A story from Ned’s Collection of stories…

I don’t Gossip…

Working as a personal trainer in an up-market health club in an up-scale neighborhood sounds like a dream job for many. I wish it were the dream that so many might think it is. A few perks, maybe, but not many.

The clientele? Lots of well heeled matrons who spend a lot of time deciding exactly which gold earrings that will coordinate with the designer outfit they wear to the health club. They seldom break a sweat, but the expensive leather carry-bag came from Bond Street or from Harrods for sure. Young metrosexuals and aging yuppies and yippies, Gen-X-ers, all fresh from their hard day’s work in the City, damaging their joints and knees by the excessive hours on the elliptical and the treadmill, drinking bottled water from springs in Switzerland, and pursuing every little trick that might be the answer to youthful looking toned firm bodies. Some do succeed, most don’t. Watching the hot bodies can be one of the perks, oh yes.

Paunchy businessmen who spend more time in the pub than in the club and wonder why they simply cannot lose the spare tire, much less the love handles. And the few studs who do have really good bodies seem to be so self aware of their good fortune and good genetics to live in the elegant neighborhood, that the arrogance is not worth the effort to do more than smile and praise them, and they expect both from a member of the staff, don’t they?

I do my job, I do it well. I know my craft. I also know that the only reason that I have such loyalty to my job is that it provides me the free membership to work out myself, in an environment where the expensive equipment is beyond any criticism. So I keep myself in great shape by spending as much time with the weights as I can, the management permits this, and encourages it actually, since there are the matrons and the metros and the yups that all do enjoy looking at my body. I like that really, if truth be told, and the side benefit is my getting to look back at whatever eye candy that I fancy as well. On the other hand, the attitude of the management is severely strict indeed, with the constant admonition that there will be no fraternization with any customer. That position is well known and even posted on the notice boards so everyone is aware that any contact with staff is only for the purposes of bodybuilding and not for body workouts, in any form whatsoever.

On one slow weekend, I finished up my assigned tour with a long workout with the weights, feeling good and looking very pumped, as I headed to the changing room. I always develop a semi when I have a good testosterone driven session, and I was well aware of the bulge in my jock strap. I was not immediately aware that there was another person in the locker room, however, and caught myself in a state of slight embarrassment when I realized that there were eyes boring in on my crotch. I had never seen the guy at the other end of the darkened room, but quickly sized him up to be in his early twenties, good looking, in good shape for sure with sculpted musculature, his