Chapter 2

They didn't work me all day, only two hours in fact, but then coach told me to get in the whirlpool, relax, take a three-hour nap and we'd start the next session. Like hell we would.

Of course we started the next session right on coach's schedule. I found that I didn't have to help at all unless I just wanted to. I could kick my brain in neutral and go along for the ride. The rub was, I still felt every damned bit of it, so when he ran me til my legs felt on fire they really felt like they were on fire to me.

It wasn't all that much fun just being a mental passenger in my body while someone else made it work, so after an hour or so of pouting I took control again. I must have been an awfully bad boy at some point in my life because someone was sure as hell punishing me for it now.

When coach finally let me go back to my room I was too tired to even turn the fucking TV on. Besides, I was afraid I'd cry right along with Mike Matasow this time and I hadn't even lost any damned chips.

Yesterday, while I was working out, I'd only thought I'd been in pain. When I had to get up the next morning, to take a piss, it took me fifteen minutes to work my sore way to the bathroom. Things I didn't even have were hurting. They'd worked me so hard yesterday that even my dick was sore and I know for sure it never ran the first step.

The little greenie came along after I'd managed to shower and change into the new set of workout clothes they'd put in during the night.

He led me to breakfast, trying to spread encouragement and good cheer the whole way while I wished he would just shut the fuck up. What a delightful bowl of oatmeal they had waiting for me. I was surprised again that it didn't seem to run out before I felt full.

"Are you doing something to me to keep me from being hungry?" I asked, after the idea bugged me for a few minutes.

"Of course. When we let you go we'll teach you to do it too," he said, and that was all the explanation I could get out of him on that subject.

Today was even worse than yesterday. In the first place I was very sore from previous abuse, and in the second place coach didn't give one shit about that. I didn't realize that there was any way I could be even more tired at the end of the day, but coach showed me it was not only possible, but easy.

The next day was a shocker. After breakfast, when I appeared for my workouts, coach sent me to the whirlpool and then a semi-attractive unnamed female gave me a thorough massage and sent me back to my room for a day of rest and recuperation.

Of course I paid for it in spades the next day, but after that we alternated. One day of work and one day of rest. I asked the greenie about it and he told me that the first two days work in a row were just to get me going good, and that I'd actually progress faster with a day off between workouts.

By now I didn't give a shit about much of it. I'd come to understand that I needed it and that I was going to get it and that I might as well just shut my mouth about the whole thing. I was going to get into excellent physical shape... or I was going to get into excellent physical shape. There was no alternative.

After ten workout days I was feeling pretty damned good. I wasn't there yet but I was well on my way, so it surprised me when greenie led me past breakfast on a workout day and took me into what seemed to look like a clinic of some sort.

"What's on the program today?" I asked, as we entered.

"We are going to make some modifications to your body," he said.

"What? What kind of modifications?"

"One of the reasons for your lack of speed as a linebacker was that you have the trunk of a man who should be six foot six and the legs of a man who should be six feet even. Another glaring mismatch is your enormous feet. You do not need size sixteen quintuple E feet to carry your size. The fact that they are also as flat as a flitter is not helping matters either."

"Well hell, it isn't as if I could have done anything about it," I said.

"Oh, I know that, but we can do something about it, and we intend to."

"But...

"Just save it. They need to prep you now."

I saved it and the massage female led me away down a hospital looking hall.

I don't know how they did it, but they prepped every hair off my body below my chin, every single one as far as I could tell just fell off. After they were done they had me lay on a gurney, put a mask over my mouth and nose, and I don't have any fucking idea what came after that.

I don't even know how long I stayed out but I do know when I woke I was in my normal bed. At first I didn't feel any different and so I thought they might have changed their minds.

When I threw off the covers and got a look at my feet I could tell that they hadn't changed their minds at all. In the first place even my legs didn't look the same. I couldn't put my finger on the difference right away, but a guy grows accustomed to what his legs look like, and these didn't look exactly like mine. They were similar all right, but not exactly the same ones I'd had when I went to sleep.

My feet were definitely not the same ones I'd walked into the hospital's hall on. I guessed that they might be a little over half the size they had been before, and they were no longer the classic flat feet I'd always had.

Moving wasn't painful or anything and though walking was an adventure for the first few steps, it got better as I made my way to the pisser to bleed my lizard. At least it still looked the same.

Changes had been made in my bathroom too. I now had a full length mirror panel type thing and I could pretty well tell that my legs were longer than they had been and that from waist to shoulders I wasn't quite as long as before. Funny though, I appeared to be the same height as always.

Greenie showed up as soon as I was dressed and led me away for breakfast. Breakfast hadn't changed.

"That's the damnedest operation I've ever had. I can plainly see that you've made changes to my body, but there isn't even one cut or stitch," I said.

"We have much better ways of helping flesh mend than stitches."

"Maybe so, but I don't even seem to have been cut on," I said.

"You've been unconscious for sixty-two days while you healed completely. There was no point in letting you come out of it since you couldn't do anything useful anyway."

"Sixty-two days. I should be all shriveled up after that long, shouldn't I?" I asked.

"We exercised you every day. We did avoid the muscles and bones that had been changed until they healed significantly, but we gave you serious workouts otherwise, every other day. You are nearly in fighting trim now. Most of the rest of your workouts will be to let you gain full control and confidence in your new body, especially the feet."

He wasn't shittin' me a pound either. During peewee, high school, and college football I thought I'd done every agility drill that God's got. Maybe, but I sure as hell hadn't done all the ones this coach knew about. He introduced me to every one I'd missed out on before.

In some ways this was even worse than before, when I was so out of shape. Since I was in pretty good shape now, he could work me longer and harder. Believe me, someone had mentioned it to him.