by Lulu Pratt
You need to cut this off, my mind asserted. This isn’t fair to either of you.
If that was true, why did this feel so right?
But no — my inner moral compass was correct, and for once, I had to listen to it. I’d spent years getting up to no good, partying, womanizing, blowing off responsibilities. Catya was too precious to be felled by my indifference to societal constructs.
“I have to go,” I said, my voice low and tinged with regret.
“Yeah, oh gosh, yeah, of course,” she said, rising quickly to her feet, obviously mortified by how much she’d just told me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that, please just forget—”
I replied, “Don’t apologize. Being yourself is something a woman like you should never apologize for.”
A quick breath escaped her throat. If I just reached out right now and held her, what then?
But I didn’t.
Instead, I said, “I’ll see you at practice,” then put in my earphones and jogged in the opposite direction, leaving Catya alone in the woods.
Chapter 7
Catya
Simon raced away from me, moving far faster than he’d been going when we collided, almost as fast as my pulse was beating.
Just for the record, I hadn’t expected to talk with him like that. Hell, I hadn’t expected to see him, period. The woods were my place, and six in the morning was most definitely my time. What were the odds, you know?
Maybe we can just chalk it up to my bleary state as I don’t drink caffeine before runs, or the quiet of the forest.
Or, um, maybe we can chalk it up to everything about Simon. I wasn’t even sure what I liked most. That wild hair, with a mind of its own? Those blue eyes that put the ocean to shame? Or just, like, his entire body?
No, it’s not any of that, I thought. Those don’t hurt, but it’s… him. All of him, physical and emotional and everything else.
Shit. I was falling, hard and fast — no pun intended. The way we’d talked this morning had been overwhelming.
Confession time — I’d never had a serious boyfriend. Flings and hookups, sure, a few blind dates, but nothing serious. Not like I had a lot of spare time to go around, and if I knew anything from my parents’ awesome, caring relationship, it was that the good stuff took energy and time. I had neither.
So, yeah. I’d never had a serious boyfriend, but I think the way I spoke with Simon was how people in committed relationships talk.
And he’d listened. I know, I know, that shouldn’t be so amazing, but the men my crew hung out with most — that is, fraternity brothers — weren’t big on the whole listening thing. They were fans of quick one-night stands and ranking girls based on their hotness, but listening? Not so much. Emotional literacy was something none of their litany of prep schools could teach them.
Landing on top of him, my body running the length of his — minus half a foot, of course — Jesus. I’d had sex before, but had never been as turned on as I was in that moment. I was already straddling him, it would’ve only taken a slight shift and a little pressure, and we could’ve been fucking. My pussy ached at the thought, as if to say, ‘You’d deny me a catch like that?’
Amen, I thought in response, and then immediately, Enough, Catya. Stop it.
I hadn’t even had time to study his tattoos. They’d peeked out of his shirt the day before, but without his top, they were fully on display. His upper body was littered with them, though more like faint outlines on his skin than deep, black marks. I wondered if they were somehow a map to his heart.
With the mental fortitude forged by years of competitive sports, I willed my mind to settle on something besides Simon and his delicious body.
Class, my brain helpfully provided. You have class.
Right. Good point. I dusted myself off from the fall, reoriented myself, and with no further ado, took off running in the direction of campus, as far away as humanly possible from that fateful spot in that fucking forest.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully — or, not quite as eventfully as the morning, no surprise. Needless to say, I was, for the second afternoon in a row, hopelessly distracted in class. At this rate, I’d be toast on the next pop quiz. I made a mental note to do some extra studying later in order to catch back up.
After class, it was back to the sorority house to change for practice. Sometimes, it seemed like half my day was devoted to going back and forth between locations. Luckily campus was tiny, so this amounted to maybe thirty minutes of walking.
The house bounced with girls who were also in between their classes. People called across rooms for, in no particular order — Adderall, problem send help, Tinder advice and hugs. Delta Omega Upsilon was a sorority of highly stressed overachievers, so I fit right in. Nobody paid me any mind as I made my way to my room and began opening drawers in search of clean workout clothes. It didn’t take long for me to alight on something… shall we say, promising.
In the back of the drawer, stuffed between other spandex items, was a workout push-up bra. You know how, like, the average sports bra makes your boobs into one mega-boob? This one had a built-in regular bra, and a zipper, and basically it pushed your tits together and up. It was the kind of bra off-duty celebrities wore in case the paparazzi were out. With a little trace of guilt, I threw it on.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Close near to the bra, as if in a sign of universal kismet, were a pair of short shorts that sat high on my small waist and allowed the edges of my butt cheeks to peek out. I added those to the ensemble then went to look in the mirror.
Hot. No doubt about it — the get up was objectively hot. Pleased with myself, I put on an outer layer, grabbed my bag, and exited the house once more.
Simon had instructed us to meet on the field today, so I went straight there. Half the team was on time. I guessed the punctuality-inducing wonder of a new coach had worn off, and we all quickly stripped down to our gear. Simon himself had yet to put in an appearance. Maybe he was still reeling from the morning?
Max, standing close by, took one look at me and hollered, “Oh shit, ladies, look at what Captain Catya’s got on!”
“Damn, get it, girl!” Sharon-Ann crowed.
There were the requisite accompanying shrieks and vigorous signs of approval. I waved away the praise, but secretly enjoyed it, basking in their affectionate support.
Grace walked up next to me, leaned into my ear, and asked with false innocence, “This little outfit wouldn’t happen to be for anyone in particular, would it?”
I whirled around. “What do you mean?”
She smirked, “Oh, nothing. Never mind,” and strode away to stretch.
Her comment unsettled me. Ok, it was a touch out of character for me to get all dolled up for practice, but everybody else seemed to take it as a sign of my empowerment, if they took it as anything at all. There was no way to be sure, but Grace appeared to have an entirely different thought — one closer to the truth.
I’d have to be more careful.
Shortly thereafter, Simon and the rest of the girls arrived. He was shouting his ‘hellos’ when he noticed me, and slowed to a standstill.
Anyone who wasn’t watching carefully would’ve missed the moment, but I’d been poised, waiting for it. His eyes, openly lustful, raked over my body. I could almost feel them inside me, and imagined other parts of him I’d like inside me.
While the other girls warmed up with some active stretching, Simon sauntered over to me, looking for all the world like a man who’d been starving in the desert and had just found water.
“Hey,” I said, playing it cool.
“Hey yourself.” He paused, and apparently unable to resist a comment, added, “I see you’ve ditched this morning’s sweatpants.”
“Thought I’d go for something… not covered in dirt.”
“Ah, fair enough,” he replied. “I like it.”
I stammered, “Thanks.”
Regardless of our talk this morning, I hadn’t expecte
d him to be so… so… forward? No, it wasn’t even like he was being that forward. It was more as though an extra layer of meaning, like a thin layer of perfume, had been placed atop each sentence he spoke.
His eyes drank in one last look, and then he turned away.
Practice was hard — hard but good. Simon put us through more advanced testing, presumably trying to get a feel for the team. I admired that he wasn’t just going in blind and hoping for the best, but rather taking the time to see how we worked, and tailoring his coaching to that. The tests were on basic soccer stuff — passing, shooting, etc.
But then we got to the fun part.
He was trying to explicate what he wanted us to do at some point in the practice, and we all quickly realized we weren’t speaking the same language. Maybe they have different soccer terms in England? I don’t know, I kind of thought it was the universal constant. Anyways, there were some specific drills he wanted to do, and the team was confused.
So then Simon rolled his eyes, smiled and said, “Never mind, I’ll just show you.”
I know it was predictable, but I was one of those girls who just kind of goes weak when guys prove to be, like, talented. Not even strong, necessarily, but deft and skillful. Or was that every woman? Doesn’t matter.
He stripped off his thicker outer layers, revealing a thin T-shirt that rode up over his perfectly flat stomach that bore the faint traces of abs, which I knew from earlier he undoubtedly had. His tattooed biceps clenched and unclenched.
You could almost hear the drool running out of the girls’ mouths, and I was no exception. He moved the ball back and forth between his feet almost like a ballerina, so light he seemed to barely touch the ground. He executed a drill — one which we all knew, and had indeed called a different name — and then looked at us expectantly.
“It’s like this, I want it like this, understand?” he asked.
I knew how I wanted it.
Get your mind out of the gutter, I chided myself, then immediately discarded the thought, deciding I couldn’t be bothered to care. At least I wasn’t alone in admiring his ability, right?
“Do you understand, ladies?” he repeated.
“Oh yeah, we understand,” smirked Sophia.
Tanya added, “Yeah, you’re like some kind of soccer god.”
Simon laughed, loudly and freely. “Are you lot trying to kiss my ass in hopes that I’ll make this practice easier?”
I opened my mouth and his focus immediately shot to me.
“Yes, Catya?” he queried, as if there were no one else there. “Got something to say?”
“You are a soccer god,” I affirmed simply. “Total badass.”
He grinned. “Don’t you start, too.”
“Come on, Simon, just take the compliment,” I teased.
“Okay, from you… I’ll allow it, Captain.”
The moment between us had gone on for long enough. A second more, and the other girls would realize something was up.
Simon quickly changed subjects, shouting, “All right, back to work everyone!”
I practiced intensely, wanting to show him what I could do, and also, okay, to show him up a little.
We were paired together in rotating passing drills — he had to participate because there were an odd number of girls — and we worked together in perfect synchronicity, as if we’d been doing it for years. I didn’t even have to look in his direction to know where he’d send the ball. I felt his rhythm from pure instinct. I wondered what sex would be like, with him, with this physical familiarity and understanding.
Practice was, at last, a wrap. I was proud of my girls. They’d showed up in fine form today.
Simon called us in for a huddle.
“Great work today,” he said appreciatively. “Consider me formally impressed.”
They generally tried to be nonchalant, but I could see a couple of the other players smiling with self-satisfaction. We all respond well to positive feedback.
He continued, “Okay, I guess we’re all—” then paused. “One more thing, actually. I got a bit sweaty practicing with you. Can anyone direct me to the showers?”
Oh no. I knew what was about to happen, and I also knew I couldn’t stop it.
Nora sung, “Sure thing, Coach. Here, let me show you the way.”
She walked closer to him, then in a voice too low for me to hear and hand motions too vague for me to make out, gave him some directions.
While she was doing this, Grace began to snicker.
“Come on,” I said to her. “Give him a break, we don’t have to do this every time.”
“Sure we do,” she replied.
“It’s usually only for other teams,” I protested. “Not for our coach.”
“It’s tradition!” Grace giggled.
I gave up. This wasn’t a fight I could win.
See, the Stallions have this stupid old tradition that, as a way of rather benign hazing, that we — really, more like they — sent a newbie, unfamiliar with the campus, to the showers of the opposite gender. Personally, I think it was a weird, fairly binary remnant of another era, but I was also only human, and do get a good laugh out of seeing men’s football teams from other top schools shriek in horror when they realize they were in the women’s locker room, and all the women — who knew they would be there — were screaming with laughter.
It was kind of like an inversion of those raunchy comedies from the ‘80s, and while the sexual politics remain iffy, the prank has stayed the same. We hadn’t had a new coach in fifteen years, and we didn’t usually prank women’s teams by sending them to the other locker room. That seemed altogether too mean spirited. We would do it to their male coaches, though. Finally, at long last, it was our turn.
Phew, that was a long thought. All of which to say — Simon had been sent to the women’s locker rooms to take a shower. The field is a labyrinth, the doors aren’t clearly marked, so on and so forth. He wouldn’t realize until it was too late.
“Aren’t we getting a little old for this?” I pleaded with Grace, and everyone else in our vicinity.
Neidin huffed, “Don’t be a bummer, Catya. Let’s just enjoy the show, m’kay?”
“Yeah, girl,” Riri seconded. “Are you telling me you don’t wanna see what Coach is packing?”
Well, damn. They had me there. As much as I might be opposed to the outdated implications of the prank, I did very badly want to see the rest of Simon. Running into him bare-chested this morning was tantalizing enough. Now I hungered to learn what lay beneath those innocuous gray sweats.
My face must have said it all, because Rose yelled triumphantly, “Catya’s on board, everyone. Let’s go see Simon’s sweet ass!”
They began running across the field. I blushed, and in a moment of weakness, broke into a sprint and followed suit.
I never said I was a good person.
Chapter 8
Simon
Thanks to Nora’s instructions, I found the locker room in no time. I went through the unassuming double doors, and found a high-tech facility with shiny lockers, plasma screens throughout the space and waterfall showers. I whistled low beneath my breath. This was the good shit.
The place was empty, so I stripped off my clothes and left them on a nearby bench. My nose caught a particularly appealing scent — maybe some vanilla? Whatever it was, it smelled far better than any locker room I’d been in before.
Nice, I thought to myself. You’re moving up in the world, to bigger and better smelling locker rooms.
Unfortunately, the shortage of other men in the facility meant I had no idea where to get a towel. I searched high and low, but eventually resigned myself, realizing that in a place this sprawling, it would be unlikely for me to hunt them down without help. Thinking quickly, I grabbed a small rally towel from my bag. It would have to do.
Did they have rally towels in America? They were basically just tiny towels that people whip around at sports events because… well, tradition, I guess. They usually
have the team’s name printed somewhere on them, and occasionally, the merch overlords will release limited-edition rally towels for special games. My rally towel was from the championship game I’d played in high school, in which I’d led my team to a decisive victory over our rivals. It had been a wildly satisfying day, and I kept the towel as a small piece of memorabilia, not as a proper shower towel.
But today, I was stuck with the rally towel. With a small sigh of frustration, I made my way into the showers, flung the towel over a nearby ledge, and began messing with all the silver knobs, trying to decipher which button would produce hot water. At last, a strong stream of hot water burst from overhead, and I dipped my head underneath, soaking my hair and allowing water rivulets to flow down my face and back.
That’s when I heard the first scream.
I raised my head in confusion, and the second scream came as I shook the water from my face.
Then a third, a fourth, a fifth — a chorus of distinctly delighted shrieks.
I threw my chin over my shoulder to see what the fuck was going on. Oh shit. Directly behind me, clumped together and pointing, laughing and wolf-whistling, was the entire women’s soccer team.
“Nice ass, Coach!” one hollered.
“Yeah, keeping it real tight!” came another.
Scrambling, I grabbed my rally towel off the ledge and covered my dick. It was too late to try to shield my ass. They’d already gotten a full moon flash of that. I remained facing the wall, as the towel only barely covered my cock.
“What the bloody hell are you lot doing?” I roared.
An immediate reply from the back, “Pranking you, duh!”
I should’ve known. While I wanted to be filled with all-consuming rage, I too had pulled a similar prank in my time. Who was I to lambast them? Maybe I might have felt differently if I didn’t have such a fine body, but that wasn’t the case.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Did everybody get a good look? Are you all done now?”
