Model meets Midget
part 2 : The Match By The Masked Writer
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First fall
The bell rang, a sharp, definitive clang that echoed through the arena, signaling the start of the match. And unbeknownst to Naomi, it was the sound of the beginning of the end of her delusions.
Bill Dubois didn't wait. There was no theatrical pose, no crowd-pleasing taunt. He moved with a speed that belied his size, a blur of black singlet and coiled power. Naomi, still waving to the crowd, barely had time to register his advance before a low, powerful leg sweep connected with her shin. Her carefully practiced, if flimsy, stance evaporated, and she went down with a yelp, her sequined outfit catching the arena lights.
Ziggy’s voice, a frantic whisper from the ringside, was a garbled mess of "Play along, darling! Remember the plan!" but Naomi’s mind was a white-hot panic. This was combat, and she had already lost the first exchange.
Before she could even attempt to regain her footing, Bill was upon her, with the brutal efficiency of a predator securing its prey. He dropped his considerable weight, driving a heavy knee into the delicate area between her shoulder blades. The move was designed not to injure, but to anchor. A silent, primal gasp escaped her lungs as the air was forcefully expelled, leaving her momentarily paralyzed, her face pressed into the damp canvas. The smell of stale sweat, and disinfectant filled her nostrils, hiding her expensive perfume.
With a grunt, Bill rolled her over, his movements swift and impersonal. The glamour was gone, replaced by raw exposure. He didn't bother with fancy holds. He executed a devastating, full-body press. His entire bulk, 100 pounds of solid, unyielding muscle, dropped directly onto her chest and stomach. It wasn't just a pin—it was a crushing.
Naomi felt every single ounce of his weight. It stole her remaining breath and compressed her ribcage until a sharp, non-theatrical pain shot through her side. She was flattened, her neon pink costume spreading uselessly beneath him. Bill secured the pin with cold precision, driving his left forearm into her jaw to hyperextend her neck while his right hand locked around the top of her thigh, pressing down, maximizing the pressure, and eliminating any space between their bodies. It was absolute, intimate domination, forcing her vulnerability into the cruel glare of the spotlight. She felt the heavy, hard contact of his hips against her own, not as a gesture of malice, but as a mechanism of control.
The shock was immediate, dissolving into near-panic fear. She tried to squirm, to buck, to summon the strength she’d pretended to possess, but her arms felt like wet noodles. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest from her sheer inability to move under this brutal force. The humiliation was total: she was a mannequin beneath a slab of granite, exposed and helpless before thousands.
Bill’s face, inches from hers, was a mask of grim determination. His eyes, those obsidian chips, held a cold focus that she found terrifying. A fleeting smile passed on his lips. He was enjoying executing this lesson in physics and power.
She heard the referee, Stan, counting. "One! Two!" Each number was a fresh wave of agony and shame. Her energy reserves, built from sporadic gym visits and restrictive diets, were already gone. A debilitating fatigue settled over her.
Stan's voice boomed over the din, his hand a blur as he brought it down on the canvas. "THREE!"
The final clang of the bell was not a signal for the start, but a death knell for Naomi’s carefully constructed reality. The roar of the crowd washed over her, a mixture of triumphant cheers for Bill mockeries for her. She lay there, pinned, the neon pink of her costume a garish testament to her spectacular miscalculation. Bill rolled off from her with the same apparent indifference with which he had pressed her into the mat, leaving her body aching, her breath ragged, and her dignity annihilated. The world was a kaleidoscope of pulsing agony and sound, and the only thing Naomi could focus on was the promise of a recess. She couldn't stand. The ribs where Bill's forearm had connected felt like fractured glass. Ignoring the official standing over her, and the derisive laughter from the seats, she pushed herself up onto bruised elbows and began to crawl to her corner.
The recess
It was the most degrading physical effort she had ever undertaken. The grit of the canvas scraped against the exposed skin of her arms and knees. She pulled, inch by painful inch, her neon pink outfit now tattered. When she finally reached the bottom rope, she used it to haul herself into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the turnbuckle, choking back a sob that tasted metallic and salty.
Ziggy, true to form, was instantly there. He slid under the lowest rope with frantic, unnecessary grace, holding a sweating bottle of alkaline water like a precious artifact.
“Naomi! Drink, darling, drink!” he hissed, thrusting the bottle at her. She snatched it, gulping down the cool liquid, the simple act a monumental effort.
Ziggy’s hand gripped her shoulder, not with comfort, but with proprietary panic. “That was not right, Naomi! Where was the flair? Where was the drama? I told you, you could let him win the first fall but THAT?! You went down faster than my stock portfolio in '08! We needed five minutes of valiant effort, not sixty seconds of humiliation!”
Naomi winced as he accidentally squeezed the tender spot near her collarbone. “It’s real, Ziggy,” she gasped, her voice raw. “He’s not pulling his punches. He is much stronger than I could imagine!”
“Of course! He is a wrestler, love! But he’s just a dwarf! you must win it! You are supposed to get angry, throw a retaliatory slap, demand a time out! You are giving the cameras nothing to work with!” He paused, glancing anxiously toward the commentary booth. “Now listen. You have exactly thirty seconds left. When the bell rings, you get up. You must win the next fall. Give them a show. Anything. Remember: You’re fighting for your comeback. Do you want to be on the cover of Who Cares Now next week, darling? Or do you want your talk show circuit?”
He checked his watch again, his eyes wide and demanding. Naomi stared down at the mat, the pattern of interlocking ropes blurring under her gaze. The pain was still immense, but the humiliation had started to crystallize into a cold anger. Anger at Bill, anger at the crowd, and deep, resonant anger at Ziggy for packaging her failure so neatly.
She took one last, ragged breath, pushing the water bottle back into Ziggy’s hand. She tried to visualize the moves she had had rehearsed—body slam, full nelson, flying dropkick, scissor hold—but she did not feel she could do them. Her body felt disconnected, heavy, and unwilling to obey the demands of performance.
The referee, Stan, gave a warning wave. Ziggy scrambled back out of the ring just as the timer hit zero.
The bell rang again, a sharp, metallic CLANG, signaling the start of the Second Fall. The metallic sound felt less a signal for commencement and more like a death knell. Naomi, fueled by the flickering, cold rage that had replaced her fear, pushed herself off the turnbuckle. Every movement sent jagged protest through her torso. She swayed slightly, her vision tunneling, but she managed to stand upright—Ziggy’s primary demand.
Second fall
Bill “The Bulldozer” Dubois was waiting. A sculpted mass of muscle that looked like some kind of primitive idol. He didn’t rush. He walked deliberately toward his opponent (or is it his victim?), a smirk playing on his lips, an expression that acknowledged her pain was real, and that he found it deeply satisfying.
Naomi lifted her arms, trying to assume a defensive stance. She tried to execute a feint to the left, but Dubois was faster than she thought possible. He jumped and executed a perfect flying dropkick. She did not even think to doge. Of course, a 4ft4 man doesn’t jump as high as a 6ft wrestler. So, his feet did not connect with Naomi’s chin but with her chest, right at the plexus. Air escaped from her long with a painful sigh and she folded on the mat like a puppet with its strings cut. He could have finished her off, but he waited as she struggled to regain her breath and get back on her feet. The referee was counting but he was taking his time, not wanting to end the show too early. Gasping in agony with every breath, she still managed to get to her knees, bringing her eye-to-eye with her opponent. She shifted to one knee, ready to rise again through the pain.
Then Bill “Pitbull” moved. He just connected a massive, open-hand chop across her chest.
The pain was a white-hot spike that drove the air from her lungs again. She stumbled backward, crashing against the ropes. Before she could rebound, Dubois was on her grabbing her sexy long legs and dragging her back to the center of the ring, ignoring the referee's half-hearted warning. Naomi clawed at the ropes, but the dwarf was too strong. She was hoisted into the air, lost her grip on the ropes, and crashed onto her back in the middle of the ring with a thunderous impact.
Gasping for air once more—or what little she had left—her long, slender body writhed in pain on the mat. Unable to rise, she was at her opponent's mercy.
He grabbed her legs again. Those legs of which she had been so proud, she hated them now, for giving Bill such an easy grab. Same for her long, elegant arms, so weak and useless now. The dwarf dragged her almost limp body to the center of the mat and simply jumped, landing both feet on her rather soft abdominal muscles. She would have screamed if the air had not been expelled again from her lungs. As such, she simply folded like a pretzel, in a foetal position, trying to guard her suspected broken ribs. The world seemed to dissolve into noise and agony. She curled involuntarily.
Dubois merely used her defensive posture as an invitation. He began the grueling, humiliating work of the grind. He dragged her across the mat by the neon remnants of her costume, ignoring the referee’s unconvincing warnings. He stood on her back, his weight immense, deliberately pressing down where he knew the trauma was worst. The smell of sweat and blood filled her nostrils. The crowd was not just jeering; they were roaring, salivating over the violence.
In a desperate, primal move, Naomi gathered every atom of strength she still had and rolled onto her back, trying to execute a roll-up, the move she had practiced. Her fingers barely brushed his ankle before he simply stepped over her, leaving her lying flat, exposed.
Powerless. The word echoed in the void where her planned anger had been. Her limbs wouldn’t move; her will had deserted the battlefield. She was just raw meat being tenderized for the audience.
“Fight back, girl!” someone bellowed from the cheap seats.
Bill was already on her, flattening her on the mat, twisting her thin, muscle-less right arm behind her back in a painful chickenwing. Then she felt it. As he held her with his left hand, His rough right hand crawled under the fabric of her suit and caressed her. Then she felt the finger pinching her left breast. He was groping her! She tried to scream in protest but only a weak croak came out her lips. The referee didn’t seem to care, nor did the crowd. Pitbull’s hand then came down her torso and caressed her below the belt. She tried again to lift herself up, but the weight of the midget was too much for her exhausted muscles. Suddenly, he stopped the groping and used his left hand to hold her arm. With his right hand then, he spanked her with a loud “smack” on her beautiful butt. A wave of pain ran through her body her tears came more from the humiliation than the pain.
Slowly, deliberately, Dubois grabbed her frail, exhausted, body by the underarm and lifted her on her knees. He then locked her into a devastating Bear Hug. His arms encircled her torso, thick as pythons, and he began to squeeze. It was a torture designed not to kill, but to prolong suffering. Naomi screamed, a thin, reedy sound swallowed immediately by the arena’s acoustics. Her ribs shrieked in protest. She pounded weakly on his back—one, two, three times—but the blows were insults, not threats.
She looked toward the corner, searching past the official’s panic-stricken face, searching for Ziggy, hoping he would throw the towel. He held the physical symbol of surrender. He could end her suffering.
Ziggy stood there, unmoved, his face showing nothing but calculation. He was talking, but she couldn't hear the words above the roaring in her ears. Yet, the message was clear: No. Not yet. Sell it better.
The white towel remained dry and neatly folded over the top rope, a mocking beacon of hope she would not be granted.
Despair, cold and absolute, finally settled over her. She was alone. She was not performing; she was being sacrificed. She was a victim.
Dubois tightened the squeeze. She tasted blood—not metallic this time, but thick and heavy. A rib shifted, a sound she felt more than heard, and the pain became blinding. She felt her ribcage was about to crack. The lights of the arena were swirling.
She was beyond fighting, beyond caring about the cover of Who Cares Now.
With the last remnants of her physical consciousness, aware only of the crushing pressure and the need for it to stop, Naomi slapped the mat.
TAP.
She slapped it again, harder. TAP. TAP.
The referee’s arm shot down instantly, signaling the end of the match. The bell rang for a third time—a final, mournful peal.
Dubois did not release her instantly. He unlocked the bear hug but let his hands down on her butts and squeezed, unashamedly. The crowd laughed. She wept silently, sobs shaking her frail shoulders, but she was past the point of even trying to defend herself. For a few long seconds, he kept her in place, his hands digging into her buttocks. Then, releasing his grip, he seized her by the waist and flung her brutally across the ring. She crumpled onto the mat, completely shattered. He raised his arms to the thunderous approval of the crowd, the winner of this unscheduled, brutal squash match.
Naomi remained on the mat, her chest aching with every shallow breath. The pain still burned, but the overwhelming sensation now was the bitter taste of utter defeat and abandonment. She had tapped out to the reality of the violence.
The agent, Ziggy, finally dropped to his knees outside the ropes, still looking unfazed. He didn't ask if she was okay.
“You’re finished,” he hissed, his voice cold. “Utterly, spectacularly finished.”
Naomi didn't answer. She just lay there for a while. A sodden, tattered banner of neon pink failure.
She never remembered how she got to the locker room.
….
Naomi emerged from the locker room, the steam from the shower doing little to thaw the ice that had settled deep within her bones. Her body was a living, walking, collection of various pains. Her soul was even worse. She walked through the deserted backstage corridors, the vibrant chaos of pre-match energy now replaced by a chilling emptiness.
Her phone felt heavy in her hand, a portal to a digital abyss. She’d braced herself for the images, the cruel commentary, but the reality still hit like a physical blow. There she was, on every social network, sprawled on the canvas, her ripped costume revealing more than intended. The camera zoomed in on her face, a contorted mask of agony and tears, smeared with sweat and something darker. Then came the cruel close-ups of Dubois’s hands, groping, lingering with a possessive brutality that made her stomach churn. The words accompanying the images were vicious, reductive, and devoid of any compassion. They called her weak, pathetic, a disgrace. Some even celebrated Dubois, praising his dominance, his ‘realness.’ Her defeat wasn't just a loss; it was the spectacle of her degradation.
She scrolled numbly, each swipe a descent further into despair. Then, a notification pinged, an email from Ziggy. Her heart sank.
She opened it. The subject line was blunt: “Termination of Representation.”
The email itself was a masterpiece of cynicism and expediency. Ziggy wrote of "irreparable damage to her marketability," of "untenable financial losses," and how "the integrity of my clients is paramount." He claimed to regret, with hardly a pretense to sincerity, that he could no longer provide his services. He even managed to squeeze in a thinly veiled jab about her "lack of professionalism." There was no offer of help, no flicker of concern for her well-being. He was protecting his interests, shedding dead weight. He was a lot more concerned about his talk show bookings than about her broken body.
Naomi closed her eyes, hit by a crushing realization. Ziggy was gone. The carefully constructed illusion of her career had crumbled, and she was left standing in the wreckage. The crowd had gone home, the cameras had stopped rolling, and the man who had promised to guide her had simply walked away, leaving her alone in the ruins.
She looked down at her hands, still trembling. The pain in her ribs, her back, her arms, was a dull, throbbing reminder, but it was nothing compared to the hollow ache in her chest. She was not just defeated; she was discarded. The fight had been real, the submission had been real, and the aftermath was brutally real. Her career, her reputation, her agent – all of it was gone, leaving only the silence, the digital shame, and the sickening certainty of her complete and total downfall.
The End
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