Short Story Part I

I had just moved into town a week earlier and intended to visit the local
gym
once I'd gotten everything in order. Finally, with my furniture arrived and
everything in its place at home, I visited the gym the following Saturday
morning.

The gym was older than it looked from the outside; inside, it was simple and

sparsely populated. I walked over to the barbell stand at the far end of the

open room. As I reached for a weight, I noticed a young, slender guy sitting

on a bench adjacent to the stand. He was facing the wall-sized mirror,
massaging his arms.

He looked to be in his early twenties, very thin, about 5' 5", and no more
than 115 to 120 pounds. Frail was the best word for this guy. His chest had
only the slightest development and his arms, hanging to their sides, looked
kind of pathetic and bony. I looked him over one more time, because I think
the sight of large biceps on skinny guys is great, but this dude didn't seem

to be packing much, so I ignored him, picked up a weight, and began pumping.

As I continued to train, the dude looked up at me and said quietly, almost
meekly, "Hi." After a bit of small talk, he told me his name was Klaus.
Apparently, he'd been coming to this gym for almost 2 years.

"Pity," I thought to myself, looking down at him as he continued to massage
his thin arms, "he's not getting his money's worth." I figured that once
the dude saw my physique, he'd really become even depressed than he already
looked.

As I watched myself pump in front of the mirror, I looked over at Klaus's
reflection. After a few minutes, he'd finally stopped massaging his arms.
Then slowly, almost mechanically, he raised his arms to his sides and began
to flex them. As I watched, his forearms tightened, veins emerged upon the
surface of his smooth pale skin, and his biceps began to rise off his arm. I

found myself in a pump-a-thon and so continued to work my weights at a
fevered pace. But Klaus continued to stare intently into the mirror, as if
he were willing his arms to get bigger before his eyes. I was astonished:
this seemingly little nobody had sculpted an impressive set of guns. Pound
for pound, I guessed he was bigger than me.

Then, just as mechanically, Klaus slowly pulled his eyes away from his
mirror
image and looked at me. "What do you think," he said, still holding his arms

upright and flexed, the veins clearly crisscrossing the tops of his biceps.
I put my weights back onto the rack.

"Klaus, man, they're great!" I stammered. "I didn't realize when I first
saw you..."

"Yes," he said, a smile crossing his face, "a lot of guys don't realize from

looking at me how muscular I am."

We worked out, side by side, for another hour. Then we showered and grabbed
a bite to eat. We found that we had a lot in common. After lunch, we went
back to my place.

Over a beer, we got to talking about strength training and goals. I told him

that I really admired guys his size who, without much weight, managed to
build their arms so impressively.

"Yeah," he told me, "it's been a goal of mine since I was a kid. I've always

been small. And when I was a teenager, a lot of guys picked on me, told me I

was weak, and took advantage of me. I vowed that I'd devote myself to
getting bigger and stronger. And here I am. I plan to get a lot bigger
still, but I'm very satisfied with my progress. What do you think?"

And with that question, Klaus rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt and flexed

his right arm, the biceps emerging almost volcanically from nowhere, a nice
large curve with a hard peak.

"Man," I said. "That's incredible."

"You said you like biceps on small guys," Klaus laughed. "Do you want to
feel it?"

"Do I?" I laughed. "You bet." And so I walked behind Klaus and pushed his
shirt sleeve away from his arm, allowing me to see his bicep at full peak. I

slowly placed my hand upon it. As I cupped it, it felt hard and round in my
hand. Klaus turned his head back and said, "How do you like it?"

I nodded approvingly.

"Squeeze it," he told me.

"Huh?"

"Squeeze it. See if you can put a dent in it."

"Come on, Klaus. I'm pretty strong," I said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Do it!" he said, almost commanding me.

"OK," I said. If that's what you want." And so I began squeezing Klaus's
flexed bicep. Slowly and with little pressure at first. Then feeling the
hard muscle underneath my hand, I squeezed it a little harder. Complete
resistance. I added more pressure and wondered whether Klaus wasn't a lot
stronger than I had imagined. I felt my own fingers and forearms begin to
strain. Sweat appeared on Klaus's brow and he began breathing heavily. He
was determined more than I was. Thinking this was beginning to get out of
hand and that Klaus was embarrassing me, I stopped and walked away, trying
not to let him know how hard I had tried.

Klaus sat down next to me and began massaging his arm. "That's OK, he said.
you tried." Then he took off his T-shirt, balled it up, and used it to wipe
the sweat off his face. Four reddish blotches had formed over the pale skin
in his upper right arm. He looked satisfied, even confident, and he began
flexing his arm again. The bicep blew back to its original size. Then,
smiling, he looked me squarely in the eye.

"Now," he said, "it's your turn."