3
The stale-beer-and-old-pizza smell of the shared house hit Liz the moment Dave closed the front door. It was a typical lads’ den: mismatched furniture, a massive TV, and a carpet that had seen things. In the corner, near a dusty stereo, lay two pairs of red boxing gloves, discarded like forgotten toys.
“What’s with the gloves?” Liz asked, her voice light, already drifting over to them. She picked one up, the leather cool and stiff.
“Oh, me and Gord mess about sometimes,” Dave said, shrugging. He was already pulling beers from the fridge. Gordon, a lanky guy with a perpetual grin, came in from the hallway with Emma in tow.
Liz looked up. The girl with Gordon was like a funhouse mirror version of herself. Same compact, curvy frame, same defiant tilt to the chin. But where Liz was dark blonde and sleek, this girl was a storm of curly black hair. And where Liz’s tight pink vest and black trousers offered a hint of the black lace beneath, Emma’s outfit was a declaration: a short black skirt that did nothing to hide the scarlet line of her thong, and a skintight black tee stretched over the dramatic swell of a red bra.
Their eyes met—a flicker of mutual assessment, instantly dismissive.
“This is Emma,” Gordon said.
“Liz,” Dave added, as if they were exchanging trading cards.
Liz, wanting to break the weird tension, shoved her hand into the boxing glove. “Feels weird,” she giggled, making a limp air-punch.
“Here, put the other one on her!” Gordon said, his eyes lighting up with a sudden, stupid idea. He tossed the second glove to Dave, who caught it and grinned at Emma.
“Go on, Em. Have a laugh.”
Emma rolled her eyes but held out her hand, letting Dave lace the glove onto her slender fingers. “Feels daft,” she muttered, but she flexed her fist.
“Right then!” Gordon clapped his hands. “A little spar. Just for a laugh. See who’s the hardest.”
The girls looked at each other. A challenge, however joking, now hung in the air between them, cutting through the pretense.
“Fine,” Liz said, a tight smile on her lips. “But don’t cry when I mess up your hair, curly.”
“You couldn’t mess up a bun, you blonde skank,” Emma shot back, her smile equally venomous.
They squared up in the middle of the living room, the boys whooping from the safety of the sofa. The first punches were theatrical, slow-motion swings that connected with forearms or gloves with soft *thwumps*. They giggled, but it was strained.
“Come on, put some effort in!” Dave yelled.
Liz threw a harder jab. It caught Emma on the shoulder, making her stagger a step. The playful glint vanished from Emma’s eyes. She returned a cross that smacked into Liz’s glove, the force vibrating up her arm.
The rhythm changed. The punches lost their arc and began to travel in straight, angry lines. *Thud. Thud. Thwack.* The sound was sharper now. Liz’s pink vest grew dark with sweat under her arms. Emma’s curls bounced violently with each movement.
“Think you’re something special, don’t you?” Liz grunted, throwing a combination that Emma barely blocked.
“More special than a cheap slag in a pink rag,” Emma spat, driving a fist into Liz’s midsection, making her exhale sharply.
They were both breathing hard, circling, the gloves feeling like anchors. In a flurry, Emma over-swung, lost her balance, and turned her back for a split second. Seizing the opening, Liz didn’t think. She swung a hard, overhand right that connected squarely with the back of Emma’s head.
The crack was sickeningly solid.
Emma stumbled forward, crashing into the TV stand. A silent moment hung in the room. Then, with a raw, guttural scream of pure rage, she began tearing at the laces of her glove with her teeth and free hand. “YOU FUCKING BITCH!”
The glove came off. Liz, seeing the storm coming, frantically tried to pull hers off too. She got one lace undone before Emma was on her.
This wasn’t boxing. This was an explosion.
Emma’s fingers, now free, tangled viciously in Liz’s dark blonde hair and yanked downwards with all her weight. Liz shrieked, a sound of pain and fury, and fell to her knees. She retaliated by clawing her nails down Emma’s thigh, finding purchase on the bare skin above her fishnets, drawing four bright red lines.
“SCRATCHING CAT! FILTHY WHORE!” Emma bellowed, releasing the hair only to slap Liz hard across the face. Liz surged upward, headbutting Emma in the nose. There was a wet crunch and a spray of crimson.
The boys’ cheers had died. Now they just watched, frozen, as the room became a vortex of shrieks, thuds, and tearing fabric.
They rolled across the beer-stained carpet, a tangle of limbs and fury. Liz’s tight pink vest was ripped at the neckline, then hauled over her head and thrown aside, revealing the black lace wonderbra beneath. Emma’s short skirt, always a precarious thing, was rucked up around her waist and then, with a brutal yank from Liz, torn at the seam and flung into a corner. Her red thong was exposed, then the matching bra as Liz grabbed a handful of black t-shirt and pulled until the fabric gave way.
Blows rained down—not fists anymore, but open-handed slaps, punches to ribs, to breasts, to stomachs. They scrambled for leverage, pulling hair in great clumps, scratching at faces, eyes, any piece of vulnerable skin.
“I’LL KILL YOU, YOU BLONDE cxnt!”
“UGLY, RAT-HAIRED SLAG! YOU’RE NOTHING!”
The insults were as brutal as the violence, guttural and hateful. They kneed and bit and gouged. A lamp was knocked over and shattered. They rolled through the spilled beer and broken glass, neither noticing the new cuts.
For thirty minutes, the brutal dance continued without a second’s pause. Until, finally, both their bodies gave out simultaneously.
They lay about five feet apart, both on their backs, naked but for their torn, blood-stained underwear. Their chests heaved, sucking air into burning lungs. Liz’s eye was swollen shut, her lip split and dripping blood onto her chin. A deep scratch ran from Emma’s collar bone to her breast, and her nose was clearly broken, still leaking steadily. Bruises were already blooming like dark flowers across their ribs, arms, and thighs.
The room was a war zone. And in the center of it, the two girls turned their heads to look at each other. There was no respect. No spark of understanding. No hint of a truce. Only a raw, undiluted hatred reflected in each other’s battered faces.
“This… isn’t… over,” Liz rasped, each word a painful effort.
Emma spat a gob of blood and phlegm onto the carpet between them. A pink tooth landed in it. “You’re… fucking right… it’s not.”
They were spent, broken for now. But as they lay in the wreckage, the silence was not peaceful. It was a temporary ceasefire, heavy with the promise of a future, even more brutal, round.
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