The Coach in the Ring – Part 1: Corner

The gym was empty and echoing, the heavy bags hanging like sleeping animals from the ceiling beams, the ring in the centre lit by a single bare bulb. Chalk lay on the floor. The air smelled of leather, rosin and old sweat. The doors were locked at ten. Nobody was expected until six.

Roxanne sat on a stool in the corner of the ring with her gloves in her lap. She was forty-four, a former national champion who now ran the gym with a voice like a bell and a bearing like a rock. Darren was thirty-seven, her student and partner of three years, a mild-mannered paramedic who had told her after a hard night shift that the only thing that made him feel safe was being told exactly what to do by someone who knew.

"Sit," said Roxanne.

He sat on the stool opposite. She handed him a sheet torn from the training diary. House Rules. His limits and hers: no marks, nothing painful, no real humiliation, nothing beyond the gym, no one else, no actual contact of any kind. The word was Bell.

"Say it."

"Bell."

"If you say it, the Coach puts down her gloves. I am Roxanne. We drink tea in the office."

"I understand."

"And every half hour I ask if you wish to continue. You answer truly."

"Yes, Coach."

"Not yet." She stood, pulled on a grey hooded top and wrapped her hands, slowly, in long white tape. Her voice dropped, low, flat and absolutely sure. "Mr Clarke. You skipped three rounds of conditioning."

"I am sorry, Coach."

"You will be." She pointed at the centre of the ring. "There. Stand. Hands behind your back. Feet together."

He stood in the cone of light. She walked a slow circle round him, her trainers silent on the canvas, tape trailing, and said nothing at all. A bag creaked on its chain. His own breath sounded very loud.

"Are you content, Mr Clarke?"

"Content, Coach."

"Good. The session is long."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Bell.