Tim, like most gym trainers, had too many muscles, which doesn’t seem like it would be a problem in theory, but in the real world, it’s like looking at a snake swallow a bag of onions. An approximate foot shorter than I was, Tim seemed to compensate for his height by adding thirty pounds of muscle for every inch he felt he lacked, which made him almost as wide as he was tall. Unprompted, he demonstrated the thickness of his chest by raising his fists in front of his face and struggling to make his forearms touch. This display was apparently meant to impress me, but all I could wonder was whether he could comfortably reach his own penis. I can only conclude, based on his abundance of unspent testosterone, that he could not.

Wasting no further time on verbal introductions, Tim immediately launched into barking orders, which I was expected to wordlessly obey: jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, with no break in between, one after the other, all while Tim screamed what he believed to be encouragements in my face.

“Push harder,” he yelled through spittle. “We haven’t even gotten started yet!” And yet my muscles were already sending every distress signal they could muster to my brain, shaking wildly and burning hot.

Sensing my waning energy, Tim continued bleating.

“Who’s the hottest girl in your class?” he shouted. And my brain, at least the parts of it that weren’t preoccupied with keeping the rest of my body from shutting down entirely, began to whir.

In normal circumstances, I would’ve had the time and patience to address this question properly. Perhaps I would have mustered the energy to explain to Tim that sometimes boys like putting their penises inside other boys’ penises. Perhaps I could’ve explained that I couldn’t name the hottest girl in my class if you’d paid me a thousand dollars, but I could rank the hottest fifty boys by ten different criteria, including arms, abs, butts, calves, bulges, pecs, hair, jawlines, smiles, and thighs (the top of which in each category respectively, I could’ve easily told him, was Pat, Tom, Pat, Ryan, Steven K., Steven R., Jeremy, Kevin, Pat, and Bradley, Pat being the clear and obvious winner).

In my distress, however, my brain could muster none of these explanations, and in a panic, between jumping jacks, my lungs straining hard enough to breathe and speak at the same time, I shouted, “Amanda!”

Tim gave an approving grunt, as if to say, “Ugh, she sounds hot,” based solely on the name that I’d shouted under duress.

“What’s your favorite part about her?” he continued while I whimpered further.

“Her butt, I guess,” I said without even thinking about it, my lungs nearly collapsed at this point.

“Ugh,” Tim grunted again, as if I were describing a juicy steak. “Is it big? Do you like her big, fat ass?”