Author's note: This is my first story submission. Many thanks to honey123 for encouragement and suggestions and to angel love for her valuable editorial assistance.
"Since when did you get THOSE muscles?"
His wife's exclamation startled and shocked John on so many different levels that he didn't know what to think next. She had come downstairs and been watching him work out without his noticing. She hated the stacks of unpacked boxes cluttering the basement. She had an unspoken hostility toward his workouts, since sometimes he used exercise to relieve his sexual frustrations. In the past twenty years of marriage, she never so much as hinted that she liked his body.
John felt himself blush a bit with surprise and embarrassment. He quickly set down the curl bar, and stammered, "Well, I guess I have been working out more over the past year or so." He never really thought of himself as muscular, having been born with a skinny frame, and he had to work hard to get any shape at all.
To her own surprise, Mary was also thrown off balance by her comment. She thought to herself,
'Since when did you get THOSE muscles? Where did that line come from?'
She did think John was still a tall, handsome guy, and she did rather like his shoulders. When she saw him just now, though, it transported her to high school days, when she went to the basketball games to watch the players in those tank shirts. She suddenly remembered that they had nice shoulders that had a neat transition into nice arms. The thought brought an unexpected but familiar tingle to her nipples that she hoped wouldn't be too obvious.
"Sorry to interrupt you," she said, "but I thought I'd try the treadmill for a change, since it's too cold and drizzly outside for a decent walk." Trying to keep the conversation light, she looked around, and remarked, "I don't remember such an elaborate set-up down here."
"Yeah, after I got the new bench a few years ago, I had added just a few, INEXPENSIVE things," John answered, hoping to head off a lecture about how he shouldn't be spending money on this junk. "The weight trees and dumbbell racks keep things organized and off the floor, and the pulley is for a homemade lat pull-down."
"Good job," she said, flooring John again, against the expectation that he would be getting complained at for spending time on his weights setup instead of doing something important like paying the bills early, or getting rid of some of the damn boxes.
Mary set her water bottle on the treadmill, climbed on, and started at a gentle pace. John was a little too self-conscious to finish his preacher curls, so he switched to lat pull-down. It gave him a perfect excuse to be able to watch her walk.
Mary was not overly tall, about 5 feet 4 inches, but enough so that she complained about the 'shrimps' that always tried to date her in college. Her hair is a beautiful brunette with almost red highlights.
'We have both turned 40,'
John thought,
'but she's simply improved over the last couple of years.'
There would be no way to improve on her delicious green eyes and wise smile, of course, but she definitely has shaped up to look better than most women in their twenties.
Even with the somewhat baggy T-shirt and shorts she was wearing, John watched her firm, shapely legs with a renewed appreciation. Even more interesting was the sexy, subtle bounce of her breasts under her T-shirt that reminded John that, even with a support bra, her nearly C-cup breasts were full enough to have an undeniable presence. His groin gradually, but unstoppably tightened with a feeling that he associated more with seeing Mary in her red lace nightgown. He turned around, using the pretense of changing the weights to give him a chance to realign his erection in his jockey shorts.
John switched to bench presses, which faced the treadmill enough so he could continue keeping an eye on her T-shirt. He put a pair of 25 pound plates on the bar, did one set of warm-ups with 75 pounds, added another pair of 25's on the bar and did another set at 125 pounds.
He didn't realize she was watching, but when he put on the next pair of 25's, between strides, she asked, "That looks really heavy. Is it safe?"
"One-hundred-seventy-five is really easy for me, but since I workout alone, for safety, I actually never use more than this," John answered as he positioned himself on the bench and lifted the bar a dozen times.
"You aren't alone today," she proposed, "Can I help?"
John quickly agreed and put 190 pounds on the bar. Meanwhile, Mary stepped off the treadmill, took one last sip of water, and came over to stand behind the bench. "Is this a good place to stand?" she asked.
"Sure," John said, thinking that it was the right place for safety, and the right place for him to have a great view.
His view, from the curve of her thighs up to the balcony of her breasts, stiffened his erection, making him hopeful that his T-shirt covered enough of the front of his shorts. John grabbed the bar off the rack, lifted it eight times before deciding not to push it too much, and smoothly racked the bar.
"Wow," she said, "You made that look easy. How much can you lift?"
