Jenna in Tonya Part 6 The Hards under siege, and an unwelcome arrival. By Avida Dolor Warning: This work of fiction contains frank language and explicit sex and violence. No one under 18 permitted to read without the express consent of parent or guardian. Copyright 1998 Avida Dolor (avidadolor@aol.com) We're all stoned at ringside for the Betty/Flung rematch. The first fight under the new state rules, how exciting. Well, not for Flung. She had one day to train with the gloves on. To Betty, a Junior Golden Gloves cruiserweight state champion from the ages of 12 to 15, the Everlasts are everlastin', they slip on like a second skin. Flung looks nervous in the ring, holding her big black mitts up awkwardly like a kangaroo. Let's hope she can kick like one with those booties on. She sure has the leg strength. Largesse has done her pretty well, slightly better than me. I used to picture her my size, my old size, 5-8, 165, and that's just what she is. She's muscled better than I ever was at that weight, though--leaner, more defined, a much more polished physique. More than ever, Flung could just pump up real good, shimmy into a thong bikini, walk onto the stage tomorrow at the Junior Calpurnia and walk off with at least a third place trophy. She's got the thin skin, the total tan, the drop-dead face and to-die-for tits, but this is boxing, not bodybuilding, and I have no reason to doubt that Bouncing Betty is gonna treat her like Missy's dresser drawer. Poor Missy. Penny showed me the official Polaroids she took before they carted Missy to the morgue. Missy looks adorable in her Tonya tank top; her eyes are open and her tongue is protruding a little bit, but in a cute way. You can see the mark the jump rope made on her neck, but her neck wasn't stretched or anything, it doesn't look distorted. She just slowly strangled. None of us understand how you can't involuntarily grab onto the rope above you and take the weight off your neck--Missy was of course strong enough to do this with one hand--but none of us are suicidal. Anyway, she was checked out carefully by the coroner, and there were no bruises on her, no signs of a struggle or anything like that. The ruling is she did indeed voluntarily hang herself. They also tested her blood and she wasn't drunk or stoned at the time. They won't detect the Largesse, there's no test for it, it's way too new and still totally underground. So there you have it. We examined the events of that day very closely, and Marlow says Missy seemed fine when she went to the room to tell her about Court and Cin. She called, but the line was busy, Missy was on the phone. Anyway, Missy agreed to watch TV in the lounge or play ping pong in the basement or whatever, she just casually said she'd be here and there; she didn't seem any more depressed than usual. No one saw her in the basement, no one saw her in the lounge. Her parents don't get it any more than we do, and they're probably gonna sue the state. Tonya only knows what kind of restrictions this will result in; maybe all jump ropes will be confiscated. But that's for another generation of Ton Tons to worry about, probably post- Ice Baby. The Hard Command, by the way, is not leaning toward giving Ice Missy's Largesse ration. The latest word from the street is our Largesse supplier--which is the only Largesse supplier that we know of--has been shut down. Rumor has it that Rhoda, the powerlifter from Gabrielle University, has been busted. It's not clear yet if her operation has been taken over by another dealer. I left a message with Court and Cin this morning, we need more info. Shit, every time I think of Court and Cin now I shudder, and it's not purely a shudder of ecstasy. About the time Cin was marking me in the kiddie pool like a tomcat staking out his turf, Missy was hanging in the basement like an unslammed pinata. It was her fucking pool I was having the time of my life in. Sorry, this guilt thing can be a drag. I need to beat someone up. That's what Bon said to me this morning at breakfast. She's having her third heaping plate of scrambled eggs and sausage--the girl weighs close to 260--and she says to me, "Jenna, you need to do someone good. Not in the ring, in the basement or the yard. You need to really kick the shit out of someone." "Bon, I haven't got a beef with anyone. Peace reigns supreme in Tonya. Everybody loves me, I'm Jenna Takedown." "Yeah, but if you beat someone up real good, you'll feel better about what happened to Missy. You'll get your aggression out." "Bon, that doesn't make any sense. How is beating the shit out of someone going to make me feel better about Missy?" "It makes perfect sense to me," says Ice, who's not even supposed to be at our table, she just muscled in. "What about Sara? Didn't she cap you? I'd rip her a new asshole for that." "Well, you're not me, Ice," I say as evenly as possible. "Sara has atoned for that capping a long time ago. Fuck with her, you fuck with me. I love that girl." "Shit, Jenna, it was just a hypothetical. Chill. I'm not *fucking* with Sara." "Good. Don't get Tara on us, Ice. *You* chill. Like your name." Ice rolls her eyes and looks at Flung for moral support. Flung stares uncomfortably at her plate and says nothing. I don't really get what a prim and proper piece of power pussy like Flung is doing with this lewd loose cannon. Ice worries me, she's got a mean streak. She's in here for stomping 200 stitches into a girl with ice skates, after all. I guess she's with Flung 'cause, like, opposites attract. Same thing with Flung and Betty when they were in love. Which brings me back to the fight. No it doesn't, first I have to run down the undercard. Yeah, there had to be an undercard, Marlow insisted. Gotta give the population something to get their minds off their incarceration. Like this place isn't already Club Med. So Nora called out Janet From Another Planet. Janet is a big Nancy, a really weird chick who may be certifiably insane. Then again, she may just be charmingly eccentric. Anyway, she "insulted" Nora and Glo by shitting on their table at dinner. Yeah, Janet, apparently in response to a dare, dropped her drawers and crapped in the middle of the table last night. This will get Janet a week in solitary, but first she's got to fight Nora, on extremely short notice. But it's not a bad matchup, 'cause Janet is a hefty girl, a natural 6-2, 200. She's a casual lifter, but very strong. She played football at Santa Packa high, was a star defensive end. We have no reason to believe she can box, though. She's not a warrior type. She's in for breaking into a bunch of pet stores and setting all the animals free. She's, like, a PETA freak, though she eats meat--huge quantities, in fact, I've seen the girl get sevenths on roast beef night. Well, she's nuts. And cute too, long brown hair, natural tan, good skin, very nice brick shithouse kind of build. I find it hard not to like her, though I'm sure nasty Nora hasn't got this problem. Nora is not known as the Neck anymore, by the way, she's too big and strong for that now, though she does have a hell of a neck. She's known as the Noogie, 'cause of what she did to Juicy Lucy a few weeks ago. Juicy Lucy is this annoying alcoholic Nancy who's drunk from noon to midnight every day, she staggers around with her tray at lunch, and sometimes at dinner she'll pass out with her face in her food. Well, Nora ran into Lucy in the hall one night, she was sloppy drunk as usual, and Lucy started pawing at her tattoos and her tits, and Nora lost her temper and grabbed the whining wino in a headlock and gave her this atomic phoenix eye fist in the top of the head and put a hairline fracture in her skull. So Lucy had a chance to dry out in the hospital. And Nora did not get the frig brig for this, though ordinarily such a vicious attack would be worth at least two weeks in solitary. Marlow declared the blow "self-defense," since Nora claimed Lucy was physically molesting her, and the handful of Nancy witnesses agreed--they'd be out of their minds not to, they don't have our protection. So the Noogie is about to put Janet From Another Planet *on* another planet. We have no doubt that Janet shortly will not be standing, gloves and headgear notwithstanding. Nora, need I remind you, is an M-Factored 5-10, 190, and she hits like a wrecking ball. I've seen her work the heavy bag, and it makes me wince. That's the mystery drug for ya. Sweetass Sara has kindly agreed to corner for Janet; glorious Glo is guiding Nora, of course. And here's another wrinkle: Marlow has decreed six two-minute rounds, not the usual four for three. She figures she'll get more nonstop action that way and she'll need to call fewer standing eights. Well, she figured right for the undercard. Nora hits Janet with so many punches through the first six minutes, I think her new gloves might wear out, but she never gets Janet in any real trouble. The girl must have an iron jaw, among other unbreakable parts. "I think Janet should be officially inducted into the Hards," says Lee Ann, taking a swig off a flask of Stoli we're passing around, as Round 4 is about to start. "She can obviously absorb huge amounts of punishment. I'm impressed." "Just one prob, Lee," says Tiff. "She's out of her fucking gourd. She shat on the dining room table, remember?" "I wonder if she'll shit in the ring," says Bon. "Nora's certainly beating the shit out of her." "She hasn't even taken a standing eight," says Stef. "She's tough as nails. If we supervised her in the gym, she could be awesome, never mind the Largesse shortage." "She has another year here," I go. "Maybe we really *should* Harden her up." The Tonya faithful have to start thinking seriously about passing the baton in here. We're all short-timers now, to one degree or another. Then Janet comes out for 4, keeping her gloves high, bobbing clumsily and throwing a lot of slow pushy jabs, but at least they keep Nora honest. That's about all Janet can do, though. No one is kicking, or even trying to, and Janet seems really unsteady in her booties, like she's wearing floppy bunny rabbit slippers that don't fit. As far as her thick arms go, when she tries to stand and deliver she throws wild roundhouses that Nora slashes out of the air and counterpunches on. With only a few seconds left in the round, in fact, Nora does just that and puts a hard short right into Janet's mouth that whiplashes her head right over the ropes. Nora's about to deliver a killer body combo when the bell rings and Marlow wrestles her away. Janet survives to 5. She gets through 5 with one standing eight off a good left hook to the jaw, then Marlow wisely stops it between rounds after checking out Janet's face. Both her eyes are swollen half-shut, she can't see too well. You can tell Nora is relieved. All that punching was making her mighty tired, she's soaked with sweat, panting, she can barely catch her breath. Her regulation Department of Juvenile Corrections gray tank top and shorts are stained a sort of sensual purple. Yeah, Marlow even made a dress code for the ring, but Nora looks kind of funky in institutional gray, with her wicked tattoos and bleached buzz cut all sweat-shiny, and her nose ring flashing under the lights. Yeah, she kept it in and Marlow didn't object. Like, why take it out, she never got hit with anything, she just had some petulant jabs shoved at her. But it's Janet who wins, in a sense. She gets a tremendous round of applause from the assembled throng, which makes Nora fume, and she starts mouthing off to Marlow about how the gloves are a load of shit, you can't hurt anyone in the ring anymore. Glo, after raising Nora's hand in victory, which allows her to make a show of her own incredible biceps, hustles her fighter out to the locker room amid a scattering of boos. Then we get to the main event, which neatly disproves the notion that you can't hurt anyone in the ring anymore. Betty against Flung. Testo- Glandex against Largesse. Betty and Flung match up like charms. They both weigh in at 165; Flung has about an inch height edge. Flung is definitely stronger in the weight room, but Betty hits harder. But the key thing is they don't match up in technique. Flung can't get used to her gloves, she can't snap her punches with these bulbous mitts on. Betty snaps her punches like a whip; her hand speed seems to have cranked up since her last fight, like the T-G has adrenalized her all over. Maybe it has. The only awkward thing about Betty in the ring is her chest, which turns out be too big now for any of the available protectors. So she's wearing a leather bondage corset under her Tonya tank top, which is stuffed with layers of foam padding. Her corner chick and soon to be ex-roomie, Betty Boom Booms, who's wearing a Kerrigan Must Die tank top, stands on the apron and pulls the Bouncer's shirt up and retightens the corset--this is such a two-ton tittie display, the both of them standing in a mini conga line like that, I let out a little stoned moan, my nether lips all atingle. Though Betty may be wearing a padded bra, the word to Flung from her corner cooze Ice is, "Punch her tits. Kick 'em too. Those tits are begging for a beating. Pound the shit outta them." Typical Ice, she's a fire-breathing little bitch. I'm standing below Flung's corner when Ice says this, and Flung looks down at me with this sad, yearning face that seems to say, "Everything would be so much better if we could be together, Jenna Takedown." Yeah, I could have gone roomies with Flung, but I ended up with Missy. Well, maybe it's not too late for me and Flung. I just hope she still has a face left after this fight. Betty looks so smooth and strong, *I'm* intimidated and I'm not even fighting her. Then Marlow confers with the fighters. Betty is complaining about her headgear, it doesn't fit right--maybe her head got bigger along with her chest--and Marlow tells her to take it off if she likes. It turns out headgear is optional, now that gloves are mandatory. It's each fighter's decision--one can wear the head protection, the other can do without. This had slipped Marlow's mind, no one knew till this moment. Hey, she's a busy broad, she runs a whole prison. So Betty goes gearless. A real show of defiance to Flung. So Flung does the same, her gorgeous shoulder length straight black tresses shining like she's the Asian Breck girl. A real show of stupidity to Betty. I have a bad feeling about this fight, and, as usual, my intuition is as rock-solid and womanly as my bod. Flung can't land a thing, she's like a ripped version of Janet. Betty beats her to the jab every time, then bobs and weaves in close, traps her in a corner or against the ropes and hammers her with hooks. When Flung fires the right, she's counterpunched like clockwork. She gets in trouble so much she looks to be in a permanent daze, fighting on some kind of ancient inscrutable instinct. And forget about Ice's plan of attack. As big as they are, she can't get to Betty's tits nohow. She tries some spirited kicking early on, but Betty counter *kicks* her to the knees and actually knocks Flung down twice like this. Through four rounds, Flung gets hit so many times she's starting to look like a really cool imported heavy bag. She takes a bunch of standing eights, loses every round handily, and we're all yelling to Ice to throw in the towel. That's mainly because of the cuts. Oh, I didn't mention the cuts. Betty opened them both in Round 2, one above Flung's left eye, one below her right. Betty knows how to twist her fists in, she's a ring savvy mama. They're not that bad, really, they're not like gaping gashes--Nurse Church checked Flung out and gave her the go-ahead--but they're bleeding all over the place. Flung's nose and mouth are also bleeding. She's starting to look like she was worked over by a Club- wielding Tonya herself. There's blood all over her tank top, there's blood all over Betty's tank top--Flung's blood, of course--there's even blood on Marlow. Stef talks to Marlow between rounds, but Marlow refuses to stop it unless Flung gives her the word. It's a matter of honor. The crowd is eating it up, half clamoring for Flung to make a comeback, half for Betty to kill her. Flung is clearly coming out for 5--Ice is working feverishly on her cuts with the assistance of Nurse Church, there's bloody gauze everywhere. So I sit there and pray Marlow stops it before Flung needs a head transplant. She gets her cuts opened up again within 20 seconds of Betty's laser-targeted jabbing, the blood is running in sheets down her face, then Betty whomps her into a corner with vicious body combos, and front kicks her in the chest four times, smashing her off the turnbuckle like Flung was the door of an opium den getting breached by the vice squad's battering ram. Marlow swoops down on Betty at that point, signaling it's over, as Flung crumples to her knees, her face a red mask of pain. What a relief, it's over. That's when Ice comes charging across the ring holding the corner stool over her head. We're all yelling for Marlow and Betty to watch out, they have their backs turned as Marlow pushes Betty to her corner, and Betty Boom Booms tries to duck into the ring and charge over to intercept Ice, but her immense tits get caught in the ropes and she falls on her knees. Bouncing Betty is halfway turned when Ice is on her, and Ice slams the stool down on the back of her neck, missing her head, thank Tonya, just like in the WWF. Ice doesn't get a second shot, 'cause plucky Marlow has plucked the stool out of her hands. Then Betty, who still has her wits about her, tees off on Ice with a blistering fusillade of punches, driving her across the ring and through the ropes, where she lands in the crowd, semi-conscious. Like, wow. Betty beats Flung *and* her corner girl. Marlow and Nurse Church escort Flung to the infirmary for face repair, and the chipped Ice is shackled by a pair of guards and taken directly to solitary for a cool- down. Well, that was a first. The Bettys Bouncing and Boom Booms are cordially invited to a post-fight celebration in Hard Central, where I get a faceful of Boom Booms' boom booms, then have the distinct privilege of frigging myself with one of her suction cup-size nipples while she kneels in front of me with a bunch of baby-oiled fingers up my ass, pulling my cheeks way apart like she's splitting a melon. Bouncing Bet, fresh from the showers with all the blood washed off her, in tight Tonya Forever shorts and tank top with her wet hair slicked back moto-dyke style, is sky high on her victory, strutting around the room with a bottle of Stoli in her hand, taking slugs while she bellows in her sexy baritone about Flung taking *her* slugs. "Who Flung Fist? *I* flung fist! Fuck it all, that girl was leaking like a sieve. She's gonna need a blood transfusion!" She's got a nasty purple lump on the back of her neck from the stool attack, but that's a small price to pay for the pleasure of punching Ice right out of the ring. But the mention of Flung and her torn and dripping mug snaps me out of party mode. The poor baby is in the infirmary with a faceful of stitches and no one to care for her but bazoomy Nurse Church, who's all suture, no nurture, despite the depth of her chest. Ice is moldering in the brig. So I excuse myself and head over for a get-well visit, my freshly reamed and oiled ass squishing like a bucket of squid with every step. Flung is a wreck. She's got bloodstained gauze and adhesive tape wrapped around her head like she's a battered mummy, and her face, what I can see of it, is all swollen and discolored right down to the jaw. She looks at me through the puffy slits of her eyes and says, "Jenna, I am so glad to see you." I feel like a royal shit for just having had a faceful of tittie while Flung was lying here with a faceful of stitches. Guilty shades of my Missy misadventure. I take her hand and squeeze it. "I'm here for you, babe. Tough fight. But you showed real heart." "How's Betty?" "Betty? She's fine. You didn't really get to her, I'm afraid, it just wasn't your day." "No, I meant from the chair Ice hit her with." "Oh, that? Not bad. A big bruise, she's OK. Shit, Ice really freaked out. You know, that girl's, like, a little too flippy? She might be majorly disturbed. Not, like, in a Planet Janet way, more a violent way. You know?" "Yes." Flung sighs. "She's got a sadistic nature. I wouldn't have her in my corner again." "I'd like to take that in a more general way, Flung. Like, why not break up with her? She's not your type." "I don't know. She can be very sweet to me. She's crazy about me. I'll have to talk to her. See if she is ashamed for what she did." "Well, you may have to wait a while. She could get a week for this." "That wouldn't be fair. Betty already got her payback right there in the ring." "I don't know. I'll put in a word with Marlow." When I get back to Stef's, Janet From Another Planet has joined the party. She's wearing shades, just like Tyson after a fight, and it looks like Tyson worked her arms over. A vast expanse of her delicious olive skin has been pounded a purplish green from shoulder to wrist. But she's celebrating just as hard as Betty. And soon she may be just as Hard as Betty. Stef and Bon broach the workout idea while Janet is spaced on Tiff's killer weed, fat lipping a roach with her fisted-over mouth, and she seems to go for it, though who can tell, the girl's not all there. Well, she's all there when she's sitting on my face, and you can bet I was nagged just a bit by the thought that she'd crap on my neck, but she didn't. Considerate of her. Cut to two days later. Flung is healing, Ice has been released from the brig. A plea for leniency to Marlow got results, and we're just staying away from Ice for the moment, we're still figuring out what to do with her. Flung and Ice are back together, the Bettys are still together, I'm still alone. At least all the excitement has helped get my mind off Missy. Then the excitement is ratcheted up by a fucking factor of ten. I'm lying on my bed after lunch, thinking, I must confess, about the size of Cindy's clit, when the door flies open and Flung bounds in. She's crying. I know this because I can see the tears running down under the oversized shades she wears all the time now to cover her stitches. "Something terrible has happened, Jenna!" Oh, Tara. Who hanged themselves now? "What?" "Ice has capped Betty!" "What do you mean?" "Ice has *capped* Betty," Flung sobs. "With your help?" "Of course not! She just told me about it, I had no idea. How could you think a thing like that?" "How could Ice cap Betty? She's too small, Betty's too big. She must've had help." "She *slugged* Betty from behind--over the head. Then she capped her real bad." Flung starts crying again, her whole body racked with sobs now. "Flung, calm down, you've got stitches in your face." I stand up as Stef and Bon come rushing in. "You got the news, Jen?" Stef asks grimly. "Yeah. Is Betty in the infirmary?" "No, she's on her way to Rauncho County," says Bon. "She's bad." "How bad?" "Who can tell? Bad. Her right knee looked really smashed, plus she was bleeding from the back of the head." "Fuck. And where's Ice?" "They picked her up and took her to the brig," says Stef. "She's gonna be there awhile." "Did she confess?" "No. Well, she admits it. But Betty ID'd her," says Bon proudly. "Betty was conscious during the whole thing. Ice wasn't masked or anything. And Bet did the whole `Why me? Oh, God, why me?' routine, despite the pain. What a fucking trouper. I'm starting to think Testo-Glandex is the shit, even though Largesse has done me so fine." "Never mind that right now, big girl," says Stef. "We've gotta meet with Marlow, explain that Ice is right now officially an ex-Hard and make sure she understands this had nothing to do with us." "You're throwing Ice out?" Flung asks in a whisper. "Of course we're throwing Ice out," says Stef crossly. "She just capped a fellow Hard, and for no damn good reason. She's a total fucking pariah. And she better stay in solitary till I'm outta Tonya, 'cause I'm gonna personally rip her a new asshole if I get my hands on her, and it won't be so I can double toss her." "So that means she won't get the extra Largesse," Flung notes sadly. "Flung!" Bonnie snarls. "Get a fucking clue! She's being shunned! Don't you realize what she did?" "Hey, lay off Flung," I go, putting my arms around her big beautiful shoulders. "She's having a really bad week. I'll take care of her, you meet with Marlow." So how about that shit? Haven't had a kneecapping here in some time, and not one of a Hard since mine. The story, when it was all pieced together, goes: Ice ambushed Betty in the basement, slugged her over the head with a length of pipe, which felled Betty like a tree, then Ice teed off on both legs, but with most of her attention on the right one. She got in a lot of whacks before a guard heard the yelling. Ice ran, the guard tended to Betty, who fingered her attacker. The guard got on the walkie talkie, and the rest is history. Ice had time to run back to her room and tell Flung--like Flung would be thrilled--before she got picked up. She went without a struggle. She didn't really expect to get away with it, and she wants to be known for it, she thinks it's part of the rep she's building for her eventual takeover of Tonya. Well, she's not gonna be taking it over as a Hard. The word from the hospital on Betty is bad, indeed: She's getting a right knee replacement, it's smashed up too bad to fix. She's 17, and she's gonna have a fucking plastic knee like old arthritic people get. Weird. The left knee will be OK, at least, and her head's all right. The word on Largesse is bad, too. Cin called me. Rhoda *has* been busted, and not just busted but busted up. She didn't go quietly, and since she weighs 325, the local female performance-enhancer drug police- -they're called the She Roids, and they all use the drugs they confiscate--beat her into Rhoda kill. We saw the story in the local paper: Santa Cleena Superheavy Gets Her Pills Popped, with a picture of huge Rhoda doing her perp walk, hands cuffed behind her, surrounded by these bare-armed hulking brutes, her face so bloody it looked like you could fingerpaint Guernica with it. However, Chili, aka Tijuana Ass, the former Miss Baja Blowup Doll, Heavyweight Division, who used to train Court and Cin in their early Largesse stages, is attempting to pick up the business and get a fresh supply into the pipeline. The deal with Marlow on Ice is she stays in indefinite "protective solitary"; she rooms alone, eats alone, uses a Nancy bathroom on the other side of Tonya and never crosses paths with any Hards, though she frequently consorts with Nancies way down the hall, always with a guard posted nearby. Stef has agreed not to have Ice capped as long as she plays by these rules. This is an arrangement she worked out with Marlow, who explained that the State Corrections Commission was really freaked about an inmate getting a knee replacement coming right on top of a suicide. Another knee replacement now could cost Marlow her job. And we love Marlow. So we're being cool. But Ice knows that if any of us sees her, anywhere, anytime, we instantly try to take her head off. Well, we're seeing her. It's three months later. But we're seeing her under "neutral conditions," as Marlow calls it, in the gym, and more specifically, in the ring of judgment. And we're not exactly seeing her, we're seeing what she's become. Ice, as strange as this may sound, is fighting Janet From Another Planet. Janet has been training with us for 12 weeks, and she's firmed up quite a bit; lost about 15 pounds of fat, put on maybe eight pounds of muscle. No, she hasn't been on Largesse, there's no fresh supply after all, and we're hoarding our stash. We offered her Testo-Glandex--Bouncing Betty left a big supply here that Boom Booms turned over to us--but she wouldn't take it, she was afraid to get a beard or something. She weighs 190, which might seem like a total mismatch against little Ice, but she's not fighting little Ice. Ice has been, like, cubed. She's spent the three months on M Factor, training like a bitch with Glo and Nora. There's no other explanation for her stupefying growth. She's 5-9, 170. That's about six inches and 50 pounds in 12 weeks. She's not lean like Glo; she's thick and bulky, more like Janet, but with a denser musculature. Her tits are bigger than ever too, but as big as they are they no longer dwarf her now massive shoulders. And she's got the same fucking tattoos as Nora. The snake around the anchor and the hooded executioner babe with the bloody ax. And she's got arms almost as big as Nora's to show 'em off on. Fucking Tara! For the past 12 weeks we've been smoking dope, drinking Stoli and tossing each other as usual--the only "work" we've done is try to train Janet--and all this time Nora and Glo have been making a monster way down the hall. They must eat in their rooms with Ice, I haven't seen either of them in the cafeteria in ages. In fact, these "honorary" Hards don't come anywhere near the Hards anymore. The few times I went over to them, they wouldn't let me in--they claimed they were hung over, couldn't party. Yeah, hung over, all right. Hung over with muscle soreness from overtraining. Nora is cornering for Ice; she's standing in the ring in a halter top and bike shorts, and she's 12 weeks bigger than she used to be, which is to say she looks about 6-0 and 210. Yeah, bigger than me any way you size it up. Glo is at ringside, wearing, get this, a sweatsuit. She's all covered up. I go over to her. "What's with the wrapping, Glo?" "I'm cold." "Yeah, right. What gives? Why did you let Ice in on M Factor?" "Who said I did that?" "Shit, Glo, look at the size of her. What does she have, 16-inch arms all of a sudden?" Glo grins lasciviously. "Yeah, look at the size of her. And the size of Nora. Girls are looking good or what?" "And what about you? You looking good?" Glo stands up and gets in my face. She's my fucking height now, and probably my weight. She's filling out the sweatsuit something nasty, it looks like it's stuffed with hockey or lacrosse padding or something, but it's all her. "I'm looking so good it's fucking insane," she sneers at me. "Now go blow. Remember my old name? Go fucking blow. We're backing different girls in this fight, and that doesn't make us friends." "Is there a problem here?" It's Stef, her 21-inch guns doing a honeydew salute as she makes a threatening show of herself in a tank top, fists curled casually in front of the thrusting shelf of her breasts. "Stef, you got a month left?" Glo snickers. "Don't stick your neck out." "Fuck is that supposed to mean?" Stef demands. The bell rings to start the fight. "Go blow, the both of you," says Glo, sitting down and turning away from us. So we leave it at that. I'm sitting there stoned at ringside next to Flung--she's my girl and my roomie now--and Flung is looking up at the new Ice, whose fucking name should be changed to Glacier, like she wants to plop her into a two-ton vodka stinger and gulp her. I can hardly fault her for this, since I feel pretty much the same way myself. It's not that I forgave Ice for what she did; it's just that this is a different Ice, one with the kind of sex appeal that leaves your mind a horny blank. And the Betty capping is kind of ancient history now. Three months of drugs, sex and weight training kinda clouds things over in a funny way. Betty never came back, by the way. With the months of recuperation and therapy she needed for her new knee, she got a pardon for the half a year left on her sentence. Ain't no pardon for Janet, though, who I fear is about to get her planet knocked into a new orbit. Here we are preparing Janet as the new Hard of the future, when Ice is the fucking future-shock Nancy of the present. But the High Command doesn't worry too much about this shit anymore. I'm short-timed now to the tune of two months. Stef, as Glo mentioned, is out in one. We're both 18, we're legal adults, sort of. Bon is 17, she has six months left inside. I've put on another inch to 5-11, I'm up to 190. I've given up on peaking like Court and Cin, the drug just won't do me like that. Still, I can't complain, I'm much bigger than I ever expected to be before this growth drug mania started. Nor can Stef complain. She's stalled at 6-2, she weighs about 230, and next month she gets a Sinfully Sinew cover with a pair of the biggest fucking arms "ever seen in captivity," as the coverline is supposed to go. Bon has added an inch to 6-5, she weighs 275. An absolute total hulk, she can press me over her head like I was a child. Lee Ann and Tiff can complain a little. They haven't gone anywhere special sizewise, though they have bitchin' fine physiques, but better yet they'll be going out soon too--they've each got about three months. Flung has six months on her sentence, and Largesse is doing her OK. She's up to 5-10, 175, still lean and whip sharp. Now that I've squared all that away, let's get back to the fight. Bon is cornering for Janet, and headgear has been passed up by both fighters. The way I look at it, this will allow Janet to get knocked out faster, thus reducing her overall punishment. But goddamn Janet is as mule tough as she was the last time out. Ice punches her around the ring for four rounds, and can't get anywhere. She hits mainly to the body, since she's got a shorter reach than Janet, and the height disadvantage, which is still some five inches, makes it hard to get to the big lunk's head. But she gets there. Ice has good form; she throws a fast, stiff jab, comes in low and bobbing and really fires the right hook. Her defense isn't good, but that's not a problem against a slow-hands like Janet. Anyway, she nails Janet with that wicked right hook to the chin coming off a head to head exchange in the corner, and Janet goes down. We yell for her to stay down, but the idiot gets up on six and wants to continue. Ice comes at her in a punch frenzy, lands a head-snapping left roundhouse, then beats Janet up in the corner, it's an assault and battery. Janet is hiding behind her gloves, or maybe they just fused to her face from the force of the blows that are pounding off them. Ice is whaling away at her like she's working a heavy bag on methedrine. We're screaming for Marlow to step in and stop it, but she's watching like she paid to see a thrashing, and, dammit, she's gonna see a thrashing. Bon sails a towel into the ring as Marlow finally pulls Ice away. Janet, incredibly, is still standing, though her nose must be broken, it's gushing a river of blood over her chin and onto her tits. So Ice does a victory double bi, and Nora does one too--the fucking Noogie looks to have cold 19-inchers now, I'm flushed with jealousy--and Janet is led off to the infirmary by Nurse Church to have her face tended to. We're all sitting there at ringside as the Ice-buzzed crowd files out, we're in a kind of collective daze. The Nancies are back bigtime. Us short-timers find it hard to get too worked up about this, but it's still really weird. This is Tonya, after all, and we're the Hards. "Let's face it," says Lee Ann. "Planet Janet is not the future of the Hards." "No way," says Stef. "If we really wanted to build the next generation of Hards, we'd be concentrating on fourteenies. Or fifteenies with two- or three-year gigs. We'd have to think long-term. Janet is not long- term. She's just long-term mental." "The fact is, we're not motivated," Lee Ann adds. "If we had a drug to put these budding girls on, it might be a different story." "But we don't," says Tiff. "Unless we put 'em on Testo-Glandex." "T-G's too ballsy, no one wants to do it," Stef goes. "We're fucked. Let's just do our thing and get the hell out of here. There's life after Tonya." "For you, there is," says Lee Ann with a trace of bitterness. "You're gonna be a Sinew covergirl. You've got million dollar arms now, Stef, you're gonna be a major cult figure." "Yeah," seconds Tiff. "And now we're tiny compared to fucking *Ice*, who just three months ago was a junior petite. This is hard to take, you know?" Stef sighs. "Lee Ann, Tiff: I can't help it if Largesse did me better than it did you. It's some kind of genetic or metabolic thing that I don't understand at all; it just happened. Why bust my chops about it?" "Look, girls," says Bon. "We've been over this a hundred times. You two didn't sprout up like giants, but you've both got killer bods and you're totally major lookers. You'll both have cults of your own when you get out of here, and you can both go far in bodybuilding, you know it. You should be thankful, not spiteful." "We should be on M Factor," says Tiff sullenly. This is met with silence. It's too weird to take note of, it's sort of like saying Tiff and Lee Ann should defect to the Nancies. But it rings with truth, and we all know it. Glo and Nora have got the drug we want, and now Ice has it, and we still can't get it. "Wait a minute," I go. "Tiff is right." "She's *right*?" Stef sputters. "Now you're on their side too, Jen?" "No, but think about it. Why can't Tiff or Lee Ann or the both of them go to Glo and Nora and ask to get on M Factor? Maybe they can find out what the drug is, where the supply comes from, and maybe we can get our own source or steal theirs. We've got Michelle From Hell to work for us out there, plus my old friend Karla, plus Court and Cin and their dealer, Chili, who's looking to peddle good shit now that Rhoda's off the scene. Let's take decisive action and attack the Nancies at the source of their power. And if we can't get anywhere, and all that happens is Lee Ann and Tiff get on the drug, at least they'll get the size they want. How can we lose?" "We lose 'cause the requirement for Lee Ann and Tiff getting M Factor is them becoming Nancies," says Stef. "Glo would make them move down the hall and have no further contact with us." "How much time do Glo and Nora have?" Bon asks. "With Glo, no one knows," says Tiff. "She got her sentence extended." "What?!" I go incredulously. "She got her sentence *extended*?" "Yeah. She was in for 18 months for robbing her teacher's apartment, or so the story used to go. That stretch was up a long time ago. Maybe it was a lie in the first place. I mean, I don't know where the info came from, Glo never talked to anybody. A guard, I guess." "What about Nora?" I ask. "Well, she used to be Nora the Snorer, this was before your time, Jen, then she had a run-in with Stef and got her then skinny neck wrung." Tiff pauses, thinking. "I really don't know what she's in for or how long. Anyone know?" We don't. Her old roomie from her Snorer days has been sprung. So we don't even know how short-timed they are. Maybe Penny or Marlow can help us out, though they've been strangely reticent about the goings-on way down the hall for quite a while now. The M girls are both 17, we know that much, they can't be in Tonya forever. I volunteer to pay them a visit and see if I can find anything out. They should be in a good mood, they must be partying after Ice's win. I freshen up and dab some pee behind my ears and head to Nancyland in a plain pink tube top and cutoffs. No Hard insignia, I want to make this as smooth as possible. I hear music and laughter outside Glo's door, a good sign. I knock, and Nora opens it just like old times, except she hasn't got a towel around her neck. She's topless, just in bike shorts, and her chest is so fucking big--double D's built on rockin' twin buttes of striated pec--I want to shit myself. "Jenna, you came over to party with us?" She's smiling too broadly and she sounds tipsy, old Dead playing behind her at a moderate volume. "Uh, yeah, for sure. I wanted to congratulate Ice, that kinda thing." "Come on in!" She pulls me into the room and I'm kinda shocked to see, besides Glo and Ice, Sara and Wendy sitting there. Bendy Wendy is buck naked, about to light a joint. She's not twisted up in a pretzel, she's just in a chair, her legs wrapped in this really extreme lotus position so her heels are up near her tits. Sara is looking tongue-dripping good in a black string bikini, holding a plastic cup of what must be Wild Turkey. Nora is pouring one for me now from the bottle, babbling something about how good I smell. "Jenna Takedown!" Glo exclaims with a boozy giddiness. "You get to see me uncovered after all!" She's in a sports bra and the same sweatpants from before, and she's got the tattoos. The same fucking anchor and executioner, just like Nora and Ice. For the love of Tonya, what's the deal here? Ice, by the way, is wearing just panties, and she's got her hand on Sara's big thigh, rubbing the thick ridges of quad like a filthy-minded masseuse. "Shit, Glo, you've joined the tattoo club. You getting them next, Sara?" "Uh, hi, Jen," says Sara self-consciously. "How are you? Sorry about Janet getting whupped again. She's got real heart, though." "Yeah, she was a tough cookie," says Ice, who you'd never guess was in a fight, she's totally unmarked. "I hope she wants a rematch." "I doubt it," I go. "By the time she's ready to fight again, you'll be her size or bigger." They all titter knowingly. I sit down, someone passes me the joint and I take a big nervous toke. "Yeah," says Glo. "Jenna's, like, indignant over how big we all are. She can't handle how you've changed, Ice." Ice laughs, making her big tits jiggle, as I shake my head in polite disagreement. "Glo, I can handle it fine. Hypertrophy is the way of the world nowadays. I'm here, aren't I? I came by to toast you all. I think you're all the bomb." "Well, toast these," says Glo with this disturbingly aggressive edge to her voice. "You were dying to check out my arms before. Get a fucking load of these babies." She puts her drink down and hits a seated double bi. It's been three months, and Glo is ridiculous. The first thought through my mind is, Why is Stef getting a Sinew cover? Glo should get one, plus the centerfold. She's got the biggest, most beautiful split heads I've ever seen anywhere, including in any issue of Sinew, and I've been subscribing since I was 9. She turns her fists in and out, and the heads, shaped like ripe peaches, alternately attract and repel like she was playing with heavy-duty fruit magnets. She straightens the arms out and lets me see the triceps, which are much thicker and wedgier than they used to be. Glo is thicker and denser all over, with a deep bustline now, but still shredded to the bone, with veins knotting up in kissable clumps across her chest and delts, veins pulsing through her bulging abs, veins strung in high-tension lines from her neck to her wrists. I wanna check her blood pressure with my mouth. I take a big gulp of bourbon, nod appreciatively and ask, "What are your numbers these days, girl, you look totally fucking awesome." Glo stands up and hits a hard crab, making her traps spring up big as plums and her neck swell in a cobra's hood of jugular-popping muscle. "I'm 5-10-1/2, 175, the arms are 18-1/2 pumped. And I bet I can kill you at arm wrestling." "Well, maybe you could. I don't arm wrestle much." "Well, too bad," says Nora, who's standing behind me, massaging my shoulders with her none too gentle hands, " 'cause you're gonna arm wrestle right now. Get on the floor." Shit, Nora is pushy. And she's got the muscle to back it. She's bigger than me now, and I bet she's stronger than me. I wouldn't want to tangle with her. Everyone clears their chairs from the center of the room as Glo gets on the floor and assumes the position. They have no suitable table, they're gonna go like Mariel Hemingway and her girlfriend did in Personal Best. I belly down after a moment's hesitation. I have the feeling if I don't, Nora is gonna try something on me, and I came here to collect information, not brig time. I lock up with Glo righty; we've got our left arms on a slant, the hands in forearm grips. Nora gets on her knees, grabs our bunched fists, holds us steady and counts us down. What ensues is a small eternity of agony. We haul away on each other, getting nowhere in particular, each doing powerbursts that may briefly move the other a quarter way down, then it's back to even. After a minute or so we're too tired to keep up the tension, and there are long pauses where we're just holding each other at neutral, waiting to summon the strength for another move. Nora and Ice spend the whole time urging Glo on, while Sara has the nerve to actually root for me out loud once or twice. Dangerous in this company; no wonder I love that girl. And I can't help thinking how fucking ironic it is that I'm in a strength standoff with what used to be one of the puniest Nancies in this entire place. After what has to be three minutes--no one's timing the damn thing--I say through clenched teeth, "Let's break, this is ridiculous. It's a draw." Glo reluctantly says, "Fuck, OK," and we break. My hand is numb. Actually my entire arm is numb. My other arm is numb too, from gripping Glo's forearm and getting gripped by her. Her fucking fingers are like steel, they've left marks on me that look like bruises. She starts iso pumping her business arm and I can't help putting my palm on it and letting the muscles ride my hand up and down like it was on a carousel. She looks into my eyes, but I can't find any love there, just some sort of rivalry. Hey, she's got Nora and Ice, and now Sara and Wendy to make; what does she need me for? Nora goes close to Glo and rubs her big bare tits on her shoulder as she rubs Load Lotion into the swollen arm. "You want any?" she asks me. "No, thanks. It'll probably irritate my skin." "I don't have that problem," says Glo complacently, admiring her shiny 'roid rich arm, which is now in such a state of arterial eruption it looks like the whole thing may explode like a plasma bomb. I sit down and have a drink, thinking how much I'd like to lick Glo's arm right now, except I'd get Load Lotion on my tongue, when Ice asks me out of the blue about Flung. "So how's your sex life with my ex- girlfriend?" is how she delicately puts it. "Fine. Flung's cool. You have a steady these days?" "I play the field. I'm not allowed to have a steady 'cause of what I did to Betty," she giggles. Shit, I didn't want to get into all this. Especially Betty. "Those tattoos look good on you, Ice." "Thanks." She curls her fists up so the arms swell, the ink art rising in a brachial billow. "I still don't get what the anchor means." I don't get an answer. Ice, who's standing up, looking down at her own thrusting wall of bare tit-- her rack is so big and so firm, the nipples so thick and dark cherry chewy I think she's gonna start sucking on them herself--suddenly out of absolutely nowhere kicks Wendy in the face with a perfectly snapped roundhouse, sending her backwards over her toppled chair where she rolls into a ball in the corner. As Sara is starting to get to her feet in defense of her roomie, Glo chops her in the throat with the edge of her hand--the hand attached to the super-pumped right arm--which drops Sara on her back in a twitching, gagging, choke fit. I don't get a chance to make a move on either or them; Nora's got me in a half nelson. I spin out of this with an instinctive wrestling move, get behind her and pull her legs out from under her, but Ice and Glo are on me, punching me in the head, then Nora drives her elbow back into my nose, there's hot blood running into my mouth, then I'm down and all three of them are kicking me in the ribs and the back, thank Tonya they're all barefoot. Ice leaves off on me and starts kicking Wendy, who was trying to get to her feet, then she grabs Wendy off her knees by a handful of hair and punches her face over and over, slowly and methodically, like she was trying to break a cinder block. Sara can't get off the floor; she's just gasping and wheezing, her legs jerking-- that chop must have fucked her up bad. Glo is still kicking me in the thighs and ass as Nora grabs me up under the arms, pins me against the door with her hands and, smiling evilly, snaps the ball of her foot into my crotch. Oh, fuck me. There are bright jagged slashes of pain behind my eyes, which have rolled into my head from the hurt, and my legs give out and I sink down in a puddle of my own pee, Glo still kicking me in the kidney. I'm thinking about the legs she's got under the sweatpants, as her foot thuds into, making my whole body shudder--the last time I saw them, which was many weeks ago, they looked strong enough to punt a hole in a brick wall. Then Nora pulls me away from the door by my pony tail, flings it open and drags me halfway down the hall by the hair like I was a dog. She runs back and does the same with Wendy, who's bloody-faced, naked and stone cold unconscious from Ice's fisting. I'm on the floor in the middle of the hall in a lump, Wendy's carcass spread across my legs, some Nancies in their doorways staring at us like they were rubbernecking a car wreck. I can't get up, I can't get my legs under me, I'm throbbing all over. What are they doing to Sara? That's when Penny runs up to me, looks down at me with tears in her eyes and says, "Jenna, you poor baby!" A helpless baby is just what I feel like, and I need a diaper change. Cut to the infirmary. It's a Hard command council meeting around my bed. I'm OK, sort of. Just badly bruised from the kicking, nothing broken, not even my nose. Nurse Church palpated me all over and says I haven't got any internal problems. Lucky I have this protective coating of muscle. Wendy's not so lucky. Ice broke her nose, her cheekbone and her eye socket, she's in Rauncho County. Sara is in Rauncho County too, she was almost a goner. Penny had to give her an emergency tracheotomy with a pen knife, the girl couldn't breathe, her throat swelled up like it was a bullfrog. At least she didn't get a beating; they weren't working her over in the room, they were actually trying to give her mouth-to- mouth, since she seemed to be dying. For that matter, Janet is in the hospital, too. She has a badly broken nose from the fight, she needed to get her sinuses drained or something. So I'm the only patient in-house at the moment. The girls are in a semi-circle around my bed, looking really fucking grim, even Flung, who almost always looks just stoically inscrutable. "We've got some heavy shit to deal with now," says Stef with a tragic flourish of her big arm. "It's like going to the mattresses, like in The Godfather." "I haven't read The Godfather," I point out. "I'd rather read The Godmother, I don't like guys." This pathetic attempt at levity is not even noticed. "Glo, Nora and Ice are all in the brig," says Bon, "but when they come out--and they'll be out in two weeks, I bet, if not sooner--we're gonna have a war on our hands." "Can't we settle it in the ring?" I ask. "You or Stef can take Nora, I'll take Glo or Ice . . . something like that?" "I'd rather settle it in the yard," says Stef. "Really beat them up, put them on the critical list." "Stef," says Tiff, "they'll put you in the big house for that, you're 18 and you've got a month in here. Wait till you get out, then just order a capping on them all. Let some young girls do it who need the rep and need the money." Stef doesn't answer, she seems at her wit's end. She just sits there, clenching and unclenching her fists, making her bare arms dance. She'd probably like to just set fire to them all, like she wanted to do to those football guys who raped her. Then the phone rings at my bedside and I automatically pick it up. It's Marlow. Shades of the fateful Missy call. "How are you, Jen?" "OK, considering I got kicked by girls with calves bigger than my head. Why are you calling, Warden, why not just pop over and see me?" "I'm tied up at the moment with paperwork. There's been a lot of stuff today that requires *reports*, you know?" "I know. I'm sorry. I had nothing to do with instigating all this. I was trying to make peace, sort of." "I know. And isn't it amusing the way they dragged you and Wendy out into the hall, like that absolved them from guilt? But that's not why I'm calling anyway. It's something else, something new. I wanted to tell you this right away. It's very important." "What, Warden, I can't handle suspense right now!" "I think this is another thing you'd call totally Tara: Brooke's here." "Brooke? *The* Brooke? From the tapes?" "Yes, the Brooke from the tapes. The Brooke who got you in here in the first place." "You mean she came to visit Glo?" "No, I mean she's in Tonya. She's being processed right now." I'm dumb, just holding the phone, trying to assimilate this shit. All the girls are looking at me in wide-eyed shock. "You mean she's been *sentenced*? She's doing time in Tonya now?" "Yeah, she got a year. But that's not the worst part." "It's not? What could be worse? What's the worst part?" "Pardon my French, Jen," Marlow hisses over the phone, "but she's big as a motherfucking house." --30--