I met Craig about a year ago off of a wrestling interest site, pretty similar to the one I'm posting this account to. I'd been on the site for about six months, and in that time had met up with a few guys for matches. Some had taken place in my tiny Brooklyn apartment, others had taken place in their slightly larger apartments, still others in dingy hotel rooms (because, as a poor grad student, I wasn't really in the position to fork over the $$$ necessary for a 5-star suite).
I'd had a good time, but, needless to say, hadn't had my world completely rocked. Most of the guys I met were--actually, let me describe myself first.
I'm 24, about 5'8, not exactly shredded but definitely well built (or getting there, at least). I'd been hitting the gym pretty hard for the past year in a half to make up for the first relatively sedentary years in high school, where I shunned athletics but for some odd reason had nonetheless amassed a google history staggeringly focused on high school and college wrestling, as well as pro stuff.
Anyway, at 24 years old, 5'8, and 170 lbs, I had some pretty solid guns to show off when I flexed, about 15 inches. I'd been working on my shoulders lately, which were beginning to pop out nicely. Pretty ripped quads and diamond calves, with (I'll admit) a plump little ass. My chest and abs were coming in nicely, with me being able to will my pecs into a mini, rock-hard shelf, and abs that you could juuuust begin to see popping through the skin covering them when I crunched down.
I'd watched enough of all types of matches to get the basics down. Moves that locked 'em up, moves that put 'em out.
I wasn't a pro by any means, but still managed to completely dominate all of the guys I'd met up with so far. Most were smaller than me, and so could be easily tossed around a hotel room or held at bay with one my palms planted on their forehead. I had no problem playing the mean heel; I always got a little hard hearing them plead for me to let them up.
So on my way to Craig's place on Long Island, I had pretty low expectations. He looked handsome in his pic, for sure, but that wasn't not why I was on the LIRR at 10am on a Saturday. No, I was here because this cocky Lon-Guy-Lander messaged me and let me know that, were I to meet up with him, my winning streak would come to an end. This had made me smile as I read the email under my desk during class, because this guy did not look like much of a challenge at all.
According to his profile, he was 6'2--pretty tall, I reasoned, but I'd taken down taller guys, easy. (And trust me, the bigger they are, the harder they fucking fall.) He looked to be probably late thirties, of average build, clad in black sweatpants, grinning like through his nicely trimmed beard.
I pulled up at his house in a cab (his house was way too far from the train to walk), thinking to myself that I'd definitely take him up on his offer to reimburse me for the cab fare. As I got out of the cab, hauling my duffle bag full of my change of clothes over my shoulder, I took in the impressive, stately house before me. Not overly ostentatious, but definitely the home of someone doing quite well for themselves. I made a note to ask him what he did for a living during the inevitable small talk that would eventually evolve into smack talk.
He answered the door in the black sweat pants he'd been wearing in the photo, but had a big bulky red sweatshirt on this time.
- "Craig, nice to meet you."
He extended his arm and gripped mine in a firm grasp that was thankfully devoid of the wannabe-tough-guy handshakes I usually met with at these times.
Once we were inside his mini-mansion, he became all business.
- "Alright. Let's proceed to the ring."
Ring, I thought? Not the floor? Not a mattress on the floor? Not a twin bed? I followed him through a door that led down into the basement.
The ring, I observed, was an actual wrestling ring this guy had rigged up. I was really impressed, and really antsy to mess a jobber up in a real ring.
We stood in the middle of the ring, me still clad in my grey sweatpants and black sweatshirt. He climbed into the center and began removing his sweatshirt. He had no shirt on under it, allowing me to instantly see how mistaken I'd been about this guy's physique.
He was built like a tank, not ripped but definitely on his way to jacked. I estimated the arms would be probably 18 inches when flexed. Chest was enormous and hard, and he had a solid torso with a faint dusting of hair on his chest. His shoulders put mine to shame, like every part of his body did when compared to mine. I felt butterflies in my stomach, but couldn't discern if they were more the result of fear or excitement.
I had to ask.
- "Nice, man. Not exactly a recent pic you have on the site, is it?"
-
"Oh," he smiled and cracked his knuckles, "no, it isn't. But I like to think I look better in person."
Was this a date or a wrestling match? He continued:
- "And, you know. False sense of security thing."
I grinned.
- "Nothing false about my sense of security."
He smiled again.
- "Good. That's what I like to hear. I'm ready when you are."
I took in the ring again.
- "Have to say, this is a pretty sweet setup."
-
"Yes, thank you," he responds.
- "I've put a lot of time and money into this bad boy."
-
"Yeah I was gonna say. What is it that you do?
"
- "That I do?"
-
"Yes, like, what is your job? What do you do?"
He mused for a moment.
- "I'm a jack-of-all trades."
-
"A what? A jack-off?"
He chuckled slowly in response.
- "Thank you." He nodded. "Thank you for coming over to my house today. I really needed what's about to happen, and my sympathy for you is fading quickly."
-
"Then by all means."
With that, I began to lift my shirt over my head. I asked myself, should I pull it off fast and throw it at him in disrespect? Should I peel it off slowly while he takes in the view? 'Cuz I know this guy's sweating me big--
At that moment, I get hit by a tank. Wait, no, that's not a tank. That's just shirtless Craig running straight into my torso as hard as he can. His arms grip tight and low around my back, wrists clasped.
- "HRRR," I hear him growl as I'm flung into the ring post.
-
"UGFHG" the sound explodes from deep within my chest in a voice I've never heard before, and haven't heard since.
I try to fall forward but am unable to, as I've fallen against Craig's massive shoulder. I involuntarily slump over his enormous back, shirt still halfway over my head, blinding me. Through the thin fabric separating my cheek from his back, I can feel him continue boring into me like a drill.
Without warning, he stands back, arms spread apart Christ-like. I fall to the floor chest-first with a smack, unable to brace myself one bit for the fall. The air is momentarily thrust out of my lungs.
-
"Oops," is all he says.
I'm still trapped in my shirt, slowly moving my arms out, as I feel strong hands yanking down my sweatpants, exposing the running shorts I generally wear for matches.
- "Nah, those aren't quite right," Craig decides, and then yanks those off as well. Now I'm down to my dark grey briefs.
- "Eh, decent," he muses. He concludes by tossing my shoes behind him and pulling my socks off for good measure.
I begin pulling myself up from the floor.
- "So you asked me a question earlier--what I did."
I don't respond and barely have time to brace myself before he darts at me again and scoops me up into a bearhug over his shoulders, my arms trapped against his.
- "Well, I make a lot of money, as you can see, because I'm a chiropractor."
Makes sense, I think dimly, as I struggle against him.
- "Oh yeah, he says, I'm all about adjusting backs."
He inhales deeply and squeezes me with all of his might.
-
"Ughhhh," I manage to get out. I feel my eyes begin to bulge and my face beginning to redden. There's a ringing in my ears. Craig continues to pour on the pressure, and I'm amazed he's able to hold on for this long. But maybe he's thinking the same thing about me.
-
"I---I can't--" I say.
-
"Oh man, already?" He is incredulous.
- "You are kidding me. You've gotta be kidding me, kid."
He does not loosen his grip.
- "I've got you booked for the afternoon, so I guess I'll have to ease up a bit."
And with that, I'm dropped to the floor like a pile of laundry.
I lie flat on my back, arms spread, taking in precious oxygen, looking up at Craig, who wastes no time slipping off his sweatpants to reveal dark, blue, square-cut wrestling trunks.
-
"Alright kid, time to come clean. I'm actually not a chiropractor."
I slowly turn my head to the side, ready to begin the long process of pulling myself up.
- "Nah, not really a science person. Not really a school person in general, really."
He walks toward me.
- "Nah, I find that I really like cleaning up messes. That's why I've worked as a janitor for the past 15 years, mopping floors with kids like you."
And with that he kneels behind me, locking his right arm around my neck and gently yet forcefully pulls the top half of my body up. I clasp both of my arms around his huge forearm as he begins dragging me across the mat. Frantically, I kick my feet to escape but begin to choke on his forearm from the effort.
-
"Yeah, probably not the best idea to struggle so much in this hold," he says, giving the arm holding me a swift tug for emphasis. "You'll only hurt yourself."
I ignore his advice and continue struggling, struggling to breathe because of the pressure on my neck. I twist and pull as hard as I can and still can't get free. Finally, I quit struggling so that I don't pass out. Just in time for him to fling me back-first into the ropes on the other (very far away) side of the ring, and clobber my chest in a closeline.
I land flat on my back with an (in retrospect embarrassing) squeak. The wind is gone again as I gasp and moan. Craig paced above me.
- "Man. I feel really bad about this."
I stared up.
-
"I feel really bad for not telling you the truth along about about my job."
I didn't care anymore, I didn't care in the first place, really.
He scooped down and pulled my up by the back of my head so that I was standing. He then pulled me in close and hooked his thumb under the waistband of my underwear.
- "I'm actually a lumberjack."
My heart responded by jumping up into my throat.
- "TIMBRRRRR"
With a heave of effort he pulled me up into the air and then slowly fell back, executing a backbreaking suplex. He was talking some more, but I wasn't really registering what he was saying. All I was registering was that I was in some serious pain. It felt like lightening bolts were shooting through my shoulders and lower back.
- "That's one tree," Craig said calmly. "But we gotta whole forest to take down."
-
"Ughhh," I moaned as he pulled my up by the back of my head. Once again he pulled me in close and hooked his thumb through my waistband.
- "Here we go," he said encouragingly, "up and OVER."
Again I was thrust into the air and then dropped back-first into the mat.
- "That's two trees. Let's make it an odd three."
This time when he stood me up, he changed things up by putting his right hand through my legs, gripping my ass just shy of my crotch and pulling me upward. He held me over his head with two hands and paused dramatically.
- "TIMBRRRRR!" he yelled, louder than he had before, and SLAMMED me down onto the mat in an earth-shaking bodyslam.
I lay there, twitching from the impact. I might have blacked out momentarily, but I can't be sure.
All I knew was, without warning, I felt myself being pulled back up into a chokehold and dragged across the mat. This time, I didn't even have the fight in meto struggle. I just gripped his forearm again and allowed myself to be pulled.
-
"See?" Craig said encouragingly. "It's so much easier on you and me when you just go with the flow." He began cheerfully whistling "Whistle While you Work" from "Snow White." All I could do was stare at my feet as my heels dragged across the floor.
-
"Alright," he said, "This looks like a good place to set up camp."
Again, I was dropped to the floor. I began to just curl up in a ball without a clue of what would next happen to me.
-
"This time I'll really tell you how I make my living. And this is the final, 100% real job this time."
I slowly looked around me for a way to make my escape. The door looked so far away.
-
"I make my living as an anesthesiologist." I nodded dully to appease him. I figured it would be something like that. Only a moment later did I understand his true meaning.
-
"Yes," he said kneeling behind me, "I'm truly an expert at putting people out. Under my care, they never stay awake long."
He then tucked his right arm under my throat, pulling my head up with his left arm. I mustered what little strength I had left to feebly tug at his forearm as I felt his knees around my back.
-
"That's it, just take a deep breath. Just one deep breath and I guarantee you'll be completely out."
I grunted in response.
-
"You're just gonna take a little nap. I have a 100% success rate with this, trust me." I could no longer hold my arms up, and they flopped to the sides. He chuckled in appreciation.
-
"Speaking of going out, I'm gonna swing by the bank during your nap. Did you still need some cash for your cab fare?"
My body started to relax and I saw gray. And then there was nothing.
Long story short, other than completely trashing me, Craig was a perfect gentleman. If you know what I mean.
Still, that doesn't mean I won't go easy on him the next time we meet.
I've been training hard all year for our next meet-up. I'm a lot stronger than I was, and this time, there's no way I'd let him get the drop on me. Because most of me knows that the only reason I got my ass handed to me was that I was from a disadvantage at the start with that chickenshit move.
But part of me, a small part, knows that no matter what, I wouldn't have had what it took to take him down that day.
I guess only time will tell.
I haven't reached out to Craig since our match, and he hasn't reached out to me. But every time I see that "Message in Inbox" icon flashing on my profile, I'm crossing my fingers that it's him, ready for round 2.
Because I know I am.