Also, there was the neighborhood gang, the "Warlords," a group of tough Latinos who had beaten up the boys more times than they could remember. The boys hated the Warlords. The Warlords liked to beat them up just for laughs. They wished that some day they would be able to kick the asses of those arrogant young punks, the rulers of the neighborhood. The Warlords ranged in age from about 13 to their mid 20's. There were about 30 of them and they always traveled in packs of at least six. Recently, when Jason, Fernando and Joey were walking down the sidewalk, they spotted about eight Warlords in front of them. A couple of the Warlords had just completed a drug deal. As the boys approached, three of the youngest Warlords, not more than 13, ran out in front of them. "This is our barrio, assholes," said one of the little punks. "You know you can't show your sorry faces around here." "We can go wherever we want!" said Joey, and he started to push his way by the arrogant little Warlord. At that, all eight Warlords attacked the boys. After a short struggle - eight versus three doesn't last too long - the three oldest Warlords held the arms of the boys while the 13 year olds punched them unmercifully in the gut, chest and face. Even though these Warlords were young, they were tough and strong. Their punches were hard and they thoroughly beat up the defenseless boys. After the boys were bloody and battered, the older Warlords threw them on the ground and kicked them in the ribs for good measure. "We rule this 'hood, and don't forget it," said the biggest Warlord as he flexed his tattooed muscles and swaggered away.

At 15 years old, Jason, Joey and Fernando had gone through puberty and were hoping to get big and strong. They wanted to kick ass. However, they remained very skinny and got their asses kicked more than they did the kicking. Although they were each about 5' 9" tall, they only weighed between 115 and 125. Not much fat, but not much muscle either. Scrawny street urchins.

They were all very good looking. Jason was blond and blue eyed. His ancestry was German. He had striking, high, prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw and chin. His skin tanned easily in the sun, and in August the contrast between his blond hair and golden skin was striking. He looked like a surfer with a very thin swimmer's build. He had no fat on his body, and his skinny muscles showed clearly under his thin skin.

Joey was Italian. Both sides of his family were from southern Italy and he was the first generation to be born in this country. His face was square and tough looking. Although he was thin, he still had some baby fat on his body. But you could tell that he had a pretty sound foundation under the layer of baby fat. He had black hair and brown eyes and very tan skin. His chest was bigger than Jason's and his legs were more solid. He was built like he could be a football player if he only had some more muscle on his body.

Fernando's parents had emigrated from Puerto Rico. He had beautiful Hispanic features - strong cheekbones, perfect white teeth, wavy back hair and flawless dark skin. His body was very sensual. Wide shoulders and very narrow hips. He wasn't as cut as Jason and he wasn't built as thickly as Joey. But he had outstanding symmetry and really looked stunning even without a lot of muscle. The boys may have been skinny, but they were beautiful.

One spring day when they were in 9th grade, the boys were walking down the street when they came upon Kevin and Louie, the two big 15-year-old kids from their class. Kevin and Louie weren't members of the Warlords but they totally dominated the boys. They each weighed about 150 pounds, all muscle, and they loved to kick ass, especially the asses of Jason, Joey and Fernando. When the boys tried to walk past them, Kevin and Louie stepped in the way and Kevin said "Not so fast, punks. You can't go by us without paying up. You either pay us twenty dollars or our big muscles are going to do some serious damage to your pathetic bodies. Check out some real muscle, you fucking dweebs." They flexed their 14-inch biceps, which looked incredibly hard and powerful compared with the boys' 11 inchers. The boys knew what was coming. "We don't have twenty dollars, Kevin, and even if we did we wouldn't give it to you," said Jason. They started trying to fight off Kevin and Louie, but their weak jabs didn't make any impact on the hard bodies of the strong, muscular thugs.

Kevin and Louie smiled at each other like two confident lions about ready to vanquish their prey. Suddenly, Kevin punched Joey hard in the gut with his left fist and then did the same thing to Fernando with his right. Louie grabbed Jason and easily wrestled him to the ground. Louie sat on Jason's waist and pummeled his head and chest with his fists. Kevin wrapped his strong arms around Joey and squeezed all the air out of his lungs. He punched him hard in the gut and Joey collapsed on the sidewalk. Then, Kevin grabbed Fernando and twisted his arm painfully behind his back. While Fernando howled in pain, Kevin laughed and punched him hard in the side of his chest several times. Fernando dropped to the ground. As the three boys lay in pain on the sidewalk, Kevin and Louie laughed and hit most muscular poses and then flexed their biceps, their pumped muscles bulging and rippling with raw power. "You wimps are pathetic," said Louie. "Next time you better have twenty dollars or we won't be so nice."

The boys lay on the ground enraged. "One day we're going to fuck you up so bad you'll wish you were never born," said Fernando. Kevin bent down and rubbed his sweaty armpit in Fernando's face, flexing his strong 15-year-old muscles. "You're a wimp, fuckface. Smell that sweat and feel the power of these muscles. I'm going to make you do whatever I want whenever I want to. I got muscles and you don't have squat, you geek." With that, he wrapped his arm around Fernando's neck, flexed his bicep, cutting off Fernando's windpipe, and punched Fernando in the gut really hard with his other arm. Fernando collapsed on the ground. "See ya, dweebs," said Kevin as he and Louie flexed one more time and strutted away.

A few days after this humiliation, Jason was reading an underground newspaper some of the kids at his school had gotten. His eyes fixated on a small classified ad that read as follows:

"Wanted: a Few Good Men (ages 15-16) to train this summer at Muscle Camp. Experimental muscle building methods will be tested. All expenses paid. No wimps. If you have an attitude and want to get HUGE, we want you. Call 427-0471 and ask for Jeff."

Jason ripped out the ad and showed it to Joey and Fernando. They all agreed that Muscle Camp sounded fantastic. And they fit the description perfectly. They weren't wimps and the certainly had an attitude. An attitude that wanted to kick ass. The prospect of building huge, strong muscles at no cost sounded too good to be true. Maybe they'd be able to fight Kevin and Louie. Maybe they'd be able to challenge the Warlords. Maybe they'd be able to beat up all the kids in school who had made their lives miserable. They got excited just thinking about it. Jason called the number in the ad and arranged a meeting with Jeff.

Jeff met them in a park after school. He was about 5' 10" and weighed about 180 pounds, all solid muscle. He was in his early 20's and looked like a Marine - short brown hair, steel blue eyes, very straight posture and very tough-looking. The boys were very impressed. Jeff explained that he had gotten out of the Marines about six months before. He was independently wealthy. While in the Marines, he was disgusted with the weakness of the recruits - these were the best of the best, but Jeff thought they were wimps. After he got out, he decided that he was going to train some young men, a few good young men. Train them so that they became so big, so strong and so tough that any one of them could annihilate three or four ordinary guys with ease. Train them to become total muscle studs. He spent the last six months building Muscle Camp and researching all the latest muscle-building training programs, supplements and drugs. He wanted the best for his men and he went out and bought it.

Jeff said that he wanted men who could take tough training and who wouldn't quit. He didn't want crybabies or wimps. He wanted men who liked to fight and who wanted to learn how to fight better. He would pay for everything and he guaranteed that by the end of the summer the boys wouldn't recognize their present bodies. They'd be so big, muscular, strong and tough that they'd be able to beat up anyone they wanted to. Fernando smiled as he thought about beating the shit out of Kevin and Louie and flexing his big muscles in Kevin's face. Jeff asked the boys to take off their shirts so that he could check out their potential. The boys had never lifted weights, and their bodies were skinny and out of shape. Just by looking at them, however, Jeff felt that they had good genetics for building muscle. They flexed their muscles trying to impress Jeff. Jeff squeezed Joey's soft, little bicep with his strong forearm and easily crushed it. Joey didn't flinch at the pain. Jeff smiled. "Here, Joey. Try to crush my bicep." Jeff flexed his 17 inch arms and Joey tried to squeeze Jeff's right bicep. His soft 8-inch forearm was no match for Jeff's big, hard gun. Joey strained mightily but couldn't make a tiny dent in Jeff's rock-like muscle. Joey was incredulous at the size and hardness of Jeff's arm. "I'd give anything to have muscles like you," said Joey. "Me, too," said Jason. "Please let us go to Muscle Camp." Jeff looked at each of the boys with his steel blue eyes. "OK, you guys are in Muscle Camp if you want it," said Jeff. "By the end of the summer, I won't be able to get my hand around your huge bicep, Joey, and it will be so hard that even my Marine Corps forearms won't be able to make a dent in that muscle. Shake hands if you're ready to sign up." The three boys without hesitation shook Jeff's hand and signed up for Muscle Camp. They were stoked. Jeff looked at the boys approvingly. They were just what he was looking for.

School was almost over for the year and the boys strutted around like they owned the place. They didn't tell anyone about Muscle Camp. They wanted everyone to have a big surprise in the fall, but they already acted like the muscle studs they knew they were about to become. They didn't take shit from anyone.

They persuaded their parents to let them go to Muscle Camp for the summer. They said it was run by a former Marine and that they would therefore stay out of trouble. The boys' parents all consented willingly. They figured that they'd save a lot of money not having to feed the growing appetites of their sons for the whole summer and that this Marine might do some good for the kids. And a little more muscle on their boys would be fine. They wanted their sons to be able to take care of themselves in their tough neighborhood. They didn't want other kids picking on them. If their son was the biggest, toughest kid in the neighborhood, this would give them bragging rights with the other parents. They kissed their sons goodbye and wished them well at Muscle Camp.

Muscle Camp was actually a 200 acre ranch about 50 miles from the city that Jeff had bought and transformed into a total training compound. First there was the gym - a weight training gym that would challenge Gold's in Venice for the variety of equipment and the heavy poundages of the weights. The walls were covered with mirrors. Next to the weight gym there was a boxing, wrestling and martial arts training area. The ranch had a swimming pool, a basketball court, trails for running and endurance training and lots of space for Marine-like obstacle courses.

The master house had a living room, a huge kitchen, a den, and a big bedroom where both the boys and Jeff were going to sleep. Jeff wanted to sleep in the same room as the boys. He wanted to watch them grow and he wanted to share in the experience, both day and night. Jeff hired a full time cook to prepare all the muscle building food that the boys were going to require. The cook arrived before breakfast and left after dinner.

Jeff had stocked up on all the latest supplements, including protein, amino acids, creatine and andro, plus several muscle-building compounds that Jeff after all his research had concluded would build the biggest muscles without causing any serious harm. He combined them all in a milkshake he called the Muscle Blast. Guaranteed to build the biggest, buffest muscles man had ever seen. He also got some human growth hormone and other growth enhancing "secret ingredients" that would be injected directly into the boys' bloodstream. Jeff expected that the combination of heavy, intense workouts, massive quantities of food, the Muscle Blast and the growth injections would transform the skinny street urchins into the biggest, strongest, toughest 15 year old boys on the face of the earth. He wanted them to become giant muscle studs that could conquer anything in their way. He wanted to create three huge, aggressive, totally dominant fighting machines. •