Jane's interview




WANTED: One bouncer

Place: Henry's Bar & Grill

Requirements: Must be strong, a good fighter, both friendly and no-nonsense

Call 927-865-2388

OR

Find us at 8643 West Jacobs Street

Notice: Be ready to test your skills.

Henry Thomas looked at the poster appraisingly, though his mouth was quirked
in a sour frown. He'd spent a good bit of money printing off hundreds of these
different flyers, and spent most of a day getting all of them put up. He'd
gotten ten different applicants to the bouncer job, but none of them had been
what he had been looking for. Some had been too wimpy, others too aggressive,
still others had just gotten drunk themselves instead of looking for people
causing a fuss. The men all been so promising before the actual test, being
strong and friendly ... but not so much the no-nonsense part.

He had one more interview left tonight after two weeks. Hopefully, they'd be
what he needed, but if they weren't he'd have to try something else; institute
a drink limit, a last call, or give the staff Tazers or something. He shook
his head again, then looked up at a knock on his office door. "Yes?"

"Henry Thomas?" a female voice said through the door. "I'm here about the
interview for your bouncer position?"

A girl? That was new. He'd only had male applicants so far. He gave a soft
sigh, then nodded. "Right, right. Come on in."

The door opened and the girl walked in. She looked to be in her early
thirties, tall and brunette and also slim but her arms and legs looked pretty
muscular. Her chest was fairly modest, thankfully not anything that would
probably get in her way if she needed to fight. Her hair was done up in a
ponytail, and she was clad in a pair of loose blue jeans and a grey shirt. She
looked professional enough; Henry crossed that off of his mental list.

"My name's Jane," she said, holding out a hand as Henry stood up and shook.

"Well, you're the first girl we've had," he said, gesturing to the seat in
front of her. "Go on, have a seat."

The girl did so, looking around the office as Henry sat back down. Henry was
the third person to own the building: it had started out as a strip club, but
the second owner had turned it into a bar and grill, which Henry had bought.
From there he'd made it into the talk of the district, and the place was busy
nearly every night. Once Henry had done away with the last call of the
previous owner business had picked up, and so had instances of drunken
violence. After his last bouncer had quit following someone being knifed,
Henry had been forced to temporarily close the bar while he took on a new
bouncer.

The office showed signs of the restaurant's thirty years. The wood on the
walls was stained with soot from cigarette smoke (Henry himself didn't smoke
but the previous owner had) and various pictures hung on the walls, showing
the staff at the re-opening, pictures of Henry working, or interacting with
patrons. His desk was a sort of messy clean, two stacks of papers put in
hampers as they waited for him to address them, and a lamp and desk clock
completed it.

"So, you want to be our bouncer?" he asked, folding his arms as he leaned back
in his chair. "Can I ask why?"

"I think I'd be good at it," she said, her blue eyes looking at Henry up and
down. Henry hoped that she wasn't mocking him inwardly; he didn't do much to
keep himself in shape and so a small pot gut had developed from beer and fried
foods that he'd eaten in his own restaurant. He was in his late thirties,
older than her, and his arms were fairly muscular.

"And why do you think that?"

"Well, I was in an MMA club in college," she said. "I worked as mall security
for three years, too."

Henry's eyebrows rose as he listened to her. Didn't expect that, though her
physique supported it. "Well, that would definitely help with keeping order
here. A lot of our guys are dockyard staff or construction workers, big burly
guys. You think you could take any of them?"

"I've taken on guys around that size," Jane replied, nodding confidently.
"Guys aren't good fighters when they're drunk."

"Hm." Henry nodded, then got up. "Well, to be honest the interview part for
this isn't really that important. What's important is what you can do, and
you'll have to show me that." He kept his eyes on Jane's face as she got up.
"So, what we'll do is, we--."

THUMP.

"Urk?" Henry was cut off mid-sentence as he felt something hard bury itself in
his stomach, and heard a soft, spongy thud. He looked down, seeing a fist
buried in his gut halfway to the wrist, then traced the arm the fist was
attached to back to Jane. "Wh-wh ... wha ... ?"

Jane gave him a mischievous smile. "You said to show you what I could do. So
that's what I'm doing." With that she jerked her fist out of Henry's stomach,
sending him wheezing down to his desk as he supported himself on it. He'd been
caught off guard by the punch; his legs shook as he tried to hold himself up,
and he looked back up at Jane just in time to see her throw another punch.
This time it was an uppercut that clocked Henry square on the chin, throwing
his head upward. Spit flew from his lips up to the ceiling and he staggered
backwards, knocking over his chair as he crossed the three steps to the wall
and thumped his back against it.

As Henry stood against the wall, trying to get his bearings back, Jane rounded
the desk. Henry didn't even have time to react before she put a hand on his
shoulder and threw an uppercut forward.

"HOOOOOOOOOMPH!" Henry's cheeks inflated and his eyes bulged as he draped over
Jane's fist while it sank into his gut. She kicked his chair out of the way as
he hung there, choking on air while she braced her foot against his desk and
pushed it towards the door.

"Gotta have enough room," she said before pushing Henry back up against the
wall. The next thing Henry felt was a series of jabs that had him thumping
against the wall as Jane's fists pummeled his belly. Henry's mouth dropped
open in a small "o" shape as his back thumped against the wall while Jane's
fists thumped against his belly, each blow leaving a small, short-lived crater
in his shirt-clad pot gut. His cheeks quickly puffed out and then back in as
short bursts of breath were belted from his body, each puff letting out a soft
"oof."

Ordinarily he would have done something to try and fight back; tried to punch
her, tried to run, whatever, but with just a few hits she'd gotten rid of
Henry. Right now Henry was just a punched gut in body and mind, each of Jane's
fists burying themselves in his thick gut with a spongy thud that filled his
ears.

When Jane finally stopped hitting him he wheezed and staggered forward. Jane
stepped out of the way, leaving Henry to collapse over his desk. As he sank to
his knees, his cheek smushing against the wood, Jane grabbed him by the back
of his shirt and hauled him back upward, spinning him around. Woozy from a
lack of air Henry had enough time to see Jane's open hand flying towards his
face before it impacted right on his cheek.

SPLAT.

Henry's cheek rolled up with the force of the slap, and as dazed as he was he
spun back around, collapsing onto his desk and rolling off of it to the other
side. As he landed heavily on the ground on his back Jane was already coming
around, straddling his legs and rolling the bottom of his shirt up to expose
his pot gut. As she cracked her knuckles, Henry could do little but lift his
head up and watch dazedly as Jane began to plunge her fists into his soft
belly.

To be honest, he thought woozily as his legs weakly kicked and his body
bounced up and down off the floor as soft, squishy thuds echoed around the
office, this wasn't the first time he'd been beaten up. In the first year that
he'd owned the restaurant, one night he'd advertised a drunken boxing
tournament. People would have to get legally drunk before gloving up and
stepping into the ring. The thing had been a resounding success; thousands of
dollars had been earned from that night for membership fees, glove rentals,
and all the alcohol.

Henry had seen beer gut after beer gut get crushed inward by gloves, but
thankfully no one had thrown up even as people were knocked out and laid out
in a designated spot altogether. Eventually the final person, a muscular
looking guy taller than Henry's own six feet, had been set to win the grand
prize: free meals at the restaurant for six months, if he could beat Henry
himself in boxing.

Henry wasn't a fighter himself; he'd only ever punched when he was with
friends, and those had been play fights for the most part, nothing serious. A
few playful shots to the gut and socking each other in the cheeks, but all in
good fun. Henry had reckoned that whatever drunken idiot would make it to the
end of the tournament brackets would be easy pickings, unable to even stand
up. He'd been very wrong. The guy, while legally drunk, could hold his liquor
better than most, and he was a boxer by trade to boot. Henry had been utterly
clobbered throughout the three rounds that the fight had lasted, the man's
huge gloves crushing his gut inward again and again as his cheeks were rolled
up by punches to the face. Eventually a blistering haymaker to his cheek that
had caused it to roll up and conceal almost half of his face had spun Henry on
his heel a few times before leaving him draped limply over the ropes, out
cold.

He'd recovered, of course, and the guy was now invited over to get-togethers
with Henry and his friends, where more often than not the five others, Henry
included, wound up piled on the ground, placed there by the guy after he'd
playfully beaten them up and piled them together.

Henry slammed against the wall, one of his cheeks squashing against the cool
wood and pushing his eye shut as Jane finished pummeling his gut on the floor
and then hauled him upright and slugged him in the face again, her small but
powerful fist burying itself in his cheek and rolling the skin up to the point
where it pushed his eye shut. Jane grabbed him by the shoulder and then hauled
him forward, impaling him right on the navel with her knee.

"BLEGUH!" Henry's eyes bulged again and his mouth dropped open as his feet
were lifted off the ground by Jane's knee. He gargled as his feet landed back
on the floor, and then he spat saliva as his belly was once again impaled by
one of Jane's fists, lifting him to his tiptoes as it sank into his gut up to
the wrist. "OOOOOOOOOFFF!" Jane then pulled her fist out and then ducked and
speared Henry in the belly with a straight punch. "HOOOOOOOUUUUUGH!" Henry
jackknifed around the punch and thumped his back against the wall.

Finally, Jane backed away, then ducked low to the floor and thundered her fist
upward, slamming it directly into Henry's chin.

"BLARGH!" Spit flew from Henry's lips and his head shot skyward, then fell
back down. His eyes, now dazed and fluttering, managed to lock onto Jane's
face as he gave her a woozy smile.

"Yer ... yer hired ... " With that he sank to his knees. Jane stepped to the
side as Henry fell forward, landing flat on his face with a thud. Dusting her
hands off, Jane smiled and patted Henry's back in thanks, then turned and
walked out of the room. Henry would remain face-flat on the floor of his
office for two more hours before the restaurant's janitor found him. Henry
waved off calling the police on Jane for assault, and the next Monday
introduced her at the staff meeting as their new bouncer. His belly was still
sore, but he couldn't help but blush whenever Jane looked at him now.