A Healing Love
Copyright© 2025 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 26: Strengthening
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 26: Strengthening - Paul Robertson's journey continues as his past and present collide at a star-studded movie premiere, where a connection that once terrified him reignites with passion that threatens to consume them both. Fighting to forge a new future for himself and stop drifting, Paul must finally become the man he’s always been afraid to be. A beautiful, bittersweet exploration of grief, social responsibility, the healing power of love, and learning that sometimes loving someone means letting them go.
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Romantic Heterosexual Fiction
I met up with Alannah at the badminton club as usual on Wednesday afternoon, and on a whim, we teamed up to challenge Geoff and Maddison—the first time we’d played together, rather than against each other, since the tournament semi-final. It was a fun match, but with Lana trying not to push her knee too much, we didn’t really expect to win, even if Geoff did promise they’d take it easy on us.
We lost, but it was closer than I had anticipated.
After the club, I found myself alone with Alannah in the gym because Mark had something else he needed to do, though he wouldn’t tell me what. He did cryptically ask what time I expected to be back at the house, though.
It felt strange being in the gym without him. For over a year, we’d been working out together, gradually lifting heavier weights and spotting for one another. I’ll admit I felt at a bit of a loss and didn’t quite know where to begin. Normally, Mark and I would have started on the bench with several reps of about three-quarters of our respective personal bests, before building up to either match or beat those bests. But I didn’t feel completely comfortable putting eighty kilos on the bar without Mark standing over me, just in case.
And I couldn’t exactly ask Alannah for help. For one, I’m certain she weighed less than eight stone herself—less than fifty kilos—so asking her to spot me for eighty would be dangerous for both of us. For another, she had her own routine that she usually went through, and it wouldn’t be fair to disrupt that just because I’d lost my gym partner for the evening.
Lana usually entered the gym a few minutes after Mark and me. After the first week, she had begun bringing a change of clothes with her, as her badminton outfits weren’t particularly suitable for the gym. She would wander over to us in the free weights area at the back to start her routine. But because I was alone and hadn’t started any exercise when she arrived, she looked at me with an arched eyebrow.
“Missing your gym buddy?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Not sure what to start with, to be honest.”
“Well, just don’t do anything where you might hurt yourself. I’m not sure I could help with the weight you lift if it traps you on the bench because you can’t get it up.” She had a very cheeky grin and a wicked glint in her eye.
I rolled my eyes and set about loading the bar. I decided to play it safe and just add twelve and a half kilos to each side, which, along with the weight of the bar itself and the clamps, would make an even fifty—essentially, I’d be bench-pressing one Alannah, there or thereabouts.
“Actually, Paul...?”
I looked at her and raised my eyebrows, waiting for the question she wanted to ask.
“Could you ... I mean ... could you show me how to do that? The on the bench thing, I mean. I’ve always wanted to try it, but felt ... you know ... silly asking when Mark was here. I mean, squats are easy, and the machines are easy, but...”
She looked at the floor. Then, she lifted just her eyes to look at me.
I smiled.
“It’s not silly at all. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I started. Mark showed me everything.”
She lifted her head and smiled. “Oh ... okay. I just thought...”
“What are you squatting right now? What’s your Pee Bee?”
“Pee Bee?”
“Personal Best? What’s the most you’ve put on the bar when squatting?”
“Well ... I don’t really use the bar. I use the ones you pick up, one in each hand.”
“They’re called dumbbells.”
“Well, that’s a dumb name,” she said, grinning.
I rolled my eyes at her dramatically, using my entire head, and groaned.
“Which ones do you use?”
“Those ones. The small ones. I’m not doing it to win any prizes, just to help strengthen my knee, but don’t want to risk damaging it.”
“They’re one kilo, so that’s two kilos in total. And how easy do you find it? How much do you think you could do if you pushed it? I’m not saying you should—the last thing you want is to hurt your knee again, but...”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re not heavy, really. I suppose I could do, maybe, I don’t know, the same again? A bit more?”
I picked up one of the five-kilo dumbbells. “Here,” I said, offering it to her. “That too heavy?”
She took it from me, nearly dropped it, but recovered.
“Wow. That’s heavier than I thought it would be. But, yes, I think I could do it with that.”
“Ten then. Okay. Let’s assume you can do it. I don’t want you to try it and hurt yourself. And what do you weigh?”
“Paul! You should know better than to ask a lady what she weighs.” She smirked. And winked.
I stared at her, and she started giggling.
“I’m seven stone seven. I think.”
I nodded. “Close enough. So ... two point two kilos per pound ... fourteen pounds per stone, that’s ... fourteen times seven is...”
“Ninety-eight,” she said, grinning. Then she shrugged. “I was always good at mental arithmetic. Four sevens are twenty–eight, plus seventy is ninety-eight.”
I nodded. “So, ninety-eight plus seven is one hundred and four. Divide that by two point two?”
“Erm...” Her eyes looked up and moved slightly left and right. “Forty ... Seven ... point two. I think.”
“Close enough. Call it forty-eight.”
“Hey! It’s forty-seven! You round down, not up. Why do you need to know, anyway?”
“Because I need to know what you think you can squat in relation to your body weight before we decide how much, if anything, to put on the bar for you to bench. I’m about thirteen stone five—about eighty-five kilos—and I can squat over two hundred kilos, but my bench pee bee is only one ten—”
“One hundred and ten kilograms? That’s, like, more than two of me!”
“I know. It should be more, but I only train once a week. Some guys are in here every night who weigh pretty much the same as me, but can bench much more. The point is, you can usually bench anything between half and three-quarters of what you can squat. Usually. It varies, but normally it’s about two-thirds or so. But it depends on body weight, too. I’ve seen guys in here bench well over a hundred and fifty kilos, but they weigh, like, fifteen or sixteen stone. Huge guys.”
“Okay. So ... What do you recommend?”
“Honestly? Start as low as we possibly can. Just the bar. Even without the clamps. That’ll be just twenty kilos. Actually, forget that. Even that’s too much. Let’s start with the dumbbells that you use when squatting. The lowest weight, one kilo in each hand, just so you can learn the technique, then go from there.”
She nodded. “Okay. Whatever you think.”
For the next hour, I taught Alannah how to bench press. I can’t say I was a particularly good teacher, but she was an excellent learner. She listened attentively. She followed my instructions. She absorbed my small corrections. It was actually quite enjoyable. In the end, I didn’t lift anything at all, but I didn’t mind. It was far more enjoyable watching Alannah lying back on the bench, lifting first one kilo in each hand, then two. She attempted five in each hand but couldn’t quite manage it. I’m sure she would if she kept at it for a few weeks. And eventually, she’d graduate to the bar itself, but she was probably at least a month away from that if she only did it once a week.
But something told me she’d be back here on her own. She was a driven young woman, and I knew that when she set her mind to doing something, she wanted to do it as well as possible.
I had no idea where she would find the time, though. Not with practising her cello alone, in her quartet and in the orchestra, attending lectures, seminars, and tutorials, studying outside of those, doing homework, playing badminton, and, well, she needed to eat and sleep, too.
As had become our custom, I walked her home after the session and asked her how her knee was once we reached the top of the stairs leading to the Grand Plaza. We’d played a more challenging game of badminton than she’d played in weeks, and she hadn’t done any squats at the gym—which made me suspicious.
“It’s fine, Paul,” she said, trying not to sound exasperated and only just failing. “Actually, I’m surprised how good it feels. I’ve played harder today than I have since before Christmas, and I feel fine. I mean, I did hold back a bit and not really push myself, which is why we lost, but my knee still feels fine. Look.”
She did an impromptu squat right there in the Grand Plaza, but she grimaced on the way back up.
“Ow. Okay, that hurt a bit, but it’s probably because I’ve taken my knee brace off.”
“Lana, I don’t want you getting hurt again.”
“I’m not. I swear. This is the best it’s felt in ... Well, actually, since I first hurt it nearly two years ago.”
“Does the knee brace really help that much?”
She nodded. “It does, but it’s not just that. I’ve been doing the exercises the physio gave me pretty much every night before bed and every morning ever since I went back home at the end of last term. I mean, not every night, but most nights. And that’s really made a difference. It’s something I should have been doing all along, but it wasn’t until I hurt it again that I figured I really should...” She shrugged. “The gym workouts have helped, too. I know it’s only been, like, a few weeks, but the extra effort to squat while carrying the dumbbells or use those machines helps to strengthen it. I know I’m not using massive weights or anything, but it makes a difference. It really does.”
“Good. I’m glad it’s helping.”
“I’ve actually been going to the gym twice a week. On Wednesday with you and then again on Saturday morning. I get up early to go. I don’t enjoy that as much, though, if I’m honest. It’s full of guys at that time—well, not full, I just mean that it’s only guys that are there, and I don’t feel very comfortable. I can feel them watching me, and I don’t like it.”
“You know people watch you on a Wednesday, too, right? I mean, have you seen you? Guys are going to watch you.”
She giggled. “I don’t mind you watching me. But the real difference is I know that no one will try anything when you’re there. You know? No one will come on to me. Or, more to the point, if they did and I told them to get lost and they didn’t, you’d sort them out for me. Makes a girl feel safe knowing there’s someone around to stick up for her.”
“So, someone’s come on to you on a Saturday?”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.