Unknown - driven

Cat cried all the way home. She cried once she was inside the door. She cried as she lay across her bed, wishing she could stop crying.

Why should she be mad? Dylan was a grown woman and if she wanted to do pornographic ads that was up to her. She didn?t have anything but a few nights of ?

Of what?

Cat considered it. She had blurted out to Dylan that she loved her. Did she love her or was she just saying that because her mother had pushed the envelope?

She rolled over on her back, angrily swiping at her cheeks to keep the tears from rolling down her face. String at the ceiling of her bedroom, she considered it. When she was with Dylan she felt things she had never felt before. And she knew it wasn?t just the physical aspect.

When she was with Dylan she felt ten feet tall. She felt smart, funny, and more mature. Dylan made her stomach flutter, made her heart pound and made her brain mushy. All the feelings she felt were good. This was the first time she?d ever felt bad when it came to dealing with the tall woman.

Obviously Dylan didn?t feel the same way. She hadn?t responded to Cat?s declaration of love in any way. Now Catherine realized all the older woman had done that night was get her clamed down before telling her they would talk later and ending the call.

Dylan didn?t love her. That was becoming perfectly clear to the young woman.

If Dylan had felt anything that remotely resembled love she would have agreed not to do the ad simply out of respect for her lover.

If you love someone, you don?t do anything to purposely upset them, do you?

Cat asked herself this question over and over as she finally felt the last traces of Dylan?s touch leave her body and she slipped into an emotionally exhausted slumber.

Dylan laid across her large bed, naked save for the T-shirt she?d hastily yanked on after Cat had stormed from the house. Ever vigilant to their Mistress? moods, Siegfried, the chicken, had repaired to the far corner of the house, while Brunhilde laid with her head in Dylan?s lap, looking up at her with eyes both sorrowful and compassionate. Dylan stroked Brunhilde?s sleek head with an absent hand as she peered at the smoothed-out ad mock-up held in the other.

As she looked at the ad, the voices of Horace and Cat swirled through her head in an unending loop, only serving to increase the pain in her head and in her heart.

“Why is it that every time I deal with you I feel like a street corner whore?”

“You don?t really want me to answer that do you.”

“You don?t see anything wrong with this, do you.”

“You be a good little coach and keep me happy, and I?ll stay away from the dyke.”

“No. You just?do whatever it is you feel you have to do.”

“You be a good little coach and keep me happy, and I?ll stay away from the dyke.”

“Goodnight, Coach. I?ll see you at practice tomorrow.”

“You be a good little coach and keep me happy, and I?ll stay away from the dyke.”

“I know where the door is. I?ll let myself out.”

Tossing the glossy away as if it had suddenly grown fangs and was threatening to bite, Dylan cradled her head in both hands, her face set in a hard grimace, teeth bared, eyes tightly closed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!!!”

Morning was not kind to the young woman, but as she stood in the blistering hot shower, she came to a serious decision. It was time to walk away from Dylan Lambert and chalk her time with the woman up to life experience.

She was old enough to know she was young and that most people go through several lovers before they find the ?right? one. Apparently Dylan wasn?t the right one.

Even as her brain processed all this, her heart hurt and she knew it would be a long time before it stopped aching. She had believed that Dylan was the one.

Dressing in her sweats she packed her bag for practice and fed the dog. He looked up at her with sad brown eyes. He knew something was wrong, but there was little he could do to help his human.

Cat drove to the arena and dressed with little chatter as the rest of her teammates tried to bring her out of her funk. They knew if she was in a bad mood she wouldn?t play well and it would aggravate the coach who would work them harder.

Chaney sat down and bumped shoulder with the blonde. “You okay?”

“Yeah I?m fine.”

“You act like someone pissed in you Wheaties.”

“You could say that.”

“Okay look, you know I?m here for you and you can sit up and have a bitchfest of epic proportions, but after practice. Try and cheer up to Coach will kick our butts.”

“?Kay. Hey Chane?”

“Yeah?”

” Can we go out after practice? I just need someone to talk to.”

“Absolutely.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“No problem shortchange.”

Cat took a deep breath and decided that her teammates shouldn?t pay for her stupid mistake. She plastered a smile on her face and headed out to the court.

The smile fell away when she saw Dylan. She sucked in a quick breath and fortified herself as she walked over to where everyone was looking at a diagram of a new play.

“Cat,” Dylan said with a smile and a nod.

“Coach,” Cat replied never taking her eyes off the diagram.

Suddenly Chaney knew who pissed in Catherine?s Wheaties. Oh boy.

Sitting on a locker-room bench, Cat was tying her sneakers and deep in thought when a hand on her shoulder almost launched her into orbit.

“Hey.”

Dylan?s voice was low and vibrant as it hovered in the still, humid air of the locker room, filling Cat with a warmth she was quick to quash. “Hi,” she relied, her tone cool and clipped.

“Do you have a minute?”

“Actually,” she replied, making a show of looking at her watch, “I?ve got plans for this evening. Unless it?s about work, it?s going to have to wait.”

The warmth of Dylan?s hand and presence was withdrawn as the tall woman straightened. Her expression was carefully neutral, though Cat thought she caught just the tiniest fleeting glimpse of pain in those remarkable eyes before it was immediately masked.

Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking on her part.

“I?ll see you tomorrow, then.”

And like that, Dylan was gone, and the pain Cat thought she saw in Dylan?s eyes settled instead around her own heart. With a heavy sigh, she lifted herself from the bench, grabbed her duffle, and left the garishly painted locker-room, her mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions, none of them pleasant.

Chaney sat in the back booth of the restaurant, watching Cat pick at her pasta. Her friend had been quiet all night and the player knew something was definitely wrong. While Cat Hodges was many things, quiet was not among them.

“Okay, you gonna tell me what?s wrong, or are we going to just sit here all night and listen to our hair grow?”

Cat looked up from her now tepid dish and tried to smile but failed miserably. She dropped her gaze back to her plate again, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“C?mon, Cat, whatever it is, it can?t be that bad. Can it?” Many scenarios were running through her head, most of them having to do with the mega cold shoulder Cat had given their coach all through practice. The attitude was very much unlike the woman she?d come to know, and it puzzled her, distracting her enough to get called out by Herr Caulley and forced to do windsprints till her lungs threatened a dramatic exit through her mouth.

“Have you ever been in love?”

The question, from seemingly out of nowhere, so derailed Chaney?s train of thought that she almost choked on the water she?s sipping. It was only with the greatest of difficulty that she managed to force the liquid down the right pipe, and the resulting prolonged silence caused Cat?s cheeks to flush again.