by Kent, Julia
I hate this. Hate it. I want it gone. I should look for another job. Get away from the whole thing.
I feel hands on my shoulders. I’m about to go full rage when I realize it’s Lani.
“Hey. I get it.” She walks me over to a bench. “Heck, I think half my best training came due to upset.” She tugs at the gloves. “Let’s get these off.”
I tear at the Velcro with the mitt. I have no idea why she’s being so nice to me. I haven’t had a true girlfriend since about seventh grade. I don’t know how to act.
“They’re a little sweaty,” I say as I hand the gloves back.
She laughs. “I’d expect that.”
I want to ask her about the bimbo comment, but I don’t. I’m broiling in my hoodie. It’s just us, so I go ahead and pull it off to reveal the barbell shirt. Lani’s still wearing a lot less than me.
Lani stares up at the cage. “I saw the pictures of Brittany the Bombshell.” She huffs out a little laugh. “She came here to work out. The press follows her everywhere.”
I just sit there. My hands are red and mottled from punching.
“Colt is something, isn’t he?” Lani says. “Anyone would fall under THAT spell.”
I pick at my sweatpants. I wonder if everyone knows everything. Probably half the members here have figured out that the gym rat has a thing for the star fighter.
But I remember what I felt that morning. That determination. My whole life I’ve had these sudden bouts of rage. But waking up, I knew for the first time I could do something with it. It’s what Colt saw that day. He’s made me see it too.
“Do you fight?” I ask Lani.
She smiles. “Not really. I mean, I’ve trained. But it takes a special something to actually get in the ring.”
“Colt, when he is in there,” I point at the cage, “he does more than hit. He kicks. And sometimes they wrestle.”
“Mixed martial arts is exactly like it sounds. Mixed.” Lani stands up. “There’s the boxing.” She throws punches at the air. “And the kickboxing.” Her leg comes up in a clean straight line.
“Then there’s Brazilian jujitsu and Muay Thai too.” Lani moves into unfamiliar positions, her hands like arrows, one knee rising.
“I don’t know what any of that is.”
She sits by me again. “There’s a lot of styles. If you have a good trainer, he will identify your strengths and come up with a fighting method that works.” She cocks her head at me. “Are you going to fight?”
I shake my head. “Oh, no. I’m just trying to figure all this out.” I pop up off the bench and head to the weights, even though I know there is nothing to do back there.
“Hey!” she calls out.
I turn back around.
She’s opened the door to the cage. “Since you’re dressed for it, come on up here. I can show you a few starter things.”
I glance back at the door to the main weight room. Still no sound from there. The place is empty. I should check with Buster, see if there is something I should do. But instead I move toward the stairs. I’ve never been in the ring.
The gym looks different from inside. The mesh breaks everything up. I flash for a moment to a crowd outside it, yelling and cheering. Cameras pop, the light diffused by the pattern of the cage walls. I can see myself here. It feels right.
Lani faces me, hands near her jaw. “So always practice with your hands in a defensive position, like this.” She waits for me to copy her stance.
“Good.” She steps up and changes the height of my hands. “There.”
“The first pattern to get you strength is this.” She kicks a leg forward, brings it down, pivots to the side, and kicks again sideways.
I try to copy her, but my feet get all tangled. I can’t remember which one to step where.
Lani laughs. “It takes practice.” She stands beside me so I don’t have to mirror her. “Kick, foot down, step back, cross BOOM.” She lands a side kick. “Just one side for now.”
We do the pattern several times.
“You got it. Now with the left.”
I can’t seem to do it backwards. She moves in front of me. “Same pattern, keep going.”
I try again. Kick, down, back, cross BOOM.
A bolt of lightning lights up the high windows, and we both jump. Lani laughs so hard that she collapses to her knees on the floor of the ring. “Now that’s a kick!”
I want to smile, to find an easy camaraderie with her. But it’s all so new. The weight of her expectations for me is heavy, like Colt when he tried to get me to do the speed bag. I can’t push down my fear of failing. I can’t laugh.
I do the only thing I can think of, the pattern. Lani remains seated, watching, tossing out suggestions or adjustments or encouragement. I’m feeling it now, like the rhythm of the bag. My muscles start to burn, but after two weeks of this I know how good it is. You have to break them down to build them up.
Lani goes quiet. I keep the kicks going a bit longer, but the hairs on my arm prickle. Someone else is in the room.
I whirl around. Colt is standing by the door. The look on his face is something I wish I could frame. He’s amazed by me. I can see it. He’s proud. And pleased. No one’s looked at me like that for so many years. I want to weep. I miss my father something fierce. But here’s this man. And he makes me feel the same.
Then my heart turns over, and I realize how different this is. I want everything. I want him to come into the ring. I want him close, pulling me in. I can barely swallow.
Lani squeezes past me to exit the cage. “I’m going to slip out now,” she whispers, but I don’t even look.
Colt doesn’t glance at her either. His eyes are on me.
I don’t know what to do, so I hold on to the mesh with both hands, watching him. He’s not wearing a shirt again, just the blue shorts. When Lani is gone, he comes forward.
I think he’s going to say something and break this intensity. But he doesn’t. His bare feet are silent on the floor, like a cat. He’s coming into the cage.
My back falls into the mesh as I turn to face him. Suddenly I’m afraid. I want him to do something. But then I don’t. He can probably see everything I’m feeling. I’m so inexperienced. I’ve never kissed a boy I’ve wanted to kiss. I’ve never been touched, only groped. Nothing about two people connecting has ever been good for me.
But I have protected myself, never let the worst happen. As Colt steps into the ring and closes the cage door, I realize something. I have always been a fighter.
But right now I have no idea how to fight what I’m feeling.
Chapter Eleven
“You looked great,” Colt finally says. “Who was that teaching you?”
“Lani,” I manage to get out. “Just a member here.”
“She’s got some experience.” He walks the perimeter of the cage, pushing on the poles, like he’s testing it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was nervous.
He’s getting closer.
I realize I’m holding my breath. He looks down at my shoes. “You should take those off. We fight barefoot in MMA.”
I swallow hard and nod. But slipping off the shoes feels like the beginning of getting undressed. I realize I’m in the tight shirt, no hoodie. My heart is pounding in all sorts of crazy places. I pile the shoes and socks against the base of the cage wall.
“Let me see you kick again.”
My legs are warm from the work, so the kicks fly easy. He holds up a hand. “Kick my palm.”
I hesitate, so he says, “I want you to practice aim.”
My brain isn’t sure how to calculate a location for my foot. I sense that I’m going to go wild. But I kick anyway.
I miss him by a mile and stumble backwards to avoid falling.
He smiled. “You were preparing for an impact. That’s a good instinct. Try it again.”
I go back into the basic stance and kick. This time I graze his wrist.
“See, you’re getting it. Again.”
I figure that by the third kick, I better hit it square. I reach for concentration and focus. His hand becomes finely detailed, sharp. I kick my leg harder than any of the other times, hoping to smack him clean away.
And miss entirely and land on my back.
He kneels beside me. “That was great.”
My chest is wheezing. I’ve knocked my breath right out. I’m too embarrassed to move.
“No time to wait on recovery,” Colt says. He grasps my hand and jerks me to standing. “I would have sunk you just now in a match.” He holds his hand up. “Again.”
The off-balance sexiness has totally gone. It’s about the kick, the aim, the hit. Instead of trying so hard to focus, I clear my mind. My brain surely has figured it out by now. How high to go, where to connect. I just have to let it work without me controlling it.
I breathe in and kick.
My foot slaps against his palm. With my mind clear, the pattern I’ve been doing for the last hour is entrenched. It’s so automatic that when my foot returns to the ground, I step back, turn, and land a hard side kick directly to his gut.
He bends over, shocked, his face contorted.
I race over. “Sorry! So sorry! It just happened.”
He laughs, straightening with a painful expression. “You got me off guard. Brilliant.” He exhales a second and looks up at me in a flirty surprised way that makes me go light-headed.
He shakes his head, and then he does the craziest thing. His hands encircle my waist, and he lifts me up. “That was fantastic!”
We whirl in a circle. His exuberance wraps me in a cocoon.
“You are everything I thought you would be,” he says.
The buzz in my body is so loud I can’t hear. Colt lets me down slowly, and I slide along his chest. My shirt slides up a few inches, and a bit of my belly connects with his skin. I’m shocked by it, flaring into a need so intense, I don’t think I can stand it.
My feet make it to the ground. Colt towers over me, chin down. He’s bending toward me. This is it, I think. He’s going to kiss me. It’s going to happen. My heart hammers in my throat.
Then the cage door slams open. Brittany is on the stairs, her face red with fury. “What the hell, Colt? Time to start screwing another little gym rat already? You should pace yourself.”
Her words sink in as I scramble away from Colt.
He’s done it before?
I’m so stupid! This is probably his schtick. Find some vulnerable nitwit and make her think she can fight.
I snatch up my shoes and socks and race down the stairs. My hoodie is on the way out, so I grab it. I don’t sign out, don’t make an excuse. I run for the front door, out into the rain, barefoot, racing, miserable.
Status Jo.
Chapter Twelve
The rain stops by that evening. I still don’t go shopping. Don’t even go rescue the necklace. After leaving without a word in the middle of my shift, I’ve probably lost my job and will have to scrape by anyway.
Zero knocks at my apartment door. I know it’s him by the pattern. He knows I don’t open the door for anybody, ever. So he made up a little secret knock.
I don’t want to get it. We weren’t supposed to see each other tonight. He has a show.
“Jo Jo, I know you’re in there,” he says.
When I open the door, I have to take two steps back. Zero — or I should say, Zerobia — is decked. Smoky black gown. Sleek platinum-blonde wig. Fake eyelashes as big as spiders. Everything sparkles. His lips, his eyes, his dress. Even his shoulders have a glittery sheen.
“Zero?”
He steps inside, extending a ticket. “You’re coming with me tonight.” He glances down at my muddy sweats and frowns. “Once we clean you up.”
I shake my head. “No way. Today was bad. So bad.”
He breezes by me and drops a duffel bag on the floor. “I saw you blazing down the street like a bat out of hell.” He turns around with a runway pivot. “I knew that Golden Boy done did you in.”
I sink onto a chair. “I’m just stupid.”
“Golden boys are the thing to be stupid for.” He perches on the arm of the sofa. “Tell Miss Zerobia everything.”
One thing about Zero, when he puts on the dress, he becomes the woman. Everything about him changes. His voice. His walk. It’s how I was so convinced when we first met. He wasn’t like this, in show form. Just doing a girlie walkabout, as he calls them.
We got to know each other when he was a Sunday morning regular at a bagel shop where I worked. He always came in dressed as a girl, an ordinary girl. Sundresses. Shorts and T-shirts. No over-the-top drag.
One day he came in looking distraught. Normally I didn’t ask questions, just kept my head down. But Zero put his hand over mine when I gave him his change and said, “I wish I was you.”
I remember being totally taken aback. Nobody, not anybody anywhere, ever wanted to be me.
When the shop emptied out, I brought him a cookie. I saw him eyeing them every day. I didn’t realize then that he held back to make sure he fit in his gowns.
“Aren’t you the sweetest thing?” he said.
“Not really.”
He laughed then. “I’m going to be your friend. I think we both need one.”
Zero started coming back to the shop to walk with me after my shift. I only saw him on Sundays. We talked about random things. TV shows. Neighborhood punks. Bosses.
Then one day on a walk, a couple guys came up to us. “Zero, look at you! Are you prepping for the change?”
I didn’t know what they meant.
One of them clapped him on the back. “Let me know when you start the hormones. That’s going to rock your world.”
“And not in a good way,” the other one said.
Zero was crazy uncomfortable and tried to move past.
“Hey, introduce us to your friend!” one said. “He looks like he’s coming along.”
And that’s when I got it.
Zero grabbed my arm and dragged us away. “Jo, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.”
I didn’t particularly care that he was a boy, but me? “Did they really think I was a — guy?”
“That was a really stupid assumption. They just saw me. They know I’m usually gender norm. They jumped to a conclusion.”
God. I wanted to dissolve into the sidewalk.
We stopped and he stepped in front to face me. “You are beautiful. Don’t let anyone tell you anything different.”
My chest hurt. “Is that — is that why you said you wanted to be me that day? Because I’m a girl?”
Zero shook his head. “No. I said that because you are so strong. I want to be as strong as you.”
I didn’t believe that either. But after that, we saw each other on other days, when Zero was dressed like a guy. Sundays he likes to come down slowly from his big Saturday night shows before going back to male clothes.
Zero taps my arm. “Still with us, Jo?” His dress sparkles with every movement.
I lean back in my chair. “Today was bad.”
“What did Golden Boy do?”
“It’s the girlfriend. Apparently she’s caught him with other gym girls.” I cover my eyes, as if I could hide behind my hands. “I was stupid. He must do this all the time.”
“Now wait just a minute,” Zero says. He stands and paces the room with a glamorous stride. “Did he or did he not save you from those boys?”
“Yes.”
“And did he get you that job?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Has he come on to you in any way?”
I think about this. Pretty much all our crashing connections were my fault. Well, until he swooped me up in the ring. “I think he was going to kiss me.”
“Did you want him to?”
I hesitate. “Yes.”
Zero stops his pacing. “Do you know how far you’ve come?”
“No.”
He pulls up a rickety folding chair and sits opposite me. His face is earnest
even under all that glitter and paint. “He’s been good for you. You can see now what a guy can be like.”
“It’s not exactly turning out well.”
“It ain’t over till the bimbo gets a diamond.” He stands up in a whoosh. “I only have half an hour to get you ready.”
“Oh, no. I can’t.”
“It’s a celebrity fund-raiser. Going to be fan-tab.”
“Not feeling it.”
Zero raises his arched eyebrows. “Will it change your mind if I tell you a certain golden-haired fighter boy is on the guest list?”
I jump from the chair. “What?”
“Yes, indeed. Colt McClure will be in attendance to witness my glory.”
My heart hammers. “But then Brittany will be there too.”
“But he’s only going to have eyes for you.”
“I don’t have clothes. And you know I don’t do makeup.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve mentioned that silly play disaster a dozen times.” He hops up and retrieves his bag. “Those elementary school hacks were not me. I’m an expert.”
I back away. “This is probably your worst idea ever.”
“Well, Colt was really just my trump card. The real thing is that I need you.” Zero pouts. It’s hard for me to even see the boy I know beneath the makeup. “That horrid Angel Wild is going to be there.”
“Is he following you?” Angel has a thing for Zero. He loves to say they are perfect from A to Z. The thought of it makes me totally forget that I’m upset. I want to giggle just imagining the six-foot Angel trying to be all delicate and flirty with Zero.
Zero plunks down on the sofa. “No laughing. He signs up for every show I do.”
I try to sober up. This definitely makes my awful afternoon seem less horrifying. “How am I supposed to help?”
“Just be my arm candy.” He tries to smile winningly.
I’m slowly figuring out what he means. “Oh, no!”
He holds up the bag. “It’s perfect. You’ll get to ogle Colt. He’ll be enchanted by an unrecognizable beauty across the room.”