The New Softballers

After a devastating accident, a coach and a booster come much closer together, while a pitcher tries to put her life back together. Part 4 of 5.

The story thus far: In Part 1, Carol Gibson, the daughter of Pat and Mike of "To Serve and Protect" fame, is enrolling in college when she meets a high school classmate who's playing on the college softball team. They're also organizing a late-summer intramural league to help the team's star pitcher, who's been bothered by a knee injury, rehabilitate. Carol agrees to come to tryouts, and actually meets the pitcher, a curt and abrasive woman trying to deal with pain on multiple levels. Later, the young woman who asked her to try out makes love with her older female lover, who enjoys the experience but wonders what the younger woman really gets out of it – and whether she is hot for Carol instead.

In Part 2, Carol goes to tryouts for the team and impresses the coaches with her fielding and baserunning abilities. While undressing after the workout, she accidentally meets Beth Wilson, the star pitcher. Beth is horrified when she recognizes Carol from a fake porno site that her husband and brother-in-law, who's one of the coaches, had accessed. Beth immediately tries to become nice to Carol, leading Carol to wonder if Beth might be hot for her. Later that night, two other players on the team, longtime lovers, play a sexual game with toys and elaborate courtesy.

In Part 3, Carol's team is returning home from a game when two team members start to have sex on the bus. Carol and Beth witness the lovemaking, both with embarrassed shyness. Suddenly, the bus driver stomps on the brakes in a deliberate attempt to humiliate the lovers, to whom he's been tipped off by another team member who hates Beth. Beth gravely re-injures her knee and the lovers, as well as other team members (including Carol) are injured. Carol's parents, who are police officers following in their own car, arrive on the scene and prevent a major confrontation, and help the injured players get to a hospital. The troublemaking team member is booted, but threatens even more retaliation.

My sincerest thanks to patricia51 and all who have previewed this story.

*****

With both its pitchers and catchers out of action, Butler forfeited its next game. Mary and Camille were improved enough to play the game after that, which they lost by five runs. Coach Wilson, watching Melissa and Ariel work out at fielding drills, encouraged them to start working out in the bullpen. They debuted with a loss, but with only two errors and four walks, one intentional followed by a bases-clearing triple when an outfielder misread a fly ball.

Five team members were out due to injury or some other cause. The unlucky shortstop who had allowed Carol to score was reinstated by telephone and placed in the outfield as a rover. She was adept at dropping bunts and advancing runners, and sometimes beat out a sacrifice. Within two weeks, the Butler team had traveled to Savannah and had come away with a win.

Carol visited Beth in the hospital as soon as she was able to. Despite a major surgery to the knee and constant, shooting pain, Beth brightened noticeably when she saw Carol enter. Coach Wilson was already there, talking about the team and Beth's rehab. Beth was out for the summer league, but might make a comeback in the spring as a coach and part-time player. She had asked to appear in uniform for a game in Atlanta, and Coach T had agreed.

After some friendly chit-chat about Beth's rehabilitation and the start of school, Carol dared ask. "When is Joey leaving for the Arizona Fall League?"

"Soon as the Major League season ends, October," Beth said sadly. "I just can't go with him. I'm afraid it's over."

Carol shook her head sadly. "I'm truly sorry."

Beth was pensive. "I wish you luck whenever you fall in love. Him too. He's really a good guy, but he wasn't the guy for me. I don't know who is anymore, to tell you the truth."

Then the women started talking about the atmosphere on the team, which had decidedly loosened after Angela's abrupt departure. Coach Wilson, rather uncomfortable, made his excuses and left. Beth watched him go with sadness.

"That is a guy I probably care for more than any other man," she said. "I used to wonder whether I should have married him instead; now I'm glad I didn't. That really threw me when your mom and dad came in. Do you know he's going into the next Sheriff's Academy class?"

"No, I didn't!" Carol breathed. "That's where I'm headed after I get my degree."

Beth smiled. "Maybe you'll meet him on patrol. I did some checking up on your mom and dad, and I couldn't believe your mom met your dad when she got busted for carrying a gun in her car."

Carol sighed. "She's told me. Officer Pat Morrison, giving up a big-city job, making a complete break from her past life but still a cop through and through, except she forgot the traffic laws. She was actually on her way to apply for a job in Jacksonville, and once she saw this department she decided to stay. She just like totally turned her life around. I'd never thought of becoming a police officer before she came into my life."

"I heard that another high-ranking deputy, your dad's girlfriend, raised you from age eight to twelve. She was the one who took you to my games, wasn't she?"

"Aunt Linda? Yeah, I wondered for a while if she and Dad would get married ... it sure wasn't for lack of her loving us, I just got to realizing that ... that ..."

"She's gay?" Beth asked.

"Gay," Carol said in a low tone. "I could never really figure it out. I know she and my dad made love every chance they got and she really felt a lot for him, but she started feeling sad a lot later on. I didn't really figure it out until she and Cousin Sue got together. Sue knew what Aunt Linda really needed ... I guess she needed it herself. Sue told me some of what happened with her and Linda. I had a hard time understanding, except it meant everything to them both."

Beth was pensive. "Carol, I'm not going to lie to you. Women get turned on by women sometimes. I know at least six lez couples and a couple gay women who aren't attached. I've seen Tracy and I know she's turned on by you. I'm turned on by Sarah, for that matter. It's just as hard to explain as falling in love with a guy. You saying 'Aunt' Linda so much means that she never had all she wanted to feel for your dad, as much as she probably wanted to. If they'd married, they might still be together because they like each other, but she'd never get over her feelings and she'd get quieter and quieter and they'd just be friends who happened to live together. Joey and I have been like that for a long time."

Carol looked at Beth pleadingly. "I just don't feel anything for girls. I just ... couldn't, with you or any other girl."

Beth said: "I'm not asking you to. All I want from you is friendship. It's hard for me to make friends, and when you let me sit with you and stood up for Mary and Camille and me, that meant a lot. Besides, being with someone is scary as hell. You open your soul, the other person opens his or hers, and you leave a little piece behind each time, condoms or no condoms." She winked.

The two women chatted some more, and Carol got up to leave as Roger came back in with a cup of coffee for himself and some sort of health drink for Beth. Beth asked Carol a final question.

"Are you rooming with anybody on the Atlanta trip?"

Carol said not that she knew of.

"I've been to a nice hotel there with a couple of big double beds. I'm going to try to stay there. If you don't mind, and they book it, could I stay with you?"

Carol held her breath. But then a "Yes" came out.

*****

Carol had been to Orlando and some other vacation spots, but she was still amazed at Atlanta. The permanent population inside the city limits wasn't that big, maybe four hundred thousand people. But the metro area, and its millions of residents going to work in every imaginable field, made it look like the capital of the entire South. It was so far away that the team had flown by charter. What's more, they had been put up in the Peachtree Hotel, all seven hundred forty-eight feet of it, at a cost that would have flabbergasted anyone back home who actually

worked

for a living. She looked out her window at the skyline, which seemed to stretch forever as the city blended into the counties around it.

"Stop acting like a kid," Beth said from behind her. It was good-natured, though. Beth was on crutches but getting around pretty well. "If Joey makes the bigs, he'll get hotels like this, but after a while they won't mean diddly-squat."

"Who pays for all this?" Carol asked.

"Boosters," Beth said. "Coach T's partner has a lot of friends. When I got on the team and we started winning, a lot of those friends came to the games and opened their checkbooks. You'll meet Katherine Wheeler at dinner tonight with Coach T. She's actually a nice lady, I like her, but a lot of the people she runs with want a whole hell of a lot out of everybody, me especially. I used to run my ass off kissing up to some of those guys, and some of them really wanted me to kiss their asses and a whole lot more."

Carol shuddered. "Kind of like the 'you fix my kid's speeding ticket or I cut off funding for the civic center' kinds of guys?"

Beth nodded grimly. "Guys, women, big companies, small companies, all that. Katherine's been trying to set up a trust so we can just play the damn game and not worry about the money getting cut off. When I tore up my knee the first time, some of the boosters wanted to dump me in the gutter and piss on me because we weren't winning. You want to know why I'll do whatever Coach T asks? It's because she stood up to them and told them I stayed on scholarship as long as I behaved myself. Most coaches wouldn't have had a choice."

Carol was silent for a minute, lost in thought. Then she looked hard at Beth.

"Beth, forgive me for asking, but ... do you have a crush on Coach T?"

Beth looked at Carol angrily. Carol didn't flinch. Either Beth would answer or she would walk out. She finally did answer.

"Yes. Is it that obvious?"

Carol shook her head firmly. "No. I've just seen it with Sue and Aunt Linda, the feelings of wanting to be ... a family. They really care for each other."

Beth spoke softly. "Well, as far as that part goes, it's certainly true. But, I mean, your couple loves each other. Coach T loves Katherine and nobody else. I'm curious as hell to find out what real lovers do, because I'm tired of fucking without making love. I guess you feel the same way."

Carol nodded her head. "Do you still love Joey?"

Beth nodded her head vigorously. "I always will. It's just ... it's just that I always had problems with him having to struggle all the time to make it. I pushed him to get his degree and take courses in money management and all that, because you know guys ... they could sign a hundred million dollar contract and wind up

two

hundred million in the hole. I pushed him to take a job he hates because it was there. We fought so much that I don't think he can stand me a lot of the time. I know he loves me and we're both really sad, but it just isn't working. We've agreed to divorce next year."

Carol felt tears rise to her eyes. "I'm so sorry!"

Beth was crying too. "He needed someone else, someone who didn't always have her game face on. I look around and I see all these young women resenting me because I push so hard."

Carol spoke very softly. "Not all these young women."

Beth looked up. "Besides Coach T, I like you, and I like Sarah, and I like Melissa and Ariel, and I like Katherine, and ..." she stopped and looked at Carol. "Besides you, every woman I really like is attached to another woman. I wonder why I like them?"

Carol shrugged. "I'd bet you'd like Aunt Linda and Sue, for that matter. And you'd like my mom. She doesn't talk about it much, but one reason she moved away was because she broke up with

her

girlfriend. I think that's why she and Aunt Linda are such good friends, because Aunt Linda's been there before and Mom told her about her girlfriend, and Aunt Linda knew how to handle it. Both of them have told me what it's like to be in love with a guy, too. I'm hoping I'll fall in love with a guy, and that will be that."

Beth shook her head. "It's never that easy. I had four boyfriends before Joey, and each time I thought he was the one, and he wasn't. Thing is, none of them were bad in bed or anything. I just didn't feel anything with a couple of them and only a little bit of connection with another one. There's nothing worse than just letting your body say yes while your mind says 'Yeah, whatever.'"

Carol didn't want to dwell on that. "Who was the fourth one?"

Beth looked hard at Carol. "Roger was the fourth one. He'd never had sex in his life, and he still hasn't. He and I had a really good make-out session, and I looked in his eyes and he was scared to death he'd mess it up. He wanted it so bad and he wanted it from me, and I knew he'd be terrific, but he just wasn't ready. I just asked him to hold me until I fell asleep, and he did. We had a long talk after we woke up, and I told him he cared too much and he needed to relax and have fun, and I could tell he couldn't relax. He had to be in love with a woman before he'd do anything close to fucking, and I admired him and felt sorry for him all at once."

Carol looked at Beth, who had the same look in her eyes as when she talked to herself on the bus. She walked back to the window and looked out again.

Beth realized what she had said, and something else. "I saw your hanging bag in the closet. Did you bring a nice dress? We're all going to this sinfully elegant restaurant Katherine has a share in. Then it's an early curfew and we drive out to Emory University for practice four hours before game time. That place has almost as good a park as Turner Field."

"Sounds like you've made this trip before," Carol said as she snapped out of her reverie and went to the hanging bag. She took out the dress and held it up.

"Damn," Beth said, "that must be the best thing you have next to your prom dress. I have one dress that nice myself. You'd better iron it out on delicate, though. This room's got lots of devices for people to spruce up their clothes."

"I bet you look lovely in that dress," Carol said half to herself.

Beth's eyes shone. "Thank you."

*****

Carol DID look lovely in her dress. So did Beth. But they felt upstaged by Katherine Wheeler.

Katherine was about Coach T's age. The widow of an Atlanta business mogul who had worked himself into a fatal heart attack three years ago, she had recently packed the last of her children off to college. She was managing his corporations and the Butler College booster club. A long-ago roommate of Coach T, she had kept up with her in the quarter-century after graduation and had been the biggest softball booster of them all. Her wealth reportedly ran into nine figures, and not a short way.

Katherine dressed the part. Tailored suits during the day, elegant dresses and pantsuits in the evening. She was beautifully coiffed and made up. But she was no snob. She was incredibly gracious to the young women, particularly the new ones, many of whom had never been in a place this fancy before. She was especially solicitous about Mary and Camille, who had continued their off-and-on affair in the past weeks. They held hands and shook Katherine's with the vigor she encouraged, but they felt like party crashers in less-than-dressy clothing. To compensate, Katherine asked Beth if she and Carol could move down and let Mary and Camille sit closest to Katherine and Coach T. She made sure to direct her conversation equally among all of them, and was very complimentary to Carol for how she had been so nice to Beth.

But the graciousness hid something, and Coach T and Beth knew what. After the meal, Katherine and Coach T went into a huddle. They called Beth over after a while. Beth took what they had to say well, but she was stone-faced when she came back to the table.

It's here that the story divides into two simultaneous parts. Coach T climbed into Katherine's BMW and rode with her to a surprisingly modest suburban home. Carol and Beth went out to the bus. Beth made it up the steps, went to the last seat in the bus, and asked Carol to sit beside her. That was the last thing Beth said until she and Carol were back in the hotel room, over forty minutes later.

By that time, Coach T and Katherine had undressed, taken quick showers and put on fluffy full-length bathrobes. They moved into Katherine's bedroom and lay down on the bed. Katherine moved so Coach T was in her arms. They just lay there for a long while.

Katherine gave Tawny ... to use the name only Katherine used ... a gentle, motherly kiss on the lips. Tawny kissed back. She felt terribly sad.

"Do you feel up to this?" Katherine asked.

"Baby, I feel up to everything you do. But I'm really worried I'll be living with you for a while."

Katherine pulled back and raised herself on one arm. "There's no way they can fire you for something you never knew about."

Tawny said: "'They' can make my life a living hell until I resign. I got a call from the

Atlanta Journal and Constitution

just before I left for the airport. Scandal in the Swamp was the title of a proposed headline. They'll say half the team is gay and the other half are whores; they'll say we cheated; they'll go through every recruiting tool I used, they'll go DEEP into my sex life. I'm really afraid you'll get tarred by the good ol' boy brush."

Katherine gave Tawny a deep soul kiss. She pulled back. "That's how much I care about having my 'dykeism' exposed. And as far as the 'good ol' boy' thing, I've fought off the good ol' boys for a damn long time and they haven't gotten to me yet. I would love to have your ass in my bed to kiss and love every day, but I want your ass to be behind you doing a job that you love, and I don't care where you have to go to get it."

"That may be tough," Tawny said matter-of-factly. "Especially when it involves–"

"Steroids," Beth said at that very moment. Beth looked like she had been raped.

Carol stared at her unlikely friend. A lot of questions ran through her mind, and she dismissed most as inappropriate. But she figured she had to say something.

"When did you start taking them?"

"When my first boyfriend, a football jock in high school, offered me some of his," Beth replied through clenched teeth. "Among other things, they got him super-horny and he figured they'd turn me on too. It was one hell of a good fuck all right, but it wasn't the steroids for me, it was because he just kept on going and going. Even after I got tired and sore, he still begged for more. My mouth, my pussy and my hand hurt for days."

Carol tried to digest this. "Did you continue taking them ... because of him?"

"Sort of," Beth said. "I really thought that if I got bigger and stronger, I'd be able to go through those marathon fuck sessions. Plus, I figured it couldn't hurt if I could throw a softball better than ANYBODY else. So after we broke up, I got phony prescriptions from his supplier and kept on using them. Plus, I had an extra growth spurt and went up another four inches, I don't know why. Being that tall, people just expected me to be strong, and nobody really asked why."

"Did anybody find out ..." Carol thought how stupid that sounded, so she added: "I mean, did Coach T or anybody know and keep quiet about it?"

We now go back to Katherine's bedroom, where she was hugging Tawny close. Tawny had her face burrowed into Katherine's robe. It felt so good that she didn't want to pull her face out and speak, but her lungs dictated otherwise.