by Lulu Pratt
I shook my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. A promise is a promise.”
She grinned. “What a prince.” A bell rung in the distance and she quickly said, “I’ve got to go, love, but ring me more often. I miss you terribly.”
This burned my heart, but I replied, “Of course, Mum. I love you.”
“Love you too, Simon.”
With that, the video line went dead. I rubbed the back of my hand over my eyes.
The call had reminded me not only of how much I loved my mum, but how very much I had to do right by her. This new job wasn’t just for me — it was for everyone who I’d grown up with, all the other impoverished people who wanted better lives for their kids. The residents of Tower weren’t blood family, but we’d all been through more together than the average family. And they knew where I was, what I was doing, and they were cheering for me every step of the way.
I couldn’t lose this job.
More to the point, I couldn’t sleep with Catya.
Chapter 12
Catya
The following day passed by quietly. Or at least, quietly in comparison to your soccer coach seeing you masturbate. By those standards, World War III might be quiet.
I did normal college stuff and tried like hell to keep my mind from straying to Simon. This meant catching up on the classes I was now behind in, drinking bubble tea and laying on the Quad. Nice, safe, boring stuff. What a relief.
Did Simon still occupy about half my brain space? Sure. But I at least managed to get some shit done, which was a big change from the last few days. I guess, if you pressed me on it, I’d have to say I was so effective because that was the only to avoid the thoughts. Like, it was hard to simultaneously think about deep throating your coach and chromosome splitting. Even Einstein couldn’t hold those two ideas at once.
So, using a tactic that had shielded me from harm my entire life, I threw myself back into my work. I caught up on the classes that I had, mentally at least, missed a week of. There wasn’t much else thrilling about the day to report, sorry.
I was busy reveling in this newfound calm and distraction when I got a text from Sharon-Ann which read:
Pre-game, tonight at 10. You in?
My brow furrowed. Was there a DOU mixer I’d forgotten about? Ugh, not in the mood. But, as a sorority member, it was my responsibility to go to a certain number of mixers in a semester. It was unclear why this was an actual rule, but if you missed too many, you get fined. Like, real money, not Monopoly dollars. So I was careful to go to the requisite number of events.
With what frat?
Just as I was thinking, Please don’t let it be Alpha Delt, Sharon-Ann responded:
Not a frat. For midnight practice.
Well, there went all my good work concerning not thinking about Simon. Midnight practice. Shit. I’d completely forgotten. Needless to say, other things had been on my mind last night.
How could I even go to practice after everything that had happened? Don’t get me wrong, I wanted more than anything to see Simon, but I also knew it just wasn’t a smart idea. After last night, a single extra push in his direction would completely defeat all the resistance I’d put up to our coupling. I was teetering on a very precarious emotional edge.
Them’s the breaks of being team captain. Sometimes you had to do shit you just didn’t want to do. Like, for instance, attend practice. Okay, maybe that wasn’t captain specific. But any other team member might’ve taken the following day for like, mental recovery, right? Maybe I was just being self-pitying, which wasn’t like me.
Having allowed that I would, indeed, go to practice, I then set about the task of doing actual “captain work.”
Is pre-gaming a good call? I texted Sharon-Ann.
My phone buzzed — the response had come back instantly.
Don’t be a wet blanket.
Hate to admit it, but she had me there. I didn’t usually mind everyone’s taunts about me being a goodie two-shoes, but lately, it felt like I was living two different lives. The one where I was a perfect student, sorority girl and team captain, and one where I was fantasizing about fucking my coach. Maybe those latter fantasies were trying to tell me to loosen up a little, let my hair down. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel like I’d been torn into two pieces of a whole human.
Plus, like with any college activity, drinking was a big part of ULA sports. Tailgates, celebratory victory parties, etc. It would be almost unpatriotic to deny them this fun.
Or so I told myself.
With that in mind, I replied to Sharon-Ann.
Okay, fair enough. Where should we meet?
About five hours later, around ten, the entire women’s soccer team descended on the DOU house. Apparently, Sharon-Ann and Grace had conspired to hold the event at our place, both because it was convenient for us or them — at least — and it meant we could supply liquor to the underage girls in an area where we knew the cops wouldn’t come.
Don’t lecture me about underage drinking, I just don’t care. The drinking age should be eighteen. Have I made my stance clear?
Anyhow, for the roughly two dozen of us who were set to pre-game the practice, Sharon-Ann had purchased five cases. Some quick math tells us that averages out to roughly six per girl.
Six?!
They’d come back into the house with their haul, courtesy of the local liquor store which was renowned for having never refused an ID in twenty years of service — this include IDs literally drawn on printer paper. I had, predictably, inquired why on earth we needed that much beer, and Sharon-Ann had shrugged.
Grace replied, “I’m not good with numbers.”
This was true. Brilliant and pre-law though she was, Grace was barely operating at an eighth grade math level. I think she might have some kind of numerical dyslexia, but it wasn’t my business.
So we turned on the house’s twinkly lights, and at the stroke of ten, the girls arrived.
They ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-two, and in experience from barely had a sip of beer, could do a half-minute keg stand.
I grabbed Grace’s sleeve, and whispered, “Listen, I don’t mind that you are doing this, but I don’t wanna babysit, okay?”
“Sure, sure,” she replied. “Take a load off.”
Besides not wanting to watch after whichever girl inevitably got too drunk, I also wanted to take the time to personally indulge. It had been a hard couple of days, ones filled with too many emotions, too many obstacles, and certainly not enough sex. I was horny and frustrated and in desperate need of a stiff drink — though I would settle for shitty beer.
One of the girls, maybe Beth, began blasting Cardi B and the pre-game quickly became full-blown ‘game.’ In less than two hours, we played beer pong, king’s cup, flip cup. I wasn’t even sure how we got through so many games, but I could tell by the contents of my stomach and the tilting world before my eyes that we most certainly had.
Drinking with the girls was always fun. They were stout partiers, always down for a dance or a dare. And for those few hours, they managed to actually take my mind off Simon. Well, them and the six or so beers I’d consumed. I guess those didn’t hurt either.
By the time we’d decided to head out, I was soused. Not tripping over myself, or barfing in the bushes, but drunk enough that I doubted my ability to kick a ball head-on. Looking around the room, it seemed that the same could be said for most of my teammates.
Well, this ought to make for an interesting practice.
“All right, ladies,” I gurgled. “Let’s go.”
At least, that was what I thought I said. In reality, it sounded closer to, “Aight laddies, leggo.”
Yeah, my words had started slurring. Yikes.
Everybody shouted their approval at my obvious intoxication, somebody grabbed the remaining case — why?! — and we headed out of the house.
It didn’t take us all that long to stumble across campus to the lesser soccer field, the practice field. Luckily for everyone involved, we were
a few minutes early and Simon hadn’t shown up yet, giving Riri time to stash the beer under a nearby bench. Personally, I thought that was pretty damn conspicuous, but I was also in no place to be giving advice about… well, anything, really.
The girls gallivanted around the field while I made a half-assed attempt at stretching. As I bent down to touch my toes, I could hear some shoddy renditions of Taylor Swift’s “Love Song,” as well as some very untoward burps.
I was arising from my shaky stretch when I glimpsed Simon striding onto the field. My heart pattered, and not just from the beer.
“Heyyyy,” shouted Rose.
Neidin rejoined with, “Sup Coach?”
Even from a distance, I could see Simon raise one perfectly shaped brow, then lower it.
“Uh, I’m good,” he replied, skeptical. “Though not quite as good as you lot seem to be.”
Tanya giggled, then hiccuped.
Simon’s head turned slowly around the loose semi-circle that had formed, surveying us all.
“What’s got you all so happy?” he asked.
The circle went quiet, and with a beer-fueled confidence, I said, “We’re all just excited to be here.”
Oy. Horrible answer. Especially because it drew Simon’s blue eyes right to me. He looked away immediately, as though embarrassed to even glance in my direction. My stomach sank. Why wouldn’t he look at me? Had I done something wrong? Was he ashamed of what he’d seen last night? So many questions, so few answers.
Those eyes examined the rest of the girls, waiting for somebody else to pipe up. But they were good folks to have in the trenches, meaning that none of them revealed we’d been drinking. This agreement had been loosely formed in the DOU house. We’d agreed that we would keep our traps shut about the booze, not least of all because it would get Simon in heaps of trouble.
But I was uncertain if the freshmen would be able to lie through their teeth to Simon. Happily, they were proving me wrong — the group stayed dead silent.
“Well, okay then,” Simon said at last. “Let’s start off with a few laps around the field.”
Oh no. Running? Right, I guess I’d forgotten that was a big thing we do in soccer. The one or two girls who’d remained relatively sober took off at a speedy clip, while the rest of us stumbled behind them like horses who had thrown a shoe.
We made finished the laps in record time, and by record, I mean astonishingly slow. It was right around the end of the lap cycle that I realized I was drunk. Not tipsy. Drunk.
Now, a thing I don’t like to bring up about myself is that I have something of a drunk alter ego. You know how some girls get really vicious, or cry a lot? Yeah, that wasn’t me. I get sort of notoriously horny.
Surprising, no? I’d made the discovery in my orientation week of college, otherwise known as the first time I drank to excess. Three Smirnoff Ices later — don’t make fun of me, I was young — I started grinding on a guy in the middle of the dance floor and attempting to unbutton his pants. He laughed and called over my friends who took me home and plied me with water the rest of the night.
Like I said, alter ego.
So this new realization about my level of intoxication was, you might say, no bueno. Simon’s very existence already made me horny. Compound that with alcohol lust, and there was no telling what I might try to do. Here’s hoping I kept my shit together.
The laps were finished, and Simon asked us to get down and do some pushups. The rest of the girls dropped to the ground, but I sauntered over to him like some kind of pirate wench. What was I doing?
“Yes, Catya?” he asked in a low tone, his voice filled with that which could not be said.
“I don’t feel like doing the pushups,” I sniffed.
More than anything, he looked amused. “Oh yeah, and why’s that?”
“Because I don’t feel like getting on the ground, and getting all dirty,” I replied, and in a horrible moment of impulsivity, added, “unless it’s with you, that is.”
My words stunned us both — me, because I hadn’t expected to say them, and Simon because… well, maybe because he’d always hoped I would say them. His face flitted through a score of different expressions, before settling on consternation.
He growled, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Catya, but go do the pushups.”
I inched closer to him, my drunk persona entirely taking over. “Oh yeah?” I said. “Are you gonna make me?”
Simon wasn’t having it. He moved in, formalizing our standoff.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I will make you.”
I was about to serve up a witty comeback, or at least a comeback, when I did something that wasn’t just in my drunk persona, but in all people’s drunk persona.
That is to say, I tripped.
My wavering feet got tangled up, my cleats hit my shin guards, and I tumbled face first onto the grass. Er, not quite the grass.
More like, onto Simon’s crotch.
He must not have seen the fall coming — I did go down hard — and thus couldn’t catch me. Meaning, I had to catch myself. Which, to my credit, I did!
Using his trousers, that is.
“What the hell?” he yelped, as my descending hands caught hold of his thighs, in a vain attempt to steady my fall.
My knees hit the ground, but I was able to keep my hold body from eating shit through my vise grip on his legs. For those who weren’t following along, this meant that my face stopped just inches from Simon’s dick.
Half a second after I’d avoided a face plant, I was unable to stay upright on my knees, probably just because of the shock of it all, and thus, I plopped right down on my ass. I looked like a broken marionette, splayed out on the ground.
“Jesus, Catya,” he snarled. “What’s going on with you?” Then, softer, “Are you okay? You seem… out of it.”
He didn’t have to say the rest of it — that I was crossing lines that we might have accidentally or not crossed behind closed doors, but never in public, never in front of the team.
“Sorry, so sorry,” I apologized. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
A lie. A bald-faced lie.
Simon shook his head. “Snap out of it. I expect more from you.”
With that, he pivoted on his sneaker and walked away, leaving me on my ass and humiliated.
Chapter 13
Simon
Something was wrong with Catya. I didn’t know what, or why, but I was starting to get seriously concerned.
My attitude to her had been snappish, true. I couldn’t defend that. I suspected it was, in part, because she got so close to my… ahem, and I’d spent all day trying not to think about her going down there. It was like the universe, and Catya along with it, kept throwing impossible challenges at me, such that I could never quite get my sea legs.
That aside, what the hell was going on?
She was always the consummate professional. Well, except for last night. Even then, though, that had been one-hundred percent my fault. She hadn’t been doing anything technically wrong. Catya had fairly assumed that the locker room was empty. So I stood by my impression that she was a pretty serious athlete and all-around upright citizen.
I’m sorry to say that my answer to this question came shortly thereafter. It was an answer I should’ve guessed — as a man, an athlete and a Brit. Had I changed so much that this hadn’t even crossed my mind?
The answer, as it were, was deposited on the field by way of vomit. Sorry for the graphic imagery, but there was no way around it.
I’d just finished reeling from Catya’s close encounter with my dick when I glanced across the field and saw Riri barfing her brains out.
Ah. So that was it.
Alcohol.
Suddenly, everything slid into place. The girls’ hooting and hollering, their inability to run around the field in a timely manner, Catya’s antics. They were, of course, shitfaced. Internally, I berated myself. How did I miss something so offensively obvious? Was this as much t
heir fault as it was mine? Clearly, I wasn’t doing my best work if an entire team being wasted had escaped me.
Moments after I put two and two together, I summoned my most intimidating voice and volume, and bellowed, “Everybody get over here now.”
The girls all looked at one another, as though deciding whether or not they should tell me. It would’ve been almost comically poor acting if I wasn’t in such a foul mood about it.
They ran — well, stumbled — over to me, and formed a large huddle. My face made clear what they’d suspected — the jig was up.
“You’re all drunk,” I stated simply.
A sea of faces turned beet red. It would’ve been a fine confirmation, had I needed one.
Summoning a calmer disposition than I felt, I repeated, “You’re all drunk. Now, in fairness, I did ask you to come to a midnight practice. Having been there myself, I know late night practices are horrific, and sometimes you just want to make it a little bit easier, hmm?”
They all nodded glumly.
“Well,” I continued, “that’s fine. You’re allowed to feel that way.”
I paused for dramatic effect, then said, “What you’re not allowed to do is show up to my practice, on this field, for ULA, blasted out of your minds. I’ve done some stupid shit before, and I’m trying to give you all leeway, because it’s hard adjusting to a new coach, but this is it. You got your pranks in, and now you’re done. We’re going to get down to the business of winning a bloody championship.”
By their expressions, the whole lot was extremely chagrined. I couldn’t even bear to look in Catya’s direction, because I knew she’d be feeling the worst of all. She did that — took everything as her own responsibility, and took the guilt of failure along with it.
I said, “What you did tonight was a liability. Like, the kind of liability that could get me fired.”
A few girls looked up sheepishly, and in the corner of my vision, I saw Catya’s chin snap to attention. What was I to make of that?