Aerobic

[tekuno]

I've actually been sitting on this for a couple of days now, because I feel like I ought to finish the story about Drew, but I decided I should post it after all. I'm honestly a little burned out on Drew, because people wanted too many things at once. I'll get around to finishing it eventually. But in the meanwhile I might as well post what I've got, right?

This was, believe it or not, a request. Sort of. Someone wanted a story based on the "Monster Blood" stories from R. L. Stine's Goosebumps. Not only have I never read those books, but I really don't care for the whole idea of fanfics. But there are definite possibilities in the general idea, so I made a generic knockoff, and the requester was fine with that provided that the result was slow-but-eventually-extreme growth.

This story is going to feature... oh, heck, I haven't really decided yet. For the first few parts, it's just going to be ordinary muscle growth. After a while, I'm planning on throwing in some transformation/body horror stuff, exact elements to be determined but definitely including macro.

(Oh, and I plan on posting all the parts to this thread this time, because I'm tired of having to keep track of thread numbers and posting "next part" links and so on. Don't let that discourage you from leaving comments, though. )

Aerobic
Part 1

*****

From An Introduction To Genetics For Imbeciles, 3rd edition:

In the 1920s, a scientist named Fred Griffith carried out a routine experiment on pneumococcus bacteria.

The ordinary bacteria, found in nature, had an outer carbohydrate layer, which protected it from detection by an immune system, and was deadly to lab mice. A mutant strain had developed, however, which lacked this outer layer -- and caused no harm to lab mice.

When the deadly type was boiled, killing the bacteria, and then injected into lab mice, it caused no harm to them. But if boiled deadly bacteria were mixed with live harmless bacteria, the result was also deadly.

The process by which the living harmless bacteria combined with dead harmful bacteria was dubbed "transformation". It was attempts to understand the mechanics of transformation which eventually led to the discovery of DNA.

*****

"Gentlemen, if I might call this meeting to order? Thank you."

"Where's Doctor Schmidt?"

"Doctor Schmidt will not be attending this meeting."

"What? He's the one who wanted to present to us!"

"Ought to be fired, my opinion."

"Doctor Schmidt will not be attending this meeting because he was killed approximately 6 hours ago while preparing his materials."

"What?"

"Killed? It was deliberate? Corporate espionage!"

"Impossible! Who would bother?"

"He was in research and development. I bet Mansonto would be glad to know what we're working on!"

"But they wouldn't kill him!"

"Gentlemen, please. The doctor and two of his assistants were killed in what might be considered a lab accident. I have, however, reviewed the doctor's notes, and I believe I have a reasonable grasp of what he was going to say."

"Get on with it, then."

"Yes, some of us have things to do."

"Very well. Here is a photo from the doctor's notes."

"Good lord!"

"What the hell is that?"

"Jesus!"

"God, it's got two?"

"Good grief, is that supposed to be a normal-sized clipboard, down there? How big is?"

"This, gentlemen, is the doctor's prize specimen, which he named 'Bullzilla' for what I hope are obvious reasons. As you may recall, Doctor Schmidt's research program was started six years ago, to consider the use of genetic modifications to increase the amount of meat produced by our livestock."

"Meat? Who the fuck would eat something like that?"

"The anti-GMO crowd would have a field day! The press would slaughter us!"

"No, wait, there's actually three?"

"Who cares? It's got six legs!"

"Fuck!"

"Gentlemen. If we could keep the chatter to a minimum? Thank you. Now then. According to the doctor's notes, the more... er... extreme abnormalities of the specimen are not genetic, but rather side effects of the chemical compounds present in the embryonic environment. He suggests that its offspring?"

"Good lord, we can't breed that thing!"

"No! Can you imagine what it would do to sales if people saw it?"

"Never mind that. Could... could it even breed with a normal cow? Wouldn't it just crush the cow?"

"How big is it, anyway?"

"Doctor Schmidt notes that Bullzilla grew too large for conventional weighing mechanisms roughly three years ago. His best estimate is that it currently weighs somewhere between fifteen and sixteen metric tons ? that would be somewhere in the range of 33 to 35 thousand pounds ? and is growing at a rate of?"

"It's growing?"

"Oh, yes. The doctor was unable to determine when its mass would stabilize, but since its rate of growth has apparently been increasing slowly but measurably for years, it clearly hasn't reached that point yet."

"Jesus!"

"Now then, as I was saying: although Bullzilla is too large for conventional mating, it appears that this would not be a problem. The doctor records that the only problem with semen collection was the limited capacity of conventional collecting devices. As you can see in this photo?"

"Fucking Hell!"

"Is all of that..."

"Yes. In fact, the notes indicate that this photo was taken halfway through the session."

"Christ!"

"Indeed. We have a fresh sperm sample in storage. Truth to tell, it was during the acquisition of this sample that the doctor and his assistants were trampled last night. If you choose, gentlemen, we can produce Bullzilla offspring within the next six months. Shall we put it to a vote? All in favor? ...opposed?"

"Nay!"

"God, nay!"

"No!"

"Fucking hell, no!"

"Very well. What should we do with Bullzilla?"

"I don't care, as long as nobody ever finds out about it."

"It had better be thoroughly destroyed. We don't want anything turning up in a supermarket somewhere."

"Yeah. Jesus, I'm going to have nightmares about that thing."

"Very well, gentlemen, I will see to it that the specimen is destroyed... and all the documentary evidence. Doctor Schmidt's remaining assistants will be debriefed and transferred to the other lab."

"The one where we're growing meat directly in test tubes? Yuck."

"They ought to be used to horrors by now."

"And know how to keep their mouths shut."

"Yes."

"Then the meeting is adjourned, gentlemen. I will notify you privately of any further developments."

"Good."

"Not a word at any public meetings, remember!"

After the various men walked and stumbled out, pale and shaking, there was a moment of silence. The lone remaining man tapped his fingers. Even considering how much of Bullzilla had to be bones, to maintain a structure of that size, it would probably produce well over fifteen thousand pounds of meat... and, according to the notes, the meat ? once cooked, at least ? was indistinguishable from ordinary meat. It would be a shame to waste it. After a few moments, he began typing out orders for the destruction of Bullzilla, the careful dismemberment of the carcass, and notifications to certain divisions in the company to expect large shipments of frozen meat, marrow, and bone chips...

*****

Six years passed. Nobody ever found about about Bullzilla. Doctor Schmidt's lab building was torn down, and the developer who bought the land turned it into a parking garage.

*****

"Hey! Hey, Trevor! I know you're in there! Open the door! My hands are full!"

"Just a minute! Hold your horses!"

"Thanks!"

"Oh, god, what did you buy this time?"

Martin grinned. "Nothing. The boss was cleaning out the back room, and found some out-of-date canned goods. He said I could take 'em."

Trevor frowned. "Out-of-date canned goods? Sounds kind of risky to me."

"Heh. It's Speef. That stuff never really goes bad."

"Speef? What the hell is 'speef'?"

Martin grinned a little wider. "It's a knockoff of spam, but made from beef instead of ham. Never really caught on. But it keeps for-freaking-ever, just like spam does." He carried the boxes into the kitchen, and Trevor followed.

"Yuck."

"It tastes okay. Like low-grade roast beef but spicy like tacos... well, not exactly, there's kind of a metallic overtone. But close enough."

"Double-yuck."

"Well, you don't have to eat any, then."

"You won't have to worry about that. It sounds horrible."

Martin made a face, and Trevor laughed.

"Well, you put your mystery meat in the pantry. I need to get back to work. The living room won't clean itself, unfortunately."

Martin watched as his housemate walked away. Truth be told, Martin wasn't exactly eager to eat cheap canned meat, either. But he had to do something.

Sharing a house with Trevor had seemed like a good idea at the time ? which was just as the two graduated from college. But Martin hadn't realized a couple of things.

First, the company where he had landed a job after graduation had folded within six months. And new jobs had turned out to be unbelievably difficult to find. He had been lucky to get a full-time position at the grocery store before he had to dip into his savings, but he had intended for that to be strictly temporary, and it had been more than a year now with no job leads.

Secondly, he hadn't realized that Trevor's post-college job was as a personal trainer. Not that it was entirely surprising ? Trevor had always been in good shape, and had made a hobby of getting certifications in minor health fields all through college, so that by graduation he had an impressive resume. But the constant exercise and healthy habits had had an effect on Trevor which Martin found almost intolerable: he had grown. When they bought the house, Martin had been a few inches shorter than Trevor, but the two had both had the same slim build. Now, two years later, Trevor was a giant. Martin could almost swear that Trevor had even grown taller ? or maybe the increased size of his muscles just made him more imposing. And the occasional glimpse caught as Trevor made his way to and from the shower, or got ready for bed, had confirmed that Trevor was also hairier and, well, better hung.

Martin, half-conscious of his own jealousy, had started a gym membership ? which was straining his finances a bit. And as his general fitness improved, he came to realize that he was a "hard gainer" par excellence. If anything, the loss of fat from his workouts made him look scrawnier than before, even though he knew he was healthier and stronger.

He was uncomfortably aware that Trevor's diet was very different than his own: higher in protein and involving many more calories. But what with the mortgage payments, and utilities, and his car, and the gym membership, and his student loans, he had a choice between becoming vegan in all but whey protein supplements, or else eating some occasional meat and cheese, and he just couldn't face life without the occasional steak. And so he had to watch as Trevor's body became better and better and better than his own.

There was only one saving grace: he wasn't in love with Trevor. Trevor's body was incredibly attractive, and back when they had met, Freshman year, he had briefly had a crush, but they had been friends for far too long for Martin to consider Trevor as a potential romantic partner. So at least he could, without driving himself crazy, avoid looking at Trevor's body too often.

Now Martin sighed. The pantry was unusually full; this wasn't the first time he'd brought home cheap or free things from the store, and Trevor's appetite was always on the increase these days, so there was hardly any room left. He was just about to cut open the box and push the cans one by one to the back of the bottom shelf, where there seemed to be room, when he looked up and saw that the very top shelf was almost completely empty. Grinning, he lifted the box... and then sighed, put the box down, and wandered off to get a stepladder. With its aid, he got the box onto the shelf and cut away part of the cardboard so that the cans could be removed easily...

*****

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Fuck!"

"What was that? Are you okay?"

"Ow! Yeah, I'm fine. I didn't realize it, but that top shelf is tilted forward. I cut a nice big hole in that box, so I could get at the cans, and now they slide out any time I touch the thing."

"Heh. It's your punishment for eating that nasty stuff."

"Shut the fuck up. Could you get me the stepladder so I can put this stuff back?"

"Sure. Hang on."

*****

"GODDAMMIT! Martin!"

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"Your fucking cans are falling out again!"

"Oh, shit. Sorry!"

"Ow! Geez. Sorry I yelled."

"No, no. I understand. I'll go get the ladder and put them back."

*****

"Fuck!"

"What is it this time?"

"The fucking cans again!"

"Aren't you going to eat those?"

"I have been eating them! There's just too many of them in the box!"

"Too bad you can't return them for a refund!"

"Shut up!"

*****

"Ow! Ow! Ow!"

"Cans again?"

"Ow! Fuck! Yes!"

"Damn, aren't you ever going to finish those?"

"Ow! I'm about two thirds through."

*****

"Good news!"

"What? You're finally done with those cans?"

"No! I got a new job!"

"Really? Congratulations!"

"Yeah, I thought I'd never be done with the grocery store."

"Well, hey, let's eat out to celebrate. How about that new Italian place? My treat!"

"No, I think I'd much rather eat speef fritatas."

"Smartass! Whoa! That was a close one!"

"Yeah, they almost got me. Guess the cans heard me joking about them and decided to take revenge."

"Heh. If they hadn't been falling on you at least three times a week for the last month, that would be perfectly plausible."

"You know, I should get rid of the box and just put the cans themselves on the shelf."

"Why didn't you think of that before they wore a soft patch on your head?"

"Shut up. You go get our coats, I'll put these back."

*****

Had the fall been even a few inches shorter, there would have been no damage; until now, the cans had always landed on someone before they hit the floor.

The holes were so tiny as to be almost invisible to the naked eye -- mere punctures in in the edges of the perforation along the lid of the can, designed to be thin enough to permit the main section to be peeled back easily. Even if Martin had been in a mood to listen, he wouldn't have been able to hear the minuscule hiss as air rushed in. While Martin and Trevor ate at the restaurant, while they drove back, as they slumbered, during their morning showers, throughout the working day, the small holes stood open, permitting the silent entry of entities even smaller...

[LuciferDragons]

Daym, I can't wait to see where you go with this! I used to think the Monster Blood stories were really hot when I was a kid and this looks really promising.
It reminds me that someone on Metabods posted a Say Cheese and Die homage in a similar vein to this that AMAZINGLY sexy.
I literally can't wait to see how this one goes! Keep writing and feel the love.

[demowolf]

Can't wait for more

[nnnrg]

SPEEF!

LOVELY SPEEF WONDERFUL SPEEF SPEEFITY SPEEFITY SPEEF...


SHUT UP lousy Vikings...

[Kit Werecat]

I always look forward to checking out your stories.

This one is - curious. I really can't comment much on it as yet. Like you, I have never seen anything on Stine's Monster Blood, so I have no idea where this story is going.

However, being a Macrophile and Power Worshiper of the purest order, and what you promise in your prologue, you have my undivided attention.

As for what has been done so far, I think it is masterfully written. You are also doing a great job of making tedious exposition interesting and entertaining, while also teasing us with things to come.

I look forward to your next installment, and will be rechecking this link often for new additions.

To clarify: If I understand you correctly, you will be posting new chapters to this story in this same thread. I'm speaking that plainly here, because that approach often results in readers missing further chapter additions, because there are "Already Read" cookies sent out to their computers that can kind of divert viewers from revisiting the same link twice.

I have noticed that there appears to be a forum switch to allow you to be notified by emails when new postings are done here, and I will Enable that. For those who are interested, it is a checkbox down at the bottom of the page of this thread. It has a drop-down menu to ask how urgently it needs to inform you on posting activity here (immediate, daily, weekly, etc.) I assume the forum already knows your email from originally registering, but I'm going to check out my profile as well.

I hope that helps your readers in keeping track of your additions to this story.


Marvelous writing so far, and I hope you will keep the chapters coming fast and furious.

[tekuno]

Originally Posted by Kit Werecat

To clarify: If I understand you correctly, you will be posting new chapters to this story in this same thread. I'm speaking that plainly here, because that approach often results in readers missing further chapter additions, because there are "Already Read" cookies sent out to their computers that can kind of divert viewers from revisiting the same link twice.

Thanks for your praise (not quoted here because this post will be long enough as it is)! People will miss things anyway, even if I make new threads, unless I post a list of links to previous parts, and that's surprisingly annoying to do. If I'm going to slack off and make people do my job for me by leaving those out, then I might as well at least make it convenient to read the story.

That thing about Fred Griffith's experiment at the beginning of part 1? All true. Even the part about how it led to the discovery of DNA ? biologists were fairly sure there was something physical which passed traits from generation to generation (Mendel's pea plant experiments were much earlier), but it wasn't until Oswald Avery and a few others spent a vast amount of time isolating the thing which actually did the work that the culprit was found to be DNA (and, also discovered eventually, RNA). And even then, it took a long time for the idea to take hold. I seem to recall, however, that bacteria do the "transformation" trick much more easily than cells from multicellular life forms ? which makes sense; the ability to absorb DNA and express it is mostly only useful to a single-celled organism. If a single one of your cells developed some special capability, it probably wouldn't help you as a whole very much except in a very few specific circumstances.

(Did you know that Spam, the meat product, was actually developed at the request of the U.S. military? Before Spam, canned meat was unreliable in quality and the cans tended to puncture or split or simply not have a good seal in the first place, so that it wasn't uncommon for people who ate canned meat to get sick ? which in turn made it hard to deliver protein to troops. The process of producing and packaging Spam was designed in a single monolithic project to combine uniform quality with durable packaging so that the result could be transported and stored without risk. At the time, the can was actually cutting-edge materials science and engineering.) (I have no idea whether they still produce the stuff using essentially the same process, or use the same type of can, these days. The cans seem pretty stable, but that doesn't mean anything.)

Aerobic
Part 2

*****

Martin celebrated his upcoming change of employment ? with associated rise in paycheck ? by taking full advantage of his employee discount at the grocery store's butcher department and deli. The freezer was packed with meat, and his half of the fridge had as many perishables as he estimated he could eat before it all went bad. He topped everything up on his last day, bid his former coworkers a fond adieu, and looked forward to...

...a frantic scramble. His new employers were in the middle of a hectic last-minute rush. He was pushed into a team which was frantically trying to beat a deadline only two weeks away. During those two weeks, he returned to the house only to sleep; every meal was fast food and the gym was a distant memory.

The deadline was met; Martin's team relaxed. His job suddenly relaxed into a 9-to-5 occupation once again. After spending his first Saturday off catching up on his sleep, he looked around the house and sighed. Two weeks of running himself ragged had left his share of the chores completely undone. Dirty laundry overflowed from the hamper, his half of the fridge was filled with spoiled food, and "his" bathroom was beginning to smell.

On the bright side, he had the house to himself. Trevor and his latest relationship were taking a day trip to the next town over for some kind of festival. "Relationship" was straining a point; "fuck buddy" was possibly also a bit too generous. Trevor had an almost complete split between people he liked and people he had sex with ? he was extremely picky about the former, but seemed willing to fuck anything with a pulse which flattered him about his muscles... and as far as Martin could tell, the pulse requirement might even be optional. But until androids were developed which could provide artificial simulated lust, nobody would know for sure. Martin gave a half-smile at the thought, and then shook his head. Not for the first time, he was glad to have escaped being one of Trevor's sex toys.

A few hours later, Martin knocked off for a break from cleaning. His third load of laundry was in the wash, the bathroom was... if not sparkling then at least not in danger of being declared unsafe for humans, a bag of spoiled food had been filled and duly taken out to the trash, he had vacuumed and done a little dusting, and now he felt just slightly tired. He sighed; so much food had gone bad that he was left with a choice between violating his "no eating each other's food without warning" agreement with Trevor, or else go to a restaurant ? and after an afternoon of cleaning, he didn't have the energy for anything fancy, which meant something fast-and-probably-unhealthy again. Just when he thought he was done with all that.

After vacillating for a while, Martin got Chinese takeout. Once he had some food in him, he felt much calmer. Even energetic, in a nervous sort of way. After swapping the laundry around again and putting away the latest finished load, he looked around for something to do. After a week of sitting at a desk, sitting around didn't appeal to him ? but with more laundry urgently waiting to be done, he couldn't very well go on a walk or a trip to the gym. As so often happens in these cases, he settled for pottering around the house, doing small tasks which ordinarily got ignored. Polishing taps, vacuuming the dust out of venetian blinds, sorting the out-of-date medicine from the medicine cabinet, tightening screws on furniture and fixtures...

At approximately 1 AM, Martin found himself finally winding down. He didn't feel quite like going to bed yet ? not after 12 hours of sleep the previous night, anyway ? but he no longer felt the need to keep moving. He was just about to go and sit with a good book for a while when he caught sight of the pantry door. He had passed it probably thirty times in the course of the evening, but hadn't given it a thought. He'd been meaning to fix the wobbly bottom shelf and sort the whole thing out for months, now.

He carefully cleared everything off the bottom shelf, and then knelt down to pull the shelf out and examine it. As he began to pull, he barely had time to wonder what that rolling sound was before the cans began to hit him in the head...

*****

Martin moaned, and opened his eyes.

"Martin?"

"Trevor? What? Where are we? What happened?"

Trevor grunted. "We're in the emergency room. I came home at 9:30 on Sunday and found you in a pool of blood in front of the pantry."

"Huh? Why?"

"Those damn cans of yours must have fallen out on you, again. You have a mild concussion. One of them split open and spilled meat all over your head. I almost had a heart attack ? it looked like your brains had come out."

"Feels like it, too."

"You just take it easy. The doctors say you can come home tonight if there's nothing wrong with you that they don't know about already."

"Ugh."

"Incidentally, it's no wonder those cans fell out. The seals must have broken at some point; the ones on the floor were about twice their normal size."

"Whoa."

"Yeah, the hosptital insisted on taking them away and burning them. They disinfected your wound more times than I would have thought necessary, so presumably you're okay now."

"Gluh."

"Well, now that you're awake, I've got things to do today. I'll be back around 6 to give you a ride home. Give my cell a call if you need me to bring anything, or they want to hold you until tomorrow, or something."

"Thanks, Trev."

Martin spent the rest of the day asleep.

*****

"Jesus, Martin, a hundred and three degrees? you're burning up!"

"S'jus' a li'l fev'r. Nothing t'worry 'bout."

"Get back in bed right now! I'm calling you in sick!"

"Okay, Mom."

"And take some ibuprofen! If you're still over 100 in two hours, I'm taking you back to the hospital!"

Trevor looked suspiciously at the door to Martin's bedroom, as various sounds of pills and bedsprings came out, and wondered if perhaps he ought to break out the Lysol.

...an hour and a half later, Martin wandered out of his bedroom and got a glass of water.

"How's your fever?"

"Hmmmm? Oh, all gone."

"Are you sure?"

"Here, check for yourself." Martin tossed the forehead thermometer to Trevor, who pressed it up against Martin's head.

"Ninety-eight point five. Huh. How are you feeling, though?"

"...good. Great, even. I feel like I could go run a marathon or something."

"Well, don't do that. Remember what the doctors said? No strain until your head is completely healed up, or else you might pop the wound open and bleed all over the place."

"Yes, yes. I remember."

"Good."

"Mind if I cook something? I'm actually really hungry."

"No, go ahead. Just give a yell if you need anything. I don't have to be at the gym until 4 today."

"Okay."

Martin made soup and toast. Then, still hungry, he fried some eggs. And had a sandwich. And a salad. And then he had a scoop of ice cream. Trevor's eyebrows went up at Martin's appetite, but he made no comment. After all that blood loss, a rise in appetite was probably healthy. Maybe.

"Okay, I'm off to work now!"

"Have fun."

"I will, I will. My new client is the hottest guy I've seen in ages, and I've got Julie coming in at 7 and Lisa at 8. I'm going to buy some condoms on the way to work."

"Trevor, I've always wondered ? do you view all your clients as potential sex partners?"

"Oh, no. Only the hot ones."

"Geez. Don't you have any professional ethics?"

"Sure do. I only fuck the customers if they express interest first."

"Ugh. I wish I didn't know what the gym staff was doing. It makes my workouts uncomfortable."

"Too bad you're gay and not bi. Sally was saying just the other day she thought you were cute. You could be have sex with a beautiful blond personal trainer every time you go to the gym."

"Thank you ever so much for that little revelation. Get out of here."

"I hear and obey."

Trevor pulled the door shut behind him and walked to his car, whistling. Martin watched him adjust his pants, and smacked his forehead. Someday, Trevor's sex life was going to land him in trouble... Martin just hoped that, when it happened, he wouldn't have to get involved. He thought about the possibilities for things to go wrong, and ran his hand through his hair.

It took about a minute and a half for Martin to realize that he had just passed his hand over his injury and had felt nothing unusual ? no pain whatsoever. Curious, he prodded the wound a bit; still nothing.

He wandered into the bathroom and with a hand mirror and the mirror over the sink, he examined the shaved spot. The doctor had been explicit: the wound wasn't severe enough to require stitches, but head wounds were always serious, and tended to bleed a lot. He patted the bandage; there was no pain whatsoever, and he couldn't feel anything through the padding. After getting a replacement ready, he decided to peel away the bandage and see what progress there had been at healing. He winced as the bandage pulled at the stubble of his hair...

There was nothing, not even a scar. The shaved spot was as blank as any other part of his skin. Martin dug out other mirrors to make sure this wasn't some sort of illusion, and even used his phone to take photos of the back of his head. Everything seemed to agree: there was no wound there at all.

Martin grinned. The wound really must have been small, to have become undetectable so fast. No wonder they discharged him so quickly. Maybe he could go for a workout? ...No, wound or not, he was still recovering from head trauma. He should take the opportunity to rest for a day. And maybe he should have Trevor examine the shaved spot, just to make sure he wasn't missing something.

*****

Trevor went home with one of his clients. By the time he returned, the next morning, Martin had already left for work.

*****

"Hey, having a cookout?"

"Yup. Got all that meat in the freezer. Might as well use some of it while the weather is friendly, right?"

"Have a guest?"

"Huh?

"Is there someone over for dinner?"

"Oh, no."

"Then can I have chicken instead of steak?"

"Huh? Instead? Do you have any chicken breasts?"

"Wait, isn't some of this for me?"

"Nope. I'm just really hungry tonight."

"Whoa! Three steaks? That's... really unusual for you."

"Yeah. I think all that stress from the last couple of weeks just wound me up a lot. And then that whole concussion thing, and the fever... I think my body is just ready for some activity. My stomach was growling all day."

"Mmmm."

"If you'll bring me some chicken breasts, I'll grill 'em for you."

"Okay, then."

"Oh, say, can you do me a favor?"

"Yes?"

"Can you check my head wound for me?"

"Sure... wow, all clear! That was fast!"

"Sure was. The doctor said head wounds bleed disproportionately, so it was probably just a tiny little thing, and only let out so much blood because I was knocked out with my head so low."

"Well, that's lucky... now you just have to wait for the hair to grow back in."

"Don't remind me. At least the hair around it covers it up."

"Yeah, you just look like you have an irregular bald patch. Hey, don't think of it as a head wound, think of it as a preview of what you'll look like at 40."

"Fuck off and die, asshole. And don't forget to bring the chicken."

*****

"Well, you look happy!"

"I am! Best workout I've ever had!"

"Really?"

"Yes indeed! I thought I'd have lost strength, what with not going for two and a half weeks, but it was great! I was full of energy the whole time, didn't even get tired out! I only left because they were closing for the night!"

Trevor grinned. "See? Eating more protein helps."

"If this keeps up, I'll be your size in no time!" Martin stuck out his tongue and held up his arms in a parody of a double-bicep pose. "See? Bigger already!"

"I wish my pumps were that impressive."

"Huh? Oh. Thanks. Didn't realize it was visible. Anyway, I'm going to have a protein shake, and then off to the shower."

"A protein shake? On top of all that meat? You're either going to spend tomorrow rolling on the floor in agony, or releasing so much gas your coworkers will kick you out of the building."

"Hey, if it lets me hold on to even a little tiny bit of this pump, who cares?"

Trevor smiled as Martin walked off to the kitchen. It was nice to see him so enthusiastic.

*****

"Okay, and... 10! Great! Making real progress, there!"

"Yeah, but believe me it's hard work at my age. I don't have your muscle mass, and I just don't have the energy you young guys have. Look at that guy over there ? he's been cranking out shoulder presses for the last fifteen minutes. I think I'd be dead by now if I tried that."

"He's not using that much weight."

"Look at how fast he's going! Fifteen to twenty reps a minute for about fifteen minutes? I don't think I could even keep up the motion all by itself with no weight. Could you do that?"

"...probably, but you're right, that's a lot of reps. Are you sure he hasn't taken a break?"

"Positive. I've been envying his energy the whole time I've been doing curls."

"Huh."

While Mr. Schneider took a break, Trevor took another look at the other man, and was shocked to realize that it was Martin. He excused himself and stepped over.

"Hey, Martin!"

"Huh? Oh, hey, Trevor. You were busy when I came in so I didn't say hello."

"Yeah, that's Mr. Schneider. He's a nice guy, if a bit out of shape."

"Not your type, huh? Well, I'm sure you'll have other opportunities."

"Yeah... say, are you trying to show off? What's the deal with all the reps? People are noticing."

"Really? Is that a problem? Sorry. I just... after a few reps, it suddenly felt so good I wanted to keep going, and stopped counting."

"You were going for fifteen minutes, according to Mr. Scheider."

"Really? Wow. Well, thanks for the heads up. I'll try to pay more attention."

Trevor came back as Mr. Schneider came back from the water fountain.

"You know that guy?"

"Yeah, actually. I didn't recognize him, but we live together."

Mr. Schneider's eyebrows rose. "I wouldn't have thought he was, er, your type."

"Not like that. I'm his housemate. He couldn't afford his house on his own, and I needed a place to stay, so I'm renting half his house. We've been sharing the house for a few years. It works pretty well."

"Well, he's certainly benefitting from your help, I can see that. I hope I do as well"

"Hmmm? No, I don't give him any help."

"Really? Interesting. He's certainly improving. I saw him here a few times last month, and it's like... he's had his batteries replaced or something."

"He made some changes to his diet recently, and it seems to be helping out. Well, on to preacher curls."

"Do I have to?"

"You're paying for the privilege."

"Damnation."

*****

"Hey, Martin, are you going to the gym again?"

"What's wrong with that, mister personal trainer?"

"Well, A. you've been to the gym every day for the last week, and that's probably more than you can handle, and B. you just ate."

"In response to 'A', I'll take a day off when I start feeling tired. If anything, I've been feeling like I'm not working out hard enough. And as for 'B', it'll be fine. I won't do cardio until I'm done with the weights, so I won't get any cramps."

"That's not exactly what I was?"

"Look, can we talk about it later? I feel like I'm finally making progress, and I don't want to screw up when I'm on a roll."

"Fine, fine. It's your life. Don't listen to expert advice."

"Okay, I won't." Martin stuck out his tongue and picked up his gym bag.

*****

"Uh, I'm sorry to interrupt, but could you spot me?"

"Huh? Sure."

The other man stood behind the bench as Martin began to bench. Martin gulped down air after the fourth rep, but somewhat to the man's surprise, Martin showed no sign of needing help, even after twenty reps. The man looked curiously at the bar; it was loaded to 165 pounds. As Martin finished his thirtieth rep, he cleared his throat.

"Um... how many reps are you trying for, exactly?"

"Hmmm? Oh, geez, am I doing it again? I'm sorry."

Martin racked the bar, and sat up. "Sorry. Lately I've been feeling really energetic, and I kind of get lost in the exercise sometimes. I'm told I spent fifteen minutes straight doing shoulder presses the other day."

"Wow. Well, it's doing you good."

"Hmmm?" Martin seemed startled, so the man grabbed his arm.

"Look, there are veins starting to come out."

"Oh, I already had that. I've always been skinny."

The other man watched as Martin walked off to the water fountains for a drink. "Skinny... huh." He shrugged his shoulders. "Takes all kinds, I guess."

*****

"Whoa, Martin, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine. Just let me sit for a minute."

"See? I told you you'd get worn out if you kept going to the gym every single day."

"Worn out? No, I'm just?" Martin's stomach growled audibly. "?really, really hungry. And I don't have any singles for the vending machine."

"Huh? Oh, I can lend you a couple of dollars."

"Could you just break a twenty?"

"Sure. Give me just a minute. I'll go to the front desk."

Martin relaxed on the bench. The hunger was so strong it almost hurt.

"Here you go. See you later."

"Thanks."

"Don't forget your protein shake next time. Whoops, gotta run."

Trevor was away and beaming at a slim young woman before Martin finished saying "I didn't forget. I already drank it."

Martin got up and plodded to the vending machine. He fed in a couple of dollars and made a selection, and chugged it down. After a moment's consideration, he bought another and drank it. He rinsed the bottles and tossed them in the recycling bin, and headed for the locker room. In his mind, he was already planning dinner.

*****

"Oh, hey! How are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh, it's you."

"Yeah. Thanks for the spot the other day."

"No problem. You're really packing on the muscle, aren't you?"

Martin looked down. "You think so."

The man nodded. "Definitely. I wish I were growing that fast. What kind of supplements are you using?"

Martin blushed. "Oh, just protein powder ? a lot of it, I admit, but..."

"Hmmm. You must have really good genetics then."

"Really? First time anyone's ever told me I had good genetics. I've been a beanpole my whole life. Nice seeing you again. Maybe we'll run into each other at the gym sometime."

"Yeah, have a nice morning. See you around."

The man watched Martin out of the corner of his eye as he left the grocery store. Cute, young, and getting bigger? And a rainbow triangle button on his jacket? Perhaps it was time start hitting the gym in the evening more often. The man smiled as the clerk rang up his purchases...

[Lucas88]

Very creative! Speef sounds just about as appetizing as Spam but maybe with better side effects? I'm not familiar with "Monster Blood" but it doesn't matter. Your story is keeping my attention on its own.

I have to read today's entry later but wanted to point out the Thread Tools drop down at the middle of the second menu bar at the top of the thread (and all threads). In the menu drop down is a Subscription command readers can use to get email notifications of new posts to this thread.

[sexiscriptor]

aw, i was hoping trevor might get in on the growth a little when things got macro...you know so martin doesn't get too lonely....but all the same!! great story!!

[Kit Werecat]

Originally Posted by Lucas88

... I wanted to point out the Thread Tools drop down at the middle of the second menu bar at the top of the thread (and all threads). In the menu drop down is a Subscription command readers can use to get email notifications of new posts to this thread.

Thank You Lucas.

I was going to point out in this reply that the checkbox I was mentioning for emails on thread activity is actually on the Reply Edit Screen, not the main page, as I had said. But you not only corrected this, you more accurately found it on this page. And it works. I got an email this morning, with a link that when clicked, brought me right to Jaypat's new chapter. Very handy!

Jaypat, thanks for the background on the discovery of DNA (and RNA). I had forgotten that this was based on a true event. I suspect many of the readers have never eaten Spam, and simply think it's some sort of Monty Python joke. I'm old enough to have watched the entire Moon Race with Russia, so that means I have eaten Spam (remember those funny squarish metal cans with the opener key on the bottom?), and I still remember that unforgettable taste!

Looks like Martin is going to be one very lucky, lucky guy (unless he mutates in a negative way). Kinda' makes me want to go into my pantry and punch holes in my tuna fish cans! (Just kidding. DON'T TRY THAT, ANYONE!)

He seems to be a very fastidious guy. I guess that means he'll be careful to put the buildings back where they were, after he knocks them over.

Great Story, and I'm looking so very much forward to the next chapter!

[nnnrg]

I've eaten spam. Just a few days ago. It's quite nice sometimes.

But I'd love to catch whatever bug Martin caught, as long as it transferred that growth thing.

[Reeza]

Originally Posted by nnnrg

I've eaten spam. Just a few days ago. It's quite nice sometimes.

I'm not ashamed to say that I love Spam. I have a can of Spam Lite in my pantry. I understand it's incredibly popular in Asia and Hawaii. I make Spam and pineapple kebabs every summer, and people gobble them up like crazy. Unfortunately, no one is getting more muscular as a result.

Speef sounds disgusting, but I like this story. It's different. I enjoy the leisurely pace and the dialogue. It's a good read. Looking forward to the rest.

[tekuno]

Originally Posted by Kit Werecat

Jaypat, thanks for the background on the discovery of DNA (and RNA).

Well, er, you're welcome, but I'm not Jaypat. After a quick review of his stories, though, if you want to pretend I'm Jaypat, that suits me just fine.

Although I have eaten many things which could quite easily have been spam, I have never knowingly eaten the actual brand-named thing itself. (I had a few cans for emergencies, but since the expiration date on the side eventually approached, I gave them to a local food pantry. It's not that I would refuse to eat the stuff, it's just that when I think "I need meat in order to prepare a meal" it never dawns on me to check for cans.)

Anyway, thanks for continued comments; as always, even tangential comments are an encouragement to keep going. Now, here's another part of our potboiler. Those of you saying you want to catch whatever Martin has, I suggest you reread the warning before part 1 and reflect that we're nowhere near the end of the story yet; we aren't even close to the obvious plot twist. (Is that a spoiler? Dun dun dunnnn!) (Well, actually, the presence of that warning in the first place already should have been one, as far as that goes.)

Aerobic
Part 3

*****

"Martin? Are you down there? Martin?"

Trevor cautiously walked down the basement stairs. The sounds which had been coming up suggested something seriously wrong with the plumbing.

"Martin? Martin!"

"Gah! Huh? Oh, Trevor. Sorry, I couldn't hear you with my headphones on."

"Since when did you have a weight set?"

"Since today. You saw me when you showed up at the gym this morning, even though you didn't come over to say hello?"

"Yeah. I had desk duty. I heard you tied up one of the pulley stations for an hour and a half."

"One of your coworkers, the guy with black hair and a goatee?"

"Jeff."

"?read me the riot act over it. Anyway, I got home and had lunch, and I just felt... restless. Like I needed to do another workout."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. But I didn't think I'd be welcome at the gym again, so I ran over to the Sports Austerity on Hillside and got a weight set and a bench, and started working out."

"I see."

"Is there something wrong?"

"Not... exactly. Martin, what time did you start working out?"

"Well, it was about 3:30 when I left for the store, and I think it took about an hour to get everything back here, and then I had a snack and came down here."

"So you've been lifting since around, say, 5:30?"

"That sounds about right."

"What exercises have you been doing?"

"Well, I did a bunch of tricep extensions, but those are kind of awkward with the low ceiling so I switched to preacher curls."

"How many reps?"

"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. I just kept going because it felt good."

"Can you remember how long ago you switched?"

"Yeah, I was hungry when I switched, so I went and had a protein shake, and it was 6:20, I think. Actually I had 3 protein shakes."

"Do you realize it's 8:30 at night?"

"What? You're kidding me. Shit, you aren't kidding me. Wow... two hours of preacher curls."

"After all that, tomorrow you won't be able to move your arms, and you'll be lucky if they don't fall right off."

"No kidding."

"Take off your shirt ? I want to see what your arms look like after all that."

"Okay."

Trevor gave a startled exclamation as Martin removed his shirt. He had been wondering why Martin had been wearing such a thick shirt, but as it came off, it became clear that what he had mistaken for the folds of a bulky shirt were really the contours of Martin's muscles. Martin wasn't anywhere near Trevor's bulk, but his body had noticeably filled out. His pectorals stood out slightly and his back and neck had lost their thin, almost scrawny, appearance, and looked sleek and streamlined. His torso had actually begun to flare outward at the top. But the real surprise was his arms ? they couldn't have been much larger than 16 inches, but the definition and separation was amazing. The heads of Martin's biceps bunched and bulged into a small but solid ball as he flexed his arm.

"Whoa! Martin, what? how? when did your muscles look like that?"

Martin was looking down, too. "Huh. Well, I thought I was looking a little buffer when I took my shower this morning, but?"

"Martin, listen to me: this is not normal. I saw you in a hospital gown... what, sixteen days ago? And you weren't anywhere near this big. And I know how fast muscle grows; this... just... this isn't possible!"

"That can't be true; it's actually happening to me."

"Look, you just can't grow like that. Even when I was on steroids?"

"You were on steroids?"

"Well, yeah. How do you think I built these?" Trevor flexed his 21-inch arms. "You don't build guns like these in less than two years without help, not if you're a hard-gainer like me."

Martin gave a sharp laugh. "Well, that explains a lot. Do you realize how jealous I've been that you were able to bulk up like that? I've been trying for years, and I always thought you managed to bulk up by eating a better diet, but you were actually cheating."

"So what? That doesn't mean this?" Trevor poked Martin's bicep. "?is natural. Or healthy. I think you ought to go see a doctor."

"Fuck you. You think you're the only one who can take a risk and get big? I feel great! Healthier than I've felt since high school! And I'm finally putting on some muscle! I don't give a shit if it's not normal! I want to be big! Really, really big! Did you know I've been hit on by three guys in the last week? I've never had that kind of thing happen to me! Even when I went to gay bars, I was lucky if anyone even noticed I was there! Do you think I want this to stop?"

"What if there's something wrong with you?"

"If there's something wrong with me, then I'll stop feeling good. Until that happens, I'm just going to enjoy this. It's the first time in my life I've ever felt attractive. You just don't understand what that's like, do you?"

"Well?"

"Shut up! Why don't you go back to the gym to find another fucktoy to play with and leave me alone?"

Martin glared at Trevor, and then pointedly put his headphones back in place and started doing military presses, staring straight in front of himself. Trevor stood staring for a minute, then shook his head and went back upstairs.

*****

"Hey there!"

"Oh, hey. Sorry, I don't think you ever gave me your name."

"I'm Brian. And yourself?"

"Martin. What's up? Need a spot?"

"Sure do."

Brian led Martin back to the bench press station; he had loaded it with a 45 and a 25 on each side. Slightly below what he usually used for reps, truth be told, but with Martin spotting him his goal was lots of reps ? over a long, long period of time, if possible.

Martin looked down neutrally at the other man. Brian wasn't exactly the handsomest man in the gym, but he was much better built than Martin, or at least than Martin had been until recently. (Even now, he found it necessary to look in the mirror to remind himself of his increased size. It was actually something of a shock to realize that, if anything, he was now a little bigger than Brian. To think that when they had met, he had thought of Brian's size as a worthy goal!) He didn't notice at all that Brian was looking up his shirt, and was only prevented from looking up his shorts by the relative position of the bench. In fact, he barely noticed when Brian began to struggle with the weight, and only did his job as a spotter when Brian called his name ungently.

"Thanks!"

"No problem. Care to let me spot you, too, as long as we're here?"

"Sure, why not? I'm doing chest stuff today anyway."

Brian smiled and nodded. As a matter of fact, he had chosen the bench press only because Martin had been doing pec flies for ten minutes. Martin lay down on the bench, took a deep breath, and got a startled expression as he lifted the weight off the rack. Brian hastened to grab the bar and guide it back.

"What's wrong?"

"It's not enough weight." Martin was staring.

"Let me put some more weight on it, then. How about if I swap the 25s for 45s?" Martin nodded, and Brian set about changing the plates out.

Martin, meanwhile, was frantically trying to remember what his last bench press had been. He hadn't felt like coming to the gym for several days, since it meant crossing paths with Trevor, and had simply spent every night pumping away with his home equipment. He hadn't really paid much attention to what he was doing; he had switched dumbbells or added more plates to the bar when the weight didn't seem to be enough any more, but for the most part he had been lost in the pleasure of lifting the weights and hadn't really paid attention to the numbers involved. He lay back down.

"Still not enough. Could you try... another 45 on each side?"

"Well, okay. That's an awful lot, though... okay, there you go. Want a lift-off? No? ...damn, you're strong."

"Piece of cake."

"Why don't you see how many reps you can do with that? I'll keep count while I spot you."

"Huh. Well, why not?"

"Five, six, seven, eight..."

*****

"Martin? Martin?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I kind of phased out."

"Yeah." Brian licked his lips. He could swear that Martin's pecs were actually slightly bigger than they had been. He had carefully pushed his erection under the lining of his shorts before speaking. "I don't want to interrupt you, but you've done two hundred and fifty reps, and the staff are giving us dirty looks for tying up the equipment."

"Again? Wait, two hundred and fifty reps? How long have I been going? What time is it?"

"It's been about half an hour."

"Whoa. Sorry, I tend to kind of phase out when I'm lifting."

"So I see!"

"Yeah. You know how they tell you there's a mental aspect to lifting? I think I finally get that, now. I never did before."

"Interesting."

"Yeah. Well, thanks. I didn't mean to interrupt your workout like that."

"Not a problem. Enjoy your workout."

Brian watched as Martin walked to one of the lat pulleys. Then he looked around; the gym's vending and lounge area had a decent view of the back and chest machines...

*****

"Oh, hey, Brian, I thought you already left!"

"Nope, just went and did some cardio."

"Really? All the time until now? You're hardly sweating!"

"Oh, I was sweating and panting, you can believe it. Would you like to grab some dinner?"

Martin seemed about to turn down the offer, but his stomach growled. He gave Brian a lopsided grin. "Would you believe I actually had 3 protein shakes while I was working out?"

Brian smiled. He had seen that, and at the time he had almost abandoned his plans for the evening. But Martin hadn't ended his workout; he had merely returned to the benches and started cranking out incline bench presses with an almost mechanical regularity for ten minutes.

"Huh. Then you won't want anything too substantial, I guess. How about just sandwiches?"

"Nah. My metabolism has been in high gear these last couple of weeks. I'd like substantial, and cheap... and preferably willing to serve me in my workout outfit. Is there an all-you-can-eat buffet open this late?"

Brian checked his watch. "Maybe we ought to just go back to my place and order some pizzas."

"Sure! Where do you live? Or should I just follow your car?"

*****

When he woke up, at 6 the next morning, Martin scrambled to pull on his clothes and get home in time to get ready for work. He wondered how Trevor managed this sort of thing, then remembered once hearing him talk about keeping an overnight bag in his car. As he wolfed down as much food as he could and then fumbled with the shower, he considered whether last night's activities were likely enough to repeat to warrant doing the same. He put down the tightness of his shirt around his chest to being in too much of a hurry, and drove off to the office.

*****

At 10 that morning, the top button on Martin's polo shirt popped off and landed in the empty fruit smoothie cup he had left by his computer. He made a mental note to buy some new shirts on the way to the gym.

*****

"Oh, hey, Martin, glad you got back in time."

"Huh? Trevor, what are you doing?"

"I got an emergency call this morning. My aunt got hit by a car on her way to the grocery store. She's in the hospital until tomorrow, and someone has to take care of her dog and help her when she gets discharged. Since we're the only two members of the family who aren't over on the west coast, I'm the default nominee to go help her."

"Geez! How bad is it?"

"Oh, not bad for an auto accident which put someone in the hospital. Nobody was killed; she was thrown several feet, but it was garbage collection day and by coincidence someone had put out a sofa, so she landed on the upholstery. The impact with the car broke her arm, though, and they're warning her to expect some aftereffects from whiplash."

"Wow. Sorry to hear that."

"I'm going to help her until she's settled in and stable. I'll probably be gone for a week or two. I'll give you a call when I know more about it. I've already arranged everything with the gym."

"Sorry about all this."

"Eh, this sort of thing happens. It's just a side effect of families not living together any more, you know? Besides, the driver's insurance is covering all the medical bills, and he immediately offered her a cash settlement. She says he's a lawyer with ambitions in county politics, and loaded. He spontaneously offered her half a million over and above the insurance payout if she'd keep quiet and not sue."

"Wow!"

"Heh. It gets better. There were seven witnesses, and he was driving a convertible with the top down so they could all see him, and they all agreed he was texting and drinking a cup of coffee at the time. She managed to talk him up to a full million."

"Ha! Hope she cashes that check fast; someone like that probably wouldn't be above passing a dud."

"I'll tell her to ask for it in cash. Anyway, I need to get out of here. Take care ? and you can eat anything of mine that's left in the fridge, since I don't know when I'll be back. Might as well use it instead of letting it go bad, right?"

"Thanks! Drive safely! Don't hit any lawyers!"

"I won't."

"Or if you do, make sure they don't walk away afterwards."

"Heh. See you in a week or two. Take care."

Trevor carried his suitcases to his car, once again going over the checklist of things he wanted to take with him. Satisfied that he wasn't leaving anything major behind, he drove off. He was nearly to the state line before his mind reviewed his encounter with Martin and wondered whether Martin's torso had been that big the last time he'd seen him. And hadn't those sleeves been awfully tight? The guy was really growing! Trevor looked down at his own arms; if this kept up, he reflected, Martin might catch up with him. In a few months, maybe. Perhaps it was time to seek out the steroid seller at the gym and start another cycle. Not that it mattered if he wasn't the biggest guy in the world, but it wouldn't look good for a personal trainer to be smaller than a casual gym member. Every professional has his own standards...

*****

"Brian? It's Martin. Are you free tonight?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Want to go to the gym and then dinner?"

"Yes. Definitely yes."

"Great! How about if I pick you up?"

"That's fine. I'll be ready in half an hour."

"Sure thing."

*****

"You know, when you said dinner, I thought we'd go to a restaurant."

"So did I, actually. Sorry I got so carried away. I've never actually done squats before. Not real ones, just the machine fake ones, and lunges."

"Oh, no problem. I could watch you exercise all day."

"You almost had to... but then, you were pretty intense, tonight, too."

"I like working my arms. Always have." And besides, from the area with the dumbbells and the curl machines, you can watch people doing squats from behind, thought Brian. He was lucky the support rods of the preacher curl benches hid any inconvenient erections.

"Well, anyway, I owe you a meal after last time. And I've got a bunch of food to use up here. My housemate got called away by a family emergency, and told me I should use up the perishable stuff from his half of the fridge, so whipping up a meal for two people is no problem."

Brian watched as Martin prepared "a meal for two people"; it was approximately four times as much as he would have eaten alone, even after a heavy workout. But then, the previous night, he had seen what Martin's appetite could do, so this was hardly a surprise.

"Can I feel your arm again?"

"Huh? Hang on. I need to take this pan off the heat in a second."

"No rush. It's just... I'd swear it's bigger than it was a few days ago."

"Really? I ought to get a measuring tape to keep track. My housemate says I'm growing unusually fast."

"Yeah, that might be a good idea. Wow, those veins stand out. I've never seen any this dark."

"Really? Interesting. Maybe I have really thin skin."

[Kit Werecat]

Originally Posted by tekuno

Well, er, you're welcome, but I'm not Jaypat. After a quick review of his stories, though, if you want to pretend I'm Jaypat, that suits me just fine.

Tekuno, on my KNEES, I ask for your forgiveness. I make no excuses: both you and Jaypat are two of my most favorite authors. Both of you have really HOT stories going right now. It was a long day, and I lost track of who was writing what (although the stories are fixed everlastingly in my memory).

I could go up and edit my posting, fixing that error. I won't though; I'll let it stay there as a punishment for that stupid mistake. I assure you, it's not going to happen again.

To your story: I still admire the progress of Martin, and the resultant physical effects it is creating. As one who has seriously worked out, it is so hard not to envy his inhuman stamina and consequential gains. I too, am a hard gainer.

Your recent warning seems almost a tease - a tease by the Devil, I grant you, but still, a tease. In looking back at your original prologue, all you seem to warn is that there will be events leading to Macro scenarios.

As a Macrophile, that seems to only threaten a kid with Disneyland. You mention horror, but horror, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I guess if Martin morphs into a distortion of the human form (a very real possibility), then I guess I'll agree with that. But if that distortion is amplification of his normal human traits - well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.


Looking forward to your next installment Jay- Uh... Tekuno.

Seriously, I so love your work.

[muscle16a]

Originally Posted by Lucas88

Very creative! Speef sounds just about as appetizing as Spam but maybe with better side effects?

My favorite is (from the lousy movie "Waterworld") S'meat.

[Reeza]

Hmmm. Dark veins. I like that.

And the aunt being hit by a car and landing on a sofa amuses me a little more than it should.

[tekuno]

Sorry for the delay. I'm having (*sigh*) yet more sleep problems, and it just didn't seem like a good idea to try to work on this while I was so tired that I was making typos at a rate faster than my words-per-minute rate. For some reason, even though I still feel terrible tonight, I managed to get through a bit more, though, so here we are.

Originally Posted by Kit Werecat

Tekuno, on my KNEES, I ask for your forgiveness. I make no excuses: both you and Jaypat are two of my most favorite authors. Both of you have really HOT stories going right now. It was a long day, and I lost track of who was writing what (although the stories are fixed everlastingly in my memory).

Ah, yes, the best butter.

Seriously, I don't mind being confused with another author who I like. If you want to confuse my drawings with Chocomus or Rent, next time, just to name two, that's okay, too.

I'm trying not to reply to comments on this thread in separate posts, so that every new reply from me indicates "new part of the story" to anyone interested.

Okay, here's the next part. Somewhat short, but sets up a few things...

Aerobic
Part 4

*****

"Have you seen the new guy?"

"Which one? The one in marketing, or the project manager?"

"The project manager. The marketing guy isn't really new, he's just a transfer from the Chicago office."

"Same difference. He's new here."

"Anyway, have you seen the new project manager, then?"

"No."

"You need to see this guy."

"That good?"

"Half my fantasies are about him now. I don't know how I didn't notice him earlier."

"Oh? Is he available, then?"

"Nope."

"Maybe he'd like to cheat a little while at work; can't hurt to try, anyway."

"No good. He's queer as a three dollar bill."

"You're sure?"

"Well, if you can come up with another reason why he got a hard-on when they were picking a male model for the new promotional video..."

"Damn. It's really true ? all the good ones are either married or gay."

"Well, at least he's good eye candy."

"So is nearly everyone in marketing."

"Are you kidding? I don't think any of those guys have seen the inside of a gym since college."

"And the new guy has?"

"He must live in one."

"That good?"

"You'd better believe it. His shirt actually tore down the back yesterday when he was getting ready to go home. You could trace the outline of every single muscle."

"Mmmm. I think I have some files which he urgently needs to read and sign as a new hire."

"Tsk! Don't be too blatant. He's not actually a meathead."

"And perhaps he could come with me to pick up a package from the loading dock. It's heavy and dirty, so maybe I can get him to take off his shirt..."

"You have a heavy, dirty package at the loading dock?"

"I will once I call in a favor from the IT department."

"Calling in favors? Perhaps it's time for me to remind Security who got their new hire approved."

"Oh? Why?"

"I'm sure they won't mind giving me a copy of the security footage of your side trip to the dumpster."

"Share that with me?"

"Of course."

*****

"Mmmmm. I swear every time we're in bed you're bigger."

"I'd be disappointed if that wasn't true. Why do you think I go to the gym, to relax?"

"Actually, I'm starting to wonder. You always have that blissed-out expression on your face when you're lifting."

"Oh? I didn't realize I was making a face."

"You do. Oh, god, do that again!"

"What, this?"

"Ah! Yes! Yes! God!"

"Let me just?"

"AH! Fuck! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Ah! Feels! So! Good! Aaaaaaah!"

"Whew! Heh, liked that, huh?"

"Oh, god, Martin, where did you learn to do that?"

"I didn't. It just happened... mmmm."

"Wow... hmmmm..."

Martin fell asleep. Brian lay curled up in Martin's embrace, noting that for the first time he seemed to be visibly smaller than the other man. He licked his lips at the thought, then gave a lazy smile and got out of bed. He carefully padded to his gym bag and took out a cellphone and a measuring tape; relationships were relationships, but business was business...

*****

"Martin? ...Martin?"

There was a grunt.

"Martin? Martin! Earth to Martin! Come in Martin!"

"Huh? What? What's wrong?"

"You told me to warn you if you went over a hundred reps on anything."

"Did I do it again?"

"This will be one hundred and fifteen."

"Oh. Sorry. Let me just get to one-twenty, then."

"Geez. How do you do that?"

"What?"

"You decided to cut your reps down to a mere hundred or so, so you raised the lifts by a fucking hundred pounds. And then you get so into it that I have to call your name five times to wake you out of your trance."

"Sorry... I just... well, a while back I discovered how to sort of... be my muscles. Instead of just focussing on my chest and arms while I do benches, I can kind of push my mind into those parts. And then I don't notice anything, there's just lifting. You wouldn't believe how soothing it is."

"Huh. Can you teach me that trick? I could stand to gain like you."

"Dunno. I just kind of... started doing it one day. I don't know how it works."

"Lucky bastard. Can I get you a protein shake?"

"No, thanks, I brought my own."

"Holy fuck, how many of those are in there?"

"I just get hungry, that's all."

"Where do you put it all? ...stupid question. It's all going into these, isn't it."

"Stop grabbing me like that. People might see!"

"What are they going to do, beat us up? I'm well above average strength, and you make me look like an anemic six-year-old. I wish I knew how you do it."

"Good genetics, I guess."

"Didn't you say you were a hard-gainer?"

"That's true, I was until around the time I started doing those trances. Maybe there is a special trick."

"Well, if you figure it out, tell me. Some guys have all the luck."

*****

"Hello?"

"Martin?"

"Oh, hey, Trevor. How's your aunt?"

"Mostly doing better. I'm sticking around another week, just in case, but I should be back a week from tomorrow."

"Great. I'll make sure to clear all my sex toys out of your bed."

"Fuck off."

"What do you think I've been doing with them?"

"Yeah, yeah, smart alec. Keep it up."

"I've been doing that, too, there's this special ointment? Trevor? Trevor? No sense of humor at all."

*****

"Did you see?"

"See what?"

"You didn't. Well, I have pictures. The new guy."

"Ooooo, yes. Thank you for the video the other day, by the way."

"Oh, but this is even better. His boss made a bet that he couldn't do pushups with someone on his back."

"I like this story already."

"That's not all. So he's doing the pushups ? here, I have photos."

"Nice."

"Well, he gets back up, and there's this tearing sound, and his shirt rips right off."

"Pictures! Pictures! ...wow!"

"And his boss was so pissed off at losing the bet that he made him work that way for the rest of the day."

"How did I miss this? Why didn't you call me over?"

"I tried. Your line was busy all day."

"Stupid conference calls. Did you at least get some video?"

"I filled the phone's memory twice."

"Put them on a USB stick for me."

"I will."

*****

On Wednesday, "Anton Hardbody" was registered as a model on three pay porn sites, with the tagline "watch me grow!" Within 48 hours, over $300 in payments were forwarded to the associated bank account, an unprecedented total for a new member who wouldn't do live cam shows. The image gallery had been downloaded over 2000 times by the end of the week.

[Kit Werecat]

Great work as always. As you said, mostly exposition, so I can't add much to the obvious.

I would be very curious to know what Martin did in bed with Brian tho, to get him to react like that. Still, I can pretty well imagine. It's all a matter of muscle control. And how did Martin finally measure up, I wonder?

I'm almost beginning to worry about Trevor now. He's going to be one shocked puppy when he returns, and here's hoping for his sake that Martin will be at least a little gentle with him. That talk about playing with sex toys has me concerned about the guy.

I will say that I am so envious of Martin right now. (Come to think of it, I think I've already made that statement in earlier posts) But to just blank out while you're bashing out all those lifts, with bigger and bigger weights. It's like taking naps, and then waking up to find you've done the equivalent of hundreds of reps in your sleep..

Sleep Lifting?

(wistful sigh)

Thanks again Tekuno. Looking forward to your next.

[tekuno]

Originally Posted by Kit Werecat

I would be very curious to know what Martin did in bed with Brian tho, to get him to react like that. Still, I can pretty well imagine. It's all a matter of muscle control. And how did Martin finally measure up, I wonder?

1. It's a kind of sex-based noodle incident. I honestly haven't decided whether it would work on anyone else, though. (It may just be that Brian responds really well to whatever it is.)

2. Wouldn't you like to know?

Anyway, I decided to move the story just slightly faster, because frankly I have a lot of things planned. I wrote out an outline of what's going to happen before the big obvious plot twist, which won't be the end of the story, and there were, as of the end of the previous part, still nine items to go. There are 3 reasons to read this story: growth, sex, and -- eventually -- body modifications. Speeding up makes it easier to write growth, and gets us to the transformation part faster. So the only thing which is being shortchanged at all by speeding up is sex, and I'm not sure I'm leaving any of that out.

(Mainly, I just got tired of trying to describe Martin being noticeably bigger than before without making him a genuinely big guy, as in serious-bodybuilder-size rather than "yeah, I work out" size. The only way to do growth that slow effectively is to resort to listing measurements and weights, and that gets boring fast when they're changing too slowly. And it requires the reader to have a good notion of what the numbers mean in practice, too, which not everyone does.) (Anyway, on with the story...)

Aerobic
Part 5

*****

"Aw, man, I outgrew the shirt I brought. Look at this."

"I am. Jesus fuck, you're getting huge."

"Really?"

"Martin, do you ever look in a mirror, at all?"

"Well, yeah, every day, when I shave."

"Don't you look at anything but your face? How do you not notice you're turning into a superhero on steroids?"

"I just... got out of the habit of looking at myself, I guess. There's never been anything to see, before."

"And you never look down at yourself, either? Christ, what a waste. Here. Stand here. Now look in the mirror. See?"

"Not bad."

"Not bad? I've been lifting for five years, and I'm not as big as you are any more. Flex your biceps, and I'll do mine. See?"

"Holy shit, you're right. I've been thinking of you as big all this time-"

"Me? I'm not even as big as the personal trainers they've got here. But you—"

"Really?"

"Seriously. Go out and stand by one of the big guys and look in one of the mirrors. I'll wait."

"...Christ, you're right!"

Martin began to laugh hysterically, flexing into the locker room mirrors. Brian profoundly wished he had a camera with him.

"...Martin? Martin!"

"Sorry. Heh."

"That's really disturbing, when you laugh like that. So what if you didn't notice you were growing? It's not that funny."

This set Martin off again.

"Martin!"

"Sorry, sorry. It's just... it really is that funny."

"Why?"

"Brian, I've been holding back! Trevor was worried about how fast I was growing, so I cut back my workouts and have only been eating enough to stop feeling hunger pangs."

"Christ!"

"Do you know what this means? I could get even bigger than this!"

Martin burst out laughing again. He grabbed Brian and lifted the struggling man up, doing military presses with his body. "Your weight is like nothing at all to me already, and I could be even stronger than this!" He burst out laughing again; both men's erections pushed against their workout shorts as Brian went up and down over Martin's head. Then he shifted his grip and began to curl Brian instead.

"Put me down! Martin!"

Suddenly serious, Martin stopped. He pushed Brian's barely-resisting body into a sitting position and held him to his lips. After breaking their kiss, he put him back down on the floor, and smiled.

"Well, then, Brian. Can you go get me change for the vending machine? I only have five protein shakes with me. If you're coming to dinner again tonight, I'm afraid it's going to be late again. I want to stay all the way until this place closes."

Brian hurried to the desk with a twenty. Martin watched him for a few moments, and then strode towards the weight area, a grin on his face. This was going to be great.

*****

Early in the morning on Sunday, a new photoset and several new videos were posted to the porn site accounts of Anton Hardbody. After the sites' various fees were extracted, the profits of the first 24 hours amounted to nearly $500. Users sent in demands for more — but complained that the previous videos were clearly post-dated.

*****

"Martin?"

"Oh, hey, Trevor."

"Got a cold? You sound funny."

"No, everything's fine."

"Maybe it's the phone."

"Could be. What's up?"

"Turns out my aunt is taking longer to heal than they thought. I'll have to stick around another week, after all."

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry. That's bad luck. Is she in pain?"

"Not if I'm there to help; it turns out she gets a headache from the whiplash if she has to stand too long, and it sets off a migraine."

"Oof. That must suck."

"Yeah. At least I found a gym here. I almost felt myself getting smaller after a while. ...What's so funny?"

"I'll show you when you get back. You have to see it to get the joke."

"Whatever. Anyway, I'll still be back on Tuesday, it'll just be Tuesday of next week."

"I'll keep a light burning in the window for you."

"Don't wait up. Talk to you later."

"So long."

*****

"AH! AAAAAAAH! Fuck! Oh, god! Fuck! Fuck! Oh, god! Fuck me! Ah! Martin! Ghuh! FUCK!"

"Heh. Still got it."

"H-how do you do that?"

"I don't know. If I figure it out, I'll tell you."

"What, it's like the trance thing? You just— Christ, you're still hard!"

"Yup. Hold still."

"What? What are you— ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Fuck! Fuck! God! Ah! Ah! Martin! Fuck!"

Martin finally tensed, and then relaxed, panting a bit.

"Thanks. I needed that."

"God, shouldn't I be used to it by now?"

"Still feels good, eh?"

Martin yawned.

"Actually, it feels better than before."

"'s'all the practice."

Martin yawned again.

"How do you even have the energy to do this, anyway? You spent five hours at the gym, and I know because I spotted for you. It feels more like you're getting bigger down there, too."

"Y'got me, Bri'n. 'm act'ly using b'lloons 'stead've c'nd'ms..."

Martin fell asleep. Brian, as he had before, lay in Martin's now-thicker arms for a while, enjoying the afterglow, then wriggled out of bed and made for his bag. As usual he pulled out his measuring tape and cell phone. At the beside, he hesitated, then put down the phone and gently pulled the covers away before manipulating Martin's midsection. After a moment, his eyes bulged and he gave an involuntary grunt of surprise...

*****

"Have you seen the new guy yet?"

"What happened now?"

"Nothing, the way you mean, but... my god, he's getting huge."

"He was already huge."

"No, really. Like bodybuilder huge."

"Hmmm?"

"Seriously, you can actually see it clearly now. He's bigger than he was last week."

"On drugs?"

"Can you think of any other explanation?"

"Pity."

"Yes, but let's enjoy the show while we can."

"I bet you coffee tomorrow that I can get his shirt off this afternoon."

"No bet... unless you get video."

"Done."

*****

"Guess who gets free coffee tomorrow?"

"That was fast!"

"Sure was. And easy, too. I didn't have to do anything, in fact. I feel a little guilty taking your money."

"My coffee, you mean."

"No video until you give me coffee."

"Tomorrow. That was the bet. ...So how'd you do it?"

"I had the IT department set me up with remote access to his computer, and remoted in while he was in a conference, and went and clicked away the warnings so I had control of his desktop without him knowing."

"So?"

"So he has a camera for videoconferences. I turned it on and hooked things up so that I could watch the preview."

"And he took his shirt off?"

"Better than that. He got back from the conference and started his lunch break. The minute he was off the clock, he locked the door, took off his shirt and pants, and started exercising!"

"Naked?"

"No, he still had on his underpants. He's huge down there, too, by the way."

"And gay. What a waste."

"Half an hour of pushups, situps, handstands, whatever... offscreen part of the time, but visible enough to see what he's doing. He swelled up huge. Then he pulled out his gym bag and wolfed down this gigantor meal. Then he finally pulled on his pants and shirt and unlocked the door."

"Best coffee I ever bought."

"You can actually see that he's bigger afterwards."

"...maybe I'll just give you the money now."

"I thought you might say that. It's in your network share already."

"Thank you for your business."

*****

Brian looked down. The broadest, brawniest pair of shoulders, attached to the biggest, thickest, widest pair of pecs, that he had ever seen, were driving the bar up and down, up and down, up and down, at a speed of about once every three seconds. He felt his cock harden again.

He was consciously ignoring the stares; being with Martin at the gym suddenly meant being at the center of a small crowd. It was unsurprising, even if you ignored what Martin looked like now. Most guys who came to the gym used 2 45-pound plates on each end of the bar, maybe adding another 25 if they were going heavy. Martin was using 6 at each end; with the weight of the bar itself, that was the better part of 600 pounds moving up and down with each rep. And he was now at 87 and counting.

Not for the first time, Brian felt a wave of jealousy. Martin was building muscle so fast you could almost see him grow; in fact, he was definitely bigger at the end of each workout, because Brian had pictures to prove it. Anyone else would assume it was just a pump, but Brian could attest from the meals afterwards and their activities in bed that the extra size was roughly one third permanent. And, even more jealousy-inducing, Martin's cock was growing as well.

He wasn't sure how to broach that subject, exactly. It would mean admitting that he had been measuring Martin's dick while he slept, and there was no easy way to explain that behavior. But it was unquestionably a fact that Martin soft was now nearly three quarters of an inch longer, and half an inch greater in circumference, than he had been at the first measurement. He felt as though the difference erect was even greater, although that could just be imagination coupled with Martin improving at making love through practice.

Other than the jealousy, though, there were no problems. Martin was possibly the perfect boyfriend, and the relationship was turning out to have all kinds of side benefits. Still, it meant protecting himself from others who might horn in on his territory. Like that heavy-set muscular guy off to the side in the wide-striped late '80s workout singlet. (What kind of person still wore those? Did they still make them somewhere?)

"Ah, no pictures, please. My friend here likes to maintain his privacy."

"Sorry, dude."

Brian gave the man a wan smile as he wandered away. Whoops, almost lost count; a hundred and two, a hundred and three... Martin wanted 300 per set, today. Brian shook his head in disbelief. A hundred and four, a hundred and five...

*****

"Ah, that was great."

"Second one's almost ready."

"Good. Thanks for mixing them."

"Oh, I don't mind. I'm just glad we found a sealed container large enough."

"Yup. I was getting tired of having so many little shakes every time."

"Oh, crap. We forgot to weigh you!"

"So we did. Oh, well. I'll do that while you finish. These may be big shakes, but they aren't big enough to throw off the numbers that much."

"How much does a half gallon weigh, anyway? We ought to measure this out at home, so we know how much weight each shake adds."

"Looks like... two hundred and eighty-nine."

"You're shitting me. ...No, you aren't. Jesus; that's up nine pounds since yesterday."

"You better believe it. Let's see... a half gallon is about two Liters, and a Liter of water is 1 Kilogram, and a Kilogram is about 2.2 pounds, so the liquid in that shake was around 4.4 pounds, and the protein powder must add something — not much, but something — and I drank some water earlier, too. Call it a four-pound gain."

"Jesus."

"Can't wait to add some more. Hurry up; I want to get back to lifting."

"Right."

Brian reached down and gave his erection a stroke as he watched Martin chug the second shake. The sight was awe-inspiring; very few pros reached this weight without gaining a lot of fat at the same time. Martin was almost eerily lean — particularly when you considered how much he ate. It was like everything he put in his mouth was turned into muscle.

*****

"Martin? Are you here? I'm home!"

"Oh, hey, welcome back, Trevor!"

"Holy fucking shit!"

"Yeah, I grew a little while you were away."

While Martin smirked, Trevor pushed the strap of his gym bag off his shoulder, letting it fall to the floor, and walked to Martin. He gingerly reached out and felt Martin's muscles; there was no doubt about it — Martin wasn't just as big as he was, now, he was bigger. Significantly bigger. Three inches on the arms, at the very least; he was like the biggest bodybuilders, and so wide and thick with it that he didn't look small at all.

It took a few moments for Trevor to realize something else. His voice, when it came out, was so weak that Martin actually worried that he was going to pass out.

"Martin, weren't you... shorter than me?"

[Kit Werecat]

Wuff. < Kit shifts himself uncomfortably in his chair >

This is one HOT story! I mean, he's only just starting to really work out!

600 pounds for 300 reps. Then he adds more weight. (gurgle)

Bigger than Trevor - wider, thicker, leaner... and now TALLER.

And apparently getting more hung.

I keep thinking that during the bed affairs, Martin's tool (or is it more a weapon now?) starts flaring out like a cobra, and a little tongue starts flickering about.. Well, you said there's body transformation didn't you?

I think one of the most thrillingly sexy things that's happened in this story was when Martin finally figured out his real size and power, and started comprehending what he could become if he just quit holding back and really doubled-down and REALLY started to push himself to get bigger.

And he really, really likes it. He's starting to enjoy the high the superiority is giving him. How people are starting to become a bit intimidated by his mere presence. How they seem to be shrinking to small weak children next to his scale of evaluating things. Then add to that the incredible rush he must be experiencing, as everything starts appearing to shrink, getting to weigh nothing, and are becoming fragile to his touch (like the shirt - no doubt the first of a ongoing demonstration of easy strength and size).

Then finally throw in the obvious hormonal surges raging throughout his body. It must be like puberty X10, mixed with a huge 'roid rush, post-workout muscle pump, and post-sex euphoria all rolled into one titanic high! And he can feel the size and growth now. That's gotta be a rush in itself!

And he realizes he's just getting bigger. He's already huge, and he knows he hasn't even tried! And every day, he grows more, pounds of muscle a day, and all the feelings he's experiencing are just going to get greater, as each day passes. Whatever he is today, he's going to be even more superior tomorrow. What a mind-blowing thought to suddenly realize!

No wonder he's beginning to want to strip and display his body all the time, whether anyone is there to see it or not. This isn't about voyeurism, this is about celebrating being inside a body like that, and feeling you can do anything.


Err, oh yeah.. you guys are still here? I sort of tranced out for a moment..

I know. I and the laptop need to get a room..

Did I say that this story really turns me on?

[2bored]

That last chapter was awesome!

[Mdlftr]

"How much does a half gallon weigh"

Answer: 'A pint's a pound the world around.

8 pints in 1 gallon
4 pints in 1/2 gallon

4 pints X 1 pound per pint= 4 pounds per half gallon (4 pints)

[Reeza]

Yeah . . . what Kit Werecat said . . . but with heavier breathing.

[sexiscriptor]

love this story!! i'd love to see brian grow, at least enough to keep getting fucked when things go macro, heheh...
speaking of which, my one complaint is about, as you said, shortchanging the sex...everything else is amazing but that's kind disappointing sorry you've made the decision to cut out one of my favorite parts of a story

[Mdlftr]

Originally Posted by sexiscriptor

love this story!! i'd love to see brian grow, at least enough to keep getting fucked when things go macro, heheh...
speaking of which, my one complaint is about, as you said, shortchanging the sex...everything else is amazing but that's kind disappointing sorry you've made the decision to cut out one of my favorite parts of a story

"Sexi, you ignorant slut!"

"Clearly this story is all about the muscle growth with a bit of 'stuff' on the side!

After all, as the members here discuss ad nauseum, this IS a muscle growth site!"

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...125D78171EBEC4

[Sexi, no harm intended, just a Saturday Night Live homage!]

Mdlftr

[msclbldr]

Originally Posted by Mdlftr

"How much does a half gallon weigh"

Answer: 'A pint's a pound the world around.

8 pints in 1 gallon
4 pints in 1/2 gallon

4 pints X 1 pound per pint= 4 pounds per half gallon (4 pints)

Are we talking US or imperial gallons? I know that most places using the imperial gallon have evolved to the metric system but it is still in use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon

[tekuno]

Just to clarify: there is a new story part here, after all this stuff up at the top. Really!

Originally Posted by Mdlftr

"How much does a half gallon weigh"

Answer: 'A pint's a pound the world around.

8 pints in 1 gallon
4 pints in 1/2 gallon

4 pints X 1 pound per pint= 4 pounds per half gallon (4 pints)

Sorry, but that's not really accurate either. (*Puts on mortarboard and gown, pulls podium out of thin air and stands behind it, and begins writing on chalkboard which suddenly appears from nowhere*) Ahem:

(This piece of pedantry has been close-indented for the caring-impaired.)

1.0000 gallon is 3.7854 Liters, since they're in the U.S. (Volume is an exact exchange, assuming that the measurements are made without changing the temperature or pressure of whatever is being measured, so we can use as many significant figures as we like here.)

1.0000 Liter of water is 1.0000 kilograms of mass at standard temperature and pressure. (Other liquids will vary here, some of them quite significantly.) So 1.0000 gallon of water is 3.7854 kilograms.

1.00 kilogram is 2.20 pounds. (This also varies, because a kilogram is a unit of mass, whereas a pound is actually a unit of force, so the exchange between the two will vary depending on how strong gravity is, and gravity gets marginally weaker as your elevation rises. But the effect isn't very big — around 0.1% difference for the range of elevations available on the surface of the Earth; the figure for sea level is something like 2.2046, but what with all the tiny modifying factors we'll just call it 2.20 and use the lack of significant figures to cover for the uncertainty as you're supposed to do.)

Therefore, for water, 1 Gallon is around 8.33 pounds. (And around 1.39 pounds on the moon. But then, anything can happen on the moon.) (♫ Tuesday bells, Tuesday bells, ♪ Tuesday all the way... *Ahem* Sorry.) For other liquids, the number will vary. Milk is denser than water (around 3%, depending on what kind), so it will weigh more. Alcohol is less dense than water (by around 20% for chemically pure alcohol; the stuff you drink generally contains a lot of water), so it will weigh less.

As a rule of thumb: liquids that you are likely to encounter in quantities large enough that measuring them in gallons makes sense, and which are actually liquid at temperatures you are likely to survive in for long enough to carry them, are between two thirds as dense as water and one and two thirds as dense as water, and liquids which occur in large quantities out in the wild are usually within 10% of the density of water (because they're usually mostly water anyway).

More exotic things, like molten lead, pure mercury, or liquid helium, range a lot more freely. (Molten lead is a little less than 11 times as heavy as water at its melting temperature of 327?C, at which temperature you will be more worried about the pain from your third-degree burns than the weight, mercury is around 13 and a half times as heavy as water at room temperature but since it's extremely toxic you aren't likely to be carrying a gallon of it, and liquid helium is roughly one eighth as dense as water, but you need to chill it to -269?C to make it liquid so you're unlikely to have to lift any without having so much insulation between you and it that the weight of the actual helium would be negligible. Without that insulation, you'll just freeze solid and die, rather than lifting.)

So, to get back to the question, a half-gallon of water would be about 4.16 pounds, about 4% more than your estimate. If he was using milk instead (the story doesn't actually specify, if you read carefully; he could have been using that super-homogenized milk which doesn't need to be kept cold), it would be about 4.28 pounds, about 7% more than your estimate. And after the protein mix is added... well, that depends on how much he's adding. The recommended dosage on the brand of protein powder I use varies depending on how strong you want it, but hovers around one scoop of slightly less than 30 grams of the mix per 8 fluid ounces of liquid, which — after converting to pounds — would be a bit over 0.5 extra pounds for the 64 ounces in a half gallon, so each shake would be around 4.7 or 4.8 pounds, unless he's making them at higher concentration. At one scoop per 6 fluid ounces, it's 0.7 extra pounds, and at one scoop per 4 fluid ounces (the maximum recommended concentration) it's a full pound of the powder.

(Incidentally, the enormous tub my protein powder came in — which is much larger than actually necessary to hold that much of the stuff, in common with every other brand I've tried — only contains about 30 scoops, which is around 2 pounds. Martin is consuming a tub of protein powder every 4 shakes, maybe even more. He's either using an extremely cheap off brand, buying in such large quantities that he gets a really big discount, or else spending a fortune. Even the cheap protein powder that gets lousy ratings on bodybuilding sites costs enough to make a 3-tubs-a-week habit fairly costly.)

This concludes today's lesson in excessive realism applied to minor details in works of fiction. Thank you.

Originally Posted by sexiscriptor

my one complaint is about, as you said, shortchanging the sex...everything else is amazing but that's kind disappointing sorry you've made the decision to cut out one of my favorite parts of a story

Well, what you're missing out on is basically lots of scenes with Martin and Brian in bed having more or less the same dialog, only with minor variations of the "you're even bigger than last time" sort, because that's all the sex that's going on here for the time being. Too much of any one thing in a story just gets repetitive. Writing fetish stories is difficult enough as it is, because even if you have a shelf full of thesauruses there really are only so many ways to say the same thing. And I'm conscious of having written similar scenes before, so it's hard enough to write even the things which do get published.

I must admit that I deleted the version I originally wrote of the part I'm posting here, and it did have extra sex in it which was different from what I just described. Martin was going to fuck Trevor, so I guess you can be a little disappointed. On the other hand, the actual sex act was all "offstage" and the scene after that was pathetically bad and full of cliches, and even ignoring those problems the content was a little too similar to a couple of scenes I've already written in other stories for my own comfort.

Don't worry about Brian. Or Trevor. They won't be left out. (In fact, Brian will be dealt with in this installment.) I can't put everything in at once. On the other hand, I'm increasingly leaning towards an apocalyptic ending to the story, so a lot of fictional people won't be so lucky. Worry about them, instead. :P

I mentioned before that I had a list of things which had to happen before the big obvious plot twist. That list was numbered from 1 to 11, with 1 being where the story then was and 11 being the plot twist, so there were nine items to go (which have to happen in order). As of the end of this part, I've completed #4 on the list. There's still plenty of stuff for the characters to do.

And now the moment you've all been waiting for, the moment where I shut up. Here's the next part.

Aerobic
Part 6

*****

Martin blinked for a moment. Then a smile spread across his face.

"Yeah, I was. Looks like I'm not anymore, am I?"

Martin threw his head back and laughed, and Trevor was amazed at the thickness of his neck. He remembered Martin as being a scrawny little guy for years, and just slightly beefier in the weeks running up to his departure. The man in front of him was massive. Trevor was used to men who had large muscles — his job occasionally took him to bodybuilding competitions, so he was no stranger to even the exaggerated build of a pro bodybuilder, but Martin was different.

Just for a start, he was thick. Only a handful of heavyweight bodybuilders develop so much that every part of their body, in isolation, looks big, and Martin had this in spades. He looked like it would take a cannonball to the stomach to move him if he didn't want to be moved. On closer examination, Trevor also realized that Martin's arms and legs, even his neck, seemed to be bigger and longer. It was hard to tell, because his torso was so huge, but even unflexed and viewed from the front, which usually made even the largest upper arms look slim, Martin's arms had a girth to them, and his thighs were enormous... and there was a bulge in front of them which gave Trevor a shock as well.

"Jesus, Martin, what did you do?"

Martin stopped laughing, and looked at Trevor with a ferocious grin. "I started working out and eating right, that's what. Oh, man, this is awesome. I'm getting so fucking huge it's just incredible. Look at this. Feel this!"

He flexed his left arm. With trembling hands, Trevor reached out to Martin's arm. It was gigantic. The biceps rose up into a huge, round mound, the size of a softball, and covered in dark veins. Below, Martin's triceps stood out in a craggy formation of equal volume, even though unflexed. Trevor let out an involuntary moan as his cock hardened. Even the men he had chosen for sex from the gym had never had this level of development. He caressed the rock-hard surface in awe.

A sudden movement made him look down. Martin had reached down with his other massive hand, undone his belt, and was fumbling in the crotch of his pants. On impulse, Trevor grabbed the waistband and pulled away the clothing, to reveal Martin's cock.

It was huge and veiny. Trevor could tell it was at least as long as his own. But if his thighs had been as huge as Martin's now were, his cock would have looked tiny. Martin's cock managed to hold its own in appearance by being incredibly thick. As Trevor watched, it hardened... and lengthened.

Trevor looked up again to see Martin's face looking back at him, with a thick, broad jaw combined with the fantastically defined cheekbones Martin had always had because of his skinniness. It suddenly dawned on him that while he was away, Martin had blossomed into an almost incredibly sexy man.

"Martin, I... Oh, god, I want you."

Martin gave a little grunt of laughter.

"I don't think my boyfriend would be very happy to hear that."

Then he sauntered away. Trevor watched him, the way his shoulders brushed against both sides of the doorframe at once... What had happened while he was away?

*****

"Oh, hey, Trevor, welcome back! How's your aunt?"

"She's fine. All healed up, and set for life now, too."

"There were some changes from corporate while you were gone that I have to fill you in on, since you missed the meeting. Should take about half an hour. Have a seat. ...Okay, then, let's get started. The first thing is a change to towel policy. Now..."

Trevor listened as his boss ran through a long list of minor changes. They were the worst kind of minutiae; every one was minor enough that 99 out of 100 gym members would never even realize there was a change, while that last one would be seriously inconvenienced — and probably take it out on the staff. In the back of his mind, Trevor passed the time by fantasizing about Martin. Martin flexing in a speedo, Martin naked in bed... Martin even bigger, a commanding presence of masculine power.

Martin had left the house half an hour after Trevor had returned. He had a gym bag with him, so Trevor supposed he had gone to the gym, but Martin hadn't returned until five hours later — and since he had brought a guy back with him and gone straight into his bedroom, Trevor hadn't been able to ask any questions. (And there was no need to ask any questions about what happened after that; the other guy had been howling off and on for nearly forty-five minutes.) And both of them were gone when he woke up in the morning.

Trevor looked at the schedule; he had agreed to cover for a bunch of the other personal trainers in exchange for the weeks he had been gone. Today's lineup stretched through the entire working day and consisted almost entirely of women who wanted to do aerobics and yoga. Not that he really minded — helping out with one kind of workout wasn't very different from helping with any other kind, but he liked to get out of the yoga room and walk around the gym a bit, and he wasn't going to get much of a chance.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that almost every single one of his clients for the day were, to put it bluntly, sufficiently attractive that his usual practice would be to try to angle for sex. But somehow, every time he was about to bring up the subject, an image of Martin would pop up in his mind, and he found himself at a loss for words.

And that wasn't all. He was uneasily aware that his attraction to Martin was of an unusual kind. Part of the identity he had built for himself as "Trevor who is big and muscular" was that sex was always him penetrating someone else, but he was uncomfortably conscious that his desire for Martin was to have Martin fuck him. Preferably hard and repeatedly. From what he'd heard the previous night, that last part wouldn't actually be too difficult.

His final client session ended at 9:30, leaving him with an hour and a half until closing for his own workout; ordinarily he preferred to do his lifting before work, but he had spent the morning catching up on all the things which had piled up around the house over the last few weeks. Besides, after several hours of complicated stretches, he felt like hitting the weights.

As he approached the weight area, he heard a massive metallic thump, and frowned. There were signs all over asking people not to drop the weights, but there were always young frat rat idiots who did it anyway. Mostly it was just a way to try to seem intimidating. Since he had gotten so big — an image of Martin flexing flashed through his mind, and he shook his head... Since he had gotten so big, he enjoyed putting the fear of god into college boys who thought they could ignore the rules. He sped up slightly, hoping to catch the culprit red-handed, turned a corner, and ran into the back of a knot of people.

Over their shoulders, he saw an enormous figure lying on a bench; he was just in time to see the figure lift the bar, and realized that the previous sound had been the bar being racked. Whoever the man was, his enormous pecs blocked Trevor's view of his face. Trevor stood on tiptoe and counted the plates, then did the arithmetic and almost fell over in shock. There were three 100-pound plates on each end of the bar, plus a 45 as well. Of course, in theory the bars were rated up to at least 1000 pounds, and the benches up to 2000, the corporate office couldn't keep their insurance with anything below that, but nobody seriously did more than a few 45s at a time; even the super-macho guys seldom used more than eight 45-pound plates at a time. The 100s were only there in the first place because the leg sleds had such short pegs that it was impossible for anyone reasonably strong to get a decent workout with 45s.

Geez, the big guy was really going at it! If Trevor hadn't been seeing it, he never would have believed that anyone could keep that kind of weight moving that fast at all, let alone for... twelve reps? Really? And he was still going! Without slowing down!

The spotter was just some guy. Trevor wondered what would happen if the lifter actually had trouble — would the spotter be any help at all? He was vaguely familiar, actually.

Fuck, the guy on the bench was up to forty reps now! At full speed! How long could he possibly keep going?

Suddenly, Trevor knew who it was lifting that weight. He edged around the crowd until he could see the man's face; yes, it was Martin. If anything, he looked even more impressive fully-clothed; he seemed to be even bigger... although of course that would be his pump.

Trevor waited until Martin completed his set — 200 reps, in the end, with no perceptible variation in speed; there was a round of applause from the crowd — and pushed his way forward as Martin sat up. Martin grinned at him.

"Oh, hey. Wondered where you were. Been here since 5:30. Brian? This is Trevor, my housemate."

Trevor reached out to shake Brian's hand, and saw the look of pure hatred Brian sent him. What was that about?

"Trevor, this is Brian, workout partner — and boyfriend, incidentally. I've been screwing him like crazy since a little before you left. You might have seen him last night?"

Oh, that would be it.

"Time for another shake. I'll tidy up here, you go get it ready."

Brian nodded with a smile, and shot Trevor another black look before jogging off in the direction of the locker rooms. Martin stood and began to disassemble the bar.

"Martin? How the hell did you get strong enough to lift 735?"

"845, actually. That was a cooldown."

Trevor sputtered. Martin calmly finished putting the weights back, gave Trevor a smile, and then walked in the direction of the lockers. Trevor followed, hoping for an answer.

In the locker room, Martin accepted an enormous container from Brian, and began to suck it up with a thick straw. The mixture was so thick that it was almost gelatinous, and Trevor felt queasy.

"What the heck is in that?"

"By which you mean 'what drugs are you taking', I gather. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, Trevor, but this is a mixture of water, protein powder, oatmeal flour, pureed banana, and powdered milk, in descending order by volume. Oh, and two tablespoons of chocolate syrup for flavor. I've had... how much so far, Brian?"

"Counting that one? A little over two gallons."

"Jesus!"

"Well, I have to keep eating if I'm going to get my twenty thousand calories each day."

"Twenty th-thousand?"

"Yeah, it's a son of a bitch to keep things going at the office, but I manage. I bring in a few gallons of this stuff, only diluted, and keep it at my desk each day. I try for thirty thousand on the weekends."

Trevor found that his knees were wobbly, and involuntarily sat on a bench. He watched, but failed to register, as Brian rinsed out the now-empty container and put it back in a locker, locked it, and discarded an empty tub of protein powder as he followed the larger man out of the room. Martin looked back.

"We weren't keeping you awake last night, were we?"

"Nnn... No, not at all."

"Good, because we're going to do it all again tonight. Come on, Brian, I hear the squat frame calling me."

Brian made a rude gesture at Trevor as he followed. Trevor sat for a moment and quietly goggled. Twenty thousand calories per day? That certainly explained how Martin had gotten so big so fast; usually clients were more interested in the calorie content of fat, but Trevor vaguely recalled that building muscle required less actual calorie intake than fat did, if the conditions were right. Even if they were the same, a pound of fat was 3500 calories, so — permitting that, say, it took 6000 calories to keep Martin's existing bulk moving — that still meant a gain of 4 pounds every day. Maybe more — he really couldn't remember the caloric input for muscle.

Of course, that didn't explain why it was happening. Martin had always been a scrawny little shrimp. Now he was, without question, the biggest, strongest man in the gym. Trevor had a sudden longing; he not only wanted Martin to fuck him senseless, but he wanted to be big like Martin, too. It was unfair that Martin was suddenly huge. Trevor frowned, stood back up, and stalked out to do his own, suddenly-meager-seeming, bench presses.

*****

"Did you hear about the new guy?"

"What did he do now?"

"He's ginormous! His boss told everyone he was going to interrogate him about drug use, then got intimidated and gave up."

"Oh?"

"Well, yeah, you should have seen it. He was all set to get mean, and he called in... what's his name, anyway? I keep forgetting. He's not really 'the new guy' any more, anyway."

"Um... Martin. That's it."

"Right. You'd think I'd remember names as an H.R. rep."

"Remember, 'you can't spell "who cares" without "H R"'."

"Ho ho ho fuck off. Anyway, Martin walked in, and it was like an earthquake on mount pectorals. His boss had to stand up just to see his face."

"I can't wait to see the video."

"Sorry, no video this time. I was there as an official witness, couldn't wrangle a recording."

"Damn."

"Dunno if I really regret it. He's really almost getting too big for my tastes."

"Really?"

"Well, not exactly. Usually those big guys are overcompensating for a lack of size down below, in my experience. But the new guy... Martin, I'll get it right one of these times, doesn't have that problem."

"How can you be sure?"

"Phil peeked in the bathroom. Says it's like beer bottle."

"And he wants to open it with his teeth, I'll bet."

"Now, now. Don't get catty just because he's dating your ex."

"They broke up."

"How do you know these things before I do? I'm the one sitting next to him every day."

"Grapevine. Anyway, why hasn't Phil made a move on the guy, himself?"

"Too scared, I think."

"Tell him to get pictures next time they're in there together."

"Actually, you may have something there."

*****

"Oh, god."

"What's wrong? I thought the hunger pangs had stopped now that you're eating enough."

"They are, but... well, you know how I'm, uh, not falling asleep after sex any more?"

"Yeah. My ass will never be the same."

"It's... well, it's not just then. I've started being horny all the fucking time. I have to jack off in the bathroom at work two or three times just to get through the day."

"That. Is. So. Hot."

"Yeah, well, that last set... my shorts were kind of rubbing against me, and... I need it. I need it now."

"Oh? Well, ordinarily I'd be happy to oblige, but I think people would hear."

"Aw, fuck... wait, how about if you give me..."

"A blowjob? Well, I don't know. That might not be such a good idea. I've never really been good."

"Doesn't have to be good. Just has to be soon."

"Fine, fine. Let's just hope the handicapped toilet stall isn't occupied."

*****

"Thanks. I don't know why you were so worried, you did fine."

Brian coughed. The taste hadn't been bad, really, but the volume... it was entirely unexpected, and he had almost inhaled some of it.

"Do you need some water? Why don't you sit for a minute, and I'll get you a cup."

Brian coughed again and nodded, and watched as Martin's huge figure — it was an 80-inch chest last night, about 5 inches bigger than the biggest measurement he could find in the record books — stalked away towards the drinking fountains. He coughed a few more times, and tried to breathe deeply.

When Martin returned with a paper cup of water — which looked absurdly small in his giant hand — Brian was standing again, and pressing against his stomach with both hands.

"Brian? Are you okay?"

"I... think so? I feel kind of weird. Can I have that water?"

He chugged it down, and gave a belch.

"Weird. I don't know..."

"Well, let me know if you feel anything wrong. I could skip a workout, it wouldn't be the end of the world."

Martin did his usual three sets of bench presses; this time, his maximum weight (meaningless given the number of reps he performed) was 885. It took a little over half an hour. When he sat up, Brian cleared his throat.

"What's up? Feeling okay?"

"Yeah. In fact, I kind of feel... good."

"Yes? Not that I'm complaining, but so what?"

"If you don't mind, I think I'd like to go and do some lifting myself. I've been shirking off lately."

"Go right ahead. I haven't needed a spot in over a month. Come get me when you're tired."

"I don't know. I just feel good."

*****

Martin managed to avoid sinking into a trance again — in fact, the "lifting trances" hadn't really been happening the last few days. It was like he had learned to be "in" his muscles all the time, and still function normally. (Although he didn't mention it to Brian for fear of making him jealous, part of the reason he had become so horny was that muscle flexion was now almost sexually stimulating.) Nevertheless, his workouts were so focussed that he didn't notice the time passing for nearly three hours.

With a guilty start, he realized that he had meant to check up on Brian every fifteen minutes or so, just in case he had developed trouble breathing and needed help. In fact, Brian's workouts seldom lasted more than 45 minutes — for him to vanish for three hours was disturbing. Martin hurried through the gym looking for Brian and almost panicked when he couldn't even find him in the locker room.

He decided to make one more sweep of the weight area, just in case, and was enormously relieved to spot his face in the free weight area, furiously pumping out curls. He was just about to step forward and greet his boyfriend when he noticed the changes.

Brian's face was now lean. He was wearing a shirt, so it was hard to tell, but Martin suspected that Brian's bodyfat had probably reduced everywhere. More importantly, though, his arms and legs looked fantastic, and the contours of the cloth of his shirt suggested that Brian hadn't neglected to work his pecs, either.

Martin smiled and walked forward.

"Brian? Brian! Hey!"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I just... I'm so focussed tonight. I have to confess, I got hungry and drank one of your shakes."

"The whole thing? Great!"

"Huh? Stealing your food is a good thing?"

For answer, Martin took the weights out of Brian's hands and put them on the rack. Then he grabbed Brian's shoulders and turned him towards the mirror.

"Looks like that blowjob was as good for you as it was for me."

Brian stared at his reflection for a moment, then tried a few poses.

"Oh, god, this is fantastic."

"Well, then, better get back to work."

"Huh?"

"The gym closes in just two hours. Make the most of it."

Brian blinked, then smiled.

"Right."

*****

"Ugh... agh... ah... M-martin?"

"Mmmmmm..."

"Martin, are you awake?"

"Hmmm... I am now. What's up?"

"I hurt, everywhere. I think I'm going to die."

"Really? Hang on..."

"Uuuuuuh... my arms..."

"Hmmmmm. Dunno, your temperature is fine, and your pulse is normal."

"AAaaaaaaaagh! D-don't m-move my arms like that!"

"Ah, well, I think I see what's wrong."

"I'm dying, that's what's wrong."

"Don't be stupid. The dose wore off, that's all."

"What dose?"

"Don't you remember what happened last night? You gave me a blowjob, then tore up the gym for five hours and gained eight pounds. You were like a kid on a sugar high. I practically had to tie you down to make you go to sleep."

"Ugh."

"Look, let's not kid ourselves. When you swallowed my semen, it did something to you, and that included stopping all the aches and pains you should have had from that workout. It wore off, and now you're feeling it."

"Gah. Put me out of my misery. Please."

"Well, let's have a test. Hang on."

It took a few minutes, but finally...

"Wow, I didn't realize there would be this much. Well, I don't want you to bounce off the walls again. Let's try just a little bit. Here, lick my finger."

"Mnuh."

"Okay. I'll get you a glass of water. I'll be right back."

When Martin returned, Brian was sitting up in bed. His face was flushed. Martin smiled.

"Now that's very interesting."

[vga518]

We are on Chapter 6 and only on NUMBER FOUR on the list of escalating events? WOW, DAMN! Tekuno this story is amazing! Loved this chapter! So much happened and yet the story didn't feel bogged down.we have growth cum now HOT! Good for Brian he can keep up with Martin. Hopefully as long as he doesn't partake of any himself or add it into his already monster shakes!

Keep up this amazing story. Looking forward to what happens next.

[nnnrg]

Oh, good! It's contagious! Now Trevor is going to be even more unhappy

Although... if Martin's been fucking Brian every night, why has this not happened already?

[vga518]

Originally Posted by nnnrg

Oh, good! It's contagious! Now Trevor is going to be even more unhappy

Although... if Martin's been fucking Brian every night, why has this not happened already?

It is quite possible that it is a recent mutation. Probably cause by his working out, or some other property. I do wonder why Brian was giving Trevor the Evil Eye. I might have missed something.

[chocomus]

Originally Posted by vga518

I do wonder why Brian was giving Trevor the Evil Eye. I might have missed something.

I was wondering the same

BTW, Excelent story!!!!!!!! the fact that is contagious just makes it better :3

[Kit Werecat]

As everyone is saying, this is an AMAZING story!!

I see Brian is getting more than just one type of protein shake!

That one that Martin personally serves up sound delicious! "Every body needs.. " Maybe some more than others.

More than life itself (mine, anyway) would I wish to be Martin, and if not possible, then Brian. Those two have such a fantastic future in store for them sometime soon.

As was said by nnnrg, Trevor is going to be SO jealous, when Brian also starts growing huge and strong (and hung, I presume). The Olympic Godlike SuperSex will be mind-numbing. It will probably start with the house shaking, then when the bed collapses, or the walls crack.. Well, Trevor's gonna get a clue at some point! He's going to feel like a guy hit with a shrink ray when these two muscle-bound giants just grow so big they look at each other right over the top of his head! They'll have to specifically look down, to even notice his presence. Personally, I'd have to either get to the bottom of the mystery and get on board, or leave the place to the two huge Titans.

Interesting that Martin put it together right away. That means he can master how to maximize its effects. Brian's going to get a very full tummy!

BTW. why did Martin hold back on the amount? Just for the test? I hope he's not going to get stingy with that. I assume he won't. For one thing, he loves Brian. For the second, he needs that release (3 or more times a day? Things could escalate very quickly), and pretty soon he's going to need a guy of his strength and size, just to have as a playmate. He sounds like he's getting close to being too much for Brian already!

As to that thing between Brian and Trevor, I'm not sure what's up either. Brian has been getting possessive of Martin lately, and admittedly, until Martin became huge, Trevor hadn't given a damn about him. He might just really love his boyfriend, is all, and wants him all to himself. Which by the way, means Trevor better watch his step. If Brian still feels that way about Trevor, and starts getting as big and strong as Martin.. well, he could be part of that collateral damage you were just talking about.

I had said that I had never read Stine's Goosebumps stories, or anything about Monster Blood. I take it back. I was surprised to find Monster Blood 3 in my own library! I had bought it more than a decade ago, when I saw the front cover art and of course being a Macrophile, snatched it right up. I gave the thing a quick re-read the other night.

Oh, Brother!!! If what is happening with Martin is what happened to Evan in MB3, plus packing on endless muscle, this story is headed for some unbelievably HOT scenes!!! Especially since you already warned us of some Macro elements, and just recently warned that a lot of collateral damage is going to happen! It's getting my heart racing just thinking of the probable ending this is going to head for!!!


On a different subject, has anyone else here noticed any problems in posting in this thread? I am having increasing trouble. The system seems to "hang" most of the time I try to summon the edit window. It just sits there saying "waiting for musclegrowth.org to respond". Sometimes I have to abort, exit the site, and try again. I don't seem to have this problem on other MGS threads.

I'm wondering if the size of this thread with all the postings and replies are hitting some sort of maximum limit, and it's having trouble adding further data? I would appreciate it to know whether or not I'm the only one having trouble with this.

[ploder4]

I can't help but feel bad for Trevor. He really didn't do anything wrong and I sense that he may see some serious punishment from Brian in the future. I also have a feeling that Brian is not going to hold back his hatred with Trevor.

[Reeza]

Originally Posted by nnnrg

Oh, good! It's contagious! Now Trevor is going to be even more unhappy

Although... if Martin's been fucking Brian every night, why has this not happened already?

This was the first time Brian gave Martin a blow job. Obviously the semen has to be swallowed rather than injected in the posterior or splattered all over the skin. Am I right, tekuno? And what sort of prize have I won?

[Reeza]

Also, that lengthy explanation about the weight of a gallon has me wondering if tekuno and nnnrg are related, or even the same person. If the latter is true, that would make the interactions between the two of them truly fascinating. Hmmmmm . . .



Oh! I forgot to say I'm loving this story. Sorry.

[garrix]

I'm loving this story!! Damn!

(and I'm picky when it comes to this kind of thing!)

[Mdlftr]

Originally Posted by Reeza

Also, that lengthy explanation about the weight of a gallon has me wondering if tekuno and nnnrg are related, or even the same person. If the latter is true, that would make the interactions between the two of them truly fascinating. Hmmmmm . . .



Oh! I forgot to say I'm loving this story. Sorry.

Hmmm... so if Tekuno and nnnrg are related, or even the same person, and anpuzu and Raven79 are the same person....mutters...

That means there are only about 4 original people on here!

And I'm one of them!

[Kit Werecat]

Originally Posted by tekuno

Don't worry about Brian. Or Trevor. They won't be left out. (In fact, Brian will be dealt with in this installment.) I can't put everything in at once. On the other hand, I'm increasingly leaning towards an apocalyptic ending to the story, so a lot of fictional people won't be so lucky. Worry about them, instead. :P

Now that is very interesting. After what everyone has said (including myself) about being worried about Trevor, the above statement at least hints on the fact that Trevor is going to be included in this wild ride.

A Macro-sized love triangle? Or better still, a city-sized M?nage ? Trois?

Ah, the possibilities....

[Reeza]

Quote:
Originally Posted by tekuno
I'm increasingly leaning towards an apocalyptic ending to the story, so a lot of fictional people won't be so lucky. Worry about them, instead.

Is no one else wondering about this little tidbit? Apocalyptic? A lot of people won't be so lucky? I'm expecting something dark. Remember, this all started with "bullzilla."

[ploder4]

Martin and/or Brian get a god complex and squish Trevor like a bug?

[tekuno]

Actually, everyone on this board except you, whoever you are, is the same person. We're a massively split personality who is unbelievably prolific. This explains why I never seem to have enough time to finish things; it's all stolen by writing all those other posts. (And it has nothing whatsoever to do with video games and manga.)

I noticed when I went back and looked that I was wrong: we weren't quite finished with step #4 in the plan, because it was a two-part item. This next part, however, not only polishes off #4 but also #5 as well.

I also noticed that... well, I did a really bad job of proofreading the previous part. In fact, let's not beat around the bush, I basically didn't proofread the previous part. As mentioned, I deleted most of what I had, and started over, and it took so much time that I just decided to go ahead and post it immediately. At least this time I reread it and made some tweaks. I'm sure it's still full of errors, because errors have a magical property of being able to appear in text you thought you already proofed, but at least I caught a few.

Brian hating Trevor makes sense, for reasons which I was careful to explain in this next part, but it was more explicit in the original version, where Martin and Trevor had sex. Brian and Trevor had basically a jealous catfight afterwards. As I was writing it, I thought "do I really want to have a gay man and a bi man acting like caricatures of gay men out of a bad TV show?" and tossed it. (To say nothing of the fact that the fastest way out was to have Martin decide to consciously be all macho and dominant and force them to accept whatever sex he decided to bestow on them, which is not only another another stereotype but something I've written before, back in Caveman. So I went back and had Martin walk away instead of pushing Trevor into bed. It makes him a nicer guy, too ? no cheating on the boyfriend!) (Whether that boyfriend deserves the loyalty or not...)

As for Monster Blood 3: like I said, I never read any of the books. I looked the title up online, and... seriously? Giantism? That's all? Bah. Giants have only a courtesy title to monstrosity anyway. If I were going to stop at just "macro", I would have said so. (And besides, a few stories high is a terrible height to stop at. All the disadvantages of being too big for normal human habitation, none of the thrills of completely redefining scale. Either stop around 10 feet so the characters can still live in approximately human spaces, or make 'em blow up until they outgrow the planet, that's my policy.)

I'm gradually figuring out not only what is going to happen but how, and I'm telling you again: the trend is apocalyptic. Dark? Sure. Possibly sufficiently so, honestly, that some of you will be unable to maintain any erotic buzz in the last couple of parts. Maybe even me as well. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to it ? it's good to have a variety of different stories on here, and that's the road less-traveled. I do have a nice romance story (a coherent one with an actual plot) ready to go at some point, but it's the one I want to do partially as cartoons, and that's a lot of work. And I'm incredibly lazy, to be frank. I'll get to it eventually.

Aerobic
Part 7

*****

Trevor sighed as he stepped into the shower after his workout, and tried to sort out his emotions.

Mostly, he was just feeling depressed. And the main cause of it was, of course, disappointed lust. He had been jacking off to his memories of Martin now for nearly a week. Other people were just... uninspiring by comparison. In an ordinary week, he would have had sex in the supply room at the gym about eight times by now, and a couple of one-night stands as well. In an ordinary week which happened to have so many notionally attractive clients in it, he would probably have chafe marks on the sides of his dick by now. But they were just so... small. Paltry. Puny.

And to make it worse, Martin was avoiding him. He hadn't been sure about that, at first. Their schedules were so different, ordinarily, that it wasn't unusual for them for go for a day or two without significant contact. But he hadn't even seen Martin for three days now. The last time Martin and Brian had been home, he had tried to force the issue and knocked on Martin's door, and Martin had actually told him to go away ? and the door had been locked! He was sure that the two had waited until he was gone before leaving.

Since then, he wasn't even sure Martin had been home. He certainly hadn't been to the gym, either ? the computer showed no scans of either Martin's membership card or Brian's since five days ago. He wondered how large Martin was, now ? he hadn't had more than a momentary glimpse of him for five days.

It was unfair. He had never been a bad housemate, was never late with the rent, never put off his chores unduly. Why had Martin decided to ostracize him? ...it was probably all Brian's fault. He waited while the manager locked up, waved to him, and walked across the darkened parking lot. As he got in his car, he wondered why Brian seemed to hate him so much.

Of course, he thought to himself as he looked in the rear-view mirror, that wasn't exactly a mystery. In fact, it made perfect sense. Suppose you had a boyfriend who turned into the perfect gay man, huge and strong and overwhelmingly masculine and fantastic in bed and loyal. Now suppose that that boyfriend actually lived in the same house as someone who was bigger and stronger than you and who had an incredibly active sex life. Trevor nodded; yep, that would do it. He looked down at his arms, and thought for the first time ever that there was actually a downside to having gotten so large. At least if he wasn't seen as a threat, he'd still be able to see Martin now and then.

He sighed again as he unlocked the front door to the unlit house. He tossed his gym bag into his room and wandered into the kitchen, where he turned on the lights and fell to his knees.

Martin and Brian were in the kitchen, grinning at him. A vastly inflated Brian ? not up to Martin's size (and Martin was now even bigger; he was almost as tall as the doorframes now, and was unbelievably wide) or even close to it, but incredible. The two of them were like gods who had condescended to materialize in a pathetic domestic setting, and the room seemed dull and tawdry compared with their bulging, vital bodies. Trevor's mind was stunned, but as he looked at the way Brian's arms bulged, larger than his own and with better separation and vascularity, the phrase "it's not fair!" made its way through.

"Hello, Trevor. Welcome home! Sorry to blatantly avoid you for a few days, but we talked it over and it seemed like a good idea to do some extra testing before we talked to you."

Brian gave Trevor a lazy grin, nodded, and said "We thought waiting might give it some extra impact." On the word "impact", he gave a most-muscular pose; his clothing tore in several places, revealing his huge pectorals, enormous traps, massive thighs... and a cock which was significantly above the average. Had that been there before?

"Wh- what are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on, Trevor. Look at Brian, here. You know he didn't look like this before."

Brian reached out and pulled Trevor to his feet. Trevor was relieved to find that Brian was still around his own height... but even that thought was tinged with uncertainty. Had Brian been his height before? He hadn't really noticed. And with the way Martin was growing, it didn't seem impossible that...

"Brian here has been taking a special supplement that we discovered. It works very, very quickly ? so quickly that Brian put six inches on his arms in six days." Brian flexed to illustrate the point. "It's all-natural, and it enhances your workouts like you wouldn't believe."

Trevor's response came so fast and so urgently that Brian gave a smirk.

"Give it to me! Please! I'll do anything!"

Martin smiled at Trevor. "Oh, we're going to let you have some. But on our terms."

"Anything! I'll do anything!"

"Well, you see, by the time we realized what was going on, Brian here already had a massive dose, and it had... a few minor negative side-effects when the dose wore off. Since then, we've just made sure he has enough to stay dosed all the time, but we'd like to see if a smaller initial dose would still have the same benefits, but without the side effects. And we'd like to try a slightly different... delivery mechanism... than the way Brian usually gets it. Are you willing to help out?"

"Yes! I'll do that! ...Will I get full doses later?"

Martin looked at Brian.

"That's up to you, Bri, would you mind sharing?"

Brian gave Trevor a grin.

"As long as I stay ahead of him, it's fine with me." He put an arm around Martin's massive back muscles, and started playing with Martin's closest nipple. "I don't mind sharing. It's not like there isn't enough of a supply."

Martin smiled. "Then I think we have a deal. If I recall correctly, you have tomorrow off from work, right, Trevor?"

Trevor nodded. This was almost too good to be true.

"Excellent. The two of us have also arranged for the day off. We'll go with you to the gym, to monitor things and make sure you're okay."

Trevor had a hard time getting to sleep that night ? and only partially because of the sounds of animalistic sex coming from the other bedroom.

*****

Trevor was up early. After waiting for half an hour, nearly too excited to keep still, he went and knocked softly on Martin's bedroom door.

"Don't come in. What is it?"

"The gym opens in ten minutes. Do you want to get started?"

"That sounds like a good idea. We'll be out in a bit."

Trevor paced around the house waiting for Martin and Brian to emerge, fighting down annoyance at the fact that the two were apparently having even more sex. Then again, Martin's obviously enhanced sexuality was why he was so attractive, so it wasn't unexpected. Finally, the two huge men emerged. Brian seemed extra-complacent.

"Okay, let's get started. We'll let Brian drive. You're going to be busy." Martin was reaching into the refrigerator.

"Busy?"

"Yes. The supplement is mixed in with this. You have to drink it all on the way over."

Trevor looked at the container. It was a deep-green-tinted 32-ounce olive oil bottle.

"Is this some kind of prank? I have to drink a bottle of olive oil?"

"Don't be stupid. We just used that bottle because it's the right size. We washed it out first. It's a big thick protein shake. Here, this will help."

Martin handed Trevor a big thick straw, the kind Trevor had seen him using before.

"And what's in the other bottles?"

"Well, the big ones are food, basically."

"Protein shakes?"

"More or less. We've been experimenting with adding other things. If you're hungry enough, and trust me, you're going to be very hungry if this goes as expected, flavor is secondary."

"That doesn't sound very appetizing."

"It isn't. But you can eat things which taste good when you're done working out. Besides, which would you rather have, tasty protein shakes or a body like Brian's?"

"Do you have to ask?"

"And last but not least, the little bottle is for when your dose runs out."

"What is it?"

"A very, very small extra dose."

"Huh?"

"Well, we had a choice between that and a massive dose of painkillers. When the stuff wears off, you'll feel all the pain and stiffness from the workout and the growth. A little bit more of the stuff makes it stop again. I told you: minor negative side-effects."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense, at least. What's in this stuff, anyway?"

"We'll tell you later. Nothing illegal to make. I'm not Balter Blight and this isn't an episode of Baking Bread. Ready to drink? Let me get my stopwatch ready; I want to know how long it takes to kick in."

"How will we know?"

"Trust me, you'll know. Okay, go!"

*****

Trevor was amused. Martin and Brian's idea of "monitoring" was to go off and start their own workouts as soon as he had started feeling the initial surge of energy. Of course, a couple of hours later Martin had come back, and was obviously watching him like a hawk while doing innumerable impossible curls with a bench press bar, but it wasn't like any sort of testing program he had ever heard of before.

Not that he had needed oversight. For four hours, he was lifting like... well, like Martin had been, sort of. He didn't go into trances like Martin had, but he found himself focussed on his lifts like he had never been before. Every forty minutes or so, he started to get hungry, and took a hit from the protein shakes in the shared locker they had filled with the stuff. He could see himself swelling up in the mirrors, too. Not like Brian ? he smiled; he'd reach Brian's level soon enough, Martin wouldn't lie to him about letting him have more ? but he could see the gains already. And he had managed to down more than a gallon and a half of the protein stuff. It was horrible, but no worse than some of the mystery substances the college cafeteria had fed him a few years ago.

But now... suddenly he felt horrible. Every part of his body stung and burned. He looked around for Martin, but couldn't see him anywhere. He collapsed onto a bench and lay back, panting. A crowd began to gather.

Suddenly Martin was there again, forcing the little bottle between his lips.

"Drink that. Keep going. Okay. Sorry, I forgot this stuff was still in the locker. Give it a minute to kick in. Sorry, folks, my friend has a food allergy, and he's been having mild attacks all morning because we had breakfast at a restaurant. No need to worry, I just gave him some medication."

Trevor closed his eyes and hoped the pain would fade. Much to his surprise, it did. Within thirty seconds, he was sitting up, watching the crowd disperse.

"I don't believe it! That was weird! Really weird!"

Martin smiled at him.

"Well, I think we can say that it worked. Take a look in the mirrors."

Trevor got to his feet. He was prepared for disappointment ? it wasn't worth pretending that he could perform Brian's transformation in one workout. But the self which looked back from the mirror was better than expected. His skin was taut, the few deposits of fat which had built up over his stay with his aunt were completely erased, and his muscles bulged noticeably larger than they ever had before.

"When do I get my next dose?"

"I think you'll have to wait for tomorrow. We want to see if that last partial dose is all you need to stop the pain for good."

"I can see your point, but I really want more now."

Martin's smile got even wider.

"Trust me, I'm looking forward to getting you onto full doses, myself."

*****

"Martin! Martin! Time to wake up!"

"Geez, Trevor, it's... 7 AM? You're never awake this early. Heck, just two weeks back you were complaining by e-mail about how you missed being able to sleep in because your aunt made you get up at 9."

"I know, but I just can't wait to get more of that stuff. I think I actually gained a little more muscle while I was sleeping!"

"It does do that, a little... Brian, what do you think?"

"I think we should let Trevor have a dose. And he should get it like I do."

"Heh. Should've known you'd want to watch. Okay, Trev, meet us in the kitchen, okay? It'll just be a minute."

Trevor went to the kitchen and stood, waiting impatiently and ignoring the noises from the bedroom. He checked the fridge, but there was nothing unusual inside. He went through the cabinets, one by one, hoping to figure out where Martin was keeping the stuff, whatever it was. He had just finished his search when Martin walked in, followed by Brian.

The two were naked, and Trevor feasted his eyes on their inhuman bulging muscles ? and their cocks. Martin had to duck slightly to get through the doorway, and also turn sideways; Brian, on the other hand, was merely the second-largest man Trevor had ever seen. A month ago, he would have despaired of ever reaching Brian's level, but now he just wondered how long it would take for him to catch up. Both of the huge men had enormous, stiff erections. Brian's was an incredible size ? Trevor realized that it surpassed his own seven inches by quite a bit ? but Martin's was a work of art. It was well over a foot long, and at its thickest point it had to be eight or nine inches around. The head was swollen, too ? and glistening with moisture.

"All right, Trevor, it's time for you to see how Brian gets his doses. Go for it, Brian."

Martin leaned back against the wall, and Brian quickly knelt and began to suck at Martin's penis. Martin tried to continue the narration.

"We started this already, back in the bedroom, so... uh... it shouldn't be long... before... ah!"

Martin grabbed Brian's head and clearly orgasmed long and hard into the smaller man's mouth. Finally, Martin released Brian and took a deep, ragged breath. It was the hottest thing Trevor had ever seen.

"And there you have it. It seems to go by volume ? my loads are getting a little bigger, so they last more than ten hours now. You don't have to exercise while it's active, but if you don't you don't grow. And you have to eat if you exercise, too."

Trevor let out a little whinnying sound. Brian gave him a smug grin, and started massaging Martin's torso again.

"He'll be ready to give you your dose in just a minute."

Martin leaned over slightly and gave Brian a kiss on the forehead, and engulfed him in a half-hug; Brian took the opportunity to begin licking Martin's pectoral muscles. The massive amounts of muscle on display made Trevor actually begin to drool. He walked over and began to explore the bodies of the two giants, all the more fascinated by the realization that soon, he too would look like this. His erection pushed at his shorts. Finally, he began to lick Martin's other pec.

He felt a sudden nudge at his side. He looked down; Martin was already hard again.

"Looks like it's time for you to have your first full dose. Are you ready, Trevor?"

*****

"It's over."

"What's over?"

"The new guy... Maxwell."

"Martin."

"Whatever. It's not important, he doesn't work here any more."

"Huh? What happened?"

"A little problem in the restroom. Martin did another workout in his office during lunch ? yes, I've got video. It's really kind of disturbing, he's so huge. Well, when he was done, and drank his lunch?"

"He's been drinking?"

"No, it's some kind of protein crap. He went through a whole gallon jug, all at once, but I've seen him sucking it down every time I go by. Anyway, he ran off to the bathroom after that. And who should be in the bathroom but Phil?"

"Oho!"

"Well, the toilet stall was apparently occupied, so he was standing there fiddling with his crotch, and Phil started flirting with him."

"He's got more guts than I thought."

"Anyway, Martin responded by just grabbing him and, uh, making love to his face, right out of the blue."

"Yeah, sure, I bet Phil didn't encourage him at all."

"Anyway, the new guy hit an orgasm ? Phil says it was like having a hose in your mouth, spunk going all over at high pressure ? and stands there panting. Phil grabs a few paper towels and runs out ? and then the C.E.O. comes out of the toilet stall."

"Whoops!"

"And to make matters worse? While the C.E.O. is yelling at him for using the bathroom for sex, his shirt suddenly burst open. Too much of a pump from the workout, you see."

"Oh, my."

"Yeah, they came marching into my office and they had the firing paperwork filled out in two minutes. So no more videos, I suppose."

"What happened when the C.E.O. saw Phil?"

"Oh, Phil was hiding under his desk the whole time. And then he took the rest of the day as personal time."

"Was he okay?"

"Yeah, he just wanted to get out of here for a while. He said he felt good, actually."

*****

"Huh? Martin? What are you doing home? I'm just getting ready to go to work?"

"Shut up. Come here."

"Oh, god, you're not going to?"

"Come on, it won't take long."

"Mmmm. Okay. Not like I object to getting my daily dose early."

After a few minutes, Martin started to speak again.

"Ah, you have no idea what just happened. I got fired."

"Mmmm?"

"Uh! Yeah, it's actually kind or related to this. Ah!"

"Mmmph!"

"The last week or so, I've been horny all the time. Aaaaha! So I've been jacking off in the... ah!... bathroom at work. And. Ah. This guy. Ah. Walked Up. Ah. And asked if he could! Touch! My! Cock! Aaaaagh!"

"Mmmm?"

"He was. Kind of. Cute. So I grabbed his head and pulled him down, and... aaaaaaaaaaaaah, god, that feels so good!"

"You gave someone else a dose?"

"Eh, even if he catches on and goes to a gym and spends several hundred dollars on protein shakes, it's just one dose. He may look a little different tomorrow, but not like you or Brian."

"But what about your job? What are you going to do?"

"I have some plans, actually. That job was getting in the way. I was going to end up leaving there soon, even if this hadn't happened. This is just a little ahead of schedule."

"You sure? Want me to put in a good word at the gym?"

"No, I don't think I want to become a trainer. But I may need to ask a favor later. Don't worry about it for now, you just get to work. Don't forget to bring a jug or two of the food mix with you."

"Will do. See you later."

Martin sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the wall, for a few minutes. Then he stood up, and smiled. Time to get started on his new career... both of them, actually...