The liquid was thick and viscous like any other entering Mark’s tank. It smelt sweet enough. He decided to only fill it up half-way, just in case. He didn’t want to ruin his mod or new coil straight away.

Taking his first drag of the liquid, it was pleasantly smooth as it travelled through his mouth. Strong, but smooth. A long draw in and a long stream of vapour out. It was surprisingly nice for a random liquid. He tried to place the flavour on something but resorting to listing through the flavours in his head didn’t seem to match anything. Not even a cherry cola flavour that could have actually had been nice for a weird change. He wondered if Nate’s had been the same flavour, or whatever sensation this was. He remembered Nate couldn’t seem to immediately place the flavour neither. It wasn’t a cinnamon waffle flavour like Nate’s though, something strange, almost salty in a way.

Mark had to take another few drags to try and fight against himself to try and figure out what the flavour could possibly be as it danced around in his mouth. By the fourth drag he thought he had it. He was sure it was like a Pretzel, or close to it. When his mind landed on a pretzel, it felt almost right and close enough. But then of all of the selections of flavours and tastes people had, why a pretzel.

He didn’t even like pretzels! But this was strange. It was almost addictive as a flavour. It definetely wasn’t a standard pretzel like the one you’d find in the supermarket. Something which was almost like as though it was parcelling up some subtle flavour inside of itself.

Marks eyes had glassed over a little as his entire thought process had been taken over by purely trying to work out why this weird liquid was almost like a pretzel. Almost in a mind of his own while he was on his own minding the empty vape shop.

Ding. A customer entered and almost like a chewing gum bubble had been popped inside of Mark’s mind he instantly went into sales assistant mode and started serving a customer. His mind free from the little jam placed on it and back to a normal state of mind for a retail worker.

The end of the day had finally arrived and Nate was trying his best not to get his latest site dirt all over the freshly vaccumed shop. Mark closed up and the two got in the car ready to drive off home to get changed into clothes ready for the gym. That was one thing Mark was happy about at the the very least, that their gym routine hadn’t changed much except the odd time Nate had been doing overtime on the site. At least he was getting paid for overtime these days.

Bouncy tunes towards the street they lived on. Changing was very quick. Both were in a good mood. Mark especially had perked up since. Even taking a drag or two on his vape in the car which was an incredibly rare thing for him to do.

By the time they got to the gym, it was surprisingly quiet for an evening. Even if it only felt like it. The session dragged on and by the end of it neither of them realised they’d been going for 2 hours. Mark still had plenty of energy which was really unlike him but knew they had to leave at some point in the evening so they could actually sleep in time for work the next day.

After downing what seemed like a mixer full of protein shake. In fact, double checking the container, definitely was a full mixer of protein shake, Mark felt tight in every muscle he worked. He could feel each individual muscle tight and worked. It was a fantastic feeling.

A feeling which soothed slightly as he took a few drags on his vape. It was incredibly relaxing. He felt almost as though he was in a hot bath relaxing the tight muscles and allowing them room to grow.

While overthinking things at work, Mark vaped away at the weird liquid without much thought. He was as his usual overthinking self he didn’t realise just how much of his mind it took up trying to think about his mind overthinking. It was getting chewed up in a sticky mess. Food was a good distraction to pull him out of trying to think.

What was he even thinking of? He had that a few times recently like as though he had just woke up from some heavy dream suddenly with the he thoughts being vague and leaving his mind as though they were being washed down the drain.

Since opening on the Friday morning, by lunch time not a single customer had showed up to the shop. He thought to himself why he almost felt cursed to only ever work in vape shops which got about 3 customers a day, he’d usually be on his own, usually watched on a camera and just unable to do anything but be “ready for a customer”. The few that actually bothered to show up. Sometimes he wondered how these shops even kept running, considering how little everything actually cost.

And there was his mind floating off to someplace else. Sensible thoughts were needed. Just get work done with and Mark could go work out in the gym, pushing himself further than even most of the PTs seeemed to be lifting.

Thankfully the gym was empty enough to allow Mark, along with Nate, to actually use the reasonably small, but decent weight room at their gym. The gym was one of those budget gyms which were always open, and usually always busy. Thankfully on a Friday evening most people would rather go out on the town and get wasted, but for Nate and Mark they much preferred a gym session, even if Nate would now go out with some of his new mates on the construction site afterwards. Being able to use the weight area to it’s full potential for the pair was always difficult enough.

Loading on the plates for a deadlift. The first set was their previous best. The second set was 10kg, on each side of the bar, more. The third, another 10kg. It was a good session just by the start of it.

As soon as they had finished the gym manager had appeared out of nowhere, and had almost scared them. Turns out he had been watching, and was trying to recruit personal trainers. The usual. Mark wasn’t that interested in it saying it was too expensive. The course being way out of his price budget, as much as he did like to try and read up on different exercises and wanted one day to be a PT.

The manager persisted, giving him a card with his contact details on. He said he’d try and ask the area manager if there was anything to do with the costs. Something about a new location opening up in one of the shopping parks which had a few empty units due to many of the big shops running out of business in recent years, and what’s a gym without PTs.

Eventually Mark gave in and gave his contact details which delighted the manager who said not to worry too much. Mark started to worry a little about it, but as soon as the next exercise started to smash his personal best, all of his thought power went on getting his form on point and focusing on moving his muscles and not the weight on the rack. So much thought, he almost enitrely forgot about the entire ordeal with the pushy manager.

After not being able to sleep well and being up early, he decided to go for a walk to try and clear his muddy thoughts lately. There were a few tying up inside of him. Walking through the trees, getting his lungs full of fresh air. He was thinking mostly about his work and how he felt just stuck in working for vape shop after another. It was almost a curse of poorly paid retail jobs.

He smirked as he realised he pretty much fogged up his entire view with a large cloud from his mod. Whatever the liquid was, it seemed to be helping in some way lately.

Having walked a bit, and decided that he was going to try and look for another job, again, hopefully in order to try and break the curse he headed back to his car. He checked his phone, and of course there was an email about being a PT. Then he remembered, he gave his details to that pushy manager at the gym last.

Deciding to read it for a change, he skimmed over the details. His eyes lit up the most they had for a long time. The budget gym company he was going to was working on a large new gym with different areas and they wanted him, him of all people, to be the lead PT in their strongman section. He didn’t feel fully like he was the most qualified of people to do this but reading down, of course there was training that was needed for the role.

Scrolling down through the email, the manager added that the gym would be willing to completely waive the training fees if they could train him at the gym while it was being constructed and he’d be willing to promise to stick to the job for some time. Almost explosions were going off in his head.

The bottom of the email said they’d want a phone call to talk things over. Without hesitating, or even remembering it was a Saturday he called the phone number. Almost immedaitely, as though they were waiting for him to accept the deal, picked up and started talking through the details.

His heart sank. The only interview slot they could give him was in an hours time. Even though it was only to be in gym clothes, he had to get home, change, make sure he was presentable and race to make it on time. Without really thinking, not that he could even if he tried much these days, he accepted and started the car to make it home in record time.

On the journey home, he imagined himself as a PT. He almost was for his friends, training up Nate and the others. Just this would be as a job. He hoped it wasn’t going to be painful turning something he enjoyed doing into a job, but this at least was his chance of being vaguely successful.

Arriving with about 5 minutess to spare, he realised where the new gym was going to be. A large supermarket near to where Mark lived was supposed to open a few years ago but the management of the place cancelled fitting and opening the shop because they were extremely tight on money all of a sudden or something. With enough time he took a drag on his vape in a way of preparing himself. Checking his tank he was pretty much empty and needed a refill. Taking the orange bottle, nothing came out of it. Completely empty. Guess that was going to be it before he could get some more liquid.

The place was quite different to the last time he’d been to the shopping park though. Scaffolding had covered the entire outside and the entrance was actually open. Workmen in their orange hi vis were scattered around the building doing various repairs and changes. Probably to strengthen the building for people to throw heavy weights around. The thought of heavy weights in general was enough to make Mark interested lately.

All on his mind were big weights. Like instead of the usual cogs you would imagine inside of someone working away, Mark had bigger and bigger weights swapped in, even if they did slip against each other making it hard to think at times.

He heard a whistle from up on the scaffolding as he was approaching the building. Recognising the grin from anywhere, it turned out Nate was on the side of the building. He must have been working on the new gym since he first got his new job. He thought the timing was quite funny, almost freaky.

Suddenly he was greeted by the manager from his current gym and who he could assume was the area manager. It turned out he was the only one they had invited for an interview at this point. For some reason thinking he was most appropiate for the role or something.

They took him around the site and the size of the project was insane. Already inside they had a concept for several different large rooms for different styles of a gym. The one he was to be working in would be the strongman room, which was almost as big as the whole of the gym he currently attended. It was almost complete as well, with multiple sets of each machine. Enough benches it shouldn’t get completely full at peak. He wouldn’t even have to see a treadmill if he didn’t want to.

Showing him around the rest, there was a similar space for purely cardio machines which did little to interest him and a similar classroom setup for spin classes and other styles of classes. He remembered to ask and to his delight the rules of this gym were changing and he would only have to teach a strongman class.

After being pleased the managers said there was a small bit of a test to go before they could give him the role. He had to show them his current personal bests at pretty much everything.

Deadlift. Bench Press. Bicep Curls.

The lot. Luckily, only one of each to show a personal best of what he was capable of. His competitive self showing through, he didn’t realise that he’d almost doubled some of his weights.

Sitting in what seemed to be the only office in the building completed, they handed him a contract. He tried to read it thoroughly, but it seemed lately everything was almost a blur of words. He was in university for law at one point wasn’t he? Thinking of it, there was no way a big meathead like him would do something like law was there?

After 10 minutes of reading and bearly understanding what the contract meant he signed away. It was more money and something he geninuely was excited about.

He shook hands and left, excited to retun in a couple weeks to start not as just gym-goer Mark, but PT Mark.

Sitting in his car afterwards, he had to relax for a few minutes. It was intense. He was actually sweating buckets from the personal bests he had to do still. One of the drops had ran onto his tounge. Then it clicked. The orange bottle. The flavour wasn’t pretzels at all. It was sweat. Gym sweat from someone who did nothing but lift heavy weights all day. Like all he would do now.