One.
The corporate headquarters of J.W. Simms Esq, founder and chief commissioner of Continental Championship Wrestling, were usually split evenly between the back seat and trunk of his car. So when someone offered him a side room in the gym we were using for a CCW show, Simms acted like he'd found the keys to the Oval Office in a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was sitting in his new operations center, waiting for him to get off the phone. His desk was the top of a two-drawer filing cabinet with a telephone, filofax and battered brown briefcase all fighting for position. In his open briefcase I could see a legal note-pad, the oil-stained wax paper from a long-eaten sandwich and his personal copy of the PWI 500, with carefully composed notes like "bullshit" and "like hell" written into the margins. "I'm tellin' ya Arnold, ya gotta stop worrying aboudit," he was saying, his broad flat brow beading with sweat. It was 95 in the shade outside and the concrete-block walls were transferring every last degree. "Yeah, look Arnold. Yeah. Arnold. Look. I gotta go. I'll get bagdaya on that." He hung up the bone-coloured telephone and hooked a finger into the collar of his shirt. "Bigfoot McGurk," he said, by way of explanation. "Upset cos he found his name in summing called Where Are They Now? on the Innernet." "So why don't you book him?" I said, not really caring. I was beginning to sweat, too, and I hadn't come to discuss national monuments. "Cos he can't walk inno a ring without fallin over frum azma, or some shit. My granma couldn't sell a move for him." I was nursing a bruised shoulder from last week's show and desperately wanted to get away from Simms and his halo of personal odour. It was eight months since I started in CCW and there were things I wanted to discuss. "Look, Mr Simms," I said. "There are some things I wanted to ask you. You said if there ever was anything, right?" He nodded. "Shoot." "First off, my ring name -- Jason Striker. I hate it. I sound like a porn star." "Nuttin I can do, kid. The mugs know you by that name now." "Second of all, my entrance music. The fuckin' Spice Girls? I mean, come on." Simms leant forward on his elbows, tipping his briefcase onto the concrete floor. "Look, Chad. I'd like to help ya out. I would. But them Spice Girls -- the kids love em. You're a good lookin' kid, you're 19 and those udder kids are your market. There's nuttin I can do." "Shit, Mr Simms," I started, but he held up his hand. "I know you been teaming with Aaron for awhile now and I'm not stupid -- I know you kids don't exactly get along. So I'm gonna cut you a break. A title shot." "Yeah?" I said, suspiciously. "What title?" "Cruiserweight," he said proudly. My heart sank. The Cruiserweight champ was someone I'd got to know, one of the few guys in the whole outfit who wasn't a complete asshole. He was a tightly-muscled, 24 year-old African American who wrestled under the name Shemar Wilson, although his real name was Joe. I used to wait to take my shower until he came out of his fight, and I was always amazed how he could keep his long, fat dick tied up in those little red tights. "Couldn't you book me against Kid California or someone?" I said. Now there was a jerk whose head I could quite easily put through a table -- and I longed to see first-hand just how well his tanned, perfectly-toned body actually worked. "Nuttin doin kid. I booked you against Shemar" -- he always mispronounced it so it rhymed with lemur' -- "this Saturday night. You're second from the top on da card." "Bullshit!" a voice behind me yelled. I knew who it was before I turned around -- Aaron. He was standing at the door wearing dirty green shorts and an old pair of Nikes, a football clamped between his hand and his waste. The light was coming from behind him and his bare, sweaty torso made him glow -- I was a year older than him and a little better developed, but he had a lean, fearless bitterness which could scare me. "Now Aaron ... " started Simms, but he didn't get far. "That's bullshit and you know it," he said, coming into the room. "I been with this outfit since I was 16, and if anyone's going up against that motherfucker on Saturday it's me!" "Now, Aaron, jest calm down a little ... " said Simms, but it was too late. My tag partner was spitting mad and he was standing right over me. I moved to get out of my chair and he pushed me, his hot hand leaving a wet mark on the chest of my tight white t-shirt. I fell back against Simms' filing cabinet and knocked over the telephone, but I didn't fall over. "I'm telling you, pussy-boy," said Aaron with his finger in my face and beams of pure hatred coming out of his eyes, "there's somethin not right here and I aim to fix it." With that he turned and left the room. Simms seemed more shaken than me, but he picked his stuff off the floor and tried to restore his normal, obnoxious voice. "I'm telling you, kid," he said. "I been in this business long enough to know pro-rasslin attracts only three types of people: psychos, faggots and the just-plain-stupid. And the only type that gets anywhere is the first."
Two.
Thirty minutes before the fight I had my own little ritual to keep my mind off things till bell time. When I wrestled with Aaron in the stupidly-named "Teen Ragers" I wore yellow, but in singles competition I had tight white speedo-briefs with white boots and wrist-bands, to wipe off the sweat. I could tell I was going to need them tonight because it was almost nine-thirty and you could still fry an egg on the carpark. There was a full-length mirror for the wrestlers and I'd taken to covering myself with a thin coat of baby oil, to make my muscles stand out. I was still slender, but eight months of knocks had hardened my arms and chest and I enjoyed wearing tight street clothes to show off the way my nipples pushed out against cotton shirts. My blond hair was short at the back and sides with just a lick that fell over one eye -- not enough to block my view, but enough to get people excited. I had a deep, summer tan and sometimes in photographs the oil picked up the tiny, almost invisible layer of downy white hair that spread from my tight, boyish stomach, over my growng chest and down into little v-shaped flutes in the small of my back. My cock tensed a little as I looked at myself, but I had a trick with the way I wore my jockstrap to hold it in when it got fat during matches. It usually did. I wanted to look great tonight because I would be competing for the crowd's support against Shemar, who was one of the handsomest men in the promotion. His body looked like it had been sculpted, not just formed from the same skin and bone as you and me. A natural athlete, he always wore white boots, matching red knee and shoulder pads and red speedo tights. His coffee-coloured thighs ballooned over his knee-pads and sloped back into an impossibly slender waist, with abs you could grate a carrot on. His chest looked like it could've kept the Titanic afloat, and his already generously-proportioned arms seemed to triple in size when he flexed a bicep. To top it all off he had a lantern jaw, mile-high cheekbones and not more than a few milimeters of tough black hair that covered his perfectly-proportioned head. Sometimes, at night, I used to imagine myself sliding into his soft, dark pink lips like I was settling into an easy chair ... "Hey there," said someone behind me. I started, suddenly aware that my dick was erect and my clever little jock-strap trick was not doing its job. It was Shemar. Looking at him now, in the flesh, I realised that I had only appreciated about one percent of how beautiful he was. The only thing I hadn't remembered in detail was the thin, razor-sharp coating of regrowth hair on his chest, which he said he didn't like waxing because of in-growns. "I know it's not really, you know, etiquette to talk before the show," he said, "but I just wanted to say good luck." With that he stuck out his hand and I felt my heart run down my arm and leap from my palm to his like a bolt of static electricity.
Three.
The champ always gets to come in second. So I stood there, waving desperately at the crowd after having shaken about a thousand hands on the way into the ring and pumping each and every one of them like it belonged to my best friend. The announcer, a jolly man with a sparkly cummerbund who got a personal Christmas card every year from the Jack Daniels company, read out my porn star name and the girls at the ring barrier waggled their tits in time to the Spice Girls. "Alex fuckin' Wright doesn't have to put up with this," I muttered through my smile, and waited for the Shemar sound and light show. Sure enough the arena lights dropped and Shemar, wearing a rhinestone-decorated red nylon robe and grooving down the aisle to Smash Mouth, was picked out in a single bright spot. The crowd went bananas as he paused to sign a few autographs, and I swear some huge woman had to be carried out on a stretcher when he entered the ring with a sommersault over the top rope. He opened his robe like it was the box that held the Ark of the Covenant, and there, somewhere above the small child that he carried in his tights, was the Cruiserweight belt. Duely displayed and dispensed with, he walked into the centre of the ring and elicited the biggest cheer of the night by extending his hand once more to me. I could've killed him with a mixture of lust, jealously and coiled-up anticipation for the violence that was about to follow. "`Luck, Chad," he said through tight lips. "Yeah, Joe. You too."
Four.
Shemar's finisher could take a wrestler with an hour's fight left in him and lay him out cold. From looking you straight in the eye he flipped into a backward handstand, grabbed your head between his thighs and then flipped forward again, landing you flat on your back with him kneeling on your throat and upper chest. You got a great view of his crotch, an unscheduled nap and a thorax you had to put back togteher like a jigsaw puzzle. The 6' athlete god was still acknowledging the cheers from crowd 30 seconds after bell time. His exposed back was the perfect opportunity for an attack but I felt I needed the support of the crowd if I was going to get anywhere with the match. A hostile crowd isn't just discouraging, you can't get out of the ring without being covered in beer, popcorn and whatever is small, hard and throwable from a woman's purse. Finally I decided on a risky move -- approaching him, I tapped him on his left shoulder and ducked, planning to plant him with a shoulder block to the abs and send him neatly into the turnbuckle. But no sooner had I touched him and started to duck, the sole of his boot came up and connected with my stooping face. I was layed flat on my back and the crowd screamed with laughter and approval -- sadistic fuckers. Shemar stood above me, smiling. Once more he offered me his hand -- to help me up -- but I decided not to add insult to injury. So I resisted the temptation to kick him in the balls and got up myself, pressing the back of my hand to my mouth and checking it for blood. Now he approached for a lock-up, which I gave him. It wasn't easy because he was taller and incomparably better built than me, but it would have been even more humiliating to back down. With ridiculous ease he pressed me down by the back of my neck and clamped me into a reverse headlock. My body tensed and I waited for what was coming next -- weirdly aware at the back of my mind that this was probably the last time in the match I'd enjoy being pressed to his skin. The left side of my face was smooshed into his lats and I noticed that he smelled of deliciously of sweat and talc ... I felt a white-hot, lung-crushing explosion of pain as he brought a forearm down between my shoulder-blades. I raised my hands, expecting to hit the canvas with my face ... but no. He was still holding me. His arm came down once more, and then again, in exactly the same place. My grunts were stiffled against the pressure his thick arm was exerting on my throat and I felt the strength drain from my knees. He adjusted his grip to crush my Adam's apple and I desperately started scraping at his arm, flecks of white spittle shooting from my mouth. But he was just tightening his grip for the next move, heaving me over so he landed comfortably on his ass while I skidded wildly across the canvas, winding me completely and leaving a generous layer of my skin on the mat. As I groggily opened my eyes I saw I'd come to rest in a corner, just near the time-keeper's desk where the announcer was wincing in empathised pain. Even from here, his Coke can smelt of whiskey. Just as I tried to lift my head I felt a tight grip on the heel of my right boot. Startled, I looked around to see Shemar's broad white smile beaming at me from outside the ring. He gently opened my legs, tugged me towards him and slammed my right knee into the ring-post. I howled with pain and tried to grip my flaming joint, but too late to stop him slamming the knee once more into the cold metal pole. My knee-pad had twisted in my last fall and offered no protection at all, and I leaned forward, holding myself up by gripping the lower ring ropes. Shemar turned and held up both arms to the crowd, showing me the incredible V of muscle his back tapered into where it disappeared into his tights. In another moment he had turned around again, grabbed both my boots and heaved me forward, slamming my crotch into the post. The pain -- incredible, debilitating -- was so intense it had the effect of a cold shower. I quickly tucked my legs in, pressed my hands into my throbbing cock and balls and half crawled, half bounced my way away from the ropes. I guess the crowd was cheering but through my pain the whole world sounded like it was on a roller-coaster, the noise swooping in and out of my addled perception. But one thing was for fucking certain -- the gloves were off with Shemar.
Five.
The big African-American was taking his time climbing back into the ring. My head started to clear almost enough to complain that the Ref wasn't counting him out, but not quite. Finally, from my canvas-level view, I spotted him posing for a photograph at ringside with a woman who looked like Ernest Borgnine. Slowly, painfully, I crawled toward the other side of the ring. My crotch was hurting so much I couldn't use my legs effectively, and just as I reached for the bottom rope a ring photographer's flash-bulb exploded in my face. I cursed him, but he just looked at me blankly and wound onto the next frame. Taking one last look at Shemar, who was flexing his arms now, both at the same time, I dropped ingloriously to the floor on the other side of the ring. Crawling to the green metal ring stairs, I crouched with my back to the ring apron to catch my breath. And wait. With both of us out of the ring now the Ref started to count -- selective bastard -- and in another moment, there was the white flash of Shemar's boot on the steps. With both hands I grabbed his ankle and stood bolt upright, tipping him violently backwards. He landed with a booming crack on his shoulders, his head slamming hard onto the floor. And, oh look. He missed the padded mats. The people on either side of the entrance aisle went eerily quiet, half-chewed popcorn visible in a dozen open mouths. Shemar wasn't out cold but his eyes were blinking groggily, and he was trying to lift his hands to his head but all co-ordination seemed to have left him. I hadn't fully recovered but I was in a lot better shape than Mr Universe there. Nor had I figured myself for a heel, but with surprising aplomb I found myself saying to anyone close enough to hear: "Ladies and gentleman," and with both arms held up at the elbow, like a surgeon waiting for his gloves, I planted a boot into Shemar's ribs. It felt good. Shemar wailed in pain but his reactions still weren't happening. I nudged his ribcage delicately with the toe of my boot, thinking for just one moment how good my white leather looked against his molases-coloured muscles. When I thought I'd found the bruise I kicked him again. Harder. He rolled over on his left side now, holding himself and just barely whimpering. I figured I had to get out of there before I started using Coors cologne, so I gripped him by the back of the neck and started to lift. I was surprised at how heavy he was -- the weights they announced before the matches were as made up as our names, but this guy seemed like he could've been 240 pounds. So I gripped his thick neck with both hands, taking care to dig the tips of my fingers deep into the muscle. He was on his feet now, groggy and sagging at the knees. At the far corner of the ring that photographer appeared again, and in a flash of inspiration I hoisted Shemar's head up, cupped his strong chin with my free hand and said: "Smile!" He was like a rag-doll hung on a hook, his enormous shoulders sagging and his two massive arms swinging like lead pendulums. Like this his waist seemed even smaller and his huge chest even bigger, making him ridiculously top-heavy. When the flash went off I looked quickly into his handsome face -- if his pupils were still behind those thin cracks in his eyelids, I couldn't see them -- and launched him towards the ring-post. Shemar hit forehead first, his arms swinging around with momentum like he was hugging a sweetheart, and then dropping away insensibly. Slowly, almost in slow motion, he fell backward like a California redwood. I walked over to the limp stud, and paused for a moment to catch my breath. The mood in the arena was eerie -- the roar had left the crowd and it seemed like one enourmous beast, puzzled and silent, as if trying to make up its tiny, prehistoric mind. I considered for a brief moment hoisting Shemar to his feet and dumping him face-first through the time-keeper's table, visualising his tight, red-clad butt sticking up from the rubble like an invitation to dinner. But no -- that'd get me disqualified and if there was any way I could get out of this match with that shiny gold belt and the audience behind me, I was going to go for it. So I dumped him like a sack of trash back into the ring and climbed in after him. Even after all the punishment he had taken, Shemar was not only still conscious but seeming to recover. I knew I had to do something quickly -- his powers of recovery were a minor legend in the CCW. I went to the nearest ring-post and climbed up hastily. From the top of the trunbuckles I could see the whole arena, and there Shemar lay on his back, a mountain of muscle in tiny red tights that seemed a hundred feet beneath me. He was hugging the back of his throbbing head with his hands, body tensed and elbows poised as if he were about to do a sit-up. He was incredibly sexy in his vulnerability, and my crotch stirred as I realised at that moment I could do whatever I wanted to him, whatever way I wanted. So I stopped to flex my own biceps, and in that instant the crowd roared like a blast of hot air from the biggest fucking jet engine in the world -- the flash-bulbs bursting all around me, an armed escort of fireflys lifting me higher and higher into the stratosphere. I cocked my elbow to scatter Shemar's abs like six glass marbles and dropped through space, gloriously, tripumphantly, straight into the champion's knee.
Six.
If my jaw were still somewhere on my body it wasn't on my face where I left it. Perhaps it was swinging comically around the bottom of my neck, like a well-pitched horseshoe. The glare of the flash-bulbs had transformed seemlessly into a galaxy of pain, my eyes transmitting pictures of crazy, improbable angles and arguing stongly that the ring mat had become attached to the ceiling of the auditorium. I figured that if ever I'd broken anything in a wrestling match, I'd broken something now. Madly, dumbly, like crab with a nerve disorder, I scuttled into the corner. There at least I could prop myself up while the world turned cartwheels around me. Insanely, when at last my head cleared enough to see straight, I saw that Shemar too was propped weakly in the adjacent corner. Whether I had hurt him also on the way down, or he was still groggy from the punishment I had given him outside the ring, at least he was too disoriented to attack. There wasn't a fat ass on a chair in the whole place. Although I felt like puking everything north of my toenails I knew I had to get Shemar before he recovered any further. With all the grace of a dead walrus falling out a closet door I lunged at him and connected with a double axe-handle to his head. He bellowed and fell back into the turnbuckles, his chin pointing to the ceiling and his incredible abs just begging to be strummed like a banjo. I shucked my knee-pad down to my ankle and softened him with a bare right knee to the gut -- which still hurt like hell, on account of the number with the ring post. His neck snapped back and his grip on the ropes tightened, being all that was holding him up. I kneed him again in the gut and another time more, keeping up the pounding until I could feel his muscles loosen and separate. As his grip on the ropes slackened I wrapped my left hand around his throat and went to work with my right fist. A low wail uncoiled from his windpipe like a released spirit, and I kept pounding, finishing the barage with a right-left combo to those damn perfect cheekbones of his. As the sweat started to darken his tight red speedos my own dick began to stiffen and strain against the elastic of my jock-strap. Administering the beating had been taking it out of me, too, and I needed a low-energy move that would keep Shemar out of action for a little while longer. He was drenched with perspiration now and spinning him around by his rock-like shoulders wasn't easy, but in a moment I had my hand splayed over the back of his head and was pressing his face hard into the top of the rope. When he realised what was about to happen he started to struggle, but he was too weak from the beating to do much to resist. His apprehension was an aphrodisiac to me, and at that moment I could have shot a bucket into my tight white speedos. I wish I could say he pleaded, or begged, but he didn't -- he just began to scream as I scraped the skin of his face over the rope. I sped up as I reached the other turnbuckle and launched him into it for good measure. He bounced off it like his head was made of basketball and collapsed back from the corner. There were those abs again -- I couldn't resist gripping the corner ropes and jumping onto them with my toes bent into two sharp little points. He twitched violently when I landed but his eyes remained closed fast and I figured I had to have almost beaten him into a coma. Keeping my gaze directly on him, I allowed myself to raise one arm in anticipated victory -- to my amazement, the crowd roared its approval. Perhaps it wasn't going to be such a bad night after all. With the fight beaten out of him Shemar was heavier than ever. I stood above him and watched once more for any flickering behind his eyelids, saw none, and squatted over his boots. I was going to end it with a crab and if he didn't submit, the Ref could drop his limp arm three times to the canvas. I rolled the huge man over and shuffled his white boots into position. Just as I began to sink my weight down I was pleased to see that photographer again, poised to get a perfect shot of Shemar's legas and my face, written all over with victory. The first I felt was a twinge in Shemar's thighs, like a muscle spasm. Good, I thought. If he's cramping it'll hurt more. But the spasm grew stronger and the next moment he threw his legs out with the force of a burst dam, starightening them violently and sending me straight towards the turnbuckle. The next time I opened my eyes I realised I'd missed the turnbuckles and smashed directly into the metal post.
Seven.
Shemar was standing unsteadily above me, a wobbling giant. I had been thrown into the cente of the ring, body aching from more than just the impact of the ring post -- whatever he'd just done to me, I had an imprint of pain from my neck to my ankles. The Ref was holding my wrist in his right hand as if to check my pulse, and in the last moment I realised what was going on. His left hand had two fingers raised and he let my wrist go, leaving it to fall like a sock full of gravel to the canvas. With an effort in my upper back which sent a seam of pain from one shoulder to the other, I sent every iota of energy into that arm to stop it hitting the mat. I was successful -- just -- and the crowd whooped with a single voice. The Ref stood up and held his two fingers up to the audience and the time-keeper, but I had no time to appreciate the smattering of applause which was, presumably, for me. Shemar brought his knee hard down onto my chest and I coughed up a wad of phlegm as I grunted in pain. The wad was stained with red, and I realised that I only had a matter of minutes left in this fight. Shemar fell on me once more, connecting his fist to my forehead. I gripped it in agony, and the next thing I knew he was hoisting me to my feet. Despite all he'd been through Shemar was still incredibly strong; unbelievably, he lifted me onto his shoulder and walked us both slowly toward the ropes. I knew this was the end -- if he heaved me over the ropes I was going to pass out, and be counted out of the ring. But Shemar had gone just two steps when he began to sway, and I could feel the strength going out of his legs. Trying to stay upright he dropped me in a clumsily-executed slam, which hurt the hell out of my shoulder but wasn't as bad as it could have been. I could only lie there stupidly and glare up at him, the topography of his muscualr body standing out like some incredible landscape. Almost delerious with pain I remember looking blankly at his navel like it were a well in a meadow, and thinking: "When I die, I'd like to be buried there ... " Shemar wrenched me up painfully by one arm, until I was standing crooked but more or less erect, and looked me in the eye. I knew the finisher was coming, and wondered idly whether I'd still be conscious in the 0.5 of a second it'd take my head to hit the canvas. But instead of flipping powerfully onto his hands Shemar took one staggered step backward, and then another half step. He was in better shape than me but I realised he was incapable of putting me away with the move that made him famous. Groggily, he reached to grab me by the bicep -- his hand sliding off my sweaty flesh once and leaving a trail of scratch-marks, but then reaching again and grabbing me tight -- and spun me once in a full circle around him. The force of that alone was almost enough to put me out, but he let go of my arm and I sailed straight into a turnbuckle, front first. That was it for me -- I hit hard, and I fell straight backward. The blood was flavouring my mouth now and I waited for the final elbow slam or leg drop which was going to precede the cover. There was the expected flash of white boot and red trunks above me, divided by the dark, beautiful expanse of his incredbile thigh. I welcomed the hit which would be my last for the night. I opened my eyes and for a moment and, inexplicably, he wasn't there. Then I heard a sound like that irresistible force meeting that immovable object, a single gasp from a thousand throats and, summoning the last ounce of energy in my body, I cocked my chin down so I could see where he went. Shemar had gone to head-butt me against the corner and found nobody home. There he was hanging, as if he'd been posted, body limp between the top end second turnbuckle, his head crammed tight against the unfeeling metal pole. His butt quivered once, then again, and he sunk slowly, pathetically to his knees, as if he were kneeling to lay his head in someone's lap. The black-and-white figure of the Ref was hovering somewhere around me but, God bless his stupid head, he had no idea what to do. I guess he couldn't work out whether to check me for consciousness, check him for consciousness or just book an ambulance with room enough for two. But I knew what to do. I gave myself the luxury of three more seconds to recover, spat out a mouthful of blood and reached my hand out to that butt which was sucking red nylon into its crack like water down a hole in the ocean. I grabbed the top of his speedos and yanked, rolling out of the big man's way as I did. Victory always gave me a hard-on and here was the added bonus of one great look at Shemar's bare ass, grinning at me, until the elastic on his tights snapped back into place. One or two women with a decent view at ringside tittered excitedly at the spectacle and I just rolled me a great big ball of muscle, like my moma rolling out the cookie dough. His huge thighs formed the perfect lever and their sheer mass helped press his shoulders deep into the puckering canvas. I don't know whether he was conscious then or he wasn't -- I kind of hoped he was -- and I pressed my crotch into the back of his tights as the Ref collapsed to the mat and started banging his hand. Shemar's arms were out last like a crucifix -- one hand proably close enough to grab a rope, had he been in any state to think, and the other flopped into the centre of the ring, his wrist curling slightly at the palm like God reaching out to Adam. My dick had been through a lot but it appreciated being nestled into Shemar's ass, even with two pairs of tights between it and its new best friend. Too soon came the three count, too soon the final bell. I stayed on top of the mass of muscle for as long as I could without tempting the Ref to disqualify me for applying a hold after the end of the match, and he had to help me stand as he raised my arm in victory. Shemar uncrumpled on the canvas and began slowly to move his head, as if waking up with the world's champion hang-over. I longed to plant just one more boot into his ribs, but at that moment the accumulated pain and nausea of the fight began to rise in my stomach like yesterday's rotten curry. Somewhere in the distance a gold belt was being handed through the ropes and people were cheering. But me, I allowed myself to let go of whatever it was inside me I was using to keep myself up; thinking dreamily as I closed my eyes of holding Aaron by the hair as I smacked his face into my brand new belt, or of tying Kid California into the ring ropes and going to town on the very best work Soloflex ever did ...