Out of the corner of my eye I saw the telephone. If I could get to it quickly enough and just dial 911, an officer would be summoned to the house, as they do with all non-responsive 911 calls. Chuck may be big, but I would guess not bulletproof. I rose myself up under my own power, so I was eye level with the base of Chuck’s neck…or was he now a bit taller than what I saw before? Regardless, I judged the distance to the telephone.

Chuck must have seen me looking in that direction, because when I made my move, he made his. Pushing me backwards with one hand, he bound forward with his massive legs and got to the telephone with lightning speed. “Thinking you could call for help, huh?”, he asked as he ripped out the telephone cord from the wall, and part of the wall with it. He then dragged the phone and its entrails to where I had been shoved, picked up the receiver, and proceeded to crush it in one hand. “I don’t think so”, he sneered, “and if you try something like that again, this…”, he showed me the broken pieces in his hand, “…will be you.” I dutifully shook my head, a look of horror that I was sure was on my face.

He grabbed me by the front of my sweatshirt. “Now, let’s get started with your lessons”, he said, dragging me to the center of the room. He thought for a moment. “Let’s begin with some simple numbers.” He found the back of a chair and sat down on it, causing the chair to creak a bit. “The first numbers are six and nine”, he began, “meaning I now stand…”, he continued, rising slowly and very closely to me to the point where I was seeing nothing but his tight t shirt, “six foot nine”, he finished, his ascent complete. “I could step on your like a bug and never even notice. So much for being small.” His shadow cast over me like a building.

“The next number I want you to remember is 22…”, he continued, stepping back a foot or so. He pulled down his sleeves over his biceps as best possible. “That number is the size of my biceps, at last measure.” He extended his arm and gave a few ½ flexes of his arm and then went into a full flex. The fabric of his sleeve resisted as long as it could, but it was no match for 22” of full power. I watched in amazement as the mound on his arm grew to epic proportions and the shirt sleeve ripping first one, then two, then more inches until the rip reached the shoulder seam. “Damn, go through more shirts that way”, he said, obviously satisfied with his effort. He looked over to the other arm. “Damn, can’t neglect this big boy either”, he said, and proceeded to shred that shirt sleeve as well with another display of immense bicep pump not an inch from my face.

I stood there dumbfounded by the sheer size of the bicep that I witnessed. It never seemed to stop growing, stop piling muscle upon muscle. Chuck knew I was convinced, but his thirst for humiliating me was not quenched, so he continued.

“Next number is 300”, he stated, making moves to close the gap he had created previously. And that number is how much I weigh right now…300 pounds of pure…”, one step near me, “…solid…”, one step that shoved me backwards against the juggernaut of his size, “….muscle…”, another step forward another step back, to which I slammed against a wall, pinned between two immovable objects. I felt just by stepping forward again, I would have been crushed. He backed up a bit, making his point.

“And just so you don’t think that is just water or fat weight”, he continued (How the heck could I have thought that?, I thought to myself), here is the proof.” He grabbed the neck of his shirt with his two hands, and proceeded to rip the shirt in half, first down the front, then down the back, letting it waft to the floor, it’s purpose done. He stood there shirtless, like he had been when posing. If anything, the anger seemed to have bulked him up even more, made him more defined, bigger, if possible. The last number is 5, as in I have 5 percent body fat.

He stepped towards me again. “And just so you make no mistake in thinking I am puny or that these muscles were not well earned, let me show you just what these muscles can do” Chuck once again slammed me against the wall and, with one hand, grabbed the front of my sweatshirt. Exhaling and then grunting, he lifted me up the wall with one hand. From the sound of the grunt, I guessed even HE had his limits. While that seemed easy before, his anger had lessened some and he did not have me holding on to his arm for extra support. Still, though there was effort, my feet were again dangling off the ground. His voice was strained, he did speak. “This strength, this power, is all mine, little man. Oooh, I like that term…little man…that is what I am going to call you from now on…little man. And you will be addressing me as ‘muscle god’. Is that understood?” I did not immediately answer. With a larger grunt, he lifted me higher. “I said, is that understood?” I choked out a ‘yes’ to the question. With a final burst of strength, he took me off the wall, supporting my whole body weight with one huge arm, and pulled me to look face to face with him. “Yes, what?”, he demanded. “Yes……muscle god, sir”, I reluctantly replied. “Good”, he said, his face half smiling, half filled with strain. He let me go and for the second time of the day, I gracelessly fell to the floor. •