{"id":271958,"date":"2026-06-23T04:57:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T08:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=271958"},"modified":"2026-06-22T20:58:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T00:58:41","slug":"agnes-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/agnes-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Agnes Lives!"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014<\/em>
\n6:30 a.m.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m covered in sweat, rolling it out with very little resistance on the knob. Flushing that lactic acid. Shoulders lowered, triceps and biceps spiraling. Toward me, then away, then toward me again, then away. Around and around until the energy corkscrews out of my fingers and I touch the knob again to the right. Half the class over, half to go. It\u2019s muggy. Hot. We\u2019re up from the saddle. Studio packed with bikes and bodies. Facing the instructor Sarah J and the mirrored wall. Lights off. No one sees my bruised face. Nathan didn\u2019t notice how swollen I was yesterday, and bruises form overnight. If he\u2019d wanted a blow job, it would have moved the lip filler, but thankfully we have sex without kissing. He just pinches my nipples as hard as possible until he gets an erection. It hurts, but no orgasm, no cry, just like the Bob Marley song.<\/p>\n

Turning my knob up to feel the ground beneath me. Sarah J\u2019s husky voice says make it sticky, make it thick. She talks about bikes like they\u2019re hard dicks. Hard because the bike is hard. My face, ouch. Ice and rest are good immediately following the injections, but twenty-four hours after, some professionals recommend exercise so blood flows to the area and breaks down the bilirubin. Bilirubin would be my drag name! I\u2019m clever. I karaoke. I work hard. My body is my temple. SoulCycle makes me memorable. A survivor. Tool. I want to be like Jackie Onassis. I want to wear a pair of dark sunglasses. SoulCycle is a tribe. A community. And if you want to do your own thing in class, if you want to pedal to your own beat, you better get to the back because this army marches in unison.<\/p>\n

These other bitches are lazy. Haughty blubber around their thighs. Even in this musky room, with bruises and black light, I know I\u2019m not the worst to look at. That really says something for the standards of New York City. I\u2019ll color-correct my face before Nathan sees me again.<\/p>\n

Back in the saddle, take the bounce out of the pedal.<\/p>\n

My injector does well operating out of her ex-husband\u2019s townhouse, even though it\u2019s in the mid-sixties. On the wall opposite their elevator hangs a massive Lichtenstein bull. Pretty gauche, working in aesthetics and displaying a picture that is essentially a meat market, but second of all, who cares about Lichtenstein? I mean, I care\u2014turning the knob again, clockwise. Righty tighty, the resistance so high I have to lean forward to pedal, engaging each quadricep, that long striated band that firmly runs from hip crease to knee and tugs at the inner muscles of my core in such a way that my clitoris vibrates just barely. I care. I care. I care about Lichtenstein\u2019s place in the larger conversation of art the same way I care about American flags, but you can\u2019t throw a handful of rice in the Upper East Side without hitting somebody who owns one. Dad owns Lichtensteins, but they moved to Maine full-time. Sarah J stops pedaling and leans against the mirrored wall to survey her army. The reflection touches her real body.<\/em> Hair a glossy cascade down her shoulders.<\/em> She grips her rose quartz necklace, softening her heart chakra. None of us will ever be her. That\u2019s why she\u2019s on the podium and we are below. My clit is positioned forward on my pubis bone and it accepts the pressure of the big hard dick of the saddle. Thump thump thump. A secret. Bone. Bone. Bone.<\/p>\n

The weirdest part of the injection is swallowing the numbing cream. The back of my throat goes missing for four hours. I always ask if it\u2019s OK that I can\u2019t feel anything, and she always smiles.<\/p>\n

Lean back. Tap that ass back. That\u2019s the mantra. Make it hard. I must finish this class strong, for me and for the riders beside me, and for Sarah J and for Nathan. There is no cheating myself. I\u2019m stimulated. Resistance peels back to level one, legs roll out so quickly that my entire body judders. My clit is a hard pea wrapped in blankets and I am the princess. That\u2019s naughty. In the dark. Final song. An Elton John techno remix of \u201cCircle of Life.\u201d I endure the beat for my clit. The pressure is too fantastic, so I lift out of the saddle. But then\u2014tap that ass back, yes yes yes. I don\u2019t need the numbing cream. I can feel. I want to feel. I need it to hurt, because when you work for it, when you know why you\u2019re working, when you know why you\u2019re here, even pain feels good.<\/p>\n

Nathan is at home sleeping, but when he wakes, maybe he\u2019ll love me. Lick me. He finishes fast. Look at Sarah J. She tells us to say yes I can, yes I can, yes I can, yes I can. I promise, I promise. Dear God get me through it. I love sex. I live it. Everyone together, say, yes we can! I\u2019m throbbing. I raise my head to peer through the jagged rows of bikes into the mirror, foggy with communal perspiration, but we all look the same and there are too many of us. I can\u2019t find myself, so I stare back down at the wheel, the ouroboros of SoulCycle, and add more sweet resistance. Pushing down on my clit. A high and flexed feeling, unbearable, the tense pleasure on that small bundle of nerves, hard like a pellet. The druid unsheathes its hood. A red button pressed. Red dots of Lichtenstein. Daddy. Boing. I cum all over the saddle.<\/p>\n

End of class. It\u2019s always the girls with the rented cycle shoes who stagger for the exit before cooldown is over. One woman bumps her hip into my bike handles, insensitive to Sarah J\u2019s pleas for us to stay. It\u2019s just two extra minutes. Two minutes! The door cracks open to let the lemon-colored lobby light stream in. Consonance. Assonance. I close my eyes to make it through the hamstring stretch. No matter my fitness, I can\u2019t stop the clock. Moonhour says unless you have their kid, you\u2019re replaceable. Even then, let\u2019s be honest, you\u2019re replaceable. We must be aggressive, or else we won\u2019t get what we want. We\u2019ll become invisible. I tuck my lips into my mouth so no one stares at the bruises. Inhale. Exhale.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

From <\/em>Agnes Lives! A\u00a0Novel<\/a>. Used with the permission of the publisher, Bloomsbury. Copyright \u00a9 2026 by Hallie Elizabeth Newton.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEPTEMBER 16, 2014 6:30 a.m. I\u2019m covered in sweat, rolling it out with very little resistance on the knob. Flushing that lactic acid. Shoulders lowered, triceps and biceps spiraling. Toward me, then away, then toward me again, then away. Around<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":271959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25508,3,43074,43076,26764],"tags":[110400,2880,110401],"class_list":["post-271958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-fiction","category-excerpts","category-fictionandpoetry","category-from-the-novel","category-novels","tag-agnes-lives","tag-bloomsbury","tag-hallie-elizabeth-newton","story-type-daily-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/agnes-lives.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-18Kq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}