The Ball Thief
By DX

Copyright 1/2019 6/20123 All rights reserved.  Story may not be reproduced without written permission from the author.



 Bobby felt his breath rasp in his lungs as the world slowed around him.  His muscles tore as the sponge in his knees were crushed.  His body protested as he lunged for the football spiraling at him like a bullet.  The game was Two-Hand-Touch.  The field was the street.  The goals were manhole cover to manhole cover.  He and his friends had played this game almost every day of that long, endless summer.
 The summer that ended twenty years ago.
 Now he and his friends had come together for one last game of Two-Hand-Touch.
 Bobby jinked left, then charged right, slipping Jack.  He was in the end-field, wide open and Maurice hurled the football.  Bobby felt it slip past this fingers and into his chest where it bounced crazily, leaping like a fish.  His hands clapped desperately for it as it bounded drunkenly up into the air, over the curb, out of bounds, and into Mrs. Starlin’s prized rose bush.
 Out of breath and wheezing, the men gathered slowly on the sidewalk in front of her house.
 The house of the Ball Thief.
 Twenty years ago Mrs. Starling was the sole occupant of every boy’s wet dream.  
 She was handsome, with sharp, blue eyes and strong lips.  She had long, cascading black hair that shimmered like hot tar.  In the fall, all the young teen boys found a reason to be outside, hopefully to catch a glimpse of her in a tight sweater that hugged her bountiful, battleship breasts, while she tended her beloved garden.
 Her house was in the middle of the block, right where the kids played.  More often than not the ball wound up in her yard.  More often than not she refused to give it back.  Years back, after an intense argument over something no one could remember, Bobby, still miffed, hurled a soft ball at Maurice’s head.  He ducked and the ball sailed right through Mrs. Starlin’s plate glass window.
 “Who will pay for that?”  She raged.
 The other kids had fled leaving Bobby alone, his face dower.  “I’m sorry.”  He mumbled.
 Her eyes flashed, scalding.  “Do not apologize to me.”  She grated.  “Apologize to the window.”
 Bobby looked at her askance, then to the window.  “Sorry, window.”  He snorted.
 “Is it fixed?”  Her voice was steady, like a teacher.
 Bobby shrugged.  “No.”
 “No.  It isn’t.”  She concluded.  “It will cost me five hundred dollars to replace that window.”
 Bobby’s cheeks burned.  “I said I was sorry.  What do you want?”  He said, haughtily.
 “Don’t give me attitude.”  She admonished.  “Bobby, sorry isn’t going to fix this.  You have to think about your actions and the repercussions of those actions, do you understand?”
 He shifted queasily.  “Can I have my ball back?”
 Her eyes narrowed.  “I will return it to your parents when they come here to pay for the damage.”  She turned and went into the house.
 Bobby never told his parents.  He never fixed the window.  He never got his ball back.
 Throughout the neighborhood the legend of the Ball Thief grew.  The penalty was always;  “You can have your ball back when your parents come see me.”  But no one ever told their parents, and so no ball was ever returned.
 Bobby’s mind flashed with the twenty year old memory as he stood on the sidewalk in front of her house.  His breath stilled as she opened the screen door and stepped out onto the stoop.  Her eyes flashed with mild disbelief as she looked at the men and then to the splash of rose petals on her lawn.  “Aren’t you men a little old for this?”  She stressed the word, men.
 She hadn’t aged.  On the contrary, she was even more breathtaking.  There was a single streak of white flowing through her hair like a ribbon.  Her eyes were still sharp and piercing, gazing right into the soul.  Her waist was still slim, her thighs still shapely, and her breasts, her breasts still heavenly.  If anything, those dreamy breasts were larger.
 Years ago they couldn’t conceive the depth of her beauty.  They could only follow their teenage hormone induced lust.  They made jokes about her breasts, drew graffiti about her breasts, fantasized about her breasts.
 They all still fantasized about her breasts.
 She was wearing a sweater.
 As if she had it poured over her, it clung to her curves leaving no doubt of her lovely bulging breasts.
 The men, still out of breath, only stared.
 Standing on the top of the stoop, looking down at them, her lips were a thin, terse line.  “Well, go get it.”  She nodded to the flowers.  “Please be careful.  Try not to inflict any more damage to my roses.”
 Slowly, like a mourner, Bobby stepped forward, trying not to steal glances at her, at the subject that still flittered around in his dreams.  As he approached the fat rose bush, he could feel the shadow fall from her mammoth breasts on the back of his neck.
 He crouched low but couldn’t see the ball.  He shambled into the darkness and the delicate perfume of roses drifted all around him.  His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim.  He spotted its shape and grabbed it.
 As he retreated, the rose bush grabbed him.
 A thorn snagged his shirt.  As he slid off it, another grabbed his sleeve.  He tried to turn but more thorns grabbed him, pricking him.  Cursing, he shifted violently, trying to dislodge them, but only felt more grab him.
 The others were giggling as Bobby wrestled with the roses.  He could feel Mrs. Starlin’s warmth as she came down the steps.  “Stop.  Let me help you.”  She said in her teacher steady voice.  “Don’t move and I can free you.”
 His friends were now laughing and Bobby’s face was a blazing crimson.  He shifted quickly and tried to rip free.  His shirt tore.  His feet slid in the upturned soil and he fell, cracking branches as he did. 
 “Bobby,” She called softly.  “stop moving.  You’re making it worse.”  Her hands brushed aside the thorns gently.  “Now take my hand.”  He could feel her strength as she clasped his hand and pulled him free.  He stood, brushing thorns and petals from his hair.  He looked at her, realizing for the first time how short she was.
 Or maybe how tall he had become.
 She handed him the football.
 His eyes searched her face, following the sweep of her cheeks and loosing himself in the corners of her frowning mouth.  He glanced to the rose bush.  It was wrecked.  “I’m sorry.”  He mumbled.
 She stiffened, and then sighed.  “Just go, Bobby.”
 He stepped back, his cheeks tingling as if he’d been slapped.  Twenty years and again the Ball Thief had humiliated him.  He turned to his friends and tried to cover up his embarrassment with bravado.  “All right, last down!  The scrimmage line was the back of that veedub.”
 “Ah, let’s call it guys.”  Maurice said.  “I gotta pick up the twins from soccer camp.”
Bobby scoffed.  “I got the ball.  One last down.  Come on, guys!”
Maurice laughed breathlessly, motioning with his chin as Mrs. Starlin retreated into the house.  “Another game called on account of the Ball Thief.”  He smiled dubiously.  “Sweet dreams tonight, am I right guys?”  He then motioned to Bobby.  “I bet you’re going to bed early.”  He winked.  “At least you got your ball back.”
 Bobby watched with growing sadness as his friends laughed, hugged and made plans to do it again in twenty years.
 Struggling to smile, Bobby watched as another endless summer ended.
 Another game called on account of the Ball Thief.
 Sitting in his car, the engine off, Bobby replayed the events.  He could see her standing over him, her sanctimonious scowl casually humiliating him.  Her cutting eyes flayed away his manhood with the precision of a surgeon.  “That bitch,” he whispered through his teeth as he recalled her look of disappointment whenever she saw him.  “Always putting me down.  S’ fucking accident.  Why can’t she see that?  Who does she think she is?”  He gripped the steering wheel and glared at the back of his hand.  Bobby had strong hands.  
 The hands of a man.
 It was time to teach the Ball Thief her place and Bobby was the man to do it.
 He texted his wife he was going out with his friends.  Then he got out of the car and went to the trunk.  There, he rooted around for things he would need and stuffed them into an empty gym bag.  In the glove compartment he found the rest of what he would need.
 As the sky filled with the color of autumn leaves, Bobby started the car.
 He knew the neighborhood, and most importantly, the maze of back alleys.  As he parked his car behind an empty shed, he remarked how unchanged everything was.  With the bag in hand and the sky turning to night, he slipped easily through the ally to where her house was.  He ducked below her well-trimmed hedge.  He popped up and scanned her place.  He could see the light from the kitchen window.  She was puttering and washing dishes.
 As a teen he had crouched in the very same spot.  He would gaze up to her bedroom window.  The shade was always drawn but he could watch her shadow as her arms pulled off her sweater, then folded back to undo the clasp of her bra.
 Her silhouette was amazing.
 Always, always, right after her bra slipped free and her jiggling breasts ran wild, she would pause, and her shadow moved away.  The light would go out and the show would be over.
 Now, as sweat prickled along his skin, he moved along out of sight from the window and took up a position behind a slim tree.  There he retrieved the gun from his bag.

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