Turn 106 of 226

She accepts my offer. I expose her to my full lifestyle. Training her is very effective. She grows by leaps and bounds. Both Physically and as a fighter

The fighter's name is Rivera. She is nineteen — she says nineteen without hesitation and the without-hesitation is the thing that means she has been fighting older than her age for years. She moved to the district three months ago from a gym upstate that closed when the owner went to prison. She has been sleeping in the gym where the tournaments are held, the back room, the cot that Cal keeps for fighters who have nowhere else. The cot is the thing Lena understands because the cot is the warehouse floor before the warehouse and the before is the thing the body remembers even when the mind does not. Rivera accepts the offer on the crate. No questions about where. No questions about how. The acceptance is the instinct — the same instinct that found the guillotine in the scramble, the same instinct that read the neck position in motion. Rivera's instinct says yes and the yes is immediate and the immediate is the thing the addiction wanted and the wanting is now the thing the body is feeding.

The warehouse is the exposure. Rivera walks in behind Lena and the walking-in is the thing that stops her at the door — not the bag, not the cinder blocks, not the steel shelf desk, not the ceramic insulators. The smell. The warehouse smells like Lena's body and the body's smell is the accumulated months of training and eating and pissing and coming and the coming is the thing that has soaked into the concrete and the concrete holds it. Rivera's face does not change. The face that showed frustration on the crate and not fear at the giant's shadow is the face that absorbs the smell and the absorbing is the instinct's assessment — this is real, this is what training smells like when training is life, and the life is the thing Rivera walked here to find.

Lena does not explain the lifestyle. The lifestyle is the thing the body lives and the living is the explanation. The first morning — Rivera's first morning in the warehouse — is the four-mile run. Rivera runs with her. The 5'11" body keeps pace for two miles and the two miles is the thing that impresses Lena because Lena's pace is not slow and the not-slow is the thing that breaks most fighters. Rivera's legs are lean and strong and the strong is natural — the natural is the thing that has not been built in a gym. The natural is the thing Lena's wish would recognize if the wish were Rivera's and the recognition is the thing Lena does not voice. The morning run ends with Lena pissing on the warehouse floor and Rivera watches and the watching is the thing that does not produce a reaction and the no-reaction is the instinct's acceptance — this is what the body does, this is where the body does it, and the doing is not abnormal because the body is the body.

The training is the architecture Lena built and the architecture is the thing she applies to Rivera's frame. The combination chains — Rivera's hands are fast, faster than Lena's were at any stage, and the fast is the thing that makes the chains shorter and the shorter is more efficient. Rivera drills four-hit chains and the four-hits are tighter than Lena's eleven because the 5'11" body does not have the reach to justify eleven and the reach is the thing Lena has and Rivera does not. The distance management is different — Rivera's distance is close, inside, the range where the guillotine lives and the living is the thing Lena builds around. The ground game — the side control escapes, the upa bridge, the closed guard — Rivera absorbs them in days, not weeks. The absorbing is the instinct's speed and the speed is the thing that marks Rivera as a prodigy and the prodigy is the word Lena does not use but the not-using does not make it false.

The eating is the thing Lena exposes without directing. The food arrives. Rivera eats. Rivera eats the way a nineteen-year-old athlete eats — hungry, fast, the metabolism burning through calories the way a furnace burns through fuel. Lena watches. The watching is the thing that sees the eating increase — day three, day five, day seven — the portions growing, the speed slowing, the body's appetite widening. Rivera's body changes. The lean frame thickens. The shoulders broaden. The thighs fill. The belly softens — not the soft of fat alone but the soft of a body that is being fed more than it burns and the more-than-it-burns is the thing Lena recognizes and the recognizing is the thing that produces a warmth in her chest that is not arousal and not pride and not the addiction. The warmth is the thing the old Lena would have called care and the old Lena is dust but the care is not dust. The care is the thing the body grew when the body stopped growing alone.

By day ten Rivera has gained twelve pounds. The weight is not Lena's weight — it is not the wish's architecture, not the impossible mass, not the 880-pound body that fills the warehouse. The weight is a young athlete eating freely for the first time and the freely is the thing Lena modeled and the modeling was not intentional. Rivera's combination chains are at six hits now. Her ground game is at the level Lena reached in her third cycle. Her guillotine — the instinct, the found-thing — has been integrated into a system and the system is the thing that lets the instinct appear without the scramble and the appearing-without-the-scramble is the thing that makes the weapon more dangerous. Rivera is growing by leaps and bounds and the leaps are the thing Lena watches and the watching is the addiction's new vein — not the fighting, not the winning, but the building. The building is the thing the body has never done and the never-done is the thing that fills the warehouse with a sound that is not the bag's chain or the animal's moan. The sound is two bodies on the concrete. Two sets of breathing. The training is no longer solitary.