Intimate

After the class is over, I still feel restless, but it’s the kind of restless that no amount of exercise can stop. I splash my face with icy water in the locker room, and then head in the direction of my car.

“Marissa.”

I whip my head around to see the new coach leaning against the wall, and I purse my lips. He is way too tall for me, but his hair is pretty nice. “What?”

He stands up. “You speak.”

“Obviously.”

“Just had to check. I wasn’t sure.”

“You checked. Now leave me alone.” I start walking towards my car, but hear him follow after me. Slight feeling of panic forms in my belly as I remember the last time a man followed after me.

“Do you wanna have lunch together?”

“No.”

“Why not? Do you not eat?”

“Of course I eat.”

“Clearly. It’s obvious by the size of your a-“

I whip around on my heels. “Is there a reason you won’t leave me alone?”

He comes very close to me, but I don’t back down. Instead, I put my hands on my waist and give him the hardest look I can muster, hoping he would finally leave me alone.

“Yes. I want to have dinner with you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have a dentist’s appointment.”

“I can pick you up after your dentist’s appointment.”

I groan. “Stop following me. Stop asking me out. I’m not going.”

This time when I turn around, he doesn’t follow me. “I will not give up.”

“You should.”

I sit in my car, and see him standing in the same spot, waving at me. I don’t wave back, I just roll my eyes and drive off. I don’t think I will come back to train until Mike comes back. I don’t want to deal with this every time.

At home, I sit down on my couch and open a bottle of the cheapest wine I could find, trying to come up with a way to fix my life, but I soon realize that there’s no way you can fix something that was never whole.

Still, the desire to come up with a good solution never left and continued to simmer in me, even as I returned to the stage that night.

Before I knew it, I found myself back by the pole, my legs wrapped tightly around the warm metal with my head upside down. I do not want to look at the men watching me, so I mostly keep my eyes closed, only glancing at the men every now and then when a surge of anxiety hits and I remember the night not too long ago. I swallow my nerves.

With a quick inhale, I lift my body up and slowly rotate my head, letting the hair of my wig fall over my shoulders and steal a glance at the public over my shoulder. There's a large crowd of men, all watching intently and sipping their drink. Nobody is talking. Nobody is looking away.

I am their fantasy. They are my puppets. My source of income. 

A part of me lives for this attention. Another part of me is disgusted.

A pair of mismatched eyes at the back makes contact with mine and my pulse quickens. I want to look away, I want to call for help, but-

I maintain the eye contact and slowly let one of my legs down and slide down the pole to the lazy beat of the sensual song playing in the background, then when both feet are on the ground, I bend my back to lift my chest in the air, and I break the eye contact to let my head fall back. Slowly, I lay my head on the ground, and wrap my legs back around the pole, raising my ass in the air, and I look back to find the pair of mismatched eyes slightly narrowed, but still completely focused on me, and something stirrs deep in me. 

It should be fear for my life, because it was those mismatched eyes that I saw kill my husband, but it was something far from fear. It was something I haven't felt in a long while. 

Something brings my attention to the fact that the song is about to end and it is time for my break. I look to see Amaya coming to take over and when I look back to find the pair of mismatched eyes, they are gone. 

By the time the night is over, I will have convinced myself it was nothing but a fragment of my imagination.