Against the Ropes

"Dodge, Dae!" Martha yells. "You know how to dodge!"

It's been a long day, with hours of sparring in the boxing gym. Dae is exhausted. Sweat is pouring down her pale face. Her short brown hair is flopped in her face, plastered in pieces to her forehead.

She grunts in response to Martha, their hardass coach. She tries to dodge another punch from Jo, but she's too slow again, and Jo's fist glances the top of her head.

"Fuck," Dae mutters under her breath.

"God dammit, Dae!"

Jo has a smirk on her face, the arrogant piece of shit. She's still light on her feet, dancing around the ring like a ballerina.

Dae throws her hands up and walks away from Jo to the edge of the ring.

"I'm done," Dae announces, getting out of the ring.

"The fuck you are!" Martha yells.

"We've been at this for hours! I need a break."

"Jesus Christ, you'll never be shit if you can't power through. But you know what? You can do whatever you want. You pay for my time, if you want to waste it, that's your choice."

Dae climbs out of the ring and grabs a bottle of water, dumping it on her hot sweaty face with a huff. Jo watches carefully, noticing not for the first time the way her muscles flex as she takes a long drink.

"Jordan!" Martha yells. "Drills!"

Jo sighs, dipping out of the ring and following Martha to the punching bags for conditioning. She's exhausted too, but she does a better job of hiding it. She powers through the drills with Martha. She's a 40-something butch lesbian with graying hair and wrinkles that match the permanent frown on her face. She's buff as hell, and she'd catch Jo's eye in a bar if she weren't her coach, and a raging asshole.

Martha pauses and checks her watch. "Alright," she announces. "It's six o'clock. I'm off the clock. Clean up the gym. It closes at nine." She glances at Dae with a look of disdain. "I suggest you also stay and practice more, but you're free to be a lazy ass. See you tomorrow."

She leaves the gym unceremoniously.

"I want a five minute break after hours of conditioning, and I'm a lazy ass," Dae scoffs. "Whatever." She takes a bite off of her protein bar a little aggressively.

"Yeah, she can be too hard on us," Jo agrees.

"It's not that she's too hard on us. I think it's her job to be hard on us. I just think she's an asshole while she does it."

Jo laughs. "Ain't that the truth."

Jo sits next to Dae on the edge of the ring, hanging her elbows off the ropes.

"So... Feel better after a break? Wanna get your ass kicked again?" Jo asks.

"You can bet your ass that I'll beat you," Dae retorts.

"Oh, you'll beat my ass, huh? What are you gonna do, spank me?" Jo teases. Dae blushes. That was not what she meant, but now it's what she's imagining. Oh God.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Dae teases back, trying to hide how flustered she feels.

Dae and Jo have been rival boxers for years, watching each other improve over time and pushing each other to be better. Dae has always had a bit of a crush on Jo, even before she realized she was capable of crushing on girls. Jo has always liked girls, but it wasn't until recently that she started thinking about Dae in that way, and ever since then, it's been distracting her in the ring.

"Maybe," Jo winks. She hops up into the ring and wraps her hands, jumping and dodging and striking the thin air.

"Calm down, Muhammud Ali." Dae rolls her eyes. She finishes her protein bar and water and feels much better.

Dae fixes her hand wraps and stands across from Jo, sizing her up.

She's toned and muscular from the years of boxing, her warm brown skin glistening with sweat. Her brown eyes are smiling with energy and challenge, the determination on her face as clear as the first day they met. Dae clears her throat, trying to focus.

"Ready?" Jo grins.

"Mhmm," Dae mumbles, still distracted.

Jo swings and hits Dae square in the jaw. She reels back, falling into the ropes.

"Fuck!" Dae yells. "What the fuck was that for?"

"For not paying attention." Jo dances, punching the air. "Get your head in the game, Dae."

Dae is embarrassed for not paying attention to Jo's hands, and for not having the same stamina as her today at practice. Shame burns through her, and she's determined to win this fight to prove herself.

Dae spits, and it's red with blood. She throws up her fists in front of her face and gets in her stance, ready this time.

Jo throws a light punch and Dae ducks her head to dodge it and pulls back up with her own punch in return, landing a hit to Jo's face.

Fuck yes, Dae thinks to herself.

"Oh, is that how it's gonna be, babe?" Jo says, wiping her mouth on her forearm.

Jo started calling Dae babe a few months ago as a joke, after Martha called Dae a baby for hitting the ground and staying down. It made her blush in anger and... something else.

"Yeah, babe," Dae shoots back. "That's how it's gonna be." They circle each other in the ring.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were flirting with me, babe," Jo challenges.

This flusters Dae, and suddenly she's dodging a punch that she wasn't ready for, and she's just a bit too slow. The hit glances her jaw and she falls to her hands and knees.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were cheating, Jo," Dae spits, looking over her shoulder.

"Who, me?" Jo feigns innocence.

Suddenly, Dae swings her leg out and topples Jo from her ankles, surprising her and knocking her to the mat. Jo groans.

"Yes, you," Dae seethes.

Jo laughs and sits up, looking at Dae intently, in an odd way. Then she lunges at Dae and wrestles her to the mat, pinning her arms down.

"It's only cheating if it distracts you..." Jo says. "If it works, that's not my problem."

Dae tries to shove her off, but Jo wrestles her back down.

"What's the matter?" Jo says with mock concern. Then she leans down to Dae's ear and lowers her voice. "Don't you like it?"

A blush rushes to Dae's face, and a jolt of electricity strikes through her body. Dae's eyes flutter closed and she swallows. She has no idea what to say, but before she can think of an answer, Jo is up and off of her, ducking under the ropes and grabbing the cleaning supplies.

"Come on," Jo says casually. "Let's clean up. I wanna get out of here."

Christ. Dae drops her head back to the mat, sighing. She gets up reluctantly and drags her tired ass over to the punching bags to wipe them down with sanitizer. She has no idea what the fuck just happened with Jo, but her body is buzzing and she's confused as hell. Was Jo flirting with her? Or just being her typical bratty self, distracting her to win the sparring match?

Jo ignores her while they clean, acting like nothing happened. She says goodnight and leaves Dae standing in the gym alone.

Dae hits the showers, not wanting to ride the 26 bus home in her sweaty clothes. She strips and steps into the cool stream of water, letting the high water pressure beat down on her sore body. Dae cleans up, and gradually the ice cold water stops feeling like relief and starts to make her shiver. She turns the water higher and relaxes into the warmth. She massages her sore neck and shoulders, stretches her arms.

Her mind wanders back to the fight, to being pinned to the mat and hearing Jo's husky voice in her ear asking, "Don't you like it?" The same jolt of electricity sparks in her again, and her hands wander in between her legs and stoke the sparks into flames. Soon, she's leaning with one arm against the shower wall and the other hand is furiously rubbing her clit. Her moans of "Oh, oh, oh" echo off the locker room walls.

Dae imagines Jo on top of her again in the ring, pinning her down and rubbing her clit and murmuring, "Don't you like it?" in her ear. She imagines Jo telling her to cum for her, and then Dae is cumming on her own fingers, crying out "Fuck!" in the locker room shower.

She pants as she comes down from her orgasm. Her exhausted body thrums with energy.

She wonders for a moment if what she just did was a bad idea, but she doesn't care. She dries off and heads home, trying to think about literally anything else on the bus ride home, but all she can think of is Jo's tight body on top of hers and "Don't you like it?"

At home, Jo pulls her car into her driveway and smiles to herself, remembering the way Dae's eyes fluttered closed and she gulped when Jo murmured, "Don't you like it?" Jo wonders if Dae liked being pinned to the mat as much as she liked doing it.

Jo has been watching the little ways that Dae gets flustered around her. The way Dae looks at her when she thinks Jo isn't looking. The way her eyes go wide and she pretends to look somewhere else when she gets caught. The way she blushes when Jo calls her babe. That one has been fun.

Jo is dying to see Dae again tomorrow. She wants to mess with her again, see how flustered she gets.

She showers and crawls into bed with her fresh clean sheets. She considers her vibrator next to her under her pillow, where she hides it. She thinks about Dae again, underneath her, blushing and trying to wrestle her but losing.

She reaches for the vibrator.

---

The next day, Martha starts the morning pissed off because, evidently, they didn't do a good enough job of cleaning the gym last night.

Jo rolls her eyes when Martha's back is turned. Dae rolls her eyes in front of Martha's face, which was her second mistake of the day. The first mistake was showing up.

"Did you just roll your fucking eyes at me like a child?" Martha says coldly.

She's dangerous when she's cold. Usually she's hot: angry and fiery, yelling.

When her voice gets quiet and cold, that's when it's bad.

Dae freezes, realizing her mistake.

"Training is cancelled today."

Dae opens her mouth to protest, but Martha holds up a finger to stop her and she falls silent.

"You two," Martha says, looking at Jo too, "will clean this gym top to bottom, 'til I can pick the fucking spinach out of my teeth when I look at the floor."

Dae doesn't know what the fuck that means. She looks at the dingy, grey linoleum floor. They're in for a long day.

"I'll be back tomorrow, and you'd better fucking hope I'm in a better mood!" Martha yells on her way out the door.

Dae rolls her eyes again and sighs deeply.

"That?" Jo says, angrily, motioning to her face. "That, right there, is why we are here, Dae. This is all your fucking fault."

"My fault?" Dae retorts. "If you want someone to blame, blame Martha! She's a fucking bitch!"

"And you crossed her when she's in a bad mood! You should fucking know better than to roll your eyes in front of her face." She emphasizes the last words slowly and deliberately.

"Don't talk to me like I'm stupid," Dae hisses.

"Don't be fucking stupid!" Jo yells.

"You know what Jo? Fuck you."

Jo laughs. "I bet you'd like to."

Dae's face grows hot. Flashes of last night in the shower inconveniently come to mind. She scoffs, sputters, trying to think of a response.

"What? That's ridiculous," she manages to spit out.

"What's ridiculous is the amount of cleaning we have to do, thanks to you," Jo says, motioning to the gym around them.

"Look, I'm sorry, or whatever, okay?" Dae huffs.

"Wow, what an apology," Jo says sarcastically.

"Let's just get it over with," Dae says.

"Agreed."

They get to scrubbing the floors and wiping down the windows, walls, and doors. It's grueling work. They wear rubber gloves and face masks for the chemicals. Dae feels sweaty and gross.

They mop the boxing ring with hot water and deodorizer, and the sweaty smell that comes up from the mat is awful.

"God," Jo laughs.

"It's terrible," Dae agrees.

They finish up cleaning, and it's noon. They both sit on a bench, pulling off their gloves and masks and sighing.

"That was the worst," Jo says.

"I'm sorry," Dae says, wincing.

"You should be," Jo says with a glare, but then her face bursts into a smile. "Not really. You're right, it's just Martha being pissy. She would've made us clean the gym sooner or later. She was just looking for an excuse."

Dae nods. "Yeah."

A moment passes.

"So, uh... Any chance you wanna grab lunch and practice sparring?" Jo asks. "Kinda feels like a waste of a day if we don't practice."

Dae thinks about it for a second, pursing her lips. Then she shrugs. "Sure. Why not."

Jo smiles a little wider than she means to.

They go to the pizza place around the corner and Jo orders two slices of pepperoni and Dae gets a meatball sub. They scarf it down, starving from the hours of work.

This is new, going out to lunch together. Dae has no idea what to talk about.

"So, uh, what do you do, like, for fun?" she asks awkwardly.

"Oh, are we having the hobbies conversation? 'What do you do besides boxing?'" Jo teases.

"I mean, yeah," Dae shrugs.

"Okay, hmm." Jo thinks about it. "Besides eating, sleeping, and fucking... and Netflix, I have... no hobbies."

The unnecessary mention of 'fucking' almost makes Dae spittake her drink. She manages to contain herself.

"When you put it that way, I guess I don't really either. Unless smoking weed is a hobby?" Dae laughs.

Jo gasps dramatically. "Dae? You? Smoke weed?! Naughty girl."

Being called a naughty girl by Jo makes her blood hot. But she plays along.

"Yes, me, so naughty. I even..." - she stage whispers - "... masturbate."

Jo's heart thuds in her chest. I mean, of course she masturbates, she's a human adult. But hearing her talk about it playfully like this is way hotter than she ever could have imagined.

Jo playfully gasps again. "No! You? When?"

Dae flushes bright red, going quiet. She wasn't ready to be asked that.

"Oh my god," Jo says. "When?"

"Last night," Dae squeaks. She hides her face behind her hands.

"Nooo, it's okay!" Jo says, reaching for her hands to try to pull them away. They struggle, and finally Jo wins, pinning Dae's hands to the table. "If it makes you feel better... so did I." She looks her in the eye.

They're holding hands and staring at each other, and they both admitted that they both masturbated last night.

This is new, going out to lunch together and talking about masturbation.

Suddenly they pull their hands apart, and Jo coughs.

"I didn't mean to like... make it weird," Jo mumbles.

"No, it's fine. It did, uh, make me feel better," Dae says, still beet red.

"Well," Jo chuckles. "I guess we know our hobbies."

Dae bursts into a fit of giggles. "I guess we do," she laughs.

They walk back to the gym still laughing and talking about the hobbies they wish they had if they had time. Dae wants to try scuba diving and Jo wants to learn how to skateboard. They both used to read books but don't anymore. Jo wishes she had a dog to take to the dog park. Dae admits that she lost her childhood dog a few years ago and misses having a pet around.

It's more getting to know each other than they've done in maybe all the years they've known each other.

Jo is still thinking in the back of her mind about Dae masturbating last night. How did she masturbate? With a toy or her fingers? Where? What does she sound like when she cums?

Her heart is beating out of her chest when they step into the ring ready to spar.

Jo licks her lips. "Ready, babe?" she asks with a wink.

Dae rolls her eyes.

"Why do you like calling me babe so much?" Dae asks.

"Why do you like it so much?" Jo retorts.

"I, uh," Dae starts to say.

Jo laughs and interrupts her. "That's what I thought."

Dae furrows her brow and frowns in a way that's supposed to look threatening, but just looks cute.

"You know what, Jo? Fight me," Dae says, putting up her hands and curling her fingers.

Jo grins. "Gladly."

They circle each other and Jo makes the first strike, a left hook which Dae dodges. She ducks to avoid the punch and strikes out to hit Jo's stomach. Jo reels and grunts.

Dae tries to hide her smirk at getting in the first hit.

"Nice job, babe," Jo quips.

"Thanks, babe," Dae mocks.

Jo straightens back up and readies her stance. "You're welcome, babe," she says, throwing a punch when she says babe. Dae is ready for it and blocks her fist with her hand, knocking Jo across the jaw.

"Fuck!" Jo curses, rubbing her jaw.

"What's the matter, babe?" Dae teases, feeling smug.

Jo smirks at her and ducks down, sweeping her leg and knocking Dae to her back on the mat, hard, leaving her dizzy. Jo wrestles her, pinning her down. Dae might have the reflexes for sparring, but Jo has the strength for wrestling.

Dae tries to no avail to get Jo off of her.

"What's the matter, babe?" Jo mocks. "Don't you like it?" she repeats herself from yesterday.

Dae blushes. She stares up at Jo, trapped by her hot body, breathing hard underneath her. She's speechless.

Jo leans down to her ear and murmurs again, "Don't you like it?"

Fire burns in Dae's body, lighting her up from the inside out. God, she likes it. She likes it so much.

"Fuck," she says instead.

Jo chuckles, brushing her lips against Dae's ear. "What's that?" she whispers.

"I, uh," Dae stammers. "Fuck, Jo. What are you doing?"

"Nothing," she says innocently. "What do you mean?"

"Jo..." Dae says threateningly.

"Dae..." Jo says sweetly. "All I'm doing is pinning you down and asking you if you like it. Do you like it, babe?"

Jo watches Dae's eyes grow darker. She licks her lips and swallows, but she's quiet, in stunned silence.

"Maybe you'd like a different question. Okay." Jo leans down to Dae's ear again, murmuring, "Where'd you masturbate last night?"

A whimper escapes Dae's throat before she can help it. Jo's grip on her wrists tightens.

"Um," Dae says. "The, uh, showers."

Fuck. That's so hot. It makes Jo wet to imagine it.

"How did you touch yourself?" Jo asks without even thinking about it.

The fire coils and tightens in Dae's core. Her pussy is starting to throb and her blush burns her ears.

"Jo..." Dae whimpers. She pulls weakly at the hands holding her wrists down.

"Did you like it?" Jo asks.

"Fuck," Dae says. "Yes."

"Fuck," Jo curses, growing wetter. "How did you touch yourself, Dae?"

She whimpers again, her eyes slipping closed. She opens them again and looks Jo in the eye.

"I rubbed my pussy and my clit until I came on my fingers."

Jo swallows, licking her lips. "What did you think about while you fucked yourself?"

Dae closes her eyes again, and answers, "You."

"Fuck," Jo swears. Then her hot mouth is on Dae's, kissing her roughly, her grip tightening on Dae's wrists, moving to pin them higher above her head. Their lips and tongues brush and their whimpers and groans mingle together.

Jo readjusts her hips so that she's in between Dae's legs and they can grind against each other, and Dae moans at the friction.

"Do you like that, babe?" Jo grunts, grinding her hips like she wants to fuck her.

"God," Dae says. "Fuck. Oh. Fuck."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes," Dae whines.

"Good girl," Jo praises. "I want to hear you say yes," she says in a deep voice.

Dae feels her pussy clenching and feels helpless to her desires. "Yes," she moans. "Yes. I like it."

"Fuck," Jo says.

Dae is dazed and dizzy, unable to believe that this is happening with her rival after so many years of pining and crushing from afar. She imagines what would happen if Martha walked in right now, the meltdown she would have and the insults she would scream at them, the 10 miles she'd make them run until they fell down. Somehow the prospect of getting caught together makes Dae's face feel hotter.

"Fuck me," Dae groans.

"Oh?" Jo asks, sounding delighted. "You want me to fuck you, babe?"

Dae whimpers and whines and nods.

"Use your words, babe."

"Yes!" Dae cries out.

"How do you want me to fuck you, baby?"

"Oh fuck," Dae says. Babe and baby are both really turning her on. "I, um, want you to finger me. Eat my pussy and finger me."