Gina wafted her hand in front of her shining face. The mercury in the office thermometer had risen past the eighty-five degrees mark and even with all the windows wide open the room was completely airless.
It was 1976 and the summer sun had been beating down relentlessly for days now.
The only good thing that Gina could see was, that as it was Friday, the office closed at three-thirty rather than five as during the previous four days.
She looked at her watch.
“Thank goodness,” she thought, “Ten minutes to go.”
Gina worked in an insurance office in the city, London, and as a manager she was expected to dress appropriately so here she was in a smart grey pencil skirt and white cotton blouse, flesh coloured tights and black court shoes, sweltering in this abnormal heat!
On the dot of three-thirty, she said good-bye to her clerks, wishing them a good weekend, grabbed her matching grey jacket from the stand behind her desk then locked up the office and headed for the bus stop.
She wasn't going home though.
At forty-three years old, Gina was painfully aware that she needed to exercise to maintain her athletic figure.
She had no husband or boyfriend and lived alone in a flat in the south of the city.
Over the years she had discovered she had an intense dislike for the male of the species. All the men she had ever known had been shallow or just not up to her standards.
She had dated men who wanted only sex, thinking they could treat her as a plaything, to come and go as it suited.
She dated men who wanted too much from her, to marry her or just to live with her but they were weak and she soon tired of them. Worse still, she had dated men who failed to stimulate her intellectually which was soul destroying and so, for now, she remained alone, choosing those who interested her only to discard them when she'd had her fill of them.
After only a minute or two, in the sweltering sunlight, a bus rounded the corner and stopped in front of her.
She followed the queue of people as they stepped up onto the platform at the rear and on up the stairs to the top deck, hoping there would be a seat at the front because there would some air through the open window vents.
******
Terry couldn't bear this oppressive heat.
He was overweight, he knew that but really didn't care, he enjoyed his beer too much to worry about inconsequential things like clogged arteries and obesity, whatever the hell that meant. Besides, thirty cigarettes a day would help keep the weight off.
Anyway, he was still young, just twenty-two, he had plenty of time before he needed to worry about such things.
He worked on a building site as a brick layer and he reasoned that although he was somewhat large at Twenty Stones, it was all muscle from running up and down the scaffolding all day!
From his vantage point high above the street below, he could see into the windows of the gymnasium and lusted after the few women who used the apparatus within.
They were young and fit with toned bodies, just how he liked them. One day, he thought, he would have one of them. All he needed to do was pluck up the courage to ask.
When they saw his muscles he knew they would never refuse.
In the meantime though he contented himself with just watching and imagining what he would do with them if ever...
The building work was going very slowly today, the heat meant everyone would keep stopping to rest and the intense sun made the metalwork hot and caused problems with some of the materials so they would have to work until at least five to try to catch up. No early finish for the weekend this time!
From half way up the scaffolding, three stories up, Terry saw the double-decker bus squeal to a halt at the stop in front of the Gymnasium and disgorge some half a dozen passengers, the last of which he could not tear his eyes away from! She was stunning!
He couldn't be sure but from behind, judging by the self-assured way that she walked and the incredibly smart and, to him, sexy grey business suit, he guessed she was somewhat older than the girls that he usually liked to spy on.
He wolf whistled as loudly as he could as the bus moved away.
Did she pause just then? Had she actually heard him? If she did, she made no effort to see where the sound was from and, with her large bag over her shoulder, disappeared through the doorway into the Gym.
******
Gina was disappointed that the air inside the bus was still and stifling, even with every available window open. The air that came through the narrow openings was too hot to make any difference and besides, the traffic was so heavy that the bus barely got above ten miles per hour!
Twenty-five minutes later, her neck and back soaking with perspiration, she descended the stairs and pressed the little red button at the bottom. She heard the bell in the drivers cab ping once, the signal for him to stop and let her off at the next stop.
She was glad that she kept her hair short in a pixie style, long hair would have been unbearable in this heat.
A few passengers from the lower saloon got off before her and as she was the last to step down to the kerb, the conductor pressed the red button twice to inform the driver it was safe to move away.
The bus moved off but Gina froze, stopped for just a second, cringing angrily as she heard the familiar sound of a wolf whistle from the building site across the road.
“Damned builders!” she thought angrily, “Bunch of sweaty pigs! They really think that impresses me?”
She swung her large handbag over her shoulder and stepped through the door of the Gymnasium.
It took only a few moments to walk quickly up the four flights of stairs to the second floor, where the ladies changing rooms were located and she found an empty cubicle.
After placing her shoulder bag on the bench therein she took out a suit hanger and hung it from one of the coat hooks on the wall.
She would be so glad to get out of these crumpled work clothes and she twisted the waistband of her skirt so that she could more easily reach the button and zipper which she quickly unfastened.
Having stepped out of it she hung it on the hanger and then added her jacket to it.
With a huge sigh of relief she pushed her tights down over her hips and then sat down beside her bag to remove them from her legs.
Feeling the air around her flesh was so refreshing after several hours at her desk, even if it was warm air.
Reaching behind her she unfastened the clasps of her bra, not that she really needed one and as she shucked it from her shoulders she felt a trickle of perspiration run down between her small but still perfectly firm breasts, breasts that had never been suckled and a body that had never been ravished by motherhood.
Gina didn't have a maternal bone in her body so she had never been concerned that she didn't have children. Her life was for her to live and no man or child was going to get in the way of that.
She smiled, looking at her toned body in the mirror. She was careful not to exercise so much that she looked like a body builder but there wasn't an ounce fat on her svelte body.
Slowly she removed the last remaining item, her pants, and stepped out of them.
Her dark pubic hair was trimmed neatly and not for any other reason than she wanted to be neat and tidy.
She had seen other women in changing rooms and showers who's sex looked like an overgrown hanging basket and even if no-one ever saw it, she swore she would never allow hers to look like that.
With a towel that she had brought with her she wiped the thin layer of perspiration from her body and took out her leotard, stepped into it and pulled it up over her body, slipping her arms into each of the short sleeves and then made some minor adjustments to get rid of any creases. The one thing that she hated when working out was being uncomfortable.
She pulled on a pair of ankle socks and then her trainers and finally she was ready.
With her belongings locked securely in a locker and the key on a thick rubber band around her wrist, she made her way into the Gym and headed immediately for the weights machine.
It was one of those huge contraptions that more resembled a medieval instrument of torture than an aid to a healthy body.
It had a stack of iron weights attached to a large handle like bar with a system of cables and pulleys which the user would set with a pin to move only the number of weights required.
Having set the pins to a low weight, she lay back upon the thin, leather upholstered bench and gripped the shiny chromium plated bar above her face and pushed up for the first time.
******
On the scaffolding, Terry laid another brick and tapped it into place with the handle of his trowel.
Once satisfied he wiped the excessive moisture from his forehead with the back of his dirty glove.
He was sick of the sweat literally running into his eyes and dripping from his nose. His tee shirt was clinging to his round belly and riding up to expose the rolls of fat beneath.
For a moment, he glanced across to the windows of the Gym opposite and gasped.
It was her! The gorgeous woman from the bus!
He sat back and leaned against one of the upright poles of the scaffolding, totally absorbed by the view through the window.
She had obviously changed from her business suit but it was her, he was sure, her distinctive short hair being what convinced him.
She wore a pink skin tight leotard now which clung to every inch of her body and he could clearly see the tiny points of her nipples protruding from the almost non existent bumps that were her breasts.
He began to feel that familiar stirring in his loins as he watched her pushing up against the resistance of the weights and he watched in awe as her chest rose and fell with each push up.
The excitement became even stronger when he realised that he could just make out the outline of her mound and pussy through the stretched elasticated fabric as she lay with her legs either side of the bench, accentuating the sharply defined tendons and muscles of her inner thighs.
His mind was in a blur, she wasn't young, that he could see but she was far more sexy than any woman he had ever met!
Almost unconsciously, his hand moved to his crotch and he began to massage his already stiff member.
“Oi, fat boy!”
Terry was dragged suddenly from his reverie by the shout from below.
“Come on, we're waitin' for yer!”
“Yeah, yeah, I'm comin'” he yelled back.
“Or at least, I would've been!” he thought as he took a final look at the beautiful unsuspecting woman across the road.
“What were yer doing up there?” his mate asked him once he had reached ground level.
“Pervin' as usual, no doubt,” another said with a sneer, “You ain't gonna get one them fit birds, Terry, they ain't gonna be interested in a fat sod like you!”
“Yeah, whatever!” Terry replied, pushing his mate good naturedly, “Like you're God's gift eh?”
“We 'avin' a pint?” one of the others asked to which a reply from within the group came,
“Bleedin' Friday, innit, what do you think?” and the small group of dirty, sweaty labourers walked noisily away.
******
Gina sat up one more time with the small, five pound weight held tightly against her chest, touched her raised knee with her elbow and lay back, flat along the bench.
That would do for now, she thought, an hour of weights, sit-ups, press-ups and step-ups in this heat was more than enough.
The perspiration was dripping from her, even her small towel was wet!
She looked at the big clock on the wall, almost five-thirty.
As was her usual routine she decided that she would go for a run, there was a large park just along the road and the trees there would offer some shelter from the sun. A few laps, a shower and then home to a glass of red wine... or two.
Returning to her locker she retrieved a pair of denim cut-off shorts and her water bottle from her bag and then filled it from the water fountain. It held two pints and she hoped that would be enough considering the heat so, just to be sure she took several large gulps and then topped it up before heading down the stairs and out onto the road.
She enjoyed running, enjoyed the freedom and the air around her. She loved the feeling of being fit and healthy and the solitude.
She also liked how people would look at her as she passed them, some smiling, some waving and some even saying 'good evening' to her but above all she felt alive, almost being able to see the blood pumping around her veins and arteries and the oxygen passing through her lungs.
She had only been running a few minutes when she saw a group of builders standing outside a public house, each with a pint in his hand and most, although not all with a cigarette.
Gina looked back, hoping to cross the road before she reached them but, at this time of day the traffic was too heavy and so she would have to use the Zebra crossing which was situated some distance beyond the Inn and directly opposite the park gates on the other side.
She knew what to expect from them, wolf whistles, crude comments, it always happened and she hated it but there was nothing she could do about it, a minor inconvenience that would soon be forgotten once she got to the park.
As she approached, sure enough the wolf whistles began and as soon as she was within ear shot, the comments.
“All right, Darlin'?”
“Blimey, you're fit!”
“Nice legs/tits/arse,” variably.
“Oh, Piss off!” she shouted without breaking her pace.
“Charmin'” she heard through the ribald laughter as the pack receded into the background.
Shortly afterwards she reached the crossing, ran across the road and continued into the shady park.
Where the sun had been beating down onto the open stretches of the tarmac path, the surface had actually melted and was sticking to her shoes.
