#TripleX (14 page)

“Sure. It’s stretching right? How hard could that be?” she asked with an excited gleam in her eye.

We were really going to do it! We were taking back control of our lives and doing healthy things!

We registered for a class. Then we both sat on the bench with our rented neon pink yoga mats and waited eagerly, just outside the class until the doors opened. When they did open, we bounced in like two giddy cherubs. The strange thing was that I felt thinner already by just being there.

The room filled. There were three people who were bigger than Angelisa and I. I looked over at my new calorie-deprived partner and smiled smugly.

We got this
.

We each took a spot. The regulars snapped and snarled when we stood in their places, and we ended up dancing around like two idiots until we found two empty areas somewhere in the middle of the class. And wouldn’t you know it, we ended up behind the two gorgeous ambulance drivers, who were bare chested and wearing tight-ass hugging shorts. I winked at Ang.
This was going to be fun
.

A sudden gush of fiery, hot air blasted into the room through the vents. It sounded like the room was going to blast off. The smell was questionably toxic. For a second, my heart thudded erratically in my chest.

Did hot yoga mean
hot
yoga?

My face was quickly consumed with sticky, sweet-smelling air that rivaled the humidity of the freaking Amazon. Instantly, I wasn’t so sure about this genius plan anymore. I’m a true believer in the air conditioner—something I never viewed as a luxury, but more of a necessity than a sink or a toilet. I couldn’t live without an air conditioner. I’d figure something out without a toilet or a sink. I’m pretty resourceful and creative.

A bubbly sprite of a pixie bounced in. She was approximately the size of my eight-year-old and looked strangely like Madonna.

The temperature rose.

“Good morning class,” the pixie cooed in a soothing voice. “Your time here on your mat, your inner sanctuary, is for you and you alone. Let go of all your burdens and troubles.”

You got a locker for those, lady? I’d love to leave some of those here.

Yoga Pixie began the class with deep breathing exercises. We stood still, legs shoulder-width apart, and breathed in deeply through our noses and exhaled through our mouths. Easy. Hell, I could do this all day.

Ang and I peeked glances at each other and choked on giggles. The little pixie sprite ignored our interruptions.

The temperature continued to rise.

The muscles of the man’s back in front of me were distracting. I looked over at Ang and made a panting face at her in the guy’s direction. We laughed so loudly that Gorgeous Man glanced at us over his shoulder and sneered.

Ang burst out laughing even louder.

“Shush up,” I giggled, madly.

“No you shush up,” she snorted back.

Yoga Sprite instantly morphed into drill sergeant from Hell and smacked a fucking stick whip at us, roaring. I swore her eyes started glowing and her head spun around—in full out
Exorcist
-style. I thought yoga instructors were evolved and calm. Weren’t they supposed to be all Zen and “above it all?” Not this one. She must’ve skipped that class and audited Contortionist 101.

Welcome to Hell.

While moving into the Half Moon Pose, I sprouted a sloppy, sweat moustache, and my sleeves were sticking to my armpits. Something was wrong with the vents. It smelled like someone just cracked open a can of tuna. It was so damn hot, and the thermostat continued to creep up in temperature.

I tried to focus on the Gorgeous Guy’s back muscles. Tried to visualize, take myself out of the situation, but my brain was literally being baked. It was short-circuiting, going haywire, and praying for a fast death. Gorgeous Guy’s chest was glistening, and his muscles taut, but no, that wasn’t reality. He was sweating. I could smell the sweat from his ass, and it was the most horrible thing I have ever whiffed in my life.

The first person to create this sort of class was a sadistic sociopath, with questionable social skills. Whoever he or she was should be cooked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, right along with the Gingerbread Man. God, I loved ginger cookies. I would’ve killed for one right then. Hell, I would’ve killed Angelisa with my bare feet if someone just gave me the leg of a gingerbread cookie.

I glanced back up at Gorgeous Guy and immediately thought about the phrase I’d seen in so many books:
I wanted to lick the sweat off his glistening six pack
. I gagged out loud. Too loudly. Heads turned. Faces contorted in concern and strain.

It was a horrible moment. One where the instructor walked up to me to see if I was okay, while I stood there heaving, you know those deep stomach muscle heaves that you can’t control, hot flashes, tears stinging your eyes, all because of this guy’s sweaty ass.

Finally, we switched again. This time we moved into Eagle Pose. Was she fricken kidding me? Show me one—just one—eagle who could pull that off. Now it was my ass that was sweating. I wasn’t just smelling the other inhabitants in the room, I could taste them too. Their flavor permeated my tongue, forcing me to swallow down their sweaty, stretching presence.

I peeked another glance at Ang who had mascara and foundation dripping horrifyingly down her face. Why the Hell had she put makeup on to go work out? I cringed and flinched back, losing my balance and fell. Angelisa fell along beside me. I had the sneakiest suspicion she threw herself down just to take a rest.

Yoga Nazi stormed over and hissed curses I’ve never heard before into my face. I could barely hear them or see her, the black spots and blurry vision blocked her out. “There’s no talking in class,” Yoga Nazi screeched.

“Dude, you need to go re-Zen yourself or something,” Angelisa moaned, face-down into her mat.

Yoga Nazi was going to kill us all in there.

It had to be 200 degrees in the room. I had a horrible case of swamp tit, and there was unidentifiable liquid dripping down my back. I mean, the essential juices my body needed were leaking out of me. I began crying. My hair stuck to my face.

For five minutes, I squatted in a strange sexual position I once tried in college.
I hate yoga
. The smell of burnt burritos with lemon filled the air and seeped into my nostrils. I focused on trying not to die. At least, I thought I did. Or else, maybe I was dead, because this heat quite resembled what I’d heard Hell would be like.

“There is no leaving the room!” Yoga Nazi snapped. “You must fight through this.”

When I attempted to move into Full Locust Pose, sweat was stinging my eyeballs, and my throat was on fire. I couldn’t possibly contort my body into such a position. I glanced over at Angelisa and saw her eyes close as she began to fall asleep on her matt.

I was so thirsty I grabbed my neighbor’s bottle of water and gulped down the entire contents of it. “Hey that’s my—”

“I will cut you, bitch!” I hissed, licking the water that dripped on the outside of the bottle.

I would probably go straight to Hell—if I weren’t already there—but I couldn’t think straight. I had body parts twisted into other body parts, and I was expected to hold them there.

Bending over, slippery slide-y, the woman behind me stared at my butt and winked. She was slightly glistening with a sparkling sheen of sweat. I despised her instantly, but if she would’ve offered me her water bottle, I would have switched teams that instant—no questions asked.

Averting my eyes, I glanced down and noticed that my t-shirt was now fully transparent with sweat. Nudging Angelisa awake, I noticed that she suffered the same fate. Fortunately for her, her bra was satin and lace. Mine wasn’t.

I plotted my escape, but couldn’t think a straight line of linear thought, due to the minor fact that I WAS DYING. Forgive me, but I prayed that God would make Angelisa pass out before me.

Or the chick with the pig tails. Pig tails? She’d be a fine choice. She could nosedive into her mat. The distraction would give me an out, a getaway.

Yoga Nazi called out some other stupid pose, and I watched in terror as everyone lowered themselves into some sick psychotic torture position that looked like a half-assed pushup. My clothes were so wet they melted into my skin. A strange white noise buzzed past my ears.
It might have been my brain exploding.

Somebody ripped ass. It resembled the scent of charred Twinkies from the night before (or I was teetering in and out of reality). I dry heaved again. My banana breakfast burned at the back of my throat, threatening to make a reappearance.

Yoga Nazi kept her hands on Ang and I, adjusting all of our mistakes and sighing heavily. There was no deep breathing for either of us, just panting, wheezing and groaning in pain. Some definite, unmistakable sobbing.

“I. Will. Kill. You. For. This,” Angelisa grunted out next to me. She was dry heaving along side of me. We were now
inside
the Twinkie fart.
This was what Hell on Earth was
. I was sure of it.

Suddenly, I was delirious and laughed so heartily that my slimy, sweaty palms slid out from underneath me, and I face-planted straight into the yoga mat. The reprieve of relaxation was glorious. Moisture was fogging up my glasses. I was blinded. It was quite certainly the sixth ring of hell. I was Dante trapped in the flaming tombs. Whose fucking idea was this? This was the worst thing I’d ever been through. I was literally slipping and sliding in my own sweat and tears. I began sobbing for no apparent reason, other than it was just too hard.

“Your body is pushing you right out of your comfort zone. It is confronting you with yourself and your limitations. Just let go.” I could have sworn the Angel of Death, the Grim Reaper himself, was hovering at the exit waiting for me to drop. He was pointing his finger at me, giving me the “come hither” gesture.

The dude to the left of me was having a wardrobe malfunction, and I discovered his true ginger status.

With a soft, delicate “Namaste,” Yoga Nazi morphed back into Yoga Pixie and ended the class. I hurled my empty stolen bottle of water at her head. It missed her by a mile, as I couldn’t lift my arms. I army-crawled my super-saturated ass to the door.

“Air,” Ang croaked next to me. “Need. Air.”

Flushed, splotchy, with hives all over, coupled with body tingles, Ang and I collapsed into a heap of sweat and mess in the doorway. Both of us jelly-like and utterly traumatized. People stepped over us—unfazed by our near-death experience.

After we finally made our way to the door, we were accosted by two ladies in their mid-to-late seventies. “Girls, we’re really proud of you for being here today,” the first Golden Girl said.

“Yes dearies, we are. There are so many morbidly obese women out there who don’t care about their roly-poly bellies and large behinds,” the second Golden Girl spouted excitedly. “We watched you two in there, just panting and puffing, but working your rears off. You keep it up. Remember, ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.’ That’s what I always say.”

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels? Screw that. How about a cheeseburger? My grandmother’s homemade lasagna? Slow cooked ribs drenched in homemade BBQ sauce?
I tilted my head and looked past the two old ladies to where the shrouded figure of the Grim Reaper still lingered. The specter watched our exchange with the ladies and leaning forward he licked a forked tongue out across the darkened hallows of his hidden face. Damn,
he must make Mrs. Reaper a happy soul taker
.

I offered him a wink.
I mean, come on, how old could these two bats be? They had to be hovering somewhere around 103 each, who the heck wants to live that long, right?
Besides, I figured with everyone living so long these days, Death could use a few new clients.

The long dark, shadowy robes of the apparition floated closer to us. An icy chill fell over our sweat-soaked skin, bringing relief.

“
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, huh?
” A raspy whisper hissed out as the Angel of Death lifted the folds of his robe and stood large behind the women. Instantly, the pallor of their skin turned slowly into a sickly gray paleness. The cloudy color of their eyes webbed over with streams of reddening blood vessels that crawled and clumped together. The now transparent skin of their cheeks sunk in, hollowing, and crumpled like old parchment left in the sun until nothing but their skulls and ash remained. The dry skeletal remains collapsed in a dusty heap of bones and flowery old lady yoga clothes. The smell of stale Bengay drifted up from the rubble and tingled at my nose.

“You okay, dearie?” One of the old ladies asked. “You might want to go hydrate yourself.” I blinked my eyes slowly and focused them back into reality. I needed a cupcake.

“Yep. We’re going to go hydrate,” Ang snapped and grabbed my arm, pulling me into the gym lobby. The cool air-conditioned air rippled a million goose bumps across my flesh. I stumbled along after her to the exit.

Without a word to each other, we limped our broken bodies across the street back toward the hotel. We both fell face-first into the outside pool and floated in its coolness.

Neither of us could talk about the event.

I think we’re scarred for life
.

“We are going out tonight,” I finally said after hours of floating and swimming in the pool, fully clothed.

“Can we drink on this diet?”

“Tonight, let’s just drink our caloric intake.”