Body on the Stage (7 page)

An agonised yell burst from his
throat as he lowered himself onto to the toilet seat. Oh Lord,
please don’t let me be stuck here for days. I don’t want to die
like Elvis. He stayed put until the painkillers had a chance to
kick in, but even so, the act of standing up made him break out in
a sweat.

At work he avoided sitting down
for as long as possible, bending over his desk to operate his
computer until twinges in his back signalled it wasn’t a tenable
position. Googling ‘muscle pain’ he discovered it was a common
result of unaccustomed exercise, and there was no real cure for it
except time. The best way to avoid it, according to the website,
was to make slow increases to the intensity of the exercise, under
the guidance of a personal trainer. He made a mental note to point
this out to Vincenzo at the first possible opportunity. If he ever
went back there. ‘Intensity’ was not his favourite word that
day.

That night he donned his
exercise gear with extreme reluctance but made it to the gym
anyway, determined he wasn’t going to let the discomfort put him
off getting fit. Mark had emailed him during the day and encouraged
him to be there, saying more exercise was the best way to ease the
soreness.

“Are you sure about this?” said
Dennis as they met up in the men’s locker room. He was doubtful,
but Mark seemed convinced.

“Yeah, really. I’ve checked the
science. Movement gets the accumulated lactic acid out of your
muscles and reduces the soreness. Didn’t Vincenzo tell you any of
this stuff? He really should have.”

“No, he just set the weights and
left me to it,” said Dennis, frowning. “Where is he, anyway?” He
looked around the gym. “I think I’d like a little word with him
about that.”

“Oh, he said he had a meeting of
some sort tonight,” said Mark. “I’ll give you a hand if you like –
sort you out some stretches and an upper body workout, maybe some
light leg work to get rid of that stiffness.”

“Would you? Thanks, I’d really
appreciate that.”

They got down to it, working
through the routines as delicate music wafted towards them from the
yoga room. After half an hour it stopped, and a gaggle of
brightly-clad women came out clutching rolled-up rubber mats. Cathy
closed the door and smiled when she saw Dennis across the room on
the chest press. She dropped her yoga mat and came over to him.

“Hi there, Dennis. How’s it
going? Everything OK?” Her tawny hair was pulled back in a tight
pony-tail, lightly damp from her workout. He looked into her pretty
blue eyes and lied through his teeth.

“Fine thanks, Cathy,
everything’s just fine.” He pushed a couple more reps to prove his
point. He’d actually finished his set of chest presses but wasn’t
about to get up from his seat while she was standing there in case
his scream of pain gave the game away.

“So we haven’t scared you off
yet? That’s good! Carry on, we can still talk while you work
out.”

Dennis smiled weakly and pushed
a few more times, feeling his arms protesting as the reps went on
well beyond the prescribed thirty-six. “There, done,” he said at
last, stopping when he couldn’t force his arms through another
cycle.

“Good work, Dennis! Now come
with me and I’ll show you a good trick to add an extra boost to
what you’ve just done.” She set off towards the rack of exercise
balls at the side of the room, looking back over her shoulder as he
sat there, unmoving. “Come on then.”

He plastered a smile on his face
and stood up gingerly, doing his utmost not to wince with her eyes
upon him. “Coming,” he said through lightly-clenched teeth.

Cathy stopped in her tracks.
“Oh-oh, I know that look. OK, what hurts?” She retraced her steps
and stood close to him, hands on her hips.

“Legs,” he muttered, reluctant
to admit his weakness. He rubbed at his thighs. “They’ll be all
right in a bit. Nothing to worry about.”

She frowned. “What sort of
workout did Vincenzo give you yesterday? Can I see your booklet?”
She held out her hand for the dark blue workout book. He passed it
over.

“What?” she exclaimed in horror.
“What was he thinking, giving you weights like that on your first
time?” She turned to him, blue eyes full of concern. “Dennis, I’m
so sorry. I should have looked after you myself instead of pushing
you towards Vincenzo. Your poor legs must feel terrible.”

“It’s OK, really – it didn’t
feel too bad at the time, I thought I handled the exercises quite
well. It was only this morning that I felt a bit sore.” He almost
crossed his fingers behind his back at the gross understatement.
“Mark’s going to help me tonight with a few stretches and things
once we’ve done our upper body workouts. I’m sure I’ll be
fine.”

“Well I shall have a few things
to say to Vincenzo when I see him, that’s for sure. But let’s look
after you. Come on into the yoga room and I’ll give you some
stretches myself – that way Mark can carry on with his workout.
Grab your towel and follow me.” With some trepidation he followed
her into the dimly-lit yoga room, where the scent of
recently-extinguished candles lingered along with a trace of
incense. “Sit down here on the mat and let’s see what we can do to
ease those muscles.”

He lowered himself onto the
pastel-blue mat with an involuntary groan and submitted to her
gentle ministrations. She had him lie face down while she bent one
leg at a time and pressed his heel towards his bottom. He felt the
muscles in the front of his thighs pull tight and tried his best
not to whimper. She did several sets of stretches then had him sit
up.

“It would really help if I could
massage the quad muscles – do you mind if I do that for you?”

He was lost for words for a
moment. “A beautiful woman wants to rub my legs? Yes, I think that
would be acceptable,” he managed. “Go right ahead.”

“It’s going to hurt a bit,” she
warned. “Kind of a ‘worse before you get better’ sort of thing.
I’ll just grab some oil.”

Before he could fully appreciate
the situation, she was back, pouring massage oil into her cupped
hand and letting it warm up. She put down the bottle, rubbed her
hands together, and laid them on his thigh. With slow strokes, she
began gently pressing her thumbs into his quadriceps, kneading and
squeezing with her fingers. It was an odd combination of pleasure
and pain, made even more disturbing by the fact that he found her
so attractive.

“I know people who’d pay good
money for this,” he joked, trying to make light of what he felt.
Cathy added a squirt of some heating balm which sent waves of
warmth radiating from her fingers. She didn’t crack a smile at his
comment so he assumed she was offended. “Sorry!” he said. “I was
only joking. Didn’t mean to imply you were any kind of sadistic
dominatrix, obviously.” He tried to sit up. “That doesn’t feel too
bad now.”

“Lie still and let me do this.
It’s for your own good and I promise you’ll feel much better
afterwards.” She pressed harder, getting pressure deep into the
muscle.

He bit on a knuckle and kept
quiet until she finished.

“There, all done. Try standing
up and see how it feels. Take it gently.” After wiping the oil off
her hand she offered to pull him to his feet. “Is that better?”

He stood cautiously, waiting for
painful twinges, but found he could move much more freely. “That’s
amazing! How did you do that?” He flexed his knees experimentally
and sighed with relief. “You’re a miracle worker!”

“Just doing what I know – the
same way you fixed my printer. I’m sure your customers see you in
the same light when you get their computers running.” She gathered
up her equipment. “I’ll have a word with Vincenzo and give him one
of the others to train instead. I’ll take over your training and
write up your workouts to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I’m
not going to risk your health just so you can spy on him for
me.”

Dennis considered her
suggestion. “Actually,” he said thoughtfully, “why don’t you leave
me with Vincenzo but just write up a workout book for me yourself?
That way I’ll be doing the right exercise but still be able to keep
an eye on him.”

“Perfect!” Cathy grinned.
“That’s an excellent idea. You’re not just a pretty face, are
you?”

“Oh God, far from it!”

“Stop that. You know very well
you’re a perfectly nice-looking guy, so don’t run yourself down. Go
on, finish your session, get out of here, go home and take some
anti-inflammatories to ease the last of that muscle pain. You
should be feeling much better by tomorrow and I’ll have your new
workout book ready for you when you come in.” She paused. “I’ll
also have a word with Vincenzo and find out why he felt it
necessary to overwork you like that. I’ll be very interested in his
reasons.”

“Yeah, me too, now you mention
it. What has he got against me, I wonder?”

She smiled sweetly. “Perhaps
he’s jealous of you.”

It was a thought that brought a
disbelieving smile to his face all the way home. She must have been
joking. Surely.

When he entered the gym the
following night he was surprised when Vincenzo rushed over to him
with a look of deep concern in his dark brown eyes.

“Dennis my friend, I’m so sorry.
I made a terrible mistake and mixed up your workout book for
someone else with a similar name. I hope you are all right, yes?
Cathy told me you had bad soreness – I’m so very sorry. How can I
make it good for you?” He looked so worried and apologetic that
Dennis instantly forgave him any mistake he might have made. He
obviously felt terrible about it, and Cathy had probably told him
off quite strongly already.

‘Look, don’t worry about it – no
harm done. It’s all fine.”

“But I must at least buy you a
drink sometime, eh? Make it right between us. Show you how I think
you’re such a good guy.”

“No really, there’s no need for
that,” said Dennis, a little uncomfortably. “Let’s just get back to
working out, shall we? No hard feelings, I promise.”

“Oh you are such a nice
person.”

“It’s all right, please don’t
worry about it. I just want to do my workout, OK? Let’s just forget
it ever happened and start fresh.”

Vincenzo nodded in acquiescence
and stuck out a slim brown hand for him to shake. “You are a good
man, Dennis. We start again, no problem, no fuss. Is all good,
yes?”

Dennis shook it firmly. “All
good, sure.”

Relieved to have that encounter
behind him, he sought out Cathy to see if she had a workout book
for him. She was working in her office behind reception, tapping
away at her keyboard looking worried. When Dennis knocked she
carried on typing without looking up.

“Hi, I’ll be with you in a
moment. Have a seat if you like, I’ll only be a minute.”

He quietly sat down and
waited.

When she finally glanced up and
saw him, her face lit up as if the sun had come out from behind a
dark grey cloud. “Oh it’s you, hi! Nice to see you. How are the
legs?”

“Good as gold, thanks. Your
magic fingers really did the trick. But if you’ve got a more
lenient workout written up for me today I’ll be grateful.”

Cathy’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh lord, I forgot all about it. Hang on, give me just a sec and
I’ll get right onto it.” She shook her head, glaring at her
monitor. “There’s just so much going on at the moment. I can’t keep
up with all the things I really want to do because there’s all this
damned admin stuff to handle.” She grabbed her hair with both hands
and let out a restrained yell. “Aaaarrrgh! Bloody, bloody accounts!
I hate them!”

“Don’t worry about me then,”
said Dennis soothingly, starting to back away. “I expect Vincenzo
will write up something that works, as long as he doesn’t mix me up
with somebody else this time.”

“Is that what he said happened?
I wonder how…oh never mind.” She blew out a sigh. “All right, if
you don’t mind working with him, that’s fine. Sorry I’m so tied up
here. I’ll try to pop out and see how you’re going once I’ve got
these figures unravelled. If I ever manage it.”

“Yes, it’s perfectly fine,” he
assured her. “You just do what you’ve got to do. Good luck!”

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks a
bunch!”

He muddled his way through the
exercises without too much trouble and counted the evening a
success. He’d done his workout, and he’d started to get to know the
other actors, so both his physical and social targets were being
met.

Cathy didn’t manage to escape
from whatever paperwork she was tied up with, so he popped his head
in her door as he was leaving.

“Hi Cathy, I’m off now. I had a
good workout, and I think I’ll still be able to walk tomorrow. How
did you get on with your accounts? Get them sorted?”

She waggled a hand from side to
side. “More or less.” She reached into a drawer. “Here, I’ve been
meaning to give you this. It’s a bit more extensive than that last
eating guide I gave you. Now that you’re working out, you should be
changing your whole diet to support your exercise.” She held up a
stapled handout. “This gives you a week’s meal plan from breakfast
to suppertime. If you can stick to this, you’ll lose fat and build
muscle quite quickly.” As he took the handout from her, she smiled
tiredly. “Sorry I wasn’t there for you tonight, but I do appreciate
having you here. Have a good night.”

The worry on her face saddened
him.

At home he consulted the
handout, following the instructions to make himself a seriously
healthy dinner. It was high in protein, low in carbohydrates, and
he found it surprisingly satisfying. A decent-sized chicken breast
with a good plate of salad seemed to fill him up, and he knew he
was still allowed a can of tuna and some rice wafers as his
late-night snack if he was hungry before bed-time. The switch from
beer to water was still a step too far, but diet ginger ale made an
acceptable alternative, being cold, brown and bubbly. When he
climbed between the sheets that night, with only a twinge of aching
muscles, he felt a virtuous glow.