Chapter 2: The Temptation
The shake was a pale, gritty gray, like liquid concrete. Brad chugged it in three deep gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing rhythmically. He slammed the empty shaker on the counter with a satisfied gasp. “Anabolic window,” he announced to the empty kitchen.
Nina stayed on the living room floor, the cold now a dull ache in her bones. She pushed herself up, her joints protesting. “We need to talk about that,” she said, her voice steady but thin.
“About timing? Yeah, Candy says—”
“About Candy. About the powder.”
He turned, leaning against the counter. The streetlight through the blinds painted tiger stripes across his chest. He looked puzzled, genuinely so. “What about it? It’s just a supplement. All-natural. Herbal.”
“It’s not from a store. It’s from her gym bag. You don’t know what’s in it.”
“I know it works,” he said, his tone shifting into something defensive, almost petulant. He flexed his right arm, the bicep swelling into a terrifying, veiny globe. “Look at that peak. That’s purity, Nina.”
Before she could formulate a response—something that could pierce his single-minded certainty—the doorbell rang. A cheerful, mocking ding-dong.
Brad’s face lit up. “Pizza? Did you order pizza?”
“It’s ten-thirty at night, Brad.”
He was already stomping toward the door, his earlier nakedness forgotten. He yanked it open without checking the peephole, without a thought.
Candy stood in the halo of the bug-speckled porch light, a gym bag slung over one shoulder and a smile on her lips that didn’t touch her eyes. She was dressed for impact: a shockingly tight pink tank top that strained valiantly against a chest so prodigious it seemed to defy physics, and black leggings that vanished into the dramatic, sweeping curve of her hips and ass. Her hair was perfect. She smelled of expensive perfume and chlorine.
“Hey, big guy,” she purred, her gaze sliding over his bare torso like a caress. “Heard you had a little wardrobe malfunction. Figured you might be running low.”
Nina appeared behind Brad, wrapping a robe tightly around herself. “Candy. It’s late.”
“For some,” Candy said, her smile widening as she expertly sidestepped Brad’s massive frame and slipped into the apartment. She moved with a trainer’s economy, a predator’s grace. She dropped her gym bag by the couch with a soft thud. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d check in on my best client.”
“I just took my dose,” Brad said, following her like an eager puppy. “The pump is insane. I can feel my fascia expanding.”
“Good,” Candy said, her eyes glinting. She turned to Nina, the smile turning syrupy. “And how’s my favorite plus-size goddess? That last photoshoot… the one with the lace? Breathtaking. Simply breathtaking.” Her gaze, however, flicked to the empty shaker on the counter.
“We’re fine,” Nina said, the words brittle.
“You don’t look fine.” Candy pouted, a perfect, practiced expression of concern. “Stress is a cortisol bomb. Wrecks your gains, Brad.” She said it to Nina, but it was a bullet aimed at him.
Brad’s brow furrowed. “She’s stressed? Why are you stressed, babe? Is it the coffee thing? I said I was sorry about the barista.”
Nina ignored him, staring at Candy. “What’s really in the powder, Candy?”
The room went very still. Candy’s smile didn’t falter, but it hardened at the edges, like ceramic. “What’s in it? A proprietary blend of ancient Ayurvedic herbs, rare Amazonian roots, and pure dedication. Why? Having doubts?” She shifted her weight, her body a hypnotic hourglass silhouette in the dim room. “Brad doesn’t have doubts. Do you, Bradley?”
He was staring, transfixed, at the way her tank top stretched. He blinked. “Huh? No. No doubts. It’s the best stuff ever.”
“See?” Candy said, pulling a small, unmarked metallic pouch from her bag. It was fuller than usual, lumpy. “And tonight’s batch is special. A celebratory mix. For breaking through plateaus.” She handed it to Brad. His hand, enormous and calloused, swallowed it whole.
“Celebrating what?” Nina asked, her heart beginning to drum a sick rhythm against her ribs.
Candy’s eyes locked onto hers. “The next phase.”
Brad was already at the counter, dumping the entire contents of the pouch—a coarse, iridescent white powder that smelled faintly of ozone and burnt hair—into his shaker. He added water from the tap.
“Brad, wait,” Nina said, stepping forward. “Don’t.”
He paused, the shaker in his hand. He looked from her anxious face to Candy’s placid, expectant one. The greed won. It was a physical thing in his eyes, a void that needed filling. “It’s a special blend, Nina. For breakthroughs.”
He shook it violently and drank.
For a moment, nothing. He wiped his mouth. “Tastes… electric.”
Then his breath hitched. A small, sharp sound.
He dropped the shaker. It clattered in the sink.
His hands shot out, gripping the edge of the counter. The laminate groaned, buckling under his fingers. His knuckles turned white, then a frightening, bloodless gray. A vein, thick as a garden hose, throbbed to life across his temple.
“Brad?” Nina’s voice was a whisper.
He was growing. It wasn’t an illusion. His shoulders, already impossibly broad, seemed to push outwards, deltoids rounding and swelling like rising dough. The stripes of shadow on his back writhed as new muscle fiber layered itself on with audible, wet snaps and creaks. He gained half an inch in height, his head brushing the pendant light over the breakfast bar.
A deep, animal groan tore from his throat. It was equal parts pain and ecstasy.
His sweatpants, already strained, now sounded a chorus of taut, tearing threads. The tent from the coffee shop was now a grotesque, undeniable pillar, stretching the fabric into a translucent, threatening curve. He was thickening everywhere, becoming more, a sculpture of voracious appetite rendered in shuddering flesh.
He turned.
His face was flushed, his pupils dilated into black, hungry pools. He looked at Nina, but his gaze was unrecognizable, stripped of all his familiar, oblivious kindness. It was pure, feral want. He looked at her body, at the robe barely containing her, with the terrifying focus of a starving man seeing a feast.
Then his eyes slid to Candy.
Candy stood perfectly still, a sculptor admiring her work. Her lips were parted, her breath coming fast. A flush crept down her chest. “Yes,” she breathed, almost silently. “That’s it. That’s the next phase.”
Brad took a step. The floorboard screamed. He was moving toward Nina, his intention a palpable, heat-radiating force.
Nina stumbled back, hitting the wall. “Brad, stop. Look at me. It’s me.”
He didn’t hear her. The groaning, growing giant reached for her robe’s belt.
A sharp, clearing of a throat.
Candy’s voice cut through the hormonal fog. “Bradley.”
He froze, his hand inches from Nina. He turned his head, the movement strangely jerky.
Candy patted the lumpy cushion on their couch—the one that definitely hadn’t been there yesterday. “Sit.”
It was a command, delivered with serene authority.
For a heartbeat, Nina thought he would ignore it, that this new, raw version of her boyfriend was beyond any control.
But he obeyed. He shuffled to the couch, his movements clumsy with his new mass, and lowered himself onto the special cushion. It sighed, molding to his impossible proportions. He sat there, trembling with pent-up, amplified energy, a directed thunderstorm waiting for its lightning rod.
Candy walked over, her hips swinging. She stopped in front of him, well within his reach, a taunt and a promise. She placed a single, manicured finger on his forehead, right between his wild eyes.
“The powder opens the doors,” she said softly, her voice only for him. “But I hold the keys. You want more? You listen to me. You look at me.”
Brad’s shuddering breath slowed. His black-pool eyes locked onto hers, mesmerized, dependent.
Nina watched from the wall, her robe held shut with whitened knuckles. The man she loved was gone, vanished inside a mountain of hungry, programmed muscle. And the woman she’d called a friend stood at the foot of the mountain, claiming it.
Candy finally glanced over at Nina, her expression one of cold, victorious pity.
“You should probably get some sleep, Nina,” she said, not moving her finger from Brad’s brow. “He’s going to need a lot of… coaching. And you look so very tired.”
The words weren’t a suggestion. They were an expulsion. Nina stood pinned against the wall, the taste of him still in her mouth now mixed with the metallic tang of dread. Brad’s dilated eyes, fixed on Candy’s finger, didn’t flicker toward her. The room smelled of male sweat, that weird ozonic powder, and Candy’s choking perfume.
“My shift doesn’t start until noon,” Nina managed, her voice barely there.
“Then go get coffee,” Candy said, not looking away from Brad. “Somewhere else. He needs focus now. Undivided attention.” She traced her finger down the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you, Bradley?”
A thick, garbled sound of agreement rumbled in his chest. It was the sound of a landslide.
Something broke in Nina then. A final, thin thread of fight. The sight of his utter submission was more terrifying than his earlier animal hunger. This was worse. This was chosen. She pushed off the wall, her legs shaky, and walked on numb feet to their bedroom. She dressed in a fog, pulling on jeans and a soft sweater, clothes that felt like armor against nothing.
She paused at the living room doorway with her bag. Brad was still on the couch, a monument of quivering potential, staring up at Candy as if she held the sun. Candy had placed her gym bag on the floor and was now slowly, deliberately, pulling her pink tank top over her head.
Nina didn’t wait to see more. She closed the front door behind her with a soft, definitive click. The sound was swallowed by the silent street.
Inside, the air vibrated.
Candy let the tank top fall. Her bra was architectural, black and severe, containing volumes. Brad’s breath erupted in a hot gust. He made a move to rise, to reach.
He made a move to rise, to reach.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Candy tutted, pressing a firm hand to that granite chest. He sank back, compliant. “Let me look.” Her voice dropped to a reverent hush. She knelt on the floor before him, her eyes wide with genuine, covetous awe.
Her hands, cool and precise, settled on his knees. They were like boulders. “My God,” she whispered, her gaze traveling up the dense forest of his quadriceps, over the terrifying swell of his torso. “You are a miracle of selfish biology.” She leaned forward, her face inches from the straining fabric of his sweats. “And this,” she breathed, her hot breath ghosting over him, “is the altar.”
A low, continuous growl vibrated in Brad’s throat. He was a bowstring pulled taut.
“You see what I’ve given you?” she murmured, not touching him there yet, just worshipping the sheer scale. “What I can keep giving you?” One finger extended, tracing the obscene, veined outline through the gray cotton. He jerked, a seismic spasm. “All that power. And it’s mine to feed.”
She finally looked up at his face, her expression beatific. “Say thank you, Bradley.”
His lips, dry and cracked, parted. “Th…thank you,” he rasped, the words foreign in his mouth.
“Good boy.” She smiled, a real one this time, full of dark warmth. “Now, your real training begins. And you don’t think about anything else. Not the coffee shop. Not her.” Her thumb brushed over him, a claiming stroke. “Just my voice. Just this.”
After "Just this," Candy didn't hesitate. Her hands moved to his sweats, yanking them down past his hips. His cock, huge and erect from the powder, stood out against his stomach. A bead of moisture glistened at the tip. She straddled the couch, her knees pressing into the lumpy cushion on either side of his thighs. Without breaking eye contact, she reached down and guided him to her entrance. Then she mounted him, sinking onto his huge erect cock with a sharp, controlled exhale. The fullness was immediate and overwhelming, a stretching burn that made her vision speckle. Brad let out a choked sound, part shock, part raw pleasure. His entire body tightened, muscles standing in sharp relief. "Yes," she hissed, her fingers gripping his shoulders for balance. She began to move, a slow, grinding rhythm that was more about possession than passion. The apartment was silent except for their ragged breathing and the creak of the couch springs. Brad's hands fluttered at her sides, unsure, until she pinned them with her gaze. "Keep them there," she ordered, and he obeyed, fists clenching at his sides. She increased her pace, each descent harder, claiming more of him. Sweat made her skin slick, glistening in the weak light from the streetlamp. Brad's eyes were glazed, fixed on some point beyond her, lost in the chemical storm inside him. Candy leaned close, her lips brushing his ear. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" He didn't answer, just shuddered, his release building like a coming quake.
A growl ripped from his chest, deeper and more tectonic than before. The glazed submission in his eyes ignited into a hot, predatory focus. His hands, which had lain obediently at his sides, snapped up.
They engulfed the full, desperate curve of her ass, his fingers digging in. “You talk too much,” he rasped, his voice gravelly and new. Then he drove her down onto him, a hard, brutal thrust that forced the air from her lungs in a sharp cry.
The controlled rhythm shattered. He took it over. He yanked her against him, again and again, the couch groaning in protest beneath their combined weight. Candy’s perfect composure cracked, her eyes widening with a shock that veered into frantic pleasure.
“Bradley—wait—” she gasped, her nails scratching at his shoulders.
He didn’t wait. He pistoned upwards, meeting her with a force that was pure, unfiltered instinct. His earlier reverence was gone, burned away by the chemical fire in his veins. He was using her, claiming the pleasure she’d dangled, and his grasp on her hips was absolute, possessive.
She tried to speak, to regain the upper hand, but only ragged breaths came out. The power balance slid from her fingers like silk. He grunted, a sound of pure animal effort, and shifted his grip, lifting her entire frame with terrifying ease before slamming her back down.
The vise of his hands, the relentless driving pace—it was beyond her coaching, beyond any plan. A violent shudder ran through him, and this time, it pulled her over an edge she hadn’t prepared for. Her head fell back, a wordless shout dying in her throat as he emptied into her with a final, grinding push.
He held her there, impaled and trembling, for a long moment. Then his hands loosened. She collapsed against his chest, listening to the runaway hammer of his heart. Silence pooled in the room, thick and strange.
She could feel him still growing, ever so slightly, beneath her. The powder was working deeper, rewriting him. A slow, slippery smile spread across her sweat-damp face. This was better. So much better than she’d planned.
His heartbeat was a war drum against her ear. She waited for the haze to clear from his eyes, for the dumb, sweet Brad to swim back to the surface with apologies and confusion.
He just stared at the ceiling, breathing hard, his hands still resting on her hips like he owned them. The chemical smell of the powder mixed with their sweat.
Candy shifted, wincing at the deep, used ache inside her. She pressed her palms flat against the slabs of his chest and pushed herself up, peeling their bodies apart. A strand of connection stretched and snapped.
She didn’t leave his lap. Instead, she settled back onto his thick thighs, facing him. His gaze slowly lowered to meet hers. There was no embarrassment there, only a blank, hungry intensity that made her stomach flip.
She leaned forward, letting her full, heavy breasts drag slowly across the sweat-slicked valley of his chest. The contact was electric for him; she felt the jolt through his whole body. He inhaled sharply, his hands moving to cradle her ass again.
“You feel that?” she murmured, her lips brushing his ear. She rubbed her breasts against him in a slow, loving circle, smearing their sweat together. “That’s your new baseline. That power.”
His eyes were glazed, fixed on the movement of her body against his.
“The coffee shop was nothing,” she whispered, her voice a hypnotic ripple in the dark room. “A sneeze. Imagine if every vein, every muscle fiber, just… kept going.” She dragged a nail lightly down his sternum. “Think about doors you wouldn’t just fill, but break. Think about looks that aren’t just stares, but fear.” She nuzzled his neck. “I can get you there. Bigger than any protein, any steroid. So big you redefine the room just by walking into it.”
Brad’s breathing had changed. It was slower now, deliberate. The blank hunger in his eyes solidified into something crystalline and specific: want. A greedy, all-consuming want for the scale she was painting in his mind.