Feinting Spells 4-1
Mid October, That Year
Things are in motion on a fall Monday night at a major Southern California University. Last Friday night, sophomore roommates Theresa Bayan and Jennifer McCowan settled their feud in a boxing match at the behest of their Resident Advisor (RA) Rebecca Meyers, who organized the whole event and fought in the night's main event.
Now they’re ready to get back to class and homework and upcoming midterms, and hope no one notices the new bumps and bruises they acquired last Friday….
Simone Waterson sprinted ahead to catch the door before it swung shut. She stared daggers at the oblivious young man who’d let it nearly swing shut before readjusting her book bag and clothing. Her bright yellow bag nearly matched her crumpled, oversized hoodie, which itself seemed trying to swallow her soft, red and black short shorts.
She checked her phone again, confirmed the dorm room number one more time: she marveled at how different the layout here was compared to the dorm she lived in, a scant 5 minute walk from here. She considered taking the stairs before she swiped her student ID card and boarded the elevator.
4 flights of stairs? For what? Nahhhh.
She could almost hear her striking coach mom criticizing her decision. But mom wasn’t here. Neither was her general MMA coach, the family friend who was close enough to be called “Uncle.” Simone thought a little about the gym they ran, about her own blossoming pro MMA career as she rounded the halls, her thick chocolate thighs stretching the hem of her shorts. She wondered if their micromanagement or chemistry lab would kill her first. She counted the doors as she passed down the quiet dorm hall. The second to last door was adorned with a selfie of two young women, one a spindly white girl with green streaks in her short, dark brown hair, the other a curvy southeast Asian girl with thick glasses and a nervous smile.
Yeah, this is the one.
The door was peaked open already and so she let herself in, loudly announcing her presence as the door creaked open. Her entrance was greeted by a loud shriek before someone ran into the bathroom that this room apparently shared with the next. She found the skinnier roommate’s back to her as she typed, large headphones on her head and oblivious to Simone’s existence. The woman wore a ratty, oversized t-shirt and baggy sweats. Moments later the reason for her visit emerged from the bathroom, smoothing out her wrinkled shirt.
“Simoooone, you have to knock! I wasn’t wearing a shirt!” the curvy, brown, Biology major whined.
“Then you should lock your door” Simone shot back with a shrug. “Besides, girl, come on, they’re just boobs, it's not like I've never seen a- wait, Theresa, what happened to your face?” Her tone filled with real concern as she sat on Theresa’s bed and unpacked her bag.
“This is why I didn't go to lab today. I haven't left my room all day.” The Filipina offered, pointing at the fading bruises still marring her face as she took a seat at her desk.
“Damn, did you get mugged? Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I’m ok. I… I kinda …got into a fight.”
“For real? So you did get jacked, but you fought back? Did they take anything?” Simone let her Nikes flip flops fall off her feet as she wiggled into a comfy spot on her lab partner's bed.
“Not quite like that, Simone” Theresa hesitated, adjusting her glasses. Her long dark hair had been carefully arranged to frame her face, hide her bumps and bruises, and her eyes darted from side to side nervously. “More like a, a boxing match. But don't tell anyone, ok?” She seemed equal parts excited and scandalized by her admission.
Simone Waterson's eyes lit up like Christmas at the mention of an organized fight. Her timid, plump lab partner was the absolute last person she’d peg for a boxer. She assessed the damage in an entirely new light: the dark splotch around her right eye, and the small bruises and cuts on her cheeks told her that someone had gone headhunting. These weren't the kind of injuries you got from a spirited training session; whoever Theresa had fought had earnestly tried to hurt her. Simone had to know more. The next question almost asked itself:
“So, did you win or nah?”
“I had fun. The other girl did too. Isn't that more important?” The curvy nerd protested meekly, pulling her phone off the nearby dresser.
“So you got bopped and need to find some moral victory in getting your ass beat?” The black woman snickered incredulously. “Don't worry, I've been there. I mean, only in sparring sessions, but that still-“
“I won that fight.” the flustered Filipina interjected. “By knockout!”
“Hell yeah you did,” Simone teased, pausing before changing tack. “Lookout, world here comes Theresa Bayan. Putting hoes on notice; putting hoes on the canvas with body shots!” She playfully shoved her lab partner, but Simone’s outburst left Theresa feeling suddenly meek and timid again. The spotlight generally had that effect on her.
Except…
“Wait, how did you know how I won?” Theresa inquired, a lump forming in her throat.
“I uhhh, didn't you just say it?” The black sophomore offered weakly.
“No I didn't!” Theresa yelled, pausing only to push her glasses up her nose. “I just said I was in a fight. I didn't say anything about body punching.” Theresa’s face scrunched up into a humorless scowl that Simone still struggled to take seriously; the buxom Filipina was cute no matter what face she made.
“Damn so this is what Jazz and Dre meant. Wowzers. I really am bad at keeping secrets…” Simone admitted to the air in front of her as she faltered under Theresa’s gaze. “So, uhhh, I was there. To see your fight. At least, I saw the end of it. But I wasn't sure it was you till you skipped class today.” She admitted sheepishly, her hand playing with one of the bouncy, kinky coils spilling out of her hood. “Well, congrats, right? That's what matters… Wait, then your roommate is.. oh word, she’s the other girl from that fight!” Simone hoped to mollify Theresa and change the subject at once. “Yo! That shit was wild as fuck! Have either of you ever boxed before?”
“I just started like a month ago” A low, feminine voice volunteered. All eyes turned to the young woman curled up on the chair in the corner of the room as she took off her headphones. “That was my first time ever doing anything like that. It was… kinda fun, I think. Getting into it, training to beat someone up. Punching her in the face. Knocking her down. Hearing the crowd cheer for me. Even if I did lose ‘by knockout’” she said, making air quotes and shooting a tense look at her roommate.
“Wait, you heard all of that?” Theresa exclaimed, pressing her hands to her cheeks. Simone could have sworn Theresa had turned a shade redder.
“I wasn’t listening to any music. The headphones do a good job of keeping people from talking to me though” the lanky sophomore admitted ruefully.
“Ugh I hate when you do that, Jennifer.” Theresa moaned.
“I still don't get why that bothers you.” Jennifer McCowan replied with a shrug.
“It's… I don't know…. Dishonest?” The mousey biology major countered, clearly still looking for a more precise word. Her tummy and breasts jiggled softly as she gestured emphatically.
“How else should I let people know that I-“
“Hey, hey, great, introvert-extrovert roommate issues. Cool. I'm not here for all that. And if y’all are gonna fight it out, you should really use your jab more and stop backing into the ropes.” The black woman interjected abruptly. “But yo, T, let's get this lab report done and then y’all can go back to fighting.”
The two roomates acquiesced, recognizing the trivial nature of their disagreement.
“God I hate stoichiometry” Simone lamented, her head tilted back in exasperation. Sitting on her toned, brown thighs was a journal of hastily scrawled notes.
“Everyone hates stoichiometry, Simone. And that's supposed to be an ‘8’ not a ‘3’. C'mon, keep your head in the game; you're normally really good at this.” her study buddy teased. “Hold up though. I think I left my calculator in Jamal's room. I'll be right back” Theresa said, sliding off her bed and out of the room.
Simone and Jen exchanged a wordless glance as their common denominator subtracted herself from the equation. Simone cleared her throat to make small talk only to find Jennifer sliding her headphones onto her ears again.
The young professional fighter merely pulled her phone out of her pocket, playing a video from the internet, then another. She expected the next sound at the door to signal Theresa’s return.
Instead the voice was bold, syrupy, and sounded distinctly white.
“Knock knock, ladies, you in there?” The lightly tanned blonde woman asked without actually knocking on the dorm room door. She held a plastic clipboard in one hand and her phone in the other. “I heard you two from all the way down the hall. Don't tell me we’re gonna need to settle things in the ring again…”
The heavy door was slightly ajar. When the noises coming from inside didn't abate, she let herself in, only to abruptly find an unfamiliar black woman grinning mischievously from the bed.
“Oh God, it’s the fuzz. Everyone hide your drugs.” The young black woman announced to the room without moving off the bed.
“You're not Theresa.” The RA concluded as she looked around the room
“Congrats,” the unknown visitor joked, “Want a medal?”
“Do you wanna get written up?” the slender blonde threatened with a predatory grin. Her tone was decidedly unfriendly. “Wait, why are you even here? These dorms are for students only. No solicitors. It's too late for nonresidents to be here anyways: time for you to leave. Am I going to have to call campus security? I know you BLM folks love protesting” She motioned towards the walkie talkie in the pocket of her windbreaker.
“BLM?” Simone asked defenisvely before she remembered the three letters printed on the front of her hoodie. “Oh. Yeah. Well... Black lives matter. It bears repeating. And calm down, Officer Barbie. I go here. I'm a second year Physics major. Save the pepper spray, alright?” She slid off the bed and put her hands on the hips of her brightly colored short shorts.
“Mmhmm, Physics, I bet.” She nodded facetiously, her blonde hair rising and falling like a golden wave. “But seriously, if you’re not a resident you need to stay with whichever resident signed you in at all times…” the green eyed RA continued, before a small voice behind her drew her attention.
“Excuse me, Rebecca.” A voice chimed as a stocky brown woman squeezed past the RA and into the dorm room. She felt the tension between the two women and stood between them defensively.
“Rebecca, this is Simone. We have chemistry lab together. Simone, this is Rebecca, my RA.” The two woman exchanged tepid, unenthusiastic pleasantries.
“As I was trying to say, I live in Carter, just up the slope. I'm a resident, so I'm allowed to be here. I'm not doing anything wrong.” Simone crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side, prompting a few of her bouncy black curls to slip free from her headwrap. She angled her prodigious hips, shifting her body weight from one side to the other. Rebecca detected muscle beneath the curves of her hips and thighs, but thought little of it.
“Ugh, of course you live in Carter. That's where they put all of you.” Rebecca muttered with barely disguised disdain, tension building in her sleek frame. “Anyways, keep it down in here, kay?” She threatened.
“First off that’s-“
“Sure thing, Rebecca. Whatever you say” Theresa interjected over her lab partner’s protests. She ushered her RA out of the room before shooting her lab partner a wordless plea for patience. She tapped her roommate on the shoulder, breaking the lithe brunette from her trance in front of her laptop.
“Jennifer,”
“Yeah?” The erstwhile writer questioned, still a gangly tangle of limbs sitting on, not in, her chair that faced directly away from the door, massive headphones over her ears.
“Did you hear any of that?”
“Any of what?” The brunette shrugged.
“Never mind. Rebecca was here giving Simone a hard time”
“I couldn't hear anything over the music”
“Oh now you're playing music. Just great.”
The thin young woman just shrugged again before returning to her writing.
“Great.” Theresa Bayan fell back on her bed, squirming to readjust her shirt. Most of her clothes seemed a size tighter than she remembered, and her RA had been a total butt to Simone and what did she mean about Carter Hall and…
“So… she’s trash. Good to know.” Simone mused aloud. “You shoulda said you had muhfucking Baywatch for an RA.”
“Ugh, yeah, Rebecca can be … involved … sometimes.” She explained through a forced smile.
“Yeah. Just nasty for no reason. Becky with the RA jacket just need to stay out my way and we'll be fine… But yo, she mentioned you two ‘settling things in the ring again’…” Simone’s caramel eyes brightened.
“Uhhh, no she didn't.” The chubby Filipina student looked away sheepishly, beginning to regret her involvement in the whole endeavor.
“Girl you are like the worst liar. Like straight up awful. High key, you might be worse than me. She totally did, when she thought it was just you and Jennifer in the room. Yo is she in on it too?” Then a realization crossed Simone’s face like a peal of thunder in the sky.
“Yoooo, she's the chick from the main event! I thought she looked familiar. Yo she beat that dude's ass.”
“Wait, that really happened?” Theresa eyes widened.
“Weren't you there for it?” Simone asked incredulously.
“No… Jen and I went back to the dorm after our fight” Theresa admitted.
“Yeah, she fought some rabid white dude. Ol' boy was foaming at the mouth tryna knock her out. She just kept clinching and taking him down.”
“So they didn't box?”
“Nah, MMA.”
“That's the thing you said you do, right? With the kicking and grabbing?”
“Hell yeah!” Simone crowed.
“So do you think you could beat her up? Rebecca, I mean…”
“Without question. Absolutely.” The young black Physics major announced, beaming.
“Whoooaaaa. Really? I mean, she’s really good.” Theresa marveled. “I saw her in the gym a few times. She’s… scary. I’d wanna see you too go at it.”
“Nah, no you don't. If we went at it for real I think I might hurt her, low-key. Like, my mom was a pro, Uncle Dre was a pro, I've been around it, in it, my whole life. I really like the way bodies and fighting and stuff works and I guess I'm… good at it? Yo like, apparently I'm really good at it. I think one of my fights is on YouTube if you wanna see…”
“Jen! Come check this out!” Theresa squealed, pulling her roommate by the arm.
For now at least, essays and lab reports could wait.
“Thanks again for the meal swipe.” Jennifer McCowan announced hesitantly as she buried her spoon into the ice cream.
“Anything for my residents. I remember being young and running out of swipes too. Ah, to be a naive freshman again.” She reminisced before her dessert returned her to the present day. “Oh my God, I haven't had gelato in like, sooo long. I swear, if I could have sex with chocolate mint I'd have no use for guys ever again.” This declaration elicited a distinct blush from the pale sophomore. “And besides, you were a good sport about our little agreement. Sorry it didn't work out for you.” The curvy blonde said sympathetically.
“Eh, I think I still had fun somehow. Punching is fun. Like, it's weird. I didn't even mind getting all sweaty. But I got so nervous with everyone looking at me. Its like going to the gym but a hundred times worse; and getting punched really sucks.” She admitted with an anxious chuckle. They sat at a booth in a campus restaurant, an RA and her nervous resident. “But I definitely wanna try more…. Fighting things. I never thought I’d like it but it's kinda cool. I was thinking about what I'd wear to my next fight.”
“Next fight?” Rebecca asked with an air of skepticism.
“Yeah, I figured I could keep training, maybe get better at defense stuff, and I could have another fight like that.” Jennifer mentioned absent-mindedly between scoops of pistachio gelato.
“Oh? Lol look at you; got a plan and everything. That's totes adorable, commendable even. Would you wanna fight Theresa again?” Rebecca inquired, doing everything she could to mask her enthusiasm.
“I hadn't thought about that. Probably not her though.” Rebecca explained, her spoon scraping the sides of the cup in a futile search for more ice cream. “Maybe a girl closer to my size this time? Theresa’s so… big. I guess they call it ‘thick’ now? But yeah, it hurts when she hits you…”
She avoided locking eyes with her RA, suddenly realizing she’d just asked to have another fist fight, as if getting beaten up once was so enthralling she had to have another taste. She felt her face heat up as her blush intensified. “Sorry, I realize how crazy that sounds… forget I even said anything.” Jen pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Then she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Don't be like that.” Jen looked up to find her RA starting beams of affirmation at her. “To tell the truth, I was hoping you'd win. Theresa’s cool or whatever, but I think you could be really good at this stuff. Like, I know I was excited to see you climb in that ring. Perhaps with a little more practice, and a little better coaching, you could get really good at it. I love Kelsey, but tactics aren't exactly her strong suit if you know what I mean.” Rebecca Meyers said with a warm smile. “I'm really glad you wanna give it another try. I'm sure we can find someone for you to have a good time with, if you actually, like, train and stuff.” She gave the quiet Communications major another reassuring pat on the shoulder as they sat there in a wordless bond. Jen began to loosen up, physically, mentally.
“So… that girl from Monday night is pretty cool, I guess.”
“Oh?” Rebecca asked with a cool detachment. “Which one?”
“Simone, the African American one.”
“Oh.” Came the reply, drained of all interest. “Her.”
“Yeah, she’s nice. Loud, but nice I guess.”
“Mmhmm. I bet. Why do you mention her?” Rebecca inquired, still savoring her extra large dessert.
“Cause we were talking about fights and stuff…” The lanky, lithe sophomore trailed off.
“And…?”
“And she's a pro fighter, apparently.”
Between the incipient brain freeze and the shock of that announcement Rebecca Meyers struggled to maintain her composure and obscure the gears spinning in her head. All she managed was a curious “Oh?”
“Yeah, she showed us a fight where she knocked out this Mexican girl. Or wait, we’re supposed to say “Latino, right? Or is it Latina, or…” Her eyes traveled towards the ceiling as she thought.
“Doesn't matter… whatever. You said she’s an actual pro? That's pretty interesting. Does she box?”
“No, she said she does… hmmm” Jennifer tapped her slender fingers to her chin as she struggled to recall the term.
“Mixed martial arts? MMA?” Rebecca offered, nearly beside herself.
“Yeah, that's it!” Jen replied, oblivious to her RA's budding machinations. “She said she's 3-0 and knocked everyone out so far. I saw one of her fights online. She was all dodgy and then hit the other girl in the face. It was intense...”
“Oh, that's REALLY interesting. I know I asked you two to box, but I prefer Mixed Martial Arts, Jen. I think MMA is really cool with how many different ways you can win, or lose.” Rebecca offered as Jennifer McCowan nodded, emerald eyes bright and shining. “Who knows, you might like it better too! Next time that girl stops by, message me, kay? I wanna talk to her. Maybe we could all train together. It'd be fun.” She said with a confident smile.
“Oh wow, that’d be cool.” Jen conceded before following Rebecca’s lead and slipping her jacket on over her thin frame as they headed into the mild chill of a Southern California spring night.
#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts
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