Chapter 18: Muscle Worship Session
The metallic clang of the 80kg barbell settling into the rack echoed in the near-empty gym. Rohan’s own breath was a ragged thing in his ears, a stark contrast to Priya’s controlled exhale as she sat up. Beads of sweat traced the defined lines of her shoulders. She swung her legs off the bench and stood, her presence seeming to dwarf the equipment around them.
“Your turn,” she said, her voice calm, as if she’d just commented on the weather.
He laughed, a nervous, brittle sound. “Very funny. My max is forty on a good day.”
“I didn’t say lift it.” Her eyes, dark and glittering under the fluorescent lights, held his. She gestured to the bench. “Lie down.”
A prickle of apprehension, mixed with a thread of that same unsettling fascination from the night before, ran through him. He followed the command, the vinyl cool against his back through his thin t-shirt. He stared at the ceiling, at the network of pipes and lights, trying to steady his heartbeat.
Then she was above him, blotting out the glare. She didn’t place her hands on the bar. Instead, she straddled the bench, her knees pressing into the padded vinyl on either side of his hips. Before he could process it, her hands slid under his back and shoulders. With a powerful, fluid motion that betrayed the sheer strength in her core and arms, she lifted him.
“Priya, what the hell—“
“Shhh. I’ve got you.” Her voice was a low murmur near his ear. His world tilted, his spine curving off the bench as she held him aloft, his body suspended in the space where the barbell should be. He was acutely aware of the heat radiating from her, the slickness of her skin against his, the solid wall of her abdomen beneath his back. He was weightless, utterly in her control.
“This is what forty kilos feels like,” she said, her voice straining only slightly. She began to lower him, a slow, deliberate negative rep. His shoulders tensed, instincts screaming at the unnatural position, the complete surrender. He was the barbell. Her barbell.
He squirmed, a futile attempt to find leverage that wasn’t there. “Put me down. This is insane.”
She stopped his descent just inches from the bench, holding him there, suspended in her own personal rack. Her face was close to his, her breathing steady. “Is it? Or is it just data?” She was echoing his words from the night before, twisting them. “You said it was just a race. I’m just collecting more data. Proving the hypothesis.”
Her arms, corded with the effort, didn’t tremble. He went limp, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a dizzying wave of submission. This was the reality of her strength, not as a metaphor, but as a physical law. He was subject to it.
She pressed him back up, the movement smooth and powerful, before gently settling his weight back onto the bench. He lay there, breathing heavily, staring at her as she stood over him, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist.
“See?” she said, a slight, almost imperceptible smile touching her lips. “Nothing to worry about.”
The walk home was quiet. The early morning sun was warm, casting long shadows, but a chill had settled between them. The domestic world, with its different rules, awaited.
As they entered the house, the comforting aroma of aloo paratha and chili hit them. His mother was at the stove, her back to them. “There’s hot breakfast,” she said without turning around. “Rohan, you must be starving after all that… exercise.”
Priya headed for the shower without a word, leaving Rohan standing in the living room, feeling like a ghost in his own home. He could still feel the phantom pressure of her hands under his back.
He was halfway through his breakfast when his mother sat down opposite him. Her face was a mask of contained frustration. “Beta,” she began, her voice deceptively soft. “A wife should be her husband’s strength, yes. But she should be a quiet strength. Like the foundation of a house. Not a… a storm that uproots everything.”
Rohan pushed a piece of paratha around his plate. The gym scene replayed in his mind—his helplessness, her effortless power. “Things are different now, Ma.”
“Different?” She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “I saw her last night. Pushing you onto her lap like a child. And this morning, dragging you to that gym to show off. This is not respect. This is humiliation. What will people think?”
“I don’t care what people think,” he muttered, the lie tasting bitter.
“You should!” she insisted. “A man is the pillar of his home. If the pillar is seen as weak, the whole structure falls. She is making you look weak, Rohan.”
The words landed like a physical blow, echoing his own deepest fear. He felt a familiar defensive anger rise, but it was muddled, confused. Was she wrong? Or was she just naming the shame he’d felt suspended in mid-air?
From the hallway, Priya emerged, damp hair dark against her shoulders, smelling of soap and shampoo. She had heard. She stopped at the threshold of the kitchen, her gaze moving from her mother-in-law’s set face to Rohan’s troubled one.
She didn’t address the accusation. Instead, she looked directly at Rohan, her expression unreadable. “The project lead for the Aurora account called,” she said, her voice crisp and professional. “They loved the architecture I proposed. They want me to present to the board on Friday. It’s a big step up.”
She let the statement hang in the air, a blatant counterpoint to his mother’s world of pillars and foundations. Her success was another kind of strength, one that existed entirely outside that old structure.
Mrs. Sharma’s lips tightened into a thin line. She looked from her son to her daughter-in-law, a silent war unfolding over the breakfast table.
Priya walked to the counter, poured herself a glass of water, and drank it slowly. Then she turned, leaning back against the counter, mimicking her stance from the bedroom the night before. She looked at Rohan, a challenge and an invitation in her eyes. “So,” she said, her tone light, almost conversational. “Are you going to help me practice my presentation?”