TrailRunner 171 Posted March 24, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted March 24, 2023 Author's note: I wrote this story four or five years ago but never published it. The pacing is bad, it's too much worldbuilding for arguably not enough payoff. It's time to admit I'm never going to go back and edit it to fix that, but I also don't want to just leave it buried forever. So here it is in all its rough draft glory. I did a quick spelling and grammar scrub but otherwise this is basically a first draft. It's possible there are some non-sequitur transitions things that are supposed to be italicized that aren't, or incomplete thoughts. I hope it's not too much of a grind to get through... 'tis the season for college hoops, after all. Madison tried to listen intently as her coach was going over the gameplan. But it wasn't that simple. She tried to focus but found herself much more drawn to taking in the experience, the spectacle. Her first season of college basketball had been a roller coaster. She had only reluctantly accepted the scholarship offer in the first place. She had dreamed of going somewhere warm for college, but the high schools of New Hampshire were not the first place major college coaches visited when recruiting. Nor was it the last place they visited. They just simply didn't visit. Not that Madison was any kind of superstar. But she grew up with two older brothers who played the sport and picked it up early herself. Considering the competition, you didn't have to be a great athlete to stand out. And so even though Madison wasn't the fastest, or the biggest, or the strongest girl on her high school team, she started on varsity all four years. The muscle memory she didn't even know she was developing as a young girl playing against her big brothers was by that point fully ingrained, and her shot was automatic. Her high school coach quickly figured out that while Madison wasn't athletic enough to create her own shot, if her teammates set the right screens and got her open, she'd hit the three-pointer more often than she'd miss. By her senior year she had developed one extra little trick when opposing defenses had figured the system out. They knew she wasn't going to drive past them, so Madison figured out how to be just deceptive enough to fake her shot motion, which got her defender to jump in the air toward her, and then she'd follow through and draw the foul knowing she could make nearly every free throw. She had gotten some recruiting mail and a few phone calls from college coaches at lower level colleges, but she didn't have much interest in playing at some small school she'd never heard of. She was ready to leave organized basketball behind and had already applied to a couple of schools in California and Arizona when the coach of her home state school, the University of New Hampshire, called and set up a visit to officially offer her a scholarship. She heard the coach out, and in the end she decided she wasn't completely ready to give up the sport she loved after all. And she figured even if she stopped playing and transferred after a year or two, it would still mean fewer student loans to take out and pay back later. She almost didn't even make it a practice or two. It was clear right away this was a different level. Her shot was reliable as ever in practice, but the kind of offense her high school coach set up for her wasn't feasible to run at the college level where everybody was much quicker. A small growth spurt over the summer at least meant she fit in height-wise, but during a free-flowing scrimmage at the end of the first practice she was blocked out, boxed out, and had her shot swatted out so many times she thought about simply walking off the court and never coming back. Her coach must have sensed as much because she took Madison aside after that practice and convinced her to stay. "Give me a chance," she had said. "And give your teammates a chance." So Madison did, and she was glad she did. Her coach kept practices fun, and her teammates were all genuinely kind and caring and she enjoyed being with them. The season started with a few losses. But they were games the team was supposed to lose. And that made it okay. Before her senior year of high school, the local paper had picked her team to win the county championship. And then they promptly lost their first two games. The doom-and-gloom feeling infected the locker room and even carried over to the classrooms and the hallways of her normal school day. Madison hated that feeling. But if you know ahead of time you're supposed to lose, and then you do lose, it's still okay for somebody to crack a joke on the bus ride back to campus. Madison didn't play in any of those first couple games, and that was just fine with her. She was still a step or three behind in practice against her teammates and she wasn't eager to see how things would go against a team capable of beating those teammates by 25 or more points. Eventually though they played some teams closer to their own weight class and they picked up a few wins. She had settled into her gameday role of being a glorified cheerleader at the end of the bench and loved the camaraderie of the team. After an unusually angry halftime speech from her coach in which she admonished the team to "get the ball to the rim and stop fishing for threes," their first shot out of the locker room was a three-pointer. It went in, and the senior who hit it turned toward the coach on the bench with a sly grin, then pantomimed casting and reeling an imaginary fishing pole. They went on to win that game, and that became the team's celebration of choice whenever they hit a big shot. They even snapped a photo after that game of a few girls holding up the one who had made the shot, like a prize catch. Madison finally got into a game midway through the conference season. She had been working hard in practice, and with the team up 18 points and less than two minutes to go, her coach called out her number and she went to the scoring table to check in. The ball wound up in her hands on the first possession and muscle memory took over. She fired up a long shot, nothing but net. The starters leapt up from the bench to cheer, and when Madison pulled out her own pretend fishing pole they exploded with laughter. She got into a couple more games like that during the season, but then it was conference tournament time and things got more serious. For the four seniors on the team, any game, any shot, any dribble could be their last. Sure, the team could go on some crazy run. March is the month to dream, if you're a basketball player or fan. But the team had finished in the lower half of the conference standings. And the school had never been to the NCAA tournament. So there was an unspoken attitude: Enjoy it while it lasts. But then... something sparked. They won their first game against a team they split with during the season. Facing the second-best team in the conference, the four seniors helped rally the team in the second half. The joy of winning that game was eclipsed shortly after in the locker room, when they all watched together as another big upset happened on the other side of the bracket. The best team in the conference had lost. Suddenly it wasn't about "enjoying it while it lasts." It was about making history for the school. Playing with all the confidence in the world, the team controlled the championship game from start to finish. Madison hadn't played a minute in any of the three games but it hardly mattered. She took her turn cutting part of the net and raised it in the air triumphantly. She may as well have been on top of the world. All of this was going through her head back in the locker room as she gulped down her Gatorade. They HAD been on top of the world, but the little America East conference is a small world. The NCAA tournament is more like the entire galaxy. As the upset winner of a tiny conference, New Hampshire was rewarded with a 16 seed. Not just any 16 seed. They were pitted against the University of Connecticut, the #1 overall seed. That meant that, in the committee's estimation, New Hampshire was the worst of the 64 teams to qualify for the tournament. The scoreboard at halftime vindicated that, as New Hampshire trailed 41-21. A quick history lesson: Only two times in the history of the tournament, men or women, has a 16 seed beaten a 1 seed. In 2018 the UMBC (from the America East!) men's team was tied 23-23 with the University of Virginia at halftime and went on to blow them away in the second half. Twenty years before that, Harvard's women's team led an injury-depleted Stanford team 43-34 at halftime and hung on for the win. This... did not quite have the same feeling. There was no gameplan on the planet that was going to bring New Hampshire back, so Madison didn't feel too bad about tuning her coach out to take in the experience. They were only going to be officially in the tournament for another twenty minutes, so might as well soak everything in. As she always did, one of the seniors, a girl named Alyssa, gathered the team in a huddle just before the end of halftime. Alyssa's rah-rah speeches had gotten emotional before when it seemed like it may be her final game. But this time the writing was really on the wall. Madison could feel the speech going long but the coaches stood aside, not wanting to interrupt their emotional leader in her final game. "You are all my sisters!" Alyssa was still going. "I was damn proud to fight along with y'all this whole season. The scoreboard says 20 minutes left..." She paused not for dramatic effect but because her voice squeaked as she grew emotional. "20 minutes... I'ma fight with my sisters for 20 more minutes! Y'all gotta be with me! I don't care what the score is... I care about fighting and making sure they know we ain't gonna roll over for them! This is it, y'all..." Speaking the sentence out loud seemed to make it too real for Alyssa and she grew quiet. She always ended her speech with a fiery "CATS ON THREE!" but couldn't bring herself to work it up. Madison noticed the coaches starting to look impatient. Finally another of the seniors spoke up. "Cats on three," she said steadily. "One...two... three..." "CATS!" the team yelled back in unison. "Hey, hey, let's go, we gotta go!" the coach said, clapping her hands and directing the players toward the tunnel back onto the court. Madison followed near the end of the line. She had hoped that was enough time for her to duck into the bathroom, but Alyssa's speech had taken some serious time. By the time they got onto the floor, they only had about three minutes of warm-up before play resumed. Madison took her usual spot near the end of the bench and settled in. Her team inbounded the ball to get the second half under way then almost immediately made an errant pass to turn the ball over. She sighed, lamenting the lack of a bathroom break at halftime. She was a little surprised at how much she needed to pee, but it made sense. It wasn't exactly like LeBron James taking the court in Cleveland, but the pre-game routine was a bit more "big time" than she was used to. She hadn't really felt the need to go when they'd been in the locker room before pre-game introductions, so it had been since before the walkthrough that she'd used the toilet. She felt her bladder filling up with the Gatorade she'd been drinking. She tried to focus on the game but it was hard to get into. The Huskies had more or less run up and down the court at will in the first half, but her Wildcat teammates were clearly making a point of getting up in their faces and playing more physically. Accordingly, they seemed to be getting whistled for a foul just about every possession. That meant the clock was constantly stopped. Madison twisted a bit in her chair as she looked at the scoreboard and saw that only two minutes of game time had passed. She had to do a double-take, thinking there was no way she had to pee this much worse already so soon into the second half. Possession. Whistle. Possession. Whistle. The game officially had no sense of flow right now. But the defensive intensity was undeniably working. The Huskies had surely expected a pillow fight of a second half but they were getting a rock fight. Unable to impose their decided athletic advantage in the open court, they were out of rhythm and uncharacteristically turning the ball over. The Wildcats hit a three-pointer, and then, trying to do a bit too much against the press, the Huskies' guard dribbled the ball off her foot, and Alyssa scooped it up and sprinted for a layup, letting out a scream as the opposing coach immediately hopped up to call timeout with the score 45-31. Madison leapt up from the bench to high-five her teammates coming toward her. Caught up in the moment she forgot about her need for a second, until she noticed the clock stopped with 5:15 still remaining in the third quarter. The starters were seated in a circle surrounding the coach, with Madison and the other reserves standing behind. She felt her bladder weighing heavily now that she was on her feet, the downward pressure growing stronger. She found herself unable to keep her brain from doing the math on how much longer she would have to wait. Usually a typical half would take a little less than an hour to play, but the stoppages were a little bit longer during the tournament, and it already felt like it had taken half an hour to play the first five minutes. Plus soon the Huskies would be shooting free throws with the clock stopped with each foul instead of just inbounding the ball and resuming the game. The timeout over, Madison went back to her chair and sat down. The dull ache persisted, her body filling up with pee. She found it hard to hold the same position for very long and crossed and uncrossed her legs at the ankles trying to settle in. The action on the court resumed with UConn missing a shot, and then amidst a group of bodies fighting for the rebound a loud THUD as one of her teammates hit the floor hard. The referee underneath blew the whistle several times to stop play and ran in to break up a growing skirmish between the two teams. The trainer hopped up from the end of the bench and went to check on the injured player. A hush went over the arena as she stayed down. The trainer leaned over, preventing Madison from getting a look. "Did you see what happened?" her teammate Jess, seated next to her, asked. "No," Madison whispered back. "I just, like, saw the mess of bodies and then she was down." "Me neither. Alyssa is fucking *pissed* though, it must have been something," Jess said. That was true. Their senior leader was still fired up, gesturing as she was making her case to the referee who was trying to calm her down. Their teammate remained down on the ground, attended to by the trainer, while the head ref pointed over toward the scoring table. They readied the video monitor for him to review to see what kind of foul needed to be assessed. Their head coach went out on the court to try to escort Alyssa to the bench to cool off. Madison found herself caught up in the drama of the moment, but this video review seemed to be taking forever, and groaned inwardly as her bladder relayed nonstop signals to her brain to find a bathroom. Finally the referee came over to tell the coach the results of the review. "We've got a disqualifying foul on white number 13, excessive contact, elbow to the head. That player is ejected from the game," he said. UConn was in the white jerseys. That must have been what happened to knock her teammate down like this, Madison figured. "We've also got an unsportsmanlike foul on blue number 4 for shoving after the whistle." "WHAT?!" Alyssa leapt up from the bench, hot again. She was blue number 4. "That's bullshit, man!" "Hey!" The ref shot back, holding his whistle up near his mouth. "Don't make me send you out, too!" An assistant coach corralled Alyssa before she could talk her way into a second unsportsmanlike infraction, which would've resulted in her disqualification, too. "I know you're trying to stick up for your teammate but let us handle the justice, okay?" He turned back to the coach to discuss how the free throws for each team would go and who would be awarded the ball. On the court, the downed teammate was finally being helped to her feet. The crowd politely applauded her mobility, but Madison could see as the trainer helped her past the bench and toward the locker room that she looked totally out of it. She didn't know much about concussions but figured that's what this had to be. She gave a supportive tap on the shoulder as her dazed teammate went back to the locker room to be given a more thorough check-up. With things finally settled, the Huskies sank both of their free throws, and the Wildcats answered by making two as well, then prepared to inbound the ball. Then another whistle. This time the referee had to go check the video screen again to see if the game clock was right. He eventually ordered an adjustment to 4:57 remaining. It had felt like an eternity since Madison last looked up at the clock and done the math. She clenched her leg muscles. She felt like she had to pee twice as bad as before, and a grand total of 18 seconds had rolled off the clock. She shifted herself again in her seat as play finally resumed. The game got back under way and it was quickly apparent that the dust-up under the basket only served to refocus her teammates' defensive energy. It wasn't even clear if the end goal was winning or just making their opponents' lives miserable for the final fifteen minutes of the game. The Huskies finally seemed to adjust, though, and seemed content to win this game on free throws if that's what it took. With New Hampshire already over the foul limit, each infraction meant two shots. They were missing just enough of them, and the Wildcats were doing just enough while they had the ball, to prevent the game from turning back into a laugher. The margin danced from 14 up to 17 and then down to 12. The Wildcats pushed the ball up the floor and kicked it to the corner for an open three-pointer. Madison and everyone else on the bench stood in anticipation as the ball hung in the air and exploded with glee as it swished through. Madison wondered why her legs felt tired just from standing up, then realized it was because she was subconsciously squeezing her muscles hard. The Huskies answered with a three-pointer of their own on the other end, and had drawn a foul to boot, so Madison sat back down, now aware of exactly how much energy her body was putting into holding it. With one player injured and now another picking up her fourth foul, one away from the limit, the coach called down the bench for a lesser-used player to enter the game. The Wildcats were sitting on the bench roughly in the pecking order they'd be called upon. To Madison's far right, next to the assistant coaches, were the players actively in the rotation, just waiting to be subbed back onto the floor. At the other end of the bench were the walk-ons, the players who would only get into the game if there were literally no other options available (and even then, it was probably 50/50). For all intents and purposes, Madison was in that second group. The only player seated between her and the walk-ons was Jess, who had torn her ACL last summer and was sitting out the whole season to rehab it. She had only recently been cleared to return to practice and if her coach called on her to enter this game, it would cost her an entire year of eligibility. So that was doubtful. Glancing to the right, there were still two girls seated between the now-empty seat and Madison. That meant two more girls to get called on before her. Even with the injury and the foul trouble, it seemed unlikely. And that was just fine with her. Standing up to celebrate a shot had been its own mini-ordeal, so there were few things Madison wanted to do less right now than run up and down the court. She sat with her knees practically bolted together, leaned over. She hoped it portrayed a supportiveness in her team and the game and not an increasingly nervous college freshman dreaming of sitting on the toilet and letting the river of pee out. She quickly tried to use her elbow to press against herself through her shorts. She managed a deep breath as it relieved some of the pressure, but she also realized how ridiculous it must look and pulled it away. Lost in her thoughts, the buzzer sounding to end the third quarter took her by surprise. She tilted her head back to look up at the scoreboard: 52-42. The five Wildcats on the floor came to the bench for a stream of neverending high-fives and hugs. They had somehow managed to cut the 20-point lead in half. It wasn't really a sense of "we can win this" -- even if the Wildcats were leading by 10 entering the final quarter, you'd be smart to bet on the Huskies to win -- but for ten minutes they had outworked and outplayed the best team in the country. That was something worth celebrating. Madison wished she could immerse herself in the moment and enjoy it. Somewhere in the back of her brain was the knowledge that this might very well be the highlight of her career, at least from a team standpoint. But the rest of her brain had a more practical wish: A trip to the bathroom. Like, NOW. She stared longingly toward the tunnel that led to the locker room. Couldn't she just... go? Come to think of it, she had no idea what the protocol was for this situation. She couldn't ever recall it coming up. Well, there had been her teammate on her fifth-grade softball team who Madison remembered running in from center field, her gray pants growing darker with every step. She shuddered at the thought. She thought about asking one of the coaches, but... this was the NCAA tournament. Against the #1 team. And they were only down. This had to be beyond their dreams, too, and interrupting that to ask permission to use the bathroom felt intensely juvenile. So she decided to separate herself from the pack, the pressure burning in her abdomen. She took a few steps before she had to collect herself, making 100% sure she had a handle on the situation. She started down the tunnel and just for a moment the weight lifted off her shoulders. Everything was going to be okay. She was going to go in, pee, and be able to cheer on her teammates without the stress of an overflowing bladder. "Hey, I got it." She looked up and saw an assistant coach coming toward her. "Uhwha?" Madison mumbled out in confusion. "The marker, we're good to go. Let's go huddle up." Before she even knew what was happening, the assistant had her arm around Madison and was guiding her back toward the bench. No, no, no! she thought. She was so close. The assistant handed the fresh marker to the head coach, who immediately began furiously scribbling a set on the whiteboard in the huddle. Madison had teased her body with thoughts of sweet relief, and now her body was tormenting her for denying it. A wave of searing pressure swept over her body, forcing her up onto her tiptoes before her heels came back down and her toes curled involuntarily, every bit as tense as the rest of her. She gritted her teeth and looked over at the stat sheet. Still only two players with four fouls apiece. She had been getting more worried that she was somehow going to be subbed into the game in this condition, but this re-assured her. Plus now that they were closer they could afford to back off some of the defensive pressure. "Do not back off that defensive pressure!" Her coach was giving the pump-up speech this time. It was like she read Madison's mind and said the one thing that would be most deflating. "We just gave them ten minutes of Hell and now we need to give them ten more! Ten minutes to make history, let's go!" Whether or not her coach actually believed this could happen was irrelevant. The time to be rational was over for her and Madison's five teammates who were now back on the court getting ready for play to resume. Taking her seat on the bench, Madison had the luxury of fully observing the moment, not just living in it. She took another glance at the scoreboard. The Huskies had won their first-round game by 49 points a year ago, and that was considered one of their weaker teams. The weight of only being down 10 points entering the 4th quarter was not lost on her. It was a different weight that demanded her attention as the ball was inbounded to start the quarter. Stuck in her chair, legs glued shut and knees flexed in an effort to ease the aching of her bladder at its limit, she felt beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Any kind of movement made it all worse, so she kept her arms at her lap, fists clenched. Practically as soon as the action started, a ref blew their whistle to bring it to a stop. One of the Wildcats players had given a shove trying to get around a screen. It was her fifth foul, which meant she was disqualified from the game. She walked over to the bench, getting high-fives before she slumped in her chair, frustrated at having committed the foul. Two seats to Madison's right, another teammate named Kate stood up quickly and did some stretching. Madison took stock of the situation. Her coach had been running a skeleton crew rotation of just six players, substituting liberally in an effort to get everyone a breather. Now Kate was going to replace the fouled-out player. That meant there was only one more player left before Madison might get the call. But there was only one other player on the verge of fouling out. And even if somehow two more players went out her coach might well just go with five players the rest of the way instead of subbing in a freshman who'd played exactly zero minutes of consequence this season. Despite sitting down for the entire game, her legs felt more tired from tensing up to fight back against the fury of a full bladder than they ever had running up and down the court in a game. More sweat formed on her forehead and her throat was getting dry from the stress, but she couldn't even think about taking a sip of water right now, let alone going through the motions of standing up to get some. The Huskies made the first two baskets of the quarter and it seemed as though they might finally run away with it. With three seconds left on the shot clock for Madison's team, the ball was poked free. Kate ran over to retrieve it and in one motion collected it and threw it in the general direction of the basket as the buzzer sounded. Swish. The rest of the bench rose to cheer the incredible play, but Madison stayed planted in her seat, afraid that any kind of sudden movement was going to be too much to bear and cause the pee to start leaking out of her. They kept up the defensive intensity just like their coach had ordered. Two minutes later, with the Wildcats down 8, it resulted in another foul-out, this time from a senior. This time her coach looked down the bench hesitantly, trying to decide if they'd be better off just going with the five players out there rather than one of the two healthy players at the end of the bench. But half the team out on the court had their hands on their hips, breathing heavily. So the girl seated to Madison's right was motioned over and sent down to the scorer's table to check in. That was the end of the buffer zone now, Madison thought to herself. If anything else happens there would be a very real chance she would be next. She wasn't even sure she could stand up without making her underwear wet, let alone compete with a bladder that was howling in agony. The fouled-out teammate came off the court and gave her coach a hug, tears in her eyes. She knew it was her last time making that walk, and it clearly pained her that she couldn't be out there for the final six minutes of her career. Madison had tears in her own eyes, but that was less rooted in the sadness of the end of an era and more that she would give anything to be near a toilet and pull her shorts down and just let go, let out the absolute torrent of pee that was begging for an escape. She was hunched over in her seat now and if anyone happened to look over at the bench they would instantly recognize this girl with her hand buried between her legs had to pee SO bad, worse than she ever had in her entire life. Against all odds, reason, and logic, her team was keeping it close. If you've ever seen one of those sports movies with the plucky underdog, you know the signs. The highly-favored Huskies were completely knocked off their game by this team that refused to go away. They were still easily the more physically dominant team, and when their lead guard sliced through the lane to get an easy lay-up it seemed like they should be able to do that every time. But they were making mental mistakes, throwing the ball away and leaving players wide open on defense, and it was somehow 64-60 with three minutes left. Three minutes left. Madison tried to use that to build her confidence. When the quarter started she wasn't sure she could hold it another three minutes total, and now she'd made it all this way. But it was hard to be confident with her leg shaking uncontrollably, the rest of her body going haywire with all resources devoted to desperately holding back the river of pee inside. Her head was pounding, yet another side effect of the intense focus it was taking to maintain control. Her leg wasn't the only thing shaking, though. She could feel her tired urethral muscles burning and starting to spasm, forcing her to grip herself even tighter to avert disaster. She turned her attention back to the court, where Alyssa was bringing the ball up the court. She stopped on a dime three feet behind the three point line and hoisted a shot. It splashed through the net to bring the team within a point. Alyssa turned to the bench and whipped out her make-believe fishing pole. The opponent who had been guarding her gave Alyssa a small shove with her forearm as she went by. Alyssa said something back and got into her defensive stance. A one-point game. The heightened drama on the court was starting to rival the drama in Madison's own head on the bench. She ground down both of her heels into the wood floor, balling up her fists and sending incantations through her head like she was a preschooler. I'm going to hold it... I'm not going to pee in my pants... I'm going to hold it... I am NOT going to pee in my pants... The Huskies scored an easy layup on their end to go up 3 points, and Alyssa brought the ball back down the court. She stopped even further back than last time and again put up a shot. This time it pinballed off one side of the rim then the other, straight up into the air... then straight down through the net. The neutral observers in the stands went wild as the shot tied the game, but mostly it was Huskies fans stunned into silence. Alyssa had a wide grin as she turned around to get back on defense, getting right in the face of the opponent who had given her the forearm shove last time. The two stopped together around midcourt. It was clear Alyssa wasn't content to just let her shot do the talking. The burgeoning scuffle caught Madison's attention and she was looking right at it but even she wasn't positive what happened next. Alyssa had her arms raised and was looking as angry as ever. Was she trying to return the earlier shove, or was she trying to defend another one coming her way? No matter. All three referees seemed to notice at the exact same time and blew their whistles as they rushed over to break up the altercation. They managed to separate the players and then huddled up to discuss. This was akin to torture for Madison. She was so close, SO close, and now she was stuck staring at the game clock frozen at 2 minutes and 1 second remaining. She was squeezing with every fiber of her being to keep her throbbing bladder from overtaking her muscles and sending a jet of hot pee into her underwear and shorts. The referee huddle broke and one went to the Huskies bench to explain. The head official came over to the Wildcats bench to talk to Madison's coach. "Double technical. Number 22 white, number 4 blue," he said matter-of-factly. Then he took on an apologetic tone. "That's her second one, she's gotta go." He pointed down the bench toward the tunnel. It was her second technical foul of the game, which meant an automatic ejection. Alyssa was standing just feet away, her hands on her head and her mouth wide open with disbelief. She had just hit the biggest shot of her life, maybe one of the biggest shots in the history of the tournament, to tie the game with the best team in the country. The senior, the captain, the emotional leader... not only was she not going to be able to participate in the final two minutes, she wasn't even allowed to be on the bench. Madison watched the scene unfold, feeling a little sympathetic but mostly jealous. She would love to be thrown out of this game, she thought, and go back to the locker room where she could finally give her exhausted bladder a rest and just pee. It sounded like heaven. She half-seriously thought about standing up and running onto the court during the scuffle. Any player on the bench who did that was subject to disqualification. But that would also give the other team two free throws and make her the one to cost the team a shot at history. But the fact the thought even entered her head underscored just how much agony she was in. She wasn't sure whether Alyssa was going to erupt and try to fight the referee in anger or maybe break down in tears. She still had her head in her hands, processing the moment. Madison was so caught up in watching, not to mention her battle with her bladder, that it took an assistant coach walking down and coming right up to her to get her attention. "You're up," was all she said. I'm up. I'm... up? Like, UP up? Madison's body felt like a race car with the pedal pressed down but with the emergency brake engaged. Her mind was spinning and her heart was pounding but she felt like she could only move in slow motion. She tried to shift her weight and stand up but immediately planted back down. She swore she could feel the river inside make its way down to the very end that time before she managed to squeeze it back. She used her hands this time to push up off the seat, taking the tiniest steps possible toward the front of the bench where the assistant was. As she walked down, Alyssa approached. Her fiery teammate looked like she had been hypnotized into a daze. She hadn't erupted. Instead she was coolly walking away. Madison wasn't even sure the situation had registered to her until she got close. "This ain't how it ends, this ain't how it ends," she was saying to herself. She stopped when she got to Madison, the terrified freshman who was about to be forced into the game by her exit. "This ain't how it fucking ends," she said again, this time at Madison. "Make sure I get out there again." Madison responded with a barely perceptible nod. Like she needed something else on her plate. The Wildcats were supposed to lose this game by 40 points. Instead it was 64-64 with 2:01 left. Madison wasn't even supposed to come close to playing. Instead she was front-and-center on the bench, right next to all the coaches. And now the captain of the team, the emotional leader, the heart and soul of the team, was counting on her to pull off the impossible and win the game to move on to the next round. And... right. There was also the matter of her bursting bladder, which had long passed the points of tingling and pulsing and was now positively throbbing. This wasn't just the worst Madison ever had to pee in her life, she thought, this might be the worst pain she had ever been in. She sat down next to the assistant and looked out onto the court. Thankfully the coaches had made the decision to swap the subbed-out player back in but this was truly thin ice now. While the head coach gathered the five going on the court, the assistant turned and looked at Madison. The despair of urgency was too great for her face to hide. She clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth as she locked her knees together and tried to think of anything to distract her. "Alright, if you go in you're gonna guard 22," her coach began. Clearly neither her nor Madison had ever planned on this conversation, so she started giving a rapid-fire scouting report. Likes to go left, don't reach, slide your feet. Madison nodded along impatiently. She tried to sit still but she felt her bladder starting to give in and couldn't help but lift her feet off the ground and bring her knees toward her chest. "What's wrong?" the coach asked. Madison had no energy left for playing coy. "Uh, I have to pee," she admitted. "Like REALLY bad." Her coach gave her a confused look and then a head shake as a whistle blew and the players took their spot on the floor. Madison immediately felt ashamed as she thought about what could be going through her coach's mind. The absolute biggest game of her life, a potentially historic upset, trying to run through the scouting report for this benchwarmer freshman... and she can't concentrate because she needs to pee. Madison turned her eyes away but knew she couldn't hide her blushing cheeks. "Well just forget about that and watch 22," the assistant said before mercifully turning back to confer with the head coach. Madison watched her, all right. She watched her dribble down the clock and then blow right by her teammate -- the reserve who had just gone in ahead of her -- for an easy basket. Huskies back up by two. They went into a full-court press on defense and, without Alyssa on the court to take charge, caused a sloppy turnover. Madison watched as #22 corralled the ball and drove to the basket again. Her teammate took a half-hearted swipe at the ball, but the opponent easily muscled through it and laid it up, and-one. "TIMEOUT!" Madison watched her head coach jump up from her seat. Madison threw her head back in anguish and could feel her legs turning numb from the aching. She saw the scoreboard showing 1:28 remaining. But she quickly snapped it back down when she heard the coach's next words: "You're going in." Madison sprung up from her seat and instantly regretted it, practically doubling over. Her bladder was stretched to its limit and it felt like all that liquid inside was boiling, burning her urethra as it pleaded for relief. The five players from the court ambled over, looking dejected. The assistant coach went to her teammate who had just given up the two baskets and committed the foul and escorted her to the bench while Madison huddled up with the others and the head coach. She couldn't keep her legs still even for a second. She bounced up and down frantically, bending one knee back and then the other. The coach was talking and the other four players were listening intently but Madison was stuck in her own world, utterly terrified that in about thirty seconds she was going to have to get out on the floor in front of everyone while she was absolutely DYING to pee. She was going to have run, and think, and what if the ball actually somehow got in her hands? She started shaking. She was keeping her underwear dry by the thinnest of threads just while sitting on the bench, she thought. How was she ever going to survive moving around? She wanted to reach down and push against her pee hole as hard as she could, but she settled for casually resting her hand against it. The huddle broke and she walked slowly out onto the court. It was like she could feel her bladder swelling with every single step. Baseball, softball, soccerball, volleyball, basketball... It felt like there were a hundred basketballs inside her, all filled to the brim with warm pee and bouncing every which way, fighting against Madison's weakening hold. She didn't have to be in the key for the free throw, so at least she could mill about near halfcourt, disguising her desperate twitches as best she could. She had taken only a few steps and already felt out of breath. She The free throw went up and suddenly everything was a blur. It clanged off the rim and bounced to one of her teammates and the stampede was headed up the court. For a second Madison felt her legs lock up, refusing to move. She tried to think about what to do, where to go, but her mind could focus on nothing but the pounding from below. The thought that she would never be able to move again for fear of wetting her shorts in front of everyone lingered, but she finally managed to get herself unstuck. She could feel in her gait that she was running not like a graceful athlete but like a kindergartener who'd held it too long and was now racing to the potty. She found her way to a corner and again doubled over in desperation. The opponent defending her quickly realized Madison was hardly a threat and left to provide help. She helped force an awkward shot from Madison's teammate, but it miraculously found its way in the basket. Back to a two-point game. Madison felt tears stinging her eyes as the Huskies brought the ball in. It wasn't fair. She had held out as long as she could on the bench. Maybe, MAYBE if that been it she could bear it. But all the unlikely circumstances that led to her being put in the game... Down two points, in the final minute? And it was her job to guard the girl with the ball? It was too much to ask. She felt her underwear grow hot with a spurt of pee. Her muscles were completely broken down and defeated. Her bladder was pulsating, throbbing as it tried to expel even more of the ocean thrashing about inside. The only thing left for Madison was the pure will, the thought that she was 18 years old and there was simply NO WAY that she was going to have an accident like this. But the wet underwear clinging to her told a different story. Another sharp spasm and she felt more pee flood out, the warm spot beneath her shorts expanding. By now the opponent with the ball was approaching, so Madison attempted to retreat. Her tiptoed, backwards shuffle looked nothing like a useful defensive stance, but with the ball and the lead the other team was content to bleed the clock. The opponent dribbled in place past halfcourt while Madison stood back near the three-point line, shivering with dread. She felt her bladder erupt again, this time for long enough to send a stream down the inside of her left leg. She stood slack-jawed, while the opponent's hypnotizing dribble gave her all the time in the world to process the fact that she was peeing her pants right here on the court. She managed to cut off the flow, kind of. A slow trickle continued, cutting right through the saturated fabric of her underwear and down her leg. In a flash, the opponent took off toward the basket. Madison instinctively slid her feet, but even if she wasn't losing control of her bladder she'd have been helpless to stop the much quicker guard. A huge explosion of pee cascaded out as she tried in vain to turn and catch up. It slowed down for a split-second as the entire Wildcats defense converged on the lane, but it was too late. Madison was powerless to stop it as it rose back to a powerful stream of hot pee. She felt like she was peeing with enough force to break glass and it was all pouring right into her underwear and staining her light blue shorts. The dark spot grew bigger and bigger as the opponent took her pick of now-open teammates. The eruption of pee went on, soaking Madison's socks and filling her shoes. Amidst all the noise Madison could hear her own urine splashing loudly onto the ground. In a panic, Madison took off running the opposite direction. She passed halfcourt, still gushing pee into her shorts and leaving a trail of pee in her wake. She looked back and saw that the shot had been missed and there was a scrum for the loose ball. She wanted to run back and try to help but she felt beyond useless. Her team was playing for history and she was completely wetting herself. She wanted to find somewhere to hide but all her feet could do is bring her back to the corner she'd been in last time down the court. She felt the stream start to slow down but just as she processed that she started trembling with the knowledge that she was going to have to face her teammates and have to explain that she was running away from the play because she was having a major accident and just like that the pee came hissing out once more. She'd have to quit basketball, switch schools, change her name, and even that wouldn't be enough to live this down. She finally mustered the courage to look up. Her eyes registered two things: there were three seconds left in the game, and the ball was bouncing directly towards her. Somehow her team had come up with the ball, spotted Madison down the court, and pushed it ahead. One of the opponents was giving chase, but the girl stepped right into the puddle Madison had left at midcourt and flew up into the air before hitting the ground. That left the ball free to make its way to the corner. Two seconds. Madison grabbed it and prayed her muscles would once again listen to her as she hoisted it toward the net. One second left as the ball hung in the air. The buzzer sounded at the exact moment the ball fell through the basket. Swish. Madison turned back. A hundred billion thoughts were racing through her mind and as a result she could process precisely zero of them. Her vision tunneled in on Alyssa racing out from behind the bench and sprinting to halfcourt where she stood over the opponent who had slipped. Alyssa whipped out an imaginary fishing pole and cast it toward the puddle, turning and giving Madison the world's biggest smile. Caraxes, Millworks, Manticore and 7 others 9 1 Quote Link to comment
LifeIsStrange 1,003 Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 Honestly I think it's pretty good. Quote Link to comment
WiiGuy86 641 Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 That was absolutely fantastic! Thanks for posting it! Quote Link to comment
OmoJack 95 Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 That was amazing. I love sporting event wettings. Especially very public ones Quote Link to comment
derektor_2000 221 Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 This was a lot of fun to read! First, Wildcats vs Huskies, the place must have been packed!! Then the classic underdog story. A friend was a walk-on at an Atlantic 10 school, tried out on a dare from friends and made the team. You nailed the role of a player in this position too!! So after all that, will Madison be back for her Sophomore year? Quote Link to comment
SM15 7 Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 Great story, and the basketball details of the story were very accurate. Very fun to read and would love to read more if you continued it! Quote Link to comment
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