Coach Me

by Lulu Pratt

  “We’re here,” Grace called out, her voice resounding through the halls.

  “Hurry up!” someone replied. “We’re taking shots.”

  By echolocation, we made our way to the hangout room, where the girls were indeed taking shot after shot. So it was gonna be one of those nights.

  All thirty of them or so took one glance at me and Grace and shrieked.

  “Oh my fucking God, you look so good I could literally murder you,” said one.

  “You are wearing the shit out of that dress,” called another in my direction.

  Grace raised her hands, humbly accepting the praise. With a coy smile, she said, “Thank you, ladies. The entertainment has arrived.”

  We descended into the throng and were immediately handed shots, while all around us girls pulled out their iPhones, snapping pics of one another. It had the feel of a very loving zoo, except the animals took pictures of the other animals.

  A few songs — and a few shots — later, Beth came up to me and poked my bare stomach with her pointer finger.

  “Someone is getting wild tonight,” she commented.

  I deflected, replying, “Grace dressed me.”

  “You’re welcome!” Grace shouted across the room. She had infamously good hearing and could hear her name in any crowd.

  “So I guess you’re trying to hook up tonight?” Beth asked me.

  I paled. “Oh, no no, definitely not. Like I said, this whole outfit was Grace’s call, not mine.”

  Max had made her way to us at this point, and she interjected, “Come on, Beth. Catya is never trying to hookup.”

  I nodded vigorously, supporting Max’s very fair point. Rarely was I in the mood to hookup, and most especially not after the day I’d had.

  “Don’t be such a nun,” Beth complained. “Not while you’re dressed like a total man-eater.” And then, “I’m not, like, shaming you or anything, I just feel like you might as well, I dunno, live life. Suck a dick. Y’know?”

  I laughed. It was hard not to laugh at Beth. Her sentences were never fully formed, and her thoughts, while dirty, were always motivated by the need to help other people. She just thought that being helpful meant getting her friends laid.

  “Oh, let her be a nun,” Max replied.

  I nodded once more, but inside… inside I was, well, bothered. If only I could tell them the truth. I wasn’t a nun, far from it. Just that morning, I’d fucked an older man, our coach, like a dog in heat. Usually I didn’t mind them making fun of my sedate proclivities, but today the jokes were so far from reality that it was annoying. It reminded me, once more, that I couldn’t tell any of my friends about the very important thing that had just happened.

  “All right,” Grace said, always the party ringleader. “Leave Catya alone, and take some more shots, you sons of bitches!”

  With those words of wisdom, we were off to the races.

  Chapter 19

  Catya

  Frats, generally speaking, were a different beast at every school. At one, a particular frat may be the party house, while at another college that same frat, with the same name and associated with the same organization, could be the boring house that never goes out.

  The only universal constant from one state to another, between every college with a Greek system, was OG. They were the undisputed party house, the lords of the night. I’d heard rumors about their hazing rituals, but only rumors. OG accepted exclusively people who believed they could do no wrong, which meant that nobody ever slipped up and revealed details of the ceremony — or, they didn’t say anything and stay in the frat.

  Their house at ULA was mammoth, so big it made all the other multi-storied houses next to it appear dainty. At the moment, it was covered in toilet paper from a recent bash gone wrong or by their standards, gone right. The swarm of girls around me flooded inside eagerly while I hung back, buzzed but not yet enjoying myself. From within the house, I heard the roars of men pleased to see so many scantily clad women. How boring.

  One of my sisters grabbed me by the arm and tugged me along, and soon enough, I was swept inside with the rest of them. Bass thumped through the walls, and distinct sloshing noises could be heard from every corner — was that puking, or just the sound of liquor being poured? I dreaded the answer.

  “Isn’t this awesome!” Grace shouted over the music.

  I grimaced, and with forced enthusiasm replied, “You bet.”

  “Oh come on, it’s a party. Loosen up!”

  She was right. It was time to ‘loosen up.’ Just as that thought crossed my mind, four Jell-O shots appeared in Grace’s hands, two balanced on each palm, their neon hue glowing even in the house’s dark lighting.

  “Take these,” she hollered, and I obeyed readily. One, two, down the hatch.

  A strange thing about these parties was that the people inside, at least superficially, always seem incongruous to the common seediness of the house. Like, my sisters were dressed to the nines, and the frat brothers were dressed at least to the sevens — collared shirts, trousers, etc. And yet, all around me was Sodom and Gomorrah, a den of sins that I’d seen many times before but to which I’d never quite acclimated.

  Whatever. If this was a den of sins, then I certainly belonged. Fucking a man six years my senior, and potentially jeopardizing his job? Sinful as all hell, no pun intended.

  I didn’t like the party, and the guys annoyed me, but shots kept getting nearly shoved down my gullet, so in due time I loosened up, feeling my hips start to sway to the vaguely Spanish tunes that were playing from every part of the house. An inflatable sex doll appeared in my grasp. They were everywhere at events like this, a clear sign that these boys lacked imagination. I jokingly grinded on the doll, much to the shrieking delight of Grace and the hungry admiration of nearby brothers.

  Shortly after I’d discarded the doll, one of the guys who’d been cheering me on descended the stairs, closing in on me.

  Robert. I recognized him immediately. Any DOU would have. He was a senior at ULA and one of the hottest guys of the bunch. Neat crew cut hair, huge, bulging muscles and, apparently, a rather impressive cock.

  “Hey,” I giggled. Giggled? Oy, I really was drunk.

  “Hey right back,” he replied, his face wide open and friendly. “I liked your, uh, mating ritual with that doll.”

  If I’d had a drink, I would’ve choked on it. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem for long, as Robert produced one as if out of thin air, and offered it to me.

  “Beer?” he asked.

  I nodded and took it from his hand. I’m not usually the kind of girl who trustingly takes open drinks from frat guys, but I’d run in similar circles with Robert for a while, even chatted him up a couple of times, and he was an all-around sweetheart, contrary to what his enormous pecs might suggest.

  His smile, sunny and warm, stayed on his face as he asked, “Any chance you’d like to dance with me?”

  “Oh, um, I—”

  Robert quickly clarified, “It doesn’t have to be like how you danced with the doll. It can be a waltz, even.”

  “How about a fox trot, you game for that?”

  He turned his face into a mock angry expression and replied, “I never do the foxtrot, it’s a peasant’s dance.”

  I laughed loudly, and his natural smile returned.

  “So,” he began. “What do you say?”

  And then I remembered Simon.

  Robert wanted to hookup, that much was obvious. You just don’t ask girls to dance, not in my age group, without hoping for something more. That is, a dance is never just a dance, at least not in the minds of guys like these. I’d be happy to hang out with Robert. Hell, a couple of weeks ago I would’ve been downright delighted to dance with him.

  But now? Well, like I’ve said — things had changed.

  He must have sensed my reluctance because he continued, adding, “Hey, I totally won’t be offended if you say no. I do sort of have two infamously left-leaning feet.”

  That was
a lie, but a kind one.

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  Now Robert did look a bit miffed. “You think I’d, what, force you to dance with me? I’m not an asshole.”

  “No, no, of course not, it’s not you it’s — well, you know. It’s me,” I explained.

  He seemed confused, but determined to take the higher road. “Don’t worry, Catya, I’m not taking it personally.” With a wink, he tacked on, “Every guy here knows you’re a hard partner to get on a dance card.”

  Robert bid me a quick goodbye, and wandered back into the pulsing heart of the party, in search of another DOU girl to dance with. I sighed, hoping that I hadn’t hurt his feelings. He didn’t appear too upset, but all the same, most of these guys pissed me off, so I wanted to keep the good ones in my corner.

  “What the hell?”

  I turned, and saw that Grace was staring at me, eyebrows raised almost past her hairline, mouth open in shock.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “That was Robert!”

  My eyes slid sideways as I replied, “Uh, yeah. I know.”

  Her chin shifted forward so that it was jutting far away from her neck, the classic Grace expression of bafflement.

  “That was the Robert,” she explained, as if I was a slow learner.

  Once again, I said, “Yeah, I know.”

  “Why aren’t you dancing with him?!” Grace cried.

  Ah, so that was the problem. She wanted me to dance with him, to grind with him, maybe to hook up with him.

  “I just didn’t want to,” I said by way of explanation. Hopefully, my answer didn’t suggest the underlying issue. That hooking up with Robert would be massively cheating on the man who already had my heart.

  Grace looked skyward, as if begging for divine intervention, then responded, “Catya, he’s one of the hottest guys in OG, and he’s nice to boot. Why wouldn’t you even dance with him? I’m not saying you needed to get married, buy a two-bedroom and have a litter, but would a dance kill you?”

  My face reddened, and this time, I couldn’t blame the Jell-O shots.

  She pressed, “What’s going on with you? This doesn’t feel… it seems like there’s something off. Like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Shit. She’d cornered me. I cast around desperately for an answer, and came up with:

  “There is.”

  Beat.

  I continued, “And it’s that… it’s that… it’s that Robert has halitosis.”

  Grace’s face morphed from shock and horror to confusion. “Uh, what?” she replied.

  Poor Robert. He smelled great, but I had to double down on the story. “Yeah,” I affirmed. “He just smells terribly, like, he should get a doctor to look at it. You wouldn’t know until you’re in close quarters with him, but once you are — woof, it’s a strong odor.”

  The corner of Grace’s lips turned down with surprise, and she said, “Wow. Ew. That’s so weird, I guess you never can tell.”

  Crisis averted. “Yup.”

  She shrugged, seeming to forget the entire encounter which was a relief as I didn’t want her gossiping this story, and passed me another shot, which I took gratefully. I hated lying to Grace. She was my closest friend, the person who knew me best. But it was in all our interests that I kept my secret to myself.

  Just then, from atop the stairs, a frat boy cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Truth or Dare, in the living room, right now!”

  Predictably, the DOU girls squealed, and began piling into the room. I sighed. Truth or Dare was a boring drinking game, but a good excuse to get plastered, which is what I wanted to be right about then. Grace grabbed my hand to pull me into the room, and I obliged readily. This would be uneventful, but fine.

  The evening started to get blurry right about there. The shots kicked in, the beer kicked in. It all kicked in, and kicked me in the head. I felt my head getting loose, lolling from side to side.

  Hard to say how long the game was going on for before my turn came around. Were there ten people that came before me, or only five? Was I sitting or standing? There was no way to know.

  But I’m certain it came to me, because someone said “Catya” and then I — or rather, a person with my voice and body but who wasn’t fully me — said “Dare” and suddenly I was being told to kiss some guy, and I was violently whipping my head back and forth, saying ‘no no no no no’ and then I guess I must have been sitting down, because I stood up and ran out of the room. If people nearby were shocked, I don’t remember. Presumably, they were.

  And then I remember Grace was there, beside me, outside in the cool night air, asking what was going on, insisting that things were most definitely not all right, that the normal Catya would’ve just politely declined and moved on and that I needed to tell her what the hell was up.

  This was the part that sticks in my brain as clear as day, like the alcohol knew this memory would be too powerful to touch.

  Because I said, “Simon! It’s Simon.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  I slurred my words in replying, “I fucked him.”

  There was a long, long pause — not a gap in my memory, but a real moment of complete silence. Or at least, the world seemed to go silent. I was sure the music back in the house didn’t stop playing, and the boys didn’t stop shouting, but for all intents and purposes, a cloak of muteness had been thrown over the proceedings.

  “You did what?” Grace whispered, words that I caught in spite of how softly they were spoken.

  “I fucked him,” I reiterated, swallowing to keep the bile that was rising in my throat, struggling to keep my eyelids open. “I fucked Simon and I think I might also be in love with him and I don’t want Robert or some other guy to touch me because I belong to Simon now and he belongs to me, and we’re going to be together somehow, just you watch.”

  “Holy shit,” she replied. I wondered to myself if it was the first time she’d ever been really, truly stunned. She seemed unable to comprehend the situation.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” I said, then burped impolitely.

  “I won’t,” she murmured.

  “Swear it.”

  Grace’s eyes looked distant as she replied, “I swear.”

  Chapter 20

  Simon

  On Saturday morning, I was awoken by the sound of my telephone blaring, an ear-piercing siren that just wouldn’t stop. I smashed my hand down on the side table, fumbling the phone between my fingers, and pressed the speaker button.

  “What?” I grumbled. “Who’s calling?”

  “Simon? It’s David.”

  Well, now I was up. “David like—”

  “Like your boss, yeah,” he said with some amusement. “I’d like you to come in this afternoon, before your evening practice with the team. Okay?”

  I was more than up. I was practically vibrating with adrenaline and fear. This couldn’t be good. How could it be a coincidence that I had sex with Catya yesterday, and today, I was receiving a call from my boss to see him on short notice? Oh God. Coincidences like that don’t happen, not in real life. If he was going to fire me, which he most certainly was, I wanted to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

  “Can you see me in half an hour?” I asked, hoping to move up my guillotine appointment.

  He sounded surprised, but said, “Sure thing. My office. See you then.”

  I threw on clothes, swiped a toothbrush across my teeth, and was out my building before you could say “employment terminated.” I’d asked for a half hour window because that was precisely how long it would take me to get from my apartment to his office without running. Like I said, I wasn’t one to let bad news linger.

  Before long, I was knocking on his door and saying a prayer to some god, any god, all of them. I didn’t regret making love to Catya, but it would still hurt like hell to lose this position, the thing I’d worked for since childhood.

  Ah well. I’d made my bed. Or
, rather, I’d made my pile of leaves.

  “Come in,” he called out, his voice muffled through the wood.

  I took a deep breath. Confidence, I instructed myself. This will suck, but be a man about it.

  With that I turned the knob and entered his room. David was seated behind a small desk that was too petite for the gaping maw of a room that it sat in. See, at ULA, Director of Athletics was a coveted position — as opposed to, for instance, phys. ed. directors in secondary school, who are roundly treated like shit. David was given the office of a king, and a salary to match.

  “Hey there, Simon,” he said, his tone too cheery for what I was sure was about to come. “Take a seat.” He gestured to a small, rickety chair that was opposite his own.

  Hesitant, I walked across the carpet and slid into the confines of the chair.

  “Hi, David,” I began. “Listen, I know why you called me in and—”

  “Oh, you do? Great. So what time do you think we should leave?”

  Wait, what? Aloud, I said, “What do you mean?”

  “For the travel trip,” he explained. “What time do you think we should leave for the first rounds of the tournament?”

  I fell silent, at a loss for words. So he hadn’t called me in about my relations with Catya? A deep sigh of relief escaped my mouth.

  “What did you think I was talking about?” he asked with interest.

  “Nothing, it doesn’t matter,” I replied breezily. “Doesn’t matter at all.”

  We spent the rest of the now innocuous meeting coordinating travel for the game, which was to be the first round of the league championships. I suspect David didn’t really care about my opinion — it sounded as though he already knew exactly what we ought to do in every respect — but perhaps he was just trying to include me. Which was nice of him, especially given that about half an hour ago, I’d thought he was going to fire me.

  After the details were finalized, I thanked him for running over the schedule and accommodations with me, and left him with the parting words, “Don’t work too hard, it’s a Saturday.”

  He grinned and said, “ULA never rests, kid.”