The Call -Part II

[Cappy50]

The Call -Part I: https://muscle-growth.org/topic/6130-the-call-part-i/

 

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The Call –Part II

 

Strolling the golf course’s edge, Frank held Lenny’s elbow as he told him about the invitation to join More to Life. Lenny was surprised, even with Frank’s cold call and invitation to visit overnight.

       “How can there be an opening with everyone so healthy and strong.”

       “We’re not immortal. No vampires here, Lenny. We die. The most recent was a woman volunteering at an Ebola clinic in Africa. We have accidents, cancers, although rare, and everything else. Heart attacks remain the popular way to go. Men average ninety-two years and women ninety-eight. Our oldest resident is Ruth at one hundred and five and looks not a day over sixty. There are thirty centenarians among our six hundred residents. Plans to double the facility in five years has everyone worried; a drastic change to the recruitment process.”

       Lenny stopped walking. “And why me?”

       Frank faced Lenny. “Because besides my wife, no one was ever as good to me as you.”

       Lenny blinked.

      

****

A sign identified the modern, tinted glass building with a triangular entrance as the More to Life Holistic Center –a gym. Lenny stopped, unsure he wanted to go further down the rabbit hole. Frank nudged Lenny.

       A man behind the glistening marble front desk waved Frank to a side office. The room’s glass wall faced the weight training area. Frank moved Lenny to the window, giving him a full view of the half-acre. Mirrors covered the four walls. Half-mirrored structures subdivided the main floor into parcels: aerobic area, belted machines, and free-weights, which had the largest footprint.

       Buff men and women navigated the muscle launch pads. Men swayed with the weights they hauled, the women’s thighs were shopping bags filled with stones. Lenny’s jaw ached from gapping —and the thought of May’s kiss. A noise from behind startled Lenny; seeing the mammoth in the room shocked him.

       ‘Lenny, meet Todd Gimble, the biggest and strongest among us. Todd, this is my friend Lenny.”

       A USDA stuffed canvas at six two and two hundred and fifty pounds direct from Costco stuck out a hand.

       Lenny looked at his own hand, then Todd’s shovel. Todd laughed, and fist bumped Lenny’s shoulder, sending a thousand volts down his arm.

       “Sorry, man, I keep forgetting my strength,” said Todd producing a double bicep flex that blurred Lenny’s vision. Two humps rose above Todd’s ears. Honeycomb shoulders acted as slopes to the high peaked biceps.

       “Go ahead Lenny, give them a feel. That’s what we do here.”

       Todd’s head turned to each bicep, as if he didn’t know how they appeared.

       Frank moved next to Lenny. “I know, the flexing and touching seems strange, but big men like Todd thrive on confirmation.”

       Stepping in front of Lenny, Frank placed one hand over the upper portion of Todd’s right arm while pointing to Todd’s left.

       Lenny’s hand landed on molecule thin skin splayed over veins layered on a bicep so big it needed a room of its own. Lenny’s fingers crisscrossed the Interstate of veins, with blood pulsing at sixty-miles per hour porting oxygen up the muscle mountain.

       “Twenty-two inches, Lenny. You should have seen me when I retired. A fucking plump, overripe tomato.” Todd puffed out his checks, and then burst into laughter.

       “That’s BS.” Frank shook his head and chuckled. “Todd looks this way because he arrived big. He played college ball and the NFL drafted him his junior year. A blown out knee is the only reason you don’t own a team jerseys with Todd’s name.”

       The rest of the story was predictable: drink, depression, and inactivity. At forty-five Todd had layers of fat, but never a squish tomato.

       Lifting his shorts, Todd’s pillar legs dwarfed his upper body. His veins compared to the Floridian canals, like those Lenny had once spent paddling before he’d become ill. Todd tensed his right leg causing a muscle eruption, the kind meant to crack tundra.

       Frank knelt, motioning Lenny to follow. There was enough landscape for both their hands; or to lie down and take naps. Lenny explored the outer thigh, his hand scraped along the angry central dewdrop muscle that pushed the other sinew outward. He could hear Todd, but had no sight of his head. Todd shouted Latin names as Lenny’s hand moved along the leg’s surface.

       Using Todd’s leg as a handrail, Lenny steadied himself to stand. Without warning, Todd took hold of Lenny under his armpits to jettison him into the air and catch him on his way down.

 

****

Todd called out names and ages as part of Lenny’s tour of the holistic facility. Lenny thought it a joke. He saw no correspondence with the faces and bodies to the ages. Everyone wished Lenny well; a few flexed.

       They stopped in front of a woman identified as Shareen, sixty-nine, but appeared to be in her late-thirties. She was squatting with two hundred pounds on her shoulders. Todd’s steadied her last rep with a hand on her back.

       “Hey, Shareen,” Todd said with a trill, “Shall we show Lenny our squat variation?”

       Shareen giggled, her legs spread, stretching Lycra pants to emphasize her grapefruit rear-end. Todd placed the barbell behind her neck then knelt in front. Shareen mounted his shoulders. Once secured, Todd duck-waddled to grab another two hundred pound barbell. Shareen lifted her legs, allowing Todd to rest the barbell on his chest’s upper shelf. Todd squatted for ten repetitious.

       On dismount, Shareen repeated her signature giggle, and rubbed Todd’s shoulders. “See you later, Toddie?” Touching two fingers to her lips, she rubbed them across Todd’s cheek.

       Lenny thought Todd in his mid-thirties, but asked anyway. Todd inflated his biblical chest to sing out his coming seventieth birthday. Lenny blinked, seeing muscles draped on a young man, and a liar.

       The parade resumed. Lenny observed flexing; women’s bosoms pushed workout bras beyond manufacturer’s limits. Bare-chested men ignored sweat channeling down muscular ridges as they bounced their pecs.

       Todd opened an inlaid door that blended into the wall. The inner room was thirty feet on a side. Mirrors ran from floor-to-ceiling. The dumbbells ranged from five pounds to two hundred, and preloaded barbells went higher than Lenny thought practical.

       Jamal stood in the middle of the room, alone. Lenny thought Jamal the youngest of anyone so far and he was correct on two scores: Jamal’s body and face fit a twenty-year-old, and his real age at fifty-two made him the current youngest resident. His body resembled a pro bodybuilder.

       Jamal curled a barbell hijacked from a semi-trailer axle. Lenny tried not to focus on Jamal’s small posing suit; a suit so tight the imprint of his genitals was visible.

       The barbell clanged on release. Jamal adjusted his poser, shifting his penis to a new position. He greeted Todd with a punch to his shoulder. Todd feigned injury. Jamal bellowed like Tarzan while pounding his chest.

       As if required, Jamal started a posing routine that lasted two minutes. Muscles popped, cinema style. Lenny felt dizzy, suffocated by the reflecting muscle in the mirrors. Turning one-eighty degrees, Jamal’s back flared supertanker wide. His flared muscles busted the sound barrier.

       “What do you think, Todd? Am I getting there?”

       Frank nudged Lenny, leaving Todd alone with Jamal. Outside the room, Frank explained that Todd trained Jamal for the upcoming More to Life’s bodybuilding competition. Members were not permitted to enter outside events, so they started their own. But members were encouraged to attend contests and record them. The More to Life technical crew projected the videos onto large screens: life size and 3-D. “Don’t’ ask me how they do it?” said Frank in monotone.

       Frank continued his explanation. More to Life members posed next to the on-screen contestants. The judges compared members with the video contestants. So far a More to Life member won every time. Frank swore it wasn’t rigged. The members really were bigger, better proportioned, and more ripped.

       Lowering his voice, Frank told Lenny that Todd’s interest went further than training bodybuilders. Frank put a finger to his lips, seeing Todd come out of the posing room.

       Todd laughed, throwing his arm around Lenny’s neck, the gravity strength pulled Lenny‘s head to the nadir of Todd’s nipples. “Don’t worry, Lenny, I expected Frank would tell you my secret.” Todd laughed and grabbed his crotch.

       Frank shook his head hard.

       “Fine, I’ll stop. Now, go on, tell our story.”

       This was their story because Frank had played a roll. One day, off campus, they had purchase guest passes at a local gym. They often did this, getting a kick teasing townies by tossing around vast amounts of weights. During this visit, Todd saw a young man, late teens or early twenties, with terrible training form --wasted effort.

       Todd removed his shirt and started to pose near Kidd —Todd’s nickname for the man. Todd waited until Kidd noticed, which didn’t take long. In no time the two spotted each other. Todd kept his poundage lower than Kidd’s, not wanting to embarrass him. Kidd became overconfident, and challenged Todd to an arm-wrestling contest. Frank officiated and half the club observed. Todd pretended to struggle, but his rising three-scoop bicep gave the game away before it finished. As consolation, Todd whispered to Kidd while holding him in a bear hug that he’d take him to dinner as consolation. Frank stopped talking, tilting his head to Todd.

       “I’ll finish. So, Lenny, I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, but I have an attraction to young male muscle, if you get my drift. I have since college.”

       Lenny’s lips pursed, whispering Shareen’s name to Frank, but Todd heard and laughed.

       “Shareen, the squat lady?” Todd laughed again. “We’re just friends. Sometimes we hook up. A few other women too, but they’re not my first choice. I’m just doing my duty to share the muscle.”

       Frank waived at Todd.

       “Too much bragging? Okay, so to continue, Kidd and I had fun at his place and still do. He was buff then but you should see him now.” Todd flexed his arm while he hovered his hand over his bicep, indicating a growing mound.

       “Before I left Kidd that night I had emptied several packets of our special brew into the his protein shake. Two days later Kidd called to report a jump in weight and size. He thought it a result of my training advice.”

       Frank broke in. “The formula has a bigger impact the younger the person, but no one here is under forty-five, so how much on early twenties or younger is unknown. Jamal’s the nearest test case. The biochemists don’t want to try any younger.”

       Todd shook his ahead. “I would be severely reprimanded if anyone found out. But only Frank knows. Oops, I guess you do too. I broke the rule only once, I promise. So what?”

       Frank rubbed one index finger over another.

       “Come on Frank, you always follow the rules?”

       Frank put his right hand on his heart, raising the palm of his left hand upright.

       “Yeah, right. Anyway, Kidd has worked hard. I’ve been to contests with him and he’ll get a pro card in a few years, before he’s thirty. He took first place at the Junior Mister Florida at twenty-four.”

       Before Todd started on another story, Frank interrupted to say he had a meeting and he would meet Lenny at the clubhouse.

       Todd smiled. “Don’t worry, Frank, I’ll get him there, even if I have to carry him.”

       Lenny grimaced.

       “I’m kidding.”

       The tour continued to another room behind the big glass wall. Several men and woman were posing. Lenny eyes widened at what he thought a muscle truck stop; anywhere he looked he saw bulging sacks unloading.

       Todd moved Lenny to another door, but it was locked. "Occupied." Todd smiled with cheekbones pushing his flared nose.

       “This room is like the last but has a table, a couch, a few chairs, a trampoline, and two swings hung from the ceiling. It’s men only and that…” Todd pointed to an adjacent room, “that’s women only. Across the floor is an identical coed room. That’s were I’ll meet Shareen.” Todd gyrated two hands under his massive breasts and twirled his nipples.

       Lenny shrugged, so Todd continued. “These are different kind of posing rooms. When the doors locked, its a private session.” Todd winked.

       There was no change in Lenny’s facial expression.

       “Let me spell it out. In the last room people posed in contest suits. In here they don their birthday suits. And muscle exploration isn’t only with hands.”

       …

       “Do you understand, Lenny?”

       …

       “I’ll assume you do. I’ve told you this so you know everything about More to Life for your decision. There are no restrictions or judgments on people’s behavior. There’s more to life, get it?”

       Lenny throat seeped air. “Is it obligatory?”

       “Hell, no. Not every member goes in for this, but you’d be surprised how many do. Most people start off saying its not for them, until they gain massive amounts of muscle. They become curious about what big muscle can do besides pump iron.”

       This ended Lenny’s tour and he needed a break. Todd slugged his frappe in a gulp, and then waited as Lenny stared into his pink frappe.

       Lenny wanted to skip the meeting. He would have preferred to return to Frank’s house. He didn’t tell Todd he knew this wasn’t for him, and he didn’t need to see anymore. He shivered at the thought of being groped. He didn’t like people’s touching him. Lenny closed his eyes, an attempt to eradicate the tour’s muscle saturated images, and especially Jamal’s penis-imprinted posing suit.

       Todd’s finger with the force of a ball-peen hammer tapped Lenny’s shoulder. “We better go, or we’ll be late”

       A chill seeped down Lenny’s spine. He felt like a small child walking next to Todd. As two big buff young bodies stopped to talk, Lenny thought this constituted a crowd. Lenny’s mass had no impact on the sidewalk acreage.

       He folded his arms upon entering the clubhouse. He had made his decision.

****