The Gender Game

by Forrest, Bella

  I nodded.

  "Then let's go."

  The gym was fancier than I'd expected it to be. It was a stylish steel structure spanning four floors, perched right on the bank of Crescent River.

  Lee dropped me off one street away. "I'll be back in about forty-five minutes, but I'll send you a message when I arrive."

  "Okay."

  I strolled casually across the road, keeping my eyes firmly focused on the ground. Reaching the building, the glass doors opened automatically and I stepped into a cool reception room with slate-tiled walls and black marble floors. A minty hue hung in the air.

  I dared to raise my eyes and gaze around the room. To my pleasant surprise, it was empty. Perhaps it was lunch break already. This meant I had to be fast; I had no idea when the receptionist would return.

  Withdrawing the notepad, I planted it down on the table while leaning over and scanning the desk for the big ledger Lee had spoken of. It was one of the first things I spotted—just to the left of me. I reached down a hand and lifted it up before paging through it. Indeed, Viggo's schedule had been marked there, and it was a busy one. His heart might not be in the fighting, but nobody could fault him for his dedication to the sport.

  I kept a keen ear out for sounds of the receptionist returning, but I had time to flip through the schedule a second time to be doubly sure that I had not missed any pertinent dates or times. He wasn't booked in for anything on the night of the banquet. That was the day we were most concerned about.

  I replaced the ledger on the table, careful to reposition it exactly how it was, and ambled away from the desk.

  Glancing up at a clock that hung above the main entrance, I still had loads of time. Only five minutes had passed. Not wanting to hang around in the reception area, where I would likely have to engage with the receptionist when he returned, I took off down the corridor to my left, deciding to explore the gym a bit. There were no signs indicating special permission was required, and the doors at the end of the corridor leading deeper into the gym were wide open, so I assumed that nobody would object.

  The corridor's walls were made of glass, allowing me to peer into hall after hall of cages as I walked. Each hall contained two or three cages, and the walls were lined with lockers and benches.

  I stopped at the fifth hall, where two fighters were going at each other in a cage. I watched as they grappled on the floor, each trying to wrestle the other into a choke hold. The loser eventually tapped the floor, and his opponent released him.

  I continued exploring, passing more halls, until I reached the end of the building. I stopped and turned around, but wasn't willing to retrace my steps to the reception so soon. I didn't want to return there until I had to leave the building.

  I entered an empty hall. I was better off sitting in here and waiting, rather than roaming around where I was more likely to run into trouble.

  I moved to one of the benches closest to the back wall and sat down. My eyes traveled all around the room, taking in every detail with interest. There was a line of punching bags hanging from a thick metal rack on the opposite end of the room.

  Another ten minutes passed as I waited for Lee's message.

  Retrieving the pager from my pocket, I punched in a message and sent it to him. Just two words: I'm done. It took him about a minute to reply, "OK. Stay where you are. I had to head to another part of town. I'll be there ASAP."

  I sat back on the bench, blowing out a breath. I was not great at waiting.

  My eyes returned to the punching bags. Slowly, I stood up and made my way over to them. Balling my fists, I landed my first punch against one. It was heavy, barely budging. The outer fabric was also rough, as though specifically designed to cause calluses and harden skin.

  Glancing around the room again to check that nobody had entered without my noticing, I landed a harder punch in the center of the bag, causing it to sway away from me before swinging back. I punched again, and then again. My knuckles weren't used to this abrasion, and they were already feeling sore, but it was in a therapeutic way. I continued punching, though when I sensed my skin was about to break, I switched to kicking. Luckily, the clothes I was wearing were not too tight. I removed the jacket, since it was making me hot and stuffy, and began attacking the bag with kicks. Back kicks, front kicks, side kicks. I practiced everything I remembered from Ms. Dale's training sessions.

  It felt good, really good, to awaken muscles I'd forgotten about, feel the stretch, the burn in my thighs as I pushed myself harder. Although I did keep an ear out for the sound of the pager vibrating in my jacket pocket, I got carried away and stopped checking the entrance to the hall as often as I should have.

  When I glanced up a few minutes later, it was to see a couple of fighters had entered and were heading my way. I stopped kicking, turning to face them, suddenly extremely conscious of the fact that I had discarded my jacket. I felt grateful I had worn the body suit.

  The fighters, I soon realized, weren't heading for me, anyway. They merely glanced my way briefly before climbing inside a cage much like I'd seen at the Brunswick arena. Strapping fingerless gloves around their fists, they began to fight.

  They didn't seem to mind my presence, so I refocused my attention on the punching bag and continued.

  When the pager finally went off another ten minutes later, I was expecting it to be a message from Lee, telling me to hurry outside and meet him on the street. But instead, he'd sent a message informing me that, "There's been a delay. Will be at least another thirty minutes. Sorry. Keep yourself out of trouble."

  I wondered what had happened and hoped nothing had gone wrong. I returned to my kicking, albeit with less focus than before.

  I got distracted by the fight going on to my left and kept glancing their way. I found myself predicting who would win, even though they had barely started. I figured it would be the shorter one, the man with a mop of ginger hair, who was showing more initiative and daring than the other. As the sparring went on, I became more and more sure of my prediction. And then the ginger managed to trip the other up and pinned his arms behind his back, holding him until he grunted in defeat.

  I tried to keep myself looking busy—I didn't want them to think that my attention was on them, and the last thing I wanted was them watching me. I was dressed very differently to them, but at least the clothes I was wearing today were casual - the shirt was loose, as were the pants.

  After five more minutes of sparring, there was an audible yelp. I could have sworn that I heard the crack of bone. The ginger had injured his friend during a particularly frenzied takedown. The friend’s right ankle looked bent out of shape—probably broken.

  The ginger apologized before helping his friend out of the cage and taking him down the hall, no doubt to get medical assistance.

  Once again by myself, I was feeling a bit tired of nonstop kicking by now. I took a pause and approached the cage the guys had been fighting in. I moved closer to it, standing on my tiptoes and peering through the mesh. The ridges of this cage were not as nasty as the one I'd seen the night before in the Brunswick Arena, but they still weren't padded. Not something you'd want to fall on.

  My breathing quickening a touch, I felt the urge to climb inside it, to see what it was really like on the inside. I climbed into the cage, my feet slipping slightly over beads of sweat.

  I moved around its circumference, running my fingers over the mesh. I imagined what a thrill it must be to enter a cage like this on the night of a fight. To be surrounded by crowds chanting your name. What a rush would come with looking your opponent in the eye and having full freedom to make them submit to you.

  The pager in the pocket of my jacket, which I had brought in the cage with me over one arm, buzzed again.

  "Still delayed. Will keep you posted."

  Resuming my focus on the room around me, I heard footsteps outside, moving along the corridor. I hurried out of the cage and made my way back to the punching bags as someone entered the room. The same man re
turned without his injured friend and headed to the same cage they had sparred in.

  He began throwing air punches, flexing his limbs on his own.

  He caught me staring at him this time and stopped punching to address me.

  "Haven't seen you around here before," he remarked. "You had a good kick going on there…"

  I felt my cheeks heat. Now was the moment of truth, the moment to put Deepvox's claims to the test… "Thanks." My voice boomed across the hall, a little louder than I had intended.

  "Just joined?" he asked.

  "No, actually," I replied. "But I'm considering it."

  He tightened his gloves. "How's your punch?"

  I shrugged.

  "Want to spar?" he asked. "I've got a fight coming up next week and could really do with a partner."

  I glanced down at my watch. There was still time, but seriously? Was I about to say yes? I supposed I could exchange some calculated punches with him, but there was no way I could get hit in the face, or start grappling or wrestling with him on the ground. My disguise wouldn't hold up under that sort of strain.

  "I'm recovering from an injury myself," I told him. "Lower back. Can't move so fast and can't afford to be knocked down … I'll throw a few punches, as long as it’s not near the face."

  I didn't sense danger in doing that with this guy. He didn't strike me as the talkative type; the only reason he'd struck up a conversation with me to begin with was because he'd lost his sparring partner… He might not even bother to ask me my name.

  "Okay, cheers," he replied, holding the door to the cage open for me.

  I double-checked the pager one last time to verify no message had arrived from Lee without my noticing, and since it was still blank, I left it with my jacket at the foot of the cage steps. Then, flexing my wrists, I stepped into the cage.

  A spare pair of fingerless gloves like this guy's were hanging from a hook. He offered them to me, and I quickly bound them around my knuckles, which were already red and sore from my assaulting the punching bag earlier.

  Then, knocking my gloves together, I faced him.

  "Not gonna take off your shirt?" he asked.

  I shook my head. I wasn't planning to roll up my sleeves, either.

  "All right… let's box."

  We met in the middle, and I realized that he was more or less the same height as me, our arms about the same length. He swung the first blow. I dodged and returned one. We danced around the cage, neither of us connecting much, until I seized a small opening and knocked him—perhaps a little too hard—in the gut. He staggered back, taking a few seconds to recover before we went at it again.

  "How did you learn to fight?" he asked, eyeing my fists with more wariness than a minute ago.

  "Self-taught."

  I upped my pace, keeping him distracted so he'd stop asking me questions. He caught my shoulder with a right hook, though I was careful to keep my face protected. As our sparring progressed, a realization dawned on me. This fighter and I might just be two people in an empty hall, but the fact that we were man and woman made this moment feel suddenly epic, sweeping, groundbreaking. Nobody in the world might know it—not even my male accomplice—but we were making history. I doubted any man and woman had ever stood on such equal ground before since time began in Patrus and in Matrus. The male in front of me was looking me in the eye without prejudice, without bias or discernment—as I was looking at him. The thought filled me with such euphoria that I found myself quite breathless, in a daze; so much so that I almost missed blocking a punch.

  If only more people could experience this, was all I could think to myself.

  I didn’t want this sparring match to end. I wanted Lee to leave me alone for at least another half-hour so that I could continue immersing myself in this feeling… but then the pager buzzed.

  I dropped my fists, my heart dropping along with them like a heavy weight.

  "I'm sorry," I managed, stooping to my jacket and retrieving the device.

  "I'm outside”, said the message.

  I turned back to the fighter, whose name I still hadn't asked, and shook hands with him. "I've got to go," I said before hurrying out of the room, although a piece of me remained in that ring with him.

  As I moved along the hallway back toward the reception, my fingers reached up to check that my facial hair was all still in place. Now that hard reality had returned to me, I was afraid that I'd gotten too carried away and all that dancing around might have loosened it. Maybe the mustache was slightly less firm than before, but altogether the hair felt okay. Nothing was going to drop off during the time it took me to return to Lee across the road.

  As soon as I stepped through the door, I kept my eyes on the ground and hurried forward, not even glancing to the reception desk, though I sensed someone there.

  I let out an internal sigh of relief as I reached the main exit. Out of view of the receptionist, I threw caution to the wind and raced up the twisting stairs. But as I turned the corner to climb up the final flight, I almost collided with someone. I staggered back too quickly, and before I could find my footing, I tripped down several steps until my back hit the stairwell wall.

  It was Viggo.

  Standing in his trench coat and looking more imposing than ever from his elevated position five steps above me, he had stopped in his tracks and was gazing down at me.

  What was he doing here? He couldn't have been here for training—his schedule had made no mention of it.

  I straightened and averted my eyes to the stairs, attempting to recover and act as though nothing had happened. Indeed, I expected Viggo to also continue descending right past me, but to my horror, he stayed exactly where he was. And when I reached his level, he reached out a hand and gripped my upper arm. I found myself being scrutinized by his hard stare, his face inches away from mine.

  Crap.

  I stopped breathing as his right hand moved to my face. The next thing I knew, I felt a tug on the skin above my upper lip, and then his hand was drawing away again, clasping my fake mustache between his fingers.

  I swore in my head. What were the odds of me getting caught as I left the building? And by Viggo of all people?

  Viggo seemed to have a penchant for turning corners at the most unexpected of moments.

  His frown deepened. "Would you like to explain this?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.

  Viggo was one man who definitely had no use for Deepvox.

  My mind went into a panic. What do I tell him?

  My angst was hardly helped by my pager going off again. Lee must be wondering where I was. Dammit. I was so close to Lee. And yet I was stuck.

  As Viggo's eyes lowered to my beard, I realized there was no point in concealing my identity any longer. He seemed to have already detected that my beard was fake, too, and once that came off, there would be nothing to hide the softness of my jawline. He might even recognize my bare lower face. He'd seen me twice already.

  As my mind raced for what explanation I could possibly give him, I realized that it ought to just be as close to the truth as possible. That was the best way to lie.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  "Sorry for what?" His face contorted.

  "I-I'm not a man." The words sounded weird coming from my deep throat.

  Glancing nervously up and down the stairwell, I gripped one corner of my beard and stripped it off like a piece of wax. Next, I reached for my wig and unclasped it, letting my long hair fall down my shoulders.

  All that remained now were my lenses. But Viggo didn't need me to remove those.

  "Mrs. Bertrand."

  "I'm sorry," I repeated, my voice constricted. "I've been having a tough time getting used to the ways of Patrus. It's hard never being able to roam by myself. I just wanted a little freedom. To roam the city without my husband holding my hand… My husband approved of this. He thought it would help with the transition."

  Viggo's eyes widened. "He approved of you masquerading as a male and roaming th
e city by yourself?"

  "How else do you think I got hold of this costume?" I replied. "He gave it to me. But I am not by myself," I added quickly. "My husband has been following me around from a distance, to make sure I don't get myself into trouble. He's just on the other street. I can take you to him now if you don't believe me."

  "I will have to take you up on that offer," he replied darkly.

  Stuffing the facial hair into my right pocket along with my notepad, pager and pen, I moved past Viggo and hurried up the staircase. My pager buzzed again. Lee was getting nervous.

  "That's my husband," I explained to Viggo as we surfaced on the road. I pulled out the pager and glimpsed the latest message.

  "?????"

  I showed it to Viggo, who grunted.

  "What were you doing in the gym?" he asked me.

  "Well, I wondered what was in that pretty glass building. I watched some fighters training, roamed around…Fighting isn't a sport, you see, in Matrus. I've worked in a bakery all my life, but I always wished I could've become a warden."

  Viggo's expression soured. I could practically read his thoughts. You're not missing much, I imagined him thinking. He made no attempt to hide how much he hated his job.

  We reached the other side of the road. I led Viggo round a corner until we arrived at the end of the second road along, where I caught sight of Lee waiting. He was standing next to his motorcycle, glancing up and down the street and clutching his pager in his hand.

  "There he is," I murmured, pointing to him. "He lost track of me after I went into the building," I explained. "I should have told him I was going inside."

  Lee soon noticed us, and instantly froze. I imagined him cursing in his head as he hurried forward, closing the gap between us.

  "Violet?" he asked, his voice strained with confusion. "What's going on?" His eyes flitted to Viggo.

  "Lee, I'm sorry," I said, moving to him and clutching his arm. "You told me not to wander into any buildings, but I did. The gym on the river bank."

  There were undercurrents of confusion in his eyes, but he was quick to play along. Admirably quick.