Punching and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  Jacki put her hand to her face and winced, then looked at me, her eyes narrowed. I was looking at my own fist in wonder. My knuckles were throbbing, my wrist aching. Did I really just hit her? I realized I’d dropped my guard and started to lift my hands again.

  Too late.

  Jacki shoulder-charged me and bore us both down to the floor. I landed under her, gasping as the air was knocked out of me. Jacki’s expression was vicious, now, her lips drawn back from her teeth in an animal snarl.

  I lifted my head, only to have her punch me. It wasn’t as strong as one of my punches—it seemed like she was used to grabbing and throwing, not hitting. But it sent my head towards the concrete and I only just managed to hold it away, my neck muscles screaming. She hit me again, on the other side, and this time it hurt more.

  “Tear her clothes off!” screamed someone in the crowd. There was a sudden roar of approval from all around the room.

  Sickened, I looked up at Jacki. She looked equally appalled, her nose wrinkling in distaste. But then she glanced off to the side.

  Towards Rick.

  I couldn’t see him, but he must have nodded. Jacki punched me a third time and then grabbed my tank top at the base of one strap and jerked. The strap tore free and suddenly my bra and breasts were revealed to the crowd. The hoots and wails were deafening. Jacki’s hands reached for me again—

  A shining aluminum cane shot between us, then pushed her back. She got off me, sullen-faced, holding her jaw. Already, the skin there was starting to discolor. The crowd howled their disapproval as they realized the fight was over.

  “That’s all, folks!” yelled Rick. “That was just a taster. If you want to see Sylvie get hers, be here! Same place! Same time! Two weeks!” And he grabbed Jacki’s hand and raised it in the air in victory.

  She grinned at the crowd and then scowled down at me. I clutched the rags of my tank top to my chest, humiliated and shaking. In those final few seconds, all of the crowd’s male rage had bubbled up to the surface and shown itself for what it really was. And it looked like Jacki and Rick were only too happy to go along with it, if it kept them happy.

  Aedan ran over. For a second, he stood there glaring at Rick, his massive fists bunched, clearly ready to kill him. Al and Carl sidled up to protect their boss but, for a second, it looked as though Aedan was going to wade in regardless.

  I reached up and grabbed Aedan’s hand. “Just get me out of here?” I pleaded.

  With a last snarl at Rick, Aedan pulled me to my feet and helped me to the side room. My legs had turned to jelly and I had to lean on him the whole way. I felt slightly better once we were out of sight of all those male eyes.

  “Let me look at you,” he said. He took my head between his hands, his eyes wide with fear. He probed gently at my nose and I squealed and thumped him on the arm. “Sorry,” he said. “But good news—it’s not broken. Just bleeding. Put pressure on it and it’ll stop.” He examined my cheeks and then my hip. “Nothing too bad here, either—just bruises.”

  Just bruises? I wanted to burst into tears. The adrenaline was receding and the pain was hitting me full force, now. My whole body throbbed and I wanted to crawl under a rock and die. “I’m sorry,” I blurted.

  He stared at me. “Sorry? What have you got to be sorry about?”

  I was breathing in big gulps now. It felt like I was about to start crying, but the hot explosion of tears didn’t arrive. I was stuck in the prickly-faced heaving stage that normally precedes it. “I—I couldn’t hit her. I didn’t know what to do. I messed up.”

  “Messed up?!” He hugged me close. “You did great. Neither of us was ready for that. But now we can be. We know what she’s got. I can teach you how to deal with that, how to fight dirty. She can’t learn to fight like you—not in a couple of weeks.” He squeezed me tighter and stroked the back of my hair. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

  Now I did start to cry. I cuddled in tight against his chest, my face leaving blood on his t-shirt.

  “And you did hit her. Christ, you nearly broke her jaw!”

  I gave a nervous little laugh, but I didn’t feel like laughing. It had all been way too frightening: the brutal aggression; the speed at which it had all gone wrong, when she’d charged me; the cruel, male evil of the crowd at the end.

  I pushed back from Aedan. “Take me home,” I begged.

  He nodded and passed me the hooded top I’d brought with me. I pulled it on over my ruined tank top and we headed for the stairs.

  Aedan

  I pushed through the crowd, acting as a wedge to keep them clear of Sylvie. They weren’t so brave, now that they were face-to-face with her...and me. It was impossible to tell which of the men had yelled the worst things. But all of them were guilty. All of them had, at a minimum, come along and watched. None of them had left in disgust when Jacki had torn off Sylvie’s top.

  I was ready to kill every single one of them.

  I settled for battering them aside, using plenty of elbow and shoulder, and growling at any who resisted. Outside, I bundled Sylvie into a cab and told the cabbie to take us to my place.

  I looked at Sylvie. “No arguments,” I said. “I don’t want you to be alone, tonight.”

  She nodded.

  At my apartment, I showed her to the shower. “Get in,” I said. “Take your time. I’ll get us something to eat.” What I really wanted was to do something nice for her—some big bath filled with bubbles and scented candles and all that girly shit. But I didn’t have any of those things. All I had to offer her was hot water and men’s shower gel. And yet she looked at me as if I’d done all that and more.

  I left her alone to shower. The thought of her naked in there had me instantly hard in my pants but she’d been through too much—I didn’t want to do anything that would make her feel pressured into sex, not right now. So I retreated to the living room and ordered a massive pizza with everything on, and dug some cold beers out of the refrigerator.

  When the bathroom door inched open, it was like a rerun of that time she’d fallen in the river...but so much had changed, since then. She stared at me around the edge of the door, steam billowing out around her, and I stared right back at her.

  Her nose had stopped bleeding and she’d washed the blood away, but she was still red and tender there. Her left cheek had a dark bruise where Jacki’s fist had cracked across it and her right eye was turning purple, the lid swollen.

  Her lip was trembling and her eyes were filled with tears. “How do I…” She swallowed. “How do I look?”

  And I realized that she hadn’t seen herself, yet. The mirror in the bathroom broke a long time ago, after I—

  Well. It broke.

  The only mirror is in the living room, and she couldn’t see it from where she was. And I’d hustled her straight through to the bathroom when we arrived. She hadn’t seen the damage, yet.

  “It’s not so bad,” I told her. I got up slowly and walked across to her, grabbing the best towel I had. She hesitantly released her grip on the door and I slowly opened it and wrapped the towel around her like a dress.

  I guided her to the mirror, stepping behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist for support. Her steps got smaller and smaller as she approached. When she saw her face, I saw her go pale. I thought she was going to be sick.

  “It’ll heal,” I told her as she touched her cheek. She’s never been hurt before, you feckin’ idiot, I told myself. I was used to coming home with a broken nose or a mashed-up lip, back in the day. But she’d always known the same face in the mirror. Now it had suddenly changed. She must not feel like her anymore.

  I lifted my arms and wrapped them tighter around her, hugging her close to my chest. “You’re beautiful,” I told her.

  She shook her head and I heard her breath catch. She was on the edge of tears.

  “Beautiful,” I said. And she was. It broke my heart to see her hurt like this. But it didn’t for one second change the way I felt about her.


  And for the first time, I felt that deep lurch inside, the one where you feel like the floor’s just been pulled out from under you. I’d been thinking about how much I wanted her, but I’d been skating around the other stuff: how much I liked talking to her; how she made me laugh like no one else did; how I’d wanted to protect her from the first moment I met her.

  No. No way. Jesus, look at me—look at my shitty apartment. Look at what I am. She deserves a hell of a lot better than me.

  She turned around, wincing as she moved her hip. “Thank you,” she whispered. And she drew me down into a soft, tender kiss. And for a little while, I let my doubts go and allowed myself to pretend we could actually be together, long term.

  I could feel her naked body through the towel, cool and deliciously soft against me. But before things went any further, there was something I needed to do. I picked her up and lifted her onto the bed on her back. Then I unwrapped the towel, leaving her naked.

  Her eyes widened.

  I held up my hands in defense. “I’m not—Not that. I gotta check the rest of you.”

  She looked chastened...and a little disappointed. “Oh.”

  The way she said it made my cock twitch and strain against my thigh. Damn, but this girl turned me on. “Not that we can’t do that too,” I growled.

  Her voice changed again, a nervous little laugh creeping in. “Oh!”

  I looked down at her. The most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen, naked on my bed, and I had to be halfway professional, at least until I’d checked her over. I took a look at her hip, where she’d whacked it against the wall. There was one hell of an ugly bruise there, purple and green and spreading to cover an area the size of my hand. Ouch.

  I took her ankle in my hand and tried lifting her leg a little, then bending it. She winced, but everything seemed to move okay. I’d been worried she might have fractured something. I tried rotating the joint a little and that seemed okay, too.

  It was difficult to ignore the fact that I’d just opened her legs, and that her naked pussy was right there in front of me.

  We stared at one another.

  She pressed her thighs together. “I want to,” she said quietly. “But I’m not sure I can. I’m too banged up.”

  I nodded quickly. “Gotcha.” And I started to cover her up. Then I saw her blink a couple of times, not quite crying but on the verge. She thought I didn’t want to. She wasn’t up to sex, but she needed that reassurance. She needed to know that I still found her beautiful.

  “There is something we can do,” I said. “Without you moving.”

  “Oh yeah?” she asked softly. “What?”

  I opened the towel again. Her legs were still a little way apart. I climbed onto the bed and lowered my head between her thighs.

  She drew in a huge, startled gasp of air as my tongue touched her lips and flicked up the line between them. I’d always loved going down on a woman and Sylvie had the sweetest, most perfect pussy of them all. Up on the roof had been great but here, with her lying on a bed, I could really go to town.

  I had to be careful to avoid touching her hip, or moving her legs. I didn’t want any pain to distract from the pleasure. I slid my hands up to her breasts and began to gently stroke them, and she groaned. God, they felt so good under my palms, full and soft and with the nipples already hardening to warm, stiff buds between my fingers.

  I traced the shape of each lip again and again, staying clear of her clit for now. I listened to her breathing and felt her movements under my hands. Only when she was panting and gasping and grinding her head into the pillow did I flick my tongue over the hidden little nub for the first time. I closed my mouth around it and sucked and she went wild.

  Very slowly, I parted her folds with a finger and then slid it up into her. God, the warm, silken pressure of her around me, so smooth and perfect. I began to pump slowly at her while I wrote the alphabet with my tongue on her clit.

  I heard her grab the headboard of the bed. Her breathing was coming fast, now, and I could feel her thighs twitching. She was instinctively moving to lock them closed around my head, but her banged-up hip was forcing her to keep them open. In a way, that made it even better. That little bit of helplessness, the fact she had to just surrender to my mouth.

  I added a second finger and curled them into her until I found that secret place that made her groan low in her throat and arch her back. My tongue moved faster, sliding over her clit again and again, taking her higher and higher, then pulling back just before she could reach the summit. I teased her like that for a half hour, until she writhed and cried out my name and finally clawed at my shoulders and begged me. Only then did I speed up my fingers, fucking her deep and circling that secret spot. Only then did I go crazy on that firm little nub, lashing it with my tongue and this time not stopping. Only then did I take her nipples between finger and thumb and pinch….

  She came, rocking the bed and banging the headboard against the wall, her whole body going tense as a bowstring. I felt the shudders run through her, loving the way she arched her back and pushed her breasts up into my hands, the way her pussy contracted around my fingers. At the very end, I moved up the bed and kissed her, my fingers still inside her, feeling the last tremors squeeze me even as she panted against my lips.

  Seconds later, the door buzzer went and I rewrapped her in the towel and left her cuddled there while I paid the pizza guy. We found a position that was comfortable for her—me sitting up in the bed with her between my legs and lying back against my chest—and I fed her pizza like that, and we drank cold beers and watched late-night TV until the early hours.

  Sylvie

  I yawned and stretched and looked at the ceiling, trying to remember where I was.

  Aedan. Aedan’s place. And then the pain returned, throbbing from my hip and my cheeks, and it all came back to me.

  He was still sleeping, spooning me from behind. The feel of his naked body against mine was incredible—hard, warm muscle kissing up against my back, nestled against every inch of me from shoulder to ankle. I wanted to never move. But I had to see.

  I gently lifted his arm off me and slipped out of bed. In the half-light of dawn, I checked the mirror.

  Eurgh! The bruises seemed to have gotten darker overnight, finishing their parade of colors to settle on ugly purples and greens. The one on my hip was the worst, but at least that would be covered up. My face, though….

  I knew I couldn’t show up for work like this. What the hell would I say—that I’d been mugged? I couldn’t be around hotel guests with my face all banged up. My manager would be outwardly sympathetic, but would quietly stop giving me shifts. I’d be branded as trouble. I’d have to call in sick, instead.

  No one at the hotel knew what was going on. I’d told them only that my brother was ill, and that I needed to look after him. A few of the other maids had asked what was happening with me, commenting that I looked different since I’d started training. I’d been tempted to confide in them but, every time I opened my mouth, I’d stopped. There just seemed to be a yawning gulf between their safe little world—the one I used to inhabit—and mine. The only people I felt close to, now, were Aedan and my sleeping brother. And the doctor at the hospital, Heather. She’d spent more time with me than she probably had time for, sitting next to me while I held Alec’s hand. If I came through this, I really owed her a thank you.

  If I came through it.

  I was walking back to the bed when I heard it. A hard tap at the window, as if someone wanted to come in.

  We were five floors up.

  I stared at the ragged curtain that covered the glass. The sound came again. Something hard was banging against the pane. A tree? We were right by the docks—there wasn’t a tree for miles.

  I moved right up to the window, putting my arm over my naked breasts. I told myself it must be a washing line or a cable or something, swaying in the wind, and tugged the curtain back.

  A face stared back at me, pressed right up agains
t the other of the glass. Snow white, with two gleaming, beady eyes. I froze.

  It opened its mouth and screeched at me. I screamed and staggered back, knocking the back of my legs against the bed and landing on Aedan’s sleeping form. He grunted. Outside, the monster was battering at the glass, screeching and....

  ...flapping?

  “Oh,” said Aedan, sitting up. “You’ve met.”

  The thing was still staring at me through the glass. I grabbed the covers and wound them around me. “What is it?”

  He looked bemused. “It’s a seagull.”

  “That’s not a seagull! It’s the size of a—a—“ I tried to think of a big bird. A vulture? A buzzard? “It’s a freakin’ pterodactyl!”

  “Yeah, I think its mother slept with an albatross or something.” He got up and walked over to the window, completely at home in his nakedness, and opened it. The gull—or whatever the hell it was—gave a last screech of satisfaction and then quieted down. It eyed me.

  Hungrily.

  “It’s kind of sad,” said Aedan. “His wing’s weak on one side—I think he must have been in a fight or something. He can fly, but not fast. So whenever the other birds see food, he always gets there last and there’s nothing left.” He dug around in an old pizza box and found a crust, then threw it to the bird. It snapped it out of the air and gulped it down without chewing, then screeched for more.

  I was calming down a little, now. The thing was still huge and ugly and looked like it wanted to eat me, but it seemed satisfied with pizza...for now. I stood up and gingerly approached. “So how does he survive?” I asked. “If he can’t get any food, then—“ I looked at Aedan. “Wait. Do you feed him?”

  He flushed.

  “Do you feed him every morning?” I was incredulous and delighted.

  “Not every morning,” he said testily. “I mean...” His shoulders slumped. “Yeah, okay. Every morning.”

  The gull shrieked happily and devoured another crust.