Gold Rush
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Gold Rush
A Stand-Alone Tale Set in the Hold or Fold Universe
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"We accept your bet, Roland Baxter."
I sat up in bed. My covers were drenched. The taste of something bitter yet sweet lingered in my mouth, like I'd somehow eaten overripe berries while sleeping. Was it wine? The sensation faded, along with the finer details of my dream.
I'd been somewhere fancy. A man shook my hand and congratulated me. He made me feel calm.
"You had a great win. Well done."
Looking at the golden weightlifting medal on my desk never got old, even a month later.
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"I, Roland Baxter, bet that I will win the county gold medal in weightlifting. If I lose, then I will do everything I can to help Melanie Potts win a gold medal in swimming."
Melanie rested her thick, hairless arms on the table and smirked at me. I cleared my throat and amended, "I mean...I still want you to win and I'll cheer you. I just wanna win too."
Brushing her permed, long dark-blond hair over her shoulders, Melanie stretched her wrists, set her eyes on me, and announced, " I, Melanie Potts, bet Roland Baxter that I will totally win my swimming medal and he will train with me or I will be his coach and spotter."
I nervously added in that I would train with her too, to match her bet. When we shook hands on it, our eyes turned bright purple.
Some districts disqualified you for making a bet on competitions, calling it an unfair advantage.
We both got purple contacts for that, to hide it in plain sight. Last year, I saw a guy who used a special eye dye for intimidation. The sport governing bodies in the state found no greater advantage from students betting on victory than holding a pep rally. It was all on us to win.
Melanie got close. She was placed in half a field of purple-eyed competitors. She got through to the semis.
My hands were all cut up from training on the day of the competition. They burned and ached. I screamed and dripped all over the arena, but I lifted more than anyone else that day.
I heard a runner-up mutter that it was like I was juicing but my eyes didn't wander from the medal. The purple faded after Melanie lost and glimmered again with victory.
Her consequence came the next day when she met me with a muscular, manly bear hug. I knew what had happened, but I felt relaxed. Marshall, as he called himself, spotted for me and pushed me hard the whole week. I missed Melanie's high laugh, lithe figure, and toned behind but there was something special about the week we had together.
We talked, did guy stuff, and thrashed everyone in pub trivia.
I had a brother for those days, on equal terms, and so did she. Going back was rough.
---------
A month later, with state on my mind, Melanie was pushing even harder for her season. I had to keep going...
"If I can win this medal, then I bet I can and will win ANY medal." My mantra. My focus. It echoed from my dream.
"Ready to make it official?"
In the dream, I gave him my hand and he firmly shook it.
"We accept your bet, Roland Baxter."
Everything in the dream seemed vague or wispy except for that bet. It felt as real as the bet I'd made with Melanie or sitting there in bed with my sweat finally drying.
A bet with myself? A bet with my subconscious? Or something else? A look in the mirror revealed my normal, light-brown eyes with hazy, tired rings.
Any medal. I could win any of them. Positive visualization. I was only getting started...
Mom had breakfast set out for me with scrambled eggs mixed with chicken on toast, oatmeal, and grapefruit juice. Dad showed off the frame for my victory article in the Frostwell Gazette.
I ate and gave dad a smile. Till he tracked down the article, I had no idea the paper was still being published. It made him happy though. Mom warned me about working too hard or pulling a muscle. I reminded her that weightlifting was all about tearing your muscles, so they grow back stronger.
Melanie met me on the way to class and showed off her new swimsuit under her jacket. "I wanna try out for the varsity relay team."
I assured her she could make the team easily.
At practice, I did more than my standard reps of lifts, jerks, and pulls. I wanted to set the edge of what I could do as the standard so I could push past it with explosive adrenaline in competition. I could win any medal, any time, any place.
Weighing in at the end, Coach Turner noted I was down a few pounds. Nothing to be worried about. I just needed bigger meals.
I treated myself to a sundae after class as Melanie looked on jealously.
She did well in her try-out. I felt bad that I couldn't be there to cheer her on, but I promised to try to make it to more stuff. She said she appreciated that, but she knew me. I enjoyed her hand resting on mine before we said goodbye for the day, but it didn't feel right.
We talked openly and coolly, like we did that week. We enjoyed these moments. We didn't need something extra. We didn't need distractions.
I walked her to her house. She hustled inside as I raised an eyebrow. She returned with a novel about a clan of mermaids. "Your shelf is kinda lonely. It can use a friend to go with that dictionary and Roman history book."
It was a historical narrative about Roman legionary soldiers building Hadrian's Wall, but I thanked her eagerly. It fit nicely beside class books and those two, but my mind wandered as I leafed through the first few pages.
Before bed, I reiterated my wish, my bet to myself. Any medal. I flexed and tensed before sending it off like a shooting star of will.
In the morning, I paused before my shelf. I had two mermaid books. They appeared to be in the same series. One could've fit inside the other. I accepted this solution as mom set out my breakfast. I asked for more eggs than usual to gain the weight back. Dad still showed off the article in its frame.
Melanie didn't say anything about the book, but she knew I was a slow reader. So, I was left with the silly, private theory of a cat burglar who put books in people's homes.
In English, the teacher picked me to read. It was the first time I could remember being asked.
At practice, I went through my whole routine, but I seized up right before I hit forty. I needed help. Frustrated and unable to continue, I snarled at the spinning, squeaking cycle and pushed long planks.
Coach Turner read my weight as even lower than yesterday by a few pounds. I kicked at the scale. I wasn't far from where I started the season! The hell!
Melanie gushed about her practice and I tried not to bring her down about mine. No sundaes today. In fact, we went to a place with "lean" stuff she could eat. We shared something super-healthy with a weird name.
On the walk back, I noticed Melanie automatically held my hand. She didn't lean on me affectionately or caress it. Instead, it was like she wanted to make sure I was safe. We didn't talk about it.
I found no new books at home, but my homework area had been cleaned. That was probably mom. I repeated the same mantra: Any medal.
My legs throbbed with little fires when I woke up. The rest of my body ached. I shouldn't have changed my training regimen. My hair was getting shaggy and a little swirly like Melanie's. I had to cut it soon. The nipples on my pecs felt a little weird against my nightshirt and they tingled in the shower. I used less soap.
I had to remind mom that I wanted more eggs. She gave me an odd look. Dad just read his paper. I didn't see the framed article, but he must have put it in his office.
Melanie greeted me with an unexpected, eager hug. I resisted prying, even when she held my hand again. Maybe it was the excitement of learning whether she would be on varsity today.
During art class, I found myself crossing my legs whenever I relaxed with my canvas. I added more flowers to the landscape but kept the mountain looming in the background.
At practice, I realized with horror that I needed to start at a lower weight because I couldn't even budge what I had easily lifted to start the week. Coach Turner frowned and informed me that my last record was forty below that.
Only staring a long time at the posting on the announcement board about my medal win convinced me that I had lifted that much less than I thought. No, it didn't convince me but everyone else believed it and madness wasn't worth such a small thing. I still had my medal.
I had to start low and burned through my best reps way before my goal. Something more than perspiration tickled at my lowered, covered eyes. Was this a punishment? Had I reached too far? Had I bet wrongly?
At weigh-in, I just stared blankly as Coach recited my weight, ten pounds less than yesterday. He noted, "That's a new high for you! Good job!" His chart was full of numbers I'd surpassed last year.
I threw up around back of the gym. It had to be our bet. Some fallout. Some consequence. But there were no new purple eyes. How could I be backsliding?
I made it to Melanie's practice as they were about to announce the new picks.
"Clara Lambert and Melanie Potts."
Apparently, the other girl wasn't there. Everyone congratulated Melanie but she saved her biggest hug for me. We celebrated by stopping off at the local bookstore. Instead of lingering by the magazines and non-fiction, I wandered over to teen fiction with Melanie. Just to browse...
"Oh shit! We gotta get going."
Melanie's words roused me from my reading. We'd both been lost for over an hour. I decided to buy mine and take it with me.
By now, I was used to holding her hand on the way home. Our hands felt strangely slick together, even without sweat.
At home, I noticed a purple tube of lavender-scented skin lotion in my bag. I made a note to return it to Melanie in the morning but also used a little on my hands without thinking about it. The running water over my sore chest felt good. I used a brush on my wet, curl-infested hair.
After homework, I returned to the book I bought. I had to know what happened next. Would Sheila and Mark get together now that he knew her secret? My heart throbbed a little as I read. Eventually, I had to sleep but I kept the book beside me.
When I woke up, I brushed the hair out of my eyes and reached for my glasses. I stopped myself. Why did I have glasses and why was everything blurry? I had memories of when I first bought them and when I got my newest pair.
Dark-brown locks warmed my shoulders as I sat up. My chest gave a sharp but small jiggle. I dashed to the bathroom.
Smaller. I was a few inches smaller. My pecs were still there but the areas around my nipples were stretched out and bulged slightly. Deep breath. It was okay.
After my week with Marshall, it was only fair that things snap back on me a little. There were boys in classes who sometimes spent a bet week as girls. They were always made fun of. At least we'd worked something out with Mel to keep her free from teasing. Oh well, I'd be a weightlifter again next week.
Mom called that breakfast was ready. I called back that I would be there soon. Looking back at the mirror...I wasn't certain why I'd been standing there. I showered with a nice lather and dressed with a band to keep my hair out of my face.
I peeked through my glasses at a few more pages from my new book and scooted some others over to make enough room for it.
I got the usual from mom for breakfast while dad read the swimming news in the paper. I gave them both a quick peck on the cheek before heading off.
Melanie gave a vigorous wave and we rushed to share a friendly hug. We held each other's hand as we walked, and she thanked me for "everything". Her words washed over me.
In English, I performed Juliet's part and the teacher complimented my work.
At practice, I used the leg weights, spent most of the time on the cycle, and did a lot of stretches. Something felt off but my weight was down to where it should've been when coach checked me.
My clothes felt weird walking out of the gym. My jeans should've been snugger and my shirt clingier to my chest. Well, I was losing weight.
As I checked out Melanie's practice, I heard the name "Clara!" and automatically hustled over. When I got there, it turned out this "Clara" had been absent since the day she was announced for varsity. Melanie looked at me.
After practice, we each talked about the books. I gushed with my theories about Sheila and Mark as Melanie brushed my long, flowing hair. I wanted to doodle Mark's face and add it to my art class landscape even though I knew I wasn't supposed to. I just couldn't stop thinking about him. He was so cool!
Melanie wanted to do a book club get together this weekend to make food, watch the Australian adaptation of the series, and do lots of other fun stuff. I was totally game! We just had to get through tomorrow.
Back home, I retweeted a bunch of stuff to Melanie featuring the guy who played Mark as I did my homework. With my pink fish pajamas on, I paged through one more chapter of the book before I finally zonked out.
Next morning, Friday morning. I got up early for a long shower to rinse the ache out of my wide hips, slender wrists, and firm shoulders. I cleaned gently around and underneath my still-sensitive chest. At least I didn't need to shave anywhere.
I waffled between my flowing, banded skirt and trim, high-cut jeans. I wound up wearing the former while stuffing the latter in my bag, if it got cold.
My loosest D-cup bra was getting tight. Drat! I thought I was getting smaller with all my training. I'd have to go shopping with Mel soon.
Dad kissed me on the forehead. "Congrats on varsity!" Oh, dad, you'd only said it every single day this week, even before I got in. I worried he was gonna have it printed in a paper and framed or something silly like that. He should save that for when we medaled in the upcoming regional competition. I could win any medal and I would show that soon!
Mel had on a cute pair of boots today. I stretched up to hug her.
On the way to class, I thought I caught a younger guy in a baseball cap fan his hand at my skirt to flap it up. But when I turned around there was just a leggy but bewildered-looking girl with long hair staring at her hands. I frowned and figured she was just one of the stoners who hung out by the entrance.
In art class, the teacher complimented my shadows as I lavished way too much attention on the banana in a fruit bowl still-life.
At practice, I warmed up with a few backstroke lengths of the pool, right beside Mel. Her swimsuit from the tryout was so cute. I had the same flat-blue one with a rippled area at my chest, lean shoulder straps, and nothing over my legs. I had no idea if fuller coverage made me faster or stiffer but this one was lucky.
When practice got down to it, I touched my personal-best several times following Mel as the anchor leg of the relay. We had the speed. The medal was in sight.
"You're so fast, Clara!" Mel told me that about ten times before practice was over. I didn't want to gloat about it, but I felt good. However, hearing it did put a little extra surge in my kicks.
Mel had been there for me for as long as I could remember, since before my mom got remarried. I wasn't sure if I wanted to take the Lambert name and no one else knew what it was like to go through a crazy divorce where everyone says it's normal but really everything you thought you knew has been turned upside down. Knowing her meant the world to me.
She held my hand as we walked home from practice. Mel always did that when we were little. It relaxed me. She was there. I wasn't alone. I was safe.
We made food at her place. Some of it was healthy. Most of it wasn't. We watched the show and giggled together. It was campier than I expected but Mark had his shirt off all the time, so I didn't really care.
Mel made me up afterwards. I put on my best Sheila look and pretended Mark was just around the corner, ready to get my mermaid flippers all wet...as we swam together.
But only Mel's mom showed up. She dragged a half-finished bottle of tequila in a bag behind her. She was still lucid enough not to offer us any. Mel put her to bed and cleaned up.
We quietly chatted the rest of the night before snuggling up together in Mel's bed.
The weekend went fast, as it always did, but we got in some shopping, a little bit of homework, and plenty of silliness.
During the week, I was all serious in the days leading up to the competition. Every medal. I had to win another, although I wasn't sure which I'd won already.
Mom carpooled everyone to the competition. I took the book with me, despite having long since finished it. Mark and Sheila wound up together. but it wasn't quite how I wanted the story to end. It wasn't classic Little Mermaid at least but I cried harder than I expected. Why couldn't there just be a happy ending?
A wave hit me as I felt it shifting in my bag, but Mel's hand kept me focused on the prize. We had a few purple opponents but nowhere as many as Mel talked about at her last competition.
When it was my turn, the girl beside me was slightly ahead. I pushed past her with aching strokes and breaths in sync with my heart. Further ahead. Further. I could do it!
I could feel her creeping up but I easily out-touched her by a few seconds. I squealed and hugged everyone. I slapped the water and celebrated with Mel! We did it! Our medal! Every medal!
Settling down in the shower room, I relaxed under the stream. The water covered me like muffled thunder shifting to far-off applause.
"Congratulations, Roland. You win again."
I whirled around in the shower, my wet hair flapping in my face. No one was there. It was...why was I showering and why did I feel so soft?
Trembling, I flailed for the squeaky knob and turned it off with a slender, shaky hand. Breasts. A mind-numbing pair breasts with cold, pointy nipples showed through this swimsuit. Pulling it down exposed the dark-red, ringed accent of my chest pointing way the hell out there. They felt like they were a mile away and they didn't like being exposed. Pulling it up pressed the soft skin of my groin and spread me slightly.
I remembered what happened. though I wanted to call each day a dream. My 'father' was gone. He had been gone since I was little. I brushed back my full, densely-soaked hair.
No bet should've changed this much for this long. Bets were a week and that was it. No exceptions. How was this possible? Every bet was finite!
Looking in the mirror, I was so small, shorter than Melanie but with more muscles in my shoulders. They were nothing like the muscles I'd had before. My face was softer and smoother than I could ever imagine it. It was warped, twisted. Why had this happened?
Melanie greeted me warmly, as a fellow girl, as the girl she thought she knew so well.
"What's wrong, Clara?"
I tingled and panted. Did the name Roland mean anything to her?
"You mean the name your mom and her first husband had if you were a boy?"
Right. I preferred to call him that. Or the "sperm donor". How had he gone from loving to a piece of shit? They had a fight the night Roland would've been conceived. I was a make-up baby who only made things worse.
I tried to tell her who I was, who I was supposed to be, but she shook her head.
Melanie tightened. "This is a bad joke, especially for a wonderful day like this. We've been float buddies since the Worm. We've been blood sisters since elementary. I'm sorry you never got to have a brother but I want today to be about us, not the past...please."
I relented, for her. It was a sentimental thing. Old shit from the divorce. Sorry for dropping it on you. Love you, Melanie. Always.
She frowned that I didn't call her Mel but accepted my explanation.
The golden medals were so bright around our necks. We had won. I had gotten another. What now?
"Any medal, Roland. Every medal. You have so many left to win."
The world rushed both away and towards me...
I was a petite gymnast running for my second vault at state. Another medal.
I was a farm girl with a proud and lovely rooster at the fair. Another win, another golden medal.
I cleverly taught math to over a hundred students. A teacher of the year medal.
I hugged my children as I received a lovely little medal as best mom.
Medal after medal. More and more. One life after another, swimming across an ocean of them and lifting the weight of lives I could never imagine.
The medals became meaningless. Some were small, silly, and crude. Some I don't want to talk about but I won them all. Time consumed me. All I had was winning. I couldn't stop.
"Quite a gold rush. Go for as many as you want."
I thought I saw Melanie a few times and my original mother once but all that mattered was the medals.
In the back of my head, I knew that if I lost, if I didn't try for the top, then it would be over. I would be released from all this. But to where and when?
I wanted to stop but I couldn't.
"We accept your bet, Roland Baxter."
I had to win the bet. I had to win it all!
6
Oh wow, this is terrifying xD
Maybe the betmasters don't /always/ have everyone's best interests in mind after all...