O’Melissokomos
The Bee Keeper

A Change Could Do You Good, Part X: Wind Shear

by Flashpoint

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"Return."

Gary blinked at the clock across the room, surprised. It had just jumped ahead by six minutes with no movement in between. He'd been looking right at it when he'd picked up the phone and now...?

"Mr. Weiman, I trust that my position on this matter is clear." The voice on the other end of the receiver brought him right back to reality. Sort of... he still didn't know, well, anything... but there was something he had to do... wait, who was this? "The logo is the foundation of our image, Mr. Weiman. If that is compromised or is allowed to degrade, then the company suffers." The voice on the other end of the line was silky smooth, perfect in tone, and had absolutely no pity whatsoever. Whatever Gary had... the logo. Yes, it was the logo. In fact, the voice was exactly what you expected a subsidiary liaison for a corporation to sound like. "I want the logo repainted by the end of the day. If it is not, then perhaps I can find someone more qualified for the role of manager at your facility." Oh, no, no pity at all. Dammit, why did *he* have to do it? The company had money; they could afford a fucking painter!

But as angry as Gary was - and that was extremely angry; a stack of Sustanon, Winstrol, and Anavar tended to make one a tad brittle - he couldn't make himself open his mouth to yell back, like he had always done before. He'd talked to King before (yes that's who it was; why couldn't he remember that earlier?) and had no problem venting his spleen before now. Why was he getting so shy at this point? It was so hard to think. "Yes, Mr. King," Gary heard himself saying almost placidly (although he did manage to at least grit his teeth a bit). "I'll get right on it. I'll handle it personally." What! He could almost hear the syrupy emphasis on the last word. His hand tightened on the receiver convulsively, but he couldn't quite make his hand break it. Like the last couple the gym had had. Shit! Kevin shouldn't have brought such cheap shit to the gym for them to use anyway.

Gary and Kevin did not have a wonderful work dynamic. Of course, it had very little to do with Gary's brittle temper. Oh, no, Kevin was always to blame. He hated Kevin's annoying voice, and the same cheap Polos and shorts he always wore for massage, or the way his thighs looked after he worked out, or that slight wrinkle he got in his forehead when he was preoccupied, or how chiseled his jaw was in profile, or...

Gary only became aware that he had hung up the phone when he saw that he had slammed it down so hard that the casing had cracked. Burn it all to hell! It was all Kevin's fault! Gary had never had thoughts like that before that damn fag started working at the gym, way back before it had gotten bought by... he frowned. The name slipped right out of his head. The boss. Whoever the boss was. Funny how he'd been working for the guy for almost four years and still couldn't remember his name. How could that happen?

Katie, who had been sitting well away from Gary at the front counter, sighed for what had to be the hundredth time just this past hour and bookmarked her physics text. She should have known better to study for her exam when she knew Gary was going to be there. If she didn't pass this engineering final...! "What is it, Gary?" she asked politely. Maybe too politely, but she knew from bitter experience that Gary became very offended by any slight variation in tone of voice, real or imagined. "Is there a problem?" Carefully.

Gary rounded on her, his eyes blazing, but he wasn't exactly sure what it was he was mad at. Of course, that never made much difference with him. He'd gotten used to being angry for no reason and with no warning or provocation. Eleven years of steroid use, off and on, did that.

The fact that Gary was in denial about a great many things was neither here nor there.

"You're damn right there's a problem...!" He trailed off just in time. Gary was perhaps only two or three inches taller than Katie, being 5'6", and easily outweighed her in sheer muscle mass by more than a hundred pounds. He'd learned the hard way, though, that this was no advantage when the object of your anger knew aikido. Gary hadn't cleaned up his language much since Katie, with one kick, temporarily gave him a set of testicles swollen to the size of baseballs, but at least now he didn't call her cunt. That was something. "Bloody Savior's backside wants me to paint the front door logo! Me!"

Katie managed to keep the hilarity out of her face by sheer force of will. Just the sight of this prime example of what was quietly called around the gym "short-guy syndrome" was enough to make Katie seriously risk a retort. She didn't, though. "Well, Gary, if anyone can do it, you can." Well, maybe just a bit of overacting. What a crock. It amazed her that he was able to write his own name, but there was a potential for serious entertainment with this. "I'm sure that that's all that means, really." She glanced back at her book longingly. She was so close to being prepared for her final.

Predictably, Gary puffed up like a blowfish. "Now look...!" he began, but didn't get any farther. The phone rang again just at that moment. Strangely, it didn't have a normal ring pattern; it rang two short rings and then a long one. Before either of them could move to answer it - they were equidistant to it, but Gary was such a control freak he didn't like anyone else to answer the phone at all if he was within, say, a quarter-mile - it abruptly stopped and did not ring again. Katie, who had worked a summer in high school for the cell company her father managed, frowned at the phone's aberrant behavior. Unless there was a service issue in the area, and the fact that Gary had just hung up a call said that there was not, the ring pattern would have been consistent. Or at least that's what she remembered.

Turning back to Gary, she had another surprise, and this one equally strange if not as neutral. Gary's angry expression had faded into a look of... well, there was no way to put it except that he was blank. He had no expression, no emotion, and his eyes were looking at her - well, through her, really - but they were unfocused. "Gary?" she asked tentatively. "Are you, uh...?" She'd seen just about every variation on anger, upset, and mood swing the man could muster - he was definitely a roller coaster ride, and nearly as big as one - but this was new. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

She blinked a couple of times, waiting for more, and then said, "Gary, why are you so...?"

But she never got a chance to finish. Gary suddenly snapped back to reality so fast that he actually recoiled. "Now look...!" he said irritably, as though no time had passed, but in the act of forming the next word, he stopped and his mouth slowly closed in puzzlement. "What... what were we talking about?" He wiped his forehead and seemed surprised that there was no sweat on his hand. "I was, uh..."

Katie felt very much like she'd been poleaxed. "Gary, what did you just...?"

"I can't stay," Gary suddenly said, wheeling away from her. "I have to, uh, get to painting. King will be here later, and it's my butt if I don't get it done." Where exactly was he going? He had no idea. He'd never had to paint anything there before. "And I have a message for Kevin too." He did? He couldn't remember what it was or where it had come from. So hard to think.

In moments, Gary had disappeared, leaving Katie literally scratching her head in puzzlement as she went back to her books and notes. Gary was hardly very predictable - predictably so - but this was almost a sea change in his behavior. Not as bad as Kevin had gotten in the past few days, but just as abrupt. First Kevin comes to work one day, what, almost a week ago now, looking as though he hadn't slept in a week even though he'd been fine the day before, and it got progressively worse as the days passed. Now, six days later, he'd been looking and acting like someone who'd been strung out for far too long. In the process of lifting her bookmark from the page, she froze. That couldn't be it, she thought in mild horror. It *couldn't* be that. Kevin had never had any problem with drugs before. He couldn't become an addict overnight. Or could he? She knew very little about drugs besides what they taught in the public safety class she took when she got hired at the gym. Was that Gary's problem too? Had they started to...?

She shook her head. That didn't make sense at all. They despised each other, at least overtly; they would hardly get involved in drug dealing together if they didn't trust each other. Besides which, ultimately she couldn't believe that of Kevin. No. There was something else going on. She just simply didn't know what it was. She had a very logical and precise mind, and this troubled her just on general principle. She didn't like things she didn't understand.

But ultimately the only thing that mattered, that was important right now, was that she'd be able to get to her final prep after all. She was so glad for the scholarship she'd won through the boss' company. Because of it, she was going to graduate at the end of this semester as not only the highest grade in the class but also the highest GPA in the engineering school and valedictorian. But as she cracked the book again, she gave a glance in the direction Gary had disappeared.

But she was only half right about where Gary was at the moment. Physically, Gary was lumbering through the offices, his lat-spread arms nearly taking the pictures off of the wall due to his sheer size, his gait wide and hobbling due to the enormous spread of his thighs. Mentally, however...

Katie didn't know it and wouldn't have cared even if she had, but Gary hadn't slept well this past week. He'd been more irritable than usual, which, while hard to accomplish, he'd managed to express admirably. He wasn't the most pleasant person to be around even when he was cheerful. Actually it was worse when he was cheerful; his general anger and upset with life would usually get expressed in vicious or hurtful humor and practical jokes. And then he would never understand why no one thought it was funny, like the time he dropped the rat in the middle of the gym floor. Shit, it was tame and right from the pet store! You never saw people run so fast in your entire life and King at corporate had gotten on him *again*... he was another one that Gary didn't get on well with.

He hadn't slept well because Kevin really hadn't been sleeping well for the past six days. At least, he'd been acting that way ever since that night he went out to the fag bar. Gary didn't like fag bars or the fags that hung out in them. They weren't real men like he was, after all. No limp-wrist could match his physical strength and manliness. That was the reason why Kevin's weird behavior was setting him off so badly. Not only was it because of going out to 'those' clubs, but he'd gotten weirded out by it too and was now making Gary's job very difficult. He was the manager after all.

The fact that he sometimes made money doing certain sexual practices with other men was neither here nor there. It was cool; a lot of bodybuilders did that for extra cash on the side. That way he could pay for his, uh, supplements and the IRS didn't have to find out. That was the only reason. He had a girlfriend... oh, wait, what week was this? He'd broken up with Cynthia Durgess last month and it was Candice (with an 'i') now, the fitness model from Anchorage. At least she understood that he was too tired most days to do much in bed. They had an 'understanding.' Besides which, she had her female friends to hang out with too. She seemed to hang out with them at The Velvet Hammer and Georgia's a lot. Huh... there was something about those bars that he couldn't remember... it had to do with the owners, didn't it? Or maybe the clientele...

They call them logic bombs, in the computer industry, when certain types of data are accessed and they activate dormant commands, sometimes beneficial and sometimes pernicious. In the act of opening the utility closet door, Gary closed his eyes momentarily and when he opened them again, he had forgotten his last thought about Candice and the bars she went to. It was just as well; he wasn't ready to face the truth about himself either.

To say that Gary had a lot of character faults is an understatement, but his biggest character fault dealt with the one thing over which he had no control. Kevin.

As much as Gary wanted it to be, the tension between them wasn't Kevin's fault. Gary had written the script between them, added the props, directed the plot and added incidental music in the form of a deadly waltz. Stephen King could not have executed such a dark production. However, despite being both director and producer, Gary could not see what was coming, and it was, rapidly.

Gary's vocabulary was not wide enough to include the word "dénouement."

Gary's lack of sleep had nothing at all to do with Gary's concern for Kevin. Of course it didn't.

But that was something so deeply buried that Gary wasn't even aware that it was there, both by choice and by design. As far as he was concerned, the reason why Gary kept making Kevin's life at the gym miserable was because Kevin was such a weak queer that he deserved it. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with Gary wanting to be around Kevin because he liked Kevin's looks and his body (even if he could use some bulking up). And the key that Gary had had made to Kevin's office on the sly? Well, he *was* the manager. He was supposed to have access to all parts of the building; even the ones that the owner said were off-limits. And trying on Kevin's spare jocks that he left there after working out could be explained too.

He just hadn't thought of a good explanation as yet. Good thing that no one knew about that part except him. It was cool anyway; he felt guilty about it afterward and blocked it from his mind... until the next time.

Gary suddenly shuddered, blinking rapidly. What in the hell? He was standing in the small service corridor behind the weight pit, and he had a can of paint in one hand and brush in the other. What had happened to Katie? Hadn't she been right in front of him? "Katie?" he said tentatively, which was very unlike him. There was nothing tentative about Gary Weiman, but he was feeling an emotion that he wasn't used to, that he hadn't felt since after his body had been ravaged by his parents' ill-advised decision and before he had taken up bodybuilding to try to compensate.

He was afraid.

Suddenly a voice sounded above his head from the nearest PA speaker. "Gary?" It wasn't Katie. He wasn't sure whose voice it was, but it sounded vaguely familiar.

Without thinking, Gary replied, "What?" even though he knew the speaker couldn't relay his voice back to the person talking.

"Frogs in winter."

Gary had a long, intimate association with the feeling of helplessness, but he had never, in his entire life, felt as helpless as he did when he felt voluntary control leave him. He was an overmuscled, arrogant, and absolutely terrified robot clad in (large) flesh. He couldn't move. He couldn't cry out for help. He couldn't do anything at all. Help me. Help me, Kevin, he thought piteously, and then blinked in surprise. Why would he think of Kevin at a time like this?

There was the sound of a sigh. "Oh, Gareth... why are you so difficult to deal with? You have got to be close to the most resistant subject I've run into." Gary, despite being in the depths of a body-locked panic attack, had a slightly malevolent reaction to hearing that. He hadn't heard his given name in many years, even from his parents and siblings. Gareth was a weak little boy who couldn't suck it up and take it like a real man. Gary could take anything. He was the real man that that innocent and considerate little boy had had to die to become. "I can honestly say I have never seen anyone voluntarily come out of a fugue state as often as you seem to like to."

Gary, frozen in place, could only blink. Not consciously. Why wasn't anyone coming in here? Of course, even if they did, they wouldn't do anything to help him, he realized with a sinking feeling. At this moment, he realized that even if Kevin came in at this moment, he wouldn't lift a finger to help Gary even if he was about to slit his own throat. He might even help. Gary hadn't exactly been a saint to anyone in the gym.

Self-realization is always a difficult thing to endure.

"Listen to my voice, Gary. Only my voice. It is the only sound you can hear. The only..." The voice continued on and on, and before Gary knew it, he had once again dropped into a suggestible state, whereupon he lost all of his recent fears. Along with the memory of his recent fears.

Gary had actually been a nice kid once. Of course, no one who now knew Gary, excepting his parents, had ever thought that about him. They hadn't known him then. Too long ago, don't you know.

Gary spent most of his life since then making up for a deficiency that he had never really had.

His parents made a small miscalculation when he reached nine years old. Unfortunately, it was the days of medical and aesthetic hysteria over any small, perceived discrepancy in what was considered the ideal genetic structure or appearance. Not at all like now, of course.

Gary had reached nine years old and had not grown since he had reached five. This was cause for concern in any family, to be sure, but in Gary's family it was especially of concern since every other member of his family, was well over six feet when they reached maturity, including his mother. None of them had had this particular problem at that age.

This, of course, was something that Gary's older brother and sister constantly lorded over him, even years later when it had been more or less resolved and they determined that the damage had been done and could not be undone. Both of them physically and psychologically tormented Gary constantly, much to their parents' displeasure. It was one of the factors that led to his charming personality later in life.

Despite being perceived as (and, to a great extent, actually being) a brainless musclehead, Gary was as multilayered as an onion. For every reason for action, for every impetus of his aberrant behavior, there was another below it driving it. Gary would never know about it, but an "employee" of the Boss' admired Gary's mind because of its logic structure if nothing else. It was, in many ways, a perfect example of a self-reinforcing and self-feeding recursive loop that required no outside stimulus. Unusual for most people.

But even the largest onions have a core. Gary's was his parents' uninformed decision.

It was the time of reactive government, paranoid culture, and of fresh wounds in the world and the misuse of authority to wend the world's healing process toward one's own rapacious desire for gain. In short, things in the world were a bitch. At least that's what Gary often said when forced to talk about that time. He didn't like talking about that time of history, even though his childhood happened then. Not, of course, that many people dug into Gary's musclebound psyche more than to know what he charged for personal training or his side business, *very* personal training where he was usually doing nude oiled displays of muscularity in someone's living room. That could be explained, though.

It was also a time of irresponsible and profit-driven medicine. Readily available, cheaply produced, systemically overactive in the body,

Gary was nine years old when he noticed something he'd never seen before: his friends and his siblings were growing rapidly while he grew... not a bit. He was trapped at just under three and a half feet for almost a year and a half past when he should have grown out of it. That may sound elitist and smack too much of unrealistic expectations, but there was too much evidence pointing to it as being a real problem. At age six, he was one-quarter under four feet, and on his ninth birthday he was exactly the same height, and in a family where the average height was above six feet (including his mother), it can be understood why it might be a topic for concern.

Concern, yes, but overreactive genetic paranoia and mortal terror were not needed. Unfortunately, they had an abundance of it.

The first thing they did was go to the handiest endocrinologist. A sensible plan for most, except that Gary's parents were as far upper middle class as they could get without being considered wealthy. It meant that they had enough money to throw around that they didn't have to do any critical thinking about what they were buying, they had to acquire or enlist it. Critical thinking might have been a good idea in this one case.

The buzzword changed from "medical malpractice" to "medical irresponsibility" in the years afterward due to the thought process that caused such mayhem to so many young peoples' bodies. Gary was a victim, but not the only one. He was one of thousands of children who had been maimed or had their lives changed or even shortened by years. Gary never saw it this way, but he got off lucky. He only lost potential for growth. He didn't lose his life like some others did, either figuratively or literally.

When he was 16, as he was completely assuming his hard-ass alter ego the no-bullshit Gary after discovering that bodybuilding could assuage his feeling of inadequacy, having long since let his old cheerful persona of Gareth die a death of neglect, there was a cover story on TIME magazine that he was part of. It was a shot of 25 of what came to be known as the Hormone Generation. It wasn't pretty. There were, among others, children with acromegaly, some who had grown uncontrollably beyond what their own skeleton was capable of supporting easily, and other malformations in what were otherwise genetically perfectly normal children. They'd just been pushed beyond the limits of what their body could regulate and the usual controlling factors of the body either shut down entirely or went unpredictably haywire. It didn't happen to every child who was subjected to the injections, but to enough to call the entire process into question and to permanently strip the license of dozens of doctors, nurses, and specialists. It also had the happy occurrence of The Pharma Act, which forced pharmaceutical companies to all mutually fund independently operated research firms to ensure (or at least encourage; human nature is what it is) medical and pharmaceutical companies cease any medical research that was based solely on what was perceived as the most profitable route. This was years later, however, much too late to help Gareth.

Gareth had his fifteen minutes but not for something that he had wanted or liked. He was a freak in a world that tolerates not at all anything unusual, a world that had created a freak in an irrational attempt to avert that very thing. The ultimate in self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gareth started the injections of OmegaTrope after some rather unnecessary, especially uncomfortable, and needlessly expensive endocrine screenings. The endocrinologist had excellent credentials in this field, but Gary's parents didn't realize at the time that they were all from other parents who had been given just about anything they wanted in re: the development of their children. For the right price, of course. If they couldn't have afforded it, he, ah, wouldn't have been quite so generous. But sometimes insurance helped with that, when a kid actually needed the shots. It wasn't as profitable, but it paid enough that he was satisfied. Especially with those "slightly more expensive" procedures and pharmacopoeia. He got a bigger percentage when the price was higher.

An extra few inches in height beyond normal? Sure. Stronger bones and more robust physiques in both sexes? Yowza. A little "extra" for that high school quarterback whose father would be very disappointed if his son lost another game, the one who bulked up from 160 to 240 in under six months, just in time for his first football game as a sophomore in high school? More often than can even be recorded. Or maybe it was just someone who'd gotten beaten up at school and ran crying to mother about how cruel the world was and how he wished he could be big and strong to defend himself, whose mother had listened a bit too hard. They weren't making their children stronger; they were covering them in armor and telling them that having a hard lithic exterior was the same as being strong. It wasn't.

Gareth jumped in height very quickly once the amount of O in his system reached critical mass. If he didn't gain height once the injections started, the prognosis was that he never would. It was a rather unfair way of experimenting with a subject under the pretence, or at least the concurrence, of treatment. Well, it worked; not only did Gareth grow but in the space of six months he grew past the point he should have been at that point. Suddenly Gareth, who had lost most of his sunny disposition due to fear of always being a freak and the constant unfriendly badgering his brother and sister gave him, was on top of the world. At age 11, he was tallest in his class, almost two years ahead of schedule at 5'8", he outgrew his obnoxious older brother, and even started to even gain spontaneous muscle growth and bulk, not too mention much denser bones and a rather rounded face, on his previously painfully skinny body. He even felt confident enough to try out for football and the wrestling team in his junior high, which was a sea change for him. He was suddenly übermensch of not just PE but his whole school. For a sweet, brief time, he was the One.

Then, it stopped.

His family had always been tall, and it had looked like Gary was finally going to join his lineage in a celebration of superior genetics. Needless to say, when they found that a hidden unwanted effect of Omega was the premature closure of his epiphyseal plates. Apparently, even though this unwanted effect had been officially reported as occurring in less than .011% of all those studied, someone had lied heavily to the U.S. government. For some reason, a mutation percentage of 30% of all subjects - and climbing sharply now that the O was commercially available - just hadn't been quite enough to guarantee enough safety to satisfy the FDA approval process. Sorry, Gareth.

To make matters worse, his Tante Patrice came to live with them around the end of Gareth's growth, providing the vital information they could have used six years earlier: delayed growth was normal on his father's side of the family. It apparently had been recessive until Gareth came along. Sorry, Gareth. You lose.

This was the beginning of the end of Gareth and the spawning of Gary. The fact that he stopped growing was bad enough. The very fact that he had kept growing was one of the things that had fed his fragile ego. He hadn't become aware of it yet (and wouldn't for another ten years, when he began competing as a heavyweight), but he had come to enjoy being what he had first despised. A freak. When he was growing, however, it was freakdom that he could control and was in his best interest. Now it wasn't there any more.

Once it was said and done and the bitterness and hurt guaranteed that Gary was here to stay, he discovered something that he had never before had the nature to even consider: he could now emotionally blackmail his parents into giving him anything at all and not feel a bit of remorse about it. It took very little time for Gary to realize what would satisfy his need to compensate, to channel his negative energy, to put him on top again, and to satisfy his (he thought) perverse need to be a freak. He was definitely the youngest one at the hardcore gym he joined to be stacking, but he had monoliths of muscle ten or more years older surrounding him who took him under their bat-wings as a protégé. By the time he reached 18, he'd grown to almost 205 pounds of solid mass, so big that he had trouble just getting around. His thighs were each as big around as his waist, causing him to walk with an awkward, bow-legged rolling walk. He could hardly bring his arms below a 90 degree angle to his sides, and he couldn't put a hand behind his back because of the interference of his lats and tris.

That, of course, was before he actually started putting on _real_ mass. That wasn't quite his own choice, however. It was something that Gary didn't remember deciding to do because he didn't remember that day at all. He'd worked at The Weight Pit for almost three years for very little money, but it gave him the chance to work out for free and start his side business. Certain things require certain payments.

And it would have been just great, Gary's extraneous thought, disconnected to anything else, said to him, if Asshole hadn't shown up. He felt mildly guilty calling Kevin that but shrugged it off. Kevin wasn't a real man. It didn't matter. Kevin showed up a year after Gary had started and set out immediately to become a *very* big pain in the ass. Going to the old owner, Bull, and making suggestions on ways to improve the gym without even discussing it was Gary! I mean, Savior, Gary hadn't been the manager then, just another PT, but Kevin had no right to mess things up. Things had been fine. And I could have suggested some of those things too, he thought jealously. Of course, Gary wasn't as clever as Kevin, but that was nothing here or there.

But then the new owners suddenly appeared, and all of Gary's desires were granted. He had a better paying job, the work environment was improved 300%, suddenly had access (under the table) to some of the best muscle growth enhancers on the market, and best of all, Asshole was now under his direct control. Now Gary could keep Kevin around all the time.

As soon as that thought formed, it promptly receded from his mind again, although the fact that he had no conscious awareness of where he was or what was happening to his body meant that all of this was going to recede from his awareness soon. He wasn't ready to face his real feelings, and in any event wasn't being allowed to.

"So... your, ah, personal training," said a deep voice. There was nothing but almost arrogant self-assurance. "I hear that I can get a pretty good deal from you. My husband Kyle told me." Gary's eyes popped open in shock. He'd been alone a moment ago, hadn't he? He'd been in the... the sharp image in his head suddenly became blurred and separated into two parts that pulled to either side of his awareness, and beyond. He was Gary, badass of the gym, again. His earlier fears had vanished from awareness.

Turning his pyknic neck to the man he knew (how?) was standing next to him, and gave an unpleasant jump as he looked up and up and around the man. He wasn't quite as tall as Ted, who was almost a foot taller than Gary, but from where Gary was standing he could hardly tell the difference. Always a minus for Gary. Ted was huge but this man was enormous. But then, the basis of Ted's body was solid slabs of muscle. This man, whoever he was, had definite muscle mass buried there, but overlaying it was a layer of fat, culminating in a wide, ballooning middle that jutted his t-shirt (with seven-inch high red letters on each side that read FEED ME) forward almost cartoonishly it was so big and round. It was almost obscene. It reminded Gary of the morphs of pro bodybuilders that muscle worshippers sometimes posted on the net, except it was real-life and of a belly. Gary doubted very seriously that anyone would actually morph a picture to make them look fatter.

Once he got over the initial shock, he felt a small turn in his stomach. Ah, shit, he thought, disgust coming up again. It was one of the tubs in the gym wanting to get him stripped and flexing for him. Gary hated guys that were out of shape wanting to feel him up and jerk off over them. He wanted the other muscle guys to come in, man! Where were the track team, swimmers, and gymnasts? Not that he was attracted to them, of course. He just liked guys to be in shape. Oh, yeah, and women too.

"Gosh, I don't know, Sir," Gary heard himself say in a giggly and almost provocative manner. Sir?! What in the HELL...! "I, you know, don't usually give discounts..." but ended the sentence with a tone that suggested that he could be swayed. No! Absolutely not! He was charging double for this one! Triple! None of that had been what he'd intended to say! It had started with a vicious insult comparing him to large aquatic mammals and working its way down to the man needing a forklift to get on the crapper, but even though the words formed in his mind, they couldn't make the proper noises in his mouth. "When did I see your husband? I mean, I think if he looked like you I'd remember him." Oh. Blessed. Savior. Gary was going into shock at the almost syrupy warmth coming out of his mouth. He even batted his eyes! It wasn't like he was attracted to the guy! He hated fat guys. "I, well," Gary kind of dropped his eyes with a foolish grin on his face, and felt his cheeks start to burn, which while it was an involuntary response to the mental chaos he was enduring it served to reinforce the image that he was hoping to avoid: a muscle freak turning on to obesity. "I, uh, kind of like, you know, uh, guys who are a little bigger than, um, average." His entire head was turning bright red and he couldn't force the stupid wide grin off of his face! What the fuck was going on here?! Why couldn't he control himself?

Worse, why was he starting to get hard? This was getting extremely disturbing extremely quickly.

"I'll bet you do, meatwad," the man replied with a rough but low voice. No one outside of a foot away could have heard. Gary felt his dick twitch again at the unexpected (wasn't it? It felt so right) verbal abuse. The man coughed slightly, which sent his excess front sphere shaking. Gary stared at it ostentatiously, as though trying to get noticed doing it. He certainly didn't want to. Sure enough, the man's eyes lit up slightly. "He came in last month, jerkoff. Not your type if you like the beefy guys like me. You came out and offered a free workout lesson, which I come to find out you don't ordinarily do. Now, why would you give a little boy like Kyle a free lesson?" The leer answered plainly enough. "He said that you seemed to get a lot more interested when he mentioned his heavyweight husband." There was something happening at the front of his shorts too, but Gary was too mesmerized to look down. There was something about his eyes...

Gary wanted very much to close his eyes, but couldn't make that happen either. He was staring apparently unashamedly, trying to drink in as much of the man's corpulence as he could manage. That hadn't happened! He hadn't done anything of the sort with anyone! "Don't remember, musclebutt? Don't worry. The memories will *return* to you." He gave such an odd emphasis of that one word, as though it had some significance, and his look was so intent...

...and he mentally reeled as memories started flooding his head. The kid was dull as hell and rotten in the gym until Gary found out his husband weighed a short ton and then he couldn't do enough... Oh, no, Gary thought in horror and absurd fascination with what he now experienced in retrograde. How strange to experience something only in a memory...

Gary focused on the present, trying very hard to not feel... what he *thought*... he was feeling. "You like it, don't you, brainless?" the fat man in front of him asked rhetorically. The glance he gave downward to the front of Gary's workout pants (Mr. Olympia's preferred brand) gave the answer. "You like those hard muscles under a real man, don't you? Say it, doofus. Say you groove on it." Not the expression he expected to hear from a guy this size.

Gary gave a gulp as though he were nervous, glancing around. It was so convincing that no one watching would have known he was executing a previously implanted set of commands. Inside, he was trying to scream and rail against barriers in his mind that were as ephemeral as vapor and as hard as titanium to break. "Y-yes, Sir," he said nervously. "I like a real man to take charge of me. I'm worthless and weak and I can only be satisfied by a real man taking what he wants from me, Sir." What put Gary off the most wasn't that he was saying such incredibly self-derogatory things. What disturbed him was the amount of truth in the statement. It was startlingly large.

The man's round face, atop a thick sturdy neck, smiled a wolf's smile. "Good boy." The gym was full of people, but this immense man felt no shame in starting to lift his shirt, exposing more of his rotund expanse.

Gary felt a wave of nausea, but he let out a sound like a little moan of pleasure. "Sir, please...," he said, looking around. "Please don't lift your shirt. I want to get on that belly of yours and, uh..." he trailed off. Still not by his choice. "I, look, I, uh, don't want to lose my job, okay?" he said anxiously. "Nobody knows I, you know, get extra money this way. Please?" He couldn't keep his eyes off of the newly exposed flesh, however. It was as hypnotic to him as a highway accident, or at least he acted that way. The casual observer would have said that Gary wasn't faking it. Even someone who knew him would say it, the way he sounded (and looked) right now.

The man raised one of his thick eyebrows, the only hair on his head, but didn't stop smiling. Gary felt trapped under that gaze, and it wasn't an implanted feeling. "But you don't want me to stop, do you, fuckwad? You want Daddy's big belly rubbing all over you, don't you? You want to feel how more manly all this blubber is than the beef hanging all over you." He gave a sneer at Gary's awkward musclebound stance. Gary felt a stab at the man's contempt. He'd been made to feel inadequate in his life, and scared, and trapped, and desperate, and desperate to prove himself, but Gary had never before had anyone who had made him feel so... inferior. And, being the first time for that and all, he was surprised to find out how much he actually liked it.

"I'm sorry, Sir," Gary replied very softly, doing a very unusual thing; he crossed his hands in front of himself and lowered his head slightly in a very submissive pose. This time, less of his still-conscious mind found all of this offensive and disturbing. Not good at all. "I'm sorry that I have such big, ugly muscles." He furtively glanced upward to the man's face. "I wish I was a big, fat tub of lard with a belly even bigger than yours, Sir." Gary felt like he was having an apoplexy, he was fighting so hard in his own head. It didn't show externally. He did not wish that! He'd worked damn hard getting this body and was the man of the house at this gym. Not even the visiting bodybuilding pros took over Gary's spot. But here he was spilling out a very graphic desire for something he found repulsive! Not to mention unhealthy. These guys had so much bulk on them they always had heart problems and blood sugar problems and leg problems due to the weight on them. He certainly didn't want that. The fact that his muscle bulk was such that he had most of the symptoms of unhealthy obese men (no cardiovascular endurance, tiring quickly just from moving his body, joint issues from heavy deadlifts, and mostly slept when he wasn't eating or working out) was of course also not on his list of priorities.

"You didn't answer my question, fuckboy," the man continued in such a low growl it was like a purring tiger as he roughly grabbed Gary's right nipple, "how much fat man discount do I get?" He loving patted his front (well, side) with the other hand, as though emphasizing it. There was plenty to see.

Gary couldn't help it, even though he felt no sexual attraction at all. His cock went from semi-hard to diamond in under ten seconds. Oddly, he didn't feel the sexual rush he usually got from that kind of erection. It just seemed... well, almost robotic in nature. It was erect because it was supposed to get erect at that time. He wasn't sure he was pleased or disappointed to find out that it wasn't under control of his lust. He gave another, louder moan, and seemed to squirm a little. His knees seemed to go a bit weak at the pleasure he felt from his tit and his dick, causing him to stand even more awkwardly. Now he was standing with his ass pushed back and his abs rolled forward but with his thick upper back going straighter. Meanwhile, his legs moved from their usual slightly bowed appearance to extremely bowed, much more than was necessary. He couldn't figure out why he was doing it. It left his ass completely exposed.

Uh oh.

"Oh, yeah, bottom boy. Like a real man up the back door, eh?" He pinched a bit harder and Gary's moan increased accordingly. He lost the sudden unpleasant realization he had had just from lust taking him over. His legs involuntarily spread a bit wider. A few curious onlookers were being distracted by the display, not sure what was going on. The straight ones, at least. The gay ones, of whatever body type, were all watching with the snicker that comes with watching someone arrogant and mighty take a very deep plunge from their high throne. "Well, I think I can make you feel good." He glanced at a couple of onlookers, not really making eye contact, and sighed. "I guess I have to let go of your tit, cum bucket. Too bad. You'll never get to find out how much of a man I really am. And whether or not you're man enough to take me." His voice was full of disappointment. Not disappointment from the missed opportunity, but disappointment in Gary. For some reason, the man's disappointment made him feel like he had somehow failed. That one, incidentally, *was* his own reaction.

He casually adjusted his shorts around his back, but Gary's eyes widened at the suggestion of shape and size that lay behind the cotton in front below the mound of flesh at his waist. It wasn't possible. It was so long it was folded in half to keep it from hanging below the short cuffs and so thick that Gary felt forearm envy. Not even Ted was that big. Gary had seen Ted coming out of the shower room one day and had had to grab the doorframe to keep from falling over in shock. Gary had seen some sizable dicks - but considering his own rather immature development, that was most of them - and Ted was truly of mammoth proportions, but this...!

The cotton dropped back into place. "Too bad, pee wee. Guess you'll never see."

Gary very nearly dropped to his knees right there. Only an extreme effort of will managed to overcome the impulse, one he knew wasn't his. "No, please, Sir! I'll do whatever you want. Just please not out here." The crowd seemed to be losing interest now that they were behaving themselves, but there were a few gay men and a few that Gary knew for a fact were... he caught himself before saying the 'D' word. He had to learn to control his language, he reprimanded himself.

He didn't even notice how unlike himself it was to seriously attempt to control his language even in his own head or to reprimand himself for *any* of his behavior. He'd never done it before but took it completely in stride. "Sir, I... I, uh," he said, and felt a struggle inside himself, feeling like a mental version of pulling a muscle in his head. He suddenly knew exactly what he was going to say, knew it wasn't him saying it, and was the one thing that he never compromised on. Ever. "I'll... I'll give it to you free, Sir." Gary felt burning shame and lowered his eyes. Not shame at admitting it, but shame at violating his own code of hustling, even if it was beyond his control. "Please, Sir, I have to feel you inside me. I need you pumping my ass until it's in a coma and I can't close it." He gave a deliberate desperate look down at the colossal cotton-cloaked cachalot. "Please, Sir. Forgive me. I'll do anything you ask, Sir. Anything."

The man's disapproving look melted into a smile. "Good boy. I wanted to see how hot for it you were. Nice to see a bottom who's hot for anything, even if his body's only so-so." Gary felt embarrassed at that remark, and a touch angry, but the verbal abuse was starting to grow on him. He felt... good... being told how bad he was. His own dad had been too much of a wimp to ever discipline Gary the way he had always secretly wished he could be.

No! None of that shit! He'd loved the day that he'd topped 200 and became so strong that neither his dad nor his brother dared touch him. Or the day that his brother jumped out of the bushes next to the house and onto Gary's back in an attempt to drive him to the ground and start punching on him. Gary's siblings had always had a petty, needlessly cruel streak toward him. Not to anyone else. Just him. The reason why was simple; they couldn't stand any sign of imperfection that close to them, so they took it out on the one shoving it in their faces.

Well, Gary's brother got out of the habit when Gary casually grabbed his brother off of the insanely wide lats where he had landed and throwing him against the brick side of the house. Not even hard. The concussion served him right anyway. He got over it and didn't even have memory loss. He did, however, flinch whenever Gary looked at him from that day forward.

"Whenever you're ready, Sir," Gary said with more than a touch of plea in his voice. He was losing track of what he was being commanded to do (against his will) and what he wanted to do (of his own free will). They seemed to be blurring.

"Your office. Now." There was no doubt or uncertainty in the man's voice. It wasn't a question of whether Gary wanted to go or making sure it was okay. It went beyond command. It was a certainty that simply hadn't happened yet.

Gary, put off by the confident tone but trapped by it, felt himself whip around and almost run off the gym floor toward his office in the suites off the main floor. Where the hell was Katie?! Why wasn't she watching the floor? And rescuing him?! Answer: because she was at the front kiosk, which was not in sight of the gym floor, and he had left to come back into this area some time ago, his choice or not. Therefore, until he relieved her, Katie would stay where she was. He was truly in hell.

Gary didn't need to look around or wait for the man; he was lumbering up in his own time, an even more evil and lascivious look on his face than before, it that was possible. And due to the swing of his body due to the immense extra poundage he carried proudly, the mammoth missile was swinging back and forth in its constricting but wholly inadequate pouch, making the legs of the shorts become as lurid and revealing as a piece of glass. Gary could tell that the man was uncircumcised. He could also tell that the foreskin was long enough to put all of Gary's own equipment in and have space left over. It looked to be several inches long, and this was without the skin being pulled taut. Gary made a wild guess that the man's foreskin would stretch to a length of seven to eight inches in length, on a shaft wide enough to dock a horse.

Strange how he once again forgot that he was supposed to be upset by thoughts like that and sat and enjoyed thinking about how big the dick was and just how hot he got thinking about it. That, and he got a strange itch start low on his ass, more toward the center, right between the cheeks, and surreptitiously scratching it didn't seem to help. In fact, he just seemed to itch more, and wasn't sure what he could get to scratch it. It was fairly deep, too, which was very strange. He couldn't recall an itch there before, but it was both agonizing torment and blissful pleasure to feel it even unsatisfied. A stray thought came up saying that he wasn't supposed to enjoy fag stuff, but he paid such little attention that the voice gave up trying what little it had.

The door clicked shut behind the extremely fat man that was taking up most of the office on girth alone. "Now, you cumbucket," the man said sternly, "get that ass naked and those legs spread before I get to ten. One."

Gary was undressed in such record time that the man didn't have to go past six. He seemed pleased. Gary had thought that he'd be disappointed that Gary had given him no reason to punish him. Something suddenly occurred to Gary that he had never realized before; if it was arranged safely and with consent, this kind of rough treatment wasn't punishment. It was pleasure. It was pleasure and a reward, and giving this kind of treatment for wrongdoing would be rewarding bad behavior.

And that was the most profound thought Gary had ever had in his life. He was actually blown away by a concept more important and meaningful than what protein bar he should eat for his second midday snack for bulking up.

Gary felt his huge shaved body nude in the cool air of the office and stood proudly, something he would never have done before. He didn't understand why he was different now, but he had gone beyond caring very quickly. He was enjoying being displayed for someone else's viewing pleasure. Not as a whore or a piece of meat or as a shameless marketing ploy to keep the gym looking good. He was displaying himself as a proud piece of human art, of the ultimate artistic rendering of the human body. His cock hadn't gotten softer; it impossibly seemed to crank up a touch.

The man stood there for a long moment appraising his conquest. "Oh, yeah, fuckwad, you'll do. Tad too much on the ripped side for my taste, but I can live with that. I might even help you fill out a little." Gary had a confused look on his face. The first voluntary action he had made since waking up on remote control. Fill out? What was that supposed to mean? He was already two feet wide in the chest! How much more of...

The thought died in vitro. He glanced at the immense field of blubber that was now being released from its t-shirt prison and realized that it was a different kind of filling out the man had in mind. I'm not going to...! But he knew that if he was ordered to do it, he'd head to the nearest buffet immediately. And he was mildly bothered by the fact that he knew that it wasn't something he was being controlled to do. The man had with difficulty removed his t-shirt and stood facing Gary, a fleshy blimp that was as erotic in itself as Gary's muscles were. "You're gonna like being under me, slut boy. Feeling Daddy's big belly covering your back, spreading over the bed and smothering you. Feeling the way a man's supposed to feel with the muscles you parade around like they're worth something. You ain't got nothing on me, junior." He glanced downward at the protrusion jutting forward from Gary and gave a derisive look. "That's all you got? Man, it's true what they say about you muscle boys. All potatoes and no meat." He shook his head. "Last time I saw something that size, I was lighting it for somebody. It's like a penis, only smaller. Do you ever actually _use_ that thing?"

Gary felt the proud feeling of display warring with the feelings he got while being degraded. On the one hand, he felt ashamed, and on the other hand, he was excited and pleased. And he was starting to forget his reasons for being upset about that. "I'm sorry, Sir. I know it's tiny. Most guys and chicks just ooh and aah over my body and kind of overlook my pee wee." He looked down, bending a little to see past his pecs to the general location of where his privates were located. He had trouble seeing them himself sometimes, something he didn't like admitting. "I only use it if they really want me to, Sir. They've just got to feel a muscle man's dick. I know I never satisfy them. I just sort of stick it in and swim around for a while. Most guys tell me they can't even feel it..." He felt mounting horror as this intimacy was laid out in front of this man. He didn't even know where all that was coming from, just that it was spilling uncontrollably out of his mouth. He felt even more confused because he wasn't sure whether this was how he really felt about himself. "I can only please them as a bottom, Sir. My ass won't quit and needs it hard. They forget I even have a dick after a while. So do I." Suddenly the itch he couldn't explain became unusually clear.

Gary stood there, heaving slightly as he caught his breath, his mountainous chest heaving like a bellows, mildly panic-stricken by what had just happened. If he'd had manual control his jaw would be hanging open. He had never liked his, uh, well, "problem" down there. They told him after puberty that that was another effect of the O; it apparently circumvented or just completely screwed up his normal growth cycles in a number of his body systems, which explained why his heartbeat was very slightly faster than average and his body temperature was lower than normal... and his stunted secondary sexual characteristics. Why couldn't he have had the opposite problem, like the kid he read about in Illinois? Rumor had it he had to strap it to his leg. But then, rumor would say that.

The man simply said, "Get on it." And reaching below his middle, he pulled his shorts down in a leisurely manner.

The man's belly wasn't the only thing that was immensely outsized. It isn't easy to describe the sight of this man's titanic member as it unfolded out of the shorts. It was like unveiling a ship. That stately and impressive, at least. And near the same size.

The man let the huge meat fall downward and slap loudly against his thigh. "Get the lube, boy," he said. Gary scrambled to obey, watching as the already mammoth organ began to get frighteningly larger. His own tiny buddy waved in the air in front of him, fully aware that it was the junior partner in the room. He also didn't wonder how it was that he had three very large tubs of lube, all of them having been previously used and obviously in this office exclusively. He didn't question why he was doing anything any more, and seemed to not be aware of having a choice in the matter. "Grease it up. I'm getting ready." It was by this point as hard as granite and as wide as Gary's wrist, and his were not narrow. Gary had no experience with gauging dick size, but it hung nestled between his thighs almost to his knee at full mast. As Gary stroked the veiny marble-hard structure, making it shine with a thick, greasy coating, he suddenly realized something. He desperately wanted to be fucked. He wanted to be as open as a woman when he was used like the fuckhole he was, strictly so his man could get off. What was happening to him? Why wasn't it bothering him as much as it should?

Gary was climbing onto the top of the desk, his legs lifted as high and spread as he could manage, which wasn't very far with his bulk. The man stopped him with a meaty hand. "Okay, boy, there's no way you can take Max." Gary tittered at the name, very against his nature. "Watch it, boy," the man said, waving a finger under Gary's nose. "You make fun of this dick and you won't get it. You don't know how tired I am of the jokes about tucking it your sock and having to drag it out of the toilet bowl when you stand up. They don't know what it's like to have those problems. I do." He was utterly serious. With anyone else, it would be hyperbole. "But I've got something that'll help you." From some place Gary couldn't see, he produced a small stainless steel container, looking much like a time capsule. "Here," he said, giving it to Gary, who blinked in confusion. "Drink it. You'll like the end result." He went to playing with and patting his ball belly, and reaching down to stroke what he could reach of himself.

Gary opened his mouth to ask questions and/or protest - he wasn't sure which - and found himself staring into a highly disapproving face. Gary didn't know the expression, but he decided conceptually that discretion really was the better part of valour and shut it again, concentrating on the container as much as he could.

It was fairly simple to open, even for one of Gary's limited reasoning faculties, and when the two grooved silver halves separated, he stared into a clear glass container containing... he wasn't sure what. It was grey. It almost didn't look like it was solid, like a mist that just lay there and didn't have air move through it, but then when he tipped the bottle, it flowed. He blinked at it and then again opened his mouth, but the man simply said, "You have one chance, boy. I don't appreciate uppity fuckholes." He was deadly serious.

Gary took the hint and without further ado opened the bottle, which gave an odd change of pressure when opened; when the cap was removed there was a momentary pull _into_ the bottle, not out, like a vacuum existed inside for just a split second. Gary noticed it but put it aside when he felt the contents sliding down the back of his throat. It had... no taste whatsoever. None. It hardly seemed to have substance, like it looked. But he felt it enter his middle and causing a small gurgle he hardly noticed.

He noticed the next one, however, because it was definitely audible, and the next two after that as loud enough to be heard beyond the door. What was hap... Oh. Uh. The sensations within him were so alien as to be unexplainable. He felt like his insides were twisting around but he didn't feel pain or even real discomfort, just a feeling of strangeness that bordered on being strangely pleasurable. He found himself hardly able to keep himself upright from the shocks of the feelings.

Then he let out a long, low fart, followed after a short interval by a longer, louder one and then again, geometrically more so. Gary was too out of it to much notice it other than he didn't remember having gas this badly before.

Gary started to topple to one side, a bit confused. He no longer felt the disorientation, but he couldn't seem to stand straight. After a moment, he realized it was due to him misjudging his center of gravity. It wasn't where it was supposed to be, and with one shocked look in the mirror on the inside of the door, he realized why. His previously 34 waist was expanding.

It wasn't getting fat; his midsection and his abs seemed to be moving outward intact. He was getting tired of saying that so many things were impossible. They were obviously happening to him. As the expansion outward continued, he had to continually readjust his stance. It took a few minutes of watching himself go from an extreme hourglass figure to a barrel to a overmuscled pear until he finally had to lay back on the desk simply because his legs were both useless. They were too far apart. It couldn't be, but it was as though his pelvis had simply expanded outward. This could not be. It couldn't. "Get your ass on that desk. Tits up. That's it."

The man lifted Gary's legs, which despite their bulk were now much easier to lift out of the way, revealing what Gary himself could not see. His ass lips had grown along with the pelvic bone, making them grow outwards in all directions and gape open. "There we go... nice and open. I don't like guys that are too tight. They scream bloody murder when I shove it in. Give me a nice sloppy hole any day. Like yours." While speaking, he was playing with Gary's new warm cavern, causing Gary to moan again at the feeling of having such a big, sensitive area played with, even if he really couldn't tell whether there were fingers in him or not.

He was sure, however, when he was entered. It felt like he was getting invaded with a regulation-size club. There was no pain, which he didn't understand at first, until he realized that no matter what size the dick was, it was now too small to really fill Gary's wide open cavern. He would have laughed at that if he hadn't been moaning so loudly.

"Mother and Father of Heaven! You are something else, boy! I've opened a few in my time but no one took it so much like a trouper like you do." He let out a cry like a feral grunt and continued thrusting in and out. A loud squelching noise soon filled the air, the sound of a dark, wet cavern being repeatedly stormed in and out. Gary knew it was coming from him and was too far gone on the penetration high to care. He even thought it was kind of hot.

The large man continued a long stream of heavy verbal abuse and dirty talk, keeping Gary elevated to near orgasm for well over an hour with complete iron control. He was staying excited but not completing orgasm until he was good and ready. Gary hadn't known many guys like that before and was always impressed and tad jealous.

But well into the second hour Gary was reaching the end of even his altered tether. He was insanely wide open, his ass lips puffy and hanging wide and a good distance out too. But even naturally talented bottoms reach the end of their tolerance and Gary started to moan about how sore he was.

"Huh," the man said, that disappointed look in his eyes again, not missing a beat as he stroked in and out at full throttle, the strain hardly even in his voice. How could such a fat man have such stamina?! But a lot of it *was* muscle too. "I thought you could take it all the way. But no, you're getting worn out just as we're getting warmed up." Warmed up?! Gary felt like he was never going to feel his backside ever again and not thinking that that was necessarily a bad thing. If it was numb, it was open and easy to get into. "Well, son, Daddy's feeling generous so he'll give you a break. On the count of twelve, I'm gonna start counting off to twelve while I pound you. When I hit twelve, I'm gonna blast the load out. If you don't cum by then you don't." Gary nodded without even thinking he was being ordered around.

Suddenly the already rough hammering went off to the stratosphere, making Gary spread his legs as wide as he could with so little control and his eyes rolling back in his head. "One, two, three, four...," he chanted, getting many more strokes in than its number indicated. Finally, with another roar, he fulfilled his promise, reaching twelve and his climax at the same time.

Gary felt, without question, like a cannon had gone off inside him. He felt a fountain discharge inside him, heard the bubbling gush as it overfilled him and was forced out over the man's balls and the desk. He wasn't sure whether he had cum or not - he'd lost hold some time ago and forgotten about it, and there was so much of it - but reflected that if he hadn't, it wouldn't be as good as this anyway.

"Sheee-yit," the man said, hauling the amazing appendage out of Gary's enormous hole; there was a loud squish as the remaining cum was pulled by vacuum out of his still slack hole. "Good fuck, boy. Good fuck." He was pouring sweat and trying to shake it off in vain. He stood back, allowing Gary's legs to fall downward, but he still had no control over them and a hole that was wider than his own muscular forearm, so he didn't try to resist.

"Boy, you've earned a reward for that," the man said. Gary was floating in and out of consciousness but caught that much. Blearily he looked up, unable to speak coherently. The man laughed and then cooed to him as one would to a baby. "Plumb tuckered out, baby? Well, let me put you to bed." His eyes suddenly becoming very intent and serious, the man said, "Frogs in winter."

Gary suddenly shuddered, blinking rapidly. What in the hell? He was standing in the small service corridor behind the weight pit, and he had a can of paint in one hand and brush in the other... wait, he'd been through this before, hadn't he? But it was like no time had passed, like nothing had happened. But Gary felt a very deep ache inside him, one he couldn't identify, and when he relaxed, he let out a long loud fart he couldn't hold in. He didn't have enough control over it.

It had been so real. So incredibly real. Was it real or not? His memory told him nothing that was verifiable on his own. His sweats were the same, he hadn't moved, he was still holding things as he had been. He remembered every moment and every detail as though it had happened but there was no evidence that it had... except between Gary's legs. But he'd had problems all week with, uh, indigestion. It could mean anything. He let out a longer fart and this time he heard (and felt) the lips flap slightly. It had not happened. It hadn't!

Gary started sweating. What had just happened? He couldn't be hallucinating. He didn't take drugs. Well, no psychoactive ones, anyway. Well, at least not too psychoactive. At least they didn't affect anything besides his mood. Maybe his sense of balance a little. And maybe the...

"Frogs in winter."

Once again, Gary found himself frozen in time and space, unable to move. But this time he wasn't afraid. He wasn't sure why, he just knew that he wasn't. "That was for your remarks about Kevin, Gary," the voice said. Gary was unable to frown in confusion, but he thought it. What remarks? "You don't remember them now, but I do. Not a healthy attitude to have toward someone who's going to be...," there was a pause, "You needed a lesson taught, and I taught it to you. Keep it in mind. You aren't going to be getting away with quite as much in future." Gary couldn't move or respond, not that he wanted to anyway. Shit, he... uh, she... who the fuck cared! Whoever it was up there acted like Gary tried to pull shit on other people with no regard. Fuck that! "No matter. In any event, Gary, you now know what it feels like to be on the receiving end. Actually, I hadn't expected to have to teach that to you, but as long as I was here... well. In any event, now that you've learned that lesson, I have to erase it from your mind."

Gary's eyes widened, which was a surprise to learn he had control over. It definitely sounded ominous. Then there was a laugh. "Oh, relax, pussyboy. You'll remember again when I release you." The voice dropped volume, but Gary could just barely make it out. "Which may be sooner than even I think." It returned to normal. "Now, Gary, close your eyes and listen to my voice. In a moment, you..."

Gary clumped furiously from the back utility room, still pissed off at his unfair assignment. Bloody hell! He was too wrapped up in his own negative thoughts to notice some definitely odd looks he got from the gym members as he passed by. Why the hell did *he* have to do it?

"All right," he said crankily toward Katie, who had apparently decided to not study after all. Her textbooks were packed back into her bag. "I got the fucking thing going. I'm gonna raise..."

He got no farther, however, when Katie came up and almost throttled him. "Where the hell have you been? I've been stuck up here for two hours! Relief, hello!" She wasn't usually this irritable.

Gary had the impulse to scream back, but for some reason he didn't have the energy to do it. Instead, he came to a complete halt, stuck on the most relevant part of her sentence. "Two... hours?" he said in disbelief. Impossible. It was a three-minute walk to the back, fifteen minutes locating materials, and three more getting back. He remembered every moment. "I was only gone for a few minutes," he said numbly. Hadn't he?

Katie looked at him like he had grown a third eye. Of course, she usually looked at his grotesquely overmuscled body the same way, but this was different. "You've been gone for two hours, Gary," Katie said slowly, not sure he was kidding but having the uncanny feeling that he wasn't. Her usual caution was returning rapidly, as well as the observation she'd made before he left her presence. "Are you sure you're all right?" Of course he was going to overreact, but it was still a legitimate question.

"I... it... that's...!" The absolute fury was there, but Gary couldn't make it break the surface. The shock was too great. Two HOURS?! He couldn't have left the gym. Why couldn't he remember? It wasn't like there was a blank spot in his memory. It was like he'd not only forgotten but had forgotten that he'd forgotten. His brain throbbed slightly. That was too deep for him. He lifted his hand to point a finger under her nose and gave a small start when he realized that he was still holding on to the can of paint. "Look, nothing happened, okay?" His voice had none of the emotion he felt, not that he was sure what emotion it was that he felt. It was a bit defensive, even shy to some degree, but it was not his normal mode of delivery. "I'd... better get outside." He had to get away from her. Her questions were seriously bothering him.

"Gary...!" she began, actually protesting him leaving her presence for once, but he didn't stop until he was outside. She growled in frustration and stamped her foot, with full intention of following him and beating him until she found out, but predictably the phone rang at that moment. I'll get to you later, Mr. Muscle, she thought irritably before snatching up the phone.

Gary's inability to restrain his venom came back once he began painting, however. For one thing, it was hardly easy to someone who had never done it, and for another, it was a poor distraction from the issues in his mind. What had...? No. He had other protein shakes to blend. He concentrated on the intricate design in front of him, annoyed that it had had to be so "artistic." Just the top part... the round... um... whatever that part of it was called, it had these whirls and circles... ugh. It wasn't that faded either. Give him a barbell any day and he could paint it on a building somewhere.

Gary wasn't one to "lose himself" in his work. Certainly not when it entailed kneeling in front of a glass door in the middle of the work day with clients walking back and forth while doing something you aren't qualified for and don't want to do or learn anyway. He more or less got lost in his irritation, which already had an impetus to build rapidly. The only that could make him feel better would be if...

"Hey, Gary," came a yawning voice behind him. The relief (!) that Gary felt at hearing Kevin's voice crashed down on him like a wave. This wave in turn crashed into his denial mechanism with the destructive force of a tsunami... and was repelled. In the span of a few seconds, he was in full-blown fury. How dare he! Gary thought furiously, not sure what it was that Kevin had done and not caring either.

Gary, his teeth clenched, whipped his head toward Kevin for a moment, not really looking at him. He never did when he didn't have to. He was afraid that he'd look... No! "Did you get *any* sleep last night, Kevin?" he said in a very aggravated tone. He'd been wondering that all along, but he'd intended to ask in a... more concerned tone. No, he hadn't. He'd just not wanted to yell at that point. Except that he almost was anyway. No, he wasn't! He growled loudly, not able to fight or agree with either side of the argument going on in his head at this point. Burn me to hell! "Remember that little talk we had? I don't know what the hell's gotten into you the past week, but you keep your partying off work hours!" Kevin didn't party much and everyone knew it and Kevin didn't use drugs as far as Gary knew, so why...? Shut up shut up shut up! Unfortunately, Gary had forgotten to take the brush away from the door before he turned his head, and when he looked back the middle of the design had a large blob where a concentric circle should have been. "Shit!" He wiped it off for the tenth time. That half-hour.

Gary expected Kevin's usual blowup right in return - it wasn't what Gary hoped would happen, but it seemed to be a tradition - and was both surprised and strangely disappointed at the even, almost ironic, tone Kevin used, even if he did still sound tired and nervy at the same time. "Gary, I have not been, and have no desire for, partying. I know you don't believe that, but you ought to know me by now." He didn't even sound con... conduh... like he was superior. Gary did a small double-take, completely taken off-guard, before he clamped down even further than before. "Not that it's any of your business, but as I said before, I haven't been sleeping well lately. I'm very tired, and I have a lot to do today. If you're going to lecture me, please book it in my schedule so that I don't miss anything." Okay, maybe a little superior. Just enough to cross the line.

It had the expected effect: Gary leaped to his feet and let loose a loud involved stream of obscenities at Kevin. Quite an impressive one, too, breaking Gary's old record of nine minutes thirty-five seconds without repeating himself.

Gary started the barrage with all the dark energy he could muster, completely fireblind for the first few minutes of diatribe. But as his steam started to run out, Gary started noticing Kevin's appearance. It was probably the reason why Gary hadn't gone on for thirteen minutes, the record Gary had held in high school.

Kevin was showered, shaved, dressed, pressed, and looked like he'd stepped out a spa magazine ad he was so well groomed.

He looked awful.

His face seemed a bit sunken and his eyes... Gary usually liked looking at them (I do not!) but this time they made him flinch. He was extremely bloodshot and his eyes were scanning everything around him over and over. There was fatigue in his expression, but at the same time he looked like he'd been plugged into a socket. He seemed to be on the point of some violent outburst. This was worse. Much worse.

Kevin had had a very bad week or a very good one depending on how you looked at it. Ever since last week... hmm, it was six days ago today, wasn't it? Ever since that day, Kevin had been on a rapid downward spiral. People were starting to comment about him. He was nervous and jumpy and wasn't paying attention to anyone when they were talking to him. He had dark circles under his eyes and it was obvious he wasn't getting any rest.

That would ordinarily indicate extreme fatigue or sleep deprivation, but Kevin contradicted it by his out of control activity. He'd been a nervous, tired, and distracted dynamo. He just couldn't seem to sit still for any length of time, and having massage clients, aerobics classes, and personal training sessions apparently wasn't enough to use his energy. He vacuumed. He emptied trash. He bleached the showers. He even used vinegar and newspapers on the windows; "the way you're supposed to," he said later.

But even this display of industry had its down side: Gary still felt very upset by the sight that greeted him two days ago. First came the scream, which sent everyone running. Kevin was standing at the front counter, checking his schedule and staring back at the people assembled in front of him on the floor of the gym. He hadn't yet noticed the blood pouring down his arm. He had felt compelled to clean the large exhaust fans *by hand* and hadn't noticed when he'd been slashed by one on the shoulder. Gary hadn't set a record in his obscenities that day, but it came close.

Gary didn't want it to be true, but he had the uncanny feeling he knew what it was. He knew enough addicts to know one when he saw one. At last! He finally had the goods to get Kevin nailed. But even as he had this thought, he had a deeper, very unpleasant reaction, one that he didn't like and couldn't afford to let stop him. If Kevin went away, the problem went away.

Yeah, he believed it.

Gary realized he'd stopped talking and focused back on Kevin, who was still standing staring back, seemingly very casual but blazing intently with some frenetic energy right below the surface. Not anger. "You're right, Gary," Kevin said calmly, when the former had finished his tirade. His eyes were nerve-racking. They were far too intense, even when he wasn't trying to be. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to offend you, or to bring my problems to work. Don't worry, I won't let it affect my performance any more. Also, if you like, I'll toss in free massage for you too."

Gary opened his mouth, a look of absolute fury on his face… and then slowly closed it, looking disgruntled. He had been prepared for the knock-down-drag-out; he couldn't stand anyone dealing with him in a mature manner. That was the other thing about his roid rages, or whatever they actually were; if his anger was short-circuited like that, it made him angry with himself, and he hated that. But he really didn't want to argue with Kevin either. Besides which... "Well…," Gary said, obviously trying to find a reason to be upset and failing, "all right. You can work on me later today." Gary really couldn't deny, if grudgingly, that whatever he felt about Kevin personally, he really was an incredible massage therapist. Kevin had worked on the rather large knots in Gary's rather large muscles near competition time on several occasions, and Gary had let slip that it was due to Kevin's massage he had won a couple of trophies, not expecting it to go directly back to Kevin. He had regretted admitting it ever since.

Gary turned away from Kevin abruptly, not wanting the indecisiveness on his face to show. Damn that ...! he yelled at himself, not following through on the derogatory slur that he was thinking, hunkering down to paint again. Why do I have to go through this, he thought, not sure he was talking about painting any more.

"Sure, Gary," Kevin said casually. "My last class is at 4pm. I'll get you in after that." Gary's eyes narrowed; it sounded like he was planning something. Well, Gary Weiman was smarter than any fag massage therapist! He'd go, but he'd wear his underwear.

Gary gave a curt nod, extremely confused and trying to mask it with irritation. "Sure, fine, whatever." He turned back to the design, looking like he wanted to wrestle with it. The blob was wiped away, but now he had a blank spot. "I've gotta finish the door design. The owner's secretary I guess drove by yesterday and saw that it needed a touchup and he told me to fix it today. Damn nasty, too."

Then, in the middle of the next stroke, Gary closed his eyes for a moment. When I tell you to return, came a voice in his subconscious, but a moment later... "Oh, yeah, that reminds me. He left a message for you too. It's on your massage table." His voice sounded hollow to himself, like someone else was speaking through him. Message? He hadn't... It, uh... what had really happened today? And why couldn't he say anything about it?

Abruptly, his hand seemed to lose strength for just a moment as he was trying to paint a wide line and it flew back and landed square on his new sweats, splattering paint. "Shit!" he said nastily, dropping the brush on the ground. Trying to scrape the paint off with his bare hand only managed to press it into the cloth. "These were brand new!" They were also expensive; he always bought the brands that the latest pros were wearing, in some vague hope that their product endorsements would make him a better competitor. He bought his supplements the same way and a lot of his steroids too, which explained why his roid gut had started to look very round in the past six months. He forgot about Kevin for a moment, which overall wasn't a bad thing: Kevin had a rather smug expression on his face at Gary's mishap.

It was replaced by a concerned look when Gary glanced furiously up, however. No need to pick a fight when one is unarmed. "I'm sorry, Gary," he said very seriously. "But it should come out if you wash it in some baking soda." His face was utterly serious as he hauled his pack up onto his shoulder. He seemed to lose balance because of it for a second. "I had better get inside. Have to get ready for my first client."

Gary was too busy with this new focus for his anger to watch or even listen even as Kevin turned to open the door opposite the one Gary was painting. "Dammit!" he yelled furiously. "Why did they have the make this fucking key red?"

Kevin whipped back around so fast it was almost audible. He looked panic-stricken. "Where! Where is he?! Get him away from me!" He was like a hyperactive kangaroo, twitching back and forth and trying to look in all directions at once.

Gary, though still aggravated, jumped at his sudden unexpected reaction. "What the hell are you talking about? I just said why did they make this key red?" Instead of containing the smear on his sweats, he had managed to spread it all directions. He stared at Kevin like he'd suddenly grown horns. "Who?" he asked. What was this?

"Nuh, nuh, no one," Kevin stuttered, still scanning the parking lot. "It, uh, I mean, I thought you just, uh, I mean, never mind. It's nothing."

"Uh, right," Gary said, his anger blunted by sudden edginess. If he'd needed verification, nothing was more conclusive than this. It had to be cocaine. Or speed. Gary instantly became wary. He could easily take Kevin in a fight if he had to since he was half again Kevin's size, but he'd never had to face someone who was speeding. Besides which, he had a guest posing in a week and couldn't afford to get scrapes on his body. And concern, but he didn't want to go there.

"Sorry," Kevin said, finally relaxing. "I guess I really have been edgy lately." That was an understatement. He noticed Gary's look. "I'm okay, Gary. I just overreacted."

Gary started to back away a little, back toward the design, that same look on his face, until he was far enough away that Kevin was no longer in arm's reach, although part of him to be exactly there. "Right, right," he said, crouching back to the design. Picking up the brush, he started to paint again while watching Kevin out of the corner of his eye. Ironically, now that he wasn't paying attention, he was doing a perfect, elegant, flowing job on the design.

This was the exception, not the rule. Being as large as Gary was was not an advantage when it came to work that required a fine hand, such as the intricate details of the antique key design on the door. Why they had insisted on a hand-painted design instead of a commercially prepared one, Kevin had no idea; it needed retouching practically every month (even though it had not been done lately).

It was the image of a large, antique key, rendered in brilliant, glowing red, with rays extending outward in all directions and the legend "Your key to fitness!" in a jaunty font. Gary had never been overly fond of it.

"I'm okay, Gary," Kevin said, the tone in his voice belying his words. Something was definitely wrong, had been all week, and Kevin wouldn't talk about it or he would have by now. Kevin definitely had no compunctions about being outspoken. He seemed to sag a little and instead of continuing, he simply hauled his pack - yes, he had definitely staggered just hauling it on his shoulder - and turned to open the door opposite where Gary was working. "I'll... see you later." He sounded resigned.

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Gary said, watching Kevin retreat. "I might not be able to get that massage today after all," he added, just to see what Kevin's reaction would be. His shoulders slumped as he reached for the door handle; so the little shit *had* been planning on something!

But even as Gary thought this, he suddenly closed his eyes, his mind recalling something he wasn't aware he knew. The most important logic bomb yet.

"I have to finish this before sundown or Troy will kill me."

Gary didn't see what happened, but suddenly Kevin impacted face-first with the door and went down to the ground, slack-jawed and muttering to himself.

"What's a common name?" Gary said, repeating Kevin's last words as he hauled him to his feet. He ignored the feel of Kevin's skin. "Kevin, what happened to you? You walked right into the door and didn't even try to stop!" He'd obviously forgotten about the red paint. .

"What…," Kevin started to say, and had to swallow as his throat was dry, "What did you say just now? Before I walked into the door." He swayed in place.

Gary wasn't touching Kevin. He was leaning back as far as he could without having to actually move. "I, uh, said that I needed to get back to painting." It might be time to do an evaluation on Kevin for the owner. Just for the records, of course. 'Mr. Cantore, while showing excellent skill and customer service in the past, has recently become a liability to this facility. I recommend a replacement…' He composed it in his mind quickly. But then, he'd wanted to get rid of the little shit for a long time. Perfect opportunity.

Even if he would miss him.

"No, after that," Kevin said, still shell-shocked. "You said something about… about someone killing you."

"Uh, yeah, I guess I did," Gary said. 'Mr. Cantore has been displaying issues with authority, has been displaying disturbing mental signs…' "I said that Troy would kill me."

"Troy who?"

For a moment, Gary couldn't answer the question himself. Just this morning he'd been trying to remember... "You know, Troy. The owner. Troy…" Gary gave a last name that rhymed with tired.

"Gary, how do you spell that last name?" Kevin asked slowly, like he was trying to talk from a very far distance and couldn't be understood.

"I don't know," Gary replied, looking around for a chance to escape. He could just leave Kevin here and call the cops and they'd take him someplace… "I guess it's on the sign in the entry hall." He started to edge away. "Why?" I would not miss him. He's just a... a... one of those.

"No reason," Kevin said hollowly. He opened the door and walked inside, Gary right on his tail, neither one of them noticing the large, quiet man sitting in the waiting area with his hands folded in his lap.

Kevin stood in the entry hall, staring at the large brass plaque while Gary surreptitiously slipped over to the phone. Katie was nowhere to be seen. This had to end, Gary thought. Kevin was going away and taking all of Gary's problems with him.

"Gary," Kevin said in a flat voice. Gary was so intent on dialing that Kevin's voice made him jump, and the receiver dropped right out of his hand and hit the floor. Startled, he stared at Kevin, who wasn't looking at him. The tone of Kevin's voice, his posture... it had suddenly changed so drastically that Gary was left open-mouthed. He didn't seem at all hyper or distracted any more.

"That last name isn't pronounced Kired."

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