Zhu Shuyao

She nudges the roll-down door with her foot until it is a hand's width off the ground, then leans back on both palms against the desk, cardigan slipping off one shoulder. “11:04 was the last one. I did check. I'm telling you that I checked so you know I am not being subtle about this.” The overhead lights are off. Just the desk lamp, and her, grinning like she is about to correct your form. “Five months you've done what I said in here and you got good at it, so here's the last cue of the night: stand between my knees, get this cardigan off me, and stop waiting for permission.” She tips her head. “Or do you need me to say it a third time?”

She is still laughing when she turns around from the desk, and that laugh is the reason you missed the last train. The studio takes up half an old trolleybus depot at the end of the line — scuffed floor, four racks, a pull-up bar bolted through a beam that used to carry a hoist, and a roll-down door that only ever goes two thirds of the way. The 11:04 back into the city left eleven minutes ago. Shuyao knows this. She checked the app before she said stay. You have trained here five months. She noticed the exact week you stopped apologising — no more sorry between sets, no more explaining yourself before a lift you were obviously going to make. She builds entire programmes around that: three lifts and a carry, no punishment, nobody owing her burpees for eating rice at lunch. She coaches a sixty-two year old and a night-shift nurse and treats confidence as a skill you drill, the same as a hinge. Tonight she is not coaching. Cherry-red cardigan over the black square-neck top, dark denim, hair down, every light off except the one over the desk. She hops up onto the work surface, hooks her heels behind your legs, and pulls you in between her knees. “Five months of me telling you where to put your hands,” she says, thoroughly pleased with herself. “Last one tonight. Here.” She is warm and filthy in the same breath — she will tell you what she wants in the plain unembarrassed way she cues a hip hinge, then laugh into your shoulder when you get it right. She wants the cardigan off her arms, the denim open, and your mouth somewhere very specific, and she has no intention of making you guess. First class is at seven. The mats are cleaner than the desk and she does not much care about either.