Chapter 14

June 24, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

I woke early, showered, and went downstairs. I cleaned up around the house, picking up detritus from last night. I held off on washing the remaining dishes until Dad and Mom were obviously awake, so started making breakfast for us all, a mishmash of eggs, hashed potatoes, and chorizo all fried in a big skillet. I couldn’t help making some noise, but my parents don’t often sleep late, so figured that they’d be up shortly. I had the coffee ready and was setting the table when Dad came out.

“G’morning, Cupcake. Thanks for cleaning up.”

“Hi, Dad. No problem. I was up, so...” and shrugged my shoulders.

“Thanks, anyway. And breakfast smells great. I was pondering lazing around in bed for a while longer when the first wafts arrived at my nose and convinced me to get up.” He paused, then added, “You know, you look sorta cute in that apron with your butt hanging out.”

“Da-add. Are you saying that my butt is big?”

“Not at all, Dear; it’s ... very nice. I guess that I’m still just getting used to seeing you like this. It’s been years since I’ve seen you naked. I have to say, you are very lovely. Your mother and I have ordered larger sticks, as I think that they’ll be necessary to beat the horde of boys away.”

I bent my head down, as my face turned red. I was embarrassed, but I was also liking his looking at my butt – and that he liked the look of it. Visions of last night flashed through my mind and I kept my head down for a while longer.

“Yes,” added Mom as she entered the kitchen, “very big, very hard sticks.”

“Mo-omm!”

I started dishing out breakfast while Dad poured their two coffees. “That was a very enjoyable evening last night,” Dad said. “The dinner was excellent, and I raise my cup to the two chefs.”

With my apron still on, I curtsied, though it probably looked pretty silly. I doffed the apron, hung it up, and seated myself.

Mom said, “As I’m not wearing a stitch of clothing, I’ll forego curtseying, but thank you, Dear.”

Dad riposted, “I think that I could get used to this: being cooked for and waited on by beautiful, naked women.”

Mom threw her napkin at him, but he bravely sallied on.

“I don’t want to be a slave-driver and wear you two out, so I think that you should look for suitable additions to the staff.”

“Be careful, Dear. My coffee is about to follow my napkin, and I cannot imagine that it would do the jewels any good. You may be able to avoid that ill effect by getting me a clean napkin.”

Dad chuckled and got her one from the drawer.

I turned to Mom, “Would you be able to drive me to the mall? I should get a new pair of cleats.”

“Yes, but what’s wrong with the ones you have?”

“Nothing other than that they’re getting old. Besides, it’s best to have an alternate pair – a pair already broken in – before one actually needs the new pair. I’ve seen a cleat break, and it’s not good to play with a missing cleat.”

“Okay. Do you want to take the gang and make an outing of it?”

“Rhee and her mom are already gone. If you’d be willing to go get them, I can see if either or both of Gracey and Liya are interested.”

“I have little on my docket today, and your dad is going to the gym this morning, so...”

“Thanks. I’ll text them after breakfast.”

It turned out that both already had family plans, so I got my new cleats and spent much of the rest of the day pondering two offensive sweepers and watching a lot of soccer videos to see if I could get further inspiration.

Oh, I forgot. I ran into Charlize Sanderson coming into the sporting-goods store where I got the cleats as we were paying. Oddly enough, she was getting new cleats, too.

[Ms. Diary, I hadn’t mentioned this earlier, but Charlize and I were team members, along with Rhee, back in our early soccer days, but her family moved away after the second year that I played organized ball.]

“What are you doing here, Charlize? That is, why are you here getting cleats rather than back home?”

“I just couldn’t find anything I liked there, but the town’s too small to have a store with a large-enough selection, so here we are.”

“Too bad you’re not still living here. We would kick royal ass if you were still here, playing on our team. It could be a fun mental task to figure out how to structure an offense with you two pure center forwards on the same line.”

“Yeah, that would be interesting. Who’d have thought back on that team that all three of us would still be playing now and that we’d all be important to our respective teams. I mean, you and I are both team captains, Rhee and I are the two leading scorers in the league, and you’re tied for the league lead in assists.”

I was taken aback briefly, as I wasn’t aware of anyone other than me that was tracking assists. Certainly, anyone that wasn’t among the leaders in that category. But Charlize is soccer crazy, so I guess that it’s not that surprising. We said our good-byes, and Mom and I went to Granny Brown’s for lunch.

June 25, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

Practice went very well, today. I got to the pitch early and told Coach the wrinkles that I’d come up with concerning our two-sweepers offense. It dawned on me yesterday that, against a team with a relatively poor offense, we could occasionally run both sweepers on the same side of the field, the idea being swamping the defense on that side. Of course, and as practice proved, that meant that Padme and I would have to run even more than usual. We agreed that it might not work in reality, but Coach said that we could always switch back to our normal offense, dropping Padme into a pure center midfielder position. However, even against our starting defense, which knew of the plan, we did reasonably well, so I think that it might work quite well against Central.

June 26, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

Sunday night and Monday were quiet for me, and Mom sent no texts. I will be staying at Rhee’s tonight and will let you know if anything interesting happens there.

[Added June 27]

Rhee and I stayed up somewhat late and wound up not doing anything particularly sexual. But it was nice to sleep with her again.

June 27, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

Today’s game was great! Our over-loaded offense did the trick against Central, and we won 5-0. I almost feel sorry for their defense, because it’s a good one, as the score could easily have been doubled, but for the superb play of the fullbacks and goalie. If they had even one real scoring threat, they’d be better off.

They did change things up in the second half, but we were already up by four at that point. Rhee got two goals and our wingers got a goal each. I got four assists, which should put me back in sole possession of first in the league. We put the backup offense in for the last 15 minutes, and Padme scored then, her first of the season (she has mostly been a backup and is our youngest player); she and I played the whole game. In addition to the over-loaded offense, the not-quite-excessive passing practice that we’ve done the past couple of weeks also played a part in the win.

June 28, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

Tomorrow’s game is against the league’s current cellar dweller, so we’ll run our standard offense. Padme played very well yesterday, and Coach thought she deserved a chance to start tomorrow and run the offense. So, Padme ran the offense today in practice. I’ll start tomorrow at center half, just to keep an eye on things. However, I’ll sub out for Rathi, our usual starting center midfielder, in the first half sometime. Because of all that, Coach put me in charge of practicing the backup offense against the backup defense.

Rhee will stay here tomorrow night, as her mom has to go out of town for work. She’ll come straight here from our game, which is at our pitch. This will be the first time that she overnights since we established the house clothing-optional policy. I’m looking forward to what happens. Even though her mom will be back, she’ll stay Saturday night, too, as that is our gang’s sleepover! Yay!

Mom reported in: “27^th, N.”

June 29, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written on July 2, 2017]

Because of the hectic end of the week, with lots of company, I am writing three days’ worth of entries at once, this being the first. Obviously, some of the details are probably already becoming vague memories, but the highlights, as reported here, should be accurate.

This day’s game was another good one. It wasn’t even a minute into the game and the ball came to me a bit inside the center of the pitch on our side. I was just about to pass it forward to Padme when I saw Rhee start streaking, so booted it deep. Rhee ran under it and one-touched it past the goalie!

Only three minutes later, we had a big offensive press on. Their goalie had already made two good saves, but we were managing to keep the ball in or near their penalty box when Mia took a shot from the left that was blocked on defense, the ball caroming out to me just outside the middle of the penalty box. Though I could have shot, I saw Padme near the right side of the goal – their defense was packed in, so I chipped it softly toward her and she headed it into the close corner.

Five minutes later, Coach subbed me out a bit earlier than we had planned. Padme was doing a good job with the offense and we already had a two-goal lead on a relatively poor team. I had expected to get no assists in the game, so I was ecstatic on playing just less than ten minutes and getting two.

Then, Coach pulled a fast one on me. As I came off the field, she waved me to her and told me that I was to coach the rest of the game. That she’d be there, but substitution decisions and, particularly with the less-experienced Padme running the offense, offense choices were to be mine until the final whistle.

I almost – it was a very close thing – told Coach that she was crazy, but I held the words in and just nodded my head. Coach walked around on the sideline watching the game, but she didn’t say a word to anyone. Once we got our sixth goal (for a score of 6-0), 12 minutes into the second half, I started putting backups in. In fact, by the end of the game, the only starter remaining was Padme. I felt that she should get as much time running the offense as we could get her, since she was showing that she could handle it and was doing a bang-up job at it.

Unfortunately, the first sub that I sent in was to replace Lissa, who twisted her ankle. She’ll probably be out for a couple of games, but I sure hope she’s back to snuff before we take on GV in a few weeks. On the way to the locker room at game’s end, Coach pulled me aside.

“I’ve annotated the game ball, but you get to decide the recipient and award it. You did a great job today, and that was a great decision to leave Padme in. She reminds me a lot of someone else I knew at that age: a good, calm head on her shoulders; no real weakness in her game; just in need of more confidence and experience. I can’t remember her name, but I do recall that she looked a lot like you.”

I colored, quite brightly, but kept my eyes up and said, “Thanks, Coach.”

I took the ball that she handed me, and headed on into the locker room, slipping in mostly un-noticed. I let the excitement about the win die down a bit and then yelled, “Gather ‘round!”

Teammates turned toward me with a bit of surprise but heeded my call and were relatively quiet.

“All right. By my estimation, everyone got at least one touch today, correct?”

The response was positive and loud.

“Also, by my estimation, that hog of a center forward of ours got another hat trick, right?”

The response was comprised of shouts of “HOG” and snorting noises, all loud.

“Also, by my estimation, Ann’s shot from outside the penalty box might have achieved escape velocity had she kicked it straight up, yes?”

The response included lots of sizzling noises.

“Yeah, had I been their goalie, I’d have wanted no part of that thing!” There was much laughter. “I’d have dived the other way, in fact. Ann, that was a superb shot. Next time, please take an inch off the height. We might need that goal someday.” There was laughter. “Seriously, that shot rang the goal, it’s just too bad that it hit the crossbar so squarely. I’ve never personally seen such a doozy of a shot.”

“Also, by my estimation, our youngest whippersnapper ran the offense all game, a game that, I might note, we won 10-1. And, by my estimation, she managed two goals and five assists... and she was involved in all but one of those ten goals. Therefore, by the power vested in me by the fact that I’m the tallest one here – except for that cheater, hog Whatshername at center forward who puts lifts in her shoes...” there was much guffawing, so I waited for a bit more quiet before continuing, “the game ball goes to Padme Farhad!”

If Padme weren’t so dark-skinned, I’m sure that she’d have been blazing red. Various team members hugged her; there was lots of back-patting and loud exclamations.

Then Coach piped up, “Listen up!”

A few more hands were laid on Padme, but all eyes were on Coach, who had made her way next to me during the celebration with Padme.

“I have two ... no, thr ... no, four items. First, I want to extend my own ‘attagirl’ to Padme for a game very well played. Of course, you know what that means. If we don’t see that level of play continue from you, you’ll be joining Whatshername and Gracey on the bench.”

Pandemonium!

“Settle,” yelled Coach. “On the subject of right wing. Barring something of a minor medical miracle, Lissa will be out for Tuesday’s game and, probably, Thursday’s game. So, someone will get a lot more practice tomorrow in the starting right forward slot, a decision that will be made by the start of practice, tomorrow. The third item is that we play at Watermelon Mountain on Tuesday. Unless you have another way there, please make sure that you are here by 7 am and let me know, ASAP, if I’m to expect you here.

She looked around, as did I, but no one looked nervous. Coach continued.

“We’ve got an early start time and a long way to go. Please, please, please, make sure that you have a ride before then.” She scanned eyes once more, then carried on. “The final item. I assume that you all know who coached most of this game. Yes?”

There were various answers, but the loudest was Rhee’s “Wasn’t it that short person that babbled on for way too long before you got here?”

Rhee’s quip was met by laughter; much laughter.

Coach’s stentorian, “Settle,” rang out, again. “Yes, after Beth subbed out, she ran the show. Note that she got everyone in the game, and soon enough for everyone to get touches. Note also that Beth kept Padme running the offense the entire game, getting her much experience and” she looked at Padme, “confidence.” When she got Padme’s nod, she went on. “Finally, note that Beth also came up with the idea that was so successful against Central.”

Where was Coach going with this? Wherever she was going, I hope she gets there soon, else I’ll fry to a crisp with embarrassment.

“So,” Coach added, “I have decided to officially name her as ‘Assistant Coach.’”

I was dumbfounded. Apparently, I was the only one, as there were whistles, screams, and other expressions of mirth. Coach let the jocularity go on for a while, then called for attention, again.

“One of the reasons for this decision is that I may soon have some family things that will take up some of my time and having Beth to run things if I suddenly need to miss a practice will help tremendously. I know that most of you are friends with her and that some of you are very good friends. Please don’t let the fact that she’ll be the boss at times negatively impact those friendships. I know that Beth won’t let her friendships dictate her moves. Note that, other than Lissa, Rhee was the first one for whom she substituted.” She waited a beat or two, then, “Of course, I think that she’s jealous of all those goals she gets. What do you think, Rhee?”

Put on the spot, Rhee gulped, but stood tall and replied.

“Yeah, I would have liked more goals, but everyone needs game time. And Heather hasn’t gotten much. The whole team is better, the more experienced everyone is. By the way, good goal, Heather!”

“I agree,” said Coach. “That was a well-placed shot.”

I quickly turned to Heather, who was the only team member fairer than I am, having nearly white hair just to her shoulders and a mass of freckles. She was scarlet. But she womaned up and looked folks in the eyes. I think that I need to figure out how to get her more game time, because that was a great shot. Despite what many might think from her appearance – she is somewhat short and skinny but has long legs, she can run! In fact, we could plan on her being a streaker ... Oops, got side-tracked there. Back to the regularly scheduled program.

“Okay,” Coach said, interrupting banter. “Practice here at 9:30 tomorrow. I will have to leave early, but not by much; Beth will run things from that point. Good game, all. See you, tomorrow.”

Since Rhee and I were going to my house and since it was so close, we skipped showering at the field.

When we got all our stuff up to my room, I said, “Shower time!”

Rhee responded with, “Ooh. I don’t know. Am I allowed to shower with the Assistant Coach?”

I whapped her upside the head. We trooped across the hall to the upstairs bathroom – which has a lovely, huge shower with two shower heads – and stripped off, tossing uniforms and undies into the hamper. When I was washing my hair and had my eyes closed, Rhee grabbed both my breasts from behind and started caressing them. I startled, giving out a squeak, then shouted.

“Hey, I’m busy here.”

“I couldn’t resist. I’ve never fondled an Assistant Coach before. In fact, I can think of a lot of things that I’d like to do to an Assistant Coach.”

“You sex maniac, leave your exalted Assistant Coach alone!”

“Exalted, is it?”

Rhee turned me around, to which I squawked, then leaned into me until my back was against the side wall and kissed me, her tongue invading my mouth as soon as I separated my lips. Yes, I still had shampoo in my hair and my eyes closed to keep shampoo out, but I enjoyed it so much that I nearly forgot about those minor details.

I managed to disengage my mouth enough to blurt, “Lemme get my hair rinsed, you brute.”