The Pugilisticon, Part 1
by Avida Dolor
Vee, the toughest woman in the world

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 1997 Avida Dolor (avidadolor@aol.com) 

E-mail from: Paul Buck 

To: Daryl Buck 

Darling one: I want to get this down now while it's still whirling fresh 
in my head. It's friday night in Virginia Beach with Wally--Rachel has 
gone to Hilton Head Island with a girlfriend--a stag weekend, if you 
will, and he takes me to the local hot spot, a private club called the 
Golden Angel. 

The name predates, I'm assured, the star attraction of the evening, our 
raison d'etre, or, in light of her carnal inspiration, our raisin' 
d'etre, as Wally puts it, one Jamie "Super-Vee" Veach, who will anchor a 
tough gal challenge in which she will take on a half dozen or more 
opponents, one after the other, and sometimes, if they're lightweights, 
two at once. There's a thousand dollars to anyone who's still standing 
at the end of a three-minute round, two grand for two rounds and so on 
up to four. 

No one has yet stood a round with her at the Golden Angel, and I'm told 
she's done this several times before here (she apparently tours quite a 
number of states as a featured "adult" club fighter). This is regular 
tough gal style; you can hit with hands, feet, elbows and knees, 
everything is padded, though none too heavily. Eight-ounce gloves, for 
instance. Now, you may wonder why Wally would take me to such a 
potentially vulgar exhibition. The answer he assures me, as the midnight 
starting time draws nigh, is that Ms. Veach is not your typical tough 
gal skank, nor are her matches typical flailing, grabbing, raggedy-ass 
snakepits. She's a goddess, avers Wally, a natural blonde goddess bigger 
than life and bursting with nordic beauty who just happens to hit as 
hard as a freight train, and that's with any appendage you care to name. 
Now, you understand, I've seen no images of Veach at this point, and 
Wally, intending to maximally compound my sense of wonder, will say 
little. There are no posters, programs or anything of the sort, just her 
odd name hanging wet on the lips of the boisterous crowd, she's a 
victory peach and her opponents will be pitilessly pitted. 

As midnight approaches my anticipation is mounting. We have ringside 
seats, and we're drinking and smoking our way to the opening gong, while 
Wally regales me with tales of Rachel and her current girlfriend (an 
Asian occasion of the first magnitude, he assures, but that's another 
tail entirely). I would ordinarily put away a few pitchers in the course 
of something like this, as you well know, but Wally cautions me not to 
drink beer: once Super-Vee comes out, I'll never be able to tear myself 
away to the pisser, he warns, the matches follow each other almost 
directly, so I'm sipping a double Wild Turkey on ice, toying with a Don 
Diego and occasionally taking a toot on Wally's trusty pocket snooter. 

The place is noisy and crowded, with a surprising number of hot ladies 
present, some sporting big bare guns that are making my mouth water. I 
remark on their presence to Wally and he explains they're Super-Vee 
fanatics, she's got quite a following in this town, members of what you 
might call her local gun club. I remark that since she's called Super-
Vee, she must have some impressive shoulder girth on her, but what's the 
deal with her arms? Wally says, and I quote, "They're painfully big. She 
compares quite favorably with Daryl at her absolute biggest, and you 
know only too well how big that is." So! You can imagine how this 
tickled my fancy. Wally himself was so stiff with excitement he ordered 
a third double bourbon in an effort to bring his galloping self under 
some semblance of control. 

All right, it's midnight, the announcer is announcing, I've got a fine 
glaze on, that dull-flame tingly edge of sour mash and snow, the crowd 
is stomping and hooting. a big-armed redhead, her red clingy dress a 
flying vee of precipitous sweat-wet cleavage, who's sitting dead-across 
the ring facing me (we're not looking up at the action; the seats are 
raised to slightly above ring level) and whom I've been ogling all 
night, begins to bellow and convulsively crab herself, veins popping in 
her neck and shoulders, and suddenly Super-Vee is in the ring, as if by 
magic, I didn't see her enter, parading around triumphantly arms raised 
above her head, and what a sight she is! 

She's wearing black spandex workout shorts, the fresh mounds of her ass 
as pronounced as a nubian queen's, and a black bare-midriff Danskin 
halter over her Everlast chest protection, and god, there's a lot of 
everlastin' chest to protect. Her silky flaxen hair, sheened an aryan 
yellow-white under the lights, is tied back in a short pony with what 
looks like rawhide. She has a short, slightly broad upturned nose, 
piercing green eyes and a strong jaw and chin with sensual beestung lips 
and fine teeth. The neck is medium length, maybe a touch on the short 
side, and very solid, a squat column of power. She certainly hasn't got 
your patrician greek profile, the nose is too ski-jumpy and buttony, the 
neck too short, but, look darling one, picture yourself as a blonde. I 
don't know if you'd have more fun, but you'd be basking in the glow of 
Vee-ness. She indeed compares favorably to you in all respects, and in 
fact she's somewhat larger in the basic body stats (including age; I 
found out later she's 22). Like your delectable off-season self, she's 
not shredded but embedded, and her arms, as she flexes her way around 
the ring, are magnificent mountains, some of the biggest guns I've ever 
seen on a woman, she must be firing full metal jacket .22s with every 
cock of her fist, my eyes are swimming with the sight. 

 Her vee is indeed on the super side, slabs of black Danskin winging out 
over the relative wasp waist, no blocky obliques to dampen the swell of 
the full hips as she generously flares herself for the adoring crowd 
(though I'm sure she can't top your back in any respect) , and her 
thighs, well, they're just plain enormous (29 and a half inches cold, it 
turns out), and curiously, they're attached to relatively delicate lower 
legs, with shapely but by no means massive circa 17-inch calves and 
razor-blade ankles (the feet, though, are a pulverizing match for the 
thighs, but what beautiful toeage!). She dances lightly on the balls of 
these perfectly-digitized tootsies, as her first opponent enters the 
ring, a well-built but homely brunette, about 5-7, 155, by the name of 
Tammy Whynotte. (A stage name; if only the fight had been staged, for 
her poor sake.) The bell rings, a hush of excitement runs through the 
crowd, I am so close to Super-Vee I can almost reach out and touch her, 
but I'm so stiff  I can't bend forward that far anyway. 

The combatants come together at ring center, Tammy jabbing 
energetically, when suddenly the Vee girl launches a spinning backkick--
Ive never seen a leg that big move that fast, it's unearthly--that 
catches Tammy above the right eye and splits her head as if she'd been 
struck with a truncheon. Blood is running freely into her eye and on 
down her face as she staggers from the force of the blow to the far 
ropes, but she doesn't go down. No, she stays up for a brutal barrage of 
body punches that gradually elevates into head-snapping uppercuts. The 
blood is arcing into the front seats opposite me, I could see it 
whipping in the air, glistening in the lights, then the hapless Whynotte 
collapsed in a heap where she stood, thoroughly unconscious at 48 
seconds of the first round. 

As the body was cleared away, and Vee returned to her corner to be 
preened over by two brawny male minions, my bountiful redhead was 
revealed to me, her face, neck and chest spattered with blood, her big 
arms pumped in a swollen double biceps of victory, thick blue veins 
strung from shoulder to elbow like high tension wires, her heavy-lidded 
face a transcendent glow of ecstasy. (This redhead, by the way, appears 
to have 20/20 vision herself, and more of her later 'cause she most 
opportunely will reappear in this wonderfully sordid tale.) It was a 
Type-O epiphany, no doubt, as a fat guy sitting next to her (couldn't be 
her date) pawed at her sanguinary pecworks with a plaid hankie, but 
there was no further time to savor the moment, for a pair of 135-pound 
(each) twins had entered the ring, the Cooney sisters, Louanne and 
Louellen. They're tallish, about 5-9, well-built for their weight, but 
at this point I was confident they'd be massacred in under a minute, and 
indeed I could see a Spartan resignation on their long, narrow but not 
unattractive faces, which led me to believe they were fully prepared to 
bleed for a worthy but sadly unattainable cause. 

 Have I made clear just how big Super-Vee is? I suppose not. She's six 
feet and one half inch in her raw, eminently suckable piggies, a 
bruising 206 pounds of fighting weight, that's right, 206, about your 
size in the back and shoulders, maybe a bit more in the chest and arms, 
though the extra poundage must reside mostly in those ungodly thighs. 
And she's downright nimble. Handspeed, footspeed, grace, balance and 
power, what power! Her jab snaps and stings, her right hand is 
turbocharged, her ambidexterous uppercuts could powder cinder blocks. 

 So, to the block-headed twins. They had a strategy, actually, bless 
'em. One attacks ring center while the other waits off her shoulder for 
an opening as Vee defends. But Vee does't defend. She slips around her 
attacker's pittypat jabs, this would be Louanne, and drives Louellen 
into the corner with a front kick and a few whipcrackin' lefts. She then 
spins on the converging Louanne, and, as if she were delivering a 
precision-guided missile, puts the ballpeen of her right foot in the 
poor girl's nose, blowing the projectile right between her flimsy 
gloves, and breaks it as surely as if she had slammed Louanne's face 
into bricks. The girl goes straight over on her back as the crowd hoots 
with glee. Louellen, meanwhile has delivered a kidney punch while Vee 
still has her back turned to her. It's a hard right, her body set behind 
it. 

 The twin, as I said, is a fairly big girl, lean, with a good taut 
musculature. She could have beaten the bloody crap out of your average 
housewife while keeping one eye on Oprah. But the blow had no effect, 
none. I could hear it land, with the dull thud of a thick-knuckled fist 
on a heavy bag, but hitting a heavy bag would have at least moved the 
damn sack. Vee doesn't budge but pivots, using the blow as a fulcrum and 
quickly grabs Louellen behind the neck. I can hear my redhead shatter 
the crowd noise with a piercing proclamation of "Knee drive!" and, 
indeed, what follows is so astounding an uppercut of the leg, I don't 
know whether to shit or go blind. I believe Louellen does both. 
Actually, the wiry lass was prepared for the move with the proper cross-
gloves technique, but that two and a half feet of thigh girth pistons 
with such femoral force, it parts the gloves and beckons a red sea. The 
nose is crushed no doubt, perhaps the cheekbones go with it. The drive 
is not immediately followed with a second (merciful!), but rather Vee 
works the body quickly with both hands, keeping the sagging Louellen 
erect with lung-collapsing uppercuts to the ribs. 

 Suddenly my redhead can be heard screaming to her golden angel: "The 
other one's up!" and sure enough Louanne is unsteadily on her feet, her 
nose bleeding into her open mouth, but otherwise stanced for action. Vee 
turns from Louellen, who drops only to her knees and does not go down 
cold. The knee drive must have been partially blocked after all, for one 
that landed with full force would have probably torn her head clean off. 
Vee squares off with Louanne, who circles and jabs tentatively. She 
works the girl with sharp jabs back into a corner, then closes with her 
and starts to knee drive her to the body, holding her across the 
shoulders, slamming her into the turnbuckle, then backing off far enough 
to hit her with a right on the jaw that bounces her off the buckle, 
which sets  her up perfectly for a left to the midsection that causes 
Louanne's hips to rise as if there were an explosion between her legs. 
Her feet lift off the canvas, and when they come back down, the rest of 
her lanky frame follows in a heap. 

 Vee turns back to Louellen, who has just recovered her feet. Tough 
cookie, indeed. She's a little more than a minute away from collecting a 
thousand dollars (and being tempted by the joy of Round 2!), the lower 
half of her face, her neck and chest are stained crimson and she seems 
to be breathing funny, no doubt from splintered ribs. She tries to dance 
around the ring, waiting for the bell to save her, but Vee cuts the 
canvas from beneath her, moves in and front kicks her off the ropes, 
fakes a knee drive as she comes forward, and delivers a massive left 
uppercut behind the ear that fells the girl like a bus had backed into 
her. Time: two minutes, 22 seconds. 

 My redhead is up and applauding, her arms seeming bigger, the heavy 
veinage bluer and more pronounced every time I look at her. Vee too 
seems bigger as she flexes at ring center, as the toppled twins are 
cleared away like so much rubbish. Opponent three is already climbing 
into the squared circle of doom: a big tattooed dyke with an almost 
completely shaven head, name of Harley Miller. A motothug moniker, 
plainly; she has Harley wings and skulls on her arms and an intertwined 
snake and dagger on her back. Cute. Harley has grim looks, but she's a 
biggun', about 6-2, 200, not fat, not thin, kind of narrow-hipped, not 
too big in the bustline and not terribly well-muscled but, in the right 
circumstances, quite formidable, I'm sure. No doubt she's knuckled the 
snot out of countless ill-starred babes in late-night parking lots, and 
probably carved her initials in a few with her monogrammed switchblade. 
But here I have the feeling her size is nothing but an invitation to Vee 
to hit harder and longer. 

 Harley, however, is smart enough to mount a keen defense. She peekaboos 
her way through a full minute, fending off an assortment of showy kicks 
with her sturdy, decorative arms, throwing an occasional tentative jab 
and keeping her sizable self out of the corners. Eventually, though, I 
am sure the wily Vee will cut in on her and nail her in a box canyon, 
which happens at about 1:40 of the round, which leaves Vee with a minute 
and 20 seconds to drop the big lug. Well, let me tell you, she starts to 
unload on this poor greasergirl, pom-pomming her to the body and 
sneaking in savage uppercuts to her grimacing mug, fists slipping in 
behind Harley's peekaboo gloves and elbows to snap her peach fuzzy head 
up like she's head banging in the mosh pit of doom. 

Harley gamely tries to clinch and move out, which is when Vee takes her 
behind the head and whips her face down into an onrushing knee, but 
unlike the twin who earlier ate patella, this knee is followed by three 
others, as if Vee were a marching Clydesdale being filmed in fast motion 
or a lethal Rockette in a face-erasing can-can line. The first two knees 
may have been partially blocked--Harley has lead-pipe forearms on her--
but the latter two are cleanly delivered between the eyes and could 
easily have killed a smaller woman, I'm sure, even with the pads on. Vee 
actually adds a fifth drive, but lets go of Harley's head on this one, 
so the smitten thugette shoots up ramrod straight, then flops over on 
her back, either unconscious or deceased. There's blood pooling in her 
eyes from a split forehead and god knows what internal else. 

 Vee does another triumphant circle of the ring, high-steppin' like a 
parade stallion this time, and I cut my astounded eyes to the redhead, 
who is standing and applauding, talking to Vee who has moved close to 
her and is nodding in the high-energy affirmative with a vigorous motion 
of her no doubt lethal head. I consider the possibility that the redhead 
is no admirer from afar, but knows Vee and may even be carnally 
acquainted with her. I could certainly see them training arms together. 
I ask Wally over the din if he knows the redhead, and he says she 
bounces at a nearby dyke bar, where he's gone several times with Rachel. 
Well! As far as he knows she isn't Vee's lady or anything like that. You 
can see what I'm getting at, darling one. While I hunger for Vee, her 
triumphant presence in the ring makes her seem unapproachable; moreover 
she's but a child in my arms, while this redhead, as I may have 
neglected to point out, seems from afar to be a considerably more mature 
woman, possibly even in hailing distance of my advanced age (ha-ha!). 
I'd transferred the bulk of my lust to the bulk of this redhead (a 
worthy vessel, surely) and was entertaining serious fantasies of making 
her after the matches ended, dyke though she may be. There was to be 
only one more match. The fifth opponent chickened out, I'm told, after 
seeing the knee job Harley got. (Word on the motododo, by the way, was 
she was OK a few days later when her head stopped ringing and the blood 
clots cleared her occipital lobes.) 

 The last one is a washout: a short, buttheavy, pug-faced black woman 
charges to ring center and tries to launch an inside right Mike Tyson-
style. Vee slashblocks her with a 12-gauge striated forearm (slim but 
very deadly) and hammers her mouth with a sudden spinning backfist that 
put Latisha (Lateeka? I couldn't hear the announcer over the hooting) 
down hard on her side. Surprisingly, she gets up on a count of seven, 
charges in again for what she must have thought would be the decisive 
right and is kneed in the sternum so hard her mouthpiece blows out of 
the ring. Now, there's no stopping for something like that, so Vee could 
have extracted most of her teeth at this point, but she's merciful, the 
girl is already plug ugly in a particular pop-eyed fashion. She works 
her belly and ribs with close to a dozen blows, holding her with the 
other hand--Latisha has a streamer of bloody sputum hanging between her 
puffy lips--then puts her lights out with an uppercut elbow--that's 
right, a right elbow, to the jaw. The thought of that bone wedge 
whipping up, attached to that mass of brachial phenomena is only 
slightly less terrifying than the bowling ball knee rolling a strike, 
someone's unwilling teeth being the pins. 

So it's over. Vee leaves the ring as magically as she appeared, after a 
quick victory circle during which she is pelted with bras, panties and 
several hotel room keys.  I'm contemplating going over and striking up a 
conversation with the redhead, who is talking animatedly with the fat 
guy next to her, who seems to be her platonic companion, when Wally 
suggests we try to go to Vee's dressing room and pay our respects to her 
highness. Sounds good to me. We eventually shuffle our way to the lower-
level entrance, and I lose sight of the redhead in the crowded 
confusion. But lo and behold, there she is outside Vee's dressing room 
door when we finally get there some five minutes later. The door is 
guarded by two 'roidally enhanced male bouncers, and Wally, ever the 
smooth operator, sidles up and scopes out the Vee-worship situation. I 
take the opportunity to accost the redhead, whose fat friend is nowhere 
in sight. 

 "Excuse me," I begin suavely, "but I was sitting on the opposite side 
of the ring from you, right across from you, and I just wanted you to 
know how much your beauty and exuberance added to the overall enjoyment 
of the evening for me." 

 She smiles brightly, a mouthful of good strong teeth, and chuckles. Up 
this close I can see she indeed could be an easy 42, but she carries her 
age as well as you'd expect of someone built this big. I can  see some 
tiny droplets of blood that she'd failed to wipe away spotting her chest 
and neck (what a neck! carotids standing out like solid steel struts), 
and I say to her, "You've still got some of the blood of the vanquished 
on you, in fact. That was some moment in the first fight when Tammy 
Whynotte's head was spraying crimson right above you like that. You were 
showered." I grin appreciatively. 

 She smiles again, her sweet green eyes dancing, and looks down at the 
naked, sweat-sheened expanse of her upper chest, which shivers a bit 
with muscular contractions, searching for droplets of blood. "Well, if 
you see any blood on me and you've got a hankie, please go ahead and 
wipe it off," she urges. "It should come up easily, god knows I'm 
sweating enough. I've got enough great memories of the fight to take 
home with me, I don't need actual corpuscles." She laughs and I wipe 
with just the right combination of firmness and delicacy. 

"Raise your chin," I say tenderly, "there's blood way up on your neck." 
She does so and looks into my eyes. "You really get off on Super-Vee," I 
note approvingly. 

 "Who doesn't?" she says dreamily. "She's good enough to eat." 

How true. "Do you know her personally?" I inquire, taking my forthright 
cue from the indelicacy of her previous remark. 

 "Well, I know her, but not personally, if you get my drift," she smiles  
ruefully. 

 "I'd be honored to know *you* personally," I offer respectfully. 

 She smiles again. "You know, I don't often date men," she admits, "but 
you're such a gentleman, I think you're winning me over." 
 
I am about to winningly tell her my name when Wally taps my arm to tell 
me he's wangled his way in for an audience with the queen. "Come with 
us," I urge the as yet unnamed redhead, and she does. So there we are in 
a small, drab empty locker room. The queen is apparently off in the 
adjoining bathroom. 

"Be out in a sec," she yells, her voice, which I am hearing for the 
first time, a rich Appalachian honey. 

 "How'd you talk the bruisers into letting us in?" I ask Wally. 

"I told them to tell Vee I had the biggest cock in the state," he 
laughs. "Really big people are always suckers for really big things." 

"Well, do you really have the biggest cock in the state?" asks my 
redhead. 
 
"He may well have the biggest cock on the entire northeast seaboard," I 
suggest in all seriousness. 

 "You haven't introduced me to your new friend," Wally jumps in. 

 "I've barely introduced myself," I explain. "I'm Paul, this is my best 
friend Wally . . ." 

 "And I'm Brenda," she helpfully chips in. She takes Wally's hand. 
"Pleased to meet you." 

"Likewise," says Wally with a glint in his eye. "So, Brenda, you like 
Steely Dan?" he asks. 

 "Is this gonna be a reference to your size?" she wonders. 

"No, more to yours. I thought your favorite song might be Hey, 
Nineteen." 

"Witty, Wally," I say, "but seriously, Brenda, we were watching you pump 
your guns during the fighting whenever we could take our eyes off the 
action, and you are fearsomely big!" 

 "And what shape!" adds Wally. 

 "Yeah, well," says Brenda self-consciously, making nervous fists of her 
powerful hands, "you train hard and the rest is genetics." 

 "Yeah," says Super-Vee, making another sudden entrance, "and speaking 
of genetics, this Wally character had better be packing major meat, 
'cause if you turn out to be a Virginia slim, buddy, this Wally will not 
only not get the beave, I'm gonna put your lights out with a knee drive, 
and this time I won't be wearing any pad." She grins to show she's only 
half serious. "How'd you like that, Red?" 

 Brenda just sort of grunts, staring at Vee with a nervous lust. 

 "She'd get showered with blood all over again, she'd love it," I laugh, 
gallantly jumping in on Brenda's awkward behalf. "I just got finished 
wiping her off from the dousing she got from Tammy Whynotte." 

 "Oh, the first girl?" says Vee. "She got hurt pretty bad, didn't she . 
. ." 

 "Not compared to that tattooed freak," says Wally. "I thought you were 
gonna kill her." 

 "Those five knee drives had me coming in my pants!" blurts Brenda, who 
is wearing a tight red skirt cut midway up her bulging quads. 
 
 "They got me pretty horny too," says Vee, "but that was probably from 
the motion of my gigantic thigh rubbing against my oversized clit." A 
filthy chuckle emerges from her throat, and she runs her leg through 
several slow knee-drive arcs while eyeing us all lasciviously. I haven't 
mentioned what she's wearing. Totally unrevealing: gray sweats, Property 
of Tulane Athletic Department running in waves across the very large, 
delectably rounded bulges on the front of her sweatshirt. The reason for 
this conservatism becomes immediately clear. 

 "Well, Wally, the deal is show me yours and I'll show you mine," says 
Vee, suddenly all business.  "You've got a cock that makes my ears prick 
up, I'll give you and your buddy--Paul, was it?--and sweet Red, of 
course, a private show." 

 "No problem," says Wally, "but I've got to pee something awful. Can I 
use the bathroom before I, uh, unveil myself?" 

 "Sure," says Vee, "go right ahead. There's only one toilet," she adds 
as I start to follow Wally. So I pause on the threshold of the bathroom 
and leaned against the doorjamb, surveying these two magnificent 
specimens of pulchritudinous lady brawn. Apparently Vee thinks it 
unseemly for two men to pee at the same time, and I'm not about to 
appear uncouth in her eyes. 
 
"And what about you?" she challenges. 

"What *about* me?" I ask innocently. "I'm an instant admirer of yours. 
Never saw you before tonight, though Wally has. Now I'd drive down here 
again gladly just to see you work your brutal magic." 

 "Where you from?" 

 "I live in New Hampshire these days, though I'm a New Yorker at heart." 
I say this over the liquid noise of Wally's hose. 

 "And are you hung like your buddy Wally?" 

 "Well, no one I've ever seen is hung quite like Wally, though, if I may 
say so myself, I sport a pretty damn impressive battering ram of my 
own." 

 Both girls giggle. "Well, if Wally passes muster, then you can strip 
too," says Vee magisterially. 

 "My pleasure." 

 "Well, I passed water," says Wally, quickly re-emerging, "Now, do I 
pass muster?" His pants and briefs are neatly folded over his arm, his 
pole standing straight ahead between the tails of his shirt, as long as 
a jouster's lance and about as thick as the business end of a Louisville 
slugger. The sight of it could make Linda Lovelace choke up. Vee and 
Brenda are both bug-eyed with amazement. 

 "It's the biggest thing I've ever seen," mutters Brenda. 

 "Me too," whispers the incredulous Vee. "How long is it?" 

 "Long enough to hit a homer with," says Wally, who firmly believes, as 
you know, that stamping his organ with numerical exactitude is a 
surefire ardor dampener. 

 "I guess I'm gonna have to skin down for you guys and push some peaks 
around," says Vee. 

 "And maybe Brenda can join you?" I respectfully suggest. 

 "Hey, like the queen said, show me yours and I'll show you mine," says 
Brenda with a smile. 

 I unbuckle my pants, let them fall to my ankles and ease my heavy 
stiffness out of my aching briefs. I haven't peed, but it would take 
five minutes of thinking about Bella Abzug for my hardon to subside 
sufficiently to point it at the toilet, so never mind. 
 
Brenda whistles through her teeth. "Yow, you pegged it perfectly. It's a 
battering ram!" she exclaims. 

 "Hey, we're honest guys," says Wally. "What we say is what you get. Do 
you realize the two of us together is about as much cock as you'd get if 
you got it on with four or five normal guys? And, as long as I'm on the 
subject," adds the always boastful Wally, "we can supply as much come as 
four or five normal guys . . . on an average day. On a good day, six or 
seven. Depends on how many zinc supplements we've taken." 

 "Hey, wait a minute," snaps Vee. "If you think you're putting either of 
those things in me, think again. I'll put on a show for you and you can 
jack off if you want, but no one gets into me on the first date." 

 "Jack off?!" says an incredulous Wally. "Super-Vee, we've seen hot 
muscle bods before. I'm married to one and Paul's the father of one, for 
Chrissake." 

 "The father of one?" asks Vee, her curiosity aroused, if not her ardor. 

 "Yeah, his daughter's about as big as you, and she's as cute as you 
too, for that matter." 
 
"She's a serious competitive bodybuilder, or was last year, at least," I 
explain. "She won the New Hampshire Iron Miss and the New England Amazon 
Classic, heavyweight division." 

 "Holy shit!" Vee explodes. "Daryl Buck!?" 

 "You know her?" I venture. 

 "I've only been frigging myself to her Sinfully Sinew layout for the 
last six months!" she blurts. She turns and starts rummaging in a gym 
bag, pulls out the Sinew that features the Iron Miss. "This is your 
daughter!?" she demands, opening to that awesome full-color, full-page 
rear lat spread. 

 "Yeah, it is," I say with filial pride. "Certainly you'll note some 
facial similarity. Speaking of similarity, you two are built quite 
alike, especially in the arms and chest. You've got bigger thighs than 
her, that's for sure," I add. 

  "I just wish I could spread my sides like this," says Vee in 
reverential tones. 

 "Well, you've got some spread on you," I offer, "and your spinal 
erectors are, uh, quite erecting." 

 "The article says she pulled a 20.4 in contest shape," notes Vee. "What 
would she pull now and what does she weigh in the offseason?" 

 "Well, she was starved down to 153 for the Iron Miss," I point out. "I 
don't know how she ever did it. Now she's back up at a far more natural 
weight, almost 190. She can regularly pull a pumped 21.3 at that 
weight." 

 "Is that her absolute best? She's never hit 22?" 

 "No, I don't believe she's ever hit 22, though I distinctly recall a 
massive arm session about two months ago where she hit a 21.6 lefty. 
It's the left arm that really swells up with her." 

 "With me too," says Vee. "Wow, a 21.6, that's goddamn huge." 

 "You've got to be at least that big, don't you Vee?"  I ask. 

"Looks can be deceiving," she confesses. "I've got relatively slight 
forearms, just like my lower legs, so it's the contrast that enhances 
the appearance. The biggest I've ever pumped my left is a flat 21, and 
that takes a total supersession. My right has never exceeded 20.5, which 
was her size about 50 pounds lighter than I am. I'm nowhere near a 22 
anytime soon," she adds glumly. 

 "Don't be so depressed," I counsel. "You've got exquisite shape, the 
heads tie in to a perfect rounded mass. That's great genetics and 
there's no substitute for it. Keep curling and before too long you'll be 
over 22, both arms." 

 "I hope you're right . . ." Her voice trails off as her eyes look away 
into an inner space, probably one where you, my darling, are pumping 
like a goddess, and she is coming like a bitch. "Look, this changes 
everything," Vee suddenly perks up. "Daryl likes girls, I bet, right?" 

 "She does," I concede, "though not exclusively." 

 "Well, I want to get together with her . . . and you, I mean I'll be 
only too happy to make you happy if, as a reward, shall we say, you'll 
let me spend some quality time with Daryl." 

 "I'm sure it can be arranged," I say. "I have the feeling you're really 
going to turn her on." 

 "Oh, I'll finger her hot button," she assures. "I just know we're gonna 
hit it off bigtime." 

 "As long as we're on the subject," I say as I turn to Brenda, "Daryl 
would love to meet you too, I'm sure." 

 "Where would we meet?" she asks. "Are you inviting us up to New 
Hampshire, or is she coming down here?" 

 "Well, I've got a nice piece of land up there. A private lake with a 
beach, boating, water skiing, horses nearby, and it's summer all the 
time now but never too hot, really, like down here . . . you both are 
quite welcome to come on up. We could leave tomorrow, if you like. Daryl 
is up there right now." 

 "No can do," says Vee. "I'm fighting in Jacksonville on Sunday night, 
talk about hot. Why don't you have her fly down and we'll all make a 
party of it?" 

 "Shit, I've got to bounce this whole weekend," says Brenda. 

 "I can get someone to fill in for you Sunday if you can't find anyone, 
Brenda," says Vee. "I'm telling you, you don't wanna miss this 
Jacksonville gig, they've got a better class of women down there. Longer 
fights, harder fights. You'll need a raincoat, there'll be so much blood 
flyin'." Brenda's eyes widen with delight at the thought. 

 "Well, let's do it," says Wally, who is growing impatient, his pecker 
beginning to droop. "Give us the details on the action after you give us 
the action on the details." Vee looks at him quizzically. "Bare your 
bod, for Chrissake, before my pole catches a cold." 

 "Oh, yeah," says Vee with a renewed relish. No doubt images of you, my 
sweet, are dancing in her head. 

 "So will you come with us, Brenda?" I ask, advancing on her tenderly 
and putting my hands gently on her massive shoulders, my still erect 
prick toying with the hardness of her belly through her dress. 

 "I'd love to, Paul," she says, gripping my shaft and running a sweaty 
fist along it in slow traverses. I groan and rub her arms, asking her 
softly to flex them for me. 

 "Hey, what gives?" says Vee. "I thought I was putting on a show for 
everyone here." 

 "I've really got to cement my love for Brenda right now," I explain. 
"I'll be only too happy to get to you another time. Why don't you get it 
on with Wally. You won't regret it, he's a superb lover." Vee shrugs, 
obviously resigned to doing whatever is necessary to get a piece of you, 
delectable one. 

 I twine tongues with Brenda, who alternately flexes her arms and 
strokes my length. I haven't really described this beautiful mature 
morsel: A dark natural redhead with a broad, strong nose, slanting 
cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, deep green verging on purple, something 
Cossack in the features, very sensual. And a body that could have walked 
onstage and been in the running for a heavyweight title at any of a 
dozen regional shows tomorrow. She's 5-9, 175, and this is a 
sufficiently lean poundage so she's arterially ethereal even unpumped 
from the delts to the wrists. She's a cold 17.7 above the elbow, and 
she's pumped each arm to a best of 19.6 to date (excellent expansion 
indeed!), with the big 20 looming quite plausibly on the near horizon. 
She's 39, it turns out (or so she insists--is it possible she just can't 
accommodate the big 4-0 yet?), and only began serious iron work at the 
age of 36. The usual frenzied response to gravity's rainbow of negative 
possibilities, especially when your maiden's form must be squeezed into 
a 44DD Maidenform. No prior athletic history to speak of, was in fashion 
sales for a decade and did rather well with the aid of her memorable 
looks. Never married, no children, always swung both ways. Clearly not a 
dyed in the wool dyke, not dressed as she is tonight in devil with the 
red dress on sex sheath, plunging at the neck and arching at the hip, 
topping red spike heels and garter-belted black fishnet hose that keep 
her calves wound tight like industrial shocks. Her legs are fabulous, by 
the way, way bigger than Vee's below the knee, and she's bigger than Vee 
too in the booty, a ripe muscle-sculpted butt, the cheeks riding hard 
and high with deep-dimpled gluteal striations. 

 So I maneuver her into the corner, the light switches happen to be 
there,  and I kill half the fluorescents for a comparatively romantic 
ambiance. She places her big beautiful behind delicately on the center 
of a narrow wooden bench, I pull the dress up, the matching red panties 
down, and kissing a gorgeous trapezius that's humping with sexual 
tension in her neck, I ease into the wet, bulging darkish-red-thatched 
mound of her pussy with tender loving strokes, her heavy clit in clear 
contact with my unholy heft. As you'd expect of someone in this kind of 
shape, especially one who rarely plays host to cock, she's tight as a 
16-year-old gamine. 

 Somehow I get the dress down off of her hulking shoulders and manage to 
pop a boob out of the matching red underwire bra. Tit heaven! The 
luscious mound is pinkish white and blue veined right up to the 
explosively thick brownish red nipple, stiff as hard rubber, that caps 
it like an umbrella atop a volcano. While I'm chewing on this beauty, 
and alternately licking the slick hairy armpit and its attendant 
grapefruit-sized bicep, I realize I never got to pee, but never mind, 
I'm in that place of chilled-bladder refinement. I have no idea what 
Wally is up to since my back is to the room. Brenda is moaning and 
breathing hard and seems to be really loving this, but I'm worried that 
her ass must be uncomfortable on the bench. Then, to my surprise, she's 
coming; she has her legs wrapped around me in a crushing embrace, I can 
feel her lips grip and spasm on my length, and her face contorts in a 
twisted ecstasy as I kiss it all over with wet gentle pecks. 

 When the spend subsides, I gently pull out, and my glistening cock, 
 pearl-tipped, looms before her eyes (she's sitting, I'm standing). She 
looks lovingly up at me, then straight ahead at my length, licks 
tentatively at the giant purple glans, then takes a few inches into her 
mouth, and lo and behold, she must have done this a few times for I'm 
getting a no-enamel swirl of suction that makes my bloated balls jump in 
their heavy pouch. I hear a groan behind me, which can only be Wally 
letting a load go--it's a sound we're both quite familiar with, after 
all--but I keep my eyes closed, my fingers resting lightly atop Brenda's 
lustrous locks, because, I'm stunned to report, this is a class-A 
blowjob I'm getting, a lip o' suction that is surely gonna vacuum my 
prostate any minute now . . . she's got one hand gripping my shaft, the 
other kneading my balls expertly, middle finger probing my anus, and 
when she stops for a breath, I softly tell her, "I'm really close," and 
she pants, "I'll take it in the mouth," and I'm back in, it's like 
velvet-lined latex in there and lordy did I let the dam break over her 
healthy gums . . . I tightened all the muscles in my legs and buttocks 
till I was about to rip some tendons, then the jet stream started and 
didn't stop for about half a minute. When I finally cranked down a 
notch, she disengaged her face, the semen hanging in sticky streamers 
off her chin, but there was no gagging, nothing, she swallowed it all, 
then wiped her chin with her hand and swallowed that too. A yeoman 
blowman, indeed. 

So I'm standing there with my pants around my ankles, settling into half 
mast, waves of postgasmic delight coursing through my body, and at this 
point I'm kind of in love, if you know what I mean, and I know you do, 
'cause you're wise beyond your years (in so many ways!). She stands up, 
kisses me and says, "You're fabulous," and I say, "No, you are, you're a 
dream," and we hug, the one loose boob pressed into me so I can feel the 
burning tip touch my heart. I hold her at arm's length again, admiring 
the palette of parabolic curves she paints my eye with, and all I can 
say is a thoroughly banal, "Man, are you built." 

 She giggles and I realize she's looking over my shoulder where Wally 
and Vee are sitting on a bench with twin grins, studying my bare ass. I 
buckle my pants up, Brenda tucks herself in, and I realize Vee is 
dressed just as she was before, in the concealing gray sweats. 

 "What happened with you two?" I ask. 

 "I got the Vee treatment," says Wally, with less than total 
satisfaction. "A little fist and a lot of head. I allowed myself to come 
quick, this girl's very busy." 

 "I told you," says Vee, "you're not getting in my honeypot, certainly 
not tonight. Daryl's *his* daughter, not yours," she adds, hooking a 
hand in my direction. 

 "Does that mean I get to go in?" I ask. 

"Well, yeah, but how about another day," she begs. "I'm tired and I 
wanna go home. I beat up a lot of chicks tonight, you know." 

 "Whatever," I say, dismissing the whole notion of her queenliness with 
a wave of my arm, and, turning to Brenda, "I'm totally sated anyway." 

 She grins, and says, "Me too." 

 So, after making arrangements to all meet tomorrow night at Brenda's 
bar, the Stuck-Up Pig (those nutty dykes!), Wally and I head back to the 
motel. In the car he insists on comparing our blowjobs at great length, 
so to speak, and the inescapable conclusion is Brenda's head is at least 
twice as good as Vee's and probably better even than Rachel's, which is 
a high compliment indeed. Now, of course, once I've given him an honest 
blow by blow of the blow, Wally has quite forgotten about Vee's honeypot 
and has set his heart on Brenda's parted lips. Fine, I'm not selfish. 
And I wonder if Brenda will be "jealous" if I indeed do get the chance 
to climb aboard the good ship Queen Vee. We'll see. 

 So let us move ahead to 9 o'clock on a Saturday night at the Stuck-Up 
Pig, a nonsectarian saphhic scene whose clientele is a mix of everything 
from diesel dykes to lipstick lesbians, along with a smattering of their 
adventurous male friends, sexual orientation undetermined. Wally, Vee 
and I are sitting at a corner table drinking beer, joined frequently by 
Brenda, who periodically must take a walk around the floor just to make 
sure everything is OK. I asked her earlier if there's ever any trouble, 
and it seems there rarely is, but when there is she usually has to go 
outside in an alley in the back and settle it in an informally refereed 
one-on-one with her problem customer. She wins, customer goes home, or 
is carried home. It's a tough gal competition without the pads, which 
can be pretty damn dangerous. Fists and feet, elbows, knees, head butts 
. . . Brenda says she's fought about two dozen of these in her two years 
on the job, and has never lost. She notes that her chief form of 
protection, her first line of defense, you might say, is her arms, which 
are always bare and always pumped. You've gotta be pretty big or pretty 
drunk or both to want to take on those 19-inch babies, and anyone pretty 
drunk is gonna get knocked into the middle of next week, 'cause Brenda 
is mean and sober on the job. However, I'm additionally reassured to 
hear she wears a heavy duty groin shield under her loose Levi's (great 
for high kickin'), has been working a heavy bag four times a week for 
the past two years, and can box, wrestle and kick like a veteran club 
fighter, thanks to her tae kwon do training at the local Kathy Long 
Academy. She says she has a brown belt, just doesn't go enough to earn 
the black. Yet. 

 Well, OK. Last night I didn't know her hands were lethal weapons, 
though her lips certainly were, but I hope she's not just wagging her 
tongue here, so to speak. When I beerily suggest she ought to take on 
Vee in the tough gal ring, Brenda nixes the notion with a very serious, 
"She's too damn big and too damn strong, she'd beat the crap out of me." 
 
"But you should be able to last at least the round and win the money," 
Wally speculates. 

"You don't really think getting your face kneed right out the back of 
your head is worth a grand, now, do you?" Brenda challenges. 

"I'd never fight you anyway," says Vee. "I could never get in the ring 
with a beautiful woman I know personally. Hitting you would violate my 
aesthetic sensibilities." This line is good for a laugh all around, 
though it's true nonetheless. Well, the laughs continue, the beer flows, 
and then the shit hits the fan around midnight. A big pot-bellied diesel 
with a mohawk takes offense at a remark of one her drinking partners at 
a table across the room, stands up suddenly and unloads on her, sends 
her sprawling over the back of the chair, laid out cold, it seems. 

 Brenda is at our table when it happens. "Uh-oh," she says, "I'm gonna 
have to go over and smooth that girl out. You all stay right here." 

 "Don't worry," says Vee, "any trouble I'll be backing you up all the 
way." 

Quite a confidence builder, but Brenda seems very cool anyway. I figure 
she runs this place with a kid-gloved iron fist, but I'm worried about 
this dyke. Ms. Mohawk is over by her felled victim now, lifting her up 
by the shirtfront, and from across the room in smoky dim light I can see 
arms the size of canned hams (she's wearing a sleeveless denim jacket) 
and tattoos, which remind me of Harley Miller, who must have her head 
wrapped in bandages like the Invisible Man tonight. While this girl 
certainly is nowhere near as tall as Harley--she can't be more than 5-8-
-it appears she's bulkier, heavier and undoubtedly stronger.Well she's 
lifted up her playmate and sat her back down in her chair, where the 
wispy brunette is slumped, semi-conscious, by the time Brenda gets over 
to the table. Words are exchanged, not particularly heated, then Brenda 
turns and starts to walk back to our table. I instantly fear the dyke 
will leap up and hit her with a chair, but nothing happens. Brenda sits 
down and lights a Marlboro. She explained earlier she only smokes when 
she's nervous. 

 "What was that all about?" I ask. 

 "That's Patsy, she's been here before. Her friend said the wrong thing, 
her friend got hit. It's happened before. Patsy is very aggressive, if 
you know what I mean." 

 "Would she start up with you?" wonders Wally. 

 "Well, if she got wired enough she might. She likes to snort meth, and 
I think she's got quite a headful right now. That's why she unloaded on 
her pussy pal. Meth makes some people real, uh, physical." 

 No sooner was this apposite word out of her mouth than Patsy lifts 
another girl at her table up out of her seat and proceeds to punch and 
knee her chest and gut about seven or eight times. She then drops the 
girl in a clump and kicks her for good measure, though I can't see where 
since it's on the far side of their table. Brenda sighs deeply and stubs 
out her cigarette. "I'm gonna ask her outside," she explains, "and I 
know she'll come 'cause she's really cranked up now. She knows I'm gonna 
ask her too, and I'm sure she's up for it." 

 "So we can come out and watch?" asks Vee. 

 "Absolutely," says Brenda, "it'll be as good as a tough gal match." 

"Are you sure you can handle her," I ask, worried. "She looks pretty 
damn big." 

 "She's big," says Brenda, "which only means she won't fall down that 
fast. I'm gonna beat her bloody, and, frankly, I'm gonna enjoy it. Make 
sure you don't step in unless something really nasty happens to me, 
which is very unlikely. Head for the back door when I do." 

So we all shuffle out back on cue. The three of us are Brenda's 
contingent, Patsy has her three pussies, which includes the one she 
originally punched, but not the one she worked over; she's still inside 
on the floor. Curiously, her pussies are all undernourished waifs who 
look like they couldn't knock over a grandma if they all pushed at the 
same time. The alleyway off the parking lot is about 12 feet across with 
whitewashed  graffiti-scrawled brick walls, well lit in a high-security 
sodium glare. Wally immediately slips over to our car and gets the Hi-8 
out of the trunk. What a great idea; the whole thing will be on tape. We 
could charge admission to a screening. 

Brenda, who's wearing a tight white official Stuck-Up Pig t-shirt, 
sleeveless muscle version, which features a colorful silkscreen of a 
snooty, snobby pig in a top hat looking down its snout at a crowd of  
little pigs, is flexing her arms and shoulders amid the heady crunching 
of cartilage. Patsy, is inhaling vigorously through her nose, as if to 
get a blast of fresh air up there and clear the meth out of her 
membranes. At close range, I can see she has some arm size, but it's at 
least as much fat as muscle. She also has some impressive shoulder girth 
framing her whopping braless breasts, which seem to be resting atop her 
medicine ball gut, and she's sort of hunched forward, her head tucked 
into her short thick neck, her brutish arms swinging in front of her 
apelike. At that moment I have the powerful feeling that Brenda is gonna 
beat the shit out of her. I mean, the girl is imposing in her own way, 
she probably weighs 220, and I feel sure she's gonna charge Brenda, try 
to lock around her waist and take her down for a pummeling, but I'm 
confident that Brenda is strong enough and savvy enough to handle this. 
She'd better be. At any rate, I have no intention of stepping in, not 
with the likes of Vee here. 

 "Let's go, you fucker!" spits Patsy, and backed by the grunts of her 
three-waif cheering section, fat Pat advances on my noble redhead in a 
wrestling stance. Brenda fakes a side kick to her head and snaps a 
wicked jab into her face, circling. She continues to snap jabs, circling 
one way then another, with Patsy actually trying to catch the arm that 
they're attached to, as if she were a bear. Brenda has landed at least 
five stingers by now, the kind of blows that produce redness and 
swelling; Patsy finally gets impatient and charges for an inside move, 
lunging low onto Brenda's left leg and driving her back into the wall 
with a thud. 

Now is the moment of truth. Had Patsy been fighting a smaller opponent, 
she could have pulled the girl's legs out from under her here and 
stomped her crotch or something of that sort, then gone to town with her 
fists and feet on the prostrate form. But she isn't strong enough to do 
this on the iron redhead. Brenda leans forward and locks her arms around 
Patsy's back, then drives her to the center of the alley, where Patsy 
collapses under Brenda's weight, still holding the leg, but gripped 
under her armpits across the chest by Brenda's powerful arms. There's a 
grunting, panting tussle at this point, as the girls fight for 
advantage, then Patsy explodes off the cement--she must have some leg 
power!--lifting Brenda right into the air and, ever more bearlike, tries 
to shake her grip loose. Brenda slips around behind Patsy during this 
maneuver, still with her arms locked around her chest, and Patsy makes 
an excellent attempt to stem the tide that is now surging against her by 
kicking back with her Doc Marten-booted heel and smashing Brenda's shin 
while trying to reach over her head and grab Brenda's hair. Brenda yelps 
with the pain of the shin blow, but jerks her head away out of Patsy's 
reach, then slips her left arm up under the dyke's neck, whips her 
around into a side headlock and smashes her face with a flurry of 
rights--both of them grunting wrenchingly with each blow--which ends 
with a two-hand grip on poor Patsy's head and a whipdown into a knee 
drive that slams into Patsy's runny nose with a force that makes me 
wince. 

Brenda lets go of Patsy after the blow, figuring, I guess, that she'd go 
down and that would be the end of it, but Patsy staggers back moaning, 
her hands up to the bleeding middle of her face. Brenda just stands 
there breathing hard, waiting to see if Patsy will fall. She bends 
forward, makes a funny gurgling noise, spits blood and mucus onto the 
pavement, then shakes her head--yes, bearlike--as if to clear it. She 
damn well isn't going down. She isn't even quitting. One tough slob. 

"That's enough, Patsy, you've lost, go home," urges Brenda. 

"How do you figure I've lost when I'm about to tear your fuckin' head 
off, bitch!" spits Patsy, and I mean this literally, 'cause bloody 
spittle is frothing forth with her evil words. 

"Have it your way," sighs Brenda, "but this time I'm gonna put you down 
to stay." Brenda circles, measures Patsy with some jabs that glance, 
then, before Patsy can get up the steam for another charge, expertly 
kicks out her lead leg, the right, with a Thai boxing-style calf sweep, 
and, when the diesel queen is thoroughly off balance, nails her with a 
beautiful right cross to the eye that sends fat Pat backwards on her 
heels. Brenda pursues and hits her with a double left, first to the 
midsection then a short hard uppercut to the mouth, which is followed by 
another right cross that slams into Patsy's jaw and snaps her head 
around like whiplash. She seems poised for a second on her toes like a 
gigantic ballerina, her bulk gathering its weight together to see what 
direction it will fall in, when the speedy Brenda hits her between the 
eyes with another short left, and Patsy goes straight over on her back, 
hard and uncontrolled so her head hits dangerously. I look carefully to 
see if there is any blood from the back of it, and there isn't. Well, 
that was the end of that. 

"Take her home, now!" Brenda yells crossly at the waifs, who scurry to 
comply, and we all march back in for a drink and a smoke. The damage: 
Brenda has a nasty purplish bruise on her sturdy Robert Crumb signature 
ankle and slightly swollen and scuffed fists on her amply knuckled Crumb 
signature mitts. I, needless to say, was rendered stiff as a pool cue by 
the whole affair, which Wally assured me he has captured brilliantly on 
the Sony. I ask Bren if she'd like to view it with us, obviously as a 
prelude to reckless wild sex. Bren, still clearly pumped with the 
adrenaline rush of physical violence combined with the endorphin flood 
of victory, is sitting there rhythmically clenching her powerful 
fingers, making her forearms swell like expandable armor. She'd love to 
watch the tape with us, but she has to stay on bouncing duty till 
closing time at 4, and it's not yet 1. She'd be too tired by then, but 
Vee suddenly pipes up with, "Goddamn, that beating got my blood up! Why 
don't you two studs come back to my place to screen the thing and let 
some steam off. You and Bren can renew your friendship tomorrow night in 
Jacksonville, after the fights, Paul." 

 "Is your vaunted honeypot open for business, this evening, pray tell?" 
asks Wally. 

 "No, but it's open for pleasure, Wal, so prepare to dip your stick in 
magic syrup." 

 Well, the chance to finally take tea with Vee is tempting beyond the 
extreme, but first I take Brenda aside and, in effect, ask her 
"permission." I'm whipped already, after one roll in the locker room! 
She readily grants absolution, regretting only that she can't be there 
to join me in this celebration of Veachy-keenness. "Tomorrow night, in 
Jacksonville!" are my heroic parting words.  

--30--