“Let me guess, it’s Todd,” Siren sniffed, when Claire told her that a man there was annoying her. “It’s my fault, I should have warned you about him. Firstly, you can be as rude as you like to him – all the girls are. Secondly, you will need to beat him up.”

“WHAT?” Claire was aghast. “I’ve never had a fight in my life!”

“That reflects well on you, don’t worry,” Siren reassured her. “But we’ll give you some training in the ring. When we think you’re ready, we’ll find a way to provoke him. That’s always easy to do! But first, we need to find something for you to wear in the ring.”

“I can’t wear those!” the modest librarian exclaimed, when Siren showed her a lacy black leotard, matching black bra and stocking set.

“Nonsense! You’ve got a lovely figure!”

“Do you think so?” the shy, studious girl blushed.

“Yeah!” the kindly, older woman coaxed. “Go on, try it all on and have a look in the long mirror. Well?” she asked, once Claire was changed.

“It all makes me feel strangely powerful,” she admitted.

“Of course it does! Women have immense power over men, once they learn to use it. Okay, we’ll do some sparring, give you some sessions with the other girls, then work out how to wind Todd up.”

*****

One of the strange things about the gym was that it allowed smoking in the reception area. (Siren got so fed up with staff disappearing for cigarettes, that she decided it would be better to let them smoke indoors.) Todd enjoyed a smoke, so she decided to put up a No Smoking sign when he was there, and let Claire do the rest.

The day she chose happened to be just a few days after Diane had beaten him up (gallery 901). The fact that he still had a couple of black eyes would offset the vulnerability of Claire’s glasses.

Todd entered the gym and went to change into his shorts as usual. When he came out, smoking, he was equally astonished by the No Smoking sign (which hadn’t been there when he arrived), and Claire in her “fighting outfit”. In his narrow mind, he had associated librarians with frumpy, unattractive women. Yet here was this long-legged sparkler of a young woman, pointing indignantly to the sign.

“I’ll be confiscating those,” she told him severely, snatching his packet of cigarettes.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” Todd protested.

“It’s company policy,” Claire calmly told him.

“Since when?” he demanded.

“Since you came in,” she explained, as if it should have been obvious.

“The women that run this place are all bitches!” he shouted.

“Yes, and I’m proud to have joined them,” Claire smirked. “Now, I’m busy, so carry on to the gym, or go home.”

“If I go home, will you give me back my fags?”

“No, you’ll have to fight me for them.”

“Yes, you really have joined the bitches, haven’t you? Okay, let’s go to the ring. But one thing: you’re staff and I’m a member. I’m not taking off my shorts this time.”

****

“I’ll tell you what, Bookworm,” Todd sneered once they were in the ring. “As you spend all your time in libraries, you won’t be able to fight. Try and hit me with your best shot. Throw the book at me, ha ha – OW!”

She threw a regular tome at him, in the form of a left hook. What the hell happened to the dull girl on reception at the weekends, who spent all her time in libraries (and museums and galleries)? Suddenly, she was fighting like a drunk sailor. Oh yes, of course, the other girls must have influenced her. Bitches, Todd thought once again. He went for her with his right, missed, and got a nasty one on the nose for his trouble.

He tried with a left; she nipped to the side and banged a good one in at his chest, her fist making a hollow sound that sickened him. Worst of all, she seemed to be enjoying herself, laughing as she swung her right fist into his kidney. Now that hurt. Someone had definitely shown her where to aim for to create the maximum amount of pain, he thought bitterly, flashing at her with his right. She was up like a Spitfire, batting it out of the way, then matching what she did to his left kidney on his other side.

Todd heaved a massive left at her, but she crouched underneath it. Similarly, his right fist went over her left shoulder, nearly brushing the material of her leotard. He went to try again with his right, but she held it at bay with her left hand and got him on the ear with a glancing cross.

The keen student of literature whacked her male opponent on the jaw. Her left fist hooked into the exposed bone, igniting waves of pain throughout Todd’s face, and he stumbled backwards. Always keen to even things up, she smacked a right cross into the opposite jaw, and he went back a couple more steps. The excitement of the fight quickened her breathing. Despite his impending crisis, Todd noticed her delightful breasts seeming to strain under her flimsy, skimpy black bra, hardly covered by the translucent leotard.

Yes, but the last thing you want to be doing right now is staring at her tits, Todd reminded himself, launching his left fist at her and missing. While Claire’s breathing may have quickened, he had started to pant, swinging a right hook at … nothing. Grunting with frustration, he thrust an almighty left hook – the elusive young lady stepped back smartly and watched him go in a half-circle after it.

“Once he’s missed several times and made himself really tired, that’s the time to lay into him,” Diane had advised Claire about Todd. So after a wayward left from him sailed past to her right, exposing his side to her, she aimed a missile of a left hook at his ear. Her fist stormed into the target, blurring his hearing and making him feel dizzy.

A right uppercut, angled in (the way Diane favoured them) sent Todd into a bit of a spin, then a massive left uppercut put him on his back. “I hope the girls are following this,” Claire thought proudly, elated that she had just put a grown man on his back. Diane was right: it was the most liberating feeling for a woman. (And, rest assured Claire, the girls were watching the video as it was being recorded.)

Stooping over him, she plunged her right fist into his eye, ensuring it stayed black for several more days. Then, straddling his chest, she swept his face with a left hook. Moving down his body to sit on him rather more intimately (“that always throws them out,” Diane told her) she belted his left ear again. Then she did the same to his other ear. A fierce left to the temple knocked him out, and she sat on his upper body savouring her triumph for a few moments.

While he was still unconscious, she took off his shorts, as advised to by all the women. (Whatever would they say at the library? Yes, well they don’t need to know, do they?) Seeing him stir, she stood and flexed over him, just to entrench his humiliation. Then she chose to get some delicious revenge:

“Never mind ‘Bookworm’, I seem to have uncovered a real worm,” she sneered at the barely recovering man, feeling his battered face. “Oh, come on, do at least try to stand up,” she continued her taunts as the groaning male got to his knees.

How many times had Todd been in this position? Humbled by a woman he thought it was safe to mock? Well, he wasn’t going to lose to some boring girl who preferred dusty books to a real man (i.e. him). Her insults stung him – as they were meant to – into committing himself to what was really the second half of the fight, and he raised his fists, glowering at her.

Yes, but determination’s all very well. Claire still proved just as evasive as before, and he missed with a right hook. But this time, she wanted to push the pace. Instead of wearing him out with a series of deflections, she countered him straight away with a left hook. Unlike his attempt a moment earlier, it found its mark, namely his jaw.

As if to say, “Your turn,” she invited a response, once he had stopped swaying from her punch. But once again, she stepped confidently out of the danger of his attempted body shot, to slam another blow in at his already injured left ear. It felt like her cruellest strike so far when her fist landed remorselessly for a third time. She gritted her teeth with the effort and concentration of making the punch tell.

But her smile returned when Todd nearly over-balanced after another abortive attempt to hit her. It was back to her “turn” already, and she opted for a bit of a change. She kicked him in the balls. No, THAT was Claire’s cruellest strike so far. Todd’s hands went to his eyes in agony and despair.

“And you thought I was just a prim librarian, didn’t you?” she gloated, as he staggered about, hands now over his balls. “In fact I was, before I met you. So well done, because this is so much more fun!”

She took a step back and raised her fists, expecting Todd to resume the fight. For his part, he overcame the feelings of faint that her ruthless attack had brought on, and raised his. He had some pride to restore, and thought about what he was going to do. She read his thoughts (which was pretty easy when he clenched his right fist) and blocked the forthcoming cross.

This abrupt halting of his progress once again exposed his flank to her, and she stormed in with her right fist to his jaw, accepting the gift. Incensed with this latest reverse, Todd heaved a right hook, but Claire lent back slightly and banged her left fist into his chest. The pain that she had already caused there had been wearing off and she reignited it. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she came at it again with her right fist. That just wasn’t fair! Moreover, she had a look of enjoyed concentration on her face, like someone who took pleasure from particular work.

Those bitches that ran the gym, thought Todd, had turned a shy academic into a street brawler. She came at him now, with a blistering left cross to the chin. His head jerked back from the blow; she waited for him to steady, then plunged her right fist into his stomach, holding his wrist to give the blow greater purchase. Smiling broadly, she felt his body crumple around her fist. His eyes sank downwards, taking in the loveliest breasts he could remember seeing.

Claire pulled his head down into them and thrust her knee up into his balls. Once again, Todd clutched his wounded manhood and lurched about, whimpering. She put him in a head lock.

“Have you ever read a book, Todd?” she asked, draining him of oxygen.

“Why should I do that?” he gasped, once she let go.

“To make you seem less stupid?” she answered, hurling her left fist into his stomach. As before, his body folded around her fist, pointlessly trying to absorb this fresh pain.

She crouched down further than him and shot her right fist up at his jaw. Oh, they’d taught her the lot, hadn’t they, those girls? As a veteran loser to each one, Todd recognised the style: face and body punches, punctuated with the odd wrestling hold and some ball busting. All the time with an infuriating superior attitude. Had they taught her that, too?

He stumbled with the force of her punch, punching blindly and ineffectually, so she kept the same position and got him on his left cheekbone with her left fist. She bruised him next to his black eye, courtesy of Diane a few days previously.

Standing up again, Claire stormed a right into Todd’s left ear. The sound of her fist landing was deafening for him, before his hearing went blurry again. He seemed to wear a permanent grimace as each pain gave way to a new one (or renewed one). He shot a hopeless attempted left cross, but got a real punch in the form of a left hook to his jaw. He let out a wail that combined despair, resentment and frustration in equal measures.

Laughing with the prospect of impending victory, Claire banged in a second curving right uppercut, taking him crisply on the jaw. She had him blundering about like the town drunk. When he had almost straightened, she slid forward on her right foot and threw another dynamic left at his jaw. His whole body jerked to the side, so that his head travelled comically with her fist.

It was party time. Todd had no resistance left. He was simply there to take whatever Claire chose to give him. She sent him to the ropes with a right cross to the jaw. She kicked him in the balls, and he howled his way into a corner.

The thing she had found most difficult to believe about her secret training was the “defeat boner”. When a man faced losing to a woman, he got an erection? How odd! Yet there it was, even after being kicked in the balls. She treated herself to one more punch, a solid left to the chin that put his upper body out of the ropes, while the middle rope strained to keep him inside. As usual, she let him almost regain his feet, then gripped him around the neck with her left hand, and squeezed his balls hard with her right.

“You’re going to be civil to me in future, right?” she demanded.

“Yes!” he implored.

“And you’re sorry for being such a tosser?” she squeezed just that bit harder.

“YES!”

“Say it!”

“I’m sorry for being such a tosser!”

“Good. Now, I don’t know why I’m doing this, and you certainly don’t deserve it . ..” she told him severely, without finishing her sentence, while her hand travelled up his cock to stroke it rhythmically.

“Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!” shouted Todd, for once from ecstasy rather than pain.

“You dirty boy!” Claire scolded him. “Look at the mess you’ve made over the mat! I can’t let that go unpunished,” she finished, ominously clenching her right fist.

Todd sailed pleasantly through the air, before landing on foam rubber. Nature came to his rescue and knocked him out the moment her fist landed. He floated towards consciousness, and seemed to be lying naked on his back in a library. His book was a day overdue, and Claire told him he must be punished for such a serious breach of the rules. She stood over him and flexed, with one stockinged foot on his manhood …

*****

Claire sat and waited for Todd in Reception, smoking one of his cigarettes. This was going to be fun! Here he came, groaning and hobbling, and looking straight ahead to avoid meeting her eyes. When he drew level, she couldn’t resist a little book joke of her own:

“I feel our relationship has turned a page today, Todd,” she said, with the faintest of smirks. He ignored her, so she called out after him:

“It’s opened up a whole new chapter!”

“Fuck off,” muttered Todd, once he was safely out in the street.