The physics lesson
By Diana the Valkyrie (c) 1998
The theoretical physicist and the boxer.


I hate moving to a new city, leaving all your friends behind, all your 
favourite places, uprooting for a new life, almost. But it has to be 
done sometimes, you can't spend all your life in the same place. So I 
told my trouser I was leaving, and although I kept telling him it wasn't 
anything to do with him, he seemed quite sure it was him I was leaving. 
It didn't occur to him, I guess, that sometimes you change jobs and the 
place changes too. I guess it didn't occur to him to move with me, 
either. Well, if he couldn't think of it, I wasn't going to suggest it. 
I'm not that keen on dum-dums in the first place, although he was rather 
fun in bed. 

Which meant I had the problem of finding a new boyfriend. You might 
think it's easy, you just hang about in a bar and look available, but 
the trouble with that method, is you sure get approaches, but they're 
all from creeps. Likewise all the other obvious methods. Creeps are a 
dime a dozen, I'm a bit particular. 

Now, if I looked spectacular, that would help. Unfortunately, I don't. I 
look rather plain and ordinary, and even if I do my hair it doesn't help 
much. That's my own fault, I keep it short, because long hair is a total 
pain in the elbow to look after. Plus theoretical physicists aren't 
supposed to look glamorous. Plus I wear glasses. But long hair is sexy - 
I suppose I could get a wig. But then you take the wig off, and someone 
feels cheated. And I'm only 5'5", which isn't too bad, but isn't exactly 
the commanding heights. So I help that along a bit with heels; three 
inch usually, four inch at parties, and five inch when I'm hunting for a 
bit of trouser. 

So where's a good hunting ground? Not on the varsity campus, all the 
trouser there is either spoken for, or not old enough (but think they 
are, and if you think men in bars can be creeps, you haven't met teenage 
boys in bars). No, I learned a long time ago that there's two ways to 
hunt. One way is to set a baited trap and wait till the prey blunders 
into it. You might wonder why you often see a spectacularly pretty girl 
with a very plain friend. That's the baited trap; I've used it in the 
past, but it wouldn't work here, I didn't know any suitable fluff-
bunnies. The way it works, is you let the fluff-bunny pull them in with 
her hooks, then they find out that she's as dumb as a dodo, and the 
plain-looking friend sounds rather interesting. 

The other way is to go to where the prey is, and there aren't too many 
competing hunters. That's my preferred route, it means you don't have to 
worry about who's going to take care of your bait when you go off with 
your quarry (you don't want the fluff-bunny around for the kill, she'd 
be too distracting). So, where's a good place to find lots of trouser, 
no competition, and an atmosphere reeking of hormones? A boxing gym. 

Don't tell anyone about this, will you? I don't want the competition to 
hear about it. In a boxing gym, you find absolutely dozens of trousers, 
many of them nearly naked, in an atmosphere tense with suppressed 
violence (which isn't a million miles from suppressed sex), and 
absolutely no competition whatsoever. Yummy. And they don't even hide 
them, either, you can look in the Yellow Pages and there they are, large 
as life and all ready for the plucking. So I put my things into a gym 
bag (you have to dress right for these things) and I stroll down to the 
nearest one I can find. 

I push the door open, and try not to drool. Trouser, as far as the eye 
could see, in various states of undress, and not the slightest 
competition. Oh, heaven, why are you so good to me, I've been a bad 
girl, I don't deserve this. And while I'm standing there drinking it all 
in, a trouser comes up to me and says "Hey, honey, this is a boxing gym, 
we don't do aerobics here." So I give him a nice smile and say 
"Heartface," (my preferred derogatory endearment for people who use them 
on me) "boxing is my life. Where's the changing room?" "It's members 
only" "Great, where do I join?" "But you're a, er, um, ah ..." 

"Female. Woman. Well spotted, I bet you did biology at school. Next 
thing you'll be telling me genus and species. Where's the office?" He 
points with his fist, I think he's run out of words. I leave him 
standing there, I figure he'll work out for himself how to close his 
mouth, otherwise I can always show him later. 

In the office, sits a teddy bear, I try not to laugh. The teddy bear 
looks up at me and says "What?" Great dialogue, Teddy. "I want to join, 
how much is a year's membership" "You can't join, honey, you're a woman. 
This is men only." "Heartface, first of all you don't actually know what 
sex I am, you're guessing, and secondly the ERA bill passed in 1971 
guarantees that what you just said is illegal; check out para 17 clause 
4b" Yes, total bullshit, but how would he know that? And then I take out 
my convincer and wave it at him, and he's convinced. 

No, it isn't a gun, I don't like violence, except in the ring, of 
course, or in the bedroom. Or in the living room, if the bedroom is too 
far away. Or out in a park, if there aren't too many people about. Now 
don't get me started on that, we'll be all day. My convincer is the 
thing that is the ultimate convincer for a lot of people, and certainly 
the teddy bear looks real convinced. It's a big roll of green stuff, and 
I commence to peel off bills, and how is teddy to know that there's only 
a few real ones on the outside, the rest is just paper, they don't pay 
us theoretical physicists worth a damn. So I join his gym for a measly 
$500, which is only twice what he'd charge anyone else, and I figure I'm 
getting a bargain, since it works out at about $10 per trouser, possibly 
even less. "But we don't have a ladies changing room" he says. "No 
problem", say I, "I'll use the men's. I'm not fussy." "But, but ..." I 
leave him butting, and head on out, it's pretty obvious where the 
changing room is, you just follow the smell of socks. 

The outfit is one of the reasons I love boxing so much. It could have 
been designed with women in mind. Bare legs, silk trunks, and a halter 
top. I can go out in the street like this and risk getting arrested for 
indecency, but in a boxing gym, it's the rig de rigeur. OK, you aren't 
supposed to wear high heels with this outfit, but I'm not here primarily 
to fight, I'm here primarily to hunt trouser, so I'm wearing my hunting 
heels, all five inches of them. And once you're used to them, boxing in 
them isn't too bad. 

So I mince out into the main gym (you can't actually *walk* in hunting 
heels, only mince), and everyone stops what they're doing and stares at 
me. You see what I mean? Where else could a rather plain-looking 
theoretical physicist wearing glasses get an effect like that? Yummy 
yowser! I hear one of them talking to his buddy "Jeez, get a load of 
those!" and his friend says "hubba hubba" and I know they're looking
at my ladybumps, which I guess are kind of spectacular at that, so
I make them jiggle a bit extra, hunting heels are good for jiggling,
and I sort of strut a bit so they can get a good gander at the gams.

And some big guy wearing a frown and an odour of old T-shirts 
comes up to me and says "Darlin'" and I think, ooh, this is going to be 
good, another limpbrain, "Darlin', I think you're in the wrong gym." So 
I look down at him, which is a very good reason for wearing hunting 
heels, and I say "No, heartface, I'm exactly where I want to be, thank 
you very much, now how does a girl get a sparring partner around here?" 
And I look around, feeling like a kid in a candy store. 

They don't all rush up at once. You can almost see the effort as they 
try to make their brains tackle this problem. Fight a girl? What if I 
lose, they're thinking. Damn, this is my own fault, I've come on too 
strong and confident, I make that mistake all the time. So I totter to 
the punching bag and hit it a couple of times, hit it like it had eggs 
in it and I don't want to break them, give them the feeling that hey, 
it's just a girl, this might be rather fun. And one or two of them are 
looking like distinct possibilities, that's another advantage of those 
thin shorts they wear, they don't get in the way of the signalling. But 
then this malodorous oaf plants himself in front of me and says "Buzz 
off, this gym's no place for cunts like you" and I know I've got my 
volunteer sacrificial goat. 

This is a man thing, and I don't fully understand it, but it must be 
important to them. See, in any male society, there's a pecking order, 
with the alpha at the top, the betas as his lieutenants, and the omegas 
at the bottom. Women simply don't come into it, of course. The way you 
rise through the pecking order is challenge and defeat - I've got very 
used to that in the Department of Theoretical Physics, where the weapons 
were blackboard and chalk, rather than fists, but there's no difference 
really. And I'd risen to be one of the betas, and when you're a beta, 
they have to accept you as a male, the alternative is unthinkable. And 
that's what I had to do here; I had to become one of the betas, because 
then I could take my pick of the herd. No point in aiming for alpha, 
that just means you have to beat off challenges all the time, beta's 
just fine for my purposes. 

So how do you become a beta? By proving your prowess as a warrior (or as 
a Theoretical Physicist) by defeating another Theoretical Physicist. And 
the fights in the department get vicious and wicked, there's only so 
many tenures, and everyone wants one. I looked up and down at my 
volunteer sacrificial goat, and smiled. Lamb to the slaughter. Men can 
never resist a challenge, it's a great way to get them to do something 
they don't want to do. Don't ask me why, but if you put the word 
"challenge" into a sentence, you can get a man to do all sorts of dumb 
things. 

"Tell you what, heartface, let's you and me go a few rounds, and if I 
lose, I'll fuck off out of here. If I win, you'll shut your gob about 
cunts like me. Are you up to a challenge, or are you scared of me?" 

Heh heh heh. I press all the buttons at once, and he has no idea why 
he's reacting the way he is. Adrenalin pumping, blood pounding, his face 
is going red, his breathing gets faster, he's practically lost his 
temper already. All I need to do now is make sure that we get into the 
ring after his adrenalin rush is dying, and he won't even know why he 
feels tired before we begin. Is this cheating? Sure it is, but all's 
fair when you're hunting trouser. 

So he blurts out a few more insults in reply, I wasn't really listening. 
He's looking good, puffing and panting like he's already gone a couple 
of rounds. And I tell him how soft he looks, and how my kid sister 
wouldn't have any trouble with him, and I throw in a few speculations 
about the size of his dick, and a guess that his nose might be bigger 
and harder, that always gets them going. And then, when I have him 
nicely boiling, I ask about the rules. "Rules?" he says. "Sure," I say, 
"Rules. I don't want to kill you, this is just a nice friendly boxing 
match, I just want to bruise you up some." And he turns up from red to 
purple, and shouts "You ain't gonna lay a glove on me, bitch" which is 
fine by me, because it gives me just the entree I need, and I say 
"Gloves is for wimps, lamebrain, if you're a real man you'll fight me 
bareknuckle" and he falls for it like a ton of bricks, not being a 
Theoretical Physicist, and I take off my glasses and blink at him. 

Cut to the chase. He's stripped to the waist, showing off a rather fine 
set of pecs and thighs like tree trunks, and I try not to think about 
what I could do with all that lot, because I don't want to be distracted 
here, he might be half beaten already, but he's still dangerous. Plus 
I'm being really stupid, I'm still in my hunting heels, because this is 
mostly not about him, it's mostly to impress the pack into giving me 
beta status. I'm not stripped to the waist, it's sexier to hide than to 
reveal, to hint of what might be there. Not that I can do much more than 
hint, I'm not exactly overburdened in that respect. But enough is as 
good as a feast. 

So the ref calls us out to the middle, and gives us the usual rigmarole 
about places I mustn't hit, and my lamb leers at me and says "Soon be 
over honey" and I say "No, I want to make you last more than the few 
seconds you usually last", which gets his gander up again, but this time 
there's no more adrenalin left, he used it all up, all he's got now is 
the adrenalin downer, plus he's not thinking straight because he's 
angry. Perfect. 

So we come out of our corners prancing and dancing like you're supposed 
to, except that I'm not as good as Ginger Rogers, on the other hand, 
he's no Fred Astaire. And he takes a big swing at me, but it's coming 
from a mile away, and I can't believe he expects me to still be there 
when it arrives, I could knit a pair of socks while it's on the way. No, 
this isn't for real yet, he doesn't want to hit a girlie, so I have to 
get him a bit more interested. No problem; duck right, weave left, fist 
on the nose, weave right, duck left, step back and listen to him bellow. 

I probably don't have to explain this. You don't actually have to hit 
someone on the nose very hard, for it to hurt a *lot*. This works best 
with bare knuckles, of course, and he isn't used to that. It's a bit 
like picking apart a thesis on account of an arithmetic error; very 
painful and humiliating to the recipient, and there's nothing he can do 
about it. 

So now he lunges for me, and now it's for real. He's forgotten I'm a 
girlie, he just wants something to make up for his nose. And that big 
meaty fist comes at me like a thunderbolt, and I decide not to be there 
when it arrives, but now it's a bit more difficult, because he isn't 
playing games any more. Still, he's big and heavy, and I'm not, and he's 
got big muscles, but he's also got big inertia, so he can't move fast. 
So I move aside and he punches air, and while he's staggering past me, I 
turn and get a fist into his side. He doesn't feel it much, but it's a 
beginning. And I feel it going in nice and soft, and he's got the same 
weakness that so many of them have. He's been working on his gut, you 
can bet, but just with situps and abs crunches, he hasn't done anything 
about the muscles in his side. 

So he turns and has another run at me, and I step aside again, and 
resist the temptation to trip him over, the ref wouldn't like that, and 
I turn after him and fetch him another good one in the kidney. He 
bounces off the ropes, turns and smashes me in the face, or he would 
have if I'd still been there, but he really is a bit obvious, and I'm 
half a mile away. He turns to look for me, and I think about a great 
moose turning his head with the antlers slowing him down, and I give him 
a bit of help "I'm over here" and tap him on the nose again when he 
turns to say "Hi". Oh lookie, claret. Only a trickle, but it's good to 
see, and the smell will infuriate him. Duck, weave, bob, jab. 

He doesn't know anything. He's taking big swings, and the mass of his 
fist on the end of his long arm means that the moment of inertia is so 
great that it takes hours to get started, and once started, he can't 
stop it, or even redirect it, it's a ballistic missile. He'd be great if 
I stood still and let him hit me, which is what I guess he's expecting. 
I suppose it isn't a bad strategy, if just one of those lands, I'm 
dogmeat. Concentrate, girl. 

So I inform him that his mother did unspeakable things with goats, and 
that I know a really good cure for his impotence problem, and he comes 
back with the witty retort of "Fucking bitch" and he loses it again, and 
this time I get a few good licks at his side as he dives past me. 

And I think I hurt him a bit more this time, plus bouncing off the ropes 
couldn't have done him much good, because now he wants to dance a bit 
more, and I can't get him to commit to another swing. And then the bell 
goes, and I keep an eye on him as we go back to our corners. 

"You're doing real well" says the trouser in my corner, and I resist the 
impulse to sarcasm, because I don't want to put him off, I might be 
wanting him later. Sarcasm is my great weakness, I've got to try to 
control it more. "What do you do for a living, honey" he asks. Don't you 
hate it when they ask that? Plus, I'm going to have to train them not to 
call me "honey". So I tell him the usual lie, I clean the blackboards at 
the university, which is kind of true, you have to clean them before you 
put up more equations. Then we commence round two. 

He's got the idea now, he's got one hand up by his nose, so I won't hit 
him there again. Great idea, except now he's effectively fighting 
onehanded. So I tell him what a good idea it is "Hey, lunkhead, I can't 
see that nose, is it still bleeding? Shall I hit it some more?" 

We dance and prance, faking little jabs at each other, except he does 
have a couple of half-hearted goes at my head again, which is really 
dumb, the head is a very small target, and his missiles are unguided. 
Once he's thrown a punch, it moves in a straight line obeying Newton's 
First Law, and the low acceleration that the high mass causes, means I'm 
just not there any more. And then when his arm is fully extended, 
conservation of momentum takes over and pulls him forward, and I can 
guess where he'll be, and have a fist there ready to meet him. This all 
sounds so calculated, but actually it's instinctive, the human brain is 
very good at solving these space-time problems, that's how come you can 
catch a ball without having to think about it. 

So by the end of the second round, not much has happened, except I can 
see him slowing down, what with the adrenalin let-down, plus all the 
dancing. And his nose still hurts, and he's getting very frustrated 
because I'm not willing to stand still and trade punches with him. 

For the first few minutes of the third round, I try to get a rise out of 
him, asking him what his friends are going to say if he can't beat a 
girl, saying that I've already stood up to him for two rounds, he'll 
never live this down, and generally convincing him that a draw is 
actually a major loss for him. And it looks like it works, because he 
gets very busy again, and commences trying to throw those big punches 
again. So I let him wear himself out flapping his arms at thin air, and 
while he's got his arms out and he's forgotten that I've also got fists, 
I poke him in the nose again. And this time, I get a really good one in, 
and I feel something go "crunch", and there's a nice gush of claret down 
his face. And he goes really ape over this and yells and carries on, and 
there's lots of "bitch" and he wades in swinging those sledgehammers, 
except I don't stay in one place. Well, I do, actually, and the place is 
behind him, where I can work on those sides a bit more. And things are 
going really well, but then the bell rings and I have to stop for a bit. 

The trouser in my corner is just staring at me, and I can see I've made 
beta already, plus a glance downward tells me he's noticed I'm a girl. I 
dab some water on my face, rinse my mouth out, and watch my opponent 
having his nose stopped from bleeding by stuffing cotton wool up it. 
Wow, that must hurt. I catch his eye and grin and pretend to punch my 
own nose, and he winces. So I put my foot up on the stool in my corner 
and polish my shoes a bit, until the bell rings again. 

Big smile, and I bounce out into the ring eager for more. He's not quite 
so eager, especially when I fake a jab to his nose. He remembers what 
those feel like, and he fades to the left. I follow, and fake a few more 
jabs, he backpedals. "Hey, heartface, you running away from this little 
girlie?" I ask, and he says something rude and fires a fist at me. I 
turn and let it slide past, which brings my left fist in line with his 
waist, so I bang it into his side again, and he goes "oof". Ah, great! 
That's the first time I've hurt him, not counting the nose job, which 
was really just to get him going. So I rat-a-tat a few more in the same 
place, and he twists away from me, but he doesn't get away that easily, 
I follow him, faking to the nose, punching to the waist, until he 
finally catches on to what's happening, and he brings his guard down to 
where the punches are happening, whereupon guess what? Nose time! 

The only trouble was, we were so close together, that this time the 
spurt of blood from his nose splashed onto my halter. And I think to 
myself, a lot of people make the mistake of using warm water on 
bloodstains, cold is the best, followed by a soaking in hydrogen 
peroxide with a little ammonia. And I really stung him that time, he 
staggers back, and I trot forward to work on his sides a bit more, and 
suddenly I get hit on the shoulder with a sledgehammer, and you just try 
standing on five inch heels when that happens. So I go down, splat, 
Newton's third law, and I try to remember which way is up. Gravitation 
is working against me, not to mention the buzzing in my ears, but I 
climb up to my feet and start moving around, on the basis that a moving 
target is harder to hit, because I think I can guess who owns that 
sledgehammer. Then, thank heaven, the bell rings. 

This time, I use the stool for sitting on, I'm not really up to standing 
if it can be avoided. "He got you a good one there" says my cornerman. 
"Oh, is that what happened, I though it was an earthquake and the roof 
fell in" I reply, which cheers me up, because at least the sarcasm is 
still working. And then the bell rings again, and I seriously 
contemplate throwing in the towel, because another of those wallops 
would do a lot of damage, and even though he can't aim them, just the 
shoulder punch hurt me badly, and if he got lucky, well, I rather like 
my face the way it is. But us theoretical physicists don't give up that 
easy, so I hobble out to the middle, where a rather tired and bloody 
looking boxer is looking a bit apprehensive. Hey, I think to myself, 
he's scared of me, pull yourself together, girl. And I tell him how his 
nose is never going to be the same unless he has reconstructive surgery, 
and in that case he should opt for something a bit less ugly than he had 
before, and I'm wwilling to kick in a couple of dollars if that would 
help, and I fake to his face, up come both hands this time, and I'm 
ready for that, and I step in real close and give him both fists in his 
sides, rat-a-tat-tat. 

If you're used to gloved boxing, you probably don't understand what's 
going down here. Gloves protect your fists, sure, but the also pad your 
fists. For a man, that makes some difference, but if you have small 
fists like a woman, like mine, then it makes a much bigger difference. 
The same amount of momentum delivered over a small area, hurts a lot 
more than over a wide area. Think of being hit with a hammer, then of 
being hit with a pillow moving at the same speed. So my little fists do 
lot more damage because they're not padded with gloves, and I can feel 
my fists sinking in to his body, in the places where he didn't think to 
build up much muscle. And I can hear I'm really hurting him bad now, he 
isn't saying oof any more, it's more a sort of high pitched moan. And 
when I step back, I can see I've really got to him, the pain in his 
sides is too great and he's having trouble holding his arms up, and he's 
having problems breathing. I glance over to the ref, he should be 
stopping this fight now, but the ref is just standing there with his 
mouth open and I glance down, and I see why the ref isn't doing 
anything. I think about going for a knockout, but then I think, no, this 
isn't right, he can't defend himself any more, and I step back and stand 
and wait, to see what happens. 

And what happens is he folds. Literally. First at the waist, then at the 
knees, and he's kneeling on the canvas, his arms round his sides, his 
head down, and I'm standing there, arms akimbo, the ref is out of it, 
there's silence in the gym, no-one's even counting, and from the looks 
of things, I think I just made alpha. 


Diana the Valkyrie (c) 1998