At 6 foot 1, 175 pounds, Ryan Maloney, JP’s elder brother, may not have been the tallest or biggest guy in the school, but he was impossible to miss. His jet black hair, his piercing green eyes, his flawless strong face all made up a boy who was the epitome of male teenage perfection. Imagine the beauty of Josh Hartnett and multiply that by at least 100. Then maybe you’d be in the ballpark. He was the most perfect specimen of a high school jock.

As a member of both the Varsity football and wrestling teams, his body was no less intimidating. His wide neck framed his thick traps and broad shoulders menacingly. His peaked biceps strained the sleeves of every shirt he wore, while his round pecs distended the front. His thighs and butt, not to be outdone, amorously filled out his jeans, making all the girls drool whenever he walked past them. It was well-known that he almost never wore a shirt during football practice no matter how cold it got, flaunting his muscles to whoever was watching. Some of his teammates said that he was full of himself (behind his back of course), but who wouldn’t be with a body like that.

Simply put, Ryan Maloney was the god of Central High School. He could have whatever and whoever he wanted. He ruled…and he knew it.

Nearly every girl wanted to be with him. Not only would it raise her status in the school’s society, but what girl wouldn’t want to be held in the 16-year-old stud’s heavily muscled arms? What female would not become hypnotized by his haunting gaze? Dozens of lustful girls bragged about servicing his reportedly massive cock and many more longed to.

I stood in the band room, staring slack-jawed at JP. It just didn’t seem possible for the two to be related, especially since Ryan was only two years older than his younger brother. But now knowing this, I felt a shiver run down my back.

JP wasn’t exactly the gorgeous hunk that his brother was, but I could tell immediately from the look in his eyes that it wouldn’t be long before that all changed. The same genes that had molded Ryan into the idol that he was were also in JP just waiting to emerge. The little display of machismo was only the beginning.

“I can’t wait to be like him,” JP smirked, twisting open the bottle of water and began chugging it. By the time he came back up for air, almost half the liter was gone. He let out a sigh of satisfaction and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“See ya later,” he grinned as he headed out the door.

After that, I couldn't help but look at him every time he walked past me, trying to see if he had gotten bigger. Was his bicep bulging more than when I saw it last? He had been wearing long-sleeved shirts all winter. Did he have a six-pack yet? He hadn’t shown any part of it since November. It was agony. I would’ve loved to see this little kid grow with every month, but fearing that he might get weird ideas about me that I didn’t want, I didn’t say anything to him. I would’ve loved to see the kid grow. I knew his little muscles were growing bigger and stronger all the time, like he said. I imagined him bench pressing and curling more and more weight every month, adding more iron to that bar, pushing his ever-expanding body to its limits.

He had told me that he was in the 103-pound weight class in wrestling. It was the lowest weight class available, but he assured me that he'd move up. Apparently, he was pretty good, defeating wrestlers more experienced than he was. For a freshman, he told me, he had a good record: 9 and 7, which was impressive for a beginner.

One of the things a lot of people noticed was his threshold of pain. It was huge, which I guess definitely helped in wrestling. Being that I was in a higher grade than he, I beat up on him all the time. Well, really, I just would give a punch or a shove in the hall. The only thing was that he would brace himself so quickly, he would barely move by the time I hit him or he would block with his hands so hard, that it would almost knock me over.

One time, he didn't block me and I accidentally gave him a smart, hard punch in the chest. It was like hitting a hard piece of wood. It probably startled me more than it startled him. Later, I apologized for hitting him that hard. I told him that I thought he was going to block me. JP looked up at me and lower his eyebrows.

“I didn't feel anything. I didn't know you hit me.” He smiled a devilish smile at me, raising his fist to clench it in my face. Even though he was wearing a shirt, I could just picture his toned body tensing up, six little squares of stomach muscle contracting together and two slim, but round, pecs giving a little bounce.

Whatever, I thought, and walked away, a bit nervous.

Another time, he punched me lightly in the stomach and it startled me a bit, but it didn't hurt much. The next time I passed him, I punched him in the stomach, but quite a bit harder than he had punched me. He must have really fast reflexes because all I hit was hard muscle. It almost hurt my hand!

JP turned around to look at me and smiled. “I didn't feel a thing,” he said, that look of confidence in his eyes again. I shuddered.

His muscles were getting harder and harder with each passing month and that was making him more and more immune to surface pain. It seemed that nothing fazed him. He could handle anything.

Pretty soon, other people began noticing the changes that were occurring in JP. Some of the freshmen girls in band, fully aware of who his big brother was would periodically glance over at him. You didn’t have to be too observant to figure out that they were developing crushes on the little stud. He would smile back at them with his bright, blue eyes, making them blush.

By early April, the weather had warmed up enough for the short-sleeved shirts to come out again. One day during band rehearsal, JP walked in as confidently as ever. He was wearing a shirt that seemed a little tight in his chest area and you could see the slightest suggestion of pecs. Were those his nipples protruding out over his stomach or just a wrinkle in the shirt? He probably did his own wash or something; yeah, that was it. Or was it? His arms did look noticeably bigger. I just couldn’t stop looking at him.

“Is that freshman JP getting muscles?” I heard someone ask me.

I broke out of my trance and looked over at Chrissy Angelakis, the girl of our trumpet section and a sophomore like me. If I hadn’t been gay, I would have found her quite attractive. Her dark Mediterranean features married well with her slim, athletic body. Many of the other guys in the section would bend over backwards to ask her out.

“Huh?” I grunted, a bit startled that she was asking me the question.

“Look at those little biceps of his,” she nodded. “They didn’t use to be there.”

As JP was sitting with a friend of his, carrying on an animated conversation, a group of girls in the clarinet section peered over at him. He caught their look and assertively cocked his head toward them, his mouth in a highfalutin smirk, sending them into a flurry of giggles. Then, leaning back in his chair, he raised his hands behind his head, knowingly displaying two small, but superbly formed biceps that popped out of his skin. As he stretched, the bottom of his shirt lifted up slightly, exposing a hint of the torso that lurked beneath.

“He’s getting pretty cute,” Chrissy observed.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “JP is definitely taking after his brother.”

Chrissy sighed. Not surprisingly, like almost every girl in the school, she was in lust with Ryan Maloney as well. “Hell, JP’s gonna be hotter than his brother.”

I secretly agreed with her. There was somehow something about the kid that told you he was going to become something that his elder brother could never be, what he could never dream of. Given time, I was sure that JP would surpass Ryan in every way.

He flauntingly cracked his neck, giving anyone watching a subtle show of the chords of muscle that had developed there since he started wrestling. Sure enough, it was a little wider than it used to be and his traps were beginning to appear. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

I felt a lump in my throat as he sat down next to me and acknowledged me with the magnetizing flash of his perfect white teeth.

“What’s up, man,” he greeted, his face beaming with his usual confidence.

“You seem to be doin’ well with the girls,” I remarked in a lame attempt to start small talk.

“Well, you know,” the kid answered. “I’m learning from the master.”

There was nothing but truth in that statement. Ryan was notorious for frequently showboating, sometimes right in the middle of class. He had no lack of gumption distracting everyone from a teacher’s boring lecture. He strived on being the constant center of attention. Surely, JP was picking up on these techniques.

“Hey, Maloney, you’re in my seat,” a rough voice spoke out from behind me.

It was Hunter Brayson, the unofficial leader of the trumpet section, but solely for the fact that he physically dominated the rest of us rather than for his actual musical ability. Nonetheless, he loved the position and exploited every opportunity to remind us of it. He routinely bossed everyone around, compelling him to sometimes be rather overly aggressive. The way he saw it, if he let his guard down too much, he would quickly be demoted.

Still, he had been a good friend of mine since grade school and I knew that in reality, he had a heart of gold. His demeanor was frankly a front. I knew that he truly cared for his fellow trumpet players and would never really insult them unless they gave him a good reason to.

“Move, kid,” he ordered.

“Ok,” JP obeyed with a smile, shifting over one chair. He wasn’t going to challenge the big guy…yet.

Hunter was what you would describe as “big-boned.” He was basically built like a defensive lineman of a football team. In fact, he probably would’ve been on the football team if he hadn’t been so devoted to marching band. Despite being approximately my height at just under six feet, he outweighed me by at least 100 pounds, although most of the difference was fat. His imposing bulk was quite intimidating, particularly on meeting him for the first time.

He eyed JP suspiciously as he sat down between us. “You should start to get to know your place around here,” he advised his much smaller colleague.

“Sorry,” JP apologized, quickly adding, “sir.” He promptly began preparing himself for rehearsal, unpacking his trumpet, getting out his music, adjusting his stand.

Hunter glanced back over at him as he did this and blurted out suddenly: “Jesus Christ! What’s with your arms?”

I shot my eyes over at JP who was now also looking down at his forearms. I almost ejected my own declaration of amazement as I realized what had caught Hunter’s attention. Underneath JP’s skin was a labyrinthine network of veins.

“What, do you do drugs or something?” Hunter exclaimed.

“Nah,” the boy answered nonchalantly. “I’ve been working my forearms lately.” He made his hand into a fist and slowly moved it around, allowing the muscles in his arm to jump and ripple. “They still need some more work.”

Hunter, his eyes wide, looked over at me and mouthed “whatever.” I could do nothing more than shrug.

JP was getting serious about this “getting big” thing. It was consistently becoming more and more obvious that he was beginning to put on muscle. I got chills down my spine imagining the kid going home and working out every night with his brother’s weight bench. At the same time, JP was entering into puberty, adding two inches to his height over the course of the school year. He no longer was the little JP I had met back in September. I waited with tense anticipation to see if his predictions would come true. If he continued at the same rate through the summer, I shuddered at what he could be like by the start of band camp in August.

Finally, the end of the year came. Finals were over and everyone was getting ready for summer break. Unfortunately, the seniors would be leaving us and their graduation was held at the arena of the local university. Of course, the band had to play “Pomp and Circumstance” a hundred million times and I almost fell asleep when the 600 names were read off.

Afterwards, we had to go back to the dressing rooms to change from our concert clothes into our street clothes. All the guys were crammed into this one little room. JP happened to be right next to me.

I reached over and gave him a smart punch on the shoulder and said, “Sophomore.” He glared at me. “Don't think just because you're no longer a freshman I won't taunt you anymore,” I said.

He put up his fists as if to fight me and I put up mine. Earlier in the year, I had confessed to him and other people that JP could probably beat me up. I mean, the fact that he was on the wrestling team alone would give him an edge. Plus, pound for pound, he was definitely stronger than I was. Add to that, even though wrestling season had been over for a few months, JP had continued getting stronger.

“I surrender,” I told him, as I put up my hands in truce.

“Wimp!” he taunted me and smirked.

Now, remember when I told you about when JP showed everyone his six-pack (or lack thereof) the last November. Well, in the last seven months, he had changed a lot. He began unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt. After the first two buttons, I was enraptured by what I saw and I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. There was actually a definite crease between his chest muscles, not deep really, but it certainly wasn’t there a few months ago. The muscle fibers were clearly visible, since even with this new muscle, JP was still as skinny as anything.

He undid the third button and the two sides of the shirt moved apart revealing the bottom of his pecs, his nipples protruding maybe a centimeter outward. The entire middle part of his chest was now exposed and it was breathtaking. However, I was not prepared for what I saw after the next two buttons were unlatched. No, it couldn’t be!

As JP unbuttoned the last button, a perfect set of six-pack abs were uncovered, tightening and loosening with every breath he took. JP had gotten washboard abs. I had been imagining that he had developed a six-pack, but I had no idea that it was going to be this beautiful. Six exquisitely carved rises of muscle swept elegantly from the bottom of his flat pecs to the top of his pants, bordered alluringly by a pair of perfectly sculpted obliques, hinting at the manliness kept hidden below.

He slipped the shirt back off his shoulders and my heart started to thump at an incredible rate. JP’s shoulders were no longer bony, instead slightly wider than his tiny waist, and his biceps actually balled up a tiny bit when he bent his arms. His narrow traps gracefully arched between his sinewy neck and his round, ripped deltoids.

I was completely captivated. He hesitated a moment before he started pulling on another shirt; airing out his small, but incredibly chiseled torso. He stared blankly across the room and I remember thinking to myself that he would make a great model. JP was by far the most beautiful thing in that room and as I looked at him, I felt my breathing quicken. I tried not to gawk in case the other guys would see me, but the kid’s body was too impressive to look away. Apparently, he had been working out quite a lot since last fall and he was starting to transform from a freshman wimp into a sophomore stud.

Then, he looked at me.

As our eyes met, I suddenly felt light-headed, as a strange dizziness began enveloping my entire body. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the little Greek god standing across the room. As I struggled to keep from losing total control, he continued gazing in my direction as if he was hypnotizing me in some way. He didn’t smile or make any hint of an expression. He just stood there.

At last, I tore myself away and concentrated on catching my breath. What had just happened? What was that all about? •