Secret Powder
by Mich

I could tell that David was trying to catch my attention before I was halfway done with my client. First through the resistance machines, then when we moved to cardio, then back through kettlebell exercises, every time I'd look up from encouraging Karen, a middle-aged mother of three who had too much time on her hands and too much chub around her middle, I'd see David's handsome blue eyes winking across the gym at me, completely ignoring his own ward. Snorting at his cry for attention, I led Karen into a last set of single-leg squats, tactfully deaf to her moans and groans with each dip, before finally telling her to hit the showers.

Toweling sweat from my own neck, I snorted at the sight of David tearing himself away from the skinny tech kid he was training with an encouraging pat on the back. "You're going to get sued if he injures himself," I laughed as David's fit form jogged over. He just flapped a hand in disinterest behind him.

"He'll be fine," the personal trainer said with a smirk, trying to nonchalantly lean on the railing surrounding the track that ran through Plat. I almost burst out laughing at how hard he was trying to seem cool in front of me; David had been trying to flirt with me since the day he had started, just a few months before, taking every chance to flex his built pecs and toned legs at me.

As usual, I just rolled my eyes. "So what is it you want?"

"Who said I want anything?"

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be leaving the kid paying you two thousand dollars an hour all by himself."

This time he also laughed, but he at least looked over to make sure the 50 pound barbell wasn't strangling a skinny neck across the gym floor. "So maybe I wanted to let you in on a secret."

Damn, but he knew my weakness. "And what's that?" I asked in a faux whisper. Catching my implication, David leaned in as well.

"I have a cousin that works for a certain protein shake company. You know, the one that Felicia is always trying to hawk downstairs?"

I felt my interest wane almost immediately. "What about it?"

"Well," he continued, missing my lack of care, "they have a new one in the works. The best one ever, they say. Guaranteed to help you build mass."

"So?" I asked, unable to help myself, concluding that, yes, this was absolutely something I gave no shits about.

"So, he offered to sneak me some. You know, try it out. You want in?" His eyes were open, hopeful. What kind of plan to impress me was this?

I swung the towel over my shoulder. "No, but thanks, David. I really don't do protein powders." I turned to go, but not before catching the confused look on his face.

"Really? But you look so good! I thought that—"

"You thought wrong, apparently," I finished for him, my eyes rolling faster than a Ferris wheel now. Why didn't he get a clue? It wasn't that he wasn't cute, and I did appreciate the compliment. I worked hard for my body, and I liked how it looked, as well. But unlike David, I worked at Platinum Gym because I was good at my job, and because it helped keep me in shape. Besides, why did he think someone like me would want to bulk up? Girls who bodybuilt were gross.

I did have a certain amount of professional pride, though. Karen was just leaving the showers when I got there, and I caught a glimpse of my handiwork: she was still soft around the edges, still had some flab hanging from her arms, but her face was almost unrecognizable, the second chin completely gone, and she had told me her dress size had gone down four sizes since the previous fall. That was what I liked: hard work turning flabby bodies into thinner, healthier ones.

My own was a great example, as David had obviously noticed. But I worked hard for it, and was proud of it. When I had left college I had been unhappy with my health and very unhappy with my weight. I hadn't just gained the freshman fifteen; four years of intense study in health and physiology had left me with almost one hundred pounds more than I wanted. It was rough, but while I worked bad job after bad job I ate healthy, worked out every day, and got myself back down to a healthy range in just a couple of years. It was around that time that I saw personal trainers were wanted at Plat, so I applied, got the job, got even fitter, and belonged like I was born in the gym. I liked it there, and I liked the change in my body, but it wasn't a hobby for me like it was for David or a few of the other trainers: it was just my job.

Still, I did it well. Karen, when she had first started as a client, had even said she wanted a body like mine when we were finished, which made me blush. Not washboard abs, but a firm, flat stomach. Not bulky arms or legs, but toned, strong. She especially complimented my collarbones, which I thought was weird until I realized hers were hidden in a soft layer of fat. "Plus, Cameron," she had said, winking, "I wouldn't mind my breasts being as high as yours." I laughed and claimed it was just my sportsbra, but getting in shape certainly wouldn't hurt. She needed to lose nearly sixty pounds to get down to my 120, but it was doable.

I looked good, and I felt good, and I was good at my job. I didn't need to do more than that.

There was just one grain of sand in this, though, and it was Olivia.

When I got home, lightly slamming the door to my '11 Toyota pickup, I saw that Olivia's sedan was already there, and felt a mental weight fall on me. Something about Olivia being around when I needed some "me" time just grinded my gears. It wasn't some unknown, though, some mystery. It was very obvious.

"Hey, Cam!" she called from the kitchen. I could smell the brownies' scent wafting through the kitchen to the living room and groaned, hefting my gym bag to my chest and bee-lining to my bedroom.

"Hey," I mumbled, before slamming the door and stripping. I didn't need brownies. I didn't want brownies. Brownies were the enemy, which would destroy everything I had built.

Olivia and I were best friends in college, and probably the main factor in why I had become a tub of chub. She loved to bake, she loved to cook, and most of all she loved to share all of the things she had made. If she couldn't share them, she would devour them herself, gorging on fats and sugars until her mouth was stuffed and her blonde hair was sweaty from effort. When we had both graduated, she got an offer to work at a veterinary office in the big city, and offered to help pay my rent until I was settled in, which I couldn't turn down.

In the five years since graduation we had moved twice before settling on our current living condition, a rented house in an inexpensive part of town, where we both got our own bedrooms, had two baths, and she could cook to her heart's content.

It had been hard to lose weight and get in shape with Olivia in the house, but the worst part of it was that she made it look so easy. In all of the years I had known her, with all of the things I had seen her shove greedily down her throat, I don't think she had put on five pounds. Her clothes had stayed the same size all nine years, her complexion perfect, her stomach perfectly flat. She wasn't bulimic, she hardly exercised, her parents were both stout if not obese. Her perfect fitness was a mystery, and a frustrating one.

The issue between us had varied in difficulty throughout our relationship, but part of the reason I was avoiding her so badly that night was because, just the day before, my simple offer to work out with her had turned into a full-blown argument. Words had been carelessly tossed around, ones that I could forgive her for: things like "jealous" and "obsessed". I had done a fair bit of my own name-calling, as reasonably as possible, mostly involving unfair genetics and complete obliviousness to my own problems. I felt like we would get over it, we always did, but it would take time before I could look her in the face again.

Olivia, of course, pretended nothing had ever happened, cheerfully greeting me as she licked chocolatey batter from a mixing spoon. It was an adorable scene that I should have felt my heart melt at: pretty girl, her heart-shaped face shining in the setting sun, leaning on a counter and licking at a spoon. Instead I just felt annoyance stir. "Good day at work?" she bubbled.

I grunted noncommittally, grabbing a couple of light weights to get some sets in. I almost turned on the TV before my brain sparked at something. "Do you mind not making those tonight?"

Puppy-dog eyes greeted me and I had to turn back away. "Why? I had a rough day, too."

"Olivia, you know that it's hard for me to stay in shape."

She sighed, checking the oven while she did. "Not this again..."

That was uncalled for. "Yes, this again!" I said, standing up. "I don't know why it's so hard for you to understand, but I'd appreciate you working with me a little!"

"Working with you a little?" she repeated. "We only see each other at night, which is also the only time either of us is home! If I need to relax, I'm going to!"

The same old story: she claimed that baking and munching is how she calmed down after a long day. How hard could it be, working reception at a vet clinic? Seeing puppies and cats all day really must have gotten her down. I couldn't say any of that, though, instead gritting my teeth harder. "Maybe if you'd put on a few pounds you'd understand," I smirked. "Someday your metabolism is going to shut down!"

"Well when that happens," she sneered back, "I guess I'll just get fat! I'd rather do that than take you up on your offer to be my personal master!"

Personal—? "What do you mean by that?" I asked, taken aback.

"You think I don't know that you just want me to become just as addicted as you are? Working out all the time, trying to reach some impossible perfection? Look, you can't even put down your weights when you're home!" She pointed at the dumbbells in my hands, tiny five pound ones.

"As if that—" I growled, before throwing them down and stomping back towards my room.

"Mmmm," Olivia moaned behind me, biting into a brownie.

I couldn't believe her. Screaming in my head, fists ripping at the covers beneath me, I sweated and writhed on my bed, picking imaginary fights with my housemate, coming up with new things to say, hurtful things that would show her how stupid she was. With her thin waist and her small boobs and her impossible metabolism, never putting on an ounce. If I could just make her realize how bad it was when you actually put on weight, when you weren't some weird superhuman.

My dreams were filled with laughing Olivias, gorging herself sick on everything I loved to eat: ice cream and chocolate cakes and candy bars, sugary cereals and stacks of French bread and hamburgers from cheap fast food restaurants. She stayed as thin as ever, taunting me behind a sheaf of her stupid blonde hair. And then, in a shadowy corner, David winked at me.

I woke up and found myself wondering what, exactly, his cousin was offering.

***

"I thought you didn't want to bulk," David said the next day, suddenly suspicious. We were both behind the front desk, taking it easy while we didn't have any clients. My text to ask him to bring some of his cousin's new powder had apparently come out of the blue.

I tried to shrug in a disinterested manner. "I don't really want to, but I realized how sick I am of the protein bars I've been eating. Maybe a shake is the right way to go."

His eyes lit up at the easy lie. "Well yeah! Sure, sure. I've been doing shakes since I started working out," he said, leaning on his arm in an obvious pose. His forearms were sexy, and the outline of his chest in his lycra shirt enticed at least a cursory glance, but he was such a stupid meathead.

"So you use this stuff yourself?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Not yet. I have a big supply of the last batch he gave me, which works alright. It was a step up from the store-bought stuff, so I figure this new breed must be killer." He looked me up and down, either sizing me up or drinking in my toned body, I couldn't tell. "So how much do you want? A five pound container?" He reached under the desk and pulled out a big, label-less jug, a screw-cap affixed with plastic seal. My eyes grew big, but I figured if I didn't want David to know that I would be feeding this to someone else, I would have to go all in.

"I'm not sure. Is that a lot? It seems like a lot."

He laughed. "It should set you for a while. Mix it into a big glass of water before your workout every day, there's a scooper provided."

"Before your workout?" Most of the shake-drinkers I had spoken to drank it after they were tired, to "re-energize muscles" or some bullshit like that.

"Yeah, that's why their stuff is so killer. It can make your body generate mass in a whole new way, but you have to exercise almost immediately after. That's what Darius says, at least."

Jesus, that sounded weird. I didn't want to permanently damage Olivia's hormones, just teach her a small lesson. "This isn't, you know," I lowered my voice before saying the blasphemic word in all gyms, "steroids, is it?"

David's head nearly shook off of his neck. "Just mix it into water, just into water, no milk or anything, and you will be way more ready to work your clients' asses off. I promise."

I gulped and took the jug then, pulling the plastic away, spun the top off. Perfect white powder, almost like sifted flour, filled the inside, with a small white scooper buried handle-first. My gulp almost turned into a purr.

My next client at last arrived, one of my mother's friends from her mosque, and I shoved the jug back down into my bag. "Thanks, David. I'll let you know how it goes."

He just smiled. "Maybe I'll even see for myself."

Ha, ha. Fat chance.

***

I got back home before Olivia that night, leaving work a bit early, and took the plastic box of flour down from the cabinet. Olivia was a couple of inches taller than me, which meant I had to demean myself to get a little stepladder out from storage just to get up to the top shelf, my eternal enemy. The flour went into a mixing bowl, along with some low-fat butter, some salt, brown sugar, white sugar, a couple of eggs, chocolate chips and, the secret prize, a single scoop of David's powder. I realized that I didn't even have a name for it, but just kept thinking of the jug as Secret Powder.

Giggling, not feeling ashamed one bit, I mixed the bowl up, turning it carefully, ensuring there was no obviously foreign white powder in there. Then I plopped out small batches of dough onto a greased pan and slid my would-be peace offerings into the oven. I had just pulled it out, the kitchen clean once more, when Olivia came home.

The smell must have hit her at the door, because her face slid around the corner to the kitchen with her eyes already wide in amazement. "Cameron? Is that you?"

"Yes?" I asked, half-amused.

"Are you sure? Maybe you got abducted by aliens."

I had to laugh at that. "No, not aliens. I just felt bad about the dumb fights we've been having, thought I could make it up to you."

Her eyes watering, she clasped her hands together on her chest, her knees popping out. "Oh, my god, you are so sweet. Thank you!" I almost sneered before she had rushed around the kitchen island and pulled me into a hug, her bony arms almost strangling me. When we had untangled our limbs and hair from each other, she had already eaten three of the cooling cookies. "These are delicious!" she said, her eyes once more threatening to pop out from her face.

"Thanks," I said. "Old family recipe." If my family's name was Nestlé, I laughed to myself.

"And you made these just for me," she said, water creeping into her voice again. "Thanks, Cam. It means a lot. I'm sorry I said anything. I probably make it hard for you."

At that my heart melted, and I almost felt bad for what I was trying to do. "Oh, don't worry about it. I'm sorry, too."

"Well, obviously!" she burst, and hugged me again.

That night I wrestled in the sheets, morality eating away at me. How could I be such a jerk to my best friend? Trying to trick her into gaining weight, just so I could feel better about myself? What kind of a hypocritical bitch was I? I finally drifted off to the almost-comforting thought that it wasn't like the Secret Powder was some magical thing that could transform Olivia overnight into a pile of blubber; if it did anything, it would maybe make her gain a pound or two.

I had almost forgotten about it by the time I greeted Olivia at the breakfast table. She was in her usual cotton shorts and tight tank top, leaving nothing to the imagination, and I saw that she was her usual, impossibly-thin self. I resigned myself to a seat, a slice of toast and an orange my breakfast, when I saw that my plate of cookies still sat on the table. "You didn't eat all of your cookies," I said, pushing them towards her.

"For breakfast?" she laughed, but then a look appeared in her eyes, one of an odd concern. "I didn't finish them because, I don't know, you made them for me, and it seemed you should get a least a couple." My heart dropped before remembering that I was about to leave for a workout, anyway. And what was it David had said? Take it before working out?

Shrugging, I snatched up a cookie and bit into it, relishing the rare treat. I was rewarded with Olivia grinning at me as she took one for herself, a smile that I matched. If me eating one meant she would eat more, too, that kind of worked out, didn't it?

Just in case, I made extra sure to put on the burn that morning when I arrived at Plat. Having that kind of motivation was like a fire had been lit under my feet, a mental kickstart that I had kind of longed for. No way was Secret Powder going to give me any unexpected gains.

That night, Olivia waited for me to have another treat, then finished off the cookies while I watched out of the corner of my eye. I did a few sets of push-ups and sit-ups in my room afterwards, just in case, but honestly wondered how much damage a single cookie from an entire plate of them with only one scoop mixed in could do. Heck, even if Olivia had eaten all of them, that was one scoop, meaning one day's worth of the stuff you were supposed to supplement with every day you worked out.

Over the next two days my theory appeared to prove correct, as Olivia didn't look different at all. The challenge had risen. I needed to try a new tactic.

That afternoon I was alone in the apartment, so I got my trusty stepstool out and pulled the flour down again. This time, instead of making anything myself, I put a scoop of the powder directly into the flour bin. First one scoop, then two, four, six, eight. When I was done the bin must have had a quarter of the stuff mixed in. If Olivia tried to make cookies with it now she'd have at least half of a cup in there.

I popped the lid back on and slid the flour back in place, wondering if maybe I was going too far. If Olivia found me she'd think I was crazy, trying to do something this ridiculous to fatten her up. But now that I was started it was like I had a personal challenge, something I had set myself towards. If this didn't work I would quit, I assured myself. Who even knew when Olivia would try to use my replaced flour?

It turns out that it was very soon. Spurred on by my peace offering, she was insistent on paying me back, and I woke up the next day, Saturday morning, to the smell of baking creeping under my door. I rubbed sleep from my eyes and stumbled to the kitchen table where Olivia, pleased as punch, set down a stack of pancakes. I looked at them, blearily, while reaching for a grapefruit. A wooden spoon smacked my hand. "No!" she said.

"No?" I asked, trying to not come to the conclusion I knew that she wanted.

"I made these for you!" she said, beckoning at the tainted short stack, sweeping the spoon over to the hot stove where more pancakes were frying up. "After your sweet gesture last week!"

Oh, no. "You don't have to do that," I said. "Besides, I don't really like pancakes..."

She was having none of that, as she turned away from me to make her own plate up. "You do like pancakes, I made them for you all the time in college and you always begged me to make more. Now sit down and relax for once." She plopped down across from me, her bony butt hitting the wooden chair hard, and I realized there was genuine concern in her eyes.

Taking a big breath, realizing that my morning would now be taken up by a hearty workout, I dug in.

At least, I thought, watching Olivia stuff fork after fork of syrupy pancake into her mouth, my plan is kind of working. These pancakes were indistinguishable from normal ones; Secret Powder mixed into flour well.

I justified the unusual workout with all of the extra calories and carbs that had been lovingly force-fed to me that morning, waving Olivia's concern about my addiction to fitness off as I climbed onto my bike and strapped on a helmet. A trip to the gym, a workout of every major muscle group, then a bike back should set me.

As I started on my way, though, my legs pistoning to push the pedals, something felt... different. Off. Not in a bad way at all, but a weirdly nice one. With each push of my thigh, each subtle wrench of my body, I was grinding something satisfying down inside of me. Like stepping on thin ice, or biting into a crisp apple. I pushed myself up a hill that always gave me difficulty and realized I had energy to burn as I pedaled even harder back down again.

When I got to the gym I had a layer of sweat on me but was ready for more. I hit the rowing machine first, something that I normally reserved for days that I needed to do a fast workout, then the resistance weights, working my thighs, abs, and arms in succession. It was only when I looked at the clock and saw that noon was approaching that I realized I was finally tiring out. Muscles screaming for relief, I snapped my helmet back on, climbed onto my bike, and made my way back home at a much slower pace.

Olivia was in the usual place that I found her on weekends, collapsed on the couch, eating a snack while watching one of the reality shows she loved. I made up a light lunch, completely forgetting about her while I reveled in how good my workout had felt. It was like I had pushed past the plateau I was always hearing about, as if I had reached the level of fitness when you feel yourself wanting to increase weights and workouts again. Was that what had happened?

I saw the dishes in the sink, still sticky with butter and syrup, and realized that the pancakes may be the culprit. Did Secret Powder do that? Give me the extra energy to have a great workout? The next question was how much I had consumed in my three pancakes, if it was the proper amount, more than usual, less. And Olivia...

Laughing as she pushed me aside to get into the kitchen, her loose t-shirt rode up just a tiny bit and I caught a glimpse of the pale skin of her waist. It could have been my imagination, some terrible, evil wishful thinking, but I thought I saw a little bit of a curve there that hadn't existed the day before. But no way could any protein powder work that fast. No way! If it was from Secret Powder it must have been an accumulation of the cookies and the pancakes. Or maybe her metabolism was finally slowing down, finally ready to teach her a lesson.

I decided to wait, and, if she offered again, take her up on a pancake or two. Just to test my theory about my workout.

When the weekend was done our fridge was nearly full of leftover baked goods, all tainted by the mixed flour I had snuck into the cabinet. Biscuits, waffles, brownies, cookies, anything that was possible to be made with flour, it seemed like Olivia had made it. Saturday afternoon she had gone into a frenzy, possibly after eating the sole remaining pancake, and, singing and dancing around the kitchen, she had pushed her cooking knowledge to the limit.

I couldn't resist. Sunday morning I helped myself to a biscuit, then went for a jog, reasoning that I would know the difference. It wasn't until I was five miles away from the house that I realized I had known the difference for twenty minutes, energy making my feet hop and my head sing. I could do this for hours, for days. At a park I found a pullup bar and easily did fifteen, then hung down from my knees and did hanging sit-ups until I wanted to collapse into a pool of mush.

The jog home was a lot harder. I needed to start pacing myself.

All of the extra energy didn't seem to make Olivia want to work out any more than ever, and, in between cooking and eating, she was back on the couch, knitting or browsing the internet. I looked for more clues of physical changes, anything, but apart from a slight pooch that may or may not have always been there, I didn't see a thing.

The extra spurts I could work out after eating her tainted baked goods, though. Those were real.

Monday morning I wondered if this was how addiction started. You try something once, you get a result that feels really good, and soon you can't think of anything else. I could think of other things than Olivia's stock of food, but when breakfast time came and I reached in to get bread to make toast, instead I found myself grabbing a couple of cookies and some sort of nutty bar that she had made. I reasoned that at least the bar was somewhat healthy, so I combined them all with a banana before driving to work. "Pace yourself," I repeated under my breath as I pulled a pair of twenty pound dumbbells off of the rack. "Pace yourself." Three sets of forty reps later and I set them down and then put a hundred pounds into the squat rack. Instead of the usual five reps I did ten, and did that for three more sets before moving on. I still felt great, so I hit the rower, did crunches, pushups, and anything else I felt like.

When Karen arrived I was drenched in sweat and still ready to go for her workout, so I showered off and got myself ready for round two.

Later that day David caught my eye and I shot him a thumbs up, feeling better than I had in ages. I decided then and there that David's Secret Powder was awesome, and if I felt this good every day, I would keep eating Olivia's creations, whether or not my malicious intents took hold.

***

By the end of the week, I knew that there was more to the Secret Powder than a concentrated energy drink. The realization hit when I was getting dressed on Friday morning after my shower, pulling what I thought of as my "sexy booty" workout shorts on. They were dark blue briefs and they fit me perfectly—except that morning, they didn't. Instead I pulled them up to my thighs and then stopped, the elastic cutting in uncomfortably. Finally, breathing in carefully, I got them over my quads, where they fit snuggly around my hips. I looked down at my legs, wondering what was up. I hadn't gained weight, had I? A closer look in the mirror agreed, but in a way I didn't expect: my abs clearly stood out from my stomach, no longer just hinted-at lines but defined muscles. In fact, it wasn't just my stomach, it was my whole body, from my arms, which subtly bulged with bicep and tricep, to my almost powerful-looking thighs. Jesus, I was ripped. When had this happened?

"I noticed you were getting there a few days ago," David admitted when I nonchalantly brought it up. "That stuff must work well, huh?" I had to admit it did, biting my lip. It worked too well; I had never wanted to get this built. If I had, this was the absolute limit I wanted to go: we got girls a little more muscly than I was comfortable with in Plat every once in a while, and I did not want to look like that.

But did I want to stop taking Secret Powder? Did the way I felt every morning outweigh a slightly unattractive amount of muscle? I looked good now, and I felt great.

My original goal flooded my mind when I got home and found Olivia on the couch. She was eating, as had become usual, and was also wearing something that looked amazing on her tiny, fit body: high waisted shorts from Forever 21, thigh-high black socks, and a lacy crop top. That is, it would normally look amazing on her tiny, fit body, if she had one. But now, with everything she was wearing so tight and elastic, I could see where her body was changing, too. The tight denim of her shorts and compressing socks were making thigh flesh squash out in a way I couldn't have imagined on Olivia's legs if I hadn't seen it. The shorts themselves should have flattered her flat tummy, but instead there was a bulge there, subtle if you weren't looking for it, that pulled along the buttons down the fly. No way were those not hints of love handles along her waist, either, curving out from the hem. And her boobs were positively enormous in the thin top, making her bra visible in a way sure to make any guy blush if he saw her. Some girls, too, I'd bet.

She had to know; she HAD to. She'd never wear those shorts without a big, flashy belt. And yet there wasn't a look of concern at all on her face when she turned to me, chocolate chip smeared on her lips, and said "Hey, the girls from work and I are going out to Green River tonight! You want to come?"

"You want to go clubbing?" I asked, just barely stopping a chuckle from popping out.

"Uh, it's Friday?" she scoffed, rolling her eyes and laughing. "Come on! We haven't done anything together in forever except eat meals!"

That time I couldn't help it. Oh, yeah. We had eaten meals, for sure. Then the idea of not only getting laid but also seeing Olivia try to pick up a boy with her new poundage fluttered across my mind, and I was in.

Most of my clothes weren't as close-fitted as my workout spandex, thankfully, so I hit the floor looking my absolute best: a ruffled skirt and halter that showed off my new washboard stomach, slingback heels showing off my amazing toned calves. Of course, my outfit also showed off the guns I was now sporting, and the skirt just hinted at my muscular legs, especially with the matching heels. But you know what I realized, looking myself over in the mirror while applying my lipstick? I fucking rocked the buff chick look.

Especially when compared with Olivia. On the floor her added weight truly became apparent: her heavier knockers bouncing as she danced, her breath panting after just a couple of songs. And that ass! Now that we were out and about, I wondered what was wrong with me. How had I not been sure if Olivia had been putting on weight? What had once been a tiny butt had evolved into a round, bouncing thing. How much had she put on? More than five pounds. Ten? Maybe even fifteen?

It was all working.

And yet, guys kept coming to dance with her, putting their hands on her softened waist, grinding against her backside before she got tired of them and moved to the next. What the fuck was this about? The idea was to make her put on weight so she'd realize how easy she had it when she was thin. What had I done wrong?

"Your friend's doing fine, ignore her," the guy I was dancing with said, one hand dangerously close to rising up my chest. I thought about slapping it away, but instead leaned back into him, letting it rest just under my tit. He was cute, anyway.

"You're right," I said. "I was just worried she'd be lonely tonight." I leaned in closer, letting him smell the perfume in my hair. "She's put on a bit of weight," I whispered, "and wasn't sure if anyone would think she was cute."

He laughed. "She's cute. I mean, not as cute as some girls here," he winked, "but cute."

Smiling shallowly at the easy compliment, I let him rub his hands down my hips while I turned to consider Olivia. She was still cute, that was the problem. If anything, her new weight was making her more attractive, giving her some deadly curves. Her boobs weren't fat, they were bigger, sexier. She didn't have a belly, she had an inviting waistline. The fat squeezing out of her socks only increased interest in her legs.

I needed to make her go further. Really put on the pounds to learn her lesson.

And I could handle the extra intake of powder. After all, I was doing awesome right now.

Adrenaline flooding my body in excitement, I grabbed my partner's head and brought him in close, sticking my tongue down his throat, feeling his hot breath on my face. "Fuck I want you," I said. "Let's get out of here."

He was happy to oblige, only confirming the facts that I knew: my newer, fitter body was just making it easier to pick up guys.

Once I had confirmed that Olivia was going home with the boy she finally settled on, a skinny one with great-looking lips, it was only too easy to take my date home, use him, then send him away before it was even 2am. I had the kitchen to myself. Still basking in the afterglow of an awesome one night stand and the easiest orgasm of my life, I got the Secret Powder out of my closet and climbed up to grab the flour container. In just two weeks Olivia had managed to almost empty the thing, which meant I was lucky to decide to replace it now. Before I had maybe a 1:3 mix of flour to powder, but if I wanted to ramp things up I could probably pull off more. The powder mixed with wheat flour so well, and baked just fine, that I didn't see a problem with doubling the amount.

Pouring careful cups of flour into the bin, I then levelled in the same number of scoops of Secret Powder, mixing it up carefully with a sifter. When I was done it was maybe a little looser than normal flour, not clumping quite as well, but it would do. Hell, with the rate at which my roommate was baking food, she probably didn't even look at the stuff.

My job done, I hid the stool away and went to bed humming. Soon, I reasoned. Soon enough Olivia would learn. And in the meantime, I had already upped my workout schedule. I could just try to reduce the number of Secret-tainted things, work out a bit more, and I would avoid getting fatter myself. I wouldn't want to lose this perfect body, would I?

I would not.

Sober in the light of day, slight worry crossed my mind that my fake flour wouldn't hold up to Olivia's cooking standards. When she came home with a hangover somehow bigger than mine, eyes baggy and hair askew, she immediately started to whip up the ingredients to fry chicken and a nice bowl of waffle batter. Olivia always claimed chicken and waffles were the perfect hangover cure and, the pounding banging between my ears, I couldn't tell her not to use her grandma's secret breading recipe.

But sure enough, she didn't notice a thing, and the waffles held together perfectly. Fluffy, crispy, and covered in well-battered fried chicken, we both forced down two servings each.

I had an ulterior motive, of course, or maybe a tertiary motive: not only did I want to cure my hangover, and not only did I want to start seeing some serious results in Olivia's figure immediately, but I also suspected that the Secret Powder would make me feel alive again, would scrub the alcohol from my body and revive me. And in an hour my theory proved correct: heart pounding, muscles buzzing, I felt good and ready to take on the world.

"I need to go to the gym," I said as I jittered to my room to change.

"Whaaaaat?" Olivia moaned from the couch. Somehow she wasn't feeling the same effects that I was and instead had taken to lounging with a big glass of orange juice that she had barely sipped at. "But it's Saturday! Relax with me!"

"I could," I said, "but I need to keep this up! Besides, best way to beat a hangover, right?"

She moaned indistinctly and I grinned to myself. If she didn't feel the need to exercise, even better: there was no chance she'd accidentally turn that energy to muscle. In the meantime, I'd work to at least stop myself from turning into a huge, fat, slug.

Grinning to myself, I waved at her and jogged out the door. I needed to dispose of the energy in those waffles fast, and the best way to get rid of carbs was to run. So I ran the nine miles to the gym as a light warm-up. I set a new pace record for myself, somewhere around seven minutes per mile, but I hardly felt tired. In fact, I was ready for more. Munching on one of Olivia's biscuits that I had stashed in my locker, I took on the power station first, trying to drain my energy from the Secret Powder with pullup after pullup. When that didn't seem to be working after a few sets, I tried my hand at some dips, then moved on to squats. I was lifting my own body weight, now, and absolutely tearing them apart with set after set.

Despite all of this, it was like some kind of fire was taking over my body, like I couldn't shake the ecstatic energy ripping through me. I tried out some exercises that I would have shrugged off as "too far" before that day, before the stack of laced chicken and waffles had entered my bloodstream: barbell curls, bench presses, hanging sit-ups. Each of them came to me naturally, with weights I wouldn't have thought of lifting. After a few hours and set after set after set of lifting and raising and curling, I realized I was benching 175—more than my own body weight. I looked in the big mirror on the wall and, grinning, flexed my arms, sweat dripping from my headband. Respectable guns rose from my arms, biceps that should have taken months to build and tone.

I looked fucking powerful and I looked fucking good.

The run back home was slower, this time taking almost an hour and a half. By the time I was back, the Secret Powder had burned its way through me and I was spent, muscles aching, legs crying for me to sit down and rest. Maybe I had gone too far, at least with myself. I should cut back on eating Olivia's stuff, I thought.

I didn't notice the blue sedan in front of our apartment, but I did notice that Olivia's shirt was missing when I opened the door, and that the guy from the club last night was fumbling behind her back, trying to unhook her bra. Both of them started from the couch, a gasp escaping from Olivia's mouth while I stood in the door, amused. "God, sorry, Cam, I thought you'd be gone all day!"

Smirking, I went to the kitchen where I saw cookies and brownies and pancakes wrapped up and ready to be eaten. Avoiding them, I started making myself a sandwich—with bread bought from the store. "Don't mind me, kids," I said while they awkwardly fumbling on shirts behind me, "I'll just go to my room."

"Oh, uh, you don't have to do that," Olivia said, pulling her polo over herself.

"Yeah, I was just leaving," the guy said. But I was already in my room, shutting the door with a foot.

"Don't worry about it!" I said through the door, no longer hiding my ear-to-ear grin, the image of Olivia's jiggly tummy and swollen, fatty tits imprinted on my mind.

I would try to lay off of the powder, so I wouldn't have to go nuts at the gym. But my plan was working on Olivia. Let's see if loverboy out there stayed with her in the weeks to come, I thought.

***

"Cameron, please, I can't do any more," Karen whined from the mat, the medicine ball rolling from her fingers.

Snapping back to reality, I crossed my arms, taking brief pride in the ridges that formed in my forearms from the simple movement. "You've only done two dozen, Karen," I said. "Come on, another six."

"Are you serious?" she gaped at me, but must have seen something in my eyes, because she pulled the heavy ball back towards herself and managed another crossover twist, then another, grunting in pain every time. I almost felt bad; I suppose I had zoned out for a moment.

There were a lot of things on my mind, mostly things that were pissing me off. First of all, Olivia had been seeing that skinny boy from the club, Eric, for two weeks now, having annoying sex and makeout sessions almost every night, most of the time on my couch. Even though she was putting on the pounds, sometimes visibly every day, they still went at it, his hands roaming over the flab of her belly, her fat tits pushing into his chest, fingers slipping into the tight space between her ass cheeks and her shrinking jeans. What the fuck was wrong with them?

And then I had been cutting down on the powder which was majorly messing with my workouts. I was trying to keep up with the routine that I had been at for almost a month and it was such slow going. That 175lb bench press that I had been proud of a couple of weeks before was next to impossible, now; I could barely push up 120 without collapsing back onto the bench. I was maintaining my physique, and still eating a very small amount of Olivia's tainted goods, but the rush, the burn that I loved, it wasn't there.

It was an addiction and I knew it, and I had walked into this situation with the knowledge it could turn into that.

So yes, maybe my preoccupations were making me a bit harder on my clients. Then again, Karen was looking much more toned than before, almost all of the old-lady flab disappearing from her body, her remains of a pot belly disappearing. She'd never look as good as me, not without David's Secret Powder, but she had an admirable goal to work towards, and she still complimented my rock-hard body as she slumped to the showers.

Now if only I could get Olivia on that level. That would make the tiny pounding headache at the back of my skull worth it. It was my goal, wasn't it? To make Olivia realize how hard it was to keep fit?

Avoiding David's searching look as I left for home that night, I lamented how hard it was to work up to speed for the jog back. Maybe a little energy boost would be fine, I thought, before shaking my head. I was cutting down. It was the healthy, sane thing to do. I still had three of those jugs under my bed, true, but that was so I could keep feeding them to Olivia, one hidden scoop at a time. Did I need to increase her intake? Maybe that was the trick. Another jump up couldn't hurt. How would I pull it off, though? The flour bin was nearly entirely Secret Powder by now.

After dumping my bag in my room, giving a curt hello to the combined forms of Olivia and her beau on the couch, I showered quickly, trying not to fixate on my body much in the shower. It was weird, because at the gym I felt amazing about myself, especially compared to all of the other women there: I was fitter, harder, sexier than all of them. I noticed that other trainers, not just the annoying David, would come to me for tips more often than before, now. But here, in the privacy of my own apartment, with only slobby Olivia to compare to? I couldn't help but wonder how else I could improve. I'd think about those jugs in my room, and how my arms didn't REALLY look that big and muscular, and how great it felt when I had just eaten a stack of Powder pancakes, and how amazing my legs would look just a bit more ripped...

All of those thoughts disappeared as I came out of the shower, towel wrapped around my torso. Eric was gone and only Olivia stood in the living room, all of my handiwork on display in a bizarre outfit. Her outrageous tits, both nearly the size of her head, were clasped in something approaching a sports bra if it hadn't been so big, fat squeezing out from the armpits, her wide belly sagging a little over her waistband. The shorts she had squeezed her ass in refused to be pulled up over that stomach and also looked like they might split soon, the spandex barely holding on to her flabby cheeks. Cheesy thighs touched most of the way down to her knees, her kneecaps even showing the chub.

"Cam," she said, a blush spreading on her rounded face, "I know you just got back from work, but... would you mind doing me a huge favor?" Her hands were clutching her softened elbows underneath the cannonballs on her chest, I realized, and the body language almost made my heart melt.

"Uh," I said, momentarily confused at my own sudden empathy, "sure. Do you mind if I get dressed first?"

"Y-yeah," she said. "That's fine. Sorry."

"Not a problem," I mumbled, ducking into my room to throw on a sports bra and some stretchy shorts. When I realized that was almost exactly what Olivia was wearing, only in completely different sizes, I had to swallow a laugh. Was this really it? "I think I know what this is about," I said, emerging from my room with my grin carefully hidden. "Did Eric leave?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," she said, looking down at her feet. Or trying, at least; her tits were probably too big for that, though her belly probably wasn't.

"Because of your weight?"

The blush ran deeper. "N-no. He had to go to work. But I have, you know, put on a bit."

A laugh rose in my throat again and I carefully stopped it. "I mean, not too much," I said, putting an arm around her soft shoulder and walking Olivia to the couch. "I think you look great!"

"Oh stop," she said, and my heart leapt. "You know that we can't even compare. You look fantastic and I look dumpy." Well, sure, I thought. At last you admit it. "I just didn't mind, at first. My boobs getting so big, and I've always wanted big boobs. And my butt looked great. Eric says he loves how soft and squeezable I am. But..."

So that was the deal. Eric was a chubby-chaser. Just my luck, really—trying to teach my roommate that being fit is the way to happiness, and she finds a guy that loves porkers. "I'm just worried that it's getting to be too much. I can't seem to stop eating and getting bigger."

"Is Eric encouraging it?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. She shook her head, but I doubted that was true. How unbelievable! Growing fatter for him, it was almost disgusting.

"It just feels so good to eat. I don't know why, but as soon as I finish one thing I want to make another and another."

I coughed. "Well, I had noticed you were cooking quite a lot extra, but I was eating a lot of it!" I heard myself saying, unable to stop myself from trying to make her feel at least a little better. Eric had to have an upper limit, I thought. A size at which she wouldn't be desirable any more.

"I don't know," she said with a sad chuckle. "You've only gotten fitter the past few months, while I... I..." The laugh almost turned into a sob, and suddenly she was throwing her head into my chest, her huge tits smashing into my firm stomach, her chubby arms wrapped around my body. I was too shocked to push her face away from my boobs, probably the only soft part of me anymore. "I love it! I love being fat and it scares me! I want to stop, Cam!"

"Wait," I said, while visions of an Olivia too fat even for Eric faded from my brain. I got some leverage and pushed her off of me. "You love it?"

She sniffled and nodded. "I still love my big boobs," she said, getting a hand under them and hefting so that even in the straining halter they bounced. "And my belly is cute and soft and I love feeling it, and I love how my cheeks just get rounder and redder, and... and... and my ass is just so cushiony and plush and growing out of every pair of pants and cute skirt that I own and I love it! I don't want it to stop, but I do!"

"You seriously do?" I asked, involuntarily licking my lips. I had won, I thought, for a brief moment, before another thought crept in: had I? She didn't actually loath her lack of physical fitness, she wanted to be less fit! She had tasted the chub and wanted more of it!

"Please, Cam," she said, tears welling up above her chubby cheeks. "Help me lose it all, before I go crazy! Or at least fifty pounds or something."

"Fifty pounds?" I repeated automatically, plans already forming in my head. "How much are you now?"

She blushed. "Around 250."

Jesus! She had put on over 100 pounds since I had started my Secret Powder plan? And she liked it!

Well, I could do better.

"And you want to start right now?"

"If you don't mind," she said. "I know you just got back from work and this is what you do all day, but I figure I could start with something light, and you like this kind of stuff anyway, right?"

My brain clicked at a mile a minute. "Then let's get started!" I said, falsely chipper while some part inside of me cackled. I pushed myself up from the couch, then pulled her with me, grunting with effort. She was fat, wasn't she? But not truly fat. Not yet.

I almost skipped to my bedroom before I came back out with the key to my upcoming success. Pulling out a jug of milk and a few fruits and things, I started dumping ingredients, including David's cousin's powder, into the blender. "What's this?" Olivia asked after I had spun it all into a thick liquid concoction.

"You're going to need energy for the kind of high-burn workout that I have in mind," I said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "We'll need a good protein shake in you before we get going."

"Really?"

"Really really. This is the kind of thing that our really big clients, and I mean that both literally and metaphorically, go for."

"Cool!"

I poured the pinkish-brown smoothie into a big glass and pushed it toward Olivia. "Drink up!"

She eyed it suspiciously. "I don't want to throw up after drinking what looks like throw up," she said. A thrill went through my chest as I pulled the half-full blender jar off of the base and tipped the contents down my throat.

Oh, god. That was good. I couldn't taste the Secret Powder in it, but I swore I could feel it shooting out from my stomach and filling my limbs with energy and light.

Following my example, Olivia first tasted and then guzzled down her glass, before slamming it back onto the counter. "I was wrong, that was really good! That may be my favorite part."

I grinned a milky grin at her. "Hopefully," I thought.

For the next twenty minutes I led Olivia through the lamest, most low-intensity workout I could think of. The goal was to prevent her from exercising to the point that the powder would start to turn her fat into muscle—that was the opposite effect of what I wanted. Instead we did very simple things like air squats, step-ups on a workout platform I had, then alternating front-kicks. I prayed it wouldn't be enough for her to start to cut. I dreamed that it would only wear her out.

Like I said, twenty minutes. By then she was soaked in sweat, nearly crying from exhaustion, and begging me to let her stop. Unlike with Karen earlier that day, I gave in. Thanking me, Olivia flopped back onto the couch, her huge tits bouncing, sweat rolling down her cheeks from her tied-up hair. "I feel like we've been at this for hours," she said. I held back a smile and shook my head.

"Same plan tomorrow after work?" I asked, at which Olivia took a deep breath. "Maybe the day after," I corrected myself, this time letting the grin creep across my lips as she nodded. "Then I'm going to go to bed," I said. "You wore me out, kiddo!"

The bedroom door shut and I was on the floor doing pushup after pushup, my muscles jittering in the energy bouncing around inside of me. After a hundred pushups with side planks in between, I did another hundred sit-ups, then sat on my bed for some hanging crunches. Then I was reaching under my bed, grasping for the Powder jugs, holding onto the handles as I pumped them as makeshift dumbbells. An hour after saying I was going to bed I forced myself under the covers, still feeling wide awake, worrying about what the Secret Powder would do to me if I didn't expend all of the energy. I had to get some of my own equipment, or work something else out.

My hand was on my cellphone, fingers typing a message, before I realized what I was thinking.

Olivia was passed out on the couch with a lame sitcom on the TV when I crept past. She had a plate of crumbs balanced on her stomach, a single bite remaining of the half-dozen brownies that used to occupy it. The sight of her breasts trying to push the dish off of her tummy made me almost laugh out loud. "Rewarding yourself after a hard workout?" I chuckled to myself. Perfect.

I got to the gym in record time, my legs burning, not from exertion, but from a need to keep at it. The lights were all out and the sun was set, but I managed to get to the back door just as David was shutting it.

"You got my message," I said, the sentence coming out in a low purr. He froze and turned around, his meathead eyes raking over my toned, hard body.

"Jesus, Cam," he said. "You look fucking fantastic."

"Mmm," I said, pushing him back through the door into the gym, flipping on a light. "Tell me more." I looked in one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and watched us advance through the gym, past benches and lockers and treadmills, me looking up at my poor blond prey but him still stepping backward. I watched as my hand lifted up, bicep rising with the flex, and pulled his head down to mine as I pushed my tongue into his mouth.

When he pulled away, my teeth gently tugging at his lower lip, David gasped for breath. "You look," he said, bumping down onto a mat while I pulled his shirt over his head, "amazing. So hard and fit."

"More," I grinned, unzipping my sports bra, letting my firm and round tits lightly fall onto my hardened pecs.

He grimaced as I ground into his crotch, feeling his erect member against my moistening lips, even through both of our compression shorts. "You're so fucking sexy," he said, hands held tight to my sweaty and hard abdomen, for which I rewarded him with another long and steamy kiss. "I get so hard seeing you lift, just at work."

I winked at him. "Naughty, thinking that way about a coworker."

"I can't help it," he said, trying to push my shorts down. I slapped his hand away, instead preferring to writhe for a bit on top of him, pushing him into the floor. "It's so hot, how much you've changed in the past month. How into your workouts you've gotten. I wish I could bulk up so easily."

"Hmm," I said, drawing my tongue along the inside of his cheek, "maybe you could. I suspect your cousin's powder helped me at least a little." I slipped down his body and pulled his shorts and boxers down, letting his erect dick spring into the air-conditioned open. I licked up its beet-red length, then slipped my lips over it, taking him into my mouth, feeling his groans shudder through his body. I was hornier than I had ever been, or the Powder was still pumping through me, or maybe I wasn't able to tell the difference. But when I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror and saw me kneeling on the floor, hard, toned, muscular, almost-perfect me, my lips wrapped around David's dick, everything suddenly felt slightly wrong.

I popped him out of my mouth, slipped my shorts off, and lowered myself onto his waiting, spit-slick dick.

Flexing my muscles, inside and out, David and I rode together for as long as I could get him to last, praise for my deliciously fit body pouring from his mouth as I felt my legs and hip muscles work. When his pace quickened, his dick growing even straighter inside of me, I slipped to the side, grabbed him around the waist, and bodily lifted him on top of me, feeling my arms work and burn as I managed to ride David from below.

"Touch me," I moaned. "Feel my arms, my waist. Tell me how good I feel."

He obliged with every command, his athletic body able to deal with anything I wanted him to do as we worked out as many muscles as possible while fucking.

"Grab my tits. Tell me how perfect they are." Jerkily, he did, his hands squeezing the soft flesh, sending pleasure signals through my chest. "Tell me I'm a goddess."

He grunted and gritted his teeth as he came, my working vaginal muscles massaging the seed from him. "You're a beautiful, powerful goddess."

We went for round two.

When finally we parted and I counted my orgasms and his, I realized my energy was almost completely spent. "That was good, David," I gasped, feeling my chest muscles tighten and release, rolling my eyes up when the burn in my abs would reach a crescendo. "That was insanely good. I, uh, think we need to replace that mat with a fresh one, though."

***

The next day, and the next few that followed, I was back to the new, improving me. A quick shake of Secret Powder in the morning, with supplementary baked goods courtesy of Olivia throughout the day, meant that I was almost never not feeling amazing. After several workouts, and harder training sessions with my clients than ever, I would return home, have a comically light workout with Olivia while she guzzled more shake, and then retire to my bedroom where I'd silently and secretly work out until well past midnight. David, the eager-to-please dog he now was, supplied me with surplus workout equipment from the gym, meaning every night and some mornings I'd be pumping and flexing and building myself to be even better, stronger, harder.

And bigger.

It was impossible to deny that, less than a week after being off of the wagon, I was genuinely starting to bulk. No longer was I slimming down and cutting muscles: now they were swelling, bulging up, making my clothes tighter and those cut lines even deeper. Nothing crazy, by far. Just more built, more muscular, more sexy. I first noticed as I was shaving my legs, two days after that first freak-out fuckfest with David on the Platinum floor. Pulling my razor along my calves, I actually had a little trouble getting it into the cut valleys of the muscles, the routine I'd been doing for some ten years suddenly wrong for the actual layout of my body.

It should have scared me, but instead I felt a thrill through my naked body. I was hardly even flexing and my musculature was defined enough to be hard to shave.

The rest of my body was responding in same to the influx of whatever formula Secret Powder contained. My complete body workouts, combined with some of the most intense lovemaking the world had ever seen in the dark closets and corners of the gym, was making every muscle group compete to become the fittest. My abs were more than just a washboard but were plumping up to form deep crevices down my stomach. Biceps and triceps were past the "girl with muscles" stage and were ready for comparisons with any male in professional sports, while my shoulders were building to match. My thighs and hips, even, were once again starting to stretch my shorts and pants apart, squats working my quads, my daily runs working my tensor muscles, making my silhouette curvy and feminine in a way a lot of female bodybuilders missed.

And that was what I looked like. A bodybuilder. I supposed I was, too, if not for the one difference: not only were my muscles building up and out, but my tits were ballooning.

I noticed almost immediately, maybe a day after starting my new regiment, as I pulled a t-shirt on over my straining bra and realized I had to stop at my boobs. At first I panicked, worried that I wasn't working out enough and all of the Powder was turning to fat. Could I increase my exercise? Run back and forth to the gym twice?

But then I looked at myself, saw that I was as cut as ever, if not more so. It was just that my tits sat a little higher, pushed out a little further, delicious brown nipples poking a little more proudly out. Holy shit. I was bigger.

And they only got larger, bouncier, firmer as the rest of me got larger, harder, and firmer. The 36 C that I had been rocking soon had to be replaced by a 38 C, then a 38 D, and even that was tight in less than a week, both band and cup. The sports bras that I was almost living in could last for longer than typical lingerie, but the double fronts I was attacking from had to have been too much.

David, being an idiot man, loved it.

"God, I thought they were perfect before," he said one night as we rested in a huge pool of sweat. I love having sex on the floor at Plat, watching as the muscular brown goddess rode and tamed the sweating white boy with a few muscles of his own, lifting and pushing him around for my pleasure. From the mirrors I could see the clear distinction in my bust in the relatively short time, going from small handfuls to quivering bowlfuls, perched on top of my strong, platelike pecs. "Is it from that protein powder?" David asked. There was concern in his voice, for some reason, but I brushed it off.

"Maybe," I said. "You've been taking it, right?" I could tell: he was getting a little more aggressive in our lovemaking sessions, pushing back a bit more, showing a little more strength in his arms, his chest. I could see maybe a little change here or there, going from the fit, athletic, soccer player build to maybe a wannabe quarterback. He nodded.

"Not very much. I'm worried about not being able to work out as much as you're supposed to." He bit his lip. "Besides," he said, "my cousin, uh, warned me."

Warned him? This was the first time I heard about it. "Warned you about what."

"Just, you know. Unexpected results."

"And you just gave me it? What, to try to impress me?" I cocked an eyebrow.

David just tapped his fingers together nervously. "Maybe. Are you mad at me?"

I laughed. "Not particularly. I love the results," I said, lifting a hand and flexing, watching the bicep push out against my skin, forming a neatly tapered cannonball. "You want to know how I get them?"

"Sure!" So eager, like a puppy.

"I don't work out after every shake," I lied. "I do maybe one shake in the morning, then another at night before I go to bed."

His eyebrows rose into his hairline. "And you don't have any weight problems? Well, I mean," he verbally backspaced, "I can see that you don't. But still, my cousin said—"

"Fine," I said, looking back at the mirror, admiring the creased muscles in my back. "Don't believe me."

"No, no, I believe you," he said. "I'm going to try that."

I laughed to myself, wondering what the effect would be, knowing it would be interesting to find out.

After all, my main experiment was, for the most part, a rousing success.

With her near-daily extra intake of a protein shake, Olivia was packing pounds on like I hadn't imagined. Her workout outfit was soon tossed in the trash, replaced with loose cotton shorts and a top that was again soon straining (and staining). After a week of our workouts she gasped that she had to stop and start smaller, but still continued to make shakes. It was two weeks after we started this schedule that she asked me to go clothing shopping with her, something I agreed that I needed to do somewhat desperately.

If my body had taken me by surprise to become harder, stronger, and sexier, hers had jumped off of the cliff to be fatter, rounder, and softer. Her portly, but small, belly became a round and pale spare tire, supporting the lower half of her globular, sagging boobs. She even was starting to form that two-tiered belly thing some women have, stuffed almost always with cakes and sweets and calories as she was. Her thighs were expansive ham hocks, her ass a spreading, consuming glob that rose more every day and shook more with every step. When we went out to the mall to stock up on clothing, the only thing that really fit her on the way out was a somewhat shapeless dress, pink with white polka-dots, that did almost nothing to hide the fact that her broad shape was at least twice as wide as she had ever been, and weighed more than twice as much at nearly 320 lbs.

"I just, you know," she said, her round face turning a familiar shade of red, "need something to wear to work, and maybe around the apartment. I know that we're all girls there, but sometimes I feel a little embarrassed."

"Oh, don't be," I said, patting her on a rounded shoulder. After all, I failed to add, I love being able to watch my progress at work. See you get bigger and rounder and flabbier. "Unless, that is... trouble with Eric?"

"No," she said, turning a deeper shade of red. "He loves it. Is really careful that I'm not doing it on purpose just to make him happy." She turned pleading eyes up to mine. "But I'm not! You know that, right? I'm making a real effort to lose it!"

Hardly, I scoffed, but I just gave her another pat. "I know you are."

Olivia needed new everything: new bras and panties, new tops, new bottoms, and to my surprise I needed almost all of the same. To fit my widening back and rising tits I needed to start getting sports bras from the "full-figured" section of the store, where I laughed at the chubbos who were clearly there to try to make themselves feel better. "Look at me," I wanted to shout at one woman pulling two kids, covered in stretch marks around her bare belly. "You'll never look like this." Instead I smirked and picked out a few stretchy ones with mesh fabric that guaranteed they could fit multiple sizes, then got a good selection of shorts, tank tops, and one pair of expensive yoga pants.

My hip size had gone up two inches, stretching my lululemon pants to the max. It made me look fantastic, and I forced my way into them every few nights just to see if my burgeoning legs would burst out on their own, but it wouldn't do out in public.

So instead I wore my new, slightly-more-pricey-than-necessary yoga pants, dark red, out of the store, loving the way the wind blew through my hair, how it caressed the muscles in my arms, how my legs stood out in the stretchy fabric of my pant legs.

I found my roommate wearing a new camisole, one that would be loose on anyone else, clutching bags and bags of clothes. What seemed like a foot of soft, white cleavage pushed its way up towards her chin, while her stomach bounced and jiggled down below, pulling down the waist of the new skirt she was squeezed into.

"Uh, buy enough things?" I asked as I swung my lone bag of goodies. Olivia blushed, but then straightened her back, flipping her blond ponytail over her padded shoulder.

"I have decided that this is it. I'm not gaining any more weight. And the best way to convince myself..." she trailed off as we passed an ice cream place, her little piggy eyes staring.

"Is to buy too many clothes?" I asked, hiding my glee. She shook her head, then smiled.

"Right! I'm not buying any more, after this! So the only way to go is down, see?"

I laughed, but did note, with concern, that she avoided the ice cream parlor. She even turned down my offer of a protein shake when we got back, mumbling about how she didn't think it would help her at all until she started working out again.

Instead she chopped up some zucchini and raisins, then pulled down my tainted flour bin to make some sort of low-fat cookies.

Well, I thought to myself, even if you're using Secret Powder flour, I need to step up my game. The protein shakes worked for a while, but I needed something else.

That night I raided the kitchen, as Olivia slept in her room, overworked from baking and then eating the entire two batches of healthy cookies. Anything that could surreptitiously have white powder added, I slipped the Secret Powder into. Baking soda, sugar, salt. I stirred a half-cup into the milk carton and shook it up, sprinkled a bunch onto the wheat-germ covered rice crackers, and, after a moment's hesitation, reached for the stool so I could step up to the flour bin again.

The strange thing was that once I had stepped onto the stool I found I was almost too high, needing to bend my neck down a little so I didn't bump against the ceiling.

Holy shit, was I getting taller, too?

One thing at a time, Cameron. Opening the flour bin, I tasted it with a finger and realized I couldn't tell if it was flour or Powder. Were my taste buds dying from overstimulation, or was it that similar? Either way, I could be sure Olivia couldn't tell the difference, neither. Not caring any more about how sneaky I was, I topped off the flour bin with 100% Secret Powder, stirred it up, and put it back.

I realized, as I tucked the empty jugs back under my bed to sit with their three brothers, that I was slick with excitement and arousal at my secret movements. God, was I really turned on by the idea of Olivia getting fatter? Just thinking the sentence sent a thrill down my spine, and I pictured my roommate getting rounder, thicker, of her boobs overflowing her tiny t-shirts, her steps turning into heavy waddles, her belly flopping against her chubby knees...

My arms were burning and I realized that I was unconsciously flexing my fists left and right, stretching my sleeping t-shirt to the maximum as my pecs pushed my F-cup tits out.

I stood against the door frame and marked at the top of my head with a pen, then got out a tape measure and let it fall to the floor. "5ft 7in" it read, and I gaped. Three inches? Since when? Had I been getting taller all this time? After all, I definitely needed that step stool just a couple of months ago, when this whole thing began.

I probably should have freaked out. People don't just get taller. But then again, people don't just pack on muscle like they're a juicing entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition. They don't find out that they have unending energy to lift weights and run for miles.

Instead I just wondered if I should have been shopping in the Tall section, to plan for later. Then I rubbed my thumbs over my sensitive, rock-hard nipples and fell heavily back onto my bed, trying to block my imagination from picturing the soft mattress as some other soft, warm surface.

***

"Okay, now on your foot, push your hands out like Superman. Keep your back leg lifted, parallel with your body. This is Warrior Three."

The entire room of women groaned and did their best to follow my perfect instruction and form.

"Now, let your leg fall, feet shoulder-width apart with your upper body stiff, and let's transition back to Wheel." I gently lowered my upper body backward, bending my knees, and touched my hands against the mat, loving how my deltoids brushed against my ears in this position. Out of the corner of my eye I saw half of a dozen women fall over, then right themselves, panting.

I grinned and counted to thirty. "Now let's ease down to Child's Pose," I said, heard the sighs of relief, then continued, "and plant our hands on the ground, lift our legs, and meditate in Shoulder-Press Pose." My arms locked and perfectly stable, I looked around the room to see if anyone was able to mimic me. One woman was faking it, her feet touching the ground in front of her for stability, and one was keeping her feet off the ground but only because her fat ass was parked on her mat; the rest had collapsed, taking advantage of the mandatory "if you feel faint, stop working out" rule.

Only Karen, mother of three, growing protégé to fitness guru Cameron Mannan, was able to keep her arms locked between her bent knees, her feet and tush off of the ground, her ankles crossed, her spine bent until her face was in her shins. She had sinewy, firm arms, a far cry from the soft, post-partum chub she had shown a year ago.

I heard a tap on the glass and glanced over to see David there. David, one of my other many experiments. In the week since I had first suggested his new protein powder routine, he'd shown great progress.

Unfolding myself, I stepped lightly back onto the mat, brought my hands together in front of me, and bowed deeply. Mumbling amongst themselves, my class echoed my motion, sweat dripping from their faces. I grabbed a towel, brushing the light sheen from my skin but only making the corded muscles stand out more, and stepped outside.

"Hey, Dave," I growled, anxious to get his shirt off of him, to check out the changes in detail. He swallowed and a blush rose up his thickened neck. I could see that he had packed on a bit of weight in addition to a fair bit of muscle, but he was always hiding it from me lately, wrapped up in t-shirts and things. It drove me wild.

He stammered. "Uh, hey, Cam. How was your yoga class?"

I looked over my shoulder and a naughty smile touched the corner of my lips. "I think I'll shape them up in a few sessions. They can't really keep up. But then again," I said, giving my most obvious stretch so that he could take in the bulging row of abs hidden under my loose tank top, the chiseled ass in my stretching boogie shorts, "not everyone can be me."

He blushed again and rubbed a hand on his neck. "That's sort of what I need to talk to you about. There've been a couple of complaints, I guess?"

I scoffed. "That my workout is too awesome for these weaklings?"

"Well, sort of. And some of them worry about you, I guess." He took my by the arm and I let him lead me to a quieter corner, away from the bustle of the gym. "Some of them think you're on steroids."

A laugh found its way out of my throat. "Really? That's hilarious!" At the look on his face, though, my heart nearly stopped. "I'm... I'm not, am I?"

"Uh..."

"David. I'm NOT on steroids. RIGHT?"

"No, no, no, nothing like that. Or I wouldn't be using the Powder, right? We could lose our jobs."

"Damn straight," I growled, already wondering how I could hide away more of the Powder, how I could keep it more secret in case I was raided somehow.

"It's just, like I told you, none of the stuff has been okayed by the FDA. So there is a chance we could get in trouble by someone, and we can't exactly tell everyone how you've managed to bulk up so much."

"Just me?" I asked, unable to keep the desire out of my voice. I ran a finger down his arm muscle, enjoying the perfect lines of my triceps against the backdrop of his swollen arms.

"Well," he said, "only a little. But look, Olivia, maybe you should back down on it. You're already damn near perfect. If you get bigger there may be official problems."

"What, from the owners?" I scoffed; I didn’t even know what the owner looked like. "They don't care. I haven't even seen them since I was hired."

"Right, but," he tapped his fingertips together nervously, "I don't know. I just think you should stop."

Hot rage burned through me in an instant. "And you? Are you going to?"

"Huh?" he said, taken aback. "That would be, well, normal, for me to look like you."

"So this is a thing about girls," I said, my face a fiery sun. "You don't like me being stronger than you." Every muscle in my body was clenching, and I felt like a turkey puffing up against a predator. Glaring into David's eyes, I realized that we were almost the exact same height.

"Uh," he quelled, "no, nothing like that, really. You're... you're a..." he gulped, then whispered: "a goddess."

"Damn straight," I said, then stomped away, distantly hearing a barbell clank with my angry footsteps. "I'm not stopping!" I called back, then turned to see my yoga class staring. All of them looked disappointed but Karen, who clapped her hands.

"Oh, thank goodness!" she said. "This is my favorite class!"

As I drank my protein shake for lunch, waiting for the sweet warmth of the Secret Powder to flow into my extremities, signaling time to pump and pull and grow, I vowed to let David have his own sex workouts for a while, attractively bulked body or not.

That night I found the only problem with this: my sexual frustration shot through the roof, and, with David off of the plate, I only had Olivia to focus on.

She was keeping with her dumb diet pretty well, with the only hitch in it being that virtually everything in the house was tainted, a problem that she complained of at least three times a day. "How am I still gaining weight?" she whined while biting into a slice of banana bread with more Powder in it than one of her old scones.

"It's only been a week," I reminded her, trying not to lick my lips. I don't know what caused my disgust and dislike of her slovenly, shapeless body to turn into a bizarre infatuation. Maybe it had always been that way and I just hadn't noticed, or maybe it was the way she was moving it now, running her hands over her fat tits, shaking her ass with each step. She hadn't put on much since the diet had started, maybe only twenty pounds. Then again, twenty pounds in a week would be mind-boggling for anyone not using my special ingredient.

Pinching her stuffed belly with both hands, sending whirlwinds through my brain, she sighed. "I know, but..." A blush ran across her nose, and, stuffing the banana bread into her mouth, she flopped onto the couch, away from me.

Relieved, I retreated to my room, where I pounded away at the weight set until the late hours of the night, my muscles burning, trying not to imagine me lifting my fat roommate over my head with every bench press, pushing her flabby stomach away with every leg extension. God, what was it about her?

The next morning, after fitful sleep, I woke up to find that I was fingering myself. Jesus, Cam. You've gone without a dicking for way longer than a couple of days before. Was it the half-breakup with David that did you?

Anxious to get my workouts started, I emerged from my room to find Olivia on the couch, surrounded by wrappers and sweets and a jar with the remains of one of my workout shakes in it.

"Holy shit. Olivia!"

Her eyes blinked, then a chubby hand wiped across her slimy lips. "Oh! Cameron. Uh." She froze, eyes locked with mine. Then tears ran down her face. "I... I don't..." Her face wound up. "It was so nice!"

Once again I found myself comforting her, telling her to let it out. In the back of my mind some super villain Cam was anxious for details, for new ways to slip more fat into Olivia's cheeks, but the rest of me was paying close attention out of real concern. "I think," she hiccupped, "I think I'm destined to be fat."

"Oh, don't say that," I said in a soothing voice, while the evil me danced with glee. Olivia just shook her head, and, to my surprise, gave me a smile.

"No, I mean, I'm okay with it. Remember? I told you that I liked it."

"Okay," I said, vividly remembering her secret admittance, just a few weeks before. "So what does that mean?"

"I think," she said, breathing deeply, "I think it means I'll just do what I want. I'll bake and eat and if I'm going to grow fatter, I will." Her eyes caught mine and her face fell. "You're disappointed."

Disappointed? I wanted to throw a party. This was right. This was right for her and right for me. Instead I affected a concerned look. "Aren't you worried about your health? About Eric?"

She laughed. "Eric loves it. And I went to the doctor just yesterday, she said I was in amazing health. Although, you know," the blush returned, "she told me to lose weight. But not for cholesterol or blood pressure reasons! Just because she said something bad was bound to happen. She was actually sort of surprised."

"Weird," I said, having to join in on her giggling. "Well, I don't know what else to say, then," I said, hugging her tightly, thrilling at her softness pressing into the firmness of my arms. "Do it! Follow your dream!" We laughed at the cheesiness.

The evil me inside wiped a tear of joy from her face. Oh god, it was going to be a great next few months.

Olivia turned into an eating machine. Every morning she packed an entire picnic basket of food to bring to the office, which she apparently put away before lunchtime almost every day, requiring a trip to fast food or the grocery store to keep her going. In no time at all she was back to growing out of her constricting clothes, her stuffed belly always out on display, her sloppy tits threatening to spill out of any neckline. Just a few days after her new "diet" began she admitted to me, halfway between embarrassed and proud, that they were getting her a new desk chair at the vet's office, since her ass wouldn't fit between the arms of a normal one.

I found myself thinking about that ass more and more as I excused myself to the bathroom or snuck into the locker room to jill off. Confused and a little disgusted at myself, at my newfound obsession, I'd throw myself back into the exercise machines, pumping as much iron as possible between classes and private sessions.

With my new intake of Secret Powder, I was putting on more gains than ever before, stacking more plates onto my barbells than I'd have thought possible. Bodybuilders who had been coming to Platinum for years, their oiled muscles and stupid popped collars attracting the ditziest and blondest, would gape in awe as I walked past them to the squat rack and racked up 500 pounds. Then 600 pounds. I was bigger than the biggest regular at the gym, lifting over a hundred more than was regulated for safety. My entire wardrobe was spandex and lycra, all sports bras and stretchy shorts, fighting to contain biceps that were swelling footballs, lats that were ripped buttresses, tits bigger than my head that perched on pecs like rounded kettles.

Every day I looked in the mirror and saw only more things I liked, or at least the parts I could see in a normal-width mirror. Sometimes I remembered how I had been scared of getting too big, so muscular as to be gross. How could I imagine this being gross? My abs were like rows of softballs, and as I ran a finger down them I shivered in delight. The delicate way that my elbows peaked mountains of muscle if I put my hands behind my head, that was cute. And the parts that weren't delicate, like how my arms were both over 30 inches in circumference, or how my calves were bigger, and more cut, than my old thighs, those parts were just awe-inspiringly sexy.

Anyone would find the sight of me erotic.

I could tell it was driving David insane, as we'd catch glimpses of each other at the gym. He was putting it on, too, the hypocrite: packing on muscle and rounding it out with cushioning fat, he was looking less like a quarterback and more like a linebacker every day. What had once been lightly washboarded abs were now turning into a muscular belly, and his arms were thickening with healthy, delicious meat. But one look at me, at the slowly hardening, perfecting me, and he'd scatter like a big dumb dog.

I wondered if he was getting taller, too. I was nearing six feet after a couple weeks of the new routine, doors getting shorter as well as narrower. In fact, it seemed like everything was getting smaller. One day I was washing my hair at the apartment when I bumped my head against the shower spigot. "Shit," I said as I recoiled in pain and reached up to rub the spot. This action alone counted as flexing enough to make my triceps bulge out and push against the slick shower wall. "Fuck me," but this time I was a little more pleased than hurt.

That day, two more weeks after Olivia gave in to her desires, I was anxious to start my workout, and went to blend up my first shake of the day. When I pulled the jar of Powder out from the cabinet, it was nearly empty. So were the ones in my room, secreted away under my bed.

"Olivia?" I called, hearing her large form moving around behind her door. "Did you finish off the protein powder?" She had fallen in love with the shakes, and sometimes drank one as a dessert.

There was some mumbling from her room, and I felt anger start to rise in me. Shit! How was I going to get more. "Olivia?" I called, a little more desperately.

"Sorry," came the mumbled reply. I couldn't take it any more and tried the door. I wouldn't have gone in if it were locked; I was mad, and kind of guilty of tricking my roommate into putting on hundreds of pounds, but I wasn't a dick.

Turns out, cheap door locks didn't mean much to me, anymore. With a sprang and a crunch, I forced the door open and nearly fell into Olivia's room in shock, my steps making loud booming noises as I stumbled.

Olivia cried out from her place standing in front of her wall mirror and I realized she was mostly naked, the remains of a burst-open shirt still valiantly covering her back and neck.

My enormous roommate had been getting more casual with how much skin she showed around the apartment in the past month or so. It would be impossible for her not to, really, unless she started wearing shapeless smocks and muumuus. However, we weren't the kind of roomies that walked around topless, and this was the first time I had seen her boobs in all of their fat, globular glory.

They perched like two huge chickens on top of her enormous and round stomach, both of them far less saggy than I had imagined, nearly perfectly rounded oval-shaped globes. Her nipples, which she was attempting to cover with her flabby hands, were bright pink, and as thick as one of her chubby little thumbs. My mouth filled with saliva in an instant. My boobs were getting ridiculously large, it was true, and I loved them more every day, but they didn't hold a candle to Olivia's fat-packed breasts, which were trying to overtake her gigantic belly and almost were.

"Um," Olivia said, the blush continuing down her neck and into her cleavage. Cleavage that went for miles, it seems. "I'm, I'm sorry."

"No!" I said, realizing what was going on. I reached for the doorknob and it came out of the door in my hand. "No," I said, feeling myself blushing. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just..." Sticking a finger in the hole where the knob used to be, I pulled the door closed. "Just let me know when it runs out!" I backed away into the living room, trying to ignore the warmth in my workout shorts, the fact that my own nipples were trying to cut through the layers of elastic and mesh in my extra-support sports bra. "I'll have to get more."

I thought of David.

"Shit. If I thought that this was awkward..."

***

I always caught everyone's attention at the gym now; I guess it's hard to ignore the six-foot, three-hundred pound goddess who could crush you like a tin can. But today I was trying extra-hard, if I wanted to re-seduce David, to get back onto his good side.

I had picked out the least functional bra in my library of sports bras, a halter with a criss-cross design that gave me at least six inches of cleavage. It was small, but I felt that almost improved the effect, forcing my puppies, both nearing the size of pumpkins, up and out while hugging the muscles of my back. If I ever bought another one, it'd probably have to be custom-ordered to fit my rib size. My muscular ass was nearly popping out of the tie-side shorts I had pulled up my diamond-cut hips, the stretchy material pulled even tighter once I had them laced.

David's eyes honed in on me like marbles in a funnel. "Hey, Dave," I said, and he took a step back, completely ignoring the college kid he was giving tips. David's thickened neck turned red in embarrassment, his veiny hands clenching and unclenching. "Can I talk to you for a sec?" I used my sweetest voice, knowing that it would be bizarre and conflicting with my muscle-goddess appearance.

"I'm, uh, helping this kid out," David stammered.

"I think I got it, man," the kid said, not looking up. If he did he'd probably drop the 40lb barbell from his skinny little arms.

I licked my lips. "Sounds like you're free. Can we talk somewhere private?" The word "private" got a physical reaction from David's meaty form, his swollen pecs bulging from his shirt with each panicked breath, and I realized that there was a firming mound forming in his gym shorts. I almost felt my eyes sparkle and I reflexively flexed my cooch muscles. When David's eyes nearly popped from his skull I realized that maybe my shorts were a little TOO tight.

But I didn't care.

In a haze we were in an empty office, David's new one, apparently, with the shades drawn and a fan turned on. "I need more Powder, David," I saw as our lips parted, licking the taste of his from mine. "I ran out."

"No, no way," he gasped. I loved the way his hands were tightly locked on my rock-hard waist, and I loved even more how they were clenched on my obliques like they were handles. "That was a year's supply!"

I shrugged and felt my traps brush my jaw. "My roommate is using some, too. Besides, you can't deny the results."

"No," he said, kissing his way up my stomach, one kiss to each abdominal, while his hands opened my sports bra. My tits hardly dropped a centimeter with it free. "I can't."

"You look amazing, too," I said, running my hand over his chest. He wasn't cut like me, but he still bulged with an insane amount of muscle. "Like a competitor in World's Strongest Man."

"You think?" he asked before I shoved him back onto the desk and ground my crotch into his. God, I needed this. "I've been following your suggestion, but, uh, I feel like I'm a little fat."

I smiled slyly, moving towards his shorts. "Maybe, but I think I like HOLY shit."

The weeks of our earlier tumultuous romance had made me intimately familiar with David's cock: every vein, every ridge, every curve. This was not David's cock. The thing that rose up before me like a throbbing red monster was from someone else, some cartoony porn. It was as thick as my—well, as thick as a wrist, and capped with a purple head that flared out almost like a cobra. Streams of precum poured down from the tip, running along the veins that roped it.

Somewhere in me I knew that, before all of this Secret Powder madness had started, something like this would have made me scream in horror, to run away or maybe attack in self-defense. But now I just saw that and was hungry for it, the taste of it burning on my tongue, the engorged head filling my cheeks.

"It's been... growing..." David gasped as I gently squeezed on his plum-sized balls, pressed the cockhead to the roof of my mouth with my tongue. "A little every day. Every protein shake."

"I love it," I said, pulling my mouth off so I could squeeze the monster dick between my two giant tits and marvel that the head still emerged, like a drooling fist. How long? At least a foot.

David's hips started bucking and I clamped my mouth back over his member, feeling the hot seed shoot into my throat like from a water gun. Mouth still salivating, still needing him, I swallowed it down until I felt like I had drunk an entire shake. Then I pulled the cock from my mouth with a pop, wondering if my jaw muscles would start to tone and build if I did that every day.

My man-whore's meaty, hairy chest heaved, and he ran a hand up the still-hard member. "It takes two before it goes down, most times," he said, and so I pulled him off of the desk and onto the floor, stripping my tie-shorts off, not questioning that I'd be able to slip over his insane girth without a problem.

It actually took three. And when it was done, David promised to talk to his cousin again.

***

With our source of Secret Powder taken care of, Olivia, David and I fell into a sort of routine. For me it mostly consisted of working out and sucking down protein shake, hardly touching the baked goods that Olivia still produced from our kitchen daily. That was actually what she spent almost all of her time doing, when she wasn't at work: cooking, eating, cooking some more while eating. David, on his workout days, would gulp his down with me, then we'd ride each other to as many climaxes as we could while the high of the Powder rode through us.

It was never mundane, but the days began to blur together.

It's funny how the human brain can get used to almost anything, isn't it? My brain hadn't just gotten used to controlling hundreds of pounds of muscle, but it was now accepting that the mass was only going to increase at an almost daily basis. When I woke up, heaved myself off of my straining bed, and found that I couldn't turn my head all the way without my face getting buried in traps, I adjusted almost instantly. How different was it from when my elbows could no longer bend further than 90 degrees without my biceps swelling into the way, or when my pecs and tits pushed out so far that I could hardly see my feet? Hell, that had been weeks before, and I had gotten over that immediately, resorting to mirrors to check out all of my lower-body progress.

Wake up. Pump a few sets with my new barbells, graciously donated by David. Drink a shake while observing Olivia's sleepy eating habits. Go to Plat, ignore and revel in the looks of awe, teach a class or a student, fuck David two or three or four times. Drink another shake, do another few sets, go home, smirk at Olivia some more, drink a shake, do a set or two, collapse into my increasingly-protesting bed...

Every day my body pulsed with energy, with growth, with increasing perfection. Bulk after bulk, pound after pound, I became better. My bank account was draining slightly, what from buying new clothes every weekend, but I didn't care. I wanted more.

I worked out constantly, even during my personal training sessions. I had as much Powder as I could want, so I drank the shakes as much as my trainees sucked down water. At one point Karen asked if she could give it a try, and I let her gulp a mouthful or two. To my lack of surprise she had a lot of extra energy that day, and I started mixing up an extra bottle for her to bring during our workouts, seeing results in her slimming waistline within just a few sessions. It was no wonder: that Powder was a miracle-worker. I couldn't let it stop.

I refilled Powder into our pantry every few nights. A sprinkle here, a touch here, a topping off of the milk and the flour bin. The stool was long forgotten, as I could just reach up to open the cabinet, and every time I put more flour in I could tell that the bin was nearer and nearer to eye-level. At work I had measured my height and was well over six feet tall. In fact, after two weeks of "the routine," I had probably put on an inch past that when Olivia caught me.

I hummed to myself as I tipped the jug of Powder over into the flour bin, shaking the cheap plastic so that it fell level. Even my humming didn't cover up the creak from Olivia's slow, careful steps.

For the first time in months, an odd fear ran down my back, tumbling over the crenulations, and I turned to see my roommate standing there in the dim light from the fridge, a plate of home-fried chicken in her hands. Even in her half-lidded eyes I could see an odd, hurt confusion.

"Hi, Cam," she said, after a few bites. Grease covered both of her chins and she wiped at them with a tubby wrist, the motion sending cascades down her front, her strained and stained t-shirt barely holding her tits in. I wondered if she had owned anything that wasn't "too small" in weeks; the shorts that on an ordinary woman would hang to their knees instead were hardly better than panties on Olivia, whose cubic yard of ass was tearing them apart.

"So," she continued after I stood in silence for a moment, "how long have you been doing this?"

I licked my lips. "Since the beginning."

Her eyebrows rose, but that was it. "Since I started putting on weight? And you started hulking out?"

I couldn't help but laugh at that. "Basically." I laughed again at the realization that Olivia had been so caught up in her own weight gains that she hadn't even mentioned when I had gone over the edge from "fit" to "huge". With that revelation, I felt a shift in me, and an odd sneer pulled across my face. "You never wanted to work out with me," I said. "But you never put on weight. So I wanted you to experience it, to see how much you liked it." I laughed again, and I could hear how cold it was as I advanced across the cold kitchen floor, my bare feet spreading out to hold my bulk upright. "And boy did you like it. Even now, you can't stop eating, can you? You tub of lard."

I stopped just a foot in front of her, or at least a foot in front of her belly, the bin still held in my hands in front of my tits, where I could see it. "You really, really like it. Don't you?"

She nodded, her eyes downcast, as the last bone of chicken pulled clean from her fat lips. "God, I... I do."

"And where's that boyfriend of yours? Eric? I haven't seen him in a long time. What happened? Did you get too fat, to enormous for even him?"

Her pink face turned red as I towered over her. Towered! When she had always been at least a little taller than me! "He worried about me, and I said I didn't care, that I was healthy and big and I wanted to get bigger."

I grinned. "Too big even for the fatty-lover." I leaned in, and my big, firm tits pushed into her soft ones, not even caring that she could feel the rock-hard nipples digging into her. "And you just want to get bigger, don't you? You love that I've been feeding you weight gain powder, making sure that you don't work out so it all turns to delicious, soft fat."

She nodded and her lips quivered as she locked onto the bin. "G-god, yes."

The fridge was open to my right. Never looking away from her round, softened face, I reached over, took out the gallon of whole milk, and poured it into the mostly-full bin of Secret Powder. When there was an inch or so of milk, I began to stir it all with my fingers. Olivia's piggy eyes watched me go around and around, the chicken plate fallen to the floor, her hands kneading her big, naked belly.

And when it was all mostly liquid, I tipped the bin up into her waiting mouth and poured it in. Slowly at first, until she found a rhythm, and then I had to tip it further and further up as Olivia drank, her throat opened, her hands clutching at my forearms in need.

When it was empty I tossed it away and leaned down, squeezing her fat against my stone-like body, and kissed her panting mouth. It tasted like milk and Powder and desire. I kneaded a hand into the fat of her belly, then tried to cup her ass and found it too big, too round, to get a handle on.

Then her tongue was diving past my teeth, her ham-like arms wrapping around my torso as her tummy squished into me even more, squeezing out. I could feel how full her stomach was underneath it, filled up with that fat-making Secret Powder. Then I was lifting her up, hardly feeling it when she half-hooked her legs around my powerful, muscular waist, and, our tongues entwined, walked her back to the couch, where her ass spread out across two cushions.

"Feed me more," she gasped. "It was so fucking hot. God, feed me."

And I went back to the kitchen, loaded up as much as my world-lifting arms could manage, and came back.

***

The next Monday I was asked to stop teaching classes at Platinum. David broke the news, with the owners not daring to come into the same room as the behemoth that was Cameron Mannan. I found it hard to concentrate as I stared at the bulge in his extra-large shorts, wondering if he was going to get hard enough for the cock to show itself below the cuff.

"But I can keep my personals, right?" I asked, finally tearing my eyes from the stiffening tree branch and working my way up his body. In just a couple of months David had turned from a fit and thin instructor to a big bear of a man. From his tree-trunk thighs to his big belly, bulging with muscle and fat, up to his huge, thick arms and meaty neck. His head had even changed shape a bit, much more square and hard-edged. He was nowhere near my musculature, seeing as how I had to turn slightly sideways to slip into his office and he could still walk in normally, but he filled the doorway from top to bottom.

Well, almost. I was closer to hitting my forehead on the doorframe first, although it was possible my shoulder muscles would be extending over the top of my head by the time I was that tall.

"They said if anyone wants to keep being trained by you, we'll keep you on the list," he said. God, even his voice was deeper. A result of his lungs strengthening to put oxygen through his body? Shit, had my voiced changed? It was hard to say. "They didn't seem to think anyone would want to, though."

"They'd be surprised," I chuckled. Karen was definitely my biggest fan, the milf with a body of a twenty-something who now considered the gym her second home, but there were a few other ladies from my regular classes who had come up to me in the locker room, their eyes fixated on the impossible cuts and lines of my body, who asked me to put them on my schedule. "Actually, now that you mention it, a few of my clients have some requests."

"What's that," David asked, leaning in to put one weighty hand on the desk next to me. The smell of sweat on him was intoxicating, and there was a tearing sound from his shorts. Sometimes I dreamt of his cock filling me to the point of me not being able to take any more, his growth and girth even outstripping me. We kissed roughly, but I tore myself away and grinned at him, suddenly realizing the blinds were open.

"Well, I guess the machines around here just don't provide enough resistance for some of our fitter members..."

David growled at that, biting into the muscle of my neck. The pain filtered through a haze and I stretched, casually ripping my tanktop off. So what if the blinds were open? So what if a complaint was made?

Who would dare stop the two muscular gods from doing what they wanted, where they wanted?

In another week, Olivia's job status had changed, too. The pounds were pouring onto her body, now that she had changed to a 75% Secret Powder died, slurping down shakes between "meals", if you could call eating an entire turkey whenever she felt like it a real meal.

At just over 700 pounds, Olivia was almost officially wider than she was tall, her belly and hips spreading out to take up the entire couch when she parked herself there, panting, every morning. Working from her office was nearly impossible, but the disability law in our state protected her from firing due to her weight. Instead she now worked as a call center for the tiny vet's office, a handless phone set perched in her ear most of the day.

This meant that she could eat and drink and binge and slurp even more, and both of us loved every pound of it. Her stomach first reached and then extended past her knees, forcing her legs apart as it hung over the edge of the sofa. Her enormous tits served as platforms for her tubby arms, both of them turning flat as they fattened. With our newly defined relationship, neither of us had much modesty around the apartment anymore, letting me drink in those yards of tit flash as they pushed themselves after her stomach while it ripped through another pair of XXXL panties.

When I went home I'd try to bring a few gallons of ice cream with me, maybe some pizzas, doughnuts, or other morsels. I loved to feed them into her full mouth, to stroke her hair back from her softened face. When it was time to go to bed, I'd finish off my Powder shake, reach under her armpits, and lift her to her feet. Her bedroom door had to go, first. Then I had pounded out the frame, grabbing handfuls and yanking the wall open. Then her mattress moved to the floor, and when she'd lay on it I could see that flab from her ass and hips sagged nearly to the edges of the queen-size, her huge tits flattening to her chins, threatening to engulf her head as she leaned back.

My bed had come apart, too, after threatening to collapse for a few days straight. I wondered how many pounds our floor could support, and how long I could turn sideways in the door before I'd need to start ducking to fit in.

My weights had moved to our back porch, and cracks were forming in the concrete from where I'd drop them too roughly. Some nights I stayed up extra late just for some extra reps. 150lbs on my hand barbells, squatting over 1500, every pound of muscle I put on only increased my limit as I sped past world records. I probably could have told the media, but that didn't matter. What mattered was gaining more, putting on more, streaking towards and past a perfect body.

Olivia wanted it, too, with a slightly different definition. She ate everything I brought back and came up with more and crazier ways to consume. Once I came home to find her eating literally Secret Powdered doughnuts, using Powder instead of flour and Powder instead of sugar with Powder shake to wash it down. Her ass spread further, her tits swelled larger, her belly spreading toward the floor in a slow motion waterfall.

One week went by, then two, each moment a joyous blur where the Powder was an exclamation point. Break a new record in my deadlifts? Chug a glass. Rip open another tank-top, bearing my veined and rock-hard chest to the world until I could find an even bigger one to cover my red, diamond-cutting nipples? Chow down on a Powder cookie, then another. Fuck the brains out of David while licking Powder shake off of each other, fuck the brains out of Olivia while feeding her fat face Powder doughnuts, eyefuck the brains out of Karen while appreciating her tight body, just starting to bulge with muscle, while handing her a cool glass of Powder-laced water.

I owned the gym. My "accidental" nudity was never mentioned by anyone and, in fact, I hadn't seen a higher-up in months. David told me in his new husky voice that the owner avoided his emails and texts, that the last time they had met the owner’s eyes had kept darting to the fucking barrel in his jockstrap. What would they do to me, anyway? Confront the behemoth of muscle and perfection? I imagined armed guards trying to tackle me, climbing up six-and-a-half foot body to try to put me in a headlock, only to be confounded by the fact that my deltoids and scapulae were so engorged that they couldn't get an arm around my neck. Hell, I could hardly turn my head. Lifting a hand meant a bicep would flex into a tit.

My own swollen muscles were almost becoming a problem. I say "almost" because it didn't seem like much of a problem to me.

I had David start driving me home. He could still fit behind a steering wheel, although it was pretty cute seeing his meaty arms curve inwards to grasp the tiny thing, his thick neck making his head look small. Then again, my everything made my head look positively tiny. I would sit in the backseat of his SUV, not bothering to try to pull a seatbelt over myself. Besides, my thighs were so huge, so engorged with muscle, that I had to sit pretty wide-spread; I took up two seats alone.

I had nowhere near the problems of Olivia, though. After over two weeks of working from home, eating almost nothing but Secret Powder and fattening foods, she had started putting on weight even faster than I put on muscle. Not to say that I couldn't lift her, given a firm enough stance and a decent way to get a grip, but she had problems lifting herself. The last time she had been pushed to her feet with a helping hand from me her stomach had never left the floor, instead gently brushing the tips of her toes as it jiggled and wiggled across the carpet, picking up light friction burns.

She would have been gross if she wasn't so gorgeous, gaining wider curves, softer skin. The bathroom situation was a little dysfunctional, but it worked; we didn't really need those walls, anyway. And the sex, my god. It was hard to find her sweet spot, sometimes, her almost constantly-dripping snatch waiting for my perfect fingers, but it seemed like most of her body was an erogenous zone. I swear that one time I finger-banged her belly while one hand hoisted one of legs, roughly the size of a baby killer whale, just a few inches up, and she came several times alone.

Then again, she had been pouring a pitcher of Powder down her throat.

My last night in the apartment was announced when I tried to leave via the front door and realized I'd have to crack it to get through.

For a few days I had been forced to turn sideways and duck down a bit to get out, needing to squeeze my huge tits in with one hand in order to make it. But one Monday after a weekend of pumping and fucking and eating and drinking I woke up, a fire in my belly, and tried to leave to the gym. I had classes to teach, after all. A growing army of muscular women to lead. A David to order around, to make sure he would get another pallet of Powder from his cousin.

"So rip it open," Olivia said.

I did. Then I wondered where the heck we were going to live.

Ripping open the door to both Olivia and my rooms had been done without a second thought, but the front door was something else. That would require contractors to fix, a landlord to notify, days gone by with some alternate plan. Up until now, I had very little in the way of plans. In fact, the last plan I had started on that had been seen to any kind of completion had been the plan to fatten Olivia up.

Just a little. Just to make her appreciate fitness more.

Now I would have to deal with this front door issue.

...after work, that is. Instead of calling David for a ride, I decided to give the citizens of my city a sight to see and jogged there. Every step boomed out, it felt like. The concrete must have cracked beneath my feet as I, the human juggernaut, lightly jogged my way across the city, size twelve shoes pounding against the ground.

It was hard to run, but I didn't find myself out of breath. I had the golden power of Secret Powder pounding through me, after all. Instead my quads bulged to push me forward, my abs strained to hold me upright, my sports bra complained and tore to try to hold me in.

When I arrived at the gym, none of the lights were on. Brushing my braid up and over my sweating back muscles, I unlocked the front door and ducked to get inside. My shoulders and back added at least four inches to my overall height, putting me at somewhere around seven feet tall by then, meaning even double doors could be knocked open a bit more if I had my way.

"Hello?" I called out, then smirked at the echo of my own voice: it was a bit deeper. There was a single light on, filtering through the drawn blinds of what had been David's but was now my office.

I stepped over mats and around equipment and realized that I wouldn't be able to fit through this door, either. Instead I settled for opening it.

Inside sat a little white-haired man, a clean-pressed shirt and a pinstriped vest on. His eyes bulged out at the sight of me, the seven-foot-tall mass of muscle, but then he composed himself. "Cameron Mannan?" he asked, and I nodded. Well, I would have, but my neck was so thick that it was almost impossible—I more dipped my upper body a bit, feeling my tits bob with the motion, then realized that my sports bra had ripped open yet again, revealing almost a solid foot of breast and one hard nipple.

I smirked as I covered myself. "Oh, sorry." It sounded sarcastic, and it was: I didn't particularly care what he thought. He wasn't amused, though.

"You should be. Please escort yourself from the premises. You and your lackeys have ruined this gymnasium, turning it into some sort of—of steroid drug factory. I will have no more of it."

It was with a slow realization that I figured out who this was. This was the owner of Plat! The mysterious benefactor for so many of my shenanigans! The dude who signed my paycheck.

"And," I breathed, flexing. I knew that my arms were swelling with vigor, pulsing out to give me a flared appearance, both of them four-feet-wide at a minimum. "And if I don't want to escort myself out?"

A drop of sweat escaped out from the man's white hair. "If you... if you don't..." He swallowed. "Well, what is it that you want, then? I thought we could talk like civilized people."

I grinned. "I have poor communication skills."

The owner did not, however. In minutes we had concluded that Platinum was, in all but name, mine. He was still making money, after all. I just needed space there, for me and Olivia and, probably, David.

A lot of space.

That night, after an amazing day at the gym that involved working out, downing shakes, and coming up with a new fitness plan for a bunch of the men and women taking classes, we moved Olivia from the apartment to Plat. I had spent some time making sure one of the smaller rooms had a comfy place to park her and used up most of my savings to furnish the kitchen a bit more completely. Olivia found it a bit harder to cook anymore, and considering that I had to be the one to help her to her feet and out the door, her belly sliding across the ground in front of her staggering feet, she probably would not be doing much getting up anymore, either.

My office had a bed made up, where David pleased me in all of the best ways before I let him come inside me, thrilling me on his massive pole. Massive to him, anyway: his regiment of on- and off- days appeared to have finally tapered off, with him affecting the size and mass of only a couple of linebackers. I had outstripped him in height and musculature long ago, but that wasn't how I wanted him, anyway.

Once he was spent and gasping from the hours of sex, I had him make the call. I didn't care what time it was.

It took a few days for things to be arranged, and I took that time to follow a tip from the owner: I turned Platinum into a verified drug zone. A drug zone with one product being sold: Secret Powder. I had dreams of fitness buffs getting in it in the shakes at the counter, or in specially baked energy bars. Only hand-selected people would be able to make buys, people I knew I could trust and who I wanted to see changed, improved.

Karen gave me the idea, actually, when she came in looking how I had months prior: sweaty, hard, muscle just starting to show beneath her taut, youthful skin. "I need some more of that stuff you let me drink, Cam," she begged, eye-fucking me harder than David did most days. "Please. Whatever you want." So I had her pay me. Easy enough.

My extra bankroll meant I could hire someone to cook and feed Olivia all day, something that I visited her to talk about. She had settled in to her place nicely, that is, by not really caring about doing much more than eating Secret Powder. I caught her doing what I did almost all the time, now: digging her fat fists into a jar and shoveling the dry powder into her mouth, washing it down with something sugary and fatty. It was taking a toll on her body in a way that I almost admired; she was probably putting on fifty pounds a day. Already her stomach was expanding over the cushions laid out for her, her ass piling up behind her as a permanent sofa.

I looked down on her naked, round body, and laughed at her excitement over having someone cook Secret Powder dishes for her. "Can you believe I used to hide it in your food?" I asked. "That I thought neither of us would like you like this."

"I know," she said in between bites of a pizza, Powder sprinkled on it like weird parmesan. "I think about that sometimes. When I get lonely and miss you." I knew that, if I wanted, she'd be wet and willing for us to fall into each other, her squishy body perfectly capable of handling mine.

Living in the gym with cases of Secret Powder open to me meant that, like Olivia, I was gaining perfection even faster. Every doorway was being pushed taller, wider, to accommodate the goddess that ruled them. Every floor was on a schedule for reinforcement. Every weight machine had been tested and would soon not be enough for me to work out. I was seven feet of round, hard boulders, able to leave impressions on solid steel. My shoulders alone were as wide as the double doors, my arm muscles pulsing and bulging out even further. In an absurd hourglass my rock-hard tits rode high and firm above the pebbled surface of my abs, which still gave me a waist above the quads and thigh muscles that supported me by providing a base almost as wide as my torso.

I would look at my reflection and grin at the head nestled in my shoulder and back muscles, at the ragged bikinis and shorts that would tear themselves apart to get off of me. How would the world react when they saw me, when they saw the army I was building to be like me, or the pets I was feeding to be like Olivia?

But no. I was not perfect, yet. I had thought I was, a thousand pounds and six months prior. But I still was not.

And then my phone rang, announcing that David's cousin had finally arrived. Maybe, after I had worked my way through a warehouse of his Secret Powder...

Olivia and I licked our lips.