It started because I beat her nephew up. I had been in the USA for only two days too. Most of the first day had been spent getting through immigration from the wrong country, five weeks after the rest of my family entered, with a face looking like I had been through a train wreck. Then getting a missed flight to Colorado, then getting out to Boulder from Denver. I arrived home to the new place my family lived in feeling like I had been through a train wreck and slept for eleven hours.
I woke up to find that my brother and sister were at school and I was alone at home.
Habits die hard so I made myself breakfast and started training, after what I had been through the routine was to focus on fitness with low impact. So I settled down to a yoga routine followed by laps in the pool alternated with treading water in ten minute cycles. Then I dressed and considered the rest of the day, videos or finding a gym, or hitting the books. The scream from the house next door had me wandering outside to think.
I was from South Africa, hearing a scream there meant that you were advised to stay away or needed to come and help. Interpreting that was a matter experience. I found the phone my parents had bought and wandered to the house next door dialing nine one one on a video call, taking a chance. To my surprise the picture flashed up to show the lady answering. I explained who I was and why I was calling. Then I explained that I would investigate and let them see the situation to be able to make better decisions.
She advised against it but I was already switching to the other camera and ringing the door bell. A girl of maybe fifteen answered and stared up at me as I spoke quickly. She was frightened, that was clear the moment I saw her.
“I’m sorry but I was wondering if you could help me find this address? I just arrived from England and this lady… well could you help me please?” I said turning the phone for her to see the phone call.
She looked at the call and I saw relief wash over her face as her hand reached for the phone. As soon as she was holding it I grabbed her wrist, and pulled her as hard and fast as I could. Luckily front doors open outwards in the USA so she yelled in surprise as she went flying.
She wasn’t very big and I had put all my strength and speed into the move so she didn’t touch ground until she was eight feet away and over the lawn and then she hit ass first and skidded another six before coming to a stop. I took delighted note that she was wearing no clothes underneath although I winced in sympathy for the grass burn she was going to have.
I didn’t have time to enjoy the view because as the door flew open I had seen a man with a gun and I turned back to see him pointing a fucking huge piece of artillery at me. The girl started screaming at him to stop and the noise was getting to him.
He was rattled and his pupils were extremely contracted. He was jittery and nervous, probably high. I took stock of him fast, older than me and the same height more or less. That was where it all stopped. I was one meter ninety, weighed ninety eight kilograms, and was conditioned through playing rugby. He was at least twenty kilograms lighter. He was far from fit too, looking as if he lived in a cave and ate reject fast food.
He was screaming that he was going to shoot me and she was screaming for him not to shoot me. This was not going to end well if it carried on. I went into an attention getting routine I had picked up from a team building expert on one rugby camp. I meant whispering to myself, counting quietly and clapping hands lightly, then repeating. It worked within three cycles and both were looking at me quietly.
“Now you see? We’re all calming down. What’s your name?” I asked the girl.
“Sheryl.”
“There we go Sheryl, you see shouting just makes things worse. Speak calmly and we can all stay calm. I’m Ferdi by the way.”
“Hey man! I’ve got the gun! You ain’t the boss here!” the guy shouted.
“Ah right. What is your name?”
“Jerry. Now fucking get inside or I’ll fucking blow you apart.”
I looked at him thinking fast, that bullet at this range was going to go through me faster than my nervous system would process the fact. It had been some time and he hadn’t fired yet. I had dealt with other armed individuals in South Africa and knew the the longer he refrained from shooting the less likely he would be to shoot when he needed to. How to keep him talking until I had an opening to take the gun off him…
I looked behind me and nodded at what I saw.
“No I don’t think I should move.”
“What?” Jerry asked.
“You see if I go inside and you shoot me the power in that gun will mean that the bullet will go through me, hit a wall and then probably bounce around the walls. Also if were to shoot me inside the bang would probably burst your eardrums. So I think you should consider shooting me here where the bullet will go through me, through that hedge, through that house wall and probably into that wall behind it where the cops could get a good ballistics match.”
Jerry blinked.
“Have you ever shot anybody before Jerry?”
“Uh no.”
“Right now it depends on the bullet right. A normal bullet will penetrate and go a long way through a target as close as I am. What kind of ammunition is in the gun?” I asked aware that Sheryl was holding a phone that was connected to emergency services and they would be taking note of every word.
“I dunno. What wall mister? There ain’t nothing behind ya.”
“Really?”
I looked around again.
“Yes there is, maybe I’m in the way. Let me show you.” I replied and stepped out of the line of the gun.
Jerry kept the gun trained where it had been aiming. I could hardly believe how stupid he was as I stepped closer to him dropping my center of gravity, my one hand still outside of the nine of the weapon my body inside the line while looking where I had said there was a house wall.
“I don’t see nothing mister.”
Jerry later contended in court that the video was fake because he did not remember saying that. He definitely didn’t see what hit him coming. I pulled my outside hand back and grabbed his gun hand. As I squeezed as hard as possible I leaned toward him, brought my other elbow up to hit him under his jaw with my entire weight rising as I jumped into the shot.
His jaws slapped together loudly, his knees buckled as his head rocked back. Blood immediately burst from between his lips as he started going down, he still had the gun though. I didn’t let him fall, well not further than to his knees. I put my free hand in his hair and felt how greasy it was before slamming his face into my bent knee. I heard the satisfying sound of his nose breaking and knew the fight was effectively over but I was not finished because he had not dropped the gun yet.
I had a hold of his arm and a wrestling spin sent the into a pillar holding the porch roof up, I dimly heard the sirens as my fist hit him in the middle of his chest and then I was over him swinging as he tried to get away with legs that wouldn’t carry a butterfly. I was tackled off him by a cop and I got out from under him easily and was about to launch at Jerry again when I realized the world was flashing blue and walked away a few paces with my hands up again.
There were two cops pointing guns at Jerry as he lay flat on his back still holding his gun. It took no expertise to see that he was not going to use it. He was flat on his back, very still, bleeding onto the lawn through his whole face and his gun hand’s wrist was clearly broken. No person with a working wrist could point a gun at his own head with is arm outstretched and aiming along the back of his forearm.
“Can I press criminal charges against him officer?” I asked the cop sitting on his ass looking confused.
“Yeah sure! You might want to have your cheek looked at sir.” He said pleased to get a formal complaint to arrest Jerry on.
I reached and felt blood on my cheek. I shrugged about it as red lights came to confront the problem of how to get the gun out of Jerry’s broken hand and insisted on treating my cut cheek which basically meant the paramedic stared in horror as I cleaned the wound with saline solution and closed it up with surgical tape and then put a gauze dressing over it and taped down.
The paramedic was a bit freaked out as I gave my statement while doing the first aid and looking in the ambulances wing mirror. I let the cop come with me to get my passport He stood in the dining room looking at the medals and trophies in the cabinet and the trophy from my latest tour to the Home Countries of Rugby.
I explained that I had not come to the USA with the rest of my family because I had been selected to play for the South African National Under 18 Rugby Union Team in a mini tournament when I gave him the documents. He nodded and asked if he could take a picture. Not all the trophies were for playing rugby. Two were for water polo and one was for a cross between cross country running and marksmanship called Lazer Run. And then a few were for cricket. There were a couple of old and minor awards for judo, tennis, long distance running, and brief period of equestrian sports in which I did Gymkana, and dressage. I had grown too big to competitively carry on with those though, aside from judo but I had decided to focus on team sports. Judo had been a cross discipline anyway to get a better idea of how to deal with tackles.
He took a picture for the case file and then had me walk through my actions. I had just finished telling the cop and Jerry was being loaded into an ambulance when Sheryl’s mother arrived. Seeing her I decided that I was going to drive a GM pickup truck. She was the stuff of dreams as she got out of her car dressed in her sales outfit. She was self assured, neat, fit, and trim. Maybe twenty centimeters shorter than me in her heels, light brown hair, she had very feminine hips, damn good looking legs, and firm breasts that seemed to stretch her shirt in just the right way as she walked across the lawn to introduce herself to the sergeant running the whole response.
It looked as if half the town’s police force was arriving I could see two detectives in plain clothes looking around and speaking to officers, the ambulance was leaving with a cop inside to make sure that Jerry didn’t escape despite being drugged to the eyeballs with morphine. I knew more cops were in the house with Sheryl too and wondered for the first time if I was going to be arrested.
I was wondering that as Sheryl’s mother came across the lawn and stopped to look at me with the dressing on my cheek.
“Who are you?” She asked.
Her voice gave me an instant erection. Its was not exactly high, not very low. Unmistakably female.
“Ferdi Ma’am. I am the guy who called nine one one.” I answered memorizing her face so that I did not stare down at her breasts.
“You’re British?”
“South African ma’am, I live next door.”
“Oh! You’re Elaine’s oldest? Wow! They said you were finishing up a commitment and would be coming soon. Welcome to the USA then. Thank you for calling nine one one and getting her away from Jerry.”
“No trouble ma’am. Who is he anyway?”
“My nephew. My sister’s son. A piece of shit if you need to know. He’s been in trouble before and spends his time getting drunk or wasted. He’s had a thing for Sheryl for awhile now… Thanks anyway.” she said and was about to move into the house when she saw my mother on the sidewalk.
She waved and beckoned my mother closer then it was a chat. She had come from the elementary school she taught at to take me for an interview with the local coach and then I had to get to college for another interview with the admissions board. I had completely forgotten in dealing with the cops and sprinted home to get dressed.
My mother gave me a lecture about Amanda, Sheryl’s mother, on the way to the interview with the coach. She was too old for me and I had no business trying anything on with her. She owned a GMC dealership, and would not be able to support my career with her own career, regardless of the career I chose.
The USA was not a country to pursue a professional career in Rugby in, and I thought football was way too predictable. This meant I would have to look at overseas teams like Lenster or Munster, or Marseille. They only recruited out of professional players with more that two years experience anyway and the only thing I could do here was to build a reputation to go to bigger clubs later.
If I chose to make a career out of my other passion, astronomy and astrophysics, it would mean going to a strong scientific university like MIT, or Stanford, Harvard, maybe look at doing my doctorate at Leeds University or Cambridge. UC Boulder did have a science faculty but it was not geared to generating PhD graduates in fields like physics and astrophysics, at least it was not known for that.
My mother went into all of this as she drove. I had worked the plan up when my parents got immigration clearance. She was reminding me of my professional plan.
She gave me money to get around and left me at the stadium that seemed to serve soccer, and rugby together. I asked around and got to the rugby coach who stared at me as I introduced myself and explained where I came from. It turned out that he had been expecting to need to tell a school senior sports student about rugby, his personal assistant had led him to believe that. It took him a few minutes to readjust and then he asked to see some of my games. I had a few school matches and inter provincial matches available on flash drives, and needed to go to Youtube to show him the international matches I had played in. He took note of where to find those matches and refused to commit but said that his team usually held trials in August, he would however take what I had given him into consideration and discuss with the management.
He walked me out and I pointed out that his scrums were setting with their feet too far back, they were risking collapsing even when they were winning the scrum because the props had their legs extended and had to take large strides to stay on their feet. It also made staying straight more difficult because all the flankers had to guide them were their arms instead of the their weight and direction of thrust, the line between flanker and contact with the opposing scrum got too long and then the prop was always going to turn under the pressure. The coach stood with me watching the scrum coach and scrumming machine nodding as I told him. He gave advice for getting to the college admissions center and said goodbye at the gate.
The college had already decided to accept my application when I arrived at that interview. They had my SAT scores verified and my sporting background made it an easy selection to make. There was a moment of stunned silence as I told them that I was interested in physics or astrophysics rather than sports sciences and that I was looking at doing a few business management courses too. The dean of student affairs had a look at my marks again and commented that I had the mathematics and science subjects. He put me up for a mathematics major and said that all the undergraduate science courses started with mathematics.
The best advice I had received from talking with ex professional rugby players had been to have a fall back profession ready at all times. The end of a career was one injury away and that injury could happen at any time. You also spent a great deal of time recovering from more minor injuries and having a business or profession to use while you recovered was good. To point to that they pointed out that only six of the players in the Springboks had no qualification outside rugby and those had family businesses or were studying something to have a fallback.
I was game for playing rugby as a career but I knew that at best that career would end before I was forty. That meant I had to be ready. My father had a small business that made concrete pots and terracing blocks with a sideline in pre-stressed concrete slabs and fencing that I could probably help to run. I was covering bases as much as I could with college.
It was too late for me to start the year, being June already and admissions already closed for the year. I was welcome to start the next though, that left me nine months to kill and grade twelve was pointless because I already had the academics.
I got home late in the afternoon to find that my father had hired me a lawyer. I was puzzled about why that would be needed for more than negotiating a contract with the rugby club but that would mean them being interested first. It turned out that it was quite foreseeable that Jerry or at least Jerry’s family would sue me for assault. Additionally the cops were pressing an assault charge on the cop who had tackled me.
I sorted the cop out the next morning. He was in a misconduct review hearing and my lawyer got me in. I told the panel that I thought the cop had been brilliant in doing his job. There was one guy who tried to get me to say something about my cheek being cut and I wrote that off as accidental and preferable to me being arrested for killing somebody which might have happened had he not tackled me and stood up to shake his hand. The whole hearing fell apart right there and the cops not pursuing a charge easily made a decision that I was a good guy.
I asked about getting a driver’s license and explained that I had learned to drive in a country that drove on the wrong side of the road. The cops were fast about that, the precinct commander had me drive a squad car a little then directed me to the DMV. He had a chat with the manager and an hour later I had my learner’s permit, half an hour after that I had a license.
The officer dropped me at the GMC dealership and went back to work. I wandered into the dealership calling my father to tell him that I had a driver’s license and was buying a car. My father asked me to look at three more pickups to use as site support vehicles and then five to get crews to site and get work done. That got a salesman’s attention fast.
I had a surprise walking around the show room floor. It was only new vehicles. In South Africa dealerships sold new and used vehicles off the same show room floor. The used vehicles were another lot entirely and the salesman was not keen to let me go there.
Amanda saw me as word spread to her fast so she came to check. I was more in favor of a used truck for me because I was probably going to work with it and I didn’t need it to look good, only work well. The vehicles for my father were working vehicles and I was growing frustrated with a salesman who was trying to push top end trim levels when I needed paint finishes that were tough or at least would not show scratches easily. I had no need for heated steering wheels, or massaging seats, or massive winches. I needed tow hitches, good brakes, good power, good mirrors, and good security features which the vehicles all had as baseline. The only additional trim I wanted was satellite navigation for a site foreman to get to the site.
Amanda saw that I was getting upset and worked fast. She asked and me about what was going on and I explained that I wanted a used truck for myself and trucks for my dad’s business. And that the salesman was trying to push what I had not asked for, especially in the used truck department.
She chased the salesman away and called the used lot to bring a truck they had standing there then accepted an invitation to lunch for us to discuss what I wanted and to work up a deal. I had a look around while she made the call and saw the sales support and admin ladies come and go with pieces of paper. Most of all though I admired Amanda’s ass as she went into the salesman’s office and gave him a hard time.
One lady came up to me and showed me to some seats and offered coffee. She asked if I was allowed to drink coffee with being an international sportsman and I smiled at the question. Amanda had told somebody I was an athlete.
I declined the coffee, mostly because I had already learned that American coffee was disgusting. Amanda wasn’t long and we went to lunch with Amanda already thinking about ways to make a good deal. In my way I was also thinking about making a good deal.
The truck coming from the used lot was slightly older than a year old and had been repossessed for non payment. It had been standing on the lot for four months. This was not unusual for repossessed vehicles. Given the situation though, that the previous owner in fact owed whatever was unpaid from the sale of the car its price was largely flexible.
I had something in mind and showed Amanda jobs I had done in South Africa with my father at other dealerships. I had landscaped fore courts and built car display ramps built gabian block terraces and cast concrete slabs. I had a plan for her dealership and offered to do the work if she bought the materials from my father. For discounts on my father’s trucks I suggested better advertising than a little bumper sticker but that the entire tailgate be painted with her dealership details while my father’s company kept the hood and roof and doors. We had a good lunch really, with her really enjoying that I was doing real business, and it was towards the end of it that she and I were sitting and the chat became personal.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Amanda asked.
“No, love is geography and I was seldom in the right place, irritated the hell out of selectors that I would stare down a telescope at a star rather than a girl undressing across the street. What happened to Sheryl’s father?”
“He fired me for a younger model. Why were the selectors irritated?”
“Stupid of him. I would stay up late and I would not be with the rest of the team. It meant they had to send a special policeman out to find me.”
Amanda smiled at the way I said things and responded in kind. I thought it was damn sexy of her and I reflected on how many times I could have brushed her breast with my hand as we had poured over payment details and options I could present to my father. I thought she might be thinking that I was interested in Sheryl with what came next.
“Sheryl was cutting school yesterday because she thought Jerry was a guy she has been chatting with on text for the last month.”
“Wasn’t me. I don’t see why she would cut school for that though.”
“Not? She’d been chatting with a guy who said he admired her and then arranged a day off… She intended to…never mind. It wasn’t rape until the guy turned out to be family and more that ten years older than her.”
“Oh, I often wonder what guys see in young girls. I mean they think you’re their piggy bank from what I saw. They are all naughty until they have to actually do something. And they expect you to drop everything for them. They don’t get it that plans go wrong. The only girlfriend I might have had broke up with me when she insisted we go out for Valentines day after I came off a hard game and had a concussion.”
“That doesn’t sound like a reason to break up.”
“The lights swirling all over the place, the noise, and the floor that kept moving got to me. I threw up in her face as she tried to kiss me.”
I started the work at the dealership two weeks later, at the beginning of august. I noted the little audience when I floated the concrete slabs, or set the terracing blocks, or simply lifted a small roof. It seemed the ladies working in and around the dealership were getting a kick out of watching me.
The speed at which everything in the USA worked stunned me. I had been called as a witness to Jimmy’s trial and had already received feedback from the club that I was on their roster, needed to attend a training camp in mid September, and had to get a lawyer or agent to represent me in matters like salary negotiations. The lawyer my father had hired was only too happy to step into that role.
Amanda and I started having lunches daily as I got the forecourt improved and my work was extended to doing more than the fore court to include work in her workshop making strengthened floors for car lifts to stand on and dig the floor to get her workshop ready for new machine to align wheels, test brakes, and a sunken bay for an auto electrician to test for faults.
The rugby club also went from just accepting me as a squad member to encouraging other players to train with me in the gym. The coach was really interested in what I could do from a game and campaign planning perspective. I found myself in discussions with him during training sessions as much as I was training with the remnants of the previous year’s squad.
I worked up a routine in which I hit the gym by five in the morning to finish a session by eight and be on site by nine when I expected my crew to be there. I then worked on site until five and went to train for another two hours or to sit with the technical staff and analyze videos of the last season to understand how the other teams were going to play and what we could do about it. On Saturdays the coach and I would work out set piece plays, work on defensive patterns and tactics.
I also put an idea in the coaching staff to start speaking to referees. I pointed to the number of cards we had conceded and discussed getting referees in for discussions with the team, possibly a few practice games to give us feedback about what they noticed about the way we played. That became a Monday routine after I finished work at the dealership and moved on to do sheet rock work at a housing development. I improved my workforce by one and made the best of my first two a charge hand to get the crew to site and to get the work done. I gave him my truck to use and returned to Amanda about another when the coach gave me a locker space in the locker room.
We went to lunch again to discuss a deal. I was making enough off the new project to pay for another used truck. Amanda had no intention of selling me a used truck again, it was not her core business and she had only done that because the fleet sale made it worth her while. As such I took a demonstration model off the floor and negotiated a preferential payment rate to keep her company branding on the door.
Once again she had enjoyed the chat and that I had not wasted her time. And at the end of lunch asked me a question I had been aching for her to ask.
“Why did you come to my dealership? Most contractors buy Ford.”
“I like you. Besides you’re wrong about Ford. Contractors tend to buy where they have a contact. Watch your sales over the next thee months to contractors with your branding on my father’s trucks. They’re going to ask him what he’s paying and at least ask you about buying or making a deal.”
“I thought you liked Sheryl.”
“Why? She sits on her ass all day and writes songs that say how her life sucks because she sits on her ass all day. Jerry was an easy lay, possibly a score for something until she found out he was family, was stoned, and probably had an STI.”
“She’s been hanging around you a lot.”
She had, and she had also tried to get me to cop a feel of her breasts. When I was home she tried sunbathing where I could see her too. Very often loosening her top to avoid a tan line over her back. Unfortunately for her I had also noticed that she never left her phone alone long enough to carry a conversation of any depth.
“Yeah, but you’re more my type.” I responded, too fast.
Amanda stared at me for a full minute.
“I’m not a cougar Ferdi.”
“That’s fine. I am.” I said taking a stab at humor to diffuse the sudden tension.
Amanda shook her head at that, not understanding.
“The Colorado Cougars. I’m on the team when I turn eighteen.”
Amanda brightened at that.
“Yeah? When do you turn eighteen?”
“Next month September sixteen.”
She smiled and let me pay for lunch giving me the key to a demonstration model that was going to be replaced soon when we got back to her dealership. I signed the papers and stood at the car door just before driving out.
“Sometimes you seem older. Sometimes younger.” Amanda said before I got in to drive away.
“My teammates in the South African squad called me OD. In Afrikaans it was an abbreviation for OU Doos; basically calling me a difficult old man.”
“You are difficult, I would say you’re a dick. You have a list of things you will not accept and it is not negotiable.” She answered.
“Really? I’ve only been nice!”
“Oh don’t worry. I like dicks.” She said as I started the car.
I looked at her but she was already turning away showing me that incredible ass again. I started the car and she threw the financing contract over her shoulder in shreds. I looked at my phone before joining the traffic, a text from her read: Happy Birthday; be more of a dick with Sheryl.
Somehow I got drawn deeper into club affairs as the season opening came. Rugby was not a popular sport and the league we were in was a college league, that meant the stadium and facilities belonged to UC Boulder and was the old football stadium. The college did not offer a course in rugby and we formed part of the general sports faculty with a private ownership component. It placed restrictions on the hours we could practice, and how many hours we could play the squad members.
I had not realized that when I researched the team and the coach went to trouble to explain that I was subject to the same restrictions, while also not subject the restrictions because I was not a student yet. Instead I was one of the few professionals paid by the club’s owners. Ten minutes later I sat in a management meeting in which we evaluated expected results for the season.
The owner turned out to be an ex Australian international player who also owned a major league team and considered the Cougars to be an academy for his bigger professional team. He had other business interests but rugby was his passion.
He listened to the initiatives like speaking to referees and nodded at it being a good idea. Feedback about the training camp was good, we had several players from an NFL background, a few from a rugby background in other countries too. Relatively few members really needed to learn from scratch. The coach discussed selection policy and I put my hand up.
“Excuse me coach but rugby is not about who is on the pitch with the first whistle. Its about who is there at the last.”
Yeah it’s a squad effort to win the game.” He nodded.
“Rather than put the best available to start, select the bench first of the strongest, fittest, and most flexible players. Your second stringers then start the match knowing they’ll be playing forty or fifty minutes and can hammer away. The reserves have the hard job, they might play thirty minutes and need to turn a game around if we are losing, close a game we are winning out to win with bonus points, or salvage something if we cannot win. They might need to play seventy minutes because our starter failed an HIA or something and achieve the same results from a position he does not usually play but can at need.”
“Yes, that is what the Boks are doing now. Do we have the squad though?” The owner asked.
“We don’t have the squad to win reliably on the fifteen best guys who start. As long as the starters stay in touch until we bring the bench on we should do better.”
The owner looked at the coach and the manager. The coach nodded, it was worth a try. The team manager looked at me.
“By that metric you should be on the bench then.”
“Fine! As long as we end the season in the top three not the bottom and have to play relegation games. I would rather play an invitational post season tournament in England or New Zealand than fight relegation.”
“What invitational?” The owner asked.
“One we set up? The college league winners go into an invitational against second division or weaker first division teams hosted on neutral venues on a knock out basis. We get our squads international experience, our coaches get practice at knock out competitions, we see how the rules are interpreted in other parts of the world and when the USA plays World cup we have a better idea of what is going to fly.”
“I like that, not the neutral venues maybe. Stadiums need to make money and the best way is with the team who plays there… No worries, I’ll set something up. You guys win the league to get in. Next item; the stadium is making a loss, the college wants to tear it down.”
“Shit!” the manager said with feeling.
“The college has a hospitality studies faculty right?” I asked.
“Yeah why?” The owner asked.
“We turn the suites into a restaurant? Or a project for the faculty on game days? We can rent the boxes out to companies on a per game basis for marketing drives, on off days the boxes can be available for businesses to host lunches? A dedicated chef, and waiter, flat rate, no disturbance from another table…”
“Nice idea Ferdi. We have lower overheads for staff because it is a class assignment and a pass depends on the customer. We would be paying utilities anyway too.”
“Commentary on internet for all our games with a live feed about referee calls explaining the rules? And why he called them? I commentated one match between Glasgow and Firth for a small Youtube channel and he made plenty doing that even after paying me two thousand pounds for the day. We would put backsides into seats because then people would know what they are looking at and that washes through to the majors and internationals.”
“I might get the governing body to sponsor that. Nice ideas, next thing?” The owner said nodding.
“Squad captain… I want Ferdi here. I know you like Dave sir but Ferdi is here at an hour notice, Dave didn’t bother to answer his phone.”
“I watched your games in Europe Ferdi. A blind side flanker as fast as a wing; damn that was something to see. I wouldn’t have liked playing you at my best!”
“I was a late inclusion, all set to come here with my family and got the call five days before the team flew. Their first choice flanker tore his ACL.”
“That was bullshit you know? He stole a car and got his knee trashed in the accident.” The owner said.
“Really? Sipho stole a car, his dad’s Ferrari?” I asked.
The owner nodded and closed his folder.
“I had hopes for Dave, huge talent but he has a responsibility to the team… Ferdi, take skipper this match, it’s a new role for you I gather but nate said he would have put you in at skipper if not for the Bulls policies. Show me something and we can talk. What are you going to study?”
“Astrophysics sir, or nuclear physics with a few business subjects if possible.”
“Good on ya. Go for business first, that can get you more than just rugby faster. Let me know about tuition fees if they won’t assist you.”
“I have a small concrete business, hopefully I can get it to pay for the classes.”
We left the meeting with the owner looking thoughtful. It was the first of several meetings that went into so much more than just the season coming up or the first game. The manager and coach went into another meeting with me to figure out how we were going to select a competitive team based on the second stringers and then to develop a game strategy that could work.
The owner turned out to be a Chevrolet man and completely approved of my truck when he came out of the stadium at the same time I did. He dropped me a hint about a small concrete job he had at a factory of his at the door of my truck as I spoke about how I liked it. The small job happened to be five thousand square meters of reinforced concrete at the factory loading dock. My tiny team of three nearly ran away but they turned out to have large families. I did the planning and saw that I was going to need to buy another truck to move the power floats and additional people.
I worked up a plan to put to Amanda again. My father had hired a box for the season opener when I told him he only needed to hire it for the day. He was marketing for a huge highway improvement project and wanted to host the main contractor to supply most of the material. I had asked the owner for a box to market the stadium’s services as he got ideas put into effect. It was adjoining the suite my father hired and I arranged to share the catering.
I took Amanda to lunch again and proposed a discount for my next truck. I had dealt with other contractors and would invite them to the game for Amanda to build contacts among contractors. Additionally I had my father in the suite next door who could introduce her to highway maintenance contractors. I wanted a discount on a basic truck to carry my expanded crew and get tools I borrowed from my father to and off site.
She was not sure how effective the day would be so she spoke to her used lot and arranged that I could use a bigger truck until she saw how many leads her business generated from the day. She smiled and agreed to five hundred dollars discount per lead. I was happy with that because I had free use of another truck and nothing obligated me to buy it if I didn’t need it after the factory. She was happy because she wasn’t losing anything while she stood to gain a lot if the day worked out.
“Do you really like me Ferdi?” Amanda asked suddenly.
“I think you’re awesome. You keep yourself in shape and that can’t be easy while running a car dealership. You’re confident, tough when you need to be. It’s all a very sexy package Amanda.”
“Your mother doesn’t approve.”
“Ja, but she would disapprove if I brought a nun home. When you said you liked men who were dicks…” I started.
“Part of why your mom doesn’t approve. Men who are dicks take charge so very well and dominating one is a challenge with fantastic rewards and then having one take charge and kick ass is such a nice experience. Sheryl’s dad was not a dick, he was just easy to have around so I ended up calling the shots and he really hated that.”
I sat back and considered what she meant by dominating. I had no real idea so I asked.
“Your mom doesn’t approve because she knows I was into BDSM. Do you know what BDSM is? “She asked quietly
“Ja. I can sort of understand too, there is something about coming out of a match and everything hurts but you got something right, and then you feel damn good and the pain is minor.”
“There’s a lot more to it than pain.”
“There always is. I read something on the plane to Europe, Venus was not the goddess of love but of passion. The Greeks and Romans did not think of being horny as passion, that was lust. Passion was suffering for love, usually openly and in public… I would like to know more. How does mom know?”
“She and your dad spiced up their sex life with me before you were born.”
“I was born six months after they got married.” I said to a responding smile from Amanda.
I spent an hour listening and remembering when I was five or something and that I was never allowed to go on play dates with her. It turned out that Amanda had been the play date before I was born. Sheryl’s father had been struggling in South Africa, he had bought a paint factory and his American business school theory had not worked at all. So Amanda had set herself up as a dominatrix and my parents had been good customers. It had been Amanda who earned the air fare, and came back as soon as she was pregnant. She had come with a little capital and a loan from her father and started the dealership while Sheryl’s dad went to work at a welding company and left her soon after Sheryl was born.
There was a lot more and she spoke of trust and respecting limits and honest communication. She spoke about the discipline aspect and how the dominant needed to be a disciplined person, in fact BDSM worked best if both were disciplined people to begin with.
I considered as I drove home. I had a whole new idea why my parents took a weekend away from the children once a month or so. Usually we had gone to visit family as children although it had fallen to me to babysit my two younger siblings when I hit fifteen.
It was clear that Amanda had been a dominant, and I wondered if she had taught my mom to be a dominant, or my dad, or if they had a different dominant now. One thing I agreed with about what Amanda said, love was not a democracy I saw that at home from time to time although who called the shots was unclear to me if I thought about the arguments I had seen. I knew one of my parents took charge and that they tended to go away for a weekend when they got to arguing too much.
I went to bed that night wondering what it would feel like to have Amanda tying me up, punishing me when I screwed up, rewarding me if I did well. I also thought about Amanda at my command, and had to admit that I had no idea what I would do with her.
The owner listened as I spoke about heating cables used on hydroponics farms to keep the growth medium at the right temperature for the plants and how they might stop the concrete apron from getting iced over in winter saving him money in the long term as trucks moved more easily through the docks and he didn’t need to pay someone to de-ice all the time. He didn’t answer but when I arrived with breakers to get the old concrete out the cables were waiting.
I spent the time between laying out blocks to break up and cast reading up about what Amanda had told me. Most of it was stories with fantasies so wild they were probably lethal to carry out. At the very least they were paralyzingly viscous and at least one of the partners would spend a long time recovering if ever carried out. I did find a few helpful resources too and they seemed to come down to a few simple principals.
I got my mom alone at home on Friday afternoon and asked her about Amanda. She was furious at me for still even thinking of having anything to do with Amanda. She refused to talk about it and sent me packing.
I got a surprise the next afternoon when I came in from practice. My mom was sitting in the lounge, dressed in a leather skirt, very high heels, white silk blouse. She looked fantastic, the whip beside her knees was somewhat disturbing, my father naked except for a leather speedo type of briefs, was very disturbing. I took note of the leg restraints and that he was wearing what looked like a leather dog collar. He was sitting on the floor his head on my mother’s knee, looking very happy despite the red stripes across his back. That answered several questions!
“Look carefully Ferdi, at some point Amanda will whip you too if you get involved with her. She will order you around and she will make you help her business, your business will come second. Amanda does not play a game in the bedroom only.” My mother said.
“Okay, fair warning. But don’t you think it would be better to be more open about you and dad? At least Amanda does not hide and try to look as if she is a nice lady teaching third graders to read. She has a business and she does not let anyone imagine that she is terminally nice.” I replied.
“Are you saying I lied to you?”
“Not at all. I’m saying that maybe you don’t know everything about Amanda. I’ll find out, don’t worry.” I said and left.
Amanda accepted an invitation to go stargazing with me at short notice when I was in my room. Unfortunately Sheryl came along and took her turns looking through my telescope and tried getting me to feel her ass but clearly missed her phone more than she wanted to have a chat or learn about Antares and Betelgeuse.
“My parents are renting the house. Your house?” I asked as I set up to show them Betelgeuse and explain why it was an interesting star.
“No, not my house, why do you ask?”
“They came here, they moved in right next door you of all the places in the USA, why?”
“Your mom and I stayed in touch. When they told me they were getting out of South Africa I completely agreed. I sponsored them and your father got his business going here because he had a market. Easily available.”
My father had been traveling between the USA and South Africa for three years before my parents announced that the family was emigrating. I was curious about what my father had done now, especially if Amanda had been involved.
“Your dad has always been faithful to your mom Ferdi. I respect that of him.”
I had to be satisfied with that. I decided to see how well Sheryl paid attention before I asked more intimate questions. I swept Amanda into my arms and kissed her hard. I broke off just as she was getting over her surprise.
“So, Sheryl is not my sister then; can I get her pregnant immediately or after you and I are married?”
Amanda burst out laughing. Sheryl was paying attention and not keen on the part about Amanda and I getting married.
The owner was all for me doing other jobs in other cities with other places he ran at what he was seeing and nodded in satisfaction when I asked to see if the heating cables worked first. I explained that I did not want to waste money if this idea did not work. The retired rugby player just smiled and walked away nodding.
That afternoon the team was in the locker room and the coach posted the team. The club owner walked in, as Dave asked why he was not on the team sheet.
“Rugby at any level is about discipline guys.the discipline to develop talent. Its about giving good service to your team despite difficulties, keeping commitments. After that comes skills, and speed and strength. Dave, screw you mate. You have the talent but you’re fucking me around and you’re fucking this team around. Ferdi there, I heard from his school coaches, has been in the gym at five thirty every morning since he turned fourteen, he mostly did fitness only really started weights six months ago. He fucking works at it. No matter what, he works at what he does. Find yourself another team, go ahead and try if you don’t like it. You’re out of tomorrow’s squad, go home mate. Watch the game tomorrow and prove you should be on the sheet, then prove you should be captain.” The owner said.
There was a shocked silence. Dave looked at the owner in surprise but didn’t move.
“You got damn good coaching leading up to this game. Better than your position last year justified. Ferdi has shown you the discipline winning takes. Learn guys. Get out Dave, I can easily fire you and then you’re screwed for life.” The owner said mildly to Dave but there was real menace in the threat.
An assistant coach came running in with a page. It was the team we were facing, UT Fort Worth, The Apaches. They had effectively fielded the entire Dallas major league team as a season warm up for the majors to start in two weeks. Dave smiled a nasty smile at me and said I was going to learn how tough Rugby in the States could be. He walked out slamming the door behind him; it was a wasted effort because the door had soft closing hinges.
“I know how to beat these guys… We can do it.” I said.
Everybody looked at me as if I was insane except the club owner who showed me to talk. I addressed major facets of the game and how we could compete, in some cases even dominate while staying in our defense first focus. I spoke about our tactical kicking and rather than who, where to target and when, how we would chase the kicks.
The club owner smiled at what I said, whether he believed me was another matter. I was letting the team know I had a plan and letting them believe we could win against a team that had finished second in the majors.
“You realize that if you win the entire major league is going to come here for lessons right?” The club owner said.
“Then we’re going to need classrooms.” I said.
The team responded to my tone, confident and without hesitation. They laughed and hit the showers. The coach looked at some plays I had drawn out on the board with raised eyebrows and looked at the manager and club owner. He was ready for a fight.
We went upstairs as the players went home. I was surprised at the size of the game coming up, television cameras were setting up, the media center was testing feeds, a Television Match Official box was being set up and the college film, journalism, and television faculties were coming together.
I knew this league was looked at, very seriously, by selectors for the US Eagles team to play internationals. I had not realized it was such big business to justify all the preparation being made.
Part of why I had been happy to play for the Cougars was that six Eagles players had been selected from this team before making it to the Majors. The trouble the Cougars had and why they ended seasons badly was that star players got poached quickly by better funded teams, even within this league and then Cougars were in the position of building a squad from almost scratch every year.
Of the forty players in the squad fifteen had only played American Football before. Ten had played rugby before but not at this level, six, me in that group had played rugby in other countries. That left nine players from the previous season, now minus one with the captain being fired. It meant we were basically a new team, that was my worry as we went to the offices past the boxes and suites being set up for game game day.
I thought it likely that the club owner was going to offer me a place in his major league squad and that was not on. I had made a commitment to this team and I had commitments to workers on site. There was no way I was going to move to Denver now. This could cause issues and I was working out how to say no without pissing my biggest customer off.
He turned into the boxes where my father was setting up and nodded to see what was happening. Amanda’s box next door had him smiling as he saw GMC banners going up. GMC was well represented on the field side boards and he thought it damn good that a dealership was in the stadium.
“Damn good thinking Ferdi, the Cougars are sponsored by GMC, we should have a dealership for people to know where to get one.” The owner said approvingly.
“I think rugby could be a very good thing to sponsor. A lot of GM brand names have connotations in rugby.”
“I could pitch that.” He said laughing.
Amanda had found material of other teams GMC sponsored and she was putting pictures and a few jerseys up. There were pictures of cars and trucks nicely framed against the walls where they were supposed to go up when her fleet sales representative doing badly with a drill finished. Office staff were setting brochures out, cleaning the carpet and windows.
Sheryl was there, on a chair in the middle of the activity playing on her phone. I completely lost it when she stood up and tried to rub her tit against my arm. I turned her across my knee and spanked her three as hard as I could with my flat hand. She was too surprised to shout or scream and sat on the carpet, flat on her ass with her mouth open.
“Don’t try getting laid with me! I like a woman who can look away from her phone long enough to actually pay attention! I like people who Work! Your mother Works Sheryl! She’s Working fucking hard right now! For what? For you to post about how sexy you are? Oh Bullshit! Don’t flash a cleavage you little tit! You don’t have one because you don’t move enough to develop one! Now get off your ass and help to clean the carpet or the windows! Get some paint and paint the damn handrail there!” I shouted at her.
Sheryl started crying.
“Stop the water works; you had it coming and I’ll do it again if you give me any shit.” I said and turned to the guy struggling to drill a hole.
“Put a shopping bag against the wall just under the hole to catch the dust, use insulation tape to stick it to the wall…Masking tape is better and it will help your bit catch on the mark. What drill bits do you have? You’re using the wrong one.” I said.
“Way to go Ferdi!” Amanda said with admiration.
“Good on ya! Amanda I think Ferdi has this in hand, would you like to discuss getting your dealership on the scoreboard and I think some supporters jerseys?”
I got a new drill bit into the machine and got it turning in the right direction while the salesman got a bag under the hole he had been trying to drill. In five minutes that picture was hanging and we got onto the other holes. Amanda did amazingly start doing something, she cleaned windows when she heard me explaining to the office lady how to prepare the handrail before painting.
Ten minutes later everyone was working and we were joking as we went. Twenty minutes after spanking Sheryl Amanda returned with a satisfied expression. She was going to get huge exposure for her business at little cost. She told us that she had been on the line to GMC and they would be carrying the box for the season if her company justified it on Saturday. That meant someone from her business would be here for every match whether soccer or rugby. Unsaid was a clear instruction to make sure to have clients to bring, there was also a small hint of career advice, learn about rugby and soccer.
I took over the painting as the rest of the work got finished. It ended up with Amanda and I with Sheryl remembering that she was supposed to be angry. She didn’t get on her phone though, instead she stared out over the stadium which wasn’t very big in terms of seating but had everything a Twickenham, or Ellis Park, or Loftus Versfeld standard stadium had. Workers were making sure the seats were properly bolted down, despite it being late on a Thursday night.
“Jeez it’s a lot of work for a few hours of entertainment.” Sheryl said.
“Somebody always works.” Amanda said nodding.
“Sorry mom.”
Sheryl did not look at her mother as she said it. If she had she would have seen her mother nearly cry. She stroked my chest as I hugged her and held her face to my chest so that nobody saw her nearly fall apart. I sent them home to finish alone saying that Sheryl had school the next day. I suddenly felt a kiss on the cheek and Amanda smiled at me before collecting her handbag and taking Sheryl home. I was busy for another hour, at a loss if the kiss had been an invitation or thanks or an invitation to be thanked.
Lights were off at Amanda’s house when I got home so I went to bed remembering her kiss and imagining more. There was a note on my pillow in an envelope, I opened it and it was a list of questions about BDSM the answers were multiple choice, ranging from completely no to completely yes, a typed cover note said this might help. It didn’t take long and I mostly answered don’t know, open to try. I left it on my desk and went to bed. Looking out of my window to where I knew Amanda’s bedroom was I hoped for a light to come on, and went to sleep disappointed.
I specifically had my team come in early for the game. I knew the value of an entrance and that the whole Apache team arriving in a pack, with the biggest in front would intimidate my team. I refused to play that game now.
I had quiet chats with everybody and got them through a light warm up on the pitch while the stadium filled up. I wasn’t very interested in my team as the coach had them running a few sprints and took them through some passing exercises. I was watching the Apaches in their warm up. The coach left me to do my thing and laughed when he saw my look when we went back into the locker room to get our game kit on.
“We’re going to win by twenty.” I said to him on the way down the tunnel.
“How do you know?”
“They’re taking us lightly.”
We heard the noise build in the locker room while we changed and went through last minute plans. I gave my guys a little speech and I went to the coin toss. The referee was delighted as I asked him to be a little patient with me when speaking to my team, most were new to rugby. He completely agreed that I should and he would stop the clock if I asked him for me to speak to the team. I had scored a major victory and the Texas captain did not get it and how I could use that, he just heard that my team was a novice team and smirked.
I lost and the other captain chose to kick off. I would have chosen to receive first anyway but direction was crucial. It was an afternoon game and the sun position in the second half was going to be important. I chose to play westward in the first half. That would put the sun on my right in the second half and shadows across the pitch which made taking a high ball coming from the right of the field difficult.
I broke the news to the team and then got them lined up in the tunnel. That was when reality hit my team. The Apache players were big, the noise from the stands was incredible. None of the guys in the squad had ever played to a full stadium of thousands, not even the ex football players. The oversees players had played schools and maybe club rugby where a large crowd numbered a couple of hundred. That day the stadium was near capacity as the club had dropped ticket prices and marketed aggressively. The Apaches, or at least Texas had come with a fan club too. And running onto the pitch I saw as many Texas colors as Colorado.
I watched my team stare around them in disbelief, rattled at the size of the crowd. It was one thing to practice in a stadium that was empty where screwing up only meant that the coach got upset. It was another to play in front of twelve thousand people who would want blood or laugh very loudly if you screwed up.
I huddled the team after the anthem and spoke to them. I don’t really remember what I said but it worked. I glanced up at the boxes before the kickoff and saw the club owner with other bigwigs, he was intensely interested, this game was make or break for my career, I knew it. My father was in his box oiling several wheels with alcohol. Amanda was standing at the handrail, her Cougars jersey clearly visible, I realized that it was not important to win, it mattered that she should see me win well. The emotion of joy that she was watching and not doing business was indescribable, it was the first time in my life that who was watching mattered. I took a deep breath, put everything out of my mind and got ready for a harder game than I had ever played before.
We took the kickoff and worked our opening play. It was entirely to unsettle Texas, we took the ball in our twenty two, on the right side of the field and moved it to midfield fast, forcing a phase on our twenty two meter line the swung it back to the right. Texas forwards had moved from right field to center field for the phase and when our tight head prop got the ball it was a wing and a center in front of him, neither liked tackling low, and now that was an even scarier idea because the entire forward pack was behind the prop.
The wing tried to rip the ball and as soon as he made contact with the two props bound together while the tight head pushed the ball backwards into the pack. As soon as the center joined it was a maul with offside and entry rules. The Texas forwards started joining the maul as the wing collapsed against the five tight forwards, all of whom outweighed him by twenty kilograms. It became a march of penalty advantages as the wing was deemed to be dragging the movement to ground, then forwards seeing that they were losing ground fast joined from the side, because they were joining in ones and twos they had little effect. Texas conceded another penalty for being offside as soon as the scrumhalf ripped the ball from the maul and passed to the fly half. Under some pressure, but illegally so he kicked down field toward the far goal line corner. Stupidly a Texas player tripped our chaser as he crossed the defense line conceding a fourth penalty at the spot where the ball landed ten meters inside their twenty two meter line.
We never got the chance to play the advantage though because the referee had had enough. He blew the whistle and had the TMO check to see if the trip warranted a yellow card. He decided against the yellow but had a talk with the Texas captain about conceding penalties.
I chose to take the points on offer as a confidence booster rather than kick to touch. My forwards were absolutely stoked to have won that exchange so well and I did not want to risk undoing that with a bad mauling movement there yet.. I watched the Texas team under their goal post waiting for the kick, they were rattled. They had expected to be camped on our goal line, not on their own. The captain who had done been an asshole to me at the coin toss was urgently speaking to his team and looked to the bench for advice.
I watched our fly half slot the three points and smile hugely as he ran back to his position. The team believed they had a chance. We had a six point lead at twenty minutes before they got on the scoreboard from a drop goal, it was a tacit admission that they had no ideas about breaching our defense after a sustained period of possession and phase ball that went nowhere and had in fact gone backwards for three phases. We conceded three points but we had not conceded a penalty and my team was starting to turn the screws as they got into their roles and were winning collisions. I disrupted the Apaches with a team talk and the referee being good to his word as I told them their defense had been fantastic and to remember to stay on side and on their feet.
The team responded to hearing approval and took those three points back by isolating the ball carrier at the restart I locked over the ball and lifted it which was enough as soon as the clean out came and failed to get my hands off the ball.
The Apaches finally tumbled to who I was and turned to targeting me. I saw the decision coming and quietly warned the referee to watch for it. The tackle came less than two minutes later when I got the ball in open play and carried it to the advantage line, I stepped their lock and straightened to attack their inside center corridor. The center was in the previous ruck and it was their flyhalf filling that channel. He never even tried to make it a legal tackle. Instead he drove upwards from a crouching ready position and led with his shoulder directly at my head.
The referee blew instantly and I heard the club owner scream blue murder from his box. I lay down staring up for a minute at the force of the blow. I noticed Amanda on the balcony not moving, I realized the physio was treating me so I sat up. My knees were a little wobbly but I felt confident I could run it off. The referee was having none of that though. He sent the fly half to the sin bin for ten minutes and sent me for a head injury assessment and a blood bin visit. I took the excuse and called my team together again telling them to calm down, I would be back and they should carry on as they had been playing. The referee patted my shoulder as I went off in thanks.
The doctor on duty took me through the lights in my eyes and fingers routine and our physio used his boxing blood experience to the full, although with a little more time available he stitched my eyebrow almost nicely before the doctor passed me on HIA and I could get back onto the field.
The fly half returned to the field three minutes after me. With the Apaches having managed the game well, only conceding the three points from the penalty that had seen their fly half sent off. They had given their fly half tactical advise while he was off the field and they changed their play pattern to get two penalties in striking range quickly.
We turned around with a lead of three points and my team was jubilant in the locker room. I was more worried though, my guys were tiring fast and the tackles were starting to tell. I had made a tactical mistake when I asked the referee for time to talk to my team the first time we conceded a penalty by sending the water boy off telling the ref I was talking to my team not getting sideline coaching. It had got the Apache team’s water boys off too but it meant that I could use a chat to get advice now. I didn’t want to start them on tactical injuries yet either so I was playing by my own wits.
I was being held on the ground after I had passed the ball and tackles were coming at me or the edge of being early. Coach wasn’t blind and motivated the guys using what they had done already, we were ahead against expectations and matching them in the set piece phases. They needed to hold on for ten more minutes and then reserves would come in, especially the tight five.
I used the sun from the second half as the altitude got to the other Apaches faster than it got to my guys. I had my fly half kick off to the northern touchline, just the legal distance, and as the Texans struggled to see the ball my wing got a jump in and took it. It didn’t come to much though because he lost it forward in the tackle two paces after he hit the ground. The damage was done though, the Texans had another factor to worry about because we had seen that they struggled.
I got the best tackle in on the next play though. They got the ball out of the scrum and decided to run it on the blind side. The scrumhalf broke around the base of the scrum and passed it to a center on the advantage line. The guy got my shoulder in his stomach at the same time he got the ball and I heard the breath explode from the whole crowd as the center went from his full speed forward to my full speed backwards instantly. He folded around my shoulder and spilled the ball. The wing who had caught the kick off was there and made good as he caught the ball and went past the scrum half before the backing players from the scrum could readjust. He sidestepped the fullback coming on cover defense to the inside of the field and scored a try under the posts with nobody laying a finger on him.
The Apaches stood staring in disbelief as the referee blew his whistle under the posts. The Colorado portion of the crowd knew class when they saw it and erupted in noise understanding that this was a hugely significant score and a display of class from the wing. The Texas flags were still and the portion of the crowd who understood rugby were quiet, a ten point lead in the game was decisive.
From an expectation to win by more than seven points and a try scoring bonus they were now looking at just winning being a good result, and that was unlikely. The team on the field had not expected such a fast transition to attack from the Cougars. They had not expected their defense so easily opened up, they had not expected a usual flanker to be able to get a tackle in that fast. The Apache player cringing on the ground had not expected to get hit so hard legally. I looked up at the boxes and watched three boxes dancing in delight at what had happened.
Then back at the team against mine, that had beaten them. I saw it in the lack of temper as they went to their line and waited for the conversion. I saw that they were now discussing damage limitation, not winning. They were flat footed after the conversion as they took position for the restart.
My own team seemed to be energized, their support was roaring. It wasn’t over yet, the bench was still a factor but I wondered how infectious the attitude would be for the fresh legs.
The wheels came off the Texas bus after that try. They restarted, kicked directly into touch, then conceded a penalty off the scrum on the center spot, then the captain said the wrong thing when I spoke to my team about staying calm and the penalty was moved ten meters closer; and we got three more points. They now needed to score two unanswered tries to win and had not found a way through our defense, their coaching staff started bringing the bench on.
They got a penalty soon after the restart but I called the ref for a team chat before their scrumhalf tapped the ball and the ref called the penalty back. Their scrumhalf threw the ball away in anger and the referee reversed the penalty. I heard the club owner cackling clear from his box while I chatted and told my team I had nothing to say I had just been fucking the Apaches around. The commentator explained the rules and flashed the sections on the scoreboard to informed a confused crowd and the Cougars fans went wild at a clever play.
Our coach brought our outside center off and put the reserve loose forward on. I moved to center. They got a twenty two meter drop kick as my fly half tried a drop goal but missed after the line out. They kicked deep, our full back dropped the ball on our ten meter line and a forward picked it up conceding a penalty. Three point increments were not going to work and they went for the sideline. The kick sliced off the kicker’s foot and the Apaches were lucky to gain any field. We sacked their lock as soon as his feet touched the ground.
The entire team was so surprised they were slow to clean out and our scrum half was over the ball for the jackal, they conceded the penalty for holding the ball on the ground and I watched the forward pack drop their heads as our fly half sent them back into their own half of the field.
The Apache’s coach called a wholesale change and brought all his forwards still warming the bench on for the line out. Our lock got the ball in the air and passed to the scrum half off the top. He skipped the fly half and sent the ball straight to me. I charged up the field and saw their fly half getting ready for another shoulder charge at my head, now I had time and he was on my free hand side.
He ran onto the palm of my hand against his chest. His arms opened and I was powering through him. He flipped ninety degrees and then I pushed downwards with everything in my arm. He became a tangle of arms and legs and disappeared as a factor to care about behind me as I heard the crowd roar at that, the outside center tried to stop me and bounced off me as I stepped into his tackle and broke it before he could wrap his arms. The full back was rushing up to stop the line break, and I heard someone warn me of a tackle incoming on the inside. I thrust my hand out and knocked the inside center off then I passed the ball to my tight head prop who blasted through the off balance challenge of the full back.
It turned into a fantastic team try from there as the full back managed to grab hold of the prop’s jersey and hang on as the prop towed him towards the goal line. The full back would have brought the prop down eventually as his free hand was trying to ankle tap the prop but the two other members of the front row had another idea about that. They bound either side of the prop and drove him over the line with the full back now an airborne rag flying to land on top of the three after the ball was grounded.
The coach waited to send on the rest of the reserves until play broke down for a knock on and our scrum thirty meters from our goal line we had no trouble with the scrum, and following what I wanted the fly half kicked from the shaded side of the pitch to the sunlit side. He over cooked it though and the ball went way too deep for our wings to contest. The only question was whether it would go out on the full. The Apache fullback had a nightmare kick to deal with as he ran back, squinting into the sun, unsure of where the ball was, or where the touch line was or his own twenty two meter line.
He completely misjudged the ball and it bounced inside the field of play, a meter from the touch line, halfway between the twenty two meter and goal line and then did what rugby balls are famous for doing. It bounced backwards and back in field. The full back had to turn around again to take the ball and was just a little casual. Our wing who already had one try, going at full speed, took the ball away from the outstretched hands of the full back leaving him standing, looking puzzled and lost. The try under the posts once again had the Colorado fans in delirium. I looked around and saw more flags and banners and jerseys than at the start of the match. I also saw Texas supporter merchandise being thrown down in frustration.
It was an utterly lucky try with the only thing being done right was that the wing had not given the chase up. I looked at the team celebrating and nodded to myself, I actually had a damn good team. We had three tries and I got the team together to push for another and a bonus point win. They were hyped up and seeing effect so they had no problem looking to attack again.
We kept a fantastic defense as the Apaches understood that stoppages and set phases would not be to their advantage and kept the ball in hand to look for a way through. It didn’t happen and I eventually got hold of their wing. He was isolated and I ripped the ball out of his hands. It was rolling to the touch line so I jumped at it and flicked it infield for my other center to take and force a phase. Instead my fullback joined the line at speed and intercepted the ball. He was an immediate overlap and through the line to cheers from the sideline. From that break it was three simple pop passes between the back three for the fly half to take the last pass and fall over the goal line.
I looked at the scoreboard and reflected that this was the only game I had ever played where the game plan had worked. The first try had been at forty six minutes, the fourth at sixty three, it was a twenty minute blitz that would tear any team apart. From here the Apaches had few options, they had to try for a bonus point loss and four tries to give them two points, as good as a draw. Our job was to deny them that and defending a lead was not how I played if I had any option.
They tried but having to run and keep possession was way outside their normal play pattern which was based on line out possession and mauling. They had lost two mauls and had seen their line out sacked so their primary weapon was out of action. Then our new and energized scrum pushed them off their own ball and they had nothing in the set piece aspects of the game.
The speed of the game took its toll on the back line as the minutes ticked away. They were fumbling the ball on the run, tripping over their feet in jinks and side steps and started missing tackles. This was balanced by the Apache team who became disjointed between forwards and backs and turned balls over in the rucks. Our kicking was losing accuracy but as long as it went from shade to sunlight the Apaches were in panic at a high ball and handling errors increased in the last ten minutes.
I took stock of myself in the last five, my eye was bleeding again, my ribs hurt, my knee hurt, there was a mousey on my right thigh, and my fingers felt stiff. I was going to feel worse in the morning but we had won the game and there was no way the Apaches were going to get any bonus point. The last piece of brilliance caught me by complete surprise as I mentally started preparing to shake hands with the opposing team and find something encouraging to say to them.
I was in the midfield and there was an interplay between the wing and the full back and suddenly they were through the line. I kept my line and realized the ball was coming to me from the touch line as the full back made a huge lateral pass over the defenders scrambling to cover. I raced and stretched to catch the ball and saw the defenders turn, I privately thought it was almost a hospital pass and the best thing I could do was to get it to the other touch line. So I let rip with a flatter lateral. The full time hooter went and I privately rejoiced that the mistake would not be going to a line out. Our other wing wanted in on the try scoring action. I remember the crowd groaning at the pass to nobody and the hooter and then the whole stadium erupted as the other wing took the ball at full speed in his stride making my pass look brilliant.
He had one man to beat, the Apache scrumhalf who scrambled to the corner as soon as I let rip.
He tried to force the wing out and the wing tried a jink, first into the field but the scrumhalf had it covered so our wing just went over the scrumhalf at full speed. The scrumhalf was never going to win that collision, the jink had got him to stop his herding run to the sideline and check that meant his weight was neutral and momentum taking him away from the contact as it happened. Our wing simply knocked him over and kept going straight over the desperately grappling defender. The Apache scrumhalf did manage to slow the wing down and got an ankle tap in with the winger staggering past him, it was too late anyway and the wing fell across the goal line to score.
Nobody in the Texas team bothered to go to their goal line for the kick; the game was over regardless of what they did. I went to the other captain and shook hands saying that the score line flattered us. He shook his head, we had been all over them from the start and they had been playing catch up rugby after the first penalty. He had the intelligence to know that and admit it.
I walked my team around the field to greet the fans and let selfies be taken as the stadium emptied. I glanced up and saw Amanda looking down from the suite she had not moved throughout the match, behind her a party was erupting in a serious way, she beckoned me upstairs. The club owner was entertaining sponsors and showed me to come and meet them. I pointed to Amanda’s suite and he put his thumb up.
There was a short press conference after we had cooled down and the medical staff had checked me out. There weren’t many questions for either the coach or I. There were six journalists and four had very little knowledge of rugby to start with. As such the questions were mostly about the prospects for the season ahead, and what kind of injuries we were facing from the day. We kept the answers vague and the journalists were on their way in minutes.
The floor where the boxes and suites were had become a huge common party by the time the coach and I got there. The team was already having celebratory drinks in the party when the coach and I were cheered with the club owner shouting about sheer genius. I found a beer pushed into my hand and then GM executives were greeting me with huge smiles. I was helping the local dealership sell cars and had made the brand look good on the field.
Belatedly I realized that the Apaches were sponsored by Ford, no wonder they had fielded the team they had. This was going to get nasty in the advertising. One director showed me what Sheryl was doing, she had a gift for memes and she was being nasty. One meme was of the double try scoring wing side stepping an Apache player written in bold font above the picture: want to Dodge? Underneath was another picture of me folding the Apache center and the caption: RAM first.
She had made another with our prop scoring and the Apache full back hanging onto his jersey. The caption: Nothing new to see, just a Chevy towing a Ford.
He showed me a variation on the first meme with the top caption: We can Dodge. The bottom caption was: Or RAM. I spotted Sheryl busy on her phone and went over to her. She glanced up startled.
“Nice ideas Sheryl. Just don’t get too mean. The game will turn and Ford will take pleasure in returning the sentiments.”
“I thought you would be upset!”
“No, you’re helping as best you know.”
“What do you think of this?”
It was a picture of the fly half going at my head the first time and the caption read: Mustang kick. The second picture was me driving the same fly half into the turf and: Camaro Bite.
“Do you know that’s exactly what the Camaro engineers said when they released the Camaro? It’s a viscous creature that eats mustangs.”
“Yeah mom told me once.”
“Where is your mom?”
“Behind you.”
I turned around and saw Amanda. Her eyes shone as she looked at me.
“That was what you do for fun? I thought you had been in a crash when I first saw you!”
“I usually come out looking better.”
“You look damn good to me.” she said.
Realizing what she had said she snapped her mouth shut and tried to get away. I was not having that and stepped beside her with my arm around her waist and went to meet the people I had invited. She didn’t back away but wrapped her arm around my waist and nestled under my arm. The cops were well represented in the party, I had invited the precinct commander who had helped me get a driver’s license and the sergeant who had tackled me on Amanda’s front lawn. My father had invited Highway Patrol and State Police because they were going to need to deal with his delivery trucks and keep traffic under control while deliveries happened in the middle of nowhere, they had a vote in the project so it was worth buttering them up.
We made the rounds with the cops showing interest in buying Chevy instead of Ford for their next round of purchases. The GMC executives were well aware that Amanda was working major fleet sales along with making inroads into a market that was traditionally Ford. They were going to cut her dealership some major deals.
The marketing director who was the most senior GM man got hold of me with Amanda and ask what I drove. He nodded, happy that it was a Chevy but unhappy that it was a baseline pickup. I explained why it was baseline and he shook his head. He understood that I had it as a delivery vehicle but I was now the face of Chevy pickup trucks in Colorado and they needed to move higher trim models.
“So do you feel fir to come home with me?” Amanda asked when we were alone.
“The coach and I will still need to have a discussion with management about the game.” I said regretfully.
She smiled and shook her head. She went home soon after the other people with children went home leaving the determined drinkers behind. The GMC people had seen enough to carry on sponsoring, the college managers were entirely happy that the stadium was still worth more standing than being torn down. In all it was a fantastic day for the club and the owner inclined his head towards his office for us to discuss the match.
The meeting turned out to be an ambush. Three of the US Rugby Board’s members wanted some input about what I was seeing in the US setup in comparison to South Africa or other countries I had played. I was a little drunk and didn’t keep my mouth shut as I unpacked about how the USA needed to train coaches and referees. Rather than import players to the majors, importing three or four good coaches to teach other coaches and managers was cheaper and more sustainable in the long term. I spoke about how Colorado had the only good coach I had seen when I looked at playing in the USA.
I spoke about how the game needed to be developed at elementary school level and how South Africa had done it, how England and France did it. They asked questions and I made suggestions about what to do. It occurred to me that maybe I was rubbing them up the wrong way, so I toned down a little towards the end.
“Fuck me! I would pay well for this honesty in my boardroom!” One executive said to the others with a laugh when they had heard enough.
“Start small. There are a lot of problems but solving them starts at the coaches. Import coaches and make training courses part of the contracts. When you have too many coaches for the majors they will move into the other leagues or teach coaching. With too many coaches the logical progression is towards bigger coaching markets at schools and youth rugby clubs. Do the same for referees, get a few retired international referees to give courses, and insist that every coach is a qualified referee in the league he coaches.” I said.
“That is a plan we can definitely look at! Go and get some rest, you look like you scrummed a team bus.” The chairman of the meeting said with a laugh.
I nodded and left with the coach. The club owner saw us out laughing under his breath.
“You don’t hold back do you Ferdi?”
“Never be backwards on the front foot… life advice from a cricket coach at school.” I replied.
“He’s got a point. Watch the next three months Ferdi. You’ve just dictated what happens in US Rugby for the next three years. They want to host a world cup and win one in the next twelve years. You’ve told them how to get to that. He needs to get laid Elaine.” The owner said; the last sentence to my mother.
My father was seeing the last party goers out, my team had been driven home by cops to avoid them having to do something unpopular like charge the winning players for drunk driving. I was starting to really feel the match as I sat down. The adrenalin was wearing off, the endorphin too. All that remained was serotonin making me feel satisfied and sleepy.
It was my mother who drove me home, my dad would take my sister and brother home. I went to sleep on the way home and only woke up when my mother opened the passenger door and told me we were home. She rang the doorbell, I idly wondered why she would do that if we were home. Amanda opened the door wearing a Cougars jersey.
“Here’s my son, he’ll be good for you.” My mom said handing the set of questions I had answered to Amanda and pushed me in the small of my back.
I slightly stumbled, not being ready for it and with the bruising my body wanted written warning before doing anything. Amanda wrapped her arms around me. I dimly heard the door close as I held her.
“Are you my cougar?” I asked.
“Your mistress, and your cougar.” She answered turning and helping me struggle up the stairs.
It seemed a BDSM relationship included soothing massages with wintergreen and linament oil after other people had beaten you up. She massaged and told me the ground rules; the first was that I was not to take shit from Sheryl. She pinched occasionally to wake me up. She had me turn onto my back and shook her head at all the bruising as she massaged again.
“Do, I call you mistress?” I asked as she got to my chest.
“No, only in a scene.”
“You mean you won’t be in charge all the time?”
She stopped massaging and looked down at me with her head tilted to one side. An expression I couldn’t read on her face.
“Call me Mandy, respectfully. Reach up under my jersey.”
She wasn’t wearing a bra. It was also the type of notice my body liked to get. her body was firm but soft to touch and her breasts, still unseen were two wonderfully rounded, slightly heavy, stress balls, just bigger than the version you bought in stores. I felt her nipples change shape when I rubbed them with my thumbs.
She felt my erection rise and moved a little. Incredibly I was in her without even moving. I blinked in surprise at how warm she was around my member. I tried to take her jersey off and she slapped my hand without missing a beat in her rhythm as she rode me.
“My decision.”
“Yes Mandy.”
She nodded and focused on getting as much pleasure as possible from my body While I added to it by feeling her breasts. her hands were in her hair as she pushed her breast out for me to get a view of my hands working under her jersey. She let me sit up and kiss her as she worked my dick by reaching her hands under my neck and pulling towards her. Her orgasm was quiet, the big sign was that she became incredibly strong and ground herself down on my dick while holding onto me. She came off and smiled into my eyes as she started again.
I was fitting in with her rhythm and enjoying myself but nowhere near cumming. I kissed her as she gyrated and pumped herself on my member suddenly she turned my shoulders and rolled both of us over in a move I would take a long time to figure out. On her back, the jersey missing, her ankles locked together behind my back and her thighs making a soft cradle for my hips she pulled my ear to her mouth.
“Go hard, no holding back!”
Her hiccuping yelp as I I thrust as hard as I could was the best moment of my life. She held onto me an started laughing to feel me thrusting at full strength and then she was having another orgasm and telling me to fill her. I was close to cumming with the hard thrusts and exploded into her. I was drained and exhausted and she let me roll off her. She rolled with me and lay on my chest looking at my face.
“What are you thinking?” I asked her when I could breathe again.
She smiled in satisfaction and focused on my hand in her hair for a minute with closed eyes delighting in the touch.
“I’m definitely going cougar!” she said with a happy smile reaching to turn the light out.