Max is returned and rides along to yoga

Lunch wouldn't end. You were still on Chloe, her bush scratching your face, her musk soaked into every fiber of your existence, her thick thighs squeezing you with every shift of her weight in the booth. Somewhere above you, people were eating breadsticks.

This was supposed to be Carrie. That was the whole point, her body, her skin, the woman you'd actually fantasized about being this close to. You weren't turned on.

The girls had moved on to a Netflix show, a juice cleanse, some yoga retreat in Tulum. You were stuck on Chloe's bush wondering how much longer this could possibly take.

You could hear Carrie laughing across the booth. Easy voice, light tone, selling the performance. You knew what was underneath the skirt because you'd been there twenty minutes ago, and the thought of her sitting bare on vinyl in a crowded restaurant, one wrong shift from giving the waiter a story he'd tell for the rest of his life, was doing more for you than it should have.

The check came. Finally. Jessica Venmo'd. Chloe tossed cash because apparently Venmo was a conspiracy. Carrie signed the receipt like her hand was on fire.

"Okay," Carrie said. "I need my thong back before I head to the studio."

My thong. You'd been called "it," "that thing," and now "my thong." Your name was Max. Nobody here remembered that.

"Already?" Chloe didn't move. "I barely got to break it in."

"Chloe, I have a three o'clock class. I'm not teaching yoga commando."

"Why not? Might loosen up your students."

"Chloe."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's just... it really does fit me better. Jess said so."

"I said the cut works with your hip ratio," Jessica said. "I didn't say you should keep it."

"Same thing."

"It's not even close to the same thing."

"Now, please. I'm going to be late."

Chloe hauled herself up and you felt the whole booth shift. "Fine. But for the record, my ass did more for that thong in one hour than yours will do all week."

"Actually, wait," Jessica said. "I want to see the rear silhouette in natural light. Restaurant lighting is useless for sand rose. Two seconds outside and I can tell you who the cut actually favors."

"Jess, it's a parking lot, not a runway."

"Exactly. Natural light doesn't lie. Come on. Two seconds."

You processed that. This woman wanted to take you outside. Into a parking lot. In daylight. On Chloe's bare ass. For a fashion evaluation. Of you. This was your life now.

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The heat hit you first. Whatever shade the restaurant had offered was gone, and the sun baked through the denim. You felt Chloe walking, sandals on pavement, and then she stopped.

She hiked her skirt and the world split open.

Parking lot. Sun. Asphalt. Carrie's white Civic wedged into a back corner. And you, on full display, on a woman's bare ass, in the middle of the afternoon. If anyone walked around that corner right now they'd see Chloe's entire situation and you'd be the centerpiece.

"Go ahead, Jess. Do your thing."

"Okay, I'll give credit where it's due," Jessica said. "The wider hip does anchor the waistband better. Less tension on the side straps. And the way the tanga frames the lower glute... Aubade designed this for a woman with actual mass in the seat. The scalloping follows the curve instead of fighting it."

"You hearing this, Carrie? 'Actual mass in the seat.' Nicest thing anyone's ever said about my ass."

She was talking about you. Evaluating your body like a piece of fabric. Which, to be fair, you were. But hearing someone describe the way you "framed a lower glute" while you were actively pressed against the lower glute in question was a new kind of out-of-body experience. Or in-body. Or on-body. You'd lost track of the preposition.

"But the mesh tension on Carrie's frame gives a completely different look," Jessica continued. "Tighter, cleaner, more architectural. Honestly? Different women, different thong. Aubade knew what they were doing. That's why it's a hundred fifty."

"Or because it's French and people are suckers," Chloe said.

"What are you doing?" Carrie asked.

"Durability check," Chloe said. "If it can handle a full squat on a thick girl, it can handle anything."

"Chloe, don't you dare, it's delicate—"

Chloe dropped.

Full. Ass-to-grass. Her thighs spread wide and her entire bodyweight drove down through her heels and everything you were made of compressed at once. You had approximately one half of one second to think oh no before her body answered a question you hadn't asked. The rear strap, your tongue, got dragged so deep between her cheeks that the coarse hairs around her anus flattened against you. And her sphincter, which had been clenched tight since she'd first pulled you on, just... opened. The squat **** it. Warm inner lining pressed directly against your fabric.

Every instinct you still owned fired at once. Gag. Spit. Retch. Scream. None of them connected to anything. You were a tongue with no throat. A mind with no muscles. And it was there. Shit. Actual shit, warm and slick and unmistakable, smeared across what used to be your tongue while a woman in sandals squatted over you in a restaurant parking lot.

You tried to scream. Nothing. Tried to gag. Nothing. The horror just bounced around inside you with nowhere to go.

The taste didn't fade. It settled. It stayed. And Chloe's body heat was baking it into the cotton. Setting it. Making it permanent.

By the time Chloe stood up, you'd stopped screaming internally. The horror hadn't passed. You'd just realized that no amount of screaming would move a single molecule off your tongue. This was what you tasted now. Add it to the list. Bush. Musk. Sweat. And now this. You were building quite the tasting menu down here.

"Holds up," Chloe announced. "Tell Aubade they can put that on the box — 'squat-tested by a thick bitch in a parking lot.'"

She pulled you off. The bush dragged across your mesh one last time on the way down, and then you were in the air, dangling from her fingers.

"Here." She handed you to Carrie. "Take care of her. She's been through a lot today." Then, to you: "You'll be back, baby."

Carrie took you. You felt her step in, her legs sliding through, smooth skin after an hour of bush and sweat and horror, and then she pulled you up and settled you against her body.

God.

God.

If a thong could cry, you'd have been sobbing. If a thong could get a boner, you'd have had that covered too. Her. Finally. After Chloe's bush and musk and weight and that taste, after all of it, Carrie's bare skin against your face felt like the first breath after drowning. This was what you'd turned yourself into a thong for. This exact feeling. Her body, her warmth, her pussy against your mesh, and nobody in the world knowing you were in here except the two of you.

But the smear came with you. It wasn't on Chloe's skin anymore. It was in the fabric. In you. And Carrie's body heat was pulling it right back up, same as Chloe's had. You were home, pressed against the woman you loved, and you were tasting another woman's shit. Both things at once. No way to separate them. Every fantasy you'd ever had about this moment was running on a loop in the back of your head. None of them had included the aftertaste.

Carrie pulled her skirt down, shut the door, and got in the car.

"See you guys later," she called through the window.

"Tell the housewives I said hi. Namaste or whatever."

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Carrie came in through the back and the temperature dropped. Cool air, eucalyptus, the muffled sound of a building with too many rooms. This was it. The studio. The place where she bent and stretched in front of strangers five days a week while you were at home definitely not thinking about it. Except for the part where you turned yourself into underwear to come watch.

She stopped and someone started talking to her. Receptionist voice. You didn't care. You were in a yoga studio, sealed against your girlfriend's pussy, and in about twenty minutes a room full of people were going to watch her bend over.

"Hey, Carrie! Full class today. I had to turn away two walk-ins."

"Seriously? On a Saturday? Did you put them on the waitlist?"

"Both of them."

"Perfect. Thanks, Megan."

Megan had no idea that the thong her boss was currently wearing had thoughts about the waitlist policy.

Then she was moving again, through a door, into somewhere smaller. You felt it close around you.

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She changed. The skirt came off and for about three seconds you could see — yourself in the mirror, dark with sweat, clinging to her like you were painted on. Jesus. That's what you looked like now. "If your mother could see you" crossed your mind, and you shut that thought down so fast it left skid marks.

Then the leggings went on and everything went black. The Lululemons sealed you in, her body heat pressing you flat, no air, no light, nothing but the taste of Chloe's smear getting worse in the warmth. Not that you had lungs to breathe with anyway. But the panic was real.

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You heard her setting up. Music, the crackle of her mat unrolling. Then people started coming in and you felt it somewhere around your waistband, which was apparently where your chest lived now. This irrational tightness, like jealousy preloading before there was anything to be jealous about. These people got to see her. Every week. In those leggings. And you'd never once thought about what that meant until right now. Two years of "how was yoga?" and "good, really good" and you'd never once pictured the room. You were picturing it now.

"Hey Carrie, love the new playlist—"

"Did you see that thing on Instagram—"

"Is the AC broken? It's like a—"

Then one voice that wasn't shouting into the room. "Hey, Carrie." Warm. Steady. Aimed at her like nobody else was there.

"Hey, Ryan. Good to see you. Feeling better after last week? You said your lower back was tight."

"Yeah, much better. Those piriformis stretches you recommended really helped."

"Great. We're going to do a lot of hip openers today, so that should feel good."

You told yourself it was nothing. A student. A greeting. She was a good teacher. Good teachers remember names. Class started and you tried to stop listening.

"Okay everyone," Carrie called out. "Mountain pose."

You couldn't see any of it. Just her body moving around you, pose after pose, and the knowledge that a room full of people were watching her do it. You'd turned yourself into underwear to get closer to her than anyone else ever could, and you had the worst seat in the house.

Then she folded forward, the leggings dipped, and your lace cleared the waistband.

You could see.

Light. A mirror on the back wall. And in it, the whole room.

A room full of people folded over their mats. And one guy who wasn't. Front row, right across from Carrie. Sandy brown hair. Lean build. Gray t-shirt. He wasn't looking at the floor like everybody else. He was looking straight at the lace peeking out of her leggings. At you. And this fucker was staring like it was a gift. Buddy, you have no idea what you're looking at. That lace used to be a guy who could bench your bodyweight.

Two seconds. Then Carrie straightened and you were blind again. But you'd seen enough. Front row. Eyes up. Staring at your girlfriend's ass.

After that you couldn't stop watching for the window. Every time Carrie folded forward, the leggings would dip and you'd get a flash of mirror. A few seconds, never more. And every single time, that same fucker was watching her. Every. Time. This wasn't casual. He knew exactly what he was doing. Which, honestly, took some nerve. You were right there. Not that he knew that. Not that it would've mattered.

Then it got worse. Or better. You still can't tell which.

Carrie folded down on her mat, stood up, and started walking the room. She bent to check on someone and the window opened.

He wasn't in his fold. He was leaning toward Carrie's mat, face close to the rubber, and you watched his chest expand with a slow, deliberate inhale.

He was smelling where your girlfriend's pussy had been.

Then Carrie straightened and the window closed.

Your first thought: that's mine. That's her. I know that smell from burying my face between her legs at two in the morning, and this guy is pulling it off a rubber mat like it's his to breathe.

Your second thought, right behind it: what would he do if he got the real thing?

You didn't like your second thought. But there it was.

But the jealousy wasn't alone. There was relief in there too, and that was the fucked up part. You'd spent all day telling yourself this had a point. Find the guy, figure it out, talk to Carrie about it later. But until now you'd had nothing. A guy who stared too much. That was it. That was your whole case.

And now you had Ryan, face down over your girlfriend's mat, breathing her in while she walked the room. That wasn't ambiguous. That wasn't your imagination.

This guy wanted your girlfriend.

And what scared you wasn't finding him. It was how fast your brain went from that's mine to what if she let him. You kept replaying the way she'd leaned into his body and taken her time about it. You weren't analyzing anymore. You were savoring it. Along with the shit on the your tongue.

The rest of class was noise. Then it was over.

One voice stayed. Of course it did.

"Hey, Carrie?" Like it had just occurred to him. Like he hadn't been timing his exit strategy since the first downward dog.

"What's up?"

"I wanted to ask you something. I've been working on opening my hips for weeks, and I've made progress, but I feel like there's a block that's not muscular? Like it's deeper. I've read that hip tightness can be emotional, stored trauma or whatever. Is that real, or is it just woo-woo stuff?"

Carrie put down whatever she was holding. You heard it hit the floor.

"It's real," she said, and you knew that voice. Not from the studio. From home. From two AM on the couch when she got going on something she actually cared about. You'd heard it a thousand times. Usually it was about fermentation or **** podcasts. Ryan was getting the premium version. "The psoas muscle connects directly to the fight-or-flight response. People hold tension there from stress, grief, all kinds of stuff. It's actually one of my favorite topics."

She kept going. He kept asking questions, and every one bought him another minute alone with her. Maybe he cared about the psoas muscle. Maybe he just wanted five more minutes with your girlfriend in an empty room. You couldn't see either of their faces. Figured.

"Anyway," Ryan said. "I'll try those yin poses you mentioned. Thanks for taking the time, Carrie. I really appreciate it."

Smooth. The guy was smooth. Gratitude, first name, eye contact probably. The whole package delivered like he'd been rehearsing it in the shower.

"Of course. That's what I'm here for. See you Thursday?"

"Wouldn't miss it."

Yeah, you thought. I bet you wouldn't.

He left. The door closed. Silence.

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Carrie walked to the back room. Door shut. You heard the mini-fridge, a water bottle cracking open. Then her thumbs hooked into the waistband and you felt the leggings start to pull down and your whole body went taut. Hope, maybe. Or dread. Or the fabric equivalent of holding your breath.

Light. Jesus Christ, light. After an hour of nothing you could suddenly see again and the first thing you saw was yourself in the mirror. Dark with sweat. Stained. You looked like evidence. Like something a forensic team would bag and tag.

Carrie looked down at you. You looked up at her. In the mirror you could see her face for the first time all day and you searched it for anything, anger, pity, amusement, disgust, and got nothing. She was just... looking.

She could reverse it right now. Empty room. Door shut. Just say the word and you'd be a person on this floor, shaking and naked and able to spit.

Her thumb traced your waistband once. You held onto that second like it meant something. Then she pulled the leggings back up.

Darkness again. The leggings sealed you in and the world disappeared and she hadn't said a word. She grabbed her bag and walked out into the afternoon sun and you went with her because that's what underwear does.

She hadn't decided you'd had enough. And you couldn't ask.