Confessions of a Masturbating Twelfth Man

“Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been  eight years since my last confession. These are my sins…rather, this is my sin. I am a hockey player. I have been for three years. I play with, a team, Macho Paradise. Eleven men on the first team and I am the twelfth man. A substitute. I have been on the 'bench' for these three years. When I play, it's usually for the last twenty minutes when the team has scored a comfortable number of goals or when they have scored none and one of the eleven wants to sit those minutes out. Nothing sinful about being a substitute, Father. However there is something that the enemy does with an idle mind. The mind of a twelfth man who has two halves, thirty five minutes each, seated on the ground to watch his team mates play, score and tap sticks for victory dances. The fields do not have benches (only when we play at the astro turf stadium do I get to sit on  a concrete bench). A substitute with big stick bags all around him, a stick lying at the seventy six degree angle between his legs and extra balls for practice, strewn around. Green balls, red balls, and white balls . Where is the sin in this? Well, boredom and the lack of attention plus the illusion of  privacy provided by the big stick bags tempt me to pleasure  myself. So I rub the head of the 38" hockey stick against my privates. Sometimes it  feels so good I extend to the taped splice. When play is on the far end of the pitch, I take advantage of the solitude to  hook and pull and hook and pull and hook and pull and hook and hook and hoook and pull till my shorts are wet and I have to wear my track pants to hide the shame. Occasionally I sit on the balls and move in short circular motions, reminiscent of a Ugandan woman dancing the baganda dance in slow motion moving her waist and never shaking her shoulders. Worse, when the team is bending over in circular unison to bless the match and  my team mates bang their sticks on the ground as they chant the 'syke-a syke-a syke-a', I bend too but make sure the grip of the stick is between my legs in the guise of holding the stick in place as my left hand rests on the shoulders of a team mate and the other pretends to bang my stick. As usual with this type of sin, Father, the guilt creeps in after the pride that comes with improvisation and the bursts of joy that accompany the powerful sensations. The guilt of  mono-intercourse. So overwhelming I never look my team mates in the eye. When they hit the balls, I suffer. When they borrow my stick after breaking their sticks on an opponent's shin, I feel naked. I believe that I will stop sinning if they let me play.Problem is, they never let me play...and I love the game so much, I cannot quit. I am sorry for these sins...rather, this sin and all the sins I can’t remember.”

Father shifts on his seat.

"Sexual purity. Something we all thrive for, my child. You and I in equal measure.Believe me when I say, your sin is much sooner forgiven than my own sins.Go in peace."


"Thanks be to God."


The twelfth man picks up his stick bag and finds his way to the door that is marked 'Gents'. Father walks off to teach an acolyte class.


Linda Musita © 2011

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