Why girls play the game...

Coach Carrie Benning watched her husband's team get driven back into their own endzone.  It was the second safety of the game; with a score of 54-3, Carrie wanted to hide her face in her hands.  That this was far from the worst game of the season just made it all the worse.  Before the referee could blow the final whistle, Carrie got up from her seat and started gathering her girls to hurry them back to the bus.  The cheer team hadn't had much to do, this game, although they'd given it their all, but there was no way Carrie was going to let the fans of the other team start in on her girls.

To her surprise, the other team let her girls board the bus with dignity, some even cheering.  Her girls were, she had to admit, pretty amazing- they'd won state and nationals this year, hands down, and there wasn't another cheer team that came close to competing with them.  It was just a shame that the other athletic programs were so abysmal.

As the last of her girls got settled in, the boys started to shuffle on.  Carrie was a bit amused looking at them- her girls, while shorter, all looked to be nearly as big as the boys.  She knew her husband had been bemoaning how difficult it had been to get this year's team to take their workouts seriously, but she hadn't really paid it that much attention.  Her girls had hit the gym running and never looked back; they practically glowed with strength and vitality.

Several of the boys sat next to cheerleaders- boyfriends and girlfriends, mostly, and Carrie's lips thinned; they'd have to keep an eye on them- and, over the relatively subdued chatter of the team, she heard one of the boys griping.  "C'mon, Ati- it wasn't that bad…" he was protesting.

That'd be David, the first-string quarterback.  Carrie didn't know much about him, except that he'd been pretty thoroughly awful in today's game, failing to slip even the most clumsy of tackles, throwing passes that fell yards short of their receivers when he got them free at all, and, generally, looking more like a punching bag on the field than a player.  His girlfriend, Atiana, was a junior and one of the smaller girls on the cheer team.  She giggled and wrapped her legs around his waist on their bench.

"It was, Davy," she teased, using a nickname she knew he hated.  She started pulling him in.  "Look- you couldn't even get free of me-  no wonder we got crushed!"

As she talked, she started squeezing, and David's face turned abruptly red.  He started to push against Atiana's thighs with all his strength, but she seemed barely to even notice.  Before this could go on for too long, Carrie got up and cleared her throat.  Atiana unhinged her legs and let David scramble back out of her lethal vice.

"Hmph," Atiana grumbled, "I bet we could play a better game of football than you," she remarked snidely.

Pride wounded, David coughed a little.  "No way," he denied flatly, "you're just a bunch of girls!"

Until that moment, Carrie would have been willing to just let it go.  Nobody called her girls just, though; her eyes glittered dangerously.  She sat back down in her seat, wordlessly, as the rest of the boys got settled in and her husband came back to sit with her.  She kissed him lightly on the cheek and reported the snippet of conversation she'd overheard.

Coach Carl Benning, her husband, knew his wife's temper, and he leaned back warily.  "So?  David's an idiot, but he has a point- your girls don't have the mass, the conditioning, or the training to take on a boys team."

Carrie snorted.  "We could take on your boys team," she hissed back.

Carl shook his head.  "Maybe, maybe not- but not right away, in any case; your girls still have basketball and baseball seasons to worry about, and my players- those that are still walking- need to start conditioning right away for football camp."

"That's fair," Carrie admitted, blowing a stray lock of her curly blond hair out of her eyes.  "Make it an exhibition game, then, in six months.  That'll even give you a chance to get your injured players back on the field, and it'll give my girls a chance to learn the sport properly."

Carl knew that edge to his wife's voice; he'd better agree, or he'd be sleeping on the couch and eating cold leftovers for a month.  He nodded his head once, cautiously.  "Fine.  I'll set it up with the A.D.  And when it's done, we don't have to talk about it again, right?"

Carrie smirked at her husband, happy to win the argument, as usual, and magnanimous in her victory.  "Agreed.  And if we win, your boys have to publically apologize to my girls, especially that twit, David!"

"You want it in writing?" Carl asked, "you got it."  He leaned over and took Carrie's hands.  "Remember me?  I'm your husband, Carrie- I'm not your enemy."

Carrie melted a little bit at that and leaned into him.  "I know it," she admitted, looking down at the floor.  But you are until after the game, she thought to herself.

*****

Carrie looked herself over in the mirror and decided she liked what she saw.  Carl had already left for work, so she had the house to herself for another hour before she had to follow him into school.  She pulled on a set of baggy sweats and went out to their home gym in the garage.  She could only do a quick workout, this morning, but she'd make up for it during practice tonight at the school, after Carl had gone back home, she decided.

She set the treadmill for four miles an hour and a punishing incline and quickly got her heartrate up and her muscles warmed up.  Jumping off, she started making a circuit of the weights, being careful to reset the weights back to her husband's usual loads when she finished.  Finishing up with twenty minutes to spare, she quickly toweled off and went inside.  She grabbed a protein shake and gulped it down on her way to the shower, got changed and was out the door two full minutes before she had to be.

Despite working in the same department, Carrie and Carl rarely saw each other throughout the day.  While Carl felt bad about this, it suited Carrie just fine; frankly, she was beginning to wonder how she was going to keep her development a secret from him once the weather really turned warm.  And he was starting to get pretty insistent about wanting sex, too.  She sighed to herself.  He wasn't the only one who wanted a good shag, she reflected wistfully.

The day was grueling- long, with conferences during her prep period.  As long as her day was, Carl's was even longer.  With the end of football season, he had taken on a job as assistant coach for basketball.  A lot of the boys were the same ones he'd had in football, of course, and their lack of diligence was proving to be as big a stumbling block on the court as it had been on the gridiron.  Carrie found it amusing that, in the first couple weeks after the challenge had been accepted, her girls had started measuring themselves in the gym against the male athletes; that wasn't the case anymore.  Now they compared their progress to their coach's, which was a much more difficult proposition.

Carrie herself had started by getting Carl to work with her as a personal trainer, helping her design her workout regimen and talking to her about supplements.  She was already a careful eater, but she'd really started packing in the food after starting her new program.  In the last six weeks, she'd packed on a simply unbelievable ten pounds of muscle- more, actually, because she was sure she'd lost some of the fatty tissue that had begun to creep up on her as she aged.  She was aiming for muscle growth, and she was getting it- and she was teaching her girls how to do it, too.

Some of them had been wary of getting big muscles; they weren't afraid to be strong, but, well, they were high school girls, and peer pressure meant a lot to them.  That had changed in the course of two events; the first was when Jenny Stevens pointed out to the team that she'd walked in on her older brother beating off- her words- to the TLC documentary The Greatest Body.  Carrie was mildly surprised to discover that Carl had a copy in his video collection- she'd known that Carl had taken an interest in bodybuilding, had even started training himself, but she hadn't known that he'd acquired actual documentaries on the subject.  After watching it herself, she took the video in to practice for the girls to watch.  The girls were impressed with the fitness models and routines, but amazed by the devotion and power of the bodybuilders they saw.

Even so, that might not have been enough if not for David's big mouth.  Carrie supposed she ought to thank him for galvanizing her athletes; he had made the mistake of taunting Atiana's preparations.  Specifically, he informed her that girls could never compete with boys in football because they'd never be big enough to stop a charge or break through a defensive line.  Unsurprisingly, Atiana passed that on to all of the girls on the team and, with their competitive natures, they took it as a challenge.

Carrie sighed.  She just wasn't feeling focused.  She shuffled her papers into her folders, then put them away in her filing cabinet.  When she turned around, a young man- Steven?- was standing in her office, shuffling nervously at her desk, hands behind his back.  Concealing her surprise, she put on a politely inquiring face.  "Yes?  Can I help you?"

Steven scratched his stubbly chin, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly.  "Um… you're the coach of the cheerleaders, right?"

Inwardly, Carrie groaned.  This happened a couple times every year- a boy who couldn't get a date any other way either asked her for her help talking to one of her girls or, worse, decided he wanted to join the squad.  While Carrie would welcome some men who actually were athletes, and had even been fortunate enough to have a couple several years ago, mostly the boys that sought to join the squad had no idea of the degree of strength and athleticism cheerleading really required.  Keeping her face blank, she nodded.  "Yes," might as well get this over with, she thought, "practices are after school every day from 2:30 to 6:30, with Saturday practices every other week…"

He reddened slightly more and looked even more embarrassed.  He was going to be one of those boys, then.  "Ah- I think you've misunderstood me, Mrs. Benning.  I don't want to join the team."

"I see.  Well, what else can I help you with, then?"  As if I don't know, she thought.

"Your squad is going to play the football team in eighteen weeks, right?"

That was an unexpected swerve and it must have shown on Carrie's face, because the boy smiled sardonically.

"I thought so.  I have been working on a project for my biology project."  He pulled out a thick folder and a sheaf of notes and slid them across Carrie's desk to her.  "It's a sport supplement- well, it will be if I can get the project approved.  I need human test subjects."

Carrie blinked.  "I… see.  Why us?"  And why am I still letting you waste my time talking? she thought, I should be tossing you out on your butt.

A light sheen of sweat broke out under Steven's blond crewcut and his eyes grew sharp, penetrating.  "I need athletes who will train consistently, who won't allow themselves to relax or slip for as long as they're using my supplement."

"Uh-huh," she said skeptically.  Steven had probably tried pushing this on her husband and been told to buzz off.  "How's it work?" she heard herself ask.

"It's not a miracle drug, Mrs. Benning, if that's what you're asking, and it's not a steroid.  It's a hormone that functions similarly to insulin, but without the risks of low blood sugar."  His explanation continued for several very technical minutes.  Some of it went directly over Carrie's head, yet his explanation sounded plausible enough.

This kid's gonna have a great future in sales, she thought to herself.  "Two conditions," she surprised herself by deciding, "first- nobody on the squad uses your supplement without both their and their parents' written consent.  Second, I want access- along with your supervising teacher- to all of your notes.  I want to be sure there's nothing illegal or dangerous in this concoction."

Steven twitched a smile.  "You have it," he said, indicating the materials on the desk.

*****

The last three months, in particular, had been rough.  Carrie had almost entirely withdrawn from her husband; at home, they passed each other without speaking more often than not.  Carrie followed her diet strictly, even when she felt that so much food would make her throw up.  She still prepared meals for both herself and Carl, and they sat together for dinner, but their talk was guarded and cautious.  She could see how it confused Carl and she hurt for him, even though they didn't talk about it.  At work, they limited their discussions to professional topics.  Carl saw her talking with Steven's biology professor a couple of times, and was undoubtedly a little wounded by how animated their discourse appeared to be, but he never confronted her about it.

At some point, Carrie had started wearing Carl's sweatshirts- she didn't remember when, exactly, but it became apparent that her own tops weren't going to be able to keep up with her chest, shoulders, or arms.  She shifted, trying to adjust the sleeves to make them comfortable- her arms filled them to the point that they felt tight whenever she bent her elbows.

"Carl," she called, a little of her irritation coming through in her voice, "are you about ready?"  It was Saturday, and they'd agreed to drive to the game together.  It'd been Carl's idea, a sort of peace offering.  He knew she wouldn't back down on the game- especially now that her girls had been training for six months and, according to the assistant coaches he'd provided her with, were making extraordinary progress.  He figured that, no matter how the game played out, if they had to sit with each other on the way there and back, they could at least be civil about it.

"Sorry, dear," he called back.  He still called her 'dear.'  "I can't find my jacket.  Have you seen it?"  Carrie started a little guiltily.  She knew exactly where his jacket was- she'd worn it last night and accidentally torn the collar.  It was currently on her sewing table waiting for her to have time to repair it.

"Uh… No.  Why don't you wear a sport coat," she suggested, relenting.  It wasn't really his fault, after all.  "You always look good that way."

She heard him rummaging in his closet.  A moment later, he traipsed down the stairs in his beige corduroy pants and a navy sports jacket.  Carrie caught her breath.  He was still a fine figure of a man.

"Ready to go, babe?" he asked with a boyish grin.  He fumbled his keys out of his pocket and jogged down to their truck.  I hope he's still doing that after the game, Carrie thought wistfully, then shook her head.  Get your head in it, girl.

*****

As they got out of the truck, Carrie came around to Carl's side and caught him in a fierce hug.  She kissed him soundly on the mouth, then backed off.  "See you after the game," she said, then dashed off leaving her husband staring after her in shock and surprise.

She got down to the locker room and found her girls chattering nervously about the upcoming contest.  They were full of bravado, but she could see that several were having second thoughts.  She walked over to Atiana and put a hand on her shoulder.  The girl looked up at her coach and smiled a little shakily.  "We have a problem, coach," she confided.  Carrie shot her an encouraging look.  "The pads don't fit…"

Carrie felt a cold lump in her stomach.  "None of them?"

Atiana shook her head.  "We're gonna have to forfeit," she wailed.  A couple of the other girls came over.

"No way."

"C'mon, coach- we worked for this!"

"We can do this, coach…"

Carrie had a feeling of terrible momentum, of forces much larger and more powerful than her stirring and pushing things to a head.  She held up her hands.  "I'll get a ruling from the referee," she said, pitching her voice to carry over the cacophony, "and you all need to get your parents to sign off on it if you want to play anyways…"

*****

The boys team took the field.  To their credit, Carrie thought, they didn't look any worse than they had at the end of their season.  They didn't really look any better, either.  She realized she was starting to chew on her fingernails and forced her hand down with an act of will.  The announcer was introducing the players, starting with the boys' star center, James Mathis, and proceeding through the rest of their starting lineup, finally finishing with the quarterback, David Walsh.  The team jogged around the field, holding their hands up to encourage the crowd to cheer.

Carrie was surprised to see that there really was a crowd here- apparently the concept of a boys-vs.-girls game had intrigued several radio broadcasters and word had spread quickly.  There was a smattering of half-hearted applause, but the crowd already knew what to expect from the Peregrine boys' football team.  Clearly, there was much greater interest in the Peregrine cheerleaders- a team that had been utterly untried in football.

The applause got much louder, then suddenly petered out to nothing.  Carrie heard a few gasps from the spectators behind her.  "My God," someone exclaimed, "they're bigger than the boys' team!"

She waited for the other shoe to drop.

It was the same awed voice: "They're bigger- and they're not wearing any pads!"  And that was really the case- the biggest girl on the team, Jenny Stevens, looked to be twice as wide as James Mathis as she swaggered onto the field, holding her helmet under one massive, beefy arm as bigger around than most men's thighs.  Even Atiana, her boyfriend's counterpart on the team, sported a V-taper that was so wide that any of the opposing players could easily fit within the span of her shoulders.

The ref called the captains forward for the coin toss and Atiana and David stepped out their respective teams and went to the center line.  Carrie couldn't tell exactly what was said, but it looked as if David conceded the right to call the toss to Atiana.  Carrie smiled grimly as she saw Atiana's shoulders set angrily.  A point to her husband, she thought- a calculated insult, designed to get under her players' skins.  Atiana returned to her team and they quickly set up for special plays.  They were going to kick off.

Before play could commence, however, there was a flag on the field and the head referee was striding angrily towards Carl, who had actually broken ranks to step onto the field.  After a moment, the ref threw up his hands and called for a time-out.  Carl jogged across the field to meet his wife.

"You can't do this," he said without preamble, "you have to have pads on to play!"

"We don't," Carrie retorted, "we got a special ruling from the ref and signed waivers from all the girls' parents."  She held up the hastily gathered sheaf of papers.  Carl barely even glanced at it.

"If someone gets hurt," he growled, "we could both lose our jobs."

Carrie smiled sourly.  "Refuse to play and I guarantee we'll lose our jobs- the girls have every bit as much right to play as the boys do."

Her husband shook his dark mop of hair resignedly.  "Fine," he conceded, turning and stalking back to his side of the field, "I hope you know what you're doing."

So do I, Carrie thought.

She looked back and saw her girls were still in their positions, but a few of the boys had wandered and they had to wait a few seconds while they got reorganized.  Atiana jammed her helmet down over her curly black hair and took up the kicker's position.

This was alarming- Atiana wasn't supposed to be kicking the ball; they had a second-string quarterback for that.  Atiana held up her hand and pointed at Carl's star wide receiver.  Wayne had never really gotten a good chance last season, Carrie reflected, given that David seemed utterly incapable of effectively unloading the ball.

As they'd practiced- endlessly, it seemed- Atiana nailed the ball perfectly, lofting it high in the air just over the offensive team's heads.  Wayne really was good- he spotted where the ball was going and expertly faded back so that it fell directly into his hands.  He barely had time to get a hand off the ball, though, before Jenny wrapped up his body and carried him backwards a further ten yards before dropping him unceremoniously on the 1-yard line.  He hadn't even had a chance to signal a fair catch.

Jenny organized the defense on the field and lined up opposite Mathis.  It was almost comical- Carl's big center all but vanished standing facing off against Carrie's enormous nose tackle.  Mathis said something- Carrie couldn't begin to guess what- and suddenly Jenny bulled forward, knocking him on his back while the refs blew furiously on their whistles.  Carrie groaned.  Carl had always been good at this, the psychological games, getting into his opponents' heads.

"Off-sides, number 54, Stevens.  5 yards.  Unnecessary roughness, number 54, Stevens.  15 yards," the official recited.  Carrie swore under her breath.  At least the penalties weren't cumulative, but Jenny couldn't afford to be goaded like that- another call like that and she'd be ejected.

Play resumed on the 16 yard line, and Carrie got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach watching the set of Jenny's shoulders.  The girl was angry.  Mathis snapped the ball to Walsh and the young quarterback faded back a couple yards as Jenny steamrolled Mathis into the pitch.  Her teammate, middle linebacker Robin Wright, shot up the middle and collided with Walsh just as the boy released the ball.  Wayne caught the pass and was immediately shoved out of bounds by Carrie's left linebacker and her free safety for a net gain of five yards.

On the second play, it looked like Carl was going to run the same play again, nice and conservative.  Mathis had gotten a little more wary of Jenny, and as play began, he and his left guard teamed up to slow her progress- not terribly effectively, Carrie noted with a smirk.  Robin didn't wait for an opening to appear this time- she ran up behind Jenny and vaulted over her teammate with a spectacular splits-kick, landing directly in front of the stunned Walsh.  At this point, Walsh should have unloaded the ball or tried to run, but he just stood there with his mouth hanging open as Robin grabbed him with one arm, spun him around, and slammed him down with bone-crushing force.  Carrie noted that Robin had deposited him behind herself, a mistake as it meant that Carl's team lost no yardage this play.

On the third down, David faked a pass to Wayne, then rolled to his left and tried to bolt up the sideline.  Jenny read the play correctly and had her strong safety in place to intercept the quarterback before he'd gotten three paces past the line of scrimmage.  She picked him up and carried him back to the line and, almost gently, laid him down on his back.  Standing next to Carrie on the sidelines, Atiana giggled.

Carl called for his special teams to take the field, and prepared to punt the ball.  His kicker, Eric Wilson, was a thoroughly professional player with a rifle of a leg that Carrie had seen in action and genuinely respected.  Receiving the snap, Wilson punted the ball without hesitation, a fifty-one yard punt that was picked off and grounded by Robin, signaling the end of the boys' drive.

Atiana took the field and got the snap.  As Carl's linebackers tried to breach Atiana's guards, the girl calmly waited for her friend, tight end Gaby Fitz, to get clear of Carl's corner back.  Seeing the opportunity, Atiana took a step to her right and drilled the ball over the fifty.  Carl's strong safety came out of nowhere and attempted to intercept the pass, but the ball hit him so hard that it literally knocked him down.  Unfortunately, this also sent the ball bouncing out of bounds and the play was concluded incomplete.

On the second play, Atiana handed the ball off to her full back who proceeded to lateral it back to Atiana as she sprinted to the left side of the field.  Stepping just short of the line of scrimmage and seeing a clear shot, Atiana fired the ball to Gaby again.  This time, Gaby caught the ball in the air, landing on her feet and shoulder charging the strong safety and free safety out of her way as she ran the ball into Carl's endzone for a touchdown.

Setting up for another kickoff, Jenny took Atiana's place as the kicker.  She noticed that Carl's team seemed to be a little slower taking the field and were definitely wary of their massive opponents.  Jenny lined herself up, then charged up and blasted the ball directly at the leading receiver.  The sound of the kick was a sharp meat-smacking noise that could be heard clearly over the crowd; the impact when it hit the charging running back sounded like an auto collision and the boy collapsed on the field with the ball bouncing out of his hands.  Jenny picked it up almost casually and went to her knee.

When it became clear that Carl's running back wasn't going to get back up, the refs called for the physician who took a few minutes checking the boy over.  He announced that the boy had cracked a rib- through his flak jacket, Carrie realized- and Carl came out on the field and helped the boy off the field to the cheers of his team.

The rest of the half followed much the same pattern, with the boys' team unable to advance the ball significantly when they had it, and completely incapable of stopping or even slowing the girls' advance when the girls had possession.  By the end of the first quarter, the girls had scored five touchdowns and, while they had declined to take extra points, they held a decisive thirty point advantage.  The boys rallied a little in the second quarter, with David completing a long pass to Wayne for 28 yards which the talented wide receiver proceeded to turn into a drive, ducking the Carrie's incredulous strong safety as he sprinted for the endzone.  Even so, he was nearly brought down by Raine, the free safety who, seeing where the play was going an instant too late, turned and dashed for the boy, clipping his ankle in her tackle attempt.  The girls were so surprised that they actually forgot to block when Carl's offense set up and executed a successful two-point conversion.  After that score, the boys managed to attain a favorable field position and Carl elected to attempt a field goal rather than set his line against the punishment that he now knew Carrie's girls were so proficient at dishing out.  Eric got the ball and was nearly crushed by the rampaging Jenny Stevens, but managed, to slip by her and, with enviable precision, dropped the ball and nailed it successfully on the bounce to score a 34-yard field goal.

Approaching the end of the second quarter, the girls had recovered their momentum and led by 49 points.  They were kicking off, once again, and by this time the boys had learned to respect the power any of the girls could achieve from a place kick;  Carrie's kicker lined up and powered the ball through the uprights, eighty yards away.  The ball was placed on the thirty and Carrie found herself looking at the clock.  There was just over a minute left in the half and, because of the mercy rules, the clock wouldn't stop for anything short of a score or an injury.  If Carrie could score two more points, then the game would end at halftime; otherwise, they'd be forced to play out the remainder of the game after the half.

Carl was not a quitter.  He had never conceded a game in his career, and Carrie could see he was doing everything he could to avoid having to admit defeat, even now.  The offensive line took their positions slowly, then proceeded to sit there as David called out a stream of numbers.  A flag was thrown out on the field and the ball was moved back by five yards for delay of game.  The crowd, which had become ominously quiet, rumbled disapproval.  Carl probably would have ignored them and continued to delay the game just to prevent any chance of losing possession before the clock ran out, but David was not as sanguine about his position.  With the ball in position, he called for the snap.  The offensive line reacted quickly, but were obviously not expecting so bold a move from the normally passive quarterback.  David rolled to his right and was very nearly squashed by Jenny Stevens, but James Mathis dove back and managed to land a shoulder in her side, staggering her just enough for the slim boy to slide through.  David shot the hole and glanced back over his shoulder, checking for pursuit.  It turned out to be the wrong move.  Robin ducked low and picked the boy up in a fireman's carry and started charging down the field while still holding the struggling quarterback.  The offensive line quickly wheeled and tried to stop her, but her teammates formed up around her and, with Jenny in the lead, threw the opposing players back, opening a clear path to the endzone.  With 2 seconds left on the clock, Robin carried David across the endzone, scoring a safety.

*****

The teams lined up opposite each other, David and Atiana at the heads of their respective lines, and started filing towards each other for the customary handshake.  Carrie had seen Carl talking to his boys right after the final whistle was sounded, and she got the distinct impression that he was reminding them in no uncertain terms that, now that play was over, they were gentlemen.  He would not tolerate trash-talking or poor sportsmanship.  Carrie smiled on her side of the field.  There was a reason she loved the man, even now.  Especially now, she decided.

As the lines approached each other, Carrie began to get a little nervous.  Perhaps she ought to have said something to her team, as well…  Atiana wasn't so much walking or marching as she was swaggering.  She sighed.  It was too late now, she supposed.  As David and Atiana reached each other, he held out his hand- a little reluctantly, Carrie thought- and then gave a yelp as Atiana seized him and yanked him into a tight bearhug.  The rest of the teams were momentarily taken aback, then swarmed the two quarterbacks, eventually lifting them onto their shoulders before parading them around the field.

"So," came a soft voice from behind Carrie's shoulder, "do I need to make the apology more formal?"

Carrie turned to see her husband standing there, hands in the pockets of his trousers.  He looked somehow sturdy and humble and remarkably fey.  She threw her arms around his neck and the back of his head and pulled him into a long kiss.