The Girl in the Gym

Knuckle Chopper

It was mid-morning, and Jack and Inaya were in the boxing ring.

Thunk thunk thunk.

Inaya hit Jack three times one after the other, each punch landing on his face, and sides with a sharp thwack. Jack merely grunted and resumed his defensive position.

Annoyed, Inaya called for a timeout and took off her mouthguard. "Jack! You can't stay in that defensive position forever. You have to at least try and land a hit," she cried, exasperated. It had been three days since she had started his boxing lessons, and he was still as bad as he was on the first day. "Let's go again," she commanded, putting her mouth guard back on. She gave him a thumbs up and started the round again.

Although he still wasn't able to land a shot, he at least held his ground and didn't let Inaya back him into a corner with her volley of punches.

Jack couldn't help but admire her form. She was wearing skinny tights and a tank top. The sweat glistened off her skin, giving her already goldish hue an extra dewy glow. Her face though told an entirely different story. She was focussed on her stance and strategy, a warrior stance. He forced his mind back to the match and tried to deflect her blows as well as he could. At the end of the fifteen-minute session, he had made enough reasonable progress for Inaya to call an end. He climbed down and flopped down on the mat and closed his eyes. They had been doing combative workouts every day, in addition to his usual yoga, cardio and weight training. He had almost fallen asleep when he heard Inaya's soft footfall. She nudged him with her toe, he opened one eye to look at her.

"What? Tired already?" she joked. But she was inwardly pleased with his progress, which is why she had told her boss that he was ready for the naturopathy treatment in Goa. Usually, residents were sent to sometimes in the middle of their course, so as to give them a break and facilitate healing and recuperation. "Get up, there's work we have to do. Get in the shower and sauna right now and meet me for dinner at the restaurant," she said, before walking towards the ladies washroom. Jack hoisted himself up with some difficulty, aches and pains laced through his body. He thought of the sauna with great relief. As he sat in the tub, he took stock of his bruises, smiling as he encountered each one. He thought of them as his badges of honour.

He dried up and picked up Bud as headed to the restaurant where Inaya was already waiting for him. She was sitting at one of the corner tables, in a bright spot of sunshine. Her hair, still wet from the shower, was pulled back into a bun. She was looking out of the window, turning her face up to let the sunshine wash over her. Jack paused for a moment, afraid that his heartbeat would be heard all over the room, it was thumping that hard at the sight of Inaya. She turned, her eyes met his with a glimmer of a smile. Masking his sigh of admiration, Jack walked up to her with a nonchalant smile.

"Your stats of the day look good," she said, indicating towards her iPad, which was synced to his Fitbit, and also had all his health updates. "Your cholesterol is still higher than I'm comfortable with, but it's still going down, so we shouldn't worry about it too much."

"Yay for me. Can I eat pizza now?" he asked hopefully. Inaya simple laughed and turned to the waiter to order their food. She was almost done the ordering for him when she blushed. It was so sudden and wildly different from her usual character that Jack was startled.

"Umm, I just assumed you were going to eat that. You can order something different if you want," she said, not looking at him directly.

"Uhh..huh..no. What you ordered is just fine," he replied, feeling an inexplicable warmth flooding him.

They both sat in awkward silence for a while, unable or unwilling to meet the others' eye. Finally, Jack asked, "So, Goa?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Inaya with relief, glad to be normal again.

"We're going to go to Goa for your naturopathy therapy, and umm, you can extend the trip by a week if you want. For sightseeing and all," she said.

"That's brilliant. A change of scene will be great. Will Bud be able to come?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said ruefully, "We don't have the infrastructure for pets there yet. Do you mind leaving him here for two weeks? The dog care specialist will get you two to facetime all the time if you want," she said.

Jack was disappointed but excited nevertheless. Two weeks with Inaya in the beachy paradise of Goa. What more could a guy like me want, he thought. They went back to their rooms to pack up. They would be leaving tomorrow, Jack thought excitedly.