by Lisa Ferrari
“Probably didn’t want to brag. That’s so cool. What was he driving? Did you see his car?”
“Yeah, a white Mercedes convertible.”
“Oh, dude. Did he say if he bought the Lambo or the Stingray?”
“No, we didn’t talk about cars.”
“Dude, that’s awesome. Well, I gotta finish up and get outta here and I still have to get the ribeyes drunk. See ya.”
Chris turns and goes back into the kitchen. His black shoes skate across the greasy green tile floor. I try to understand what we just discussed. He knows a lot about Kellan. Including the fact that Kellan owns Iron Palace. That’s crazy. I had no idea. No wonder everyone was there to meet him yesterday and shake hands and get selfies and free protein powder. Wow.
LATER, THAT EVENING, I’m over at Denise’s house. It’s a gorgeous house. Denise is a very good lawyer and makes lots of money. We were roommates in college. She was an English major like me. But she went on to McGeorge School of Law and now she does estate planning and intellectual property and contract law. She makes a lot but she works a lot, too; about 70 hours per week. She’s gunning for partner.
It’s Monday night and football is on. We’re watching the game because Denise is a 49ers fan and she loves to see the guys in their tight little football pants with their nice juicy bubble butts.
She wants details about my date with Kellan.
I keep telling her it wasn’t a date.
She asks all sorts of questions about him and what he was like and stuff. I tell her how we stood in the parking lot for almost 15 minutes talking, and how he invited me to go eat with him.
Denise totally freaks out. “You should’ve gone! It would’ve been so romantic, like you guys were in the 1950s. Oh! Just like in Grease. He could be Danny Zuko and you could be Sandy. It’s a Romeo and Juliet fish out of water story where he totally remakes you and you guys fall madly in love and get married and you get your hoo-hoo pounded every night by one of the most gorgeous men on the planet. Lucky slut. Did he have a wedding ring?”
“No.”
Denise claps and goes nearly ultrasonic with glee.
My phone pings.
It’s a text.
From Kellan.
“Holy crap,” I utter, “it’s him.”
We read his text together.
Sorry about the online post.
Those guys got your name from
front desk guy.
I took care of it.
Won’t happen again.
“Holy shit,” says Denise. “He totally stood up for you. That’s so sweet. What are you going to say back?”
“I don’t know.”
OK
You pissed?
Denise and I look at one another.
No.
I would be.
Maybe a little.
You set up your apt 4 hydro yet?
“Hydro?” Denise asks. “What’s that?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Some kind of test.”
No.
Why not?
Been busy.
“What’s hydro?” Denise asks.
“It’s this place he wants me to go to. He gave me their card. Someone named Stacy. A sports medicine place.”
“Oh, I bet they do body fat testing there. Hydro… static! That’s what it is. Some of the football players I did in college used to go do that.”
“How does it work?” I do my best to gloss over the part about the players, plural, Denise quote-unquote did in college.
“You get into this big tank of water, exhale all your air so you don’t have any extra weight, and then go under water. They use a computer to measure your exact body-fat percentage.”
“You mean you have to get undressed and get into the water?”
“You have a bathing suit on. I think.”
Thirty seconds later, my phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Stacy from NorCal Physio. Is this Claire?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, Claire. Kellan asked that I get in touch with you to set up a hydro test. We work with all his clients so you’re in good hands here. What day works best for you?”
“Uh, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check my work schedule.”
“Are you free right now? I was just about to close up but we can do you real quick tonight if you like. Kellan was pretty excited about getting you tested.”
“Um, okay.”
“Great. We’re just off Olympus and Taylor. I’ll text you the address so you can put it into your GPS.”
“How much is this going to cost?”
“Normally, it’s $195. But for our VIP customers it’s an even $40. Bring your bathing suit.”
We say our goodbyes and hang up.
Denise is excited and wants to come with me.
I’m somewhat terrified. (Somewhat?!)
I don’t understand what’s happening.
I didn’t ask for any of this.
Nor do I even have a bathing suit.
I’m in my work clothes.
My Walmart pants. My men’s Walmart pants.
“You do have a bathing suit,” Denise says. “You left one here about a month ago after my Fourth of July party, remember? The green-and-black one that makes your boobs look awesome.”
“What about the rest of my disgusting body?”
“Claire.…” Denise fixes me with her disapproving-mom look. “Don’t say that about yourself. You’re not disgusting.”
I have a couple hundred-million fat cells that disagree.
My phone pings. It’s a text from Kellan.
All set???
Jeez, he’s using multiple question marks, too.
I guess.
Cool. C U there in 20.
Oh Lord. Oh no. I begin to panic.
You’re coming?
You know it.
Really?
I’ve been wanting to get dunked. It’s been awhile.
No time like the present.
How’s your chest?
Hurts.
Good. Mine too.
And it is good. It hurt like crazy this morning when I got up and each time I had to lift something at work, especially those big silver chafing dishes that are quite heavy. In a weird, I-can’t-move, where’s-the-ibuprofen kind of way, I like it.
Then reality comes crashing in. “Oh, Jesus. Kellan is going to be there. He’s going to see me in a bikini. I can’t go. I’m not going. I’m going to call what’s her face back and cancel.”
“No you’re not. We’re doing this. I’ve been wanting to know exactly what my body-fat percentage is. The last time I did one was about five years ago when me and my sister did it before our first triathlon in Rancho Murietta. This way I’ll know if that stupid bio-impedance scale I spent 150 bucks on at Sports Authority is worth a damn.”
“My sister and I.”
Denise just looks at me. “Sorry, professor.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, we’re at the hydro clinic.
Stacy is tall and tanned and beautiful and fit. Her mane of salon-quality hair is to die for. She’s wearing a little denim skirt and a white halter top and tall platform sandals.
Denise came dressed in her favorite skinny jeans and a cute little red top.
And here I am in my black Walmart men’s pants and dirty white tuxedo shirt. God.
Kellan is wearing khaki pants with lots of pockets, a baby-blue silk button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and nice, shiny black shoes. He looks tactical and manly yet elegant.
Stacy and Kellan are obviously good friends.
Denise catches my eye and makes an in-and-out motion with her fingers, indicating that they’re sleeping together.
Kellan does all the introductions and prepares to go first in the tank. It’s awkward when he strips down to his shiny, tight, black Speedo. With a big bulge in the front. I can’t stop staring at it.
All three of us women stand there, staring
at him.
Denise loses it.
“Oh my God. Can I rub oil on you? Can I come to your next show and be your oil wench?”
Everyone laughs. Except me.
Stacy and Denise can’t take their eyes off him. I wouldn’t be able to either if I weren’t acutely aware of them eyeing him like a piece of meat. It’s odd, and strikes me as a bit of a surprise, but I feel somewhat… protective. Almost territorial. The realization makes me feel foolish. Kellan and I are nothing. We met less than 24 hours ago.
Kellan climbs into the tank like a Greek god taking a bath.
I’ve never wanted to be a Speedo so much in my entire life.
Kellan exhales all his air and goes underwater for about 10 seconds while Denise does her thing with her computer. He comes out of the tank glistening and perfect.
God, he’s hot.
And now that his Speedo is wet . . . wow.
He grabs his towel and dries himself. He rubs the towel up and down his thighs, his big, thick thighs….
Again, we’re all three standing there watching him like idiots.
“What am I?” he asks. He’s looking at Stacy.
She’s looking at his abs. Or perhaps a bit lower.
So is Denise. Denise is clearly lost in a fantasy involving what’s inside Kellan’s Speedo, which looks to be sizable.
“Stace?” Kellan says.
“Hmm?” Finally she makes eye contact.
“What am I?”
“Oh! Uh…” She checks her computer, clicking the mouse a few times. “Looks like… 9.4 percent.”
“That’s about what I figured,” says Kellan. “Next.”
“I’ll go next!” Denise declares. She kicks off her shoes and unbuttons her jeans and wiggles out of them, then pulls off her top, revealing her leopard-print bikini. It makes her implants look really good and I wonder again about getting some. Not that I have ten grand lying around.
Denise’s ass looks amazing, too. Much rounder and perkier than I remember. I think she’s been doing her Brazilian Booty Sculpt DVDs, even though she told me she hasn’t.
Kellan gets dressed and doesn’t seem to pay much attention to Denise while she’s being tested.
Denise gets pissed when Stacy declares that she’s 20.5% body fat. “Damn Krispy Kreme…” Denise mutters as she dries herself and puts her clothes back on.
Finally it’s my turn.
Crap.
Crap crap crap crap crap.
I so do not want to get quasi-naked in front of Denise and especially Stacy and really not in front of Kellan. I realize in that moment that I sort of have a thing for him. It’s absurd, I know. But it’s true.
“Let’s see what ya got, Iron Born.”
I look over and Kellan is sitting on a bench, tying his shoes and eating a protein bar. He’s smiling at me. His damp, towel-dried hair hangs in long strands around his square, handsome face and in front of his blue eyes.
God, his eyes….
I decide to get it over with.
I pull off my tuxedo shirt and let my dumb pants fall to the floor. I hope my green bikini looks alright.
“Doesn’t she have great shoulders?” Kellan states as I hurry into the tank of tepid water.
“She does,” says Stacy. Stacy tells me to exhale all my air and go under water and hold perfectly still for about 5 seconds.
When I come up, Kellan greets me with a towel. He holds it out like a matador beckoning a bull, and he wraps it around me. “How was that?”
“Fine.” As I dry myself, I wince because my chest muscles hurt. My pecs.
“Chest day yesterday?” Stacy asks.
“Yep,” I say.
“Me, too. My boobies are killing me.”
“Are those real?” Denise asks.
“Oh no,” says Stacy.
“Who’s your surgeon?” Denise asks.
“Dr. Klein, down in Beverly Hills. Who’s yours?”
“Dr. Chang, here in town.”
“They look great.”
“Thanks. So do yours.”
“Thank you.”
Suddenly I realize Denise and Stacy are cut from the same big-boobed cloth. They’re going to get together for lunch and talk about plastic surgery and trans fats and $300 shoes and $1500 hand bags and they’ll become best friends forever. Denise will stop texting me. She and Stacy will do lots of expensive stuff I can’t afford, like massages and spa days and going to clubs where all the guys will buy them Cosmopolitans. I’ll get phased out.
Stacy continues, “After Kellan helped me do my first show a couple years ago, I had them done. The judges said I was too straight up top. That meant I had no breasts.”
“You still should’ve won,” says Kellan.
“When you get down to single-digit body fat,” says Stacy, “your boobs disappear. It’s great for running, but not for aesthetics. Are you signed up for the Sierra Nevada NPC?”
I realize Stacy is speaking to me. “No, I’m not signed up for anything.” What the hell is the Sierra Nevada NPC?
“Well, when you’re ready, let me know. I would love to be able to spare you all the mistakes I made during my first few shows. If only I knew then what I know now.” Stacy smiles at me and rolls her eyes. She seems sweet enough.
“What is she, Stace?” Kellan asks.
Click, click, click… “Looks like 33.9.”
“33.9?” I ask. “Percent?”
“Yes.”
“One-third of me is pure fat?” I want to crawl into a hole and die. Or get back in the tank and drown.
Stacy hands Kellan a piece of paper out of the printer. He studies it for a second and then folds it up. “Cool, thanks,” Kellan says. He sounds casual, as if he’d asked the time of day.
“What else does it say?” I ask. I’m quickly donning my clothes, which are getting wet now because in my haste to cover myself I didn’t dry my bathing suit well enough. My big fat ass is going to leave a big fat wet spot on my car seat. Rather, on Denise’s car seat (in her shiny black Lexus), since she drove because she doesn’t like to ride around in my little silver econobox.
“It shows that you have a lot of lean body mass.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means you have a lot of muscle,” says Stacy.
“That’s good?”
“Very good,” says Kellan.
He wrings out his Speedo, letting the water drip into the big tank.
Does that mean he’s … going commando?
Wow.
“Listen,” he says, “I gotta run. I need to go eat and do a bunch of stuff. Thanks, Stace, for squeezing us in last minute like this. See you tonight at the gym, Iron Born. Nine-ish. Leg day. Right?”
I stutter like an idiot as Kellan stands there watching me expectantly.
I had no idea he wanted to train with me again.
Or that it was leg day.
What the hell is leg day?
Plus I had about three hours of sleep last night. I sense that admitting as much will make me look weak and pathetic. So I say, “Right.”
Denise and Stacy are both standing there looking at us with WTF written all over their faces. From which I manage to glean a small semblance of satisfaction.
THAT NIGHT, I arrive at Iron Palace at ten minutes to 9:00. I’m a bit more prepared tonight than I was last night; I’m wearing my Iron Born tee shirt again, which I’ve washed, along with my favorite black compression pants that have a criss-crossing grey pattern. Denise said they’re slimming and really accentuate my buns.
I see Kellan’s shiny, sexy white Mercedes in the parking lot and park beside it and go inside.
There is a girl working the front desk, not Jimmy from last night. Her name tag says Gina. She scans my card and goes back to texting on her phone.
Kellan comes out of a door near the cubicle area where all the salespeople sit. He has two shakers in his hands. He hands one to me. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“This is my n
ew preworkout I’m testing. Want to help me test it?”
“Sure. What’s in it?”
“L-arginine, which is a nitrous oxide precursor for blood flow to help get a pump, beta-alanine and taurine for endurance and focus, white willow bark which is basically aspirin to help with fat burning, caffeine for energy and fat burning, creatine which helps replenish ATP and aids muscle hydration and thus strength and endurance, and a few other little secrets. Plus it’s sweetened with stevia and colored with beet powder. None of that sucralose garbage. That will give you diarrhea, by the way. Stay away from that. Anyway, sip on it as we work out, so you can assess your tolerance. If your skin starts to feel a little tingly, that’s normal. That’s just the beta alanine. But if your heart starts to race, let me know. That means you’ve had too much.”
I taste it. It’s fruity and actually quite good. I could drink it quickly.
Kellan leads me over to the stationary bikes and we warm up. He shows me how to adjust the seat by pulling straight back on the black handle, which has a metal pin attached to it. We pedal for 10 minutes to get the blood flowing in our legs.
“Time to hit the squat rack,” he declares. He grabs his gym bag and two jugs of water. “Oh, this is for you.” He hands me a jug.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Drink it.”
“What is it?”
“Water.”
“How am I supposed to drink a whole gallon of water? Can’t you die from that?”
“Yes, you can if you are stupid and you drink a gallon or two of water in 15 minutes. It’s called hyponatremia. It’s when all your electrolytes get flushed out and your body spazzes out and you die. But we’re not going to do that. You’re going to drink as much water as you feel you need. That’s all.”
“How much do you usually drink?”
“A gallon.”
“A whole gallon?”
“Yeah, easily. But I work out for a couple hours and I keep a pretty fast pace so I sweat my ass off. Last night was kind of an exception because we were talking a lot. Tonight we’re going to go a bit faster. By the time we get done, we’ll have to crawl out to our cars.” He smiles a huge, 10-million megawatt smile, as if this is a good thing.
All I see is that smile.
And those eyes. Those blue eyes.
He can do whatever he wants to me.
Iron Palace has three squat racks side by side facing the mirror. All three are empty. Pretty much the entire gym is empty. I guess this is why he trains at night. But then, Chris said this is his gym, so he probably trains any time he wants. I consider mentioning it but decide not to. I don’t want to look like some pathetic fangirl who’s all mesmerized and smitten by the guy who owns the gym.