I blame it all on my husband. Well I would. It's easier than blaming my own weakness. I guess I will leave you to judge.
It all began months earlier. I had decided not to slide into decline just because I was sliding into middle age. I admit, I had let things go in recent years, a few wrinkles here a few extra pounds there. Then I woke up one day and realised I was on a slippery slope and would need to work hard to maintain my current footing. Any hope of climbing back any higher were beyond my purse strings and my principles.
I am a firm believer that just because women can look 30 years younger, doesn't mean they ought to. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I was a fella and was behind a female with shapely pins in a pair of Daisy Dukes, with long wavy blonde tresses, who then turns around to reveal a face like a Terrahawk? (Google it if you're too young to know, do I have to explain everything?)... well that's just wrong.
That doesn't mean we should get lazy and just not bother trying to make the best of what the Fates gave us. With this in mind I finally I decided to do something about my own terminal decline.
So, I began by seeking an anti-wrinkle cream. Just how the fuck does a body go about choosing one of these products? I mean the shelves are literally heaving with them. They range from hideously expensive to 'I need to re-mortgage the house to save my face.' Good grief, working the monthly costs it probably is cheaper to go under the knife.
I eventually just picked up a jar of vanishing cream, wiped it on and hoped that the last 20 years of experience would vanish from my face. Well, not really, just that they would maybe 'soft focus' a bit.
After realising I can't afford what it would cost to look 20 years younger, I decided to at least try and get my body back into shape. Well it was a shape already; the kind of shape my grandson makes with Play Doh. I wanted to see my feet again without having to bend. I wanted to reacquaint myself with my waistline. And I didn't so much have bingo wings as flying fox arms. Anyhoo, the gym near me had been doing a promotion, so I trotted along and signed up.
I am a tenacious little bugger, and once I had set my mind to getting fit and back in shape, I worked hard at it. I turned up four times a week in the early mornings, did a mixture of cardio and free weights and rounded off with a swim. I was dedicated, and beginning to see results, I was even able to start buying clothes out of regular shops. Of course, there you run the risk of becoming 'mutton dressed as lamb' as my grandma used to sniff. In other words, dressing way younger than your dignity ought to allow!
Not that I was too worried about that. However much weight I lost, I would have thighs like cold porridge and knees like an elephant's bollocks - so I wasn't about to stock up on Daisy Dukes to distress horny but innocent bystanders.
I did invest in some Lycra for the gym, though I still wore my ratty old tee shirt over it and my trainers were not so much designer distressed as just - distressed. (Practically suicidal actually, I wasn't sure how much longer they would keep body and sole together)
I hit something of a hiatus though, not losing any weight or feeling any fitter even though I was still going 4 times a week so I was finding it difficult to motivate myself. Having mentioned just that, and bemoaning the fact I didn't have a woman friend to exercise with, hubby surprised me on my birthday with a tub of anti-wrinkle cream, (the expensive stuff, not the vanishing cream.) some new undies, that looked a bit sexy and something I might actually wear; and ten sessions with my very own personal trainer!
Okay so hubby was hiding behind the door when they were handing out imagination, but his heart is in the right place, (I saw the scans) and I must admit, I was a little excited about having a trainer. She could show me how to increase my exercises, building up reps and weights, help me with an eating plan, teach me how to use some of the machines, (I had fought shy of the stuff that resembled BDSM equipment) and make sure I was maintaining the correct posture.
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So, my first appointment with Sam is for a wet and miserable Monday evening. I'm not really looking forward to it, as it is after a long day at work, and from what I gather involves her using callipers to measure my body fat, weighing me (At the end of the day and fully clothed girls, how unfair is that?) and asking all sorts of personal questions that I will never be alert enough to lie about.
It gets worse. A whole world worse. Imagine the humiliation of a perky blonde twenty-something, to whom cellulite and droopy boobs were anathemic. Now imagine the blond twentysomething being hot and cute and very, very male! What made me assume Sam was short for Samantha?? Do I have some sort of mental short circuit that allows for complete self-humiliation?
Give him his due, Sam is very professional and clinical, makes lots of notes and schedules our first workout for the following evening. I must look as disappointed as I feel. "Unless of course you have time and want to make a start tonight? I have no one else booked?"
I grin. "I would, if that's okay? I just kind of worked myself up to thinking I would be starting today."
"Keen huh? No worries. I might as well capitalise on that, who knows when you will begin to hate me." His easy grin sets off an echo in me. Yup I quite possible will hate, loathe and detest him at some point in the future. Though I very much doubt I would get tired of looking at that gorgeous tight bum.
He gentles me into an easy jog, circuiting the gym, shouting encouragement as he sets out an assortment of equipment on the floor.
After five minutes, he calls me to him and reaches for my hand. A little forward I think, until I realise he is checking my pulse against the second hand of the wall clock. I must still be alive because he begins to explain the equipment to me, and how I will work my way around it, sprinting from one to the next and doing a set of reps on each. He will be timing me.
"Okay Stella. Ready, Go!" He clicks his stop watch and follows me from piece to piece giving encouragement and shouting at me to sprint faster. My legs are getting heavier by the second, my lungs have shrunk in size but are doubling up as a smithy's bellows and burning a hole through my ribs. And I am in serious danger of vomiting all over Sam's expensive trainers.
"Time." Shouts Sam. "No, get up. You can't just suddenly stop! I want you walking it off until I say so." Walking? Oh, yes, that thing where you put one foot in front of the other, I remember how to do that I think. I manage to lift each foot in turn and perambulate around as Sam seeks further torture for me. I look at the clock. We are ten minutes into our half hour session. I might die tonight, and I haven't gotten around to writing my will.
Next Sam has me doing crunches and something he calls Russian twists. Another reason to hate the Ruskies. Then he gets me to do burpees. Innocuous sounding eh? Yeah, right. He shows me. Looks easy enough, a jump and a squat thingy. Yeah right. Wrong! My lungs are going like the clappers again, my legs have turned from lead to cooked spaghetti, and I am now in serious danger of cardiac arrest.
"Squats."
I know technically how to do squats. I just didn't know if I am physically capable of ever standing back up if I dip down into one. But, the tenacious bugger in me grits her teeth and goes for it. Catching sight of my face in the mirror I begin to feel concerned for the purple faced geriatric as she dips frequently out of sight.
Next, I am given a gym ball to sit on. Ooookkaaaay, I can sit. I learned that at six months. Then I'm told to kneel. No, kneel on the ball.
"You know you said I would hate you?" I grumble.
"Doesn't take long does it?" he grins at me. Sadistic bastard.
The plank sounds nice. Imitating a lump of wood is easy in my current condition -practically comatose - But no. I hold my weight on the only bony part of my otherwise fleshy body, the tender skin of my elbows screaming mere seconds into the pose.
"Don't arch, you need to keep level."
I almost squawk as Sam's hands bracket my body front and back holding my jiggly belly and my bum. He is in no hurry to let go as he uses the supporting hand to slide around showing me the core muscles I will learn to build up. His hand ends up even lower down, with his little finger spreading across my mound.
I know that he is completely unaware that he is practically feeling me up, and is giving me the most sexual experience I have had in months.
"You're doing great Stella, I love an enthusiastic partner."
Poor child has no idea the perverted visions clamouring for attention in my dirty mind.
"Okay, that's it for this session Stella, relax now." He slaps my arse with a crack that resounds around the now empty gym. If I had the energy I would yell.
"Oops sorry Stella, didn't mean to catch you so sharp there" Sam soothes his hand over my throbbing cheeks and as the sting eases, another sensation takes over. I squeeze my legs together and wonder briefly whether the shower heads are fixed.
He hunkers down in front of me, sparky and bright eyed. I have never felt so driven to kill another human being.
"Well, how do you feel after that session, Stella?"
I glower at him. "Homicidal, is the first word that springs to mind."
He throws his head back and laughs. Holding his hand out, he helps me to my feet, and supports me as I sway slightly. "You okay?"
"Honky- fucking - dory Sam. Same time tomorrow?"
"Sure thing Sexy Stella." He gives my arse another cracking slap and saunters off. I am sure there is a no touch policy here. I am also damply happy that Sam doesn't feel the need to adhere to it.
The shower heads in the ladies' locker room are fixed, which is probably as well, considering the showers are also communal. I squirm on the bus all the way home, and decide that the next time I will bring my car. At least I will be able to frig myself on the drive.
Not that the bus driver would have minded, from the look he gave me as I climbed aboard. I guess I forget I am quite a few pounds lighter than I used to be.
