*POLL* Juiced [Amnoartist]

[sw1ngy]

Another fantastic installment to the series!

[Amnoartist]

Another fantastic installment to the series!

Thanks, man Appreciate the support.

[jstans]

I never thought I'd drift over to Natalie's side, but after the competition loss and Reagan's decent into mania, I'm hoping she makes it. You've done really well writing these characters, man. Keep it going.

[jstans]

Then again, it was Natalie's obsession that turned Reagan to what she is now, but that wouldn't have happened if Dale hadn't busted up Peyton, and...I guess all the pieces matter.

[Amnoartist]

Then again, it was Natalie's obsession that turned Reagan to what she is now, but that wouldn't have happened if Dale hadn't busted up Peyton, and...I guess all the pieces matter.

Yeah, I wanted everything that happened do so for a resson and help push the story forward. I admit, it wasn't easy to do ^^;

And about the characters in general - with the exception of Peyton, there are no *good* characters; they're morally grey and walk the fine line between good or bad.

[jstans]

Exactly why I used that quote from The Wire. If there was ever a show that spotlighted that everyone was in the gray area.

[seldom]

As a fan of absolutely insanely over-pumped muscle monsters, and not averse to the occasional bout of extreme brutality, I wanted to say bravo! I'm loving this story!

[M7]

Loving this story. This is really hot! Great description. Superb writing Amnoartist. Keep it up. Please! K+++

[Amnoartist]

Juiced
Written & edited by Amnoartist
Chapter 8: Cold Turkey

Natalie couldn’t remember the last time she wore lipstick. It must’ve been months, a whole year even. It didn’t help she couldn’t even remember how to apply it, her mind had been so addled by the monkey pills. She might’ve been trying to go cold turkey, to detoxify her system, but it didn’t help things, only made them worse; the shivers were unbearable, like standing naked in a cold winter’s night.

Peyton stood behind her though, like the guardian angel she was. Ironic how their roles were switched. It was only a few weeks ago Natalie defended her younger sister, albeit rather violently. Now Peyton supervised her gargantuan sibling in her effort to doll up for the event ahead. She couldn’t possibly understand what Natalie was going through, what thoughts swirled around inside that head of hers. Detoxing was much harder than she thought, even if it was something that needed to be done, to fit back in.

“I’ll do it.” Peyton took the lipstick from Natalie and gently applied a layer of it to her embarrassed sibling’s lips, the glossy fresh layer of cherry red glistening in the faint sunlight. Natalie felt like an infant and it hurt to admit that. But Peyton was neither angry nor pitiful - they were sisters, and help each other was that they did. She caught Natalie’s distressed visage in the corner of her eye. It was then the true emotion made itself known: Torment. Even so, Peyton persisted with her guardian angel act. “You’ll be fine.”

Fine. What was ‘fine’ about looking like a freak with no friends bar those who only became so through being reliable suppliers? The thought of Paul suddenly flickered through Natalie’s addled mind. He clung to her like a disease spreading through her. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t be in this position. Or maybe it was her own fault. Natalie liked working out but probably wouldn’t have gotten so freakishly large if she didn’t ask around for a ‘pick-me-up.’ There was only one thing in particular that referred to in a gym. Then, days later, she met Paul for the first time.

Now though, Natalie felt good about having not dealt with him in weeks. Given she was Paul’s best customer, it stood to reason he might not actually be dealing anymore. Either that or he was ratted out. At any rate, he was part of her past, something she endeavoured to keep behind her. But the violent, painful squirming of her veins was the constant reminder it wouldn’t be so easy to just turn her back on what made her the woman she was today. Her body fought against itself. There were times she would notice it was shrinking, losing the mass, at which point it would grow again as the result of the pills desperately clinging to her system for dear life. She would shrink, grow, shrink, grow, like her body was a living, breathing, ping-pong match or yo-yo.

“If anybody makes a remark about how you look, just ignore them. Don’t rise to their bait.” Peyton snatched a bottle of perfume from her desk. She wouldn’t normally use her most expensive brand unless it was a special occasion for a birthday or wedding. To her, this was a special occasion. It’d been too long since the two sisters went out together. Even so, she looked at Natalie’s neck and hesitated. There was more muscle than actual neck, so where exactly should she spray? Start from that thick bulging vein that travelled down the nape and go from there? Fuck it. Spray the whole area.

“I’ll try.” Try was all Natalie really could do. There was no telling how she’d react to derogatory comments flung at her. Even if they did come from friends. Would she burst into a fit of hormone-fueled rage at the slightest quip, or manage to bottle it all?

Peyton smirked. For Natalie to try was good enough. “Done.”

Natalie stood up from the makeup chair and smiled at the transformed woman staring at her through the wall-mounted mirror - herself. Her hair glossed and fashioned into a balayage, it was almost like she was a completely different woman from the matted sweatiness she’d grown used to, like it was a second skin. A gentle tear might’ve formed in her eye from just from that realisation alone. And her dress - a creamy white beauty with enough space to let her wide legs breathe, probably just expensive as the perfume too.

“Hard to believe it’s you, huh?” Peyton wanted to chuckle at her achievement, but— this was more Natalie’s moment than hers. It would be a shame to ride her thunder. She watched her stare at the glitzy points of her nails, all done up in a manner to compliment the rest of her. “Don’t you get all teary-eyed on me though. That mascara is expensive.”

“Thank you.”

Those were the only words Natalie managed to say. She wanted to find ones more meaningful but couldn’t. It hurt her to know that. But she should’ve known better than to think saying thanks was necessary. This was all Peyton’s way of thanking Natalie for sticking up for her. But a painful fact somehow managed to slither its way into the front of Natalie’s mind: Peyton wouldn’t have needed to do this if Natalie wasn’t an abuser to begin with. She might’ve aimed to change her ways now, but that was a fact of the past seared into her mind. There would be no escaping it.

Nonetheless, Peyton smiled. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

///

Natalie never meant to order a steak that big. But a part of her insisted it was needed to maintain her gains whilst the other screamed at her for being so weak-willed, knowing it was her intention to cut down on the meaty meals, given she was always a meat-for-gains advocate. The fact the steak was so costly certainly didn’t help. Who orders a £30 steak?

But it smelled and tasted so good, like it had been fired by the breath of angels. The texture - so soft, she didn’t need to properly bite, like it quite literally melted in her mouth. She was so drawn into its heavenly existence she was numb to the trickle of drool at the corner of her mouth. Peyton and Joanne noticed it, but paid no heed.

A different picture was painted in the eyes of Callum, Joanne’s boyfriend. He tried to ignore the little speck of drool but just couldn’t. It was like he sat next to an infant. But of course, it was equally impossible to unsee the gargantuan bulk Natalie tried with great effort to hide. Frankly, Callum was disgusted—

“I think it’s nice you’re at least trying to return to your normal self.” Joanne remembered those days rather well, when they were both good friends and worked out just to maintain body fat and look lean. She just couldn’t put her finger on what caused those days to come to an end, what switch in Natalie’s mind was flipped that made her want to bulk to the size she was now, cutting down or not. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Natalie smiled, felt the same way and wanted to express her thanks, but like with Peyton, couldn’t find the right words. She didn’t mean to be so quiet. Wiping the drool from her chin, she clocked Callum’s ceaseless stares of disdain. She caught onto them long before that but didn’t respond in kind, playing back her sister’s words of advice on loop. She never liked him, even before starting to juice up. She endeavoured to be the better person now.

Even so, she was fighting an internal battle. She didn’t have to look, but felt the pressured swellings of her arm veins pulsate, fighting against her want to fit back into normal society. It was as if her body was developing a mind of its own, arguing with her, telling her it was a mistake to think she could return to a normal life, telling her that the mass freak was the real Natalie, not the dolled-up faker she made herself out to be.

Swiftly, she reached for her forearm to hide the freakish pulsing vein forcing its way to the surface of her skin, making it a point to try showing itself under the dress, knocking the wine glass over. It hurt, like being pricked with a needle. Natalie panicked but managed to hide it, just as she managed to hide the squirming. She could still feel it under her palm though. It didn’t help that it felt like it knew it was being covered, so pushed harder for a moment before receding suddenly. Natalie didn’t know what to do, the sudden thought of how Peyton would react to seeing her sister’s pulsing veins and arm burst through the dress.

“Are-are you okay?” Peyton was obviously concerned, but also unaware of the totally rhetorical nature of her question. She presumed Natalie’s knee-jerk reaction to just be nerves from being around so many unknown, likely judgmental eyes. Comfortingly, she held Natalie’s hand, which seemed to calm her nerves a bit, make them at least manageable.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” The sigh from Natalie seemed to confirm it: she was not managing. Things were going so well too. It might not have been obvious, but the rift between her and Joanne was healing. The opportunities that would come with their renewed friendship were enticing. She remembered those days where they went to the movies together after a girls’ day out. Her body wasn’t allowing it to be part of the future though. It never would. "This steak's a little tough is all."

Callum’s disgusted expression persisted. Unlike Peyton or Joanne, he was able to connect the dots, saw the pulsing veins before Natalie managed to hide them. He’d heard about the monkey pills and what they did only through gossip, but to actually sit next to someone going cold turkey over them was like watching someone possessed by an unknown force. He didn’t have to say anything. His eyes spoke for him.

And Natalie fucking hated him for it.

“What?” She strived to be the better person. She really did. But the wordless stares didn’t help. Things wouldn’t be so bad if he just spoke, no matter what words came out of his mouth. It was like she could actually hear the silence surrounding him, hover around like a bad smell or disease. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

Callum blinked, confused.

“Nat.” Peyton panicked. All was well, she didn’t want Natalie to go and ruin it now. Especially when it was her idea, to begin with. But what did Peyton know? It wasn’t like she knew what Natalie was going through, or the thoughts swirling around inside her head. She knew about the pills but that was about it. How bad things got with the addiction to them was something Natalie deliberately kept from her. Much like how Peyton didn’t tell Natalie she kept a pill for herself and stashed it in her bedside drawer. Not that it mattered now. Peyton saw the veins rise again with renewed purpose and energy, thick enough this time that they were impossible to hide.

But Natalie didn’t know about any of this, too panicked and paranoid over Callum’s gazes to even feel her veins throb, her muscles swell. It was only until Peyton grabbed her by the arm that she came to realize things were getting out of hand - even for her. The other restaurant patrons looked on in true disgust, which Natalie mistook Callum’s fear to be. She looked at her palms, feeling the veins in her arms start to spread and cover even them.

It was only at the last minute, when things were truly at their worst, Natalie realized it was more a bad than good idea to go cold turkey.

“I—I can’t do this.”

Natalie never meant to push Peyton out the way, but was too stressed to notice, the contemptuous voices in her head droning ceaselessly. She rushed to the door in the hopes that some air would help do her good, caring not for what the restaurateur or their patrons thought or had to say. They just wouldn’t understand, just saw a throbbing mountain of mass push people out the way.

The throbbing was getting painful now, in the sense that her insides hurt, twisted and contorted. Peyton just wouldn’t understand but followed anyway. At this point, mending fences with Joanne would be damned - Natalie was more important. She only had the one sister as opposed to the many friends.

“Nat!”

The fresh air didn’t work. If anything, it just made Natalie feel worse, Coupled with the lashing rain and buzz of nightlife, this was a worse idea than having a civilized meal with normal people. More faces stared at her in passing, more insulting voices drilling their way into her mind.

The nipping vein throbs persisted but this was the final straw, like they were finally going in for the kill; something seemed to just pierce her chest and lungs, drawing the oxygen from her system until she collapsed, vision failing until nothing but a trio of fuzzy figures was the last thing she saw before darkness claimed her.

[Amnoartist]

Juiced
Written and edited by Amnoartist
Chapter 9: Under-jacked

It was the hazy blue eyes Natalie first saw when she finally rose from her unconsciousness, a deep, drilling headache coming over her as she tried to make out her surroundings despite dim vision. A gentle hand ushered her to stay put and rest easy as another figure came to his side, hard to make out but distinctive nonetheless; female, brunette with a tinge of worry in her voice, her words difficult to understand.

“What happened?” Even in spite of others’ better judgement, Natalie opted to rebel, trying still to grasp her whereabouts. One thing was for certain: she hadn't ever been there before; it smelled foosty, a little pungent and damp, a complete contrast to the flowery scented familiarity of her bedroom. How ironic, though, that this funky space would be her safe haven.

“You had a severe panic attack.” Natalie smiled, recognising the voice as one she would never tire of hearing: Peyton’s. She handed her worn out sibling a glass of water, ice and all, and offered a grin of her own. “Never seen anything like it.”

“Oh no, there’s much more to it than that.” The other, male voice took Natalie by surprise. How fitting it was, then, that her vision returned just as he finished. Paul’s expression was a complete contradiction to Peyton’s; much more serious and, frankly, honest. “If it wasn't for Peyton’s quick thinking, you wouldn't be here.”

Natalie’s heart dropped. Was Paul implying that if Peyton hadn’t thought about going to him, Natalie would be dead? The unwavering stare he extended suggested as much, which wasn't exactly what the brunette expected to wake up to. Nor did she anticipate the various fresh syringe marks dotted across her forearm. That, plus the inexplicably considerable decrease in mass. Granted, it was what she wanted but-

“Where’s Joanne?”

“Well, when I suggested we take you to Paul here, Callum wasn't all that happy about us going to a drug dealer for help. Joanne was traumatised about that, dumped Callum, then drove us here.”

“And Mum?”

Peyton knew Natalie too well. “She doesn’t know and won’t.”

“How’d you even get in this state in the first place?” Paul readied another syringe full of salmon pink liquid, flicking the needle before preparing to jab it into Natalie’s dotted arm. Judging by how calm and collected he was, it was clear this wasn't the first time he found himself thrust into this situation.

Her memory starting to come back, Natalie postulated how she could've gotten herself in such a state as this. But, frankly, it was obvious, the result of being rash and eager to return to normalcy. Peyton knew as well but hadn't said to Paul. Natalie just wanted to be normal again - this was the price she had to pay for it, it seemed.

“I went cold turkey, off the pills.”

“Not all at once, I hope?” The responding expression Natalie offered didn't do much to please Paul. If anything, it just irritated him a little further. He didn't quite fancy getting the blame for a customer’s death. “Yeah, don’t do that. It’s like going full-bottle; bad shit’ll happen.”

“Oh sure. You tell me that now.”

“Hey! It’s not like I knew you were gonna go off the shit, girl.” Paul delicately removed the syringe and checked the empty vial. Only the tiniest dregs of the liquid were left. Natalie looked at the syringe curiously before noticing at least seven others, all empty, were by his side.

“What is that shit anyway?”

Paul scoffed. “This ‘shit,’ is what's keeping you alive right now.” He didn't want to go into the details with her; she was roughed up enough already without having to know. Simply put, she'd been injected with a hormone balancer, used to prevent literally explosive growth, provided by Paul’s most esteemed employer. It also contributed to her decrease in mass. The sticky situation, though, was that Natalie’s unfortunate circumstances forced Paul into using every balancer he owned. And Natalie hadn't even gone full-bottle.

“She's okay now, though, right?” Peyton started to think taking Natalie to Paul wasn't the best idea. For all she knew, Paul could’ve injected her with something just as or more life-threatening than the pills, like she'd taken her to Death himself.

“More or less. She just has to rest up a bit, let the balancer do the work.”

Taking Paul’s advice to heart, Natalie shuffled back into a reclined position on his couch, the aged and worn leather creaking in protest against her freakish bulk, readying for what felt like a day’s worth of sleep. But then she noticed Paul’s right hand. Or, rather, what was left of it; the middle and ring fingers looked like they'd been clipped off with pliers.

“What happened to you.”

Paul scoffed. Without having to so much as look at her for clarification, he knew what Natalie was implying, and hoped she hadn't noticed. The disfigurement being recent, the wound still penetrated. There was quite a story behind his unfortunate circumstance.

Looking at what remained of his hand, he began his tale.

“The short version is, I got robbed of my supply of the pills, my employer wasn't all that happy about it once they heard the news, then sent a couple of heavies to make an example out of me. Now I gotta make double the pills in half the time, which is especially hard to do with half a hand.

“But I can't go to the police either because I’m guilty by association, and they've no doubt been bought anyway. These are real gangsters who aren't to be messed with.”

“Woah, slow down. Who stole the pills? What do you mean gangsters?” Natalie had never seen Paul so frantic before, nor had he ever mentioned genuine criminals were tied into his business. Where exactly did that put her in the equation? Jesus, it was a good thing she decided to put an end to her pill-popping. But Natalie couldn't help but notice her worry flare up. She was Paul’s best customer, right? So would that not mean she was partly to blame for him being crippled?

“They're from outta town. South something.” Paul was willing to admit the cat was now out of the bag. He was one of the dozens of suppliers around the maybe the world; he was one of the small cogs in a far greater machine. “They've had a torch up my arse for months.”

Natalie was irritated not because the truth was finally coming out of Paul, but that she felt the detail that the pills were stolen was somehow more important, yet he decided to avoid answering her question about it anyway. “Who stole the pills? Was it Victoria” she repeated in a hard tone, remembering the conceited words from Victoria on how she was going to screw her man after the competition and try the pills ‘just to see what the fuss was all about” with them.

“I dunno. Who the fuck’s Victoria?” Paul answered frantically, confused by Natalie being more interested in who stole the pills than the gangsters controlling their distribution and what they were capable of. “It was some redheaded chick.”

Natalie froze. It was so obvious. Reagan had more cause than anyone to steal the pills, knowing how persistent, obnoxious and bitter she could be over even the slightest thing. She no doubt took the embarrassing events in the gym weeks earlier to heart, to the point where she was driven mad by some sick stroke of retribution.

Natalie and Peyton looked at one another knowingly. But Paul wasn't privy to the girls’ knowledge.

“What?”

///

Dale didn't want to be in the train yard despite being figuratively dragged there. As a matter of fact, he didn't want to be around Reagan either. Reagan had been lost to her consuming thirst for retribution a long time ago; not to mention she was past any form of femininity, human or otherwise, replaced with an abhorrent husk of twitching, throbbing mountain of muscle.

Dale impassively watched ‘her’ pace through the grit leading up to an old colossal locomotive, her calves violently twitching with every tumultuous step, her breaths far more masculine than the wheelchair-bound male could bear. It didn't matter; he was past having a say in anything involving the couple - if one could call them that.

She sized the train up in silence, smirking at how each of her densely packed shoulders was easily thrice larger than each rail wheel, and she wasn't even pumped. The veins in her biceps writhed in a celebratory manner at the mere thought of what was to come. Reagan couldn't properly challenge her inhuman musculature since she squatted Dale’s car - without his expressed permission, of course - so sought more unconventional methods to get a pump.

“Yeah, this should do the job.” Reagan’s voice was—well, whatever was left of it that could be considered feminine had been lost to her obsessive intake of the pills, now metamorphosed to match the more masculine form she boasted, caring not how people felt about her obviously squarish jawline mangled and overwhelmed by veins thick as pencils that curved and broke into her mouth. Nowhere was safe.

Dale looked at his pitiful body solemnly, overcome by the need to look away from the freak his girlfriend had become, his dreams and hopes of becoming a pro bodybuilder dashed—no, crushed by Reagan’s bulk. He was forced into lying to his doctor that the injury came from squatting too much weight, not that Reagan had literally raped him so hard his cock snapped. All that remained of it was a flat sack of dead meat, the balls burst like little balloons. But that didn't stop Reagan from coming onto him.

The locomotive offered very little resistance to Reagan’s erotic pursuit to flaunt her beastly strength, chuckling deeply as the colossal machine groaned in protest against her unwavering might, but she merely stood her ground, planting her feet firmly into the grit as if to root herself to the very ground and become part of it. Before long, the train was raised even higher, its circular buffers angled closer to her chest.

She was curling the train!

Dale still hadn’t uttered a single word when he watched Reagan’s back veins quite literally swell larger and press against her custom top, threatening to pop through it like an alien backburster as they danced in tandem with the other swellings and throbs. He heard her moan in uncompromising, burning, crippling lust - a complete contrast to his groans of revulsion she’d become deaf to. Unless it was skin bloating or clothes shredding, she wasn't the slightest bit interested.

With a deep husky groan, the veins continued to envelop her, flanking her thighs and moving upwards to encompass her splenius capitus - the side of her neck - and even congregate curiously at the very centre of her man-shaming chest - at her heart - where they were thickest. But Reagan, predictably, didn't really care much for that. The only thing on her mind was her display of strength. So when her heart started beating uncharacteristically faster, either she didn't notice or give a shit about it.

When her biceps goaded themselves larger, that was when Reagan had reached the apex of her arousal. She didn't even have to look at her crotch to know certain changes had been made to it; veins thick and full of life, they writhed and danced in sync with the swelling of her genitalia, protruding her shorts violently like it was close to bursting through it! It was almost like she had a cock of her own.

With a careless thud she let go of the locomotive, the sudden drop coupled with the vehicle’s substantial weight causing it to sink into the ground that cracked beneath her vein-caked feet.

Dale was of the mind to sneakily wheel away when Reagan wasn't looking but thought about the potentially harmful consequences if he had the balls to do it. When it came to him and Reagan as a couple, he didn't have anything to lose. But Reagan saw from a different, far more self-centred angle. With Dale confined to a wheelchair probably for the rest of his life, someone would always be there, be - even if unwillingly - on her side to watch her degrade Natalie in front of a crowd.

Be that as it may, Dale couldn’t stop himself from thinking Reagan was going to do worse than disgrace Natalie. The characteristically mad glint in Reagan’s vein-crusted eye hinted at such.

The sudden freeing rip at the back of Reagan’s top revealed her veins in all their sickening glory, forcing the muscle-lusting redhead into a back double bicep whose shadow engulfed not only Dale but a good chunk of the train’s front as well. She held the pose, grunting deeply with arousal, taking a moment to bask in her ever larger form. She even grew a couple of inches just by standing. When she threw her hands down, however, Dale worried.

“What is it?”

She turned sideways only just enough to flash her visage; from mandible to forehead her face was riddled with thick, writhing blue veins, a patch of yellow, dry saliva gathering at her mouth like a rabid dog.

“I want you to deliver a message for me.”

[mecenas1984]

  i wonder how reagan will delivere the message with Dale. I feel sorry for him...XD

[darksecret23]

Regan is so beautiful now! I love how the pills have improved her mind and body!
It would be awesome if someone illustrated Regan as she is now!!

[Sicod]

Keep it up! Great work.

[Amnoartist]

Regan is so beautiful now! I love how the pills have improved her mind and body!
It would be awesome if someone illustrated Regan as she is now!!

I've been thinking about that, actually. It's all about finding the right artist, though

[Amnoartist]

Juiced
Written & edited by Amnoartist
Chapter 10: Brink

It had been a long time since Natalie had a stress-free shower. More often than not, a singular thought swirled inside her hormone-addled brain: was she big enough? It felt like a perverted sense of Bigorexia taken to its extremes, where anything but knowing how large she had become or could be wasn’t worth thinking about. But now, that skin had been shed, revealing a contented and free Natalie unbound by the former perversions of her mind.

The pills’ effects were, even now, little by little bleeding out. Natalie would not in any way, shape or form miss the beastly thing she once was, happy to finally find a sense of belonging in the world. There may have been a time when she felt her previous self, was her real, true self, but if anything it was a delusion no doubt brought on by the pills’ constant abuse. The changes in her body were noticeable - she was smaller, ate less to reflect the fact, less defined and even lifted lighter weights. It stood to reason that eventually, Natalie would stop working out entirely.

And she would welcome that.

Water from the shower poured gracefully down her shoulders and obliques, wiping away the sweat and, arguably, the past itself, bringing with it the feeling of moulting, peeling away the months-long guilt, hypocrisy, greed and lust. It almost felt as if Natalie was an ugly caterpillar transforming into a beautiful butterfly. The water continued slipping down her body, splitting off to matte and glisten her hamstrings and calves. Her body didn’t as violently fight itself to maintain size as it once did, thankfully, but every now and then the odd twitch, throb and involuntary flex was felt. Natalie was past the point in wanting to boast, instead focusing on the future. College was on her mind, perhaps even look for a place of her own to live. Everything about Natalie’s drug-fueled past was behind her - she didn’t care what happened to Paul going forward.

“Fancy a trip to Luciano’s later?” Even if her body was still in the midst of changing, the only thing that remained constant in Natalie was her love for food. Thinking with her stomach was a noted trait of hers even before she started juicing. The idea of stuffing her face with pizza for the first time in months was too good to pass up.

“You bet!” Peyton called from the hallway picking up Natalie’s old, oversized clothes from the floor. It was a strange thing realising Natalie had gone down two sizes in the space of a day. Peyton worried about it initially, but Paul’s last ever parting words were to not worry about it. “Shopping spree too?”

Natalie chuckled. Honestly, she wouldn’t have it any other way. It was good to feel like her old self again, to feel..normal. The odd vein throb in her arm, though, made it a point to indicate a sense of her former self still existed, lingering, seemingly lying in wait. It made Natalie think that, just maybe, her former self would never leave completely. She knew that; she felt that - as much as she wanted to just forget it, the urge to feel her arm before its definition faded completely rose like a tidal wave. Reaching out for a sense of closure to the compulsion, she hesitated, literally struggling to pull her arm away, the faint veins in her bicep writhing in anticipation—

A frantic knock at the house’s front door saved Natalie, startling her. Her mum was back from shopping so soon? No, it couldn’t be her.

“Who is it?”

Peyton shuffled her way through the hall into the guest bedroom for the best view down to the porch. The caller took her by surprise. She didn’t expect him, of all people. Had he finally come to apologize for what he did to her after Natalie knocked some sense into him?

“It’s Dale, but…” Peyton’s eyes narrowed, taking note of the fact he was in a wheelchair, looking up at her impatiently. Natalie didn’t exactly go into detail about what she did to him, which aroused suspicions on Peyton’s behalf. “…he’s in a wheelchair.”

Natalie froze, riddled with the guilt she thought had been washed away. Did…she put him in the wheelchair? She didn’t mean to. Or…did she? He did hurt Peyton, after all.

“ Let him in, I’ll…” She swallowed nervously. “I’ll be down in a minute.”


///

It felt strange for Natalie to wear a T-shirt a couple of sizes too big for her - for once, she didn’t have to tug at the shoulders for being too tight. Now, the problem was having too much room and being baggy. She even felt a sense of nakedness in not being familiar with what she wore, even if it was her old clothes. Despite that, it drew no parallels with what she felt when looking at Dale, bound to that wheelchair likely for the rest of his life, a single, overbearing thought rushing around inside her head: did I cripple him?

Peyton offered him a cup of tea, which he generously accepted. Good, that meant he didn’t come here with a grudge, so…why be here at all? Was he really here to apologize like Peyton suspected, or did he have something else in mind? He looked at Natalie with squinted eyes, as if to suggest confusion. Then he saw it. How he hadn’t noticed it from the beginning annoyed him, but then, other, far more scarring thoughts danced inside his head too.

“I see you’re off the pills, Nat. Good.” Dale sipped his tea in silence. Or rather, he did so in expectation of a response befitting his remark but instead was offered only silence and a deathly glare from Natalie. He knew not to expect otherwise. She was in the right to feel that way.

“Cut the shit, Dale. What’s this about?” Seeing the damaged man in all his misfortune was magnetizing for Natalie. She just couldn’t stop herself from looking at him either sporadically or in prolonged stares, mangled ankles and all. Surely, he didn’t expect some sort of sympathy vote from them? Sure, she might’ve gone a bit overboard with doling out the retribution against what he did to Peyton, but that wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t hurt her in the first place. “Did I do that to you, is that it? Came here to finally show your wounds and take me to court?”

“No, I came to apologize.” Dale offered the slightest glance at Peyton hiding behind Natalie, her head only just peeking out from behind. It may have been fleeting, but Peyton’s countering grin spoke louder than words. “Besides, this…” He continued, slapping his thighs, “This wasn’t you.”

A wave of confusion came over Natalie. If it wasn’t her who rendered Dale a cripple, who did? More to the point, why did they do it?  She looked at Dale for answers, but as much as he knew them, he couldn’t bring himself to even let loose a single syllable from his lips at that point. It was as if whoever did this to him had crippled his emotions and mentality too.

“It was Reagan, right?” Peyton’s question was in every sense rhetorical. She knew it was Reagan from the simple fact Dale kept no company other than her. Natalie’s eyes grew wide as saucers as Dale’s response was averting his eyes in guilt. The question now was why, which he was brave enough to acknowledge.

“When you embarrassed her in the gym weeks earlier, she took it to heart. Bought a shitload of those pills you used and chugs them like candy.” Dale had to stop himself.  A piece of the Reagan he knew broke off that day, and she’d been on a rapid decline ever since. To think that the thing Reagan had become was something she was capable of transforming into; to think that he at one point loved her. It even pained Dale to retrace his words and realize he said ‘knew.’ Reagan was an entirely different person now, foreign to Dale. “She thinks I’m here to tell you to meet her at the gym where ‘all this shit began,’ so you can have a moment of truth, but really, I’m here to tell you, you need to help me put a stop to this.”

“What?” Natalie groaned. Why did Dale have to paint her into a corner? She was no hero. He ought to know that firsthand, yet he sought her out for help. “Fuck that!”

While he didn’t say anything to suggest it, Dale knew Natalie would oppose his plea without a moment’s hesitation. But Reagan’s life was on the line here. “I get why you don’t want to help, but you have to understand…Reagan will die if something isn’t done to help her. She doesn’t care to notice it, but she’s declining. The excessive dosage of those pills is doing weird shit to her body, you know. There’s a weird mass of veins clotting her heart, so defined you can actually see it through her skin. I fear just one more pill could be enough to give her a heart attack. She's on the brink.”

Peyton looked at Natalie wordlessly, noticing there wasn’t even a hint of emotion painted on her face. She just didn’t care. Natalie may have regressed physically, but mentally she was no different than when a roided-up meat-freak. Peyton wasn’t going to stand by that.

“You’re gonna let her die?”

“Call it karma for being on the cripple’s side when you got beat up.”

Nat!!”

Dale steeled himself well in advance. This didn’t look to be going all that well for him, or Reagan by extension. Perhaps it was time to bring out the heavy-hitting facts. He just hoped they’d help change Natalie’s tone.

“She raped me, you know.”

Silence again, but a different kind. They could all feel it too. Natalie’s expression hadn’t changed the slightest, but her ears pricked up, so that was a start.

“Or rapes, I should say. Several times. Daily.” Dale heaved a breath in the realization he’d broken the ice between them. Maybe now things would turn the other way. “I didn’t think Reagan would be capable of something like that, but seeing her expressionless face when she broke my legs before pumping that roid-fueled clit of hers into my mangled dick made me realize I was wrong. That’s how I’m in the wheelchair.”

Peyton tried her best to stop herself from crying, but it was just impossible. To think Reagan had what it took to rape someone…

“The sad part, Nat,” Dale continued, “is that I’m seeing the exact same expressionless face in you right now.”

Natalie gulped, looking intently into the mirror on the wall. Whoever looked back, it wasn’t her. They were blank, emotionless, practically dead inside. The total opposite of what Natalie knew herself to be. It made her realize the painful truth. She may have stopped taking the pills, but they would never leave her, would always be a part of her like a second nature. She could do so much better than that.

“Where is she?”

Dale nodded. “Where it all began.”

///

“I said, more weight!”

The gym manager quivered, utterly dispirited by the half-naked monolithic thing before him, its arms ballooning larger in mere seconds, impossibly thick veins rolling from mountainous delt to puffy wrist, from meaty pecs easily rivalling a sixty-five inch LCD TV to the bull-shaming neck. The manager was initially of the mind that this barbarically monstrous meat-freak was of a different planet and struggled to accept it was actually the once-beautiful Reagan, her clothes torn asunder to reveal the chemically-forged muscles she'd obsessed over.

“But Rea…” he stopped himself, wondering if it was the best idea to tell the inhuman girl the truth. Together with the swelling of the veins on her lats, he heard the sobs of the other gym-goers huddled in the corner, terrified of what Reagan had become and scared for their lives. The manager, Lloyd, had to do something. “…you’ve got all there is. Literally. You’ve added every plate from every barbell, pull-down and press in the gym, there’s nothing else for you to use.”

As if to exemplify her boiling rage, the veins in Reagan’s forehead thickened to the point as though they would burst if she were pushed any further, squirming violently enough that they pressed against her skin, forcing the girl to not only wince but set free a soft sob. But this was no ordinary sob, rather one of utter lust. She could feel herself becoming stronger just by standing with her back turned, casually curling the makeshift twenty-thousand-kilo barbell. It was a wonder on its own that such a thing could even be crafted, let alone someone could lift it. Reaching the height of her fury, she threw the barbell down onto the mat, busting it, but the resultant sound wave rippled through the room and cracked the walls, symbolizing Reagan had cracked.

“I said…” She turned to face him, her former beautiful face now fully condemned to servitude to violent facial ticks and veins. She had now been fully consumed by the pills that practically drove her existence. “MORE! WEIGHT!”

Lloyd offered an agreeing nod, feigned mostly so he would have an excuse to leave the gym and perhaps save his own life. If Reagan was pissed off enough, God knows what would happen. If she was capable of rape…

She instinctively reached for the bottle of pills and popped open her mouth to bask in the orgasmic wave of growth that would come. But only a single pill fell into the chemically-fueled cavity that was her mouth. The last one - literally.

“FUCK!” She threw the bottle across the gym with such force that it burst through the wall, revealing Lloyd closing the cupboard behind him to hide in.

Reagan trusted Dale to do what was asked: bring Natalie to the gym so she could be crushed. The extent of this crushing wasn’t revealed, so it was anyone’s guess if Reagan meant it literally or to crush Natalie mentally. As a perverse vein draped over her left eye, with a dry patch of yellow drool at the corner of her mouth, Reagan bit her lip in anticipation, too focused on the task at hand to notice or care for the obvious murmur in her heart.