"What're you guys doing?" Justin's younger brother Simon asked as he burst into the room. Simon was the brainy nerd of the family, as different from Justin as night and day. But the brothers got along well, maybe partly because they were so different.

"It's called creative visualization," Justin said, as Sean passed Simon a muscle magazine open to an article by some sports psychologist. "You try to visualize your body growing huge, and you set the picture in your mind with affirmations, like we were doing." Simon took the mag and began reading the article intently, furrowing his eyebrows as he stared at the page through his black-rimmed glasses. "Supposedly," Justin continued, "your brain begins subconsciously trying to match the mental picture, and you make better progress."

Simon sat back on the bed and continued reading as the two sixteen year-olds went on with their affirmations: "My delts are as big and round as cannonballs." ..."I can bench press three times my body weight."

When Sean and Justin finished their visualizing and began gathering their gym clothes, Simon put down the magazine: "Y'know, I've done a lot of reading about yogis and Eastern mystics. And for this thing to work, I think you'd probably need to be in some kind of an altered mental state. Which you could maybe achieve if you concentrated on just ONE affirmation, and focused your concentration by staring at a spot or a shiny object."

Sean and Justin exchanged a look. It was classic Simon, to take something simple and turn it into some kind of brainiac folderol. "Whatever," Justin said to his brother with a tolerant smile. "We just like anything that helps motivate us for our workouts."

The two friends assembled their gym things and then went to the kitchen for water bottles, leaving Simon alone in the bedroom with his nose still buried in the magazine. When Sean and Justin returned, Simon was sitting cross-legged and staring at himself unblinkingly in the mirror on Justin's closet door. "Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger, " he said with conviction. "Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger..." Sean and Justin laughed and left him there, earnestly chanting his affirmation at the skinny body reflected in the mirror.

The two workout buddies did a long, hard training session, then rewarded themselves with a protein-rich lunch and a leisurely afternoon playing video games and cruising the mall. When they got back to Justin's house, there were no lights on downstairs, even though it was starting to get dark. "Simon?" Justin called.

There was no answer, but when the boys went upstairs they found Simon still sitting on Justin's bedroom floor, where they'd left him eight or nine hours earlier. The fourteen year-old had slumped back onto his elbows, but he was still gazing wide-eyed at himself in the mirror and droning away in a hoarse, robot-like tone: "Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger. Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger. Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger."

"Simon!" Justin yelled. "Are you still at it? Haven't you taken a break?" Simon glanced in Justin's direction but barely seemed to notice him. He was locked in concentration, unswervingly focused on his mantra. "Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger."

"Snap out of it, brother!" Justin said, and shook Simon until he broke out of his trance, and rubbed his eyes as if waking up from a long sleep. "What time is it?" he said. "Almost seven o'clock, " Justin told him. "Simon, you're too much sometimes. We need to put you to bed."

Justin and Sean grabbed him by the arms to lift him off the floor, and as they grasped and lifted him they both immediately looked at each other in shock. "Holy fuck!" Sean said.

Justin stepped back and stared at his little brother, who was now standing groggily between the two older boys. "Simon, take your shirt off, " he said.

"What?" Simon looked at him in confusion, still dizzy and red-eyed from his marathon chanting session.

"Just take it off!" At his brother's command Simon wearily unbuttoned his baggy, long-sleeved shirt and let it hang to the floor. For a long moment Sean and Justin stared at him in stunned silence. Apart from the nerdy black glasses, Simon wasn't quite Simon any more. Instead he was a sculpted, rock-hard teenaged stud, as muscular and powerful as any of the teen competitors they'd admired in magazines. "Simon, my God! Look at you!"

"Justin, what?" Simon now sounded a little worried.

"Your body, Simon! You're built like a fucking tank! Look in the mirror."

Simon glanced at himself in the mirror, but still didn't seem to get what Justin was telling him. "Yeah, Justin, I know. That's what I've been doing all day. Making a mental image of how I'd like to look and concentrating until I actually started believing it and looking muscular to myself in the mirror."

"Simon, you ARE muscular! Un-fucking-believably muscular! It's not just a mental image, it's you." Simon looked back at himself in the mirror and now ran a hand over his body, squeezing his newly massive arms and pecs. "Oh, God, Justin, this is weird. I really feel kind of weird."

Before Justin could say anything, Simon wobbled and started to pass out. Sean and Justin caught him and began carrying him toward his own bedroom. "Jeez, he's heavy," Sean said. "I know," Justin answered him. "He feels like he weighs two hundred pounds. Let's get him to sleep and then first thing tomorrow find out how in hell he did this, so we can try."

Simon, semi-conscious at best, seemed to have slipped back into the altered s tate he'd been in all day. As the boys carried him to his bed, his eyes were closed but he continued mumbling, robotically: "Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger." Justin and Sean finished undressing him, lingering in amazement over the sight of what was now an incredibly buffed, solid young body. Justin couldn't resist squeezing his little brother's steely, thickly muscled upper arm. "Jesus, I'd kill for guns like that!"

"Tomorrow," Sean said. "Tomorrow we learn the secret." The two boys tucked Simon into bed and shut the door quietly as they left the room. Inside, Simon could still be heard groaning slightly and mumbling to himself in his sleep: "Every minute of every day my muscles grow stronger and bigger."

Sean was at Justin's house by seven-thirty the next morning. The boys planted themselves in Justin's bedroom, waiting impatiently for Simon to wake up and emerge from his room. At about nine, Sean finally said, "C'mon, Justin, let's just wake him. He's had almost eleven hours of sleep."

Justin weighed the idea. "He was pretty wiped out. I want to make sure he remembers exactly how he did it." He and Sean looked at each other, considering, and then headed eagerly toward Simon's room. Justin pounded on the door. "Simon! Are you up yet?" There was no answer. Justin knocked again and then opened the door.

The boys were completely unprepared for what they saw. Sitting naked and cross- legged on the floor, and staring in fascination at the mirror, was a GIANT, SUPERHUMAN version of Simon. He was easily 275 pounds and had the muscle mass and freaky definition of a Mr. Olympia competitor. He seemed not even to notice the arrival of the two boys, but instead gazed steadily at himself in the mirror, flexing his huge muscles and again chanting a dronelike mantra: "My body is growing at a superhuman rate. My body is growing at a superhuman rate. My body is growing at a superhuman rate."

Justin carefully closed the bedroom door behind him as Sean sank slowly to a sitting position on the rug, both of them staring in slack-jawed amazement at the biggest, strongest, most heavily muscled, vascular, striated, granite-hard fourteen year-old that ever existed. Only when he stood up to look at himself full-length did Simon notice that his brother and Sean were there. He turned to face them, and Sean involuntarily grabbed Justin's leg out of some combination of fear and excitement. Simon was BIG. Simon was HUGE. Simon was MASSIVE, MOUNTAINOUS, HERCULEAN. And neither Sean nor Justin could stop himself from gawking at the thick, veiny, eleven-inch cock that arched out fiercely from Simon's muscled groin.

"Justin, I have to ask you something, " Simon said. "Is it just my imagination this time, or are you seeing this, too?" He hit a front double-biceps pose, squeezing it to the max as his thick lats flared into a doorway-wide "V," an eight-pack of paving-stone abs rippled down his narrow midsection, and a pair of beautifully peaked biceps the size of grapefruits bulged in rock-hard glory.

Sean whimpered and was suddenly aware of a wet feeling in the front of his underwear. Justin stared dreamily at the magnificent giant in front of him. "Little brother, I'll do anything you say. I'll clean your room for the next ten years. You just HAVE to tell me how you do this."

Simon laughed and looked back into the mirror. "I've been experimenting. I'm not completely sure how I do it, but I know I'm getting better at it. Watch...." He cleared his throat and thought for a minute. Then he looked intently at his reflection and chanted: "Every time I flex, my muscles get bigger. Every time I flex, my muscles get bigger. Every time I flex, my muscles get bigger. " With each affirmation, Simon once again pumped his biceps. Incredibly, miraculously, they visibly grew at least an inch in diameter with every repetition. "Guess I better stop," he laughed, turning toward Justin and Sean to proudly display massive guns that now had to measure at least 25 inches. "It's tricky," he said. "I keep making certain body parts a little too big, and then have to beef up the rest of me again to stay in proportion."

"This is just too freaky," Sean said.

Simon again glanced appraisingly at his huge body in the mirror. "See, now I think my chest looks too small."

"Too small?" Justin sputtered. "Simon, you're a monster! You're fucking HUGE!"

Simon looked at his older brother cynically. "A little jealous, are we?" Clearing his throat again, he got the same serious expression and stared pointedly at his reflection: "Every time I flex, my muscles get bigger. Every time I flex, my muscles get bigger. Every time I flex, my muscles get bigger. " This time he flexed his chest as he chanted, magically enlarging his already-freaky pecs as if inflating them with a bicycle pump. When he was done he had a bigger, thicker, more impressively sculpted and massive chest than any bodybuilder who's ever lived. "Better, huh?" he said, turning to the other boys and alternately bouncing his boulder-sized pecs to show off his handiwork.

"Simon, I'm not kidding, you HAVE to teach me how to do that, right now!" Justin pleaded.

"Oh, I have to?" Simon looked at Justin with a surprised expression. "I have to, or what?" Justin looked up nervously as his now 320 pound younger sibling came closer and towered over him. Simon teasingly ran a beefy hand over his rippled stomach and mountainous pecs, flexing a little to give Justin an intimidating close-up of his powerful torso. "What are you going to do to me if I don't teach you? Jack me up against the wall again, like you did last week when I accidentally dented your bike?"

Justin chuckled nervously, trying to mask his terror. "Hey, I'm sorry, bro'. I lost my temper, got a little out of control."

"Yeah, well, that won't be happening again soon," Simon said as he grabbed Justin's belt with his left hand and lifted his brother clean into the air. "Jeez, you feel like a feather," he said, as Justin squirmed and struggled helplessly. "What do you weigh these days? One sixty-five? One seventy?"

"Simon, put him down, you'll hurt him!" Sean begged. Simon smiled and grabbed Sean with the other hand, lifting him the same way and holding Sean and Justin straight to his sides at shoulder height as he watched himself in the mirror.

"I'm not sure, " he said, "but I think I may be the strongest man who's ever lived. I worked on that for a while around eight o'clock."

"Simon, put us down! I think I have to throw up!" Justin whined.

"Do and I'll kill you, Justin. I'm not kidding. You better just control yourself." Looking happily in the mirror, Simon started doing lateral side raises, using Sean and Justin as dumbbells. He laughed at the sight of it, and at how ridiculously easy it was for him. "Hey, this is great! You guys are just about the same weight. I can get a good workout."

He finally set the boys down and said to Justin, "Go get me a pair of shorts that'll fit."

As Justin opened his mouth and started to ask "Why?" Simon inched toward him and commanded "Do it!" Justin was gone and back in twenty seconds, and Simon struggled to squeeze his thirty-five inch thighs and his muscled, beefy glutes into Justin's baggiest pair of surf shorts. The fabric was so tight that it split part way up the seams as soon as Simon took a step, but at least it covered his nakedness.

"Um, Simon...What are you doing?" Justin asked, gingerly.

"We're going outside. I wanna play!" Before either one of them could react Simon grabbed each of them under one of his massive arms and bounded out of the room and downstairs, Sean and Justin shrieking all the way as the fourteen year- old behemoth laughed giddily and carried them along with him like a couple of watermelons. •