I See You (Patreon)

She was sitting on the bench between sets, sweat running down her arms, when she looked up at the mirror and caught him again.

Same guy. Third machine in a row.

The pretend stretch. The phone held at that weird angle nobody actually texts at. The casual glance that lasted about four seconds too long. She had seen it all before. She saw it every single day.

The thing people never understood about her was that she noticed everything. Those green eyes missed nothing. The mirror worked both ways, and she spent half her workout facing it. She watched them watching her, every time, and most of them had no idea.

It wasn’t the looking that bothered her. She had earned every inch of muscle on her body, and she knew what she looked like. The freckles across her nose, the veins running down her forearms, the shoulders that stretched the seams of her sports bra. She had built all of it on purpose. If people wanted to look, fine. She got it.

But the sneaking around? That was the part that made her jaw tighten.

The worst ones pretended they were filming themselves. She would watch them in the mirror, phone pointed squarely in her direction, and think: Sir, your camera is facing the wrong way. It happened so often it had become almost funny. Almost.

She remembered the guy who followed her to three different machines once. Three. Leg press to cable rows to the squat rack. That was not a coincidence. That was a route. She had stared him down in the mirror until he finally got the message and wandered off to the water fountain, where he stayed for an uncomfortable amount of time.

She flexed her bicep, watching the peak rise in the mirror, and thought about what she would say if she could just be honest with all of them at once.

If you want a picture, ask. I will say yes. I will even flex for you. It is the sneaking around that is embarrassing, and not for me.

She picked up the dumbbell again and started her next set. The guy with the phone had moved on to pretending he was reading something on the wall.

She smiled to herself, just a little.

I can see you. I can always see you. And I can definitely catch you.

Want to see more exclusive content? Upgrade to Alpha for our most private and uncensored posts.