Chapter 7

It went remarkably well. Then again ... why shouldn't it have? People pushing carts of laundry across a parking lot wasn't an unusual thing to see at the stadium. And nobody saw half naked girls crawl out of those carts and slip into the bus. Their spare weight didn't even make the springs compress as they scampered along the aisle to the rear, to instinctively hide in the back sets of seats.

But the two men and one woman who did the pushing thought they must stand out like a bonfire in the middle of an ice rink. Which might be why, as the carts were emptied of girls, it was instinctive to hurry the carts back from whence they came.

"You stay with the girls," said Bob to Francine, his voice hushed. "We'll dump the carts and rejoin the team."

"Maybe I should stay here," said Brady. "Just in case ... you know." His comment wasn't a question, but more a statement that he expected Bob to know why it might be important for him to stay with the women. Bob did not, in fact, see why that might be important. But he'd just seen his daughter stark naked, being pawed by men whose intent was quite plain. He was rattled, and in no small part because, as a man, he could understand why all those men wanted to do to her what they had wanted to do.

He found, to his dismay, that he was fully capable of seeing Judith as his sweet, innocent daughter ... and as a desirable, sexy, sexual young woman, who some man was, very soon now, going to actually have sex with!

So he said "Good idea. I'll cover for you," and promptly started pushing one cart while pulling the other. Brady and Francine stepped onto the bus, where the first thing they did was take inventory of the girls. In a ritual that was at the same time normal as pie, and one of the craziest things Francine had ever done, she introduced all the girls to her former lover.

It wasn't until Bob was already back inside the stadium, that Francine froze, and her strained voice said "Where is my habit?"

The girls had naturally gathered at the back of the bus. They were a subdued lot, now. Francine was still angry with them, but she knew it would do no good to stay with them and beat what was, basically, a dead horse. At the same time, the only sensible option she had was to sit with Brady while they waited for the team. The problem was that, while her mind and body craved to be close to him, that would quite likely lead to her hearing the truth of the fact that, by making Brady a cheater, she had destroyed a marriage, something she now thought of as sacred. Just taking him as her lover had been bad enough. It had taken literally years for her to master the guilt she'd felt about her part in the adultery.

She'd had a difficult time adjusting to working in the convent. Only recently had her dreams calmed, and her emotions become less unpredictable.

And now she was afraid she might find her sin had been compounded, without her even knowing about it.

Unlike most women new to the convent, she had welcomed the stiff, formal habit she had to wear while she was teaching. It reminded her of what she was trying to do with her life now, and helped her close her mind to men in general, and Brady Hopkins in particular. It was inflexible, a mixture of subdued black, gray and white, and that comforted her, because when she had it on, she knew she could have no man. She had chosen that kind of life, but had also been sure she could never control her urges if she lived among men. The habit had convinced her she could. She had found that, while she still recognized that this or that man at school might be handsome, she could turn away from them all with ease. The habit helped with that.

But now, she had no habit. It was still in that cart of dirty laundry.

"I'll go get it for you," said Brady, standing up.

She thought of him handling her shield ... her underthings. If he did, she'd never be able to wear them again without thinking that his fingers had caressed them.

"No!" she barked, as he took a step towards the front of the bus. "It's not worth the danger that someone might see you with them and wonder what you were doing. I can get more clothes when we get back to St. Clementine's."

"Okay," he said, uncertainly. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure," she said, firmly.

"We can just catch up on things then," said Brady, sitting down beside her. "While we wait for the team."

He didn't understand why she groaned.

Francine knew she was in trouble. She suddenly knew what it must be like for an alcoholic to be offered fine Brandy, or whatever it was that was the crème de la crème of alcoholic beverages, and be required to just sit there and stare at it. She felt much better, in one sense, because Brady had convinced her that she hadn't wrecked anything. The only reason he had fallen in love with her was because his wife, after five years of marriage, had discovered that the affinity she developed for other women in college hadn't gone away like she thought it would when she got married. She loved him as a friend, but was no longer interested in him as a mate, or man. She was, she decided, a confirmed lesbian.

They had talked about it. What convinced him she was firmly in the lesbian camp, was how much she cried about hurting him, and trying not to be attracted to other women. She didn't want to embarrass him with a divorce, but did want to be free to enjoy the lover he hadn't known about. He'd just thought Sharon was his wife's best friend.

That had been a year before he met Francine Fox, who began teaching at his school. She was irresistible even though they had no real contact, other than casual smiles traded in hallways, or across rooms. And then, he was thrown together with Foxy Fox, as the boys he taught called her, and they ended up under the bleachers. He had needed Francine. And she had seemed to need him.

He knew she was uncomfortable about the ring on his finger, but he was too embarrassed to admit what the state of his marriage really was. He didn't want there to be any chance she might think he was feeding her a line of bull. Lots of men did that, telling a girl his marriage was on the rocks, and that he'd get a divorce, when all he really wanted was to get his dick wet.

He finally talked to Johanna about it, confessing his feelings for Francine. Johanna saw his need, and his hope that he might find with Francine what his wife hadn't been able to give him. They were still friends, and had talked about his feelings and why he hadn't told Francine about things. And it was then that Johanna said she felt guilty about holding him back. That was how they came to a point where the divorce was less threatening than the fact that the marriage might deny him the happiness she already had. So they agreed to quietly end it and she went off to live with her best friend lover.

The next day, Brady had gone to school, eager to tell Francine the news. But she was already gone. He looked for her, but couldn't find her. When the job offer came to work for the Ocelots, he tried to leave the pain behind him and buried himself in his new job. At least that part had paid off.

"But now I've found you again," he said, holding her hand, "only to find out you're a nun! How did that happen? Your turn. Tell me everything!"

"I'm not a nun," she said, automatically. "Not yet, anyway. I'm a novice. It's sort of like studying to become a nun."

She stopped there, pain rushing through her like fire. He had gotten divorced for her! But not because of her! Not really. Yes, she had been a factor ... but not the reason. She didn't know how to feel about that.

"But why?" he begged, unaware of the turmoil that was within her.

"Because of you!" she blurted. He looked shocked.

Then she explained.

In twenty years, all this might seem humorous.

But it wasn't at that moment.

The normal aftermath of what happens in the locker room of the winning Super Bowl team goes on for a long time.

But this aftermath hadn't been normal. Before Bob got back from whisking his daughter and her friends off to safety, every player in the room was aware that there was a daughter and her friends. Before this, eighty percent of the team had no idea their coach had a daughter. Or had ever been married, for that matter. The few who did only knew that the wife was firmly in the past. Some of them had wives in the past too, so they were familiar with the concept, and understood why a man might not want to talk about it.

Initially, of the entire team, probably only twenty were actually aware that five of the naked girls they had manhandled ... shouldn't have been manhandled. In fact, that they shouldn't have even been there. But the word was that Coach had gotten those particular girls out of the locker room, and now the team, with nothing more than the suggestion of certain of their teammates, banded together to present a solid obstacle to the members of the press who were fascinated with the fact that there had been naked, and partly naked women running around in the winning team's locker room. Those women had vanished, but it was still news, and a few of the members of the fifth estate had gotten pictures. They'd have to be pixilated to put on the news, but that was no problem for a story that juicy.

The team's mission now was to create confusion to cover Coach Tanner's escape with the girls and ensure the press wasn't allowed to find out those particular females had ever been there.

So most of the team was busy doing that.

Another, however, was still cowering in the shower room. All he'd heard was that the locker room was full of underage women, and he was terrifyingly afraid he had fucked one. So far, nobody had singled him out. He had announced to the fucking world that he was popping a nut in that little teeny bopper! He was afraid he was going to shit a brick pretty soon. He'd tried to get out of the shower room when he first suspected he was in trouble, but the press of players had prevented that. Finally he'd retreated further into the room, as the girl he'd fucked was taken out. In the end, he slid down the wall he had just fucked that girl against, and put his head in his hands. Only the sight of his sperm-streaked penis, lying on the floor between his legs, got him up again and under the water, as he frantically tried to remove the evidence that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.

"Hey! BD!" said his best friend, "Tank" Theodore Busby, who was a starting lineman, and who appeared at his side like magic. "I heard you got some pussy. Izzat so? Did you save some for me?"

"I didn't get no pussy!" yelled "BD", AKA Tyrone Washington, who played wide out, and who had caught a touchdown pass during the game. The euphoria from that, which had fueled grabbing that little white girl and fucking the shit out of her, was completely gone now.

"I heard you did," said Tank, who was actually happy for his friend.

"Shut up!" hissed BD. "You gonna get me thrown in fucking jail!"

"What? Why?" Tank might be big and he might look dumb, but he wasn't. A glint came into his eye as he realized what the deal was. "You got it all wrong, BD. Coach was lying to us. Well, sort of. I guess he got a daughter, and she brought some friends to the game. Somehow they got mixed up with them other women. But they were the only ones underage. All the others were legal. Coach got all the jail bait out of here. We're all good, now."

"You sure?" asked BD, perking up.

"You see any cops?" asked Tank.

"Damn!" sighed Tyrone. "I saw them fucking bars closing in my face."

"Naw. We good. But I'm pissed at you, bro. You know we supposed to share the wealth. I can't get no women by myself, man. I'm too fat. The girls all think I'll kill them if I lay on them. I got to take your sloppy seconds, you know?"

"They scared of me too," said BD, grinning for the first time since he unloaded his balls in that girl. He wondered where she'd gotten off to. Probably somewhere to look at her pussy and make sure it wasn't torn to shreds. They all did that the first time he got in them. But later they came back for more.

"At first," he added, grinning even wider. "Don't you worry. I'll get us somethin' to play with at the dinner tonight."

Then the word started filtering through that Coach Tanner was back, and that he wanted them all out to the buses ASAP. And what that meant was that if you hadn't gotten a shower yet, it was too bad.

They had showers at the hotel.

Brady and Francine might have made further progress on damage control, but they were interrupted by men, still full of the ecstasy of winning, who began pushing onto the bus. That ecstasy, and the adrenaline that had resulted from it, aided by what they found in the locker room, was only now beginning to fade, being replaced by the dog tired dazed looks of men who had given everything they had.