Jessica watched the screen as Thompson walked in putting a hand on her shoulder “How was the night?”

“In this section not much. Got a little bit of a temp spike around midnight – like 5 degree – it went down naturally a second latter as the fuel spends down. We’re scheduled to remove it around noon and nothing to indicate that’s a bad idea.”

“Boring night” Thompson nodded “How was the doctors?”

“Ehhh … don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is it serious?” said Thompson as he took off his jacket, which he habitually did. She didn’t know why he wore it.

“I am not sick.” she said “It’s just … I have to think of myself oddly.”

Thompson, who was not exactly old, but at the age when one thinks of oneself as something made of flesh nodded “Doctors are good for that.”

Jessica got up her things and walked out feeling unsure. One of the reasons to exercise for her was to get strong and she felt anything but.

***

Jessica walked softly into the bedroom to see Anna sleeping. She was beautiful there in the very soft light of 5 AM, peaceful, barely covered with a sheet, a big bra and panties her only garments. Jessica softened and, as quietly as she could, undressed taking off her blouse and pants.

She climbed in. Anna was warm – too warm sometimes – but she climbed in and hugged her from behind drawing into her moving her legs to her her spine, to her head, to rest on her shoulder even, if there wasn’t really a pillow underneath. It felt good and it felt alive as Anna responded in her sleep, nuzzling her back, rubbing herself into her. Jessica put her hands around her big breasts and, not so much cupped them or fondled, but just absorbed them for a second.

Yes this was how sex happened but, for the moment, just the presence, just the feel of another person was enough as she drifted to sleep, then to half-hearted wakeness an hour later when Anna woke up, to unpleasant bright sleep of the day for the next six or so hours. Alone.

***

Two weeks later, after getting back into the gym, Jessica lifted 720 pounds with two friends present. It was hard, but doable, and as her muscles relaxed she had the sensation that this wasn’t as far as it went. She got warm congratulations about it but …

***

“This is tricky.” said Bill “At one level maybe … but …”

“Well, I would like a job where I can have a more normal hours.”

“There are women who do this as a career.” said Bill “They’re models. We can get you sponsorship money, but that’s modeling and – well – you don’t look the fitness model type.”

Jessica nodded looking down. She wasn’t bad looking but …

“Weightlifting isn’t really a profession even for men. Not in this country. Not even in like the Olympics. You can make some money off it, but it’s not quite your day job money.”

He relaxed “Now, you can parlay that. A lot of fitness competitors are personal trainers, or coaches, or stuff like that. Some of them own gyms. Things like that.”

Jessica sighed.

“But I am the strongest person in the world!” said Jessica for the first time out loud.

“And that’s an angle. That is an angle. You know, maybe I could get you commercials … like on talk shows, but if you’re looking for an income …”

“Doesn’t that pay?”

“You can make a 1000 bucks for going on the today show.” said Richards “I had a client who do it. It’s exposure but … well … until you have an idea of what is that you’re going for. I am not sure.”

Jessica nodded “Right.”

“There s wrestling.” said Richards  But that's not a more normal schedule. You spend 6 days a week in a rental car, going to Little Rock and it destroys your body. “I don’t want to say it but, sometimes, people pay for private matches with strong girls. I think you will want to avoid that.”

“Yeah.”

***

Jessica liked liked to listen to ‘90s pop when working out. For some reason, it really got her blood flowing to listen to Ace of Base.

Maybe she could get a day shift. Nuclear engineering was a job where they put you at night a lot before bringing you back to normal hours. Maybe she could fuddle that.

She was doing curls. It was set for two hands, but she was doing one as the safety machine version of it didn’t allow too much movement. She was doing about 350 pounds in straight tight grabs. This version didn’t have a bench. She missed sitting down.

Fame – or whatever version of that – was something. Maybe that could help … but not necessarily in nuclear engineering. It wasn’t a field that lent itself to that and, if she got a reputation as a woman who had to take off work to go lift a truck or something in Las Vegas, that wouldn’t help in the nuclear relations fields.

Could she lift a truck? She watched a world strongest man video on Youtube and if she was in that strength class it would be silly.

She looked at the weight. Her left arm was lifting the weight of two grown men. This was her slightly weaker arm. Huh.

There should be something she could do with this.

The Olympics. She could win the Olympics, the gold medal, and ride it to fame and fortune.

That was a path.

She could become famous for being strong and leverage it. She didn’t think she would be a great personal trainer – she had no experience – even what they … but maybe her own gym … a small business …

This didn’t sound implausible, but did she actually want that?

She switched hands and pulled up the weight.

Football? NFL?

That didn’t sound like a good idea.

With a single arm she lifted more weight than a refrigerator.

This felt amazing.

There was a movie, which she remembered listening to in a podcast, about professional arm wrestling circuit.

She laughed.

***

That night she left the gym. It was around 6 P.M. in a suburban South Phoenix. A mini mall was the wrong word, but not a terrible one. It was a good way of describing it all. Not a terrible one. South Phoenix wasn’t a great area: a mishmash of fading houses and business.

As she walked over to her car she saw him.

He was big – over 6 feet tall – wearing a leather jacket and just standing there with a bottle of whisky casually in his hand. He didn’t have a gun or a knife, but he was covered in ugly tattoos on a face too old for them, but still looked … well menacing. He looked ugly and disgusting to her: a body both young and pattern balding.

He stood there and she stood there next to her very nice Audi. She felt a pause for a second. For all her bitching and complaining she did okay. She did better than okay actually.

He looked at her like a predator when you make eye contact with it, just before it’s ready to strike. A kind of ‘nothing to see here’ look. Nothing to see … just wait until you turn your head and …

… and then she realized something: She was strong.

She was the strongest person on the planet and, even if he had a knife or a bat or maybe even a gun, she could hold her own. Take this fucker down and crush him to satisfying bones.

Instead, she got into her car, drove off and watched him watch her as she left without a word.

She was strong.

She didn’t need to do any of that.