Author note: This is my entry for
YAY TEAM: The Sex & Sports Author Organized Challenge 2024
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I looked, and felt, utterly ridiculous right up until the moment I walked into the Student Union bar. It was cold outside and my long legs were covered in goosebumps from the October wind, for which just a pair of shorts were wholly inadequate. Luckily my top half was warmer, wrapped in a thick rugby jersey, but there lay the ridiculousness. There were fashionable rugby-style jerseys for women, but this was not one of those: the front said 'BRISTOL UNIVERSITY RUGBY' and the back said 'LYNLEY' with a large number 3 printed beneath. It wasn't even an old-fashioned, thick material, it was a modern type of breathable fabric, but the warmth came in the fact that it was too big for me and had plenty of space for warm air to gather, hanging off me and just barely showing any sign of my tits. It belonged to Craig Lynley, a prop for the university first team, who was easily twice my size, even though I wouldn't describe myself as a petite girl at 5'9.
The reason entering the student union reassured me was that I spotted a knot of other girls wearing ill-fitting rugby gear gathered by the bar, and when they spotted me they put up a cheer.
"Chloe!" someone yelled and I found myself being pulled into a series of enthusiastic hugs. The bar was already littered with empty or half-drunk shots and cocktails, and even before I could pull my debit card out of the pockets of my unfamiliar shorts (I'd drawn the line at bringing a handbag in this get-up) I'd been handed two tequila shots and an unidentified orange cocktail. The two shots went straight down and I sipped the cocktail.
"Is this a bellini?" I asked, suspiciously.
"Only champers tonight, ladies, we're celebrating," declared Tessa, the team captain. She held up a shot of tequila and spilt half of it down her arm. "To beating UCL."
"Beating UCL," we cheered, variously downing shots or cocktails as the tired-looking student bartender racked up another tray of shots.
"Any sign of the rugby lads?" I asked, my throat already burning from the tequila but my emotions riding the wave.
"Cannot wait to see them in volleyball shorts," someone giggled, setting the rest of us off. Tonight's joint social had been planned for weeks: Bristol Uni Women's Volleyball team were wearing rugby outfits, whilst the rugby team were supposed to be coming in volleyball uniforms, although they were rather a law unto themselves and we weren't really sure if they would do it. The icing on the cake for tonight was that we'd won our first competitive game of the season, a big one against one of the top teams from University College London. It set us up as one of the favourites for the championship and we were fizzing with the excitement of it all.
"Alright, as soon as they get here we're going, though, I want to go to Dani's," Tessa said, leaning against the bar with a confident air of leadership. She was a third-year, both the captain and our outside hitter. An inch taller than me, black-haired and Spanish with all the fiery passion they were known for. I was the setter, the second-tallest on the team, a copy of Tessa but blonde and British and only in my second year at Bristol. She'd taken one look at me at trials the previous September and immediately appointed me to the team. I'd started every game since, and when I wasn't studying Biology, I was living and breathing volleyball.
"We always go to Dani's," I complained, jokingly, and Tessa responded by putting her arm around my shoulder and kissing my cheek aggressively. "Tough shit, babe," she growled in my ear.
"Get a room, lezbos," Tamsin Salden, third-year, middle blocker, yelled, grinning and giving us the middle finger.
I rolled my eyes, pretending to be offended, but the casual use of homophobic language in the team had been a feature ever since my first practice session, which was why I was too afraid to come out as lesbian to my teammates. That, and the fact I'd fancied Tessa for three intensely conflicted weeks in my first year, until I'd seen her with her tongue down the throat of a monumentally unattractive fourth-year guy with masses of acne. I'd gone off her instantly and, since then, managed to avoid developing feelings for any of the other girls on the team, all of whom, it seemed, were aggressively straight.
"Let 'em be dykes if they want to be," someone else said, but by the time I'd turned to see who it was, the thought was driven out of my head by a huge whoop that went up as the first of the rugby lads arrived. We cheered and clapped as they walked in, their big torsos squeezing into our uniform tops from last year, which would forever be stretched from this treatment, and a couple of them posed, flexing biceps. Better still were the tiny, tight shorts. Not every one of the lads had opted for them, but enough of them were good sports that we got a good cheer going for them.
"Pints, pints, pints," they began chanting, and the barman resignedly began pulling pints of lager as we attacked our next round of shots and then broke up our group to mix with the lads.
Being gay, I wasn't at all interested in flirting while eyeing up big rugby players' packages in tight shorts, but I didn't want to seem unsociable, so I trotted up to my opposite number, Craig Lynley, and showed him his shirt.
"Like it?" I asked, shimmying my shoulders ironically.
He grinned, picking up one of the first pints that barman had pulled and sinking the first half of it. "Looks better on you than me," he joked, and I laughed. Craig was good-looking and a good laugh, but he knew he was attractive to women and had a string of one-night-stands and broken relationships stretching behind him which didn't really make me think much of him.
"Did you win today?" I asked, realising I'd lost my cocktail somewhere.
"Yeah, not one of our biggest challenges, though. Next week will be tougher. How about you girls?" He eyed my body and I pretended I hadn't seen.
"Big win, so we're celebrating," I explained, as one of his teammates came over and gave him an almighty smack on the shoulder. Craig looked over to see who it was and cracked a smile. "Alright Jonesy, you on the pints tonight? Who am I kidding, you live for the lash."
It was at times like these that I was envious of the straight girls. They could flirt shamelessly with the guys just to give themselves something to do, and if they got a night with a hot guy on top of them, it was a bonus. But it wasn't like we were organising joint social events with the women's hockey team so I could try and get some, and flirting with guys made my skin crawl.
"Talk later?" Craig said to me, finishing the other half of his drink.
"Yeah," I said, simply, watching him grab another drink and wade off into the crowd. Apparently the moment he realised I wasn't making moon eyes at him and trying to get him into bed, I was yesterday's news. Well, he was more of a laugh if you got him on his own, I told myself as I turned to search for my drink.
"All alone?" Tessa asked as I drifted along the bar.
"Looking for my bellini, actually."
"Oh, forget it, we're going to Dani's any minute."
Dani's was the traditional second stop on a bar crawl: student union, Dani's, Milkie's, then either a club in town or one of the pubs on the main street. Milkie's was my favourite: you were sufficiently drunk when you got there to overlook the lurid decor and faux-pop atmosphere, but the drinks were cheap and it only ever had students in it, so it was usually a good time. Dani's was more pricey, but you had to walk past it to get anywhere else, so it would be a shame not to go in.
"Right then."
I didn't relish going back out in the cold, but the student union bar was more geared up to serve toasted sandwiches to revising students over a sensible drink, rather than catering for massive booze-ups. I followed Tessa as she went around canvassing support for Dani's, but the rugby lads were catching up with each other and only half of them listened.
"I'm just going to go," Tessa announced, shaking her curly hair to show she didn't care. "They'll end up there anyway."
"Photos!" someone yelled, and before we could round up the volleyball girls to leave, we found ourselves being sucked into group selfies. I could feel the alcohol working and I was pleased I was wearing sensible trainers, which matched my outfit, rather than heels, and I knew my hair would look fine in the photos as it was in a high ponytail. So I let loose a little, flicking Vs and sticking my tongue out as we squeezed into the tiny square of someone's phone screen, knowing it would be all over Insta by the morning. But you didn't want to be the person who missed out.
As we walked up the road to Dani's, ignoring the cold wind, I felt a fresh rush of excitement about today's victory. We'd been practising for weeks and we'd still expected to lose, so when we'd gone up 5-1 after a big spike from Tessa, suddenly we'd begun to believe. And then we hadn't looked back: hitting up the final set and watching Tessa convert it had been an incredible feeling and I still felt like I was walking on air. This was why I loved volleyball and I was in such a great mood.
"Reckon we'll go undefeated this year?" I asked Tessa, half-joking.
Tessa laughed. "If only... I'd be the greatest captain we'd ever had."
"Well, you're more like dead weight on the team, really..."
"I'll bench you, don't test me," she said, smirking. "I think we should win the next three, so we'll be on top of the division for sure."
"We're not expecting to lose any players next year, are we? If we can do well this season we should do even better next time around."
Tessa nodded. "Mm, we'll see. I can't be captain two years in a row, though, so someone else will have to do it. Probably you, Chloe, I think you've got the right mind for it."
I blushed, but it was dark outside so Tessa couldn't see. "You think?"
"Yeah, Tamsin's good but she's not a motivator. You're the best person, I think. But it's a while away yet. I'm still running the show."
Captain of the volleyball first team. That was a good achievement, I thought. But like Tessa said, it was still early. Don't get carried away.
Dani's was busy with other students when we arrived, and I went straight to the bar with my card to get the shots in. We switched from tequila to sambuca, and the rugby tops were getting some odd stares from the other people in the bar, but I ignored them. Instead of hanging out at the bar, the girls had colonised a couple of tables in a raised area near the back, and I picked up the tray of shots with steady hands to carry over to them, acutely aware that if I tripped over someone's foot I'd tip thirty quid of alcohol all over the floor.
