Sybill Manning was doing her second long lap around her woods trail. Normally she only did one during her weekday runs, but the ease with which Mark passed her several times made her so angry that she was punishing herself with a double workout. It was punishment time. There would be no reward cupcake today and no pizza tomorrow either!
The more she thought about it the angrier she became. She trained harder than anyone at the university, both on the road and in the gym, and felt rewarded by her dominance of the school track and field records. She had the all time university records for the 3000, 5000 and 10000 meters, along with the javelin and high jump events, and regularly won state and national events. To have some middling male athlete suddenly improve and overtake her made her blood boil.
She loved being a woman. Although she was sexually attracted to men, at least most of the time, she believed -- no, knew – that by comparison men were emotionally shallow, conversationally stunted and libidinally limited. They had so little imagination and style, at least the ones who weren't gay. She loved transforming herself from a red-faced, chest-heaving animal, dripping with sweat, into a lithe, sweet-smelling, feminine woman . She might not have the curviest body; her level of conditioning got in the way of that. But she still had the right bulges in the right places, knew how to dress, how to style or hair and make up her face and, especially, how to move her body, whether walking down the street, shaking on the dance floor or being intimate in bed.
But in athletic performance, being a woman truly sucked. Why were women's trophies smaller? Why were her ceremonies held in a side hall, while the football team's were at mass rallies? The scholarship amounts were the same, thanks to Title IX, but the men's were announced in the sports pages, while hers were in a distant corner of the university web site, if they even remembered to post them. Why? It was obvious -- her times were slower, her throws landed closer, her jumps peaked lower. No matter how much she trained her heart pumped less blood, her legs were shorter, her muscles were smaller and weaker than comparable male athletes. Her performances could be excellent ... for a girl. That was all. And having a middle quality runner like Mark improve enough to pass her just drove the point home.
She pushed harder, not for improvement's sake but to punish herself and her fate, when she was startled by something shiny flying over her shoulder, knocking her off her stride. It landed just five feet in front of her, bounced a few times and then settled on a rock. She stopped to pick it up. It was a ring, a bit dirty and slightly bent. She flicked it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. It looked cheap and somewhat pale against her tanned skin. Where did it come from? She was about to put it back when she decided to put it on, just for a moment, to see how it looked. An electric feeling coursed through her, restoring all her energy as though she had not already been running an hour. What's this? she wondered.
"This is what you've wanted," the ring said.
"Huh?"
"All you want is yours when you wear me. Think it, and it will be true."
"I must be losing my mind! I'm hearing voices!" she said, panicking. She looked down at the ring and pulled it off. The feeling vanished. She was breathing hard, hot, tired and now cranky too. She slipped it back on.
"Isn't that better?" the ring said.
"Yes." She looked around. "It's wonderful. I could run all day feeling like this."
"Yes, if that's what you want."
Sybil started running again, faster than before. She enjoyed the refreshed feeling the ring gave her, but what she needed for conditioning, both physical and mental, was a tough workout. She forced herself to run harder, to push herself to do more than what her body could comfortably do.
After fifteen minutes her breathing was rough again and she was warm and relaxed. She reached the part of the path that ran by the local high school. It was later in the day than she usually ran, due to her double lap, and the football team was running for their aerobic training. They ran slowly, talking and laughing. Coach didn't care how hard they worked, as long as they didn't get back too early and interrupt his afternoon with the art teacher's sexy, young assistant. They crowded the trail leaving no room for her to pass. "Excuse me, excuse me" she said. The boys laughed louder. A few at the back of the pack spread out to let her go by them, but the ones in front stayed in tight formation. Then the ones in back closed ranks, leaving her trapped amongst them and forced her to slow her pace and cut her stride to avoid running into them.
They talked about her as if she wasn't there.
"Look at those long legs."
"Long and lean!"
"She a student here?"
"Naah, college I think. Or married to one."
"Seen her around before."
"Let me through!" Sybil insisted, holding her hand in front of her and speeding up slightly. She bumped into the runner in front, but he didn't move.
"Hey, are we too slow?"
"Don't you like us?"
"Don't you want to have some fun?"
"Most girls like football players."
"What's wrong with you? Don't you like men?"
"Think you're too good for us?"
"Haha, not with her mini-tits!"
She tried to push through but they closed ranks more tightly.
"Ha! Ha! Look at her pushing Chunky!"
"The whole Mountainview West team couldn't budge him! What's she thinking!"
"She's thinking she wants a piece of Chunky."
"A chunky piece!"
Sybil was getting frightened. The route had curved back into the woods. It was late afternoon and she was alone with over twenty hormonally charged jocks egging each other on. Would they leave her alone and turn back? Her self-defense skills were worth nothing against so many strong boys. Yet again being female was --
"Forgetting something?" the ring said.
She looked down at her ring and then away. "What?"
"You can do anything, remember?"
"Anything? Right, sure I can!" Her heart was pounding.
"Try me."
The pack was slowing down. The boy next to her reached in to touch her. "Hey, guys, maybe they're bigger than they look. Her bra's like a piece of armor."
Another one had his hand on her ass. "Firm and sweet!" he declared.
Chunky looked back and licked his lips.
"I want to be somewhere else. Anywhere!" she thought.
"You have to be more specific."
"I don’t' know! Up in the tree then!"
In the next instant she was one hundred feet higher, sitting on a branch of a tree.
"Good enough?" the ring said.
Sybil saw the boys stopped cold below.
"Where did she go?"
"She couldn’t have just disappeared. People don't do that!"
"I don't get it!"
"She must be hiding. Find her!"
Chunky was feeling his large package. "Yeah, find her!" he thundered.
Sybil's heart was still pounding. "What if they hear me?" she thought.
"What difference would that make? They can't hurt you, that is, unless you want them to," the ring replied.
"Unless I … how could you think that!"
"I'm only a ring. I do what my wearer wants, without judgment. What do you want to do?"
"I want them to suffer!"
"OK. How?"
"I want them to know how they made me feel."
"Easy. But, so what."
Sybil was silent. "You're mischievous, aren't you."
The ring did not reply.
"You're egging me on. You want me to do something nasty to them."
"I'm only a ring. I do what my wearer wants, without judgment. "
"Yeah, right." She looked down at them. The boys' search was flagging, and her butt was getting sore from the branch. "They should feel what I was feeling. Helpless. Scared. Subject to someone else's will, without any control."
"You have to be specific."
"Do I? Ok then. This is what I want!"
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