Chapter 19: Naked Soccer?

After all the kids had begun to filter away, the meeting’s organizers engaged in a bit of self-congratulation. Emma, in particular, was very complimentary about Drew’s presentation.

“Blimey, girl, your part was the dog’s bollocks!” she praised, and at Drew’s puzzled expression, clarified, “Ha, Brit slang. Means extremely good. Your Program experience was so similar to mine, then, and you responded in the same way as well. To organize a resistence. I got in trouble for my part, so tell me: did the authorities twig that you organized the opposition?”

Drew grinned. “If ‘twig’ means ‘find out’ and not something from a tree; no, somehow I was never linked to anything I did to get the anti-Program movement going. Possibly ‘cause I was just one of hundreds who submitted a declaration of my religious beliefs. I didn’t do what you or Sam did, which was to publically speak out or do my organizing in the school. I was very lucky too—the culture in that region is so conservatively homogenous that it was easy to get lots of kids who all thought alike and were willing to resist—and they had their parents’ backing too.”.

“Brilliant ... oh look, there are some gals who look like that want to talk to you, Drew. Let’s plan to continue our chat sometime later; will that work?”

“Oh, sure, and I want to get to talk to Andrew and the sisters too. You all have some really interesting stories to tell, and I want to talk about how you came to become a nudist too, even after a potentially bad Program experience.”

They arranged to meet after dinner. Then Emma left and some girls, who had been hovering nearby, came over to greet Drew. Drew looked to see where Connor. Jennifer, and the others were, and saw them at the other end of the Pavilion, talking to a number of adults.

Wonder who those people are. Maybe parents. she thought.

“Hey, Drew, right?” the closest girl asked. “That was an amazing session, but you were just staggering. I’m Leia, on the Gophers soccer team. A senior, and team captain, so that means I’m the spokesman for this crew.”

“Hi, Leia. Great to meet you,” Drew replied. “How many on the team came today?”

“The varsity has twenty-four members. Twenty-one could come. And seventeen from the JV came too. Coach told us about you, that you were an excellent all-around player but a D wizard...”

Drew interrupted, “I don’t embarrass easily, but I do when folks brag on me. I love the game and think I’m good at it. You can get to see how I play if you let me scrimmage with you.”

“That’s why we came by, to see it you’d join us. You have your gear? We brought extra black and white jerseys so we can tell the teams apart. Hey, let me introduce the guys here.”

There were twelve girls in the group, eight incoming seniors and four juniors, and Drew learned that they were among the Project organizers for the girls’ sports teams.

Kylie, another senior and the midfielders’ captain, told Drew, “Most of the female athletes aren’t scared of the nudity but hate the sexual crap and other shit the Program has. So they’re backing the Project. We’ve got almost 100 percent of the swim team, volleyball, lacrosse, track, softball, basketball, and cheer teams. Maybe half the football team—not sayin’ why only half,” she grinned. “And we heard that the Program rules say we have to play naked, but absolutely no one on any team will agree to that.”

“I think that the different sports’ uniform rules supercede the Program. That’s what I learned at my past schools,” Drew told her.

“Damn, that’s good to hear. Say, here’s Gemma; she’s the D captain and you’ll be playing on her line.”

“Hi, Gemma. This bunch of gals really look like players—you all got that heavy-duty athletic look. Hey, you know that I’m a coach at the Nike soccer camp with Coach Adcock?”

“How’d you score that job? They only hire college kids, I thought,” Gemma said.

“Not to brag, but Coach saw some clips of my playing and spoke to my coach of my PA team. Coach Adcock told me that she was told that my skills match or surpass most college players. And I’ve been teaching skills to my teammates, so she figured I could do the coaching gig. The first week was a blast. There’s a good camper group attending and I’m having fun.”

“Oh shit, I wonder if she’s gonna shake up the D line now with you being here.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t worry. Coach said she’s gonna try new formations. One is a 5-3-2 that has me playing in center, close to the D line. Another is a 3-1-3-3, where I’d play stopper, almost in the midfield. She thinks that will work really well, ‘cause I can set up or even run attacks from the backfield; I’m really fast on breakaways. I play D, but on lots of plays, I’ll run an O attack. It sure confuses the hell out of the opponent ‘cause they don’t know how to mark me. I’m slippery—you’ll see when we scrimmage.”

A good part of the people at the resort had heard about the scrimmage and many came to watch. Drew consulted with Gemma about how she wanted to run the defense.

“Gemma, you’re the captain so you decide. I’m the newcomer here. You know how your mates play.”

“How ‘bout we try your 3-1-3-3 lineup on our side? We’re going against the varsity’s O starters.”

Drew chuckled. “Oh good, a challenge.”

Drew’s team was designated “home,” so they got the dark jerseys, and the “away” team got the ball first. When they began their attack, their first attack crossed the centerline with a give-and-go pass between a winger and their striker, Leia. But Drew was watching closely and she anticipated the likely “go” pass. As the winger’s foot began to strike the ball for her pass back to Leia, Drew, who was already moving toward Leia to block her, accelerated to her top speed and intercepted the pass as she raced between the two players, and without breaking stride, she carried the ball to within ten yards of the opponent’s box as their fullback came out to challenge her and to cut off her shooting angles.

Running now at half-speed, Drew rouletted to the left around the fullback’s strong side, leaving the girl wondering what had happened. This gave her a possible open shot at her right side of the goal. The other two defenders, taken by surprise at the sudden new direction of Drew’s travel, saw the same opening and, as one ran a few steps to her left to try to block a shot to Drew’s left, the goalkeeper came out to block the angle Drew had to her right. All this happened in about three seconds before Drew, still without breaking her stride, chipped a short lob right over the goalkeeper’s head—a so-called Messi chip—and the ball bounced softly into the goal.

Every player on the field watched this, stunned at how quickly Drew had converted her interception into a goal, and the bystanders erupted into applause.

Leia, the striker who was the pass’s intended recipient, jogged over to Drew.

“Tell me that was a fluke, right, Drew? No one’s that fast—how were you able to catch up with Jordan’s pass to me like that, anyway?”

“It’s just my secret invisible jet-packs, Leia,” Drew joked. “I am kinda fast, you know.”

Play resumed, with Drew continuing to dominate the zone in front of her defensive line. In the first forty-five minutes of the scrimmage, Drew had two more interceptions, three stolen balls, two assists, and one additional solo goal.

When they broke for a rest, most of the girls tried to talk to Drew all at once but then Leia called them to back off.

“Give the gal a chance to catch her breath!” she called, “Okay, team, we need to talk before we resume play. We’ve never played against someone like Drew. In fact, I’ve never heard of a high-school player who can do the stuff she does. Um, one sec...”

An adult had trotted over to the girls and spoke to Leia.

“That was my dad. He said that Drew’s a ringer.”

The other girls got shocked expressions and one asked, “How could she be a ringer?”

Leia laughed. “Dad looked her up on a prep-school soccer app. This gal who we’ve been playing against has been selected as a Pennsylvania all-state first-team player two years running and was recently named as one of the top ten high-school defensive players nationally. No wonder she’s been running our O into the ground! All right, Drew. Cut the modesty and tell us about yourself.”

Drew shrugged.”What’s to tell? I’ve been playing for years now and I’m proud of my skills. I practice my ball skills year ‘round and keep up my strength and conditioning. I’ve studied pro soccer game clips and learned the moves. Maybe you should just ask me questions about how I did some of the plays I made. And yes, I’ll teach any of you who wants to learn. But you’ll need to fine-tune your basic skills first. Some of you are quite good. Others, not so much. I’m sure you know who you are.”

For the next ten minutes, Drew answered questions about her playing. Most of her opportunities for steals and interceptions were based on her anticipation of likely players’ movements or on a player’s body language—their physical tells. That, combined with her mentally keeping a constant overall picture of the entire pitch, the players and their movements, and the game’s tempo, frequently enabled her to be in just the right place to make an important play.

When the game resumed, Leia made a change; instead of playing with the varsity starting defense, Leia moved Drew to the visitor’s team where she’d play with the backup and JV defensive players.

“Want you on my team,” Leia joked. “Actually, our subs watching you play in front of them would be a good experience for them, and I want to see if our starting D line can stop you.”

It turned out that they couldn’t. Now playing with the team’s offensive starters, Drew scored on the defense three times and had two assists, plus numerous steals. It was those steals, deep in the opponent’s side, which led to her goals. After the game was over, Drew told the team what she had seen.

“Here’s what happened—I had spotted all of your weaknesses during the first half and simply exploited them in the second. And much of what I saw should be simple to fix, actually. You guys are good—no cap, much better than my PA team. But you unit captains, you need to get your people working together better. Like, here’s one for Kylie: who’s the team’s quarterback? The field play-caller? That’s usually the center midfielder but I didn’t see that in the scrimmage. Coach can’t see the pitch like a player can. True, it’s important to have set plays, but when an unexpected opportunity comes up, someone needs to recognize that and start a play to capitalize on the opportunity.”

“Damn—can’t wait for the season to start, Drew,” Kylie told her. “I’d love to see how you handle the teams we play.”

The others nodded enthusiastically.

“Who’s gonna stay here for a little naked soccer now?” Celeste, a sophomore backup midfielder asked.

Fifteen of the girls decided to stay and they spent a half hour playing seven-on-seven nude, just kicking the soccer ball around. But they unanimously decided that actually playing soccer games nude wasn’t going to happen, at least with them.

Drew, Connor, and Jennifer spent the evening with Emma’s group, trading stories and learning about Sam’s anti-Program blogging campaign [as told in Emma Comes in from the Cold and The Vodou Physicist].

On Sunday afternoon, as the Ritters returned home, Eva asked Drew and Connor about their first nudist experience.

Drew chuckled a little and then told her, “Eva, I don’t think that what we did qualifies as ‘nudist.’ After all, I wore coverups the whole time and Connor wore those pareos. I must say, though, the ones you gave me are quite lovely, so thanks again. And Connor looked so good in Frantz’s pareos—like a men’s fashion model.”

“Yes, you both did look very elegant. And I heard a number of folks saying how nice it was with all the high-school kids there and how well behaved everyone was. Did you know that there were over forty sets of parents that came?”

“No, we didn’t know that it was that many,” Connor answered.

Frantz replied, “I was speaking to the general manager; she’s delighted with how many families came and about a dozen signed up for a seasonal membership. She told me about the amazing deal that Emma had arranged—instead of the $500 cost to the family, she’s subsidized it to just $100 for this season.”

“I didn’t know that Emma’s really wealthy, Dad,” Jennifer said. “That’s what we found out when we were talking on Saturday evening. So she said that she had no problem affording how she subsidized all those day fees. She told us how she had inherited her family’s estate. Her grandfather was some kind of really important industrialist in England, so she owns a bunch of companies there. She has other people running them, though, since she does physics research here at Hopkins.”

The following week at soccer camp was a welcome relief for Drew since she didn’t have to worry about clothes—or the lack of them. Her regular jersey and shorts and soccer stockings were the only clothes she needed and they felt perfect to her. Drew’s challenge to the advanced campers for any of them to keep her from stealing the ball during dribbling drills hadn’t been met by Wednesday, so on Thursday, Drew worked closely with that group to show them defensive techniques to keep their bodies between the marking opponent and the ball, and how to react when a player challenged them from their front.

On Friday, Connor and Drew decided to visit the local mall, Marley Station Mall, with Jennifer, Wilma, and Sherrill.

When the group picked up Wilma at her house, she looked into the car and joked, “Connor, will you be safe at a shopping mall with four girls?”

“Not sure about it being safe, but it gives me lots of nice eye candy to watch,” he retorted and the girls all laughed.

“Good comeback, Connor,” Sherrill told him. “Soon you’ll be able to survive my own digs.”

They laughed again.

“So what’s at this mall, anyway?” Jennifer asked.

“It’s not a big one, like Arundel, but it has some cute shops,” Wilma said. “Also, it’s right between our two local high schools, us and Old Mill. Neutral grounds there, like,” she laughed. “Last school year, when we went, we’d see the Old Mill Program kids doing Outreach there. You know, some of the shops gave a small discount to the naked kids. Said it brought in business.”

They spent a few hours going shop to shop. Connor found a video-game store so he spent time in there, and then found an electronics shop and a bookstore. He did notice groups of naked kids too—mostly girls, but some boys too.

Jeez, schools’ out, no Program, so what gives there? he wondered.

He found out when he met the girls for lunch at the food court; they were with six naked girls, talking.

“Hey, Connor honey,” Drew called to him as he walked over, wondering what was going on. “Meet our new friends from Old Mill,” she said and introduced the six. “They say they’re doing an advanced Outreach session,” and everyone laughed.

“Yeah, Connor,” Kim, one of the girls, said. “We were in the Program this spring; it was horrible, and they made us do this Outreach as part of it. But it turned out that we liked doing it—especially how it horrifies the older ladies here and how the adult guys react when they see us. So funny! So are the people who stop us and ask us to pose for pictures for them. They stammer and stutter before they can give us their request. So yeah, we like doing this, and we’ll go naked shopping a few times during the summer, just for fun.”