by James Birk
Chapter 22
I was always bemused by the choice of music in Pete’s Gym. During one Saturday afternoon workout the speakers were pumping out Geri Halliwell’s 2001 cover of The Weather Girls’ ‘It’s Raining Men’, which may have been a fairly decent metaphor for the five sweaty testosterone fuelled behemoths that were currently pumping iron on the benches in the corner, but as they were the only other occupants of the gym besides me, it wasn’t the necessarily the genre of music any of us would have chosen to optimise our work-outs. It was, at least, an upbeat song, which was perhaps more appropriate than Barry Manilow’s ‘Mandy’, the song that had immediately preceded it. My main criticism though, was not any one particular song choice, it was after all the prerogative of the proprietor to select the tunes, and we all have different tastes. It was the total lack of consistency that was so confusing. The tracks would often veer from sixties easy listening to eighties thrash metal and from contemporary hip hop to seventies disco, without ever managing to land on anything in that fell into the fairly broad category of ‘music that I liked’. From the age of about twenty-six onwards my own music collection had moved steadily away from alternative and eclectic indie, to become a virtual bastion of mainstream pop. Whereas I once used to sneer and mock my parents musical tastes, I was now just as likely to borrow extensively from their CD collection. When it came to music, if it was universally popular, it was on my MP3 player, so for Pete’s Gym to never play anything that I even remotely enjoyed was an impressive feat indeed.
It had been a wet March so far, and consequently my marathon training had been more regularly based indoors, rather than endless laps of Roath Park, because invigorating as a run in the rain could be, it also could lead to some fairly unpleasant repercussions and as I was getting to the business end of my endeavours to get fit, I didn’t want incur any unnecessary health problems. In fact I was particularly keen to avoid a repeat of one affliction that had been troubling me for a week or so.
I could still recall my initial underwriting training at FFS when I was taught how to sift a life assurance application form for any medical conditions, in order to extract those that might have required further investigation and a substantial hike in the premiums of the customer. A number of applicants would be excessively honest about any ailments they had and list things that had no relevance to their policy, such as an ingrowing toenail, a verruca or mild halitosis. Essentially if anyone made even the most innocuous of disclosures, we were not authorised to make a decision without first passing the form to a medical underwriter, unless the disclosure appeared on a fairly comprehensive list of pre-existing conditions that had already been deemed too harmless to merit further investigation. Tim and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly reading the list and mocking the sort of person who might write conditions such as ‘minor flatulence’ on an application form. The one that generated the most mirth, however, was a condition that neither of us had heard of. It was a condition that sounded preposterous. It was however, a condition that I discovered was very real many months later. After completing a long run in freezing cold rain, with only a flimsy t-shirt to protect me from the elements, I arrived back at my flat soaking wet and discovered a large red patch of blood seeping through the cotton. I removed the shirt to discover that there were no open wounds on my chest, but there was a distinctly unnatural redness around my masculine mammilla. I had learned first-hand the true horrors of Jogger’s Nipple!
I discovered that far from being a laughing matter, Jogger’s Nipple was a remarkably painful condition that all runners should take care to avoid. Subsequent web searches revealed to me that had I taken the simple precaution of putting a plaster over the offending areas, I would have avoided the friction caused by a wet t-shirt rubbing on my chest and I would have escaped the resulting soreness. As it was, once the damage was done I was cursed with a sore nipple for days afterwards, an ailment that was particularly painful when I took a shower. I have come across many hackneyed stand-up comedians who based their routines on the pointlessness of the male nipple, but after experiencing Joggers Nipple first hand, I was starting to feel there may be a worthy philosophical side to their work.
The ‘condition’ meant that it wasn’t a completely pain free experience in Pete’s Gym, but with a liberal application of Vaseline on my chest, it was far more bearable than exposing my sensitive nipple to more of the inclement weather.
I spent most of my time in the gym on the cross-trainer. It certainly wasn’t the best machine to go on in order to look cool, or even vaguely dignified, but for a basic cardiovascular workout, without putting too much strain on my overworked calf muscles, it was a winner. I was often eyed with mild contempt by the muscle bound weight lifting troop that groaned and snarled their way through numerous reps with unfeasibly overloaded barbells. I think that they viewed the cross-trainer as being the girliest of all the cardio machines, which were inherently all a bit girly really, and while I certainly wasn’t the only bloke who regularly used that particular apparatus, they probably did have a valid point as it was, more often than not, the female members of Pete’s Gym that spent the most time on the machine.
That was another reason that I liked it of course, I would far rather have been surrounded by Lycra-clad women than by muscle-bound monsters, even if the majority of those Lycra-clad women seemed in general to prefer the afore mentioned monsters to the less than muscle-bound me.
On the subject of the opposite sex, I was awoken from my reverie as a vision in skin tight clothing entered my peripheral vision and started using the cross-trainer positioned in front of the one I was currently sweating away on. The weight-lifting posse made no secret of their admiration for her figure and openly stared as she moved up and down with a grace and energy that did admittedly make for compelling viewing. Internally I knew myself to be more sophisticated that the alpha-males around me, and I consciously made an effort not to stare at the rather attractive rear end in front of me, but in all honesty I was sadly reduced to the level of misogynistic gawping of my fellow man, partially because no matter how enlightened he may be, there is a primeval part of every heterosexual man, that is compelled to stare at a lady’s bottom, and also because it was actually having quite negative effect on my posture, while exercising, to look anywhere but directly at the moving derriere in front of me.
I still felt immense embarrassment after ten minutes of concentrating solely on her backside, when the girl in question finished her warm up and caught my eye as she dismounted the machine. Far from the look of enraged indignation or mild embarrassment that should rightfully have greeted this indiscretion I was greeted by a warm smile of recognition.
‘Hi Chris,’ she said walking over to me, and making me extremely aware of my perspiration.
I was at a loss, I genuinely had no idea who she was, although I conceded internally that there was absolutely no way I should communicate this lack of recognition, as on closer inspections, she was every bit as gorgeous as I’d first imagined, and had obviously mistaken my ogling of her behind for a look of acknowledgment.
‘How are you?’ she asked, seeming genuinely pleased to see me, ‘are you still at FFS?’
At least that narrowed it down, she was a work colleague, or at the very least a former colleague.
‘Sadly yes,’ I replied, ‘yes I survived the cull. Don’t know how I feel about that yet. What about you?’
‘No, they got rid of me,’ she laughed, obviously at ease with this state of affairs, ‘pretty glad actually, I wasn’t really enjoying it.’
‘No it’s not the most inspiring of places is it,’ I agreed, still at a loss as to who she was, ‘so what are you doing now?’
‘Oh not much really,’ she said, ‘I haven’t found anything I want to do. I’m lucky really, because Tony takes care of the rent.’
She nodded at one of the gorillas pumping iron, who I took to be her boyfriend, which crushed any hopes I had had that she might have been romantically interested in me, and did nothing to restore
my memory of how I actually knew her.
‘Yeah that’s handy,’ I agreed, ‘sounds like you’re better off out of there.’
‘Yes definitely,’ she laughed again, ‘but I do want to do something with my life. I might try teaching. Like Amy. That’s what she’s gone off to do. The trouble is, I really don’t like kids, so it’s probably not the best job for me after all.’
‘Probably not. I can’t think of anything much worse than teaching either’ I agreed.
The mention of the delightful Amy sent shivers down my spine. I could still recall that almost rueful smile from our last encounter. It suddenly dawned on me that the girl I was currently talking to was Alicia, the onetime love interest of Tim. She seemed a great deal friendlier away from the office, but then FFS did have a tendency to bring out the worst in people.
‘How is Amy?’ I asked.
‘Well we haven’t really stayed in touch apart from the odd text,’ replied Alicia, ‘but I think she was glad to be leaving FFS.’
‘I can imagine,’ I mumbled.
‘I think she had a bit of a crush on you though,’ said Alicia, ‘I mean she definitely used to look at you in a certain way, when you were training us.’
‘Did she?’ I was genuinely surprised, ‘why didn’t she say anything?’
‘Well it’s not really a girl’s job to do the asking out is it?’ Alicia laughed, ‘besides you started going out with Cheryl didn’t you?’
‘What, you knew about that? Amy knew about that?’
‘Everyone knew about that Chris, you were such an odd couple.’
‘But, I mean, you think Amy fancied me,’ I said, ‘I had no idea!’
‘Would it have made a difference?’ asked Alicia looking at me, ‘Oh my God, I think it would, you liked her too didn’t you.’
‘Well yes, I really did,’ I replied.
‘Well it’s not too late,’ said Alicia.
‘It is a bit too late Alicia,’ I pointed out, ‘she’s moved away hasn’t she? Back to Kent?’
‘Well yes, maybe it is a bit too late,’ acknowledged Alicia, ‘but you never know, your paths may cross again.’
I felt confused. On the one hand it was a nice feeling to know that a girl I had fancied, had actually fancied me back, on the other hand it felt bloody typical that I had found out when it was clearly too late to do anything about it.
‘Do you know Chris,’ Alicia said after a brief pause, ‘I never really knew what she saw in you, but I have to admit, after all that exercise you’ve been doing, you are looking quite dishy these days.’
It was a slightly backhanded compliment, but a compliment nonetheless. I blushed and mumbled something incoherent.
