2002
"Oh come ON Jeff! You've said it yourself, I'm practically your best fighter!"
I stood, hands on hips, glaring at my trainer. Jeff Aukanai'I was one of the top fighters in Hawai'i when it came to Mixed Martial Arts. I'd started training with him 5 years ago, when I was sixteen. I'm one of his star fighters, but he won't even let me fight a guy!
Jeff sighed.
"Kila, it's not that I don't think you can do it, I know that you can, but the tournament regulations say that guys and girls don't fight each other, bra. Therefore, you don't."
"So why won't you let me fight a guy in practice? Right now?" this was really a never ending battle between the two of us. I was tired of fighting girls who were here to get guys or to lose weight or some other shallow reason; none of them were into the sparring like I was so it was really inevitable that I would win way too easily and I was getting bored.
"Guys don't want to fight girls bra. It makes them feel bad if they win and it makes them feel worse if they lose."
"You don't care if you lose," I shot back at him.
"Not if it was a good fight I don't. But most guys aren't like me Kila, you know that." He grinned his cheeky little smile at me and I had to roll my eyes and laugh.
"Ya I know." Grrr. So I'm still stuck fighting Jeff and the random little girls who came by every so often that I hadn't beaten yet.
The bell over the door jingled. I didn't pay any attention to whoever it was as I grabbed a skipping rope and started jumping.
"I'll be back in a minute Ki," Jeff said as he walked past me. I nodded, my heart rate starting to climb.
I was still skipping, my heart pounding, my breathing ragged, when Jeff came back about 10 minutes later. With him was a guy I'd seen in the gym a time or two but had never spoken to. He had long brown hair tied back in a long braid, tanned skin, lots of tattoos and great muscle tone. I could tell he was a fighter.
"Kila, this is Leland Chapman, another of my fighters." I stopped jumping as Jeff introduced us. "Leland, this is Kilauea Alaka'I, the only serious girl I've trained in years." I shook Leland's hand as he grinned.
"'Kilauea'?" he asked. I rolled my eyes and grinned, my chest heaving.
"My mother thought it was unique."
Yes, my mother named me after a volcano. She wasn't even Hawaiian, my dad was! Even people who have never been here have heard of Kilauea volcano. My name was truly a source of never ending grief. Thus, I rarely used it in its entirety.
Leland tried to contain his laughter, he really did. If he held it back much more, however, I was pretty sure he'd start choking.
"Go ahead," I muttered, "laugh it out." He did. Loudly. After a moment or so though, he managed to calm down enough to talk normally again.
"I'm sorry," he said, "really. It's just so…." He trailed off, at a loss for words.
"I know," I said, laughing a little at the look on his face. "So what's up Jeff?" I knew he must've had a reason for introducing us.
"Well, you're always bugging me about fighting a guy KIla girl, so here's a guy willing to fight you."
I looked at Leland. "Sweet. Let's go!"
I grabbed his wrist and pulled him over to the ring, where we separated to go to our different corners. I stripped off my t-shirt, so I was wearing my training bra and shorts. Jeff helped my tape my wrists and hands before going to help Leland do the same. I grabbed my water bottle, took a swig and sprayed some on my face. I was ready to go.
"Alright you two, this is just practice fight, ya? So go easy," Jeff said. I glared at him. "This isn't about you Kila, I don't need either of you getting hurt. Alright, everyone ready?" We nodded.
"Go!"
...
It was a good fight; a long, hard one and we were both sweating and panting by the end of it. We were both really good and fairly evenly matched. But in the end, I won. And man did it feel good.
"Good fight girl," Leland said, patting me on the back. "You too bra," I said. "You doin anything tonight?"
"Nope."
"You wanna go grab a drink somewhere?" I suggested.
"Sounds good. Let me just give my boys a call and say goodnight."
"You have kids?"
"Ya, 2 boys. Cobie and Dakota." He smiled, the proud father.
...
We headed out to a bar I knew where I was friends with some of the girls working there. It was where I'd celebrated my 21st birthday a few months ago. It was a nice place, with loud music, good food and good service.
We spent a few hours talking and drinking together. It was past midnight before we knew it and we were both pretty drunk.
"We, we should go," I said, my words slurring together.
"Yaaa…." Leland replied.
"You two are so not driving tonight," said our waitress, my friend Makani, said as she passed by our table. "Give me 5 minutes and I'll call you a cab."
"Thanks Maki," I said.
"I..i don't really wanna go home drunk," Leland slurred. "Bad example for, for my boys ya know?"
I hmmm-ed in agreement. "Just, come, come back to my place, you can crash on the couch," I offered.
"Thanks Kili girl."
I started giggling and suddenly I just couldn't stop. Makani came back to our table with our bill just then.
"Oh no," she said, "She's started the giggling."
"Does that happen much?" Leland asked.
"Only when she's been drinking a lot," Makani explained. She grabbed my shoulders and turned my around in my seat to face her. "Kila!" she clapped her hands together right in front of my face. It startled me enough to stop my giggling and smile sheepishly at her. She just rolled her eyes at me. "You coherent enough to pay me or do I have to dig through your purse for you?"
"Dig," I said. She laughed and reached past me for my purse, pulling out my wallet and pulling out a couple twenties before putting it back in my purse.
She was back in a few minutes with my change and helped us out to our waiting cab, paying the driver and sending us home.
We got to my place and turned on the tv for a bit. It was some romance movie that normally I'd hate but hey, we were drunk! We started getting into the movie (eyebrow wiggle) and soon enough we were having some damn good drunken sex. That one mistake turned out to be one the best mistakes of my life.
