When I saw him with the flowers I looked at him kind of funny – I could see why Shawn said what he did. He frowned a little and then looked at the flowers as though he forgot he’d brought them. “Oh yes, these are for your mother.” My mom had walked to the door just in time to hear Misha explain about the flowers. “Why thank you, Misha! This is so sweet of you. Oh, and look at you! You look so nice.” Misha gave my mom the flowers and then gave her a little kiss. “Thank you so much for having me tonight, it is very nice of you.” I guess this was the standard practice in Russia, but in Southern California it seemed pretty strange. Both Shawn and I started to laugh a little as Misha kissed my mom. He pulled away from her and frowned a little as he saw us laughing. My mom smiled at him and laughed; “don’t mind those two Misha, you are a perfect gentleman – thank you for the flowers.

She took the flowers and disappeared into the kitchen. I smiled at him and said; “hey Misha, come on up and I’ll show you my room!” Shawn laughed, looked at me and put his hand on Misha’s backpack, saying; “I hope he brought flowers for you too!” Misha didn’t like the teasing. He grabbed Shawn’s hand and started to squeeze it as he took it off his backpack. “Are you making fun of me?” Misha asked as he squeezed Shawn’s hand. Shawn started to wince in pain as Misha began to overpower my older brother. “Misha! Please… Don’t!” I cried as saw what was happening.

Misha looked over at me. I could see in his eyes that he was ready to teach Shawn a lesson. My expression was pleading with Misha not to hurt my brother. It wasn’t that wouldn’t have liked to seen Misha forcing Shawn to pay him some respect; but I really wanted to get to know Misha and I didn’t want him to make scene with my brother. “You don’t learn do you? Next time your brother won’t save you,” Misha said as he released Shawn’s hand. Come on bro, I’ll show you my room.

Misha was confused for a second. He apparently thought that when I said “bro”, I was talking to Shawn. He quickly realized I was taking to him. He came up to where I was standing, taking two steps at a time, then we walked up the rest of the way together. “You called me ‘bro’?” he asked. “Yep, it’s just a thing I say – something I call my close friends. I term of endearment.” He shook his head a little and smiled. I could see I was going to have to explain a lot of Americanisms to him. I thought to myself, I’ll teach him how to fit in here and maybe he’ll teach me to build some muscle – I’d be getting the better end of that deal.

We went into my room and I closed the door. Misha looked around at my stuff. My room is pretty big. I’ve got a desk with a computer on it, a dresser with a TV and VCR on it, a queen sized bed and a couple bookcases with various junk on the shelves. There’s still a lot of room in the middle of floor. When I was little, I played in my room most of the time. There’s enough room to set up racetracks and stuff like that. I share a bathroom with my brother and both of our rooms have doors that open to it. Even though Shawn was home for the summer, he usually spent weekends away hanging out with his friends from college, so I usually had some privacy.

Misha put his backpack on my bed. He opened it and grabbed a photo album out of it. “Aaron, would you like to see some of my bodybuilding pictures from Russia?” Of course I did, so the two of us plopped down on my bed and he started paging through the book. He’d been competing since he was 13 and he’d won ever contest that he’d ever entered. The pictures were amazing, I would have been thrilled be even half as muscular as he was at such young ages. He also showed me some pictures of his brother. Alexi was pretty impressive himself and had won some contests too.

“Alexi is very strong and well built, but I am much bigger than he is when he was my age. My father thinks I will grow a lot this year because that happened to Alexi when he was my age.” He wasn’t bragging, he was just telling how things were in very matter-of-fact way. I asked him how much Alexi had grown when he was fourteen. “My father says he grew 8 centimeters that year and put on fifteen kilos.” Three inches and 33 pounds, I thought to myself. “If you did that, Misha, you’d be my height and you’d weigh almost 210 pounds! You’d be a muscle-god! He giggled at me and said, “I hope I can do it! Do you want to see my posing routine?”

I nodded. He jumped up and stripped off his cloths. He had posing suit on under his shorts. He obviously had planned to perform for me. He even had a tape with his posing music on it. I popped it in and he jumped up on a long flat bench that ran across one end of my room. I used to use it for a toy chest, now it had mostly old clothes in it. He went through his whole routine and I was watched him almost hypnotized by his incredible fourteen year old body. As he finally came to the end of it, I was about to tell him how great I thought it was when I heard someone clapping.

Misha and I both turned to see Shawn come from the bathroom. He’d apparently been watching the show there. He walked toward Misha clapping as he went. “Well what’s this, Aaron? Your girlfriend is dancing for you?” I could see the anger welling up in Misha. His fists were clenched and I could see the fury in his eyes. “He’s not dancing, he’s showing me the posing routine he used in his bodybuilding contests.” Shawn was now standing directly in front of Misha and as I finished talking he turned his head to look at me. “He’s no bodybuilder, he’s your girlfriend.” Misha was looking at me like he wanted to beat the crap out of Shawn. I looked back at Misha and nodded my approval. Shawn had it coming.

Shawn turned back to Misha and was about to say something. But Misha had crouched down a little and before Shawn could say a word, Misha had picked him up in a bear hug. Misha was still standing on the bench and now Shawn’s feet were dangling off the ground. Misha had trapped Shawn’s arms in the bear hug and he was now squeezing harder and harder. Misha's biceps were digging into Shawn's sides and his face was turning red. Shawn thrashed frantically, but there was nothing he could do, Misha had him and showed no signs of letting go. He squeezed Shawn mercilessly, taunting him as he was squeezing. “You need to be taught a lesson little boy. The first lesson is that my muscles are far superior to your puny muscles. I let you beat me arm wrestling because Alexi wanted to embarrass you. You will never be as strong as I am.”

As he said this, Shawn had stopped struggling and was just trying to resist Misha’s powerful arms. Misha was crushing him and in a few seconds Shawn’s feet stopped moving and his head drooped down. I had walked over to where Misha was holding my brother. “Let’s find out if he’s had enough, Misha. Shawn, I want to hear you tell Misha that you are sorry and that you now know that Misha is a powerful bodybuilder and that you are puny next to him.” Shawn started to whisper the words, but I stopped him. “Louder Shawn.”

“I’m sorry Misha, you are a powerful building and I am nothing compared to you.” Misha and both smiled as he said this. “OK Misha, you can loosen your grip on him a little.” Misha did and Shawn could finally breathe again. “Now,” I continued, “I want you to apologize to me.” Before he could say anything Misha spoke up. “And tell your brother that you now know that he is twice the man you’ll ever be!” Shawn shook his head saying, “no way!” Misha started squeezing him again even harder than he had before. “I’m going to crack your worthless rips!” Misha growled. He shook Shawn violently and my brother's head and legs flopped around like he was a rag doll.

Shawn was frantic, he tried to say the words, but Misha was crushing him too hard. Misha loosened his grip and Shawn weakly said the words as we’d told him to. “I think you can put him down now Misha,” I said laughing. Misha loosened his grip further but rather than dropping Shawn to the ground, he let him slide a bit and caught him under the armpits. He lifted Shawn so that the two of them were looking eye to eye. “If you ever call me a girl again, I will break your worthless body in two.” He snarled the words at Shawn and when he finished, he tossed my brother’s practically lifeless 190 lb body across the room back to toward the bathroom door. As Shawn’s body hit the floor Misha told him, “now go crawl back in the hole you came from.” Misha hit a most muscular pose that demonstrated how totally powerful he was.

Shawn limped into the bathroom and then went back into his own room. We heard his door shut and the lock click. Misha raised a triumphant fist. “That felt great!” he yelled as he jumped off the bench and landed on top of me. I surprised myself by catching him in my own bear hug. Misha was laughing now and mocking my brother. “Oh no, I am at your mercy please do not squeeze my poor weak body.” I tried to do my best Misha impression saying in a Russian accent, “I have you in my powerful arms and I will now squeeze the life from your worthless body!” We both kept laughing and as we stopped, I looked up into Misha’s eyes. We were smiling at each other, “can I see how hard I can squeeze you, Misha?” I expected the usual Misha smugness, but instead he just said softly, “Sure, give me your best.”

I didn’t have his arms trapped like had done to Shawn, but I knew he wouldn’t hit me. I started squeezing and squeezing, but Misha just kept smiling at me. I couldn’t even dent him. Finally as I was getting tired and started to loosen my grip, he ran his hands through my hair and complimented me on my strength. I put him down breathing a heavy sigh. I thanked him for the compliment, but we both knew I hadn’t even phased this Russian muscle monster.

Misha grinned at me. “I’m starving Aaron! When do we eat? •