Alexs Bulging Biceps

A story about a boy becoming a man with some help from an unlikely source...

*****

When I reported for work that first day many years ago, I was glad that as a college kid just employed at the warehouse for a couple months in the summer, my future was elsewhere. I was grateful for the job given the state of the local economy at the time, but tossing around heavy canvas sacks full of mail was not my lifelong ambition.

In retrospect I wasn't exactly the ideal person for the position because at 5'10" and 140 pounds soaking wet, mostly because I lacked the strength that was needed for the job, but I must have impressed the guy doing the hiring because I told him I would do anything that needed doing. Such was my desperation for a job to help pay for my books come fall.

"Here, lift that and toss it on top of that pile," Mack told me as I was apparently auditioning for the job, gesturing to a canvas sack on the floor.

"Yes sir!" I chirped eagerly as I strode to the bag, grabbed it and lifted.

At first I thought it was a prank because I was certain it was nailed to the ground, but I thought fast, said something about needing to learn the right grip and technique, and then lifted it and tossed it on top of the other ones, barely.

So on my first day I was prepared to do my best and hopefully not end up in traction, and when I was introduced to the rest of the crew - a bunch of rough looking men that looked like they were stereotypical dockworkers - they looked at me like I was a stereotypical skinny hippie punk. That was pretty true although my long hair was more an effort to look somewhat hip despite my being an obvious dork.

"Have him work with Alex," they suggested to the foreman because they seemed like a tight knit group who didn't want their little cliques broken up, and the guy running the show agreed to it.

"You better bust your ass and carry your own weight or Alex will kick your skinny ass. Either kick it or fuck you in it," one of the guys warned me before I went down to the far end of the dock. "He's a mean motherfucker."

Great, I recall thinking. I get stuck with some jerk that everybody else hates, and this psychopath Alex probably was going sit around and watch me kill myself while he drinks coffee in between naps. Any thoughts I had of holding my ground and not letting this guy push me around ended when I got close and saw this guy with his back to me.

This Alex had short black hair slicked back, apparently so you could see the guy had a neck that belonged on a bull, his back was broad and his shoulders massive. My strategy changed to me trying to last to lunch and then sneak out, never to return.

"Hi," I told the broad back, figuring that at least I could be as pleasant as possible. "They sent me down to work with you. I'm Peter."

Then the guy turned around and everything changed, mostly because while it wasn't all that obvious, Alex was not a guy but a woman. Not feminine at all, with a gravely voice that went along well with her muscular torso, but a female nonetheless.

"Alex," she said as she took the hand I was offering and shook it, kind enough not to make the bones in it crumble in her vice-like grip, and I did my best to smile and pretend it didn't hurt.

Alex was cold and impersonal at first but not the miserable person I was expecting given what I was told beforehand, and when she saw that while I was no great shakes I was trying my best, she thawed a little. I really did try hard because I mean, who wants to be shown up by a woman, someone who was probably twice my age?

While there were short periods of time when there was nothing to load or unload, for the rest of the time it was throwing bags around, either onto the waiting truck or off of it, and while I started watching Alex to look for the best way to do this, by the end of the day I was looking at her for different reasons all together.

It was after I got home, and after eating Mom's nasty meatloaf I decided that I would take a shower and go to bed early, hoping that the soothing spray of the shower would help ease the pain coming from my aching back and shoulders.

Standing there under the shower my mind went back to the day I had just endured, and while the work was brutal there was one thing that not only got me through it but had me not dreading going back the next day. That was Alex.

Somehow along the way, I went from being a little repulsed by the woman in the morning to having a raging hard-on by quitting time. That wasn't going to be something I would share with the rest of the crew, because if they thought I was aroused by an androgynous woman who might be able to bench press me, they would dislike me even more than they already did.

Why did seeing Alex lifting canvas bags with what seemed to be a minimum of effort. her neck muscles bulging along with the veins in her arms, turn me on? This was all new to me, and I was a bit troubled by the level of attention I was paying to her body.

I had even noticed something about Alex's blue short sleeved work shirt - something they issued to us all. They fit everybody rather loosely, me especially, but after a period of time when we would be throwing those bags non-stop for about 10 or 15 minutes, the sleeves at Alex's biceps were actually straining. You could watch those incredible arms of hers pump up if you chose, and I chose to watch although I tried not to make it obvious.

Adding to the look was the tattoo Alex had on her bicep, and while I wasn't much for tattoos I liked this one. It was a chain with thick links that went around the biggest part of her arm, and I could imagine one day not only to see Alex's sleeve rip open when she got pumped but the tattoo chains pop apart as well.

That was how I came, leaning against the shower wall, closing my eyes and seeing Alex in action. Masturbating was something I had been doing a lot of lately since I had broken up with Becka - or to be more accurate since she had broken up with me - but it was nice to think about somebody else besides that immature faux hippie as I came.

***

The second day of work, except for the first hour or so when my entire body ached, was even better that the day before. Alex was a little more friendly, although it was clear she was no bubbly girly-girl who was named Miss Personality at her prom.

Alex got even more attractive to me as I got used to her rugged look, the short haircut that resembled what David Bowie was wearing at the time during his Thin White Duke era fit her perfectly and her lantern jaw went together for some reason. Matched with her steely gray/blue eyes and muscular physique she was unlike any woman I had ever seen before.

Towards the end of the day there was a lull in the work. Alex was standing at the edge of the loading dock, hands on hips and looking like a ripped Wonder Woman in a drab blue uniform, so I approached in an effort to get closer to her.

"Your tattoo," I began, nodding to her bicep and the chain. "I've thought about getting one but I'm afraid after I got it I would wish I did something different. Yours though? That's really cool."

Not exactly a profound speech on my part but it was delivered with a minimum of stuttering, and to my surprise Alex seemed to not mind my asking.

"This? I probably should get it redone," she said as she looked at it with a bit of a frown. "I've got a better one on the back of my shoulder. If we get a hot day and there's no assholes around, sometimes I take this damn shirt off and work in a tank-top. You'll be able to see that one then."

"Oh. Cool," I replied as I began praying for a heat wave, so wanting to keep the conversation going I asked, "Does it hurt a lot getting one done?"

"Depends," Alex replied and then proceeded to flex her arm and pull her sleeve up a bit to show me the entire tattoo. "It stung a lot more on the inside of my arm than it did on the outside but..."

Alex kept talking but besides her saying that it might be more painful on a skinny guy like me than it was for her, I have no idea what she was saying because I was too busy staring at the hair peeking out from under her raised sleeve. Deep black hair that stood out boldly against her paleness of the inside of her arm.

Not only did I see Alex's armpit hair but judging by her bemused expression she knew I saw it. She said nothing about it and even seemed a little amused at my reaction. Back in 1979 it wasn't all that unusual to see girls who didn't shave under their arms and Becka had been one of those that didn't as she tried to play the role of town hippie.

My hippie girlfriend's armpit hair didn't bother me one way or the other at first and to be honest after a while I grew to like Becka's little sprays of hair but it looked a lot different on Alex. That brief peek under Alex's arm inspired not only one orgasm in the shower that night but a second, with me furiously trying to get myself off again before the hot water ran out while imagining getting more than a brief little peek under Alex's arm before summer was done.

***

With every passing day Alex got a little more friendly to me. Either that or I learned to see beyond the exterior, or maybe I just grew more and more taken by her. This did not go unnoticed by the rest of the crew, and the only blessing was that they worked in different areas of the plant and getting the canvas sacks filled that we ended up loading in the truck, so the contact with those knuckleheads was minimal.

That didn't stop them from suggesting we were more than co-workers, and their theories were on the nasty side. One guy said that people saw us making out in the back of one of the trucks - bullshit of course - and my denial didn't matter because the guy then asked me if it bothered me that when we got intimate Alex's dick was bigger than mine?

So eventually I didn't bother going on break with the rest of them, hanging out in our work area instead even though Alex usually went outside for a walk.

A low point happened when one weekend when I took my mother to the grocery store, something I did often because she couldn't drive and after the old man left us, there was no other option unless one of her friends were going.

So we turn a corner and went to the produce aisle, and who's there? Alex. It was cool seeing her out of that blue uniform work shirt even if what she was wearing was a ragged cotton blouse with the sleeves ripped off because that showed her entire arm.

The problem was that I had to introduce Alex to my mother, and because I had mentioned my co-worker to Mom frequently Mom probably felt like she knew her, but I guess I didn't get into much detail about her appearance except that she was a strong lady.

It was a little awkward because while my mother was pleasant enough during the short chat, she was clearly set back on her heels at seeing Alex and after we went our ways my usually blunt Mom wasted no time in offering her opinion.

"I'm glad you told be about this Alex beforehand, Peter," Mom began. "I mean otherwise I would have thought that she was a he because she looks so much like a man."

"She does not," I contended. "If you actually look at her you can tell she's a girl."

"That tattoo? And those arms?" Mom elaborated. "Very mannish and her hair is shorter than yours."

Mom continued, babbling about some lady wrestler she used to watch on TV when she was a kid, this Mildred Burke who made muscles that looked like a man's, and concluded by saying that she might be old fashioned but she thinks ladies should look like ladies.

I said nothing and Mom ran out of steam, grateful that during the awkward meeting Alex didn't raise her arm because that would have driven my mother even crazier. That I knew because she was flabbergasted by Becka not shaving "like she was supposed to" back when we were together, so if she even saw Alex whose plumage I suspected was a lot more noticeable than my ex-girlfriend's that would have made it worse.

Upon going back to work the next week Alex kidded me in a good-natured way, hinting that it confirmed her suspicions about me being a mamas boy, but when I told about me helping Mom out and all because she didn't have anybody else after the stroke and all, Alex softened up.

"I did think she was going to faint when she saw me though," Alex noted, and when I apologized she shrugged it off while saying, "I'm used to it."

I'm sure she was because nothing seemed to bother her and if it really did disturb her if she wanted to she could soften her look by wearing her hair differently for one thing, but she was clearly not interested in marching to the beat of anyone's drum but her own, and that only aroused me more.

Alex was aware of the razzing I had been getting from the other guys and said that if I wanted to spent more time with them at lunch or breaks she was fine with that, but I said I would pass on that because I didn't like them very much.

"I'm sure they told you a bunch of shit about me," Alex explained that afternoon. "Some true and some not I'm guessing, but if you want to know anything about me just ask. I'm sure they told you I was a dyke."

"I - uh - they might have..." was my response.

"Just so you know, I like pussy and cock," Alex said bluntly, and I guess my facial expression expressed how that comment hit me because she asked, "you okay Peter?"

"Yeah Alex," I responded in recovering pretty quick. "I do wish you would just come out and say what's on your mind though."

That kind of stunned my co-worker until she realized that I was kidding, and that earned a hearty laugh that I rarely heard but loved, sounding sort of like Janis Joplin and adding, "You're a pisser Peter."

By then my 8 weeks of working there were almost half gone and I almost wished I didn't have to go back to college and could just stay with Alex and work because I enjoyed her so much, even though these were pretty much dead-end jobs that were physically taxing.

When August grew close I finally got what I was hoping for, a heat wave. Be careful what you ask for indeed, because when it got in the 90's outside with high humidity, inside it was even worse because the air did not circulate.

On the second day of the heat wave it happened. After morning break Alex declared that since she thought I had her back, it was time for her to shed the shirt and if I saw anybody coming down the warehouse aisle towards us, especially management, I should give her a heads-up.

I nodded as Alex unbuttoned the shirt, trying like hell not to look but failing miserably, and after the work shirt came off and Alex saw me gawking she turned her back so I could see the flaming red and black tattoo of a female devil that was mostly visible in the tank-top that was actually one of those undershirts I remember my old man wearing.

I had fantasized often about seeing Alex in the tank top like she had mentioned, but I wasn't ready for what I saw. Alex was like a statue with that cotton t-shirt struggling to contain her broad back, the thick neck making her head look small by comparison, and her shoulders and upper arms were all muscle that rippled when she lifted anything.

My work suffered as a result of trying to watch Alex work while doing my own, with the main result me dropping a couple of bags and almost falling on my face. Remarkably, while my shirt was drenched with sweat Alex seemed to be as fresh as a daisy.

She wasn't wearing a bra under that tank-top, no surprise there, but I was a little shocked at seeing her breasts which seemed to be more like swells on her massive chest although the nipples that poked into the cotton were very womanly.

What I really wanted to see, and what I only got little glimpses of, was finally reveled when it was time to knock off for lunch. Alex flung a bag onto the pile in the truck and then put her hands on her hips and twisted her back a little before stretching high and letting out a groan.

I was already sporting a hard-on but when her arms came up and I saw those amazing armpits with the thick tufts of hair sprouting out of the muscled center of her underarms, I nearly lost it.

Alex kept that pose for a bit, contorting her upper torso to loosen up the kinks, and while that gave me a long and unfettered look at her it also got me caught staring, but Alex seemed more amused than annoyed by my leering and may have even stayed that way to tease me while my eyes darted away as best they could.

Alex then put her shirt on and I went to the men's room, ducking into a stall and dropping my pants. My boner was stuck in a mess of pre-cum and the efforts to pry it loose were successful, and just in time because I started ejaculating seconds after I touched my dick, the first volley hitting the back wall behind the toilet.

That heat wave lasted most of the week, and day after day I was treated to the sight of Alex's rippling muscles and abundant armpit hair. After a few days it hit me that not only did my somewhat coarse co-worker see me checking her out, I swear she was going out of her way to show herself off. Stretching, contorting and running her hand back through her scalp. It all seemed for my benefit. Teasing? Making fun of me? I didn't care.

Friday the heat wave broke, but it was also easily the best day of my 19 years up to then.

***

"What you up to tonight Peter?" Alex asked as we prepared to call it a day.

"Me. Nothing," I replied, a bit surprised at the question because our chats had never ventured into very personal areas, although once she had asked whether I was gay or not since she had heard one of the guys suggest that.

I had assured her that I was very straight but having just broken up with Becka, I saw no sense in starting to see somebody in the month or so I had left before college. That was true but since I was not all that handsome there weren't a lot of girls lined up for me to choose from anyway.

"Want to grab a pizza or something?" Alex asked cautiously, immediately offering me outs in case I wasn't feeling like it but I cut her off and told her I would love to.

We punched out and walked out of the warehouse, and while I'm sure she heard the same comment from one of the guys as we left, Alex didn't pay any attention. Instead we discussed what we would do. We could go to one of the pizza joints and eat there but in our work clothes that didn't seem such a great idea.

"This place down on the corner - Marino's? They're pretty good and I live just around the block from there, so if you want to?"

"Yes."

"My place isn't all that great," Alex confessed. "To be more accurate, it's a dump."

"I don't care," I assured her, and that was true because I would have eaten in dumpster to be with her.

So we ordered the pizza, agreeing on pepperoni without a fight, and as we waited outside for it to be made I decided to be a conversationalist for once.

"Why do you work there?" I asked Alex. "I mean, you're a smart woman and you could do better."

"I'm not that smart and besides, it's close to home and I'm usually working by myself most of the year, which is a lot better than working with most of those assholes," Alex admitted. "The pay isn't bad - they pay permanent people more than temps like you, and I guess I'm just in a rut. 19 years in one place does that to you."

"19 years?" I asked. "How old - sorry."

"I don't give a shit. I'm 41."

"Really?" I responded, although any number she said would have surprised me because I though she could be anywhere from 30 to 50. "You don't look it."

"You though I was older?" Alex asked and quickly hushed me when I started to object. "Just playing with you Petey."

Alex called me Petey on occasion, and while if anybody else did I would get pissed, Alex could call me anything she wanted.

"You know the rest of those guys there don't like you," I blurted out, not like it would be a shock. "They don't like you anymore than they like me."