The Third Tower, Part 1

This story was the first one I wrote where I felt everything came together in a satisfying way. The others that I dreamed up before The Third Tower were either incomplete, rushed, or not as descriptive as I wanted them to be, but I took my time here to craft something that I really ended up liking.

Mind you, it’s an old one that has been published before, but I wanted to include it on Patreon as a part of my collection, so apologies if you have already read it. 

How old is it, you ask? Well, originally the older brothers were called the Twin Towers after the World Trade Center, but I changed it way back in 2001 for obvious reasons.

I thought about updating it to current times, but it wouldn’t work as well in an era with Facebook, Instagram, and Skype, so I left it as is. 

Enjoy!

“Give me that, you little twerp!” David said as he swiftly took the muffin out of Mike’s hand. “Do you really think I’m gonna sit here hungry while I watch you eat the last one?”

“Oh, come on, Dave, how can you still be hungry?” Mike asked. “You and Brad ate the last of the cereal, all the fruit, and the leftover pizza, too. What am I supposed to have for breakfast?”

“Mike, look at us! We need to fuel up in the morning!” Brad said as he and David rose from the breakfast table. Each of Mike’s older twin brothers was 6’1” tall and weighed in at 230 muscular pounds. “It takes a lot to power up these bodies,” he added as he flexed his beefy pecs. “Unlike your little bony ass, which could probably survive on three grapes a day.”

“You know, Brad, maybe we should have left Tiny some scraps,” David snickered. “Since Mr. Nerd is going off to college today, he’ll need to add some meat on his bones to protect himself from the jocks.”

“Yeah, your book smarts ain’t gonna protect ya in a fight,” Brad remarked, as he crossed the floor to where Mike was standing. In one swift motion, Brad took off Mike’s shirt to reveal his undeveloped torso. He moved Mike’s arm up and down, then said, “Looks like nothing but skin and bones, I’m afraid, Dave.”

Brad tossed Mike’s shirt on the floor and, putting one hand on his little brother’s leg and the other on his shoulder, started curling him up and down. Mike tried to struggle, but he was no match for Brad’s superior strength.

“Go ahead and squirm, Mr. Brain. Nothing like a little muscle, or in my case a lot of muscle, when you want to win.” Brad smiled, obviously proud of the huge pump he had going in his monster arms, which by now were truly bulging out of his sleeves.

“Maybe they have the dorm equivalent of the kiddie table,” laughed David as he took off his shirt, exposing his brawny physique. He grabbed Mike’s shirt off the floor and put it on his extra-large body. The seams strained mightily, and once David hit his most-muscular pose, it ripped into shreds.

“I can’t even remember being that puny,” he chortled. “ How do you even have the strength to hold up that big brain of yours?”

Mike knew it wasn’t worth it to say anything. Every time he opened his mouth, it only egged his brothers on even more. Eventually, once their fun grew tiresome, Brad set Mike down and David put his shirt back on. “Have a good time, little boy,” Brad said as he and David left for work at their father’s construction company.

The smaller brother watched his older siblings get into their truck, more than just a little jealous over their physical perfection. They were known as Two Towers around town, from the Lord of the Rings movie, widely sought after by all the women in the county.

Mike sighed as he caught his reflection in the kitchen window – he flexed his arm, and then watched again as nothing happened. Oh, how he wished that he could be as big as his older brothers, or at least, not be quite so small.

Even though Mike was only two years younger than his 20-year old brothers, he was still only 5’6” and 130 pounds. By the time Brad and David were 18, they both weighed close to 200 with fantastically developed muscles. Mike was beginning to think he was ever going to have the “growth spurt” that would turn him into the third “tower” of the family.

Mike continued his search for some breakfast (he found a couple of overlooked graham crackers), and then went back up to his bedroom to grab another shirt and finish packing for college. Although he would miss his parents and his friends, he was glad to be going to a place where everyone wouldn’t think of him as the runt of the litter. After packing, his father and mother helped him carry his stuff downstairs (it was too heavy for Mike to carry) and loaded up the car.

Sitting in the back seat with the warm September sun beating down on him, and only vaguely aware about what his parents chatting, Mike began to daydream about how his life would be different if only he had been as big as his brothers were in high school. He pictured himself as the captain of the football team, the first one chosen for teams during PE, and the best-looking guy around. Mike fantasized about growing more and more, and then he saw himself as a contestant on the World’s Strongest Man competition and as the star of his own series of action/adventure films. Of course, everyone would ask him to flex and pose all the time, and he would be obliged to show off his immense strength and power. He continued to dream, imagining that he was on Venice Beach, clad only in a tiny speedo, lifting weights that no other man could handle. Bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger...

He awoke suddenly as the car stopped and his father announced, “We’re here!”

Mike realized he had slept for nearly the whole trip. “But that dream was worth it,” he thought as a wide grin appeared on his face, still fantasizing. “Maybe my new roommate will be a chemistry major and have a secret potion to help me turn into a stud overnight!”

He exited the car and grabbed his backpack, while his parents took his stuff off the luggage rack, and together they headed it to his dorm room. Nobody was in the room when they entered, so they set his belongings one of the empty beds. Then, following a tearful goodbye from his mother and a firm handshake from his father, he was left alone to await his new roommate.

While Mike was putting away his clothes, the door opened and his new roommate walked in. Mike nearly fell over when he saw him – the guy was certainly no chemistry nerd – more like a professional bodybuilder with the looks of a male model. He was wearing a tight white polo shirt and khaki shorts that had two very muscular quads sticking out of them. “This guy is even bigger than Brad and David,” thought Mike, “I escaped from two hulks only to be paired up with a bigger one!”

“Hi, I’m Patrick,” the giant said as he stuck out his hand. Mike put his tiny hand up and nearly fainted from Patrick’s vise-like grip. “How’s it going?”

“OK. I’m Mike,” was about all he could say. He couldn’t stop staring at Patrick, going over and over in his mind all the future humiliations he thought he would have to suffer. “How is Mr. Muscles going to torture me? How many times during the year is he going to pound me? Will me make me wait on him hand and foot? Will I have to be his slave?”

Patrick continued talking, and then noticed Mike’s trance-like state. “Is something bothering you? Are you all right?”

“Bothering me? No, I’m was just thinking that you’ll...I mean, I wasn’t expecting a guy like my brothers...er, rather, I was hoping that you would...“

“I think I know what you’re getting at. Your brothers are the big, mean bullying type and you were hoping your roommate would be more like you? Well, don’t worry. Lots of people expect me to be gruff and demanding because I’m so big. But that’s not me. I’m a fairly mellow guy with decent manners and a good sense of right and wrong.”

Mike smiled and felt more at ease. “You wanna go get some lunch after we unpack?”

“Sounds great to me!”

Both men finished stowing their belongings and headed off to the cafeteria. Mike told Patrick how his brothers had always made fun of his size, and that he had always wished he could be bigger. He had come to this college not only because of the academic scholarship he was offered, but also because it was just far away enough from home that he could develop his own identity.

Patrick also had a scholarship, but his was for baseball – and he told Mike he was worried he wouldn’t be able to make the grades to keep it.

“Perhaps we could help each other,” Mike suggested. “If you help me to get bigger, I’ll help you study for your classes. Patrick thought about it for about one second and quickly agreed. Mike smiled, hoping that at last he would be able to put some meat on his bones.

“Let’s go get started right now,” said Mike. “We could go to the campus gym this afternoon.”

“You’re right. We should get started right now,” said Patrick. He walked over to the cafeteria counter and picked up three more hamburgers. “First, you have to start eating more. You can’t build any muscles without food.” Mike tried to protest, but Patrick would hear nothing of it. They sat there for another 30 minutes as Mike ate bite after bite. He never felt so full in his life – or so happy.

After lunch, they returned to their dorm room to change for the gym. When Patrick took off his shirt, Mike gasped at his physique. He looked like one of those guys in his brothers’ muscle magazines. “Just how big are you, anyway?”

“Well, I started out as a chubby kid – always getting picked on liked you. So I began lifting about 6 years ago to improve my body. Right now, I’ve got a 54 inch chest, 32 inch waist, 21 inch arms, and 29 inch thighs. And I weigh between 260 and 270. Some say I’m too big for baseball, but it seems to work for me.” Patrick smiled and hit a double bicep pose for Mike

“Holy cow!” responded Mike. “You’re way bigger than my brothers. I can’t wait to train with you!”

“First, remember, this took me 6 years of really hard training to accomplish. You won’t get this big overnight. And second, being huge won’t solve all your problems – but it will help your self-confidence, and you can use that to help overcome difficulties in your life. Keep those two things in mind so you don’t get disappointed later on, OK?”

Mike agreed, and the two new friends started their workout regimen that afternoon. Patrick got him an extra pass to the athlete’s gym, so they only lifted with the biggest and the strongest men of the school. Mike got to train with some of the massive football players, and they treated him with respect because he was Patrick’s training partner. He learned a lot about how to train each muscle, how to use the equipment and how to avoid over-training. Mike was beginning to feel like a real athlete now that he lifted almost every day.

Mike also began to eat huge quantities of food with Patrick at every meal. They both ate four or five times a day, and then washed their meals down with huge glasses of milk. Half the time Mike was so stuffed he didn’t think he would be able to move, but he was so glad it gave him the extra energy to complete his workouts. In addition, since he was a member of the athlete’s gym, he had access to all the free supplements that the university supplied to help buff up the football and baseball team members, so Mike was sure he would be huge before his freshman year was over.

But, by the end of the school year, Mike had gained only about fifteen pounds, up to 145, mostly due to the fact he had grown from 5’6 to 5’9”. Patrick told Mike that this was a great start for someone with a high metabolism, but despite this encouragement and Patrick’s initial warning about growth taking time, Mike was still disappointed that he hadn’t grown big enough to challenge his brothers. Although they promised to be roommates again next year with the same deal (under Mike’s tutelage, Patrick had gotten a 3.3 grade average), Mike wondered if he’d have the resolve to continue working out during the summer months without Patrick cheering him on.

It didn’t take long to find inspiration, however – his brothers wasted no time bullying him from the moment he walked in the door. As soon as they left for work the next morning, he sneaked down to the basement and began to lift his brothers’ weights. He pumped iron for a couple of hours, and then carefully put everything back in its original position. Mike didn’t want Brad or David to know he was fiddling with their stuff, as he could only imagine how mad they would get.

Later that day, Mike went scrounging through the pantry looking for something to eat – the workout had left him starving – and he came across a huge canister of protein powder hidden on a low shelf that must have belonged to his brothers. It was quite dusty, but the expiration date still had six more months to go.

“They must have used it for a while and forgotten about it,” Mike thought. “Well, their loss is gonna be my gain!”

Without even reading the product name, Mike hurriedly took the powder and poured it into a large tin that he got from the back of a cabinet. He then quickly looked at the directions – one teaspoon per day – and hid the canister at the bottom of the garbage can. He then took the new unmarked tin upstairs and hid it under his bed so nobody would know where he had gotten it. He grinned, thinking how helpful the powder would be during the next few months.

Unfortunately for Mike, he didn’t know the real reason his brothers were not using it. They had tried the product for a short while last year, and although it really increased their strength, it also piled on the flab because the fat content was by far the highest for any commercially available product. The twins both quickly became disgusted with their growing waistlines and decided the stuff wasn’t worth it. A few months of jogging had restored their hard, flat abs, and they soon forgot the powder was even in the pantry.

Mike began taking a heaping spoonful of powder right before he ate each of his four daily meals. He couldn’t remember if it was “with each meal” or “once a day,” but he assumed for such an extreme case of underdevelopment he would need quite a bit.

At first, he didn’t notice any strength gains, but his body did seem to be getting bigger, although it was hard to tell since he mainly wore oversized sweats and shirts that once belonged to his brothers. And when he looked in the mirror, his attention was focused on his developing pecs, arms, shoulders and legs, and not so much on his growing belly and ass. By late June, he had gone from 145 to 165, but he thought some of it was from getting taller and some from putting on muscle.

And finally, after another month on the powder, he finally began to get stronger as well. Mike’s bench press jumped from 120 to 160, he could curl about 30 pounds more than previously, and his squat weights went up, up, up.

“Soon,” Mike thought, “I’ll be ready to arm wrestle the Two Towers!” He was just so contented eating and lifting, he thought nothing bad could happen. And besides, his brothers had pretty much left him alone for the last few weeks – perhaps they were noticing how muscular he was becoming and were starting to get nervous?

The fact that he had gained a lot of fat didn’t really hit him until mid-August. One evening, his father announced that, because his Aunt Phoebe was unexpectedly going to visit a friend in Florida for a few weeks, they could all go on a family vacation to her summer home on the coast. The twins, of course, were very excited to hit the beach and impress all the girls with their bodies, while their mother prepared a list of things she would need to get.

“Let’s see – some books, that new suntan lotion, some trunks for Michael...”

“Why do I need new swim trunks? I have lots of old ones that I like,” retorted Michael. His mother turned, obviously surprised she had been speaking out loud.

“Because you’re turning into a fatass, that’s why!” chimed Brad.

“Oh, Bradley! I told you and David not to make fun of…I mean, say anything…you know how sensitive...” his mother stammered. She turned to Mike, “Honey, um, you’ve gotten taller since last year. I just assumed your old trunks wouldn’t fit.”

“Come on, Mom, he’s porking out! Not even my old extra-large shirt can hold in his flab anymore,” David said.

“Well, I have put on some weight, and you’re right, it’s not all from just getting taller,” Mike said as he turned to sneer at his brothers, “but it is mostly muscle. I’ve been lifting weights at a friend’s house during the day while you guys were at work. I’ve gotten a lot stronger.”

Laughter erupted from his brothers as their parents tried to shush them.

“The only thing that got worked out on you is your jaw muscles, little bro,” David said as he poked Mike’s growing belly.

“That’s not true,” Mike said, and he stood up to whip off his shirt. He began flexing his arms, watching as his biceps bulged. His parents tried to act proud, even though his mother worried he might be getting too heavy.

After a few minutes of laughing, Bradley left the room and returned a minute later with a tape measure. He wrapped the tape around Mike’s arm and it stopped at 15 inches. “That’s 5 more than last year,” Mike proudly stated.

Then Brad took the tape measure and wrapped it around Mike’s waist, where it stopped at 36 inches. “That’s like 10 more than last year, isn’t it? It’s even 4 inches more than David and me.”

Mike was aghast. “Could it really be that much?” he thought.

He ran upstairs to the bathroom and hopped on the scale, something he avoided for so long because it had always been the same for so long. When the needle stopped at 195, he almost cried. He looked at himself in the mirror, and couldn’t believe it was him staring back. Sure he had seen how big his chest and arms had been getting, but he hadn’t seen his gut sneaking up on him.

Mike poked at his stomach and watched it jiggle – then rubbed it – and played with it – and then smiled. He wasn’t sure why, but he liked it. Mike liked that every part of him was getting bigger. He played with his pecs, and smiled as he cupped their new beefiness. He turned around and saw his ass for the first time in months – it was HUGE! How could he not notice this gorgeous gigantic mound sticking out from behind him? He turned back to the mirror and flexed and posed for another ten minutes before he decided he was looking really good!

Fueled by new admiration for his body, Mike agreed with his mom that it was time to get some new clothes. They went to the mall the next day, and he could hardly stop smiling. For the first time in his life, he was not shopping in the little kid’s sections – he’d gone straight to the husky sizes. He felt like the biggest man in the world! He bought all kinds of polo shirts that strained against his expanding chest and arms and several pairs of Levi’s that wrapped tightly around his ever-growing legs. His swimming trunks also fit him like a glove, and Mike got excited knowing people would finally have the chance to check out his body.

The best part of the whole day, though, came when they were leaving. Mike, excited to get home and put on his new duds, accidentally ran into a man while exiting the main mall doors. This guy must have weighed 170 pounds and was quite buff, and if this had happened three months ago, Mike would have gone flying. When they collided, however, the man just bounced right off Mike and fell to the floor. Mike kept a serious face and was very apologetic as helped the guy to his feet, effortlessly picking him up.

But on the inside, Mike was cheering. He left that mall feeling like the Incredible Hulk.

The whole family left a week later for the seashore, and not surprisingly, Mike had a great time with his new and improved body. There wasn’t a gym for him to work out, so he would lift whatever he could find in the cabin: the couch, the TV, the old steamer trunk, etc. He didn’t want to take any time off from his training because it just felt so good to be getting so strong.

And when he wasn’t lifting, he was eating. “Aunt Phoebe is going to think a whole army ate here when she gets back,” thought Mike. Everything he could find went into his mouth, and his brothers just couldn’t keep up with him anymore. Sometimes he’d even get up at midnight at stuff his face because his stomach was screaming out for food.

Mike spent a good deal of time outside, too, which was something that he hadn’t done much of when he was smaller. He loved to go shirtless all day, and he caught more than one passerby checking him out. He would lay in the sun for hours, go swimming and water-skiing, or take walks along the beach. The golden tan he got from this exposure only further improved his good looks.

When they returned home, Mike continued to spend more and more time outside with his shirt off. He started working in his parents’ backyard garden, at first arranging the 50 pound decorative stones his mother had purchased. After that was finished, he built a small retaining wall with railroad ties near the back fence that his dad had wanted his brothers to finish (but David and Brad were too busy, they always said). 

It was hard work lifting all the ties and shoveling all that dirt, but Mike reveled in it. After the wall was done, he started working in the front yard – mowing, trimming the hedges, and painting the front porch. The late August sun was so hot, but it felt perfect beating down on his skin.

In addition to his outdoor work, Mike continued to lift every day, usually for close to three hours, and he took the mystery powder until it ran out a week after Labor Day. By the time college was about to start again, Mike was weighing 215 pounds and had shot up to 5’11”. He was tan, buff, and huge. 

Boy, was Patrick going to be surprised!