Chapter 4
Do I need this? King wonders, as he does reverse lateral dumbell flyes.
With Rhino standing behind his head, watching.
Rhino, coach of champions.
Rhino, timeless, ageless, with his deep tan, his chrome dome, his opaque sunglasses, his all black costume, turtleneck to slacks to shoes.
Rhino, in from the coast to train King and Francine for the doubles competition.
Rhino, who is watching with critical eye as the huge dumbells come together above King's head, then arc back down, again and again, as he completes the set.
"Sixty seconds and counting," Rhino says. And counts down.
"Thirty, fifteen, five, four, three, two, one-flow!"
And King dutifully does his next set.
And the process is repeated.
King lowers them to the floor a last time and leaves them there.
And sits up.
Rhino hands him his towel.
And picks up one of the dumbells.
"That was okay," Rhino says, "but try to keep your wrists out at all times so that the outer border of the pectoral will be stretched to the maximum.
"Like this, see?"
King looks, . seated, straddling the bench, recovering his breath, unable to talk, but nodding his comprehension.
Good point.
And Rhino is just full of good points.
Still, King reminds himself, I was doing all right without him.
We were doing all right.
Because Francine too is subject to Rhino, per Randy Buck.
Who decided early on that he had best put King and Francine on staff here, so that they could work out full time, during the day.
And it did not take much for King to quit his job, even less for Francine to leave Roy's gym for this one.
And neither of them misses their former employers.
But, along with their new status came Rhino.
Randy Buck wants results and Rhino is the one he uses to guarantee them.
All King's points are good, valid, well taken.
But are they necessary?
They don't know, he and Francine.
Perhaps they will never know.
If they win, then Buck will take this as evidence of Rhino's coaching proficiency rather than King's or Francine's own efforts.
But on that score, they could care less.
They don't care what Buck thinks; their sole concern is to win.
To that end, they listen to Rhino.
Even though his corrections are often awkward, often painful.
But it is not fear of Buck or Rhino that makes them follow Rhino's instructions to the letter. Rather, it is because Rhino carries with him the sense of victory.
Because Rhino does not pretend that any one thing is important.
He is not here to see to it that they develop this or that; he is here to see to it that they win, hands down.
A few months ago, King tells himself, he was a free man.
Going nowhere, perhaps, lonely perhaps, but nonetheless free.
First there was Francine.
And he became a lot less lonely, a little less free.
Then, there was the change of jobs, if this could be called a job.
Nominally, he and Francine are instructors here at Buck's gym.
In reality, they instruct only themselves, when they are not actually receiving instructions from Rhino.
Who is on their case, start to finish.
Who always has something to say about whatever they're doing.
Who is now telling them what to eat, when and how much to sleep.
And they strongly suspect what's coming next.
And have not worked out what position they will take when it does.
So that they are not surprised when Rhino hands each of them a schedule which has permissible nights specially marked.
"Important, in moderation," Rhino explains.
And they cannot see his eyes behind the dark glasses which he never removes.
"Sure you don't wanna come over and check out our technique?" King asks, jokingly.
"That an invitation?" Rhino asks.
"Only if you join us," Francine says.
And King looks at her in surprise.
What they have is special, is magic.
And yet, here she is, inviting him to participate.
What does she think, that she will back him off with this?
Even now, he does not answer her, appears to be thinking it over.
"Let me see the schedule," he says.
King hands him back his copy.
"Hmmm," Rhino says. "I see you're scheduled for tonight-if you feel like it, of course.
"So. I have an idea. Why don't you two come up to my place for supper tonight?
"Show you how to prepare an interesting meal and afterward, we can do our thing."
"Fine," Francine says.
"Give you my address when you're ready to leave," Rhino says.
And goes into the office, leaving them on the gym floor.
"What the hell didja do that for?" he asks. "Aren't you curious?" she asks in return. "Curious? About what?"
"Look. This clown has done nothing since he got here but order us around, right?
"And he works out, as we can tell by looking, but never when we're here, always after we leave.
"We've put our future in his hands, but how do we know he practices what he preaches?"
"He doesn't have to; he's just the coach, remember?"
"That's just it, King. Don't you see?
"There's not a coach in the world would have boo to say to us, the shape we're in.
"But this guy's on our case, full time."
"So then, this, this... thing we're doing tonight is to satisfy your curiosity."
"Of course! What else would it be?
"Unless there's some problem here that I don't know about."
"No. No problem."
Naturally. He is the superman, is he not? So how could he possibly have a problem?
Actually, King rationalizes, it could prove an interesting thing.
Find out about the mystery man.
All about him, har har.
"You own this?"
"Of course. This is a condominium."
"But I thought you lived in California."
"I'm bicoastal."
"Geez! I guess money's not a problem, then."
"No, it isn't."
"Well. If you like, we can start supper as soon as I wash up."
"Help yourself to the refrigerator and the TV while I take a fast shower, okay?"
"Go."
He does.
"Wierd place," Francine says.
"Yeah, it is," King agrees, looking around.
The furniture is sparse, featureless, monumental, basic geometric shapes, compilations of rectangles, neutral in color on a hard pile, grey rug.
The lamps are large spheres with plain shades.
The bookshelves are empty, with the exception of books written by Rhino himself, diet and exercise books.
"Probably has most of his stuff on the coast," Francine says.
"Probably."
But for some reason, King thinks that Rhino's place on the west coast is more likely the same as this.
Mystery man, mystery place.
"Well," Rhino says, emerging from the bedroom as they sit there watching TV, tying a grey robe around him as he advances, "shall we retire to the kitchen, there to create whatever?"
Standing behind a counter, he says, grinning, "Welcome to my show."
And they smile back.
It does, in fact, resemble the setting for one of those culinary shows.
"Today, we're going to create a tofu-based main course with a salad, also using tofu.
"The interesting thing about this, besides the high nutritional value, is that there will be no apparent relationship between main course and salad.
"The central element? The blender.
"Now, the first thing to do is to take the block of tofu and...
"That was delicious," Francine says.
"Very unusual," King observes.
"I noticed your books," Francine continues. "Yes, well, I wrote those some time ago. Still, they sell very well."
Francine truly intended to find out more about him.
But now, sitting here like this, she somehow feels constrained, as though any question she asked would be seen at once as prying.
And now, he is up, carrying the dishes to the dishwasher.
"Let me help you with that," Francine says.
And it is the work of a minute to load the thing and get it started.
"Beer for in front of the tube?" Rhino asks. "Sure!"
And he simply hands out the bottles from the refrigerator.
They sit in front of the TV, King and Francine on the couch, Rhino in an armchair.
And Francine notices that Rhino's calves, as he sits there, legs crossed, are very thick, very well formed, very impressive.
They watch ESPN, the sports network, featuring a sports medicine program which they find amateurish and uninformative.
"If that doctor's such an expert," King asks, "then how's come he's in such unimpressive shape?"
"That should tell you something, shouldn't it?" Rhino asks.
And King and Francine look at Rhino.
"Yeah, it does," King replies. "Says he doesn't practice what he preaches."
"Or what he preaches isn't worth all that much," Francine adds.
"Not the sort of man from whom one would readily accept advice or direction, eh?" Rhino asks, rhetorically.
And gets up, gesturing with his hand, inviting them into the bedroom.
They follow him in.
And the bedroom is furnished in the same sparse, massive, featureless style as the living room.
Except for the sunlamp, now turned off, there is nothing in the least remarkable about the room.
Rhino strips the covers from the bed as King and Francine remove their clothes.
When they are naked, Rhino takes off his robe. And they see why he is called Rhino.
He has what appear to be thick, plastic-coated armor plates for muscles.
It is slab against slab.
King and Francine cannot believe it.
Because they have never seen such density. He literally appears unreal.
He meets no known standard, on the one hand; on the other, he exceeds them all.
"How the hell did you ever get muscles like those?" King cannot help but ask, any attempt at tact forgotten.
"I work out a lot," Rhino replies, grinning as he removes his glasses, to reveal pale green eyes, even these seeming unreal because- he has no eyebrows.
He looks like some--kind of incomplete android, powerfully built, powerfully hung, with his long, thick cock, but totally devoid of all hair.
As though his creator had not mastered the technology of applying that detail.
But Rhino is real enough, alive enough.
"Judges'd have a ball with you," King says, "starting with tryna figure out what planet you come from."
Rhino laughs.
"Yes, I do seem to have taken a turn away from the norm, somewhere along the line."
"To say the least!" King confirms.
Rhino poses for them, turning this way and that, striking this pose and that.
The man has built himself in unusual and spectacular fashion, no question.
And King notices once more the fallacy of race being significant.
The only black present, and he is lighter than the other two, thanks to their artificially induced suntans.
And that beef of Rhino's, like his own, surely that surpasses in real meaning the shade of his skin.
And King thinks that would hold true, even if his features were negroid, instead of their obvious caucasian characteristics.
"Well," Rhino says, having completed his show and tell, "I guess you two can go ahead and get started, and I'll just join in as the occasion presents itself.
King shrugs.
This is not his idea, after all.
And he follows Francine into the bed.
Where he begins at once to suck one tit.
His first opening and Rhino is not slow to take advantage.
As he flanks Francine on the opposite side and helps himself to her other breast.
How clever of him, King thinks.
After this, there is nothing that he cannot say to them, cannot demand of them in the name of their own progress.
Because, before this is over, they will know each other in the only way that one person can possibly know another genuinely.
Which is physically.
What you see is what you get.
Perfect vision therefore implies perfect comprehension, at least physically.
So that Rhino will know them and they him.
And all this will be accomplished here, tonight.
And is being accomplished, even now.
Because King is aware of Rhino, arrayed with Francine and himself like a coat of arms in heraldry.
Francine the crest, they the supporters.
And Francine is responding, King notes, with mixed feelings.
Because this surely implies more than merely intellectual curiosity, her arousal.
As her large nipples go erect and rubbery over the firm orbs of her breasts.
And King wonders.
Should he race Rhino to the target, the objective of Francine's cunt?
But no, he will not.
Because King is curious as to just exactly what Rhino has in mind.
At first, he thought that this whole thing might be mere voyeurism on Rhino's part.
But one look at Rhino's fabulous body and his heavy equipment quickly abused him of that.
And now, he is at best an equal partner in the task at hand.
He therefore takes the initiative, unwilling to have Rhino show him up.
He slides down Francine's body, burrowing into her shaved snatch, his tongue seeking the slick slit of her cunt. And finding it.
And giving her a perfunctory pussy eating before he mounts her, raising and spreading her legs, causing the still breast feeding Rhino to have to shift his body.
Fuck you, Rhino, King thinks, I got in first.
And he fucks Francine avidly, with more strength than passion, putting on a show, giving a demonstration.
He concentrates on his work, eyes closed, forcing the movement, driving his big, hard piston into her half in arousal, half in anger at Francine for assenting to this.
He opens his eyes and looks At the protruding, muscular buttocks of Rhino.
At Rhino's balls, bouncing off of Francine's chin, as he fucks Francine in the mouth, bridging her shoulders with his thick calves as he holds onto the headboard for support.
And he watches, fascinated, the flexing and unflexing of Rhino's buttocks as he humps Francine's mouth steadily.
And King feels another surge of anger, as he hears the wet, sucking sound of Francine's mouth which, not content to simply open up and take what comes, is actively, eagerly sucking Rhino's big cock.
And he feels Francine getting hotter faster than is usually the case.
Which can only mean that Rhino is truly getting through to her.
Which means that her body is communicating with the two of them.
So, he thinks, Francine is one horny bitch. And he alone cannot satisfy all her needs. So be it, he thinks, two can play this game. He will show her..
She has taken him for granted?
Big mistake!
Because he is a stud and she his best (and at the moment only) lay.
But he has seen the looks sent his way in the gym by female members, looks he has chosen to ignore. In the past, he amends.
And Rhino and Francine will have no one but themselves to blame if his side excursions-and he is determined now that there will indeed be side excursions-interfere in any way with the training schedule.
Except that King is himself unwilling to do anything which would actually compromise their progress.
And now, sighing inwardly, King lets himself go, lets his body take over.
But not with the customary joyous abandonment. Rather, this is a kind of withdrawal, a contemptuous refusal of the mind to have anything more to. do with the procedings.
And it works well enough.
Because his body is conditioned to respond to Francine's body, her presence, her shape, her actions and reactions.
She is turning him on now, if only in the ordinary, the biological, the mundane sense.
And building to peak, taking him, taking his body with her.
So that now, Rhino is feeding her his cream, even as King injects his own into the depths of her pussy, and she sucks at both ends, her mouth draining his tube as the spasms of her multiple orgasms milk King of his load.
And they are united, if only for a long moment, three become one, however briefly, in the mindless pure sensation of the pleasure beyond pleasure. When their climaxes have passed, they separate.
King is first, of course, he being disturbed by the whole scene, and this to the point of revulsion, now that he has popped his rocks.
He goes into the bathroom, not looking at them, not looking back from the sink as he stands there washing his cock.
Not until Rhino joins him, draping his heavy equipment into the sink next to King's, sharing the soap and water, both of them interrupted by a washcloth passed under the twin streams (and over the twin cocks) by Francine, so that she can squat and swab her crotch out, removing King's melting contribution and getting ready for the next round.
And yes, there is very clearly to be a next round. Because even now, Francine is wiping herself dry, is moving back to the bed, is getting onto it, lying there, waiting.
The men dry off and Rhino gestures to King in elaborate, almost courtly politeness, the "after you" gesture, bowing slightly.
And it does appear that he is leaving the field to King.
What's the matter, old man? King thinks, Pace getting too much for you?
But he sees that that is not the case at all.
Because Francine moves to the far edge of the bed, giving King the center.
Which can only mean- She crouches beside his crotch, bending low over him, taking his prod into her mouth.
She takes her time, sucking him until he comes back to life, then goes to full erection.
So that, as Rhino merely stands there watching, she soon has King ready to rock and roll.
And she is not slow to squat over him, lowering herself onto his rampant intruder, held upright with one of her hands, lest it plaster itself, huge and stiff, to his abdomen.
And now, she is settling down on him.
Settling down and settling in, leaning forward, her breasts brushing his lips.
And this is, ordinarily, one of their favorite ways of doing it.
Ordinarily, but not at the moment, so far as King is concerned.
What a fucking slut! he thinks.
Because he knows what is coming, knows that Rhino is not about to remain content as a mere spectator.
No, he has quite something else in mind. And so, obviously, does she.
And they have not spoken a word, have not planned any of this.
King knows this, knows that there has been no opportunity, no opening for it.
And this disturbs him more than if there had. Because this means that Francine and Rhino have tween them that form of silent communication, implicit understanding which is the hallmark of ndred spirits.
And they are not about to hold back from the iplications of that understanding.
Fuck it, King says, nothing I can do about it right Not that he is sure of just exactly what he does mt. to do.
Because, in all of this, she has lost none of her scination for him.
So that he views what is happening, what she is permitted to happen, perhaps even wants to ippen, as a form of personal disappointment. But he is too mature, has too much at stake here allow this to stand in the way of his own best interests.
So that he is determined that he will perform well, that he will at all times conduct himself in the manner expected of him-in the presence of either or both of them.
So that, whatever his reaction, it will be private, although not necessarily secret.
And he relaxes, a thing he can easily do in this position, in which Francine, ordinarily to the delight of the two of them, does all the work.
And there is no question but that this works very well.
Because once again, she has him, has both of them, climbing the rainbow.
And he accepts the invitation of her hanging boobs, sucking them, alternating.
Even as Rhino climbs onto the foot of the bed.