Chapter 8

The night of the game was an exciting one for the town of Hawthorn. There were reports of ticket scalping, something that was normally unheard of for one of their games. The story was that the crowd was expecting Tag to put on a passing show, and everybody wanted to be there to see it. The game was not on TV, so all one had was the radio play-by-play if you were not at the game.

Ashford won the coin toss and elected to receive. Hawthorn kicked off and the ball was run back to the 31 yard line of Ashford. The home crowd grumbled, but it did no good. It took 11 plays, but Ashford managed a touchdown and PAT. The score was 7-0, Ashford.

The crowd was really pumped up when Tag led the offense onto the field after the kickoff. The ball was on the 20 yard line as a result of a touchback, so he had 80 yards to go for a touchdown. The crowd was in the mood for great things, but they were disappointed. On the first Tiger play from scrimmage, the Fullback fumbled the ball as he ran into the line. All of a sudden, Ashford had the ball on the Tiger 21 yard line! The team was so pissed off at the Fullback that Tag actually had to run interference for the poor discouraged kid.

Six plays later, the score was 14-0 in Ashford's favor. This was almost the first time all year that Hawthorn's Tigers had trailed in a game by that much. The crowd was becoming restive, and something had to be done. The kickoff resulted in another touchback. Tag led his team onto the field to the sound of a much subdued crowd, but Tag was not dismayed. He was well aware of how quickly a crowd could be turned around if they had something to cheer about.

The Wide Receiver on the left had the surest hands of any receiver, so Tag was happy to see the signal from the bench for a pass to that side. The exchange from the Center was clean and Tag dropped back two steps to throw a quick pass. Unfortunately, all of the receivers were covered at the moment, so Tag had to stall for a few seconds. Uh-oh, here came the charging Ashford Linebackers.

Somehow, they had broken through the blocks and were converging on Tag. Tag had little choice: either he had to throw the ball away or he had to buy some more time. This situation did not bother Tag; he dropped back two more steps and cut to the left. This meant that only one Linebacker had a chance to reach Tag, and he did get one hand on Tag's hip. However, Tag shook him off. The Wide Receiver was clear at last, and Tag threw a perfect spiral to him.

This was a 40-yard pass from where Tag was standing to where the Wide Receiver was waiting, but the pass was perfectly thrown. To be sure of a catch, all deep passes were thrown to stationary receivers whenever possible. This was counter productive in one way because the receiver had no running momentum to help him, but Coach Harkness figured that a catch was the most important thing.

In this particular case, the receiver was no closer than 5 yards from the nearest potential tackler, so he had some room to regenerate his running speed. The result of all of this was that Tag was knocked down by the charging Linebacker just as the receiver caught the ball. That was a blatant penalty, and flags flew in every direction. Just about everybody on the field saw the flags fly and stopped moving. Only the Wide Receiver had missed seeing the flags, so he started running toward the goal line.

It was too late before the defense reacted properly, and a touchdown was scored without a hand being laid on the Wide Receiver. He crossed the goal line and began a celebration that would cost the Tigers in a few minutes, but right then, he and the spectators were going wild. There was so much noise that the whistles could not be heard, but it made no difference: the touchdown was counted and the teams lined up for the PAT. That was kicked successfully and Ashford now led by only 14-7, and Hawthorn was sure that Tag would take care of that at his next opportunity.

The excessive celebration penalty was accessed on the kick off, and the Ashford kick returner ran the ball back to their 29 yard line. The touchdown had inspired the Tiger defense, and Ashford had to sweat for the first down. However, they did eventually have to punt and the ball was recovered by Hawthorn's Tigers on their 41 yard line. There was no runback, but that was a trivial matter to everybody but the coaching staff and Tag.

That late tackle had shaken him up a bit, and he had not fully recovered by the time he had to return to the field. Coach Harkness was worried about a possible concussion, so he sent in the substitute Quarterback while a couple of doctors made sure that it was safe for Tag to return to the game. The doctors gave the green light to Tag to return to the game, so he was out for the next play from scrimmage. Unfortunately, it was already 3^rd down and 12 yards to go.

Coach Harkness had instructed Tag to go for a short pass: just enough for a 1^st down. Tag lobbed the ball to the Tight End, and they got their 1^st down. That seemed to be enough to get Tag back into the flow of the game, and they ran a series of short passes to get to the Ashford 25 yard line. That was when the 1^st quarter ran out, and the teams took a short break as they swapped ends of the field.

Tag opened the 2^nd quarter with a pass into the end zone that was dropped. Oh, well, nothing ever runs perfectly all of the time. The next play was a screen pass that gave the Tigers a first down. Tag tried the pass into the end zone again, and this time the receiver held on for the touchdown. The "conversation" that Coach Harkness had with the team after the previous touchdown kept them away from a celebration penalty, and the PAT was successful. Ah, the score was now tied at 14-14. Everybody in the stands relaxed, but Coach Harkness was not so blasé.

The kickoff by Hawthorn's Tigers was like the start of a new game as far as the people in the stands were concerned, but it was already in the middle of the 2^nd quarter. Strangely, Ashford managed to hang in there and not give up another point, but the Tiger defense was equal to the task and the first half ended still with the 14-14 tie. Oh, well, the Hawthorn fans were certain that they would win the second half, so they were not really worried. The only worried folks were those who had a bet on a high spread.

After the marching bands had done their thing, the two teams came out onto the playing field and got down to the serious business at hand. This was the first time that Ashford had gotten to the second round of the Championship series, and they were pumped up for an upset. Unfortunately, this time the gods of football stopped fooling around, and the two teams started playing to form.

Yes, Tag had to scramble, but he tore the Ashford defense apart with his passing. He was running close to an 80% completion record, and it was as if his receivers had glue on their hands. The Ashford defense did their best, and sometimes it was good enough, but Tag put on a show that was to be remembered for years at Hawthorn High School. The final score was 56-20, and Hawthorn's Tigers were marching to their first district title game.

The celebration after the game was delirious. Tag was cornered by reporter after reporter and gave out interviews until he was rescued by Coach Harkness. Tag finally got away from the stadium and headed home.

When he got home, there were even more congratulations from his family, but the one he really treasured was the one from Jane. By this time, all pretense was off, and Tag shared his bedroom with Jane without hiding the fact. Jane still used her own bedroom to store and change her clothes, but she showed up to sleep with Tag each night wearing nothing but a dressing gown. She walked in each night and tossed the dressing gown on a convenient chair and never wore anything else until she put the dressing gown on to return to her bedroom to dress.

Normally, Tag was already in bed, nude, and waiting for Jane to show up. She never kept him waiting long. She did use the bathroom attached to Tag's bedroom to shower before going to bed, and Tag always joined her in the shower, even when he had showered before leaving the locker room after a football game. The two enjoyed washing each other, especially those fun parts that always got the other one so excited.

They dried off and went directly to bed. Jane was using the Pill, so they did not bother with a condom. If, by some freak of chance, Jane had become pregnant, they would have simply lived with the consequences. They both knew that the other one was a committed lover, so neither one gave the matter any thought.

Their activities in bed rarely varied. Jane always started the festivities with a blow job on Tag's ever ready cock. She never took him all the way to completion except on Saturday night. That was because they usually had plans for Saturday morning; she saved the full blowjob for when they had plenty of time and could sleep in on Sundays.

Otherwise, it was just to demonstrate to Tag how much she loved him, though no such demonstration was necessary. A few strokes of her tongue on his shaft and a few slips up and down his shaft between her lips was the extent of the action on other nights. By this time, they had already exhausted their desire for conventional kisses, and Tag was ready to worship Jane's nipples with his mouth on one side and his large hand on the other side. Jane lay down on her back with the towels under her ass to catch the inevitable drippings and let Tag have his way with her body. Of course she enjoyed his efforts, but there was never any doubt that Tag was in charge!

Eventually, he had her about to explode with desire to have his cock within her cunt. She was pouring fluid from her pussy by now and there was already a wet spot forming on the towel. This was when he moved down a little to set himself between her thighs and to move her legs up against her chest. They had found how much farther it seemed that Tag could penetrate her cunt in this position, and that was one of the things that they looked for. There was no question that Tag had a big cock, and Jane wanted every bit of it inside her that she could possibly get. This was the way to do that that satisfied them both.

Tag made sure to get his cock fully coated with Jane's lubricant before he attempted to insert himself between her pussy lips. As always, he was scared to death of hurting her, and he wanted to be sure that he could slip inside without causing Jane any pain. She never felt any pain because he was so careful, but she felt the stretching of her vagina as it was filled nearly to bursting, or so it felt. Once he had penetrated until his pubic bone pressed against her clit, they paused to savor the moment before Tag began to stroke.

He went slowly at first so that they both could feel exactly what parts of their bodies were in contact with each other, but it was not long before Tag had sped up his stroke rate and Jane was moving synchronously with him. The two settled into a rapid, but not frantic stroking that brought the maximum pleasure to them both.

Jane always began to rise to her first orgasm within the first five minutes after Tag had penetrated her. He was just rubbing and bumping against those places that caused the most sensation, and she could not have held back if she had wanted to. She was panting and groaning in pleasure by Tag's fifth or sixth stroke, and she began to rise to her first peak with those very strokes. It usually took her longer to reach her first orgasm than the following ones, and she would have probably been having a constant orgasm by her sixth one if she or Tag could have lasted that long.

Tag exploded into Jane's cunt by her fourth orgasm, and exploded was the proper word. She could feel his jets of semen, and she sometimes felt that they were going to come out her throat because they had so much force behind them. Tag's orgasm was enough to exhaust him for a few minutes, and he had to stop stroking simply because he did not have the strength or stamina to continue.

Tag always had to rest for at least 15 minutes before they could begin their second coupling of the night. Jane enjoyed those pauses because Tag always held her spooned against his magnificent body until he caught his breath and was ready for a second trip to paradise.

They always had a second run of coupling before quitting for the night, but they both savored those nights when they could manage a third time. Those were rare, but that was what made them so enjoyable. Jane and Tag both were both deeply thankful that they had found each other!

The more time that Tag spent with Jane, the better football player he seemed to become. Coach Harkness noticed the gradual improvement in Tag's grasp of the game of football, both mentally and physically, and the post-season progressed. He guessed what was the cause, but he never said anything, even to the other coaches. He was just proud of the way Tag was progressing, and took something of a father's pride in watching Tag's growth as a football player. Harkness was sure that Tag was already as good a player as the majority of college quarterbacks, and he should be the best of the bunch by the time he finished college!

However, there was still the question of the title game to be played against Samuel Payne in two weeks. Yes, the school athletic boards had decreed that the two teams contending for the championship should be allowed an extra week to prepare for the clash. Tag did not need the preparation time, but all of the other members of the team could certainly use it profitably. So could the coaches. Mostly, Tag just watched film of the Spains previous games during the season, and especially during the post-season to try to spot any weaknesses in their team that he could exploit. All football teams have weaknesses, and Tag felt that it was his duty to find them.