Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 11:17:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard Jasper <librpj@emory.edu>
Subject: Pygmalion '68

[I'm posting this on behalf of my friend, M.U., who wishes to remain
anonymous. -- rpj]

PYGMALION '68, Part 1 

The MuscleKid

I was a little later than usual walking home from school.  I had spent a
little extra time after classes `working' (really just fooling around) in
the computer room at the high school with some of my friends.  It was the
last week of my first year in high school -- that easy-going week when the
exams are done and all that's left are the grades and the goodbyes. 

Barry was walking along the other side of the street a few blocks from my
house.  I'd known him as a casual acquaintance for a few years now, but
even though we were about the same age, we were not in any of the same
classes.  I was an `honors' student and he was -- well, he was an average
student.  It had been a few months since I'd seen him, but he hadn't
changed much.  His brown hair might have grown out a little longer, but
otherwise he was the same Barry.  I called over to him to get his
attention. 

``Barry!  How's it going?  Ready for summer?''

``Yeah, finally!  Gonna just relax and swim and tan.''

``Yah, oh sure, you'll really knock 'em dead at the beach with those muscles.''

``Well, they're better than they used to be.  Besides, you're not exactly
Mr. America yourself!''

``Yeah, but anyone's stronger than you!''   

``Yeah?  OK, C'mon, let's see what you got!''

I dropped my books as we both got down onto the pavement and resumed our
tradition of years.  I knew that neither of us was particularly strong,
but we were very close in strength and size -- I was the tall one at over
6' -- and whenever we met, we went through the same ritual of
arm-wrestling to see who was the stronger.  Sometimes he won, sometimes I
did.  We gripped hands, and on the count of three, we were locked in
combat.  For several seconds, there was no motion besides some shaking of
our hands with the strain.  But then I began to tire, and slowly his hand
forced mine back until it hit the sidewalk.

``Can't beat these muscles this time!'' he crowed, and flexed his arm as
we stood up..  I felt the bulge in his bicep.  It felt sort of as if
someone had shoved a decent-sized lemon into his upper arm.  It was about
the same as mine, I thought, but I liked the feel as he flexed for me. 


``Not exactly cold hard steel,'' I remarked, ``but you're right, I guess
there's more muscle there than last time.''

``Bigger than yours now I bet,'' he said.  I flexed for him as he grabbed
my arm.  He squeezed my own bicep critically, and added, ``Hey, I think
you're a little bigger than you used to be, too.  I guess the stuff they
make us do in gym isn't a complete waste of time.''

We both flexed our biceps for each other, each measuring the other's size
and firmness with his hand, and, as always I felt my dick swell in
reaction to our little muscle contest. And, as always, I hoped Barry
didn't notice.  At that moment, there was a voice from a little ways
behind me. 

``You guys are funny!''

I turned around, embarrassed that someone had been watching.  Walking over
to us was a short kid with a mop of light brown or blond hair, probably in
sixth or seventh grade at the most, wearing jeans and one of those
oversized `surfer' shirts that some guys like to wear.  In a voice that
had obviously just begun to change, he said, ``You guys act like you're
strong and got muscles and stuff, and you're so skinny!  I bet I can beat
either one of you.''

Barry looked at the kid, whose head barely reached my chest, and grinned.
``Yeah?  You think you can beat the champ?'' He flexed his arms again
for emphasis.  I just remained quiet.

``Come on, you'll see!'' The kid stretched out on the ground and bent his
elbow.  His oversized sleeve still covered his upper arms to his elbows. 
He gave Barry an impatient look.  ``What's the matter?  Scared?''

Barry just snorted and got back down on the ground.  He gripped the kid's
hand.  ``OK,'' I said.  ``On the count of three.  One...two...THREE!''
Barry and the kid began to push.  Barry was really struggling, and his
face grew red.  After only a second or so, the kid's hand steadily pushed
Barry's to the ground! 

The kid was grinning widely up at me.  ``You wanna try?'' he asked.  I
looked at Barry, as if to ask, ``is this for real?'' but he was still
sitting on the ground staring at the kid.  I had to find out, so I got
back down on the ground and gripped the kid's hand.  I immediately noticed
that he had a much firmer grip than Barry did. 

Barry shifted his position uncomfortably, and said, ``Uh...yeah, all
right, on three.  C'mon, Mike, you can take him -- he's just a little kid. 
He caught me off guard is all.  One, two...THREE!''

It was plainly obvious that this little kid, maybe three or four years our
junior, was stronger than either Barry or me.  Once again, it only took
a few seconds before the match was over, and the kid was the victor.

``You guys think you've got muscle, it was so funny watching you flex.''
the kid said.  He pulled up the loose sleeve from his upper right arm. 
``This is *real* muscle!'' He flexed his arm.  I heard Barry take a
breath.  If Barry's arm looked like someone had shoved a lemon under the
skin, this kid had shoved a fair-sized orange into his small-boned upper
arm.  I reached over and felt his rounded bicep.  No, not an orange --
more like a small caliber cannonball!  It was hard as iron, without the
babyfat that you usually see in a kid just hitting puberty. 

I felt the hardness in my shorts intensify. My breathing became shorter,
and I stammered, ``Cold hard steel.  That's...amazing!'' Barry felt the
kid's arms -- he was flexing in a ``double bicep'' pose with both sleeves
pulled up -- and just stood there looking embarrassed at being outclassed
by this little kid.

``This is impossible,'' Barry said.  He felt his own upper arm
self-consciously.  ``A kid like you can't have muscles like that!''

``Yes I can!  Compared to me,  you guys's muscles are just pipsqueaks!''

``How...how old *are* you?'' I finally asked.  I mean, maybe he was just a
sixteen-year-old who looked real young, though I didn't think so.  I was
feeling a little weird, as always, at getting all hard over this muscle
stuff, and getting hard over a little kid seemed even more weird.  I hoped
nobody noticed how much I was shaking. 

``Twelve,'' he replied.  He stood a little taller, and added importantly,
``and a half.  Why?  How old are you?''

``Fifteen,'' I answered glumly.  Two fifteen year old high-school guys
humiliated by a little junior-high twelve-year old. 

``I'm Barry, and this is Mike.'' That was odd; Barry seemed to have decided
to become friends with the kid.  ``What's your name?''

``Stan,'' the kid answered.  ``Stan The Muscle Man!''  

``You're really strong, Stan.  How did you get so much
muscle?'' I asked, ignoring the bravado.

``Oh, well, I've been lifting weights since last year.  I used to be
almost as puny as you guys, when I was a little kid.''

I was getting an idea, and I thought maybe Barry was thinking the same
thing.  Maybe if we made friends with this musclekid, we could build up
some muscles of our own over the summer lifting weights with him.  Maybe
we'd even get to teach him a lesson when were were stronger. 

``Stan!'' a man's voice called out from a nearby house.  ``Stop
making fun of those guys!  I've told you not to brag and show off.''

``I'm sorry, Jonathan,'' Stan called, ``but they wanted to know
how I built my muscles up.  They were flexing and stuff, and I
was just showing them what *real* muscles are!''

``Well, if they're into muscles, you shouldn't make fun of them,''
Jonathan's voice called.  ``Bring them over here.''

``Who's that?'' I asked.

``Jonathan.  He's my friend with the weights,'' Stan said as he headed for
the nearest house.  I picked up my books and we followed, not knowing
quite what to expect. 

* * *

PYGMALION '68, Part 2 

Jonathan

Stan walked up the driveway of the house and went in the unlocked back
door.  We were in a nondescript but clean kitchen.  ``Jonathan?  Where are
you?'' he called out. 

>From an open door at the back, we heard Jonathan call, ``I'm in the gym,
Stan, bring them back here.''

Stan led us through the rear door into a large room that was apparently a
converted garage.  It was full of barbells, dumbbells, and assorted other
equipment, some of which I didn't recognize.  The walls were covered with
the covers of magazines I had seen at the newsstands, but never had the
nerve to pick up -- ``Iron Man'', ``Muscular Development'', and others, as
well as some much older-looking magazines with names like ``Physique
Pictorial''.  In a corner of the room was a raised area with a spotlight
of some kind above.  A large mirror covered half one of the walls. 

But I didn't take in these details right away, because I was staring at
Jonathan.  He was actually a little shorter than me, but I had the
impression of someone towering over me.  He was wearing a flannel shirt
with the sleeves torn off, open at the front, showing tanned and smooth
chest muscles (I only later learned they were called `pecs') thicker than
any I had seen, atop a `washboard'-like stomach.  His arms seemed to me as
thick as my legs, and there were thick veins running along this biceps and
throughout his forearms.  His oversized trousers were belted in at the
top, showing a narrow waist.  He must outweigh me by a hundred pounds, I
thought.  His face was friendly and open, with a couple day's growth of
beard.  His long light-brown hair was tied at the back.  I figured him for
a college student, perhaps because of the ``USC'' bumper-sticker that
adorned the back of one of the benches.


``I don't think I want to be *that* big,'' Barry murmured.

``Not much danger of that,'' I whispered dryly.

``Hi, I'm Jonathan Leblanc.  I see you've met my star pupil.  Stan, whom
have you brought?'' Irrelevantly, I was impressed by his proper grammar. 

``This is Barry,'' said Stan, and Jonathan reached forward and shook
Barry's hand.  ``And this is Mike.'' Jonathan grasped my hand in his own. 
It was actually no bigger than mine, with callouses on the palm, and a
strong but not overwhelming grip. 

``Glad to meet you guys.  Stan said you wanted to know how he built up his
muscles -- well, this is the place.  Have a seat.'' Barry and I sat on a
bench, with Jonathan sitting on another across from us. 

Barry got right to the point.  ``Can you give me muscles like you did with
Stan?''

Jonathan looked at Barry and grinned.  He turned to me.  ``Mike, is that
what you want, too?''

I looked over at Stan the musclekid, and at Jonathan, the muscleman.  I
had never really talked to anyone like Jonathan before -- or Stan, for
that matter.  There were muscular guys at school, of course, but they
usually treated me with contempt, if they paid attention to me at all. 
So, talking with someone like Jonathan and Stan was kind of scary.  I was
shaking.  Steadying myself, I said, ``I'd like to be able to have muscles
like yours someday.''

Jonathan looked us over.  He flexed his arms.  If Stan's hard round biceps
were like oranges, then Jonathan's were like someone had shoved melons
into his arms.  Before I could think, I reached across and squeezed a
steel arm.  My hand barely made it halfway around.  ``Oh, wow,'' I
breathed, while Barry just exclaimed, more bluntly, ``Fuck!'' Jonathan
looked seriously from me to Barry.  ``You're impressed?  Well, these arms
took years to build.  Let me tell you something.  I can't `give' you guys
muscles.  I can show you how to lift weights, and let you come here and
lift with me.  I can tell you about how to eat, because you can't get
bigger without eating.  I can teach you how to show off your muscles to
the best advantage.  But there are no magic pills, no SuperSoldier serum,
no magic Hercules Ring,'' (he shot a smile over at Stan, who responded
with an embarrassed blush at some private joke), "and no secret Charles
Atlas programs.  I can't give you muscles, guys.  You have to *work* for
them, and I mean 100%.  It's not going to happen overnight, and you have
to be totally focused when you're lifting, and be thinking about your
training whenever you eat and sleep.

``And that also means you guys don't do grass, no uppers, no dropping
acid, not even booze or cigarettes, you understand?'' I glanced at Barry,
who looked very serious and nodded.  I knew that Barry smoked from time to
time, so this was no trivial matter. 

I swallowed.  My mouth was dry.  ``If we do all that, and do everything
you tell us, and lift with you all summer, what kind of muscles will we
have when school starts in September?'' I asked.  ``Will we look like you? 
Like Stan?''

Jonathan looked from me to Barry and back, considering.  ``Stand up and
take your shirts off.  You too, Stan.'' Barry stood up and pulled his
shirt off quickly, eager to show off his physique.  I followed suit, and
looked over at Stan, who already had tossed his shirt to the floor.  Stan
was not unnaturally huge or anything -- inches shorter than Barry and
obviously much lighter, but he showed ridges of muscle all over his body,
sharply defined.  Stan was one of those people who never put an ounce of
fat on his body, and every muscle in his body stood out like carved
marble. 

``OK, guys, flex your arms.  Stan, show them how I want to see it.  See,
Barry, don't hunch up your shoulders like that...better.'' He walked
around us, and I felt his hands gently squeeze on my flexing arms and my
shoulders from behind.  I wished that it had been me squeezing *him*, and
once again, I felt like my dick was going to escape from my pants. 
Jonathan apparently didn't notice.  ``OK.  Now, Stan, show them how to do
a side-chest.''

Stan turned his side to us, joined his hands in front of him, pulled his
shoulders back, drew in his stomach and flexed his chest to show
unexpected thickness.  Through his thin skin I thought I could pick out
individual muscle fibers at the center of his chest.  ``See how he sort of
pulls his arm across his chest to tense the muscle?  Now you guys do it.''
I did my best to imitate the musclekid's pose.  It was amazing to watch
this seventh-grader with a body that most high school boys might envy. 
Gently, Jonathan corrected my posture and showed me just how to apply the
resistance to tense the muscle properly.  He felt my chest as I flexed. 
Once again, I longed to do feel Jonathan's chest instead, but did as I was
told and performed the pose more or less properly. 

I looked over at Barry, who was doing a pretty fair imitation of Stan's
pose, but, like me, was obviously showing much less pectoral thickness
than Stan; really hardly any at all. Still, Barry seemed to be enjoying
this.  He was always more of a showoff than me.  Jonathan watched us,
looking us up and down critically.  Somehow he missed the swelling between
my legs. 

``You picked up those poses pretty well the first time.  OK, I think I
have a fair idea of what kinds of physiques you guys have. 

``Have you guys ever done any bodybuilding at all?  Outside the usual
gym-class pushups and stuff?'' We both shook our heads.  ``Barry, how much
do you weigh?  And how tall?''

``About 132.  I'm five-foot ten''

``And you, Mike?''

``About 138.  I'm six feet.  And a half an inch,'' I added, unconsciously
imitating Stan.

``All right, look.  Between now and the start of school is about three
months, right?  This stuff takes time, and as I said, nothing comes
overnight.  Three months isn't a real long time, but if you come here
regularly, and do everything I tell you, and really *work* when you're in
here, by the end of the summer you should expect to be anywhere from 145
to 160 pounds, Barry, and Mike, since you're taller, you should add maybe
5 or 10 pounds to those numbers.  That will be pretty much all muscle.  I
can just about guarantee you that your arms will be bigger than Stan's
are, and you'll look more muscular than most of the guys your age.  How
does that sound?''

Barry and I looked at each other, looking up and down at each other's
physique.  I looked over at Stan, who flexed his arms again with his hands
behind his head, and tensed some amazingly-ridged stomach muscles as he
saw me looking at him.  He grinned his now familiar smartass grin at me. 
But then I looked into Jonathan's face and everyone else in the room
disappeared.  ``It sounds really tough.  I don't know if I can do it, but
I'll try.  Tell me what to do.''

Jonathan put his hands on my shoulders and gave a friendly squeeze. 
``Great!  Barry, what do you think?''

Barry looked at me.  ``Any muscles Mike can build I can build bigger,''
he said.  ``I'm in!''

Jonathan clapped Barry on the back.  ``All *right*!  Stan, looks like our
little Muscle Club has four members now!  From now on, these are our
training partners and buddies.  We don't make fun of them, we encourage
them; we don't put them down, we bring them along the road to muscular
bodies like ours.  Understand?''

Stan looked from Barry to me.  I thought he was going to make another
crack about how much better his body was, but instead he said, ``You bet! 
You'll see, Mike.  It's tough all right, but by the end of the summer,
maybe *you'll* be showing off your muscles for *me*!  Nobody knows this
stuff better than Jonathan!'' He looked at Jonathan with a bit of
understandable hero-worship, a look returned by a fond smile from Jonathan

``One for all and all for one,'' I said.  ``Guess we'll have to be
called The Four Muscleteers!''

Barry groaned, ``Shit, Mike!'' while Stan giggled.  Jonathan gave me a
warm smile, and said, ``Hmmm...I'll have to think about that one.'' He
tossed Barry and me our shirts. ``Well, welcome to the club, men.  It's
really too late for training today, so come in tomorrow after school, say
3:30, and we'll get started.  Bring your own gym clothes if you can.'' He
led us to the door. 

``Jonathan,'' I said tentatively, ``I just have one question.  Why are
you helping us?  Why spend time on a couple of skinny high school kids?''

``Who's skinny?'' said Barry.

Jonathan looked at my textbooks.  ``You're a pretty sharp student, I
think?  OK, well, let's just say `Pygmalion'.  OK?''

I thought for a moment, remembering the play that had been the basis
for `My Fair Lady', and supposed that Jonathan meant that he liked
the challenge, like Henry Higgins accepting the bet of transforming
Eliza Doolittle.  In my mind's ear, I heard Rex Harrison's voice
saying, ``She's so deliciously *low*''.

``OK,'' I said.  ``Thanks.''

As we walked to our own homes, Barry and I couldn't stop talking.  Barry
mostly talked about how great he was going to look in the fall, and I was
mostly talking about how Jonathan and Stan had amazing physiques and we
were really lucky to have hooked up with them.  Finally, Barry asked me
what Jonathan meant by `Pygmalion'.  I explained about `My Fair Lady',
which satisfied Barry.  But for some reason, it seemed to me that I was
forgetting something.  Still, I wasn't about to let it bother me. 
Whatever happened, it was going to be quite a summer. 

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 3

Nocturnal Interlude

I did not tell my parents or big brother about our Muscle Club.  I was
sure they would not understand my suddenly becoming twelve-year-old Stan's
new buddy, and as for Jonathan ... well, something told me that they
wouldn't approve of my spending hours in the garage of a near-total
stranger over the summer.  Besides, my brother was at UCLA, and would have
a few choice words about fraternizing with a USC man! 

The dinner conversation was pretty ordinary.  Of course, I said, I was
looking forward to summer school, yes, a lot of kids were still in shock
about Bobby Kennedy's assassination, especially the ones who had walked
precincts for him.  A bunch of people from the Los Angeles science fiction
club are going together to see `2001', can I go with them?  The subjects
of muscles, bodybuilding, and two new friends never arose. 

But that night, I dreamed about Jonathan, his body glistening with sweat
in a pair of briefs, flexing his sculpted muscles while Barry (also
covered with new muscle), Stan (taller and more muscular than the real
Stan) and I surrounded him and stroked him over his entire body, rubbing
his body with our hands and faces and ... 

I woke up.  It was 2am, and my boner was as hard as I could remember it
ever being.  I lay on my belly and pushed down with my hips, causing a
pleasant tickling sensation that just caused it to throb more insistently.
Surprised at the feeling, I repeated the motion, rubbing my dick up and
down in bed, faster and faster as the images of Jonathan, Stan, and even
Barry, all flexing their muscular bodies, raced across my mental screen. 
Without warning, there was a squirt of warm fluid from my penis, then
another, and another, and another...I sighed with pleasure and surprise at
the badly needed release of the sexual tension that had been building all
day. 

Yes, I know, by the time most guys are fifteen, they've long since made
this little `discovery' ... but it took me a few moments to understand
just what it was I had done, and what it implied about me.  Hell, I
thought, I guess I'm officially queer now.  I resolved that Jonathan and
the others would never find out.  They wouldn't want a queer in the Muscle
Club, and right now, I wanted to be there more than anything in the world. 

Oddly, my next thought was to wonder what Mom would think when she did the
laundry.  A cinch that *I* wasn't going to say anything about it! 

I slept really well the rest of the night, with no further dreams
that I could remember.

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 4

Training Begins

It was a good thing that there was no real schoolwork left, because
my mind was completely elsewhere.  I couldn't wait to start musclebuilding
with Jonathan, and counted the minutes until the end of the day.  I met
Barry in front of the school and we walked -- about as fast as you can
still call walking -- to Jonathan's house.  We came to the back door
and knocked.

``It's open, guys!  If I'm expecting you, just come on in and go right
back to the gym.''

We did so, and entered the gym.  Barry was wearing the same baggy pants
as yesterday and a big loose USC sweatshirt.  ``You made it!  Let's
get started.  Stan The Muscleman won't be here, it's the rest day in his
training
schedule.  We'll try to get you in synch with his schedule so
you can all train together.   Did you guys bring your gym clothes?''

Both Barry and I had done so; we would not be needing them for the 
remainder of the week, so it worked out pretty well.

``OK, you can change right here if you like, or you can use the bedroom
in the house.''

I shrugged.  By high school, I had gotten over any particular modesty
about nudity in the locker room, and I had discovered that
I never got a boner when I knew that everyone could
see it.  So Barry and I changed into jock-straps 
and loose Hamilton High shorts.  Barry went shirtless; I wore my green gym
shirt.

``Leave the shirt off for now, Mike,'' Jonathan told me.  ``Before we
start
getting acquainted with the weights, let's keep a record of where you 
started.  Trust me, you'll be glad to have it later.''

He brought out a ten-second Polaroid camera rather like my Dad's, and 
pointed at the raised area in one corner. 
  He threw a wall-switch, and a very bright spotlight above the
dais came on.  ``I just want to take some basic pictures.  Barry, you
first.  First, just stand there relaxed facing me...good...''  He
took about six pictures of Barry, front, back, and side, posed and
relaxed.
Barry may not have had much of a physique, but he really liked posing
and it was a lot of fun watching.

``These came out pretty well,'' Jonathan said as he applied
the plastic fixer to the pictures.  ``OK, Mike, get up there, it's your
turn.''

I hesitated.  I was always camera shy, and posing like this...

``What's the matter, Mike,'' Barry taunted, ``afraid you're gonna break
the 
lens?''

``Stop that, Barry!'' Jonathan barked.  ``Mike, this is just for
comparison
with later.  Nobody will ever see them except you and me.''   I hesitated
again, and then walked over to the dais.  ``Good, Mike.  Now just stand
relaxed.  Good...''  I felt really silly standing there, especially 
flexing my puny muscles for a camera, but it was over quickly.

``Alright, now I'm going to take some measurements.  Someone once said,
`When
you can measure something, and express it in numbers, you know something
about it...''

``Lord Kelvin,'' I interrupted.

``What?''

``Lord Kelvin said that.  He was
a physicist,'' I explained.  I had seen the quote as part of
a deck of computer cards at City College where I sometimes did computer
stuff on Saturdays.  When the deck was printed out, a picture of a naked
woman
appeared, with the quote.  I always found the quote more interesting than
the woman.

``Uh...OK,'' Jonathan said, ``I didn't know that.  Thanks.
Anyway, taking your  measurements
regularly will help us track your muscle growth, and it'll let
us catch sticking points and problems.  Barry, flex your right arm...now
hold it...''

Jonathan wrapped a tape measure around Barry's arm, then wrote a number
on a card that he had brought.  He measured Barry's arms, his expanded
chest, his waist (``don't suck it in...''), his calves and his thighs.
This last measurement was taken right at the top of the leg.  I prepared
myself, resolved not to let Jonathan's touch make my dick get hard when
my turn came.

I watched as Jonathan took my measurements, focusing on the numbers,
trying to work arithmetic in my head and keep my mind
away from anything that would excite me.  If my arm grew 10%, then
in September it would be 13.2 inches...  I
watched as he filled in spaces on my card in rows marked BICEPS(L) 
and so on.  12-inch biceps.  36-inch chest.  31-inch waist.  19-inch
thighs. 
12-inch calves.  I
looked at Barry's card, and saw numbers that varied only slightly from 
mine, with a smaller chest but heavier thighs.  He weighed us on a 
balance-type scale like you see in a doctor's office.  I was 137; Barry
weighed 132.

``Good.  We'll put the cards and pictures away for three weeks and then
check again.  Mike, you can put your shirt on again if you want.  For
the first few workouts with the weights we're going to use light weights,
so that your muscles can get used to the movements so that everything
is balanced and stable when we start getting heavier.''  He brought out
another pair of cards for Barry and me, this time with rows marked 
SQUAT, B. PRESS and so on.

Over the next hour or so, Jonathan showed us all the basic exercises, 
marking the weights we were doing in the appropriate spaces.  B. PRESS:
3@65x10 he wrote.  Sometimes I was particularly awkward with an
exercise and made nervous jokes like, ``Well, what do you expect from
a computer Poindexter?''  Barry thought my comments were funny, but
Jonathan
didn't even smile.

By 4:30, we were pretty tired.  As we toweled off and changed
back into our street clothes, Jonathan clapped each of us on the shoulder
and
said, ``That was a good first day, guys.  Now, you might be sore tomorrow,
because you're using muscles you never used before.'' I thought
irrelevantly
to my own `never used these muscles before' experience of the night
before. 
 I wasn't sore
from that...  ``Even if you're sore, come in tomorrow and we'll do a
little
more training and talk about your eating.  Barry, if you go into the
kitchen, I made a couple of bowls of tuna salad for you and Mike in 
the ice box.  Go and have one; I want to talk to Mike for a couple of 
minutes.''

Barry looked a little surprised, but went out into the kitchen.  I was
alone with Jonathan.  I looked at him, a little nervously.

``What the Hell is with those jokes?'' he asked harshly.

I looked blank, and a little scared.  I didn't have any idea of
what he was talking about, and said so.  ``When you're training.  You're
always going on with the `four-eyes' this and `skinny guy' that!  What
sort of trip is that?''

``They're just jokes -- it's not like I'm putting anyone down...''

``Yes you are -- yourself!  Tell me something.  When you visualize how
Barry will look come September, what do you see?''

``Well, I imagine him maybe a little leaner, with bigger chest and
arms...''

``You can see that image in your mind's eye?''

``Sure.''

``OK, now: when you visualize yourself at the same time, what do you
see?''

I saw what he was getting at. I was quiet,
so  he said it for me.  ``A skinny four-eyed
honors student with pale skin.''  I nodded, embarrassed,
and Jonathan sighed.  ``Look, man, it's time
to forget that whole trip everyone's been laying on you.  Because you're
the smart guy,  everyone tells you that smart guys are puny little
weaklings, four-eyed nebbishes whose life stories are filmed starring
Arnold
Stang or Wally Cox.  Every comic book tells you that the guy with
glasses is inevitably a complete wimp or, at the best, a mild-mannered
reporter.''  I smiled at the reference.  He continued, ``But seriously,
you've heard it so long that you believe it yourself.  You've been
repeating it here all afternoon.

``I have to tell you right now, that
if you don't really believe, and I mean *really* believe,
all the way down to your guts, that there's a strong,
muscular, confident guy inside of you waiting to get out, nothing you
do in here will change it.  I knew a guy in high school who had
the same hang-up as
you.  He lifted weights for a while, saying, `well, maybe I'll get
bigger.'  He gave up after six months.''

I felt like I'd let Jonathan down already.  I mean, maybe
queers just aren't cut out to be bodybuilders.  I looked at him, and
said quietly, ``But I've never been strong or...''

``Fuck that!  Look at Barry.  His physique isn't any better
than yours, and he's up there posing and flexing and showing off
like he's Dave Draper or someone.  He works out without
his shirt; you want to wear yours.   Remember Stan?  `Stan, the
Muscle Man, that's me!' from someone who weighs less than 120 pounds!''
He looked at me; I looked at the floor.  ``Mike, listen.  You and I
both know that there are guys your age who get as much food and exercise
as you do, and their physiques are much worse than yours.  I'll bet
you can think of a guy in your class who's got biceps that look like
your wrists, or guys who are so fat you can't tell whether
they're vertical or horizontal.'' I nodded.
``OK, then, you have to figure that means that your body responds
pretty well to food and exercise and has at least
average potential to grow -- otherwise
you'd look like them.  You
think you're puny and skinny, but really, you're in pretty good
shape for someone who only gets the exercise
that's forced on him in high school gym
classes.   And when I
took your pictures today, I noticed that your shoulders are really 
naturally wide, just from the bone structure.  You're going to get a
really
nice V-shaped torso when those muscles start growing.  Mike, dammit,
look at me when I'm talking to you!''

I looked up, murmuring, ``Sorry,'' in a quiet
voice.  He started to reach out towards me,
as if  he were about to grab me by the shoulders and shake me
or something -- he really seemed upset.  With a frustrated look, he pulled
his hands back and closed his eyes, as if trying
to control himself. 

``Listen to me,'' he said.  ``You have the potential to build
yourself a strong, muscular body.  Better than Barry's.  Probably better
than
Stan's.  Maybe, after three or four years, better than mine!''  I gave
him a dubious look.  ``I'm serious.  But starting tomorrow...no, starting
today, you need to see yourself as MuscleMike the Bodybuilder.  You need
to flex
in the mirror and see not just the body you have now, but the strong
muscular body you're building every day.  You do that, and the rest
will be easy.  What do you say?''

``Can't I still be Mike with the brains?''

He gaped at me in what I took to be surprise, then laughed.  ``Of course
you can!  Haven't you been listening?  You've swallowed a  big lie all
your 
life.  We have a news bulletin coming in for you, Mike...a guy can
have brains *and* muscles!  And you're that guy.  So, you need
to get into a head trip like Barry and Stan.  From now on, you're
MuscleMike, dig it?''

``Uh...sure.''

``Show me, don't just say `sure'.  What's your name?''

``Mi..oh.  MuscleMike.''

``Say it like you mean it!  It's just like all that four-eyes crap, the
more you say it, the truer it becomes.  Even if you don't believe it
now, you have to play the part as if you do.   What's your name?''

I was sort of feeling what he was trying to tell me.  His enthusiasm
was contagious.  I smiled in spite of myself, partly because
this whole thing seemed kind of silly, but partly because I was genuinely
inspired by his confidence in me.  I shouted, ``MuscleMike!''

``OK, MuscleMike, shirt off!  Give me a double-biceps, and this time
it's MuscleMike posing!''

With genuine eagerness, I pulled off my shirt and flexed both my arms
as hard as I could, pulling myself up to my full height and expanding
my chest as best I could.  Jonathan beamed at me and squeezed my flexed
arms.
``Awright!  There he is!  MuscleMike's going to be giving Barry and Stan
a run for their money this summer!''  

I was getting another boner, but for some reason I didn't feel embarrassed
about it, or even give it any thought at all.  Hell, maybe if
*I* was the one with muscles, other guys' muscles
would stop making me hard.  I just grinned
at Jonathan and did the side chest pose for good measure.  ``Y'know,''
I said, ``I could learn to enjoy this.''

Jonathan patted me on the back.  ``You will.  C'mon, get your shirt on;
you still have some food to get into your system.''

When we went into the kitchen, Barry looked up.  ``Hey, Mike, what were
you two guys doing back  there, hmmmm?''  I looked at Barry and pulled my
shoulders
back a bit.  ``That's MuscleMike to you,'' I told him.  ``And you're
in for some competition.''

Barry looked curiously at Jonathan, who only shrugged and looked
innocently
at the ceiling.

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 5

Changes Begin

Just as Jonathan had said, we were really sore the next day as we entered
the gym.  Every movement seemed to cause a twinge of pain somewhere;  just
poking my chest with my finger hurt.  Stan was there, practicing poses in
the mirror.  He turned around when he saw us come in and called into the
house, ``MuscleMike and Barry are here!'' The musclekid looked at us and
grinned.  ``Bet you guys are really feeling the burn today!''

We both nodded.  ``Is it going to hurt like this every time we work out?''
Barry asked. 

``Well...'' Stan said slowly, ``maybe not *that* sore...'' He looked at us
and posed in that crablike movement that I found out later is called a
`most muscular' pose. ``But it's worth it, isn't it?''

We nodded in agreement.  I sat down to hide my growing hard-on.  Stan
seemed to have that effect on me.  Jonathan came in from the house with a
couple of purple mimeographed sheets in his hand.  He was dressed in loose
and concealing clothes again, for which I was grateful -- Stan was
distracting enough without adding Jonathan's Herculean physique into the
mix. 

``This is a list of the kinds of foods I want you eating, and another list
of stuff to avoid.  When you're at home, I guess you'll take the meals
you're given, but you should try to eat as much good food as possible.  If
your moms are serving meats or fish or chicken, take a second helping,
that kind of thing.  Try to avoid the fatty or sugary stuff.  It'll keep
your skin clearer too, though you guys don't seem to have much skin
problems. 

``OK, change into your gym clothes, you're going to do another light
workout today, along with Stan.''

We changed as quickly as our sore muscles would let us, and Jonathan got
out our cards and we went to work.  I noticed that he had us using more
weight today.  ``We'll be increasing your weight quickly as your muscles
and nerves learn the movements.  Also, your strength should increase very
quickly the first few weeks.''

As we started to exercise, the pain subsided a bit.  We benched 75 pounds
this time, and the movement felt a lot more natural.  Still, it was both
embarrassing and exciting to watch Stan add another 40 pounds to the bar
and pump 115 pounds nine or ten times.  ``Almost got it ten times on the
last set,'' he said.  ``Bet I'll be adding another five pounds next
week.''

A little over an hour later, we were finished.  Jonathan gave us something
he called a protein drink (it tasted more like an Orange Julius but
thicker) and told us how pleased he was of the intensity we were putting
into our training.  Stan added, ``If I'm not careful, these guys are going
to get stronger than me!''

``Stronger than Stan the Muscle Man?  I didn't think there *were* guys
like that!'' I said, grinning at Stan.  This time, my joke got a laugh
from all the Muscleteers. 

The semester passed into history as the week finished.  I got all `A's,
except for Phys. Ed's usual `courtesy C' and a `B' in Art.  Barry got
mostly `C's except for a `B' in Algebra.  Neither of us took much notice; 
with school over, our lives were centered around Jonathan and the Muscle
Club. 

June became July, and at the end of our third full week of weight lifting,
Jonathan once again brought out his tape measure and once again `measured
and expressed in numbers' our muscle progress.  During those three weeks,
we had trained intensely, five days a week, eaten lots of food (my father
wondered aloud if I'd picked up a tapeworm while my mother said something
about `hollow legs'), and gotten plenty of rest.  Jonathan once said, ``In
a way, I was lying when I said it wouldn't happen overnight.  The time you
spend sleeping is the time your body is recovering from your workouts and
adapting by building muscle.''

Some afternoons after training, we all lay out on Jonathan's patio getting
a tan. At least twice a week, we practiced posing, with and without the
mirror.  I still felt a bit uneasy with this at first, but as time went
on, and I became a bit more coordinated, I started to enjoy it almost
as much as the other guys.  Jonathan's physique was just amazing to watch
as he practiced the poses with us.  He wasn't really as huge as I
originally thought -- at six feet even, he weighed a little over 200
pounds -- but his muscles were clearly defined and seemed to jump through
his skin when he flexed.  In spite of myself, I got a hard-on every time
he did this, but of course nobody was watching me, so it didn't really
matter. 

Our exercise strength increased rapidly.  Whenever someone could do sets
of ten on an exercise, the weight was increased.  This happened twice a
week on almost every exercise for Barry and me, and Stan, who was
obviously full into an adolescent growth spurt, was getting stronger just
about as fast. 

Barry became known as The Squat Machine.  By the end of the second week,
he was squatting 135 pounds for sets, stronger than either Stan or me.  I
was stronger than Barry on the bench, though, and was, after three weeks,
only about five pounds behind Stan's workout even though I could only
bench sets of ten at 95 pounds the first week.  But I was making my best
progress in my back.  Even Jonathan said that he was surprised at how much
weight I could row, and said that my wide shoulders may have improved my
leverage somehow.  I had become accustomed to the name of MuscleMike by
now, and thought of it as my name whenever I was with the others. 

Jonathan took Stan's stats first.  ``123 pounds...12 5/8-inch biceps...you
just keep growing, Stan-the-MuscleMan!  OK, MuscleMike, let's see what's
happening with you.  He wrote down some figures, then he re-measured my
chest.  Finally, I stepped on the scale.  ``146 pounds.  Nine pounds in
three weeks.  Your waist is still 31 inches, so that's all muscle!  Your
arms are up to 12 1/4 inches, your thighs are up to 19 1/2.  But your
chest is 37 and a quarter inches.  MuscleMike, you've added over an inch
to your chest measurement!  That's fantastic!'' I did a `most muscular'
pose and growled at him, then snickered.  ``Incipiently copious pecs, as
my English teacher would put it?''

``Incipient!  Good word!  But I think the size gain is in your back more
than your chest.  Show me a lat spread.'' I put my hands on my hips and
pushed out on my latissimus dorsi muscles as Jonathan had demonstrated for
us a couple of weeks ago in a particularly exciting posing lesson.  I
heard Stan take a breath, and even Barry said, ``Jeez, Mi-- MuscleMike,
that's really good!''

Stan came over and ran his hand along the outside of my still-flexing
back.  ``Well, guess we know who gets the Best Back trophy!'' His touch
reawakened my boner, but I tried not to pay attention.  During these three
weeks of training, Stan had apparently taken a liking to me -- he seemed
to make it a point to spot for me when I was bench-pressing, encouraging
the last tough reps from me and complimenting me after the set. 

``OK, Squat Machine, your turn!'' Jonathan turned to Barry.  Barry's arms
were just a fraction bigger than mine, and his chest had increased by 3/4
of an inch.  Barry had gained only five pounds, but had lost a half inch
from his waist.  He was quite visibly leaner than before.  Barry's mother
was divorced and worked during the day, so Barry had a lot more control
than I had over his meals.

But it was Barry's thighs that were progressing the fastest.  From an
initial size of 19 1/2 inches, he was now at 20 5/8 inches, and a visible
`sweep' in his outer thigh was becoming visible.  Jonathan asked Barry to
pose his abs and thighs with his hands behind his head, and we all
spontaneously applauded at the now-visible abdominal muscles and legs that
were showing some real power.  I thought it was a pity that guys couldn't
feel other guys' thigh muscles flexing as you could with biceps -- but
then shut off that inner voice with a feeling of annoyance.  Barry bowed,
grinning ear to ear. 

I was certainly getting more muscular, but it wasn't making my fascination
with the other guys' physiques any less.  Watching Jonathan curling
50-pound dumbbells, his massive arms bulging with the strain, was a sure
fire way to stretch my jockstrap inside my shorts.  Even watching Barry,
with his strong thighs and arms that were rapidly catching up with Stan's
`cannonball' biceps got me aroused.  But I decided that this should just
make me focus harder on my own lifting and redouble my own effort.  Our
hygiene teacher had called this `sublimation' and indicated that it was a
Good Thing. 

``What about you, Jonathan,'' Stan asked.  ``I'll take your stats.'' I
wrote the numbers on Jonathan's own card as Stan read them from the tape. 
``Chest 47, arms both 18, waist 31, thighs 26 1/4, calves 17 1/2.  And
you're weighing...just a sec...203 pounds.'' Stan looked over at the card
as I finished filling in the last number.  ``You're losing weight,
Jonathan -- and the only measurement that changed is that your waist got
thinner.  How come?''

``Well, I'm trying to really bring out my definition, what they call
`cutting up', this summer.'' Jonathan said, with an unreadable expression
on his face.

Stan squinted one eye up at Jonathan.  ``How come?  What gives?''

Jonathan's face betrayed nothing.  ``Well, let's just say that you guys
might want to make sure you're free on the Saturday of Labor Day
weekend.''

The three of us  looked at each other.  Stan looked like he had
an idea of what Jonathan was talking about, but didn't say anything.
Barry and I just looked blank.

``OK, guys, enough of this bullshit.  Put away the cards, and let's get
started with the weights.  Those muscles aren't growing from listening to
conversation!'' Stan and I headed over to the squat rack, and Barry and
Jonathan began on their bench-presses.  Barry and I were off to a great
start, and I was really starting to feel like the muscular man that
Jonathan saw in me was coming out. 

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 6

Everyone Can See

By the end of July, I had already started summer school (Stan was taking
some kind of summer enrichment class in the mornings too), and so our
workouts were early in the afternoon.  I was surprised that working out
did not make me less focused on my schoolwork -- to the contrary, it
seemed to me that my ability to concentrate on something, even in the face
of boredom or disinterest, had increased.  Plus, I was able to read or do
homework while we were tanning, so things were working pretty well.  The
Muscle Club didn't take that many hours of my time, really, so I was able
to visit with my school friends and do my summer reading (I was on my
second annual re-reading of The Lord of the Rings) without really feeling
that I was giving up anything except possibly television summer reruns. 

The measurement session at the end of July was as encouraging as the
previous one, and everyone was progressing quickly.  Barry and I had
`caught up' with Stan's steel biceps at 12 3/4 inches, although with his
shorter arms, the effect was still more impressive when Stan flexed.  I
added another eight pounds during the month, and my chest was up to 39 1/2
inches, including my lat spread.  I had noticed that I could feel some
thickness at the center my own pecs when I drew my arm across my chest,
which was a new experience for me.  Barry's thighs `leveled off' a bit,
only picking up another half inch, and his waist continued to narrow.  On
the other hand, his chest was up to 38 inches, and his weight was up to
141 pounds.  His chest poses started showing the same muscle striations
that Jonathan and Stan showed. Barry surprised the rest of us that day by
putting together a short posing routine, moving with surprising grace and
smoothness from one pose to the next, and earning applause from the Muscle
Club.  My boner rose to the occasion as well; Barry was really starting to
show a fine, if still slim, physique, the sort of thing he'd been making
believe he had back when we were doing our own muscle-flexing comparisons. 

Stan was gaining steadily, especially in his chest, which looked
proportionally thicker than either Barry's or mine; he was also getting
taller.  Jonathan said that he had grown a half an inch in the last six
weeks.  I had also noticed that Stan was growing in other ways.  His voice
had settled into a solid adolescent tenor, and I had noticed that he had
sprouted a fair crop of pubic hair.  I think our hygiene text had called
it `primary and secondary male characteristics'. 

Everyone agreed that my back was not only showing width, but that ridges
of muscle were appearing up the middle of my back.  I could only look at
my back sort of sideways in the mirror, and Stan poked hard at them with
his fingertips so that I could sense the thickness that was starting
to appear there.

I was now actually looking forward to posing in the mirror and seeing the
results of my hard work.  Our tans had deepened during the month, and this
enhanced our muscular definition.  The Muscle Club Kids were definitely on
a roll. 

For his part, Jonathan continued to get leaner and harder.  He was
beginning to look like one of those anatomy charts you see in the hygiene
books, the ones that diagram all the muscles with the skin off.  But he
was maintaining his muscle size, and the effect was electrifying. 
Whenever he took his shirt off for the posing sessions, I heard Stan and
Barry take a breath just as I did.  Whatever was going to happen on Labor
Day weekend, Jonathan was going to be ready for it. 

The other thing that happened during July is that my parents found out I
was lifting weights.  I was getting ready for bed, and my mom came in
while I was stretching just after taking my shirt off -- it was definitely
beginning to feel much tighter!  ``Michael,'' she said in a surprised
voice, ``have you been getting fatter or something?'' She pretty much
equated `bigger' with `fatter', though I was actually a bit leaner and
starting to show some `abs' myself, if not as sharp as Barry or Stan.  I
decided to give her an honest, if limited, answer. 

``Well, maybe,'' I said, ``I've been lifting weights with Barry Winters
for a few weeks.'' Mom knew Barry a bit; he had been to the house with
some other friends a couple of times, though she had a mistrust for kids
that were not part of my academic circle of friends. 

``Well, you don't want to overdo it. I think big muscles look really
ugly.'' She paused for a moment.  She looked as if she were deciding
whether to say something else.  Finally, she said slowly, ``Michael, be
careful.  Some of the biggest, most athletic and masculine-looking men
turn out to be homosexuals.''

I turned pale, but maybe she just figured that she had frightened me
appropriately.  ``Oh,'' I said, trying to sound nonchalant, ``I don't
think Barry is going to try anything.'' I meant it; Barry was about the
most heterosexual guy I knew.  He had Playboy magazines stacked in a
corner of his room, and the wall beside his bed was covered with pictures
of women in various stages of undress. 

``OK,'' she said as she turned to leave, ``just be careful, that's all. 
Good night, honey.''

``Goodnight, Mom,'' I said, and lay down in bed and turned off the light. 
A million possibilities were going through my mind.  Suddenly, I
remembered what Jonathan had said about `Pygmalion', and at long last
remembered what it was that had struck me odd about the reference, the
thing I couldn't remember at the time.  Shaw's play `Pygmalion' was named
after the king in a Greek myth.  The king had sculpted a statue of a
beautiful woman.  The statue was so beautiful that the king fell in love
with it, and prayed to Aphrodite to bring it to life, which she did. 

The king fell in love with the statue he sculpted.  If that was what
Jonathan meant about Pygmalion then...but he couldn't be queer, he was
so...but that would mean... 

This wasn't something I could afford to be wrong about.  If I came out and
asked him and I was wrong it could be a disaster and I suppose I could ask
Barry what he thought but then he'd want to know why I wanted to know so I
couldn't ask him and Stan probably didn't even know what a homosexual was
so I couldn't say anything to him so what was I going to do?  Besides,
even if Jonathan was like that, what was I going to do?  Go up to him and
say, ``I think you're queer.  I think maybe I'm like that too''? 

I sighed as I sat there in bed.  All I could think of was that I was going
to have to watch Jonathan more carefully.  I smiled to myself in spite of
my consternation.  Watching Jonathan -- I guess I could live with that. 

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 7

Approaching A Climax

As it turned out, however, it wasn't so easy to figure out Jonathan just
by watching him carefully.  Jonathan wore very loose shorts while working
out, as did the rest of us, because of the freedom of movement it gave
him.  That, and the fact that I certainly didn't want anyone to see me
staring at Jonathan's crotch, made it very frustrating to try to decide
whether Jonathan was actually turned on by any or all of us, his young
muscle sculptures. 

The only time that he wore tight trunks was during the posing sessions. 
He was spending more time posing, and it looked like he was putting
together a long routine, with one pose flowing into the next. By now, the
rest of us had guessed that there was going to be a bodybuilding contest
like in the magazines, but which one, and where, was still just guesswork;
Jonathan remained serenely silent on the subject.  At any rate, when he
was posing, he was, as always, intense and focused on the task at hand,
and didn't show any obvious sexual response, even when, one day, he asked
me to oil down his back. 

Jonathan explained that bodybuilders usually have a light coating of baby
oil or mineral oil on their skin when they're posing in a contest, and he
wanted to show us how it looked.  He oiled his own arms and legs and
chest, and I got to oil up his back.  I couldn't tell, from back there,
what was going on with Jonathan's dick, but I certainly knew that mine was
getting a workout as I felt the granite ridges of muscle under my fingers. 
I noticed Barry watching us.  He seemed to be amused by something, but I
couldn't tell what it was. 

When I finished, Jonathan bent over with his hands on his knees, and took
a few deep breaths, I suppose to focus on his routine.  He then stepped
over to the posing dais in the corner, turned on the spotlight, killed the
other room lights, and went into his routine. 

It was like watching living metal -- smooth, rock-hard, and yet fluid. 
Each pose highlighted another part of Jonathan's body, and the sharp
lighting from the spotlight combined with the reflectiveness of the oil to
highlight even the slightest ridge of muscle on his skin.  I had seen some
photos of guys posing in Jonathan's muscle magazines, of course, but never
someone moving from one magnificent pose to another with the skill and
grace of a dancer.  I was too enthralled even to worry about my sexual
arousal, and I heard Stan whisper, ``Oh, wow!'' I looked over at Barry; he
was breathing hard and unconsciously running his hand across his own bare
chest as he watched.  Jonathan finished his routine and bowed as we all
stood up and applauded and whistled wildly. 

``I take it that this means you guys approve?'' Jonathan grinned.

We all nodded.  ``Are you kidding?'' Stan asked.

Jonathan started to towel himself off.  ``Thanks.  I think this is really
starting to come together.  But what I especially wanted to show you guys
is how the way I look on stage is partly illusion.  The oil, the lighting,
my standing on a raised surface -- these all make my physique look
even bigger and taller and harder than it is.  It's the same with you
guys. MuscleMike, if you walked along the street today with the same sort
of hang-dog posture and attitude you came in here with, everyone would
think you were just another high-school kid.  But if you walk the
way I see you walking nowadays, with your arms apart and your shoulders
back, and just a bit of a lat spread, everyone will see you and think,
`There goes a high school athlete.  Bet he's a varsity guy.'  It's
like that Star Trek episode with the women on the mining planet, 
remember?''

Jonathan had found out that I was a Star Trek fan, and his reference to
`Mudd's Women' drove his point home very nicely.  ``You either believe in
yourself, or you don't,'' as Capt. Kirk had said in a particularly
tautological speech. 

The next day, it was our turn to pose.  As usual, Barry showed the best
form and his rapidly-hardening abdominals were starting to rival Stan the
Muscle Man's own deep ridges.  ``Dammit, Barry, I wish I could get my Mom
to stop frying chicken and all that other greasy stuff.  If I could eat
more like you maybe I'd get leaner.''

``Well, don't worry too much about it, MuscleMike,'' Jonathan interrupted. 
``It's not like you're fat; you're showing good abdominal definition
yourself, and at this stage you should worry more about building up than
dropping fat.''

``I know, I know, but I'm sure I could do better.''

``Why don't you come over and have dinner at my place now and then,''
Barry offered.  ``Maybe a meal or two a week with me will help.''

I was surprised, but agreed to see if my parents would let me have
dinner over there the next evening.  I was even more surprised
when they did.  My Mom, as usual, had misgivings about me spending
so much time with `that boy off the street', but my Dad was evidently
pretty pleased with the results of my lifting weights with Barry,
and encouraged me to go.  I could tell that Dad was, in his usual
quiet way, as proud of the way I'd improved my physique as he
always was with my grades.

When I got to Barry's house, he told me dinner was almost ready; he just
had to drain the spaghetti.  ``My mom's down in Westchester showing a
house to a couple of buyers,'' he said, ``I don't think she'll be home
until eight.'' Barry served up a couple of large skinless chicken breasts
and spaghetti.  ``There's a little oil in the sauce,'' Barry admitted,
``but it's not much.  The oregano really makes the sauce.  Try it.''

We talked during dinner about our training and so on.  At one point I
asked Barry where he had learned to put together that posing routine he'd
done a couple of weeks back.  ``You did some poses that Jonathan never
taught us, '' I said. ``Where'd those come from?''

``Oh, there were a couple of articles on posing in some of Jonathan's old
muscle magazines,'' Barry explained.  ``After dinner we'll go upstairs and
I'll show you.''

We went up to Barry's room after dinner was done and the dishes were in
the dishwasher.  Barry's house was a big two-story place whose floor plan
reminded me of the house in `Leave it to Beaver'.  But Barry spent most of
his time there alone.  I couldn't imagine what it would be like living in
my house without my Mom and Dad and brother around all the time, and
wasn't sure if I envied Barry's independence and big house, or felt sorry
for the way he missed out on having a real family around him. 

It was the first time I'd been up in Barry's room since well before we'd
met Stan a couple of months ago.  The stack of Playboy magazines was still
there, but they were all mixed up with Jonathan's old muscle magazines,
and some new issues that I guess Barry had bought at the newsstand.  On
the wall next to his bed, I noticed that the pictures of naked women had
been supplemented, and in places even replaced, by pictures from the
muscle magazines.  One of the pictures was a nameless bodybuilder with
thick thighs and abdominal muscles.  A picture of Barry's face had been
pasted over the original. 

``Here it is, this is the issue.  See?  Here's where it shows how to do
that `lunge' sort of pose I did at the start.  It really shows off my
legs, I think.'' Barry stripped off his shirt and pants, leaving only a
pair of briefs on underneath.  He did the lunge pose, one leg bent with
the other straight out behind.  One arm extended as if pointing ahead and
up, and the other flexing.  It was sexy as hell, frankly, and I reacted
before I knew it, my dick pushing down one leg of my rather tight jeans. 

Barry looked directly at my crotch.  ``Hmmm!  Is that a pencil in your
pocket, or are you glad to see me?''

I blanched.  ``What??  Oh.  Um.  Sorry, I was, uh, thinking of something
else.'' I knew it sounded pretty lame, but I couldn't think of anything
else to say. 

Barry shook his head.  ``C'mon, don't freak out.  I've seen you getting
hard whenever we used to do our wrestling and flexing thing, practically
since the day we met.''

I sat down.  I was a little dazed, and my hard-on mercifully had gone limp
again.  ``I don't understand...you knew...?''

``Shit, of course I knew!  I got turned on myself, but I guess you never
noticed.  I thought maybe I was just turned on by the fact that my muscles
(man, can you believe we thought we had muscles?) because my muscles were
turning you on, or because muscles help guys get girls or something.  But
when we met Stan and he flexed those damned arms of his, I practically
creamed in my jeans right there, so I knew it was something else.''

Barry looked at the pictures on his wall.  ``Guess anyone who shows a lot
of skin will get my motor running.  Double your pleasure, double your fun. 
Like in the gum commercial, huh?''

I just sat there sort of stupidly.  ``So...my being...that way...  doesn't
bother you?''

``Shit, no!  I like it!  C'mon, take your shirt off, and you can pose for
me too.''

``Um, look,'' I hesitated.  ``I still have to get used to this, I mean,
I've never actually *done* anything about this, and I don't know...''

Barry looked a little frustrated.  ``Oh, come on, I'm not going to bite! 
Shirt off, MuscleMike!  C'mon.''

I took my shirt off, feeling self-conscious about it for the first time in
weeks, and Barry came over and slowly ran his hand up my arm (I flexed for
him sort of automatically, a habit of years) and over my shoulder to my
back; his other hand stroked my chest over the nipple.  His touch felt
strange and I stepped away from him suddenly.  I didn't know if I was more
turned on or terrified.  I remembered my parents telling me that
homosexuals had sex by putting their dicks in other guys' assholes, and
that sounded really disgusting.  I looked down, and saw that Barry's own
dick was stretching his briefs insistently.  I didn't know what Barry had
in mind, and just then I didn't want to find out. 

``Um, heh, uh, I don't think I'm really ready for this yet.''

``Aw, jeez, Mike...''

``No, really.  Not right now.  Please.  I gotta go home now.''

Barry sighed.  ``Wow, this really is new to you, isn't it?  OK, I guess
some people have to have more time to get used to the idea.  Well, there's
always Kimberly Clarke.''

I raised my eyebrows.  The name was familiar, but...``Who?  Is she in our
grade?''

Barry gave a short laugh.  He picked up a box of Kleenex from next to his
bed and showed me the bottom.  ``Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Neenah,
Wisconsin,'' I read. 

``See?  Kimberly Clark.  She can suck up anything I give her.''

In spite of my nervousness, I laughed, and made a mental note to try that
useful-sounding approach to keeping my sheets clean.  I pulled my shirt
on.  ``I'm sorry,'' I said, ``but I'm just not ready to do
anything...like...you know.''

Barry got dressed and we both went downstairs.  Barry started to put his
hand on my shoulder, but I pulled away.  When we got to the front door, I
turned to Barry nervously.  ``Just one more thing.  You understand, none
of this is for public broadcast.  You aren't going to tell anyone, are
you?''

Barry looked as if I had just asked him if he were going to paint himself
purple and do an Irish jig naked in the park (not that anyone would notice
that sort of thing nowadays).  ``What?  You mean Stan and Jonathan?''

I nodded.  ``Promise you won't tell them?''

Barry said, ``Um...OK, I promise.  They won't hear anything from me.  
And I'm really sorry; I didn't mean to scare you or anything.''

``Thanks.  I'll see you in the gym tomorrow.''  I walked home,
confused and shaken.  What I really wanted to do is run
my hands all over Barry's body, from his strong arms and chest
down to those powerful thighs.  But it was suddenly different
when I felt that, like a secret agent, my cover had been blown.  I
didn't know what I wanted now.  The only thing that would
have made it worse would be if I had looked back and seen Barry shaking
his head and chuckling to himself.


* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 8

Clarification

Sleep is a great healer, and by the next day I decided that what had
happened with Barry didn't really change anything except that I didn't
have to try to hide my hard-ons from Barry anymore, which maybe wasn't so
bad after all.  Still, for a few days in the gym, I was a little less
physical with Barry than usual, with fewer friendly pats on the back or
bicep squeezes.  It also seemed to me that Barry and I were pairing up on
exercises a little less frequently than before, though I wasn't sure if I
just imagined it.  Even so, after a few days, everything was back as it
had been before; I even had dinner with Barry a couple more times, though
we didn't go to his room afterwards. 

By mid-August, even my usual circle of school friends had noticed the
changes in my physique as my shirts began to be filled and then stretched
by my growing torso and widening shoulders.  I realized that I might have
to get new shirts for the new school year if this kept up.  Still, none of
my friends actually said much about it.  When we had to move a dining-room
table to set up a boardgame, everyone agreed that ``Mike should do it;
he's the guy with the muscles,'' but beyond small jokes like that, my
friends didn't seem to care about it at all. 

August was about half gone when our next measurement session rolled
around.  Everyone was still progressing rapidly.  Barry's famous thighs
were up another 3/4 inch, looking even larger in contrast with his now 29
1/2-inch waist.  His chest was now taping at 39 1/4 inches, his arms were
still tied with Stan's, just a fraction over 13 inches.  Barry's weight
was up to 150 pounds, a significant gain.  He had let his hair grow quite
long during the summer, and I was starting to think of him as very
Samson-like. 

Stan's chest was up to 37 inches, more than either Barry or I had started
with -- yet his waist was still only 27 inches.  He was gaining weight as
quickly as Barry, and was now up to 134 pounds of muscle that was almost
as lean and `ripped' as Jonathan. 

The workouts had become my refuge from the emotional turmoil of the last
couple of weeks, and I was training with more single-minded focus than I
could have thought possible, and eating voraciously.  I was benching more
than either Barry or Stan: earlier in the week I became the first to do
sets with the `magic' number of 135 pounds, with two 45-pound plates on
the 45-pound bar. 

The results were gratifying: my weight was up to 158 pounds, my chest just
over 40 inches, and at last my arms were the biggest of the `junior'
Muscle Club members, at 13 1/2 inches; Jonathan was really impressed, and
measured them twice just to make sure.  My thighs were lagging behind
Barry's, and since I was long-legged, they seemed to be my worst body part
at the moment.  Still, I had picked up a quarter inch there myself, so
could not seriously complain. 

As Jonathan took Stan and Barry's measurements, I watched carefully.  That
is, I watched Jonathan's crotch.  Each time one of the other Muscle
Clubbers flexed for Jonathan, I thought I saw what antique writers called
a `stirring in the loins'.  When, later, Stan took Jonathan's thigh
measurement, the reaction was unmistakable.  Jonathan was as turned on by
all this muscle stuff as me!  I scarcely noticed that Jonathan had lost
another three pounds, and that his various stats were fractions of an inch
lower than before. 

Jonathan congratulated all of us on the results of our hard work, which he
said was even better than he expected to see.  Then he told us why he was
getting `cut up.' As we had guessed, he was preparing for a contest -- his
first contest ever.  It would be held on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend
at the Muscle Beach weight pit. 

``I thought Muscle Beach was just sort of a general term,'' I said.  ``You
mean it's an actual place?''

``Yeah, but it's not where it used to be when it became famous back around
World War II.  Even when I was a kid in the '50s, it was a platform area
right by the Santa Monica pier, and muscle men would go there to lift
weights and do acrobatics and get photographed by tourists.  Around 1959 I
think, Santa Monica decided it wasn't worth the maintenance or something,
and cleared the area out.  But the L.A. Parks department had set up a
fenced-off weight-lifting area of their own in Venice by then.  All the
old Muscle Beach guys gravitated there, so it's now the sort of unofficial
`Muscle Beach weight pit'. 

``Anyway, they have a `Mr. Muscle Beach' physique contest there every
year, and I'm going to enter this year in the Junior division.  And I want
you guys there to cheer me on.  It'll be on the 31st.  Can you make it?''

We all variously assured him that we would be there, and were sure that
he'd knock the other guys dead. 

``Thanks guys, I knew I could count on you.  I want to warn you that the
last week or so before the contest I'm going to be dieting real strictly
and maybe getting just a bit dehydrated.  It's probably going to make me
real grouchy, so I just want you to know that if I seem really uptight and
snap at you, it's not your fault.  OK?''

We all nodded.  ``OK,'' he said, ``see you guys on Monday.  You're all
really on track, keep it up!''

Stan and Barry went over to the piles of street clothes and started to
change.  I went over to Jonathan and quietly said, ``Um, can I talk to you
for a few minutes?  In private?''

Jonathan saw that something was bothering me and nodded, gesturing towards
the door.  ``We'll be back in a few minutes,'' he told Barry and Stan, and
led me into the house. 

``This is really hard to talk about, but I think I have to ask. Do
you...are you...do you think that Barry and Stan and I are sexy?''

Jonathan just said, ``Well, of course!  Don't you think you're sexy?''

I frowned.  ``No, that's not what I mean.  Do you get ... I mean, when
we're all in there flexing and posing for you, do you...'' I just sat
there, exasperated.  This was really hard for me to talk about. 

Jonathan sighed.  ``You mean, am I gay?''

I paled a bit and just nodded quietly.

``Are you just now figuring that out?  I thought you knew right from the
start!  I mean, the way you and Barry...'' He looked at my face, saw me
trembling.  There was a lump in my throat, and I had to throttle this
stupid irrational babyish urge to cry.  ``Oh, no!...I didn't understand,
I'm really sorry!  I saw that you and Barry were getting hard when I first
posed for you, and I just figured that you two were a pair, or at least
played around from time to time.  I didn't know you were still confused
... I thought you knew all about this stuff!''

``Well, I mean, I don't know if I'm really, you know, queer, I mean, I
don't want to dress like a woman, and I don't have a lisp, and the idea of
a guy putting his dick into another guy's asshole is so gross...maybe it's
like you said, I'm just confused.''

``Oh, man, you're confused all right.  Look, this is the same thing as we
talked about before.  You hear `queer' or `gay' or `homosexual' and you
hear all the lies that people have been telling you all your life.  You're
just a guy who thinks guys with muscles are sexy.  All the rest of it, the
limp wrists, the women's clothes, even the details about what you do in
bed, that's all just bullshit, like `all darkies got rhythm' or `all Jews
are greedy' or `all scholars are puny pencil-necked geeks'.  You know what
you are, and I imagine you pretty much know what you like.  You can't let
other people tell you what that *means*.  It's your life, not theirs.''

I didn't want Jonathan to see me cry, but I couldn't help it.  All the
tension, all the hiding, all the fear, all the disgust I had at the idea
that I might be `one of those', all the nasty words I'd heard from the
mouths of friends, even my brother and parents...it all just sort of
boiled up and I sat there and cried.  Jonathan put his big powerful arms
around me and pulled me close to his chest.  His hands stroked my
still-bare back gently.  Any other time, this might have turned me on, but
instead I just clung to him and sobbed like a goddamned child. 

``I know how you feel,'' he said as he held me, ``it's not easy for any of
us, and I don't want to pretend that it is.  There are lots of people who
get all hung up about this.  A lot of people hate us, some even would want
to kill us just for doing what you and I are doing right now, just
hugging.  We always have to be careful.  But that doesn't mean we have to
hide from each other or turn into monks.  Monks...?  Damn, no wonder it
took you so long!  You had a pretty good thing going, didn't you?  As long
as you were a nice scholastic drone, everyone knew Mike Wesson was this
neutered Mr. Spock type, or so they thought, and you could even believe it
yourself, sort of.  But MuscleMike just doesn't quite fit that role, does
he?  You think about sex every seventeen minutes, just like every other
fifteen year old.''

He kept talking to me like that and held me for a couple more minutes, and
I finally stopped crying.  I knew that Jonathan would have to let me go,
but didn't want him to.  He gently pushed me away and brushed the hair
from across my forehead.  He put his hands on either side of my face. 
``Are you going to be all right?'' he asked.  I nodded.  He got a cool wet
washrag from the bathroom and I used it to wipe my eyes and take the
puffiness and redness down; it wouldn't do for Stan and Barry to see that
I'd been crying!  That made me think of something else. 

``Oh, I just remembered,'' I said, ``Barry sort of figured me out already,
but don't tell Stan.  He really seems to like me and even look up to me a
little, and I don't want to ruin our friendship.  I don't think he needs
to be bothered with this stuff.''

Jonathan's face took on a curious poker-faced expression that could have
meant anything from slight amusement to deep offense.  ``I'm really sorry
you don't trust me more than that.  I wouldn't tell anyone about you or
anybody else.  It's not my decision to make as to who gets told, it's
yours.  Stan won't hear anything from me.''

``I'm sorry; of *course* I trust you.  Thanks.  I guess I better get
changed and get home.''

``Good idea.  We can talk about this again if you want, but *try* not to
suddenly freak out or anything right before my contest, OK?''

He was smiling at me as he said this, and I smiled a bit too and nodded. 
As I started through the door, Jonathan said, ``And don't sell Stan short. 
He's growing up quickly.''

I left the room feeling strange.  It was a good kind of strange, as if I
had dodged a bullet aimed at my head, or discovered that I didn't have to
turn in a difficult assignment after all.  I'd never quite felt like it
before.  By the time I got back to Stan and Barry, I was practically
euphoric, though I couldn't exactly say why. 

``I've decided we've got the best bodybuilding coach on the planet,'' I
said.  We should do something for him.''

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 9

An Outing at the Beach

As the day of the contest approached, the workouts became a little
disorganized.  We all agreed that Jonathan's workouts took priority, so
whatever equipment he decided to use was his, and he was no longer willing
to alternate sets with one of us.  If he needed a spotter, someone spotted
for him until he was through with the equipment.  Otherwise, Stan, Barry,
and I would work out together on some other exercise.  Notwithstanding
Jonathan's warning about likely mood swings, Stan seemed particularly
disturbed by Jonathan's impatience, and had to be assured that Jonathan
wasn't *really* angry with us, and this would go away soon. 

Jonathan's posing practice was a lot easier to take.  He seemed to really
enjoy putting his routine together, and the last few days he started
posing with a tape he had made of Wagner's `Ride of the Valkyries'.  Even
in the sort of diffuse light of the garage-gym, and without oil on his
body, Jonathan's posing routine was a treat to watch (to say the least),
and Jonathan grinned and bowed when we all applauded.  The day before the
show, Jonathan told me to pinch his skin at several points, especially
around his midsection and triceps.  I had never seen anything like it:
there was no discernible fat below the skin, and I was simply pinching
epidermis together, a thin film stretched across his still thick muscles. 

With Jonathan focused on his contest, it was easy for the rest of the
Muscle Club to plan a surprise.  Barry's mother was in real estate, and
worked closely on many occasions with a professional photographer.  He
owed her a favor, since she had sent a fair amount of business his way. 
It took several phone calls, but we arranged for the photographer to be
present at the Muscle Beach show.  He would keep the negatives, and could
sell the photos if he wanted, but we would be able to present Jonathan
with a professionally photographed and developed picture of his appearance
(and, we fully expected, victory) in his first contest, mounted and nicely
framed, and it would only cost us the few dollars we put together as a
nominal fee. 

A couple of days before the contest, as I was walking home with Barry, I
sort of cleared my throat and said, ``Look, about the other day, you know,
in your bedroom.  I'm sorry I freaked out on you like that.  Nobody had
ever talked to me like that before.'' I paused, awkwardly.  ``Can I ask
you something?''

``Go ahead.''

``Would you think it was weird if I asked you to let me feel you flexing
your legs sometime?  Not now, not yet...just...you know, hypothetically?''

Barry looked at me sort of funny.  ``Well, I don't know, maybe it is
weird.  But If it is, then that makes two of us, because I think it'd be
really cool.''

``OK,'' I said, and briefly squeezed his shoulder at the trapezius.  ``I
may hold you to that someday.''

Finally, it was Saturday, August 31, the day of the contest.  Barry, Stan,
and I met at a bus stop and made our way to Santa Monica.  Barry was much
more familiar with the beach area than either Stan or I.  In fact, he said
that he thought there was supposed to be a nude beach somewhere near one
of the Venice piers, but didn't know where it was exactly, because he
rarely got very far south of the Santa Monica pier where the bus stopped. 
Since that was obviously more than Stan or I knew, Barry was designated
our official navigator for finding our way to the Venice Beach area where
the Muscle Beach `pit' and contest stage were.  If he happened to find
some other attractions along the way, well, so much the better. 

The only time I had been in the Venice area before was in 1963, for a
birthday visit to the Pacific Ocean Park amusement park, now closed and
boarded up and looking rather sad as we walked past.  I was completely
unprepared for the scene at the Venice boardwalk. 

Always a sort of haven for eccentrics, Venice had in the last couple of
years become a sort of mini-Haight-Ashbury -- a conglomeration of hippies,
transients, Tarot readers, incense sellers, and every other type of young
and old person all milling around in what could only be described as a
continuous street party that made me think of a psychedelic version of the
pictures I had seen of Mardi Gras.  At every turn someone was playing
music (it was my first look at a real sitar), or meditating, or handing
out leaflets for everything from the SDS and Black Panthers to a
half-dozen anti-war events, or extolling the virtues of drugs, free sex,
or Transcendental Meditation.  There was a small group of activists
protesting -- quite rightly, I thought -- the disgusting events during the
week just past at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.  A couple of
uniformed policemen watched them with bored and contemptuous expressions,
ignoring the occasional shouts of ``pig!'' directed at them.  Street
peddlers were everywhere, selling funky clothes, psychedelic posters, drug
paraphernalia (Barry had to explain some of these), and all sorts of
baubles, bangles, and beads.  Barry bought an inexpensive leather headband
which looked quite good on him; I bought a couple of buttons reading
`Frodo Lives' in Elvish script and `Go Go Gandalf' (which, in turn, I had
to explain to Barry). 

We must have walked around there for a good hour (with our shirts off, the
term `strutted' is probably more appropriate than `walked') breathing in
the mixture of sea air, suntan lotion, barbecue smoke, marijuana, and
strawberry incense.  It was so fascinating that we almost forgot why we
were there -- Barry, apparently, had even forgotten about hunting up the
nude beach -- but we soon headed out to look for the `Muscle Beach' weight
pit and the stage where Jonathan had told us the contest would be. 

When we reached the weight pit, a good sized area containing a variety of
lifting equipment surrounded by a waist-high fence, we had to stop
strutting.  We were pretty good-sized and muscular kids by now, but these
guys were *big*.  There were men in their forties or fifties who had
builds that most college guys would envy; the smallest teenager, who
looked about 17 or 18, was considerably more muscular than any of us. We
watched as he benched a set of ten reps at 185 near the edge of the pit
where we were standing.  When he finished the set, he saw us watching and
flashed us the two-fingered `peace' sign that had become a common greeting
in the last couple of years. 

``Looks like you guys lift,'' he said.  ``Are you guys going to
watch, or are you going to work out?''

Barry spoke up, ``Don't we have to be members or something?  It'd
be really far out to work out here in the open and everything.''

The teenager pointed to a nearby gate and said, ``Oh, it'll be OK, just go
in there.'' We walked around and came back to the bench where the teenager
was waiting.  He looked like he might be Chicano, though he had little
accent.  He had long, dark hair tied with a beaded headband.  He was about
Barry's height, but a lot heavier and more muscular.  I guessed his arms
were 16 inches or maybe even more, and his chest maybe 45 inches or so. 
He wasn't really lean, and showed less abdominal definition than I did. He
was wearing a pair of Venice High School gym trunks over his
strong-looking legs. 

``I'm Roland,'' he said.  We all introduced ourselves.  

``How long have you been lifting?'' I asked.

``Since I was 14,'' he said, ``about three years.  What about you?''
                
Barry said, ``MuscleMike and I started at the end of last semester.  Stan
had already been training for over a year.''

Roland's eyes widened and he looked us over again.  ``You're doing really
good for just a couple of months,'' he said, ``*really* good.'' Then he
looked at Stan.  ``Over a year?  How old are you, anyway?''

Stan answered, unexpectedly, ``Thirteen come Monday.'' Barry and I hadn't
realized that Stan had a birthday coming up.  But we weren't anywhere near
as surprised as Roland, who said, ``Oh, wow, by the time you're my age
you're going to be *huge*!  How much do you guys bench?''

We told him how much we were doing for sets, and he said, ``Don't you
ever try for a single rep maximum?''

Stan said, ``Our trainer says that just wastes energy and doesn't
really make you stronger.''

``Oh,'' Roland said, ``that's true; single-reps are just for fun.  You
want to see how much you can do?''  We all went for the idea.  We
were grooving on the idea of showing off our strength out there in
the sun at the closest thing there was to the famous Muscle Beach.
We did some light weight warmups (``Don't want you guys to hurt
yourselves doing this,'' Roland remarked), and then Roland
set up the bar with 175 pounds on it.  With much effort, I was able
to bench this weight twice, but failed on the third rep.  Barry
got it once.  Stan didn't quite manage it.  On the next trial,
I just pressed 185 pounds, and Stan neatly succeeded with 165 pounds.
Roland was really impressed.

``You guys are out of sight!  Benching way over your body weight this
soon after you started is amazing.''

``Well,'' said Stan, ``we have a great trainer.  He'll be in
the Mr. Muscle Beach contest this afternoon.''

``Far out!'' he said.  ``I have to be at my grandmother's this afternoon,
so I can't see the show.  But why don't you guys come back here and train
with me sometimes this fall?'' He looked at me.  ``I think we'd work out
really well together.  This is *the* place for muscle freaks like us to
be.''

``That sounds really cool,'' I said, ``but we go to Hami, and none
of us drive, so it wouldn't be very easy.''

``Yeah, I guess you're right.  Shit.  Well, maybe you guys'll make it some
weekend.  I usually train around noon.'' Roland still wanted to finish his
workout before he left, and we wanted to get to the stage where the
contest would be, so we all said goodbye, leaving Roland on his bench,
doing `flyes' with 45-pound dumbbells. 

As we walked on the sand towards the contest site, with Stan running
a bit ahead, Barry poked me.  ``You know, Roland?  He, you know,
had a pencil in his pocket when you were benching.''  I looked
at Barry skeptically.  ``No, honest.  Didn't you see how
he was looking at you?''

I shook my head.  ``Next time,'' I told Barry, ``make some hand signs or
semaphore or smoke signals or something.''

Barry laughed.  ``Ya know, for a smart guy, sometimes you... OK, next time
I'll just give you a `thumbs-up'.  That should be descriptive enough.''

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 10

Mr. Muscle Beach

The contest wasn't at the pit itself, but at an outdoor stage a short
distance away, a large semicircle built of bricks and concrete
half-surrounding a wide open area for spectators with a half dozen
concrete tables and benches with metal umbrellas overhead.  We arrived
about 45 minutes before the show so we had plenty of time to stake out a
good location at one of the tables.  About ten minutes after we arrived,
Barry spotted his photographer friend looking around and they found
themselves a spot near us that the photographer decided would be a good
setup.  The three of us were still shirtless and the photographer asked to
take a picture of the three of us posing together on the stage so that he
could get a light reading, choose a lens, and similar mysterious
photographer things.  Nobody was there yet to keep us off the stage, so we
climbed up.  As the tallest, I stood in the center doing my best
lat-spread, while Stan stood on my left showing his side-chest pose to the
photographer while Barry stood on my right in what was obviously one of
his favorite poses, flexing his arms with his hands behind his head while
crunching his abs and flexing his legs.  It was only after we sat back
down that I remembered how camera-shy I had been on that first day of
training in June. 

By then, people were starting to show up for the contest.  Most of them
were just the usual beach-going public, drawn mostly by curiosity, along
with a few curious hippies and other local denizens.  Some were guys we
had seen back at the `pit', as well as some other amazingly big guys who
apparently worked out at a nearby gym they called Gold's, which had opened
two or three years ago. 

Without much fanfare, and with noisy squeals of microphone feedback, the
emcee, an older bodybuilder named Bill, came out to welcome everyone to
the Mr. Muscle Beach contest for 1968.  He spent a little time recounting
the history of Muscle Beach, and introduced some of the people who made
that stretch of beach famous in the 1930s and 1940s, including a
well-built woman with the curious name of `Pudgy'.  He then introduced a
`guest poser'.  This proved to be an Austrian bodybuilder with a nearly
unpronounceable name like Arnold Somethingorother.  Even though he was no
older than Jonathan, apparently he had already won the Mr. Austria and Mr. 
Universe titles, and had been brought over by a magazine publisher to come
and train here in Venice.  This guy was introduced as the `Austrian Oak',
but when I saw him I muttered to Barry and Stan that this was just because
they didn't have any redwoods in Austria.  The man was not much taller
than me, but weighed (according to the announcer) 240 pounds.  His arms,
when flexed, were literally as big as Barry's 21-inch thighs.  He made a
brief speech in hard-to-understand English, thanking everyone and saying
how ``heppy'' he was to be in ``Kawleefawnyaw'', and then started his
posing routine.  We were all, to say the least, impressed by his
development and symmetry, and the guy got a standing ovation (although
most of the audience were standing anyway).  Barry's photographer friend
seemed to be really pleased, and told us afterwards that he thought the
pictures he took of this guy might be worth something someday. 

Before getting the contest underway, the MC thanked the guest and gave a
short diatribe exhorting all the hippies, yippies, `dippies, and whatever
else is out there' to `turn on' to healthy living, `tune in' to their
bodies, and `drop in' to the Muscle Beach weight pit or other gym.  He was
rewarded by a mixture of applause, laughter, and a shout of ``hey, man,
that's not my bag,'' from someone at the back. 

Finally, the contest started.  There were four `divisions' -- a tall and
short division in each of the Junior and Senior categories.  The Junior
contest was first, with the short men appearing first.  There were only
four men in this group, and after seeing that Mr. Universe guy from
Austria, we were a little relieved to see that they were more `ordinary'
in their physiques -- one of them seemed to have only been lifting a
couple of years.  Via the MC, the judges asked the contestants to line up,
turn at various angles, then hit particular poses at the same time for
comparison.  Even the least-built of these men was much more muscular than
any of us junior Muscle Club guys, and they were all oiled up and wearing
beach swimsuits that were smaller and tighter than any I had seen, so it
was fascinating to watch these young men hitting their poses all in a row.
They left the stage, and then each of them came out in turn to perform his
posing routine.  Barry watched carefully, and I thought he was watching
the choreography just as closely as he was watching the physiques
themselves.  Each time one of the guys would hit a pose, everyone would
cheer, and a group of the guy's friends would cheer louder and whistle, or
shout encouragement, or call to the judges to pay attention.  It was
different from anything I'd seen before, but everyone seemed to be having
a lot of fun, except perhaps the contestants. 

Finally, the tall Junior class was introduced.  Jonathan was up against
only two other guys; one, a Negro, was about his height, but seemed much
heavier, with arms and thighs that were obviously thicker than Jonathan's. 
But he was not as `cut up' as Jonathan, and you could only vaguely discern
his abdominal muscles.  Jonathan's other opponent was even taller than me,
but seemed to weigh little more than Jonathan, if that.  He had a
reasonably good back, but his legs showed little shape and his chest,
while sharply defined, was plainly less thick and powerful-looking than
Jonathan's. 

Jonathan himself looked different from what we had expected: he had had
his hair trimmed to a very Establishment-looking cut, and his face was
more clean-shaven than I had ever seen it.  He was wearing a very brief
blue swimsuit made of some stretchy material that fitted his trunk like a
second skin.  He was lightly oiled in a way that caught the afternoon sun
perfectly, bringing every muscle fiber into razorlike relief.  When he was
introduced, we shouted in unison, ``Sock It To Them, Jonathan!'' which got
a grin from Jonathan and some laughter from the rest of the crowd.  The
photographer deduced that this was probably the man he had come to shoot,
and set to work. 

As the men went through the mandatory poses, Stan and Barry and I looked
at one another in growing excitement.  On every pose, Jonathan was showing
more hardness, symmetry, and muscularity than either opponent.  The larger
opponent showed a layer of fat hanging over the back of his trunks when
the men did their back poses, while Jonathan showed perfect hardness even
in the small muscles at the base of his back.  I was even too excited by
seeing my friend and trainer demolishing his opponents to get sexually
aroused.

Jonathan's posing routine went flawlessly, making allowances for the crude
loudspeaker's mangling of Wagnerian opera.  The crowd applauded loudly at
all the right moments as Jonathan glided easily from one strong pose to
another, synchronized nicely with the repeated crescendos of the familiar
orchestral work.  At every pose our group whistled and cheered, shouted,
`Way to go, Jonathan!' or `Hey judges, he's ripped to the bone!' and the
like.  By the time the routine was finished, we weren't the only ones
shouting.  Our friend's performance was simply beautiful, and we were
busting with pride at being able to say we were trained by this superb
specimen. 

The remainder of the contest was a bit of an anti-climax, as we had to
wait for the Senior competition before the results were announced.  These
guys were obviously seasoned veterans, perhaps only a year or two away
from a title like Mr. America or better.  All of them were proportioned
bigger than Jonathan, and most of them were at least as well defined.  I
had never seen so many beautiful muscular men in one place in my life.  It
was like a dream, and a pretty damned wet dream at that. 

When all the posing was complete, the judges considered for a few minutes
and the results were announced.  Jonathan had won the tall class (the big
man took second) and received his trophy to raucous cheering from the
crowd.  Jonathan was required to `pose down' against the short-class
winner for the overall title, but it was obvious that Jonathan outclassed
him by far.  Jonathan received a second, larger trophy for his overall
Junior Mr. Muscle Beach win, and it was presented to him by the Austrian
guy who had posed earlier. As they shook hands, Jonathan hit one final
pose for the crowd, and then left the stage with everyone still applauding
loudly. 

We got ready to leave, and scarcely paid attention as the Senior class
winners were announced.  As the MC made his closing remarks, Barry quickly
thanked the photographer, and we ran around the back of the stage as
quickly as we could to catch up with Jonathan. 

It was pretty easy to get around to the area behind the stage.  Jonathan
was there, flanked by his trophies, still in his posing trunks and getting
his picture taken by tourists.  When he saw us, he excused himself from
the middle-aged man in the flowered shirt who had asked for a photo, and
greeted us.  ``You guys made it!  What did you think?''

We all spoke at once, congratulating him, telling him how he had obviously
outclassed his competition, and generally letting him know how much he had
impressed not just us, but the whole crowd.  Jonathan was grinning from
ear to ear.  Another tourist came up and asked for a picture, and Jonathan
asked him to take it with his three proteges in the picture as
well.  Jonathan must have posed for another dozen or so pictures in the
next several minutes, and for almost all of them, he posed with Stan,
Barry, and me, sometimes one at a time, sometimes as a group. 

As the crowd started to subside, the MC came back and congratulated
Jonathan again, telling him to come back and compete next year.  ``Well, I
don't think I'm going to make a career out of this,'' Jonathan said. 
``But we'll have to see.  Say, I'd like you to meet some students I've
been training this summer.  Mike Wesson, Barry Winters, and Stan Pettit. 
Guys, this is Bill.  He's been at Muscle Beach since before any of you
guys were born.''

We all shook hands politely.  Bill looked at us, with a look of
undisguised contempt at Barry's long hair and headband.  But he only said,
``They just started training this summer?  That's great, guys.  Keep it up
and maybe next year you'll be up on the stage too.  We're thinking of
having a teenage division, so one of you might be the first teenage Mr. 
Muscle Beach!''

Bill got distracted by someone else who seemed to be an old friend, and we
were left alone.  Jonathan toweled the remaining oil from his skin and
started to get dressed.  ``It was really great having you guys out there
yelling for me.'' He looked at the trophies.  ``Man, what a trip.  I
couldn't have asked for a better day.'' He finished dressing, and picked
up the grocery bag containing his things. 

``OK, let's get going.  I'm *starving*!  You guys want to bring these
trophies?'' Stan took the smaller one, I took the larger, and we all
followed Jonathan back across the beach and boardwalk to a where his car
was parked, off that tiny Venice alleyway with the laughable name of
`Speedway'.  We all piled into Jonathan's car, an old Ford Falcon, and
headed for a pizza place in the vicinity that Jonathan knew. 

Jonathan treated all of us to the late lunch, and lavishly expressed his
gratitude to us.  ``I know I've been kind of self-centered the last couple
of weeks, and you guys never made a peep of complaint.  Seeing you out
there in the audience, I just...'' He looked sort of embarrassed.  ``Well,
I couldn't have been prouder.  I really don't think I could have put
myself through this without you guys, and I don't know if I'd do it again,
but I'm really glad I did it.  I had a blast!''

``That guy Bill said maybe we could do the contest next year,'' said Stan,
``Do you think we could?''

``If you really wanted to, there's no doubt about it,'' answered Jonathan. 
``Assuming you keep lifting, by next year there won't be a whole lot of
guys your age who could beat you.  Do you think you'd want to?''

Stan said, ``That'd be so bitchin'!'' and Barry nodded enthusiastically. 
``Could be fun at that,'' I said. 

``OK, then I have an idea.  Next Saturday is our last day of lifting
before school starts.  I'll want to get updated pictures anyway, so let's
do it like our own contest.  You guys put posing routines together, and
you'll get a chance to sort of see what it's like.  Sound good?''

Everyone's mouths were stuffed with pizza at that moment, so all we could
do was nod.  Our last week of training before school.  I wondered what
that would mean to our Muscle Club, but tried not to think about it.  This
week was going to be fun! 

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 11

Gifts

Since it was the holiday weekend, and Stan's birthday was on Monday
anyway, we didn't all get together until Tuesday.  It had been a three-day
break in our lifting so we were all pretty eager to get started.  None of
us had lost any strength, though; in fact, we all added a little to our
previous lifts.  When we finished we were comfortably sore.  As we were
toweling down and changing back into street clothes, Jonathan went into
the house, saying he wanted to get something. 

When he was gone, Barry said.  ``Look, after we're finished here, I want
to talk to you guys outside.  I have an idea for Saturday.'' I didn't know
what Barry was thinking, but I nodded.  Just then, Jonathan came back in. 
He was holding three small gift-wrapped packages.  He handed one of them
to Stan. 

``Happy Birthday, Stan!  This is for our new teenager!''

Stan took the package and started opening it up as Jonathan handed the two
others to Barry and me.  ``These are for you guys too,'' he said, ``sort
of birthday presents in advance I guess.'' I could feel that the package
contained a shirt or something, but it seemed real small.  As we tore the
wrappings away, we saw that each of us had received a pair of posing
trunks like Jonathan's -- deep blue, made of a sort of thin synthetic
material that reminded me of the sheer elastic stuff they show in the bra
commercials on television.  Sewn in yellow thread onto the right side of
each pair was an emblem.  I looked at it more carefully.  Three swords
with the blades crossing at the tips. 

``The Three Muscleteers,'' I whispered. 

``I figured if you guys were going to do a contest, you might as well be
posing in something appropriate.''

I wanted to give Jonathan a huge hug, but restrained myself in front of
Stan.  Still, everyone was grateful, and thanked Jonathan more than once. 
``You can be sure we'll be wearing these on Saturday,'' Barry said. 

``I'm counting on it,'' Jonathan said.  ``OK, you guys better get moving; 
be sure to be thinking about your posing routines.  Practice makes
perfect.''

As we walked out onto the sidewalk, Barry said, ``Look, guys, I have an
idea.  Let's give Jonathan a surprise.  I'll put together a posing routine
for all three of us.  I mean, one routine, you see?  We'll all do it
together.  I think I can think of some moves and stuff that will blow
Jonathan's mind!''

For a second, I wasn't sure; after all, this was sort of breaking the
unstated `rules' of the contest, wasn't it?  But then I realized that
Barry really had a talent for this sort of choreography -- come to think
of it, this whole bodybuilding thing was the first thing I'd known him to
be really good at.  And Barry was right; the three of us doing a
coordinated routine really *would* blow Jonathan's mind.  ``Yeah,''
I said, ``let's do it!'' Stan was nodding eagerly, looking at the sheer
blue briefs in his hand. 

``OK,'' said Barry.  ``Tomorrow afternoon after we finish training, my
place.''

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 12

Dress Rehearsal

Wednesday's workout was uneventful (though, as I should have expected,
rather more sore than usual after that three-day gap), and we adjourned to
Barry's house when we were finished.  As we walked, Barry outlined his
ideas for our posing routine; apparently he had stayed up late planning
and timing it.  The routine would show all the mandatory poses, but would
have a sort of dance element to it, with the three of us moving together
at times, and at other times in a sequence.  He figured it would run about
two minutes. 

We arrived at Barry's house, and he led us up to his Mom's bedroom,
explaining that the room had a wide mirror on the sliding closet door that
would be helpful in our rehearsal.  The furniture in the room was an
impressively opulent collection, and I made some suitably appreciative
comment about it.  ``Yeah,'' Barry said.  ``It's called Chippendale.''

For the next hour, Barry walked Stan and me through the poses and
movements he had spent so much time planning.  As he had told us, there
was a bit of dance element.  We started out in a row, tallest to shortest,
with our lats spread, our arms extended and flexing our triceps.  In turn,
each of us turned around and hit a `crab' pose.  As the routine
progressed, sometimes we were doing the same pose in unison, at other
times we were doing complementary poses.  At one point, I did a front
lat-spread while Stan and Barry stood on either side doing side-chest
poses, facing away from me.  The whole thing ended with each of us in his
best pose -- Stan standing in his classic double-bicep pose, with Barry
and me kneeling in poses that showed off my back and his legs and narrow
waist. 

The poses were all pretty familiar, though it took me several awkward
tries to reliably get to the kneeling pose without losing my balance.  The
hard part was keeping track of the whole routine (I decided to write down
the whole thing so I could study it later), and learning to do the
transition moves smoothly.  But after an hour or so, we were able to do
the routine start to finish, though we were still doing the poses
perfunctorily and without any rhythm; the whole rehearsal had taken place
in our street clothes.  Still, we had the structure of the routine down,
and Barry told us that we'd start getting the timing down tomorrow. 

Thursday's workout had a certain edge to it.  We wanted to be at our best
on Saturday, and were training even more intensely than usual, since
Friday was to be a rest day.  Jonathan asked us if we were all going to
have our posing routines ready for tomorrow, and we all nodded very
casually.  Stan was particularly emphatic as he replied ``Oh yes, *my*
routine is going just fine.'' I guess we weren't too convincing, because
Jonathan sort of narrowed his eyes and just said that he was looking
forward to it.  We assured him that we were too. 

As Barry had predicted, by the end of Thursday's rehearsal, we were doing
the poses solidly and in rhythm, with Barry calling out a steady beat that
he said would be close to the music he expected to use.  The run-throughs
were in our gym clothes, and the mirror was indispensable in helping us
keep the routine together and get the poses just right.  Barry told us
that Friday afternoon we would have a `dress' rehearsal, wearing the
posing trunks that Jonathan had given us, and that the music would be
taped and ready. 

Friday arrived, and Stan and I met at Barry's.  He took us into his room,
explaining that first of all, we'd be doing the rehearsals with oil on our
skin, and he didn't want to risk messing up anything in his Mom's room,
and second of all, we wouldn't have the mirror to work with when we did
the routine in Jonathan's gym, so we might as well get used to doing it
`blind'. 

We went up to the room.  Barry suggested that we just walk through the
routine with the music a few times in street clothes before doing it `for
real' with the oil and posing trunks and everything.  He put a tape on his
portable tape player (it looked a lot like the ones on Mission:
Impossible, and I wondered aloud if it would self-destruct at the end of
the tape) and we listened to the music he had chosen: The Doors' "Break on
Through".  It seemed generally appropriate, and had a strong driving beat
that would go well with our routine.  He rewound the tape, and then
started the player again.  We started the routine with the music, and even
with Barry calling out the moves with the music, the routine could only be
described as a train wreck.  I felt frustrated, Stan was laughing, and
Barry was sort of sighing as he rewound the tape and said, ``OK, we'll
just do it again until we get it right.''

It turned out that `until we get it right' required a dozen or more
run-throughs and about an hour, including the time for arguing as to who
had messed up, and a break for a light protein snack and some water. 
People think that bodybuilders are just having a nice easy time posing,
but to do the poses right requires simultaneously flexing several groups
of muscles as strenuously as any workout demands.  It is tiring work, and
you can see it in the face of any bodybuilder walking off the stage after
his presentation.  But finally, on what seemed the hundredth time through
the tape, we got it right, and without Barry having to call it out like a
square-dance leader.  ``OK,'' said Barry, ``Let's get changed and oiled up
and see if we can do this For Real.''

We changed into our posing trunks.  It was the first time I had seen the
others in the trunks, and they looked really good; the trunks fit them
snugly and supplely.  I hoped I looked the same.  Oddly, I wasn't aroused.
Perhaps I was too nervous, or perhaps I was just too tired after the hour
of rehearsal we had just endured.  Barry then brought out a bottle of
mineral oil (he said that Thrifty sold it as a laxative or something).  He
poured a small bit into one cupped hand and started to spread it across
his chest, and down his arms.  Stan and I followed suit.  It was when
Barry started oiling his legs that I realized what was different: Barry
had shaved his legs, his arms, even his armpits!  The usual light coat of
light-brown hair had gone, and his legs were as smooth as Stan's or
Jonathan's.  I felt a little out of place as the only one with hairy legs
(and also a bit on my chest), but realized that I could not possibly shave
myself that way without raising some very embarrassing questions from my
family.  Barry asked me to oil his back as I had done with Jonathan a
couple of weeks earlier, and then Stan spread oil on my back, commenting
how I couldn't really see it, but it really brought out the muscles in my
back.  I liked the feel of Stan's hands on my back, and had to bend over,
take a few deep breaths, and refocus myself to avoid getting stiff in my
tight trunks.  Barry oiled Stan's back for him and we were ready to go. 

Barry started up the tape and took his place in line with Stan and me.  We
flexed our backs and triceps for an empty chair behind us and then, as the
music started, I turned around to hit a `crab' shot for our imaginary
viewer, and our routine began. 

It went flawlessly.  It was almost mystical; the music cued us to each
move, and each of us could sense the others' movements and moved in
perfect synchronization.  I smiled briefly as I suddenly thought of our
group as a `well-oiled machine'.  Pose followed pose, and as Barry and I
went to our final kneeling poses, the music faded and it was done. 

``Perfect!'' Barry shouted.  I stood up and looked at Stan, who was
grinning at me like crazy. 

``We did it!'' Stan said, and put his hands around my biceps and squeezed. 
I smiled at him and flexed my arm, and put my other hand on his shoulder. 
At that moment, the tip of Stan's erect penis peeked out of the top of his
posing trunks.  I couldn't help staring.  From behind me, I heard Barry's
amused voice say, ``Ooooops!'' I stared at Stan.  He blushed, then gave me
what could only be described as a lusty grin.  I kept staring with what
was probably a stupid expression on my face, and Stan's grin fell to an
uncertain, searching look.  Then he smiled again, rather tentatively,
once, twice... 

I was just staring at Stan.  Here, beyond all expectation, was this
handsome blond young teenage man-boy, his steely-hard muscular body
gleaming with oil and sweat, smiling at me with a mixture of fondness,
lust, and shyness.  He was so completely sexy and charming, I did the only
thing I could do in a situation like that. 

I fainted.

Well, OK, I didn't actually faint, but it was as close as I had ever come
to it.  My head started to buzz and my vision swam, the way it does
sometimes when you stand up too quickly.  I took a couple of leaden steps
over to where Barry's bed was, and sat down on it heavily, bending my head
over my knees. I was only vaguely aware of Barry saying that he'd go get
me some water. 

As the dizziness subsided, I sat up.  Stan was sitting next to me
on the bed, one arm across my back, and a look of concern in his
face.  ``Are you all right?  What happened?''

I looked at Stan and sort of half-smiled.  ``Well, I was sort of taken by
surprise, I guess.  I didn't know you, uh, felt that way about guys --
about *anyone* actually -- much less about me.  I mean, I knew you liked
me and stuff...I don't know, I guess I kinda forgot how horny *I* got when
I was thirteen...'' I trailed off, not sure of what to say.  Stan saved me
the trouble. 

``I thought you knew about me!  I mean, the way you and Barry are always
getting hard in your shorts when Jonathan flexes, I figured you must have
noticed my boner for sure...'' I must have looked really embarrassed just
then, because Stan kind of hesitated and then said, ``Well, anyway...of
*course* I like you.  You're smart, and you're tall, and in high school,
and you make funny jokes, and you've built up such great muscles...I just
couldn't help myself just then. ''

He started to rub my back in an encouraging way, and was smiling his
unaccustomed shy smile again.  For once, I actually looked at his crotch
and saw he was getting stiff again.  Well, fair's fair -- I was getting
hard again, too.  ``I don't know how smart I am,'' I said, ``seeing as I'm
about the last person to grok what's going on.'' I turned to Stan and put
my hand on his bicep.  He flexed that steel sphere for me.  ``So you knew
all along that this...  gets me, y'know, horny?'' I still felt a little
odd talking about this, but was getting very excited at the contact. 

Stan nodded.  ``Well, pretty much.  Your muscles do that to me too now.''
He stroked my bicep, which I flexed for him again.  I felt my penis escape
from the top of my trunks just as Stan's had done.  At that moment, Barry
came into the room, a glass of water in his hand.  He just grinned at us. 

``You seem to be, ah, doing OK after all...if you, um, need anything, I'll
be down, um, in the kitchen. '' As he headed out the bedroom door, he
added, without looking back, ``Try not to mess everything up *too* much?''
I noticed that he was holding his right fist in a `thumbs-up' gesture. 

Stan and I just grinned at each other, but heeding Barry's advice, pulled
off our shorts and put them aside. I pulled Stan against me, my hands
rubbing up and down his back; Stan returned the embrace, kneading the
muscles of my own back.  I rolled him onto his back and began rubbing my
dick against his -- a new sensation that made me catch my breath.  I felt
Stan's hips moving against mine in a complementary movement.  Stan grasped
my left hand, his fingers interlocked with mine, and started to push.  I
looked at his face and saw his familiar cocky grin.  ``Yeah?'' I said, and
pushed back, matching his strength with mine.  I watched the textured
muscles of his shoulder and chest tense and strain and flow with the
movement as we pushed back and forth.  Finally, he surrendered in the mock
battle, and again I felt my oiled pecs sliding against the musclekid's --
no, the muscleteen's -- hard chest.  He tensed his pecs, `popping' them
against mine in our clinch as his hands again ran up and down my back.  I
spread my lats and his hands ran lightly along the sides of my back. 
Somehow my whole skin seemed to be getting more sensitive, and the
movement of his hands seemed like an almost unbearable pleasure.  For
several minutes, our pelvic thrusts grew stronger and faster as each of us
felt the other's strong muscles moving and flowing.  ``Oh, God,
MuscleMike!  You feel so good!  I think I'm...'' At that moment I felt a
gush of warm fluid coming up from Stan's dick, followed by several lesser
pulses.  Stan was gasping sort of in rhythm with his still moving hips as
his strong arms pulled me tightly against him in an irresistible embrace. 
In a moment, he relaxed his grip. 

I continued rubbing my cock against his and pushed myself up from the bed. 
``You're the muscleman, Stan!  Show me those biceps!'' He brought his
hands away from my back, and once again did a double-bicep for me on the
bed.  I grabbed and squeezed the steel muscles with all my strength. 
``Oh, yeah!  Just like that!  Those arms, they're so damned....'' and
finally I shut up as I sprayed milky semen (I had never actually *seen*
the fluid before) all over his hard chest.  Several times. 

We were both panting, and pretty messy.  Stan pulled my head to his and
kissed me lightly on the mouth, something else that was new to me.  I
returned the kiss enthusiastically and we both lay on our backs and
sighed, holding hands like children. 

``You know,'' I said, ``I've never actually done anything like this with
anyone before.'' I squeezed his hand, ``Thanks.  I never
imagined...thanks.''

Stan grinned.  ``Just shut up and get a towel.''

I went to the bathroom adjoining Barry's room and wet a towel, wiped
myself off and brought it back to Stan.  I wiped his chest and abs off
slowly with the damp towel, which he seemed to really like.  I was
surprised to find that I was still horny, and said so. 

``Me, too,'' said Stan, and sure enough, his dick started to grow again
under my touch. 

``Y'know,'' I said, ``Barry said if we needed anything...''

Stan grinned.  ``...and his legs do look really sexy shaved like that...''

We both called, ``Hey Squat Machine!  Could you come up here for a
minute?''

About forty minutes later, we were all getting dressed.  ``Well,'' said
Barry, ``I guess we know how to move together pretty well.  We should be
ready to pose for Jonathan tomorrow.''

``I've been thinking about that,'' I said.  ``There's one more little
thing I'd like to do for Jonathan, if you guys want...''

They liked my idea.

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 13

Final Act

I went home, certain that somehow what I'd been doing with Barry and Stan
could be plainly read on my face, but nobody said anything.  I wanted to
talk about it; I always shared everything I did with my family, and they
were always supportive, but somehow I knew that this was different.  For
the first time in my life, I had to conceal part of myself from my
parents, and this bothered me.  Still, I could easily imagine what
everyone would say if they knew about Jonathan or Stan, or even Barry with
his shaved legs, so I just chattered about school starting on Monday and
new clothes and stuff like that. 

Saturday, at noon, we all showed up at Jonathan's for our last training
session of the summer.  ``I'll be starting Grad school on Monday, too,''
explained Jonathan.  ``So you won't be able to come here after school most
days, because I'll be at school.  Gotta keep my student deferment, you
know.  I don't really want to end up wading through rice paddies.'' We all
looked a little crestfallen.  ``Oh, don't get all bummed out.  MuscleMike
and the Squat Machine can use the weight room at Hami after school, I know
that for a fact.  And Stan, weren't you lifting weights at your school
last semester?''

Stan nodded.  ``Yeah, but it's not the same.''

``What, you don't want to have the fun of being the strongest guy in the
weight room again?'' Stan seemed to brighten at the recollection as
Jonathan continued, ``Well, you can still come on Saturdays and we'll be
able to keep track of your progress.  You'll see, it'll be fine.  OK,
guys, let's get your measurements.''

Once again, we got out our cards and Jonathan got the tape measure.  In
three months, I had gone from 137 pounds to 166, brought my chest up by
over four inches to 41 , and added an inch and a half to my thighs, all
while keeping my waist at 31 inches.  My biceps were almost two inches
bigger than when we had started, at 13 7/8 inches.  I grumbled about not
hitting the `magic' 14-inch mark.  ``Just round it off, you know that's
what all the big guys do with their measurements,'' Jonathan said. 

``Yeah, but *I'll* know,'' I said.

``Oh, all right, we'll measure again after the workout.  You'll work
biceps last.  That ought to do it.  OK, Squat Machine, your turn.'' Barry
had gained as much as I had in three months, and was 161 pounds.  His
chest was now at 40 inches, with a 30-inch waist.  His thighs were huge at
23 inches, and his biceps taped at a tiny fraction under 13 1/2 inches. 

Stan had gained over twenty pounds during the summer, which Jonathan said
was a lot for someone who had been training more than a year.  His arms
were just a little smaller than Barry's, at 13 3/8 inches, and his 38
1/2-inch chest looked impressive over his 27-inch waist.  His thighs, at
20 inches, were in excellent proportion to the rest of his physique. 
Jonathan put the cards away.  ``We'll get your `after' pictures during our
contest, after you work out, so you'll be looking pretty sharp.  I know
I've said it before, but I'm really proud of you guys.  OK, let's get to
work.''

There was no question about it, our workouts were, if no less intense than
before, considerably `chummier', with a lot of friendly hands on
shoulders, brief back rubs, and one outright hug as Stan accomplished a
new personal record on the bench press.  The fact that we were training in
our posing trunks just added a bit of a pleasant edge to the whole thing. 
Jonathan raised his eyebrows a bit at all the body contact, but was
smiling like a fond parent throughout the workout. 

When we finished, Jonathan quickly got out his tape measure and measured
my biceps once again, now feeling tight and full after a strenuous set of
30-pound dumbbell curls.  ``Just over fourteen inches, MuscleMike!  So if
anyone asks, you can tell them fourteen inches without fudging.'' He
paused, and with an unmistakable twinkle in his eyes, asked, ``You know
anyone who's likely to ask?''

``Well, you never know,'' I answered noncommittally, and returned a
smartass grin worthy of Stan. 

``OK, guys, it's posedown time.  Oil up, and get up on the stage.'' We
oiled ourselves up, and Jonathan oiled our backs.  He pointed out that a
little oil goes a long way, and that too much oil looks as bad as too
little under the light, and helped us towel off some of the excess.  We
stepped up on the stage as Jonathan turned on the spotlight.  He got out
his Polaroid camera and assumed a professional manner.  ``OK, let's do the
mandatory poses, and some of these will be for your folder photos. 
Gentlemen, stand relaxed, facing me.'' SNAP.  ``Thank you.  A quarter turn
to your left...''

The mandatory poses took several minutes, and Jonathan actually seemed to
be scrutinizing us quite carefully and critically.  ``All right,'' he
said.  ``I'll put the Polaroids away and then we'll start the posing
routines.  Which one of you is going to be first?'' He looked at Barry
expectantly.  Barry kind of half smiled.  ``Well, actually, we have
something different in mind.  We'll be doing this posing routine as a
group.''

Jonathan looked from Barry to Stan and me; we were both nodding seriously.

``I don't know about you guys.  I bet I know whose idea this was, though.
OK, OK, let's see the routine.''

Barry brought out his tape player and told Jonathan to turn it on when he
said `go'.  We lined up with our backs to Jonathan, assumed our starting
positions, and Barry called out, ``Go!'' We heard the familiar -- by now
almost *too* familiar -- Doors music and began our routine. 


        You know the day destroys the night; night divides the day. Tried
        to run, tried to hide, Break on through to the other side, Break
        on through to the other side...

We moved like one man with three bodies.  You're not really supposed to
look at your audience, but it was hard not to see that Jonathan was
enjoying our performance, tapping his hand on his leg in time with the
music.  We went to our final pose, with a slight falter in balance as I
went to one knee and twisted my back towards Jonathan, looking at my right
bicep flexing to one side.  The music stopped. 

Jonathan stood up, shouted a high-pitched whoop of appreciation, and
applauded.  ``This was Barry's idea, I assume?''

Barry stood and bowed elaborately at the waist.  Stan and I laughed a
little. ``I've seen a lot of competitive routines that weren't nearly as
well put together,'' Jonathan told Barry, then looked at Stan and me and
added, ``and nowhere near as well posed as you guys did.  I'm really
impressed.  *Really* impressed.  Well.  OK, it's time for the judge to
give out the awards.'' He pulled out three fake-parchment sheets and sat
down on a bench, and wrote some stuff on each of the sheets as we watched
from the stage.  He came over to us and handed one to each of us.  I
looked at mine.  ``Be it known,'' the hand-calligraphed lettering read,
``that on this day, Saturday, the Seventh day of September, in the year
1968, Michael Wesson, known among his comrades as MuscleMike, did in fair
competition earn the award for'' and here Jonathan had written in, in fair
handwriting, ``Best Back and Best Arms'' and the calligraphy continued,
``As judged by,'' and Jonathan's signature.  Barry had been awarded ``Best
Poser and Best Legs'', while Stan had earned ``Best Chest and Best
Abdominals''.  Even though I knew it was sort of hokey, I was really proud
of my certificate. 

``I couldn't give out an overall award,'' Jonathan said, almost
apologetically, ``I know it sounds corny, but you're all winners as far as
I'm concerned.'' He thought for a second.  ``MuscleMike is lagging a
little on legs, so next week after you've scouted the Hami weight room
I'll give you some ideas for alternate or additional exercises.  Same for
your arms, Barry, they're not quite up to the rest of your physique.''

``That reminds me; we got something for you too,'' Barry said,  ``I left
it 
outside.''

Jonathan raised his eyebrows in surprise, and as Barry went outside, he
asked us what it was.  ``That,'' I said, quoting from a television program
I had been watching that summer,

Barry came back in, with a fairly large flat package wrapped in plain
brown butcher paper, and handed it to Jonathan, who opened it eagerly,
looking at that moment as much like a kid as Stan.  It was a framed
picture.  He looked at it, and just whispered, ``Oh, wow!''

Jonathan was holding a large photograph, mounted and framed.  On the left
was the Austrian bodybuilder with a sort of dopey-looking gap-toothed
grin, extending his hand to Jonathan.  A smiling and triumphant Jonathan
was clasping the hand with his own right hand, while flexing his left arm,
displaying his chiseled physique.  Two trophies stood at his side. 
Jonathan started to say something, but stopped, opened his mouth again,
then stopped, then finally said in an oddly choked voice, ``I never
thought you guys would do anything like this.  I can't even tell you how
much...'' and his voice choked off.  I looked at his face and I swear, his
eyes were glistening with tears.  There was an awkward silence. 

Barry broke the silence. ``Oh, and the photographer made these too.'' He
brought out a plain Manila envelope.  Inside were about a dozen 8x10
prints of Jonathan's posing routine, which were for Jonathan, and four
copies of the picture that the photographer had made with the three of us
posing on the stage before the contest started.  Each of us took one, and
Jonathan immediately tacked his copy on the wall of our gym, while I put
my picture and parchment into my folder. 

``I am so impressed with all of you guys,'' Jonathan told us with a
serious look on his face.  ``I mean, not just your physiques, you've
obviously done such a great job this summer, but I'm just glad to have
friends like you.  Lots of guys got muscles; not a whole lot of them have
hearts to go with them.''

Stan went over to Jonathan and put a hand on his arm.  ``Jonathan,'' he
asked, ``we'd really like you to pose for us one more time before we go.''
Jonathan looked at Barry and me.  We nodded.  Jonathan stripped to his
shorts and oiled up; Stan oiled his back.  Jonathan went up on the stage
and started his routine from last weekend.  Stan was standing nearby and
went up on the stage with him to stroke and feel his arms.  Jonathan's
eyes widened, but he continued to pose.  I came over to him and felt of
his thick chest, while Barry knelt and ran both his two hands up
Jonathan's right leg to his thigh, where they remained. 

``Ummmmm, guys, *guys*, this feels really great, but I can't let you do
this.  You know, I'm an adult, and you're teenagers...if anyone found out
about this, you'd be in trouble, but I'd be hauled up on felony charges. 
We gotta stop.  Really.''

I stroked his left nipple -- Barry had taught Stan and me a couple of
interesting things about the human body yesterday -- and in a voice that
imitated Jonathan's surprisingly well, said, ``I'm really sorry
 you don't trust me more than that.  I wouldn't tell anyone
about you or anybody else.  It's not my decision to make as to who
gets told, it's yours.''

Jonathan looked at me, recognizing his own words to me.  He opened and
closed his mouth.  ``Well,'' he said slowly, ``can't argue with wisdom
like that.'' With that, he pulled my head in close to his chest, where I
enthusiastically licked his hard pecs and nipple.  Barry was kneeling in
front of him, now with his mouth over Jonathan's shorts, stimulating his
rising cock still in the trunks.  Stan was licking Jonathan's flexing
tricep.  Jonathan had one hand down, stroking Barry's shoulders and the
other at the back of my head, kneading the muscles behind my neck.  It all
felt very familiar, and I suddenly remembered my dream that first night
after meeting Jonathan and Stan so long ago -- was it only three months?
-- There we were, three muscleboys enjoying Jonathan's beautiful steel
body even as he enjoyed the young statues he had helped to carve. 

Before long, we were all on the floor, a tangled mass of teenage and adult
muscle, a confused mixture of flexing, stroking, licking, thrusting hips,
and pulsing cocks.  Barry's mouth proved particularly talented in ways I
didn't really like to think about too carefully, and he brought Jonathan
to a climactic ejaculation that covered his massive chest with white
juice.  Stan and I rubbed our cocks against Jonathan's chest and abs and
even his arms, adding our fluid to Jonathan's, even as we flexed for
Jonathan's pleasure (and one another's). Jonathan's hand squeezed and
pulled expertly at Barry's cock until he too sprayed a flood of ejaculant
with gasps of pleasure.  It was not the only time that we `came' that
afternoon, and finally we just lay there quietly, gently caressing one
another. 

``You guys should be going home soon,'' Jonathan sighed.  ``I'd be lying
if I said I hadn't been wanting something like that for a long time.'' He
turned to me.  ``I told you I thought you guys were sexy.  Pygmalion, you
know.''

I nodded.  ``Yeah, I figured that out.  Eventually.''

Each of us went into the house to shower one at a time; groups would have
been asking for trouble.  While I was getting dressed, I asked Jonathan,
``by the way, what are you studying in grad school?''

``Education.  I'm going for my Master's.  I want to be a teacher.  Who
knows?  Maybe you'll even find me student-teaching for you one of these
days.''

I looked at Jonathan admiringly.  ``A teacher.  Damn, Jonathan, you're
going to be the best.  The *best*!''

* * *

Pygmalion '68, Part 14 (FINAL)

Epilogue

7:45 in the morning, September 9, 1968. 

I walk in the front door of my high school on the first day of the new
semester.  I always like the first day.  Clean notebook, blank paper, new
pens and pencils.  I'm wearing the new clothes Dad and I got me for
school; the old ones were looking too tight on me.  My shirt is a loose
polo-style shirt, the kind with the elastic short sleeves that gather at
the bicep.  It makes my arms look good without being an obvious showoff,
and tucked into my flared pants it suggests my V-shaped torso without
outlining it.  I'm walking with my shoulders back and my arms slightly out
from my body, my lats spread just a bit -- the walk of an athlete.  I look
for my friends. 

The first person I see that I know is Mike Cantor.  He used to be in
several of the `better' classes with me in junior high, but I haven't seen
as much of him in the last couple of years; he hangs out more with the
`leadership' types nowadays.  He was student body president in junior
high.  I've always thought him good-looking, muscular, and athletic.  He
waves and comes up to me.  ``Hey, Wesson!'' he says, ``looks like you got
a lot of sun this summer.'' He looks me up and down.  ``Working out too?''

I nod.  ``Yeah, I did some weightlifting with friends this summer.  Does
it show?''

``Oh yeah, you're looking great.  Make a muscle!'' I flex my arm, and he
puts his hand over the solid peak -- certainly not as big as the football
jocks Mike knows, but hard and rounded.  ``Wow, you really changed over
the summer.  You look great!'' I guess he realizes that didn't quite come
out as a compliment, because he blushes.  ``I mean, not that you looked
bad before or anything, but...''

``I know what you mean.  Thanks.'' I glance at his crotch.  I'll be
damned.  Live and learn.  Down the hall, I see Barry.  He is wearing a
tight white cotton T-shirt, bluejeans and his headband.  I see him flex
one arm for a girl with breasts large enough that even I notice.  She
seems appreciative of Barry's new look.  Barry and I exchange a thumbs-up
gesture down the hall. 

``Y'know,'' I tell Cantor, ``maybe you'd like to lift with me and my
friends some weekend.  I'm sure you'd be welcome.''

``That sounds groovy,'' Mike says.  Wow.  I'd forgotten that he really
talks like that. 

``Groovy,'' I agree.  ``Guess maybe we'll be seeing more of each other
this year.''

It's going to be a good '69.

* * *

Copyright 1998 by M.U. All Rights Reserved.