The Alpha Male 6: Revenge
by Shade
The bell rang for lunch after third period and I glanced nervously at the clock, hoping Mr Muldoon would dismiss us with the bell so we could go get our lunch.
Merciless Muldoon didn’t like to be interrupted mid-thought though, and if he wasn’t finished with his science lecture when the bell rang he would make us wait. Eating into the precious first few minutes of the lunch period, and potentially causing me untold agony. It was all the more excruciating because it was the second to the last day of class of eighth grade. Soon I would be done with this ridiculous middle school and be off to my last summer before high school. Summer the only peaceful time of the year I ever got.
Just when I thought he’d never shut-up, he made a final point about the principals of plate tectonics and gave us the usual nod that meant we could go. All of my classmates, hungry and eager, got up en masse to head to the door. I nearly wept in frustration as I had to wait for those ahead of me to empty into the teeming hallway.
Then I was jostled by throngs around me as I made my way to my locker on the other side of the school. It took me dangerously near the gym, and the jocks who hung out there. Seventh and eighth graders who were bigger than me. I heaved a sigh and kept telling myself the same thing my uncle told me, I was just a late bloomer and I had a lot of growing yet to do. My mother’s brother was a bear of a man and strong too, so I silently prayed he was right.
From the locker to the cafeteria was easier to navigate and I realised I was probably too late, but I’d encountered no difficulties and I figured I might escape. Just maybe. Please God if I can make it through today and tomorrow I would be free. Free of this school. And free of Billy Nickerson until September.
And high school was a big place with more activities. There was a good chance he’d forget about me. Well it might happen.
Unfortunately he’d not forgotten about me in the five years since we’d met. I couldn’t imagine a worse bully in elementary school, but Billy went out of his way. Relentless. He turned everyone against me. And he was so perfect. So beautiful. That’s what made it all the worse. My nemesis should be as ugly on the outside as he was on the inside. But Billy was so beautiful it hurt.
I walked into the cafeteria. No sign of him. And then I felt myself fall forward. All my balance gone. I threw my arms out as the floor rushed up to meet my oncoming face.
He’d tripped me.
“Let me help you,” I heard him say. A distinct chuckle in his voice, as I felt him slap hard on my back. “Dickwad,” he added under his breath.
I felt myself hoisted more by his powerful young arms than by my own much smaller ones.
“Aren’t you gonna say thanks?” he mumbled as he pushed me forward. And then he kicked me.
“What was that for?” I grumbled. Despite myself I was getting angry. He never picked on anyone else although we had a whole chess club that were more deserving.
I turned to face him and felt another kick.
“What?” I said turning to face Billy’s best mate Cory.
Cory was a follower, not a leader. And he did his master’s bidding like a faithful dog.
As I turned I felt yet another boot, this time from their mate Joe, connecting even harder. And the force of the kick actually pushed me into Billy’s arms. He bragged about his prowess in karate, football and little league, and I felt his strong arms wrap around me. A bear hug in fact.
There was some laughter and I realised that our audience was growing as others in the lunch room turned to watch the sport.
“You shouldn’t ask for it,” he informed me.
I realised then what had happened. What I had on my back. I pushed away from Billy as hard as I could and reached behind me feeling for what must be there. Sure enough as I pulled off the piece of notebook paper taped to my shirt: Kick Me it read. It wasn’t even particularly original. But I was mad. I never got mad.
“Take it!” I snarled. Shoving the paper in Billy’s astonished face. I never stood up to him.
The paper fluttered to the floor just as a lunch lady walked over to where the our gathered group.
Joe and Cory made a hasty exit, but Billy was on the other side of me. He had nowhere to go.
“What is going on here?” she asked us.
“Just playing around.” Billy turned on his charm, but Mrs Simmons wasn’t having any of it. She was one of the few people who had noticed how much I’d been tormented. She was a good woman, and lived in my neighbourhood.
“Doesn’t look like it. Why don’t you pick up that paper before I send you to the Principal’s office?”
“But it belongs to him,” Billy said, a whine in his voice. He probably couldn’t believe he’d met someone who didn’t buy his bullshit.
“I doubt it.”
Billy stared at her, at first sweetly, but soon as a contest of wills. He knew he couldn’t win this one. Mrs Simmons had power over him. And he wasn’t going to tempt fate so close to the end of the school year.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
With every muscle in protest Billy bent over and grabbed the paper, crumpling it in his fingers until it was wadded into a tight ball.
“Now you’ll apologise.”
Billy looked at her in shock and disbelief.
“Go on….” Her face and posture indicated she’d brook no argument.
“I’m sorry!” It came out practically as a protest. Literally pried from his jaws.
Knowing what was expected of me I quickly replied. “I accept your apology.”
Billy’s face was actually turning a shade of red.
“Now you two shake on it like men and let bygones be bygones.”
Mrs Simmons was old school. But if she thought this would make things easier or help Billy to move past his transgressions, she had another thing coming. I gulped. But for Billy it was in for a penny, in for a pound.
He eagerly stuck his hand out. And now I’d look like the ungrateful one if I didn’t shake it.
Gingerly I took his hand. I didn’t even have time for a proper grip when I felt him wrap his fingers round my hand and squeeze.
“Let bygones be bygones,” he muttered with no enthusiasm. The pressure was so intense I nearly screamed.
“Good, now both of you get about your business.”
Billy released my hand suddenly, and I almost cried out as the blood rushed back into it. My hand was shaking. Mrs Simmons walked slowly away, satisfied the incident was at an end.
“Just wait dickwad,” he said venomously. “This isn’t over. I’m going to make you suffer. I will fucking kill you.”
My eyes must have held pure terror, but Billy stared at me. Really stared at me. I’d never heard someone my age use the word fuck before. It scared me as much as the intensity in his eyes. I knew I was going to experience pain.
And pain came. Like the inevitability of death and taxes.
I’d agonised all the rest of the day, fortunate we’d finished all our principal school work. The next day, a half day should have been easy but it wasn’t. I’d not slept much and as I turned in my books for the semester and tried to sneak off my locker before heading to the bus, Joe and Cory found me near the gym.
“Where you going?”
“Uh….” I didn’t think a response was expected. The fight or flight response rose up, and Joe put a firm hand on my shoulder before I could attempt to run.
“Why don’t you join us behind the school?”
“W-w-why?” My teeth were chattering.
Cory looked genuinely sad for a minute. He shook his head. “C’mon let’s not keep him waiting.”
They pushed me to the track field behind the gym. I say pushed, but they practically carried me as I wasn’t inclined to go with them. My legs didn’t want to work.
And it seemed like the whole school was there. The staff had been as eager as the students to get out there for the day. And it was pretty empty. I knew there would be no last minute saviours. One small consolation was that it was mostly the guys though. Even the girls found this sort of thing distasteful. But there were some of them there anyway, all of the faces of the crown excited in anticipation of the humiliation of another human being. I’d have run if I could but the circle closed around me as soon as Joe pushed me to my knees in front of Billy.
Pushed my face into Billy’s crotch as the boys howled with peals of laughter. It sounded remote and tinny in my ear. Empty white noise.
And then the real humiliation began. The punches, the kicks. Billy was creative in his torture. It wasn’t enough to strip me down to my underwear. Or draw obscenities on my body. No he forced me to do acts that were more despicable than that. So bad I cannot quite remember.
And as the darkness of the early summer night descended, and the memory of their hands on my body had faded somewhat…at least enough for me to remember where I was…I got up and pulled on my torn clothes.
I didn’t speak of my humiliation to anyone. I didn’t speak at all. I lost my mind for a few hours.
But I remembered myself in the morning. And I headed over to Mrs Simmons’ house. She lived close, and we knew their family growing up. Mrs Simmons had been good to my mother who was a single mother raising a son on her own.
I stood on her porch, looking at the door. I was nervous to ring the bell, but I’d promised myself I'd never be nervous again. I rang the bell.
After a few minutes she ambled out to the door. The inside door was open already and she pushed the screen door open and took a look at me. I knew how I looked. To my everlasting shame I knew what a sight I was in. “You’ve looked better.” That’s all she said.
“Is Toby here?”
“In the garage.”
“Thanks.”
I walked back to the garage, and knew he eyes were on me. Toby was in the garage working on his truck. His shirt was off and the bronzed muscles of his back bunched as he leaned over the expose engine. Rock music came from the radio and a few beads of sweat rolled down his skin.
“Hey Toby.” I thought the sun rose and set in Toby’s footsteps. To me he was amazing. Eighteen, local football hero. And the very model of gentility. He was the biggest guy I knew. And I knew he went to the gym. He had to for football.
He turned to look at me with a smile on his face. “Hey little man.” Then he caught the scowl on my face and the rest of the bruises. “What the hell happened to you?”
My mouth spilled out the story before I could help myself. It felt so cathartic. Toby just leaned against his truck until I finished.
“We’ll little man I had no idea. Why didn’t you say anything before now?”
He looked at me, but it wasn’t a question I knew how to answer. His gaze was serious, but not harsh. It was appraising and I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes.
“There’s only one thing for it little man,” he told me.
“Yeah?” I asked hopefully.
“Yep. You just gotta become a bigger and badder motherfucker is all. You gotta become tougher than anyone who can do this to you. That’s all there is to it.” He walked over and wrapped his strong arm around me. His bicep cradling my shoulder, my head against his pec. He was so warm, so safe. “No one can ever be there to protect you all the time. No one except for yourself. Understand?”
I nodded. I thought I knew what he meant. “You’re gonna join the gym little man. Don’t worry I’ll help you.”
* * *
To this day I often wonder if Toby knew what he’d set in motion that day. No, what I set in motion by going to see him that summer day. But whatever he thought I surpassed our wildest dreams.
From the first time I curled a dumbbell. When Toby instructed me on form. How to eat. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. That shot of testosterone from my balls. By the time seven weeks later when I blew the candles out on my fourteenth birthday cake I had blown his mind.
How do I describe what it felt like? The feeling of growing. To see your shirts shrink. The muscles that you never knew you had. As my chest deepened, my balls and dick grew, and I felt finally like a man.
I’d gone from one-hundred ten pounds soaking wet to one hundred forty in seven weeks. And puberty had well and truly hit as my mother complained I’d eat her out of house and home. Yet she clearly wanted me to succeed. The look of horror on my face as I came in that night. Humiliated. Everything I’d felt was reflected in her worried expression. It broke my heart more than anything. And I was not going to be that guy. I was not going to be picked on.
And by the end of summer I had consumed every bit of food I could find. Not an ounce of it was fat on my body. Each bite became pure, dense muscle. I’d lifted every other day with Toby at first, but soon it was six days. My body screamed for it. I realised by the beginning of August that I was stronger than Toby. His max bench press was three hundred pounds. He patted me on the back the day I repped that five times in a set. But the end of the month I could press six hundred pounds. We no longer lifted together. He couldn't keep up.
Was I a freak? I guess I was. My strength was always phenomenal from the very first. Did it trigger the puberty and the growth or was it the other way around? Was it my deep anger and burning desire for revenge that changed me? I don’t know. I may never know. I just know I found something out about myself that summer. There was something in me that needed to come roaring out. And who was I to deny talent?
The more iron I lifted the more muscle I put on. I could feel it in every one of my old shirts. Feel the fabric as it bent around my muscle, trying to contain me. When I discovered that I could stand in front of a mirror and raise my arms, slowly, and flex. Letting a bicep stretch the sleeve. Letting it tear, the seam trying to hold it together, but failing. Squeezing each muscle, legs pulling my shorts apart. The feeling the fabric tear up my back and I squeeze it out. Tighter and tighter. There had never been a summer like it.
The day before it was time to start ninth grade at one hundred and eighty pounds I caught my reflection in the mirror. I hardly recognised myself. My face was broader, jaw firmer. My neck pulled at my new shirt, just bought by my mom from the men’s section. And with secret pleasure I knew it was a large. I would tower over my classmates. I looked more like a senior than a freshman. A muscular senior at that.
That day I skipped the gym. I went instead to the construction site where my uncle worked. They’d all taken off for lunch and the place was empty. I figured I’d wait. Toby had left for his university placement. We’d not spent as much time since I started to out lift him a month before. But we still respected each other. I knew Toby was a little bit scared of me. I’d always be grateful to him, and made sure he knew that.
Looking down I saw some empty pipes lying on the ground. I glanced around but no one was there. Then I grinned as a thought occurred to me.
It was solid and heavy in my hands as I picked one up. Good quality plumbing pipe. With both hands around the pipe I pulled it. I felt my muscles contract and grunted. The more I exerted myself the more powerful I felt. Then the fucking pipe began to bend, groaning as it failed to resist my muscle. I squeezed it, forcing a most muscular. My shirt dampened and I felt it tug tightly. I felt it strain. A new fucking shirt. Men’s large. But I couldn’t stop now. There was no way. A few minutes passed and I bulged in my shirt, before I felt sleeves tear. The pipe finally curled, taking on the shape of V before I bent it further, not stopping until the ends touched.
I exhaled happy and satisfied as I tossed the pipe back in the pile. Let them decide themselves what had happened. At that moment I knew nothing was ever gonna best me again. I was gonna keep getting bigger and stronger.
In hindsight I wish I could say that I hadn’t terrorised Billy as much as he had me. That I’d been a better person. But I wasn’t. That first day of ninth grade, as I lifted him over my head and he wet his pants, I knew I’d won. And anything he ever had I would take from him. If he was a star on the football field, I would overshadow his glory. If he found a girlfriend I would fuck her so hard she was ruined forever for Billy. He could not escape my wrath. But wrath is a sin.
Within less than a year of my first day in the gym I was benching tons and curling single handed twice as much as other men could squat. My own pride and cockiness was spiraling out of control. I was on a path to destruction. And I nearly succumbed. I would have succumbed if I hadn’t met Mack.
* * *
“He has to have it Mack.”
“No!” said an agonised voice. “He wouldn’t want it!”
I heard the voices arguing in the middle of my stupor. I didn’t understand all that was said. They were droning. Like flies. The world was darkness, but I realised it was because my eyes were closed.
My whole body screamed with pain.
“This is what I warned you about,” the first voice continued. “We knew what Fong was up to. We can’t allow it to happen.”
Was that Myles? Where was I? What had happened? My chest rose with a breath and the pain racked up my body. I was too numb to express it.
“Please….” Was that Mack? I’d never heard him like that before. He was almost pleading.
“No, it must be done. That is obvious now.”
I heard something like a tapping. Like a fingernail on plastic. What was that noise? What was wrong with me? When was the last time I’d felt like this? The last time had been that summer night of humiliation. A humiliation I had promised myself I’d never endure again.
It all came roaring back to my addled brain then just as I felt the pinch of the needle slipping into my arm. Then Myles depressed the plunger and I felt real pain….
To be continued?