Chapter 6

“She’s on her way, boss.”

Williamson breathed out a sigh of relief and smiled.

This might actually work.

Williamson propped open the Fitness Center’s front doors.

“Good. Inform Cogworthy she’s coming and take the elevator up to my Penthouse. Hold the elevator there until you hear the signal from Cogworthy,” Williamson instructed.

“Yes, sir,” Luman said.

Williamson cranked up the speed of the machine to its highest level, his muscular legs flying at a full sprint. His Nikes pounded loudly on the rapidly spinning and whirring treadmill and his strong arms pumped like pistons at his side to keep pace. Sweat had already started beading on his forehead and dampening his clothing.

When the elevator doors slid open Bella Lisa stepped out into the lobby and immediately stopped reading her magazine when she heard a very loud and repetitive slapping sound. When she looked up toward the noise, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

It’s him! What’s he doing exercising in Dad’s building? Could he live here too?

Bella Lisa held her breath and paused momentarily in the middle of the lobby to stare at him, running like an Olympian on the treadmill. As soon as she made eye contact with him, he smiled nonchalantly at her, with sweat dripping off his face, as if he had seen her there every day of his life. Bella Lisa nodded back with a blank look and without her customary warm smile. In that brief moment she couldn’t help but be impressed. Pushing himself to such extremes must come easily to him, she thought. His lithe and athletic body moved with the youth and power of a man half his age. She observed how his thickly veined and muscular arms pumped vigorously in unison with his flying legs. He wore a form-fitting classy blue polo shirt that seemed painted upon his barrel-shaped chest and sleek tight black Nike sweatpants that showed off the well-cut ridges of his calves and thighs. He continued to look at Bella Lisa in a pleasant and non-threatening manner as he tore up the treadmill.

Suddenly, she felt embarrassed for standing there for so long and staring at him, so she gave him a strained smile, looked back down at her magazine and continued to walk out of the lobby. As soon as she left the building, Williamson powered down the speed to a walk, grabbing the handrails to keep from falling, taking deep gasps of air. He dried off his face with the towel. When his breathing returned to normal, Williamson’s cell phone rang.

“She just arrived at Starbucks, sir.”

“Thanks, Cogworthy.”

Williamson got off the treadmill and spoke quickly to the front desk clerk who made a call. Within a minute or two a custodial worker came into the lobby and sprayed glass cleaner on the mirrored elevator doors and polished them until they sparkled.

Williamson picked out a pair of the largest barbells on the rack, put them down in the space between the front of the treadmill he had just worked out on and the entrance of the fitness center. Then Williamson waited. In a few minutes his cell phone rang.

“She’s on her way, Mr. Williamson,” Cogworthy said.

“OK. Follow her to the door and call up to Luman on my signal.”

“Yes, sir.”

Unable to refrain from smiling like a mischievous boy, he picked up the barbells and started his reps, alternating arms. Bella Lisa came into the lobby a moment later.

To avoid further embarrassment as she entered the condo, Bella Lisa decided to resist the temptation to watch the beefcake any further, keeping her head down and walking directly to the elevator. She pressed the up arrow and waited. It seemed to be taking forever to come down.

Was it stuck?

She didn’t feel like walking up fifteen flights of stairs, so she pressed the arrow again, tapping her toe on the floor. She breathed in the strong smell of ammonia sprayed on the closed elevator doors. Looking up, she saw him again, lifting weights in the reflection of the polished mirrored glass. He stood directly across from her and appeared to not have seen her come back into the building. Since she could spy on him this way in the reflection without him knowing it, Bella Lisa watched as he pumped large steel free weights in each fist as if they were light as air. She could not take her eyes off his massive arms, the muscles rippling, and especially the thick blue veins bulging out from his skin. You could almost see the blood surge through those veins as the curling muscles expanded and contracted. Following the veins down his arms, she noticed how the sweat made his shirt cling to his striated abdominal muscles. As if no longer in her control, her eyes drifted lower and she noticed an enormously thick bulge under his tight sweat pants. It snaked a third of the way down his long right thigh, pressing against the thin silky material, as if it were trying to escape. Each movement of his arms caused the shaft to thrust upward and outward, the ridged bulbous crown clearly evident to her eyes.

With lips slightly parted, she let herself stare.

Men stare at me all day long, why can’t I be the one who stares for a change?

Though she was experienced in fighting off boyfriends who always insisted on getting naked with her, she had never seen a physical specimen of that size and girth before, even in the naughty magazines her girlfriends surreptitiously passed around at school. She kept checking his eyes in the mirror every few moments to make sure he didn’t catch her looking. He stood stiff and straight as a statue as he pumped the iron, his eyes focused on a point above her head. Bella Lisa intuitively knew the instant a man was ogling her, even if he was doing it from behind her. But he seemed completely oblivious to her as she watched his rippling muscles, his thick blue veins, his striated abs and the outline of his enormous erection. Her mouth was dry and she caught herself licking her lips. She took a sip of coffee, smiled and enjoyed the view.

After Williamson was quite sure Ms. Mauricio had gotten an eyeful, he put the free weights back on the rack and placed his palms on the glass surface of the wall, leaning forward to stretch out his hamstrings. Peering into the front door of the lobby, Cogworthy placed a call to Luman, who sent the elevator back down. The whoosh of the door opening startled Bella Lisa back to reality. Williamson watched her take another sip of her coffee, step in, turn around and press her floor. He resisted the strong temptation to look at her one last time. The elevator doors closed and she was gone. Out of habit and an ingrained protective instinct, Williamson checked over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear him talking to himself, before he spoke out loud.

“Have a good four years of college, Ms. Mauricio.”