Winners

Abstract

Winners Merritt Tierce (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Courtesy Tdorante10, licensed via Creative Commons. [End Page 14] It happened again when I was bleeding out in a hospital in Conroe, Texas. We had flown in from Colorado to visit my parents the day after Christmas. My husband and my dad didn't get along so well, but my mom had begged, pleaded, and then bribed us to come, paying for the plane tickets and a rental car because she was dying to meet Leila, our toddler. Because of the pandemic and her diabetes, my mom hadn't been able to come see us in Denver for two years, and she and Leila—her first grandchild—only knew each other from FaceTime. She had been coaching Leila to call her "G-Ma," speaking in a syrupy third-person I found mildly appalling—G-Ma can't wait to count all those teeny tiny little fingers and toes, no she can't! —but Leila was an easy crowd and laughed at whatever Mom said to her in that tone. The kid's mirror neurons seem to work, I said to my husband, Kaveh. [End Page 15] I was thirty-five when I got pregnant with Leila, so I was still on the young side of old for a first pregnancy. But technically it wasn't my first pregnancy—I got knocked up in college, after a D1 victory orgy. I played basketball for UT in Austin, and my junior year both the men's and the women's teams won their respective championship games, becoming only the second school since UConn to dominate like that. The men won their game first, crushing Kentucky, and they all came to our final game in suits and ties, looking extremely fine. We were more of an underdog to beat Stanford, but they'd lost their star center to a concussion in the semifinals, and our nonstop full-court press wore them down. We'd made it to a ten-point lead with a minute left in the third quarter, and I got wide open for a corner three. When I went up for it, I was flagrantly fouled—basically rugby-tackled, and sent stumbling into the photographers—by their hotheaded point guard. As I walked back toward the free throw line, I caught Kevin Cordell's eye; he was a forward on the UT men's team, and he was sitting along the sideline behind our bench with all our guys. Without cracking a smile or giving any sign of recognition like he knew me, he held my gaze as he put his fingers around his mouth in a V, then flicked his tongue. I almost laughed, but I kept my composure; it could have thrown off my whole approach, but instead it made me so happy to be there in that moment. At the foul line, I knew the shots I was about to take could give us an even more robust buffer if I sank all three. The title felt like it was almost mine alone to clinch or lose. I closed my eyes, visualizing the swish as I exhaled, and when I opened them, for some reason I looked back at Kevin as I bounced the ball. He made porn-eyes at me as he subtly rubbed his nipples through his lavender dress shirt and I iced the first shot, grinning. When I looked over at him before the second shot, he had his large, elegant hand on his crotch, around the outline of his cock, and I felt a mightily distracting rush of energy into my pelvis. I was shaking as I bounced and spun the ball three times, and felt my own nipples harden. I had to concentrate more on that shot but put it in with a soft bank off the backboard. My teammates [End Page 16] screamed and pounded their feet; even if I missed the last shot, it would still be some good work for Stanford to catch up. Now that Kevin and I had created a magic ritual, I couldn't not look at him for the third shot, though I had...