Remembering High School Wrong

[Rewriting History; Forced Muscle Growth]

After the first boring hour of awkward interactions with former classmates he didn’t remember, Mike headed for the country club’s back deck to smoke a cigar and sip his bourbon in peace. On the way, he stopped by Luke--his old football buddy, and the only person he was looking forward to seeing at the reunion--to invite him along. Luke, as usual, was mobbed by women vying for his attention.

Mike flashed two fat Cubans and Luke smiled. “I’ll be out in a second,” he said as some dumb blonde next to him flashed Mike a look that said, “Go away! He’s mine!” Mike headed out on his own, happy to see that his drunk wife was too wrapped up in champagne glasses at the bar to notice what he was up to. Maybe, if she got trashed enough, Mike could find some ditzy broad who had a 20-year crush on him and fuck her in the parking lot just to relieve a little tension.

Mike enjoyed about ten minutes out on the deck by himself before someone came to join him. This was the side effect of being a pro athlete: everywhere you went, some dude wanted to buddy up to you and hear about life in the NFL. “Is Brady a dick? Is Roethlisberger cool? Did you ever fuck cheerleaders?” Mike scowled as the skinny little guy slid the glass door shut behind him and took a spot at the railing.

“You’re Mike Kenaley, aren’t you?” he said, extending a hand. Mike gave him a half-hearted shake and turned slightly away, hoping to send off the vibe that he didn’t want to be bothered.

“Yeah,” Mike barked, and went back to puffing on his cigar.

“I’m Jake McManus,” the little guy said. There was an awkward pause. Mike wondered if Jake was waiting for him to continue the conversation. “It’s good to see you! You look like things are going well,” the little guy continued.

“Yep,” Mike said. God damn, this reunion was a bad idea. He should have never let Luke talk him into it, Of course his wife Debbie had been eager to go. Any event to get slutted up and drink herself into a coma. She loved being worshipped for her status as “NFL wife.” Just another thing she got to enjoy without working for it.

“I dunno if you remember,” Jake said, “but we had gym class together our freshman year.”

Mike stayed silent. Of course he didn’t. What the fuck was this guy thinking?

“You were big then,” Jake said, “always the biggest guy in our class, but good god, you’re huge now! I heard you played in the NFL too.”

Mike didn’t contribute. If you gave these guys an inch they took a mile. Better to let them run out of steam and leave on their own.

“Do you remember,” Jake said--and Mike sighed, realizing this wasn’t going to be a short interaction--”back when we were freshman, and playing flag football--god, I’m sure you don’t remember this--anyway, I was on the skins team, and you were calling me ‘doughnut.’ Remember? You used to call me that because I had a little bit of a weight problem.”

Mike sipped his bourbon. He glanced over at Jake. He didn’t remember, but if the guy had a weight problem when he was young, he seemed to have gotten over it. (Not that Mike cared at all.)

“Anyway, I was on the skins team, which sucks when you’re young and uncomfortable with your body. We didn’t all grow big muscles as soon as we turned 13! So in that game, instead of yanking the flag off my shorts, you just pants me right there. Pulled my shorts right off. And then took off with them. Left me naked in the middle of the field. Do you remember?”

Mike let out a deep sigh. “I don’t,” he said. “We were just kids. I did a lot of stupid shit. Sorry if it’s still sore with you, though.” This guy was lucky he got even that. Still seething over a 25 year old memory... That’s what happened to people who didn’t do shit with their lives, Mike thought.

“Anyway, I remember,” Jake said. “God, was I humiliated. And I hated you, really hated you, until your injury. That was your most humanizing moment. Big tough bully, all of a sudden, humanized.”

Mike’s eyes narrowed. Injury? What injury? He was injury-free until his third pro-year when he tore his MCL. He bounced right back and had the best seasons of his life after. “Excuse me?” he said.

“Yeah, that nasty injury,” Jake continued. “Remember? You were starting on the football team as a sophomore, bigger than all the seniors, and that one day you got hit just the wrong way and your leg just… snapped.”

This guy must be crazy, Mike thought, but suddenly he had a flash of memory. His right leg wobbled a bit.

“Good god, what a career ender it was! They said you could’ve gone pro if that hadn’t happen,” Jake said. “I mean, you still stayed big, kept hitting the weights, but football was over for you. Tough break. When I saw that I really felt for you. All was forgiven, if you know what I mean.”

Mike shook his head. Was it the cigar or the bourbon making him dizzy? “I did go pro,” he said weakly, but suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

“Oh yeah sure, as a bodybuilder,” Jake continued. “Got your pro card the first year you competed. That fucked up leg didn’t hinder you too much. You still had a lot of natural size. Too bad you tore your pec that day benching too heavy. Man, imagine how far you could’ve gone if that hadn’t happened!”

Mike did tear his pec--he actually had forgotten about it, but it popped back into his head as this guy talked about it--but how did this little loser know? He remembered the day it happened. His lifting partner said his pec just rolled up like a window-shade. He remembered how black and blue the skin was, how weak he felt for so long after. The doctor said he shouldn’t have skipped his warm-up set. Regret flashed in his head. Why had he been so cocky when he was young? He never even got to compete onstage with his pro card.

“Anyway,” Jake continued, as Mike started to feel nauseous, “steroids and HGH can do a lot. You really went into debt hard hitting that gear! I mean, you never got back into pro-card winning shape, but you still stayed big. Chased that freaky mass for years. Everyone thought you were a little too obsessed but you just pressed on. Fuck the haters, get that mass, am I right?”

Mike’s shirt felt tight--no, it felt STRANGULATING, as did his pants. He felt he might burst through the fabric if he moved the wrong way. “Shut… shut up…” he moaned as he grabbed the railing for support.

“All those side effects,” Jake said, slurping the last of his drink loudly through his straw. “Bad gyno, hair loss, dick and balls shrinking up, big old roidgut, and you just upped your doses. You had to stay freaky. It wasn’t even about competing anymore. You just had to keep growing no matter what the cost was.”

Mike’s body suddenly felt heavy, like he had turned to led. He felt exhausted. His leg was throbbing--he had to sit down and rest, before it gave out again. “Fuck,” he said, reaching up to touch his shaved head--shit, he had long blonde hair he kept pulled back in a ponytail! His wife called him Thor! No, he never got married. Dodged a couple of bullets, of course, but they always ended up cheating on him, or using him for his access to gear. Those bodybuilding chicks and their stubbly faces and their deep voices. Good for a quick fuck, but not for the long haul. Hot chicks didn’t like freaky mass, either. Not like he had.

Mike had a seat. He fumbled for something--wasn’t he smoking? No, he never smoked. He reached down and grabbed his gut--solid and round. He could clearly feel abs through his shirt but his belly was distended like a turtle shell. His nips were so sensitive--his estrogen levels must have been spiking again. He should never have started this cycle without the right anti-es on hand, but he was so far in debt with his dealer there was no chance of getting any fronted to him this time. Still, he wanted to be 20 pounds heavier before this bulking season was over. He could deal with the puffy nips and the saggy mantits if he could build up some muscle underneath.

He reached up for his tie--shit, he wasn’t wearing a tie. His neck was so thick he could never get his shirts buttoned. His arms felt like they were being squeezed in a blood pressure cuff. One of these days, when he really took off, he would be able to get tailored shirts so he could fit his big body into them. This off-the-rack shit couldn’t fit a real mass monster like him.

“So anyway,” Jake continued, “if your goal was to shock people with your size, you really accomplished it. All those tattoos, all that synthol in your shoulders, arms and pecs… You really are a spectacle. Mission accomplished, right, my man?”

Mark belched loudly. It surprised him; he hadn’t felt the pressure building until it was released. He glanced at his reflection in the sliding glass door to the deck. He barely recognized the guy he saw: almost a perfect sphere of muscle, 340 pounds of bloated mass barely contained in clothes that were about to pop off his frame. His face was wide, jaw and forehead blocky from years of massive amounts of growth. He had a head like a pit bull now--not much to look at, but who needed a nice face when you had over 300 pounds of muscle on your frame? He reached out to feel his too-wide shoulders, his arms so big he could barely move them, the quads so wide he had no hope of ever putting his feet together. He looked down to see bloated pecs--big bitch tits on the end, like little mounds of sensitive fat glued on to massively engorged chest muscles--so big that he had no hope of even seeing his dick. He reached down to fondle his shriveled junk through his pants, just to remind himself that it was still (barely) there. Again, he thought, when you’re this big, you don’t need a big dick. Just a big everything else.

“All because of that injury,” Jake said, his voice now a lilting whisper. “Just imagine. You could be rich and famous, set for life, instead of a few years from a stroke with blood pressure that would kill an elephant. God, that body must ache carrying around more mass than a human being was supposed to hold. Those joints… No wonder you got addicted to pain pills.”

Mark could feel the percocets starting to wear off. He felt nauseous, and his elbows and knees were starting to throb. The little bottle in his pocket was nearly empty. He wondered if anyone at the reunion had anything to take the edge off.

“Anyway, good seeing you again,” Jake said, giving him a pat on his huge shoulder.

Mike sat on the deck alone for a moment before rising slowly to his feet, his knees screaming as he hoisted his massive weight off the chair. He waddled back into the reunion, swinging his huge arms with every step. “I bet these fuckers are bigger than these scrawny fucks’ legs,” he thought as he looked at all the average-sized guys he went to school with. “That’s right, guys,” he said to himself as he strutted his big body across the floor. “This is what a real man looks like.”

Maybe, if he were lucky, he could find one of the ladies who was drunk enough to want to be with a guy like him. That’s the thing with chicks, he thought. They were too freaked out by a guy with real strength. They wanted some dumb little prettyboy who they could own--like that asshole Luke. He took a look at his old football buddy flanked by two of the hottest women in the room. Skinny little Luke, probably proud of his little crossfit body, swamped in so many chicks he didn’t know what to do with it.

No thanks, Mike thought. Not for me. I’ll take mass over everything else. He waddled toward the bar as some pencil-necked asshole whispered, “Freak!” as he passed by. Fuck these losers, he thought.