He attached the short extension cable to the lower pulley of the Trotter MG2100 total fitness machine. He attached the revolving straight bar, his sculpted muscles sliding and bunching beneath smooth, tan skin.

“You’ll end up with at the end with all this little nibs, looking like a man-eating cannibals. You’ll get TMJ and lisps when you talk and end up with several roots canals,” the dentist’s wife warned him. “Your teeths are so beauty!”

“I have this space between my two front ones.” He showed her.

“They’re perfect! Some peoples think space is really sexual.”

“You’re kidding?” He looked at his teeth in one of the many wall-size mirrors.

“Oh no, I’m never.”

She looked intensely at his mouth and was enraged that she’d ever let her husband talk her into crowning all her teeth. She felt ruined. The crowns weren’t as natural as the teeth he’d ground away, and she got frequent headaches and had pressure and temperature sensitivity in three molars. Lelia Ehrhart envied natural teeth, even if they weren’t perfect. She envied beautiful bodies. She was obsessed with both and would never have either.

“Arm curls.” Lonnie got back to business, holding the bar in both hands to demonstrate.

“My arms are shaken,” she complained with a flirty porcelain smile. “You need to show me another again one more time. I never can get these one right. I always feel them behind my back and I know that’s not supposedly to be.”

He moved the pin to one hundred and fifty pounds and demonstrated, his biceps bunching like huge swells in an ocean, a gathered energy capable of great force, a slope for her to climb and conquer.

“Lift just with your arms,” he said. “Don’t lean back. You use your back, you’re cheating.”

He lowered the weight to twenty pounds. Ehrhart took the bar and held it shoulder width apart with an underhand grip, palms facing up, elbows close to her sides, just as she had been taught. She eyed her form in mirrors, not sure her blue Nike tights had been a good choice. The red stripes emphasized her wide hips. When all was said and done, black was always best for lower body, bright colors for upper, such as the chartreuse sports bra she had on today.

“Twenty reps,” Lonnie told her.

She was energized by her conversation with Governor Führer. How many people could ask to speak to the governor of Virginia and have him on the phone twenty-two minutes later? Not many, she told herself as she strained. Not many at all, and this time it had nothing to do with her husband’s power and contributions.

“All of us have our complexions,” she said to Lonnie as she struggled for breath. “Our insecure hidden secret places that others can’t see. Even I do. I’ve lost counting.” She huffed.

“Sixteen.”

“Seventeen, eighteen. Goodness, you’re wearing me in!”

“What complexes could you possibly have? How many women your age work out like you do and have their own gym? Not to mention a house like this.”