I wasn’t very impressed with Jess the first time I met her, or at least I didn’t want to be. I was still pissed off about what happened between Paul and me a couple of weeks ago, and I wasn’t in any mood to play nice with some new girl moving in. 

She had brown hair and dressed like she always did: tee shirt, sports bra, athletic shorts, tube socks, sometimes with shin guards when she was getting serious, and of course, soccer shoes.  Well, I thought to myself, she has the right outfit for a soccer player; let's see if she’s got anything else (or, like most girls, does she just like playing dress up). 

Jess was helping her mother move into their new house, pulling her stuff out when her soccer ball slipped away from her and started rolling towards me. We then exchanged our first three words, two of which were mine.

“Hey kid,” I called out, and with a sharp kick and a nasty little backspin, I shot the ball back to her, rising a foot or so off the ground, just to see if she could handle it. 

“Let’s see what she’s got,” I thought to myself, not expecting much.

Jess raised her left leg to deaden the ball, which then fell harmlessly to the ground.

“Thanks,” she said and turned away.

“Hmph,” I said to myself, not yet impressed. “Let’s see what she can do on the soccer field.”

I saw her again that afternoon on the fields, standing on the sidelines and checking Paul and me out as we ran through some drills. It was then, I first noticed she had the most gorgeous pair of legs, long and lean, and tan from so much exposure on the fields. I could see right up her luscious thighs to where her skimpy little gym shorts barely cut off the view. I started imagining those legs wrapped around my body, squeezing me closer, and closer... I couldn't help it.

She saw the way I was looking at her and gave me a seductive little smile.

"Hey Jeff!" Paul yelled. "What the fuck?"

Paul had just passed me the ball which went right by me. The girl smiled again and gave off a little laugh to herself, amused by how easily she was able to divert my attention, as the ball ended up right by her.

“Hey kid," I said. "The ball.”

“You want it?" she said seductively and looking right at me. "Come and get it.”

Annoyed, I trotted over to get the ball when she quickly dribbled to her left, sidestepping my advance. I didn’t have time for this. I tried to follow her movements, but she was too quick and got away from me again.

“So, you want to play?” I said to myself, “Okay, let's play."

 I charged directly at her, using all my strength, speed, and guile to show her what she was up against. It took me longer than I expected, but I got the ball back, only to have it stolen from me almost immediately.

 Paul, of course, was no help. He was standing by the side, totally amused, wondering how this was going to end. I finally got the ball back again, only to have it stolen a second time, really pissing me off.  This time I charged at her, throwing all my weight around, since I easily had thirty pounds on her. 

I used an aggressive move, tripping her up that I knew could have been called a foul in a regular game. But this wasn’t a game, and there were no officials to call it. So I left her face-first in the dirt, sprawled out in the dust.

 I picked up my ball and turned away, walking back to Paul, when she shoved me hard and from behind, causing me to lose my balance and the ball. I turned around, and the two of us started furiously cursing each other out, both ready to take this alteration to a whole new level. Had it not been for Paul, my first real interaction with that nice new girl on the block that my mother told me about could have easily ended up in a fistfight.

“Alright, calm down you two,” Paul said, standing between the two of us. He looked directly at the new kid, a girl who played as well as any guy I knew. “You’re not bad,” he said to her. She nodded.

“You thirsty?” he added. The girl just shrugged.

“How about you Jeff? Thirsty?” I shrugged too.

“I know these three kids playing in the fields over there who think they’re hot shit,” Paul said. “They like to play for money, five bucks a game. We can take them. You up for it?”

“I guess,” I said. The kid just shrugged and said, “Sure.”

“I got two bucks on me,” Paul said. “How much money you got?”

Together, we could only scrounge up four bucks. “That should do it,” Paul said. “They got three guys, and we only have two and a girl. They ought to cut us a break.”

As we got close, Paul said, “I know these guys. They're all assholes. Let me do the talking.”

"Yeah," I snarled, turning to the girl. “And don’t act so tough."

"Fuck you,” she replied. This wasn’t going to be easy.

And so Paul approached them and started the bargaining process, filled with bluffs and insults, trying to intimidate each other and get the upper hand in the negotiation. It was all bullshit and Paul was good at it.

 Finally, things were pretty settled. We would play on half the field, like a half-court game in basketball. First to score five goals wins. The one sticking point was us only having four bucks to their five. Paul argued it was only fair since we were playing two guys and a girl to their three guys. But they weren’t buying it. Then Jess added the finishing touch.

“You’re not afraid of losing to a girl, are you?” she said, with that seductive little smile of hers and half a wink.

 That totally pissed them off, and they huddled, arguing among themselves about what to do. Finally, their leader (I guess) said,

“OK, five dollars to four, but we get the ball first. Cynthia will hold the money."

This youngish girl, I guess the leader’s girlfriend, meekly raised her hand.

Paul looked back at us and we both nodded in approval. He gathered our four bucks together and brought it over to Cynthia.

"Thanks,” she said. “I’ll keep it safe.”

Before we started, we finally learned each other’s names. “I’m Paul, and this is Jeff,” Paul said. I nodded silently. "Jess,” the new girl said, and so we started calling her by her real name instead of just “Kid”.

 Then we briefly talked strategy. Jess would cover the guy taking the ball out, since she was pretty good at stealing off the dribble. Paul and I would take the wings. If Jess got beat, one of us would shift over, depending on which side the action was on, while the other would rotate over from the weak side, covering the goal. It was kind of a combination of zone and man-to-man and all pretty standard, but we now knew our roles and would come to trust each other as the game progressed.

Offensively, it would be mostly give and go, passing and cutting to the goal. We were also good rebounders, especially Paul, who could score off of missed shots and broken plays better than anyone I knew.

And so the game began. Within seconds, Jess had stolen the ball, passed it to me, and then immediately cut to the goal. She knew what she was doing.  I passed it back to her, forcing coverage from their third player, leaving Paul free for the score. One quick pass from Jess, and we were on the board.

Losers would take the ball out, and so they had the ball to start again. It took Jess a little more time and dogged play to steal it again, but she did. She faked the pass to Paul and instead dribbled the ball to herself, beating her man and forcing the kid covering me to switch over to her. She found me wide open, and I scored into an empty net.

They were totally outclassed, and they knew it. Before long, it was four to nothing, leaving them desperate and pissed. Jess had stolen the ball three times already. On the fourth play, Paul anticipated a pass, intercepted it, and found me cutting for a score.

On their final possession, as it turned out, their best player, who had already been beaten three times by Jess, used the same dirty move I pulled on her a while ago, intentionally tripping her and leaving her in the dirt.  

 “HEY, WHAT THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!” I yelled. “YOU PULL THAT SHIT ON HER AGAIN AND I'LL..."

Jess ran over to me immediately.  “Relax, Jeff,” Jess said. "I can take it. One more goal and we have our five bucks.”

Paul joined us at that point for an impromptu huddle. “Just let me get the last shot,” Jess said.

"You got it," Paul said, and I nodded.

The next play, Jess had the ball and was covered tightly by their best player, trying to give her a taste of her own medicine. Jess passed the ball to me and immediately cut to the goal, leaving her defender flat-footed. I passed it back, and before anyone had a chance to get to her, she let go a booming kick into the upper right corner of the goal.

We had won. They were pissed. We congratulated each other with silent nods, given there was still money on the table. Jess went over to Cynthia, the girl holding the money.

"You were amazing,” Cynthia said, giving her our winnings.

Jess quietly said, “Thanks.”

“CYNTH!" The boyfriend yelled, “GET THE FUCK OVER HERE. LET'S GO.”

She turned to leave when Jess gently grabbed her arm.

“You don’t have to take that shit.”

Cynthia looked at Jess for a moment and then left.

Once they were gone, we headed over to the local deli close by to get our Cokes and a bag of chips that we all shared together. We then talked about what had just happened.

“You’re a good soccer player for a girl," I said, giving Jess what I thought would be my first compliment.

“Fuck you, I’m a good soccer player,” Jess replied.

Paul tried to conceal a smile. It was the second time in less than an hour that Jess had told me to go fuck myself. I got the feeling that this was something I was just going to have to get used to.

“You know the town puts on a three-on-three soccer tournament every summer,” Paul said. “What do you think about us entering it?”

“I’m in," said Jess.

“Isn’t that just a guys tournament?” I asked.

“Not technically," Paul said. “It’s usually just guys because most girls can’t keep up. But there have been some girls who've tried. I think the three of us have a shot, if we work at it.”

And so began our time playing soccer as a team. Jess forced us to refocus, away from all the distractions that had preoccupied Paul and me, back to what we were best at, playing soccer. And we played well together, not just because of our individual skills, which were formidable, but also because of the respect and trust that was developing in each other. 

That trust allowed us to play more aggressively since we all knew we had each other’s back. And forget about playing cautiously, as Paul and I were doing. You didn’t do anything cautiously with Jess, especially when playing soccer.

It was also a tremendous relief for Paul and me, still anxious and stressed out over what went on between the two of us (sexually, maybe, you know) with our last and final wrestling match. We never talked about it, or told anyone else about it, especially not Jess. But by adding Jess to the mix, we figured we would no longer be seen as two gay guys playing soccer with each other. We now had our own girl playing with us, making it a real heterosexual affair, just at the point when guys finally (finally!) started to take an interest in girls. 

All this, of course, was just in our own heads, but it still mattered. For Paul and me, Jess would be our first real interaction with girls, and she made it easy. We didn’t have to nervously, hesitantly approach girls on their own terms (whatever that would mean). Instead, Jess willingly entered our world on her own, and was entirely comfortable in it. From time to time she would playfully tease us with a seductive turn, and she knew how to press our buttons. But when the game was on the line, she was all business.

Like the rest of us, she was now in a world defined by competition, and structured by the rules of engagement that came from whatever game we chose to play. It could be overtly physical, even violent at times, but in its own way, it was safe and secure, and above all, predictable, where both Paul and I (and now Jess) thrived.

We were, of course, something of an anomaly on the soccer fields: a team made up of two guys and a girl, dominating over the ‘all guys’ teams. Kids, both girls and guys, came out to watch, and the girls especially cheered us on, thrilled to see one of their own getting the better of the guys for once. And they cheered Paul and I on as well, thankful that we allowed a girl to join our team in this town-wide competition. The noise from our newly found fanbase gave us all a serious shot of adrenaline, especially Paul, who just ate this stuff up.

In time, of course, it would all become too restrictive, at least for me. While things were settling down into a predictable pattern on the soccer field, they were changing everywhere else, and in ways that I did not expect, could not predict, and did not totally understand.  Competition was being replaced by seduction.  

Of course I mean sex!  Paul and I had our brief encounter, which we immediately ran away from.  But those feelings, once unleashed, would not go away. Soccer was my only way to escape from all that stuff, but I was no longer sure I really wanted to escape from it anyway. I wondered if Paul and Jess were feeling the same way.

But for now, at least, we were all in with our newly formed team. We were good at our game, and we knew it, and so did everyone else. And nothing succeeds like success.