Coverage

The water began to warm up, and Melody caught her breath. She certainly hadn't planned on taking a full-on shower, but if this were the condition Lebeau required for an interview, she'd accommodate him. After all, she was more than invading his privacy.

He reached for the yellow Dictaphone, snatching it from the girl's hands. At first, Melody was afraid he'd shut it off. Instead, Lebeau placed it onto the small soap shelf in front of him. She'd ask her questions, he'd answer, and her hands would be free to shower herself in front a room full of naked men.

"So the game...," Melody began.

D'Wayne had offered Melody honest answers because her nudity had made the cornerback nervous. Cox had responded honestly because he'd been distracted in ogling the girl's naked body. Lebeau, though, possessed the same calm and cool demeanor he had on the field, seemingly no more phased by Melody's exposed tits than by a three-hundred pound defensive end baring down upon him. He was collected, offering the same pat-and-dry answers he'd offer to any other reporter in any other setting, carefully choosing his words and spinning his responses to best complement his team and avoiding insulting the day's losing squad.

As Melody pressed on with her questions, she wondered why she appeared to have no effect on the quarterback. His erection, she noted casually, had subsided, though his dick still looked enormous, even hanging limp. Did he simply not find her attractive? It was plausible, given his long-term relationship with the captain of the dance team. More than that, a good-looking and successful football star at a football-crazy state university probably had women hitting on him constantly. How could Melody hope to compete?

She pulled the elastic from her ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the water soak in. Lebeau passed her a bottle of Old Spice body wash he himself had just used. Though Melody didn't need the soap, as she hadn't exactly been sweating and exercising on the football field, she accepted the offering, and began squeezing some of the gel into her hand. As she lathered it up and spread it across her chest, she luxuriated in how masculine it smelled. It was almost as if the soap called to attention how different she was from the other people in the room, it accentuated her femininity.

Melody rubbed the soap against her skin, never stopping the interview. As her fingers slid all over her body, from her chest to her stomach to her hips and legs, the reporter felt more and more turned on. All around her, linemen, linebackers, safeties, and special teamers watched her every move, sucked in by this thin, naked blonde in their midst. She swore she heard a whimper as she soaped up her inner thighs, but upon reflection, Melody wondered if it had been Melody herself.

"I don't know," Lebeau carried on, Melody distracted by the tingling that had enveloped her entire body. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm good enough for the NFL."

This snapped the reporter back to attention. Dave Lebeau? Questioning himself? Questioning his abilities? She'd never heard anything but self-confidence emanate from this man's lips. Maybe he was caught off-guard by the interview setting. Maybe it was the naked blonde to his right? Maybe she had lured him into a moment of honesty and self-reflection, simply by showering alongside him, building a sense of trust and camaraderie.

As Lebeau continued, he absentmindedly handed Melody his bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. Though Melody loathed the idea of using it, and worried about what it might do to her hair, she wasn't going to refuse the offering. She wasn't going to do anything to distract the quarterback from what he was currently saying. Reluctantly, she accepted the offering, squeezed a modicum of shampoo into her palm, and began to apply it to her scalp.

Lebeau had been the best his entire life. Pee Wee football. Pop Warner football. High School. He had been one of the most widely recruited quarterbacks coming into college, eventually choosing Palmetto State because of Art Hull and the financial package the school had offered. Though the Southern Champions Conference wasn't quite the SEC or the Big 12, Lebeau had nonetheless positioned himself to be considered one of the top two or three quarterbacks in the NFL draft that year, and it was unfathomable that he'd last beyond the first ten picks of the first round. And yet, in a moment of honesty beneath the shower, the quarterback openly worried about adjusting to the professional league, about flaming out like a Ryan Leaf or a Cade McNown or a Tim Couch, about the pressure he was facing about his future already.

It wasn't the fact that Melody's body had won Lebeau over. She knew that others on the shower block found her attractive, but there was no way that she could have competed with the model-like figure of Samantha Montgomery. Instead, what seemed to be welcoming Lebeau's honest revelations was the fact that she was just another person in the showers, a buddy bathing alongside him.

Melody rinsed her hair, thankfully ridding herself of the 2-in-1. She was still wearing the large hoop earrings, and had to be careful not to catch them on her fingers or in her hair. Her naked body, smooth, clean, and wet, shimmered beneath the dim lights overhead. The warm water felt sensuous against her skin.

Unexpectedly, Lebeau wildly veered off topic, off football. Suddenly, he was questioning his relationship with Samantha, asking aloud whether or not she was girl for him, asking whether or not he was planning to build his life around her. The quarterback had given her a lot to use in her article, a lot of good quotes, honest assessments, and descriptive soul-searching. But letting Lebeau babble on about Samantha seemed almost cruel, as if Melody were somehow using her newfound influence for evil.

"What about the Fighting Peaches?" Melody asked, eager to get back on football. The Stallions were traveling to Georgia the following weekend to lock horns with Atlanta University. And while the Peaches weren't expected to be in the same class as Palmetto State, Tallahassee, Southern Baptist, or even UNC-Raleigh, it was a conference game against a conference rival.

Lebeau had let his guard down, and he welcomed the opportunity to get back in control of his tongue. He'd make a good quarterback in the NFL. And as long as he remained wary of shower-time interviews, he'd be a good, media savvy face of a franchise.

The girl rinsed her nude body, letting rivulets run down her skin, carrying the soap and shampoo away with them. She half paid attention to Lebeau's response, but she was less interested in what he was saying than she had hoped to get him off too much more of the heartfelt confessions. Melody glanced to the corridor beyond the shower block, where Coach Gregg waited with her purse. She didn't have a towel, and wondered what her strategy was going to be when she stepped stark naked and dripping wet back into the locker room proper.

Both the reporter and the quarterback had begun to prune up, having been in the shower for so long, by that point. Willie Mathis had been replaced by kicker Percy Honeycutt, and most of the men who had been in the showers when Melody arrived had already departed. They'd taken their looks at the girl's naked figure, soaked it in as they soaped up, and left with lingering memories of water falling down her tits and legs. Finally, the blonde girl excused herself, reaching for the Dictaphone, thanking Dave Lebeau with a quick squeeze on the elbow, turning off her water, and leaving the shower block behind.

Gregg was waiting with an orange towel.

"I figured you might need this," he explained, handing the soft cotton to the girl.

Melody graciously accepted the gift, and began to dry herself off. She asked, "I don't suppose Coach Hull would be okay with me wearing this around the locker room?"

Gregg was confused, and shrugged.

It was tempting, to be sure. But Melody certainly wasn't going to risk violating her agreement with Hull by finishing her interviews covered in a towel. No, she'd come this far. There was no need to endanger her presence in the locker room by chickening out now.

She bent forward, and allowed her hair to fall down in front of her. Using the towel, she dried it as best she could, all the while well aware that her smallish breasts dangled beneath her. Satisfied that it was as dry has it would get, Melody took the hair elastic from her wrist and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

Melody emerged from the long, dim hallway, momentarily disoriented by the bright lights and loud noises of the larger locker room. Part of her had forgotten about the cameras, the reporters, the coaches, and the rest of the team. In the showers, she'd been lulled into a false sense of normalcy, just one naked person among many, naked in a setting in which nudity made a bit more sense. Out here, in the rest of the locker room, Melody was reminded again of her present situation, her uniqueness among the throngs of men around her.

Gregg had handed the girl back her purse, and Melody extracted her sandals. She could stroll around the locker room barefoot, to be sure, but she wasn't sure that she wanted to. Hygiene issues aside, the high-heeled sandals gave the girl a little more height, and consequently a little more confidence. And, she admitted to herself, they made her legs and ass look better than if her feet were flat on the floor.

The purse was large, and awkward, but Melody refrained from putting it down or cramming it in an open locker for fear of being separated from her clothes. She would, eventually, have to redress and go home. The thought of streaking back across campus to the safety of her apartment terrified her, forcing her to clutch the bag that much more closely to her body. After this afternoon, however, Melody wondered if her naked exposure could get much worse.

As if to reaffirm just how much worse things could get, Billy Bullock chose that moment to show his face. Well-dressed in a button-down shirt and pressed pair of slacks, Bullock grinned as he caught his first sight of the naked blonde. He scanned her, from head to toe, as much to take in the girl's nude body as to further humiliate her. Billy and Melody had been competing for the football beat at the Tribune since Jason Kilpatrick had graduated the previous spring. With Art Hull's new dictum, it seemed as if Billy had won the position by default.

But Melody had found a loophole.

"Wow," Billy smirked. "The depths to which Melody May will sink to get a quote."

"Fuck off," Melody replied.

"Funny choice of words," the short male reporter replied. "Just how far are you willing to go?"

She glowered at her counterpart.

"Seriously, what were you doing back there?" He jutted a chin towards the shower block. Leaning in, and whispering in a smug, Southern drawl, Bill asked, "In the poorly-lit back corners of a men's shower room, the whore gets her exclusive? Tell me, Melody, how do you ask questions with a dick in your mouth?"

Gregg was too far away to hear the reporter's taunts, but unfortunately for Billy, Anthony Adams was not. As Melody balled her fist and prepared to the strike, the running back known to his teammates simply as "Battleship" grabbed the male reporter from behind. A rough estimate put Battleship at two hundred fifty pounds, while Billy Bullock couldn't have been more than one-sixty.

"Apologize to the lady," Battleship ordered, squeezing the back of Bullock's neck. Gregg stepped in quickly, hoping to break the two apart. But Battleship was unrelenting, and squeezed tighter as the strength and conditioning coach reached for his bicep.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Billy screamed, knowing full well that the running back could break him in two, if he chose to do so.

"You just lost your quote," the large, African-American man breathed, reaching for Billy's notepad. He pushed the scrawny reporter aside, and flipped through the pages, all the while ignoring Billy's high=pitched protestations. Eventually, Battleship found what he was looking for, which Melody assumed was an interview that he had given to Bullock, and tore the pages from the pad.

"You're a fucking animal," Billy yelled as the notebook was tossed into his face.

One step in Billy's direction, however, was all Battleship needed to send the reporter scuttling away, tail between his legs.

"I don't think you're going to have much competition on the Tribune, anymore," Battleship laughed to Melody. "I'll let your editor know that Billy Bullock isn't welcome in the locker room."

Melody smiled at Battleship, and thanked him. She added, "Unless he comes back naked?"

"I'm not sure the players are going to want to speak with him as much as they want to speak with you."

Billy's words had stung. After all, wasn't Melody a whore? Hadn't she used her naked body to get into the locker room? Hadn't she used her naked body to set D'Wayne Mitchell off balance? Hadn't she used her naked body to tantalize Justin Cox into giving her the best quotes? Hadn't she used her naked body to join a dozen men in the showers, and elicit the interview she'd wanted out of Dave Lebeau? If she'd been willing to go as far as she had, wouldn't she be willing to go further? If she was capable of getting an exclusive scoop, just where was the line? Had she already crossed it?

Battleship's words soothed her. She may not have taken anyone into her mouth in the shower, but she honestly couldn't help but feel like a whore. And, despite the running back coming to her defense, and despite the fact that he planned on having a conversation with John Stanton about Billy Bullock, Melody watched Battleship's roving eye, and guessed that the back's intentions weren't entirely noble.

As if to drive this point home, Battleship took the skinny white girl by her hand, and pulled her alongside him through a group of reporters gathering around him. Coach Gregg, obviously uncomfortable with both the confrontation that had just taken place and the physical contact between one of his players and the naked sports reporter, was a step behind, chiding the running back the entire way. Eventually, the trio reached the bench in front of Battleship's locker, where the football player stepped up onto the bench, and yanked Melody up alongside him.

"Gentleman! Gentleman!" Battleship called, catching the attention of the Stallions and media men within vocal range. "I'd like to introduce you to my friend..."

He glanced at the skinny blonde. Melody stammered, "Melody...Melody May."

"...Melody May!" Battleship concluded. From the waist up, both were similarly dressed, Melody's uncovered breasts on display alongside Battleship's muscular pectorals. The running back, however, was wearing a pair of Palmetto State warm-up pants, while the reporter wore nothing from the waist down – aside from an anklet and her sandals.

Melody was more than uncomfortable with the attention being called to her by the running back. But then, she'd been mostly uncomfortable for the better part of that afternoon, and all these men had seen her naked at one point or another since she'd first entered the locker room. She was the center of attention, whether she was standing on a bench and being point to or trying to stay low key on the tiled floor. At least here, in front the gathering Battleship was organizing, she was being honest with herself.

"Coach Hull ruffled a few feathers when he said no more ladies in the locker room," Battleship huffed. "But Miss May has dared to show her face here today, anyways. Hell, she's dared to show her whole body!"

The men around her erupted with laughter, while the girl herself simply blushed.

"It took courage for her to be here to today, just as it took courage for all of you to show up for the Missionaries today! Miss May gritted her teeth, and put her game face on, just as all of you did this morning!"

Another round of hurrahs.

"So, give this lady her props," Battleship carried on. "And give her her story! Because when we take the Peaches next week, I want her in Atlanta, celebrating alongside us!"

The players roared.

"And when we take Tallahassee, I want her there, celebrating alongside us!"

They roared again.

"And when we take the SCC title, and go straight to our bowl game, I want her there with us, too!"

In just a few short minutes, Battleship had gone from defending her from Billy Bullock to objectifying her in front of his teammates. Maybe she wasn't exactly a whore in the running back's eyes, but it was clear that she was little more than a piece of meat. On the other hand, Melody reasoned, at least she'd get her story. And Battleship seemed to be encouraging his fellow players to grant her the same exclusive quotes she'd gotten from D'Wayne, Cox, and Lebeau. Her body had gotten her into the locker room, but it had gotten her a lot more.

As if to drive this point home, the running back pulled the girl down onto the bench to go off on the Missionaries' head coach. He had played for Southern Baptist the previous two years, but after butting heads with their coach on and off the field, after having his game and his heart questioned by the same coach, Battleship had set sail for Palmetto State. The junior back sat, legs astride the bench and inches from the naked blonde, ripping into his former coach and giving Melody the juiciest quotes that she ever could have asked for. Melody sat enraptured alongside the running back, her legs crossed and facing his locker, her bare back on display to the rest of the locker room.

And Battleship wasn't the end of it. Melody moved from the running back to the team's star wide receiver, to the left tackle, to the tight end, the weak side linebacker, the strong safety, and even kicker Percy Honeycutt. Each granted Melody exclusive interviews, each giving out more information about a game than the reporter had ever gotten from any interviews before. It appeared that Battleship's words of encouragement had loosened the lips of his teammates. And Melody's naked body had lubricated their tongues.

Eventually, Melody had filled two Dictaphone tapes with quotes, stories, interviews, and gossip. She had more than enough information to put together a killer piece for Monday's sports page, she was well on her way to writing a handful of spotlight pieces, and had more than enough to lay the groundwork for the following week's game in Atlanta.

The locker room began to clear out, players heading home and reporters heading out to file their stories. Melody lingered, though, so caught up in the moment she was sharing with various Stallion players. That morning, she had expected herself to get a handful of halfway decent off-the-field interviews, get dressed, and hand her editor a quick piece on the game. But as the afternoon had progressed, Melody found herself more and more comfortable in her own body. Clearly, the football players found her attractive, and though Melody had always told herself that she didn't need others' approval, it was admittedly nice to be lusted after.

Melody certainly hadn't forgotten her nudity – that would have been impossible. But she'd grown more accustomed to it, more confident in her narrow hips and B-cup breasts. As Honeycutt wrapped up his closing thoughts about how certain people didn't view kickers and punters to be true "football players," Melody was already contemplating the following week. Would she be ready to strip naked again? Would she be willing to put herself through the humiliation all over again?

Given the stories she planned to write for the Tribune the following week, Melody was unsure if she could stop herself, even if she was scared of becoming known as the naked sports reporter.