With cuffs in hand, wearing red gym shorts and black shower sandals, Bud unlocked and entered his room, attending each of the six windows to pull down their shades. Julie was in her bedroom, the northeast turret, undressing when Bud called to her.

“I’m ready.”

He had secured the left cuff himself. She did the right, and he jumped to grasp the horizontal crossbeam with his hands. Using one of Bud’s flat benches, Julie stood higher to reach the cross beam. Holding on with his left hand, Bud moved his right hand higher and Julie hooked his cuff to the beam through the eye hook. As Bud released his left hand to hang from the eye hook on his right, she repeated the process to leave him suspended by his cuffs, his wrists three feet apart.

Now, only Julie on the bench could release him from the cross beam. She closed the door, and then removed his sandals, leaving his feet bare ten inches above the wood floor.

“Gloves?”

“Yes.” Bud brought up his knees, crunching them as close to his stomach as the thickness of his thigh muscles would allow, while Julie put on the boxing gloves. She waited, not bothering to lace them. Twenty leg lifts were followed by stationary lifts, legs straight, feet together and held horizontal to create a forty-five-degree angle. Bud held his legs for a count of twenty seconds before slowly lowering them to vertical. He repeated this pattern ten times, followed by another set of twenty leg lifts. His body sweat; his abdominal muscles burned, pumped full of blood.

He dropped his legs. He sucked in air. His gym-shorts waistband hung just above his pelvic bone, having worked its way low during his exercises. He winked and tightened his gut to receive her blows.

“You arrogant son of a bitch.” She drove the padded glove of a straight right hand into the pit of his stomach. Forward motion met pumped muscle with a resounding thud. “You stuck-up bastard.” Her left glove hooked into his belly, just to the right of his navel. A succession of blows was peppered with verbal degradation. “You fucking,” right hook... “think you’re hot shit,” left jab... “piece of crap,” straight right. “I will show you who’s tough,” two from the left... “cut you down to size,” a right-left combo... “gonna make you puke,” a right upper cut in the gap between navel and waistband.

Julie was trained. Although she possessed no great strength, Bud had shown her how to turn her gloves just before impact, how to use her feet and the pivot of her body for power.

Bud’s belly was also trained. Whether at home or on the road, he religiously burned away fat and tightened muscle with crunching exercises, vowing he would never allow himself to fall victim to the trucker’s gut, the untamed beach ball of jelly hanging over down-to-the-crotch belt line. This was the public reason for his hard belly. Private reasons, known but to him and Julie also came into play. Never again would he be vulnerable to sneak attack. Bud swore that Turley’s knuckles would break before he did, if they ever tried it again.

But mostly, sounds were the main attraction. Initially, only the deep thuds of padded glove versus meaty muscle were heard, but as his abdominal cavity gradually softened with each blow, faint grunts of “oomph” and “ugh” escaped from his throat to accompany impact. Sweat darkened his hair, highlighted his muscle. Sweat brightened her skin, highlighted her curves. His masculine resistance excited her. Her dominating attempts to penetrate excited him.

As Julie ended her first series of blows, Bud collapsed, relaxing all muscles while sucking in air. She allowed his body to hang and recuperate while mocking him.

“Some men just never learn.” She paced in front. “How many times? Why do you constantly make me beat you?" She removed her gloves. “I told you not to screw with my neighbors.” She bare-fisted a right to his belly button. “Now you want to fuck with the police?” She left-hooked the meat above his waistband. “Bring them down on me, too?” She planted her left hand to the small of his back. Pulled him towards her. Formed a claw with her right hand and dug her fingers into the muscled perimeter of his navel. “Who do you think you are?” She buried her fingertips into him with all her strength, eliciting a deep-throated groan from her victim, as he tightened his belly to hold her back. “When will you learn not to mess with me? Don’t you know what I’ll do to you? Don’t you care? Why can’t you... why... oh, god... Bud.”

Julie released her belly claw and buried her face into him. She frantically licked his briny sweat, kissed his wall of brick, drilled her tongue into his navel. She yanked down his shorts. His hard penis sprang upwards to slap her chin. Her tongue found his dangling testicles, removing their wet salt, replacing it with wet spit. Her tongue laid a trail from his ball sac to the shaft of his peter. It continued to the sensitive triangle of skin beneath his corona. Her touch triggered an involuntary leap of his tool, as it suddenly sprang upwards, nearly making contact with his belly. Upon its return, she engulfed his corona, imprisoning him with her lips, crushing him between her tongue and roof of mouth. He shuddered in her warm vise. He twitched as she drew her lips near to him, slowly consuming his shaft until lips met pubic hair.

“Julie?”

She spit him out, not knowing whether to be agitated or eager. "What?"

“Elsie’s barking. Hear it?”

She listened. “Yes. Let me see.” She tugged an edge of window shade to view the front yard. “Damn it. There’s a car coming.”

“Where?”

“Just now turning onto the drive.”

“Who is it?”

“Don’t know, Bud.”

“Come on, babe. We gotta move.”

End of excerpt

Text taken from the book, Maggie Pie, written by