weren’t paying her.
He found himself looking forward to their next session. Not only because he wanted to be fixed but because he wanted to see her again. He’d never been the bondage and S-and-M type, but when he recalled the way that black-clad coolly sexy woman had looked at him, he began to understand the appeal.
* * *
S ERENA CONSIDERED THE elliptical trainer at the gym one of her best friends. The machine was a time-efficient workout, improving her cardio and her lower and upper body while at the same time allowing her to catch up on the day’s news via a headset and inset TV monitor.
While she pedaled in endless ovals and pushed and pulled the handles, she absorbed the day’s news. It was the usual mishmash of drama, despair, politics and business with a few cute human-interest stories thrown in.
The upcoming IPO for Marcus Lemming’s company, Big Game, was mentioned. She suspected she was going to have to up her sessions with Marcus given the level of media interest. His was a classic geek-makes-good story of a quiet nerd with few social skills who’d parlayed an adolescence spent in his bedroom gaming into a terrific business. The trouble was that he hadn’t had the time, skills or inclination in high school to do all the things most other boys do, like converse with girls, date, interact socially, play sports. It was easy to find the source of his problem and fairly easy to fix it.
Her tougher client seemed to be Adam, a guy who’d clearly misspent his teenage years to the hilt. He had the unconscious confidence of a man who was a high school jock, popular with both sexes, smart enough to get by but not freakishly intelligent. According to Max he was a terrific hockey player and a dedicated detective. Why would a man like that have performance anxiety?
Max had no idea. She suspected from her brief meeting with Adam that he didn’t know, either. She wondered if he’d spend the time and effort required to work through his feelings about choking under pressure during the play-offs. And if he did the work, would he be self-aware enough to be able to diagnose his own ailment?
Frankly, she doubted it.
As her workout ticked toward the thirty-minute mark, her legs began to feel pleasantly tired. Another fifteen minutes of a strength-and-stretching routine designed for her by a personal trainer to provide the maximum workout in the minimum time, and she was done. Serena worked out every weekday at the gym and had her routine so well honed she could be showered, changed and heading to her office within an hour of entering the gym.
Since she arrived and left at approximately the same time every day, she had a nodding acquaintance with a number of other prework clients. Today Stanley Wozniak, a quiet hospital worker who had a similar workout schedule, took the elliptical next to hers. She smiled at him and he blushed deeply. Which he did every morning. It was obvious that he had a crush on her. She only hoped that he was too shy ever to ask her out and embarrass them both.
She might spend only thirty minutes on the elliptical but she liked to give it her all. At the end of half an hour she was breathing hard and sweating so profusely her shirt clung to her. When she moved on to the free weights, her trainer, Tim Patterson, strolled by. He wore the standard uniform of black sweatpants and a black T-shirt advertising the gym, and he filled both out to mouthwatering perfection. Of course, he knew it. An Australian who’d originally come to the United States to work in a ski resort, he’d stayed and was one of the most popular trainers. “How ya goin’, Serena?” he asked her.
“Hi, Tim. I’m fine.”
He stopped, adjusted the line of her shoulders, and ran a hand down her spine in a professional, friendly manner. “Keep your back straight.”
He watched her do a couple of reps and nodded. “Nice.”
“Thanks.” She took a private session with Tim every month so he could change up her routine. In
Tracie Peterson, Judith Pella