Chapter 13: Midnight in the Gym
At twelve minutes past midnight the house finally went quiet. The atrium lights dimmed to a low amber hum, and the last of the stragglers drifted off toward the bunkroom, where the whole house would spend the night pretending to sleep in public. David waited on his bunk with his shoes on until the breathing around him evened out. Then he stood, tucked his towel under his arm, and walked the long corridor to the gym in a pair of stiff new shorts that still had the fold lines in them.
The gym smelled like rubber and chalk. One exit sign burned red over the door, and a single strip of light ran along the floor beneath the mirrors, enough to see the mats by.
Beatriz was already there.
She sat in a wide straddle on the center mat, ponytail high and taut, leaning over one of her long extended legs. Her reflection doubled her in the glass behind. She didn't look up when the door clicked shut.
"You're early," she said.
"Twelve minutes."
"Still early." She switched legs, exhaled slowly through her nose. "You stretch at all before you sleep, or is that a thing only athletes do?"
"I stretch when something hurts."
"So never."
David set his towel down at the edge of the mat and stood there with his hands loose, feeling like furniture. The cameras were up in the corners, three of them, red lights steady. One sat low near the mirror, aimed straight at the center of the floor.
Beatriz rolled onto her feet without using her hands. She was in dark grey leggings and a cropped top, hair damp at the temples from a shower. "Come here. Take your shoes off."
He toed them off. The mat was cool through his socks.
"Stand in front of me," she said, in a teaching tone. "Feet wide. Wider than that. Now bend your knees. Not a squat. Just enough that I couldn't push you over with one hand."
She put one hand flat on his sternum and pushed. He rocked back an inch and caught himself.
"Good. You didn't fall."
"You said I wouldn't."
"I say a lot of things to see what's true." She circled him once, light on her feet, and stopped at his shoulder. "Here's the thing nobody tells you, David. A body is not a conversation. It's a negotiation. You want to move someone, you don't ask, you don't shove. You put your weight where theirs already wants to go. Hand on my shoulder. Your Palm, not your fingers."
He laid his palm on her shoulder. Her skin was warm and slightly tacky from the shower.
"Push me across the mat."
"That's not pushing."
"It's walking." She turned sideways, let her weight settle onto her back foot. "You put pressure here, I step back to catch myself, and then you follow. Every step I take, you replace it. That's all mat wrestling is. Follow the step."
He pressed. She stepped. He followed. They crossed four feet of mat that way, her hair swinging, his socks slipping on the rubber. On the fifth step she hooked his ankle and dropped him.
His back hit the mat with a slap. Air left him in one grunt. Before he could roll, she was across his hips, one knee planted on either side, both hands pinning his wrists above his head. Her ponytail hung down and brushed his collarbone. He could feel the heat off her stomach through his shirt.
"You feel that?" she said.
"I feel a lot of things."
"Your hips." She shifted her weight lower. "You're bracing with your abs instead of your hips. Abs are for looking at. Hips are for turning. Turn your hips, and you slide out from anybody in this house."
He tried. She held.
"Again."
He turned his hips and got an inch. She let him. Then she settled back down and took it away.
"See? Better."
She was breathing hard now, and so was he, and neither of them was moving. The red light of the camera by the mirror stared at them. He was suddenly, acutely aware of where her body was, and of the fact that his own body had opinions about it. He turned his face to the side so she wouldn't see him flush.
"Why are you laughing?" she asked.
"I'm not laughing."
"You're doing something with your mouth."
Then the door hissed open.
Remy stood in the frame with his arms crossed, still in the navy silk shirt from the bracket, sleeves rolled. His hair was perfect, because it always was. He looked at the mat. He looked at the two of them on it. The red lights of the cameras held steady.
"What exactly are you paying her for?" He said.
David's wrists were still pinned. He didn't pull them free, and Beatriz didn't let go.
"Nothing I haven’t told you about," David said. His voice came out steadier than he expected.
Remy stepped inside. The door breathed shut behind him and sealed off the corridor light.
Beatriz didn't let go. If anything she settled deeper, sliding her knees wider until her hips rested heavy on his, and took his wrists in one hand instead of two. Her other forearm came down across his collarbone, light, deliberate, not enough to choke him but enough that he felt the full length of her pressed along him. His ribs couldn't get a full breath in.
Remy looked at that. He looked for a long time.
"Remy," Beatriz said, without turning her head. "You want to close the door or hold it open all night?"
He stepped in. The door whispered shut and the corridor light went out behind him. He didn't sit. He walked the length of the mirror, hands in his pockets now, watching them in the glass instead of head-on. The reflection put all three of them in the same frame, David's legs sticking out from under her, her ponytail down his chest.
"Answer the question," he said.
"I'm paying her in information," David said.
"Bad currency."
"Only currency she takes."
Beatriz laughed, low, and pressed down harder. His shoulder blades ground into the mat. She rotated her forearm across his chest, one slow pass, and he felt his spine lengthen under her weight, everything in him opening, ribs, hips, the whole line of him. His body answered her before his brain did. She felt it too. Her eyes came down to his face and stayed there.
"There," she said. "That's the thing you do with a body. You don't fight the weight, you give it somewhere to land."
"I'm not giving anything anywhere."
"You just did." She eased off a quarter inch. He inhaled. "Your hips moved before you decided to move them. That's the whole lesson. Everything after that is practice."
Remy had stopped by the mirror. His jaw was set the way it got when he was doing arithmetic.
"What exactly is she teaching you, David?"
"Footwork."
"That's not footwork."
"Some of it's footwork."
Beatriz finally lifted her head. "Remy, do you want a turn? I've got a whole damn hour left and you're standing there like a valet."
"I'm comfortable."
"No. You're not. You're holding your ring." She looked back at David like it was the two of them again. "His pinky. He turns it when he's deciding something."
David turned his head on the mat. Remy's right hand had gone still, thumb and forefinger working the signet ring in a slow circle. He caught himself and stopped, then put both hands back in his pockets. The red lights of the cameras sat steady above them, three of them, drinking it up.
"Is this the part where I'm supposed to leave?" Remy said.
"You can leave whenever you want."
"He asked me to stay," David said.
Both of them looked at him.
"Did I?" Remy said.
"No. But you came at midnight, so….”
Something moved across Remy's face and was gone. He pulled one of the benches over from the wall, set it down at the edge of the mat facing them, and sat. Elbows on his knees. The silk shirt pulled taut across his shoulders. He looked like a man at a card table who had just realized he'd been dealt in without agreeing to it.
"Go on then," he said. "Teach."
Beatriz turned her attention back down. Now she pinned him properly. She took his wrists in one hand again, pressed them flat above his head, and dropped her chest onto his so her whole weight came down through her sternum. His breath went out in a short sound he didn't mean to make. She slid her free hand under the small of his back, palm flat against the mat, and lifted, tilting his hips up into her.
"Feel that."
"Yes."
"Where's your power now?"
"Gone."
"Wrong. It's in your hips and you're giving it to me because your shoulders are pinned." Her mouth was near his ear, voice gone low and private. "Twist. Go."
He twisted. He got three inches sideways, dragging his shirt up over his stomach, and she let him have all three before she took them back. His hipbone knocked against the inside of her thigh. She made a small approving noise through her nose, barely a sound, and shifted her weight so he could do it again. And again. His socks slid on the rubber. He was sweating through his shirt.
Remy didn't say anything. That was the loudest part. He sat with his forearms on his thighs and watched David get turned over and over on the mat, and when Beatriz finally used his own failing reach to roll him onto his stomach and stretch one arm up behind his back, Remy's fingers closed around the edge of the bench.
"That's enough," he said.
Beatriz held the hold.
"Remy," she said, pleasant as anything, "did I ask you?"
"You're going to pull something and get hurt.”
"He's fine. Say it, David."
"I'm fine. I’m good.”
Remy stood up. He didn't cross the mat. He stood there holding the bench like it had insulted him, and for one second David, cheek flat against the rubber, couldn't tell whether the man was going to come down onto the floor or walk out the door.
Then Remy got his face back. He smoothed his shirt, chin up, the polished version of himself sliding into place like a screen.
"You two enjoy yourselves," he said. "David, tomorrow. You and me. Zola's booking it."
He left. The door breathed open, threw corridor light across the mat, and breathed shut.
Beatriz released him all at once and sat back on her heels. David rolled onto his back and lay there with his arms flung out, chest heaving, shorts uncomfortably tight, staring at the ceiling tiles.
"Word for word," she said.
"What?"
"When he asks what we discussed. Word for word. Not the gist."
"He already asked. You heard him."
"No." She stood, rolled her shoulder, and picked up her towel. "That wasn't asking. That was counting the furniture. When he asks, tell him EXACTLY what we worked on. We worked on hip rotation." She walked to the door, then stopped with one hand on it. "And tell him you told me no."
"I didn't tell you no."
"You will." She looked back at him over her shoulder, gold hoop catching the exit sign red. "He'll ask you something specific, and you'll tell him I offered and you said no. Doesn't matter what. Pick one."
"Why would I lie to him?"
Beatriz smiled at him the way she smiled at a camera. "Because he'll know it's a lie," she said. "And then he'll want to know why you bothered."
“Ok. I’ll go with it. I need help with getting physically stronger for these competitions. I can’t get carried forever.” David said.
“Mm hmm. That’s the spirit.”
DING DING DONG.
“David Dupree, please come to the diary room.”
“Was that Zola?” David asked.
“Mm hmm. You are kind of a hot commodity here in the house. We’ll finish this later.” Beatriz said, with a smile on her face.