Chapter 8: Lockers & Lessons
The morning was a grey intrusion. Mats’s alarm shattered the warm, tangled dark. He moved with the efficient grace of an athlete, untangling himself from her without a word. Vanja lay still, watching his naked form move through the unfamiliar room. He pulled on shorts, padded to the kitchen. The sounds were domestic, jarring: the grinder’s whir, the gurgle of a fancy machine, the clink of a single cup.
He returned, holding two mugs. He handed her one. Black. It was excellent coffee.
“You take it black,” he stated, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I do.”
He drank, looking at her over the rim. The tenderness of the night had been packed away with the condoms. In its place was a practical, almost brusque companionship. “I’ll drive you. You’re at the Dylan, right?”
“Yes.”
“Get dressed. I have pre-match media at nine.”
She did. The torn dress was a crumpled relic on his floor. She put it on, feeling the cool air through the rip. He didn’t comment. He pulled on a hoodie, grabbed his keys.
The drive was quiet, the streets of Amsterdam slick and empty in the dawn light. He drove the same unassuming car, his large hands relaxed on the wheel. He pulled up to the service entrance of her hotel, a discreet spot shielded from the main street.
“Good luck with your media,” she said, her hand on the door handle.
“Vanja.”
She turned. He was looking straight ahead, his jaw tight. “Last night… the park. That was real. The other stuff too, but that… that was real.”
She leaned across the gearstick and kissed him. It wasn’t a passionate kiss. It was a seal. An agreement. “I know.”
She got out. He didn’t drive away until she had disappeared inside.
The texts began that afternoon, a stark contrast to the silence that had followed Pep. Mats was not a poet.
Mats: My calves are tight.
Vanja: Hydrate. Roll them. Don’t be a baby.
Mats: I’m not a baby. My media was shit. They asked about my ‘focus’.
Vanja: Your focus is fine. Your first touch is what worries me.
Mats: Fuck you. I’ll show you my first touch.
Vanja: Promises, promises.
It was easy. Uncomplicated. A game within the game. She buried herself in preparations for the derby, analyzing Feyenoord’s high press, their vulnerable left-back. Her mind, usually a symphony of tactical patterns, now had a bass note running beneath it—a simple, physical anticipation.
The night before the match, the tension was a live wire in her hotel room. . She needed noise. She needed to exert control.
She called him. He answered on the first ring, the sounds of a quiet restaurant in the background.
“Can you come over?” she asked, no greeting.
There was a pause. She heard him excuse himself, the scrape of a chair. “Now?”
“Now.”
Twenty minutes later, he was at her door. He wore track pants and a zip-up jacket, smelling of cold air and faint cologne. He looked young, vital, a reservoir of pure, undirected energy.
“You’re wound tight,” he said, stepping inside, his eyes scanning her face.
“It’s the derby. I always am.”
“Bullshit. This is different.” He came closer, not touching her. “You’re using me.”
She didn’t deny it. “Is that a problem?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “No. I like it. Tell me what to do.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was the power. Not the messy, emotional power of before, but a clean, tactical directive. “Sit on the edge of the bed.”
He did, watching her, his eyes dark. She approached him, standing between his spread knees. She unzipped his jacket, pushed it off his shoulders. Her fingers went to the waistband of his track pants, finding him already half-hard beneath the soft fabric. She pulled him free, his cock springing thick and heavy into her hand.
“For good luck?” he asked, his voice husky.
“For quiet,” she said, and sank to her knees.
The carpet was rough against her shins. She didn’t tease him. She took him into her mouth in one slow, deep glide, her lips stretching around his girth. He hissed, his hands coming down to fist in her hair. She relaxed her throat, taking him deeper, until her nose pressed against the coarse hair at his base. She held there, letting him feel the constricting heat, then pulled back with a wet, sucking sound.
“Jesus, Vanja,” he groaned.
She established a ruthless rhythm. Her head bobbed, her hand working the base of his shaft in tandem with her mouth. She used her tongue, flattening it against the sensitive vein on the underside, then circling the broad head. She tasted the pre-come beading at his tip, salty and clean. She sucked him like it was her job, like her sanity depended on emptying him. Her own arousal was a distant throb, secondary to the mission of control.
He tried to thrust up into her mouth, but she pinned his hips to the bed with her hands, controlling the pace. She looked up at him. His head was thrown back, cords standing out in his neck, his mouth slack. Seeing this powerful, celebrated athlete utterly helpless under her ministrations was a narcotic.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice strangled.
She took him deeper, urging him on with a hum. His thighs trembled. With a raw, guttural shout, he came. She took it all, the hot, pulsing jets hitting the back of her throat. She swallowed, continuing to suck gently until he was soft and oversensitive, twitching in her mouth.
She released him, sitting back on her heels. He was slumped, breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He looked wrecked.
She stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Good luck tomorrow,” she said, her voice calm.
He blinked up at her, dazed. A laugh, incredulous and breathless, escaped him. “You are fucking terrifying.”
He left soon after, a quiet understanding between them. The noise in her head had subsided. She slept deeply, dreamlessly.
The derby was a tempest. The atmosphere in the stadium was a physical force, a roaring, seething beast. Vanja watched from the stands, anonymous in a hoodie, her analyst’s mind dissecting every run, every turnover. But her eyes were glued to number nine.
Mats was a demon. The aggression she’d fucked into him, the focus she’d sucked out of him, was channeled into every movement. He pressed relentlessly. His first touch was, in fact, impeccable. He played with a snarling, joyful fury.
In the 38th minute, he peeled away from his marker, a perfectly timed diagonal run she’d criticized him for. The pass was laser-guided. He took it on his chest, let it drop, and volleyed it into the far corner with a violence that snapped the net. The stadium erupted. He ran to the corner flag, roaring, veins bulging in his neck. He didn’t look for her in the crowd. He didn’t need to.
He scored again in the second half, a powerful header from a corner. Two-nil. Ajax controlled the game from there. When the final whistle blew, the celebrations were primal, cathartic.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she moved with the crowd flowing out into the Amsterdam night.
Mats: My first touch.
Vanja: Adequate. The finish was acceptable.
Mats: Where are you.
Vanja: Leidseplein. Getting a drink.
Mats: Stay there.
She found a bar, crowded with celebrating Ajax fans. She ordered a whisky, neat, and took it to a corner. The noise was overwhelming, a chorus of drunken joy. She felt detached from it, a satellite.
He found her forty minutes later. He still wore his kit, a tracksuit top thrown over it, mud streaked on his cheeks. He smelled of grass, sweat, and triumph. Fans slapped his back, shouted his name. He acknowledged them with a wave, but his eyes were locked on her.
He didn’t speak. He took her wrist, his grip firm, and pulled her through the crowd, down a narrow side alley reeking of urine and stale beer. He backed her against the cold brick wall, his body caging hers, shielding her from view.
His mouth came down on hers, tasting of salt and victory. It was a claiming kiss, hard and desperate. She kissed him back, the whisky taste mingling with his. His hands slid under her top, rough palms scraping her ribs, finding her breasts. He pinched her nipples through the lace of her bra, and she gasped into his mouth.
“You watched,” he breathed against her lips.
“I watched.”
“I played for you.” He ground his hips against her, the hard bulge of his cock, still encased in his sweaty kit, pressing into her belly. “Every fucking touch. For you.”
He yanked her jeans open, his fingers clumsy with urgency. He pushed his hand inside her underwear. She was soaked. “Fuck,” he muttered. “You’re drenched.”
He turned her around, facing the wall. He shoved her jeans and underwear down to her thighs. The brick scraped her palms. He didn’t bother undoing his own shorts; he just pulled the waistband down, freeing himself. He spat into his hand, slicked his cock, and drove into her from behind.
The entry was brutal, a stunning, full-depth invasion. Vanja cried out, the sound swallowed by the roar from the main street. He fucked her with the same relentless rhythm he’d played with: powerful, direct, overwhelming. Each thrust jarred her against the wall. One hand gripped her hip, the other clamped over her mouth, stifling her moans.
“This what you wanted?” he growled in her ear, his breath hot. “You wanted me fucking you in an alley after I scored? You wanted to be my dirty secret?”
She couldn’t answer. Her world had narrowed to the burning stretch of him inside her, the rough brick against her cheek, the animal sounds tearing from his throat. It was raw, degrading, and exhilarating. This was no love-making. This was a celebration of the basest kind. A trophy fuck.
His pace quickened, becoming frantic. The hand over her mouth slipped down to her throat, holding her still as he pounded into her. She was hurtling towards an orgasm, sharp and violent, triggered by the sheer force and illegality of it.
“Come with me,” he commanded, his voice fraying. “Come on my cock, now.”
As if obeying a tactical order, she did. Her climax ripped through her, a silent, seizing convulsion that made her knees buckle. He held her up, driving through her contractions, and with a final, deep snarl, he emptied himself inside her, his release hot and profane.
He stayed buried in her for a long moment, both of them panting, his forehead against her shoulder. The distant cheers from the bar seemed to mock them.
He pulled out, leaving her feeling empty and exposed. He adjusted his kit. She pulled her clothes up, her movements slow, shaky. She turned to face him. His eyes were wild, triumphant, haunted.
He leaned in, kissed her once, softly, on her swollen lips. A paradox.
Then he was gone, melting back into the celebrating crowd, just another Ajax hero.
Vanja leaned against the wall, the cold seeping through her clothes. The taste of him, of whisky, of victory, was ash in her mouth. Her phone buzzed again. Not Mats.
Jürgen Klopp: Saw the derby. Your boy played like a man possessed. Interesting. Call me when you’re sober. We need to talk about your future.
She stared at the screen, the light washing her face in a pale blue glow. In the alley’s darkness, the hollow feeling returned, but it was a different shape now. It wasn’t empty. It was filled with something dark, and potent, and dangerously real.
The hollow feeling followed her back to the Dylan, a phantom limb throbbing where the adrenaline had been. She showered, scrubbing at the grime of the alley, but the sensation of his hands, the smell of his sweat mixed with wet brick, lingered like a stain. She stared at the ceiling in the dark, Klopp’s text a bright, professional brand in her mind, until exhaustion finally pulled her under into a fitful sleep.
Her phone buzzed on the pillow at nine. Mats’s name glowed on the screen. She answered, her voice rough.
“Hey.”
“Vanja.” A pause, filled with his breath. “About last night. The alley. I’m sorry. That was… I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s fine,” she interrupted, rolling onto her back. The morning light was sharp. “It’s what I wanted. What we both wanted.”
“No,” he said, the word firm. “It’s not fine. I didn’t want to find you and fuck you in an alley. I want to come home and find you in my bed.”
Her heart beat faster, a sudden, painful thump against her ribs. She closed her eyes. “Mats.”
“Go on a date with me?” he asked, his voice lower now, stripped of its usual swagger.
“What, more fries?” she said, a weak attempt at their old rhythm.
He laughed, a short, relieved sound. “No. Ice cream?”
She smiled into the phone. “Yeah. Okay.”
They met at a small, artisanal place on a quiet canal bridge, away from the football crowds. He wore a simple grey sweater, jeans, and looked more nervous than he ever did before a match. They got cones—honey lavender for her, salted caramel for him—and walked along the water.
“Klopp’s offer,” she said, licking a drip from the side of her cone. “It’s serious.”
“I know. My agent is screaming about it.” He kicked a pebble. It plinked into the canal. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “You first.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Either Bayern or Liverpool. Honestly.”
“Hm,” she said. “I got an offer for Liverpool.”
“I figured.”
“And from Bayern, too.”
He stopped walking and looked at her, his gaze direct and unnervingly open. “You decide,” he said.
And she knew what he meant. For them both. The professional and the personal, irrevocably tangled. The power was back in her hands, but it felt heavier now.
“Mats,” she said, the wind off the water catching her hair. “We’ve been… this. It feels like forever. Fuck, it feels like I don’t remember myself before I met you, kissed you, felt you inside of me”
He dropped his cone. It splattered on the cobblestones. He didn’t seem to notice. He stepped into her space, his hands coming up to frame her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. His eyes searched hers, and the raw need in them mirrored the thing growing inside her, dark and potent and real.
She kissed him. It was different from all the others—not a prelude, not a victory celebration, not a frantic claiming. It was an answer. Soft, deep, and terrifying in its promise.
When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers. “My place,” he murmured. “Not an alley. My bed.”
She nodded, wordless.
His apartment was a minimalist space, all clean lines and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. The bed was wide, unmade, and smelled of him. He peeled her coat off, then her sweater, his movements deliberate, almost reverent. He unhooked her bra, letting it fall, and knelt to remove her boots, her jeans, her underwear, until she stood naked before him in the stream of afternoon light.
He worshiped her with his mouth. He started at her ankles, kissing up the line of her calf, behind her knee, the soft skin of her inner thigh. He took his time, his tongue tracing patterns, his breath hot against her. By the time he reached the juncture of her legs, she was trembling, her fingers tangled in his hair.
He didn’t just eat her out; he devoured her. He pushed her thighs apart and buried his face in her cunt, his tongue spearing deep inside her before flattening to lap at her soaked folds. He found her clit and sucked it, hard, then soft, then flicked it with the tip of his tongue in a relentless, expert rhythm.
“Oh god, right there,” she gasped, her hips bucking off the bed.
He grunted, his hands sliding under her ass to lift her, to give him better access. He fucked her with his tongue, then sucked her clit back into his mouth, dragging orgasm after shuddering orgasm from her. She came with a broken cry, her back arching, her vision whiting out at the edges.
Before the tremors even subsided, he was on her, his mouth on hers, letting her taste herself on his lips. He was naked now, his cock, thick and rigid, pressing against her belly. He reached for a condom on the nightstand, tore the foil with his teeth.
“Look at me,” he said, as he sheathed himself.
She opened her eyes. He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head nudging against her swollen flesh. He pushed in slowly, a breathtaking, inch-by-inch invasion that made her whimper. He filled her completely, a perfect, stretching fit.
“Vanja,” he breathed, his body trembling with the effort of his control.
He began to move. This wasn’t the frantic pounding of the alley or the park. This was deep, rolling thrusts that reached a place inside her that made her feel unraveled. Each stroke was measured, intentional, his eyes locked on hers. The sound of their bodies meeting was a wet, intimate slap in the quiet room.
“Touch yourself,” he commanded, his voice ragged. “Show me how you come for me.”
She let her hand slide down between them, her fingers finding her slick, sensitive clit. She circled it, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. The dual sensation was overwhelming—the deep fullness of him, the sharp pleasure under her own fingers.
“I can feel you,” he groaned. “Getting tighter. Come on. Let go.”
She shattered. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, seismic wave that clenched around his cock in rhythmic pulses. He swore, his control breaking. His thrusts became faster, harder, driving her through the peak.
“Where?” he gritted out, his face a mask of agonized pleasure.
“Inside,” she gasped. “Come inside me.”
With a final, brutal thrust, he obeyed. He buried himself to the hilt, his body rigid as he came, a guttural roar tearing from his throat. She felt the hot pulse of him through the latex, the rhythmic jerk of his cock as he emptied himself.
He collapsed onto her, his weight a welcome anchor. They lay like that, slick and spent, for a long time, the only sound their slowing breaths. The sun moved across the floor.
Eventually, he rolled off, disposing of the condom, and pulled her against his side. Her head rested on his chest, her ear over the steady, strong beat of his heart.
“Liverpool,” she said quietly into his skin.
She felt his breath catch. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. The project is… sharper. It’s a bigger challenge.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Okay.”
“Your agent will have a fit. It’s a lateral move, at best.”
“Fuck my agent.” He tightened his arm around her. “I play for you.”
The simplicity of it, the enormity of it, left her breathless. Outside, Amsterdam carried on, but in his bed, a new calculus had been agreed upon. The game had just changed entirely.
It became official within the week. The leaks were strategic, the photos staged. A candid shot of them holding hands outside a Rotterdam cafe, her laughing at something he said. Another, blurrier, of him kissing her temple as they waited for a ferry. The narrative wrote itself: The Golden Boy and the Tactical Prodigy. Football’s perfect power couple.
“It’s nauseating,” Vanja muttered, scrolling through a gushing tabloid article on her phone in the departure lounge. “They’ve photoshopped a halo onto your head.”
Mats snatched the phone, his thumb brushing her nipple through her thin shirt as he did, a casual intimacy that still sent a jolt through her. He read aloud, his voice a low, mocking baritone. “’A meeting of minds and bodies, a union forged in the fierce crucible of elite sport.’ What the fuck does that even mean?”
“It means they’re selling papers,” she said, retrieving her phone. “And it means we’re both leveraging it. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
He didn’t deny it. He just smiled, that slow, knowing smile, and let his hand rest high on her thigh, his fingers splayed. A claim. A promise. The flight to Liverpool was a circus of discreet photos and whispered recognition. They played their parts. She wore his jacket. He carried her bag. They looked like a team.
Jürgen Klopp met them at the AXA Training Centre himself, his grin a wide, genuine slash across his face. He engulfed Mats in a back-slapping hug that looked like it could crack ribs, then turned to Vanja, taking both her hands in his.
“Vanja! Finally. We get the whole package.” His eyes, bright and intelligent, darted between them, assessing the dynamic. “And you. You look… settled. It is good for a striker to be settled. Happy striker, many goals. Simple maths.”
Mats just nodded, a respectful sharpness in his posture. “Thank you for the opportunity, boss.”
“Opportunity? Pfah. You are doing us the favor!” Klopp laughed, steering them inside. The facility was a temple of modern sport, all gleaming glass and manicured pitches. The smell of cut grass and deep heat gel hung in the air. “Vanja, your office is down there. Analyst pod, next to the defensive unit. You’ll start with individual video sessions for Van Dijk and Konaté. They are expecting you.”
As they walked through the bright, echoing halls, players milled about. A few nodded at Mats. Then Virgil van Dijk approached, an imposing figure even in simple training gear. He shook Mats’s hand, his gaze appreciative.
“Welcome. Saw your derby tape. You’re moving differently. Quicker first step.” His cool eyes shifted to Vanja, a flicker of amused understanding there. “Ah. Now I see. The secret weapon.”
Vanja offered a professional smile. “Just good coaching, Virgil.”
“I bet,” he said, a faint smile touching his lips. “Keep him happy. He’s playing better than ever.”
The comment hung in the air, a public acknowledgment of their private truth. Mats’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Later, in the temporary silence of a rented city-centre apartment still smelling of paint and new furniture, Vanja set the boundary. She was unpacking a box of books—tactical manuals, psychology texts—and lining them on a shelf with precise spacing.
“I’m working with the defence,” she stated, not looking at him. He was leaning in the doorway, watching her. “Specifically. That’s my in. My project. We won’t talk much at work. At all, really. It has to be clean.”
He was quiet for a long moment. She heard him push off the doorframe, his bare feet silent on the polished concrete floor. He came up behind her, his body not touching hers, but the heat of him was a palpable force. He rested his hands on the shelf on either side of her, caging her in.
“I get to see you,” he said, his voice a low vibration near her ear. His breath stirred the fine hairs at her temple. “Across the pitch. In meetings. I get to watch you work. Watch them listen to you.” He inhaled deeply, his nose near her hair. “It’s more than enough.”
He said it like a vow. Then his hands left the shelf and moved to her hips, turning her roughly to face him. There was no prelude, no soft kiss. The professional distance of the day demanded a violent collapse. His mouth crashed down on hers, a clash of teeth and tongue. She bit his lower lip, and he groaned, his hands yanking her jeans open.
He turned her, bending her over the cardboard box marked ‘BOOKS’. The rough edge dug into her belly. He shoved her jeans and underwear down to her knees. She heard the tear of a foil packet, the rustle of his own clothes. He entered her in one brutal, shearing thrust.
She cried out, the sound absorbed by the empty room. He was impossibly deep, the angle acute and punishing. He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He set a relentless, driving pace, each slam of his hips jolting her into the box. One hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back. The other arm wrapped around her torso, pinning her to him.
“This what you need?” he growled, his voice raw. “After a day of being so fucking professional? You need to be used?”
“Yes,” she hissed, pushing back against him.
“Tell me.”
“I need you to fuck me like this,” she gasped, the words torn from her. “Harder.”
He obeyed, his rhythm devolving into something primal. The slapping sound of their bodies was obscenely loud. The cardboard crumpled beneath her. He was hitting a spot that blurred her vision, each impact sparking a desperate, coiling tension low in her gut. She was already close, the transition from controlled analyst to this—a creature of pure sensation—was terrifyingly fast.
“I’m gonna come,” she warned, her voice breaking.
“Come on my cock,” he commanded, his own breath ragged. “Squeeze it out. Let go.”
His hand slid around her hip, his fingers finding her clit, wet and swollen. He pressed hard, circling twice. It was all it took. Her orgasm detonated, a silent, shattering convulsion that locked her muscles around him. She saw white behind her eyelids, her mouth open in a soundless scream.
He fucked her through it, his own control snapping. With a choked, guttural roar, he drove into her one last time and held, his body shuddering as he pulsed inside the condom. They stayed locked like that, both panting, suspended in the wreckage of the box.
Slowly, he softened, slipped out. He gently pulled her up, turning her to face him. Her legs were unsteady. He kissed her, softly this time, a tender contrast to the violence. He rested his forehead against hers, their sweat mingling.
“Clean at work,” he whispered, repeating her rule back to her, his eyes dark and sure. “Dirty here.”
She nodded, her breath still coming in hits. The line was drawn. The game, for now, had its rules. And as she looked at him, at the man who had just wrecked her over a box of books, she knew the most dangerous part was how much she wanted to play.