A Dawn Like No Other

A Dawn Like No Other

I don't know what it was about Dawn, my gymnastics teammate at the college we both attend. I mean, I've been into gymnastics for years (hence my scholarship) and I've seen lots of girls competing in the same sort of tights we all wear, but...the moment I saw Dawn, there was this entire part of me that seemed to come alive. It was like a hidden, secret (even to me) section of my being blossomed.

Other stuff

blossomed

too though, and that's what bothered me because, well, I'd never thought of another girl that way before.

We were all out on the floor practicing our various routines and between all the bouncing and running and jumping bodies of our teammates, through all that motion and action, I saw her standing there about ready to do her run up to the vault. I didn't really think much of it then except that I loved her ponytail and how slim she was, but there's lots of ponytails and lots of slender bodies on any gymnastics team.

Then she ran and I lost track of her and went back to what I was doing. I didn't think much more of it until later.

When we were all in the showers afterwards, I'm not particularly paying attention to anyone or anything because I'd tweaked my shoulder and the throb was really making its presence known. Then Dawn came padding by and she smiled and I nodded, still preoccupied with my shoulder. I was spacing out is what I'm saying.

Then, still spacing, and rolling my shoulder under the hot water, I happen to turn and look over in her direction, and it was like in that one single moment, everything changed. It was almost like in those movies where the camera zooms in on the main person and everything else around moves back and gets blurry. It was like that, except Dawn was suddenly the 'main person.'

I just stared.

There were all these other girls around, splashing, laughing, scrubbing, and everyone was naked obviously, but I just couldn't look away from this one particular one. There's even girls on the team that are way more pretty than Dawn, but they didn't interest me. They didn't capture my whole attention, my whole soul like she had.

And it wasn't even the 'naked thing;' I'd seen her lots of times just like that, but as she stepped under the shower and the rosin and sweat and everything else began to rinse off her, it was like she was now somehow 'more' naked than she'd ever been before.

Then she must've sensed me looking and turned her head and I looked away instantly. I mean, I'm not a lesbian. I'd dated a few guys. Never actually went to bed with any of them, but...I was into guys. There were three other pairs of girls on the team that were 'couples' you might say, but I wasn't in any of those relationships.

When I figured it was safe to look, I did, and Dawn had her back to me now, having gone back to soaping herself up and getting clean. My eyes wandered down from her pretty shoulders to her back and then her ass. Like I said, none of us are real busty or curvy or anything like that. We're not men's magazine type people. But her ass!

And her legs, even her heels were suddenly the most beautiful things I'd ever seen in my life. She started to turn her back to the shower water and I kept looking, now at her slender profile.

Her 'sexy' profile I realized, and then I realized I'd never even considered any other woman as being 'sexy.' Not in that particular way; not as in 'sexually alluring' or something. Maybe like in 'sexy' actress or something. More in a complimentary sense.

But I stood there looking, glancing away when someone else (or Dawn) would glance in my direction, and then go back to looking again as soon as I felt safe.

It was amazing! I couldn't stop looking over at her! I felt drawn to look and even not knowing why it was happening was in itself extremely exciting. Then my logical side came in.

Well, there's no argument that she's an attractive girl. Nothing wrong with looking at a woman and admitting she's attractive....

But my clit gets hard when I look at her.

Might just be from the workout. You've felt that before. All the excitement, blood pumping, heart racing. Your nipples have gotten hard just doing situps.

But I'm through working out. I'm not doing calisthenics. My heart isn't racing. I look at her and I want to just go over there and touch her, and when I even think about that, it gets me all the more excited.

It's just a moment, a fantasy. If it were a guy standing there naked, you'd feel the same way.

But she's so smooth. Her skin's so soft-looking and delicate. Her face is so pretty. Her body's so sleek and it curves in such wonderful ways. Guys are all square and blocky looking. She's so pleasant to look at.

But you've seen her before, like this. It's nothing new. Nothing is ever really covered even when you're all dressed. The tights don't hide anything. The way she looks should be no surprise.

It's not the way she looks that's surprising; it's the way I suddenly feel; like if I could somehow join with her, be with her, the joining would be...more than my imagination could even imagine. Somehow things would be different, better. Happier. Some unknown world would be revealed and opened to me.

She's just convenient. You've never had sex with anyone and just because she's there all the time and you know her and are friendly with her and talk with her, you think sex would work. It's sexual-opportunism, that's all.

There's 30 other girls in the showers right now. Why just Dawn? She hasn't got large boobs or really curvy hips. She's...pretty 'normal' looking Normal but pretty. Every inch of her is pretty, every inch is a painting that I want to just reach out and touch.

She simply fits some idealized image you have of what's sexually attractive and what isn't. What about Joanie's ass?

Not cute like Dawn's though.

Jen's legs?

They're longer. They're more shapely, but Dawn's are just...sleek. So beautiful. I could easily imagine just running my hands up and down her legs.

Nora's shoulders and hands; Amy's hips and waist; what about Patricia's feet? There are some pretty badly mangled feet in gymnastics, as there are in ballet. Patricia's are well worth looking at or cherishing if you will....

Dawn's feet are just as pretty. Prettier in fact. Their shape; the curve of her arches and insteps; the smoothness of her heels; the length and shape of her toes. Her shoulders are prettier, smoother and shapelier than Nora's; her hips and waist are just as sexy, just as smoothly contoured. There isn't a part of Dawn that I wouldn't touch if given the chance.

But that's the point! You will never have that chance! Why would she be interested in you? She hasn't even glanced your way in—

That was when Dawn turned her head and saw me looking at her. She didn't burn me with a glare or quickly turn a shoulder to me to say she was insulted. Instead, her eyes dropped demurely, looked off in another direction, then lifted and looked into mine again; all while her head remained turned toward me. She had paused in her shower, and now she turned back to it.

Right before she leaned into the spray again though, she looked back at me, almost to see if I was still looking. When she saw that I was, the corners of her mouth curled upward in the slightest hint of a smile.

A bashful one.

I think I'm in love.

No you're not. It's just lust.

At least you admit it now though, so shut up!

* * *

I finished my shower and toweled off as I headed back to my locker, leaving Dawn and the others still bathing. A part of me wanted to forget what I'd been thinking and feeling and I figured that maybe just being out of proximity from Dawn would let things settle back to normal.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I went on drying my hair, looking down at myself and spacing out again. I had nothing to offer someone like Dawn—or anyone for that matter, male or female. Like her (and quite a few others on the team) I was small, thin but strong, had a flat chest and hardly any curves at all. My legs weren't beautiful. My feet were callused to the point where there were blisters beneath the calluses and they'd pop and get all gross.

In fact

I

was gross.

I grabbed my ankle braces and leaned down to put them on and right then a pair of very pale, very familiar feet stepped up and stopped right before me. I recognized the shape and length of the toes, the way the balls of the feet curved into the sides in such a pretty manner and the beauty of their high arches. They were healthy, strong feet with calluses like mine, but somehow even more beautiful for wear.

I looked up slowly. I didn't want to discover that I was actually correct in my association of these lovely feet and the person who owned and used them so my eyes moved even slower than normal. I saw the remnants of marks left in the skin of the calves and ankles from the ACE bandages and braces that were always wrapped tight around these particular legs. I had similar marks that took hours to disappear.

Except that I was so used to the support of my braces that I normally always wore them.

Now I looked at the knees. There were a couple of old floor-burns on them. I had those too. More in fact.

The thighs were creamy and delicate looking now, now that the incredible muscles beneath that creamy skin were starting to relax once more. The definition was still there, and even that I could find in my own thighs.

A thick terry towel met my eyes, and I looked up quickly. What lay behind that towel I could almost not consciously think about for fear that I might leave a wet smear when I stood.

And I felt I would have to stand pretty soon now because it would be the only way I could possibly run away.

"Hey Dawn," I said, finally looking up into her eyes. The corners of her mouth were still turned up in that same cute smile I'd seen before, but her eyes were what now held all my attention.

They were smiling; twinkling as their lower lids curved up in even more depth of happy expression.

"I could kill for some sugar," she said, and her eyes held mine to the point where I didn't care at all about the rest of her. If she had dropped her towel right then I wouldn't have been able to look at anything else but her beautiful, beaming eyes.

"Me too," I said. It seemed my own voice sounded far away.

"Wanna come with me and chug Pepsi and see which one of us can belch the school motto the most times?" she asked.

I didn't know what to say. Dawn and I had talked before, but just about gymnastics or competition related things. Nothing like this. Then she stepped over the bench I was on and sat down.

"...god, I'm so nervous I'm just saying stupid things," she said almost to herself.

"No not really," I said. "The school motto and all that...very important!"

She laughed and the tension seemed simply evaporate. I'd never heard her laugh quite like that before. At jokes or some other funny thing, but never quite as sweetly or melodiously I suppose is the best way to say it.

"But I should be the one being nervous," I said. I heard myself saying it but had no idea why the words had come out. "I mean...a girl could get the wrong idea from the way I was looking at them."

"Really?"

"Oh yes." I said. "Like they might get the impression that I was attracted to them; that they were so lovely and adorable and sweet and pretty that I couldn't take my eyes off them, that even after months of seeing them totally naked in the showers, there was this moment where it was like seeing them for the first time."

Dawn turned and looked away down the row of lockers. She was nodding to herself.

"I can see where a girl might get the wrong idea," she said softly but regretfully.

"Oh no!" I laughed. "If they got the impression I just described, it would be the

right

impression!"

Dawn looked back at me. Her face was blank but her eyes were searching mine. I let her look. I wanted her to see my real self even if I couldn't; even if I didn't understand what was going on inside me.

"...god, I am so scared," she whispered.

"...me too actually," I said, and we both just sat there for a moment, looking at each other.

"I mean...I just can't believe that anyone finds me attractive in any way whatsoever," she said. "Me? Skinny little 20 year old tomboy—me? And to have someone as warm and friendly and pretty as you tell me all the things you just said? God, it's just so hard to believe, you know?"

I nodded, but the part I was finding hard to believe was all the stuff about me being pretty and her not believing she was attractive.

"...so...." I said, and I desperately wanted to lighten things up. Dawn looked on the verge of tears (the good kind though), and I felt just about the way she looked. I was all choked up and I had to give us a breather. "You wanna go burp the motto or what?"

Dawn laughed and I decided that I always wanted to hear that sound. Maybe not just laugher all the time because that would be pretty mental—but sounds like it. And to tell the truth, hidden within that sound, that warm tone of her laughter, I could easily imagine other sorts of sounds she might make.

"Yah," she laughed, getting up with her towel clutched tightly around her. She turned back the way she'd come and looked over her shoulder. "I'll meet you right after I get dressed, 'kay?" I nodded, and she started to pad off, but before she took two steps, she yanked her towel completely off and hung it over her shoulder like a cape, giving me the most wonderful eyeful imaginable. The towel did hide a bit of her shoulder and back, so I'd seen more of her in the showers, but it was the

intent

she now had which made the whole sight something to remember.

It wasn't just me stealing a glance at her; it was her giving me as good a look as she could.

When I'd gotten my braces on and stood, there was a moist spot on the bench. I'd felt myself swelling and moistening the whole time Dawn had sat beside me. I wiped the smear up with my towel, and hurried to get the rest of my clothes on.

Ten minutes later I was standing outside in the cool early evening air, sheltered on three sides by the shape and design of a particular set of stairs of the auditorium, with stars just starting to twinkle above me and something I would never have even imagined I'd ever have less than an two hours before: a warm, wonderful, eager girl in my arms.

And when our lips finally met in that first kiss, I had something even more than all of that—a hope and a purpose that I'd never even considered, and a tenderness of expression and want which that purpose gave me.

It doesn't seem like it's simply lust, you know....

my logical side whispered.

Even Sherlock Holmes would be impressed...

I answered it.

Oh shut up and kiss the girl!

So I did.

It wasn't so much a surprise as it was a relief to find that this was the first kiss Dawn had ever had, and when I told her it was the same for me, she had that same reaction. But it was still a surprise

and

a relief to find, an hour or so later, that when I suggested that perhaps it was getting too hot for clothes in my dorm room and that we should maybe take everything off so we could continue our kissing in more comfort, that Dawn gave no sign or the slightest hint of hesitation.

Moments later two virgins, shaking with both nervousness and arousal, fell back into bed, kissing. There was this time just the smallest amount of hesitation and uncertainty before their hands began to touch and explore, but this was only from the unseen barrier that still stood between merely gazing upon beautiful bare skin, and the actual acceptance that touching was now not only allowed, but desired.

Five hours later, all barriers had been broken down completely; Dawn and I made love with no hesitation or inhibitions whatsoever. Even the thickest wall for me, coming to realize that the face I was seeing, the body I was kissing and touching, actually belonged to Dawn—the same person I worked out with and cheered for and traveled with when the team was on the road. The fantasy had finally joined with the reality of it all and when that happened everything seemed to blossom.

I've never felt so close to anyone, so intimate and so comfortable. It seemed that within the confines of my dorm room secret things, private things of the most personal nature were exchanged between us. No so much in words, but in the things we did. There seemed no limit, no expectation that couldn't or wouldn't instantly be fulfilled, and when we woke up the next morning still snuggled together like spoons it felt like the whole world had somehow changed and that though we were still a part of it, we now had our own little special world between ourselves that contained our essence—each and every one of the special things we had shared—but more, the possibility of even more, even deeper sharing.

We made love again for nearly four hours without stopping to breathe or even think, and when we realized it was the weekend and hadn't really missed the classes we'd feared we had, it was only a small relief.

—Because we would have not gone anyway.

We went out for lunch when we were finally able to pull away from each other long enough to put our clothes on, but even then, walking across campus, there was a sense that Dawn and I were a 'we' now; a single entity that included no one else and everyone else at the same time. We even held hand as we walked, and when some professor or man in a suit gave us a funny stare, we both sneered at him and looked cross-eyed until he hurried off. We laughed and went to get our food.

After making a small picnic of it by sitting under a tree, we stayed there just enjoying each other's company, the sights and sounds of the quiet weekend campus, the breeze—everything. The world had changed and I loved the change, and the person who had helped in the change sat right beside me grinding down a big burger with fries, her bare legs flat on the grass in a V around her food, her feet, slipperless now but still hidden by her ankle braces, sticking straight up at the sky.

Still conscious of what the world might think, we nevertheless shared a short but passionate kiss under that tree, and when we got up to return to my room, even that barrier seemed to continue falling: we hugged and kissed with an explosive desire and then quickly ended the kiss and hurried back to the room where we made love until just after sunset.

Like I said in the beginning, I don't know what it is about Dawn, about why the mere sight of her takes my breath away, but...I'm starting to learn.

END