Yoga

---

Rebecca had never tried yoga before.

Between the kids and keeping the house, she simply didn't have time for any extracurricular activities. Besides, yoga had always seemed like the sort of thing done by women with expensive water bottles and far too much free time.

James, apparently, disagreed.

“You'll be fine,” he told her as he unrolled two mats across the living-room floor. “Most of it's just stretching.”

“That's what people say before they make you bend in ways God never intended.”

Rebecca stood at the edge of her mat, suddenly conscious of the cameras again. The little vest and shorts had felt revealing enough while she was making coffee. Under the bright living-room lights, with James dressed comfortably beside her, they felt ridiculous.

“We'll start with a warm-up. Get you loosened up a little,” James said. “Sit down on the mat for me.”

Rebecca lowered herself onto the mat. “Like this?”

“Perfect. Straighten your legs out.”

She did, only to pause at his next instruction.

“And open them.”

Rebecca looked up at him. “How much?”

“As far as comfortably possible.”

Rebecca hesitated, suddenly very aware of the shorts. They had seemed tiny enough standing up. Sitting on the floor was worse. The soft fabric had already crept higher around her thighs, and spreading her legs certainly wasn't going to improve matters.

For a moment, she considered telling him no. Then she looked at James. He wasn't staring at her legs or smirking; he was simply waiting, as casually as if he'd asked her to touch her toes. Rebecca felt faintly silly for worrying.

She trusted him.

So she eased her feet apart, then a little further.

Her thighs stretched as her legs opened into a wide V, the movement pulling the little grey shorts snugly across her hips. Rebecca instinctively reached towards one hem, then stopped herself.

Everything was covered.

Technically.

She pushed her legs a little wider.

James nodded. “That's plenty. Now lean forward.”

Rebecca planted her palms between her legs and slowly walked them across the mat. The stretch caught immediately along the backs of her thighs as she folded forward, auburn hair spilling over one shoulder.

She could feel the vest pulling tightly across her chest and the shorts riding up again. Somewhere in the room, a camera was watching.

Rebecca closed her eyes and took a breath.

It's yoga.

James was right there. He wouldn't let her make a fool of herself. With that thought, she reached a little further.

“That's good, Becky. Really good.”

His words were reassuring. Even with the ridiculous shorts and the way the position made the neckline of her vest feel much lower than it had standing up, she found herself becoming more comfortable.

“Yoga isn't only about stretching,” James said. “You've got to relax too. Close your eyes.”

Rebecca closed her eyes as James began to count.

“Now breathe in. One... two... three...”

She inhaled slowly, and oddly enough, it worked. Her mind began to empty. Not completely, but enough that all those little worries stopped fighting for her attention.

Have the kids been fed yet?

Is Richard stressed out being home alone?

Does James really like me?

“And out. One... two... three...”

Rebecca exhaled slowly, and one by one the thoughts seemed to go with it. By the time James reached three, her mind was quieter than it had been all day.

“Okay and relax, feel free to open your eyes and get into a more comfortable position for me.”

She slowly opened her eyes and leaned back, crossing her legs. Strangely, she hadn't actually been uncomfortable. The position was embarrassing, certainly--she wouldn't have chosen to sit like that in front of anybody--but the stretch itself had felt rather nice. Rebecca decided not to tell James that.

“Alright. Let's try something standing.”

Rebecca accepted the hand he offered and let him pull her up. She was beginning to feel surprisingly good: warm, certainly, and considerably more aware of muscles she hadn't known needed stretching, but relaxed. Her thighs still tingled faintly from the first stretch, and the fitted vest clung more closely now that she'd worked up a little heat.

Perhaps she'd been unfair about yoga.

James showed her the next position first. One foot forward, the other leg extended behind, then lower herself towards the mat.

Rebecca copied him--or tried to. Her balance immediately went, and James caught her lightly at the waist.

“Easy.”

“I had it.”

“You were falling over.”

“I was adjusting.”

He smiled and released her, leaving Rebecca to try again.

This time she managed to lower herself properly, one knee bent beneath her while the other leg stretched behind. The position pulled firmly through her hips and thighs, opening muscles that felt as though they'd spent the last fifteen years doing nothing more ambitious than climbing stairs.

She planted her fingertips against the mat and looked up at James.

“This one?”

“That's it.”

Rebecca smiled, rather pleased with herself.

The position did absolutely nothing for her modesty. The little grey shorts were stretched tight across her hips, their curved hems riding so high that most of her thighs were bare. Her bent leg was drawn up close against her body, leaving Rebecca uncomfortably aware of just how little the shorts actually covered.

Her vest wasn't behaving much better. Leaning forward had pulled the already-low neckline away from her chest, exposing far more cleavage than she'd realized. She could practically feel her breasts threatening the edge of it every time she shifted.

Rebecca glanced down.

Good Lord.

She hadn't even considered what this pose would look like before she'd gotten into it. James, however, appeared completely unconcerned, which somehow made it easier for her not to care either.

“See?” he said. “You're getting the hang of it.”

Rebecca shifted a little deeper into the stretch, feeling the pull through her hips and thighs. “Don't sound so surprised.”

James laughed and let her hold the stretch for another few seconds before moving her on.

The next position looked simple when he demonstrated it. Rebecca only had to stand with her feet apart, bend forward and place her hands on the mat.

Simple, apparently, did not mean easy.

She spread her feet as instructed and folded forward, but almost immediately felt herself putting too much weight through her arms. Her legs weren't quite straight, her back felt wrong, and every attempt to correct one thing seemed to throw something else out.

The outfit wasn't helping. Bending so deeply pulled the little shorts tight across her hips and backside, the curved hems creeping upwards until Rebecca could feel considerably more cool air against her thighs than she would have liked. Her vest shifted in the opposite direction, its low neckline falling away from her chest whenever she looked towards the floor.

There was absolutely no dignified way to do this.

Still, she tried.

“You're putting too much weight forward,” James told her. He moved around until he was standing where she could see him without having to twist her neck. “Push through your legs more. Let your hips take some of it.”

Rebecca attempted to do precisely that and succeeded mainly in making herself wobble.

“That is what I'm trying to do.”

“I know.” He smiled. “Want some help?”

Ordinarily, the answer might have been no. But James had already caught her by the waist once, and he'd been so matter-of-fact about it that Rebecca couldn't see much difference between that and helping her now.

Besides, she wanted to get the stupid thing right.

“Fine. But if I fall over, I'm blaming you.”

His palm pressed against her backside through the thin grey shorts as he guided her hips backwards.

Rebecca stiffened.

His other hand slid along her ribs, just beneath her breasts, and as he adjusted her posture his knuckles brushed lightly against the underside of one.

A little rush of heat went through her.

Oh, goodness.

But James didn't react. There was no lingering squeeze, no joke, no change in his voice. He simply moved her as though her waist, her bottom and the accidental brush against her breast were no more remarkable than correcting the position of an elbow.

Somehow, that made Rebecca feel silly for noticing them.

“Straighten here,” he said, guiding her hips slightly. “That's it. Now take some of the weight out of your shoulders.”

She concentrated fiercely on the mat.

His hand shifted again as she moved, brushing across the curve of her backside before settling at her hip. Another small flicker of warmth followed it, annoyingly immediate.

Rebecca ignored that too.

He was helping her.

That was all.

Once she stopped thinking about where his hands were, the correction actually made sense. Rebecca shifted her weight backwards, straightened her legs and felt the pose suddenly settle into place. The strain in her shoulders eased, replaced by a long stretch through her thighs and hips.

“Oh.”

“Feel the difference?”

“Yes.”

James removed his hands.

Rebecca stayed exactly where he'd put her.

“Look at that,” he said. “Perfect.”

She smiled down at the mat, absurdly pleased with herself. Ten minutes ago she'd been worried about opening her legs in front of him; now she was bent practically double in shorts that barely covered her backside, and her principal concern was whether her knees were straight.

Perhaps that was the point of yoga.

Rebecca concentrated on her breathing and held the position.

She didn't see James step back.

Nor did she see his attention settle openly on her backside. Bent so deeply with her legs spread, the tiny shorts had ridden almost completely between her cheeks. The displaced crotch had slipped just far enough aside for the soft cleft of her pussy to peek out beneath it, while higher up there was even a brief glimpse of her asshole between her cheeks.

As far as Rebecca knew, Richard and her gynecologist were probably the only people who had ever seen her quite that intimately.

James had now joined a very short list.

Rebecca merely breathed steadily and concentrated on keeping her knees straight.

James looked for another second before dragging his attention away.

By the time Rebecca straightened again, his expression was perfectly ordinary.

“What's next?”

“Still enjoying yoga?”

Rebecca pushed the hair out of her face. “I wouldn't go that far.”

But she was smiling when she said it.

James pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through the instructions production had given him.

“Okay. Next one is doggy style.”

Rebecca was already stepping back onto her mat when he stopped.

James cleared his throat. “Tabletop. It's called tabletop.”

She looked at him. “Well, which is it?”

“Tabletop.”

“All right.”

There was just enough amusement in his voice to make Rebecca suspect she'd missed something, though she couldn't imagine what. They were yoga poses. Perhaps he'd confused it with another one.

James demonstrated, dropping onto his hands and knees. “Basically, hands under your shoulders, knees under your hips. Keep your back level.”

That, at least, looked easy.

Rebecca lowered herself onto the mat and copied him, settling onto her hands and knees without a second thought.

She spread her fingers against the mat and looked down between her hands, concentrating on keeping her weight even. Her auburn hair tumbled forward over one shoulder, and gravity pulled the low neckline of her little pink vest away from her chest.

From Rebecca's angle, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it.

The camera facing her had a rather different view. Bent forward on all fours, she was presenting it with an almost uninterrupted look down the front of her vest, her breasts pressed together by the tight fabric while the neckline struggled to contain them.

Behind her, the little grey shorts had once again ridden high over her hips. Rebecca noticed the familiar tug of fabric but didn't reach back to fix them this time.

James noticed.

While Rebecca studied the mat, his gaze wandered briefly down the narrow line of her back to the little grey shorts.

“Like this?”

His attention returned immediately to her posture.

“Pretty much.” James's voice remained perfectly ordinary. “Bring your knees in a little. You're wider than you need to be.”

Rebecca obediently shuffled them closer together.

A few minutes earlier, she'd agonized over spreading her legs in front of him.

Now she was on all fours with James standing directly behind her, a camera staring down her top, and she was mostly wondering whether her back was straight enough.

“Good,” James said. “From there we're going into extended puppy pose.”

Rebecca looked up. “Oh. Is this what you meant by doggy style?”

James went very still for half a second.

Then he coughed into his fist. “Something like that.”

“I knew you must've gotten the names mixed up.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That was definitely the problem.”

Rebecca missed the smile he suppressed as she turned her attention back to the mat.

“Keep your knees where they are and walk your hands forward. You're trying to lower your chest without bringing your hips down with it.”

That sounded simple enough.

It wasn't.

Rebecca crept her palms forward, lowering herself cautiously. Her arms stretched out in front of her, but almost immediately her hips followed, leaving her in an awkward halfway position that seemed to stretch absolutely nothing.

“No, keep your hips up.”

She tried again, pushing herself backwards this time and somehow making matters worse.

James watched her struggle for another few seconds. “Want me to fix it?”

Rebecca hesitated.

He had already caught her when she'd stumbled. He had corrected her posture in the last pose without making the accidental contact awkward. Even when his hand had brushed her breast, he'd behaved as though nothing remotely unusual had happened.

It would be rather silly to become prudish about it now.

“All right.”

James stepped behind her.

“Keep your hands there.”

Rebecca obeyed.

His palm settled squarely against her backside.

Rebecca's breath caught.

There was considerably more hand involved this time.

Through the thin grey shorts she could feel the broad pressure of his palm against one cheek as he pushed her hips backwards and upward. Rebecca stared determinedly at the mat.

He was helping her.

That was all.

“Don't bring your hips forward with your shoulders,” James said, apparently finding absolutely nothing remarkable about where his hand was. “Think of your ass staying over your knees while everything above your waist stretches forward.”

She bristled. “Don't swear.”

James paused.

“Your butt.”

“Thank you.”

“Keep your butt over your knees.”

Rebecca crawled her fingertips another inch across the mat.

“Like that?”

“More.”

She stretched farther. Her chest sank towards the floor while her bottom remained high in the air, and suddenly the pose clicked into place. A long pull ran through her shoulders and back.

“Oh.”

“There you go.”

James removed his hand.

Rebecca stayed where he'd put her.

The position was considerably more comfortable once she stopped fighting it. She let her chest sink another fraction towards the mat, arms extended ahead of her, cheek almost brushing her hair.

Behind her, her hips remained raised prominently in the air.

The tiny grey shorts had ridden upward yet again, stretched snugly over her backside by the pose. Once, Rebecca would have immediately reached back and dragged them into place.

She didn't even think about them now.

Rebecca sighed softly as another knot of tension seemed to loosen.

“Actually,” she admitted, “this one's rather nice.”

“Glad you're enjoying it, Becky.”

James let her hold the stretch for another few breaths before moving her on.

The next pose was called plow.

Rebecca regarded the demonstration with immediate suspicion.

“You want my legs where?”

“Over your head.”

She stared at him.

James smiled. “You can do it.”

“I think you have considerably more confidence in me than I do.”

Getting there was considerably less graceful than his demonstration had suggested. Rebecca lowered herself onto her back, drew her knees towards her chest and tried to lift her hips as James talked her through it.

“Use your stomach. Don't throw your legs. Nice and slow.”

“I am going slow.”

“You're trying to launch yourself.”

“I am not.”

She tried again.

This time her hips came properly off the mat. Rebecca tightened her stomach, lifting higher as her legs travelled above her. For one alarming second her weight tipped sideways.

“Oh—”

James stepped forward, both hands coming out.

Rebecca's palm slapped against the mat. She wobbled, fought it, and managed to pull herself back into line before he reached her.

James stopped.

Rebecca remained frozen for a moment.

“I had it.”

His mouth twitched. “You were falling over.”

“I was adjusting.”

That earned a laugh.

“Okay. Keep adjusting. Slowly.”

Rebecca took a breath and pushed on. Her abdomen was beginning to tremble with the effort now, but she managed another inch, then another, until finally her toes touched the floor beyond her head.

“Oh!”

“That's it.”

For several seconds Rebecca could do nothing except breathe.

From Rebecca's perspective there wasn't much to see besides the room upside down, a curtain of auburn hair spread across the mat, and rather more of her own breasts than she was accustomed to seeing at once. Folded almost double, the position had pushed them upwards until they seemed determined to crowd her chin.

The little pink vest wasn't helping. Its snug fabric had gathered them together and pushed the soft, full curves higher still, leaving Rebecca confronted with an alarming amount of cleavage every time she tried to glance towards her knees. With each breath they rose against her, close enough that she could practically feel the warmth of them against her face.

Good Lord.

She'd always known she was rather generously endowed for someone her size. She had simply never expected to find herself quite so literally face-to-face with the fact.

She tried to ignore them. She was far too busy trying not to collapse to wonder what the pose looked like from anywhere else.

Her arms pressed harder into the mat. A fine tremor had begun in her legs, and her breathing was no longer quite as calm as James had taught her earlier.

Still, she held it.

“I did it.”

There was enough breathless satisfaction in her voice to make James smile.

“You did.”

Rebecca straightened her knees another fraction simply because she could.

Almost immediately, her muscles protested.

“All right,” she puffed. “Maybe don't sound too impressed. I'm not sure I can get back out.”

“You can. Slowly.”

James stayed close this time, ready to catch her if necessary, while Rebecca began the considerably harder business of unfolding herself.

By the time her hips finally returned to the mat, she was breathing hard. Heat prickled across her skin beneath the little vest, her stomach muscles ached pleasantly, and her thighs felt distinctly less cooperative than they had ten minutes earlier.

Rebecca lay there for a moment catching her breath.

Perhaps she'd been unfair about yoga.

It was also entirely possible yoga was trying to kill her.

By the time James showed her the final pose, Rebecca's confidence had begun to exceed what remained of her strength.

“All right,” she said, breathing harder than she wanted him to notice. “I can do that.”

James looked at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a look.”

“I didn't say anything.”

Rebecca ignored him and lowered herself onto her forearms.

Getting her hips up was easy enough. Keeping them there was another matter entirely.

Her toes dug into the mat as she tried to straighten her legs, but the muscles through her stomach and thighs had begun to tremble from everything James had already put her through. The moment she tried to lift herself higher, her middle sagged and her balance threatened to go with it.

“Oh, goodness—”

“Hold it.”

“I am holding it.”

“You're collapsing.”

“I am not—”

Her arms shook.

James stepped in before she could finish arguing.

One hand landed firmly against her backside while the other steadied the middle of her back.

Rebecca went rigid for an instant.

“Push up here,” he said. “Don't let your core collapse.”

“My what?”

“Your core.”

“I don't know what that is.”

James gave a quiet laugh. “You've got one.”

“Well, where is it?”

“Here.”

His hand left her back and moved around her side.

His palm settled against her stomach.

“This. Your stomach, basically. All these muscles through here.”

“Oh.”

“Brace them.”

Rebecca tried.

“No, you're just holding your breath.”

“I am trying to concentrate.”

“Breathe normally. Tighten here.”

His fingers pressed into the firm muscles low on her stomach, guiding rather than supporting now. Rebecca tightened them experimentally and immediately felt the difference: her hips steadied and some of the strain disappeared from her shoulders.

“There,” James said. “Feel that?”

“Yes.”

His hand shifted as she moved.

A little too low.

The heel of his palm slipped below her stomach and over the front of her shorts. His middle and forefinger came to rest firmly between her legs--against what Rebecca, even in the privacy of her own thoughts, could only bring herself to call her vagina.

Rebecca sucked in a breath.

James didn't react. He was still talking about her posture, still watching the line of her back as though his fingers weren't pressed against the most private part of her body.

An accident.

Obviously.

He was trying to position her hips, and she'd moved at the same moment. That was all.

Then his hand shifted again, only slightly, barely enough to call movement at all. But the pressure of those two fingers dragged against her through the shorts, and something warm and startling flickered between her legs.

Rebecca's fingers tightened against the mat.

She had never felt anything quite like it. Richard had never touched her there with his hands. Their marital relations were simple and familiar: into bed, intercourse, finished. Rebecca had never particularly wondered whether anything was missing.

Until two fingers moved perhaps half an inch against her through the thin shorts, and her body answered before she'd even understood the question.

“Keep it tight,” James said.

Rebecca swallowed.

“My core?”

“Your core.”

“Right.”

She tightened the muscles he'd shown her.

His fingers pressed against her once more as he guided her hips into position, sending another little pulse of warmth through her.

Then his hand moved back to her waist, and the strange sensation disappeared with it.

Rebecca remained perfectly still for a moment.

To her confusion, she found herself missing it.

That was ridiculous.

“Better,” James said.

And annoyingly, it was. Her body had steadied beneath his hands, hips higher now, legs straighter. Rebecca breathed through the effort and concentrated fiercely on holding the pose.

“Five more seconds.”

“Five?”

“Four.”

“James.”

“Three.”

By one, her arms were trembling badly enough that Rebecca dropped her knees to the mat with a groan.

“That's horrible.”

James laughed. “You did well.”

Rebecca sat back on her heels, pushing a damp strand of hair away from her face. Her legs ached, her stomach ached, and she was fairly certain there were muscles in her backside that intended to complain about this for the rest of the day.

And yet she felt good.

Really good, actually.

“So?” James asked. “Still think yoga's ridiculous?”

Rebecca considered him.

“I think you might be ridiculous.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn't ask questions when you aren't going to like the answer.”

He grinned.

Rebecca looked away before she could smile back.

She reached for her water, and for the first time all morning didn't think about the cameras, or her ridiculous little outfit, or how much of herself she might have shown while twisting into all those impossible positions.

Unfortunately, she did think about James's hand.

Just for a moment.

Rebecca took a long drink of water.

It had been an accident.

Obviously.

And she had enjoyed the yoga.

That was all.