick-pockets their point guard in the slickest defense I’ve ever seen then throws a perfect pass to Cooper for another easy lay-up.

“Okayyyy, I see you,” I say.

It goes this way, her showing out and me texting her my commentary. I’ve never been one for schoolwork but this, this is the type of study I can get behind. Watching her and letting her know that I’m watching closely, as an appreciator of an artist at work—it’s incredibly erotic and energizing.

“That’s okay, that was a good shot, it’ll fall next time,” I say.

“Oh fuck yeahhhhh!!! De Luca for a deep three!”

She presses her thumb and pointer finger together, forming an O, and holds it over her eye, her other three fingers a symbol of how many points she dropped on them.

“God, that girl needs to be admitted to the ER for shattered ankles.”

“Okay, enough of the fancy side to side shit—get to the rim already.”

Maybe it’s a bit silly to say, but I’ve never experienced something more intimate than the presumed intimacy itself—my assumption that she welcomes me texting her like this. My coaching. Not as a superior, of course, but as a peer. As a lover not yet a lover but with all the trappings of a lover.

Right before half-time, she hits a ridiculous, contested three just past half-court.

“What?” says Natalie.

“What what?” I ask.

“You cheered.”

“I did?”

“Are you okay over there? What are you watching, anyway?”

“Nothing,” I say.

She shakes her head at me. “Nope. Try again.”

I tell her that I’m watching the Richmond / Xavier game.

“Why?”

“Why not? It’s just on.”

“Bitch, you had to take out your laptop and go find it streaming on some obscure site. Don’t give me any of this It’s just on shit.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “There’s nothing else to do I guess.”

“You could be doing that English essay, so you don’t fucking fail. Ever think of that?”

I say, “It’s not due for a few days.”

“You know damn well you won’t do it after our game tomorrow.”

“Alright, mom.”

“Just saying,” she says. “I’m sick of running suicides because you won’t stop skipping class.”

“Ugh, it’s so hard to get up at 8 a.m.”

“Don’t I know it, but alas, I have little sympathy for you.”

She gets up and helps herself to my backpack, pulling out my messy folder, papers sticking out every which way. She chucks it at me.

“Go ahead or else I’ll have to assume you’re illiterate.”

During halftime, I flip through my papers looking for the assignment. Oh, that’s right. An essay on Ovid. I’m supposed to be writing about transformation in The Metamorphosis, but I fall down a rabbit-hole instead.

“Listen to this,” I tell Natalie. “The emperor banished Ovid for a ‘poem and a mistake.’ That’s the exact language. Isn’t that the greatest thing you’ve ever heard?”

“What was the mistake?”

“No one knows. Maybe a scandal,” I say. “Can you imagine Coach banishing us for a mistake?”

She laughs. “Yeah, actually I can.”

“Shit, when you’re right, you’re right.”

And there, in my imagination, is Gia, standing before me, undressing, and I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving, I’m not leaving.

“I’d be careful if I were you,” says Natalie. She raises her eyebrows at me.

“About what?”

She nods toward the laptop.

“Nothing to be careful about.”

“We are winning the championship this year. You know that, right? Nothing else matters.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got my head on straight.”

The second half of the Gia’s game, I try to keep my enthusiasm to myself.

At one point, she hits a step-back three so tough, I imagine tackling her right there on the court and having my way with her.

Without thinking, I type, “It’s so easy to want you,” then erase it because what the fuck was that? Perhaps a truth I’m not ready for. I want her, I do—if I’m being honest, I want her so bad I feel like I’m going to implode. I want her sweaty and filthy, I want her covered in game-time glory; I want her salt on my tongue, I want to lick her wetness and spit in her mouth so she can know just how good she tastes. I want to fuck the greatness out of her, want to fuck that cocky smile right off her face—is that so much to ask?

After the game is over — Richmond won—and Gia reaches her phone, she sends me a bunch of exclamation points.

“I love being under your microscope,” she says.

I smile despite myself. Natalie gives me a dirty look.

“Now come help me celebrate,” she says. “It’s only a three-and-a-half-hour drive at this time of night.”

“I wish,” I type and then delete it.

“I’m sure you’ve got no problem finding someone to help with that,” I say. I’m not sure why I say it. Jealousy, I suppose, is the obvious reason. But jealousy feels too clean. Whatever I’m feeling right now is far more disgusting and incomprehensible.

“I don’t buy the act,” she says.

Elena, my fuck buddy, texts me. “Come over?”

“What act?” I ask Gia.

Then I throw on my hoodie, wave goodbye to Natalie, and walk to Elena’s apartment. She is waiting for me in her bed in her bra and underwear. When I walk in, she says, “Drop your pants.” I do as I’m told. She gets up and puts a harness on me, her hands tender and deliberate. My temporary cock is a beige veiny 8-incher. It is hard whether I am or not. I suddenly don’t want to be here. But I don’t not want to be here either. Or rather, I want to be wherever Gia is. I care about Elena. And she’s objectively hot. But as I bend her over and spank her ass, I become, more than anything, aware of the mechanics of my movements, calculated and far removed from my desire.

She can tell. “Put something behind it, Alexander.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I imagine it’s Gia on all fours in front of me, her ass round and muscular, her hamstrings thick and flexed beneath me, and fuck, if that doesn’t get me going. I squirt some lube on my hand and work my dick, stroking it slowly at first, savoring it, and then faster. I can feel it as if it’s mine, attached to my very nerves. I moan aggressively.

“Mmm that’s how I like you,” she says.

“Shhh, don’t talk,” I say.

I finger her for a little, imagining Gia’s wetness, her tightening around my fingers, her pulsating in waves, bucking against me, and then I enter her in one quick motion unable to contain myself and fuck, does she feel good. Gia’s breaths are quick and sharp. She moans and bites her hand while I go deeper. I grip the shit out of her hips and pull her closer to me. We move in sync, we bump and grind like two forwards getting feisty in the post. I whimper, embarrassed by what Gia does to me, even from afar. I think of her saying that I have no weakness except the ice. I can’t let her know that she is my weakness. That she makes me dumb with lust and distraction. That, even if she takes my winning season down with her, I do, on some level, want the distraction. Or rather, want to want it more than I want anything else. I want to give myself over to her and her body and mouth and hands. To all the ways they can create and destroy me. “Fuck, you feel so good,” I say.

“Don’t stop, yeah, yeah, right there, don’t stop,” says Elena/Gia.

I feel her everywhere, hear Gia’s voice saying, “You won’t be so lucky next time,” but I feel lucky, I do, although maybe luck is beside the point. I’m a hard worker. I will never be out-worked, that much is true. And I want Gia to know it, to feel it with every stroke, every spank, every bite, with every orgasm I coax out of her like working a knot out of a tight muscle: the release and satisfaction. I picture her flipping over onto her back so I can see her face split open in empty-brained pleasure. It’s my turn to be arrogant. She throws her head back, her body quaking and quaking. I come so hard that I fall off the planet for a second, and all I see is Gia floating in space, ball in hand, ready to pass it to me, to defy gravity because she, herself, is gravity. But she doesn’t pass to me, no. She sinks a three ball instead. She holds that O up to her eye in celebration and then sticks those three fingers inside of me.