Chapter 19: It's Nice To Have a Friend
My cheeks stung as I stared unblinking at Hera. What the hell had just happened? Did Megan just tell us we were out of shape?
"Megan sure has a sweet way of telling me I'm flabby," Hera said with a rather forced smile.
"Is that what she said?" I asked, still unsure about what had transpired.
"Weren't you there?" she sounded a little on edge. "Of course that's what she said. It's not the first time. She's been trying to get me to work out with her ever since she moved in."
"That must be annoying," I commiserated.
"Well, yeah. The worst part is that she's right. I
am
flabby."
"Fuck no, you're not flabby!" I raised my voice as if to frighten off unfriendly ideas. "You're perfect, you're beautiful, you're sexy, you're..."
"Letting myself go." She sighed. "I'm twenty four, I know that's young, especially compared to you..." she looked up at me and smirked, "...but it's not
that
young. I've been coasting on my youth, and I know that won't last forever. Ok, I don't want to end up looking like my mom. I love her to death, and she's incredibly sexy, but she really looks matronly, and too old for her age. I know she's not happy with her body, and she's actually started doing something about it. She's working out with Joe and Jo and Angela."
"I think Henri's working out with them too," I added.
"Sometimes he works out there, sometimes he's at Carl's. I don't think he's settled on a good routine yet. But yeah, he's trying. And I'm not. Megan noticed. I'd always thought that maybe I'd go running with you and Tethys after I met you guys, but you haven't been running as much as you used to, and I haven't even asked yet to go along."
I'd read the prase before: "the thrill of shame." It's what I felt at that moment. I had indeed cut back on my running. It hadn't been a conscious decision, but ever since meeting Megan and Hera, and getting involved with the others in The Tribe, I'd spent so much more time socializing and sexualizing than exercising. People will claim that fucking is excellent exercise, and it is to a certain extent, especially the way WE do it, but not nearly to the extent of running five to ten miles. It was a fact that I was coasting too, and I had ten more years of age viscosity to resist my coasting than Hera.
Tethys had cut back on her running as well, but while maybe not the same from a cardio standpoint, she had in exchange increased the duration and intensity of her weight lifting, now that she was helping to train Megan and Rena, and whoever else might want to join in. I had never had the urge to compete with Carl physically, he was simply an extraordinary specimen, but now I had met, and Tethys was currently visiting, Ray and Mimi from San Diego. At sixty-two, he could give Carl a run for his money, and I was reasonably sure that if he wanted, he could lift me vertically overhead and toss me across a room. It wasn't just strength, either, he had the lean, slender build of a muscular Adonis half his age. Tethys was completely taken by him, and Mimi was encouraging her to seduce him.
Joe, Henri, Herakles and Rick had all started hitting the gym as well, I was the only male holdout. And why? Was it arrogance? Stubbornness? Pride? Laziness? Philosophical reluctance?
Maybe I was too busy with work. Yeah, that could be it. Except I was no busier than Henri, or Carl, or Rick. Joe and Jo, maybe, since they were prematurely retired. But the other women in the group also had their jobs and classes to go to, except for Phoebe, and she was now exercising rather than making excuses. No, for me, there was only one thing it could be, and that was old-fashioned everyday conservative inertia. I was simply averse to change. I'd grown up thinking that lifting weights was for blockheads, and I hadn't allowed my contrary experience with weight lifters to change my deep-set attitude.
I looked back at Hera. "So what are you going to do?"
"Now, or for the rest of my life?"
"Um, either, I guess."
She sighed heavily. "Megan has gone into my mom's Goddess cult even more than my mom has, and way more than me. Shit, even Rena seems to have bought into it. And they're saying that if you want to live a fully erotic and sensual, happily sexual life, then you need to develop the whole person, intellectually, morally, and physically. Being fit and strong physically allows your senses to be sharper, your responses to be more powerful, and of course your sexual capacity to be greater."
"Tethys would agree with all that, I added.
"For the intellectual stuff, she likes for me to make love to her while she's studying. It's kind of distracting to be licking her pussy while she's writing an essay or reading a paper, but I do it. She says having an orgasm while reading helps her remember it better. For the moral aspect, it's all about developing her sexual philosophy, along with a general concept of empathy, she says. So anyway, in the long run, I'm going to follow the Goddess' inspiration, and among other things, start a workout program. I'll talk to her about it this evening.
"And what about now?"
"For now, I'm going to fuck you until your cock breaks."
Hera had made up her mind, and as my broken cock rested inside her warm and suckling mouth for the third time that day, my primary thought (other than wondering whether the enzymes in her saliva could be digesting the skin of my penis with all this exposure to them) was of how I should go about scheduling workouts. Ideally, I'd be sharing the workouts with Tethys, but to do that she'd have to change her schedule. Even if I managed to get a full workout on a weekend, that would still mean at least a couple of evenings during the week after work. Tethys' schedule had mostly revolved around Carl's availability, since it was his home gym she was using, but with his impending departure for the Asian tour with Sonia, that would not be a factor for at least a few months.
When Tethys and I talked that night, I told her what Megan had said, and the conversation with Hera that followed. Of course, she hadn't been missing any workouts herself, Mimi and Ray had a full weight room built into their house, with a separate outdoor entrance, and Tethys reported that it was almost as well-equipped as Carl's.