Girls Who Score Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  CHAIRS

  BLOOD LUST

  A GOOD WORKOUT

  LUCKY NUMBER THREE

  GIVE AND GO

  PLAYING THE FIELD

  NO, TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL

  RUN, JO, RUN

  BOOT CAMP

  FACING THE MUSIC

  OUT AND A BOUT

  THE OUTSIDE EDGE

  HAIL MARY

  Love

  Fifteen

  Deuce

  Thirty

  Forty

  Game Point

  Love. Again.

  GODDESS IN A RED-AND-BLUE SPEEDO

  CYMONE’S DOMINATRIX

  GAME OVER

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  Copyright Page

  INTRODUCTION

  Possessing an intimate knowledge of what makes writers tick (being one myself), I shouldn’t have been caught off guard when the submissions for this anthology started coming in. See, when the idea for Girls Who Score was first conceived, its muse was not an ethereal, willowy goddess with a name like Polyhymnia or Terpsichore, but she was a goddess all the same: the very traditional (and some might say very cliché) sporty dyke.

  You may call her by another name, but in my city, in my social circles, that is what she is commonly referred to as. And although the moniker you have applied to her kind may differ, you know her just as well as I do. She was the catcher on your high school’s softball team—the one you would catch staring at you with a shy smile in your second-period biology class. She was the tall, tough basketball player who strutted her way through your college campus—the one whose shorts seemed always about to fall off—and oh, how you wished they would. The long and lean track star, the short and muscular soccer player—their silhouettes are what ran through my head like so many ESPN clips as I thought, The sporty dyke deserves some credit.

  Because, in real life, she rarely gets the credit she deserves. I hear some WNBA teams are still around, but in my hometown, the Sol only lasted about as long as a relationship built on a one-night stand. And although some professional female competitors, such as Olympic athletes and professional golfers, have the option of a career, my cliché girls, my traditional girls, could never make a living playing a sport such as football, basketball or baseball. In fact, women aren’t even supposed to play baseball—they play softball.

  Even though they may not get a lot of action on the field after high school and college, they always manage to see a lot of action off the field. Because female athletes have an easy confidence about them, a natural nonchalance and usually a killer bod that draws all kinds of women to them—straight, lesbian, bisexual, curious, questioning, you name it.

  Alas, as I delved into the nature (and killer bod) of the sporty dyke, I somehow managed to get lost in my thoughts. What was I talking about? Oh yes, writers. As I was saying, when I started receiving stories about yoga instructors and roller derby enthusiasts, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Women are competitive by nature, whether they play sports or games. Women play hard and love harder. They don’t just score—they keep track. So as I read story after story of complex, intriguing women engaging in all kinds of, ahem, contact sports, I realized that girls who score aren’t always playing ball, so to speak. After all, scuba divers and gym bunnies are in fact athletes, and writers are very… creative. Yes—creative and inspiring.

  So inspiring in fact, that “Lucky Number Three,” Beth Wylde’s story about a hockey player who gives her all during the championship game—both on the ice and in the locker room— reminded me of the fact that women even played hockey (I chalk my lapse in memory up to the fact that I live in a tropical climate where hockey is just an afterthought).

  Sinclair Sexsmith, who has forever redefined the term gym bunny for me, knocked my calf-length tube socks off with “A Good Workout.” Not only does the story involve a pairing that I find both rare and almost unbearably hot, but the description of their “workout” lingers long after you turn the last page.

  “Give and Go,” by Anna Watson, really hits home with its realism. I have always been fond of Watson’s work, but this story particularly touched me because I can sympathize with the main character about how hard it is to find the time to fuck your wife between running errands, running children and running away from deadlines (be they work or otherwise). “Give and Go” also touches on the sobering (and titillating) reality of being a lone dyke in a locker room full of naked, “straight” girls.

  The characters in Kiki DeLovely’s story, “Facing the Music,” don’t have to worry about kids, chores or any of that mundane nonsense. They can (and do) get it on just about anytime, anywhere. JT Langdon’s “Boot Camp” reminds us that a little motivation goes a long way, and the characters in Delilah Devlin’s “Playing the Field” are so devilishly endearing that I wish I could call upon some Disney magic to turn them into real live girls.

  “Hail Mary,” by Shanna Germain, resonates with me because it serves as the standard by which all “serious” erotica should be judged. Erotica can take many forms, from the purely entertaining fluff piece designed to push you over the edge, to the poignant literary masterpiece that also contains some smoldering sex scenes. The only common denominator is (or should be) eroticism. There needs to be some sweet sex, some scandalous sexual tension—something sexy somewhere in the story. And although I love whimsical, entertaining erotica, I get an electrical charge out of reading a really great story that happens to have sex in it. “Hail Mary” is that story.

  Although some of the stories in this anthology are not what I was expecting when I started on this journey, they’re all stories that alternately moved me or made me laugh. And perhaps more importantly, they all made me feel the need to “hit the showers.”

  ily goyanes

  Miami, Florida

  CHAIRS

  Sommer Marsden

  What’s the problem, Bowmen?” Chevy darted to my left and intercepted the basketball like a bear plucking a salmon from a river. She moved like some sleek and predatory animal.

  I moved like I had concrete blocks strapped to my feet.

  This is what happens when you like your phys ed instructor and actually listen to her natural talent speech, and her insistence that even in college, extracurricular looks good on your record.

  “Nothing,” I mutter and move back and out of the way of the very aggressive girl from the opposing team.

  “Hustle,” Chevy shouts, and then she’s moving. Toward our basket, toward a score. Away from me.

  My legs feel like Jell-O and soft bread, but I run anyway. At least I can look like I know what I’m doing.

  I hate basketball, have I said?

  “You need to get on the ball out there, Bowmen. So to speak.” Chevy laughs at her own joke and winks.

  My insides turn to warm goo and dirty thoughts. “Sorry,” I mutter.

  The remainder of the team is showered and filing out of the locker room. I don’t know where Chevy’s gone, but after the game—the one that we barely won and only thanks to her—I find myself a big, cold soda; sit on the cool, stained tile floor and drink it slowly while my skin cools.

  “You need to strengthen up those thigh muscles. You move like a marionette with only half her strings.” She pulls her long yellow hair from a band, and her eyes—gray like the ocean before a storm—settle on me. “You know, tighten up.”

  I nod, my tongue a useless thing lying in my mouth. I can never speak to her when I look directly at her. She makes all of me tremble with a bizarre mix of want and anticipation.

  She cocks her head. “Are you listening?”

  “Y-yes,” I say.

/>   “I can help you.”

  Now, I’m curious. And terrified. Chevy—short for Chevron—is not the kind to take excuses or extend pity. If she helps me it will be by bending me to her will. And when that thought crosses my mind, my nipples grow hard inside my sweaty team shirt.

  She takes three big steps toward me and without thinking, I press my back to the lockers. I can’t seem to breathe, and I’d give my right arm for a long hot shower before she gets too close. Surely I smell. Somehow she never does—at least not to me—she just always smells like Chevy. Cotton, a little sweat, coconut shampoo and rubber from her tennis shoes.

  “Would you like that, Bowmen?” she asks, brushing a lock of my sweaty brown hair off my shoulder.

  She is the only person in the world who calls me Bowmen instead of Andrea or Andi. But I let her because it’s like a secret nickname. Just one that everyone hears her use.

  “Sure,” I wheeze, and she laughs. It’s more of a dark chuckle, but she nods, removes her shirt with a one-handed, over-the-head grab and tosses it in the hamper. “Shower up. Lesson one in ten.”

  And then she’s gone into the cavernous echoing room that is shower room one. I strip and hurry into shower room two, hoping that no one is in there, hoping that I can just catch my breath. And think. And breathe.

  It only seems like I have time enough to wash my hair before I hear Chevy yelling, “Well? Are you coming or what, Bowmen?”

  I squeeze out my hair and wrap myself in the towel that is more like a washcloth. “Sorry, I must have lost track of time and I—” I move to rush past her but she clotheslines me. Not hard enough to hurt me, just hard enough that I bounce back and slow down.

  “Where you going so fast, Andi?”

  When she calls me Andi a slow, warm slide of fluid issues from me. I blush because I have no panties on to impede its progress. I have nothing to cover me but a school-issued towel that could be a tea towel for all of its ability to conceal.

  “To get dressed?”

  I hold my breath, listen. We are alone here. The only ones who remain after the game. This both terrifies and thrills me.

  “Nah. I think we’re good. This won’t take long. Your legs are weak. I’ll show you how to do chairs.”

  Chairs? That doesn’t sound so bad.

  “Some people call them wall squats, but because of my golden rule for thigh strengthening, we’ll call them chairs.”

  “Why?” I manage, as she pushes me to a section of pale yellow cinder-block wall. She pushes her hands down hard on my shoulders so that I have to sink down the wall. Slowly.

  “Because you’re going to do your best impression of a chair. It should be such an uncanny resemblance that I am tempted to sit in your lap.” She winks at me and there is another warm rush between my legs.

  I want to moan, both from arousal and embarrassment, but I bite my lip instead.

  I am now pressed against the wall, towel slipping, doing my best impression of a chair.

  “Nice,” Chevy says and I feel a stupid rush of gratitude for her approval. “Feel it in your legs?”

  I nod.

  “Your core?” she asked, touching my belly through the towel. The muscles there seem to jump and kick at her touch. I suck in a shaky breath.

  I nod.

  “Good. Now hold it for a minute.”

  A minute!

  “Yes, a minute,” she chuckles, reading my mind.

  I watch the anorexic second hand sweep the standard-issue clock and when the final fifteen seconds starts to rush toward me, Chevy leans on my trembling thighs with her forearms and presses down.

  I make a noise like some dying thing and she grins at me, white teeth flashing in the fluorescent lighting.

  “You can do it, Bowmen. Five more seconds.”

  My legs are truly shaking now. No fine quiver here; a bone-deep shaking has taken its place. “I can’t.”

  “Two,” she says, “and there’s a reward.”

  A reward?

  Her eyes stay on the clock and when she turns to me and laughs, I start to straighten up.

  “Wait,” she says.

  Her mouth is hot and soft when it closes down on mine. Her lips just as demanding as the rest of her. My breath stills in my lungs, my heart erupts in a chaotic new rhythm and then Chevy slips a finger into my pussy, curls it hard against my smooth inner walls and a flexing kind of shiver works through me.

  “Good girl,” she says, curling that finger one more time. And then she stands, leaving me sagging there. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll practice some more.”

  And then she’s gone.

  “Ready? You were better out there today.”

  Practice had been a mind fuck. Me trying to move fast and eager and somewhat gracefully all the while thinking of Chevy’s finger in my pussy and her lips on my mouth. I had found myself blushing more than once and several times running fast just to clear my head. She’d taken it for improvement.

  Talk about blind luck.

  “I tried.”

  Everyone is gone; it’s just us. I have showered and judging by her wet hair, so has she. My eyes are greedy and I can’t help but track a drop of water that runs from her collarbone down inside her white cotton tank to nestle between her breasts.

  “You did good. Now do better. Go lower this time.”

  I press my body to the wall, my towel yet to be replaced by clothes. I blame myself and, yes, a secret urge to be alone with her mostly naked. I sink down into a chair position and try to focus on anything that isn’t the pain in my legs. I’ve wanted Chevy since the first time she shouted, “Heads up, girly! You daydreaming or what?”

  Ever since then, I’ve been daydreaming about her.

  “Lower, Bowmen,” she says, leaning in, her hot breath feathering over my face and in my hair. Excitement and a tiny bite of fear works through my gut, and I do as she says.

  “One minute starts now,” Chevy says. And she does it again, waits till the very end and bears down on me with her forearms until my body starts to shake and my inner thighs feel like rubber bands that have been stretched too far.

  I literally sob when that minute is ticked off and she leans in, pushes her hands into my wet hair and kisses me. Her tongue tastes minty like toothpaste as she strokes it over mine. When Chevy breaks the kiss she knocks my towel away and runs a finger over the flat of my belly. Her other fingers capture my nipple and pinch. I gasp and a wet flexing starts deep in my cunt. One more kiss, and Chevy says, “Again. Go lower.”

  “Lower?” I gasp, but I sink back down in chair position when she pushes my shoulders.

  “Yes, lower.”

  I hold my breath without realizing it as my legs begin to shake almost immediately. In the bowels of the athletic department, I hear the floor waxer kick on. What if we’re discovered? What if someone from janitorial comes in? What if…

  “Concentrate, Bowmen,” Chevy snaps.

  “Sorry. I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  She pushes her fingertips against my trembling stomach and says, “Just block everything out. You’re stronger than you think. And in the end…in the end, you’ll be glad you did it.”

  I wait for that minute to drag by, a silent dirge made of slow-moving seconds. Finally, she says, “Good. Done.”

  When I start to stand up to give my screaming muscles a rest, she forces two slim, cool fingers inside of me and I feel an orgasm creeping close—the first tentative spasms of release.

  “God, Chevy. Please,” I whisper, bolder than I’ve ever been with her.

  “Again,” she says, grinning. “Deeper bend this time.”

  I gape at her. Is she kidding? Is she insane? There is no way.

  But I bow my head and flex my thighs and inch my back down the pale yellow wall so that I am a chair. A deep-seated chair, sitting lower than I have before. When Chevy drops to her knees in from of me and forces my thighs apart, so I am a splayed chair, I want to cry. Both from excitement and pain. There is no
way I can stay this way for a second, let alone a minute, but if she’s about to do what I think she’s going to do, an earthquake couldn’t move me.

  “Stay,” she commands, serious gray eyes flashing.

  My thighs start to quake immediately, but my heart is in danger of failing me because she leans forward, tongue out, and presses the wet tip—and only the tip—to my clit. I almost come. But my body is so tortured, I can’t quite get there.

  Chevy starts small, rigid circles on that swollen bit of flesh and my fingers clench around nothing. Just air. I can’t even bear the thought of putting my hands on my thighs, that tiny bit of extra pressure would be too much.

  She circles, circles, circles with her tongue until I think I might scream. And still the clock ticks by so, so slowly.

  “Shh,” she says, when I make some desperate noise. “Almost done.”

  The minute is gone, eaten by pain. I drop without grace or pretense to the floor where my discarded towel lies.

  Then Chevy has prostrated herself before me as if she’s praying. She’s on her knees, bent forward, head down, and she is licking me. Her tongue is sweet and hot and so, so welcome. She sucks my clit and licks me harder with her broad flattened tongue. She shoves her fingers deep into my weeping cunt and starts to fuck me in earnest.

  “Oh, good. So, so good.” I’m shivering and shaking and want to cry it feels so good.

  “You did good. The more you do, the stronger you’ll be. The stronger you are, the more confident your game.”

  It’s almost conversational, her running monologue. She pauses to kiss the insides of my thighs and lick my mound. She rears up and kisses me full on the lips so I can taste my own juices on her perfect mouth. Her fingers don’t stop and she thrusts harder, curling them aggressively. Then she bends forward, returns her tongue and sucks my clit with enough force that I cry out.