Why I thought of that Tom and Jerry cartoon at the present time was no surprise. I was standing in front of a self-proclaimed muscle god, who had just grown both in height and musculature right in front of my eyes. I could have tried to escape, as he was still in his self-imposed euphoria after getting his ‘pump’ from curling me single handed. Escape was a bit more difficult, though, because I had forty pounds of solid iron bent around me, constricting almost all my arm and upper body movement. Plus, running with an extra forty pounds did not promise to get me very far, and when I was caught up with by that self same muscle god, I would be made to pay for my ‘escape attempt’. So, I stood there, without the benefit of writing the will or having the cigarette.

I could take satisfaction in knowing that I was right in my hypothesis. Chuck was growing after a very strenuous exercise, when he had to go beyond his normal (if you call the Herculean feats he was doing ‘normal’) power and dig up the reserves of strength. Then, something rushed into his muscles, causing obscenely great growth. From what I saw just a few minutes ago, the process seemed to be accelerating as he grew taller and bigger. He grew significantly more than he did in his last two occurrences, though this time he seemed to have dug deeper into his self to gain his objective.

And the truly weird thing in this day of weird things was that he hadn’t noticed yet. Whatever was in that natural growth formula also seemed to have a great boost on the ego, causing him to go on at great lengths about himself, ignoring the environment around him.

“Whoa”, he said, beginning to come out of his afterglow. He began to look around and recognize his surroundings. Bending and flexing his arms and legs, he took a quick inventory to make sure all parts were working. Working his hands over his arms and chest, he began to realize the new size that he had packed on. “Holy…:, he trailed off as he began feeling the dense new muscle that had grown on him in mere seconds. “I am fucking huge…I thought I was before, but that was nothing compared to how I am now” He could hardly keep his hands off himself. Slowly he realized what had happened and that I was probably still in the room.

“Little man, come see your muscle god and worship his new size”, he said, looking around in his line of sight. “Where are you? I know you were not foolish enough to run away.” Finally he looked down and saw me there, slightly sagging now with the extra weight tied to me, wriggling to get out of it. Another ‘Whoa’, came out of his mouth when he realized how much further down I was than before. “Stand up straight, little one, you should never slouch in front of your muscle god”, he said, grabbing the bar and hoisting me up with incredible ease. He immediately put me down again, making sure my legs were straight and I was at my full height. I landed the same place, looking directly into his nipples. “What the fuck”, he began, trying to search for the words. “What happened here?”, he asked of no one in particular. He once again lifted the bar and myself up to his eye level. “I asked, what happened here.”, he growled at me.

I told him my thoughts on his growth, to which, surprisingly, he did not interrupt. He just kept nodding. “It explains a lot of my fantastic muscular growth”, he said to me, and then went on to recount each and every incident where he saw he grew either in musculature or height. For the first time in my life, I think I was actually bored from hearing how someone got taller and more powerful.

When he had finished, he grew very excited. “Let’s see just how much I have grown. You get the supreme honor of measuring your muscle god. Where do you keep your measuring tape?”, he asked. I looked over at a nearby drawer. “Well, get it and begin your task little man."

I stood there. He began to walk to the wall to get a pencil mark, turned around, and saw I had done nothing. “Are you disobeying me again?”, he thundered. I simply looked down at the bar that was constricting me. He followed my eyes and let out a soft, “Oh”. He pulled the bar apart with astonishing ease and began a low, menacing laugh. “Guess my strength has increased too…bad thing for you”, he said. He went over to the wall while I went to the drawer to get the measuring tapes, paper, and pencil.

Moving toward him, I began to drag a chair with me to stand on. “No need for that”, Chuck said, grabbing my shirt and hauling me up to where I was actually higher than his head. He straightened up, adding a couple of inches to his already breathtaking height. I made the mark and then dropped the tape, asking him to place his foot on the bottom of the tape. He obliged, looking at his feet, which had exploded from his sneakers during the last growth spurt, making them look more like sandals. I began to tell him when he stopped me in mid-word. “No, measure me all over and then tell me all at once”. Who was I to argue?

So, measure I did. His biceps, which seemed to keep growing like the sunrise over the horizon. His chest required his help and I had to be ‘transferred’ from hand to hand just to get around its width. I had never seen such deep cuts in abs before, and was given a first hand lesson on how powerful the muscle was when he nearly crushed my fingers when they strayed into one of those cuts. His quads, nearly exploding out of the shorts, were just layer after layer of thick muscle, and he actually had to tear part of the shorts in order for me to measure. I informed him I was done.

Sitting down, he permitted me to read the measurements to him. They went:

Height: 7’6”

Bicep: 30”

Chest: 70”

Waist: 40”

Quads: 35” each

He stood there speechless for a moment. He then stirred, grabbed me by my shirt again, and stood up, me going along for the ride. While rising he said, “Take a look at your muscle god, your seven foot six muscle god, little man. The one with the 30 inch biceps…”, he said as he flexed right in front of me. He lowered me to the floor. “The one with the 70 inches of chest.” He lifted me up and spun me around before I even knew it so I was upside down. “The 40 inch waist made up of rock solid abs”, he said, shoving me face into his abs. He lowered me further, “And these legs, which are stronger and bigger than steel girders” He lifted me up again, spun me around, and held me at arm’s length.

“I have good news for you, little man. Your punishment is over.”, he said. I became tentatively optimistic at that point. Maybe this ordeal was over, and he would go on his way. That optimism was short lived. “However, you now have a new assignment. You will now be my chronicle writer. What greater honor could you have bestowed upon you than to witness and then write down the growth that I am going through?”, he said in a way that indicated was not a choice for me. “And”, he continued, “I plan on growing a lot more”. •