effort

by Mika Nadolsky

She ran twenty miles in just under two hours. It’s a personal best that she will not share with anyone.

Darla is careful with the back door after slipping through the fence. She feels filthy, as if coated in his blood. She cleans herself quickly, mostly just her hands.

Moving out to the front porch, she knocks over the green clay planter. She listened to the movement of the dirt until light sparks on at a neighboring home. Curtains part, she can feel eyes on her, and that is all she requires at that specific time of morning.

Darla feels utterly calm taking the stairs up to the big cold empty bedroom. She sleeps as she used to as a child.

An hour and half later, she rises. She goes through her stretching routine, has some fruit, then readies herself for work. She’s glad they come before she leaves. She doesn’t want to perform at the office in front of co-workers.

“Dead?” she asks, her face—she hopes—stricken and pale. The officers look as solemn as they feel they should when telling a pretty young woman that she is now a widow.

Several weeks later Darla joins the gym. She watches the boy key in the information. She asks him to make it look like she joined a year or two before. She smiles at him in a way that men like.

It’s all so unnecessary, she knows. She isn’t even a suspect. She just wants to make sure that she thought it all through. That from every direction she has her armor.

Gem is thirty-four years old. She tells people she is twenty-eight. She’s been a personal trainer for a handful of those years. She stands six feet without shoes. She weighs a hundred and sixty pounds with little body fat. Her shoulders are broad and her back thick, although unless Gem is wearing spandex, people look at her skeptically when she tells them what she does for a living.

She is surprised when the woman named Darla comes in for her first training session. Darla looks like the type of woman that would be at the gyms with valets or have a trainer come directly to her. Putting her through the initial tests to determine her fitness level, Gem gets the feeling the woman is holding back.

Another trainer, Dwayne, catches her after Darla’s session. He smiles like someone that has a secret. “You need help with that one, just let me know,” He put his hand up on the counter and flexed his biceps. Gem ignores him, like she does with most of the other trainers.  

Anxiously, Gem paced the free weight section. Then, back by the pool and sauna area, she watches as they hoist a skeletal woman and dangle her over the chlorinated water.

Ken comes into the humid room and follows her back through a slight corridor to the hidden bathrooms there.

His glasses fog up quickly. His eyebrows play over the top of his frames, a type of morse code. Gem raises her leg higher. She rests her foot on his shoulder and pulls his face into her.

Gem is thinking about Darla.

Her last client of the day is a paunchy, bald man who likes to talk. Gem tries to make the exercises difficult enough to steal his breath, change his words to satisfying grunts.

It is after eight when Gem gets home. She turns on the tv and roots around in the fridge. Darrin calls later in the evening. She doesn’t want to answer (had told herself she wouldn’t) but swipes a thumb over it anyway.

He calls her sexy, which she told him previously she did not appreciate. Darrin is the same age as her father.

She says he has the wrong number and hangs up; it’s a game. Not thirty seconds later, the texts with images start cascading into her phone. His glistening penis in a bed of cotton-like hair. She finds it humorous, almost cute. 

When he arrives, Darrin offers to make drinks or take her out to some bar where she could be seen. She doesn’t want to go out, which he knows, and comes easily with her into the bedroom, which is the only place she is ever comfortable with men.

Mature men, like Darrin, Gem found more in control of the parts of themselves that provide pleasure. However, it could also seem like a practiced routine, no spontaneity, but that is not always a negative.

After, he runs his hand along her shoulder. She shakes off his playful fingers. She hated being touched after sex. 

Darrin talks about work and other things that held no interest to her. Gem interrupts him, telling him about her new client.

“She sounds impressive,” Darrin says, which Gem agrees with but still tells him to get out.

“We have the same pants,” Gem says the following week as Darla arrives for her session. Gem found a cheap variation of the vented pants Darla wore and bought them. She wanted a starting point for conversation, but the other woman merely glances at her pants with her face an unreadable void.

As Darla ran a towel over her neck, Gem filled in the questionnaire the company required after each session. Silly information like heart rate and weight. Mostly, Gem just made it up. Like the story she relayed to Darla about attending a play the prior weekend with some man, a date. She hoped it would cause Darla to disclose some information about herself, her own relationship status, but she gave up nothing.

“Maybe she was the victim of an assault or something?” Darrin speculated later in bed. Gem sat with her back to the wall craving a cigarette of all things. “Like maybe a Me-Too type of thing?”

“That kind of thing doesn’t happen to women like her.”

“Really? I thought that was the exact type of woman that it did happen to.”

“If it did, it would be by someone like you.”

“Hey,” his voice a cloying whine. “That isn’t fair.”

“Neither is life, now get out.”

With Darrin gone, she gets a text from Adam telling her he is on his way over. Adam has inflated muscles and a neck thicker than his shaved, canine-like skull. He isn’t handsome, but that was never a concern for Gem.

Adam is big everywhere, and very quick. He wants to order a pizza and watch a movie after. Gem talked to him about Darla.

“Think she’s into threesomes?” he asks.

“No.”

“They all say that” 

Darla sprints on the treadmill. After twenty-five minutes at a solid run, the woman still looks as if she had just rolled out of bed after the most luxurious sleep. The sound of the light trainers on the rotating rubber seems to grow in volume in Gem’s head. Finally, the words come out of her true and easy.

“I’m having sex with three men currently. I don’t care about any of them. One is older but performs quite well; one is enamored with himself; and the last one is only adept at one specific sexual act, which works for both of us because I have no desire at all to touch him.” Gem let a little hiccup of a laugh escape. “It sounds ridiculous laying it all out like that. I guess I need it. I need something, you know?” Gem waits for a response, “Do you?” she finds herself almost pleading.

“Do I what?” Darla asks.

“Need anything? Intimacy?” Gem is not quite sure what she is trying to get at.

“No.” Darla answers curtly.

“I don’t understand that.”

“Luckily, you don’t have to.”

Terrance is a bit on the pudgy side but does have well developed pectoral muscles under a tight, black shirt. His face is like one of those ruddy rambunctious boys. The kind that are always full of energy and slightly mischievous looking, but wholesome.

He had been at the gym working out on his own. One of the people she would never notice unless he had interest in the training program. His cheeks are bright crimson when he finally summons the nerve to speak to Gem. He asks her out on a date as if they are in high school. She finds it sweet and pathetic.

They go to a movie a few nights later. It isn’t even about superheroes. It’s a comedy, but she doesn’t laugh. He does, and it seems natural. It makes her feel almost comfortable.

He kisses her in the car. Later, he sends her a text while she is in bed with Darrin. He says he had a wonderful time and that he would be thinking about her. There is no genital photograph included.

She finds that she is unable to orgasm.

Alone, Gem studies herself in the mirror without clothing. There is no real comparison—not in the face, the body, or even the hair. Her being the dullest brunette, Darla the most vibrant blond.

Terrance says he thinks it’s a bit irrational. They are at dinner, a vegan place she wanted to try. She can tell he doesn’t care for the food, but he offers no complaint.

His comment causes Gem to get her phone in hand ready to text Adam, or Darrin, ready to submit to any degrading pornographic fantasy.

“Although, perhaps, a tad irrational, it doesn’t mean that your feelings are not valid or should be ignored. Maybe this woman needs to be taught a lesson?” he says, and without understanding it, he has saved everything. “She needs to understand that she just can’t go around making people feel small.”

Gem almost climbs over the table to get to him.

Back at his place, he turns on all the lights and the tv just as she is about to remove her clothing.

In the bathroom, Gem texts Adam and tells him to send her a picture of his penis. He does, and she masturbates to it then deletes it.

Ken wipes moisture from his face and replaces his glasses. He takes two fingers and readjusts his jaw while looking up at her. His face disgusts her coated with her viscous.

She tells him a story about a “friend.” Her “friend” is a veterinary assistant. It is the only position her “friend” was ever interested in or had any talent for. She tells him this “friend” is highly respected in her field, but that there is a new girl at work that is pretty and just as good at her job and is getting all the attention. She tells him her “friend” is thinking about doing something about it.

“What could she do? Talk to management?” Ken asks, pulling his glasses off once more to inspect the lenses.

“No,” Gem says.

“Is this like a Tonya Harding-type deal she is thinking of?” he asks. Gem doesn’t get the reference.

Gem calls Darla and reschedules their appointment.

“Everything okay?” Terrance asks when he calls in the early afternoon.

“No,” she says. She could respond differently, could say the opposite, make plans with him and try to enjoy herself. Instead, she goes on to explain she will be busy for the upcoming weekend, unavailable. He is disappointed. She feels no guilt.

Adam answers his door without a shirt on. He carries her to the bedroom with a smug expression. She doesn’t even take off her clothes.

Darrin texts her. He wants her to come over for dinner. He includes a picture that is supposed to look appetizing, generic food on a table. She doesn’t even respond.

The mezzanine at the gym houses half a basketball court and a few older cardio machines. Gem sometimes hides up there watching the men try and emulate their heroes on tv, missing shots and calling fouls on one another. As she sits and listens to the irritating squeak of rubber on hard maple, there is another sound that almost eclipses it. She sees Darla on a treadmill, thick muscled thighs flexing against spandex. Watching her, Gem is reminded of the marathon she went through with all the devices of self-pleasure she owned – wanting to feel as used and worn through as she would if she ran alongside Darla now.

Watching the woman, she calls Terrance. She tells him she was joking about everything earlier. Ecstatic, he offers to take her to dinner.

He tries to make an impression. He wears a collared shirt and slacks. Gem feels awkward dressed in something other than workout clothes. He says she looks beautiful in her light rayon dress. She advises him to lay off the compliments. He listens.

In the parking lot of the restaurant, Terrance falls to his hands and kicks his legs up over his head. He takes a couple steps on his hands. His shirt droops into his face. His stomach looks like a ball of raw dough. Righting himself, face flushed, he smiles at her, proud of himself, but her expression causes an instant apology. She likes that. 

To keep his blood up during dinner, she asks about his prior relationships. He plays with his napkin, admitting he has only had one serious girlfriend. He says they were engaged, but both decided they were too young, and then she met someone else.

“What are we doing here?” Gem asks.

“I like you.”

“Well, there is something wrong with you.” She says, and he moves his hand across the table toward her, but she doesn’t want that. She wants to talk.

“I am unable to function,” Gem starts. She holds his eyes. “With the knowledge that there is another woman prettier, stronger, or in any way better than me.” Even if it isn’t really the truth, she feels as though it could be.

“Luckily, there isn’t a single person I have met that could claim anything over you.”

“Kind of you to say, but irrelevant, because I have.”

Gem can maintain a level ten incline with the speed up around eight for over ten minutes before the muscles in her legs begin to voice objections. When she is angry, she can go fifteen minutes, even with the weighted vest on. Darla can go at the same level for a half hour or longer and be dry as winter when she steps off the machine.

Fighting with her breath, Gem explains to Darla that she can no longer be her personal trainer. She explains that Darla needs someone professional. She needs someone that trains actual athletes not soccer moms and horny fathers. Gem confesses that she could use a friend, someone to get a drink with or go to a movie, and that she would like that person to be Darla.

Annoyance paints Darla’s face when she looks at Gem. It is the only emotion she has ever extracted from the woman.

That night Gem tells Terrance everything. She describes Ken’s lips, Adam’s cock, and Darrin’s adeptness. He is not angry, just sullen. He only asks if she cares for any of them. Gem admits to him and herself that she does not.

“Then I don’t care either.”

“I think the foot,” Terrance says the following day when she went to him freely, joyfully. She laughs, “maybe just the toes.” He discounts the knees as being too dangerous.

“And when she recovers, I can train her again, because she will need it.” Gem says. He asks her what she means by that. “Nothing,” she lies.

Gem bribes the kid at the front desk with promises of a hand job at some later date. The address listed on Darla’s paperwork is not her home but her work address, a dentist’s office. Gem imagines her in a tight uniform with her cleavage spilling as she inspects the teeth of men that will then come to the gym with hopes of making a body someone such as her might desire.

The building is drab and professional in appearance. Gem sits in the car, watching the entrance. She eats two cheeseburgers while she waits. She tosses her fries out the window. She gets out of the car, walks up to the building and vomits the burgers into a large decorative metal bin near the entrance. Both burgers appear almost wholly reformed.

Walking through the building she finds the rear entrance and the lot it gives way to. She sees Darla’s car, the plate matching what was listed on the application. She waits.

An hour later, Darla emerges. Her black slacks sit low on her hips; a sliver of flesh visible as she tosses a sleek backpack into her trunk.

Terrance pulls his truck into the back lot after receiving the text from Gem. He put on his hazards and positioned himself, so the truck blocked the exit to the street.

Terrance wanted to be the one to do it, but Gem knew it had to be her.

A man in a tight yellow shirt and a plastic helmet comes up through a line of cars. The back of the shirt has big black letters marking him as security. He converses with Darla casually as she closes her trunk and jangles her keys. They both turn when they see Gem approaching with a compact steel bat in one hand, which she instantly let drop from her suddenly weak grip.

“I love you!” Gem shouts, and she is running. “I want to be you, ingest you, consume your blood and piss! I want your mind and body, and I want to feel it on me like my own flesh!”

The security officer seems confused, and next to him Darla stands stiffly, and on her face, the most curious, and dangerous, looking of smiles.

Gem leaps out of Terrance’s truck at a stop light. He screams her name.

Gem ground her hips into Ken’s nose until it bled. She made Darrin cum without touching him. After fucking Adam, she goes for his eyes with her nails.

Terrance and Gem move in together a month later. They sleep in separate rooms.

A few years later, Terrance is showing her an article about an unsolved murder and new DNA evidence pointing to the murdered man’s wife.

“Isn’t that her?” Terrance asks, holding the laptop up with her photo on it. Gem glances at Darla looking younger than she had ever seen her. A beautiful, stoic face that Gem must use all her effort to turn away from.

“No,” she says, “That isn’t her.”

BIO: Mika Nadolsky's short fiction has appeared in Suburbia Journal, Quartz Literary, Half and One, Free Spirit, and Bridge Eight.