Pink Pads

Some may know me from other sites as A.J. Brown. I hope you enjoy this story.

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Pink Pads

By A.J. Brown

Taylor Villone walked inside the dojo feeling more intimidated than she expected to. It was full of probably 12 men, mostly white, a few African American, all of them wearing either green belts or white belts, that were warming up in various ways, some of them doing light sparring with each other, others just looking like they were in their own world, doing some sort of karate dance. Even the guys that had white belts on had gis and belts that looked broken-in. She felt like she stood out like a sore thumb wearing her brand new white gi with her bright white belt, but not a single one of the guys had even turned his head to look at her.

Taylor's main reason for being here was to try and meet men, something that the 22-year-old girl had had a hard time doing since graduating college the previous year, so being the only girl here she supposed was good news, though she wouldn't have minded seeing one or two more so she wasn't the only one.

Learning karate was appealing to her as well. Standing at 5'5 and weighing close to 200 pounds, Taylor was on the bigger side, but she was a strong girl who could beat up her older sister and also her younger brother, neither of them having the 'bigger person' genes that she did. Despite her size, she thought she had a cute face, and she if she acted cute around some of the guys in here, she thought she might be able to win one of them over.

She heard the dojo doors open and turned her head to see an extremely cute girl looking about her age walking in wearing a green belt. The girl had long straight hair and was quite petite, looking like she couldn't weigh much more than half of what Taylor weighed. Taylor knew men well enough to know that just about every man out there would choose a girl like this over Taylor if they had their pick. That was OK, though, as long as there weren't more of her to follow, one girl wouldn't be able to take too much attention from her. The girl gave Taylor a warm smile which made her feel comfortable and it took away any dislike she had for her.

"Taylor!" she heard a man's voice say loudly. Startled, she turned her head to see a man who had to be 6'5 towering over her wearing a black gi and a black belt with a bunch of gold stripes on it. He looked to be in his mid-forties and had long sideburns, and wavy hair like reminded her of the haircuts she saw the hot guys have in the 80s movies she would watch. "I'm Sensei Preston." With a big smile on his face, she received the firm handshake of the friendly man on the phone who had the soothing voice that made her feel like the karate dojo was the place she needed to be. "Glad you were able to make it. You don't know how many people I talk to on the phone that tell me how excited they are to do this and then they never show up. So just getting here is a big first step. We don't see many girls here either so that's especially commendable." Taylor just smiled at the compliments from this man who she guessed could take on just about every guy that was out lifting heavy weights in the connected gym. "Stretch your body out a bit to loosen up and we'll start doing stretching as a class in a few minutes."

He gave her a smile and walked away. Unsure of exactly what to do, Taylor looked around and saw some of the guys in class had started stretching as well. She looked to the green belt girl who was sitting down in a full split which made Taylor self-conscious knowing that there wasn't a chance she could sit in that position. As she watched the girl lean forward to the left to stretch out with her toes pointed towards the ceiling, she looked at how cute the bottom of the girl's foot was. It looked extremely smooth and exceptionally clean considering she had already spent some time walking barefoot on a dojo floor. Taylor then looked at her other foot which she could see from the top point of view. It also looked extremely smooth and it looked like the girl had gotten a pedicure before class with the dark blue toenail polish she had on looking like it was brand new. Taylor was self-conscious about her feet but considering it was karate class, she didn't think even painting her toenails was necessary. Now as she looked at this girl's feet which looked like they could be modeled in some magazine, she wished she had shown up wearing a pair of wrestling shoes like she had noticed one of the guys wearing.

Taylor heard the dojo door open again. She looked over and was mesmerized as she watched the tall guy walk in. He had lots of dark, spiky hair that looked like it had been freshly gelled right before walking in here. He wasn't as tall as Sensei Preston and one of the other guys she had noticed in the dojo, but he stood at a good 6'1, the perfect height for Taylor, and looked quite skinny. He was the first person in class that Taylor had noticed wearing a brown belt, Sensei being the only black belt in the class, and everyone else wearing a green belt or a white belt. Taylor had studied up on this style's ranking systems prior to coming here. There were only 4 belt levels, white, green, brown, and black, and through further research she learned that because they only had 4 belt levels, it normally took years to get promoted to the next one.

What made her unable to look away from this guy was his face which was extremely smooth, looking like he had just shaved. He had long eyelashes that she could see from halfway across the dojo and a cute nose. He looked like he was about 30-years-old which was right around the age Taylor was looking for. Most guys her age were still not very mature and 30 was a good age, in her opinion, where you were old enough not to be stupid, but still young enough where you could have some fun. The guy also looked focused as he set down his gym bag, leaned his bow against the wall, and immediately started going into a stretch.

"Alright everyone, line up for stretching!" Sensei Preston announced, making his voice deeper as he did, and everyone stopped what they were doing to do what they were instructed. "Taylor, you should be able to follow along. Just follow what I'm doing."

Stretching began and following along with what to do wasn't so much of a challenge for Taylor as actually doing it was. Add the fact that she was 5'5 and close to 200 pounds to the fact that she had no prior karate experience and she wasn't able to move her body in the ways Sensei was instructing. She felt ridiculous and she looked around to see if anyone noticed how silly she looked, only to see that they were all focused on their own stretching and not paying the least bit of attention to her. She noticed the girl and the hot guy were both especially flexible which made her jealous of the girl and a bit horny for the guy watching him put his body in those different sexy positions.

"Alright, we're going to work on some basics now," Sensei said. "Haley, if it's alright with you I'm going to have you work with Taylor in the back of the dojo on..." and then he said a name of a kata that even when she took multiple classes after that and worked on it many times, she was never able to remember the name of it.

"Yes Sensei!" Taylor heard the pretty girl say assertively.

"So I just go back there?" Taylor said to Sensei who just gave her a subtle nod.

"I'm Haley, it's nice to meet you," the green belt girl said once they were in the back of the dojo and she shook Taylor's hand with her soft feminine hand. "Glad to finally have another girl in class with me. So kata can be a little frustrating at first, but once you start to get it down, it's a lot of fun."

Haley began teaching Taylor her first kata with a lot of background noise of the men screaming as they punched and kicked the air. The noise didn't seem to bother Haley as she wasn't even raising her voice to talk over it, but it was driving Taylor crazy as trying to learn this was quickly starting to stress her out and barely being able to hear Haley over all of the noise wasn't making it any better.

Taylor was having trouble learning the sequence of moves she was being taught as it wasn't clicking for her. Making it more frustrating for her was Haley's constant corrected her of her stance, often putting her hands on Taylor to straighten her out the way she wanted, which Taylor didn't like. Haley would then show Taylor how a good stance was supposed to look by demonstrating. She felt jealous of the grace Haley was able to move with since her body type just didn't allow her to do it, but she thought Haley was being nitpicky overall as she didn't think her stances were that much different than Haley's even if they didn't look as good. Watching a girl much better looking than her know karate better than her was starting to hurt Taylor's ego. She told herself that even if Haley did know more karate than her, that she was a lot bigger than her and could still beat her up, which made her feel a bit better.

"OK, everyone get lined up for kata!" Sensei announced.

"It's your first class so you won't do this with the class yet," Haley said to Taylor. "You can just sit back here and watch. You'll be able to go out there with us soon, though. Once they start doing the more advanced katas, the lower level students will sit back here and join you too."

Haley walked in line as Taylor felt silly again, sitting in the back of the dojo wearing a gi while everyone else prepared to work out. They began doing the same kata that Taylor had just spent the last half hour learning. Haley's form was, of course, amazing as she did the moves but Taylor noticed that some of the other guys, even some of the green belts, had form that wasn't any better than Taylor's form that Haley had been correcting. Their katas looked plenty good and Taylor felt even more annoyed that Haley had made things difficult on her.

She watched more and she thought Sensei Preston looked dangerous doing the kata. Even just punching and kicking the air, both his punches and kicks looked extremely powerful. She figured that most of the guys in there found it motivating to see that but it just made Taylor want to be nowhere near that guy when he was doing katas and to make sure that she always stayed on his good side.

Then her attention turned to the handsome guy brown belt. His face still looking as smooth as ever even after working out for a while, not only did his kata form look even more perfect than Haley's but he looked like he was getting into it way more than she was. While his strikes didn't look powerful the way Sensei's did, all of his punches and kicks looked to have extremely good form. While a lot of the other people looked just plain, some of them even uninterested as they did their kata, the handsome guy had a look of extreme intensity on his face and his bare feet would slide a bit on the floor with each move he did, showing that little extra he was putting into it that no one else was. He breathed heavily with each moved and while there were certain punches that everyone yelled out loud on for some reason, the handsome guy was always the loudest each time that happened. It was a beautiful sight watching this man do kata and Taylor felt like she could have just sat there all night and watch him do it.

Sensei called out for another kata that Taylor couldn't understand what he said and she watched all of the white belts walk out of line and to the back of the dojo with her. With less people on the floor now she was able to concentrate on the handsome guy even more, his moves looking so smooth, so forceful, and so perfect. The intense look on his face as he literally looked like he was doing every single move like he was trying to knock someone out and finish the fight, captivated her. The green belts that she thought were doing the kata well didn't look as into it as he was and there were some of them that looked like they were going through the motions to get it done with.

Sensei then called the green belts off so he and the handsome guy were the only ones up there performing kata for the rest of the class. Sensei was obviously a master at this but thinking about how hard that handsome guy had worked to become the second best in the class intrigued Taylor a great deal. She watched the two of them do the next kata and she couldn't say that Sensei looked like he was doing it any better than handsome guy was.

When the two of them finished up, they bowed at each other, and handsome guy turned around to walk over towards the right side of the dojo. Sensei started to do a kata on his own for everyone to watch but Taylor's eyes were on handsome guy. He didn't appear to be sweating at all which Taylor found incredible after working so hard, especially since she was still sweating a bit just from the work she had done with Haley. Handsome guy did look winded and a bit out of it and it almost looked like he was drunk. She watched him walking right towards the wall and at that moment she wanted to be there right next to him so she could grab the poor guy, save him, and then hold him in her arms. But she wasn't and she felt awful for him when she watched him walk right into the matted wall. When he hit it, he bounced away and his head shook like he had been woken up out of the daze he was in.

"Careful over there, Dallas," Haley called over to him and when Taylor looked back and saw the playful look on her face, she quickly became jealous that Haley took the opportunity to be flirty with this guy, and she wasn't able to. "That's why you're single."

Taylor understood women very well, probably more than most men or women did. That was what happened when you were the most unattractive woman in the group, a situation that she had found herself in more often than she would have liked, because when no one was paying attention to you, you ended up observing what was going on around you, more than all of the people who were doing the talking. So she knew in Haley's voice that she was playing around with Dallas. He gave her an awkward smile back and while Taylor had been able to read Haley, she could not tell if the smile on the handsome man was one of someone who was smiling trying his best to play along and not knowing what else to say or if he was embarrassed and was giving her a bit of an angry smile for saying anything.

The most important thing she took out of that was now she knew he was single. This handsome, karate brown belt, was available for the taking and although he was far better looking than any guy Taylor had dated in the past, she wasn't going to let that stop her from giving it her best effort. Now she just had to think about how she was going to do that.

"Alright everyone, let's get your pads on!" Sensei called out to the class.

Taylor didn't know what that meant. She didn't like not knowing what things meant. She watched everyone walk towards the walls and then saw them reaching in their gym bags.

"Sorry Sensei, what are we doing?" Taylor called out to Preston who was doing the same thing as everyone else.

"Oh sorry, I forgot to tell you on the phone," he said to her. "We do sparring at the end of each class. So you should go out and get yourself some sparring pads. It's alright for this time. There are some spare ones over there."

He pointed to a basket in the corner and she walked over to it to see a bunch of gloves, foot gear, and shin guards, grossed out to think about how many other people had worn these and got all sweaty in the process. Not even sure how to put them on, she watched others do it. She had a hard time doing it herself, partly because she didn't really know how, and partly because she was a little grossed out wearing shared karate pads.

"Here, I'll help you with that." Taylor was startled and looked up to see Sensei standing above her, his pads all on him already. After he showed her how to put on the shin guards, then the foot pads, and then her gloves, she wanted to ask him what the hell she was supposed to do next but he turned his head to face the center of the dojo.

"Alright everyone, partner up!" he called.

Taylor felt the goosebumps on her as she watched all of these people she didn't know start to partner up with each other to 'spar' and she considered just running out of there rather than fight with one of these experienced people she didn't know. She wanted to partner with Sensei, figuring he would go easy on her, but his back was to her and he had already walked quite the distance away from her so she wasn't about to chase him down, grab him, and be like 'oh please be my partner Sensei.'

Her next choice of who she would have wanted for a partner would be Haley but she quickly realized that Sensei had been making a beeline for her since the moment he stepped away from her. Looking at the way Sensei smiled at Haley made Taylor sure that the two were fucking each other or that that was Sensei's goal. That was good news for Taylor as if Sensei was after or with Haley, none of the other guys in the class would be trying to go after her.

So who was Taylor going to partner with? It was too early to go after Dallas, especially with her borrowed pads on and he had already partnered with someone else anyway. It looked like everyone else had found a partner when she looked to her left and saw a guy who looked almost as tall as Sensei and almost as skinny Dallas standing there. He wore a white belt too and even though he had a haircut that Taylor thought made him look like Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber she thought he was kind of cute. She was already thinking about Plan B since she knew getting a date with Dallas was probably going to be a long shot.

"Partner?" he said to her and even from that one word she could detect his thick Russian accent. When he smiled at her and she saw the severe gum recession he had despite the fact that he looked to be a couple of years younger than Dallas, any thoughts of him being a Plan B or even C, D, or Z went out the window.

"Sure," she said with a friendly laugh. "I just want to warn you of one small thing -- this is my first class and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."

He just laughed, with a friendly laugh, seeming nice enough.

"Just really light sparring,' Sensei called over to her, obviously overhearing her. "Try and use some of the moves Haley taught you when you were working together. Just go light. Use your punches and kicks but do them light. We're not trying to kill each other or put people in the hospital so they can't go to work tomorrow. If it looks like you are going to connect with a punch, pull it right before you hit him. If you do hit him light, it's OK. You can block as hard as you want, though. Ilya's only been here for a few weeks so don't worry, he's almost as new as you are."

Sensei turned back at Haley, smiling at her again, and Taylor knew that was the extent of the instruction she was going to get. She looked back at her partner, Ilya.

"Alright, I guess I'll give this a try," she said playfully.

"You'll be fine," he said with that smile that she would have been fine if she didn't show him again. He raised his fists and she raised hers.

"Three minutes!" Sensei called out. "Go!"

Taylor watched Ilya's fist coming right at her face with that long arm behind it and she had no idea what to do. She started to scream playfully but his fist connected with her face and although it wasn't hard, it was intimidating and it shut her up in a hurry. She tried getting her arms up to block but saw his left coming in just as fast and it was like he knew exactly where to place it. She started laughing this time right before he punched her face, that glove he had on protecting that from being a lot worse.

Trying to fight back, she swung back at him, and she could tell how girly her punch looked, especially after watching his come in at her. Her arms felt so short compared to his and she just watched him smile and take a step back to make sure her fist didn't get anywhere near him, and she just punched a bunch of air.