Stone's Cage

by Rebecca Ryan

  "When's the last time you did it."

  "Two months ago. But I did it for someone else. I did it for me. For the money."

  "And why does Shreves want you to throw the one tonight?"

  I flip the switch up on the blender so I don’t have to see the disappointment in her face, and I can buy a minute before answering her. I flip the switch down.

  "If I throw this fight, then it proves I'm Shreve's boy again, that I'm this," I touch my forearm where the tattoo is. "And the odds at forty to one. Pretty astronomical."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means if Shreve bets a thousand dollars, he'll walk away with forty K. There's no middle man at these cage fights."

  She starts pacing with the kitten in her arms. "But I don’t understand. How do you throw it? How can no one see that you're doing it?"

  "It's really hard to prove." I pour the shake into the glass.

  "What's your cut?"

  "I get a kickback. Usually ten percent, but it's all negotiable."

  She shakes her head and I wish she'd just drop it.

  "I still don't see how you fake it—"

  Leaning on the counter, I take a deep breath. "You don't. You throw punches that don’t land hard and you make it easy for the other guy to mess you up."

  I expect her to yell. To scream at me and tell me I'm a bad person. That I am unethical. That would be her word. A highbrow word for what I am: a cheater. But what she says shows she puts more faith in me than I have in myself.

  "But you must have a good reason then."

  You must have a good reason then. This girl is killing me.

  Standing on tiptoes she wraps her arms around my neck and starts to step back but she presses forward and kisses me, her lips warm and wet on my mouth and a moan comes from someplace deep in my gut. With one arm I lift her so she doesn't have to stretch.

  When she breaks the kiss, she presses her face next to mine.

  Taking a deep breath, I decide to tell her what I've told no one. Not even Coach. "She has MS. It’s the least I can do."

  Lily pulls back and stares at me.

  "Who? Your sister?'

  I nod. "Cassie."

  "MS? You mean multiple sclerosis?"

  A block of ice settles in my stomach. I can’t speak for a moment so Lily takes up the conversation.

  "That's a good reason. That's a really good reason," she says and kisses me.

  "She can’t work full time now, so I have to get her more money. Its progressive."

  Now Lily is wiping my face with her hands, stroking my hair, kissing me between sentences, helping me get this all out. Finally. I tell her everything. Everything.

  How I've been throwing fights for the last eight years to send money to Cassie, first for medical bills and, then, for support. How I am the reason she lost everything: we two were all that was left of our family and I screwed that up. How all I want to do is make it all up to her and I never will be able to. Lily curls herself around me and at some point Tig settles in my lap, and we three sit for a very long time saying nothing.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lily

  He's dozing on the sofa. Glancing at the stove top, I see the clock is broken, so I reach into my jeans and pull out my cell phone. Five ten. As I stretch to leave it on the end table, I wake Stone and he rubs his face with one hand as Tig jumps to the floor.

  "Sorry," he says and clears his throat. "I've been trapped inside myself a long time. I'm not used to talking about Cassie. Or what happened. Or throwing fights."

  I snuggle closer, kiss him slowly, softly and now I moan as the dynamic changes and his tongue moves with purpose, deep, and he holds me in his arms. His body is warm. My crotch is suddenly wet, hot, and I want him.

  "Please, let's do this," I whisper. I gently tug at the bath towel and the tender part of his obliques quiver when I touch him along his groin. Pulling the towel back, warm and still damp, his cock is massive, slick with precum. I may have technically been a virgin, but I know what do with this. The tip throbs against the flat of my hand when I reach for it and then I lick my thumb and move it over the velvet surface. Stone gasps and tips his head towards the ceiling, his ribs moving as he breathes deeply, unevenly, inhaling through his nose, out his mouth. I kiss him again as soon as he exhales.

  Suddenly he takes my hand off him and stands, moving to the back of the sofa and I want to swallow him. Swallow him whole. As he stands there, his buttocks tighten when I take my hands and cup each glute. Now he groans again and leans backwards, supporting himself with his arms on the edge of the sofa. The towels still drags underneath him and I step between his legs, shove them apart with my thigh and kneel down.

  Looking up at him, I open my mouth.

  "Oh my God Lily, you're so beautiful," he manages to say before I take him and the sentence ends with his mouth open and his eyes closed. His penis tastes salty, musky and I love how it fits in my mouth. I take a deep breath and watch him. His biceps quiver with the effort of maintaining his position and his chest flinches with every stroke of my mouth, his breath rasping, guttural, and sexy. His hips begin to thrust and I hold him still, gripping with one hand behind, the other on the tight panel of his groin. Running my tongue down the back of his frenulum he shudders, gasps and grips the sofa even harder. I take a fingernail and stroke his taint, his balls curled tight.

  "I want you," he says between breaths. "I want you."

  Releasing him, I say, "You have me," and begin again, this time, my mouth firm around his cock, pulling hard. He throws his head back even farther now, his body, long, tense, curving towards the ceiling. Stone says something I don’t understand, and I reach up with one hand to soothe that heaving chest. His nipples are rock hard.

  "Lily," he whispers and then takes a big draught of air. His exhale comes even more shaky when I slide him in again, this time, my mouth moving across the velvet tip to the small hole where my tongue dances in and round the divide of his glans.

  His legs shake. This man, this huge, complicated man is letting me in him. All of him.

  Releasing his cock, I rise, and let my hand take over, my left arm behind him, holding him and I can feel his heart thundering in his chest, his breathing ragged. Then he takes my forearm and, just like that, like with the kiss, the dynamic changes.

  He slips both arms around me, kisses me and his hand snakes under my blouse. My own nipples, already hard, are sensitive to his touch. He strokes my neck, my throat, and now its my turn to arch back, and my sex is so slick and wet it aches. He takes my arms and holds them behind me, my wrists in one of his massive hands while the other hand stokes my breasts and he licks them with his tongue. My thighs quiver.

  He reaches for a drawer in the end table and takes out a condom.

  "Stone," I gasp. "Just take me now." I try to struggle free, but he has me in his grip and it's so delicious to be here. He trails his tongue up my throat and then kisses me, drawing my breath with his and at the moment I think my legs will fail me, he suddenly picks me up with two hands, and slides me onto him.

  "Fuuuuck!" I say on the exhale and take another breath.

  "Now we're even," he says and, standing, he starts thrusting deep into my sex, hard and high and we are face to face, those burning blues taking me all in.

  He thrusts, rhythmically, watching my face and suddenly I know I'm going to come, I can feel it welling deep, deep inside. As my body begins to go ridged, he holds the back of my neck as I come, arching, wave after wave, my vagina quivering and buckling in ecstasy and at the apex, I feel him come inside me too. He grips my shoulders, curls slightly, his head on my chest and his legs, still supporting the two of us, convulse with each clutch of his orgasm.

  Slowly, we finish, and he slips from me. Wetness runs down my leg.

  "Stone, put me down," I say. But his eyes are closed and his heart still beats hard under my hand. "Stone. You can put me down."

  As his eyes open, he slides me off and I stand.

  "
Well, that was unexpected," I say, trying for levity.

  He shakes his head. "Not really." Picking the towel up from the floor, he wraps it around his waist again, as if forcing some sense of modesty. I'm looking at the dull hardwood floor, trying to remember when my pants came off.

  "It's almost six," I say. "When's the fight?"

  "Eleven," he says. "But I've got to come clean to Coach."

  I rumple his hair. "Don’t think about that right now."

  "I have to," he says, and leads me to the bathroom.

  I watch as he runs water in the sink and he uses the end of the towel to wipe us both. I know I will miss his smell.

  "I have to come clean too," I say, and he stares at me.

  His jaw sets. "Did you go back to Jimmi's?"

  "One of the Hooks did shoot my brother."

  I will never forget the look on Stone's face.

  "Promise me you'll never go back there."

  "I know you're mad."

  "Promise me," he repeated quietly.

  "I had to go and—"

  Now his voice is steely. "Promise. Me."

  "I promise," I say, knowing I have to figure out a way to keep it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Stone

  I sit Coach down in his office, with the door closed. Other guys are

  slamming it out in the ring, or on crappy weights and rusted out equipment. As soon as the door closes, he knows something is wrong. Coming clean with Coach is never easy. First, the guy has a face like granite so he's fucking hard to read. Second, he's never impressed with the women I pick up. So when I start talking about Lily, I'm used to his unflinching face, but not the quiet. He usually has a lot to say about everything.

  "What are you sayin' there Stony? That she's special?" he finally asks.

  "Yes. Yes, she is. Very special."

  "And she's not from around here? From the streets?

  And now I have to shift from the "who" Lily is to the "why" she is here.

  "No. She's not. She's a college kid who dropped out to find out who killed her brother."

  "Well that doesn’t sound good."

  I shake my head. "He wasn't in a gang. He was caught in crossfire. Remember that college kid?"

  Coach stares at me. "Sammy Watson?"

  The guy's memory is amazing. "Yeah, that's her brother. She found out from someone that the Hooks did it."

  Rubbing his head he looks at the ground. "So that's why she's here," he says more to himself than to me.

  As we rise to step outside the office to train, I take a deep breath. There's more, and he is not going to like it. As he tapes me up, I I tell him about the fight.

  "You're not throwing the fight," says Coach with such calm faith it annoys me.

  "You're not hearing me. I've done it before. And I have to do it. It was the only way to get Lily out of there."

  Coach rubs the back and top of his bald head. "Right. Right." He pauses. It’s like he still doesn’t get it though. "What would happen if you didn't throw it? What'da'ya think Shrevey would do?"

  Dancing up and down on the balls of my feet and throwing air punches, I think back on a collage of beatings, gang rapes, knives and two bullets way too close. "What the hell do you think he would do?" I swing at Coach. I'm hitting hard and he's suited up with strike pads and holding shields. He says nothing. Forty-five minutes later, sweat is pouring off me. He knows when I need to talk and that training is the best way to get to me, but this time, I didn’t need a warm-up. I jumped right in.

  This time, he's the one who needed time to speak. Finally he weighs in.

  "Do you know why I call him Shrevey?"

  I shake my head and feint to the right, landing a blow to Coaches right arm.

  "'Cause he hates it," he grins a half grin. He puts his arms down. "Stop. Stop. Shake your legs out."

  Keeping my legs moving I rip off the Combat gloves and start the third water bottle.

  "I'm telling you. Don't throw it. Every time you do, it eats you up. You could go legit."

  I take out my mouthguard and set it on a towel and tell him the thing I've waited so long to let him know. "I don’t want to go legit."

  Coach doesn't say much. It's almost as if he doesn't hear me.

  Then he turns to me. "I scraped you up off the streets," he says, though he won’t look at me. "I dusted your white fanny off and trained you and I've been putting up with your shitty fights all with the idea that one day, maybe one day, you'd go legit." He takes the water bottle from my hand. "Good luck."

  "Coach, I—"

  "That's all I've got to say. And for a girl you went and got yourself retrieved. I worked so hard to get your ass out."

  "I know, and I am grateful and—"

  "Shut up and fight, you fucker." But there is something in his face that tells me he's worried, but not about the fight.

  The crowd is seedy, turning the gym a nasty shade of pathetic. Coach wouldn't let me help him lock up all the equipment that's moveable and, therefore, steal-able: weights gloves, ropes, clamps—all that shit had to go in the back office. Then he uncoiled the cage, the chain ink fencing and tied it into position around the circular pad. This unauthorized gym league was below the Underground. It’s not even an official fight—it’s street fighting and the rules of no groin, no eye gouging, no punching to the back of the neck or head and all those other measures of sportsmanship are off the table.

  But bets are on.

  I banned Lily. Told her not to come. I don’t ever want her to see me like this. To throw a fight and make it believable means you get the shit kicked out of you. There's a lot of money riding on this, tens of thousands of dollars, and if I do it right, I'll walk away with at least ten, maybe twelve K. But is has to look real. Like I really lost, otherwise the bets are all off, and I'm probably dead.

  Glancing out the office door, I see the ref checking the cage. I don’t know the guy, dressed in black, a big white guy with a long red beard, thick, freckly arms and neck, and a scar down the middle of his head. Probably weighs two seventy-five. A whistle dangles around his neck, mocking the noise level in the place. There's no way we'll ever hear him blow it unless it's right in our ears.

  Coach sits off to the side across from the other coach, two middle aged points marking a diameter. I slip in my mouthguard, throw up my hood and listen to the crowd roar when we each step out.

  Fly looks good. He's been training up and he won’t look me in the eye. That's typical. You want to win, not make friends. I spot Shreves in the crowd with Juice and a few more of the Hooks. It feels surreal. And then, from the corner of my eye, I see a ghost in the office window.

  It's Lily. What the fuck. Stepping to the cage, I yell at Coach just to be heard, but I'm careful not to point in her direction.

  He shakes his head, leans toward me and yells, "She's very persuasive." He starts dabbing petroleum jelly on my face. It helps make the punches slide off. That's the theory anyway.

  I glance at her. Her eyes are wide behind the glass. I can tell she's terrified. This girl has never seen a fight.

  "She bet on you to win," he says in my ear, flips me around and slaps my on the back. But there's little real encouragement. There's no handshake. I know he's pissed.

  I size up the crowd and realize I don’t recognize any of the three judges either. There's no National Anthem.

  The bell rings. Usually, I breathe out Cassie's name to focus. This time, I'm nearly done when I realize it's Lily's name that's grounding me.

  We start.

  Fly kicks hard and high, and I dodge, making sure his feet don’t land near my head or neck. Then there's an opening, and I land a blow to his left arm and he knocks me up against the cage. Blow after blow comes as he tries to get me off balance, and I strike hard at his face and back. Then comes a knee, but I catch it, slam it down and throw him off me.

  I'm not awash in an adrenaline rush yet. I can still feel pain.

  In a second, I'm back, slamming him up against t
he fence, my head down, then Fly twists and lands a hard punch to my side, hoists me up and I wrap my legs around him, tight, hard. He's breathing in my ear and then slams me to the ground on the back of my neck.

  I don't let go.

  Using my hips, I fling him off me and stagger up just as he kicks hard by my head again. The trick is to get hit below the eye. If you get hit above the eye, the swelling and blood blocks your vision. His foot lands above my ear. Warm blood trickles.

  But the rush has kicked in and I can’t feel anything. All I know is I've got to make losing look authentic. He kicks again at my head and I go down, but as he comes in again, I twist up and knock his leg out and fall on top of him. He's got a forearm up against my windpipe. The ref can’t see it, or if he can, he's not calling it. I start to choke, spit flies from my mouth. I twist and push away. The crowd doesn't buy it.

  Bell rings. Round 1 is over.

  I go to stand at my station. Blood is pouring from the gash above my ear and Coach rips open a pencil to stop it. He's all my cornermen as usual: trainer and cut man. He pours water on a towel and rubs my back.

  "Are you still doing this?"

  There's thirty seconds left on the clock.

  I squint at him.

  "You're a free man, Stone." Coach leans in and whispers fiercely in my ear. "I got the gun that killed Monica Knight and her brother. That's how I got you out, you asshole. Shreves knows it. You fight like you mean it. It's not worth throwing. Don’t fuck with your ticket out."

  The bell rings.

  This time, I'm without a compass. I can't take in what Coach just said. I push questions aside and refocus. I have to fight. But to win? We fight, we wrestle, we each land a few, he bleeds from the shoulder and cheek, I take an illegal punch to the back of the head. The guy's an ass. Fly really wants to win but he's no sportsman. He gets called on that as I'm kneeling, trying to get my bearings. Once I'm back, time starts on the clock and we separate again, though this time the ref has to pull him off me at the end of Round 2. I still can’t see Fly's eyes. I'm pretty damn sure he's high.