The sauna at my gym is a cedar box at the end of the changing rooms with a timer that never works and a thermometer nobody trusts. Most nights I have it to myself. I finish legs, I strip off the training gear, I sit on the top bench and let the heat do what the foam roller can't. Twenty minutes, no phone, nobody talking. That is the deal I have with myself.
Tuesday the deal broke. Not because someone came in. People come in all the time. It broke because one of them didn't leave.
Late night sauna after leg day, when the gym empties out
It was gone half nine. The car park was down to my van and two others, the music in the gym had switched to that sleepy playlist the night staff put on, and the changing room smelled of chlorine and somebody's expensive shower gel. I'd had a long one. Up at six for a kitchen fit across town, my own job, my own client, my own schedule, which sounds like freedom until you realise it means nobody else is going to carry the worktop. Then legs. Then this.
I left the towel folded on the bench outside. I always do. Sitting on a soaked towel in that kind of heat is nobody's idea of relaxing, and I've never been shy about my body. If it bothers someone, the door is right there.
So when the door opened and he came in, I didn't move. I just looked.
The man who walked in and chose the bench opposite
He was older than me by a few years, maybe mid thirties. Broad, quiet, the kind of build you get from actual work rather than mirrors. Towel around his waist, held tight, knuckles a bit white. He nodded. I nodded. He took the lower bench on the opposite wall, which in a sauna that size puts you about four feet apart and at a height where you're looking slightly up.
I noticed that. I think he noticed me noticing.
Two other lads were already in there when he arrived, chatting about football and their protein. Ladle of water on the coals, hiss, a wall of heat that makes your lungs tighten for a second before they remember how. One of the lads swore and laughed. The man opposite didn't make a sound. He just breathed slowly and kept his eyes very carefully on the floor.
That is the bit that gives you away, mate. Nobody looks at the floor that hard unless there is something they're trying not to look at.
Turning up the heat until everyone else gave up
Here's a thing about me. When I want a room to myself, I don't ask. I make it uncomfortable for anyone who isn't committed.
I got up, took the ladle and poured. Once. Twice. Three times. The coals screamed. The air went thick and wet and heavy, the kind of heat that sits on your shoulders and presses. The football lads lasted about ninety seconds before one of them said fair play mate and they both bailed out, laughing, slapping the door open and letting in a gust of cool air that died the second it shut.
He stayed.
Sweat was running down his chest by then, beading on his forearms, soaking the edge of that towel he was still gripping like it owed him money. His jaw was set. He looked up exactly once, caught me watching him, and looked down again so fast it was almost funny. I sat back against the hot wood, stretched my arms out along the top bench and let him have the full view he'd been pretending not to want.
You know that moment. When you realise the other person is staying because of you. Not the heat. You.
Being watched, and deciding to let you watch
I'll be honest about what goes on in my head in a moment like that, because I think you'd want to know.
It isn't nerves. It's a sort of calm, very focused. I know exactly what I look like after legs, pumped and flushed and wet through. I know the effect. I'm not going to pretend I don't, and I'm not going to pretend I'm not enjoying it. Watching a man fight with himself about where to put his eyes is one of my favourite things in the world. Watching him lose that fight is better.
So I made it easy for him. I said, low, without moving: you can look up, you know. Nobody's grading you.
He laughed, short, through his nose. And then he looked. Properly. Slowly. Like he'd been given permission and wanted to make it last. I didn't say anything. I let the silence do the work, and the heat, and the sound of both of us breathing a bit harder than the temperature explained.
That is what I mean when I say I lead. I didn't touch anything. I didn't need to. I just decided what was allowed in that room, and he followed.
What I told him when he finally spoke
Eventually he said something. Something about it being too hot. His voice was rough. I told him he could leave whenever he wanted. The door wasn't locked. He looked at the door. He looked back at me. He didn't move.
Good, I said. Then stay where you are.
A few words can do a lot to a man who's been waiting all day for someone to tell him what to do. You could see it land. His shoulders dropped. The grip on the towel loosened. Something in his face went soft and hungry at the same time, and I felt it right in the middle of my chest, that pull, the one that makes me want to see how far a man will go just because I asked.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, close enough that he could feel the heat coming off me on top of the heat in the room. I asked him how long he'd been watching me train. He said a few weeks. I asked why he never said anything. He said he didn't think I'd be into it.
I smiled at that. Wrong, I said. I'm into a lot. I'm just choosy about who gets to find out.
Why the ones who stay are the ones I remember
People ask me what my type is. They expect an answer about bodies. And sure, I like a man who looks like he can carry something heavy. But that isn't it, really.
My type is the man who stays. The one who could walk out and doesn't. The one who feels the heat climbing and decides he'd rather sweat it out with me than be comfortable somewhere else. There is something about that kind of stubbornness, that kind of want, that gets under my skin and stays there for days.
It's the same on a job. Clients who stand over you checking every cut are a nightmare. The ones who trust you, who let you take the lead and just watch you work, those are the ones you do your best for. I don't think I'm that different with men. Give me the lead and I'll make it worth your while. Fight me for it and you'll lose, and you'll probably enjoy losing.
Leaving the sauna, and leaving the door open
The timer finally buzzed, which it never does, like even the sauna had decided enough was enough. I stood up. I took my time about it. Walked past him to the door, close enough that my knee brushed his, and stopped with my hand on the handle.
Towel's outside, I said. Same time Thursday, if you're brave enough.
I didn't wait to see his face. I could feel him watching my back all the way to the showers, and I'd bet my van he's thinking about Thursday right now. Maybe you are too. Maybe you've been the man on that lower bench, staring at the floor, wishing someone would just tell you it's alright to look. This is the public side of me, the bit I can write down where anyone can read it. There's more of me, unfiltered, on OnlyFans and Fansly, and that's where I stop being polite about it.