“Ow!” Pete said as he pulled open the door to The Club. He grabbed his right bicep. It was throbbing almost like when he’d had the ink done, except that it wasn’t pain exactly. It was like an echo of pain, like the reverse of pain, almost like instead of the pain burrowing inward, it was radiating outward, like it was seeking... something. Weird. Tattoos didn’t do that once they fully healed. Did they? He’d never had one before. But then, this wasn’t your typical tattoo; who knew what it would do?
He shrugged off the sensation, going back to worry. He was afraid of what it was he was afraid of, or rather afraid what it meant to him. Before Dad left, he’d ridden Pete over and over, “You need to become one of those, what are they, engineers! Engineers make good money. I could’ve been an engineer but I worked as a lineman for twenty years. I want better for you.” Pete was supposed to have a better life than his Dad’s generation had. Then his parents split... so why would he go ahead and become an engineer? He didn’t like the answer.
He needed a quiet place to think, one where he wouldn’t be disturbed. He needed one of those 'perfect moment' places where time stood still and you can hear yourself breathe.
So he headed for the baths.
It was the only place he could think where he wouldn’t be found no matter how hard they tried. Hardly an elegant solution to a search for privacy, but at least no familiar faces would be there. He hoped. And he might have some fun while he was there. Wait... who was it that mentioned he sometimes went to the baths? Someone at the college. But who?
“Twenty bucks?!” he said in disbelief to the shirtless front counter guy, who looked back at him with a bored expression. “It was only ten bucks last week!”
“Look, dude, I just work here,” the clone at the front counter said, with a look on his face that said the same thing. “If you want to talk to the guy in charge, Garry will be here later. He’s the big guy around here.” He started to glance at the guy behind Pete to indicate he was next.
Pete, his irritation spiking, took a quick inventory of the man’s body. He was the next thing to skinny, with a thin ring through each nipple. Pete set a twenty down before the man behind him could take his place. “Well, Garry may be in charge but you’ll be the biggest man around. Garry will love that.” He gave a toothy grin he didn’t feel and took up the key before the counter guy could take it back, disappearing through the open doorway into the murky darkness of the baths.
The next in line, a businessman in a nice suit who had heard none of the previous exchange, already loosening his tie, already had his twenty ready, his gym bag ready in the other hand. “Hey Trent,” he said to the counter guy, who paid him no heed whatsoever. “Trent?”
Trent kept staring at the door closing behind Pete, feeling strange warmth in his chest and arms, like his blood was pumping even though his pulse was still calm. He jerked as the words registered. “Oh, hey, Roger,” he said, blinking. There seemed to be a buzzing in the air, just below the level of his hearing. And the warmth seemed to be building very very slowly. “Sorry, I... uh, right. Usual room?” He went and grabbed 413 automatically. Roger was a regular of course.
“Thanks, Trent,” Roger said, mildly puzzled. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he said, blinking. He sounded almost as though he were just waking up. “Just... long day.” Except that he’d only started thirty minutes ago. Thirty minutes? He felt like he’d been working out for hours. The intensity seemed to be building, and he moved his forearms restlessly. He just had to keep moving.
“Okay,” Roger said uncertainly, but he didn’t really know Trent well enough for it concern him much. As he took the key, he said, “Have you been working out?” His chest and arms seemed more defined. Definitely nicer.
“Huh?” he said, his attention seeming unfocused. “What? Oh... yeah, yeah I’ve been hitting it pretty hard.” There was no chance of that statement being true. He really did need to renew his membership. He needed to train, and train heavy. He felt himself flexing his biceps without thinking. Roger nodded but refrained from further comment as he retreated into the darkness, though he did take one more salacious glance at the new definition in the kid’s arms and chest. Trent seemed to be very into himself at the moment, not that Roger could blame him. Trent took no notice of him leaving as he started to run his hand over his chest, not even really paying attention to the cleft that was starting to develop between pectorals that had been almost perfectly flat only minutes earlier...
Pete had already forgotten about the front desk by the time he got to his locker. He’d even managed to get his mood on an even keel if not unusually perky. Unfortunately, he already wished he hadn’t come in, and it had nothing to do with the price of admission. As he absent-mindedly put his clothes in the locker, he wished, not for the first time, that there was someone he could talk to. Dee was nice, but she didn’t understand and he couldn’t make her understand. Miguel had nothing but work and sex on his mind. Steve... he pushed that right out of his head. He was the one person Pete didn’t want to talk to. He wouldn’t understand. Well, he might, but Pete felt ashamed telling him. He glanced at the clock. It was almost 4 o’clock. It wasn’t too late. He wondered why he thought of it that way.
As he wrapped his towel around himself, Pete barely noticed the hulking hairy mustachioed musclebear coming through the entrance, who was equally distracted by the taller blond at his side. It was clear to anyone watching, which no one was, that despite the shorter man’s musculature and prominent package at his crotch that his companion was leading the way. Pete glanced in the gym area, reflecting that he needed to renew his gym membership – one of the first things he’d learned was that he couldn’t change himself the way he could everyone else – but before he got very far past the door... “Outta the way, fatass!” He jerked to a halt and slowly turned back, his mouth slightly open. Did people really talk like that? It was like dialogue from some cheesy internet story.
He blinked a few times, thinking about that.
A clang brought his attention back to the door. “Move it!” came a deep irritated growl. “Get your fat ass out of the way!” Pete blinked, startled, before his eyes narrowed angrily. Some of his best friends were big men. Not to mention that weekend he spent at Convergence only a few weeks ago... his face colored at the memory. Later.
The gym was a scene from every high school nerd’s nightmare. There were five guys in the machine area, three of various sizes, shapes, and ages, but they all had the look of men who at least attempted to stay in shape. They seemed to be in the process of working out, but it was obvious that none of them was paying any attention to what they were doing, a dangerous thing in a gym. They were plainly discomforted at the scene happening at the other end of the room.
A very, very muscular man wearing a t-shirt proclaiming him as the Club’s head personal trainer was in the middle of a long monologue berating a taller rather soft man dressed for a workout. Pete’s hackles rose as he heard some of the insults he was hearing from the man; they reminded him too painfully of high school gym class. He hadn’t thought of it before, but he wished that he’d had the tattoo back then. But then, if he had, he probably would have destroyed the entire athletics department. Ruefully, he had to agree that there was something to be said for the passage of time and a touch more self-control.
Pete had never seen the head trainer in person before, but he knew Taggart by reputation. The story Pete had heard was that Tag decided five years earlier that he was tired of being a skinny club kid and went the route that a lot of frustrated gay men went, to turn himself into a miniature Hulk. Pete had heard on good authority that it was due to Taggart being the victim of a gay bashing, but he also suspected he had ‘short guy syndrome’ as he was only 5’2”. Other bashing victims used the experience to improve themselves, to learn to defend themselves, to become activists. Pete’s disdain had nothing to do with Tag covering himself with a layer of muscular armor; he had nothing against someone becoming a bodybuilder as a result. It had to do with the fact that Tag was consumed with self-loathing. He seemed to think that burying himself in muscle would make the demons go away. It did not.
“Don’t you ever get in my way again, fatass! Who the fuck told you...!” His face was contorted in rage and he looked ready to kill. He also had the strength to do it, if not the desire. Pete thought he didn’t have the desire. The other three men in the room weren’t quite so sure; they looked both like they were used to this and fearful of it. Whatever workout they’d been in the middle of they were abandoning; the thickest man was moving fastest of all toward the door Pete had just entered but the other two weren’t that far behind. The man Tag was berating was taller by a good six inches and more than good-looking, but at the moment he looked like a little boy who’d been caught stealing from the cookie jar.
“Hey, hey, hey, hold on!” Pete said, jumping between the two of them.
Tag’s furious look swung from the other man to Pete. “Get the fuck out of here before I break you in half!” His hands clenched threateningly, his bowling ball biceps swelling. The sunken eyes in his Cro-Magnon face blazed. Yeah, apparently people really did talk like that.
“You want to take a breather in your office and calm down,” Pete said calmly, pushing back the adrenaline rush he felt at the man’s tone. He’d had a momentary fear reaction jumping in, but knowing that all he had to do was open his mouth made it easier.
Tag opened his mouth angrily... and then his eyes seemed to glaze over a little and he blinked a couple of times. “I think I’ll take a breather in my office,” he said, his angry tone dissipated. With that, he turned and lumbered out of the machine area and around the corner out of sight.
The other man looked startled. “That was amazing,” he said. “You sure have a way with words.”
“More than you know,” Pete said, earning an odd look. He blinked as he looked slightly down into the man’s eyes. Pete had seen him as much taller, but then that was compared against the massive 275-pound musculature and short stature of Tag. He looked like a skyscraper next to a fireplug. Before the man could comment again, Pete said, “I know what it’s like to be the, uh...” He knew of no way to put it tactfully.
“The geek,” the man said, and Pete nodded. “It’s okay. He’s right. I am a geek. I’m an engineer.” He sounded like a victim of chronic low self-esteem, so Pete made an effort not to bark a laugh when he heard the word engineer. What bitter, bitter irony. “They told me he’s a good personal trainer.”
“He might be the Creator’s gift to bodybuilding but he had no right to talk to you that way.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” the man said, the tone in his voice giving the lie. “I guess I’ll never get big like him. I mean, I know it’s impossible, but I thought maybe I could just, you know, get in better shape. I’m nowhere near those guys.”
Pete just smiled. He had an idea.
Twenty minutes later, after a lengthy talk with Darren about what was possible and what wasn’t, Pete followed the same path Tag took through the free weight area to one of the only two doors in the room, impossible to miss due to them being the only non-mirrored surfaces in the room. Approaching the one open door, Tag’s monster quad plainly visible, Pete said, “Hey, Taggart, I want you to do something...”
Fifteen minutes after that, Pete walked out of the gym whistling softly to himself and right past a somewhat shorter man in workout gear at the juice bar, a large smoothie in his hand and an empty smoothie cup next to him. As Pete walked by, he caught Darren’s eye and they nodded to each other. Pete wondered what would actually happen.
“Uh... Darren?” came a deep bass voice behind him. Darren turned, keeping his face smooth. Don’t smirk, he thought. “Look, I’m, uh, sorry about earlier,” Taggart said, sounding genuinely sorry. And a little puzzled. Hadn’t he just been out here? He had an extraneous thought, one he pushed out before it could cohere, that he’d lost time again. He had a sliver of fear but refused to acknowledge it. They’d said that he wouldn’t lose any more time, but with brain injuries who knew what would happen down the road? “I had no right to say the things I said to you. I am sorry. ” He smiled an uncomfortable smile at the look on Darren’s face, which was very serious. “Um... so, uh, you want to get big, I hear.” Had this guy mentioned that? He couldn’t remember when exactly.
Darren finally smiled, and tried to keep it a real smile instead of an ‘I’ve got a secret’ smile. “Yeah, I want to get really big. I hear you like big guys.”
“Yeah, I do,” Tag said without thinking, then qualified, “Well... I like all sorts of guys. They don’t have to be big.” Uncomfortable with this shift in topic, he said, “I have a basic routine we can follow if you...”
He held up a few sheets with grids and exercises on them, but Darren snatched them out of his hand. “No... No... This one is okay... I’d rearrange the order of the exercises on this page... weights are too light...” He abruptly tore them all in half. “Forget it. These are all pussy workouts.” He stood up, looking like he was about to leave. “I hear there’s a trainer over at the Weight Pit. I’ll try him.” His tone said 'a real trainer.'
“No, wait! I want to help you!” Tag put his hand on Darren’s arm to stop him, but let go at the quick look Darren gave him. It clearly said never touch me without permission. This was the guy he’d been yelling at earlier? This guy seemed entirely different; more in control, more... he couldn’t find the right word. Strange how Tag found himself attracted to it. He did not like controlling guys. He just always seemed to end up dating them for some reason.
“You can’t help me unless you can come up with a good hardcore mass-building workout. Can you?” The contempt in his voice was enough to hang on the walls, and the challenge seemed carved in ice.
“You’re damn right I can,” Tag said in response. “I’ll push you like you’ve never been pushed.” There; the challenge was in the air and had been accepted, a definite tension to prove someone right and someone wrong.
“Then get me a protein shake and let’s get started,” Darren said, snapping his fingers and pointing at the smoothie machine. Tag automatically turned to make one, then stopped in surprise, surprise at himself. He turned back to Darren and opened his mouth, unsure what he’d say, and Darren barked, “Now!” Tag leaped to obey, not seeing the self-satisfied smile on Darren’s face. “And make it a double!”
Far from the gym, Pete took one quick trip through the dark-shrouded halls of the private rooms. There were plenty of open doors and ready invites, but he felt no desire to go into any. So he became a voyeur, checking out the guys and the scenes going on. In one room he caught a quick glimpse of the back of that same hot, shaved-head musclebear plowing the lean blond, pounding so hard and fast that it almost sounded like he was paddling the man’s ass. Fun, but Pete didn’t feel like sticking around for the climax.
About twenty feet away, a small bell sounded in the back of Pete’s head. The musclebear... Pete knew him. Or thought he knew him. He looked familiar from the back. Maybe if Pete saw him with clothes on... Was he the guy who said he sometimes went to the baths? He thought about going back to look, but it wasn’t that important.
There were two saunas, one wet and one dry, separated by a small indoor pool and public shower area, pretty albeit a bit overdone in glass brick. He entered the dry sauna, feeling the heat leach the moisture out of his skin, and took a seat removed from anyone else. After one look from the other two men seated on either side they went back to their own pursuits; his expression didn’t invite conversation, and the scene in the center of the room was more interesting anyway.
An older daddy type was standing in the half-light of the room violently thrusting into the mouth of a smooth kneeling... Pete blinked. For a moment he thought the one doing the sucking was a young twink, but a closer look at his face showed a man in his thirties. His lean physique and smooth body lent an air of youth, especially compared to the man playing with him at the moment. The man above him was older by a good twenty years, the white at his temples and the fine lines around his eyes showing life’s journey in a very pleasant way. “Oh, yeah, take it all, baby. Open up that throat. Yeah.” His dirty talk was even more lurid than the scene, and several men were stroking themselves, either openly or through their towels. One or two looked ready to take it further.
Pete’s eyes widened when he took a close look once the older man pulled back. His cock was near nine inches and had the look of a club it was so thick. The man on his knees smiled, letting drool and precum run down his chest. “You are such a hot man,” he said to the man standing over him. “I love your hairy body.” He unconsciously rubbed his smooth chest. Pete held in a snicker. He knew that gesture; it was always used by smooth guys who wished they had body hair.
The older man grimaced slightly, swinging his cock like a bludgeon and thrusting back into the kneeling man’s open mouth again a couple of times. “You can have it baby,” he said, grimacing both in pleasure and chagrin. “I love that smooth skin of yours.” The man returned an equally chagrined expression upon hearing that. Pete rolled his eyes; it was more than obvious what they both wanted.
His own cock stiffening, he stood up and approached. “Well, I think you two would look a lot better if you traded. You,” he said to the man standing, “give him body hair. Give it all to him,” he said, nodding to the man on his knees. “And you suck his balls dry while it’s happening,” he said to man on the floor. They both blinked at him and at each other. The man standing then gasped, gaping at his buddy on the floor, who looked at him oddly then down at his own chest.
True to Pete’s word, dark hair had begun sprouting even as they watched. He reached to feel it, startled to feel the prickle as it happened, more startled to look up at the man watching him and see his own body hair withdrawing, a beat ahead of the man himself realizing it. Startled, the man on his knees opened his mouth... and like a charged magnet was pulled into his buddy’s crotch, the huge cock throbbing up and out to land home. The man gasped and his eyes rolled upward, his obvious pleasure even more than earlier. He shook with delight, feeling his hair disappear, watching it grow (as he could) on the other man. Pete gave a slight grin at a job well done and walked out the door.
He should have stayed a moment longer.
The older man gave a shuddering cry as he unloaded into the other man, who swallowed greedily and pulled back... only to find with surprise that he could not. In fact, despite his best intentions, he started to suck even harder. And the other man, realizing that he was going to get no respite, started to pull out for a break... only to realize that he couldn’t. It wasn’t the suction power of the man – if anything, it was perfect – he simply couldn’t remove it, like a compulsion he couldn’t resist. And even though he’d just cum, and violently, he was still granite hard and ready to cum again. His shock, however, faded as the pleasure began building again.
Because of this he was unaware of the changes continuing on his body. The hair was disappearing from his body and simultaneously appearing on the man sucking him, but he was unaware that the change was becoming more comprehensive. His thick, well-cut scalp hair was also thinning, and consequently the hair on the other man was becoming thicker and much longer, approaching his shoulders and beyond. Even his eyebrows were changing.
And if Pete had paid closer attention to the room, he should have been more discreet about his volume. Around the tiny steam-filled room, the other men found themselves unable to separate from the couplings they had already been involved in, feeling almost fused to their partner as first one orgasm then another and yet another after that were coaxed out. Panic started setting in in all the participants, but it was drowned under a wave of orgasmic bliss, bliss so strong that no one at first noticed the changes that were happening to them as they cried out in ecstasy, as the men being blown slowly began realizing what give it all to him really meant...
Pete leaned back against the cold glass brick. The sauna had provided a moment’s entertainment, but away from the scene he felt empty. And besides which, he wasn’t doing what he’d come here to do. Think. Tossing the towel twisted at his waist onto the nearest lounger, he strode into the overchlorinated pool. Lying back so that he could float, the water crept up over his ears just enough to block out the repeated cries coming from the sauna and the heavy grunting coming from the gym.
“Twenty-five,” Darren grunted, “twenty-six... twenty-seven...” He had a wild, intent look in his eye as he pumped the barbell above his chest, breathing like a bellows through his mouth, spittle driving in all directions. He’d never had a workout like this before! He grunted the bar back up to the rests. He was hardly even breaking a sweat with this weight. His arms and chest were burning, but in a good way. They seemed to be swelling with power and strength. The workout helped, but unlike most bodybuilders it was not the source of the growth. “More,” he commanded, staring up at the ceiling.
Tag had decided to start him off slow, just a few simple exercises to get him in the groove of working out, but when he attempted to explain what he was going to do and why, Darren had demonstrated an innate understanding of every exercise, every muscle group, and everything he could expect from muscle growth. Darren’s expectations had seemed a bit high initially, but seeing the man’s torso swelling with bulk that hadn’t been there an hour ago, suddenly it didn’t seem all that unlikely any more. Examining the sheer mass that was swelling right in front of him, he wondered what they put in that protein drink. Darren had long since shucked his tank top and shorts as they become painfully tight, which provided a very pleasant sight as the man grew. Tag had no idea how his own jock was lasting this long due to the constant pressure, but it was.
Tag had been quite taken aback at Darren’s rapid progression through leg presses, military presses, rows, and bicep curls. He’d gone far beyond beginner stage.. it was like his strength was increasing exponentially the longer he worked out. And he was getting a truly amazing pump with only a few reps. It was like he was swelling with more muscle right before Tag’s eyes. It couldn’t be that way, of course, but it was a nice fantasy.
Whoa... had he just had a graphic muscle fantasy about this guy?
Tag stood there a little dumbfounded as Darren started bench presses with a very low weight, around 40 pounds. With only two reps he asked for more, bringing it up to 60, which lasted all of one rep before he said, “Tag. Double it.” Instead of arguing the dangers of overtaxing improperly warmed up muscles and his relative inexperience in the gym, Tag turned right around and switched out the plates for 45s. Four of them. More than doubled. And even then Darren had said, “Add thirty more.” When Tag had, Darren did one rep and nodded. “All right, I can warm up with this.”
That had been a quick 70 pounds of metal ago, and Tag had been standing with his mouth hanging open watching Darren’s machine-like movements – he had perfect form – almost effortlessly heave the weight up and down. Tag would have to have a gun at his head to admit it, but Darren on his first workout was only 50 pounds shy of Tag’s heaviest bench. He’d been so proud when he broke the 300 barrier, and this guy was going to do it from nothing flat! He clicked his mouth shut with a snap as he came back to the present. The drool was starting to soak his shirt. “Uh! Uh, right, Darren. Right away.” He scurried over to the weight tree and grabbed a 20 plate... and hesitated. Darren would match him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Part of him was offended that someone would overshadow him, but at the same time... He glanced over at Darren, whose chest was heaving like a bellows. He looked even bigger now that he’d stopped benching the weight.
But a part of him found it an incredible turn-on. If this guy could bench over 330...
“What’s taking so damn long?!” Darren almost bellowed. Was his voice deeper? He looked up with an imperious glare on his face. “Get your ass moving and get me more weight!”
“Yes, sir,” Tag said, grabbing the first two plates in front of him without looking to see what they were and practically ran to put them on the bar. No, he did run. And where had that sir come from?
Darren started pumping the weight up and down again, showing a bit of strain. Not much, but some. “Yeah!” he said, sounding almost orgasmic. “That’s it! Damn, boy... thirty... you really... thirty-one... want me big... thirty-two... don’t you... thirty-three... boy?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Tag said almost timidly, and had a full-body double take. He meant it. He wanted Darren big. Bigger than himself. Stronger. More in con... His eyes went open in horror. He didn’t want anyone in control of him! He swore while lying in the hospital – after regaining consciousness of course – that he would never allow anyone to take advantage of him again. And here he was, telling someone he barely knew, who was growing massive musculature right in front of him, that he wanted the man to be in charge. Belatedly, he realized that he had just put two more 45s on the bar. His mouth went dry. He hadn’t just been matched; he’d been left in the dust. He felt a not-so-strange swelling at his crotch at the thought.
“Fifty!” Darren shot out, pressing it up. “Get over here!” He wasn’t having any problems with the weight, but Tag jumped to help guide it into the supports. Better to be safe than sorry. Plus he got a very good look at the merchandise. Darren held out his hand to be helped up from his supine and Tag instantly ducked around the bar to help him up. The second Darren gripped Tag’s hand, however, Tag had to hold back from almost screaming in pain. Darren had a crushing grip. Tag had meaty hands from five years of heavy lifting (and not inconsiderable steroid use) but he might as well have had the hand of a frail old man. The tough sinews of his hand were instantly compressed and Tag could feel the bones creaking in protest, coming dangerously close to damage.
Once Darren was upright, however, Tag abruptly forgot about the pain in his hand, finding himself unwilling to let go of Darren’s hand even if his did get broken. His mouth dropped open. Darren was no longer the tall (to his perspective) lanky geek that he’d first seen him as. The man was a monster. Over the span of a very brief and average workout, Darren’s mass had doubled, if not tripled. Impossible! He looked like a hardcore powerlifter. Massive slabs of beef had erupted onto his chest and lats and his biceps put Tag’s own to shame. There was so much sheer muscle mass on his frame that he appeared to have no neck whatsoever. It all topped a round, firm ball belly that spoke of a healthy appetite for steak and a mass-building diet. That wasn’t to say his lower half was neglected; apparently the leg presses they’d done had blown them up to mammoth proportions. Tag’s thighs were almost the circumference of an average man’s waist. Darren’s looked like each was the circumference of Tag’s chest. And his calves were so big they should have been called cows.
It was right around that time that Tag realized that Darren didn’t just stand a bit taller. The man towered over him now. Tag had been all of six inches shorter. Now there was more than a foot of difference in their heights. Much more. Tag’s head only reached, barely, to the bottom of the colossal slabs of Darren’s pecs, and because they were so massive, he had to strain to see around them to see Darren’s face.
Tag had forgotten, however, that scrutiny worked both ways. “Like what you see, boy?” the man said. He looked down at the hand he was still holding in a strong, if no longer crushing, grip. “Try to get away. Go ahead, try.” There was suddenly a slightly menacing tone to his voice. Tag felt a shudder in his back somewhere but shrugged it off and pulled his hand back... and couldn’t. Darren’s grip was so relentless that Tag might as well have been superglued in place. Tag even put his other hand to use, but Darren simply pried that one off and moved a “no-no” finger under the shorter man’s nose. Tag looked up, expecting a playful grin, but instead there was a dark, sinister look on the man’s face. Darren had changed not just physically but also mentally. Stupid. Tag had seen it along and not thought about it.
Darren’s grip abruptly got tighter again, tighter than it had. Tag opened his mouth to scream and Darren said very quietly, “One peep and I’ll put you through the window. Head first.” Tag immediately clamped his mouth shut and struggled not to make a sound. Hush, little Taggart, don’t say a word... He wanted to laugh hysterically. He knew it was a sign of incipient panic. “I don’t like you, Taggart,” he continued. “You’re a nasty little prick who thinks he can tear down people. I’d like to tear you down. I’d like to rip those muscles right off your body and feed them to you.” He sounded like he meant every word exactly. Abruptly his grip loosened, but before Tag could do more than gasp in relief at returning circulation he found himself grabbed under the shoulders and hauled up to the man’s eyes. He goggled when he felt his feet dangling well above the floor. Tag weighed 275, most of it densely packed muscle, but Darren hauled him up effortlessly without even having to shift his center of gravity. Tag knew he could kick, but he was too terrified to even try.
“You want to know what it’s like, Taggart? You want to know what it’s like to be the guy who gets beaten up, who gets picked on, who gets wedgies because it makes the jocks laugh?” The man let go with one hand, hugged Tag to his chest with the other, and reached into Tag’s shorts and grabbed a massive handful of underwear and yanked upward. It was no ordinary wedgie; Tag kept his mouth clamped down to stifle another building scream. He felt very much like his manhood was being yanked right off his body. Only a moment later, though, there was a loud tearing sound and the handful came right off in the man’s hand. “Designer. Figures.” He put his hand back under Tag’s armpit and pressed his back against the wall. “Wanna see me punch a hole in the wall, Taggart?” Before Tag could refuse, Darren had swooped an arm up and out and launched it right into the drywall next to the entrance, missing the mirror by less than an inch. And Tag’s head by millimeters. Tag involuntarily blinked to keep from inhaling dust and debris. He coughed. “Take a look.”
Tag turned his head to look at the hole next to his head but due to the bulky nature of his traps he couldn’t. Darren gave an exasperated sound and turned him around in his hands like he would a small child. Tag felt his throat close up. Darren hadn’t just cracked the drywall. He’d put a sizable hole into the drywall, gone through a stud and out the drywall on the other side into whatever room that was. “See, little baby?” Darren said huskily in Tag’s ear. It was less seductive and more dangerous sounding. “See what Papa can do? Papa can break stuff. He can break little boys too. Little boys that like to yell and kick and scream like brats. Know any little boys like that?”
Tag felt sweat pouring down his body. He was too terrified to speak or to take his eyes off the hole in the wall. My head was right next to that. “N-no, please,” he said, fear in his voice. There was no one else in the gym. He didn’t have any other clients today. He’d chased out the only other guys working out when he yelled at Darren in the first place. No one would hear Darren breaking Taggart’s bones, pounding his face and skull into jelly, shattering his ribcage. No one would hear him scream. The walls were soundproofed. Where the hell was Trent?! He was supposed to do a towel run every hour or so and he’d been conspicuously absent since they’d started working out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please don’t hurt me.” Hurt me?! He wants to kill me!
Darren boomed out a laugh and threw Tag down on the floor like a baseball. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him, but nothing was broken. The moment he got his bearings he started scrabbling backward along the floor mindlessly, backing around machines and weights, his skin scraping along the carpet, his shorts and shirt catching and tearing at exposed edges. He saw in his mind’s eye the beast in front of him taking a weight plate and flattening his head with it, or choking the life out of him with his bare hands. No need to get blood everywhere. I’m going to die!
Just like that night. Or so he’d been told; the memories were gone. The night he’d been out with two other friends at their favorite club, Bar Nothing. And after too many drinks, the three of them had been lured out of the bar into the parking lot by three straight frat boys out to, as the report later said, “kick some faggot ass.” One of his friends ended up with a fractured skull, the other one with a broken arm and some nasty wounds from a pipe found nearby.
Taggart was in a coma for nine days.
When he woke up, he did not remember that night at all. His last memory was going to bed the previous evening. He had lost over 24 hours of his life due to a senseless act of violence. It only took a month after that – and a release from his doctor – before he joined a hardcore bodybuilding gym. And his plan worked; once he started piling on mass, he was never accosted again. Unfortunately, along the way he also sacrificed a nice personality, most if not all of his friends, and everything that had ever meant anything to him. He’d turned into a nasty, whiny muscle jerk that everyone hated. Funny how these realizations always flashed in front of you in the moments before death. He felt a thud on his head and realized that he had backed right into one of the mirrored walls. Escape was scant inches away around the corner, but he was stuck surely as a snake with a mongoose. He was going to die. He only had one regret, he found. He had lost touch with the two friends who’d also gotten bashed. He should have stayed friends with them instead of running away because they reminded him of something he could not remember. Shaking and sobbing in despair, he closed his eyes and waited for the man’s fists to start pummeling down on him.
And waited.
After a few more moments of sheer terror, Tag ventured his eyes open a little to see what was taking so long. Not that he was complaining; he could wait.
The monster Darren was standing over him, his fists clenched at his side, and his expression was serious but not threatening. His eyes burned, however. “Now you know what it’s like, Taggart,” he said. His voice was deep but subdued. “Now you know what it’s like to feel threatened and worthless just because someone doesn’t like you. Now you know what I went through all these years. Being afraid of everyone and everything. Guys like you always hated me because they said I was homely and short and skinny. Well, that ain’t true any more.”
Taggart felt his fear diminish slightly but it did not disappear. “Are you going to kill me?” he managed to gulp out. He wondered if he asked that on that night. He’d never know. The funny thing was, he’d been bashed specifically for the very reasons Darren had just listed. He’d just never learned a lesson from it until now.
Darren stared at him a moment longer and gave a snort. “Of course not, you dumb musclehead. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not even going to hurt you.” He sat down on the floor not far from where Tag was cowering, but he did not make any overt moves towards him. “I don’t want to hurt you at all. I like you, even if you are a shithead. I just wanted to teach you a lesson, not annihilate you.”
But Tag knew better. Darren had already destroyed him. He’d cracked the heavy façade Tag had built over the last five years, and it had fallen away to reveal... nothing. There was nothing behind it. Everything that had been Taggart had been eaten away, and in his fear and self-loathing he had let it happen. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t make any words come out. He was still shaking. Finally, though, he got out “They.” Darren gave him a curious look. “They hurt me. They hurt me.” It was the only thing Tag could say, the only words that would form in his mouth. The tears started flowing down his face. “They hurt me, they hurt me, they hurt me...” It was the first time he’d spoken about it since it happened.
As Tag haltingly continued, spilling what he knew of that night, Darren’s mouth dropped open in horror and disgust and his hackles rose. After a while, Darren came up next to Tag and cuddled him close in a gentle embrace. Too lost in the despair of the past, forgetting he should be afraid of this man, Tag burrowed greedily into it; it was the first time he’d let anyone hold him in, well, five years. As time went on, Darren maneuvered Tag so that he was cradled on Darren’s lap. The size difference between them now made it look like a man and a child.
Tag kept talking and sobbing, letting out his fears, and Darren just sat holding him and rocking him, whispering over and over “Ssh... it’s okay... no one can hurt you now... Papa won’t let anyone hurt you ever again. Papa will take care of everything from now on. No one will ever hurt you again.”
Tag hoped it was true. He cuddled in closer, feeling safer than he had in years.