the U.S.S. Millicent Kent: the U.S.S. Millicent Kent, power-body portrait
#1 Singles on the Girls 16’s-A squad and two hundred kilos if she was a kilo. Southpaw, one-hander off the backhand side, a serve Donnie Stott likes to clock with radar, and chart. [...] One of only a couple female E.T.A.s with visible veins in her forearms, object of a fiercely-wagered-on bench-press challenge against Schacht, Freer, and Petropolis Kahn that M. Pemulis had organized last spring, in which she’d topped Kahn and Freer refused to show and Schacht finally beat her but doffed his cap.
Context
The academy sees its players first as bodies and games, and the U.S.S. Millicent Kent gets the full scouting-report treatment: "#1 Singles... Southpaw, one-hander off the backhand side, a serve Donnie Stott likes to clock with radar, and chart." She's a power-game body — "visible veins in her forearms," strong enough to out-bench most of the boys, "topped Kahn" and made Schacht work for it. It's a loving portrait of raw physical capacity, the body itemized by stroke and strength. (That she'd secretly rather do interpretive dance — the talent-vs-love split — is the sad joke the regimen doesn't hear.)