by L J K Cross
“Hi. I am a huge fan of female muscle and would love the chance to meet you for a muscle worship session in Las Vegas. It is a dream of mine to be able to lick those delicious biceps of yours and feel your power as you dominate me with your muscles. Please let me know if this would be possible.”
The answer was simple. It most definitely wasn’t possible, although Amanda’s reply was slightly more eloquent and apologetic than that. The truth was that as one of the most well-known female body builders in the world, Amanda’s trip to Las Vegas and LA had been fully booked up many months previously. Admittedly there was a lot of her but even Amanda was not able to keep up with the demand from fans wanting to meet her, desperate to live out their erotic muscle fantasies. That was why she never understood why Muscle erotica was always mentioned in hushed and slightly reluctant tones. Fit, strong women had been heralded across cultures and throughout the centuries. It spoke of an innate, Darwinian instinct. It equally spoke of modern societies tendency to repress natural instincts in favour of artificial norms that were easier to control and manipulate. It had taken Amanda awhile to get used to the thought that she could be someone’s fantasy but the more she had thought about it the more flattering she had found it and had long ago come to the conclusion that within reason it was only healthy to act upon one’s sexual impulses and desires.
The next email was a little more hardcore but still nothing she hadn’t read many times before.
“I have read some of your stats and they say that you have 29 inches thighs and that you can squat 220k. Can that possibly be true? I want to believe it and even more, I want to feel the full force of their power. It would be my ultimate fantasy for you to scissor me with your amazing thighs until I pass out. Kind regards, Paul. p.s. please try not to break any of my ribs though as I wont be able to explain it to my wife and she will kill me.”
She would try but either way he sounded like he had a death wish. Her thighs really were 29 inches. And yes, she really could squat 220k. On a good day she could even go a bit heavier but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
The majority of emails she received were along this vein; requesting to measure her bulging biceps or feel how hard those washboard abs were or be scissored between her huge thighs. Amanda totally understood how for fans of female muscle it was not enough to watch her posing on the Internet or merely imagine how hard her muscles were in their head. And of course she got the inevitable emails asking to have sex with her; telling her how they had heard that sex with a female body builder was out of this world and that someone as fit as she was would be able to go all night and have orgasm upon earth shattering orgasm. Their emails went into all sorts of detailed imaginings spurred on by their barely contained excitement at the thought of just how big her clit was and the possibility of watching her beautiful muscles tense and spasm as she exploded. A wild imagination was one thing but Amanda knew that even if she could go all night, once she got her hands on them and unleashed her muscles on them they wouldn’t last five minutes!
Some of the emails she received though, pushed even Amanda’s open mindedness to the limit. She had had quite a few requests for her to trample on or piss on or kick someone with full force in the balls. But the one that had always stuck in her mind and that she had never been able to fathom was when she was asked could she squeeze a hamster in her hand until it exploded. That was all way too Ozzy Osbourne for her liking.
Amanda was trying to recall what exactly was the story about Ozzy Osbourne when a new email pinged in her inbox. As she opened it she decided to ask Steve about it later, when he woke up. He was a mind of useless trivia. The new email had no subject and just read,
“Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar’s vile tongue be cut out.”
“What the hell was that supposed to mean?” pondered Amanda and yet there was something about the words that looked vaguely familiar to her. Almost instantly she received a second email, again without a subject.
“Never ask for anything! Never for anything and especially from those who are stronger than you. They’ll make the offer themselves and give everything themselves.”
Now she recognised the quotes. The quote in the second email was the unmistakable words spoken by Woland to Margarita in the second book of The Master and Margarita.
“But who sent them and why?” whispered Amanda. She was certainly intrigued. Captivated even.
CHAPTER 5
“Divine,” gushed Amanda. “This is heaven,” she exclaimed, with her eyes fixed firmly on the bed. The minute Amanda opened the door; she dropped her bags at her side and collapsed on the bed, barely pausing to take in the room. Lying there, arms outstretched as if on a crucifix, she savoured the soothing coolness of the room’s air conditioner. Immediately her tired muscles relinquished themselves to the inviting softness of the king sized bed. Solace at last. It was amazing how one could be so thankful, so appreciative of even the smallest of life’s little comforts. From the ethereal comfort of her luxurious hotel room the hellish journey was now beginning to seem like just a bad nightmare. First they had been delayed at Chicago O’Hare airport. Then the passenger’s patience had been pushed to boiling point by the oppressive heat of the cabin when the plane’s cooling system had malfunctioned. And then to top it off, for most of the journey, they had had to contend with the shrill wailing of a baby several rows in front. It had felt like someone was playing a sick joke. So even if she hadn’t received those mysterious emails which continued to play on her mind, there still would have been no way she was going to get anymore sleep on the flight.
Amanda hadn’t wanted to leave the calm, chilled oasis of the airport and step out into the cruel and unforgiving desert heat. When she did, she felt so totally overwhelmed and consumed by its ferocity, that she had no option but to succumb to her fatigue and hunger. She was not able to offer an ounce of resistance as Steve had manhandled her into the nearest taxi. The ride along the strip to her hotel was a blur. On previous trips she had always been brimming with excitement and wonder upon getting her first glimpse of the Las Vegas strip, her brain giddy with the bombardment of neon and dazzle and spectacle that the strip showcased. On previous trips as soon as she had dropped her bags off in her room she had been straight back out the door to sample all the intoxicating delights the city promised. How different it was now. Now as she drove down the strip the glaring neon blasphemed against her eyes so that she sought to shield them. Now the strip no longer appeared to bedazzle and embolden with its lustre but just felt enervating. Just to gaze upon it’s energy and vigour was exhausting.
“No rest for the wicked,” tried to joke Steve. “You can’t go to sleep yet. We need to look at you and then maybe if you have been good, I might just treat you to some carbs,” teased Steve, trying to make light of the situation. He could tell she was totally spent. She always went extremely quiet when she was well and truly depleted, as if even speaking required way too much energy. Lying motionless, lifeless, on the bed he wasn’t sure she had heard him. Amanda had heard him and was merely absorbing the information and weighing up his tempting promise. For the past few days this was what she had been praying for. The moment when she could start carbing up and finally return to the land of the living. But now the moment was here she was just too exhausted to care.
Steve knew he would have to be firm with her and take control. This was when she needed him the most. She needed him to take charge of all the final preparations but most of all she needed him to make sure that she didn’t lose her head. There were way too many horror stories of competitors losing the plot and totally botching months, even years, of hard work in those final few days. Amanda knew that Steve was there to make sure that nothing like that would ever happen to her. He was there to watch over her and guide her and see that no harm came to her. She knew he always would.
“Come on, Amanda,” he coaxed. “You know it has to be done.”
He was right Amanda told herse
lf. It had to be done. She had to get up off the bed and let him have a look at her.
“Get up,” she shouted inwardly, but her muscles remained stubbornly unresponsive.
“Just let me stay here a minute longer,” pleaded a different, more devious voice from deeper inside her.
“Now,” responded the initial voice, more firmly. Still there was no response. It was only with Steve’s assistance that she was able to summon the energy to stand up.
So it had come to this had it? She was even reliant on him to get her up off the bed. She hated feeling this weak and pathetic but she was well and truly devoid of energy. The start of the carbing up process couldn’t come soon enough. With that thought in her head she robotically undressed without giving it a second thought. When you were as used as she was to standing in freezing cold changing rooms in nothing more than the skimpiest of thongs with about ten people stood around staring, scrutinising, critiquing, it became second nature. It was all so perfunctory, so asexual, so normal. Well it was to her anyway. Amanda was under no illusion that her life was one big anomaly – so different, in so many ways from other peoples. She also knew that it didn’t really do to dwell upon the bizarreness of her life too much if only for the sake of her sanity. Having to rationalise and offset the overwhelming adoration of fans against the stripped back and sometimes scathing criticism of a coach or a judge was enough to test the sanest of people and according to Steve in that battle Amanda was at a serious disadvantage right from the outset anyway. As he liked to often tell her, she was “one wave short of a shipwreck.” Well maybe that was a good thing because sometimes just like a shipwreck you had to let it all just wash over you. Just like she was doing now.
“Just move over here so you are standing in a better light,” suggested Steve whilst giving her a tug in that direction at the same time, just to make sure the message got through loud and clear. Amanda heard him alright although for some strange random reason the only thought that was going through her head at that moment was an image of Freddie Mercury with bananas on his head singing “I’m going slightly mad.” Maybe she was. From somewhere behind her she could hear Steve’s voice, distant and muted, enthusing over her condition and shape and symmetry. He was running out of superlatives and hyperbole to describe his astonishment, excitement and sheer amazement.
“Outstanding,” he cheered.
I’m going slightly mad, sang her inner voice.
“Unbelievable.”
I’m going slightly mad.
“Out of this world.”
It finally happened. It finally happened.
His praise filtered through the music in her head but still it did not register. His rapturous appraisal certainly did not correlate with what Amanda saw when she was looking in the mirror. The only words that sprung to her mind were “small,” “deflated,” “pathetic.” It was so disheartening she couldn’t bring herself to look. She was usually so strong, both mentally and physically. Usually she was so sure of her self that it was extremely disconcerting to be plagued by such overwhelming self-doubt as she was now. Amanda just hoped and prayed that it was her mind playing tricks on her due to extreme depletion. That what she was seeing reflected in the mirror was just an apparition and that over the next few days before the competition Steve would work his magic on her.
To Steve though she was an apparition – an apparition of pure muscular perfection. Standing under the harsh overhead spotlight, each striation appeared to have been chiseled by the delicate hand of a Renaissance sculptor imbued with divine inspiration. Just gazing upon her made him recall the time they had visited the Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert museum and seen reproductions of sculptures by the likes of Michelangelo and Botticelli. Steve would have been the first to admit that he had been dragged to the Victoria and Albert under duress. He never would have described himself as a connoisseur of culture. Amanda had tried on several occasions to cultivate him, usually with disastrous consequences. Like the time she had taken him to the opera. For the life of him he couldn’t recall the title or what it was about. It had all been in Italian or something foreign anyway. What he did recall, with painful precision, were nearly four excruciating hours of being wedged into a seat till his arse went numb and being shushed repeatedly by a load of toffee-nosed pricks for fidgeting. At the end of the opera Amanda had been shocked to see Steve spring with delight from his seat. From his euphoric applause and the ecstatic grin on his face, Amanda was adamant she had finally succeeded in him converting him to the finer and more refined aspects of life.
“Did you enjoy it then?” she had asked jubilantly.
Steve had looked at her in bewilderment.
“You’ve got to be joking,” he had laughed incredulously. “I’m just clapping because I am so bloody relieved it is over. I’m stamping my feet to try and get some feeling back in them again. Bloody hell that was torture.”
Although it had been brief, she had enjoyed the feeling of triumph while it had lasted.
He really had little time for those hoity-toity, arty-farty types but even he had appreciated the sculptures in the Victoria and Albert and as far as he was concerned, Amanda would not have looked out of place there. The only difference being that whereas the sculptures in the Victoria and Albert were purely works of fantasy and imagination, Amanda was real. To a man of his simple and apparently unrefined tastes he could never understand how the sculpted physique of a female body builder could be viewed by the masses with such disdain and yet those same people would visit the Tate modern and effuse over the works there, just because some toff ordained it as being art. In his opinion they were the sycophants. They were the philistines.
Their visit to the Tate Modern had been another example of Amanda’s failed attempts to cultivate him. She had been so embarrassed when he had pronounced very loudly, his voice bouncing off the gallery walls, that it was all “a load of pretentious crap.” At the time they had been viewing a blue canvas that was imaginatively called “blue”. That was it – just a blue canvas. Nothing else. But the icing on the cake had been when he had seen a group of people salivating over the artistic marvel that was a ladder, some paint cans and an old decorating sheet. They must have been stood there for about five minutes discussing its significance and meaning in hushed, reverent voices before some workmen came along, picked up the ladder and cans and carried on with their work. Even to this day it still made him chuckle.
“What are you laughing about?” asked Amanda, alarmed. “Please don’t tell me I look that bad.”
“I am just remembering when you dragged me to that god awful Tate modern. I don’t know why I am laughing though. It still brings tears to my eyes when I think about it,” winced Steve.
“That’s a relief. I thought for a minute you were laughing at me. What made you think of that anyway?” she exclaimed.
“Because standing there you look like a work of art. Better than anything we saw in that Tate Modern that’s for sure.”
“You and that Tate Modern. I am sorry I ever took you there. Are you ever going to let me live it down?”
“Mmmmmm. I’m not sure. I think I still need to get my own back,” teased Steve. “I have half a mind not to let you have your cheat meal and make you wait till tomorrow.”
“You wouldn’t?” asked Amanda as she whipped her head round to face him and check whether he was being serious or not.
“Of course I wouldn’t.” He couldn’t lie to her or make her suffer any more. “That would just be cruel.”
“Come on,” he said. “Get dressed and lets go eat. You can have whatever you want. My treat.”
The words were like magic to her ears. Their effect on Amanda was little short of miraculous. The promise of food had magically conjured up the old Amanda. For the first time in months Steve was warmed by her radiant smile and saw the usual energy and zest that danced behind her eyes come back to life. As if overcome with all the feelings and emotions that were reawakening inside her, Amanda flung her arms a
round Steve and pulled him close. She clung to him as if he was the only stable and buoyant thing in this sea of madness and delusion.
“I love you,” she whispered, certain that the purity and devotion of his love would always rescue her.
In her hurry to get down to the restaurant to eat, Amanda had picked out the first item of clothing she had found in her suitcase. Her mind was that transfixed by the thought of food that she almost forgot to get dressed at all. From the moment she exited the hotel lift, she might as well have been naked judging by the number of people staring. She had thrown on her black lycra, shoestring mini dress, one of her oldest, but still one of her favourite dresses. It was understated, simple and classic. It hugged her curves whilst showing off her muscular limbs to the max. It always guaranteed to turn heads and drop jaws. In the short distance it took to walk from the lifts to the hotel’s steak-house restaurant, she heard her name exclaimed by several groups of people as she walked past. The bodybuilding cognoscenti were obviously rolling into town. It was therefore highly unlikely that her meal would go uninterrupted without either a fan asking for a photo or bumping into someone she knew but for the moment she was a girl on a mission. There was a 12oz rib eye steak with all the trimmings with her name all over it. She was stopping for nothing and no one!
As she skimmed over the delights of the menu she felt nauseatingly delirious as she tried to take in the abundance of choice on offer. Her eyes widened, brimming with greed and desire. Her mouth started to salivate and her breathing became shallow. Amanda’s insatiable hunger fell prey to her most carnal and predatory instincts. Amanda had visions of tearing the rib eye steak piece to blood dripping piece with her bare hands the moment it arrived. Fortunately the waiter soon brought over the bread basket. He had barely placed the basket on the table before Amanda commenced her orgy of gorging. How could something so basic as bread taste so heavenly? How could it be so nourishing? It was miraculous how several butter-lavished rolls could stem her cravings. Jesus’ multiplying of the loaves was only slightly more miraculous. Not that there would be any sharing of the bread today though.