Up-Sized Neighborhood, part-4

[muscle16a]

Upsized Neighborhood
by Muscle16a

[COLOR=#0000ff][email protected][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#0000ff][email protected][/COLOR]

(part 1: [COLOR=#0000ff]http://www.musclegrowth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13428[/COLOR] )
(part 2: [COLOR=#0000ff]http://www.musclegrowth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13468[/COLOR] )
(part 3: [COLOR=#0000ff]http://www.musclegrowth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13677[/COLOR] )



Part Four: Making Friends

I was hanging from the chin-up bar, lifting my body up with each flex of my upper body muscles, a dumbbell loaded with 35 pounds of weight hanging from a strap attached to the weightlifting belt around my waist, when suddenly I had the feeling that I was being watched. Trying to ignore the sixth-sense sensation of eyes behind my back, I raised myself up again, straining to touch the back of my neck to the bar and then slowly lowering myself again, silently counting off ‘eleven‘. One more, I thought to myself, and although my muscles were exhausted with the effort, I managed to force myself up one more time as I felt my arms and shoulders and lat muscles bulging with the strain of my final rep. I touched and then slowly, ever so slowly, as my book had instructed, lowered myself down again. As I released my grip and dropped to the floor, the dumbbell knocked against my left leg almost making me lose my balance. I detached the weight and heard it clank to the ground as I turned my head to see what was behind me. Two kids, about my age, were a few feet from the garage door watching me as they leaned against their bikes. I gave them a nod and said “hey”.

One of the boys was a skinny blond around my height. The other was dark haired, darker complexioned, and thicker-looking although maybe an inch shorter than his fair haired friend. They both had their shirts off, showing their kid-fit but untrained bodies, and they were sweating in the heat and humidity of the morning. They returned my nod.

“You just moved in” the blond kid said, more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah, yesterday” I replied, as I walked towards them. “I’m Jake Powers.”

“Rob Cormes,” he replied, and then motioned to the dark haired kid. “This is my brother Mark. We live across the street a few houses down.” I told them they didn’t look like brothers and Rob laughed loudly. “Actually, we’re twins. Not identical twins, though,” he said with another laugh. I laughed with them and told them that was obvious. Rob was talkative and friendly as we talked, but his darker brother said nothing at first, as he simply stared at me.

“I look more like our mom,” said Mark in a quiet voice. “She’s Cuban. Rob takes after our dad who’s blond like him.” Mark continued to look right at me as he said this.

“What grade are you in?” Rob asked me, and I told him I was going to start High School in the fall. “Us too!” he exclaimed. “Hey, you want to hang with us? We’re going to our friend Jim’s house and maybe throw around a football or something.”

I hesitated for a second, not wanting to interrupt my workout. I hadn‘t done anything for my legs yet, and I was determined not to concentrate exclusively on my upper body and let my legs remain skinny, as my bodybuilding book said was so common among teenagers. I had been lifting weights for about an hour when the Cormes twins came by, and was pretty sweaty. The heat and humidity had almost knocked me down when I first went into the garage after my huge breakfast of eggs and sausages that morning, but I was so eager to have my first serious workout I didn’t let it slow me down. I had messed around a bit with the weights the night before after I finished setting up all the equipment, but it wasn’t really a workout. This morning I was making a maximum effort with each lift. I was surprised to observe that I seemed to be a lot stronger than the night before. Of course, last night I was exhausted after the exertion of the move-in and this morning I was fresh and well rested; but even taking that into account I was definitely stronger today. I had been enjoying the tightness in my muscles as I felt blood pumping into them with each exercise. I did bench presses first that morning, and was amazed to discover that I could lift 120 pounds for ten repetitions! That was more than I weighed, I thought with delight, even taking into account my chemically-enhanced increase in growth that had begun a few days earlier. I was pushing more weight in all my other exercises that morning too, and I realized it was a good thing that Dad didn‘t buy the 110 pound beginner set for me! When I jumped up to grab the chin-up bar after about an hour of lifting, I was surprised how easy it felt to me. That’s when I thought of using the dumbbell to make the chin-ups harder, as I had read in my bodybuilding book. I felt so strong as I realized that I was lifting more than my bodyweight over and over again up past the bar on the wall. I doubted that before this trip I could have done one repetition with the extra 35 pounds strapped to me, but this morning I did 12 reps. I knew that that was amazing progress for only three days, impossible to achieve under normal circumstances.

What a three days it had been, I thought to myself. With all that had gone on, it seemed like a month since we packed up the minivan and left Michigan for our new home here in Coral Springs, Florida. At that time, I was a brainy kid, somewhat shy with other boys, skinny, weak and unathletic. Three days later, while I was still somewhat skinny I weighed 10 pounds more than I did, and all of it was hard muscle. I was so much stronger than before and I felt filled with energy. That feeling of strength and vitality must have had an effect on my shyness too, as I felt a certain feeling of boldness in me over the past two days that was a new sensation. And now, these two boys my age had stopped by on their own and were trying to make friends with me. So, even though I had planned on lifting weights for a while longer, my desire to meet the kids in the neighborhood and make some friends won out.

“Yeah, that sound fun,” I said. “I have to tell my mom where I’m going,” and I started walking towards the door into the house.

“Can we try out your weights ‘til you get back?” Rob asked. I saw Mark eyeing the weights with a look of fascination and desire in his eyes. I told them sure, and went inside.

“Mom - I’m going to ride bikes with some kids from down the street” I told her. She was at the kitchen counter putting food into containers and I spied a large chunk of her famous meatloaf from the other day in a dish on the counter.

“That’s nice, honey” she replied with a smile. “You want something to eat before you go?” I had just scarfed down about four or five eggs and maybe a pound of sausage links a mere hour earlier, but I had been working out and did feel a bit hungry already. I eyed the meatloaf.
“Sit down, honey. I’ll heat it up for you,” Mom said, but I told her that the guys were waiting for me and I’d eat it on the way. I grabbed the chunk of meatloaf and felt the juice dripping on my hand as I ran toward the garage door. “Don’t spill on the floor!” I heard her saying as I ran outside.

Rob was doing some chin-ups and Mark was trying to do a biceps curl with the 35 pound dumbbell I had been using for my weighted chin-ups. He was arching his back and swinging the weight wildly in order to lift it to his shoulder, and still wasn’t having much success. Eventually, he set it down. I took a few large bites and finished the hunk of meatloaf that was in my hand, licked off the juice on my fingers and wiped my hands on my shirt, and then walked over to him and picked up the dumbbell.

“It’s better to try to keep your back straight as you do it” I explained as I started curling, showing Mark the proper form for that exercise, as I had learned from my book. 35 pounds was pretty heavy for biceps curls, but I was pumping out rep after rep, enjoying the feeling of blood rushing into my muscles as I strained them.

“Damn, dude. You’re strong!” Mark said, with a look of awe in his eyes as he lifted them to meet mine. He blushed slightly, and quickly turned his head to his twin brother who had jumped off the chin-up bar and was watching me curl. He wanted to try to curl that dumbbell too, he told me. I passed it into his right hand, and could tell that it was heavy for him. He tried to curl his arm up, but it wouldn’t move. He wasn’t even as strong as his shorter brother, who could at least move the weight a little bit with his bicep.

“Damn, I’m so weak” Rob said with frustration as he put the dumbbell down and looked at me. “I knew you were strong from how you were doing those chin-ups before with extra weight added. It’s funny” he said, “but you don’t look that strong.” He didn’t say it with any meanness, as he looked at me with a friendly smile on his face. I don’t know what came over me, but that boldness I had been feeling inside of me for the past few days started to push out again.

“Oh yeah?” I said with a smile, “check this out.” And with that I lifted up the front of my t-shirt to expose my abs. At this point in my development, it was probably my most impressive muscle group. I could have lifted up the sleeve of my t-shirt and flexed my bicep, but even though it was hard and ripped (as I knew from that morning’s exploration in my bathroom) I still thought it was really small. My abs, I thought, might be more impressive. I knew I was right as I saw the twins stares dropped to my waist and heard the intake of breath from both of them. Rob said “damn” again, softly, as he looked back up at me with an impressed expression on his face, while Mark’s mouth was opened wide as he stared at my fat-free and rippling 8-pack, seemingly transfixed at the sight. I let the t-shirt drop.

“I’m kinda skinny,” I admitted to them, “but I’m pretty muscular.”

“Ripped, more like it” said Rob, as he turned to his brother. “Mark, we need to start lifting weights!” Mark nodded vigorously to his brother in agreement.

“Well, you’re welcome to work out with me whenever I’m here” I said. Both boys looked grateful at the invitation, and I grabbed my bike and we started down the driveway towards the street.

The twins’ friend Jim was an average sized 14 year old, around an inch taller than me or so, with light brown hair and dark brown eyes, and he was kinda cute. He lived a few blocks from my house, although it (like all the houses in this community) looked very much like mine. When Mark, Rob and I arrived, Jim and nine or ten other boys around my age were hanging out in the front yard throwing a football at each other, running around, tackling each other, just basically playing around. Most of them were a bit bigger than me, but none looked like a jock except for this one tall (about 5’10”) blond kid with bicep and shoulder and chest muscles bulging out from his plain white tank top. He probably weighed about 150 pounds or so, and none of it fat. His eyes were blue as the sky, and they seemed to shine when he smiled at me. He was really handsome. He introduced himself as Billy, he was 15 and a sophomore, and I couldn‘t help but take a good look at his muscles as he reached out his right arm to shake hands. His arms were nicely defined and veiny, his biceps and triceps bulging with his movements. His shoulders stuck out to the side, well past his shoulder blades, with defined and hard-looking deltoids. His chest stuck out with firm-looking muscle, and the tank top was so tight on him that you could actually see some ripples in his abs showing through his shirt. He gripped my hand with some force, and I, feeling playful, squeezed back. For the few seconds as we shook, we tested each other’s grip strength, gradually increasing pressure until we were both squeezing pretty hard and our forearms began to quiver with the exertion. I could see the surprise in Billy’s eyes at the strength in my grip. Finally, laughing, we both released the other’s hand. My right forearm was throbbing, and my hand hurt. I began to rub it a bit.

“Better watch out for this guy, Billy” Rob said with a smile, motioning towards me. “Mark and me saw him lifting weights before we came here, and he’s pretty strong.”

“Yeah,” responded Billy, “I noticed,” as he rubbed his right hand to get the blood flowing again. I saw the other guys looking towards me as if they were impressed. I learned later that Billy often played the grip-strength game whenever he shook some kid's hand, and he almost always left the other kid begging for mercy!

We then began to divide into teams to play. Jim and this other guy Alex were “captains” and they began to choose sides. I was shocked when Alex picked me second, right after Jim picked Billy! I guess my show of grip strength, and Rob’s comment about me being strong, made a difference in how I was perceived by these guys. What a difference! Four days ago, in Michigan, I would have expected to be chosen last for teams. I noticed that when Alex picked Mark Cormes (there were only three people left to be picked when he got to Mark), the dark-haired twin lit up with delight and ran to stand next to Alex, a wide smile on his face as he looked over at me.

I was excited to be playing, as I had never considered myself big or strong enough to play tackle football before, even for fun. But I realized after only the first play that I was not out of my league with this bunch of guys. We bent down at the line as Billy (who was QB) counted out “set, hut” and then lifted the ball. I pushed myself out of my crouch as hard as I could and slammed right into a guy named Paul who was guarding the line in front of me. Paul was a chunky kid of 15, entering his sophomore year in High School like Billy, and wasn’t too much taller than me (maybe 5’6” or so), but must have weighed about 150 pounds. He had some fat around his waist, but he was also thick and strong looking. So when Billy yelled “hike”, I pushed off the line expecting to meet an imposing force in front of me. Instead, as I made contact with Paul, I felt his body lift up slightly off the ground and away from me as I continued forward towards Billy who was moving back and trying to find a receiver. I was so focused on tacking Billy before he released the ball that I didn’t even realize that Paul hit the ground with a loud thud and an “oomph” sound as I moved past him. Suddenly, Billy turned his head and saw me coming towards him and tried to scramble out of the way. I jumped out at him, reached my arms around his muscular torso and forced him to the ground. Sack!

I didn’t move for a second, feeling Billy’s hard muscles under my body as I held him in the tackle. I saw his eyes meet mine, and he looked a bit stunned. His body felt hard under mine, fit and strong, and I felt my dick starting to stiffen. “No!“ I thought to myself with panic, “Please don’t get hard” as I rolled off of him. To my relief, I felt the pressure in my penis subside as if my body had obeyed my command not to get a hard-on. I then got up, to the cheers of Alex and my teammates, and went over to Paul who was still on the ground. I held out my hand to help him up, which he took.

“See,” I heard Rob say from behind me, “ I told you Jake was strong!”

“Dude!” said Billy, “that was an awesome hit! You gonna go out for the football team this year?” I noticed that the rest of the guys were paying attention to me as I said that I hadn’t decided yet.

“Well you should,” Billy said. I beamed, as Alex gave me a slap on my shoulders. I felt him hesitate as he made contact with my body, pausing a second to give a slight squeeze to my rock-hard deltoid muscles. I looked over, and he seemed to be impressed by what he was feeling.

“How long have you been lifting weights?” Alex asked me as we lined up for the next play. I lied and told him a few months. “I need to start lifting, I think” he said, partly to me and partly to himself.

We continued playing for an hour and a half or so, and it was obvious to me (and everybody else, I think) that of all the boys on both teams, I was the best player - and the strongest - of everybody except for Billy. I wasn’t used to that feeling, and didn’t know quite how to deal with it. So, I stayed pretty quiet the whole time we were playing. But I never felt so good, so alive, so dominant as the other kids deferred to me in the same way as I used to defer to the kids who were stronger and more athletic than I was.

Eventually, somebody mentioned that he was hungry, and then we all realized that we were hungry too, so the guys began to head back to their homes for lunch. I hung out for a few minutes with Rob and Mark, and their friend Jim, and Paul and Billy, who had also stayed behind as everybody else dispersed.

“I can’t believe how strong you are, Jake” Paul said to me. “How much do you weigh?” I told him I only weigh about 110 pounds. Which was an exaggeration, as I only weighed 107 that morning.

“Yeah, that’s about what I thought from looking at you. But you hit like a guy 50 pounds heavier!” I smiled and thanked him for the compliment. I saw Billy peering at me with a calculating look in his eyes.

“Hey Jake, let’s see what you got!” he said, as he got down on the ground on his stomach and put his right elbow up in front of him. He wanted to armwrestle. I hadn’t armwrestled anybody in a long time, and when I did I always lost. But that was the old me, and I was curious to see how I would match against Billy’s older and larger arm muscles. I got down facing him, reached out my hand and grasped his wrist. Jim counted down - three, two, one, go!

Billy caught me for a moment, as he applied pressure a fraction of a second before I did, but I was able to stop his progress with my arm only half way to the ground. Slowly and with a lot of effort, I forced his arm back up to the starting position, but no further. I began to strain even harder, and glancing up at Billy’s handsome face I could see that he was straining too. A bead of sweat was rolling down his forehead, and I was sweating as well. I looked down at his arm: The bicep was bulging into a nice peak and the veins on his arm and shoulder seemed to pulse with his efforts. I couldn’t believe that I was holding my ground against this older boy whose muscles were so much bigger than mine. Billy’s arm began to quiver with his intense effort, and he started to force my arm down a bit again. I tried to strain even harder, and my arm began to quiver too as I forced him back to the starting position again.

“Check it out” I heard Rob say softly to his brother from off to the side. Moving my eyes a fraction, I saw him elbowing Mark and motioning towards my arm. I looked down and saw the material of my cotton t-shirt stretching against my bulging bicep muscle. I could actually see my bicep through my shirt, I thought with a start! It wasn’t large, of course, but you could see it. Well, at least Rob and Mark saw it, and when I saw Mark out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he had the same look on his face as he did when I showed my abs earlier that morning in my garage. The sight of my bulging bicep showing through my shirt gave me a little boost of energy and confidence, and I began to move Billy’s arm down a little bit. But I couldn’t get him all the way down, and he strained and forced us back to the starting point again. We struggled for a few more minutes, both of us had sweat pouring off of our faces and down our arms. Our hands were getting slick with sweat too, and looking at Billy’s face, I could see he was getting red in the face from the strain. I suspected that I was also. Finally, after about 4 or 5 minutes of grunting, Billy’s eyes met mine and we seemed to come to an agreement.

“Draw?” we asked each other simultaneously, both nodded, and released our hands with relief. Then, while we were still on the ground, Billy leaned his head closer to mine and whispered “You are one strong little dude!” I felt like I was flying.

“Holy shit, Billy!” Jim exclaimed. “We finally found somebody you can’t beat. And he weighs like 40 pounds less than you do!”

“Yeah” Billy replied, still breathing hard, as I was. “It’s about time I had some real competition.” He smiled at me. “Well, at least I’m still undefeated!” We all laughed at that.

“Just you wait,” I told him with a smile. “I’m in a growth spurt. By next week, you’ll be toast!” The rest of the guys laughed at that, and Billy smiled.

“That sounds like a challenge,” he said to me. “But it ain’t gonna happen!”

“Me and Rob are gonna start lifting weights with Jake,” said Mark in his quiet voice. He had a very determined look on his face as he said it.

“Good,” said Billy. “All you guys need to get stronger. Give me and Jake some competition,” as he turned to me and winked. “Isn‘t that right, dude?” I said I agreed, and we all laughed.

“I’m gonna start lifting weights too” said Paul. “I can’t let this skinny kid get the better of me!” As he said this, Paul, placed his arm onto my shoulders in a friendly manner and gave a shake. I know he felt the hardness of my muscles as he did so, and I tensed just a bit to see his reaction. His eyes got wide. “Mr. hard-body, here” he said softly, chuckling. “I’m gonna start lifting right after lunch! If I can find my old weights.” And with that, he got onto his bike and rode down the street.

A few minutes later I walked into our kitchen, my stomach growling. I yelled that I was home, but heard no reply. Then, I noticed a piece of paper on the kitchen counter: It was a note from Mom, saying that she and Dad and Miriam had gone out to the store, and that I should make my own lunch. Mom then, as she always does, listed the foods that she had in the house (instead of simply telling me to get what I want out of the fridge, she always felt the need to make lists of things that I could easily see for myself if I just opened the refrigerator door). I decided I felt like tuna, and so I opened two cans of Star-Kist, mixed in some mayonnaise salt and pepper, and scooped it out onto a long hoagie bun. I think I must have inhaled that huge sandwich in less than a minute, but I didn’t feel full. I knew that I was eating like a pig, but I also knew that to make my muscles grow I needed lots of protein. So I opened another can of tuna and ate it right out of the can. I then poured myself a big glass of milk, drained it, poured another, drained that, and then went upstairs to my room to rest … well, not only to rest, I thought, as my dick began to stiffen as I thought about my eventful morning and the feeling of Billy‘s hard biceps as I tackled him to the ground.

I entered my room and immediately noticed that Mom had put sheets and a comforter on the bed - I was happy to know that I wouldn’t have to sleep in that sleeping bag again! I went onto the balcony to take in the now-dry (although still a bit smelly) bag, and while I was folding it I took a look around. I had a pretty good view of much of the neighborhood from my balcony. I looked to the right in the direction of Jim’s house, but couldn’t see any boys outside playing. I then looked to the left and saw, a couple of blocks away, a few boys hanging out by the curb talking to some girls. One of the boys was wearing a white tank top and appeared (from that distance) to have muscular shoulders; I thought it was Billy, so I continued to look in that direction. After a few seconds I noticed that some of the kids were looking in my direction and I began to get the feeling that I was being talked about. Then the guy in the white tank top raised his arm in my direction. I was right! He was waving at me! Of course, I raised my arm in response. I decided then to forgo my planned jerk-off session and instead get on my bike and ride over to them. Billy’s muscles were on my mind, and even though I didn’t get any “gay vibe” from him (like I had from Mark Cormes), I still couldn’t get him out of my mind.

As I got on my bike and was heading out of the garage, I suddenly decided to change plans. I set the bike down and instead got out my skateboard. I wasn’t that great a skateboarder in the past, as I never seemed to have the strength in my legs and hips to do some of the tricks my friends used to do. But I thought that it might be different now. As I headed towards the place where I saw Billy and the other guys, I ollied up onto the curb and did a board slide. I was amazed at how much more in control I felt than in the past. My legs easily absorbed the tension of the moves, and it seemed like it took less effort to keep my balance than ever before. I picked up speed, tried a couple of kick flips, and again was amazed at how much more coordinated I was on my board. I saw a few kids about a block ahead of me, and now that I was closer, I was sure that the guy in the white tank top was Billy.

There were five kids standing here: Billy and two other boys, two of them with a skateboard and one with a bike, and two girls. As I approached on my board, I couldn’t help but notice that the two girls had their eyes on me all the way. As I got closer, I saw one of the girls, a blond, put her mouth to the ear of the other girl, a taller brunette, and obviously whisper something to her. They girls looked at me again, and giggled. While I was no expert at girls (and probably never will be), I knew that they were discussing my looks. That’s what girls always do, right?

Feeling a bit cocky, I reached for some of that boldness that I had been noticing recently, and increased speed as I approached the kids at the curb. At the last second I spun my board to the side and skidded into a powerslide. Now, you should understand that every time in the past that I had tried a powerslide I ended up eating pavement. My legs just weren’t strong enough to keep control during the skid. But today, my powerslide ended about a foot from Billy, a perfectly executed trick! I smiled wide as I nodded “hey” to Billy and his friends.

“Hey Jake” Billy said to me, and motioned to his friends. “This is Jake, who just moved to the neighborhood.” Billy introduced me to the other kids: Brian, a tall kid, maybe 6 foot in height and around 160 pounds or so, was 16 years old and was going to be a junior this year, and he looked pretty tough. He didn’t have the muscles in the arms and shoulders that Billy had, but he still had a nice strong looking body. The other boy was Todd, who was shorter than Brian and Billy, but a touch taller than me - probably about 5’7” or so. He was 15 and a sophomore, like Billy, and was absolutely beautiful. He didn’t have the bulging muscles that Billy had, but his limbs had a lovely shape - like that of a dancer rather than an athlete - and his skin was smooth and silky. Todd’s face, however, nearly knocked me on my ass. He was fucking hot! His eyes were a shade of baby blue, a bit lighter than Billy’s, and even brighter. His jaw line was sharp and angular, his cheekbones high and rosey-colored. He had a little dimple in the center of his chin, and when he smiled big dimples appeared on each of his cheeks. His hair was dark brown in color, silky in texture, and straight as it hung over his forehead partially covering his right eye. But his eyes were so bright I could see the blueness shining through his bangs. As he looked at me, he gave a quick jerk of his head to the side and his hair briefly moved out from in front of his eye, but then just as quickly covered it again. He smiled at me, flashing these perfectly straight white teeth. I realized that my heartrate had increased and I was holding my breath as I looked at Todd. I was in love! (Well, at least I was in **lust** - and at 14, is there really that much of a difference between the two?)

Fortunately, I don’t think my inner turmoil was apparent to the other kids, as Billy continued the introductions. The two girls names were Kathy and Christine, and they were Sophomores like Billy and Todd. They were flirting outrageously with Billy, but seemed to be ignoring Todd completely - which surprised me considering how beautiful he was. After I had been there for a while, and was fitting in with the conversation, I began to notice that the girls were flirting with me as well.

“Billy said you’re really strong for a Freshman,” Kathy, the blond girl, said to me. I smiled and told her I still couldn’t beat Billy armwrestling, yet. Kathy reached over and put her hand on my right upper arm. I gave a flex to my biceps, and Kathy’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” Billy said, “but we struggled for almost 5 minutes and I couldn’t put that skinny arm of his down. And I weight 40 pounds more than he does!”

“Jake’s arms don’t feel skinny to me” Kathy said as she continued to squeeze my bicep muscle through my cotton t-shirt. I was really liking the attention. Todd was watching the exchange intently, his eyes looking at my arm as Kathy squeezed the muscle, and then darted up to my face. When my eyes met his for a second, I saw him begin to blush a bit.

“There is no way a 110 pound frosh can take me in armwrestling,” Brian said with a sneer. I could tell that he didn’t believe what he was hearing about how strong I was.

“Well, I can kick your ass any day of the week in armwrestling, dude” Billy said to him, “and Jake and me went to a draw. So I figure that means that he could kick your ass too!” Billy smiled and winked at me when he said that, but Brian’s glare seemed to increase in menace. He was not going to accept that a kid two years younger than him, not to mention 7 inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter could be his equal in strength. So, naturally, we ended up on the ground elbows propped in front of us, hands clasped. Billy acted as referee and put his hands on top of ours as he counted. “Go!”

The first thing I noticed was that despite his larger size, Brian was NOT as strong as Billy. When Billy first put pressure on me earlier that day, my arm almost went down immediately. It took all the strength I had to keep from losing in the first second of that match. With Brian, I never felt like I was in trouble. As Billy yelled “Go”, I felt Brian begin to push on my arm, but with less than my maximum effort I was able to keep our arms in the starting position. Brian began to strain more, but I held position. Then Brian really put the pressure on and I could feel my bicep flexing out in response. But I kept our arms in that starting position despite Brian’s best efforts. I looked up and saw him staring at me, a look of surprise and respect in his eyes. Finally, as I realized that he had given it his all and couldn’t move my arm even one inch, I increased the pressure and his arm began to go down. His eyes opened wide and he began to struggle intensely. His arm started to quiver with the effort of fighting against my skinny but strong arm and shoulder muscles. I continued, slowly and gradually, moving his arm closer and closer to the grass. He was putting up a good fight, and I could feel the sweat begin to run down my forehead and under my arms as I summoned up the strength I needed to put his arm down that final inch or two. With a grunt, his arm gave way. I had won. I had beaten (easily beaten, to be honest) a 16 year old six-footer who outweighed me by 50 pounds! Billy gave a yell, and put his arm around my shoulders.

“See? I told you, dude!” Billy was laughing and holding my arm, massaging my right shoulder as he sang my praises. It was quite good for my ego, hearing this gorgeous muscle boy talking about how strong I was, how hard my muscles were, how I was dominating guys older and bigger than me with ease. I felt like Billy had “taken me under his wing” in the neighborhood, and I liked the feeling that comes from being accepted and liked by the most popular boy on the block. Kathy and Christine were watching me with somewhat wistful expressions, as if they were debating internally whether they should be seen flirting with a mere freshman or if the dignity of their position as upperclassmen would be burdened by such condescension. Eventually, Kathy walked over to me and asked me to “make a muscle” - by which, of course, she meant flex my bicep. I did so, and she put her hand on the peak and squeezed. Her eyes widened as they had before.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, “you have the hardest arms I ever felt!” Christine then came to stand next to Kathy, and she copped a feel as well. Looking over at Billy, I could see an expression of pride on his face, as if he was responsible for my presence in the neighborhood, or as if he deserved some credit for having met me before the other kids did. Brian still glared at me, but not as aggressively as before, and Todd … Todd was looking at me with his bright blue eyes wide open and a look of hero worship on his face. I glanced over and saw Billy observing Todd’s expression as he looked at me, and then Billy turned back to me and winked slightly, motioning his head in Todd’s direction as he did so. Obviously, Billy could see what Todd was thinking about as he looked at me, and found it very amusing.

“Damn, that’s embarrassing,” said Brian. “I really need to start lifting weights again.” And with that, Brian said he was going, and took off down the street on his skateboard.

“Oh, man” said Todd, ‘that was so awesome seeing Brian getting his ass handed to him like that!” I asked him why he felt that way, and then Todd, Billy, Kathy and Christine all began to tell me what a jerk Brian was. How he grew taller before most of the kids his age and that he never hesitated to lord it over them all. How he would mercilessly bully anybody weaker than him while toadying up to anybody stronger than him. All four kids seemed really pleased that I had beaten Brian, but Todd was positively overjoyed! I learned later that Todd was one of the boys that Brian regularly picked on, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he (along with many of the smaller guys in the neighborhood) was under Billy’s protection, he probably would have gotten beat up regularly. But Billy, as I was later to learn in great detail, was something of the neighborhood protector. He hated seeing smaller and weaker guys being picked on by bigger and stronger guys, and since he was one of the strongest guys, he was able to enforce his moral position with his fists and his muscles. I knew there was something I liked about that guy beyond his looks!

“Hey Jake,” Todd asked me softly, “do you think I could work out with you sometime? I’d really like to build my muscles and get strong like you are.” He was looking down at the ground as he said this, as if he were embarrassed by what he was saying, but as he finished he raised his eyes slightly to see my reaction. With his head down and his pretty blue eyes raised towards me, barely visible underneath his long bangs of silky brown hair, I thought to myself that he was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. But I wasn’t ready to “come out” to all the kids in the neighborhood, so I kept my cool and simply told him that I would be glad for the company. Todd then asked to feel my biceps, and as the girls giggled I lifted my arm and flexed for him. He lifted his hand to my bicep and squeezed. All I could hear was a barely audible “wow” as he continued to feel my muscle for a few seconds. Glancing over at Billy, I saw that he had a somewhat surprised, somewhat bemused expression on his face.

Then Todd, with his hand still on my bicep, looked at the muscular blond and said “you were right, Billy. He is even stronger than he is beautiful.” And then, as if suddenly realizing what he said, he let out a gasp, looked at me, and then Billy, his eyes wide, his face suddenly going pale, and then he glanced at the girls (who began to laugh loudly), and then mumbled a quick “sorry” and jumped on his bike and took off down the road, glancing behind him two or three times as he sped away.

“Oh! My! God!” said Christine and Kathy at the same time, as they doubled over in laughter. Billy had a broad smile on his face as he looked at me.

“I think Todd has a crush on you, dude” he said to me with a laugh. The two girls were laughing so hard they started to turn purple, and I think they were getting out of breath. They excused themselves and started into the house in front of which we had all been standing for the past hour or so. They said they needed to “freshen up”, which is girl talk for wanting to be alone so they could talk about boys. Billy got a serious expression on his face as he put his arm around my shoulder.

“Todd’s been my best friend since we were 4 years old,” he explained to me. “I’ve known he was gay even before he did!” and as he told me that, I looked at his face and realized that not only was he totally serious, but there was no look of mocking or contempt at all on his face as he spoke about his best friend. “But don’t let it bother you, dude. If you’re not into that shit, he won’t push it. Todd’s a very moral person. He doesn’t hit on straight boys, at least not too often.” Billy then laughed pushed me away.

“Shit, I gotta go,” he said to me after glancing at his watch. “Catch ya later, Muscles.” And with that, he jumped on his skateboard and took off down the street, showing off a wicked pop-shuvit before turning the corner and out of sight. I started home, with a lot on my mind.

[fwee]

Great natural feeling scene. Keep it up!!! Love the story.

[sierraca]

Engaging story. I truly enjoy the development of Jake, his body, his new-found confidence, and of his new friends. It seems that Billy might be a catalyst for Jake and Todd?

So lifting with the boys is next. Will the whole neighborhood become one big stud farm? What a thought! And what will the first day at high school be like? Looking forward to the next chapters.

[ldaniel13]

I like the pace of your story and the rate of muscle growth. Sometimes, authors jump to the punchline too quickly, but you're doing great. Keep up the good work.

[redroger11]

Excellent development. Body and story. Keep Writing.

redroger11

[bobman]

It's hard to add any more encouragement than is already here in the thread. I really enjoy this story and appreciate the care you're taking in developing the characters. Great style and great writing!

[arpeejay]

It's a great story. I look forward to Jake's continued growth! :-)

xoxo

Richard

[lead guitarist]

I'm loving this! It's one of the most enjoyable muscle-growth stories I've seen in a really long time. Your portrayal of young teen thoughts and relationships is wonderfully realistic, and I love how Jake's new body and strength have given him instant status in the neighborhood. Please keep going - you're doing GREAT!

[chocomus]

I love Jake's personality and way of thinking and doing things!
I love the way Jake is making all want to workout!
I love Todd (a lot, even if he had a very small part of the story) and Billy.

Dude, I love this story

And i think this story is, apart from hot, very cute It's one of my fave's right now.

I don't think there's anything to say that hasn't already been said, I love the fact that you're showing just what being stronger does to this kid and the descriptions seem very believable. Keep the chapters flying!

[philat99]

Very believable exposition. Good pacing and introduction of new characters. Looking forward to more.
Mike

[musclemonkey]

This is simply great. Everything about it, the pace, setting, tone, and characters all combine to make one awesome story. Can't wait for more!

[TemptationIV]

really can't wait for more of this story to unfold!

[MAZIVKAROLY]

More and more intriguing additions to this story as you continue to develop the characters and the budding teenager Jake.