Rising to the Challenge

The cold steel of the barbell bit into shoulders unaccustomed to bearing it. Its tension pressed downward, manifesting first in the heat of exertion, and then the quivering of overexertion. Eli realised that he had crossed into over exertion at the very bottom of his squat. His ass, jutting out in an approximation of good form, would not lift.

Eli had picked up the basics through YouTube fitness videos, which he had initially watched for reasons less than noble. The words of these bodybuilding gurus, grunted out as they sweatily heaved plate-stacked barbells through various movements, thick thigh muscles flowing in rigid waves, came back to him: "press through your heels."

He pressed through his heels, the strain popping a vein on his forehead and sheening him with a patina of sweat. The bar didn't budge, and was now biting deeper into his pained shoulders. Pain blossomed from those points and spread through tensed muscle, while darkness crept into the corner of his vision. He tried to take a breath but felt the weight press even the oxygen out his body, through quivering lips.

Suddenly, his light was blocked, and the bar shot upwards, with him attached. A clank announced its re-racking, and a warm pressure announced a sizeable hand on his shoulder.

"You okay mate?" asked a gravelled voice.

As the blood returned to Eli's brain, the gym floor took shape. As did the towering figure of a man, impossibly big, who had blocked his light and plucked the barbell from his shoulder. Eli rubbed his eyes, then watched the room and man take the exact same shape as before.

Embarrassed by his small size, Eli came to the gym late at night when it was typically empty. He thought he had been alone, until this giant had materialised out of thin air to save him from a pathetically light squat.

"Ah... yeah," he squeaked out. "Thanks for the assist. Obviously overdid it a bit."

Eli cast a glance over his shoulder at the barbell, noting his saviour's barbell racked at the room's far end. A thin weight sat at either side of his bar. Large masses of steel crowded for space on the other barbell. He must be lifting ten times what had just driven Eli into the ground.

Eli returned his gaze to mountain of muscle still standing in front of him. A black beard, flecked with strong greys, gave shape to an impressive jaw, over which sat piercing blue-grey eyes. He was bald, but obviously by choice given the dark stubble marking the masculine point of a widow's peak. His chest swelled outwards from his body, accentuated by the thin vest whose straps sat in the ridges of bulging shoulder muscles. The pecs themselves jutted hugely out, barely covered by sweat-stained fabric, through which two thick nipples could be seen. The swollen rounds of these nipples, crowning the pecs' mountainous peaks, wiped away Eli's dizziness, and inspired a rising hardness in his tight training shorts.

A smile wiped the concern from the man's face, causing Eli to realise that he had been staring, awe struck, for more than a few seconds.

"S-Sorry," he stammered, "bloods... um... only just coming back to my head, I think."

"Don't worry mate," the response came. "Did you injure yourself, or did the muscles just give out when you tried to push up?"

"Oh, I think I'm okay, I just pressed and pushed and ... didn't move."

"No harm done so," came the response. "Be careful about taking squats to failure though, you should always leave two or three reps in the tank when you're under a weight. Nothing's going to stop your gains more than an injury."

His rescuer lifted an arm to scratch the back of his head, showing a thick darkness of underarm hair, from which a single drop of hard-earned sweat dropped. Under the stark gym lights, each line of his bicep and tricep were etched in relief, the alternating peaks and valleys of his arm. Eli had never seen an arm so big to support what could only be described as a landscape of muscle. As he dropped his arm back to his side, Eli couldn't help but stare at how far it jutted from his body. The huge bulging curve of his upper arm sat against the swollen outer rim of his pec. The muscles were so big, and in such competition with each other, that he could barely place his arms by his side. Eli felt tiny next to him, like a doll or pet, not even the same species as this musclebound gym god.

Eli's cock had crept down his thigh and stiffened to painful hardness, pressing visibly against his shorts. In a short burst of clarity, he took a quick step back and sat on a nearby bench. This half hid his erection, but put him face to face with monstrously sized bulge.

Feeling a flush assaulting his cheeks, Eli hunched his shoulders and took in a deep breath, pretending he was still puffed after his failed squat. With his head between his legs, he surreptitiously adjusted his package, easing his erection into his waistband.

"Yeah..." Eli said softly, "I don't know if I've made any gains worth losing.

"Let me have a look," came the voice from above, this time accompanied by a

hand.

"Adam," he offered, shaking Eli's then while pulling him up from the bench and back to his feet.

"Eli."

Vision and cognitive functions now restored, Eli finally and fully took in the sheer enormity of the mountain of muscle before him. His small hand was swallowed by muscle calloused shovels. He must loom at least a foot and half above Eli's petite 5" 2', and was several times wider. Eli's slight, thin frame was completely eclipsed by over 350 pounds of shiny, sweat soaked muscle.

Peeking over at his station, Eli realised that he was lighter than Adam's warm-up weights. He could have picked Eli up like a rag doll if he wanted to. In fact, Eli realised, he already had when he lifted him out of his failed squat.

"Nice to meet you Eli. Do you mind if I take a look at you in the light?"

Confused about what exactly was happening, and still greedily taking in this giant's proportions, Eli nodded assent.

From above, Adam scrutinised him. Under his gaze, Eli felt tiny, as if Adam's obscenely swollen muscles were getting bigger second by second, and his own tiny frame shrinking. He was barely level with the twin rounds of Adam's pecs, which bounced, splashing Eli with sweat, as Adam moved his way around him.

Adam was so close that Eli could see the curled black body hair peeking out from under his tank top, could smell his hot sweat. Eli had an impulse to bury his head between Adam's pecs, to nestle between them, suck in aroma of sweat. He wanted to be shoved into them, to feel a hand at the back of his head, far too powerful to resist, rubbing his face between them. He wanted to take a thick nipple into his mouth, to taste the sweat of a real workout.

He resisted any such urge, and was rewarded with Adam's hand probing the bare skin of his shoulder.

"Here," Adam said, tracing the small curve of his shoulder muscle, "is the evidence of your shoulder presses."

Adam's finger followed the curve of the muscle downward to where it connected to Eli's non-existent pec. "And here," he said, pressing gently, "would be your lateral raises, and here," he added, his finger reaching the fabric of his tank, "is the beginning of a pec, and the memory of a few chest presses."

Eli's cock fought vainly with the elastic of his waistband, harder than the iron which had bit into his shoulders.

"Can you really see process?" he asked.

"Of course," Adam responded. "If you challenge your body, it will grow to the challenge. And I presume you want to grow?"

Eli nodded.

"Well, there are lots of ways to challenge the body, and lots of ways to force it to grow, to grow even bigger than it wants to be. Here."

With one hand, Adam pushed the fabric of his tank top aside, revealing the full basketball sized globe of his pec. With the other, he reached forward and took Eli's hand, placing it on the pec."

"So that's a pec, right?" Adam asked.

Eli nodded again, feeling the pulsing strength under his slight fingers, his hand tiny, miniscule, on Adam's monstrous body.

"Right, in a way," Adam said. "Feel with your fingers."

Adam trailed his fingers over the pec, pressing slightly, feeling the individual chords of muscle. In one pass, his little finger trailed over Adam's nipple, which he felt stiffen and quiver under its touch.

"What do you feel?" Adam asked.

Eli repeated the movement, brushing the plump nipple two more times.

"I feel ... the individual muscles. Like ... strings, or rope."

Adam grinned. "That's right, not one muscle, but a collection. Loads and loads of them tied together. Lots of different knots. And lots of ways to strengthen them. If you keep doing the same two or three movements, you're only working on a handful of them. If you can really challenge your body, the whole thing, every inch of muscle then ... then you grow."

Adam dropped his voice, and looked Eli right in the eye. "Then you grow like fucking crazy," he continued, "because your body knows that it's dealing with a crazy person that's going to do the same thing the next day and the next and the next until it kicks into gear. And it ...Um."

Eli realised his hand was still on Adam's pec. He dropped it quickly." "Sorry," Eli said.

Adam laughed again. "It's just a muscle, don't worry. And it helps, really helps, to feel what you're building. You don't get that kind of inspiration from a magazine or a picture.

"No," Eli said. "No that was, ... that was kind of amazing," he blurted out, "to feel your muscle, I mean, under my hand, feel it rise and fall and tense and harden and ... and just feel how big it is."

Adam raised an eyebrow at him, but the beginning of a smile had started at the side of his lips.

"Well, you're training legs, right? We can't let you leave this gym without getting back under that bar and conquer your fears. Let's get you pumped up to tackle it."

Adam eased into a lunge, the meat of his thigh pressing past his shorts and into the gym light, causing the weight of his bulge to press heavily against the tightened fabric. If Eli had been shocked by the size of his arms, his thighs were ... incomparable. A single thigh must have been larger than Eli himself, or at least weighed as much in hard, flowing muscle.

"Repeat the experiment," Adam said, gesturing to his thigh.

Eli, so horny and confused that he was barely conscious, leaned forward and placed a hand, then the second hand, on Adam's thigh muscle, running his finger over the sweat-slick surface, feeling every bulge and ridge.

"That is twenty years of hard weight training in that thigh," Adam said. He rocked his stance forward and backward, letting Eli feel the contraction and swelling of the muscle. While he did so, Adam's bulge pulsed. Eli realised from the way that his bulge sat and shifted in his shorts that Adam wasn't erect. He wondered if he could get bigger, losing himself in a quick fantasy of what that tantalizing bulge would look like without the shorts, then without the underwear. Then, for the second time, Eli felt himself lifted off the ground.

"Right," Adam said, "get back under that bar."

Eli did as he was told, an instinct he didn't know he had placing his shoulders

immediately in the correct position.

"Drop," Adam commanded. And Eli did. "Hold it ...hold it ... and up," and Eli shot up. He dropped and shot up again and again, shattering his previous best, finding energy he didn't know he had. He could feel the strain of muscle in his own thighs, twigs next to Adam's trunks, but still burning with a small strength, some of the same strength he had felt under his hands.

******************

Eli hobbled up the stairs, his legs barely functioning after his Adam-led workout. Between sets, he watched Adam squat his own bar, the weight on either side so heavy that they curved the steel of the struggling barbell, which Adam lifted each time with a loud grunt.

As he was about to turn off for the changing rooms, he felt Adam's hand on his

back, steering him to a different room.

"The physio room," Adam explained. "I was a personal trainer here, many

years ago, but they still let me use it. You're going to need some attention after...challenging yourself like that."

Eli was used to feeling stiff after workouts, but this time he was barely mobile. He had never even approached the feats of strength that he had been able to achieve under Adam's guidance. For each exercise, Adam had him place his hand on the corresponding muscle, allowing Eli to feel it bulge, contract and flow. This was supposed to demonstrate how the muscle moved and changed during the exercise, but all Eli truly felt was surging waves of arousal and power, as if by being close to Adam's huge frame he could borrow some small amount of its strength. The need to channel this, and to impress the watchful giant, had unlocked energy stores he didn't know he had.

"A few final, but very important exercises," Adam announced, closing the door behind him.

He advanced on Eli, hooked his finger under the strap of his tank, and lifted it gently off his head. He then took his own off, dropped his shorts, and motioned for Eli to do the same. They stood facing each other, Eli struggling to maintain eye contact when a veritable mound of manhood bulged from Adam's underwear. A quick glance revealed that the waistband was so strained by its package that the elastic had split. The waistband sagged off Adam's body, driven down by the weight of his bulge, and revealing a hint of flesh.

With a firm grip, Adam turned Eli around, where he made eye contact with his reflection. A giant mirror ran the length of the far side of the room.

"Flex," Adam commanded. "You have to see the muscle, to connect the pain with the sight of them growing. And you have to see what it can become."

With that, Adam leaned back into a classic bodybuilder's pose, hips thrust out,

shoulders set back, and those gargantuan arms spread and flexed.

Like a puppet, Eli saw himself mimicking the same movement, his own twiggy arms vainly flexing, trying to produce a curve of muscle to compete with the hills of Adam's biceps.

Adam's arms were more animal than human, like a drawing from an anatomy textbook. Masses of muscle, swollen to impossible sizes, competed with each other for space on his physique. Eli had an urge to reach up and grasp one of those muscle mountains, to be lifted from the floor and feel, under his small hands, every millisecond of effort, every flexing fibre, that it took.

For now, he dutifully complied with his orders, going through every pose that Adam's reflection mapped out for him. Maybe it was in his head, but even after just one workout, he could see a difference. The slight raising of muscles, the feeling of them being full, some definition where previously there was none.

"How do you feel," Adam asked, dropping his arms back to his side, his triceps bouncing against his pecs.

Eli turned around to him. "Good," I think. "Sore, really sore, but also...". "Full?" Adam suggested.

"Yes! Full, like ..." Eli started, searching for words. "Like when you carry an empty backpack, and it just kind of... flops around on your back. But when you fill it, even though its heavier and costs more effort, it just feels... right."

Adam grinned. "That's one I haven't heard before, but yes, that sounds about right. So, you're saying you want to be filled then, that you don't want to 'flop around'." Heat scorched Eli's cheeks, while Adam's grin grew wider. He swayed his hips slightly, pulling Eli's gaze to the heavy bulge flopping side to side.

Eli turned his head to see his reflection again, taking in his small body, completely dominated by the giant in front of him. Adam raised his arms, pressing each fist into his side, assuming a superman pose. His muscles swelled in response, bursting with strength, with command, with eroticism. Clark Kent wouldn't have compared with him.

Eli's erection was a painful iron bar, and had long since slipped free of his waistband's elastic.

Eli turned back to Adam. "I want to be filled," he said. "In every way. But I need to feel... I need to fill that strength. I need to feel what I'll be able to do." Adam raised his eyebrow and shifted his grin to a smirk. "Is that so?" he asked. Well I can think of a way to accomplish that.

Adam took a step forward and put each hand around Eli's waist. His hands

were so big that his fingers connected, just at the point above Eli's buttocks. Eli squirmed slightly, further aroused by the roughness of Adam's barbell-earned callouses.

Without blinking, Adam lifted Eli into the air, holding him in front of him

without a single sign of strain. Eli's cock was hard, harder than it had ever been. It even felt full, bigger, as if it had been through the ringer of Adam's workout.

With Eli in hand, Adam started lifting him in a slow motion. Keeping his arms straight, Adam raised Eli in arc until he was above his head, then slowly lowered him again through the same arc. He repeated it, until, in the last raise, he felt Eli's erect cock, through the fabric of his straining underwear, graze his head.

Adam half lowered Eli, keeping him helpless hanging in front of him. His face had morphed into a scowl, suddenly terrifying when paired with his gigantic size.

"What do you think you're playing at? Is this turning you on?"

Eli sputtered out a no, casting his eyes downward. His cock got even harder in response.

Adam dropped Eli to his feet, then put one hand roughly under his chin, tilting his head upwards. He flexed the other arm, pumping upwards and downwards, flooding the muscle with blood and causing it to bulge hugely.

"What about this little man. Is this turning you on?" Eli, confused, squeaked another no.

"Climb on," Adam commanded, lowering to one knee. Without a thought, Eli stepped forward and placed his hands over the peak of Adam's bicep, just as he had made him do in the weights room. This time, however, Adam pushed himself back off the floor, standing to full height and bringing Eli with him. Eli's dangled from the peak of Adam's muscle, his legs flailing underneath him.

The lift had brought him close to Adam, and he could feel the wind of his breath when, into his ear, he whispered, "And what about now... are you turned on now." Eli swallowed and nodded.

Keeping the arm from which Eli hung flexed, Adam took off his underwear with the other. Eli only heard the loud slap of flesh as whatever monster had been half contained in them was released.

"Look down," Adam commanded.

Eli obeyed. From his vantage, he was looking at Adam's manhood through the valley between his pecs, following the trail of grey and black hair down, between the crevices of his abs, and finally to what it crowned. Even in the depraved cartoon porn that Eli sometimes watched, with impossibly massive men and manhoods, Eli had never seen a cock so big. It hung heavily from his body, like a python, thick and incredibly long. It was as if Adam had found a way to work it out too, as if there was some exercise he had been doing for twenty years to bloat it with such size.

As Eli stared, it got bigger, thickening even more and lifting upwards until it reared from between Adam's thighs, crisscrossed by bulging veins.

Adam lowered Eli to the ground, bringing him face to face with his monstrous erection. While he stood there, a dribble of precum emerged from its tip. Eli could smell its sweetness.

Eli was so hypnotised by it that he hardly noticed it moving rapidly to the side, until it came back, with speed, to slap him in the face. He was nearly knocked to the ground by the blow. The next one succeeded.

Sprawled on the floor, his cheeks pained, Eli looked up. Adam stood over him, a tower of muscle. A hand approached him, yanking him back to his feet. "This is what you want, isn't it?" Adam asked, pressing Eli's face into the sweaty underside of his pecs.