Tara's Story

The glitter and pizzazz of the New York State Junior Finals was something not to be missed. The young girls in their spangled and brightly colored satin costumes glided across the ice with the grace of ballet dancers. They practiced their single and double toe loops, Lutz, flips, axels and dizzying spins. It was beautiful to behold. The arena was completely full of the skaters, friends, families and guests, each of who had their eye on their own special contestant. To those observing the practice before the competition, each child appeared, to his or her parents, to be equal to or better than most of the others. But a lot of eyes were on eighteen-year-old Tara Wood who had taken the ice skating world by storm over the past twelve months and who seemed to be destined for the Olympics in a little more than a year. Among the female skaters, she would be the one to beat. And, many parents were wishing that if only their daughter scored equal to or higher than Tara...maybe their daughter would go on to the Olympics.

A whistle blew, and all the skaters silently left the ice rink as the lights dimmed and a spotlight came on to the first female ontestant. The classical music began to flow through the loudspeakers to create an ambience for the sole skater in the spotlight. The candidate, a girl of thirteen, nervous though she was, tried to perform with an aura of complete confidence and relaxation. Even her missteps were glossed over with a glowing smile hiding the tears the girl felt inside as she hoped and prayed the judges didn't catch the little mistakes she was making.

When Tara Wood, the eighth female competitor of the evening, took the center of the ice ring wearing a spangled red and white skating dress with matching skates, her brown hair pulled back into a bun, she was a rare beauty to behold. Seldom had the ice seen a skater with such grace, perfect features, a fair complexion, beautiful-brown eyes and, more than anything else, a smile that seemed to emanate from within infecting the audience and making them share Tara's inner confidence. Even if Tara were your toughest competition, it would have been hard not to like her. She was the perfect picture of eighteen-year-old innocence, virtue, talent and enthusiasm. Tara had the look of a girl who knew she would win. And, as she glided effortlessly across the ice doing her leaps and spins, the audience had to agree with the judges: she was in a class all by herself. The judges gave her near-perfect scores, and the audience threw roses at her feet.

When Tara finished her performance, the crowd in the ice arena gave her a standing ovation. Tara acknowledged it softly and with what seemed to be genuine humility. The audience and the judges absolutely loved her! She skated to the waiting box and was joined by her coach, Steve Johns. They both smiled and waived to the audience as the judges scores announced Tara's victory. Then Tara and Steve left the arena area and went together to the dressing room where the earlier contestants were now changing into their street clothes.

The other girls in the dressing room thought nothing of Steve's presence in the room while they were changing their clothes. He was one of the world's leading skating coaches, and everyone in that dressing room would have liked him to be their coach, but Steve, was extremely expensive. Steve only coached the very best skaters.

Like the others in that room, Tara thought nothing of Steve being there as she removed her skates, unzipped her skating dress, pulled down her costume panties and tights leaving her clad only in a cotton bra and cotton knickers. In a moment, however, Tara had thrown on a knit shirt and jeans. She bent over and started pulling on her socks and shoes.

"You were absolutely great, darling," purred Steve.

"It felt good,"responded Tara.

"I know you wanted to do your triple, but I simply felt it wasn't necessary this time."

"You were right...as usual," quipped Tara.

Steve glowed with pride. "You looked like you were born on the ice."

Tara looked directly into Steve's eyes and her mind started to drift back to a few months earlier: