Carly fought Billy, for the first time

Both Billy and Carly prepared for the upcoming fight in their own way - it would be one of many official matches running that day, the result of which would be marked on both of their amateur records forever. This wasn’t sparring. It was the real deal.

Billy was somewhat hesitant, but all the same excited to be joining in on the action of the day when he hadn’t been expecting to. He spent the time before the fight shaking off his nerves, and practicing some of the moves he had seen other boys in the club land.

Carly was all rage and teeth-grinding as she warmed up. There was no joy, no excitement. Only pure determination. She felt so disrespected, and she had a point to prove.

It was an interesting matchup. A girl with a record of 0-7, and a boy with a record of 0-0. A girl with two years of boxing experience, and a boy who had barely even started. And they would fight in just thirty more minutes.

Carly’s angry warmup attacks on the punching bag were watched, with trepidation, by Coach Lucy. When she had first been hired by the college, Lucy had originally held a lot of hope for Carly. The young woman seemed driven, and dedicated. She didn’t take people’s bullshit. She’d already been at it for a year and a half. She wasn’t very polished, and she was at a major disadvantage with only boys to fight, but Lucy had hope she could turn Carly into something better. Something cleaner. Something sharper.

But the longer Lucy worked here, the more something became clear. An awful, terrible fact that Coach Lucy fought tooth and nail to avoid admitting to herself, until she could deny it no longer. A fact that no coach ever wanted to admit about a pupil.

Carly just had no talent.

She struggled with everything in the gym. She got good grades, was top of the debate team, and knew how to argue with passion, but she was an extremely slow learner when it came to striking. The lessons took so much longer to stick than they did for other people. Carly was clearly not built for combat sports, in body or mind. And she was so arrogant and sure of herself, that she couldn’t even listen to direction. It frustrated Lucy to no end.

One moment Carly was proudly beaming, telling Lucy how she was oh-so grateful to hear “a woman’s perspective for once”, and the next she was snapping at Lucy to leave her alone and that she knew what she was doing. Lucy would gently tell Carly that she was throwing her hooks at a slightly wrong angle, and move to correct her technique, only to be brushed away. “Don’t undermine me,” Carly would say, a scowl on her face. “I’m just trying something new.”

It wasn’t entirely Carly’s fault. Lucy knew that. Her lack of natural talent was completely outside of her control, of course, but even Carly’s issues listening to direction couldn’t be blamed wholly on her. Unfortunately, it seemed her year and a half of boxing experience pre-Lucy had taught her to take guidance as an insult. Probably because, for all of that time, the first never came without the second hovering just under the surface. Correcting Carly’s techniques had been a jeering, laughing, mocking thing for so long, that she couldn’t see when Lucy was just trying to be a good mentor for a struggling student, no mockery or judgement attached.

That defensive, “don’t correct me” attitude had left Carly difficult to coach, which was never a good thing, but it was even worse for a student who had barely got her head around throwing jabs, hooks, and straight punches with the proper force after two solid years. A student who sometimes had to re-learn what she had seemed to finally master just two months before.

Carly learning to fight was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. And she just couldn’t admit that she didn’t have it. She didn’t have the right touch. She didn’t have what it takes. For fuck’s sake, Carly, your shoddy footwork hasn’t improved in MONTHS.

She wasn’t hopeless. Not completely. But after two years of boxing, Carly was about as good as an average student might be after six months. A good student, two or three. She had a decent enough grasp of the strikes in theory, she wasn’t a total novice. But she wasn’t very fucking good, either.

The atmosphere of the club made it worse on Carly. She was always loudly talking about “breaking the glass ceiling”, and proving “that girls could box JUST as hard as guys”. A noble cause, but one which fetched her groans and eyerolls from most of the other members of the club. And then Carly would go back to hitting the bag, with the half-decent straight punch she had taken eight months to get right. Carly had become so good at blocking all of that noise out, that she had lost the ability to filter the constructive from the critical. And she seemed completely assured of her own supremacy. Like it was already a fact, and the dullards around her just couldn’t see it yet - not until she made herself undeniable. Which would happen any day now, she was sure.

It wasn’t about becoming as good as the boys. It was about proving she was ALREADY as good as the boys. And she wasn’t.

Carly was very happy to have someone like Lucy “in her corner”, but she seemed to want Lucy to simply cheer her on and witness her success, rather than instruct and guide her towards it. Carly glowed with joy having someone like that, a real tough woman, watching over her. But that didn’t mean she would listen to her. After all, what did Lucy know about pushing past the judgements of narrow-minded men?

Truth be told, Lucy found Carly a bit annoying, but she didn’t let it affect her coaching. She truly hoped that Carly would do well. That she would improve. That she could be a good boxer, maybe get some wins against some other girls one day. But hope could only get you so far. Lucy had seen the results of Carly “trying something new”.

Every “official”, on-the-records amateur boxing match needs to be overseen by at least one coach. Lucy was the coach who oversaw every one of Carly’s matches during the six months she had worked at the club so far. Carly was all about it, glad to have Lucy at her back, watching her go. After all, Lucy was a woman who had made it work, proved to everyone that women could be boxers, and now it was the next generation’s turn - it was CARLY’S turn, and she was going to do it even better, because she was going to beat BOYS. Not a woman defeating another woman. A girl, defeating a boy. All under the watchful eyes of one of the women who came before her. It was supposed to be a girl power thing. It wasn’t.

In the last six months, Lucy had seen Carly’s record slip from 0-4 to 0-7. One of them was a BAD knockout, that Carly had thankfully been spared the details of. She was barely improving, and her attitude bordered on total delusion. Each loss hadn’t made her more humble. They had only made her angrier and louder. “Foul play” on the part of her opponents was frequently, baselessly, implied. Even Carly knew deep down that her bitter grumbling and implications that her opponent had loaded their gloves before the fight was nothing more than sore loser behavior, but she grumbled the accusations anyway, to make herself feel better. Deluding herself into thinking of the loss as illegitimate, because she couldn’t handle facing the truth of it head-on.

But you’d have to be a pretty sore loser to say you only lost because your opponent had loaded gloves on. Even Carly knew that was an embarrassing lie to tell.

The best performance of Carly’s amateur career was a loss which had gone the distance. Her opponent, a boy who had been training about as long as her, had been visibly hesitant about hitting a girl. Carly had landed several strikes on his guard, and a couple of actually decent punches to the body that hit him with some force. The rest of the fight was just him jabbing her from a distance, keeping her at range with his superior footwork until the clock ran out and he won on the scorecards.

The worst performance was a terrible, terrible knockout loss, from a boy who didn’t know his own strength. Carly had bounced her gloves off his head a few times, provoking him to throw one back hard in the second round, and that was all she wrote.

Coach Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted to see the girl fight ever again. Not without a LOT more training, anyway. Despite this, Coach Lucy had tentatively agreed to oversee the match today, only because Carly needed someone supportive watching her, and because Billy was still so new. This probably wasn’t a fight Carly would leave as a mess. If nothing else, against someone THIS new, Carly was at least likely to see it through to the end. She would land a couple of hits, take a couple of hits, and be happy with herself for giving a good fight as they went to the scorecards and chose a winner.

Carly might even win this one. After all, Coach Lucy really didn’t know if this new boy had actually been able to pick up anything useful yet. He had barely been taught the basics. In fact, if he was set to go up against anyone else, Lucy wouldn’t have allowed him to box. But Carly probably couldn’t do too much harm to him. Worst-case scenario, she knocks him down a couple times, gets an easy TKO, and Lucy would make sure he didn’t feel too terrible about it after the fact.

The look in Carly’s eyes was concerning, though. Lucy could tell this fight meant so much to her. That was never a good sign.

The two fighters met just outside the ring they were about to fight in. Carly was studying Billy intently, as Lucy explained the rules to each of them. Carly didn’t know much about Billy, or what kind of guy he was, but she assumed he was a jerk. She always assumed boys were jerks.

“One last thing, you two,” Coach Lucy had said, before the seething feminist and the rookie boxer stepped into the ring together. “A lot of the matches are being recorded today, it’s a new system the school’s running to help with specifically tailoring coaching, and to track athletes’ progress over time. We don’t HAVE to run the cameras if-“

“Fucking RUN them,” Carly said, a determined fire burning in her eyes. She wanted a record of this. Something she could shove in the face of men like Coach David. Men who underestimated her and sneered in her face.

Coach Lucy looked at her calmly, then continued. “We don’t HAVE to run the cameras if either of you don’t want it, but the match results will still go on your amateur records as usual. And if you DO agree to record the match, then the footage can only be deleted if BOTH fighters involved request its deletion. Understand?”

The rule existed so a sore loser couldn’t get rid of the winner’s footage of the fight after it was done, just because they weren’t happy with the outcome. If you didn’t want the match recorded going into the fight, that was one thing, but you couldn’t take away your opponent’s analysis tape just because you were unhappy with your performance.

“Got it,” Billy nodded in a light, friendly tone.

“Got it,” Carly growled.

The two fighters stepped into the ring. Billy took his shirt off, and threw it over the ropes, leaning back in his corner. Even back then, he was strong. His muscles were softer, less toned and less rock-solid, but he was in good shape. Not quite the greek god he would become, but a strong young man, no question.

Carly was less impressive as she took off her outer clothes, stripping down to a sports bra and a pair of boxing shorts that Coach David always thought she looked ridiculous in. Her soft ass pushed out the loosely-hanging material, and made the boxing shorts sit unnaturally on her. Most of her bare thighs were exposed, plump and soft. Her orange sports bra covered and supported her small chest. She had a slight layer of flab over her thick, exposed tummy. The only part of her that looked like a fighter was that angry scowl and determined glare as she stared across the ring at Billy, hyping herself up in her head.

“Fuck him. Fuck this. This is all bullshit. Show them they shouldn’t underestimate you,” she repeated in her mind over and over again.

Carly knew that this match was the ultimate insult from Coach David, and she wasn’t going to stand for it. She had two years of boxing experience on Billy - she was confident this was her moment to turn all of this around. The first win to make people take her seriously around here. Carly was already thinking about her next opponent, and what she would do to them once she was done with Billy.

At the side of the ring, someone switched on the camera and then walked away to do the same at each of the other rings currently holding a match. The two fighters left their corners and met in the middle to touch gloves. As they did, Billy gave Carly a warm smile and a nod.

“Hey. This is my first match,” he said.

“I know,” Carly growled, glaring at him.

Billy noticed her… Disposition, but he tried to keep things friendly. He wasn’t sure what her deal was, but it was clear she was having a bad day, and he didn’t want to make it any worse.

“I haven’t even properly sparred yet, I’ve just been running drills,” he said with a self-deprecating smile that could charm just about anybody…

“I KNOW,” Carly barked, feeling humiliated and outraged.

…But not everybody, it seemed.

“…I hope you’ll go easy on me,” he offered, his usually easy-and-confident voice betraying a little of that confusion he was trying to hide. What was this chick’s deal?

“We go FULL FORCE,” Carly snapped. “BOTH of us. I’m coming at you with everything I have, you understand? No mercy. If you don’t come back with the same, you’re going to regret it.”

Billy nodded, his smile a bit less sure, but still present. Carly snarled. That smile really pissed her off. This handsome fucking rookie had no idea what he was getting himself into.

The two of them returned to their corners. A moment later a bell rang, and all of the fights across the gym began at once.

There was no delay. With a roar of energy, Carly rushed towards Billy, her arm pulled back for a wild, heavy punch. She was going to start this fight off strong.

Billy’s eyes shot open at her sudden approach and primal roar. His body moved with instinct. In a series of lightning-fast movements, Billy stepped off to the side and dodged Carly’s heavy, charging attack, which sailed right past him and hit only air. At the same time, he twisted his body and countered with a solid blow of his own - a powerful, digging uppercut to the body that forced the wind out of her.

It was a professional, slick motion that he shouldn’t have been able to absorb so fully for another year of boxing, and shouldn’t have been able to put into practice so effectively for another two years after that. Yet somehow, the motion just came naturally to him. The perfect counter-punch.

“UUFFF!!!” the air rushed out of Carly as Billy’s right fist drove up and into her solar plexus, her roar cut off and her eyes widening with indignant outrage. Without even thinking, Billy stepped around to her side and snapped a mighty left hook into her cheek as she began to hunch forward, the second punch coming mere moments after the first.

Carly’s whole body was tilted to the side by the heavy headshot, already unconscious. Lights fucking out, sound asleep. The sudden shutdown of her mind would be visible to anyone watching the fight back frame by frame. It was like all of Carly’s determination left her the moment that glove made contact with her cheek.

Her face was peaceful and placid. All that feminist rage was gone, soothed into obedience. Her angry barking was silenced. Her annoying mind pacified. Her outrage quelled by a man, forcing her into slumber.

Before her wobbling body even began to drop, Billy had already slammed a third punch - a MEATY right hook - into her forehead as he stood off to her side, which sent her unconscious body toppling over backwards and collapsing against the mat with a heavy THUD. It was like the felling of a tree, as the frizzy-haired girl dropped.

The fight was over. Carly had been knocked out in the very first exchange, less than six seconds into the match.

“Oh, YEAH! I GOT your ass!” Billy shouted down at her, adrenaline rushing through him. “How do you like THAT?!”

He was buzzing with energy after landing such a rapid and powerful three-punch combo, the most he was capable of at the moment. Something most people wouldn’t have been capable of after thirty weeks of training, let alone one.

In the seconds that followed, as the intensity of the moment came down, Billy realized what he’d just done. He stared down at the girl laying on her back at his feet, totally motionless, after getting her brain rocked. His face went white.

“O-Oh shit! My bad!” he said awkwardly to her, face flushing with embarrassment as he stepped around to stare down at Carly from between her bent, open legs, rather than her side.

Carly was on her back, groaning. It took a moment for Billy to realize she was fully unconscious, and couldn’t actually hear him. It was the first time he had ever knocked someone out, and it was quite the sight once he understood it.

Carly’s plump thighs were twitching, her wide hips occasionally bucking up slightly and her lips frozen open in a whorish ‘O’. After just a few seconds, a noise poured out from those open lips. She began snoring in shuddering, embarrassing, droning buzzes as she slept, slowly bucking her hips into the air as if grinding against something, thighs and shoulders twitching every now and then.

“Huuaazzzzzz…” the deep, buzzing snores came from the back of her throat with every slow, rhythmic inhale. On every exhale, they mixed with a whining airy moan, sounding hopelessly submissive. “Maauuuughhhhzzz…”

“Huuaazzzzzz… Maauuuughhhhzzz… Huuaazzzzzz… Maauuuughhhhzzz…“

Carly’s hips shifted up and down towards Billy in smooth, repetitive motions, like a slow-moving coin ride. She was brainless, and boneless, and humiliated. All of her big talk replaced by pathetic, droning, embarrassing and ugly snores. The annoying loudmouth feminist actually shut up for once. A man had shut her up.

Billy was struck by the sight, and could only watch in awe. Carly had come at him with so much fire, so much power and rage, just one second before. And now… She was like this. A sleeping mess, embarrassing herself in front of everyone and snoring loudly.

In the distance of the gym, watching all of this unfold past another boxing ring where two fighters were still feeling each other out and trading jabs, Coach David didn’t laugh. Didn’t celebrate. He just rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Fucking USELESS,” he muttered. “Someone needs to drag that dumb bitch out of here already.”

Much closer to the action, with a sympathetic look on her face, Coach Lucy climbed into the ring and started counting Carly out. At no point did Carly make even the slightest hint that she would wake up, even long past the count of 10. That annoying girl had been totally stopped.

“…8… 9… And 10. That’s a knockout,” Coach Lucy said softly.

Billy’s hand was raised, and his amateur record ticked up to 1-0. The start of something truly great. Even as his victory was announced, Carly just kept on snoring and grinding her hips into the open air on the mat beside him, completely unaware of the world outside of those deep slumbering dreams. Humiliating herself. Billy never took her eyes off of her.

She had been learning to box for two years. She SHOULD have won that fight. But in just one punch to the head… One natural-talent, man punch… She had been reduced to this.

What must that feel like? To be so full of fire, so practiced in your craft, only to get put to sleep? To lose, without even knowing it, displaying your shame to the world? To be SO sure you were supposed to beat someone, and end up unconscious at their feet, while your baffled opponent could only stare at you and process what had just happened? The shame, the humiliation… What was that like?

Once the question had entered Billy’s mind, it had never left.