Monday again... my classmates suggest that this is "flirting dangerously with tabloid high-camp!" Ah, yes, but it's such fun!! I will try and get back to some proper poetry soon :) LOL K x

THE "F"-WORD


F.I.T. ...

My heart pounds as I pause in momentary exhaustion: lungs bursting, blood coursing, pulse racing - in fact, definitely feeling the burn with this one. I lie inert like flesh exposed on an operating table, just waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect, to drift me off sweetly into a sea-of-feel-good on the backs of released endorphins. Pain and gain. Agony and analgesia.

I make a start on my second set of exercises... 1-2-3-4-5... From my prostrate position on the gym's rubber mats I can espy the endeavours of my fellow athletes largely unobserved. With eyes seemingly shut in avid concentration on the counting, or against the harsh interior strip-lighting that burns the retina like an additional form of slow torture, I can, through eyelash-fastened lids, filter frames of fashion, frenzy, friendship, flirtation and form - all in the name of fitness! For example, funny how the sudden appearance of firm, long, female limbs featuring FCUK and draping themselves formally over a fully-inflated fit-ball can bring a flock of feverish young men suddenly needing a quenching at an adjacent water fountain! Physique's a fetching thing...

But, oh no! Here he comes again... my self-appointed Sugar Daddy whose narcissistic candy is his own reflection in the full-length glass. I'll add a frown to my dormant eyes to imply a suitable headache, or at the very least some deep, detached and do-not-disturb inner thoughts. That should cause him to reconsider rapprochement. I assume a legs-raised posture and resume counting - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6; this Big Gun's about to fire, so keep away! That should worry the comb straight out of his tracksuit back pocket! 4-3-2-1... Aaaahhh! All clear, breathe easy.

Time now for me to assume the over-bent posture of an invert "V" and to take in the activity on the various bits of hellish equipment around me. Such contraptions would not be out of place in line-etched engravings of torture-scenes from 18th century Italian prisons, or in films depicting chain-gangs working on railroad construction in the American midwest. And the only difference between the pit-face and the coal mine here is the squeaky-cleanness of the workers whose pants and groans are for pleasure rather than for payment; whose labour is self-appointed and not enforced.

Struggling to adjust one such instrument of pain so that it's demands might be more suited to those of feebler frame, an unexpected frisson of amusement is brought to an otherwise austere moment of masochism: I seek to enlist the assistance of a bunch of posturing young lads whose "loud and proud" group-dynamics are about as subtle as a stag-party good-night-out in Luton. Trying to engage eye-contact with the melting young pup who, fumbling, adjusts nuts and bolts to suit me (as per my request), I am puzzled by his keen embarrassment. It is only now that I notice his T-shirt which sports the slogan: "If you don't agree with oral sex, keep your mouth shut!" Goodness me, what a mouthful! "Honestly", I think to myself as he shuffles off sheepish back to his mates after serving, "these 20-year olds are all bark and no bite!" But, on reflection, perhaps it would have been better for me, over twice his age, not to have approached him. Maybe I should just have said nothing...

F.I.T. ... Females Inviting Trouble.