Some wise guy once said you shouldn’t hit on women at the gym. Bullshit.
It all started right there. In that local sweatbox where the air is a mix of old sweat, testosterone, and that cheap, acrid detergent.
And there they were. Always working out at the same time.
Mother and daughter.
Forget all those social media family fantasies right now. The daughter, somewhere in her twenties, a tight package full of that energy that just messes with your head. An easy target, I thought.
But then there was the mom. Maybe in her forties, hard to say. But goddamn. That woman had something the daughter wouldn’t have for years. Experience. That look, when she glanced over through the mirror. It drilled right through you and saw the primate brain driving all your decisions.
That look knew exactly what I was thinking. And she liked it.
Of course, I took the easy route. I made my move on the daughter. A couple of smiles over a water bottle, a few words at the locker room door. That was it. Wine. Movies. The usual stuff.
And it was fine. It really was.
But the whole time, the mom was pounding away in the back of my mind. The way she did her squats, it felt like all the oxygen was being sucked out of the gym.
Then came that night. One of those fucking dark and wet November nights, when everything is bleak.
I was on my way to pick up the daughter for a date. I pull up to her place. I knock, and the mom opens the door. She’s wearing nothing but an old, thin bathrobe. My heart skipped a beat.
“Laura’s running a little late,” she says. “She’ll probably be an hour. Come on in and wait, you’ll freeze out there.”
I step inside. Sit on the couch. Fiddle with my phone. Try to be cool. Adrenaline pounded in my temples.
And then I hear it. The shower. The sound of running water.
A voice in my head is screaming, don’t you fucking get up from that couch. But my legs didn’t obey. They carried me towards the bathroom. The door was ajar. Steam drifted into the hallway.
I peek in.
There she is. Her back to me. Naked.
And just then, as if she’d sensed it, she turns her head. Looks at me through the mirror.
She sees me.
And she isn’t angry. Or surprised.
She smiles.
And fuck, that smile. It was the dirtiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Her lips move, but I can’t hear a sound. Just that one word:
“Come.”
The next few moments are just flashes. Door closed. Against the wall. This wasn’t any tender lovemaking. It was hunger. Raw and animalistic. Her nails in my back, her teeth in my shoulder. All the unspoken shit hanging between us for months erupted at once.
And in the middle of it all… the front door opens. A key turns in the lock.
Fuck. Laura.
In that moment, the world comes into sharp focus. We tear ourselves apart. I yank my clothes on faster than ever. When the daughter walks into the living room, the mom is already sitting on the couch in her bathrobe. Perfectly calm.
Only her damp hair and the red marks on my neck could have given us away.
I go out to eat with Laura. I play the perfect boyfriend. And the whole fucking time, I could taste her mother on my lips. I could feel her nails on my back.
It was fucking sick. And a total turn-on.
When I took Laura home that night, her mom was supposedly already asleep. Laura pulled me into her room. And there, within the same walls, we had round two.
I lay there in the dark, listening to her breathing, and I realized:
I wasn’t her boyfriend anymore.
I was the secret. The piece of shit holding this whole house of cards together.
I had them both. And I was hooked.
And I still don’t know who enjoyed it more. Me, or them.