“I have another pair,” he answered hopefully.

“What colour?”

“Yellow.”

“Jaundiced. Todd, my son, you need to show you’re dynamic! You’re mean! You fight to win! Black gloves, boy, that’s what you need! I have a pair here which would suit you a treat! Special discount for students at my classes. I tell you, my boy, wear those, and you’ll start with CONFIDENCE. A confident start is what it’s all about.”

Todd left the class with a spring in his step (and a somewhat lighter wallet). That’s it, you’ve got to feel dynamic, and to feel it you must look it. The next time some woman got all haughty with him, he’d show her what for!

He got his chance that same afternoon. The local Karen, his neighbour Margoth, knocked on his door.

“Now, I have spoken to you previously about this, she began. You put your rubbish out on the wrong days, outside my fence, and it stays there for the best part of a week. I really don’t want to tell the council, but I will have to if this continues.”

Todd raised a diplomatic hand. “I’m so sorry, you’re quite right, I’ll do something about it right now.”

“Oh, thank you,” replied Margoth, surprised at this change in his attitude. She watched happily as he picked up the bag of rubbish – then stared aghast as he emptied its contents over her lawn. She stormed up to him, fists clenched, in a blazing fury.

“I’ll bury you in that now!”

For the second time, Todd held out a restraining hand. “We can’t brawl in public. But I belong to a mixed fight club where we can settle this in a ring.”

“Show me the way!”

*****

“Back again, Todd?” the lady at the club Reception greeted him, “Who have you upset this time?”

“This is the neighbourhood Karen,” Todd introduced Margoth, “complaining about rubbish on this occasion.”

“This little shit emptied a bag of rubbish all over my lawn!” Margoth protested.

“Never mind, love, you come with me,” the lady told her. “We’ve got some lovely leotards that will suit you, and for when you’ve beaten him up, we have some …” she whispered in Margoth’s ear, and Todd was concerned to see her chuckling.

They certainly had some great leotards, Margoth thought. She bought a fine pink one that she could hardly get into (and which Todd thought bordered on the indecent), as well as pink boxing gloves. Looking at her in her corner, he wondered if he should have been quite so offensive after all. That was one determined woman standing there!

She looked what she was: an experienced, mature woman in her mid-thirties. She was a divorced mother of two and had seen her share of struggles – unlike Todd, who spent too much time hanging around the gym, but without getting any exercise. She had full, ripe breasts, a narrow waist, broad hips, a fine, large, womanly bottom, and strong yet shapely legs. She stared across at Todd, naked as the rules of the club dictated. This shouldn’t be a problem, she thought.

They met in the middle, circled, then Margoth got him on the jaw with a left jab. My God, thought Todd, that was powerful for a jab! She’d had no trouble getting through his defences, and planted a hefty first blow on his face, which had him vibrating from the shock. This is going to be easy, she thought, smiling as she banged another one in at the same place. Just two punches from her and he already stunned!

Oh, here he comes, he’s building up for a big right … well, boo hoo, missed!

“I think this was what you meant to hit, Todd,” Margoth laughed, tapping her chin and making him furious.

But his anger dissipated when she landed a third beefy left, this time on his ear. That was a serious blow. His hearing went all woolly in that ear, and his coordination and balance were now impaired.

Todd put his gloves up to protect his face from any more like that – so she struck him with a firm right high in the stomach. He dropped his head in pain and noticed the most bizarre thing: her large breasts started to wobble with the force of the punch, but they were constrained by the tightness of the leotard. Why did he always end up fighting women, he thought. If he’d been a bit nicer, perhaps he could have been playing with those big, beautiful breasts instead.

His brief moment of philosophy came to an abrupt close when Margoth got him with a nasty one, left and low into the kidney. Todd groaned in pain as his right side seemed to fill with molten lead. Loser’s instinct took over and he clinched. Okay, Margoth thought, if you want to end up on the ropes … The woman’s superior strength wore the man backwards until he felt those chilling cords against his back.

Then she sent him towards the corner with a left hook. It got him on the jaw; his head jerked to the side, and he stumbled in the same direction. But the ropes were friendly in their way because they propped him up. The bottom rope at his left leg prevented his otherwise inevitable fall, while he held onto the middle one.

Margoth sent Todd spinning in the other direction with a right cross to the opposite jaw. She was battering him up and down the ropes as she chose, leaving aside what she was doing to his face. As before, they held him up. On the other hand, they kept him as a target for Margoth’s pink gloves. (So much for his “dynamic” black ones.)

Instinct is usually a good thing, and protects us. But it needs to be controlled with training and experience. Todd’s instinct told him to put his gloves up to protect his face. Training and experience would have told him, look what happened the last time you did that. However, he did put his gloves up – and Margoth got him with a heavy left, low in the stomach.

He doubled up, vainly trying to absorb the nauseous waves of pain that seemed to sweep all over his body from this stomach. But Margoth sensed she was “on a roll”, and she drove her right glove in, true and hard, at the same place. The force of her blow actually lifted him off his feet briefly, before he dropped down on one knee, sweating and shaking from the pain she had inflicted on him.

“Get up and fight like a man,” she demanded, looking down contemptuously at him, with her hands on her hips.

After which, she did what so many of his opponents did, and walked to the centre of the ring, then beckoned to him to join her. She wore a rather frightening smile as she gestured to him, that tempted Todd to run away. However, he did approach.

The smile and gesture said, “Keep coming, don’t be shy …” until her fist said, “Oof!” A second left hook jarred his head and neck; indeed, it seemed to send a tide of pain downwards to replace the one that had so recently been welling up from his stomach. She let him recover just enough to straighten up, then banged her right glove in hard – as ever – at his high cheekbone, just below the eye. It is probable that Todd walked more steps back and sideways that day than he did forward.

In came Margoth to his body again, hooking in at his stomach with her left once more. It was still tender from her previous strike there, and she reignited the blaze she had recently started. Todd crumpled around her glove again, and he seemed to be grinning with the pain.

“It’s my divorce all over again,” thought Margoth, hammering in her right glove at Todd’s jaw. (Her husband had tried to divorce her for “husband beating”, but in fact she had simply beaten him in what she called a “rough-and-tumble.)

We read a lot about victory poses and defeat boners as signifying a fighter’s knowledge of victory or defeat. But Margoth’s smile as she blasted Todd’s face with her pink glove could best be described as a “victory smile”. She had him, she knew, and it was now time to go all-out for the win.

Smiling broadly, she swooped up and under his chin with a left uppercut. It was a magnificent strike that had Todd reeling. Technically, he was still conscious; but only just. He was what is known as “punch drunk”. Margoth had all the time she needed. He was no longer capable of counterattack, or even a defensive clinch. “I’m going to enjoy this,” she thought, readying her right fist. Then bang it went, a successive uppercut, right this time, that put the hapless Todd on his back, out cold.

Margoth celebrated, arms aloft. Then she began the ritual count out. At 4, appropriately, it was “Todd the garbage!” At 8, she asked if he was awake – he wasn’t. Then we had, “9, 10 and OUT. This Karen can fight!!” Then, as a postscript while she posed over him, with one foot on his chest, she added: “And Todd cannot fight.”

He came round with that fine model of womanhood above him in a schoolgirl pin, those wonderful breasts swinging over him. Then she sat on his face and flexed. When she walked over to a corner and returned, he didn’t have to look. He knew what it would be for. Sure enough:

“A blowjob for the winner, Todd?”

He resigned himself to it. Now he knew what that receptionist had whispered to her about earlier – a wretched strap on. Margoth wouldn’t have known about them otherwise. As with the other women, she got a climax from Todd’s mouth, then sat on his face again.

Moving down his body, until they were level, she started thrusting and demanded, “Who is fucking you, Todd?” He knew his cue and replied that she was. Thrusting some more, she started to stimulate him. Clearly enjoying the effect it was having on him, she gave it everything, and made him cum.

She straddle pinned him, kneeling either side of his face, and announced that she would be back the next day and do it all over again. Then she got her phone and posed for pictures, with Todd splayed out in the background. Taking one of him centre stage, as it were, still on his back, she told him she would send him all the pictures. Then she left him on his back, once more wearing her victory smile.

*****

A few minutes later, washed, dressed and rather sore, Todd was surprised to hear the sound of laughter. It was Margoth and the receptionist drinking coffee and chatting.

“… and we call the place where we keep each strap on, ‘Todd’s cupboard’!” the receptionist managed to say before breaking into fits of laughter. Then she looked up and saw him.

“Oops, hello Todd, would you like a coffee?”

“No thank you,” he replied formally while the women sniggered.

“No, that’s right, you’ve got that rubbish to clear off my lawn now, haven’t you?” Margoth added.

“Yes, I’ll go and do it now.”

“Todd’s cupboard” indeed! As soon as he felt better, he would have a word with that receptionist.