Naked Hero - The Journey Away

would encourage, sealed inside a bubble of denial that any old prick could burst. So he and Mike had taken a cab there, leaving a note for Jim saying that they would meet at the practice courts at quarter to ten. Mike had taken him through some stretching followed by an easy run and they were now heading in the direction of the practice courts. It was quarter past nine and the sun was shining as you would expect at this time of year, but the morning did have some surprises in store.
    “Come on, Mike. We’ll take a wander around and see who’s about. Do a bit of talent spotting,” announced Lewis, who had also decided on his walkabout the previous evening that he mustn’t allow himself to get hung up on Lee Porter, as that would be a recipe for disaster. “There are bound to be some fit guys around and a few cute girls for you to drool over. Those Russians, eh: all legs and blonde hair. Right up your street I would have thought.”
    Mike stopped in his tracks, stunned that Lewis had brought up a subject he was normally so reserved about. It wasn’t something that bothered him. He wouldn’t be working for Lewis if it did. But it was a topic that Lewis had never spoken to him about, and something not to be shied from now that he had.
    “You can’t go lusting after any of the blokes on the tour!” the trainer laughed. “You might have to play them some day.”
    “So?”
    Mike accepted the answer, and it was a perfectly good one. “So!” he echoed. “I never really thought about that. Does it happen? I suppose it must. You end up playing someone that you fancy. Shit a brick!”
    “As far as they’re concerned, I fancy every single one of them,” said Lewis with a chortle. “Well, maybe not all of them are of that opinion – I’d say our noble leader Tommy Jackson’s above that sort of stuff, but most of the others probably do. Of course some of them are right, there’s definitely a few guys on the tour that I’d happily have a roll around in the sack with, but not as many as you might think. I can be surprisingly fussy. Come on, with a bit of luck we might find one of them, with a Svetlana on an adjacent court. Keep us both happy.”
    “Does it put you off at all, when you’re playing them?” asked Mike as they wandered off again.
    “No. It probably affects them more than it does me. I don’t play to it, though. That would be silly. That would make me no better than those arseholes in the stands yesterday. No, when I’m on court, no matter how horny the other guy is, sex goes right out the window. All I see is someone that I want to grind into the ground. I know what most of them think of me, and that helps. It makes me want to beat them all the more. To get beaten by a poof, now that must piss a lot of them right off.”
    Mike quietly sucked a breath at the harshness of the reference. He knew that Lewis was being unfair, but perhaps necessarily so at the moment given what had happened yesterday. It sounded like he needed to get some things off his chest. “Is there no one on the tour that you get on with?” he asked to keep the flow going.
    “Not really – well none of the men at any rate. They tend to keep their distance. Not good for their image, I suppose. It’s better that way. Being friendly is all very well, but it would make it harder for me if I had to play someone that I actually liked. Fancying them is one thing - I can deal with that easily enough. But having to thrash someone that I liked, you know, as in a mate - that wouldn’t be so easy. So it’s just as well I’m unpopular really, that way I don’t have to worry about it...” Lewis came to another halt, having delivered one of the messages he had formulated last night – a component of the grit he had mentally mustered. But he felt the grit crumble as he looked off to his right, and what came out next was far from prepared. “Hold on a minute! Would you look over there? Now that’s what I call real talent, Mike... in every sense of the word.”
    Mike halted as well and looked at the man whom Lewis had pointed out. He was playing on one of the courts, thundering ground stroke across the net at some hapless opponent who was clearly struggling to deal with the ferocity of the shots.
    “Scott Taylor, yeah?” asked Mike.
    “Aye, that’s him. I wonder what he’s doing here.”
    “I heard he was working for ABC as a commentator.”
    Lewis raised his eyebrows as he received this news. “Scott Taylor –a