18 months ago, in Anna's bedroom.
Is it morning yet?
I roll over and pick up my phone from its charging pad, and the screen lights.
3:06am
Fuck.
I've been checking the time every 10-15 minutes for the last four hours. I just want to go to sleep. Why can't it be morning? Every night, it's the same. I try to have good sleep routines: no caffeine after midday, no screens after 10, and being in bed for 11. I roll around trying to get to sleep until the sun's about to come up, then I fall asleep.
Fuck my life.
I tried sending an email to Mum and Dad for advice but they were useless. I think Dad sent me the same stuff I'd already googled; Mum just replied with "that's great advice".
I could try to rub one out but I think if I do that, I'll end up with callouses on my clit. I don't think that would help now. My head's running in a loop of "You're shit. Everyone else is shit. The world's shit." Sometimes I swap "shit" for some other word that means the same thing. Sometimes, I'll focus on why this or that is so terrible, just for a change.
I decide to drag myself out of bed. One of the articles said that can help. It's almost a shame to leave my plush sheets behind; I love Egyptian cotton. I click on a light on my bedside; it stings my eyes.
I meander across my bedroom to the corridor out into the main living area, as I step onto the cool, glossy tiles, I enjoy the sharp jolt to my senses as my feet adjust from the deep pile carpet in the corridor and my room. To my left, the floor-to-ceiling windows open up a panoramic view over the city, twinkling in the darkness. Almost all the apartments facing me are dark but I still don't need to turn on the lights to navigate, the city's glow lights the lounge and dining area, and I head into the kitchen. I pour a glass of tepid water and sip.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Everyone wants to know me and I don't want to know anyone. Random people tell me I'm "fucking hot" but the whole world is made of hideous arseholes.
Fucking Matt. He was kinda hot and kinda nice so I dated him. What a mistake. What a total arsehole. What kind of disaster am I to turn him gay? I've got to think about something else. I can't lose another night's sleep wondering what else I could have done to satisfy him.
I grab the remote and turn on the TV. The wall jumps to life as the 75" screen turns night into day. It jumps to Vogue TV - another re-run of Givenchy, Spring Collection 2012. They were doing that nose ring thing...
The girls look so fierce strutting down the runway. They're so beautiful, almost ethereal. I could never look like that. Maybe if I got a breast reduction and lengthened my legs... I'd still fuck it up. They'd say my face is wonky or something.
This girl's amazing. I could stare at her for hours, just sashaying up and down the runway. She's thin as a rail but not emaciated, like some of them - fit and fierce. There's even a hint of tits under her pale dress.
I habitually reach down to my groin. Before I even get there I realize I'm wasting my time. I'm as cold and dry as... I don't know. I don't think anything has ever been this barren.
Now I'm wide awake, kinda horny, and miserable. There's nothing else to do but hit the gym to tire me out enough that I pass out and can ignore this shit for a few hours. At least I won't have to deal with people at this time of the morning.
I pull on gym gear from the drawer (Lulemon - they make a great sports bra for me). The only runway that had tits half as big as mine was Victoria's Secret but the Angels were taller and prettier.
I check my reflection in the mirror. I'm a wreck, I can't go out like this, even if no one's around. Dad would disown me, and Mum might actually die of a heart attack. "You never get a second chance to make a first impression..." I can hear them now, somehow harmonizing their disappointment across three continents.
I take a minute to apply some basic makeup and brush my hair back into a ponytail. I look less like an 18-year-old failing at university and life. I know the truth, though.
I grab my towel, water bottle, and keys; head to the gym downstairs.
* * *
The gym is dark when I arrive, sensors coax life into the lights as I open the door, and air conditioning whirs into motion somewhere.
I start going through the motions of my warm-up. I try to focus on each of the movements but squats just aren't that interesting.
I keep coming back to the model sashaying down the runway... She was beautiful, no doubt. I don't know if I'd like to meet her... I think I could fuck her. She might play at being a dominatrix and force me to pleasure her and her friends. She would be like Matt and fuck me a few times and decide she prefers dick... Maybe she could just stand in the corner and look pretty. Maybe one of the random arseholes who tells me I'm "fucking hot" could pay me to hang around... At least I'd have a job and I'd get something out of them staring at me. Mum and Dad would be disappointed - it's not why they "paid for a tertiary education at one of the finest universities in the country..."
Warm-up done, I drag the elliptical machine under the air conditioning vent, in the middle of the room. I swipe my card through the machine and pick from the programs I've got. I choose "cruel". I made it for times like this when I want my body's screams to drown out the ones in my head.
The program kicks off and it's all I can do to keep up. I can feel my feet shifting on the platforms as they whizz around, I have to carefully shuffle back into place while the machine's flying around me. My breaths are already short and there are another 29 minutes to go, I push harder... The heat from my warm-up starts to give way to burning, spreading down from my butt and my shoulders, and my lungs start feeling ragged. I descend into trying to keep up with the machine's demands, even as my body refuses to obey me. Pain roars through my body and mind, and all I can focus on is satisfying the machine's cruelty... 10 minutes to go.
"Do you have long to go?"
I look around to find the interloper. Our eyes meet and I know she can see into the depths of my soul. She's sublime. She's impatient but she has all the time in the world. She's without makeup and her hair's a mess and she looks more beautiful for it. I feel my foot slip forward, badly; then the other goes backward and I grab the handles to avoid falling. The machine wrenches one, then the other, handle from me. The handles hit me, I get bashed by the steps, and I get thrown onto the floor.
"Are you OK?"
I can't tell if I'm OK. I pull my face up off the scratchy carpet tiles and turn toward the voice. I can see the toes of some runners (Nike, worn); then cheap white socks. I start to roll slowly over onto my back. I can see two shins, waxed. Knees, lean thighs to match the rest of the legs - hard as steel, as smooth as butter. Proper running shorts, in some team colors I don't know. Rippling, washboard abs disappear under a tight crop top (2XU, black) covering two of the most perfect breasts I've ever seen - definitely there but not enough to ruin an outfit, very firm. I can just make out her nipples through the thick fabric. Arms and shoulders frame her chest with more lean, taut muscles. She's as if Leonardo Da Vinci sketched a study of the perfect woman's musculature and then wrapped a person in it.
"Can you hear me?"
She looks down at me from her towering height, at once concerned and indifferent. Her face is... transcendent. She rolled out of bed and into the gym and her beauty mocks every effort I've ever made. Maybe she's a sports model? Would I recognize her? Her face is geometrically perfect, skin clear and vital, grey-brown eyes as big as dinner plates and staring right through me. Her full lips are pursed in concern but I just want to kiss them.
"errrr..." is all that I can say. What do you say to a goddess?
"Is that a 'yes'?"
"yes, god..." I catch myself, late.
"So you can hear me! Otherwise? That was a pretty good fall."
