With fudge. Kerry blinked her eyes open, scattering a fine mist of sweat as she regarded the stolidly boring ceiling. She let her back rest against the padded surface, breathing deeply as she waited for the burning ache to dissipate from the muscles that lined the front of her stomach.
"Ker?"
"Uh?" She grunted.
"You okay?"
"Just resting." Kerry extended her arms over her head and stretched her body out. Her bare legs were hooked around supports at the end of the board holding her in place, and she flexed her thighs a little, watching the skin tighten and relax.
"Thought you didn't like doing those." Dar commented.
"I don't. But I do like having a six pack." She patted her belly. "Do you know how horrified my family would be if I told them I did?"
Dar merely chuckled.
"When I went home the first time," Kerry said, "I took my shirt off in front of my sister, and she started teasing me about being She Ra. You remember She Ra, Dar?"
"Bwahhahahaha."
"Uh huh. I used to have a plastic sword, and everything." Kerry chuckled. "Until my parents found it and threw it out."
They both stopped chuckling. Dar cleared her throat. "I think...I first started to be aware of the way I looked when I was around thirteen or fourteen or so."
"Mm?" Kerry took another breath, and started in on her sit ups again. "Puberty?' She grunted.
Dar got up and went to the free weights, picking up a triceps bar and starting some curls as she walked over to be nearer to Kerry. "Yeah. Killer growth spurt. I grew...almost five inches in a year and my whole metabolism went nuts."
"Uh huh." Kerry agreed in sympathy.
"I started eating like a horse, and figured if I didn't start working out, it was all gonna stay on me like it was on a lot of my classmates." Dar related. "So I did."
"Sensible decision."
"Yeah." Dar chuckled. "Except I went to the base gym, and worked out with all the guys. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to use the same weights they were using, and my mother walked in on me one day while I was dressing and nearly had a fit at what I looked like."
Kerry snickered, but kept crunching.
"Hey, I thought it looked good." Dar mused. "And the guys all sure respected me."
"I bet." Kerry finished her second set and pulled herself off the board, escaping gratefully to the lat pull down machine. It was angled perfectly so that she could see Dar while she was doing the exercise, and she studied her partner's body as she started the new routine.
Dar had definitely grown into her height. Her shoulders were broad, and rounded with muscle, and that extended down her arms to corded wrists that were currently tensed as she did her curls. Yet, her skin fitted over her body in supple curves, never giving the impression of a bodybuilder's starkly ripped muscularity at all.
Kerry liked that. She liked the impression of strength Dar had without looking at all masculine, and she'd consciously or unconsciously patterned her own aspirations in the same direction. She'd first started noticing a difference a few months into their relationship, before she'd moved in permanently with Dar.
It had all started with a shirt. She'd been dressing for work one day, half in the dark of a very early morning when she'd pulled on a silk blouse she hadn't worn in several weeks and found the sleeves binding uncomfortably around her upper arms and shoulders.
"Huh?" Kerry turned to the mirror in her bedroom and flipped the light on, giving herself a puzzled look in the reflection. Sure enough, the fabric was pulled taut over her upper body, the length draping down over her half bared torso still unbuttoned.
"Great." She sighed, apprehensively reaching for the lowest button, and matching it with its hole on the other side. To her mild surprise, it mated easily around her waist, easing her sudden fear that her recent change of habits had added more pounds to her frame than she'd realized. "So, what the heck?"
With a touch of impatience, she stripped the shirt off, and let it fall to the dresser, studying her body in the mirror with a very critical eye. What she saw surprised her, and she straightened up a little, squaring newly broadened shoulders and holding her arms out, turning them a little as she flexed her muscles.
Holy pooters. Kerry exhaled. Under her skin she could now see visible power, bunching and moving in the lamplight as she shifted. Her shoulders had gained a cap of sinew over them and she could see the beginning shadow of an arch that extended from the points of her shoulders to her neck.
It felt very strange, and for a moment, she felt a little scared of the changes. She'd kept an image of herself in her head for so long, hammered in by her parents that this shift was almost as intimidating as the twenty pounds she'd carried home after her first year in Miami.
That had merely ended up being embarrassing. Kerry spread her arms out fully, and almost shook her head at the new shape of her outline, the widened shoulders giving her body a very pleasing taper she hadn't really anticipated.
"Wow." She finally said, letting her hands drop to her sides. "You know, I think I like this." She met her own reflection's eyes and grinned. "Wonder if Dar's noticed?"
A wink of dawn light peeked through the blinds and she put her hands on her hips, turning her attention to the problem of dressing for work. She walked back to her closet and reviewed her options. The skirt she'd intended on wearing hung there, but she pondered now what top she would go with it.
Her eye fell on a simple, tailored linen shirt with crisp lines and a conservative cut right up to the point where it became sleeveless. "Hmm." Kerry removed it from its hanger and slipped it on, the whispered chill of the air conditioning feeling slightly illicit on her bare shoulders.
She put on her skirt, tucking the ends of the shirt into the waistband and buttoning it. She buckled the slim leather belt, then removed her linen jacket from its hanger and put it on. Facing the mirror she observed the effect.
Businesslike and conservative. Kerry gave herself a brief nod, and then she let the jacket slip off her shoulders and looked again.
She grinned and put the jacket back on and headed off to work.
"What's so funny?" Dar inquired, pausing in her curls. "Am I making faces again?"
Kerry chuckled. "No, I was just thinking of something." She stood up and let the pull down bar return to its resting position. "Hey, let me ask you a question." She let her arms rest against her thighs.
"Hmm?" Dar cocked her head in inquiry, the muscles in her arms jumping as she brought the weighted bar up.
"Do you think I look too butch?'
Dar paused in her upswing, the bar ending up pressed against her breastbone. Her nostrils flared, and she made a small snorting sound, attempting to stifle a laugh.
Kerry put her hands on her hips. "What was that supposed to mean?" She cocked an eyebrow at her partner.
Hastily, Dar put down the barbell and walked over, wiping her hands on the towel she had tucked into her shorts. She cupped Kerry's chin and tilted her head up, regarding her with serious affection. "You don't look at all butch."
"I don't?"
"No."
"Not even with these?" Kerry lifted her arm and tensed her biceps.
"No."
"Really?"
"Really." Dar said. "Just incredibly sexy." She paused. "Why? Do you want to look more butch?" She asked curiously.
Kerry shook her head. "No, not really. I was just remembering something someone told me right after I first moved down here, about not falling into the typical gay routine of becoming a...um..." Her face scrunched a little. "Um..."
"Baby butch?" Dar inquired. "Well, I don't know...you looked great as a Revolutionary." She chuckled softly, giving Kerry a pat on the cheek. "But I love the way you look, no matter what it is, Ker. You know that."