Beat, Prey, Love

Kathy

Late January, Los Angeles, CA

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“Jesus Fucking Christ, why is this gym so fucking cold?” Kathy Liu inquired aloud, moving through the still unfamiliar space. A peek at her smartwatch revealed that the night was still young and the drafty building was colder than the mild Los Angeles air outside. Behind her three other college students followed into the drafty building, each carrying a gym bag. Kathy stood just past the front desk and scanned the gym’s layout: MMA cage to the left, wrestling mats and locker rooms dead center, and boxing ring and weights on the far wall. She’d grown up with martial arts but had only turned to streaming in her senior year of high school, eventually developing the raunchy, flirty abrasive, ′Calamity Jade′ persona she used online. Tonight Kathy planned to mix all the favorite parts of her life in a sensual competition she still hadn’t fully explained to her friends.

The daughter of two Bay Area techies walked with a dancer’s grace and stared with an appraiser’s eye at people and objects alike. Kathy’s oversized hoodie mostly hid her tiny shorts and her curvy, athletic, physique but not her cute, mischievous smile or wavy, dark hair dyed bright orange. Tall with a fair, freckled complexion and dark brown eyes that suggested her mixed Chinese and White heritage; the tall, 20 year-old college sophomore wore sharp eyeliner and exaggerated blush across her nose.

“Soooo, Kathy, where am I putting all your techie junk?” The tallest and broadest of their quartet asked, her voice husky and mellow as she gestured with the long black bag held in her off-hand.

“See if you can find an outlet near the MMA cage, Sam.” Kathy pointed to the raised cage without looking over her shoulder. “That’s all we’re using tonight. Just plug in the laptop and connect them together. I’ll do the rest.”

A mellow, “Yuuuuup.” marked Samantha’s agreement, and Kathy muttered to herself about camera angles while she watched Samantha lay the long black bag down onto the floor with surprising delicateness for a woman her size. 6′2", tanned, and shaped like a goddess of war, Sam’s easygoing attitude contrasted her athletic, buxom physique and her blue sweater, white denim short-shorts, and sandals accentuated her curves rather than hide them. She’d never outgrown the heavy accent of the affluent beach city she’d grown up in, a surfer at heart even if freestyle wrestling had earned her college scholarship. One look at her broad shoulders and powerful legs would have been enough to convince Kathy that Samantha Gaines was a wrestler or a volleyball player; their training sessions together had confirmed the former. The voluptuous grappler fixed her backwards ballcap and the wavy blonde mane spilling out from beneath it before pulling her phone out of her pocket.

Kathy Liu imagined how lucrative tonight’s erotic fights could be and stared into the distance, lost in lewd visions of sudden wealth and fame until a sharp smack on her ass drew her back to reality.

“Hey, Red! You up there? Or did I catch you dreaming about swimming in money, Scrooge McDuck style again?”

Kathy found their quartet’s shortest member staring up at her.

“Obviously not, Flor. You can’t swim in coins... but...” Kathy bit her lip and looked away as blush spread across her pale face. “I was thinking about how many followers this is gonna earn me. I can hear the subscription chimes now.”

“I can see it now...” Flor teased, moving to stand shoulder with the streamer martial artist. She wrapped one arm around Kathy and spread her other palm out to the front. ”Calamity Jade gets KO’d, submitted, and fucked by her friends. Allllll night long.” She teased. “I mean, none of that’s new to me, of course, but I don’t mind showing you off to your little subs too.” The Texan college student slapped Kathy’s butt, laughing as she passed her. Kathy considered arguing with her, but entertainment superseded absolute truth tonight.

A stubborn Texan whose family spanned both sides of the USA-Mexico border and whose father ran a storied boxing gym, Flor Ramirez’s black beanie hid most of her curly brown pixie cut, and her red and black flannel, black jeans, and high top sneakers disguised the toned, light brown curves that Kathy knew better than she knew anyone there. Outside the ring, Flor moved with the ease of a panther; inside it she fought with the brutal efficiency of a well trained boxing prospect. A longstanding disagreement with her conservative father had pushed the buxom Latina boxer towards college in another state, punk rock, Mixed Martial Arts, and increasingly raunchy fights.

“Hey Kathy, how long have you been planning this anyways?” The final member of their quartet inquired. The streamer turned towards the pale woman with blue eyes and hair so light it shone silver with the right lighting. Hanna Bergstrom was a starting defender on their college’s women’s soccer team and the woman Kathy knew the least of their quartet. Her giant French braid only emphasized her Nordic ancestry, giving her the look of a Viking maiden. Broad and brawny with thick, toned legs, the college junior looked like the kind of woman built to win head-on collisions, not just muscling smaller women out of her way while jumping for incoming soccer balls.

“I unno... like, a few weeks?” Kathy lied with a smile. “Aight, peep: everyone already fights. Wet or dry, MMA, boxing, BJJ, even pro wrestling, hella folks either train, fight, or watch, right? But how many people on campus end up driving off campus to some fight club or indy event?” She checked her audience; each woman was nodding at her so far. “Soooo... if we already have plenty of fighters nearby, and we’ve obviously got plenty of hot girls here on campus, why not open our own promotion and film some wet MMA, topless boxing, or bikini wrestling? If we can run a little fight club this close to campus we can corner the market.”

“I-” Flor began before Kathy cut her off.

“If you want it to keep it dry that’s fine too. No judgement for keeping your clothes on. It can be whatever it needs to be. Just like-” Kathy spoke faster, less confidently now.

“I was going to say” Flor stopped her. “Sure. Wet sounds fun. I mean, I’m one of those ‘girls who travels miles off campus to scrap on a Friday night’ like you were talking about, and it’s not like I’ve never taken a wet fight either. Getting punched in the jaw hurts whether you’re naked or not.” She laughed. “Besides, my parents are both prudes and their only daughter fighting topless professionally sounds like it’d kill them both and set them rolling in their fucking graves. Fuck yeah I’m in.” The shapely Latina woman punched her palm and flashed a broad, dangerous smile.

“Oh, well...” Kathy stood dumbstruck. “That was easy. What about you two?”

“I figured that’s what this was about. I’ve never had an organized fight outside of... like... wrestling meets, but as long as I show up for wrestling team practice, make weight, and dump bitches on their heads, the team totes doesn’t care.” Samantha shrugged her shoulders. “So fuck it, brah. Let’s scrap.” She punctuated her agreement with a wink, a wagging tongue, and a cocky gesture.

“I already fight during the soccer offseason--” Hanna started

“Yeah, you and everyone else on campus.” Flor interrupted.

“Yeah, except I actually win. I’m not just fighting cause it’s fun; I fight cause it’s fun and I’m good at it. I love putting the gams to use one way or another.” The soccer player smacked one of the hard, toned thighs sprouting from her short shorts like twin tree trunks. “Wet, dry, boxing, MMA. I’m game.” Hanna grinned. “When Sam said you two both fought locally and wanted to meet up, I was hoping for something like this. Lead the way, Red.”

“When you said you needed a fourth, I asked around.” Samantha shrugged; the school’s athletes often comprised their own little social network. “A few different guys and girls mentioned ′Snowbae′ and I thought, ‘why not?’ We’ve partied together before. She seemed chill.”

The calculating streamer nodded enthusiastically; “rowdy Valkyrie” needed no additional marketing direction.

“Ok, so like I said, obviously fighting is like hella popular almost everywhere.” Kathy began, turning around to address her three collaborators. “Both ‘dry,’ aka ‘normal and clothed’ and ‘wet,’ as in ‘wet and wild.’ I was looking it up and didn’t realize that women’s wet leagues really took off after World War II.”

“Yeah, yeah, K.” Samantha cut her off. “I didn’t come here for a history lesson. I came here to fucking fight. And to fuck. And fight. So skip the spiel or call it a night; I got a big steaming pile of Psychology homework waiting for me.”

“Alright, alright, jeeeeez.” The streamer looked deflated for a moment before she recovered; the other girls didn’t share her interest in the context of the endeavor she was about to invite them into, but that wouldn’t stop her. “Beat, Prey, Love.” The streamer embellished each word with a gesture. “Imagine it. A wet league of girls from campus. Hell, we can get some of the teachers in on it too. I’m thinking MMA but that’s just me. The kinds of fights we hold are less important than the actual like... big idea. We run this. Us. No weird dudes or haughty old ladies making a buck off our labor. No one tells us who to fight. Like, a sexy, wet fighting, worker owned co-op.”

“A.... what now?” Flor stared at her with a furrowed brow and what the streamer hoped was guarded curiosity. “‘Beat, Prey, Love’ is a slick name though. It’s the first smart thing I’ve heard from you tonight. Cause otherwise you’re stringing a lot of words together and it’s complicating what I thought was preeeetty simple. Are we fighting tonight or what? ”

“Yeah, I’m hoping we all fight tonight. Beat, Prey, Love is my idea but like, I also definitely also wanna fight tonight. There’s four of us and an MMA cage.”

“Now you’re speaking my language. If you wanna make your own small-time version of ‘Perfect Submission’ or ‘Superhot Fights,’ then just say that and tell me who’s fighting who. But I did not come out here into this random ass gym on a late as fuck Thursday night to talk ‘ownership stakes’ or whatever the hell you just said.” Flor said, referencing two wet fight promotions whose fighters competed in outfits that could be removed or circumvented during their fights.

The two blondes agreed, and Kathy reluctantly agreed to discuss all the details and logistics later. Samantha observed that none of her planning would matter if the fights weren’t fun or sexy or entertaining, Kathy pulled her phone out from her own squishy bust and thumbed through a few screens.

“Ok, so I figured it’d be easiest if I fought Flor since we-”

“-Are already fucking, right? Ayyyyy.” The titanic blonde pointed at the pair and chuckled at her own joke. “But seriously, it’ll be lame if I fight my friend and you fight your girlfriend. Mix up the pairings, K.”

“So how about we get to it, Malibu?” Flor smiled like a shark and stepped toward Samantha

“Totes, brah! You wanna get rolled up like a burrito, or folded like a taco, Tex Mex? I still owe you from last time...” the buxom, tanned blonde grinned back. Her distinctive ‘surfer girl’ intonation contrasted with her muscular frame, and she rolled her shoulders as if to further emphasize her significant height and weight advantage over the 5′6″ Flor. The Latina boxer didn’t budge, and Kathy thought she looked every bit like a puma sizing up a moose. She liked watching Flor fight but feared the swagger and hostility that characterized her hyper competitive friends’ interactions. The streamer stepped between them and forcibly separated the pair, looking from one to the other. She decided that she couldn’t trust them to keep their fight flirty and sexy and fun, and if Flor didn’t fight Kathy or Samantha, that left only one feasible pairing.

“Alright, that settles it: Flor, you and Hanna are gonna throw down. But first? Let’s do this, Malibu.”

“Nice save, Kathy.” Samantha said. “Way to sacrifice yourself and take one for the team.”

“Sacrifice who?” Kathy asked bemusedly.

“Yourself. As soon as the bell rings I’m totes gonna fuck you sideways. Your viewers are gonna see a whole new side of you.”

The buxom collegiate wrestler matched her smile, and Kathy began formulating a fight plan against the titanic blonde that wouldn’t get her suplexed repeatedly. Their matchups determined, their ringleader looked over the fighters and asked a new question.

“Does everyone here have a ring name? Anyone planning to use their legal name on camera?”

“Ewww. Fuck no. Sex-positivity is cool but I’m not using my legal name if there’s a risk I’m going tits-out.” Flor laughed. “My family is already mad that I sometimes fight in nightclubs or breweries or whatever. They have no idea I’m occasionally topless. If one of my brothers looks me up and finds ′Flor Ramirez gets fucked silly’ as the first result my dad will be on the first plane over here.” The Texan woman shook her head. “I’m ′Rosa Rated R′ if there’s any chance the girls are coming out.” She explained, patting her chest. Unlike Sam, whose clothing and posture always seemed to accentuate her stunning physique, Flor seemed by turns embarrassed or annoyed by her prominent bust. Kathy pressed into Flor’s curvy ass from behind, gently rubbing her hip and curvy ass. She made it as far as sliding her hand along Flor’s chest and exposed midriff before the boxer shrugged her off.

“I like it. ’Cause ‘Rated R’ like movies, but also Rosa starts with R so it’s like Rated Rosa... It’s like... a double entendre...” Samantha pondered, once again sounding like an overly relaxed jock.

“I’ve been ′Snowbae′ at Illemental and the Lucky Shot Brewery, and the Princess Punchout that they host once a month. Gonna use it here too.”

Kathy couldn’t argue that the name didn’t fit her: Hanna was pale, curvy, and flirty.

“I’m pretty fucking committed to being Calamity Jade so I’m not gonna change up now.” Kathy explained. Kathy Liu was a Digital Arts and Marketing major at the California University at Los Angeles. Calamity Jade was a provocateur adept at selling believable, compelling fantasies with a naughty grin. Her subscribers excitedly watched her gaming, trying on outfits, or training and stretching. Her followers eagerly watched her fight, with no small contingent hoping to see her get her ass kicked. Calamity Jade’s ‘Fight my Followers’ series was a consistent draw.

“By the way,” the streamer continued, “I think it’s cool how almost everyone uses a ring name instead of their government name. Did y’all know that they kinda have similar origins? Like, wet fights historically have more in common with strip clubs and pro wrestling than they do with dry martial arts organizations, and that’s why most wet orgs film promos and wear themed costumes and dramatic introductions and-”

“Too many words, nerd.” Flor reminded her. “Not here for a history lesson. ‘Fucking and fighting,’ remember? Anyways, Sam needs a ring name. Any ideas, Malibu?”

“Bruh. Of course I did. I practiced my intro and everything.” Samantha thumbed through screens on her phone before she cleared her throat. “I’m Rebecca Bliss, and none of you sluts are even worth my time. Bow down or sit down, losers.” She said, substituting her too-relaxed surfer girl intonation with that of an entitled, snotty rich girl. With one hand on her hip and scowl on her face, the tall, tanned woman looked every part of her comfortable, beachside upbringing, but her acting and delivery left something to be desired. “Wait. No. That’s supposed to be ‘bow down or stay down.’ Damn. Let me try it again.”

The agreeable surfer’s attempt at villainy felt distinctly inauthentic to the streamer who’d financed her college education by performing an exaggerated character. Samantha looked from one woman to the next and apparently didn’t like what she found on their faces.

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad” she insisted. “Like, was it?”

“Not bad for a first try, but it’s such a big difference from your... regular personality that it threw me for a loop, y’know?” Kathy assured her. “But like... I don’t think we’ll have any issue finding girls who wanna be villains on camera. Why not go with something closer to... you?”

The tall surfer considered her advice. “Ok, I’ve got something else.”

Sam‘s second attempt 10 minutes later went over much better; her new character, ’Monica Tides,′ was a cool, confident surfer with a simple catchphrase. Samantha could keep her lines short, flex, jiggle, and let her body do the talking while she figured out the particulars of talking on camera.

Kathy considered the women in attendance: four fighters, four different aesthetics, vibes, shapes, styles. A little sampler of what her new endeavor could offer could be. She urged their quartet to pose for a selfie. “I’ve already got a caption in mind. How’s ’The first of many ‘Beat, Prey, Love’ videos coming soon.′ sound?” She said, eliciting giggles before they resumed changing into their fight gear: clothes selectively tight enough or loose enough to attract attention without restricting mobility, combined with traditional half finger MMA gloves, the kind that featured padded knuckles but still left the fingers free for grappling. If tonight went according to Kathy’s plans, those exposed fingers would elicit more vulnerable moans than pained grunts. She’d gathered four attractive fighters, but the ‘Beat, Prey, Love’ Kathy envisioned was sexier than it was brutal, more vivacious than cutthroat. She needed her fellow competitors to buy into that vision rather than simply beat each senseless and fuckable on camera. Kathy set up her laptop and cameras just so, eventually affixing one video camera to the top of one of the cage’s walls and a second outside at cageside, up high enough to still clearly see the action through the plastic coated chain link fence. She caught Flor and Samantha playing rock-paper-scissors, discovering the purpose and the stakes only when an exultant Samantha trotted over to inform Kathy that their match would be first.

“I already said that we were going first.” The streamer said, bemused.

“Yeah, but this way we actually agree with you. Keep up, Kathy" the wrestler laughed, pressing an arm to her chest to keep her breasts from bouncing.

Kathy fought the tension that came any time someone challenged her plans; if her costars were enjoying themselves then she could endure a little agitation and discomfort. She observed the women in front of her: scrappers, one and all, but

“Hey Red...” Flor interrupted Kathy’s thoughts. “You didn’t quite think this one through, did you?” She observed that between the 4 of them, each woman would either be fighting, refereeing, or minding the round timer and recording equipment. That meant no team of seconds to attend to each girl between rounds or provide feedback and strategy. Kathy considered those limitations, but keeping tonight intimate cozy eased expectations and also reduced the reputational risk if the night ended in disaster or worse, disinterest.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Kathy assured them. “If this thing gets messy enough to need a cut person we’re already doing something wrong. Whoever’s wearing the ref shirt just needs to look competent. Just... don’t fuck up, kay? Besides, we have one more bit of business to attend to before we start throwing hands.”

“Time to shoot promos, bitches.”

“Woah, woah. That’s... like, acting and TV stuff, right?” One competitor protested.

“That’s the point. If we’re gonna be anything more than another minor league fight club, we gotta give the audience a reason to care. So I’ve got some basic-bitch questions, just answer them in question and don’t... freeze up, ok?”

“You know you’re the only streamer here, right, Calamity Jade?” Flor reminded her. “The rest of us don’t come with years of lore or ready-made factoids.”

“Yeah, y’all just fucking panned my first attempt at a character anyways.” Samantha complained, “Like, I just came up with Monica Tides like 10 minutes ago. She doesn’t have a character; she barely exists. The fuck?”

Their complaints grew louder and the CU@LA sophomore felt herself losing them. She needed a pivot.

“Shit. Fine. Fiiiiiiine.” She held her palms up and the tense trio. “If we film fights tonight, can we at least agree to film the intros next week? Heal up, I’ll send the questions, and we can even workshop the answers together?” Kathy planned to enlist Abby’s help for that last portion, but the college senior would likely chew her out first. It didn’t matter; Abby Summers had streamed for longer and had more experience helping new performers find themselves on camera. So what if she wound up owing the cynical Black woman another favor? I just need this to be more than ‘hot girl grapples with anonymous college coeds,’ kay?” She explained

The trio of fighters considered and finally accepted her compromise: the production, pomp, and circumstance were necessary but not urgent. Tonight would be about the content, but Kathy couldn’t help considering how she could market this first fight. She needed something salacious, something with viral potential: “Lewd streamer makes D1 wrestler cum in MMA” had a nice ring to it. She just had to conquer the towering blonde bombshell in their quartet first. She’d spent so much brain power on arranging and explaining the event that she’d almost forgotten that she had to fight as well. Kathy shook her head, trying now to move from her roles as ‘promoter’ and ‘streamer’ to ‘fighter.’

The taller pair entered the open cage for their bout, smiles now tense. Hanna followed, still pulling on the black and white striped referee shirt Flor had thrown at her moments before. Meanwhile, the taciturn Latina pecked at a nearby laptop, confirming that the cameras would actually record every steamy second Kathy had planned.

“What position do you wanna be in when you cum?” Kathy heard the confidence and aggression sharpening Samantha’s normally mellow voice. This woman was preparing to hurt her. To dominate her. Kathy intended to deny her the chance.

“Yeah, actually. ‘Riding you cowgirl style.’ Imagine me cumming all over your face. Anyways, Tits McGee, when was the last time you were able to touch your elbows together?” Kathy taunted the statuesque blonde wrestler. Sam’s swimsuit hid little of her massive bust, or much of her at all, and her imposing arms, shoulders, and back promised ill tidings if Kathy let her get a good grip.

“Freshman year—of high school—and fuck you for asking.” Sam demonstrated the futility of the task. “I’ve heard every ‘big boobs’ joke ever written.”

Kathy didn’t care about the specific answer. She just wanted Samantha to think about anything besides pinning her to the mats.

“When was the last time you saw your natural hair color?” Samantha asked in turn.

Kathy declined to answer the question but hadn’t expected the blonde’s retort at all. Samantha might be new to Mixed Martial Arts but her composure reminded her friend that she was a seasoned freestyle wrestler.

“Hey Malibu! Ready to lose to a fucking streamer?” Flor teased from outside the cage.

“Nah brah. Nothing’s gonna stop me from folding Kathy like a 3-ring binder.” Sam said, adjusting the white scrunchie holding her messy blonde hair “Wait... shit.” The towering blonde put her palms out, “Binders fold right? I haven’t used one since high school. Fuck! Now I’m overthinking it...” Samantha rambled a little longer, tracing her lines of thought for the benefit of her friends before dismissing the matter entirely. “Whatever. Fuck it. Let’s just fight.”

Kathy assured her big, blonde friend that she was not their big, dumb blonde friend. Standing across the cage from each other, Kathy Liu and Samantha Gaines became Calamity Jade and Monica Tides. When Flor confirmed the cameras were rolling, their referee offered as cursory an introduction as any of them could remember seeing. The timer blared to start the round, the two warriors touched gloves, and Beat, Prey, Love’s first bout had finally begun.