The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Deep In The Heart (Connie)

“I’ve been in this business longer than you boys have known what to do with your... toys! Forty years I’ve been coachin’ and getting you wins that you can wave ’round like a banner to get girls in so you can do God knows what to ’em! If y’all think I’m just a girl power figurehead, y’all should know better than that. I’ve wrestled bigger bulls than you and spit back tastier bullshit than you can cook on the ’que!” the grandmotherly figure snapped at the annual AD meeting. Pushing sixty, Connie Sharp knew her days were numbered. She’d be the first to admit that the explosion of control, both in Austin and worldwide, had kept her from her real jobs: coaching the basketball team to tournament after tournament, then making sure that the rest of the women’s programs stayed up to snuff as de facto women’s AD. If anyone had asked, though, she would tell them to their face that she’d rather protect her teams than win games at any cost, no matter what that entailed. Connie held her head high and continued, “So, y’all think mixin’ cheerleaders with real athletes will make the team better? Or worse? Or any different? Well, y’all don’t know my ladies, not a one of them. And y’all know me even less. I let some stuck-up booster louder than any of y’all take me golfin’ just so I could be by those ladies and keep ’em out of trouble, that’s what my team means to me.” Her voice dropped, low and angry and intense. “So y’all think I don’t know what a Texas cheerleader is. Or that a cheerleader’s a cheerleader, even if you stick ’em out behind the arc and let ’em rip off twenty threes in a row? Aren’t those long-legged volleyball girls in their short shorts enough for y’all?”

“Well, we thought it’d be good for morale,” one of the ADs said with a badly disguised snicker.

“You’ll have to ’scuse me, son, I don’t hear so well anymore. Would you mind sayin’ that again a mite bit louder? Yeah, I didn’t think so. You boys ain’t chased me off yet and y’all ain’t layin’ a hand on any of the ladies on my team. And if that has to mean the two cheerleaders you fobbed off on me, then that’s what it means. You touch ’em and I let you have it the same way as if you put a hand on any of the others.”

“Suit yourself,” another said. To the man next to him, he sneered, “Fine by me. Told you she wouldn’t object to a pet pussy.”

Connie elected to ignore him, since slugging her colleagues was considered bad form. “Guess it’s all settled, then.”

“Welcome to Austin, ladies,” she said the next day to the two blondes staring back across the desk at her with empty blue eyes and skintight pants. “How’d y’all end up in this mess, anyway?”

With identical innocent smiles, the two blondes stood up. Connie looked them up and down. “Six-five in heels... so ’bout six-foot-even in the real world. So someone got blinded by the highlights and reckoned they could make dancers outta you, huh?”

The innocent smiles turned into proud grins and giddy nods. Connie sighed. The more she heard about this situation the others had gotten her into, the less she liked it. “We’re gonna do things differently than you’re used to. So co- er, follow me,” she said, not wanting to know what kind of commands were installed if she told them to come. They followed her with their heels clicking in perfect harmony and a sashay to their saunter that had Connie planning fun rope tricks with them in case the basketball didn’t work out after all.

She knew them for what they were. No matter what the men thought of her, she was no one’s fool. The two blondes following her were hand-crafted weapons of mass seduction, the finest pieces of flesh the schools of Texas could offer. They were designed to relax athletes, keep them loyal, give them reasons to win games, and generally serve the university better. It was up to each school and each school’s stars whether they wanted to share, or whether the cheerleaders would be doled out as girlfriends or wives. And Connie was no innocent in this; she had insisted that if the cheerleaders had to perform for her team, they had to perform the same routines they did for the men- both before and after games.

But these weren’t the usual boy-cut, bisexual models that were folded into the usual pretty faces to satisfy the girls who wanted such things. These were the top of the line, perfect in every way as near as Connie could tell from her careful inspection. Even if they’d been All-Americans in high school, they’d long since have had that knowledge pumped out of their brains and replaced with Texas cheerleader air. Something wasn’t right here, and if someone was using these two pretty faces as weapons, that someone was going to have one pissed off Constance Sharp coming down on them like the wrath of God.

Until she knew that for certain, she was going to play along, so she led them to the gym. She was ready to point them to the locker room to change, but before she could say or do anything, the two girls spotted the basketball rack, and life came into their dead eyes.

“C’mon, Cass! Let’s do this!” one of them said, grabbing a ball and dribbling as well as she could with her long nails, tottering slightly on the high heels but never losing her focused stare.

“One on one! Right now! Bring it, Kate!” the other yelled, squatting into as good a defensive position as she could in the tight jeans, eyes fixed on the ball and burning.

“Easy there, ladies! You’re on the basketball team now. Plenty of time for that later. Here are your uniforms. Go get changed,” Connie ordered, swiping the basketball away. As if their power source had been disconnected, their eyes dulled until all Connie could see in them were pink clouds and sex fantasies. In unison, they went into the programmed striptease before slipping on their uniforms. Whoever had picked them out had gotten to them before they could get the usual enhancements, so their athletic builds made them look less out of place in the uniforms than Connie had expected.

A light bulb went off over her head. “How ’bout you two take a look at yourselves in your new uniforms?” she suggested, guiding them towards the mirror. As she had suspected would happen, both their plastered-on grins relaxed and became more natural. “That’s right, ladies! Y’all won’t have to stand on the sidelines and wave pom-poms around anymore. The girls get to cheer you on now. Now, let’s see what you can do... right, you’ll need this,” she added, handing each of them a basketball and letting them dribble out onto the court.

Ash, her lead assistant, looked at her like she’d grown an extra head. “I thought you wouldn’t dare bring those bimbos onto the court,” she said slowly, as if Connie were perhaps brain-damaged.

“Call me crazy, but both those girls were basketball players before their ‘cheer camp’ fried their brains extra crispy, dipped ’em in honey batter, and roasted ’em to golden tanned and delicious. Don’t know how they made Austin’s cut, ’cause the tech folks in Houston usually deal with little slips, but where were they gonna see a basket or a ball? Might could be that was the only thing. First time I’ve seen anything like this in near forty years, and I’ve seen close to a thousand plastic dollies that once lived that we call Texas cheerleaders. Difference with these two is basketball might just have greased their chains and breathed a gasp of life into their dead shells.” Connie watched in pensive silence for a few minutes longer, then added, “That, and they can play- after we file down those nails, of course, and maybe get rid of whatever programmin’ keeps ’em from makin’ contact. They’ve got the ghosts of D-I talent, and don’t you tell me otherwise.”

Ash frowned. “For all we know, this is programmed too, just to get the ladies into bed with them so they become the hedonists the other athletes are,” she warned.

“Natural assets can be faked. Brains can be put to sleep with some poisoned apples. Focus and routine can be rewritten with a two-bit flashlight. Two weeks’ worth of lessons can turn a million-dollar athlete into a street whore. But muscle memory don’t lie. Either you have a shot or not, and Cass there has pro range. Either you can keep a steady dribble or not, and Kate can handle a basketball. Yeah, they might be tryin’ to show off and look sexy ’cause that little light in their heads is tellin’ ’em so, but they didn’t start from nothin’. Likely one of the boys got schooled, got mad, and bitched to the AD. They wouldn’t give up a good asset, so here we are.”

“Emphasis on the assets, Connie. Are you sure about this?”

“Ain’t happy ’bout it, I can tell you that, but let me also tell you this. If you think it’s ’bout basketball, you’re dead wrong. If some simple drills can oil their chains and get ’em to look like real players, then maybe four years can get the chains off. And let me tell you, Ashlyn Short: if I can break the spell on a Texas cheerleader, I can die in peace. And if I can’t get through to ’em after four years, I might as well quit. If they can do this to a pair of D-I recruits who probably had a handful of offers, and no one calls the cops, God help us all.”

Ash nodded her understanding. They watched Cass and Kate for a while, then Connie shouted, “All right, you two, I need to talk to you!” They came over and stood in front of her as like as two peas in a pod, and she asked, “What’re your positions? Naturally, I mean.”

“Umm, tall,” Kate said, her voice weak and shaky, as if something in her brain had shut down to keep her from accessing the memory.

“Outside,” Cass said with a grin that she was fighting to keep from growing.

“Well, neither said missionary. Guess that’s a start,” Ash said, rolling her eyes.

“You ain’t never lied, ’cept on the trail. Kate, you’re tellin’ me tall, but you got some handle. So you’re tellin’ me power forward? Like to bang down low?” Connie asked.

Kate’s face went blank, and she dropped to her knees and began taking working on the assistant’s belt. Ash swore at her in language that would have made a sailor blush.

“Craaaaaaaap! Sorry ’bout that, Ash. I know, I know. Kate! Fetch!” Connie said, throwing a basketball and watching as Kate ran it down and rebounded it off the wall with authority.

“We’re gonna have to train them like dogs? Seriously? Good grief,” Ash said, severely unamused.

“Bitch is a kinda dog,” Connie said, trying to inject some humor. Ash’s glare suggested that such humor would not be well-received. “You’re right. Dogs are smarter.”

“And at least you can take them to obedience school. I thought they’d at least have enough sense to go to class without seeing everything as a double entendre.”

“You might be on to something there. Ladies, follow me!” Connie ordered, and the two ex-cheerleaders skipped behind her to her office. “Hands, please.”

She took each of their hands and fingerprinted them, then scanned the prints into the Mindcrime database. She normally only accessed the quasi-public database that was linked to worried parents, but to her surprise, the page came up with a familiar dark orange color in the background. “Oh, of course. Gotta make sure we know who the cheerleaders are. Let’s see...”

Bing.

Bing.

Connie looked at the two names on the screen and proceeded to swear a blue streak that had Cass and Kate looking at each other as if they weren’t sure whether the repeated uses of “fuck” were a command or not. “Cass and Kate. Cassidy and Katherine Barnes. If I ever find the asshole who fried the third and fourth best recruits in the class, I’m gonna...” She trailed off again, hissing like a teakettle. “Right, you two were on a dance team in high school. And you had that cousin with Texas Elite, right? Never did buy that you both busted your knees at the same time. Well, if we can get a quarter of that back, we’ll be champs.”

She didn’t want to admit her fear aloud: that this was part of the plan, that her figuring out that they had been elite basketball players before being Texas Elite cheerleaders was part of weaseling around her protection over the rest of the team. But something about their obsession, even in their brainwashed state, nagged at her. She sat down at her desk and did a quick search through the archives until she found what she wanted. “I thought that McLean profile was ’bout you two and how basketball was the thing that brought you closest together and caused the only fights ever between you. They tend to leave one little lick of- no, Cass, that ain’t a request- one last trace of sense so you get through school and nab that man of yours. Keeps the NCAA happy. ’Course, with you two, the last trace of sense is basketball. For them, that’s a problem. For y’all two, that’s gonna be what makes you the Barnes twins again.”

Cass and Kate stared at her blankly.

“Well, at least Someone’s listenin’,” Connie muttered. “C’mon. Y’all better get to practice. And if y’all don’t get to the right practice, ain’t none of us gonna hear the end of it.”

“Coach, all due respect, but are you shitting us?” Ricki asked as practice opened. “Look, if we gotta have a cheerleader on the bench, can’t it be Lynn? She’s tougher. If she was designed to put up with TJ, I’m sure we could teach her some moves.” She flexed, seemingly to intimidate the two girls; at 6′4″, heavily muscled and proud of it, with a scowl that could put anyone west of the Mississippi to shame, she was good at intimidation.

TJ rolled her eyes and smacked Ricki’s ass. The by-play between them had been going on for two years in Austin and longer before that. Everyone was so afraid of Ricki that they tended to think of TJ as the femme, and while her good looks played to that, her 6′2″ build and sharply defined biceps suggested otherwise.

Casey, in turn, rolled her eyes at them. “I thought midnight practices were a myth in the pros! But I get it, Coach, no getting drafted by Detroit. Now, can we start practice? Their perfume is making me... uh... ah... ACHOO!” The force of the sneeze caused strands of her fine blonde hair to pull out of her tight ponytail, and she pulled them back with a gesture that might have looked fake on someone whose beauty was less natural.

“Come on, Casey, you’re just scared your fresh-baked studmuffin screamer might get confused and run off with his own kind ’cause they’re wearin’ shorts ’stead of a short skirt,” TJ taunted back.

Casey turned red as a beet. “His name is Benny!”

“Really? I call him Al, myself,” Ricki said.

Connie had to laugh at that one, but with a sharp clap, she said, “Enough! Yeah, they might... stand out...a touch more than the usual, but right there we’ve got two top-notch recruits. Can’t take the credit for bringin’ em in, but I checked the records. On the left, that’s Cassidy Barnes. On the right, that’s Katherine Barnes. Might recall those names?”

Eyes went wide and mouths dropped. TJ was the first to recover. “Well, y’know, those ACLs won’t heal if you spend all your life on high heels,” she said skeptically.

“Want me to break one ankle or both of them?” Cass shot back like thunder had gone off in her broken brain. All eyes turned to her.

“Just a sprain, Cass. We got a whole season ahead and JR down in maroon country to worry ’bout,” Connie replied, tossing Cass the ball.

Cass held it close like a lover, then brought it down and took it straight at TJ. TJ stood her ground, elbows up, and with a girlish shriek, Cass backed away- only to hit an off-balance fade shot.

“Well, now! Always thought that was just a saying. And if it ain’t, well, I thought y’all were designed to take it to the hole!” TJ taunted.

Cass’s eyes went a little distant, and her gaze drifted southward as her mouth curved into a hungry grin- then she picked up the ball and blew by the distracted TJ for an easy lay-up. With all eyes on her, she struck a pose and chirped in her cheerleader voice, “We’ll deal with that after practice!”

Everyone gasped, and Casey wasn’t the only one headed to one of the garbage cans in the corners of the gym, but she was the only one who kept running for the locker room. Even TJ and Ricki showed how unnerved they were.

“That’s... that’s one harsh ‘teaching moment’, Coach,” TJ said after a few moments to get her composure back.

“And those are the Barnes twins. We’ll have to work ’round the programmed ‘I’m gonna die if I break a nail’ thing, but you saw that fire and that skill already, when they’re still hardly recognizable. If you wanna know more, I’ll explain all I can, and if that ain’t enough, I’ll find you a Criminal Justice professor who can teach you more than I ever wanted to know. But I’ve known for longer than you’ve been alive that there ain’t a cheerleader in Texas with a mind of their own. They just make it... well, here in Austin, we gotta have the best of everything, right?”

“Might wanna help Ash outta the locker room, then.”

“As long as you and Ricki behave with your teammates,” Connie replied, running to the back with Ash.

“I told you this would never work. Thanks for revealing one of the darkest secrets of the world,” Ash said, her lips a thin line.

“Better now than dancin’ in a wrasslin’ ring. Or on a brass pole. Or for a rich Pole,” Connie shot back.

“Fuck! You mean I really was... umm, having a fantasy?” Casey asked.

“Depends. Any unicorns involved?” Connie asked.

Casey burst into tears. “Not funny!” she wailed. “You just let me know that for four years I’ve dated and loved a- a- a human dildo!”

“You weren’t the one who broke him. He’d marry you and work his cute little ass off to care for you. Nothin’ wrong with keepin’ him, neither. You just have to know that you’re keepin’ him, not sharin’ love. And if that’s something you can’t get comfortable with, that’s a choice you gotta make for yourself. But you saw ’em out there. They done fucked up with the Barnes twins. Way I’ve seen it, they keep one lick of sense so they can get through class and keep the football players focused. Just so happens that with Cass and Kate, that lick of sense is basketball, so here we are. I damn near quit when the AD set us up like this, and I think Ash still wants my head on a platter—”

“No, because then I have to do your job,” Ash interrupted.

“Thanks for that vote of confidence. I think we got a good group here, and if we can get Cass and Kate up to quarter speed, we’re makin’ a tournament run for your last year.”

“If you say so,” Casey said. “Not fair to us in all kinds of ways that we get stuck with them, but I know it wasn’t your idea, Coach.” She offered a wan smile, and the last tear that rolled into the corner of it. “You’d have picked Lynn.”

“So glad you have faith in me,” Connie muttered.

“What the fuck kind of protest is this, Connie?” the AD spluttered as he stormed into Connie’s office.

“I know y’all do expect us to whoop up on the guarantee, but I can’t cover and be sportsmanlike if the spread’s fifty,” Connie replied placidly from behind her desk.

“You know what I mean! The schedules!”

“Can’t change it now, and next year’s got a lot of return tr—”

“The girls’ schedules!”

“Well, I can’t help if PE’s all they can handle right now- you built ’em, you broke ’em, you should know that!”

The AD shook his head. “Oh, not your pretty little toys. I mean the ones who play with them. Don’t play dumb with me. Another of your patented ‘teaching moments’? Don’t tell me you didn’t know all your freshmen and sophomores are suddenly criminal justice majors, or that the upperclassmen are takin’ criminal justice electives, or that Cabot’s tryin’ to apply to Austin Law? Know your role and shut your mouth, Connie, and let those gifts get you that title you never got on your own.”

Connie’s eyes narrowed. “Son, you know damn well I don’t dictate classes, or else they wouldn’t learn a damn thing, one way or another. Can’t help if they get a kick out of CSI. And as for Casey Cabot, she’s carryin’ a 4.2 in pre-law with a poli-sci minor and has more community service on her record done of her own free will than your offensive line got sentenced to last year. That’s beyond Austin Law standards. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have basketball to worry on,” she snapped, her voice low and cold and angry, the way it was when she was well and truly pissed beyond screaming.

“We have ways of cutting deals to keep people out of Mindcrime. Nice try, bitch. Maybe you’re too old for this game. Maybe we need some fresh blood in here,” the AD replied, slamming the door.

Connie looked at the pile of schedules on her desk. She’d always fancied herself a teacher, but it was starting to look like she’d taught the most important lesson ever. With a faint smile, she called a team meeting.

When everyone was gathered and she was in the locker room, she looked at each of them in turn. “Seems our AD thinks I’m too old for this. As it happens, my contract’s up after this year, and he don’t sound too interested in renewin’. So this looks like the last ride for me with y’all. Make me proud,” she told them.

An eruption of shouting and cursing came from the team, and even Cass and Kate seemed offended. “We’ll protest the shit outta this!” Ricki yelled.

“They’re gonna fire you for actually dealin’ with the two bimbos you gave us?” Casey protested.

TJ shook her head. “Naw, they’re cannin’ her for tellin’ us what happened to them,” she said. “They didn’t want us to know, did they, Coach? They just wanted us to use ’em and throw ’em aside like the boys do, right? That’s what they think bimbos are for, beggin’ your pardon, Cass, Kate.”

“Perfect shooting bimbos!” Cass giggled from the back.

“Two-for-two hardly counts, even if they were both threes,” Ash replied, but her face was drawn and serious. “Lord knows what devil they’ve got lined up to take your place.”

“Don’t worry ’bout that. Too many boosters on my side for Texas to turn into Minnesota, though I’d love to draw ’em in the tournament. It’ll help you see what you got on your hands. TJ nailed it, but there’s more to it. I showed y’all somethin’ that’s been goin’ on so long that most folks don’t know that Calamity Jane and the Booby Trap were both invented here. Now, I ain’t no fool, and I know you took those classes tryin’ to learn more so you could help somehow. And if I know y’all like I think I do, some of you are gonna want to do more. If that’s the case, you let me know. But otherwise, let’s make this last season ’bout why I’m leavin’, not what I’m leavin’ behind,” Connie said with an all-knowing smile.

No one cued it. No one said a word. As one, they brought it in for a group hug and got ready for the biggest year of their lives.

“Well, retirin’ at 7-22 ain’t what I’d call a triumphant trip to Florida,” Connie said after the last game as she cleaned out her office.

Ash passed her a pile of plaques and said, “You did well enough. They’re going ACC for your replacement. Anything to be worried about?”

“ACC? In basketball? Faye O’Hara wouldn’t let that nonsense fly. They’re either indifferent or fightin’ like hell. Those as like this sort of thing stick to soccer. I’m more worried ’bout what’s comin’ in. I mean, look at this name on the incoming roster. If that ain’t a cheerleader, then I ain’t a basketball coach!”

“Candee Cummings? Oh, I heard about her. All-American, and, well... you aren’t a basketball coach anymore. So not a cheerleader, but I’m gonna let TJ explain that one,” Ash said, leaning out the door and waving TJ in.

“Look at you, TJ! Ready for the real world more than I am!” Connie said proudly, coming around to hug TJ.

TJ grinned. “Ash tell you my senior gift?”

“Damn right! I knew all along all y’all were workin’ on the twins rather than basketball. So was I. So we went 7-22. At least they’re thinkin’. And I’m sure you don’t mind those days when they slip up and put on the hot pants. I know ’bout the Oklahoma trip, but Olivia’s tough. Didn’t mind a little vaccination from our cheer friends there.”

“Not that. That was all of us workin’ together, and that’s gonna be up to Cass and Kate. I meant Candee. She went to my old school. Her dad was a pimp. She was... product spoilage. He was man enough to raise her when the lines showed up on her momma’s pregnancy test. She’s woman enough to know and mad as hell ’bout it. And with a name like that, she got past the radar. Figured someone’s gotta keep an eye out,” TJ explained, sounding more like a forty-year-old mom than a twenty-two-year-old college graduate.

“You devil!” Connie said.

“Oooh! Oooooh!”

“Oh my God! Ohhhhhh!”

“Get it, girlfriend!”

“What in the Sam Hill is goin’ on out there, and are y’all getting it on camera?” Connie yelled, charging out of her office to make sure nothing untoward was going on.

“I did it! I did it, Coach!” Casey squealed.

“So does everyone. It’s called the birds and the bees. Way I hear it, Ricki and TJ beat you to doin’ it in the hall,” Connie teased back. TJ turned brick red and spluttered incoherently.

“No! I mean he proposed to me! I mean, he proposed to me! As in, he went into his heart and came to me!“ Casey shrieked, dancing around and showing off the ring. From the echoing cheers from her teammates, that had been the source of the ruckus.

Connie, however, was puzzled and a touch concerned. “Benny? I thought you dumped him once you understood what a Texas cheerleader was. You ain’t been lettin’ Cass and Kate pump air into your head, have you?”

“Good grief, no! He kept trying to pull me back into... um, the birds and the bees... but I kept looking for the real Benny. I saw what you were doing with Cass and Kate, and, well, I can’t tell you how I knew he liked advanced physics, but I kept pushing him towards it, and when I heard he was acing a grad-level quantum physics class, I knew he was close. Then, before the game, he pulled me under the bleachers and asked me if I could lead him out from under there. And... well... eeeeeeeeeee!” Casey squealed with a grin.

Cass rolled her eyes. Kate gave a smirk that practically screamed, Like, we’re totally not that bad, right?

Connie shook her head with a fond smile. “Well, he ain’t outta the woods, or from under the bleachers, just yet, but I see what you did. Won’t ruin your happy times, and you better let me know when the wedding is.”

“Of course! Just, um, don’t you and Erin send any of your special gifts,” Casey said with a blush. “He’s good for now, and someone’s gotta keep me out of Russia.”

Connie laughed, understanding that she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams even as she had feared she had failed at the task she had set. Cass and Kate were still just bench players, still more for the team’s entertainment than its success, still giggling rather than laughing, still shying away from contact and a long way from the basketball goddesses they once were. But her team knew now what evil lurked outside the locker room door. Some would fight back. Others would be too aware to be victimized. Casey had done wonders with Benny already; now she could have a strong man and let him eat her too. TJ seemed destined for something Connie didn’t dare look up online. They were shining examples of everything she had always wanted her players to be.

Twenty-two losses or no twenty-two losses, this was the greatest team she had ever coached.

“Y’know, I never understood why a coach like Bear would overlook all the great teams he had and all the great players that went through his school, just to honor the Junction Boys. But I get it now. I wonder what else went on there,” Connie said conversationally to her partner as she put that year’s team picture over the mantel where the title team had been. “There. Now that that’s done, how ’bout we celebrate the first night of the rest of our lives?”

But they had barely made it to the bedroom when someone started screaming outside. “Craaaaaaaap! Burglar! Get under cover!” she yelled as she ran for the rifle over the fireplace and darted outside, only to be presented with one of the most bizarre sights she had ever seen in her life (and she had thought nothing would top the time that Ricki got caught in the bench press). Lynn, in a plastic fetish cheer dress, was tied to the oak in the front yard, a burnt orange gift bow clipped to her short brown hair. Cass and Kate, wearing matching leather catsuits, stood on either side of her with proud grins, alternating between genuine laughter and dominatrix growling.

Once the shock of the moment passed, and once she had pinched herself to determine that this was not one of her more interesting dreams, her coaching instincts sprung into play, and she shouted, “Cassidy! Katherine! I swear, if y’all didn’t get those ropes into Stanford’s grooves, I’m gonna take it outta both your hides. That poor tree’s had enough to deal with without y’all torturin’ it any further. And the ball gag goes under the chin! More secure and sounds a whole lot sexier!”

“So... not a cheerleader, Cass?” Kate asked her sister.

“So not a cheerleader, Kate,” Cass replied.

Connie didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry, so she did both. She knew what they were trying to say and do in their warped, bizarre, and slightly dangerous way. They were still weighed down, but they were starting to remember themselves; by senior year, they might even be comfortable with their full first names. Whatever else, though, they were basketball players, and no cheer coach could take them back now, even if Connie’s replacement begged them to. They were on their way, and they were letting her know that in the only way that their broken and bleached minds could bring forward, with a dose of gratitude and clear proof they’d talked to their teammates to boot.

“You kids and your stupid kink tricks. Erin, hon, c’mon out here and help me with these knots. My eyesight’s not what it used to be. You two, c’mon inside. If y’all are gonna play these games, I’m gonna teach you how to do it properly. Guess I’m still a coach after all...”