Winning Streak
by Marley Quinn
Copyright Information
Winning Streak
by Marley Quinn
© 2025 Marley Quinn
All rights reserved.
Author: Marley Quinn
Contact details: marleyquinn.reformist760@passinbox.com
Book cover, illustration: Marley Quinn
Editing, proofreading: Marley Quinn
This e-book, including its portions, is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced, resold, or redistributed without the permission of the author.
If you liked the e-book, recommend that your friends buy a personal copy. A big thank you for respecting the author's work!
Table of Contents
Planting the Seed
Madison sighed as she got up from her seat and joined the shuffling queue of passengers to exit the plane.
On one hand, she was excited to be back home and see her family. And the crisp Michigan air would be a much-welcome relief from the sometimes unbearable mugginess of central Florida.
But on the other hand, everyone would be expecting her to regale them with stories of her triumphs at college, something that definitely hadn't happened.
When she'd first gotten accepted at Crestwood, she'd been over the moon. After years of grinding it out to get into a good school, that acceptance letter had felt like her ticket to a brighter, happier life.
The brochures had made it seem like bright young minds from around the country were having the times of their life on campus, but so far, Madison hadn't experienced any of it.
For one thing, most of the students seemed more interested in partying than doing any learning. And with her terminal shyness, Madison had found it hard to connect with her classmates.
And getting one of the rare single dorm rooms, which her mom had made out to be a stroke of good luck, had only further isolated her.
Every night, she could hear other girls hollering and whooping it up in the hallway while her only solace were her books, exactly like high school all over again, except this time her family was a thousand miles away.
"There she is! There's my big college girl," squealed her mother upon seeing her.
Despite her misgivings, Madison grinned as her mother embraced her in an enthusiastic hug.
"Hey, kiddo, good to see you," said her dad. "Your flight landed only four minutes late."
"Hey, Dad," said Madison, her heart warm in her chest.
"I hope you're hungry," said her mother. "Because I cooked up a real feast."
"She's not joking," said her father. "She set her alarm for four o'clock this morning, and she's been at it all day."
"Hey!" protested her mother. "Thanksgiving is a special time for family, and you know that."
"Yeah, yeah," said her father with a rueful smile. "Come on, honey, let me help you with that bag."
Seeing her old bedroom had made her heart hurt a little, but in a good way. The first thing Madison did was race to her dresser and pull out one of the sweaters her grandma had knitted for her when she was 12 or 13.
After seeing everyone parade around half-naked on campus for the past two months, it was nice to be back in a place where you could wear a big, comfortable sweater.
Later, looking around the table at all her relatives gathered, she realized just how lucky she was. Sure, she might still be the ugly duckling of the family, but at least she had a family, one that loved each other. Well, most of the time, anyway.
"Hey, hey," said her uncle Eric, a goofy grin on his face as he stood up and banged his fork against the side of his glass. "Jen, I want to say thank you for cooking us such a lovely meal today. Being the thankful little Indian that I am, I brought you a bottle of my finest homemade wine."
"Oh my," muttered her father.
"Wow, Eric, thank you," said her mother. "I know Christopher is probably going to give me the stink eye, but hey, it's Thanksgiving, right?"
"Come on, brother, what do you say?" said her uncle Eric. "It's the holidays. Let's all let our hair down a little."
"Eh, it's fine," said her father, knowing when he'd been beaten.
Madison grinned as she watched her uncle uncork the big glass jug and pour her mother a generous cup of the sparkling white wine. Madison politely passed when her uncle offered to pour her a glass as well, just happy to see everyone getting along.
It didn't take long for the after-dinner conversation to get more boisterous, and Madison could see by the redness of her mother's cheeks that the wine was having its effect.
Her dad, instead of slipping off to his study, had gotten into the holiday spirit, nodding along as they swapped anecdotes from their youth.
"Hey, since Madison's a college girl now," said her uncle Eric, raising his glass. "Maybe it's time she learned exactly how her parents met when they were in school."
"Oh, there's nothing to tell," said her mother with a dismissive gesture. "We were both studying for finals in the library. He made eyes at me and then spilled his drink on my papers, yadda, yadda. She already knows."
"No, she only knows the sanitized story you two cooked up," said her uncle Eric with a boozy grin. "Maddie, do you want to know the real story?"
"Yes, please," said Madison, nodding enthusiastically.
"Come on, Chris, it's all right. She's a big girl now," said her uncle Eric.
"Fine," said her dad. "But just so you know, that was a different era, honey."
"Oh gosh, now I'm really curious," said Madison. "Spill the tea, Mom. What happened?"
"Very well," said her mom, a bit wobbly on her feet. "The part that we left out was that your father first laid eyes on me when I was doing one of my streaks."
"Your what?" said Madison, confused.
"She was like Nike, the winged goddess of victory," said her father, a dreamy smile on his face.
"Okay, look, I know it'll sound crazy," said her mother. "But one of the ways we used to protest stuff, like the war or whatever, was to take off our clothes and go running across campus."
"What?" said Madison, her eyes wide with surprise.
"Yeah, we called it streaking," said her mother. "I guess because you have to book it. God knows, I was running as fast as my feet could carry me. That air was cold! I remember my nipples were as hard as a rock."
"Hell yeah," said her uncle Eric with a booming laugh.
"Oh my," said her father, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.
"Anyway, so there I was, buck ass naked, running past the west quad," said her mother, turning to face her father. "And this little pervert saw me and decided to stalk me and find out who I was."
"No!" squealed Madison.
"Yep," said her mother with a grin. "And so he followed me that night and set up next to me at the library on purpose."
"Please, honey, don't ever let a guy do that to you," said her father. "As I said, those were different times."
"And then what happened?" said Madison, breathless.
"Apparently, he thought that batting his eyes at me would be enough to make me swoon," said her mother with a laugh. "But when that didn't work, the little stinker came over and poured his Jolt cola all over my fucking chemistry textbook."
"I swear, that wasn't my plan," said her father, his eyes twinkling with merriment. "I was so nervous that when I opened my mouth to ask her for her number, my hand spazzed out, and I dropped my drink."
"See? Now that's what we Italians call amore puro!" declared her uncle Eric.
"Eric, you goofball, you're about as Italian as a pineapple pizza," said her mother with a laugh. "But yeah, that's how it happened, Madison. Now you know, your father is a little sicko."
"Hey!" protested her father.
"Mom, wait, you're really telling me you were running naked across campus?" said Madison. "Like, naked, naked?"
"Oh, that's only the tip of the iceberg of what she got up to in college," said her uncle Eric with a booming chuckle. "The real mystery is how she ever fell for a nerd like my brother."
"Hey, that's enough about me for one night," said her mother. "Madison, you just ignore your uncle Eric, okay? Sure, I may have gotten a little crazy at times, but I also studied my ass off. Grades are what's most important, not silly stunts."
"Don't worry, Mom," said Madison, feeling her cheeks flush with heat. "I would never do anything like that. I don't even like exposing my legs."
"I know, honey," said her mother, a wistful smile on her face. "You take after your father in that way."
"And that's a good thing," said her father, tapping the side of his head. "It's what's up here that'll take you far in life."
The topic of conversation soon drifted onto other things, and as her mother and her uncle continued to plug away at the wine, Madison felt herself growing sleepy, so she excused herself.
But as she lay there in her old bed, she just couldn't get the image of her mother running naked across campus out of her mind. Why couldn't she have inherited at least a fraction of her mother's bubbly courage?
But no, Madison was a shy bookworm just like her father. It was so unfair. As much as she loved learning, she also wanted a social life, too.
Unseen
A week later, back at campus, Madison felt her optimism beginning to dwindle.
Keeping up her grades was hard enough, but trying to spark up some kind of social life was proving impossible.
Even the freshman mixers she'd attended had yielded no results. Poorly attended, they were just a bunch of kids as nervous as she was standing around and gulping down cups of knockoff Kool-Aid.
What could she do? She'd tried approaching other girls in class, offering to form a study group. But they'd taken one look at her outdated clothes and mousy brown hair and turned their backs on her, claiming that they were too busy or had other plans, even though she'd seen them once laughing and joking around in one of the library's conference rooms that were specifically reserved for study groups.
It was all just so hopeless. The girls on campus were just so much prettier than she was, darting about in their miniskirts and crop tops, soaking up the hot Florida sun on their bare skin.
What guy would even look at her, the mopey weird girl too shy to even wear shorts? Not even her generous chest was of much use when she refused to wear anything but big, baggy tops.
Thrashing around in bed one night, sleep as elusive as always, a strange vision came into her mind. It was the quad of Crestwood University, but the colors were bright, almost too bright, and the hairstyles of the students were all different.
Just then, her mother came bounding out of the east annex, sun glinting on her hair as she ran naked across the grass, arms up, hollering and whooping with joy.
The students lounging in the quad smiled, some of them cheering on her mother as she shouted something about peace on Earth until she reached the other side and disappeared from view.
Madison sat up in bed, her nightgown clammy against her skin. Was that the solution, then? To go streaking, as her mom had called it? That was crazy, right? I mean, everyone would think she was some kind of escaped mental patient.
Yet the more she turned the idea over in her head, the greater its appeal grew. Her pulse began to race, and she felt a strange sense of excitement.
No one had laughed when her mother had streaked. In fact, they'd all cheered her on. Even her father had been drawn to her uninhibited display of liberation.
Yes, maybe streaking naked was exactly what she needed to do to jolt something loose. Clearly, hiding away in her cubby at the library wasn't working, and neither was anything else she'd tried.
What was the worst that could happen if she ran naked across campus? People wouldn't like her anymore? Ha! She already had no friends as it was.
But still, though, the thought of being exposed like that had her stomach all twisted up in knots. Just the thought of a stranger's eyes roaming up and down her body was overwhelming.
Yet mixed in with all the fear and anxiety was a bright pulse of eagerness. Maybe it was the feverish temperatures in her dorm room, but a part of her actually wanted to go do something nuts.
Could she actually go through with it, though? That was the real question. ...