Feinting Spells 2-3
=============================== Mid October, That Year ===============================
A gym just a few blocks away from a sunny California university held amateur fights every few weeks: boxing, submission grappling, mixed martial arts, whatever the participants were willing to agree to. Undergrad and graduate students, staff, faculty, and even locals all turned out to see how far their fists would take them, or to cheer on the willing fighters. Tonight was one of those nights...
The 1st round of the night’s second fight had just ended and the patrons now found Rebecca Meyers skipping around the ring as an impromptu ring girl, flaunting her curves and flashing seductive looks to guys and girls alike. Her expression curdled into mild disappointment as the alarm tolled to start the second round. She slid out of the ring as the two rookies stood up to resume their grudge match…
The two boxers advanced straight towards each other this time, no feeling out period necessary. This time however, when the lanky white fighter threw a looping overhand right it landed on her roommate's newly tight guard before she grunted in pain as a white glove struck her below the ribs. Theresa shuffled forward and let her other hand go, landing again to the body and eliciting a whoop from the crowd.
Now it was Jennifer’s turn to try something new. She leaned away and threw a jab, but the awkward angle robbed her punch of its power as it landed on her roommate’s face. The Southeast Asian shuffled forward mostly undeterred, planting her feet to fire another stiff left that landed between Jennifer's elbows and below her sports bra.
Whoa.
That. Hurt.
The pale brunette retreated, firing more token punches from her back foot as Theresa shuffled straight towards her, sweaty and tired but smiling meekly for the first time since the fight started.
Jennifer’s coach shouted something unheeded as the second year communications major with the short auburn and green hair reset her stance, intent on regaining the upper hand. Theresa had been there, flabby and slow and hittable the entire first round. What’d changed?
She took a deep breath and knifed two jabs between her roommate’s gloves and into her face. The pair of shots robbed the stocky brawler of her nerve, her guard suddenly tight again. That's more like it.
She’d scored nearly at will with the jab, but boxing was tiring, and Jen found herself unable to maintain the blistering pace she established in the first frame. Now as she attempted to put some more oomph behind her follow-up, she instead found Theresa’s single answer to the body again as the force of the blow nearly folded the Seattle native in half.
Jen backed away and reset again, and the two first time fighters silently agreed to repeat that dance in the middle of the ring for the next 30 seconds as the crowd cheered on a suddenly competitive fight.
Jennifer McCowan grunted in frustration: she couldn’t seem to hurt her stocky roommate like she had earlier, and those white gloves she was getting hit with hurt. She found herself struggling to breathe between punches. Throwing punches seemed so easy last round. What changed? She thought she heard the voice of her trainer, yelling something, but she couldn't make it out over the sound of her pulse in her ears. She bit down on her mouthguard and grimaced: just how long was this round anyways? Winning was fun. Boxing was tiring.
Theresa felt much better than she had at any point in the last 10 minutes. This felt… doable. Tough, tiring, but possible. She was still getting hit, in the face even, but her roommate’s punches weren’t nearly as scary when they were coming one or two at a time, and Jen scowled and grunted every time Theresa hit her; seeing her stupid skinny early bird special sciences roommate in pain was its own reward. She wanted to keep going; more than that, the stocky Filipina sophomore wanted to win!
The short haired outfighter clipped her with a glancing right, but she caught the languid followup on her elbow. Theresa took a deep breath, and pivoted into a wild haymaker that sank deep into Jen’s side. When her taller foe didn’t fire back, even after Theresa took a moment to breathe, Theresa Bayan did the logical thing and hit her again. That punch got her attention: Jennifer clenched her eyes closed and turned partly around, sticking the palms of her gloves out towards her in an amateur attempt to stop the assault.
The crowd roared; they’d seen that one plenty of times from new fighters. Next came the referee stepping between the fighters to prevent someone from getting hit in the back of the head. Tim Barnes sent the suddenly competent body punched to a neutral corner, and then made sure she stayed there, before towards the other fighter: she was startled and clearly not enjoying herself very much but looked capable of finishing out the fight, or at least the round. This seemed like a good time for a standing 8 count…
Jennifer was officially not having fun anymore. Her abs hurt in a half dozen indiscriminate locations that all seemed to blend together. Breathing sucked. She really didn’t like getting punched, it turned out. When she opened her eyes she found the ref looking at her, waving her in, counting for some reason. When she walked towards him, he grabbed the wrists of her gloves and looked her in the eyes.
“Are you ok?” “Yeah” she mumbled, looking away. “Look at me; do you wanna keep fighting?” Jennifer mumbled another affirmative response, locking eyes with the ref this time. “Don’t turn around during the fight. Keep your hands up. Fight back or I’m gonna stop it, ok? She muttered her positive response, and Tim, satisfied, resumed the fight an instant before the bell sounded to end round 2, the complexion of the fight having changed dramatically over the past two minutes.
Back in her corner, Theresa’s trainer had a whole new set of instructions: “Move forward” “She really doesn't like defending. Punch her please. In the stomach. Hard.” “Great job out there; having fun?”
The shy biology major nodded: her trainer seemed less panicked than she’d been two minutes ago. Theresa’s face still hurt and she was really tired, but she could understand the appeal of a fight with rules and strategies and stuff. She might even be winning! When her lanky roommate didn’t move around so damn much she was kinda easy to hit, and Jen’s punches didn’t feel so scary when they were only happening one at a time. She was thankful that her roommate wasn’t particularly strong…
“Did you hear anything I said since round 1 ended? Goddamn, what the hell? I’m am not losing to Mary…“ In the other corner, Kelsey was livid: her rookie fighter had suddenly decided to fight the exact wrong fight, standing and trading with a stocky body puncher instead of sticking and moving like they’d discussed.
“Shut up. Tell me how to go back to punching her in her big stupid face.” Jennifer was in no mood for a scolding. She knew the problem. What was the solution? Her trainer took a deep breath of her own before answering tersely. “Well, sweetie, move. Do not stand in front of her. Move. Throw a jab, and a cross. Not a hook, not an uppercut. A cross. Then move back and to your right. Punch, then move. You are not gonna win if you let her wail on you like that. She is strong. You are thin and fast. Stop letting her hit you, for the love of God.” Kelsey finally noticed her hands gripping Jennifer’s shoulders tighter than she'd intended when the referee called the fighters back in to start the third round.
The crowd cheered a fight that had produced more excitement than first time combatants had any right to. Already they’d seen a first round knockdown and a second round standing eight count. Both women shuffled out of their corners, gloves low and breathing hard even after the break…
Jennifer scored first at the edge of her range, stopping Theresa in her tracks. Jen scooted back and reset her stance. Theresa’s right eye was beginning to swell after two rounds of jabs. That was all the positive reinforcement she needed to keep pelting her roommate with lancing straights and jabs. Theresa couldn't keep walking forward forever, right?
Tired but eager, her opponent came straight ahead, hands slightly higher this time. Jennifer leaned to and fro, searching for a place to strike, sliding backwards all the while. Her jab landed harmlessly on her roommate’s gloves, but if Theresa could to the body then so could she. She bent slightly and fired a right that landed below Theresa’s purple bra. But her exhausted legs didn't wanna come back up, and by the time she'd jerked herself back into a fully upright stance, Theresa’d recovered another to wallop her with a hook to the body that made her briefly nauseous.
Jen quickly abandoned her idea of going to the body, convinced that her current level of exhaustion of exhaustion made all but the most necessary movement untennable. She realized now that she totally shouldn’t have skimped on that cardio regime her trainer had come up with. Who’d have known boxing would be so tiring?
That dalliance behind them, they’d settled into a pattern familiar to the locals:, the lanky boxer firing a straight punch or two and backing away while the short slugger lumbered forward, hoping to minimize the damage until she could get close enough to fire back. The relative lack of excitement dampened the crowd, until Jennifer McCowan slid back again and found the cold leather of the ropes cutting off her retreat…
The crowd came alive to cheer the impending fireworks as the inexperienced out-fighter ran out of real estate and Theresa resumed the final portion of her strategy: keeping her hands by her temples, daring her roommate to find a way to hurt her, and responding with one demoralizing shot to the body at a time.
Jennifer yelped as another hook smashed into her and involuntarily contorted her. “Dammit!” She yelled, tired and sore and frustrated at her lack of success. She shifted to her left, towards her trainer’s frantic voice, eager to find a way out and back into the open ring.
Where did the fun go?
Theresa didn’t want to give her the chance. The Filipina’s sheepish smile belied her mounting exhaustion. She’d chased her roommate across the ring once and didn’t think she’d be able to do it again. IF there was a second wind it’d come and gone already. Panting, She threw a pair of short punches just above the belt and leaned onto her roommate, pushing her along the ropes and to the corner. Jennifer was too tired, too tall, too thin to offer much resistance and slid, panting, the short distance along the ropes until a new set halted her movement in that direction as well. She cursed audibly again and the crowd made their bloodlust clear.
With barely a foot of space between them, the trapped fighter fired a short volley of black leather and then watched most of it glance off Theresa’s forearms and white gloves. Theresa didn’t retreat an inch, but instead pivoted into a hard right that sank deep into Jennifer’s stomach. Theresa’s gloves looked like big marshmallows attached to her arms, or maybe pillows, but to Jen they felt more like rocks. The besieged boxer’s arms sank, and she didn’t offer anything in return before a hard right to her jaw knocked her briefly senseless. Her vision blurred, her ears rang, and she retreated again out of instinct only to find the padded corner post waiting for her, offering no reprieve from the white leather onslaught. Two alternating hooks to the body knocked the wind, then her mouthpiece out of her, and her thin freckled legs finally gave way, buckling beneath her. The lanky sophomore felt to her knees clutching her aching stomach, ready for this whole boxing endeavor to be over.
Holy shit. She’d done it! Theresa Bayan had rallied to put her roommate on the canvas in the third round. She wanted to celebrate, but dammit if she wasn’t as tired as her roommate was right about now. She settled for a small fist pump and then let her arms hang by her sides. Tim the referee sent the curvy slugger to a neutral corner and then made sure she stayed there, before turning around and checking on the downed fighter. She was clearly in pain, forehead on the canvas. still grimacing and clutching her ravaged abs. He considered calling the fight off then and there but Rebecca’d asked, told, commanded? him before the fight to make sure and count for all knockdowns. That woman, with her wild eyes and frequently changing hair choke, scared him, so he counted.
“One”
“Two”
“Three…”
Jen heard the count, and she might even be able to get up, but what was the point? Everything hurt. Everything sucked. This sucked. She was tired and definitely not having any fun. Her face hurt, her ribs hurt, breathing hurt. The crowd was too loud and she hated hearing them cheer as she got her ass kicked.
She moaned before finally pushing up onto her hands and knees, watching as sweat and blood and tears fell past her and onto the canvas. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her own blood. She shook her head: this was stupid and she didn’t want to do it anymore. She looked up at the ref and shook her head at him as he counted.
“Nine”
“Ten! You’re out!”
The ref called for the bell as Jen’s trainer, Kelsey, slipped between the ropes to go aid her…
The rest of that night sped by for both fighters, from the official announcement in the ring, to brief medical examinations backstage, to wrap up discussions with their trainer-coaches, to the empty time and space after. Theresa milled about, achy and bandaged up but loathe to let tonight end. She won! She beat up her roommate!
Yay?
It sounded kinda … barbaric in her head, cruel even, and it was hard to consider it a win when she was still holding an icepack to her head and anticipated being too sore to exist tomorrow. Maybe she’d watch some of the other fights? She’d heard that Rebecca was supposed to fighting tonight as well; she’d even heard whispers that her RA would be fighting a guy: Rebecca was something else entirely, and not just because she’d setup their fight…
Those liquid thoughts evaporated when she caught sight of her roommate moving through the crowd. She’d recognize the short shock of dark brown and vibrant green hair sticking out of that blue hoodie anywhere. She called out, entirely unsurprised when her roommate didn't turn around, and followed the figure towards the front door of the gym.
She called out again, to no avail. Of course not. She braced herself and broke out into a mild jog, lightly regretting each step. Tomorrow would be miserable. She called out again, put her hand on Jen's shoulder, saw the bruise on her roommate's jaw. It caught her by surprise, took Theresa a second to remember that she'd put it there.
Maybe fighting hadn't solved anything at all
Jen declined to make eye contact, let alone talk. What was there to say? They spent a moment trapped in that silence before Theresa spoke, tripping over her words, pushing her glasses back up her nose.
“I just… I wanted to say… I guess, I'm sorry. I don't know, things got outta hand, and I got caught up in the moment and..”
Whatever ferocity she'd summoned during that fight had remained in the ring. Now she was once again just Theresa Bayan, sophomore biology major, sheepish and small, searching for something to say to make all of this ok…
Turns out she didn't have to.
“It's… ok.” Came her roommate's reply. “I mean, it's not, but I get it. Rebecca basically blackmailed us, and one of us was gonna lose. Not gonna lie, I was hoping it'd be you, but.. I got caught up too. I said some shit I regret…” Jen looked away again, biting her lip.
“So uhhh… you… wanna head back to the dorm? It's kinda chilly out here.” Theresa was soft, timid again, a nerd from Long Beach who could never find exactly the word she wanted.
“Sure thing, Theresa. But first..” Jen looked up, hazel eyes suddenly serious. “what would you say if I told you I kinda liked it? Like, up until you kept punching me in the ribs, I was having a good time. Even the training and stuff, kind of.” Her voice trailed off as she looked up towards the moon in the warm yellow glow of their streetlight lit boulevard.
“Oh?” was all her roommate could muster before the Seattle native resumed.
“I guess I'm saying I wanna do this again sometime. Do you wanna learn how to box with me? Maybe even get into another fight? Does that sound, you know, crazy?”
Her roommate took her hand, grabbing it with both of hers, and looked up into Jen’s eyes, matching their excitement, their indecision. “I was afraid you'd never ask!”
Find shorter thoughts at https://c.im/@NaClKnight