Chapter 3: My Own Personal Stalker

This blue belt was starting to piss me off!

He kept punching my wrist grip and arm. Instead of loosening my grip on his free hand before a proper break, during the stand up phase, his attempt at pain compliance just caused me to dig in my heels and want to smash him harder.

This guy was a fucking dick.

There are two rules on the mats. First, the customer is always right. Second, it is like Christmas, and way better to give than to receive.

He kept punching my right hand on his cross collar and ignored my sleeve control. Sure the collar was more dangerous, but if you only have one hand for the break you are not going to win.

Thus his annoying hand-punching.

Staying straight up and strongly based, I set my feet and yanked both his right collar and sleeve at the same time unbalancing him.

He just stumbled forward, staying bent at the waist, instead of recovering his posture.

The customer is always right.

I changed my plan of attack, planted my right foot on his left ankle, and sat back. I fell to my right butt while keeping my back straight up and off the mat, collar dragging him so hard into the mat that he went face first and bounced his head coming up angry.

As he planted both hands shoving back up off the mat, I hooked my right blocking leg inside his, switched my hips, and kept my right fist posted on his collar. While shoving his shoulders down, I swung up and around with my left hand to take three points of control on the back.

With practiced ease, I opened his collar under his chin, and switched my right hand grip. I yanked hard and caused a spasmodic reaction. I locked the choking hand over the shoulder from the collar, and my left hand slipped under the arm gripping my choking hand’s fist.

The newly arrived blue belt clawed at my left hand now.

I pulled hard and cinched both elbows in tight, so he could not pull me in for space.

He thrashed and fell to the side trying to get away from the choking hand, but tossed us both over so my second hook finished the back-take position for a full four points to me.

Of course, he did not want to concede, so he scratched and clawed at my hands. Using his amateur hour fail-technique against him I cinced the collar grip choking hand tighter.

With a sigh, I wondered if the new guy with no courtesy or understanding of the match rules was really this dense, or if he bought the belt he was wearing online before showing up.

I looked at my senior who was running the class, and got an indifferent shrug in return.

So I shrugged back at him, pulled and fed the collar hard a final time, then cinched it tight in my right fist, just under the jaw.

The fucker elbowed me!

Twice!

My fellow black belts started to circle. My future victim was still unaware as he thrashed stupidly. The vice like choke closing the air and blood off from passing his neck to his head and lungs.

I released my left hand and dropped his collar under my choking hand, slapping my grip firmly into his left knee instead.

With the fold in my opponent’s gi pants in my grip, I hopped my hip, refining the angle. Then I leaned back, fist around and under his neck locked firmly in his collar, his back between my legs, and pulled his pants. His whole body contorted against the opposing grips and my blocking legs, as I twisted him hard into the bow and arrow choke.

The flailing and clawing continued, as did the useless kicking and rolling. That frantic untrained shit just made the choke tighter, as his face turned a molted red, and finally into purple.

Without clearing the grip on his leg, then the figure-four body-lock, any squirming on the receiving end would just tighten the choke, pinching off the blood to his brain.

Finally, the tap came as he was fading out.

My right hand popped open, instantly releasing the choke.

His head and upper body bounced listlessly and unresponsive off the mat.

I released the body triangle and slipped out to a ready position on my knees behind sleeping beauty.

Like a squirrel waking from the crash after falling from a tree, he came to his knees sputtering and gasping, ready to fight.

Hate in his eyes.

Kneeling and ready to continue, I silently bowed fractionally ending the match, never taking my eyes off the toxic new guy, and pointed the visitor to the back of the line. From there he could retire and consider his life choices while waiting for his next turn.

That was when he noticed the two other black belts on his shoulders escorting him off the mat for a chat.

While my prior victim was being escorted off the mat, by my peers, our head instructor passed behind and notified me, “Alex, you’ve got red on you.”

Well, that was not fun.

My gi was white, and my rashguard black.

That meant blood.

I looked around, starting left, and worked my way quickly across my body and uniform before I realized Mister Bad-Attitude clawed open the back of my right hand. His unkept fingernails apparently finding purchase there at some point before I finished him.

Frustrated, I looked around and did not see any blood on the mats that would warrant a training halt. So, pointing at the next two students in line I ordered, “Next two, this spot.” I stood and kept the welling running blood from dripping everywhere.

I slipped into my training sandals and bowed off the mat, careful not to fling blood everywhere.

I had to splay my fingers to keep the blood pooled in the back of my hand instead of running all over the floor.

At the front desk, I asked for a paper towel and some tape.

They gave me some shit about rubbing alcohol.

The sudden, “Boo!” behind me caused me to jump with a start!

My expletive and flailing spilled blood everywhere, on the glass front counter. Recognizing the voice instantly, I exclaimed, “Fuck, girl! Don’t do that!”

That just made Celia giggle as she came around realizing the mess she made. Suddenly the caring woman was everywhere, babbling, “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize he cut you up!” Her little hand took mine and immediately snatched the offered paper towel and started whipping and dabbing the blood from first my hand for me, and then the counter.

Celia started frantically waving her hand for more paper towels as she gingerly folded the red-speckled one in her hand.

With the wounds clean, Celia gasped, hissing through her teeth, pulling and turning my hand in the light, one of her little fists on each of my pinky and pointer fingers. She exclaimed, “Oh my God! I think you need stitches and, like, a tetanus shot or something!”

I sighed.

Romero behind the counter messed with me and asked, “Your new assistant?”

I told him, “Fuck off!” Shaking my head, Celia punched my ribs. I favored her with a cautioning growl and told Romero, “I still need the tape and maybe some rubbing alcohol.”

Handing over both, with a shaking head, he added some freshly torn paper towels, and reminded me, “Alex, you’re so stupid. You know I’m gonna have to clean this whole counter now, right? We can’t have your blood dripping everywhere.”

While adding alcohol to a folded square of paper towel, I nodded at Celia, and flatly reminded him, “It’s her fault.”

The alcohol burn applied to the ragged claw marks on the back of my right hand forced my teeth closed, as Romero schmoozed in on Celia.

It was pretty frustrating at the time to experience that little flash of jealousy.

I was bleeding all over the place after all. Jealousy is not supposed to be a condern then.

She immediately started spilling, “Alex is my neighbor. He’s going to start giving me rides.”

Romero, being the dick he is, asked with a pervy lilt in his voice, “Really? Giving you rides, aye?”

I looked up and he was wiggling his eyebrows at her double-entendre.

Celia caught it immediately, giggled and corrected, “Oh, shut up!”

I noted that actually, that was not a correction at all. Celia just let Romero assume whatever he wanted without lying to him herself.

Clever girl.

No wonder she was getting what she wanted out of our relationship. She was a clever, devious and smooth little thing. I needed to keep that in mind!

Celia’s eyes darted to the now dismissed and being escorted out blue belt. His bag humiliatingly in hand, as he left during the middle of class time, and flanked by two of my larger, younger, faster, and stronger peers. My peers who were actually paid by the school.

Turning back to us Celia quietly asked as I placed the folded paper towel across the three bloody fingernail crescents. While I pinched it weakly in place with my thumb, she asked just above a whisper, “Why was that guy acting so bad? And why did Alex get put with him?”

Romero answered for me as I showed him the length of tape I needed, “There’s a fight coming up. Sometimes the other school will try to slip a spy into the training camp’s class cycle before the fight so they can watch the training camp. That guy joined to do the MMA and Jiu-Jitsu stuff. He has been scuffing up the women and white belts with dirty training. He’s hurting as many people as he can over there acting tough.”

With my right hand’s index finger extended to him Romero stuck the end of the tape on the offered digit. While speaking to Celia, focused on my tape, I droned, “Professor has been in the game long enough to know those tricks.” I completed the first circuit of tape around my hand. And continued, “The Professor was sending a message to the other school. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

I stopped talking, focusing on the tape, opening and closing my hand several times. I needed to test if the tightness was enough to stay in place and not fall off, while not acting like a tourniquet, cutting off circulation and turning my fingers purple and numb.

Celia, frustrated with waiting, demanded, “Well? And?”

Shaking his head, Romero finished, “Professor was telling them, ‘My old men can beat up your up-and-coming prize fighters, so quit fucking around before a match.”

Celia, curious at the games she had previously been oblivious to, asked simply, “Really?”

Romero shrugged, and told her, “It gets old. We have enough fighters in the amateur-to-pro pipeline that we see this trick every few months.”

I shrugged and quietly added, “They come in trying to stomp around and hurt people. We are an ‘enemy’ school after all. And they don’t exactly send their best or anyone we might recognize immediately. And then they always hang out excessively around the training camps and MMA stuff, with their phones, even if they are enrolled or not.”

Celia demanded, “Well, what are you going to do about it?!”

Romero scoffed and dismissively waggled a hand at the computer, as he shrugged and answered, “It’s already done. We require valid personal identification and credit card payments up front as a second form of ID when we enroll students. We blocked his ID and account without refund. He will never be able to enroll in another of our schools anywhere in the world, and we know who his primary instructor and home school are.”

Celia prompted, “And how did you get that?”

Romero shrugged and told her dismissively, “We know the school because we have fights scheduled, he belongs to one of them. We confirmed when we looked him up on social media yesterday when he was acting the fool. We got suspicious the first time. His dumb ass has pictures of himself and his real team all over his history for public viewing.”

Nodding happily, cute little Celia agreed, “Smart!”

Romero blushed a little and shrugged innocently.

My irritation spiked, and I snapped, “Hey, desk monkey, wake up! Eighteen inches of scotch tape.”

He tore off about four inches and handed it to me on a finger.

I just stared.

Finally, turning to Celia. I asked her, “Celia, do you want to know why girls are so bad at math?”

She flashed irritation, not realizing it was an old dumb joke, but then her curiosity overrode that first flash and she asked, “Why?”

Pointing at the four inches of tape that would not make it halfway around my hand, I informed her, “It’s not your fault girls are bad at math, sweetheart. It’s because dipshits like Romero keep telling girls lies like that shrimpy run of tape is eighteen inches.”

She blinked a few times running that base level of dumb joke through her head, sighed and rolled her eyes before laughing happily and freely.

Romero started to bitch and I snatched the raged little sliver of tape off his finger and slapped it to the back of my hand. Waving it in his face and showing that it came nowhere near to covering half the circumference of my hand, I demanded, “Nine years, Romero, and you still don’t listen from all the times I have told you that athletic tape is cloth, stretches and comes undone when it gets wet with sweat.”

He grumbled and ripped off a longer section.

I snatched it off his finger and completed a crappy hand and a quarter wrap. Smoothing everything down, I informed Celia, “Don’t let his act fool you. He’s not completely brain-dead. He just thinks acting dumb in front of pretty girls makes him more approachable.”

Romero looked wounded.

So I changed the subject, demanding, “Hey, neighbor-girl, guess what?”

She cocked her head and curiously asked, “What’s that Alex?”

Romero sighed guessing where I was going.

I hugged clean, warm Celia to my fast-cooling, sweaty, stinky practice gi, and proclaimed, “Free hugs!”

She did not react at first but then realized how disgusting it felt and started to squirm and worm her way out, gagging and retching at the stink.

That amused me as she popped free.

While she was sputtering and whipping, Romero’s throaty fake laugh, “Ha, ha, ha. ‘Cause nobody’s ever tricked a visitor with that one before.” Shaking his head and pointing between us as I retreated back to the mats, Romero told me, past her deliberately so she heard, “It is shit like that that gives the rest of us a bad name. You are making my sales and recruiting job for the school that much harder. You know that right?”

I shook my head and backed through the door, challenging Celia, “A pretty girl like you Celia? I’m sure you can find sweaty hugs whenever you want one.”

She smiled sweetly and rendered double middle finger salutes, in response to my tease.

That made me smile, as I bowed back onto the mat and found my way into the line to rejoin the last fifteen minutes of class.

A few minutes later as we were leaving, my gi top off and belt wrapped away, on our way to the car, Celia reminded me, “You know, Alex, you can give me sweaty hugs any time you want right?” I looked down at her and her mischievous eyes sparkled in the parking lot lights, as she continued, “I just prefer them warm, naked, and with your dick buried in my pussy.”