It was when I threw a match in the third round of the U.S. Open that I fully realized I was obsessed by him. I wasn't afraid of going up against the young Miguel Herrera—the heartthrob of the tennis world groupies they had nicknamed the Argentine Firecracker. I had beaten him all three times we had met on the pro circuit the last two years. It was because I knew I was aging out of the circuit just as he was coming into his own here that I had thrown that match. We were both winning and might meet in the fourth round, and I couldn't have that. I couldn't be sure I'd win this time.
He was gorgeous and I could tell that he was becoming available. Until now, he had been sequestered by his coaches—his parents—since he was a child. They'd brought him to the states, to Bolettieri in Florida, at a very young age, and had always been there, watching him like eagles, homeschooling him, keeping him away from everyone not inside his tight circle, focusing him completely on developing his tennis and his lovely body. Even between matches, in the locker rooms, his body may have been on display and he certainly had the opportunity to see mine—I made sure that was so—but even then his father was at his side, protecting him from everyone buzzing around the wonder child.
Miguel had been headstrong. He had rebelled and acted out on the tennis court, and he had filed emancipation papers a year earlier, but all that had done was to make judges side with his parents long enough that when he finally got free of them, he had only exchanged their watchfulness for that of a court-appointed guardian. But he had finally gotten free of that as well, today, on his eighteenth birthday.
I knew he, the hard- tanned-bodied Latin honey with the sultry looks and the shock of black curly hair dipping down into his eyes, was interested in men. I could see it in his eyes in the locker room and I could see it in his face and his body movements when he faced me and others on the tennis court. But he hadn't had the opportunity. And obstinate rebel that he was, I knew that the smothering he had received contributed to his willingness to be bold and wild. My worry was that all of the other men I knew who might be interested, were, indeed, interested in Miguel. It was just a matter of who could get to him first.
I had to have him, and I had to master him before I ever lost a match to him. I had to have him not only on the tennis court, but in bed as well. I had to fuck him and—most important—I had to be the first one who fucked him. I had to mark my territory on the new generation of tennis stars before my own star faded away.
I made my move when he stopped by in the players' lounge to commiserate with me on my third round match loss. Ironically, he had lost too. But there was no time for regrets on having thrown my match unnecessarily. I quickly suggested that we play a match of our own on his hotel court the next day—the day he turned eighteen—and he accepted. I was worried enough that he would lose his virginity before I could get to him that I asked whether he wanted to go out that evening, but he flashed me a look of regret, tinged with a sultry come-hither look, pointed to the middle-aged child protection official plastered to his side, and said that, regrettably, he was still under wraps until the morning.
"We will just have to wait for tomorrow," he said. And he left me wondering whether that thought excited him half as much as it did me.
I met him in the lobby of the hotel, both of us dressed for tennis, bright and early the next morning. He turned toward the corridor out to the courts, but I touched him at the waist to get his attention, and said I had a better idea. That I had a limo waiting out front and thought we could go for a ride to some courts up the Hudson River near Hyde Park.
"You want me to take a ride with you?" he asked, a little confused.
I increased the pressure of my hand at his waist.
"More explicitly, I want to ride you." I said, volleying right for the point. "I've seen the way you've been eyeing me, and unless I'm mistaken, you are willing. I want to be the first one to ride you. Would I be?"