“Thanks for the advice.”
Ignoring me, he moved quickly to measure my breast size and picked up his clipboard to write down the numbers he had taken.
“You’re pretty good right now,” he said. “But I can tell you’re going to have a little trouble with your thighs. Your calves aren’t as tight as I would like them to be, and
your arms, especially in the triceps area, will be a problem later on if you don’t keep them tight. They’re a bit loose now for a girl your age, in fact. I guess you’re telling the truth when you say you don’t exercise much.”
“You can’t tell that way. Everything about me is a bit loose for a girl my age,” I muttered, reaching for a funny double entendre, but he acted as if he didn’t hear or care.
“Okay, let’s get started with the basics of stretching exercises. Then we’ll design a daily routine for you to attack the areas we need to attack, and we’ll get you into the pool and start building your stamina and strengthening your shoulders and your trapezius muscle. We’ll get you up to speed before we turn you over to Brendon in a day or so. Horseback riding is terrific physical exercise, too. Have you done much of that?”
“I rode a pony at some fun fair once, and I’ve been on a carousel—does that count?”
“Hardly. You can joke if you want. You may not appreciate it yet, but you have to be prepared for horseback riding. It will get you aching in areas you never knew you had. It’s great for stimulating muscles in the dorsal and abdominal regions that are seldom used in everyday life. Most people don’t understand that it’s a great calorie burner, too. They think the horse does all the work.”
I looked around the gym at the various machines, each specifically designed for one area of the body.
“All of this sounds exhausting,” I said.
He smiled, but it was a smile of condescension. “After a while, you’ll find it all invigorating, just as I do. When you’re on your mark, it’s as good as sex,” he said, and I thought maybe for him, that was definitely true, but it would never be for me. I think he saw my thoughts and laughed.
“Just kidding. Don’t panic. But I will tell you this,” he added almost in a whisper. “Women who are in top physical shape are better lovers. Even sex requires some endurance. One other thing,” he added, pulling himself up even straighter to emphasize his point. “We don’t use any steroids. No drug enhancements here.”
“Good. I don’t want to grow a mustache,” I said dryly.
He didn’t even smile. Was it healthy to be so damn serious about your work?
“Let’s get to the stretching,” he said. “As I said, it’s how we begin every day. I’m proud to say I haven’t had anyone I train pull a muscle or strain a tendon.”
I found the stretching to be more difficult than anything else he had me do in the gym. It was actually very painful. He told me I had to work through the pain to eliminate it. I couldn’t imagine ever standing with my legs straight and stiff and placing my palms flat on the floor, but he guaranteed that I would be doing it in less than a week.
As he took me through his plan of exercises specially designed for me, I laughed to myself, recalling how uncooperative and defiant I had always been in PE class. This year, my teacher, Ms. Lecter, gave me so many demerits that I was a candidate for failing PE in my senior year after only the first week of class, and that was something that could possibly threaten my graduation. Eventually, when that consequence didn’t change my behavior, she took to doing the same thing most of my teachers did: she ignored me and didn’t even bother to send me to the dean.
Again, maybe because my father made such a big deal about staying in shape, especially when you were young, I was recalcitrant. That description of me was actually on my report card. I hated almost any form of exercise, and I knew it irked the girls in my class who did work out hard and didn’t have anywhere near the perfect figure I had. They glared at me with such envy and hate. It was so unfair to them. Why was I so blessed? All the Miss Piggies looked as if they would enjoy beating me to death in the locker room and eating me for lunch.
I came back at Papa whenever he chastised me for not wanting to walk to the store to get something Mama needed or even something I needed. He was especially enraged when he saw the grades I was getting in PE.
“How can you be failing this?” he cried, waving my multicolored report card in the air like something forbidden he had found in my possession. “What do you do?”
“Nothing, that’s why.”
“You’re making a fool of yourself and fools of us!” he bellowed.
I looked at him calmly. “Who are you to talk, Papa? You’re not exercising the way you should anymore, are you? You have a sedentary job, and you don’t walk to work.”
Of course, he rattled on about how he was working hard to keep us all comfortable and wanting nothing. He did try to get to the gym every weekend, but he wasn’t happy about how he had to eat while entertaining clients. I think he was drinking more than he should. It was the first time I seriously considered the possibility that he regretted the choice he had made, after all. Perhaps by now, he could have been a high-ranking officer. I knew he harbored the belief that he could have been a better soldier than his older brother, who was still only a lieutenant colonel, whereas their father had become a general by his age.
After my gym workout, Lance gave me two bathing suits to try on. Both were a little tight. I think he did that deliberately so I would feel bad about my figure. The first one fit better. When I came out of the bathroom, he gave me one of his energy drinks. He was drinking some himself. I sat at the small table and sipped it. It wasn’t bad. I had been expecting it to taste like some sort of medicine.
“You are a little soft in the abdomen,” he said. “Most women don’t usually gain their weight there, but you look like you might have that inclination. Are your parents overweight?”
“No. Well, my father is now, but my mother has a terrific figure for someone her age and always did.”
“So you take after your father more,” he said. The way he said it irked me.
“I don’t think so.”
He laughed. “You mean you don’t wish so, but your genetics have a mind of their own. There’s just so much we can do about that. What do you usually have for breakfast?” he asked, grimacing as though he already knew my answer.