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Mirror Muscle


pb28wsx

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A guy posts a photo online after a workout. There is no other word to describe it: he is jacked. The large veins running down the middle of his biceps are engorged from pumping blood to his swollen arms; the thick blocks of his abdominal muscles cast deep shadows. But most interesting is his expression: he looks dissatisfied, troubled even. His eyes portray an insight into his mind. He doesn't think he is big enough. He has gone past the point where it is clear that he works out. He has even gone past the point where people think he is overdoing it, when in private his family question whether he is taking things a little bit too far.

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After the photo was taken, he will go home and scrutinise himself in the mirror. Dissatisified with what he sees, he picks up his trusty dumbbells and pushes his tired and sore muscles further still. The arms swell and peak, then tremble with effort. He switches to a lighter weight and whimpers with the effort, like a wounded animal. He catches sight of his own pained, desperate reflection in the mirror. He has a moment of self-realisation, and knows his obsession is dominating his life. But this only makes him focus harder on his trembling arms. When they can take no more, he resorts to flexing them hard, willing them to grow bigger, until even that is too much effort.

He can't pinpoint a single point when his desire - his need - to be bigger began. It may have been the time when a bigger kid at school pushed him out of the way on the football pitch and left him humiliated. The bigger kid scarcely noticed, and neither did the other boys around. But that feeling of inferiority, of being dominated by another guy, really got to him. It was incidents like that which he channeled into his workouts. He sometimes thought that if the bigger guy saw him now, he wouldn't recognise the little guy he had pushed out of the way. But he didn't want to be bigger, he wanted to be invincible. He channeled that desire for muscle into every rep of every workout. The physique in the mirror showed what was happening in his head. He was taking things to the extreme. He was starting to look like a freak - and he liked it.

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You definitely have a mastery with words man, but damn if that isn't a little fatalistic and unsatisfying. Still fucking beautifully crafted for what it is.

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  • 7 months later...

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