Petra Ironwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Petra started measuring her chest the morning after Guy's window stayed empty. She wrapped a cloth tape around her chest and wrote the number in a notebook she kept by the bed. Forty-eight inches. She wrote it every morning for three weeks. The number moved a quarter inch, then stopped. Then it dropped an eighth. She squeezed the pen until the plastic cracked. On the twenty-second morning she drove to the big gym on the corner and did not touch a weight. She walked past the racks of machines, past the pec decks and cable stations, and went straight to the hot tub in the back. She sank in up to her collarbones and closed her eyes. The tape number sat behind her eyelids. Forty-eight and one eighth. Three weeks of pressing and pulling for one eighth of an inch. A man dropped into the water across from her. He had gel in his hair and a chain around his neck. He stretched both arms along the tub's edge and told her he'd seen her lifting last week. He told her about his own bench numbers. He told her about his truck. He slid closer along the tiled bench until his knee touched hers. Petra opened her eyes. "What do you think of my chest?" He grinned. He leaned in to answer. She caught the back of his head with one hand and shoved his face down into the water for a moment. He thrashed. His hands slapped the water. His feet kicked up foam. She watched the bubbles rise around his shoulders and counted to twenty in her head. On twenty he wrenched sideways and broke free, gasping, chain tangled at his mouth. A hatch in the far wall opened. Sunny Larkspur entered the room, humming. She snapped off the overalls and smirked as she got in. Her arms were thicker than Petra's thighs. Her outfit was stretched tight across her chest. She took off her belt and overalls and slid into the tub, smirking at Petra. The man wiped his mouth. He looked at Sunny. His eyes widened. He said something about her huge upper body. Sunny unclipped one strap of her overalls and let the bib fall forward. Her chest dropped free into the water and displaced half the tub. The man's eyebrows climbed. He started a new boast. Petra stared at Sunny's chest. She stared at her own. She looked down at the water line across her chest, then at the water line across Sunny's, six inches higher. Her hands curled under the surface. She watched as the man flirted with Sunny, and Sunny casually flirted back. The man had no idea the trouble he was in as she pulled him closer. Petra knew the appetite Sunny had.