by Lana Hartley
And that’s fucking right in case you just clenched your thighs together. I’m Hunter Bradley. That 6 foot 3 inch specimen of fucking man with the fucking sinewy and sculpted muscles. With the lean face and the mysterious fucking eyes. With the 12-inch cock that swings between my legs like a fucking foot long trouser snake.
That’s right, I'm the Hunter Bradley. The bad boy boxer of the sports world. Breaking faces in the fucking ring. And breaking hearts outside.
The ref is holding up my arm. Shit, it’s already been ten seconds. I must've lost fucking count. Guess you could say I got distracted talking to a fucking pretty lady.
That’s you, darlin’.
But you know that, don’t ya? You know that if you were standing next to the ring right now, it’d be you that I get down from the ring to kiss.
I mean, don’t look at me like that, like I don’t fucking care. The whole fucking fight lasted less than 45 seconds. In tomorrow’s newspaper they’re going to say that the fight was over before it really even began. That I had administered my famous Hunter’s ‘Spring For The Kill’.
Whatever.
All I care about is that I won. Everything else is just stupid fucking bullshit.
As it is, there is no one waiting for me and I make my way toward my changing room. They gave me a pretty nice studio to get ready in and I need to fucking get away from all the fucking cameras and media circus that’s enveloping the MGM Grand right now.
It’s not just that I don’t care much for the media circus.
I just loathe it.
To be completely fucking honest, I need to be as far away from that crowd right now as possible. The media and the preening is good, when it’s needed. But I just fucking won. What else do they need me there for, ya know?
I’m happy to see you’re coming with me though as I make my way through the corridors toward my room, decorated with a giant star on the door. I can fucking see it. So fucking close.
“Hey Hunter,” a sultry voice says from outside my field of vision. I turn my head and see perhaps the most fucking dangerous thing in the world right now—a hot woman after a boxing match. After a boxing match that I just won.
Where I prepared by focusing on nothing else. Where I gave up fucking.
Guess what I’m thinking of fucking doing to her right now.
That’s right.
I don’t even have to fucking say it.
She seems familiar, I think to myself as she saunters over to me. Maybe I fucked her before?
“Thirty three seconds against the big Russian and you knocked him out,” she purrs. I can smell her. I lick my lips. I can almost taste that sweet pussy in my mouth. I want to ravage this woman. She scrapes her nails across my chest.
“Do you think you could last more than thirty three seconds with me?” There’s lasciviousness in the question and my eyes glint. She gives me a look of pure lechery and my hand reaches over and grabs her by the ass.
I squeeze her ass cheek and she sighs loudly, coming close to me.
I can smell her. She’s wet. Horny.
They all are when they meet me.
I push her into my dressing room and kick the door closed with my foot.
She doesn’t even need words for what I’m about to do to her.
Natalie
“Just one article, Ed, that’s all I’m asking for.”
“Natalie,” he says, taking a long puff from his cigarette, “we’ve already been through this. People don’t care about that kind of stuff, and we’re in this business to sell newspapers. Last time I checked, we weren’t doing it to change the world.”
“I know that,” I protest meekly, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I watch as Ed exhales the smoke out through his nostrils, finishing his cigarette and then crushing it on the overflowing ashtray sitting on his desk. “But I think that good journalism can help the Gazette sell some --”
“No,” he grumbles, reaching for the red carton next to his keyboard and fishing out another cigarette. Perching it up on the corner of his mouth, he lights it up and takes a long drag, the smell of it making me wince.
“But --”
“I said no,” he repeats, resting one hand over his shirt, his overgrown belly stretching the fabric thin. Turning his attention to his laptop screen, he waves one hand at me dismissively, and I know that this meeting is over.
Sighing, I turn on my heels and start making my way toward the door when he calls my name. “Hang on,” he mutters in that hoarse voice of his, a product of decades of smoking like an industrial chimney. “Maybe there’s something you can do.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. Don’t get your hopes too high, kid, I still ain’t taking you out of the sports department.” Flicking the burning ash on the tip of his cigarette, most of it landing over the documents covering his computer’s keyboard, he then looks at me as if he’s sizing me up. “Can you handle something more longform than news articles?”
“Longform?” I ask him, not really sure what he’s talking about. Most of my days are spent writing short and snappy news articles (most of which don’t even end up on the print version of the newspaper, they just make it online), and the word longform has really made me perk up my ears.
“Yes,” he nods impatiently, leaning back. His chair creaks as he pushes his weight against the back rest and, for a moment, I almost think he’s going to fall back. He doesn’t, of course; he just keeps on staring at me with his beady eyes, his gaze cutting through the constant cloud of cigarette smoke that covers his office.
“Well, uh… What do you have in mind? I can handle longform,” I assure him, even though I have no idea what kind of job he’s thinking of. Either way, it has to be better than writing all those fluff pieces about athletes on vacation.
“How familiar are you with Hunter?” he asks me after a long silence, finishing his cigarette and burying it in his ashtray.
“The boxer? He just defended his title last night and --”
“I know who he is,” he growls impatiently, looking at his carton of cigarettes as if he’s thinking of going for another one; he decides against it, though, and just drums his fingertips against the surface of his desk. “What I’m asking you is, can you handle an article on him?”
“Definitely,” I reply with a nod, doing it so fast that I think I might’ve pulled a muscle in my neck. Truth be told, I don’t know that much about Hunter or boxing, but Ed has just thrown me a lifeline; I sure as hell am not going to waste it.
“Okay, good. What about Logan?”
“The light heavyweight champion? Yeah, I know who he is,” I tell him, even though all I know is that his name is Logan and that he’s a boxing champion, and just like Hunter, he’s hailed as one of the best fighters to ever grace the ring.
“That’s the one. Do you think you can handle a profile on these guys?”
“Do you want me to start profiling boxers?” I ask him, not really sure what the interest in these guys is. Sure, they’re two of the best paid athletes in the world, and they’re two households names… But why the sudden interest in the boxing world?
“I didn’t say I wanted you to start profiling boxers,” he growls, slapping his thigh with one open hand, the jowls under his chin quivering as he does it. “I want you to profile Hunter and Logan. They’re the ones that matter.”
“Alright, I can do that… What kind of piece do you have in mind?”
“Something well-researched, long… and juicy,” his lips curling into a thin veiled smile as he says that last word. “I want these profiles to sell newspapers, capisce?” He asks me, his tone making him sound like a don of the Italian mob. “You do that and I might give you a chance at a different kind of story,” he continues, waving his hand at me again, telling me to leave his office.
“Thank you, Ed!” I reply, not sure if I should feel excited about it. Are boxers even that interesting? Oh, why am I complaining? Sure, this might not be the project I’ve always dreamed of but
, hey, it’s a start!
Marching out of his office, I close the door behind me and take a deep breath, sending a rush of clean air into my lungs. I don’t know how he manages to spend all day inside his office; he smokes so much that there’s a perpetual curtain of foul fog inside it.
“Is Edward inside?” I hear someone ask behind me, and I look back over my shoulder to meet the steely gaze of a man in his seventies, a scowl on his face. Despite his age, he’s the complete opposite of Ed; instead of fat and with a slouched posture, he’s elegant for his age and stands tall, so much that he looks like he’s always looking down at the world. He’s wearing a black tailored suit with a blue pocket square, and there’s something so intimidating about him that I just feel as if I’m half my size.
“Mr. Moreau,” I cry out, taking one step back. “Yes, Edward’s inside,” I tell him, replying to his question with an awkward mumble. I had already seen pictures of him, but I had never seen the owner of the Gazette in the flesh.
“Good,” he says flatly, opening the door to Ed’s office and stepping inside. Behind him trails a much shorter man with a buzzcut. He’s also wearing what looks like a tailored suit but, unlike Mr. Moreau, there’s no scowl on his face. Instead, there’s a discreet smile, as if he knows something the world had no idea about. He has a pale scar that goes from his chin to the corner of his mouth and, even though it isn’t that noticeable at first glance, it really adds to his disconcerting smile.
“BACK TO WORK!” Ed shouts at me from the inside as he watches me standing by the door. Snapping my heels together, I get out of his line of sight and make my way back toward the sports department offices.
Natalie
Being a journalist has always been my lifelong dream.
Even when I was just a little kid, no older than ten, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. There was something about journalists that drew me in; they were part artists, part detectives, and the romance of the job was too appealing for someone like me to resist.
When I started college, I was no different than my peers, filled with lofty idealistic dreams about changing the world. I know it’s a cliché, but I wanted to make a difference. As you well know, though, real life is never as pretty as the plans we make toward the future.
Still, I got lucky. I landed a job at the Gazette just one month out of college, and I thought that I was on the road toward becoming what I always dreamed of. I wanted to do serious journalism, tackle the big issues facing society, and I thought that working at the Gazette was the way to do it.
One year later and I’m still in the small cramped offices of the sports department, writing short snappy articles about athletes on vacation and their newest girlfriends. When I’m not doing that, I’m covering events, checking results, and reporting on stuff that’ll make absolutely no difference to anyone. Instead of changing the world, I spend most of my day updating the Gazette’s Facebook and website, constantly pumping out a never ending river of drivel.
Welcome to the 21st century, where dreams come to die.
“So, are you going to tell me what Fat Ed wanted?” Michelle asks me, throwing a spitball at me. It hits me straight on the forehead and then falls over my desk. Looking up from my laptop, I watch as Michelle prepares another spitball, crumpling the paper between her thumb and index finger. She has her feet up on her desk, and she looks like she doesn't have a care in the world.
Even though she’s a few years my senior, she still behaves as if she's never left college. If you ask me, the Gazette just crushed her soul to the point she simply doesn’t care anymore. Okay, maybe I’m being unfair; I don’t think Michelle ever cared about anything. She likes taking it easy, and nothing ever seems to phase her. And thank God for that… If it wasn’t for Michelle, I’d have gone insane a long time ago.
“Fat Ed wants me to write a profile on Hunter and Logan,” I tell her, turning a pen over my fingers distractedly. If you’re wondering about why we call our Editor-in-Chief ‘Fat Ed’, that’s because no one really likes him around these parts. More than being fat, he’s always rude and obnoxious to everyone under him on the hierarchy; he’s just like a fat tyrant, perched on his throne and barking orders.
“A profile? On these two?”
“Yeah… He told me that if I made it juicy, that he’d give me a shot at different material. I have no idea what I can do, though. I mean, they punch people for a living… I’m not sure if there’s a story in there.”
“That’s a lot of pessimism, even from you,” she yawns, throwing her new ball of paper straight at my face. This time I duck it just in time, and it bounces off the wall and falls on the floor next to the archive drawers. “Profiling these guys can’t hurt. Besides, have you seen them? They’re hot,” she proclaims wistfully, leaning further back on her chair and staring at the ceiling.
“You’re right… It can’t hurt. Even if their profiles turn out to be boring, I won’t be worse off because of it. Worst case scenario, I’ll go back to tweeting live scores.”
“It’s always a world of joy with you, isn’t it?” she yawns again, raising both her arms up and stretching her back.
“You know me,” I whisper, pushing my chair closer to the desk and resting my hands over my laptop’s keyboard. If I’m going to do this, I might as well start right now. “Alright,” I mutter, typing Hunter’s name and pressing Enter.
I spend the rest of the afternoon going through whatever I can find on Hunter and Logan, and I do it until my eyeballs feel as if they’re on fire. These two seem like the typical star athletes—fame, women, and money, but there doesn’t seem to be any angle in their lives that I can really explore. They’re the best at what they do, everyone agrees, but there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special or interesting about their upbringings. Sure, a few interviews and some digging might reveal one or two interesting facts about them, but I don’t think that --
Hang on.
There’s something weird about these guys. I’ve spent the last few hours going through every single article I could find on them, and one never really mentions the other. That’d odd, isn’t it? These are the two best fighters in the world, but they don’t even seem to acknowledge the existence of one another. Most sports thrive on rivalry - especially boxing - but there’s nothing between these two.
“Michelle…” I call her, looking across the office. She’s hunched over her desk, tapping her index finger against her phone repeatedly, and it looks like she’s playing some kind of game. Productive as always. Ah, well, not that I can blame her—the sports department is probably the most boring one in the whole Gazette.
“Yeah?” she asks me, never taking her eyes out of her phone.
“Is there a big difference between, uhm, heavyweight and light-heavyweight?”
“Not really,” she replies casually. “Just a few pounds difference. Why are you asking?”
“Well, isn’t it weird? Hunter has been the heavyweight champion for quite some time now… And Logan is the undisputed heavy-lightweight champion in the word. Why haven’t these guys fought yet? Everyone says they’re the two best fighters in the world… You’d guess the fans would love to see them go at it.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely. Most people would love to see them fight, but they never really sounded interested in that,” she shrugs. “They’re probably afraid of each other. Either way, they keep to their weight classes and keep out of each other’s way.”
“That’s weird…”
“Do you think there might be a story in there?”
I don’t reply to Michelle. I’m staring at a photo of Hunter on my laptop screen, one where he’s holding the heavyweight belt over his head, a tired but victorious expression on his face.
I don’t know if there’s a story in there, but I sure as hell am going to find out.
Logan
“Jab! Uppercut! Jab!" Rocco yells.
I'm moving my feet and hitting the pads fast as beads of sweat zigzag down my chest. I'm dancing arou
nd the ring, delivering blows faster than a buttered bullet.
"That's it Logan—like a fucking lion—keep your eye on the prize!" Rocco's been my trainer for years, and he keeps me moving like a well-oiled machine.
Just as he says this, I swing my rear hand forward, delivering a powerful cross that clips Rocco on the bottom of his chin. Despite his protective headgear, he stumbles back on his heels, dazed from the impact.
I give him an appreciative bow, keeping my back straight and bending at the waist. In Japan, it's considered good etiquette to bow. The deeper the bow, the greater the respect. And Rocco deserves all the respect in the world.
"Fucking hell, Logan—that was one hell of a swing," Rocco says.
"Who's next?" I say, looking around the gym for my next sparring partner. I may not have my next professional fight lined up yet, but that doesn't matter. I need to stay sharp. Champions never sleep. No matter what, I'll be ready for the next fight that comes my way.
"I'll give it a go," a young man says, stepping into the ring. He places a red rubber mouth guard in between his teeth and chews on it nervously. Then, with both fists up, we begin the dance that boxers know all too well—a crouched, tense, and focused dance of wills.
Immediately, he steps close to me, closing the distance between us. He's bouncing and bobbing erratically. I've seen this style of fighter before. He's trying to overwhelm me out of the gate with constant pressure. He's short for a boxer, and doesn't have a long reach, so it makes sense that he wants to fight me in close proximity. He gives two quick jabs, but I dodge them. Then he unleashes a flurry of hooks and uppercuts, but I'm able to maneuver out of his reach and I throw a haymaker that knocks him off balance.
He grins. "Well played."
"I'm just getting started," I say, still bouncing on my feet.
"I never said I was tired."
"Good." I smile. I like this kid's tenacity. He's got grit. I'll give him that.
Looking at this kid somehow reminds me of my father.