Six weeks is not a lot of time to train, but when you're training for a purpose, it is enough to make a difference, enough to pick up a skill or two, enough to perfect a move or a punch. I relayed what Kerry had told me to the coaches. I didn't tell them where I had heard it or how I heard it, just what I was told. They sat down and looked at the Castlewood roster and talked it over with me. They wouldn't agree to a fight with Frankie Jones. Frankie had fought in the Golden Gloves before turning semi-pro and he was a fast and vicious fighter with a record of 5-0. But, according to Coach Smith, it would be easy to force the bout. Castlewood only had two other fighters in my weight class. Schedule me with one of them and then, at the last minute, withdraw him due to injury or illness and substitute Frankie. I could then either withdraw or go up against a fighter who was significantly better than me.
I'll be honest. I wasn't interested in withdrawing. I'd had my first taste of fighting and my first and second taste of groupies and I was solidly hooked. So, after each night's training session, we sat down with the tape and started working on a plan. Frankie was beautiful in the taped matches we watched. He had amazing form, great technical skills, and he was as fast and violent as a cheetah attack. He threw wicked combinations. He'd clearly dominated every fight to date, and he'd won two of them by knock-out. To say he was formidable was an understatement. Compared to him I looked like the ballet dancing hippos in that animated movie, the one with classical music. So, after much discussion, we just jumped straight to the point. The coaches penciled me in to fight Frankie in Castlewood.
Coach Smith took the lead when it came to training. Besides the physical training, he focused on two things; defensive tactics and how to break a combination. He figured my best shot was two-fold. First, don't get my ass knocked out. Second, break the combinations. For a fighter, combinations mean speed and power. Because you learn and practice throwing specific sets of punches in combination you don't have to think about what you're doing, just fire off that combination as fast as you can. But, if you think of each combination as a locked door, if the other fighter can find the key, essentially a set of counterpunches and defensive moves, and then match those up, a combination can be rendered way less effective, even with the speed involved.
It was my crash-course in the strategy involved in the sweet science. We sat there, watched the tape, looked for the keys, and then practiced them relentlessly in the ring. I sparred with guys two weight classes above me, to get used to being hit and being hit hard. I sparred with guys in a weight class below me to get used to the speed. Weight classes are all about matching up fighters to make the bout as even as possible, to give the audience a good show. The general rule is smaller fighters hit faster and bigger fighters hit harder. I can attest to the truth of that general rule.
Within any rule there are exceptions, the little guys who punch above their weight, the big guys blessed with lightning speed. My friend John was one of the latter. He was big and he was fast. He settled in to being my primary sparring partner for the next month or so. He was a good sparring partner. He'd won his first match on a TKO, like I had, though his had happened in the second round. John had both talent and skill. Fortunately, he also had that strange quirk that makes some people natural teachers. He'd rock my world with a combination, then he'd slow it down, sometimes way down, so I could see what he was doing, get my brain wrapped around it, learn how to recognize it, then speed it back up while I learned how to survive the onslaught and maybe jam it up with the right movements or the right counterpunch. If I made a mistake, he'd hit me so hard I saw stars. I learned to keep my chin tucked in, so he didn't just straight knock me out in the sparring ring.
Coach Smith gloved up and stepped into the ring with me as well. He'd been a successful fighter in his youth and even now was far better than I was. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of strategy and tactics. My nights were long hours of getting the crap knocked out of me by my friend and my coach. Often the coaches would be teaching the rest of the club using me as the crash test dummy. They tried to take the things they were showing me and show them to the rest of the club. I think in those six weeks leading up to the Castlewood fights we all grew leaps and bounds as boxers. It was hard training, and we took it seriously.
Outside of the ring, about once a week, Cindy or Kerry would catch me after training and give me their version of training, which hurt a hell of a lot less but was incredibly invigorating. Cindy was also hopping back and forth between me and John as the recipients of her lust. We didn't compare notes or even acknowledge that we were fucking the same woman, but I suspect that sometimes it slipped into the ring. I noticed that, after Cindy spent the night with me, generally the next day John would knock me around a bit more in the ring. At that point though, I wasn't going to stop fucking her and I needed the experience fighting someone who could out punch me, so it was all good.
Cindy and Kerry were different lovers. When I was with Cindy it was hard, primal, pounding sex. She didn't have a soft mode. She wanted to be roughly taken, tossed around, and manhandled. She loved being bent over and taken from behind or mounted in doggy style. Though she was a good kisser, kissing and softness were aperitifs for her. Oral sex was always just prelude. It was all about the hard fuck. Other than light conversation she didn't want to discuss anything. She just wanted to show up, get fucked hard, and go home. She didn't care about where we fucked either -- a closet, an empty room, the backseat of a car, bent over the hood on a country road, in the dirt by the lake, they were all fine with her.
Kerry on the other hand was more refined in her debaucheries. It was always at her small house in Crooksville, and it was always an overnight stay. I learned what a "scene" meant from her. She had scenarios, some elaborate, some simple, in mind whenever I was invited over. She'd lay out the scene, the position, or positions, and walk me through it, coaching me, giving me tips, teaching me. Some of them we'd play over across multiple sessions, just like sparring in the ring.
Where Cindy was just pure, primal, sex, Kerry was an education in sex. She was the science part of that other sweet science. Often, when we were done and laid there spooned together, on her bed, on the floor, on the couch, she'd tell me why we had done certain things. The emotions and sensations that accompanied the act. What it felt like to be lifted and then powered over a piece of furniture, both physical and psychological. How to put my hand around her throat, how to choke her by cutting off the blood flow or the air flow, how each of them felt, how to watch carefully and time them. The differences in the variations in oral sex. When she wanted me to take the lead and be forceful, when she wanted me to lean back and let her do all the work. Like John, she was a natural teacher, and I was grateful for every lesson.
Prior to her and Cindy, I'd only slept with two other women, both after a long period of courtship, and both vanilla, another term I learned from her. No fault of theirs, I had to admit I was also vanilla at the time. Now, I was on my way to all 31 flavors, courtesy of two powerfully sexual women. Just like I was learning in boxing, I was learning there was way more to sex then I had ever imagined.
I learned one very powerful lesson from Kerry, one night, after we'd fucked, a particularly rough session, and were curled up on the couch watching a late-night cable movie and eating chocolate eclairs. For some reason, the conversation had turned to Cindy. I think Kerry had been answering a question I'd asked about the "why" of something Cindy had done, and she turned the conversation.
"You know she's fucking John, right?"
I nodded. "I know."
"How do you feel about that?"
"To be honest," I told her, "I don't really think about it. It's between them."
"Good," she said, "but, be aware he doesn't feel the same way. I know he's your friend, but he's falling for Cindy. He's cool with it for now, mainly because Cindy put him in his place. But he's not the kind of guy who's naturally cool with it, and she's getting inside his brain. At some point, you're going to have work it out with him."
I hadn't really thought about it. I'd just assumed he was cool with it all, the whole "to the victor go the spoils" thing. It gave me pause. Nestled on my shoulder she looked at me and smiled that half smile of hers.
"Ah, there goes the Cowboy brain, that's good to see. In the ring or in bed, never stop paying attention and thinking about the things you see. Everything in life is a fight of some sort."
I nodded.
"I've also got some good news for you, while you're contemplating that."
"Okay."
