Many thanks to Asylum Seeker for his superb editing and improvements. Thanks also to S-Des for valuable suggestions and encouragement.
"I got an email today about this year's campus fitness challenge," John said as he returned a pair of dumbbells to the rack with a muted clang.
Between strides on the treadmill, Mary replied "Wasn't last year a full-day endurance race?"
"Yeah; that marathon runner from the History department came in miles ahead of everyone else."
"So, what's the contest this year?"
"It has three parts. There's a five mile run, powerlifting, and a physique contest." John laughed as he continued "I have no idea who could do well in that kind of mix. Endurance aerobics, pure strength, and showy body-builder muscles all require very different kinds of training."
"Well, maybe that's the point," Mary interjected. "No one specialty has an edge this year." She stepped off the treadmill and wiped her forehead with a towel. "You should enter this year; you've been running, you've been lifting weights forever, and you've got really nice muscles."
"Thanks for the compliments, sweetie," John said as he picked up a heavier set of dumbbells and started doing shoulder presses. "First, I don't think my two-mile jogs have prepared me to keep up with all the relentless runners. Second, there are plenty of real bruisers on campus who can bench press my weights and me at the same time. Third, bodybuilders have major league muscles - I couldn't live down being seen on stage in a set of Speedos."
"I think this is exactly for you!" Mary countered. She kept an admiring eye on John's shoulders as they flexed under the narrow straps of his tank top. She picked up a set of dumbbells and began doing lunges. "You're well-balanced. You can outrun the weightlifters and you can outlift the runners. There are different age categories, right?"
John drank in the view of Mary's shapely thighs and tight buns as they pumped in her tight workout shorts. Getting fit had made her look half her real age, like a sexy twenty-something. He finally answered "Sure. One of the brackets is age 45 to 55."
"That's perfect!"
"But Mary, you've seen the photo in Jeff's family room from his bodybuilding competition. That's how 'muscular' is supposed to look. When I suggested that I should get together with Jeff and Greg for a workout, you wouldn't even let me lift weights with them."
"First of all, you won't be competing against 20 year olds, like Jeff's photo. Second, that workout you suggested was ten years ago. That was before I appreciated how strong you were. I also know now that you're really careful about lifting, and wouldn't get into any dangerous horsing around with them."
John silently switched to bicep curls. That was ordinarily an exercise to which he devoted his full intensity (unless he was staring at her, of course). Mary could see from the distant look in his eyes that she had set him thinking. Eventually he placed the weights down and took a drink while Mary waited to hear his analysis.
"OK, I could try. It would even be fun, but I see two problems. Time; I'm going to have to train my butt off for the next five weeks, and equipment; to train that heavy safely, I need to spend $500 to get a power rack."
"That's no problem," Mary answered. "You'll have lots of free time on your hands because of my Seattle project. I'll be spending two weeks of overtime here and then three solid weeks in Washington State. As far as equipment, I would love for you to make your workouts safer. I've seen you window shopping for one of those safety cage thingies for years now. And by the way," she added, "don't train your butt off, sweetie, that's your nicest feature for the female judges to enjoy."
As John started a second set of bicep curls, Mary headed towards him and put on a coquettish look. "You know, sir, I do have experience as a personal trainer, and I can help make your muscles bigger and harder. As you know, it is very important to have a strong core, so we start right at the center," she said, cupping the front of his shorts. She gasped in mock amazement and quickly transitioned. "I see, Sir, that you have already advanced beyond phase one where most of our clients begin." She started to pull down his shorts and underwear as she continued, "That means we can move right along and begin getting you very big and very hard..."
Again pretending to be overwhelmed, Mary continued "My goodness, Sir, I've never before had a client who was already past phase two of our development program." She knelt in front of him and continued her teasing. "I see that we can start training for extremely big and extremely hard..." The remainder of her sentence was muffled as her mouth closed around his cock.
Refusing to give up possession of his throbbing rod, Mary kept a firm grip on its base and continued her smooth suction as he swiveled to return the dumbbells to the rack. His fingers were now free to sift through her damp hair. The slight twitching of his digits revealed that only his considerable self-restraint was preventing those fingers from pumping her head with increasing thrusts.
As John fell deeper under her spell, Mary soon tasted the familiar tangy-salty honey at the tip of his cock. Licking the tip to savor every bit, she moaned a gentle "Mmm" as the real emotions of contented arousal displaced her sexy play-acting role.
The accelerated pulsing of the truth-detector between her lips made her realize that the idea of this fitness competition targeted a deep desire in John, far more than he was willing to express in words. Much faster than normal, his penis tugged and twitched as it rose upwards.
Her hands made one final curve around their usual positions on his shaft and balls. Excited by the extra thoughts about his body today, she shifted her hands upwards along his chest. His muscles were as hard and broad as if the steel plates he lifted had been embedded under his skin.
He tensed and arched as the tightening of his balls indicated the approaching orgasm was beyond his control to delay. She ran her hands down the flare of his back muscles and squeezed the solid glutes of the ass she loved to watch.
With a grunt, a shudder ran through his body. She moved her hands to his abs that flexed and fit her fingers like a piano keyboard. As she stroked her hands down the scale toward the root of his cock, he exploded.
As the surge of cum filled her mouth, she swallowed to prepare for the second. Her gentle contraction around his tip and the following pulse of suction triggered a second spurt; this was followed by a groan and final spasm that surged through his body.
John staggered back and sat on the bench. Moans of satisfaction sounded from his throat as Mary licked the cum off of his satisfied shaft with long strokes of her tongue. "If you enjoyed this, just think of the sex we'll have after you win."
*****
The next week passed quickly for Mary. Preparing for the trip to the Seattle customer led to overtime every night and complete immersion at work. Instead of the relaxing lunches she would ordinarily have with John once or twice during the week, he dropped her off a sandwich and a kiss as she ran back to her desk.
After working ten hours on Saturday she decided to have a peaceful Sunday, so after church she and John sat in a restaurant catching up on each other's lives for the week. Mary's week was a hyperactive tangle of problems, bugs, demands, and counter-demands with vendors, customers, bosses, and support staff. After a non-stop hour, she had painted an intense but abbreviated description of seventy frustrating hours of work.
As John watched the tension finally ebb away from her forehead and shoulders, she gave her first smile of the meal and asked about his week. Aside from the usual yearly deluge of phone calls from incoming students and their frantic parents, he had made progress wrapping up some summer projects.
Then, Mary inquired "So, how's the fitness competition going?"
"OK. I've started training pretty intensely. I've stepped up my morning run to three miles and I've been lifting weights about two hours a day. I alternate body parts every day, of course, so I don't overtrain."
"So, how do you like your new power rack?" she asked.
"Fantastic," he answered. "I didn't even know if you noticed I bought it."
"Well, it was hard to miss the huge cardboard box out in the trash on Wednesday morning," she pointed out with a laugh.
"The improved safety is wonderful, but it will never replace you as my favorite spotter, Honey," he smiled.
They finished their dinner with a promise to spend more time together.
*****
The following week turned out to be another rushed tangle. Work became more frantic for Mary. John started working on a posing routine at the Iron Dragon, so most nights he collapsed, exhausted, into bed either before or long after Mary.
After working more than a full day on Saturday, Mary was just happy she could leave work several hours earlier than the ten o'clock that had become her grueling necessity. She arrived home, saw the basement door open, and quickly changed into a little white tee-shirt and shorts. She slipped downstairs, hoping to surprise John with her early arrival.
Before she even turned the corner and was able to see John, she heard the powerful whoosh of his breath in and out of his chest like a bellows. When she could finally see him, he was pumping dumbbells in an exercise she didn't recognize, but with an almost animalistic intensity. He had no shirt on today and was wearing a pair of his old workout shorts that had been newly cut several inches shorter, revealing his bulging thighs. He dropped the weights and turned to face a newly-installed mirror.
As he flexed to inspect the result of whatever exercise that he had been engaging in, she saw the same John, but his body was definitely more muscular. She thought she saw bulges that she had never noticed before, and the ones she had always noticed seemed much more enhanced.
