Punching and Kissing

by Helena Newbury

  And male.

  Sylvie

  He was nearly as big as Aedan. I took in his wide, muscular shoulders and the heavy chest that pushed out the front of his gray tank top. He was at least twice my weight. Under his ripped jeans, his thighs seemed as big around as my waist. A bear of a man. His hair seemed unnaturally light blond, as if he’d dyed it, and his eyes were a cold, cold blue. A good-looking guy, but there was something deeply unsettling about the way he was looking at me. He was the sort of guy who sets your alarm bells ringing, when you see him in a bar. The sort where you’re suddenly glad you haven’t had one more drink, because then you might go home with him...and you sense something awful would happen.

  “Meet Lowell,” said Rick in my ear. “He just got out of jail a few weeks ago. He was in for assault...and something else.”

  Lowell smiled a smile that held no warmth at all.

  “...see if you can guess what that was.” said Rick.

  I felt the vomit rise in my throat. No. Jesus, no. He couldn’t mean—

  “Go ahead,” said Rick, stepping away. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  Lowell started towards me. He didn’t even bother to raise his fists.

  I backed away, looking around me for an escape route. Rick and one guard blocked one of the exits while the other guard blocked the other. There was nowhere to run.

  “I can’t—I can’t fight a guy!” I yelled desperately.

  “No,” said Rick in a conversational tone. “No, I don’t suppose you can.”

  Lowell was almost on me, now. I swung wildly, trying to remember everything Aedan had taught me. Keep her at a distance. That’s where your advantage is. But it wasn’t a her, it was a him, and that changed everything. His fists were massive and scarred from years of fighting. One good hit from one of those and I knew I’d go down. And once he had me on the floor—Jesus, Rick couldn’t really mean for him to...did he?

  His fist caught me on the arm and it went instantly numb. I was completely on the defensive, backing away and letting him push me around the whole circumference of the pit. All of the intimidation I’d learned had evaporated as soon as Lowell had stepped into the pit. That primal fear a man instills in a woman had swept it away. This isn’t fair.

  Of course it wasn’t fair. Fair wasn’t the way Rick did things. This wasn’t going to even be a fight, not really. It was just a prelude to the main event, when he’d get me down on the floor and—

  I heard a clicking sound. Rick was taking photos on his phone—to send to the people he’d invite, I realized. The really rich ones, the ones who’d pay thousands just to see a man fight a woman. Fight her and—

  Lowell hunkered low and came at me with his arms widespread, growling like an animal. I got in a couple of good hits to the face, but he barely seemed to notice. He just stormed on towards me and I couldn’t back up fast enough and—

  I went down heavily on my back, Lowell on top of me. His legs immediately pinned mine to the concrete so that I couldn’t kick him. His hands grabbed mine and slammed them to the floor, the concrete scraping my knuckles. I cried out in pain.

  Lowell bent his head so that he could whisper in my ear. “I haven’t had a really good fuck since I’ve been out. I’m going to wait another couple of days so I can bang the hell out of you.”

  I heard Rick’s phone going click click click. Lowell’s chest was mashing against my breasts, the heat of him horribly intimate against my flesh. I wanted to be sick. He leaned down and tried to kiss me, but I kept my lips tight closed and strained my head to the side. Jesus, he was so heavy! I writhed, but I couldn’t move even an inch. Tears welled up in my eyes, horror at what was about to happen and frustration at my own weakness.

  His tongue toyed with the line between my lips, pushing against it. Forcing them apart.

  “Enough,” said Rick.

  Lowell ignored him. He used his elbow to grind one of my hands into the floor, freeing up a hand to grab at the hem of my top, hauling it up, baring my stomach—

  Rick’s guards pulled him off me. He stumbled away, grinning and panting and staring right into my eyes.

  “Good,” said Rick. He looked at me dispassionately. “Try to make it last a little longer on the day, though. It’d be good if you can hold him off for at least a round or two before you...have your fun.”

  “You can’t do this!” I yelled, my voice breaking. “This isn’t fighting! It’s—someone will call the cops!”

  “Not the ones I’m inviting. Some of these guys might act like gentlemen when they’re buying companies and drinking at their private clubs, but guys—all guys—are just fucking cavemen, really. You heard them cheering, when Jacki tore your top off. You and I both know what they really want to see.”

  I pushed past him and ran for the bathroom. I heard them leave as I bent over the bowl and threw up.

  Aedan

  I was going crazy when she walked in the door. I’d gotten home a little while before, expecting her to be there, only to find the apartment empty. As soon as I saw her ashen face, I didn’t have to ask if something was wrong. I only needed to know what.

  She slumped down on the couch. I could see the concrete dust on her face and knew she’d been to The Pit. I could see the lines her tears had cut through it and my insides tightened down into a cold, hard knot.

  I took her hands and, between sobs, she told me.

  I thought I’d felt anger before. I thought the red rage that descended on me during a fight was anger, or my frustration at how Rick had used me was anger. But I was wrong. You have to have someone in your life you care about more than yourself. Only when someone threatens that person can you really, truly know anger.

  I told Sylvie that everything was going to be okay. I made her soup and cuddled her up in some blankets and turned on the TV. And then I called Charlie.

  Charlie’s job is to process the guys the patrol officers drag in, which means he knows everything that’s happening locally and he’s got access to the police computers. Exactly what I needed right now...except I’d long since used up all my favors with him.

  I met Charlie back when I was fighting, in the days before Rick had corrupted me too much. One of Charlie’s cousins was just starting out as a fighter and I gave him some tips. Charlie and I had hung out together but, as I’d become Rick’s muscle, the friendship had become more and more strained. He’d told me a thousand times to get out...and then, suddenly, it was too late. I killed Travere and quit fighting. When the rumors went around about a guy dying, most of the cops hadn’t known where to start looking...but Charlie did. He came to me, having figured out pretty much the whole thing, and demanded I testify against Rick.

  I managed to make a deal with him: he’d keep quiet about what he knew and, in return, I’d talk his cousin out of fighting. His cousin was following in my footsteps, maybe six months away from becoming Rick’s next attack dog. I persuaded him to quit the scene and get a legit job instead, and Charlie and I agreed things were square. But the other part of the deal was that I’d stay the hell away from fighting. Something I was only too happy to comply with...until Sylvie came along.

  Now, I was going to have to tell Charlie the truth. Except, him being him, I barely needed to. He’d known something was up as soon as he’d seen me in the diner.

  “You’re in deep with Rick again, aren’t you?” he said as soon as he heard my voice.

  I looked through to the living room, where Sylvie was staring at the TV. I could tell she wasn’t really seeing it. “Charlie, I need to find someone.”

  “We had a deal, big guy. You said you’d stay away from that piece of shit. Or find some way to bring him down.”

  Fat chance of that. Rick was too smart to be caught red-handed and we both knew it. But I’d sworn, after Travere, that I’d try. “I swear, if there’s ever a way, you can put the cuffs on him personally. But right now, I need your help.”

  “Have you got any idea how much trouble I could get in, giving you informat
ion? Especially if whoever the fuck you’re looking for winds up dead?”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s about Sylvie. There’s a big guy, name of Lowell. Just got out a few weeks ago. Assault and...rape.” My voice shredded on the last word.

  Immediately, Charlie’s tone changed. “He did something to Sylvie?”

  “He’s going to.”

  I heard a flurry of keystrokes. “Got him.” Charlie paused. “Aedan, let me get him picked up. Got my buddy Ryan out there in a car tonight and it’s not far from his beat. He’d enjoy taking down a scumbag like this, especially if he resists.”

  That was tempting, but Rick and his sleazy lawyer might get Lowell off the hook. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood for justice. I was in the mood for good old-fashioned revenge. “I’ll owe you one, Charlie. Please, just give me an address.”

  Aedan

  Lowell was staying in a motel while he was on parole—the sort with chicken wire over the windows. I figured that the place probably saw enough trouble that someone might actually be watching the security cameras in the parking lot.

  So, when he pulled up, I forced myself to wait. Charlie had given me his license plate so I knew I had the right guy. I tailed him to the door of his motel room, palms itching with the need to hit him. I waited until he’d opened the lock...and then I shoulder-charged him into the room.

  I kicked the door shut and then it was just us, alone, with no one to interfere. No one to save him. I stripped off my jacket. I didn’t want to get blood on it.

  He was studying me carefully. A fighter can recognize another fighter. Meanwhile, I was getting the measure of him. Smaller than me, but not by much. A good amount of muscle, but probably faster than me. A dangerous combination.

  I didn’t give a shit.

  He figured it out pretty quickly. “You’re with the girl,” he said. “The one who’s training her. You fucking her? What’s she like? Nice and tight?”

  I knew he was trying to goad me into making a mistake and I didn’t care. I ran at him, raining punches at his midsection. He grabbed hold of me, swinging me around and into a table. A lamp smashed on the floor and we were plunged into darkness.

  I staggered, off balance. He’d been living here for weeks—he knew the room a lot better than I did. Before I could find him again in the shadows, he was on me, kicking my feet out from under me. I went down hard against the table and it crumpled under me like matchwood. His fist caught me across the face once, twice. I tasted blood.

  “She’s a hot little piece,” he grunted. “All that time inside, I was thinking about girls just like her.” He jumped up and, before I could get to my feet, his foot lashed out and caught me in the jaw. Pain exploded in my head, white-hot and all-consuming. The room span.

  “Don’t worry,” he told me. “I’m not gonna hit her too hard. I don’t want her passed out while I’m bangin’ her. I want her to be able to moan my name.”

  I came up off the floor and slammed into him like a force of nature, bearing him down to the floor. I heard his arm break as he landed, by which point I was pounding on his face. He hit me a couple of times in the ribs, but it barely even registered. Three good punches and he dropped his arms. Four, and he went limp.

  I sat there, straddling his chest. He was looking up at me through swollen eyelids, not giving in but not taunting, either. Wondering if I was going to finish the job and kill him.

  I wanted to. For the first time in my life, I really wanted to. And for the first time, I really understood the difference between someone like me and a real killer.

  She wouldn’t want me to. I knew that.

  I stood up. Lowell turned his head and spat out a tooth. He clutched at his broken arm. “You’re fucked,” he managed to croak. “Both of you. You’ve brought down hell on yourselves. Have you any idea what Rick’s going to do now?”

  I turned and walked away, leaving him in a pool of blood. I felt sated. And I’d done what I’d gone there to do—there was no way Lowell could hurt Sylvie now.

  But, as the adrenaline faded, I knew the scumbag was right: Rick would retaliate. I hadn’t had a choice, but I’d just made things worse.

  Minutes later, I found out how much worse.

  Aedan

  I didn’t even make it home. Rick’s goons picked me up on the street, halfway back to my apartment, and bundled me into a car. I knew it was pointless to resist. Better that Rick took it out on me than on Sylvie.

  Back when I’d been fighting for him, Rick had operated out of a fancy apartment downtown. These days, he’d moved up in the world. The goons pushed me up the gangplank of a gleaming white yacht in the harbor. Inside, it was all antique-effect wood paneling and polished marble—expensive, but gaudy.

  Rick was sitting on the edge of an ornate desk, waiting for me, tapping his cane against his leg. His goons let me go and took up positions by the doors.

  “Aedan.” he said, spitting my name out, and immediately I knew it was bad. He didn’t move—he barely even looked at me. But his cane went tap tap tap even faster.

  Well, fine. I was plenty mad myself. “You bastard. What were you thinking? Even back when I knew you, you wouldn’t have done this.”

  Rick gave me a toothy grin. “I hung out with the right people. People who have enough money that they don’t have to worry about right and wrong. They just want to be entertained. And I had Sylvie all set up to wow them. Ten thousand dollars each, I was going to charge. I had over eighty of them on the guest list. You do the fucking math.”

  He lazily unscrewed the fat crystal at the top of his cane. When it came loose, he lifted it off. On the underside, hidden inside the cane, was a long, test-tube-shaped vial of white powder. I’d seen coke vials before, but they’d been tiny, enough for a few lines. This was the size of a fat man’s finger. Of course— with Rick, everything had to be bigger and better. I watched as he tapped out a long line on the desktop and then bent to snort it. Jesus, he must be putting a thousand dollars a day up his nose.

  I glanced around at the yacht, feeling sick. I’d known that he’d gotten worse, since I knew him, but I’d underestimated how much worse. The money had made him hungry for more money and now he was in a downward spiral. He’d do anything if it kept the rich going to his fights. “Lowell isn’t going to be hurting anyone,” I told him. “I broke his arm.”

  Rick stood up, his eyes wide, his pupils huge. “You think that changes anything? You think I can’t find another guy like Lowell, tonight?” He walked towards me. “Jesus, Aedan, think about what I’m offering: the guy gets to beat up a woman and then fuck her, with a guarantee that she won’t go to the police. He should be paying me.”

  I gauged the distance between us, trying to estimate whether I could break his neck before his goons got to me. He was just a few feet too far away, and he knew it. And he was right: beating up Lowell hadn’t done anything. Except to make him mad.

  “You need to learn a fucking lesson,” spat Rick. “You don’t want to see her get fucked? Fine. You can see her die, instead. You know the only thing better than sex and violence? A Roman fucking circus. A fight to the death. People’ll sure as hell pay to see that.”

  I stared at him. “You won’t find a fighter to do it. Not to the death.” A body meant far too much heat, even for some of the scumbags in the underground circuit.

  Rick just grinned at me. And the true horror of it slowly dawned.

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “You and Sylvie walk into the pit,” he said. “And only one of you comes out.”

  I shook my head.

  “Refuse to fight,” said Rick, “and I kill both of you.”

  “No! Jesus!”

  “Run, and I hunt you down and kill both of you and her brother.”

  I stared at him, breathless. My heart felt like it was trying to break through my ribcage. I was terrified. I was raging. I know I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. “You can’t do this!” I yelled.

  He just smirked at me. He knew h
e had me in the perfect trap. Al and Carl were there to stop me killing him, so that wasn’t a way out. If I refused to do it, he’d just kill Sylvie himself.

  “I can’t do it,” I croaked. “I can’t kill her.”

  “I didn’t think so,” said Rick, leaning forward on his cane. “So you’ll just have to convince her to kill you.”

  Sylvie

  “I’m slow,” Aedan told me. “Use that! Come on!”

  We’d been in the ring all morning. He was driving me hard and yet, at the same time, he was giving me lots more openings than usual. It was almost as if he wanted me to hit him.

  I shook my head. “But how do you know he’ll be slow? The guy replacing Lowell?”

  Aedan had returned, the night before, and told me that Lowell wouldn’t be fighting me. The blood on his knuckles told me why. But he’d also said he’d seen Rick, and that I’d be fighting someone else.

  “I just know,” said Aedan. “He’ll be big, but slow.” I’d never heard his voice so strained. “You’ve got to go in fast and go for the head. Don’t let his size faze you. Don’t be intimidated. No matter what.”

  “You don’t understand,” I told him. “It’s not a normal fight. Whoever Rick’s got to replace Lowell—he won’t just want to win. He’ll want to get me down on the floor and—”

  “No,” said Aedan sharply. “He won’t. Not this guy.”

  “How do you know? How can you be so sure?”

  “I just do! Now hit me!”

  I stared at him and saw the helpless fear in his eyes. I slowly lowered my fists as realization dawned.

  “Come on!” he snapped at me. “Keep going!”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “It’s you. Rick wants me to fight you!”

  Aedan closed his eyes and lowered his hands. He nodded reluctantly.

  “But that makes no sense! He knows we won’t fight each other!”

  Aedan looked at me from under those heavy Irish brows. “He’s not going to give us a choice.” He sighed. “If we don’t fight, he kills us both; if we don’t show, he kills Alec.”