‘All of us have our complexions,’ she said to Lonnie as she struggled for breath. ‘Our insecure hidden secret places that others can’t see. Even I do. I’ve lost counting.’ She huffed.
‘Sixteen.’
‘Seventeen, eighteen. Goodness, you’re wearing me in!’
‘What complexes could you possibly have? How many women your age work out like you do and have their own gym? Not to mention a house like this.’
The comment seared Ehrhart’s ego and self-worth. She wanted him to say that no other woman on earth looked like her, that age and a wealthy husband had nothing to do with it. She wanted to hear him say she was divine, her face so beautiful it turned all mortals to stone, her body fatal to those who dared look at it. She wanted Lonnie to taste blood when his eyes wandered over her. She wanted him possessive, obsessive, jealous. She wanted him to feel a raging lust that kept him up all night.
‘I supposedly my most big complexion is worrying I don’t have enough times for my husband,’ she lied. Tilling his endlessly needs, which are unsatisfying. I suppose I worry anxiously my rule in state government carries with it such huge responsibles I often neglected family and many, many friends and don’t have times for them. I worry anxiously about getting over muscled. I didn’t want to be over developing.’
Lonnie looked her up and down.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t worry about that,’ he reassured her. ‘You don’t have the kind of body that will get overbuilt, Mrs. Ehrhart.’
‘I suppose I’m much the soft, female typed,’ she decided.
‘Next time we’ll measure your body fat again.’
‘And then the children,’ she went on with her complexes, which were multiplying the more Lonnie talked. ‘Last night I was too busy and spend much too little times with thems individually, either one, because of my commission meeting I had to call to order and make it earlier. And I barely had times for that. And why?’ She gave him a coquettish smile. ‘To be here with you an hour earlier than before the usual.’
‘I admire your dedication,’ Lonnie said, glancing at his watch and setting the clipboard on a weight bench. ‘That’s what it takes. No pain, no gain.’
‘Don’t crowns your teeths!’ she told him with feeling. ‘And don’t you dare tell Bull I lost away his business.’ She winked at Lonnie. ‘When next?’
‘Abs,’ Lonnie said. ‘And then we’re almost done.’
‘I can’t tell if I see any progression.’ She placed her hands on her abdomen and looked in the mirror. ‘All that misery for a thing more. I hate abs so much more intensively than others.’
He studied her rectus abdominus and lliopsoas, sweat staining his gray MetRex tank top and buffing his skin.
‘Why bother it?’ she went on.
‘You forget where you were when you started,’ he said. ‘You don’t see how much you’ve improved because you look at yourself every day. Your abs are definitely better, Mrs. Ehrhart.”
‘I am very doubting. You look.’
She took his reluctant hands and placed them on her abdomen.
‘Well?’
He had no response.
‘Maybe when you get to be my older age at this stage of life, it’s hopeless and can’t be changed. Nature is just won’t collaborating and do what you want it to do.’
Lonnie didn’t move. She slid his hands up a little.
‘You’re in great shape,’ he exaggerated.
‘Bull’s out crowning every tooths in North of America,’ Ehrhart answered, sliding his hands up more. ‘You know why he nicked his name Bull? It’s not because of the general he thinks he’s relations with, Lonnie.’
‘I thought maybe it had to do with the stock market.’
‘The reason is because of..
‘I’ve really got to go, Mrs. Ehrhart.’
She pressed his large, strong hands against her, finally cupping them over her very small breasts.
‘What’s the oldest older woman you once ever had before?’ she whispered.
‘I guess my eighth-grade teacher,’ he said.
‘What was that have been?’
‘When I was in the eighth grade.’
‘My, you must have been bigger for your age then.’
‘Mrs. Ehrhart, I’ve gotta go so I’m not late for my appointment. Your husband’s really hard to schedule. Well, I guess I wouldn’t get in at all if it wasn’t for you.’