Eve’s left eye cracked open and sealed itself immediately shut again. Somewhere overhead, a long moan rattled around the ceiling. Something soft and small mashed itself into her face, then thunked to the floor. Simultaneously, the back of her hand felt the sudden shock of cold wood as it slapped against her bedroom floor.

Her head pounded in rhythm with her shrill alarm clock, slowly ripping away the last vestiges of her warm, dark slumber.

Fuck! Eve was awake.

Her left eye cracked open again and glared bloody murder at the blurry clock on the nightstand.

It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t have a job to get up for. Why was she waking up with the sun when she had been drinking all night? What could there have possibly been to get up for? The dentist? Cancel it.

Eve threw off the cocoon of blankets around her body and made the hobbling dash to the calendar pinned to her fridge by magnets. There it was. She had a nine am concierge appointment at the gym. (Concierge was the fancy name Results gave to their trainers.)

Not wanting to keep anyone waiting, Eve grumbled to herself as she hopped into sweatpants and shimmied on a sweater. At least this trainer wasn’t Cliff Bauer, Yoga God, so she felt safe going to the gym as splotchy and oily as she usually was in the morning.

Eve was proud of herself for arriving at Results by 9:03 am. Close enough to on time. She smugly took her seat in the café, and waited for fitness concierge Milo McNamara. New life beginning now, she promised herself grandly. Here I go. New life. New life.

Nine-thirty rolled around but Eve maintained her mantra: New life! Hungover, she was much more prepared for a nap than for a workout, if truth be told. Her eyes grew dim with resentment, and then, shut with exhaustion. Nine-forty-five came and went.

Eve heard voices floating around behind her. “She’s waiting in the café, Milo,” the woman at the front desk called. “Her name is Evelyn Mooney.”

“She?” a male voice, oddly disdainful, reiterated. “Evelyn Mooney is my ten o’clock?”

Eve twisted in her seat, bristling at hearing her name spoken like that. She snapped, “Nine o’clock, actual…” before her voice faded back into her throat. Holy Christ, there were two of them. There were two perfect men who both happened to work at the exact same gym. How was it possible? Was her pussy just in overdrive? Did these look like regular men to everyone else?

Her eyes trailed over Milo McNamara as he approached her. He was wearing black athletic pants and a matching hoody. His black hair was cropped close to his skull, like a soldier fresh from the war, highlighting his rugged jaw and architectural cheekbones. His eyes were a glacial blue, fringed by eyelashes thick enough to make his eyes appear sensitive, even though they were reddish and sunken just now. His face was round and his nose upturned, giving him an impish quality, but his lips showed zero trace of amusement. No impish smile here. His movements were brusque, both sweeping and punctuated, like the positions of a martial arts practitioner.

Eve cleared her throat and forced her eyes up to his. Be bold, she reminded herself.

“Nine o’clock, actually,” she repeated meekly, horrified at the throb her pussy gave out, just looking at him, standing there, all surly.

“You’re not a guy,” Milo informed her gruffly.

Eve nodded. “That’s true,” she confessed, slow with confusion. “Did you think that Evelyn was a man’s name?”

Milo looked at Eve, deadpan, and blinked, slowly and pointedly. He would probably hate to know how soft and pouty his lips looked while he was being a tough guy. “I don’t work with chicks,” he informed her.

Eve scoffed. “What? You don’t work with chicks?”

“Fine. I don’t work with women,” he rephrased heavily, making it very clear how tedious he found this exchange.

“But—that’s illegal!” Eve squawked.

Milo rolled his eyes. “I can’t help that your natural progression is too slow for my program,” Milo said. “It’s not that I don’t—okay, I see what you’re going to do.” Milo smirked and leaned closer to Eve, gesturing forward with his hand. Her eyes traced over Milo as she attempted to guess the name of the soap that he used. Overdrive, Conquest, possibly something kind of pirate-y? “You’re going to say that this is discrimination,” Milo went on, “but it has nothing to do with your…” He glanced down and trailed off, staring at her body as he searched for the word. Eve’s mouth inexplicably watered and she swallowed, breaking eye contact. Milo cleared his throat. “It’s not about that. It’s just a question of endurance and stamina. I don’t train women because women quit.”

Eve huffed out an incredulous, insulted laugh. “I can take whatever you have to give,” she snapped, only hearing its sexual undertones after it came from her lips. Her eyes bulged. “Uh—I mean—”

Milo shook his head, deadpan. “You’re just so…soft.”

“Thank you?” Eve said.

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Then I’m sorry.” Eve stood and set her shoulders. She didn’t often display dominant body language. “Look, Milo, I’ll level with you. I just lost my job and my boyfriend because I was on autopilot in my daily life. I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m going to change my entire life, from the ground up. You can be a part of that. You can help me get my confidence back. Help me be less…” she crinkled her nose, “soft.”

Half of Milo’s mouth kinked up higher, like half of his face was allowing itself to smile. “I don’t know if there’s anyone who can save you from that. Well, it’s almost ten. Let’s get started.”

“Our appointment was actually for nine.”

“Where do you have to go at ten am on a Monday? You’re unemployed.”

“Touché.”

“Are you hungover?”

“Why, are you?”

“Look, girl, my program is going to test your endurance. Don’t come to me hungover.”

“But you’re hungover, too!”

“I’m a professional,” Milo insisted. “I can handle it. Come on, let’s go.”

As he stormed past Eve, she whirled in her seat and gazed after him in amazement. “I got you to train me?” she shrilled, unable to hide her delight. The guy may have been a classic asshole, but structures like his didn’t just happen. They were built with hard work and endurance. She knew that he could mold her into something beautiful, too. He could spend hours and hours molding her like soft clay with those rough, stony hands.

“No woman gets me to do anything,” Milo told her, pausing briefly just to look over his shoulder at her. He nodded toward the lockers. “Maybe it’s time I let a girl join my club.” His eyes raked over her thoughtfully, and Eve’s instinct was to shrink back. She felt exposed. Fighting her instinct, she kept her shoulders even and low; she may have even thrust them back a little, as if to prove to Milo that she was strong. But the main effect it had was to make her breasts look incredible. “Maybe I just want to see if I can break you down,” Milo said, his cool blue eyes flittering over her and away, their touch as light as smoke.

* * *

“Breathe deeply and let your body relax,” Milo instructed her during the opening stretches. “How far can you reach?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said, dragging in a breath through the nose, then loudly from her lips. “Let me see.” Focus on your breath, she commanded herself. She felt Milo’s rough hands travel over her thighs and scoop around her hips. Relax! she pled. But his thick fingers bent into crooks on her fleshy hips and the only things standing in between these two and a wild ride were two thin layers of Spandex.

“You’re still very tight,” Milo informed her, digging his thumbs into the triangular tip of her spine. Eve almost moaned as her pussy clenched around nothing at all. “Remember to breathe,” Milo reminded her, still kneading at the crest of her ass. Eve fought the urge to grind against him. She was even a little dismayed that he wasn’t hard. She never thought that she would WANT her personal trainer to be erect while he helped her stretch, but damn, she did. She did.

“I’m trying,” Eve said, breathing loudly. Forcing herself to relax.

“Girl, you haven’t relaxed this muscle a day in your life, and here I thought you were soft.” Milo’s hands withdrew from Eve’s ass and she straightened, oddly dismayed.

“One more time for me,” Milo commanded. “This time I just want to watch.”

Eve did as she was told, and when she came back up her eyes caught on the unmistakable sight of a hard shaft running along the side of his thigh, imprisoned by Spandex. She almost smiled.

“What?” Milo wondered, his brow low and his eyes gleaming, daring her to say something. “I needed to see your full range of motion.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Eve replied. “What next?”

* * *

Over the course of September, Eve tried a lot of new things in her now-abundant free time. For the previous four years, she had been anchored to the couch alongside toxic Trent. Trent, who didn’t have flaws, and so had no growth left to achieve. He was a masterpiece, just watching television for hours and drinking beer. Sexy.

Utilizing her new abundant free time, she applied for jobs. She went for anything and everything that she could possibly turn her hand to. She also chipped away at her blog with regular posts and her readership was growing by the day. She knew it was just a blog, but—she was doing a damn fine job with it, especially for someone who had missed out on the blogging wave. It had the appearance and presence of a professional, and expensive, health and beauty resource.

Eve went to the gym and saw Cliff two or three times a week; she only saw Milo once a week. Things with Milo stayed much the same, charged with sexual tension and numerous disagreements revolving around whether or not he was a misogynist. He was bristly and kept things impersonal, even when Eve reached out.

“So, how was your weekend?” she chirped at the beginning of their second session.

“Good,” Milo answered shortly.

“Oh? Did you do anything sp—”

“We’re going to be starting today’s workout on the track,” Milo interrupted.

She learned her lesson pretty quickly and just stopped asking. Milo didn’t share. Maybe he got a little stiff watching her do her stretches, but he didn’t want to talk about their personal lives. He didn’t laugh at her jokes either. She got the message loud and clear.

During their third session, she pulled a muscle in her stomach. Milo’s hands went to her side with a tenderness and a grace she had never seen from him before, and he kneaded the small muscle with delicate precision.

Eve’s face felt hot, like the air was swimming with energy. She could smell his skin, and realized that the spicy scent—the one she imagined was cologne marketed to bad boys—was just his regular skin. Her mouth filled with saliva again and she swallowed.

“What?” Milo snapped. His eyes flashed to her defensively.

“Nothing.”

“Is that better?” His voice was tight and defensive. He obviously regretted having touched her.

“Yes, much. Thank you.”

His fingers left her. “Good,” he said, light as a breeze.

That was the only moment they shared all month.

Cliff, on the other hand, became the highlight of Eve’s weeks. She found herself lingering as he gathered stray equipment from around the room. She would excitedly move through the departing students to ask him how his raw vegan experiment, or anything else for that matter, was going. If they ran into each other before the start of class, there was a good chance it would start late.

One time that he caught her right outside the locker room, still wet from the gym’s pool, wearing a tiny dark green bikini. Eve nipped at her lower lip, a signature move that made her look even more like a nymph than the water did.

For a moment, they both just stared at each other. The thin, loose fabric of Cliff’s yoga pants revealed to Eve exactly how he felt about her soaking wet and in a bikini. His thickness was vivid and indiscreet. Eve’s eyes fluttered wider and she forced her gaze to bolt itself to Cliff’s face. He swallowed. Perhaps he had just made the same promise to himself, because his eyes were fixated on hers.

“Forgot a towel,” Eve blustered, pushing into the locker room, abandoning him without even waiting for a goodbye.

The wet bikini incident was the exception. Most of their interactions were light and easy, the kind of conversations you could have with a kindred spirit. Whenever Cliff would lean into her body and help her deepen some stretch, she wouldn’t moan softly into the back of her throat. She kept her expression blank and her eyes closed, even though she could feel the warmth of his skin like embers through his shirt. He would coach the rhythm of her breathing, and she would respond to the pressure of his expanding chest against the back of her head, simultaneously inhaling with him. Still, she would not let on about the rush of excitement that flowed through her body at Cliff’s touch.

And with her eyes closed, she never caught the way that his ran over her body.

* * *

Heart pounding after a brutal day at the gym—a session with Milo, followed by a class with Cliff—Eve burst into the front door of her brownstone and could hardly contain herself as she flew up the stairs and flung herself onto her bed.

When she’d arrived at the gym, fresh and perky, she had felt Milo’s eyes crawling over her. She could feel how the muscles of her ass and thighs opened and stretched. She closed her eyes, exhaled purposefully, and rose up, saying the words “One hundred,” to herself. She rubbed at her round hindquarters and twisted to head toward the track, but froze as her eyes met with a pair of intensely heated, steely blue ones which were locked onto hers. Her lips parted in a soft, silent gasp. She closed her lips and the eyes flitted away. Milo turned toward the girl at the front desk and asked her something. Eve exhaled.

During yoga, Cliff had slid his hands down the sides of her torso while she was doing the tree pose. “Excellent core,” he breathed just behind her ear. She trembled lightly at the thought of him sliding into her core. “You may flow easily from this into downward dog, and from downward dog into child’s pose. From there, scoop your legs upward and roll onto your backs. Keep your ankles close together and tuck in.” He corrected two other poses before he came to Eve and pressed down on her thighs for a long time, deepening the intensity of the stretch.

In her bedroom now, wired and high-spirited from a long session at the gym, Eve kicked off her shoes and heaved herself against the pillows at her headboard. She pulled off her yoga pants (no panties), but didn’t bother to remove her t-shirt and bra. She arched her back, and her fingers raced down and into her slit.

Milo was so hard, so casual and direct. He always gripped her with a little too much pressure as he guided her exercises. He smelled faintly of his own sweat, but it turned her on. She told herself it was gross, but whenever his arms would go around her—or maybe he would just brush her skin with his—it would fill her mind instantly, like magic, with visions of him naked and hard, and slamming into her.

But Cliff was so soft, so soothing and engaged. His voice itself could lower her blood pressure instantly. And his eyes were the gray of a stormy day. Mottled, melancholy, oddly reassuring. He made her think of quilts and hot chocolate. Big sweet old dogs and sunsets. Jesus Christ, she was writing mental poetry about him.

She knew, if the choice was hers, she would never be able to make it.

She couldn’t stand the scrape of Milo’s five o’clock shadow on her shoulder blade anymore, each papery shock of his cheek along her back sending up a shudder between her thighs. How could he not notice the electrical shocks their bodies exchanged? She couldn’t stand the way Cliff’s eye contact could be so soulful when he asked her, “Is this too deep?” during one of their stretches. He’d be lying flat over her upturned thighs, pressing them into her chest with his body weight. The only thing standing between their limber, fertile bodies and penetration were general standards of public conduct and, well, the rest of the yoga class.

Yeah, Eve might have lost a few pounds this month, but who even really cared about that? She was addicted to her concierge and the yoga classes.

Her fingers whisked gratefully over her clitoris, bringing herself to a ripe froth quickly. Eve always had been the kind of girl who came quickly, deeply, and loudly—a surprise to every man she’d been with. It was no different now, alone, as she sank into her bank of pillows and moaned expletives to herself.

What would happen between her and Cliff if they could finally be alone?

She imagined the gym, its lights low, the floors oddly quiet. Cliff stood alone in the classroom where yoga classes were held, gazing at her with an odd intensity.

“You came,” he breathed. “I didn’t know if you would.”

“I don’t even know how you got my phone number,” Eve said, stepping closer but with hesitation. “Why did you want to have a private session with me?”

Back in real life, ensconced in pillows with her thighs cocked and spread, Eve worked over her womanhood, breathless, eyes squeezed shut.

“So we can go over some positions I don’t really want to show the rest of the class,” Cliff answered. “They penetrate too deeply. But first, I’m going to need your word. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Eve hesitantly answered, realizing it for herself for the first time. She did trust him. “I do.”

“Then come over here to the bed.” He spread his hand in the air over a king-size bed.

Eve stepped forward slowly, unable to look away from Milo. Originally, he had been wearing loose gray pants and a loose blue shirt, but they dissolved off of his body, and now he wore the much less professional-looking pair of crisp white boxer-briefs and nothing else. Eve’s pupils deepened to take it all in. His broad chest was immaculately defined, trailing down into a firm, tight abdomen and V-shape which disappeared into his boxers. He had the thighs of fucking Apollo.

“What did you want to do with me?” she wondered breathlessly.

“We will begin with Cat Cow Flow. Get on your hands and knees for me, Eve.”

Back in the townhome, up in her bedroom, Eve flipped over onto her stomach and arched her back toward the ceiling, then flexed her spine again, bowing her torso. Her pussy opened. She sank two fingers past her lips and flicked them hard, bringing her G-spot to life with a vengeance.

“Mmm,” Eve murmured, burying her face in her blankets and pillows.

As Fantasy Eve arched and bowed into Cat and Cow, Milo McNamara manifested directly across from her. Real-Life Eve gasped softly as orgasm neared. She wiggled around on the mattress sinking her teeth into her lip, loving this new development.

Fantasy Milo’s cool blue eyes were inflamed with passion and desire. He wanted her.

Cliff stepped around to her rear, sliding his hands along her buttocks, worshipping it almost. His two fingers, deftly slid between her cheeks and paused to cup her mons. “So warm,” he murmured, massaging her muffin. Eve leaned back into it.

As Cliff slid into her from behind, thick and hot, Milo put his hands into his pants and extracted his own powerful manhood, polishing it in front of her. Polishing it while making eye contact with her.

“Come to me, Milo,” Eve insisted breathlessly.

The paleness of Milo’s eyes intensified as he went to her, glistening shaft waiting for her slightly opened lips. He hardened even further as his head brushed over and beyond Eve’s lips, seeming to grow inside her mouth, extend into her throat. She moaned as he filled her, and Real-Life Eve plunged two fingers into her mouth.

Fantasy Eve bucked back and forth, all Cat Pose now, being filled back and forth by Cliff, and then Milo, and then Cliff, and then Milo. As Cliff thrusted, he knocked her forward with his hips, and sent her deeper onto Milo’s shaft, filling her throat, sending her pulsing backward again, impaling herself on Cliff once more.

“Now, we’re done with yoga,” Milo panted down at her. “And it’s time to exercise your pelvic floor.”

Cliff slid out of her, and his hands came around her from behind, stretching her up and over, back into a seated position on the bed. Milo spread his hands in front of her, as if clearing something away, indicating that she should spread her legs for him. Eve swallowed, already quite worn out, but did as she was told.

Real Eve flipped over onto her back, mimicking Fantasy Eve as best as she possibly could. She buried her fingers deep into her mound, squeezing her eyes shut, murmuring Milo’s name and sucking her lower lip between her teeth. Eve spread her thighs wider, encouraging her pussy to let go of its elusive climax. Feast on me, Milo, she silently encouraged him.

Milo bowed and lapped at her like a wild animal. His hands gripped her hips like steel bars, his mouth munching away at her clit with such force and purpose that his chin felt like a fucking jackhammer. She came immediately. Orgasm crashed through her, as frothy and torrential as a waterfall.

Cliff materialized beneath her, his hands running up and down her taut thighs, even as Milo continued swiftly flicking his tongue over her again and again. Cliff’s palms scooped around to her ass and hovered over her crack, gently working their way between her cheeks. “Excellent core,” he whispered, rubbing one finger against the tiny hole of her anus. “Open up for me,” he breathed, encouraging her without pushing, and goosebumps raced up and down her arms and legs as his fingers worked over her, massaging, teasing, testing. “Open up,” he said, finally sinking one digit into her. He played her like a guitar with hundreds of strings, all rising together into a crescendo of ecstasy. Eve snuck her second hand around her backside, working at the same angle. Her fingers became his fingers, thicker, stronger, and as smooth on her keys as a musician.

Milo’s imaginary kisses were a panting thunderstorm down her throat as her other hand worked inside her pussy. Her heart raged out of her control and she could almost feel his hardness plunging in and out of her entrance, and she was so fantastically wet, she knew he could have slipped into her bare almost by sheer accident if she only tilted her hips upward one fraction of an inch.

Milo rose up from between her legs as if he’d been diving in the sea, always just beneath the surface. She needed to come!

Milo entered her feverishly and she threw her head back into the pillows as she imagined Cliff entering her fully from behind, not his fingers but his hardness, him, spreading her open with all of his characteristic gentility, filling her to the brim with a slow burn while Milo sawed away on the other side, mindless with lust.

Her orgasm expanded and popped like a water balloon, sending juices spilling from between her legs. She gasped at the intensity, thighs quivering, letting it take her in all its spasmodic glory. Her face twisted to one side and pressed into her pillows, eyes squeezed shut, mouth hanging open. She was sure she looked ridiculous, spread eagle, hands plunged between her thighs, contorting like a performance artist, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a sports bra.

Eve sighed loudly and her muscles unlocked, letting her descend into the pillows totally, letting her drown in their lace.

Finally.

She really needed to masturbate more often—or just get some. She and Trent barely ever had sex during their last year and a half together, and her sex drive had been on idle for a long time. It looked like, somewhere between Cliff and Milo, her parking brake had come unjammed and she was surging ahead, full throttle again.

Eve pulled herself up from the mattress and crossed the room with a sleepy, satisfied gait, collapsing into the nearest chair and grabbed her laptop up from the floor. She popped it open and pulled up her website stats, still thinking about how she needed to get “out there” again. She needed to try speed dating or Craigslist or some—

Her train of thought derailed. “Holy shit,” Eve piped, even though her mouth was typically a clean one.

Her last blog entry had been viewed seven thousand times in the past two days.