[Rowan Chance]

You're slowly getting to your feet while I remain on my knees, screaming that single word over and over again. Watching you get back up.

My eyes are distant. Almost looking through you. Unable to believe what I'm seeing. Just screaming.

And suddenly, for no reason at all, I remember laying with you on the hood of our rental car in Cleveland. You drunk on beer, me drunk on wine. So typical. Both of us aching and hurt. We lost the match that night, but I didn't care. I was with you. We were laughing. And your body so warm against mine. A hot Cleveland night, but you were hotter. And we were so drunk, you actually said...

* * *

"I'm the Joey Ryan of pussies."

I stopped. Looked at you. "What the fuck?"

"I am," you said, nodding in that way you do when you're drunk.

"Darling," I said, "You're drunk. You know damn good and well that I'm the Joey Ryan of pussies."

"One time," you sit up, waving your hands as if to illustrate the action, "a chick grabbed me by the pussy and I was like RAAAAAAAAAHHHH! and arm dragged her with it."

Without missing a beat, I sip the wine straight from the bottle and without moving, I say, "Mine delivered a piledriver."

You look at me, those gorgeous eyes of yours flashing. "THAT SEEMS UNLIKELY!"

"That's nothing compared to the tie it did a top rope hurracarrana."

You lean back on the windshield. "One time my pussy put on a sharpshooter. Around the ringpost." You take another swig of bear. "I called it the Holiday in Cambodia."

"The Holiday in Cambodia? Like the Dead Kennedy's song?"

"And the name of my ringpost figure four." You nod proudly. "All my moves are named after punk songs. The Psycho Killer. The Holiday in Cambodia. The Mindfuck. No More Heroes."

"That isn't your move, that's Bret Hart's move!"

"Well, he's dead or something so now it's mine!"

I'm laughing so goddamn hard, and you just keep going.

"Blitzkrieg Bop. Forever Time Buster. Bad Brains."

I'm still laughing. "Fucking indie darling with her five hundred goddamn finishing moves."

"Signature!" you shout. "They're signature moves!"

"Fine," I drink more wine. "Signature moves. And how many finishers do you have?"

You sit up primly. "That's more like it." Then, you stick out your pinky as you sip the beer. "I...I mean, I've changed finishers quiet a few times. So like... three. Generally. Maybe five."

I'm giggling. You're giggling. Your prim demeanor vanishes and Punky returns. "Shut up! I'm very versatile!"

"Versitile? Is that what kids are calling it these days?"

"FINISHERS ARE AWESOME! FUCKIN' AWESOME! People are like, OH MY GOOOOOD SHE'S KILLED HER AAAAHHHH!"

I laugh some more. "Honey, you're a lesbian." I sit up and wave the wine bottle, pressing it against my chest. "I... am versatile."

You snerk in that adorable way that you do, tilting your Steel Toe IPA back so it clinks against your teeth as you drink it. "Yer whtever's a step beyond versatile. You're like...sexual duct tape."

"So you're saying I'm like the Force? Like the sexual Force, right? Light side, dark side, binds the galaxy together?" I giggle madly and swig more wine.

"PFFFT!" You blow a cloud of beer mist into the night sky, swinging your hand across your lips. "Goddammit, no. You're not the Force! The Force...surrounds us and binds us together. It doesn't...reverse cowgirl anyone." You giggle again, with a little hiccup in it and you chase that down with more beer.

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you so sure?" And a very drunk smile. "Have you been in my reverse cowgirl, babe?" I wave a dismissive hand. "Of course not. You don't have the right plumbing."

You take another long, contemplative swig, propped back on your left hand, slanting that shoulder up to turn on your right hip towards me a little, legs in tattered black jeans brushing yours. "Maybe I would'n need plumbin' to see it. Jus' the right kinda toy," you slur a little, grinning with your cheeks flushed.

I look at the bottle. "You're right. Totally right. This drinking straight from the bottle shit is...the shit."

I lean closer, almost nuzzling your pierced tits in your fresh warm long-sleeved Misfits shirt against my bicep.

"Yeah," you say. "Glasses are for bitches." You overarm your empty bottle into the parking lot. It wicks off into the darkness, end over end, and smashes somewhere past the lights.

I hand you another one from the pack. You put the bottle in your teeth and bite, a little throaty snarl that shears the cap, foam spilling over your lips as you spit the bottlecap away.

"Speaking of reverse cowgirl..." I look around. Left, then right. To see if anyone's watching or listening...

Then, I lean in and whisper way too loud...

"I fucked Red."

You bray laughter, sagging back on the car hood. You look up at the cold winter stars, tilting back the beer and soaking in the warmth. Your leg sprawls out, your ratty Van brushing your calf.

"Did he keep it on?" you ask.

I wink at you. "I wouldn't let him take it off." And then, I can't take it. I collapse on you with laughter, the wine bottle hanging loosely from my fingers. "He was so sweet. I couldn't help it."

But then, I recover from the laughter, looking up at you from your chest. My face so serious.

"I think...I may...have ruined him for other women."

I try to keep serious, but my smile is cracking through.

You look down at me, raising your head to rest it against the slope of the rental's windshield, your loose purple hair tumbling as you look at me over the slope of your breasts. Your left arm curled behind your head, elbow pointing at the sky, your left leg hanging off the hood, your right leg vining slowly with yours. You giggle-snort, then try to look sober.

"His dick...nnhhee...will never be the fucking same." Then, you look at me with those big hazel eyes. "Ro. Ro. I have t'know..."

You crane your head toward me, stroking my back with the bottle.

In my most serious voice, I say, "Yes, Megan?"

"Did his cock have a mask on?"

I'm trying so hard not to laugh, I nearly fall off the car. "N-no..." I say, sitting up, mimicking your prim and proper tone from earlier. "No, it did not." Then, I look right into your beautiful hazel eyes.

"But it did have a hood."

Your spit take is more epic than anything Paul has ever done. I hear your glass bottle fall and smash on the parking lot pavement.

"GODDAMMIT RO, I DROPPED MY BEEEER HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!"

Your laughing so hard, you start gasping. Kicking the hood of the car.

"Don't worry," I say. "There's more be--" I pause, looking over at the empty case. "Oh fuck. No. There isn't."

"Ah, fuck. S'okay. I'm drunk enough."

I shake my head. "Nope."

"Oh fuck. Goddamn that was hurting funny."

I lay back down on the window with my bottle of wine and my Megan. You're rubbing your eyes and then you're running your hands through my hair, curling into me.

"By the way," I say. "Did you see that fuckin'...what the fuck did she call herself? Giggling and jiggling all over the place?"

"Blaaaah!" You loll your head back and stick out your pierced tongue. "I dye my hair purple and bleed in front of crowds for a living and I still find her to be a fuckin' attention whore." You wave your tattooed hand. "To stand out as needin' attention in a room full of fuckin' pro wrestlers takes some doin'. That's like standing out as an anorexic in a room full of French models."

I spit up some wine. "Jeebus. Neer do that when I'm drinking!"

You snort, your right hand curling to boop my nose with a finger. "S'just wine. Not anythin' important."

That's when my eyes open wide. "OH! OH!"

"What?"

"OH! HOLD ON!" I hand the wine bottle to you. "Hold this!"

You take it reluctantly. "Aw man. What if someone sees?"

I wave at the empty parking lot. "Nobody will see!"

You're holding the wine with the disdain of someone holding fish guts in a newspaper.

I slide so gracefully off the hood, falling over the side from your view. Then, I wave an arm up over the side. "I'm okay!"

"Aaaand she's down," you laugh.

I get the keys out of my pocket and click the...the...the...thingy...to pop the hood. Er trunk. Yeah, trunk.

"THE TRUNK RELEASE!" you shout. "NOT THE HOOD!"

"We should not be driving," I say.

"I'm not sure we should be walkin'."

I hit the button again and the hood pops under you.

"AUGHH FUCK!"

"Sorry!" I shout. I hit the other button. The trunk pops open and I grab what I'm looking for. I come back with two things in my hands. First, a six pack of beer. I hold it up. "I found these! And they're still cold because they've been in the trunk all night.

But I see you there, the hood of the car open, with your legs dangling over the open mouth, your head and shoulders piled against the windshield and your tits in your face.

"Ro," you say with a grim voice.

"OHMYGOD! I'M SO SORRY!"

You arch your hips up and smack your ass down to shut the hood again with a heavy clunk.

I hand over the beer. "Sorry."

"You're forgiven," you say, grabbing the beer. "For now." The other thing I have is a silver Halliburton case. You haven't seen it yet because you're peering at the six pack. "What's this?" you ask. Then, you shrug. "Fuck it. It's beer." And you open a bottle, swigging half of it down in a heartbeat.

I put the Halliburton on the hood of the car. You look over at it, your head and shoulders listing. "Whazzat?"

I slide the case across the hood, making a scraping sound. I look at your bootprints in the hood. "Um...we got insurance, right?"

"Uh...sure." Your eyes dart back and forth.

"Good," I say, reassured.

"Yeah, let's go with that, I totally have insurance. So much..." you look back down at the case. "Is this a gun? Are we gonna hunt the most dangerous game?"

"NO!" I shout, a little too loud, laughing again. "STOP ASKING THAT!" I tap the suitcase, hopping back on the hood.

"It was funny the first two hundred times," you say, eyeing the case.

"Go on," I say. "Open it."

You look at me. "Is it Marcellus Wallace's soul?"

I wink. "Maybe."

"If John Travolta kills me because I see this, I'm gonna be real upset."

"He's already dead," I say. "Bruce Willis killed him."

You fumble for the catches, trying to open the thing, biting your lip. "Pfft. You don't know where we are in the timeline..."

"Neither do they. Open the fucking case." More wine.

"GET A LESS COMPLEX CASE, RO! GOD! FUCK!" You punch the ase and the clasps pop. "Always works." You open it as dramatically as you can with a slight sway as you sit up.

And just like the case with Marcellus Wallace's soul in it, there's a golden glow on your face.

"I uh...spent some cash and replaced that shitty belt they gave you. You know. The one that looked like it came from the '70's?"

You stare at it a long time. The purple skull and crossbones on the front, outlined in black. The leather dyed dark purple. The words, "Portland Wrestling Champion" arched across the top and bottom. The sodium parking lot lights throw a yellow glow that makes the gold shimmer mystically, and the dark purple stands out. You reach in slowly, stroking your fingertips over it.

"It was vinyl. The one they gave me. Vinyl an' leatherette an' plastic."

But then, your eyebrows lower. Your mouth frowns. You point at the nameplate.

"It says 'Pinky.'"

I shrug. "Yeah. The silversmith fucked up. I'll get that fixed."

Your face remains the same. "It says 'Pinky.'"

"Well...you could always dye your hair..."

I fully expect something to happen here. Either you're going to slug me for spending so much money on you or you're going to slug me for the nameplate, or you're going to kiss me.

And for a long time, I'm left there wondering.

You bite your lip hard. "It's really pretty." Your soft throaty voice a rasp, struggling not to break. "S'beautiful."

"Just like you," I whisper.

That's when your voice breaks and I see your eyes get wet. You rub your hand across your eyes. "Tha's cheatin' when I'm tryin' this hard not to cry like a pussy."

I have to sniff. "Now don't you go fuckin' lose it this weekend!"

You tilt your head at me. Bent over the case. Your eyes are shimmering bright. "I'll fuckin' break a cxnt's fingers if she tries ta so much as touch it." Then, you reach up and grab my hair with forceful fingers. "C'mere."

And our lips find each other. Molten and soft and beery and full of wine and high, soft sounds of need.

I break the kiss. "Don't rip the shirt," I say. "It's Red's."

You laugh. Then, I kiss you back.

* * *

I'm on my knees. You're on your feet. After the Widow's Bite.

I'm on my knees. And you're on your feet.

I shake my head, blood squirting from my forehead.

"No."

Up on one knee.

"NO."

Up on my own feet.

"NO!"

I'm standing now, too. Right in front of you. Tits to tits. Nose to nose. My forehead squirting blood on your face.

"NO!!!"

Nothing clever. Nothing cunning. Nothing even pretty. I'm not even here anymore.

My hands grab for your throat. Ready to squeeze the life right out of you.



(I cannot take full credit for the flashback. It's based on a very long drunken chat between myself and The Purple Vixen.)

[ThePurpleVixen]

It's no easy thing getting back to your feet after you've been killed. Ask Jesus. Took that dude three days and he was a jacked carpenter. My skull got fucking spiked into the canvas with our combined bodyweight from the drop, pounding my head into my neck like a jack-in-the-box being slapped back into its box. And that was AFTER you fucking drugged me. The fucking Widow's Bite. The move that ended the brawl in Viking Hall, and almost ended my time as a wrestler.

I don't KNOW how I'm back on my feet, any more than a vampiress knows what dread forces drag her back from the grave. Or actually ... maybe I do know. It's some mix of ferocious determination, raging adrenaline, and the mystical supercharge of an audience, yeah - but more than anything else, it's the fact that Gemma's here. That what was missing in Viking Hall. Then it was just the woman that I'd loved proving she was stronger than me by spiking my head into the steel and planting her cxnt on my face. This time there's something new in play; the fact that my wife wants me to get up and kick your little plutocratic ass.

You're staring right through me, screaming again and again and again as I press my hands to the mat and stagger drunkenly to my boots. My legs feel like rubber - except for my right knee. That feels like a hot bag stuffed full of wet concrete and jagged rebar. But eventually, to the pulsing soundtrack of your screaming, I'm up on my feet. The crowd's roar is enough to buoy me up like a rising wave. Fuck, I never get tired of the crowd's energy - love you or hate you, as long as they ROAR for you. The crowd's a beast that feeds on excitement, on passion, on fury, and right now they're all fucking glutted.

And then you come rising up like a fucking banshee, still screaming over and over and over, and you come right at me.

I'm trying to clear my ringing bloody head of both the concussive impact and the residual twisted haze of the drug you misted me with. I've gotta figure out how you're gonna come at me; some sort of nerve strike, probably, or you're gonna go for a leg pick on my bad leg, or try to snatch my wrist to yank me into one of those criss-cross armbars or-

- NOPE well fuck me sideways you're just gonna fucking choke me.

Your hands lock on my throat as you scream "NO!" over and over, not even entirely seeming like you're sure what you're doing. It's so fucking primal, so aggressive and artless, that it ends up catching me completely off guard. I was expecting Rowan Chance, merciless mistress of joint locks and the dark arts. I got a fucking Hammer horror film instead. I stagger back, immediately grabbing instinctively at your wrists because it's hard to remember years of training and the proper defenses to someone actually lunging at you and trying to choke you when you're fresh off a fucking hallucinogenic piledriver and your ex is coming at you like a fucking Romero zombie.

"Ggaggkkk-!"

Staggering back under the force of your assault, my right knee - which was already kinda on the fence about this whole 'getting up' thing in the first place - shrugs and gives up, dropping roughly to the mat, hitting with a rough that that draws an agonized strangled howl from me, my hands on your wrists as your thumbs start to crush my windpipe, leaving me on one knee in front of you. Almost like I'm proposing, but with my face locked in a snarling scream as you try to choke the life out of me and yours distant and glassy and coldly unfeeling.

This kinda feels like the last time I tried proposing to you, actually.

LVK: And after MIRACULOUSLY getting to her feet after SOMEHOW escaping the Widow's Bite - and I want to apologize again for losing my compsure there, folks - Megan Dow is now being STRANGLED by a relentless and seemingly PSYCHOTIC Rowan Chance! This is insanity, ladies and gentlemen, given flesh in the form of these two maniacal women in their quest to destroy each other and themselves!

[Katherine The Great]

It's no easy thing getting back to your feet after you've been killed. Ask Jesus. Took that dude three days and he was a jacked carpenter.

One of my favorite lines in this whole thing. Love it!

[Rowan Chance]

I was saying "Yes."

Over and over again. My eyes were screaming it as they watched you throwing your clothes in the bag.

Yes, I love you.

Yes, I want to stay with you forever.

Yes, I want to be yours.

Yes, I want you to be mine.


Over and over again. But you couldn't see that. Couldn't hear it. All you heard was the "No."

You didn't hear, "I can't." You just heard "No."

I was saying "Yes."

And now I'm saying something else as my fingers throttle your throat. Screaming it into your face. Watching it turn red. Watching your lips--once painted black--turn blue. Watching your eyes bulging from your skull. The wound on your forehead has stopped bleeding because I'm squeezing your throat tight. And you're down on a knee...

"DID YOU KNEEL FOR HIM?" I scream in your face. "DID YOU BEG FOR HIM? HUMILIATE YOURSELF? DEGRADE YOURSELF?"


I see the anger in your eyes. The rage. The hate. I pull your face closer.

"WHAT DID YOU FUCKING DO, MEGAN?"

Your eyes start to twitch. Your breath rattling in your throat. I feel your limbs weaken, your fingers on my hands loosening. It's almost over. Almost finished.

YOU are almost finished.

And I see Tantalus standing in the crowd, his hands on the rail. Just over your wet, bloody purple hair. Standing. Shouting something at me. I can't hear it. Probably shouting for you to fight back. His new favorite. I don't care.

"She'll tell me!" I scream at him. "Watch! Watch and learn, you sonofabitch!"

I hoist you back to your feet. Your eyes flickering, lips trembling.

Pinning you won't get you to tell me what you gave him. So, I have another plan.

I pull your drooping head up and using your cadence...that little adorable squeak in your voice...mimicking you perfectly... I shout as loud as I can so even Gemma can hear...


"Tick. Tock."



LVK: HOLY... ROWAN IS LIFTING MEGAN UP INTO THE DOLL BREAKER!!!

RP: Whu? Whus goin'...

LVK: THE DOLL BREAKER! PUNK--MEGAN'S MOST BRUTAL SUBMISSION HOLD!!!

RP: Whar? I dunno see...

LVK: Arched across Rowan's shoulder...her spine bent...COULD THIS BE THE END? MEGAN SUBMITTING IN HER OWN HOLD???

[ThePurpleVixen]

Obukan Judo, Portland, OR

I was twelve years old, and going through the same old drill. My partner takes my lapels up high, I step into her and capture her wrist and lapel, twist my back against her chest while pulling her arm over my shoulder and lean forward, hauling her weight smoothly over me in an ippon seio nage. I help her up, we bow, then I grab her lapels and she does the same. I'd been taking classes at Obukan, a school founded for the Portland Japanese community back in 1938, since I was eight. I knew the drills. They were part of my life, like watching Monday Night Raw and listening to The Descendents' Everything Sucks.

Sensei Koyama came by, and saw the look on my face as I helped my friend Rat (her real name was Vicky. She was 12 years old like me and her parents let her wear a rat-tail with buzzed sides. I thought she was so fucking cool) to her feet after another pretty damn crisp shoulder throw. She patted my back as we squared off. "I know it seems like the same thing over and over, yojo, but one day someone might come out of the darkness and take you by the throat, and you will be glad you have done this so many times." She smiled softly, and clapped her hands once, to let us continue, and I set my feet for Rat to throw me onto the tatami again.

But y'know, Sensei Koyama, you never had me and the rest of the young judoka practice our ippon right after being fucking drugged and taking a god-damn Tombstone piledriver and having my fucking ex-lover's toxic cxnt on my face. I mean, I'm not sure how we WOULD have practiced that. There would have to be a king hell of a parental permission note involved at the very least. But it really would have fucking helped me right now.

So instead of throwing you over my shoulder, or grabbing your thumbs and popping them free, I get choked down to one knee. My windpipe closed off and blood pounding in my ears, that horrific tension building in my crushed pulse. My sweaty blood-streaked hair hangs in my face as I feel my lungs burning. The worst thing about being fucking strangled is that you're intensely AWARE of everything that's happening, even with your carotids shut off and your windpipe closed. And I'm intensely aware of the heat of your breath as you scream in my face, wanting to know what arrangement I made with Thomas. It's kinda funny, really. If you were looking anywhere other than right into my big ol' hazel eyes (currently feelin' a little on the rheumy side), you'd see.

My hands get weak as I'm trying to unlock your grip -

- and then, thank fucking Eris, you let go. Because Rowan Chance has gotta talk some shit..

"She'll tell me! Watch! Watch and learn, you sonofabitch!"

You drag me up, hobbling on my busted knee, what's left of my attire painted onto me with sweat and blood and saliva and my own unwilling arousal. I snarl at you as much as I can, my cheeks livid and eyes coal-red, my throat bruised and breath a panting rasp.

There's so much hate in your eyes that it's like looking in a fucking mirror.

"Tick. Tock." You're trying to sound like me, but you don't sound as fucking cool as I do (AND I DON'T FUCKING *SQUEAK*). You've always been fucking rubbish at impressions. You're the only wrestler I know who can't do a good Dusty Rhodes. It always ends up sounding like Foghorn Leghorn.

On the other god-damn, you DO manage a fairly fuckin' convincing impression of my Dollbreaker.

(Remember kids - the Dollbreaker. It's one word. Just like Cher or Sting.)

You wrap my waist and HAUL me up, which must be fucking excruciating on your brutalized back but is actually kinda nice for me for just a moment as my weight comes off my leg. And then you bring my legs up and over, and I end up hung on your shoulder.

I started using the Dollbreaker regularly back in 2015 or so, shortly before FTW started. It was Gemma's suggestion.

Somewhere in the north, I can't really remember where because we were drunk. Was it Lancaster? Or Blackpool. Might've been Blackpool, UK

"You have a lot of great strikes and big hits, pickle, but you need something that's going to slow these little bitches down. Something to make the little cxnts AFRAID of you." Gemma was a fucking master at the art of stopping someone from ever wanting to move again. I went with a backbreaker because a lot of her offense was back-centered, like the Backstabber and Hellbound, and I wanted to play into that. I decided on the Canadian-style, the overhead gutwrench backbreaker rack, because I got fucking hung out to dry in one by Vanessa Kraven back in 2010 during the NEO WWWC World Cup, and it felt like I was god-damn broken in half. I practiced the damn thing for weeks straight, hoisting sacks up onto my shoulder until I could get 220 pounds up in one move, then moving on to joint dummies to get the positioning right, then finally the fun part - finding jobbers to let me test it on them. I'd say the worst part about being an infamous wrestler for such a long time is all the injuries I've racked up and all the enemies I have now. The best part is a toss-up between having a bunch of cool shirts and it being so easy to find pretty girls who will let me brutalize them in wrestling holds for free.

It's a brutal fucking hold. Your whole body weight and the very laws of gravity work to snap you in half, the centerline of your spine planted right on the attacker's shoulderblade. Your legs hang down, your arms are at the wrong angle to do most anything, and the attacker can wrap their arms around your ribs - like you are right now, and just CRUNCH you.

Of course it's a cool hold, god damn it. It's mine.

"NYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

My head hangs down by your tits, my loose rat's nest of sweaty purple hair brushing your thighs, my tits testing the elastic on the SPLX sports bra as my back is arched and strained. My boots hang down your back, right leg almost dead and left leg kicking.

It really fucking hurts. REALLY fucking hurts. Good to have that confirmed. I mean, I was pretty sure it did after all those girls screamed OH GOD IT HURTS and tapped out when I did this to them, but y'know, science.

Tony's Saloon, West Ritner St, Philly

Tony's was where all of ECW got drunk over the years. Even after there was no more ECW, there was still Tony's, technically Anthony's Saloon and Crab House. Tony's was where Big Dick Dudley threw Blue Meanie through the wall. Tony's was where Sandman finished a keg and then headbutted a brick wall. I was drinking there with Scotty, way back in the day.

"Ya know how many times people have tried to god-damn DDT me?"

I giggled into my beer. I always got giggly around Scotty. Couldn't help it, even after I'd known him for years and he'd gotten fat. Even after the TNA run. He was still Raven to me.

"If you do somethin' good, kid -" I was still 'kid', a decade into being a wrestler - "- then learn how to stop someone from doin' it to you, because they're gonna try. It's the bitterness and envy inveterate to the human spirit." (I loved it when he got all Raveny)

I might've been too out of it to stop you from choking the fucking life out of me two-handed like fucking Jason Voorhees, you vindictive little bitch, but NO ONE FUCKING GETS MY SHIT IN BUT ME.

My hands come up, lashing out at you. One thumb twisting at your eye. My fingers digging into that brutal bloody rip in your forehead. PAIN. Immediate vicious pain to the face, getting that old mammalian hindbrain flaring to get you to flinch.

And I TWIST my hips, snarling past the flare of pain in my wrecked knee, turning in towards you to shift my weight, getting you to stagger. I know your back can't take that. You could lift me, but no fucking way you're gonna hold me with your spine all cracked like downtown asphalt.

I can feel you stumbling, feel your back giving in, hear you try to bite back the cry of pain with my fingers digging like a hag's claws at your face. Your grip slips and I slide down, rocking my hips, slithering over your shoulder and down your back, my breasts dragging intimately against you for a moment so I feel the skirl of your skin like soft lightning against my nipple piercings. But the intimacy doesn't last. I make sure to land heavily on my left leg, my right boot just barely pushed to the mat.

I'm behind you. For just a second. You're staggered, blinded. Off-balance.

Time to get my shit in.

Zandig Academy, Blackwood, New Jersey

"Oh, FUCK, Masada! That move is cool as fuckin' tits! Can I use that?"

"Are you gonna hit me with that hammer if I say no?"

"I absolutely am."

"Then feel free."

(Look, not all my stories are these big huge philosophical things.)

Standing close behind you, I dip my head under your right arm and wrap my left arm around your shoulders, getting a collar grip on your corset. My taped right hand drops low, smearing blood on your calf as I hook a grip behind your right knee and drag your leg up, breaking your balance. I take a deep breath - for just that one calming moment of Zen -

- and I bend low and SNAP up off both legs with a roar of exquisite pain, hoisting you up in the air. I use my grip around your shoulders and your hooked leg to tilt you back, my back arching with your lower back pressed to my left shoulder, tilting you over the axis of inevitability until your boots are pointed at the lights and your head is pointed at the mat ... and then I KICK my legs out and drop back, driving your full bodyweight down onto your head and neck with the leg hook backdrop driver that I call -

LVK: THE MINDFUCK! PUNKY ESCAPES THE DOLLBREAKER AND SNAPS OFF THE MINDFUCK!

RP: FUCK yes! GOD DAMN my head hurts.

[Rowan Chance]

Sometimes, everything goes wrong.

Sometimes, you can feel it going wrong and there's nothing you can do to stop it. You know exactly what's happening and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Before I even hear Van Keel scream the name, I know what it is. I've seen you do it a thousand times. Seen women's bodies crumple like accordions and stay down for ten minutes after taking the move. Watched you pin them while you were smiling at me, knowing what was going to happen between us later. Hooking that leg and holding them down for the three count. Fuck, it could have been a three hundred count. Their bodies go up, there's that moment you like to call "the moment of zen," and then the crash.

And it makes the same sound every time. Like the boards could break. That twerk of your hips--no not "twerk," assholes--the arch of your back. Like a goddamn spring. People know I'm flexible because I show it off. You don't. But I know for a fact you could give me a run for my money as most bendy bitch.

I feel it. I've never felt it before. All the times we faced each other, I never let you pull off this move because I knew how hard it would hit. My head, my neck...

...my back.

So, I studied that move. Studied it. Figured out a dozen ways to avoid it. Dodge it. Make sure you could never do that to me. I could flip over your head and land on my feet behind you. I could elbow your face, cut it off before you were able to get it all the way locked in. Not that I'd have any time to do that. I could twist in your grip, turn it into an arm breaker, pulling you down to the canvas with me. Mount your back with your arm between my legs, my knees keeping you down. I could flip up and grab your head between my legs and go for a flying head scissors. Or catch your neck and turn it into a reverse DDT.

I had a dozen ways to block this move. A dozen plans, a dozen contingencies. And now I'm here.

Sometimes, everything goes wrong.

Sometimes, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

In the air. Falling backward. My head aimed at the canvas. Those boards are going to make that sound I've heard a thousand times. It's so goddamn fast. You're so goddamn fast. You never know how fast until you're actually there, and then, it's too late to reconsider. Either you're timing works or it doesn't.

It's too late for the elbow.

It's too late for the reverse DDt.

It's too late for the arm breaker.

It's too late for anything.

I feel you arching your back. Feel your hips unlock and...



... my head hits first. Like a rotten melon, I feel all the brains inside my head mash to the back of my skull, then ricochet forward, making my eyes go blind. My lower jaw slams up into my upper jaw. First thing you learn about falling is to clench your teeth. Saved my tongue so many times I can't even think about it. I feel the impact knock sense out of my head. Right through the front of my face. Slow motion replays make me look like I was in a wind tunnel. My head bouncing off the mat a full two inches before it comes back down and hits again.

My shoulders hit next. Making my body crunch like one of those thousand beer cans you crunched with one hand. My naked belly ripples like someone threw a rock into a pond. My arms splatter down on the canvas, hands open. My legs flipping over my head. Tall boots. Tips touching the canvas over my head. Bent in half. All of me bent completely in half. Folded like a paper airplane. Somewhere in all that, I feel that floating rib. It slashes something important inside of me. I can feel that. I taste blood.

And finally, my back.

Bent so far so quickly, it has no option. It simply gives up. I feel an electrical charge shoot down my spine, right down to the tips of my toes and right back up to the top of my neck.

My hands go numb.

My feet go numb.

Everything stops hurting.

Everything.

They say the mind gives up before the body does. That isn't always the case.

Sometimes, everything goes wrong.

Sometimes, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

My body remains in that position for a moment. Legs up over my head, tips of my boots touching the canvas behind me. Arms splayed out.

And slowly, very slowly, I list to the side. Tipping over like a ship that's been struck by lightning and caught wayward by a renegade wave.

Tilting...

Falling...

And with one final unintentional movement...

...fallen.

I'm on my side on the canvas. Both arms and legs curled in front of me. Like a dead spider. My face covered by bloody, sweaty hair. It twitches as my lungs exhale once. Just once.

My exquisite form, covered in sweat and blood, my olive skin shining under the lights, still and nearly motionless.

Gravity pulls my torso back, making my upper arm fall down to the canvas. Both arms flat. My waist twisted to the side, legs bent and together.

I cough. An awful wet sound. Blood on my lips.

Blood squirting from my the wound on my forehead.

One hand twitches...

...then stops.

Everything...






...stops.

[Vivianne]

Rowan's head hits the canvas hard and bounces...I spring from my seat...

Her shoulders slam down...my hands ball into tight fists, crushing the punky clasp I am still holding into my left palm...

Her legs and arms flop...and she folds in half...

The crowd roars, but I don't hear them. I don't blink. I don't breathe. I don't move...and for a few seconds neither does Rowan...

Until she falls on her side, arms and legs curled up. Broken...

Coughing blood now...

Broken...

Just like my heart, seeing her like that...

Broken...

Rowan...no...no...no...

Rowan...

[RedEnforcer]

I can be a real stupid sunuvabitch at times. I tend to be all fire and passion first. My aw shucks, just a Southern Gomer Pyle type did not fool either Megan or Rowan.  For some reason both of them wanted to see past the funny accent and old school ways. Which is why I am here now.

I never liked rollercoasters. Too much jerking about one way then the next.  That is what this match has been. One crazy ride that makes Space Mountain look like a slide in a park. But the worst thing about roller coasters is that initial rise. You go up slowly to a specific height designed to create enough potential energy for the coaster to travel the length of the track at a specific speed. As a rider, you never know when that sudden drop is coming. And that is what kills me. That anticipation.

I cheer in Full throat for Megan mostly from my distrust of Tantalus. And when I see Rowan choke Megan down. I feel justified. Then the Dollbreaker. Yeah Rowan is out of control and needs to be stopped.

I keep cheering when Megan slides free.

Then she grabs Rowan from behind...the leg....

And I feel like I am rising on that initial slope again. Clack Clack Clack Clack.

Fun fact, the Skull no, Mindfuck hurts. Like a bitch. If you are lucky all you get is a mild concussion.  If you are unlucky, the damage is devastating.

Megan hit me with one to set up a three way dance we had in the past. At the time I had no idea there was bad blood between them. But I should have seen it. I jumped the gun and powerbombed Rowan  through a table. A little too hard. Megan got so mad she green misted me and then proceeded to Mindfuck me. That is a good name for it because you become as disoriented as a movie critic having to watch Inception, Memento and Primer back to back to back before writing a paper on them. 

She was supposed to do a simple clothesline or something. I forget honestly. Then she was to finish off Rowan. But I got careless. And she went through the roof screaming about how I had cheated her of her revenge. I knew they had recently started feuding but I had no clue how deep the feelings went. Not until my brains got scrambled so bad I started talking like Forrest Gump.

And even now with her knee fucked up and some blood loss and all the other punishment, Megan has Ro up for that Mindfuck.

Clack Clack Clack Clack

Time slows for me and I see that lovely body jacked into the air.

All those times I saw the heel Rowan leave my mind and all I can see is that smirk when she read her name that I mangled on that poster board at the airport. All I can smell is that scent of her hair mixed with sweat as it cascaded over my masked face as she looked down at me.  My fingers could touch that olive flesh, so soft and warm. My tongue tasting the sweetness of her lips as they pressed against mine. And all I could hear was that voice, that husky, breathy voice saying my name. My real name.

All that flashed in my mind as I saw part of my heart break while another part slammed her into the canvas. All thoughts of evil faded as I watched my lovely Rowan rise into the air, bend, and fall. 

I can be a stupid sunuvabitch sometimes. And now I felt very stupid for watching these two dear women destroy each other before my eyes.

Rowan slumps to the mat after a car crash of an impact. And I slump down to my seat.

I look at my hands and they are wet.

Drops of moisture slowly appearing on my hands as I see more proof of what these two are willing to do, how far they want to take this.

And I sit there. Not able to do a damn thing to stop it.

[ThePurpleVixen]

The Mindfuck is quick. It slices like a hammer. Hook the leg, wrap your shoulders, up and over in less time than it takes to open a window and jump out, and ends up pretty much the same way.

The Mindfuck is brutal. It shows no fucking mercy. Gravity and momentum become my tag team partners and the sheer drop means you hit the mat with all the grace and gentility of a head-on collision between a Vespa and Optimus fucking Prime.

Wrestlers often end up defined by our finishers. No one can think of Steve Austin without thinking of the Stunner. No one can imagine Ric Flair without seeing that little twist around the knee to set up the Figure Four. A finisher is more than just a hard-hitting move we use to get the fans to pop - it's a move we practice, again and again. It's a move we learn to hit from any angle, that we can hit in our sleep, and often have to. I once ducked a clothesline, snatched my opponent up from behind and hit a Mindfuck, got the leg-hook pin, and raised my fist in victory while I was so fucking out of it from being DDT'd on the ring apron that I didn't realize any of that had happened until I saw it on TV the next day. It's YOUR move. Anyone can do what I just did to you - hook the leg, wrap the shoulders, up and over. But only I've practiced it enough to learn the torque of my hips, the arch of my back, the shift of my grip to get you to just the right fucking angle to hit like you do.

(Well, me and Masada, but whatever.)

We were talking once. This was early on, when we'd first met and I still wasn't entirely sure about you. Just an unusually hot chick with an unusually late start in the game, who said she was trained by Lance Storm up in Alberta but moved like she was from fucking Yamanashi. Just a brilliant girl with a wicked smile who was doing more in her first year on the circuit than some of the women I'd worked with who started before I did. Just a beautiful woman who made my toes curl in my boots when she smiled at me in that wicked way of hers.

Just you.

We were sitting on the apron, boots dangling off it, and I was drinking a beer I'd boosted from concession. I'd stolen you a mineral water.

"Any fuckin' move can put some bitch down for 3 seconds if it hits the right way or at the right time. A fuckin' hiptoss can knock the wind outta you if you land wrong, someone lays across your tits and hooks both legs and puts their weight down, and before you're even sure what's happening you lose. But a PROPER finish - that's a move you KNOW, right? Like down to your fuckin' bones. A move that puts someone down and it doesn't matter if the fucking Tarot is auspicious or not or how they land - they're god-damn DOWN. An' that's what you're goin' for." I nodded, drinking my beer back with my eyes just fuckin' riveted to you while I was trying to be cool about it.

Your eyes were so fucking knowing even for a kid just getting started. You were my age, I think - I still dunno how old you actually are - but you were a kid. Everyone just starting was a kid. It's the rules.

"Isn't the three count all that really matters?" you said, your lips curved in that sly smile.

I waved the beer bottle grandly, gesturing big. I always talk with my hands. It's the Ukrainian bloodline. "Yeah, sure, fuckin' ... you can schoolboy someone or get a fucking victory roll or tuck 'em with a La Magistral and get their shoulders down and you WIN." I grinned, bright and wicked. "But if you hit a solid finish, they're down for however long you wanna keep 'em down. You can do ... anything." I waggled my eyebrows. You just arched one and I felt my toes curling again as I kept my grin on. "If you roll 'em up, you just get three seconds."

Your smile was like cream billowing through coffee, like moonlight on the water.

"What's the fun in that?"

And here and now you hit the boards like a fucking Space-X rocket going off the pad, spiralling off into flames and ruin.

I bounce up off the impact, ending up sitting slouched on the mat with you crumpled behind me, my red Docs sprawled out and my right leg at an angle, my knee throbbing. I take a deep breath with just a little erotic shiver.

That wet gasping racking sound you just made, choking on your own blood after I crunched you in fucking half?

THAT'S the first real pleasure I've gotten out of you in the last few years, Chance.

I guess I could drag myself up and plant my ass on your face, get my pussy on your lips, grind my hips on you and taunt Thomas about what a little broken toy I've made you. Give Gemma a show. Get Reddy's masked little buddy all attentive.

But fuck that. My cxnt hurts because you tried to fucking mangle me. And I don't need to show off how fucking broken you are. Your twitching bleeding performance does that all on its own.

Instead I go for a pin Squire O'Dwyer described as "a cross body with yer full attention, see". I grab your ankle and drag you over to me, your body sliding on a slick of blood and sweat. I lay across your right side, my weight pressing down on your chest, flattening your tits with mine. Okay, you can't escape a LITTLE sexual symbolism in this game. My inked right arm dips and hooks under your inside right leg, curling just above the knee, YANKING that leg up high, getting your hips off the mat and letting everyone on that side of the ring enjoy the view of your ass in your little leather shorts. My left arm curls up tight at the elbow, and I SLAM my forearm down into your slack bloody face and GRIND it into your right cheek, mashing your blood-masked face down into the mat.

"Fuckin' count her," I snarl.

LVK: That move hit Rowan Chance like a truck hitting a deer, folks. These women have fought themselves out of some brutal situations, but I just can't imagine how she'll get up from this.

*a faint coughing and a cracking gurgle of liquid*

RP: Ahhhh. Shit, frog whiskey ain't too bad. Listen, van Keel. Anyone else was in that ring, I'd say this match would have been over 30 minutes ago. Now? We'll see how it goes.

The referee has been nearby all along, angel of dark mercy with her coif still smooth and slicked, her striped shirt opened enough to show a casual insouciance of white, perky cleavage and a hint of taut belly. Her pale eyes are still alight with evil satisfaction. She slides crisply into place with swan's grace and dips her head to check your shoulders - for someone who seems to enjoy seeing us in pain so much, I can't fault her fucking professionalism.

"UN!"

[Rowan Chance]

"How did you do that?"

We're both in the locker room. I'm taping up your shoulder because you don't know how to do this without beer and duct tape. I'm using actual medical training...

...except I don't tell you where I got it from.

Taping up your shoulder because we just had to shove it back into the socket and you shouldn't be moving it for a month or something...

...except you have another match later on tonight.

A goddamn tournament. You signed up for a tournament. This is Saturday night. We were in Philly for Dreamer's show on Friday, flew to Chicago right after that for a Saturday afternoon show, then drove to Minneapolis for this mess. The promoter is stoned and loaded on cocaine, the other wrestlers are bar brawlers who don't give a shit about the rules, and you've already fought two matches and you're getting ready for the third. The main event.

"How did you fucking do that?" I ask again. I finish up the bandage, taping it tight. I saw you kick out of a goddamn pile driver on the apron. Your body fell over the bottom rope back into the ring and the bitch put her feet up on that same rope. But you kicked out. I'd never seen anything like it.

You kicked out.

You just suck down more beer and shrug...then wince because of your shoulder. "I dunno," you say. "I just do."

I saw you do it so many times. I was sure you were finished. Your head bobbing from the impact of some godawful Japanese drop move, your body just dropping, face first. The referee counts... "ONE! TWO!..." And you get your shoulder up.

Pain has always been an ally, but sometimes, I ask too much of our friendship. I've taken finishers before. But I've never kicked out.

All of these thoughts would be going through my head...if I was conscious.

But I'm not conscious.

So when the referee slams her hand down a second time and shouts "DEUX!" I'm still flat on the mat, my head pushed down by your elbow, unmoving, eyes shut. I'm not feeling your breasts pushing down on mine. Not feeling the weight of your body. Not feeling the impact of her hand slamming down on the canvas. Not feeling the numbness in my toes and fingers. Not feeling the volcano in my head. Not feeling the lava squeezing through the nerves and muscles of my spine.

Not feeling anything.

...feeling anything...

...anything...

[Virginia Dare]

I'm no fan of Rowan Chance. I've fought her all over the world and the woman is just pure evil. However, you can't deny her skills or her ability to withstand pain. I've never met anyone who could take as much pain as Rowan, and trust me, I should know. I've hurt her in every way one human being can hurt another human being. And if truth be told, I'm the reason Punky is doing a number on her back. Megan Dow knows. I know the two travelled together a lot--God knows why a woman like Punky would be attracted to a woman like Rowan Chance--and I know Megan knows every inch of Rowan Chance's body. That means she knows about the time I nearly broke Rowan's back trying to make her say "I quit."

That's right. I'm the one who put a chink in her armor. The one Punky's been exploiting all night.

I've been hurting Rowan all over the world and she's been hurting me back. But when I watch Rowan's body bend over backward in that awful, ugly way, I wince.

I've heard stories of Punky's...MindF...yeah--her move--but I've never seen it. Not until now.

Watching Rowan hit the canvas that way and watching her body fall that way and watching her now so still on the canvas.

The referee dropping to make the count. One and two and...

I'm no fan of Rowan Chance. But right now, sitting next to Megan Dow's wife, I'm quietly praying she stays down. Not because I hate her with every part of my body, but because I never want to see any human being ever get hurt like that again.

[ThePurpleVixen]

Here's a funny thing about time.

It's an illusion.

I mean, the way we perceive it is. Matt Sydal tried to break this down to me once when we were hanging out in RVD's comic shop in Battle Creek, doing droppers full of mescaline and eating a boysenberry pie. I still don't remember where we got that pie. It was good, though. Tasted kind of like a Thursday in late August.

Anyway, Matt was telling me that time is a DIMENSION, right, just like the ones we perceive moving in normally in our day to day lives, and that what we perceive as time going forward is just us moving through that dimension - we're just constrained because we can only move one way. "Not me, though," he confided in me, his eyes gleaming like can openers. "I'm gonna learn to go ANYWHERE in the time stream, and then I'm gonna meet Owsley Stanley."

Then Rob wanted to watch BraveStarr after that, so we did. I remember being deeply concerned that the horse could talk.

But here's the thing - he was right. Time isn't a concrete thing. It feels like it is when we parcel it up into concrete ticks on a clock or measure it out in coffee-spoons, but it's really not. Here's an example:

The first time I got to really TALK with Gemma was ... amazing. I'd been kinda obsessed with her since my career started. There may or may not be video of me shot by one of my bitch roommates in my dorm at the Kaientai Dojo unknowingly being taped as I rubbed myself into a panting lather while watching one of Gemma's matches. I fucking ADORED Gemma. And then our first match, in Katie MacCoy's amazing SPARK league, was fucking awesome. SPARK was after we'd met but before really connected, Ro. Before the Daughters of Darkness. It was ... fucking fantastic, utterly brutal. Everything I'd hoped and more than I'd dreamed. I had to get so vicious with her and dig deeper than I had at any point in my career up until then just to get past her tricks and her tenacity and her power and her brutality. First match I ever won with a pussy claw, actually. Kinda got us off on the wrong foot as far as friendship goes, though; we ended up in a bitter sort of feud that lasted a long time, until it finally softened as we realized how much alike we were. The first time we sat down and TALKED was after a SPARK show later down the road. We'd been out drinking with some of the girls, including Callista Quinn - which must have terrified the barman when he saw he only had so much gin left. Gemma and I had ended up sitting next to each other, and whispering into each other's ears increasingly drunkenly as the crew told stories and traded barbs. Eventually everyone left; Calli wandered off with that Quebecois girl she liked, and Gemma and I were left there, and when I slung my arm around her shoulder and started to move in for a drunken kiss, she rested her hand on my knee and told me why it had bothered her so much that I'd beaten her in that first match. I went on to tell her what I'd envied about her and what I admired about her. We talked about growing up on different sides of the planet and how we'd been trained, and then the publican was meaningfully ringing his last call bell right next to our booth and I realized we'd been talking for five hours.

It felt like we'd just started talking. I'd swear in a fucking court of law that not fifteen minutes had gone by. Not that my oath means a LOT in a court of law. At least not if you believe those whining lawyers who are always after me.

Time went by so god-damn fast that night it was like I was racing through it.

But now?

I'm laid across your chest, my right arm curled tight around your smooth olive thigh, keeping your leg hoisted high in the air, your domme boot wavering like a flag of surrender. I can feel the crushed slow rise and fall of your breasts in shallow, sleeping gasps. My left forearm is crushed into your limp face, deforming your pretty features, grinding your blood-soaked face down, pressing your left cheek hard to the canvas. Your shoulders are flat and you aren't fucking moving as the sadistic little pixie of a French referee counts the "DEUX!"

You aren't moving.

All she has to do is bring her hand down again.

One last slap of her hand and we're fucking done. I've fucking proven what I needed to prove, broken you down, and we are god-damn DONE.

In front of EVERYONE. In front of my wife, in front of your pimp, in front of Reddy and Emily and Tiffany and Becca and everyone who showed up wearing a fucking mysterious hoodie. In front of a few thousand wrestling fans from all over Europe and the Americas and even a few Japanese fans here to see the rematch between Aika and the Ribingudeddojoshi. EVERYONE will see me finally put you the fuck down where you belong and leave you in the god-damn dust of the past with other broken shit I don't need anymore.

If she'll just put her fucking hand down.

How long can it really take, god damn it.

[Rowan Chance]

"THREE!"

The referee's hand slaps down on the canvas and the bell rings. I don't hear it because I'm still not really there.

You drop the grip on my leg and it falls lifeless to the mat. You take your elbow off my face and it remains there, turned to the side, bleeding on the mat.

Van Keel is screaming about the match finally being over. And I imagine your wife is jumping up and down with joy. I also imagine Tantalus is sneering behind his mask...or perhaps smiling. And little Lisa Starr is...doing whatever she's doing. Seeing me beaten. Knowing that I can be beaten now. That must be inspiring.

And you look down at me. The finality in your glance. You've wiped me from your life. I'm done. Nothing. Not even a shadow. I imagine you finally feel free of me. That my voice will no longer haunt you. That the feel of my skin or the touch of my fingers will no longer sneak up on you when you're making love to your wife. That's what I imagine...

















I imagine a lot of things happening right now. I imagine them because they aren't happening.

I don't hear the referee's call or the bell because I'm not really there. I'm here. With you.

What's really happening is the referee's hand is less than a second from hitting the canvas. All those images and thoughts in my head. But the one that stands out above all the others...is that look on your face. Your eyes as you look down at me.

We're over Rowan Chance.

That's what they say.

I've never kicked out of a finisher. Ever. That's why they're called "finishers."

But that look and those words.

We're over Rowan Chance.













LVK: OHMYGOD! SHE KICKED OUT! AT NINE AND NINE TENTHS! ROWAN CHANCE KICKED OUT OF THE MINDFUCK! I'VE NEVER SEEN...I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS IN MY LIFE!

We're not over, Megan Dow.

Not yet.

[ThePurpleVixen]

I collect cool words.

That's kinda surprising, right, because I tend to talk like the love child of Dennis Leary and Sam Kinison, but it's true. I've got a pretty extensive vocabulary, actually. And it's not all just wrestling shit; I'm generally perspicacious (totally). It's part of being an English major (by mail - thanks LaSalle!). Part and parcel of the whole bibliophile gig.

I gather these weird little lexicological gems up and use them gleefully at unexpected times when people don't see it coming because I say "fuck" more than I use the traditional English articles.

One of my favorite words is "myoclonic".

I've always been a very vivid dreamer; I dream huge, colorful, involved, twisty fucking landscapes of intrigue and strangeness and sex. But I sometimes have a hard time going to sleep; I'll be up late researching something that caught my interest, or I'll still be kinda drunk but not drunk enough to be sleepy, or I'll be thinking about a new way to piledrive someone, or I'll be sore from getting driven into a brick wall, or I'll be angry about how I sprained my hand punching the guy who drove me into a brick wall.

When I fall asleep hesitantly and distractedly, my dreams sometimes jump the gun and start before I'm fully asleep. The body isn't ready to go into REM quite yet and so it doesn't shut down right, and you get a little twitch that makes everything sorta zap. Your dreaming brain often communicates this as suddenly tripping or falling or being jumped on in your short little stint in the dream theater.

That's a myoclonic jerk.

It happens when you're technically asleep but something isn't ready for you to shut down yet.

I put you to sleep, Ro.

I know that. No one goes as limp as you did and is still technically awake.

You did the same thing to me just a few minutes ago, with drugs and a dropping Tombstone to plant my head into the fucking mat. I was dead. I was fucking DEAD to the world. I only woke up because my wife yelled at me, which is how I wake up about half the time (the other half I get up and then I yell at HER).

No one's yelling at you. Thomas is apparently out of verse for now. Red's just quietly staring. No one's dragging you out of the black I just put you into -

- but here you are. A jerk of your body that's enough to get your shoulder up off the canvas, and that fucking little smirking cxnt of a zebra pops up on her knees and throws up two fingers.

"DEUX! DEUX!"

The movement of your body pushed me just a little bit back, and your hooked leg drops from my grip. I slide back off you and take a long slow breath.

I'm not gonna sit here and grab my head and scream over and over and over like you did. Because I'm not a fucking crazy bitch.

... okay, I have that shirt that says PUNKY: ONE FUCKING CRAZY BITCH and has the black and white shot of me diving off the balcony at the Hammerstein with only my purple hair and red boots and the blood on my face colored in. But that's like ... a different kind of crazy.

I'm not gonna spaz out here. So you kicked out. So fuck it.

Just gonna-

"YOUGODDAMNWHOREWHYTHEFUCKDONTYOUSTAYFUCKINGDEADYOUUSELESSBLEEDINGTWATYOUREAFUCKINGCORPSEANDIKILLEDYAANSOFUCKINHELPMEILLKILLYAAGAINANDTHISTIMEYOURENTOGETTINGUPEVERTHEFUCKAGAIN!"

- okay, so maybe a little less serene than I was intending.

I had you.

I get a ragged growling breath in after that fresh tirade, tasting the blood on my lips. I roll over, wincing in agony at the surge of fresh pain in my knee, hobbling to my feet. You're still laying there like a fucking haddock on ice at the Pike Place Market, and even if you DID dig deep enough into your supernatural reserves to kick out, you're still DONE.

You can't GO as hard as I can, Rowan.

THAT'S the stone cold fucking truth.

I hobble up, and get to my feet, glaring down at you, letting out a breath that's less of a centering Zen prana and more of a draconic hungry snarl. Your face is just PAINTED in blood, your forehead still pulsing weakly from where I ripped it open. I bend down and lace my fingers in your black hair, slick and maroon with blood, and start to peel you up.

I know exactly what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna crush your kidney, drag you to your stupid fucking sex boots, fold you up and stuff your head between my legs, yank your arms across your chest - and break your fucking back again. With the Psycho Killer, my straitjacket powerbomb.

This time I won't have Gemma putting her knees in your back as you drop.

So I'll just have to make sure I swing you down hard enough to turn your fucking vertebrae into dust myself.

[Rowan Chance]

Waffle House. Motherfucking Waffle House.

Well, at least they had a secret menu. That's kind of cool.

We're sitting at the bar--because of course we are--and you're slopping down something that barely resembles food. There's eggs, I think, and hash browns maybe and is that bacon? I got tea and a salad.

"I don't think this is lettuce," I say, lifting and dropping wilted green sheets of...something.

"Shoulda gotten the grits," you say through mouth fulls of... "food."

I shrug and tell the waitress, "Excuse me. Can I just get some eggs? Scrambled. Nothing else? Please?"

"Sure honey," she says. "Don't like the salad?"

"No."

She takes it away. You laugh at me. Then you ask, "Hey, how did you move so fast that one time?"

I shake my head. "Which time?"

"You know." You finish off the bowl and spin your chair so your legs hop up on my lap. "That kick you did just before your comeback. Just before you tagged me in." You give me an eye. "You moved like...Mutoh."

I feel my heart stop.

"You know how he just explodes!" One of your red boots taps-taps-taps on the other. "You moved like that. Where'd you learn that? Lance's school?"

I nod, pick up a fork and twirl it. "Yep. I mean, no. I just watched him. You know. Tapes."

I can feel the way you're looking at me. Just feel it.

You know, don't you?

"Okay," you say, spinning back in your chair, taking your legs away. And your red boots.

The waitress gives me scrambled eggs swimming in grease. "Here you go, honey."

I look at them. Then, I look at her. "You couldn't even be bothered to pour the grease out, could you?"

She glances at me, confused. I lift the plate and let the grease pour off onto the table. To my right, I hear one of your classic snerks.

"Fuckin' Rowan Chance," you say through black lipstick lips. But you don't look at me.


* * *

"DIEU! DIEU!"

That's something I hear through water. Like an echo. Muffled.

I can barely think. Barely react. I don't know where I am...but I do know who I'm with.

Because I can smell you. Smell your sweat, smell your blood, smell your sex. All three.

I know who it is lifting me by the hair.

I know who it is.

And for some reason, Verdi suddenly fills my skull...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDFFHaz9GsY



And so when your hand reaches down and grabs me, your fingers coiling tight... my body just reacts.

That's the secret, Megs. The secret he taught me.

The mind is faster than the body. When you know what to do, you just do it. Fast. Hard.

My limbs move with the speed of spider's legs. My legs snapping up. My arms grabbing you.

Pulling you down.

Down...

Down...

Down...

One heel over your shoulder...

The other shin under your chin...

Arms up above and behind your head...

That arm you used to grab my hair trapped...


In a heartbeat...less...pulling you down toward the hold that has never failed me.

It's time to finish this, Megan.

Time for me... to give you...


One. Last. Kiss.