Bowling a Maiden Over

In retrospect, she did try very hard to convince herself of this rationalisation.

Even still, when she trained and it was Ellie bowling to her as opposed to another bowler from her team, her heart still thudded slightly faster and her throat went dry. A million unwelcome thoughts swirled in her head. All at the sight of an older woman sprinting in with a ball.

"Thank God she plays for my team. If she was an actual opponent, I might be tempted to get out just to make her happy."

* *

"I must say you sounded quite different with the media today. Almost like a seasoned pro."

"Thanks, I took your advice and only answered when I knew I could not possibly go wrong."

Ellie was driving her open roof car. The bright morning sun shone off her aviator sunglasses. Chantal sat in the plush passenger seat, her eyes similarly shielded and her neatly combed hair being undone by the wind.

"Hope you got your sunscreen. Otherwise this little trip is going to do a real number on your skin."

It was a couple of days off from training. Chantal knew no one in Perth apart from her coaching staff. It almost seemed too good to be true when Ellie offered to take her to her cabin by the sea. The winding road snuck out of the city. Chantal turned around to see the buildings gradually recede into the distance. Her scenery was replaced by rugged land interspersed by clusters of smaller houses. She actually gasped when Ellie brought the car to a stop at a junction.

Not a hundred meters from where the car stopped, the Indian Ocean began. Bright blue as turquoise and glittering like an infestation of sparklers, the ocean gently lapped at the shore. The horizon was dotted by the odd catamaran or yacht.

Thousands of miles away and yet, just like home. Chantal breathed in the salty ocean air. The ocean held a special place in her heart. The best parts of her childhood were spent running on beaches in Goa with her family.

"Enough daydreaming. We have a cabin to get to."

Ellie kept driving north. After some time, they were passed by a small bus of obviously stoned boys and girls, with a roughly one to one person to surfboard ratio crammed into a single vehicle. They hollered and made kissing noises as they grew closer. Chantal turned to look out of curiosity and was treated to one of the girls lifting her top to reveal a glimpse of firm breasts. Before the fact could quite register in her sheltered brain, the bus had sped past them.

"Did that just happen?" she asked, somewhat dazed at the unexpected sight of nipples.

"Oh yeah. It's a bit late for the Schoolies. Aussie version of Spring Break. Things get a little crazy. Maybe this group decided to make their own holiday."

Chantal opened and closed her mouth, but no words quite came out to sum up that sight. Ellie drove on, unperturbed. The sun beat down on them mercilessly as they hugged the coastline past Burns Beach. She took a detour off the main road and stopped.

"What do you think?"

It was impressive, like an affluent suburban house had been transplanted to the middle of nowhere. There was no yard to speak of. The rear entrance opened to a pristine white beach.

"Is this yours?"

"It was my parents'. Whenever we had even a few days to ourselves, we'd come here. Vacations, special occasions... even long weekends if we could."

Ellie unlocked the door and carried their bags inside. The large living room was tastefully decorated. It extended into a dining area and utility kitchen. A staircase led upwards towards two bedrooms.

Chantal sat down on the plastic wrapped couch and saw the electric fireplace and the thick rug laid out in front of it. For the smallest moment, a mental image of them holding each other naked on the rug in front of a crackling fire popped into her head. It came with no warning and left without fanfare.

"Bad news. I don't see anything in the fridge worth trying out," said Ellie, snapping Chantal back to reality. "If you're brave enough, we can try fishing... or we can make the short drive to Sunset Village that way and get something to eat."

"Is there an Indian spice shop in Sunset Village?"

"I think so," said Ellie. "What do you have in mind?"

"Well, since you were so kind to bring me all the way out here, it's only fair I give you something in return. If we find the right ingredients and raw seafood, I can rustle up something my Mom taught me."

"I'd love to find out," said Ellie.

A short trip later, Chantal had what she needed from the local farmer's market. Her skills were rudimentary, albeit functional. She turned on the cooking range and set her pan.

"Did you tell anyone where you are today?" Ellie asked, looking for crockery.

"Only Sumi. The rest think I'm enjoying a day off in Fremantle on my own. The last thing I need is someone tattling to my parents."

"Why?" asked Ellie.

Chantal cursed herself inwardly. That last sentence sounded so much better in her head than out loud.

"Well, they are still very protective of me and keep track of my whereabouts twenty-four-seven."

"Makes sense. You're still a kid after all."

"This is nothing," Chantal said, turning over the fillet in her pan. "Goa is a tiny state with very few cricket facilities, so I had to travel to Mumbai to train with the rest of the regional teams. I could always see Dad standing some distance away and looking over me like a hawk. He spent hours of my training without taking his eyes off me."

"You're joking, right?"

"I wish. It got a little embarrassing and the coach told him more than once to leave, but he would not listen. It became a running joke in the rest of my team that my Dad was our unofficial mascot."

"Look on the bright side," said Ellie, laying the table for two. "He took you to all of your practice sessions. That's more than most would do."

"He is mad about cricket. I'll give him that. Every time India has a big match, he makes sure his congregation have prayed to their success. Most Indian fathers would have discouraged their daughters from going into sports professionally. Not him. He was my first coach, my first fan and also my first cheerleader. Back in the day, he had tried cricket as a career, but not made it beyond the district team. Of course, he then found God. But even so, me playing for my country was like him living his dream."

"What about you?" asked Ellie. "Why did you pick sports as a career?"

Chantal thought it over. She didn't want to scare her mentor off by saying because she wanted to see her in person. Every gruelling hour of batting practice she went to was with the eventual goal of playing against her idol. She almost cried when Ellie announced she was retiring from international cricket. She had not yet been selected for the India team and it looked like her dream of playing against Ellie would never be fulfilled.

However, in a sleight of hand move to rival the best magicians, providence granted her an opportunity to play for the Perth Scorchers and Ellie had still not retired from her own domestic league.

"Earth to Chantal."

She snapped out of her ruminations and looked down. Her expression turned aghast when she saw the two slices of fillet in her pan had turned a few shades darker than she had intended.

"Crap."

She turned the heat down and surveyed the damage. It was at the very edge of salvageable.

"I'm so sorry for this, Ellie," she blurted out.

"No worries. I'm so hungry right now that I don't mind a little overcooking."

It was poor succour for Chantal who had desperately wanted to make a good impression. She apologised profusely despite Ellie's reassuring her. A few minutes later, her end product was ready to serve.

"I present... slightly overcooked seafood xacuti."

They shared a laugh and tucked into it. Chantal's eyes wandered to the adjoining wall. There were a few pictures hanging from Ellie's childhood. Her eyes came to rest at an old family picture with Ellie, her sister and their parents on a boat.

"Did you go sailing a lot with your parents?"

"Yes," said Ellie, wiping the corners of her mouth with a serviette. "We went all the way down to Matilda Bay whenever we could. Dad taught my sister and I how to manoeuvre the sails and generally stay afloat."

"I didn't see the boat outside. Is it docked in a marina somewhere else or did you sell it?"

Ellie paused and looked longingly at the picture. Chantal knew she had touched a raw nerve and cursed her curiosity. The silence hung in the air between them.

"It's at the bottom of the sea."

Chantal looked at her with surprise.

"When I was seventeen, my parents came out here to celebrate their anniversary. Just the two of them with nothing electronic for the weekend. No phones. No radios. Nothing. They told us they'd be back the next day. No radios meant Dad didn't get the storm warning when he took the boat out."

"Oh my..."

"There was no sign of them or the boat ever recovered."

Chantal said a quick prayer and made a sign of the cross.

"I'm so sorry I brought that up."

"It's okay. It was twenty years ago."

Chantal browsed the other photos. Glimpses into the life of the woman sitting across the table.

"Did you bring anyone else here?"

"No one I knew professionally. You're the first woman from my team."

Chantal could barely hide her grin.

"I don't know why, but I feel comfortable around you and talking to you in a way I don't feel with anyone. You're like a breath of fresh air in my life where I only know the same types of people."

They exchanged light banter for the rest of the meal. Chantal spoke about her family and their church back in Goa. Her father was one of the most well-respected and popular Protestant ministers. Her mother had also devoted her life to the Church and then raising her daughter. She graciously left out some of her parents' more homophobic views.

Ellie was also forthcoming with her life story. Chantal knew about her career thanks to her years of devoted fan following. She learnt Ellie's sister had gone onto become a professional ballet dancer and had performed with some of the best companies in the world.

"I loved watching her practice," she confided in Chantal. "My parents were supportive, but not as much as they should have been. My Dad never missed any of my matches, but missed many of her recitals."

"How did she take it?"

"About as well as can be expected."

They split the dishes and utensil washing duties between them.

"I don't know about you, but I could use some sleep after that lunch," said Ellie. "Two bedrooms upstairs if you're interested too."

Chantal nodded, although somewhat disappointed at the extra bedroom. She curled up and tossed and turned for a bit. A part of her felt guilty for wanting more from Ellie who had given her everything she could have asked for -- except the one thing she wanted the most.

Her hand crept under the waistband of her pants. She quickly glanced at the door to ensure she had locked it from inside. She knew she was already wet, just being near Ellie had that effect. The tip of her index finger rubbed against her swollen clit while fingers from her other hand probed lower.

It was a familiar ritual for her, mastered in the privacy of her bedroom watching Ellie charge in to bowl on screen. The rest of her family remained blissfully oblivious on the other side of the wall. She even bit down on a pillow on occasion to muffle the sounds of her clandestine gratification.

Back in the present, the subject of her fantasies was just beyond the door. It would be easy for her to unlock it and see her lying there.

Did she like to sleep naked? Perhaps on her back.

Maybe Chantal would slowly slide back the covers. She imagined Ellie to have small, but firm breasts. Not the kind that were big and bounced while she ran, but a handful at least. Her stomach was definitely toned and washboard smooth. An elite athlete could have nothing less.

Perhaps Chantal could wake her up with a kiss on her nipple. Too tame. Maybe a lick and a gentle nip. That would certainly wake her up.

Her fingers were more insistent now. Rubbing her clit fervently and two fingers of her other hand plunging in and out of her wetness with short rapier thrusts. Each time, she pushed inside her up to the second knuckle. Each thrust was accompanied by a wet squelching sound.

What if Chantal went down on her? Would she be trimmed down there, or hairless altogether? Chantal visualized her glistening lips with a hooded clit at the apex. Perhaps she could run her tongue along her wetness, maybe even slide two fingers in.

It was too much now. Chantal arched her back of the bed and stuffed two fingers inside herself as deep as they would go. The pillow was on top of her face and she had to bite into the fabric to keep herself from waking the dead a mile in every direction.

Images flashed into her mind, each more vivid and lurid than the last. They were kissing, moaning into each other's bodies, each exploring tantalising parts of the other with their tongue before it all gave way to a more serene visual of them spooning. Ellie's arm wrapped around her shoulder and her palm rested on her breast. In that moment, there was nothing else, just two people on a bed with the sunlight streaming in through the window.

Chantal sat up. A sheen of sweat stuck to her skin. Each breath that came out of her was laboured and heavy. Her hands rested limply on her mound. She looked down to see a medium sized wet patch on the bedsheet. The crotch of her pants and the bottom of her shirt were also soaked.

Good thing she had a change of clothes with her.

She checked the time. It was almost four. The sun was a beautiful scarlet, smeared across the western sky. She got out of bed and went to check what Ellie was doing. She got as far as the end of the hallway when she heard the raised tone.

"You had no right to tell me this over a call."

"Julia, no. I told you I wasn't retiring from the BBL. We already discussed this."

"I can't deal with this right now. I've got to be focused on my training. Our opening match is in Sydney in less than one week's time."

"I love you, Julia. I always have. All I'm asking is for you to let me do this. I need this, honey."

The voice got noticeably broken now. It was as if Ellie was trying to hold back the occasional sob and speak at the same time.

"I know I promised I'd meet the fertility doctors with you, but that was before I seriously considered playing this season."

"Please, baby, don't do this. Remember how hard we fought to even be together? Please don't let all of that have been for nothing."

The voice stopped, replaced by a small sobbing sound. Chantal peeked around the corner to see her idol hunched over the table with her head buried in the crook of her elbow. Her body shook every few moments with a sob Chantal could not hear. She spent a moment too long in indecision of whether to go forward or back to her bedroom.

"Oh you're awake," said Ellie, desperately composing herself.

"I was going to make some coffee. Do you want a cup?"

"Absolutely."

Chantal went over to the coffee maker and fed it some instant coffee powder.

"Sugar?"

"None for me."

Chantal waited patiently while the machine belched out two cups. She added a cube of sugar to hers and gently stirred it.

"Thanks."

It took Chantal by surprise. She turned around and saw Ellie looking at her with a half smile.

"Thanks for trying to make it less awkward for me by pretending you didn't hear it."

She finished stirring and put both cups down.

"Your personal life is none of my business," she said, taking a sip of her creation. She glanced to see rivulets of tears marking both of Ellie's cheeks all the way down to the jaw. A part of her wanted to reach out and wipe them away.

Too soon.

She surveyed Ellie over the rim of her cup and saw a woman doing a shit job of keeping a straight face. She twitched involuntarily and interlocked her fingers only to undo them a moment later. It was apparent that she was bursting at the seams and struggling to keep it together.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"God, yes," Ellie finally blurted out.

Chantal opened a fresh sachet and set another cup to brew. It looked increasingly like a two cup conversation.

"Julia wants a divorce."

Chantal almost spat her coffee out.

"She's been talking about it for months now. We barely see each other with the amount of touring I have to do, and when we are in the same room, more often than not it leads to an argument. Not just a tiff, but a full scale blow up. It's all we do now, fight and say horrible things to each other."

Ellie took a deep breath and set her phone aside.

"The amount of shit we went through, just so we could be partners. When they finally legalized same sex marriage last year, we were among the first couples to tie the knot. The media ran that image. That same night, she told me for the first time that it may have been a mistake. That maybe we should not have gotten married so soon given how we had been fighting for years privately."

"Why?" was all Chantal could manage.

"I don't know," Ellie said, slamming her fist down on the table, almost upending her cup. "She tells me how I'm rarely home and how I don't care about her or our marriage any more. That could not be more of a lie. What does she want me to do? Retire completely? Sit at home and knit in front of the TV?"

Chantal was way out of her depth here. She took another sip of her coffee and listened in rapt attention.

"I mean, is that what we've come to?" spat out Ellie angrily. "When I have a struggling career and am at home, she is holding my hand and telling me how she wants to buy a place in Dover Heights and grow old together. The second my career makes some headway and I have to be away from her, I'm suddenly the heartless bitch who cares more about her career than her marriage."

Involuntarily, Chantal wrapped her fingers around Ellie's hand. Her thumb rubbed gently over the back of the palm.

"We've fought for years about this, but no one ever brought up divorce. No one. It was just not something we could do to each other. But as of ten minutes ago, I heard her use that word for the first time and it hurt. It physically hurt."

"I'm so sorry that happened to you. Have you tried counselling?"

"We have. We've tried many couples therapists."

Chantal held her hand tighter. She wanted to be of help, but her life experience -- all eighteen years of it-was hopelessly insufficient.

"It's just... all the times we campaigned for the right to get married and then start a family. I never expected that marriage would end this way."

Chantal listened and nodded sympathetically.

"Thank you," said Ellie, taking a sip of her coffee. It seemed obvious she was not used to being so vulnerable in front of others. She sensed something disarming about Chantal, about her innocence and gentle compassion. Even though they had met only about a week back, it was as if they had known each other for years.

"Please don't tell anyone about this conversation."

"What conversation?" shrugged Chantal, taking the cups to the sink.

* *

The beach was near spotless. Ellie and Chantal ditched their shoes and walked. The main beach to the north was cut off behind a rocky cliff. This was secluded, almost a private beach for the two of them. The sands were white and filled the spaces between their toes with every step they took.

"Glad to see you don't mind our barefoot walk."

"I don't think I've ever lived somewhere I could not see the ocean outside the window," Chantal replied. "I've practically grown up on beaches like this."

The setting sun wrapped them in its orange warmth. They stood at the edge of the beach and the ebb and flow of the water gently lapped at their ankles. Their eyes looked straight ahead at the glowing semi-circle threatening to disappear under the horizon. The sunlight shone against Chantal's coffee coloured skin, making it almost glow with a bronze tinge.