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blow-dried my hair. It was ridiculous. I didn’t expect to meet him or anything—it was enough just to see him in the flesh—but I still felt that I had to look my best. My parents glanced at each other indulgently as we took our places in the second row, content to humor this teenage crush that they thought I would grow out of one day. But that night remains one of the most memorable experiences of my life. When his coach doused him with water at the end of the second round, droplets from the bottle actually flew onto my face. Tasting water that had been in a bottle pressed to his mouth, sucking my lower lip, I convinced myself that this was the next best thing to sucking the man himself.
    I never got over this teenage crush. I finished school, left home, and entered the work world, but I still followed his career and attended every fight I could. I always sat in one of the front few rows, no matter how much it cost me. And I always looked my best for him. Sometimes I’d close my eyes and silently will him to win. Other times I’d get to my feet and cheer him on with an enthusiasm that bordered on sexual hysteria. During the mundane moments of my life, I could always imagine his gloved hands held aloft in victory at the end of the match, and I’d quiver and fantasize that he was waiting for me at home.
    By the time I was in my early twenties, I noticed that he wasn’t winning as often as he used to. Something was wrong. From my seat in the front row, I could see a few wrinkles in that craggy, broken face, flecks of gray in his once-blond hair. He was still by far the most masculine and powerful man I’d ever set eyes on, but the cracks were starting to show. His new scars took longer to heal. I wanted to take him to bed and slowly, tenderly, heal ingly make love to him.
    I took lovers in the meantime, of course. Some of them teased me about my scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings and the pictures I kept on my walls. But none of them ever guessed that every time we fucked I would close my eyes and think of my strong boxer pressing deep inside me. I found that fantasizing about him was the only way I could climax.
     
     
     
    On the night of his worst defeat I was there as usual, dressed to the nines, hoping that the more dazzling I looked, the stronger he would be. I was twenty-five, and he was nearly forty. I had been in love with him for eleven years. It was irrational, but this obsession was now beyond any logic. I was in my usual front-row seat. I had become such a regular fixture over the years that the other die-hard fans, managers, agents, and journalists would spot me, and we nodded our recognition to each other. I was on the edge of my seat as he made his big entrance, rock music blaring through the speakers. His body was bulky and ripped in red silk shorts, his solid thighs tapering into strong calves in boxing boots, and then there was that torso that had suffered a thousand punches. I had made love to every inch of that body in my dreams and fantasies.
    He fought a boxer almost half his age, and I watched as my baby took blow after blow after blow. His dignity moved me almost to tears as his glistening body struggled to meet his opponent. My fighter was strong, but he wasn’t as fast or agile as he’d once been. He managed to plant a few killer blows that had me leaping to my feet and cheering him on, but they were not enough. He just didn’t see the young man’s punches coming.
    The fight was over in less than three minutes. I saw him take a blow to the cheek and sway for a few seconds before collapsing to the floor. It was heartbreaking, like watching a weathered oak tree felled by a spring gale. Blood and saliva flew through the air and landed on the mat. I leaped to my feet, silently willing him to wake up, be strong, fight again, but he stayed where he was, not coming to for eleven seconds. When he opened his blue eyes they were glassy and unfocused. He blinked as the photographers’ flashbulbs