Doom-mates - The Right Fit

You’re a standard unfit schlub spending your Saturday at the gym, as usual. The place was huge, three floors of fitness enrichment.

You’d been coming for weeks, ever since your more healthy friend encouraged you to come along because of a groupon deal or something like that. He would remark on how good of it was for you to stick with it.

The sordid truth however was that the only reason you suffered through the sweat, exertion and embarrassment of having everyone see your pasty-ass body push itself far past what nature intended for it was the plethora of demon ladies.

You wouldn’t dare admit it to anyone. Not just being a brimstone-chaser, but basically using this place as an excuse to check out all those towering slabs of hot hell girl.

But there was no denying it, the particualr brand of demon who liked staying in shape were a sight to see.  Imps with thighs like iron on the exercise bikes. Hellknights and baronesses with muscles you could cut diamonds on, working out on the bult-for-demons work out machines, equipment that would probably tear you apart if you tried to use them. Cacodemons in neon pastel leg-warmers jazzercising in big groups, occasionally falling into havok when one of them gets too worked up and forgets to let gravity affect them and they float up and into their neighbor.

But then there’s the one that always catches your eye. The pinky.

She’s the only of her kind here. You know a lot of pinkies are like in some sort of weird half-way status between full citizen and pet/cattle, but she’s always just here on her own, carrying on like everyone else.

You often catch her just after she comes in, limbering up while listening to her music player. She sits down and stretches out her limbs, clawed toes splaying as she happily bobs her head to whatever’s playing.

It’s  dawned over you over the many visits you’ve made to this gym that you’re infatuated with her. The way her huge horns jetted out from under her tussled, sandy blond hair. The almost permanently happy expression her face, actually enhanced by her jutting brows rather than hampered.

You had to admit it, you had hell-fever and you had it bad.

You never talked to her, you weren’t that bold/stupid. You also tried really hard not to be too creepy about it. You didn’t follow her around, you didn’t try and glance at her going into the locker room or shit like that. You just… happened to focus on her when she happened to come into view.

And thankfully that wasn’t too hard. There was this huge fitness track surrounding the second level of the gym. A lot of the time demons would have impromptu races, and whenever she participated, she won. She’d dash ahead pumping those muscular legs, and towards the end she’d start loping on all fours like a beast, jaw wide open in excitement.

She was lapping her competition right now, and you couldn’t help but star at her, time slowing down as you saw the sweat bead on her rosy pink skin. Thankfully the races drew a lot of attention from everyone in the gym so you didn’t stand out.

You felt guilty about it. Really guilty. You knew how skeevy it was to just keep checking a girl out. She likely didn’t want anything to do with you but you just… ugh…

Maybe that’s why you kept up the cover of coming to this gym to work out with such diligence. Like, if you somehow became an actual super fit gym-goer, you could at least have some pretense to go and talk to her. “Hey I also like to be fit and strong, how about we get energy shakes.”

Yeah that wasn’t going to happen. You had sweat away your body weight three times over and you were barely making any progress. Your doldrum life as a stay-at-home programmer gave you ample free time, but the habits that come from a life leading up to a stay-at-home programming job meant you had a hell of a lot of catching up to do. You weren’t some tub of lard, but you were also pretty lacking in stamina, muscle-mass and skin tone. You could only survive coming here once a week so far, and you didn’t see being able to do it more frequently for a long while.

And there. The race was over and she’d won again. You joined in on the modest applause for the weekly spectacle. Her body literally steamed as she caught her breath.

As you watched her towel off,  deeply shameful part of your psyche idly wished you were one of those towels. God you needed to get over this addiction.

You decided to try and exhaust your body till it lacked the energy to be creepy. Turning up the resistance on the walker machine, you forced your body to work past the wall of pain.

It was about five tracks later in your workout playlist that you noticed a change in the lighting. Something was casting a shadow over you and oh sweet fuck she was right beside you. There was a larger sized machine next to yours and she had elected to use it while you were completely oblivious.

So There she was, the object of your obsession, looming overhead, still wearing that toothy smile.

You yanked the earbuds out of your ears in a mad scramble, nearly falling off the machine itself. She chuckled, not derisively, but still you felt yourself go even redder than your flushed body was already.

“Hi!” She said, voice a strange blend of gravelly and bubbly.

You swallow hard, worried that, despite how friendly she appeared and how this was clearly just her making pleasant conversation with someone next to her in the gym, the jig was up. “Uh, hey.”

“What your name? I Xahla!”

“D-Daniel,” you say, legs quivering. “N-nice racing out there today.”

She beamed. “Yeah yeah! I love race! It fun! And it feel really good!”

You chuckle nervously. “Heh, yeah. I could probably never do it that good.”

She gave you a puzzled look, turning her head to the side. “But you do good! I see you here every week, you be strong in no time.”

Oh. She had been aware of your presence the whole time. As red alerts started screaming in your head, you tried to play it off to the best of your abilities. “Oh, you uh, noticed me?”

”I know almost all here.” She said matter-of-factly. ”You one person I not talk to. Was getting silly not say hi, I see you so much. Sorry I rude!”

You felt a rush of relief as you realized she hadn’t caught on to you, and thought SHE was in the wrong for ignoring you. “It’s fine!” You say WAY too quickly and emphatically. “It’s fine, really. I mean, who can expected to get to know everyone? It’s not a big deal. I’ve been pretty focused on working out so you probably just never got the chance.”

“Well me have lots of time to make up for.” She said with determination. “What you do? Outside of gym?”

Not believing your fortune in the object of your obsession actually taking interest in you, you began to explain the details of your job in… simple terms. She never seemed that confused but it, besides needing the explanation for a couple terms. She talked brutishly but she seemed fairly keen otherwise.

“Huh. So you make word-boxes do things. That neat!” Alright so she was pretty reductive. That’s fine.

“Yeah. It pays the bills. What do you do?”

“Me work at store. Me lift big boxes. Me lucky because it good work out! Two gyms!” She laughed. You joined in too just because her positivity was so infectious.

“So, you live by yourself? I mean, Uh.. I haven’t seen you with…” Shit you just blundered right into a faux pas.

“Oh, yeah. Me no got leash.” She says casually. “Me no need help. I smart since very long!” She said with prid. “Me was smartest in whole herd, even for’ we came here. So they say I can live all by I-self! I still visit tho. Me love sisters.”

“So uh, how’s Mars been treating you?”

“It GREAT! No gotta worry ‘bout big demons eat you. Can do what you want, can make friends! And meet… cute boys. And girls.” She said conspiratorially, giving a cheeky grin.

“Oh. Yeah, must be, plenty of new potential partners here, right?”

“Yeah. Lotsa cuties. Like you!”

We’re sorry, but this Brain is currently out of service.

You turned beet red, and tried to laugh it off. “Ahha… good one.”

Another puzzled look. “What? No joke. I think you cute.”

“W-well I mean, that’s flattering but I mean we just met and…“ Get out of there get out you need to GET OUT OF THERE.

“Well me know you like me…” She said perplexedly, like she was figuring out some puzzle.

“W-WHAT?”

“Yah! You look at me lots and I can tell you like me! I can smell it. It easy to smell when human like me.” She made a sniffing sound, which was very strange since she didn’t appear to have any nose.

“You smell like that nowww~” She said, leering at you.

“What? No that must, just uh, be a glandular thing! I mean, I’m not…

Here eyes widened. “Ohhhhh I get! You shy.” Her mouth turned slowly turned into a leering grin.

You had fully turned into a deer in the headlights at this point.

“You silly. If you like. Say!”

“Well… I…” Her star was very disarming. “I’m not exactly… your type i mean…” You kind of look down at your scrawny body.

She made a dismissive PFFFF sound. “Body? That no biggy. You try! You get healthy strong soon! Me can help! But that don’t mean you not cute now. We should try date!”

“Wait what do you mean-“

“Me MEAN that me wanna get to know you, not just know your smell! You come to gym more, we talk! We have fun! You be cute small boy and I be pretty strong girl! You humans make dating more hard than need be.”

“Well… alright. Not going to lie one day a week’s been my limit.”

“Not after me help it be.” She said smugly. “You be happy healthy human! Now let go and have fun!”

She extracted herself from the machine, and you tried to follow suit, your reservations shock-and-awed into submission. But as you stepped off, your legs nearly gave out on you. You’d been so distracted by having your crush basically figure you out in seconds and ask you out, that you had managed to ignore the screaming of your leg muscles as you pushed them past their limits.

Xahla noticed you stumble and gave a concerned coo. “Aw. You train so hard! Poor tired dating friend.”

Suddenly she scooped you up in your arms and lifted you over her back. On reflex you held on, wrapping your arms around her upper body so you wouldn’t fall.

“Me be legs for now! You come to my home! Me give you pro-teen shake, help feel better!”

ANd before you could even try to protest, she was moving like a bullet. After a brief detour to grab her bag, she was out the door bearing your weight like you were nothing more than a silken scarf around her neck.

In a scant few minutes, you had passed four city blocks, and were past the threshold of her apartment building.

You realized you had gotten what you’d wished for and far, far more.

At least the shake had strawberries in it.