That’s how I missed the unpleasantness at the gym. Nick had a meeting out of town and had caught a red-eye on the Saturday night leaving his niece, Laura, in charge of the counter. Apparently these two young men had walked in, bragging loudly about how good they were and doing their best to impress all the ladies on the treadmills and bicycles. When Laura had asked them to “keep it quiet”, they were amazed at her suggestion, had insulted her, had carried on lifting and had left without putting anything away.

Laura told me all this on the Monday morning and as I sympathized with her our discussion was interrupted by the noisy arrival of the two; sixteen and loud with it. I saw Laura’s shocked expression as the elder of the two, the leader, strutted arrogantly to the counter, turned, leaned on his elbows and scanned the area. He laughed at those on the treadmills or stationary bicycles and yelled at his partner, “Hey, Jake, look at these fucking wimps”.

I looked at Laura behind the counter, raising an eyebrow. She nodded, walked over and quietly said, “You ain’t heard nothing yet”. The boy turned, looked at her and yelled, “Here, you, bitch, I thought I told you yesterday that Jake and I wanted energy drinks on the counter as soon as we arrived.” Laura kept her temper admirably, limiting her answer to, “I thought I told you yesterday that I expected payment. You walked out without paying”.

He told her what he thought of her and that was enough for me. I walked over, leant on the counter next to him and quietly asked him to shut up. He transferred his arrogant cursing to me and I was told in no uncertain terms that if I interfered, he had the guns to deal with me. He flexed his arms and they were, possibly, just over a magnificent 15 inches.

I remembered that movie, “Crocodile Dundee” especially that scene when Dundee is threatened with a knife. I used the same line of dialogue, slightly changed. “You call those guns?” I asked, then whipped off my sweat top and flexed my 20 inch arm right in front of his eyes. “These are guns”

I swear he changed colour. I could see amazement, realisation and resignation in his eyes, followed by anger and --- oh, how he signalled it --- the desire to hit me. His fist clenched and started to travel towards my chin. I knew it was coming, so it was easy to enfold in my hand. “Do you know what we do to noisy, nasty little boys in this gym”, I asked. No reply. “Well, do you?” I asked again, applying a little pressure to his hand. “No” came a whispered grudging reply. “We do---this” I said and turning him quickly, I lifted him a little and carried him to a nearby chair. I sat on it and he finished up across my knees. He cursed and swore to no avail as I spanked him eight or nine times. They were not brutal or sexual spanks but punishing and they could be heard in the silence of the gym. At the end, I let him go and he sank to the floor where he sat for a moment listening to the applause of the “wimps” They were humiliating him and he did not like that.

He got up quickly. “Jake” he said,” They don’t appreciate good muscle. Let’s get out of here”. But Jake had already disappeared.

“You wait until my father hears about this”, he said to me.

“I thought someone with guns like yours wouldn’t need father to help him,” I told him. “Besides, if I’m right and my guess about those bruises on your face is correct, then if you say anything about this, you are in for a good beating from him.” He flushed, turned and stalked out. We didn’t see him again for several months.

But we saw Jake.

On Thursday morning, I parked the car in the staff area and used the back entrance. Laura greeted me, smiling broadly. “Don’t make it obvious, but glance at the front entrance”, she suggested. A few moments later I glanced over all the gym and detected a figure, partially hidden, standing where Laura had stated. “That’s the other guy, isn’t it?” I said. “How long has he been there?” “About 20 minutes”, she replied, “What should we do?”

“Let’s not frighten him”, I said, “You never know what might happen”. But ten minutes later, Jake had disappeared.

Next day I was delayed. Ben’s aunts decided to go shopping and I was wanted to drive so I didn’t arrive at the gym until early afternoon. Laura was bubbling with excited interest. “He was back” she told me, “He stood in the entrance for almost an hour. Twice I thought he’d made up his mind to come in, but he didn’t and next time I glanced over, he’d gone. He wants to, Ned. He wants it very much”

“He can’t forget his pal’s behaviour”

“We’ll have to encourage him in some way. I’ve looked at him a couple of times; not much I know, but Ned, I think he’s got potential”.

“I’m going to collect Ben now, but we’ll be in tomorrow morning. Let’s see if anything happens and if anything does, we’ll play it nice and easy”. As I was leaving after a quick but intense workout, Laura mentioned that Nick would be returning that afternoon and added that she would apprise him of the situation.

When Ben and I worked out the next morning, there was no by now familiar figure watching. Once again I was amazed at Ben’s physique. With the help of willing friends at the University, he had added an inch here, a half inch there. When he stripped right off, his beautiful cock climbing close to his navel, it took a great deal of self control for Nick and I to concentrate on his continuing preparation for that first show. Nick was making Ben go through the compulsory poses again and again so that subtle changes were being made. We discussed the music for the free posing routine. Ben said he had discovered an unusual piece of music and was working on the poses and the connecting movements that would be fun to do and great to watch. Nick finished the conference with diet advice for the next week then I drove Ben and me home and when we went upstairs to my rooms, I stripped him and myself and threw myself on him.

On Monday morning (Ben having been delivered safely to the University the previous evening) I was at the gym early and sure enough, at about 9.30 am, I caught sight of Jake in the entrance area. I quickly told Laura my intentions and slipped through the back door and into the staff car park. I scurried through the passageway to the main street and arrived at the front door. I took a moment to catch my breath then looked in. There he was, standing with his back to me. He was on the point of moving and I thought the best way would be forward. I moved as quietly as possible, walking over to stand just behind him.

After a moment he became aware of my presence, turned and realised who it was. I could tell he had no intention of running. He was just apprehensive of what might happen, so, as gently as I could manage, I said, “Why don’t we both go inside?” He gulped. “Aren’t you going to----?” he whispered. “Not unless you deserve it”, I answered. “But do you think you could apologize to the patrons of the gym that you insulted last week?”

“I want to, but----“.

“A bit worried about it?”

“Yes”.

I thought for a moment, then propelled him into the area. “Hi, everyone”, I called out. “This is Jake and he wants to apologize for his silly behaviour last week”

Mrs Pataki, bless her, immediately said, “No worries, Jake”. Mr Duncan told Jake they weren’t annoyed at him, but at the loudmouth he had been with. Others joined in the welcome as they rowed, walked and bicycled.

Jake looked at me. “Thanks,” he stammered.

“Wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“No, guess it wasn’t”

There was short silence, and then I asked Jake what he wanted to do now that he was inside the gym. He thought about it then told me he wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Finally he said that he wanted to get bigger and improve.

“Weren’t you doing that before?” I asked.

“No—not really. I just did what Brandon told me to do and---“

I prompted him with another “And?”

“Now that I think about it, he knew fuck-all”

“You are probably right, so forget everything he told you to do. Let Nick, Laura and I assess you. We’ll plan a programme for you, not for Brandon, so that you can lift more, improve your strength, build your muscle and enjoy the experience. You with me?”

“Sure” he said with growing confidence.

We did just that and Jake got to work immediately. We explained what we wanted him to do and why. He listened and tried. Most of the time everything fell into place. “Don’t be afraid to ask questions” I told him, “We want to be sure that you know that you are doing an exercise correctly”.

He started with simple, easy stuff---and all three of us noticed he didn’t complain that he was just lifting babyweights. We made sure he was breathing correctly and he confessed that when he lifted with Brandon he had just taken a deep breath before starting to do as many reps as he could before having to take another breath. “Not a good technique, I suppose?” he said with a touch of humour and I agreed with him.

It was soon after he started that we realised how hard he was determined to work. We had proposed a brief informal meeting for assessment, but it was hardly necessary. It boiled down to my asking “Do we continue to help Jake?” The answer was a happy affirmative. We planned, we helped ---but Jake worked and worked hard. And gradually we saw the first signs of muscle growth.

I asked Nick, privately, if he had noticed that Jake seemed to want to worship muscle. If Nick or I touched him, you could feel him attempting not to show any emotional reaction. He was trying to be nonchalant about it, trying to concentrate on the exercise and nearly always succeeding. But there was one occasion when I was helping him with chins that I saw his bulge becoming enormous and noticed the wet patch on his sweats. I said nothing but I resolved to bring a little joy to his endeavours. I asked Nick if he had any old tubes of tanning lotion or oil that he didn’t need anymore. With a quizzical look he asked me what I was up to, but I only answered, “Responsibility”. He gave me a couple of tubes of oil and after the workout; I asked Jake if he would like to help Ben at his first show. He looked shocked at the suggestion. “Help? How?” he asked. I told him he would see the following morning.

Of course, that meant a body-shave for me, which I dislike, but next morning after the intensive back workout I took Jake to the preparation room and stripped down to a very old posing slip. “Right” I said, smiling at Jake. “Practice time! Have a go at covering me with this oil. Not too little, not too much. And smooth, Jake, smooth.”

“I don’t understand”

“Well, Ben has his first show soon. We were wondering if you would like to be part of the team.”

“Oh; fuck, man, yes”

“Then you’ve got to learn what to do”. I handed him the oil and, feeling a little naughty, I threw him a most muscular pose. My Mamma used to say, “One of these days, Ned, you will go too far” and for a moment I thought I had done just that. Jake looked as though he was going to cry before he caught hold of my delts with one hand and tried to fuck my thigh at the same time. I murmured, “Oil, Jake” and he stepped back, measured some oil into the palm of one hand, licked the delts nearer to him and afterwards dribbled the oil on to the serrations. I made sure that my biceps split and that my triceps were defined. He did his best; at once eager, self critical, tentative, amazed and over confident. When I flexed my forearm he lost self control and I could hear a sudden intake of breath as he creamed his underwear involuntarily. For a moment we looked in the long mirror and the lighting showed that his efforts were not brilliant, but neither was the result a dreadful failure. “Thanks, man” Jake said, smiling a little at me, because we both knew what had happened. “I gotta---“

Jake met Ben that weekend. They hit off immediately. I suppose it was Ben’s humanity that Jake found irresistible. Ben was huge, overwhelming and awesome and he knew it. He didn’t have to shout or boast and he knew there were other words in the language other than variations of “fuck” (It was when we were together than we sometimes shouted out our love and it was then that our fun variations on “fuck” were explored).

And a couple of weeks later, Ben was a First Timer in the bodybuilding show held in the nearby city. •