Chapter 5

This time, Mom did several dives that involved bouncing on the end of the board, and it was obvious that her swim suit top was saving her a lot of agony. She completed one more dive and exited the pool to stand beside us on the lounges. Just then, Dad came out the back door and to the pool.

"Well, my Dear, I see that you have been diving in the pool. However, I wonder if you did lose the bottom half of your suit on one of your dives? Either that, or you are putting on a good show for our guest. With the way you three are dressed, I think that I will join you."

He stripped naked and walked to the diving board. After bouncing only once, he let out a yell of pain. "Mary, no wonder you are wearing part of your suit. That bouncing on the diving board hurt like the end of the world! I am going to follow your lead and wear some sort of support for the diving board. I'll be right back." He dashed into the house after picking up his discarded clothes. He came back out a few minutes later wearing an athletic supporter and headed back to the diving board.

This time, he was able to bounce and dive without pain, and we all applauded when he surfaced. Mom said, "Well, Harold, you didn't do too badly, but you do need to practice some to bring back your old form." Dad agreed and headed back for another dive.

That was enough to get the rest of us to return to the pool, and we all had a great time until it was time to halt for supper. Tommy put on his clothes and headed home. He said that he had some chores he had to do before dark, and he would be in trouble if he skipped them. He thanked us for the afternoon, and I said for him to come back every day that he could. Mom echoed that, so it was official.

Well, the rest of the summer ran pretty much like it had started out. We played baseball and I pitched when it was my turn. I will say that my flutterball got harder to hit because I was able to get more movement on it, and my fastball got faster, though only a little. We won all of our remaining games and so did that other team that we were concerned about.

Mr. Forbes was in seventh heaven when the final official word was released that our team would be in the last game of the season that determined the city championship. He met with their manager at the mayor's office and it was decided by the flip of a coin that we would be the home team. That made him even happier because it gave us a slight advantage. The home team always gets the last turn at bat, so any runs scored in that last inning by the home team cannot be countered. Okay, so it's not much of an advantage, but it is there, and it gives the home team a psychological boost.

We prepared ourselves for the game as best we could, and showed up for the game full of confidence. I was the starting pitcher and, of course, Tommy was my catcher. Our other catcher could never handle my flutterball, so he was never my catcher during a game. By this time, I had been moved to batting third in the order, and we had two very good batters ahead of me. Our only weak hitter was the second baseman, but he was batting ninth, and we could live with him.

I managed to strike out the first three batters I faced, and Mr. Forbes was more than just pleased. Our lead-off man walked, but the next batter struck out. Well, I was determined to hit the ball, though I was not trying for a homerun. I did manage a double, and the man on base scored. The inning ended that way with us up 1:0. It was too early in the game to worry about the score, but we were happy to be in the lead.

Uh-oh, I walked the first batter of the second inning, and he managed to get on second base as the result of a sacrifice fly. Darn it, a man was in scoring position and there was only one out. It was time for me to bear down! The next batter struck out after nine pitches—he kept fouling off my best efforts. Unfortunately, there was a passed ball in among those nine pitches when Tommy flubbed a flutterball.

Now the base runner was on third base with two out. All was not lost, but I was feeling the pressure. I was back to praying to every god whose name I could remember and managed to strike out the next batter. Our one run lead was still holding up. We didn't score in our half of the inning, and we lived through three more innings with neither side scoring. Oh, dear Lord, the pressure on me was almost unbearable! Both Tommy and Mr. Forbes tried their best to keep me loose, but they had a monumental job.

The last inning was starring me in the face, and I did my best to pitch the best way I knew how. I had two wild pitches that inning, but there were no base runners, so I got away with them. Tommy kept calling for time out to cool me off, but the umpire finally had enough and told him that he had used up his quota. No more time outs unless there was an injury.

Oh NO, their best power hitter slammed a home run off my fastball! At least, there was nobody on base, so the score was only 1:1. Well, I did manage to get the side out before more damage was done, but I felt pretty bad about the whole thing. I was of two minds about the fact that I probably would not bat in this inning. I wanted to bat to redeem myself, but I was also afraid that I would screw up, so I didn't want to bat. As it turned out, I had pitched six innings already, so my pitching was done for the day. If we didn't score this inning, our second-best pitcher would finish the game. Frankly, that scared me!

Our one big hope was that the opposing pitcher was as tight as I was. He walked the first man he faced, and the second man managed to hit a single to push the first batter to second base. Okay, that was looking good for us. Unfortunately, the next batter popped up and was out with no advance of the runners. Well, only one out, so we had a good chance to score.

The next guy up was our second baseman. Oh, dear God, please don't let him hit into a double play! By some crazy fluke, he bunted for a single, and the bases were loaded. The next one up was our lead-off man, and he was very good at getting on base, so our hopes were high with him. Well, the count went to three balls and two strikes, and we were sweating blood. The next pitch must have slipped from the pitcher's hand because it hit the batter in his butt. WE WON THE GAME!

Our dugout went wild with players and Mr. Forbes dancing up and down and slapping players on the back and singing and yelling and who knows what else. Mr. Forbes had his long denied city championship, and he nearly fainted from joy and relief. We did calm down long enough to go through the ritual of shaking the hand of every player on the opposing team, but I am sure that they knew that our heart was not in it. We were still celebrating, and it was going to be hours before we were able to come back to Earth from that.

We had a celebration party at an ice cream shop, and the last thing Mr. Forbes said to me as we were leaving, "You are planning to pitch for my team next season, aren't you?" I answered yes, and he went away with a smile on his face.

The other thing that made the summer memorable for me was that Tommy spent every spare moment at my house, mostly either in the pool or in the hot tub. Before long, he was used to seeing Mom naked except for the support she used for her breasts. She lived up to her promise and taught us everything she could about diving. She did insist that Tommy wear an athletic supporter like Dad did so that he would not injure himself. Of course, at this stage, I did not have any breasts to worry about, so I was able to take my diving lessons totally naked.

The next few years ran along much of the same lines at that first one when Tommy and I met. We played baseball in the summer and did the things that kids our age did the rest of the time. As long as the weather permitted, we played in the swimming pool and the hot tub. It seemed like the rest of the time we just went to school. Tommy and I were in the same grade, of course, and we spent a lot of the time studying together. Our parents thought it was "cute" the way we hung out together so much.

This was the time when my body started to make the changes that would turn me into a woman, and my hips started to widen and my breasts started to push out from my chest. Tommy's body changed too, but his changes were not as obvious as mine. We talked about the way we were beginning to look different. I commented on the way Tommy's cock got longer and his balls hung lower, and Tommy said much the same about the way my breasts and hips looked less like a girl and more like a woman.