Journey Past a Prop

Chapter 1 - Pop (Fall Semester, Freshman Year)

Disclaimer: This story is set at Tulane University. The characters depicted are not intended to represent any real-world individuals. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental and unintentional. I have no intimate knowledge of Tulane’s rugby program, so any descriptions of traditions, history, or details of the program are fictionalized for the purposes of this story. If anyone here happens to be associated with the program and is uncomfortable with my use or description of it, please let me know and I will be happy to have a conversation with you about it.
Note: This story, if you couldn’t tell from the above statement, involves rugby. Many of you, especially in the US, are likely unfamiliar with the sport. I try to include the relevant information within the narrative of the story (it’s a story that involves rugby, not a story about rugby so I try not to make it too technical), but if anything is unclear, drop a comment so I can properly edit it. Thanks!



Lizzie received the pass from her teammate with just one opponent to beat. Lizzie made a move to her left to set up a juke to her right, but as she planted her foot, her left leg slipped out from under her. She heard a little ‘pop’ as she crumpled on the field, clutching her leg in agony. She knew, from her years of playing sports, that when someone falls like that it’s never a good sign. She also knew that whenever players stop and take a knee, it usually means that someone is going to be injured for a long time. Everyone on the field was on a knee, heads tilted in her direction. She was taken off the field in a stretcher and brought to the Tulane University hospital for treatment. An MRI confirmed what Lizzie had feared: she had torn her ACL and MCL, effectively ending her freshman rugby season at Tulane. A very dejected Lizzie went back to the house where several of her teammates lived. She knew there would be a party because one of her teammates, Scarlett, had texted her, letting her know that they had successfully fended off the challenge from Southern University which meant that there would be copious celebrations.
Arriving at the very jovial house on crutches and lots of painkillers, Lizzie was greeted by a chorus of cheers emanating from her teammates. She was ushered over to the couch where she was handed beers until the room started spinning. One of her teammates got a little too drunk and gave her a lap dance, much to the amusement of everyone around. Eventually, after much debauching, Lizzie decided to retire for the night. Between the rugby house and her dorm there was a little hole-in-the-wall fried chicken place called “le Gros Poulet” and as the name suggests, the food is greasy, fatty, and craved by every drunk college student who knows about it. Lizzie happily took the food back with her to her room where she stripped away clothes that smelled of cheap alcohol and ate her meal naked in bed.
She roused herself from bed and got up to model in the mirror. She sometimes liked to do this when she was drunk. The svelte blonde hobbled in front of the mirror and looked over herself. Her light blonde hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, but it would have flowed to her shoulder blades if she let it down. Her bangs framed a face that belonged on a Swedish model, not a college freshman in Louisiana, with her piercing blue eyes, dainty nose, and cheekbones that sharply dropped off to her perfectly proportioned jawline. Looking down she posed her lithe body, impeccably toned from her time as a year-round athlete: cross-country running in the fall, basketball in the winter, track in the spring, and swam in the summer. She could roll out of bed and run a 5K in under 20 minutes while barely breaking a sweat. Her body was incredibly toned with washboard abs that rippled with muscle just underneath, biceps that popped out just the slightest bit that led into perky B-cup breasts. Lizzie turned around revealing the musculature on her back which sloped inwards, guiding her eyes to her very petite 22-inch waist. You could say just about everything was petite on the tiny girl who generously measured 5’1” tall, that is except her butt. Her hips jutted out suddenly from her waist, supporting a pair of perfectly round buttocks. She was always proud of her ass, having built it up over years of running, perfected it, toned it. She went to the gym, not for any true fitness purposes (she had plenty of sports practices for that) but for the express goal of doing quats and other exercises to make her ass look good. Her butt looked good, and she knew it, so she showed it off, frequently wearing short shorts, daisy dukes, bikini thongs, and even investing in a clear plastic skirt so that she could show off if she wanted to. Sitting beneath her butt was a shapely pair of legs, exquisitely toned and muscled by years of running, as if her legs were carved by a renaissance sculptor. She had the slightest gap at the top of her powerful thighs, allowing a window to her “perfect pussy” as she called it, a body part that she was very proud of and kept waxed at all times. Of course, her left leg was currently ensconced in a chunky knee support, which certainly detracted from the overall aura and appeal. She felt a little tinge of pain in her knee and decided that modelling time should be over for the moment. Besides, it was late, and she was tired.
Two weeks later it was mid-October, the day of her pre-operation appointment with surgery to follow the next day. A nurse called her into a room and did everything one would expect; intake papers and forms, blood pressure measurements, height, and weight. Lizzy was shocked when the nurse read the number out to her: 112 pounds. That couldn’t be right. When the rugby team had their pre-season physicals she weighed in at 104 pounds. How could she have gained eight pounds? No time to dwell on that now though, as the nurse was about to explain the necessary preparation for my surgery and what to expect. Lizzie listened, taking in all the nurse had to say. She was a little distraught that if everything went perfectly, she would still be off the field for six months. Doing some quick math in her head, Lizzie realized that this meant she would be back in the middle of April, maybe with enough time to make it back for the last few games of the spring season.
Lizzie woke up groggy after her surgery, but the surgeon assured her that the operation went as smoothly as it could and that her ligaments were now fully repaired. She was instructed to refrain from putting weight on her left leg and to be diligent with icing it so to keep swelling down. Lizzie was very determined not to have any setbacks during her recovery, so even though she wasn’t totally conscious when the surgeon was talking to her, she made sure to remember what he said. She already had appointments set up with a physical therapist so that she could be back on her feet and on the field as soon as possible.
A few weeks later, Lizzie was in the rugby house when Jess, one of the props (stockiest players whose job it is to hit things) on the team prodded the slightest muffin top visible below Lizzie’s crop top, joking about how she needs to be careful, or she’ll have to move up to the forwards soon. Lizzie laughed it off, but couldn’t get the thought out of her head when she remembered her apparent weight gain before her surgery. When she got back to her dorm, she examined herself in the mirror again. This time it wasn’t time for a drunken modelling session, it was for a thorough inspection of her body. Sure enough, her six pack was no longer prominent and the gap between her thighs had shrunk. It wasn’t like she had a belly, her abdomen had simply gone from “extremely in shape” to “in very good shape but doesn’t count calories”. Turning around, she examined her ass, grabbing one of her cheeks, she felt like it was less firm than before, like there was a layer of fat that was coating it that wasn’t there before. She didn’t have a scale, but desperately wanted to know what her weight was; surely nothing more than maybe 115 pounds. She had a physical therapy appointment a couple days later and figured she could ask them to weigh her then.
Lizzie went to her physical therapy appointment, diligently performing each exercise exactly as the therapist demonstrated, extending resistance bands and drawing circles with her leg, things of that ilk. At the end of the appointment, she asked if they had a scale she could use. When it was brought out, Lizzie was shocked to see that it read 121 pounds! The physical therapist could see her surprise and interjected saying that it was normal for some weight gain to occur following such injuries, with less activity happening than usual. He recommended that Lizzie keep track of her diet better and be more conscientious with her food choices until she would be able to resume physical activity. Lizzie was still so surprised by the number on the scale that her therapist’s words didn’t even register. Even if they had lodged in her mind, Lizzie wasn’t ever going to heed his advice. Lizzie was what one of her coaches referred to as an “easygoing athlete,” or someone who doesn’t do the really hard things to excel in their sport. Lizzie never worked out outside of her sport, never did preseason fitness (not that she needed to, as she played sports year-round), and certainly never watched her diet carefully. She ate what she wanted, practiced and played hard, and always had an enviable body to show at the end of it. Why should she have ever changed what she was doing? Shen she stepped off a field, track, or court she always felt like she could turn around and play another game so why should she ever put any effort into conditioning? Her body was very clearly functioning at a high level, so she never consciously thought about what she was doing when she wasn’t actively playing sports.
As midterms approached, Lizzie could feel herself tensing, winding herself up like a corkscrew, almost into a frenzy with stress. She would mindlessly eat while she studied, staying up late as she pored over study sheets and composed papers for her classes. This surely had a deleterious effect on her waistline, as did her growing love of le Gros Poulet, who counted her as a regular and would start preparing a #3 special with double fries when they saw her walk in. I’m not sure if any of you have ever had the pleasure of knowing rugby players, especially college-age rugby players, but they are some of the most debaucherous, rowdy, enthusiastic drunks you could ever hope to meet. There is rarely a time when they can’t be enticed for a drink, and any excuse for a party is a reason to drink their weight. Lizzie’s general attitude of “I only get to go to college once, so I’m going to enjoy it” combined with her lax attitudes towards restricting her diet, combined with her need to relieve stress made her a very active participant in the party scene. She became a known presence at parties everywhere near her dorm and was always a welcome face at any social function she appeared at. With a party scene as vibrant as the one at Tulane, she was never too far from a party either, and she took great advantage of this. She seemed entirely unaware of the effects this was having on her body, which was starting to creep from fit to thick to chubby.
The weekend before Thanksgiving was always known for its outstanding parties, a time to cut loose right before a break. Lizzie knew this full well and carefully selected an outfit: a pair of extra-short jean shorts that she knew made her ass look good, a nearly translucent crop top, and a matching set of lace lingerie, just in case some girl got lucky (despite her youth, she had already sworn off men after a series of boyfriends had left her thoroughly unimpressed). As she started to dress that night, the first thing she noticed was that her breasts felt like they were filling the bra section of the lingerie more than she remembered. No matter, if her tits looked good, who was she to complain? She shimmied into the thong, letting the strings rest on the top of her ass cheeks. It also felt like it was fitting strangely, but she paid it no mind. She figured it would settle into place as she moved around a little bit. Next was the crop top, which went on as it should, but as Lizzie moved to put the shorts on, she had significant difficulty. They had already been nearly skintight when she bought them, so sliding them on over her recently-expanded thighs and rump was becoming much more of a challenge. She jumped and contorted and wiggled them up over the largest part of her butt, winding herself in the process. She huffed a comment to herself about how they must have shrunk the last time she washed them, sucked in her stomach and managed, somehow, to button the shorts, ignoring the fact that she practically had fat oozing out the bottom of her shorts.
Soon after she finished dressing and doing her makeup, the sophomore flanker, Scarlett, knocked on her door. The stereotype around the kind of person fit to play flanker is that you have to be just a little bit unhinged, very enthusiastic, and willing to fight anyone at a moment’s notice. That describes Scarlett perfectly, a natural brunette who dyed her hair to match her name, had a tattoo of Popeye on her bicep, had been kicked out of multiple games for throwing punches at the opposing players, and always intimidated Lizzie in a way that was more exciting than scary. When Lizzie opened her door, she was slack-jawed at Scarlett’s outfit, a strappy and shiny black leather corset and matching shorts to go along with it. Off they went to sample several parties and hopefully be offered some free drinks along the way. Lizzie still couldn’t really dance that much, and she still had to put a brace on when she walked around, but she could do some limited dancing, and was able to at least throw her ass back on Scarlett for a little bit. At the third party, Lizzie bent down and felt her shorts give way along the seam. She immediately stood up and she and Scarlett made a hasty escape back to her dorm where Scarlett got her in the door, pinned her against the wall, and asked Lizzie “Do you know how fucking hot that was back there?” and started kissing her deeply. Lizzie was deeply aroused by this, but definitely embarrassed. Scarlett continued, “you’re only getting hotter now that you’re fatter”, practically picking up Lizzie and flinging her onto the bed in a horny craze. “I’m not fat” Lizzie objected, insisting “that it was just a few pounds and that I’ll be fine once I get back to being able to run.” Scarlett laughed, inquiring what “all this” is, pinching little layers of fat all over her body, from her budding love handles to her upper thighs, which always rubbed together now, to the sides of her ribs, which were losing the definition of the bones underneath the thickening layer of fat, to her fupa, which was starting to bulge under her tight fitting thong, which was moistening as Scarlett teased Lizzie, arousing her more. With one swift movement, Scarlett flipped Lizzie over and spanked her ass, sending ripples across its expanding mass and a gasp out of Lizzie. “Really, not fat at all” Scarlett tutted as she dug the panties out of her crack “you know that you usually need permits to mine that deep” she teased, tugging the panties past her ample behind, flipping Lizzie back over to get at her very wet pussy. Scarlett drew several orgasms out of Lizzie, each one building on the last, until finally Lizzie begged her to stop. At this point Scarlett said “if you’re going to be a piggy, then you should really eat more” and pulled her shorts down and straddled Lizzies face making her eat her out until Scarlett was satisfied. When Lizzie woke up, she looked in the mirror again, maybe for the first time since her last revelation. Even so, despite the teasing from Scarlett, despite the softened visage staring back at her, despite the ripped shorts lying on the ground near her, she still had the image of the toned athlete, with muscles and a tight ass the prominent features, in her mind’s eye, as opposed to the reality of an ass starting to dimple with cellulite and a belly that was starting to droop over her waistbands.
The seminal tradition of the rugby team was to have a final meal of the semester all together in the dining hall at the end of finals week. Each year they would dress in full uniform and dine together as a way to close out the semester. Congregating at the rugby house, jerseys were handed out, and players came in their shorts. Lizzie definitely noticed that her shorts were tighter than they were a couple months prior, but she wasn’t worried about a wardrobe malfunction as had happened earlier in the semester since the shorts had a lot of stretch in them. They handed her the jersey she had worn in the handful of games she had played in - #14, wing, the speedy and agile ones. She took the jersey and went to pull it over her head, getting it over her torso, but not without a little bit of difficulty around her waist, where the cut of the jersey hugged her curves and showed off the shape of a belly. The team ate and laughed and joked through the night, but Scarlett noticed two things. The first was that Lizzie ate nearly as much as Rebecca, the largest girl on the team (Rebecca weighed close to 270 pounds during the team’s preseason workouts, but being 5’7” it wasn’t as noticeable when her weight fluctuated). The second was the that every time Lizzie sat down, her shirt rolled up, revealing a pale bulge of flesh that was just starting to get some bright red stretch marks running over it. At the end of the dinner, Scarlett gave Lizzie a box with a note that read “to be enjoyed together, don’t open in front of sensitive eyes xoxo”