Petra Ironwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

After Viktor climbed back out her bathroom window, Petra dried off and stared at her reflection. Her arms looked good. Her shoulders looked good. Her chest did not. She flexed and watched her pectorals twitch under the sports bra. Small. Flat. Not what a man like Guy would ever notice from a second-story window. The yard barbell wasn't enough anymore. She needed more iron than her yard could hold. She drove into town and parked in front of the big gym on the corner. Two stories of glass and steel. Through the windows she saw rows of machines stacked to the ceiling, cable stations, benches, pec decks lined up like church pews. She paid the desk clerk in cash and walked straight to the chest section. She started on the flat bench. She loaded four plates a side and pressed until her shirt was soaked. She moved to the incline. She moved to the decline. She moved to the pec deck and squeezed until the pin rattled at the bottom of the stack. Men stopped their sets to watch. She did not look at them. She counted her own reps and pictured her chest muscles growing under the bar. An hour in, her pecs burned so hard she could barely lower the handles. She kept going. Cable flies. Dumbbell pullovers. Push-ups between sets, feet up on a bench. Her sports bra strap dug a red line into her shoulder. She liked the line. It meant something underneath was pushing out. By the second hour, the bra strap snapped. The elastic gave up and slapped against her ribs. She looked down. Her chest had filled out tight against the fabric, solid muscle where yesterday there had been muscle but not enough of it. She pressed a palm flat against one pec and felt it push back into her hand like a stone under skin. She walked to the mirror wall by the free weights. She flexed. Her pecs jumped. They bounced when she released. They cast a shadow on her stomach. A man on the cable machine dropped his handle and it clanged against the frame. Petra grinned at the glass. This was what she'd come for. This was what Guy would see from his window. She drove home with her ruined bra in her fist and her shirt stretched tight. She pulled into her yard and looked up at Guy's house next door. His window was open. He was not in it. The curtain moved in the breeze and no face appeared behind it. She had grown her chest and he had not been watching. She stood in her yard with her new pecs aching and understood the problem. He didn’t think she was attractive. She will fix that