“Aside from her promiscuity,” I said in a low voice to Rhino, “how did you ever figure on getting around the fact that this great quarterback discovery of yours is female?”
“I thought I might try passing her off as a guy,” Rhino mumbled.
“Really?” I glanced at Terry. Her breasts were large, delectable fleshy mounds spilling out of the carelessly buttoned work shirt she was wearing. “No way!” I told Rhino flatly.
“It was worth a shot,” he insisted stubbornly. “I didn’t say I was sure it would work. That’s why I pressured them to send you down to Little Rock, Steve. I wanted to test it out on someone I could trust not to blow the whistle on me if it fizzled. I was going to let you see Terry play and if you couldn’t tell it was a girl, why, then you’d be sold. You’d help me pull it off in California. But then,” he sighed, “you went to the stadium and caught her balling and that was the end of that.”
“Football is a contact sport,” I reminded him. I took another quick look at Terry’s boobs out of the corner of my eyes. “It’s played at close quarters.”
“With a chest protector and a loose jersey, she’s all flattened out. Nobody could feel anything. With that short blonde hair, Terry could be a home-grown Viking from Minnesota.”
“Not with a luscious butt like hers, she couldn’t!”
“I worked out a way to change the shape of that with an ace bandage and tape.”
“Bourbon’s turning your brain to mush, Rhino,” I told him. “You wouldn’t have fooled me or anyone else past the first play.”
“Then you don’t think we could maybe pass Terry off as a guy in California,” he wheedled.
“Not even in California,” I assured him. “Not even in Southern California. Not even in Beverly Hills.”
“Defecation! What am I gonna tell the Stonewall management?”
Before I could field that one, I was distracted by the very warm long fingers of a female hand on my thigh. “I’m gettin’ bored,” Terry Niemath complained. “Why don’t y’all pay some attention to me, Mr. Victor, steada just to Mr. Dubrowski?”
“Call me Steve.” I automatically reject formality.
It was a big mistake with Terry. She took it as an invitation to familiarity. “All right, Steve.” Her long quarterback fingers dipped between my legs and stroked the sensitive inner surface of my thigh through my pants.
“How’d you get into football in the first place, Terry?” I removed her hand from between my legs, patted it, and replaced it in her lap.
“I was standin’ on a street corner crotch-watchin’ with a girl friend one day. Along comes these two jocks wearin’ jerseys with numbers an’ tossin’ a football back an’ forth. One of ’em, he was what you’d call a real ten. Say bulge! Mmm-mmm! So I said somethin’ I guess I hadn’t oughta, an’ this dude, he got all frazzled. That made me laugh, which I guess I also hadn’t oughta, an’ he got so mad that he bounced the football right off my poor head. Hard! I seen every star they is an’ a few of them comets to boot. Well, that surely made me mad, too—madder ’n a wet hen too long ’thout a rooster! So what I done, I took that ol’ football an’ I just throwed it as far as I could, which is a whole lot further than anybody else in Little Rock could throw a football. An’ that there’s how a football star done got herself born.” Terry put her hand back in my lap and squeezed my groin.
I caught her hand and pinned it between both of mine for safe keeping. “But how did you actually start playing?” I asked her.
“Them two boys, they invited me down to where they was scrimmagin’ come the followin’ Sunday. A pickup game, you know? Whoever shows pretty much gets a chance to play. Well, they covered my melons an’ put me in at quarterback as a joke, I guess. Only it turned out I was so good it wasn’t funny. Next thing you know, I was playing regular on Sundays all over Arkansas and Tennessee.”
“But didn’t the guys you played against realize that you were a female?”
“Didn’t seem to bother them none.” Terry’s wink was worthy of a bought-and-paid-for Senator interrogating an organized crime biggie.
“Still, what about the rules?”
“Now, just what rules is that, Steve honey?”
“The rule ain’t been written could stop Terry here from coitus-ing her fundament off given the chance,” Rhino interjected.
Terry wriggled agreement. One of her lovely bright red berry nipples waved at me from inside the work shirt. I gave my eyes permission to roam over her voluptuous body.
“She doesn’t look like she weighs one-thirty-nine,” I observed to Rhino. She was tall like Stephanie, and about her build too. Stephanie weighed about one-twenty-eight and was always trying to diet off five pounds of absolutely superb pulchritude.
“This chick’s in great physical shape, really solid. There’s muscles you’d never dream about under that gorgeous flesh. Not an excess pound! Still, one-three-nine is right. You could weigh her yourself.”
“Please do, Steve.” Terry purred. “Please do weigh me.”
“I’ll take Rhino’s word for it.” I ignored the innuendo. “You just don’t look like you’re carrying that many pounds.”
“I’m big-boned.” She licked her lips. “Are you big-boned, sugah?”
“We have leveled off at thirty-five thousand feet.” Captain Corcoran’s announcement over the PA saved me from having to respond. “Passengers may remove their seat belts. Stewards and stewardesses will commence serving lunch.”
“Excuse me, Ma’am, would you like some lunch?” the steward was back, distracting Terry’s attention from me.
“Why, you darlin’ man, I most surely would.”
The eye-batting she laid on him was right out of Gone With The Wind.
“Let me put your tray table down for you, Ma’am.”
“You do that, sugah.”
As he unfastened the tray table and lowered it over her lap, Terry contrived to capture his hand again. His face was only inches from mine and I could see the wild, helpless look of a trapped stag in his darting eyes. I could only imagine what Terry must be doing with his hidden hand. “I have to serve lunch,” he pleaded.
“Y’all put lunch on hold, angel.” She writhed in her seat and the color rising from the steward’s neck to his forehead went from red to purple.
“I don’t have time!” he wailed.
“Why, you surely do, darlin’.” Terry closed her eyes. Time ticked by with the steward frozen into position. At last a long, contented moan escaped Terry’s moist lips. “See, sugah, I knew you had time.”
The steward fled. There was a clatter of out-of-control dishes from the galley. Later, when lunch was served, he was nowhere to be seen. A stewardess brought our rubberized club steaks and confetti salads.
“Now whatever do you suppose happened to that nice boy?” Terry wondered.
“Internal combustion,” I guessed. “He self-destructed.”
“Why, Stephen, you silver-tongued flatterer, you!” She knocked the mucilaginous cheesecake into my lap, groping me. “How did y’all know I’m just a willin’ fool for compliments?”
I evaded her by turning my body on one hip and facing Rhino. “I’m going to take a nap,” I decided.
“You do that, honey.” She patted my butt and left her hand there. The hand moved intimately a few times, but when I didn’t respond, she became bored. “I have to go to the necessary,” she announced.
Rhino and I got out of our seats to let her pass. She groped both of us successfully, and then she was gone. I stretched out on my seat again, meditating to relieve the tumescence of the organ strangling in my jockey shorts.
With flaccidity, after a bit, came sleep. Not for long, though. My stomach woke me serving notice that the plane was suddenly plunging earthward. As I shot up in my seat, my fellow passengers were already reacting.