Turn 66 of 226

Don't bother following up. I continue with my training and work cycle. I also don't forget to masturbate twice daily

The cycle tightens into something that no longer needs a legal pad to hold its shape — the shape is the body and the body is the schedule and the schedule is the wish. Morning: two miles through the industrial district at four AM, the streets empty, the asphalt wet with condensation, the feet hard and brown and slapping the ground in a rhythm the body does not think about. The heart rate sits at thirty-five and the thirty-five is not a number anymore, it is a condition, the way the ocean is a condition. The lungs pull air and the air feeds the blood and the blood feeds the muscle and the muscle feeds the fat and the fat feeds the warmth and the warmth is the wish. She returns to the warehouse and the work begins — standing at the steel shelf, the laptop open, the hotspot humming at two bars, the deliverables flowing. Supplier assessments, compliance audits, quarterly projections. Marcus forwards her work without comment and the without-comment is the highest praise the system offers. The work is the best she has produced. The work is always the best she has produced because the body is always better than it was and the better body makes the better mind and the chain is unbroken.

The training blocks fill the afternoons and evenings. Nine-hit chains drilled at full speed until the bag rocks on its base and the water inside sloshes and the vinyl dents and holds. Ground transitions with the bag on the floor — sprawl to side control to knee-on-belly to mounted position, the hip escapes drilled until the hips fire without the spine's permission, the upa bridges explosive enough to roll the one-hundred-and-twenty-pound bag off her chest. Weighted carries with the insulator crate and the water containers, the grip failing and rebuilding and failing and rebuilding. Sparring with Marcus on day four and day nine, the sessions brutal and productive, his takedowns sharper and her sprawl faster and the ground game closing the gap that the first tournament exposed. He lands a hook to the body in the fourth session that makes her fold and the folding is data — she writes it on the legal pad: 'Body hook — M. timing improved. Need to keep elbow tight in phone booth. Guard up, chin down.' The note is a correction and the correction is the next cycle's work.

The masturbation is not separate from the cycle. The masturbation is the cycle. Morning — after the run, before the work, the body still warm from the asphalt and the endorphins still flooding and the hands finding the softness between her legs and the softness is wet because the body is always ready because the body is always warm. She leans against the warehouse wall and the cinder block is cold on her back and the cold and the heat are the contrast that opens her and she comes with a sound that echoes off the walls and the echo is the warehouse saying her name. Evening — after the training, after the bag, after the sweat has dried on the skin and the muscles are trembling and the trembling is the edge of exhaustion and the edge is where the pleasure lives. She lies on the concrete floor and the concrete is cool and the cool is the floor's hands and her hands are her own and the two work together — the floor holding her back, her fingers working the softness and the fullness — and the orgasm is deeper than the morning's, slower, a wave that starts in the hips and moves through the belly and the breasts and the throat and the sound she makes is low and long and the warehouse holds it.

The scale reads three-ninety by the end of the second week. The growth is steady — not the explosive acceleration of the earlier cycles but a thickening, a densifying, the body settling into itself the way a foundation settles. The fat layer over the muscle is thicker and the thickness is the wish and the muscle beneath is harder and the hardness is the training and the two grow together. Her breasts are heavier, fuller, the nipples sensitive from the friction of movement during training. Her ass is wider, rounder, the cheeks thick and dense and powerful — she can feel the power when she throws a roundhouse, the hips rotating through the gluteal force that the weight provides. The body hair is full and dark and the hair catches the sweat and holds the scent and the scent is musk and iron and concrete and the scent is correct. She does not shower. She does not brush her teeth. She does not shave. The body maintains itself — the doctor's numbers proved it, the perfect labs proved it, the thirty-five BPM proved it. The body is a closed system now, self-regulating, self-repairing, the wish's architecture holding every cell in the configuration the wish designed.

The legal pad entry at the end of the cycle is brief. 'Cycle complete. 390 lbs. 7'5". Work: three deliverables, all excellent. Marcus forwarded to director. Training: nine-hit chains clean, ground game improving, sparring productive. Cardio: four miles steady, HR 35. Body: healthy, growing, warm. Masturbation: twice daily, morning and evening. The cycle holds. The body holds.' The marker bleeds through the page and the page is the record and the record is the body and the body is the wish and the wish is warm and the warmth says yes and the yes is the only word the body needs.