“I love you too, Sky. I do.” He paused and his eyes rolled around the room a little before returning to me with an apologetic, even awkward, shrug of his broad shoulders. “So, now what?”
I sighed with happiness, feeling like sunshine had burst through some cloud cover inside of me. It was too much to contain and I smiled, seeing Austin’s face light up in response.
“Well… you’re a free man. It’s a sunny day. You wanna, maybe, get some ice cream… with me? We could take a picture.”
Skylar
The next few months were heaven on Earth for me. With all that drama behind us, Austin was able to concentrate on training for his upcoming title fight, and I could go about my studies with a clear head. Clear, that is, except for the intrusion of the occasional dirty thought about Austin thrusting into me from behind, or one of a million other soppy daydreams about him.
Every day or two, between my classes and his training sessions, we’d fit in an hour for him to teach me a hybrid of self-defense moves and a variety of ground-fighting styles. For him, it was just enough to keep him warmed up for the next grueling set of drills that Ross had in store. For me it was a workout and a half.
Whenever I needed a couple minutes to recover, I’d lock him up in my signature move, a deep kiss. It was the only thing I could do in the middle of the MMA gym that distracted him from his relentless training ethic.
Today, right now was just such a time. “Come here, you,” I said.
“No. I’m going to strangle you, Hollywood style, and you’re going to escape like we practiced, got it?”
“Aw…”
With me flat on my back on the mats, Austin straddled my stomach. I rested my palms on the thick muscles of his thighs, and he reached down with both hands to grasp me around the neck.
“Escape.”
His grip tightened to the point where it was almost impossible for me to breathe and, despite the fact that I knew I was safe, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of panic. Whatever you might know, academically, cut off your air and your body’s fight or flight response is triggered.
I fought down the panic, remembering what Austin had said during one of these sessions.
“You know what my greatest weapon is?” he had asked, then held his arm up to the side, flexing his bicep as he curled his arm. It took a second for me to drag my eyes away from that crowd-pleasing sight enough to realize he was pointing at his head.
That’s what I had to do now. This was a strangle, as opposed to a choke. It was cutting off my air supply rather than my blood. Scary as it felt, I could survive and function for a while like this, like holding my breath. A choke would be a different story.
I took my hands from his thighs and put my palms together like I was praying, before pushing my hands and arms up between his. Once my arms were over my head, I spread them to each side, kind of like the breast stroke in swimming, which broke Austin’s grip on my neck.
With his hands semi-trapped under my armpits, I heaved upwards and to the side with my hips. As he had no arm free to brace himself, we rolled until I was on top. For a second I felt pleased with myself, but the exercise wasn’t complete as far as Austin was concerned.
“Don’t wait for me to recover! Get up! Get up! Go!”
I sprang to my feet, feigned a stomp between his legs and backed off, as he had shown me. Austin rose to a sitting position and gave me the thumbs up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“I’m goin’ over there, over here!” I said in my best Robbie Johnson impression, which always cracked Austin up.
This was no different, and Austin laughed, holding out his hand for me to help him up. “Come over here, over here!”
I reached out and for a moment had no clue which way was up. When I gained my bearings again, I was lying on top of Austin, but facing the ceiling. He had his legs wrapped around me, feet hooked into my inner thighs and his arms wrapped over one shoulder and under the other. I could feel his breath on my neck just below my ear, but I couldn’t turn around to face him.
“Never let them recover. If you’re out on the street, there is no giving up, no tapping out. You hold the submission until you hear bones break, until they lose consciousness, until they’re in so much pain that they’d rather fight the devil than fuck with you again.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Sir? I like that.”
He loosened his grip on me with arms and feet, letting me turn to face him. Brushing my sweat-soaked hair from my face, he cradled my head and pulled me towards him, planting a kiss on me that tasted faintly salty.
“I’m glad I married you,” he said.