Man in the Mirror Ch. 03

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

I apologize for not posting this chapter sooner. Work has been hectic lately, and has afforded me little time to do fun things (like write stories). But that's how life goes sometimes.

Once again, I missed Nonethewiser's edits, but he did give me great advice on how to finish this story. His input (even in the smallest capacity) is worth millions.

SYNOPSIS FROM THE LAST CHAPTER:

Arthur took Phil's advice (from chapter one) and joined the gym that he suggested. He met the manager named Naomi, who shared her personal story with him. She also introduced him to her brother in law, who was a personal trainer/life coach. Jerry wasn't as pleasant and nurturing as Naomi, but he agreed to work with Arthur.

Under Jerry's guidance, Arthur lost a significant amount of weight. Even Paige took notice and started to treat him with a little more respect. There was even a little bit of lust in her eyes.

Things were going so great, Arthur decided that it was time to start dating again. He asked out a woman named Colleen, and she enthusiastically said yes. The two of them went on three dates before disaster hit.

Colleen invited Arthur up to her place because she wanted to have sex with him. The entire time he was with her, he kept hearing Paige's taunts. With his self-esteem being beat up on in his own head, the evening ended horribly when he failed to get an erection. Humiliated, he rushed out of her house.

Now, he feels lower than he did before.

CHAPTER THREE

If I had my way, I would have avoided the gym altogether. My sexual debacle with Colleen brought back all those horrible feelings of inadequacy that I had to suffer through when I saw Paige on her knees sucking another man's cock. I couldn't stand to look her in the eyes knowing that she'd been a witness to my deepest shame.

Unfortunately, there was no way to avoid the gym; not with Sergeant Jerry calling the shots. In order to convince him to give me a reprieve, I would have to explain what happened. Even then, there was no guarantee that he would be sympathetic to my plight. Sympathy would require a heart that did more than pump blood to his Captain America muscles.

Besides, I would sooner stick a rusty fork in my eye than ever tell ANYONE about that night.

So, while I couldn't avoid the gym, I could avoid Colleen. Whenever I saw her, I pretended not to notice. If she was coming in my direction, my eyes would conveniently be diverted to focus my attention on something else. I stuck to Jerry's side and did my workouts with tunnel vision. Childish? Maybe. But it was the only way to survive the humiliation of that night.

Unfortunately, these antics did little to solve the actual problem that I was facing. Quite the contrary. That night with Colleen marked the resurrection of two ugly demons that Paige had given birth to. No, I'm not talking about my kids (they're precious angels). I'm talking about nasty demons; ones that are capable of destroying the most powerful men and reducing them to empty shells.

They're names are insecurity and mistrust.

These creatures continually whispered in my ear, driving me slightly insane with paranoia. Whenever I saw Colleen talking to someone, they would convince me that she was talking about me. I would occasionally see her laughing with another woman, and my two dark passengers would laugh with her, as if the four of them were sharing a joke at my expense.

Worthless, impotent, boring little man!

Did she tell people about me? Were they laughing at my me, and exchanging "limp noodle" innuendos at my expense?

These unfounded suspicions made me feel more isolated than I was before. I grew pensive each time I went to the gym. I became angrier and angrier whenever I saw her. Pretty soon, I went from passively ignoring her to overtly snubbing her.

The butterfly affect that this had on my workouts was noticeable. I wasn't pushing as hard as I was before. Jerry noticed it and he wasn't happy about it. At all. I actually think that pissed off is a more accurate term.

"C'mon King Arthur! Earn that nickname! What's been up with you lately?" he yelled one day when I stepped off the treadmill before my time was up. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with a dry part of my shirt.

"I'm just - not feeling it - today." I said between pants as I gasped for breath.

He gave me an incredulous look. "Not feeling it today? I'm sorry Your Highness. Would you like to retire to The Royal Chambers to nap?"

My irritation with him was reaching its apex. I'd endured his disrespect and his contemptuous jabs at Naomi's nickname for me the entire time I'd known him. I stood silent whenever he made a reference to me getting his "precious services" for free. I took everything that he gave me, and I did it with a smile on my face.

I'd had enough.

"Back off Jerry! I'm not in the FUCKING MOOD FOR YOUR SHIT!"

You ever get that feeling of instant regret the moment something leaves your mouth? The statement came out with much more force than I intended. Every syllable hung heavy in the air, making the atmosphere around us thick with tension.

His open-mouthed expression and loss for words made me feel the need to backpedal. "I didn't mean it like that." I said in a softer voice, trying to tone down the harshness. "I'm just going through a lot right now. I need a little break. That's all"

He nodded his head as he looked at me with a smile that wasn't really a smile. It was more like a "thin ice" warning sign. Then he scoffed and said, "So, what? You wanna just take a break and call me in a couple of weeks when you're feeling better?"

I knew he was being sarcastic. I'm not an idiot. The tone of his voice told me that saying yes to his rhetorical question wouldn't end with us having a hearty handshake.

But if I'm honest, his suggestion sounded perfect. It wasn't really asking him for too much; at least that's what I thought. I just wanted him to dial down the drill sergeant routine a bit.

"I just need you to ease up a bit. That's all."

He looked like he was about to explode. But then, something changed inside of him. To my surprise, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sure. Why not?"

"Really?"

"Yeah. That's cool." He said nonchalantly as he picked up his towel. "Obviously, you can't deal with your shit. I don't wanna waste my time with someone who can't get his shit together. So why don't we just call this the end of our workouts together? That way, I can give more attention to paying clients who actually give a fuck."

"What the hell, Jerry?" I said disbelievingly as he brushed past me and started to walk off. He ignored me and kept going, so I had to chase him down and run in front of him to stop him. "So, I need one fucking day and you just drop me? After all the hard work that I gave you, you just treat me like I'm not even worth a second chance?" Once again, he pushed past me and continued to pretend that I was an annoying fly that kept buzzing around his head. As I watched his retreating figure, I grew angrier. Finally, I yelled out, "You know what? FUCK YOU! You're no better than my selfish bitch of a wife!"

He stopped and turned around with a glare that could have melted solid rock into magma. Then he stomped back over towards me.

"Fuck me? Fuck me? You ungrateful shit!" He said as he shoved me. He only used one hand, but there was still enough force behind it to push me back into another machine. Then he stepped in so close that I could smell the spearmint in the gum he was chewing. "You know what you are, Arthur? You're a fucking whiner. You expect to be coddled and told how great you are. You think the world owes you kindness because your wife didn't appreciate you, or you weren't as handsome as your brother. Well, BOO FUCKING HOO!"

The shocked look on my face didn't slow him down one bit. The composed, professional demeanor that he normally wore like an ostentatious badge of honor was gone.

"I'm not Naomi." He continued. "I don't give a fuck about your feelings. The only thing I care about is the potential that you're wasting because you care more about what everyone thinks than you do about finding out about yourself. I care that you keep getting in your own way because you are too much of a pussy to take control of your life. Your wife fucked another guy and called you names. Get the fuck over it. Everyone's self-esteem takes a blow. People get rejected every day. That's life. The winners do something about it. They get back up and work hard to prove those people wrong. The losers? Well, they whine."

I was at such a loss for words that my lip trembled with anger. His words ripped through me. Every last one of them was an arrow shot with precision.

He looked at me, smirked as if challenging me, and asked, "Which one are, King Arthur; a winner or a whiner?"

I glared at him with every ounce of venom that I had inside of me. He didn't break eye contact. Instead, he pointed to the treadmill and said, "Get your ass back on that and give me another twenty minutes."

I ran like a man possessed. My normal speed was 5.5 mph. I ran at 7 for all twenty minutes. My feet thudded angrily as the whir of the machine tried to keep up with me. My strides were long and fluid. My heart beat so hard that I thought it was going to come out of my chest.

But I didn't stop. I was so zoned out that I didn't even know my time was up until the treadmill slowed down and stopped, as of it was conceding defeat. When I finally stepped off, I pushed past Jerry's smug smirk and stomped into the locker room.

I was sitting on the bench when I heard him come in. I was hunched over with my elbows planted in my knees, wheezing to catch my breath. Without a word, he sat next to me. We sat in silence for a few moments (besides my lungs desperately fighting for air) before he finally said, "I proposed to my wife three times before she accepted. She kept turning me down because she was in love with another man."

I looked over at him. There was a vulnerability in his voice that I'd never heard before. At least, not from him. His tough as nails demeanor had fallen, at least for the moment.

"Who was he?"

He gave me a small snort that could have been a laugh and said, "He was her husband."

That shook me. I didn't know how to respond. I know it was selfish, but his admission to having a relationship with a married woman offended me on a personal level. Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? He went after another man's wife! Even after he heard my situation, he still had the nerve to feel like the victim? Did he think we had something in common?

He must have seen the judgement on my face, because he gave me a small chuckle. "He was dead. She was a widow." He said this in a tone of voice that said, "relax, Arthur".

"Oh." Was all I could say, wondering why he was sharing this with me.

"Believe it or not, that made things even worse." he continued. "No matter what I did, I could never compare to her saint of a husband. He was immortalized in her head. Everything about him was perfect. His shit smelled like roses, they never argued, and he never left the toilet seat up. So essentially, I was in love with a woman who always felt that I didn't measure up."

He had a faraway look in his eyes. To say I was surprised by his admission would be an insignificant use of words. He always seemed so much larger than life. Guys like him weren't supposed to have problems, let alone women problems.

"How did you handle it?"

He shook his head with tight lips. "I suffered for a while. I was constantly trying to prove to her that I was good enough for her to love. I stood by her when she acted like a bitch, I tried to give her space when she needed me to go away, and I made sure to form a relationship with her kids. I was there for her in every way I knew to be. I did all of that, only to have her describe me to her family as "a good friend."

Ouch. I thought. My face must have mirrored that because he nodded with raised eyebrows, as if he were agreeing with me. His nod said "yep, that happened".

"What kind of woman wouldn't want you? You look like a walking billboard for GNC." I blurted out.

He shook his head, like I was missing the point. "That's just it, Arthur. EVERYONE gets rejected. Low self-esteem is often only one heartbreak away, no matter how you look. In fact, good looking people are often the most insecure. The outside can be changed. You can buy trendy clothes, you can get a haircut, or you can gather up the will power to get yourself in shape. Those things help boost your confidence, but it's all cosmetic. The problem is, that confidence hinges on how other people see you."

There was so much insight in his words that I found myself nodding in agreement. "I get that." I said. He patted me on the shoulder.

"One good thing about going through what I did with Trina was it taught me a lesson; one that I think you could benefit from." He paused to give me a look that told me he was about to say something important. "You see, I realized that I shouldn't have to carry the weight of living up to her expectations. If - after everything I did for her - I still wasn't good enough, then she wasn't good enough for me. Her rejection didn't make me less worthy of love. It just meant that she couldn't appreciate what I brought to the table."

For the first time, I felt a connection with him that went past teacher/student. He wasn't just a robot whose sole purpose was to beat me into shape. He was a human. A mere man; equipped with all the frailties.

"But you still married her. Why?" I asked, remembering that she was now his wife.

A faraway look came across his face. "Yeah, we got married. But not for a while. After constantly being rejected by her, I eventually broke it off. I was so heartbroken about it that I took a job nearly 800 miles away. I couldn't stand to be in the same city as her and not share what we had. I had to make a clean break."

"What changed?"

His lips curled into a reminiscent smile. "She actually chased me down and told me that she wasn't going to live without me. She even offered to leave her job and come to California with me. The fact that she was willing to quit her job and uproot her kids told me a lot about her commitment to our relationship. Of course we wound up staying here in the end, but I now have a woman who cherishes and respects me. We've been happily married for five years." He said this with pride.

"Wow." Was all I could say. But as impressive as his story was, I couldn't relate to it. I couldn't imagine Paige missing me enough to chase me down. While he meant well by sharing his personal triumph, he actually made me feel more disconnected.

He must have read my mind, because he decided to make another point. "I heard some guy talking about an 80/20 rule that people. Coulda been Dr. Phil, I don't know. But he said that when a person is getting 80 percent of their needs met, they stop recognizing it. They look at that the 20 percent that they don't have and with envy. To them, the 80 is always gonna be there. It stops being something to be grateful for because it's expected. That 20 becomes so important to them that they often risk the 80 to get it. It's only when the 80 is in danger of leaving that they realize how much it means to them. " I knew he was talking about Paige. He felt that I was her 80.

He paused for a moment and thought of something. Then he added, "That's also why I'm so hard on you. I don't want you to take things for granted. I want you to give me your all, and not feel entitled."

"Yeah, you mentioned that." I said with a brisk laugh.

"You already have everyone feeling sorry for you. They want to make you feel better. I'm not going to join that pity party. My job is to break you out of that and make you see that you aren't this pathetic man who needs his hand held. You have the stuff that matters. That's the stuff that drives you to go to work every day and excel. It makes you visit your kids three or four times a week, despite getting your ass kicked in the gym by me. What you accomplished with your weight is a testament of the iron determination that you have in there. Your honor and commitment to do your best is what drives you and makes you who you are. Once you stop looking in the mirror through your wife's eyes, you'll see that." He paused, punched me in the arm, and said, "You're King Arthur, Goddamit! Start acting like it."

I hit the showers shortly after that. As the warm water streamed down my back and massaged my aching muscles, I thought about my conversation with Jerry. He was right. I spent so much of my life looking at myself from the outside, that I used that to judge my worth. People compared me to Lance, so I did too. Paige thought I wasn't worth fighting for, so I agreed with her. It wasn't until I got compliments from other people that I started to feel worthy.

At work, I excelled because I could prove it by comparing my work to results. The rest of life isn't that simple. There is no formula to test your worth. You just have to know it, even if everyone else doesn't.

I had to get to know who I was on the inside. I had to stop hearing Paige in my head. Her hurtful words still had too much power over me. I was stuck in that moment, watching her on her knees sucking another man's cock. That picture was practically the centerpiece of the space between my ears.

I had to move on. No amount of weight loss was going to do that for me. It had to come from within.

***

HOURS LATER:

"Mmmm, Arthur. Tony Stark may be a billionaire with a super suit of armor, and Captain America may have muscles on top of muscles, but no one fucks like you do!"

The insistent ringing in my ear woke me up from a very satisfying slumber. Initially, it merged into the dream that I was having. My brain finally realized that it didn't belong, and it woke me up.

My eyes lazily fell on my window. There was no sunlight shining through, so it was way too early to be my alarm. The sound of the noise finally registered as my cell phone ringing.

I groaned in protest as I cursed the interrupter of my forbidden rendezvous with Scarlett Johansson (as Black Widow, of course). My hand sleepily fumbled around my nightstand until I found the retched device that awakened me. Through eyes that were only half awake, I struggled to see who the caller was. The screen kept autorotating on me as I flipped it this way and that to get it right-side up. I finally got it to stop and saw that Lance was the culprit. I also saw that it was only 4 am.

"What, Lance?" I grunted into the phone.

"What up, Art. Did I wake you?"

Stupidest question ever. "No. Of course not. You know I always wake up at four in the morning, anticipating your call." I said sarcastically.

"Uhh, okay. Sorry." He said meekly. However, he didn't hang up.

That's when my brain fully kicked in. There was something strange about his voice. His normal, cocky demeanor was not coming through the earpiece. He sounded desperate; almost scared.

That got my attention.

"What's wrong? Everything okay?" I asked as I snapped awake and sat up in my bed. My mind raced with possibilities. Was something wrong with him? With mom? Dad? Was anyone dying?

"Nothing much. Everything's cool." He said, trying to sound nonchalant. Then offhandedly said, "By the way, Julie's pregnant."

My forehead furrowed in confusion as I said, "Who the hell is Julie?"

"Julie. You remember Julie." He said, as if I should have already known who he was talking about. I was still drawing a blank, so he added, "You met her on our birthday."