The Coach wrote another comment: “Elbow smooth; heft puny.” Then he told Terry he wanted to see some fakes. She performed them so well that, even though I knew they were coming, I’d have sworn she handed off the ball when she kept it. Three times running, the defense hit the wrong man and left Terry out in the clear.
The Coach’s comment was “Neat magic act, heft puny.” He scratched his head and stared out across the field at Terry, who was waiting for further instructions. “How are Niemath’s legs?” he wondered aloud.
“Like you wouldn’t believe, Coach,” Nuke Outlaw told him, remembering.
Coach ignored the comment. “Get out there and tell Niemath I want to see him break out of the pocket and run,” he instructed Nuke.
Nuke trotted out onto the field and relayed the message. Terry nodded towards us to show she understood. It wouldn’t have mattered if she hadn’t. With Nuke invariably pulling her pass protection the wrong way, she had no choice but to run, anyway.
She was fast, really fast. More important than that, she had a sure instinct when it came to making her moves. She reacted the instant a tackler committed himself and her reverses and side-slips were smooth as whipped cream cheese. She suckered one man after another—sometimes two at once—and was always somewhere else as they came up empty.
“Fast feet,” the Coach noted. “Heft puny.” He called over a defensive linebacker and conferred with him. He clued him in on the next play and sent him in. “I wanna see how that puny little guy stands up when he’s really hit,” he confided to nobody in particular. “This time when he gets going he’s gonna walk into a brick wall.”
That’s just what it must have looked like from Terry’s vantage point. Her defense folded to the left and the entire four-man defensive line reached for her as one man. A thousand pounds is a low estimate.
Terry faded back in the pocket, which was all she could do. But they were too close. She couldn’t run. It was too late to pass. It looked as though Terry Niemath was about to be the victim of her first professional football sack.
But I didn’t know Terry. None of us did. Not even Rhino knew her well enough to expect what she did next.
She faded way back very quickly. She tucked the ball snugly against one hip. Then, with her free hand, she yanked up her jersey from the bottom and pushed her naked gourds out into the faces of the charging linemen!
There’s an old Tarzan movie where the elephants are charging a helpless safari party when Tarzan swings down from a vine directly into their path, yells, “Kawabanga!” and holds up his hand. The elephants screech to a dead stop as if some cosmic force has hit their brakes. That’s the way those tacklers stopped now. Terry’s naked jugs were sign language for “Kawabanga!” and they stopped those behemoths right in their tracks. Later Rhino swore to me that one of the defense sprouted an instant erection and pole vaulted through the goal posts just as Terry trotted into the end zone for a touchdown.
I missed that. I was distracted by the Coach. He wasn’t writing on his clipboard this time. He made his final comment aloud as follows: “Heft puny; great tits!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Immediately after the scrimmage, Rhino and I met with Coach Newtrokni in his private office. “You didn’t tell me Niemath had tits.” He wagged a finger at Rhino coyly.
“Sorry, Coach.”
“I mean, that’s the kind of pertinent information a coach has the right to expect a scout to provide, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, Coach.”
“I read the report you submitted when Niemath signed up and you mentioned a good arm and smooth handoffs and fakes and excellent play-calling and great inside and outside moves, but you never once mentioned that Niemath had tits. Was there some reason you withheld that information, Dubrowski?”
“No, sir,” Rhino replied miserably.
“Oh, I think there was. I think that you thought if I knew about those tits my suspicions would be aroused. Isn’t that right, Dubrowski?”
“I don’t quite follow you, Coach.”
“I think you thought, if I saw those tits, I just might begin to suspect that maybe—-just maybe Niemath might not be of the masculine gender.”
“Masculine gender?” Rhino was slow on the uptake.
“I think you thought I might suspect Niemath of being a woman. Now, tell the truth, Dubrowski. Isn’t that so?”
“Yeah, Coach.” Rhino’s misery deepened.
“Well, Dubrowski, you would have been right. If I’d known about Niemath’s tits, I would have suspected Niemath of being a woman not of the masculine gender. Yep! I most certainly would have!”
“That makes sense, Coach.”
“I’ll bet you thought I wouldn’t like the idea of your signing up a female quarterback for the team, Dubrowski. That right?”
“It crossed my mind, Coach,” Rhino admitted.
“Well, you were wrong. Flat-out wrong. To tell the truth, I kinda like the idea of going down in the record books as the coach of the first team to sign up a woman to play professional football. Women are a force in this country today, Dubrowski. I don’t at all mind scoring points with them. But do you know what I do mind, Dubrowski?”
“What, Coach?”
“I mind being lied to—even if the lie is just leaving something out. Now, a woman quarterback is gonna give me problems. I shoulda known about them from the start.”
“I was gonna tell you, Coach. I was just sort of waiting for an opportune moment.”
“Is there anything else you’re waiting for an opportune moment to tell me, Dubrowski? Because, if there is, I’m telling you that right now is an opportune moment.”
Rhino gulped hard. “Terry likes coitus,” he said in a very low voice.
“So?” Coach Newtrokni wasn’t too concerned. “I think sex is a healthy outlet for my players. I thought I made that clear this morning.”
“It’s sort of a little more than likes, Coach. Obsessed, I guess, is more like it. I mean, she wants to have sex all the time. She never stops.”
“Well, of course, I wouldn’t want her disrupting the team.”
“That’s the problem, Coach. The way Terry goes at it, it could disrupt the team.”
“My luck!” The Coach was bitter. “I finally get a quarterback with really strong potential and there has’ to be some goddam picayune problem to spoil
“It’s not picayune.” I spoke up for the first time. “It could be major.”
“I’ve been wondering who the hell you are.” Coach Newtrokni stared at me suspiciously.
Rhino introduced me and explained about my O.R.G.Y. expertise. “Steve’s job is to keep Terry in line and deal with any problems come up ’cause she’s a nymphomaniac woman,” he summed up.
“Can you do that, Victor?” There was a decided lack of faith in Coach Newtrokni’s voice.
“With God’s help.” I was being ironic.
“You believe in God?” Coach Newtrokni was shocked.
“Somebody must make the subways run on time.”
“The subways don’t run on time.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I don’t want to hear about any deities, Victor. I need a quarterback I can depend on. Now, can you—?” He interrupted himself and looked up annoyed as the f.a.c. entered. “What is it?”
“Responding your request immediate injury reports first scrimmage, Coach.” His computer voice announced the data output.
“Oh, yeah. Let’s see.” Coach studied the printout the f.a.c. handed him. “What the hell is this?” he exploded. “There are six groin injuries from the last lousy play!”
“Result of tacklers ditto blockers erections response to quarterback mammaries, Coach.”
“Yeah? So? A hard-on isn’t a groin injury that I know of.”