Doug watched as the young girl spun around on the uneven bars, concentration scrawled on her face, muscles straining with the effort of keeping to her routine. She paused at the top of her circuit, spread her legs into splits and then spun down again, releasing her hold on the bar. She flew across to the lower bar and caught it, spinning again. Seemingly only seconds later she was somersaulting through the air before landing on her feet. Her knees remained bent as she confirmed her balance and then she thrust her arms skyward, grinning at her success.
Doug didn't really notice the smile. His eyes were drawn to the way in which her leotard clung to her tiny frame as she reached to the sky. The material seemed to be almost like liquid skin, shiny, tight and leaving very little to his over active imagination. He did applaud though, joining in the rest of the arena's appreciation of her work.
As he turned his attention to the balance beam he smiled, thinking that there were upsides to having a daughter in competitive gymnastics. Initially it had only been his wife that had gone along. When Audra was younger he'd simply had no interest. After the divorce though, he'd been forced to attend. He hadn't enjoyed it.
Then Audra had hit college. Suddenly he realised that there was something to this gymnastics thing after all! The long hours sitting at competitions, training, driving all over the country, injuries and tears all became worthwhile when Audra won. When she wasn't winning, he consoled himself with the fact that those hours were now made bearable by the continuous sight of attractive, athletic girls contorting their bodies into positions that often left him wincing in imagined pain and imagining things he shouldn't. With his wife having left the scene and abandoned them both to live overseas, he spent more time there than most fathers. He was a lot less reluctant these days.
Audra looked over to where the girl had just finished on the uneven bars. Unfortunately it had been almost faultless. Audra knew it meant she couldn't afford a single misstep on the beam. If she was to win, she had to nail this performance. She didn't wait to see the score come up, not wanting the additional pressure of knowing exactly how good she would have to perform.
She slapped her competition smile on, raised her right arm to signal her intent to start and turned to face the beam, the smile quickly replaced with a look of intense concentration.
Doug watched as Audra dashed quickly toward the beam, muscular legs pumping and her short blonde ponytail bobbing along behind her. She hit the springboard, flipped and landed on the narrow wooden apparatus with an audible thud. Doug exhaled quickly after the successful landing. He quickly gasped a breath as she began the rest of the routine. He was unlikely to take another until she finished. He found his fingers crossed and almost every fibre of his being tense as he watched her progression through each element.
Doug gasped along with the rest of the crowd as Audra's foot slipped in a landing. Her arms windmilled and she quickly thrust her leg out lateral to the beam, desperate to avoid the penalties of a complete fall. He sighed as she managed it, but knew he was in for a rough ride home. There was no way she would win after that fault and that meant she'd be sulky for days. His relief when she finished the last elements would only be short lived.
The fear of her mood was replaced with concern. After indicating that she'd completed her routine to the judges, her stalking departure from the competition floor was marred by a slight limp.
"Well I fucked that up!" Audra declared when she met her father after the competition. She'd been so pissed off when she'd finished that she hadn't even bothered showering. She'd thrown her leotard in her bag, ripped off the skin coloured thong she had to wear under it and just dragged her leggings on without bothering with underwear.
"Here, let me take your bag," Doug offered, knowing from long experience that there was virtually nothing that he could say to improve the situation. Even the fact that she'd managed to hang on to second place wasn't worth mentioning. That would simply be salt in the wound.
"Thanks," Audra muttered, climbing into the front seat of the SUV.
The ride home was quiet. Audra didn't want to talk and Doug didn't want to set her off. He couldn't go all the way without asking her how she was though.
"I couldn't help but notice that you limped off today, are you ok?" he asked her.
Audra sighed. It was a double-edged sword that her father was a physiotherapist. On the positive side she received a lot of free treatment that other girls would have to pay for, but on the down side, her father always seemed to spot when she'd picked up a minor injury. For a gymnast, injury was a part of life. Audra couldn't remember the last time that she'd gone into a competition without some part of her body strapped in some way. She knew girls that had pain killing injections before competing and girls that took risks when medical advice had told them not to compete, but for her, she couldn't get away with it. Her father always told her that her career would be longer and more successful if she followed his advice. She knew it was true too. But that didn't mean that she didn't sometimes just want to get out there and beat everyone regardless of the injury she was carrying.
"I'm fine," she told him, staring intently forward.
"We'll check it out when we get home," Doug offered.
"Fine," she said flatly, knowing from the same long experience that her father had that it was something he wouldn't let go. He was like a dog with a bone when it came to her injuries.
~~~~~~~
"Ok, so where does it hurt?" Doug asked Audra later that night.
"Right here," she said, indicating her right groin, close to her crotch.
"Ok," Doug said a little nervously, "Why don't you lie down for me and we'll see how bad it is."
Audra sighed, climbing onto the massage table that her father kept in the spare room.
"Um, you'll have to take those off," her father told her, indicating the leggings she was wearing.
"Crap, let me quickly change then," Audra said, blushing.
"Ok," Doug replied.
As Audra disappeared from the room, Doug was left to ponder, his thoughts going in directions they shouldn't.
"What had she been wearing that she wasn't prepared for him to see?" He wondered, "Was it a case of simply being something skimpy or was she going commando?"
Audra's return startled him from his reverie. She walked in and climbed onto the table, moving a little gingerly as she raised her small frame from the floor. Doug watched closely, trying to keep his gaze professional, despite the pink cotton bikini panties clinging to her tight little 18 year old gymnast's bum. Audra rolled onto her back, looking up at her father, hands resting on her stomach.
