Miranda's First Lesson

Miranda could not figure out what was wrong with her cousin. He was supposedly his school's boxing champion, undefeated in official fights. Yet there he stood, in front of her, apprehensively putting on his boxing gloves. He seemed very anxious in a way she had never seen before. What was he so afraid of ?

Whatever the reason was didn't matter. Knowing that in this moment she was the assertive one and her superstar cousin the one so unsure of himself filled her with so much confidence. She never thought she would be in this position, excited to be learning a sport, especially a heavy-contact sport like boxing. But her cousin's tepid attitude towards things was helping her out massively.

"Here you go Mira, your auntie's special boxing gloves!" Heather handed her niece the gloves with a wink. Something about that gave the young woman a shiver in her spine. Maybe it was her aunt's demeanor, maybe it was the fact she was trying to give a story to these random boxing gloves that she had to use because they were probably the only other pair available. But whatever it was, it energized her to actually do this. Miranda was building up momentum by the minute.

She briefly thought about the possibility she might use those 'special' gloves to beat up Billy, and that thought alone had her elated at the very concept, but she knew that was far fetched.

This was bad news for Billy. He was standing across from his nerdy cousin, watching her try to lift the heavy gloves up into what she thought was a good position. He saw the beaming smile on her face as she finally succeeded and started throwing weak, ineffectual punches at the air in front of her. And yet, he knew that any of those girly punches could have him down and out for the count. He was terrified of his 18 year old cousin.

It felt like a vicious feedback loop. The more anxious Billy seemed, the more confident Miranda got. And the more confident she got, the more anxious he got. Unfortunately for him he didn't have a way out. He tried a couple more times but he was quickly shut down by Heather. He had to go through with this.

And so he tried his best to teach his cousin the basics of the sport without giving her too much ammo. But she was too good of a student. In less than 20 minutes she had all the basic stances down. After a further 10 minutes she had mastered the blocking technique. Soon Billy found himself teaching her things he hadn't even taught his mother the first time she cleaned his clock.

"Wow this is so easy, I can't believe people train their entire lives for this!"

"I'm picking this up so quickly, I guess I'm just a natural, don't you think so?"

"Better be careful Billy, don't teach me too much or soon enough I'll be a better boxer than you *giggle*."

Every little comment got under his skin. Every single one reminding him that every technique he taught her would be a step closer to his demise. He imagined himself at the feet of his younger cousin, with her jumping around in glee, celebrating her win over him. He was ashamed to admit it, but he got hard thinking of that scenario.

"Earth to Billy," snapped Miranda. "Where did you go silly, let's learn some more!"

Soon enough he had taught her everything a beginner should know. He was done for the day, he hoped for a hasty retreat into his bedroom for the rest of the day.

"Not so fast champion, you and Mira need to have a little sparring match to end the day."

There was no getting out of this. He could sense Miranda's smug smile as his **** to spar with her was on full display.