Time marched on. The weekly visits from Amud and Bala resumed without further incident. Janey wore her collar occasionally, even skipping some weekends she was entitled to wear it. Her social life was picking back up and she was just too busy to be tied up all weekend, pun intended.
Sally started getting back to normal, too. Thank God! Although I don't think Janey appreciated it. Getting back to normal meant that she now had time to focus on her daughter's life, not just her own submissiveness. I heard the two of them more and more, chatting, laughing, chiding and chaffing; just normal parent-teenager stuff.
At one point Sally even enlisted my help. After her last request for my help, she had tended to take things having to do with Janey on herself, especially lately. She seemed determined to show me that things were back to normal. I just grinned and let her deal with it for the most part, mainly because teenagers were aliens as far as I was concerned and the females of that species were as perplexing as human females. It was also good for Sally to know that she could do it herself.
This time, however, Sally was beyond herself. Janey had been coming home late from school. Nothing unusual so far, as she often had activities after school. Her cheerleading coach had called one afternoon, however, and asked where Janey was, as she had taken a leave of absence from the squad for the entire basketball season. Nothing surprising there really, given what had happened. Then there was her refusal to tell Sally what was going on, why she was late. OK, that was unusual, as were the tears and rips, crudely mended, in some of her gym clothing. She was also spending a lot of time in the whirlpool after school, alone.
Nothing Sally did convinced Janey to talk. Threats, promises, bribes to her friends, talks with the teachers, nothing. It didn't sound too serious to me, but to keep Sally happy, I decided to look into it. Sally made me promise to be discrete. What? Me? Heavy-handed?
It took several days, but I found out what Janey was doing after school. I couldn't believe it, but she was practicing with the boy's wrestling team. For a while I thought she was just hanging around trying to get a cute boy's attention — as if she needed to do that! But she was going through all the practice drills with the team and even scrimmaged with the others in her weight class. She lost, but she didn't do badly and she kept getting better. Like her mother, she was a scrapper.
OK. Now I knew what. But why? No amount of digging revealed that to me. I kept at it for several weeks, during which time I didn't say a word to either of them. Janey went to practice every day and, as I watched her covertly, got better, much better, to the point where she finally won a spot on the starting roster.
The day the roster was posted, I was waiting for Janey outside the girl's locker room door. Her expression was priceless, much like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but not knowing how she was found out.
"Uh, Hi, Dad. Just driving by?" she asked hopefully.
"Nope."
"Oh. Is everything OK at home? Did Mom send you to pick me up?" She tried to sound worried, but didn't succeed.
"Nope."
"Oh." She was silent for while. "You know?"
"Yep."
"Does Mom know?" I could tell she dreaded that for some reason.
"Nope..."
Her head whipped up to look at me at that. Hope flooded the car like a gully washer.
" ... not yet."
"Oh, please Dad," she pleaded, "don't tell her. Please!"
"Tell me something, kiddo." I turned to look at her. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why wrestling? Is it a guy? Don't we give you enough affection at home? Why?"
Janey was so cute when she blushed and giggled. Damn, she was beautiful! Who was I kidding?
"Oh, Daaaad."
I felt like I finally belonged to that great and honorable club of patriarchs. I had just exasperated my teenager and been addressed in the proper fashion.
"Well?"
She looked at me, now thoroughly exasperated. I wanted an answer from her and wasn't going to take a cutesy blush as a diversion. It almost worked, though.
"It's hard to explain," she said evasively.
"Try me."
"It started as a dare," she said, finally
Oh, shit. I shuddered when I remembered some of the things I had heard about — and participated in — that started out with a dare. Old Mrs. Johnson would never be the same after waking up with 25 naked and very obviously horny teenaged boys in her bedroom. Well, she was old to us. 25 is a lot older than 16...
"I see. Who dared you?" I asked her
"Well, that's where it's confusing. I guess I sort of did myself. You see, there was this cute guy..."
I knew it!
" ... and he was, well, there was an argument about how tough wrestling was and that's how come there weren't any girls on the team. I sort of got volunteered to make the team if I could."
"Oh, a challenge, not a dare."
I felt slightly better, but not much. I remembered some challenges I had participated in, too, mostly having to do with bare chests at sub-zero temperature football games in college.
"Yeah, I talked it over with the men's coach and he said OK, as long as I had triple protection over my, you know," she indicated her crotch, " and a double strength athletic bra. I talked to the women's gym teacher — she thought I was crazy — and she helped me get all that stuff.
"You know, wrestling's tough!" she ended.
"But you made the roster for the next match! Aren't you excited?"
"Geeze, Dad. What do you do? Know everything?" She looked at me suspiciously.
"Only about the people I care about," I kidded. "Seriously, your Mom was concerned and asked me to look into it. I did."
"It was nice to make the roster. I earned it, too. But I'm not too thrilled about my first match. I have to wrestle the defending State Champ, probably twice."
"Twice?"
"It's a double-elimination with four schools. You have to lose twice to be out. I'm the only other one entered in this weight class, so the rules say we have to wrestle twice."
Something in her voice didn't sound right. "What's the problem?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Just I heard when he found out he might have to wrestle a girl, he made some pretty rude comments about what he would do to me."
She started to cry, little tears trickling down her face.
"You want me to stop your match?"
She shook her head fiercely.
"No. I know it must be strange for him, you know? But why can't he just fight me like a guy. I mean, I know I'm not a guy, but dang it, Dad, why are some guys such big assholes?"
Now, how often do you get 'dang it' and 'asshole' from your sweet innocent little girl in the same sentence? She was serious, too! It was, however, an eternal question. I didn't know the answer, and knew if I said anything, she would know I didn't know. I said nothing.
We drove home in silence, her only request was that I not let Sally know. I told her I couldn't promise to do that. I felt it was her Mom's right to know about this. But I told her I wouldn't spoil her match.
Friday night came. Janey didn't come home as it was an away match at one of the other schools. That night before dinner I handed Sally a big shopping bag and told her we were going out for the evening. She started to open the bag, but I stopped her. What was in the bag was for later.
It was unusual for us to go out, so she was excited. I think she was curious when I headed for a small town about 25 miles away and not our usual bistro. I kept up a banal line of chatter for the hour drive, not letting on what was up.
The fare at the local diner was a disappointment, but the company was excellent. I think Sally felt the same way too, but now she was more curious than ever. She dropped hints, finally asking me point blank. I ignored both the hints and the direct hints. As 7:30 approached I handed her the bag and told her she'd better get ready.
Her face was a study in perplexion as she pulled out a big floppy hat, an over-sized pair of sunglasses and a bulky shapeless overcoat. I had her put them all on — she was surprised she got to keep her other clothes on, I think — and we headed back to the car. She was even more puzzled when we pulled into the crowded high school parking lot. I don't know if she noticed the big yellow bus from Janey's high school in the lot, but I parked right next to it.
The gym was a cacophony of noise as we entered as the early matches already underway. Behind her sunglasses I could see her questioning eyes darting around trying to discover what we were doing at a high school wrestling match. I could tell to the millisecond when she spotted Janey. I still have the bruises on my arm to prove it.
"You knew what she was doing all along?"
"Kind of."
"Kind of? What the Hell does that mean?"
"Well, I knew what she was doing, just not why."
"Oh."
I was amazed to get away with that simple of an answer. Sally knew my inquisitive nature. She knew of my protective instincts and the honor code I lived by. If Janey had asked me not to tell, I wouldn't, if I could. I had known and that's all that mattered. If Janey had been in trouble, I would have intervened. Sally had asked for my help, after all.
"Well, you could at least have told me..."
I was going to hear about this for a long time, I could tell.
They called Janey's match. It was painful to watch. The kid she fought really was good, but, as she had said, he was an asshole. He toyed with her. He never quite did anything inappropriate, but I could tell towards the end that the referees were beginning to watch where he put his hands on her body. He pinned her with 7 seconds remaining in the last period. Like a trouper, Janey shook his hand — after his coach made the asshole come back out onto the mat — then she made her way back to her school's bench.
Her team did her proud. There were consoling "tough match" comments and "he's a jerk" a couple of times. They didn't treat her any differently than they would another guy. She held her head up proudly. She had fought hard, the best she could and she hadn't quit, she had just been terribly out-classed by a better athlete. I saw her shoulders start to slump forward in despair, then pull back in fierce determination. She wasn't going to quit now, either.
I looked over at Sally in her anonymous getup. Covered up the way she was, Janey would never have to know she had been here if we didn't tell her. She looked at me. We nodded at the same time at the same thought. It was time to intervene, a parent's prerogative. I was giddy with excitement. My first parental intervention! OK, not exactly giddy...
First thing I did was wander over to her coach. I got his attention and introduced myself.
"Can you get her to forfeit the second match, Coach?"
He looked at me as if I was loony. "Janey? Quit? Are we talking about the same kid here?"
I grinned back at him, "Just checking. Sometimes teachers have more influence than adults at home."
"I could refuse to let her fight," he said, "but she would lose all respect for me."
Grinning like an idiot, I shook my head. "Nah, I have a better plan. This is what I want you to do..." He nodded his head as he listened and even made a couple of suggestions of his own when he saw where it was headed.
Phase one completed, I initiated phase two. I recruited another father of one of the kids on Janey's team and took him with me. The coach had introduced us a short time before and told him a little of the plan. I finished briefing him as we made our way over to a spot behind the kid she had just fought. We just stood there for a while until the Emergency Medical Response Team showed up. Someone had placed an anonymous call to their office.
"Thank God, they finally got here," I said loudly, pointing them out. "I was really concerned about that poor kid who had to fight that crazy girl. You remember what happened the last time someone got her mad, don't you?"
The other father chimed in, right on queue, "You mean that poor bastard who lost his nuts when she kicked him in the groin. I heard the surgeon said they looked like applesauce."
"Yeah, that's the one. Well, at least the EMRT ambulance is outside now. If there's another incident, maybe this poor kid won't lose both balls."
The other father piped up again, "What do you mean 'if'? God, look at that girl kick! I tell you, she's crazy when she's mad!"
Just then Janey was going through the unusual warm up routine the coach had told her to do. She would stutter step in a crouch like a linebacker, turning around in a complete circle. When facing her opponent across the gym, she would come out with a hoarse, fierce sounding scream. Then, pointing her finger at the kid, she kicked her leg as hard and high as she could. She did this routine four or five times. On the last couple of kicks, the upward force of her leg flipped her over so that she landed on her stomach, a three quarter backward somersault.
To say she had the attention of everyone in the audience, including this poor kid, was to understate the obvious. Her last kick was spectacular. She did a complete back flip, landing on her feet and ended up facing the kid. Then with both index fingers pointed at him, she screamed in mock rage. As a psych-out move, it was very convincing, but still, I was counting on the kid not being too bright.
I made my way back to Sally as they called Janey's second match. As I sat down, she just shook her head, shaking in laughter as Janey charged up to the mat. She didn't look like a loser this time. The first round started with them standing. The kid was still cocky, but a little jumpy. He took Janey down easily enough right away, but amazingly she escaped on her own. She was pumped, too.
Just as she got free from him, she started that stutter step routine she had been doing in her warm up, only this time, instead of turning in a circle, she circled him. In his attempt to keep her in front of him, he turned with her. At one point he stumbled, tripping over his own feet. It was the opening she was looking for. At that moment when he was off balance, she pointed at him, screamed a blood-curdling war cry and started to bring her foot up off the ground in a straight-legged kick.
The poor kid never knew what hit him, which was nothing. He was so psyched out, he instinctively slammed both of his hands over his family jewels and screamed along with her. Janey changed the upward movement of her kick and took him down with a basic leg sweep. She had him pinned before he realized he was still intact and unharmed. The referee and the audience were still laughing when Janey leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Apparently, there is some arcane rule about wrestlers kissing during a wrestling meet, so even though she had won the second match, Janey was disqualified from a third match. She didn't care.
It was the only match the kid lost all season, and everywhere he went later on that year, his opponents would grab their balls and fall on the ground screaming during their warm ups. I hope he learned something from it all. He did show some potential as a human being, because after the match he came over and apologized to all of us, especially Janey, for his behavior during their first fight. I think he even asked her out, which she graciously turned down. The lucky bastard did get another kiss out of it, though.
For us, it was the end of Janey's wrestling career, so don't look for her on the WWF. It did change a couple of things around the house, however. Watching Janey practice with those guys made me realize she wasn't the fragile little blossom I sometimes let myself believe. I mean, I know girls and women are as tough as men, maybe not always as strong, but they certainly are as tough physically. It's just, well, I tend to try to protect them from the hard things in life. Call it macho if you will, but it seems to be an instinctual type thing that's easy to fall into. That they — women — often encourage that behavior doesn't help, either.
Anyway, I decided to take advantage of Janey's athletic bent and started initiating more activities that involved bodily contact, like one-on-one basketball, rough-housing on rainy days, tag football with some other fathers and daughters. Things like that. Non-sexual solid body contact sports. We even got Sally involved and it became a regular family outing for us.
The other thing that changed was that the boys at her school, having seen her attitude at the wrestling match about the attack on her, suddenly decided she wouldn't castrate them if they dated her. Our house became Hormone Central in a short time, as her suitors hung out. With all that energy sitting around wasting, I started organizing 2-on-2 and 3-on-3 basketball games. Soon, our house was the center of the pick-up games, with Janey always playing. Other girls, jealous at first, started coming over. When they saw they could get a good feel of the guy's bodies for the price of playing, they joined in. I've noticed it's hard to be jealous and sweaty at the same time. Granted, there was a lot more close man-to-man, so to speak, defense going on than necessary during the games, but occasionally the ball would be tossed in the general direction of the hoop. I don't recall the kids ever keeping score, however.
The kids even asked Sally and me to join in sometimes to make even teams. Sally played hard and kind of dirty, copping feels of the young guys every chance she got. When the guys found that they could grab back without her protesting, she became a regular. I particularly liked it when I got to guard her. I was sore for days from her elbows in my ribs and elsewhere, but, God, the sex that night would be great.
That was the way things were going. Janey was well on her way to recovery. I hoped I had played a small part in that even if it was somewhat unorthodox. Sally seemed happy and active. We kept some time reserved for just us. She needed the submissive time now that it was possible and I came to treasure those days almost as much as when she was 'normal.' I began to see 'my' Sally in both sides of her, one merging with the other. It came to be much less of a shock to me to see her in her submissive role. As I became more comfortable with that, those times together with her being submissive became more frequent. Still not as often as she liked, but I think she appreciated them more when she had to wait.
Janey would join us most times, usually for a portion of the evening. However, as there was always a strong sexual content to these times, she would only be able to participate to a certain point. Sometimes things would get too intense for her and she would ask to be released from her collar, but later on I would have to be the one to tell her to go. She was not voyeuristic, mind you, she was an active participant in the activities but I wasn't ready to have sexual intercourse with her just yet.
She complained it was unfair to get her all hot and bothered and then turn her out. I retorted that life was unfair, so shove it or something else up there. Not my best retort, but given the fact that I had her Mom's permission to fuck her, and that I wanted to, and that she wanted me to, I wasn't thinking all that clearly. I just needed her out of the reach of my throbbing cock before I started thinking with the wrong head. We both knew it could still happen that we would have sex. I just wanted to wait for exactly the right time and I didn't want her first time to be when she was submissive; or maybe I was just still afraid I would lose Sally if I actually did it with Janey. I usually ended up restraining her in her bed with some of the Rosen's toys to keep her quiet, if not happy.