One Dark Night in Paris: Punky vs Rowan Chance, 2 out of 3 Falls NHB

[ThePurpleVixen]

The bell is the center of your life as a wrestler.

You live bell to bell.

Your training begins with the ring of a bell. The pain ends with a ring of the bell. All the tensions and stresses and lies and politics and bullshit all fade away and all you're living for is that time between the bells.

Things still happen outside of them, sure. You're still a human being. You get angry, you get sad, you laugh, you drink to levels that would make Bacchus fucking jealous, you fall in love, you tell bitter lies. There's a lot of great stories that happen on the highway and on buses and under bridges and in gyms and in hotel rooms and in living rooms and in weird little Indian restaurants on back roads and at state fairs full of carnies with jailhouse tattoos and fried foods unheard of in the sane world and in famous Japanese steakhouses where they sell expensive jackets and in weird strip clubs and in Calli's driveway -

- but those are just the stories a wrestler picks up, road stories and locker room stories and love stories and funny little stories about what most people think is your life. But when you're a fucking wrestler that's not your life. Your life is in the ring. And that life is measured out in rings of the bell.

I have you wrapped up in a kata ha jime, Rowan. It's not a gentle hold - it's a controlling, swift choke. It's also not super god-damn complicated, which is good since it's the most I can manage right now. My brutalized, bound right leg is hooked over your hip. My body is sticky with sweat and blood and cum and the liquid essence of hate that smolders pheromonally like scorpion pepper and ash. My whole body is racked with pain and I all I wanna do is be home in the whirlpool tub with six Seconals and a fifth of Jack in me, stitched up and braced and admiring my shiny new hospital bracelet. I can't even wrap my head around the extent of the fucking emotional hell I've gone through tonight, let alone the fact that I look like was in a particularly vindictive car crash that drove a steering column into my cxnt. I want to be out of here. I want to be away from you.

I want Gemma.

The bell rings.

And for maybe the first time in my career, I don't even notice.

I'm still wrapped around you until Amelie - her professional obligations fulfilled and her sexual desires fulfilled multiple times with exquisitely explosive little Gallic orgasms throughout the match as she watched us fucking wreck each other - gently and expertly unhooks my fingers, freeing your throat, and rolls you off of me. I roll to my back, not even full aware of it, and suck in big slow hungry gulps of air, oxygenating my overworked system. I feel so hot it's like I've been fucking irradiated but at the same time I've got chills racking me. My strained muscles are jumping and cramping and I'm saturated with toxins and crystallized adrenaline, my brain is a drugged swirl of endorphin dumps to fight the pain and cortisol levels (you learn a lot of basic biochemistry when you spend as much time receiving medical care as I do) so fucking high that my heart is a drumline even while I'm laying on the mat. And that's impressive, because I've normally got the resting heart rate of a fucking land tortoise.

The lights of the Zenith are way up there, far away as the stars.

You're behind me on the mat. Out fucking cold.

Remember that ride, on the way out of Reno, when I was drinking seltzer and were playing Pin, Sub-

- y'know what, no.

We're done, Rowan.

No goodnight kiss.

I roll over, and I bite my cheek so hard that my mouth fills with a fresh gush of blood as I snap down on the scream that wants to come out of me. My knee is ... not good.

The medics are flooding the ring. The French have very specific guidelines on sporting contests, and I paid a lot of bribes in setting this up to make sure that most of those rules would be ignored. But now that the contest is over and Larry and Rick are drinking away their sorrows and the iPPV broadcast has gone to the post-show panel of LuFisto, Megumi Kudo, Harley Race and Chuck Taylor for analysis and discussion, the sponsors' assorted lawyers have made sure that the French medics are there to get us out of the ring and off-camera in a visibly alive condition.

Most of them are swarming around you, and the backboard and neck-stabilizing collar are already being slid under the ropes. A couple of them come to me, and I clutch onto them, dragging myself up as they try to convince me to lay down.

"Meez Dow," one of them says in a Parisian accent so thick and rich you could lay it on top of a gratin, "you must stay still, sil vous plait - you have in ze likelihoods at least one in concussion, and you have suffered most tair'ible damage to your ... ah ..."

And he glances down at my lap, blushing, while his wiser and longer-lived partner just sponges blood off my face with a cold towel that feels like a kiss from heaven.

"Yeah," I snarl. "My knee. Outta my fuckin' way b'fore I rip yer throat out."

I shove them aside, and drag myself to the ropes. Past the smoldering remains of Thomas' mask - which I bend and snatch, clasping in my taped fist in its crumbling hot ruin, hobbling towards the figure that's the only one I see. I don't see anyone chanting my name, I don't see anyone staring in shock, I don't see anyone recording livestreams of themselves because they were here the night Punky beat Rowan Chance into a fucking coma. My eyes are entirely on one woman. Shorter than me. Smarter than me. Tougher than me. Richer than me. More beautiful than anyone I know.

"Gems," I say, a blissful smile on my face because she's coming closer, her blood-stained white dress flaring over the railing.

My knee gives out entirely, feeling like icy knives are running through it, and I collapse forward into her arms.

"Gems," I say again, dreamy soft.

"We're done."

I wrap my arms around her, letting her carry my weight. She can. She's been carrying me since we fell in love.

"Take me home."

[Rowan Chance]

This part, I remember.

I'm on the gurney, tied in. The medics have put that big collar around my neck. Moving so slow. So careful. A cold wash of water over my face to clean the blood away. They put chemical staples on my head, sealing the gash shut.

They wheel me down the aisle. Slowly. To me, the place sounds as quiet as a church. I can't hear cheers or boos or anything. Just loud echoes in my hears. High pitched ringing. I'm still in the ring by the time you're behind the curtain. So slow.

I hear the low clapping. The same sound they made when Mick was being carried out by the Funkster. Japanese applause. I close my eyes and feel a tear roll down my cheek. I can't raise my hands. Can't give them a thumb's up that I'll be okay. I can't do that. But I want to.

I get behind the curtain and the other wrestlers from the show are there: the midcard and openers. They're applauding, too. It's a weird sensation being on a board and people applauding you as the medics push you toward the ambulance.

The ambulance...

There's you, sitting on the ambulance's bumper, a beer in your hand. The medics are taping up the cut on your forehead and you're saying something about duct tape.

You're sitting on the bumper of the ambulance. Waiting for me.

The medics stop halfway there. You see me and jump off the bumper. Walking over to me.

My eyes are shut. Not closed from bruising like yours, just shut.

You get to the medics. One of them tries to get in your way and you crash the bottle over his head. The rest of them fall away.

You walk up to the gurney. Looking down at me.

"Ro?" you ask.

My right eye peeks open. Sees you.

And I smile.

I ask, "...we got 'em, didn't we?"

You giggle a little, flexing your taped leg. Your face has already been washed and your eyebrow bandaged and the blood and other stuff mostly hosed off. You look a little like a girl the morning after Halloween.

"They bought that so fucking hard that it's gonna cause an interest rate hike," you say.

I reach up and peel the velcro holding the collar around my neck. It rips with that sweet rrrrrip sound I've always loved. I sit up, but the medic puts his hand on my shoulder. "That's a nasty cut on your forehead, Ms. Chance."

I look up at you. "I cut too deep. I was a little too excited. And I never was any good at it." I shrug, frowning a little. "You were right. You should have done it."

"Yer goddamn right," you say, like I was a disobedient student. Then, you bite your lip and look down at me, concern filling your eyes. "It was so much fucking work keeping my face angry in the ring." You stroke my blood-soaked hair and gently make sure I stay sitting on the stretcher. "God, Ro, you cut deeper than fucking Eddie did against JBL."

You look at the medics. "Can we get her some saline and an orange before she blacks out? And some madeleines! She likes the Bourbon vanilla kind!"

I laugh. "You remembered!"

Sitting up on the gurney, the medic checks my eyes.

"You have a concussion," he says. "But you already know that."

I nod. "I kinda blacked out at the end there," I say. "I think I hit my head on something, but I don't remember."

"It was probably the blood loss," the medic says.

"You were lights on but nobody home," you tell me, caressing my head. "I had to carry you to the finish, Chance."

I nod and it hurts. "As usual."

I stretch my back, rolling my shoulders. "You and Gemma probably have celebration plans tonight?"

"Actually ..." you say with as much coyness as you can manage while medically suffering from exhaustion, dehydration and emotional tension injuries. "She was serious about not wanting to see this. Y'know how she is. So she's gonna take the hop back home and get some business done in London in the morning. Sooooooo ... I'm in Paris with nothin' to do for a couple of nights," you say innocently, fiddling with a roll of gauze.

I give you a nervous smile.

"Oh. I thought...well, I already have tonight and tomorrow booked because I thought you and Gemma..."

I'm trying to keep a straight face.

And failing.

"This is where you say 'Shut the fuck up, Chance.'" And I wink.

You narrow your eyes at me and grip my corset top softly, the way I could tell you wanted to all match, letting your fingers slowly caress my breasts.

"Medics," I whisper, throwing my eyes at the men watching us.

"Shut the fuck up, Chance," you purr, and lean closer to kiss me, delicately.

Goddess, I wanted this. For the last hour--which felt like four--I wanted this.

And I can tell from your kiss, you did, too.

* * *

Years earlier, it's April 9. The very first night Rowan Chance and Megan Dow met.

They sit on the ring apron after the crowd is gone, eating bad hot dogs and just talking. Talking and laughing. Like girls on a swingset after school, swinging their feet as they sit on the apron.

Megan leans back against the ropes a little, feeling the reassuring creak of them. The clink of the braces. She loves  being here. Even now that she's been "in" long enough that she doesn't need to put the ring up and break it down, she still does. The smell of the canvas, all dusty and warm, and the soft crackling bite of the buckles. She loves it all so much. But her eyes are focused on the strangely beautiful exotic dusky beauty here eating dollar dogs at her side. She looks out of place, like she doesn't belong here. But after watching Rowan in the ring, Megan knows she does.

Rowan kicks her legs as they dangle over the edge of the apron. Even smothering the hotdogs in ketchup, mustard and relish doesn't really hide the stale taste. But she doesn't care. Not at all. Because she's  sitting next to this amazing, mad woman who talks like a bastard child of Palahniuk, Hunter Thompson and Bruiser Brody. And...yeah. She's starting to get a crush. A serious one, too.

A couple janitors move around the stands, picking up soda cups and pop corn bags. The crew hasn't come out to take down the ring, but they should be here any second.

And in her head, Rowan is saying to herself, I shouldn't do this... but it doesn't seem like I've got much time. I'm getting in a car to drive to New Hampshire tomorrow and if I hesitate now...I may never see this woman again.

She wipes the mustard and stuff from her lips with a napkin. Her heart racing in her chest. Looking right down at her boots, she says in a hesitant voice, "I'd like to kiss you."

Looking back at that night, Megan learned two really important things. The first was that it's totally impossible to find a way to look cool when you're taken so fucking completely by surprise in the middle of taking another slug of beer to chase down another bite of cheap hot dog that you rasp beer and relish through your fucking nose.

She wipes her streaming red face on her jacket sleeve, and manages to swallow the mouthful she has left, racked with coughs.

"I'm sorry!" Rowan says, immediately worried. "Are you okay?"

"Iugn fine," Megan manages to get out. "Fine."

But then, Megan gets her breath back she scrubs her face with the heel of her hand. She showered so she's got basically no make-up left, just hints of her ring cosmetics. She wasn't wearing the fancy Japanese lip enamel back then.

Megan looks at Rowan with a half-grin.

"... ya sure?"

Rowan looks up from her boots and right into Megan's eyes.

She nods quickly. "Mhm." Biting her lip. Why am I so nervous? Why is this so hard?


I want you so bad. To drag you back to some quiet room in this building and just...

Meanwhile, Megan's mind is racing. Oh fuck, those eyes.


She can feel her toes curling in her shiny new Docs, a brand new addition to her "Punky" gear.

But those eyes.


She stares deep into them, and feels her cheeks flush - and her grin widens.

Megan slowly leans closer, and sets her beer down--and she walks her fingers along Rowan's arm, feeling that supple olive skin and smooth muscle tone. And she gets a soft grip on Rowan's shirt, teasingly tugging her closer.

Years later, Megan thinks, That was the first and only time I was the more sexually confident one of us.

"An' what makes ya think I kiss girls?" She purrs teasingly, her eyes half-lidded as she draws Rowan close enough to taste the hot dog on her breath and breathe her shower and hints of sweat and perfume. "Even fuckin' gorgeous ones with really crisp armbar takeovers?"

She leans in so close, teasing Rowan. And Rowan thinks, Oh no. No way this girl is teasing me.

And suddenly, all of Rowan's nervousness vanishes. Megan made this a game. A challenge.

Rowan grabs the back of Megan's head, squeezing her purple hair between her fingers.

"Megan...shut the fuck up."

And they kiss.

THE END

(Both parts of this post were co-written with The Purple Vixen.)

[Lord Tantalus]

(From the January 28th, 2018 Wrestling Insider, Issue #44, Volume 21)

7. Megan "Punky" Dow defeated Rowan Chance in a 2/3 Falls NHB Match
This was a match that set a new standard for the Muta Scale. In fact, I'm starting over, establishing the Dow/Chance Scale. This is the new bar. This is the new standard.

The match was a perfect recipe of intrigue, psychology and brutality. The two women fought for just over sixty minutes, and if you didn't see them use the kitchen sink, it's because you blinked. If you haven't seen this match, stop now and pay the $14.99 for the PPV. This match alone was worth it. In fact, I'm reluctant to say anything about the match because I may spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it. And you should see it. This was right up there with the other match of the year contenders--and it's only January.

The events of the first fall set up all the psychology to follow. These two women have such a long and checkered history, and every single move called back to that past. Megan's bad knee, Rowan's back injuries--they all came into play. If you've paid attention to the careers of Dow and Chance, you saw both histories play out before your very eyes. The first fall ended with Dow using a move we've never see her before: Tantalus' Heart Breaker. And with it, she truly broke Rowan's heart. I've never seen Rowan fall so fast and so certain. After the three count, she didn't move for almost five minutes.

But the second fall was where Chance took over the match, using every single one of Punky's weaknesses against her, further telling the story of how these two women know each other so well. It ended with a string of some of the most brutal and personal shots I've ever seen in a wresting match. Jerry Jarrett had a sign on his office door saying, "Personal is Money." These two women proved that without a shadow of a doubt. The fall climaxed in a count out for Dow after a vivid, personal--and dare I say personal--assault on Dow's anatomy, ending with what I can only call an atomic drop on the steel divider in front of Dow's wife, Gemma Rox. I don't want to go into any further details; again, you just have to see it for yourself.

The final fall went back and forth with both women nearly finishing the other off multiple times, saved only by luck and injury. Chance nearly finished the match with her old "desperate finisher," a neck-snap DDT that has ended multiple wrestlers' careers, but the constant injuries to her back prevented her from competing the move. This lead to the finale--and again, I cannot describe what happened without stealing the drama from the event. All I can say is that this was the perfect example of how to translate a long-standing feud between Dow and Chance into a possible program between Dow and Tantalus.

Both women came out stronger than they were before the match, regardless of the winner. This is my top candidate for match of the year.

6 out of 5 Stars

[Chelsea Purrs]

I know I'm new here - and I've got a lot to learn.

I consider myself a creative person and a very good writer. But that was extraordinary. If I ever create something a quarter of that quality - I'll be lucky.

Brava ladies (and other contributors). Brava.

[Jack Hex]

This is the most amazing writing I've ever read.

Ladies, you deserve ten thousand bows. Flowers, chocolates, beer, candy of your choice, and whatever else I can give. Thank you for inspiring me to finally sign up and start my own career. Hopefully one day I'll be good enough to face you in a ring.