- Individual Time Trial. 54.5 kilometres
‘Rachel – help.’
Vasily Jawlensky entered the Zucca camper van.
‘Oh dear,’ his soigneur said from behind an architecturally intriguing tower of energy bars. ‘Och Jesus – look at you!’
She looked at him. Vasily Jawlensky, her team’s key rider on whose shoulders the hope of the yellow jersey was today firmly placed. And yet, unlike the brooding Fabian Ducasse, currently barking and snarling at everyone, Vasily’s comportment was no different than if he was merely going out on a training ride. His tall body, on to which lycra had seemingly been sprayed, dominated the interior of the camper van. He regarded his soigneur steadily and shrugged at her almost apologetically. Rachel saw that his skinsuit was split from underarm to hip and was aware that his Time Trial start time was in half an hour. She helped peel her rider from the lycra and assisted him in slithering his way in to a pristine suit.
‘I go back to the blocks now,’ he said graciously, focusing so intently on her neck that Rachel found herself cupping her hand against it. ‘With thanks to you, Rachel.’
‘That’s good,’ his soigneur replied. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Tight,’ Vasily replied, ‘tense – you know?’
‘I can imagine,’ Rachel said. She stood in the doorway of the van and watched Vasily place himself on his stationary bike. He clipped his feet in and started to pedal, soon leaning down to take the handlebars. Rachel winced. The skinsuit had torn again, this time around the shoulders.
Fucking supplier – I’ll kill them.
Vasily calmly dismounted, feeling the ripped material, his skin. He looked at his soigneur.
‘You have another, Rachel?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ Rachel replied, closing the door on the fans craving every last glimpse, any glimpse, of the great Russian. Again, the two of them freed Vasily’s body from its colourful sheath and he stood naked and contemplative whilst Rachel delved around a bag for another.
‘Have you grown?’ she asked Vasily, eyeing him objectively, or as objectively as such a particularly fine specimen of masculinity could be viewed by a young woman.
‘No,’ Vasily said, ‘I am as I always am. No change.’
‘Bloody suppliers,’ Rachel elaborated with a thunderous frown.
‘Yes, bloody them,’ said Vasily ingenuously, liking the semantic taste of the word but intending no insult. Rachel puffed clouds of talcum powder over Vasily’s torso and patted his skin lightly. And then, momentarily, she wavered. She stroked him gently down his chest. Smoothing the talc. No, stroking his body. She turned him around. Again, she wavered. She looked at his back – no, gazed at his back – before applying more powder. Stroking gives better coverage than patting. Yeah, right, Rachel. She took the new lycra, assessing the material with much concentration, trying to pay no attention to the downy blond hairs furled about his forearms. She’d never noticed them before; she certainly wasn’t going to start noticing them now.
How can I not have noticed them before? How many times must I have massaged this rider?
Was Vasily staring at her? She didn’t think so. How could he be, with his Time Trial looming? His eyes might be focused on her, but she acknowledged that his mind was already engrossed in the Computaparc course. She’d obviously quite lost hers. She helped Vasily dress again, checked the seams of the new skinsuit and asked him to bend, to stretch.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’ll last you the 54 and a half k and the short trip to the podium this evening.’ She winked at him supportively, wished him good luck and told him to go and finish his tuning up.
‘Thank you, Rachel,’ Vasily replied, continuing to stare at her so intently that she wiped her hand across her chin to remove whatever it was that had so caught his attention.
‘Go!’ Rachel said, glancing at her watch and wanting Vasily to be warming up five minutes ago.
‘Yes,’ said the rider. And then Vasily Jawlensky kissed Rachel McEwen. Quite quickly but very intensely. Too swiftly for her to have pulled away; too adeptly for her to have wanted to. He encircled her waist, lowered his head and took his lips to hers, slipping his tongue into her mouth immediately on contact. She’d never had a kiss like it. His eyes were open and so were hers. Their tongues danced slowly. It lasted seconds yet it was luxurious and measured rather than urgent. Then Vasily went directly to his bike and continued to warm up in earnest. Rachel closed the campervan door and sat down heavily on the bench. She placed her head in her hands and took deep breaths. She could smell talcum powder. She inhaled deeply.
Then she wiped her hands urgently on her jeans.
What the fuck just happened?
There had been no warning, no prior hints, no clues at all in all the time she’d known Vasily. Not from him. She knew so little about the person behind the champion cyclist. Not within herself; she’d rarely thought about the personality behind the body which raced bicycles.
Have I ever fancied Vasily? Have I ever thought he’s fancied me? Hand on my heart, no. I’m his soigneur. He’s my charge.
What just happened?
I have absolutely no idea.
How can that be?
I don’t know. I hardly know Vasily. Few people do. He’s such a closed book – one so many are desperate to read. Not me. I know his joints and muscles off by heart but I’ve never really stopped to contemplate the man they belong to.
Why did you stroke and not pat?
I don’t know. But I don’t think it was me, if you see – I don’t think he meant to kiss Rachel. Maybe it was an instantaneous reaction to me stroking, not patting – a chemical, hormonal, non-cerebral, male response. Shit, maybe it was the talcum powder itself. Maybe there’s a substance in it that’s banned. But it wasn’t me. It can’t have been. I’m just his soigneur. How can he know me as Rachel? He does not know Rachel at all.
You should get moving. You have a million and one duties to attend to.
I need to sit a while.
‘I know what I need,’ Rachel said, standing, glancing around the interior of the van, ‘I need a girlfriend – I need the insight of a woman. I need female company, complicity – a confidante.’
Contre la montre.
What a lovely phrase. It was Cat’s chant that morning as she gathered together her wits and her work effects. She was running late, having not been able to leave her bed for all the reliving of the night before and the projected ponderings for the day ahead. Sex? Perhaps. More than likely. Hurry up! Contre la montre. Against the clock. Morning, Josh. Morning, Alex. Hurry up, Cat. Sorry. Sorry. Allons!
‘You’re perky,’ Josh remarked, pleased that she was.
‘I
