wasn’t as tired as I felt I was? He had a (perhaps deservedly) cocky attitude when it came to his knowledge of the human body and his ability to recognize “ Well ok then, I’ll go at it a little longer,” I was mildly annoyed, but more than anything I wanted to show him how exhausted I could be. I started jogging again and reveled in feeling his watchful gaze. My legs started to burn. ‘Good, I want him to see how exhausted they are,’ I thought. Suddenly the pace of the treadmill was too slow for what I was putting in, and I picked it up to a light run. When sweat started to coat my clothing and drip off of my body it felt like a reward knowing he watched. I loved doing it all for him, even though I knew it was for me. What was initially a taxing endeavor had somehow morphed into pleasure. When the exhaustion was finally too much I stopped the treadmill and leapt off the back, hands bent over onto my knees as I caught my breath. “ Now that’s more like it,” Kevin gleamed “From now on I’ll want you to stop by gradually slowing yourself down, but what you’ve done here today is impressive. You’ve got heart, Melanie. And you have determination.” His complements echoed in my head and lifted my spirits. I was purely elated, and I knew I had earned the right to be when I stood up and looked down at my treadmill stats. Twenty-two minutes. The image burned into my mind and left me astonished. Not by what I had done, but by what Kevin had brought out of me. Up until that moment I was worried that my time at the gym would be short-lived. It could have been just another flash-in-the-pan ambition I’d give up on in three weeks or less. But I could come back to the gym, if it was to see him. And if it meant pleasing him, I knew I could push myself further and longer than I ever could have before. Kevin gave my workouts purpose, even though I knew I was working out for my personal benefit. It’d be pointless to try to deny it, there was a part of me that wanted to be his back then. He was a gateway to empowerment through instruction. But that was before I knew who my competition would be in his attention. That was before the day I gave up hope, and started to work out solely for myself. That was the day I walked in on him with my mother.
Though we arrived at the same time, I typically waited in the gym’s lobby until my mother had finished her session first. I had been working out for about eight-months and it was truly showing. Most of my acne had cleared up, and I had lost nearly twenty pounds. I felt healthier, and had gained a newfound confidence that pushed me out of my awkward head enough to expand my social circle. We arrived at the gym and wordlessly stepped into the routine of my mother stepping away with Kevin to the third floor weight room while I stretched and briskly jogged until it was my turn, since at this point I had more than enough energy left for my private workout. But on this particular evening I was eager to start toning my triceps, and I began looking for Kevin to ask what was a good starting weight. The 24-hour fitness center has three floors and is sprawling in each direction. There’s an Olympic sized swimming pool, a spa, a daycare, and just about any other facility you can imagine. While it has a number of people in it, it’s very easy find isolation if that’s your personal preference. The third floor women’s weight machine room, as it turned out, was exactly that. I stepped to the small glass pane window to the door of the room and had the air emptied from my lungs by what I saw. My mother was on her knees, with one hand wrapped around Kevin’s waist while the other splayed across his sculpted six-pack abs. He gripped her pony-tail in a fist and was very deliberately pumping a bulging erection into my mother’s mouth. Though saliva had begun to run down her chin, her eyes told me she how much pleasure she was getting from having her throat claimed by our