“I think we do,” one of them answered her. “Something about going a few rounds with him in the ring, and moving on from there?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve all had it. Whenever a new girl starts, if she’s attractive, he leers at her with his towel over his neck and boxing gloves on, trying to show her what a man he is. We call him Pervy Patrick.”

“Well, can’t we get him thrown out?”

“We’ve all complained about him, but he’s related to the owner, so unofficially he gets a free pass.”

“Which is what he should go out on,” one of the older women chimed in, echoing the old “Carry On” joke, that was lost on most of the others. “The other men say he’s not a good boxer at all. Wouldn’t it be funny if a woman who knew how to box accepted his offer and made him look stupid?”

“It’s funny you say that,” mused another woman, Sarah, who had been quiet until now. “A very good friend of mine, Rosanne, boxes for a ladies’ team. She loves a joke too. I could easily invite her to stay with me, bring her here as a guest, and let Patrick do the rest. He’d be drooling over her too, because she looks great in her leotards. She’s got big boobs, and the sort of arse that makes a man go faint.”

Rosanne was duly invited to stay for the weekend, and brought to the gym Saturday afternoon, when Patrick was always there. She had been primed about him, and said she was eager to “help out in any way that I can”. The other girls discreetly “worked out” on any equipment that was nearby.

Patrick’s eyes bulged when he saw the “new lady member”. He almost ran over to her, his beer belly wobbling over his shorts with undue haste. He wore a towel over his neck as usual.

“Hey babe,” he said to her as her always did. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“No, I’m staying with my friend, Sarah,” and she waved in Sarah’s direction, who waved back.

“You don’t want to worry about that exercise bike,” he suggested. “Why not come into the ring for a few rounds with me and – who knows? – maybe we could move on from there?”

“Ooh, I’d love a fight,” Rosanne eagerly agreed, “I’ll go and get my gloves!”

Patrick had always thought that his mere presence as a boxer would do the trick with a new lady member. He hadn’t actually considered that she might want to box, and soon he was joined by grinning young women, all eager to watch the action.

“This friend of yours boxes then, does she?” he asked Sarah.

“Oh, yes. She boxes for a ladies’ team, and has won awards,” she told him, unable to hide her relish.

“Are you all right, Patrick?” asked another girl, “You look a bit nervous.”

“Of course I’m not nervous,” he contradicted her, not altogether convincingly.

Rosanne trotted back to them, her famous boobs bouncing merrily away. “What, not in the ring yet?” she asked Patrick impatiently. “Come on!”

Sarah hadn’t been lying - Rosanne did indeed look great in her silver leotard. She had it daringly unzipped to the cleavage, saying it gave her more freedom of movement. Her striking pink-and-white gloves matched the pinkish tinge to her hair, and she wore a confident smile as she looked up at the slightly taller Patrick. The girls were watching through the windows of the gym complex nearby.

The boxers squared up, then circled. The spectators could feel the anticipation and tension all around them. Patrick tried a right jab, which Rosanne neatly fended off, before banging her right glove hard and high into his chest. She didn’t even give him time to cough before hurling her right glove into his stomach, doubling him up. When he tried to stand properly again, she put him off his perch with a right hook.

“I’m not surprised she’s won awards, fighting like that,” one of the girls commented.

“I knew she’d out-box him,” Sarah replied, “I wouldn’t have invited her if I thought she might get hurt.”

What the girls couldn’t see were the expressions on her face. But the footage shows someone who had mastered the art of psychological combat as well as the physical. We see her looking into his eyes as her glove strikes his face. Even if her punch hadn’t knocked him to his side so he couldn’t return her glance, he would have looked away.

Patrick, stung metaphorically as much as literally by her early dominance, swung a similar, but left, hook. Rosanne leant back skilfully and hammered her left glove into exactly the same place in his chest that she had struck moments before, intensifying the pain there.

As before, she was so quick that she gave him no time to try and absorb the pain, but hit him a second time, this time getting his jaw with an overhand right. Again, viewing the footage, there’s no fury to her style, just controlled, methodical, steady destruction of the opponent.

She peered at him to view her progress even as the punch landed. This time Patrick caught her look and determined to change it with a straight right. But there she went again, darting underneath it to shoulder it out of the way, and replying with a nasty left, low in the stomach.

“She works them over largely with body shots first,” Sarah told the other girls, as they watched Rosanne appearing to bury her left glove again in Patrick’s stomach immediately afterwards. His subsequent staggering showed how effective it had been.

Perhaps she thought she had “worked him over” enough, or perhaps his stooping after the double left to the stomach was too tempting for Rosanne. Whatever: she crouched down slightly and her right fist zipped into his high cheek bone, between his eye and his ear. It stunned him, as she hoped it would, so she sent him reeling with a huge swing of her left at his jaw.

“You can feel her building her own momentum,” Sarah told the others, as they watched her friend score a bullseye into his eye with her right.

“And you can feel him getting progressively sorer,” one of them commented, to laughter, as Patrick’s eye began to discolour.

She had him breaking ground now – though in which direction is questionable. While her punch to his eye pushed him towards the ropes, her follow up left hook sent him parallel with them. For many boxers, their priority seems to be to get their opponent on the ropes and especially into a corner. She seemed more content to send him in all directions. But it was working undeniably, as she halted his progress and sent him back a step with a right cross to the jaw.

The blows were beginning to overwhelm Patrick. His vision went black, and he was close to fainting when she banged a left hook in at his ear. Then his eyes watered when she got him on the bridge of the nose and his other eye with a right cross.

“God, that’s sexy!” one of the women said, as they watched Rosanne hoist him up on his toes with a left uppercut to his chin and mouth. It was just a pity (perhaps) that there weren’t a few men to appreciate the view of her bottom curved towards them in the foreground, while beyond they would have seen her ladylike glove send the man tottering with a rictus of pain on his face. Indeed, so tottering was he that a straightforward right cross to the temple put him on the mat.

And what a sorry sight he was! Holding his head in his gloves, both eyes blackening, he whined like a sulky child that it wasn’t “fair”. Rosanne, meanwhile, looked on unperturbed, smiling contentedly that her boxing skills had “done the trick” against a man – a new experience for her.

Patrick stood up, one hand nursing his battered face, the other holding a leg to steady himself. With an effort, he faced his smiling opponent, looking as if she had just stepped out of a beauty salon, curse her. She eyed him curiously, as if were some rare animal at a zoo. Enraged, he lashed out with a wild right; she swerved out of the way and her left glove sailed into his right eye once more.

Apart from the pain, his visibility was blurred, partly through the tears which would spring up, despite his efforts. Then, cruelty upon cruelty, she got him in the other eye with a good, full-length right cross. Everything now looked as if he were swimming under water.

When people have a knowledge of a particular sport, they will sometimes tell you that the most pleasure is derived from a subtle deception, or unexpected variation. So while those of us with perhaps cheaper tastes love to see a 6 being scored in cricket, the experts will get just as much pleasure from a skilfully defensive stroke that scores no run. Such people would no doubt sigh with satisfaction at the way Rosanne seemed to guide an attempted right cross from Patrick off its intended course. She used so little effort, that “block” would be too abrupt a term to use.

While he was still trying to work out what happened, she reminded him that she also had considerable power, with a sharp right uppercut to his chest. Her glove landed with a dull thud and waves of pain returned to his upper body.

As much to take his mind off the pain as to score a blow, Patrick launched a massive overhand right. Rosanne edged it out of the way and, in a favourite response of hers, sent her left glove very low into his stomach. The burning in his chest was now met with a throbbing tide of pain from his abdomen. His mouth opened in a silent expression of horror.

“What the -?” one of the girls exclaimed. From what she saw, Patrick, lurching and coughing, suddenly took off then crash landed. The darting figure of the nubile boxer was somehow responsible. Indeed, it was! Rosanne scored her own 6 with a racing right cross, in a majestic attack that even the most critical, analytical pundit must find a joy to watch.

“Doesn’t she look great, standing over him!” the same girl remarked. She certainly did, like some ancient warrior-goddess over a vanquished male foe.

Although, not vanquished quite yet, as it turned out. Rosanne, one hand on her hip, surveyed him as he made his way up again, mouthing daft threats of vengeance. Daft, because he was still groaning and holding his head once he was on his feet. It was just self-destructive pride which prevented him from conceding defeat now, and avoiding further pain and humiliation. She understood, and went over to him, holding his chin and jaw in her glove.

“Why don’t you just give up?” she murmured. “You know you can’t win.”

“No, I don’t,” he managed to say in a strange sort of voice, because her grip meant he couldn’t open his mouth properly.

“Oh, come on then,” she agreed, pushing him away. She stepped back, inviting him to try again.

Patrick was furious at being put in the position where a woman offered him a free shot. It felt all wrong. (At the same time, more fool her for the offer.) He heaved a mighty left cross, but she nimbly side-stepped it, drawing herself out of its route and laughing at the game.

Longing to be able to remove the smile from her face, Patrick swung a left hook at it. But, with a crisp little tweak of her head, she avoided it, then bludgeoned his chest with her left glove, reigniting the fires there.

It was too much. With his chest engulfed in red-hot pain again, Patrick wished he had taken her earlier, jeering advice and given up. But it wasn’t just too much – it was too late. Rosanne now stormed into him with a ferocious right uppercut, bang under the chin. His whole head jarred with the impact, and his teeth clanged together.

The lady in the fetching silver leotard punched her male opponent full in the mouth. From the first moment of that left cross in the footage, the viewer must sense that Patrick couldn’t fight any more after it. It was as if it had “Match Winner” written over it.

“She’s drawn blood!” one of the girls exclaimed, and they just had time to see his blooded face before he collapsed for the last time onto the mat.

Rosanne stood over Patrick and posed for the young women, cheering through the open windows. She had never fought a man before and it had been a wonderful experience – far more fun than she had expected it to be. No doubt about it, she thought: a woman can get a sexual thrill from defeating a man.