HE
SHE
does not like all the mirrors everywhere. Watching the way her deltoid stretches and rolls over her shoulder socket as she lifts the thick dumbbell above her head turns her skin to braille. Why are all these mirrors here? She wishes she could exercise in a place where no one hovered over her bench, vulture-like, or asked if she could "work in" while she was trying to speed herself up, to break a sweat. Most of all, she wishes she didn't have to look at herself during all this. She can't escape the mirrors, except to look at the ceiling or the floor, but those are colorless, flavorless; they lack character. At least vanity has a swagger; at least it has depth and motion. Other people's swagger, though, is hard to stomach.
She only works out at this gym because the spa is in a quiet back room, and for some reason not many people tend to use it. She looks forward to the solitude of a long, warm bath after a rigorous workout, and it makes the awkward cajoling for exercise machines and the repulsive flirtings of the spandex-clad gym-bunnies with behemoth muscle-men tolerable. She has just finished her last set, and she goes to the locker room to change into her more comfortable bathing suit. Her workout uniform is standard 90's health club issue: grey bodysuit, purple Umbro shorts, tube socks and frayed tennis sneakers. Her hair is pinned back into a ponytail, and she lets it loose as she swings the locker room door open. As she turns right past the first row of lockers, she walks through the middle of an energetic conversation. The women are exchanging one-liners.
"What do you call ten thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?" says one.
"August art," says the other, and they both start laughing.
She is sure she didn't hear them correctly. Sometimes, she doubts if she hears anyone correctly. People don't seem to speak her language, or maybe she is not speaking theirs. This snippet of conversation she has just walked through feels like an electric knife which has just sawed through a part of her. She gets to her locker, opens it, and picks out her bathing suit. Maybe the spa will shake me back together, she thinks. At least I can be alone to think.
Steam from the spa room has crept into the hallway in front of the entrance. She takes a deep breath, opens the door, and goes in. There's a man already in the water, and it seems like he's not leaving any time soon. Damn, she thinks. She's already in her suit, and she needs something to relax her overworked body, so she decides to stay.
&n bsp; & nbsp; ; &nbs p; HE
likes what soaking in the spa does for his muscles, especially after a long workout. It softens them and makes his arms feel light again. After a dozen sets of various curls, his arms always feel like sledgehammers. Maybe it's the way steam floats off of the jiggling water that gives the illusion of lightness. Maybe it's the way he can just let his arms rise and fall in the mechanized undercurrents, if he doesn't resist their floating. He wonders what it would cost to get a spa like this put in his house.
There's a splash next to him, someone forcefully breaking the plane of the water's surface. He resents that. He likes to be alone in the spa, uses the time to relax and think. During a workout, there's too many people around, and too much noise. Weights clang together as the guy wearing a wide-open black tank top pushes toward the top of his shoulder press, plates crash abruptly on the hamstring machine because the moustache guy didn't have a spotter or because the woman in a red spandex body suit slipped, rap music is served over commercial-pilaf by overhead speakers. Everyone is trying to take someone else home. It's worse than a night-club. All he can think about then is what weight to do next, and how many reps. If I don't adjust my bandanna now, will it come undone and fall down over my eyes while I'm in the middle of my next set? In the spa afterward, he can think about more important things, like...
"You mind if I come in for a while?" the splasher asks.
He turns to his right to see her. She's in to her waist already, so there's no sense saying no.
"Sure."
He turns and looks straight ahead at a tile mural on the opposite wall. It is a collage made up of individual tiles which each depict a scene. The scenes are a narrative, like friezes were on ancient temple facades, which runs in columns from top to bottom. Each tile also has an Asian character written in it which he guesses is Chinese, but he does not know. The border of the collage is circular, and it is split in the middle by a swirling line. It's a familiar symbol, he knows. The yin and yang.
The narrative follows a man on his journey from his village to a rendezvous with his lover. They greet each other passionately, exchange vows of love, and spend the night together. In the morning, they part, in tears again, and she makes her way back to her village. It saddens him to think that this might represent the only chance these lovers have to meet. He wonders what they take with them from the experience, what remains weeks and years later. An artist has his mural, his souvenir, of the story he is telling. But the characters are stripped bare, left only with a memory of the journey, a buried emotion that they can draw up some day, and scuffed sandals.
SHE
sees him looking at the mural. God he's gorgeous, she thinks. Trying to imagine his whole body above the water, she pictures him in his bathing suit. Through the water she can see a vague circle of blue where his bathing suit should be, but it's hard to tell through the bubbling water and steam. It matches his eyes, or at least it seems to. She can only see them in profile. Still, his lips are round and fleshy, his nose small and sharp, and there are tendrils of light-chocolate hair sticking to his wet temple and forehead.
"It's a beautiful mural. Do you like the top or the bottom better?"
She realizes how awkward that must have sounded. It was an unintentional slip, but she is embarrassed. He was nice to look at, she had thought, but she had not planned to say anything to him. An article in Health and Fitness had said the gym was no longer only a place to get in shape, but that it was also a great place to pick up men. It didn't say anything, of course, about how to approach them. Besides, she found that aspect of life at this health club to be an impediment to her workout. Macho, sculpted men asking for her phone number or giving her advice on form and the "proper" eating regimen before inviting her to dinner; these were not the kind of men she would have wanted to date even if she had wanted to date anyone. She looks at the men, of course; if freakish, most are at least aesthetically pleasing. But she does not talk to them. So why is she talking to this man? Yes, he is more handsome than many, but she hopes that isn't her only motivation. She can't believe she's doing this.
He doesn't say anything. This is confusing. If he made a snide remark, or if he were simply rude, she could settle into her bath confidently, if a little angry. And if he advanced on her, she could deal with that as well. But why isn't he doing anything? The gurgling hum of the spa's water jets is beginning to annoy her, so she tries to think of something else to say. Something she's sure he'll respond to.
"You married?"
&n bsp; & nbsp; ; HE
tries to ignore her, but a question like that won't steam itself away. Why's it always the talkative ones with me? he thinks. Whenever he asks for a spot, it's always a "friendly" guy who wants to tell him about his ACL surgery or about the time he met Arnold Schwarzenegger at some gym near Planet Hollywood. And now, when he needs warm, bubbling solitude, he's stuck in a pool with a siren.
He looks at her, turning his eyes but not his head. She's shoulder-deep in the spa, and the straps of her green bathing suit make her full shoulders and toned neck look like they want to break out. He wonders why she doesn't have a tan. Most of the people he's met since moving to Orlando have tans. They don't even have to lie on the beach, greasing themselves with lotion like bodybuilders, to turn their skins to a leathery butterscotch. Walking from their cars to the grocery store, going out in the morning to get the paper, or mowing the lawn, any sun exposure seems to change these people's colors. It's almost as if they've evolved into this chameleon-like state. He has to avoid the sun, or else he burns. She must wear a lot of sunscreen, he thinks.
Out of the corner of his eye, it is difficult to tell, but she seems pretty. He likes long hair, especially the darker shades. Her round face is untanned and spotless; he has freckles, which his mother always told him were the trademark of the easily-sunburned. He tries to focus on the mural again. I didn't come here to be with people, he thinks. He is flattered by her persistence, but a fitness-club spa is not the place to meet women.
"What about a girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend?"
&n bsp; SHE
thinks she sees him look over at her, but now he's looking at the mural again. What a stupid question, she thinks. She wants to sink down into the water, to bury her head in it, long enough that when she comes to the surface again he'll be gone. If she stayed under for thirty seconds, would he try to save her from drowning? How could he tell the difference between the bubbles which blew out her last, futile breaths and any other sputters in the boiling spa? She can't just disappear. She needs to do or say something else, something that will convince him that she's not a complete fool. Something before he leaves that he will remember whenever he comes back.
She regrets not snapping at the women telling that joke in the locker room, not making an impression on them. Some people make an impression without trying, and others try so hard they make the wrong impression. But she thinks she most often floats between people and places as if she were practically invisible, and she makes no impression at all, like the air. She calls herself the mirror-image of a vampire, but she wants a reflection. And now she will not squander a chance to make an indelible mark.
I know you can hear me, she says without moving her lips. You can hear me.
&n bsp; & nbsp; ; HE
feels her staring at him, without looking over to make sure. It is as if he can hear her look at him, and the noise is more eerie than her strange questions and the unbearable silences between them. It's too late for him to turn the tables and approach her; he is certain that would be embarrassing. What could he say? No, he should have either answered her from the beginning or left. He tries to count out the silence, but counting to ten is like waiting for a tax return, another excruciating stand-off. One of them should get up and leave soon. That would be best. But he doesn't want to leave his spa; he has come to think of it as his own, since he knows the idea of having one in his house is ridiculous. Maybe he can out-ignore her. He can pay attention to the mural instead.
Looking at the tile-story again, he realizes he has read it wrong. It tells the story of the woman leaving her village to meet the man, and then he goes back home at the end. He is angry with himself for having missed something so obvious the first time around, and he tries to retrace the story to see where he went wrong. This time, the story works just as well as the first time. He feels as if he is staring at an optical illusion. Either way he reads the mural, it tells the same story. He wonders which is right. This frustrates him further, so he decides to ignore the mural and concentrate on his soak.
But paying attention to his submerged body is even more frightening. Maybe he's been underwater too long, because his arms no longer feel light or heavy. They feel as if they have melted, but not from relaxation. He cannot move his arms. They are being lifted by the spa's current, then they are sucked back down in the artificial undertow. Floating in a sort of aquatic purgatory, his arms feel like poached eggs, caught in a state somewhere between solid and liquid. He can no longer feel as far down as his legs, but he is sure they are jelly as well.
What the hell is happening?
&n bsp; SHE
is controlling him. She will get the answers she wants, however she has to get them. If he wants to be quiet as Dido, she thinks, he can shut his mouth. But he can't shut me out, and I will brand him. Even though he is being stubborn, she knows he is under her command. His eyes have closed, but he is still sitting totally still and facing the mural. It is strange to see the lumps of water bubble around his neck and shoulders while he sits statue-still. They are like miniature tides rising over him, and he is a sand castle trying to hold together under the water pressure.
Are you seeing anyone? Do you like my bathing suit? Do my questions make you nervous?
&n bsp; & nbsp; HE
does not know if she is there anymore. He can't even move his head to look, and his eyes have been steamed shut.
No.
She's not there. This is all some sort of adrenaline-induced dream, he thinks. I shouldn't have done the last set of incline bench presses. It threw my chemicals out of whack. His pecs feel soft as well, but there's more. They are growing. He cannot see it, but he knows it is happening. He knows the ways his body is changing, but he can't scream out, and he cannot see or hear anything any more.
&n bsp; & nbsp; SHE
draws him to her, but their bodies never touch. They are sitting three feet apart in the spa, but their brain waves are spinning together like strands of cotton in a loom. She wants him inside of her, just for a moment. If he becomes part of her, it will break the awkward silence, and there won't be any more questions to ask when they split apart.
She moves over to his side of the spa and climbs onto the ledge so that she can sit above and behind him. She begins to massage his shoulders and neck. Working the stiffness out of his muscles, she tries to squeeze the truth out of him as well.
Who are you?
He. . .
She closes his mouth; she's heard enough. He begins to soften like clay. Her hands feel sticky, and she scoops up some of the water to help her smooth the dents she has made in his right collarbone. She carves the shape of a heart into his chest with her index finger.
Could you love me?
I already love you. Why did you hypnotize me?
Were you going to talk to me if I didn't?
Who are you?
Macie. I can make you do stupid things, you know.
Taking a bit off of each of his shoulders, she molds his breasts into round spheres. She stretches his hips and uses some of his stout thighs to fill them in.
I can make you think you're a tuna fish sandwich. I can make you think you're me.
I already think I'm me.
She takes his penis off, shapes it into a tuna fish, and lets it float around in the rippling water. When she pulls off his right arm, the shoulder-end stretches like taffy. She pinches the middle of the stretch, snaps it in two, and rounds off the jagged edges.
I can change you from the inside out.
Stop it.
Left leg off, then left arm. Right leg in two pieces. She smooths the edges of the torso. She tries to make everything smooth, but each stroke makes the mold more uneven. Each unevenness bites her and sets her hands in motion skimming his surface like a trowel.
Like fear.
Stop it!
&n bsp; & nbsp; HE
is not himself any more. His hips have filled out, and his breasts are round. They move with the current just as his thin arms and legs do. Long strings of hair stick to the front of his neck, bob in the hot water around him, tickle the side of his nose.
Stop it.
He is powerless to change any of this, and he knows he has revealed himself to the stranger next to him. She has not left. Of that he is certain now. He gives over pieces of himself as a captured fish gives itself over as bait for a bigger catch. Pieces of him are floating in the spa near him; he feels them brush against his body as if they were merely jets of water. This is some kind of nightmare, he thinks. He begins to fight for control of the dream. He has always been able to take control of nightmares and find his way out of them. But he is still paralyzed.
I can change you from the inside out.
Stop it.
What does that mean? He's not used to this. He reaches out to wring her neck, to dunk her under and drown her, to do anything to stop her from eating him alive. But nothing moves, not even the water. His mind feels still as death.
Like fear.
Stop it!
He sees his fear floating below him, pushed and pulled in every direction at once, keeping it almost still beneath the water. She has stripped him to the core, which vibrates like a purring cat. She pulls his dripping core from the spa and wrings the water from it, and it sprinkles his body back into existence, leaving his shell sitting next to her, looking at the mural.
The nightmare is over. She has exposed him. And his shell wades over to her, hoisting her out of the spa. She sits on the edge with her feet still in the water. He peels her outer layer from her, dropping the rind into the bubbling pool. Her breasts rock on the hot surface, eventually going under and being sucked to the bottom.
Stop it!
Layer by layer, he skins her like an onion, her shed-selves bravely swimming briefly, only to be drowned by the undertow. He fishes out the layers of her, squeezes them dry, and fashions a standing figure with cropped hair, a moustache, broad shoulders, and a stout penis. Her core lay in a pool of herself on the tiled floor.
&n bsp; & nbsp; SHE
is not herself anymore. As he peels off her layers, she wants to lash out, to strangle him with a shed-skin; or perhaps she can slide away, under the door and back into the locker room. She knows she cannot move, but she screams for him to stop.
Stop it!
It's useless. She watches herself stripped bare and expects to find each layer more scarred and repulsive. She hopes her center will repulse him, send him shivering away and crying for help. She's helpless. He mercilessly rips away her wrapping as if he were a greedy child on his birthday, wanting the present inside the box but also in a hurry to get to the cake. He's heard her, she knows. She has branded him, and perhaps this is his branding of her. There are no brand marks on the insides of her crumbling shells. They wither and splash as they fall away.
The kernel of herself lay beached and drying, like the suffocating catch on a fisherman's deck. He has exposed her, and for a moment she wishes she had never stepped into this place. She is seated next to him, and he is still looking at the mural. She looks away.
&n bsp; & nbsp; SHEHE
are sitting at right angles to each other in the spa, three feet apart, each staring forward.
He feels like a sponge too old and heavy to hold water. As soon as he can gather the strength to get up, he will leave this place. The dance of water in front of him is no longer soothing, and he wishes he had gone home sweaty and tight-limbed after his workout.
She is spent and ready to leave. He still has not talked to her, and she is still frustrated by that. If she never sees him again, she wants him not to forget her. She wades over to him and places her hand on his head.
"This pool is yours. You will never see me here again. I christen it in your name. I baptize you in its warmth and solitude."
She dunks his head under the water and holds it there, thinking how long does the baptist wait before letting the inductee come up for air? He begins to push up against her hand, and she tries with all her strength to keep him under while his arms flail about, splash her pale shoulders and make her wet hair stick to her neck.
He kicks and jerks under the water, not able to see much in the wash of choppy currents. She is trying to keep him under, and he is not sure if he has the strength to get back to the surface. He squats, feet flat on the bottom of the spa, and lunges upward, bracing his hands on her shoulders and forcing her underwater as well.
He crashes out of the water and holds her head under.
"I baptize you in its warmth and solitude."
She is able to grip his shoulders and pull him back down. They are both submerged now and are wrestling and spinning around in circles. Their struggles seem to create a whirlpool which overwhelms the spa's powerful jets. Hot water surrounds them and they begin to feel as if they are melting into it. He feels her breasts flatten and pour out into the whirlpool, and she reaches into his chest and pulls out her own soggy, pliable heart. Both are running out of air, and neither can see the other or feel anything other than the fear of drowning and the closeness of the surface, an arm's length or a blackout from freedom.
&n bsp; & nbsp; SHEE
breaks out of the water and breathes deeply, coughing and gagging like an infant after its first breath. Shee is alone in the pool, and the room is graveyard-quiet. Finally alone, and contented. Nothing is missing here. Shee smiles and tastes the steamy thickness of each breath. Her arms and legs are sore from his workout, but they feel warm and well-rested. After three wet steps up and out of the spa, shee curls her toes against the clean, aquamarine floor tiles, wrings the heavy water from his short hair, adjusts the green strap which has slid over and almost off her shoulder, and pulls the drawstring of his blue swimming trunks tight against her waist.
&n bsp; & nbsp; SHE
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