The Prize

	And just like that the fight was over. The Jinko crumbled under the quick, repeated blows and the crowd roared. The victor pumped her fists and stood for a moment to bask in her triumph. In many ways Delilah Aberdeen was the quintessential Salamander: athletic, competitive, and always itching for some kind of contest. Despite all that we rarely spoke enough to develop any kind of relationship. In truth I tried to avoid her because she had something of a reputation. But then you never could tell with her kind, most were just like that; all swords and fighting.
	Narrowed searching eyes passed over the crowd and lit up when the came to rest on me, much to my surprise. Delight danced across despite the blood and sweat that plastered the rest of her face. She crossed the makeshift arena in four steps, the crowd shifting or being pushed aside like a school of fish parting for a shark.
	“Hey, James! I won!” She shouted at me.
	“That’s great! What did you win?” I asked, not then realizing the danger I was in.
	“You!” She declared, a look of pure bliss on her face while she looked me up and down.
	I didn’t get to see much of her after ‘The Fight’ (as it was forever after referred to as) because she was on some kind of victory tour across the campus but her statement had my full attention and I spent the rest of the day in a state of extreme anxiety. Not that I would have to wait long. She found me the following morning. I had just stepped out of my room, headphones in at full blast as I prepared for my early morning Shakespeare class. I remember my hair was still damp. And there was Delilah.
	Standing at the end of the hallway with both hands resting on the pommel of a wooden sword, she wore a large green hoodie with a pair of running shorts that showed far, far too much thigh. I have no idea how long she had been standing there in that pose for but it was obvious who she had been waiting for.
	“James!” She shouted, waving a hand to flag me down. For one split second I considered retreating back into my dorm and how long it might take the Salamander to cross the distance between us while I fumbled for my keys. By the time I made up my mind she was already on the move. There was a determination to her steps and a feeling of barely controlled energy radiated from her. She never lost the sense of neutral professionalism though.
	“What’re you up to?” She asked. I’m sure it was a courtesy, an ice-breaker to get at what she really wanted.
	“Class mostly, why?”
	“Not anymore. Put these on and come with me.” She commanded, producing a plastic bag from the depths of her hoodie. With some dread and much confusion I pulled out a pair of running shorts. Looking from them to her for some clue or hint proved futile and she only told me to hurry up. I think she half-hoped half-expected I would strip down right there. Instead I excused myself, went back into my room, locked the door, and resolved not to come out for the rest of the day. It was not long before Delilah caught on to my game and began to pound on the door.
	After much threatening and promising on her end and some attempted negotiation on mine I opened it to look upon the face of pure fury. She was placated somewhat to see me in the shorts.
	“They’re too short.” I complained. She smirked and spent too long investigating my claims, which I was happy to let her do if it calmed her down. It was eerie how she had managed to find a pair in my favorite color. It must have just been a lucky guess.
	“You’re fine,” she declared, “now come on. We’re already late.” So I followed her. What choice did I have? We didn’t talk much. I had nothing to say and Delilah didn’t offer much. Imagine my shock as the Salamander led me to the track field. There were a few others present. It was mostly athletes on one of the teams or other Mamono. I felt horribly out of place and turned to Delilah for guidance. She shouldered her sword and breathed deeply of the early morning air.
“Lets go.”
	“I don’t understand.”
	“Start running laps.” She said bluntly, adjusting her grip on the sword.
	That had been three weeks ago. Things had only gone downhill since. I had told her I needed to spend the morning in class, something she readily agreed to and compromised by coming to my apartment and hammering on the door even earlier in the morning.
	Three brutal weeks of Salamander-tier drills and practices at 5 AM, every morning. And it didn’t stop there. There were dietary changes, routine hourly check-ins (I’m still trying to figure out exactly how she got my number because I sure as shit never volunteered it), and even an enforced bedtime. At 5 AM and 10 PM she would swing by my dormitory. The rest of the time she either knew where I was due to having a copy of my schedule or managed to track me down on her own.
	The New England autumn was slowly giving way to winter, not that it was going to stop her. Or convince her to change her wardrobe. I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t dreading it. My grades were slipping, my social life was shot to hell as all the guys I hung out with were afraid my new ‘girlfriend’ would kick their asses, and women avoided me like the plague. She had forced me to quit the English club, stating; ‘I don’t think men need to waste their time with that stuff.”
 I felt emasculated, worn down by her constant demands, and socially isolated. And by the middle of the fourth week, I had reached my limit.
	“Twelve minutes forty five seconds.” She said, making a note on her clipboard while checking the watch. The clipboard was a new development. God only knows what she was tracking on it. I lay there on the dew-covered grass, legs burning and lungs screaming. My eyes were closed and I let her ramble on for a minute about goals or quotas or whatever. When she fell silent I opened them to see her staring down at me. On her face there was a thinly held neutrality that didn’t reach her eyes. As my gaze traveled up her face I came to rest on those two amber colored orbs. It was pity that I saw there. She was looking at me with pity. I suddenly felt stupid, and vulnerable lying there on the ground drenched in my own sweat. So I stood up, only just at eye level with her.
	“What was that?” I said. Delilah sighed and shook her head.
	“I said,” she repeated, “that because we’ve been making such poor progress we’re going to have to step it up a little bit. I’m thinking that if you don’t complete your laps tomorrow in under ten minutes there is going to be a penalty.”
	“Excuse me?” I said, utterly baffled.
	“James, a woman who chooses a weak man is herself weak.” She explained while critically appraising me. I could only look at her as my anger continued to mount.
	“I want my man to be at least as strong as I am. So that means we have to work harder.” Delilah continued, completely and totally oblivious to the hole she was digging for herself.
	“I am so glad,” I began, “that you took into account what I wanted.” I finished. My voice dripped acid. It was then that she noticed she had made a critical mistake.
	“Is this about the English club? If it means that much to you-” she tried, but it was far too little far too late.
	“You’re demanding, unsympathetic, and I’m more than some lump of clay for you to shape as you please! Not once have you even bothered to find out who I am! It’s always about what you want me to be!” I screamed. She became very quiet, and for all the talk about her kinds fighting spirit I don’t think she’d ever taken a beating like what I was giving her. A crowd had begun to gather, others were stopping their workouts and were watching what I was doing to this other person with a mixture of shock or bemusement.
I’d said my piece and stood there breathing heavily while Delilah soaked in my rage. She had nothing to say. She opened her mouth several times, like something wanted to come out, but nothing ever did. I left her there on the track field. Snorting derisively at the utterly lonely and abandoned look on her face.
	My school was already small, yet word had spread of what I had done like California wildfire. I tried to ignore her after that, not that we didn’t see each other every now and then. In the hallways between classes we would ghost past one another. I’d see her in the corner of my eye in the cafeteria surrounded by friends. Friends who inevitably caught my scent and directed scowls my way. So I stopped going to the cafeteria, or loitering in the halls. I never rejoined the English club either. Partly out of a lingering spite is why I avoided her; I kept replaying that conversation after The Fight over and over in my mind. Mostly out of shame over how I had behaved towards her, and the lingering looks I was getting encouraged me to remain locked safely in my dormitory to brood over how the end of autumn was playing out for me.
	Yet in the end, it was Delilah Aberdeen herself who broke the uneasy calm between us.
	I was doodling in my notebook to kill the time before I went to sleep one evening when the soft knock on the door reached my ears. I ignored it for as long as I could, it was a rhythmic constant that was always soft like there was a hesitancy behind it but in the silence it seemed to ring out with this clarity. So I open the door and before it even registers who I’m looking at she’s launched into a speech.
	“I joined the English club. Yesterday I talked about Military Oration in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tragedy of Richard the Third’ between Richard and Richmond. I thought you might like a copy of the handouts. I didn’t see you—I mean, I haven’t seen you there at all.” She said sheepishly, thrusting a small stack of papers into my hand.
	“I just don’t have the time for it anymore I’m afraid.” I lied.
	“What’re you talking about, I gave you back all your free time.” She said with a laugh. The remark set our conversation back for a few seconds, and she softly apologized to me.
	“Don’t apologize. I should apologize to you. What I did was uncalled for.” I said.
	“No, you’re right. What I did? Well, I’m sure you don’t have the best opinion of my kind anymore.” She said.
	“Its not that, its just—listen, do you want to come in? I feel a little awkward having this conversation on the threshold.”
	“That would be lovely.” She said, strangely polite and formal after a month of brusque instructions.
	“Sorry about the mess.” I said.
	“That’s okay.” She said, looking around. It hit me then that she’d never actually seen the inside of my apartment. She’d never forced her way in or anything like that. There was always that boundary. Her eyes absorbed everything in sight, from the stacks of books to the Coca Cola cans scattered about.
	“So, how have you been?”
	“I’ve been fine, thank you for asking. A bit lonely without your company but I understood why you didn’t want to see me eventually.” She said.
	“Listen you’re a beautiful woman but I just couldn’t see you that way.” I said, sitting down on my bed and gesturing to my roommate’s bed for her to sit down. She never did.
	“But I’m in love with you!” Delilah suddenly declared, looking directly into my eyes with an intensity and passion I couldn’t hold for very long.
	“Just why though? I’m not strong; I’m not a warrior. I mean for fucks sake, I faked a broken leg to get out of high school gym class for a semester.” I said exasperatedly.
	“It’s a woman’s job to help her man reach his full potential. I didn’t want to dominate your life; I just wanted to help you with it. I knew the moment I saw you that you are the one for me.” She declared, something of the old Salamander fire coming back into her voice.
	“We hardly know each other.” I said.
	“I know all about you.” She countered quickly.
	“Well I still don’t know anything about you. Did you honestly think you could have a relationship like that?” I said. That caught her off guard.
 “I...I understand.” She said slowly, nodding to herself and slowly drifting into silence.
	“Understand what?” I asked warily. She turned to look at me with an entirely different expression on her face.
	“That you need time. And love. And affection. It was wrong of me to try and brute force you into what I wanted. James, you deserve a more...delicate and respectful approach.” She said. There was a shaky confidence in her voice, like she knew it was already true but didn’t know how to express it.
	“I don’t know—” I began. She fell to her knees in front of me, palms pressed into the fibers of my rug.
	“Give me one more chance. You put up with me for a month at my worst, I’m sure you can see something you like in me when I’m at my best.” She pleaded. The seconds stretched on. The cat clock flickered back and forth on the wall besides us and Delilah didn’t for a moment take her face out of the rug.
	“Alright,” I heard myself saying, “how about we start with just a movie?” Delilah jumped to her feet, almost tripping over an empty soda can.
	“I hope I wont get punished for all that sugar.” I joked. She smirked and gave me a shove. Delilah looked at me for a bit longer than was normal, blushing furiously and chewing on her lower lip.
	“You know, I was thinking about that.”
	“Oh God don’t remind me.”
	“No, listen. I went about it the wrong way. What you need is a reward, not a punishment. A prize for putting up with me, for sure.” She said. I chuckled.
	“What were you thinking?” I asked. So she leaned in and quickly kissed me on the lips. I felt them go numb immediately and all the pressures of the last month melted into her warm, wet embrace. She pulled away slowly, my lower lip locked between her teeth.
	“Like that?” She said after letting go. I grabbed her and pulled her up onto my bed and started to root around for my laptop. She was still in those ridiculously small shorts, but maybe I could learn to appreciate them.