Chapter 1—Win the Fight
I paced.
The cold cement of the hallway floor made my feet tingle a little even through the tape wrapped around my insteps. My hands clenched into fists, unclenched, and then clenched again. I didn’t know why I was feeling particularly fidgety—this night was like every other night when I worked. Something just seemed to have me on edge, and I didn’t know what. I danced back and forth on the balls of my feet a few times, tilted my head to the ceiling with my eyes closed, and blew out a long, slow breath.
Maybe I just needed to get laid.
The deep base of “Sonne” by Rammstein started thumping through the sound system, and the door in front of me opened. My muscles flexed from shoulders to ass, and I prowled out of the empty, slanted hallway and into the crowd.
“Eins…Hier kommt die Sonne…”
The noise was insane for such a small place. It always was. Feet First was a hole-in-the-wall drinking establishment in the crappier part of the city and probably couldn’t fit more than three hundred people inside of it and keep a fire marshal happy, not that anyone in a uniform came around that area. That was just asking for trouble, and the cops and other officials would just as soon go give someone a parking ticket. They were less likely to get a bottle over the head or a knife in the back that way.
“Zwei…Hier kommt die Sonne…”
Hands reached through the holes in the chain-link fence to try to grab at me as I raised my arms up over my head and roared at the crowd like some kind of half-domesticated circus animal. I spun in a small circle and absorbed the screams of the crowd into my skin as I made my way to the cage.
“Takedown! Takedown!”
I glared menacingly toward the onlookers, baring my teeth and growling. Near the end of the ramp and the door of the cage, I flung myself at the chain link between me and the patrons of the bar, snarling through clenched teeth and causing a group of them to scurry backwards. Their eyes were wide and bright as they laughed nervously before moving back toward the fence. Again, they tried to reach through with their hands.
“Drei…Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen…”
Executing another slow spin with my arms raised, I ducked slightly to enter the fighting cage. From across the other side, Yolanda sauntered over in shorts that looked about the size Barbie would wear, and a bikini top that left nothing to the imagination except for the bottom half of her nipples. She also took a little spin as she moved closer to me and tossed her sleek, black hair over her shoulder. More screams came from the audience—this time mostly from the guys.
The patrons of Feet First were mostly men though there were always more women watching the bloodshed than you might think. Probably at least two women to every five men would enter the bar nightly, and those that made it through the first two minutes of a fight usually came back for more. Yolanda thought they came back to watch me, but I thought they were just as bloodthirsty as the guys—they just didn’t admit it as readily.
Hoots and hollers came from all sides as Yolanda sauntered over to me and looked me up and down. I gazed right back at her, turning my head slightly as she began to circle. She was more familiar with the scene than I was, having been a fighter years before I ever even thought of it. In her mid-thirties, she could still pass for twenty-five with ease.
She walked around me like a cat, a single finger stroking over my shoulders and neck. She ran her fingernails lightly over the tribal tattoos covering my back and then dipped the tips of her fingers into my emerald green trunks. With still slow movements, she checked all around the hem of my shorts.
The maneuver was to verify the fighters didn’t have anything hard, sharp, or hidden inside, but in reality it was nothing more than foreplay for the audience. Classical conditioning. They were drooling now, and they’d all orgasm by the time the fight was over. I eyed her with a cocky half grin as she finished it off by running her hand over my dick, much to the pleasure of the crowd.
“Lässt dich hart zu Boden gehen
Und die Welt zählt laut bis zehn…”
My song faded, and some rap song started up instead. A big bald-headed guy emerged from the opposite side and yelled obscenities at the booing members of the audience. He had a cheering section as well, but this was my venue, and I was the favored fighter. He was shorter than me by quite a bit but stocky with long, hairy arms.
Yolanda handed me a mouth guard. I slipped it into my mouth and bit down. I stretched my arms up above my head once more and danced around on the balls of my feet. My opponent entered the cage, was given the same treatment from the sleek bronze woman, and the door was shut with a clang.
There was no referee.
There were no rounds.
There was really only one rule—whoever taps out or goes unconscious loses.
We circled each other, moving slowly without getting any closer. The noise of the audience lessened, and my eyes focused on the man in the cage with me. He crouched slightly, and his nostrils flared as he breathed heavily through them. His fists tightened as he raised them up in front of his body.
Awareness covered me. I knew the position of every muscle in my body, and I positioned each one in preparation for what was to come.
This was my element.
My show.
My life.
My one and only love.
I let him come at me first, gauging his tempo, favored hand, and which foot he liked to put forward. Leaning back quickly, I dodged his first blow and smacked him with an open palm across his left temple. He shook it off easily—it wasn’t a very hard blow—and backed off as I jumped toward him, which lef
t me open for his foot into my lower back. I gasped through the mouthpiece at the clean hit and backed off a bit to recover.
He didn’t give me much time.
I kept my left hand up to block whatever blows he sent in my direction, while I jabbed with my right to punch him in the stomach. As he brought up his knee to connect with my kidney again, I wrapped my arm around his leg and held tight but didn’t let him fall. I turned to the side and followed the blow with my foot into his ribs. He fell backwards, recovered, crouched and jumped at me, landing a good blow across my temple.
I was stunned for a moment as lights flashed in the back of my head. I felt his arms wrapping around my chest and shoulders as he shoved me backwards and into the cage, his fist coming up and smacking me in the head again as my shoulder scraped against the chain links. I leaned back into the cage wall and lifted my feet to wrap my legs around his waist.
A fist landed forcefully against my thigh, causing the muscle there to clench, but I didn’t let go. I twisted to the right and then the left and smashed my forehead into his nose. He lost his footing, and we both toppled to the floor as the crowd screamed at us.
I landed on my back, but I kept my legs gripped around his middle. My vision blurred slightly as I twisted again and flipped us over. His feet were up in the air behind me, and as my thigh muscles gripped him tighter, I started raining open handed blows to his head and face.
Without gloves, closed fists hurt my hands almost as much as they hurt his face, but that didn’t stop me from switching to them. I could feel blood on my fingers, but I wasn’t sure if it was from my knuckles or his battered nose. His arms came up to shield him from the pounding, so I leaned back to punch his ribs.
Sweat ran down my back, and I had to work hard to keep breathing steadily through my nose. My ear was ringing a bit from the earlier punch to my temple, but my vision was clear again. My opponent tried to bring his leg up to kick at my back, but my hold was too strong. I kept up the punches with my right hand as my left arm sought his neck.
Once I had my forearm across his throat, the fight was all but over. I felt him struggling under me, but the intensity became muted and shallow. I hit him on the side of the head a couple more times before I felt the tap of his fingers on my bicep.
I released my hold on him, jumped backwards, and spit the mouthpiece out on the floor. I watched as he went nearly limp below me, a trickle of blood staining his cheek and forehead. I stumbled a little as I backed away, and the sting near my temple finally registered with my brain. My head throbbed, but I could still focus okay. I heard the door of the cage open behind me and felt Yolanda’s hand around my wrist, but I shook her off, still dazed.
The screams from those outside the cage filled my ears, and the sound rippled through my skin as I collected my thoughts, realized it was over, and reached up toward the ceiling. I screamed in victory as the fans chanted in unison.
“Takedown! Takedown!”
Yolanda’s hand reached up and grabbed my elbow, since at her height she couldn’t reach my wrist, and she shook at my arm as she cried out to the crowd.
“Takedown Teague—victor again for his twenty-seventh consecutive fight!”
The guy I was fighting rolled over and propped himself up on his hands and knees. Yolanda went to help him to his feet, and he moved over to toss his arm around my neck for what I guess was supposed to be a manly hug.
“One of these days, I’m gonna beat you, Teague. I swear it!” he laughed.
“Have we fought before?” I asked. The guy didn’t even look familiar, but then again, the fights all run together in my head.
He just laughed and shook his head.