HELL

And Hell is an endless boardwalk, which is other people's Heaven. All I can see of it is the few feet in front of the shabby stall where I hang, crucificial.

The young stud angels who pass by with two girls on each arm stop and pay the girl $5 to step up and punch me in the belly. I mean right in the belly, while their chippy little girlfriends watch the whole bellybeating go down. Lush, tart sluts with soft hips and batted lashes and bare bellies. Belly-Button Barbies watch me get punched in my belly. Laughing me and approving him.

It's a carny game: pin the punch on the stomach. Throw the hardball at the milk bottles. Throw your fist at the bread-basket.

And it was my job, in Hell, which is some other people's Heaven, to hang in that booth day and night, belly out and bare. Bare-bellied punching bag: Bellypunch Boy. Belly-branded by the live coals in the eyes of the pretty girls watching me beat up. Sparks of desire for the man who manhandles me. Here in Hell. Or is it Heaven?

A COUPLE OF WIMPS

[the wife's voice]

Of course, it wasn't anything like we imagined.

We didn't even meet them online, which is how I always expected it would happen. Lynn was a girl I work with. We used to talk sometimes at lunch or on break and I noticed that when the conversation was just drifting along, Lynn would turn the topic to a fistfight she saw or something to do with fighting. I felt like she was watching me for my reaction.

Dan and I talked about it, and we decided I should do the same thing back to her. I did, and before long she was telling me she and her husband, Chuck, used to fight other couples when they lived in Chicago, and they were disappointed because they hadn't found any opponents here. I immediately offered her a couples match, and then ran down to the payphone on the corner to give Dan the good news.

We met that weekend at their place. Lynn had told me Chuck was a college professor, so I expected a little nerdy guy in a tweed jacket. I was surprised to see Chuck was about 6-foot-2, the same height as Dan, but in much better shape. He was about 35, with sandy hair and a nice broad chest. Dan was pale and pot-bellied beside him.

Lynn and I were kind of a mismatch, too. She's taller, about 5-foot-8, and light brown haired, very pretty face like a model, fairly slim. She made me look big-hipped and squat by comparison, though I'm more than cute enough when I stand next to anyone but Barbie blondes!

Dan and Chuck were to fight shirtless. Bare-bellied. Lynn and I would wear swimsuits. I chose a brown bikini I wore last summer. But when we came out I saw Lynn had chosen a one-piece swimsuit. Her eyes seemed to rivet on my belly-button. I smiled at her, then at her husband.

We had a few drinks and chatted a bit, but everyone wanted to get on with the fight, so soon we all trooped down to their basement. Their basement was built of cinderblocks, with a brown shag carpet across what felt like a cement floor. The whole space was empty except for an old couch back against one wall with a scarred end table beside it. There was a half-full ashtray on it and an empty beer bottle. The only other thing in sight was opposite the couch: a huge black cast iron heating oil tank.

Me and Lynn stepped out first. I expected it to be a friendly match, at least at first, but Lynn shocked me when she stared at my body and said, "You're a belly slut." It was like she knocked the wind out of me. I stood there, stunned, silent, trying to make my face into a sneer. "Look at you, showing off that pot belly like it was something to be proud of."

I'd never been in a fight before, and I guess I should have been worried because Lynn was taller than me. But fuck, did that piss me off! I slapped her face, and then I grabbed her hair and pulled it hard so she fell down. That was the highlight of the fight for me. She got right up and rushed at me. Just as I was about to punch her in the nose, Lynn drew her right hand back and punched me hard in the belly.

I had never been hit in the stomach before and I didn't know it would hurt so much. She hit me high in the belly, just under my ribs. Her stomach-punch knocked the wind out of me. My lungs felt like they were on fire. I gasped and bent forward, with my hands on my stomach.

Lynn swung her fist up under and punched me in right the belly. I couldn't even grunt; I just sank to the floor.

As I was curling up on the floor, moaning, I heard Dan and Chuck scuffling and grunting. Apparently Dan was trying to help me, but Chuck was holding him back. After a while, I was able to get up onto my hands and knees. I was trying to get my breath back and was about to try to stand up straight when Lynn slammed her elbow down hard, hitting me on the back. I went down again flat on the floor. I was groaning in pain as my eyes filled with tears.

Dan must have finally broke free of Chuck, because he pulled Lynn away. I started getting up slowly again, and I felt Dan grasp each of my arms and pull me up. When I was standing, he let go and I stood there wondering why I wanted to get up in the first place. I was too weak and in too much pain to fight back. And Chuck had pulled Dan away and thrown him back against the wall, pinning him there with his larger frame.

Then he punched Dan in the belly with his left fist. I saw all the flesh of Dan's bare belly ripple with the impact. He said UUUH! and stopped struggling. Chuck hit him again, harder, with a right to the same spot. They were standing so close that when Dan doubled forward, his chin landed on Chuck's right shoulder. Winded, with his arms hanging useless at his sides, Dan stood helpless while Chuck pumped fists into his pot belly.

Lynn came at me again and I couldn't even raise my hands to defend myself. My arms just hung at my sides as I stood there on wobbly legs. Lynn said, "So, bellyslut, you thought you were a tough bitch!"

She poked her index finger hard into my sore belly. I winced in pain as she pushed me backward with that sharp finger. When Lynn had me all the way back to the wall with her finger still pushing into my belly-button, she paused. I was standing with my back to the wall, with my knees slightly bent and my arms at my sides. Lynn slipped her hand free, jerked it back and unleashed a powerful belly-slammer right into my gut!

I moaned so loud it seemed to echo around the basement. The pain was so bad I couldn't even scream. My head just jerked back and forth while I clenched my jaw tightly. Lynn dropped her shoulder and swung her right fist up hard, hitting me squarely in the belly.

I let out an OOF! and started to slide down the wall, but Lynn stuck her knee between my legs and against the wall so that I was now trapped in place. Then she let her fists go to work on my bare belly. After the fifth punch to my gut, I bent sideways far enough to fall off Lynn's knee. I fell hard onto my shoulder and lay on my side.

Dan must have finally buckled, too, because he was already on the floor moaning when I got there and joined him. But while I was still suffering on the floor, Lynn and Chuck pulled Dan over to the oil tank, and tied him up back against it. His hands were bound up over his head, tied at the wrists, and the rope that held them together was pulled back behind the tank and tied to his ankles. His feet were off the floor and his body formed a big "C" shape, with his belly stuck out and his belly-button at the furthest curve of the "C."

Lynn then strode over to me and pulled me up by the hair to a sitting position on her floor. She knelt beside me and pulled my arms back and bent them up behind me, then tied the wrist of one arm to the elbow of the other. She repeated this with my other arm and I was completely helpless to stop her. It was an uncomfortable position for me, but it looked better than Dan's predicament.

I was terrified that she was going to tie me to the tank, too, and make me a belly target like Dan was. But instead Lynn pulled me roughly to my feet and marched me across the room to the couch and pushed me back down on its seedy cushions. Then she plunked herself down next to me, put one arm around my shoulder, and with her free hand she started erotically caressing my belly-button.

She put her lips to my ear and whispered, "I just love watching my big, strong man punch out some wimp's belly, don't you? Oh, I forgot, you don't ever get to see your man do that, do you? Because your so-called man is a soft-bellied wimp, isn't he?" I frowned and didn't answer, but she laughed because she knew I knew it was true.

Dan had given up struggling in his ropes. He still was trying to weasel his way out of a further beating, though. He was making nice and subservient to Chuck.

"Looks like you beat me fair and square, heh. I couldn't take it. I'm done."

I thought, "You pot-bellied wimp."

But Chuck just brushed him off. "You want pity, you better beg for it. From her," and he gestured over his shoulder at Lynn. "And I mean beg for it."

Dan swallowed hard, looked at Lynn, and debased himself still further. He stared at the woman who had just beat up me, his wife, and pleaded, "Please, Lynn, make him stop punching me."

Lynn waited, then smiled and purred, "Stop punching you where, darling?"

"In my belly."

"I can't hear you."

"In my belly! I can't take it in the belly!"

Lynn sneered. "Punch him in the stummik!" she ordered.

In that position, Chuck could get every ounce of his weight into a punch, and let me tell you, he did. Dan's belly had no place to go but back in on itself. Chuck beat him slow and hard for half an hour, giving my wimp plenty of time to suffer and beg between the punches. By the end I was laughing at him along with Lynn.