Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill - Part 1
By Beaten Man   replies to humbled@abeatenman.com 
One would come tumbling down


Chapter 1.

As Jack Pulter met tonight's opponent's hard stare with his own he couldn't
help thinking what a truly just world he lived in. Sometimes fate delivers a
welcome package directly to your door step. Of all the possible opponents in
this great big beautiful world he could have been paired with in a Tough Man's
contest, the very best one imaginable had been dropped right in his lap.

For starters, he had an opponent that wouldn't take much out of him in this
opening bout. When you're in a single elimination tournament and you have to
fight five times in order to pick up the prize money that's a real blessing.
Bare knuckled brawls like these were no picnic win or lose. Any fight in which
you got the chance to cruise and not take much punishment was a good fight.

He knew, he'd been through these tournaments before. Two weight divisions.
Over 190 pounds or under 190 pounds, one or the other. Just about anything
goes except hitting a downed fighter. No referees, so if you don't want to get
hit in the nuts wear a cup.

Equipment? A pair of trunks and your fists. You just fight until one or the
other goes down, and if they get up, you keep fighting. You fight until you or
your opponent can't fight any more, just like you would in an alley.

Just like the fights he'd had in prison.

These were bar room brawls and they were held in a bar. The only difference
was you had a ring and nobody ever broke up the fight. Just a knock down, drag
out fist fight, winner take all. What a blessing a short, easy fight would be.
Everyone else that won would have been through a war, he'd be as fresh as a
guy pinching a dames ass. He was fighting someone he had beaten not once or
even twice, but literally dozens of times.

And beaten wasn't even the word for it. Slaughtered would have been more like
it. Jack hadn't broken a sweat or even really been hit. This was like taking
candy from a baby. A five foot seven inch, 145 pound baby.

Jack had the height, the weight and the reach advantage. And lot's of history
to go with it.

But so much more important than any tournament bullshit was the satisfaction
he'd get out of pounding tonight's opponent into mush. How often do you get
the chance to get even with someone for fucking up your life and have the
opportunity to get paid for it. He'd spent five years in jail because of the
opponent glaring up into his eyes. Five mean, hard years. He was going to
enjoy this.

What irony, go to jail for using your fists and now you get to use your fists
to get even. Oh God was he ever going to enjoy this!

Jack's stare hardened even further and his fists clenched even tighter. His
lean, muscular five foot ten inch. 185 pound body tensed until every muscle
was defined. He inched closer to the lamb being offered for slaughter.

He'd once heard someone say that vengeance was a dish best served cold. He was
going to relish feasting on a little cold lamb..

"This time when you come to you won't be calling the Police", he said, you'll
be calling an ambulance".

"And that's if you come to at all".

Chapter 2.

The last thing on Jill Stratton's mind was the Tough Man's contest when she
had made arrangements with the other girls to meet at O'Hearly's Sports Bar
for a few drinks that night. This was to be a celebration of her best friend
Nancy's approaching marriage. It was Nancy's bachelorette party and Jill was
the matron of honor. Had she known there was going to be a fist fight in the
middle of her party she probably would have chosen any one of a dozen other
places in the neighborhood. But the choice was made and she'd make the best of
it.

It really is strange how things work out some time. She would have liked to
use the party as a launch pad back into the world of love and dating. She was
ready to start meeting the right kind of men. What kind of man would you meet
at a bar having bare fisted brawls as its main attraction? Probably the same
type of ass holes as she'd been married to.

Funny, no matter how long you've been divorced, if your best friend gets
married you're the Matron and not the Maid of Honor. "Once married always
married I guess",. she had thought when Nancy had first asked her to be the
Matron.. Unfortunately, she had been married.

But what a miserable marriage it had been. Six long, pain wracked years with a
first class ass hole. A hard partying, hard fighting, wife beating piece of
shit. How many times had the prick beaten her up? Twenty? Thirty? She couldn't
even remember. He'd even beaten her up after the divorce. Her reward for
putting him out of her life.

The bastard had taken her from a bright beautiful and cheerful eighteen year
old kid and turned her into a scared, beaten and disillusioned, old before her
time, twenty six year old woman by the time he was finally out of her life.
She'd dropped his last name the same day she'd dropped him.

It had taken almost seven years for her to regain her confidence and her
bearings. She had used the time to learn a real trade and bring a measure of
success to her life that wasn't beholding to any man, good or bad.. Seven
years to rebuild her body so that it was once again a thing of beauty. She'd
worked hard and she'd trained hard. She hadn't missed a day at the gym, two
hours a day every day for every one of those years. She'd learned how to work
like a man and even how to fight like a man. No one would ever again put her
through the type of hell her husband had.

Now she was a sought after woman, proud, confident and gorgeous again. Her
almost copper colored shoulder length auburn hair had it's old luster and
shine. Her hazel eyes had their clear gleam restored. Her full lips and wide
mouth had regained their smile. If not for the slight bend to her nose where
her ex had broken it so many times she could have won beauty contests.

And her figure! That was better than ever. Still perfect 36C 23 36
measurements, but now firm yet soft where a woman should be and hard as rock
every place else. She'd gained twenty five pounds in those seven years. Every
ounce of it hard, lean muscle. Her body made men stare with their mouth's open
when she went to the beach, it was that perfect.

It hadn't been easy, she had sacrificed a social life in order to climb the
ladder of success while rebuilding her life, her body and her mind all at the
same time. This shin dig for Nancy was as much her coming out party as it was
Nancy's bachelorette party.

Too many nights had she spent brooding over what her bastard husband had done
to her. Too many nights had she relived the pain and humiliation he'd caused
her. Too many nights had she spent dreaming of visiting one tenth of that pain
and humiliation back on him. It had taken seven years to put the self pity and
the thirst for vengeance aside. Tonight was going to be a celebration.

At least that was the original plan

Chapter 3

The party started well. Everyone found the bar and managed to show up on time,
a major feat when you're coordinating fifteen women. The bar was tickled to
death to have 15 unescorted women partying in the middle of an event that
attracted so many single men.

For Nancy's party the drinks were on the house and the bar's owner, Ed
O'Hearly, had even joined them for a few rounds to make sure that they were
happy. This was the kind of party that was good for Ed's business. And besides
that, it's always a good idea to take care of the cops. Both Jill and Nancy
were patrolwomen in the area. When you're in the bar business you always want
the local Gendarmes on your side. Especially when you serve up the sort of
"entertainment" O'Hearly's did.

No, the party started real well, but when the fighters who were entered in the
contest were introduced that all changed. At least it did for Jill.

She at first thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. Of all the men in
the world, the last one she'd expected to see walking around free was her ex
husband. He'd been sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempted murder and
battery after beating her up on the court house steps the day their divorce
was final.

A small price to pay for what he'd done to her, she thought.

Yet there he was, after less than a quarter of that time, doing what he always
loved to do, fight. Free as a bird and competing for prize money no less.

This isn't justice she had thought, this is bull shit. There was the cock
sucker who had beaten her half to death on countless occasions strutting
around the bar and showing off for his hoodlum friends.

The rage that rose inside Jill was frightening even to her. It was a cold hard
anger. She wanted to go over and attack him with a dull knife. Something that
would take her a long time to kill him with.

The party was over for Jill the moment she laid eyes on Jack Pulter . One look
at her Ex and there was nothing else she could think about besides hatred..
Nothing she could think of besides vengeance.

Chapter 4

She had scanned the other fighters entered in Jack's weight division hoping to
see someone who would pound him into the ground. But Jack was as smart as he'd
ever been. He'd always kept his weight down to just under the limit so that he
could fight the smaller men. The really big , mean looking guys were not in
his division. All she saw in the lighter division were some young punks and a
couple of loud mouth rednecks. Jack would eat guys like them for breakfast.

There was no way Jill was going to stay at the bar and watch Jack beat the
crap out of a few juvenile delinquents and a bunch of redneck yahoos while
collecting a fat prize for doing it. She had started to make her apologies to
Nancy intending to leave. But she couldn't go, the old Jill that was beaten
and afraid was overwhelmed by the new Jill, the confident and independent
Jill.

That Jill demanded vengeance and refused to wallow in self pity That Jill was
a woman of action. That Jill was not about to walk away from her demons. That
Jill was a demon killer.

When she had asked Ed O'Hearly to let her enter the contest and fight Jack
Pulter in the first round he had almost choked on his drink.

He had explained that Jack was the best fighter in the lighter weight class
and had been routinely winning these contests for a year. He was tough and
mean and had sent at least a dozen fighters to the hospital in that time. Some
badly injured. Besides, tonight's ring was no place for a woman. She would not
be allowed protection for her breasts, she would have to fight topless. It was
bare fisted and brutal. He suggested that she come back on a Tuesday when the
club had Foxy Boxing matches.

Jill refused to be deterred. The knowledge that Jack had been free and winning
money for at least a year infuriated her even further. She threatened to make
Ed's life a living hell featuring nightly Police raids if he didn't allow her
to fight.

That was why he finally had agreed.

That was why, in spite of the pleadings of Nancy and her other friends, she
was standing nose to nose with Jack Pulter glaring up into his eyes. That was
why her make up was now a bit of vaseline smeared under her eyes. That was why
her hair was pulled back and tied off. That was why she was wearing only a
pair of brief boxing trunks in front of a room full of howling men and
listening to him threaten to send her home in an ambulance.

Or even worse.

To be Continued.