Title:  The Rule of Opposites

Author:  Harper

Email: Xfjnky2@yahoo.com

Rating:  R

Fandom:  X-over between Girlfight (the movie)/Sex and the City

Pairing:  Diana/Charlotte

Disclaimer:  I don’t own the characters.  They belong to more people than I can begin to know about, but the list unfortunately doesn’t include me.  I’m not making any profit from this, though.

Explanation:  In case you haven’t seen “Girlfight” with Michelle Rodriguez ::sigh::, this is going to pretty much spoil the whole movie.  If you don’t want that to happen, STOP READING NOW.  For those of you interested, I’m going to give you a synopsis.  Diana Guzman is a poor kid from the projects, always getting in trouble at school, until she goes to pick up her brother at the boxing gym and falls in love with the sport.  She lies to her father and works her ass off to get in shape and really turn herself into a competitor, falling in love with a fellow boxer named Adrian as she goes.  In the end, she and Adrian fight, and she kicks his ass.  She thinks it’s the end of their relationship, but Adrian says that as long as she still wants to be with a guy she can out-fight, he wants to be with her.  And, the above is really very para-phrased, and not at all like any explanation you’d find on the back of the DVD box.  The movie is good, though.  I’d recommend it, if for nothing else than the fact that Michelle Rodriguez is excellent (and, I’ll admit it, really fucking hot).  Sex and the City is the HBO series.  If you want to know more about it, you can check it out on the hbo.com site.  Maybe the pairing seems crazy, but it seemed feasible at the time.

A/N:  This is written in first person POV… Diana’s.  I’ve also attempted to write it in her vernacular, thought I probably failed on several occasions.  What that means, though, is that it may be choppy and hard to follow.  It will definitely sound unpolished, if nothing else.  It’s un-beta’s, so all mistakes are mine.  Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.  There is no real plot to it, though I wouldn’t technically classify it as a PWP.  If you’d like to send feedback, I’d love to receive it.  I’ll be at Xfjnky2@yahoo.com.

The first time I saw her, she was wearing a red dress.

She didn’t fit in, couldn’t have fit in if she tried, but it didn’t help much that she looked like a bright smear of red in a room full of blacks, grays, and browns.  I couldn’t figure out how she wound up in there at all, anyway, cause it sure as hell wasn’t her side of town.  But, there was some guy with her, bald and chubby, looking like the beast to her beauty so I figured maybe there was a lot I didn’t know about the lady in the red dress.  Maybe what I didn’t know was that she used that beauty to separate men and their money, but I didn’t think so.  She was classy in the way that had to have been bred in at birth, and no matter how hard I tried, nothing could make me picture her on her back, eyes on the cash waiting for her on the nightstand.

I watched her until it was my turn to go up, half because she was a puzzle I wanted to figure out, and half because I couldn’t tear my eyes away.  She was like a jewel lost in a sea of gravel, sparkling and beautiful and completely out of place, and she’d already dug her way into my mind and took up residence.  Fuck, I almost even lost my fight because of her, knowing she was watching me.  It took everything I had to pull it together, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose to the pansy in the ring with me, all fancy footwork and no real talent.  Besides, I wanted her to see me win.  Maybe it was kind of  primitive, but I was on display, and my ego wanted me to be as big and bad-ass as possible.

When she left, I figured it was the last I’d see of her.  I mean, she’d sat through the whole thing like it horrified her, like she found it barbaric and fascinating at the same time.  Maybe she watched it like she’d look at a tiger at the zoo, leonine grace and lethality all coiled together.  Something seductive but deadly, and I thought maybe I’d lost my mind thinking about her like that.  Analyzing things from her perspective when I didn’t even know her, but something about her drove me to aspire to mental heights I could probably never reach.  Hell knows I’d never sounded so fucking… I don’t know… poetic, I guess

That night, laying in bed trying to block out the sound of my Dad cursing and slamming the refrigerator door, rattling what was left of the six-pack he’d brought home, I thought about her again.  Thought about what it meant to be thinking about her.  People’d been speculating about me for a long time, so it wasn’t like questions about my sexuality were unexpected.  Well, I say questions, but most usually came in the form of taunts meant to bring me down.  They’d never gotten to me though, cause it just came with the territory.  A girl prize-fighter, especially one like me, undefeated even if I was fighting girls and boys both, probably wasn’t necessarily the picture of old-fashioned girly-girl heterosexuality.  Not that I’d ever really considered it, even with the looks and come-ons, but that’d been before.  Before Adrian, who’d gone back to his slut whore ex-girlfriend a month after our fight.  Adrian, who’d told me it didn’t matter that I’d beaten him in the ring, who told me he loved me anyway.  And besides, he said, he was man enough to take it.

All lies.  I nearly clawed her eyes out when I saw her, strutting back into the gym and over to where he was practicing, wearing a black leather mini-skirt and three inch heels and pulling every eye in the place to her.  And he’d looked over at me and then back down at her and shook his head, cause he’d probably told her not to come around there any more but she knew what she was doing.  Staking her claim on him, marking him as hers just as clear as if she’d left a ring of that slut red lipstick around his cock.  So I said fuck it, and let her have him.

He’d begged and pleaded and promised never to do it again, but the words didn’t have any feeling in them and I was tired of being played for a fool.  It wasn’t the first time he’d passed me over for her, and when he finally figured out I wasn’t going to fall for his lies again, he turned ugly.  Told me it was okay, that he was better off with a real woman anyway.  With a woman who knew her place, who didn’t try to take a man’s.

So, when I saw the lady in the red dress, it didn’t matter anymore.  I didn’t care what people thought about me, and had to figure maybe they’d been right all along.  I thought maybe I should give it a shot, either prove to myself that it was all bullshit or find out I liked it.  I mean, my luck with guys was shot to hell and it wasn’t like I had an easy time meeting them anyway.  The ones at the gym either resented me or were scared of me, and none of the no-life losers at the projects were worth a second look.  And, I’d seen a pretty woman and wanted more, so that had to mean something, right?

Not that I figured I’d ever see her again.  Like I said, I could tell it wasn’t her part of town and I didn’t plan on her coming back to visit.  So when I did see her again, I thought maybe I was just imagining things.  But, I wasn’t, couldn’t be, cause there wasn’t anybody else in the world like her.  She was wearing pink this time, and I nearly laughed cause it just seemed so right on her.  I didn’t laugh, though, cause I couldn’t laugh at her…  not when she was there by herself, looking like she was two steps away from terrified but determined to stick it out anyway.  She had her purse in her lap, fingers digging into it so tight her knuckles were white, but I don’t think she was afraid someone was going to steal it.  I think she was just doing it because she didn’t know what else to be doing, and it was the only thing she had.

I was fighting early that night.  It was a full roster, feather weight on up to heavy weight with us girls on the side, and my opponent was tougher than some I’d faced but I still beat her.  Not before she clipped me on the side of the head, though, and there was already a bruise tracing up my cheekbone by the time I stripped out of my gear and shrugged into some civvies.  Nothing I could do about it, though, and I wanted to get out there and see if she was still around, so I tossed my bag in a locker and wandered back toward the crowd.

When I saw her still sitting there, I had to admit I was surprised.  Why she’d come back without the guy, I didn’t know, but there was an empty seat on her left and I slid into it, watching the way she was watching me.  I felt huge and awkward and clumsy next to her, hair still wet from the shower I’d taken, clothes rough.  She smelled like lavender, and her skin was so smooth I knew it’d feel like silk.

“Congratulations on your win.”

It was hard to hear her with the people around us going crazy.  Her voice was soft, cultured, and completely out of place in the middle of rough shouts and angry curses, and for some reason, I blushed.

“Thanks,” I muttered, wondering why I couldn’t do better even though she didn’t seem to mind.  “I didn’t think you’d come back.”

I didn’t know why I said it.  It gave me away, let her know I’d been watching her, and I felt like a stupid little kid with a crush.  She smiled at me like she knew a secret I didn’t and I just wanted to run.

“You saw me before?” she asked, and I looked up and saw her eyes for the first time.  They were brown, just like mine, but where mine looked like mud, hers were golden.  I’d never seen eyes like them before, not in my world where everybody looked just like me, and I guess I just forgot to look away.  It took me a minute to figure out I’d been staring at her, but she didn’t seem to mind.

I cleared my throat cause I didn’t trust myself to speak and not sound like some 14 year old boy.  “Yeah, when you came before.  It’s hard not to notice you.”

I hated the way I sounded, just like the hoods and nobodies around me.  Her voice flowed like honey and mine rubbed rough like sandpaper, and it hit me how foolish I had to be, sitting her beside her like I actually had a chance.

“You think so?”  She sounded amused, and I had to try and remember what I’d said before.  Not that I could forget, really, sounding like a lovesick fool.

“You don’t exactly belong here.”

She frowned, like I’d pissed her off, but she had to know she wasn’t like the rest of us.  I mean, I didn’t figure she was stupid.  Didn’t mean she still didn’t look angry though, and I had to try and fix things.  I just didn’t know how.

“I mean,  you’re… I don’t know.  Just look at you, then look at me.”

It didn’t help.  I knew I had to know what to say.  It had to be in my brain somewhere, words that were better than the ones I had, but I couldn’t find them.  I figured I’d lost her, as if I’d ever really had a chance to have her, and slumped back into my chair, depressed.  Maybe it wasn’t that boys weren’t my thing.  Maybe people weren’t my thing, cause I sure as hell seemed to be fucking up every way I turned.

“I am looking at you,” she said, and there was more to it than just the words.  It was her voice, just a little bit deeper than it had been before, and her eyes, hooded and promising me things I didn’t know anything about.  All of a sudden, I was nervous, afraid maybe I did have a chance after all.

I figured it didn’t hurt to try.  The least she could do was laugh at me, but if the impossible happened and she actually said yes, maybe I…  I didn’t know what I could do.  I was out of my league, no two ways about it.

“You want to get out of here?”

I asked her before my brain gave me time to think about it.  Then I closed my eyes, cause I didn’t want to see her tell me no.  Not that it wasn’t a dumb plan, and probably left me looking like an idiot, but then I felt her hand on mine, slim fingers squeezing softly, and it didn’t matter.

“I’d like that very much,” she said, words almost a whisper, and for a second I figured I had to have heard her wrong.  It didn’t make sense for me to think she said what I thought she said, cause that would’ve meant she said yes.

“Uh,” I stammered, confused and uncertain.  “I’ve gotta go get my stuff.”

She just smiled, and I wondered how she could be so cool about things when my heart was beating so fast I thought I was going to die.  But she could and she was, looking like she knew things I’d never know when she said, “I’ll come with you.”

She followed me back to the locker room, and I was sure every eye in that place was watching us.  Some of them were smirking, some leering, and I just glared.  Not that it worked.

She watched me, not saying a thing, and I looked in three lockers before I found the one with my bag.  I don’t know why, but I was embarrassed to have her back there.  The paint was peeling, the floor was dirty, it smelled like sweat and blood, and she didn’t belong there.  So, I cocked my head to the side, pointing at the door that’d take us out into the night, but she didn’t move.

“I think you’re beautiful,” she said, and I blushed again.  It didn’t make sense for her to say it, cause if anyone was beautiful, it was her.  Not me.  There was nothing special about me.  Not that way, at least.

So, I shook my head and smiled, cause it was nice of her to say it even if it wasn’t true.  “No, I’m not.  You are.  You’re…”

I stopped, cause I couldn’t even think of a word for what she was, but then she was walking toward me and I was walking backwards, all panic and fear.  Not that I had far to go, because my back was against the lockers in three steps and suddenly she was there, so close to me I could feel the heat of her body.  I was nervous as hell, but tried to stay still as I waited, not about to make any wrong moves.

“I’m what?” she asked, head cocking to the side, and I wracked my brain trying to come up with something.

Eyes looking everywhere but at her, afraid she’d see something I didn’t know was there, I said weakly, “I’d tell you, but I don’t know.  I’m not even sure there’s a word for what you are.”

She laughed, and it was high-pitched and nervous and it made me feel better cause maybe it meant she wasn’t as confident as she seemed.  Maybe it meant she was scared too.  I hoped she was, cause I didn’t like being alone.

“What’s your name?”

It hit me all of a sudden that I didn’t know, and I wondered how I’d managed to ask her to leave with me and not even know who she was.  It wasn’t like me, but then again, nothing I’d done since I’d seen her had been like me.

“Charlotte,” she said, and it seemed right.  Beautiful like her, and classy and foreign and out of place in my world.  I’d never known a Charlotte before.

“Charlotte.”

I tried it out, liked the way it sounded on my tongue.  I wanted to say it over and over and over again, but I didn’t.  She probably would’ve thought I was crazy if I did, and it wasn’t the look I was going for.

“Diana,” she murmured, and I wondered how she knew for a minute before I remembered she’d seen me fight.  I blushed, even though at least I hadn’t said anything.  “The virgin goddess of the hunt.”

I must’ve looked as confused as I was, cause she blushed a little, ducking her head down so she didn’t have to look at me.  “Roman mythology,” she explained, and it was my turn to feel stupid.  “Though I have to admit I liked her better in her Greek incarnation.  Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare, who sprang as a fully formed and capable adult from the forehead of her father, Zeus, king of the gods.”  She stopped, stumbled.  “No, wait, that’s not right.  You’re not Athena.  You’re Artemis.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and couldn’t decide who was more embarrassed, her or me.  “I’m not wise,” was all I could manage, and guessed she’d figure out what a mistake she was making and leave after that.

She didn’t leave though.  Just looked up at me and didn’t back down.  “I’m not either,” she said, and I almost didn’t hear her for the roar of the crowd, but then she was kissing me and I didn’t care.

Her lips were soft.  It kept running through my head, over and over, just how soft she was, and before I knew it, she’d run one hand up my arm to wrap around my neck and was pressing into me.  Soon I found out everything was soft, from her hair to her breasts to her tongue, and I just spread my legs and pulled all that softness in closer.  My fingers were slipping against her baby pink dress and her hips were pressing into me and it felt so fucking right I didn’t know what to do.

She pulled away after a second, teasing little smile on her face as her hands slipped my jacket down my arms and slid under the hem of my shirt.  I was ready to let her do whatever she wanted just to feel that softness again, but when she brushed those long fingers over my nipples and my head slammed back into the locker behind me, I remembered where I was.  The locker room, and it was still dirty and ugly and it stank, and she was better than that.  Maybe I was better than that too.

Wondering if it was the stupidest thing I’d ever done, I shrugged my jacket back up on my shoulders and caught her wrists in my hands.  She looked up at me, brown eyes wide, all confusion and hurt.

“Not here,” was all I could say.  “I’m not gonna do this here.”

I waited on her to leave and not take me with her, cause I couldn’t figure a woman like her ever really wanting to be seen in public with someone like me, but she didn’t.  She just wrapped her fingers around mine and pulled me after her, and soon we were outside and the stench of the locker room was replaced by the stench of the docks.  We stopped in front of a car I couldn’t believe she’d brought to this part of town, glad for her that it hadn’t been stripped yet.

“I live uptown,” she said, and it took me a few seconds to figure out that she was inviting me back there.  She looked nervous and shy, and all of a sudden I wondered what she was thinking, really thinking, but I didn’t ask.  I wasn’t going to do anything else to screw this up.

“Maybe you could show me your place,” I said instead, surprised by how calm I sounded.  I didn’t feel calm, not when she smiled with relief and not when I slid on to butter soft leather seats.  Her radio was playing NPR and she drove slowly and cautiously, and she didn’t seem at all like a woman who would take home a stranger she’d just met.  Especially not a stranger like me, and I wondered if I was just dreaming it all.

It took us almost a half hour to get to her place.  She didn’t talk and I didn’t talk, cause I sure as hell didn’t know what to say.  Instead I just sat there, uncomfortable and uneasy.  She had money, that much I knew.  The car was expensive and she just looked rich, and I felt nothing but poor.  My clothes were old, all cotton and not silk, and most had come from a second-hand store.  I had new shoes cause I’d bought some with some of the prize money I won in my last fight, but they were thick-soled, heavy combat boots.  They sure as hell didn’t look right against the plush carpet of her floorboard, and it didn’t make sense to me that I was where I was, about to do what I knew I was about to do.

She told me I could change the radio station, but I didn’t touch it.  I didn’t want her listening to my music, not in her fancy leather-seats car.  I don’t know why, really.  Maybe cause I knew she wouldn’t like it, and there was enough separating the two of us already.  I was just waiting on her to stop the car, to tell me it was a mistake and she wanted out, but she didn’t.  Not ‘til she stopped the car in front of this big, fancy looking brick building in a part of town I’d never even been to, and looked over at me, all nervous and excited at the same time.

“We’re here,” she said, and her voice was quiet like she was caught up in the moment just like me.  Maybe she was.  I grabbed my bag and stepped out of the car, tugging it up onto my shoulder and nearly laughed cause for a minute, it almost felt like I was on my way to a spend-the-night party.  Only, I was sure I hadn’t never been to a party like the one I was about to have.

There was a doorman, and he looked at me like I was something stuck on the bottom of his shoe, but he didn’t say a word.  I glared at him anyway, cause I wasn’t going to take that shit and not do something about it.  I didn’t say anything, though, cause I sure as hell wasn’t going to pick a fight in the lobby with a guy old enough to be my abeulo.  We rode the elevator up, me looking at the two of us standing together in the reflection I could see on what had to be the shiniest doors of any elevator I’d ever been on.  There I was in my combat boots and cargo jeans, with a plain white vee-necked tee shirt and the old army jacket I’d gotten at some thrift store, standing beside this gorgeous woman dressed all in pink.  Maybe she was still beauty and the beast, only I’d taken over the second spot.

Her apartment was huge.  At least three times bigger than the shithole me, Pops, and my brother lived in, and it was just for her.  Half the stuff there looked like it should’ve been in a museum, and I didn’t even want to sit in some of the chairs cause I just knew I’d break them.  So, I put my bag down on the floor by the door cause it looked like about the only place where I couldn’t fuck something up, and just stood there.  She was looking at me like she wanted to say something but didn’t know what, and for about the fifth hundredth time since I sat down by her, I wanted to run.

“Can I take your coat?”

I figure it wasn’t what she was planning on saying, but at least it was something.  So, I shrugged out of my jacket and handed it to her, then felt like an idiot when she hung it up in a coat closet with the rest of hers.  It looked about as out of place as I felt, hanging there with leather and expensive fabrics I couldn’t even name on both sides, and I kind of felt sorry for it.

She kept looking at me, and I figured she was wondering when I was going to turn into the bad-ass I looked like, but I didn’t know what to do.  And then, I heard myself tell her that, and cringed at how stupid I sounded.

“I’ve never done this before,” all scared and shy, and she looked at me with something… I don’t know, maybe surprise, maybe compassion.  Then she held out her hand and I took it cause I couldn’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t, and I was following her down the hall, boots loud on shiny hardwood.

Her bed was huge, high up off the ground and all made up, and for some reason, the only thing I could do was bend down and untie my shoes cause I wanted them off and not clomping on the floor.  I took my socks off too, so she wouldn’t see the holes in them, and stuffed them in my boots.  I could feel her watching me, probably wondering what the hell I was doing, and I would’ve explained but I already felt like an idiot crouched there on the floor.

I stood up and watched her walk to me, and thought that finally I could just kiss her and it wouldn’t matter that I didn’t know what to say, but she went behind me instead.  I heard her close the door then felt her pull free the band I had pulling my hair back into a ponytail, and she was combing it with her fingers, all the way from the top of my head through to the ends.  My eyes shut and I nearly purred, it felt so good, but just when I felt my knees about to give out, she stopped.  Stopped and moved back around so she was standing in front of me again, and she ran a finger over my eyebrows, down the bridge of my nose and past my lips, over my jaw and up so her whole hand was on the back of my neck.  I wanted to do it too, but she looked like I might break her.  So instead I just stood there and let her touch me, panting and wanting more.

“You’re so beautiful.”

She said it again, and I opened my mouth to tell her it wasn’t me who was beautiful, just like I had before, but she kissed me before I could say a word.  Kissed me like she was hungry for me, like she wanted to crawl up inside me and live, and pretty soon, I was kissing her back.  Her hair felt like silk under my fingers, her lips like liquid fire.  I couldn’t find her zipper, and I felt clumsy, my fingers slipping against the slippery fabric of her dress.  But, she just laughed and bit my bottom lip, and I finally found it before I could embarrass myself even more.

If I thought she was beautiful in her pretty pink dress, she was fucking gorgeous out of it.  I don’t know if she bought the undies to match her outfit, but they did.  Nothing but pale baby pink and creamy smooth skin and all that long dark hair falling over her shoulders.  I couldn’t help but just stare at her, until I noticed she’d started to blush and smile this nervous little smile, and I thought I should say something but I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound too corny.  So instead, I touched her.  Touched her like I was afraid, because part of me was, but maybe because she looked like I’d hurt her if I did anything else.  Not that she seemed to care, cause I traced my fingers all over every part of her, and she just stood there and let me.  After a few seconds, her eyes had closed and she was biting her bottom lip like she wanted not to make a sound, and when I looked down it was to see the baby pink silk between her thighs turning nearly red.

I wanted to see what it felt like, so I did.  Slick silk and the sticky thick wetness I’d caused, and it teased me.  Sent ripples down my spine when I rubbed my finger back and forth, just getting used to what it was like when she still had something between me and her, and it made me want to know what it felt like when the cloth was gone.  I decided I’d find out, and had worked my fingers under the elastic of her panties when she stopped me.  At first I thought I’d done something wrong, but she just pushed my arms back and held them up over my head, and from the look in her eyes, I was doing everything just about right.  She let go of my wrists, but I kept my hands up cause I figured she’d put them there for a reason, and she had.  Before I knew it, my shirt was gone, and I was standing there in my tight white cotton sports bra and my pants, trying to remember if I’d worn half-way decent underwear.  Then I remembered I’d been out, and had grabbed a pair of my brother’s.  They were boxer-briefs, dark gray cotton, and skin tight on me cause he was still in his slim teenage boy phase.

I thought about being embarrassed about that, but figured it’d be better for me if I just ignored it and went on about what I’d been doing, cause I was already nervous enough without wondering whether or not she’d laugh at my undies.  So instead, I struggled out of the tight sports bra while she undid my pants and pretty soon I wasn’t wearing anything at all.

It was strange, standing in front of her like that.  With Adrian, we’d always had sex in a bed with the lights out so it was almost too dark to see what was what.  Not that I’d been shy or anything, but when both of you live with your folks, you kind of have to keep a low profile.  So, screaming and banging headboards and kinky sex games had been out of the picture.  Not that it wasn’t good with him, cause it was.  Just, I think it probably could’ve been better.

But here, though, she was looking at me and I was looking at her, and as far as I could tell, she was still wearing too many clothes.  I dropped to my knees to pull those now soaking wet panties down out of the way, and she returned the favor by unhooking her bra and tossing it to the floor, so when I stood up, she was as naked as me.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen another girl without her clothes.  I mean, in gym class at school we’d all showered and changed, but this was different.  I hadn’t been looking at the girls back then.  It hadn’t occurred to me to do it, and besides, we were all just kind of over in our own corners, trying to keep as far away from everybody else as we could.  Last thing I’d needed back then was for word to go round that I was a dyke, cause then I’d just have to beat more ass than I was already beating and detention time was about to run up.  My Pops would’ve pissed himself if I got suspended, and it wasn’t that I couldn’t handle him but it was just easier to not have to deal with it at all.

So, like I said, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen another girl naked.  It was probably the first time I’d seen a girl like her naked, though.  Her breasts were smaller than mine, and seemed to curl up at the bottom like they were just waiting for me to hold them.  Where I was dark, she was cream and roses, and I liked the way my hand looked against her belly, like cinnamon on top of sugar.

She was kissing me again, and I was trying to get used to feeling soft breasts pressing against my own, but before I knew it, she’d turned us around and backed me up until I went sprawling across the bed.  I guess I must’ve looked surprised, cause she giggled and climbed up after me.  Her legs were straddling my belly and I could feel her, hot and wet against my abdomen, but I couldn’t see anything but her eyes.  She was leaning over to kiss me again, and her hair was so long it fell all around us, blocking out everything.  For a minute, it was like there was nothing else in the world but the two of us and her lips on mine.  It was… intense.  Yeah, intense.

I wished I knew what the hell I was doing, or supposed to be doing, but I didn’t.  So, I decided not to worry about it, to just do what felt right when it felt like I should do it.  Right then, it felt like I should be the one on top and not her.  Me, not this skinny little rich girl who’d brought me home.  I was stronger than her, and it didn’t take much effort to flip us around.  Just a buck of my hips and a strong push on her shoulder, and she was underneath me.  I liked that a lot better.  She looked vulnerable, big brown eyes opened wide and her fingers clenching my shoulders like she was scared she was going to fall.  All that dark hair was spread out over her sheets, and she was burning hot beneath me.

Since I’d never been with a girl before, I thought maybe the best thing to do would be to see what was different.  Some things were obvious, of course.  Other things, though, I wouldn’t have thought of, but now that I could feel them, it seemed like something I should’ve known.  Adrian had been a small guy, all lean muscle and tight little torso, and even though Charlotte wasn’t much smaller than him, she was nothing like him.  Nothing at all, cause where he was strong she was delicate.  Silky skin and the cut of her bones and a waist that felt like it would snap in two, and where he’d always been hard against me, she was nothing but soft.

She tasted different too.  His skin had been rough, and he’d tasted like salt.  Her skin felt like velvet against my tongue.  She smelled like flowers and tasted clean, and I wanted more.  She had one hand in my hair and another around my back and her fingernails felt like they were going to cut me wide open, but she kept pulling me in closer and begging for more.  So, I gave it to her, buried my face in her chest and licked every inch of skin.  I wanted to bite her.  I don’t know why, but I wanted to.  Maybe it was because she had all that soft, soft skin or maybe it was something else.  Didn’t really matter, cause I did it anyway and she just wrapped herself around me and moaned.  I figured she liked it, so I did it again, and she raked her nails up my back so hard I knew she had to draw blood.  But I just hissed and kept right on licking and sucking and biting, and I thought she was going to either rip all my hair out or crush me to death one.

Turns out she didn’t do either one.  Instead she rolled me over again, though how she got the advantage over me I’ll never know.  One minute I’m in control and the next I’m on my back looking up at her.  I don’t really use the word all that often, but it looked like she was about to devour me.  I felt like a little mouse looking up at a big, hungry cat, and I would have laughed about it, but she’d grabbed my wrist and tugged my hand down until it was in just the right position for her to slide herself down on my fingers.  Then the only thing I could say was fuck, cause I might have touched myself before, but I’d never felt anything that hot or that wet.

She had one hand behind her buried in the sheets and was riding up and down on my fingers and it was the fucking sexiest thing I’d ever seen.  But she had too much control and I wanted some of it back, so I pushed up with my free hand until I was sitting and used my leverage to flip her onto her back.  It was a good thing she had such a big bed or else we’d’ve slid right off, but there was still a good six inches left before her head was hanging off.

I kept my hand between her legs, braced it with my thigh, and buried my knees in the mattress.  One hand kept me from just laying on top of her, and it wasn’t much but I used it for all I could get.  I was thrusting into her with all the power I could, inching us down the bed until I thought maybe we would fall off after all.  I could feel her clit sliding back and forth under my thumb, and she had her arms over her head grabbing nothing but air and her teeth were clenched and her back arched.  I’d done that to her, and I couldn’t help but grin and push her even harder, and pretty soon one hand was back pulling at my hair.  The other had a hold on one of my breasts, and she was pinching and pulling and being rougher than I thought she’d be, but it felt so good I didn’t care.

She screamed when she came, and I thought I’d never felt anything as powerful as knowing I’d caused that and feeling her clench down hard on my fingers and beg me to stay inside her in this quiet, exhausted, breathy little voice, but then she pushed me on my back and crawled down between my legs and I found out I was wrong.  So fucking wrong I hadn’t even been in the same ballpark, cause she had me squirming and begging and promising her anything she wanted if she’d just keep on doing what she was doing.  So she did, and I had all that silky hair wound through my fingers, and I must’ve hurt her when I came but she didn’t say anything.  Just kept right on licking until I thought I was going to pass out, then she was kissing me again.  I’d never tasted myself like that, on somebody else’s lips and tongue, but I kind of liked it.

Maybe I thought she’d kick me out of bed after that, so it was kind of surprising when she pulled the comforter over from her side so it was covering us both and wrapped her arms around me so her head was on my shoulder.  Then she started talking, telling me how all her friends thought she was some big ice queen prude, and how she’d just learned that sometimes it was okay to fuck somebody just cause it made her feel good.  Except, she didn’t say fuck, cause for some reason even though she’d just had her face between my thighs, she got all shy and embarrassed when we weren’t doing nothing but talking.  She told me about that guy I’d seen her with, how the sex had been so good she’d thought maybe it would turn into more until he turned her down cause he was looking for a nice little Jewish girl and she wasn’t it.  Then she told me about some girl she knew a few years back, and how she thought she might have been in love with her but she’d been too scared to do anything about it and just told everybody it wasn’t a physical kind of love so she could get away with what she called her “inertia”, and how she thought for once that maybe she’d stop caring about the rules and just do what she wanted to do.  Which is why I was there, I guess, cause she said she’d seen me and something about me made her want to know me better.  I’d have to say she pulled that one off.

I didn’t leave until the next morning.  She wanted to drive me, but I wouldn’t let her cause I didn’t want her anywhere near the hellhole I called home.  So, I walked all the way.  I could’ve taken the bus, but I didn’t have any money and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask her for the fare.  I did give her my number, though, cause she asked for it and I figured what the hell.

It took me about half the day to get back to my house, but I didn’t care.  I took it slow and thought about what all had happened.  The night before had been… I don’t even know how to describe it.  Pretty fucking wonderful seemed to sum it up, and sometimes I’d blush for no reason remembering some of the things I’d done.

My Pops just glared at me when I got back.  Well that and called me a puta, but I didn’t care.  He hadn’t had any control over me since I pinned the bastard to the floor and let him know he couldn’t hurt me no more.  And really, the only reason I still stayed there is cause I knew my little brother would catch all his shit if I wasn’t around.  Wasn’t like I wanted to be there any more than he wanted me there.

In my room, I stood in front of the mirror for maybe half an hour, trying to see what Charlotte had seen in me.  Didn’t matter how hard I tried, wasn’t nothing there.  Nothing but a big black bruise on my cheek making me look like a thug, and me in the same second-hand clothes I always wore.  Maybe she’d been slumming and I’d just gotten lucky, but whatever it was, I wasn’t gonna think about it too much.  Thinking about it wouldn’t make me do anything but want it to happen again, or regret I’d done it in the first place, and I didn’t want either of those.  I wanted it to be what it had been, no more than that.

I was back in the gym that afternoon, and my trainer Hector cut me in on my split of the prize money I’d won the night before.  It wasn’t much, but anything was more than I had.  I was saving up, looking to maybe one day get a car and take my brother and get the hell out of there.  It’d be a while before I had that kind of cash, though, and it was all probably just a dream anyway but we’ve all gotta have something to work for.  My dream was a better life.  Not dying a day at a time in the projects, that’s for damn sure.

She didn’t call.  I hadn’t figured she would.  But, I had another fight that weekend, and there she was, sitting three rows from the back wearing pale yellow and looking so fucking beautiful I almost crawled out of the ring as soon as I saw her.  I didn’t, but I didn’t hold anything back either, and the featherweight bag of testosterone I was fighting didn’t make it thirty seconds into the second round.

Just like before, she took me home.  I wasn’t so nervous this time, and she wasn’t so scared, and it was even better than it had been before.  Pretty soon, I was seeing her a couple of nights a week.  We didn’t go out or anything, but she’d pick me up outside the gym and we’d go back to her place.  By the time we wore each other out, she was ready to talk, and I actually kind of looked forward to that part.

I told her about Adrian, about how my Mom killed herself and how my Pops could give a shit about me.  I told her about my brother, and how he was smart enough to make something of himself if he could only get out of the neighborhood.  I even told her I wanted to make a name for myself in boxing, to start bringing in enough prize money to get me and my brother out of the projects, and that maybe one day, I’d go to college or something and be more that just a dumb thug with a killer right hook.

She told me I wasn’t one anyway, and for a minute, I almost believed her.

I don’t know why she did it, but she had some friend who worked in PR and she set it up so we could meet.  I don’t know what she told her friend about how she knew me or why it mattered to her what happened to me, but when I went to see her, I didn’t say a thing.  I figured Charlotte didn’t want her friend to know she was sleeping with some pobrecita from the barrio.  Didn’t really matter, though, and I figured her friend knew more than anything she could’ve been told anyway, cause she looked at me like she knew just what was going on.  Charlotte just stood in the corner and blushed, and I tried not to think about what she was doing for me while I told the lady across the big shiny desk everything about me.

Next thing I knew, there was a photographer there, and she had me in my boxing shorts and sports bra.  My eye was still a little black from the last fight I’d been in, and I’d never liked having my picture taken, but Charlotte had set it up for me and I wasn’t going to disappoint her.  So, I stood the way they wanted me to stand, scowled when they said to, and tried not to hit her friend when she copped a feel.

Two weeks later, I was everywhere.  Newspapers, magazines… hell, even some TV reporter called wanting me to do an interview.  Hector had promoters from all over the country calling him, and I was fighting in front of more people than ever.  I was bringing in good money, more than I’d made in five fights before, all because of Charlotte.  I was traveling a lot more and didn’t get to see her as much, but every time I’d fight in the city, she’d be there.  And, it’d gotten where I could call her up, could find some way of asking if she wanted me to come around without sounding like I was desperate.

My brother and I moved out.  We got our own place in a better part of town, and he’s starting college soon.

As for Charlotte and me… I still try not to think about it too hard.

The End