40. Fast Pitch Ballin'
Friday Mid-Day
Following their meeting the evening before, Cassie had invited Miguel and Dana to spend the night with her again. For a change of pace, they had enjoyed a much more leisurely and relaxed bout of lovemaking than in the past. Partly this was because they all felt a need for closeness and comfort that they couldn't quite verbally express, related to their fears about the device and how it could change people. They also needed to be more careful about Miguel's antlers. Prior to the intervention that made him accept that they were new they had all subconsciously known how to deal with the bony protrusions, but thinking about them ironically made them harder to cope with. Fortunately, other than some damage to the walls and pillows, the trio had been able to work around the issue.
Dana and Miguel had decided to spend Friday morning scouting out new apartments, just in case their current housing issues proved irreconcilable. While dealing with their hygiene needs, Dana had confessed to Cassie that she didn't know if she was truly ready to try living with Miguel, but that their group relationship the last few weeks at least made it seem less than completely crazy. Cassie had given her a hug and told the girl she believed that things would work out fine in the end.
Ruminating on Miguel and Dana's situation did not seem to be a winning strategy at softball practice, unfortunately. Cassie's eyes squinted shut as a ball bounced off her forehead for the third time that morning. "Fuckin' ouch!" she cried, more angry and embarrassed than actually hurt.
"Oh, poor baby!" teased Salalai as she jogged over to retrieve the errant ball. "Did you get a boo-boo? Do you need me to kiss it and make it better?" Before Cassie could respond, the other young woman stretched up on her toes and planted a loud, theatrical smooch on the redhead's temple. Cassie's breath hitched and her nipples crinkled. She and Sally had been flirting with one another more heavily every practice since the sunscreen incident, although neither seemed sure whether they wanted to take things further.
"Stop goofing around, ladies!" yelled Coach Lehman. "If I see any more displays like that you'll spend the rest of practice running laps!"
"Yes, coach!" the girls shouted in unison, quickly moving apart again to continue their drills. Salalai's kiss had at least successfully distracted Cassie from dwelling on the situation with her lovers, although it didn't really help her concentration in an absolute sense. A few minutes later the ball glanced off of Cassie's glove and struck her in the head again.
"Piss-drinking son of a whore!" yelled Cassandra, stamping her feet in anger as she massaged her increasingly sore noggin. Salalai and several other girls burst out laughing in response.
The offending ball had rolled over to their teammate Shanice, who kicked it back toward the irritated girl, teasing her by saying, "Try not to trip on that!" Cassie scooped the ball up and flipped the girl off for good measure. She lobbed it back to Sally with some vengeance and gritted her teeth, prepared to give the drills her full attention from there on out.
Salalai's return throw arced high into the air, which was strange since they weren't working on catching fly balls at the moment. Cassie squinted to keep her eyes focused on it, but peripherally detected Sally doing something odd. She chanced a glance down to her partner and saw that she had raised her shirt to her neck, exposing her lean, honey-colored belly with its hint of abs. Furthermore, the sports bra Sally was wearing didn't completely conceal the dark rings around her slightly pokey nipples. The softball landed squarely on top of Cassie's head as she gawked at her teammate.
"Butt-fucking spunk-guzzler!" screamed Cassie. Several of the other girls, Salalai included, fell to the ground laughing, either at Cassie's clumsiness or her colorful metaphors.
"Goddammit, that's enough of that!" yelled Coach Lehman. "Ryan! Nionee! Start doing laps! Don't stop until I say so!"
Cassie groaned and tossed her glove on her gym bag as she jogged toward the track that surrounded the ball field. Salalai, struggling to get control of her laughter, followed closely behind. "I hope you're happy, bitch!" Cassie pouted.
"Hey, you've got no room to complain," chuckled Sally. "You and your big, freckled melons bounce around all morning begging for attention, but you can't even cope with seeing some other girl's tits in a bra? Cry me a river!"
"Ugh! Whatever!" Cassie reluctantly conceded. Getting a coy smile, she then said, "Maybe if you spent more time topless I wouldn't have been so shocked." Salalai's cheeks got brighter and she winked in response. Before they could resume their verbal sparring, however, both girls pitched forward unexpectedly into a soggy, muddy hole they hadn't noticed.
The grass was still dotted with sporadic small puddles from an overnight rainstorm, which made it unfortunately easy to overlook the suspiciously large number of such pools localized in one area. It just so happened that a water pipe that ordinarily fed the sprinklers had ruptured, resulting in a sodden mess concealed under the sod that carpeted the outfield the girls were jogging through. The thin skin of greenery yielded to their weight and they both toppled into a much larger mudhole than they would have imagined.
"Goddamn cunt-slapping slut-burger!" Cassie bellowed in rage, and this time Sally didn't laugh at her, although everyone else did, including the coach.
