Chapter 26: Cold Cox Academy

The author wishes to thank Corsair for his contributions to the fight scenes.

The next day, just after lunch, I stopped in the bank branch near my office and got on the short line to my favorite teller. I had checks from several customers to deposit and needed a cash withdrawal. Tanisha looked pretty and very professional as usual. When she saw me standing at her window I saw a distinct blush suffuse her face.

"What can I do for you today Mr. Steelforth?" she asked.

While her greeting was not unfriendly, I thought she was making an effort to stay more formal and businesslike than in the past and I noted that she avoided making eye contact with me.

"Just the usual, Tanisha", I said nonchalantly, as though nothing unusual had happened between us the day before.

I felt this was neither the time nor the place to get into any discussion of yesterday's events. I checked my receipt, counted my cash, gave her a warm smile and left the bank.

That evening I rode in the back of my car while my driver took me toward the South Bronx address Dr. Henderson had given me. By now we were in the blighted area. My driver radioed ahead to let them know we would soon arrive. I saw fires in barrels and homeless hopeless men standing around, bottles in hand. As we approached the old warehouse that was the school I could see that it was battle-scarred with boarded-up windows. There was no parking. When the car approached the warehouse, a garage door opened. Standing in the doorway was a slender, barefoot, white-haired woman wearing only a short sleeved white cotton robe that came down to mid thigh. Any momentary doubt I might have had about the physical fitness of a woman her age was quickly put to rest by the lean muscularity of those arms and legs. She was puffing on a cigar. She waved for us to drive inside. As soon as my car got in, the door closed. I indicated to my driver that he should stay with the car while I got out to speak with the woman.

"Are you William Steelforth?" I nodded. She extended her hand. "I'm Sue Coxwain.

I coughed when I got a whiff of her cigar.

Doctor Henderson said that you are seeking treatment for a rape victim. You have come to the right place. My student's affectionate nickname for this place is "School of Hard Cox". May I have the name of your friend, the rape victim?"

"That's private," l protested.

"If you want my help you'll have to trust. I understand that trust doesn't come easy to victims. And when someone close to you gets raped, you are a victim, too. If you want to watch, I'm going to insist that you do so in the raw like everybody else."

"Besides", she continued, "you will have to be naked with many of these same couples if you partner with your rape victim in the encounter group. I am sure Dr. Henderson must have explained that part to you" Sue pointed out.

I could feel the blood rushing to my face and hoped she did not sense my embarrassment. I started to object--but guilt stopped me. Stephanie was unable to sleep at night at least in part because of me. She was unable to trust men because the routine enslavement process my agency had participated in resulted in her being wrongfully sentenced to a ten-year indenture for debts that she didn't owe.

"Tonight's session isn't being permanently recorded. We just give out clips to the trainees so that they can learn from their own mistakes. You won't appear on video at all. The girls have to unlearn being helpless."

"They train naked?" I asked. "What good would that do? People wear clothes in public. It's the law."

"I'm glad you brought that up, Mr. Steelforth."

"Please call me Bill."

"Then you'll call me Susan or Sergeant Major, but do NOT call me ma'am. It is insulting!"

"Yes, ma'--" I gulped nervously. Somehow I knew that the little slip of a woman was very dangerous. "Yes, Susan."

"I'm finished with this", she said putting out the cigar.

"I smoke one to relax me," Sue glared at Bill. "Good. No lecture on how bad bacca is for me. I'm an old woman. This and my boy toy Tomcat and a good brandy are about the only hobbies I have. I lived through the Insurgency. That's why I teach close combat to women and to couples who have had one or both partners raped. Aztlan insurgents were like wolves among the sheep because the US government prohibited self-defense. If an underground group tried that today in New York City, those punks run a risk of having their asses kicked by one of my students. One of my students made the news a while ago--have you heard of Stephanie Glenn? According to the news, she fought off one kidnap attempt and then escaped from a dungeon. She was a student of mine. I never forget a name or face."

I stared at Susan in astonishment.

"Ms. Glenn is the rape victim Dr. Henderson told you about," I said at last. "She was raped while a captive of Zigler and the boys, but more importantly she was raped repeatedly while enslaved."

"That changes things," Susan mulled it over. "Are you coming inside? The students have had their twenty minutes of warm-up exercises. The core of my teaching method is that my students learn to fight and defeat my Rape-Bots. Perhaps Dr. Henderson explained that part."

"Yes, he did", I replied.

"The reason I use sexual attack robots is because I want realism and I want my students to release all inhibitions and fight to kill or maim their attacker. This is obviously not possible if I have students fighting other students. The robots, however, are typically set to one-quarter speed and one-quarter power until I know the student can handle more."

"Even so, are there not injuries when students fight robots?" I said.

"Injuries are minimized by the students first learning to fight in the virtual machines. What sort of unarmed defense training do you have?"

"The standard stuff given in high school and college," I replied. "Plus I've gotten instruction in controlling unruly slaves."

"When was the last time you trained?" Sue asked. "For that matter, when did you work out last?"

"Well, I've been busy," I said defensively.

"What I teach here is very lethal," Sue said. "I was part of a commando unit. It is simple to learn, simple to retain. We learned to kill with our bare hands. For rape victims I don't water down the course. I had to follow New York Unified Police Forces guidelines for their defensive training, but students like Miss Glenn prove that I'm the best. Stephanie obviously quit when she disabled her two attackers. Police want living suspects to arrest. Commandos can't leave live enemies behind them. If you accept Doctor Henderson's treatment plan, your intensive hand-to-hand combat training will make you far more dangerous to street punks than they are to you."

"Look, I'm no killer commando," I objected, "I'm not an athlete, either."

"The only thing that has to be in shape is your mind," Sue said. When you are threatened, you can trigger a response that will leave your attackers dead, dead, dead. You will be in control of that, but you can turn on your inner tiger. Few humans will be able to harm you when you finish. Now, do you want to come in or are you going to stand here in the cold.

I left my driver with the car and followed Susan in through the thick door from the garage to the gym. The first thing my eyes saw was twenty-four students — six of them in well fitting but rather worn out looking street clothes and the rest all quite naked. Among the six clothed ones at the far end of the gym I noted Tanisha and Leroy.

"How come those six are clothed and everyone else is naked?" I asked.

"Those six have dressed for combat with my Rape-Bots. We try to make these attack situations as realistic as possible by having the students dress as they might be dressed on the street going to work or coming from work. We get this clothing as discards from thrift shops because the clothing often will get torn to shreds! I can assure you they don't always get to keep their clothing since the Rape-Bots are programmed to strip them if possible."

Then my eyes were drawn to the six virtual fight training machines — all in a row down the middle of the gym. For the most part they were open frames — each with multiple videocams and each defining an area about 8 ft by 12 ft in size. Sue led me to a row of lockers standing near the VFTMs. There was no privacy in the gym. Even the showers were visible through clear plastic walls. Sue's boytoy Tomcat was a slender 20-something indentured servant. He looked almost feminine and at the moment he was nude. He was working on repairing a realistic Rape-Bot, an android training device.

"Bill, grab a locker and put your clothes inside," Susan said as she removed her white terrycloth robe revealing she had nothing on underneath. "Nudity is a weapon. We train nude--mostly--because it gives us a tactical advantage. Do you know how many women fall apart when their skirt is ripped from their bodies? How many women will freeze up in terror when their rapist flashes a penis at them? As you can see some of the men and women are dressed in various clothing like they'd wear on the street. They will be assaulted by the Rape-Bot and have their clothing ripped from them. They will be expected to disable their attackers and get away. The final exercise will take place in a simulated bedroom."

I was embarrassed to be undressing in front of all these students. I turned my back to the others as I undressed--it was too much to face the others as I stripped to my skin. Finally, I was naked. Unfortunately I had a partial erection.

"Bill, don't let little things bother you. Come with me," Sue said. "Class, this is Bill. He's here to observe today's training. Do not make fun of him--focus on your objective."

"Yes, Susan," the class replied.

My face and ears were hot with embarrassment. Just then, much to my chagrin, I saw Leroy and Tanisha approaching. To be naked in front of these particular clothed people, after what I had witnessed yesterday, was a rather intense experience. My partial soft erection was turning into a half hard erection as I stood there in front of my favorite bank teller.

"Bill, wasn't it?" Leroy asked. Bill nodded "How does it feel to have the shoe on the other foot? To be the naked one?"

"Leroy," Sue warned.

"Bill and I met before, at the Henderson clinic," Leroy said. "Bill, I mean no impertinence, but if you could make that erection fully hard and maintain it hard for a while, I think it would be helpful for Tanisha's therapy. Could you humor us?"

"Please," Tanisha pleaded. "I have to learn that an erection is an erection."

So, for Tanisha's sake, and because I could hardly help myself anyway, I stroked my penis into full erection and stood there for a couple of minutes for Tanisha to take it all in.

"Stand down, Mr. Steelforth", I heard at last from Sue, and found myself wilting.

"You are a slaver, right?" I nodded in answer to Sue's question. "You use nudity to inflict learned helplessness on slaves. Here I use nudity to inoculate my students against crippling embarrassment

"Bill, you want Stephanie to get this training," Sue continued. "This has a very serious purpose. When she completes the training she will have disarmed the nude bomb. Neither her own nakedness nor the nakedness of an attacker will render her helpless. She won't be shocked into immobility when a sexual predator flashes his naughty bits at her. These people took command of their sexuality and nudity is no weapon against them."

We have six virtual fight training machines. I am continuously taking on new students. I always have my newest batch experience fighting in the VFTMs before I have them fight my Rape-Bots. Even my more advanced students refresh their skills in the VFTMs at some point each evening. Since I have 24 students and only 6 machines I use a rotation system."

"Can I watch one of these 'virtual fights'?"

"That is just what I want you to do next. Let's go over and watch Vicki fight."

As we walked over I noted that it must be rotation time. Six very exhausted looking naked students, dripping with perspiration, were taking off their virtual helmets and stepping out of the fighting areas defined by the virtual frames. Six other naked students, looking fresh and eager, were donning these helmets. We walked toward one of these students just before she put her helmet on. I stole a quick furtive glance downward to satisfy myself that my penis had completely subsided. Sue introduced me to Vicki, a slender blonde athletic type. I shook hands with her and wished her a successful fight. She smiled and excused herself to begin a sort of warm up dance before starting the fight.