“Love feelings?” Her voice takes on a wheedling tone and she clasps her hands together like a Disney princess.
“No. More like nostalgia feelings. And anger and hurt and humiliation feelings.” Though I have to admit, if only to myself, it’s the former that I find more disturbing.
“All right, let’s get started.” A gruff rumble from the front of the room saves me from having to introspect even further.
I gesture helplessly to May, like I’d be happy tocontinue this conversation were it not for scary-looking instructor man.
And he’s most definitely scary. He’s at least six foot four and as wide as a house. He’s got a black bandana wrapped around his forehead, and his pale face is accented by sunburned cheeks and a stubbly black and gray beard.
When he tells us to come forward, we scurry up to the front of the room.
The instructor introduces himself as Duke, and that’s where the pleasantries end. We start with a “warm-up” that has me panting for breath after just a few minutes. At one point Duke looks at me in the mirror and mutters something that looks like “Pathetic.”
So yeah, we’re off to a good start.
After the warm-up, Duke has us wrap our hands in some kind of tape. One of the other women in the class takes pity on May and me and helps us before Duke can see that we’re unable to complete even this simplest of tasks.
Once everyone’s taped up, Duke demonstrates a few moves for the group. A jab. An uppercut. Some other moves that I’m sure have technical names I can’t remember. And then he just starts yelling out different combinations and we try our best to keep up. He tells everyone to partner up, and May and I cling to each other like we’re on theTitanicand it’s going down.
But Duke has other plans. He points to May. “You. Over there.” He directs her to a guy standing by himself, who’s not exactly cute, but also notnotcute. Duke gives me a sadistic grin. “You’re with me.”
I let out an actual whimper.
May saunters over to her new partner, and I’m not sure if her slow walk can be attributed to her wanting to show off her assets, or if she just can’t make her legs move any faster.
I swallow audibly as Duke bears down on me. “It’s my first time.”
He grunts. “Yeah. I could tell.” He slips what look like padded oven mitts onto his hands. “Let’s start with jabs.” He holds up his pads in front of his face.
“You want me to hit you?”
He nods. “Don’t even pretend like you could hurt me.”
Well, that’s rude. I throw a jab with my right hand. My fist connects with the pad, but it barely moves. That definitely just hurt me more than it hurt him.
“Pitiful.”
I try again, putting a little more muscle into it this time. It barely moves again.
“What are you doing here?” Duke asks as I throw another half-hearted punch, this time with my left hand.
“I’m here for a work assignment.” It takes me a minute to get the words out because even with my wimpy excuse for punches, I’m still winded.
“Bullshit.”
This time I go for a combo, right left right.
“Why are you here?”
I pause for a second, blowing a loose strand of hair out of my face.
“Do not stop. And answer my question.”
“I’m here because I’m forcing myself to branch out and try new things.” I hit him with three quick jabs, all with my right hand.
His mouth moves a fraction of an inch, possibly in some sort of sign of approval. “Why?”
“Why do I need to try new things?” I throw an uppercut into my next combo and don’t wait for him to answer. “Because I was stuck in a pattern. A pattern that was bad for me.”
