First Lessons of Yoga

Jen's movements epitomized poise and grace with a touch of sexuality that caught Craig's attention like no other subject had. Her blissful expressions contained a hint of complexity underneath the warm smile and beautiful voice.

Ten years behind a reporter's desk had taught Craig to spot and appreciate the deeper aspects of people, and Jen fit into that rare category of the truly intriguing.

From a folding chair off the edge of the practice mat, Craig watched as Jen directed a class of twenty students through various stretches and exercises that Craig couldn't pronounce. Her lean body moved with grace and control as her students attempted to emulate her poses on the aqua-colored cushioned floor, her dulcet voice gave instructions and encouragements over soft music playing from the stereo.

Craig jotted down his thoughts and impressions as he watched the class. All the students were barefoot like Jen, and wore tanktops with either tights or sweatpants. Most were in good physical shape, and the few who did have an extra layer of fat were still as limber and flexible as the rest. He felt out of place in blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a tee-shirt that clung too tightly to his belly

The group finished with a meditation pose, and after a few minutes of silence, they quietly stood up and headed to the locker rooms. Jen walked over to Craig and smiled. She had sculpted features and a small mouth and nose. Even barefoot, she stood a couple of inches taller than Craig.

"So, what do you think?" she said. She pulled her long blonde hair out of the rubber band that had held it behind her head.

"Quite impressive," Craig said. "Can you give me a run down of what I saw?"

"Basically, I took the class through a series of poses meant to help them concentrate on their breathing and improve their overall health," she said. "It's a combination of three different styles of yoga which all branch from hatha yoga - iyengar, viniyoga, and tantra."

Craig followed with more questions concerning the growing local interest in yoga, and as he listened to her speak, he found her slight accent attractive.

"So where are you originally from?" he said. "You have an accent I can't place."

"I have American parents, but I spent the first ten years of my life in China before moving to India for about five years," she said. "It was there I first began practicing yoga, and it was that instructor who handed down to me the method I currently teach."

As the students left, Jen said bye to each of them with a wave or an encouraging pat on the shoulder, and Craig noted the individual attention she gave each student.

She led Craig to the small back office where she sat behind a gray metal desk that took up a large portion of the cramped room. A computer sat on one corner of the desk, the monitor peppered with neon yellow and green sticky notes, and various papers were scattered over the rest of the surface. As if to relieve the claustrophobic condition of the office, scenic pictures of beaches and mountains were hung on the walls.

"This is the part of the business I don't like," she said. "The business of the business."

Jen discussed more of the business aspects of her teaching, and pointed out that the slim profit margin had forced her to live upstairs and had only allowed her to hire one part-time employee.

"Let me ask you this, Craig," she said. She walked around the desk and sat in the chair next to Craig with her left foot tucked under her right knee. For the first time Craig noticed the tattoo on the inner portion of her ankle. Definitely an Eastern design, it looked almost like an ornamented sickle. She leaned over close to him, moving into his personal space, her face only inches from his. If anyone else had moved in this close, he would have leaned back. Instead, he felt an urge to kiss her, then became embarrassed by his own thoughts after he tried to imagine how she looked when she kissed, or made love. "Would you be interested in a free month of yoga classes? Because I think you'd really enjoy it. In fact, I think you'd become addicted."

"I bet you say that to all the reporters," he joked.

Jen laughed, a cute, beautiful laugh. The temptation to close the small gap between them and kiss her became stronger.

"For now, I think the best bet will be to get you in here early in the morning, before the events of the day have zapped your energy," she said. "So, would you be interested in my seven a.m. class?"

Craig shrugged his shoulders. "Sure, if you don't mind me a little groggy."

"Oh, I'll fix that," she said. "Bring a pair of shorts to wear, and either a tee-shirt or tanktop. Now, do you want a quick tour of the upstairs?"

"Sure."

He followed her up the stairs next to the office. The second floor consisted of a hallway with four doors spaced throughout. She opened the closest door and led him inside. The small living room was furnished with only a couch, short table, chair, and television on a rolling stand. Off to the back an archway led to the kitchen area, and a closed door off to the right of the living room Craig assumed was her bedroom. The blank walls and the carpet were a neutral beige.

"Quite bare," she said. "But the only thing I ever do here is sleep and drink tea."

The room across the hall from her apartment was a small single room with a weight bench set in the middle of the room and a treadmill facing the window. The third room contained standard storage, an old vacuum cleaner, mop and bucket, boxes stacked against one wall.

As they walked back downstairs, Craig told her he had everything he needed to write the article, but Jen suggested he talk to her assistant Debra at least once before finishing.

"She might be able to add some insight as well," she said. "She teaches tomorrow night's intermediate class, I'll let her know you're stopping by." Craig usually did follow up work by phone, but his curiosity about the assistant, and the opportunity to possibly see Jen again, stopped him from correcting her.

Jen escorted Craig to the front door with more casual talk while he wondered if committing to a month of yoga would be more than he could do, but as she looked over at him and smiled, he realized that at that moment, he would have done nearly anything this woman had asked. He felt a little manipulated by her charm, but found he couldn't hold that against her.

She stayed inside and locked the door behind Craig as he stepped outside. She smiled at him and waved through the glass door. The large illuminated sign that said only "YOGA" lit the parking lot in an eerie jaundiced glow, casting long shadows towards the back of the lot.

Craig slowly walked to his car with a gut feeling he had missed something.

###

The next morning he arrived a few minutes early. The building looked different in the daylight. The two-story gray brick looked less pristine in full sunlight, the parking lot appeared patchier, and the glass door a little more smudged.

Craig entered and saw a few students, changed and ready to go, mill about in the middle of the room. He didn't see Jen anywhere as he headed towards the locker room, but one man in the group looked over at Craig and smiled.

The locker room consisted of one row of lockers and a bench. Craig couldn't imagine more than four or five men changing clothes in this small space at one time, but the floors and walls were clean, and the room lacked the sour smell of sweat he usually associated with locker rooms.

His ass had grown wider than his ego liked to admit, and his shorts were tighter than he wished they were. The tee-shirt he brought along fit snugly as well and only made him feel fatter. With memories of high school physical education classes flooding his mind, Craig empathized with the requisite fat kid in every gym class. He determined to buy new exercise clothes at the next opportunity.

He stepped out of the locker room and ambled towards the center of the practice mat with the rest of the students. They talked casually, and Craig stood just outside their circle. He compared the bodies of the two men and three women to his own short, stocky form, and felt out of place next to this health conscious group.

He could feel the coldness of the cushioned floor against his bare feet and the chilled air of the room brought goosebumps to his exposed skin. Although he couldn't hear the air conditioner running, it seemed too cold for the room to be naturally cooled.

The speakers in the corners of the room snapped, then played serene music of piano, a harp, and a flute. Jen came out from the back office and walked to the front of the practice area. Everyone spaced themselves out in two rows, and Craig formed a third row by himself behind the others. If he screwed up, he didn't want anyone to see.

"Let's start with Tadasana," she said. "Remember, keep your hips tucked forward and your chest up."

She took them through a series of methodic poses much easier than he had expected, and for the next thirty minutes, Craig followed a half-beat behind Jen and the rest of the class as they moved from standing to seated to reclined poses. She would occasionally verbalize encouragements that Craig tried to imagine were directed at him, and more than once, he caught her looking at him with a smile. With each pose, he tried to mimic the position and posture of the rest of the students, and found himself out of breath much quicker than he would have imagined.

They finished in a meditation pose that Craig couldn't force his legs into completely, and Jen showed him a simpler form he could use. Unused to sitting in that position, Craig's back began to ache after only a few moments and it became an effort not to slouch.

"Namaste," she said. "Thanks for coming."

The other students stood, while Craig groaned quietly and stretched his legs out in front of him.

Jen approached and loomed over him, but Craig made no effort to stand.

"That last pose was beginning to really hurt my back," he said.

Jen smiled down at him. "That just means you're not used to sitting up straight. With more practice, that will stop hurting and become more natural." She held out a hand and helped him up. Her grip was firm, and her skin soft.

He changed into his work clothes, while Jen waited for him, and she handed him a box of tea when he came out.

"Here, try this out for a while," she said. "Just two cups a day should help clean all the toxins out of your system."

He agreed to try it, but failed to add that he didn't like tea, never had.

As he left, his body felt looser and more agile than it had before. The practice had made him feel better, more energetic, and depending how the next few classes went, he would have to seriously consider keeping it up.

###

By lunch he felt as though his body had been tied to a rack and stretched beyond the point of recovery. He had finished most of the story about Jen and her business, leaving a few gaps in the story to fill with quotes from Debra, and as he stood to go to lunch, pain shot through his lower back, causing him to freeze in a half-standing position, eyes wide, hands braced against his desk.

By the end of the day, the stretched out feeling had lost some of its intensity with the help of a few over-the-counter pain relief pills, but Craig still had to be careful about how he sat or stood. After a quick stop at an athletic store to purchase shorts and shirts that fit more comfortably, he pulled into the nearly full parking lot of Jen's business.

Debra lacked the same graceful body shape Jen possessed, and instead appeared to be skin stretched over long bones. She couldn't have been much older than Jen, but seemed to have a weathered look around her eyes. Her deeper voice lacked the calm and peaceful tones of Jen's. And while she spoke encouraging words to her students, Craig couldn't shake the sense that she wasn't sincere.

He walked to the back of the room and found Jen in the back office entering numbers into the computer. Craig knocked lightly on the doorframe and when Jen looked up, he became enamored again with her beauty.

She silently waved him and he sat down. She leaned across the desk and spoke quietly.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Better, now that the pain relievers have kicked in."

Jen chuckled a little. Craig admired the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed.

"They're almost done in there," Jen said, "and then you can talk to Debra. Although I warn you, sometimes she can come off a bit more aggressive than she means to."

They heard the rustling noise of the students leaving the practice mat. A moment later, Debra stood in the doorway of the office, not making eye contact with Craig, but instead staring at Jen with a look of frustration. She stood with her arms crossed and her head impatiently cocked to one side.

"Do you want to talk to Craig?" Jen said.

"Not really. There's nothing I can tell you that she hasn't." She made eye contact with Craig, and he could almost feel her contempt for him. Her look of scorn reminded him of teachers from school who he somehow knew had just hated him for no good reason.

He could have pushed the issue; he had dealt with much tougher interviewees than Debra, but because he didn't want to come off as a complete jerk in front of Jen, and because he wanted to continue talking to Jen, he let it go.

"That's fine really," Craig said. "I have more than enough material."

Without another word, she turned to walk away. Craig noticed as she left that she had the same tattoo on her right ankle that Jen had on her left, except reversed.

"I'm getting hungry, want to grab something to eat?" Jen said.

Craig looked over at Jen, quite surprised. He wanted nothing more than to spend an evening with her, and couldn't believe his luck. He hoped it was more than just politeness from her; maybe she was trying to compensate for Debra's rudeness, and although his mind told him this was the most likely explanation, his heart wished that she found him interesting, and even attractive.

"Sure," Craig said, self-conscious of his tone.

###

Jen changed into a short skirt and a low-cut top. She stood taller than Craig when barefoot, but now with her black high-heels, she towered over him. As they walked into a bar-and-grill, people turned and stared.

She seemed oblivious to the attention; Craig though became self-conscious. He knew he was with the most beautiful woman in the place, and he felt even fatter than before.

Craig couldn't help but to watch her long legs move with assurance and grace as they were shown a table, and he caught more than a few men watching her walk as well. A few women gave Jen the same look of contempt that Debra had given Craig earlier, but he did notice a couple of women eyeing Jen in the same manner the men were.

At the moment the hostess showed them their table and pulled the chair out for Jen, Craig realized he could never have Jen. Not ever. She was more than just out of his league, she was a different species.

Jen embodied the spirit of a healthy lifestyle. She exercised regularly, ate wisely, and drank moderately. Craig placed himself at the opposite end of the spectrum, with frequent fast food meals, occasional cigarettes while throwing back beers or whiskey, and before this morning's yoga class, absolutely no exercise since high school. He knew there was nothing she could she find attractive about him, and he didn't think they had anything in common. The oddness of their appearance together reminded Craig of a six-month relationship he had had years before when his girlfriend broke up with him after declaring that his penis was too small, he was physically repulsive, and he wasn't normally the type of guy she went for anyway.

They ordered drinks, and as they talked he tried to steer conversation towards her past, looking for clues of who she was, what she had done, and possibly anything they might share in common, but she always managed to change the subject back to him or his work. Eventually, the topic moved to Debra and her reactions to him earlier in the evening.

"I felt her contempt for me the moment I walked in the door," Craig said.

"She can be like that," Jen said. "She really didn't want to be in the paper, but I told her to talk to you anyway."

"She kept the conversation to a minimum."

"Debra is completely different from me. I personally think of her as my polar opposite, both contradictory and complimentary. And to be totally honest, I wouldn't be where I am without her, and she without me."

"Have you worked with her a while?"

"Longer than I'll ever admit," Jen said. "Seems like Debra and I have always been tied together somehow."

"I watched her lead the class," Craig said. "And, nothing against her, but I like the way you lead better."

"Every instructor is going to have a different style," Jen said. "The trick is to find one that fits you. Some people like Debra, others don't. She comes from a martial arts background, so sometimes she can come off a little harsher than she realizes. Once you understand her, I think you'll see what I mean."

They continued to talk once dinner came. Craig ordered a baked chicken in an attempt to at least appear as though he were trying to eat healthy, although he had forgotten to request the side order be charged to something other than fries.

At one point while they ate, Craig felt Jen's foot brush against his shin. It was only a moment, but he tried to store away the memory of that touch to relive later when he was alone. But later, her foot touched his shin again, and this time it remained. She applied a little pressure, and Craig basked in the feeling and the mental image he created of what her foot must look like against his shin. He wondered if maybe she wasn't aware that her foot was pressed against his shin instead of one of legs of the table. She had to be able to feel the fabric of his jeans through the top of her shoe, he couldn't imagine that she wasn't aware of what she was doing. But her mannerisms hadn't changed, and she continued to talk and listen as if she had no idea what she was doing.

After they left the bar, Craig drove her back to the building and walked her to the front door. This almost felt like a date, and he had a nearly overwhelming urge to kiss her. But other than her foot against his shin, she had made no indication that she saw him as nothing more than a reporter.

As she unlocked the door, she nearly extinguished all his uncertainties with a simple question of her own. "Want to come up for another drink?"

Craig agreed more quickly than he meant to, the shock of the question had caught him completely off guard. He wondered if his eagerness had given away what he felt for her, but he smiled as if nothing was out of the ordinary and led him inside.

In the dark, the bottom floor looked different somehow, larger, ominous. Only a red EXIT light illuminated the room, and Craig couldn't see the far corners.

"You don't know your way around without the lights on," Jen said, and without another word, she kicked off her shoes and took Craig's hand.

His heart beat faster as he felt her smooth skin against the roughness of his own hands. She led him towards the back and up the darkened stairs with only the reflected streetlights outside providing light for the hallway at the top. Once inside Jen's apartment, she flipped a switch that turned on a small lamp in the far corner. The dim bulb provided only enough illumination to navigate around the furniture.

Jen turned on a small CD player on the bottom shelf of the television stand then walked into the kitchen. What sounded like Eastern music softly filled the room and Craig found himself wondering even more what Jen's life separate from her business was like.

"Beer?"

"Of course," Craig said.