Tied Up and Twisted. Alison Tyler

      The men in the room are all bent into interesting positions. A big blond stands on his hands, balanced and unmoving. Another dangles from rings. A third is leaning over a polished leather horse. Hadley McCarthy watches the men as she moves past them—imagining that they have been put there for her pleasure, fantasizing that they will never move. Hold still. Stay that way.

      She hears the voice of the trainer, and her head turns quickly. Trainer. In another world, in her other world, the word means something else. There, he’d be Dom. Here, he is Coach.

      When she sees him, she feels for a moment as if she can’t breathe. He is older than she is by maybe fifteen years, and he’s tall: at least six foot three. She’s good at approximating—being a journalist has honed her observational skills. The trainer has a thick, solid chest, muscular arms. There’s a faded tattoo high up on his biceps. Old-fashioned, Sailor Jerry style. But his physique is not what stops her: it’s the power that emanates from him. She’s never been so struck by a stranger before. He has a presence that draws out her basest, most animalistic instincts. She wants to fuck him.

      He turns and looks her way, but he doesn’t seem to see her.

      The room is in motion, suddenly—or maybe it was always in motion and she had frozen the players in position with the power of her mind. The men are beautiful—young and lithe. Yet she doesn’t see them as points of interest. She sees only the trainer, the way he stands and observes, barks, manipulates. He’s the oldest thing in the room, and she only has eyes for him.

      Would he talk like that to her if she asked him?

      Would he bark commands? Push her around?

      Would he punish her?

      Hadley remains still for a moment and takes a breath. Then she heads to the front desk to find someone who can help her.

      * * *

      Guy watches through the windows in the office. He runs his hands through his thick dark hair, as he always does when he’s nervous. A quick gesture, as if to make sure every carefully mussed piece of hair is still artfully out of place. He touches the buttons on the front of his shirt as if they’re talismans, shoots the cuffs of his sleeves. Hadley doesn’t notice him, but he follows her intently. She is different from the rest of the girls moving through the gym in their colorful bits of glittery spandex. She’s older and poised. The gymnasts are poised, too, but in a different way. Positioned is a better term. Always on display.

      He walks down the corridor and moves quickly after the woman.

      * * *

      Reed Frost sits in the Parallel Bar—the gym’s ultra modern upstairs café—staring at this journalist. He sizes her up quickly, the way he sums up any new athlete walking into his gym: dark hair, deep brown eyes, high cheekbones. Delicate features you want to trace with the tip of your finger. V-neck sweater in charcoal and a matching pencil skirt. Lovely. He appraises her automatically, a mental exercise. As he would a new athlete, he puts her through an imaginary routine. She has balance; she’s graceful—he can tell that instantly. It’s a skill. He smiles to himself. She has absolutely zero interest in his services. This girl is here to do a piece for the local paper. She’s not here to ask about becoming a member. Besides, she’s two decades too old.

      “Why are you smiling?”

      Her voice surprises him. He stops smiling and looks at her, his blue eyes narrowing. His athletes don’t talk to him like that. But he reminds himself quickly that she’s not one of his athletes. “I’m not often the one being interviewed,” he says, voice even.

      “Meaning?” She holds her pen above her notebook. He likes that she isn’t using a laptop. He notices that her pen is sleek, silver and expensive-looking, and her notebook isn’t one of those fancy, useless ones from a craft store. She’s writing in a Moleskine. He uses the smaller version to keep his own notes.

      “For my standard intakes, I run the prospective athletes through a rigorous questioning session,” Frost explains.

      “Define ‘rigorous.’”

      He looks hard at her again. It’s obvious to both of them that there’s a connection. Yet neither one seems willing to make the first move. “You’re the writer.” He’s mock deferential.

      She thinks, Touché, but moves on. “How long have you been at the gym?”

      “Seventeen years.”

      “That’s a long time.”

      “Depends on how long you’ve got,” he says matter-of-factly.

      “How long have you got?” she asks, and she wishes he could see inside her mind. Every time she looks at him, she visualizes what he’d be like in bed. If they were at a bar, she’d slide her leg against his under the table and let him wonder whether the brush of her skin against his was accidental or on purpose. Right when he decides the move was accidental, she’d do it again. If they were at her favorite club in the city, she’d set up a scenario that would make his cock hard in a second.

      She hasn’t had a man in seven months.

      That’s the longest she’s ever gone without.

      She has no idea that Frost has been solo for seven years.

      In another circumstance, Hadley would come clean with him. She’d lean in close and whisper that she doesn’t believe in love at first sight or instant karma or screwing on a first date. But if he would come to her apartment tonight, she’d let him tie her to her four-poster bed and whip her.

      In her scenario, there are too many ifs.

      “We need you in the gym,” Guy says, coming up from behind Frost. He speaks the words quietly, rather than bursting out screaming the way he wants to. He is having an inner tantrum that feels like a ball of fire in his throat, but what he says is simply: “I’ll take over.” He looks at Hadley, who sighs when she sees Guy. He’s a pretty boy who knows exactly how pretty he is. Chiseled cheekbones, dimpled chin, jaw you could use for a ruler. He might have stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad instead of stepping out of her past.

      She wants to tell him that pretty doesn’t work for her. Not anymore. She knows exactly where she stands. She is thirty-three. She weighs 117 pounds. She never lies and says she’s thirty. She never fibs and says she’s 115. But she guesses that if someone asked this dark-haired Adonis his weight or his age, some part of the truth would be shaved off the top. He dyes his hair to achieve those chestnut highlights. She’s certain.

      Frost