Katrina's Game of Death
Sonofjack, sonofjackwell@gmail.com
A beautiful former underground fighter struggles to rescue the life of her beloved.


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This is a commission story that I just finished. It is VERY DIFFERENT from the
type of stories I usually write. I##m not sure if that##s a good or bad thing.
I do know that it was both hard work and rewarding to stretch my writing into
a different direction. I##m very interested to know #" good or bad #" what my
usual readers think. Please, email any comments to sonofjackwell@gmail.com

If you like my writing style and you would like for me to write a custom story
for you (for pay), also email me at sonofjackwell@gmail.com

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As she stood looking at the outside of the six story pagoda, Kat asked herself
what in the hell such a structure was doing in a small town in Nebraska. It
was supposedly built by the addle-brained son of the town##s richest man.
##Must have been a big Bruce Lee fan,## Kat said to herself. This was ironic
since this was to be the scene of her very own ##game of death##. Kat wondered
how the Fat Man managed to find an empty building like this in America##s
heartland. Then again, with his resources, it wasn##t so surprising. ##And
this no doubt appeals to his sense of drama,## she thought to herself.

She adjusted her glasses and made sure that the ankle boots she was wearing
were fastened securely. She looked down at her boots and scoffed. The Fat Man
had insisted that she wear boots with five inch heels along with this
ridiculous spandex outfit that showed off every sumptuous curve of her hard
body. The outfit was sleeveless to show off Kat##s muscled arms and had a bare
midriff so that her toned six pack abs were clearly on display. Luckily for
her she was used to such disadvantages. Kat even had a way of turning them
into advantages. Even so, this was another indignity that she would pay the
Fat Man back for.

As she reached for the handle to the ground floor entrance, Kat knew that her
life would never be the same. She knew that if she was going to walk out of
that building rather than be carried out, she was going to have to commit some
pretty horrible acts. This was a part of her life she hoped she had left
behind forever. She wondered if those she was going to have to defeat #"
perhaps kill #" really knew what they were getting themselves into. Did they
really deserve to die?

Most of all she was worried about what Cecil would think of her when this was
all over. He knew something about Kat##s former life, but she##d shielded him
from the worst parts. Would he still want to be with her after this? However,
she forced those thoughts out of her head. All that mattered now was reaching
that top floor and eventually rescuing her beloved.

Kat opened the door and carefully stepped inside the building. As she expected
the ground floor was empty. There was no furniture or any padding on the hard
wood floors. There was just a great deal of empty space for two #" hopefully
only two #" people to fight in. The only things breaking up the open space
were several wooden pillars that supported the five floors above them.

Kat carefully scanned the open area. Her tight muscular body was tense and her
senses were attuned to the slightest movement. If there was an opponent in the
room like there was supposed to be, he must be hiding behind one of the
pillars.

As if on cue from behind a pillar stepped a young man of no more that eighteen
or nineteen swinging a pair of nunchucks in each hand and shouting fiercely in
Kat##s general direction. He was dressed in a wife beater shirt and wearing
black karate pants. To complete his ensemble he was barefoot.

Kat took one look at him and rolled her eyes so hard that they nearly rolled
out of her head. ##Was this some kind of joke?## she thought. What was the Fat
Man thinking sending a boy like this into the fray she wondered.

The boy##s eyes narrowed and he began to swing the ##chucks wildly. Again he
screamed a loud and fierce, ##EEEOUUUWWW## and rushed towards Kat. His
technique was so sloppy that it was hard for her to keep from laughing as she
easily sidestepped his attack.

Then casually reaching out as he rushed past her, she grabbed his left arm and
with a sharp flick of her wrist she caused him to strike himself at the base
of his skull with his own nunchucks! The boy went down fast and hard. In fact,
he fell so hard against a nearby pillar that he opened a nasty gash over his
right eye. The rapid combination of these two head injuries put the boy out
like a light. He fell into a heap onto the floor.

Again, Kat wondered why the Fat Man would send someone so unskilled against
her. ##He must think I##ve really lost it,## she thought.

The even bigger problem at the moment though is what to do with the
unconscious youth. There was a time when Kat would have simply snuffed out his
life with no more thought than she would give to blowing out a candle. But
that was her old life.

She quickly sat him up and wrapped his arms and legs around the nearest
pillar. Then she tied his hands together with his own nunchucks. She even took
the time to take off his shirt and tear it into strips. She used the strips to
fashion a bandage around his head so as to slow down the bleeding from the
gash over his eye. This act of mercy was done in the honor of her beloved
Cecil who was, after all, a healer.

INTERLUDE:

Kat had no idea who her parents were. She wasn##t even sure who named her
Katrina. Her earliest memories were of the orphanage in Singapore that was run
by a group of French nuns. She vaguely remembers one of the sisters telling
her that her father was French and that her mother was East Asian, but she was
never certain if the nun really knew or merely speculated.

Her other earliest memory was not so much a memory as it was her desire to
live free and independent. In this way she was like Singapore itself. It was
for this reason that by the time she was seven she ran away from the orphanage
for the last time and was making her own way in the streets.

Singapore, more than anything else, is a true port city. That means that many
different cultures, many different languages, many different ideas intersect
there. Because of this, Katrina##s education didn##t end when she ran away
from the orphanage school. In a way her education began in earnest once she
ran away from that too structured environment.

And Katrina was a sponge who thrived off of absorbing all the knowledge that
she could. Once she became a child of the streets, she didn##t just scramble
and connive to provide the essentials of food, clothing and shelter; she also
sought out all the knowledge she could. That##s why by the time she was ten
she was fluent in almost as many languages and much more aware of the ideas
and philosophies of the world than most children her age.

She was also well aware of the dangers of the world. Singapore, in addition to
being a crossroad of various languages and cultures was also a crossroads of
various fighting styles from around the world. When it came to learning new
fighting styles, Katrina was more than a sponge. She was a prodigy #" a phenom
even. She was able to observe different fighting styles and almost instantly
adapt them. However, she was no slave to form. She was able to take the
various fighting styles she observed and to effortlessly merge them into
something all her own. The styles she mastered and blended together from the
far corners of the world included Karate, Kung Fu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,
Savate, Bartitsu, Judo, Taekwondo, Boxing, Jeet Kune Do, Moraingy, Coreeda and
a fair amount of good old fashioned street fighting. When she was twelve, she
started calling her unique style of fighting ##Kick-Ass Fu##, and kick ass she
did.

END INTERLUDE.

Satisfied that ##the Nunchuck Kid## had been nullified and grateful that she
wasn##t forced to kill him, Kat gingerly made her way up the stairs to the
next floor. When she got there she saw a layout very much like that of the
first floor #" mostly an open space with wooden pillars situated to hold up
the structure above. This floor was slightly smaller than the floor below it
and would be that much more spacious than the floor above since the floors got
smaller in a pyramidal symmetry as one ascended.

Just as before, Kat did not see anyone as she initially walked and looked
around the room. She heard a voice behind her say, ##I##ve studied you.## She
was startled to realize that she##s let someone get behind her, but even more
than startled she was angry at herself for making such a novice##s mistake.
She understood that a lapse such as this could easily mean the difference
between life and death, and she vowed that she would not let it happen again.

She turned to face her opponent. ##I##m flattered,## she said.

##I##ve watched every inch of footage I could find of you,## he informed.
Normally this wouldn##t concern Kat so much because as one might expect, there
was not usually a hell of a lot of footage associated with people engaged in
her former profession. However because this fighter was employed by the Fat
Man, she knew that he##d had the opportunity to watch hundreds of yards of
film on her. After all, as her former manager, the Fat Man would be the one to
have access to such material.

The fact that this opponent had studied her told Kat something else. It told
her that he was smarter than most underground fighters. Most of them relied
too much of their own strength and/or their own perception of their skills.
The reason Kat made it as far as she did in the business #" and she almost
made it all to way to the top #" was not because she was the strongest,
fastest fighter. She might not have even been the most skilled. However, she
made it her business to be the smartest and best informed.

Kat##s greatest weapon had always been her ability to size up an opponent and
to adapt to and find a way to neutralize their fighting style. The fact that
she now faced an opponent who took the time to study her told her that this
time it was her that was being sized up.

##The glasses are new,## he observed.

##A gift from my last adversary before my ##retirement## #" permanently
blurred vision,## Kat explained.

##Your final adversary? That would be Sinbad the Turk,## the man said.

##You HAVE done your homework.## Kat was impressed. Physically, her antagonist
was not terribly imposing. He was only an inch or two taller than her own
5##8##. He probably didn##t outweigh her by more than thirty-five pounds. He
was lean and toned with wiry muscles and six pack abs, but so was she. He
looked more like a dancer than a fighter.

As they ##chatted## they naturally began to circle one another.

##Why not contact lenses?## he asked.

##Too much chance of them getting knocked up into my eye socket,## she
explained.

##Besides, the glasses give you a vulnerable look that might give you an
edge,## he observed.

##He IS a smart cookie,## Kat thought to herself. She decided that it might be
best to end this before he could figure anything more about her. Kat began to
turn to her left as if she was going to turn her back to him. Instead she
pivoted on her right foot and came at his head with a round-house kick from
her left foot.

Much to her surprise, her enemy caught her left ankle in his hand and brought
his other fist down hard on her left knee. Just a few seconds into the fight
and Kat was in serious pain. Balancing on just her right leg, she managed to
give her opponent a quick one-two combination to his face with her hard fists.
She hit him both times right in the nose. She heard the sound of the cartilage
in his nose breaking which caused his eyes to water and for him to release his
grip on her ankle.

She immediately jumped backwards bending back with the momentum of her jump
executing a flawless back handspring and managing to stick the landing on her
right leg alone so as not to bring too sudden an impact on her injured left
knee.

##I see you##ve added gymnastics to your repertoire,## her foe observed. Kat
did not respond. She had already given him more information than she should
have. She was not going to reveal that even though she##d left underground
fighting five years before, she had continued to secretly train and add moves.
She always knew that someday the Fat Man would return.

Instead, she looked at her opponent##s bloody nose and said, ##You##re
bleeding, Sport. How does it feel to have your nose broken by a pretty girl?##
Kat knew that she was pretty #" exceptionally so. She had no qualms about
using this natural edge against her male opponents. Just the thought of being
punched hard by a hot chick was enough to enrage many of her male rivals. It
sometimes made them careless.

##It hurts,## he answered, ##How##s that left knee feel?## He was a cool one;
he wasn##t taking the bait.

Kat figured that since he was familiar with all of her old moves, she was
going to have to use the gymnastic abilities that she had acquired over the
past five years to give her the competitive edge. What he didn##t know #" what
nobody knew except Kat #" was that she was a world-class gymnast. Despite her
advanced age at taking up the sport, and her taller, much more rounded figure,
Kat could easily have competed in gymnastics at the Olympic level.

She began her assault by actually moving away from her opponent in a series of
graceful summersaults and cartwheels. When she was as far away from him as
possible within the confines of the open space that they were fighting in, she
began to run towards him.

When she covered approximately half the distance between them she launched
herself forward into the serious of forward handspring flips towards him. As
she quickly closed the distance, he did just as she expected. She figured that
he would assume that she intended to kick him in the face with her five inch
heels and that at the last minute he would sidestep her to avoid this.

Instead, at the last minute, using the momentum of her forward summersaults,
she vaulted into the air as high as she could. When he sidestepped her as she
expected, she twisted her body in midair with a skill that perhaps only one
two others in the world cold match and she managed to land on her feet just
inches behind him.

Before he could react, she roughly seized his throat with the inside of her
forearm. Using her other arm for leverage, she squeezed hard and completely
cut off the supply of oxygen to his brain. If he had been expecting such an
attack, he could have taken a deep breath and possible have bucked and fought
hard enough to loosen her grip before his oxygen supply ran out.

As it was, Kat caught him totally unaware and luckily caught him just as he
was exhaling. Therefore, in a matter of seconds, he was completely out.

As Kat lowered his limp body to the ground, she wondered what she should do
with him. She thought for a few seconds and came to the conclusion that she
had no more to fear from him. She judged that he was a worthy and honorable
opponent. When he awoke, he would understand that he had been beaten fair and
square and he would leave and bother her no more. At least that##s what she
believed. She believed it so strongly she was willing to gamble her life #"
and the life of her beloved #" on it.

INTERLUDE:

By the time Kat was fourteen she had reputation for being the most able street
fighter among the children of the streets of Singapore. As such, she no longer
had to steal to get the things she needed in life. There were several weaker
street children who were only too happy to steal for her in exchange for
protection.

Her small army of thieves knew that the easiest way to earn favor with Kat was
to find a legible book that she hadn##t read yet. As a result, she almost
always had material to fill her voracious reading appetite. Fiction or
nonfiction, it was all the same to Katrina. She just wanted to read, to absorb
and to increase her knowledge.

Also by the time she was fourteen, Kat was a remarkably beautiful girl. At
5##5## she had a beautiful face and a figure that most grown women would envy.
Her almond shaped green eyes and her high cheekbones reflected the Asian side
of her Eurasian origins. Her full, pouty lips and the round, soft curves of
her body betrayed her European side. Even at 14 her breasts were c-cups and
her hips were wide and womanly. Her hair was long, silky, and a deep, rich
brown.

But even though her curves were soft, the rest of her body was as hard as a
rock. The muscles in her arms and legs were as toned and solid as those of any
professional fitness model. Her six-pack abs were so clearly defined that it
looked as if one could grate cheese off of them.

Becoming an underground fighter seemed like a natural choice for Katrina. With
her natural beauty and living the type of life she lived, it was natural that
she attracted a lot of unwanted attention from men much older than her. She
found herself more and more in the position of having to use her skills as a
fighter to fend off these unwanted advances.

Since it seemed like she was going to have to fight anyway, she decided that
she might as well make money at it. She didn##t so much choose the underground
fight circuit as she was pulled into it by the gravity of the streets.

By the time she was sixteen, she was the number one female fighter in
Singapore. She was so far ahead of her female competition in fact, that she
began to think about fighting men. She thought about it for some time.

This was not a decision that she made lightly. This wasn##t the same as
beating up drunken sailors who##d gotten too friendly with their hands. These
were professional underground fighters who sometimes killed people for a
living. The only way Kat could know for sure if she could hold her own against
male fighters was to step up and find out.

END INTERLUDE.

As Kat made her way towards the stairs that would lead her up to the third
floor, she was surprised to see a first aid kit on the second step. She looked
inside and found a note. ##I thought you might find this useful at this point
in your journey## the note read. It was signed ##Casbah Farrah##. ##The Fat
Man,## Kat thought to herself. As much as she despised him, she had to admit
that he did have style. She opened the kit and looked inside.

She took out an ace bandage and quickly wrapped it tightly around her left
knee. This wouldn##t do much for the pain, but at least if would help to brace
the knee and hopefully keep her from injuring it further.

She saw something else in the first aid kit: a syringe filled with yellow
liquid. She immediately recognized it as the painkiller that the Fat Man used
to numb her pain back in her days as a fighter. The Fat Man use to send her
into the ring full of this numbing agent. It##s a wonder that she hadn##t
permanently injured herself in those days. This was yet one more reason for
her to get even with the Fat Man she reminded herself.

Placing the first aid kit back down on the stairs, Kat made her way up to the
third floor. When she got there she was mildly surprised to discover that this
floor was not an open space like the two before. Dozens of fine silk curtains
hung from the ceiling of this floor. The curtains were hung in a seemingly
irregular pattern and were brightly colored red, gold, green, sky blue,
lavender and several other colors.

As Kat began to make her way through the brightly colored maze of fabric, she
saw a small figure scurry past her. Kat was a fairly tall woman, though not an
Amazon. The figure that she caught a glimpse of in the corner of her eye was
not an inch more than 5##4##.

As her brain processed the small figure that she just glimpsed, another
brightly colored figure of approximately the same size and shape darted into
the open for a split second before disappearing behind one of the hanging
silks.

As Kat turned her head in reaction to the second figure, a small fist-sized
object made contact with Kat right in the middle of her shoulder blades. The
blow came from the other side of the silk that was at Kat##s back.

She quickly turned with a round-house kick to the place where she judged the
blow to have come from, but her kick met only silk and air. Her opponent on
the other side of the curtain was long gone. However, on the other side of the
curtain that was now behind her, a kick struck her hard in the inside of her
left knee.

As her mind registered the pain of the blow to her already-tender knee, Kat
heard a sound that was surely one of the last things she expected at this
moment. She heard the sound of two girls giggling. As this improbability was
registering, she once again saw one of the figures dart by her. Though the
shape only appeared in Kat##s peripheral field for less than a second, Kat
called upon her considerable power of concentration to decipher what she saw.
It appeared to be . . . a geisha - a Japanese serving girl #" in full
ceremonial dress.

Once again, as Kat##s mind struggled to make sense of this image, her other
opponent once again struck through the curtain with an elbow to Kat##s ribs.
The blow wasn##t hard enough to take her down, but it was enough for the pain
to register. However, rather than going on the offensive in retaliation for
the last blow, Kat realized that it was smarter to be on the defensive for the
next. She understood that the attacker who put the elbow in her ribs would be
on the move by this time.

Sure enough, Kat noticed a fist sized projectile making an impression in the
silk on the opposite side from which the elbow had just come, and she was able
to block it. Unfortunately, just as quickly she was kicked hard on her right
thigh on the opposite side.

Kat decided that the best strategy was to try to make her way to the part of
the floor where the stairs to the next level should be based on the layout of
the previous two floors. She hoped that she could block most of the
all-but-invisible attacks that she knew would be coming her way and to
withstand the rest.

As she made her way through the labyrinth of silk, she would catch fleeting
glances of her geisha attackers. She was able to block more than half of the
harassing punches, kicks, elbows and knees thrown at her. The others
unfortunately were taking their toll.

Kat was only halfway to where she hoped the stairs would be when she realized
that her plan would never work. Too many hits were getting through. Though
none of them were enough to take her down on their own, Kat realized that
their cumulative effect was similar to what was known as ##the death by one
thousand cuts##. Kat knew that she needed a new tactic.

Instead of making her way across the floor, Kat planted her feet where she was
and closed her eyes. By denying herself the sense of sight which was all but
worthless in this situation anyway, she forced her other senses to become all
the more acute. Where before her eyes were assaulted by the brightly colored
silks, her other senses were now focused entirely on locating her twin
attackers.

By blocking out all other thoughts and concentrating intensely, Kat found that
she could now hear her assailants as they stealthily approached the place
where she was standing. She could also sense their uncertainty as to why she
was now standing still rather than moving across the floor. The geishas now
seemed reluctant to attack as if somehow they knew that Kat was more dangerous
than ever.

Kat knew that her tormentors were positioned on both sides of her hidden by
the silk drapes that separated them. She could practically smell their
reluctance to press their attack. Suddenly, in a motion almost too fast for
the human eye to follow she reached out both of her arms and grasped each girl
by the throat with her strong grip. She pulled them both towards her also
pulling down the silk hangings they hid behind in the process.

She slammed their heads together putting them both into dazed, confused
states. This also caused them to become entangled in sections of the silk
curtains. Using the several seconds it took for the Japanese warrior women to
become disentangled from the net-like fabric, Kat quickly pulled down several
of the other drapes that hung from the ceiling.

When her attackers were finally free of the colorful fabric that ensnared
them, they saw that Kat had managed to clear a wide enough area so that it
became impractical for them to resume their previous hide and hit strategy.
Having foreseen this possibility the fake geishas implemented Plan B. They
each threw off their geisha robes revealing themselves to be the fierce, hard
bodied, bikini clad martial artists they truly were.

Losing no time, they launched twin attacks against Kat. Unfortunately, for
them, without the cover that the silk hangings provided, they were no match
for Kat##s vastly superior strength and skills. The first attacker was
crippled when Kat drove one of her five inch heels completely through her
enemy##s foot. The other one was dispatched by a hard punch to the solar
plexus. From there, Kat was easily able to render both women unconscious.

Kat wrapped each of them up tightly and tied them securely in several sheets
of silk. She was soon on her way to the next floor. This time on the steps she
found a large bottle of water. ##The Fat Man still seems to know what I
require to keep going,## the dehydrated combatant thought to herself. The
irony of that was not lost on her.

INTERLUDE:

At the tender age of seventeen #" an age when she should have been deciding
which boy she would let take her to the prom #" Kat was deciding which man she
would face in the ring.

She needn##t have worried about it so much. It seemed that no matter who Kat
set herself up against, she was able to find a way to overcome them. Sure she
suffered more punishment from the men than from the women, but only if the men
managed to solidly connect against her. Most of them never did.

Katrina was strong, agile, quick and skilled. However, what most opponents
failed to realize was that it was her intelligence and her willingness to
study her opponents that saw her through most matches. Before she even stepped
into the ring, she gathered every bit of intelligence she could against the
person she was fighting. She often assigned her army of street urchins to
gather this information.

She wanted to know what his habits were, who he associated with outside the
ring, whether or not he was married and/or had children. She never knew which
information was going to give her the vital edge she would need to win. She
once was able to use the knowledge that the man she was fighting liked to
snack on spicy foods before a match to take him down in the second round.

By the time she was nineteen, she had become the undisputed champion of
Singapore##s underground fight world. This is when she came to the attention
of Casbah Farrah. No one knew exactly where he came from. There were many
stories. When you asked him which of the stories was true his usual answer was
##All of them.##

The only thing that Katrina really knew about him was that he represented
money #" big money #" and that he could be her passport out of Singapore. What
the Fat Man knew about Katrina was that a beautiful young woman who could
fight and defeat men twice and three times her size was a commodity that he
could exploit. When he looked at her he saw the opportunity to make more money
than even he ever thought possible. All he had to do was make her completely
dependent on him. He accomplished this all too easily.

Despite Kat##s intelligence and cunning, she was still quite na##ve in some
ways. More than anything in the world, she craved a father figure. Farrah
recognized this immediately and easily stepped in to fill that void. He
convinced her that not only was he interested in her career as a fighter, but
that he also cared about her as a person.

As they traveled the world from city to city, Farrah isolated and insulated
Kat so that gradually he became the only person she felt she could trust.
Ironically, as the greater world opened up for Katrina, her personal world
grew smaller and smaller. She naturally misinterpreted the motives for many of
his actions. For example, when he emphasized that more than anything she must
strive to protect her face, she believed that this was because he cared for
her well being. The truth was, Farrah knew that she would lose a great deal of
her value to him if her beautiful face was damaged with a scar or a broken
nose.

The other move that Farrah was crafty enough to make #" or rather NOT to make
#" was any sexual advances towards Kat. Despite the fact that his desire for
her was as great as his enormous appetite for Chunky Monkey ice cream, he
never did anything to indicate to her that his feelings were anything other
than paternal. She didn##t know that in almost every city they traveled to he
directed his underlings to find young prostitutes who resembled her, and that
he insisted that they answer to the name ##Katrina## while they serviced him.

Together, Kat and the Fat Man crisscrossed the globe finding opponents for her
to fight. At first they toured the other great ports of the Far East such as
Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tai-Pei, and Osaka. Then they went south to
Brisbane and Sydney, Australia, across the Indian Ocean to Port Elizabeth and
Cape Town, South Africa. Eventually they worked their way north to Liverpool,
United Kingdom. By now Kat was being talked about as one of the best
underground fighters in the world.

She still made a point of gathering all the intel she could about her
opponents, but now instead of relying on her own resources, she was forced to
trust the recourses of the Fat Man. This was still a safe bet however because
it served his best interest that Kat win her matches. After taking on the best
that Liverpool had to offer, Farrah informed Katrina that it was time for them
to make their way across the Atlantic to the place were the best of the best
gathered. That place was New York City.

END INTERLUDE.

As Kat cautiously stuck her head up to survey the fourth floor of the pagoda
she was surprised to see that the floor at this level was covered by straw.
This floor was also more dimly lit than the previous floors. Kat stood at the
top of the stairs and gave herself a few minutes to let her eyes adjust to the
twilight-like illumination of the room. Over in the far corner she thought she
saw . . . a cage?

Walking closer she realized that there was in fact a large cage in the corner.
As she approached it to get a better look, she inadvertently broke a magic eye
beam which automatically opened the large door of the enclosure. As the cage
door clanged open, Kat began to see a shape in the corner of the cage begin to
stir to life. Discarding the ragged blankets that had been provided, the
figure in the cage began to rise.

The figure was that of a man #" albeit a horrible misshapen man. His back was
hunched over with a large, irregular hump. His head looked as if it was
attached directly to his bent shoulders with almost nothing resembling a neck
in between. His arms hung long at his side with his long fingers reaching
almost all the way to his knees. His legs seemed too short and skinny to
support his large chest and twisted back.

His eyes were severely mismatched with his left eye being at least an inch
higher on his face than his right eye. His nose was twisted, and looked as if
it had been broken many times. His mouth was a crooked, gnarled mess with
saliva clearly dribbling out. The only thing he was wearing was an out of
place pair of boxer shorts decorated with little smiley faces. The rest of his
exposed body was covered with coarsely matted, dark brown hair.

He looked almost more like a beast than a man.

##Do you have a name?## Kat asked softly.

##Bobo and girl fight now?## the man-beast answered.

##This is too low even for the Fat Man,## Kat thought to herself. Not even he
would be so low as to turn a poor misshapen brute like this into an
underground fighter. Of course, she had heard of such things before. It was
not uncommon for underground promoters to make fighters out of unfortunate
individuals with strong backs and weak minds.

##Bobo #" is that your name? #" we don##t have to fight if you don##t want
to.##

##Bobo must fight or else Bobo won##t eat,## Bobo explained. He then added as
an afterthought, ##Girl is pretty.##

Kat##s already fierce hatred of the Fat Man grew to red-hot intensity for
putting her into this situation. Perhaps there was still a way to talk to her
way out of it she thought to herself. She looked her brutish adversary up and
down. That##s when she noticed the metal band around his right ankle. The hair
on his leg almost completely covered it making it almost invisible.

Less than a second after noticing it, the metal band seemed to make the
zapping sound of an electrical spark being discharged. That must have been
exactly what happened, because Bobo grimaced in pain, and Kat could smell the
unmistakable odor of charred flesh and singed hair. The next thing she knew,
Bobo was swinging his strong arms at her. Luckily she dodged before the mighty
blows had the opportunity to take her head off.

##So that##s how they get this gentle creature to fight,## she thought to
herself. ##He must be conditioned to start fighting when that band on his
ankle sends a shock through his system.##

Bobo only stood 5##2##, but he was almost as wide as he was tall with
extremely broad shoulders and long, muscular arms. As noted earlier his legs
are short and somewhat spindly looking. However they had a wiry muscularity
all their own that allowed Bobo to ambulate with sort of a bouncing fashion
that made him quick and unpredictable.

So Bobo had quickness, power and impulse on his side. Fortunately for Kat what
he didn##t have was any real discernible technique. Kat, on the other hand,
had technique to spare. Though Bobo might have been the most physically
formidable opponent to face Katrina so far this day, it was not all that
difficult for her to defeat him.

She simply stayed out of the way of his long reach, and in a series of attack
and retreat moves she battered the poor oaf. It was her turn to adopt a
##death by one thousand cuts## strategy. While her individual punches and
kicks caused little distress to Bobo##s thick skull, they did have a
cumulative effect. Because Katrina was in such excellent shape, she could
attack and retreat like this for hours if need be. It took just under fifteen
minutes.

Finally Bobo broke down into tears and pleaded like a small child. ##Please,
pretty girl, don##t hit and kick Bobo no more,## he begged. Kat was more than
willing to end her fight with the man-child when once again she heard the zap
of Bobo##s ankle bracelet. Looking startled and confused, Bobo did as he was
conditioned to do and went back on the attack.

Kat was horrified at the prospect of delivering more pain to the innocent
lout, and she was disgusted with herself at the thought that she was once a
willing part of the ##sport## that condoned such cruelty. The problem was, Kat
could not come up with a more humane way to subdue Bobo. His body was so
misshapen that she feared that the regular pressure points would not work if
pressed on him. Cutting off his oxygen supply did not seem a viable option
since that would require her to stay within the long reach of his dexterous
arms for too long a time.

Finally, she thought of something. She retreated towards the entrance of
Bobo##s cage. Once she lured him over to that opening, she ducked under his
reach and diving towards the floor with her outstretched hands, she pushed
backwards against the floor with her arms and kicked Bobo in the back with
both of her feet causing him to lose his balance and fall into the cage.

Before he could scramble back up to his feet, Kat slammed the cage door shut
which caused it to lock automatically. Kat looked into Bobo##s mismatched eyes
and said, ##I##m sorry I had to fight you, Bobo.##

##Bobo not mad at pretty girl.##

##I won##t leave you in this cage,## she promised, ##I##ll be back for you.##

##Bobo would like to see pretty girl again.##

INTERLUDE:

Once the Fat Man and Katrina made it to New York City, Farrah had only one
goal in mind. He wanted to set up a fight between Kat and the man who most
considered the toughest underground fighter in the world. That man was known
as Sinbad the Turk. Of course, Kat had heard of the Turk. Most of what she had
heard were stories that were told in whispers.

Legends and half-true stories concerning the Turk were everywhere. Hard,
useful information was much harder to come by. Even Farrah##s vast resources
and information network was not able to get much hard data.

##Don##t worry about it,## Katrina boasted, ##I##ll find a way to beat him
just like I have everyone else I##ve ever faced.## By now Katrina was
suffering from one of the worst maladies that any athlete can suffer from #"
she was beginning to feel invincible. After all, by this time she##d engaged
in almost one hundred fights, and so far, no one had even caused her serious
injury, let alone defeated her. She was convinced that Sinbad was overrated
and would fall just like all the rest.

For his part, Farrah##s eyes were too filled with dollar signs to see things
clearly at this point. He##d never backed a fighter that was this successful,
and he forgot the first rule of management which is that sooner or later,
every fighter loses.

To make a long story short, Katrina did not prepare properly to fight Sinbad.
She did not prepare mentally or physically. For one thing she was too dazzled
by New York City. That, along with her overconfidence proved to be her
undoing. She actually went out clubbing the night before her match with the
Turk. That night she brought a handsome young stockbroker to her hotel room
and showed him some moves she never used in the ring.

When she first laid eyes on the Turk the next night, she got her first inkling
that perhaps she had made a mistake. He stood 6##8## and weighed an impressive
310 of mostly muscle. ##I##ve fought bigger,## she told Farrah which was
technically true. It was when she said, ##He doesn##t scare me,## that she was
definitely lying.

It wasn##t so much his sized that intimidated Kat; it was the way he moved. He
moved with grace and confidence. He moved with balance and gravity. He moved
like a man who knew for certain that he was not going to lose. Kat recognized
the look in the Turk##s eyes that night. In his eyes she read the same feeling
that she usually had going into the ring #" the feeling that no matter what,
she would emerge victorious.

The Turk only managed to knock Kat down once in the first round. Considering
that she had never been knocked down in any of her prior fights, that one time
was enough to rattle her to the core.

She managed to stay on her feet during the entire second round. She managed to
do so by staying as far away from the Turk as she possibly could. The Turk did
not press his attack that round. He as much as said, ##I##ve got all the time
in the world to beat you, girlie.##

Going into the third round, the crowd began to boo Kat and her obvious
stalling tactics. This was a new experience for her. She was used to being the
crowd favorite. Being so never mattered much to her in the past, but now that
that status was taken away from her, she found that it bothered her more than
she ever could have imagined. It bothered her so much that she decided to go
on the offensive.

The Turk made Katrina eat canvass three times during the third round. Even so,
she considered it a moral victory that she was able to go out for the fourth
round. One of the stories she##d heard whispered in the past was that so far
no fighter had lasted more than three rounds with the Turk.

By the time this fight was over, the new story that would make its way around
the world was that no fighter had made it past four rounds with Sinbad. It was
in this round that he delivered the knock-out punch that left Katrina with
permanently blurred vision.

END INTERLUDE.

Katrina was tired and angry as she went up the stairs to the fifth floor.
##What next?## she asked herself. When she got there, once again she entered a
mostly empty space just as she had on the first and second floors. Of course,
each floor was geometrically smaller that the floor the proceeded it.

As Katrina looked around, again, she did not see an opponent. Growing tired of
the game at this point, she loudly announced her presence by saying, ##Come
out, come out wherever you are!## What stepped out from behind three separate
pillars was not one, not two, but three young men. Three. Identical. Young
men.

The triplets were tall and lean and bore an unusual resemblance to comedian
Chris Rock. They possessed their own unique muscularity and they moved with
the smooth grace of trained fighters.

There was something else about the way they moved. They were totally in sync.
That is to say, they did not just have approximately the same body language as
one might expect triplets to have. It was as if somehow they were the exact
same person times three. When they stepped out from behind their prospective
pillars, their movements were not merely similar. They were EXACTLY the same.
This was more than precise choreography. This was synchronicity to a
supernatural degree.

Once again, Kat was witnessing a phenomenon that she had read about but never
witnesses herself. Clearly these three young warriors were triplets who shared
a kind of psychic link that allowed them to think and move as one.

Imagine, if you will, going up against a single fighter with three bodies to
use instead of the one that most of us are limited to. This is approximately
what Kat was now facing. She knew more than ever that she would have to keep
all her wits about her if she was going to come out of this encounter alive.

Deciding that her best chance was the element of surprise, Kat did the
unexpected and waded into the triplets with her fists and elbows flying. First
she managed to hit the middle brother with several sharp blows to the face.
She did not ignore the brothers on each side however as she made a point of
giving each of them elbows to the jaws and temples.

The brothers did not just stand there and take her punishment however. They
fought back and despite Kat##s speed and expert defensive moves, each managed
to connect with her at least once or twice. Thus the lopsidedness of this
particular battle began to take a serious toll on Kat. Even though she got in
more solid punches, elbows and kicks that she received, her offensive moves
were divided more-or-less evenly three ways. The damage she took on though was
taken by her and her alone.

At this rate, Kat knew that she could not last long. The pace she had to keep
up to both fight and defend against three skilled opponents #" not to mention
the fact that she had already fought four previous fights #" quickly began to
wear her down.

She had to use not just her sense of sight to keep up with her three perfectly
harmonized challengers, she used her other senses of hearing, touch and even
smell to keep track of their movements in this ballet of violence. The bitter
taste of blood in her mouth as a result of a particularly hard hit to the
cheek also spurred her on. Luckily she also had the sixth sense that all
experienced fighters eventually develop to rely on.

Normally she would have looked for ways to make her three opponents work
against each other. For example there was the classic tactic of ducking under
two simultaneous punches thrown from opposite directions by two opponents
causing them to hit each other. In this case though, she knew this wouldn##t
work because of the psychic link shared by the three bothers. This link
assured that they could not be fooled into accidently striking one other.

As she grew more tired, Kat began to consider the very real chance that she
might lose this fight. But Kat knew that there was a balance in the universe.
She knew that whatever advantage the brothers has against her #" and their
psychic link was a great advantage indeed #" there must also be a
corresponding weakness within that advantage that she could exploit. That is
when she spotted the disadvantage of the brother##s telepathic connection.

Kat noticed that every time she hit one of the brothers, the other two seemed
to respond as well. They were not as affected by the punches as the brother
that was actually getting hit, but all three did seem to feel each blow on
more than a sympathetic level.

Just as she made this realization however, she had to deal with the fact that
her arms had been seized and were being held tightly by two of the brothers.
The brother that was originally in the middle and probably took the most
punishment from Kat was free to strike back with impunity.

The free brother paid back Kat with several hard punches to her abs and two
hard slaps to the face #" one of which knocked her glasses off. Despite the
fact that her abs were rock hard from the thousands of crunches she performed
in the last five years, she was not superhuman. She felt those punches. She
also felt the sting and humiliation of those slaps. She knew that if she did
not act very quickly she would soon be taken out of the fight, and her beloved
would die.

Katrina refused to even consider that possibility for more than a fleeting
instant. Instead, she called upon the inner reserve of strength that was
fueled by passion for her sweet man whom she was determined to save. Using the
brothers## tight grip on her arms as leverage, she quickly kicked up her legs
and wrapped them around the neck of the third brother. Then, in a smooth,
swift twist, she broke his neck, killing him instantly.

Because of the link they shared, the sudden death of one brother caused the
other two to go momentarily limp. A moment is all Kat needed to quickly break
the necks of the other brothers. She understood that their deaths were
necessary since she knew that if she let two of them live they would never
stop trying to get revenge on her for killing the third.

After finding her glasses, Kat sighed to herself and started to make her way
up the stairs to the sixth and highest floor of the pagoda. She was very tired
and sick of fighting and violence. She was also almost sure what awaited her
there, but her desire to embrace her beloved once again motivated her to go
on.

As she reached the top of the stairs, sure enough, she saw the man she
expected to see. He was sitting in a large, comfortable-looking chair with his
back to a row of video monitors used to view each of the lower floors.
##Hidden cameras,## Kat thought to herself. This explained the feeling she had
that she was being watched. It also explained how the Fat Man knew when to
activate the eclectic shock on Bobo##s ankle bracelet.

Kat looked at the man in the chair and said, ##We meet again, Sinbad,##. There
was another chair next to him that was empty. Even though Katrina recognized
Sinbad, he had aged considerably in the five years since their last encounter.
He looked like a shell of his former self. Katrina would have bet her last
dollar that he was no longer the undefeated legend he once had been.

It occurred to Katrina that perhaps the Turk had done her a favor in ending
her fight career when he did. She hated to think of herself sitting in that
chair having aged twenty years in only five years time.

Without bothering to stand, the Turk said, ##You are looking as beautiful as
ever, Katrina.##

Even though Kat was used to getting complimented for her outstanding beauty,
she was not expecting this from the Turk. ##Thank you,## she said. Then,
quickly getting down to business she asked, ##Where is the Fat Man?##

##He left,## was the Turk##s curt response.

##How? I saw no one descending the stairs?## asked Katrina.

##There is a secret set of stairs in the back,## explained Sinbad.

##Where did he go?## asked Katrina.

##He went to the place where your man is being held,## explained the Turk.

##And where is that?##

##I##m only supposed to tell you that if you defeat me,## he explained. Kat
looked at the broken down old warrior in front of her. She had little doubt
that she could defeat him even though the Turk was still impressively muscled
and clearly still in shape. Kat had faced too many men like him when she was
coming up the ranks to fail to recognize the Turk for what he was now. He was
just another fighter past his prime thinking that he had one more good fight
left in him.

The truth, however, was in Sinbad##s eyes, and they told Kat and anyone else
who was willing to look closely enough that his fire had gone out. Kat thought
to herself that surely the Fat Man knew this as well. What did he hope to gain
by hiring the Turk to try to stand in her way?

##Do you mind if I sit down?## she asked indicating the empty chair.

##Suit yourself,## the Turk replied.

Katrina began to tell the Turk a story. It was the story of a runaway growing
up on the streets of Singapore. It was her story. Parts of the story Sinbad
already knew. When she got to the part of her story where she came up against
him in the ring he interrupted her.

##I remember that fight. You were the only person up until then to make it
past three rounds with me. You were a very impressive fighter, and so
beautiful. It made me a little sick inside to have to hit your beautiful
face,## he explained.

##One never would have known that considering the number of times you did so
that night,## Katrina joked.

##It##s not funny!## Sinbad scolded, ##I felt heartsick and terrible after
that fight.## Kat had no idea. She felt ashamed to find out that the Turk felt
this way. She felt ashamed because she knew that if their roles had been
reversed, she never would have given the Turk another thought except to gloat
about her victory over him.

##It was shortly after that fight with you that I began to . . . . ## Sinbad
could not bring himself the say the terrible word ##lose.##

##I didn##t know,## was all Kat said in response. Then she told Sinbad the
story of what happened to her after that fight. She was in the hospital for
almost four weeks recovering. It was not the best hospital in New York City #"
far from it. Farrah would never pay for that level of care. His main priority
was that it was not the type of hospital that would ask a lot of questions.

There was one person on the hospital staff who did ask a lot of questions
however. He was a male nurse named Cecil who worked on the floor where Kat was
a patient. He took a special interest in her case. No one could accuse him of
doing so simply because his patient was beautiful because it was well into the
third week of her stay that Kat began to look even remotely attractive again.

Despite the fact that they came from entirely different worlds #" Cecil grew
up on a farm in the U.S. Midwest #" fate and New York City brought these two
young people together, and they fell in love. This was so even though neither
one dared to tell the other. Neither one dared to hope that the other felt the
same way.

That is, until one night when Cecil came in to check on his most prized
patient and found her crying. Slowly he was able to get the story out of her.
She told him a little about her life as an underground fighter. She told him
about her defeat at the hands of Sinbad the Turk. Most of all she told him
about Casbah Farrah #" the man she had come to regard as a father #" and how
he visited her just an hour before. It seems that Farrah was upset about
Kat##s failure to defeat the Turk. He was not upset because of the punishment
that she had suffered, but because of the revenue he had lost.

However, the Fat Man saw a way to recoup his loss. As the only one who lasted
more than three rounds with the Turk, there was great interest in seeing a
rematch between the two. Farrah was determined to set up such a rematch. He
made it clear that he knew that Katrina could not beat the Turk and that he
planned to secretly bet large sums of money on Sinbad. He told Kat that she
owed this to him. The Fat Man clearly didn##t care if this time the Turk
killed Katrina which she very much feared he would do.

Sinbad interrupted the story at this point to say, ##I never would have agreed
to a rematch back then. If I would have known which hospital you were in, I
would have come to visit you.##

Once again, the only thing Kat could say was, ##I didn##t know.## She
continued with her story of how the gentle nurse that she had fallen in love
with showed iron resolve that night and determined that the only thing they
could do was disappear and start a new life together.

##Together?## Katrina asked.

##Yes, Katrina, if you##ll have me. You see . . . I love you. But, please,
don##t feel like you have to stay with me once I get you out of here. I know
that a woman like you could never fall for a guy like me. How could you be in
love with me?##

Katrina looked in his eyes, her own welling up in tears, and replied, ##How
could I be in love with you? Truly. Madly. Deeply.##

The two young lovers made good their escape that night and eventually settled
in America##s heartland #" Nebraska of all places. Cecil started his own
nonprofit business in which he rescued homeless people #" mostly mentally ill
and developmentally disabled individuals #" and helped them find homes,
medical treatment and, when appropriate, jobs. Kat became #" of all things #"
a sign painter of local renown.

She loved the peace and tranquility. She found that she had a flair for design
and color. She also liked setting her own schedule so that she could find time
to secretly stay in shape and train.

The rest Sinbad knew. He knew that Farrah had taken Cecil hostage and forced
Kat into this ##Game of Death## in order to rescue him. ##So where does that
leave us now?## asked Kat.

##I have been hired by Farrah to try and stop you. I have already accepted
partial payment. Honor dictates that I must try to stop you.## The Turk
answered simply.

##But you said before that you never would have agreed to a rematch five years
ago,## Kat pointed out.

##That was then,## Sinbad explained, ##I could afford to pick and choose my
fights back then.##

##And yet here you are just five years later having to accept money from a man
like Farrah to do something that your heart tells you is wrong.##

##What is your point?## Sinbad asked.

##My point is, why do people like us who go through all the training and
sweating and fighting and bleeding always end up with nothing to show for it
while men like Farrah get rich?##

##I did not make the world,## Sinbad said, ##I must simply try to make my way
in it.##

##Aw, but that is no excuse! That is one of the many lessons my beloved has
taught me #" that one cannot look at the worst parts of ##the world## and use
them as justification for the worst part of ourselves.##

##But honor dictates #" ##

####Honor dictates?## Where is the ##honor## in keeping my beloved hostage and
forcing me back into a life I wished never to return to. Where is the
##honor## in exploiting a creature like Bobo and forcing him to be a part of
this?##

##But those are actions taken by Farrah, not me,## said Sinbad.

##While you stood by and did nothing!## Katrina scolded. ##My husband is fond
of saying, ##The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men
to do nothing.####

##It has been a long time since I have thought of myself as a good man,##
observed Sinbad.

##Don##t you think it##s time you started again?## asked Kat.

##But still, I have accepted partial payment #" money that I cannot pay
back.##

##And what was to happen if you were unable to defeat me?## Kat asked.

##Then I would not receive the remainder of the payment,## Sinbad answered.

##Fine, we battled, you lost,## Kat said.

##But we have not,## countered Sinbad.

##Did your agreement with Farrah specify that we must engage in PHYSICAL
combat?##

##No, but it was understood #" ##

##My dear Sinbad, when it comes to an agreement with a man like Farrah,
nothing is ##understood##.##

##What are you getting at?##

##Instead of engaging in physical combat, you and I chose to engage in verbal
combat. I won; you lost. You receive no more payment from Farrah. Honor is
served.##

Sinbad looked puzzled for several seconds. He was sure that there must be a
flaw in the beautiful girl##s argument, but he was damned if he could find it.
However, for him there was another matter that had to be addressed before
honor was served. He told Katrina, ##There is one other thing.##

##What?## the warrior princess asked.

##I have watched you fight your way up five floors to this top level. I have
been forced to concede that your skills have continued to improve in the last
five years while mine have diminished. If I don##t fight you now #" if I let
you talk your way out #" how can I ever know for sure that part on my
motivation wasn##t fear?##

##Are you saying that you fear me, Sinbad?## Kat asked. The thought that this
might be so gave her more satisfaction than she cared to admit.

##Not you,## he answered, ##But it is . . . possible that I fear being
defeated by you.##

##Is it so terrible to choose not to fight out of fear of losing?## she asked.

##For a gladiator such as myself, yes.##

##In that case, what if we agree to fight at some later time of our own
choosing? We won##t be fighting to entertain a crowd of drunken louts. We
won##t be fighting in order to line the pockets of men like Farrah. You won##t
be trying to prevent me from rescuing the man I love. We will be fighting
simply to satisfy honor and perhaps our own curiosity.

##I can live with those terms,## said the Turk.

Soon, Kat, Sinbad and Bobo were standing outside the hotel where Farrah was
holding Cecil hostage. ##Do you want us to come in with you?## asked Sinbad.

##Something tells me we##d have a little trouble getting Bobo past the
lobby,## said Kat. ##Besides, I have to do this alone.##

As Katrina made her way to the third story where her beloved was being held,
her heart was full of anguish. She was reasonably sure that Cecil was still
alive and relatively unharmed, but she was worried of what he would think of
her. Cecil was an avowed pacifist. Would he understand that she did what she
had to do #" including kill three men #" to rescue him?

When she knocked on the door, she heard the once familiar voice of the Fat Man
say, ##Come in, my dear.##

She opened the door of the hotel suite slowly. The Fat Man was sitting in a
large chair. A quick scan told her that no one else was in THIS room at least.

##Don##t worry, my dear, we are alone in this room,## Farrah said.

##Where##s my husband?## asked Kat.

##He##s in the bedroom, tied to a chair,## the Fat Man answered. Katrina
didn##t bother to ask Farrah if Cecil was alone in the bedroom. She knew him
well enough to know that he would never leave her husband unguarded.

##Set him free, now!## Katrina demanded.

##Yes, of course, my dear,## Farrah seemingly agreed. ##There are just a few
business matters we need to tie up first.##

##Such as?##

##Well, as you probably already surmised, I##ve committed today##s little
adventure to digital film - .##

##Yes, I figured that out as soon as I saw the ridiculous outfit you forced me
to wear,## she interrupted.

##Simply a matter of giving the viewing public what they want,## Farrah
explained. ##I##m satisfied that I##ve done that except for one minor
detail.##

##And what##s that, Fatso?##

##I believe I can increase my eventual profits when I offer this film for sale
on the internet by a full forty percent if I can include some footage of you
#" let us say #" out of this ridiculous outfit.##

##In other words, you want film of me naked,## Kat said.

##Precisely, my dear.##

##Fuck!## Kat said disgustedly. ##And to think that I once thought of you as a
father.##

##I can assure you,## said the Fat Man, ##That my thoughts of you were always
of a less familial #" more carnal #" nature.## Kat threw up a little in her
mouth at this revelation.

##Fine, let##s get this over with, but one thing, Fatso: This ends it between
you and I. After this, you are out of mine and my husband##s life for good.
Agreed?##

##Agreed.##

Kat began to remove her top to expose her magnificent breasts. She had just
lowered one strap when she noticed that the man guarding her husband in the
other room had stepped into the open doorway to watch. ##I guess he wants to
see the show,## she thought to herself. She wished that her husband could
somehow use the distraction that she was providing to somehow get loose. She
knew how unlikely this was however. He would be as out of his element in this
situation as a minnow would be in the middle of the Sahara.

Then, as if by a miracle, she saw Cecil sneaking up behind the guard with a
heavy lamp in his hand. The Fat Man turned quickly when he heard the lamp
shatter against the skull of his henchman. He turned just in time to see the
gunman fall to the floor in an unconscious heap.

Cecil then grabbed the gun from the shoulder holster of the knocked out guard,
stepped over him and rushed over to the chair where Farrah was sitting. ##Stay
in your chair, you . . . you big jerk!## he demanded.

##Wha?## was all Farrah could manage to sputter out.

Cecil held the gun about an inch from the Fat Man##s nose. ##How dare you try
to compromise my wife and look at her naked body like this,## he shouted.
##Didn##t anybody ever explain to you what it means to be a gentleman? I
should put a bullet in your evil skull right now!##

##B-b-but I t-thought you were a p-p-pacifist,## sputtered the Fat Man.

##I thought so too,## Cecil said, ##But I guess every man has his breaking
point. You##ve clearly pushed me past mine.##

Kat went over to her husband and said, ##Don##t do it, Honey, don##t let him
turn you in to something you##re not. Believe me, if you kill him #" even
though he deserves it #" a little part of your own soul dies with him. Don##t
do it.## She began to cry. ##Don##t kill even a tiny part of that beautiful
soul that I love so much.##

##Okay,## Cecil agreed, but he looked back at Farrah with blood in his eyes.
##Where is it?## he asked.

##Where is what?## the Fat Man responded.

##Where is the disk that contains the digital footage on my wife?## he asked.

##Why do you want to know?## Farah asked.

Cecil turned and handed the gun to his wife. Then he turned back to Farrah and
wrapped his thin fingers around Farrah##s soft white neck. ##You
son-of-a-bitch! If you don##t tell me, I##ll strangle you with my bare hands.
He then stuck both his thumbs right at the base of Farrah##s neck #" in the
place where tracheotomy holes are cut #" thus completely cutting off all
oxygen. The Fat Man##s eyes grew wide and panicked.

Cecil relieved the pressure just enough for Farrah to sputter, ##In the
drawer.##

##What drawer?## Cecil shouted. The Fat Man pointed towards the desk that the
hotel provided. Kat went over and opened the middle drawer and pulled out a
computer disk.

##Is this it?## she asked. Farrah feverishly shook his head ##yes.##

A few minutes later, the unconscious guard was tied up in sheets. Farrah was
still sitting in his chair too petrified to move, and Cecil and Kat were
talking things over.

##Are you sure that##s the right disk?## he asked.

##Yes, I watched part of it on his laptop.##

##Do you believe him when he says that##s the only copy?##

##Yes, because frankly I think he##s too scared shitless of you to lie about
it.##

Cecil turned to Farrah and said, ##I want it understood that when we leave
here, you are out of our lives forever.##

##Yes, yes, of course,## the frightened man agreed.

##Because let me tell you something, Fatso, if I ever see you again #" I mean,
if you##re standing across the street and my wife accidentally stubs her toe,
I##m holding you responsible. And I##m coming for you.##

##Please, I understand . . . just leave me in peace.## Farrah begged. Kat
looked deeply into his eyes. She knew the Fat Man well enough to know that he
meant what he said.

##Let##s go, Honey, he won##t bother us anymore,## she concluded.

As the spouses walked down the hall of the hotel, Kay said, ##Honey, I##ve
never seen you like that before. You were a real tiger in there.##

##Well, I##m sorry that I used such vulgar language in front of you, Honey,
but darn it!## Cecil said, ##The guy just pushed me too far!##

##Remind me never to push you too far,## Katrina joked.

##Honey, what? You mean . . ? Honey, I could never . . . not with you!##

##I know, Sweetie,## she said. ##There##s just one thing I don##t
understand.##

##What?## asked Cecil.

##Didn##t Farrah have you tied up in bedroom of the hotel suite?##

##Yes.##

##So how did you get lose?## Kat asked her husband.

##When they tied me up,## he began, ##I tensed my muscles so that when I
relaxed them, there would be a little slack. Then when they weren##t paying
attention, I would tug at the ropes, gradually working my way free. When that
guard took his eyes off of me to watch you take your clothes off, I made my
move.##

##Wow, Honey, that##s really clever. Where did you learn that trick?##

##I think it was from a Batman comic book.##

##Speaking of taking my clothes off, just wait until I get you home, Hero.##

Cecil blushed bright red, ##Aw, Honey.##

##Just one #" well, two more things to take care of,## Kat said.

##What##s that?## asked Cecil.

##I have two more homeless clients for you waiting outside the hotel. One of
them is severely developmentally disabled.##

ONE YEAR LATER

Katrina and Cecil are as in love as ever.

Bobo is living in a group home and doing part-time manual labor for Katrina##s
sign-painting business.

Cecil found a job for Sinbad in construction.

Six months after Cecil was rescued from the Fat Man, Sinbad and Katrina had
their rematch. After seven hard-fought rounds, the Turk conceded defeat.

Now that ##honor## has been satisfied #" and without the threat of the Fat Man
looming over them #" Cecil and Katrina decided that the time was right to
start a family.

Tonight, Katrina is going to surprise her husband with the news that she is
with child . . . .

********************

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