Operation One Night Stand (7 page)

A
n hour later, Sarah and I met up with Mel in the lobby of the gym.
I, of course, felt like I’d just spent a week riding stallions when, in fact, it had been only one night.
Neither the ice pack nor the cluster of pain pills I took alleviated the strange throbbing sensation between my legs.
Every step felt like a cross between round five of a boxing match with my labia, a pool of fire, and the prelude to an insane orgasm.
Either way, the sensation was a bit disturbing.

“Good morning, sunshine!”
Melody sang a bit too loud for my taste.
It may be half past one in the afternoon but I was still in no shape to be in public.

“Take off your sunglasses.
You look ridiculous.
It’s overcast outside and you’re indoors.”
Sarah yanked my sunglasses off my face and I winced.

“What the fuck, Sarah!”

“You are not the only person to ever drink too much.
Own it.
For one night, you were a drunken slut.
No one can take that away from you!”

“Let your freak flag fly, bitch!”
Melody waved her arm above her head and swung her hips in a way that made me dizzy.

“Leave me alone,” I growled, snatching my sunglasses back from Sarah and shoving them as close to my face as I could.
“My vagina hurts.”

“Ha!
What?”
Melody shrieked a little too loudly.
“Pounded in the pussy, were we?”

“Not
just
the pussy,” Sarah mumbled.

“Yeah, shut it!”
I took a long swig of my water.
The bottle was already half empty and I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through an hour of Warden Suzy, our spin instructor.

“Shut up!
That’s hysterical!”
Melody was finding my pain entirely too funny.

“I am right here!
You don’t need to mock me.
For your information, it was amazing.
He was—”

“Hung like a horse.”

“Sarah!”
I punched her in the arm.

“Oh, sorry.
‘Radiated cucumber big.’”
She held her hands a foot apart to demonstrate the metaphor.

“Ladies!
Get your asses in here!
This is spin class, not gossip hour!”

We all rolled our eyes.
Sounded like Warden Suzy was in a mood.

“Get the fuck out of here!”
Melody whispered.
“I need all the deets.
You’ll spill at lunch!”

“As long as I don’t lose my appetite.”
Sarah laughed as we entered the room.

“Get on your bikes, ladies!
We need to work the weekend off your asses!
I can see some of you went a little overboard.”
I swear to God, the warden was looking at me when she said that.
“We will remove the aforementioned excess today.
Now mount up.”

In unison, twenty-two people in the room mounted their stationary bikes while I, the twenty-third, stood and stared at it.

“What’s wrong with you?”
Sarah whispered, her gaze half focused on me, the other half on Warden Suzy.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“You’ve done this almost every Sunday for the past two years.
You’re good.
Get on before she notices and calls you out.”

Whenever Warden Suzy called someone out, they were forced to spin next to her, facing the class.
Thankfully, it had never happened to me, but I’d seen enough mortified faces to know I never wanted it to.

“But my crotch hurts.”

“Man up.”

“Fine,” I whined as I settled the too-tiny bike seat between my legs.
I honestly felt like I was sitting on jagged rocks.
I could barely even bring myself to wear underwear and the bike shorts I was wearing did absolutely nothing to alleviate the pain.
I shifted left before leaning right.
Sliding forward then nudging back, there really was no comfortable way to sit on a bike seat.
Of course, after the night I’d had, the odds at finding any comfort on any seat were stacked against me.

Whether you are a man or a woman, spin class will bruise you in places you had no idea could be bruised.
It is crotch torture.
But once you see the transformation your body makes after a few classes, you’ll put up with the pain.
And, to be fair, the pain really does lessen the more you ride.

However, after last night’s festivities, I felt like a newbie again.
Biting my lip, I focused on the music and Warden Suzy’s shouts about slaying the cellulite monster and shrinking our fat asses to drown out the pain.

A bead of sweat formed at the base of my neck and slipped haphazardly down my back, absorbing into the fabric of my sports bra.

With each pump of my legs, my grunting became more and more pronounced.
Sarah and Melody, on either side of me, started to giggle.
I scowled and continued on.

My sports bra was completely soaked with sweat no longer confined to rogue beads of perspiration and each new drip slid down to my ass crack.
I shifted to find some semblance of comfort.

“Holy fucking hell!”
I yelled out, much to the astonishment of nearly everyone in the class.
Warden Suzy thought, of course, that I was in beast mode.

“That’s right, Caroline!
Ride through the pain!
Ride, bitch, ride!”

Sarah slumped in her seat, her head on the handlebars, her body vibrating from laughter.

Melody joined in the warden’s chorus.
“That’s right, bitch!
Ride it like you own it!”

Of course that did absolutely nothing to take the focus off me.
Warden Suzy thought I was working the bike whereas Sarah, Melody, and I knew I was about to die from the aftermath of riding a giant cock all night.

“See ladies!
Do it like Caroline!
Pump!
Pump!”
Warden Suzy was so into my grunts, she failed to see that I was in actual pain.
“Feel it, ladies!
Feel it inside you and ride that bitch until you own it!”

It was too much for Melody; she actually fell off her bike.
Thankfully, she was on the end and didn’t hit another spinner.
I don’t think it would have mattered much—she was on the floor in the fetal position laughing above the din of the music.
Sarah had just stopped spinning completely, lost in the words of our revered and feared instructor.

“Fuck you,” I muttered under my breath.

“Ride, Caroline!
Pump!”
She snorted.

“All right, ladies!
Melody get up!
Time to take it harder!”

Honestly, when did spin class become so perverted?
Then again, like Melody always said, having a dirty mind makes ordinary conversations more interesting.
But this wasn’t interesting.
It was torture.

“We’re going to do up downs.
On the count of three.”

Oh, shit.

“One!”

Oh, shit.

“Two!”

Oh, shit.

“Three!
Uuuup!”
Warden Suzy screamed until her voice broke.
I forced my legs to hold me up and bit my lip.

“Down!”

I dropped to my seat.
Oh my God.
I’d never felt such pain.

“Up!”

I pushed myself up.
My panties were actually crawling up inside me.

“Down!”

That was it.
I joined Melody on the floor, holding my crotch like it was going to fall off if I let go.

“Motherfucker!”

A few classmates whipped their heads around to stare.

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” I whispered to Melody.

Between fits of laughter she managed to agree.
“Me.
Too.
I swear I am going to pee myself.”

On my hands and knees I crawled to my bike, grabbed my towel and water bottle, and hightailed my ass out of the room with Melody and Sarah hot on my heels.

Stumbling through the door I collided with something solid, causing Sarah and Melody to crash into me.

“What the—”

“Hey there.”

My knees gave out and the person standing in front of me caught me before I could embarrass myself anymore.

“You okay?”
He looked concerned.

“Brian?
What are you doing here?”
Suddenly I was acutely aware of the fact I hadn’t showered and must’ve smelled like a cross between sweat and sex.
The hair that’d managed to slip out of my ponytail was plastered to my face and I was holding my crotch.

He nodded toward the doors behind me.
“Warden Suzy too much for you today?”
His eyes flicked down to my hands.

I was still reeling from the fact that Brian, the reason my one night stand wasn’t perfect, was standing in front of me, his sweaty T-shirt clinging to biceps that hadn’t been visible through his shirt last night.

“Ah, well, yeah.
You know.”
I couldn’t make a coherent sentence if someone dangled a pair of Louboutins in my face.

“Hi!
We met last night.
I’m Sarah; this is Melody.”

“I remember,” he answered, without taking his eyes off me.
“You sure you’re okay?”
He reached out and touched my shoulder.

“Yeah.
I’m good.”
I crossed my arms over my chest in an attempt to appear casual.

“So I hear.”
That playful smirk danced across his mouth like it had the night before.

“Brian!
Yo!
You ready, bro?”

Every hair on my body stood on end.
I
knew
that voice.
Stiff as a board, I turned in the direction of the person I knew to be there.

Ryan.
They know each other?

“Caroline.”

“Ryan.”

“Damn,” Sarah and Melody whispered in unison behind me, and I elbowed them in an attempt to shut them up.

The words
get out of here
ran in a loop through my head over and over.

“What are you doing here?
I mean, this is your gym, too?”
Ryan looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

“Yeah, I, uh, spin class.”
I gestured to the doors behind me.

Sneaking a sideways glance at Brian, I saw that he had yet to take his eyes off me.
He was covering his mouth with his hand.
He thought this was funny?

“Yeah, well, uh.
Nice to see you.
We have to go.
Plans.
You know.”

“Hi!
I don’t think we met.
I’m Melody.”
Shoving me out of the way, she stuck her hand out and Ryan took it while staring at me quizzically.
“Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Sarah.
Caroline’s roommate.”
Sarah pushed herself in front of me.

Ryan’s face turned an awfully funny shade of red.
The tips of his ears looked like he spent too much time in the sun.

“Yeah, um.
Sorry about the lamp.”

Brian’s eyebrows skyrocketed off his face as he stifled a laugh.

“No problem.
People bang into things all the time.
We can always buy new lamps.”

I nearly choked at the way Sarah said
bang
.
I tried to silently convey how uncomfortable I was but she continued.

“So, you don’t sound like you’re from around here.
Where’d you
blow
in from?”
She couldn’t hide her smile no matter how hard she tried.

Like me, Ryan choked at her choice of words.
“I’m from Texas.
I’m just staying with a friend until I can find my own place.”

How did I miss the accent?

Never one to pass up a chance at homing in on a new recruit, Melody stretched her neck.
“Is your friend here?”

Brian coughed and held up his hand with a two-finger salute.

“You?
You’re his friend?
He’s staying with you?”
I pointed back and forth between the two men as if doing so would somehow make the knowledge less embarrassing.