Chapter 4: Being and Becoming

It had been almost two years since Becky got arrested. Apparently Becky had told the truth about her criminal record when we met in karate class, because two days after she broke my ribs in the park, she was in the juvenile offender home in Grant Falls. Courtney was really angry at me for a long time, and she never came to visit me during the three days that I was in the hospital. She went to visit Becky at the Juvenile hall a few times that first month, though. But as winter approached, and we got closer to high school, Courtney calmed down, and she never went back to visit Becky.

Between then and now Courtney and I both graduated PJHS and went on to Franklin High School. She got so wrapped up in getting into a good school that she didn’t time for much else. She even went away to take courses at a college prep school for a semester during sophomore year. While she was gone I hit my growth spurt, and I was lifting more than ever. I was pumping serious iron. FHS was the best football team in the state, and the trainers there made sure I had plenty of steroids, and that I knew how to use them.

Courtney got back from college prep two weeks before Christmas break. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw me. She didn’t like how angry the steroids made me, but she loved the extra four inches of height and thirty pounds of muscle I had packed on while she was away. And she had changed, too. Her boobs looked about twice as big as they were before she went away, and her butt looked rounder too. But all she ever wore were baggy jeans and sweatshirts emblazoned with logos of the colleges that she talked with during her prep semester.

That first weekend back, all Courtney wanted to do was watch me work out and rub my muscles. I was aching to sex her up, but she kept telling me to wait until her parents went out of town the next weekend. It was like she was hiding something.

On Saturday, she came over to see me and she was so excited she bounced from foot to foot as we talked. “Greg, guess what?” she asked.

“What?”

“Becky got out of the girls’ home this week, and we need to go meet her.”

“Becky who?

“Becky Finklestein, Greg. Remember?”

“What!?” I screamed. “No, fuck that! That crazy little bitch got herself into trouble, and I don’t care if she got out or if they keep her locked up for life!”

“Fine,” Courtney said. “I’ll go alone!” and she stormed out of the house as I followed.

“That girl is unstable, she’ll break your heart,” my mom said from the kitchen.

I had know idea how right she was.

I saw Courtney at school on Monday. “How was Becky?” I asked. I didn’t really care, but I had to act like I did.

“She seems okay,” Courtney said. “She has braces now. Her mom is ... weird.”

“Yeah,” I said, remembering Rachel Finklestein’s incredible body and incredible strength.

“And her dad never says anything. Rachel orders him around like a slave. He just sits quietly in a chair in the kitchen until she tells him to do something.”

“Totally whipped,” I said, chuckling.

Courtney and I were walking to homeroom when Clarence cut us off. “Hey Rubber Chicken,” he said. “Guess who’s out of lock-up?

“I heard,” I said.

“Well my little brother told me to tell you that little ninja girl wants to fight you.”

“What!?”

Courtney pulled on my sleeve. “Greg you can’t. She’ll get in trouble again. She’s so smart, and she needs to be in school.”

Clarence was walking away, when he turned around. “I forgot,” he told us, “I’m supposed to tell you that Becky said not to be afraid, because she won’t hurt you like she did last time.”

I could feel my face getting red. Courtney hadn’t told anyone about Becky breaking my ribs, so I had to hold my tongue until Clarence was out of sight. “It was a lucky punch,” I hissed at Courtney. “I ought to go kick her ass just to shut her up.”

From the look on my face, Courtney knew that I was seriously thinking about it. “Greg you can’t,” she pleaded. “You’re so much bigger now, you’re pretty much a grown man, and she looks exactly the same as she used to.”

“That’s too bad I sneered, because she used to look like a Muppet.”

“Greg be nice. She has beautiful features, she just needs to grow into them, that’s all.”

“She needs to grow about two feet taller, too.”

“Greg be nice.”

I didn’t want to be nice to Becky Finklestein, though. I wanted to go meet her somewhere and pound her into the ground.

On Tuesday, Courtney and I were walking to homeroom when we ran into Cameron Heinz and Ben Gruber. “Dude,” Cameron said. “Remember that little Becky girl that beat you at arm-wrestling and ran all over you in football a couple of years ago?”

“She didn’t run all over me, Cam, she was on my team.”

“Whatever. Anyway, she just got out of juvie, and she’s telling all the kids at Polk that she got sent away for kicking your ass. And that she wants to fight you again, but that you’re scared of her.”

I scoffed. “Whatever,” I said.

Courtney looked away. She didn’t like lying.

Ben shrugged. “My sister says she has a police report that has your name on it, and it says she broke your ribs.”

“I told you guys, I got hit by a car,” I said, shoving Ben into the lockers.

Cameron laughed. “Hey Courtney. How did Greg break his ribs in ninth grade?”

There was an awkward pause as Courtney looked at her feet. “It was a lucky punch, I think,” she said.

Cameron and Ben started laughing, and I had to turn away so I didn’t start beating them up right there in the hall. “I can’t believe it,” Ben snorted, “Greg used to get bullied by a grade school girl.”

That night I was so mad that I had to work out twice just to clear my head. I just got out of the shower when my mom told me I had a phone call. “Who is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know honey. It’s a gentleman who says he’s from Notre Dame. It may be a recruiter.”

I was beyond stoked. I ran to the front room to answer the phone. “Hello,” I said.

“Hold on one moment,” said a sheepish male voice.

I could hear the phone changing hands. “Hi Rubber Chicken,” jeered a familiar female voice. “When are you going to come and get your beating?”

“Fuck off!” I yelled.

“Fine,” Becky sighed. “I’ll be in the middle of the soccer field at Fwanklin High tomorrow afternoon. If you don’t show up, I’ll have to get creative.”

I slammed the phone down. “It was a prank call,” I called out.

Becky must have gotten the word out to all the kids at PJHS, because when I got to class on Wednesday, our fight was all anyone could talk about. Courtney watched me like a hawk. “Greg don’t. She’s just a little girl,” she said while we were in the lunch line.

“She needs to keep her mouth shut,” I said. “Maybe I should just go tell her that.”

“No Greg, let me. I’ll go out and talk to her. Besides, we don’t want anything to ruin this weekend...”

Courtney’s parents were going out of town this weekend, and she had the house all to herself. I had been waiting over a week to get her out of those baggy clothes that she had been wearing, and into my bed. In just a few days I was going to be over there making sweet love to her from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. So I let her take over.

The class day flew by. I was waiting on the steps outside of FHS when Courtney came back from her meeting with Becky, crying. She had a black eye. “She slapped me, Greg,” Courtney sobbed, her breath steaming in the winter air. “She said you weren’t man enough to defend yourself, but maybe you were man enough to defend me.”

Becky had finally gone too far, but she was right about one thing. I was going to defend Courtney. As I ran off, Courtney pulled on my arm. “Greg, don’t,” she pleaded.”

“I’m not going to hurt her, I’m just going to scare her,” I snarled. “Scare the hell out of her.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about-”

“I’m not going to get in trouble.”

“It’s not that, Greg...”

I was so mad I nearly snapped at Courtney, “Well what the hell is it then?”

“Greg, she’s really strong.”

“I’m a lot stronger than I used to be,” I boasted. “You’ve seen the weight I put up now.”

Courtney looked away. I kissed her on the cheek and jogged off toward the soccer field. I could see the crowd of kids that had gathered for the fight was starting to disperse, and I could see a tiny little shape in a bright blue track suit right in the middle. I ran toward the soccer field as fast as I could go, a light layer of snow crunching under my feet. Becky looked almost exactly the same as I remembered her. Same frizzy orange pigtails, same glasses, same freckles. She may have gotten an inch taller. The only real change I noticed was that she was starting to develop breasts, which didn’t surprise me, having seen the giant cans her mother carried around. And judging by the way Becky’s track suit fit, she was getting fat. “What the hell, Becky!?” I demanded.

“Nice to see you, too, Gweg,” Becky jeered, and smiled, her braces gleaming in the winter sun. Still having trouble with r’s and l’s, I thought to myself. And now she has braces and she’s getting fat. No wonder she’s being such a bitch. Thinking about what an ugly duckling Becky was made me feel sympathy for her, and made me calm down a bit.

“Courtney’s the only person who ever stood up for you. You know that right?” I asked. “She was your friend.”

“This isn’t about Courtney,” Becky said calmly. “This is about you and me. I’ll hit her whenever I feel like it.”

She popped a pink bubble and smiled.

Now I was mad again. Even angrier than before. “You’re not supposed to chew gum with braces Becky,” I shouted. “And you’re not supposed to hit people that are nice to you. How stupid are you!?”

“I have an IQ of 176, Rubber Chicken. And in case you forgot, I do whatever I want.”

“Shut up Becky!” I yelled. It wasn’t a great comeback, but I was too mad to think straight. I was fifteen yards away from the person that I hated most in the world, and it was going to take all my self control to keep from pounding her into a bloody pulp.

Courtney had caught up to me by now. “Greg don’t,” she said.

“Go stand over there by Cameron,” I told Courtney, pointing to where the guys standing.

“I’m sorry Courtney,” Becky said apologetically. “It was the only thing I could think of to get Rubber Chicken to stop hiding fwom me.”

“I’m not hiding from you, Becky,” I said. “I’m over twice your size. I’ve been pumping serious iron. See?” I tore my coat and my flannel off, and flexed my biceps for the crowd. There was some hooting, and few girls whistled. I could see Courtney smiling lustily. “I can’t fight you or I’ll hurt you and get in trouble.”

Becky laughed, but not in that little giggling way she normally did. This time is was a nasty cackle like a cartoon witch. “I’ve been pumping sewious iron, too,” she said. And with that she unzipped and removed her tracksuit, so that she was wearing nothing but white sneakers, a white cutoff tank top and white soccer shorts. “See?” she crowed.

I could hear gasps of disbelief from all around as Becky’s track suit fell to the ground.

Becky Finklestein had muscles. Real muscles. Big muscles. Huge muscles.

My heart sank and I felt a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. The ten year old girl staring up at me from fifteen feet away was the most muscular human being I had ever seen in my life. Her soccer shorts and tank top were stretched so tight by her rippling bulk that they may as well have been spandex. I could see every enormous, striated sinew in her body as they bulged in perfect definition in the afternoon sun. She looked bigger than most of the Mr. Olympia contestants that I saw in my weightlifting magazines. She looked impossible. “Oh my God,” Courtney gasped.