The gym was only about two miles from her building, not far enough away to bother with the bike. Christina usually skated or jogged over there, started the workout with the two miles and then pushed it at the gym for a few hours.

Down the elevator and onto the surface streets, good pace, jogging along. There were a lot of people out today, Saturdays were usually shopping days, commerce during the week left to the people who still had money. Vendors were selling everything alongside the 24th floors of the tenement buildings, but none of it was useful, nothing but shit and broken stereo equipment, so she didn't stop.

Jogged past a folk band, set up on the sidewalk and playing cracked instruments, an auto-harp and the lead singer had dreads older than she was. The plastic sidewalks in this district were cleaned once and a while by the sweepers, this was now the financial district and yet, still not swank enough to kick these sidewalk prophets from their midst.

Halfway through a song, Christina turned and went back, crouched down to listen. Lead singer had a voice, one hell of a voice. Nothing you could dance to, but then folk singers never did, all they did was talk about their feelings and the feelings of people passing through and by.

"Hey," the girl holding their collection tray said. "Pay for the word?"

"You'll never make me believe that any of y'all have any words more than me," Christina replied promptly, but quietly, because yeah, people might not be smart or wiser but they still deserve their say. What a voice. She dropped a couple of coins in the bucket, and their clinking echoed along with the singer's last notes fading away.

~

J was already working the dummy when she finished the cardio, came into the boxing area. "How's tricks, baby?" and she held the other side of the dummy, moved and swerved while J pounded his bare fists into pliable plastic.

"He hasn't called me."

"you boys," and he held his hands up, signalling it her turn. She stretched her arms out, cracked her neck, then nodded, started pummelling the dummy while J held it. "So sensitive."

"Yeah, well," and he countered her, tried to trick her by ducking the dummy. She just kicked it instead, bare toes making a satisfying *thwack*. "I'm tired of havin' no one, you know? Is that so bad?"

"Is he good enough for you?"

J held the thing still, let her just pound away, again and again. "I'm not good enough for him, probably," and he shrugged. "He's monied, at least."

"You could have money, too," and she stopped, jerked her head over to the tread mills. They picked a couple right beside each other. "You chose not to. That doesn't mean he's good enough."

"His parents are--"

"Fuck that kind of status," Christina said sharply. "That doesn't count here and you know it."

J lapsed into silence for a while, and she wondered if she'd actually said too much. He didn't seem angry, they just ran on and on and on, for about a half hour. No one else in the area paid them any mind; most of them were either boxers from other clubs -- a lot of night clubs had fight nights, Christina had been to a few in her youth -- and the boxers knew enough to leave them alone. There was an understanding; training, you just left someone alone. Other fighters knew it was a job, you did it as a job.

There were five or six fighters in the massive warehouse room, and a couple of rich kids keeping their bodies fit and trim. The diet drugs and steroid complements only did so much, so most of the kids with money tended to work out to augment their drug regime.

Christina recognised the pair of men sparring in the corner, from a club on 52nd street; the rest of them weren't even blips on her radar. "come on, J," she finally said. "He's really got you this worked up?"

She snuck a glance at him, and yeah, fuck, the kid looked worried, worried and involved. "Yeah, he has." He looked at her. "Fine, laugh. Whatever."

"I'm not gonna laugh," she said. "Come on. sparring time."

"Yeah, okay." He grinned. "Some day, I'm gonna get to take you on in the ring for real, honey."

She snarled at him, teeth bared, "and I'll wipe the floor with you," then grinned. "Yeah, eventually they'll realize that we'd make money and we'll have to fight."

J looked thoughtful, as they wrapped their hands and stretched. "We could choreograph some of it. maybe get some tips on the side."

As they started to spar, the rest of the room fell away. A punch, easily blocked and two kicks. J countered with a couple of punches and some new move. He was one of the most intuitive fighters she ever went up against, they'd make a good show in the ring, people would come from all over to see it. Busta could make a killing. Something to mention, some day.

J picked up the pace and she stopped thinking, let her mind float and trusted her instincts to know what to do. Like they always did.

~

The weights were always their cool down, bone tired and pushing against abused muscles, bones creaking. Christina was feeling every joint in her body ache.

"You know double M?" J said suddenly.

"Of course."

MM, a rapper by trade and amateur boxer to get his rocks off, hadn't ever won a fight. It didn't seem to matter what moves he did or didn't know -- in the ring someone always got the better of him. He wasn't nearly good enough to be in Christina's class, was always in the B-rate fights in a back room, amateurs who weren't ever going to make it. Once a month he signed up for amateur A ring night, and without fail, he'd lose.

It wasn't even that he was that bad. None of the other fighters who'd watched him practise could figure out why he was so soundly thrashed in the ring.

J said, "He says you two slept together."

She shrugged. "He says he's slept with a lot of people that wouldn't touch him with latex gloves on."

J shook his head. "Like who?"

"Chris K for one."

"Chris said he didn't sleep with someone?" J snorted. "He's slept with everyone, Fuck, even I've slept with him and I must have slept with fewer people than anyone else at ALARM."

Surprising that, and, "You slept with Chris K? Jesus, I knew you two were tight, but."

He shrugged. "D was there."

"D let you?"

"D and me are tight, too." He paused, letting the weights hang free, to wipe his face. "He's saying he fucked Britney, too."

She sat up, let her hands dangle between her legs. "That son of a bitch."

He nodded. "But, everyone knows that you had more taste than him. Fuck, Joshua has more taste than him and I think he's slept with the entire population, transient and not, of the club. He's slept with more people than you." J stood up, pulled her up too. "No one knows that about Brit."

She sighed. "The only person that's ever slept with MM is Dre, and that's because M's been his bitch since the kid was fifteen and green. Britney looks a thousand times too good for him."

Justin's face was guarded. "She is."

As Justin turned away, she rounded on him. "Why do I get the feeling you fucked her?"

"Shut up. She's a good kid, deserves the Sunset, not this filth man."

She aimed a sudden kick at his head and he staggered. "You love this filth, baby. Don't forget it."

 


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