Description
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Mid October, That Year
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Jennifer McCowan wasn’t wearing anything that would be out of place at a gym, but the few times she went to the gym to run, everyone else wasn’t there to watch her have a fist fight with her roommate. She looked herself over in the dressing room mirror, turning to get a better look at her profile; tall and slim, she was wearing her favorite pair of soccer shorts, high cut and blue with aquamarine and yellow stripes. She’d never been so self-conscious how skinny they made her legs look, pale and freckled despite the best efforts of the Southern California sun. She barely tipped the scales at 112 lbs. and owed her flat stomach to that more than any actual attention paid to her diet or exercise. It certainly didn’t hurt though. Her eyes wandered north and she sighed; the same low body fat percentage that produced her slim physique also gave her little in the way of cleavage, a fact unfortunately emphasized by her bright turquoise sports bra. She pushed her breasts together, well, as best she could with these big bulky black boxing gloves on. The woman who’d helped tie them assured her that they were her size, but Jennifer couldn’t help but think they looked comically oversized on her. She was thankful that her pixie cut naturally stayed out of her eyes, faded streaks of green still evident in her auburn tresses. Standing in front of the mirror, wearing what felt like basically nothing, Jennifer suddenly felt very small, very frail, and very nervous about the next 10 minutes of her life. She hoped this wouldn’t end up on Youtube somehow. She-
“Hey, Jen, let’s go!” shouted Kelsey, the upperclassman who’d helped her with the preparations. She’d peeked inside the dressing room to find Jen staring off into space. “The first fight just finished; time to show them what you got!.” Jennifer turned around with a start, shaken from her introspection. When the older girl saw the apprehension in her eyes, she placed a warm hand of Julie’s slender shoulders. “You sure? Maybe we should have agreed to wear headgear after all. Maybe we-,”
“Listen,” Kelsey said warmly, “You’ll be fine. You look great; she’s probably more nervous than you are. Just take a deep breath, remember why you wanted to fight her in the first place, and try to remember some of what we taught you. Think about why you got so angry at her in the first place and just keep hitting her. Keep hitting her and let the ref break it up.” She repeated, as she playfully slapped the brunette on her ass and sent her on her way to the ring, following close behind her
Theresa Bayan was nervously tapping her borrowed white gloves together when Jen finally made it out of the locker room and moved slowly towards the ring. She tugged anxiously on the purple shorts that were already starting to ride up: she hadn’t bought new ones since she started college, 18 months and 20 lbs ago. At least most of it had gone to her hips and thighs, or her newly full boobs, though she'd pulled her baggy ruining shorts up to try and cover as much of the tawny tummy threatening to spill over the front and sides of her shorts. The junior who'd given her lessons and helped her change rubbed her shoulders lightly, hoping to relieve her rising tension. “Calm down, calm down, you got this. She's shaped like a lil bitch: one good shot to the ribs and she won't wanna play boxing anymore. She's not strong: walk her down, keep your hands up, and let her have it. Get angry, Theresa,” Mary advised as the Filipina gritted her teeth.
The skinny Seattle native climbed onto the ring apron and slipped before catching herself on the penultimate rope, turning red with embarrassment before clambering between the ropes with the aid of her impromptu trainer/cornerwoman. She tapped her gloves together softly, finally accustomed to their heft after her numerous training sessions after class. She locked eyes with her roommate and tried her best to look intimidating as their RA moved in between them, a tall shaggy haired college student behind her.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rebecca announced with a voice that filled the room, “We got ourselves a grudge match! I wanna introduce Theresa and Jennifer: two ladies here for the first time, but hopefully not the last, am I right? These two are roommates who used to be best friends, but now they can't stand each other. But there's nothing like a good fight to make amends, right? We’re gonna let them fight four rounds unless someone quits before that.” The modest crowd that’d gathered around the boxing ring cheered the impending violence. Rebecca turned back to the neophyte fighters. “Alright ladies, time to settle this like women: it's go time!” as she motioned to the man who'd entered the ring with her. We decided that as much as I’d like to, I shouldn't be your ref ‘cause I'm technically not a neutral party or whatever,” Rebecca admitted with a shrug. ”Ugh, my friends are such a hassle sometimes. With that said, Tim, can you do the honors?”
Their ref stepped forward sheepishly, seemingly hesitant to involve himself in their awake.
“Theresa, Jen, keep your hands up at all times, fight till the bell or I stop you, keep your punches above the belt, and try to have fun beating each other up please? You'll fight for four rounds or till one of you quits or can't get up or can't defend yourself anymore. Wait for the bell and come out swinging, ok?” He meandered through the instruction as if remembering what to say only moments before it left his mouth. The two fighters touched gloves, and traded final insults before retreating to their corners for mouthpieces and final bits of advice.
When the bell rang to start the fight Rebecca watched with unrepentant glee as the two young women approached each other, gloves up and hesitant. They circled warily and well out of each other's reach, pawing at the air in front of them, gradually spiraling towards each other- like binary stars on a collision course.
Jennifer lashed out first, a wobbly right hand that nonetheless caught her Filipina rival flush on the cheek before the fighters pulled out of reach again. The 30 or 40 students and friends in attendance roared their approval. Encouraged, the lanky Communications major threw a jab and followed it with a lunging right straight that knocked Theresa’s head back.
“Keep your damn hands up!” her trainer Mary yelled. Theresa tucked her arms into her sides, gloves in front of her face and backed away slowly, desperate for the cobwebs in her head to clear out. Jen gave her a precious few seconds before the thought of following her and throwing more punches occurred.
At ringside, Rebecca couldn’t help a chuckle as she put a hand to her forehead. “Fucking rookies, my God…”
Theresa caught her foe with left hook to the body as she approached, her first significant punch of the fight. She threw a followup right, though the smiling brunette caught it mostly on her gloves before returning with a right of her own. Theresa retreated again, shuffling backwards while throwing infrequent and inconsequential punches as the white boxer walked her down, beating her up with long straight shots. Boxing felt easy and even kinda fun when she could just punch someone without having to worry about being hit in return. “You kinda suck at this.” she taunted.
Theresa’s trainer shouted increasingly frustrated advice, mostly to the tune of “keep your hands up” or “throw more punches,” but none of it seemed to have any effect. If only she could get this girl to just put some leather out there like they practiced.
Theresa was having a miserable time: her roommate kept punching her and she wasn’t sure what exactly to do about it. The punches didn’t hurt too much, but there were so many of them: every time she gathered her thoughts enough to throw a punch of her own she found herself eating more black leather. Mary kept yelling at her to do stuff but it may as well have been in a different language for all the sense it made. While considering this, another flurry caught her in the eye, then the mouth. This wasn’t much fun. The crowd roared their approval, but the only sound Theresa understood was Mary yelling “MOVE.” She wanted to comply but her legs felt heavy, slow. Well, slower than normal. Another shot across her jaw scrambled her thoughts. She could feel her pulse pounding in her chest and tried to move somewhere, anywhere but body, tense and panicked, had other designs. Instead, her feet tangled up and she fell back on her butt, sitting against the ropes. Then the crowd yelled even louder and Mary said a different four letter word.
“Take that you fat loser!” Jennifer yelled, almost spitting out her mouthpiece in the process. She jumped up and down, fists pumping, and was absolutely bemused when Tim, the referee, came over to her instead of counting out her stocky Filipina roommate. “Go to the corner” he said, his voice much more stern it’d been before the fight. “What?” came her reply.
“I don’t start the count till you go to the corner. Go wait over there.”
“But what about-“
“We can argue here, but I don’t start counting till you wait over there”
Jennifer wanted to protest but the look in his eyes suggested that was futile. She acquiesced and trudged over to the empty corner, turning around to find her roommate up on her feet already. Theresa was sweaty and tired and breathing heavy, but that was how Jen always imagined her pudgy roommate.
Theresa looked over at the timer on the wall. It read 00:17, which meant she’d probably maybe at least make it to the end of the round. This suuucked When the ref asked her if she still wanted to keep fighting, she honestly considered shaking her head and ending all of this. It sucked, she hurt, and this seemed like a lot more fun before she started getting punched in the face. Frankly she wasn’t sure why she nodded to the ref and seemed to surprise the both of them when she verbally affirmed that sentiment. “Then throw some punches please,” he replied, brown eyes flashing a look of concern. She nodded as he backed away and restarted the fight. She glanced nervously at her corner as the referee backed away.
“Tuck your arms in like we practiced!” Mary yelled. This one made sense to Theresa; she could do that at least.
Jennifer sauntered forward, hands low, high on confidence and eager to resume the beating. She threw a few straight lefts and rights, mere arm punches that did little but push the plump Filipina back towards the ropes again. Jen followed, leaning left then right, and finally decided on a left hook. Before it found its target however, a surprising straight right hand from her roommate made her eyes water and sent her staggering backwards as the alarm went off and the round ended. Positively insulted that Theresa had the audacity to interrupt her, Jennifer let that look creep across her face before turning around and stomping back to her corner, fists balled up and at her sides.
“Calm down, please” her trainer chided. “How do you feel?”
“Great! I can’t wait to get back out there. I wanna knock her out! She sucks!”
“Calm down, alright? You walked into a stiff right at the end of the round. Keep your hands up and throw punches with your legs”
“Do what now?” Jen replied, cocking her head to one side.
Her trainer briefly facepalmed. “When you throw a punch, bend your knees and turn your hips. Keep throwing straight punches, don’t get too close, and keep your feet moving, ok?”
Jennifer nodded, but Kelsey worried if she’d actually heard any of her advice…
In the other corner, Mary was trying to get her battered fighter ready for the next round.
“You wanna keep fighting?”
“You’re ok. Keep breathing.”
“Keep your hands up”
“Throw straight punches to her body”
“Move forward”
“Keep breathing. Take deep breaths”
Theresa nodded at everything her trainer said. Truth be told, she was more tired and embarrassed than hurt. She was scared of getting beat up in front of a crowd. She might lose, but she at least wanted to show how hard she’d worked.
As she rose off the stool for the next round, Mary grabbed her shoulder to look her in the eyes and say “Serious though, you’re both new. You’re stronger than her. Bend your knees and punch her in the body right now. Promise?”
With another nod Theresa put her hands up and resolved to try.
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The next chapter of Feinting Spells, and the first to be accompanied by illustration. Shoutout to for the artwork!
We've finally got a fight on our hands as these two college sophomore roommates begin, reluctantly, to settle their feud in a boxing match!
Jen took round 1 fairly convincingly; can she cruise to a KO win?
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