Hi again, folks. Jak here. This was the second of my Sylph stories, published elsewhere, originally, and still available on my
https://www.*****stmercy2020 page. Think of these stories as appetizers for the stories in
Hard at Work: Women with Muscles.* * * * * * * * * *
Sylph in Moving Day“Ow!”
THUD…
tinkle…
CRASH!
“Oh, no. Sorry, Daddy!”
Bill rounded the corner to discover his living room in shambles and his beautiful nineteen-year-old daughter, as usual, at the heart of it sucking on her left index finger.
I love the girl, he thought,
but thank God she’s moving out today! I just can’t afford this on my income.“Oh, honey…” he began, then started over. “What happened?”
“Well, I was stitching up some of my old skirts- you know, the ones I outgrew the other day?” Bill nodded. At least she was handy at crafts. They really would be out of money, otherwise, the way she kept getting bigger.
“Well, I missed a stitch and stabbed my finger.” That explained why she had been sucking on it.
“I jumped to my feet…” That would have been the thud. Unsurprisingly, a couple of floorboards were cracked under her trainers.
“Then I pulled the needle out. It hurt so bad I threw it across the room…” Bill looked. Sure enough, the needle had blasted through the television (the tinkle he’d heard) like a shotgun shell and embedded itself deep in the brick wall behind it.
“I realized what I was doing at the last second, though, and I tried to catch it, but I tripped on the sofa.” That would be the 16-foot reinforced steel-and-wood framed couch now lying in twisted ruins in the corner of the room.
Bill just shook his head and rubbed his forehead. Sylph meant well- she always did- but she was just built on the wrong scale for the relatively fragile world she lived in. “Okay,” he muttered. “I can see how it happened. But Sylph, honey, you’ve got to learn to control yourself better. I have to go out and pick up the rental truck and trailer. While I’m gone, I need you to pick up this mess and get it out to the curb.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she said, sounding genuinely contrite.
“And then I need you to make sure all of your things are packed and ready to go. Especially your weight room!”
“Uh-huh. It’s mostly done. I’ve just got a couple more things to box up and I should be ready to go.”
“Good job, then. I’ll see you in about an hour,” he said. He kissed her forehead and left.
Sylph sighed looking at the devastated living room and shrugged her gargantuan shoulders.
Might as well start with the little things, she thought. Walking over to the television, she unplugged the mammoth box and gently set it to one side, being careful not to crush it further. There was no way it could be salvaged, she knew, but she really didn’t want to spend the morning sweeping up shards of plastic and ballistic glass…
Looking at the tiny head of the pin sticking out of the brick behind the television, Sylph realized that there was no way she could get a grip on it- it was simply embedded too deeply. Unfortunately, enough of it stuck out that someone could scratch themselves or possibly tear their clothes on it. She decided it would have to go. Carefully, oh so carefully, Sylph forced her fingers into the mortar around the brick, then proceeded to squeeze her hands together ever so gently until she had a firm grip. A sharp tug, and the mortar still holding the brick along its top and bottom cracked and broke away and left Sylph holding the brick, now completely separated from the wall.
Dropping it into the trash, Sylph turned back to the television. The television had been something of a major luxury purchase for her family- a 65” rear-projection HDTV that had been modified at her father’s request to include a much stronger metal-and-plastic frame and one-inch thick ballistic glass covering the screen. The theory had been that Sylph would then be unable to accidentally break the television beyond repair as she was wont to do with so many other things in moments of distraction. Well, it made it nearly a year…
Sylph hoisted it up onto her left shoulder, snugging it on her enormous delt between her head and her left hand, grabbed the trash can with her right, and carried them to the back doors. Sliding open the glass doors, Sylph squatted down as low as she could and shuffled out on to the back porch. She wondered briefly if she could jump over the three-story Antebellum-styled house, but discarded the idea because she might land on something-or someone-unforseen on the other side. Grumbling, she hiked around to the front and set her first load down near the street. She felt a little bad for the garbage men who would be called to move this stuff- they’d probably need three or four large lads.
Heading back to the house, Sylph carefully slipped in the double doors and headed back to the living room. Sylph remembered when the sofa had been brought into the house. Several workmen had made several trips bringing it in sections, then spent some time bolting and soldering the entire frame together. It wasn’t going to come apart the same way, as the frame had buckled and twisted when she accidentally flipped it with her heel. Considering her options, she decided that the best method to get it outdoors would be to compress it down to a more manageable size and then carry the whole thing out through the back once again.
Setting to work, Sylph first folded the back of the sofa down over the seat. She left the cushions in place, figuring they would be easier to get out if they were compacted along with the rest of the couch. The metal frame groaned and the oak supports snapped like so much dry kindling, but the process went quickly. Next, she compressed each section further by forcing opposite corners together. Even though the sofa had been designed to hold literally thousands of pounds and each section was supported by series of triangular crossbraces, it simply could not resist the titanic forces Sylph used when she applied her back and chest to the exercise. After flattening a section, Sylph proceeded to bend it in half before starting on the next section, effectively accordioning the massive couch. Gently flipping it over, Sylph then folded each of the legs in against the utterly destroyed frame. When she finished, what had once been a 16-foot, extremely comfortable sofa had been reduced to a roughly three-foot wide by four-inch thick slab with roughly the same density as a block of concrete.
After carrying the couch out to the street, Sylph saw that she was nearly done in the living room. She dropped the broken floorboards into the trash on her way to the garage, grabbed a couple of replacements (this was nearly a daily occurrence, these days) and a couple of flooring nails. She considered grabbing a hammer since her finger was still a bit sore from where she had stabbed it, but decided it would be a waste of time-and possibly more flooring materials, as well. Replacing the floorboards took a matter of only a couple minutes as she set them in place, carefully set the nails, and deftly flicked them deep into the hickory boards. She decided she would wait until after she had finished moving all of her boxes into the truck before polyurethaning them- it was entirely possible, after all, that she would be replacing several more boards before the day was done…
Finally all that was left to do was to sweep up the debris from the wreckage, a task that took longer than any of the previous tasks simply because it required precision much more than strength. Satisfied, Sylph went down into the basement to make sure everything was ready to go. The cargo crates her father had acquired were only rated for two thousand pounds, each, so she had had to use quite a few in the weight room. Most of her bedroom, however, fit comfortably enough within just two crates. The hardest part was going to be getting her bed out. NYU was willing to accept reasonable expenses for students with special needs, but Sylph’s particular needs went far, far beyond what anyone would consider ‘reasonable.’
Sylph proceeded to unbolt the frame, carefully holding the lagbolts with her left hand and using the awesome power of her right wrist to loosen and remove the nuts, only a couple of which, she was pleased to note, had been crossthreaded. She figured she would correct that little issue when she put it back together in her new dorm room.
“Sylph, we’re home,” caroled her mother’s voice from the kitchen. Sylph bounded to the top of the stairs and swept her mom up in a hug and swung her around.
“You got the day off work!” she cried happily.
“Yes, dear. Would you mind setting me down so I can breathe again?” Sheepishly, Sylph put her mother back on the floor. Sylph’s mother, Diane, was actually a little taller than her daughter at 5’8”, and it was pretty easy to see where Sylph got her genetic predisposition towards building massive muscles. Diane had been an amateur bodybuilder for several years, but had quit when judges started criticizing her for being too big. Given that she had been a ripped two-hundred sixty pounds at the time, she felt this was an indication that it was time for her to get out of the sport. These days, she worked as a paramedic attached to the Cleveland Fire Department, and was widely regarded as one of the toughest workers in the business.
“That’s better. Your father is backing the trailer up to the house. Why don’t we start collecting your boxes and get them loaded up?” It was easy to guess that Dad wouldn’t be much help, there. Although reasonably fit, Bill simply could not keep up with the amazing physical prowess of either his wife or his daughter.
“Sure, Mom,” Sylph agreed.
Loading things up went fairly well. Bill helped direct the much stronger women in order to make the most efficient use of space and strapped things down once they were in place. For her part, Diane carried up the lighter crates (of which there were only a few) and left her daughter to carry up the larger and heavier ones two or three at a time.
Looking at the impressive stacks of crates, Sylph’s mother cocked an eyebrow. “Geez, dear. Did you leave any for your old man and me to play around with?”
“A couple, I swear. Actually, I left one of my smaller weight sets- about 500 pounds in various denominations, a couple of short bars, a straight bar, and a curl bar. And, of course, all the old machines that Daddy likes to use.”
With the trailer finally loaded up, Bill tossed a set of keys to his daughter. “Alright,” he said, “your mom and I are going to take the trailer. You drive the Ford. Stick close to us and call us if you get separated.”
The Ford Bill referred to was the modified F-350 that they owned. The front seat had been adjusted and pushed back to accommodate Sylph’s deep chest. They had bolted a new set of restraints to the frame of the truck, and the pedals had been shifted to the center of the floor to make room so that Sylph could get both shoulders fully inside the truck when she was driving and extended by nearly six inches so that her feet could reach them comfortably.
They had barely gone a mile when one of the tires on the trailer, not designed for the fantastic load it was supporting or else slightly worn through overuse, burst. As Sylph watched in horror, the entire truck slalomed across the slow lane before coming to rest in the ditch. Sylph immediately put on her flashers and pulled up behind her parents’ inoperable vehicle. Bill got out and scratched his head. “Well, shoot. I think there’s a spare, but I don’t think I can put it on at this angle.”
Both Sylph and her mom looked at him bemusedly. “Somehow, dear,” Diane said wryly, “I don’t think that’ll really be a problem.”
“Huh?” Bill looked speculatively at the two women he loved best in the world. “Well, you could be right at that. I’ll get the spare.”
While her dad got the tire, Sylph went over to the trailer. Standing back a little from the ruined wheel, Sylph got a grip on the trailer’s frame, took a wide stance, and lifted.
“Oh God,” she grunted, “it would have to break under all the weights.”
Her mom came over and stripped off her floral blouse so that she wouldn’t get it dirty while she worked. Gripping the tread of the tire with one hand to steady it and the rusted bolts with her other, Sylph’s mom quickly removed all four and then the tire, handing each back to Bill in turn. Bill pocketed the bolts but nearly dropped the tire when the weight was transferred from his wife’s capable arm to his substantially weaker frame.
“Oops. Sorry, honey. I thought you had it.”
“No… problem…” Bill grunted through clenched teeth.
“Now to attach the spare,” Diane chirped, slapping the massive tire into place. Bill handed her the bolts.
“Be careful not to over-torque them, honey,” he reminded her. This was a serious concern, since they didn’t have a torque wrench that would release pressure when the maximum load was reached- all they had was his wife’s sensitive fingers and powerful wrists.
Finally finished changing the tire, Sylph gently set the trailer back on the ground, noting with some satisfaction that her quads were really feeling the burn. Moving to the front of the truck, Sylph and Diane each took ahold of the frame of the doors and carefully dragged the truck back out of the ditch and back onto the relatively flat shoulder.
“Hm. Looks like the spare is riding a little low,” said Bill, examining their work with a critical eye. Let me go get the pump.” Moments later he was back. There was no pump.
“We’ll just have to call triple-A, I guess,” he moaned.
“Umm. Maybe not, Daddy. Let me have a shot at it, okay?”
Going over to the slightly deflated tire, Sylph put her mouth against the valve and, using her tongue to just barely force in the plug, blew with all the force she could muster. The tire seemed to virtually leap to full inflation from the power of Sylph’s lungs. It took several breaths, of course, but the pressure she was able to create just with the contraction of her mighty diaphragm was more than enough to equal the most powerful of electric pumps. Her father, carefully testing the tire between her breaths, warned her when to stop to avoid over-inflating the tire.
Sylph got up and spit the taste of rubber and metal and road-grease out of her mouth. “Yuck,” she complained.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, although they raised quite a few eyebrows when they stopped at a restaurant for lunch and Sylph and her mother together proceeded to wolf down in excess of five pounds of meat not including sides and drinks. Bill paid for everything on his credit card and they got back underway.
Arriving on campus, they spent the rest of the day unloading and moving everything into Sylph’s new dormroom, an immense single in the bottom of the chemical-free dorm. After another large meal, Sylph’s parents kissed and hugged their daughter and said their goodbyes.
“Any plans for tomorrow, young lady?” asked Sylph’s mother.
“I’m not too sure. I’ve gotta finish unpacking, of course, and then I thought I might check out the library. And maybe the gym…”
