Low Life | 28 March 2009

There’s a young girl at our gym who has recently burst into flower. She’s so extraordinarily beautiful she’s like a sport. Here’s one, you think, that even Nature herself is slightly surprised at. I can’t bear to look at her, either directly or obliquely in the mirror. If she enters my line of vision, I look away or down at the floor. Now that I’m a 50-year-old bloke, young feminine beauty of that magnitude, being as it is now unattainable in my case, not to mention highly illegal, makes me feel slightly sick at heart.

I sometimes wonder if she’s ever thought about the ugly old git over there on the cross trainer who’s trying not to look at her. Unlike everyone else. Especially unlike the young bodybuilders from downstairs in the heavy weights room who climb the stairs to goggle frankly at her or shake their heads in disbelief.