Angel Knight
New Member
~BBW, Realistic, ~~WG - The story of a promising young athlete
This was, Melody decided, entirely too much pressure for a teenager to have. She felt the presence of the crowd behind her, silent as it waited for the pitch to arrive. She was waiting too, but the pitcher at the mound seemed to be more than a little bit nervous. She had long gotten over the fact that the pitcher was, in fact, a man. A boy, really. Melody was, as far as anyone could tell, the only female to play on a boy's baseball team deep into high school in the modern era. Not just any school, either. She played for one of the best high school baseball programs in the entire country. Even more than that, she was the star, leading the team in every relevant statistical category. Still, the pressure had never been quite like this before. The boy who was trying rather ineffectually to use the Randy Johnson stare down on her was the star of his team as well. At 6'1 and 220 pounds of solid muscle, he had one of the top ERAs of any high school pitcher in the country. Tonight he had pitched shut-out ball through the first eight innings. That didn't seem to be giving him much confidence in this spot, however, given his apparent nervousness.
She always had been far and away better than any girl her age, and she left most boys in the dust as well. Call her a freak of nature, or just gifted by unusually good genes on both sides of her family. Her father, absent throughout most of her childhood and even at this seminal moment, was a Major League Baseball player, a perennial All-Star and one that looked like he'd be holding onto his career as long as he could. Just like in other important moments in her young life, he was traveling with his team. Her mother, by contrast, had sacrificed her professional life for her child. She had been a professional model when she had given birth to Melody, and off and on for a few years later. Before she entered pre-school, however, her mother had retired to support her child's growth and development.
Concentration was usually a strong point in Melody's game, and she consciously recognized that she was being distracted by the moment. The only reason she hadn't been struck out yet this at-bat was because the opposing pitcher seemed to be even more flustered. The umpire gestured for him to continue with the game, and he settled into his stance. It was the bottom of the 9th, and Melody's team was losing 1-0. There were two outs, but they had a runner on first and third. That nervous boy who was just about to work himself up to pitching to her had called for time when he had fallen behind on the count to her by throwing a third ball to just one strike. Melodys eyes flicked to the right for what must have been the hundredth time during the game, just long enough to catch a glimpse of her mother watching from the stand.
She was the spitting image of her mother when she was younger, though perhaps a bit taller. At 5'10" she was tall, and probably not done growing taller. Melody was 133 pounds of lean muscle, possessed of perfectly shaped B cup breasts, and would have had her pick of any boy in the school if she had time for anything but baseball. That, and her height tended to intimidate those less confident in their own masculinity. Her blonde hair was normally long and flowing, but currently it was tucked away under her batting helmet.
Melody was broken out of her distracting reverie by the image of the pitcher winding up. He was coming in low with a fastball, deciding he was not going to walk the bases loaded. She made adjustments quickly, snapping the ball with a loud CRACK as she hit across her body. As soon as the ball left her bat she knew it was a double, and the crowd did too. Despite the fact that at least half the packed masses of the high school stadium were fans of the other team, it sounded like nearly everyone had broken out into a cheer. She took first base and watched as the two runners took home plate, securing the victory for her school. She threw down her batting helmet for the beleaguered equipment manager and joined the celebration, a mass of teenage boys leaping up and down joyfully in their victory, not caring that at least half of them felt she was not really a part of the team. That was something she had gotten used to, and it didn't matter to her as long as she could play.
The stadium's loudspeakers were inviting the crowd back to watch next season's games and to file orderly out of the stands. The announcer needn't have added for them to drive home safely; technically there was no drinking at high school sporting matches. Melody separated from the rest of the players as they split to go to the boy's locker room. That was one of the perks of being a girl on a boy's team: you had all the facilities to yourself. She stepped off of the grass and onto the concrete, hearing her cleats scraping as she started to walk off.
"Melody! Melody Hardison!"
She froze as she heard the sharp tone of the woman's voice behind her. This was something she was dreading, and part of why the pressure had been greater on her than it normally would have been, even considering this was the most important and final game of her team's season. Melody turned around to face a certain Victoria Masters, one of ESPN's many junior reporterettes, and evidently the one that had drawn this low-end assignment. Melody knew that one of the national networks was supposed to be here for this game - it had been mentioned in the local newspaper - but she didn't think they were going to try for an interview. Victoria came running after her, a difficult thing in heels on the pavement of her high school parking lot. Her camera man was in tow, nearly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of equipment he was carrying. Obviously the Disney-owned sports network had not sprung for much support in this assignment. It was understandable, really. High school sports were not exactly national news, even when the story was about a pretty girl who had managed dominated in a boy's sport at a high level. Even when that pretty girl was the daughter of a big-league All Star. Melody took a deep breath and turned around, resisting the urge to put her hands on her hips. She doubted she could intimidate this reporter, despite being several inches taller than her even when she was wearing heels.
"Yes?" she managed to get that word out in a sweet voice that conveyed none of the terror that she felt inside.
"Victoria Masters, ESPN." The young reporter had finally caught up to her, apparently having rushed out of the stands just as soon as Melody had driven in the winning run. She was twenty-three, having just recently graduated with honors from a major university. Having only been with the network for a short amount of time, she was still pulling the most minor of stories. She knew that whatever work she did would likely get at most fifteen seconds on SportsCenter, if that. Still, she managed to bring the same outward enthusiasm to each and every assignment. That, along with the fact that she was gorgeous, had endeared the young brunette to the viewers already. She wasn't on the same level as someone like Erin Andrews, but it was only a matter of time. "Can I have a moment of your time, Miss Hardison?"
"Sure," Melody managed to stammer out her response without looking too embarrassed, though her cheeks did flush red. She had a heart-shaped face, its perfect features no doubt looking quite good to the camera that was now visibly turned on and bearing down on her. Inwardly, Melody was trying to summon up everything she knew about trite athlete responses from years of following her father's every word.
"You allowed only two hits, and the only run your team gave up was due to an unforced error by your third baseman. In addition, you drove in the tying and winning runs. How do you feel about your performance tonight?" Victoria was dressed in a sharp skirt and sweater, tight around the chest in what was no doubt an attempt to ingratiate herself to the network's target audience. Melody noticed that the skirt exposed her toned calves. She was probably used to running in heels. The way her brown eyes were focusing on Melody like a hawk, however, made her fairly certain that there was brains to accompany her beauty. This was the softball pitch before she would bring the heat.
"I feel pretty good. The whole team did pretty good. I'm just happy that I could help bring them home. They had to get on base first." She took a deep breath, hoping that her large blue eyes didn't give her the look of a deer in the headlights. "I shouldn't have let them get a runner on in the fifth inning. That was my fault. Jack-" She paused, as she realized no one watching this on TV was going to have any idea who she was talking about. "-the third baseman had a tough play to make, but it was my fault for letting the runner on. I need to work on improving my game."
"Really." From the way Victoria was smiling, Melody had the distinct feeling that she had just stepped into something. "You've put together one of the most dominant seasons in men's high school baseball in both hitting and pitching and you need to work on improving your game?" Gorgeous Victoria paused to look down at her notes, before looking back up at her subject. "My sources tell me that you've recently gotten your GED. Can you confirm that you're going to leave school early to try and play mens baseball in college?"
"I.." Melody was certainly caught by surprise on that one. Her academic records were not supposed to be accessible by the media, and it was a breach of journalistic ethics at minimum that she had access to them. No one was supposed to know about her plans except for her mother. Her father didn't even know. They had never been close on a personal level, and beyond that he had never really shown much support for her athletic ambitions. "...I, um..I have no comment." Melody turned and started to jog away, trying to be as casual as possible. It didn't help that she then broke into a sprint and took the steps up to the girl's locker room two at a time. The metal door was pulled open rapidly as she sought refuge inside.
Meanwhile, Victoria had gotten exactly what she had wanted. More than that, even. Her reaction was far better than an outright refusal. With that kind of footage she might even be able to turn this into a national story: "Daughter of future hall of famer to leave high school early, play college baseball with boys." It was just the kind of piece to increase her own national profile. If it threw the life of a teenage girl into chaos, that wasn't her problem.
Inside the locker room, Melody was trying to calm down. Kicking a locker door hadn't done wonders for her right foot. It hurt, even through the cleat. She had taken off her ball cap and was sitting down on the bench when the entrance to the locker room open again. It was her mother. The long-suffering athlete's wife was still, by everyone but her daughter's standards, a young woman. She'd married young, and had given birth to her only child a year later. At thirty five, there really was no reason why she couldn't still be out there modeling. Blonde like Melody, she was a full two inches shorter at 5'6". Being pregnant with Melody had added pounds to her formerly svelte figure, and each passing year had added some more in turn. At 170 pounds she was comfortably overweight, maintaining an hourglass frame and having breasts which were easily DD cups. She wore a skirt the went just a little bit past her firm but fleshy thighs, along with a t-shirt and a jacket for the cool night air. Despite her being a good deal past her "fighting weight," so to speak, she still wore the same kind of clothes as she had when she was a model.
"That reporter looked awfully happy, Melody." She set her over-the-shoulder purse, an expensive yet tasteful number that was worth several hundred dollars, down on the bench and moved closer to her. There were some benefits to being married to an athlete worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Her hands were both occupied. One was holding a milkshake, the other a hefty tray of nachos that looked already half eaten.
"That's because I screwed up, royally." She removed the scrunchy that kept her hair tied up neatly behind her, before shaking her head and letting it spill down the back of her uniform. "She knows. She knew. I really wanted to keep this quiet until we were sure it was the right thing for me." Melody would never open up emotionally in front of her teammates. For her to show weakness in front of the boys would be to ruin whatever respect she had managed to garner thus far. With some she'd never get respect. She accepted that, too. To them she'd always be a rich, feminist girl who felt entitled to do whatever she wanted because her father was a baseball star.
"Well, it can't be that bad, honey. Besides, I doubt they're going to show that tape. No one wants to see a reporter make a girl cry on TV." Though her mother's tone was teasing, not every mom would manage to deliver that line without their daughter getting hurt. She managed to pull it off, though, even as she stuck the straw of her milkshake under Melody's mouth.
"I am -not- crying." There was a sheen of water in Melody's big blue eyes, but it was true that she was not, technically, shedding tears. She took a sip of the milkshake, one that turned into an extended slurp. It was chocolate, after all. Then she pushed it away with her hand. "Mom! You know I can't have stuff like that."
"I know, I know!" Her mother laughed, her own eyes shining with mirth as she took the milkshake back. "Have to stay in perfect shape if you want to compete with the boys, after all. Still, you're going to need to get stronger fast if you're going to college, right? Got to bring your velocity up on your fastball, I think you said. You'll be putting on weight one way or another."
Melody laughed and reached out to take a nacho from her mother's tray - just one. She had a pretty good velocity for a high school pitcher, especially for a female. It was only at the beginning of this last school year that she had even begun lifting weights, and she still hadn't even approached her physical peak. She was still positively lanky, despite her respectable breast size. "Not that kind of weight." She smiled as she realized she had completely forgotten what she had been upset about, which was probably her mother's intention. "I guess there's no reason for me to get cold feet now. This is what I've always wanted, right?"
"I can't say I've ever understood why you want to follow your father so much, honey, but it's your dream. If you want to pursue this baseball thing, then I say you should do it. You've already made it further than your father ever thought you would. If you can make it in college on a men's team, he'll have to pay attention to you. And who knows?" She set the milkshake down and used her free hand to ruffle Melody's hair, using her free hand take a few more bites of the nachos. "Maybe you can go further. You've never been one to let other people stand in your way, Melody."
"You're right." Melody used her teeth to help her remove the batting glove from one of her hands, before taking a nacho from her mother's tray. "As long as I have your support, I can do anything." She smiled, before biting into the chip with a satisfying crunch.
Major League Weight Gain, Part One
by
Angel Knight
by
Angel Knight
This was, Melody decided, entirely too much pressure for a teenager to have. She felt the presence of the crowd behind her, silent as it waited for the pitch to arrive. She was waiting too, but the pitcher at the mound seemed to be more than a little bit nervous. She had long gotten over the fact that the pitcher was, in fact, a man. A boy, really. Melody was, as far as anyone could tell, the only female to play on a boy's baseball team deep into high school in the modern era. Not just any school, either. She played for one of the best high school baseball programs in the entire country. Even more than that, she was the star, leading the team in every relevant statistical category. Still, the pressure had never been quite like this before. The boy who was trying rather ineffectually to use the Randy Johnson stare down on her was the star of his team as well. At 6'1 and 220 pounds of solid muscle, he had one of the top ERAs of any high school pitcher in the country. Tonight he had pitched shut-out ball through the first eight innings. That didn't seem to be giving him much confidence in this spot, however, given his apparent nervousness.
She always had been far and away better than any girl her age, and she left most boys in the dust as well. Call her a freak of nature, or just gifted by unusually good genes on both sides of her family. Her father, absent throughout most of her childhood and even at this seminal moment, was a Major League Baseball player, a perennial All-Star and one that looked like he'd be holding onto his career as long as he could. Just like in other important moments in her young life, he was traveling with his team. Her mother, by contrast, had sacrificed her professional life for her child. She had been a professional model when she had given birth to Melody, and off and on for a few years later. Before she entered pre-school, however, her mother had retired to support her child's growth and development.
Concentration was usually a strong point in Melody's game, and she consciously recognized that she was being distracted by the moment. The only reason she hadn't been struck out yet this at-bat was because the opposing pitcher seemed to be even more flustered. The umpire gestured for him to continue with the game, and he settled into his stance. It was the bottom of the 9th, and Melody's team was losing 1-0. There were two outs, but they had a runner on first and third. That nervous boy who was just about to work himself up to pitching to her had called for time when he had fallen behind on the count to her by throwing a third ball to just one strike. Melodys eyes flicked to the right for what must have been the hundredth time during the game, just long enough to catch a glimpse of her mother watching from the stand.
She was the spitting image of her mother when she was younger, though perhaps a bit taller. At 5'10" she was tall, and probably not done growing taller. Melody was 133 pounds of lean muscle, possessed of perfectly shaped B cup breasts, and would have had her pick of any boy in the school if she had time for anything but baseball. That, and her height tended to intimidate those less confident in their own masculinity. Her blonde hair was normally long and flowing, but currently it was tucked away under her batting helmet.
Melody was broken out of her distracting reverie by the image of the pitcher winding up. He was coming in low with a fastball, deciding he was not going to walk the bases loaded. She made adjustments quickly, snapping the ball with a loud CRACK as she hit across her body. As soon as the ball left her bat she knew it was a double, and the crowd did too. Despite the fact that at least half the packed masses of the high school stadium were fans of the other team, it sounded like nearly everyone had broken out into a cheer. She took first base and watched as the two runners took home plate, securing the victory for her school. She threw down her batting helmet for the beleaguered equipment manager and joined the celebration, a mass of teenage boys leaping up and down joyfully in their victory, not caring that at least half of them felt she was not really a part of the team. That was something she had gotten used to, and it didn't matter to her as long as she could play.
The stadium's loudspeakers were inviting the crowd back to watch next season's games and to file orderly out of the stands. The announcer needn't have added for them to drive home safely; technically there was no drinking at high school sporting matches. Melody separated from the rest of the players as they split to go to the boy's locker room. That was one of the perks of being a girl on a boy's team: you had all the facilities to yourself. She stepped off of the grass and onto the concrete, hearing her cleats scraping as she started to walk off.
"Melody! Melody Hardison!"
She froze as she heard the sharp tone of the woman's voice behind her. This was something she was dreading, and part of why the pressure had been greater on her than it normally would have been, even considering this was the most important and final game of her team's season. Melody turned around to face a certain Victoria Masters, one of ESPN's many junior reporterettes, and evidently the one that had drawn this low-end assignment. Melody knew that one of the national networks was supposed to be here for this game - it had been mentioned in the local newspaper - but she didn't think they were going to try for an interview. Victoria came running after her, a difficult thing in heels on the pavement of her high school parking lot. Her camera man was in tow, nearly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of equipment he was carrying. Obviously the Disney-owned sports network had not sprung for much support in this assignment. It was understandable, really. High school sports were not exactly national news, even when the story was about a pretty girl who had managed dominated in a boy's sport at a high level. Even when that pretty girl was the daughter of a big-league All Star. Melody took a deep breath and turned around, resisting the urge to put her hands on her hips. She doubted she could intimidate this reporter, despite being several inches taller than her even when she was wearing heels.
"Yes?" she managed to get that word out in a sweet voice that conveyed none of the terror that she felt inside.
"Victoria Masters, ESPN." The young reporter had finally caught up to her, apparently having rushed out of the stands just as soon as Melody had driven in the winning run. She was twenty-three, having just recently graduated with honors from a major university. Having only been with the network for a short amount of time, she was still pulling the most minor of stories. She knew that whatever work she did would likely get at most fifteen seconds on SportsCenter, if that. Still, she managed to bring the same outward enthusiasm to each and every assignment. That, along with the fact that she was gorgeous, had endeared the young brunette to the viewers already. She wasn't on the same level as someone like Erin Andrews, but it was only a matter of time. "Can I have a moment of your time, Miss Hardison?"
"Sure," Melody managed to stammer out her response without looking too embarrassed, though her cheeks did flush red. She had a heart-shaped face, its perfect features no doubt looking quite good to the camera that was now visibly turned on and bearing down on her. Inwardly, Melody was trying to summon up everything she knew about trite athlete responses from years of following her father's every word.
"You allowed only two hits, and the only run your team gave up was due to an unforced error by your third baseman. In addition, you drove in the tying and winning runs. How do you feel about your performance tonight?" Victoria was dressed in a sharp skirt and sweater, tight around the chest in what was no doubt an attempt to ingratiate herself to the network's target audience. Melody noticed that the skirt exposed her toned calves. She was probably used to running in heels. The way her brown eyes were focusing on Melody like a hawk, however, made her fairly certain that there was brains to accompany her beauty. This was the softball pitch before she would bring the heat.
"I feel pretty good. The whole team did pretty good. I'm just happy that I could help bring them home. They had to get on base first." She took a deep breath, hoping that her large blue eyes didn't give her the look of a deer in the headlights. "I shouldn't have let them get a runner on in the fifth inning. That was my fault. Jack-" She paused, as she realized no one watching this on TV was going to have any idea who she was talking about. "-the third baseman had a tough play to make, but it was my fault for letting the runner on. I need to work on improving my game."
"Really." From the way Victoria was smiling, Melody had the distinct feeling that she had just stepped into something. "You've put together one of the most dominant seasons in men's high school baseball in both hitting and pitching and you need to work on improving your game?" Gorgeous Victoria paused to look down at her notes, before looking back up at her subject. "My sources tell me that you've recently gotten your GED. Can you confirm that you're going to leave school early to try and play mens baseball in college?"
"I.." Melody was certainly caught by surprise on that one. Her academic records were not supposed to be accessible by the media, and it was a breach of journalistic ethics at minimum that she had access to them. No one was supposed to know about her plans except for her mother. Her father didn't even know. They had never been close on a personal level, and beyond that he had never really shown much support for her athletic ambitions. "...I, um..I have no comment." Melody turned and started to jog away, trying to be as casual as possible. It didn't help that she then broke into a sprint and took the steps up to the girl's locker room two at a time. The metal door was pulled open rapidly as she sought refuge inside.
Meanwhile, Victoria had gotten exactly what she had wanted. More than that, even. Her reaction was far better than an outright refusal. With that kind of footage she might even be able to turn this into a national story: "Daughter of future hall of famer to leave high school early, play college baseball with boys." It was just the kind of piece to increase her own national profile. If it threw the life of a teenage girl into chaos, that wasn't her problem.
Inside the locker room, Melody was trying to calm down. Kicking a locker door hadn't done wonders for her right foot. It hurt, even through the cleat. She had taken off her ball cap and was sitting down on the bench when the entrance to the locker room open again. It was her mother. The long-suffering athlete's wife was still, by everyone but her daughter's standards, a young woman. She'd married young, and had given birth to her only child a year later. At thirty five, there really was no reason why she couldn't still be out there modeling. Blonde like Melody, she was a full two inches shorter at 5'6". Being pregnant with Melody had added pounds to her formerly svelte figure, and each passing year had added some more in turn. At 170 pounds she was comfortably overweight, maintaining an hourglass frame and having breasts which were easily DD cups. She wore a skirt the went just a little bit past her firm but fleshy thighs, along with a t-shirt and a jacket for the cool night air. Despite her being a good deal past her "fighting weight," so to speak, she still wore the same kind of clothes as she had when she was a model.
"That reporter looked awfully happy, Melody." She set her over-the-shoulder purse, an expensive yet tasteful number that was worth several hundred dollars, down on the bench and moved closer to her. There were some benefits to being married to an athlete worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Her hands were both occupied. One was holding a milkshake, the other a hefty tray of nachos that looked already half eaten.
"That's because I screwed up, royally." She removed the scrunchy that kept her hair tied up neatly behind her, before shaking her head and letting it spill down the back of her uniform. "She knows. She knew. I really wanted to keep this quiet until we were sure it was the right thing for me." Melody would never open up emotionally in front of her teammates. For her to show weakness in front of the boys would be to ruin whatever respect she had managed to garner thus far. With some she'd never get respect. She accepted that, too. To them she'd always be a rich, feminist girl who felt entitled to do whatever she wanted because her father was a baseball star.
"Well, it can't be that bad, honey. Besides, I doubt they're going to show that tape. No one wants to see a reporter make a girl cry on TV." Though her mother's tone was teasing, not every mom would manage to deliver that line without their daughter getting hurt. She managed to pull it off, though, even as she stuck the straw of her milkshake under Melody's mouth.
"I am -not- crying." There was a sheen of water in Melody's big blue eyes, but it was true that she was not, technically, shedding tears. She took a sip of the milkshake, one that turned into an extended slurp. It was chocolate, after all. Then she pushed it away with her hand. "Mom! You know I can't have stuff like that."
"I know, I know!" Her mother laughed, her own eyes shining with mirth as she took the milkshake back. "Have to stay in perfect shape if you want to compete with the boys, after all. Still, you're going to need to get stronger fast if you're going to college, right? Got to bring your velocity up on your fastball, I think you said. You'll be putting on weight one way or another."
Melody laughed and reached out to take a nacho from her mother's tray - just one. She had a pretty good velocity for a high school pitcher, especially for a female. It was only at the beginning of this last school year that she had even begun lifting weights, and she still hadn't even approached her physical peak. She was still positively lanky, despite her respectable breast size. "Not that kind of weight." She smiled as she realized she had completely forgotten what she had been upset about, which was probably her mother's intention. "I guess there's no reason for me to get cold feet now. This is what I've always wanted, right?"
"I can't say I've ever understood why you want to follow your father so much, honey, but it's your dream. If you want to pursue this baseball thing, then I say you should do it. You've already made it further than your father ever thought you would. If you can make it in college on a men's team, he'll have to pay attention to you. And who knows?" She set the milkshake down and used her free hand to ruffle Melody's hair, using her free hand take a few more bites of the nachos. "Maybe you can go further. You've never been one to let other people stand in your way, Melody."
"You're right." Melody used her teeth to help her remove the batting glove from one of her hands, before taking a nacho from her mother's tray. "As long as I have your support, I can do anything." She smiled, before biting into the chip with a satisfying crunch.
~To be continued~
