WHAT IT'S LIKE TO FEEL OLYMPIC.

A nervous socially inept boy and a lovely girl, and a promise...

The day I first met Olympic Smith I lost my heart. I became totally besotted. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, let alone met, and we were alone in the same room as each other, preparing for our National challenge races.

Back in those days I was a national champion at the breast stroke. I'd been encouraged since I could face water without screaming, my parents had been the sort who would have liked to have been champion at something but weren't, and they chose to do second best and have a child who was champion at something.

And they thought, before I was a toddler even, that I looked like a swimmer, so everything they did from that moment onwards was with the single objective: to make me into that champion.

And it worked:

I was in a national finals, a hundred yards breast stroke, and I knew that I'd win it.

I was seventeen back then, so it was a long time ago. Why, the Beatles hadn't even been heard of outside Hamburg!

It might have been the National Finals, but I had to share changing facilities, and whoever had checked the lists had decided that if someone had been given the name Olympic it must be a boy, so Olympic and I were given the same changing room.

Let me make something clear.

I was seventeen, yes, but I was almost totally inexperienced when it came to any kind of society. I could swim, faster and better than anyone else of my age or older, but I didn't have a clue about girls. I knew they existed, wondered at the bumps on their chests and pondered about how tight their swimming costumes were around the crotch, but I was one hundred percent ignorant. I doubt I'd ever spoken to one, not at home (most certainly, dad kept me as far from any girls as he could, he said it would be a distraction if I so much as looked one in the eye.) I went to a boys only school �" there were quite a lot around back then �" and although other boys talked endlessly about the girls they had done this or that with or to, I remained ignorant and innocent. I couldn't even make tales up, the sort the other boys did about carnal conquests, because even a lie needs some kind of basis or it soon reveals itself to be as hollow as it is.

And here I was in the small changing room, and the door opened, and Olympic Smith walked in.

To say she was beautiful would be to make an under-statement. She was ravishing. She had long blond hair, blue eyes, a flawless complexion and legs that seemed to go on for ever.

“Why, hello,” she said in the most perfect voice imaginable.

“This...” I was going to say that this was a boy's changing room, but the words somehow stuck in my throat.

“It's funny,” she said, grinning, “they look at my name and automatically assume I'm a boy. My name's Olympic Smith. My folks want me to be a world record holder and win a gold medal at the Games.”

“I guess mine want me to do the same,” I said, finally finding words.

“I won't be, of course,” she grinned. “I can't imagine anything more boring than being a champion when I'm seventeen and having to face the rest of my life as a has-been.”

“How come?” I asked.

“Well, you get all the praise, all the medals, all the glory, everything before your eighteenth birthday �" and then what? Swimmers don't go on for ever, do they?”

As she said that she started undressing.

“It's okay, I've got my swimming stuff on under this dress,” she grinned when she saw my face.

“I … I....” I stammered. I wanted to say it was a pretty dress, that it really suited her, that if I were a girl I'd wear a dress like that �" silly stuff that innocent boys like I was might be expected to say. But even silly stuff got stuck somewhere between my brain and my mouth.

“Let's look at you in your trunks, then?” she teased. I could tell she was more forward than I'd ever been. And I also knew I'd have to strip down to my trunks because they'd be calling me any moment.

So I did. I couldn't help it. There's no control a boy has over the way his … thingy … misbehaves, but it was misbehaving right then. I was thoroughly ashamed, I can tell you. I turned, so my back was to Olympic.

“I noticed something...” she whispered, and she held me by one shoulder and pulled me round to face her. I struggled, but only half-heartedly.

“What a boy,” she whispered, “what a big, big boy!”

There was a knock at the door. “Jonas!” came a voice, “Poolside now, please.”

I made towards the door.

“You' best hide that!” giggled Olympic. “I tell you what, big boy, if you win like I bet you do I'll give you a treat!

“You can be feeling Olympic afterwards, when we're alone, when nobody's anywhere hear!”

I won the race. I won it with a yard to spare.

And that evening, I don't know how she managed to find a lonely space, a life of ignorance was swept away and I was feeling Olympic.

But that was all years and years ago. And now, right now, in my dark years, I'm on my way back from the crematorium. You see, she passed away, did Olympic, though I had many, many loving years with her, feeling Olympic down the decades, until she died last week.

And now she's gone like a puff of smoke, leaving me feeling Olympic in my weeping mind.

Reviews

[Penlady]

Your write has evoked a multitude of feelings....such good writing...thank you!