We watch as the instructor and most of the class stretch and bend in the heat. I tentatively follow, trying to work as little as possible. Beads of sweat are now gushing down my arms and soaking through my pants and shorts. On my feet, sweat droplets collect in the vein grooves.
“Keep pushing through, ladies. This is the final warm-up posture.” The instructor bends to the right as the class obediently follows. “Well done! That’s the warm-up over!”
“Warm-up.” I scratch the beads of sweat tickling my arm. “Can you believe it?”
I turn to Suze and watch open-mouthed as she picks up her soaking towel and trundles out of the room. She ignores the instructor’s call and flings the swinging doors open, letting in a gush of glorious cold air, and with that is gone.
The instructor looks on in bewilderment. “Ok.” She laughs “Hopefully, the rest of you will attempt to stay in longer than the warm-up. Bikram’s not for everyone, as we can see.”
A snigger echoes around the room, and the girl beside me darts me a sideways glance.
I bend over into the frog position and hope that Suzie has just passed out with the heat because if she hadn’t, I was going to knock her out when I get out of here.
“Just enjoy the deliciousness of this pose, ease your back into the beautiful arch that your back is craving…”
I snort as sweat rolls up my nose from behind my ears.
“Let your eyes follow the line in the ceiling and breathe out and smile. Hold it…. hold it and relax.”
I fall onto the floor in a heap, flinging sweat at the girl next to me.
“Now down into the toad position. And release.. be taken by the breath filling your lungs….”
Sweat is gushing down between my breasts like a dam breaking. I’m sliding in my own damn sweat.
I see the crack of the door and feel pangs of despair. But most of all, I’m angry. Angry at this woman who is prancing around like a mad woman practicing labor breathing techniques, who would not let me leave the room. Angry at Suze for giving up on everything she has ever attempted because she’s spineless. And angry at myself for having a less elasticated bum than the pensioner springing about in front of me.
The instructor’s voice drills into my brain.
“Lock your knees. Reach down, fingers under your feet, push and LOCK your knees. Elbows straight, forehead to the floor, LOCK YOUR KNEES.” She walks past me pushing my knees out.
“They don’t bend any more than that,” I growl back at her, and she smiles serenely.
Charlie
I get a guilty message from Suze with three kisses, saying she is waiting in the Starbucks a few doors down. As I hit the cold air outside, I’ve never felt so happy to live in a country with shite weather.
I walk into Starbucks to see her sitting with a grande latte with cream on top and a large carrot cake.
“I’m so sorry, Charlie.” She has the good sense to look guilty. “Are you mad at me? I couldn’t breathe… I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I thought the walls were closing in. I just had to get out of there. I was drowning in my own sweat.”
“Tell me about it,” I shot her a filthy look. ” You had ten whole minutes. I had to endure ninety minutes of sweat going into cracks where sweat shouldn’t be. Not just my sweat either.”
She screws up her face as I lean over the table. “I wouldn’t have minded waiting for you to have a shower. You look absolutely drenched. Your hair -”
She trails off, seeing my expression. I know what my hair looks like. It’s like a soaking floor mop stuck to my forehead.
“The shower queue was too long,” I reply, gritting my teeth. “Now I’m going to have to sneak into work like this and shower there.”
“Oh,” She chews on her lip nervously. ” So… did it get easier?”
“No,” I fire back. “It was horrific. I’d prefer to stick chillies into my eyes.”
“So, you didn’t enjoy it?”
“No. Did you enjoy Starbucks?”
“Am come on, Charl, ” She whimpers. “I’m sorry. If I could physically stay in there, I would have. Can you imagine what it was like with all this extra weight? I’m like a big heat sponge. And I’d eaten a four egg omelette before I came out. My poor bowel was quivering.”
“You aren’t going to make any progress if you only stick at it for ten minutes.” I snap and immediately regret my harsh words as a hint of tears form in her eyes.
“Perhaps next time, try it without the heat first of all,” I offer a bit more softly.
“Umm-hmm.” She nods. “You wanna share a muffin?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to go shower before the Starbucks staff throw me out.” ***
I sneak in through the office doors at 7. 45am, getting some sideways glances from the security guards.
Thankfully at this time of the morning, hardly anyone will be in the office, except for the hard-core developers who don’t sleep.
The showers are on the lower ground floor meaning it’s unlikely I’ll be spotted.
My shorts and tee-shirt are moulded to me like a wet t-shirt competition. My shorts are offensively short. Porno short. They were never supposed to be worn outside of a gym.
I look like a prostitute that has taken a swim in a river.
I fumble around in my bag between my work clothes and laptop.
Shit! I don’t have my towel.
How the hell did I forget that? Now I have to go up to the 4th floor and get my spare.
I stealth across the lower ground reception and get in the lift. So far, so good. There’s no life around yet except for the security guards.
My reflection hits me in the lift mirror. It’s worse than I thought.
I am soaking.
My shorts and tee-shirt are clinging to everything. There’s a full outline of my bra and pants.
The lift pings open, and I run to my desk, bending my knees to stay low.
A few developers sit with their headphones in their ears. They don’t acknowledge me. It would take a hurricane to distract a coder.
I make it to my desk and hunker down to open my drawer. Yes! The blue towel is still here from when I brought it in last year.
There’s a slow whistle behind me. I jump and bang my head on the desk.
My eyes snap up to find Dylan Anderson smirking at me. His eyes balloon as he takes in my outfit or rather lack of outfit. Dirty Dylan, we call him for his lechering on anyone with a pair of ovaries. “Aren’t I glad I came in early this morning? That is one glorious sight.” I cross my arms over my chest as his eyes move from breast to breast.
“Piss off, Dylan.”
“Come on, Finnegan, you don’t walk around the office like that without expecting a little attention.”