I have made some tweaks to the final part of the Rachel/Laura write-up. I wasn’t able to edit the original post, so I am posting the revised version in full below. There are no substantive changes, obviously, but I felt I could make some improvements to the original phrasing. You will probably not even notice the differences, but I wanted to leave this here as the permanent, public and definitive account of what went down. And, Rach and Laura (you know who you are!), if you ever read this and want a rematch, I want to be there for it.
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I will never know for sure, but my life might have taken a different shape had it not been for the next few minutes. Perhaps Rachel and Laura knew somewhere deep inside that there was more on the line than £200 prize money. Maybe they knew that their self-esteem, the confidence they would take through life, the way they would be forever remembered by the onlookers would be determined by the sound and the fury of the impending moments. I am convinced that what happened directly affected the subsequent story of me and Rachel, but also that of Kev and Laura.
They collided in a sustained fury of frantic slapping. Both girls’ palms connected squarely on the other’s body and face, their screams a blend of effort, frustration and pain, and I was relieved to see Rachel fighting her way back into it. Maybe the damage Laura had inflicted was superficial after all. Rachel landed a hard kick of her own against Laura’s knee, causing the younger woman to cry out loud - but then Rach winced, betraying the pain in her own standing leg. Laura noted it.
They broke momentarily, circling, trying to regain breath, both knowing that stamina was running out and that the climax was beckoning. The animosity they had fuelled over the last hour was alight and in full flame. Suddenly, winning seemed insufficient. We willed and exhorted our women to maim each other. It was barbaric, it was visceral, and it was sexy as hell.
Sensing that Rach was breathing heavily, Laura initiated the next attack, but was punished for it with a blistering slap as she came forward. It sounded like a firecracker had gone off and Laura retreated to the other side of the room, clutching her jaw with both hands.
‘Fuck!’ she exclaimed, shocked and hurt.
‘Get her, Rach!’. My blood rose as the tables turned, and I urged my girl forward. Laura was on the back foot, but Rach was slow to get there and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sustain the follow-up. Laura re-grouped, furious and snarling.
Another flurry of hairpulling and slapping led to a rejuvenated Laura backing Rach into the neutral corner, furthest from the bed. Grinding her down now and sapping my girl’s strength, the bodyweight she applied behind her left forearm exerted pressure on Rach’s neck, trapping her between the two walls. From where we sat, the black leotard eclipsed the electric-blue one as Laura started to go to work. She targeted the thigh yet again, with malign intent and ruthless efficiency. Fuck. Multiple heavy knee-strikes found their target and Rach was helpless to cover up. Each one landed with a vicious, grunted exhalation as Laura invested into Rachel’s increasing distress. Rewarded by the crescendo of anguished cries, Laura hammered more layers of hurt onto the outside of the upper left leg. There was nothing superficial about the damage she was wreaking now.
Kev rose to his feet, loving every second of the carnage-in-progress. I was paralysed but we were both rock-hard.
Desperately seeking to protect her thigh, Rach drew back her leg, only to expose her mid-section to the next phase of Laura’s ruthless assault. The girl in black lycra clenched her hand into a fist. A vicious punch to the solar plexus drew out any last vestige of resistance from Rach, and her face contorted from the pain. She had no choice but to remain upright, held up by her determined opponent’s forearm. Laura followed up, putting all her force into another thudding punch to the midriff and Rach’s face crumpled, eyes closed, her agony mixed with despair. Half-conscious, she was being brutalised, and Laura was having fun.
‘Fuck’ gasped the girl from the other couple, horrified by the raw violence her friend was unleashing and the sadistic pleasure she was taking from it.
‘Finish her, Laur!’, roared Kev.
Sensing the end and showing no mercy, Laura finally relinquished the forearm; yanked Rachel’s head down; with a guttural shout, thrust one last brutal knee into the pit of her stomach; and stood back to marvel at the result of her wanton destruction.
Rachel fell to her knees in the neutral corner and slumped, face-down.
‘FUCK yes!!’, gasped Laura, in awe of her work.
Rachel’s body lay motionless.
‘Fuck, YES!!’
Laura’s terrible, sadistic beauty was undeniable.
***
It was a couple of minutes before Rachel started to come round. As I administered first aid, I was aware out of the corner of my eye, that Kev had raised his partner’s arm in triumph.
‘The winner. By knockout!’, he declared, unable to contain his pride, and Laura wiggled her bottom in a little dance of celebration.
‘Fuck off, Kev.’ I muttered under my breath.
I checked Rach over. Every limb carried a souvenir of Laura’s violence, but the only serious injury was the damage that Laura had wrought on that left thigh. It flared as angry as the fight, and Rach flinched when I touched it. Within a couple of days, a huge patch of purple would serve as a two-week-long reminder of the beating she had taken at the hands and knees of the younger woman. Across the room, they were calling it a beatdown.
I propped Rach up in a sitting position, her legs outstretched, in the corner where Laura had rendered her unconscious. She exhaled deeply, trying to calm herself, staring catatonically at the ruffled, hair-strewn duvets. Proffering the water bottle every so often, I waited for her to recover from the shock of that brutal ending.
I tried to process the enormity of what had just happened, reliving the final moments of the contest in my head. The girl in the black leotard had laid out my sweet angel in the most devastating and stunning display of female brutality I had ever witnessed.
Laura wandered across in conciliatory fashion and leaned over. Beads of perspiration glistened on her upper lip. The long-standing bulge in my crotch, for which she was responsible, swelled again as her breasts lowered to form a lycra-clad valley next to my face.
‘No hard feelings. That was a great battle. I really enjoyed it.’
Twenty-four years later, I can still hear the emphasis she put on the word ‘really’. What the fuck.
Laura held her outstretched hand towards Rachel, who took it limply, unable to sustain eye contact with the girl who had just beaten her up. The handshake was even more cursory and insincere than the one which had begun the evening. Uncomfortable with the awkwardness, Laura smirked and returned to her friends across the room, shrugging her shoulders.
Rach raised her hand to mask her crumpled face and burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry’, she whispered. I took her in my arms and held her. Maybe the embrace lasted two minutes, maybe it was fifteen. We said nothing. Contradictory feelings tumbled inside me, but the overwhelming one was to protect her. Too late, I know. Behind me I could hear Kev and Laura whispering awkwardly, conscious they were intruding on private grief.
When I looked up, the other couple had gone, and Kev and Laura were locked in their own, more passionate clinch. It was obvious that we were delaying the progression of their celebration to its inevitable carnal conclusion in the arena of her triumph. They broke off when I rose to my feet. The air hung heavy with pheromones and sweat.
I collected Rach’s things, handed the money to Kev, and without speaking, we assisted Rachel as she limped, shuffling towards the doorway and the stairs. Her face was puffy and red from the crying, her eyes half-closed from the humiliation. Laura lingered in the background on the landing, her frequent smirks to Kev revealing her jubilation and pride at the indelible wounds she had left on Rachel’s body and soul.
Rach couldn’t make it down the stairs on her own so, still in her leotard, I picked her up and carried her to the car, wrapping her in a couple of blankets to protect her from the winter cold.
There were no goodbyes. As Kev handed me her things, he just said ‘Let’s have a rematch one day’. It was an ignominious exit. We didn’t know then that I would be back three weeks later, albeit without Rachel.
The journey home was virtually wordless, with Rachel shaking and sobbing in the passenger seat for much of the hour-long drive. I will never know how much of it stemmed from the physical beating she had taken from Laura, how much from the emotional humiliation, and how much from an unconscious suspicion that she had begun to lose me. Her injuries, mental and physical, would take a long time to heal. I wondered if I should take her to a hospital but quickly discounted the idea. It would raise too many awkward questions. My eyes on the road, I tormented myself by imagining Laura and Kev’s post-fight copulatory celebrations. I wanted it to be me, fucking Rachel’s conqueress in the room where she had annihilated her. Laura had won the fight, and a lot more besides. It was Darwinian and cruel, but my sperm now demanded her superior eggs.
From then on, whenever I was with Rachel, I couldn’t get her beatdown at Laura’s hands out of my mind. She must have noticed the far-away look in my eyes. We were growing apart. Maybe her hope of winning me back explained why, six months later, Rachel told me she wanted – no, needed - to fight for me again.
