I see everyone else getting weights together from a rack off at the side. I stumble over, unsure of myself, and notice right away the weights make zero sense. It’s these weirdly bent, spaghetti bars plus square/cube plates of four different sizes that don’t have any numbers on them. Thankfully, Jolene sweeps in front of me, and I watch her grab one bar and two of both the middle sized plates. I figure she’s tiny, so if I copy her I shouldn’t have too much trouble.

Candy’s dancing, basically shaking his ass at the front without any music playing. He belts out, “Testing, one… one, two…” and his fake voice, which doesn’t match his mini-ogre frame, kicks in loud through speakers I don’t see. “Alright ladies, we have a special guest with us today. Please give a hand for Uncle X!”

Fucking dick!

I nod a little in a half-circle as all the females in the empty Classes! area turn and eye me with great suspicion.

Of course the only place left open for me to cart my weird weights to is right near the back, which I’m sure they all take to be evidence that the old dude in their midst is, in fact, just here to ogle their juicy bodies. 

So, I don’t disappoint, and let my eyes rest on the flat-yet-intriguing ass of this fierce Asian girl standing right in front of me. I’m sad she’s the only one wearing loose pants that leave way too much to the imagination. I scope the rest, taking in a countryside’s worth of sweet rolling curves and every fraction of exposed skin from light to dark (na, I’m not racist. Holes of any color are equal in my cock’s book).

Candy gets this thumpy music going, and has us angle the weighted bars over our heads to start squatting down and up. I have to keep glancing sideways at Jolene to make sure I’m doing it right, because for some reason the top of my legs feel like they’re sick with a bad fever after only about eight reps. But Jolene’s not stopping at all, and neither is loose-pants girl, whose butt just keeps angling down (and open) right into my eyeline with every beat.

I stop for a second, and feel like I just smoked a lifetime’s supply of cigarettes at once, my lungs curling up and cowering before the big school bully that is this routine.

To make things worse, Candy drifts over to me and calls off instructions, which everyone here can clearly hear through the system: “No, keep your feet only so wide! Don’t come up on your toes! It’s supposed to be hard! You got this!” I mean, you gotta understand: the guy looks like someone you’d show your kids a picture of to scare them into not just eating chicken wings and never getting in shape. This close, patches of acne start to show on his face, and I make a note to ask Jolene later if Candy’s really a fucking teenager who just somehow fenagled himself a fitness job through sheer (dorky) charm and unexplainable charisma. 

I keep trying to squat, letting the smorgasbord of ass I’m surrounded by serve as a distraction every second or so from the pounding, sickening pain now pooling all around my upper legs.

Thankfully, as if just to save me from my torture, Candy takes the front of the space again, and directs us to lay on the floor and start pressing our uneven-pretzel bars up over our chests.

I can’t see anyone else now. All I’ve got to look at is sky.

Again, I pound out less than ten of the fucking things while I hear everyone else . . . all the girls . . . keep going like it’s nothing.

I stare up, and start to reflect on the many wrong choices and tendencies that must have all combined to bring me to this moment of strangely peaceful agony. The sky is clear. There’s a cloud right above me that looks like a flower hiding the sun. I’m surrounded by hot ass, but unable to look, which is actually refreshing. I’m hurting, but it’s been so damn long since I’ve been outside for any length of time around other people.

I don’t know…

When we move to our third exercise, bending and lifting the criss-cross bars up to our bodies from the ground, I realize Candy himself hasn’t done fuck all this whole time. No wonder he can scoot by as an instructor on hype and shine alone. He just tells other fuckers what to do. I wonder if he’s ever done this shit even once.

But I don’t have much time to really think or get mad. My whole neck and the back of my shoulders feel like they're about to shake and rattle apart. The soreness from each area we worked joins like rivers designed to take me down. I envision dropping to the ground again and staring back at the sky.

My shitty COVID ninja mask is drenched in disgusting sweat, which becomes my own smutty filter to have to breathe through . . . and not just breathe normally, mind you. I’m huffing and puffing my aged, beat-to-shit ass right off through this swampy grime. 

None of the girls look like they’re sweating at all. I swear by Jolene’s eyes she’s fucking smiling. 

Finally, the repetitive beats die down, and Candy takes us through this quick stretching routine while slow ambient music blankets the space. It’s at this point the girl’s loose pants in front of me become a feature rather than a bug. As she lowers herself over her bent knees, and her waistband skimpers down to reveal the tan to dark line of her crack, I shudder. I catch Jolene’s eye, and she softly shakes her head, but in a playful way, as if we’re both communicating telepathically: Yeah, yeah… Old Uncle X is a fucking pervert. What else is new. At least he’s out doing something instead of rotting away at home fapping to death on recycled porn.

The sun peeks out from behind that flower-shaped cloud. I guess it’s gonna be an ok day.