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With a little help from magic, Chapter Two


Hialmar

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Chapter one is here:

https://muscle-growth.org/topic/7118-with-a-little-help-from-magic-chapter-one/

 

With a little help from magic

Chapter Two

 

Twelfth Night came and went. Spring semester began. Aram hadn’t seen John for a couple of weeks. During Christmas Break, Aram’s family had went to another city, to spend Christmas with relatives. In order to use the holidays for something useful, Aram had brought books from the public library with him, and he had spent Christmas reading a voluminous handbook on anatomy and a monograph on constitutional matters. The books went far beyond what he was expected to read, from his teachers point of view, but Aram wanted to quench his insatiable thirst for more knowledge, and it wouldn’t hurt his grades for sure.

It had been a fascinating experience to follow John’s development during autumn and beginning of winter. It was rather common that beginners at the gym got initial results pretty quick, when their bodies adjusted to something entirely new and unfamiliar, but John’s results went far beyond what could be expected of that usual effect. At the Halloween party he had been lean and defined, but during November and December he had began to fill out and approaching a heavier build. One of the trainers had demanded John to hand in a urine sample, since the gym didn’t tolerate steroid abuse among its members, but it came back negative.

Concerning exercise, Aram was slightly disappointed with himself. He hadn’t improved his results at all in October and November. In December he couldn’t any longer lift the weights he was used to. He had got a bad cold then, and guessed that it could have something to do with it, but there was also a nagging suspicion back in his head, that his decreased ability could have something to do with Madame Cremorna – that is, if what she did really worked. His scientifically-inclined mind was of two thoughts when it came to the highly eccentric lady in the shop.

He missed Emma. They had been an item for years, and life was suddenly missing someone he had begun to take for granted. He missed her warm presence, the scent of her hair and the funny way she giggled.

Just as he thought about her, she happened to coincidentally pass by, on the way to her locker.

’Hey, Emma! How was Christmas?’

She looked surprised. Unusually surprised.

’Aram? Nice of you to ask. It was good, but nothing special. And you?’

She looked at him differently than he was used to. The situation felt odd.

’The thing we talked about in the end of the semester. There is no way for you to reconsider?’

’Talked about? Reconsider? I am not sure that I understand exactly what you are talking about?’

’About…’ Then it struck him, that he could remember two different strings of events – two different pasts existing simultaneously, side by side. In one of the pasts he and Emma had never been a couple. He felt strange.

’Do you feel okey?’

’Yes, just a little bit dizzy. Thank you. See you at math class.’

’Don’t exercise too much. I think it is so sweet of John to teach you how to exercise at the gym, but you have to take it easy in the beginning.’

 

* * *

 

John had been able to indulge in two workouts a day during Christmas holidays, and the gym had been unusually sparsely visited during these weeks. He had eaten traditional Christmas dishes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but then returned to his highly well-planned eating plan.

He had risen early the first day of the spring semester, and executed a cardio workout at the gym before school day. When he arrived to his locker he heard Peter’s voice on the other side the row of lockers:

’Oi! Swotter! I’m talking to you!’

’Right. Now his gaze is penetrating lockers as well.’, John thought for himself, and braced himself for the upcoming troubles, but Peter went on, talking on the other side the row. What was going on? John followed the row, and peeked around the corner.

Peter, Anderson and two of their friends stood in a semi-circle around Aram, tugging his laptop.

’What the hell are you doing?’, John shouted.

Peter and his friends turned around.

’Oh, hello John. Don’t worry. We are just having some fun with Swotter here. Not your business.’

A feeling of unreality lowered itself over the scene.

’Not my business? After all the hell you have given me?’

’What are you talking about? Only a fool would mess with you, meathead.’

’Uh. That may be right, but it doesn’t change what you did just a few months ago, does it?’

’What the hell are you talking about? We were friends in the hockey team once, if you don’t remember? Why would I roughhouse you?’

The feeling of unreality became more intense. John’s facial expression must have been weird, since Peter loosened his grip around Aram’s jacket, and nodded to his friends to leave, quickly following them. As they left the place, John could hear Anderson say:

’Did you see his face? I don’t know what he is on, but I hadn’t dared to stay in the case he got into roid rage, would you?’

 

* * * 

 

When John bought his winter jacket last winter, it had been considerably too large, but since he was still growing, he had expected it to fit better this winter, and anyhow it was useful to wear a jacket that would permit him to wear a warm jersey. December had been rather mild, and the snow that fell several times had melted away. After Twelfth night the weather had changed, a lot of snow had fallen, and it was now minus ten Centigrades. When he was on his way to the gym this morning, he had found that his jacket was too small, despite it had fit perfectly days before, and his jeans were too short. A lot of weird stuff was going on. His unkept hair had changed into a style with shaved sides and the remaining hair kept in thin braids covering the top of the head.

Aram hadn’t believed his eyes when he saw John earlier in the day. It was the first time in his life – as he remembered the past – someone had tried to bully him, and he appreciated John’s help. John’s growth during autumn had been fast, but still within the limits of his physical constitution. It was different now. During the holidays John had grown at least a decimetre in height, and his bones must have restructured themselves. His chest and his shoulders were broader, and his hips and waist were narrower.

Although Carl didn’t workout together with John and Aram every time, he had promised to accompany them at the gym today. Carl arrived with melting snow flakes on his black bomber jacket, and it took him some time to untie the shoestrings of his shiny black boots. He began to change into sportswear. 

John looked good in sportswear. The T-shirt was snug, but the drawstring cotton trousers were baggy enough to hide his obviously big legs somewhat. They all trained legs today, ending the workout with heavy weights in the calf rise machine.

’I feel a little bit strange, today.’, said Aram when they had returned to the locker room.

’Uhuh.’, answered John. ’I have felt strange, too.’, and tried to relieve himself from the sweatdrenched T-shirt. With a ripping sound he involuntarily happened to tear it into pieces instead.

’O shit!’, John exclaimed, distracted from the thought of any strangeness. ’It was the second time this week. I must buy larger training clothes.’

Aram stared at John. It was no surprise that John was muscular now, but the shape of John’s naked torso went far beyond what Aram had expected. Carl stared as well on the perfect traps and shoulders of John. On the perfect roundness of John’s pecs. On the valley between the pecs, continuing in a valley between his abs. Although Aram was the only one of them who knew the words for obliques, iliac furrow and serratus, Carl stared on them just as much as Aram, if not more. Carl sat down on a bench, but immediately changed his mind and left for the loo. When they were alone, Aram could manage to have a word with John.

’It must sound crazy, but it feels like reality is changing.’, said Aram.

’That’s exactly how I feel it. So it’s not only me?’, answered John.

In low voices, so that Carl wouldn’t hear their discussion from the bathroom, they discussed their experiences.

It turned out that they both remembered last semester – and actually their entire lives before that – in the same way: John had been short, shy, scrawny and interested in wildlife. Aram had been extremely fit, confident and brawny. John had been teaching Aram most of their schoolwork subjects during autumn. But both of them could also remember another, more dimly and vaguely recollected, past, in which John had always been built and interested in sports, Aram always had been thin and achieving good grades, and John had began to teach Aram about exercise. It seemed like the rest of the school only remembered the reality the two of them regarded as less real.

They didn’t manage to continue this trail of thoughts. Carl returned from the loo, and interrupted. 

’My jacket is suddenly too small. I have to buy a new one in a size that allows me to grow.’, John told them.

’Then I know the perfect store for you.’, answered Carl, and looked at his watch. ’If we hurry, we will get there in time before it close.’

They got on the tram. It was full of people on their way home from work, and the floor was wet of melting snow. John was freezing, since his jacket was too small, and he was only wearing a tight t-shirt, which felt too snug. Some people couldn’t avoid staring. John felt of two minds about this. It was a new experience. They left the tram.

’Is it far from here? I’m freezing.’

’Who wouldn’t freeze in this weather? Although you have the look of a hard fucker who could endure anything. You know that?’

John felt flattered and embarrassed, but it didn’t change the outdoors temperature. They took left into a cobblestone-paved alley, and soon found the shop John had mentioned. It was still open. Posters for bands, mainly punk rock bands, covered the black painted walls. A clock on the wall looked like the symbol for the British Royal Air Force. From the ceiling hung the symbol of London Underground. When John viewed the room, several styles of clothes hung from rackets or were displayed on shelves, ranging from stylish overcoats and expensive lamb’s wool jerseys to the sort of provocative clothes Emelie used to wear.

’Just tell me if you need any help’, said the shop owner, who sat behind the counter with earphones plugged into his ears.

’It’s fine. I know where to look.’, answered Carl.

And so he did. 

’You said you need something wide, with room to let you grow. Why haven’t you considered an Alpha bomber jacket like mine?’

’Oh. Eh. I don’t listen to your music.’

’Lots of people use bombers nowadays, even the bloody hipsters. You have always dressed like you are shy of yourself, and I haven’t understood why. Which colour do you like?’

’Uh. Blue.’

Carl handed him a bomber jacket in a metallic blue colour. John tried it on. It felt comfortable, and although it had lot of room for results from the gym, it didn’t look too large. John watched his own reflection in the mirror. The jacket suited him.

’It was perhaps not a bad idea after all. Do they have wide trousers as well?’

’Most jeans are too skinny for your legs. I would suggest army style cargo trousers.’

’Don’t you think that would look silly? Or angry? Or nazi?’

’Last time I checked, a lot of my anti-racist friends wore cargo trousers. It’s not like the 90’s any more. Here, try this pair with city camo. But, of course, you need a pair of boots to match.’ Carl began to evaluate the shelves with boots.

John found a pair of boots he liked. He observed himself in the mirror. Although covering his body, his new style accentuated his new physique, and he looked intimidating, in a way he never had before. It felt unreal and like he was doing something forbidden, but it also felt good. John payed for his new winter clothes, and they left the shop. It had began to snow again. His new jacket kept him warm.

 

* * *

 

Emelie sat in the school cafeteria steaming of anger. Her glass of water lay before her, its content running over the table. She tried to stop it with napkins.

’Emelie? What’s happening?’

It was Aram. Absentmindedly he used his two used napkins to stop the water from staining Emelies dress or the floor.

’Oh, sorry for the mess. I just talked to Emma.’

’Emma? What has happened to her. She’s nice.’

Aram uncomfortably remembered Emma from another reality. Her scent. Her laugh. Sex with her. Her sense of humour.

’Emma has got a new boyfriend, and we quarrelled.’

Aram felt a short sting of jealousy, and quickly realised that he had no reason to – in this reality.

’A new boyfriend? Who?’

Emelie had the expression of an elderly aunt in an acerbic mood when she answered:

’Anderson.’

 

* * *

 

It was his eating day, he tried to convince himself, when he was on his way home from an evening out with Carl and his friends. It had become a lot of comparatively cheap and unhealthy pub food and several pints of beer. The SHARPS were a friendly bunch, but had tested him initially with a rude sense of humour. John soon fell into the jargon. It was very unpretentious. The winter night was cold. Snow covered the grassy slopes, and frost glimmered from the stairs of stone up to the council-flat neighbourhood.

’It was good, Carl. I want to do it again.’

’Workouts are good, and I admire your discipline with food – I could never manage to follow rules like that – but you got to have fun now and then, aren’t you?’

John followed Carl home. Carl’s parents had went to bed. Trying to be silent, but laughing loudly, the lads their boots and jackets in the passage, and then went to Carl’s room. 

’And as I said before, there’s no hurry to become a skinhead even if you were interested. I hate poseurs just as much as the other lads.’

’Poseurs?’ 

’Yes. Idiots full of themselves, who one day decides to come in from nowhere and adopt the skinhead surface with no content. They usually care nothing about the music, and a few months later they go after another fad. They come in several flavours: There’s the racist idiots, who know nothing about skins before ’82 or about SHARP, and there’s the hipsters, and there’s the gays.’

’The gays?’ John blushed somewhat, and tried to not blush.

’Believe it or not. Some gays think that we are hot, so they try to look like us.’

John expressed some noncommittal noises.

’Which is rather flattering in a sense, but I don’t want a fifty year old daddy panting me in my neck, if you know what I say. Understand me correct: I am all for LGB rights – I’m a leftie for God’s sake – and I am not against some skins happening to be gay. What people do in their beds is their own business. I just want people to enter the scene out of the right motives. If you hate ska or oi!, can’t take a punch, and lack a sense of style, you don’t belong. Any upper class twat can shave his head, but he will not get what skinhead is about. Nor will the idiots who only want a pretext to pick a fight. They are just poseurs, all of them. And the boneheads have no flair for style: Have you ever seen a bonehead wearing a crombie coat? And they prefer threadbare WP t-shirts before a perfect Ben Sherman.’

 

* * *

 

’You will never believe what happened during lunchtime today.’, John told Carl while they helped the melocore club moving the large loud-speakers.

’No? What happened?’, Carl asked.

’Peter asked me if he could join me training at the gym.’

’You are kidding me. Peter is a racist wanker. I suppose you told him to go to hell.’

’No. At first, I couldn’t believe it was happening, but he seemed to be honest about it, and it sounded like he didn’t want to hang around Anderson anymore.’

’What if it is just a trick?’

’I don’t know. Perhaps this could let us put some pressure on him to stop behaving like an idiot.’

’It’s easy for you to say, John. You have never been bullied. I have seen what Peter is capable of, and it’s not pretty. For Aram’s sake, you should say no.’

The discussion was interrupted, when Simon entered the room. He gave some directions. The room was soon ready for a concert.

’I hope you stand by our agreement?’, Carl said to Simon. ’We help you with this, and your club will pay for an oi! and ska themed Saturday in two months.’

’Yes. Yes, of course. That’s the deal. Why do you repeat yourself all the time?’, answered Simon.

 

* * *

 

Aram’s mother didn’t approve of his new look. He was slowly untying the green shoelaces of his boots, when she asked: ’John, you have always been a nice boy. Why, of a sudden, do you look like a nazi?’

’Sorry Mrs A., but I don’t look like nazi.’

’That jacket and those boots. I have heard about nazis who look like that.’

’He’s right, mom’, Aram interrupted. ’There’s a lot of anti-racists who sport that look, nowadays.’

Mrs A. looked slightly confused.

’Back when I was in your age, only nazis looked like that.’

’The nazis were probably the visible ones, back then. But the roots of skinhead culture goes further back, before the split between racists and anti-racists within the culture. It was originally about Jamaican music. Oi! music was added in the 70’s. The split between racist skins and anti-racist skins took place in 1982. The racist skins are seldom seen anymore, at least in this country. The far right guys went on to wear ties and suits or became rockers or were assimilated by the casuals. Actually, I don’t understand why the far right guys tried to nick a culture about Jamaican music to begin with. And by the way, I’m not a skinhead yet, anyhow. I’ve got hair.’

'If you call that hair.'

Aram’s mother still didn’t look like she knew what to believe, but began putting dishes on the table.

’I’m glad that you help Aram with exercise. He only read books before.’

’Mum!’, Aram protested indignantly.

John recognized the situation too well: What is it with parents who behave like you still are fourteen or something? 

John continued to chat politely with Aram’s mother, while they ate a salad of parsley and fried breadcrumbs, chicken, chickpea sauce, and olives. 

After the meal Aram and John went into Aram’s room. It looked different from what John could remember. The posters of hockey players had disappeared. A novena candle similar to John’s own stood in the window. Aram had two bookshelves from IKEA, filled with books about natural science, mostly about biology and medicine. John watched the books confused. He could remember how he once had been able to understand the content of books like these, but he also became acutely aware of that he wasn’t able to digest their content anymore. The world felt weird, like it changed around him.

’Aram, I need to talk to you.’, John said.

’Same here. Carl is always present when we meet at the gym, so I haven’t got any opportunity. Not since our homework Tuesdays ended.’

’Homework Tuesdays? You do remember them? No one else seem to remember, and no one else seem to remember that you once were almost as big as I am now.’

’So you remember, too? It sounded like you did at the gym a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t sure.’

’You will probably not believe me, but it feels like I have lived in two different realities, and now only the better reality is left. It feel so good that the other reality has disappeared.’

’You seem to like it?’

’Do you remember the same other reality as I do?’

’I believe so, but I am not sure. Why do you ask?’

’There was not much to like in the other reality, so of course I prefer this one. You don’t have to be a genius to understand that.’

’Oh.’

’Oh, what?’

Aram’s eyes and eyebrows expressed several feelings, exactly what wasn’t easy to interpret.

’Oh… The thing I liked with the other reality, was my success at the gym and in martial arts.’

’Yes. I admit that that detail must have been good for you. For you. For me that other reality was hell. Whatever is happening, it is for the better.’

’I’m glad to hear that. Eh. Uh…’

’What are you trying to say?’

’John. I love science. I want to dedicate my life to science, but there seem to be some things that are beyond scientific explanations.’

’Perhaps there are. I haven’t thought much about it, but generally people would call me a sceptic.’

’But you can’t explain away what’s happening to us. You know that it is real?’

’It could have been me becoming mentally ill, but not if the same thing happens to both of us independently.’

’Precisely. I can’t expect you to believe me, but I think… Eh. Uh. Ehrm…’

Aram rose from the chair before his computer, and reached the window.

’This novena candle. And yours. I bought them from a crazy lady… No, she wasn’t crazy. She was very sane, but very odd. She claimed that you and I could have our highest wishes come true through these, but at a cost.’

’A cost?’

’It seems like I became a perfect science student, but losing my muscles, while you became a poorer science student, when you achieved all that muscle.’

John felt suddenly aroused. He had packed on a lot of beef. It felt good, so much better than being like he was before. But losing his skills in biology was the price to pay? To hell with biology. The feel of these… He put his right hand on his left pec and squeezed. It felt good. He rose from the bed, standing before Aram with his full height.

’Are you angry at me?’

John hugged him. Aram could feel the presence of John’s muscular physique pressed against him. Aram could also feel that John’s dick was stiff, which made him uncomfortable.

’Angry? Why should I be angry with you? You have given me a gift. You could have asked first, but then I could have refused it as a bad joke, so probably you couldn’t have asked before. I love how reality has turned out to be.’

Aram looked relieved.

’Oh, another thing. Peter want to join us at the gym, but I wanted to ask you first.’

* * *

Chapter three is here:

https://muscle-growth.org/topic/7668-with-a-little-help-from-magic-chapter-three/

Edited by Hialmar
formatting, language
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Wow, a very clever story, Hialmar, two boys swap muscles for intelligence. Brilliant!

 

As I said in the other thread: Thank muscledrain. It's his idea. I just executed it, with some details of my own.

 

The SHARPs, Emelies gothic preferences, Syriac milieus, the grandmother's opinions about Halloween, the vanilla rice pudding at Christmas, and Mdme Cremorna are my contributions.

 

And if anyone wonder: Gothenburg is not the only prototype for the city in the story. Oslo, Norrkoping, Jonkoping, Halmstad, Boras, Sodertalje, Kalmar, and the quarters surrounding Stockholm's Tvarbana have all been pushed down into the literary kitchen blender together with Gothenburg, and up came the home of our protagonists. Copenhagen, Linkoping, Vasteras, and Orebro have contributed significantly less to the imaginary city. And for those of you who like The Bridge or the Wallander crime novels: Sorry, neither Malmo or Ystad are part of the mix.

 

I recently invented an imaginary British city for the purpose of RP together with an acquaintance from this forum: Puddlesborough-on-Brook, an imaginary city populated with incredibly muscular and sadistic football hooligans. It's located exactly halfway on the road from Emmerdale to Flydale North, and the indigenous population is very irritated on the gentrification caused by newcomers from south England, fleeing the high murder rates in Midsomer. 

 

And if you happen to wonder: I am writing this, at this dreadfully late hour, because coughing disrupt sleep.

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It's alright. The two boys might make a deal, the smarter one helps the muscular one with his studies in exchange for protection from thugs and bullies since the muscular boy becomes a bodyguard or a life long "protector" of the weaker boy.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 3 years later...

I can’t help but feel conflicted. I’m both happy for them to have their wish fulfilled, but also sad for the loss of their previous lives. The embrace at the end was so sweet!

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