by Cheyenne Blue
(04/02/08)

Vinnie looks tough. Tough in the sinew-and-bone way of the long distance runner. Hollow cheeks, eyes that look to the finish, and no big-ass padding on her rump. Indeed, she has no visible padding anywhere on her body. Her titties barely swell from her breastbone, topped with large bitter chocolate nipples."Feel my thighs," she likes to say, stretching out a honed leg for my admiration. "Nothing wasted here." And I poke at her leg with stiffened fingers trying to dent the muscled flesh.

That's my Vinnie: big heart, big lungs, muscle and tendon, hair cropped close to her skull. The marathon runner.

"One day I'm gonna run sub two-twenty in Chicago," she says. "No white woman is gonna keep the American record. Running is for black women."

Me? I'm a big-ass woman, the opposite of Vinnie. I'm a cliché. Tall, solid. Big thighs, fat ass, flat feet, and a swayback waddle. Poke my thigh and your fist will disappear. I don't hang around with Vinnie's running friends; all that obsession makes me nervous. I go grocery shopping instead. Pasta, lean meat, energy bars, and sports drinks for Vinnie. Doughy white bread, chili rellenos, and buck-a-time macaroni for me. Vinnie won't eat processed stuff, but she likes my lasagna. I tell her I make it, but I buy it at Vons, six boxes for ten bucks and I hide it at the back of the freezer.

She won't have sex before a race. Claims it sucks her concentration. Says that she'll be running along thinking of me and my cunt and what it tastes like, how it sucks her fist in, thinking of that instead of her splits and her pace and what the road feels like under her feet. She likes me to massage her though. I use a special oil and work her muscles, putting my weight into kneading her skinny butt, pushing back and forth on her ass like a rowing machine. I may be a puffball but I have great arms and hands.

I love it when she stretches out naked for me. Her skin glistens with the oil and she hums with every exhalation. She's softer when she relaxes, as if her molecules are blurring at the edges. It's as if her tautness is all mental. I slow my strokes as she sinks further into the mattress. I want to keep going until she melts, then dip my fingers inside her and taste her essence. But when it's a race day, she doesn't want that.

Vinnie can run a marathon in two hours and forty-one minutes. That's fast. Fast enough that she gets her airfares paid to races around the country, complimentary entries, her name on the elite athletes list, and endless free pairs of running shoes and those small bright tops she wears; clothing that's as tough as she is.

I can run a bath in two hours and forty-one minutes. That's slow. Slow enough that I can select my bath oil, and read a romance novel, topping up the hot water as my skin wrinkles. I take a glass of wine, put the bathroom heater on high, and wallow in the tub until I'm as soft and squishy and scented as an overripe banana.

Vinnie goes off to races and leaves me behind. She flies off, or drives sometimes with one of her running friends, but she really leaves me a couple of days before she leaves the house. She retreats to someplace inside her head where I can't reach and all that interests her is eating lasagna and which lucky shorts to wear. I might as well not be there, except for the massages. I give her one before she leaves, seeing as I can't give her anything else. I push and pummel and work her flesh, touching all those places I love, pushing those great long muscles around, watching them move underneath my hands. When I lean my weight behind my hands, her butt muscle bulges up ahead of the push. I imagine it's what an earthquake must look like; great folds of the earth rising strongly to the sky.

I went with her once, when she ran the Chicago Marathon. I couldn't stay with her; she'd gotten a complimentary room, meals, and her flights. It cost me megabucks to get on the same plane as Vinnie, as I'd booked at the last minute. And she was sharing the room with another athlete. It had two queen beds, so I'd thought I could stay there with her, but her roommate was some snotty college post-grad, and you could tell she was rather freaked at the idea of me and Vinnie sharing a bed with her in the room. I went off and found a Motel 6 in the suburbs. Cost me in taxi fares, but all the motels closer were full because of the race.

I saw Vinnie run past the next day. She looked proud and strong, those honed thighs of hers bunching and relaxing. You could see every line of muscle and where it hooked into the bone. The snotty post-grad was nowhere near; I saw her go by a good few minutes behind. Vinnie ran two hours forty-two that day, just outside her fastest. She'd probably have got a Personal Best if I'd been with her the night before, rubbing her legs.

The post-grad flew straight home after the race, but Vinnie and I stayed another night, and this time there was no one to disapprove of me in her bed. Vinnie was tired of course, so exhausted she slurred her words and stared at me with a blank expression for a few seconds before replying, as if her brain were still creeping up the twenty-sixth mile. But we went down to the hotel restaurant and she ate a steak the same diameter as her waist and two baked potatoes with sour cream. I ate something called Penne Formaggio which was macaroni and cheese.

We lay and cuddled on one of the beds, watching the TV. I was horny after seeing all those skimpily dressed lean women pound past me earlier, but Vinnie was too tired. But after I'd pummeled her muscles into relaxation and as close to softness as she ever got, she let me go down on her while she sprawled, legs akimbo, on the quilt.

She always tastes different after a marathon; stronger, more pungent, her juices thicker. It's as if she's been distilled to the elements by her sweat and effort. She keeps her bush trimmed, and I lay between her thighs and explored and tasted as if it were my first time there, not the millionth.

Vinnie's eyes were closed and she sighed and mumbled as I tongued her. Then she came, softly, sweetly, and came again, stronger and fiercer when I persisted.

I moved up her body and rested my head on her shoulder. Her strong arm closed around me. "Love you, Riz," she mumbled, and then she was asleep, naked on top of the covers in the air-conditioned room.

I lay there for a while, listening to her breathe, watching the little twitches of her limbs as she sank into sleep. When she turned on her side, taking me with her, tucking me protectively into the curve of her torso and thighs, that's when I loved her the most.

I tried running once. I waited until she'd left the house for her run -- I didn't want her to see me fail. I borrowed a pair of her shoes. I didn't have a pair of track pants and I wouldn't have got even one leg through the waist of Vinnie's shorts, so I wore a pair of pajama bottoms and an outsize tee shirt.

I went out the door and ran as fast as I could to the corner. My lungs burned and my thighs screamed in protest. I managed another fifty yards at a slow jog, before giving it up and crawling home. As I came in the gate, I saw Vinnie leaving the house again.

"Forgot my fuel belt," she said, eyeing me curiously.

I was still too breathless to answer, so I simply nodded and went inside and had a shower. Then I made her real lasagna from scratch, browning the beef, crushing garlic, adding herbs, making a cheese sauce, layering it all up thick and good and pungent. Anyone who can run like Vinnie deserves it.

Sometimes I wonder why Vinnie loves me. Me of the marshmallow thighs and rounded belly. Why hasn't she picked a skinny streak of nothing, like herself, another runner, someone she can train with and talk about the things that matter? My friend Toni reckons it's because runners are selfish. They have to be, with all that time out of the day pounding pavement. I look after Vinnie; cook her dinner, drive her places, rub her muscles -- another runner wouldn't have time for all that, they'd want it for themselves. I know the questions to ask, but her answers are long enough that I stop listening and think about what to have for dinner instead.

It's not all one-sided. When Vinnie's in her training cycle, where she's running hard but not to the point where she's doped on tiredness, she's full of energy. Then she bounds crackling around the house. She sings in the shower, takes the stairs three at a time and bursts out of rooms with laugher. Then she's the one who turns to me and pushes her hot hand between my legs, insistently seeking what I always let her find. Then I'm the one spread out beneath her as she mouths my breasts or fucks me with her big, black strap-on.

She massages my breasts, but it's nothing like how I do her butt. Her hands are sure but gentle, and they slide over my skin like water over the road. She buries her face between my breasts so deep that I feel the moisture from her breath dampening my flesh. Her thumbs rub my nipples slowly, hypnotically. My nipples are a hotline to my clit, so it never takes long before I'm trying to push her down. But she likes to take her own sweet time, and despite all that energy she's in no hurry. Sometimes she stays kissing my breasts and stroking my skin for half the night, until I'm so supercharged I fancy I can see the static leap into the darkness.

She loves my pussy; tells me it's clasping and plump and sucks her fingers in. Her cunt doesn't feel like mine; I guess her leanness extends to all parts of her body. Her pussy is as taut and sparse as the rest of her.

She loves to rest her head on my breast while we watch TV in our bed. She says she feels safe and loved like that. Protected, as if nothing can hurt her and everything is possible.

Vinnie says she's going for a run with two of her friends, and I take one look at them jogging in the gate, all hollowed-cheeked and fierce, focused eyes, and head straight out to the supermarket. When I return from Vons lugging bags of lasagna, they are already back, eating bananas and downing pints of water at the kitchen table. The back door lets me get to the freezer without going through the kitchen, so I sneak in that way. Her friends are a couple, identical crop-haired skinny dykes, and from the snippets of conversation I hear through the door about the pace of their tempo run, they're as obsessive as Vinnie.

I'm easing the Vons lasagna into the freezer so that Vinnie won't hear me when I hear them instead.

"Must be difficult for you, Vin," one of them says, "having a partner who doesn't run." Her voice echoes with a sort of reasonable condescension.

My hand clenches so tightly that it's amazing I don't get freezer burn.

"How d'you mean?" Vinnie sounds casual, as if she's not really interested. I imagine her sitting at the kitchen table, picking the red grapes out of the fruit bowl.

"Your Riz," and from the tone of her voice the speaker could be talking about a dog, "well, she probably doesn't understand, does she?"

"Understand what, Claudia?" Vinnie's voice is low, so I have to listen carefully.

"Riz is overweight." Claudia doesn't mince her words: "She doesn't take care of herself. I doubt she could run to the corner."

"Oh, she can do that." There's a smile in Vinnie's voice. "She can do that very well."

"But you can't share your running with her," Claudia persists. "She can't possibly understand that part of your life. And it must be hard in bed; all that lard can't be a turn-on. Large women aren't that attractive -- "

"Riz is beautiful," Vinnie says simply.

I swallow fiercely and the scalding tears that were clogging my throat dissipate slightly with the conviction in her voice.

Claudia backs off a bit. "Oh, obviously you think so," she says hastily, "but you could do so much better, Vin. Alicia's hot for you. She'd love to get into your pants. She runs a decent 10K, and she ran sub three hours in the Sacramento Marathon -- "

I can't move. I'm afraid even to close the freezer door, in case they heard me and my mortification would be complete. The frigid air wafts over me in clouds.

"Alicia's a bitch. She's selfish, and she doesn't have a fraction of the heart that my Riz does." Vinnie's still speaking quietly and I have to strain to hear the words. "Why would I want another runner, when I have Riz? She listens to me, supports me, massages my legs when she's tired herself. Skinniness isn't everything, Claudia. In fact, it counts for very little. It's what's inside that counts, but then you wouldn't know about that, would you?"

"Vinnie, I'm -- "

"Enough. Get the fuck out of here. Both of you."

The silence swells, then I hear the scrape of chairs as Claudia and her lover leave.

I stay where I am, the blast of cold air from the freezer cooling my flushed face. My fingers are icy on the lasagna. Swiftly, I wipe the pooling tears with my free hand.

Soft footfalls come up behind me, and lean arms wrap themselves around my waist. Vinnie rests her head on my shoulder.

"You heard, didn't you?"

I nod.

She's silent. I hope she won't try and deny what her friends have said.

"I feel sorry for Claudia and Chris," she says eventually. "The two of them together, constantly fighting for supremacy in their running, constantly arguing over who has to cook dinner. No break from the running, it's always there, in their faces. There's no balance in their lives. They obsess about their weight, their looks, and they've got tiny shriveled walnuts for hearts." Her arms tighten around my waist. "I, on the other hand, have you. I am so lucky. Beautiful of heart and of body, and yet you still make time for me. You balance me, Riz. Your separateness from all my running obsessions puts them in perspective; yet you support me in what I do because it's part of who I am."

She reaches around, takes the soggy pack of Vons lasagna out of my hand and places it on the top shelf of the freezer. "And I love your lasagna."

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