*Note -- This is part of a longer erotic series with a slow build, and the following few chapters do not contain explicit sex.
7
My thighs were on fire. Sweat glistened on my brow, and dripped its way down the small of my back. My breath was heavy, almost panting.
Five more.
I winced.
You can take it, Penny
.
It wasn't often that I tagged along with Marie in her workouts. Compared to my usual light cardio and crunches, the pace she kept up was downright manic. Beside me, I could see her long, taut torso, bending gracefully in a leg press that would have snapped my flyweight frame in two. My knees began to quiver, and I bit my lip, counting down the last three reps aloud.
I went along that night mostly because I wanted to be wiped out. I'd become accustomed the last few years to living in varied degrees of uncertainty. But the last two days were another animal entirely. I didn't want to think about it anymore. I didn't want to worry. All I wanted to do was to run my body ragged, until it collapsed in deep and dreamless sleep. Of course, I'd also come along because a Sunday ration of chocolate crepes and a whipped cream-covered mocha was enough to guilt anyone into hitting the gym.
With a whimper I hit my breaking point, and slid myself off the draconian contraption. Marie was still going strong, her body pulsating like a piston. I shook my head, marveling as I mounted a treadmill near the back. I wasn't the only one taking notice. A little gaggle of guys near the free weights had paused, craning their necks to ogle and nudge each other with their elbows.
'Et il y a du monde au balcon, no?'
I blushed and slipped in my earbuds, hoping to drown out their ugly innuendos.
I won't say we were asking for it. We weren't.
At all
. But much as I hate to admit it, Mr. Caine's concerns about Saint-Michel weren't entirely unfounded. The clientele here skewed heavily male, most with more biceps than brains. It was basically an old boxing gym, with just a few mismatched machines thrown in along one side of the ring. Marie liked it because it was close by, and because they stayed open past midnight. I liked it because it was dirt cheap. Just once, and only once, I'd let her seduce me into sparring with her, and just about got my molars knocked out. For the most part though, both of us just kept to the periphery, carefully minding our own business. And I guess apart from the stares and occasional catcalls, we'd never yet had any serious issues.
A blue bubble popped up as I skimmed down my playlist. Three missed calls and three voicemails, every one of them from my Mother. My brow furrowed
. Starting early this year, isn't she?
I tapped 'ignore', and started walking.
I typically talked to her about twice a month, and it was same conversation every time. She'd ramble on for ten or twenty minutes about the weather down in Nags Head, and pass along some stale news about neighbors whose names I scarcely recognized. So-and-so was moving, divorcing, married again, or dead. Then came the sigh, and the contemptuous question.
'Penelope, wouldn't it be
nice
to have the whole family home this year?
The question cropped up every holiday, and in her desperation, 'holiday' had come to encompass such second-rate affairs as the Fourth of July, Beggar's Night, and probably Boxing Day with the way things were headed. Usually I could parry with some half-baked excuse about buckling down in the library for midterms. If she ever got wise about why I had another final exam every six weeks, I figured I could just blame it on the metric system. It would have worked on me.
Don't get me wrong. I felt plenty guilty, even without her dumping fuel on the fire. I think it broke her heart a little that first year I didn't come home for Christmas. The way I heard it later, she spent the whole morning expecting me to show up out of the blue, with an apology and an over-stuffed suitcase, like some cloying bit of Rockwell Americana. This past year she'd been a bit more crafty, putting together a sort of telethon three or four weeks beforehand. In a twenty-four-hour period, I got calls from every last one of my brothers, each dutifully delivering to me their share of her passive-aggressive grief. Even then, it wasn't too difficult to deflect them. There was a reason, after all, they'd nicknamed their stubborn kid sister '
the immovable object
.'
Least convincing of all was the call from my Father. His appeal lacked heart, I think, not because he didn't care about me being away, but because he understood better than any that I wasn't ready to come back. Even before I left, Doctor Foster was best at loving from a distance. Whenever we spoke now, it was always under the pretext of telling me about some new women's health study he'd read, or to ask how my arm was doing.
At that point, he was still the only one back home who knew I'd dropped out. I told him because I knew he wouldn't ask any questions. All he did was offer some money to help me get by. I told him 'no,' and made him swear not to tell Mom. Most of the family already thought I was crazy for coming up here in the first place. They thought that I'd cracked, or that I was just chasing some childish dream. No one understood why I was running away.
No.
I shut my eyes.
One would've known.
A dark blue shadow fell over me. I heard a rumble of a thunder, a man's snarl and squall—distant at first, as if echoing down a tunnel—then roaring like an icy gale. A crunch of timbers, and shattering glass. I smelled the salt spray. Felt it sting, and choke. I smelled the smoke. Felt the fire. And something—something burning. Burning. And
black
...
I pressed a red arrow on the treadmill, and the speed increased.
I ran, counting out my steps like the stations of the cross. It's funny, in a way. Before, numbers never really were my forte. But there were times now when I found it queerly comforting to solve for
X
.
One and a half strides per second
.
Ninety-two beats per minute. Twenty-six breaths. Eleven minutes. Thirty-two feet per second per second. Six hundred sixty-six steps—double that. Two hundred eighty-six breaths. How many heartbeats? How hard is your heart..?
I took my pulse, and felt it racing out of control. I couldn't keep up. And with a flash of horror, I saw my body's internal clock spinning like the blade of a propeller, hurdling me forward through time.
One week
, I panted.
Six days. Some five hundred twenty-thousand seconds... It's not enough. Not nearly, Penny.
I wiped the sweat from my brow
. If he'd just given me twice that. Another day, even. Four or five weeks to really do right. But, by then...
I pressed the arrow again, and picked up the pace.
On top of everything, Mr. Caine's indictment of my upcoming immigration status had lingered with me a lot longer than I expected, like a low-burning flame in the pit of my stomach. My study permit, as best I knew, was set to expire in December, and though up to now the idea of leaving had seemed too absurd to even consider, ever since he mentioned it, I couldn't get the specter out of my head. He was right, after all. However much I hated to admit it, however much I wished to think otherwise, I really didn't know what would happen to me. I was wading out into uncharted waters. If I wasn't careful, a rip current might just sweep me out to sea.
There was one thing, however, of which I was absolutely certain. I wouldn't go home. I couldn't. I'd drown first. I'd freeze to death, camping out in the White Hills of New Hampshire. I'd starve myself in the wilderness, like Agrippina in exile.
Marie moved over to an elliptical, and began bounding in place like a whitetail deer. Two men by the heavy bag turned their heads, and I dropped down to a steady jog.
For the next six days at least, the only plan I could come up with was to just ignore everything, and paint.
That's it,
I told myself,
just do the damn thing. Who cares why? Who the cares what the hell he's really thinking?
I did. I frowned. I couldn't
not
care. And with a green twinge of jealousy, I thought again of dark and adorable Evelyn X on his arm. I remembered the swirling strokes of red; the intoxicating erotica of her canvas.
And he was married to her.
I panted.
That's the kind of talent he's used to.
My jaw clenched. I wondered. I wondered what would happen if I failed him—if I just couldn't give him what he wanted.
Stop
. I bit deeper.
Just stop.
I was panting hard at the end of my cool down. Marie was still going strong. A man with a crew cut and arms the size of Virginia hams had edged in next to her, flirting clumsily and 'correcting' her form. I heard her giggle as she squeezed his bicep. My eyes rolled. I remember her telling me once that men were easy to understand, and even easier to control. All you had to do was remember that they're swine, and never ask them to be anything else. I smirked, dabbing my temples with a towel. She was worse than Circe sometimes.
Rather than wait for her to finish toying around with him, I sauntered off alone to the locker room, tossing the towel over my shoulders. I peeled off my shorts and sports bra, stepping lightly into the white-tiled shower. The curtain snapped shut. The faucet squealed. Hot steam filled the stall. My muscles, already sore from the workout, seemed to melt away beneath the water. My body wasn't used to being pushed so hard—nor was my head, for that matter.
I lathered up and rinsed off. I turned around slowly, letting the lacy suds slip through my hair, over my shoulders, and down along my tingling spine. The shower pulsed against my thighs. I sighed, suppressing a rosy tingle as the swollen droplets gathered up, dangling and dripping from my chest. The steam grew dense. It stung my eyes and filled my throat. Once or twice, I almost choked. Slowly though, very slowly, it seduced me. I measured out my breaths between the billows, recalling with a blush Correggio's
Io
, until the heat had turned my whole body seashell pink.
Io, Leda, Ganymede, Danaë. Never ended well for them, did it?
I cut the faucet and stood dripping while the steam around me cleared. The water had warmed me to the bone. I wasn't shivering anymore. I wasn't even cold. My bare feet slapped the wet ceramic. I found my towel and buffed myself dry, slipping into my leggings and a long lace tunic. I wrung out my hair again, and wiggled my feet back into my sneakers. In the mirror, I double-checked to make sure it wasn't too obvious I'd opted out of my bra, and emerged feeling clean, refreshed, with as clear a head as I'd had in months.
At the edge of the ring, another muscular man with a melee of tattoos leaned his arms on the ropes, and whistled. I glanced back, figuring Marie must've stepped out behind me, her sexy ringlet tresses still dripping, like
