Self Defense

A short story by Alice Holm

This story contains: her and him, contemporary romance, extramarital, public place, rough, anal, blow job

(i)

The morning of my first self-defense lesson, I am on my knees, facing away from him. His massive forearm pushes indelicately against my throat. Heat radiates from it, scorching my skin. I am awaiting his instructions. I am supposed to do as I am told. 

Instead, I launch myself backwards. Knocking him off balance, we crumple to the floor. My back lands against his chest, his against the mat. 

He may not have expected it, but he reacts immediately. Later, when I replay the scene in my head, I will think he took advantage of the controlled chaos, attempting to turn it into a teachable moment. But now, as we roll over and under each other, he is riding me, I am riding him, and all I can think is, Does this not excite you, too? 

When we first met, it was for personal training. He was new at the gym, but I was not. 

“I’ll give you moderate weight until I learn your body,” he informed me, but the way he looked at me had little to do with assessing how much I could squat. 

After his little caveat, we moved to the bar. Back then, I couldn’t do a single pull-up without assistance. I had to jump up to practice descending slowly. As I started to swing, he rested one hand on the small of my back and one hand on the flesh of my belly, holding me steady. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

“You can touch me,” I reassured him. 

His hands were large and meaty, like the rest of him. On that first day, I evaluated myself under the feel of his palm: the soft layer that still clung from my second pregnancy, the hard-earned muscle buried beneath. I was so aware of the places he was touching, and I wondered, How can this not turn you on? 

Over the next few months, we progressed past squats and pull-ups. He began teaching me self defense, and prescribed the sauna as part of my regimen. On a whim I invited him to join me, and was surprised when he agreed. But once we started talking, I quickly understood how long it had been since someone had listened. 

This morning, I cannot take my focus off his hands. He is on the ground, and I have just landed on top of him. Perhaps it is not an accident that his palm grazes the edge of my breast as he wraps his arms around my waist to lift me up and off him. A trainer and her client across the gym watch the end of our sparring session, muttering to each other under their breath. 

It’s just fighting, I want to tell them. It’s a skill, an art, self-defense. 

It is also the prelude to something more, only I do not know if we fully understand that yet. 

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