wryly. ”Maybe we can just have coffee tonight, huh?”
Kerry laughed gently. ”I think she’s really enjoying your sessions, but I’m sure she’d take it easy on you if you asked her.” She looked up 18
Melissa Good
as Colleen approached, already in her workout gear. ”Hey, Col, it’ll be a few minutes. Dar’s on her way over.”
The redhead grinned. ”Good. I thought I was going to be late. I had two tellers come up short today, and we spent an extra hour trying to figure out what happened.” She tugged on Kerry’s shorts. ”Let’s get a drink while we’re waiting.”
”Okay. I’ve got to put my stuff on,,” Kerry agreed. ”You want anything, Ken?”
”No.” The gym manager shook his head. ”You two go on. I’ve got to give a few tours.” He indicated a small group of uncertain looking women. ”New members.”
Kerry nodded then followed Colleen towards the juice bar. ”Order me a strawberry banana, would you? I’m going to go change.” She angled her steps towards the locker room, waving at three sweating women who passed by. ”Hey guys.”
”Hi Kerry,” the closest one, a programming specialist who worked in Mark’s department, answered. ”The boss around?”
”On her way,” Kerry smiled, as she continued into the tile lined locker room, which echoed with the sounds of the showers, and the clank of locks against the metal doors.
Kerry went to her assigned space and unlocked it, pulling out her light cotton pants and top, and the white belt that went with them. She stripped off her shorts and the t-shirt she wore when climbing, along with the knee protectors that kept her kneecaps from being smashed against the rough concrete.
Idly she glanced to the right, and caught sight of herself in the mirror, and paused to evaluate the reflection. Turned sideways as she was, she could see the smooth curve of her thigh muscles. They had become a good deal more pronounced. She slid a hand up along her waistline, where she was just beginning to see a little definition.
She’d put on twenty five pounds since she’d hooked up with Dar, more than half of it muscle. Her entire body shape had changed beyond anything she’d expected, hiding her bones and giving her face a rounder and, to her surprise, younger appearance.
”Hmm.” She raised an eyebrow at the sight, watching the rounded shoulder muscles shift as she moved her arm. It had taken her a while to get used to it. She’d been so accustomed to thinking about herself in a certain way, that this sudden change had made her a little uncomfortable at first.
Okay, she sighed, as she slipped into the cotton pants. A lot uncomfortable, as her mind fought against a lifetime of being subjected to her mother’s views on what a woman should, or should not look like.
Women were not supposed to look like wrestlers. Slim...yes.
Poised...yes. Buff? No.
A lot of people here at the gym fit into her mother’s views, keeping strictly to the light aerobics, and the sweat rooms producing bodies like Hurricane Watch
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whippets, all slim bone and taut skin, avoiding the weight rooms and machines like the plague.
Dar had gone a long way towards providing her with an example of a different way of thinking. The taller woman regarded strength training as an important part of her fitness regimen. She was completely unapologetic over the amount of smooth muscles that covered her body.
Dar explained to Kerry, a touch sheepishly, that she preferred it that way, since the muscles burned up a lot of the excess she tended to indulge in.
That made a lot of sense to Kerry, and she decided if she was going to share a life with Dar, she’d better make an effort to ensure sharing Dar’s eating habits wasn’t going to be totally self-destructive.
It had come as something of a surprise to her, however, that she liked the activities, and was becoming reasonably competent at them.
She’d never really enjoyed sports in her younger years.
Comfortable with the