Feinting Spells 4-4
Early November, That Year
A fiery conversation between Simone, college sophomore and rising pro MMA star and Rebecca Meyers, Resident Advisor for a university in southern California and a talented MMA fighter in her own right, has led to this: heated, full contact MMA sparring sessions between Rebecca, her friends, Simone, and her gymmate Jamila. Rebecca’s invited everyone to the gym she and her friends train at, and the leather has flown.
Caught in the crossfire are Theresa and Jennifer, college students, friends to Simone, and Rebecca’s residents.
The last set of sparring rounds saw everyone who stepped up struggle eventually, and in the meantime Jen and Theresa have only previously boxed and are curious about trying mixed martial arts for the first time...
Jennifer McCowan had more questions than answers swimming through her head at this moment. There was a starting point and an endpoint but only confusion in between. It didn't help that her teacher felt ridiculously, impossibly strong, and that every eye in a 10 radius was watching her flounder.
“Rebecca… can you show me again? The first bit… just… what?” The slender woman ran her hand up her forehead and swept a sweaty lock of green hair away from her face. She just wanted to get this right, to impress the older girls who’d deigned to give her the time of day.
“Sure thing, Jen.” The young blonde said with a winning smile. The pair stood up again and resumed fighting stances. At least until the college senior stopped to correct the budding fighter's stance. “Remember, don't stick your leg out like that. I know it's fine for boxing but…” and in one fluid motion the older girl crouched and shot forward, wrapping her arms around the flailing sophomore’s leg and hugging it tightly to her chest. “Here it's just asking to get grabbed and you totes don't want that.” The surly Resident Advisor slapped her resident's pale thigh playfully and backed off.
Jennifer blushed and muttered the advice to herself out loud as she tugged on her gloves; they felt almost nonexistent compared to the big bulky boxing gloves she was used to. Wiggling her fingers while training was still a novel experience.
“Try it on me now, k?” Rebecca waved her in, rousing the lanky brunette from her wild-eyed muttering.
Jen crouched, took a deep breath and crouched, trying her best to emulate her RA's pose. She lunged forward, arms ready and grasping, and locked them around Rebecca’s leg.
Holy shit, she’s got muscles.
Jen stared at the leg, tried to pull the limb up and towards her but it was like lifting a stone column. A tanned stone column. She redoubled her effort and gave it another heave until a hand slapped her on the back and pushed her away. The awkward sophomore stumbled and fell, looking up to see a smirking Rebecca shaking her head. “Don’t pull me towards you, Jen; put your chest on my leg and then take me with you when you stand up. Try it that way.”
Jennifer could feel her face reddening. She stood up quickly and put her hands up in front of her. She was certain everyone was laughing, whether she could see them or not.
This was stupid and she was stupid for trying and she should just leave and stop embarrassing herself and
A different hand on her shoulder this time. Then Kelsey’s warm smile.
“Hey, hey, Jen, deep breaths. You can totally do this. Just like learning to pivot when you threw that cross punch with your right hand. That was complicated then and you got it. You can totally do this. We’re all here rooting for you. Don’t think about the steps, think about that essay you haven’t written yet and let your body go to work” Kelsey whispered into her ear. The college senior had given Jen a crash course on boxing when she’d agreed to fight her roommate and those lessons had worked better than she’d ever thought they could. She’d almost won that fight.
Hell, maybe throwing Theresa around could be part of her revenge. She’d need someone to use this on afterwards
“Go get her, Meanstreak” Kelsey giggled, accentuating her peptalk with a playful slap on the ass before she walked away from the center of the ring and left tutor and pupil to finish their lesson. As Jennifer resumed her stance, she realized that wasn’t sure which ‘her’ Kelsey meant…
The next attempt had been better. The one after that more so. And finally, on the 4th attempt Jennifer McCowan wrapped her arms and torso around Rebecca’s leg, lifted, and slung her down to the ground. Jen followed her to the mat tentatively as the blonde tensed up and readied for more grappling on the mat.
“Yes! I did it! Hell yeah!” Jen exclaimed. It took her a moment to recognize Rebecca waving her in towards her.
“Great job…” Rebecca trailed off.
“Thanks! Wait… thanks?”
“Kinda” the older student teased. “So you got me down. Now what?”
“Now I guess I… hold you there?” Jennifer shrugged.
“That’s a start, yeah, but you could also try hitting me. Punch me, knee me, and try to hold me down while you do it.”
“That sounds kinda complicated…” The brunette lamented. The green streaks in her dark brown hair matched her eyes.
“Don’t worry, just give it a try. Come here.”
5 minutes later and Jennifer McCowan had successfully shown some semblance of grappling intuition. Rebecca Meyers had shown her a simple takedown, the theory of what to do when she successfully used it to drag her opponent to the floor, and even a nifty way to use that takedown when her and the girl she was fighting were all tangled up in the clinch. Though she’d only ever boxed to that point, the English major had shown excitement, interest where the subject of grappling was concerned.
Wrestling didn’t seem so scary after all. Even for a slim, lanky, awkward girl like her.
Now she needed someone to try it on for real. Jen immediately looked towards the wall where her roommate Theresa sat next to Simone and a woman Jen didn’t recognize. Simone and the new girl were both black, and the new girl was shaped kind of like Theresa: glasses, and cute, in a chubby, way too curvy kinda way, but the mysterious girl was shorter, darker, with thicker legs and big poofy hair. Jen recognized her as the one who’d choked Rebecca unconscious earlier but couldn’t remember her name.
This wasn't about her anyways.
Rebecca saw her tutee’s stare and called out for her. “Hey, Theresa! Wanna go a round with Jennifer? She doesn’t have anyone else to train with.”
Where Rebecca had called out on Jennifer’s behalf, Simone answered for Theresa.
“That’s fucked up, Malibu. How you give Jen a private session and then straight up sic her on T like that? That’s dirty.”
Everyone in the cage and several people outside it could see that the 5 minute sparring session that Rebecca and Simone had shared had done nothing to improve their relationship.
“Well, Theresa won their match, barely, so I thought Jen could use a little extra training session. It's only fair…” the green eyed senior gave an exaggerated shrug.
Simone wasn’t having it. “Nah… Theresa, stand up. I’m finna give you an… accelerated crash course in kickboxing. Just the basic fundamentals, with an emphasis on easy to apply principles and techniques. It'll be lit. I promise. We’ll take what you already know about boxing and just… bend it a little. The differences between them are mad intriguing to me.”
Theresa almost choked on her water. She’d hoped to escape this session unscathed but the past 90 seconds had murdered any hope of that. She stood up tentatively and faced Simone.
“…Sure?”
“Take your glasses off and put your gloves on” Simone deadpanned. “Goofy ass…” .
“...Oh!” Theresa said, reaching for her face and confirming that yes, her glasses were in fact still there. The nerdy sophomore was too dark to blush but tried her best anyways. She reached for her gloves, put them on, then touched her face, realized her glasses were still there, and finally took them off and flung them towards the corner of the cage where her new friend Jamila was sitting. She’d seen Jamila toss her glasses to Simone before her sparring session with Rebecca and wanted to look as cool as she had.
Unfortunately Theresa missed her target by a few feet and then sheepishly walked over, picked them up, and handed them to Jamila.
Not quite the intro I wanted… Lame…
Simone was waiting in her fighting stance, all smiles and bouncy, relaxed energy. Theresa approached tentatively, her stance tight, her steps heavy and plodding. Her MMA tutor couldn't resist a smirk, but that curdled as Theresa approached.
“Hold up; you're going to want the heavy shin guards for this...”
Theresa didn't like the thick foam shin guards very much: they were cumbersome and made her legs sweat but Simone probably knew what she was doing and so Theresa complied with only a few complaints. No sooner had the stocky neophyte resumed her stance than Simone lashed out and kicked her leg.
Theresa recoiled in pain and blurted out shot an expletive back at Simone, who merely stuck her tongue out. “And that's the difference between kickboxing and boxing. We're looking to avoid that.” Simone wisecracked. “So move your front leg back and widen your stance.” The physical sciences major turned to give Theresa a better view. Her chemistry labmate mimicked as best she could, but Simone couldn’t help but should out particular adjustments: widen this, bend that, move that there. After a minute Simone shrugged and kicked once again just to demonstrate that now Theresa’s leg was out of range.
“Great, now move with me.” Simone waved her on. Theresa approached, stuck between the sturdy, careful footwork she’d learned from Mary in order to box and Simone’s bouncy strafing. Simone moved like the kind of fighter Mary frequently griped about. She looked around:
If Mary wasn’t here, she wouldn’t mind Theresa trying something different, right?
Right?
“So, boxing gloves are huge, MMA gloves are small, so don’t try and block punches with your hands. Use your arms, or shoulders, or better yet keep moving and just don’t be there. Be anywhere else...” Simone explained. Teresa nodded as if she understood. She did understand, mostly, she thought. She was already used to using her arms and shoulders to block things, and the girls in the videos she’d seen seemed even more willing to clinch and hold each other, so that strategy should need to change too much. Moving though… that might take a while to sink in.
What direction where you supposed to move besides forwards, and sometimes back?
Her mind drifted back to the nickname Mary had given her: the muscle bound Mexican-American girl had taken to calling her “Cuddles” precisely for her habit of looking to clinch and hold and “hug” every time Theresa got punched hard enough. But what else was she to do, getting punched hurt and she wanted the other person to stop it!
She shook Mary’s taunts out of her head for now and tried to follow along with Simone’s next instruction.
“Thankfully your punches still work, so we’re not exactly starting from jump” Simone smiled, “but let's try and kick.” Simone’s body unwound like a coiled spring and her leg carved a screaming arc through the empty air in front of her. The stout boxer winced instinctively. Simone explained it as a basic “round kick,” from Muay Thai. Basic or not, the movement looked so complex that Teresa wasn't sure where to focus. Simone must have caught the look of wild-eyed terror in Theresa' eyes because the next time she tried that kick the result was a simpler looking motion that Teresa was grateful for. Jamila even stood up to demonstrate it for her as well.
She tried it in earnest, certain that she’d nailed it. Then she caught Simone’s squinting, confused, dissatisfied expression. “Wait what?” Theresa complained she tried again, filtering everything Simone had said and done through the Filipina slugger’s limited dexterity. “This might take a while” She heard Simone mutter. “Not bad; show me again! All the power comes from your hips, like a right hook. You got curves, Theresa; use that shit, girl!” Jamila called out in support.
Theresa’s next attempt softened Simone’s face a little but invited more “corrections,” and so she tried again. Theresa’s confidence grew as the pro fighter encouraged her.
I must be killing it so far
The brawler unwound another kick, careful to try and incorporate the new feedback. Whether it was the extra force she exerted, sweat on the mat, or the strange sensation of trying to move on one foot, physics conspired against her and she instead fell directly on her ass.
“Owwwww…”
The black girl almost stifled her laugh as she offered Theresa a hand up. “Yup. That’s about right. Welcome to Muay Thai. Now you’re one of us.” She joked. Theresa accepted the help, still rubbing her butt. She thought she heard a few snickers of laughter in the crowd but tried to ignore it.
Thankfully, Theresa’s next attempt didn’t end in physical comedy. She had to admit, there was something kind of cool about swinging your entire leg out like that, like a baseball bat. Simone had helped her figure out how to aim it, to throw it at legs and bodies, and what it felt like to actually land one. She thought she was ready to take on her roommate again until Simone upended her confidence with a single line.
“Great, now let’s put it all together.”
“What?”
“You can do them, now do them together.”
“Do we have to?”
Simone’s expression made it clear that this wasn’t optional, and Jamila yelled out her support. Theresa begrudgingly assented, rolling her broad shoulders and returning to her stance. Simone guided her through a series of punches, rolling that singular kick into the series like fruit into a pastry. The strikes weren’t so bad, but Simone insisted on so. much. Movement. To Theresa it felt like Simone never stopped moving, taking little steps or twists and turns between the punches and kicks. Just watching her was exhausting let alone mimicking it. But Theresa whined and complained and trudged through it until the curvy, athletic black girl pulled her into a hug.
“Great job,” she whispered in their embrace. “Now go out there and beat her ass. I’m rooting for you, T!”
As they released, Simone lamented that she’d hadn’t had enough time to do a intro on avoiding takedowns, but Jamila, not to mention Rebecca, complained so loudly that Simone backed off.
“Besides, if anyone’s doing a demo on ‘no touching,’ it’s me.” Jam started, adjusting her glasses and the hairband securing her massive puff of coiled hair.
“Can I help?” Kelsey teased, blowing a kiss across the cage and groping a pair of invisible breasts. The stout submission grappler visibly shuddered and prepared a retort before Rebecca raised her voice.
“Seriously though. You losers had all the time in the world to teach her or whatever. I wanna see Jen and Theresa go at it again. Last time was a lot of fun, but super raw, and I wanna see if their training did anything to improve that.”
The two sophomore roommates looked at each other, preparing to go at it again seriously for the first time since their boxing match.
“Let’s try this mixed martial arts thing, unless you’re scared.” Jennifer challenged
“As if, Jen. You’re going down for the count just like last time!” Her roommate countered.
Jennifer bristled at the callback. “Don’t forget I knocked you down first!”
“Yeah, but I got up; when you went down you stayed there. Wanna try again?”
As the two sophomores argued, their RA couldn’t contain her glee. “Oh fuck yeah; this is gonna be totes amazing.” She waited eagerly for the two neophytes to work themselves into a lather and actually hit each other with malicious intent. Fighting was always more fun with a bit of drama behind it, after all.
Jennifer vs. Theresa Redux
Jennifer and Theresa approached, gear ready and tempers hot. Jamila looked back and forth between them while Kelsey pulled her phone from the corner and set a timer for 5 minutes.
“Being honest, you’re both pretty new to this, and a full contact session is almost certainly a bad, irresponsible idea, but hey, so is most of today. Why stop now? On the real: when I tell you to stop, or pause, or let go, or stand up, just shut up and do it, or I’ll choke you like I did Rebecca…” Jamila deadpanned with a wry smile. The blonde rolled her eyes and raised a middle finger in silent response. “I’d tell you more about how you’re still friends and shit but meh, just get this out of your system, beat each other up now, and makeup later…” The bespectacled grappler shook her head as the two neophytes wandered into striking range and started trading leather…
Mary Ramirez checked her phone. The unread texts from ‘Becca got progressively angrier. She hadn't responded to any of them; she'd told Rebecca that she had class when the blonde had first informed her of this escapade. Angry texts weren't gonna change that.
Yeah, I’m late. I told you I had class till 11:30, slut, but you had just had to have this stupid little session now, huh? Whatever Rebecca.
The college senior was still wearing the T-shirt and jogging shorts she’d worn to class that day as she walked into the familiar gym. She gave the guy behind the front counter a cursory nod and immediately headed towards the back. She’d hoped to find them in the boxing ring and sighed when all the commotion came from the cage instead. Mary muttered an expletive and hefted her gym bag on her shoulder as she approached.
“Where the hell were you, slut?” Rebecca challenged as her friend strolled up nonchalantly.
“Where I told you I’d be, bitch. Some of us actually attend our classes here.” Mary countered as she dropped her red gym bag and rifled through it. “So it’s small gloves today, eh? Typical. Qué lastima: I go through all the trouble of teaching that poor girl to box like a real woman just so you two can come by and ruin it with your ‘mixed martial arts?’” Mary said that phrase like it was a dirty word. “It’s like Shannon all over again…”
The mention of that name prompted Kelsey to shoot Mary an icy glare. The new arrival returned the tense, wordless stare before Rebecca interrupted Mary with a playful shove.
“Whoa; I can’t possibly be to blame if Shannon found out that she enjoys being the one getting squeezed, bent, and slammed.” ‘Becca shrugged coldly. “It’s totes not my fault that most of the action is MMA rather than boxing: the internet doesn't wanna watch two girls make out while wearing mittens.”
“Ugh, that's the point: I don't wanna make out with anyone...” Mary complained as she looked on.
“Not until they’re bleeding and whimpering…” the sultry blonde protested.
Mary answered that accusation with a smile before changing the subject. “Wow: they look even worse here than boxing. It’s like watching two kids flailing in a ball pit.”
“Yeah, like you trying to wrestle.” Kelsey sniped.
“Or you trying to box, puta sucia.” Mary fired back.
“Ladies… don’t make me play peacemaker.” Rebecca smiled ruefully. “You know how poorly it suits me…”
Theresa’s eyes watered and her cheek stung, but she wasn’t going to stop now. She had to keep moving in.
Simone’s warning about the difficulty of blocking punches with MMA gloves had proved prescient: her roommate had tagged her twice in the mouth so far without Theresa offering much in the way of a response. She pursued her green haired roommate across the cage, hands up, and successfully parried the next punch. These gloves had a lot less padding than the boxing gloves she was used to, and every punch stung a little more. Jennifer bounced in front of her in that loose stance of hers, firing off punch after punch. Some missed. Some landed on her gloves. The rest hurt. The voluptuous Filipina’s face stung but she just needed to close the gap and wipe the smile of her skinny roommate's face.
Rebecca and Kelsey watched the rookies with rapt attention, trading looks back and forth: there was a vicious smile creeping across Jennifer’s face, growing wider with each unanswered punch.
“Oh my god, she's totes enjoying this…” Rebecca murmured.
“I know right? That's ‘Meanstreak’ for you. Theresa better watch out.” Kelsey watched the woman she’d taught you box a few weeks ago score with a crisp jab.
“Everyone better watch out. I can't wait to get her back here for the next Friday session, Kelsey. She's gonna kill.” the blonde beamed.
“Sounds like you've found a new project, ‘Becca. I can't imagine Katie will be too happy to hear that though” The slender fighter vividly remembered the last woman Rebecca had seen potential in, and what she was up to now.
“She had her chance. She knows what she did.” Rebecca spat.
Jennifer’s fists kept flying until the stout brawler answered back with a heavy right hand to Jennifer’s pale stomach and her roommate backed off for a bit. Theresa wanted to chase her until she heard Simone’s voice saying how her kicks were longer than her punches. That… made sense to her.
On the next exchange the Long Beach native threw a jab that just missed but then followed it with the round kick she’d learned minutes earlier. She was almost surprised when it connected with her lanky roommate’s hip, painting a grimace where a smirk had been. Comforted, Theresa charged ahead, digging a wide hook into her roommate’s body and then kicking her again. The rotation of the kick was still novel, and she only managed to catch Jen’s calf that time, but it was something!
The curvy brawler walked toward Jennifer with impunity, daring her lithe roommate to stop her. To her surprise, Jen obliged. The Seattle-born sophomore dashed toward her, eager to tie up those wrecking ball fists. Jennifer grabbed one of her roommate’s wrists but ate a pair of right hooks before Theresa broke her grasp, sending Jennifer stumbling to the mat. Undeterred, Jenn rose and charged. This time she started with Theresa’s right hand, punched the voluptuous brawler in her face a few times, and corralled her other arm after a brief struggle, a loud complaint, and several more punches to her side.
No crop tops for me tomorrow
Whatever, now she had her. The sophomore tried to recreate the exact motions that Rebecca had shown her earlier and sure enough, she lifted Theresa’s thick thigh and drove the Filipina biology student onto the mat, making sure to try and land directly on her. “Hope I didn't hurt you too much, Theresa; ready to give up? It only gets worse from here” she menaced.
“Get bent, Jen. This doesn't even hurt. You're just sharp and pointy…” her curvy roommate spat back.
Jennifer McCowan stopped for a second to think: she was still on top of her squirming roommate, but..
What next? All of this grappling stuff was new to her. They just let you stand back up in boxing.
Jennifer tried to remember the cool stuff Rebecca had done to Simone. Someone inside the cage yelled “Hit her!” and that was enough. Still tangled up with her thicker roommate, she leaned heavily on her and dug short hooks into Theresa’s stomach, drawing a grunt from her roommate each time. She remembered Rebecca moving around until she was sitting on Simone; the wiry brunette tried to extricate herself and follow suit. Instead, Theresa clutched her roommate closely, leaving Jen with little to do except squirm and throw ineffective punches. Then she slipped an arm free and remembered the one tactic both of her mentors had used in their rounds.
“Stop grabbing my breasts you perv! Cut it out, Jennifer, that's weird” Theresa groaned.
“Mmm, make me!” Her roommate cooed, her hand still cupping and rubbing Theresa’s impressive chest.
“C'mon… that's not… quit it! St- oww!” Her waning protests were pierced by a sharp groan when Jennifer transitioned from fondling her roommate to punching any soft spot she could find. Theresa immediately changed tack and wrapped her arms and legs entirely around the boundary challenged white woman.
Jamila looked at the two scrabbling novices and shot a look of confusion and disgust at Simone, who replied with a silent shrug.
“Yup, she was definitely trained by Kelsey alright…” Jamila remarked bitterly before interrupting the cuddle fest and helping the two fighters back to their feet.
“Neither of you actually know what you’re doing down there, so let's stand up and try again. This is mad depressing…”
Restarting the session had a sobering effect on the pair, who approached tentatively, neither willing to make a mistake. Jennifer resumed her strategy of long, leaning jabs, menacing her roommate. She found modest success, tempered by her flagging stamina. They traded there in the center of the cage: Jen continued to set the pace with long lancing punches while Theresa mixed kicks into her deliberate, heavy, close range offense. Jen tried to tie up Theresa every time she approached, forcing her stout, shorter roommate to spend time and energy shaking her off. As they broke from another clinch though, the Long Beach native raised her gloves, leaned away from a jab, and ducked under a particularly languid followup from Jennifer.
Time slowed down for Jennifer as she watched her roommate slip beneath her outstretched arm. The sophomore replayed her mentor’s unheeded advice about proper punching form and how to prevent this exact scenario. She promised to remember it next time. For now she was helpless and could only watch Theresa unload a clenched fist right into her unprotected jaw.
Woah. Wow. No thank you.
Jennifer’s vision blurred briefly and she saw stars, or bright lights, or something. Whatever she was, she hoped to not make it a frequent trip. She brought her hands to her face; she really just needed a moment to stop and clear out the cobwebs.
Just a second, please.
Then a troubling realization hit her harder than the punch had:
Goddamit, my stupid fatass roomate is gonna knock me out again! How? Is she just better than me? What did I do wrong? I don't wanna look like a loser in front of Kelsey and ‘Becca.
Jennifer shut her eyes tight and screamed internally while she awaited the knockout blow that would usher her into dreamland.
She heard a loud thump and assumed it was the sound of a fist colliding with her face, accompanied by raucous yells.
I don't… hurt? I feel nothing? Am I unconscious? Is this what that feels like?
The humanities major opened her eyes and instantly understood: Theresa hadn't just missed, she'd flubbed another kick entirely and fallen on her ass again. Jennifer definitely heard someone in crowd yell derisively about “fucking newbies” and blushed in shame.
We probably do look pretty stupid right now.
She dove on top of her roommate anyways, fists flying; this was her chance to turn straw into gold. She landed a few vicious shots until a panicked Theresa caught one of her arms and bucked her hips wildly. The pair rolled over on the mat, a tangled mess of flailing limbs desperate for dominance. Theresa finally ended up on top and elected to catch her breath instead of return the abuse. She pressed her voluptuous torso onto her roommate and tried to pin her down enough to keep the Seattle hipster from catching her with anything substantial.
“Get your fat tits off my face!” Jennifer menaced
“Make me! Or better yet, grow a pair!” Theresa spat back. “What happened to you trying to grab them earlier? I’m just giving you want.”
Their erstwhile referee wondered whether to cut this session short and intervene: this had steadily devolved into something ill-natured and malicious, not to mention moves like that still made her uncomfortable. She struggled to believe Simone that these two were roommates and friends when the gloves were off.
Moments before Jamila called a halt, Jennifer squirted free of her roommate and instantly tried to tackle Theresa again, dragging the thick Filipina striker back to the mat. This time, Theresa managed to wrap her legs entirely around her roommate's torso. Jamila smiled; she could recognize a closed guard in her sleep. Believe it or not, Theresa had finally made a good decision on the ground: from there she'd taken away most of Jennifer’s methods to hurt her. It was a pity Theresa didn't know a submission or a sweep from that position on her back: she had Jennifer right where she wanted her if only she knew she wanted her there. As it was all Theresa was doing was squeezing Jennifer's slim waist between her ample thighs…
Remind me to explain “guard position” in Jiu Jitsu to her.
The pair struggled there in Theresa’s grappling guard until the alarm on Kelsey Liao's phone announced the end of the round.
The pair stopped and shared a tense stare. It would be a few more seconds before Theresa actually let go, or before Jennifer would offer to help Theresa to her feet. They stood and regarded each other warily before the plump fighter caught her roommate in a great big hug.
“Nice job! That was crazy intense, Jennifer. So cool!”
Jennifer responded in kind, the ire draining from her voice.
“That would have been so cool if…”
“I know right? Or if…”
“Right? Next time…”
Their excited exchange was interrupted by Simone draping an arm across either of them, congratulating them. The pro fighter was obviously excited by what she'd seen, amateur though it was: Jennifer’s jab was developing into an actual threat, and Theresa ducking under her cross was brilliant. Simone joked about Theresa’s kicking prowess before Jamila grabbed Theresa away.
“So you know that part at the end where you had your legs around her?” Jamila exclaimed. “That's good! That's guard! That's Jiu Jitsu! I can show you what to do next; you can actually win the fight from down there next time.”
“Wait, I can win while I'm on my back? Like how?”
“Choke her unconscious! Threaten to break her arm! Get creative. Come to Binary Star and I’ll show you myself.” The excited grappler offered.
“That's Simone’s gym right? I think she mentioned it.” Theresa’s eyes were alight with possibility.
“Hell yeah! It's lit! There’s so much you can learn, Theresa. Come check us out!”
While they conversed excitedly, Jennifer's two mentors were congratulating her on how quickly she'd actually pulled off a takedown. Jennifer couldn't hide how much she'd enjoyed the feeling of being on top of another woman, raining down punches. It was different than anything she felt while boxing.
Rebecca commented on her strength, or lack there off, and the freckled brunette agreed; maybe this would be the thing to get her in the gym for something else besides yoga and cardio…
The only woman unimpressed by their showing made her opinions clear to the rest of the cage’s occupants. Mary Ramirez wasn't one for tact or softened sentiments: the two girls looked new, green, clumsy. Why try to learn all the facets of some new endeavor when they had barely scratched the surface of boxing? As far as Mary was concerned, MMA was a fad, a sideshow to give talentless sluts like Kelsey something to do. The surly Latina made sure to call out her mentee Theresa for her sad attempt at grappling and her bouncy new stance.
“You box right?....” Simone asked her, trailing off when she realized she didn't know this new woman’s name.
“Mary. Mary Guadalupe De La Cruz Sanchez Ramirez” the boxer recited proudly. “And yes, I fucking box. Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Mary stepped to Simone, a mere inches from her face and looked her in the eyes. The young black woman let a wide smile blossom on her face. Theresa watched the staredown horrified that a fight might break out here and now while Kelsey rolled her eyes at Mary’s hyper-aggressive machismo.
“I'm the only one here the world cares about, lowkey. I'm the problem everyone’s tryna solve. I'm not the plug but I am handing out that work. I knock women out, professionally. I'm Simone Waterson. If you don't know, you prolly don't matter.” Simone beamed, clearly enjoying herself. “You talk a lot of shit, Mary, about boxing and the real way to fight. Well I don't wrestle; I'm a kickboxer. Put up or shut up. Come catch these hands, same day delivery.”
“Pause. Hold up, Simone” Her bespectacled training partner stepped between them, a light in her brown eyes. “Let's you and me go a round then.” Jamila offered to the muscular boxer. Mary had a few inches on her but was significantly shorter, thicker than Kelsey was, and Jazz already had a plan for the fight building in her head. “I don't get a chance to work with boxers like you often, and I'm curious. Besides, there's way more to Jiu Jitsu than just laying on people.”
“Bring it, fatass. You wouldn't last a round. And then afterwards you can call the coast guard to roll you out of my gym and back into the ocean…” Mary challenged, never one to refuse a fight.
“Ehh, Rebecca ran her mouth too. She said basically the same thing and somehow ended up unconscious.” Jamila shrugged. ”So I'm not gonna worry too hard. But I will give you this: if you're looking for someone to rub your ass and nibble on your ear, I'm the wrong one. I'm more of a ‘punch you in the face and bend your arms in ways they shouldn't,’ kinda girl. But I’m nice, and I’m nice with it, and I'll let you know when to tap out to avoid serious injury.” Jamila pushed her glasses up her face and began stretching in preparation for another training session.
“Ha, so you're a warrior. None of this softcore shit. I can respect that. I'm still gonna lay you out, but I'll respect you while I'm doing it.” The aggressive pugilist grinned like a knife while she slid on her MMA gloves.
The next session had officially been decided. Maybe these fighters Rebecca had mentioned might provide some fun after all…
#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts
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