Alex was cool enough to let me sit down in her office to go over some paperwork for the self-defense courses I’ve been teaching. My class size has grown… like, a lot. All of the soccer-mom types at the gym have pretty much signed up, and now I’m teaching the course three times a week so that I have room. Alex has also moved me into a larger room to teach the course. I have so much paperwork to go over because, like an idiot, I thought it would be a good idea to do a sort of questionnaire for the women to fill out –a sort of “what would you like to learn” bullshit that I now have to actually sit through and read. Total, there are seventy –that’s right –seventy women. They divide themselves up throughout the week which means every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach a class of about twenty-three or twenty four women. That’s a lot of people for a self-defense course.

Today, I’ll be doing a night class like I do on Wednesday’s. Monday and Friday I do a day-course. We’re in our third lesson, so the women are starting to feel pretty confident with what I am teaching them. Some of them are even talking about taking up boxing now –for fun, of course, because none of these mommy-types would do well with actual boxing. It has apparently been mentioned to Alex, so she’s talking about having me do a beginner’s boxing course on Thursday afternoons which, apparently, will come with a pay raise if enough women sign up for it.

This is all to the dismay of the actual boxers at the gym –Laurel and her goonies. They can’t stand the fact that the mommies all love me; same goes for most of the other professional athletes who come here. It’s an on-going problem for both me and Alex; half of her clientele are professional, female fighters while about 25% are female athletes in other arenas. It’s the 25% membership of rich soccer-mom types that are keeping me from getting fired, though. Eventually I’m going to have to try to win over the other 75% of the women, but for now I’m focusing on the rich stay at home moms.

Once I’ve had a chance to look over my paperwork and print off some fliers, I slip out into the main area of the gym where I see Laurel and her girls all crowded around a television near the boxing ring. My instincts tell me to walk the other way, but I can’t help myself. “What are you ladies watching?” I say in the friendliest tone I can muster; I’m desperate to hold onto this job, so despite constantly being ragged on I keep trying to win this group over.

Britany, who is perhaps the only woman of the group who hates me more than Laurel does, spins around and glares at me. Then she smiles; I don’t think I like that smile –it’s haunting. I know immediately that she’s up to something, “Oh, we’re watching a boxing match.”

“Oh?” I question.

“Yeah, why don’t you join us?” she teases.

“Knock it off, Britany,” the smallest woman of the group, jabs her in the side.

I glance over their shoulders and I can see that they’re watching a Pay-per-view match of Donte and some up-and-coming boxer. I cringe, and Britany laughs. “You fought Donte, right?” she jokes, knowing damn well that my fight with Donte is what ruined my career.

“Yeah, twice,” I say.

“Britany, stop,” Eleanor says again and rolls her eyes. “I swear, you’re such a bitch.”

I shrug my shoulders. “Whatever,” I say and then play coy, “hey, ladies, in case any of you are interested, I’m doing a seminar on self-defense later this month. All of my classes are going to be attending.”

“Yeah, because we are the ones who need self-defense training,” Britany says with an eye-roll.

“It’s not a training course I’m inviting you to,” I say, “it’s a seminar. I’m only inviting you because I thought maybe one of you might actually have something to say on the matter to women who are not quite as equipped at you all are.” I throw a couple of fliers down by the television and storm off.

I’m really getting sick and tired of these women! Who do they think they are? Geeze, I say one thing that gets blown out of proportion, and all of a sudden they all think I’m some woman-hater. Me and big fucking mouth!

I check my watch; it’s time for my night course. I head to the large, open room where I teach my courses now. There are mirrors alongside one of the walls that allow my ladies to check their stances and see anything I demonstrate for them from various angles. “Hello ladies,” I say as I enter into the room that is already full of women.

“Hello, Jonathan,” they all sing back to me.

I can see that there are two new women in the group, and I’m almost positive they don’t attend the gym –or that they haven’t before. I assume that they’re new members –probably drug here by one of the soccer mom’s. I’m really surprised about how popular this course has gotten. I start setting up and tell the women to start stretching without me; one of the mom’s comes up to me while I’m dragging out one of the dummies we practice one. A younger girl, one of the newbies, is standing with her; they look alike, so I assume it’s her daughter. “Hey Andrea,” I say and pray that that is actually her name; it’s hard remembering this many women’s names.

“Hey Jonathan,” she says, not correcting me, so I mentally allow myself to celebrate now screwing up. “I wanted to introduce you to my daughter,” the girl blushes and smiles brightly at me. I guess that she’s probably sixteen or so. “She’s not a member here, but I got permission from Alex to bring her to your class, well, she said so long as it was okay with you. I’ve just been really impressed with what all I’ve learned here, and I’d love for my daughter to be better equipped to defend herself, you know?”

I smile, “Of course. I don’t see a problem with it. What’s your name?”

“Gabriella,” she says, and I cringe slightly. Damn it, now I’m going to think of Gabe every time I look at the kid. It’s a little endearing and all, but it’s kind of rough on me at the same time.

We get on with the class, and I can’t help but to show some special treatment to Gabriella. I use the excuse that I want her to get caught up, but really it’s because she’s sort of Gabe’s name sake. Plus, she’s a kid. Once the class is over, and it was a good class mind you, Andrea and Gabriella come up to me afterwards. Gabriella gives me a hug, which I got to say, I did not expect. She runs out of the room, chatting it up with another woman in the class who was apparently her aunt. Andrea smiles at me, “Thank you so much for letting her come,” she says, and there is something off about the way she’s acting. She seems sad.

“Is something wrong?” I pry.

“No, it’s just, I wish she had learned this sort of thing a long time ago,” she says, and I can tell there’s more to this story. Instead of responding, I wait in silence. The silence gets her, and she continues, “My daughter was raped last year in the parking lot at her high school,” she says and then cringes slightly.

That really pisses me off. I stare at Andrea for a minute, and I’m sure she can see the hate fuming around me. “Raped?” I hiss.

“When she found out I was taking this class, she begged me to take her. I’m glad Alex was okay with it, because I think she’ll want to come back next week with me. I should have signed her up for something like this a long time.” Andrea hugs me and then heads out of the room like she did not just shatter my very existence.

Suddenly I have an idea. I head straight to Alex’s office, hoping she hasn’t left for the night. As luck would have it, she was just locking up her office. “Alex, you got a minute?” I call out before she can dart down the hall.

She pauses and crosses her arms, waiting for me to catch up to her. “I heard your class tonight went well,” she says.

“I have an idea I want to run by you,” I say.

She sighs slightly, clearly ready to go home, but she opens her office back up and leads me inside. We sit down around her desk, and I lay it on her. “What would you think about doing a free event here at the gym? Or maybe not even free –we could do a fundraiser for the Battered Women’s House. It would be a self-defense course open to non-gym members –for the general public. I have some guys who would probably be willing to volunteer to help me teach. It would be great publicity for the gym, and we could-”

“I like it,” Alex said before I could even finish. She smiles, “This gym could stand to do a little something to give back to the community, and since we have a reputation for training up women fighter’s a fundraiser for the Battered Women’s House is a great idea. Plus, we’d be giving our local ladies an opportunity for an affordable self-defense course.”

“Yeah,” I say, “we could even make it an annual event. We could sell t-shirts and merchandise to raise some extra cash for the event too.”

“We could even talk to the city about setting up a marathon run too,” Alex adds, “women in this city love that shit. A marathon and all day training courses.” Alex has this big smile on her face. “Would you be willing to put something like that together?”

“I can totally do that,” I say.