Girl:
The sweat is everywhere.
It’s in my hair, on my brow, cheeks, throat.
It’s under my arms.
It’s in creases and folds of where my jogging trousers touch my legs.
It’s between my breasts.
Crotch …
I ignore it.
I push – lift – push – lift – push … and keep going until it feels like my arms are going to break.
I try not to look at everyone in the room.
It’s not as if I just committed a sin or something, though.
It’s a gym. We’re all used to each other’s war cries. And the smell of sweat. The smell that doesn’t get better when it’s 80 degrees Fahrenheit of scorching merciless Arizona-sun outside.
In here it would be a boiler, if the fans weren’t running wild. Great big rotor blades making the whole ceiling turn, like they want to heave this suburban concrete-carcass turned fitness center into the heavens.
Fat chance.
I look at the others, without looking. I don’t want to be seen. Just alone.
Glistening sweat, war-cries, bulging muscles, bulging fat, big asses, skinny asses … it’s all there. It doesn’t look back and I am glad.
I want to be alone.
But I have to move when a lady sometime past her 50th b-day over and asks politely if she can use the machine.
“Uh, yes, ma’m. Sorry for sitting here, counting the stars.”
“That’s okay, dear. Was it a tiring workout?”
“It was hard enough. I put on a bit of extra weight – on the machine, I mean.”
We both smile politely.
“That’s good, dear. That’s good,” she says, slams her skinny ass in the seat and puts on some extra weight, about 10 pounds more than me. And begins lifting. I try not to look.
Damn. I’m only 26 but I already feel 26 years older than that lady. It’s not as if I don’t run around. It’s not as if I don’t move. You should try waiting tables all day in a Flagstaff road-side diner.
But it’s not as if I’m getting any skinnier. Still a few lumps too much around the belly and hips. Others might call me a hysteric. ‘Typical women’, you might cry. But I’m not. I’m not one of your ‘typical women’.
I really don’t care about the pounds. It’s as if I’m trying to wash something off. That’s why I keep at it, after a long day at the diner, when I really should just worship telly.
Those two Latinos are watching me. While they pump all the iron in the gym. Thinking about pumping the little blonde? Probably. I’m still good-looking enough for a mag or two. Others would say slim. Only I can see the extra lumps. So, yeah, they think it for a second:
‘Is she in on something – with us?’
If only they knew. If only they found some of the shit on the internet from my past life. I don’t think they’d be so eager not to conceal their staring.
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