Rika, the Cuban Flame

11. Up Close and Personal

Rika

Lucas scurries backwards as I slowly crawl to him. He doesn't get far and I grab his ankles and pull him to me, not giving a damn about his arm. It's in a cast. It should be fine, right?

"Hey!" he yells. He actually tries to kick me, but I block it. Damn, the nerve of some people, especially this fucking guy.

I crawl on top of him, looking straight down at his face that suddenly turns red, even in the dim overhead lights of this crappy office. His eyes dart around, looking at anything else but mine, which stay fixed on him like a missile finding its target. I poke him in the cheek. "Hmm."

"What the hell are you doing?" he asks, slapping my hand away.

I lean in closer to him so our noses are practically touching. "Just wanted to see if you're actually here or if you could teleport or something."

Lucas tilts his head like a confused dog... no, scratch that. Like a confused puppy. He's far from being a dog. "Uh... okay."

I straddle his waist in a full mount and continue to stare at him. Then I look at his cast. "How's your arm?"

"Peachy," he answers snidely. "What are we doing?"

I fold my arms over my chest. "Right now we're talking and I'm sitting on you."

Lucas puffs air out the side of his mouth. "Way to state the obvious."

My body fights the instinctive training that courses through me with the full mount I have on him. I've always been taught that a full mount is a victory position and if a fighter can't win after getting a full mount... well, that fighter needs to consider another profession. Something about Lucas fills me with so much anger, and perhaps that's because I lost last night. My face is busted up for the first time since I joined the professional fighting league. I've lost one other time, sure, my first sanctioned fight when I joined the league. I didn't get busted up in that fight, though I got submitted.

I had a heart-to-heart with my papa earlier this morning. I told him everything, even though I was afraid to my core of what he would think. Everything that happened last night in my fight against Lisa was out on the table. I told papa I saw Lucas four times throughout the fight: glaring at me outside the cage, being a judge, hanging upside-down from the top cage, and then standing over me once Lisa had me in the choke. It confused me and it shifted my mind to something else and away from the fight. If that happens, a fighter might as well just tap the ground themselves and take the loss. I never thought that would happen to me.

What happened in that lecture hall was weeks ago and it was something so... silly. I moved on quickly, my follower count exploded, and people begged me to do OF and other adult-related things. I was it for those three weeks. The media wouldn't stop talking about me and various hashtags, including the pre-med boner one, trended into the top five multiple times over those few weeks. I got more sponsors. I earned more money and even increased my fee to promote content when advertisers approach me. Papa helped me realize... in that time, I got lost in the fame. Lost in the money. Lost in the one thing that hurts someone's career more than anything, and that's attention. I forgot the person who made it a reality: Lucas. All the while, his life disintegrated, and I didn't even know about it. Guilt? Karma? Is this just the universe teaching me a lesson? I thrived in those past few weeks while Lucas's life crumbled. All because of an interaction that I didn't think would be that big of a deal or would blow up as much as it did. Even if I don't want to, I have to make things right. The only problem is... I'm not sure what that looks like or what I need to do.

As I straddle Lucas, my mind goes all over the place because I'm not really sure how to go about this. I'm not a nice person. I'm not a total and complete bitch either, even though I come off that way sometimes.