I started laughing. What else could I do? Throw the game… the suggestion was so absurd that I couldn’t even imagine it. El Diablo, however, wasn’t laughing.
“What? No,” I said. “That’s crazy. I’m not throwing the game. Some of my teammates have been working for this for years and Coach Hayworth… Just no. No!”
El Diablo shrugged and let go of my jacket. “Suit yourself,” she said. “You can try to resist but it’s not going to do any good. In the end, you are going to throw the game. Your resistance is only going to make it that much more fun for me to crush you.”
I watched her walk away in stunned silence. What on earth was she talking about? With a feeling of dread filling me, I did my best to put her out of my mind and focus on the upcoming game.
The game was being held at the same stadium where the girls had won the state championship last year. That, at least, was a good omen. Our bus left at noon. As I sat on the bus and looked out the window at the scenery flying by, I felt my usual pre-game feeling of excitement and anticipation building. This was my time. I was going to launch myself into Lakeville stardom. What could El Diablo realistically do to stop me? She was evil but she wasn’t out there on the field. All she could do now was play mind games and I wasn’t about to fall for those.
As soon as we got into the locker room, all of the guys got into their usual pre-game routine. For my part, I preferred to remain quiet and think as little as possible. I used the restroom and when I came back Coach Hayworth was ready to give our pre-game pep talk. I didn’t want to disturb him by unzipping my duffel bag so I waited until he was finished.
As a result, I was pulling off my tee-shirt when most of the rest of the guys were running out the door. That was fine; we had arrived plenty early and there was no rush. I opened my bag and pulled on my soccer jersey, confident in the knowledge that I was no in a hurry.
In fact, it wasn’t until I slipped off my shorts and boxers and picked up my spandex undershorts that a touch of concern started to set in. That was because the undershorts were not mine at all.
I groaned. Mom must have mixed up Aaron’s spandex with mine and put his in my drawer. It wouldn’t be the first time that such a mistake had occurred. I usually noticed it before packing my clothes, however. Unfortunately, this morning I had been in a hurry and I must not have looked at them carefully.
Oh well, at least Aaron and I had the same body type. In fact, I often wore his old clothes. It saved me from having to go shopping.
I put the spandex undershorts on and was immediately taken aback by how small – and tight – they were. Like, ridiculously tight. I made a mental note to give Aaron crap about that. Still, I was a tad worried. I wasn’t used to playing soccer in such constricting underwear. Plus, there was an odd minty smell wafting up from them. They almost seemed a bit waxy in the crotch region. I wondered if some of the laundry detergent had not gotten dissolved after the last time my mom had washed them.
Regardless, there was nothing for it now. I put on my soccer shorts, shin pads, socks, and shoes. Then I zipped up my bag and dashed out of the locker room.
I only got halfway down the hall before I felt an odd tingling sensation in my groin. I slowed down and stopped uncertainly. What the heck? It was a strange, cool feeling. Perhaps it was from the leftover detergent? If so, I figured that the feeling would subside shortly and I resolved to continue to the field.
Then, just like a light switch, the sensation went from cool to raging inferno.
I grabbed my crotch in shock. No, it couldn’t be… it was. IcyHot. Someone had coated my spandex with IcyHot. I knew what would come next. Complete, unbearable pain for my poor nether regions. One time when we were kids Aaron had tricked me into putting IcyHot on my private parts and I had cried for hours. The only way to mitigate the agony was to wash the stuff off as soon as possible. I whirled around to run back to the locker room. That’s when the door swung shut and El Diablo emerged from the tiny space behind it.
“You!” I seethed, instantly putting two-and-two together.
“Not me alone,” El Diablo said primly. “I had help. I couldn’t very well break into your locker and switch out your shorts on my own, now, could I? IcyHot… you’ll have to thank Sadie for that little idea. It’s very effective, no?” Before I could respond to that, two strong sets of hands seized both of my arms.
“I told you that you were going to lose this game, Nate. Now we finish the job,” El Diablo said, the chilling little smile still fixed on her face.
I struggled and fought with all my might but the two big morons who had seized me were immovable. “Churchill wrestling boys,” El Diablo said by way of explanation. “They got to do something like this to David and developed a bit of a taste for it. They jumped at the chance to do the same to David’s little brother. You don’t know Missy James but she was the queen of the school last year. She really was a genius when it came to boys. It’s kind of fitting that she conquered David and now I’m conquering his brother even as I take over her old role. The only difference is that Sadie isn’t around to stop me.”
They duct taped my mouth shut and my hands together in front of me and put a blindfold over my eyes. Then they dragged me down the hall.
“We’re going to the ladies’ locker room,” El Diablo chirped happily. “It’s not in use today so we won’t be bothered.”
Once we stopped moving I heard a clinking of metal. A moment later, one of the guys seized the back of my spandex waistband and wrenched up with all his might. They all laughed and the guy hooked my waistband onto something.
I was in torturous discomfort. My spandex undershorts were hooked firmly onto what I assumed was a locker door. They were wrenched up so high that I had to stand on my tip toes but the pain from the wedgie was still excruciating even then. Meanwhile, the IcyHot was wreaking havoc on my favorite body parts.
The guys laughed uproariously and then I heard the sound of their footsteps slowly recede as they walked out of the room.
“Oh Nate,” El Diablo said. I could sense her standing very close to me now. “It pains me to see you like this,” she said. “Swinging by your spandex from a hook – tsk tsk. If only you had listened to me from the start.”
She lowered my soccer shorts until they slipped off and landed on the floor around my ankles.
“You know,” she said, “I do think that you have the most beautiful body of any boy I’ve ever seen.” I felt her fingers slip between my legs and curl up around my spandex-clad family jewels. “And now you’re all mine,” she whispered.
She caressed me for a few minutes while I mumbled angry nonsense at her from behind my duct-tape gag. Then she sighed. “Well, I should be getting to the game,” she said. “I am, after all, responsible for its outcome. I’m sure you’ll get yourself free eventually, darling. I’ll leave a little something here for when you do. Bye now! See you out there.” El Diablo gave me one more squeeze between the legs and then disappeared.
I let out an infuriated growl. In the distance I could hear a whistle blow. The game would be just about to start. Without me. I tried to reach around behind me to unhook my spandex but my arms wouldn’t reach that far while they were still taped together. Meanwhile, the combined pain of the IcyHot and the wedgie was sending searing pain through my body.
It took almost a full five minutes before the back of my spandex ripped. Once my feet were planted firmly on the floor, I was able to turn around and use the hook in the door to loosen the duct tape at my wrists. Then I ripped the duct tape off my mouth. I wanted more than anything to sprint onto the field right then but there was the little matter of the IcyHot to take care of first. I whipped off my spandex and everything else I was wearing, ran over to the showers, and endured nauseating agony as I washed the stuff off with lukewarm water. When I was done I threw the spandex in the garbage – I knew I would have to free ball it – and put the rest of my clothes back on. Then I made my way to the field, rubbing my toasted package tenderly as I went.
Coach Hayworth gave me an outraged glare when I ran up to him on the sidelines. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “You were supposed to be on the starting lineup!”
I looked at the players running around on the field and then back at him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s a long story.”
Coach Hayworth didn’t seem to like that answer. For a minute I wondered whether the pulsating artery in his forehead might blow. The moment passed, however, and he grumbled, “Go stand by the ref. I’m subbing you in ASAP.”
As I waited to sub in I looked around at the spectators, wondering where El Diablo was. She had threatened to watch but for some reason I couldn’t see her or her gang in the stands. I thought for a second that maybe she had decided to leave – and thanked my lucky stars for that – but then I heard someone scream. “Send in Caldwell! Secure Lakeville’s defeat!”
My head whipped around to stare at the stands of the opposing team, Memorial High School, on the opposite side of the field. There, to my disbelief, stood El Diablo and her gang with the rest the Memorial fans.
“Caldwell sucks!” she screamed in war-cry fashion.
I couldn’t believe it. She was actually going to cheer against me in public. I tried to shake it off and focus on the game. It seemed that every time I ran for the ball, however, an anti-Nate chant would erupt from the Memorial stands. It started to disrupt my usual flow. I was listening to the jeers more than I was focusing on playing. Then the other team scored a goal. Another. We were down 0-2 and I still couldn’t seem to focus. Coach Hayworth was screaming at me. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw El Diablo hoist up some type of long pole. I stopped and stared in disbelief as she waved the pole proudly in the air. A pair of boxer briefs that looked at lot like the ones she had taken from me during our encounter at her house were flying from the top of the pole.
I noticed too late that one of the Memorial forwards was charging at me. I failed to get in front of him and he deked around me with the ball as if I were a five year old who was more interested in picking grass than playing soccer.
“Caldwell, get off the field!” Coach Hayworth bellowed.
I jogged to the sidelines with my head hung low. When I glanced up I saw El Diablo, several of the girls in her posse, and the two Churchill guys laughing. My face reddened but there was nothing I could do about it.
I sat down on the bench at the sidelines and glanced up at our supporters. I could see my mom, Matt, David, Faith, and Sadie all watching me with somber faces. Then I saw Trinity London and I felt sick to my stomach again. She was watching me sit on the sidelines while my underwear swung around in the air on the opposite side of the field. This was rock bottom.
Even as I watched Trinity, however, something seemed to change in her expression. Her eyes narrowed and she stared angrily across at the other side of the field. Was she staring at El Diablo? Then, surprisingly, she left her spot in the stands and walked over to David. The two of them started talking animatedly. I would have loved to have been able to figure out what they were talking about but I didn’t get any time to do so because at that moment the whistle blew, signaling the end of the first half of the game.
After a painful but thankfully brief half-time lecture from Coach Hayworth in the locker room, we ran back onto the field. I immediately looked around for Trinity and David but they were nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately, El Diablo was. She was still cackling and swinging around my boxer briefs.
Coach Hayworth benched me so I had ample time to stare at El Diablo and glare. She seemed to enjoy that even more. She even stuck her tongue out at me.
Then something astonishing happened. Something miraculous… something so incredible and amazing that I found it difficult to believe my own eyes. The row of the Memorial stands holding El Diablo, her posse, and the Churchill thugs collapsed. One moment I was looking at the faces of El Diablo and her evil minions. The next moment, they were all gone.
Cries of shock and distress erupted from the opponent’s stands. The refs stopped the game. All the players looked at the stands with perplexed expressions. I’m pretty sure that I was the only one who saw Trinity and David emerge quietly from underneath the other side of the stands. David was holding one of the wrenches that he usually kept in the toolbox in the trunk of his car.
The delay of game lasted 10 minutes or so, during which time spectators helped haul El Diablo’s crew out from underneath the stands. Then El Diablo herself emerged. Her jeering face was gone. Now she was crying dramatically and clutching her ankle. It took four adults to carry her out.
I probably shouldn’t have smiled but I couldn’t help it. An enormous grin spread across my entire face. “Coach, when the game starts again, I’m ready to go in,” I said confidently. I watched David and Trinity innocently slip back into their spots in the Lakeville stands.
I knew from then on that I would be just fine. They had my back.
Chapter 41 – Cupid
We won the battle but lost the war. I led the Lakeville’s men’s’ soccer team to a 3-2 rout of Memorial but we only survived a few more games before getting knocked out of the state tournament. In the end, it seemed that we just weren’t good enough to compete at that level yet.
The one good piece of news was that El Diablo finally seemed to have been defeated once and for all. She missed several days of school, supposedly for medical reasons, even though she only had a sprained ankle. When she finally came back she greeted to an exposé by Little Miss Aphrodite in the school newspaper. The mysterious reporter had gotten her hands on some photos of El Diablo cheering for Memorial and ran them with an article about how El Diablo had plotted to sabotage certain unnamed players on the Lakeville team. It turned out that the Lakeville student body wasn’t so generous to traitors. Before the day was out, her posse refused to be seen with her and, unable to suffer any more angry stares or snide comments, El Diablo fled the school. We got word that she was going to be homeschooled from then on.
I had already decided to try out for the wrestling team but there was a two week lull between soccer and wrestling. I wanted to keep training with David but he told me that I needed to give myself at least a one-week rest. It was excruciating and my mind quickly started to wander. Whenever it did that, it inevitably landed on girls.
I hadn’t quite completed my hookup list yet. Technically, I had kissed both Alyssa and Olivia, so the only people left were Lily Wong and Trinity. Then, of course, I needed to seduce Sadie to free Aaron from her clutches… although for some reason I was growing less certain every day of the need for that. Hearing Aaron talk about Sadie and seeing the herculean efforts he went to in order to make her happy gave me pause. Perhaps he had truly found the love of his life. I didn’t really feel like hooking up with Lily Wong either. No, there was really only one girl that I had on my mind, and whenever I thought about her I immediately felt shy and nervous. Trinity London was like my kryptonite.
Eventually, I had to give up on the idea of straight up asking her out. Just thinking about doing that – and hearing her say no – made me feel queasy. I decided to take a less direct route and gain the support of her inner circle. Unfortunately, that meant starting with Bryson.
Bryson and I had settled into a sort of uneasy truce. He couldn't haze me when I was helping his soccer team win games and he seemed to have gotten a bit less aggressive since I had seen him making out with a guy, even though he had no way of knowing that I was the person in the panda suit. Still, he looked at me suspiciously whenever Trinity was around and I got the distinct feeling that he knew I liked her. I needed to make him my ally.
The idea of hooking Bryson up with Liam had occurred to me long ago but I had dismissed it immediately. It seemed rather narrow-minded to think that the only two closet gays I knew should be dating each other. Why not, though? Bryson and Liam had a lot in common. They were both twins. They both loved sports. Plus, at least according to the Hottie List, they were both good-looking. Why wouldn’t they want to date
each other?
I decided to arrange a meeting between them. I couldn’t fix them up on a blind date but I could at least put them in the same place and see if there was any chemistry. Dylan had set up a night of bowling for the soccer guys as a kind of post-season get together. Many of the guys were bringing friends. I invited Liam and, so it wouldn’t look suspicious, Sam and David to hang out with us. Then I waited until Bryson had chosen which lane he was going to be bowling on and picked the one beside it.
“Wow, great bowl Bryson!” I exclaimed after Bryson got a strike. “Wasn’t that a great bowl, Liam?” I asked pointedly.
Bryson gave me a funny look. Liam glanced from him to me awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess, good job,” he said.
I smiled. This was good. Now they were talking. I tried it two more times before Liam grabbed me by the sleeve and hauled me off to the side.
“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Why are you acting like a frickin’ idiot all of a sudden?”
I looked in Bryson’s direction furtively to make sure he wasn’t watching us. “Don’t tell anyone this, but Bryson is gay,” I hissed.
Liam looked at me blankly for a moment. Then he turned around and started walking away.
“Wait, where are you going?” I asked.
“I’m going to turn my shoes in and then I’m leaving,” he said. “Are you serious right now? You’re trying to set me up? In public?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Come on. Why not?”
“Because it’s not like that!” Liam exclaimed, rounding on me angrily. “I’m gay. That doesn’t make me some sort of animal. You can’t throw me at another gay guy and just assume it’ll work out.”
“You’re saying you don’t think he’s hot?” I asked.
“Well… that’s irrelevant,” Liam said. “There’s more to attraction than good looks. I don’t know anything about his personality.”
“So? How can you get to know about his personality?” I said. “Oh, that’s right, by talking to him.”
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