Chapter 35

Millicent and I were getting stir-crazy, so we went to the gym with Spike. I put my .38 along with his .45 in his gym bag. Spike kept the gym bag unzipped and nearby as we went through the workouts.

Millicent wore a pair of shorts that belonged to me, and one of her new tee shirts. She was very slim. Her small body looked very white, and somehow incomplete in the workout clothes. The club was nearly empty in the middle of the day. Millicent stared around her at the exercise equipment.

“Girls don’t go to gyms,” Millicent said.

“Why not?”

“I mean, who wants to lift weights and shit?”

“Great way to meet guys, though,” Spike said.

He was barefoot, in full karate whites, with his black belt tied around his waist to keep the jacket closed.

Millicent stared at him. She hadn’t figured Spike out yet. She wasn’t alone in that.

“Besides, I don’t know how to do it,” Millicent said.

“Nobody does until they’ve learned,” I said. “We’ll show you.”

“You lift weights?”

“Not very heavy ones,” I said.

Spike dropped down onto the chest press machine and began to do repetitions with 225 pounds.

“Come on,” I said. “First we’ll do some push-ups like I showed you.”

She got down onto the floor awkwardly and did some half push-ups with me. No one paid any attention to us. When we got through Spike was still doing repetitions on the chest press machine.

“How many of those are you doing, Spike?”

He held the weight at arm’s length for a moment.

“I’m up to twenty-eight,” he said. “Some pro football player did forty-five, so I’m eventually going to do forty-six.” He grinned and lowered the bar. “But not today.”

“Can I try how heavy that is?” Millicent said.

Spike showed her how to get under the bar.

“Okay,” he said. “Breathe in, then while you exhale, push up.”

Millicent did as he told her with no result.

“I can’t,” she said. “How come you can?”

“Fag power,” Spike said.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to call gay people fags,” Millicent said.

“Sticks and stones,” Spike said.

Millicent relinquished her spot to him.

“You are gay, aren’t you?”

“Gayer than laughter,” Spike said.

He began to do another set of chest presses. Millicent watched him.

“You seem like kind of a tough guy,” she said.

“Hard to figure, isn’t it?” Spike said.

I began to do some curls with ten-pound weights.

“Well, I mean, I never think of gay guys as tough.”

Spike let the bar down and sat up on the bench to let his breathing normalize.

“It’s sort of hard to generalize about gay guys,” Spike said. “Some fit the stereotype, some don’t. I prefer to have sex with men, and other than that I just kind of plow along and do what I do and don’t think too much about it.”

Millicent looked at me.

“Are those weights heavy?”

“For me,” I said. “You want to try?”

She didn’t say anything but she took the dumbbells when I handed them to her.

“Palms out,” I said. “Hold them straight down in front of your thighs. Now using your bicep curl them slowly up toward your shoulders.”

She did it.

“Good, now let them down slowly and do it again. Don’t heave. If you have to sway, it’s too heavy. Concentrate on just the biceps.”

She did another one.

“See how many you can do before you start to cheat.”

“Cheat?”

“You know, arch your back, sway your shoulders. The body is very clever about shifting the load.”

She did three more.

“Good,” I said.

“Okay, I can do that, so what?”

“In a while if you keep doing it you’ll get stronger, and your arms will firm up.”

“I don’t want to get big muscles.”

“You won’t. You don’t have the right hormones.”

“So what’s the point?”

“Be stronger, look better, feel good.”

Millicent shrugged. “Women don’t have to be strong.”

“Better than being weak,” I said.

I went to the Gravitron and set it for my weight and did some dips and some pull-ups.

“Want to try this?”

“Okay.”

I set the Gravitron higher so that she’d feel very light. She did the same things I had done. I didn’t tell her that her setting was lighter. We did some triceps exercises and some flys and some leg work and then we sat side by side on a couple of exercise bikes and rode for twenty minutes. When we got through she was winded. We drank some water, and watched Spike do karate work on the heavy bag.

“You do this every day?”

“Many days,” I said. “Sometimes I can’t get the time, then I don’t.”

“You do it because you’re a detective,” Millicent said.

“I’d do it anyway. I like to be in shape as much as I can be.”

“Why?”

“It’s healthy. It makes me feel good. And...” I paused, trying to think about it.

“What?”

“And... I’m not just my body. But it’s part of what I am. I want it to be a good body. I want my mind to be a good mind. I want my emotions to be good emotions. I’m all there is of me, if you see what I’m saying, I want to make the most of me.”

“I don’t think about stuff like that, Sunny. I don’t even know anybody who thinks about stuff like that.”

I grinned at her.

“It’s because they haven’t had you around asking them questions.”

“Do we have to take a shower here?” Millicent said.

“No,” I said. “We can take one at Spike’s.”

“I don’t like getting undressed in front of people.”

“A possible handicap in your former profession,” I said.

“I didn’t like it,” she said. “I didn’t think about it. I never think about stuff.”

Spike moved around the heavy bag, striking it with those odd precise movements that karate people use. Then he moved to the light one and made it rattle.

“Good for hand speed,” he said to us.

He finished with a flourish, making the bag syncopate.

“Well, it’s time you started thinking about stuff,” I said. “Want to try the bag?”

“The one Spike was just hitting? The big one?”

“Sure.”

“Can I just hit it, any way I want?”

“Sure. Just like at Marguerite’s office.”

Millicent looked at me as if she wanted to ask what Marguerite had said. But she didn’t. Spike took off the speed gloves he was using and handed them to her.

“They’re sweaty,” she said.

“Yeah, but you hit that thing without them and you’ll skin your knuckles.”

She shrugged and put on the gloves and began to flail at the bag. She lasted about twenty seconds. Spike looked at me.

“There’s a way to hit the bag,” I said.

“You said I could hit it any way I want.”

“You can. But now you can’t decide. You hit it that way because you have to. If you learn another way, then you can choose.”

“Jesus, you never get off it, do you,” Millicent said.

“Choice is good,” Spike said.

I took the gloves from Millicent and began to hit the bag.

“Shorter punches,” Spike said to Millicent. “See? Keep the arms in kind of close, so you get mostly body into it instead of all arm. Loop one, Sunny.”

I looped a punch the way Millicent had.

“See, all arm,” Spike said. “You swing wide like that and you get the weight of your arm. Maybe five pounds? Show her a good one, Sunny.”

I dug a left hook into the bag, exaggerating the shoulder turn to make the point.

“But, you punch short,” Spike said, “like that, and you get all of you, more than 100 pounds, behind the punch.”

He gave her the gloves back. She began to flail at the bag. Spike shook his head and opened his mouth.

I said, “Let’s get some water.” Spike shrugged and went with me to the water cooler.

“All you can do is show her the right way,” I said. “Once she knows, it’s up to her.”

Spike stared across the room at Millicent, flogging the bag badly.

“She’s just being stubborn,” he said.

“So are you,” I said.

“Yeah, but I’m right,” he said.

“She knows that,” I said. “What the hell do you think she’s being stubborn about?”

Spike grinned at me.

“Shooter, shrink, painter, and sex symbol,” Spike said. “You’re a broad for all seasons, Sunny.”

“Dog handler, too,” I said.

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