Turn 132 of 226

Stay on the floor — eat, piss, sleep, repeat the sex and train together as equals afterwards

The bodies do not stand. The standing is the thing the bodies forget for three days — the three days that are the concrete and the concrete alone. The food comes from the containers the body had delivered before the measuring, the containers that are within arm's reach because the body planned the mess the way the body plans everything. The eating is the thing the bodies do without ceremony — the hands in the rice, the hands in the meat, the grease on the chins and the bellies. Diane eats the way the body eats now. The eating is not the office eating, not the careful eating, not the eating that apologizes for itself. Diane tears the meat with the teeth. Diane licks the fingers. The body watches and the watching is the thing that produces the warmth in the chest that is not the wish's warmth but the body's own.

The pissing is the thing the bodies do where the bodies lie. The body's stream hits the concrete between the bodies' legs and the stream pools and the pooling reaches Diane's thigh and Diane does not move. Diane's stream comes twenty minutes later — the stream that is the body's stream now, the same volume, the same arc. The streams merge in the dip in the concrete where the floor is not level. The merging is the thing that is the smell — the ammonia sharpness that the body has lived in for months and that Diane has lived in for weeks and that is the warehouse's smell now, the smell of two animals. The bodies do not clean it. The bodies lie in it. The warmth of the piss on the concrete is the warmth the body sinks into.

The sex is the thing the bodies repeat. The repeating is not the same — the first sex was the wall and the wall is the thing that is behind them now. The floor sex is the thing that is different. The bodies are side by side and the side by side is the thing that lets the hands reach. The body's hand between Diane's legs. Diane's hand between the body's legs. The rhythm that the bodies find — the rhythm that is not either body's rhythm but the rhythm that is between, the rhythm that two hearts make when the hearts are beating at the same rate. The orgasms come together. The coming together is the thing that did not happen the first time — the first time was sequential, the body then Diane. The floor sex is the simultaneous. The simultaneous is the thing that makes the warehouse sound different. The sound of two 1,040-pound bodies contracting at the same moment is the sound that is the warehouse's sound.

The training resumes on the fourth day. The resuming is the thing the bodies do because the bodies are fighters and the fighting is the thing the bodies are. The sparring is the thing that is different now — the thing that is not the body teaching and Diane learning. The sparring is the thing that is equal. The body throws a jab and the jab is the thing Diane catches on the guard and the guard is the body's guard — the elbows in, the forehead forward, the structure that does not collapse. Diane throws the jab back. The jab is the body's jab — the hip rotation, the shoulder roll, the snap. The body catches it. The catching is the thing that requires effort. The effort is the new. The body has not needed effort to catch a jab since Marcus.

The combinations build. The body throws a one-two-hook-cross and Diane slips the hook and the slipping is the thing the body did not teach — the thing Diane learned from the body, the thing that is the body's own movement reflected back. Diane throws a one-two-hook-cross and the body slips the hook and the slipping is the mirror. The kicks come — the roundhouse that is the body's roundhouse, the shin that is adapted, the crack that is the body's crack. The body checks the kick. The checking is the thing that hurts — the two shins meeting, the bone on bone, the impact that is the same as hitting the heavy bag. The body feels it. Diane feels it. The feeling is the thing that makes them both grin. The grinning is the thing the body has not done in the warehouse. The grinning is the thing that is the fighter's joy — the joy that Marcus showed the body and the body now shares with the equal.

The ground work is the thing that is the test. The body shoots a double-leg and the shooting is the thing that takes Diane down but the taking down is not easy — Diane's sprawl is the body's sprawl, the hips dropping, the weight settling, the frame that does not go over. The bodies hit the concrete together. The impact is the thing that shakes the containers on the steel shelf. The body moves to mount and Diane bridges — the upa that the body taught, the upa that the body drilled, the upa that is now the thing Diane uses against the body. The bridge does not dislodge the body. 1,040 pounds does not dislodge easily. But the bridge creates the space and the space is the thing Diane uses to shrimp and the shrimping puts Diane back to guard. The body looks down at Diane. Diane looks up at the body. The looking is the thing that holds the recognition — the recognition that the fighter on the bottom is the fighter the body built and the fighter the body built is the fighter the body cannot easily finish.