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From: "Gina Marie Wylie" <gmwylie98260@hotmail.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Laura Alban Hunt Ch 26 {Gina Marie Wylie} (Ff, cons)
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Date: Wed,  8 Dec 2004 20:10:02 -0500
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<1st attachment, "Laura Ch 26.doc" begin>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	The following is fiction of an adult nature.  If I believed in
setting age limits for things, you'd have to be eighteen to read
this and I'd never have bothered to write it.  IMHO, if you can
read and enjoy, then you're old enough to read and enjoy.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	All persons here depicted are figments of my imagination and any
resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly a blunder on my
part.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	Official stuff:  Story codes: Ff, FF, Cons.

	If stories like this offend you, you will offend ME if you read
further and complain. Copyright 2004, by Gina Marie Wylie.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

	I can be reached at gmwylie98260@hothothotmail.com, at least if
you remove some of the hots.  All comments and reasoned
discussion welcome.

Below is my site on ASSTR:
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Gina_Marie_Wylie/www/

My stories are also posted on StoriesOnline:
http://Storiesonline.net/

And on Electronic Wilderness Publishing:
http://www.ewpub.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Laura Alban Hunt

Chapter 26 -- What Laura Read in the Good Book : Part 2

You can call me Peggy, also.  Actually, in those days, I was
Peggy Two, which at the time upset me greatly.  It's the
difference between being a kid and growing up: when you realize
that something you thought was people making fun of you, was
really the greatest compliment of your life.

I was ten when my mother sat me down and explained things to me.
I was upset because my father was about to leave and I knew he
was going off to war and that it was very dangerous. 
Ten-year-olds don't handle their parents crying very well; I was
a good case in point.

She explained to me that my father was responsible for a lot of
people and that they needed him to do what had to be done to keep
the world safe.  It was 1941; unless you lived back then, you
have no idea what it was like.  The Germans had routed the French
and English on the continent, Russia and the Germans had been
allies, then enemies.  Japan was feared, and then Japan attacked
us on Sunday while people were at church.  Later I learned it
wasn't exactly true, but at the time it was something that upset
a lot of people.

After Pearl Harbor, the Philippines were invaded; things were
looking very bleak.  And my father was going to Europe where it
looked very bad as well, with England standing alone against the
German war machine.

We would, mother told me, have to help each other during the days
ahead.  It would be important, she told me, to support each
other, so my father would not have to worry on our account.

I waved goodbye to him, then watched his airplane take off,
followed by all the others in his squadron.  It was noisy, smelly
and above all, terrifying.

When we got home, mother sat me down, still in my best dress and
explained more.  She was going to be lonely, but she had friends
who would come over from time to time, and hug her and kiss her,
to help make the pain hurt less.  She told me that I could come
to her at any time and she'd hug and kiss me as well.  That we
had to be very, very strong.

Then she got down to the birds and the bees.  I listened
politely, but my mother was making a big mistake.  I didn't
understand much, and what I did understand, mostly I had wrong
anyway.  I mean, kiss a boy?  Let a boy do things with me?  I
shuddered in horror.  Boys?  Not going to happen!

The admonitions not to let a boy touch me in my private places
fell on welcoming ears.  I had no intention of letting a boy
touch me, period.  If any boy did, I planned on punching him in
the nose, and I told my mother that very thing.  She laughed, and
pointed to my crotch.  "Boys are very sensitive right there. 
Girls and women aren't so much.  Trust me, Peggy, hit a boy there
and he's going to stop doing whatever it was that was bugging you
and he's going to start hurting."

A few days later my "Aunt" Jane appeared, the day before New
Year's Day.  There was a lot of hugging and kissing, including
some for me.  I liked Aunt Jane; she was a lot of fun.  One day
we were walking in a park and we passed a bunch of boys playing
basketball.

She smiled and told me that once upon a time she and my mother
had been on the same basketball team in grade school, then in
high school.  Even after all this time, most of the girls were
still in touch with each other and very good friends.  That
afternoon was the first time I heard I'd been named for their
coach.

Time passed.  Mother had friends come and visit every month or
two.  I would see them hugging and kissing; I didn't think
anything of them sleeping together.  I was, in fact, relieved
that I hadn't had to give up my own bed.

Then my father came home, not quite a year after he'd left.

I didn't recognize him.  He was gaunt, specter-like, a shadow of
himself.  Mother cried when she saw him, not just because she was
glad to see him, but because of how bad he looked.

For weeks, he would sit on our porch, wintertime or not, and just
stare vacantly into the distance.  He liked me to sit next to
him; he'd put his arm around me; sometimes he'd weep.  It was
very disconcerting.  Obviously something terrible had happened,
something he didn't want to talk about.

Right after Christmas a car came for him and he was gone for
three days.  When he returned there was a resigned air about him
that I didn't understand -- until mother told me he was going
back to the war in another month.  I knew she was trying hard not
to cry in front of me, so I tried hard not to cry either.

Long before my father left that second time, I changed.  I had a
chip on my shoulder; I was bitter and angry.  Not only did I feel
that towards "them," whoever it was who was sending my father off
to that horrible place, but my mother as well.  And my father.

My attitude carried over into school and I started getting into
trouble.  I knew they were debating keeping me in seventh grade
for another year; I have no idea why they passed me.  I made
eighth grade an unmitigated hell for everyone around me.  I was
twelve, turning to thirteen, bitter and hateful.  No one could
tell me anything, although God knows, they tried.

It was my Aunt Jane who first told me how much I was hurting my
mother.  She was angry, too.  Really angry.  She told me off like
no one had ever done before.  For a few days I was better, then I
started sliding downhill again.

She started telling me stories about their coach.  Things she's
done to help her girls both in school and in life, taught them
about basketball and just about everything else.  I couldn't
believe anyone could be that perfect.

Then came a day I'll never forget.  Instead of going to school
like I was supposed to, I hid in some bushes.  Mother had said
she and Aunt Jane were going to run some errands in the morning,
and might be back late.  It was my thought to sneak home and
spend the day doing whatever it was I wanted, instead of what
someone else wanted.

I came from the alley, and didn't think to check the house to
find out if my mother was gone.  It turned out she and Aunt Jane
were getting a late start.  My mother was sitting on a chair in
the kitchen, her robe apart and Aunt Jane was between her legs,
kissing there, between my mother's legs.

My jaw dropped in surprise.  It was something I'd heard once, but
had laughed at.  Women making love to each other.  That was
stupid!

Except there it was, right in front of my eyes.  I exploded into
tears and ran out the door I'd just come in.  Somehow, Aunt Jane
caught me before I'd gotten more than a few steps away from the
house and hauled me back.

This time I learned a lot more, with Aunt Jane doing most of the
talking.  Mother and her friends were a lot more than friends. 
Lovers.  I didn't want to believe it, but how could I not?  Aunt
Jane sat two feet away from me, explaining it.

Over the next few days there were a lot of long talks.  Another
of my mother's friends, Aunt Jill came to visit.   More long
talks as it was explained to me once again.

I'm not very bright, sometimes.  It was Aunt Jill who finally got
through to me.  People get lonely, lonely people want to have
sex.  If my mother had sex with a man, it might get out or she
might get pregnant.  That would be, she explained, a catastrophe
that would make life very hard for my mother and father.   It
would probably mean they would get divorced.  Divorce in those
days was extremely rare, and divorced women weren't well thought
of.  Women who messed around when their husbands were overseas
were despised.  But, Aunt Jill told me, it didn't mean that they
wanted to stay lonely.

It was Aunt Jill who first asked me if I masturbated.  That was a
joke!  Until then, I'd never heard the word.  Yes, I'd discovered
there were a few places between my legs that caused interesting
sensations when rubbed.  My breasts were starting to grow, and
when my nipples would get hard, they too felt nice when rubbed.

I remember Aunt Jill looking at me.  I wasn't sure what she was
looking at, I was feeling nervous and excited, not sure why. 
Then Aunt Jill hugged me, and I hugged her back.  Then she kissed
me.  It wasn't like a regular kiss; her lips on mine left me
gasping, unwilling to have her stop.  Later I learned that asking
her not to stop was exactly what she wanted me to say.  And, she
didn't.

Her tongue came into my mouth; her fingers went to my breasts,
stroking them beneath my blouse.  The next thing I knew her hands
were under my dress, inside my underwear, then inside me.  My
first orgasm was relatively mild, but Aunt Jill didn't stop at
one.  Or two or three.  And when she kissed me like Aunt Jane had
kissed my mother, I understood why mother had let her do it.

It was a stunning revelation.  Not only could I feel so good, or
how it came to be that I felt like that, but that I wanted more.
Before the sun came up the next morning, Aunt Jill had very
thoroughly brought me out; I was an eager, willing and, above
all, a full participant.

Over the next few days it happened a few more times.  Not as
intense, but satisfying.  And with those times, came more and
more lessons.  Warnings and admonitions; I understood the need
for those.  I understood that if I wanted to find a girl my own
age to "play" with I would have to move carefully and most
circumspectly.

Lynn, Aunt Jill's twin sister was next in our house.  She liked
my mother a lot, but she spent a few times in bed with me as
well.

Then came the telegram.  A terse statement from the War
Department, telling mother that my father had been wounded in
action, and that he was expected to fully recover at a hospital
in England.

	There was just me that night.  She cried and cried, and I held
her and rocked her like she was the baby and I was the grown up.
Sometime in the evening she got horny and we made love.  It
wasn't like it was with the others; my mother wanted to get off
and wasn't concerned much about how.  I was there, available, and
after a fashion, willing.

	A few days later she slipped into my room late at night and made
love to me.  It was, she told me, something we shouldn't do
often.  But, she told me that she loved me and hoped that I loved
her and that I would understand.

	The truth was I was getting so I liked sex a lot, and wasn't
upset at all.

	Then, abruptly, my father was home again.  He seemed okay,
better, even, than after he'd come back the first time.  Then we
moved to San Antonio, where my father was put in charge of
getting an entirely new squadron ready to go to Europe.

	I'd finally gotten my head on straight enough to not be in
danger of flunking eighth grade, and after school was out, mother
and I moved to catch up with Dad in Texas.  It was a long,
boring, hot, frustrating summer for me.  With my father home,
relief sessions with my mother or one of her friends were
impossible.  I was a new girl in a new town, and knew almost no
one, except a few girls near my age, whose fathers were in my
father's squadron.

	Then came school in the fall and mother met her old basketball
coach.  I'd long since figured out that Coach had slept with her
team.  None of my mother's friends seemed in the least bit
concerned about how old they were or how old I was.  It was the
first time I'd been treated like an adult and I adapted to it
like a duck to water.

	Just before my father was to leave again, mother and I had a
fight.  I asked her if she thought it was cheating him when she
was with her friends.  "No," she told me, "cheating is doing it
with another guy.  He knows I have girlfriends, he knows we are
lovers.  As long as I'm careful and discreet, it's okay with
him.

	"One day, Peggy, you will be older.  You'll meet a nice man and
get married.  You'll have babies.  Some of our friends from high
school didn't want to be lovers any more; but it will be up to
you."

	"Aunt Jane doesn't have a husband, Coach doesn't have a
husband." I told her.

	"And all the others do, Peggy.  Jane is safe because she is who
she is: one of the best women's basketball coaches in the
country.  There are colleges who would hire her in a second, even
if she had tentacles and two heads.  Coach doesn't count; for one
thing, she did have a husband, and she's stopped being with
women."  Mother smiled benignly.  "Until now, of course."

	"Not me.  Not ever me," I told her emphatically.  "I've met
boys.  I've met men.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

	She laughed.  "Yeah, I said something like that when I was your
age.  I outgrew it.  It will happen to you, too.  Don't try to
fight it, if it does."

	That gave me the last push I needed.  I'd become friends with
one of the girls on the team, Libby Dalglish.  We were just
friends, but I realized I was horny a lot when I was with her. 
For two weeks I conducted a full-scale assault on her virginity,
moving slowly even so.  Touches and hugs.

	Then my father left again and I was depressed and unhappy; Libby
told me she'd do anything to help me feel better, so I told her
what I wanted her to do.  She was enthusiastic, if inexperienced.
 For a week, every day after practice we would go to my room and
I'd teach her something new.

	One day we were lying together in bed, having just mastered
sixty-nine, relaxing and talking.  It was Libby who commented on
how wickedly sexy Sheila Vickers was.  I told her that Penny was
quite fetching.  We had, you see, seen both nude.

	It was Libby's idea to have a contest to see which of us could
seduce someone else first; I told her a few things about what I'd
heard from my Aunts, in regards to being careful.  Libby smiled
at that, and told me she was sure it could be done.

	She was right.  She was even willing to pay up when I won: she
went down on me for a solid hour.  A few days later the four of
us were sitting around, with Libby and me explaining that we'd
been lovers first, and that if we worked together, we would have
a much easier time of it.  Before the afternoon was over, Penny
was sitting on Libby's lap, kissing and fondling her, and I had
my hand in Sheila's panties.

	One of senior girls, Kay Reinhardt, stopped me one day after a
practice, before we went into the showers; everyone else was
ahead of us.  "You and your friends are playing much better."

	"Practice, practice."

	"Motivation, too," Kay said, her eye on me.

	"Well, I guess."  I was sure we'd been found out and I was going
to hear a lecture on how "good" girls didn't do that sort of
thing.

	Kay laughed.  "You're a freshman, Peggy.  Where you are today,
we seniors were years ago.  We too found out it was nice to be
motivated, and worked together to get us all properly in the
same... mood."

	I looked at her, a little surprised.

	"Yeah, if you like sucking pussy, you have a lot of company on
the team.  So far as I know, only Lindsay Gallagher doesn't fool
around.  Some of us fool around a lot, some a little."

	She moved slightly, so that our breasts were nearly touching, 
"I'm thinking you are someone who likes to get around."

	I met her eyes.  "My mother told me it was never smart to
contradict someone older than me."

	Kay reached out and pulled my jersey over my head, moved closer,
her breasts pressing against mine and undid my bra.  I lifted her
jersey in turn and she shrugged out of her bra.  She brought her
much larger breasts in contact with mine.

	"None of your friends will go ape if they see us, will they?" 
Kay asked, rubbing her nipples against mine.

	"No."

	She grinned and pushed down my pants, taking my panties with the
outer garment.  "Neither will my friends.  And Lindsay is nice
and shy and tongue-tied.  She just gets dressed and leaves."

	"And coach?"  I asked, warming up to Kay.

	"I've seen the way she looks at you, girl.  She might be
jealous, but she won't say anything."

	I smiled at her.  "You might be surprised.  Did you know she
used to coach my mother?"

	"I heard that."

	"Coach was close to her girls," I explained to Kay.  "She would
schedule extra practice once a week.  She'd lock the doors and
not watch who was doing what."

	Kay laughed.  "Extra practice, eh?  Maybe we could use some of
that!"

	Kay and I traded finger-fucks, were still doing each other when
all the others returned.  Quite suddenly there was a lot of
kissing and hugging going on.  It didn't last very long, but long
enough.  Coach didn't come in, either.

	A day or so later, I took Lindsay Gallagher to the side and
asked her if we made her uncomfortable.

	She met my eyes.  "Am I going to tell?  No, I'm not going to
tell.

	"No, are we making you uncomfortable?  Would you rather know in
advance so you can go some where else?"

	She looked me right in the eye.  "I have bigots for parents. 
Narrow-minded bigots.  They found my older brother jerking off;
they put him in an asylum for the insane.  Thanks, but no thanks.
 Not me.  One day, if I behave, I'll leave home.  When I do, I'll
never go back and I'll never tell them where I went.  Never.  But
in the meantime, a little physical gratification is all I need. 
I do it where there is no way in hell for my parents to find
out."

	"Sorry," I told her.

	"Your father is off fighting the war; mine sits on his fat ass,
bragging at how he uses pull to avoid having to go.  I hate the
bastard.  Hate him!"

	I remembered what my father had looked like the first time he'd
come back and wasn't sure at all that Lindsay's father wasn't
smarter than mine.

	Then my mother asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday.

	I haven't said much about Coach, and there's a reason for that.
She wasn't like anyone else I'd ever met.  Fair, that she was. 
Willing to do anything to help you, no matter what.  Patient and
understanding.  Above all, she taught us.  In class, sure, but on
the basketball court as well.  There, more than the other, at
least for me.

	She always knew exactly the right thing to say to make you feel
wonderful or humble, depending on what you needed just then.  She
could encourage you to excel, discourage you from doing something
stupid, and hardly pause between the two.  Sometimes both at the
same time.

	I'd had a lot of chance to think.  I liked sex.  I liked sex
with my teammates.  We knew each other; we had a lot of the same
goals and ideas.  It didn't take very long before we all knew
which buttons to push to make the person we were with sit up and
beg for more.  But it was sex.

	Coach was someone different, someone I might have sex with, but
it was going to mean a whole lot more than just a quick suck or
fingering.  Not that I didn't like those, didn't want those, but
there was also something hungry inside me, something that wanted
more.

	I decided that Coach was very close to what I was hungry for; if
we'd have been anything like the same age I'd have been content.
But Coach was not only not my age, she was older than my mother.
In fact, she was only a little younger than my father's mother. 
Coach looked a lot better, kept herself up a lot better, but by
the time I graduated, Coach was going to be the same age as my
grandmother was right now.

	I decided I wanted to seduce her anyway.  I was pretty sure
Coach liked us and would schedule extra practices like I'd told
Kay about.  But first I wanted to do something for her.

	So when my mother asked me what I wanted, I replied with one
word.  "Coach."

	She looked at me, a mixture of amusement and curiosity.  "Do you
want her gift-wrapped, or as is?"

	"I want to make love to her," I told my mother.  "I want her to
make love to me.  You told me that it never affected how she
treated any of you."

	"No, it never did.  Of course, I can't truthfully say we didn't
let it affect us.  It did.  We were happy campers, ready and
willing to do anything Miss told us to do.  We were little angels
from then until now.  There is nothing she couldn't ask one of us
to do, that we wouldn't."

	"You told me how you and your friend seduced her that first
time.  Do you think it would work a second time?"

	"Like shooting fish in a bucket!"

	So, we had the party.  And I got to make love to her and she
made love to me.  I wasn't even upset that Libby somehow managed
to slip in ahead of me.

	The calendar changed, it was 1945 and the allies had invaded
Europe, were smashing the Japanese back, island after island.  In
May, just weeks before the school year finished, the war in
Europe was over.  Almost at once we got word that my father was
coming back, would stay about a month, then would proceed to the
Pacific theater.

	He got home in time for the Fourth of July; it was a hell of
party that year.  The end of the war was clearly in sight. 
Another year, tops, people thought.

	My father was scheduled to leave on the 15th of August; I
remember when he came home early and told us that we'd done
something awesome and terrible to Japan.  A few days later, we
knew what, and we knew we'd done it again.

	And the war was over, just like that.  Not a year or so, right
then, three months after Germany had been knocked out.

	There were a few kids at school who'd lost their fathers, but
most were suddenly looking forward to their return.  So when
school started we were ecstatically happy.  We'd lost three
seniors, and gained four freshman girls.  We all wanted to
continue "extra practice" but we couldn't with four unknown girls
in our midst.

	Her name was Alabama McKenzie.  Light a candle for her,
sisters!

	I don't know what her parents were like, but Alabama was as
bigoted as Lindsay's parents were.  Lindsay told coach that if
Alabama ever started ragging on her again about how to live her
life, Lindsay was going to beat her black and blue.

	Alabama played fair basketball, but she didn't fit with the rest
of us.  Not even a little.  Coach called Alabama in and told her
gently that while she played well enough, there was more to it
than playing.  She had to be a part of the team, and she wasn't.
Come back, Coach told her, when you learn how to deal with
others.

	Two days later, Alabama McKenzie, hung herself in her room. 
That devastated everyone on the team, particularly Coach.

	A few days later Coach called us all together and hurt us more.
"We're not supposed to tell you about this.  Don't talk about it.
 But when they did the autopsy on Alabama they found out she'd
been sexually molested.  Repeatedly.  They are going to charge
her father and an uncle.  It'll be hushed up, but those two will
go to the penitentiary, where, I'm told, their life-expectancy
will be very short."

	Coach looked at us, I remember the tears in her eyes.  "We
failed her, I failed her.  We were so busy looking out for
ourselves we never stopped to ask ourselves, 'Why?'"

	We played some serious basketball that year.  We stopped most of
our opponents in their tracks and our shooting was simply
magnificent; I've never been on a better team.  Lindsay took
Alabama's death the hardest, understanding, I guess, better than
the rest of us.  It was Lindsay who, half way through our season,
suggested putting her initial on our jerseys.

God, I love Coach!  In an instant she healed the worst of the
hurt we'd suffered.  She reached out and kissed Lindsay on the
forehead... and told her that no matter how accurate, it would
look bad if we played with a scarlet letter "A" on our jerseys.

	A dozen girls started laughing and crying, all at the same time.
 You had to have been there.  So we played with an "A"
embroidered on our jerseys, black instead of red, and tiny, lost
on the shoulder seam.

	There have been a lot of girls I've kicked off my teams since
then, but I always stopped and asked myself "Why?"  And more than
once, I found someone who needed help.  Regardless of what it
cost, I helped them.

	Then one day I walked across a stage, took my high school
diploma, flipped my tassel and waved to my parents, then blew a
kiss at Coach.

	I went to Oklahoma the next year; Aunt Jane had a place for me.
I spent most of my four years there rooming with Angie Mann. 
Angie and I were kindred spirits, and at long last I'd found
someone with whom, when I made love, it was a lot more than sex.

	And one day we walked across the sere grass of the football
stadium, accepted our diplomas and tossed our tassels.  It was a
more exciting than graduating from high school because it was
Oklahoma.  The last diplomas were rushed, and then everyone
headed underground, as there were tornadoes spotted a few miles
away from the stadium.

	Angie and I moved to Arizona, Aunt Lynn was now superintendent
of a school district in central Phoenix and she got us jobs in
two different elementary schools as PE teachers in training.
	
	Angie might be the love of my life, but there are some things we
don't share.  She loved working with the younger kids; I was
bored out of my mind.  In 1954 I swapped to a local high school,
the first coat of paint still fresh on it.  They already had a
basketball coach, so I was just an assistant.

	Two years later I looked at the handwriting on the wall.  Agnes
Lowery was going to stay until she dropped dead.  She was
tenured, comfortable and a winning coach.  If that wasn't bad
enough, her opinions about lesbians were scorching.  She didn't
like me, couldn't stand it when Angie appeared at any function
and I realized that I was never going to get tenure if I stayed.
I was pretty sure that being denied tenure would not be a good
thing either.

	I went to the man at the district office who was in charge of PE
teachers and gently sounded him out about a transfer.

	He looked at me for several seconds, and then laughed. 
"Sometimes you hear stories.  I personally ignore whispered
rumors.  I figure if someone wants to make a point, they need to
stand up and make it.  Can't stand back-stabbers at all."

	I kept my face expressionless.  There were, I thought, other
towns than Phoenix, and other states.  California was just over
the western horizon.

	"Care for a challenge?"

	"What sort of a challenge."

	"You're from Texas."

	"The south, anyway."

	"How do you feel about niggers?"

	"Black people, you mean?"

	"Those people.  Could you coach them?"

	I wanted to cry.  What would he say if he found out that my
mother's lover in school had been black?

	"I can coach any girl who wants to play and do well."

	"South Mountain High.  We can't keep a coach there.  Too many
issues.  You spend two years there; I'll find something else for
you.  Something that includes tenure.  I promise."

	I smiled at the jerk.  "Way I look at it, next year will be my
third year.  Tenure year."

	"We usually only give tenure to teachers who spend three years
at one school."

	My smile grew broader.  "Hey, this is my volunteering to help
you out of a bind.  At the district's request, right?  Give me
the tenure; I'll give you the second year.  I promise."

	I'd like to say we shook hands and departed friends for life,
but I could see in his eyes when I promised him that his promise
had been a lie.  No, I got his name on the transfer paper, that
it was at the district's request, not affecting my tenure.  And
he got my signature as well.

	Angie was upset; South Mountain High was a notoriously rough
school.  I simply shrugged.  I'd deal with it.  If I couldn't, I
was in the wrong profession.

	The following Friday I received a note to see my principal, and
found myself transferred a little in advance of the end of the
school year.

	So, the next Monday I met with my new principal, an elderly man,
balding, with a thin fringe of white hair.  He also sat stiffly
erect in his chair, his hands folded on an empty blotter in front
of him.  He reminded me a great deal of my father, if not quite
so large.  Sober rather than bluff and hearty.

	"Miss Brewster, welcome to South Mountain."

	"Thank you, sir."

	"You ever work with Negroes before?"

	"No."  My mother might have been on a mixed-race team, but that
had been a miracle that hadn't happened often in the South and
not lately.  Oklahoma had been a lily-white school as well.

	"I had the privilege to command a Negro unit in the Second World
War," he grimaced.  "Truck drivers, a transport company.  But
then one day in the snow of France, the Germans came.  We fought
them, Miss Brewster.  With our rifles, until we ran out of
bullets, then rifle butts and bayonets.  When those were gone,
entrenching tools and fists.  We took two hundred and eleven
German prisoners that day.  General Patton came to give Silver
Stars to every man in the outfit.  Until he saw the color of my
men.  He turned around and drove away."

	"I've been a teacher for nearly two years, all of that coaching.
 I have had some of the best coaches that exist.  The best
women's basketball coaches that exist.  The first team my high
school coach led was mixed, black, Mexican and white.  Didn't
stop her from winning her league.  My mother played on that team.
 I didn't come here to turn around and leave."

	"You have no doubt heard about what a tough, dangerous school
South Mountain is."

	"Yes."  Lying didn't seem like a good idea.

	"Lies.  Simple lies.  About a third of the student body is
white, half Negro and the rest a mixture of Mexican and Japanese.
 You will find the average parent in our school district is every
bit as interested in the success of their children as they are
where you were in west Phoenix.  Our football team plays rough,
but the young men downtown at Phoenix Union are rougher.

	"The district hasn't seen fit to supply me with any decent women
for PE or coaching.  If you want the latter, you'll have to do
the former."

	"Not a problem."

	He stood up and held out his hand.  I shook it, and then he took
me to the Athletic Department.

	Grant Bolinger was the head of the department.  He was in his
late forties with dark brown, wavy hair.  A dozen women I'd known
over the years would have died for those waves.  He was beefy,
now running to fat, and was one of those people who felt that he
had to prove his strength by crushing your hand.

	There was only one other woman in the room, she was even older,
maybe fifty or so, graying hair, cut what I'd call butch short. 
She was wearing shorts and T-shirt, a whistle draped around her
neck.

	There were two younger men; both dressed in shorts and T-shirts,
also with whistles.

	"Miss Brewster, this is Margaret Landis, Curt Wingate and Floyd
Hipps."

	I shook hands with them, smiling when I shook Margaret Landis'
hand.  "My coach in high school was named Peggy, and I got used
to being Peggy Two."  I thought I was being nice.

	She stared at me frostily.  "My name is Margaret, not Peggy. 
You shouldn't use nicknames in front of the students."

	I smiled sweetly.  "To my students I will always be Miss
Brewster.  If they want to be informal, they can call me
'ma'am.'"

	Grant Bolinger laughed at that.  "Well said, Miss Brewster!  I
take it from your name that you're not married?"

	"Yes, sir."

	"Well then, you'll have to look out for Curt and Floyd, both are
eligible bachelors."  He laughed at his own humor.

	I looked at them, a smile on my lips and contempt in my heart. 
Not in a million years!  Curt Wingate, at twenty-five had a beer
belly and was losing his hair.  Floyd Hipps had hair that drooped
in greasy hanks; it was longer than mine, except in front.  I had
bangs and he didn't.

	A few minutes later Margaret Landis was showing me the locker
room, then out into the gym.  A half dozen girls were shooting a
few desultory baskets at one end; at the other end a dozen young
men were more organized, running through a shooting drill.

I wouldn't have recognized their coach, except for the clipboard
in his hand and the fact he was wearing slacks, a sport shirt and
a sweater over it.  Whenever he was displeased, he'd slam the
clipboard against his hand, and everyone would look to see what
he wanted.  He took a lot of notes.

I switched my attention back to the girls.  Two black, two white,
two brown.  They passed, took their shots, they did everything by
color.

"Is it Mrs. Landis?" I asked my escort.

"Miss," she shot back.

"What is my schedule?"

"First period," she waved around us.  "What you see here, are
your basketball players.  The season is over, most of the girls
have quit coming.  They'll be back next year.

"Third period is your prep period, as it is for all of us.  The
rest of the day, except lunch, will be here, helping me with
general PE classes.  This week we're here in the gym, playing
scratch basketball.  We make up new teams each day."  She looked
me up and down.  "You'll want to wear shorts and a loose shirt
here.  There are no coolers for the gym; later in the day it will
get quite warm."

It was May, no doubt.  No doubt at all it was going to get warm.
I contemplated being sarcastic, instead I settled for a mild, "I
have a change of clothes with me."

I motioned to the other end of the room and the male basketball
coach.  "And his uniform?"

	She sniffed.  "Dudley Doright.  One of these days he'll go down
with heat exhaustion.  In the meantime, he's determined to be
formal, even if it kills him.  He's from back east someplace. 
Massachusetts."

	I waved at the other end of the gym where the girls were.  "Mind
if I do a little coaching?"

	She sniffed again.  "That's what you're here for.  I'd mind if
you didn't.  You will find it a little different than what you
are used to."

	I nodded and trotted down the court.  One of the black girls,
easily the tallest person in the room, saw me approaching and
headed to cut me off.

	"You the new coach?"  She asked.

	"Yes.  Coach Brewster."

	She ignored that.  "You any good?" She waved at the basket, half
the court away from us.

	"Not from here," I told her.

	She turned slightly, paused, and then fired a perfect shot,
right through the hoop.

	I smiled at her, and then gestured for one of the Mexican girls
to fetch the ball.  A second later I had it, and I turned and
started walking forward, until I was at the free throw line.  I
turned and faced the black girl.

	"Try that again from here," I told her, passing her the ball.

	She snorted in derision, started to do as she'd done before.  I
had the ball out of her hands before she'd gotten it half way up,
turned and swooshed the shot myself.

	The same Mexican girl fielded the ball with a grin and fired it
very hard back to me.

	"Take the ball out past mid-court, come back and put it in," I
told her.

	She sniffed in disdain again, and turned away, running well, and
dribbling right.  I followed along behind, and when she turned; I
was there in front of her.  She moved forward and I backpedaled
as fast as she went.  She turned to go around me, but I was
faster, staying in front of her.

	Finally, she stopped, brought the ball up to shoot again, and
again, I had the ball out of her hands and shooting at the hoop.
It wasn't as good as before, but it went in, which was what
counted in the long run.

	"If you want to play on my team," I told her, "you're going to
learn to run and shoot... without stopping.  Any team we play
with a player who stops to shoot is going to find a picket fence
in front of her."

	"I do okay."

	"You can do better," I told her emphatically.  "That's what I'm
here for: to teach you how to do better.  And win games.  That's
what we're all here for."

	I turned away from her.  "You girls, line up in front of me."

	They came, obedient, but silent.

	"This is my first day with you.  I don't know you and you don't
know me.  That will change for all of us.  My job is to teach
you; it is my pleasure to win basketball games.  I did in high
school; I did in college.  You will here.

	"My name is Miss Brewster.  You can call me Coach or Miss
Brewster."  I pointed to the black girl.  "Your name?"

	"Celia Howard."

	"Yours?" I pointed the black girl next to her.

	"Estelle Parsons."

	Both of the black girls were tall and very thin, curly hair done
up in ponytails.  Estelle looked to be a junior, Celia a
freshman.

	"Josephina Nunez," the Mexican girl who had fielded the ball the
first time, and who held it now.  "Josey."   Josey was short, but
the word I first thought when I saw her was "feisty."  A
sophomore.

	"Maria Banta," the second Mexican girl reported.  Taller, but
wider.  Marie was a little pudgy; a junior I was pretty sure.

	"Sally Winters," one of the white girls said.  Sally was a
sophomore too, heavy boned, but not fat.  She was taller than
anyone except for Celia and Estelle.

	The last girl met my eyes and held them.   "Terri Farmer." 
Terri looked a little young for high school, with a gangling
build that showed promise of more height later.  She was already
nearly as tall as Sally Winters.   Most of the girls had long
hair; Terri's was short, held by a flowered headband.

	I'd felt joy and thrills before, looking at someone.  I'd made
love and been made love to.  Angie was the one and only person
I'd made love to that I loved.  And standing there, looking at
Terri Farmer, I realized that I felt the same things for her that
I felt for Angie.  In just a single instant, a passing glance, a
few words from me and the same from her.  I was smitten.

	I talked for a few minutes to them about what I wanted, and then
we started passing drills.  I controlled my emotions; that's what
coaches do.  The girls passed to each other, not just their
friends.  Then we did some free throws, with everyone else tasked
to grab the ball if it missed and try to score.  When the boys
knocked off, I called them off as well.

	I felt a movement of air, and turned to see the other coach
standing beside me.  "D. Sloan Howe," he told me, holding out his
hand.

	"Peggy Brewster."

	He saw me start to speak and sighed theatrically.  "Yes, the D.
stands for Dudley.  If I bitch and moan about it, I figure in
about twenty years the 'Dudley Doright' label will be history."

	"We still teach history," I said, laughing at him.

	"Thanks!" He seemed a little bitter.

	"I'm sorry about that," he waved at the end of the court where
the girls had been.  He grimaced, "I've been coaching the girls.
Bolinger told me to lay off today."

	He met my eyes.  "They've had five coaches this year.  The girls
have gotten into a pattern, seeing how fast they can drive the
new coach away.  Your predecessor didn't last the first period."

	"I've wanted to be a coach since I was their age.  I had some
good teachers."

	"In fairness, the woman before you played tennis, she hadn't, I
think, picked up a basketball since elementary school."

	"And you?" I asked him.  "How did you come to be here?"

	"Because these kids play some damn good ball.  In a few years I
want to be a college coach.  To do that, you have to win ball
games.  Winning games is a whole lot easier if you have talented
players."

	More kids were filing in, Bolinger and the other male coaches
showed up, followed by Landis.

	Coach Bolinger came up to me and smiled.  "Everything go okay?"

	I smiled sweetly at him.  "Yes, no trouble."

	"Sometimes they can be a little tough on a new teacher."

	"Would you have trouble on your first day at a new school?" I
asked him.
	
	He smiled wickedly.  "Maybe.  For a minute.  Then I'd knock some
heads together and we'd go from there."

	"Didn't take me a minute and I didn't knock any heads.  A little
shooting from mid-court, from the foul line.  Now they know I can
play.  And I know how well they play."  I waved around me at the
room full of kids.  "I want more players.  They can't do as well
as they could, if they don't practice year around."

	"Good!"  He turned to Coach Landis. "Announce to all the classes
that if anyone wants back out of study hall first period, they
can play basketball."

	The day blurred past.  A lot to do, but it wasn't as though I
hadn't had days like that for the last two years and watched
coaching for eight years before that.

	At the end of the day I went into the showers after everyone
else had left and rinsed off the sweat that had poured off me in
the afternoon.  The only saving grace was that the gym had a high
ceiling and the furnace air was up near the rafters.

	Coach Landis came in as I was drying off.  "You're not married."
 She didn't beat around the bush.

	"No, I have a roommate.  We were roommates in college.  Our
coach got us jobs here.  Lynn Durante, the Central
superintendent, played ball in high school with our coach at
Oklahoma."

	"I have a roommate as well; we've roomed together for thirty
years."

	This wasn't a surprise, but I didn't say anything.

"Don't rock the boat, Brewster."

	I stared at her coldly.  "I'll give you this once.  Just this
once.  You don't know me and I don't know you.  Don't you rock
the boat, either.  If you think I'm out of line at some point,
you can complain then.  As I will complain if I think you're out
of line."

	"Don't get snippy with me!  I've gotten along longer than you've
been alive!  Don't tell me my business!"

	"Do you really think it's an accident that I'm here?  Do you
think I'd be here if I had a trophy husband?  Would you?"

	She glared at me, but I just stood there, not raising my voice.
"People know, Coach.  They know.  They don't want to make an
issue of it, and as long as we hide in the cracks, they don't
care.  Oh, how well I know that!  There was a girl at college who
just had to tell everyone who she was and what she was!  That got
her kicked off the tennis team, and when they found out she'd
been doing it with her roommate in the dorm, they kicked her out
of the University."

	"You think really well of yourself, don't you?"

	"I don't think I'm vermin that has to live in the cracks and
shadows.  That's forced on me; it's not my choice.  I want to see
it different, but I'm not going to throw my life away trying. 
Just like you.  One last time: get on my case when I give you
reason to.  Now, if you would, I'd like to finish dressing
without someone drooling at my tits."

	She flushed, lifted her eyes away from my breasts, turned and
walked rapidly away.  After that we were polite colleagues who
didn't talk so much.  Sort of my relationship with the rest of
the coaches.  Except Sloan.  But Sloan is another story, to be
left for later.

	That night, I talked to Angie after we'd made love.  She had
known about my wild-oat days in high school and hadn't minded. 
Now, when I told her that I'd met someone, a student, she was
intensely troubled.

	"You can't think like that, Peggy.  It's bad enough what we are.
 Messing with a student?  They'd put you away, jail or the funny
farm.  How is it right to seduce a student?"

	I sighed.  Explaining my wild-oat days hadn't included Miss
Peggy, my mother or her friends.

	"When I told you about what I was like in high school... I left
out a few people."

	She looked at me.  "There were a lot, it's okay.  I
understand."

	"Angie, a lot included Coach Crawford.  My high school coach. 
Some of my mother's friends besides Coach Crawford.  Lynn's
sister was the very first person I slept with.  She seduced me,
but oh gosh!  Was I ever ready!"

	I reached out and held my lover's hands.  "Angie, those women
aren't twisted perverts.  They didn't mess me up.  I'm not a
twisted pervert either."

	She surged into my arms and we made love again.  And when we
were resting afterwards, Angie held my hand.  "Did you ever
wonder why I was so receptive to you?"

	I shook my head.  "I thought we seduced each other.  It was
cute."

	She grinned.  "It was.  It wasn't my first time."

	I laughed.  "I told you about my life, part of it.  But I was
pretty sure it wasn't your first time."

	"A woman seduced me.  She was my dance teacher when I was
twelve.  I was, she told me, her special friend, her special
student.  She was always giving me treats, she took extra time
with me, helped me in a thousand ways.  One weekend I spent at
her house; she showed me how women love each other.  It was
beautiful, Peggy.  The sweetest, nicest thing in my life until I
met you.

	"We were occasional lovers for more than a year; then we moved
and I never saw her again.  I told her our last time together I
hoped she found another special student someday."

	"Do you feel used or abused by her?"

	Angie shook her head.  "But, it's something you should think
really carefully about."

	"Angie, my high school coach made love to every girl on the
first team she coached.  You've met a lot of them."

	Angie nodded and I went on.  "She coached my high school team. 
There was a straight girl on the team who was never with anyone,
but she never told on us.  Aside from her, Miss Peggy made love
to everyone on the team.  My mother made love to a couple of them
as well.  Ones that wanted to be with an older woman."

	"So you're saying it just seems wrong, but isn't."

	"It seems wrong to the same people who would think what we've
just been doing is wrong, too."

	Angie remained skeptical, although after a few years it
subsided.

	It was a new school, there were only a few weeks left in the
school year.  I got three more girls to come out for basketball,
all white.

	I spent a lot of time remembering how Miss Peggy had coached my
team.  It is a natural human instinct to favor people you love;
it's a little easier to favor someone you like over someone you
don't.  It was impossible to ignore Terri Farmer; for one thing,
her eyes never left me.  It went well beyond the attention a
coach expects from someone on the team.

	On the first day of finals I had a surprise for the girls on the
team.  I'd gone to a local market and gotten two dozen ice cream
bars of different varieties, stopped at the ice plant for some
dry ice.  Instead of practice, I told them it was study hall
instead, with a treat.

	It was a big hit with everyone; it was June and even at 8:30 in
the morning is was very hot.

	I kept well away from them, sitting on a folding chair, doing
paperwork for Coach Landis.  She and I actually worked well
together.  I was more popular, she was less so.  Several times
girls came to me with problems of one sort or another; Coach
Landis told me she hated such questions.

	It was nearly the end of the period when Terri Farmer appeared
in front of me.

	"Coach Brewster."

	"Terri, looking forward to the summer?"

	"I wanted to thank you for everything you've taught us."

	"It wasn't much.  There'll be more time in the fall."

	"I wish I could learn more," she said, looking at me steadily.

	I contemplated life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
Angie and I had already gotten jobs with the city parks and
recreation department, helping with the summer athletic program
at Encanto Park.  Basketball, tennis, volleyball, badminton and
archery were the main sports for girls.  There were also swimming
and golf programs, but they were separate from the rest of the
summer sports program.

	"I'm going to be coaching at Encanto Park this summer. 
Basketball mainly."

	She smiled at me.  "Really?  My father works downtown; I could
come."

	"I'd like that.  You show a lot of promise, Terri."

	And so it came to pass that the first day we started the summer
program, there was Terri bright and eager.  A lot of the younger
girls who played in the summer were there because it was a place
for parents to park their kids, not all of them wanted to be
there and there were more discipline problems.  The older girls,
particularly the high-school-aged girls, were there because they
wanted to be, and most of them wanted to be coached and kept in
shape.

	Angie really liked working with the younger girls and so that's
what she did, while I worked mostly with the more serious older
girls.  You can't do basketball, though, eight hours a day,
particularly not in Phoenix during the summer time.  There was no
gym; the basketball courts were outside in the sun.  We did get
to play in the morning, but in June, July and August that only
meant playing in the 80's instead of the 100's.

	After an hour on the courts, we would troop over to the pool,
about a half-mile away, shower and swim for an hour.  The pool
was huge, literally two Olympic pools, end to end, plus a large
children's pool, separate from the main pool.  We got there
earlier than most, but by noon the pool was crowded and in the
afternoon it was jammed.  There was a snack bar, complete with
jukebox.  A very popular place at any time of the year.

	And of course, a lot of boys.  There was almost nothing we could
do to control the interactions between the sexes, the pool was
just too large and there were only a half dozen adults to
supervise about a hundred young people, interspersed with two or
three times that many regular patrons of the pool.

	In later years, the system broke down, but that year, 1956, it
was still working.

	And, as is always the case, some of the girls hung around the
coaches, talking to us.  For some, it was because we were role
models, for others we were a safe haven from some of the
rough-housing that went on in the pool.  The lifeguards were
really good about controlling it, but there were always a few
clowns who made it hard on some of the more sensitive girls. 
Terri was one of the girls that stayed close, and we talked a
lot, but she wasn't the only one in the group.

After lunch we would be back playing something else, I supervised
either volleyball or badminton, while others ran the tennis and
archery.  It was hot; we had frequent breaks where water and salt
tablets were available.  Long before the summer was over, most of
us were very dark-skinned from all the sun exposure.

Around four we'd break up for the day and head home.  Angie and I
would stand in our shower using cold water (or what passed for
cold) only, and then we'd go sit under the air blowing out of the
evaporative cooler and rest.

One morning Terri came up to me before things got started and
asked me a question.  "My dad has to go out of town for a week
and my mother is with my grandmother in LA, she's sick.  I'm not
going to be back until next week."

For the thousandth time I considered the way Terri looked at me.
This time I was tolerably sure what she wanted.  I smiled at her.
 "Would you like to come and stay with my roommate and me?  I
know you don't need a babysitter, but it might make your parents
more comfortable."

"Would you?  Could I?"  She was so eager!  "I thought about
asking, but I was afraid..."

"It's not a problem.  It's something I can do to help."

It took a bit of arranging during lunch.  I talked to Terri's
father who seemed pleased that someone would be watching Terri. 
Terri had, he told me, spoken often and well about me.

After the day was over, instead of heading home, Terri, Angie and
I headed south, ending up very close to South Mountain Park. 
Terri lived in a small subdivision of very nice homes, with a
good view of the mountains of the park.  I met her father, and
Angie and I talked to him, while Terri went to pack.  I gave him
our phone number and address, and before long, we were back out
headed north.

In those days, cars didn't have air conditioning.  Houses and
most public places didn't have air conditioning.  For the longest
time, the only air-conditioned building in town was a movie
theater on Central Avenue, just north of downtown.  Homes were
cooled with evaporation of water trickled through wood fiber
pads, an electric motor pulling outside air through, and the
evaporation cooling the air off.  When it was a hundred outside,
it worked.  When it was a hundred and ten outside, it helped.  A
hundred and twenty outside, which didn't happen often, but it did
happen -- nothing helped.  But it was something people adapted to
or it forced them to leave.  Most people adapted.

The first thing Terri noticed was the one bedroom with one bed.
I got to know Terri very well over the years; she was always slow
at first to warm up to people.  But, at a certain point, it was
like a logjam breaking and she could move very fast.  That's what
she did then.

"You two sleep in one bed."

Angie, behind Terri grinned at me, over Terri's head.

"Yes we do.  Let's just say that teachers aren't the highest paid
people around.  We don't have much, and the only way we have as
much as we do is because we share it."

She looked at me, and then turned to look at Angie.  "Do you...
touch?"

Angie laughed and I wanted to strangle her.  I sat down on the
couch and looked Terri right in the eye.  "That wouldn't be a
good thing for people to know about us, don't you think?"

Terri nodded soberly.

"But yes, we do.  You are asking if we're lesbians.  And yes we
are.  And if you tell people... we get in serious trouble.  Odds
are, we'd have to move and we wouldn't be able to teach -- or
coach -- any more.  Both of us would hate that."

"I won't tell.  Not ever!"  Terri bit her lip.  "Sometimes, I
dream about what it would be like.  To have a friend like that. 
To touch."

"We love each other, Terri.  And we do more than touch," I told
her.  "We make love to each other, the beautiful way women make
love to each other.  It's wonderful."

"Someday..." she murmured, looking into the distance.

"Someday we all find someone special," I filled in her thought. 
"We have to be patient, but if we are patient, one day it
happens."

"My mother says that too, but she's talking about boys."

"It's true for everyone.  Special people, Terri, are just that:
special.  When I was in high school most of the girls on my team
were like Angie and me."

Terri's eyes widened in surprise.

"We were good friends, very good friends.  We made love to each
other, but it was physical.  Sex can be like masturbation.  You
know what I mean by masturbation?"

She nodded.

"It's physical gratification.  You can do it for yourself, or
someone can help.  Sometimes the sex with my teammates was really
good, other times it was about the same as masturbation.  As we
grew older, some of the girls started dating boys, in college
particularly.  Some are happily married now; most are, in fact. 
They have husbands and children and are just like most other
people.  Except for their memories."  I smiled at that, and Terri
returned it.

"Is there someone you think about in particular?"  I asked
gently.

She looked away and I giggled.  "Besides me."

Terri turned bright red.  After a second though, she met my eyes
like she usually did.  "Celia," she was still blushing, but also
looked like she was expecting the sky to fall.

"Can I tell you a secret?"  I asked Terri.

She nodded soberly.

"When my mom was in grade school and high school, her best friend
was black, too.  They were lovers.  My mom's friend died while
she was in college.  It really hurt my mom."

"You don't think it's wrong for a white girl to like a black
girl?"  It was clear she was astounded.

"Terri, we're all people.  Cut us, any of us, and we bleed.  That
time of the month, black, white, brown, yellow girls, we bleed
then too.  A guy sticks his thing in us and squirts, we can get
pregnant.  Sperm are color blind.  A lot of people don't like
blacks.  A lot of people don't like lesbians.  It's not easy.  I
have a feeling that a black person with a white friend probably
has a hard time of it too.  Or a white girl with a black friend.
There are a lot of stupid people in the world, Terri, with a lot
of stupid prejudices.

"The only way we'll get past them is for us to look each other in
the eye and see people first and color last."

"And that's a lot more likely to happen these days, than for
someone to look at us and see a human being.  We're freaks, girl.
 If you want to go this way, that's up to you.  But you better
think about what you're getting into," Angie interjected.

Angie grimaced.  "You want to hold hands with a boy?  At school,
you get a hard time.  Walking home, or at a dance?  No problem. 
You can probably dance with a girl on Friday night, but you'd
better be dancing with guys as well.  Kiss a girl in public? 
Life as you know it would end.  If people find out about you,
they make your life miserable.  At your age, a girl I knew was
put in an asylum because she was a lesbian.  They think it's a
disease they can treat."

"Can I ask you a question?" I said to Terri.

She nodded.

"Why do you like Celia?  What about her is attractive to you?"

"She's -- tough.  Confident.  She's like you, Coach.  The first
day you came on the court, I could see it.  Everyone could see
it.  You didn't show up Celia, you showed her what she was doing
wrong.  And you could do it right.  Celia was really bad with
some of the other teachers.  But you made her behave.  You made
everyone behave.  You didn't raise your voice, blow a whistle or
threaten people.  You asked us to do what you wanted us to do. 
And showed us why it was good.

"Celia's like that too.  Confident, brave.  When we were in grade
school, she and a friend were roller-skating and some boys
knocked the other girl down.  Celia took off her skates and
started swinging them around her head.  She chased those boys
away.  I wish I was like that."

"You'll do, girl," Angie said with a laugh.  "You'll do.  You two
sit out here and talk.  I'm going in and lie down on that bed of
ours and nap a bit before dinner."

I patted the couch and Terri came and sat down next to me,
looking at me, curious.

"Let me tell you something about Angie and me.

"We love each other; we have loved each other almost from the
first time we met.  We love each other in all the ways any two
people love each other.  Even so, we're two different people,
with two different sets of things we like and don't like.  The
very first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is brush my
teeth; my mouth feels like an old cotton ball.  Angie wants to
get in the shower and wash the night sweat off her; she can't
stand being touched until then.  The thought of kissing someone
in the morning before I brush my teeth turns me a little green."

I could see a furrow between Terri's eyes as she tried to
understand.

"What I'm saying is that I grew up a particular way.  I made love
to a lot of girls.  When we were in college together, I didn't do
it as much, but there were other girls I made love to, besides
Angie.  Angie understood then, she understands now, that my heart
is always with her.  But that now and then, I want to expand my
horizons a bit."  I smiled at Terri.

"I look at you and see how you look at me.  I have this feeling
you want to expand your horizons too."

"I dream about it all the time," Terri admitted.  "What it would
be like with you, what it would be like with Celia."

"One other thing, Terri."  Our eyes met again. "When I was your
age, I was pretty clueless.  An older woman came along, someone a
little older than I am now, and she showed me what it was like.

"If some old guy tried to get me in bed, I think I'd want to
throw up.  This wasn't like that.  And she wasn't the only older
woman I've been with.  They were confident and gentle, they
wanted the same things as I did from sex, and they wanted me to
feel special.  I felt very special."

"I want to feel special," Terri said with quiet dignity.

"You are special, my friend."

I kissed her, and then I made love to her.  Later, Angie slept on
the couch, and later that night Terri and I made love several
more times.  There were other nights as well during her visit,
plus the days as well.  By the time Terri went back home, she was
a different young woman.  More confident, sure of herself and her
abilities, sure of her place as a woman.  Terri came over several
times during the summer.

School started again.  This time there were nearly twenty girls
who wanted to be on the team, most of them adequate players.  I
worked hard to break down the barriers that others had erected
between the girls on the team.  They learned to trust each other;
above all, they learned to play together as a team.

Terri was one of those who tried the hardest.  Several times I
saw her talking with Celia, and I would smile to myself and would
wish Terri all the luck in the world.  And of course, it's nice
to know you were listened to, because several times I overheard
Terri complimenting Celia on one thing or another.

But there was something else going on, as well.  They started to
pull together.  We didn't play our first game of our season until
the last football game of the regular season and the
championships that followed, but it was worth the wait.  They
played very well, and more importantly, it was as a team.  And
nothing reinforces success like success.  We scythed through our
opponents like a combine across a field of ripe wheat.  We won
the city, then the state, no one really giving us much of a
challenge.

And shortly after the New Year started, Terri flashed me a big
grin and a thumb's up.

In a way, I wasn't sure if the team that year was a good thing
for Terri and Celia or not.  They were happy, and no one made an
issue of them being best friends.  The two of them were always
together.  But the rest of the team were, so far as I could tell,
straight girls who weren't interested in adventures with someone
their own sex.

That school year ended and over the summer both Terri and Celia
were frequent guests in our house, even if it was across town for
both of them.  Then it was their junior year and another season.

Civil rights was something that was looming on the horizon, we
could tell.  Anyone could tell if they paid attention, but a good
many people weren't.  Eisenhower had put Federal troops on the
school house steps, facing down state National Guard troops.  
There was no shooting, thank God, but it was clear that
integration and civil rights weren't going to be won without a
fight.

Angie and I smiled a lot when we watched the two younger girls;
we hadn't been quite so goofy in our first days together, but
we'd done some pretty silly things together.  Terri and Celia
seemed to dare each other to do weird things.  Nothing dangerous,
nothing even socially risky.  Things like reciting lines from
Othello at lunch, or festooning the visiting locker room with
toilet paper before a game.

The core of the team had remained, and like the year before, we
mowed down our opposition, going on to win state again.

I look back at those two years and realize that while everyone
was happy, things were festering.  Unseen, pots were coming to a
boil; things were starting to happen across the country.  Big
changes, I thought, were afoot.  I had no idea.

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