Warm Up

“Adrienne, you bitch, I hate you,” I complained to the cheerful brunette woman in the YouTube video who was currently encouraging me to stay just a few more seconds in a particularly ab-shaking variation of Chair Pose. 

My spouse, Lou, on the exercise bike cocked an eyebrow. “You’re really selling me on yoga there…” 

“No, it’s ok, swearing is part of my flow. It’s great, I promise!” Following the teacher’s much smoother movements in the video, I straightened my knees and lifted my arms over my head. The resulting backbend lit up my pectoral muscles deliciously, counter-stretching my poor hunched office-worker shoulders. It was not always easy to convince myself to come to the mat after a long day, but I seldom regretted it once I was there. Between the cute workout outfits I bribed myself with, the way it stoked the sexual tension with Lou, and the sheer pleasure of moving my body, I typically ended a yoga session relaxed, glowing… and horny. 

The next step in the flow, I knew, was forward fold. This was one of my favorite poses, and I showed off a little, touching my nose all the way to my legs. I luxuriated in the way it made my hamstrings burn, and how it demonstrated how flexible I had become since starting to practice again a few months ago. 

It had started as a New Year’s resolution. Lou and I had both wanted to feel better in our bodies, stronger and capable of doing more. We had originally met through dance, and those sexy hip undulations that came so naturally to our 20-something bodies were feeling a lot more jerky after two years without our regular Wednesday night dance class. Sex was part of it too—we were still all over each other after six years together and some rounding and spreading, but I wanted to be able to ride him without my knees screaming at me, and he wanted to be able to fuck me long and hard without getting winded. Four months in, we were still mostly successful at convincing each other to put on our workout clothes and go down to the basement room that had become our home gym, five nights a week at 9 pm. I was surprised by how well accountability to my partner worked for me as an exercise incentive, after years of feeling guilty about not using the gym membership I paid for, or keeping up with a trainer’s homework in between sessions. Knowing that he was down there waiting for me, that his eyes would be on me the whole time, even that he would be looking down at me from the higher vantage point of the exercise bike to the sometimes-vulnerable feeling floor poses of yoga, made it feel like more than just exercise. 

“Plant your hands… step one leg back and then the other to enter Plank Pose… then flow through the bottom of a push-up and further into Upward Facing Dog…move with your breath…” I knew this flow by heart now. I was close to having the strength to flow in the way I found most sensual, my breasts skimming the earth and the rest of my body holding a hair’s breadth off the mat, then pushing my chest out in the backbend of Up Dog, pressing my groin into the earth. As I did, I imagined Lou beneath me, spread open to receive my strap-on. We hadn’t done that in quite a while. Maybe soon I’d have the stamina. 

Next, the video had me push back onto all fours, and down into Puppy Pose, propped on my elbows with my butt in the air. I waggled my butt gently, sneaking a glance over to Lou and catching him staring at me hungrily. It was the position he had fucked me in this morning and I wondered if the memory was front of mind for him the way it was for me. I let out a soft satisfied moan for good measure. 

“Ok, now I think I have to try this,” said Lou. “You look like you’re having way more fun than me.”  

“I think I’m up for another video, this one was short and I’m feeling game for a challenge.” He nodded. And then of course, since I grew excited for Lou to join me, the current video felt like it took forever to end. I was suddenly, weirdly, nervous. What would happen if it turned out that he hated yoga? Would the spell be broken, would he no longer find it sexy to watch me? Or worse: what if he was immediately much better at it than I was? Even though Lou regularly bemoaned his lack of arm strength, he could carry more groceries than me. All through the end of the video, with its Bridge Poses and Happy Baby and other groin-centric floorwork, I was extra aware of my body, both where I was tense and where I was turned on. 

I let the video play through the jarringly loud Target ad and automatically start the next one in Adrienne’s playlist. Lou rolled out a mat and joined me. Adrienne had us doing Lion’s Breath from a kneeling seat, with our hands backwards on the mat. The depth of the stretch distracted us from how silly we must have looked; it felt necessary to take those deep breaths in through the nose and then pant them out noisily. I could tell from Lou’s loud sighs that he was also going for it all the way. Neither of us are loud lovers, though I sometimes wished I was— my quietness felt like one of the many ways I had conformed to social conventions when it came to my sexuality. I remembered how much I enjoyed the playfulness of yoga, the way so many of the poses drew on animal movements or babyhood, before we started worrying about looking “cool.” I let the exhaled breath rasp in my throat, as powerfully as I could. 

I shouldn’t have worried that Lou would show me up. In fact, watching him wobble from setting his feet too narrowly in Warrior Pose made me realize how far I had come. My shapes weren’t as perfect as the instructor’s, but several months of practice had given me stability and knowledge about what worked for my body in the poses. My nemesis Chair Pose came back around in this video as well, and I shocked myself with how deeply I could sink, how I could even balance on my toes for the first time. It was Lou’s turn to swear good-naturedly at Adrienne as he fell out of the pose again and again. I probably shouldn’t have felt satisfied when Lou switched to knees-down planks halfway through and I was able to keep going with full planks. I had never been anyone other than the person using the most modifications in a yoga class before. I felt strong. 

We finished on our backs, in a supine twist, arms outstretched. One of us got the direction wrong, so we ended up looking into each other’s eyes. Our mats were too close together and our fingertips brushed, but neither of us re-adjusted. I watched the rise and fall of Lou’s chest and felt that his heavy breathing wasn’t just from the exertion. 

My soft breasts were nearly falling out of my crop top in that position. I briefly regretted not testing it more thoroughly and in more positions before deciding to keep it. Oh well.. next time I was in a real gym I might make different wardrobe choices, but here it was a feature as much as a bug.

The loud Target ad broke the moment and I got up to turn it off. Lou didn’t move, so after turning off the video I straddled him playfully and leaned down to murmur in his ear. “How are you feeling?” 

He groaned. “That was hard! I’m going to be so sore tomorrow.” But I could feel his cock hardening, pressing against my thigh through his thin joggers—I could tell he wasn’t that tired. 

“You did work hard, baby,” I cooed, rubbing his chest. “All that yoga, and the exercise bike too! You’re probably too tired to have sex…” 

“I didn’t say that,” he protested. 

“Ok,” I challenged him. “Throw me off.” I caught his wrists above his head, gripped them in one hand, and used the other hand to grip his chin while I kissed him. He wriggled against my pinning hands, not really trying to shift me. I outweighed him and it wasn’t a guarantee that he would be able to throw me off, tired as he was. But we both enjoyed these switchy games and I was looking for him to try. I squeezed my thighs. “So weak! You’re going to have to do so much yoga to catch up with me.” 

“You’re very strong,” he agreed. “The yoga is working. But… how are your knees doing?” 

He knew my weak points so well.  My knees were definitely going to be the thing that tired first in this position, though I was okay for now. “Shhh,” I admonished, pressing a finger to his lips. He took it gently in his mouth and sucked. The wetness of his mouth made me shiver with desire. At his next halfhearted struggle, I rolled off him, and he picked up on the cue and rolled with me. With him kneeling between my legs, we stripped off my leggings and underwear; my abs protested briefly at having to do more work. He started gently kissing my bare stomach, moving slowly down to the crease of my hips and lightly stroking my thighs in the way he knew I needed to warm me up for oral sex. Something about having someone’s head so close to my pussy triggers my tickle reflex so easily. I was already very turned on, though, so it didn’t take much for me to relax into his touch. The cool air of the basement, combined with his hot breath, rolled across my sweaty skin in waves of sensation. 

He kept up the teasing kisses on my belly and thighs until I ached with desire, waiting for me to ask for more— or demand it like the bossy bitch I was pretending to be. I love the way he responds to my "demands" in bed with the same humble eagerness and solemn responsibility that he brings to so much of our relationship. I was taking it slow on introducing him to kink so that he didn’t feel pressured or inadequate in the face of my greater experience, but he continually surprised me with how eagerly he took to it. 

"I want your mouth on me," I said firmly, taking hold of his hair for emphasis. He let me push his head down and took a long slow lick of my pussy, mindful of how I liked it. Slow, wet, enveloping, firm but not forceful— I was exacting when it came to how I wanted my pussy eaten, and he had learned his lessons well. As his tongue stroked my clit, his hands wrapped around my body, wanting to be as entwined with me as possible. When he had me dripping wet and relaxed, he shifted up to his knees to dip one finger inside me, then two, and squeeze one of my breasts with his other hand. It can’t have been comfortable on his abs given the workout we had just done. I imagined him bearing the pain for me, a reminder that our commitment to movement and fitness was in no small part so that we could have longer, better, wilder sex like this. 

Unbidden, a fantasy popped into my head. What if we were doing this at a real gym? I had always hated the feeling of being watched and judged at gyms, as a not particularly fit person who didn’t have a good grasp on the unspoken social rules of gyms. But suddenly it was unbearably erotic to picture myself being eaten out in the middle of the evening rush. Some people stopped their own workouts to watch and some seemed not to notice us at all, but no one tried to stop us. Gradually, the other gym-goers in the fantasy started to make out with each other, and the erotic energy built until we were surrounded by couples fucking on every available surface. 

No doubt he felt the orgasm rip through me, the convulsions around his finger. He slowly withdrew it and stretched out on top of me. We kissed and I tasted myself on his lips. 

“Bed?” he suggested.

“Oof, yes…if I can get myself off this floor!” 

Photo by Anna Shvets