Need a spot?

I worked through a few sets with larger weights, resting and walking around between each set, as I saw them do to keep the lactic acid from building up. I was sitting on a bench doing bicep curls with a 35 pound dumbbell when Doug spoke up from the weight bench next to me.

"You want to do those as slow as you can," he said. "You get better results from going full-range and as slow as possible."

The truth is, I had gotten a little bored, just sitting and working by myself, and I had allowed myself to speed up on the curls to get through the last set. Doug didn't need to know that, and I wasn't about to toss the olive branch back in his face.

"Thanks!" I said, slowing down and counting out the last three reps. "Yeah, I can feel it makes a big difference."

"Anytime," Doug said as he lay back down under the barbell. I did a quick count and saw that he had it loaded with a good deal of weight for someone his size. Or actually for any size. He had 240 pounds on there.

I got up and walked over to Doug. "Need a spot?" I asked.

He looked around quickly to see if he was being setup or if someone was watching, but everyone had gotten into their own heads by now and I was no longer the focus of attention in the room.

"OK," he said, and I assumed the position at the head of the bench, behind the bar with my knees close to his head. He got settled on the bench and then reached up for the bar. "Jeez!" he said, suddenly and sat up.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

He looked around at me and I could see a red flush over his face and neck.

"I, ah." He began, and then changed his mind. "Nothing," he finished and lay back down.

As I looked down at his upside down face, it hit me what had Doug upset. From his point of view he could see right up under my cropped t-shirt. From that perspective, and the fact that I wasn't wearing a bra, he could see my breasts all the way from one end to the other.

As soon as I twigged to this, I smiled down at him and pulled my shoulders back to improve his view.

"Anytime you're ready," I said.

Doug put his hands on the bar and I put mine in between to provide support and balance if he had a problem getting the bar off the stand. Unless you are doing something stupid, if you are going to strain something, most of the time it's going to be when you first take the weight.

As he picked it up, I supported about half the weight for him, then slowly transferred it to him as he got comfortable. Before I took my hands away, I looked down to see how he was doing. He looked back up at me with a question in his eyes, unsure if he had just seen me in effect stiff-arm 120 pounds.

I watched Doug for signs of distress as he pumped the heavy bar through ten repetitions. He looked steady but tired as he tried to push the bar back onto the support bracket. For the last couple of inches, I took the bar from him and settled it on the support. After a few seconds, he took his hands off the bar and sat up, sweat pouring off him. 240 must have been close to his limit.

"Way to go," I said, as nonchalantly as I could. I reached out and clapped him on the back. He didn't flinch.

When I looked around, I saw Steve watching from the leg press machine. When our eyes locked, he got up and walked over, a towel around his neck.

"Time to hit the showers, guys!" He said, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

We all picked up our bags and walked out of the weight room and down the hall. Lamont and Roger were telling each other some mildly raunchy jokes and laughing. Doug was still breathing hard and pouring sweat and Steve and I walked along side by side until he turned in to the boys' locker room entrance. I hesitated. I had been prepared to invite myself in and have a shower with the team, maybe even a little towel-snapping, maybe a little orgy. On second thought, I turned and walked quickly around to the girls' room on the other side. I had made some headway today and I was not prepared to mess it up with an ill-conceived stunt. As long as I was exercising, it seemed appropriate to exercise restraint as well; as unusual as that was for me.

It was a lonely walk to the other side of the gym. I consoled myself with the memory of looks I had received that told me that a couple of the team now had doubts about their opinions on girls and their places in the world.

As I stood under the shower, I thought about what I had hoped to accomplish by going into the weight room and trying to be one of the guys. It became more important than ever for me to succeed. These were some of the most respected, popular, and well-known guys at school. If I could show them that girls were just guys with different equipment and different hormones, it would have an impact far beyond the gym.

Stepping out of the shower, I toweled off briskly, reapplied some antiperspirant, and ran a brush through my bushy blonde hair. I thought back to when I would spend a lot of time standing in front of a mirror, fussing with my makeup. Things were so much easier now that I could set it and forget it. I laughed sharply when I thought that if Max Factor or Revlon knew what I could do without their help, they would probably send an assassination team after me to keep me from teaching it to anyone else.