Ch. 11: Preview #1

Jen’s endurance was formidable.  And not only in the run-five-miles-straight-on-the-treadmill, lift-ungodly-weights-back-to-back-to-back sort of way.  Equally impressive was how Jen never stopped moving all day long.  She’d finish workouts in dizzying pell-mell bursts before shuttling back upstairs to stretch, or consume calories, or watch film of past episodes, or click away at the computer screen studying who knows what.  Then back downstairs again.  Then up.  Then outside.  Gods, she didn’t even make him participate in most of the workouts; he grew dog tired just from following her around, jumping at her silent commands, and watching her like a hawk in between.

His mental state began to change almost immediately.  Staying nonstop inn close, submissive presence to a woman like that would affect anyone’s mind, no matter who.  At first he fought to block out any thoughts of her breasts, her bare skin, and everything else, trying to focus on hands and eyes only.  But he lost that game quickly.  Soon he’d had no choice but to let in the butterflies, the arousal, the wayward thoughts.  And later, eventually admitted to himself that such thoughts were as unavoidable as gravity. 

That admission was liberating, actually.  He was swept up in the tempest of her beauty, caught in her spell and her power.  What hope did he have of resisting her?  None at all.  Once he accepted that, he could at least learn to function under those terms.

Thank god she was unaware it was sexual.  But her plan to improve his response time and attentiveness had worked shockingly well.   He found an odd satisfaction in carrying out tasks at the drop of a dime, sometimes even before she gestured the order.  A lot of it was the smiles.  She smiled at him more that day than on any day before, surely; and he began to look for it, enjoy it, even in some way become addicted to that simple positive reinforcement.  She was just that beautiful, that captivating.  And it was a lot better than seeing her scowl.

Now at 3:30, he followed his boss upstairs from yet another breakneck workout.  He kept close on her tail with practiced ease, his steps shifting between walking and jogging without even having to think.  She used the island counter to stretch her back, then lifted her arms skyward to stretch her sides.  The rule was five feet, but he kept within one or two at the most, having become quite deft by now at dodging her arms as they swung by in their familiar routine.  Once again, her dimples creased in amusement at seeing him hovering so close; but she liked it, and that was what mattered.  Well, he liked it too.

A strange thing had started happening: subconscious instincts had tickled at him a few times and told him to act before Jen even gave a signal.  In this case, it was the subtle licking of her lips and similarity with the past that had prompted him to rush ahead and pull down a glass for her.  By the time she gave the conscious signal, he was already on his toes filling it at the sink.

“Oh!” she remarked, breaking the silence for the first time all day.  “How’d you know?”

He silently handed her the glass.  His meek quietude felt … normal.

She laughed.  “We can talk now.  You’ve earned it.”

He blushed, in pride?  His tongue felt sluggish from a literal seven hours of disuse, but he explained what had tipped him off.

Jen whistled low.  “Damn.  Guess you are comin’ a long way.”  She emptied the water in swift gulps.  His hand was already waiting for the glass when she reached out for a refill.  “Heh,” she bubbled delightedly, “this is awesome.  I feel like our team’s really leveling up.  You’ve been such a peach today, lil’ guy!”

Again, his inwardly enthused, outwardly coy reaction was in no way pretend.  “… You bet.”