A Very Personal Trainer (2 page)

All the same, my skin prickled at the sound of his knock, and I stood a little farther back than I normally would when I opened the door and let him in.

"Hello, hello," I chirped, talking too fast and too much, as I always did when I was anxious. "Sorry about the state of the place, do take a seat if you can find one, can I get you a drink, tea, coffee, something colder, or I've got hot chocolate, 13

A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

or even wine, though I don't suppose you drink on duty, do you, like policemen, I suppose..."

"No, thank you," he said, placing a laptop bag on the cleanest rectangle of the kitchen table.

"Really? The cups are clean, I can vouch for it, I washed them up just now..."

"I'm fine. Really."

It wasn't quite a smile, more a tightening of the facial muscles. He sat on a kitchen chair and unzipped his bag. He hadn't shaken my hand or introduced himself, yet. I felt his manners left something to be desired, and I couldn't help but say so.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Dexter," I said, holding out a hand. "I'm Lara Fisher. This is my home."

He looked up, slightly impatiently, and nodded. "Yes. Can we move on from formalities? We have a lot to get through in a short space of time. Please take a seat."

He was asking me to take a seat in my own kitchen! Who was this man? Was he some kind of automaton? He was certainly coming across as such. And the way he dressed made him look like a priest—that high-necked black shirt and trousers, hair swept ruthlessly back, silver-rimmed spectacles. He dressed older than he was, because if you looked a bit closer, he was probably no more than forty tops.

If you really looked, really, really closely, you might notice that he was pretty good looking, behind the icy veneer. Full lips, high cheekbones, intense golden-brown eyes. If he ruffled up his hair and wore something less austere, I realised with a guilty start that I would fancy him. Possibly. Probably.

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

"Yes?" he said.

Oh, I was staring. I coughed, blushed a little and gestured behind me, to the barely contained chaos of my kitchen.

"Sorry. Yes. Well, you can probably see why I've hired you."

"Yes, I can," he said without smiling or giving me any kind of clue that I could breathe out. "I'll want to have a quick look around later, just to get the full measure. But first, I need you to tell me exactly what you want help with."

He pressed some keys on his laptop and it began to bleep and whir.

"Everything," I said with a pained laugh. I wished he'd smile, or give some indication that he was human. I was about to start looking for an off switch.

"Let me talk you through a few categories," he said.

"Financial. Professional. Social. Domestic. Health and well-being."

"All of those."

"All? Fine. And a few sub-headings. Timekeeping.

Paperwork. Household maintenance. Bill paying."

"Stop, you're killing me!" I put up my hands. "I surrender.

I'm a failure as a human being. Now fix me."

He took off his glasses and frowned at me for a moment.

"Nobody's calling you a failure," he said, though it sounded like a telling-off to me. Replacing the glasses, he said, "You're not unusual, Lara. This is a common syndrome of twenty-first-century life. It can be fixed. I can fix it."

"Do you really think you can? I'm not beyond hope?"

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

"Not at all." Ohmigosh, he was smiling! A little bit. "But you must be prepared for some hard work, honesty and—the most difficult thing of all to achieve—self-discipline."

Ugh. It sounded like medicine. Couldn't he have just waved a wand?

"Oh. Okay."

He made a spreadsheet, which I looked at through trembling eyelashes, because spreadsheets terrified me. Then he made some lists and timetables. Then he made some rules. Then he gave the rules sub-headings and footnotes.

Then I begged for mercy by offering him a drink again.

"Do you have green tea?" he asked.

"Oh...I think I might." I opened my overhead cupboard, in which ancient caddies full of variegated teabags resided. A huge pile of them fell on my head and all over the floor.

He joined me, scrabbling at the lino to get them all up again. Down on his knees, scooping Precambrian tea leaves from the floor, he seemed just a tad more human. He had lovely hands with long, strong fingers, and he smelt nice, kind of fresh and citrusy. He raised an eyebrow at me in a way that was just a little bit sexy as well as stern.
You should be
ashamed of yourself, you minx!
rather than plain,
You should
be ashamed of yourself.
I felt a tiny tug of something in my stomach and my breath went a bit wobbly.

"We really do need to sort you out, don't we, Lara?" he said.

Ooh, yes, Mister Dexter. Sort me out.

* * * *

A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

So I had a plan. I had a number of plans, in fact—short-term, long-term, repayment, career, fitness, all courtesy of Dexter. He truly was the master planner. This was good, because plans were what I wanted and needed. But I also had something else, something a little less welcome. I had a crush.

Now, with my days better ordered, I didn't have to spend half the night tearing out my hair, and that left me more time to...think. About Dexter, putting a long, strong hand under my chin and making me look at him, making me admit my faults, making me promise to make amends because if I didn't...I shivered and my hand disappeared between my thighs. Oh, the
things
he would do to me if I didn't...

We met on a twice-weekly basis for progress reports, and by the second of these meetings, I was barely able to speak to him, breathless with lust every time he turned his steely, bespectacled eyes on me. They were eyes that bored through me, that saw every pathetic excuse for what it is, that accepted nothing less than excellence. I had a hard time separating the fear from the lust, but sometimes I wondered if the two were inextricable and that I couldn't have one without the other.

"You've made a very good start," he told me at our second meeting, sipping on that elusive green tea.

I'd had to buy some from Whittard's in the end.

"You've a long way to go still, but this shows promise." He clicked another item off the spreadsheet, stretching his elegant neck in its high-collared black shirt as if it chafed him.

"Are you religious?" I asked him, out of the blue.

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

He stared. "No. Why do you ask?"

"Just...you remind me of a priest."

He had nothing to say to this, and I blushed furiously, feeling that I had offended him.

"I mean...you are, in a funny way, aren't you?" I said in a rush. "You're my confessor."

He actually laughed, though it was more a sound of astonishment than humour.
He thinks I'm insane. Good
move. Smooth
.

"I suppose...in a way...that's true." Oh, he agreed with me! There was hope. "Yes." He seemed to be testing the idea out for strength and durability.

I could see the information being processed in his circuits, or whatever substitute for a human brain he had up there.

"A confessor," he continued. "For the twenty-first century."

* * * *

"Can you show me the receipts for your bill payments this week, Lara?"

"Oh, no, I'm afraid I can't."

A silence. Rays of golden warning from above the spectacle rims. "Why not?"

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

"I, well, I'm not sure where they are. I think I've lost them."

"Lost them? Didn't we assign a particular drawer to receipts and bills?"

I quailed. I don't think I'd ever quailed before. It was just as unpleasant as it sounds. "I know we did but..." I shrugged.

"It's all such a lot to remember."

"It is, Lara, and that is why we have the spreadsheet."

"Gah, the spreadsheet, the all-knowing spreadsheet," I muttered.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice that milli-decibel above normal, indicating that he was extremely angry. He certainly wasn't sorry, that was for sure. "My role is to give you the tools to build self-discipline. Your role is to use those tools. If you aren't sufficiently motivated, then you're throwing your money away and I might as well take on a new client."

"No!" This was not the way I wanted things to go at all!

How could I make myself clear, without being blatant? "Please don't do that. I do need your help."

"Then you need to make more of an effort."

"I do make an effort. A really big effort. Honestly. It's just that..."

"It's just that?" He stirred the tea, an attempt to dispel tension that didn't quite work.

"I don't have much self-discipline," I said softly.

"You don't
think
you do. There's a difference."

"No, I know I don't. I can't discipline myself. So..."

"So?"

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

I began to panic. I wanted to press rewind. Maybe it was best if I just changed the subject. "Perhaps...somebody should do it for me..."

Oh, I said it! I said it out loud! Please let me unsay it,
please open up the heavens and let those words fly up and
evaporate between the clouds
.

He looked away for a second. His adam's apple bobbed.

Then he looked back. "I thought that was what I was doing.

What I was trying to do."

"No, I mean...my willpower is rubbish. Perhaps I need more than the threat of being left to sink back into my old ways. Perhaps I need...sanctions. Of some kind."

"Sanctions?" He seemed to almost be holding his breath.

His fingers tightened around the mug handle.

"If I lose something...or forget, or just don't bother with something...you know, your
disapproval
is quite powerful, but I have the feeling you...er...you might be holding some...stronger techniques...in reserve."
Why did I ever start
this?
I was cringing, fidgeting with the fabric corsage on my top as if I might rip it to shreds.

"Stronger techniques," he repeated, and his tongue seemed to roll around the phrase, drawing all the juices of mortification it possibly could from it.

"You know, I don't know what I'm talking about. Forget I said it. I'm just thinking aloud. Not even thinking. Raving.

Blithering. Rambling. Babbling."

"Hush." He shook his head and half-smiled, holding up a hand to stem the tide of my verbal diarrhoea. "You want me to be more than an organiser? More than a life coach?"

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

"I don't know. I don't know what I want," I said miserably.

"Perhaps that's the problem," he said, considering.

"Perhaps you need to be told. Perhaps you don't want a life coach, Lara. Perhaps you want an authority figure."

"Yes. That's it. That's it. That's what I need. I need proper consequences, you know, like, um, like..."

"Punishments?"

Thank God he didn't make me say the word. I couldn't have said it. But it was exactly what I meant.

He knew from my open mouth and pleading eyes that he'd hit the nail on the head. I couldn't say anything, couldn't move, couldn't resume my life, until I heard his next pronouncement.

"I see. But you're a grown woman. I can't exactly ground you. I can't confiscate your mobile phone or withdraw your television privileges. I don't live with you." He left a telling space, waiting for me to say nothing, before continuing. "Ah, you don't mean that, do you, Lara?"

"Not sure what I mean," I whispered.

"Well, you should be. You should be very sure. For legal reasons, among others. I have no intention of finding myself on the wrong end of some unsavoury lawsuit."

"That won't happen. We can make an agreement. That's if you...agree. To the agreement."

"Such an agreement could only be informal. How could it be notarised? Would you really want it witnessed by a third party?"

"No. But you have my word. My solemn promise. Whatever you decide."

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A Very Personal Trainer

by Justine Elyot

He thought about it for a moment, drew in a quick breath and sat back, his hands steepled on his chest.

"Let's be clear now. You are talking about some form of...physical discipline, aren't you?"

"Mmm, hmm. Maybe."

"And you aren't going to be more specific than that?" He was smiling, a slightly sharky, but also slightly sexy smile.

I thought I might have tapped into something here after all. I thought I might not have completely misread him.

"It's...hard to say the words."

"I understand. But this is a tricky area, isn't it, Lara?

Because if you are trying to negotiate me into satisfying some long-held sexual fantasy..."

"I...oh. Well. No. A bit. But no." I needed to give up talking. I was clearly halfway there already.

"Lara, relax. I'm not rejecting the idea out of hand. I'm just thinking that if you
want
me to do...things...to you, it might not be the best incentive for you to continue adhering to the plan. I have this feeling that you might start forgetting things ever-so-accidentally-on-purpose. Do you see what I'm getting at?"

"I've tricked you into being my life coach when what I really want is a...is a..."

"Dom?"

I buried my face in my hands. I was the biggest loser in the history of the world. I had blown it, Big Time, capital B, capital T. Pass the Merlot and the Phish Food as a matter of urgency.