CHAPTER ONE

 

It started with a simple game. Baseball. Rockwell City Park. Boys against girls. A break from our normal separate sex league games.

The guys were terrific. They slow pitched, gave us extra strikes, and even gave us pointers on how to play baseball. And we liked how they looked in their jerseys.

And we girls were appreciative. We know the guys are stronger, they play a lot of sports, do weight lifting and like to wrestle around. We didn't expect to win the game.

But there we were, score tied at 12 each, and the guys had just struck out.

Oh, we laughed and giggled, and teased them, but gently. They had put aside their usual drive for us wives, and everybody was drinking beer, and a couple of couples were in the dug out making out.

Bottom, of the 9th. Georgina was up, a tall red head who needed to choke up on the bat.

Swing and a miss.

Swing and a miss.

Swing and...CRACK! She hit a good one. Her first hit of the game, and she took off like a rabbit. Good at first.

The guys tossed the ball around, made teasing remarks, but were kind.

To tell the truth, we all knew each other, and the guys didn't care about competing, they were quite happy to go along and get along. There was no point in ramping up their testosterone and squashing us.

Leslie was up.

Swing and...CRACK!

Foul ball. But she was a good athlete, her hubby was pitching and he gave her a good next pitch and...CRACK! The ball sailed into right field.

Georgina made it to third, and Leslie was perched on first, a big grin on her sexy face.

And little old I strode out to the plate.

Oh, the guys gave me catcalls, and I blew them kisses and told them I was going to hit it out of the park. We all laughed, and I tapped the far side of the plate with the end of my bat and got ready.

I watched the first pitch sail over the plate. I thought it was high, but they called a strike, so I got ready again and...

"Lois can't hit anything!"

Strike.

I stepped out of the batter's box and stared at my husband.

Jim is a nice guy, I love him, but the tone of his voice was not right.

Even the other guys on his team looked at him. Bob, over on first base, lightly yelled, "Easy, Jim. It's just a game."

Wrong thing to say to Jim. To him everything is do or die. He did sports in school, almost went pro, played on the company team, and his testosteroney drive pushed him to be vice president of his company.

"Ah, fuck you guys," he said in disgust.

I realized then that Jim had had a few too many beers. He was not normally like this. He just had too much to drink.

A couple of the guys looked down, a little embarrassed by his words.

"Come on," he yelled. "Strike her out. Next pitch."

Now, I'm a pretty good player, but Jim had me rattled. He's my husband. He's supposed to have my back. He's not supposed to insult me in a mean fashion...and I don't care how much he's had to drink.

That said, I struck out. My bat whistled, I turned half around, and I was out.

But the game was basically over.

"Let's call it a tie," Bob called out as he walked in. "I've got to get to work early tomorrow."

Jim didn't like that, nor that a few of the guys agreed with Bob. "Come on. We won this game!"

But everybody gathered up their stuff, chatted a bit, and started drifting out to the cars.

"Damn," muttered Jim, and then he did the unthinkable. "You caused this."

I stared at him, about to start talking the talk, but Bob stepped in. "Come on, Jim. Take it easy."

"Easy for you to say."

"The girls did good, we did bad, time to let it go."

Jim grumbled and turned around to pick up a spare ball, and I blurted: "You're a bush leaguer."

I meant his temper, but it came out wrong, and he felt personally challenged.

A couple of the girls came up and tried to calm me down, but I had had it. Jim's a great guy, but he had gotten my goat, and my goat was feeling a bit peevish.

He straightened up and stared at me. "What?"

A rude 'what?' An insolent 'what?'

I said, "Let's have a real contest."

Suddenly I had everybody's interest. Hey, the guys like to compete. And the girls were naturally curious...so what did I have in mind?"

"What kind of a contest," he asked suspiciously.

"Three games. With special conditions. You choose one condition, we choose one, and we coin toss for the third one. Chooser chooses the rules."

The guys looked at each other, and I could hear their testosterone click to the 'on' position. There is nothing a guy likes better than a real game. And I was giving them a serious challenge.

"So if we choose wrestling, you'll wrestle us."

"Yep. We choose our girl and you choose your guy. And If I say you have to play baseball in high heels, then that's what you have to do."

The guys started mealy mouthing at that. They didn't want to play in girly clothes.

But the girls liked the idea. And I knew they would. I had already given us one big advantage, and the guys didn't know what it was. Here was another one, and it was bigger than the guys thought.

So after a few minutes of them protesting about having to wear heels, I made it happen.

"You guys are embarrassed, but I can fix that."

"You can make it so we won't be embarrassed by wearing girl shoes?" That was Bob. Even sweet tempered Bob was feeling the heat.

"You bet. "Charlene will put an ad in the paper. Guys against girls, all in heels, gate proceeds to charity. We can even play winner's choice of charity."

Now the guys looked thoughtful. They rubbed their chins, they scratched their balls.

Only Jim was suspicious. My guy knew me a little too well, and he knew I had an ace up my sleeve. But he was the only one.

Bob: "Hey guys, that's not bad. Everybody laughs, we can sell a little beer at the game, maybe even drink a little, and...and yeah. I'm in."

Tom said, "So are you choosing baseball, in heels?"

I nodded.

"And are you really willing to go with wrestling?"

"Yes," I said.

The other gals on my team, all except Janice, who had a quirky smile on her face, all chorused "No!"

I quickly called a huddle. I whispered a couple of sentences, saw some grins, and then they all began looking at Janice, and then nodding their heads.

We stood up and faced the men.

"Yes," I said confidently.

Hubby, dear Jim, couldn't believe it. He must have thought we had lost our senses, for he stood there and shook his grinning face.

Bob: "So we're going to do baseball and wrestling. You sure you girls don't want to pick a girl's sport? Ballet or something?"

We girls were smiling, and I asked. "Are you giving us the third choice?"

The guys looked at one another. Jim, bless him, helped my case. "Hell, give it to them. We've got them beat ten ways from go already."

So the guys shrugged it off, and kissed their chances of winning away.

"So what is your choice for the third competition?"

Now, truth, I hadn't thought that far ahead. I didn't show the guys that, though, I simply turned to the girls and called for a huddle.

We went and sat in one of the dug outs and started throwing ideas around. I knew we were going to win the wrestling, and I knew we had a better than even chance with the baseball game. My skulduggery was paying off, but I wanted a third win. I didn't want to take any chances.

Ping pong was offered, basketball in heels, and finally, we agreed on a simple foot race. At first we were going to insist on heels, but having heels twice seemed a little unfair. Then Georgina had a good idea: "Make 'em wear pencil skirts."

We all giggled, and our choice was decided.

I was afraid the guys wouldn't go for pencil skirts, but when we presented the idea to them they just shrugged. I guess now that they had accepted baseball in heels, a simply foot race in skirts wasn't much. Of course, they didn't really know what pencil skirts were.

Then Bob, his turn to be blessed, asked, "So what are we really playing for? I mean besides charity?"

I spoke up quickly. "If you guys win, two out of three, then we gals will buy you beer, cook your ribs, and wait on you hand and foot for five football games."

"Oh, yeah!" Their eyes lit up, and a couple of them even patted Jim on the back.

"But... if we girls win...you guys have to take us to five girly movies. Five chick flicks, complete with nice dinners and wine."

They raised their eyebrows, it seemed too reasonable, and they were about to say yes when I added, "And I get Jim for a week."

Everybody looked a bit curious then.

I said, "For one week I am going to dress him up, make him into a woman, and even have my way with him."

"Whoo!"

"Wow!"

Catcalls and quick quips.

Then the guys went after Jim.

"Come on, Jim. You started this."

"Hey, we aren't going to lose, what are you worried about."

And when Jim still hemmed and hawed, one lone voice said the magic word. "Chicken."

Man, Jim turned red, his fists got tight. He looked around and couldn't help himself.

"Okay!" The cheers started up, and that helped him relax, but I tell ya, my hubby was one pissed puppy for a second. Deep down, he knew I was a conniver. He knew I had something planned. He didn't know what, and maybe if he did he wouldn't have allowed himself to respond so easily. But he didn't, and I did, and zingo bingo, there went my good old hubby's manly life. Heh heh.