Sophie's literature lecture had been cancelled, so she was able to leave the university early today.
She quickly arrived home and noticed that Katherine, her roommate, was also home. The door to her room was closed, but sounds were coming from inside.
Sophie went to her room and decided to use the afternoon off for herself. Her passion was ballet, but especially the flexibility it required. She liked that pleasant ache she felt when she stretched deeper and deeper to work on her flexibility. It even excited her a little.
She had even raved about it to Kat once, but had only gotten incredulous head shaking. "How is that even Β«niceΒ»?" she'd asked. "If I just try to touch my toes from a standing position, I almost get sick with pain."
But for Sophie, stretching at home - not in class under the eyes of her ballet teacher and the other girls - was special every time. Like a break from the daily grind. Today, she was going to enjoy another one of those stretching sessions.
* * *
"Wow, what a show!" thought Vince to himself as he looked spellbound at the laptop monitor. He really hadn't dreamed of this when he set out to visit his sister Katherine.
But first things first...
Since Katherine had started her studies, the two of them rarely saw each other. Today, of course, the joy of seeing each other again was all the greater.
But Kat had hardly any time for him, because she was totally busy with her new university project. She was studying mechanical engineering and had designed a small vehicle equipped with a camera that could reach even the most inaccessible places. This "rover" was controlled by a program on her notebook.
But no sooner had she finished telling Vince about it than her cell phone rang and she had to go back to university.
Vince was immediately fascinated by the rover. As soon as Kat left, he began exploring her room through the rover's camera. He drove under her bed, where the air mattress lay, on which he would crash the next 2 nights. Then into the hallway and, when he finally got used to the unfamiliar low perspective, into the kitchen of the small student apartment.
On his way back, he noticed that the door to the room of Sophie, Kat's roommate, was ajar.
She wasn't there. So he drove in and looked around. In his opinion, the room was too girly furnished for a college student in her early 20s. Besides, Sophie seemed to have a passion for ballet: Dance pictures hung everywhere, a ballet barre was mounted on one wall, and there was even a pair of pointe shoes hanging from it.
Suddenly, Vince heard a noise. Someone was unlocking the apartment door. It had to be Sophie. He kicked Kat's bedroom door shut with his foot in shock. What was he going to do now?
"Hey Kat, are you there?" he heard a young woman's voice.
Damn. He couldn't get out of Sophie's room with the rover anymore. So he looked for a hiding place and found it under her bed. He parked the Rover in the far corner and watched....
* * *
In her room, Sophie unrolled her yoga mat, lit some incense and picked out a matching outfit from her closet. She decided on a lilac halter ballet leotard with a low back neckline. Sophie liked her back. Her ex-boyfriend had also complimented her on it regularly.
Over the leotard, she pulled on a pair of pink ballet tights that she folded over her hips. Until she was warm enough, she would also wear a gray knit jumpsuit.
Then she sat down, legs bent, soles together, in front of the standing mirror that leaned against the wall in one corner of the room. Quickly, she pinned her straight blond hair up into a bun.
Everything felt light, and she noticed that her body was especially soft and relaxed today. This promised to be a great workout.
"Here we go," she thought, and walked over to her yoga mat, already loosening her shoulders. She grabbed her Airpods from her desk, selected some relaxing music on her phone, and shut out the world around her.
Sophie began the workout standing wide-legged in a way that allowed her to check her posture sideways in the mirror. Slowly, she bent forward with her back straight and stretched her arms above her head. She noticed how her back and buttock muscles immediately began to work. Soon her hands were touching the mat as she continued to lean forward.
For a few seconds she simply let her upper body hang, then took a step back and turned her thighs outward, "en dehors," as they say in ballet.
On the smooth laminate, her feet in the ballet tights slid apart easily and her bottom slowly approached the floor. The well-known, pleasantly warm feeling of an intensifying stretch set in her thighs. But soon she felt resistance in her legs and hips, reminding her that she was not yet fully warmed up.
* * *
Vince watched Sophie from the next room and was fascinated by her flexibility. He saw Sophie's bottom slowly inching toward the floor.
Obviously she didn't feel loose enough yet, because she stopped the stretching exercises and warmed up first instead.