Arthur - or Art, as his friends liked to call him - hesitated. He knew he had to choose his words carefully if he wanted to convince Nathan, who tended to be very persistent once he had set his mind on an idea or project.

Eventually, Art decided to plead incompetence: "I'm not good with people, you know. Landscapes, perhaps. Still lives. But not portraits or..." - here Art stopped himself from saying 'nude acts' - "... or... you know, just not good at drawing people."

Nathan loved Art (perhaps better than he knew himself), but his friend's lack of confidence never failed to annoy him: "Jesus, man! Have a little pride in your work! I mean - just the fact that it exists..."

Nathan was right, and Art knew it. There was thus only one way out: to beat reason with volume. Accordingly, Art shouted something about ignorance and the complexities of artistic creation, and Nathan realized that it was pointless to persue the issue further - for the time being. He left his friends room on the top floor of the dormitory and went back to his own, third-floor residence. He knew that Art's conscience would soon kick in, turning this little fight into a classically Pyrrhic victory; Art had won the battle, but there was not the least doubt that Nathan would end up winning the war.

*****

In fact, even Art was aware that the strategy he had chosen would lead to certain defeat - he had known it even when he opted for it, vaguely remembering a biblical passage that advised against worrying about tomorrow because tomorrow would worry about itself (and thus inadvertantly proving that, when it suited him, he was just as good as the most right-wing Christian homophobe at distorting scripture by paying attention to letter while neglecting the Spirit).

Art, in other words, predictably began to suffer from a vague sense of guilt as soon as Nathan had walked out of his room. Art hoped that it would simply go away, but the only thing that did disappear was the vagueness; the feeling of guilt stubbornly remained.

Why, after all, could he not try to make one drawing of the friend he loved so much? Sure, drawing people was not one of his strengths, but perhaps he had only lacked true inspiration so far, and of all people out there, Nathan was most likely to inspire him profoundly.

Thus it happened, once upon a time, that Art grabbed a few of his pencils to draw a picture of his best friend and secret love. He drew the sensuous lips, he outlined the athletic chest, and he sketched that lovely butt. Soon, Art was lost in the process, and when he finished the drawing about twenty minutes later, he was nothing short of astonished. It was perfect.

Art looked at this representation of his dearest dream, and decided to indulge himself. He went to his computer and browsed through some pictures that he had stored on his hard drive. Then he went back to his drawing, took a new sheet of paper, and sketched another version of Nathan's face. Instead of adding Nathan's lean, athletic body to his face, however, he began to draw the muscular frame of a professional bodybuilder - the type that he had seen on his pictures.

*****

Nathan had been reading for a while in his room when he suddenly noticed an odd, tickling feeling in his stomach. At first, he tried to ignore it, but as it soon spread over his entire body he laid his book aside and looked down at himself. Everything seemed normal, and he had almost decided to go back to his book when he realized that he was sweating profusely for no apparent reason. He also registered an embarrassing hard-on in his pants, and an odd desire to touch himself.

He hesitated for a moment, but then he gave in and started to caress his stomach. Dimly, he was aware of the fact that his six-pack was more pronounced than he remembered it, and if he hadn't known better, he could have sworn that the muscles were pulsing right under his hands.

This thought woke him up from his reverie, and once he had managed to focus on what was happening he didn't know what to think. Initially, his mind refused to accept what his eyes, indeed his entire body was telling him, but in the end the sensory evidence prevailed. In blatant violation of several laws of nature, Nathan's muscles had begun to grow.

The growth took place slowly, smoothly, leaving Nathan ample time to savor the feeling of increasing strenght and power. He kept caressing himself, relishing the pressure of his thickening muscles against his hands, aware that his jeans were getting tighter with each passing second. He could feel how his chest pushed outwards, could feel the growing bulges of his biceps slowly begin to fill the sleves of his t-shirt. He loved the feeling of growth, loved feeling his weight increase steadily. He closed his eyes to concentrate on his widening back, on pound after pound of muscle that was added to his increasingly muscular frame. His hands were all over his body, caressing his ballooning pecs, tracing the outlines of his hardening abs, and cupping the muscular mounds of his bubble butt. He could hear the fabric of his jeans straining against his growing quads, and he knew that his t-shirt, too, was having trouble containing his seemingly unstoppable growth.

When the first seam finally gave way, revealing a true tree trunk of a leg, Nathan moaned deeply, and another moan escaped him when the other leg freed itself of its textile prison by tearing it apart at the seams. Increadible slabs of muscles ripped through the fabric of his jeans, and similar mounds on his chest, in combination with spreading lat, balloning shoulders, and an increasingly muscular back, were pushing his shirt to its limits. In the end, his upper body literally exploded through his shirt, and when he flexed his left arm, Nathan almost came in his pants at the sight of his 24'' guns. However, just when he thought that he could take no more, the growth suddenly stopped. •