Lennox and I had fucked in a pop-up tent at Topanga Park when I came to LA to visit him, the evening drizzle dewing our shelter. I made him drive us back to his studio in Mar Vista when I awoke to a crying coyote at dawn. He burst in from his bat-mitzvah DJ gig the next night, lecturing me about lack of sleep, slugging a Black Eye. We wrestled each other to his bean bag chair—legs wrapped around my waist. “Glad we met, Barry,” he’d said when he dropped me off at LAX, as we shimmied my suitcase out of his trunk. He locked his fingers around my back, kissing me, breath stained with cranberry juice from our breakfast in El Segundo. I pulled back when I saw a dad grimace at us by a Yellow Cab, the father ushering his wife and daughters—ears from matching Goofy hats whirling—into the American terminal.

The college boy across from me now peeled off spandex. His abs popped. He tucked hair behind his ears. His briefs threw his full cock into relief.

“Party in the U.S.A.!” Miley Cyrus sang through overhead speakers—LA Fitness radio.

I tugged out my thermal to hide pudge lines. Couldn’t strip here. I turned to the locker, clutching AirPods. I’d lose two pounds on the treadmill today. Three.

Passing a dressing mirror, I tilted my head to sharpen my jaw.

Channing Tatum’s big. I just need to lift a little.

Hunched on the toilet in a closed stall, I checked my phone again—Lennox’s Facebook.

Still that picture at Escondido Falls from three days ago, Lennox giving his mom bunny ears beside a waterfall. God, that grin, those snowy teeth. He wore undersized tank tops on hikes—more loincloths for his slim chest than functional coverings.

“Where’s Waldo?” I commented. “Text me.”

A faucet hissed outside my stall--someone washing their hands, whistling Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

Clad in camo joggers, head down, skull-and-crossbones bandana snug, with Britney belting “Don’t you know that you’re toxic?” in my earbuds, I pounded out into a cardio area, bumping someone’s shoulder.

Nolan! Dad’s friend. My de facto uncle.

Jesus! Of all people!

Last time I saw Nolan, Thanksgiving at their brownstone in Bucktown, he jabbed his remote at the TV and called the Packers’ halftime dancers “fairy boys.” Marie, his wife, swept up his peanut skins and stayed quiet.

“Bear!” Nolan said, kneading my arm. He patted his forehead with a gym towel. Scratched an outbreak on his chin. His Urlacher jersey draped his thighs like a smock.

“Surprised to see you here.” I paused my music.

“The wife got me a membership for Christmas.” He slapped his stomach. “Too much High Life.”

“How is Marie?”

“Same ol’.” His eyes drifted, fixing on a fitness trainer by the StairMasters. “Look at that piece of ass, Bear. Oughta be a law.”

“I should get to it,” I said, nodding at the treadmills.

“Me too, boyo. Tell your dad to raise his handicap this summer. Wouldn’t want to embarrass him at Glen Club.” He guffawed.

I ran, a minute later. No warm-up. New Balance sneakers pounded the loose belt. My back hardened. Pushed it to six miles an hour. Seven and a half. I slapped Nolan in my mind, and he staggered back, knocking into a rowing machine. Slapped him again. Misogynist scum!

Too fast. I jumped on the footrails, panting, checking Lennox’s Facebook again.

A new post!

A snap of Lennox twisting knobs in a DJ booth, steeped in violet fog, confetti tinseling his gelled frohawk. Someone had stopped raving to frame him rising above clip-on LEDs, like a statue in restoration at the Louvre. Jelena Jink (a Burner and YouTuber as I could see from her profile) had hearted his comment: “Felt the love, babe!”

He’s ignoring me!

I punched a handrail. Wrote a comment: “Keep playing for teenage Jewish girls in Brentwood, loser!” Erased it.

I sprinted now, but my legs locked. Slapped Emergency Stop. Slid.

“Fucking useless!” I said, kicking a treadmill wheel.

Went for the recumbent bikes.

A man with honey-brown skin pumped on a pec deck across from me as I pedaled.

Weight stacks rose and fell like a metal lung. His delts pulsed. Chest hair curlicued out over his undershirt. He glanced at me. Pushed.

I flushed, brushing my ears as though lush hair I didn’t have obscured his view of me and needed tucking. Pedaled harder.

The man finished his set with a growl—a tinny thud of iron crashing down—and smiled at a woman in a sports bra swaggering toward him, who shook her overgrowth of tight curls and beamed, her low-slung “Chi Omega” sweatpants showcasing a belly button piercing with a glittering heart pendant.

She rested a hand on his chest, looking up at his face, while he gazed off. A Pre-Raphaelite painting at the Art Institute: the knight errant, his damsel.

Fuck this meat factory. I’ll have a sauna.

Back in the locker room, the college boy, still in his tropical undies, picked his ears with Q-tips in front of a grooming mirror. Moisture choked the shower stalls--a lathered ass peeked out from a cracked curtain.

I wriggled off my body shirt. Wrang its neck. Cupped my bare thigh. The firm parts of me. I needed to Nair my stomach; I needed to sprout hair in the recession on my head. The follicles cross-wired.

Lennox—arching on top of me, cosplaying “Cleo” with his wig, the auburn bob.

I bit my lower lip. Caught eyes with the college boy. Winked.

He scowled at me and slapped his face with Acqua di Giò

“Sorry,” I mumbled, grabbing my spa towel.

Sweat-slickened men slouched in the sauna’s burning dusk, legs akimbo, loose terry cloth veiling their cocks. Accenting them.

I wedged myself in a corner, rubbing my face, fingering the winey birthmark below my ear.

“Long morning?” someone said.

The stranger squinted at me, his head clicked against cedar slats, hair a thicket of chocolate blades. “Try Zumba,” he said, giving his CamelBak bottle a cha-cha for emphasis, then twisting off the cap, splashing the coals, which hissed. “Clears demons.”

The others remained slumped, shut-eyed. Unknotted by heat.

“Brazilian thing?” I said.

“Colombiano.” He leaned forward, mussing hair. “I go to Lincoln Park--Latin Rhythms, with Blanca. Might be something here.”

“There is,” someone moaned. “‘Soul Pulse.’ Sundays.”

“That sounds like a rite,” the CamelBak man said, drizzling water over his shoulders. He grinned at me, his teeth a creamy moon muted in fog. “Day off?”

“PTO.” I blushed.

His thickness concealed hard muscle--no neglecting hunger for an unnatural form. A black tattoo colored his flank: a wintry tree, branches fissuring his ribs.

“Woman troubles?” he said. “Dare I say—man?”

“All of the above.”

Rayne, my frenemy, stalked through my head.

“Maybe if you stepped out of the closet, you wouldn’t be such an asshole,” she’d said as she slammed my front door that morning, dislodging another triangle of paint beside my deadbolt. I’d pulled an American Spirit from the pack under my mattress after she left, blowing jets out a cracked casement, coughing, remembering Coach Kahill, of all people—Coach K. taking me into his office freshman year after catching Jevon Thorley and me in a stall: Jevon’s a pansy-ass, Bear. Don’t ruin your chance at varsity. Shuttle runs, bull rushes. Get the shit out of your system.

The CamelBak man had been staring at me as I spaced, leaning in, hands clasped between his knees. “Did I touch a nerve?” he said.

I swelled beneath my towel. Crossed my legs.

The door jerked open--a round silhouette in the white light.

Nolan again! Fuck me!

“Boyo,” Nolan said, plopping onto a bench seat, resting his elbows on the seat above. He picked mustard crust off his shoulder and farted—a smothered boom.

A man in a corner side-eyed him and ambled out. Another followed.

“Whaddya come here for--the spa?” he said to me, chuckling.

The CamelBak man shut his eyes—knees up, head lolled. Another tattoo dotted his right ankle: a sparrow in ascent.

“Whatcha doing for work these days?” Nolan said to me.

“Fulfillment,” I said, uncrossing my legs. “Greeting cards.”

“Marie has the Hallmark channel on for Christmas,” Nolan said. “It’s nice.”

“Not quite the same—”

“Fucking disc,” he said, interrupting, knuckling his back. “Lucky you’re young, kid.”

I stood.

“So soon?” he said. “Hot date? Give ’er hell.”

My cheeks flamed. Breath shortened. I clenched a fist.

“There’s the spirit,” he said.

“Sure.” I stormed out.