I rode down to the bloody railroad station with him, then watched till the hateful train had carried him out of my life. The taxi took me back up the hill and let me out near the gym. Hoping no one would see me, I ran down the slope and found Coach in the middle of his workout. I flung my arms round the big guy and sobbed my heart out.

He wrapped his big arms round me and patted my back. "There, there, big guy. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships two nights ago?"

"Oh, shit, Coach! Don’t go and remind me. I’m so mixed up - about you - about him - I don’t where to go or what to do with my life. It’s all so fucking unfair. Why did he have to go anyway?"

"Oh, boy. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Same for all of us. His time here was up. He never knew this would happen - any more than you did. And if it’s any consolation to you, I bet he’s weeping and sobbing on that train himself. And he doesn’t have me to run to."

I slumped down on the bench. "Think I’ll ever see him again, Coach? Oh shit. I can’t stop." I threw myself face-down and went into new paroxysms of tears and sobs. He sat beside me, picked me up and slung my face over his shoulder and hugged me. Boy, did I need that hug!

"Sure you will. May take a while, but I’m sure you will. You’ve both got to get on with your lives and he’s got to make his own living now. At least you have some tasks to fill in the meantime. You’ve got two years of triumph ahead of you to work for - it didn’t all end with that match, you know."

"But I want him - I want him now." More sobs on a wet shoulder.

"Man, you have got it bad - haven’t you?" - stroking my head and my back. Somehow him stroking my head calmed me down and I began to feel less distraught. "Here, drink this - it’ll make you feel better." Whatever it was went through me like a bolt of electricity, clearing away sobs and cobwebs.

"Wow! Shock treatment!" I laid my head on the big pecs and hugged him. "Thanks, Coach. Thank God you’re here. What would I ever have done without you?"

"Well, you didn’t have that problem. Go next door and have a long hot shower, then come back and we’ll do some exercises to stretch all that stuff out of you. OK?"

And so it was.

Meanwhile, there was that contest at the end of the Summer vac to work for. I threw myself madly into it, trying to blot out my unhappiness. More workouts, more dragonjuice, more intense posing sessions, more wrestling sessions with Coach (!),more growth! But the pain of that diet! Coach was determined to rid me of every last ounce of boy-fat and get me down to 2.5 % bodyfat for the contest. The closer I got to the goal, the more excited Coach became and the more violent our sextimes with each other. That was OK by me.

We often got real kinky, just for fun. Dildos, sling-work, fisting. I fucked him a lot and loved to hear him moan and yell when I got really vicious with my road-rammer power-slams up his ass. But I moved into a new state of bliss the days he first fisted me in the sling. He had shown me some pretty graphic leather-fuck movies so I kind of knew what I might be in for . There was one called Acres of Ass #1 where some hungry bottom got fisted by a huge morphed BB that really turned me on. OK, so I was game for anything Coach laid on me. Feet in the air, locked into stirrups, hands gripping the leather web behind my head, Coach between my legs, a fistful of lube, one long questing finger teasing my joy-button, then two, then three. My great muscles were squirming about with delight by the time all four fingers and the thumb were up there, twisting about, persuading the door to open wider. It felt SOOOOO great. Coach handed me a whiff of amyl or something and took one himself. He seemed to grow ten times as big as my head took off somewhere and suddenly! Pop! The fist was right inside, possessing me, body and soul! Man, I’d never known anything like it - it was as if heaven was cumming in by the back door!

"Shit, Coach! Give me more! I want to feel that big bi right in there!" It never got there, but each time we tried this, his arm got in a bit further, but never past the elbow. Still it was a great fantasy to dream while he was doing it!

His whole hand seemed to squeeze my joy-button and I fountained into his face as he jerked himself off in great spurts all over my chest. With every spurt his fist reacted inside me, forcing me to spurt even more. We licked up each other’s muscle-juice and slurped it into violently kissing mouths.

"Wow, Coach!"

"Now I know how to press your button!"

"You always do, Coach - you always do!"

An hour of fisting in the sling is totally enervating, so in training periods only Coach could receive the benefit from my speedily educated fist!

During this time Coach and I seemed to grow closer and closer to each other. Being with him, fucking with him, had a totally different feeling to my all-too-few times with Rodney, and the more time we spent together, the easier it was to endure my bereavement. I’d be 18 in September at which time I became independent of the orphanage authorities, so they were only too happy to sign me over to Coach for the duration of their authority. And it was round about this time that Coach legally adopted me as his "son". That was a day of tears and hugs.

That first contest in Europe was a blast. We spent a couple of weeks at another ‘cousin’s’ home in southern Italy to tan up and hone down. Then off to Milan for the show. The first time I got up on stage with all the rest of that beef! wow! Everyone scoping out everyone else, flexing to impress or from nerves. Musclin’ up and posing with these guys from all over was so cool: Coach had told me that Schwarzenegger once said a good pump is as good an orgasm, but musclin’ through the posedowns with these guys was more like a giant orgy than anything else. It was enough to make you cum just standing there - and I noticed a few damp spots on certain shiny trunks! The only downer was that people wouldn’t believe I could be that big and still be "natural" and not drugged to the hilt.

Then began my last two years of school, and with them came the invitation to compete in Las Vegas for the Open Junior Olympia in the following May. These were melancholy years, and triumphant years. Melancholy because I never heard from Rod - never even knew if he got my letters. Then they started being returned "Gone away - no forwarding address". That was one real bad day when the first of those came back to me.

Come May, and the nerves came back. Not just for the contest but because I was going to the Land of Rod. Coach got just as nervous as I was when he started to recognize the Rod-vibes coming back.

"Jeez, dad, am I ready for America?"

"Ready as you ever will be. You’re already as big as most of the best Olympia contestants and one day you’ll be able to wipe the floor with all of them, with your superior proportions, your lack of drug-filled bloat, your fat muscle-bellies (and lack of Growth Hormone stomach!). You’re as classically proportionate as a Sarcev or a Paris and you’re twice as big as either of them. Not to mention that stupid boy-god face of yours and all the mass down where you can’t hide it properly in your bikini!"

Triumphant, yes, because I grew some more and won the Junior Olympia: OK, I won it, but that began to be the least of my problems - they were the hangers on, the press, the photographers (though I enjoyed posing for most of them), the entrepreneurs who promised me millions if I’d make gay porno movies for them. None of them would take no for an answer and none of them would back off even when I insisted I was "reserved" for someone else. If it hadn’t been for the protection of Coach and his American "cousin", I’d have been eaten to death.

It was also triumphant because I managed to come up with some software that combined firewall, encryption and virus-scan. (Yes, I didn’t spend twenty-four hours a day bodybuilding, even if it seems like it.) The Government bought it off me for a couple of million (pounds) - brokered by yet another "cousin" of Coach’s - which set me onto a lucrative career and the path of riches. I had one reason and one reason only for that money and it was to find Rod.

"If your hunting is as determined as your bodybuilding you’re bound to find him" said Coach. Whatever his feeling may have been, or not been, about Rod, he never stopped helping me find him over the next few years.

Training went on and I won a few more contests here and there after the Olympia: my name and pictures started to appear in some of the USA muscle mags - I just hoped that Rod still read those things.

I was about to leave school at the ripe old age of 19 and my now-famous computer skills were being head-hunted all over the place. The most interesting offer, and the best paid, came from Silicon Valley Inc. This small but successful company was offering me shares and a partnership as well as a very substantial salary. After I had discussed it with Coach, and his "cousin" had sussed it all out, I accepted the job.

Moving to the USA meant final separation from my "Dad" and this proved to be even more unbearable than the loss of Rod. This time there would be no one to pat my back. The ironic thing was that I would now be on the "right" side of the Pond and the one person who could have patted my back was nowhere to be found.

"Well, kid, if he’s to be found, you’ll find him. And you know where I am if you ever need me or want to come back. I’ll always be with you, no matter what. After all, we’re family now. And there’s always the telephone - as long as your millions pay the bill!"

He had come with me to L.A. to settle me in a tiny apartment near Gold’s, the Muscle Mecca of California, which also happened to be near Cousin’s home. This was practically the last thing he said before I watched his ‘plane climb in to the sky on the way back to England. At least there’s always the telephone. (Yeah, I ran up a lot of those bills over the next few years.) As I watched, I mused: you are such a great guy. You’re the father I never knew, the man who changed my life, and the one who’s always there for me. Thanks, Coach. I love you, man. •