Message-ID: <45709asstr$1070572208@assm.asstr-mirror.org> X-Originating-Email: [revcottonmather@hotmail.com] From: "Rev. Cotton Mather" X-Original-Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 04 Dec 2003 17:49:55.0324 (UTC) FILETIME=[06C613C0:01C3BA8F] X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 11:49:53 -0600 Subject: {ASSM} NEW Playing the Game III: The Competitive Edge, Ch. 13 Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 16:10:08 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, hoisingr Thank you for your patience over the holiday. Here, at long last, is Chapter 13. Enjoy! RCM Rev. Cotton Mather Senior Pastor, Church of the Erotic Redemption http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/ReverendCottonMather/www http://www.storiesonline.net **If I had to do it all over, I'd do it all over you** _________________________________________________________________ Shop online for kids' toys by age group, price range, and toy category at MSN Shopping. No waiting for a clerk to help you! http://shopping.msn.com <1st attachment, "CE13.txt" begin> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the Church of The Reverend Cotton Mather. This story is the sole property of the author, and may not be copied or downloaded for the intent of profit. Permission is freely given for anyone to download or copy for their personal pleasure or use, as long as there is no intent to charge money or barter for the privilege of acquiring this material. (copyright 2003, Rev. Cotton Mather) E-Mail all comments to RevCottonMather at hotmail dot com Don't be shy! I enjoy hearing from you. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE COMPETITIVE EDGE: PLAYING THE GAME, BOOK III by Reverend Cotton Mather - 13 - CAUSE AND EFFECT The shit really hit the fan on Wednesday after Homecoming. Fortunately, it was blowing in a different direction than at me. Westy and Jason, along with everybody else from their pledge class, got summoned to their fraternity house that evening after dinner. They left the dorm thinking it was just another pledge hazing, joking a little and complaining about the short notice. They returned to their rooms three hours later pale, very quiet, and still sweating. I watched Westy rummaging around his desk, but he wasn't really looking for anything. He was just fidgeting. "Westy, what's up?" I asked. He glanced over his shoulder at me. "Nothing, dude. Just forget about it, okay?" "Well, it's obvious something's fucked up your head, man. Don't forget I've got to live in this room, too, so why don't you tell me what's happening?" I persisted. He sighed and shuffled over to the couch and tumbled down into it, throwing his knee over the arm and leaning back to rest his head on the back cushion. "I fucked up, Sean," he said quietly. "You know that party last weekend? Friday?" I nodded. "Where I saw you and Jason with your dates," I said. I was straddled across my desk chair, and I rested my chin on my hands on the back of the chair, ready to listen to his story. He snorted. "Yeah. What a hairball that date turned out to be." He shook his head at the memory. "What's the matter? Didn't get lucky?" I probably shouldn't have said it, but he deserved anything that was coming down the tube at him. He gave a short, humorless bray of derisive laughter. "Not with what's-her-face." "Angelina," I reminded him. "Yeah. Angelina. Big tits, high morals, dried-up cunt." He shook his head as he remembered that night. "What a fuckin' waste of time and money she turned out to be. Couldn't even get a fucking handjob out of her. What a cunt." "So, she's your problem here?" "What? Angelina? No, man, what gave you that idea? She just wouldn't give it up, is all." "So what's got you all fucked up tonight, then?" This conversation was getting irritating. I was fast losing what little sympathy I had started with toward Westy. "Ah, it was that other shit from that night," he said, now a little hesitant. "At the party?" I prompted. "Yeah, that night at the party. Anyway, I saw a girl there I'd been out with before, you know?" "A girl you'd been out with before? Or one of your one-night boinks?" He smiled, a flash of the old arrogant Westy again. "It's all the same thing, Porter." "Maybe to you," I said disgustedly. "Okay, so you saw her at the party." "Her name was Amy. Shit, when I did her a couple of weeks ago I thought she was a fucking tramp, but I didn't think I would ever run into her again." He looked a little puzzled for a moment. "What do they call it when something odd happens to you, like something appears out of your past?" "Serendipity? Or do you mean deja vu?" "Yeah, serendipity, I think that's it." Westy settled in and continued. "I thought it was, like, serendipity, when I saw her at that party. I was a little buzzed, you know? And my fuckin' date was getting more and more uptight as the night went on, and I had the feeling I was gonna be shut out on nooky." He gave me another glimpse of that Westy grin I had come to despise. "Can't have a Friday night without a little action, you know." "Yeah, right. My heart's bleedin' for you. So you ran into one of your old squeezes." I tried to get him back on track. I was really regretting offering a sympathetic ear. "Man, where do you come up with this shit? An old squeeze. Is this all part of those sappy Midwestern values you've been saddled with?" I stood up. "Fuck you, Westy. I'm here trying to give you a hand, and all you've got for me are insults?" He sat up straighter, and actually managed to look apologetic. "Ah, shit, Porter, I'm sorry. You're right, I'm an asshole." I sat back down, albeit reluctantly. "Get back to the party, then. I'm assuming this is all leading somewhere?" His look turned sour and introspective again. "Yeah, sorry. It'll all come around in a minute, you'll see. Anyway, Amy was at the party, hanging all over Arthur Burns - he's one of the Sig Tau brothers who live in that apartment, you know?" One of Jeremy Peters' roommates. "Okay," I said. I motioned for him to go on. "Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a knot," he said, a little roughly. He slumped back down on the couch and squirmed around to get comfortable. "Amy was there, I think she was stoned to the max, and I was buzzed and horny, like I said, so I got this crazy idea. I cornered her one time when Angelina and Kitten were in line for the can, and I sweet-talked her into a quickie. We couldn't use the bedrooms, because we'd have had to pass by the line waiting to use the john, and Angelina would have spotted me, so we snuck downstairs and found a blanket in the back yard." I knew where this was heading. It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion, fascinating and morbid, but still irresistible. "She peeled off her panties in about record time, Sean, it was really something." He smiled again at the recollection, and then remembered the consequences, and he sobered up quickly. "Anyway, she was laying there spread wide, so I dropped my own shorts, hopped on, and rammed home. When I climbed off her, Jason was there, watching, so I asked him if he wanted a ride. Amy wasn't particular, so he just pulled his dick out and hopped into the saddle for sloppy seconds." "Yuck," I said. "What's the matter, Porter? Never had sloppy seconds?" His lip curled. "Wait'll you try sloppy sixths or sevenths, dude." "Ain't never gonna happen, Bridges. Skip the gory details, okay? Then what happened?" "Got a weak stomach, Porter?" He saw the look on my face, and his own expression was hard. "Yeah, I know, I'm a degenerate. So what?" "Hey, what you do on your own time is your own business," I said. "You want to be an asshole, go right ahead." "I may be an asshole sometimes, but at least I'm not crying every night because I'm young, dumb and full of cum," he said with a knowing smirk. "Nope, you're not," I said tightly. "You're just hanging on at the frat house by your fingertips. What happened with the girl in the back yard?" He sat up a little straighter. "Okay, anyway, so while Jason's taking his turn with her, getting his rocks off, I run back upstairs and let a few of my pledge buddies know what's going down, and there's a line forming to the right. I figure I'd better get back in there before Amy gets too loose and squishy to be any good, so I do her a second time, and Jason hops back on, and by the time she had done everybody in line, that bitch had taken about twenty loads, and she was still on her back, squirming around and moaning for more." "Jesus Christ, that's disgusting," I muttered. "Yeah, it is," Westy said, almost happily. "Best damn night in this rathole of a college yet." "For Chrissakes, Westy," I said. He waved me off. "Anyway, the upshot of it all is that Kitten caught Jason with his fly open, put two and two together, and flew off the handle. She told Angelina about it, and that was all she wrote. Angelina took off, Kitten grabbed Jason and dragged him off to look for her, so I had no choice but to tag along." The memory of that part of the night wasn't very pleasant, apparently, because his expression was dour again. "So, I found out later somebody found Amy wandering around dripping cum all over the floor, and then Arthur and Jeremy and some of the other brothers started asking her about what had happened, and they found out about my involvement in it all..." He paused, clearly uncomfortable about telling this part of the story. It figures, I thought. Consequences just aren't something an asshole like Westy would consider before jumping in on something. "And?" I, on the other hand, was looking forward to listening to him confess about the aftermath. "And so tonight the brothers called the entire pledge class over to the house, and they really reamed us out. Me and Jason really got hammered, not only by the brothers, but by the other guys in our pledge class, too. Shit!" Westy pounded his fist on the arm of the couch. "It's not like they weren't willing to take their turn at her, and yet it's like they're blaming me for getting them in trouble!" "The thankless bastards," I said facetiously. Westy glanced at me, wondering if I was serious. The look on my face must have told him I wasn't. "All right, so maybe it was kind of my fault," he grudgingly admitted. "Even so..." "So how much trouble are you in with the fraternity?" "On probation," he spat. "Jason, too. We ain't got no freedom at all. Starting tonight, the two of us have to spend every spare minute either at the fraternity house, or in the company of a designated brother. Homework gets done there, and they're going to check it to make sure it's done right. If I gotta go to the library, somebody will go with me. I can't hardly go to the can by myself, for Chrissake." "So you're not going to be around here very much," I said. Inwardly I was smiling, though I was careful to not let it show on my face. Things were looking up. "Just to sleep," he said. "From now until the end of the semester." "Well," I observed, "it ought to keep you from finding mischief." "It'll do that," he agreed. "Besides that, training for the swim team began this week. I ain't gonna have energy to go sniffing poontang during the week, anyway." "You really have a way with words," I said sourly. I felt like I needed to take a shower, and that was just from talking to Westy. He got up and started rummaging around again. If he was looking for a conscience, he wasn't going to find it in his dresser drawers, I thought to myself. I did manage to keep my mouth shut, though, even when he turned to me a little expectantly. Was he looking for absolution? Understanding? He wouldn't find it with me. No way was I going to shake his hand. I almost looked around the room to see if there was a ten-foot pole handy, just so I could say I wouldn't touch him with it. I suddenly felt the urge to call Reggie to see if she wanted to meet me for coffee or something. I needed to talk to somebody sane, so I could rinse the Westy taint from my psyche. I waited, watching as Westy packed up his backpack with books so he could study at the fraternity house. He left a few minutes later, still grumbling under his breath. He left our door open and stepped across the hall to pound on Jason's door. Music was floating down the hall from several rooms, so I didn't hear them leave, but I was sure they had plenty to talk to each other about as they walked over to the Sig Tau house to begin their probation. ___________________________________________________________________ Despite my feeling at that moment to call her, I resisted. I tried to concentrate on my own homework that evening, and for the next couple of weeks after Homecoming I tried to cool down my association with Reggie just a little. Beer is a wonderful relaxing beverage, but I had learned that both she and I were prone to being more... attentive when under its influence, and in this instance, attentiveness was not what we needed. We still went out on the weekends together, but we were both trying to fit back into the molds we had originally made for ourselves. Guilt, even implied guilt of the soul, can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. Even so, on our Saturday all-day bus ride up to the tournament in Washington, D.C., I found myself thinking about Reggie. It was a little dismaying when I finally recognized the truth I had been avoiding for a long time: I already missed her, and I had only been away from her for about eight hours, having spent most of Friday night with her at another party, this one at Jesse and Bryan's apartment. Christ, Porter, Reggie isn't the girl you're supposed to be missing. What is wrong with you? Which brought me to another naked truth: I had been away from Kayla for so long, I barely missed her anymore. This truth, instead of setting me free, only made me sadder. That was not what I wanted, and I knew it was not what Reggie wanted, either. It was just another tangled knot my clumsy fingers would never be able to untie. I wandered up and down the aisle of the bus, stopping to talk to friends, hoping to find a conversation that was involved enough to yank me out of my melancholy, but all I could achieve was a temporary salve to my nagging conscience. I decided the only way to purge myself was to write a long letter to Kayla, so I propped myself up against a window toward the back of the bus and pulled a notebook of lined paper out of my pack. I rummaged around until I found a pen, propped my biology textbook on my knees, and began to laboriously put together some coherent sentences. As I began writing about the mundane events of my college life, I deliberately left out any mention of Reggie, describing instead the recent hard life of my roommate, tales of Jesse and Brittany, and moaning about my continued bad luck playing gin against Spencer Goldman. A couple of hours later, I discovered I was in a much better mood. The combination of concentrating on my task and knowing I was writing to my girl back home created a surprisingly welcome ache. I wanted to see her, to touch her, to talk to her so badly it was nearly a physical feeling. When I realized what it was, though, I embraced the wanting and the emptiness. It was Kayla, just as it had nearly always been Kayla. I was almost happy in my misery, having rediscovered that which had been missing. I signed off on my letter, folded it carefully, and put it back in my pack. I settled back, crossed my arms, and let my head fall back, ready for a nap. With luck I would dream of my white-haired angel, I thought lazily as I drifted off. ____________________________________________________________________ I wasn't quite that lucky. No dreams of Kayla, or of any girl, for that matter. I did manage to sleep for a couple hundred boring miles, but then I was up again, and faced with another choice: study or try to win back some of my money from Goldman. I opted to play cards, and we acquired an audience of equally bored teammates as we battled for four-suited supremacy. For once, I walked away a winner, if only by a slim margin. Spencer was happy to mark down the fact that I outpointed him in this particular contest. He was undeterred, and with good reason, knowing as well as I that he would recoup this loss another time. The bus pulled in to the Capitol Hotel, our home away from home for the next week, after dark. We were all anxious to get off the bus and put our feet back on solid ground again, and we piled off the bus and stood around as Eddie and our driver crawled into the storage space beneath the coach and started sliding our individual gear bags and suitcases out. I grabbed my stuff and lugged it into the hotel lobby, where Pick was stationed. He doled out room keys to the designated holders as we checked in. Pick had decided on who was staying with whom, and he elected to spread everybody out. Instead of rooming with Spencer, Bryan, or Jesse, the teammates I was closest friends with, I was in a double with Luke Severin. Luke and I had hung around together on occasion, and neither of us had a problem with it. We could live together for a week without getting on each other's nerves, I knew. We all stowed our gear in our rooms, and then met in a reserved room in the restaurant for a late dinner. By the time the soup arrived, I was ready to nod off, thinking longingly of stretching out between nice, cool sheets. Everybody else looked as wiped out as I felt. We finished up our meal and called it a night. We had our first practice scheduled for the next morning. Our bus was waiting for us after we finished a light breakfast, and we rode over to one of the practice fields at Georgetown University. We started slowly, walking three laps around the field, and then broke into an easy jog for three more laps. We stopped and stretched while Pick, Eddie, Stan Harvard, and Marv Allison, our equipment manager, got our practice balls and jerseys out and ready. We broke out into our Alpha and Omega practice teams and took the field. Pick gave us some final instructions, and we spent the next hour working. By this time I was just as comfortable in midfield as I had ever been in my typical defensive position. Pick still started me every game in my right back spot, but during every scrimmage I played up. I moved over to the center, switching with Max, so often that we hardly had to communicate about the switch anymore. He would see me start to move, and he would angle over to cover my territory, practically on instinct. Sometimes we would switch because of the movement of the ball or the positioning of an opposing player, and sometimes we would switch simply because of a gut feeling I might have. Either way, our switch nearly always rippled through both teams. Cause and effect: when Alpha and Omega saw Max and me move, adjustments were made all up and down the field. Perhaps an Alpha back turned and passed to a player other than his original intended target, or maybe a forward sidestepped and changed direction. It wasn't long before these changes in tactic became evident to all my teammates. The biggest change, though, occurred early on in our practice sessions when Max and I shifted. My Omega teammates, watching what we were doing, became much more fluid in their coverages. The willingness to change up or back, as well as side to side, made our scrimmage team a lot more versatile, and we covered the ball much better. Sometimes, especially during the early learning phase, we found ourselves bunching up, but shouted instructions from the captains up and back usually corrected it. Alpha was having a much harder time creating space and moving the ball into a quality scoring position. Alpha Team was also observant, however, and they very quickly adapted, especially when they saw Max and me shift. They, too, began to utilize speed and slippery coverages, adjusting to Omega's changes. Ehrlinger and Porter were the triggers, it seemed, and the ripple effect spread through both scrimmage teams. Once the positions taken up by Alpha became as changeable as Omega's, the complexion of the entire Gator team changed. No longer could another team concentrate on Jesse Wilhoit attacking from the middle, or Frenchy defending on the left. Anymore, Jesse could very well be handling midfield duties from the left or the right, and Frenchy could be found up and in the middle right next to Jesse. It played hell with other teams' scouting reports on us, I was sure, a fact that no doubt tickled Pick. He just stood on the sidelines with Stan, looking like he had swallowed a canary, as he watched his team transform on the field. We finished up our practice and got back on the bus. We had another short practice scheduled for the afternoon, and our first game, against George Mason University, was the next afternoon. Our practice in the afternoon consisted mainly of shooting and passing drills, enough to put the ball on our feet but not enough to feel like we were working ourselves to death. We finished up with a two- mile run around the practice fields and the stadium. Just for kicks we took practice balls with us and played passing games among us, working on keeping the ball in the air as we ran. It was good practice, and it made running miles more fun as we did our laps. After we got back to the hotel and had showered, I called the hotel where the South Carolina team was staying and talked to my old buddy from home, Trent Abbott. He had called me a few days before to let me know where they were staying during the tournament, and we wanted to get together with Eric Johnson, who was staying in his dorm on campus at the University of Maryland. I got permission from Pick for Jesse and me to leave the hotel for the evening, and we took a cab over to Trent's hotel. From there we all took the cab out to College Park, so we could meet Eric at a pizza joint just off campus. When we arrived at the restaurant, a local dive called Charlie's, the three of us tumbled out of the cab and raced each other into the dim interior. I spotted Eric sitting in a booth against the wall. He saw me at about the same time, and stood up as we approached. "Porter, Goddamn, it's good to see you," he said, holding out his hand. I didn't bother shaking it, but instead I stepped in to him and wrapped him up in a big bear hug. "You're even uglier than I remember you," I said, my voice a little husky. "You always did have poor eyesight," he retorted. He patted my back as we hugged. We finally broke apart, and Eric shook Jesse's hand. "You keepin' this young one in line?" he asked. "You have no idea what a pain in the ass he can be sometimes," said Jesse. "Just ask his good friend Frenchy when you meet him." Jesse and I had a good laugh over that one, and ended up explaining a little about my history with Frenchy to Eric and Trent. "Sounds like he could out-weasel Weasel," said Trent. "Weasel had redeeming qualities," I said. "Frenchy hasn't really shown any as yet." "He's a helluva player, though, you've got to admit," Jesse reminded me. "Yes, he is, and he'll be glad to show you when you run into him, pal." I pointed to Eric, who would no doubt be faced up against him if we played each other later in the tournament. "Sounds like fun," he said. "Coach has been working on my takeoffs and my sprinting speed. Sounds like the kind of matchup I can test myself against." "Jesus, you mean you're even faster than you were last year?" I asked. Eric just smiled, which was confirmation enough for me. "Well, I hope it isn't us who lights the fire on you," said Jesse. "Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about it," offered Trent. "Once he's got a ball to worry about, it slows him up something considerable." Even Eric had to laugh at that. The four of us spent most of that evening in a sausage-and-cheese pizza extravaganza, catching up on college life for each of us. We bragged about our teams, laughed over some of our teammates (of course, tales of Frenchy were a big hit with Trent and Eric), and brought each other up to date with news of home. I asked Trent about his girlfriend, Danielle Nickerson, and he told us they were moving into an apartment together next year. They didn't want Danielle's parents to find out about it quite yet, so he asked us to keep the news to ourselves until they could break it to her parents over Christmas. Eric, in turn, said that he and Keisha had been having some problems, and I probably wouldn't see her this week. Something didn't ring true, but he was so reticent to talk about it I didn't press him. In short order, though, we were back to being the three amigos once again, goofing off and carrying on almost like high school. Jesse hung back just a little, content to let the three of us be ourselves for the evening, smiling at us and laughing with us. Perhaps he was remembering his own high school friends, also, as he watched our interplay. Almost before we knew it, it was time for the three of us to head back to our hotels. It was nearly midnight, early for college kids, but we still had a curfew to obey. We promised to catch up with Eric during the week at the tournament. I really wanted to watch Maryland play, not only to see Eric on the field once again, but to scout out a potential opponent. I was also planning on watching Trent's team play the next day, since they were taking the field against Kentucky right after our game. Eric stayed with us outside the restaurant until the cab came. Jesse, Trent and I tumbled into the back seat, shouting out to our friend as he turned and, with a final wave, walked off into the darkness, back toward campus. We dropped Trent off at his hotel, and finally made it back to the Capitol, just making our curfew. Luke was already asleep in our room, so I undressed in the dark so I wouldn't disturb him. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, turned out the bathroom light and stumbled in the dark, stubbing my toe against the bed frame before finally climbing into my own bed. I sent out a silent prayer to Kayla, and then rolled over onto my side. Tomorrow was the first tournament day, and I was looking forward to the week. (Continued in Chapter 14) <1st attachment end> ----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------ Notice: This post has been modified from its original format. 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