The Gym Woman Who Left Me Breathless

It’s one of those stories that sounds made up when you tell it, but it happened exactly like that. It was an ordinary Tuesday, one of those days when your body runs on autopilot. I’d left work exhausted and stopped at the supermarket to pick up the four things missing from home. I had just turned thirty and my head was fixed on the mental dinner list, nothing more.

I turned into the dairy aisle and ran straight into her. A woman about my age, with a half-full cart and an expression I couldn’t quite read. We stared at each other. It wasn’t a normal glance, the kind that dissolves in a second. It was long, sustained, uncomfortably intense. And then we both smiled, without saying a word, without even stopping.

I kept walking with my heart hammering against my ribs. I knew I was bisexual, that wasn’t news to me; it’s one thing to enjoy a woman in bed and something very different for a stranger to dismantle you with a single look in the yogurt aisle.

This woman had me struck by lightning.

The thought made me laugh and blush at the same time. I tried to discreetly look for her in the other aisles, but then I realized something absurd: I couldn’t even remember what she was wearing. I’d looked her in the eyes and nothing else. I wandered around a couple of times for nothing, paid, and left defeated.

I was arranging the bags in the trunk of the car when I thought I saw her in the distance, crossing the shopping center. I dropped everything, slammed the trunk shut, and went after her almost running. I saw her go up the escalator and slip into the gym on the first floor. I didn’t think about it. I went up too.

At reception a very nice girl helped me. I had no idea what to say, so I asked the first thing that came to mind: how much the membership cost. She explained the plans, the schedules, the classes, and I nodded without hearing a word, my eyes fixed on the back of the room looking for her.

I don’t know if it was luck or fate, but she appeared right then. She was coming out of the machine area with a towel over her shoulder, and we looked at each other again, exactly as we had downstairs. And again, that smile. She kept walking toward the locker rooms and I, with my pulse still racing, asked the receptionist if that girl worked out there.

—Yes —she told me, innocently—, Lucía comes every afternoon.

I pulled out my card without hesitation and signed up on the spot.

***

I got home confused, happy, distracted like a teenager coming back from school thinking about someone. My husband noticed something was off and asked if I was okay. I told him yes, that the next day I was starting the gym because I’d run into a girl who had left me struck by lightning.

He burst out laughing.

—You’re crazy —he said, not giving it much importance—. Enjoy your craziness.

We’ve been swingers for years. We share, we play, we go to parties where everything is allowed as long as there’s respect and clear rules. That’s why he was laughing: to him it was just another adventure on the menu. What he didn’t know, what I still hadn’t quite understood, was that this time I didn’t want to share anything with anyone.

***

The next day I went early. I found her doing cardio in leggings that marked every curve of her body. I gathered my courage and went over.

—Hi. Don’t think I’m following you, it’s pure coincidence. I’m Valeria, nice to meet you.

She laughed heartily and held out her hand, still a little breathless from exercise.

—I’m Lucía, but everyone calls me Lu. Anything you need, I’m at your service.

We kept looking at each other for a long time, too long for two people who had just met. We both knew there was something there, and I think we both blushed. She asked me if I had an instructor or if I wanted to do the routine with her. I told her I was on my own, that I’d be happy to keep her company, but that I wouldn’t be able to keep up because it was my first day.

—Besides, I’m quite a few years older than you —I added, just to get her age out of her indirectly.

—You look better than me and better than half the women training here —she answered me, in a voice so soft it left me frozen—. Let’s start with back.

We spent the next hour between machines and dumbbells, and I didn’t know whether it was all in my head or whether it was really happening, but everything she said to me made me feel good, turned me on, made me feel like she was courting me with every posture correction. She corrected my hip position with her hand resting on my waist, held the bar from behind, spoke in my ear over the music. I was afraid it showed how nervous I was.

When we finished, we went to the showers together. I took the chance to look at her defined, firm body, trying not to be disrespectful, stealing details from the corner of my eye. But when I looked up, she was looking at me. Exactly the way I looked at her.

—Do you like me? —she asked, shamelessly.

I didn’t know what to answer. I didn’t understand whether the question was out of annoyance or real interest. But the calmest answer I could put together came out of me.

—A lot. But I’ve only just met you, and I don’t go out with anyone on the first date.

We looked at each other and laughed. The ice broke there, among the steam from the showers and two towels. Then each of us went home.

***

The following days we trained together all the time. I stretched out my routine on purpose, hoping we’d run into each other in the locker rooms so I could see her a little longer. I loved everything about her: her legs, her arms, the curve of her back, her neck, the line of her navel, her face. Everything. And she let herself be seen without a trace of shame, knowing perfectly well that I was devouring her with my eyes.

It was strange, though. She showed me everything, as if she liked being watched by me, but I didn’t feel she was doing the same with me. That made me doubt. I’d get home turning it over in my head, and as always, I ended up telling my husband everything.

—Seriously, the gym girl has you like this? —he said one night, amused—. Bring her home, we’ll meet her and see what happens.

I thought that if I brought her, it would be obvious, because my husband is a sly old fox and rarely misses a thing. But for the first time in a long while I didn’t want to share. Together we worked well at parties, but this was different. This was the strange vertigo of wanting to win a woman over, not take her to bed and be done with it. It was the tingle of making an impression and wanting to be impressed.

***

One afternoon we left the gym to have coffee. We went to an open-air place, half hidden among plants, with that atmosphere somewhere between romantic and wild. We talked about nonsense, laughed, and at some point, without realizing it, we ended up with our hands intertwined on the table. We both noticed at the same time and loosened up a little, but not completely.

I told her I was married. She told me she was single, that she’d had several partners, men and women, but nothing serious at the moment. When we said goodbye, already inside the car, we kissed for the first time. It was a slow, hungry kiss, the kind that leaves you trembling. I felt her whole body against me, her perfume, the heat of her mouth, her hand seeking the back of my neck. I left there feeling in love, like I hadn’t in years.

That night I told my husband, and as expected, he said he’d love to meet her. But I had already decided something: with Lucía I was going to be honest from the start.

***

The next day I invited her out for a drink again. I told her honestly about my marriage, about our life as an open couple, about my desire to have a parallel lesbian relationship, but also about my loyalty to my husband. In short, I told her I wanted to be with her, but always with his consent and his knowledge. No cheating, no secrets, no betrayals to anyone.

She thought for a moment, playing with her cup. Then she looked at me and smiled.

—I like the way you are —she said—. And I like that you don’t lie to me.

With the rules clear, we started something beautiful that lasted months. Lucía became my best friend, my confidante, and my lover with permission. We bought toys together and tried them out without guilt, in her apartment or in hotels, laughing like two girls discovering a new world. I learned her body by heart: where to press, where to linger, what made her arch her back and bite her lip so she wouldn’t scream.

Over time we had a threesome with my husband. The truth is they didn’t click the way I expected; the spark between them was missing. But that didn’t cloud anything between us. On the contrary: it confirmed what I already suspected, that what I had with her was something separate, something that didn’t need anyone else in order to exist.

***

Even today I still try to find something I didn’t like about Lucía, and I can’t. I remember her kisses, her caresses, her smell, her skin, her hair falling over her shoulders, the look in her eyes, her laugh, her company. Everything was easy with her.

In time she started dating a guy. She was clear with me from the beginning: she wanted to start a family, and that was something I couldn’t give her. She fell in love with him and we slowly drifted apart, without fights or reproaches, until we were simply friends. She got married. Today she has two beautiful children. We never got together again, although we’re still in touch and live in the same city. We cross paths only rarely, and that’s as far as it goes.

I stayed in love with her for a long time. I brooded alone, in silence, on the nights when I missed her. I think I’ve never felt for another woman what I felt for her. Sometimes I think I still love her a little. But she is happy, she has her life built, and I learned to love her that way, from afar. For me she will always be that: an impossible love.