The Serenity of The Gym

When I turned forty, I turned bitter-angry. The gym is where I unleashed my frustrations into workouts. Also I pushed myself with angry taunts about how fat and old I was getting. If I were to have any hope of capturing a prince handsome, I had to cling onto attractive youthfulness. Flubbery sprouted so easily in my triceps and that belly if I didn't vigorously deny my body any fat and punished any fat that snuck into my body anyway with hard spinning, heavy weights, and no mercy.

The job didn't help either. The cavernous halls housed a riffraff of mostly Asian and Indian boys that were getting increasingly pressed together in the open office layout by desks that shrunk every year by a few square inches. In between the crowded, standing, chattering, noisy throng of people like on a busy train platform where bean bags, their personal belongings, and random crap like lego boxes and dinosaur blowup dolls. The management wasn't much better - still boys but vile, reactionary, and old as well. I was pressed in between my team of boys giving me shit for making them work hard and punishing senior management forcing unrealistic, random deadlines on us. They'd never let me rise into their ranks. They'd never fire me to keep the diversity quota. Pure, fucking, and utter frustration!

At the end of the day, when I could escape that prison, I'd stand in the employee parking lot. My car was boxed in by the line of cars waiting to leave the parking lot but couldn't because there was a traffic jam out there. The gridlocks spread all the way through the Bay and up to SF. There was no getting anywhere but being stuck in this fucked up overpriced suburban hell with nothing to do.

Well, the exception is the gym. I went there seven days a week. When you walk in, the lobby is paneled with walnut wood. The staff wear white sneakers and white clothing that immediately tells you that they are here to serve you. Their clothing sets them apart as a different class, very fancy, but your servants with those polo shirts and the gold logo. Their posture is always erect, always their hands held ready in some way to wave you to a direction or hand you something. They were always silent, held their faces with a placid expression, looking straight ahead but internally numb. Their eyes and the slight shiver in the tone of their voice spoke of a constant fear of a member complaining to management about them.

"Welcome, Ms. Donovan! It is a pleasure to see you," said Lissie. She had model looks and stage quality make-up. Every line of make-up was applied perfectly where it needed to be sharp and blended where it needed to be blended. Her nose and nearby cheek skin had copious freckles that would have made the average person ugly, but hers were over the top and had an artistic quality to them that made them a museum piece to marvel at. It's those characteristics that photographers cherish for covershots.

"Welcome, Mr. Ranganathan. I'll have your usual orange juice with three drops of pomegranate and a straw brought to you right at the locker room exit," said Lissie to the next person behind me. She pronounced his last name with such perfect, precision, and intonation as if a voice couch was teaching her all the exotic foreign names. The first time she welcomed me, my heart made jumps because her voice was so upbeat and happy. I thought that finally someone recognized me in the anonymity of this place. But when she welcomed the person behind me with the exact same happy, warm tonality, I realized that she simply had a great voice coach. Each greeting was probably an audition for her to get whisked away by who walked into the gym... discovered as a movie star? Found worthy to be arm candy on a yacht?

The atmosphere in the gym is very shy and distant. The moment you walk into a weight area, all eyes turn on the newcomer. They try to look discreetly, but the eyes are latched onto the newcomer from behind the cable tower, from under a chest press, and from a stretch. The eyes gap like the open mouths of koi fish at a Japanese garden begging for a crumb of bread. These eyes are begging for an escape: Please, take us away from this exercise. We have to do it, but we are bored. It's an effort. Have mercy!

That's my crappy life! But one day, I found something that would free me from it for just a moment. Follow me to the pool area. I always wear a two piece with a white bottom that barely comes between my cheeks and shows my butt. There are usually only boys. They are not boys by age. They don't allow anyone under eighteen into the exclusive club. They are tech workers in their mid to late twenties that are immature and clueless. And me showing off my body torments them. They are too shy to talk to me. They would have to be men to do that. But being the rare female, I must drive them nuts. My abs have a six pack. My legs are sculpted. Everything is sculpted and trim from brutal workouts every day. Yet, there is also a hardness. When you are a young woman, you don't have to work out to have a pretty and slim body. When you are old, you can maintain that figure only with hard workouts, but they also leave your body contours hard - not sweet, sexy, and lustrous.

The pool has six lanes, neatly divided by the steel cables with blue and white plastic rings. The big, continuous windows on the wall and ceiling allow plenty of California sun in to paint everything with a golden feel. A single palm tree planter is supposed to evoke the feeling of a beach vacation, but is mostly lost in the sterile hyper clean environment that the lifeguard scrubs every hour to keep a surreal pristine feel. All the lanes are taken by a pairing of one, two, or three swimmers. Two people means splitting the lane. Each person takes one side and stays there. Three people means swimming in a circle out on the right and back on the left.

I slipped into a lane with a tall, dark haired man. He seemed like an average swimmer churning through laps with passable form. He used a catch up style for his freestyle. That means, he'd leave a hand in front, while they other one pulled, and only when the pulling hand returned to the front, he'd pull with the resting hand. A decade or so, a swimmer had figured out that the long and lean shape, like a hull carved to cut through the water, was more efficient and faster than pulling non-stop. That's exactly what I had been looking for.

I bent a little forward and splashed water over my titties. Yep, you heard that right! I told you how everyone stares at you when you enter. And I love tormenting those guys. So I love drawing their eyes to my breasts by innocently pretending to sprinkle myself with water to acclimate myself to the temperature. Then I slip down to the neck into the water. My boobs get a lift from the fat tissue and silicone filling to float up a bit. And I wait, like a panther in hiding for the gazelle.

The man was unaware that I entered his lane. His stroke was steady. His leading hand cut the still water. The pulling hand would dive in next to it so that they could switch places. With even and rhythmic pulls, there was always one hand leading in front like a happy duckling leading the way. Right as he thought, he was getting to the wall, he reached a little farther with the right hand. Boom, his fingers landed square on my left boob. With quick reflexes of shock, his hand flicked back. I could barely feel the grace. The tactile sense of swimming makes one very receptive. Yet, I held onto the imprint of his fingerprints on my boob.

His eyes shot out of the water. They held the terror of a gazelle. I savor that abject panic. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" he stammered. That helplessness is like honey to me. The quivering voice speaks of such self-torment how he's beating himself up for being a terrible person, inconsiderate, a groping villain, inexcusable womanizer. I know how those MIT educated men think from the office. I simply snuff and pull off.

I've found the quiet treatment to be the most effective to prolong the suffering. Keeping the resolution away from them keeps them in that tormented state. Every time, our eyes met randomly during a turn or pause between intervals, their torment is still in his eyes. It's like all that underwater time leaves him to his own thoughts to repeat the moment in all its glorious details with a mix of lusty desire and embarrassed penance. For me, I could put my face underwater and smile as big as I can. For the feeling of inflicting pain in somebody else is the only thing that provides me a little relief from the pain of my existence.

The first time, it happened by pure accident. However, with all the silence and distance in my gym, it left me with plenty of undistracted time to think about it. And I started doing it on purpose. I got good at it. There are plenty of innocent touches under the water as two athletic swimmers plow the same lane together. They are usually quick, fleeting brushes. Yet, I figured out the timing so that my swim compadre's hand would land squarely on my butt. I figured out how to slip my fingers inside of the swim compadre's speedoes to slip them a couple inches down his groin. Those shy, geeky man-boys universally reacted the same with tormenting shame at the belief that they touched me misappropriately.

I loved their faces: Puppy-left-in-the-rain-face, red-cheeked-I'm-about-to-cry-face, whimpering-panic-of-disbelieve-face. It's not simply the enjoyment of pranking people that drives me to it. It's the visceral empathetic sensation that I get when I feel that I shook them to their core, when there is a little break of everyday composure that lets me see down into their deepest fault line - just that same suffering that I feel in the deepest, darkest part of the night. Oh fuck, I'm so addicted to it! To see that little mouth open because their little brain is racing so hard to come to terms with the shocking experience that they don't even notice their open mouth.

For three years, I worked out at this country club like gym like a normal person. However, over the last year, I've discovered these wonderful games. Another one randomly came to me as well by coincidence. I had spent an entire weekend - day and night - in the office to make a certain deadline. It was disgusting to sit with a team of male engineers who hadn't showered in days. But I got it done. When we finally delivered it Sunday, ten minutes before midnight, this fucking piece of a shit manager, who came to us from a European consulting company, had realized that Americans and Europeans have the date and month switched. He explained to us that we couldn't get the crunchtime bonus because in fact we had another five months to finish the project.

So after my Monday workout, I went into the sauna for a long time. I closed my eyes to shut the world out. I had to let go. I was exhausted and pissed. That's why I didn't pay much attention to what I was actually doing. I noticed with surprise that my feet had been resting on the shoulders of the woman sitting at the rung below me. Strange that she didn't complain. But I was going to do the right thing. I grabbed my towel and stepped town the cascading benches to the floor. I turned to look at her and apologize, but I got a feeling that made me hesitate.

She had a docile puppy face. Her eyes were big. Her pupils were big. Yet, she was very calm. She seemed like she was in a haze, some kind of trance that made her transfixed. She clearly looked at me. Yet, she didn't seem able to act, like she was deeply drawn into herself in some kind of hypnosis. Her body was so relaxed like she was in some kind of euphoric state. People do like the hot treatments, but she was deeper into that relaxed bliss than the others. And then that apology got stuck in my throat. I let my eyes leave her and walked out.

Later the week, I saw her tiny red curly hair in the locker room. She was kind of cute - a little small, a little Jewish, a little bit extra to make that beautiful figure eight shape. I thought she was, but I wasn't sure. I had read about people like her, but I had never really knowingly met someone like her. I wanted to know. When she was about to pass me, I looked away from the vanity mirror with the lights and a dozen beauty jars underneath it. I let my comb drop to the floor - clunk, clunk.

I turned to her and with a deep, strong voice told her: "Pick that up." I stared straight at her eyes. I knew that this was a moment of truth. Either she was or she wasn't. I instinctively sensed that I couldn't break the firmness or she would treat me with an everyday reaction. She looked straight back at me, with those beautiful blue eyes that contrasted to swell with the red highlights of her nostrils and lips. A dime sized amount of pink spread right over her cheekbone. That's when I knew that she had accepted.

"Yes, miss," she said with coyness and clarity.

She picked up the comb with a purposeful squat all the way down. She handed me the comb. I took it from her. The encounter had a steamy feel because we both seemed to be sweating a little. No regular person would have reacted that way. And I thought that when she walked on that she was mouthing, "thank you, Miss." But I wasn't sure. It was so barely audible. Maybe, it was something that she wished to say but didn't dare because she wasn't sure enough that I was for real either.

I have played games with her that would make you go wow! One time, I waited for her in the locker room. I had timed my workout to end a little earlier than hers would. We were both pulling at the cable rack, doing lat pulls, pull ups, and tricep presses. She knew that something was up. Isn't anticipation of gifts at Christmas time better than the gift? Well sometimes a gift is a particular stunner. When she left for the mat area to stretch, I went to the locker room instead.

Five minutes later, she walked into the locker room. She gave me through looks while she changed out of her sweaty workout outfit - boy shorts and a tank top with girly pink sneakers. When she put the last of her clothes in the locker, I stepped up to her and hissed at her: "Get away from my locker." It was clearly her looker. She apologized: "I'm sorry, Miss. My mistake." Then she wrapped her towel around herself and walked to the showers. She left me with all of her personal belongings unprotected. I changed the number combination of the lock and locked it.

Then I walked over to the towel shelf. Picked up a neatly folded towel. They were white towels that were extra fluffy. The gym wouldn't have gone for anything but something that screamed extra luxury - you can't even get towels this fluffy in a regular bed, bath, and beyond. I put my nose in the middle of the towel and inhaled deeply. I made a frown face. I picked up another towel to repeat the dramatic enactment - and another. Then I turned to the locker attendant, a Mexican, overweight woman on her knees scrubbing the floor.

"The entire batch of towels is ruined. Whoever washed them forgot to add the softener!"

The woman got off her knees. She was wearing knee pads because probably she had to spend so much of her time cleaning on knees to keep the gym pristine. Like every other gym employee who is worried about getting a complaint because one complaint can be enough to land them on the street, she apologized. She said that she would tell the manager right away. I wouldn't need to put up with such terrible service. Then, she got a cart and threw all the towels in. "I'll be back with fresh ones shortly," she said before she left.

I pulled the hamper for dirty towels around the corner. Now, the hamper was closer to the shower and the front of the clean towel rack was no longer visible from its position. I went back to fussing around my shoes as if I were getting ready to leave. But I was biding my time for my special friend to come back. Sure enough, she had taken a short shower, probably in anticipation.

She took the towel off her body and threw it into the hamper, turned the corner, and found the towel rack empty. Stunned, she looked at it. Thrown, she walked onward to her locker. The surprise seemed to have thrown her enough to forget for a moment that I had pushed her away from her own locker. She swiveled the dials on the lock and got frantic when the locker didn't open.

I placed the dark, commanding voice in my chest: "You'll have to go to the front desk for help. The locker attendant left to get fresh towels.

Her shoulders jumped up like someone caught. I got the mental image of a kitten picked up by the neck by its mom. I thought I saw a wave of goosebumps starting under the hairline at her neck and spreading over her shoulders and back. A big exhale shrunk her whole torso. Calmness spread over her body. She seemed to sink deeper into her bones. It was like all the anxiety of everyday life went out of her.

Slowly like molasses with the meandering slowness of life on a humid jungle plantation, she turned around. That same hazy, hypnotic look that I had seen on her face the first time was there. I must have hit the button with my tone of voice.

"I don't have a towel," she said, standing naked in front of me - not covering the slightest - letting me see her whole beautiful body and all the curves on her thighs, belly, and arms that a little something extra could make beautiful. Even her teardrop shaped breast hung open for me to gaze on.

I let my gaze wander down and to the left of me. There was a discarded, crumbled over, trampled flat, and half wet towel on the floor. I gave her a look that said, "I guess, you'll have to use that." My gaze wandered back to her eyes to watch her emotions unfold as she recognized the dirty towel on the floor that had been trampled by the feet of a stranger - the lowest and dirtiest to put on her clean body. First, her nose shriveled from disgust from recognizing not only what it was but also the social devaluation of having to put that on her. Second, her eyes widened with terror at walking barely naked through the gym - straddling the fine line between covering her butt enough and her breasts enough with the towel that didn't allow her both.

When she had taking in all those emotions, I held my gaze steady and strong into her eyes to tell her that was my order. When she received that from me, the red fire broke out all over her face to such a red like her face had fallen into a patch of stinging nettles. At the same time, that docile puppy feeling took her over. Like a tingle inside of her put her into a lull of a trance. The transformation was amazing to see. It was like the miracle of standing at the edge of a volcano as the hot red lava pours into the ocean - standing on the edge of the world - standing at the edge of her experience of the world. Two seconds longer than she needed to she stood there. She was feasting on my dominance. I was feasting on her emotions of humiliation and submission.

Then she walked out, not fast and rushing, but slow and deliberate - as if this were her punishment and she had to savor it. As if she'd have to let everyone in the gym - all those tech bros - stare at her at length to give them ample enough time to screenshot every part of her that they wanted to screenshot. I followed her to watch her walk across the length of the hall, bend forward to whisper to the receptionist about her dilemma, and finally wait patiently for the receptionist to call the locker room attendant on the two-way radio.

When she came back with the locker room attendant, who was fiery red in the face and flustered about the worry of getting two complaints on the same day, she passed me and said, "Thank you, Miss." Every sound of the short phrase was delivered with such grave meaning like every bone of her body was full of gratitude. I slipped the attendant a twenty to make up for the trouble.