weights

I have a crush on the gym. The gym at my school is windowless and a touch dank, with a variety of machines that are fully functional about 80% of the time. Because this is a gym associated with a grad school and it is not frequented by undergrads, most of the population to be found here are less interested in checking others out and more interested in maintaining either optimum health or blowing off excess steam. It is full of beautiful, distracted people; all of them in their own worlds and forgetting their stressful careers in favor of the treadmill, the weights, or pickup basketball.

Athleticism and sexuality are deeply intertwined in my psyche, and I'm fairly certain I'm not alone in this. It's not a great leap to start at spandex on the stationery cycle and a sweaty acquaintance’s grunting with weights. At a zenith it is almost impossible to complete a workout without salivating.

**********

2:00pm is not a busy time at the gym. The people who manage to come then are people who take a late lunch, who have irregular schedules, or are students. People at the gym at 2:00pm are in the habit of sweating. They are acclimated to old tshirts and short shorts in a kind of exclusive public that is limited to only other people like themselves. The early afternoon is my favorite time to check a workout off of my task list. I walk in, exchange my membership card for my locker key and a towel from the extraordinarily bored clerk, and walk across the stationary bikes to the locker room. I stand in front of my locker for a minute, collecting myself before I strip and costume in black spandex shorts, a grey tanktop, a headband, and running shoes. I gather my water bottle, my key, and my ipod, and I head over to a stairstepper.

Exercise equipment forces a certain posture: eight inches taller, hips thrust backwards and shoulders pressed forward, a rhythmic, complimentary flex-and-release of the buttocks is a hypnotic undulation. Everyone is on a different tempo. I pick a machine and settle into my own pace*. I start to sweat. From here, I can watch people enter and leave.

There are two gentlemen who never fail to catch my eye.

They are both about four inches taller than I am. One has a darker complexion, with dark eyes that crinkle at the corner when he smiles. He has transformed over the past few years from slim and willowy to solid, with the same narrow hips and waist but with a new broadness to his back. The other is larger and square: he shows off his chest hair with a tank top and sways when he walks. His stubble perpetually offsets the apparent youth of his rounded face. They are workout partners. They are friendly. They laugh loudly in between sets and stifle grunts during reps.

They always smile and wave at me when they come in: “Hey Margot! I see you're giving it hell today!” the crinkle-eyed one says to me. He teases me like this all the time.

“I do my best, Jack!” I grin back at him. He and Ted meander over to the weight room.

I finish on my machine. I am bright pink, my hair is dripping, and my shirt sticks to me. I clean the equipment off and go to the weight room for the second half of my workout.

I am on autopilot: the routine of sweating is comforting and helps me dissipate the stress of my day to day. The moment after a normal workout is, for me, not altogether unlike a moment after an orgasm: there is clarity, tranquility, and a very particular odor. I am almost there, but not quite.

I walk into the weight room. It is empty except for me, Jack, and Ted. They are ignoring me, and spotting each other: Jack lies on the bench and Ted is over him. I get an exercise ball and some weights. As I lie on top of it—hips pointing towards the ceiling, knees spread apart for stability, chest opened with my arms at my sides, toes pointing towards the only other two people in the room—I am made acutely aware that I am ovulating by both my posture and the sounds coming from my companions.

I lift my weights. I put them down again. I do this again, with a moaning, grunting sound at the peak of exertion. My eyes are closed and I am focused on the tension in my muscles as I complete this self-assigned task.

Up. Down.

I do not immediately notice that my friends are now silent. There is no more clanking and ringing from their side of the gym, there are no more grunts, and there is just some faint chatter between the two of them. I am focused.

I complete my set.

I open my eyes and sit up.

I notice that from across the room, my two friends have barely changed posture, but they are no longer focused on bench presses and are instead focused on me. I am suddenly aware that gym shorts are an extraordinarily revealing garment on a sexually aroused man. I smile at them, and bounce a little on the  exercise ball.

“I didn't know you lifted weight like that, Margot.” Ted is half-smiling. “I didn't realize you were that strong. Would you mind coming over here and help me out with spotting Jack? I can show you how if you've never done it.”

I have spent a considerable amount of time moaning into my pillows and bringing myself to orgasm to the fantasy of this moment**. The gym is cold; my nipples harden as I step over.

I stand at the head of the bench. Ted is behind me and off to the side. He and Jack are both covered in sweat: I can smell them as I approach and now that we are so close it's overwhelming. The smell goes straight from my nostrils to my gut to my vulva.

Jack unracks the bar. There is clearly more weight on it than I can be expected to spot. He does a rep, then two, then starts to falter. I lean forward like I am useful here, and so does Ted, both his arms around me. This is completely ineffective for spotting and absolutely perfect for getting me wet. The two of us grab the bar and rerack it for Jack, who is panting heavily.

Ted pulls one hand off the equipment and puts it on my hip, pulling me back to him and breathing on the back of my ear. I inhale sharply as my lower back angles itself of its own accord to his touch. I am frozen for a moment as he puts his other hand on me and peels down my spandex without saying a word.

Jack is still panting, but now he is paying attention. There is a characteristic bulge underneath the shiny nylon of his shorts. He runs his reddened hands down his body to his pelvis, under the elastic to his growing penis, which he pulls into view.

Ted is kissing my neck and rubbing my clit as he pulls down his shorts. I grind my hips into him with a rhythm from earlier in the afternoon. He asks me to turn around. I do. He pulls over a second bench and sits down.

Jack puts one hand on my thigh, and asks me to step back a little. No, a little more. He asks me to straddle his face, knees on the racks on either side of the bench. He continues to stroke himself as he guides me down. I sigh. My hips sway back and forth over his face while he sucks on my labia and clit.

Ted is staring straight through me and stroking his cock. I return his gaze, put my hands on his thighs, and bend forward. His salt-tasting erection is in my mouth, my hands are still on his legs for balance and one of his hands grips my sweaty hair, the other cupping his testicles. Jack and I make the muffled sounds of people who love the taste of orgasms, while Ted sighs and squeezes my body.

We continue like this until I cannot form a tight seal when I try to silence the moans of my orgasm. I am shaking as my pelvis gyrates at a frequency faster than the one I consciously set, despite Jack's firm grip on the bend where my hip meets my thigh. I whimper and am still for a moment.

 I stand. I take Jack's hand off of his penis, and as a gratuity for the service he just provided me, I straddle his hips and fill my pussy with his erection. I am tight from the orgasm he gave me. He gasps,  grabs me and digs his fingers in. I ride him, facing his feet.

Ted walks over, swings a leg over his friend's lower half, and feeds me his cock. I wrap one hand around his waist and pull him in and the other forms a ring that follows my mouth. His hands are in my hair. He groans and fills my mouth with come. Everything tastes of salt and musk.

My pussy starts to tighten around Jack. My thighs burn as I ride him through climaxes: first mine, then his. His fingers leave small, red bruises over the crests of my hipbones.

I stand, my legs shaky from exertion. Jack sits up and pulls me down next to him, as if he were spotting me in my unsteady stance. Ted collects my shorts hands and hands them to me with a towel. The three of us are flushed and grinning. Jack, who is so very considerate of the needs of others, grabs a rag and the bottle of spray cleaner for the bench, and wipes it down.

“Do you have plans after your shower?” Jack asks me. His voice is the same as half an hour ago, when we were friends who went to the gym at the same time.

“I was going to grab a coffee and maybe a sandwich.”

“Mind if we join?”

“I'd be delighted.”

I kiss them each on the cheek. Ted slaps my ass lightly as I walk away. I half-smile at him; he half-smiles back.

The receptionist is completely asleep at the front desk.

*Recently, this pace is almost, but not quite, entirely Girl Talk, Robyn, and Cut Copy-based. You know, if you're interested.

**How meta.