The Descent

Summary:

Because the very infiltration of the term "liposuction" into Brooke Wyndham's vocabulary requires a serious descent. A brief but telling glance into the psyche of our favorite fitness queen.

It's horrendous. I've been whipped six times yet this morning: no capitols, i for the y. Not even patented, advertised, trademark Whypped; we're talking dictionary-definition, all-too-stinging whipped, and I have angry pink streaks on my skin to prove it.

I'm slipping. This is serious.

I'm not used to full exhales. My respiration is usually limited to sharp hitches and strong puffs of laser-focused energy, in cycles of five counts: two in, three out. Two in, three out. It's regimented, and it's supposed to be difficult, so I've gotten used to a kind of perpetual tightness in my chest. I've gotten used to it burning.

Heyworth's breaths are varied, from frenetic patterns stimulated by his quiet, genuine laughter or from the raw horniness that I so often witness to soothing rhythms strung together by fragments of deep sighs and lethargic huffs and utter peacefulness at the conclusion of a day. His lungs and his heart are so pliable, in a way that's weak and strong and unsettling and intoxicating and draws me to and away from him for differing reasons.

He says that full exhales are good for me.

The workout videos were his idea; whereas I was content to jet off to ten thousand remote locations within a week to teach the same super effective but basically analogous classes wherever they were in demand, Heyworth argued that a set of uniform DVDs would render me more accessible, not less. More accessible to the fans who can't heave themselves into their car for daily classes, he said, and more accessible to him.

Hey, everybody wants a piece of Brooke.

He meant well; he was worried about my health and sanity, not just our sex life, and he had a point—it's just the stagnancy that's getting to me. I'm a go-getter. When there's nothing for me to get, I make something up. And my creativity only extends so far. With no one really needing me in person for classes—I hear they even play my videos in gymnasiums now to serve as large group workouts—that parasitic creature they call laziness has latched itself voraciously onto my back. I dare say I'm hesitant to look over my own shoulder.

There's so much more, actually, that I could find on my backside nowadays than just the malicious residue of the half-defeated laziness I almost beat on a daily basis. The remnants may be mocking me on my shoulder blades, but it extends farther. If I were to only avert my eyes downward slightly, I think I might gag at the sight.

It's horrendous.

The Mansion at Beacon Hill has a humungous studio in it, with beautiful shining floors of specialized springy material that's awesome but I've taken it for granted—made so each jump bounces higher and my calves aren't cleaved in the process. The studio in the Mansion at Beacon Hill has the highest ceilings that could've possibly been pulled off within the building's very structure, making it the perfect setting for my now three times per day ass-kicking, as there's no chance of a collision between a wall or ceiling and a CardioWhyp 5000. The studio in the Mansion at Beacon Hill, like virtually every other portion of that house, has been crafted specifically for me over the past year; Heyworth has done everything possible to make it mine; the studio is perfect for me, just perfect. And it's covered, floor to ceiling, with mirrors.

I've stopped using it now; I jack the Chut-monster's workout room—she doesn't use it anyway—or I work out outside. Or I go to the shady gym on the corner of Ben Street with the shitty facilities. Or I just do oblique maneuvers in my bedroom, until my sweat drips satisfyingly onto the floor.

I go anywhere but the studio with the mirrors.

And it's not—

I don't know—

Heyworth doesn't know; he's hardly home, and when he is, he doesn't question my fitness regime—it's an unwritten rule. And I'm glad he doesn't know, because I can imagine the look on his face if he found out, how his face—his whole body—would sort of droop, how he'd look at me like he'd been beaten, how he'd look like—

Yeah, so I don't use the studio with the mirrors anymore.

I can't stand the—

The—

The cottage cheese.

It's horrendous.