Test of Strength

The abdominal stretch had a few subtleties to it, but, once one had the first couple of limbs in place, everything became fairly clear. It seemed that that was the case for Alicia, who did not need any more instructions from Odessa to lock in the hold fully. Odessa felt a little twitch from the redhead as she seemed to think out the final act of leaning back and pressing down on Odessa's leg which would lock the hold in fully and put Odessa's midsection in quite a bit of pain. Alicia had the maneuver down pat now, and Odessa would take a deep breath as she mentally counted down the seconds.

Soon enough, Alicia's voice joined her mental count. At one, Odessa would brace herself as best she could, gritting her teeth and trying to let her body bend where it needed to and remain strong where it needed to.

Admittedly, such a balancing act while in such acute pain was very hard indeed to pull off.

"Nnnnnyyh..." Odessa would groan, trying to move her legs a little bit to ease the pressure on her midsection. She didn't have much success there. Her abdomen started to ache, then to throb, then felt as if it were burning, as the acute pain in one spot began to spread like a fire through her solid tummy. Odessa would close her eyes and just suffer through it. She did not want to look at the clock. She knew that would just make it all the more difficult.

Straining back as she pulled at Odessa’s toned body like she was trying to rip her in half at the ribs, the redhead was sure that the other wrestler had taken it better initially. Which was fair. She’d probably known what to expect, which didn’t help all that much but at least gave her a heads up in preparing for the pain.

And with that, the count was on. Sixty-one seconds – any less and Alicia had won. Not that she’d release even once they hit sixty-one; she didn’t enjoy hurting Odessa but the point was to see how long they could last, not just if Odessa could beat her own time.

Alicia didn’t bother telling Odessa to give in though. She fully expected the woman to take her own advice and focused instead on feeling her way through the intricacies of applying the stretch. It was pretty simple all things considered, but there were still… details. The most comfortable way to put the pressure on. That sort of thing.

Details.

Out of pure curiosity, she relented slightly and then leant back harder at the same time as she pushed down harder with her leg. Did that work?

Well, she’d see when either Odessa squawked or shrugged it off. Either way, while it wasn’t where she wanted to be looking, Alicia’s violet eyes were fixed on the second hand as it ticked its way around. It was what she had to do to fairly judge this bit of the contest. Even if, at that moment, she really couldn’t care less.

She’d win or she wouldn’t. That really wasn’t the point. She’d give it her best anyway, of course.

But it wasn’t the point.

Odessa was definitely impressed with Alicia's application of the hold, because, in spite of being very new to this particular submission maneuver indeed, the redhead was pulling off almost every aspect of it with aplomb. Odessa kept her eyes closed, and tried to ride out the pain in her side and her back with a zen-like focus. If she could find and hold any image other than that of her own body being bent nearly in half at her waist, then she would hopefully be able to keep herself distracted for long enough to win this challenge. It was a tried and true technique.

But it was often much harder to put into practice than it seemed on paper.

And Alicia was beginning to do more than just copy what Odessa had done to her and told her to do. She was getting comfortable applying the abdominal stretch, proving it when she added a little embellishment, first easing up for a second—a very precious second indeed for Odessa—before abruptly ending that brief moment of relief for the ebony Briton by yanking her back harder and pressing down harder with her leg.

"Aaannngh!" Odessa would yelp in pain, before biting down hard again, clamping her mouth tightly shut and stamping her non-pressed leg against the floor in painful frustration. How long had she been in the hold? Thirty seconds at least. Forty seconds? Almost without a doubt. But had she passed that minute marker? And had she passed the sixty-one second mark in order to achieve victory?

She just couldn't be sure without opening her eyes, and she didn't want to do that. She felt that, if she opened them and she still had fifteen seconds left, knowing would make that wait all the more excruciating—and virtually impossible.

She couldn't distract herself any longer. Now, the only thing that she could do was count the seconds in her head: one, two, three more passed, each one increasing her odds of victory as it crawled by. But this was the last handhold she could cling to on the edge of falling into submission. Cracks began to appear in that handhold. And Odessa's grip was just about to slip.

"Ahh...ah..." she panted, gritting her teeth, trying to last just one more second. Then one more second after that. And then...then...

"Ahhh...enough! I give!"

While her gaze was fixed on the clock, Alicia wasn’t really looking at it so much as through it, concentrating on getting the most out of the abdominal stretch she currently had locked on Odessa.

Her little trick had worked nicely, drawing a pained noise from the other woman, but it hadn’t got her a submission. Nor did she really want to do it again, so she focused on doubling down and working the hold itself as hard as possible.

The seconds ticked by one by one. And then it was over.

As Odessa had done, Alicia relaxed the hold the second she heard the dark-skin titaness submit. First she just let off the strain she’d been putting on the other woman’s side and then, a heartbeat later, she undid the hold and stepped back with a slight grunt of relief. That hadn’t been the easiest of holds on her either, particularly given some of the muscles she’d been using were the ones that Odessa herself had been stretching just a couple of minutes before.

Either way, she was quite satisfied with her efforts.

Her eyes had noted the time when the other British woman had surrendered – it’d been over sixty-one seconds, meaning Odessa had taken this round. But it hadn’t been a long way over. With practice and on another day, the redhead thought she might have taken it. Either way, that had been fun. Learning a new hold and doing well with it always was.

”That’s another point to you,” She observed, not sure if Odessa had been aware of her win or not. Her tone was lightly congratulatory even if her words were not, ”So it’s my turn to pick again?”

Alicia would do for Odessa what Odessa had done for her, immediately ceasing to inflict pain upon her in the torturous hold, first easing up on her to the point that she was essentially just cradling Odessa's body, giving her a little support as she caught her breath and assessed the state her body was in, then letting go of her and backing away, letting Odessa stand on her own two feet. Odessa wobbled for just an instant before finding her footing, though her face was contorted into a grimace as she gingerly felt along the side of her abdomen with one hand, fingers tracing her musculature.

Odessa had not been paying attention to the clock, and opened her eyes well after she had submitted. The clock at that time had shown around seventy-five or so seconds had passed, and she tried to do some mental math to determine if she had been able to take the victory. Alicia confirmed it, and with the victory Odessa was leading in their fun little sparring competition by a score of 2-1.

She did note, however, that her win in the abdominal stretch could have only been by three, maybe four seconds. Alicia was brand new to the hold, both receiving it and applying it, and had come that close to victory. That was impressive. It was beyond impressive. "Wow, I certainly am going to be feeling that in the morning," Odessa would say, still rubbing at her side. "Yes, I suppose it would be your turn to choose the next contest. Anything in particular in mind?"

Busy stretching as well, the big redhead was still able to give Odessa a look and a grin – clearly, she’d got a good grip on the abdominal stretch, though she didn’t see herself using it too often in matches. She did her best submission work on the mats and, while she supposed it would be a great way to set up a bodyscissors win, she really didn’t need the help with that.

Still, it was good to know. You never knew when a new and unexpected move might come in handy.

”You’re not the only one,” She noted in response.

As for what came next…

Alicia had been giving some thought to that particular question. Part of her was eager to get to the bodyscissors, keen to see how much pressure that toned belly of Odessa’s could take; not to mention to see if the darker-skinned wrestler’s legs could match up to her confidence. But no. For one thing, she just wanted to hold off on that, build her anticipation. The other reason was simpler – having just finished working each other’s abdomens over, there was no way she’d get Odessa’s best resistance out of her.

And she wanted the best she could get. As for the headscissors, that was definitely something to save for last. People whose heads she got her legs around generally were a bit doolally afterwards and it wasn’t as if Odessa had noodles for legs either.

So, not the scissors. Not yet. That had left her pondering; she didn’t want to go for the legs so soon again either. Which had brought her to her eventual decision.

”I think so.” Alicia smiled bright and hard, ”How are you on armlocks?”

It sounded as though Alicia had appreciated the abdominal stretch. It had been painful for both of them, but Alicia had really impressed Odessa with the way she adapted to the hold and gave the much more experienced Briton a real run for her money in the contest. They were separated by three, maybe four seconds, but that was all. Alicia was much newer than Odessa was in AFW, but she showed incredible amounts of promise and really left Odessa impressed.

Now, it was the auburn-haired woman's turn to choose a contest or a hold, and Odessa was intrigued to know what her new acquaintance was going to pick. She had not known Alicia long enough that she could guess what it was, and so Odessa was blind to what the choice could be, standing and stretching herself out and waiting until the verdict came from Alicia: armlocks. When she asked how Odessa was on them, Odessa would smile and give her a noncommittal shrug.

"Oh, I've got some experience with them, that's for certain. I can't say they're a maneuver I use particularly regularly," she would explain. "What in particular did you have in mind?"

Well, that wasn’t quite a non-answer but it was certainly not the entire story either. Although the big redhead supposed they weren’t her first thought in a match either, she still had a fair number in her arsenal.

”I was thinking we could change things up a bit,” Alicia suggested with a grin, half putting her idea together in her head as she went along, ”Pick an armlock each rather than both of us using exactly the same one. It’s got to be a submission, it’s got to go for the arm, otherwise go crazy.”

She shrugged, eyeing Odessa to see what the other Englishwoman’s reaction was. It’d be an opportunity to see what the dark-skinned beauty’s submission arsenal was like, in terms of breadth. Clearly, she was damn good with what she knew. So Alicia was a bit curious about how much she knew. See what sort of things she went for.

”Any good?”

Odessa had spent years wrestling, and over the years the Londoner had had several occasions to use armlocks on her opponents. In a pro-style match, maneuvers such as those were tried and true, and Odessa was not one to shirk a good tactic simply because it didn't strike her fancy. But, since joining AFW, she had not used them altogether too often. Between her hardcore matches and her lewder encounters, she simply hadn't been in a position where an armlock would be a better option than some tactics she was more comfortable with.

So this would be an excellent opportunity to explore them and see if she was rusty at all. And Alicia added a further wrinkle that very much intrigued Odessa: they would each pick an armlock of their own, rather than agreeing on one specific position, and see who could apply her preferred submission hold better. Odessa smiled, and chuckled softly as she saw the grin on Alicia's face. Obviously, she was proud of the idea, as well she should be.

"It almost sounds as though you're setting me up for something," Odessa would muse. "But I love the concept. You're on, love."

To Alicia’s satisfaction, the grin that spread across Odessa’s features suggested that her idea had met with a warm reception. It was also a contest that she felt she could do well in. While leglocks were her speciality as far as joint locks went, her armlocks were not far behind at all and she was reasonably sure that some of them wouldn’t be familiar to the veteran wrestler.

Maybe she was wrong but it’d be interesting to show Odessa a new trick or two.

”Not really,” Alicia half-grinned, dropping down to kneel on the mat – she wasn’t quite sure which of them would be applying her hold first, so she was just generally getting ready. ”I want to get as many holds out of you as possible, ‘Dessa. Setting you up for something just means the fun’s over faster.”

The big redhead grinned wider, rolling her shoulders in preparation.

”If I was setting you up, I’d be picking bodyscissors right now. Do you want to go first or shall I?”

As she spoke, Alicia went over the armlocks she had in her arsenal in her mind, pondering which of them would be the most suitable. There was the temptation to go for the meanest, nastiest joint lock in her bag and see how well that worked, but that seemed a bit…

Well, not in the spirit of their little game. Hmm, choices, choices. She eyed Odessa, waiting to see what the other Brit had to say.