'I mean, I expected him to come on to Kitty. Everybody does. She takes offence if they don't, frankly. And if the guy is good-looking enough, she'll usually grant her favours. Lincoln is good-looking enough. And that's all I'm going to say.'
'Message received and understood,' I told her. 'But if Kitty likes him . . . why does she want another gym?'
'Oh, that's not her – it's me. He came on to me, straight after. I mean, what is that about? I don't care if he's Adonis himself, I don't want to shag him.'
'You don't? Well, that's fair enough. I think he can take no for an answer.'
But then I had to rethink. Actually, can he? Has he ever? Has anyone ever rejected his advances?
'I'm not sure he can,' Kat echoed my inner voice. 'He seems like a guy who has never had to work for it in his life. And I can see why – he has the six-pack and the lunchbox; he only needs a tartan groundsheet to be the perfect picnic set.'
Ah, a meadow of wildflowers, a bottle of champagne and Lincoln . . . I drifted off for a moment, brought back by Kat's clicking fingers.
'Tell you what,' she said. 'Could you have a word with him? Tell him he's welcome to Kitty, as long as she can still totter on to the set, but he can lay off me. I'm not interested and I'm not worth it. Would you do that for me? And then I can go back to the gym.'
'OK,' I said. 'I'll try.'
And I did. I did try. But Lincoln did not believe me. He a
ccused me of jealousy in the first instance and then he decided to see it as a challenge.
'Link, she doesn't want you,' I said, gesturing wildly in my frustration. 'Move on. She isn't even your type.'
'She is my type,' he insisted bullishly. 'And if she wants to play hard-to-get, I can do that.'
I shook my head. 'I don't fancy your chances,' I said frankly. 'Sexual harassment isn't attractive.'
'That's pretty funny coming from you,' he said rudely, leaving me to gasp and slam my clipboard on the desk as he strutted off. I shrugged. He would learn, one way or the other. Either that he was truly irresistible, or that he wasn't. I was rather hoping for the latter.
Kitty and Kat were booked in for six weeks, and over the course of that time, something happened to Lincoln. He de-swaggered, unpreened, lost a few peacock feathers. Everybody noticed it, but nobody knew what was causing this decline. Nobody except Kat, who told me the whole story later.
On the day after their Induction, Kitty and Kat visited the gym together before breakfast. Lincoln well understood the maxim that the early bird catches the worm, so even at six thirty he was presiding magnificently over his domain.
Kat made an unobtrusive start on a treadmill, while Kitty fussed and flustered over the settings on her static cycle. 'Oh, Lincoln,' she cooed helplessly. 'I don't understand the digital thingy. Can you help me?'
Kitty's firm thighs and calves still ached from the wheelbarrow-style banging Lincoln had given her the day before. The cycle saddle was unforgiving on her sore quim, but there was no way she was equal to running or stepping, so it seemed the lesser evil. When Lincoln bent to adjust the setting, Kitty's trainer toe glided up the back of his track-suited calf, coming to rest in the crease at the back of his knee.
'Thanks, big boy,' she simpered. Kat looked on in mild disgust. 'Big boy' indeed. Who did Kitty think she was, Marilyn Monroe? Actually, she probably did. Her blondeness might not be real, but her dizziness certainly was.
Lincoln, far from joining in with Kitty's flirtatious game, stood up stiffly and said, 'No problem,' before retiring into his office. Kat watched her comedy partner's face drop and felt a stab of sympathy. Lincoln was a louse, perhaps even a louse with a spouse. Shame Kitty hadn't managed to squeeze a diamond or two from him before finding out.
'Are you OK, Kit?' she asked, a touch puffily, from the treadmill.
'Fine,' said Kitty, the untruth of it almost tangible.
'We can use another gym if you like.'
'Don't fuss! It's nothing!' Kitty began to pedal maniacally. Kat sighed and returned to her pounding rhythm. Lincoln, she perceived after a minute or two, was watching her from the doorway. Watching her. Not watching Kitty's tight glutes as they strained on the exercycle, but her strapping thighs as they wobbled in a smart run. Not watching Kitty's becoming flush, but her patchy sweaty cheeks. Not admiring Kitty's second Lycra skin, but her baggy Editors tour T-shirt and fading trackie bottoms. What would a man like Lincoln want with a girl like Kat?
Kat was no idiot, and she worked out somewhere between his hint of a smile and his almost-wink that what he wanted was the conquest – it was nothing to do with her at all.
Well, he would not have it, she vowed. No amount of cheeky glints or sly touches or insincere flattery was going to land her on Lincoln's exercise mats.
'Let me help you with those weights, baby,' he rumbled.
'Your leg needs to be a bit further back, baby, let me show you,' he advised, closing his grip on Kat's thigh.
'Boy, your shoulders need unknotting,' he opined, placing heavy hands at the back of her neck.