book preview
Fitness Kills
in stores July 18, 2007- Format:
- Hardcover (207 pages)
- list Price:
- $25.95
- Publisher:
- Five Star, an imprint of Thomson Gale
- ISBN-13:
- 978-1594145858
- Genres:
- Fiction, Mystery
- Themes:
- amateur sleuth , food consultant , part of a series , spa
Book Excerpt
Selected Excerpt
Allison and a suddenly solicitous Jody had practically shoved me in here after lunch, telling Elena, the sweetly smiling, chunky attendant, to give me something called an herbal wrap. Allison promised it would ‘release all the bad toxins in my body,’ and leave me relaxed and refreshed. Not to mention thinner, from loss of fluids. Well, I wasn’t counting on the thinner part, I’d heard that promise all too often through my life, but even just lying here waiting for the wraps I could feel myself relaxing.
“Senorita Nora, I am ready for you now.”
Elena spoke so softly that I could barely hear her over the new age-y music in the background.
“These sheets, they are linen, soaked in hot oils and herbs. Very beautiful way to draw out the bad fluids in your body, and to make your skin very soft.”
She spoke slowly and carefully; she must have to repeat this explanation several times a day. I was relaxed after the massage, and getting sleepy in the warm room. It was initially a shock to feel the steaming hot, fragrant sheets wrap around my legs, but I accommodated to the moisture and heat pretty rapidly. Elena then slowly continued the wraps up the length of my body. I was nervous about the sheets confining my arms, and sensitive hand, as she wrapped them to my sides, but tried to dismiss my discomfort. Hell, nearly everyone I’d met here talked about how soft and clean their skin was after an herbal wrap; how rejuvenated they felt.
What I started to feel as the hot treated sheets began to tighten around my limbs and torso was panic. I tried practicing yoga breathing techniques, but I was too much of a novice to really know how to override the anxiety. By the time Elena tucked my curls into a shower cap, slicked my lips with some sort of pomade, and set cool, wet cotton pads on my eyelids, I’d begun to relax again. I did feel a bit like a sweet-smelling mummy, but didn’t even murmur when Elena explained that she was turning up the heat in the room slightly, and I should try to sleep. I heard the door click shut.
I was in the middle of a delicious half-dream, in which both Max and Tom were simultaneously stroking my body and commenting on how silky my skin was, when I felt a slight cooling of the air. Someone’s come into the room, I thought sleepily. Another mummy-to-be. I turned my head, but realized I couldn’t get my hands free to remove the pads from my eyes. I didn’t like that, but tried not to feel too claustrophobic as the wet cloths continued to tighten around my body. It would be over soon, and just think about that silky skin!
Quiet footsteps passed around the foot of the table.
“Elena?” I asked. “Is that you? I think I’d like to be unwrapped now. This is enough for my first time. Por favor?”
No one answered, but the muffled footsteps were approaching the head of the table now.
“Who is it?” I tried to sound forceful.
Still no answer.
I didn’t like this herbal wrap business. In fact, I really hated it. I started to panic. My heart began to race. I used all of the strength I’d been developing in my stomach muscles to pull myself up, but I was wrapped too tight to get my arms loose, and I couldn’t budge. I felt motion around my face, then my heart practically stopped with terror as a hot, moist cloth descended on my nose and mouth. Pressure. Then nothing.
Excerpted from Fitness Kills by Helen Barer. Copyright © 2007 by Helen Barer. Excerpted With permission of the publisher, Five Star, an imprint of Thomson Gale. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
