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Subject: {ASSM} -RP- Playing the Game II, Playing to Win, Ch. 26-30 by Rev. Cotton Mather
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Just a little something for those of you who are just catching up with the adventures of my good friend Sean Porter...
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there
is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring
this material.
(Copyright 2002, Rev. Cotton Mather)
E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather@hotmail.com
Don't be shy! I enjoy hearing from you.
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PLAYING TO WIN:
PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK II
by Reverend Cotton Mather
- 26 -
ANXIOUS TO GET BACK TO THE GAME
Just before practice on Monday, Coach Neville called me into his
office.
"How are you feeling, Mr. Porter?" He sat back in his chair, taking
his glasses off.
"I feel pretty good," I replied.
"Your doctors have given you their permission to resume playing?"
"Yes, sir. My only real restriction from the doctors was to stay
out of the weight room for a couple of weeks after the stitches came
out." He smiled briefly, knowing full well that I was only an
occasional visitor to the weight rooms, anyway. "And they warned me
that my ribs would take a long time to completely heal, but they
would provide their own method of restraint."
"Which has proven to be the case," he said.
"Yes, sir, but I have been running more and more, and they've either
gotten better, or else I've been learning to control it better."
"That's good. That's very good. Now, I don't want to hurry you
into coming back into the lineup until you are ready, so I am relying
on your judgment to let me know when you want to try playing. As you
know, this week's game is the last game of the regular season. The
playoffs start next week. I would like to get you into a game, if
even for just a few minutes, by the first playoff game. We're going
to need you to be as strong as you can be by the second round of the
playoffs, so I'm giving you almost three weeks to get ready."
"I don't need three weeks, Coach. I want to play this Friday."
"Sean, I don't know..."
"Let me at least start the game, Coach, and if I'm having trouble,
you can take me out. But I think I'm almost ready now, and I know
I'll be ready by game day."
He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, his glasses dangling
from his little finger. "That's very optimistic, Sean, and I should
tell you, I've been getting some telephone calls these past few
weeks. There are a lot of scouts who want to watch you play. I've
been trying to put them off, but it's getting harder to make them
readjust their schedules to accommodate ours. You would best be
served if they could see you at full strength."
"Scouts? You mean, besides Pickett Cropper?"
He looked startled. "You've talked to Cropper?"
"Well, yes, I have. He called me a couple of weeks ago."
He gave me a tight smile. "Coach Cropper is a very forceful
personality," he said a little ruefully. "He squeezed a lot more
information out of both me and Dr. Osgood than either of us wanted to
give." He grinned openly. "He's got his sights set on you, I think.
His interest will bring even more focus on you, and on your
teammates. Hopefully, some of the spotlight will spill onto Mr.
Abbott and Mr. Johnson, too. They deserve a chance at playing at the
next level."
"Let 'em come, Coach. I'm ready to play. I can't tell you how
buzzed I am, just thinking about getting back into a game."
"Well, you'll get your chance this Friday, Mr. Porter, if that's
what you'd like," he finished. He stood up, and put his glasses back
on. "Shall we go out to practice?"
"Yes, sir!" I hopped up, pumped about getting ready for Friday. I
was really anxious to get back to the game.
It was painful, but I worked hard on Monday and Tuesday at
practices, and Kayla and I increased our distances in the evenings,
and I was running or jogging the whole way around by then, with no
rest stops. If I needed to catch my breath because of a short faster
section, I just slowed my pace until I could jog comfortably and wait
for my breathing to normalize. I felt great, a feeling that was no
doubt enhanced by the presence of the girl I was now admitting, at
least to myself, was my girlfriend.
Wednesday's practice, however, did not go quite so well as the
earlier days. It all started at the end of practice for the day,
when Coach Neville stepped into the locker room, as we were taking
off our soccer shoes and shin guards.
"If I may have the team's attention for just one moment," called out
Coach. He waited for the general hubbub to quiet down. "For this
Friday's game, we are reverting to our original starting lineup."
A lot of the players were looking at each other, not sure quite what
Coach meant by his statement. He could tell that his announcement
wasn't very clear, so he explained. "That is, Sean Porter will be
returning to his customary position at right defense."
Kevin said loudly, "All right!" There was a buzz of happy agreement
from my teammates, which made me feel pretty darn good.
"Bullshit!" barked Adam Prince. He was in the next row over from me
and most of the rest of the team. "That's my position!"
Coach peered over toward Weasel over the top of his glasses. "It
was yours on a temporary basis, Mr. Prince, and you know it."
"No, I didn't know it!" shouted Prince. "You gave it to Ingrams
when Porter went down, and I won it from him, fair and square!"
That set up a lot of grumbling among my teammates.
"So?" said Eric. "All that means is that you won the temporary
assignment."
"No fucking way," yelled Weasel. "I won the position, not the
temporary assignment."
"One more outburst like that and you will be benched for the
remainder of the season," warned Coach. "This is not your decision
to make. Mr. Porter is our starting defenseman. End of discussion."
I stood up. "You know what, Coach? Maybe it would be a fair test
for me." I walked over to the next row of lockers, where Weasel was
sitting. He was, for all intents and purposes, sitting by himself.
The nearest player was four or five lockers down from him, another
bench player. Nobody else, it seemed, wanted to be near him, even
just to change clothes. "Okay, Weasel, I challenge you for the
position. If you can find another player who's willing to defend for
you, that is. If nobody stands up for you, you lose by default.
Deal?"
"You're fucking toast, Porter," he mumbled. He made sure, though,
that he said it soft enough that Coach didn't hear him.
"What did you say?" I asked. He was starting to really irritate me.
I took a step closer to him, and Rich Ingrams, of all people, stood
up and stepped in front of me.
"I said, you've got a deal," spat Prince.
"Tomorrow at the beginning of practice, then?" I turned to Coach,
who gave a reluctant assenting nod. "Eric?" I looked over my
shoulder. "You want to help me teach this young 'un a thing or two
about the game?"
I got a chuckle from most of the team. Eric came around and stood
next to me. "It will be my pleasure, my good man," he said in his
best British accent. He flipped Weasel the bird, and sauntered back
to his own locker. I followed him back to my own, and sat down to
finish stripping off my sweaty uniform. I was committed. My
starting position depended on beating Weasel the next day, and I felt
I was ready.
On Thursday, Eric and I jogged out of the locker rooms and over to
the track. I was pretty confident that Weasel wasn't going to be
able to talk any of our teammates into playing with him on the
challenge, especially after hearing from a lot of them during the
course of the day, offering encouragement and support. After our
first lap, however, Coach waved us off the track and over to him. He
had a disgusted look on his face.
"Your challenge match awaits," he said. He gestured over toward one
of the far practice fields. Eric and I looked over. One of the
figures was definitely Weasel, but I couldn't tell who the second
person was. Coach was silent as we walked over toward the field.
Whoever Weasel had talked into playing was going to get an earful
from me, and was going to be run off his feet by Eric, who was
walking next to me, scowling.
I didn't even recognize the kid waiting with Weasel. Coach Neville
did the introductions.
"Gentlemen, the defenders are Adam Prince and Larry Endicott. The
challengers are Sean Porter and Eric Johnson." Coach turned to Eric
and I. "Mr. Endicott is a freshman from the Junior Varsity team."
"What?" I asked incredulously. Was he serious?
Endicott turned to Weasel. "What's going on here, Adam? You said
you wanted me to play with you, that it was a challenge match, but
you didn't tell me I'd have to play against Sean Porter and Eric
Johnson." His face was a little pale, and he was shaking with
nervousness. "I mean, it's, like, the two best players in school. I
don't belong here."
Weasel turned on poor Larry ferociously. "You agreed, Larry.
Besides, didn't you want to show Coach Neville you're good enough to
play Varsity? Now's your chance."
Eric turned to Coach. "This ain't right, Coach," he pleaded. "This
kid's been roped in by Weasel, probably through no fault of his own.
Call it off."
Coach looked at each of us in turn, his stare lingering on Weasel's
face a moment longer than anyone else's.
"No," he declared. "Play the challenge."
He set out the simple rules, and gave Eric and I, as challengers,
the first offensive attempt, from the hash mark denoting the midfield
of our playing area. There were two temporary nets set up across the
width of the field, our respective goals.
Weasel was still trying to talk persuasively to Endicott, standing
next to him in the middle of their side of the field, their backs to
us to keep us from eavesdropping. He was probably explaining to him
what he might see from us, paying absolutely no attention to his
opponents, or to Coach, who blew his whistle to start the match
without waiting for Weasel to finish up. I tapped the ball forward
to Eric, who immediately took off down the sidelines, leaving both
Prince and Endicott scrambling to try to catch him, an impossibility
with his speed and his head start. It took less than 5 seconds for
us to tally our first score.
On the restart, Weasel tapped the ball to Endicott, but Eric had
started less than 10 yards from him, and as soon as the kid touched
the ball, Eric dropped his shoulder and shoved him off the ball,
easily taking it away. He lofted a pass over Weasel's head into open
space, where I picked it up, and practically strolled to the goal,
for a 2-nil lead. Prince looked over at Coach, expecting a foul to
be called on Eric, but Coach just stood impassively on the sidelines,
arms folded as he looked on. I could see Prince muttering to himself
as he trotted back to retrieve the ball I had left in their net, and
he had a determined set to his face as he dribbled it up to reset an
offensive try.
This time, Larry passed off to Weasel. Eric called for a switch,
and he ran at Weasel as I moved over to cover Larry. Weasel had just
taken a few steps with the ball when Eric reached him and pushed him
down hard. Weasel tumbled as he fell onto the grass, rolling over a
couple of times. He scrambled up, cursing, and looked like he was
going to run up to Coach and jaw at him for not calling the charge
and the push.
"Play on," called Coach, signaling a legal play with his arms.
Coach resumed his position, legs apart and arms crossed, looking at
Prince, waiting for him to complain.
Seeing Coach standing there and staring at him changed his mind,
however, but by then it was too late. Defenders were down 3-0, just
like that, and had hardly even entered our territory, much less
mounted an attack.
Before restarting, Weasel conferenced with Larry for a moment. I
was sure he was telling Larry to get physical, since it was obvious
that Coach was going to let us play a wide-open game. Larry was at
least 20 pounds lighter than Eric, and shorter even than Weasel. He
didn't look like he was very pleased about having to play more
physically against us. He showed some grit, though, and stepped up
to the ball and tapped it to Weasel. Prince took the ball a few
steps down the field, and tried lofting the ball back over to Larry.
Eric leapt up and tried to head it off, but the ball just glanced off
the top of his head and behind him. Larry managed to corral it, and
swept in and shot the ball at our goal as I tried to close with him.
I could almost hear the sigh of relief from Weasel, that he wasn't
going to be skunked, as I ran over and pulled the ball out of the net
and took it up to midfield for our restart.
Eric tapped the ball to me, and took off downfield, Larry hot on his
heels. Weasel closed on me. I could see the panic in his eyes, and
when he shifted his focus for just a second, I knew what he intended.
I steeled myself for the elbow he threw into my ribs as I stepped
away from him just enough to take some of the force off of his blow.
A flare of pain drove up my side, anyway, but I was able to absorb
it, eat up the pain, and shake off the attack. As he closed with me,
either intending to throw another elbow at me or to shove me off the
ball, I stepped down hard on his instep, and he tripped over his own
feet, crashing to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He rolled onto
his back and clutched his ankle in pain, but I wasn't about to stop.
Unimpeded, I headed for their goal. Endicott came toward me, but it
was impossible for him to keep the ball out of the net, and he knew
it. He made his choice, going back to keep Eric from taking a pass,
and they both stopped and watched as I powered the ball into the goal
and through the bottom of the net from about five meters out. The
ball skidded under the bottom edge of the net and skipped across the
grass, and ended up resting against a parking lot bumper about 20
meters away. Endicott just looked at Weasel disgustedly, and walked
back to midfield with Eric and me, pointedly leaving the ball for
Weasel to retrieve. Prince stared at the three of us for a moment,
and then limped over to get the ball. He carried it back and threw
it down on the ground.
"Enough yet?" I asked him.
"No!" he spat. He flailed at the ball, just clipping it off the
side of his foot, and he took two painful steps in the direction the
ball had spun, when he was knocked to the ground again by Eric, who
stood to the side, over him, hands on his hips.
"Enough yet?" Eric asked quietly.
I could see anger flaring in Weasel's eyes, and he scrambled to his
feet, only to be pushed back down again by Eric, who straddled him
this time.
"Enough." This time it wasn't a question that Eric asked, but
rather a statement.
Weasel's eyes were blazing, but then the uselessness of the
situation set in. It was like somebody let the air out of an
overfilled vinyl toy as he kind of collapsed in on himself. Lying
there, he finally conceded defeat.
"Yeah, all right, enough," he acknowledged.
Eric stepped aside and held out his hand to help him up. Weasel
looked surprised, but took the outstretched hand, perhaps half-
expecting Eric to trick him and drop him as he pulled himself up, but
he got hauled to his feet. Eric brushed him off, and then clapped
him on his back.
"Maybe next year," he said with a slight grin.
"Nope," I said. "But maybe the year after that."
Prince didn't look too happy about that, but he nodded in
acquiescence, anyway. The four of us walked over to Coach, still
standing stoically on the sidelines, as a group.
That evening, I told Kayla about the challenge match as we jogged
around the neighborhood.
"I'm a little surprised that Adam gave in like that at the end," she
said.
"That's right, you know him, don't you?" I asked. "Isn't he a good
friend of Bronson's?"
"Brandon," she automatically corrected. She knew I was doing it on
purpose, but she wasn't about to give me the satisfaction of
appearing irritated.
"How well do you know Weasel?" I persisted.
She glanced over at me as we ran. "Well enough to know that he has
temper issues," she said.
"Yes, he does," I agreed. "But, judging from today's practice,
maybe he can find a way to work through those issues."
"He's a nice enough boy," she said. "He just needs to find a way to
redirect his anger."
"Hey," I said. "Maybe he can redirect his anger toward Kleenex."
She looked at me, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Well, that way, he'll have tissues issues," I said blandly.
She stuck her tongue out at me and sped up, leaving me to scramble
to catch up to her.
"I told you before, don't point that thing at me unless you intend
to use it," I said, puffing a little from the sprint.
She gave me a teasing glance. "Oh, I intend to use it," she said.
"Some day. Maybe. If you're a good boy." And she took off again.
I didn't have the reserves to chase her, though, and she sped ahead
of me. She finally relented about a block later, and stopped,
jogging in place while I caught up, smiling at my discomfort the
whole while.
By the time I had dropped Kayla off and jogged home, it was almost
too late, but I decided I could call over to Lori's house before I
jumped in the shower. She answered on the third ring.
"Lori? It's Sean."
"Sean! What a pleasant surprise! It's great to hear your voice.
How are you feeling?"
"I feel really good," I said. She sounded really happy, happier
than I had heard her, practically since I had known her. "I'm back
playing," I continued. "I'm starting in the game tomorrow evening,
in fact. Do you think the boys can come?"
"Oh, they'd love to, Sean. Thank you for thinking of them."
"I want them to be team ball boys, is that okay? They can sit on
the bench and hand out water and stuff to the team, chase down balls
that are kicked out of bounds, that kind of thing."
"That's just wonderful! I know they'd love it."
I arranged to meet her and the boys by the gate to the field before
the game, so I could take Davey and Kip with me into the locker room
and introduce them around.
"Sean, that's lovely. Thank you so much," she said.
"Like I've always told you, Lori, they're great kids. I like having
them around, and I've missed them."
"And they've missed you, Sean. And so have I," she added. "In
fact, I..."
I didn't want to get into a conversation that might take us to
places better left unvisited, so I quickly interrupted her.
"Have you seen Molly lately?" I asked.
"As a matter of fact, I have," she replied. "She calls me every
couple of days, and she's back to being my regular sitter again."
"That's great," I said. "Thanks for giving her another chance."
"She deserves it," she said. "And she knows it was you who gave her
the opportunity."
"It wasn't me," I said. "She did it herself. All I did was walk
with her sometimes. She did all the heavy lifting."
She laughed, a throaty sound full of amusement, with just a hint of
interesting possibilities. "You are one of a kind, Sean Porter," she
said.
"Yep," I agreed. "They broke the mold after they made me, but only
because the cracks in it made it pretty much useless."
Coach Neville must have been a busy guy on Wednesday and Thursday.
He also must have been quite confident about the outcome of the
challenge match, because he called the list of scouts and coaches who
were interested, and let them know what our schedule was for the next
couple of weeks. He also called Matthew Hartigan, and gave him an
interview over the telephone, casually mentioning that I would be in
the starting lineup again for the last game of the regular season.
As a result, the headlines in the sports section of our local paper
on Friday morning were just the opposite of the previous paper. The
bigger headline read "Porter To Start Tonight", and the sub-head was
"Bears Soccer To Try for 14-0". While every athlete loves to see
their name in the sports section, I was a little dismayed that the
emphasis was on my start, rather than on the team's undefeated
season. I also knew that I would rake in a fair amount of good-
natured grief from my teammates after school.
About an hour before the game, I met Lori and the boys at the main
gate.
"Sean!" "Sean!"
Almost a chorus, Davey and Kip were jumping and waving as I walked
up to them.
"Hi, guys! You want to come into the locker room with me?" I asked.
"You bet!" "Yeah!"
Lori took hold of both their hands, turning them to her as she knelt
down to get their attention.
"Now you cowboys mind what Sean says, do you hear? He's the boss.
Okay?"
"Yes, Mom," said Davey.
"Sean's the boss!" shouted Kip.
She stood and smiled warmly at me. "Thank you again, Sean, for
being such a good friend to these two. And to me."
I took her hand for just a moment. "They'll mind just fine. Don't
worry about them."
The boys and I headed back toward the school. They raced ahead of
me as I turned back to Lori.
"Will you be at the game?" I asked.
She smiled, her eyes glistening. "I wouldn't miss it for the
world," she said.
I took the boys in and introduced them around. They already knew
Jorge, from when he had been helping their team's keepers, and they
ran around the locker room in high gear, kicking soccer balls down
the rows between the lockers, until the noise was just too much, and
I had to restrain their enthusiasm, especially when Coach Simonson
poked his head out of the office to see what the ruckus was all about.
Davey and Kip jogged out onto the field with the team when it was
time. I had instructed them about their duties as ball boys, and
once we were into "game mode", they paid attention and did their
best. They walked around with cups of water, and asked each member
of the team if they would like one, and they lined up the game balls
off the sideline so they would be ready for use. They were friendly
little kids, and the entire team took to them right away.
The announcer's routine of introducing the starting lineups began.
I glanced up into the stands, and was surprised to see that they were
full. Hartigan's article seemed to have brought out the crowds. I
couldn't see Lori anywhere, but Kayla's pale blonde head was easy to
find. She was sitting in the student section with some friends,
talking animatedly, her hands in constant motion. I looked over into
the parents' section, and my mom and my dad both waved to me.
Michael was somewhere in the stadium, and I assumed that Stephen was
there, also, probably mingling with the high school kids.
I was completely taken by surprise when the announcer got to the
defensive players, because he seemed to skip right over my name.
Normally he either went in alphabetical order, offense and then
defense, or else by position, right to left, but this time, after
calling out the players on the offensive team, he announced Anthony
Rogers on the left, Mikey Evanson as sweep, Brett Oldman as stopper,
and Jorge Mendoza as keeper for the defensive team. I thought maybe
he had forgotten me, but then, with the volume cranked up, he
announced, "And playing in the right defensive position," and the
rest was nearly lost as the crowd started yelling and whistling and
stomping their feet, the sound rolling across the field as the
announcer finished, "A junior, Sean Poooorrrrterrrr!" I ran out onto
the field, joining my teammates already there, stunned about the
introduction. They were clapping and yelling, along with the crowd.
I was grateful everybody was welcoming me back onto the field, but I
wished they would hold their enthusiasm until they saw how I played.
That was the real question, after all.
We took the field, and at the referee's whistle, our opponents, the
River Oaks Lions, started the game with a pass back to their
midfielders, and they spread out their forwards, trying to take
advantage of the entire width of the field. Possession of the ball
see-sawed back and forth, nobody mounting a real challenge, for the
first ten minutes or so. I was feeling pretty good, loose and warm,
even though the temperature was not that much above freezing, and I
felt like I was seeing the field and the path of the ball very well.
I relaxed a little, some of my worries dissipating with the plumes of
my breath.
About midway into the first half, the left midfielder for the Lions
sent a ball high down the sidelines, trying to hit his forward. I
moved into place to try to intercept, and the forward jumped in front
of me to keep me off the ball. I shuffled back around him, and we
both went up for the ball, our shoulders and arms bumping. I had a
height advantage, and I was able to overreach him. The ball came
down toward my forehead while I was at the apex of my leap, and I
snapped my head to the side to head the ball back over toward Kevin.
Pain flared in my rib from the impact and the jostling, but by the
time I landed back on the ground, I knew it was just a short spasm.
It passed as quickly as it had hit, and another small, niggling worry
was dispelled.
At halftime, Coach asked me how I felt.
"I feel good," I said. "Good enough to play."
"That's all I needed to hear," he said, and he walked over to talk
to his offense. Davey brought me a big paper cup of water.
"Here you go, Sean," he said, handing the water to me. I drank it
down gratefully.
"Thanks, Champ," I said. "Make sure everybody else gets some water,
too, okay?"
"You bet," he said, and he raced off to grab some more cups to hand
out.
I only played about twelve minutes of the second half. Coach pulled
me out and put Weasel in the game. We were up 3-0 by then, and I
only had about 8 or 10 touches on the ball. Coach was pretty
confident we were going to win, and he didn't want to tax me on my
first outing back, so I kicked back and watched the rest of the match
with Davey and Kip from the bench. The boys still had to keep an eye
on the ball, since one of their duties was to chase down out-of-
bounds kicks, but they still were able to sit with me for most of the
time.
After the game ended, Lori came down out of the stands and collected
her boys.
"Did you guys have fun?" she asked.
"Yeah!"
"It was great, Mom!"
She looked up at me. "You played well, as usual," she said.
"There wasn't much for me to do out there tonight," I replied.
"Probably just as well, anyway."
"Thank you for giving Davey and Kip this opportunity to be with you,
Sean."
"They were a lot of fun," I said. "Maybe, if we can get a little
further into the playoffs, I can talk Coach into letting them sit by
me again."
"I wouldn't want them taking away from your concentration," she
said. "Your coach might not want the distraction."
"We'll see," I said. She gathered up her kids and, amid rowdy
goodbyes, herded them off toward the exit. I was kneeling down,
packing up my gear bag, when Coach Neville walked over. There was
another man walking with him, talking to him in a deep southern drawl.
When they got to me, Coach said, "Sean, I'd like you to meet a fan
of yours."
The man stuck out his meaty hand for me to shake. "How you doin',
son? I'm mighty glad to finally make your acquaintance on a face to
face basis."
I smiled and shook his hand. "Glad to finally meet you, too, Coach
Cropper," I said.
"Ah, hell, son, everybody just calls me Pick, and you should, too,"
he said with a wide grin.
(Continued in Chapter 27)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there
is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring
this material.
(Copyright 2003, Rev. Cotton Mather)
E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather@hotmail.com
Don't be shy! I enjoy hearing from you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYING TO WIN:
PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK II
by Reverend Cotton Mather
- 27 -
VEILED IN CURTAINS OF ETHEREAL LIGHT
Coach Pick spent a lot of Saturday with me and my family. He came
to the house about 10:00 in the morning to meet my parents and my
brothers, driving up in a rental Buick. He talked about Gainesville
and north central Florida, about the University of Florida, and about
his soccer teams. He left just before lunchtime, to go talk to
another family about an hour away, but he promised to be back in
plenty of time to go out to dinner with us.
"You know, in Florida it's pretty darned hard to get a good steak,"
he said. "I took the liberty of making reservations at that there
Great American Steakhouse, down in the city. I hear it's a pretty
good place."
"Well, yes, it's probably the best steakhouse around," confirmed my
father.
"Well, good an' all, then. I'll be back to pick you all up around
6:30, then, and we'll head on down there for a big, juicy steak." He
shook my dad's hand with great enthusiasm, winked at my mother, and
patted me on the back. "If you all can think up any more questions
to ask of me, well, let fly tonight. Okay?" And with that, he was
out the door and on his way to his car.
Now I had to scramble to let Jake and Kayla know that I wasn't going
to be available tonight. I hoped Kayla understood my having to break
our date better than the last couple of girls did. Then, on the
other hand, tonight I wouldn't be making the same kinds of mistakes I
did with the others.
I called the Lehigh house. Jake had already left for his football
game, but Kayla was still home.
"Hi," I said.
Even over the phone lines, I could hear the smile in her voice.
"Hi, Sean," she said.
"Uh... Kay, I... uh... I have to postpone our date tonight."
There was a brief silence at the other end. "Okay," she said. The
smile in her voice was considerably diminished, which distressed me.
"Look, Kay, I'm really sorry, but the coach from the University of
Florida is here, and he's taking us all out for dinner tonight,
and..." I paused, a thought occurring to me. It didn't happen
often, so it surprised me every time one came along.
"And?"
"And I'm an idiot," I said. "Why didn't I think of it before? Why
don't you come to dinner with us, Kay? We won't be able to go to the
movie with Jake, but we'd still be together, even if it means having
to spend time with my parents and my brothers."
The smile was back. "Okay," she said happily. "I'll just clear it
with my mom, but I'm sure it'll be okay." She dropped the phone with
a clunk, and I heard her voice fade away as she started yelling for
her mother through their house. A few minutes later, she came back
on the phone, a little breathless. "Mom says okay." She giggled.
"She also asked if you and I were an item."
"An item? Like, a couple?"
"Yeah, I guess that's what it means. It's parent-speak for going
out together, I think. Anyway, I told her that we were just friends
hanging out together. I think she knows that's kid-speak for 'an
item', though."
"Well, now you've got me wondering. We've actually only been on one
honest-to-God date. Are we an item?"
She hesitated. "I don't know," she said cautiously. "Are we?"
"Well, a lot of the team thinks we are," I said.
"And a lot of my friends think we are, too," she replied.
Silence. "Kayla? I know we've never talked about this, and maybe
it's too early, but would you consider going with me? Being my...
'item'?"
"Your item? I'm not sure I want to be known as an... item."
I was finding it hard to gather enough saliva to swallow the lump in
my throat. "Well, then, how about my girlfriend?"
"You mean, like, exclusive?"
"Well, yeah, I guess. Uh... Wait a minute, no, I don't guess. I
know. Yes, my girlfriend, exclusively, you and me."
"You mean I won't be able to see Bronson anymore?" There was a hint
of a teasing tone in her voice.
"Bronson? Oh, you mean..."
"You know very well who I mean," she said.
"Well, right. I mean, yeah, no more Bronson."
"Okay," she said brightly.
I finally was able to swallow the lump. "Okay? That's great. So
you'll tell Brandon you won't go out with him anymore?"
"I don't need to," she said softly. "I already did, two weeks ago."
We took two cars downtown, because of the number of people that were
going to dinner. My parents and my brothers were in my dad's car,
and I rode with Pick as I directed him over to Kayla's house. I
walked up to the front door and knocked, and Mr. Lehigh opened the
door and ushered me inside.
"Hello, Sean," he said, pipe in hand. He gestured breezily toward
the sofa in the living room, inviting me to sit down.
"Hi, Mr. Lehigh."
"So, Kayla tells me she's going to dinner with your family and a
scout from a school somewhere in Florida?"
"Yes, sir. It's actually the head coach of the University of
Florida. A friend of mine named Jesse Wilhoit is playing on his
team, and Jesse suggested that his coach come talk to me."
"Well, that's good news," he said. "Isn't it a little soon for
schools to be recruiting?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, sir. He's the only one I've talked to,
though, so maybe it is soon."
Kayla came down the stairs, wearing a little dress that left one
shoulder bare, and fit her athletic body beautifully. My mouth went
dry just looking at her as she walked into the room.
"Hi, Sean," she said quietly, fully aware of how I was staring at
her. She kissed her father on the cheek, and I scrambled to open the
front door for her as she slipped on a heavy cloth coat.
"Have fun, kids," called out her dad as we walked down the sidewalk
to Pick's rental car.
Kay scooted over to sit in the middle of the two of us. Pick shook
her hand as I introduced them, and we were off.
By the end of dinner, Pick and my dad were acting like old, long
lost college pals. My mom was watching their antics, occasionally
shaking her head and smiling. Michael and Stephen were most
interested in eating as much as they possibly could stuff into
themselves, and I could only concentrate on Luscious Kayla, sitting
next to me, her hand in mine under the table. After desserts and
coffee, Pick paid the bill, leaving a very generous tip.
"Hell, I'm on an expense account on this trip," he said with a wink
at my mom. "Might as well be generous with Gator money."
By the time we got back to our house, Pick had assured us that
Florida would be sending me an offer sheet that included paid
tuition, room and board for four years, subject to the usual physical
exams, etc., etc., etc. It put a big smile on my dad's face,
realizing that my college education was going to be paid by somebody
other than him and my mom. Pick thanked us all for our hospitality,
and promised me he would be keeping in touch. He even said he would
try to come back for the state playoffs, if our team made it
downstate.
I borrowed my mom's car, telling my family that we wanted to meet up
with the gang down at Mike's Pizza. Kayla and I hopped in the front
seat, but I knew Mike's wasn't my preferred destination, and I was
hoping it wasn't Kayla's, either. When I turned onto the highway
away from the pizza restaurant, she gave me a grin and sidled up
close to me, her arms around mine.
It was cold out, even for late October, and it was starting to
drizzle as we drove aimlessly for a few miles. I happened to find
myself driving along the country lane toward the Gallagher's barn,
where the shell of the Junior Class Homecoming float probably still
sat. I pulled into the small parking area, and shut off the lights,
leaving the car running so the heater could keep the interior warm
for us. The drizzle was turning to indications of the first snow of
the season, but it was very light, and it was melting as soon as it
hit any surface. I fiddled with the radio until I found a station
playing some mellower music, and turned it down low.
I turned to the lovely girl sitting beside me, and put my arm around
her, drawing her closer to me. She looked at me in anticipation, her
lips slightly parted, her eyes half closed, and I succumbed to the
unspoken offer, bending down slightly to kiss her. At the first
contact of our lips together, she moaned softly, surrendering to me.
Her coat was unbuttoned, and I slipped my hand around her waist,
along the silken material of her dress. She crossed her leg and
gently rubbed her foot against my shin as we kissed, and she melted
even closer to me, her lips moving against mine in sensuous pleasure.
I kissed her soft lips, and covered her cheeks, her neck, her ears,
and her eyes with soft touches with my lips. She lifted her head and
closed her eyes, giving in to the sensations, offering up her tender
throat to my searching lips. When I reached the hollow of her
throat, she whimpered, and shrugged out of her coat, reaching for my
jacket to push it off my shoulders. I stopped kissing her just long
enough so we could toss our coats into the back, and we reached for
each other again, melting back together into a hotter, moister kiss,
this one a tasting and teasing exploration involving lips and tongues.
With one hand wrapped around her neck and grasping her bare
shoulder, I moved my left hand back around her waist to her tummy,
the palm gliding along the slick material. My fingers slid along the
material, heading toward the rise of her small breast, until I gently
held that handful, feeling the shape of her through the dress and her
strapless bra. I caressed her that way, feeling, through the layers
of material separating her skin from mine, her little button-like
nipple expand. She twisted in my arms slightly, giving me access to
her back, the location of the zipper holding her dress together, and
I took the hint, abandoning the desirable mound of her covered flesh
to work the metallic tab down from her shoulder blades to her waist,
releasing the tension of her dress around her body.
My hand encountered the bare flesh of her back, and my internal
temperature notched up a few more degrees. I caressed the soft skin
of her back, and drew a path around her side, taking the material of
her dress with me, and moved away from her just enough for her to
slip her left arm through the sleeve, allowing the material to fall
to her waist. She stared at me, her mouth slightly open as she
breathed heavily, and I put my arms around her again, and kissed her
eyes and her lovely lips again.
When I slipped my hand beneath the elastic bottom of her bra and
cupped her naked breast, she moaned into my mouth, and thrust her
tongue hard and deep into my mouth, sending streamers of white-hot
pleasure shooting into my brain. Her distended nipple felt like it
was etching a pattern in my palm, and I never wanted it to disappear.
I drew my hand across her chest, under the bra, and held her other
breast in my hand, feeling its pliant flesh and hefting its small
weight, warming and branding my palm just as the other one did.
Eventually, just touching wasn't enough. I had to taste them, lick
and suckle on the delightful morsels my fingers were finding, and I
broke our wet kiss, and scattered kisses and flicks of my tongue down
the side of her neck, across her chest, until I encountered the
cotton material of her bra, where I discovered the flaw in my plan.
Kayla chuckled, a low and throaty sound that sent chills up and down
my spine, and she reached back with both hands, until, almost
magically, the small bra loosened, and she flung it off, tossing it
to the side before opening her arms to me once again, offering
herself up to me. She held the back of my head as I paid homage to
the delights of her body, kissing and caressing and squeezing and
lightly biting the wonderfully soft flesh of her breasts.
As I continued to suck and lick her nipples, I dropped one hand down
her midriff, sliding my fingertips underneath her dress, until I
encountered the elastic waistband of her panties. I felt her suck in
her tummy a little, giving my hand some more room, and my fingers
slipped beneath the silky material, sliding down until I touched her
curly and damp triangle of hair near the juncture of her thighs. My
fingertips explored further, moving slickly through the moist folds,
releasing her oily moisture onto my fingers as they delved into her
most private places. My fingertips found her vagina, and just the
tip of one finger dipped slightly inside, covering itself with her
dampness, and then dragged upwards, opening her nether lips, until it
discovered the tiny bump of her clitoris, peeking out from its hiding
place. Kayla's sharp intake of breath, combined with the sudden
tightening of her hold on my head, told me that she liked what was
happening.
I continued to suck and nibble at each swollen nipple in turn,
taking time occasionally to lick the soft and salty flesh of her
boobs before returning to tease and play with her sensitive tips. At
the same time, my left hand was exploring between her opened thighs,
delighting in the warmth and the wetness emanating from her center.
From her distended clitoris to her flooded opening, her folds moved
to accommodate my fingers, and as I dipped first one finger, and then
two, into her hole, her walls expanded and contracted against my
intrusions, keeping pressure on my fingers as I worked them in and
out slowly, in time to the small thrusting of her hips and the
quivering of her thighs.
After a long and slow buildup, Kay finally arched her back, mashing
her small boob against my mouth, and she pushed her hips up hard
against my fingers, pushing two digits as deeply into her as they
would go. My thumb was resting against her clit, and when she
arched, the nub bumped against the ball of my thumb, and the
resulting vibration pushed her over the edge. I could feel her walls
clamping down on my fingers, and a small rush of additional moisture
was hot as my hand was rewarded with rhythmic squeezes of her thighs
and her vagina. She was clutching my head to her bosom, her arms
contracting against me in an automatic reflex to her trip to the top
of the mountain, followed by her leap over the cliff face, and she
squeaked nearly breathlessly as the waves of pleasure cascaded over
her.
Finally, her orgasm passed, and she loosened her grip on my neck. I
looked up at her, and saw that she was gazing down at me, her eyes
shining, a happy, nearly translucent look on her face. She lifted me
up by my neck gently, guiding me to her, and I kissed her, and she
gave me an open-mouthed tongue-lashing by way of showing her
appreciation for my ministrations. My fingers slipped from her
pussy, and I wrapped my arm around her, hugging her to me as we
kissed.
My own internal furnace was burning white-hot, and I could feel her
heat rising again, also, as we kissed. I felt her small hand touch
my thigh, and she let it brush across my leg until it found the
almost painful bulge in my crotch. Her tiny palm measured my
erection, rubbing up and down my rampant cock slowly, her fingers
caressing, gauging, teasing. I felt her fingers tiptoe up to my
belt, and she struggled, one-handed, to unbuckle it. I was pretty
frenzied by that point, so I broke our kiss so I could sit back and
help her with the belt and the button. As she grasped the tab of my
zipper, I yanked my pants apart and pushed them down and pushed my
shirt up and out of the way. Kayla giggled, and worked on extracting
my inflexible member from my briefs, pulling the elastic away from my
hips and pushing the cotton underwear down, releasing my cock to the
evening air.
As she grasped my flesh, she moved up onto one knee, and pushed me
back against the seat, kissing me hard again. Her hand was pumping
me as she kissed me, and occasionally she would slip her hand all the
way down my shaft to caress and cup my aching balls. Finally, she
took some sort of pity on me, and she leaned back just a little,
breaking the contact of our lips, and, staring at me and smiling all
the while, she dropped her head, settled into the seat just a little,
and, still looking me in the eye, stuck out her tongue and took one
long, loving lap all the way up my cock, from base to tip.
Just that small contact was enough to make my eyes bug out, and I
lost it. Without warning to me or to Kayla, my hips bucked, the
swollen head of my cock bumping her in the nose, and I started
shooting, streamers of white-hot cum launching into the air in front
of her face. She jerked back out of the way and then she didn't dare
move, for fear of getting hit in the eye with a shot, and she watched
in amazement as I shut my eyes tight, concentrating on the extreme
pleasure of the hydraulics in action, squeezing out all my seed. I
felt her hand grasp my spasming shaft, and she contributed by pumping
me, jacking me off to keep the display going for as long as she could.
When I finally collapsed back against the seat, she whispered, "Wow.
That was a lot," and she lay back against me, her head on my shoulder
and her hand still caressing my slowly deflating cock, as we both
looked at the mess I had made. She let go of my cock and doodled
with the pools of semen on my bare stomach with her fingertips,
making random patterns in the milky liquid.
I sighed, a contented and happy sound, and put my arm around her
bare shoulder. I could feel her bare breast resting against my side,
our cooling skin still feeling slightly feverish. It was a feeling I
wanted to experience over and over again with her.
Finally, though, she stirred, perhaps getting chilled, and she sat
up and rummaged around for her purse. She opened it, and took out
some tissues, and began to clean me up. I took a couple from her and
helped, wiping off the steering wheel where one spray had landed. I
was going to have to get out the soap and water first thing in the
morning, to try to remove our scent from my mom's car, I knew.
We struggled to get back into our clothes, and I opened the window
to toss the sticky tissues out. I was surprised to see that the snow
was still lightly falling, and the roof of the barn was sprinkled
with white. It was nearly time to take her home, but we were both
unwilling to break the spell completely, and we moved back together
to cuddle for a few more minutes. I had both arms around her, and
she was quietly nestled up to me, her head on my chest, her pale hair
tickling my chin.
"Sean?" Her voice was quiet, introspective, as she lay against me.
"Hmmm?"
"Do you remember last fall? After your playoffs?"
"Mmmm... hmmm," I confirmed.
"When Molly broke up with you?"
I shuffled around a little nervously. I wasn't sure it was such a
wise thing to be talking about one of my past failed relationships
with her, so early in the game, but she was leading this
conversation, and so I followed, even though I was hesitant to do so.
"Yeah," I answered.
"And you found out about her and that other boy?"
Now I was just a little nervous. Where was this going?
"Yes?" I replied.
"And you watched them from the tree behind her house?"
That made me sit up straight. I picked her up gently, and turned
her so I could look at her face.
"How did you know about that?" I asked, a little panicky.
Her eyes were doe-like in the darkness, somber and huge as she
looked at me.
"Because I was there, too, with you," she whispered.
I was shocked. "You were... Where were you? Not with Molly?"
"With you," she repeated softly. "I watched you watching her, and
my heart was breaking for you." Her eyes were shining now, unshed
tears at the memory of that painful night of nearly a year ago. "I
followed you when I saw you walking across the field, through our
back yard," she continued, her voice soft in memory. "I saw you in
the tree, and I heard you. When you climbed back down, I was
ashamed. I couldn't let you see me, so I left, hurried back home
before you would find me. I thought you would have noticed my
footprints in the snow, right beside yours, and follow them back to
my house, but you didn't. I wanted you to."
I pulled her back to me, holding her close. "But why, Kayla? Why
did you follow me? And why tell me about it now?"
Her tears were dampening my shirt now, but she didn't move. I heard
her sniffle a couple of times before she answered quietly, so softly
I almost didn't hear her.
"The snow reminded me. I went with you, because I knew what you
would find, and I knew it would break your heart, and knowing it
would hurt you was breaking mine. But I also knew you didn't want
anyone to know of your hurt, so I left, even though it was the
hardest thing I've ever done."
I took a deep, shuddering breath. "But why, Kay? Why... Why was it
hard for you? Why did you... Why?" I didn't know what to ask, much
less how to ask it.
But she knew what I was asking, better than I did, just as she had
probably always known.
"Because... you needed me to be there, even if you didn't really
know, except deep down, that I was with you. And I needed to be
there, too." She paused, and in her hesitation, I suddenly did know.
And I probably knew it all along, at some level, so her next few
words didn't really surprise me.
"Because I love you," she continued, getting stronger as she finally
said the words she had waited so long to say. "Because I've always
loved you, for almost as long as I've known you."
And she cried, tears of happiness and tears of release mixing
together, as we sat there, holding each other for a few minutes more,
as the snow settled around us, veiling us in curtains of ethereal
light.
(Continued in Chapter 28)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there
is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring
this material.
(Copyright 2003, Rev. Cotton Mather)
E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather@hotmail.com
Don't be shy! I enjoy hearing from you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYING TO WIN:
PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK II
by Reverend Cotton Mather
- 28 -
THE ALL-STATE CHEER
Can a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl really know what love is?
Even in my own overheated and taxed brain, that question haunted me
all night. Long after I had dropped Kayla off at her house, sharing
another searing kiss full of promise, I was still bothered by what
she had told me.
In the intervening years since, I have discovered that there have
been exceptional children who have known their hearts early on. Joan
of Arc was 12 when she first heard the voices that put her on the
path of martyrdom, and Shakespeare infused a 13 year old Juliet with
some of the most touching and memorable lines in English literature
(even though his model for Juliet, from the Italian tale "The
Tragicall Story of Romeus and Juliet", was 16). I could not presume
then, nor can I presume even now, 20 years later, that my Luscious
was as resolute as St. Joan or Juliet. In fact, in my own mind,
aside from the implications of having a girlfriend who was "in love"
with me, I was still able to appreciate the undeniable fact that
Kayla was gorgeous, she had an uninhibited streak, and she was all
mine.
Now I just had to figure out a way not to blow it.
As we did our homework each evening, there seemed to be more of an
intimacy between us, and Jake was well aware of it, and did his best
not to interfere too much, or give me too much shit about it when
Luscious wasn't around. Sometimes, though, he just couldn't help
himself.
All the next week, every time he passed me in the hall at school, he
would punch me in the arm hard.
"Keep your mitts off my little sister," he said one time.
"You can kiss, but you'd best not touch," came another warning.
"I'd better not find no fingerprints where none should be," he
threatened another time.
I whirled and grabbed him by the arm that time, and pulled him off
to the side. "And I'd better not hear about you searching for
fingerprints where you shouldn't be looking," I said.
He looked a little surprised, then shocked, and finally, seeing my
grin, he chuckled.
"Okay, deal," he said. But just for good measure, he gave my arm
another pop. I didn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me rubbing
the bruise he caused.
Coach Neville worked on getting us prepared for the playoffs. We
were seeded first, and had home field advantage all the way through
the tournament, until the final four teams traveled downstate to
play, still three weeks away. This was a change from last year, when
the sectionals were held at a neutral field at a local college. We
didn't mind not having to travel to our games. It just meant that we
could pack our stands with a good-sized crowd. If all went well, we
would be playing two games a week until the state playoffs.
Our first game was against Lincoln Valley, the team we had
absolutely pummeled earlier in the season, beating them by a score of
11-0. On the one hand, I was looking forward to playing against the
Bozo Brothers one more time, but on the other hand, it was a little
depressing that their team actually made it into the playoffs.
Surprisingly, they only had three losses all season long, which
probably only pointed out to all and sundry that our conference was
not particularly strong in soccer. Still, it was tempting to look
beyond Lincoln Valley to see which opponents might be coming up for
us to play.
Watching the film on Thursday, it was apparent that Lincoln Valley
was playing a stronger game now than they did earlier in the season.
Maybe their coach had been able to infuse some religion into their
front lines, their weakest positions. Then again, considering the
strengths of our conference, maybe it was just that they were shown
playing weaker opponents.
On Friday, the Metro Times, the big city newspaper, came out with
their statewide prep rankings for all the fall sports, along with
their All-Conference selections. The big news for us was the
selection of Jorge Mendoza in the net, Eric Johnson as a midfielder,
and Trent Abbott as forward joining me as All-Conference players,
with Mike Evanson and Kevin Soranno also listed as outstanding
players, even though they didn't make the All-Conference team. No
other team in the area placed more than two players on their
respective All-Conference teams, and in our conference, only Rockton
Heights had two players named. All the other teams were represented
by one player, including Lincoln Valley, whose stopper was selected.
As we were in the locker room getting prepared for the game, the
mood was loose and light, with a substantial amount of good-natured
ribbing aimed at all of us whose name had been in the paper. Matt
Hartigan was also in the locker room, talking with Eric and Trent,
gathering up tidbits for his own article for the local rag about the
game.
Eric and I did our customary laps around the field before the game,
but we couldn't check out the opposition, because the Lincoln Valley
team was still unloading from their buses. We rejoined our teammates
and flopped to the ground to stretch out, taking our time and doing
more joking and relaxing than stretching.
The football team was playing on Saturday, so the stands were
filling up fast. The student section was already packed, and Jorge,
Eric, Anthony and I walked over to the fence to take a look at the
crowds. Keisha and Ayesha came down to say hello, and Kayla came
hopping down the steps to join them when she saw me there. She stuck
her fingers through the fence, and I held them with mine as we stood
there.
"Play well, Sean," she said, her eyes shining with happiness.
"I'll try," I said. "It might be a little tough out there, though,
what with all these All-Conference guys wanting to hog the ball all
the time." I glanced over to make sure Eric and Jorge heard me. I
didn't want to waste a good opportunity to hand them some shit. Eric
heard me, and was studiously ignoring me. Jorge was standing by the
fence on his far side, and all his brothers and sisters, including
Kristina, were gathered in front of him, talking excitedly to him, so
he wasn't paying any attention to me at all. Kristina was
concentrating on ignoring me, too. I certainly couldn't blame her.
She had joined a growing list of females I have disappointed and
failed over the past couple of years. I fervently hoped that my
losing streak with women was at an end as I turned back to Luscious,
still clutching my fingers.
"I don't think I'll have to worry about you not getting your touches
on the ball, Porter," she said. "Somehow, you'll find a way."
I smiled at her. "During practices, I'm a ball hog," I said.
"During games, the ball can stay on the other side of the field, for
all I care. Fewer chances for me to fall down and embarrass myself."
"And us," said Eric, still ostensibly chatting with Keisha.
Jorge and Anthony were headed back toward the bench. I waved to
Kay, and Eric and I ran up to join them. I put my arm around Jorge's
shoulder.
"Hey, amigacho, I never got to congratulate you."
"Thanks, Sean. It was a surprise, I tell you."
"Not to me, it wasn't," I said. "You've been directing the defense
like you've been doing it your whole life."
He grinned at me. "I have been doing it my whole life," he said.
"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess you have, at that." I dropped my arm
off his shoulder. "Hey, Jorge, is Kristina still going out with
Paco?"
He shot me a surprised glance. "I thought you was wrapped up with
Jake's sister," he said.
"Oh, I am," I said hurriedly. "I still feel bad about how that all
went, that's all. I just want her to be happy."
He shrugged. He was able to squeeze entire conversations into his
silent gestures, a gift few kids our age had acquired.
"Yeah, she happy, I guess. At least she's liking the worship. Paco
is completely whipped, man. He just walk around all moony eyed,
staring at her all the time, hanging around the house until Papa, he
tells him to go home. Gives me the creeps."
"You want me to help you chase him off?"
"Nah. Kristina's enjoying being the center of attention with him
around. And he's basically a good guy. Hell, I'm the one got them
together, why am I complaining? Let her have her fun. At least it's
with somebody who treats her good."
"Yeah," I said grumpily. "Her last boyfriend didn't treat her so
well."
He just looked at me for a moment, expressionless. "No, he din',
did he?" he said quietly. "But I t'ink he learned from it pretty
good now."
"Yes, he did," I reluctantly agreed.
We left it at that.
Everybody has their own pre-game preparations that they go through,
personal time to get them into game mentality, and I stepped away
from everybody and started on my routines. I liked to stand with my
toes on the chalk of the sidelines and stare out onto the field,
setting up my own imaginary borders. I liked to think of myself as a
benevolent dictator of my territory, allowing transgressors
reasonably safe passage, unless they were carrying contraband, in the
form of a soccer ball. In that case, the dictatorship became
considerably less benevolent, and stepped much closer to being
militarily threatening. I pictured, in my mind, patrolling my
borders, friendly and relaxed, but still oh so watchful, wary of any
strangers who ventured across my invisible boundaries, ready to
strike against any incursion.
I stepped back and grabbed a cup of water, just as the announcer
started up with the starting lineup. He announced the lineup for the
visiting team, and it took me a moment to realize, as he called out
the Lincoln Valley left forward starting player as Bruce somebody or
other, that the guy's name wasn't really Bozo One.
He used almost the same routine for calling out our team's starters
that he used the previous week, except that he added the All-
Conference honors for Eric and Trent. Once again, the crowd got
louder and louder as he started with the defensive side, starting
with Anthony, and then announcing Mikey and Brett. As they trotted
out onto the field, the noise level went up another notch as the
announcer's voice intoned, "Starting as goalkeeper, a sophomore, and
an All-Conference selection, Jorge Mendoooozaaaaa!" And the
grandstand started shaking as the entire crowd stomped their feet and
yelled and whistled. The announcer paused to let the noise settle
just a little before continuing, "And at right defense, a junior,
also an All-Conference selection, Sean Pooorrrterrrr!" I ran out and
high-fived all my teammates, and clapped Jorge on the back.
"Welcome to Adulation Central, buddy," I said. "But don't get too
used to it. Five minutes after our season is done, we're back to
being plain old Mendoza and Porter, B-average students."
"Don't I know it," he replied as we jogged back to the sidelines.
"Can't get a swelled head over playing a game."
The game was even easier than our regular-season game. The Lincoln
Valley coaches had apparently instructed their players, under penalty
of permanent substitution, to keep the ball out of the left offensive
half of the field, where Kevin and I were patrolling. They
repeatedly attacked our left, only to be rebuffed time and again.
Because there was no pressure at all on our side, Kevin shifted over
about 15 meters, covering more of the middle, allowing Mikey and
Robert, our center midfielders, to shift over a little, giving Eric
and Anthony a buffer. Lincoln Valley was essentially playing a half-
field game on our half, cutting down on their offensive options by
more than 50 percent. Their only real scoring opportunity came on a
corner kick late in the first half. Jorge boxed up everybody on the
line, and put Anthony on the near post and me on the far post, and he
positioned Brett 5 meters out and in the middle. The corner kick
came in high and lazy, and we were able to block out all their
players as Jorge went up and easily snagged the ball out of the air.
He punted it down to the midfield stripe, where Javier picked it up,
passed it over to Jimmy on the right, who dribbled it down the
sidelines against the defender, stopped and crossed it about 15
meters in front of the goal. Conference scoring leader Trent Abbott
was right there, crowding out the stopper with his back and arms, and
he took the pass with his right foot, sweeping the ball off his
instep into the top left corner of the net, over the outstretched
arms of the Lincoln Valley keeper.
It ended up as a 9-0 drubbing, and we left the field satisfied with
the win, and looking forward to our next opponent, to be played on
Sunday, and who was sure to be more of a challenge than the hapless
Lincoln Valley team.
And, at Sunday's game, they were more of a challenge, but it was
still a pretty easy win for us. Coach even pulled his core group in
favor of giving some of his bench players a little more playing time.
Trent, Eric, Jorge, and I sat together on the bench for most of the
second half, soaking up the weak sun and relaxing, for a change, as
the second team held on to win, 6-1.
The next week, we were surprised and a little disappointed when we
learned that Rockton Heights, our conference rivals, got beat in
their playoff game over the weekend, on a power play when one of
their players got a red card and had to leave the game. Playing
short, they got beat off the ball, and the Shady Grove Orioles walked
off with the win, 3-2.
"What the hell kind of mascot is an oriole?" asked Eric, when he
heard about Rockton's defeat.
"Doesn't exactly instill fear in the hearts of their opponents, does
it?" said Trent.
"Maybe all the good animals were taken," suggested Mikey.
"Maybe so, but orioles? Might as well just call yourselves the
Yapping Dachshunds, or the Mighty Angry Turtledoves, or something.
At least if you were the Fighting Statisticians, you could clobber
your opponents with your briefcases." Eric just shook his head,
chuckling, while the rest of us laughed.
"I wouldn't take the Orioles too lightly, were I you," warned Coach
Neville ominously. "Shady Grove has two players in particular who
are very good. All-Conference selections, in fact, in a conference
full of fairly athletic teams." He took off his glasses and casually
polished them with his loosened tie as he glanced at me with a small
smile. "Interestingly, both of their Conference players work the
left offensive side. Perhaps Mr. Porter, here, will finally face a
bit of a challenge."
"Yeah, great," I said. "Just remind Kevin and Robert to keep the
ball on the offensive side of the field, okay?"
"By the way, I just got word of something that might be of interest
to you, Mr. Porter, and to Mr. Abbott, also." He stood, and the
entire team quieted down expectantly. "Earlier this afternoon I
received a telephone call from the State Athletic Board. I have just
been informed that Sean Porter and Trent Abbott have both been
selected for first-team All-State honors."
The whole room erupted. Trent and I high-fived each other.
"Ah, but I am not finished," interrupted Coach. "Second-team All-
State honors are accorded to Eric Johnson at midfield.
Congratulations to all three players."
I grabbed Eric by the shirtsleeve and dragged him up to stand with
Trent and me. We draped arms around one another, the three of us,
basking in the show of appreciation from our teammates.
"Now, if I may continue for a moment," called Coach. He had his
hands in the air, calling for a little quiet again. "All of these
honors for these individuals are fine, and well justified. However,
those accolades will be all the sweeter if they can also be
accompanied by a trip downstate. And to do that, we have some hard
work to do this week."
And, with that, Coach Simonson fired up the projector, and analysis
of our last game began.
On Tuesday, I called Lori to see if Davey and Kip would like to work
for the team as ball boys again on Sunday. We had a game on
Thursday, and perhaps I was looking too far ahead, but the way we
were playing made me pretty confident we would at least be playing on
the weekend.
"Oh, I know they would love it," she said.
"Great. It'll be easier for them this time, now that they know the
guys, and they know what they will be expected to do," I said.
"Thank you, Sean. And I believe congratulations are in order, too."
"Well, the talent pool for defenders must be a little shallow this
year," I said. "I really shouldn't have been picked, since I missed
two games entirely, and half of a third."
"That's baloney, and you know it," she told me. "You deserved the
honor, just as you earned it last year, too."
"Don't get me started on last year," I said. "The only reason I
even got noticed is because of the publicity surrounding the
situation that got me into the game in the first place."
"Maybe so," she said. "But that doesn't detract from the fact that
you played well enough, in spite of the pressure, to earn that
recognition."
"Well, thanks, Lori. I knew I could count on you to boost me up a
little. I appreciate it."
Even through the low-fidelity of the telephone, I could hear the
humor in her voice. "I'm just telling the truth here, Sean.
Besides, I owe you more than you'll ever know."
"What? How do you figure?"
She hesitated. "I'll tell you about it sometime, Sean." She paused
again, sounding unsure of herself. "Sean? On Sunday?"
"Yes? Sunday? At the game?"
"Yes. At the game." She paused once more, and then seemed to
change her mind about something. "I'll just see you Sunday, Sean.
At the same gate?"
"Sure," I said, more confused than ever.
My confidence was not misplaced. Our game on Thursday was against
the Apple Valley Tigers. They were a good team - they had to be, to
make it this deep into the playoffs - but Apple Valley was a tiny
community, and their high school was one of the smallest in our area.
Their starters were decent players, but when they had to go to their
bench, they were vulnerable.
Their strategy for our playoff game was to double cover Trent as
much as possible. It would have been a sound plan if Trent was our
only offensive threat, but as it worked out, it was a courageous but
foolhardy plan. Once their strategy was figured out, Eric and Robert
stopped trying to feed the ball into Trent, and shifted their focus
to the other side, moving the ball over to Kevin, Jimmy and Javier.
Because of the double team, somebody was going to be open, and we
were able to spread the field out all the way to the sidelines with
passes, forcing the Tigers to scramble to cover. Eventually they had
to pull their offensive middle guy back to help defend, allowing us
to pull another player up to attack, while leaving their chances of
moving the ball into our half on a scoring opportunity pretty
minimal. The final result was another too-easy win, 5-0.
We found out the next morning that Shady Grove also advanced. Our
Sunday game would be against the Orioles.
On Sunday afternoon, about an hour before game time, I was standing
at the gate, waiting, when I saw Davey and Kip come running up.
Davey grabbed at the handle and swung the gate open, and they both
dashed in and grabbed me around my waist.
"Hi, Sean!" "Hi, Sean!"
"Hi, guys, how have you been?" I asked, trying without success to
disentangle myself. Lori came walking up, a big smile on her face.
There was a man I didn't know walking with her.
"Hey, Lori," I said.
"Sean I'd like you to meet David McMasters. David, this is Sean
Porter."
McMasters was a big man, with a big, open face. He looked to be
older, maybe around 30, and there were laugh lines etched around his
mouth, evidence of a seemingly friendly guy. He stuck out his hand,
and I shook it. He nearly shook my arm off with enthusiasm.
"Glad to finally meet you, Sean. Lori's been talking so much about
you, I feel like we've been friends for a long time!" he practically
shouted.
"Really?" I shot Lori a glance, but she was just standing beside
him, smiling affectionately at David's introduction.
"Oh, yes," he continued. "And the boys! My goodness, they think
you're the tops!"
"The tops?" What the hell were the tops? I had no idea, but
apparently they were good things.
"Absolutely! Right, boys?" said David as he turned, looking around
for Davey and Kip. They had already run down the path toward the
door into school, though, and he just shook his head in bemusement.
"Those boys move faster than just about anything else I've ever
seen," he said with a smile. He held out his arm for Lori. "Well,
come on, then, Mrs. W., we'd best be finding our seats in the stands,
hadn't we?"
Lori was almost floating above the ground as she slid her arm
through his proffered elbow. "Yes, David," she said. She looked
back to me, her entire face aglow. "And thank you again, Sean. This
means the world to me, and to the boys."
And they walked off together. David was almost a foot taller than
Lori, but somehow it didn't look funny at all. It looked kind of
nice, especially when I saw him moderate his naturally longer stride
to accommodate Lori's shorter step. I smiled and shook my head, and
then walked over to where the boys were waiting as patiently as they
could, by the door to the locker room. It was time to prepare for
the game.
Maybe the Shady Grove mascot was weak and goofy, but the team was
not. At the referee's opening whistle, they started an offensive set
that was quick and effective in getting the ball down close to our
goal. They were not afraid to use the sidelines, and they relied on
their speed and agility to make crossing passes to their forwards in
front of the net. Their first attack, on our left side, slipped by
Eric, skirted the line, and their midfielders and forwards all
attacked, leaving Anthony to scramble to stay with their right
forward, who was handling the ball. Even so, Anthony was a step
behind him when he lofted a cross into the box, and defenders and
attackers alike went up to try to head it. Brett Oldman managed to
muscle his mark off the ball, and he headed the ball over toward me,
but I had two opponents on me almost before I got to the ball. I
managed to knock it off the shin of one of their players, and it
caromed out of bounds, skidding along the fence. Davey tossed me
another ball as I stepped out to handle the throw, and I caught it
and immediately turned and whipped it as far as I could down the
line, hoping that Kevin or Jimmy would be able to snag it. Kevin
trapped the ball, a defender right behind him with his hand on
Kevin's back, but he was still was able to sideswipe the ball into
the center, where Robert picked it up, passing it over to Eric right
away, who was momentarily open.
As soon as the Orioles defenders recognized that Eric had the ball,
they dropped back, picking up their assignments, and their
midfielders and forwards came back to assist, blanketing their half
of the field with players. I thought that their forwards and
midfielders were going to be exhausted by halftime, trying to play
both sides of the ball like that. If they built up a lead by then,
though, they could afford to play keep-away during the second half,
without the need to mount any offensive charges. Eric couldn't
advance the ball, so he passed back to Anthony, back across the
midfield stripe, and we reset while the Orioles came back over to try
for an interception.
Jorge and Mikey recognized the pattern at about the same time I did,
so we spread out in the back and passed the ball laterally, Mike to
me, me to Brett, Brett to Anthony, until we could find an opportunity
to advance it. We were able to work the ball up to Kevin and Robert
occasionally, but we didn't seem to be able to move it forward any
further than that, and the ball kept on returning back to us. Then,
on an unintentionally soft pass from Robert to Anthony, a Shady Grove
midfielder managed to intercept. He split the field, running in the
seam, as Anthony and Mike angled toward him. Brett picked up the
center forward, but that left their right forward open, behind
Anthony, and the midfielder threaded a pass over to him. He stopped
the ball with his right foot, took two shambling dribbles, and
launched a shot at goal.
Jorge was awake and paying attention, though. He trusted Brett to
hold off the man in the center, and had kept one eye on the ball, and
one eye on the forward behind Anthony. When the pass was made, Jorge
was as ready as he could be. He rushed out at the forward, cutting
down on the shooting angle, and managed to block the ball, deflecting
it over toward the right post. The Orioles forward on my side saw
the opportunity, and ran hard toward the loose ball, but I was right
with him, and I managed to shoulder him away, keeping my arms and
elbows tucked. I took the ball out from his reach with my left foot,
and popped it back toward the sidelines. My opponent looked to the
referee, perhaps looking for an obstruction call or a charge, but the
referee indicated a legal play, telling him to play on.
The game seesawed back and forth like that all the first half, and
by the time the referee blew his whistle for halftime, I was pretty
winded. I looked at the rest of my team, and they were looking like
they felt the same as I did, tired and blowing hard, but still coming
off the field feeling like we had accomplished something, keeping
them out of our goal. Their offensive lineup had to be even more
winded than we were, and they had nothing to show for it. Of course,
neither did we, but I knew that Eric and Trent couldn't be shut out
for the entire game. Something would happen. In fact, Eric, Trent,
Javier, Jimmy, and Robert were huddled together with Coach Simonson,
trying to come up with just that something.
At the start of the second half, I was feeling pretty decent again.
On our kickoff, we moved the ball back to Eric, and Trent took off
downfield at a hard sprint, part of the play they had designed. Eric
launched a high pass down the sidelines, leading Trent by about 10
meters, and Trent picked it up from over his shoulder at a dead run,
and kept on going. Eric, meanwhile, relying on his speed, ran as
hard as he could, angling in toward the middle, with Javier heading
toward the right side, in front of Eric, for a diversion. The
Orioles sweeper loped out to cut off Javier, and their stopper warily
came out to try to track Eric. Trent put on the brakes, and his
defender scrambled to stop and reverse, but Trent was open for long
enough. He powered a crossing pass to Eric, and the Orioles stopper
closed on him, keeping him from a clear shot. He stayed off Eric,
though, fully expecting him to try to make a move around him, but
instead, Eric one-touched the ball back into open space in front of
Trent, who was now in full stride, bearing down on goal, with his
defender two steps behind him in a delayed reaction to the play. The
ball reached Trent's left foot in stride, and he swept it off his
laces, over the keeper's head, and into the high far corner of the
net, for the first goal of the game.
The stands erupted with cheers, and from the student section came
the syncopated cry, "All State! All State! All State!" in honor of
the offensive combination of Eric Johnson and Trent Abbott.
On the Orioles restart, it became apparent that they, too, spent
halftime coming up with adjustments. They still loaded up the
offensive side, but this time they sent more players into the middle
and their left. The ball came over to their left midfielder, and his
forward took the sideline route, so I was forced to guard the passing
lane, until Kevin could come back to pick up the man with the ball.
The forward slipped ahead of me, back toward his midfielder, and got
the ball, and then immediately passed it back over as the midfielder
stepped closer to the center. They worked a two-man game against me,
keeping the ball moving between the two of them and away from either
Kevin or me, staying near the sidelines, moving constantly into open
spaces. On the one hand, it was a clever way of keeping the ball
down in our area of the field. On the other hand, it didn't really
advance the ball, and eventually something would have to be done.
Mikey Evanson forced the issue by sliding over to make it three on
two. He stepped in front of the midfielder and intercepted, but all
he could do was knock the ball to the side, instead of control it.
The ball was headed just behind me, with the Orioles forward in front
of me. He stepped to the side, probably intending on retrieving the
ball as it passed behind me, and so he was caught. I heeled the ball
back to Mikey on a give-and-go, and took off upfield, knowing that
Mikey would do the right thing, one-touching it back to me. I was
just running up to the Orioles midfielder when the ball came at me
from Mikey, and I stepped in front of it, still with my back to it,
and let it run up my left leg. I boosted it up and over, and Jesse
Wilhoit's Alley-Oop One-Man Give-And-Go looped over the surprised
midfielder's head, landed bouncing on the other side for me to pick
up, and I headed downfield with just one defender between me and the
corner of the box. I angled a hard pass just in front of Javier, and
he feinted at it, making the keeper hesitate, and let it go past him
so that it could hit Trent, who rocketed it past the diving Oriole
keeper for goal number two.
Trent came running over to me, and jumped up and landed on me, and
we both fell to the ground. Eric jumped onto both of us, and the
pileup began as we yelled and screamed. The student section started
up with their "All State! All State!" cheer again as we slowly
extricated ourselves, and we jogged back to our side of the field
side by side, Eric and Trent and I.
It was all over but the shouting. The Orioles coach had to
substitute his midfielders, who had run the field as hard as they
could, but they were scrambling to make something of nothing by then,
and all their offensive tries were rebuffed. We were content to play
the time out, and the clock worked in our favor, running the Orioles
out of time before they could score.
We were headed downstate.
(Continued in Chapter 29)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there
is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring
this material.
(Copyright 2003, Rev. Cotton Mather)
E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather@hotmail.com
Don't be shy! I enjoy hearing from you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYING TO WIN:
PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK II
by Reverend Cotton Mather
- 29 -
THE END OF THE SEASON
The team was scheduled to take a bus down to the University campus,
where the playoffs would continue, on Thursday morning. Our
semifinal game would be played Friday night, and the winners of
Friday's games would meet for the championships on Sunday afternoon.
After practice on Wednesday, Kayla and I were sprawled in my family
room. On this last evening before I had to leave for a few days,
Jake was being uncharacteristically sensitive, making himself scarce
and allowing us a little alone time. We were supposed to be doing
homework, but we really weren't in the mood, so we were blowing it
off in favor of some down time. The television was on, but it was
just noise. We weren't paying any attention to it at all. My mother
was puttering in the kitchen, getting dinner ready. Stephen was
upstairs, presumably doing homework, but probably reading comic
books. Michael was still at work, and Dad was probably on his way
home from work. Kay had become a fixture in our household, staying
for dinner about half the time during the week, and my mom was
treating her more and more like a daughter, and less like her middle
son's girlfriend. It was very weird.
With a quick glance toward the kitchen door, Kay came crawling
across the carpet to me as I was leaning against the couch, the book
I was supposed to be reading for English open in my lap. She kissed
my cheek, her eyes wide open, and when I turned to kiss her lips, her
eyes crossed as she puckered up. I couldn't help myself. I burst
out laughing.
She kept her eyes crossed as she leaned back. "It's not nice to
laugh at someone who's being nice to you," she said, trying hard to
keep a straight face. She couldn't hold it, though, and she started
laughing hard, holding her stomach.
Between gasps, I said, "If you keep on doing that, your face is
going to freeze like that."
"But would you still love me, even if that happened?" she asked
teasingly. Her eyes uncrossed, and she shook her head like a dog,
getting her focus back.
"Of course I would. You're luscious even when you can't see
straight," I said.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned against me, resting
the tip of her nose on mine, our faces so close I was seeing double.
Two of Luscious. Lucky me, I thought to myself.
"And I'd still love you, even if you didn't have that adorable
little scar on your lip," she said. She gave my scar a quick kiss,
and then flopped back to sit next to me on the floor. She reached
over and pulled her history book over and put it on her lap.
"Back to work, sluggard," she said. She opened the book and flipped
through the pages, looking for the chapter she was supposed to be
reading.
"You're right," I said, not moving a muscle. "I'm a no-good, lazy
and stupid sluggard of a jock. I shouldn't be allowed to roam loose
in public."
She peered at me. "That's true," she agreed. "Okay, no going out
in public for you, jock. At least, not without a keeper. By the
way, did you know that I'm a qualified keeper? Licensed and
everything."
"Really? Can I see?"
She reached for her purse and pulled out her learner's permit for
driving, which she had just recently gotten. She handed it to me.
"See? Right there," she said, pointing. "It says that I am
authorized to accompany all lazy and no-good jocks at any time. Do
you want to hire me?"
"How much would I have to pay you?"
"Oh, we can work out suitable wages," she said, a promise implicit
in her words and her knowing smile enough to make me break out in a
sweat.
After dinner, I borrowed my mom's car to drive Kayla home. I
stopped for just a moment halfway between my house and hers and
turned the lights off. She was sitting next to me, and when I
stopped the car, she looked over into my eyes.
"You're very bad," she said with a saucy smile.
As much as I wanted a quick make-out session with her, there was
something I really needed to ask her, though. I put both hands on
her shoulders and turned her toward me. Her eyes were lidded, and
her mouth was slightly open, anticipating a kiss. It was too much to
resist, so I kissed her softly. Her lips nibbled and caressed my
bottom lip, and her tongue traced the edges of my scar, sending bolts
of light and heat through my nervous system, but I knew we didn't
have time to get carried away, so I reluctantly broke away from her
and held her so I could look into her face.
"What?" she asked, a little irritably.
"Kay, I need to talk to you for just a minute." In the dark
interior of the car, I could see her eyes picking up ambient light
from the streetlight, a half a block away.
"Okay," she said quietly. I saw her eyes soften as she realized how
serious I was.
"I'm leaving tomorrow for the tournament," I said. "I'll be gone
all weekend."
"Yes, I know."
"I... I just need to know that you'll be here, waiting for me, when
I get back."
She giggled softly. "Sean, it's just for one weekend. You're not
going away for a year."
I was a little flustered. "I know. It's just... last year..."
She leaned forward and kissed me softly, sensuously, a kiss full of
possibilities.
"I'll be here," she whispered. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
"I had to ask, Kay..."
"I understand, Sean. I saw what happened. I'm not like her."
"I know you're not, it's just..."
She kissed me one more time to shut me up. "Go. Play well. Bring
home the championship. Don't let anything break your concentration,
especially worries about me. I've been here for you for longer than
you know, and I'm not giving up on you, just because you're going to
be out of town for a few days. Call me every night and let me know
how it's going, if you'd like. In fact, you'd better call me every
night, even if it's just to say hello."
She sat back, apparently satisfied that all was now settled. I
guessed that it probably was, so I dropped the car back into gear,
turned the headlights back on, and drove her home.
That night, alone in my bed, I made a secret vow to myself. This
girl was too precious to let slip away. I knew I had to work hard to
keep her on my side, and I was going to try my damnedest to not fuck
up for a change.
The bus ride downstate the next day was boring. Farm field after
farm field, as flat as land could possibly be, and drearily cloudy
and dim. I tried to sleep most of the way, but only managed to doze
off and on for much of the trip.
There was a magazine being passed around among the guys, with a lot
of whispering and laughing going on. I tried to ignore it as it
moved around the bus, down the opposite rows of seats from where I
was sprawled. I thought it was probably a Playboy or some similar
contraband that somebody had managed to sneak on, and I was a little
surprised when, about halfway through our trip, I glanced toward the
front of the bus and saw Coach Neville reach out and take the
magazine. He opened it and read something, and then smiled and
handed it back to Brett, who was sitting right behind Coach and his
wife.
There was an air of good humor, and I wasn't a part of it.
Grumbling, I squirmed in my seat, trying to find a more comfortable
position so I could go back to sleep. Coach saw my distress, and
finally stood, holding himself steady by hanging on to seats on
either side of the aisle as he faced the rear of the bus.
His voice was loud, carrying over the whine of the tires on the
highway.
"What do you think, team? Should we tell him?"
Tell him? What the hell was he talking about? I sat up and rubbed
my face. I was feeling pretty cramped and miserable.
"Nah," said Eric. He was across the aisle from me, and he was
smiling like he had a secret he was dying to tell as he glanced over
at me.
"What?" I asked him crossly. "What are you talking about?"
That set the entire bus to laughing. They were all nuts, I thought,
but I kept my mouth shut. See? I had learned something of value
over the past few weeks.
Coach came down the aisle toward me, swaying with the movement of
the bus, almost pulling himself along with his hands on the backs of
the seats. He got up to my row, and handed me the Playboy magazine.
"Here," he said, smiling. "Read and enjoy."
He stood there while I took the magazine from his hand. It wasn't a
Playboy, after all. It was the latest copy of Youth Soccer Today,
the official magazine of the American High School Soccer Association.
I thumbed through it, wondering what was going on. On page 10 there
was a big article about the YST All-American Team, but I had already
heard that there weren't any players on the boy's teams from our
state listed.
"Try page 24," suggested Coach Neville.
I flipped open the magazine to page 24. The article was entitled
"The Top 100 Players To Watch". It listed the players the author and
the magazine considered to be the best players, aside from the All-
American selections, in the country. The players were listed in
alphabetical order, and a couple of pages further on, I found that
somebody had highlighted the following listing:
"PORTER, Sean: A junior defenseman on a high school team ranked
in the Top 20 nationwide, Porter is the anchor upon which the team's
strengths are attached. Incredible firepower in their offense
(averaging over 7 goals per game) this season has been achievable
because of the stifling defense that shuts down opponents, no matter
how powerful (averaging less than 1 goal against for the season). In
fact, no team has scored more than 2 goals against this team as of
this writing, and Sean Porter is the key factor."
"Is this a joke?" I asked, handing the magazine back to Coach
Neville. Surely it was an elaborate practical joke. Somebody went
to a lot of bother to print up this phony magazine.
"No joke, Mr. Porter," he said, a wide smile splitting his face. "I
believe congratulations are in order." He began clapping, and
everybody on the bus followed suit. I was in shock. I looked over
to Eric for confirmation, and he was applauding along with everybody
else, grinning at me.
"You the man, Seanster," he yelled.
It was very difficult for me to agree with that. I didn't feel like
I had accomplished much this year. In fact, I felt like maybe I had
cheated somebody somewhere along the line, to have them write
something like that, something so obviously false, about me. I
leaned back in my seat and stared out the window desultorily,
embarrassed by the attention I was getting when it was really the
entire team who deserved the praise. Sure, maybe I contributed to
the team's success at times during the past year plus, but to think
that Eric and Trent were successful because of my play was just
ludicrous. How come nobody else could see how ridiculous this all
was? I closed my eyes as the noise in the bus died down again, but I
couldn't persuade my brain to shut down, and dark thoughts to match
the day were my companions for the rest of the trip downstate.
It was cold and rainy when we got off the bus at our hotel. Both
coaches had brought their wives along, and Mrs. Neville and Mrs.
Simonson helped us sort out our room assignments for the weekend. We
were staying four to a room, and I was rooming with Eric, Trent and
Anthony. We only had two keys between the four of us, and we decided
that Eric and Trent would be in charge of them.
We had a practice session scheduled, and Coach had requested that we
be in our practice uniforms when we met in the lobby of the hotel.
The bus was idling outside the door.
"Okay, men, if I may have your attention, please." Coach Neville
raised his arms for quiet. "Thank you. Coach Simonson will be
leading you over to the practice fields. They are about two miles
from here. I will meet you there with the bus."
There was a lot of confused murmuring. Finally, Rich spoke up.
"We're not taking the bus over?" he asked.
"No, you're not," he said. "Think of it as your warm-up." He was
grinning as he turned and walked out to the bus, holding his
clipboard over his head to ward off the rain.
It was uncomfortable running through the streets in the rain, and by
the time we got to the practice field we were soaked through our
uniforms and shoes. Coach didn't give us time to complain, though,
as he already had his scrimmage teams set, and he handed out knit
jerseys, yellow for one team and red for the other, and sent us out
onto the field.
We kept at it for about an hour. By then, we were dispirited,
tired, uncooperative, and miserable. We trudged to the bus, where
Coach handed each of us a plastic garbage bag to sit on.
"No point in getting the bus seats wet," he said cheerfully as we
filed onto the bus.
By the time we got back, I was cold, wet, and very uncomfortable.
Somehow, I got chosen to be last into the shower, so I changed into
dry sweats to wait my turn. I was looking forward to having hot
water pound on me for as long as I could stand it, and I was hoping
the hotel wasn't going to run out of hot water by the time it was my
turn. I lay down on the bed and silently wished that my three
roommates would hurry up already.
In the morning, it was apparent that I was not well. My throat was
scratchy, and I was starting to develop a cough. I felt a little
feverish, and I could feel the beginnings of some congestion trying
to establish itself in my chest. I ignored it as best I could,
making do with some aspirin to take the edge off.
Our game was scheduled at 4:00, so we had most of the day to sit
around. The rain had stopped, though it was still cloudy and cold.
A bunch of guys went off to look around the campus, accompanied by
some student guides. Coach Simonson and Mrs. Simonson took most of
the rest of the team to a long lunch, but I opted to just order a
sandwich from the cafe in the hotel and stay in the room, trying to
rest. The television was on, but it was just background noise. I
remembered too well what daytime TV was like, from my few days
staying home from school, so I refrained from flipping through the
channels looking in vain for something interesting.
At 2:00, we all gathered in the lobby, waiting for our bus to show
up to take us to the stadium. We tossed our gear bags into the
luggage compartment below, and shuffled onto the bus for the short
ride to the locker rooms.
I was feeling pretty punkish as I changed into my uniform, but I
knew I would be able to shake it off for the game. How long I would
last running the field was a different matter, however.
The field was still wet from the previous day's rain, and the grass
was slick. The areas around the nets were patchy with brown grass
and mud, treacherous ground to work on for defenders. Jorge, Brett,
Anthony and I inspected both net areas, trying to map out in our
minds where it would be most slippery.
There were just a few people in the stands at the start of the game.
A combination of the weather and the distance from either our town,
or from Watkinsville, our opponent in the semi-final match, kept
nearly everybody away. The game started out very tentatively, both
teams seeming to want to test the quality of the field and the
quality of the midfielders at first. The wet grass, even though it
was cut short, still held up the wet ball, so bounces were lower,
passes were shorter, and the ball couldn't roll very far on the
ground. It tended to compress the width of the field a little,
pulling us into the chewed-up ground a little more than we would have
liked.
I was just as glad that the game started out slowly. I was feeling
cold and lethargic, and I had to force myself to pick myself up and
run at the ball, instead of waiting for the ball to come to me.
Against weak teams from our conference, I could have gotten away with
waiting, but strong teams demanded decisive action on the ball. Any
weak passes, any hesitation in attack or defense of an area, was
quickly exploited at this level, so I concentrated on continually
moving, jogging back and forth within my borders, staring at the ball
movement to try to focus my concentration a little.
Anytime the ball entered my area, I pushed it off as soon as I
could, either passing the ball over to Brett or to Jorge, or, if
necessary, out of bounds. I didn't want to have to face any one-on-
one challenges while I was feeling so slow and clumsy.
Fortunately, I only had a few touches on the ball during the first
half, and at the whistle we were up 2-0 on goals by Trent and Robert.
I sat down in a heap on the bench and draped a towel over my head to
conserve some of the body heat I had built up during the first half.
Coach came over and crouched down in front of me. "Are you okay out
there?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. My nose was running, and my head was starting to
hurt. "I just want to put this game away and go back and go to bed,"
I said.
"All right," he said as he stood. "Just let anybody on the
sidelines know if you need to come out, Sean. Don't be a hero out
there. It looks like we'll play another day." He went off to talk
to his other players.
Kevin and Jorge came over and sat on either side of me.
"Hey, Porter, you gonna play the second half?" I glanced over at
Kevin.
"Of course," I said. "Why?"
"Just checking," he replied. "I didn't want to have to baby-sit
Weasel if I didn't have to."
I smiled ruefully. "Hell, Kev, you might just have to baby-sit me
out there pretty soon, the way I'm feeling."
He snorted. "Don't you worry about it, Sean. It wasn't the
babysitting I minded, it was having to do it for Weasel. You need
help, you just let me know."
"Thanks, man, but I'll be okay."
Jorge said, "I got you covered, too, man. I can move Brett or Mike
over a little it you need them."
"They're attacking Anthony more than they're working my side," I
said. "Don't leave yourself with a hole they can squeeze through."
"Don' worry, man. They quick, but I know what I'm doin' out there,
too."
"Yeah, I know you do, Jorge. Sorry."
"'S all okay, man. We got you covered. You just play what you can,
we got the rest."
The referee called for the teams to take the field for the start of
the second half. As the game progressed, Jorge and Kevin were true
to their words. My borders got squeezed down, until I felt like I
was defending an area about the size of my bedroom at home. I took a
few throw-ins, and only had to run down one attacker, managing to
kick the ball into his shin guard and out of bounds for a goal kick,
and Jorge pounded the ball back upfield.
After about 20 minutes on the field, Coach subbed me out for Rich,
and pointed me toward the bench.
"You're done for the afternoon," he said, patting me on the back.
Rich, Weasel and Anthony would alternate on both sides of the
defensive line for the balance of the game, and I was able to watch
from underneath my towel as our midfielders and defenders played keep-
away for the last several minutes, protecting our 4-0 lead that would
propel us into the championship game.
As soon as we got back to the hotel, I staggered into the shower. I
didn't even bother to brush my teeth or dry my hair, but instead I
opted to skip dinner and crawl into bed. After my three roomies
left, I remembered I had promised to call Luscious. I was sorely
tempted to blow it off in favor of sleep, but my conscience, and the
remembrance of the consequences of not calling people in the past,
drove me to reach for the telephone on the nightstand between the
beds and dial her number.
I only talked to her for a few minutes, begging off so I could try
to get some rest. I told her a little bit about the game, and
mentioned that I was getting a cold, so she relented and allowed me
to keep our conversation short. Even so, I felt unaccountably better
after I had talked to her than I did before. Maybe she really was
good for me.
I felt pretty much like death warmed over the next day. I was achy
all over, and my head felt like it had so much snot in it, it was
likely to explode in a fury of mucous. Anthony and Eric had already
gone downstairs to meet the rest of the team for breakfast, but Trent
waited for me to get dressed so he could walk downstairs with me.
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather go alone?" I asked miserably. "It
would be much easier on both of us if you would just leave me here to
die."
"Sorry, pal, but you ain't dying on my watch," he said. He didn't
sound very sympathetic. In fact, he sounded hungry. I, on the other
hand, wasn't looking forward to watching everybody shovel food down,
since I had no appetite. But he wasn't going to let me be, so I
finished up, and we headed down to the restaurant.
It was an off day for us. Coach had just a light workout planned,
really not much more than stretching, and then a film session to try
to design some plays against our opponents for the championships,
South High School, and their All-State midfielder, Spencer Goldman.
I had met Spencer at last year's All-State banquet, and had met up
with him again at Duane Olchick's summer clinic, playing both with
and against him for two weeks of intense soccer. I knew his game
well, and he knew mine. I just wished I felt well enough to give him
some game.
Mr. and Mrs. Neville and Mr. and Mrs. Simonson took the entire team
out for pizza and soft drinks Saturday night. The place we went had
an arcade room off to one side, and everybody spent all their dimes
and quarters playing pinball, air hockey, Pac-Man, and the newest
video game craze, Donkey Kong. I even forgot about my stuffy head
while I was whacking away at the air hockey table, trying to beat
Eric and Jorge. I got my butt whupped several times, but I managed
to work up a little bit of a sweat playing, and I felt better by the
time we trooped back to our hotel for the night. I thought that
maybe, with luck, I might live through the night.
The championship game was being played at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon.
I woke up in the morning feeling nearly human again. My body aches
were almost gone, and so was the scratchy throat. All that was left
was a congested head, and I knew a little medicine would help that
long enough to play.
We got to the fieldhouse about 12:30, and took our time getting
suited up. It was another cloudy, cool day, but it was dry, a good
day for a faster game. We were on the sidelines, stretched out and
warmed up, by 1:45. There was a bigger crowd in the stands today,
but, considering the stadium held over 10,000 people, good midfield
seats were not hard to find.
South won the coin toss, and on the opening whistle, they began
their first offensive set, and almost immediately got the ball over
to Spencer, who dribbled down into Seanland. I ran up to challenge
him, but before I could engage, he passed off.
As I got up to him, I said, "Hey, Spencer, already you're attacking
my side?"
He grinned at me. "I just heard you weren't feeling very well, so I
thought I'd trot over and see how you were doing," he answered.
"Hummmph. I appreciate your concern, but I'm feeling good," I said.
He jogged off toward the middle, following the path of the ball. He
gave me a small, unobtrusive wave as he turned away. "Maybe another
time," he called over his shoulder as he moved off.
We were confident enough in our game to not mess with our lineup,
but I had the feeling South probably shifted players around, putting
their stronger forwards on the left and their stronger defenders on
their right, guarding against the one-two punch of Eric Johnson and
Trent Abbott. As a result, the ball stayed pretty much in the middle
of the field, without much encroachment one way or the other. The
field was spread, so there was a lot of area to pass into, and both
teams exhibited good ball control and accurate passing.
Finally, we created an opportunity. Mikey moved the ball to the
left, passing it up to Eric. South loaded up that side of the field,
moving their center players over to cut off passing lanes forward,
but their right midfielder was a step behind Eric, and that's all he
needed. He put on a burst of speed, creating just enough room, and
launched a high pass all the way across the field to a wide-open
Kevin, who immediately trapped the ball with his chest, let the ball
drop to his feet, and passed it up to Jimmy. South's left defender
was caught flat-footed, and Jimmy was able to work the ball around
him. He passed the ball over to Robert in the middle, who one-
touched it up, threading the ball in between defenders, to Javier,
who faked left, moved two steps to the right, and fired a missile
into the back of the net. It wasn't Trent, and it wasn't Eric, but
we took the goal anyway, and were glad to have it.
We jogged back to set up for the restart. Robert turned and
reminded us that South would push hard to tie it up before the half,
and to be prepared. With only about five minutes to play, I had the
feeling it would be an intense stand.
They tapped the ball forward, and then passed back to set up.
Instead of charging the ball, we maintained, only our forwards
advancing. South spent a precious couple of minutes passing the ball
back and forth on their side of the field before they decided to
attack. Spencer had the ball at the midfield stripe, and he took
off, moving around Robert, and angling over to Anthony's side. His
forward slipped in front of Mikey, who was tracking the ball, and
Spencer slipped a pass between our two players to his forward. Brett
was on him, though, and managed to harass him enough to keep him from
shooting, until Mikey came over and stripped the ball away, clearing
it back into South territory. By the time they collected the ball
and passed it back up, the referee's whistle was blowing, and the
first half was over.
I was breathing hard, laboring more than I wanted as I came off the
field, but I hoped that the break would give me enough time to rest
and catch my breath for the second half. As soon as I could, I drank
two or three cups of water. I didn't want to get dehydrated out
there, especially with the decongestant working.
The second half picked up in intensity, with South running down
every loose ball and pressing their attack in an effort to gain the
upper hand. It was now or never, and they were well aware of it. On
every attack, we managed to dodge the bullet, either by clearing the
ball out on a pass, or through a takeaway, often as not passing the
ball back to Jorge and letting him kick a high floater out to
midfield.
We tried attacking, but they threw everybody back onto defense, and
by sheer weight of numbers were able to retake the ball and try a new
offensive set.
Finally, late in the game, South took a corner kick. In competitive
situations, the standard procedure for corner kicks was to loft a
kick from the corner toward the front of the goal, anywhere from 10
to 18 meters out from the net, and have your offense and your
midfielders charge in and try to take either a header or a shot of
some sort off the kick. Only in recreational leagues, and with
younger players who can't get the ball up into the air very well, do
you see two people setting up, one at the corner to start the play,
and another inside, ready to take a pass. South, however, set up
just that way, and the defenseman passed from the corner to his
teammate. Jorge had set up Anthony at one post and me at the other,
and Mike Evanson should have seen the play develop and gone out to
challenge, but he didn't. The player received the pass, and one-
touched it back to his teammate coming inbounds from the corner, who
came in about 10 meters. At that point, he could be a lot more
accurate with his lofted pass, and he put it up in the air, right
outside the goal. Jorge ran out and jumped up to make a play on the
ball, but it was headed by one of South's players before he could get
there, and he was forced out of the play. The player who jumped up
and headed the ball knocked it about 5 meters over to Spencer
Goldman, who was ready. As the ball dropped to him, he was moving
forward, and he used his momentum as he cocked and fired at the
corner I was defending.
To this day I would swear that I never got a clear view of the ball.
The play developed too fast, and the ball came screaming off
Spencer's shoe. I just happened to be in the right place at the
right time. Purely by instinct I stuck my foot out, hanging onto the
post, and the ball ricocheted off my shin guard, straight out into
the midfield area. It must have missed crossing the goal line by
centimeters, it was so close. Eric, the fastest man on the field,
turned on the afterburners and raced after it, and gave the ball a
big kick, sending it sailing past the startled stopper's head. Eric
charged right by him, and had a one-on-one opportunity against the
keeper. He kept going hard toward the net, and South's keeper came
out to him, hands wide apart, staying on his toes as he approached.
Eric took his shot while the keeper was still about 10 meters away,
but the triangulation between him, the keeper, and the goal was not
good, and his shot went just wide. By the time everything reset on
the goal kick, time was running down. Our defense kept the ball out
of harm's way, and every time we cleared it out, precious seconds
were burned up, and the final whistle ended the contest. We had won
the state championship game, 1-0.
We piled on each other in the middle of the field joyfully, an
incredible unbeaten season suddenly over. After we disentangled
ourselves, we lined up to congratulate South on the game, and then
headed toward the sidelines. Spencer Goldman walked over and shook
my hand.
"Great goal line stand, Sean," he said.
"It was pure luck. You should have gotten the goal, Spence."
He shrugged. "Right place, right time helps. You've also got to
have the reaction time and the game to make it work."
"Thanks, Spencer. I appreciate it."
"Besides, there's always next year," he said as we walked together
off the field. He smiled. "Watch out, Porter. We'll probably be
right here, a year from now. Most of our team is coming back."
"Ours, too," I said. I stuck out my hand. "Okay, next year it can
be your turn. But you'll have to earn it. We won't just lay down
for you, you know."
He grasped my hand as we made a friendly pact. "I'm counting on
it," he said. "By the way, I saw the magazine article.
Congratulations on making the list."
"See what you can accomplish with just the right publicist?" I said
facetiously. "But thanks, anyway."
"Hey, whatever. All I know is that there weren't a lot of juniors
on that list, and no sophomores at all. It's pretty good company
you're keeping."
"Yeah," I said, humbled a little. "You're right, it's just that I
keep on looking over my shoulder, wondering when the little practical
joker is going to pop up and say, 'Just kidding, Porter. Now back to
being mediocre again.'"
Spencer laughed. "Ain't gonna happen, I'm afraid. Learn to live
with it, Sean. You're on the list because you belong on the list.
See ya at the banquet." And he veered off, heading toward his
teammates.
I mulled over what he had told me. Maybe I belonged on the list,
maybe I didn't. I wasn't the best judge of my own game, I knew, and
I probably wasn't the best judge of my character, either, but it just
felt to me like I was somehow pulling the wool over too many people's
eyes lately. I just had to put my trust in my friends to keep me
straight.
(Continued in Chapter 30)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story is
the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded
for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to
download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there
is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring
this material.
(Copyright 2003, Rev. Cotton Mather)
E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather@hotmail.com
Don't be shy! I enjoy hearing from you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYING TO WIN:
PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK II
by Reverend Cotton Mather
- 30 -
SEARCHING FOR TRUTHS AND LIES
The soccer team returned home triumphant, and the recruiters started
calling. Pick called on Monday, too, and told me that he had been at
the championship game.
"Helluva stop, son, on that corner," he said.
"The kid who took the shot is a really good player," I said. "All-
State selection the past two years."
"You mean that Spencer Goldman fella? I know, Sean. He's on my
list to call on, too."
"Really? He'd be a great addition to your team, Coach."
Pick went on to let me know that the paperwork was in motion for his
offer, and if my parents or I had any questions, to call him at any
time.
"Now, I really mean that, son," he reiterated.
"I know you do, Coach, and I appreciate it. I've got your number,
right here on the kitchen bulletin board."
"Okay, then," he said. "You take care, Sean. I'll be talking to
you in just a few weeks."
"So long, Coach, and thanks for everything."
Trent, Eric, Jorge and I were soccer heroes for a few weeks, just as
Tiny and Alex Simmons, our senior quarterback, were the football
heroes for the moment. We could all bask in the glory until
basketball season started, and then it would be somebody else's turn,
in this case Sam Loggins, our 6'5" sophomore phenom, to be the
athletic Big Man On Campus. Personally, as much as I enjoyed the
attention for awhile, I was just as glad to sink back into relative
anonymity again, once the winter sports began.
By Christmas break, Kayla and I had become one of the student body
Official Couples, and we had fallen into a general routine of doing
homework, either at my house or hers, and then going for a run
afterwards, time permitting. On the weekends, we would meet up with
friends and go to the school basketball games, or perhaps head over
to Mike's Pizza. We would have occasional make-out sessions in the
car on the way back home, but nothing more serious than the kissing
and petting we had experimented with before. The arrangement seemed
to work well. I purposely didn't put any pressure on Kayla to go any
further than she was willing to go, and yet she was happy to help me
with my particular needs as the occasion arose, you should pardon the
pun. She took our relationship seriously, and I so did I. Maybe I
was learning from past mistakes, finally. I hoped so.
While Molly certainly didn't enter a convent, neither did she get
nutty again. She and I talked often, usually during school, but
occasionally one or the other of us would call, and we would spend an
hour or so on the telephone. At first, Kayla was a little concerned
about these calls, wondering if Molly had an ulterior motive, but
after watching the trusting friendship that Molly and I were
developing, she wisely said nothing.
For Molly's part, it took her a long time, and a lot of gut-
wrenching conversations with me, with Josh, with Tessa, and with her
sister Heather, to regain her spirit and her positive outlook. It
helped that Joey and Vinnie were still serving detention every
afternoon. With no leader to hold them together, the Bulls, a pretty
rag-tag group to begin with, even considering the trouble they had
managed to stir up over the past couple of years, were pretty much
finished. Harold and Pammy had both dropped out of school and gotten
low paying jobs after tiring of serving out a few weeks of their
daily detention. A rumor flashed through school sometime before
Christmas break that Pammy was pregnant and had gotten kicked out of
her mother's house, that she had moved in with Harold, living in the
basement of the Barnes house with him. A few days later, Jen Davies
came to school and let her friends know that she had run into Pammy
at a doughnut shop where she spent her days mixing dough, and it was
all supposedly true.
Richie Del Toro was still in the pokey, and little brother Jilly was
still in reform school, and the Del Toro family was watched pretty
carefully by our local law enforcement community, just in case.
One day, just a few days after Thanksgiving, I got an invitation in
the mail from the Wilkinsons, about an open house holiday party that
Lori was hosting. There was a handwritten note paperclipped to the
invitation:
"Dearest Sean,
Davey, Kip and I would love to see you at our open house. Many of
the parents and boys from the team will be here. Please come, and
please bring a guest if you'd like!
Love, Lori"
The date for the party was on a Saturday afternoon and evening. I
assumed that the kids would probably be there during the afternoon,
and the evening would be mostly for adults. I called Kayla and told
her about it, and we made a date.
The Saturday of Lori's party was unseasonably warm, almost a
throwback to October weather. I had on casual pants and a short-
sleeve shirt, and I took along a light jacket, for when it cooled off
after the sun went down. I drove over to pick up Luscious, who came
skipping out her front door as soon as I pulled into the driveway.
She had on baggy green cotton pants, and a light green sweater. She
had pinned a little gold Rudolph pin, with a tiny garnet for his
nose, to her sweater, for a holiday accessory. She wore her pale,
almost white hair down and loose, and it cascaded over her shoulders
and fluttered in the breeze as she ran to the car. My heart nearly
stopped as I watched her, she was so lovely.
As she opened the door, she tossed a backpack into the rear seat,
and then sat down and shimmied over to sit close to me.
"What's in the pack?" I asked, but she just looked at me, a small
smile on her face. Her only answer was to kiss me on the cheek
before settling back into the seat.
There were a lot of cars parked in the driveway and in the street,
and I had to go around the corner to find a parking spot. Kay and I
walked up the sidewalk to the house. The front door was open, and
there was quite a bit of noise coming from the house as we turned up
the driveway to the sidewalk, skirting the cars parked in the
driveway.
I opened the storm door for Kayla, and as soon as we stepped into
the house, I was bombarded by two bolts of lightning.
"Sean! You came to our party!"
"Mom! Sean's here!"
Kip looked up at Kayla, her silky blonde hair backlit by the
sunlight streaming in through the glass of the door, a look of awe on
his face.
"Are you an angel?" he asked breathlessly.
Kayla burst out laughing, and then knelt down and gave Kip a big hug.
"No, I'm not an angel. I'm just a girl," she said. "But thank you
anyway, sweetie."
I bent down close to Kip's ear.
"She's fibbing, pal. She really is an angel. My angel."
She glanced at me, her eyes happy and shining.
Lori came out of the family room, and Kay and I hurriedly stood up
to say hello. She gave me a hug, and when I introduced her to Kayla,
she surprised her by giving her a big hug, too.
Lori held her for just a moment, looking into Kayla's eyes.
"Do you know how special this boy is?" she asked.
Kayla smiled, her eyes softening. "Oh, yes, I do," she replied.
Lori cocked her head critically. "Yes, I believe you do," she said
seriously. She suddenly grinned. "Come on," she said, taking us
each by an arm. "I should introduce you around." And she led us
into the living room, where a lot of the soccer parents were standing
or sitting in little pockets of conversation.
I knew most of them, having met one or both parents at one time or
another over the course of the last couple of seasons, so we did the
rounds, saying a few words to each as I introduced Kayla, and
accepting congratulations from them for the team's season and for my
individual awards.
We were holding hands as we walked toward the kitchen, hoping to
find a soft drink. There was a big, booming voice echoing from the
family room, and from the sounds of it, the owner of that voice had
quite a crowd in there he was entertaining, because there was a lot
of laughter and chatter coming from there. There were a couple of
cooks and servers in the kitchen, caterers preparing little snacks
and hors d'oeuvres, and one of them directed us toward the dining
room, where a temporary bar was set up on the sideboard. We found
plastic cups, ice, and sodas in there, along with liquor, beer and
wine. We poured Cokes into cups for ourselves. I looked around,
making sure nobody was watching us, and picked up an open bottle of
rum, and splashed just a little into each of our glasses. Kayla
watched me silently, her face solemn but her eyes dancing, and we
stirred our drinks, and walked hand in hand toward the family room.
Lori sprang up from her seat on a footstool next to the big man with
the big voice, the same man she had been with at the soccer game.
"Sean, you remember David?" She turned to David. "Dave, this is
Kayla Lehigh. Kayla, this is David McMasters."
Kay's small hand was lost as it was completely engulfed in David's
big hand. He was very gentle, however, as he bent down and greeted
her. He motioned to the chair he had just vacated.
"Such a lovely creature should not have to stand," he said.
"Please, Kayla, sit here. Mr. P., and how are you?" He shook my
hand with appreciably more vigor. "That was a great game you played
that Lori took me to see. I really enjoyed it. Can't say I really
know much about soccer, but Lori's boys are teaching me all the time.
Here, sit, right here next to your companion," he continued,
indicating the footstool.
"No, thank you, I'd prefer to stand," I said. "Lori? Please sit
and relax." I glanced around, and, to my surprise, sitting together
on the couch were Molly and her twin brother Josh. Josh was grinning
at me, and Molly looked like she was struggling to hold back a
bellyful of laughter.
"What are you guys doing here?" I asked in surprise.
Now Molly did laugh out loud. "What, you're the only high school
kid Lori knows? I've known her longer than you have."
I felt properly dressed down. "You're right, I'm sorry," I
confessed. I stepped over toward them. Molly stood and hugged me
fiercely. Even though she was one of my best friends, and our time
together was past, my hormonally frenzied brain still recognized the
weight of her breasts as they mashed against me.
'Don't think about it, don't think about it, you are such a
pervert,' I repeated over and over in my head. Which, of course,
made me focus even more on the feel of her body, to the point that I
was reluctant to let her go, for fear of showing my awareness of her
to the rest of the room, and particularly to Kayla.
Molly sat back down, and I sort of crouched over to the footrest
next to Kay. She just glanced at me, a hint of amusement in her eye.
"Is Sean behaving, Kayla?" asked Molly.
"Oh, he's trying," she answered. "He still needs some work, though."
"It doesn't change much, even when they get older," said Lori with a
small laugh, sitting in a stuffed chair next to me. David was
standing behind her, arms resting on the back of the chair.
"Nope," said David in a booming voice. "Men want women to never
change, almost from the moment they meet them. Women, on the other
hand, seem to see men as a work in progress, with a finished project
barely in sight." He laughed at his own joke, and it was so
infectious and loud that you couldn't help but join in.
Kay and I finally left about three hours later, stuffed to the gills
with goodies that seemed to pour nonstop from the staff working in
the kitchen. Josh and Molly had left just a little before us, and it
took us awhile to make our way through the house, saying our goodbyes
and wishing everybody a happy holiday season. Lori and David met us
at the front door.
"Thank you so much for coming," said Lori.
"Oh, thank you for inviting us," said Kayla. They seemed to have
struck up a friendship over the course of the party. I hoped they
didn't go in for too much in the way of intimate girl talk.
"You know, Sean, you don't need an invitation to come over," said
Lori, looking at me seriously. "The boys and I welcome you anytime.
You and Kayla, both."
"Well, thank you," I said. "I appreciate it. And thanks for
inviting us tonight. It was great seeing all the kids and their
parents again." I shook David's hand, and Lori hugged me as David
wrapped Kayla up in his long arms and hugged her. Lori gave me a
surreptitious kiss on the cheek as she whispered softly in my ear,
"She's wonderful, Sean. I'm so happy for both of you."
Her eyes were glistening when we finally separated. I nodded to
her, unable to say a word. I knew how lucky I was.
It was still a relatively warm night, and still early for us. Kayla
and I strolled down the sidewalk to the corner, holding hands and
swinging our arms in step.
We got into the car, and I just naturally started driving out of
town, back out toward Gallagher's barn, which was rapidly becoming
known to us as Our Special Place.
I pulled into the empty parking area and shut off the lights. It
was warm enough in the car, and not too cold outside, so I killed the
engine, turning the key back so that the radio would play softly.
Luscious Kayla was sitting tucked up next to me, her head on my
shoulder, and my arm was around her, holding her close. We stayed
that way for a long time, just gazing out the window at the darkness,
and listening to the music floating out of the speakers.
Finally, Kayla lifted her head up to me, and I leaned down and
softly kissed her. No fooling around this time, she closed her eyes
and gave herself up to the sensation of my lips pressing and melding
together with hers as we kissed gently, unhurriedly.
She broke the kiss first, and began to nibble and nudge at my bottom
lip with her lips, and bringing her wet tongue into play. Each
nibble she took upped the ante just a little, creating an additional
spark that added itself to the previous spark, until there was a
pleasant heated tension surrounding us. My blood was circulating
now, keeping me warm, and I could feel heat radiating from Kayla,
too, as I put my left arm around her waist and she turned more toward
me. She pressed herself harder against me, pushing me back a little
until I was slightly jammed between the seat and the car door, and I
stayed that way, content to let her lead as her kisses got more
insistent, ranging now from my throat to my lips, but always
returning, homing in on my lower lip as she nibbled and tasted from
corner to corner, hesitating only to explore the scar that was barely
perceptible, except to her. She loved to concentrate on that spot,
and I loved to feel her focus.
She sat up suddenly, her pale hair gleaming in the dim light of the
moon.
"Come on," she said, as she vaulted herself over the back of the
seat. She hitched herself up into a sitting position in the back
seat, and opened the zipper of her backpack.
She looked at me, a look that made my heart skip a beat. "Well?"
was all she said.
It was enough to put me in motion. I clambered over the seat and
landed next to her as she pulled out a thin blanket and began to
cover the vinyl seat, shoving me out of the way so she could scrunch
it underneath me and tuck it in.
"The seat's too cold otherwise," she said with a smile. She reached
down and grasped the hem of her sweater and pulled it partway up and
off her. Before she pulled it up over her eyes, she paused, watching
me looking at her. The naked skin of her flat stomach was flawless,
and looked dark compared to the small white bra she was wearing. I
really wanted to stroke that soft skin, but I restrained myself. She
smiled even bigger, and pulled the sweater the rest of the way off,
tossing it into the front seat, and then reached back behind her and
unfastened her bra, and sent it over the back of the seat, too. She
settled back and crossed her arms beneath her small, delectable
breasts.
"Your turn," she said, looking like she was ready to enjoy a show.
I almost tore the buttons off my shirt in my haste to shed it. I
yanked it out of my pants and unbuttoned it as fast as I could, and
flung it over the seat.
She almost imperceptibly nodded in satisfaction, and opened her arms
to me. I accepted her invitation, and leaned over her to kiss her,
my hands finally making contact with the soft skin on her tummy, and
then running up from her narrow waist to her fleshy boobs. Her
nipples were puckered in the cooler air, and they expanded even
further as my thumbs played over them. She opened her mouth,
inviting my tongue to explore, and tilted her head so that our lips
formed a better seal, and she inhaled through her mouth, drawing my
breath from me, throwing fuel onto the fire that was already burning
hot within me. We stayed connected like that until the heat being
generated forced us to break the kiss, panting. I started in on
feasting on the tender skin of her throat, working my way down while
drawing out the tension that was building ever tighter in both of us,
as I got closer to my goal.
I loved playing with her boobs, and could have died happy the moment
I took her nipple into my mouth. She arched her back in pleasure,
and I reciprocated by opening my mouth a little wider and sucking in
as much of her breast as I could. The locker-room talk about girls
seemed always to revolve around how big their breasts were, with many
guys declaring that the bigger they were, the better. On the other
side were the guys who proclaimed that more than a mouthful was a
waste. While I didn't necessarily agree that more than what I could
fit into my mouth was wasted, I also was willing to admit that I
tended to be more appreciative of willing, soft female flesh that fit
nicely in the palm of my hand. More than a mouthful, less than the
mountainous kinds some guys seemed to drool over. And Kayla's fit
well in my hand, a fact I was just then appreciating, as I caressed
one boob while I nursed at the other, occasionally switching
positions in the interest of fairness.
After several minutes of heated contact, Kayla started wanting more.
She pulled me up to give me a searing kiss. At the same time she
slid down until her head was propped on the armrest, and she was
splayed across the car seat, her legs spread, with me lying on her,
half kneeling between her legs. As I kissed her, I let my hand
wander from the soft mound of her breast, down her quivering stomach,
to the elastic waistband of her pants. She sucked in her tummy in
anticipation and invitation, and my fingers slipped beneath the
elastic and continued down, encountering the silky material of her
panties. I cupped her hot and moist mound, pressing all of my
fingers against her, and then slid them back up to slither beneath
the elastic edge of her panties. I felt her sparse and damp hair
that protected her slit, and delved deeper, drawn by the warmth and
the moisture.
As the tips of my fingers parted her folds, a flood of her oils were
released onto my hand, easing my passage to her heated opening. I
dipped one finger halfway into her, and left it there for a moment.
I could feel her hunch against me, her body wanting more. When I
slowly withdrew my finger, she moaned into my mouth, and held me
tighter to her, already missing the presence of my finger within her.
I plunged back into her, my finger tunneling as deeply into her
flooded hole as it could, and she thrust her tongue into my mouth
practically in unison, sending a flare of heat throughout me.
I cupped my hand to give myself more room against her confining
clothes, and pumped my finger in and out of her vagina. My thumb
found her clit, and rubbed back and forth against the little nub as
it expanded, creating a wave of motion through her hips. I felt the
tension rise, and the movement of her hips got a little more erratic,
but I didn't want her to fall over the edge quite yet. I pulled my
finger out of her opening, and pulled my hand out of her pants. She
moaned in frustration, until she felt me tug at her waistband. She
broke our kiss and helped me push her pants and her underwear down
her, lifting her butt off the seat and pushing on them before
shimmying them down her legs and working them off her feet, tossing
them into the front seat to join her sweater and bra.
She lay back again and held her arms out, a smile on her face and
lust in her eyes. I lay back down next to her, my leg over her knee,
and ran my hand back down her body as I bent down to once again offer
homage to her breasts. I used two fingers on her now, plunging them
in deeply, pulling out to spread her oils from her opening to her
attentive clitoris, and then teasing her with just the tips for a
moment before giving her the full length of my digits again. At the
same time, I licked and suckled at her swollen breasts, alternately
sucking and biting the nipples and licking the slightly salty skin of
the undersides of her tender boobs.
She clutched my head to her bosom, running her fingers through my
hair, as I worshipped her. Her hips were bumping up against my hand
as I plunged in and out of her pussy, my thumb teasing her clitoris
on each downstroke. Her breathing got more ragged as she climbed
closer to the edge, and she let out a small, high sound as she
suddenly grabbed onto fistfuls of hair and hung on tight, her hips
churning against my probing hand. I bit down on her nipple when I
felt the small discharge flow from her pussy around my fingers, and
she arched her back, her entire body trembling, and she fell off the
cliff, coming hard.
As for me, I very nearly shot off in my trousers, untouched. I was
subconsciously rubbing myself against her leg as I was working her,
and when she climaxed, she almost took me with her, as her leg
quivered against my rock hard dick. As she fell back to the seat, my
own incipient crisis slowly passed, and I lay down with her, casually
stroking her boob as I watched the pink evidence of her orgasm slowly
fade from her chest, throat and cheeks.
She sighed contentedly, her eyes closed, as she let the sensations
wash away her cares. Finally, she opened her eyes and looked at me,
a smile on her face.
"Why do you still have clothes on?" she whispered.
That was all it took to set me in motion. I sat up and yanked my
shoes off, letting them drop with a thud to the car floor. I
scrambled to loosen my belt, and Kayla sat up to help, and four sets
of fingers fumbled at opening my pants and shucking them off my legs.
Once we got them off and tossed aside, Kayla started pushing on the
waistband of my briefs, but the elastic kept on getting hung up on my
upraised and very stiff cock. With a small giggle, she managed to
figure out a way, and my underwear went flying across the car, too.
I sat back and watched as Kayla, with a hungry look in her eye, bent
down and grasped my stalk with her tiny hand, wrapping her fingers
around it and jacking it just a little, while her other hand wormed
its way between my legs to cup and heft my heavy balls.
I was dribbling pre-cum, and she used that moisture, spreading it
around the head of my cock with her fingertips, rubbing it into my
tight skin like a lotion. When more bubbled out, she stuck out her
tongue and licked it off. With a glance up at me, she smacked her
lips, smiled, and opened wide to take the sculpted helmet of my hard
cock into her mouth. She sealed her lips around me, and sucked hard,
her cheeks hollowing out with her effort.
Seeing the vision of her kneeling there, naked and intent, her small
breasts quivering with the movement of her hand working the base of
my cock and her pale hair falling loosely around her, was almost
enough, by itself, to send me off. I reached down and fondled her
breast for a moment, and she moaned around my cock, which sent
shivers of excitement through me. I could feel the vibrations of her
vocal chords all the way from the tip of my encased cock, down
through the steely shaft, into my scrotum, being kept warm by her
hand, and up my spine and directly into my fevered brain.
It all happened so fast. One moment I was caressing her soft breast
and feeling her moaning around my intrusion into her mouth, and the
next I was tensed up, sending streamers of semen shooting directly
down her throat. My eyes were open wide as I saw her throat
convulse, trying to keep up with the discharge, as she reflexively
swallowed. Even so, quite a bit of bubbly, white fluid leaked out
around her lips and down my shaft, collecting on her fingers still
wrapped tightly around me as they pumped and coaxed the spasms to
continue.
Finally, I was drained, and I collapsed back against the seat as my
muscles relaxed. Kayla lifted up off my slowly deflating cock, and
licked up the remains that had escaped during my climax. She even
licked off the web of flesh between her thumb and her index finger,
where a small amount had pooled. Finally, satisfied that she had
gotten it all, she clambered up and landed on top of me, practically
driving the breath from my lungs. Looking directly into my eyes from
about two inches away, she deliberately licked her lips.
"I dare you to kiss me now," she whispered, the challenge making her
eyes bright.
"Hah!" I laughed, and I wrapped her up in my arms and brought her
down to me and gave her my best open-mouthed kiss, packing as much
heat and desire as I could into it. If she was woman enough to take
me into her loving mouth and accept all that I could give her, I was
certainly going to be man enough to show her how much it meant to me.
It caught her by surprise, but she recovered quickly, and snuggled
up against me into a more comfortable position, and settled down to
enjoy it, letting her tongue work its magic within the cave of our
joined mouths, and letting my tongue tease and feint with hers.
As we kissed, I could feel the lubrication from her pussy leaking
out and soaking my thigh, and my restiffening cock bumped up against
her leg as she lay on me, her knee between my legs. I dropped my
hands down her back and grasped her delectable ass, clutching the
globes between my fingers. She shifted her weight just a little,
until she was directly on top of me, and I could feel the coarser
hair of her pubis against my cock. Practically on its own, my body
took over from my brain, and my hips started hitching up and down
just a little, and Kayla's body, perhaps in response, scrunched down
just a little, and I felt her pussy lips part around the head of my
seeking cock.
She rubbed back and forth against me, as my hips got a little
frantic in my desire to feel her tight walls against my rigid dick.
Her rocking up and down bumped the head of my cock against her
clitoris, and I felt the heat of her folds encase just the tip of my
cock as she moved back up me. Then, suddenly, I was there, at the
portal. The head slipped into her overheated hole and rested there,
taking its measure of her, anticipating feeling the fullest depth of
her body, the willing tightness of her walls.
Kayla broke our kiss with a gasp, and stared at me.
"I... I can't," she whispered. I felt her hips raise, and the
contact between my cock and her vagina was lost. Tears began welling
in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Sean," she sobbed.
I held her close. After a moment's hesitation, she allowed me to
press her back down onto me, only this time my hard cock was resting
between us, away from her heated pussy. I brought one hand up to
caress her neck, and she put her head down next to me.
"It's okay, Kayla," I said quietly. "Whatever you want. Remember
when I told you that, before? Nothing's changed."
She sighed. "I love you so much, Sean," she said softly. "I wish I
could do it. Maybe someday I can, but not yet. And I don't want our
first time to be in the back of your mom's car, either." She sighed.
I could feel her trembling. "But it's not because I don't love you.
I do."
"I know you do, Kayla," I reassured her. "And I love you, too.
That's why it's okay."
She lifted up and stared into my eyes, checking the windows to my
soul for truths and lies. I suffered her examination, hoping she
would see truth there, but afraid she might find deceptions that even
I might not be aware of.
"Do you, Sean? Do you love me?" she asked, wanting to hear the
words again, almost afraid she had been mistaken.
I took a deep breath. It was time to face my biggest fault and do
something about it.
"Yes, Kay," I said seriously. "I love you. I will do anything for
you, anything at all."
She looked deeply within me, searching. She must have found what
she was expecting, because she suddenly attacked me, kissing me hard,
torn between mashing my lips with hers and talking to me while we
were connected like that.
"Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you," she mumbled into my mouth.
She wriggled against me, trying for as much skin touching mine as she
could. My cock was almost painful in its rigidity, an iron shaft of
flesh poking our stomachs. Her small breasts were pressed flat
against my chest, her nipples poking into the skin on my chest, and
she held both her hands against the sides of my face as she kissed me.
I couldn't help myself, as my hips started lurching on their own,
creating a delicious friction between our bodies. She felt it, too,
and took a modicum of pity on me, reaching down between us, snaking
her hand down to grasp my turgid cock. She lifted up slightly,
breaking our kiss, and, a gamin look in her eye, watched me as she
played me. I tried to retaliate by dropping my hand down her body,
intending to probe her oily slit, but I couldn't reach her the way we
were laying, so I had to content myself with playing with her soft
breasts, rubbing my thumb over her nipples and feeling them fill and
extend.
After experiencing the talents she exhibited with her mouth and
tongue, I didn't think she would be able to get me off by just
jacking me, but I was pleasantly surprised. Before long I started
humping into her fist as she squeezed me, and she recognized the look
in my eyes when she got me close. She smiled, and stopped what she
was doing.
"Uh... Kay?" I said, nearly panicky in my elevated condition.
"What?" she asked innocently, her hand wrapped around my painful
cock, squeezing but not moving.
I grabbed her under her arms and lifted her up just enough so that I
could wrap my lips around one swollen nipple, and I clamped down on
it and sucked on it hard. She squealed, and reflexively began
pumping me again, and that was all the stimulation I needed. I
spurted out my seed onto our sweaty skin, and she worked her wonders
by jacking me until I was done, and then she spread my warm, sticky
spend into the skin of both of our stomachs, all while she was
allowing me access to her plump boobs, moving side to side so that I
could minister to each in its turn.
Finally, she sighed, and climbed off me. She pushed my legs off the
car seat, and sat down, and then snuggled up to me once I had
struggled back to a sitting position. I put an arm around her
shoulder, holding onto her upper arm, and I continued to caress her
breast with my other hand, unwilling to give up on the contact with
my favorite part of her body.
"We have to go soon," she whispered.
"Yeah," I replied. Neither of us moved.
After a couple of minutes of silence, she said, "I can't move. You
have to do it for us."
"Yeah," I replied again. Neither of us moved.
More silence.
"I wish we could stay like this," she said.
"Me, too."
Silence.
"We really have to go soon."
Pause. "Yeah."
She sighed. "Okay, I can see I'm going to have to be the strong one
here." She pushed me away, and I lost contact with her boobs. I
missed them already, so I reached for her, but she slapped my hands
away.
"No, you pervert," she said with a laugh. "Now get dressed. What
if somebody comes along?"
"What, here? Nobody knows about this place," I said.
"Well, get dressed anyway. You have to take me home, and you need
to look presentable, in case my parents are up and waiting for me."
"Ugh." Now there was an unpleasant thought. I liked her parents,
but I really didn't think greeting them with the musky smell of their
daughter's secret scent on my fingers was such a good idea. I
reached for my pants on the floor.
Kayla, in the meantime, leaned over the seat to retrieve her
clothes. This put her enticing butt within my range, so I took
advantage and first kissed each cheek, and then extended my tongue
and slowly licked up her middle, tasting her oils and delving into
her still moist hole.
She groaned, and wiggled her ass, burying my nose as I tasted her.
"Oh, God," she moaned. But she had more strength, as well as a lot
more common sense, than I did, and, with an effort, she pulled away
from my questing mouth and turned around to face me, crouched down
and leaning back against the back of the front seat.
"You are so bad," she whispered with a smile.
I frowned. "And I was trying to be so good," I said.
She giggled. "You are good. And bad. Bad for me. You make me
think naughty thoughts too often."
"And that's bad?"
She laughed. "You are unbelievable, Porter. You never give up, do
you?"
I shrugged. "I think that's actually a compliment," I said.
She took my head in her hands and kissed me lightly on the lips.
"Yes, it is," she replied. "Now get dressed, you sluggard. I'm just
a kid, and I have a curfew. You won't like it if I get grounded, you
know."
"Okay, okay," I muttered. I bent down to retrieve my underwear from
under the front seat. Apparently, I exhibited too much of a target,
because I heard Kayla giggle, and felt her kiss my ass cheeks, and
then run her tongue over my scrotum from behind. It sent shivers up
my spine.
"Hey!" I said, struggling to get turned back around. "You're just a
kid, and you have a curfew. You don't want to get that motor started
up again, do you?"
She gave me one of her small, secret smiles, which was all the
answer I would get to my question.
I got her home with about a minute and a half to spare. She ran up
the sidewalk, not wanting to wait for me to walk her to her door, and
waved as she went inside, leaving me feeling alone and somehow
incomplete once again, until the next time I could see her.
(Continued in Chapter 31)
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