It doesn't look good

Cliff caught Kat with another of his awkward haymakers and she stumbled to one knee.

This time he was sure he had her. He waded in throwing his arms around to strike her not with the padded leather gloves but with his bony and hard-muscled forearms.

A cut opened over one of her eyes and blood poured down. It had to be blinding her.

Cliff laughed, then yanked at his boxing shorts. "Time to eat the big one, bitch." His voice notched up an octave as he screamed his victory.

Kat struggled to regain her footing and Cliff spread his arms to gather her up in a bear hug.

And Kat drove a punch up into his chin, using every ounce of strength all the way from her legs and all through her body.

This time, Cliff didn't laugh off the punch. He howled. But he also didn't fall down. He grit his teeth, which showed blood for the first time, and started punching wildly, throwing everything he had in an angry attempt to land the knockout blow.

Kat ducked, dodged, danced around, and anticipated his punches well enough that she was always moving backward when he hit, always subtracting rather than adding to the power of his punch. And she peppered away at him, landing blows that didn't incapacitate him but had to be annoying.

With an audible snap, his nose broke and blood poured out. A couple of quick punches caught him in his bull-like neck. And all of a sudden, Cliff was struggling for breath.

Around him, the party guests were fascinated. He didn't think any of them still held onto the idea that this was some kind of staged event. Cliff couldn't be that good an actor and the way his nose bent made it obvious that it was broken--not something even most actors would be willing to submit to.

"Come on, Cliff," Kat taunted. "You wanted to fuck me up, right. You wanted to show me how the big dick worked. Well, I haven't seen shit, yet. You got it, or are you just one of those guys who talks the big talk and then can't get it up when it comes to putting out. Your 'roids keep you soft, do they big guy?"

He roared and charged her.

She danced out of the way, instinctively raising a knee for a killing blow but then remembering that they were boxing and not Muay Thai martial arts and dropped it. Instead, she pounded multiple strikes into his side. These weren't jabs like her earlier strikes. Instead she put her whole body into them.

Again, Cliff seemed to shake off even the worst Kat could do. He turned toward her once more and then... slowly like a tree falling, collapsed.

Well, shit. Rick was glad Kat had survived, and miracle of miracles, actually won. But if she'd killed Cliff, no matter how much the bodybuilder had been asking for it, the gym would be shut down indefinitely.

"I'm a doctor." The woman was dark-haired, about fifty, and good looking with a nice body and Middle-Eastern features. She let Rick hold open the ropes to the ring for her and let her inspect the fallen bodybuilder while Kat struggled for her breath as Usha tried to stop the bleeding.