Post by Steele on Jul 26, 2018 16:43:47 GMT -5
The morning after Jackson Steele’s less-than-graceful arrest in Pall Mall, he found himself a free man.
Standing with his back to the ring in the same run-down wrestling gym in East London that he had flounced out of a few days previous, he recounted his daring tale of escapism to Danny Boy Davis.
“Nothing? What do you mean nothing?” Danny said in disbelief.
“I mean ‘nothing.’ Nada. Zip. Zilch. Do I have to spell it out in cockney rhyming slang?” Steele replied with exuberance.
“You threw some geezer through a plate glass window.” Danny hit back. “You can’t have gotten away scot-free.”
Steele said nothing back. He just gave a wry grin.
“Oh come on,” said Danny, “I saw the coppers throw you in the back of that van. You punched one of ‘em across the face and puked all up another one’s trousers. There’s no way they just let you go without pressing charges for that.”
Steele turned to face Danny, he was oozing a cocksure aura that certainly didn’t belong to a man who less than twelve hours ago was sobering up in police custody for the second time in a fortnight.
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Daniel,” said Steele, “I have very deep pockets.”
“Fuck off.” Came the brusque reply from Danny. “This ain’t Mexico. You can’t go about bribing British coppers.”
Jackson simply offered up a shrug. “Apparently, you can. Well, not the coppers, no. But I know a lot of people in high places, V knows a lot of people in high places, and you’d be surprised at who you can convince, even in the face of all the evidence, that you’re completely and utterly innocent of all wrongdoing with a little palm-greasing.”
“And V was fine with all of this? Getting you off the hook despite dragging his company through the mud?” Danny responded with renewed doubt.
Steele grimaced. “Er, not entirely. But come on, what’s a little fracas in a wine shop? Wrestlers have done a lot worse before and nobody gives a shit two weeks later…”
He paused as Danny stared him down, not entirely convinced that he was hearing the full story.
“...alright, fine! Yeah, V was pretty fucking pissed off about it all to be fair, but I know he knows that I’m too hot a potato for him to drop! Do you really think he’d shit-can me just three days before I bring the X-Crown back to AXW? He’d be fucking insane. He knows as well as anybody that if he did that, I could take those titles straight over to RSW or GUNS, or hell, I bet even Felix Ziko himself would be crawling on his hands and knees begging me to go back to AWF if it meant he got to keep the top prize in his company.”
“Right…” Danny said, still sounding unsure. “Look Boss, I know how you made your name in the porno business, there’s no shame in-”
“ARE YOU SAYING I SUCKED COCKS TO GET OUT OF JAIL?” Steele boomed back. “Because I categorically DENY those accusations! And if you so much as ever even THINK about it again I will sue you so fucking hard!”
Danny chuckled as he held his hands up, “Alright, alright! Jesus, I was just havin’ a fuckin’ giraffe, Boss.”
From the ferocity of Steele’s denial, however, Danny began to think that he may have hit too close to home. He couldn’t quite tell whether his theory had been on the money, or if Steele was just sore about having his less-than-auspicious start in the adult movie business brought up.
“Well you can take that giraffe back to whatever sick and sordid zoo you got it from. Those days are long behind me now, and that’s a FACT. You might not believe it but when the shit hits the fan, Jackson Steele always finds an umbrella. Or a way out, in this case. I got out of the cells with my slate wiped clean, and I’ll find a way out of the cells again on Sunday only this time the slate is going to read; ’JACKSON STEELE IS THE NEW X-CROWN CHAMPION!’”
Danny nodded. “Alright, save it for the promo, yeah? That’s a good line, actually.”
“Of course it’s a good fucking line. It’s my line!” Steele retorted.
Suddenly the door squeaked, and Del Trevor walked into the gym holding a rather bulky old-school camera, and shadowed by a skinny lad in a singlet.
“Who’s this streak of piss?” Jackson demanded. The young man looked to the floor.
“Well, tell him!” prompted Del.
The boy spoke up, albeit quietly. “J- James Mayfield…” he stammered.
Jackson looked at Del, his forehead wrinkled with a scowl. “How the fuck am I meant to look good against a fucking jobber?” he seethed.
“He was all I could find at short notice, Boss!” Del pleaded, on the defensive.
“Short notice is right!” Jackson quipped, “He can’t be more than five-foot-six!”
James Mayfield avoided Jackson’s harsh and critical gaze. Del put an uncharacteristically sympathetic arm around the young man’s shoulder.
“Alright kid, yer sacked. Fack off.” said Del, slapping the boy on the back. James Mayfield turned, and forlornly walked back out the way he came.
“You know we’re in a wrestling school, right?” Danny asked Del. “Why didn’t you just hire one of the students?”
Del looked a bit gormless. “Oh. Didn’t fink about that to be honest. Shall I have a look at the list now?”
Steele waved him off. “Don’t bother, we haven’t got time. You’ll have to do it.”
“Me, Boss?” Del asked him. Steele rolled his eyes.
“Yes, you!”
“But… won’t it look all hokey if it’s obviously me taking it easy on you?”
Del had a point. Why go to the trouble of making a video package that highlighted Steele’s in-ring prowess if his overwhlemed opponent was clearly just a lackey on his payroll?
Steele considered Del’s argument.
“Don’t be stupid, nobody fucking knows who you are.” he said. “But if you’re really that worried about it then put a fucking costume on. Strap a tea-towel to your head and we’ll say you’re some evil Arab oil baron who wants to bring down the decadent West or some shit like that. I don’t care, just get your gear on and let’s do this.”
Danny nodded towards the office. “I think I saw a box of gimmicks in there, bruv. Why don’t you go and have a butcher’s, yeah?”
Del nodded, and handed off the cameras to Danny before making his way over to the office. Danny looked at the ancient recording device and tried to figure it out.
“Jesus… never mind the jobber, where the fuck did he get this thing from? S4C?”
Steele didn’t understand the joke. “Just get it working, Danny. I can feel my creative juices flowing.”
Danny replied under his breath, “Are you sure that’s not just the oxygen replacing the alcohol in your brain?”
“Hmm?” Steele asked.
“Nuffink, Boss. I think I’ve got it going now.”
Steele paced around in the ring, performing what appeared to be very laid-back warming up and stretching exercises, paying particular attention to his throat and vocal cords.
“Alright, ready when you are.” Danny shot Steele a thumbs-up, and almost dropped the monster of a camera.
Steele faced the camera and struck a strong and heroic pose.
“Three nights. Three nights are all that remain. Sunday, July 29th at the XHF Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the time and the place. The event - the end of the world as we know it. Ever since the XHF came back into existence as the XHF Network, it has been crying out, yearning, for one man to step forward, to stand tall and rise above all others… to take his rightful place as not just the champion of the world, but the champion of all champions! To be the man who earns the right to hold those eighteen golden belts that represent everything that humanity aspires for… to sweep aside the pretenders who have gone before! The lunatic! The pig! The President, the Human Hashtag, the Icon and the so-called Messiah!”
Steele slowly strode towards the camera, his burning glare threatening to focus through the lens and set the camera itself on fire.
“And that man… is.. me. That destiny… the glory… is mine!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Steele could see Danny grimacing somewhat.
“What?” he said. “What’s fucking wrong with that? That was perfect! One take! That’s all I need!”
Danny didn’t agree. “I dunno Boss, it just… it doesn’t feel like ‘you’ though, does it?”
“What do you mean” Steele asked.
“Well… it’s a bit dramatic, a bit too brooding and foreboding. You don’t really seem like that sort of guy.”
Steele looked mildly hurt by Danny’s remark. “I have a lot of range.”
Danny shook his head again. “This is an ultra-hardcore match. Why don’t you go for something with a bit more… oomph? A bit more impact?” he suggested.
“Alright.” Steele nodded, psyching himself up, jumping up and down on the spot, slapping his face to get himself into ‘the zone.’ As soon as Danny raised the camera again, Steele snapped towards it, leaning across the top rope and getting right up into the lens.
“Three nights! Three nights are all that remain!” he snarled. Danny lowered the camera.
“Are you just gonna do the same script?” he asked.
“Well I was gonna change it up!” Steele protested. Danny shrugged, and shouldered the camera again.
“Three nights are all that remain!” Steele continued. “Sunday night, I’m gonna bring the WHOLE WORLD crashing down on seven other human beings! Haha, I can almost taste the carnage now! Four rings surrounded by unforgiving steel mesh, stripping flesh from bone, spilling blood and guts! But what really excites me the most is that everybody thinks I’m going to be trapped in there with them… but in reality, they’re gonna be the ones trapped inside with ME!”
“Alright, hang on” said Danny as he halted proceedings again.
“What’s wrong this time?” demanded Steele, perplexed and exasperated.
“Well… this whole ‘I’m not trapped in there with you, you’re trapped in there with me’ schtick… it’s a bit old-hat now, innit? It’s been done to death.”
“You’ll be fucking done to death if you don’t let me just finish one bastard promo…” Steele warned. “So what do you want me to do? Do you want me to do deadpan? I can do deadpan- ‘This. Sunday. Night. I. Will. School. Seven. Other. Motherfuckers. In-’ or how about comedy? Huh? ’Hey hey kids! You wanna hear a joke? Jack Diamond! Ba-dum-tiss! And speaking of Jack Diamond, why’s he called The Ace Of Spades? There’s gotta be a more fitting card he could use for his nickname… ah! I know! He’s a fuckin’ joker! Hue hue hue hue!’”
“You just ripped off Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons.”
“Wrong. Krusty never said ‘Fuck’ on The Simpsons. Fact.”
“You literally just did the voice.”
“Well make up your mind then, Mr. Director! What do you want me to be? Huh?” Steele spat.
“Just be yourself, Boss.” said Danny.
“What’s the point in being an actor if I’m just gonna play myself?” Steele muttered. “Who am I? John Cena? Alright- fine. Have it YOUR way, Mr. Kubrick. You want gritty realism, then I’ll give you gritty realism!”
Steele motioned for Danny to start filming again, before taking up a position once more leaning across the top rope.
“Do you know what it’s like to be disregarded? Pushed aside? Thought of as a ‘non-starter?’ What am I saying? Of course you do. Whoever you are, out there watching this on your computer monitor or your tiny little phone screen, you know damn well what it’s like to be a nobody. You know the crushing pain of knowing that you’ll never be able to measure up… that you’ll never get what you want out of life.”
“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. I’ve had those thoughts, too. All through my life, people have told me that I can’t do this, can’t do that, that I’ll never amount to anything. I’ve felt the pain that you feel every day.”
“The only difference is, you all deserve it, and I don’t. Because for nigh-on three decades, I’ve scraped and struggled, I’ve shed blood, sweat and tears to fight to where I am now. The highest highs of your pathetic lives couldn’t even live up to my most miserable lows.”
Steele spoke in a calm and measured voice, each word resounding as if he truly believed all of it.
Which of course, he did.
“I wasn’t content with just being the most profitable and sought-after male star in the adult entertainment world. After a while, doing what most of you out there would give both your nuts for as a freakin’ day job grew… tedious. I was done with it. I had achieved one dream and knocked it out of the park, and so I turned to my second love. Professional wrestling.”
“In my rookie year- not just with the XHF but my rookie fucking year, period- I cemented my legacy as one of the XHF’s top attractions of all time by becoming a two-time world champion and winning the End Of Days tournament… yet still, that’s somehow not enough for some people.”
“Despite all of the evidence pointing towards me, lesser wrestlers like Shawn Rossdale don’t give me the respect I deserve. They think that a lucky win over me is enough to catapult them to my level. Well they’re wrong. Worse still, the biggest travesty of all, is that I’m not the favorite to win the X-Crown at Night Of Champions. Anomaly - a man who chickened out of a match against me until two others, two others who he knows he could stand a chance of beating, were booked to face me - seems to be odd-on to win on Sunday night.”
Steele narrowed his eyes. He was in serious mode.
“I promise you, that I will not let that happen.”
“Anomoly… in fact, everybody in this match, but this goes double for you, masked man… you’re not going to stand in the way of me getting what I want, what I deserve. Redemption. Acclaim. Adulation. A standing ovation. The pinnacle, the summit, the crowning glory, they all belong to ME and me alone, I WILL be the next X-Crown Champion, I don’t care if I have to tear each and every person in that match limb-from limb, grinding the skin from their empty heads up against cage walls, I will do whatever it takes to make sure that this Sunday, I walk out of that arena with eighteen championship titles in my posession!”
*clap* ... *clap* ... *clap*
Steele’s attention snapped away from the camera as he heard slow clapping behind him. He turned and looked toward the source of the sound, coming from the small entrance lobby.
“Del! You ruined my fucking flow!” he shouted. But it wasn’t Del who walked out.
His heart stopped when he saw her. Shoulder-length brown hair, legs that went all the way to eleven. She walked out into the light as she continued clapping.
“S- Stacey?” he gasped.
He dropped to the canvas and rolled under the bottom rope, still unable to believe what he was seeing. She came closer to him.
“What… what are you doing h-”
She swung a vicious right hand and slapped him hard across the face. A deep red mark appeared on Steele’s cheek, and began to ooze blood. She slipped the engagement ring from her finger, and thrust it into his hand.
“I… I probably…”
“Deserved that?” she said. “Yeah, you’re damn right you deserved that.”
Steele wiped away some of the blood from his cheek, still too stunned to understand. “But why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to help you. But I couldn’t get through to you.” She glanced at Danny. “Lucky for you, Danny called me.”
“You called her?” Steele slurred. Danny nodded.
“Yeah. After seeing you in that bar looking at… well, after seeing you basically being you for two weeks, I didn’t know what else to do. It’s obvious that you needed someone who knows you to keep you in check, keep you motivated, like. After all, I’m a security guard. I ain’t a manager.”
“You’re gonna manage me again?” Steele asked, still shocked. eXXXstacy just glared at him.
“You think that after you had me dragged out of our wedding I’m gonna just come running back to you and pretend like nothing ever happened? Nuh-uh. No way, Jose.”
“Then…” Steele spluttered, incredibly confused. “Why the hell are you here?” he repeated.
She crossed her arms and set her jaw. “Because… even after everything you did to me, I still care. Enough not to want to watch you implode anyway. And you should be fucking thankful for that because I don’t think there’s a lot of women out there who would be nearly as insane as I apparently am.”
“I’ve known a few who were pretty batshit…” Danny added, ever so helpfully. Both Steele and eXXXstacy glared at him, and he held his hands up with a ‘what did I do?’ expression on his face.
“I’ve been watching the shitshow over the past few months since you dumped me, and I know you’re better than all of this. Selling out and crapping all over AWF? Multiple arrests? Fighting with reporters? Riling up angry Londoners after England got knocked out of the World Cup? Throwing people through windows? It’s not you, Richard. I don’t know what happened to you, it’s like I don’t know who you are any more. I don’t think you know who you are…”
“I know exactly who I am!” Steele protested.
“Then why can’t you even decide who you’re cutting a fucking promo as? Danny’s right, you don’t suit all gloomy and dramatic. You’re energetic, you’re fun, you’re full of life and optimism. Or at least, you were. Now you just sound like everybody else out there, using all these big words and crowing about destiny and shit like that. You sound like you’re at a fucking poetry jam.”
Steele said nothing, he swallowed - perhaps it was his pride - as her words sunk in.
“I don’t want to see you fail. I never have, and I never will.” eXXXstacy said. “But I think you’re doomed to fail if you carry on like this.”
“Then… then come back to me.” Steele said, weakly.
She shook her head.
“I… I can’t. I can only do so much to rescue you this time.”
“So… this really is it?”
“I never said that,” she told him, “but you need to sort yourself out first.”
“What if I win on Sunday? Will you come back then?”
“It’s not as simple as that, Richard. It’s not just a yes/no, ‘checkbox’ answer. It's not an XBox achievement...‘Win title to unlock manager…’”
Steele sighed and cast his eyes down.
“Well I just wanted you to know, that I’m sorry for what I put you through. It’s… it’s been eating me up for the past few months. I know that won’t go any way towards making you forgive me-”
“It’s a start” she said, interrupting him. “But I can’t forgive you yet. You can apologise for what you did to me but you can’t just say ‘sorry’ to me for what you did to yourself. You’ve got to win this on your own, Richard. To prove that you can do this without me standing behind you.”
Steele nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“And if you win, you’ve got to acknowledge that it isn’t because you were owed some debt from the Universe or something. You don’t deserve any more than the work you put into getting it. That’s a fact of life. You didn’t win those titles in AWF because ‘you’re Jackson fucking Steele and you’re the Real Deal’, you won them because you believed that despite the odds against you, you could do it; because you knew that every single move you made in a match your opponents were trying to get one step ahead of you, because you knew exactly what you needed to do to get the job done.”
“So now you have to decide what your real goal is. Win the X-Crown and feel like you’ve won at life, that’s it, Jackson Steele’s the king of the world and there’s nothing more to do here? Or try and repair our friendship? Winning the X-Crown isn’t the be-all-end-all between us, but it’ll go a hell of a long way towards convincing me you’re getting your act together. Because, and this is just me being honest, that if you go in there with the mindset that you’re going to win because you’re owed a victory, then you are going to fail. Spectacularly.”
Steele considered her words, and let them sink in as he tried to make sense of everything that was happening.
“Well… I think this is the first time you’ve ever made me feel smaller…” he said, half-jokingly.
She tried not to laugh, so as not to downplay the message she was trying to convey. “Never my intention. I want you to remember who you are, who you always were. Because if you can do that, then come Sunday night you’ll be the biggest man on the planet.”
Steele opened his mouth to speak but she held up a finger to stop him. He wisely followed suit.
eXXXstacy turned, and quickly walked back to the locker room.
“Wait… Stacey!” Steele called out to her.
“Show me who you are, and then we’ll talk.” She replied, without turning back.
Steele could only watch, frozen to the spot as she disappeared into the lobby. The sound of the door opening and closing was heard. And then, silence.
Steele just stood where he was, his chest heaving as a flood of adrenaline and emotions coursed through his body.
What if she was right? What if he had become his own worst enemy? What if he didn’t have what it takes to win the big one any more? Steele’s age-old predilection for self-doubt began to creep back into his brain.
”No.” he thought. ”I’m not going to let myself fail now.”
He vowed that if it was the last thing he ever did, he would win that X-Crown Championship on Sunday. And he’d win her back too.
Steele was awoken from his daydreaming by the sound of a locker room door opening behind him. He began to turn, feeling like he was living in slow-motion, as a voice called out;
“What do you think?” Del shouted, his voice muffled. Steele turned round, and was greeted by the sight of Del Trevor, all six-foot-eight and 283 pounds of him crammed into a tight leather bondage suit, a gimp mask pulled over his head and the zipper on the mouth flapping about as he spoke.
“It’s all I could find that fit me” he added.
Steele sighed. “You look like Big Black Cat’s bigger, gayer brother.”
Standing with his back to the ring in the same run-down wrestling gym in East London that he had flounced out of a few days previous, he recounted his daring tale of escapism to Danny Boy Davis.
“Nothing? What do you mean nothing?” Danny said in disbelief.
“I mean ‘nothing.’ Nada. Zip. Zilch. Do I have to spell it out in cockney rhyming slang?” Steele replied with exuberance.
“You threw some geezer through a plate glass window.” Danny hit back. “You can’t have gotten away scot-free.”
Steele said nothing back. He just gave a wry grin.
“Oh come on,” said Danny, “I saw the coppers throw you in the back of that van. You punched one of ‘em across the face and puked all up another one’s trousers. There’s no way they just let you go without pressing charges for that.”
Steele turned to face Danny, he was oozing a cocksure aura that certainly didn’t belong to a man who less than twelve hours ago was sobering up in police custody for the second time in a fortnight.
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Daniel,” said Steele, “I have very deep pockets.”
“Fuck off.” Came the brusque reply from Danny. “This ain’t Mexico. You can’t go about bribing British coppers.”
Jackson simply offered up a shrug. “Apparently, you can. Well, not the coppers, no. But I know a lot of people in high places, V knows a lot of people in high places, and you’d be surprised at who you can convince, even in the face of all the evidence, that you’re completely and utterly innocent of all wrongdoing with a little palm-greasing.”
“And V was fine with all of this? Getting you off the hook despite dragging his company through the mud?” Danny responded with renewed doubt.
Steele grimaced. “Er, not entirely. But come on, what’s a little fracas in a wine shop? Wrestlers have done a lot worse before and nobody gives a shit two weeks later…”
He paused as Danny stared him down, not entirely convinced that he was hearing the full story.
“...alright, fine! Yeah, V was pretty fucking pissed off about it all to be fair, but I know he knows that I’m too hot a potato for him to drop! Do you really think he’d shit-can me just three days before I bring the X-Crown back to AXW? He’d be fucking insane. He knows as well as anybody that if he did that, I could take those titles straight over to RSW or GUNS, or hell, I bet even Felix Ziko himself would be crawling on his hands and knees begging me to go back to AWF if it meant he got to keep the top prize in his company.”
“Right…” Danny said, still sounding unsure. “Look Boss, I know how you made your name in the porno business, there’s no shame in-”
“ARE YOU SAYING I SUCKED COCKS TO GET OUT OF JAIL?” Steele boomed back. “Because I categorically DENY those accusations! And if you so much as ever even THINK about it again I will sue you so fucking hard!”
Danny chuckled as he held his hands up, “Alright, alright! Jesus, I was just havin’ a fuckin’ giraffe, Boss.”
From the ferocity of Steele’s denial, however, Danny began to think that he may have hit too close to home. He couldn’t quite tell whether his theory had been on the money, or if Steele was just sore about having his less-than-auspicious start in the adult movie business brought up.
“Well you can take that giraffe back to whatever sick and sordid zoo you got it from. Those days are long behind me now, and that’s a FACT. You might not believe it but when the shit hits the fan, Jackson Steele always finds an umbrella. Or a way out, in this case. I got out of the cells with my slate wiped clean, and I’ll find a way out of the cells again on Sunday only this time the slate is going to read; ’JACKSON STEELE IS THE NEW X-CROWN CHAMPION!’”
Danny nodded. “Alright, save it for the promo, yeah? That’s a good line, actually.”
“Of course it’s a good fucking line. It’s my line!” Steele retorted.
Suddenly the door squeaked, and Del Trevor walked into the gym holding a rather bulky old-school camera, and shadowed by a skinny lad in a singlet.
“Who’s this streak of piss?” Jackson demanded. The young man looked to the floor.
“Well, tell him!” prompted Del.
The boy spoke up, albeit quietly. “J- James Mayfield…” he stammered.
Jackson looked at Del, his forehead wrinkled with a scowl. “How the fuck am I meant to look good against a fucking jobber?” he seethed.
“He was all I could find at short notice, Boss!” Del pleaded, on the defensive.
“Short notice is right!” Jackson quipped, “He can’t be more than five-foot-six!”
James Mayfield avoided Jackson’s harsh and critical gaze. Del put an uncharacteristically sympathetic arm around the young man’s shoulder.
“Alright kid, yer sacked. Fack off.” said Del, slapping the boy on the back. James Mayfield turned, and forlornly walked back out the way he came.
“You know we’re in a wrestling school, right?” Danny asked Del. “Why didn’t you just hire one of the students?”
Del looked a bit gormless. “Oh. Didn’t fink about that to be honest. Shall I have a look at the list now?”
Steele waved him off. “Don’t bother, we haven’t got time. You’ll have to do it.”
“Me, Boss?” Del asked him. Steele rolled his eyes.
“Yes, you!”
“But… won’t it look all hokey if it’s obviously me taking it easy on you?”
Del had a point. Why go to the trouble of making a video package that highlighted Steele’s in-ring prowess if his overwhlemed opponent was clearly just a lackey on his payroll?
Steele considered Del’s argument.
“Don’t be stupid, nobody fucking knows who you are.” he said. “But if you’re really that worried about it then put a fucking costume on. Strap a tea-towel to your head and we’ll say you’re some evil Arab oil baron who wants to bring down the decadent West or some shit like that. I don’t care, just get your gear on and let’s do this.”
Danny nodded towards the office. “I think I saw a box of gimmicks in there, bruv. Why don’t you go and have a butcher’s, yeah?”
Del nodded, and handed off the cameras to Danny before making his way over to the office. Danny looked at the ancient recording device and tried to figure it out.
“Jesus… never mind the jobber, where the fuck did he get this thing from? S4C?”
Steele didn’t understand the joke. “Just get it working, Danny. I can feel my creative juices flowing.”
Danny replied under his breath, “Are you sure that’s not just the oxygen replacing the alcohol in your brain?”
“Hmm?” Steele asked.
“Nuffink, Boss. I think I’ve got it going now.”
Steele paced around in the ring, performing what appeared to be very laid-back warming up and stretching exercises, paying particular attention to his throat and vocal cords.
“Alright, ready when you are.” Danny shot Steele a thumbs-up, and almost dropped the monster of a camera.
Steele faced the camera and struck a strong and heroic pose.
“Three nights. Three nights are all that remain. Sunday, July 29th at the XHF Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the time and the place. The event - the end of the world as we know it. Ever since the XHF came back into existence as the XHF Network, it has been crying out, yearning, for one man to step forward, to stand tall and rise above all others… to take his rightful place as not just the champion of the world, but the champion of all champions! To be the man who earns the right to hold those eighteen golden belts that represent everything that humanity aspires for… to sweep aside the pretenders who have gone before! The lunatic! The pig! The President, the Human Hashtag, the Icon and the so-called Messiah!”
Steele slowly strode towards the camera, his burning glare threatening to focus through the lens and set the camera itself on fire.
“And that man… is.. me. That destiny… the glory… is mine!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Steele could see Danny grimacing somewhat.
“What?” he said. “What’s fucking wrong with that? That was perfect! One take! That’s all I need!”
Danny didn’t agree. “I dunno Boss, it just… it doesn’t feel like ‘you’ though, does it?”
“What do you mean” Steele asked.
“Well… it’s a bit dramatic, a bit too brooding and foreboding. You don’t really seem like that sort of guy.”
Steele looked mildly hurt by Danny’s remark. “I have a lot of range.”
Danny shook his head again. “This is an ultra-hardcore match. Why don’t you go for something with a bit more… oomph? A bit more impact?” he suggested.
“Alright.” Steele nodded, psyching himself up, jumping up and down on the spot, slapping his face to get himself into ‘the zone.’ As soon as Danny raised the camera again, Steele snapped towards it, leaning across the top rope and getting right up into the lens.
“Three nights! Three nights are all that remain!” he snarled. Danny lowered the camera.
“Are you just gonna do the same script?” he asked.
“Well I was gonna change it up!” Steele protested. Danny shrugged, and shouldered the camera again.
“Three nights are all that remain!” Steele continued. “Sunday night, I’m gonna bring the WHOLE WORLD crashing down on seven other human beings! Haha, I can almost taste the carnage now! Four rings surrounded by unforgiving steel mesh, stripping flesh from bone, spilling blood and guts! But what really excites me the most is that everybody thinks I’m going to be trapped in there with them… but in reality, they’re gonna be the ones trapped inside with ME!”
“Alright, hang on” said Danny as he halted proceedings again.
“What’s wrong this time?” demanded Steele, perplexed and exasperated.
“Well… this whole ‘I’m not trapped in there with you, you’re trapped in there with me’ schtick… it’s a bit old-hat now, innit? It’s been done to death.”
“You’ll be fucking done to death if you don’t let me just finish one bastard promo…” Steele warned. “So what do you want me to do? Do you want me to do deadpan? I can do deadpan- ‘This. Sunday. Night. I. Will. School. Seven. Other. Motherfuckers. In-’ or how about comedy? Huh? ’Hey hey kids! You wanna hear a joke? Jack Diamond! Ba-dum-tiss! And speaking of Jack Diamond, why’s he called The Ace Of Spades? There’s gotta be a more fitting card he could use for his nickname… ah! I know! He’s a fuckin’ joker! Hue hue hue hue!’”
“You just ripped off Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons.”
“Wrong. Krusty never said ‘Fuck’ on The Simpsons. Fact.”
“You literally just did the voice.”
“Well make up your mind then, Mr. Director! What do you want me to be? Huh?” Steele spat.
“Just be yourself, Boss.” said Danny.
“What’s the point in being an actor if I’m just gonna play myself?” Steele muttered. “Who am I? John Cena? Alright- fine. Have it YOUR way, Mr. Kubrick. You want gritty realism, then I’ll give you gritty realism!”
Steele motioned for Danny to start filming again, before taking up a position once more leaning across the top rope.
“Do you know what it’s like to be disregarded? Pushed aside? Thought of as a ‘non-starter?’ What am I saying? Of course you do. Whoever you are, out there watching this on your computer monitor or your tiny little phone screen, you know damn well what it’s like to be a nobody. You know the crushing pain of knowing that you’ll never be able to measure up… that you’ll never get what you want out of life.”
“I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. I’ve had those thoughts, too. All through my life, people have told me that I can’t do this, can’t do that, that I’ll never amount to anything. I’ve felt the pain that you feel every day.”
“The only difference is, you all deserve it, and I don’t. Because for nigh-on three decades, I’ve scraped and struggled, I’ve shed blood, sweat and tears to fight to where I am now. The highest highs of your pathetic lives couldn’t even live up to my most miserable lows.”
Steele spoke in a calm and measured voice, each word resounding as if he truly believed all of it.
Which of course, he did.
“I wasn’t content with just being the most profitable and sought-after male star in the adult entertainment world. After a while, doing what most of you out there would give both your nuts for as a freakin’ day job grew… tedious. I was done with it. I had achieved one dream and knocked it out of the park, and so I turned to my second love. Professional wrestling.”
“In my rookie year- not just with the XHF but my rookie fucking year, period- I cemented my legacy as one of the XHF’s top attractions of all time by becoming a two-time world champion and winning the End Of Days tournament… yet still, that’s somehow not enough for some people.”
“Despite all of the evidence pointing towards me, lesser wrestlers like Shawn Rossdale don’t give me the respect I deserve. They think that a lucky win over me is enough to catapult them to my level. Well they’re wrong. Worse still, the biggest travesty of all, is that I’m not the favorite to win the X-Crown at Night Of Champions. Anomaly - a man who chickened out of a match against me until two others, two others who he knows he could stand a chance of beating, were booked to face me - seems to be odd-on to win on Sunday night.”
Steele narrowed his eyes. He was in serious mode.
“I promise you, that I will not let that happen.”
“Anomoly… in fact, everybody in this match, but this goes double for you, masked man… you’re not going to stand in the way of me getting what I want, what I deserve. Redemption. Acclaim. Adulation. A standing ovation. The pinnacle, the summit, the crowning glory, they all belong to ME and me alone, I WILL be the next X-Crown Champion, I don’t care if I have to tear each and every person in that match limb-from limb, grinding the skin from their empty heads up against cage walls, I will do whatever it takes to make sure that this Sunday, I walk out of that arena with eighteen championship titles in my posession!”
*clap* ... *clap* ... *clap*
Steele’s attention snapped away from the camera as he heard slow clapping behind him. He turned and looked toward the source of the sound, coming from the small entrance lobby.
“Del! You ruined my fucking flow!” he shouted. But it wasn’t Del who walked out.
His heart stopped when he saw her. Shoulder-length brown hair, legs that went all the way to eleven. She walked out into the light as she continued clapping.
“S- Stacey?” he gasped.
He dropped to the canvas and rolled under the bottom rope, still unable to believe what he was seeing. She came closer to him.
“What… what are you doing h-”
She swung a vicious right hand and slapped him hard across the face. A deep red mark appeared on Steele’s cheek, and began to ooze blood. She slipped the engagement ring from her finger, and thrust it into his hand.
“I… I probably…”
“Deserved that?” she said. “Yeah, you’re damn right you deserved that.”
Steele wiped away some of the blood from his cheek, still too stunned to understand. “But why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to help you. But I couldn’t get through to you.” She glanced at Danny. “Lucky for you, Danny called me.”
“You called her?” Steele slurred. Danny nodded.
“Yeah. After seeing you in that bar looking at… well, after seeing you basically being you for two weeks, I didn’t know what else to do. It’s obvious that you needed someone who knows you to keep you in check, keep you motivated, like. After all, I’m a security guard. I ain’t a manager.”
“You’re gonna manage me again?” Steele asked, still shocked. eXXXstacy just glared at him.
“You think that after you had me dragged out of our wedding I’m gonna just come running back to you and pretend like nothing ever happened? Nuh-uh. No way, Jose.”
“Then…” Steele spluttered, incredibly confused. “Why the hell are you here?” he repeated.
She crossed her arms and set her jaw. “Because… even after everything you did to me, I still care. Enough not to want to watch you implode anyway. And you should be fucking thankful for that because I don’t think there’s a lot of women out there who would be nearly as insane as I apparently am.”
“I’ve known a few who were pretty batshit…” Danny added, ever so helpfully. Both Steele and eXXXstacy glared at him, and he held his hands up with a ‘what did I do?’ expression on his face.
“I’ve been watching the shitshow over the past few months since you dumped me, and I know you’re better than all of this. Selling out and crapping all over AWF? Multiple arrests? Fighting with reporters? Riling up angry Londoners after England got knocked out of the World Cup? Throwing people through windows? It’s not you, Richard. I don’t know what happened to you, it’s like I don’t know who you are any more. I don’t think you know who you are…”
“I know exactly who I am!” Steele protested.
“Then why can’t you even decide who you’re cutting a fucking promo as? Danny’s right, you don’t suit all gloomy and dramatic. You’re energetic, you’re fun, you’re full of life and optimism. Or at least, you were. Now you just sound like everybody else out there, using all these big words and crowing about destiny and shit like that. You sound like you’re at a fucking poetry jam.”
Steele said nothing, he swallowed - perhaps it was his pride - as her words sunk in.
“I don’t want to see you fail. I never have, and I never will.” eXXXstacy said. “But I think you’re doomed to fail if you carry on like this.”
“Then… then come back to me.” Steele said, weakly.
She shook her head.
“I… I can’t. I can only do so much to rescue you this time.”
“So… this really is it?”
“I never said that,” she told him, “but you need to sort yourself out first.”
“What if I win on Sunday? Will you come back then?”
“It’s not as simple as that, Richard. It’s not just a yes/no, ‘checkbox’ answer. It's not an XBox achievement...‘Win title to unlock manager…’”
Steele sighed and cast his eyes down.
“Well I just wanted you to know, that I’m sorry for what I put you through. It’s… it’s been eating me up for the past few months. I know that won’t go any way towards making you forgive me-”
“It’s a start” she said, interrupting him. “But I can’t forgive you yet. You can apologise for what you did to me but you can’t just say ‘sorry’ to me for what you did to yourself. You’ve got to win this on your own, Richard. To prove that you can do this without me standing behind you.”
Steele nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
“And if you win, you’ve got to acknowledge that it isn’t because you were owed some debt from the Universe or something. You don’t deserve any more than the work you put into getting it. That’s a fact of life. You didn’t win those titles in AWF because ‘you’re Jackson fucking Steele and you’re the Real Deal’, you won them because you believed that despite the odds against you, you could do it; because you knew that every single move you made in a match your opponents were trying to get one step ahead of you, because you knew exactly what you needed to do to get the job done.”
“So now you have to decide what your real goal is. Win the X-Crown and feel like you’ve won at life, that’s it, Jackson Steele’s the king of the world and there’s nothing more to do here? Or try and repair our friendship? Winning the X-Crown isn’t the be-all-end-all between us, but it’ll go a hell of a long way towards convincing me you’re getting your act together. Because, and this is just me being honest, that if you go in there with the mindset that you’re going to win because you’re owed a victory, then you are going to fail. Spectacularly.”
Steele considered her words, and let them sink in as he tried to make sense of everything that was happening.
“Well… I think this is the first time you’ve ever made me feel smaller…” he said, half-jokingly.
She tried not to laugh, so as not to downplay the message she was trying to convey. “Never my intention. I want you to remember who you are, who you always were. Because if you can do that, then come Sunday night you’ll be the biggest man on the planet.”
Steele opened his mouth to speak but she held up a finger to stop him. He wisely followed suit.
eXXXstacy turned, and quickly walked back to the locker room.
“Wait… Stacey!” Steele called out to her.
“Show me who you are, and then we’ll talk.” She replied, without turning back.
Steele could only watch, frozen to the spot as she disappeared into the lobby. The sound of the door opening and closing was heard. And then, silence.
Steele just stood where he was, his chest heaving as a flood of adrenaline and emotions coursed through his body.
What if she was right? What if he had become his own worst enemy? What if he didn’t have what it takes to win the big one any more? Steele’s age-old predilection for self-doubt began to creep back into his brain.
”No.” he thought. ”I’m not going to let myself fail now.”
He vowed that if it was the last thing he ever did, he would win that X-Crown Championship on Sunday. And he’d win her back too.
Bonus Additional Ending Scene!
“What do you think?” Del shouted, his voice muffled. Steele turned round, and was greeted by the sight of Del Trevor, all six-foot-eight and 283 pounds of him crammed into a tight leather bondage suit, a gimp mask pulled over his head and the zipper on the mouth flapping about as he spoke.
“It’s all I could find that fit me” he added.
Steele sighed. “You look like Big Black Cat’s bigger, gayer brother.”