Saving costs and improving lives

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014

6:30 a.m.

I’m covered in sweat, rolling it out with very little resistance on the knob. Flushing that lactic acid. Shoulders lowered, triceps and biceps spiraling. Toward me, then away, then toward me again, then away. Around and around until the energy corkscrews out of my fingers and I touch the knob again to the right. Half the class over, half to go. It’s muggy. Hot. We’re up from the saddle. Studio packed with bikes and bodies. Facing the instructor Sarah J and the mirrored wall. Lights off. No one sees my bruised face. Nathan didn’t notice how swollen I was yesterday, and bruises form overnight. If he’d wanted a blow job, it would have moved the lip filler, but thankfully we have sex without kissing. He just pinches my nipples as hard as possible until he gets an erection. It hurts, but no orgasm, no cry, just like the Bob Marley song.

Turning my knob up to feel the ground beneath me. Sarah J’s husky voice says make it sticky, make it thick. She talks about bikes like they’re hard dicks. Hard because the bike is hard. My face, ouch. Ice and rest are good immediately following the injections, but twenty-four hours after, some professionals recommend exercise so blood flows to the area and breaks down the bilirubin. Bilirubin would be my drag name! I’m clever. I karaoke. I work hard. My body is my temple. SoulCycle makes me memorable. A survivor. Tool. I want to be like Jackie Onassis. I want to wear a pair of dark sunglasses. SoulCycle is a tribe. A community. And if you want to do your own thing in class, if you want to pedal to your own beat, you better get to the back because this army marches in unison.

These other bitches are lazy. Haughty blubber around their thighs. Even in this musky room, with bruises and black light, I know I’m not the worst to look at. That really says something for the standards of New York City. I’ll color-correct my face before Nathan sees me again.

Back in the saddle, take the bounce out of the pedal.

My injector does well operating out of her ex-husband’s townhouse, even though it’s in the mid-sixties. On the wall opposite their elevator hangs a massive Lichtenstein bull. Pretty gauche, working in aesthetics and displaying a picture that is essentially a meat market, but second of all, who cares about Lichtenstein? I mean, I care, turning the knob again, clockwise. Righty tighty, the resistance so high I have to lean forward to pedal, engaging each quadricep, that long striated band that firmly runs from hip crease to knee and tugs at the inner muscles of my core in such a way that my clitoris vibrates just barely. I care. I care. I care about Lichtenstein’s place in the larger conversation of art the same way I care about American flags, but you can’t throw a handful of rice in the Upper East Side without hitting somebody who owns one. Dad owns Lichtensteins, but they moved to Maine full-time. Sarah J stops pedaling and leans against the mirrored wall to survey her army. The reflection touches her real body. Hair a glossy cascade down her shoulders. She grips her rose quartz necklace, softening her heart chakra. None of us will ever be her. That’s why she’s on the podium and we are below. My clit is positioned forward on my pubis bone and it accepts the pressure of the big hard dick of the saddle. Thump thump thump. A secret. Bone. Bone. Bone.

The weirdest part of the injection is swallowing the numbing cream. The back of my throat goes missing for four hours. I always ask if it’s OK that I can’t feel anything, and she always smiles.

Lean back. Tap that ass back. That’s the mantra. Make it hard. I must finish this class strong, for me and for the riders beside me, and for Sarah J and for Nathan. There is no cheating myself. I’m stimulated. Resistance peels back to level one, legs roll out so quickly that my entire body judders. My clit is a hard pea wrapped in blankets and I am the princess. That’s naughty. In the dark. Final song. An Elton John techno remix of “Circle of Life.” I endure the beat for my clit. The pressure is too fantastic, so I lift out of the saddle. But then, tap that ass back, yes yes yes. I don’t need the numbing cream. I can feel. I want to feel. I need it to hurt, because when you work for it, when you know why you’re working, when you know why you’re here, even pain feels good.

Nathan is at home sleeping, but when he wakes, maybe he’ll love me. Lick me. He finishes fast. Look at Sarah J. She tells us to say yes I can, yes I can, yes I can, yes I can. I promise, I promise. Dear God get me through it. I love sex. I live it. Everyone together, say, yes we can! I’m throbbing. I raise my head to peer through the jagged rows of bikes into the mirror, foggy with communal perspiration, but we all look the same and there are too many of us. I can’t find myself, so I stare back down at the wheel, the ouroboros of SoulCycle, and add more sweet resistance. Pushing down on my clit. A high and flexed feeling, unbearable, the tense pleasure on that small bundle of nerves, hard like a pellet. The druid unsheathes its hood. A red button pressed. Red dots of Lichtenstein. Daddy. Boing. I cum all over the saddle.

End of class. It’s always the girls with the rented cycle shoes who stagger for the exit before cooldown is over. One woman bumps her hip into my bike handles, insensitive to Sarah J’s pleas for us to stay. It’s just two extra minutes. Two minutes! The door cracks open to let the lemon-colored lobby light stream in. Consonance. Assonance. I close my eyes to make it through the hamstring stretch. No matter my fitness, I can’t stop the clock. Moonhour says unless you have their kid, you’re replaceable. Even then, let’s be honest, you’re replaceable. We must be aggressive, or else we won’t get what we want. We’ll become invisible. I tuck my lips into my mouth so no one stares at the bruises. Inhale. Exhale.

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From Agnes Lives! A Novel. Used with the permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright © 2026 by Hallie Elizabeth Newton.