“Amanda!”

“Say it in French,” Giselle offers. “Everything sounds better in the language of love.” She says a few sentences in a low, sultry voice. My mouth drops open.

“So beautiful. What did you say?”

Giselle translates, and I suck in a sharp breath. “That’s absolutely filthy.”

“I will teach you. You will whisper in your man’s ear and voilà. La sex.”

“Sex is not really the problem,” I inform her. “Now that I’ve been forced to bare my most intimate moments, I think the problem may be that he likes to be controlling all the time and I only like it…some of the time.”

“In the bedroom!” Giselle says, as if she knew it all along.

For the next fifteen minutes, Giselle waxes and rips, over and over and over again until my throat is hoarse and tears stream down my face. At least I have overcome my good manners and reticence to talk dirty. By the time she tells me there is only one strip to go, I have called Giselle every filthy name I know.

Her cold fingers pat down over something cold fingers shouldn’t touch. Good thing we’re friends. “I always save the landing strip for last,” she says.

I peer down below. Oh God. No. Not there. Not there. “Let’s just stop now. I like this look. Sort of like a shorn sheep with a five o’clock shadow on his back.”

Riiiiiiiip.

“Ahhhhhgh.” My scream strangles me. “No la sex. Never again. I’ll never even be able to look at a man after this.”

Giselle soothes lotion over the torture site. “Your man won’t complain.”

“He’s not my man. I ran away. He’ll probably never want to talk to me again. He’ll think I’m a love ’em and leave ’em kind of girl.”

“If you mean something to him, he’ll come looking for you,” Giselle says. “And when he does, you can beguile him with the new you.” She holds a mirror in front of my nether regions and angles it for me to see. “Finis! What do you think?”

I gasp. “I look like a plucked chicken.”

Giselle nods, her face grim. “Yes, you do. You should stay away from him for at least a day. This is not so appealing to men and not so pleasant when it comes to la sex.”

“So, how do you feel?” Amanda emerges from behind her partition fully clothed and without a hair out of place.

“Exposed. It’s not a comfortable feeling.”

Amanda smiles. “Don’t worry. It’s worth it in the end.”

Chapter 17

Where it all falls down

By seven o’clock I am at Redemption, bare, sensitive, and ready to work. For the first hour, I hide in the first aid room in case I bump into Max. If I wasn’t so desperate for money, I would never have shown up tonight.

Rampage stops by to tell me Max is caught up in a business deal and won’t be at the club tonight. My shoulders sag and I slump back in my chair. Thank God. Even after my chat with Giselle, I am still not ready to face him.

I open the cupboard to inventory the supplies for the tenth time that evening. A cough alerts me to Rampage’s continued presence in the room.

“Was there something else?”

Rampage clears his throat. He smoothes the sheet on the bed. He polishes the doorknobs on the cabinet with his T-shirt. He leans against the door frame and tells me Homicide’s wife has been at the club three times this week, and Homicide is now a contented man. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

“I’m happy for him,” I say.

Rampage sighs. “Guess I’d better get going.” He turns and shuffle hops to the door.

“Something wrong with your leg?”

He whips around and smiles. “Yeah, doc. I think I twisted my knee.”

Curious. I would have thought he would be disappointed—devastated even—to have an injury. An injury means less training time and fewer fights.

Rampage leaps up on the bed with an enthusiasm I have never seen in an injured fighter. While I examine his knee, he inveigles advice from me about how to win the heart of the fair Pinkaluscious. I am more than delighted to help him divert her attention from Max, even if he never wants to see me again.

If I can’t have him, neither can she.

I tell Rampage I can’t find anything wrong with his knee. He pats me on the back and assures me he won’t hold it against me. He shuffle hops out of the room, this time favoring the opposite leg.

Hmmm.

Half an hour later, I am inundated with fighters suffering from injuries ranging from a sore finger to a splinter. For every fighter with a semiserious injury, I treat at least three more who present with fake injuries for the sole purpose of extracting relationship advice from me. Men, it seems, have as many issues and worries as women—maybe more.

After the club officially shuts down, the core members haul out the beer kegs, and I am invited to join the party. Rampage cuts loose and leads the Electric Slide in the ring. The Blade Saw—he insists I call him Blade Saw, even if it means putting up with my laughter—runs up and down the bleachers, screaming and punching his fists in the air every time he reaches the top.

We consume copious amounts of alcohol. Pinkaluscious and I become best friends. She gives me the scoop on Max’s past relationships but says nothing about what happened between them. I become depressed and drink some more. I teach Eugene “Hammer Fist” Smits how to mambo. A few of the other fighters try to teach me some moves on the practice mats. Due to my inebriated state, I spend most of the lesson giggling on the floor. Rampage dares me to stop Blade Saw’s incessant running by flipping my skirt and flashing my cheeks. I comply. Blade Saw stops and screams at my ass. It is the best party ever.