Pink Pads

Dallas stepped forward and threw a haymaker at her head. Her hands were still down in front of her chest and only because of the fear that this punch was going to knock her out if it connected, she somehow managed to raise her arm in time to block it. He tried to come back quick with a jab to her face but it was forecasted like all of his other punches and she found it in her to block that one out of the way as well.

Charged with more adrenaline, she threw a punch at his face and connected, seeing his anger when she did. He punched her in the face and although it did hurt, since she still felt confident she could beat him up, at least in this fight, and the pain just motivated her to fight back harder to punish him, rather than back down.

She started throwing rapid punches towards his face while she did the same. They were close to being in an all-out fight now as opposed to a sparring match. On both sides, a few of their punches were getting blocked, with others connected, but Taylor had more connecting than him. Dallas was holding his ground for a few of the punches but then he started backing off again. Taylor saw this opportunity ready to seize it. She kept punching at his face rapidly, putting her strength behind it like Sensei recommended and now she was connecting on just about every one. When Dallas’s face looked like he was about to start crying, he bent down, and used his arms to cover his head the best he could to avoid taking any other punches. Taylor now stood taller than him and saw plenty of openings. She was punching him all over the place in the back, in the head, and in the sides while he just stood there bent over and taking it. A small part of her felt bad for beating him up and like she should stop but the excited part of her told that small part to shut up. She punched him a few more times before she heard Sensei.

“Time!”

Taylor took a step back. Dallas started to stand up and she offered her fist for a fist bump but he wouldn’t even look at her and he quickly walked away towards the center of the dojo.

“Everyone line up!” Sensei called. They all got in line and when Taylor saw them all kneel, she did the same. “Close your eyes,” Sensei called. Taylor smiled awkwardly but when she looked around and saw everyone else closing their eyes, she did the same. “Take deep breaths in through your nose, then out through your mouth,” Sensei said. “Breathe all of what just happened out of your system so you can return to the real world. Breathe.”

He then stopped talking and Taylor couldn’t hear anything except others breathing. She did what she was told and she needed it. Her mind was spinning, feeling like she had been through quite the emotional trip, getting beat up by some tall scary guy, then learning some cool karate from a guy that seemed close to perfect but had to be married, to getting beat up by a small girl that was given the gift of being way hotter than Taylor, to beating up one of the best looking guys she had ever seen who was supposed to be the second best karate person in the class. She started doubting if she really had beaten him up. Was he just going easy on her? That look on his face like he was about to cry sure didn’t look like someone who was just trying to be nice.

“Now open your eyes,” Sensei said gently, and when Taylor did so it felt like any stress in her life had been removed. “Great class everyone. I love the effort. Taylor, you did a great job today, and Haley, I appreciate you working with her. All of you remember. If you ever want to do harder sparring, the gym doesn’t close for two hours. You’re welcome to stay after class and fight with each other, just make sure I’m out of here first so I don’t get sued.”

Sensei got up and started to walk away. Taylor watched the rest of the students walk over to the sides of the dojo and start taking their pads off. She walked over to the corner where the basket was, took over her borrowed pads, and put them in the basket. People started walking out of the dojo but she watched two other green belts move towards the center, pads still on.

Everyone else had cleared out in a hurry but the two guys in the center didn’t notice Taylor so she stayed where she was. The two of them began dancing around a little before one threw a punch at the other that she thought for sure would have knocked him over if it wasn’t blocked. The guy that blocked the punch swung back, punching the guy in the face, and making his head swing back.

Disturbed by seeing guy take a punch from another like that, Taylor wanted to walk out but at the same time she felt like she couldn’t look away. The guy that got hit swung back, connecting with his opponent’s nose, and drawing blood. Taylor didn’t want to see more and she kept looking.

The guy with the blood coming from his nose had a look in his eyes like he wanted to hurt his opponent and he threw a punch back that connected with the guy’s face. The guy that wasn’t bleeding started to look like the beta and he started to back off. Bloody nose guy swung with another punch that the other guy looked too scared to block and Taylor felt like she could feel it from where she was. She started to wonder if these two were practicing or settling some beef.

Seeing the blood that had spread across the guy’s face and the look in his eyes made Taylor start to think the latter. She couldn’t help but wince when the bloody nose guy hit the other guy two more times, hard enough that he should have fell, but he managed to stay on his feet somehow. Bloody nose guy then kicked the guy in the stomach and he fell. Taylor wondered if the guy was able to breathe after taking that kick and her feminine instinct made her want to run out there and see. When she saw bloody nose guy stand over him in a fighting stance, looking like he was ready to attack at the slightest move, and a drop of blood fell from his nose onto the guy he had defeated, she thought better of it.

She quietly made her way to the dojo doors and walked out to the loud gym, still full of people, just working on their bodies. Even though she was just wearing a white belt, as she walked through the gym holding her gym bag and making her way to the locker room, she felt cool that that had just been through a much more high intensity workout than any of them were going through. Now she had to get herself some pads.

**

“Now stretch to your left,” Sensei Preston said to the class.

Taylor kicked out her left leg and straightened it the best that she could. She looked ahead of her at Najee who had the perfect stretch in his leg. She looked down at her foot. Her feet would never look as good as Haley’s but she thought they looked cute with the pink toenail polish she had put on this time.

“Turn and stretch to your right,” Sensei said, no tone in his voice.

Taylor watched Najee start to turn in her direction and decided to wait a bit to make her turn. His body turned more and when he made eye-contact with her, she playfully stuck her tongue out at him. He silently laughed in a way that suggested that he had absolutely no interest in playing the flirty game with her. That was fine. She looked up towards the front at Dallas stretching, his gi pants against his skinny ass so tight that it looked like he didn’t have one at all. She discreetly looked at his ass as much as she could for the remainder of the stretching.

“Haley, why don’t you work on some basics with Taylor before you get into kata today?” Sensei said once the stretching was done. “Throw a few basic blocks in there too, give her a little defense, and help her with some of her blocks. Real light.”

“Alright so Sensei is right, you are really strong,” Haley said to Taylor once they started to work together. “The things I want you to concentrate on today are showing a bit more speed and not being so predictable. I shouldn’t be able to come in like this.” Haley came in with a quick fist and playfully bopped Taylor on the top of the head with it. Taylor laughed despite finding it humiliating. “Try and hit me anywhere. All I’m looking at is your eyes.”

Taylor looked into Haley’s eyes and how pretty they looked. Yeah, she was trying to help Taylor out, kind of, but she was showing off how she was better than Taylor also, making Taylor want to make sure she was able to hit her. With Haley not looking like she could see at all below Taylor’s neck, Taylor threw a low, horizontal karate chop at Haley’s hip. Without even looking down, Haley brought her hand down and caught Taylor’s wrist in the air not letting her make contact. Haley wouldn’t let Taylor pull her wrist away when she tried. Haley stared at her with her pretty gaze and Taylor laughed, but she sounded obviously uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry,” Haley said, letting Taylor go. “We’ll get you to that point. Let’s start out working on some blocks.”

They began doing just that and after a couple of minutes when Taylor was able to put her ego aside and just do what Haley told her, she started catching on quick. Once she got a rhythm down she was able to block more of what Haley was throwing at her, and she felt the strength in her arms was helping her too.

“Not bad, that one kind of hurt me,” Haley said after one of Taylor’s blocks which she took as quite the compliment.

Haley continued to work with her, throwing punches and kicks at her that Taylor got better at blocking with each one that came in. Taylor threw some punches and kicks back and Haley and Haley was making her look stupid by blocking them, moving just her arms and not the rest of her body, looking directly into Taylor’s eyes the entire time.

Frustration began setting in with Taylor, and she even let out a couple whiny sounding gasps, after being blocked by shots she thought for sure would get through. She was getting tired and humiliated and was at the point where she wanted this to be over. Haley hadn’t changed her facial expression the entire time she had been blocking Taylor’s strikes but when Taylor saw her crack just a little bit of a smile, she had enough.

“Ya!” she yelled loudly as she threw a hard punch at Taylor’s face.

She watched the expression on Haley’s face finally change as she saw the hard punch coming in. Taylor’s fist connected with Taylor’s cheek, sending her head back. She quickly felt the fear and sorrow that she had hit a small girl.

“Oh my god!” Taylor said as she pulled back and grabbed Haley’s shoulders. “Are you OK?”

Haley looked at Taylor with a look of surprise, Taylor just standing there looking like she had no idea what to say or how to act. “Nice shot!” Haley said and she gave a big smile.

“Alright everyone, get your pads on!” Sensei called out.

Taylor was excited not to have to go over in that basket to put her pads on today. She got to walk over to her gym bag like everyone else was to get her pads out. She started putting them on, trying not to look too proud about it. She looked down at the pink toenail polish on her toes before she put on the pink foot pads. They covered the top of her feet and toes entirely and she did not mind.

“Pink pads?” Haley said as she put her own black ones on.

“Oh yeah,” Taylor said proudly. “No one wants to get beat up by the girl wearing pink.”

Haley laughed right as Sensei told everyone to partner up. Taylor hoped that making Haley laugh would get her to partner with her for the first round but Haley quickly walked off to go partner up with Sensei. She looked around with her pink pads on, being reminded how little she fit into this class still as she watched everyone else partnering up with people they knew and making sure not to look anywhere near her.

The only one she would have been comfortable approaching on her own would be Najee who already had a partner. Everyone was quickly partnered up except one black guy wearing a green belt who was still looking around as if he looked away from Taylor long enough there might be someone else come along that he could partner up with.

“Tony, why don’t you go ahead and partner with Taylor for the first round?” Sensei said.

Tony finally looked over at Taylor and started walking towards her without saying anything. He was bald and about Najee’s height but he was quite a bit bigger than him and he looked a lot meaner too. Intimidated already, Taylor just put up her hand to wave to him and smiled. She put it down when his facial expression didn’t change.

“OK, everyone get ready,” Sensei said.

“Grrr…” Taylor said to Tony and she made her own mean face, trying to be playful.

“Go!” Sensei said.

With a look of hatred on his face and looking like his only goal at that moment was to pound Taylor into the ground, Tony came at her, far faster than she could react to. She saw his fist coming at her face with the power of a strong man and the speed of an experienced martial artist. For the first time since she had been here she felt legitimately afraid.

His gloved fist stopped right in front of his face so perfectly like he knew exactly where he wanted to place it and was able to which scared her more. In came another fist just as strong, hard, and placed perfectly as the first one. He seemed to know what he was doing but what if she just accidentally moved forward and took one of those bombs this guy was throwing right in the nose?

Her arms felt frozen at her sides, forgetting that she was in a controlled karate class, and she feeling terrified of this man. He didn’t stop as those fists kept coming in, each one with the power to knock her into next Tuesday, and always stopping just short of doing so. With each punch that came in it was a reminder that she was a woman with no fighting experience. Guys like Tony were why women got protection in the form of other men as opposed to fighting themselves. As the fists continued to come at her and her fear and emotions were going out of control, she uncontrollably burst out into tears.

“Taylor, you alright?” she heard Sensei say almost instantly, like he could sense a crying student the way a cat can smell immediately if there is another cat in the vicinity. Tony backed away, now looking a bit afraid, putting his arms up.

“I didn’t touch her, I swear!” he said.

Preston just kind of nodded as he walked right by Tony and up to Taylor. He softly put his hand on her shoulder which made her cry more. “You alright?” he said again.

“His fists, were just coming at me!” Taylor sobbed. “They just kept coming.”

“I didn’t even touch her with one punch!” Tony said defensively.

“It’s alright Tony, why don’t you go get a drink?” Sensei suggested and Tony was quick to obey. “You want to sit out a round or two?” Sensei said to Taylor.

He spoke gently and caring to her which was one of the things that stopped her from just getting up and walking out. How was she supposed to stay in class after the humiliation of what just happened? Didn’t he realize that she didn’t belong in this class? She felt that way, but she did think it was nice that he only suggested she sit out rather than leave made her not want to look rude by leaving.

“Alright, stop and get a drink!” he called out to everyone else who was still sparring.

Taylor walked over to the wall as everyone else got a quick drink and started looking for new partners. Just looking at the floor and crying still, Taylor barely realized what any of them were doing. How was she supposed to go out there and fight anyone after what she had just been through? She certainly couldn’t look Dallas in the eyes after she just started crying in class. And she suddenly felt certain that she didn’t even beat Dallas, that he just didn’t want to hit a girl so he didn’t know what to do. Much more of a gentleman than that asshole Tony. She had actually thought that she just came in here and beaten a brown belt on her first day ever of karate, how stupid could she be?

She stood there, looking towards the wall, her head down, and trying to stop the tears from coming out of her eyes. She couldn’t even tell why she was crying anymore, whether it was embarrassment, or that horrible image she still had in her head of Tony’s fists rapidly coming at her face while that vicious look was on his face right behind them. Time went by fast because she was still crying when she heard Sensei call an end to the round.

As she listened to everyone go to get their water, she wiped the tears away from her eyes, what she hoped now would be for good. The embarrassment started to outweigh how upset she had been. Who starts crying in a karate class, especially when they weren’t even hit? What was she expecting this to be like?

She looked up at everyone getting with their new partners for the third round. Preston and Haley were partnered again. What was going on with them? She looked over at Tony, standing over to the side, the odd man out since Taylor was still out. She no longer saw the scary look on his face and now he just looked like a guy that felt bad he was left out. Taylor now felt bad that he had to sit out because of her.

“Fight!” Sensei Preston called out.

Taylor watched him give Haley a flirty smile before she needed to quickly look away and watch some of the other fighters. Her eyes moved around a bit and then stopped when she saw Najee and Dallas were partners. She looked at Dallas wearing the higher belt even though she thought, whether Dallas had been giving his all against her or not, that Najee was the better fighter.

The two of them were going at it pretty good, throwing lots of quick blocks and kicks at each other, each one getting blocked. Taylor initially thought that Dallas looked a lot better fighting than he had against her. But as she watched them go at it more, it didn’t look like they were really fighting. What they were doing looked choreographed.

It seemed both of them knew exactly where and when the strikes were coming so they knew exactly when to get their guard up. It was an impressive thing to watch but it didn’t look like a fight. She watched Dallas’s rhythm with it and thought he’d do great on a dance floor – but still wondered if this brown belt knew how to fight at all.

“Ready for the snake?” she was able to hear Najee say over everyone else who was fighting because she was so focused in on that duo.

Najee hissed, brought his fist in, and got Dallas right in the ribs, Dallas not coming any closer to being able to block it than Taylor had. She got scared when she saw the angry look on Dallas’s face and she thought for sure that he was going to hit Najee for real. He raised his arm then brought it down hard on Najee’s forearm, a strike that looked like it hurt, but Najee was still laughing.

“Don’t ever do that again,” Dallas said. Looking at his face, Taylor couldn’t tell if he was joking-pissed or real-pissed. She guessed more of the latter but Najee was still laughing anyway.

“Alright, time!” Sensei Preston called. “Get a drink and then we’re doing one more round.”

Taylor watched Dallas quickly turn his back to Najee as he walked over to get his water. She still felt humiliated about what had happened her last fight but instead of the humiliation making her feel shame, she felt motivated to get out there and redeem herself. She made a beeline towards Dallas.

“Ready to give it another try, Taylor?” Sensei Preston called to her.

“Yup,” she said, not looking at him, eyes focused right on Dallas, looking so hot as he drank his water.

“Everyone find a partner!” Sensei called.

Taylor walked right up to Dallas, gave his shoulder a grab, and pointed at herself then him. He looked away from her, looking around for what he thought were better options.

“You want to go?” she said.

He gave one more glance around at everyone else all partnered up already before he gave her a nod and then made his way back out into the fighting area. She watched him getting in a stance that didn’t intimidate her at all and she punched her pink gloves together in front of the intense look she had on her face.