Flickr Fiction: Dumbbell

"Unnrrrgggghhhh!" Sweat dripped down Sean's slightly protruding, artificially-bronzed pectorals, in rivulets from his neck, across his orderly six-pack of abs, down into the waistband of his designer gym shorts. Missy, five years old, watched in utter fascination, Malibu Barbie lying forgotten in her lap. Charisse flipped a page in her issue of Cosmo and moved her cigarette to the other side of her mouth in a cloud of menthol.

"Unnrrrgggghhhh!" More sweat, more heaving pectorals. Not to mention bulging biceps. Charisse had her feet up on the table, and moved them slightly so that her legs formed a more effective magazine stand and blocked off the sight of the sweat hog.

"Unnrrrgggghhhh!" Charisse and Sean had not had sex in months, but those rare occasions when they did were marked by grunting, sweating, and self-aggrandizing statements of masculinity such as You like that, baby? You know I'm the only one who can satisfy you. Which was indeed ironic. Charisse had not had an orgasm by anyone's hand but her own in several years.

"Unnrrrgggggggnnnhhhh!! Oh yeah." The dumbbells were set down with a clank and another brief grunt. "Whaddya think of them apples?" He picked up a towel and sopped up the sweat rivulets, rubbing himself down with almost postcoital bliss. Charisse raised her eyebrows and peered up momentarily from "Bitch in the Bedroom: Sometimes What He Really Wants is What He Thinks He Doesn't Want."

"What are you up to now, twenty-pounders?" Charisse sounded bored; her question sounded rote. Her sigh sounded truly martyred.

"Twenty-five," Sean said, in a voice an octave lower than his normal speaking range. "How d'ya like your strong-man now?" He smiled, flexing, but it turned into a grimace as his strained muscle fibers protested.

"Hot," Charisse said, looking back down at her magazine. "Missy, what do you think of your big buff daddy? Like Superman."

There was a long pause, as Sean inspected a sculpted quadricep in front of the mirrored basement wall. Charisse stopped reading, though she didn't look up, as Missy straightened in preparation to deliver an irrefutable pronouncement.

"Daddy, you have man-boobies," Missy said, and laughed hysterically.
***

This week's piece was inspired by daddy's dumbbells by Flickr user fadedmilkyway. I think I might be spending too much time at the gym... Check for more Flickr Fiction on the sites of The Gurrier, Isobel, Elimare, Chris, Mina, TadMack, Linus, and new members Neil, Valsha, and Dermot, who's still getting set up.