Master Apprentice
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The Coxswain's Tale
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"Good morning, Mr Chumleigh. I take it you've slept unsatisfactorily?"
The grunting entity that had just a second ago flopped down on the pitiful formica chair next to Ben grinned weakly, briefly flashing a set of teeth that only just managed to outshine his white-blond hair.
"Not a problem you'd be familiar with, Kennedy. How the basketballers get any sleep in this wretched place is anyone's guess."
That seemed to conclude the conversation, at least as far as the speaker was concerned. Nicholas Chumleigh, twenty-three-year-old hope and anchor of the British rowing team, just over six foot two and currently grumpy enough for an entire team of five, proceeded to indiscriminately shovel food from his plate into his mouth, not, it had to be said, without making the requisite face at what their Spanish hosts deemed a breakfast for champions.
And champions they were. That was the reason they were here - or the reason they were late. Barcelona, just a quick hop across the North Sea, and their coach had not deemed it necessary to settle in weeks before the actual event, preferring instead to stay at home as long as possible. A wise decision, it turned out.
England certainly had longer beds.
That said, Nick had been right in his less-than-polite assertion that Ben Kennedy would not have a problem with that. Well, as the coxswain for the British four he had better not - size was about the last thing that was called for in his position. Standing just under five foot eight, Ben had developed most of his remarkably thick skin as a direct result of Nick's constant needling about how he'd never make a championship rower if he didn't make up his mind and grow a bit more.
The rest of the thick skin was due to Cedric Kennedy, their coach from childhood onwards, who had taken a keen interest in the white-haired Chumleigh boy. And who also happened to be Ben's father.
The man who was just about to join them at the table in the still relatively quiet mess hall, however, was not Cedric Kennedy. In fact, he was the main reason Cedric Kennedy was no longer actively participating in the business, much to Ben's relief, it had to be said.
"Morning Nick, morning Ben," a voice boomed halfway across the hall. Coming towards them was Martin Wintershall, jokingly known as 'the Master', renowned chiefly for being the first non-Oxbridge man to have made it to the top of the rowing clique. Sheer stamina, Ben suspected, and quite possibly the fact that his frown, when challenged, is even scarier than my father's. Of course, being black and bald helped with that. Still, the man's catlike grace as he sauntered towards their table spoke clearly of how he knew a thing or two about muscles and how to use them. And it had to be said that he'd managed to pass it on - the men's four, or men's four-and-a-half, as Nick was sometimes to tempted to call them, were heavily touted for gold this year.
"Well, been checking out the competition?" Wintershall quipped at the sight of Nick's long face, then sat down with a hearty sigh, briefly contemplated his choice of breakfast, which seemed to consist of various types of melon jumbled together and heaped with dry cereal, and tucked in.
Nick grunted. "Damn right I am. Heard them running up and down the corridor all night like rats. I swear they've all smuggled their girlfriends in and are hiding them under the beds. Or maybe worse. Who knows what these WLR types get up to."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "WLR?"
"Weird Litte Republics," Nick replied dryly. "God knows I've given up trying to make sense of where they're coming from. There's more of them every year, and this year there's a whole bloody lot of them on our corridor, should you not have noticed, Goldenarse."
Ben wrinkled his nose. Normally he didn't object to being called that at all, seeing as the sensitivity of his hindquarters was rather an advantage in his position as a coxswain, but coming from his childhood rival it still stung a little, truce or not.
"I think you will find," Wintershall remarked between bites of melon-and-muesli mess, "that our hallmates this year, and their hypothetical girlfriends, are the Romanian and Moldovan team respectively. And while I wouldn't presume to judge the size and stowability of Romanian or Moldovan girls, I can at least safely say they share a language, so they've probably been happily conversing while you tried to kick the footboard off the bed, Nick. Oh, and," he added as an afterthought, "Romania has really been around for quite a while. You might want to try a map sometime."
Nick mumbled something into his bacon, then brightened visibly as the third member of their team came within sight. Dave, slim, ponytailed and infectiously cheerful, walked over, balancing on his tray an assortment of rolls he was almost certainly going to dismantle, reassemble, and then eat with great enjoyment.
"Come 'ere, Dave. We were just talking about the WLRs," Nick informed him curtly.
"Huh?"
"Precisely."
As Nick appeared unwilling to offer an explanation, Ben picked up the thread. "He's been kept awake by a short bed and Moldovans smuggling their girlfriends in. Apparently."
Dave blinked. "And a WLR is a... woman... loitering... what?"
Nick had spilled some of his tea on the remnants of the bacon, his face split in the dazzling white grin that made him everyone's favourite at first glance. "Nice one, mate. We thought Weird Little Republic actually, but Mr Geographer here," he indicated Wintershall, "has problems with that. And anyway, they all speak the same gobbledegook -"
Wintershall glared.
"All right, language." Nick sighed. "Don't expect me to be able to tell a Moldovanian from a Romanian in the middle of the night, right?"
"Moldovan," Ben corrected automatically, then blushed slightly.
"Is that who they are?" Dave asked. "Because they're one hell of a weird team. For a start, there were only four of them last night. Well, four of them and a nurse and two old lads, probably the coach and support staff or something. Beats me how they're going to even enter the races with that."
Nick snorted. "Fifth man probably didn't get a visa in time. Or nobody could spell 'Moldavia' over here and he ended up with the wrong lot."
"Moldova," Wintershall corrected gently, and Ben blushed without knowing why.
"Moldavia, Moldovia, Molotovia. Shall we say I call them Mollies for the rest of the event and you spare me the constant corrections? We're not here to win the World Geography championship after all, are we?" He flashed his grin at everyone.
"Now, now," Wintershall said, "a little more Olympic spirit would become you too, Nick. It's the participation that counts, and it's almost certainly their first time, seeing as their country hasn't been independent for all that long. And," he pointed out, "they must have passed the qualifying somehow. Which is not to say," he added, "that we shouldn't be looking to New Zealand for threats to our victory. And possibly Germany, depending on how much East they find left in them."
"As long as those Mollies keep rowing in a straight line and don't crash into us, I'm certainly not going to look in their direction much, Martin," Nick quipped and rose to put away his tray. "Has Bob finished setting up the ergos yet?"
"Seeing as we only got in yesterday afternoon, the answer would be no," Wintershall replied calmly. "But I'm sure he appreciates a little help from our star athlete. Just make sure you don't pull a muscle."
Only when Nick and his sour expression were well out of earshot did Dave quietly add, "In your mouth, that is."
And two out of five-and-a-half, plus one coach, snickered quietly.
They'd directed him to a downstairs room that looked large enough to be a minor parking garage, and just about as hospitable. The smell of paint was still noticeable, and it took Ben a while to locate Bob, Nick and the ergometers they'd shipped all the way from England. Around the perimeter of the huge room, other teams were taking advantage of the hired equipment that the games' organisation board had provided for less wealthy athletes.
As Nick was still vociferously engaged in optimising the set-up of the machines (he was currently seated on the most complete-looking of them, pulling the abbreviated oar and barking instructions at Bob who was scuttling around the ergometer adjusting levers and nudging packaging out of the way), Ben decided to take the time to check out the competition.
So close to the races, most of them had dug out their competition gear and were busily showing off their nation's pride to an audience of other athletes who couldn't care less for others' flags and colours. They either knew the competition, and if they didn't know them they weren't competition.
Ben let his gaze travel across the neon-lit hall. There were a handful of Germans in black and white with their little fire-coloured flag stitched on their sleeves, engaged in warm-ups. On his left, a group of unusually tall Chinese chaps silently toiled away at their ergometers. The New Zealand team were conspicuous by absence, but there was one English-speaking man still in his tracksuit in the middle of the room, talking in a slow, American-accented voice to a man squatting on one of the hired ergos who seemed to be listening intently.
Ben couldn't hear what the American was saying. He didn't care what the American was saying. The sight of the seated man was quite enough to make him stop caring about what any American anywhere in the world was saying, had said, or would ever say.
He was an alien.
Honestly, Ben thought, the only way you could possibly fit in even less with this roomful of Olympic rowers would be if you were a fat child. Or a three-eyed monster.
This man was about as far removed from what an Olympic rower looked like as a three-eyed monster was anyway.
And not only was he wearing the screaming blue, yellow and red of the Moldovan team - by the time he had finished listening to the slow-talking American, and by the time Ben had finished blinking, he had started a gruelling set of pulls on the ergo, exchanging a friendly glance now and then with a teammate on the one next to him, but otherwise singularly concentrated on rowing the machine.
Ben squinted. Surely not.
This man was - he had grey in his hair! Extremely long hair, not to put too fine a point on it, tied up in a half-tail at the back of his head. And he was big, not just tall, but actually big. Broad, heavy-boned - Ben could see the thick muscles moving under his flimsy polyester shirt.
He couldn't stop staring.
Four men and two old lads, Dave had said. Well - yes. This one counted as an old lad, certainly by Olympic standards, and how he and his team managed to pull his considerable weight into the qualifying classes was anyone's guess.
But these huge hands spoke a completely different language to Ben, one that had nothing at all to do with rowing, and it was only when the hands stilled and the long-haired head turned around that he realised he had unwittingly come closer and closer to this strange man.
Until the man turned around and looked at him, eyebrows bobbing up in a brief greeting. Light blue eyes surrounded by tiny laugh lines, set in a broad face dominated by a large nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. In fact, the whole man looked like he would have made a formidable wrestler, and Ben wondered idly who on earth had told this man to take up rowing.
"Good morning?" the stranger ventured, somewhat bemused by Ben's silence. His voice was heavily accented but smooth and deep, and his face made it quite clear that he had an idea of what he was saying.
The image of dark brown velvet flashed before Ben's inner eye, and he fought to suppress a shudder of pleasure.
"Good morning," Ben replied, smiling shakily. "Are you with the Moldovan team?" Stupid question, he chided himself, he's wearing their colours. But really, he was stuck for anything else to say. Besides, he had no clue as to whether the man understood any English.
"Yes," the man rumbled, swinging his legs off the ergometer and arranging himself in a more comfortable position for conversation. "Would you like to use?" He gestured at the machine he was still perched on. "I see yours is not ready yet."
Ben grinned. "We've only just arrived... but it's all right, I don't need this. I'm the cox anyway." He mimicked shouting at an imaginary crew, unsure whether the stranger had ever heard the word in any language but his own.
The man nodded, smiling back. "Where are you from, sir?" he ventured, giving Ben a quick but polite once-over.
Ben felt acutely uncomfortable in his nondescript blue tracksuit. Was it suddenly hot in here? The little beads of sweat on the big man's forehead seemed to tell him it was - but then, he had been working out already.
Ben unzipped the jacket he was wearing, pointing at the tiny Union Jack sewn to his T-shirt. "We're the UK team. Um... England," he added, just for clarity.
"Ah," the man said, thoughtfully, stroking his short beard. "England. The... United Kingdom, yes? Excuse me..." he seemed to search for a word for a moment, "my grandfather teached me some English when I was a boy, and now I forget to remember." He smiled apologetically.
"Oh, you're doing really well," Ben assured him quickly. "I couldn't speak a word of whatever it is you speak at home."
The man nodded. "Maybe we can have a little conversation at... eating time?"
"Lunchtime? I don't know where we'll be yet, but... I'll keep it in mind, all right?"
With that, Ben fled to the safe haven of the small fortress of machines Bob and Nick had set up. Those hands, absently stroking the bearded chin. Muscles. Eyes. Grey in his hair, and laugh lines, and terribly blue eyes. Velvet. And not a snowflake's chance in hell at the Games, and yet this earnest cheer.
Heat.
Without a word, Ben mounted one of Bob's machines and pulled, slowly and determinedly.
Coxswain or not, he needed to work off some energy.
The team meetings had been uneventful, though Wintershall's usual thoroughness had meant that they'd more or less had to skip lunch. Bob was more than happy with their fighting fitness, Wintershall had had their battle strategy recited back at him by five obliging voices (their fourth man, George, had missed breakfast as usual, citing sleep as a far more important resource than Spanish canteen food, and the fifth, Andrew, had simply overslept and not bothered to think of an excuse), and the Kiwis hadn't darkened the door all day.
In short, they were bursting with confidence.
Well, Ben was bursting with confidence and a wild mixture of other things. Curiosity, for one thing, about the strange and, it had to be said, old man on the Moldovan team who inexplicably spoke rather rusty but distinguished English. Wariness about Nick's next taunt. Eagerness for tomorrow, the big day, the races. And, featuring prominently in the heady mix, pure oozing lust at the thought of those big hands gripping him like they had gripped the machine's fake oar. He could only begin to think about what those thighs must feel like. And he could only begin to think about that in the privacy of his bedroom later tonight, at least if he wanted to keep some of his dignity intact.
He was still deeply wrapped in thoughts of this and similar natures by dinnertime, and it was only a tap on the shoulder from Dave that woke him out of his reverie, a forkful of unusually pert peas halfway to his mouth.
"Wha-? Sorry, was miles away."
"'sallright. It's just that this here gentleman asks if he can share our table. He knows you or something?" Dave nodded at someone standing behind Ben, and Ben didn't need to turn around to see who it was.
"Sorry," Ben mumbled and gestured for the big man to take a seat next to him. "You're welcome to sit with us, of course." Hoping that the blush on his face could be interpreted as embarrassment at having been caught daydreaming, he pointed out his teammates to the new arrival. "The cream of British rowing. Well, the men's four anyway. This is Nick Chumleigh, that's Dave Smith, those two talking over there are Mr Wintershall, our coach, and Bob, the... doctor I suppose you can call it. And next to me are George and Andy Hart. They're not brothers, but they _are_ cousins. Oh, and my name's Ben. Ben Kennedy."
"Ben." The name sounded soft in the man's voice, devoid of the harsh accent that coloured his speech. "You can call me Nick if you like. My name is Nicolae... Jinane. It is a bit difficult."
"Nicolae Jinane," Ben repeated. "Not difficult at all, I should think." He smiled encouragingly.
"No," the man replied. "Nicolae is not difficult. But it is only my second name. My first one is difficult to say."
"Now you've got me curious," Ben said light-heartedly, filing away the name for future reference. Wintershall was making an interested face, as if he'd heard the name somewhere before. "What is it?"
The man - Nicolae - snorted, then unfolded his paper napkin and cast around the table for something to write with. Wintershall offered him his biro. It almost disappeared in the large paw. Slowly and gently, careful not to tear the flimsy paper, the Moldovan spelled out his first name. Ben peered over his shoulder, all thoughts of food forgotten, peripherally aware of the faint scent of the man's sweat. It was good.
"Kwidge-hyon?" Ben ventured cautiously, staring doubtfully at the odd spelling.
Nicolae chuckled. "Not bad. We say it 'Quion', but it is a strange name even in Moldova."
Having heard Ben strain to pronounce the stranger's name, the other Nick had pricked up his ears and now felt compelled to air his opinion. "Sounds cool. You're not Transsylvanian or something, are you?"
Oh God, he's going to ask him if he's a werewolf next, Ben thought, the flush of shame at anything Nick said already poised to wash over his skin. Although he'd make a formidable werewolf. I wouldn't mind getting bitten by him anyway... Ben had to stem the tide of images that were threatening to flood his mind.
The man - Nicolae, Quion, whatever - had craned his neck around and was looking Nick directly in the eye. "I am a Transnistrian. Is almost the same thing," he said, grinning apologetically. "You can call me Nick if you like." With that, he began to show interest in his dinner.
Wondering how long he could get away with basking in the man's animal heat without getting caught, Ben started to spear peas with his fork, pretending to listen to Dave and Wintershall discussing the weather.
He would not call the man Nick. That much was clear. As for anything else... everything was possible, though none of it was remotely likely.
Even less likely was the story Wintershall had told him in the lift to their accommodation. He'd heard of a Nicolae Jinane years ago, back in his more impressionable days, as he liked to put it. More to the point, he had seen pictures, and was quite convinced that this man was the very Jinane he had seen back in the 1970s. He had been on the Soviet team back then of course, and had been young and utterly second rate. He had only really stood out by his odd looks.
Granted, long hair was just becoming acceptable for men at the time. But it was far from the norm for Soviet athletes.
Especially boxers.
Well, taking a cold shower hadn't helped.
Actually, it had done a great deal towards keeping Ben's rather unruly flesh in check and put a damper on his raging hormones (not exactly a thing he wanted to have to deal with during the Games, damn it), but the minute he stepped out of the cold shower, shivering and groping for one of the nondescript white Olympic Village towels, he remembered just why he had thought that cold shower necessary.
And its effect was quite ruined once again.
By the end of the evening, he had tried everything. He had tried to convince himself that Nicolae was old enough to be his father. Had tried to imagine what his very real father would have to say on the subject of his son's crush on a competing athlete. Had tried to imagine Nick Chumleigh's biting remarks, Nick who always had that slight sneer in his voice when he called him 'Goldenarse', putting as much homophobia into the word as he could get away with under Wintershall's watchful eyes.
Balance in all things, he had told himself time and time again. You're a cox for goodness' sake, keeping the balance is your job!
Yes, he had answered with impeccable logic, but that usually involves four lads rowing at minutely varying strength, and him keeping them going in a straight line by using his sense of balance. Not one lad veering wildly off course and not even caring about keeping in a straight line. Straight, my foot, he'd thought.
He had tried meditation. He had even tried masturbation. Twice!
In the end, he'd taken a run around the block in the middle of the night and dropped into bed without even bothering to take another cold shower, hoping for sleep.
Goldenarse, the voice said, coming from nowhere in particular, and it wasn't Nick's voice, it was Nicolae's voice, with that slight touch of polite incredulity to it, and the raspy Eastern European accent. There were lots more voices, a chorus of heads in various shades of blonde, and there were lights and boxers and announcers... and there were hands.
Hands gripping hard, spanning almost the entirety of his squirming hips, warm and relentless. There was hair on his shoulders that wasn't his, sweaty hair that smelled so familiar. There was a kiss on his ear that was almost a bite, and still he couldn't see the face, couldn't see those light blue eyes he knew were there, there behind him where that massive body radiated heat.
When the thrusts started, slow and impossibly deep, crushing him against the ropes that encircled the boxing ring, making him bounce back and forth like a spring, down into the ropes, up against that glorious hot man who speared him and covered him with his scent and sweat and -
Ben keened desperately and woke from his own noise, a decidedly sticky patch on his sheets.
Groggily, he peered at the alarm clock by the bed. It was 3.27 a.m.
Well, so much for a good night's sleep.
The morning sun was glaring, reflecting off the faintly rippled stretch of water that was to be their field of honour, if Cedric Kennedy had anything to do with it. Which of course he hadn't, and Wintershall was not particularly partial to such military terminology. The Master preferred a stern look and an encouraging pat on the shoulder, perfectly aware that his team knew how to win a race.
Ben had taken the opportunity to get a good look around while his teammates propelled the boat across the water at a leisurely warm-up speed. The currents were virtually non-existent, and Ben found himself with little to do besides sit there and let his body do the work. His voice sang out the rhythmic commands almost automatically anyway, and his spine answered to the interface between the lightweight boat and his 'golden' bottom much more than to his brain.
Which was busy with other things anyway.
Their shadows on the water were still almost as long as the boat itself, spidery rippling things flitting across the surface, and yet the semi-finals were about to start in less than an hour. They would have to clear the track pretty soon, stretch their legs one last time, manoeuvre into place... and hope the Moldovans weren't in the neighbouring lane.
In the end, the Moldovans hadn't even been in the same semi, and even though Ben had felt like he was steering on autopilot, the British four had secured an easy second place without even breaking a sweat. They would save up their energy for the finals, that much was clear. Lane five would be fine by them, and the other group would almost certainly bring the Kiwis in on lane three, the favourites' lane. Four would be either Germany or China, and as for the rest, he wasn't planning on devoting any attention to them.
Until he saw who was carefully manoeuvring into lane eight, the underdog lane.
He tried his best not to look. The rest of his team weren't looking, they were concentrating, exchanging last glances and quips before the start of the race. For a long minute, Ben wished he was the TV cameraman in the tiny powerboat, hovering behind the surprise finalists who looked like slightly bemused parrots in their red, yellow and blue gear.
They weren't even all one height. Ben thought he saw one of the three Moldovans who weren't Nicolae Jinane wave at the camera, and snorted. How they had made it into the finals was anyone's guess. Yes, keep thinking like that, he exhorted himself, think Nick if you have to, but don't think about the hands and what they'd -
A barked announcement over the tannoy and the rattle of his own team's oars cut his thought short. Get ready! And ready they were, Dave, George, Andy and Nick, sheer power radiating off their tightly controlled faces.
Ben wanted to get out. Just jump overboard and get out, swim over to lane eight and, and hope that Jinane's team weren't fast enough to escape him...
Beeep!
Off they were, into two thousand metres of hard Spanish sunshine dancing on the water, into the routine that his body knew far better than his mind. Heave ho. His voice sang out, and he found himself listening for the odd sound it had today, full and liquid and low, as if he'd caught a singing siren in his throat. His throat was tight, tight and yet strong. He loved the hard slide of the boat cutting through the water, loved the rhythmic push of the oars, all that brutal strength bearing him across the water, tempered only by his voice and his sense of balance, there at the tip of the arrow.
A volley of arrows they were, the Germans next to them already a quarter length behind. What he could glimpse of the New Zealand four looked very close though. On the other side, the competition was already beginning to fall away, losing speed and distance, no danger to them despite their struggles.
One glimpse - a pair of broad shoulders framed in red and yellow and blue, the thick mane tied up in a tail. Sinews. Powering the boat almost on his own. The Moldovan coxswain, a thin pale lad, was struggling to keep them on course, throwing his meagre weight against the brutal strength of Jinane's single oar.
One glimpse, one beat - one slip of his voice, the flush of shock and embarrassment, and he went rigid for a split second, the split second it took for Nick and George to be minutely out of beat with each other, causing the boat to jerk ever so slightly - and Nick had noticed, and pulled on, glaring at his feet, biting his lip in fierce struggle for the last of his energy.
The split second it had taken the New Zealand four to take the lead. And two, three hundred metres to the imaginary finish line would never be enough to catch up.
He saw it in the photos later - the distance that had cost them their gold medal had been less than a tenth of a boatlength. Tiny, but inexcusable.
Almost tiny enough for Jinane to span it with his hands.
The Master had been understanding - in fact, he had been quite happy with such a close silver - but really, he hadn't been in the race. Hadn't felt the slight asynchronicity, and almost certainly had no clue as to what had caused it. It had been a near-perfect run, and Wintershall did his best to assure his team that he was proud of them.
Actually, George and Andy were proud of themselves too, smiling shakily into the cameras of the press, hugging each other and demanding drinks, and grinning broadly when someone brought beer. Now, beer was allowed, and all was well with the Hart cousins, proud silver medallists of the 1992 Olympics.
Their good mood carried all the way through the ceremony, and they were still quietly beaming away in the VIP tent afterwards, chatting with Wintershall and Bob and the Kiwis, who, it had to be said, were very modest about their victory. The tent was quite full, and Ben was more than happy with that - enough space to lose himself, to pretend to chat with others, congratulate the New Zealand four, catch up on the other British teams, the double-two who had won gold wholly deservedly, and the eight who hadn't been so lucky and who nevertheless felt obliged to keep bringing the medallists drinks, much to Andy's and George's delight.
Dave, meanwhile, was trying to unload some words on an unsuspecting Hungarian, and it was anyone's guess whether he was airing his rusty Italian and had just mistaken the man's national colours or whether he was in fact speaking Esperanto based on the assumption that Hungarians speak more Esperanto than any other nation in the world. With Dave, you never knew. At any rate, he seemed to be enjoying himself, and the Hungarian was munching a sandwich and listening, so a diplomatic incident was unlikely.
Scratch that. Nick was coming his way, bumping his way through the crowd with a half-empty bottle of lager.
"Hey, Goldenarse. Or should that be Silverarse now? You could've helped, you know? We were this close, and suddenly little Boy Wonder stiffens like he's got a massive prick up his golden arse. Silver, sorry." He bowed theatrically, then shook his head. "Ah, doesn't matter any more now. It's a bit late for that. Go ogle him, that geriatric Molotovanian Mollie of yours. He's over there. Good luck." With that, and without waiting for a reply, he strode on through the crowd, keen on showing off his silver medal to the ones who didn't have one.
Ben's throat was siren-filled again. He didn't know what it was that he felt - embarrassment, his mind suggested, or anger, or sadness, all that would be logical. But he wasn't any more embarrassed than was normal when Nick was around. He wasn't even angry at his taunt, and losing a gold medal had never meant less to him.
He wanted to shout, to shout a long siren call across two thousand metres of calm water, and wait for Jinane to come rowing across the sea. He wasn't sure at all whether his voice would carry, were he to try.
Jinane was talking to his teammates, laughing, a plastic bottle of water in one hand, the other running through his sweaty hair, and Ben felt like overflowing, like melting into a siren song and creeping inside that man's formidable body and staying there.
He'd probably earn himself a broken nose to match Jinane's, were he to try.
And he was in no mood for fights, or having to defend himself. Especially not with Nick watching.
Shaking his head, he grabbed his nearest teammate, Dave, by one arm and let him know that he was going to catch up on some much-needed sleep, then fled the tent and took the first charter taxi back to the village.
Maybe he could allow himself a hot shower tonight. He could do with the comfort.
Well, the comfort of the hot shower was debatable, but at least it had left him with a pleasant warm glow and the certainty that the blood in his veins hadn't turned to cold water after the events of the day.
He'd dug the silver medal out of the pile of discarded clothes, looked at it doubtfully for a minute or so, then put it back and switched on the TV. It showed himself, looking rather grey and listening to the New Zealand national anthem. Dave was singing along. Ben turned the TV off in disgust. The minibar suddenly seemed extremely attractive.
Just as he was about to bend down and get a good look at its contents without catching a glimpse at the price list, there was a knock on the door.
Ben sighed. "What?" he shouted.
A brief pause. "It's me. Nick."
"Wait... wait! Just a second..." Suddenly aware of his nakedness, Ben dashed for the pile of clothes, dragged out his tracksuit bottoms and pulled them on, then rushed to open the door. Because _that_ had not been Nick's voice.
Well, not Nick Chumleigh's anyway.
On the other side of the door stood 'Nick' Nicolae Jinane, hair mussed and obviously still wet from his own shower, the ever-present ponytail leaving a dark stain on the left shoulder of his worn green T-shirt. He was wearing dark brown slacks and no shoes; in his hand he had a bottle obviously liberated from the VIP tent, and on his face he had a very clear look of appreciation at the sight of a half-naked, tousle-haired Ben who had evidently rushed to answer the door.
"I brought a drink...," Jinane held up the bottle - red wine - "If you like, we could have a little conversation now? If you don't want to be alone, of course."
"No, no, come in, come in... it's just that... I wasn't exactly expecting company." He grinned apologetically and led Jinane into the small room, spotted the silver medal where it had dropped to the floor in his rush to find clothes, and picked it up, unsure what to do with it.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. A warm, heavy hand.
"I heared what he said to you, your other Nick. About the arse. And I think it's a terrible... terribly rude thing to say."
"Yeah, well... I've got used to it. He's always been like that, quick with his words, and sometimes they hurt. And really... I mean, I wasn't at my best. So Silverarse is probably a good way to sum it up." He shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed, gesturing for his visitor to sit next to him.
Jinane made a disagreeing noise, then sat down. Ben felt the bed dip.
He shook his head. "It's all right really. And I should really congratulate you. I saw a bit of your style during the race, and... well, I could see how Moldova managed it into the finals with you rowing for them."
Jinane brushed the remark away with an impatient gesture. "We still have long way to go. But... I am thinking..." He fell silent, as if looking for a word.
Ben raised his eyebrows.
Jinane's voice was very quiet, almost timid. "I am thinking if words hurt you, maybe hands can do the conversation?"
Ben gaped. His heart couldn't decide whether to melt at this unexpected display of shyness or to leap at what that quiet low voice was suggesting. In the end, it settled for a kind of splash.
"Y-you... yes. Yes." He gripped Jinane's hand tightly, absently marvelling at how small his own looked next to it.
"Quiet now," the voice rumbled, and only a moment later Ben found himself held in those formidable hands, encircled, encompassed by them, willing warm flesh under the man's questing fingertips. Fingers that roamed across his throat and chest one by one, tickling and stroking, gathering forces there at the nape of his neck until Jinane's whole palm covered the tender skin there, and Ben felt himself pulled into a kiss, a slow, soft and thirsty bristly kiss that made him want to sing and whimper for another. If he had had breath for such activities, he would have. As it was, he became acutely aware of how his own hands had fisted in the fabric of Jinane's shirt, and he forced himself to let go and explore Jinane's body too.
A faint smile curved against his lips before a hot tongue demanded entrance again and sucked his breath out of him. He felt light-headed, pleasantly light-headed, full of things that weren't words, full of sensation and the urge to move, crawling on the inside of his skin like glittering red ants. He squirmed, and felt Jinane's arm tighten around him, felt one of the huge hands snake down his naked belly into the waistband of his trousers.
A delighted chuckle resounded in his mouth as the hand found what it had been looking for. Ben answered with a helpless moan - there was little else he felt capable of uttering as he felt himself enveloped and squeezed, his swollen cock twitching in the grasp of Jinane's hand.
Jinane broke the kiss, looking at Ben earnestly. All he saw was the glazed expression of a young man ripe for the picking - the half-open panting mouth, the distant look in his eyes, the mussed hair... Jinane purred, a deep predatory rumble, and Ben answered with a moan and a thrust of his hips, shivering at the tightening of the hand on his cock. Oh, that felt good, so good... in a matter of seconds, Ben was coming, spurting into the confines of his pants, into the tightness of Jinane's merciless hand that covered him whole now, fingertips massaging his tight balls until Ben could not hold on any more and just collapsed, half on, half off the bed, hanging by Jinane's arm, kiss-swollen, spent and glowing.
From where he was lying, the sight was marvellous.
Clawing his fingers into the fabric of Jinane's slacks, he succeeded in pulling himself up a little while pulling the trousers down considerably, exposing a pair of white briefs. Well-filled white briefs.
Sudden hunger reawakened his spirits, and he let himself slide to the floor completely, kneeling up and working in earnest at getting Jinane undressed. Or at least getting all that fabric around his knees and out of the way... though Jinane was having none of it and insisted on shucking off the offending garments completely. They landed next to the discarded silver medal.
Ben landed, with inexorable precision, where he knew he belonged at this moment: between those incredible thighs, crawling into the space between Jinane's long legs, squeezing in and taking a long lick at the man's proud cock.
It glistened. Jinane sighed in pleasure. Ben licked his lips, tasting the salt and the flavour of the other's skin as if it were the food of the gods. And as if he were a starving man. Ravenous, he held on, one hand on Jinane's thigh, one wrapped around the thick shaft, and fed. Sucked, licked and nibbled, filled his mouth with the hard flesh and the soft moans, greedy, feeding, keening softly at just how fucking fantastic it felt to be this close to this man in this state, to be trapped between steel thighs, a huge hot hand clamped around the back of his head, and the taste of sheer joy and imminent release on his tongue.
Ben was in heaven.
Shortly afterwards, Jinane joined him there, spurting so hard that Ben barely managed to pull back in time. A few drops hit him on the chin, and he laughed, a loud and hearty laugh he hadn't laughed in a long, long time.
Above him, Jinane laughed, out of breath but very clearly just as amused. Happy.
Hands pulled Ben back up onto the bed, hands gently stroked his hair, warm and slow and so so close... so so good.
Ben woke with a start as the alarm went off. Where - what? He looked around, blinking at the sunlight, which clearly had no business being around this early. And where was - he frowned and looked around the room. Had he dreamed it all?
The medal was still lying on the floor. He was still in his tracksuit bottoms. With a telltale stain in the front.
There was an unopened bottle of wine standing next to the bed. Ben touched his chin. There were unmistakable signs of stickiness. There was a warmth in his guts that was fast congealing into cold.
Jinane had gone. He had been, but he had gone.
His hands had spoken such words of adoration. Had they also spoken of farewell?
Ben cursed himself for not speaking whatever it was that this impossible man spoke.
In the shower, scrubbing off the traces reluctantly, he prayed for a chance at another lesson.
He'd spent the day avoiding contact, squatting on the VIP rank watching the quadruple sculls and the women's eights, or the women's quadruple sculls, and really what did it matter? Nick had tried to place a few scathing remarks, but had left in the end, dissatisfied with his target's lethargic behaviour.
Wintershall had looked worried, and had needed a little convincing that Ben was all right, really, and had just had a bad night's sleep. Wintershall had suggested that maybe he was homesick, and Ben had glared at him so fiercely that the Master could do little but retreat and work on finding an answer to his medallist coxswain's sudden melancholy.
Ben let his gaze travel over the crowd. Heads, heads, heads. Spanish press with curly black hair, Americans in base caps, a thin lady in a huge straw hat looking more than a little out of place. And if he noticed someone as small as her, that was ample evidence that the head he was looking for, the one with the long brown ponytail with the first grey hairs, the one that stood a head and a mile above everyone else, wasn't there.
Ben took a swig from his water bottle and tried in vain to remember why he was here.
Well, he was only here for another eleven nights.
In the end, Dave had managed to coax him into taking a trip downtown with him, and they'd sat in a small but expensive restaurant by the seaside eating fish and being very quiet at each other. Still, Ben was grateful for the change. He would most likely have retreated to his room and been quiet at himself otherwise.
It was still not even eleven o'clock when Ben did retreat to his room, giving Dave a friendly hug as they parted ways at the lift doors. The corridor was deserted at this time of night, nobody running back and forth as Nick had claimed after their first night here. One of the ceiling lights had died, casting a spot of shade on to the utilitarian rust-brown carpet.
About level with it, a door stood slightly ajar.
Ben frowned and stopped. The door opened a little further.
A large broken nose. A pair of very blue eyes. Hair that wasn't soaked for a change. A mouth that smiled, and a kiss that swept Ben off his feet and into Jinane's room.
They did get a little conversation done that night, and a little more in the nights after that. Ben learned to pronounce Jinane's first name, and Jinane put his fingers on Ben's throat to feel the vibration in the right place. Ben teased Jinane until the big man brought his full strength to bear on him, and Jinane learnt the many reasons why Ben was known as Goldenarse.
They both learned how many Spanish pesetas bought a decent condom, and what the hell the things were called in Spanish.
Ben finally got around to asking where Jinane had learned his English, and Jinane told him of a grandfather who had been a doctor and a very learned man who had been forced to retire on no pay after the Revolution and confined to a house that turned into a library with every passing year. As the son of a political enemy, Jinane's father had been denied access to the universities, as had the boy Quion Nicolae himself. But they'd put him into the youth cadre of the heavy athletics team, for the greater glory of the Soviet Union now that he was promising to be tall and strong enough to contribute to that glory.
His grandfather had put him into his library, a room with high walls and faded yellow wallpaper, and regaled him with stories of his travelling days, in Romanian and sometimes in English. Jinane had continued to learn from books, from his grandfather's Jane Austens and Mark Twains, long after their owner had faded away.
I was the Soviet Union's only reading boxer, he had said with a slight snort of self-depreciation, and Ben had grinned and stroked the broad nose.
The wine had survived intact until the sixth night, until both men had simultaneously remembered it had been sitting there unopened for days, completely forgotten in the extended conversations that were their nights, conversations of words and mouths and hands and skin.
Ben had missed breakfast several times.
Now, as he sipped the wine, gazing longingly at Jinane draped on his bed, naked except for a strategically placed end of a sheet that made him look a little like a Greek god, Ben realised that missing breakfast was nothing compared to what he would miss the day they would leave the Olympic village for the last time.
And how badly he would miss it.
Martin Wintershall knew. He had taken the opportunity to corner Ben in the loo at the airport. Well, not corner him really, but Ben would have felt unable to avoid him any further that day anyway. And he had told him, in about a dozen words, and Wintershall had nodded, silent agreement not to tell the team, especially not Nick, especially not Cedric Kennedy.
He'd fought the impulse to hug Ben, always the short and slender one, always looking like a little boy among the rest of the team, and looking more like one than ever that day.
Ben had shrugged and washed his hands, ageing by years in the minute it took him to splash a little water on his face.
A sadder and a wiser man, Wintershall thought as they boarded the plane for London.
He never told Ben that he had had admired Nicolae Jinane years ago. Across the Iron Curtain. He knew exactly how it felt, and yet he did not envy Ben the pleasure of having got to know this man.
He wished him well.
It was a coxless British four that was currently fidgeting on their seats behind the array of microphones and spotlights, cameras trained on their nervously grinning faces, medals around their necks, waiting to tell the nation how proud they were and how happy, and that they would continue on as a team - only they were still waiting. On account of their coxswain being late.
"Sorry!" A short figure in a grey suit came jogging through the door, all but leaping onto the empty chair, adjusting his silver medal as if it were a tie, glancing apologetically at the team. "Had to make a few phone calls, and... well, got put on hold a few times too many."
"I knew it!" Andy crowed. "You _were_ hiding a girlfriend under your bed. Taken a few lessons from the Romanians next door, have you?"
The others laughed, a good-natured laughter. Even Nick smirked, though that was probably because he knew that girlfriends and Romanians weren't nearly as involved in Ben's story as mature men and Moldovans. Though he still refused to call them by their proper name.
"Yeah yeah, I've been taking notes," Ben quipped, stuffing a folded piece of paper into the breast pocket of his shirt. "Though I don't think you need any lessons in that particular field, Mr Hall."
Wintershall cleared his throat, and the laughter and good-natured taunts at the table died down. Cameras were cued up, the BBC cleared its collective throat too, and they were off.
Ben was off as soon as the last photo had been shot, striding out of the press conference, stripping out of his jacket, ruffling his carefully brushed hair and taking the silver medal off and stuffing it into his pocket.
He had more important business than being an Olympic silver medallist. He had another phone call to make, and he had a secretary in mind whom he might just charm into letting him use her landline phone for an international call.
"Um, bonjour. Ah... c'est la, um... l'Ambassade de Moldova? Bruxelles? Oui? Um, parlez-vous Anglais? Merci..."
Synthesised Moldovan hold music was deeply disturbing, Ben thought.
"- uh, yes, hello, my name is Kennedy, calling from London. Just one quick question really... how long does it take to get a tourist visa for your beautiful country?"
Silence, a lengthy explanation in thickly accented English. Then, a broad smile spread across Ben's features.
"It's all right. I have been invited. Yes, I am being expected. Um... as long as legally possible?"
More diplomatic vociferation. More grinning.
"Thank you. I'm packing as we speak. You've just made me very happy indeed, madam. Would you like an Olympic silver medal for your efforts? No? Oh well. You deserve one. I'm just saying."
Leaving a very confused secretary and a slightly inflated phone bill behind, Ben Kennedy set out to discover new territory.
--- The End ---