Untameable (BWWM)

Chapter 14

I hadn't been at the gym long. Maybe an hour at most. The first twenty minutes were spent hauling ass on the treadmill and running til my tits fell off. From there, it was all resistance training and weightlifting.

Today was leg day. My absolute favourite. Five sets of twenty squats. One hundred and fifty pounds of leg presses, eighty pound leg extension, and seventy pounds of both abductor and adductor machine. I like the look of strong thighs and calves on women and aspired to have a Serena Williams body that I achieved years ago.

It wasn't easy to maintain though. The diet was undoubtedly the hardest part of it all. I like to eat and carbs were especially my kryptonite.

Being at the gym was by far the easiest part. I loved pouring my heart and soul into a one to two hour gym session. I could pop my AirPods in and forget the world around me. The gym was one of the best places for that. It's one of the few spaces where everyone minded their own business and kept a safe distance.

Since it was fairly new, the gym didn't have too many members anyway and only the same two dozen of us even showed up but that's exactly how I liked it. It was small and only had a limited number of machines but I could get creative without.

The leg curl was currently being utilised by someone who clearly needed it far more than myself so I made do with a bench and forty pound dumbbell tucked between my shoes.

This was one of my least favourites but it worked wonders for my gluteus and helped reduce the jiggle in my ass.

I was very focused. Balancing a weight in the crook of ones feet wasn't exactly a piece of cake but like always, I managed. One set of twenty was completed and it was time for a rest.

I grabbed my water bottle and took a long rewarding swig. As one Kendrick Lamar song ended, I sat and swiped my Spotify to find another.

"Hey, lady?"

Lady? I turned around to see an older black man, possibly mid-forties, standing over me. He was wearing a washed out Champion jersey tucked into matching shorts, thinking he was every bit of a snack.

"Yes?"

"You need to smile more."

I cocked my head and looked him up and down. From his black peeling do-rag to his neon orange crocs. Who wears crocs to the gym? "I need to smile more? And who the fuck are you?"

"I'm just saying, every time I come in here, you a always looking so mean. So mad. You need to smile."

I looked around to see that every gym member's face was intense and focused. Brows scrunched, eyes squinted. There wasn't a single person who expressed anything less than serious vigour.

"That's what's wrong with black women nowadays," he continued. "They act like they always got some kinda attitude. It's unattractive and uncalled for. Why you gotta be so angry at the world? Ain't no body done nothing to you."

I stood to my feet, ready to defend myself with words and fists if need be. "Fuck yo overweight greasy ass! You don't know me!—"

"Exactly!" I heard a deeper voice behind me. J'Marion stood next to me looking every bit like a superhero in training with his sleeveless Nike T shirt and tapered joggers. "How the fuck you gonna walk up to a complete stranger and tell them what to do with their face? You didn't even ask her what's wrong. Why she mad or whats upsetting her. Not only is it not your business, but you didn't care even if it was. You only wanted her to make modifications to herself to accommodate how you feel yet you obviously didn't feel obligated to do the same. Who the fuck are you to do that? Man. You. Is. Trash. You owe her an apology."