White & Black (7 page)

Chapter 11

It was Tuesday evening and Ella made her way out to her dad’s truck for her first shift. She had been told to get there at 7.30pm and that her shift would end at ten or ten thirty. She would be responsible for ring duty, as and when required, mingling, assisting the contestants, running errands and messages and general tidying up. She set off with a clear head. It was an easy job, she just needed to do it for a few days to settle in. She was going to meet the other girls tonight. She hoped they got on as she knew women could be bitchy and unpleasant and she didn’t want any of that hassle. She’d keep a low profile. Be nice to that Marcia and her gang. See how the land lies… She had a feeling Miss Dean might not warm to her very easily since her little run in with Devlin in the club. She was hoping she wouldn’t recognise her, but knew deep down she probably would.

Ella made her way to wardrobe for her first professional outfitting. She knocked on the door and it was opened by a flustered Kim in a yellow and black flowery shirt. His clothing was simply amazing, Ella thought to herself. Kim did gay style with such panache.

“Oooh, Little Ella bella… welcome darling…” He yanked her in and slammed the door shut. “Sorry, but no time for niceties… this is what it’s like on fight night. I’ve got 8 girls to do… look!” He moved out of the way to show her the room with a sweep of his arm… They all stopped dressing and rooting around and looked her way.

“Hi” She gave a little wave of greeting.

A chorus of “Hi’s” replied. She did notice one person not hi’ing her though…. The chief ring girl didn’t seem pleased to see her.

Marcia walked up to face her. She was immaculately dressed in a pink and white tankini top, tiny white shorts and silver sandals. Beautifully made up too with her dark hair whipped up in an artfully messy up do. The girl knew just how to do glamour, with Kim’s expert help of course.

“Oh, if it isn’t new little Ginger… D’you know I can’t stand red hair… I’m actually allergic to it, it brings me out in hives. Keep away from me girl, I’m warning you.” She made sure she added a good old nasty sneer as well, so she really got the message. Then she bent her head to Ella’s ear and in a low voice she whispered “And stay away from Dev, really big warning number two.” With that she opened the door and left. Tori and Sonia followed in her wake giving Ella sympathetic little looks on the way out.

“I see I’ve made a new friend already!” She said humorously. A few giggles of laughter bubbled around the ones remaining in the room.

“Awww Ella Bella, come here lovey… nasty old Marcia. Here, let me treat those claw marks for you.” Kim grinned a diamond studded toothy smile at her and gave her a tight squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.

She had made one friend then. Kim was a pal at least. After Marcia one of the other girls came up and spoke to her. She found out Marcia was not universally loved by all by any means. She struck up a friendship with a small slim blonde called Sara and another even slimmer brunette called Sally-Ann. They seemed nice enough, welcoming and kind. Sara said she’d look after her tonight. She really appreciated her help. It was rather daunting being new and everything being so unfamiliar.

She was dressed in a low cut white top and skirt outfit and pumps. It was a fairly decent and substantial affair, not so much of her body was hanging out of it. She thought Kim must have taken pity on her tonight… Her hair was pulled up in a high pony tail and held in place with a thick silvery white haloesque band around it. He added a full face of make up, falsies included and she was done in just over five minutes. Kim was a real master at this she thought in admiration. She looked at her image in the mirror. Much softer and prettier than the demon Miss Whiplash. She looked almost angelic. A real sexy angel if there was such a thing. Her hair even looked so very much
blonder
tonight. She was getting quite paranoid about the ginger thing.

“Pretty?” Kim asked. She nodded gratefully. “Ella White all in white… quite fitting don’t you think love?”

Sara told her to wait on one of the chairs while Kim finished her off, then she’d show her around.

An hour later she was nervously waiting for her debut card holding walk. Sara told her they tended to do 4 rings before they were changed around. To give variety to the spectators. In between their sets they had to buzz around helping everyone else out and have a fixed smile on their faces the whole night. She was shown the board where the ring duties were. She knew Dev was fighting there tonight, she wasn’t in his arena though. That was just as well considering…

It was time for her maiden voyage around the ring and she went up the platform and into the cage to do her not too sexy sassy walk. The massive arena was heaving with people and they all seemed to be staring down at her. It was a lot different doing this live. Quite hair raising in fact. She noticed one of the fighters giving her a very thorough look over. She put it down to curiosity about her being new. She didn’t like the look of him, He was ugly and bald. A real heavyweight brute. Not all fighters looked like Dev did, that was a plain and obvious fact.

She finished her 4 rounds and started to wander around watching Sara and picking up what needed to be done. It was fairly easy work all in all, nothing like the mad rush around at the diner. She had just been given a box of napkins to deliver to Arena One, they had apparently run out of them at the bar and she was coming back after her delivery, along the adjoining corridor when she saw him coming towards her. Devlin was dressed in semi fitted black silky shorts and black lightweight gloves, a black towel slung over his shoulder and bare chest as he made his way en route to his fight. He was looking seriously dark and demonic and as hot as hell. He had his head down a little and was listening to his coaching manager. She stood to one side to let them pass by taking a deep breath. It didn’t seem like he noticed her, thank God. But she always noticed him. In a very big way. He stopped a few yards further along and turned.

“White really suits you Ginger”

Her annoyance dam finally broke.

“Oh for crissakes
shut up
will you! Why d’you keep calling me Ginger? It’s strawberry blonde for crying out loud…” She blurted out in exasperation facing him with hands on her hips… she was just about sick of her new nickname… she could have stomped her feet in utter annoyance.

“Oh yeah… I can see all the fruit now you mention it!” He almost snorted with laughter.

“Oh go destroy yourself Black…”

“Come and watch me, this one’s for you.” Where the hell that came from he couldn’t imagine … he’d never dedicated a fight to a girl in his life. He started to regret the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

“Really?” A fight for her? She was taken aback. How could she knock back that kind of dedication.

She did have 20 minutes ‘kind of’ spare so she followed him along the corridor to his or would that be ‘her’ fight. If anyone complained about her absence, she could say he asked for her to be there. It was sort of true. She was really keen to watch Dev fight live. She’d seen him fight before on TV but this was different. She hung back a little as he entered the arena room and made his way across to the center, up the steps and through the door into the cage to the loud encore from the crowd. The contestant’s statistics, their training camp, levels and achievements were shown on 3 massive digital boards above the ring… it was the first time she’d taken any notice of his stats…

Devlin Black – Pro MMA Contestant

Residency – Arena Hilton, Las Vegas

Master – Combat Sambo

Black belt – Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

MMA debut – June 2009

Height – 6-01

Weight – 188 – Middleweight

Birthdate – 09-12-1986

Training – Extreme Camp

He was fighting an up and coming English MMA star. This wasn’t a top fight, but this opponent still looked pretty lean and mean to Ella. The arena was crammed and humming with noise. Devlin was a very popular attraction. She could see more women in here than there were in the other arena…. She could hear cat calls coming down from the stands… some were really quite spicy!

Then she caught sight of Marcia standing around the other side of the cage. She ducked back out of sight looking for somewhere better to watch from. There really was nowhere, just the spectators stands and the walk area around the cage. She decided to brazen it out and actually walk around in front of her. She watched Marcia suddenly spot her out of the corner of her eye. She was not pleased… furious more like it. She’d be feeling the fury of her tongue a little later, she was sure. She had not taken heed of her two warnings. Stay away from her and Dev, and there they both were, less than twenty feet away from her at this exact moment. She’d be coming out in ginger hives soon, she thought with a wicked smile on her lips. She might as well go the whole hog… she gave her a little wave, a wink and smiled too. There, that should do it.

She had 15 minutes left before she had to dash back. She could see a round or two maybe. She sat herself down on the side of the stairs. The fight began and she was immediately enthralled by it all. It was so different watching real live people, one of whom she knew, albeit very recently and vaguely, compared with seeing a bunch of unknowns brawling with each other on TV. This was a world apart. There was a lot of tension and excitement in the air and the buzzing crowd and intense lighting added an extra dimension to the experience. If she was sitting there with her mouth agape she wouldn’t be surprised.

They seemed to spend a lot of time rolling and wrestling each other over the floor. But the kicking, punching action in between is what really set her alight. She had to physically stop herself from jumping up and down, she was so involved and excited. She rushed off after the second round. She had another four rounds card carrying in the ring next door with bald ugly brute, then maybe she’d have time to see the end of Dev’s fight, if he hadn’t already destroyed Mr England by then. She got back less than 20 minutes later with the fight still on.

Another three rounds of nerve jangling excitement went by before Dev the Destroyer took him down and the referee called a technical knock out. She had to forcibly restrain herself not to overreact. She noticed Marcia high clapped him, so she did a little high clap copying. She then went inside the cage and kissed and hugged him… she wouldn’t be copying that any time soon. That would start World War 3 for sure.

The fight over she rushed back to her post in the other room before Marcia got her claws stuck in her back. She found her next ring task was another half an hour after the interval. She found Sara and asked her what she could do.

“Oh well, if you actually want to do something, just mingle and that. Talk to the contestants if they’re hanging about, go to the bar up top, chat with anyone you fancy, you’re kind of a hostess really. But you should stay in this arena, where you’re assigned, don’t wander off again…” Sara picked up a magazine and started reading it.

She spotted a large family group sitting a little way up and decided to try her hostess mingling skills on them first. She climbed the stairs and started to chat. “Hey guys, are you having a good time?” They looked at her in amazement. “Did I say something wrong?” She asked.

“Oh no, it’s just a surprise, we’ve been coming here for months and never once has any of you girls come up here for a chat before” the teenage boy sitting in the chair next to her piped up.

Why not? She wondered. She was starting to have doubts about what Sara’s ‘mingle’ might have meant… chatting up men perhaps? Not being friendly with families by the sound of it. “So who’s your favorite fighter?” She asked the same young man, smiling at him. He looked to be about 14 or 15, Jake’s age group. She could relate to him… well maybe… actually no, she hadn’t got a clue what was going on in Jake’s head to be honest.

“Martinez, Garcia, Black… they’re the coolest. But I like the foreign guys too… some of them are great, especially the Russians!” The boy was very enthusiastic about the sport. Ella told him she did kick boxing herself and asked if he had any interest in doing MMA sports… the conversation went on for a while before she finished up and moved off finding a nice looking young couple to chat with. She moved on again and plucked up the confidence to have an all male chat too with a bunch of three guys sitting in the second row. They seemed to be quite pleasant. One of them even offered her his seat while she did her mingling with them. After a short while she realised he wanted to stand next to her looking down for a reason other than politeness and consideration.

She wasn’t aware of other people watching her with interest. Lucy was most impressed with her people mingling skills. None of the other ring girls bothered. They mostly sat and did their nails, played on their cellphones and read magazines in the intervals.

Well, well, Ella was a real find…

There were things they could do with her, not only did she have a certain glowing presence, and an obviously natural social side to her nature, she was beautiful enough to model. Definitely glamour with her figure, maybe even fashion, and beauty too with that amazing hair and those lovely eyes… They could give her a special contract, manage her… lots of other ideas popped into Lucy’s head. Marcia was too full of herself these days, the MMA promo team needed a new look and a new image… and there she was, the Arena Archangel. Wow…that was a hot new name, thought Lucy having a fit of excitement as it popped into her head.
Ohhh yes!
Arena Angels
…. She rushed off to find Tony…

Lucy wasn’t the only one’s watching her. Dev came down the entrance corridor into Arena Two. He didn’t usually go this far to look for women to hit on but he’d wondered where she’d got to after he unintentionally dedicated his fight to her. He stood at the arena entrance and looked around for her and there she was, her sizzling whiteness was sitting just a few yards away in the second row smiling and laughing with a bunch of guys… Well fuck that, it hadn’t taken her very long to get into the swing of things here, had it?