Ball Boy
This tweet crossed my Twitter feed a few days ago: https://twitter.com/rogerfederer/status/903802437319852032.
In case it gets removed, Venus Williams accidentally nailed a ball boy in the groin with a tennis serve. And because I'm me, I thought, well, why not turn that idea into a quick story?
In this furry version, the female character is a made-up lioness tennis star, but if you'd prefer to read the original human version with Venus Williams, you can find it on my Tumblr: https://kiwibbstories.tumblr.com/post/165096452466/ball-boy
Enjoy!
"Oh come on. Women suck at tennis."
That was where it had all started -- some sexist trash talk at the tennis club. An athletic-looking lioness had been practicing with a ball machine on the next court over, and she had given him one hell of a dirty look. One thing had led to another, and before he knew it, she had challenged him to a singles match. He had accepted.
Then again, that was before he had realized that she was Naomi Sinclair. Yes, that Naomi Sinclair. One-of-the-greatest-tennis-players-of-all-time Naomi Sinclair. To say that he was in over his head was an understatement.
Still, his pride refused to let him back down, and so later that afternoon, they faced off as promised. Naomi had reserved a private court, where they could face each other alone.
Ben felt lucky that there wouldn't be an audience to spectate. The fox was smart enough to admit that he was probably going to lose...but then again, he could probably win at least a couple of points in the process. He could just imagine bragging about it to the other guys at the club: "Yeah, I hit an ace against Naomi Sinclair once. No big deal."
They met at the center of the court to shake hands. Naomi was tall -- taller than Ben had realized. He straightened his back, trying to meet her eye to eye.
"You wanna take first serve?" offered Naomi. "You'll need it."
Ben shook his head. "Nah, you go first." He glanced down at her racket, and at her long, strong legs. "I want to see the way you handle some balls."
Naomi blinked, then frowned, narrowing her eyes. Without another word, the feline headed back to the baseline on her side of the court, fishing a bright green tennis ball from the pocket of her shorts.
Ben grinned to himself as he took his place on the opposite baseline. Maybe that had been a little crude, but damn if it wasn't funny. He settled into place, bending slightly at the knees, eyeing his opponent on the other side of the court as he prepared for her serve.
"You ready?" Naomi shouted to him.
"Hit me with your best shot, babe," he replied.
She did just that. "Love-love," she called, then tossed her tennis ball into the air in a well-practiced motion. As it reached the top of its arc, her right arm whipped forwards through the air, perfectly timed to catch the tennis ball in its descent. The sweet spot of her racked connected with the ball with a satisfying THOCK.
And suddenly, that tennis ball was a rocket.
Ben had only the slightest fraction of a second to process it: a fuzzy green blur, screaming towards him at an impossible speed. Was it headed to his left? He began to lunge sideways, but as the ball hit the clay court surface and began to bounce back upwards, he realized he had miscalculated -- now it was coming straight at him. The male tried to turn and manuever his racket, but there was no time to react as the tennis ball flew straight up into his--
THUD.
Ben had made a variety of poor decisions throughout his life, many of which had led to various forms of testicular trauma. His awful, raunchy pick-up lines had often led to an indignant kick or an infuriated knee. An old ex had once squeezed his balls flat after learning that he had cheated on her. Another ex had punted his nuts into his throat when breaking up with him, as payback for all the times he had been an insensitive dick.
And yet, despite all of the ways in which his gonads had been flattened, crushed, or otherwise mangled, nothing could prepare him for the sheer velocity of Naomi's serve.
Fate conspired to make sure that the tennis ball struck dead-on: 200 kilometers per hour of world-class tennis serve, aimed directly at the center of his unprotected nutbag. His loose athletic shorts did nothing to cushion the impact. Ben's sex life flashed before his eyes as his spunk tanks were crushed up into his pelvis, the two rubbery orbs compressed to a tiny fraction of their usual plumpness. Agony like he had never known exploded in his gut, followed immediately by an icy, inescapable nausea. A wounded squawk escaped his mouth, and his eyes went wide and unfocused.
It was only a short moment, but for Ben, it seemed like hours. The fox struggled to comprehend what had just happened, his brain unable to keep up as every pain receptor in his nerve-packed 'nads screamed out in panic.
His body knew exactly what to do, though. With barely a sound, the male collapsed to the court, his knees buckling beneath him. He dropped his racket with a clatter, both hands moving to clutch his damaged testes. Instinctively, there was one question that demanded an immediate answer: were his balls still intact?
They were. In an odd way, Ben was lucky that the tennis ball had struck his ballsac so dead-center. An inch to the left or an inch to the right, and the entire force of Naomi's serve would have crushed a single ball -- emphasis on "crushed". It was hard to imagine a testicle surviving that kind of trauma all on its own. Distributing the force of the impact across two targets had almost certainly saved him from losing a ball.
Then again, even if one of his nuts HAD been obliterated, at least the other would have been undamaged. In this moment, both of his balls felt utterly ruined. It seemed quite possible that Naomi had just ended his chances of reproducing entirely.
"...Oh FUCK," Ben finally squeaked, both hands buried between his legs. He bent forward, then rolled onto his side, curling into a tight ball. It felt like he had been shot by a cannon. "Ohhhhhhh, my BALLS!"
Naomi watched calmly, holding back a smile as her opponent mewled and flopped back and forth on the ground. The lioness reached into her shorts for another tennis ball, giving the fuzzy orb a firm squeeze.
"15-love," she stated, then tossed the ball into the air for her next serve.