You’ve probably worked out that all these character studies I’ve posted recently were leading up to something. Well, here it is.
Like Santa’s little elves I’ve been a busy girl over the past few months. This is the story of a girls’ weekend away in September 2020, fighting and fucking at Sian’s farmhouse.
This is by far the longest story I’ve ever written. I had planned to post it as a single story but it just kept growing and got a bit large for that so I’m going to post it in several parts over the next few days. I hope you enjoy it.
Ellen x
Like most people, I found the spring and summer of 2020 very difficult. My business isn’t exactly seasonal but I live in a little coastal village and the footfall in my shop rises dramatically in the summer months. Lockdown meant that I dependent on online sales. It also meant I didn’t get to see many of my friends for months, and when I did, it was strictly in the open air.
The easing of restrictions in July did mean business in the shop picked up over the summer. It also meant that the CLAWS senior wrestling tournament could resume – albeit in the secluded grounds of Jay’s country manor. Not that that mattered to me as I had finally retired from the tournaments and I thought my fighting days were over. That was until I received a challenge and, with Gabi’s assistance, was able to enjoy my first fight in 8 months – a boxing match in the otherwise empty ring room at Marshall’s gym against a lady called Lesley.
The events of the past few months had me think about the things I still wanted to do in my life and, following my fight with Lesley, I decided it was time to deal with a couple of bucket list items that still nagged at me. Back in my early league years I had lost the title on two separate occasions to girls who left the club before we could have a rematch. Before I stopped fighting for good, I wanted a last crack at both of them.
When I went north in 2016 for my ill-fated bare-knuckle fight with Mitzi, I was pleasantly surprised to learn from Sian that both Jane and Mandy were still fighting at the NBFC and that she could arrange for me to fight them if I wished. Four years later I felt it was a case of “now or never”. I was no longer fighting in the CLAWS senior tournaments so I didn’t need to worry about how ‘extracurricular activity’ might affect my chances of winning a tournament and, as my fight with Lesley had shown, at 58 I was still fit and able.
I contacted Sian and asked her to sound out Jane and Mandy. She contacted me and told me that she had arranged for two meetings of the more mature NBFC ladies at her barn. The first meeting would be in early September and I would fight Jane. The group would meet again in early December when I would face Mandy. Sian didn’t say anything about who else would be fighting at these meetings but I assumed Sian and some of the girls who had been there the night I fought Mitzi.
So it was settled. I would return to Sian’s in September to face Jane 30 years after we’d last met and then again three months later to take on Mandy. In the meantime, Lesley was itching for another fight and another figure from my past had been in touch wanting a last hurrah. My first year of retirement from the ring was suddenly getting very busy. I had hoped to keep my encounter with Jane quiet but it seemed Sian had other ideas. I didn’t know much about the NBFC. I knew Jan had fought there years ago and, although I don’t remember much about that night I fought Mitzi, Stacey had told me that both Jen from CLAWS and Miss Tee had been there. As it turned out, I was about to get a bit of an education, which would include more than a few surprises. A week or so before I was due to head north, I got a phone call from Jan.
“Hi Ellen, how are you?”
“I’m good thanks Jan, how about you?”
“I’m fine. Really enjoying being a grandmother, not that I’ve seen the little rascal much lately.”
(Paige and her daughter, Jan’s granddaughter, were now ensconced in the gatehouse of Jay’s country manor where CLAWS had been meeting during the pandemic.)
“She must be growing up fast.”
“Oh, she is. Can you believe she’s two already? Listen, I hear that you’re off to the NBFC next week? Jill and I are going as well. Can we offer you a lift?”
“What? Why are you going?”
“Why not? Don’t forget, Jill is their video girl as well as Gabi’s and I was a member there for years. Sian has set up a full card, five fights she tells me. I’m going to fight my old friend Evie. Jill is just going to film it. I understand your latest victim, Lesley might be there, taking on Sian herself.”
“How do you know about me and Lesley?”
“A little bird told me.”
“Jill’s hardly a little bird.”
“She’s smaller than you and, besides, Lesley is an old friend of mine.”
“Yes, she mentioned she’d had the pleasure of fighting you once or twice.”
“Fighting but never beating. Anyway Terri, sorry Tee, will also be there, fighting Mandy, but she’s staying with Sian for a couple of weeks so she’ll be there when we arrive.”
“I’m surprised Tee has the energy to fight anyone, she’s already had three fights in six weeks, not to mention shagging the lady of the manor.”
(Lockdown had delayed the senior wrestling tournament and, after her initial loss to Judy, Tee had faced Mair, Stacey and Nikki, with mixed success, over the summer and was now joint leader of the tournament, along with Judy and Jen, with one round of qualifying to go. Despite being the oldest fighter in the tournament she looked like she stood a good chance of retaining her title. To be taking on a girl like Mandy just weeks before a fight that would decide whether she would defend that title struck me as little short of madness.)
“She can’t help herself, particularly where Sian is concerned. So, do you want a lift with us? If you do, I promise to deal the dirt on Sian and Tee from when I was at the NBFC.”
I was fascinated: “Okay, you’re on. When are you planning to go?”
“We were thinking of travelling up on Friday afternoon, it’ll give Jill more time to set her gear up. Can we pick you up around 2pm on Friday?”
“Yes, that’s fine, my sister will look after the shop. See you then.”
“Great. By the way, I think Sian plans to have us share a room so bring some wine and be prepared for some fun.”
So much for a quiet, discreet weekend settling an old score. It sounded like I’d be partying with a couple of randy old lesbians as well. On the plus side there was nothing wrong with that, I got on well with Jan and Jill, and I was looking forward to settling my score with Jane.
On Friday afternoon I was ready and waiting with my weekend bag outside the shop when Jan’s big BMW estate car pulled up. Jill leaned out of the passenger window and invited me to hop in behind her. I slipped into the luxurious leather rear seat, put my bag on the seat next to me and we were off.
“It’s a damned sight quicker and easier doing this journey now than it was 30 years ago.” Said Jan as we headed onto the motorway and turned north. The traffic was slow around Oxford but Jan said it always was. Then it was M40, M42, M6 and the country roads up to the farm and we were there by 5:30pm.
Along the way Jill told me the story of her first assignment as a cub photographer for her local paper. How she and a young journalist had gone up to Sian’s farm one spring morning to meet Sian, her newly born daughter Shannon and the farm hand turned midwife, Terri – the woman I now knew as Tee.
Jan also regaled me with stories of her trips to the NBFC, which Sian had co-founded with Jan’s old friend Evie, who she would be fighting tomorrow, and of holidays at Sian’s with the young Paige and Shannon.
I began to realise there was a whole world here that I wasn't really part of. I’d known Sian in my early days at CLAWS but she’d left the year after I’d joined and I hadn’t seen her again until that trip to fight Mitzi four years ago. Jan admitted it had been a while since she’d last visited the farm and Jill said that although she travelled up fairly regularly to film NBFC events, the younger generation of fighters preferred a venue they’d found in the city and it was really only the old hands who still fought in Sian’s barn. She’d only been there twice since my last visit. It seemed we were all fairly excited to be going to the farm and looking forward to renewing our acquaintances with the other guests.
As we approached the farm, I got my first proper look at it. On my previous visit we’d arrived in the dark and I’d left the following morning decidedly the worse for wear so I never got to see the place. I have to say it looked quite impressive. We turned off the road and onto a track that led up to a gate, beyond which stood the big stone farm house that was now Sian’s B&B and, just behind it, the large stone barn that stood in the centre of a quadrangle surrounded by smaller stables and other outbuildings. Slightly away from the main group of buildings was another large, timber building which I later learned was a bunkhouse used by hikers.
The stone barn would be where we would be fighting tomorrow. It was an impressive structure, probably 30 feet wide, 60 feet long and 20 feet to the apex of the roof with huge floor to ceiling windows on either side and line of glass bi-fold doors occupying most of the south end.
Jan stopped the BMW in front of the farm house and we got out and stretched our legs as our hosts, three smiling women; Sian, Shannon and Tee, hurried out of the farmhouse kitchen to greet us. I was struck by how relaxed Tee seemed in the company of Sian and Shannon but then I remembered what Jill had said. Tee was, for all intents and purposes, family here.
We grabbed our bags from the car and Shannon showed us to our room. I had hoped to have my own room or, if not that, share with Lesley. But, as Jan had predicted, the three of us were given the same room I’d shared with Erica and Stacey on my last visit. We freshened up before heading down to the kitchen, drawn by the smell of food.
Over dinner Sian outlined the plans for the following day’s event. It was to be an afternoon session with five singles wrestling matches. Sian said: “I had hoped for a tag match but Evie says the twins are visiting their father.” I wasn’t sure what that meant but everyone else nodded knowledgeably. The fights would be standard NBFC rules. Naked, no time limit, best of five falls or a ten-count knockout, no scratching, no gouging, no biting, no choking, no punching the face – anything else goes. I immediately regretted letting my hair grow during lockdown as I realised that, unlike CLAWS, the more relaxed NBFC rules allowed hair pulling.
After the fighting was over, Sian told us, she was planning a little soiree in the paddock next to the farm house, with Jan providing the catering. It was early September; the weather was mild and the forecast was good. It would be a great chance to mingle and catch up. And there was the added bonus of one of Jan’s famous buffets.
After dinner we gathered in the sitting room and the others reminisced over their times at the farm and their fights at the NBFC. I began to feel like an outsider again, I had only been here once before, for a few hours in mid-winter, and my memory of it was somewhat clouded by the beating I’d taken that night. Until this afternoon I’d not seen the place in daylight or been able to appreciate the beauty of the location. Although I was feeling left out of the conversation it was interesting to watch the group dynamic and how these old friends interacted. The relationship between Tee and Shannon was particularly fascinating. Tee generally referred to Shannon as “shrimp” while Shannon always called Tee “Terri”. Sian also called her Terri more often than Tee and, occasionally, so did Jill but Tee didn’t seem to mind. When Sian did refer to her as “Tee” her accent made it easy to understand why Stacey had mistakenly thought she was called “Tay” when she’d seen her in action with Jill four years ago.
Sensing my discomfort, Tee steered the conversation back to things that I could relate to. She talked about my previous visit to the barn and how my encounter with Mitzi had been an inspiration to her to get back in the ring. Jill and Tee talked about their sex fight that night which, of course, I never saw. Tee went on to explain how, having seen me in action, she was determined to take me on and how, thanks to Jill, was able to contact Erica and, a year later, arrange our best-of-three tournament.
At one point the conversation turned to speculation about who the mystery benefactor who had paid a staggering £20,000 for the film footage of the fight was.
“Do you know who it was Sian?” asked Tee.
“No, I just got a message from Harry saying someone had heard the fight was happening and wanted exclusive ownership of it. Initially I said no but then Harry said how much they were prepared to pay and I reconsidered.”
“Probably someone who wanted to see me beaten up.” I said, dejectedly, “Erica always used to say people liked to see me lose.”
“No, they paid upfront,” said Sian, “they had no idea how the fight would turn out. The smart money was probably on Mitzi, being younger and setting the rules, but they couldn’t have known for sure. After all, you came within 4 seconds of winning.”
“Maybe it was someone who is a fan of both of you?” Suggested Tee.
“Or someone who hates you both in equal measure.” Countered Jan. “I mean, buying all the footage from all the cameras is a bit extreme.
“Whose idea was it to have Paige in the ring filming?” Asked Shannon, "She didn’t do that for any of the other fights.”
“It was a condition of the deal.” Said Sian, “Close ups of the action filmed in the ring. Another condition was that we had to hand over all of the footage from all of the cameras. Jill had to produce an edit version of the fight and the four of us; Ellen, Mitzi, Jill and myself, were allowed to keep copies of that on condition that we only showed them privately. Everything else had to be handed over.”
“I’ll bet Jill made at least one backup.” chuckled Tee.
Jill adopted an expression of pure innocence: “I couldn’t possibly comment,” she said, “but it would be remiss of me if I didn’t secure valuable data.”
Everyone laughed at that.
“And everything went through Harry,” mused Tee, “do you think he’s the benefactor?”
“I can’t see Harry paying that sort of money, he has girls fighting for him all the time. Besides, he doesn’t know either Ellen or Mitzi. Now, if had been you and someone, princess Vicky, that might have been different.”
Tee flushed with embarrassment as the others laughed, but whatever the “in” joke was, it was lost on me.
“So Harry only person who knows who the buyer is.” Said Jan.
“And Gabi.” Mumbled Jill.
“What?” We all said at once.
Jill looked momentarily embarrassed. “Oops, I let the cat out of the bag there didn’t I?”
Then she shrugged: “Oh well, you might as well know. There’s another edit in existence – Paige made it.”
“She didn’t tell me.” Said Jan indignantly.
“Why should she? It was private business.” Said Jill.
“OK, Jill, spill the beans.” Said Shannon.
“Well, as you know, Paige has developed some pretty awesome video processing software and Gabi has bankrolled the development process. Although they’ve now licensed the development to another company the two of them retain the rights and run a consultancy business to advise the developers and their clients.”
“What’s this got to do with my fight?” I asked.
“I’m coming to that.” Said Jill. “A couple of years after the fight Harry contacted Gabi. It seems his ‘client’ had seen some of the restored material Gabi got from Wolfgang and some of the new CLAWS videos, made with Paige’s software, and wanted to know if Gabi knew someone who could take on a commission to reprocess some existing footage.
Gabi suggested Harry contact the consultancy company and Harry’s client worked through him. Everything was done remotely and Paige never met either Harry or his client. The client wanted a new edit of the Mitzi-Ellen fight using Paige’s interpolating software. I’d done my best on the original edit but there were inevitably moments when Paige or Sian got in the way of one camera or another. The brief was simple: Lose the girl with the camera. I don’t think either Harry or his client ever realised that the girl with the camera was the same girl doing the editing.
Anyway, you know what Paige is like when it comes to video, always up for a challenge. She was pregnant at that time and should have been taking it easy but, somehow, she fitted it in with all the other stuff she was doing for Gabi. Developing new techniques and software modules as she went. The client provided all the source footage and she went to work. It took her about a month. The result is pretty awesome, the action just flows from one camera to another, like the new CLAWS stuff, and Paige herself has disappeared completely. Harry’s client paid Gabi another £5000 for that edit. Gabi says the money came directly, not through Harry, but she won’t tell anyone who it came from.”
“Ha!” Said Jan, “Maybe the benefactor is Ms. Marshall herself.”
“It’s not out of the question,” said Jill, “but somehow I doubt it. I don’t think we’ll ever know.”
The conversation moved on to stories of the CLAWS veterans and the four of us regaled Sian and Shannon with stories of encounters between Tee and myself and both Tee and I with other girls in the senior tournaments, right up to the time when I decided enough was enough after Tee beat me hollow in a boxing encounter a year ago.
Sian recalled the year we spent together at CLAWS in the league many years before. She told everyone how I’d taken the title from her and about my initial qualifying fight against Lesley. She had been Lesley’s second and had watched me come back from the brink of defeat to knock the redhead out and secure my place in the league. She asked if I’d ever seen Lesley again or whether tomorrow would be our first meeting since that time.
It was then I revealed something that I thought only Jill, Jan and I knew, the story of my recent strip boxing encounter with Lesley and how once again I’d come close to defeat before coming back in securing the knockout blow.
The other girls went on to tell their own stories ring counters with Lesley. It seems she’s been around a bit. She fought with Tee and with Jan in different places as well as being a regular visitor to the NBFC in the 90s and early 2000’s. She’d even been at the barn on the night that I took on Mitzi, boxing another girl. It was her I saw triumphant in the ring as I entered for my match, although I could barely remember that now.
It seemed that we all had a lot in common. Even Jill who, although she didn’t fight herself, loved watching and filming the rest of us in action. Had you been watching us through the window that evening you would have observed a seemingly innocent scene. A group of middle-aged ladies, clearly friends, enjoying each other’s company. Only if you could eavesdrop on what we were saying would you realise that we were not like other housewives.
Finally getting to know Tee proved to be a very pleasant experience. Until this moment I had only ever faced her in the ring, where we had been sworn enemies and treated each other with nothing but contempt and aggression. When Tee first arrived at CLAWS, she came with the stated intent of besting me, and she succeeded. Of our nine encounters over the next three years, she won six. I had started to really hate her and our fights became vicious. On one occasion when I knocked her out, I pissed on her. On another I fucked her with a strap on. In response when she knocked me out, she once sodomised me and left me with a dildo stuck in my bum. It was only when she beat me for the last time and I announced my retirement from the tournament circuit that she revealed the reason she’d chosen to fight me in the first place was that she admired me and thought I was the best.
Here, in the tranquil setting of Sian’s farmhouse, I found myself in the company of a pleasant, homely, almost shy woman who was clearly comfortable in her surroundings, among friends she had known for years. I also discovered she had a playful, wicked, sense of humour. I decided there and then that any bad blood between us was water under the bridge, I wanted this woman to be my friend in future, not my enemy.
With a busy day ahead we all retired to bed early. By unspoken agreement I took the single bed while Jill and Jan snuggled up together in the double. After lights out I sensed they were up to something but they were very discreet and only the occasional moan from Jill gave the game away. Listening in the dark I couldn’t help but remember Jan’s magic fingers going to work on me in the ring many years before.
