You’ve seen Karen Starr at the boxing club for weeks now. Not the Power Girl from the heroes footages—though, honestly, the resemblance is uncanny—but a Karen who moves with the same impossible grace, who hits the heavy bag like it owes her money. You’re just a regular, not at all out-of-shape guy who goes to the same place, trying to work off the office-job blues. You’ve mustered the courage to ask her out three times. Each time, she just grinned, wiped the sweat from her brow, and said, “You’re funny.”

Today, after your pathetic attempt at a combo on the mitts, you try again. Karen leans against the ropes, her pink eyes (contacts, you assume) glinting with amusement. “Tell you what,” she says, her voice light and teasing. “You step into the cage with me. Last thirty seconds. Just thirty. If you do, I’ll go on that date. Hell, I’ll even let you fuck me.”

Your brain short-circuits. The offer is so absurd, so wildly disproportionate to the request, that you can only blurt out, an affirmative answer.

You regret it the moment you’re climbing through the cage door, wearing headgear that’s two sizes too big. Karen, on the other hand, looks like she’s ready for a photoshoot, her blonde hair tied back, a playful smirk on her face.

The bell dings.

It’s not a fight; it’s a comedy sketch in which you are the sole prop. She flows around your clumsy jabs like water. One moment you’re swinging at air, the next you’re being spun in a clinch, your own arm somehow tucked behind your back. You stumble, you flail, you do a sort of frantic, defensive shimmy that has the few onlookers howling with laughter. At one point, you’re lifted clean off your feet in a bear hug, your legs kicking uselessly, before being gently—almost politely—placed back down.

Through it all, Karen is smiling, effortlessly evading and controlling you without ever throwing a real punch. You are a bumbling cartoon character in her world of fluid martial artistry.

A distant part of your mind is counting. Twenty-eight… twenty-nine…

With a final, graceful sweep of her leg, she sends you tumbling onto your backside. You land with a soft thump on the canvas, staring up at the lights.

The bell rings again.

Sixty seconds.