It turned cold that night and the next morning it was raining when I went down to Binks' office. He was sitting behind his big polished desk wearing his three-hundred-dollar suit. He started acting tough right off, right down to smoking a cigar while he talked.
"Look, Matt; you know I can't give you a contract."
"I know what you said."
"You know how close to the vest we have to play it here."
"That's your worry."
"Don't give me a lot of crap!"
"Horseshit! I played a helluva game for you. And you know what happened out there. I could have been killed."
"You didn't move enough."
"Bullshit!"
He shrugged, wobbled the cigar in the corner of his mouth.
"If you want to stick around for two bills a week."
"What's Vakos getting?"
"You know better than to ask that."
"You gotta be kidding," I said. "Two bills a week, whether I play or not?"
"Four hundred a game when you play."
"Two bills if I sit on the bench?"
"Right."
"Give me a letter on it," I said. "What time's. practice tomorrow?"
"Same as usual."
"Bring the letter to the field. I don't want to get jabbed in practice and have you tell me I'm not eligible for insurance."
Outside the windows of the car were still wet. It was raining again, that first cold autumn rain that tells you summer is really over and Indian summer is just around the corner. Which was fine with me because it wouldn't be so stinking hot playing football. The cooler the better.
But I didn't like the rain in another way. It made me feel more lonely than a summer day. It made me think about feeling cozy sitting in a nice bar, sipping the juice, with a beautiful dish, getting a little smashed but not too much so sack time would be good later.
I could feel the pull of booze and pussy on a day like this. It was the perfect kind of day to while the time away in a bar with some 'good pussy. My throat felt dry and just thinking about the rain and some companionship started to give me a hardon, but I knew I ought to work out and then go back to my room and study the play book.
I drove over to the YMCA and rented a locker and towel. I had a jockstrap and some shorts. The weight-lifting room wasn't bad for a small city. Actually it was a pretty good setup. I was strong enough, but I wanted to hold endurance. Heavy resistance with low repetitions will build your strength but it won't build endurance. What you need to build endurance is high repetitions with less resistance.
Using forty- and fifty-pound weights, I did ten to twelve repetitions using clean and press exercises, bicep curls, two arm press, three-quarter squats, two arm pullovers, side bends with fifteen-pound dumbbells, two arm-rowing exercises using forty pounds, bench press with fifty pounds, sit ups and straddle lift and lateral raise exercises.
It was a good workout. I was getting ready to shower when somebody in the locker room said they had a running track on the next floor so I went up there. It was a bowl jogging track. Just what I needed.
I ran ten fifty-yard dashes, one six-sixty yard walk, trot and stride, six hundred-yard dashes at full speed and finished off with a half-mile run. I felt good and went back to the gym and skipped rope for ten minutes and finished off with thirty push-ups and forty sit-ups. I felt tired, ready for the shower, and some studying and then the sack.
I walked slowly, sweating, along the hall, back to the locker room. I passed the open door of another gymnasium. I felt fine suddenly, eager for the cold shower. High-pitched shouts came through the open door of the gymnasium. I looked inside. Two teams of women were playing volleyball. I was surprised to find them in a YMCA, but maybe it had something to do with equal rights. I didn't know. I was about to leave when I saw Mary Cassidy. She was jumping for the ball. I watched her rise in the air. Her body was long and smooth and graceful and even more showed now than what I could imagine was inside that starched nurse's uniform.
She wore white shorts and a tennis shirt. Her breasts were sharp and pointed as she reached for the ball with both hands. Her nipples made lovely dents through her thin brassiere. She knocked the ball over the net and landed down hard on the balls of her feet, but at once she was bouncing and moving again.
"Hey, Mary," I yelled. She was busy playing. She did not hear me. I called to her again. She turned her head, waved her hand, but hardly looked at me. I could not tell if she recognized me. I waved at her, but she didn't wave back.
I ran down the hall to the locket room. The ice-cold shower felt wonderful. I looked at my cock. It was thinking just what I was thinking. Mary Cassidy. Down. Down. But the knob started to swell. I gave it a blast of cold water, but it shook it off and started to swell again.
I got dressed and cooled off or I would have come walking out of the locker room with a hardon. That's about all I needed to meet Cassidy with. But when I arrived at the gymnasium, it was empty and the volleyball net was gone.
I went downstairs to the desk and asked where the girls changed. The desk clerk gave me a funny look.
"I have a cousin on the team," I told him. He went on giving me a fishy look.
"You can wait for her down here," he said.
"How come you have women -?" I started to say.
He said: "Women have reciprocal rights here. Separate showers and lockers."
"Farewell to the YW," I said.
So I sat in a leather chair by the door and waited. She got off the elevator. She didn't see me. What a body! She was wearing a blue knit dress. Wow! I felt my cock starting to swell just looking at her. She was all tits and ass and legs and looking at those curving hips and long lovely legs, my mind started to undress her as she came across the floor. I told myself not to do it, but there was no stopping my mind and right through that clinging dress I saw her naked, and my cock started standing tall in my pants. Her tits and skin and ass would be unbelievably smooth. I felt my thigh muscles tensing as I thought my hands fondling and working her nipples, my tongue thrusting her mouth open, moving hotly in her mouth, my hands running over her smooth thighs, stroking upward onto a lovely pubic mound. She would be trembling, and then I would draw my cock forth and her hands would tremble to touch it as I pushed the throbbing head into her soft belly. No, I told myself, forget it, she's a nice girl. Forget it.
But now, instead of just hot cock burning for her, I felt a sense of tenderness and gentleness for her, the way I'd felt about Leighton's wife. No way, I told myself, you're kidding yourself, Cassidy has a beautiful body and that's all there is to it. You want to- screw her, and that's all. But I wasn't sure. Something about her bothered me. But I put the feeling away.
"Mary," I said. "Mary Cassidy?"
I stepped up in front of her fast.
"Oh!" she said, startled. "Was that you?"
I smiled and looked straight into her eyes. They were very blue.
"Well, well," she said. There wasn't much welcome in her voice, but she didn't sound sore as she had in the hospital.
"How's the game?" I asked.
"Fine," she said. "How's your head?"
"Couldn't be better."
"Good luck," she said and stepped around and past me, but I was quick on the pivot. Before she took that extra step out of my reach, I had my hand on her shoulder, not hard, but firmly gentle, just firm enough to keep her from moving. She didn't move, but she didn't turn around either.
It was my move. I didn't take my hand away. I stepped around in front of her.
"Hey," I said softly, "what's the hang up?"
"That's my business." Her lips were tight and thin and I didn't like the look in her eyes. Her pupils were small and bright.
"I apologize for the hospital," I told her.
She lifted my hand off her shoulder and gave it back to me as if it had a sour smell.
She said, "I have to be going." Her voice was taut.
I put my hand back on her shoulder.
"Am I supposed to beg? All right, I'll do a little begging. Look, Cassidy, there's something about -"
"It's Mary Cassidy, if you don't mind."
"Mary, I'll confess," I smiled. "You're damn good-looking." I felt uptight. Her eyes were cool.
"Now that you have the compliments out of the way." She moved to step around me, but I stepped with her and blocked her way.
"Dinner?" I said. "You need a steak after that work-out."
"Not tonight."
"Tomorrow?"
She didn't smile, nor change the blank expression on her face. She sighed, and her shoulders seemed to slump a little.
"Look," she said, not looking at me, her face right in front of me, with her eyes looking past me. "I'll have dinner, then that's all. I'll try to explain why to you, and then that's all."
"Tonight?" I asked.
She thought about it for what seemed a couple of minutes.
"I have to go home first."
"Pick you up in an hour," I told her. "Where do you live?"
She gave me the addresses, turning away, calling the number back to me without turning her head.