Chapter 7: Public Execution
The fluorescent lights of the wrestling gym buzzed overhead, casting a sterile, shadowless glare over the blue mat. The air smelled of old sweat and industrial cleaner. Ben stood at the edge of mat three, his stomach a tight knot. Patricia was already there, stretching her hamstrings with effortless, predatory grace. She wore a black sports bra and matching compression shorts, her muscles defined and ready.
Coach Davis, a burly man with a close-cropped beard and a perpetual whistle around his neck, stood between them with a clipboard. “Alright, you two. This is a controlled spar. Point scoring. I want clean technique, no wild stuff. Miller, I know you’ve got a mean cross-face. Thompson, watch your base. Shake hands.”
They stepped forward. Ben met her eyes as he took her hand. Her grip was iron, her skin already warm. The mischievous glint was gone, replaced by a flat, focused intensity that was somehow worse.
“Have a good match, Ben,” she said, her tone perfectly polite for Coach’s benefit.
“You too,” he mumbled.
Coach blew the whistle.
Ben shot in low, a desperate burst of energy fueled by pure dread. He got in on a single leg, driving forward, forcing her back a step. For a second, a wild hope flared—he could do this. He could just wrestle.
Then her balance shifted. Her hips swung away, her hands locked around his bicep and torso, and the world upended. He hit the mat with a thud that drove the air from his lungs. She was on top of him instantly, her weight perfect and inescapable, her chest pressing down on his back.
“Good initial shot, Thompson! Now fight the turn!” Coach called, circling them.
Ben bucked, trying to explode. It was like trying to lift a car. She settled heavier, her hips grinding down, one arm snaking under his armpit and around his neck. It wasn’t a choke, not quite. It was a cradle, tightening with hydraulic precision. His face was pressed sideways into the blue foam. He could smell the salt on her skin.
Her lips were an inch from his ear. The cheerful facade was gone, her voice a low, private murmur that the buzzing lights swallowed whole. “Sean’s Instagram is looking a little quiet. Think he’s bored?”
Ben stiffened. He stopped fighting the hold for a fraction of a second.
It was all she needed. She rotated her shoulders, and he was rolled onto his back, staring up at the blinding lights. She settled into full mount, straddling his ribs, her knees pinning his arms to his sides. Coach was saying something about hip movement. The words were distant, muffled.
Patricia leaned down, her blonde hair forming a curtain around their faces. To Coach, it would look like she was adjusting her position. Her smile was a benign, practiced mask, but her eyes were dark pits. She shifted her weight, bringing her right armpit down toward his face. The soft, damp fabric of her sports bra brushed his cheek.
“He just posted a Story,” she whispered, the sound almost lost in the squeak of her skin on his. “Just a three-second video of his TV. Guess what’s on it?”
Ben’s breath hitched. He turned his head away, a futile gesture. Her hand came up, not violently, but with inexorable control, and cupped the back of his head. She applied steady pressure, guiding his face back, not into the mat, but into the hot, damp hollow of her underarm.
The smell was immediate and intimate—heated skin, deodorant, the sharp, animal tang of hard exertion. It flooded his senses. He whimpered. The sound was trapped in the damp fabric and flesh.
“It’s a live stream, Ben,” she breathed, her own voice slightly strained from the effort of holding him, a genuine thrill in it. “Pretty good camera angle, too. Very… immersive. Should I wave? Blink twice if you want me to wave to your little brother.”
His body went limp. Not from physical defeat, but from a total, systemic collapse of will. The last fortress of his pride, the idea that this was just a fucked-up game between the two of them, crumbled. She had brought an innocent into the arena. She had made his shame a spectator sport for the one person he needed to believe in him.
A hot tear, born of utter helplessness, traced a path from his eye through the sweat on her skin.
She felt it. She loosened the pressure, just enough for him to gasp a breath of the humid, trapped air. He didn’t fight. He just lay there, pinned physically and metaphysically, his face buried in her sweat, his silent sob a confession.
“Thompson!” Coach Davis’s voice cut through. “Don’t just accept it! Bridge! Create space!”
Patricia’s head lifted, her public face returning. “I think he’s got a cramp, Coach,” she said, her voice laced with false concern. She raised her hand, signaling the match stop. “Quick break?”
Coach blew the whistle. “Alright. Hydrate. Walk it off, Ben.”
She rolled off him, springing to her feet with easy energy. She grabbed her water bottle, took a long pull, and looked down at him as he pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees, coughing, his face flushed and slick with her sweat and his own tears.
She knelt beside him, pretending to check on him. Her hand clapped his shoulder, a comradely gesture for Coach’s benefit. Her voice dropped back to that intimate, poisonous murmur.
“See? I can be nice. I didn’t wave. But the stream’s still running. Get up. We’ve got five more minutes on the clock.”
She stood and offered him a hand, her expression one of friendly sportsmanship. Coach nodded approvingly. Ben looked at her outstretched hand, the same one that had just guided his face, the same body that now held the invisible leash connected to his brother’s eyes.
He took it. Her grip tightened, and she hauled him up like he was nothing.
The whistle blew again.
The walk to the gym felt like crossing a border into a country where he was already a known citizen, his passport stamped with barked sounds and the salt of her skin. Each step echoed the Instagram notification, a phantom ping in his skull. The lavender silk in his pocket was a heartbeat against his thigh, a persistent, humid whisper.
Mat room three was empty except for her. Patricia was stretching in the center of the blue vinyl, her blonde hair tied back, wearing a black sports bra and compression shorts. The fluorescent lights gleamed off the defined muscles of her shoulders and legs. She saw him in the doorway and didn’t stop her stretch, simply smiled as she folded herself effortlessly at the waist, palms flat on the mat.
“You came,” she said, her voice bright and conversational, as if they’d planned a casual workout. “I wasn’t sure you would. Lock the door.”
He did, the heavy thunk of the bolt sliding home sounding final. The room was silent, sealed off from the distant clanks of weights and the whir of ellipticals from the main gym floor.
“Come on,” she said, rising onto the balls of her feet and bouncing lightly. “We’re just drilling. No audience this time. Well, except the camera.” She nodded to a phone propped on a water bottle in the corner, its little red recording light a malevolent eye. “For my personal archives.”
“I’m not doing this.” Ben’s voice was flat, but he took a step forward onto the mat, the rubbery scent filling his nose.
“You are.” Patricia shrugged, circling him with a loose, athletic grace. “Because if you walk out, I hit send on a very specific DM to your brother Sean. With a link. And a preview image. I think he’d recognize you, even from that… creative angle.”
She stopped circling. “We start in neutral position. You remember.”
It wasn’t a question. He did. The memory was a physical ache in his joints from their first match. He approached her, his body automatically sinking into a stance, feet shoulder-width, hands raised. The academic humiliation in the library had been cerebral, a violation of his mind. This was a return to the raw, physical truth.
“Good boy,” she murmured.
They clasped hands. Her grip was like steel cable wrapped in warm leather. For a second, they were frozen, a tableau of potential energy. Then she moved. It wasn’t a brute-force attack, but a precise redistribution of weight and leverage. He reacted, trying to shove her off-balance, but she flowed with his momentum, using it against him.
Her foot hooked behind his ankle. His own force betrayed him, sending him crashing onto his back with a heavy thump that knocked the air from his lungs. She was on him instantly, a knee driving into his solar plexus, her weight pinning his hips.
“You’re thinking too much,” she whispered, her face close to his. He could see the fine sweat already beading on her temples. “You’re still trying to win a debate. This isn’t about arguments. It’s about anatomy.”
He bucked, trying to dislodge her. She rode the motion easily, shifting her weight to maintain control. One of her hands snaked under his arm, then the other, locking behind his head. She was going for a choke. He tried to frame against her neck, to create space, but her position was too strong, her limbs like vise-grips.
“See, you know this defense,” she said, her breath warm against his ear as she squeezed. The pressure began to build on his carotid arteries. “But knowing and doing are different. Just like knowing Gramsci and living him are different.”
Dark spots flecked his vision. He tapped her arm twice, quickly. She released the pressure immediately, but didn’t let go of the position.
“Submission,” she said brightly. “Again.”
They reset. And again, she took him down. This time with a swift single-leg takedown, driving her shoulder into his thigh and tipping him like a tree. He landed hard, his shoulder screaming. She passed his guard as if his legs were mere suggestions, settling into side control, her chest heavy on his, her hip bone grinding into his ribs.
“You’re stronger than me,” Ben gasped, turning his face away from hers.
“Marginally,” she agreed, adjusting her grip to trap his far arm. “But strength is a tool, not a strategy. I’m better. My technique is cleaner. My understanding of physics is… applied.” She drove her hip down harder, making him grunt. “It’s the same as our Poli-Sci grades. You work hard. I work smart. Now, give me your back.”
He resisted, trying to frame and shrimp away. It was like trying to move a concrete slab. She methodically broke down his defenses, her movements economical and relentless. Soon, she was behind him, her chest to his back, her legs hooked over his thighs. Her forearm slid under his chin.
“This is a rear naked choke,” she narrated calmly, as if for the recording. “The fight is usually over once it’s locked in. The only question is how long the opponent wants to swim in the gray before they tap.”
She began to squeeze. It was infinitely more controlled and terrifying than the headlock from the stream. This was clinical. This was expert. His airway wasn’t blocked; the blood flow to his brain was being systematically cut off. A deep, primal panic, separate from his shame, began to flood his system. He clawed at her arm, but the leverage was all hers. The gray sea she mentioned rose fast.
He tapped frantically on her leg. She held it for a second longer, just enough for the panic to crest, then let go. He slumped forward, coughing, drawing in huge, ragged gulps of air. She kept her legs hooked around his waist, a living, breathing straitjacket.
“You okay?” she asked, patting his shoulder. “Don’t puke on the mats. The janitor’s a friend of mine.”
Before he could respond, a sharp buzzing broke the silence. It came from the floor near the wall, where he’d discarded his shirt. His phone, lit up with an incoming call. The screen clearly showed the caller: SEAN.
Patricia saw it too. She laughed, a sound of genuine delight. “Oh, perfect timing! He must be checking in after my comment. Let’s answer it.”
“No,” Ben wheezed, trying to lunge for the phone. Her legs tightened around his waist, anchoring him in place.
She reached out a long arm, snagged the phone, and swiped accept before the call could go to voicemail. She switched it to speaker.
“Ben? Hey, you okay?” Sean’s voice, young and concerned, filled the sterile room.
Patricia brought her lips close to the microphone. “Hey Sean! It’s Pat. Ben’s a little… tied up right now.” She giggled, the picture of a friendly, flirtatious teammate.
“Pat? Oh, hey. Is he there? That comment was kinda weird.”
“He’s right here,” she said sweetly. She shifted, forcing Ben to sit up slightly, her arms still wrapped around him from behind, chin resting on his shoulder so her voice would carry. “We’re just doing some extra wrestling practice. He’s helping me with my finals prep. Say hi, Ben.”
Her forearm pressed lightly against his throat, a silent reminder. “Hi, Sean,” Ben croaked, the sound strangled.
“You sound terrible. You getting smashed?” Sean asked, his tone shifting to playful brotherly ribbing.
“You could say that,” Patricia answered for him, her voice a conspiratorial purr. “He’s having a really tough time with my new techniques. It’s almost cute.” She pinched Ben’s side, hard. He flinched.
“Yeah? Well, tell him not to be a wimp.” Sean paused. “Actually, you guys at the campus gym? I just got my license today. Mom let me take the car. I’m, like, ten minutes away. I’ll come cheer my big bro on!”
The bottom dropped out of Ben’s world. “No, Sean, don’t—”
“That’s an awesome idea!” Patricia interrupted, her voice brimming with enthusiasm. “Room three. See you soon!” She ended the call before Ben could utter another word.
The phone clattered onto the mat. The room was silent again, save for the hum of the lights and Ben’s shallow, horrified breathing. Patricia unwrapped her legs from around him and stood up in one fluid motion. She looked down at him, where he knelt paralyzed on the mat.
“Reset,” she said, her light-hearted tone completely gone, replaced by something flat and imperative. “We have a guest coming. Let’s make sure the lesson is clear.”
He didn’t move. He couldn’t.
She leaned down, her hands on her knees, bringing her face level with his. “You can either get up and wrestle, or you can stay there and explain to your brother why you’re kneeling for me while I show him the video from the library. His choice. Yours.”
A cold, clear fury, born of utter powerlessness, finally cut through his shame. He got to his feet. His body felt heavy, alien. The door was right there. He could run. He could smash the camera. He could tackle her.
She saw the calculations flit across his face and smiled. “Try it,” she whispered.
The distant main gym door clanged. Footsteps, sneakers squeaking on polished floor, approached down the hallway. Sean’s voice, calling out, “Ben? Pat? This one?”
Patricia never broke eye contact with Ben. “In here!” she called back, her voice returning to its cheerful lilt. She lowered her voice, just for him. “Now.”
The door handle jiggled, then turned. The bolt was still locked.
“One sec!” Patricia sang out. She walked to the door, her movements relaxed and easy. She glanced back at Ben, gave him a wink, and slid the bolt open.
Sean Thompson shouldered his way in, his face alight with the novelty of his new freedom and a genuine eagerness to see his brother. He was wearing the varsity jacket from the photo. His eyes scanned the room, taking in the mats, the propped-up phone, Pat, and finally Ben, standing stiffly in the center, sweat-darkened and breathing hard.
“Whoa, serious business!” Sean said, grinning. He leaned against the wall by the door, crossing his arms. “Don’t let me interrupt. This is awesome.”
“We were just getting to the good part,” Patricia said, walking back to the center. She nodded at Ben. “He’s being stubborn about defending the double-leg today. Let’s show Sean how it’s done.”
Ben’s mind was white noise. His brother’s familiar, trusting face was a lens, focusing every degrading second into a searing beam. Patricia shot in, her head driving into his torso, her hands locking behind his knees. He sprawled, fighting the instinct to give up, to just collapse and let it be over. He had to at least look like he was trying, for Sean.
He fought the takedown, pushing down on her shoulders, backpedaling. For a fleeting second, he halted her drive.
“That’s it, Ben!” Sean cheered from the sidelines. “Stuff her!”
Patricia, her face buried in his stomach, adjusted her grip. She drove forward again, but this time, she swept one of his posted legs out from under him. He toppled backward, and she came down on top of him with full force, her body settling between his legs in a dominant, unmistakable position.
“Ah, see,” she panted, not even trying to be quiet, “sprawling is only the first step. You have to disengage or counter. Hanging out here just gives me control.”
Sean’s cheer died in his throat. The technical explanation couldn’t mask the visual: his older brother, flat on his back, pinned under a grinning, muscular girl. Ben turned his head, avoiding Sean’s eyes, focusing instead on the ceiling tiles.
“Okay, Sean, watch this,” Patricia said. She looked down at Ben. “I’m going to pass your guard now. Try to stop me.”
She began her systematic dismantling. He used his legs to try to control her, to create space. She caught one of his ankles, pinned it to the mat, and flattened her body over his. His other leg was rendered useless. He was pinned flat, her chest crushing his, her hips controlling his. He could feel her breath on his neck.
From the wall, Sean was utterly silent.
Patricia worked one knee across his thigh, then the other, completing the pass. She was now in side control, her weight an inescapable press. She looked over at Sean, her expression one of patient instruction. “See? Once I’ve passed the legs, his guard is broken. All his leverage is gone.”
She transitioned to mount, swinging a leg over his body to straddle his chest. Now she sat directly on him, high on his torso, looking down at his flushed, averted face. He was completely exposed, conquered. He made a feeble attempt to bridge and buck her off, but his energy was gone, sapped by shame. It was a token motion.
Patricia rode it effortlessly, settling back down with a soft impact that made him gasp. She leaned forward, placing her hands on either side of his head, and looked directly at Sean. Her voice was a friendly, instructive murmur, clear in the quiet room.
“From here, the submissions are pretty much endless.”
She didn’t look at Ben. She kept her eyes locked on his younger brother’s horrified, frozen face as she slowly, deliberately, wrapped her hands around Ben’s throat. Not squeezing, yet. Just demonstrating the placement.
“This is the finish,” she said softly to Sean. “He can’t really go anywhere. All he can do is wait. And then tap.”