Love At Every Size

by Jordan, Jesse

  Dear Sarah, it’s been a long time, but I was hoping you could take a few minutes out of your busy day to give me some advice. I’m not sure who else I can turn to. You see, recently I was given the opportunity to try to spread the BoPo message to the local university after a scandal, and I’ve started working with a man. To put it simply, he’s an athlete with a build like a cover model, and we’ve hit it off really well.

  But I’m worried, not about him, I think he’s serious when he says that he wants to date me publicly, but because a little part of me is worried that I’m somehow selling out the BoPo movement. I mean, here I am counseling people and giving group meetings once a week about how size and looks don’t matter, while I’ve got a new boyfriend who’s built like a god.

  Also, in one of our conversations, I told him about my past in fitness and exercise, and he asked me if I still wanted to exercise, not for weight loss, but just to enjoy moving my body. I haven’t, again to try and be supportive to my group here in town, but he’s right, I’ve been itching to go out and move again, to let my body enjoy the feeling of exercise for the thrill of it again.

  I’m worried, am I selling out? Am I just walking down the same path I was before?

  I could really use a little bit of advice, if you don’t mind. Thanks.

  I close down my Facebook and shut down my laptop, sitting back and wondering if I’m doing the right thing still. In the end, I decide that I’m going to side with hope, and I get up, hoping that I’m not being a total fool by putting my trust in Louden Graham.

  Chapter 15

  Louden- Football

  Two weeks after I’ve started seeing Denise as more than just a work partner, and I’m feeling great. Each time we get together, I feel like every worry that I have, every problem facing the basketball team or readjusting to having Cathy live with me is just easy street, at least for the few hours that we spend together.

  Cathy’s been great with it too even, agreeing to spend evenings with her mother when I have dates. Lana’s given me a few surprised looks, but I think she’s pleased for me too, even if I’ve been scant on the details.

  She knows that when the time’s right, I’ll share with her. After all, this affects our daughter, so it affects her too. And part of me knows that she’ll be happy for me.

  Not that everything’s fun and games though. Tonight’s the first of the meetings with the football team, and Denise and I both know that the tone of this meeting is going to set the tone for the rest of the team. I’ve twice in the past two weeks tried to have meetings with the football coaches to try and get their assistance.

  But I’ve been put off both times, the last time by the defensive coordinator, Coach Reagan.

  “Listen Louden,” he’d said when I was able to at least talk to him face to face over a hamburger, “we’re in the middle of spring ball, and there’s no way in hell that we’re going to be taking more time away from our players’ studies and their on-field prep to lecture them one second more than the AD says we have to. I get it, I know you got a job to do. I feel you there, and if the rumors are right, you’re trying to do a bang-up job in order to get in good with the administration because of what we’re hearing about Coach Two Eagles.”

  “It might have started that way, but it’s become more than that, Hank,” I replied, chewing my burger. “I’m being serious when I say it’s the right damn thing to do. Whether you agree with the idea that we’re making these kids into student-athletes or not, we’re supposed to be teaching them to become men. Now, would you want your sister, your daughter, or your mother being talked to the way that those girls were?”

  “Nope,” Regan said, tucking away a fry, “and I’d beat the ass of any of my players who did. But Louden, on the same token I wouldn’t let my daughter or my wife get to that condition either. And besides, by the time we get them they’re already eighteen. The time for that sort of teaching is done back in their preschool days. You want to find a football coach who can make a damn difference on this, go talk to their Pop Warner coach, not me.”

  So yeah, I at least know that things haven’t changed on the football front. I guess Denise and I are going to have to be on point when we sit down with them at seven thirty. And I feel bad for Hank Reagan’s wife and daughter.

  There’s a knock on my office door, and before I can answer it opens and Melissa comes in unasked, making me cringe. After me leaving in the middle of the our ‘date,’ I’d hoped that she’d gotten the message that I just wasn’t interested in her.

  Instead, it seemed that it just encouraged her to be even more aggressive with me, stopping by the men’s offices three or four times a week. She’s asked me out for drinks four times in the past two weeks, not caring when I said both that I was seeing someone else and that I had my daughter at home, so I was busy.

  “Hey sexy,” Melissa says, her Mount Reston polo just a little tighter than what the school probably would like. She’s got all her buttons unbuttoned too, and while I don’t know what sort of magic underwear she’s got on, she’s got a pretty big chunk of cleavage showing in the V of the shirt.

  Almost any normal man would be drooling at this point, especially when Melissa starts batting her eyes at me, but compared to Denise, Melissa’s just plain. “How’s the riding herd on the fatties going?”

  “What can I help you with, Coach Kelly?” I ask, trying to remain as professional as possible. “I’ve got a rather busy schedule today.”

  “Mmmm, I know,” Melissa says with a twitch of her lips. “You know, you should cancel that academic counselor’s meeting. I’ve yet to see your moves, Louden. How about you and I play a little one on one ball?”

  Now normally, I’d be all up for playing some basketball, but I know since she’s been using basketball terms with double meaning almost every time she talks with me that she’s talking sex. “Sorry, Coach Kelly. If you want to work on your moves, maybe playing by yourself might be a better way to take care of things?”

  “Come on Louden, I’ve heard you’re an expert at taking it to the hole,” Melissa replies, leaning over and giving me an even deeper look at her tits, “and that you’re an expert at playing both ends of the court.”

  “Sorry, but still not interested,” I reply evenly. “You should try finding another person to play with.”

  Melissa stands up, laughing lightly. “Why? Haven’t you heard, you and I are teammates.”

  I try not to slam my fist on my desk, only half succeeding. It’s been another thing that Melissa’s done, and it pisses me off. Nobody’s said anything to me directly of course, it’s the sort of thing that would stay on the down low around the university, but athletes have lots of time to gossip, and the gossip is simple: Melissa and I are fucking.

  I’ve heard the whispers, and the looks from some of the girl’s basketball team when I’ve been in the weight room or when I’ve been on the basketball court getting in skill and cardio work. It burns my ass, mainly because I know that eventually, someone’s going to say something publicly, and Denise is going to hear.

  Besides, I’m a private person. I don’t talk at work about my life outside of Mount Reston unless I have to. Cathy comes to work with me sometimes, but that’s because I want to spend time with my daughter, and when Lana and I broke up, the only person who knew about it was Billy until a month after it was all said and done.

  Now I’ve got Melissa, who seems to live by the drama and the rumor mill, saying I’m fucking her. I get it, and in some dim back corners of my mind I’m flattered to think that a woman who was literally dating a Hollywood A-lister two years ago thinks that I’m hot.

  But at the same time, I don’t want the fucking drama.

  “Coach Kelly, I don’t really like the rumors, however you might read them. I would like it if you would tell anyone you hear talking about it that you and I are co-workers only. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with an academic counselor to take care of.”

  I get up, but before I can reach the do
or Melissa gets in the way, pressing her body up against mine and whispering in my ear. “You think you’re not on my team, Louden. But you and I both know that you’re just waiting for me to apply some full...” she says, before reaching down and cupping my crotch, “court pressure. Have a good meeting.”

  I try not to run out of my own office, but I know I’m moving faster, and I half cringe when Melissa calls down the hall after me. “Thanks again for your big input, Louden!”

  Jesus, what am I supposed to do?

  * * *

  The football team is huge, with over ninety guys on the team when you count the redshirters, the guys who are on the practice squad, and others. That means that the basketball locker rooms just aren’t big enough for them, not when we’ve divided the team into three groups of about thirty or so.

  Still, Denise and I are in agreement that we don’t want to do the meeting in the football locker rooms, the players will be too comfortable and on their home turf. Denise and I walking in there would seem like we were attacking them, so we decide to hold the meeting on ‘neutral ground,’ in one of the mid-sized classrooms that’s used by the English and Philosophy departments for some of their classes that hold of up to fifty people.

  Watching the players file in, I’m glad we took them in alphabetical order so that there’d be a mix of offensive and defensive players, upper and lower classmen, to not have to face a united clique. I can still see the bored, I-don’t-want-to-be-here look on most of the players’ faces though, and that’s going to be a problem.

  I glance at Denise, who’s got a worried expression on her face too, biting on her lip and looking incredibly cute even though she isn’t trying. I go over, turning my back to the players and pretending to fiddle with the projector. “Hey.”

  “Yeah?” she asks, glancing over at me before looking back up as a few snickers and something that sounds a lot like a ‘moo’ filters down. “Jesus they’re pissed.”

  “They’re scared,” I whisper back softly. “They know you’re more woman than they can handle. But don’t worry, we’re a team tonight. You knock ‘em dead, I’ve got your back one hundred percent, okay? Besides, remember the backup plan we cooked up.”

  She nods, looking at me gratefully. “Okay. Thanks.”

  The meeting starts, and almost within three minutes we’re off script as some of the players start pulling the yawning act or glancing around. I prepared for this, so when Denise is about to get angry I hold up my hand. “Hold on Miss Taviolo, I’ve got an idea. You mind minimizing the PowerPoint?”

  Denise clicks on her computer, and I take a flash drive out of my pocket, handing it to her. She swallows, but goes with our cooked up dialogue. “What’s this, Coach Graham?”

  “Well, as these young studs are all such physical specimens, I thought we’d skip the whole fat acceptance bit and go over how awesome they are,” I say, getting a few chuckles from the group. Denise smirks a bit too, but I hope she’s going to be okay with the last minute changes I whipped up this afternoon to our surprise. “What do you say guys, how about a little highlight reel?”

  “Yeah!” the players generally reply, and I wait while Denise loads the video file, the players grinning as some theme music from the movie 300 starts up. It’s cheesy, but effective, and I had it on my computer already.

  Overall, it’s not bad for a presentation whipped up in just a few hours. The first thirty seconds or so is just a quick little graphic, words flashing up to dissolve away to the next phrase.

  Power.

  Toughness.

  Nerves of steel.

  Bodies of iron.

  Forged in combat, tested in battle, an example for all.

  This is Mount Reston football.

  The players are excited, paying attention just like I’d planned when the screen dissolves into a scene that has to shock everyone. Instead of the players in their uniforms, where even a three hundred pound man looks relatively ripped with football pads on, the scene is from early spring ball, when players aren’t allowed by NCAA rules to wear pads except for their helmets.

  “Look at these lean, ripped stud athletes on the field,” I comment as video of the offensive linemen, most of them with their bellies hanging over the waistband of their shorts, plays across the screen. “Has anyone seen such an assemblage of manliness anywhere on the face of the planet?”

  There’s a few hoots from some of the other players as the big boys quiet down, embarrassed by what they’re seeing on the screen. It was the hardest argument that Denise and I had about this little trick.

  It is counter-shaming as she calls it, and I understand her point on it more now, in that we were risking hurting the feelings of some of the players, but the video’s just started.

  “Oh, before any of you skinny boys start talking shit about the linemen, check this out,” I say, and the video cuts to an actual highlight from last year, as the exact same linemen who looked so out of shape and fat in the last scene blast open holes for the running backs, demonstrating power and skills that the leaner position players know they can’t match.

  “Now, it gets better,” I comment, as the video cuts between scenes of chubby looking players in shorts and t-shirts who then go out and wreck shit on the football field, or ripped players who get beat deep despite their muscles and single digit bodyfats. When the video’s over, I raise the lights, turning to the players.

  “Look around, each of you. You, Paul Gilbert, answer this for me. How many players are on the field at any one time for Mount Reston?”

  Paul, who was featured in two of the clips because, while he wasn’t one of the players caught on the initial fat shaming video, he’d been there, looks up warily. He knows he’s on thin ice, so instead of balking he speaks up. “Eleven, Coach.”

  “Eleven. And let me ask you Paul. How many players have to do their fucking jobs correctly for a play to come off?”

  “Eleven.”

  I nod, pacing back and forth for a moment. “Eleven. Now Paul, you’re what, two thirty or so?”

  “About two twenty right now, Coach,” Paul says, flexing his guns to some hoots from his teammates. “Looking good doing it, too!”

  “I bet. So Paul, can you at your two twenty play center for us? Or what about nose tackle? Maybe wide receiver or quarterback?”

  “You know I’m a linebacker,” Paul says. “I can’t play those jobs.”

  “Why not?” I ask, looking around at the other players. “Face it guys, each and every one of you is built for certain positions. A lineman can’t play wideout, and a wideout can’t stop a charging defensive end without looking like a grease stain on the turf two seconds later. And I’d take each and every one of you to the house in basketball. That’s the nature of sports, gentlemen. Different bodies, different body types, different jobs, all working together. It’s the nature of life too. Now, let me ask you this... what would you have done if a bunch of idiots from another team started taunting one of your brothers on the field like the video that Denise showed us in the beginning? You might not start a fight, you don’t want the fifteen yards, but would you be happy about it?”

  There’s a grumble, and I look over at Denise, who reads it too. We’re getting through. One hand goes up. “Yeah, but those girls aren’t football players, Coach.”

  “No, they’re not,” Denise says, taking over. “Actually, I looked it up on them. One of them’s going for her Master’s degree in engineering. Another speaks four languages, eight if you count the dialects of Chinese that she’s semi-conversant in. And one of them, she’s just a girl who loves her beagle and likes to bake cakes when her friends are feeling down. Now, can any of you make a halfway decent chocolate cupcake? And how many of you would like a girlfriend who can make you a killer chocolate cupcake?”

  One of the guys in the back speaks up. “Hell, even my Mama can’t make a good cupcake.”

  There’s a little bit of laughter, and Denise smiles a little. “That’s what I thought. Guys, I’m not trying to
preach at you, I want to work with you. Really, we should be respecting each other regardless of what we look like. I bet some of you come from poor neighborhoods, maybe you’ve got a mother or a sister who’s over two hundred pounds, maybe even three hundred. But you respect them, or if you say you don’t you’d still throw down if anyone disrespected them the way that members of this team disrespected those girls a few months ago. I’d respect your mothers and sisters, your fathers and brothers, if they came to me. Let’s start from there, and work forward.”

  “Yo, so does this mean I gotta like, start dating fa... I mean, big girls or something?” another voice from the back calls, and I laugh, giving Denise a meaningful look.

  “No, of course not. I told the soccer team the same thing. We’ve all got our own types that we’re attracted to. Some of you like blondes, some of you guys are into brunettes. Let’s not even get into the skin color issues, I’m not going within ten yards of that mess. Some of you like girls that are leggy, some like big chests, some of you might like lean gymnast types. Hell, there’s probably a few members of the football team that don’t even like girls, and find me more their type. I mean face it guys, for a thirty year old former basketball player, I’m a sexy motherfucker.”

  The players laugh, and Denise laughs along with them, even as she blushes just a little bit. “Coach Graham’s right... on most of it at least,” she says, getting a few more laughs. “We’re not saying you have to suddenly find yourself wanting to date anyone you don’t want to already date. All I’m asking is that you give the same respect to people that you ask them to give you.”

  As the meeting wraps up, I feel it in the air, the players are walking out different than when they walked in. After the last one leaves, I look at Denise, who’s face says that she’s feeling the same way. “Three of them came up to get my card without me even handing it out,” she says, half shocked. “Three of them.”