"Dodge, Dae!" Martha yells. "You know how to dodge!"
It's been a long day, with hours of sparring in the boxing gym. Dae is exhausted. Sweat is pouring down her pale face. Her short brown hair is flopped in her face, plastered in pieces to her forehead.
She grunts in response to Martha, their hardass coach. She tries to dodge another punch from Jo, but she's too slow again, and Jo's fist glances the top of her head.
"Fuck," Dae mutters under her breath.
"God dammit, Dae!"
Jo has a smirk on her face, the arrogant piece of shit. She's still light on her feet, dancing around the ring like a ballerina.
Dae throws her hands up and walks away from Jo to the edge of the ring.
"I'm done," Dae announces, getting out of the ring.
"The fuck you are!" Martha yells.
"We've been at this for hours! I need a break."
"Jesus Christ, you'll never be shit if you can't power through. But you know what? You can do whatever you want. You pay for my time, if you want to waste it, that's your choice."
Dae climbs out of the ring and grabs a bottle of water, dumping it on her hot sweaty face with a huff. Jo watches carefully, noticing not for the first time the way her muscles flex as she takes a long drink.
"Jordan!" Martha yells. "Drills!"
Jo sighs, dipping out of the ring and following Martha to the punching bags for conditioning. She's exhausted too, but she does a better job of hiding it. She powers through the drills with Martha. She's a 40-something butch lesbian with graying hair and wrinkles that match the permanent frown on her face. She's buff as hell, and she'd catch Jo's eye in a bar if she weren't her coach, and a raging asshole.
Martha pauses and checks her watch. "Alright," she announces. "It's six o'clock. I'm off the clock. Clean up the gym. It closes at nine." She glances at Dae with a look of disdain. "I suggest you also stay and practice more, but you're free to be a lazy ass. See you tomorrow."
She leaves the gym unceremoniously.
"I want a five minute break after hours of conditioning, and I'm a lazy ass," Dae scoffs. "Whatever." She takes a bite off of her protein bar a little aggressively.
"Yeah, she can be too hard on us," Jo agrees.
"It's not that she's too hard on us. I think it's her job to be hard on us. I just think she's an asshole while she does it."
Jo laughs. "Ain't that the truth."
Jo sits next to Dae on the edge of the ring, hanging her elbows off the ropes.
"So... Feel better after a break? Wanna get your ass kicked again?" Jo asks.
"You can bet your ass that I'll beat you," Dae retorts.
"Oh, you'll beat my ass, huh? What are you gonna do, spank me?" Jo teases. Dae blushes. That was not what she meant, but now it's what she's imagining. Oh God.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Dae teases back, trying to hide how flustered she feels.
Dae and Jo have been rival boxers for years, watching each other improve over time and pushing each other to be better. Dae has always had a bit of a crush on Jo, even before she realized she was capable of crushing on girls. Jo has always liked girls, but it wasn't until recently that she started thinking about Dae in that way, and ever since then, it's been distracting her in the ring.
"Maybe," Jo winks. She hops up into the ring and wraps her hands, jumping and dodging and striking the thin air.
"Calm down, Muhammud Ali." Dae rolls her eyes. She finishes her protein bar and water and feels much better.
Dae fixes her hand wraps and stands across from Jo, sizing her up.
She's toned and muscular from the years of boxing, her warm brown skin glistening with sweat. Her brown eyes are smiling with energy and challenge, the determination on her face as clear as the first day they met. Dae clears her throat, trying to focus.
"Ready?" Jo grins.
"Mhmm," Dae mumbles, still distracted.
Jo swings and hits Dae square in the jaw. She reels back, falling into the ropes.
"Fuck!" Dae yells. "What the fuck was that for?"
"For not paying attention." Jo dances, punching the air. "Get your head in the game, Dae."
Dae is embarrassed for not paying attention to Jo's hands, and for not having the same stamina as her today at practice. Shame burns through her, and she's determined to win this fight to prove herself.
Dae spits, and it's red with blood. She throws up her fists in front of her face and gets in her stance, ready this time.
Jo throws a light punch and Dae ducks her head to dodge it and pulls back up with her own punch in return, landing a hit to Jo's face.
Fuck yes, Dae thinks to herself.
"Oh, is that how it's gonna be, babe?" Jo says, wiping her mouth on her forearm.
Jo started calling Dae babe a few months ago as a joke, after Martha called Dae a baby for hitting the ground and staying down. It made her blush in anger and... something else.
"Yeah, babe," Dae shoots back. "That's how it's gonna be." They circle each other in the ring.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were flirting with me, babe," Jo challenges.
This flusters Dae, and suddenly she's dodging a punch that she wasn't ready for, and she's just a bit too slow. The hit glances her jaw and she falls to her hands and knees.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were cheating, Jo," Dae spits, looking over her shoulder.
"Who, me?" Jo feigns innocence.
Suddenly, Dae swings her leg out and topples Jo from her ankles, surprising her and knocking her to the mat. Jo groans.
"Yes, you," Dae seethes.
Jo laughs and sits up, looking at Dae intently, in an odd way. Then she lunges at Dae and wrestles her to the mat, pinning her arms down.
"It's only cheating if it distracts you..." Jo says. "If it works, that's not my problem."
Dae tries to shove her off, but Jo wrestles her back down.
"What's the matter?" Jo says with mock concern. Then she leans down to Dae's ear and lowers her voice. "Don't you like it?"
A blush rushes to Dae's face, and a jolt of electricity strikes through her body. Dae's eyes flutter closed and she swallows. She has no idea what to say, but before she can think of an answer, Jo is up and off of her, ducking under the ropes and grabbing the cleaning supplies.
"Come on," Jo says casually. "Let's clean up. I wanna get out of here."
Christ. Dae drops her head back to the mat, sighing. She gets up reluctantly and drags her tired ass over to the punching bags to wipe them down with sanitizer. She has no idea what the fuck just happened with Jo, but her body is buzzing and she's confused as hell. Was Jo flirting with her? Or just being her typical bratty self, distracting her to win the sparring match?
Jo ignores her while they clean, acting like nothing happened. She says goodnight and leaves Dae standing in the gym alone.
Dae hits the showers, not wanting to ride the 26 bus home in her sweaty clothes. She strips and steps into the cool stream of water, letting the high water pressure beat down on her sore body. Dae cleans up, and gradually the ice cold water stops feeling like relief and starts to make her shiver. She turns the water higher and relaxes into the warmth. She massages her sore neck and shoulders, stretches her arms.
Her mind wanders back to the fight, to being pinned to the mat and hearing Jo's husky voice in her ear asking, "Don't you like it?" The same jolt of electricity sparks in her again, and her hands wander in between her legs and stoke the sparks into flames. Soon, she's leaning with one arm against the shower wall and the other hand is furiously rubbing her clit. Her moans of "Oh, oh, oh" echo off the locker room walls.
Dae imagines Jo on top of her again in the ring, pinning her down and rubbing her clit and murmuring, "Don't you like it?" in her ear. She imagines Jo telling her to cum for her, and then Dae is cumming on her own fingers, crying out "Fuck!" in the locker room shower.
She pants as she comes down from her orgasm. Her exhausted body thrums with energy.
She wonders for a moment if what she just did was a bad idea, but she doesn't care. She dries off and heads home, trying to think about literally anything else on the bus ride home, but all she can think of is Jo's tight body on top of hers and "Don't you like it?"
At home, Jo pulls her car into her driveway and smiles to herself, remembering the way Dae's eyes fluttered closed and she gulped when Jo murmured, "Don't you like it?" Jo wonders if Dae liked being pinned to the mat as much as she liked doing it.
Jo has been watching the little ways that Dae gets flustered around her. The way Dae looks at her when she thinks Jo isn't looking. The way her eyes go wide and she pretends to look somewhere else when she gets caught. The way she blushes when Jo calls her babe. That one has been fun.
Jo is dying to see Dae again tomorrow. She wants to mess with her again, see how flustered she gets.
