growth The Heart is a Muscle (Brock and Ben)

[Mikeytron]

Part Four: Magno Amore

 

Yeah, I got pretentious with the title, but the thing is, my Latin is pretty weak, so I'm only somewhat sure it translates properly as 'immense' or 'great' love. In my weaker moments I think of this section of the story as "mango love," sigh, and ask why I'm so generally poor at devising titles. Anyway. Ben and Karim aren't back yet, but they will be tomorrow. Today's installment is part fuckfest and part philosophical inquiry into the nature of love, nurture, and virtue. [adjusts glasses]  

 

 

 

For Sam, it was like being completely enveloped by flesh – hard, shifting, bulging male flesh. He was totally surrounded by muscle. He could barely draw breath, but what little air reached his nostrils tickled with the sharp scent of testosterone and sweat. His face was buried – wedged – in the largest pair of pecs he’d ever seen, while a second, only somewhat smaller pair pressed firmly against his upper back and neck; together, they held him in place, like a gigantic vise made of muscle. Pinned, the whole of his small body felt like a living flesh-tube for the brutally thick cock that stretched his hole wider than he’d ever thought it could stretch. Vertical thrust after vertical thrust; held in place between the two muscle monsters, his ass absorbed the titanic force of each blow. Each inward thrust caused his whole body to quiver as the wrist-thick cock rammed its way deep inside of him – and caused his whole body to ache as it pulled back, not from the pain of being pushed beyond his limits, but from the desire to be filled again, to be filled even more fully, to feel the hot fist-sized throbbing heart of masculine power deep in his guts. A second hard cock, belonging to the smaller of the two muscle beasts, rubbed urgently along the small of his back, the glans catching and dragging like an orb of hot glass. Sam’s own torturously erect member was mashed between the gigantic brute’s bulging heaving bowed-out muscle gut and Sam’s own slightly concave, near-hairless torso. His arms were draped around a corded neck thick as a sprinter’s thigh; he’d placed them there to hold on, but quickly found their help unnecessary. When he had sense enough to remember that any extremity of his body even existed, his elegant pianist’s fingers would spring to life, eagerly exploring the two trapezius muscles bulging uneasily to either side; Sam was sure this guy’s traps alone were wider than Sam’s entire body. Sam’s bare feet dangled in the air, his toes caressed four legs in turn, each like a monumental pillar, more power in a single balled-up overgrown-cantaloupe calf than Sam possessed in his entire small, slight body.

 

 

 

Sam had already come twice, his cum churned into a kind of thick butter by the pressure, heat, and never-ending thrusting and friction of skin sliding against skin, but the relentless fucking was still ongoing. The three men must have been at it for nearly an hour by now. Every now and then the two giants would swap places, and the smaller, more elegant cock would enter Sam’s body like a newly-made regal scepter still hot from the forge, quenching its heat in him, while the enormous monstrous cudgel-cock would trace Sam’s lumbar spine, send shockwaves of unbelievable pleasure wracking through Sam’s body.

 

 

 

Just three hours ago, Sam was attending a public lecture hosted by the History department. His post-doctoral appointment was only two weeks old, and he’d moved across the continent to take it. This was one of the first such events he’d had a chance to come out to. Before the talk began he saw the mountain of a man from a distance, partially obscured by the crowd, so that Sam only had hints of his true jaw-dropping size. Even still it caused his mouth to go dry – under the suit jacket (bespoke, surely), this man looked like he could be a truly massive bodybuilder or powerlifter – but, from a distance, obscured by the crowd, Sam failed to grasp – or could not bring himself to accept – the man’s true size.

 

 

 

After the talk, the various dusty tenured professors, the younger harassed and sleep-deprived tenure-track faculty, and the lean, hungry graduate students milled around with plastic glasses of cheap wine, as was typical. Sam had just popped a piece of cheese into his mouth when a bass voice rumbled his eardrums. “Hey there.”

 

               

 

Sam almost choked. Surely there was some kind of optical illusion happening. Surely the man’s button-up shirt – it had to be custom-made – was padded in the shoulders and chest and arms and – but no, the sleeves were rolled up to expose forearms the size of – fuck – bigger than Sam’s thigh – bloated massive forearms – they couldn’t be faked – and if they were that size then the rest of him – had to be – well – just look – so wide and so tall that Sam couldn’t see around him – a chest so big it pulled the buttons apart a little – but if the shirt was bespoke – it had to be – this guy’s chest was… . 68, 70 … more? – if it was a bespoke shirt but he was popping the buttons, then that could only mean – Sam realized he wasn’t breathing.

 

               

 

“Hey,” the guy said again, a little more urgently. “Hey. Breathe, dude.”

 

               

 

Sam gasped, almost choking on the half-chewed cheese. “Sorry!” His South Asian complexion made blushes hard to detect, but this one couldn’t be missed. Surely half the blood in his body was rushing to his face – and the other half was rushing south.

 

               

 

“You’re new here,” the man-mountain chuckled. “I’m Brock. You’ll get used to me. Are you one of the new grad students?”

 

               

 

Sam looked at the enormous hand Brock offered him, not understanding what was expected of him for several seconds. SHAKE. This basic piece of social programming took an embarrassingly long time to load. It was as if Sam’s brain was a computer that suddenly lacked sufficient RAM. Sam slipped his elegant smooth-skinned hand into the monster’s paw, feeling the rough calluses, the heat radiating through his palm, as Brock gripped his hand – the lightest touch he could manage, surely, yet still a powerful grasp of a handshake. Wait. He had been asked a question. “Oh! No, I’m a post-doc. I just started. I’m not even in History. I’m from Musicology. I’m just working on Slavic folk stuff so I keep my eyes open for other departments putting on talks I might be interested in.” Sam clamped his mouth shut to stop the babble of words.

 

               

 

Brock’s look was one of assessment. Sam finally began to notice details beyond the man’s sheer physical hugeness. Brock stood about 6’3”, maybe 6’4”, towering over Sam, a petite  5’5”. Sam had no idea how to guess his weight. He was blond, with intense blue eyes, a wolf’s eyes, really, fearless and direct in their gaze – but this was ameliorated by a mouth and eyebrows that suggested a pleasant disposition, a man with a broad mind and a lust for life; he was young, too young for deep wrinkles, but there was the slight suggestion of smile and laugh lines around his eyes.

 

              

 

Indeed, Brock broke into a grin. “You know, we’ve got better wine and cheese back at the house than what they serve at these talks, and I’ve got a collection of Russian folk music on vinyl you can look through. Interested? I think my fiancé would like you.”

 

               

 

Sam couldn’t get his coat quickly enough.

 

 

 

*

 

Matt did indeed approve of the adorable little twink Brock had brought home for them to play with – like a nervous fawn, about to bolt, but so so incredibly thirsty for brawn. He must be having the time of his life with those pecs. Matt looked down at the swirl of short dark hair crowning Sam’s head, heard the muffled semi-delirious moans the small man continued to make. He was just so tiny, his svelte waist several inches smaller than the pulsing planetoids of meat that were Brock’s upper arms.

 

 

 

Matt looked at Brock, then, his Brock, this monster of a man, as kind as he was smart, as smart as he was huge, as huge as he was powerful. The man who was soon to be his husband. Brock caught Matt’s eye mid-thrust and a shiver went down Matt’s spine. He was just so unthinkably powerful – so much more than any other man had ever been, living or dead – and he was growing. He was growing – well over 400 lbs now, and not even 25. Sometimes Matt wondered what Brock would look like in ten years, and it challenged his imagination, made him feel the most potent combination of lust and fear. Even now, thinking of it, his dick gave a spasm and Matt almost lost control, almost painted the tan surface of Sam’s graceful arching back with a massive load of sperm, Jackson Pollock style.

 

               

 

“Fuck, Brock,” Matt gasped, “we’re gonna break this little dude in half if we keep going.

 

               

 

Brock smirked, leaned back a little to ease the pressure slightly on Sam’s sandwiched body. “You think? OK. Hey. Hey Sam. Sam. Look at me, buddy. Eyes up for a second.” It took a moment for Sam to come to his senses sufficiently to respond. Wordlessly, he extricated his face from the tight mountain valley of delight that existed between Brock’s pecs. He looked wonderingly at Brock’s face, the face of a Viking god. “Hey. Sam. Matt here’s worried you might not be able to take much more. He’s a soft touch. You want us to stop? Or you want me to pop you like bubble wrap?”

 

               

 

Sam’s big, black eyes, the eyes that first made Brock consider taking the handsome post-doc home, the eyes with the long, bashful lashes, eyes so big and sensitive and liquid – they pleaded without words, but they didn’t plead for a cessation. They pleaded “please, don’t let this stop.” Still, it was ideal to get that explicit consent. “Nod for me, buddy, if you can’t speak. If these muscles are just so devastating they’ve robbed you of words. You want to keep going: yes or no?”  

 

               

 

Sam nodded quickly, emphatically. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. Brock palmed his head and, with a guttural roar of victory, shoved it back where it belonged, between Brock’s burgeoning pecs, and resumed thrusting his cock into Sam with renewed vigor. Sam’s wordless moans took on a more intense pitch and frequency, and then there was a series of quick muffled cries. Matt reached around Sam’s lithe body, finding fresh hot cum amongst the sticky batter that they’d been churning for some time now. “Fuck, dude, this little horndog came again.”

 

               

 

“Can you blame him?” Brock said, bouncing his pecs so that Sam’s delirious head lolled delicately between the two overwhelming orbs of muscle.

 

               

 

“I think he passed out … sir,” Matt said, feeling the power dynamic shift already – with Sam in the mix, Matt was one of a pair of dominant muscle monsters – the lesser of the pair, the smaller dragon, but a dragon nonetheless, possessor of a power terrifying and incomprehensible to mortals. But Sam was totally spent – where does he keep it all, Matt thought, comparing Sam’s three big messy loads to his small, skinny body – and so now Matt was diminishing rapidly, alone in comparison to Brock; Matt’s size, his power, his 304 lbs of tattooed musclefreak bulk, were nothing in comparison to Brock.

 

               

 

“You were right though, boy,” Brock said, feeling the same shift, enjoying it. “We broke him. But I think he liked it, don’t you?” Brock grunted, shifting, his rigid cock still buried in the now-unconscious post-doc’s skinny little ass, the cock so wide, the ass so narrow – it really did look like Brock might split the little man in two. “You close?”

 

               

 

Matt bit his lip; he was close, but he didn’t want to say so. He wanted to give the answer that would get him the thing he wanted. And he only wanted one thing – for Brock to fuck him senseless, for that perfect merging of flesh that was Brock’s brutal nine inches, so thick and veiny it was ugly and beautiful in the same moment, and Matt’s godly bubble butt, enough to make the perkiest Greek statue look like a tragic case of pancake ass.

 

               

 

Of course, Matt didn’t have to say anything. Brock knew exactly what his overgrown muscleboy wanted. But Brock wanted the pleasure of seeing Matt’s desire overwhelm his senses. The look of confusion and even slight panic on Matt’s face as he tried to arrive at the correct answer drove Brock wild; he bucked his cock into Sam once more, then grabbed the puny postdoc around his miniscule ribcage, lifting him off his cock not ungently. Holding the grown man aloft with ease, Brock growled. “Get that thing off my dick,” he said, nodding at the condom on his cock. Matt reached for it, and Brock gave a sharp grunt of disapproval. “No hands.”

 

              

 

Eager, Matt swooped down to Brock’s crotch and, relaxing his throat, he took Brock into him in one swallow, filthy cock and condom both. Then, expertly manipulating his tongue and throat, Matt rolled the condom up Brock’s cock as he slowly retracted his mouth, eventually pulling away, the condom between his teeth, Brock’s now-naked cock bobbing free, a natural wonder of masculinity. Matt delicately spat the used condom to the side and looked up at Brock expectantly, awaiting his next order.

 

               

 

“Slick up,” Brock said, still holding Sam in the air like he weighed nothing. Brock now gently lowered their bedroom guest to the bed, where he instinctively curled into the fetal position, mind and body tested beyond their limits of sexual endurance.

 

               

 

Matt eagerly rubbed lube all around his ass. His hole twitched in a Pavlovian reaction; his autonomic nervous system knew what was coming next and was preparing for the joyful onslaught. Having finished, Matt knelt before Brock. Brock shook his head ‘no.’ “Up,” he said, reduced to single-word commands by the intensity of erotic feeling, of complete power and control. Matt was the size of an Olympia superheavyweight contender, and a big one at that; he was a heavily tattooed bodybuilder badass, but all Brock had to do to make him his bitch was cock an eyebrow and say a single word. It was intoxicating.

 

               

 

Matt knew what “up” meant. It was his favourite. Brock’s too. He jumped up, wrapping his enormous thighs around Brock’s blocky waist. Brock caught his 304 lbs weight with ease; Brock’s freaky legs now supported more than 715 lbs of male flesh, but they gave no sign of strain or struggle. Brock’s thick cock found Matt’s greased hole with no problem; they were practiced at this. Brock entered slowly; Matt moaned as his lover’s familiar girth spread his being apart. Then there was nothing slow – Brock slammed himself deep into Matt, lowered his lover until the orbs of his glutes rested against the upper sweep of Brock’s thighs, each leg greater in circumference than a normal man’s chest.

 

               

 

Matt tried desperately to last – but the hour or so of dominating Sam had kept his erotic juices on a slow boil, and it only took Brock a few forceful strokes, expertly nailing his aching prostate, before the dam burst deep within Matt. Matt always had messy orgasms, spewing cum everywhere, gasping and yelling and shaking – but this one seemed especially strong. Brock held him in place, Matt’s merely huge body enveloped and protected by Brock’s supernaturally gargantuan physical presence, as Matt convulsed and shuddered and roared and whimpered and shot and shot and shot and shot, every ballooning muscle twitching and flexing involuntarily, gobs of cum hitting his face, Brock’s face, arcing over both their shoulders, then ebbing, merely spewing and oozing streams of rich thick cum over both men’s densely muscled torsos.

 

               

 

Brock loved seeing Matt enjoy himself, loved how he abandoned himself to pleasure, how he was wracked and overwhelmed by it. But Brock still needed to get his rocks off; Matt was limp now, a ragdoll on Brock’s dick, a 6’ 304 lbs fleshlight; Brock used his mindblowing strength to essentially masturbate his cock with Matt’s spent body, a kind of hyper-erotic modified front-raise. 30” arms flexed and shifted; his beachball delts popped. He was getting a pump; his muscles were swelling, testing the limits of his skin, bloating up huger and huger. If Sam were conscious, he might have a heart-attack at the sight.

 

               

 

Matt came around a little bit. “Oh, fuck,” he said, seeing the blood slowly engorging Brock’s arms and shoulders. “You’re so fucking huge. Oh fuck.” He looked at Brock through hazy eyes; Brock knew the look: desire, awe, and just a little bit of fear. Fear at the true extent of Brock’s power; just how strong he truly was, the ocean of testosterone that flowed through his veins, the slow-motion explosion of muscular size that was his body as it grew from month to month to month. Yes: desire, awe, and just a little fear.

 

               

 

Brock snarled animalistically; he was given over wholly to lust now; he could prevent himself from physically hurting Matt, but that was all; at the moment he couldn’t care less if the fucker was terrified. All of Brock’s being was focused on achieving orgasm. He thrusted and thrusted and thrusted; Matt, fucked senseless, his legs wrapped around the moving parts of a god-machine designed to fuck the world, moaned, the only suitable tribute he could manage.

 

               

 

Finally, Brock came, with a roar like Ragnarok. His loads were always massive, but lately they were becoming ridiculous; Brock had to come at least three or four times a day, often more, and every time he did it seemed like at least a half-pint of fluid spewed from his thick towering cock. Sometimes, some corner of Matt’s mind wondered if there might be some accumulative physiological effect from being bred with such copious amounts of sperm from a mutant specimen like Brock.

 

           

 

A theory to explore another time. Right now, his insides were filling with Brock’s hot seed, and Brock was still roaring like a hellbeast, as if, through orgasm, he could see through the veil of reality to some deeper annihilating truth beyond.

 

               

 

Matt felt Brock gather him in his arms when it was over, felt himself being placed in the bed where Sam was still curled up, fetus-style. Matt tried to hold onto consciousness, but he was slipping out of it, into some sort of bizarre erotic dream, where Brock was everything in the world, and everything in the world was Brock.

 

 

 

Unlike Sam, unlike Matt, Brock was not overwhelmed by even the most intense orgasms. He always felt more alive, refreshed, vigorous after he shot a load. He watched both the satisfied lovers in slumber, both temporarily destroyed by him, by his overwhelming masculine power. Of course it was intoxicating.               

 

 

 

Brock wandered away from the bedroom, wanting to let both of the smaller men sleep. He became pensive at the sight of the picture window, watching the lights of the town. His massive naked form was also reflected back to him in the glass – but so what if the neighbours saw? Brock was the view.

 

 

 

Brock was always huge. It’s what made him different from Matt, from Ben, from his former football teammates, from his current powerlifting buddies –yeah, they’re all varying degrees of huge now, and some of them were always big guys. But none of them had grown up so clearly on another level of human development; Brock had. Brock never knew what it felt like to be anything other than exceptional. The intelligent, even-keeled eldest son of a well-off family, his father a man of power and influence. Brock was confident, capable, handsome, blond, blue-eyed, tall, and above all incredibly muscular. Even if he’d been scrawny he wouldn’t have lacked for power and privilege. But Brock wasn’t scrawny – Brock was the living incarnation of some forgotten pagan deity of muscle. Brock always got what he wanted.

 

              

 

It could have been a disaster.  

 

               

 

Where does human goodness come from? Kindness, consideration for others, the ability to empathize across the vast gulfs of difference that separate human experience – how are these traits acquired? In short, why wasn’t Brock a monumental douchebag?

 

               

 

Brock stood in the living room of the house he shared with Matt, the man who would soon become his husband. It was decorated in the impeccable low-key good taste of old-money New Englanders, the room’s aesthetic spliced with just a few genes borrowed from severe Scandinavian modernism. The house looked a little like it belonged to a pair of fussy frail fifty-someting tweed-o-sexuals, a thought that made Brock smile; together, he and Matt weighed about 715 lbs, a weight equal to at least five desiccated Ivy league profs, possibly six. Their furniture, solid as it appeared, was discretely reinforced to withstand their bulk, to withstand the force they could unleash on it.    

 

              

 

Brock filled the room with his massive muscular presence, still naked. His cock, now mostly flaccid, drooled onto his thigh. The big day was less than two weeks away – the day when Matt would become his husband.

 

               

 

Brock waddled – there is no other word – over to the mantelpiece, swinging his thighs around one another – each was larger than a strapping man’s chest. The overgrown parts of his body flexed and wobbled and bounced in time to his step, ridiculous hyper-sized gobs of muscle that existed for no other reason than as testament to Brock’s overwhelming physical being. His pecs, always his most impressive feature, had lately grown so overlarge they intruded on Brock’s field of vision. With eyes straight ahead, they filled the lower third of all he could see with their dual globes of pale skin, like two boulders of polished veiny marble, except dusted with golden hair. It made certain basic acts – like picking up an object from a low surface – difficult. Brock had learned to lock onto his target as he approached it, before it disappeared below the horizon of his pecs; his size required him to grow more gentle and careful. In this case, he had focused on a simple, tasteful photo album, so that, when it disappeared behind his pecs, his hand would still easily find it.

 

               

 

Who has a photo album nowadays, when images are so cheap, so plentiful, so passing? Matt gave it to Brock as a kind of engagement present. Most of the album was taken up with images of their life as a couple, their adventures, times with friends, happy domestic moments . Scenes from an early weekend together in New York, both men flexing by an ancient statue of Hercules at the Met. Brock with his forehead in his hands, desk covered with books and papers, studying for his PhD qualifying exams, his enormous arms threatening to split the sleeves of his t-shirt. Both men posing by the gondolas in Venice they were forbidden from riding (“troppo grande!”). Matt waltzing with Brock’s mother at his father’s retirement party, still attaining a catlike grace and elegance despite his superheavyweight build. Dinner with Karim’s enormous family in Amsterdam, Karim’s many younger brothers and sisters looking at the visitors in awe and excitement. Brock and Ben, both cartoonishly huge, clowning around, striking ridiculous poses, laughing their heads off in the pit at Muscle Beach, the serious-faced 250-lbs weaklings in their midst staring. Matt getting his latest tattoo, smirking confidently at the camera, the intricate Moroccan design half-finished. Brock and Matt, broad and superbroad backs to the camera, hand in hand under the cherry blossoms in Washington DC. Christmases, birthdays, 4th of July barbeques, Halloweens, Thanksgivings – a record of a happy, full, loving life.  

 

               

 

Brock heard a sound, the sound of a floorboard shifting under a three hundred pound tread. He smiled but did not look. Men of their size could not sneak up on anyone, no matter how graceful they were – and Matt was very graceful. Brock felt the familiar big arms snake around his big thick middle, felt the side of Matt’s face press itself against his rear delt like a pillow. Brock felt Matt breathing. Matt felt Brock breathing. They didn’t need words. They didn’t need to say anything at all.  

 

 

 

Where does human goodness come from? Brock and Matt knew the answer.

 

[Mikeytron]

Together (Part Five)

The last part of the story - unless I decide to write more at some point..... In any event, this is designed to tie things together. As a result it's pretty long. Also, if anyone is confused by the chronology, this last installment takes place about seven years after the first one; each part jumps ahead at least a year, sometimes more.

 

It was summer when Ben and Karim left The Facility behind. Not forever, of course – just for a little while. They had a cozy seaside cottage rented for a three-day weekend. It was on a private beach not too far away, and they had it to themselves for the duration. It was only fitting – this was the first anniversary of their wedding.

 

Drunk on dry prosecco and each other, they spent the first day in ecstatic play – rarely speaking, their pleasure and joy in each other beyond words, until they fell into a late-afternoon doze, the only sound the ostinato polyrhythm of three slow breaths – Karim, Ben, and the ceaseless Pacific.

 

Ben awoke some time after sunset, his massive musculature demanding calories. Hunger had almost become a foreign sensation to him – at The Facility, he was on a strict feeding schedule. The computer knew when he needed calories well before he felt hunger, and instructed him to eat accordingly. But this was the seaside, where all things were shifting and imprecise. He slipped out to the kitchen, careful not to wake Karim. He grabbed a special shake from a cooler that contained dozens of them, all pre-mixed for him, and began gulping. He didn’t know how many calories were in it, what its protein content was, what else might be in it – the computer calculated all these things. He caught sight of himself in the hall mirror, dimly lit by moonlight. He never thought he could grow so huge – one last big swallow – or that he could possibly grow more massive still.

 

‘Could grow.’ More like ‘will grow.’ ‘Am growing.’ His dangling cock began to stiffen.

 

There were a lot of things about the last seven years he couldn’t have imagined, as the frightened skinny eighteen-year-old he was when this all began. Now he was 25, almost 26. He was close to finishing his PhD. He lived on the west coast. He was married. He was – how big? Really fucking big, Ben thought, smirking arrogantly at his reflection, popping a single-arm bicep, admiring the orb of flesh that, a decade ago, would only have been possible with the help of photoshop. But here it was, in the flesh. His flesh.

 

His cock was throbbing now, beating vainly in time with his pulse.

 

Ben crept as quietly as a man of his bulk could creep. He dutifully brushed his teeth, raging erection bobbing in time – no protein-breath for his husband, not on their anniversary. He raised arms larger than a speed-skater’s thighs, revealing the deep dark caverns that were now his armpits. He sniffed. Not too bad. Nothing requiring immediate attention – besides, Karim liked a slight hint of musk.

 

He forced himself to be slow, gentle, when really all he wanted to do was pounce. But pouncing is out of the question when you outweigh your husband by three hundred pounds. Ben leaned in, his heart in his throat. Karim was always more beautiful than he could remember, and never moreso than when lit by moonlight – those fine North African features, relaxed in sleep, warm and open and unguarded. Light brown complexion perfectly smooth, perfectly even in the silver light. Soft lips pulled into the slightest smile – whatever he was dreaming about, he was happy. Ben could feel Karim breathe, rhythmic and slow. It was almost too much – Ben felt frozen in the moment, unable to move forward or to retreat. He felt like he could burst at a single touch. Finally, though, he leaned in and gently kissed Karim on his elegant neck, nuzzled his face into the space beneath Karim’s defined jaw, breathed deep his lover’s special scent: masculine and clean, sandalwood and sea-salt.

 

Karim murmured and instinctively reached out to Ben, still sleeping. Ben guided his husband’s arms, his legs, lifted Karim out of the bed they shared. Karim began to wake. He sighed contentedly, shifted, leaned against the unthinkable wall of muscle he’d helped to create, let Ben take all of his weight, never any doubt that Ben could handle it easily. Karim’s monumental cock began to stiffen as he felt the smooth, warm boulders of Ben’s body curving beneath him. “Hi,” he murmured - that adorable polyglot mutt of an accent tracing the finest, most subtle filigrees into even so simple a word.

 

“Hi,” Ben rumbled back. ”Happy anniversary.”

 

Now, Ben carried Karim out, through the rented house, down the steps into the fine sand under the dark sky. The sand still retained the heat of the day, radiating into Ben’s bare feet. Karim’s legs were wrapped around Ben’s thick, densely-muscled waist; Karim’s pillar of a cock was now totally erect, its domed head bobbing, smacking first one generous pectoral swell, then the other, in time with Ben’s footsteps and Karim’s heartbeat. The smallest pearl of precum began to gather at the tip, glittering in the moonlight, before smearing into one of Ben’s monster-sized pectorals, clearing the way for another pearl-like drop to form, then another, then another.

 

Ben waded into the water, the waves gentle, barely there, the smell of salt and iodine bathing the lovers. Karim’s grip around Ben’s waist and neck tightened as Ben, with a practiced hand, reached round Karim and prised apart his proud round ass, lightly teasing Karim’s most sensitive, private place first with a finger, then a pair of fingers – not inserting, just touching gently, feeling his lover pulse in anticipation. Ben withdraw his hand, briefly stuck his fingers in his mouth – making eye contact with Karim as he did – then returned his wet hand to where it had been. He began to gently loosen his lover; Karim closed his eyes, his breath becoming uneven, quickening, even now.

 

And then Ben entered him, his uncut cock slick with precum. Karim let his body lower until he felt Ben’s pubic hair against him. He sighed contentedly and held on to Ben with all of his might. For a time, there was no thrusting – they stood almost motionless, locked together in the moonlight, knee-deep in the gentle ocean, the moon suffusing the scene with its silver light, casting odd shadows over Ben’s improbable anatomy.

 

And then, the world shrank until it was only them, their conjoined bodies, one body lithe and graceful with a hard protrusion like tempered steel, the other body monstrous, burgeoning, bulging, huger than huge, orbs of meat and thick hose-like veins barely contained by pale skin stretched nearly to the breaking point.

 

The tiniest, most microscopic motion felt epochal to both lovers. Each heartbeat was a burst of almost overwhelming pleasure for both, and their hearts were hammering with all the love and excitement their frames could bear. Neither could tell how long they stayed joined like this. They panted, their eyes locked, unable to speak – but then, what good would speech serve? Eventually a wave, slightly larger than the others, splashed up Ben’s thighs, prompting him to slightly shift his weight, and this was enough. Squirming, trying in vain to hold back, Karim began to erupt, which prompted Ben to respond in kind. They held each other tight, like survivors of a shipwreck, groaning and gasping as orgasm wracked their bodies.

 

When it was over, they stood still, panting, grasping, and Karim began to laugh, and Ben joined, because it was all so improbable, so insane, that they should be here, that things should be the way they are. But they were, and they were. It was delirious, thankful laughter, and Ben was still chuckling as he carried Karim out of the water, up the beach, and lowered him gently to the still-warm sand, quickly arranging himself next to his husband, raining small kisses all over his lithe body.

 

They had no idea what time it was. Time passed. For ages they kept silent, other than to murmur sweet inanities or to chuckle at nothings. Eventually, though, the spell was broken. Karim sighed, turned on his side, stared out over the water like black glass. The moon had disappeared.

 

“You seem distracted,” Ben said.

 

Karim sighed again. “I’m thinking.”

 

“Not discontent, I hope…?”

 

“God, no!” Karim said quickly. “My god, Ben, you are … if you couldn’t tell from what just happened, I mean… how can I even say?”

 

Ben chuckled. “OK, then. Not discontent with me. But with something.” Ben snuggled closer, draped one heavy arm over his lover’s shoulders, pulled him close. “Citizenship application? Gay-married Arab guy, you’re everything old white Republicans are afraid of, but maybe the two halves will cancel each other out.”

 

“No. Money lubricates the way, as you well know by now. And I have studied very diligently. Ask me anything. I’m going to destroy that test.”

 

“OK, not that. Family.”

 

Karim snorted. “They love you, all of them do. And my father wishes he was me – you know, when he’s visiting, and he gets drunk and the two of us are the only ones left awake – he tells me all about it. ‘The world was different thirty years ago, Karim!’ he says to me.” Karim began to impersonate his father. “‘Europe: different! America: different! Sure, in 1975 I could fly in a Yankee with nice pecs to sit around my poolside for the week-end, but a specimen like Ben? Karim, he is two Schwarzeneggars. Three! He is three Dorian Yates! And to marry, legally? My lucky boy, you live a dream. I could not even have imagined. I would not have dared to wish – it would have been too much to ask. And you have it. It is your life. I am so happy for you. I am so proud of you.’”

 

“So what’s up?”

 

Karim sighed, snuggled into Ben’s massive embrace, felt the twin orbs of pec meat threaten to overwhelm his narrow back. “I’m worried about The Facility.”

 

“It’s basically self-running. We’ve had it going for more than a year now. I think all the kinks have been discovered and worked out.”

 

“That’s not what worries me.” The two lovers lay silent for a time. “That reporter is coming by next week to do the feature interview with me. ‘Karim Malik: This Man Makes Monsters.’ I know, I know. We’ve got our understanding with law enforcement. We’ve got our bribes, our permits. We’re a ‘medical research facility.’ I’m just worried we’re drawing too much attention to ourselves. I don’t like the thought of a reporter sniffing around the place.”

 

Ben nodded. The fears were valid and he had no easy answer for them. “You’re worried about Sam?”

 

“I’m worried about Sam, among other things. We’ve been so selective about who we invite to the facility – intense screening, nondisclosure agreements, everything. Remember Johnny and Dana?”

 

Ben nodded. “Our first guests.”

 

“Yes, and they were perfect. In four months with us, they smashed through 280, then 300, then 320 – and they’ve been discretion itself ever since. Same with everyone else we’ve taken in. But Sam is …”

 

“Brock and Matt will be here soon. They’ll know what to do.”

 

Karim laughed. “Yes, thank god for Brock Healey. A mega-heavyweight I can’t lay claim to – just by existing, he makes us look a little less suspicious.”

 

“So what worries you about Sam?”

 

Karim sighed and took some time in answering, as if searching for words. “He just worries me. You know I like to feel like I’m in control of things. And Sam is something I don’t feel in control of. When he looks at me, you know, I feel like he’s looking through me.”

 

Ben was silent for a while, his eyes fixed out over the dark ocean. “He’s sad, K. He doesn’t have much in this world. We’re helping him the only way we know how.”

 

“I know.” Karim tried to think of something else to say, but he couldn’t. The case was simple, yet impossible. “I know.”

 

They lay together in silence for a while, each deeply thankful to have the other near.

 

*

Two weeks later

 

Ben’s phone beeped. He flipped it open, surprised at the flutter in his stomach. Was he … nervous?

 

It was the text he’d been waiting for. “Hey dude, just got our bags. You here?”

 

Ben hurried to respond. “I’m pulled over by Pillar 32 at Arrivals, come on out.” He considered adding if you can fit through the door  but decided against it. He hit ‘send’, took the key out of the ignition, and got out of the vehicle to stand. He wanted to see them coming.

 

It had been too long – more than a year. And the last time they’d met, they agreed to surprise each other the next time. A year with no updates about gym progress. No selfies, no stats. They texted back and forth about grad school, married life, video games, books and movies, travel, politics – but not the one thing that was their deepest bond. Maybe that’s why Ben found himself with butterflies beating against his abdominal wall – this was a true reunion of sorts, a reunion of swolemates, brothers-in-iron. But he’s got me at a disadvantage, Ben thought. Ben didn’t hide himself. He’d been on a few magazine covers. He had a few thousand followers on Instagram. Within the bodybuilding world, he’d become a minor celebrity, despite doing only a handful of shows in a dilettantish fashion. There was awe and disbelief around Ben’s ever-swelling musculature, but he didn’t try to hide himself from public view. It would be easy to keep tabs on Ben’s progress despite the communications blackout on the subject. And none of that was true for the camera-shy…

 

Brock!

 

Ben waved at what was surely the largest human to ever dent the earth’s tectonic plates, accompanied by a ‘mere’ super-heavyweight bodybuilder, merely an Olympia-level mass monster in the offseason. Brock had grown. His huge 6’4 frame looked overwhelmed with meat. He didn’t walk: he waddled. Wherever Ben’s eye rested momentarily, his mind balked, unable to process his friend’s sheer massive size. He wore a tent of a tanktop – who knew how many X’s were stacked in front of that L? A year ago he’d been stretching out custom-made 8XLs, and he was bigger now than he was then. Much bigger. His beachball pecs cantilevered out from his chest, swelled up from his clavicle, presented a canyon you could easily lose a hand in – or a dick in – and they bounced with each step.  The tanktop’s straps were pulled horizontal, taut and thin, stretched a mile from the peak of his skull-swallowing traps to the distant far swell of his unearthly pecs. Brock’s shorts sagged in great folds of excess fabric around his waist, but were prevented from falling by ghastly thighs that exploded out to either side, twice as big as that German cyclist’s famous hamhocks, writhing with veins as thick as garden hoses. He rolled each monster-leg around the other in an odd, circular gait, such that, even from the front, Ben could see the hint of absolutely outrageous asscheeks like two big medicine balls glued to the back of his body. Despite his super-wide-set swagger, his inner thighs pushed against each other almost down to his knees, forcing his substantial package up and forward, exaggerating it. By his side, his husband Matt, a darkly handsome behemoth in his own right, tan skin covered in sinuous tattoos, shrink-wrapped over firm bulbuous muscles, looked normal – small, even.

 

Ben realized he had frozen in mid-wave, and that his mouth was hanging open. He’d grown so used to being the biggest man around, the biggest man imaginable – and, yeah, some part of him had dared to dream he might have caught up to Brock, maybe even began to surpass his mentor and oldest friend.

 

But nope. Brock was unparalleled. Brock was unprecedented. Brock was some kind of fucking mutant.

 

And that’s when Ben made eye contact with Brock – two pairs of intense blue eyes, one pair light, one dark, one pair steel, one ice. And that’s when Brock’s brutal face cracked into a huge grin, the beginnings of laugh lines crinkling around his eyes. It was like all the years and the maturity both men had grown into fell away – somewhere in the space where those gazes met, suspended in the shimmering air over the hot asphalt, they were 19 again, a 295 lbs ex-football player and a 195 lbs fitness model type, watching bodybuilding videos on youtube, shirtless in the living room of the shitty house they shared, the AC busted, plates piled high with chicken, rice, and broccoli steaming on their laps. Ben felt himself smiling in response; his heart swelled and his cock stirred like a happy puppy’s tail.

   

“You sidewalk crackin’ mutherfucker,” Ben cackled, striding toward the two massive men. “What did you do, eat the flight crew?” He threw his arms around his old friend – or rather, he tried to. Even if his arms were normally proportioned, Ben doubted they’d be long enough to encircle the freak’s beach-ball pecs and barn-door lats – but with the added volume of Ben’s own more-than-substantial arm muscles, it really was nothing like a hug. Muscles shaking hands, maybe – huge round masses of hard flesh shifting and arranging themselves against each other in a kind of dialogue, a kind of friendship. It was an intimate gesture that few other men could ever share. Their faces were so far apart, yet acres of their flesh pressed against each other, shifted or held firm, hot and smooth and hard.

 

“Real good to see you too, buddy. I can tell you ain’t missin’ no meals,” Brock said with a smirk. They broke their embrace and stepped back to properly size up each other.  

 

No questions were needed. Both Brock and Ben knew what the other most wanted to know.

 

Ben spoke first. “435.”

 

Brock smiled. “492.”

 

“You freaky fuck!” Ben smacked the veiny globe that was Brock’s left delt. “You just don’t stop, do you? Can you believe this guy?” Ben asked, turning to Matt.

 

Matt smiled his Cheshire grin. “Nope,” he said. “In fact, I can’t believe either of you. Hi Ben.”

 

Ben returned the smile, then suddenly dove at the smaller man. “C’mere you,” he said, “don’t think you’re getting away without a nice-to-see-you squeeze.” The two embraced.

 

“You’re looking real good yourself, Matt,” Ben said, tightening his hold on Matt. “What you up to these days?”

 

“Oh, about 335, 340,” Matt answered, responding in kind.

 

Ben continued the hug then broke away. He glanced at Brock, then returned his gaze to Matt, who was, as usual, just a little inscrutable in his expression. “You thinking of hooking up to the system while you’re here?” Ben began walking back to the huge SUV – not his style at all, but a necessary compromise – not many vehicles are built for almost 1250+ lbs of dense male flesh. “It’s only two weeks, but I think we could add eight quality pounds, at least.”

 

“Yeah, I think so,” Matt answered. “I like Brock being bigger than me, but too much of a difference and it gets kinda … well …”

 

“Scary,” Brock finished Matt’s sentence with a wolfish grin.

 

“Yes, a little scary,” Matt confirmed.

 

“I don’t know how you don’t break a twig like Karim in half, big man,” Brock said to Ben.

 

“I’m very very gentle,” Ben laughed, opening the trunk. “Besides, it’s kinda fun, having a husband whose waist is smaller than my arm. OK. Matt, you sit up front with me. Brock, try and squeeze that massive carcass into the back. Let’s test this thing’s suspension.”

 

“Speaking of Karim,” Matt said, “where is he?”

 

“Oh, well,” Ben said, turning the key in the ignition, “there’s a reporter doing a feature on him for a muscle mag, kind of like a ‘who the fuck is behind these mass monsters taking over bodybuilding’ kinda thing, and he’s at The Facility doing an interview. So I thought we’d kill a bit of time. I suspect you’d rather our paths didn’t cross with Mr. Reporter.”

 

Brock grunted his assent from the backseat, which was almost overfull with his unbelievable brawn.

 

“So what’s the plan?” Matt asked.

 

“I thought we’d hit the local hardcore gym, and then a diner I know. Karim’s gonna text me the all-clear when buddy leaves.”

 

“Alright, that sounds great,” Brock said. “Let’s give the locals a show they won’t soon forget.”

 

*

 

               Karim Malik: This Man Makes Monsters

 

Anyone even a little familiar with bodybuilding doesn’t need to be told that we’re in the early years of a new era. Sometime two or three years ago, men started showing up for contests well over 300 lbs – and then, well over 350. This new era of mass can all be credited to – or blamed on – one man: Karim Malik, trainer, entrepreneur, eccentric millionaire, center of controversy. Every muscle freak bending stage floorboards nowadays has either passed through Malik’s “Facility,” or have been inspired by what little is known of his methods to try and keep up with those who have. Muscle Rag has managed to score an interview with the usually-reclusive Malik, which occurred within the walls of his “Facility,” walls seldom breeched by mere mortals. Here’s part of our conversation – you can read the whole thing at musclerag.com

 

MR: Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with us, Mr. Malik.

 

KM: It’s my pleasure. Please, call me Karim.

 

MR: So, this is your ‘facility’ – could you tell us some basic facts about it?

 

KM: Well, it’s very simple. We take a scientific approach to muscle-building, and then we control for as many variables as we possibly can. Training, food, sleep, supplementation – all of it is tightly monitored and controlled to maximize results. There’s nothing magical going on here – we just use the best technology in combination with the latest science, and we use them strictly and totally. Anyone active at The Facility lives here for the duration of their training – at least one month, although best results come from three or four. I was inspired by a similar, though somewhat shadier and less precise, set-up I once saw in another country – I won’t specify where – and I thought ‘I’ve got the resources, I can do better than this.’

 

MR: So you ‘control for as many variables as you can’ – what does that mean?

 

KM: Oh, that’s very simple. Everyone at the Facility wears a small bio-monitor – that’s our big innovation, and licensing the patent has proven incredibly lucrative – it’s the only reason our fees are accessible to your average middle-class bodybuilder – provided he can take at least a month off work to live here, and he passes our physiological and psychological screening, I mean.  

 

MR: Bio-monitors?

 

KM: Yes, wireless devices that monitor hormone levels, blood sugar, that kind of thing – with data being transmitted to the central computer. It ensures everyone who is active on the system is constantly in an anabolic state – it’ll deliver instructions like “Ben: report to station 1,” where a protein shake or a zinc pill or something else will be there – whatever the system decides Ben – or whoever – needs to maintain his body in an anabolic state.

 

MR: A testosterone injection. . .?

 

KM: [smiles but does not speak]

 

MR: Surely, though, if you’re monitoring hormone levels, you must also be manipulating them …?

 

KM: Well, that much is true, and I will say that everything we do is legal. But just the same I’d prefer not to discuss the finer points of hormone manipulation.

 

MR: OK then. So what inspired you to do this? No offense, but you don’t look like a bodybuilder yourself… .

 

KM: None taken – I’m not. But I’m married to one. I’ve always been fascinated by muscular development, and when I got into a relationship with Ben [Greenfield, Malik’s husband, who likely needs no introduction to our readers] I really took to the idea of using my resources to help him maximize his growth.

 

MR: Well, you’ve done that, for sure! I think most of us would agree that Ben Greenfield is probably the most developed man to ever walk the face of the earth, in terms of sheer muscular size [see last month’s cover for a shredded Greenfield – who stands just shy of 6’ – at a mindblowing 420 lbs -ed].

 

KM: Well, thank you. But I’m afraid that’s not quite correct.

 

MR: Ah, yes, you must mean the mysterious Brock Healey. Ben’s ….?

 

KM: Best friend really is the word for it. Ben was a skinny soft-body when Brock first met him – and he probably would have stayed that way without Brock’s intervention. I just added some jet fuel to the process.

 

MR: So just how big is this Brock …?

 

KM: [smirks] If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.

 

MR: I take it he’s also a graduate of your Facility?

 

KM: Oh, no, not at all. It’s all him. OK. Here’s how I think of it. Ben is a science project – maybe that sounds creepy to you, but it doesn’t mean I love him any less. We’re very careful about his health. But his body is science. Science fiction. Brock’s is fantasy. It’s magic. His training and diet is all intuitive, and – I swear to you – he’s never touched the juice. I don’t have any explanation for it. It’s like he’s got a gland that naturally secretes massive doses of trenbolone. I’ve begged him to have an induction here at the Facility – not even to grow him, although god, imagine …  no, I want to induct him just to get the raw data, to see what makes his body tick. We could even possibly use that knowledge to adapt our techniques here. He’s turned me down at every stage – he’s very private. But – I realize this makes me sound naïve – but I really do believe that he’s natural. If any of your readers have seen one of the few photos that are out there, they’ll disbelieve me, but I know him well, and I really think it’s true.

 

MR: So have you reached the limit of human muscular development here at your Facility?

 

KM: Oh, no. Not at all. Not at all. Not even close. [he smiles enigmatically but refuses to say anything more]

 

*

 

“TWO MORE,” Ben bellowed, holding on to the sled for dear life. He and Matt were perched atop the leg press, which was laden down with every  45 lbs plate they could scavenge. Brock was at the bottom of his penultimate rep. He threw his head back and gave a beserker snarl, spittle flecking from his toothy mouth, the tendons and veins in his waist-thick neck bulging and distorting, his pecs smashed up towards his face by his monstrous thighs. The sled rose; Brock gulped air, his musclegut with its cobbled abs heaving in and out, tanktop long ago discarded. He paused at the top of the rep.

 

“LAST ONE. MAKE IT COUNT, FUCKHEAD,” Ben yelled, grinning at Matt, who was crowded in next to him – really, the leg press was not made for two men of their size. It was lucky they liked each other; they were practically cuddling.

 

Matt grinned back at Ben in turn, then slapped his hand against the metal of the machine. “C’mon, beast, show the iron who’s boss,” he exhorted. The sled descended; Brock moaned; the crowd of onlookers – at least a dozen – craned to see if this was it, if the giant of a man in their midst was finally beaten. But no – with a sudden vicious vengeance, Brock slammed the sled back up like he had another dozen reps in him, jammed the safeties into place, then rolled out of the machine onto the floor, onto his hands and knees, heaving rapid breaths, rivers of sweat cutting paths over the vast terrain of his unthinkable bulk.

 

Ben hopped down to the left, Matt to the right. Matt knelt down and slowly rubbed Brock’s back. Ben hobbled out to address the crowd – all three men had just slaughtered their legs. “Show’s over for today, folks,” he said, striking a pose, flexing his arms so that the bicep leapt up toward his fist, then flaring his lats as wide as he possibly could – if only because he wasn’t sure his super-pumped exhausted legs had strength enough left to support a pose without cramping up or faltering.

 

“You nutcase,” Brock rasped, still on his hands and knees, but breath slowing down to something close to normal. “You total nutcase.”

 

“Don’t puke, buddy. Remember, if anyone pukes, they buy the others lunch. Speaking of, let’s get going.” The three men – huge, huger, and hugest – slowly limped their way into the locker room like three elderly men, pulsing with blood and new growth. The crowd had dispersed, but all eyes were on them as they made their way to the change-room.

 

“Fuck, it’s good to lift with you again,” Ben said, whipping off his shorts without a second thought, semi-hard uncut dick dangling. “No one gets ‘intensity’ quite like you do, big man.” He tossed Brock and Matt a towel each before striding off towards the showers, his own towel jauntily over his right shoulder, swaying in time with his rolling gait.

 

As they undressed, Matt leaned in to Brock and whispered “you’re such a beast,” then nuzzled his neck.

 

Brock chuckled. “You know it,” he said, grabbing Matt, hoisting him up, lifting him to kiss his stomach rapidly, passionately, Matt’s dick flopping along the top of Brock’s vast pecs, quickly stiffening. A pointed cough from a dozen lockers away – Brock and Matt glanced to see a disapproving old man glaring at them. “Wanna do something about it?” Brock challenged. The old man quickly averted his gaze, hurried in dressing, and departed.

 

Matt laughed after he was gone – he was too kind to do it before. “You are a beast.”

 

“Yes, but even beasts need to get clean,” Brock said, throwing Matt over his shoulder and moving into the shower area.

 

It was a communal shower, with multiple shower heads and no dividers or privacy screens. Ben was sprawled on the floor, leaning against a far wall, two shower streams pointed at him. His legs were splayed, his hips loose and open after the brutal leg workout, his hamstrings two great gobs of muscle hanging off his thigh bone, his quads two gigantic teardrops sweeping out from his kneecaps, his calves two basketballs, seemingly held in place by a vast network of veins. He was languorously stroking his cock, which was just slightly above average-sized, but very nicely shaped, covered with generous foreskin. “What took you guys?” he said, brightening up at Brock and Matt’s entrance.

 

“Freakin’ out the norms,” Brock said, turning on multiple showers. “You always shower like that?” he asked.

 

“Only if I spot a couple of hunks in the changeroom,” Ben said. “Then I bust out my …  sexuality.” He said the last word mockingly, throwing his head back dramatically.

 

“Subtle,” Matt said, grinning.

 

“Hey, I’m a creature of appetite. And whatever they’ve got me on back at the Facility, it’s got me so horny I could probably jack off to a picture of Janet Reno.”

 

“I hope we’re a little better than that,” Brock said, smirking, turning his back on Ben and spreading his lats wider, wider, wider.

 

“Uuunh,” Ben said, his grip on his cock becoming feathery, his strokes very slow. “Woah. Fuck, I almost came, you asshole.”

 

Matt’s grin grew even more enigmatic; he leaned in to Brock and whispered something. Brock barked a laugh, glanced back at Ben, and said “your lucky day, old pal. Matt just had an idea.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Oh, you’ll see. Get ready, Matt.”

 

Matt braced himself against the far wall of the shower so that hot water ran down the rivulet of his spine and into the crack of his huge bubble ass, pumped two sizes bigger than normal by the intense leg workout the three men had just completed. Tattoos spiraling everywhere, his muscles slippery smooth bulges, his dark hair matted and spikey – everything seemed to emanate from the twin orbs of male power and beauty that were his glutes, like Matt’s ass was the omphalos, the center of all creation.

 

Brock moved over, spread Matt’s asscheeks with a practiced motion. “You ready?” he asked. Matt moaned in the affirmative. “Are you suuuure?” Brock asked, teasing now.

 

“God, yes, do it,” Matt managed.

 

“Maybe I better check,” Brock said, still teasing. He leaned in, put his face to Matt’s ass, nose to crack. He inhaled deeply and then dove in, working his tongue vigorously. He popped back up after forty-five seconds or so. “Oh, yes,” he said, twisting his bulk to look Ben’s way, glancing back over the steep hill of his left trap. “I think he’s ready.” Ben straightened his posture, took a firmer grip on his dick.

 

“Please,” Matt said, arching his back, sticking his ass out toward Brock.

 

“Do it,” Ben said, edging closer to orgasm, his pecs bunching and shifting as he stroked himself. He slowed his tempo again – he didn’t want to bust before the show even properly began.

 

Brock smirked at both the smaller men, and then piloted his cudgel of a cock, thick and uncut and gnarled with veins, towards Matt’s twitching hole, sliding in gently like coming home. Matt moaned appreciatively as Brock, once in, quickly escalated the speed and force of his thrusts. Soon, he was jackhammering, fast and hard.

               

Ben watched in something like awe. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen Brock in action, wasn’t the first time he’d seen Matt take it like a pro – but it had been a while, and Brock was bigger, stronger, more powerful than either man could have imagined all those years ago, back when they first met. A true beef-heap, arms bigger than thin man’s chest, titanic, monumental, adjective-defying glutes, milky-white, rapidly shifting and morphing with each brutal thrust. It was hypnotic. Matt had to be absorbing an insane amount of force with each thrust – hundreds of pounds of force, maybe a thousand pounds, maybe?

 

Ben was rapidly approaching delirium just watching and stroking. Yes, it was a little scary just to witness – yes, a lesser man would be torn apart, unable to withstand the onslaught of pure power – but it was so erotic. Ben started to spurt before he even realized what was happening. He couldn’t be silent. “Oh fuck,” he heard himself say as his spunk sprayed up onto his cramping abs, his pecs mounding up, digging into his chin, flexing with all their might. He came and came and came like something had broken inside him. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” he moaned as the spurts kept coming – some detached part of his brain knew the repetition of the same phrase signaled a feedback loop, that his brain had stopped processing new information and was in some kind of primal state of hypersex, pure sexual saturation – fight or flight, except erotic. And the desire was neither to fly nor to fight, but to melt into the floor, to go limp, to be utterly destroyed by the display of power before him.

 

Brock roared, slammed himself into Matt even more forcefully and didn’t pull out, like he was trying to spear Matt, like he wanted his cock to ram right through. He pounded his fist against the wall and left it there to help support himself as he unloaded in his lover, groaning and bellowing like the animal he was. Matt moaned and his dick started jumping as if touched by invisible electric currents; three shots of pure white cum splattered against the shower wall, and then drops begin to fall like rain, splattering in random directions by the violent spasms that wracked Matt’s dick.

 

Ben came back to himself, water running down his face, semi-hard dick still grasped in his fist. Even just removing his hand sent sensation darting through him, almost unbearable. His cum had turned sticky, the way it does in hot water. Ben groaned and rose, surveying the scene before him. Brock was holding Matt, face buried in Matt’s neck, licking and moaning and kissing him fervently. Matt almost looked like he was swooning. The tiles were dented where Brock had slammed his hand against them; one tile looked like it might fall off.

 

Ben shook his head, tried to come back to himself. “Dudes,” he said. “Look at the mess. You know, if we were anyone else, this would get us banned for sure.”

 

Brock smirked at Ben. “But we’re not anyone else, are we?”

 

Ben shook his head ruefully. “We’re not, but, you know, hardcore gyms like this have tiny profit margins – they’ve gotta compete with the Planet Shitnesses of the world.”

 

Brock barked a laugh and gently set a wobbly Matt on his feet. “Planet Shitness. Good one. OK, OK, you’re right, we’ll pay for the repairs. It was worth it, anyway. You should have seen the look on your face, li’l Benny.”

 

"I’m sure I was a real picture,” Ben responded, shutting off the water and grabbing his towel. “Let’s dry off and get some food – I’m going catabolic just standing around gabbing.”

 

*

               

“Thanks for the scoop, man,” the reporter said, shutting off his recorder. “This’ll move a lot of copies. I don’t know if you appreciate how many people are curious about you, and about what goes on here. You know how it is – people talk.”

 

“They do talk,” Karim answered. “I agreed to this interview because I hoped it would make people settle down. If it just fans the fires, well, I’ll be pretty disappointed. Anyway. I’ll walk you out.”

               

They left Karim’s office, where they had been chatting, and passed by the weightroom. Cody, one of the bodybuilders currently in residence, was in mid-set, incline bench, his ponderous pecs swelling together like two pieces of perfect masonry at the top of each rep, hiding his handsome face from view. He’d shown up at The Facility three months ago at an offseason 270; he was 340 now, and leaner, and he still had a month to go. The most anyone had ever gained in four months was 78 lbs, and Cody looked like he was on track to beat that record.

               

“Holy shit, is that who I think it is?” the reporter asked as Cody lowered the weight, momentarily revealing most of his face.

               

“Sure is. Kid’s a monster.”

 

“Another success story.”

 

“Yup.”

 

They walked on in awkward silence. “Seriously, though, now that we’re off the record: surely you must burn through an insane quantity of steroids.”

 

Karim frowned. “I can’t believe you asked about testosterone injections with the recorder running. What the fuck did you expect me to say? The last thing I want is the feds busting down our door. We’ve taken every precaution we can take, we’re as legal as we can possibly be without setting up shop in Thailand. You signed the contract on the way in, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” the reporter answered.

 

“OK, good. So you’ll remember section 11.1: the interview is over, we are off the record, and if you publish anything – anything – I say to you right now, you will be in breach of contract with some pretty nasty penalties. Understood?”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck.”

 

“No, not fuck. I’m protecting my life’s work from a system that doesn’t understand or appreciate what we do. You better fucking believe I take this seriously. Now, I want it to be clear: this stays between the two of us, as per the contract you signed. Yes?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“OK then. Of-fucking-course we go through a bull elephant’s worth of testosterone on a daily basis. HGH, IGF-1, insulin, everything. The computer’s a better steroid guru than any living human; the bio-monitor allows micro-dosing, incredibly precise dosing and timing. I said we used cutting edge science. I meant it. Legality is … something to be navigated.”

               

“So how do you prevent law enforcement from …”

               

“We have our ways. Leave it at that. Like I said: this is my life’s work.”

               

The two men walked on in silence. They were nearing the exit when the reporter spotted an innocuous closed door. Something – his journalistic nose picking up a scent, maybe – made him ask: “hey, what’s behind that door?”

               

Karim turned, saw the door the reporter was indicating. His face was a smooth blank. “Oh, just storage,” he answered. “Anyway, I hope you got enough material to write something good. Email me if you think of any other questions, or want to clarify anything. And come back any time if you’re interested in becoming a client – I can see you with another 50 lbs on your bones, easy. Take care!” 

 

The men shook hands and the reporter, taking a final glance around, walked through the front doors. Karim stayed put, watching, until the man got in his vehicle and drove out of the parking lot. As he made the turn and pulled out of sight, the starch seemed to come out Karim. He slumped against a nearby counter, let out a long shaky sigh, and said. “Thank fuck that’s over.” After a few slow, calming breaths, he straightened up and fished his phone out of his pocket. Reporter gone, he texted Ben. Bring the boys over at your leisure. Can’t wait to see them. He hit ‘send’ and turned to walk over to the unassuming door that the reporter had someone thought to ask about. Karim opened it, annoyed, and announced: “he’s gone. You can come out now.”

 

*

               

“A cheese and broccoli omelet for my friend here,” Ben said, gesturing at Brock.

               

“And he’ll be having the marinara burger, double meat,” Brock said, gesturing at Ben.

               

“I’m good – just gonna watch from here on,” Matt said.

               

The waiter, a skinny nineteen-year-old with a visible boner stretching down the left leg of his black pants, stammered “s-sure” and collected the fourth set of dirty plates from the diner booth.

               

It was a game Brock and Ben used to play when they lived together – after lifting, they’d go to a diner or a fast food restaurant and they’d order for each other. And keep ordering, and keep ordering. The first person who couldn’t finish his food was the loser.

               

“Double meat?” Ben said, cocking an eyebrow at Brock. “You trying to give that poor kid a heart attack?”

               

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Brock said.

               

Ben put on his best angelic look, his blue eyes losing their usual intensity, widening, becoming cherubic. “Oh calumny!” he exclaimed, fanning himself with his hand as if in distress. “To be falsely accuséd of possessing low moral character!”

               

“Clown around all you want - you still gotta eat it.”

               

“Oh, that was never in doubt. Seeing you blown up like a balloon animal has lit a fire under my ass, Brocky-boy. I’m gonna outgrow you one of these days. I’ve got science on my side.” Ben struck a superhero pose. "Science."

               

“Is that why you’re starving me with a measly omelet?”

               

“Dude, trust me, that thing’s massive, and it’s just shiny with grease.”

               

“A little snack for me. I’ll wither away if this keeps up for a whole two weeks.”

               

Ben smirked. “OK, then, big man, if that’s how you feel …” he raised his hand, snapped his finger, beckoned the waiter. The waiter, of course, was staring at the three muscle monsters crammed into the family-size booth whenever he had a moment, and often when he didn’t have a moment – he’d already spilled two coffees and forgotten at least one order.

 

“Y-yes, sir?” the shy teen stammered.

               

“Mega-shake for my friend here. Double the serving size. Triple the whey. Use full-fat milk. Don’t be shy with the ice cream – chocolate, why fuck around with a classic? Oh, and chuck a half dozen spoonfuls of peanut butter in the mix, too. I wanna be able to roll this fat fuck out the door when he’s finished.”

               

Brock smirked. “Same for him.”

               

The teen’s mouth fell open but no sound came out. He’d already brought enough food to feed a small army to this table, with another hearty course coming, and here they were ordering super-sized shakes that had more than a day’s worth of calories in them. “Uh,” he said.

               

Matt, who was closest to the waiter, smiled gently at him. “Just nod if you got all that,” he said, momentarily resting a hand on the teen’s arm. A quick shudder ran through the young man’s skinny body.

               

“Y-yes, sirs, right away,” the waiter managed to say, face flushing blood-red as he turned to flee.

               

“Matt!” Brock hissed, leaning in to his husband. “You just made that poor kid jizz in his pants!”

               

“Clean-up on aisle your crotch,” Ben said softly, in sing-song.

               

“I was trying to calm him down,” Matt said unhappily.

               

“Eh, don’t feel bad, maybe he will be a little calmer, now that he’s busted his nut,” Ben opined.

               

“How did you grow so wise, Ben?” Brock said, sarcastic.

               

Ben’s phone buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket. “It’s Karim,” he said. “The coast is clear at The Facility and he’s eager to see you guys. Poor K. I bet he feels like he’s been through the wringer – he really had some serious reservations about agreeing to this interview. Want to get this last round to go and call it a tie?”

               

“No,” Brock said. “I want to race you.”

               

Ben smirked. “OK, you’re on – you might be bigger than me, Healey, but I’ve always been faster than you.”

               

“We’ll see about that, Greenfield. Matt, you’re the judge.”

               

“Hey, no fair, don’t you think he’s kind of biased? He’s only, um, married to one of the contestants.”

               

“I’m fair!” Matt protested.

               

“Get the waiter over here, you can both be judges. You watch Brock, the kid will watch me. Say ‘done’ when the person you’re watching is finished. That’s fair,” Ben said.

               

“Sounds good to me,” Brock said. “We’ve got to wait for the poor guy to come back from the washroom, though.”

               

It took a few minutes for the waiter to re-emerge; his face was still crimson when Brock beckoned him over to the table and explained the rules of the little challenge. The food and shakes came shortly after, the shakes in ridiculous over-sized Styrofoam cups, their contents thick like cement. Brock and Ben readied themselves, game faces on, steely eyes meeting icy ones.

               

“Ready?” Matt asked, glancing at both men. They nodded, all business. “GO.”

               

Ben rammed the burger into his mouth, swallowing rapidly, chewing the minimum amount required. Brock’s knife and fork flew, severing huge chunks of cheesy eggs and jamming them into his maw. At the back of his mind, Ben was worried – this was the fifth course, and each of the four preceding had been epic in their own right, a full gut-busting meal for a normal man. Ben’s normally flat, cobbled gut already bowed out painfully, still lean and muscular but rounded now, like a gigantic hand grenade, etched with abdominals and veins like cracks in a bursting facade, a rock retaining wall approaching failure. But there was no way he was going to let Brock win this – even if an omelet was easier than a double burger. Just two more big bites. C’mon, Ben, you can—

               

“Done!” Matt exclaimed as Brock flopped back in the booth, breath heaving, sweat trickling down his heavy brow.

               

Ben groaned in defeat. Then, a realization: “your shake,” he said around a mouthful of beef. He gulped it down. “You ain’t done,” he said, speaking more clearly, before squashing the remainder of the burger into his mouth.

               

A light glinted in Brock’s eyes as he leaned forward, distended muscle-gut competing for space with his frankly ridiculous pecs. He grabbed the huge cup of thick fatty proteinous ice-creamy goop and started gulping. Ben was only seconds behind him. Ben closed his eyes and focused his whole mind on gulping as fast as he could. He treated it like a final set at the gym: push your body beyond what you think its limit is. Your body can handle it. It’s all a question of willpower.

               

The solution was just so thick, Ben had to take a few breaks to breathe from time to time. He was thankful to see Brock was in a similar situation. At one point, they were both pausing, gasping for air. Ben let out an involuntary belch, thankful not to puke. Brock leaned heavily on his elbows and gave Ben a long-suffering look. “You’re disgusting,” he said.

               

“You know it, baby,” Ben said, still panting. “I’m filth. Bottoms up.” He grabbed the cup like it was a dumbbell and this was his final set. His gut fucking ached – if he never felt hunger at The Facility, he never felt stuffed like this, either. He was kept in constant calorie surplus, but never this kind of ludicrous glorious excess – he was out of practice.

               

Finally, the last sludgy dregs of calorie-rich shake slid down Ben’s throat; he gulped hard and then slammed the empty cup down just in time to see Brock do the same. “DONE,” both men exclaimed in unison.

               

Matt and the skinny waiter glanced at each other. “I think it’s a tie,” Matt said. The waiter nodded anxiously, as if afraid of the possible consequences of there being no clear winner.

 

Ben and Brock both leaned back and groaned. Their titanic muscles were flooded with glycogen and nutrients; both looked the hugest they’d ever been; both felt pinned to their seats by the huge mass of undigested food. They were sweating from the pure physical effort of eating to such excess. Their guts were both distended well beyond their normal sizes, hard and taut, but there wasn’t much space on either man’s frame to accommodate it – their swollen thighs pressed up from one direction, their enormous pecs pressed down from the other.

               

“Fuuuck,” Ben managed, lolling from side to side. “I don’t care. It’s a tie.” He groaned. “Good job, Brock.”

               

Brock moaned, nodded to acknowledge Ben’s compliment and to agree. He wasn’t ready to speak yet. He attempted to shuck his tanktop, but it got stuck halfway up and Matt had to peel it the rest of the way. He lifted his hands over his head as Matt pulled off the tank, pecs shifting and morphing. Once the tank was clear, Brock fell back in his seat, tits mounding up towards his face, freaky-big and round, little pink nipples like pencil erasers pointing downwards at the bottom of their vast swell. Titanic arms resting uneasily on top of his super-thick lats. He had that exaggerated arms-wide strut so many bodybuilders pridefully adopt, except, in his case, it was a matter of necessity. His muscles had grown so large, his body was running out of space to put it all; he was bloated with muscle. His musclegut, usually a gentle swell, stuck out hard and round.

               

“Good idea,” Ben said slowly, leaning forward painfully and following suit. His muscles were so full and pumped, he found it difficult to get a good hold on his shirt. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Getting musclebound.” Matt, sensing his help was needed, leaned across the booth and gave Ben a start, pulling his shirt to the point where Ben could finish the job. Shirt off, Ben fell back in his seat and closed his eyes, enjoyed the feeling of cool air on the sweaty acres of his tortured flesh. He felt like he could pop.

               

“Uh, uh, sirs,” the waiter stammered faintly. “Uh, sirs, we have a no shirt no shoes no … . no service policy.”

               

Ben waved him away like a pesky fly. “We’re not getting any more service. We’re leaving. As soon as we can walk. Bring the bill. Please.”

               

The waiter made some sounds that were almost words and then fled once more. Ben groaned, slitting his eyes open. He felt like a turtle trapped on its back, his gut like a segmented carapace – if the carapace was somehow over-stuffed and about to blow wide open. “We probably traumatized that poor kid,” he said, voice still thick from shotgunning the shake.

               

Brock barked a laugh and spoke without moving or opening his eyes. “Trauma? More like, gave him jack off material for the rest of his fucking life.”

               

“Still, though,” Ben said. He leaned forward painfully, reached for his wallet, drew out a couple of hundred dollar bills. “This should cover the bill and a nice tip to boot. Ugh, my gut fucking aches.”

               

Brock moaned. “Mine too, bud. What a fucking spectacle.” Still leaning back in his seat, he opened his eyes, glanced at Ben, at himself, at their nearly helpless condition. “Fucking ridiculous.”  

               

“Let’s get back to The Facility. The moment I slip on my monitor the computer’s gonna freak out at me, I know it. I am so ‘beyond normal parameters’ right now. Ugh. Karim keeps these digestive enzymes on stock – it’ll help the bloat go down. We’ll take some, and in a couple of hours we’ll be all back to normal – all this food will be converted to pure muscle,” Ben said, lightly tapping his tortured stomach. “Phew. OK. C’mon, let’s go.”                        

 

*

               

“Hey, Matt, this is my younger brother, Farid,” Karim said, holding the door to his office open.

               

“Hey, man, nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” Farid said. He was shorter, chubbier than his older brother, not ugly but not really handsome, either – cute, maybe, if you liked the nerdy type. But the feature most people noticed first were his gnarly arms, huge and knotted and veiny, splitting the sleeves of a vintage NES t-shirt. They looked like they belonged on another man. They were so disproportionate, one might naturally suspect something like synthol, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat anywhere on Farid’s arms – the merest twitch of his finger sent massive cables of muscle shifting and rearranging themselves. His arms were clearly pure brawn, at least 20”, despite the seeming lack of muscle anywhere else on his body.

               

“Nice to meet you, Farid,” Matt said, shaking his hand.

               

“Farid’s the tech head – he’s my secret weapon. He’s the one who took the bio-monitor from concept to actual usable device,” Karim explained.

               

“Ha, check it out – he can’t get over the cannons,” Farid laughed dorkily, flexing his ridiculous biceps. There was a faint tearing sound. “Shit. I liked this shirt.”

               

“He’s also a nerd with the social graces of a fucking camel,” Karim sighed. “See,this is why I hid you from the reporter, Farid – he wanted a scoop, and hoo boy would you have given him one. You can’t keep a secret, you love to talk, and those arms are just so . .  so …”

               

“Those guns are … pretty noticeable,” Matt said.

               

“Yeah, well, I developed the tech, I help Karim run the place – that’s why he’s so sweet to me,” Farid said with over-the-top sarcasm. “And I look after all the computer stuff, so I get to do what I want. And what I want to do is have BIG. FUCKING. ARMS. Don’t really care about the rest of it.”

               

“Cool man,” Matt said. “I respect anyone who follows their bliss. Not everyone understands why I’ve got all these tattoos, like, they want some deep reason and symbolism behind them, they think there must be something wrong with me to have inked up so extensively. But it’s just … I like ‘em, and isn’t that a good enough reason? Let your freak flag fly.”

               

“EXACTLY, buddy. Hey, Karim, I like this guy.”

               

“Yeah,” Karim said, “he’s got a fuckin’ heart of gold. I think it’s impossible to dislike him.”

               

“So where’s Ben and his old boyfriend?” Farid asked.

               

“I’ve told you a million times: Brock and Ben never dated.”

               

“Pfft, whatever. Where are they?”

               

“Ben’s showing Brock around The Facility.”

               

“Oh, heh, reuniting with our permanent resident?”

               

“Farid, I swear, one of these days…” Karim raised his eyes skyward as if for guidance.

               

“Who’s your ‘permanent resident’? – isn’t that you guys?’” Matt asked.

               

“Actually, Matt, this concerns you. You remember Sam …?”

               

“Yeah, Sameer, did he ever show up here?”

               

Farid snorted.

               

“Yeah, he did. He kind of lives here now.”

               

“Oh yeah?”

               

“Dude, he’s a fuckin’ beef-ball now,” Farid said.

               

“Oh, well, that’s … good?” Matt looked at Karim’s serious face in confusion. “Not good?”

               

Karim sighed. “I don’t think he’d pass our psychological screening, if we had administered it – he’s obsessed with growing. But then, I guess that’s also true of Brock and Ben. You too, maybe. But he doesn’t have a life outside these walls, Matt. Anyway. After you emailed me about him, I kinda considered it a charity to take him in, a duty even. When he showed up here without a job or a friend on this side of the continent, well, we took him in.”

               

Matt furrowed his brow. “Well, I guess Brock and I kind of … broke his brain, a little. Not that he didn’t like it. I remember it really well, actually. I had a day pass at a gym downtown – a gym I don’t often go to – I forget why I was there, I had business downtown or something and it was the only way I could fit in my workout. And, well, there was poor Sam, this little guy, tiny really, lifting his heart out, but going about it all wrong. He’d been at it for almost a year – ever since Brock took him home and we, well, kinda muscle-fucked his brains out. So I took him aside, asked him what his goals were, tried to teach him form on the most basic lifts, you know, like you do.”

               

“And he said …?”

               

“He said he wanted to get huge like us, and I said, well, I know this place, and …”

               

“And now he’s our permanent guest!” Farid exclaimed, laughing. “The troll in our dungeon!”

               

Matt frowned, ignoring Farid’s obnoxious outburst. “Karim, I had no idea. I’m worried. I never told Brock about any of this. This might not end well for either of them.”

               

Farid looked confused. “Why the hell not? It’s gonna be great. You jerks all like muscle, and Sam’s about to see the guy who made him realize that. You guys freed him from his old existence as a miserable skinny musicologist, doomed to scrape by as an unappreciated and underpaid adjunct at some shithole college in Buttfuck Kansas or wherever. If I was Sam, I’d fall down and lick Brock’s feet at the sight of him, like he was the fucking Muscle Messiah.”

               

Karim sighed. “Farid, you’re a genius, but you can be so dumb sometimes. Ever think what it might actually feel like to have someone fall down and start licking your feet?”

               

Farid snorted again. “Yeah, brother, I think about it all the time. It’d be awesome.”

               

Karim looked at his younger brother. “You’re a super-villain, you know that,” he said flatly.

               

Farid flexed his ridiculous, ten-sizes-too-large arms and smirked dorkily. “Yup.”

               

Matt was still frowning. “Maybe I should go down there. I’m the one to blame for this.”

               

Karim glanced at the closed circuit monitor. “Too late – they’re going into the gym, and Sam’s finishing up his workout.” He sighed. “Look, this had to come – it’ll be fine. Maybe Farid’s right. Maybe this will be a happy thing.”

               

Matt settled into one of the empty office chairs and wheeled over next to Karim to watch the camera feed. “I hope you’re right.”

 

*

               

“So there’s only the most important room left to show you: the gym. Man, it’s awesome – ever want to just, you know, custom-design a gym so it has none of the problems of a commercial place? It’s kinda what I got to do here. Oh, wait, before we go in. This is important. Do you remember Sameer?”

               

“Sameer?”

               

“Sam. You and Matt basically fucked his brains out a couple of years ago. He was a musicologist doing a post-doc at your University.”

               

“Holy shit, yeah, I haven’t thought about that guy for a while. He was great – such a tiny dude, but so so into it. Wait, how the fuck do you know about him?”

               

“I guess Matt never told you. Well, about a year ago, just a little while after we set up shop here, he showed up on our doorstep. His postdoc was over and he had nothing to replace it, he’d lost interest in academia, was estranged from his family. And he wanted to grow so bad, and, well, we felt bad for him. He really was tiny, like you say – I think he weighed like 105 lbs when we inducted him. Little pencil arms. So anyway, we took him in, set him up on the system. I trained him for the first couple of months, taught him his lifts. Man, you should have seen him grow – he was like a weed. I’d only seen that level of focus and intensity in a few other people – me, you, a couple of IFBB pros who’ve been through here. That’s it.”

               

“So the little dude’s a bodybuilder here now? Good for him,” Brock said, smiling.

               

“You’re not freaked out about this?” Ben asked, his hand on the gym door.

               

“Why would I be? Sounds like a real feel-good story to me.”

               

“Alright – but, you know, just so we’re clear. Lifting is pretty much all Sam has in his life since he arrived. We’re kind of worried about him.”

               

“Oh. Gotcha. Well, quit stalling – let’s get this reunion on the go.”

               

Ben opened the door and strode in. The gym was, indeed, glorious – a big cauldron of chalk in the center of the room, dumbbells up to 300 lbs, a wealth of plates, multiple Olympic platforms, plenty of benches and power cages, a far corner with medicine balls, foam rollers, battle ropes, kettlebells, and many other toys to break up the monotony. Over at the far end of the room, a short but very-thickly-built South Asian man was doing an overhead press with a substantial weight. He popped it up and down like it was nothing, like playing airplane with a joyful toddler; he was staring straight ahead at his reflection as he repped the weight, nearly-black eyes locked into a kind of tunnel vision. Ben waited for him to set the weight down before he called out.

               

“YO SAM. We gotta visitor!” He then turned and grinned at Brock.

               

Sam turned – his face was the same, those fine-boned features. And, to the trained eye, underneath the slabs of muscle his frame was the same – even though he was an utter tank now, he had the same delicate wrists, the same tiny ankles, which made the orbs of muscle jutting out from each insertion look all the more impressive. Only 5’5”, Sam looked at least half as wide as he was tall – an impressive optical illusion that he cultivated by doing plenty of lifts for his lats and delts. His face brightened when he recognized the behemoth standing beside Ben.

               

“Holy fuck – is that … Brock?!”

               

“Yup,” Brock said happily, striding across the room to Sam. “Looking thick, man. You’re like three of your former self.”

               

Sam’s face turned crimson and he glanced down at the ground, embarrassed. “Aw, gee, not quite, I’m only 270, that’s more like two and a half.”

               

Ben threw his hands up in the air. “Fuck’s sake. Take a compliment, Sam!”

               

Brock, though, seemed moved. He stepped in, chucked his massive paw under Sam’s downcast chin, raising the shorter man’s face up. “270 lbs on your frame is insane size, and you look real lean – you're a freakin' monster now, man. Own it. Take pride in it. You’re one of us.”

               

Unexpectedly, Sam’s lip trembled. “Aw fuck,” he said, voice thick. “I promised I wouldn’t do this if I saw you again. Everything in my life just turned into a mess, you know, and I just remembered how I felt that night, with you guys, it was like I was alive for the first time, and I thought, maybe if I … .” He choked, unable to finish.

               

“Hey, buddy, it’s OK. It’s OK. Seems to me you’ve kept a lot of things pent up since I saw you last. C’mere,” Brock said, gathering Sam in to a tight embrace. It wasn’t sexual – it was warm, friendly, almost healing. “Let it out. I’m really proud of you. I mean it.”

               

Ben, watching, could only think about how Brock seemed to be doing again what he had done  once before, had done for him. Ben felt himself suddenly well up at the memory – he owed it all to Brock, really, this beautiful life he had. Ben had once been similarly broken, unhappy, a scared little gay boy with no center in his life. And Brock had gently guided him through it, had turned him into the man he was, the man he wanted to be.

             

And really, the iron wasn't the point. Who cared about the muscle? The muscle was great, but it wasn’t what mattered – what mattered was the heart. And Ben realized, with a sudden shame, that in the year since Sam had shown up at their door, Ben had attended very well to teaching him how to deadlift properly, how to keep his rotator cuffs healthy, how to slab on mass, but he hadn’t attended to the most important thing – guiding the poor suffering man through stormy waters and into a safe port.

               

Brock was gently cradling Sam, who was coming back to himself. “Oh fuck,” Sam said, sniffling, wiping his face. “You must think I’m a real baby. An overgrown baby.”

               

“No,” Brock said. “Listen to me, Sam: hearts are like bodies. The heart is a muscle. No one starts strong. No one is strong all the time. But the only way to be strong is to exercise what you’ve got. If you’ve gotta cry, the strong thing to do is cry. Now. Ben tells me that you’ve basically been in a dungeon here, not doing anything but lifting. Is that right? Is that your whole life?”

               

Sam nodded. “I just … wanted to get huge, you know? It’s the only thing that mattered, the only thing that made sense. My career was dead, my family didn’t care if I lived or died. When I was a kid I lived for music, but I studied it so much, for so long, that I lost any joy I once had for it. What else was there except: get huge?”

               

Brock grinned. “Being huge is awesome. I wouldn’t trade it for almost anything. You should keep going. But it’s not the only thing that matters. I’m really glad you’re here, Sam. I’m really glad I’m here with you. How many sets do you have left?”

               

“Three on the press, and then some lat raises supersetted with some face pulls, and then-“

               

“No ‘and then.’ You’re done for the day. Me and you and Matt and anyone else who cares to join us –we’re going to the beach. There’s a wide, wonderful world out there, Sam. It’s time we reintroduced you to it. You in?”

               

Sam looked overwhelmed, like he might cry again, but instead a laugh burst from his mouth. Ben was shocked to realize it was the first time he’d heard the man laugh. “Yes. I’m in.”

               

“All right, buddy. Let’s get out there. Ben, you coming?”

               

Ben looked at Brock. He couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off his face. His heart felt full. Yes, he realized - there are many ways a person can grow. “Big brother, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Let’s go get the boys and hit the road.”

[Hanugumo]

I love endings like this. Thank you so much for writing the ending to this story. ^^ <3

I can hardly wait for the next story you shall write. ^^ <3

[ThePecman]

Man, if there was a "Story of the Year" award, I'd give it to this one. Terrific writing, Mikeytron!

[Mikeytron]

Man, if there was a "Story of the Year" award, I'd give it to this one. Terrific writing, Mikeytron!

 

What a compliment! 

 

I love endings like this. Thank you so much for writing the ending to this story. ^^ <3

I can hardly wait for the next story you shall write. ^^ <3

 

You're very welcome. Writing the story was, literally, my pleasure. I'm working on something new now, for a buddy (most of what I write, including the story I just finished here, is written as a gift for a friend who has inspired me) .... but it's early days. I revise a lot. When I have something ready I promise I'll share it. 

[Ro20316]

I felt in the beggining like Brock and Ben were going to hook up but i'm glad they didnt Their relationship is perfect and both found the love of their lives,

 

Now we need to see what's next with Sam and like i said. It would eb perfec t if he ends wih Tommy after all 

[Mikeytron]

I don't think I'm going to write any more, after some reflection. I think the story ends in a nice way. It's symmetrical, thematically. The only reason Sam would end up with Tommy is because they're the two characters still at loose ends in the story - but they've never even met, and I'm not sure they'd be a good match at all.

 

Some post-mortem thoughts:

 

The story is really about nurturing and mentorship, which is why I say it currently forms a nice symmetry. It begins with Brock mentoring Ben, and it ends with Brock mentoring Sam (and Ben realizing that the key ingredient to mentorship - which he'd failed to deliver to Sam - wasn't ever about the muscles, it was always about the heart. The key thing Brock taught Ben way back in the first installment wasn't how to lift weights, it was how to life purposefully and fearlessly).

 

The story is also about power. In another person's hands, the relationship between Brock and Ben, at the start, might have been more formally codified into some kind of alpha and pup dynamic, or whatever terms people want to use. I myself don't like such rigid hierarchies and power structures, so I didn't use them, in my stories or in my life. It was one of the reasons why it was vital, I thought, that Brock and Ben never actually fuck. Adding an active sexual relationship would have made it that much more difficult to keep the mentorship subtle, background, passive - Brock leads by example, waits for Ben to grow brave enough to come to him for help. I think that would have been difficult to write if they were fucking from day one. Also, like Brock said, the power differential between the characters was simply too great at the start of the story. Ben would have either become hopelessly devoted to Brock, or he would have grown to hate him, had they fucked in those early days. And neither is a good thing, in my eyes (and thus my story's eyes). I wanted Ben to grow in every way to match Brock, and I wanted their relationship to become my idealized embodiment of the quality of fraternity. It gives me a happy shiver when Ben calls Brock "big brother." Maybe that's corny, but it's still true.

 

Power is tied up in all of this talk of nurturing and mentoring. Power is inescapable, it's in every human interaction. It can be very subtle but it's always operating. But because this is my story, I get to decide what that means and how it's portrayed. For example. Ben starts, in the first story, as a very submissive and self-abnegating person. He's a scared frustrated boy, basically. Brock mentors him without dominating him - not giving orders, not setting up some kind of structure of obedience and formalized training, not expecting anything specific out of Ben. Brock just gently guides him at a slow pace to become a more assertive and mature person. When Ben needs something specific from Brock, Brock sets the conditions ("will you show me how to lift" "I will. We're going to the gym at 630 am and you're not allowed to complain"), but that's more or less the extent of it. 

 

Flash forward three years and Ben has an almost entirely different personality and basically requires zero guidance or mentorship at that point - he's almost brash (Ben is my favourite character and not just because he's an ideal-world version of me, basically a Mary Sue - I am not brash and bold like that, I still have a lot of deference and politeness left in me, but I kind of wish I was totally out of my shell like Ben is. It's just such a joy to write that character once he comes into his own). When Ben and Brock interact near the end of part two, it's a very different dynamic. Very much a meeting of near-equals. In the final installment, they're so closely matched that they enjoy competing - playfully, but also going all out, both pushing each other to their very limits (and the competition ends in a tie, which is my favourite result - I prefer ties to having winners and losers!).

 

Or look at Karim. Karim starts, in the second part, as the quiet submissive who gets to give some orders in the bedroom but who is mostly the house bitch, making supper for everyone when he's told (with a pat on the ass, even - that Ben is the worst). But at the end of the whole story sequence it's arguable that Karim is the big boss of the whole group, the CEO, the kingpin of the entire operation, the true power-broker. But again, none of this is codified into a rigid hierarchy - it's all, I hope, kept subtle, subtextual, dynamic and shifting. I made these characters dynamic and multi-dimensional because that's basic good narrative practice. But I also did it because that's how I perceive life to be.

[NinjaAlchemist]

Literally the best short story ever written, like holy shit. I made an account just so I could praise you on it! Please tell you have other stories?

[Mikeytron]

Holy fuck, what a compliment!

I've got a couple of shorter stories I might share soon. I'm working on another of a similar length and scope as this one, but it's slow going. It has to be pretty far down my list of priorities: gym and dissertation have to come first.... but the encouragement is very very appreciated. Look for a couple of shorter stand-alone stories from me soon....

[Hanugumo]

You're starting to become famous here. >;3 <3 <3 Hihihi, then again your writingstyle and your way of subtlety and guidance is something that resonates so much with so many people.

The characters in this story and I am sure even your future stories are relatable, and that is the most important in stories. We need to be able to relate to the characters, understand them and how they feel and how they grow into people more confident and yet more right towards others. You wrote the ideal men in this story the people we all hope to be but usually can only dream about being. which is probably a big reason why this story gets so much praise and is one of the best out of the recent stories. ^w^ <3

I am glad that you are here and write stories, I hope you will be here to write lots of stories. ^w^ <3 <3