Jumping in the Deep End

[Liesmith]

Tris didn’t bother hiding the way her eyes raked over Keith’s body, taking him in as best she could through the tee. Though she imagined she’d get a better look later, she liked what she was seeing. Fit without being overmuscled, nice and trim around the waist… Yeah, she was looking forward to tumbling him, even if she was going to have to play the good girl today.

Not that Tris minded fighting musclehead bodybuilders. It was always fun to gas them out and make ‘em beg. But Keith? Definitely in the sweet spot as far as she was concerned.

Particularly if he was going to give her reactions like that little shake, like he was imagining how it’d feel to have her legs closing around his, turning it limp and lifeless and useless. Though Tris sometimes wondered if the ‘waking up’ might almost be worse – she hated pins and needles…

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Keith she’d have no problem giving him any demonstrations he’d like – he just had to ask.

But she wasn’t given a chance to reply before Keith’s golden retriever energy kicked in again, the tall blond rounding on her with his latest idea.

A watermelon, huh? Tris pressed her dark crimson-painted lips together, regarding her host with a thoughtful pout. The curvaceous redhead was no stranger to squeezing things as well as people – hell, pole dancing was great training for scissorholds in particular. Pillows and workout bags also featured highly, when she didn’t have someone available.

But, though she knew it was a thing, she’d never tried her legs on a watermelon.

Kind of intriguing though, now he’d suggested it.

“Sure,” she shrugged, lazily confident, “Why not? I’ve not crushed a watermelon before…”

It wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun as getting her legs on Keith later, skin on skin, but it was always nice to be able to cut loose for a change. Nobody was going to get pissy if – when – she turned a melon into mush because she squeezed too hard.

Speaking of which-

“… I think I’ll need a towel though.”

[BlackAkuma]

A part of Keith didn’t like the idea - well, not so much the idea itself, but the way he was springing it up on Tris at the last minute. While he liked some spontaneity in his interviews, he didn’t want to be one of those people who surprised their guests to get shock reactions out of them. There was a lot of money in putting people on the spot and embarrassing them, but it built up a bad reputation and just made it harder to get good guests.

On the other hand, he knew the value of riding a popular trend. And when was the next time he would even have someone here who could do it? He had to take the shot.

He looked on with eager eyes as she deliberated, putting on his best innocent face. He wasn’t sure if that helped her decision along, but either way, she gave him the go-ahead, and he pumped his fist with a triumphant yawp. ”Perfect, yes.” He spun about and nodded at his nearest aid, an intern they were bringing in. ”Yo, Billy!”

”My name’s Bobby.

”Sorry, man.” He smacked his forehead. ”Go out to the garden, look in the back, should have a couple of watermelons growing. Bring me the bigger one back, got it? And, uh, bringing some covering for the floor. Cardboard, paper, whatever you can find that we don’t mind getting wet.”

Bobby nodded and skipped off, as Tris made the perfectly understandable request for a towel. This time, one of his people was off before he could even tell them, and he moved over to the couch and motioned for her to take a seat.

”They’ll get that setup while we’re talking. I’ll give you the cue and lead into it, you’ll know when it’s time.” He strolled over to a cooler by the side of the couch and pulled out a couple of water bottles, offering her one. ”Any thoughts before we start? Questions, concerns?”

[Liesmith]

So much for that ‘hypothetical’ kitchen melon, Tris thought idly as she watched Keith send his minions scurrying. It, well – she wasn’t sure it mattered to her. Supermarket melon, home grown melon, was it going to make a difference?

She presumed not, at least not as much as whether it was ripe. That, Tris imagined, she was going to find out shortly.

It did make her wonder how genuinely spur of the moment this was. Keith had framed it as something he’d just thought of, as ‘maybe’ he’d got a melon in the kitchen. Now he had some definitely growing out back instead and Tris was starting to wonder if she was being set up.

Her eyes narrowed a little before she smoothed her expression out, following Keith’s gesture and moving to the sofa.

It was with the practiced grace of a dancer that Tris sank onto the couch, taking a moment to arrange herself to best advantage. This she knew about, about how to best show herself off for the camera while making it look natural. That near-total awareness of her own body and what she could do with it was a legacy of pole dancing and it was as useful a tool off the mats as on them.

Accepting the water bottle with a smile, she cracked the top with a sharp twist but didn’t fully open it, instead preferring to toy with the drink as she listened to Keith and contemplated.

She was sorely tempted to just make a joke out of it, the old ‘I thought the questions were your job’ thing, but that seemed like low hanging fruit. And an obvious deflection, which was not her style.

“Well,” Tris drew the word out, “I do have a couple of questions. I know we’re doing the melon but are you still up for some demonstrations as well?”

The redhead paused, just for a beat.

“Oh, and I think you might need a safe word?” Her expression was deceptively earnest, her hands smoothing innocently down her skirt.

Someone, one of the guys tending the camera equipment, snickered quietly.

[BlackAkuma]

Keith didn’t know who was responsible for LAW finding talent, but whoever they were, he felt they deserved a small raise for picking Tris, or at least a pat on the back. Yes, they’d just met, and yes, he was still extremely new to the whole business, but he felt safe in saying that the woman before him was a rare gem. Movie-star looks, but with an absolutely lethal body. And a redhead? That couldn't be a common combination.

There was a confidence in her movements, the sort that Keith would not usually expect from a woman who hadn't done this before. Even though the cameras weren’t on yet, she made her way onto the couch as if they were, putting herself in a position that would best show off her finest assets. Keith only had to spare a quick look in the viewfinders as he approached, just to be sure - yup, her legs would be near the center. Not so close that they would dominate the wide shot, but placed in such a way that they were hard to miss, even if his viewers were inclined to. Which he doubted.

Keith took a few swigs himself before reaching into his cooler and pulling out a couple bottles of his official energy drink, Nexus. He had absolutely no plans of having either of them, but product placement was always going to be a thing, and he needed them on camera. He made sure to keep them close, on the off chance she wanted one, but he doubted it. Tris didn't strike him as a lover of sugary Gatorade knockoffs.

He plopped down himself, getting comfy, as Tris threw an important question his way, one he was quick to wave off with a nod. ”Oh, hell yeah. No way I’m letting fruit have all the fun.” He gazed at her legs for a halfbeat longer than he probably should’ve, before making his way back to her face. ”Don’t worry, putting your body on the line for clicks just comes with being an influencer. It’s what my insurance pays for. I can take it.”

Keith caught that snicker coming from one of his cameramen - David, he was pretty sure - and he flashed Tris a quick wink before he looked his way. ”What’s that Dave, man? You want some of this action?” He thumbed at Tris’ titanic thighs. “Maybe we let you be the guinea pig?”

”Nope.” David threw a thumbs up and kept his face obscured behind the camera, though the quiver in his voice said it all. ”No, I’m good.”

”You sure?”

”Super sure.”

”Well, all right, then.” He chuckled, then turned back to Tris as he went into some serious thought. ”But yeah, good question. Should probably something natural, so you can ease up without making it obvious. How about…”

He snapped his fingers. “Got it. If we need to shut it down, I’ll say ‘Like, Share, Subscribe’, to the camera. We’ll hide it behind a call to action - I’ll have to do one of those at least once during the segment, anyway. Two birds, one stone.”

[Liesmith]

He could take it. Apparently. And she’d heard all that before too.

Most people, they’d just call it a bad case of overconfidence.

Tris? She liked a more classical term; hubris. Inevitably followed, as all good Greek playwrights knew, by nemesis.

Of course the redhead did like a challenge, not to mention the chance to show exactly what her legs could do. She’d give Keith a proper taste, then maybe see if he was still so confident he could handle it.

He wouldn’t be but she knew from experience that people watching ate that sort of thing up. Not too mean, just taking the pressure that little bit higher, holding it that little bit longer. He could take it after all.

It gave her something to contemplate as he and David had their little exchange, Tris choosing to keep her council instead of participating in the joshing between the two. She was the outsider here, they might not like it if she tried to join in their little group banter. But that was fine. It was plenty entertaining listening to Keith being her hype man.

It was almost a little sweet that Keith thought a safe word would save him. And maybe it would, though only if he could actually talk at the time. And Tris had the sort of adductor muscles, honed from years of pole work, that could make talking a difficult prospect to say the least.

To be entirely honest, Tris thought she was a superb judge of when her victims wanted out of her holds. Whether she chose to pay any attention though… Well. In this case, she probably would.

Still cute.

“Sure,” she agreed, mentally replacing that ‘if’ with ‘when’ as well as questioning his definition of ‘sounding natural’, “Like, share, subscribe. I can do that. Don’t worry, luv, I won’t hurt you too bad.”

She held up a hand, placed it mock-solemnly on her heart.

“Scout’s honour.”

There were other questions she could have asked but why ask when she already knew the answers she wanted to hear. So, instead of wasting her time asking about which holds he wanted her to demonstrate or how hard he wanted her to go, she just settled back into the sofa and twirled a hand carelessly.

“So then, Mr Podcaster Man, have at it. Let’s get this thing rolling.”

Then they could get rolling on the mats.

[BlackAkuma]

‘Scout’s honor’, she said. Keith was tempted to point out that it would only work if she was, in fact, a scout. Which she could be, he supposed, but somehow he doubted it.

Keith - despite the opinions of countless trolls - wasn’t an idiot, and knew that there was some risk to be had here in putting his head between the legs of a woman he’d just met. As new as he was to LAW and wrestling in general, he’d heard more than a few stories of men and women getting tortured in that specific way, enough to know that he should be wary of redheads with beautiful smiles, but…well, like he said, risk was the game. It was dice he was willing to roll.

He put those thoughts aside for the moment, though. Time to focus. ”Let’s do just that.”

A few quick checks later, a moment to squeeze in an ad for a mobile game he’d never played, and the show was rolling, playing them in with some edgy, synthetic 80s styled music, setting - the retro theme he was going for.

”And we are back!” Keith raised his voice to a higher octave, projecting more youthful energy than he had a moment ago, and directing his voice towards the boom mike that was hanging just off-screen. ”Welcome back to a fresh season of the Fox Hole, kicking things off fresh. Got a lot of great stuff lined up for you this week - some wrestling-related, some not, so don’t worry we’ll be hitting all the bases, a lot of big names. Today we’ve got a little someone special lined up.”

Keith moved back on the chair and gave the camera space to pan back, revealing Tris in all her glory. ”Everyone, please welcome LAW’s newest addition - straight from Goatswood, England, Beatrice Harper.”

He nodded her way and gave Tris some dead air to work with - introduce herself, flash a smile, make a joke, whatever she’d like.

[Liesmith]

Tris had, for the record, not been a scout. But, as plenty of people had found out, she was a woman of her word. Right up until she wasn’t. This time, she meant every word though, of course, what she considered hurting someone too bad and what Keith thought she meant might be a little ways apart.

Or a continent or two apart but they’d get to that little question later.

Right now, she had a front row seat to seeing his operation swing into gear. Lights, camera, music (cringey) and action.

It was kind of fascinating in a low key fashion watching the cogs mesh and spin. And, having watched a few clips, to be on the inside looking out instead of the outside peering in.

It was also distracting her from the little flair of nerves she felt. Cameras she’d grown accustomed to ignoring or to performing for, but it’d mostly be when she was on the move, be it fighting or dancing. Sitting still for an interview, that was less familiar but it was all just another performance, right?

She’d be fine.

Even as she woolgathered, Tris had been keeping enough of an eye on things to know her cue when she heard it.

As Keith gestured and the cameras turned, she sat up slightly. Ready.

“Well hi there,” the redhead started, “I’m Beatrice. Unless you’re unlucky enough to meet me in the ring.”

Up until then, Tris had been smiling demurely. For a heartbeat, her lips stretched wide into a daemonic slash of a smirk, her lips darkly crimson against her pale skin. Even her tone deepened, turned throatier.

“Then you can call me Scylla.”

The moment passed and she was all sweetness and light, laughing as she waved the shadows away like they’d never been.

“Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of Goatswood, I’m basically the only good thing it’s ever exported.” Tris paused, tapped a finger to her lips thoughtfully, “’Cept some dodgy archaeology back in the sixties. Pretty sure that got some headlines – not that you want to talk about that, right?”

Tris swept a hand down the front of her torso in a sharp arc, drawing the camera’s gaze with it.

“Why’d you want to talk about old news when you can talk about the new hotness?”

Her finger came up to halt Keith in his tracks.

“Rhetorical question, luv.”

Again, she softened it with a wink, a flirty tip of her head.

[BlackAkuma]

Lights, camera, action.

Keith was already getting in The Mode. It was hard to describe to people who didn’t do this sort of thing on a regular basis, but when you were doing it day in and day out, you could slip into the mindset like a pair of well-worn shoes. He didn’t even have to think about it anymore, his body already assuming all the important positions. He sat up just right, mindful of all the cameras, and made sure to give Tris all the space she could hope for; his brain was already going through a laundry list of topics to touch on. Topics like…

”Scylla, that’s like, uh, some Greek monster, right? I think I remember that from the Odyssey.” He was actually 100% sure it was, even before he looked up her ringname, having read the story a few times. Fans didn’t like him getting too nerdy, though.

“Goatswood, though…” Keith rubbed his chin as the name caught his attention. He’d seen it on her material before, but hearing it out loud triggered some memories. They’d had an archaeologist on a little while ago who’d gone into detail about the place, talking about some weird artifacts he’d found there. Weird stuff, but he’d never followed up on any of it or invited the guy back.

It was tempting to take a little detour, but Tris popped in and reminded Keith of what was important: Her.

He returned that wink and gave her a look over, as if he was only just now realizing how drop-dead gorgeous she was. Purely performative, but he sold it. ”’New hotness’. I cannot argue with that.” He gave her an approving nod, then sat up straight. ”Let’s back up a step, though, fill-in the blanks for people who don’t pay attention to my Twitter notifications - you’re new to LAW, but you’re not new to wrestling. Maybe not the wrestling most people are thinking of, though. What’s been your experience up to this point?”

Nice softball to start with, plenty of room for her to expound and build some foundation.

[Liesmith]

Well, at least he’d done some reading before this. Enough to get the basics at least and Tris intended to do him the courtesy of not trying to go down some deep dive on the inspiration behind her nom-de-guerre. The basics would do, she knew, the KISS principle if you will.

Keep it simple for the stupids, that was.

“Mmm,” the redhead hummed in response, “She was a beautiful nymph who became a monster. Any ship that tried to pass her – bam.”

She snapped her fingers.

“She’d take her pound of flesh. Bit like, whatever happens, you’ll never forget stepping on the mats with me.”

If Keith had wanted to go that route, Tris knew enough local lore to go into Goatswood’s intriguing history a bit but it suited her just as well to skip over it. Though the mere fact he seemed to have heard of it at all earnt the podcaster a thoughtful side-glance from the redhead as she talked. Clearly she’d not watched enough of his podcast, though she’d known he covered other stuff than just wrestling.

Fortunately, her rejoinder snapped his attention back to her, where it belonged.

“I’m sorry,” Tris mock-raised her eyebrows, “Got to stop you there, Foxy. There are people calling themselves wrestling fans? Who don’t pay attention to your Twitter feed? Do they live under Stonehenge or something?

She scoffed, almost as though offended – returning the little favour he’d done her a moment earlier.

“C’mon now, people, you want to be following this guy. Anyway. I’ve been wrestling for… three years now I think? I was dancing at a club and, well. Let’s just say some of the guys watching wanted to know what it’d be like to roll with a pole dancer. Turned out I liked it.”

Her smirk spoke volumes about just how much. Tris continued.

“Particularly when I started doing competitive matches. Since then, I’ve done mostly apartment wrestling, the usual session stuff…”

She stretched slightly, arching her back like a cat.

“… And the odd pro-style bout too. Sometimes guys want to see that.”

Her tone was dryly ironic.

[BlackAkuma]

Keith liked to view interviewing like a card game. Or what he imagined a card game was supposed to be like, he had no experience with them outside of Casino Royale and the Ocean’s 11 movies.

It was all about working with the hand he’d been given, and playing those cards at the right time. The cards were facts and questions - things he knew about Tris, avenues he could lead her done, surprises he could take her off guard with. He didn’t want to throw them all on the table at once, however. He needed to be judicious. To dole them out when she gave him the best openings.

Right now, she was giving him some fairly juicy ones.

The mention of the mats brought a performative raised eyebrow from him, one he made sure to put on his good side. ”Okay, okay, might have to test that.”

With that little seed planted, he had a quick chuckle at the ‘foxy’ comment. ”You know, typically? I shut people down when they call me that. But with that accent, I’ll make an exception.” He flashed her a quick grin, then eased back. ”And I’ve got a lot of subscribers, but I don’t know how many of them actually read the stuff I put out these days. People’ll like and retweet just about anything. Twitter’s like, half made up of bots these days, anyway.”

He nodded along as she recounted her story, leaning forward at the mention of the pole dancing, and he doubted he would be alone in that interest. Keith didn’t frequent strip clubs, but he’d been to them - typically when he got dragged in by his brother. He was familiar enough to know that Tris would’ve fit right in with a body like that.

Still, it posed an interesting question, one he was quick to pounce on. ”So you liked it - but why? What about the wrestling did it for you?” Keith gave his chin a quick scratch, ruffling up the light hairs.