“Beckett! Where are you?” Cassava wandered backstage looking for her new tag team partner. Fresh off their first win as a team, over the acclaimed and time tested Bootyshock no less, this should have been a time of celebration but old feelings and the past had made things complicated.
Dammit, wish this happened somewhere a little more private she thinks as she frantically searches the backstage area. Beckett kissing her may have gone a lot smoother if it didn’t happen in front of the thousands in attendance at the FAWN arena.
CASSAVA ONIKA
No sign of the Arizonan in the press area, Onika jogs to the locker to search there. The awkwardness of the situation already public knowledge, other wrestlers and staff avoid speaking to her, but steal a gaze at her bobbling breasts nearly slipping out of her wife beater as she runs past. Her ears picking up a familiar echo, Cassava speeds up. She gets to the locker room she and Beckett, along with a couple other wrestlers, had shared for that night. Before she can open the door, she can already hear a familiar voice crying, sobbing uncontrollably. Taking a deep breath to brace herself, she opens the door to find Cassandra Beckett slumped over on one of the benches, bawling and slamming her fist into the nearest locker.
CASSANDRA BECKETT
“Stupid!” she berates herself in between sobs and punches, “STUPID!! WHY must you ALWAYS fuck things up??!!” Cassava gasps at the tableau, her heart breaking for the sorrow her partner is going through. Concerned for Beckett’s well-being, physical as well as emotional, as she is worried Cassandra might very well break her hand on the metal locker, she quickly comes up behind her and tries to ease her suffering the best way she knows how: with a warm, caring hug. Her back is to whomever it is that has just wrapped their arms around her, but instinctively, Cassandra knows. “C-Cassava?” she warbles, her voice unsteady.
“Yeah, Cassie, it’s me.” Onika says soothingly, “Listen...you didn’t fuck anything up, okay? You just surprised me is all. It’s okay, I promise.” She sits down beside her on the bench, repositioning Cassandra so that the two of them are facing each other, keeping her arms around her.
“A-alright, I guess…” Beckett nods, sniffling. Cassava can’t help but be taken aback, seeing the normally steely-nerved Nebraska native looking so broken down, so vulnerable. “I ain’t never made it a secret about how I feel about you, after all.” she adds, her eyes cast downward.
Cassava nods in agreement, she had doubted Cassandra’s confession of love at first, thinking it was just more mind games from the Queen Bitch. But over the last few months, with the time they’ve spent together becoming a cohesive unit and growing closer as comrades, Cassava now knew full well that her feelings were genuine. “Yeah.” she answers, rubbing Beckett’s shoulders, “We never really talked about it since you came to FAWN. We should have, it probably would have made things easier in the beginning.”
Cassandra shakes her head, still too ashamed to make eye contact with the object of her affection, “There was never time.” she says mournfully, “First with...well, you know…” she continues, referencing their prior conflict, “And then we had to get our shit together to deal with those lopsided booty bitches.”
Cassava tries and fails to hold in a chuckle at the shot she just took at the team they just beat. “Heh, nice.”
This actually causes Cassandra to look up at Cassava for the first time, offering a slight smile. “See? I’m learnin’ from ya.”
Cassava smiles and touches her forehead to Cassie’s, “We still should’ve done more to address it, Cassie. You’ve been doing a lot better, and I don’t want you to feel like you gotta bottle things up.” Onika then pulls away, looking to the side, seeming to be searching for the right things to say. For her part, Cassandra’s heart is pounding in her chest being in such close intimate proximity to her unrequited love. Finally, Cassava makes eye contact again, speaking slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Alright, here’s the thing,” she begins, “you’re
really hot. It’s one of the things I hated about you when we were fighting each other. It’s distracting.”
Cassandra blinks and feels her cheeks growing hot at the compliment, “You really think so?”
Cassava nods slowly, licking her lips, “Oh, yeah. Your face and body has made some surprising and confusing cameos when I’ve been...er,
occupied.” Cassava can feel her skin blush as she makes this confession.
Cassandra can barely believe she’s hearing this, as she shakes her head as if trying to wake herself up from a dream. She opens her mouth to reply, but finds herself in the unfamiliar position of being at a loss for words. “I, uh...wow…
wow...” she stammers.
“But…” Cassava continues, “our history is bad, and we have to be honest about that. Our first year of interactions wasn’t healthy.”
Beckett sighs and nods in agreement. “No...no, it wasn’t, and that was my fault.” she hangs her head, ashamed as she remembers the awful things she did to Cassava.
Onika likewise sighs and rubs Cassandra’s shoulders, “Hey...hey, we’ve talked about this. We’ve been down that road, and I forgive you.” Cassandra nods in response and wipes her eyes of the tears welling up anew. “But, at the same time, we can’t ignore that it happened, or how it’s affected us. I’m...not closed off to the idea of dating you, Cassie. In fact, I really could honestly see us in a real relationship together.” This causes Beckett to make eye contact with Onika again, her expression hopeful. “But we’ve made a lot of progress over the last few months, and I don’t think we should jeopardize what we’ve worked so hard for by jumping headlong into something we’re not emotionally prepared for.”
Cassie swallows hard and nods, “Right, right...You’re right, of course. We would need to be comfortable - really comfortable - with each other before we should move forward on something like that, I get it. I just…” she stumbles, looking for the right words, “and...I know this is gonna sound like some creepy stalker shit...but...I just wanna be near you, even if I can’t be with you. You know what I mean?”
Cassava tilts her head, looking at Cassandra, smiling slightly at the irony of that statement. “Cassandra, I’m wearing a custom Kylie Corps thong and a Black Court bra. Trust me when I say that feeling has been the basis for most of my life.” Beckett nods a little at that. Cassava wasn’t called The Superfan for nothing, her idol worship of Kylie Sanders and, to a lesser extent Emily West, was well known. “I want us to keep tagging together,” she continues, “I think this Frenemies With Benefits thing has legs, and we seem to be communicating better since we’ve teamed up.”
Cassandra nods in agreement, “Yeah...I think we have something special here.” There’s a comfortable pause and the pair share a sweet smile between them, having reached a new understanding. After a few moments, an idea begins to take root in Cassava’s head and she gets up from the bench, going behind Beckett and massaging her back. She’s always been a very tactile person, hence all the hugging and such, and the massage is helping her work out her thoughts.
“I...may have an idea…” she finally says tentatively.
Cassandra turns her head to look at Onika, “C-Cassava?”
“You and I clearly have some pent-up feelings towards each other,” she begins, “and I don’t want to go through us facing each other in the ring again.”
Beckett shakes her head emphatically, as if the very thought terrified her. “Me neither...never again…”
“We’ve decided that we shouldn’t date; not yet, anyway.” Cassava continues, “Buuuuut...what if we just had sex for now, see how it is, and let whatever happens happen?”
Cassandra lets out a shocked “Eep!”, looking like she’s about to float on air. “You...you mean it?”
She nods, “I mean, why not? We’re grown folks, right? We can handle keeping things vague while we feel things out…” she then pauses, realizing how that sounded, “Uh...that wasn’t meant to be an innuendo, but you know what I mean.”
Cassie chuckles a little, “Yeah...Yeah, I know what you mean. So, uhm...woo!” she suddenly finds herself at a loss for words again. “Did it just get hot in here all of a sudden?” she begins to fan herself, as if to emphasize her question.
Cassava clears her throat. She was certainly feeling the heat too, but she didn’t want to let on. “Soooo...Whattaya say we hit the showers and wash the stink of stereotypes off of us and go somewhere a little more...private?” She grinned playfully; truth be told, she kind of enjoyed being the one seemingly in the proverbial driver’s seat of this budding relationship. She certainly wasn’t about to abuse Cassandra’s trust, but at this point she was well aware that she was putty in her hands.
Cassandra nods eagerly as she starts to get up, “O-okay!” She opens her locker to get her street clothes ready. “Geez! I wasn’t this nervous before my first match!” she notes, giggling nervously.
Cassava replies with her own nervous giggle, “Same. Granted, mine was against a giant inflatable panda.”
This stops Beckett in her tracks, mid-undressing. She looks over at her newfound lover, “For real?” she asks incredulously.
Onika nods, “Yeah. Came over from Japan for an event for ComicCon. Great girl. I’ll tell ya about it later.”
“Oh, wow!” Cassandra shakes her head, “That must’ve been something to see! I can’t wait to hear about it!”
Cassava sneaks a glance at Cassandra as she wiggles out of her trunks, unintentionally (maybe) shaking her rear for Onika’s benefit. “It was a fun night.” She licks her lips and chews on her bottom lip as she eyes Beckett’s now nude body up and down. “And I think tonight is shaping up to be even more fun,” she purrs, adding, “I think this was the right decision…”
