Turn 52 of 233

Call Samuel and tell him about the third house finishing ahead of schedule. Then push for 8 miles Monday morning. Take Saturday and Sunday as rest days. Eat and masturbate a lot in them. Still no hygiene. I also consider getting a tatoo. Maybe next weekend

Lena calls Samuel from the balcony floor Saturday morning. She's lying naked on the concrete with a carton of pad thai balanced on her belly and the phone on speaker next to her ear and the city humming below. Samuel picks up on the third ring and his voice has the careful neutral tone he uses when he doesn't know what he's walking into.

"Hey," she says. "Third house finishes ahead of the first two. Roof sheeted Thursday, shingles going on Friday. Walt hasn't walked it yet but it's done."

There is a pause. She can hear the television in the background — Janet's show, not his news program.

"That's good," Samuel says. "The work is good." The same words he used at the site. The closest thing to a compliment he has given her since the visit. She can hear him wanting to say more and choosing not to and she lets him have the silence.

"I'm running eight miles Monday," she says.

"Barefoot," Samuel says. Not a question.

"Barefoot."

Another pause. She hears Janet's voice in the background — muffled, asking who's on the phone — and Samuel says, "Your mother says congratulations on the house." And then, quieter, almost to himself: "Eight miles. Your feet."

"My feet are fine, Sam."

"They're bleeding."

"They heal."

He exhales. It's the exhale of a man who has accepted that he cannot change what is happening and has decided to stay in the conversation anyway.

"Call me next weekend," he says. "Let me know how the eight goes."

She hangs up and eats the rest of the pad thai and orders a large pepperoni and a large meat lovers from Domino's and eats them both on the living room floor with the television on and her belly swelling against the carpet. Between slices she masturbates — slow, deliberate, her hand between her thighs, her eyes closed, thinking about the third house and the ridge and the way her body moved lumber like it weighed nothing. She comes hard and eats another slice and falls asleep on the floor with grease on her chin and her hand still between her legs.

Sunday is the same rhythm. She orders Chinese — kung pao, beef and broccoli, two orders of fried rice, spare ribs, egg drop soup — and eats it on the balcony floor and watches two NFL games back to back, studying the offensive line with her phone propped against the ledge and her notes open. Between games she masturbates again on the balcony concrete, the sun on her belly and the steel barbells catching the light, her fingers working slow and firm, her hips grinding against her hand, her breath catching and her belly tightening and the orgasm rolling through her like a wave and she lies there afterward with her arms at her sides and her eyes closed and the city below and the sun above and the particular deep satisfaction of a body that takes what it wants.

She thinks about the tattoo between orgasms. She's been thinking about it since the piercings — the way the steel changed her relationship with her skin, made it feel like a surface she could write on, a document she could add to. Not yet. Not this weekend. The piercings are still crusting over, still tender when she rolls the barbells between her fingers. Next weekend, maybe. Something on the belly — the part of her body that has changed the most, the part that drives the work. She doesn't know what yet. A number. A word. A line. She rolls the idea around in her mind the way she rolls the barbell and doesn't decide and doesn't need to decide yet. The idea is enough. The idea sits warm in her chest next to the other warm things — the food and the orgasms and the eight miles waiting on Monday and the third house standing on the east side with her name on the sign.