In boxing, the smaller clubs serve as feeders for the larger clubs. Overtime, and upon demonstrating some talent and some skill, a boxer moves around. First from small clubs to larger clubs, and from a decent trainer to a good trainer, and eventually from a decent coach to a good coach. If that boxer is good enough, they'll eventually land a great coach and a great team. I was never that good. I moved up, but never approached that pinnacle. To paraphrase Shakespeare -- I was just a boxer for the working day.
My first move came courtesy of the guy who beat me, Frankie Jones. In our first matchup, I'd managed to both make him angry and cost him his first lost round on points, which stung his pride. Frankie didn't like getting his pride stung. I'd found a small hole in his impressive skills and punched through it. Had I been a better boxer that could have cost him, could have given him his first loss, and could have ruined his perfect record. Neither he nor his coaches liked that one bit, so they reached out to my coaches and, after a brief discussion with me, arranged the move from my small club to the larger club at Castlewood. Now, it wasn't because they saw something in me that made them think I was a budding contender. They wanted me as a sparring partner for Frankie so they could close the hole in his armor I'd lucked upon.
I didn't know it, but the world of groupies and the fighters they fucked worked the same way. If you had any skill and talent, you worked your way from the smaller clubs to the larger ones, from the entry level fighters to the journeymen fighters. I'd just been traded up in two worlds. I was mostly oblivious to that at the time. My small club had a handful of groupies, two of whom I had fucked, Cindy and Kerry. Castlewood, being a larger club, had a larger set of groupies surrounding it, and I was about to slide into that world.
Once the decision had been made to trade me with Castlewood, my old coaches arranged a sit-down with their coaches. On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday Coach Smith and I drove back over for an introductory meeting. It was straight-forward. My new coach, Coach Williamson, met us at the Castlewood Boxing Club, gave us a tour of the facility, introduced me to a few of the key players there, and explained the living arrangements.
The Castlewood Boxing Club was nice compared to our little club. It was a dedicated facility, with space for four sparring rings, an exercise room with all the latest equipment, four very nice locker rooms, and a dedicated training spa. I'd been there once before of course, for that fight with Frankie, but it had been configured for the audience, just a single ring in a large room, which had bleacher seating on all four walls. When not configured for an audience, it looked much larger, cleaner, and state of the art.
The contract was straightforward. In exchange for room, board, and a stipend, I'd do nothing but train. I still couldn't make a living at it, which made me semi-professional. The club would provide outside employment with a sponsor, or I'd be welcome to find my own job, with the caveat that training came first. I'd fight who they told me to fight, when they told me to fight, where they told me to fight. The room was a little bit more than just a room, but only a little bit. It was a small furnished studio apartment complex at the edge of Castlewood, a short walk from the club. The owners of the complex were fans and so provided six studios for use by the members of the club while training. The board was free meals at a local diner, also within walking distance. The stipend was a whopping five hundred dollars a month, paid, in cash, on the first of the month. There were medical clauses, a training commitment, and a morals clause. The morals clause gave me pause, but after careful reading, it really amounted to no drugs, no alcohol, and don't do anything that embarrassed the club.
After a brief consultation with Coach Smith, I verbally agreed to the contract, which had me reporting for training next Monday. I took it with me to read more carefully over the weekend. Before we left, I made an appointment to come back Friday afternoon to get a physical exam and start the process of getting my boxing card, since up until then I'd been fighting on a provisional card. After the physical exam, I would swing by the Castlewood Boxing Club offices and pick up the keys to the studio and a card key to the facility itself, and then be assigned a locker and pick up their official equipment, with the expectation I'd be at the Club on Monday at 9:00 AM, signed contract in hand, ready to start.
After the trip home, I spent the next couple of days in general physical training, working out the stiffness from the last fight, kind of low key and easy. I read the contract in detail and consulted a couple of times with Coach Smith to make sure I understood what I was signing. There was only one clause in the contract I balked at, which was a year non-compete if I quit or if Castlewood dropped me. At Coach Smith's recommendation, after he explained what it meant, I lined it out and handwrote a clause that allowed me to return to my home club in the event I didn't fit in Castlewood. We called Coach Williamson, and, on the phone, he agreed. I did agree not to compete with Castlewood for a year but remained competitive with other clubs.
Kerry was out of town on family business and Cindy was busy fucking John, so I had a few days to myself to get everything in order. I talked to Kerry on the phone, told her about the contract, and she agreed it was a good opportunity for me, as a boxer. She promised to meet me in Castlewood as soon as she could. Everything was lined up, and so Friday morning, I hopped in my pick-up and headed over.
I was still a long way from needing a professional medical card, which is required after 200 rounds, but the exam was thorough, detailed, and probing. I felt like a racehorse must feel by the time I was done. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health and said he didn't see any impediments or disqualifying issues. A sheaf of paperwork in my hand, I headed over to the Castlewood Boxing Club.
The administrative part of the club was in a smaller annex attached to the back of the building, so I pulled around back, parked, and headed in. The door was open and there was a friendly sign that said come on in, so I did. I found myself in a nicely appointed little lobby with a young woman sitting behind the desk. She introduced herself as Tracy, the intern, and contacted Coach Williamson on the phone. His office was down a small hallway and off to one side, so I found my way there. He'd already had the new contract drawn up, including my changes, which I verified, then signed in triplicate while he called someone and told them I was there.
He explained that it was Castlewood's practice to assign me a local person to help me get settled in and be there for any non-boxing related questions I might have. Tracy brought in the apartment keys, the facility card key, some Castlewood Tourism Center material, and a gift box of Castlewood Boxing Club clothing items and marketing collateral. As all three of us sat there, they encouraged me to pick through the box while we waited for my local sponsor to arrive, as she was on her way over. The coolest thing in the box was a Castlewood Boxing Club jacket, in my size, which was a well-made letterman style jacket, made from real leather. I donned the jacket and spent some time filling out an "associates" form with Tracy, which was basically a list of names, address, phone numbers, email addresses, and relationship information, so they could be added to the marketing list. Since fans are the life blood of boxing, and fan related money is the life blood of boxers, I promptly gave up everything I knew about everyone I could think of.
We made small talk, and I learned a bit about both Coach Williamson and Tracy, the intern. Coach Smith had already told me about Coach Williamson. Tracy was a local community college student working on her associates in marketing, a slender looking young woman with long, straight, blonde hair, blue eyes, and a bright but professional demeanor. One of her older brothers was in the club, and she was interested in sports marketing. Coach Williamson was a former welter-weight contender, with a rack of trophies, Golden Glove, Olympic, and professional, displayed in a nice "I Love Me" case against one wall, and a master's degree in sports physiology from a University in California on another wall. He was married to a small athletic looking brunette, with what looked to be half a dozen kids, judging from the family pictures on the desk.
Then, with a waft of some exotic perfume, part flower, part musk, Roxanne walked into the room. All the air left the room. Or at least, all the air left me. I'd seen some good-looking women at that point in my life, but Roxanne was the first woman I ever saw for whom the word gorgeous was invented. I'm sure if you looked the word up in the dictionary it would have her picture.
She was about five eight, with dark brown wavy hair hung loose, a face that I would describe as full, with big brown expressive eyes, a perfectly formed nose, and a mouth that was sensual and lush. Broad in the shoulders, with beautiful breasts partially contained in a peasant style blouse, a tight waist with a flat stomach, round hips, and long legs in a floral skirt. She walked like she was half a beat away from dancing, a leonine grace that was both breathtaking and intimidating. Everyone popped to their feet. Everyone got a silly grin, you know the kind, the ones that say, "I'm stupid, but I'll do whatever you want". That old phrase popped into my mind. "Every man wants to fuck her, and every woman wants to be her." I'd modify it slightly based on the look on Tracy's face. Tracy was looking at her like she wanted to be her, and she wanted to fuck her. The kind of woman that can make a person dangerously stupid.
After a quick introduction to and a brief exchange of pleasantries with the Coach and Tracy, she nodded toward the door and with a saucy little bump of her hip said.
"Let's go."
My brain had blanked on where we were going, but my body said even if it was to hell, it was following, and so I followed her down the short hall, through the lobby, and out into the parking lot. I'd like to tell you I was completely professional and didn't spend the entire time watching her ass flexing and swaying under her skirt, but that would be a complete lie. She was mesmerizing. Once we reached the parking lot she fell back and took my arm, and we walked around the building to the front entrance of the club. At some point in that short little walk my soul returned from whatever pleasant limbo it'd been pulled into, and I snapped out of it.
As she took me into the club and went through the steps of showing me details of the facility and getting my locker assignment, along with picking up a Castlewood Boxing Club duffel bag full of athletic gear, I was aware of her body moving under her clothes, of its twists and turns and swaying rhythms. She was in the process of showing me the details of the card key system when I suddenly laughed at myself. Honest to God, I felt just like I did when I took the standing eight count after Frankie had knocked me around. The feeling that, suddenly, there I was, climbing out of the fog. She looked at me, cocking an eyebrow in a question.
