Over the next few weeks, autumn made its full arrival at Perion University.
The leaves on the maple and oak trees that adorned the university quads shifted to shades of red and yellow, then began to float one-by-one to the ground. To Kelsie McCollum, it seemed as if her hopes and dreams had fallen along with them.
After that nightmarish scene in the basement of Pi Pi Pi, Kelsie had given up on sorority rush altogether. Even though she wanted to trust that Cooper Deering’s promise–we would never spread such a secret–was legitimate, Kelsie hadn’t been able to bear the thought of continuing to walk through every sorority house on campus as, in Kelsie’s mind, every single girl in each house looked at her and Alexia and knew what they had done.
Plenty of tears had been shed between Alexia and Kelsie in their dorm room. Alexia remained guilt-stricken for, in her own mind, having betrayed Kelsie so deeply. Kelsie’s repeated–and authentic–pleas to her friend that she in no way blamed Alexia for what had transpired only increased her bestie’s guilt.
Still, Kelsie would never stop absolving Alexia, and Alexia would never stop wanting the best for Kelsie. Their bond, sorrowfully, pushed forward, pained but strong as ever.
For the two girls, the whole situation had been compounded by their quick realization, in the wake of that mortifying evening at Pi Shop, that they had never actually had a chance of entrance into Pi Pi Pi. Hindsight was, mercilessly, 20/20. The entire ordeal, it was now clear, had been a menacing power-play by Cooper Deering. To Deering, Kelsie was a bug that needed to be skewered on her stiletto heel. The dominant female force on this expansive campus had, in her own jade eyes, needed revenge…for the deep humiliation of that first football game.
From the moment that the Perion Predators had first secured the services of Chris Weathers, Deering had gazed off into the future and plotted a potential life path alongside Weathers–that is, if Weathers was worth plotting a path alongside. But the giant boy’s heroic comeback performance in the opening game had confirmed that the hype was real. Fame and fortune as a professional football player were suddenly very real possibilities for the shy mountain of a quarterback. Deering no doubt believed that, with a snap of her perfectly manicured fingers, she could make this her future as well.
But then Deering, in front of the whole world, had watched Chris Weathers stroll right past her as if she didn’t even exist.
At the time, Kelsie hadn’t been able to remotely process the perceived slight that she had been committing. Now, the small-town girl understood all too well.
Today, in the present, it was even more obvious just how much Cooper Deering had her eyes on Chris Weathers. That was obvious to everyone. After each Predators game, the whole campus could see, Deering seemed to find her way alongside Weathers, grabbing him around the waist and reaching high to run her fingers through his sweating hair. But much more importantly, people knew that Cooper Deering was after Chris Weathers because of how often she was here, in Howard Hall.
Kelsie and Alexia’s torment at what they had been forced to endure was magnified by the fact that, in the weeks since, Deering had descended from her ivory tower at Pi Shop to actually visit a lowly dormitory. Several times a week, she would glide through the doors of Howard in a luscious array of sensual outfits: The yoga pants that perfectly hugged the silhouette of her butt; the tight skirts under her colour-coordinated pea coats that drew the eyes of every boy as Deering ascended the stairs; the luxury-brand athletic coordinate sets, tops unzipped halfway down her chest, that could reveal just enough if Deering would only lean just a little further forward…
Cooper Deering would make her way up to Chris Weathers’ room on the second floor, knock on the door, and disappear inside. Beyond that point, no one knew what was going on between her and Weathers…but literally everyone could, and did, guess. For Kelsie, it was humiliation on top of humiliation.
Aside from a few scattered glimpses, Kelsie hadn’t even seen Chris since that night, let alone talked to him. Without ever formally addressing it between them, Kelsie and Alexia both implicitly understood that the escape of this secret would be horrible not just for them, but for Chris.
Clearly, to the local, and even national, sports media, Chris was developing into the classic archetype of the humble heartland prince. He spoke few words, yet insisted on waiting to answer the questions of even the most junior reporter or the smallest news outlet. He displayed zero ego and resolutely directed any praise that was sent his way to his teammates. As a sports figure, Chris was easy to love. He seemed, above all, to be a great athlete who was also simply a good person.
In her heart, Kelsie firmly believed, even now, that this was who Chris actually was…but she also knew that tales of a sordid sex session in the basement of the most seductive sorority house on campus could torpedo this image in a second.
And so, Kelsie McCollum stayed well away from Chris Weathers’ dorm room. She stayed well away from his entire floor. In truth, Kelsie stayed away from most things. She didn’t socialize much with the girls on her own floor, apart from Alexia. By-and-large, Kelsie kept to herself: She travelled to and from her classes each day, did her homework in her room, and listlessly proceeded, day-by-day, through her existence at Perion.
The only exception to this monkish routine came during the several times a week when Kelsie would go to watch Alexia practice with the Perion Flag Football Team. The Flag Team members didn’t actually practice, or play, in the massive Perion football stadium. Instead, they used the Perion varsity soccer field, which had a single set of bleachers on the home sideline akin to what Kelsie had seen at high school football stadiums back home. On grey autumn weekday afternoons, Kelsie would sit in the bleachers, alone, and watch her vibrant friend perform on the field.
For Kelsie, it was pleasant to watch from afar as the girls gelled as a team. Alexia, with her overflowing personality and lusciously powerful play, stood out as a team leader at all times. But Alexia–and to a much lesser extent, Kelsie–had already formed bonds with several other team leaders as well. Chief among these were two girls whom Kelsie was already quite fond of watching each day from the stands.
First, there was the lithe, dark, fleet-footed majesty that was Bridget Orikeke.
Bridget–or “Kaykay”, as her teammates lovingly called her–was almost, to Kelsie, like a taller version of Alexia: So curvy, so powerful, so loud, with a stunning face accentuated with defined cheekbones, full chocolate lips, and hazel eyes, and topped with rows of braids that Kaykay often dyed bright blue-and-gold, the Perion Predators colours.
Kaykay was a fountain of confidence, personality…and sexuality. To hear Alexia tell it, her own lusty exploits were nothing compared to Kaykay’s. This girl wanted sex. With men, with women, with multiple partners at once: Orikeke did not care.
But if Kaykay wanted you, watch out.
One day, after practice, as she luxuriated on the bleachers in her form-hugging blue jersey and athletic shorts, Kaykay had hungrily filled Kelsie and Alexia in about a threesome that she had just engaged in with two hulking linemen from the football team. Each man was apparently even larger than Chris Weathers…and Kaykay had dominated both of them, at the same time.
In the Athletic Center cafeteria during lunchtime, Kaykay had summoned each man to her dorm room at midnight with the same whispered message: Tonight, I DECIDE whether or not you get to cum. This was not two jocks coercing a pliant co-ed into being added to their “body count”; to Kelsie, it sounded more like two cowed, obedient penises submitting to the will of their new master: Kaykay.
From the moment that nearly 600 pounds of pliant male flesh had arrived at her doorway, Kaykay had been in control. She had answered the door wearing long, white stockings that ascended midway up her sumptuous chocolate thighs…and nothing else.
Kaykay had demanded that the men strip and cram themselves side-by-side onto her bed. Then Orikeke had used her glistening, bright-pink tongue–she eagerly displayed it to Kelsie and Alexia during her retelling–to slowly tease up and down the pulsating underbelly of each enormous penis until it reached its full, throbbing length. These dicks were now effectively nothing more than long shafts of black marble waiting to be ground into powder against Kaykay’s clitoris–and this, effectively, was exactly what had happened. As Bridget recounted her escapade, Kelsie couldn’t help but wonder if this girl had ever used her own hand on herself: Kaykay seemed like a woman who needed to straddle something, the kind of girl who required force to orgasm.
The three-way had reached its literal climax when Bridget Orikeke lay back on her bed, shoved the head of one boy between her legs, and practically smothered him as she drove her clit against his lips. Kaykay described the power she felt as she mercilessly made this man the instrument of her own pleasure, and how it had driven her over the edge into a violent, screaming orgasm: “I came so hard, I about broke that boy’s neck!”
Kaykay had then demanded that the other man kneel beside her and furiously pump his desperate, imprisoned penis with his own hand until, at last, with a guttural moan, he released himself onto her midnight-hued chest…as she stared into his eyes and intoned, between vibrations against his friend’s mouth, “Your cum belongs to ME now.”
Kelsie could never have dreamed that she could possibly handle the company of a “Second Alexia”–who was often even more “Alexia” than the actual Alexia–but Kelsie found Kaykay to be another fun, hilariously over-the-top new friend.
The second girl on the team whom Kelsie and Alexia had gravitated toward was also the only girl on the whole Perion campus–at least in Kelsie’s eyes–who could actually claim to be as attractive as Cooper Deering.
Actually comparing the two physically, though, was practically impossible.
Jacqueline Sullivan–starting quarterback for the Perion Predators Flag Football Team–didn’t remotely resemble Cooper Deering.
Sullivan was nearly six feet tall. Her complexion, every bit as pale as Kelsie’s, was covered with beguiling freckles that multiplied in the sunlight. Her face looked almost Elven, as if out of a fantasy novel, and her eyes were an almost translucent green–the only physical trait she shared with Deering. Sullivan had, perhaps, the most gorgeous hair Kelsie had ever seen: It was practically apple-red, and it absolutely blazed down almost the entire length of Jacqueline’s back, either in its full glory or in the wondrous braids that Jacqueline wore during games. Jacqueline looked like a model–a model who didn’t look like any other model–and had, Kelsie knew, already signed with an agency and been featured in several magazines. Irish folk songs had been written about women who looked like this.
In terms of personality, Kelsie had to admit that there were definite similarities between Sullivan and Deering. Both women were absolute alphas and deadly serious about their business: that much couldn’t be denied. But where Cooper Deering ruled her world with cruel imperiousness, Sullivan was fiercely loyal to her team and a vocal defender of everyone she considered a friend. Honestly, in many ways, Jacqueline seemed born for the exact role–quarterback at a major university–that Chris Weathers seemed to shrink from.
In any case, every single guy at Perion would have traded practically anything other than a night with Cooper Deering for a night with Jacqueline Sullivan.
But no guy at Perion was going to get a night with Jacqueline.
Jacqueline Sullivan was only interested in other women.
Kelsie didn’t have much here at Perion…but she at least had these girls. They were loud, and proud, and sexual, and strong, and they seemed to care for and about her…even if no one else did. Today, yet again, as her oversized gold Predators hoodie protected her delicate arms from the fall breeze, Kelsie drifted away from her assigned-reading and daydreamed in the bleachers as Alexia, Kaykay, Jacqueline and the others weaved across the turf.
“Hi! I’m Jason Lim!”
Kelsie looked up with a start. She hadn’t noticed that anyone else was up here in the bleachers with her.
“Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you!”
The boy staring down at her apologetically was slender but solid, perhaps just under six feet tall. He was deeply tan–a beach complexion, as if a closer look at his skin would reveal grains of sand. The young man’s eyes were Asian, set above a placid, smooth face with an even, hard-to-read smile. Above these features was an unkempt mess of spiky black hair that looked as though it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks. The boy’s form was exotic, but his tone was mild. He seemed somehow both nerdy and alluring, distantly cool yet easily accessible.
“No no, that’s OK!” Kelsie assured. “I guess, sometimes, I just forget anyone else is here!”
Recalling her earlier, notable failures in this department, Kelsie remembered to do her own job. “I’m Kelsie. Kelsie McCollum.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jason replied. “Alexia told me about what happened with you and Cooper Deering, and–”
“WHAT???” Kelsie practically shouted the reply, dropping the book she had been holding.
Jason jumped backward as if he’d just walked around a corner and found a hungry grizzly bear standing in front of him.
“Whoa! Sorry! My bad! I have no idea what actually HAPPENED with you and Cooper!”
Kelsie’s heart resumed beating.
“I just know,” the boy allowed, “that Cooper Deering did something awful to you. I’ve gotten to talk to Alexia a few times, and Cooper came up, and I was explaining my whole thing with Cooper to Alexia, and…”
Jason trailed off. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m gonna let you go!” Jason clumsily spun around and moved to flee the scene.
By this point, Kelsie had managed to collect herself.
“No, wait!” she called. “I’m sorry. I was just…surprised. I didn’t know Alexia had told you…Sorry, how do you know Alexia again?”
Jason pivoted back around with hesitation and gingerly made his way over to Kelsie.
“Uh, through this, basically.”
Jason gestured to something that Kelsie felt stupid for not noticing earlier: The camera that the boy was carrying in his arms, complete with a long telephoto lens. Kelsie realized that he even had a long collapsible tripod for the camera tucked in the side of the backpack that was strapped over his blue quarter-zip shirt.
“I work for the Athletic Department…well, I worked for the Athletic Department.”
Kelsie now spied the laminated access badge that Jason was wearing on a lanyard around his neck. “You don’t work for the Athletic Department now?” she queried, pointing to the badge. “Isn’t that what that is?”
“Oh! Right. Yeah…” Jason’s voice trailed off. “It’s kind of complicated. Alexia didn’t explain any of this to you?”
Kelsie returned only a blank expression.
“I mean,” Jason proceeded rapidly, “I know Alexia is your roommate, and I thought maybe if Alexia was ever talking, and Alexia was, like, talking about me, that maybe this came up–”
Jason screeched to the halt of someone who knew he’d just overplayed his hand. His eyes darted away from Kelsie and out to the girls on the field…only to quickly lock on to a particular girl on the field and then reactively dart his gaze anywhere else.
Kelsie didn’t have to be her world-wise Bronx bestie to put this reaction together. She couldn’t suppress the amused smile that was spreading across her lips.
“Jason, I’m sorry, would you like to sit down?”
Jason took a deep breath and nodded with a sigh. “Yeah! Thanks.” The slim photographer clattered down into the space to Kelsie’s left.
“I guess I need to back up,” Jason realized. “I need to explain what the hell I’m talking about before you start thinking I’m a lunatic.”
If by “lunatic”, you mean, “Down-Bad for Alexia!” Kelsie thought, still smiling.
Kelsie’s expression quickly faded, though. Jason, Kelsie remembered, had a story to tell…and somehow, it involved Cooper Deering.
“It all goes back,” Jason began, “To my twin sister, Erika.”
“Erika goes here too. We’re actually just about the only two people from Hawaii in our class at Perion. We’re both sophomores. We’re not identical twins. We’re fraternal. People say we kind of look the same, though. But we’re very different people.”
“I’m the Technology sibling,” the Asian boy with the surfer’s complexion continued, “If it was written in C++ or Python, I probably know about it: I’m a Computer Engineering major. I program. Like, a lot. I won the Perion Hackathon last year. Machine learning, algorithms, coding in general: that’s all my stuff.”
“That’s how I ended up working in Athletics,” Jason explained. “I used to do a ton of digital-media work for the Predators. Photographing all of the sports teams, editing promotional videos, creating all of these cool graphics and computer animations for Predator Football, stuff like that. I loved it.”
“But Erika’s thing,” Jason continued, “Is Dance.”
Erika, as Jason described her to Kelsie, was a very shy, studious girl…who channelled all of her otherwise-repressed emotions into dance. Ballet. Tap. Hip-hop: Erika excelled in all of them. In fact, she was currently double-majoring in Dance and Biology at Perion.
Erika was a quiet soul from thousands of miles away who had arrived, like her brother, to attend this strange, scary new university on a full academic scholarship. Erika had yearned for a way to fit in at Perion–Kelsie could relate!–and had quickly seen that Dance could be her path to social acceptance.
“She wanted to try out for the Preditorettes,” Jason proceeded. “The dance team.”
Kelsie didn’t need to be told whose dance team Jason was talking about.
“She goes in there,” Jason recounted, bitterness starting to spill from his tongue, “And she CRUSHES that audition. Like, she’s a MUCH better dancer than ALL OF THEM. It’s not even CLOSE.”
“And, look,” Jason added. “I don’t want this to sound gross or stupid, but, like…I know my sister is really attractive. I used to get teased about it back in Honolulu ALL THE TIME: ‘That’s the dude with the hot sister!’ It sucked! But my point is: If the whole point of being a Preditorette is just about being hot, and my sister wasn’t hot, well…that would still suck, but I guess it would at least make sense. But, that’s NOT IT. And still–”
Kelsie cut him off. She knew this landscape–and who lorded over it–far too well by now.
“And still,” she forlornly completed Jason’s sentence, “Cooper kicked Erika off the team.”
Jason nodded. Now he was staring out at the field again, but this time blankly, without a specific target.
“She never even let Erika ON the team to begin with. She gathered all of the girls who had tried out in the middle of the practice gym, and then made Erika have to SIT THERE, CRYING, when Cooper didn’t call her name, when everyone KNEW that Erika was the best, by FAR.”
“And it’s not like every girl in that gym didn’t know the three reasons she got cut,” Jason spat.
“Number 1, she showed up Cooper. Can’t have someone more talented hogging the attention, right? Number 2, Erika isn’t tall. She’s more like your height, I guess. So she’s not quite the same shape as all of the goddamn fem-bots on that dance team.”
“And Number 3,” Jason finished, the anger seething from between his teeth, “Erika is Korean.”
Kelsie had known this was coming. It was Pi Shop all over again. In the social fiefdom that Cooper Deering presided over, the colour of the royal court was a single shade: white.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” Kelsie offered sadly. “I’m so sorry for Erika.”
“Well,” Jason retorted, “I wasn’t sorry. I was PISSED. As soon as I had to see Erika sobbing that day, I went STRAIGHT to Cooper at Pi Pi Pi. I let her know, TO HER FACE, on the front steps of Pi Shop, that I understood all of her racist, self-obsessed bullshit…and that one day, it was going to catch up with her.”
“In hindsight…” Jason admitted, “...probably a really, really stupid move on my part. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was thinking about my sister.”
“And then, two days later,” Jason sighed, “I get called in to the Perion Athletic Department offices. And they tell me that there have been ‘reports’...that I’m filming all of the Preditorettes inappropriately at football games.”
“And how the hell,” Jason shrugged, “Was I ever going to prove that wasn’t true?”
“You see how Cooper dresses the team. Who’s NOT staring at her ass all game? Meanwhile, I’m down on the sideline with my camera filming EVERYTHING. I’m trying to get absolutely anything good that I can so I can edit it all together later. OF COURSE there are shots of the dancers in my library–along with all of the players, everyone in the crowd, the sunset, the stadium lights, literally everything–and OF COURSE all of those shots of the dancers are all sexy as hell. So all it took was for the department to ask to see my digital files, and probably show them to a certain someone…and then that someone could selectively find all of the evidence she would ever need to sell the lie.”
“Legally, of course, it’s not like anyone could actually PROVE I had done anything, because I DIDN’T do anything. But it didn’t matter. That was the end of my job with Athletics.”
“So that’s it,” Jason finished. “That’s the whole thing. I’m so sorry for dumping all of that shit on you. Honestly…when I came up here, I guess I was hoping that Alexia already told you some of it, and…”
“No! It’s totally OK!” Kelsie held up her hands reassuringly. “I one thousand percent understand. It’s exactly like you said at the very beginning. Cooper did something…really bad…to me, too.”
Jason nodded, still staring out at the field.
“I was supposed to turn this badge in, but I held onto it. I only wear it here, so that people don’t think I’m a pervert for being up here, filming. Which, obviously, some people probably do anyway. But to anyone else, it at least looks like I have an official reason to be here, which lets me film the Flag Football team.”
Kelsie’s powder-blue eyes, finally catching up to the full situation, arrived at a silent question that Jason quickly detected and answered.
“I love this team.” Jason gestured out at the field. “These girls are real. They don’t conform to an image of what someone is supposed to look or act like. They act how they want. They dress how they want. They talk how they want. They’re themselves.I’d give anything for this to be the community that Erika had tried to join.”
“This isn’t like Perion Men’s Football, with hundreds of thousands of fans, millions of dollars coming in, celebrity players like Chris Weathers…The girls are just out here making it happen for themselves. Perion Athletics doesn’t send anyone over here to cover the team. So I do it by myself. Take photos, cut video, put stuff on social media. Just to remind people that these incredible girls exist, and the campus should be talking about them way more.”
Kelsie found herself wanting to put an arm around this nice new boy Jason Lim. A scant while earlier, she’d had no idea that he existed…but now that she did know him, or felt like she did, she could tell that he was a kind soul. Jason was an Ally: to Kelsie, to the Flag Football Team…and to anyone who had been trampled underfoot by the Venomous Vixen of Pi Shop.
“So, HE TOLD YOU, RIGHT?”
Kelsie swung her attention away from Jason.
The question had originated, loud as ever, from the mouth of Alexia Ramos. The mesmerizing blend of shapes and shades that was Alexia, Kaykay, and Jacqueline was now making its way up the bleachers toward her and Jason.
Kaykay suddenly jumped ahead of her teammates, bounded up the steps past Kelsie, slid her temptress-of-a-butt into a seat directly behind Kelsie, and leaned her sweating lips forward to Kelsie’s ear.
“You never met this boy before today, right?” Kaykay whispered.
Kelsie silently shook her head.
“Mmhmm…” Kaykay returned knowingly. “Well, you know they’re always talking, right? This sweet little Hawaiian pineapple is down on the field with his camera all the time…and she can’t RESIST going over to him. He’s like catnip for our girl!”
“But,” Kaykay whispered quickly as her teammates approached, “I bet she never mentioned him before, right?”
Kelsie, grinning, shook her head again.
“Mmhmm…” Kaykay punctuated this murmur even more than the first. “She doesn’t talk about him with US, either, except when it comes to her plans…”
“And WHEN, have you EVER,” Kaykay continued, “known Alexia to NOT TALK?”
“Here she comes,” Kaykay breathed with a giggle before she slid away. “Watch her EYE-FUCK THIS BOY.”
Kelsie could see that, as Alexia arrived with Jacqueline in the row of seats below, Alexia was, indeed, very much consumed with Jason. Alexia’s face was serious, focused…and yet, beneath this visage, was Alexia, just slightly…blushing?
Also…what had Kaykay been talking about? What were Alexia’s plans?
Alexia repeated the question that she had previously shouted from the field.
“He told you, right?”
Kelsie nodded, her smile once again melting away.
“Yes. About what Cooper did to Erika.”
“This TWAT.” Jacqueline’s husky voice entered the conversation. “Running around like she actually MATTERS. Who gives a SHIT about some SORORITY? Or that you’re at the front of a DANCE TEAM? Cunt, no one cares about your little knitting circles.”
It went unsaid amongst everyone on these bleachers that, of course, two of the central figures in this situation–Kelsie and Erika–had cared about these things very, very much. Jacqueline and Kaykay were the only two people with whom Alexia had shared the general details about what had actually happened in Pi Shop. Everyone knew that Jacqueline, steely protector of those around her, now absolutely loathed Cooper. The redheaded warrior-goddess’ words cut Kelsie just a little, but she knew that Jacqueline was only trying to help.
Alexia–who, Kelsie continued to notice, had never really stopped looking at Jason, now formally pulled the messy-haired boy into the conversation.
“YES, JASON,” Alexia deliberately intoned. “Everyone here, ESPECIALLY YOU, absolutely HATES this bitch. And SOMEONE should really DO SOMETHING about that.”
Jason shook his head.
“Alexia, I CAN’T!” he protested. “I don’t know how many times you want me to say it!”
“YES, YOU CAN,” Alexia returned. “You’re the ONLY ONE who can.”
“Don’t you think I want to?” Jason protested. “I just can’t! I’d get kicked out of Perion! Or worse!”
Kelsie’s lips parted just slightly in puzzlement. She glanced at Alexia, then Jason, then Kaykay, then Jacqueline; Kelsie slowly became aware that everyone here except Kelsie had been a party to previous conversations about…whatever this was about…
Jacqueline glanced back down at the field.
“OK,” the quarterback intoned, shifting back into football-mode. “Break over.”
The three teammates stood up in their curvaceous glory and sauntered back down the bleachers. Kelsie cast a sideways glance at Jason. The wide-eyed boy appeared almost in awe of the raw sexuality of the trio–particularly a certain lustrous Latina…who now turned around to address Jason a final time.
What was this look on Alexia’s face? Lust? Romance? Determination? All of the above?
“Jason,” Alexia’s vibrant tone seemed to reach out through the autumn air and grab Jason by the collar. “I BELIEVE IN YOU. And I am telling you: YOU ARE GOING TO DO THIS.”
Alexia wheeled back around. Kelsie and Jason were, once again, alone in the bleachers.
