pound 4 pound
by JP Lor
We’re gonna watch my girl’s ex get beat up. The plan is simple: go to his cage match and collect a few things – his blood, sweat, hair, hopefully teeth. Then we’re gonna burn them in a pot I got at Goodwill. Burn him from our lives. My girl found a ritual on the internet. When it’s done, I’ll finally be happy. We will finally be happy.
I’ll see his half-naked pictures on billboards, Instagram, TV, in my dreams, those stupid abs that make skin look pointless and not feel a goddamn thing. It’ll be as if he never existed.
Sex will be good again. I’m sick of being on top, seeing her face suddenly morph into his square jaw and razor cheekbones, her long hair shrinking into his buzz cut, pink, green, and purple. Shutting my eyes never worked. I’d still hear him say, bye-bye boner, and plop, it’d go bye-bye.
Sometimes, her boob would turn into his face, and he’d yell, boo! Then last week, for the first time, her clit turned into his face, a square clit with rainbow hair. But this time, he whispered, “You’re thinking too much, buddy, relax, like he was coaching me. But it didn’t work. I repped out jawline exercises, my face in between her thighs. I only got to twenty-two before she threw the covers off and stormed into the bathroom.
That night was our biggest fight yet.
I told her I wanted to buy those huge protein bags at Costco and she said why you’re the perfect size for me and that I needed to get over her ex because he was too macho and I’m the opposite of macho and plus I have a huge credit score and I told her that’s not what a guy wants to hear and then I asked if she wanted me to join Planet Fitness and she said ugh and slammed the door.
But we got through it like always. I made her a peanut butter sandwich with bananas and maple syrup. Then I did the laundry, vacuumed, and put gas in her car in the middle of the night. Who said apologizing was hard? The following morning, it was like nothing ever happened.
Fight Night Championship
987
Ex vs Big Rig
We’re sitting close to the cage. Just a few steps and I could touch the steel wires. The arena is so big I can hardly see the spectators at the top. It’s my first time at a cage match. I know better than to watch dudes who remind me I would’ve died a long time ago in the Darwin days, back when men, wearing just a cloth, pummeled and killed guys like me. When my girl watches at home, I sit beside her on the couch and read a book. Now I’m surrounded by macho guys, walking around with their puffed-up chests, their puffed-up traps, their macho-tight T-shirts with flames that say, Look at me, I can puff anything. On the big screen, dudes scream and chug beers.
My girl can’t stop bouncing in her seat, her knee jackhammering the ground. She grabs my hand, and out of nowhere, she says, “I’m sorry about last week.”
It takes a minute for me to realize what she’s talking about and that she’s apologizing for something I did.
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” she says. “After we burn him, we’ll do that thing you’ve always wanted to do that I never did with him.” She bites my earlobe. “I’ll even let you record it.” Her breath smells like beer and popcorn, her hair minty vanilla. She gives me a hug, all of it like nothing she’s ever done before in public.
Instant. Boner.
The lights dim, and the arena roars. It’s Big Rig time! The guy who’s gonna beat up her ex. A drumbeat fills the arena. The pounding gets louder and louder. Everyone is in a trance as if summoning a God. A voice starts chanting. It all sounds so tribal – the drums, the voice, the flute. People start hissing and whispering like they know this weird language. My girl too. Bodies start moving from side to side, evil faces everywhere. Her eyes roll back like she’s being possessed. I’ve never seen her like this before, but it makes me want to be a part of it. A part of what everyone is feeling.
“Can you slow down?” I whisper, hoping she can show me what to do.
“Shh,” she says, her arms high in the air, her eyes white.
When Big Rig walks by us, I have to tilt my head just to see his face, his crusty beard hiding everything but the deathly look in his eyes. Then someone with gloves starts patting him all over, like they’re checking for hidden weapons. I ask my girl what they’re doing, but she just stares at Big Rig, a man carved out of a mountain. A man who makes me feel like a 3rd grader. A man who reminds me I would never be able to protect my girl if we ever got mugged in a dark alley after leaving the bar. Once again, at the most inconvenient time, crippling thoughts paralyze me:
Why didn’t I jump rope growing up so I could be taller like my mom told me to?
Why didn’t I drink more milk?
Why didn’t I do Tai Bo with my sister?
Why did God make me this way?
All these whys, whys, whys, but, for the first time, I decide to say, fuck God! as I sprint up the bleachers, fucking God the entire time, toward the exit sign, past the beer and food stands, and bust through the restroom door, where I stuff my shoes with a bunch of paper towels, something I should’ve done a long time ago. Tom Cruise does it, not with paper towels but with lifts, and I read somewhere that the guy who played Jon Snow in Game of Thrones had to wear high heels on set because everyone was much taller. For now, paper towels will work.
When I get back, out of breath, my girl stares at me, up and down, and says, “Well, look at you.”
Big Rig steps into the cage and roars at the crowd. We all scream back. I do too because now I feel taller and stronger than ever.
Wiping the sweat off her face, my girl says, “That was fun, right babe?”
The lights quickly switch to flashing green, purple, and pink. The “Party Rock” song. We hate “Party Rock.” People start booing as her ex makes his walk to the cage. The booing makes me happy, that mutual hatred, how we all can hate the same person at the same time. My girl starts booing too, but it doesn’t feel convincing, like the others. Her body is moving to the song, a song we both hate. It doesn’t make sense. How can someone boo and dance at the same time? How can someone have their thumbs down yet look excited? And why is she on her tiptoes, trying hard to look at him? She already knows what he looks like. Everything suddenly feels wrong, the boo-dancing, her jittery body, and I think maybe we should just go home and find a therapist instead or move to a different state.
“Do you want to wait in the car?” I ask. “Maybe I should collect everything myself.”
“Are you kidding? It’s you and me, babe. We’re gonna burn everything, burn him from our lives.”
People start throwing cups at him like they’re stoning him, but he just keeps dancing like my girl, the same freaking moves, the same shuffle, not caring about the crowd. When he steps into the cage, something massive stares at me – his groin cup? There’s a tear down his spandex shorts like it’s dying to be seen.
“I thought you said he was like average or so, nothing special.”
“Really?”
I sprint up the bleachers, past the food stands, slide into the restroom because the door is already open and stuff my crotch with toilet paper instead of paper towels because chafing is no bueno.
When I get back, she pokes it. “Wow, okay.”
“Babe, let’s come to the next fight,” I tell her, even though I used all my savings to buy the tickets. “I’ll put in some extra hours at work.”
“Maybe later,” she says, still boo-dancing.
Shuffling in the cage, her ex winks at me and pumps his crotch. I pump my big bulge back, and he just licks his gloves, rubbing them all over his tight body.
Staring at the two fighters, I notice a huge size difference. On tiptoes, her ex could maybe suck on Big Rig’s nipples, maybe.
“Don’t these things have a weight-class rule?” I ask her.
‘Nope. In this cage fight, there are no rules. It’s about what you can take.”
I have no idea what that means, but it’s not looking good for her ex, which gives me a little hope, knowing we’re still doing the right thing.
The ring announcer introduces the fighters, then a woman in white tennis shoes and a red bikini walks around the ring, holding a round-one sign.
The bell dings.
Without any hesitation, Big Rig stomps to her ex, scoops him into his arms easily and squeezes.
Her ex yelps, his feet off the ground, kicking the air.
“Where’s your dancing now, buddy?” I shout.
My girl stands on her chair. “Squeeze, Biggy, squeeze!”
I grab her hand and say, “I love—”
The crowd suddenly goes nuts. Big Rig slams him down and gets between her ex’s legs, crotch to crotch. I’m not sure what that is, but it seems like they’re making out. Big Rig rubs his beard all over her ex’s face and then puts his hand over his mouth and nose like he’s telling her ex to be quiet because his parents are sleeping. It all looks very erotic, and I don’t understand any of it. The crowd boos. Maybe they don’t understand it either.
“Aren’t they supposed to be fighting?” I ask.
“They are,” she says, “Big Rig is in his guard, trying to smother his breathing.” She bites her bottom lip. “My ex has a really good guard, though. He has super tight and strong thighs… Big Rig is having a hard time trying to pass.”
“Tight and strong?” I sprint up the bleachers, the stands, the restroom, and knock out some body-weight squats, but I’m not heavy enough, so I use the trash can, hugging the crap out of it.
When I get back, she pinches my thighs. “Now that’s what’s up.”
Big Rig props himself up and tiger claws her ex’s chest hair. The sound of Velcro, the crowd gasping.
When I was little, my mom made me watch a Bruce Lee movie because she said I needed to learn how to fight to be a man. Bruce Lee ripped Chuck Norris’s chest hair off and blew it. I didn't think it was possible in real life.
Blood drips down her ex’s stomach. He curls into a fetal position.
I expect the referee to stop the fight and for everything to be over, but Big Rig rubs the glob of hair with blood and spit and flings it toward us. My girl catches it like a baseball, waves it to the crowd. Everyone cheers.
Behind us, people start punching and tackling each other.
“Isn’t hair-pulling illegal?” I ask in a daze.
“Nope, totally legal.” She stuffs it down her bra. “Can’t wait to burn it.” She gives me a high five and a kiss on the cheek like I’m five.
“Should I keep it instead?” I ask.
“No, I’m the keeper, you’re the burner, remember?”
The crowd erupts again. “I love you so much,” I tell her.
“Yeah, it’s in my purse.”
Everything keeps getting louder. Her ex climbs the fence and tries to escape, but Big Rig yanks him down, jerks him around, and starts punching him in the ass. They’re in this vertical sixty-nine position, her ex upside down, taking it like a champ. I should be more ecstatic, but all that comes out is, “No way that’s legal!”
“They’re called ass hammers, baby, and they’re super legal. That’s how my ex knocked out his last opponent.” She turns to him. “Karma’s a bitch, asshole! Hammer that juicy ass, Biggy!”
Things are getting too crazy, but I stand on my chair. “Yeah! Hammer that juicy ass! Wait, what?” I step down.
“What?”
“You said, ‘juicy ass’? You called your ex’s ass ‘juicy.’”
“I don’t mean like he has a juicy ass. I just meant that it’s probably sweaty and I want Big Rig to hammer the shit out of it. Don’t you? Come on, babe, let’s root for Biggy.”
I sprint – bleachers, stands, restroom. Then I pack toilet seat covers down my ass because there are no more paper towels. When I get back, she slaps it and says, “Goddamn!”
Big Rig winks at us and tears her ex’s undies apart, then puts it over his face like a Nacho Libre mask. He pumps up the crowd and stomps around the ring.
“Big Rig, you’re so big!” chants fill the arena.
He launches the mask over the cage.
My girl disappears and comes back with dirty undies. “Yuck. I hate that smell. I’m glad you powder your balls, babe.”
I’m pretty sure the powder has stopped working. “Do you want me to hold it?”
“No way, Jose. I’ll put it in my purse, so you don’t have to see it until it’s time to burn everything. Burn it all!”
“Do you and Big Rig know each other?”
Before she can answer, more pieces fly out – her ex’s teeth, pubes, a toenail, everything we wanted and then some. She crawls and climbs over people.
A commentator drops his headpiece and yells, “Stop! That’s not yours!”
She steps out of a brawl alongside the cage and squares off with the commentator. They’re both the same height, except he’s bald. In five seconds, she takes him down and ninjitsus his balls. Then she steps over his chest with her dirty socks.
“Where are your shoes?”
“A bunch of guys drank beer out of them.”
She disappears again.
“Oh my god, babe, come back, he’s getting hammered in the balls!” The arena explodes. “No way a man can take that!”
She comes back with frizzy hair, toilet paper in her nose, a toenail between her teeth, holding two beers like drunk Jesus. She spits the nail into the cup.
“Got it,” she says. “You’d be surprised. My ex would make me punch his balls all the time. It was our morning routine.”
I imagine her lightly scratching them, giving him goosebumps, doing everything else but punching. “But while he wears a cup, right?”
“Nope. He’d make me punch his actual balls. They’re super strong and symmetrical.” She stares up at nothing like she’s reminiscing while Big Rig hammers away, keeping her ex’s legs spread open, eagle style.
“But what about this?” I pump my crotch.
“Sure.”
She starts shouting again, this time at her ex. “Come on, Sledgehammer, you’re better than this! Get up and throw your melon balls at him!”
My legs buckle. I fall back on my chair as his name slaps me over and over again. A name we swore we’d never say because Beguile Magazine says naming an ex gives them power. Makes them more real. I want to run up the bleachers, but my ears are still ringing and the arena starts spinning. I don’t know what else to stuff. What else a man can do instantly to make himself better?
Minutes later, I find my balance. I find the strength to walk up the long steps toward the broken exit sign, dodging flying cups where dudes tumble over seats, where people up on the lights swing, causing sparks.
Inside the dark restroom, lights flicker. Two guys shatter a mirror and shove past me, causing me to stumble.
I bend down and pick up a piece of broken glass, staring at a man I can’t stand to look at. A man who will never, no matter how hard he tries, be the kind of man she wants.
Sitting against the wall under a low buzzing hum, everything feels hopeless, like the entire night was a complete waste of time…until suddenly, a thought hits me. An idea that makes me think why the hell didn’t I think of this sooner? An idea that gives me hope again. One that makes me get back on my feet, walk over to the trash can, and drag it past all the empty stalls where I lock myself in the handicap stall.
There’s shit on the seat and tagging on the wall – words I can’t read next to a crude picture of a dick in the shape of a question mark. Or maybe it’s just a question mark. Or maybe it’s just a curve, meaningless lines.
Walking around the trash can, I make sure there’s enough room to call on the powers of the North, East, South, and West. Then I unzip my pants. Damp paper flops to the ground. I stare at my “cute raisin” balls she likes to flick for fun after sex, wanting to punch them and punch them until they’re black and blue, symmetrically bruised. But what is that gonna do? Nothing, not a damn thing.
I stuff my things into the mound of trash – my boxers with pee stains, a scab from my elbow, some pubes, and spit. Closing my eyes, I hold the lighter high in the air, casting a new spell in place of her ex:
“No more games from me and myself.
I claim my right to a banishing spell.
Go away far from me.
As I will so mote it be.”
I open one eye. Nothing happens. Maybe it’s all the sweat. Maybe there aren’t enough pieces of myself in the trash. Maybe I need to take off all my clothes, including my socks and shoes, and burn them too.
So, that’s what I do.
Finally, tiny flames begin to rise, and suddenly I feel something inside shrinking away. The stall begins to tremble, the toilet, the trash can, the ground, everything around me.
It’s working!
Not wasting any time, I calmly repeat the ritual over and over again until I’m standing there, completely naked.
The way I was born.
The way I’ll always be.
Taking a deep breath, I sit with this feeling for a moment, thanking God for ever doubting Him, for saying all those nasty things earlier when I ran up the stairs.
Goosebumps pop all over my arms. I rub and pat my new ass, one that’s neither big nor small, just an ass. An ass that will look good and tight in any kind of pants I wear, even in my thick jeans.
New balls here I come! Come on new balls, come!
I wait and wait and wait. Again, nothing happens. Not a problem, though. All I gotta do is do the same thing I did earlier, the same exact thing, the walk around, the high hands, the incantation, and I’ll get what’s coming.
The flames disappear.
No no no no no no no…
I click and click and click the lighter. It doesn’t work. The freaking lighter is not working. I press it hard. I press it soft. I shake it. I tilt it. Nothing. It’s like limp dick. A dick that no matter what you do to it, will not go back up.
But you know what? None of that matters right now. My girl has another one. It’s in her purse.
Without even giving it a second thought, I unlock the stall door, both hands covering my crotch because my ass is fine now, and run out of the restroom, running past the beer and food stand, slipping on buttery popcorn, then down, down, down the long steps, ducking under a flying chair, right back to the cage, where my girl is sitting on top of it, riding it like a horse.
Out of breath, I gently tap her leg, tap tap tap, and ask, “Did you bring that extra lighter?”
I keep my back arched so she can see the slight curve in my spine, my little bump in the trunk, but right when she does, the final bell dings.
Perfect timing.
I expect everyone to finally stop fighting, for all the blood to stop spraying and spilling. For my girl to finally look at me.
But no one stops.
Big Rig continues to pound her ex, who begs and screams for help. It looks like a doggy style kind of move, but seriously, I have no idea, and I can’t ask her.
The referee tries to stop the fight, but Big Rig shoves him off, knocking him down.
The coaches slam their fists on the platform, throw in their towels. “Stop the fight!” they yell. “Stop the fight!”
But the arena only gets louder and louder.
People rush into the cage, including my girl. Everyone starts fighting everyone. It’s hard to tell who is on whose side. Punches are thrown, kicks are swung, and my girl… tackles Big Rig? What the…How is that even possible? How is she able to do something her ex hasn’t even come close to doing the entire fight?
A part of me wants to climb over the cage like everyone’s doing, but what would I do? All I have is this new ass, that’s it. No new biceps, no chest, no neck. Nothing. Nothing that could help me fight Big Rig in case she needs help.
Across the ring, her ex crawls, dragging his lifeless body towards them, past people pulling each other’s hair, ripping each other’s clothes, and biting, lots of people biting.
There are so many people in the ring, I can’t see my girl anymore. I have no idea what she’s doing with Big Rig. If she’s even safe.
Luckily, at that moment, I happen to look up at the big screen and see this gigantic view of all three, my girl, her ex, and Big Rig, in the middle of the chaos…wrestling?
Whatever my girl did to him, for the first time in the fight, Big Rig is flat on his back.
My girl’s sitting on his crotch, straddling him like she never straddled me. She then yells and points at her ex, telling him to do something, enabling him to pin Big Rig’s massive arms down above his head. Because of my girl, Big Rig is stuck.
Now of all the things that have happened tonight, this one is the most confusing. The one
that makes me question what’s really going on. Like how someone so small, someone even smaller than me, can keep a guy down like that, someone as big as Big Rig? It makes no sense.
The camera zooms in, their giant faces on the screen.
On her ex, a vengeful smile, swollen and bruised.
On Big Rig, it’s hard to tell. His beard is too big.
On my girl, the biggest grin I’ve ever seen.
What the heck is happening? What is she doing? That does not look like some kind of cage move, especially the way she leans forward like that, hands on the ground next to his armpits and chest, her legs twisting and locking like a snake around his trunk legs, until all you see on the screen are both of their faces staring at each other.
Around me, a bunch of people stop fighting and point at the screen. They start clapping and cheering like they’re watching a proposal.
This is not good, not good at all. I should be the one in there. The one everyone is looking at. The one on the big screen underneath my girl.
You know what, I’ve had enough of this. I step off the platform and powerwalk my ass to get the one thing that I should’ve had this whole time. The thing I came back out here for.
It takes me a minute to find it on the ground, but once I do, I walk back to the cage.
“Babe!” I shout, gripping the fence.
Still riding Big Rig, she finally looks up, bits of trash stuck in her hair. Big Rig tilts his head. Her ex turns around. But I don’t care. I don’t care that they’re all staring at me. Or that a camera puts my naked ass on the big screen for everyone to see. Or that I’m the only one in the whole fucking arena who hears the bell dinging and dinging and dinging. I don’t care that I have to press her dirty purse against the cage. That I have to shout real loud. That I have to ask her more than three times, “Which pocket is it in?” That all I want to know right now is if it’s in this one, or that one. That’s it.
Photo of JP Lor
BIO: JP Lor has stories in The Molotov Cocktail, Maudlin House, coalitionworks, Briefly Zine, and others. He's pursuing an MFA at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. You can find him on Instagram @jplorwrites.