A Lesbian Party at the Pilates Studio

by Elephant List

I had been living in Austin for six months when I finally joined Sappho Studio Pilates.

At first, I had no idea what Sappho meant. I thought it was just one of those modern names somebody had come up with for a trendy chain of studios.

I was wrong.

Before that, most of my life had been spent in rural East Texas, where everybody seemed to know everybody else. Moving to a city as big as Austin had always sounded exciting from a distance.

Living in Austin was different.

I was twenty-eight, working as a marketing coordinator for a software company downtown, and spending most of my days sitting behind a desk staring at a laptop.

The job was good.

The city was good.

But I still hadn't made many friends.

So when I found a Pilates studio a few blocks from my apartment, I signed up for an introductory month.

I told myself I was doing it because I needed the exercise.

That was only partly true.

Mostly, I wanted somewhere to go after work where people might eventually learn my name.

The studio was exactly what I expected from Austin.

Polished concrete floors. Pale walls. Huge mirrors. Neatly arranged reformers. Tall violet velvet curtains framed the front windows. A front desk was stocked with expensive water bottles and little containers of things I couldn't pronounce.

Almost everyone there seemed impossibly fit.

I wasn't.

I was curvy, with hips that had never disappeared no matter how much I exercised, and long brunette hair that fell in loose waves halfway down my back.

For the first few classes, I kept mostly to myself.

Then the women started talking to me.

Nothing dramatic.

A joke before class.

Someone asking where I'd moved from.

Another woman complimenting my leggings.

By my third week, I had started recognizing the regulars.

And they had started recognizing me.

That was when I first heard about Wine Night.

It came up after a Thursday evening class while several of us were wiping down the reformers.

“You're coming next Friday, right?” a blonde woman named Lauren asked me.

I looked up.

“Coming where?”

She glanced at the woman beside her, and they both smiled.

“Wine Night.”

I laughed.

“At a Pilates studio?”

“Once a month,” Lauren said. “After the last class.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“You have no idea.”

The other woman laughed.

I assumed they were joking.

Lauren tossed her towel into the laundry basket.

“You should come. It's a good way to actually meet everyone.”

That was enough to convince me.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm in.”

Lauren started toward the changing room, then turned back.

“Oh, Megan?”

“Yeah?”

She smiled.

“Don't make plans afterward.”

For the rest of the week, I kept thinking about the way she had said it.

Don't make plans afterward.

It was probably nothing.

Maybe Wine Night just ran late.

Maybe everyone went out afterward.

Maybe Lauren simply had a strange sense of humor.

But over the next few days, two other women asked if I was really coming.

“You're coming Friday, right?” one of them asked before class.

“I think so.”

She smiled.

“Good.”

The next evening, another woman caught me near the front desk.

“Lauren said you're coming to Wine Night.”

“Apparently everyone knows.”

She laughed.

“Oh, we know. Don’t be late. The party starts at 8 p.m. sharp.”

There was something about the way she said party that made me curious, but nobody explained anything.

By Friday evening, I had convinced myself that was all it was.

I went home first, showered, pulled on black leggings and a fitted workout top, and tied my hair back loosely.

When I returned to Sappho Studio Pilates a little after eight, the place barely looked like the same room.

The lights were dimmed.

Music played softly through the ceiling speakers.

Bottles of red and white sat on a small table near the front desk beside cheese, fruit, crackers, and a few trays of appetizers.

About fifteen women were already there, all dressed for Pilates.

Lauren spotted me almost immediately.

“You came.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I wasn't sure.”

She handed me a glass of red wine.

“What happened to don't make plans afterward?”

Lauren smiled over the rim of her glass.

“The night is young.”

I laughed and followed her toward the others.

For the first hour, Wine Night was exactly what I had expected.

We talked about work, restaurants, dating, traffic, and which Pilates instructor was secretly trying to kill us.

I learned more about the women in that hour than I had during three weeks of classes.

And for the first time since moving to Austin, I felt like I might actually be finding a group I belonged with.

Then, a little after nine, something changed.

A few women began gathering their purses.

There were hugs, quick goodbyes, and promises to see one another in class.

Within ten minutes, nearly half the group was gone.

I glanced at Lauren.

“Is Wine Night over already?”

She looked toward the front door.

“For some of the girls, yes. But not for us,” she said, smiling as she poured more wine into my glass.

One of the instructors walked across the studio and turned the lock.

Another woman reached for the tall violet velvet curtains.

She pulled them slowly across the front windows.

The street outside disappeared.

I looked around the room.

Nobody else seemed surprised.

Lauren took another sip of wine.

That same knowing smile returned.

“Now,” she said, “Wine Night starts.”

I laughed, but nobody else did.

That was when I realized Lauren wasn't joking.

One of the instructors lowered the music and stepped into the middle of the studio.

“All right, ladies,” she said. “Top your glasses and move to the reformers.”

A few women groaned playfully.

“You know the rules.”

I looked at Lauren.

“We're actually doing Pilates?”

“What did you think Wine Night was?”

“I honestly have no idea anymore.”

She laughed.

“Good answer.”

We took two reformers beside each other.

Wine glasses were placed on small tables beside the reformers.

The class began normally enough.

Footwork. Bridges. Leg circles. Slow stretches.

The only difference was that everyone seemed looser than usual.

There was more laughing.

More teasing.

And nobody seemed particularly concerned when someone lost count.

After twenty minutes, the instructor changed the music.

The beat became slower.

She walked between the reformers with a smile.

“Partner work.”

Lauren immediately turned toward me.

“You're with me.”

“That sounded less like a question.”

“It wasn't.”

I smiled despite myself.

We moved through a series of paired stretches, helping each other balance and hold positions.

At first, it still felt like Pilates.

Then I started noticing how close everyone was standing.

Hands stayed on waists a little longer than necessary.

Women laughed quietly into each other's shoulders.

One pair across from us stopped pretending to pay attention to the instructor altogether.

I looked at Lauren.

She was already watching me.

“What?”

“You're figuring it out.”

“Figuring what out?”

She leaned closer.

“What Sappho means.”

For a second, I just stared at her.

Then I looked around the studio again.

At the women who stayed.

At the closed violet curtains.

At the wine bottles still lined up by the front desk.

And suddenly every strange smile and every little comment from the past week made sense.

“Oh.”

Lauren grinned.

“There it is.”

I looked around the studio again.

My eyes went to the name painted across the wall behind the front desk.

Sappho Studio Pilates.

“Oh my God,” I said.

Lauren laughed softly.

“You finally put it together.”

“I thought Sappho was just some trendy name.”

“That makes it even better.”

I felt my face warming.

Across the room, two women were sharing one reformer.

One sat on the carriage while the other stood behind her, hands resting on her waist as she helped guide her through a stretch.

Except the stretch had ended several seconds earlier.

Neither woman seemed interested in moving.

Another pair stood beside the mirrors, laughing quietly with their bodies pressed much closer together than anything I had ever seen during a normal class.

I lowered my voice.

“So everybody who stayed...”

Lauren nodded.

“This is the real Wine Night crowd.”

“And the women who left?”

“They came for Pilates and wine.”

“And we stayed for...”

Lauren smiled.

“The Sappho part of Wine Night.”

My stomach fluttered.

I should have been embarrassed.

Maybe even uncomfortable.

Instead, I was curious.

Very curious.

Lauren must have seen it on my face.

“You don't have to do anything,” she said.

“I know.”

“You can have another glass of wine, watch for a while, and leave whenever you want.”

I glanced around the room again.

Nobody was staring at me.

Nobody was waiting for an answer.

That somehow made staying easier.

“I think I want to see what happens.”

Lauren's smile widened.

“I was hoping you'd say that.”

The instructor clapped her hands lightly.

“All right, ladies. Change positions. Follow me.”

I sat on the carriage while Lauren stood behind me.

“Hands on the straps,” the instructor said.

We followed.

“Slow pull. Shoulders relaxed.”

For the first few movements, everything felt normal.

Then Lauren's hands settled on my hips.

She guided me forward into a stretch.

Her palms stayed there.

Warm.

Firm.

I could see us in the mirror.

My dark hair falling over one shoulder.

Lauren standing behind me.

Her body close enough that I could feel her every time I moved back.

“You okay?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Still curious?”

“More than before.”

Her fingers tightened slightly against my waist.

The instructor moved from reformer to reformer.

“Partners, help with the stretch.”

Lauren leaned over me.

Her chest brushed my back.

I inhaled sharply.

She heard it.

Of course she heard it.

“You're blushing,” she whispered.

“I'm from East Texas.”

She laughed against my ear.

“I don't think that's the reason.”

I turned my head.

Our faces were suddenly inches apart.

The room seemed quieter.

Or maybe I simply stopped hearing everything else.

Lauren looked at my mouth.

Then back into my eyes.

“Can I kiss you?”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

She kissed me slowly.

Not like she was trying to surprise me.

Not like she was trying to prove anything.

Just a soft kiss that lasted long enough for me to stop thinking about the other women in the room.

When she pulled away, I stayed close.

“That was my first Wine Night kiss,” I whispered.

Lauren smiled.

“Hopefully not your last.”

I kissed her this time.

The second kiss was different.

I wasn't waiting to see what she would do anymore.

My hand slid around her waist and pulled her closer.

Somewhere behind us, one of the women laughed.

“Looks like Megan figured out partner work.”

I broke the kiss and covered my face.

“Oh God.”

Lauren laughed.

“Don't hide now.”

When I looked up, nobody was making fun of me.

A woman on the next reformer raised her wine glass toward me.

“To first Wine Nights.”

Several glasses lifted around the studio.

I laughed.

“You people are terrible.”

“You stayed,” Lauren reminded me.

She was right.

And I had no intention of leaving.

The class had stopped pretending to be a class by then.

Music played louder.

The instructor stepped into the center of the studio and looked around at the women still gathered beside the reformers.

“All right,” she said. “You know what comes next.”

A few women laughed.

I looked at Lauren.

“What comes next?”

Lauren only smiled.

The instructor reached for the hem of her workout top.

“Ladies,” she said, “time to get comfortable.”

Around the studio, women began slipping out of their workout clothes.

For a second, I just sat there.

Then Lauren leaned close to me.

“You can keep whatever you want on,” she whispered. “Nobody's going to rush you.”

I looked around the studio.

Nobody seemed embarrassed.

Nobody seemed uncertain.

One by one, the women folded their leggings, tops, and sports bras beside the reformers like this was simply another part of the routine.

Lauren stayed beside me.

“You okay?”

I nodded.

My heart was beating much faster than it had during the workout.

Then I reached for the hem of my top.

I pulled it over my head and placed it beside me.

My leggings came next.

For a moment, I hesitated.

Then I took a breath and finished undressing.

Standing there in the middle of Sappho Studio Pilates, surrounded by women I had only recently met, I expected to feel exposed.

Instead, I felt strangely free.

Lauren stood a few feet away, still half dressed, and her eyes moved over me with a kind of slow appreciation no one had ever directed at me before.

She didn't rush. She took in my curves, my hips, my breasts, the way my hands hung uncertainly at my sides.

"God, Megan," she said softly. "You're beautiful."

I almost checked behind me. That was how unused I was to being looked at like that.

"Me?"

"Who else?" She stepped closer and her fingertips brushed my hipbone.

"I've been watching you in class for weeks. The way you move. The way you bite your lip when you're concentrating. I wondered what you'd look like without all those workout clothes."

"Lauren—"

"You don't have to hide." Her palm settled against my waist, warm and sure. "Not here. Not with me."

Around us, the studio hummed with intimate sounds.

Two women shared a reformer a few yards away, one sitting between the other's legs, low laughter drifting through the dim light.

Another pair had moved toward the mirrored wall. I caught a glimpse, then looked away. It felt private even though everyone could see.

"I don't know what to do," I admitted.

"You don't have to know." She pulled me against her. "Just feel."

Her kiss was slow, like she had all the time in the world.

Her hands slid down my bare back, and I shivered against her fingertips.

"Cold?"

"No. God, no."

She smiled against my mouth. "Good."

Her hands found my hips and guided me backward.

The padded carriage of the reformer pressed against the back of my thighs, and I sat down hard enough to make the springs groan.

The sound was so practical, so Pilates-class, that it almost made me laugh.

But then Lauren stood between my open legs, and I forgot how to laugh.

"You're so pink," she murmured, tracing her thumb along my hipbone. "So soft everywhere."

"I—" I moved to cover myself.

She caught my hands. "No. You don't get to hide from me. Remember?"

I let my hands fall.

I stayed open, knees bent, feet flat on the carriage.

The leather was cool beneath me.

The frame was at my back.

I was naked in a Pilates studio and I wanted her to keep looking at me.

She knelt between my thighs.

I stopped breathing.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes." My voice cracked. "Yes, please."

She kissed the inside of my right thigh first, slow and deliberate.

Then the left.

My legs trembled on their own.

She kept her eyes on me the whole time, watching me come apart, smiling just slightly.

"You're already so wet, Megan."

"I—this is the first time I've—"

"I know." She parted me gently with her thumbs and looked, really looked, at me. "That's why this matters."

Her mouth closed over me, soft at first, and I gasped so loud that a woman across the studio laughed warmly.

"To first Wine Nights."

I didn't have it in me to be embarrassed.

Lauren's tongue parted me, tasting me like I was something she'd been craving, and every thought in my head evaporated.

She worked me slowly at first.

Broad presses of her tongue, flat and warm. Then she found my clit and circled it with just the tip, and my whole body arched.

"Oh—oh God—"

She hummed and the vibration shot through me.

I gripped the edge of the reformer frame, my knuckles white against the metal, and my hips started moving against her mouth without permission.

"That's it," she breathed against me, and the words themselves felt like a touch.

"Let yourself feel it. Let go."

I was close already, embarrassingly close, but she didn't slow down.

She pressed two fingers flat against my pussy, just above where her tongue worked, and the combination undid me.

I came with my head thrown back, a sound clawing out of my throat that I'd never made in my life.

She stayed with me until I stopped shaking, kissing me softly as I came down.

"I can't—" I gasped. "I can't believe you did that with your mouth."

Lauren laughed, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. "I've been thinking about doing that since the day you walked into this studio."

"That's impossible."

"It's not." She moved up my body and kissed me, and I tasted myself on her lips.

It should have been strange.

Instead, it made me want her.

"My turn."

She pulled back. "Megan, you don't have to—"

"I don't want to stop." The words came out stronger than I felt.

"I want to make you feel like that. Please. Let me try."

Lauren watched me for a moment, then smiled. "Okay."

She lay back on the reformer carriage, and I swapped places with her.

Her blonde hair fanned out against the black leather shoulder pads. She was still wearing her bra, her leggings halfway down her thighs, and she worked them off the rest of the way with a practical wiggle that made me laugh.

"What?" She grinned up at me.

"First time's cute. Second time they come off faster."

I knelt between her legs, and suddenly I was the one looking down at someone spread open.

The mirrors showed us from the side—her pale thighs, my dark hair falling forward, the reformer's frame holding us like a stage.

"I don't know exactly how to—"

"Whatever you want is right," she said. "If it feels good, I'll tell you. If it doesn't, I'll tell you. Just explore, Megan."

So I did.

I started the way she had started with me—kissing her inner thigh, feeling her shiver.

I worked my way up slowly, learning her scent, her warmth.

When I finally pressed my tongue against her, she gasped, and that sound went straight between my legs.

"Just like that," she breathed. "Right there. Keep doing that."

I kept doing it. I found a rhythm.

I pressed my tongue flat, then used the tip, then flattened it again.

I learned what made her thighs tense and what made them fall open.

I reached up and found her breast through her bra, and she arched into my hand.

"God, Megan."

Her hand found my hair and held on, and I understood why she'd held mine.

It was grounding.

It was connection.

I pressed harder, faster, wanting to make her fall apart, wanting it the way I'd never wanted anything before.

"I'm going to—" Her hips lifted off the carriage. "Megan—"

I didn't stop.

I stayed right with her, lapping and pressing, and when she came, she cried out my name loud enough that someone across the studio echoed a soft "Go, Lauren."

She laughed even as she was coming, and that made me love her a little.

"Oh my God." She pulled me up and kissed me hard. "Okay. You're a natural."

"That can't be true."

"It is." She shifted, making room. "Come here. I want to touch you."

I straddled her thigh, and her hand slid between my legs immediately.

We kissed as she touched me, her fingers finding my clit and circling slowly.

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Just like that."

She touched me until I was trembling against her, and then she shifted us again, rolling me onto my back on the carriage.

She moved her hand between her own legs, and I watched her touch herself while she touched me.

The mirror showed us both—my legs wrapped around her waist, her head thrown back, both of us stroking each other in time with the music.

"This is—" I gasped. "This is—"

"Look at us," she breathed.

I looked. Two women, naked and tangled on a Pilates reformer in a dim studio.

My body, curvy and flushed, stretched out beneath hers.

Her blonde hair falling around her face.

Our hands buried between each other's thighs.

I'd never seen anything so beautiful.

It was around then that the instructor passed us.

She was calm, moving through the room with a small basket lined with violet cloth.

She stopped beside our reformer and smiled down at us.

"Ladies. Something to enhance the evening?"

I froze, expecting it to be some kind of joke.

But the other women were taking them too—a woman by the mirrors received one with a soft thank you, another opened hers with a practiced click.

I looked at Lauren.

"Have you used one of those before?"

"Sure." She shrugged. "Alone. Never with someone. It's a different thing."

"Is it—?"

Lauren looked at the instructor. "We'll take one."

The instructor reached into the basket and placed a small device in Lauren's hand.

It was soft rose pink, sleek, and smaller than her palm.

She clicked a button and it hummed.

"Here." She guided me to sit up and positioned me between her thighs, my back against her chest, both of us facing the mirror.

Her arms wrapped around me.

The device hovered just below my navel, undeniable.

"Are you sure?"

"I want to feel it with you," she whispered. "I want to feel you come on it and know I'm the one holding it."

She pressed it against my clit and I jolted.

"Oh—"

"Shh." Her lips found my ear. "You're okay. Just let it build."

The vibration was unlike her tongue, unlike her fingers—constant and relentless.

She moved it in slow circles, and I sagged against her, boneless, moaning into the crook of her neck.

"Keep going," I begged. "Please, don't stop."

She didn't.

She held me tight and worked me until I was gasping, until my legs kicked weakly against the carriage, until I came for the second time that night with her name in my mouth.

"You're gorgeous when you come," she said, kissing my temple.

"Now you." I turned in her arms. "Let me use it on you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Confident now?"

"I want to." And I did.

I wanted it the way I'd never wanted anything—wanted to see her fall apart the way I had, because she'd taught me how.

I took the device and guided Lauren to lie back on the carriage, her head against the shoulder pads.

I positioned myself between her thighs, pressing the vibrating rose against her clit immediately.

She gasped and grabbed my wrist. "God, Megan."

I watched her. I watched her face change, her mouth open, her eyes squeezed shut.

I pressed harder and she bucked her hips.

"Like that?"

"Yes—exactly like that, don't stop—"

I didn't stop. I watched her, learning her, and when she came, she came hard—her body curling up off the carriage, her hand clamped around my arm, a long sound coming out of her that I wanted to hear again forever.

"Oh God, Megan." She pulled me down onto her, breathless, laughing. "Where the hell did you learn that?"

"I didn't. I just—" I was laughing too. "I just wanted you to feel good."

"Stop being sweet." She kissed me. "It's working on me. It's making me feel things."

Afterward, we lay tangled on the reformer carriage, the rose-colored device resting on the leather beside us.

The springs groaned softly under our combined weight.

The wine glasses sat forgotten on the small table a few feet away.

I could hear the other women around us, their soft laughter and low murmurs, but it all felt like it was happening in another world.

I was exhausted.

Sweat cooling on my skin.

My thighs sore.

My body felt completely spent.

I was naked in a Pilates studio with a woman I'd barely known a month ago, and I had never felt less alone in Austin.

"Megan." Lauren traced her fingers along my spine.

"Mm?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For trusting me." She propped herself up on her elbow to look at me. "This isn't easy for a first-timer. And you were amazing."

"I didn't know I could—" I searched for the words. "I didn't know I could feel like this. Want like this. I've been in Austin for months and I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. And then you—" I gestured between us. "This. I don't know how to explain it."

She smiled softly.

"You don't have to." She kissed my forehead.

I looked around the studio.

The violet curtains.

The reformers.

The women scattered in small pairs and clusters, intimate and smiling.

The instructor making gentle rounds with her basket.

The low music.

The wine.

And I smiled.

"To first Wine Nights," I whispered.

Lauren laughed. "To first Wine Nights."

And the night was still young.

The End.