Chapter One

 

Graduating high school is supposed to be a momentous occasion. It means getting on with your life, outgrowing adolescence, becoming an adult. This is supposed to be something to celebrate. I can't actually explain why that is, though.

The alternative to school, after all, is work. Work takes more time and is generally less pleasant and has less room for socializing or fun. And what kind of work do you get at eighteen anyway? Shitty jobs in retail or food services - if you're lucky.

Unless you go to college. But college requires money and good grades. I had decent grades, but no money to speak of. My father is a contractor who does home renovations. That pays well when he gets work but money comes and goes depending on what business he gets. My mom is a part-time cashier at the Walmart on Highway Thirty-Seven just outside of town.

Town. I live in New York. I'll give you a few moments to imagine huge, gleaming office towers soaring above busy streets before pointing out I live in the state of New York, not the city. I live in Otterville, a burg of twenty thousand people, an ugly burg, a shithole of a town, to be honest. It's a good six-hour drive north from New York City, and might as well be in another country.

We are not at the top of the economic pyramid here, to put it mildly. This is a town of old houses with peeling paint and loose floorboards on dusty streets with lots of weeds. We are one of those towns America forgot around the 1970s when all the good jobs fled to the big cities.

So graduating into unemployment was what a lot of kids did. The lucky ones, like I said, graduated into being baristas at Starbucks or something similar.

I was mulling over whether I wanted to work or be unemployed that summer. The only job I'd been offered was as a receptionist at the cement factory. And I was pretty sure the only reason I'd been offered it was that the fat old guy thought I was hot and would be able to get his hands on my ass and tits.

He certainly hadn't made much of a secret of it, even though I hadn't worn anything particularly revealing to the interview. I'd worn a decent enough dress (which I hated). It hadn't hidden my curves, but that's never been my intent in choosing clothes. I mean, my looks are basically the only thing I have going for me.

Taking advantage of my looks to get something was not a new concept for me. I know how to flirt with guys, how to pose my body, how to dress for 'success'. I don't mean I slept with people for money or anything like that, but being hot and sexy can get you a lot more with a smile than a smile alone.

Being leched at isn't anything new for me. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging but guys have been leching over me since I hit adolescence. Almost no matter how I dress. And like I said, my hotness is about all I have going for me, so I'm not usually eager to downplay it.

And getting groped from time to time is the price of being hot. It annoys me, depending on who's doing the groping, but I accept it as the way life is. That doesn't mean I want to work in a small office with some fat old guy who'll be undressing me with his eyes every day and probably pressuring me to suck his tiny dick too.

I was in the park a few weeks after graduating, with my friend Beth and three guys - Dave, Paul, and Enriques. I was on my bike - my bicycle (like I could afford a motorcycle, ha!). I was enjoying the guys leching over me, even though I didn't intend to do anything much with them - except maybe Dave if he played his cards right.

I was sitting on the bike seat. The bike was next to the old, wooden bleachers the guys were sitting on. I had one foot on the lowest bench to prop me and the bike up. And I was wearing these loose, thin green pants which had an elastic waistband which sat low on my hips. I was also wearing a simple gray midriff-baring tank top with no bra.

The top came down to about four inches below the bottom of my breasts. And it was tight enough for my breasts to push the material out so the bottom kind of stood away from my chest, letting air up inside. Which was nice because it was a freaking hot day. But it also made it freaking obvious I had no bra, and the material even kind of pulled in around my breasts to sort of highlight where they were and how big. My nipples were little dimples in the fabric too.

The guys could hardly take their eyes off my chest, which was good for my ego. I'd bet Beth a dollar that I could give at least one of them an erection. I, of course, pretended I had no idea they kept staring at my chest. That was how the game was played.

"So you gonna take that job at the cement factory?" Dave asked.

I shook my head. "That guy's gross, and I know he'd be all over me if I worked in that little office."

"Maybe he's got a giant dick," Enriques said with a leer.

"You're a giant dick," I replied. "Anyway, a giant dick isn't much use to me. I'm hot for Beth."

Beth smirked at me but also gave me a reproving look because I was cheating. She's a cute blonde with lots of bangs and breasts which are bigger than mine, though she's shorter. She was wearing short cutoff shorts and a t-shirt which also bared her midriff.

"I'm considering becoming a nun," she said.

I thought that was cheating in return. She was trying to make them think of the least sexy thing she could.

"I think you're probably too full of lust to be a nun," I said.

She put her hands together as if to pray. "I only love Jesus," she said piously.

"Is that why you say 'Oh God! Oh, God! Oh God!'" whenever anyone does you from behind?" Paul asked.

She gave him the finger while the other guys laughed and jeered.

There was a kid's playground a dozen yards off, and a ball came rolling across the track from where a little boy was playing with his mom. I saw an opportunity and quickly propped the bike, slid off, and moved over to it, then, with my butt pointed at the bleachers, bent over - way over - and picked up the ball before straightening and tossing it back gently.

The pants I wore were loose, but not that loose against my butt, and especially not when I bent over like that. I was certain no one back there was in doubt about me wearing a thong now as I turned and - pretending to be oblivious, walked back.

Beth wasn't fooled. She glared at me, arms folded across her chest under her breasts.

And oopsie, was the thin black waistband of my thong now visible on one hip. Oh well.

"You're so athletic," she said sarcastically.

I smirked at her, then drew my arms and hands up to the sides and made fists, as if to display my muscles. I actually had muscles there, and they were visible. I had been heavy into sports in school, especially volleyball, baseball, and track and field. I was tall and lithe for a girl, and made a good athlete. And all that work and the exercises coach made us do kept me nice and fit. Which was good for keeping my butt tight.

Of course, it didn't hurt to draw my shoulders back while I did it so my boobs pushed out a little more firmly against the tank top.

And I got my dollar. Beth and I argued about it as I rode and she walked away, but I knew, and she knew, that the reason Paul had shifted his legs away and put his hands artfully between his crotch and us was because he had a boner.

"It's not like it's all that hard to make those guys hard anyway," she said.

I was barely riding enough to keep the bike from tilting as I kept pace with her.

"A dollar is a dollar," I said.

"You're a very athletic girl," a woman said as we passed her.

I turned, surprised. She was blonde, like Beth, but nothing like Beth. She was shorter than Beth, barely five feet tall, in fact, quite slim, with a short, pixy type haircut. She also wore quality workout clothes. She'd been running around the track, and I had noticed her stop not far from us to do stretches against a bench a little way up.

"Thanks," I said.

"How athletic are you?" she asked boldly.

I felt wary. She was maybe in her mid-thirties. Why was she talking to me at all? Who was she? What was she after? Was she a dyke? The short hair said she could be. Didn't they all have short hair?

"I bought a fitness studio on Elm Street," she said. "I need a model."

"A model?" I asked, confused.

She smiled. "What I mean is a receptionist for the front desk who can also be taught some elements of fitness so she can help train the women there. But for marketing reasons it really helps if she's got a great body, a fit body, something they can aspire to."

"She's very fit," Beth said earnestly, but I could see her eyes were mocking me.

"A lot of the work in a fitness studio is just explaining how the machines work," the woman said. "As well as attending to clerical things like signing people in and out, and doing a little cleaning. You look like you could do all of that."

"Uhm, well... I suppose I could," I said uncertainly.

Elm Street wasn't far away. I could drive there on my bike from home easily.

"I'm Jessica Forsyth," she said, thrusting out a hand.

I felt kind of... grubby next to her. I was sweating in the heat, and my tank top was... well, kind of slutty. My brown hair fell to just above my breasts and was kind of ragged in the wind and heat. But I took her hand and shook it, my mind swirling with uncertainties.

"We're still setting up. Why don't you drop by later today or tomorrow and I can explain things and discuss them with you?"

"Uhm, okay," I said.

She nodded and jogged away and Beth and I looked at each other.

"She wants you," she said, smirking.

"It's a fitness studio," I said. "Wide open areas, lots of other people around."

"Until she gets you alone in the back," she teased.

"I'm bigger than her. I can handle her."

"Oh I bet she wants you to handle her, baaaabyyy!" she taunted.

"Fuck you," I said. "Anyway, just because she has short hair that doesn't mean she's a dyke. If you work in a fitness studio you'd probably have to have short hair."

"You gonna cut your hair?"

"Fuck no!"

"Ha!"

"But I'll be behind a counter and, like, showing people machines, not actually exercising."

"And being a model so all the fat middle-aged women think they can look like you if they just exercise more!" she exclaimed mockingly.

"There are a lot of fat people in this town," I said.

"That's for sure!"

"Well, whatever, it's worth looking into."

"Wear the same top. No bra."

"Oh bite me, runt."

We went together for a few blocks, then parted ways as I headed back for my place. I was thinking a lot about her offer. It sure sounded a lot better than a cement factory. I could probably get the use of the machines for free, which would be good. I mean, I wasn't doing any sports anymore and I didn't want to get soft and mushy. My boobs aren't huge like Beth but they're a thirty-six C-cups and now that I was an adult I had to worry about them starting to sag one day.

Forsyth wasn't a very stern figure. She seemed very pert and forthright, certainly, and could probably be a bitch if you screwed up at work. But she wasn't going to lech over me the way old man Emmerson would have.

And, so what if she did? I mean, I hadn't really done much with girls other than fool around while guys watched to tease them. But I had been playing around with the idea of it for years. I just needed the right opportunity to experiment. That meant one that wouldn't get me a reputation. This is a mostly blue-collar town.

Now that I was out of school though, reputation seemed less important. And besides, it wasn't like anyone would know if she decided to make out with me in a backroom somewhere after hours. Anyway, she was eight inches shorter than me. I could handle her, and if she bugged me too much I'd just quit and be no worse off than I am now.

I wore sweatpants, a t-shirt that covered all of me, and an athletic bra underneath when I dropped by the fitness studio. It was in the parking lot of a little strip mall on Elm. The building used to be a restaurant, I recalled. It had a sign with an hourglass figure of a woman on it and the name HER fitness. So that didn't leave much doubt about it having men and women both.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. A fitness studio where hunky guys worked out would have been cool. On the other hand, if it was full of fat, middle-aged men wanting my 'help' maybe not.

The windows were covered in posters advertising various types of fitness classes, fitness trainers, and nutrition guides. That meant you couldn't really see anything until you opened the glass door. Inside was a small waiting area with a counter. No one was behind it. I didn't think the place was opened yet.

Past that was a larger area with a bunch of fitness machines already put in place. There was nobody there so I wandered past the desk and looked at the machines. There were rows of them facing windows on opposite sides of the building, and then two more rows facing each other down the middle.

I could hear banging and other construction noises so I moved towards the rear. I found Forsyth there with two other women. The other women were finishing up what looked like a sauna. It had the double rows of benches and the thing against the wall that looked like a bunch of rocks in a big brick box.

It was unusual to see women doing construction type work around here. I knew because my dad was always hiring people when he got bigger jobs and had run through a lot of them. All male. These ones seemed to be adding a frame to the door. They all turned as I walked through the outer door.

"Ah, good. I'll get back to you on that," Forsyth said to one of the women as she approached me.

"Come on, I'll show you around," she said.

"That going to be a sauna?" I asked.

"Yup. And across from it is the whirlpool bath. Come along. I didn't get your name."

"Oh, sorry. I'm Paige," I said.

She was all business, talking to me about the various roles I could play, from signing and checking memberships at the desk to scrubbing down the exercise equipment at the end of the day.

"You're not a trained to be a fitness trainer or even a gym assistant yet, but I can teach you enough to get by on being a gym assistant. It's not that complicated if you're smart and you pick things up quickly."

"Just remember, while the job you do is important, your looks are an added feature for me," she said. "A pretty, sexy thing behind the counter adds to the sort of style and sex appeal I want my fitness studio to have. This is a higher-end fitness studio aimed at people with money."

"There are people with money in this town?" I asked cynically.

"In every town, however poor," she said. "There are always winners, and I aim to get a reputation where the smart, educated women will want to not only come but brag about coming."

I nodded.

"Anyway, so you'll make sure you look hot, which shouldn't be very difficult for you. You looked hot right there in the park with no makeup and not even trying."

"Uhm, well - ."

"Okay, you were trying for the guys on the benches, sure," she said with a grin. "You'll have to make sure you wear a bra here every night, though, or some of these women will resent you for it."

"Oh, I always do!" I assured her, blushing. "I was just uhm, trying to win a bet with my girlfriend, to be honest."

"I'm not judging you," she said. "You have gorgeous, firm breasts. Congratulations. But some of the women here, being a lot older, might resent that."

It was a bit startling to have a woman I barely know tell me I had gorgeous, firm breasts, and made me blush, but she said it in a completely unsexual way. It still made me squirm a bit, what with wondering if she was queer or something.

"In fact, let me show you some of the machines, including the ones to firm up chest muscles so your breasts stay firm."

She led me back into the studio among the machines.

"If you were forty I'd have you wear that shirt with no bra as an example of how terrifically firm our exercises can make you!" she said with a grin. "But at your age, they'd just put it down to youth and resent you."

It felt weird again having this potentially gay woman talking about my breasts like that! It was partly embarrassing and partly kind of... intriguing!

She showed me the first machine. I straddled the bench and reached up to grip the padded bars on either side of me as she explained how it worked and what it did for my muscles and how to control the settings.

She was very businesslike. But even so, I felt this little shimmer of curiosity and low-level sexual tension. I mean, I was working my arms and shoulders as she stood in front of me, and doing it in a way which couldn't help but show off my chest - which she'd been talking about.

She led me to a bench-like machine. It had a long padded bench just wide enough to lay on. At one end was a weighted bar. But the way it worked was to lay down along the bench on your back, then reached up and back and below the head of the bench to where the bar was, lifting it up and down. Which meant my back was sharply arched the whole time, with my boobs sticking up and out.

I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it if it wasn't for that ... uncertainty about her sexual orientation and motives. But because I did it felt almost like I was showing off like I had to the guys. Only this was to someone way older and female, which made my stomach swirl.

After that came more machines for other purposes, like another bench I sat on and spread my legs wide, wide open to slide behind a pair of padded bars. Then I used my thigh muscles to pull them in and out, in and out.

The two women came through the place and one of them stopped.

"We need a couple more two-by-fours to reinforce the back massage room," one of them said. "We'll go over to Henessy Lumber and be back in an hour or so."

Forsyth nodded and they left. By then I was sweating, panting for breath, and feeling kind of bedraggled.

"When's the last time you worked out?" she asked in amusement.

"Well, I used to all the time because I was into sports in school, but since I graduated I haven't really done much."

"Use it or lose it, Paige," she said. "it's really easy for a woman to turn into a lump, especially in this era of fast food, if she doesn't work at keeping her body trim and tight."

She led me back up front so she could show me more of the clerical stuff and forms and I could catch my breath. Then we went back to the machines. She insisted I try every single one so I knew how they were supposed to feel as she explained them to me. Which meant I was soon aching and exhausted.

"Come back tomorrow and we'll continue this," she said.

I wearily agreed.

"Don't worry. Once you've got things down pat you won't be spending that much time on the machines. But you do have to keep that body toned. Oh, and buy some nice exercise gear.

We discussed what 'nice' meant. Apparently, it was a narrow line between sexy and sleek, and slutty. "Never go slutty," she said. "This is a class place."

"Uhm, okay," I said. "I don't have a lot of money, though. I'm still not one hundred percent sure..."

She put up a hand to stop me talking, then reached behind the counter and came out with a tape measure. In short order, she swept it around my waist, then up my inseam, then up my outside. She looked at my chest doubtfully.

"Your bra disguises you. What are your measurements?"

I blushed again and gave them to her.

"Lucky you," she said with a grin. "I'll buy you something appropriate and we'll go halfsies on the cost."

I sure couldn't complain about that!