She then grabbed her purse and dug out her phone, beeping buttons and saying, “I gotta dash…get my post-fight drilling from my man, so quick, give me your number. We’ll do lunch. Or drinks. Or somethin’. You can even come in and I’ll give you a freebie mani-pedi. I live in Magdalene and got a shop there.” She stopped beeping buttons, looked to me and smiled impishly. “You can tell me how much fun Jake is after a fight.”
“I, well…”
“Hurry,” she urged.
I liked her very much regardless of her loudness and crudeness. Further, I was going to be in Magdalene for some time and didn’t know anyone of my age who wasn’t the wife of the pastor of the local church. Therefore, I quickly gave her my number. I was about to go on and share that she had the wrong idea about Jake and I before she shot out of her seat and looked down at me.
“Jake’s up next. Have fun and don’t leave a wet spot,” she declared, still smiling madly before she bent in, touched her cheek to mine, did the same on the other side then she tottered swiftly away on platform sandals that looked a great deal like the ones Jake’s dancers wore.
I watched her go then I turned my attention to the ring.
Jake was up next, the last fight of the night. Although from their haggard appearance, it seemed a number of the spectators had been there since the very beginning, the air was humming and electric. Like the headline act was about to take the stage at the end of a festival that had been going on for days.
It was not hard to read they liked Jake and this would be proven positive when a chant of “Truck” started low and quiet but gained in momentum until the crowd burst out in applause.
He was coming.
Unexpectedly, I found my stomach was in knots, my legs were shaking even though I was sitting down, my hands the same.
I clenched them together, leaned to the side and looked over my shoulder to peer down the aisle.
Not everyone but a goodly number of folks were standing, chanting, shouting, clapping and through this, I saw Jake.
Midnight blue robe, dark gray lapel, dark gray stripes down the inside seams. He was being followed by a man that was older than him and appeared to have had much the same frame as him, but perhaps fifteen years ago.
Mickey wore a boxing robe well.
Jake in one made Alyssa’s prediction start to come true and I knew this because my legs and hands weren’t the only things trembling.
Something was fluttering in a very private place. A very good private place.
Slowly, even on unsteady legs, I found myself rising to my feet even though I didn’t tell my body to do it. The entire time my eyes were glued on Jake.
Nearly to the end of the aisle, his focus, which seemed to be on the floor in front of him, started shifting to me.
Yes, he wore that robe well and that pre-fight intensity on his face was breathtaking.
That flutter grew.
He caught my eyes and I began to smile.
But my smile froze on my face when his expression changed instantly upon locking on my gaze.
And it was then I felt it.
The heat. The pressure. The stifling, smoldering sensation of Jake Spear’s fury.
His eyes were also heated and I’d never seen them like that. His anger, certainly. But this wasn’t anger. This was extreme.
This was rage.
And I knew instinctively it was not directed at the opponent he would soon be facing.
For some reason, it was directed at me.
He tore his eyes from mine and I stood frozen for long moments, caught in the residual beam of his furious gaze. My body only woodenly moved in a pivot as he walked by me and I watched him enter the ring.
Throughout the pre-fight activities, he didn’t look at me again. And I was so struck by the burning look of wrath he’d directed at me I only had it in me to sit and tuck my purse in my lap.
I vaguely noticed that his skintight workout shirts only hinted at the exceptional, defined, perfect male beauty of his body as he took off his robe to expose midnight blue trunks with dark gray stripes and waistband.
I became more aware of all this as he danced in his corner. Shook out his arms. Jerked up his shoulders. Tipped his head sharply side to side. Punched lightly into the air. His muscles flexing and bulging with each movement.
The vision of all that was him cutting through the haze of his earlier look, I became aware that the flutter was back and growing stronger than ever.
They did the introduction bit and Jake got a loud, boisterous round of applause (even I clapped heartily, though I didn’t shout any encouragement).
Jake and his opponent went back to their corners, did some listening and nodding to the men outside the ring then they dance-jogged back to the center, listened to the gray shirted man, more nodding, gloves tapping…
And then it happened.
The bell rang and I watched Jake Spear do what Jake Spear was clearly born to do.
And in doing so, my world combusted.
Everything I was.
Everything I knew.
Everything I’d worked so long and so hard to make real.
I watched the primal beauty of Jake fighting and did it coming out of my skin. It split and shredded and fell away. It did it fast and suddenly it was gone and I was there, sitting, legs crossed, stylish handbag tucked in my lap, feeling raw, bare, vulnerable, electrified, old and new.
The area between my legs was pulsing.
My focus was riveted.
I was gone.
I wasn’t me.
And I was.
For the first time in years, I was me.
And that time was watching the beauty of Jake beating the absolute shit out of the man in the ring with him.
He did this in five minutes.
Five.
I noticed it dazedly on the big clock with the red numbers that was beside the ring in front of the judges.
And he did it after hitting his already struggling challenger twice in the body then his powerfully muscled, sleek with wet right arm went out wide and he landed a blow to the man’s head that would have normally made me swallow with sick. The man’s head jerked brutally, sweat flew, his eyes closed and he hit the mat with a loud thud, not even lifting a hand to break his fall, his big body shuddering from top to toe on impact.
The crowd went wild.
I sat frozen in my chair staring at Jake dancing close to the body on the mat as the referee crouched beside him, counting to ten, his arm striking out to the side with each beat, his mouth moving with the numbers, his words swallowed up on the roar.
He finally stood, lifted Jake’s arm and the crowd got even louder. So loud it was deafening.
Jake, however, did not bask in the glory.
He moved to his corner and left it with no ado whatsoever. He didn’t put his robe on. He didn’t gesture to the crowd.