Free Feeding the Demons by Gabrielle Lord Page A

The rifle range and the headland covered in low coastal scrub met the pale blue of the sky, and Gemma stood there a moment, watching the gulls riding the wind. It was always windy there and Gemma shivered, thinking of a window left open during the night in a street not far away. She walked into the club, paid her two dollars and went up in the lift, crossing the dance floor where sometimes she would have to navigate around elderly couples, the women wearing elegant, gold-strapped high-heeled sandals, and dancing to old time music.
    Gradually the rhythmic effort of pedalling the exercise bike calmed her. The visit to Silverwater had taken precedence, for the moment,over her fear . She went over the conversation she’d had with her father, the two of them looking out the window of the large, untidy recreation room to where a few inmates kicked a ball around in a caged-in area.
    ‘I’ve already been out working on day release for some months now,’ he told her. ‘It’s not as if I don’t know what the world’s like any more.’
    Part of her had longed to tell him about the awful incident of the night before last, but she couldn’t tell him that. He was still too much a stranger. In the next few days, she’d look around the real estate places for something for her father.
    Yet as she pedalled, images from Angie’s horrible crime scene video haunted her imagination. She deliberately looked around the gym to block them. It was her policy to maintain ‘safe houses’—places that were hers alone, where she never went with a man, and the Seals Club was one of them. Occasionally, men tried to pick her up as she sat in one of the lounges with a cool drink after a workout, but she had a number of friendly rejoinders sufficient to deal with any contingency. She would never take a man home from here because she would never drink alcohol here. This was strictly her space: safe and sexless.
    She pedalled harder and noticed that the weightlifter at the eastern end had been joined by a second man, a younger fellow, who was leaning against the chest high windowsill and staring out to sea. When he suddenly turned and saw her staring at him, she felt caught out and looked away hastily, concentrating on her legs. The bike was now simulating a hill climb and the demands on calf and quad muscles claimed her full attention. Sweat itched her brow and armpits. Gradually, the electronic terrain levelled out and Gemma went faster, according to the speedo of the stationary bike. It wasn’t long before she felt calmer. My house is secure, she thought. I’m not going to let some homicidal maniac take up rent-free space in my head. She pedalled harder.
    After the bike, she did the trolley weights, lifting twenty to thirty kilos depending on the work. Bench presses, the rowing machine and finally, the stepper. Up and down she went, until her legs ached and demanded a rest. Finally, she stepped down, shaky and spent. She went into the women’s change rooms, had a quick shower and slipped on her swimming costume. She went to the pool, pulled on her cap and tested the tepid water with a toe. She pulled her goggles on and stood a moment. As she hit the water, she encountered the eyes of the younger man through her misty goggles. He was pedalling the same bike she’d been on, with a ringside seat of the pool.
    No way, sport, Gemma said to herself as she swooshed to the surface, slicing the water with her arms, moving steadily towards the other end of the pool. She did two laps and rested, then another four, hauled herself up and out of the water, wrapped the towel around herself, and took her gym bag back into the change room. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the younger man swing upright from the bench press machine. She couldn’t tell if he was watching.
    She had another shower and, wrapping the towel round her, stepped into the sauna room. Stretched out along the top bench in the hot darkness, Gemma felt the water drying from her body