For five years now, I’ve been to the gym on asterisks almost daily. For several years, I belonged to two different chains, Equinox and Crunch, eventually doing away with my Equinox membership on the grounds that while it’s a prettier space, and while the people who work out there are more conventionally pretty, I just don’t like it. I don’t like the people, I don’t like the vibe. Pretty much what it has going for it is lighting, aesthetics, and towel thickness, relative to Crunch.
Crunch has a population I genuinely like. It’s friendly, it’s diverse. One of the people I’ve befriended is an African-American firefighter. Another is a former Ivy League football player gone fintech bro, also Black. There’s a white retired cop with a lot of tattoos. I can’t say any of these conversations or any of these relationships has any real depth to them. I’m not looking for deep relationships at the gym, and I don’t think anyone is. But I like the gym, and I like the people I encounter there.
There’s one woman in particular who’s captured my eye of late. She’s maybe 4’11”, with curly blonde hair, slender and toned, and a bonafide gym rat. I rarely attend the gym and don’t see her, regardless of the time or the day. My schedule is actually quite varied, so it seems to me instructive that I rarely miss her when I go.
I am particularly reticent about interacting with women at the gym. I’ve read enough and heard enough about creepy dudes, and it seems to me like of all places the gym should be a place where you can safely be yourself, in the clothes that work best for you, without being approached unwantedly. So I almost never start a conversation, unless it’s abundantly clear to me that one is welcome.
I’ve never spoken to this little hottie, because, well, she’s never invited an interaction. I can’t help watching her, though — my eyes are pulled to her — and it seems she talks with everyone, or at least with every man. One after another, men approach her. She’s friendly to all of them, giving the impression not only of receptivity, but of familiarity. It’s as if she knows everyone in the gym. And maybe she does — for fuck’s sake, she’s there all the time.
At the same time, while she seems receptive to all of the approaches, she doesn’t smile at anyone. She’s not inviting it with anything she’s doing. This is part of why I keep my distance. That, and I suppose, I have no idea what exactly I would say if I were to approach her. I feel like all my impulses veer toward the creepy.
I might say, for example, “I’ve never seen anyone whose clothes are more consistently flattering of their body than yours.” This is true. The shorts she wears, the leggings she wears, the tops she wears — all of them are just fucking preternaturally hot. Or: “I can’t take my eyes off of you when I’m at the gym.” Which is also true, but feels kind of creepy. Almost like something between a threat and a polluting, corrupting intrusion on all future moments — leaving her wondering if my eyes might be on her.
So I don’t say anything, out of respect and kindness. But damn, she is hot.
Not her. Obvs. But it could be.
Featured image prompt (openai): Large-format color photograph, overhead fluorescent and mirror-reflected light, mid-shot environmental frame. A commercial gym interior — rubber floors, cable machines, a mirrored wall running the full length — shot slightly off-axis so the mirrors multiply the space into uneasy infinity. In the middle distance, small in the frame and caught in a mirror’s reflection rather than directly, a compact blonde woman in fitted workout shorts faces away, mid-set, her reflected image fractured by a second mirror behind her so she appears twice simultaneously and neither instance quite resolves. The foreground is a rack of chrome dumbbells catching the harsh overhead light, all hard edges and cold gleam. The fluorescent tubes are one shade too green to be comfortable. Everything is real and ordinary — and something about the doubling, the off-kilter angle, the impossible reflections — makes the room feel like a place you cannot leave.
Bottom image prompt (gemini): Analog-grain photography, tight 50 mm lens, late afternoon. A petite, toned white woman in her late twenties with curly blonde hair loosely pinned stands at the edge of a gym locker room, hip canted against a row of metal lockers. She wears a black lace balconette bra and matching high-leg briefs, a gym bag dropped open at her feet, a tiny cropped athletic jacket hanging off one shoulder and forgotten there. Her posture is completely self-possessed — not performing for anyone, simply existing in her own body with calm authority. The camera is placed low and close, framing her from mid-thigh through collarbone, the curve of hip and the lace waistband fully in focus, the locker corridor receding warm and blurred behind her. Fluorescent light catches the lace edge and the bare stretch of stomach. She is looking slightly down and to the side, utterly unaware she is being watched, which is exactly the problem.