Chapter 4: Ian

I stumbled back from Ella’s room where she’d hurriedly shut the door in my face. Intellectually, I understood that she was an adult and probably got horny just like everybody else; but she’d never, ever been overt about it. We were more like brother and sister, I guess. Intimate with each other, but not sexual. I just didn’t think about her that way.

Part of that - most of that, now that I looked back at it - was that we grew up together. The other part ... well, that’s ... complicated.

I was flat out average growing up. My parents aren’t athletes by any stretch of the imagination - Dad is an overweight paper pusher at an accounting firm, and from pictures, my birth mom was a very petite school teacher. My stepmom (I never call her that, she’s been my Mom since I was ten) is pretty into jogging, but she’s not a fanatic about it or anything. When I got my growth spurts sophomore year of high school and freshman year of college, I floored everyone, myself included.

So at 6’5”, I was the anomaly. I used to be skinny fat, like a lot of geeks I knew in high school; then a dorm mate of mine dragged me to the student center gym and I quickly got addicted to working out. The endorphin rush of lifting two hundred and fifty pounds of metal hits my brain in just the right spot. Video games were fun, but they just couldn’t compete; they’re all pretty much the same after a while ... Oh, and there was one more perk to lifting ... how the ladies treated me when I’d show up at a bar with a T-shirt tight enough to be obscene ... yea. That’s a plus.

My junior year of college I started taking advantage of the attention, and when a lady threw herself at me, unless she was a complete hag or twice my size I’d let her take me home or ride back with me as circumstances dictated. Heh, dictated. Come on, I’m a guy! At twenty one years old, single, and in great shape, what’s the harm? Buddies would complain about their luck on things like Tinder and Snap, but I didn’t even have accounts. Didn’t need them.

The trouble always started the morning after, of course. Just because I’d hook up with someone didn’t mean I was looking for a relationship. The last girl I’d wanted one with had been Stacey. Fuck, we’d almost moved in together. Then she found out what I wanted long term, and noped out fast.

Stacey snuck in under my radar a little bit. We started hooking up freshman year while we were cooped up in dorms; she was a 5’8” bombshell redhead with 36DDs, an amazing ass, and great legs. Absolute total package. She told me on the third date that she didn’t do what we were doing - screwing like rabbits - and that she was a little afraid of how fast things were going. I hadn’t totally succumbed to being a manwhore yet, and she’d well and truly caught me. So we slowed down and did all the usual stuff couples do - movie dates, parties, trips to the park. When I started lifting she went nuts over my abs. Of all the factors that kept me in it during the initial habit forming, Stacey’s reaction was probably the biggest.

When she started talking about moving in together, I had already let my guard down. I’d begun fantasizing about what would happen after college. My first internship had gone really well, I had money in the bank for the first time, and she was having a tough semester with the psychology coursework she had chosen to bury herself in. She bitched, constantly, about her job prospects and whether she even wanted to be a psychologist or social worker or whatever when she ‘grew up’.

We got drunk at a party one night, and my roommate was out. She decided we were going back to my dorm to play a very private game of “Truth or Dare”, and she’d been daring me to stand naked in the shower with the water on full cold. I chose truth instead. To this day, years later, I still remember the whole thing.

“Okay, Ian...” she giggled. “What’s the biggest kink you want to explore that we haven’t tried yet?”

We had ‘tried’ a helluva lot by then. Anal, deepthroating, tit fucking, creampies, facials, heck, even some light bondage when she found some fluffy handcuffs at a sex shop right outside of campus.

I KNEW it was a bad idea. I’d never told ANYONE what really made my dick twitch, because I just knew I’d be treated like a freak.

“I don’t know, babe...” I was still buzzed, but not enough for my little head to do all my thinking for me. As my dad used to say, ‘Danger, Will Robinson!’

Stacey pouted. “IIIIIaannnn, the point of GAME is to tell the TRUTH.” Her eyes narrowed and she grinned evilly. “Unless, ya know, you wanna go stand under 40 degree running water.”

“No no no,” I said quickly. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you (truth). It’s that I don’t really know what else we could do... (lie, lie, big fat fucking LIE)”

“Mmmmhmm.” She didn’t look convinced. She plopped into my lap - she loved how much bigger than her I was - and started grinding her crotch against my jeans. I was already pretty hard from the petting and innuendo the game had involved to this point, and I reacted on instinct. My hips rolled and I thrust forward, sliding my bulge against her very tiny, very silky pajama shorts that she’d changed into. My hands reached down and grabbed her asscheeks, which filled my palms wonderfully.

Instead of reaching up to kiss me, she yanked my shirt up to my collarbone and sucked my right nipple into her mouth.

“oooOOHHHhhhh”, I groaned. That felt way too fucking good.

She broke contact and looked up at me again. “Come on, lover. Tell me what sort of nasty little thoughts are running around behind those deep, dark eyes.”

“You sure?” I gasped. She wasn’t playing fair at all; she kept rubbing herself against my dick, and her hands had started stroking my chest and flicking my nipples, which were unreasonably sensitive. It was probably thanks to the liquor.

“Last chance before I dump you in the shower.” She’d sat up in my lap and was staring right in my eyes. Fine, god damn it. She wanted to know, she was gonna find out. I was tired of keeping it to myself anyway.

“You want the nasty stuff, huh, babe? You wanna know what gets me?” I blew out my cheeks, glanced down, and then locked eyes with her.

I told her. I didn’t pull punches. I gave her the raunchy, blunt version. I let it all hang out.

You know that noise they play when something goes horribly wrong on TV? The record scratch noise?

I swear to God, her expression was the physical equivalent of that sound. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that.

“ ... Oh ... my ... god ... Ian?” The color had drained out of her face and I held my breath.

The silence stretched. I blushed.

“Y ... you ... You ... you’re fucking GROSS!”

She practically leapt off me, grabbed her purse, and walked out.

And that’s how my relationship with the woman I thought I might marry ended.

Stacey and I never really talked to each other after that. She broke up with me, via text of all things. Blocked me damn near instantaneously on Facebook and when I tried to email her, I got nothing but radio silence. I kept cringing when I went out in public near where I knew she had classes; I was terrified of running into her friends. Turns out she never really told them what happened, just that we decided to part ways. Small favors, I guess.

I missed her, a lot. I also got really frigging depressed. Thank god for Ella; she kept me sane, especially when she agreed to move in. We got even closer, watching bad movies and eating way too many calories. I got a little out of shape until I forced myself back into the gym rat rhythm. The pain finally subsided after months and I started being a dedicated bar crawler.

Here’s the thing. I’m a boob man. And an ass man. And a legs man. And definitely a bit of a lips man. And there’s a certain way a woman can wear her hair and makeup that drives me wild. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not picky when it comes to getting laid. Breasts are breasts, sure; but some are definitely better than others. The same goes with all the other parts. For a one time thing, I’ll compromise. But with everything I had going for me I just wasn’t willing to settle for less than what I really wanted long term, and none of the women that I’d encountered yet were able to meet my admittedly high bar or willing to do some of the ... other stuff ... that got me going.

All of that - every bit of it - is to explain that Ella just didn’t register to me that way. It would be like me trying to be attracted to a tree. I felt bad for her, sometimes. She was flat as a board, tiny, and had no curves to speak of, not that she tried, anyway. I don’t think she even owned enough makeup to fill a thimble. She had professional wear for work and I guess she had basic foundation and stuff, but what do I know? I’m a dude, I don’t pay attention to shit like that.

So it was real weird to know that Ella had been in the other room rubbing one or two out during the workday.

After sitting around waiting for an hour to see if she’d come out so we could figure out dinner, I gave up and left the apartment.

The gym I worked out at after college had a space for Mixed Martial Arts. I had never really been interested in it (short geeks aren’t exactly the target audience) but at 6”5’ and 195 pounds the meatheads that populated that space couldn’t help but taunt me into joining them. The fact that I wear glasses most of the time and had a habit of bringing engineering textbooks with me occasionally certainly didn’t help; I was at least as surprised as they were when I got into it with one of them and quickly pinned him. I had maybe eight inches on the guy and while we weighed about the same, I was a LOT stronger. He couldn’t get out of the basic headlock I had him in, and I was underneath him. He elbowed me a bunch, and frankly it just tickled.

The rush when he slapped the mat frantically before he passed out was unreal. Better than working out, for sure. That wasn’t what got me into the sport for real, but it was definitely the start. What really brought me in was the next time I showed up.

When I arrived there was a much bigger jabroni than the pipsqueak I’d pinned hanging out in the ring; and the insults and the taunts were instantaneous. Apparently I’d started something.

“Hey, asshole!” the guy was about my height, actually. Probably heavier, and definitely more muscled.

It was pathetically easy to ignore him. People in our generation never seem to realize that once you’re out of high school, direct taunts, especially from strangers, just don’t carry the same impetus. With any luck I’d never see this tool again and could go about my life as if he never existed in the first place.

My headphones slid up around my ears without me even thinking about it as I started my warmup stretches. Out of the corners of my eyes I saw the knuckle draggers slapping each other around in the ring; once I saw the big dude that had tried to call me out staring at me.

I kept moving and approached the weight rack. My focus narrowed to the barbell in front of me as I slid into my routine. To begin I was doing front squats, with about a hundred pounds of total weight for the initial set. The first rep felt smooth as the familiar mass settled on my arms; then, suddenly, the world was tilting and for the first time in a really long time I felt myself losing control of the lift.

Panic hit me; this absolutely shouldn’t be happening, not when I could easily handle twice as much iron. I looked around and that fucking asshole from the ring was leering at me at close range, his hands on the weights to my right. This was serious trouble - I couldn’t just drop the bar, because it was at about a thirty degree angle and getting worse. I was in the middle of the squat and vulnerable. Who the fuck attacks strangers in a public gym?

Out of nowhere he rocked back as a fist, followed by a hugely muscled black arm, plowed into his jaw at full speed. Dumbfounded, I stared as he folded like a piece of paper and collapsed to the floor. I recovered and managed to hold the bar steady and avoid dropping fifty pounds of metal on him; even if he was a jackass, I didn’t want to be responsible for maiming him.

As soon as possible, I cleared space and dumped the bar. The owner of the tree branch masquerading as an arm was standing over the guy who’d attacked me. The giant picked up the groggy, groaning sack of shit off the floor and started yelling in his face.

“Listen good, Bergman! You’re DONE in this gym, you hear me? I so much as sniff your nasty ass cologne in this building again and I’ll make you wish your momma never birthed you!” With that, he dragged the loser out to the foyer and unceremoniously shoved him out the doors of the gym.

I was staring at this point. I made it a rule never to interact with strangers at the gym; look what breaking it once had already done for me.

I stood there, stuck trying to process what had happened, as the guy returned and stood over me. He wasn’t much taller than I was, but he was incredibly imposing. He could have been a Mr. Universe contestant (and I belatedly realized that he probably had been, at some point). His eyes bored into me.

In a very different voice from the roar he’d been using - but still managed to be pretty freaking intimidating - he looked me up and down. “You OK, kid?”

I nodded. “Uh ... yea, I’m OK. What the hell was that all about?”

He grimaced. “My apologies. That was someone who thinks he’s the cat’s ass. He won’t be in here again. Listen, I’m gonna comp your next month’s membership fee.”

My eyes widened. “Hey, thanks, but you don’t have to do that.”

He chuckled and stuck the slab of meat that passed for his hand out. “I’m Frank, by the way. I own this sad excuse for a playground.”

I took his hand and shook it. I didn’t even try to squeeze - I knew I’d lose, and badly. I did give it a decent firmness, I hoped. “Well, I appreciate it, Frank. Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a pretty good advertisement for this place.”

He laughed, a real one this time, head thrown back. It sounded like someone had repeatedly struck the inside of a 55 gallon drum and then let it echo. “Kid, I like you! You don’t strike me as the usual jock that comes in here to preen. What’s your story?”

I shrugged. “Just a nerd that got tired of being so much of a nerd, I guess. I got turned on to lifting in college and, well, it ... has its benefits.” I said.

Frank nodded, a gleam in his eye. “You ever think about putting that muscle to use?”

I grinned. “Oh, trust me, the muscles get ... used.”

“I’ll just bet they do,” he said. “What I’m really talking about is the MMA circuit around here. It’s not UFC or anything, but you can make some nice cash fast ... especially if you’re young, strong, and fast. Looks like you got all three.”