Elliptigirl - A Love Story Pt. 01

I saw her first. I was spotting for Derrick when she came in my line of sight. I supposed she was pretty, with her long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and her hourglass figure squeezed into a pair of stretchy shorts and a tank top. She was gloriously curvy—big hips, big breasts, beautifully rounded out stomach, all of which is certainly my preference—but there was also something about her that was off-putting. She was closed off and timid as she climbed onto a nearby elliptical trainer and selected a particularly difficult hill-climbing program, all the while casting her eyes about the gym as though scanning for potential attacks. She was stiff, and she remained hunched over even after she'd selected her workout. There was something about her that was...I don't know. Forbidding? Defensive? I couldn't place it. Then she plugged in her headphones, and she was off.

I'd seen countless women climb onto elliptical machines, put on their music, and zone out for forty-five minutes, but that wasn't this girl. I don't know what she was listening to, but it wasn't distracting her from putting her all into her workout. I let my gaze wander over her and settle on her ass and thighs, where I could see her muscles straining to climb the pretend hills.

"What are you looking at?" Derrick's voice crashed into my thoughts with all the subtlety of a bulldozer, and I looked around at him.

"Hmm?"

"I said, what are you looking at?"

"Nothing...just zoned out for a minute," I said quickly. I knew Derrick wouldn't approve of my little reverie. Derrick is one of those people who follows and values just about every toxic societal standard in existence. He therefore has a very limited view of human beauty and human potential. I could only imagine what he would say if he knew I was admiring the ass of a plus-sized girl as she worked out. Alas, I was too slow to cover my tracks.

"Aw, Jesus," Derrick muttered as he caught sight of the girl on the elliptical. "No one wants to see that."

I sighed internally but said nothing. Derrick and I had been friends since we were a couple of bug-eating six-year-olds. We had a lot in common back then, but the older we got, the further apart we grew. Now, as we hit twenty-five and were starting our adult lives, I was beginning to look for ways to end the friendship. It was a difficult task, made no easier by the fact that we were housemates. But Derrick had recently become less tolerant than ever before of anyone who wasn't perfectly beautiful, perfectly able, and perfectly successful, however he tabulated those things.

"Who does she think she's kidding?" he asked, nudging me in the ribs. "Why would you even go out looking like that?"

"She's just trying to live her life," I murmured as I returned the weights to the racks. "She's not hurting anyone."

"She's hurting my eyes," he groused. "Look at her, she's not even using the right machine! If she really wants to lose weight she should be running or lifting weights. Course, she could only probably lift about three pounds. Christ, I'm sick of fat people joining gyms and not even putting in the work." With that, he threw down his towel and, before I could point out that maybe she wasn't trying to lose weight or that maybe she just liked the elliptical, he began marching over to her. I snapped up his towel and followed him at a distance. What was he going to do? He'd been so quick to anger about this stuff lately; I didn't put it past him to accost this poor woman, and it looked like that was exactly what he was about to do.

"Excuse me," he said as he reached her machine and faced her, arms crossed. She didn't respond.

"EXCUSE ME," he said in a voice loud enough that she couldn't plausibly ignore it—and yet she did. She closed her eyes, turned up the volume on her phone, and kept plugging away at her workout.

"Jesus," said Derrick again before he reached out and actually grabbed one of her earbuds out of her ear.

Like a shot, she reached out and whipped it right back out of his grasp. "The fuck is the matter with you?" she spat out. Derrick seemed taken aback, and he wasn't the only one. She'd looked so cold, so nervous, that I never would have expected her to have a mouth like that. I was instantly intrigued, and I inched closer so that I was just two machines away. Closing time was approaching, and the fitness floor was almost deserted. I didn't even see a worker I could call for help.

"What's the matter with me," Derrick said in a voice edged with restrained anger, "is that you're doing the wrong workout."

"Pardon me?" she said, her eyes flashing.

"If you want to lose weight, you should really be running or lifting weights."

Her nostrils flared. "Who says I'm trying to lose weight?"

Derrick snorted and rolled his eyes. "You should be. No one wants to look like that. Look, how's this—"

"No, how's this," she cut in. "I'll let you finish your sentence unscathed if you can give me one good reason why my body and my workout are your business."

I inched even closer so that I was only a few feet away. I was impressed—no one had ever spoken back to Derrick that I could remember, and this girl was not only standing her ground but matching him blow for blow. I wanted to intervene—really, I did—but it was truly a sight to behold, and the chance to watch Derrick get his comeuppance was too enticing to pass up.

"It's my business because you and your body are an unwanted distraction to everyone else who goes to this gym. Look around you! No one else here looks like you!" He did have a point there. This particular gym was fairly ritzy and was patronized primarily by thin, fit, traditionally beautiful people. Essentially, most of the time, it was a meat market. Except for the old people who went to the senior aqua aerobics classes in the middle of the day, I don't know that I'd ever seen a woman who didn't fit the petite Pilates mom mold in the building. I half expected her to give up or walk away or burst into tears. She did none of those things.

"You want me to lose weight?" she asked.

"Yes! There's no reason for you to go out looking like that."

"But you don't want me to come to the gym?" she said calmly.

"Not looking the way you do!"

"So you want me to lose weight but not to exercise. Do I have this right?"

"Just not here. Go to the rec center or something. There's more people like you there. You'd be more comfortable."

"I'm perfectly comfortable here," she retorted as her program ended. She began putting her earbuds back in their case.

"Look!" Derrick shouted. "You don't fit in here. No one wants to see someone like you in tight clothes, getting all sweaty and huffing and puffing!"

"So if I were more attractive to you, I would be welcome here?"

Even I sensed the trap in her tone, but Derrick fell right into it.

"Yes!" he cried.

"I see," she said, climbing down from the elliptical. "Well, I have news for you, pretty boy: your tastes don't dictate who can go to this gym. You may not find me sexy or attractive, but I could lose enough weight to please even you if I wanted. But you? You're awful, and it runs so deep you may never get rid of it. I could drop enough dress sizes to earn the basic human respect I already deserve from people like you, but your shitty personality will likely be with you until the day you die. Which of us is really the ugly, unwanted loser?"

I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud. That was incredible. The sound, however, drew her attention onto me, and her eyes flashed again.

"You think that's funny, Abercrombie and Fitch?" she snapped. "You want a piece of me, too?" I looked down at my shirt, which was indeed an Abercrombie holdover from high school, looked back up at her, and shook my head mutely.

"Good," she snarled. Then she grabbed her phone and stalked off without another word, leaving nothing but a warm, sweet scent in her wake.

There was silence for a few moments as Derrick and I stood looking after her.

"Touchy bitch," he finally said. I remained quiet. I always remained quiet when Derrick went off like that. It was easier. We popped into the locker room to pick up our stuff, then made it out into the parking lot where Derrick's massive truck was waiting. We got in and started the drive home.

"What time are you leaving tomorrow?" he asked, and I could sense a mild desperation to change the subject.

"Five," I said.

"I can't believe you'll be gone for two months." I shrugged. The construction company I worked for had taken an eight-week contract in a city about four hours away, removing asbestos from a compound of old buildings that were set for remodeling. It was a pretty sweet gig. We got paid extra because it was hazardous, the work week was only four days, and the company had rented a block of rooms at the local motel for us. Most of the guys had wives and girlfriends they would be coming home to on the weekends. I just had Derrick. So far I had hedged his questions about how often I would be back, but secretly I didn't plan to return until the job was over. I figured a break from him would do me some good.

"Are you still—"

"Yes, I'm still going to pay my share of the rent. I told you. I don't want you subletting my room."

"Okay."

We made it home, and I excused myself to my room to finish packing, a task I had completed the day before, so that I could be alone to savor Derrick's encounter with the elliptical girl. I went to bed early, and I fell asleep dreaming of her ass.

The next eight weeks were pretty standard. I didn't go home once, and I think the distance did me some good. I hadn't figured out a way to end my friendship with Derrick without bolting from our house in the middle of the night, but the break from his toxic criticism of everything and everyone around him was certainly restorative.

I made it home around midnight. Derrick's truck wasn't in the driveway, which meant he was either at the gym or out trying to pick up girls at the bar. I had the next three days off, so I schlepped my suitcase up to my room and fell onto my bed fully clothed, where I fell asleep almost instantly.

The next evening found me at the gym with Derrick once more. He had to work, so we drove separately, and I arrived a little before he did. Although I didn't explicitly admit it to myself, I was hoping to see the elliptical girl again. I'd spent many nights away on the job dreaming about her body, savoring her take-down of Derrick, and, if I was honest, jerking off to both. I was setting up our weights when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up.

It was her.

It was her, but she was different. The last two months had been good to her. I couldn't tell if she'd lost weight, but her figure seemed even curvier than it had been before. There was something else, though—something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Something in the way she carried herself? She climbed onto the same elliptical trainer she had two months ago, selected her program, and began. She seemed taller somehow, more graceful. I saw Derrick walk in and begin cutting through the ellipticals to get to me. When he reached her, he said something I couldn't hear, but he didn't linger. She didn't pay him any mind, refusing to acknowledge his existence—not even deigning to look at him.

That's when it hit me—it was confidence. She wasn't hunched over on her machine, ready to pounce on anyone who approached her. She stood tall and proud (which incidentally made her breasts look even better), and she didn't care what Derrick or anyone else said to her. It was sexy as hell.

Derrick and I commenced our workout, but I couldn't stop looking over at her every few moments, watching her legs pump, her chest rise and fall, the muscles in her arms tighten and relax. Her program finished sooner than I would have liked, and she headed toward the locker rooms. I wanted to run after her, to introduce myself, but Derrick wasn't finished, and at any rate I didn't know if she would remember me from the last time we spoke—or, more accurately, the last time she yelled at me.

Eventually, Derrick finished, and we headed to the locker room.

"I'm going to shower here and head to the bar. You're coming with me," he said as we opened our lockers.

"No thanks," I said distractedly. I wasn't much for the bar scene, and anyway I had never been successful there. All I could think about was getting home, running to my bathroom, turning on a hot shower, and thinking about the elliptical girl while I rubbed one out, nice and slow.

"Aw, come on," he whined. "I've missed my wingman."

I grimaced. "I'm still really tired from the trip. I just want a quiet night at home."

"Fine," he sighed, "but it's only Friday. You're coming out with me tomorrow." I grunted noncommittally as he headed for the showers, then I grabbed my bag and raced out.

I slowed down when I made it out to the parking lot, where I took a deep breath. The late-May air was cool and fresh. It was mostly dark, but there was still a strip of pink sun on the horizon that hadn't quite set. The fountain that stood at the entrance to the gym was lit up, and the lilting sound of the flowing water was soothing. I felt in my pocket for a coin and came up with two nickels and a dime. I chose the dime, stood with my back to the fountain, and paused. What did I want to wish for? I couldn't think of anything specific. What I really wanted at that moment was for the elliptical girl to appear again, but it seemed kind of creepy to wish for that. I thought for a moment and decided to wish that something good would happen to me on the way home. I kissed the dime and threw it over my shoulder into the fountain, where it joined its wet and rusty brethren. Taking one last deep breath of air, I turned back around and began to walk toward my truck.

I had made it halfway around the fountain when I saw her. She was sitting at the edge of the fountain, reading a pretty raggedy-looking paperback, her back to the water. She must have sensed me because she looked up.

"Hello," she said softly.

"Hi!" I responded a little overenthusiastically as I cast a glance back to the area where my dime had fallen. "I—I don't suppose you remember me," I said as I sat down next to her, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.

"Abercrombie and Fitch, right?" she asked1

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Look, about that night—I'm really sorry."

"Why? You're not the one who told me I was too fat to go out in public."

I swallowed hard. I had the distinct impression that I was skating on thin ice. "I just...I just wanted to say that I wasn't laughing at you that night. It was just nice to see Derrick get taken down a couple of pegs."

She pulled a bookmark from the back of her book and placed it on her current page, snapping the book shut and looking me square in the eyes. "I shouldn't have lost my temper."

I shrugged. "He's had that coming for a long time. Believe me." Then she smiled. She smiled, and it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. It was like starlight beamed out from her lips, lighting up the now ink-black sky.

"Wow," I breathed before I could stop myself.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. There was an awkward pause. I cleared my throat and asked, hoping she couldn't hear the tremor in my voice, "Are you waiting for someone?"

She shifted so she was sitting sideways on the ledge of the fountain, facing me. "My grandma was supposed to pick me up. My car's in the shop. It's been a little while, though. I think she may have fallen asleep. That's been happening a lot lately."

"Oh," I said. Then, before I could stop myself, "Well I...I mean, I could give you a ride," I offered, crossing my fingers in my pockets. Please say yes! Please say yes!

She eyed me up and down for a few moments in an appraising sort of way, and then, apparently coming to the conclusion that I didn't look like someone who would murder her and drop her body in a ditch, she smiled again. "Okay. Okay, that would be lovely—thank you. I live over on Oak Park."

"Great! I'm parked right over here," I said as she carefully put her book in her bag, hefted the bag onto her shoulder, and followed me. We walked in silence for a few moments before she spoke.

"I haven't seen you here in a while. I assumed you'd switched gyms."

"Oh, yeah, well I've been out of town for the past few months for work."

"Really? What do you do?"

I briefly explained about the job and how I had stayed away, though I didn't mention the reason why.

"You didn't come home at all?" she asked as I opened the passenger door for her and helped her up. I dashed around to the other side and climbed up onto my seat with a sigh.

"Come home to what?"

"What do you mean?"

I sighed again and gave a small grimace. "I mean I had no reason to come home in between. I've got no girlfriend, no family around here, all my friends are from work, except for Derrick." I paused. "I'm making myself sound like a real loser, aren't I?"

She laughed, and the sound made me weak in the knees. "You don't sound like a loser," she said, patting my leg. "You just sound, well, lonely."

My skin burned where she'd touched me, and I shivered. "You could say that."

"I know what that's like," she said, leaning back into her seat.

"Oh, come on. Someone like you can't be lonely!" I said as I pulled my seatbelt over my chest and latched it.

"Someone like me?"

"Yeah. I mean you're—you're gorgeous, you're easy to talk to. You must have guys buzzing around you like flies."

She snorted. "Not in this body." She was silent for a moment. "Oh, I shouldn't complain. I have family close by. I have a good job. I have a stunningly handsome cat. I'm lucky."

"Stunningly handsome cat?" I asked with a laugh as I pulled out of my parking space.

"Yeah. He's a real looker. What'd you think I was going to say? Boyfriend?"

"Kinda, yeah."

She snorted again. "I repeat, not in this body."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I thought it was pretty obvious that I was into her, and a big part of it was her body. Did she think I'd offered her a ride just to be nice? I don't flatter myself that I'm that altruistic. On the other hand, telling her that I'd only offered her a ride home because I found her captivatingly beautiful might give her the wrong impression.

"There's not a damn thing wrong with your body," I finally said, keeping my eyes firmly on the road. Still, I could see her head turn toward me in my peripheral. I chanced a glance at her and saw that she had raised one eyebrow in an unmistakable gesture of disbelief. "I'm serious," I continued. I took a deep breath and decided to come clean. "Do you know why Derrick attacked you that night?"

"Hmph. He made that pretty clear."

"Right," I conceded, "but he only noticed you because he caught me staring at you. He probably would have left you alone otherwise."

"You were staring at me? Why?"

"Why? Because...because at the end of the day I'm just like any other straight guy, and when I see a beautiful woman with a beautiful ass squeezed into tiny shorts, I'm going to stare. I'm not subtle."

At that she burst out laughing, and I looked over just in time to see her smile before she covered her mouth with her hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, I'm really not."

"Laugh away," I said. "Just gives me more chances to see that smile." She looked over at me as I pulled onto Oak Park Avenue. "Which one's you?" I asked.

"The little red brick one here," she said, pointing out the window. I pulled into the driveway and parked the car before turning to take a good, long look at her before she left. She was leaning sideways in her seat and staring up at me, the corners of her mouth quirked up softly. The angle she was at made her arms press her breasts together, and I couldn't help taking a glance at the creamy cleavage offered up by her skimpy tank top. She laughed again.