Tender heard loud voices as she rushed back to the dressing room to freshen up before she came out to work the crowd.

“Bitch, you had a lot mouth earlier. Where’s all dat slick shit you wuz sayin’ now? Huh? Can’t front witout ya friends?” Tender paused to see who was talking. It was Cookie.

“Ho, you heard what the fuck I said!” Kat spat. “I ain’t gonna bite my tongue. You’s a fake-ass, low-budget, wannabe me. Did you hear dat?”

Kat was surrounded by the enemy—four rough ghetto girls. But she wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of chumping her. As soon as the words left her mouth, she hauled off and punched Cookie, the closest to her.

Cookie’s head whipped back violently from the blow. She was caught off guard. Instantly, her friends pounced on Kat.

Tender turned on her heels to find Goldie, who was giving a lap dance to a guy. Tender snatched her off the customer’s lap and pulled her toward the dressing room.

“Hey, hey!” The guy jumped up.

“What’s wrong?” Goldie asked, not missing a beat, following Tender wherever she was taking her.

“Kat’s getting jumped!” After she said that, Tender noticed a subtle resistance from Goldie. She made a mental note of Goldie’s hesitation but continued on. Before reaching the dressing room, Tender grabbed a half empty bottle of Heineken that stood abandoned on one of the tables.

Kat was tussling with Cookie when they stepped in. The other three girls took turns sucker punching her. Tender sprung into action like a bat out of hell and joined the melee, trying to break the Heineken bottle on somebody’s head.

Goldie, in the meantime, was issuing love taps. She was only trying to do enough to say she helped and not much more.

“Get off her!” Goldie shouted. The woman had begun to get back anyway. Tender was in shape, strong and fast. Kat didn’t have enough though. It wasn’t over till she got all the licks she wanted in. She initiated round two, taking wild swings at her opponents. She was mad enough to seriously hurt somebody. In a blink of an eye, chairs went flying and there were bites, scratches and screams. Hair extensions, tracks and blood lay on the floor.

All the commotion in the locker room drew the attention of the club’s bouncers, who came in and separated the two parties as the women continued to toss threats back and forth between them.

Kat was pleasantly surprised to know that Tender had that much fight in her. She wondered if she could beat Tender in a fair one.