Forbidden Love

Chapter 1

"Remember the ladies" - Abigail Adams, 1776

I am strong. I am confident. I am fierce.

    I dropped into my squat and quickly bounced back up to slam my leg into the dummy before me. As my leg fully connected with the bag, I tightened my muscles and locked my leg. I faced my sneaker laces towards the bag so that injury was less probable. When I first tried this kick-with admittedly no form whatsoever -I had almost broken my leg with how incorrectly I had done it.

    When my timer started ringing through my airpods. The high-pitched sounds interrupted my playlist and Christina Aguilera's masterpiece, "I Hate Boys". The song perfectly lined up with each of the kicks in my set.

    I had so much love for my all-feminist Spotify account. It was my pride, love, and joy, but also something my friends decided to make a comedic talking point. Frequently.

    I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand and followed by wiping my hand on the pink towel in the basket near the door to the kickboxing room.

    The gym I frequented, Wonder Woman, was an all-pink establishment that supported all women in their fitness journey. I also happened to own it, but no one really knew that except for me and my lawyer, Kayla.

    I had designed it to empower women. Every wall was painted a different color of the rainbow, all the rooms had one defined color and word of power. I had plastered one wall in each room with a collage of empowering posters and quotes.

After all, who wants to pour their blood sweat, and tears into a healthy body in a boring, gray gym?

    My passion was empowerment, whether the empowered person was a man or woman, I felt happy helping others achieve their best selves. In the case of the gym, it just so happened that their best selves were sought after physically. There were so many different ways to find your true happiness.

    Half of the trainers that I employed (anonymously) were men, men who had been thoroughly background-checked by everyone in my security employ.

    I supported equality, but sure some tiny part of my brain would still love to see women dominate everything completely and make men the lackeys, but then we would be no better than the whole patriarchy.

And after all, the patriarchy was what I wanted to destroy.

    I was walking through the green pastel weights room, almost near the receptionist's desk, when a voice called out to me.

"Hay Adams! On your way out?"

    An arm reached around my wrist and before I could compute the voice and sentence my arm lashed out and my elbow smashed into someone's body. I looked up from my haze and found Jesse, one of the self-defense trainers, and his hand that had firmly grasped my weaponized elbow while protecting his gut from being pummeled.

    "Oh my god, I'm so sorry Jesse!" I raised my eyes to be level with his chocolate brown irises. "But honestly you kinda had it coming, sneaking up on a woman in thought."

His deep belly laugh rang out through the gym. "It's my fault, Adams. I should know better than to surprise my very own star pupil. It's never OK to touch a woman without permission. Were we plotting the destruction of the patriarchy again?" His blinding smile was contagious, even as I felt a small blush rise on my cheeks. The cause of the blush wasn't out of attraction, though Jesse could never be called ugly or ordinary, but by the fact that few knew how my mind truly worked.

Jesse's perfectly tanned hand released my elbow with a friendly pat. The man was 6' 4", and yet he was the friendliest guy around. He definitely looked scary at first, his fully muscled body and height did wonders for the fear factor. But once he smiled you knew he would never hurt anyone who didn't do something unholy first. If you did something to him or his friends though, you were a goner.