Bliss (Part 3 added–6/17/22)

[FallenAway]

18 hours ago, SamErgule said:

Is this a picture of David and Nicole?

[SamuelBarbado]

8 minutes ago, FallenAway said:

Is this a picture of David and Nicole?

Yes. Sorry, forgot to put the caption. Just did and will do so from now on. 

[SamuelBarbado]

Hey guys! Here's the third chapter of the story. I would like to thank @FallenAway for doing the editing job. Enjoy!

__________

Part 3

I did not mind the noise in the coffee shop. I was too focused on the heaps of xeroxed files on my little round table: academic articles, photographs, charts, personal journals. Beside these rested my cold and half emptied latte and untouched pandesal. It was almost evening, and the Belarministas had filled every table where they talk about their plans for the upcoming academic year. I held one of the files. I barely understood them. Luckily, Dr. Keith Martin Chua filled me in with the details earlier. It was enough to help me connect the dots myself—somehow. 

I arrived in Quezon City at two o’clock. I bought a steamed bun at a nearby 7-11 for a quick snack. After washing it down with a bottle of iced tea, I parked my car inside the university grounds which stood across the way. The Universidad de San Belarmino was almost empty save for several freshmen who were eager to enroll early and instructors who prefer to do their course preps in a more pleasing location. I got out of the car and followed the directions in my phone to Salcedo Hall where Dr. Chua was supposedly waiting for me. 

Good thing I looked him up online last night. I found him in the university faculty webpage. Within a square frame smiled a man who looked about forty. His salt-and-pepper hair and round glasses dignified his demeanor, but he still looked like anyone’s favorite uncle. According to my mother, he used to work with my father who was ten years his junior. I did my math. He should be way older than he looked in the photo. I spotted his email address below his name and credentials and I sent him a message asking him about David. I received a reply within an hour. I was agitated. Was I really going to do it? Still, I took it as a sign.

The department secretary pointed me to a door at the end of the room. I knocked. “Come in!” I heard a deep voice from the other side. I turned and pushed the knob. What awaited me on the other side of the door would remain in my mind the whole evening. 

Dr. Chua was huge! He was almost as wide as the four-foot desk he sat behind. Two giant globes were stretching and pushing his viridian polo shirt forward, casting a deep shadow over the rest of his clothing. His nipples accented the display. His shirt was unbuttoned to expose his deep cleavage. The sleeves, unable to contain the rest of his arms, were pushed way up to his spherical shoulders. His upper limbs were thicker than my legs and covered with a thousand bulges and veins. The amicable face that I took note of last night was being devoured by his neck as thick as a tree. He was typing in his laptop, but even the slightest movement of his fingers produced a grand spectacle of muscular motion.

“D-Doctor Chua.”

“Jude!” he softened his voice. Perhaps he had sensed how afraid I was, yet he smirked at the fact. “Please, just call me Tito. David and I were close. I remember you crawling with a pacifier. You used to cry whenever your father got anywhere near you.” He laughed. “Boy, look how much you’ve grown! Do sit.”

“Doc—I mean, ugh—Tito—”

“I know what you came here for, Jude. I’ve already compiled everything you need.” He stood up and wobbled toward the file cabinet, bumping into the sideboard behind his chair. Several books fell, but Tito Keith just shrugged his giant shoulders, perhaps used to the consequences of his size. He must be almost seven feet tall! His legs reminded me of cathedral pillars which were threatening to burst out of his khaki pants. His profile emphasized an obscene bulge which looked like a soft baseball bat was forced inside his crotch and left to snake down his left thigh.

“Here,” the deep voice took me out of my reverie. Tito Keith handed me an inch-thick, fastened folder. I scanned through the pages. My eyes begged for some sort of clarification.

There was a loud knock. Tito Keith invited the guest to come in. On the other side of the doorway stood a curly haired man in his twenties. He was my height, but he was built like an amateur bodybuilder. The professor's dimensions undoubtedly exceeded his in every way. Nevertheless, the artful bulges underneath his stretched out pink t-shirt drew my complete attention. I could not help but stare at the outline of his pecs and abs pressed against the diagonally hung strap of his messenger bag. He was asking for some files. Tito Keith handed him a folder. The stud thanked the larger man and left. 

“Uhm—is everyone here built like that?”

Tito Keith chuckled. “That’s Maurice, my lab assistant. He and three others have been helping us in our research. Their contributions have developed it in unimaginable ways. As you can see, these students don’t just get salary and credits. Maurice was smart enough to be the second biggest.” 

I wondered how huge the smartest of them was. I stared at the folder again. I was hoping for some answer about how things worked here, about my father’s involvement with their project, and about the unnatural growth that was given away for free while I was left feeling that I still had something to prove.  

“As I’ve said, I know why you’re here. I’m sure it’s more than just learning about your past. David himself said you would one day come looking for him. You weren’t expecting this, were you?” Tito Keith grunted and did a double bicep pose. His arms appeared to be about 27 inches thick! The sleeves retreated enough to make the shirt look like a tank top. “And this,” he pointed to his bulge which slightly twitched at his acknowledgement. His vulgarity caught me off guard.  

“Well, I wasn’t like this five years ago. See that?” He pointed toward the opposite wall where there was a photograph of him receiving some sort of award. He was significantly smaller and older than he was now.

“Five feet and 7 inches, and about 140 pounds. I gained a foot in height and 310 pounds since then. I figured I’ve been devoting most of my life to knowledge, so maybe it was time to reap the fruits of our labor—your father’s labor. I decided to follow the others and went through the process and boom! I grew!” He laughed. “I feel like a new man. But I had to set some sort of limits or risk compromising my career and having a normal life. This is the biggest I can get for now, but I’m loving it so far, and my boyfriend’s not complaining. I’ll be retiring in five years, and it’s gonna be nonstop from there.”

“H—How?”

“Sorry?”

“Like how did this happen? What started all this?”

“Hmm,” Tito Keith rested his hand on his chin. “Care for some coffee?” 

We remained in his office for the rest of the afternoon. He brewed some quality Sagada beans and took out bags of barquillos and galletas from his mini pantry. I took some as he pulled the blinds up, bathing the room in the afternoon sunlight. He sat down and cupped his hands. His eyes scoured the many pages of his memory. 

Tito Keith had always been interested in David’s work, so he volunteered to advise the promising scientist. My father promised a breakthrough in the ways the human body can heal itself. Keith, however, wanted him to focus not on curative measures but human augmentation. After all, why wait for the illness when they can prevent it? And why not link his research to his own project on male enhancement? As a protégé, my father trusted his adviser’s logic. His own work did need some focus, and where else to start but with the body he was more familiar with?

Keith’s reasons were more perverse than noble, however. At that time, he just met Lito Herrera, then an amateur bodybuilder. They were seated at the same table at a prestigious gala event. Keith thought he had seen him before on some morning show as a fitness expert. Lito confessed that he only got media attention due to his filial relation to the late action star Teofilo Herrera. Indeed, there were bigger and smarter coaches than him, and had they inherited his father’s Moreno Hispanic looks, they would be the ones on screen. Lito, however, was wise enough to reject movie and recording deals, despite the pressure that besets any person in this country with an ounce of fame. He knew that he lacked his father’s thespian talent. What he wanted most of all—he told Keith when they both had a shot too many at the bar—was to get as huge as nature and science would allow. 

Three hours past midnight, they were spooning in a bed in Lito’s high-end condo in Makati. Only one bedside lamp was lit. The bodybuilder was sound asleep, while Keith kept his gaze on the ceiling, oblivious to the sounds of the aircon and the occasional motorcycle twenty floors below. 

He was still thinking about the worship session earlier. He had been with a number of men before, but it was his first time with a bodybuilder. He was aroused the moment Lito took his shirt off, revealing his bulky yet supple pecs and his cut six-pack abs. Lito oiled himself up. He glistened under the warm white light. He was unreal. At once, Keith was groping the muscular man. He felt how hard the mounds were and how deep the crevices. He took in the distinct scents of alcohol, oil, sweat, and musk. Lito’s grunts enlivened his ears. In an instant, Keith was transported to a dream world where he felt vulnerable, stripped of his manliness and the everyday responsibilities that went along with it. For now, he was only a worshiper before his idol. Such devotion was primarily aesthetic, but it made a huge difference in the way the bodybuilder’s eight-inch cock penetrated his ass. He realized: The virility he lost earlier was only meant for gods like Lito. He had to beg for his mercy to feel like a man again. 

What Keith thought was a mere one-night stand eventually developed into a serious relationship. Their closeness meant that he got to worship Lito’s muscles all the time and watch them grow bigger and bigger. He finally understood his lover’s desire to become larger than life and it drove him to use his mind to achieve it. He knew Lito was already on gear, but he wanted to produce something safer, more powerful than what was currently sold. Borne out of his experiments were Actodoxinol, Daxaferolone, and Epzebinol which forced Lito’s body to gain quality mass in a short time and won him his pro card. 

“Thanks, hon!” Lito hugged him after a bodybuilding show. Keith felt all 253 pounds of him, all lean and dry. 

It was all well and good. Lito was content. But after encountering David’s work, Keith could never just deny the world a breakthrough in the science of male development. David’s method did not work the same way normal performance enhancement drugs did. Although it still involved certain triggers such as food and training, it did not revolve around the concept of “tricking the body.” It was meant to transcend mere human survival. It was meant to tap the universal fantasy within the male unconscious, and from there, command the body to transform into something greater than it is. It was meant to fulfill men’s will to power. 

And so the two began working on the project. They welcomed two more of the university’s best scientists, Leonard Castillo and Virgil Solis. Borne out of their efforts was Morphogenestrol, developed from Keith’s earlier work and David’s ingenuity. During the course of its creation, the team had witnessed the development of overgrown pets in the lab—all muscular, fertile, and well-endowed. They never expected such potency from the drug. They only needed to tweak and dilute it a little to consider it safe and ready for human experimentation. 

Fate presented them with an opportunity when Lito was contracted to train Isagani Rosario, or subject number one - Isagani Dominic Rosario Schweinsteiger - the name written on his driver’s license. I figured the public would have had a hard time pronouncing his real surname. Lito was given three months to bulk up the actor to heroic proportions. He was hard pressed for time, but he knew his superiors didn't really expect much. In this country, anyone who looked Caucasian or Chinese with the slightest hint of abs, no matter how skinny he was, would be called a “hunk.” But Lito was proud and ambitious and longed to man up that pretty boy. So imagine his delight when Keith told him about the drug. The procedure: The team had to administer Morphogenestrol, one shot per week within a two-month cycle. At the same time, Isagani had to undergo a more intense workout program and a stricter diet. 

Lito brought Isagani to lab one Friday morning. David thought that in person, he was nothing more than ordinary even with the features that he inherited from his Austrian father. He was slightly thick in the waist and he tended to hunch his shoulders. People overlooked these things, however, in favor of his boyish smile and approachable demeanor. He was nice to his fans and would be often seen chatting and drinking with the TV crew whenever he brought them bags of chicharron.  

Leonard measured Isagani and had him undergo some physical tests. The actor stood at a mere 5 feet and 7 inches and weighed about 144 pounds. He was out of breath on many of them and asked for water too many times. Afterwards, Leonard briefed the actor on his stats, while David prepared the syringe.

“Now, you may feel a slight sting in there,” Leonard said, rubbing a cotton on the actor’s right shoulder. “It will last for about 24 hours. It may feel heavy, but it won’t bother you when you work out. Stay still.”

“You feeling okay, Izzy?” Lito was standing before his trainee.

“Yeah. Barely felt it.”

They did not expect a spectacle that day. The whole thing was over in five minutes, after which, Lito and Isagani headed straight to the gym, while the scientists continued their work until five. And so went their Friday routine with very few changes save for Isagani’s stats. He added about 8 to 10 pounds per week. He got stronger and faster in the tests. He filled out his clothes more and more. One day, he was confident enough to show up in the lab wearing a tank top, which earned a proud whistle from his coach.

 “Good arms,” he said. “Keep it up!” 

The encouragement cured the actor’s slight hunch. Isagani now walked more confidently like the stud he was becoming. Moreover, his growth earned him a shirtless scene in the ongoing telenovela Amor Loco. That scene received attention from his female and gay fans, and scorn from macho men who thought telenovelas were a waste of time. For David, the scene was helpful because it promoted the upcoming superhero movie and made up for his bad acting.

The last time David saw Isagani, he weighed about 174 pounds and carried a slight amount fat. He needed to get leaner, David thought. His body would take time—perhaps a week or two—to fully understand the signals from the drug and reroute the survival drive toward the ideal. He would have liked to explain more of his thoughts to Keith if only he did not catch a fever three weeks into October. He was forced to take a sick leave and was denied seeing in person the results of his hard work. He told his teammates to email him the details, but he overestimated his ability to work at his desk. Also, Nicole persuaded him to instead spend his limited time with her, letting her feed him his favorite arroz caldo and smear vapor rub on his forehead. 

The couple celebrated his recovery on a couch with a bag of microwaved popcorn and a late-night horror flick. It was then that Nicole showed him the beast that Isagani had become. Impossible, David thought, in such a short amount of time. He rummaged through his stock knowledge for any mistake in the formula when he heard Nicole’s words.

“You would look good in that body.”

His curiosity gave way to doubt. He felt as Keith had felt in the presence of a being stronger and more powerful than he was.  I imagine the hunger that screamed from my father’s insides was the same hunger I had when mother showed me his photographs. For him, the hands that granted the mortal his godhood meant nothing. He felt those hands fading. He felt as weak as he was yesterday as he was in many moments in his life. He was naked before a laughing crowd that expected too much from him. His mind sank deeper into his childhood memories, wild fantasies, and late night perversions. 

David woke up at three in the morning. He rushed toward the computer and checked his email. Keith had indeed left a few updates of the experiment. The stats in the records did exceed his expectations. What Nicole showed him earlier was not a trick of the light. He would have to leave home earlier than usual. He would skip breakfast if he had to. He would ask Leonard for the files and a video recording of Isagani’s last shot of the drug that he was only now beginning to understand. 

He found a videotape on his office desk later that morning. He had called Leonard even before he left home. He took the videotape to the multimedia room and sat in one of the chairs that faced a TV and a player. He inserted the tape into the device, and the TV screen came to life. It showed the usual introductions and explanations which David skipped until he came to a familiar scene. 

Isagani was seated in a chair, around which stood the rest of the team. He was rotating his shoulder, trying to ease himself from the injection. They had already administered the drug. Meanwhile, Keith walked toward Lito, perhaps to discuss how to best time the actor’s workouts. Leonard and Virgil were putting the equipment back in their proper places. Isagani tried to walk toward his gym bag that he left in the changing room. David noticed him limp as if suffering from a hangover. 

“Agh!” 

All eyes were on the floor. Isagani was on his knees, screaming. His hands looked for something to grip. His eyes were shut, unable to bear the pain. Then everyone, including David from the other side of the grainy screen, saw veins popping out of every inch of Isagani’s body. The actor filled out his clothes in seconds. 

“My God!”

“What the—”

“It shouldn’t be happening this fast!”

“Agh!”

David watched the screaming actor swelling bigger with every breath. Isagani glistened from heavy sweating. His body bulged in all directions. Large mounds strained his shirt and shorts which were now tearing at the seams. His thicker arms sported intersecting slabs of sheer sinew. His legs and thighs quickly grew, as if someone was pumping him full of air.

“Fuck! Agh!”

“Calm down, Izzy! Breathe!”

“Agh! Shit!”

Everybody heard a rip coming from his back which rose higher and higher and pushed his shoulders further and further apart. His pomelo-sized biceps burst out of his sleeves. He was now topless save for tattered strips of fabric. His shorts fell off, unable to contain his burgeoning quads. Only his white briefs remained, now being stretched by his lengthening rod. Seconds passed, and they also yielded to the now footlong cock resting on his engorged balls. 

“Agh!”

“Vee, get the—”

“Leave him!”

What followed revealed to David the real extent of his creation. He heard a crackling of bones. Isagani’s limbs slid further away from himself, while his core stayed in place. His muscles swelled further to catch up with his stretched frame. Isagani’s eyes remained wide open, as if he was aroused by his metamorphosis. And then the crackling stopped. Only the drops of sweat made a sound. The various motions in his body slowed down. The growth was subsiding. Isagani began to breathe more slowly. Virgil rushed to help him up but struggled to do so, having underestimated the weight of the muscle beast.

Isagani stood up on his own, stumbling now and then as he tried to gain balance. Everyone gasped at his imposing height and width. He was thick everywhere. He was mass incarnated. Isagani bent his muscular arms to inspect his swollen biceps. His eyes wandered all over the rest of his overly pumped body. He flexed his other-worldly muscles and indulged in their playful movements. He laughed like a kid who got the exact Christmas present he had been wanting for so long. He spotted a full-length mirror at his side and walked toward it. 

“Woah!” He did a most muscular pose. His insane striations and veins exuded virile power. “Fuck! So big! So many muscles!” 

At once, his reflection awakened his footlong dick, now leaking precum. He groped his cock and smirked at the sheer size of his manhood. “Damn!” He laughed as he jerked himself off, his other hand exploring the rock-hard mounds on his torso. Seconds later, he ejaculated gallons of cum that coated the bottom half of the mirror and made a large puddle on the tiled floor. 

David turned the player off and realized that his fly was open, and he was jacking off the whole time. Precum was flowing from his raging dick. Shit! He panicked. He looked around. He was alone. Thank God! He took a deep breath as he tried hard not to cum. When his cock was slightly less hard, he forced it inside his boxer briefs and zipped up his fly. He stood up and rushed out of the room. He did not bother to take the videotape out of the player. 

That afternoon, Virgil told David about how the team had to deal with the aftermath of Isagani’s sudden growth which the team would later call “the spike.” They basically created a sex-driven monster. Leonard had already cleaned up the giant’s puddle when Keith asked for a sample. Isagani was more than willing to pleasure himself again, but this time the team made him insert his cock into a tube which led to a large glass container. It was a three-minute orgasm, according to Leonard’s stopwatch.

As the latest records said, Isagani now stood at 5 feet 11 inches and weighed 290 pounds, with only 7 percent body fat. He excelled at every physical test. His sheer mass even threatened to destroy the machines. None of the actor’s old clothes fit him anymore. Luckily, the lab owned an extra pair of plus-sized sweatpants that perfectly hugged his acacia legs. His large bulge left nothing to the imagination, but Isagani could not care less. As Virgil said, “He was rather happy to show it off.” 

At the same time, Lito called his trainee's agent Audrey Balani and told her about the spike. Audrey sighed and figured that Isagani would have to stay away from the spotlight for a while, be denied some public engagements, or be killed off in Amor Loco until he somehow returned from the dead. Meanwhile, Isagani would have to use the time to learn how to actually act.

So many questions haunted David that day, but none of them compared to his mindless arousal that morning. It was utterly perverse and unbecoming of men like him. He knew he should feel embarrassed. But he never felt so alive. For the first time, he saw a way out of his weary existence. He recalled Isagani’s face when he looked at himself in the mirror and realized how much power dwelt beneath his skin. He could not forget his euphoric smile, a glimpse of the eternal bliss that men who forged gods—men like him—deserved the most. Nicole’s words may have reminded him of his weakness, but he now saw them as a challenge. A new quest was calling him. Life may have cheated him and taken away precious time.  But he would take that time back.  He promised himself: He would be reborn.

[SamuelBarbado]

Telenovela heartthrob Isagani Rosario buffs up for the role of hypermasculine superhero Doktor Astig. The film was an entry in the 1997 Metro Manila Film Festival. Image by CBND Film Archives. 

[palisade]

I absolutely love the artwork that goes along with this! I'm so looking forward to seeing more!

[citizenies]

Love where this is going ~ and wew another hot artwork

[SamuelBarbado]

Hey guys! I figured that since I'm writing from a relatively different cultural background, I can aid readers by providing some cultural notes. I plan to do so for every chapter I post. Here they are:

• adobo—any meat or vegetable braised in vinegar, often with soy sauce, peppercorn, garlic, and bay leaf plus other ingredients of your choice; this is completely different from the Mexican adobo
• aircon—Philippine English for “air conditioner” or “A/C.”  
• arroz caldo—Filipino congee
• astig—means either “awesome” or “badass,” back slang of the word tigas which means “hard.” 
• barquillos—Filipino rolled wafers
• chicharron/chicharon—deep fried pork belly or rinds
• galletas—Filipino biscuits that look like communion bread
• pandesal—Filipino soft bread rolls, from Spanish pan de sal
• longaniza/longganisa—Filipino sausages, can either be sweet or garlicky 
• mestizo/a—anyone who is half-white
• moreno/a—anyone with dark skin
• tito/a—means “uncle”or “aunt” but may apply to your friends’ parents or your parents’ friends

• Your middle name is often your mother’s maiden surname. Hence, Isagani Dominic (his full first name, not his first and middle name) inherited Rosario (his actual middle name) from his Filipino mother and Schweinsteiger (his last name) from his Austrian father.
• Many actors in the past who had either Anglo, French, or Germanic surnames adopted Hispanic last names to be more relatable to the public. Case in point, former Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach was Pia Romero when she tried to break into show business. 
• Most celebrities are either half-white or of Chinese descent. Olivia Rodrigo, who is often accused of not being Asian enough, would actually not look out of place here. 
• Like any other metropolis, Metro Manila is composed of many cities. Makati, Quezon City, and the City of Manila are all part of it. Makati is considered the country’s financial capital. Also, the traffic here is hell.