The morning of the contest was the most humiliating time of my life. At 148 pounds I was technically a middleweight, but even the bantamweights looked bigger than me with their well-rounded muscles and deep striations. My posing suit was baggy in the back because I didn't have any glutes to fill them out. Even my thighs weren't big enough to stretch the elastic leg openings for a proper fit. In short, I looked ridiculous. The other competitors were no help. They laughed and teased me: "I didn;'t know we had a junior high division this year". "If you need help lifting the pen to fill out the entry form, let me know." Ron kept telling me to ignore them, but it was impossible. I watched them pump up with their 50 and 75 pound dumbbells as I struggled to curl just 20.

Backstage, all of the athletes started oiling up with tanning lotion. They all had High-tech names like "MegaTan" and "Pro-Tan 2000". But Ron brought his own tanning oil for me. It was in the ugliest bottle I have ever seen, like something you might find in your grandmother's attic. It looked to be made of cast iron with small glass windows, and cheap fake gemstones embedded all around it. The bottle was nothing compared to the lotion itself; as soon as Ron put some on me I let out a huge scream. It felt like battery acid burning through my skin. I thought for sure I was having an allergic reaction to it but Ron kept reassuring me it was perfectly normal and that the pain would go away. Fortunately, it didn't take him long to oil up my small body and the itching and burning did subside.

It took all the courage I could muster to finally walk on stage to do my routine, but I did it. I heard the muffled giggles from the audience turn into out loud laughter when they saw my skinny physique on stage. I watched many of them get out of their seats to leave, thinking that with a pencil-neck like me on stage it was a good time for them to take a restroom break. I did my best to ignore their reactions and started with my posing. I raised my right arm and flexed it, and the burning sensation from the tanning lotion came back more painful than ever. Although this time, the pain didn't seem to be on my skin, it was coming from UNDER my skin, from the little bicep underneath. I looked down at my arm to see if maybe I was starting to blister. But I quickly forgot about the pain when I noticed that my bicep actually looked pretty good. Maybe it was just the good stage lighting, but it looked larger and fuller than it ever had before. I kept watching as I stretched out my arm and flexed it again. The burning sensation returned as I watched my bicep grow before my very eyes. I flexed a few more times. There was no doubt about it; every time I flexed my arm, the muscle would grow a bit more.

With my right bicep now several inches larger than my left bicep, I switched arms and started pumping up my other gun. It was like watching a pool toy inflate. With each flex my arm would grow about an inch. I had trouble trying to balance out my arms and I started alternating bicep shots, pumping up each bicep larger and larger with each flex. They must have swolen up to a good 22-23" each by the time they seemed balanced to me. The audience took notice as well and quickly started returning to their seats.

I looked down at my flat sunken chest. I wasn't even sure how to flex what little pec muscle I had, but I tried anyway. I felt a painful itching, but nothing happened at first. Then I saw my left nipple pop up a bit. It bounced up and when it fell down, it was sitting on top of a little extra bit of pec meat. The right nipple then did the same. It took a few tries for me to get a good rhythm going, but eventually I managed to get my pecs bouncing up and down in beautiful patterns. With each rep the muscle mounds bulged out a little more and more until I had two beautiful spheres of flesh protruding from my chest.

I never had a problem with a spare tire, but my stomach muscles didn't show up either. I crunched down as hard as I could and held it tight. Two bricks of muscle appeared right below my ribcage and started bursting out from under the skin. I relaxed and did another crunch, and a second pair of abs fell into place right below the first. I took another breather, then crunched down and squeezed out the final pair to complete a perfectly chisled 6-pack. By now the audience was going crazy for my muscle routine, yelling out "more! more!". I gave them what they wanted, hitting a final crunch shot and producing a 4th pair of thick abs right on top.

I turned away from the audience to show them my back. I still had the shoulders of a boy scout but that was about to change. I went into position to do a lat spread and held the pose for as long as I could. I felt the same throbbing, burning pain as before, but this time I felt new pains as well. My shoulders felt like they were dislocating as they spread further and further apart, being filled in with new muscle. My ribcage was ready to burst open as my growth stretched beyond its natural limits. Still, the discomfort was a small price to pay for such tremendous growth.

I turned back to face the audience and stumbled a bit. Was I getting dizzy? Was all this growth too much for my body to handle? I quickly figured out what the problem was. I had added at least an extra 100 pounds of muscle to my upper body, but my weight was still being supported by my scrawny chicken legs. I simply stretched out my leg and twisted it a bit. There wasn't much to show at first, but as I shook it back and forth the quad grew larger and larger until there was a huge slab of muscle thigh rocking across my leg. I inflated the other leg as well. I had to spread my legs open a bit more just to stand there in order to make room for all the new muscle on my upper thighs.

Although I ended the show at a shredded 285 pounds, because I was 145 at the morning weigh-in I was still considered a Middleweight. Needless to say I won my division hands down. I also took home the Overall trophy, even outmuscling the super-heavyweight winner. Unfortunately, as I showered that night and rinsed off Ron's tanning lotion, all my muscle gains went away with it. But I knew I'd be ready for my next competition. •