Chapter 2
Stan says nothing to King.
He will not, not until he sees if Buck comes up with somebody for a partner for him.
Stan watches as King, feet on a bench, lies on a mat, doing a killer series of abdominal crunches, a popular conclusion to a workout.
He watches the big man get up and move toward the locker room.
And thinks about how happy he would be if he knew about the amazing good fortune that is about to befall him.
"I'm Randy Buck."
She looks at him, up and down, seeing an overweight, middle-aged man with a suntan and iron grey, crewcut hair, dressed in rumpled sportshirt and slacks.
"And?" she prompts, wiping her face beneath the sweatband, soaked now with the sweat of her exertions.
"And I think that, with the right partner, you could win the mixed couples event in Chicago, come fall."
"Really."
A statement, not a question.
Like who's shitting who here?
Buck smiles, looking down, shaking his head.
"What part of this don't you believe?" he asks.
"You don't think that I'm Randy Buck or you don't think you can win?"
"Look. Right now, I'm getting ready for the Eastern Invitational Women's Competition."
"Outstanding! That's next week, isn't it?"
"You know it is.
"So what's this shit? A little crap in the game to mess my mind, or what?"
"No, nothing of the kind, Francine."
"How did you know my name?"
"I simply asked Roy over there."
She turns and glares at Roy, the owner, standing outside the door of his office.
He smiles and waves at her.
"Since I'm the owner of the franchise, and since you work for Roy, I didn't see the harm."
"No harm done. Talk to me in a week, that's all. Right now, I'm eating, sleeping, and breathing that contest."
"And I haven't got time to worry about the far future, or who my partner's gonna be, or anything else."
"Understood.".
"However, I would like to have some expression of interest so that I won't have to keep looking."
"I've watched you working out."
"I'm impressed."
"You're the one I'd like to see doing it; but if you can't or you won't, then I can and will find somebody else."
"In that case, lemme ask you something, uh, Randy."
"Which is this: Say I don't win next week." Buck shrugs.
"I'd say that's your problem, not mine."
"That something you can live with or not?" he asks.
"Live with, yes; accept, no."
"If I lose, it's politics."
"I'm the best there is. Best heavyweight, best overall."
"First prize and grand prize, that's me."
"If I didn't agree, we wouldn't be talking."
"So. What is it you want right now?"
"A yes. An unconditional yes, win, lose, or draw."
"Anything else I should know before I give you my answer?"
"Guy's black.
"Actually, he's a very light shade of tan, with that reddish-brown hair some of `em have. Same color as yours, only kinky."
"Any problem with that?"
"None at this end."
"Excellent."
"So then, what's it to be?"
"You cover the expenses?"
"Absolutely. And then some, especially if you win."
"Okay then, yes."
They shake hands.
"So waddaya say, King?" Stan asks.
"This isn't at all the way I planned it," King replies.
Stan shrugs.
"What ever is in life?"
"No, I mean, my first contest."
"Change the my to our an' ya got it."
"Yeah, well, I mean, like, what if she drags me down?"
Stan smiles.
"Thought cha might say somethin' like that."
"So did Buck."
"Which is why you got cherself a ticket to that contest of hers."
"You're her date for the victory celebration."
"Uh-huh."
"Not that you're askin', but my advice is to go for it."
"I'm not saying no."
"So. You up for this, then?"
And he shows him two tickets.
"Who's the other ticket for?"
"Mind if I tag along?"
"For the show or after?"
"Just the show, just the show. Although I will make the introduction, just to get you two started."
"Fine. I'll take my car and meet you there."
And he goes back to his workout, without another word.
"... and the winner of the heavyweight division is-Francine!"
The crowd roars its approval.
Of course she's the winner, King thinks. She is as far above her competition as he hopes to be against his at the Mister Galaxy.
Which is an overnight decision he has made-to compete.
Even though Steve, winner three years running, works out at the same gym, is therefore Buck's man in the same sense as himself.
Because competition is being presented to him, more or less forced upon him by fate, or destiny, or whatever is hovering over him, looking out for him, assuming that it is not pure chance, blind luck.
What was he supposed to say to Stan-no?
Especially knowing that behind Stan is none other than Randy Buck, a man who can make or break a bodybuilding career.
Of course, this goes totally against the grain for him, under normal circumstances.
Because he works alone-always.
And now, his first competition involves a partner who must, by definition, be a material factor in the outcome.
But now, seeing her up there, seeing what she will bring to their partnership, he knows he has done the right thing, made the right decision.
And now comes the determination of the overall winner.
Who is not Francine, but the middleweight class winner.
King knows that Francine deserved to win.
Undoubtedly, Francine knows this too, her congratulations to the winner perfunctory, not looking at her, head turned away from her and the crowd.
"We're uh, we're meeting Francine at the stage entrance," Stan says, obviously perturbed by the outcome.
Yeah, right, King thinks. That is, if she doesn't simply take off, after the fiasco up there on the stage.
"Francine, this is King."
They eye one another up and down, then shake hands.
"You uh, upset or anything, Francine?" Stan asks.
"Who, me? No, I love losing, especially to girls who don't have my size and definition."
"Real turn-on, y'know?"
Stan is flustered at her sarcasm, but King merely grins.
Because she is expressing all the bitterness he felt her behalf, as soon as the grand prize winner was "Stan" King says, "why don't choo run along? Francine and I have, uh, things to discuss."
"You mean you still wanna do this, after that?" Francine asks.
"Hey babe, we all know who shoulda won. "And you did win your class.
"And somethin' tells me it was a very close call. "And uh... what else do ya wanna hear that'll make you feel good?"
She laughs, extending her arm to King's who takes it.
"Night uh, Stan," she says.
And they walk off, leaving him standing there, looking after them.
"That your first contest?" he asks, bringing her back to his apartment after a heavy but healthy supper.
"My very first," she confirms. "Why? Did it show?"
"No, no. Just the overall winner showed a lot more cutesie than you did.
"All those smiles, all those winks, like promises, y'know?
"And uh, who knows? Maybe they were."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
King shrugs.
"Like not to; still, such things have happened, or so I've heard it said."
"Yeah, me too."
"But I figure it's mostly sour grapes."
"Like in the men's competitions when somebody says the winner satisfied one of the judges' hankering for a lollipop."
"Come this winter, I find out first hand," King says.
"Mister Galaxy, huh?
"Doesn't Steve work out at your-or should I say our-gym?"
"Sure does."
"And I will use that to my advantage."
"I'll see `im close up, I'll study his moves, his weak points, his strong points, everything."
"And I'll beat `im, point by point."
"You mean the way I did Miss Small Package tonight?"
King shrugs his massive shoulders, removing his sportcoat, draping it over an armchair before replying, "Y'know, that could happen. And I can only hope that, if it does, I take it as well as you have. "
"But you have no idea of how well or how badly I'm taking it."
"Didn't see you punchin' out no judges," he says. She laughs.
"Guess that's at least a start on taking it well, isn't it?"
"Not that you should take it all that well, don't get me wrong."
"Don't worry. There's a fire inside that won't go out.
"Nice tip on the cutesie stuff, though. I'll remember it the next time I'm in individual competition.,"
"Glad joo said that, Francine. Because for the mixed couples, you looked and acted just right, far as I"m concerned."
"Well, I guess that'll be for our coach to decide," Francine replies.
"Coach? What coach? Stan didn't say nuthin' `bout no jive coach!"
"Jive coach?"
"Sorry. Just a 'spression from the old neighborhood. I get surprised an' it just slips out. Means like, you know, uh...
"Bullshit?"
"Egg-zackly!"
"Well! Care for a beer?"
"Yeah, sure, why not? One night of indulgence after the big moment.
"Especially since I'm taking a rest day tomorrow."
"Good idea. You earned it."
He goes into the kitchen, returning with two beers on a circular tray.
"Here we are," he says, as she sits on the couch, shoes off, feet up on the coffee table, changing channels on the TV with the remote.
"Thanks," she says, and eschews the glass in favor of drinking from the bottle.
"The only way," she says.
"Try it with a paper bag around it,".he replies, smiling to let her know he is not condemning her unlady-like demeanor.
She laughs and takes another swig as she continues to change channels.
"All crap, isn't it," she says, at last.
"Every bit of it," he agrees. "Onliest thang counts is this," he flexes a bared bicep, rubbing it with his hand.
She assumes the same pose for her arm.
"And this," he adds, running his hand over the thick, bulging mound of her bicep.
"C'mon," she says, standing up, extending her hand to him, "let's go get a better look at what counts, shall we?"
Grinning, he accepts the hand and leads her to the bedroom.
Yes! he thinks to himself, Yes, yes, yes!
She is what he has been seeking, the image he has summoned whenever he has had sex.
He began to suspect it, watching her up there on stage.
And now, here, with her, he knows that this is the case.
Because how could it be otherwise?
Naught loves another as itself, and surely she is the very embodiment of the idea of the feminine within him.
She is imagery made flesh, the ideal made real. So that it's all right.
He needs no intervening image.
He needs to play no mind game with himself. Because it is all here, right here, in the real world, before him, independent of him.
And yet not so independent, .either.
Because she is that which he has sought for so very long, the definition of that nebulous ideal that lurked within himself for longer than he can remember.
And he will take full advantage of this.
He will avail himself of her.
He will permit his surrender, his giving to happen now.
Because she is the extension of himself.
Does he not recognize in her his own thoughts, his own dreams, and yes, his longings, now that he can admit to himself that that is what those feelings, those waves of loneliness, of emptiness have been all along?
No question.
No question and no doubts now.
She is promise and fulfillment, premise and confirmation.
And he wants her, is hot for her, as he wants and is hot for no other woman, not even his own ideal, masked as she was by unattainability.
Until now.
Until this very moment of discovery and of revelation.
Because it is as though she has been hidden from him, witheld from him for so long, in so many ways, by so many barriers.
And yet, for all her concealment, there is also the sense that she has been waiting for him, saving herself for him until just the right moment.
And that moment has arrived.
Has arrived, is here and now.
And he is not slow to act accordingly.
Because, even now, he devours a breast, not with the perfunctory ceremony of arousal which has become his custom under like circumstances, but with genuine avidity, a full, drooling hunger, an ardent, driven desire.
So that he feels himself becoming hotter and hotter, the blood pounding at his temples as he sucks the large, firm nipple above the amazingly hard breast to full erection.
And switches at once to the other, while continuing to knead and fondle the first.
And she lets herself go, responding with impassioned writhings and twistings, even as her hands explore trapezius and deltoid, bicep and tricep.
Because she too knows.
She knows that she is with the best.
Because it is not to a feminine ideal but to a masculine one that today's female bodybuilders aspire.
And King may well sense his masculine ideal as an aggrandized version of himself, but this is not the case with Francine, who sees in his vast, bulky musculature, his sharp definition a goal for which to strive.
She has no desire to be prettier, more charming than other women.
Rather, her goal is to make of herself their overwhelming superior in development.
And it is to the masculine ideal that she attains, leaving it to nature to preserve such vestige of her femininity as may remain to her.
Buck was worried about teaming her up with a black partner.
Forget such concerns!
Because she cares nothing for color, for shade of color, but for the musculature beneath, . the musculature that threatens to burst through that skin of whatever hue.
And this, this! is the ideal, the genuine stuff, the real thing.
He is not an artificial construct, a thing of some delicacy, impressive enough when viewed from afar and carefully posed.
Because he has no weak points.
There is no part of him that she can see or feel rhich is not exactly as it should be, ideal on the ne hand and, on the other, in a state of active levelopment to further perfection.
And now, that perfection is sliding down her iody, travelling down its deep center line on its ongue, exploring with the tip the indentations ietween her cubed abdominals.
And he does not linger, does not pause.
Because he is clearly aroused, his complexion of he moment more ruddy than tan as she feels his jose-cropped, nappy hair with one hand.
And now, he is in her bush, face wallowing as die raises and spreads her muscular thighs, to reveal ps target, shaved in order to wear her super-brief petition bikini.
And now, he is sucking her pussy, tongue. shafted o the hot, moist depths.
And now, he pulls his tongue and head back, in order that the tip of his tongue can titillate her clit.
Which it does, flickering with vibrator speed. And now, he is fucking her with his tongue, shafting it in and out of her flowing cunt, maining pressure against her joy buzzer both ways.
And now, as she squirms in lascivious delight, rocking from side to side, legs bicycling in the air, he eats her, on and on, as though he cannot enough of her.
At last, he pulls back.
And sits back, buttocks resting on his heels, huge prong a flagpole rising stiffly from his crotch, looking at her, admiring that which he is about to fuck.
And now, he shafts in, in, into her, all the way.
And scoops her thighs up from below.
So that he doubles her up. So that he is above and below her, all around her, enveloping her, possessing her completely, more completely than he ever has, has ever wanted to possess another woman.
Because she is, she truly is, his female aspect, his feminine counterpart.
No question.
He wants her, wants her more than he has ever wanted anything or anyone right now.
It is as though, without her, for all his vast musculature, without her, he is incomplete.
So that this is a coupling, a joining, a unification well beyond mere sexual gratification.
And, because it is so beyond mere sexual indulgence, the intensity of it renders the sensations thrilling beyond the point of any mere fuck.
Rather, it is as though he is being energized, as if, with each thrust, each withdrawal, he is taking into himself a charge of sublime invigoration.
Because here, here! is a true conjunction of two bodies intended to become, to function as one.
As in fact they are.
They are become the two halves of a perfectly functioning machine whose purpose is the creation of pleasure for itself.
As his mighty pole pistons in and out of her hot, juicy cunt.
So that the shaft is polished, gleaming in the subdued lighting of the bedroom with its coating of her clear pussy juices.
And he arouses her with his fucking more than has any other man.
Such strength!
Such enthusiasm, as he tirelessly ploughs her, in and out, in and out, ever harder, ever faster, ever more powerfully, energetically, intensely.
Focussing, concentrating on her, her, her! Feeling, knowing, desiring nothing else but this copulation which is a ceremony of coming together, of permanent juncture.
There is no more him and her; there is only them.
They!
They have formed an alliance and an understanding which is beyond the connivings and conceits of the mind, which is above all striving, all ambition.
There is no option to be considered, no path to be planned or pursued at the moment.
There is only the two of them, the two become one.
There is only this separate and closed universe which they have become.
There is only they themselves, their bodies, and nothing, nothing, nothing else.
Because this is what it's all about.
They have been searching and striving?
Behold the true obejectivei' And now, the two-headed entity which they have become has generated at its epicenter a nuclear explosion.
Yes, they have unleashed the pleasure beyond pleasure.
Which even now blossoms, mushrooming slowly within them, an atomic blast taking place in slow, silent motion.
As the pressure of it, exquisite, irresistible, fills them with itself.
As it builds and builds within them.
As delight becomes ecstasy.
As ecstasy is smoothly, inexorably transformed into rapture.
As rapture becomes utter transport, dizzy, disoriented, no up or down, no in or out, only the two-of them soaring and zooming through the limitless spaces of their shared sexual paradise.
And they are coming and coming as they have never come before.
So that he is injecting wad after wad of hot, thick copious sperm into her innermost depths, even as the convulsions, the spasms of her pussy milk his mighty prod of its load with her body's response to her series of multiple orgasms.
Sucking his cock with her cunt, she is as both of them are tossed, this way and that, twisting and writhing in the almighy throes of their glorious conjunction.
As space becomes meaningless and time stands still and two become one.