You Can Dress Me Up In Diamonds, You Can Dress Me Up In Dirt Who: Max & Abel What: Cat meets Dog Where: Pax Letale gym When: Afternoon
One of the best parts of her job was that most days she got to sleep in. She was usually out all night, crawling in the building around 3am, but that came with the territory. So it was that she woke up around noon and lazily having lunch and getting ready for her day, pulling on a t-shirt and yoga pants, hair up in a ponytail, and taking the stairs down to the lobby at about two o’clock.
It was quiet here in the middle of the afternoon, most other people out working at this hour. For her it was her chance to putter around, go to the gym, and get her gameface on for that evening’s client. She wasn’t working tonight though, so instead it would be ‘get ready to go out and party’ time.
Carting a towel, a water bottle and her ipod, she headed into the nearly empty gym and took over one of the mats, starting to do some stretches.
Abel was already in the gym; he wasn't trying to get 'swole,' but instead enjoyed a long, leisurely jog on the treadmill at odd hours, along with some weights. Naturally lean, and a somewhat picky eater on top of that left him sometimes dangerously close to outside his healthy weight range, but the endorphins produced by the exercise were always a good way to separate himself from everything going on around him. Not only that, they seemed to stifle that hollow feeling inside of him.
The moment the woman entered, his eyes darted to the side as she was reflected a dozen times over in the various mirrors lining the walls of their shared apartment's gymnasium. All concentration on the task was gone as hairs on the nape of his neck stood at attention; it was unusual for him to have such a strong reaction to nearly everyone he came into close proximity with, but there seemed to be something about this particular building that worked as a hub.
He slapped the 'stop' button on the treadmill, allowing it to spit him off onto the floor directly behind the machine. His eyes followed her movements as he made his way, panting lightly, over to the public water fountain near the gym's front door.
Max continued her yoga stretches, moving into the warrior pose and glancing behind her in the mirror. A strange feeling had coasted over her skin and raised goosebumps, something similar to fight or flight, but she couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. There was no immediate threats that she could see, just a few people on the machines, and a guy getting off a treadmill behind her. Her eyes were drawn to him, and the feeling inexplicably intensified. She narrowed her eyes at him, watching him head to the water fountain, and then moved, shifting her pose to her opposite leg.
Sated, Abel headed for the weights. He passed directly behind the woman, and he could not help that his gaze transferred directly from the mirrors to her; he thought she'd likely just pass it off as a man being masculine, obliviously and obviously checking out a female who was putting herself into alluring positions. The only issue was that his face looked anything but interested. He crossed the room, picked up a set of free weights, and started doing arm curls; all the while, he kept glancing at the woman doing her stretches, wondering how long it would take before she'd say something.
She shifted again into the triangle pose, but her eyes never left him as he walked past her, eyes raking over her body in a way that made her feel naked. She frowned at him, eyes following him in the mirror over to the free weights. Something about him really bothered her, and she couldn’t put her finger on what. His face? His posture? The way he moved? The way he stared? The way he breathed?
Finally done with stretching, she headed over towards the other side of the room, to the station next to the free weights with various equipment, ignoring them and going for the high bar. She pulled herself up on it, using her body as counterweight, doing her own arm curls with perfect balance and steadiness, still surreptitiously watching him out of the corner of her eye.
Abel stopped just shy of rolling his eyes, finishing his set and returning the free weights to their place. He decided to put her out of his mind; there was already too much going on in there. Instead he moved to the ground on his back, and started doing bicycle sit ups, forcing his eyes to stare straight up at the ceiling; however, it was impossible (at least without the aid of headphones) to completely erase the sounds she made as she lowered and raised her petite form up and down from the high bar.
After a 20 count she let her feet hit the mat, resting her arms for a few minutes before jumping up to do it again. Sweat was starting to stick her ponytail to her back, beading on her skin and giving her a light sheen. She kept her eyes on him as she worked, narrowing them as for some reason his new workout pose aggravated her. She wanted nothing more than to go over there and take him by the throat and punch his lights out, but instead she focused on her count and her breathing, finishing another rep and falling to the mat. She took a drink of water, breathing hard and flexing her arms, this time openly glaring at him as she counted down her rest period.
He finished up, rolling forward to his feet to the point where his eyes met hers in the mirror across from both of them. Enough was enough.
"Like what you see?" The words were said tauntingly, his elbows draped over his knees as his hands clasped in front of him. He was breathing shallowly, not at all winded; he fixed the woman with a smirk, just to push her buttons a little more.
She lifted an eyebrow at him, but made no other change to her expression. She hadn’t expected he’d actually speak to her, and was kind of even more angry at the sound of his voice. It sounded like a dog barking. “I’ve seen better,” she said, sounding bored, taking another drink from her water bottle. “Where’d you learn that, preschool?”
"Projecting, cute," he rejoined, rising to his feet by pushing off the floor. Somehow, her voice grated on his ears, sounding whiny and high pitched. Abel stood in place once he was on his feet, studying the woman for a moment. "Is this whole place your personal playground or something, or can you abide by the fact that other people use it too?"
Projecting daggers from her eyes, maybe. The longer he stood there, looking at her and speaking, the harder it was not to claw his eyes out. She narrowed her eyes at him as if he'd just said something incredibly stupid. “I'm not stopping you,” she said, gesturing to the expansive and mostly empty room. “There's more than enough room for the two of us,” she said with her mouth, but her eyes were telling him to get the fuck out of her gym.
"That's what your mouth says," he replied, taking a few steps in her direction only to abruptly turn at the last moment as he pointedly made his way to the weight machines. "You should work on keeping your eyes to yourself. Not everyone comes here to show off how much they can lift."
He seemed to come towards her in slow motion, and she felt her body tensing for a fight. But just as he was getting close to her bubble where she would lash out, he turned, heading away from her. She glared at his back as he went, and the pent up energy suddenly having nowhere to go riled her even more. She glanced away, towards the punching bags, and walked over to them to let off some steam. She started out with punches, and then slowly adding in some kicks and a few more advanced moves, glancing his way once in awhile to keep him in sight.
Abel sat down, back facing her, on a barbell machine. He set it to the correct weight and started pumping, but found he couldn't keep his eyes from wandering toward her person in the mirror. He was really going to have to invest in some music to occupy his mind, or maybe even some podcasts. Anything that would stop the annoying need to watch her and ensure she was always in his line of vision. There was something distasteful about her, untrustworthy. Like she'd hit him at the first opportunity, a quick thump to his face without reason beyond arrogance. He wondered why he found her more offputting than the woman he'd met the other night, the one who'd come back riding on a bike without proper safety equipment. Stopping, he adjusted the weight to a higher amount, and started up again, breathing hard quickly, grateful for the endorphins that took his annoyance off his mind.
She kept glancing his way, throwing punches harder and harder at the bag in front of her and projecting his face onto it. She wanted so much to just go over there and grab him by the throat, but stupid social etiquette demanded that she leave him be. Angering her with his mere presence apparently wasn’t a crime in this country.
Finishing her set and glancing at her watch, she took another drink of water and made the decision to take off early and get some lunch. Suddenly wanting to just get the hell out of here before she murdered one of her neighbours. She was sure the building management frowned on that kind of thing. Toweling off her forehead, she wrapped it loosely around her neck and headed to the door, pausing just before leaving to look back at him. “You know you really should have a spotter,” she said with thinly veiled hostility, “accidents happen.”
"And threats are a slippery slope to jail time," he replied, eyes on the ceiling rather than looking back in her direction or accidentally coming across her reflection in the mirrors. He breathed in and out, focused on the slight ebb and flow of pain through his muscles, grateful for the distraction. He could hear her pad away, finally leaving; once she was gone, he breathed out a strange sigh of relief, stopping his workout to lean forward and recoup. This apartment complex was getting more and more frustrating by the day.