Rachel

We shared a cigarette after we fucked – it didn’t taste half as good as she did.

When you aren’t significant enough to get some air time at the Denzel Porter Invitational you learn to compensate. I decided to bury my self loathing in a woman of the night in a brothel outside city of sin.

She pulled the cigarette from her blood red stained lips between her fingers which had matching nail polish and pointed the butt end in my direction. I plucked it from her and took a few gentle sips.

“What brought you to Vegas?,” she asked, her ass cheeks flexing as swaying as she walked to the vanity to check her makeup.

“Wrestling,” I said, blowing some smoke out. “I’m starting a company and I need to scope some venues. There was a big show this weekend so I figured what better time to check it out.”

I focused on my career, didn’t want to spring the fact that a dirty cop caused the death of my ex just a few weeks ago on her. I didn’t go to the funeral. Couldn't stomach flying to Canada just to see her laid six feet in the ground – listen to Sara's mother say ‘I told you so.’ – she always thought I was trouble.

“There is so much pain in the way you fuck,” she said nonchalantly, walking toward me with her perfect breasts, pink nipples pointy from the breeze flowing through the old brothel walls. It had a for sale sign out front, five and a half million for a house of top quality pussy in the middle of the desert.

She pulled the cigarette gently from my lips and put it between hers.

“It hasn’t been easy, the things I have been through…” I said, opening up and not knowing why – but escorts have a good way of breaking down barriers. A little lust and anyone can slip wide open.

“My father was a serial killer. I’ve always had this pent up aggression, this pent up… evil. I’ve been hunted by the police and I recently lost the love of my life in a car accident.”

My eyes stayed dry, my face straight. I reached out and plucked the cigarette back once again as it was reaching its end.

The escort wasn’t taken aback – no judgment in her eyes – these people offering up their bodies so others can feel their own exist – they heard it all before.

“Is he where these scars came from,” she touches my hand, runs it over the rough piece of raised shiny flesh.

“Death matches, some fuck nailed my hand to the ring,” she listens and brings my hand to her face kissing it.

I pull it back to push the cigarette into the table side ashtray.

“What are you doing next?”

“That’s a loaded question doll,” I said letting out a sigh, “Don’t you have another client to get to instead of entertaining me?”

“Last one of the night,” she said – as a slight disgust settled into my bones that kind of felt like home – low pressure – not being the only one relied on for an orgasm.

“So, where does that hunk of gold take you next?,” she asked, pointing the Warrior Rising Championship slung over the headboard behind me.

“Fucking Connecticut,” I run my hand over the well traveled face-plate. This championship and I were becoming truly tethered. A limbo I’m stuck in constantly shifting the standard of what even entry level wrestlers should perform like.

“It’s all coming full circle for me now babe, starting where I began, pretty much cleaned out the god damn division.”

She had no idea what I was talking about but her eye lit up with excitement regardless – probably a ploy to keep an asshole like me coming back over and over. Didn’t some dickhead write hookers are cheaper than therapy anyway?

“How are you working… I mean, you just lost someone you say you loved. You have to come see me and get some of those feelings out. You have no idea how many men have come here because they lost their love and don’t know how to move on. See it’s easier to come here and bury your cock in me with no emotional attachment than it is to get back out there and seek true love.”

She pulled on some acid wash jeans over her hourglass figure, put on a tank top over her bare breasts.

“The truth is they fall in love with me anyway… I’ve had to call the cops out here on almost every one of them. I don’t blame them Casanova, I just don’t want you stuck in the same habit.”

“I have to go,” I tell her, brushing her off me as I pull my shirt and jeans back on quick, shove my feet into a pair of brown work boots and snatch my title off the back of the bed.

“I’d like to see you again,” she said to my surprise after lecturing me about how men have become obsessive – but fucking someone with a hunk of gold implies I can bankroll her dreams. I know how this works.

“My name is Rachel.”

I don’t know if that was true or not, but I nodded at her, pulled two cigarettes from my pocket and left them on the nightstand in attention to the healthy wad of cash.

“Same time next week?” she asked playfully, but I didn’t humor her at all. I was busy thinking about Sara, she was there in the pit of my stomach inciting nausea. What the fuck was I even doing… I don’t remember the last time I ate.

How the fuck am I going to defend a title like this.

Nothing sucks the life out of you like a good woman – it’s not as sexy as it sounds.

I had to drive back to LA to catch a flight to go across the god damn fucking country to kick TJ Thompson's teeth down his throat and to be honest I want to do it so bad I’d take a red eye – I’d wobble into the arena fucking jet legged and still choke him out in record time. He’s lucky to still have his head attached to my body — but he might not by the end of Proving Ground.

I didn’t take Bash Daddy or Voodoo with me to scope the Mojave or take in the invitational. I needed to do this trip alone, but it left me without a camera man. I wedge my iPhone in between the dash and the windshield and press record.

I held up my Warrior Rising Championship to the camera, holding it there a moment – letting it set in that I beat four others at The Crowning II.

“Some of you might say I got away with this title once again my the skin of my teeth, but truth be told no one has been close of breaking my grip on this championship from the moment I warned TJ Thompson and Lil Petey months and months ago that I am the grip daddy the stranglehold I have on this division – that fun little nickname has a double meaning now.”

I put a cigarette between my lips crack the window on the old sedan, light up and blow a puff of smoke into the Mojave Desert.

“Crane, you can't get it done big guy. Not quite quick enough, you went for the easy kill – don’t try and tell me you didn’t. See Crane if you want this championship you are going to have to come and rip if from my hands yourself. I’m not letting this go down on anyone else's terms. I don’t give a fuck who you leave drooling, crippled, tortured in your wake none of them are Casanova English and at The Crowing you just got a taste. Trust me Crane, if you want to run it back, if you want to do this one on one, you call the powers that be, you have them book it and I’ll make those cold dark expressionless eyes blink bright right before I put you to sleep.”

I was clenching my jaw. I twisted the key in the ignition and started driving toward LA – hanging my cigarette out the window letting the wind snap the ash.

“Crane at least maybe you’d be fresh on my pallet because I am going full circle at Proving Ground. I have a rematch with a blemish on my career… a man who has, on paper, beat me in the past. I’ll give you that TJ… I am not going to deny you a victory… as sad as it was. I am not going to give the referee the chance to change the outcome. Don’t worry, I’ll let you go before they have to apply the jaws of life… but I can’t promise you that you won’t be joining Petey on that retirement tour very soon.”

I hold the championship up to the camera keeping one hand on the wheel, cig between my lips muffling my speech.

“It all started with this championship… but it has held me in this position for a long time, I wasn’t able to get the job done against Myojin and outside Project Honor I have another shot, but I refuse to just treat this belt like a prop. I have brought it so much meaning over the months… but I was unable to reach the next tier. So It looks like you are stuck with me TJ, it looks like every few months I’ll have to loop around and shove my foot up your ass just to remind you whose stomp it really is.”

“Back when we faced off TJ I was unfocused, I was just cutting my teeth again. Now they are sharp I’m ready to take another chunk off your career. I’m going to go down as the greatest Warrior Rising Champion in this company. They are going to talk of my legend for years to come.”

I pull the cigarette from my mouth and toss it out the window.

“I mean who really is my competition, you TJ? Someone who held this title for 72 long painful days and only managed to defend it twice? Emmanuelle who held it for 114 and defended it once? The competition is dead on arrival and TJ I am about to prove to you this division has changed so much from the first few months a hack like you won't be considered championship material again,

Lights in the rear-view mirror. Fuck. I snap the camera off and pull to the side of the road.

I knew it was him, Special Agent Hancock, as soon as I heard his dress shoes slap against the asphalt toward the car and my rolled down window.

“Glad you got some ad space for the new company at the Denxel Porter Invitational, but I mean it has to fuck with you… you weren’t even asked to compete… watched from the audience like an old dog as someone 50 years plus put on a main event five star match up,” He looked me up and down, but I didn’t meet his eyes at all.

“Maybe I backed the wrong fucking horse huh,” he said leaning his head in.

I rolled up the window catching his head and cutting off his wind pipe slightly. He reached for his gun.

“What, you blow my brains out and then what? You start a wrestling company yourself?”

I let the window down, he’s gasping and catching his breath.

I finally locked eyes with the son of a bitch.