Tanya's Challenge - Rio by Jeri
Tanya didn't know what was happening. She thought she was waking up from a good sleep, but was confused and dazed. Slowly, she realized she had been unconscious. Slowly she realized she had been punched into unconsciousness by Lily. But, it had been necessary for the movie. She thought about how she was supposed to act unconscious, as Lily walked away to kidnap the businessman. She thought that she should have stayed motionless after Lily had kicked her in the stomach. And with that thought, with her mind now focused on her stomach, her stomach took over. It yelled and screeched its pain at her. She froze, with the sudden, deafening sound of her stomach's pain ringing in her ears. She tried to scream back at it, to try to drown it out, but she could only let out a little whimper. She could barely breathe, as every breath caused her stomach to scream and screech louder. She tried to move slowly into a position where her stomach was not as loud, but with every movement she made, the screeching grew louder. Finally, with a Herculean effort, she got into a position where her stomach's scream was no longer deafening her.
Slowly, Tanya realized there was another voice screaming in her ear. It sounded like Lily, but she couldn't be sure with her stomach still making all that noise. Suddenly, her stomach stopped screaming and screeching, just as suddenly as it had started.
"... you OK! Are you OK?" That was Lily, not screaming but talking softly.
Lily and another woman were kneeling next to her. She knew the other woman, but not from where. She looked at her. She realized she was the movie set's doctor when she started to flash a light in her eyes to examine her.
Tanya had never been unconscious before. The doctor examined her thoroughly to see if there were any real injuries. She said that Tanya was fine, but would be sore in her upper stomach for quite a while, indicating exactly where by pushing on her upper abs with her fingertip. She was right, as Tanya gasped and winced from the mild pressure. The doctor told her to keep exercising her stomach to help the pain go away faster, and to massage it as much as she could stand to prevent any deep bruises. She also told Tanya not to get punched in the stomach again for a while until she healed. Tanya thought it might be a good idea to follow the doctor's orders, especially that last one.
Tanya was a little slow in getting up. When she had recovered enough that she was able to walk around, she asked Lily how long she had been out. Lily said it had been less than a minute. Tanya confirmed this by looking around and seeing that the crew were still in the positions they had been in during the filming.
The director came over to Tanya and told her that last scene was probably adequate, and they wouldn't have to do it again. Then, he turned around and walked away, yelling to his assistant to inform the crew they could wrap the set for this shoot. Tanya thought it must have been her weakened conditions that prevented her from knocking the director out cold with her strongest punch. She turned just in time to grab hold of Lily, who obviously had the same idea.
Tanya was on her way to Rio, the location of the rest of the filming for the movie. Because of the logistics involved with moving the crew, actors and equipment from Los Angeles to Brazil, the actors had a two week hiatus between the two locations. Tanya decided to spend as much of it as she could in Rio before the crew got there, to just lounge around and enjoy the scenery and beaches. She was booked into the hotel the cast and crew would be using until they went to their jungle location. But, she would be alone for the next week, at least.
After recovering from the long flight from Los Angeles by sleeping half way into the morning, she went to the beach. There, she made a shocking discovery. Her bikini, while considered very revealing on the beaches near Los Angeles, was way out of style here. She might as well have been fully clothed, compared to the skimpy bikinis that were the norm here. She stayed just enough to touch up her tan and to observe the other girls there, then went out shopping for new clothes, including the skimpiest bikini she could find that still covered at least a little of the important parts of her anatomy. She bought a bunch of other clothes, too. The saleswoman helped her pick out just the right clothes so she would stand out, even when compared with the tanned, slim, muscular and svelte girls on the beaches and walking around the town. She picked out one stunning dress that clung to every curve, leaving almost nothing of her figure to the imagination. And due to her firm breasts, she found the dress didn't require a bra. This made her feel more beautiful. She thought she could now stand up to the most gorgeous girl she had seen on the beach. And she could imagine what this outfit would do to the boys back in Los Angeles. She picked out several other sets of clothes, including some that she could wear over her new bikini, on the way to and from the beaches.
She hadn't really recovered from her flight, so after the full afternoon of shopping, she went back to the hotel to turn in early get a real night's sleep.
The next day, she tried out the effect of her bikini on the locals and tourists at the beach. It had exactly the response she had hoped for. She was the center of attention, at least in the part of the beach she was on. She drew a crowd around her, and was quite often asked for her picture. She obliged, posing partly based on her modeling experience and partly based on her fitness experience. That night, she roamed part of the city, just looking at the sights. She found an old fashion disco in one quarter, where she danced well into the next day. She had a lot of fun.
The next day, after waking up late in the morning, she got onto the Internet with her laptop and updated her Web site with her experiences. She also sent out E-mail to her friends back in Los Angeles, including Lily, telling them of her day.
In the early afternoon, she went to the **** beach she had wanted to visit. It was interesting. She would be visiting it again.
That night, she wandered a different quarter of Rio. That's when she found The Fight Club.
The Fight Club appeared like any other of the hundreds of nightclubs she had seen so far. But on the marquee was the word "Catfights," in big, red letters. With a sign like this, she just had to go in.
Tanya had, of course, seen catfights in the movies, where two women fought each other. Quite often, she would critique them, saying to herself how they looked faked. With her recent stunt combat training, she could now look at these fights with a new eye, looking at how they had to pull their punches or to miss each other, or to fake getting punched. The catfights in this club were not like any of those movie fights.
Inside the club in the middle of the dance floor, was a large, padded boxing ring. It was an official size ring, the same size as the one she had trained in. Surrounding the ring, was row after row of chairs, filled to capacity with men and a few women, with a lot of people standing and watching from behind the chairs. There was a bout going on as she walked in.
In the center of the ring were two girls in the usual skimpy Rio bikinis beating on each other with their gloved hands. That's the best way she could describe it. They had on regulation size 16 ounce gloves and head protectors and were flailing their hands, pounding on each other. Even with her limited boxing experience, she could see that they had no experience at all. They just swung their arms wildly at each other, hoping to hit some soft, vulnerable spot. Few of their punches connected, and most did no damage when they did. Once in a while, one of them would land a glancing blow, and the other would react to it. Over the final two rounds she saw them in, they gradually slowed down, until they both were panting loudly and were barely able to swing their arms. Eventually, the final round ended, and the one who had swung the wildest was judged the winner.
The second fight was much more interesting to Tanya. Two girls came out in their bikinis wearing only light leather gloves for protection of their hands and mouth pieces, but no head gear. These girls looked much more like fighters, as they both had hard, muscular bodies. It was the type of body that Lily had, a fighter's body. The ringmaster announced them by their first names only and said this was a catfight bout to submission with limited rules.
When the bell rang, both girls came out and got into a kickboxing stance. Tanya knew they were both experienced kickboxers from the first few blows. She knew most of the punches and kicks they threw, but saw a couple moves she had never seen before. She was so engrossed in observing and analyzing their moves that she didn't realize they had gone nine rounds until one of them gave up and the other one had her hand raised in victory.
The remaining opponents that night were better than that first ones she saw, but none of them were as exciting as the kickboxers had been. She left the club soon after the last fight of the night, really excited about this club. She would have to visit it again, and learn more about the fights.
The next day, after her usual posting of her experiences to her Web site and sending and answering her E-mail (she received a reply from Lily), she went to the **** beach again in the early afternoon. This beach was actually less crowded than the other beaches, and it gave her a chance to get an overall natural tan she had never had the chance to get before. She dedicated herself to getting a tan free of tanlines before the crew arrived. She would have to watch herself though, as she didn't want to burn or to get so tanned she would no longer match the body tone of her previous Los Angeles shots in the movie.
That evening, she changed and went to the club just after it opened. She discovered the reason for there being so much difference in the quality of the catfighters. The club put up cash prizes for the fighters. Usually, the loser got $50, but the winner got $200. But once a month, there were elimination competition fights where the top prize was $2,500. It was these cash prizes that drew girls with all levels of experience to the fights.
On the spur of the moment, Tanya decided to try a fight herself that very night. Though she had never been in a real fight, she had the experience in the ring during her training for the movie. "And after all," she thought, "The trainers I worked with said I was good enough to be in kickboxing competition."
Being in Rio, she had her skimpy bikini in her bag, which still left lots of room for her other things. She had a problem with the forms, as she didn't really fit into any of the experience levels listed on them. Finally, she decided she would fall in the medium experience, catfighting category, after conferring with the referee. She was, of course, going to be kickboxing, and decided she would go to submission. That would give her ample opportunity to quit at any time if she was in trouble, with only her pride being hurt.
Her bout was scheduled as the fourth match that evening. That gave her time to see the first two matches from ringside in the seats reserved for the fighters. The first match was a boxing match between two fairly experienced boxers. They knew their boxing, and put up quite a good fight, with really hard and skilled punches. It went all five rounds, with the match decided by a narrow decision on the judges' part.
The second bout was more interesting to Tanya. It was a catfighting match between the winner from the previous night's contest and another fighter. The match only went six rounds, with last night's winner winning again. But Tanya had a chance to see her in action once more. She used no new moves that Tanya noticed, so Tanya was pretty sure she could counter all her moves. And in a few cases, Tanya saw an opening she could have exploited herself.
When that bout ended, Tanya immediately went back to the dressing room to change. Changing consisted of slipping out of her dress and shoes, and tying on her tiny string bikini. It took less than three minutes, but she was still almost late for her bout, as the third bout had lasted less than a round.
When Tanya approached the ring with her manager, actually one of the younger employees, she saw that she would be up against the other kickboxer from the previous night. She was only slightly thankful that she would be going up against this one instead of the other one. But she knew both were close to the same skill level. She didn't really know what her own level was, as she had never fought before. But, she entered the ring confident that she would put up the best fight she could, even if she was flat on her back in the first five seconds. "No!" she told herself. "I'll be the one to put her on her back in the first five seconds!"
The announcer introduced them. Her opponent's name was Anna, from Rio. Tanya got a loud round of applause when it was announced that it was her first fight and she was from Los Angeles. The applause was helped, of course, by her splendid body.
The referee called them both to the center of the ring and told them the rules. There would be no biting or eye gouging. There would be no scratching the face. Other than that, all other holds, punches and kicks to any part of the body were allowed.
Tanya had not learned many holds or counters to them, so she was going to have to rely on her fighting skills to keep Anna from getting a solid hold on her.
The bell rang, and the referee told them to fight.
Tanya did poorly in the first three rounds. Anna had gone on the offensive immediately, causing her to stay in a defensive mode. While she was able to deflect most of Anna's punches, some of them got through, especially to her head. She was not able to get the opportunity to throw more than a handful of punches at Anna, most of which she stopped. The couple that Tanya was able to sneak by Anna's defenses did damage, as evidenced by Anna's reaction to them. This at least gave her enough confidence to continue with the fight.
At the end of the third round, Tanya's manager talked to her. He said that Anna was susceptible to body punches and for her to aim her punches there. He also said she should keep her guard up higher near her head, but not high enough to let Anna get a shot at her stomach. "My stomach," though Tanya. "My stomach!"
When the bell sounded for the fourth round, Tanya charged out of her corner with a confidence she had not had before in this fight. She kept her fists high around her head to protect it, ignoring her manager's instructions to keep her guard lower. She was able to send a few jabbing punches toward Anna's head from this position, and one even connected. The fight appeared more even now, as both girls were throwing and blocking the blows.
Anna threw a particularly strong left punch to Tanya's head, and Tanya blocked it with her fists high. Anna came back immediately with a strong right punch directly to Tanya's stomach, at her navel. The crowd gasped at the loud thud that came just at a lull in their cheering, so was audible throughout the club. This is just what Tanya had hoped for. She knew she could take the stomach punches from her movie crew, and that only Lily had been able to really hurt her. She wanted to see if Anna had enough strength to do the same kind of damage as Lily. To her amazement and relief, Anna's punch was only a little worse than that from the men in the crew. She now had a weapon and a strategy she could use in this fight.
Tanya kept her guard high throughout the rest of the fight. Anna often went to her inviting stomach, with little effect on Tanya. However, this left Anna open for a counterattack to her head and the side of her body opposite the punch. Tanya took advantage of this, driving hard lefts and rights to Anna's head, ribs and even stomach. This strategy worked better than she had hoped. She now went on the offensive herself, backing Anna around the ring.
Anna was tiring, both from the pounding she was taking to her body and from the intensity of Tanya's attacks. Evidently, Anna had been practicing her kickboxing skills, but had not done much to improve her endurance and stamina. Tanya, however, due to her fitness training, was not wearing down at all. In fact, she was actually attacking stronger than ever due to the feeling of elation that she was now winning.
In the ninth round, Anna gave up, as she could no longer keep up the pace that Tanya was still setting. Tanya jumped up and down like a schoolgirl when the referee raised her hand as the winner. She ran over to Anna, grabbed her and kissed her, picking her completely off the floor. She then sprinted back to her corner, and just before leaving the ring, threw a kiss to the crowd. By now, the crowd was going wild, to match Tanya's mood.
Tanya thanked her manager with a big hug and ran back to the dressing room, after one final wave to the crowd. She took a quick shower to wash away the sweat and dressed again in her clinging dress. She had calmed down only a little when she left the dressing room to go back to the hotel. As she walked to the exit, the crowd again applauded her loudly, temporarily ignoring the fight currently going on. It seemed that the crowd at the club had a new favorite.
Someone stuffed two $100 bills in her hand as she made her way through the crowd. When she looked around, she saw it was the club owner giving her her winnings. She had completely forgotten about that part of the fight.
She got back to the hotel late, but earlier than the previous night. She was much too excited to even feel a little sleepy. She had just had her first fight ever, against a strong opponent, and had won! She decided she had to tell the world about this. So, she got on her Web site and described the fight in detail on her News page. She sent much the same description to all her friends via E-mail. She finally got to sleep early in the morning.