It started with altruistic intent, followed by a walk across the room. When you reach the age of fifty, and you're grateful for all a sport has given you, bodybuilding in my case, you want to give something back, help others realize whatever goals they set for themselves.
That room was The Fitness Factory, a well-equipped gym located in a suburban strip mall on the East Coast. I trained there three days a week, down from the more intense regimen I followed when I competed in my twenties and early thirties. Muscle atrophy, not to mention strength, is a fact of life as athletes go kicking and screaming into middle-age. Maintenance is the name of the game by then, doing your best to stave off the ravages of Father Time. I still looked good, still carried around enough size and muscularity to get noticed on the beach, which gave me a huge ego boost, especially when those looking were young enough to be my son or daughter.
Veronica Landsman was one such "youngster," though I met her at the Factory, not at a beach resort. After seeing her struggling with a set of squats, I took that aforementioned walk across the room to help. Her form was all wrong—she was bending her back instead of keeping it straight when she came out of the squat position. "Keep doing it that way and you'll end up in a back brace," I said. Still breathing heavily, she had just finished her set of ten reps and was seated on a flat bench to recover.
Even before she said anything, her expression conveyed annoyance at what she considered an intrusion. "Is that so?" she said, narrowing her pretty green eyes and throwing a hand on her hip. "And how would you know that?"
Through my own experience, I said, telling her about the time as a teen just starting out, I pulled my spinal erector muscles doing squats like that, setting me back six weeks to heal. "I learned the hard way," I said. "Correct form can spare you what I went through."
She nodded, looked me up and down and then asked my age. "You're fifty?! Get outta here!"
I took that as a compliment. Obviously my still sharp muscularity offset my graying hair and the wrinkles that had started to creep around my eyes and across my forehead. Because she asked, I gave her a brief history of my competitive bodybuilding career, modestly successful compared with the hulking physical specimens that strutted their stuff at the Mr. Olympia, Mr. Universe, etc, and I did it without all the juice those guys shot into their veins.
"So, can I help you?" I said, fairly confident that I had won her over. "Or would you rather do it your way and risk serious injury?"
She nodded. "All right, go ahead. I'd look ridiculous arguing with a guy with a pair of delts and quads like yours."
The bar sat on the squat rack, loaded to 185 pounds, still a warm-up weight for me but close to a high-rep max for her. Slipping under the bar, I did eight easy reps like you're supposed to, keeping my back straight. I then took off the 25 pound plates from each side, bringing the weight down to 135 pounds. "You might have had too much weight," I said. "Do a set with this."
She stood up, grabbed the hems of her tight spandex shorts and stretched them down a couple inches. Even so, three-quarters of her tan, shapely thighs were exposed. Lots of millennial women at The Fitness Factory dressed this way, a distraction I had yet to hear one guy complain about. After tightening her lifting belt, she got the bar on her shoulders, stepped back a few feet and began her set. The first few reps went fine. But, by the fifth rep, she reverted back to her old form, bending forward. Moving in, I placed my left hand over her lower back, my right hand across her upper chest to keep her rigid. "That's it, back straight, head up," I instructed, and then moved aside to watch her complete her remaining reps correctly.
"That does feel better," she said after racking the bar. "Sometimes, doing squats the other way, I'd come away with a sore lower back. Thanks for your help." Then she extended her hand. "I'm Veronica."
"Kirk Harris. If you need help with anything else, let me know."
She smiled. "Well, Kirk, now that you mention it..."
She told me she had been lifting only a few months. Prior to that, she hadn't exercised since college, when she played on her school's volleyball team. "I've put on a few pounds," she said, pinching skin around her waist and oblique muscles. "So I'd like to bring my weight down to what it was then, and, you know, just look good."
To my eyes, she already looked "good." When guys hit middle-age, all young girls look good. She stood five-foot ten, my height, and weighed around 160 pounds, twenty pounds over her college weight. Maybe it's because I hadn't dated much since my divorce three years ago, but as we talked, I felt compelled to kiss that adorable mouth of hers, small, with a ChapStick model's lips, perfectly formed and oh so kissable. From her gratified smile, I sensed she might have picked up on that. Women, even less than perceptive women, know intuitively when they're being ogled in some way.
"Overweight" or not, Veronica oozed sex appeal, at least to me and I suspected active, athletic types like me. What, with her long, powerful legs, her emerald eyes, clear, fair complexion and the clean, fresh smell of her hair, light brown and pinned up in one long pony tail that hung down on the left side of her face past her ear.
"The only place I didn't grow larger was up here," she said, cupping her hands under her blue sports top. "It figures," she said, chucking, "I gain size everywhere else but my boobs where I really need it." Her boobs looked fine to me, an opinion I kept to myself. Per her request, I did suggest various exercises she could do to firm up her arms, to bring out triceps and biceps that had atrophied from lack of exercise.
"My legs," she went on, rubbing her hands sensuously over her thighs, "they were always strong and solid. I do leg extensions as well as squats and calf raises to keep them that way. I was quite a spiker back in college."
"I bet," I said, trying not to stare at them too lustily. "I imagine you had quite a vertical leap."
She smiled. "Yeah, you could say that." Then, after a brief pause, she said, "So, what do you do, Kirk, when you're not in pumping iron and helping has-been jocks like me keep in shape?" When I told her I was an orthopedist, specializing in sports medicine, she got wide-eyed. "Really?! No wonder you were so concerned about my squat form. Well then, I guess I should call you Doctor Harris, huh?"
"Kirk will do just fine." She revealed she was a dental hygienist when I reversed the question. "No wonder you have such fine teeth." I glanced at my watch. "Well, one more set of sit-ups and I'm outta here," I said. "Nice meeting you, Veronica. Hope to see you again."
"Yes, me too. Thanks for the help. And you can call me Ronnie."
****
Over the next few days, thoughts of Ronnie intruded into my busy schedule. The young lady knew my age, so harboring illusions of anything beyond a mentoring friendship with her seemed ludicrous. When I was born, LBJ was still president. When she was born, it was Bush forty-one. When I came of age, the internet didn't exist. When she came of age, it was a world-wide fact of life. She was around the same age as my daughter, a generation removed. Rock stars got involved with women young enough to be their daughters (and grand-daughters in some cases), not silver-haired orthopedists. And yet, I had to admit that if she showed any interest beyond gym talk, I just might pursue it. I looked forward to seeing her again, assuming it would be at The Fitness Factory.
The question was, when? Two weeks passed and no Ronnie. Then, on a late weekday afternoon, my secretary buzzed me. "A Veronica Landsman is here to see you. She doesn't have an appointment. However, she did give me her medical insurance information." I had just finished seeing my last patient of the day and was preparing to leave.
"Doctor Harris, I mean Kirk," she said when I went to the waiting room, "I apologize for just walking in here without an appointment. But this thing..."
Her "thing," as she went on to describe it, was a sharp pain in her upper right thigh that traveled down to her foot, severe enough where she could no longer do leg work, including running on the treadmill. After telling my secretary she could leave, I ushered Ronnie into the examination room and gave her a hospital gown to change into. With her hair down, she looked even cuter, though I did my best to keep my attraction submerged under my professional facade.
"The way clothes reflect someone's image always amazes me," she remarked after changing. "When we met, you wore sneakers, shorts and a sleeveless muscle shirt. Now you're in a white lab coat over a button-down dress shirt and dress pants." I couldn't resist asking her what "image" appealed to her more. "In here, it's your doctor image. In the gym, when you were helping me, it was your physique-revealing wardrobe. Honestly, you look great either way."
