Turn 83 of 226

Decide how to celebrate her victory. With food and masturbation. Eat like an animal. Then go back to training my weaknesses for the next tournament. Its in 12 weeks. I solve them all

The celebration begins before she reaches the warehouse. The envelope is tucked against her ribs — fifteen thousand dollars, the paper warm from her skin — and the warmth is the money's only purpose tonight. She stops at the all-night Korean place on the industrial district's edge, the one with the steel counter and the owner who stopped looking at her nakedness three visits ago. She orders with gestures now because speaking is not necessary. Two orders of galbi. Three bowls of rice. A mountain of kimchi. The owner sets the food on the counter and Lena takes it outside and the outside is the parking lot and the parking lot is concrete and concrete is where she eats. She sits on the ground cross-legged and the sitting spreads her body across the pavement — belly on her thighs, breasts resting on the belly, ass flattened wide — and the posture is not a posture. The posture is the animal settling to feed.

She eats with her hands. The galbi is greasy and the grease runs down her forearms and pools in the crooks of her elbows. The rice she scoops in fistfuls, compressing it against her palm, pushing it into her mouth with her thumb. The kimchi she tears with her teeth and the juice runs down her chin and the chin drips onto her chest and the chest is already stained with grease and the staining is the meal's signature. She burps and the burp echoes off the building behind her and the echo is the only answer she needs. She farts and the fart is long and low and the low reverberates through the concrete beneath her and the reverberation is the body's contentment. She eats everything. The containers are empty and the empty is scraped clean with her fingernails and the scraping is the animal not wasting and the not-wasting is instinct.

She walks back to the warehouse and the walk is heavy and full and the fullness is the food settling in her belly and the belly is distended and round and the distension is visible in the streetlight. She feels it shifting as she walks — the weight of the meal moving inside her, the warmth of it radiating through her core. The warehouse door is open because the warehouse door is always open because the animal does not close doors. She stands inside and the standing is the body finding its place and the place is the floor. She goes to the floor. The concrete is cold and the cold meets the heat of her skin and the meeting is the contrast that opens her. Her hands find the landscape of her body — the belly first, always the belly, the fullness of it, the weight of the food inside it, the softness of the fat over the muscle — and the touching is not gentle. The touching is the animal's hands on the animal's body and the animal does not gentle.

The arousal is already there. It is always there. The wish built a body that is always warm and the warmth is always ready and the ready is not a decision. She grips the fat of her belly with both hands and the gripping sends the sensation straight through her — the weight, the fullness, the food shifting inside, the muscle beneath. Her hips grind against the concrete and the grinding is friction and the friction is raw and the raw is the animal's pleasure. She comes with the taste of galbi still in her mouth and the grease still on her arms and the sound she makes is not a word. The sound is the warehouse giving back what she put into it. She does not stop. The orgasm rolls into the next one and the next one is slower and deeper and the deeper is the body taking its time because the body has time and the time is the animal's luxury.

The third orgasm is the one that empties her. She lies on the concrete afterward, face up, arms spread, legs apart, the puddle beneath her warm and spreading. The warehouse ceiling is twenty feet above and the ceiling is close and the close is not claustrophobic. The close is the den holding her. The legal pad is on the shelf. The weaknesses are on the pad. The pad is the next twelve weeks and the twelve weeks is the preparation and the preparation begins tomorrow. Tonight the body rests. Tonight the animal is fed and spent and the spent is the celebration and the celebration is complete. She closes her eyes and the concrete holds her and the holding is the floor's only function and the function is enough.

The twelve weeks are a forge. She begins on the first morning with the distance problem — the teep wall needs a gate. The gate is a close: when the opponent circles off the teep, she does not re-wall. She cuts the circle. The footwork is a diagonal step into the opponent's exit path, closing the angle, turning the opponent's evasion into a collision. She drills the cut three hundred times against the bag, simulating the circling opponent, stepping into the empty space the opponent thinks is escape. The gate works. The close is immediate. The nine-hit chain fires from the close and the chain is the gate's teeth. She adds the cut to every combination — teep, cut, chain — and the sequence becomes automatic in four days.

The blind spot takes longer. The problem is height — her natural sightline is above the heads of most opponents and the above means overhands and hooks travel beneath her awareness. The solution is level change. She drills dropping her stance in striking exchanges — not a squat, not a bend, a compression of the knees that lowers her eye line by eight inches. The lowered line tracks the shorter fighter's striking channel. She adds head movement — slipping the overhand, rolling under the hook — and the movement is not defensive. The movement is offensive because the slip creates the counter angle and the counter angle is where the cross lands. She drills with the bag at a shortened height, simulating a shorter opponent, throwing combinations from the compressed stance. The stance feels wrong for three days. On the fourth day the stance feels like the stance and the feeling is the body adapting and the adapting is the wish's engine running beneath the training.

The clinch problem is the third correction. Sprawling does not work against shorter fighters with low centers of gravity because the sprawl requires hip height and the hip height is the advantage the shorter fighter does not have. The solution is the whizzer and the underhook. She drills the whizzer — the overhook on the opponent's arm, using the leverage to spin the opponent — and the underhook — the arm beneath the opponent's arm, using the leverage to elevate and turn. The two tools give her clinch control without relying on the sprawl. She adds knee strikes from the whizzer position and the knees are the clinch's weapon and the weapon is the thing the shorter fighter cannot match because the shorter fighter's knees do not reach her body. She drills the whizzer-to-knee three hundred times and the drill is the body learning a new language.

The cardio ceiling is the fourth correction and the correction is not a drill. The correction is volume. She adds an eleventh conditioning round. The resting heart rate is 35 and the 35 does not move. The working heart rate pushes to 190 and the 190 is the new ceiling and the body resists and the resistance is the point. She runs the eleven rounds with thirty-second active recovery between each and the active recovery is the thing that builds the gear the semi-pro final demanded. The gear is not speed. The gear is endurance at intensity — the ability to fight at round-seven pace in round ten. She drills combination chains at full speed for the eleventh round and the eleventh round is the round where the body fails and the failing is the lesson and the lesson is: fail, recover, fail again, recover again. The body learns to fail and keep moving. The body learns that the gear exists and the existing is the discovery the semi-pro final forced.

Twelve weeks. The legal pad entry on the final day is short. 'All four semi-pro weaknesses closed. 1) Distance management — teep wall has a gate. Cut the circle, close, chain. Automatic. 2) Blind spot — compressed stance, level change, slip-and-counter. Automatic. 3) Clinch defense — whizzer, underhook, knee. Sprawl is backup, not primary. Automatic. 4) Cardio ceiling — eleven rounds, active recovery, gear discovered. Heart rate holds at 190 through round eleven. Body does not flag.' She puts the marker down. The marker goes down and the body does not rest. The body goes to the bag and the bag takes the first combination of the new cycle and the combination is the body's answer to the question the semi-pro tournament asked. The answer is: next.'