Long Pull: Hand-Picked Dark Roast

"In this case, Miss Ghandour, your appeal has been denied."

The Dean of Athletics didn't look much like a dean. Unless his first name was "Dean," which it easily could be. With his very short cropped hair and ill-fitting suit, he looked like a football player giving a press conference about domestic violence. Too old and flabby to be athletic anymore, but neither comfortable in silk, either... he felt like he didn't belong.

Perhaps that's where the glint of sympathy in his eye came from.

"Misrepresentation on a university form is grounds for having your scholarships revoked." The dean continued. "The athletic scholarship you were awarded is for female athletes. And..."

Silence hung like a fog of cigarette smoke in a speakeasy. The dean looked at the appealing student directly.

"Well..." He said shortly, returning his gaze to his helpful piece of paper. "Because of your... condition, you aren't eligible for it."

Connie sat in her chair, the two chairs around her both empty. Her parents couldn't fly out to support her, not that it would have been a wise use of money anyway, and she hadn't been at the university long enough to make a friend to support her. She was here... alone.

"But this doesn't mean you're not still welcome here at U-Dub." The dean insisted. "Coach Johnson was very impressed with you. I would make a meeting with the Student Finance office and apply for another form of student aid. Trust me, Miss Ghandour, this is a speed bump, not a wall. There are plenty of roads from where you are right now. Please don't be discouraged."

The academic review meeting moved on to the next review, a fraternity who might lose the lease on their house if they have another party where the police are called from off-campus to bring it back under control.

Of course, they had tons of support. They all had one thing in common, and it wasn't their two-digit IQ's.

Connie left the meeting without another word.

She didn't take the dean's advice. She returned directly to her dorm room, piled her clothing into a trash bag, took her laptop and anything else important... and left, sliding her room key under the door of the RA without even knocking to see if she was there. Connie left behind her bedding, towels, posters and her allegedly valuable textbooks. She wouldn't dignify the bookstore by selling them back for a tenth of the value she'd bought them for less than a month ago.

Connie got in her car and drove off-campus for what she knew would be the last time. She wished she'd never heard of this place. She had driven for three days from Pittsburgh to get there so she'd have this car with her on campus, and now she'd have to do it all again... if the car would survive another trip that far.

She drove her car into downtown Seattle, where she'd only driven through once to get to that place she hoped never to think about again. She found a parking space nearby a park and bought a piroshki, recalling a blog post somewhere that described foods one should try when visiting Seattle. At this point, she might never get another chance.

Connie went to a nearby park to review her financial situation and nibble on her piroshki. She ate fried food very seldom, but this was a bad day, so she'd chalk it up to an extra 'cheat day.' Maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe things would go alright. She took a few notes on the back of the receipt for the piroshki with a pencil.

Then, Connie made the mistake of checking how much renting a studio apartment in the city would be.

And her small savings seemed so much smaller. She could hear the echoing clatter of that single nickle rattling in Lucy Van Pelt's jar. She might be able to swing this kind of rent in Philadelphia, but getting out of that rat nest was why she was so thrilled to get a full ride at the University of Washington, as far west as she could get without leaving the continental US. She'd turned down other athletic scholarships closer to home to give U-Dub a chance, and they pulled the rug out from under her once she'd finally gotten comfortable.

All of this... because she was a futa.

She heard someone cry out something that sounded like "heads up," but she didn't react, still looking at all down payment for a new car these people expected her to pay every month for an unfurnished studio apartment. Maybe she'd be sleeping in her car after all.

The "heads up" still unheeded, Connie was smacked directly across the face by some large rubber ball. It bounced off her cheekbone and into her lap, smashing the rest of her lovely fried treat from her hand and knocking it to the ground. Her phone luckily avoided damage, but she looked at the ruined meal with almost the same frustration.

Connie hadn't seen it coming, but she didn't even want to look at it. She knew exactly what it was from the bumpy texture of the rubber.

A basketball.

The very sport she'd been asked to play for the university, and no longer could because of the arbitrary way sports were divided by gender. No place for her, evidently.

"Sorry!" A man hollered through the fence, running to get to the gate of the basketball courts to retrieve the ball. As the man jogged towards her, Connie contemplated the ball as if it were the source of all her troubles. She took her pencil and stabbed it into the basketball, crushing it flat between her hands, the air releasing with an undignified raspberry.

"Whoa!" Said the man, a tall man with goatee, his head shaved bald. "I said sorry! What's the big deal?"

Connie looked at the man. "I... hate... basketball!" She threw the deflated ball at him.

"You popped my ball because you hate basketball?" The man asked. "If you popped it because I hit you, THAT I can understand."

"You're actually CHOOSING to play it? As an adult?! Why bother? The Bulls aren't going to draft you. I could probably beat you all!"

"You hate basketball, but you could beat us?" The man was now deeply confused.

"I got you beat! Right here!" Connie grabbed her groin and wagged herself through her jeans. "See, this is apparently what's so damn important! And it's not a side-effect from being near a basketball! Trust me!"

The man briefly looked over his shoulder, looking for the support of his teammates. They were just laughing. He turned back to Connie uncertainly, as she continued thrusting herself towards him.

"Come on! It all comes down to this, doesn't it? THIS is all people care about, right? Why bother playing? Just get a ruler out and determine the winner! Whip it out! Let's see if you beat me!"

From Connie's right, and the player's left, someone jumped between them as suddenly as the basketball has struck Connie. An Asian woman had separated them, standing nearly a full head's height below Connie. She was wearing a zip-up gray hoodie and jeans. She faced Connie, both hands out, gesturing to her to stop.

"There you are!" The woman said, spinning in place back to the now very confused basketball player. "Excuse me for her behavior. Her father was killed by the Harlem Globetrotters." She grabbed Connie's hand and pulled her off. "Come on now, let's go watch Space Jam in reverse so the bad guys win."

Despite being taller and stronger than the petite woman, Connie was so startled by this encounter that she allowed herself to be dragged off, a few hundred feet through the park until they were out of view from the basketball court.

The man turned around, to all his fellow players smiling or laughing at him. "You sure you could handle her?" Called one of his friends.

"I don't know." He answered truthfully, looking at the deflated ball with the pencil still mounted in it. It was a pencil from the University of Washington. He'd gotten the same pencil in a bag when he went to orientation many years ago.

He pulled the pencil out and kept it. It was still theoretically useful. "Anyone got a spare ball?" He asked.

Connie was dragged all the way to a stylish walkway underpass, where nobody was walking, where they could have something close to a private conversation.

The woman changed her grip on Connie's hand, from that of a mother dragging a child to that of a supporting friend. She looked up at Connie with her wide, sympathetic eyes.

"What's wrong?" The woman asked. "What happened?"

Connie stared at her. All day, she'd been tossed around like a basketball. No, more like a pinball, pushed around and bounded from office to office, meeting to meeting, nobody willing to help her or give her a break. Connie had finally found someone offering support... and she was a total stranger.

After resisting it since the moment she got the email disqualifying her for her scholarship, and resisting it since waking up this morning, Connie finally crumbled. She fell to one knee and pressed her head into the stranger's shoulder, weeping.

Zelda held the tall woman with both arms, supporting her back and her head, whispering whatever comforting thing she could think of.

Once Connie had gathered herself, they moved to a park bench far removed from the basketball court. Only the most errant three-pointer throw could hit them from this distance. From there, Connie told Zelda the whole sad story, focusing more on the details since about January, when she'd accepted the scholarship that had just been revoked. She spared her the sob story of her childhood filled with bullying and prejudice, more than she expected as a multiracial person of color growing up in the city.

"You know what it's like to grow up like this and get picked on." Connie said.

"Actually, I didn't get picked on that much." Zelda said. "But that's probably because a Japanese futa... that's what people are expecting. I mean, the word itself is Japanese! Black futa... people aren't expecting that. So they have to pick at you, question you, like it's all your fault."

"School and being a futa has just never mixed well for me." Connie said. "And now, it's just cost me a free ride to university."

"Whatever. U-Dub sucks anyway." Zelda said. "Might as well get a degree online for how much that thing will be worth when you graduate."

"I wish someone had told me that earlier." Connie sighed. "I really put all my eggs in this one basket. I've got nothing right now."

"You don't have a job?"

"Of course not. I was supposed to be a full-time student and athlete. I wouldn't have time."

Zelda looked at Connie dead-on with great intensity. "So you're a futa... and you need a job?"

Connie nodded.

Zelda stood up. "Come on! I'm going to take you to my work!"

This time, Connie resisted Zelda's tugging. "I've got a car."

"Oh, even better!" Zelda let Connie lead the way. "I'm Zelda, by the way. Zelda Ondori."

"Nice to meet you."

"Sorry it wasn't on a better day."

***

Zelda insisted it would be OK for Connie to park in the employee parking in the back. They walked around the brick exterior, through the alley and into the vestibule leading to the entrance before Connie had a chance to read the awning to see what this place actually was.

At first glance, it was a coffee shop. The air was pungent with coffee, with sweater-wearing hipsters reading books while sipping drinks in the couches, booths or cafe tables. Despite never visiting a coffee shop in Seattle before, Connie immediately noticed something that she'd never seen in a cafe anywhere else.

There were no dishes. Nobody was drinking coffee out of a ceramic cup or mug. Everyone, without fail, was drinking out of a plastic to-go cup. Moreso, everyone seemed to have caramel-colored lattes. What coffee shop only served one kind of coffee?

A sudden ululation of pleasure came from behind the counter, and Connie turned just in time to watch a blonde barista's cheeks redden as she reached an orgasm, pounding her pecker hard, spraying her seed into a cup.

"What... the... ffff..." Connie's eyes grew wide.

"Welcome, Connie..." Zelda threw her arms out dramatically. "to The Futa Brew."

"This can't be a real place." Connie looked around at the coffee everyone was drinking, now in a markedly different context. She felt like screaming, "It's semen!" like Charlton Heston at the end of Soylent Green. But... the production wasn't a secret. Everyone could look over the counter and see it being made, to the delight of everyone, especially the barista. This version of Soylent Green would end with everyone looking at her like she'd told them the ice cream contained dairy.

"You said you were from Philly, right?" Zelda snapped her fingers. "That explains it. This chain hasn't spread to the northeast yet. Damn Dunkin' Donuts... even the sweet flavor of futa jizz can't break their stranglehold on the East coast." Zelda grabbed her hand again. "I'll take you to see the boss."

This time, Connie dug the heels of her sneakers into the hardwood floor, and Zelda couldn't budge her. She turned back to face Connie.

"I'm not sure I can do this for a living." Connie confessed. "I... max out at two a day. Three if I skip a day."

"Don't worry about that." Zelda said. "We'll take care of that part."

"I... don't know if I can walk around with my pants off." Connie looked around, trying not to stare at the huge things wagging about below their color-coded micro-skirts. She didn't know what the different colors meant.

Zelda hummed gently. "OK, that I can understand. I mean, I don't really, since I have basically no shame, and will whip it out at the barest provocation, but..." Zelda stepped in closer. "That's it, isn't it? Futas have been shamed into hiding themselves, but why? To make the men with their little weenies feel better? That's why I love this place. You walk in, you see the futas, and you deal with it however you like. But hiding, pretending futa don't exist or are a rare aberration or are just women... this shop stands in direct opposition to that crap."

Connie looked about, at the line of people patiently waiting for their coffee. She saw the baristas shaking and swirling coffee and ejaculate into an even caramel color. They walked around as if their boners didn't exist, as if nobody could see them but them.

She took in a breath, her heart thumping harder without a single drop of coffee having passed her lips. "OK. Let's meet your boss."

Zelda brought Connie behind the counter. They passed the blonde woman whom Connie had seen 'making a drink.'

"Who's this?" She asked Zelda.

"Mel, this is Connie. Connie, Mel." They moved past her to the stairs. Connie trying not to stare, gently adjusting herself as she went up the stairs.

Zelda knocked four times on the door, very quickly.

"Come in, Zelda." The voice behind the door recognized the distinctive knock.

They both walked in. A woman with wavy brown hair was seated at the desk. She was about thirty-five, with the generous curves of a woman about that age. She rose her glasses as they entered the office. There was a window that overlooked the whole cafe, though her computer was up against the wall off to the left. Another desk divided the room with a chair on each side.

"Patti, this is my friend Connie." Zelda began. "Sorry to barge in like this, but... see, I've known Connie since she moved here a while back, and we've been great friends for a while, but she just lost her job because of some bullcrap that I won't get into, and I'm sure she doesn't want me to, but anyway, we were talking and she said, 'I'm going to have to go back to McDonalds, I guess,' and I said, 'you hated that place,' and she's like, 'yeah, but I need something.'

"So we're at my place, and she's like, 'excuse me' and she goes to use the bathroom, but my door doesn't close all the way unless you really press it in because the latch is broken or something, so the door was open a little bit, so I could hear what was happening..."

Connie tried to conceal her look of absolute confusion. Where was she going with this?

"And I heard her peeing... and let me tell you, I know what it sounds like to stand over the bowl. When she came out, I said, 'You're a futa?' She'd been keeping it secret from me! I couldn't believe it. I guess she doesn't get hard at the drop of a hat like me, from seeing one centimeter of cleavage, but just the same. I was like, 'you're a futa and you need a job? Don't you know where I work?'

"This is why Seattle is crazy. You can be here for a long time and miss the hidden gems like our shop right here. Connie had never heard of this place, else I'm sure she would've come in when we were hiring in July."

Zelda took a moment to catch her breath. Patti took the floor. "Well, we aren't hiring right now, but we always take applications."

"Come on, Patti, you know we could use one more person. Whenever anyone's out sick or on vacation or something, it's brutal. The lines back up, and I've even seen a few people leave without their coffee! Most people will wait twenty minutes for our coffee, but not everyone! We really could use one more part-timer. And Connie won't disappoint you, I guarantee it. She's a really hard worker."

"Have you worked with her before?" Patti asked.

"No, not directly, but I've seen her at work before. She's always doing something, I'm telling you."

Patti didn't look convinced. "Connie, show off your abs!"

Connie was momentarily terrified that she'd be asked to show off "the goods." Connie lifted up her shirt and revealed her flat stomach, clenching them for a moment to show off a little more definition. They weren't as impressive as they could be, but Connie was an athlete, not a bodybuilder. The last thing she wanted to be was more masculine.

"You know how hard it is to get abs like that?" Zelda stepped in and patted them. Connie jumped back and giggled. "Oh, you're ticklish, too? How much have you been hiding from me?" Zelda leaned on Patti's desk. "We need someone like her. No, not someone LIKE her. We need HER, working for us. She will be invaluable, I guarantee it."

A long pause. Connie hadn't quite found her voice yet. Patti asked, "Is this just an excuse for you to have sex with her in the back room or something?"

"Patti, we've been friends for years." Zelda said. "If we wanted to have sex, we would've done it. Obviously, I wanted it, and it's not like I haven't asked once or twice, but maybe she turned me down because she wasn't sure if I knew she was a futa. But now that's out in the open. But no, she would never just slip away for a quick bonk in the back room because that's not her way. When she's working, that's what she's doing. She's working."

A long silence. Patti looked at Zelda, and then to Connie. "Alright. Let's do an abbreviated interview, then." Connie finally felt comfortable enough to sit down. "Zelda, could you give us a few?"

"Oh, that's not necessary." Connie said. "She's my friend. Of course I'm comfortable with her here. In fact, I'm a bit nervous, so maybe it'll help me."

"OK, suit yourself." Patti said. "So, the first question I always like to start with is... how do you like your coffee?"

"I'll be honest. I don't drink coffee every day." Connie said. "When I do, I like it either black or sweetened, if it's bad coffee. Which of course, you wouldn't have here."

"Of course not." Zelda supported. "How long would a bad coffee shop stay open in Seattle?"

"In my experience..." Patti said. "Quite a while. Seattle has tons of great coffee, and tons of merely good coffee, but also have a sizable portion of uninformed coffee snobs."

"Are we trying to discourage them from coming here?" Connie said. "Or just from being snobs about it?"

"Most people who come here know we don't do too much in the way of custom orders." Patti said. "Since there's no milk, no steamed milk, none of that, there's a lot less ways to be fussy about it. So most of the absolutely intolerable snobs bled off in the first year. Our customers are generally really nice about their coffee. Speaking of which, do you have customer service experience?"