Jill Rhodes Part 2 Chapter 4

Fall semester went by day by day, and as the temperatures started to drop and the summer faded into overcast skies and dead leaves, Jill found the most opportune time to start covering up her body when at school and busting out her hoodie for the first time in months. She was reveling in the changes that were happening to her, but even then the attention she was starting to attract was becoming too distracting, even for her. Last week Mr. G literally did not stop staring at her for the entire duration of class, along with half the guys in class. Mr. U was also starting to give Jill the suspicious stare. While Jill specifically singled out PE as her “show the muscles” moment in school, her “motivation” for that, Alex, had been conspicuously absent for the past couple of classes. So for now, she would hide her body from the denizens of Portsdown High. Her bodily subterfuge had a few unexpected benefits, however. Rhonda became less distant and estranged, and she and Jill were talking like best friends once more, instead of Jill’s muscles becoming the centerpiece of every conversation. More amusingly, Linton was clearly anxious to see if indeed Jill was getting bigger underneath all that fabric. It was killing him, and Jill could tell without him needing to say a word. Which is not to say that Jill wanted things to go back to normal, of course. You have to keep in mind that it’d been only a month since Jill injected herself with a mysterious untested super supplement. A girl needs a little time off from all that excitement sometimes.

Speaking of excitement, her little dust-up at Neo So that one Saturday had left her shaken. Such an overt show of power, with none of the subtlety and unspoken signals she was so fond of. She remembered feeling powerful in that moment, but when she returned home, she felt as if for those few seconds, she had stepped out of herself and watched this imposter occupying her body stand up to that drunken fool in an assertive, no, *masculine* sort of way. Perhaps she just needed some time to acclimatize to not just her changing body but her changing attitudes, but at any rate, she laid off the weightlifting for the time being and went back to cardio. She also had to tackle the two strangers she lived with at home. Okay, that was a little harsh, but Jill didn’t even want to imagine her parents’ reactions once they actually took a minute out of their goddamn lives checking the stock market and talking to investors and lawyers to realize that their daughter was suddenly turning into an amazon. Thankfully, dad had just gone on a weeklong business trip to Shanghai, so Jill’s problems were halved while she brainstormed how to deal with the issue.

It was around her first week in a month without bulking up that she started to feel a force underneath her thick hoodie and sweatpants. Something bubbling under her skin that was threatening to break free and expose itself from the confines of its fabric prison. It was like her mind and body were being bombarded by millions of little itches she couldn’t scratch. She couldn’t quite *feel* the sensation, but she knew it was there, and it bothered the living hell out of her. Her brain felt like it was on fire and she was sometimes overwhelmed with a desire to just strip off her clothes and show her body off for the entire world to see. She was only calmed when her thoughts diverted to her ever-changing body, and the thought of continuing to transform it. But thoughts weren’t enough sometimes. Thoughts were only real to the person who thought them. Jill wanted to make her thoughts real not just for herself, but for everyone around her.

She was on the treadmill at Genesis Fitness, almost unrecognizable to many of the gym’s frequent clients because of her unusually conservative sweatshirt and pants attire. As the syncopated rhythms of Dream Theater pulsed through her headphones, Jill could feel the crackling, burning sensation wracking her brain. Her body was sticky and sweaty underneath all those clothes, and the combination of the two was killing her.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar figure. She snapped her head to the right and, two treadmills down, saw Alex on one of them. That bitch. Clearly she wasn’t sick, so she was skipping PE for two weeks now. Jill felt a gripping sensation in her heart when she leaned forward to get a better view and saw that Alex was dressed in a sports bra and shorts, looking unbelievable. Her body was glistening with sweat and her hair was sticking to her face as she sprinted at full speed on the treadmill. She looked so confident, so unbeatable. The treadmill was at full tilt and it was running at full speed, from the looks of it, yet Alex was looking like a trained Olympic sprinter.

Jill felt foolish now, barely going at jogging speed on her treadmill and only at a slight tilt. She felt fat in her baggy sweats. She heard some men behind her laughing. They must have been laughing at *her*. At how stupid she looked. She turned around, and saw two meatheads having some ridiculous conversation with one another. Almost immediately one of them locked eyes with Jill, and in a moment of embarrassment she spun around like nothing happened. What the hell, Jill? Since when did you go around looking at guys? You *never* looked at guys in the gym, *they* were looking at *you*. The sensation in her brain grew with intensity. Then, as the song shifted gears into its chorus and her ears were blasted with an onslaught of double bass drums and overdriven guitars, she ripped off her headphones, punched the emergency stop button, and hopped off the treadmill as it slowed to a halt.

As she approached the weights section, she felt her heart beat faster, and the crackling sensation died down like clockwork.

“Hey Jill!” called out Pindar’s distinct voice. Jill looked over and smiled as he walked over to her.
“Hey!” She smiled and waved at him.
“Good to see you again. You’re moving rather quickly for the weights!”
“Heh, yeah. I needed a break from all that cardio.”
“Right! How’s the weightlifting going?” Pindar replied, clearly oblivious to what lay underneath Jill’s clothes.
“Oh, awesome. I could use a spotter actually, if you’ve got a minute.” Jill said. She didn’t, really, but she wanted an excuse to show off to him.
“Sure, sure. Just give me a minute, I gotta go take care of something, but I’ll come find you.” He said, patting her on the shoulder before making his way into one of the adjacent offices.
Jill finally reached the weight rack, this time finding herself at the rightmost end of it, where all the heavier dumbbells were. This was her moment. As she stood by the weights, nobody batted an eyelid at her. She counted six guys and two women in the immediate vicinity, and it was as if she didn’t exist. Without trying to be too theatrical about it, she slowly took pulled off her sweatshirt, revealing her chiseled abs first, followed by her sports bra, and toned pectorals and powerful arms. As she set her shirt down by a corner, she immediately noticed the stares she was now receiving. Many of them were trying to be nonchalant about it, but more so than before, the sense of astonishment was palpable, especially from the women.
Jill’s body, liberated from the confines of her sweatshirt, was enveloped in the gym’s air conditioning, and she felt comfortable for the first time in days. She picked the 30 pound dumbbells; a far cry from the 15 pounders she struggled with a month ago, and moved from set to set without taking a break. Aside from the sight of her muscles bulging with each pump, she could feel her whole body seemingly getting tighter and tighter. She did every conceivable exercise with the dumbbells, taking only a few seconds for a breather in between sets. She couldn’t believe it; it was as if she had this huge reservoir of unspent energy that had just accumulated inside her for all those weeks, now being expended at once in this one workout. Every time she finished a set of 15 reps, she immediately moved onto a different exercise.
Eventually she settled into a pattern where she went in circles around the weight section, doing reps on each and every machine, one after the other. She was a machine. As the bigger guys around her played on their smartphones for minutes in between sets, Jill was pumping iron without end around them, making it seem as if they were working out in slow motion by comparison. At some point, she lost her sense of time as she went about her weightlifting marathon. She didn’t even have to think about it anymore.
Jill just finished a set on the leg press and was about to move on to the shoulder press machine when she saw that guy was using it. She decided to take the opportunity to have a breather for once, instead of moving on to the next machine. Her gaze wandered over to the wall mirror, and she let out a gasp and put her hand to her mouth as she saw her reflection in the mirror. She wasn’t hallucinating, but it was *impossible*. She was bigger, noticeably bigger. More ripped. Bulkier. More muscular. All that from that one workout. In total shock, Jill continued to look at her reflection. Her muscles bulged powerfully, but it wasn’t just that. Her whole frame seemed to have widened, thickened somewhat. Her shoulders were broader, her abs were more defined than ever, and her whole body was bulging muscle not because it had been exercised a lot, but because it had *gained* muscle mass. She looked over to the treadmills to see if Alex was still there. She was not. Disappointment.
As she continued to look at herself, she thought about the permanence of the changes to her body. She felt like she was saying goodbye to what used to be her lithe, curvy figure, as it was being encroached upon by thick, hard muscles. She looked down at her chest and saw that her pectorals were thicker, rising noticeably out of her torso and, like some kind of virus, invading and annihilating those two womanly virtues of hers that swooned boy’s hearts for years. She pushed against her breast with one hand, and was alarmed at how shallow the softness went before her hand felt the rock hard pecs that lay underneath. A feeling of dread came over her. She could swear it was the same feeling her dad felt when he realized he was going bald. These were her boobs, for God’s sake. She watched them grow when she hit puberty at 12, and though there were other girls at school who had much bigger ones, they gave her that womanly confidence that made her one of the hottest girls at Portsdown High. And they were disintegrating before her eyes beneath a rising tide of muscle.
She was so caught up in her thoughts that it took her a moment to see Pindar standing behind her in the mirror. She spun around in surprise, seeing Pindar’s face. His eyes were ready to pop out of their sockets. Jill couldn’t help but giggle at his comical expression, and her anxiety washed away in an instant.
“H-hey!” Jill said, smiling girlishly at him.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” was all Pindar could manage. Jill laughed at him and flexed her bicep, which looked noticeably bigger and bulged harder than when she was at Neo So.
“You must have really taken your time getting here, look how big I’ve gotten!”
“No, but-that was like 30 minutes! Jesus, Jill, you’re ripped. Are you-?” he looked around, and lowered his voice, “Are you on anything?”
“Nope, I just have freakish genetics,” Jill said, reiterating a now familiar line, “If I was on ‘roids or anything my face and voice would be all gross.”
“No, no you’re right. I’m not accusing you or anything. I’ve just never seen anything like this. You bulked up like that in a month?”
“Yeahp!”
“No protein shakes? T-100? That kinda stuff?”
“Nope, just my usual supplements and V…good genetics!”
“You must be a freak of nature or something,” Pindar said, laughing nervously, “Because I’ve never, ever seen anything like this.”
“Anything like what?” she said coyly.
“Oh, uhm, you know, ripped body, but cute face and voice,” Pindar said, feeling a bit foolish. Jill put him at ease when she giggled, and in return he laughed. In his eyes, she had suddenly transformed into the perfect women. He had a thing for bulkier girls, but all the other female trainers he worked alongside were too old for him, and while there was a cute fitness girl here and there at the gym, none of them measured anywhere to what Jill was now. In an instant, he felt privileged to know Jill, who had suddenly gone from an acquaintance at the gym to the most beautiful woman he’d ever come across.
Though it was kind of pointless by now, he spotted Jill as she worked out, as he said he would. As she went from the bench press to the shoulder presses, he felt like he was in the presence of a celebrity; at least, a celebrity of his mind. Jill was so perfect, and he felt stupid for having treated her as a mere acquaintance all these years. He wished he had taken the time to get to know her a little more, hell he wished that he knew she was going to get huge like this years ago. As Jill struggled slightly with a rep with the 40 pound dumbbells, he pushed his hands up on her arms and helped her finish the rep. He felt how thick and dense her arms were, and couldn’t believe that an 18 year old girl could build this kind of inhuman muscle so quickly. Suddenly, he realized that he wasn’t pushing his hands on her arms as much as he was groping them, and eased off his touch. He glanced at Jill’s face in the reflection of the mirror, and much to his relief she didn’t seem in the least bit bothered by it; in fact, he could swear that she cracked a smile.

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Jill pulled up to the driveway and stepped out, having returned home from the most epic workout of her life. As she walked towards the front door, she smiled and looked down at her thick, powerful body. Her arms were particularly impressive; what used to simply be featureless sticks now had all sorts of details and sections. She admired the way her biceps were neatly partitioned from her bulging shoulders, and she could just about make out the individual serrations in her triceps. There was also thick vein that was running down each bicep and branching off at her forearms. Her whole body was turning into a work of art.
She walked in the front door and was immediately faced with her mother, chopping vegetables at the kitchen. Jill realized that she had forgotten to put on her sweatshirt and her muscular body was plain as day to mom. Shit.
“Oh my God! Jill! What in the hell did you do to yourself?!” Mom screamed, dropping her knife and making her way towards her daughter. For once, Jill couldn’t find words to talk back. “My god! My GOD! Ahh!”
“I know what I’m doing, mom!” Jill said as mom hovered around her personal space like a demented fly.
“What the hell is this?! What is- You’re taking STEROIDS now? Look at yourself!!! Have you completely lost your fucking mind?! Have you fucking seen yourself in the mirror?!”
“Mom!”
“Explain yourself! Now!”
Jill calmed herself, resisting the urge to sock mom in the face and send her flying across the room. She took a moment to collect herself, “Look mom, I know it looks bad, but I like literally discovered that I can get big like this naturally like very easily, and I’m just doing it for a few-“
“You are on steroids and you will not use them anymore before your voice gets deep, and you will NOT lift weights anymore until you are back to the way you are! I’m going to deal with this…this clusterfuck, and until then you will NOT go to the gym!”
“Mom-“
“Not! Another! Word! My god, Jill. It’s bad enough you’re giving your father and I such a hard time over college, now you’re…you’re destroying your body by turning into a MAN! Christ, my god, my own daughter…” She stormed off from the kitchen down the corridor, her voice trailing off, on the verge of tears.
Jill was left standing there in silence. Her first thought was of Alex laughing at her, hiding in the bushes somewhere, watching the whole thing. She wanted to be mad at mom like always, but she had to admit, it was her own damn fault for forgetting to put her sweatshirt on. She could feel the crackling in her head slowly creeping back in. But now it seemed like hitting the gym again would trigger a nuclear apocalypse. She looked down at her body once more, and in spite of the embarrassment, she could not deny how much bigger she was now. The crackling subsided. Slowly but surely, she found the will to move from her spot and head for her room.

END OF PART 2