THIS IS WHAT I WANT

 

Part One

 

By Dreamspinner

 

            For reasons Elisabeth McClelland never fully understood, her mother had taken it upon herself to drum into her daughter’s head the notion that women should not have muscles—that is, if they want to be regarded as ‘feminine’.  And at the end of every lecture on that subject, her mother had always added, “And if they are so unlucky as to have them, they should go to any lengths necessary to conceal them.”  However generic her mother’s pontificating might have sounded to an outside observer, Elisabeth felt (and quite rightly) that her mother’s remarks were aimed at her.  Even as a child, Elisabeth was euphemistically called ‘big-boned’ by all those who knew her.  And by the time she was a senior in high school, Elisabeth was very ‘big-boned’ indeed—she stood five-foot ten and weighed a solid one hundred seventy pounds. 

            When her mother took her daughter shopping, they came home with long dresses and long-sleeved blouses, no matter what was the fashion or the season. Her mother wished with every fiber of her being that her daughter had not inherited her father’s large frame, and dedicated her life to concealing it.  That her obsession might have imposed a severe emotional burden on her daughter never entered the older woman’s head.  Even though the girl pretended to be unfazed, Elisabeth despised hearing her mother’s notions about girls with muscles and hated her mother’s choice of clothes that were either out of style or too warm for the weather.

            However much ill will Elisabeth may have borne toward her mother, there was nothing in her heart but love and admiration for her father.  He was a big powerful man—a laborer by trade, but by nature kind and gentle.  Elisabeth looked forward to running into his arms when he came home from work in the evening, and she loved even more the sense of safety she felt as he held her in his strong arms.  Sadly, he died when the girl was twelve, leaving her at the mercy of her cruel, ignorant mother. 

            Her mother would have been horrified if she knew that for as far back as she could remember, Elisabeth had imagined how wonderful it would be if her muscles were as big as those of her father.  The pictures of the men she saw on the covers of muscle magazines in the supermarket reminded her of him.  However much she might have been tempted to see what might be inside, however, Elisabeth never dared open one because she feared someone would notice and tell her mother.  She never even allowed herself to look at the magazines directly—she only stole sidelong glances as she pushed her shopping cart past the rack.

            Elisabeth had no way of knowing it, but her worries that someone might see her leafing through a muscle magazine and tell on her were groundless.  Nevertheless, her mother controlled her—whether the woman was at her daughter’s side or not.  And not looking at muscle magazines was the least of it.  Not only did her mother choose her daughter’s clothes, she decided which profession Elisabeth would pursue—accounting.              She was successful enough, but Elisabeth never like being a CPA—she would have preferred to be a pediatrician but would not challenge her mother the day the older woman announced what her daughter would be.  How could she?  Her mother made her announcement at a family reunion the week before the girl graduated from high school!             But the very worst of it was that Elisabeth never married.  Her mother insisted that she needed her daughter “more than you know”, she would say.  “I couldn’t bear the thought of you moving out.”  And so Elisabeth the girl stayed by her mother’s side until the years turned her into Elisabeth the woman.       

            But six months before Elisabeth turned fifty, her mother died.  Sad as she was, on the lonely drive home after her mother’s funeral the thought that she was finally free came to her.  It frightened her at first, as awareness of real freedom always does, but after a time, she considered that freedom might be a good thing.  As the weeks and then the months went by, Elisabeth became more comfortable with the notion, and decided, as she looked in the mirror on the eve of her fiftieth birthday, that would have big muscles.  “To hell with what mother wanted!” she said out loud.  “She is gone, and I will have what I want!”

            Having said that, she took her clothes off and as if she was seeing herself with new eyes, saw to her surprise that she already had muscles.  They weren’t large, but their form was distinct in its outline under her skin—when she bent her elbow, her biceps swelled, and when she turned her back to her full-length mirror and rose on her toes, she saw the muscles of her calves stand out in sharp relief.  The discovery of her muscles both frightened and excited her, and it was that excitement she took to bed with her that night.  Soon I will be fifty, she thought, as she lay in her bed feeling her biceps.  In time my muscles will be enormous!  The thought excited her and she pleasured herself thinking the thought again and again.     

            In the morning, she awoke full of plans.  She had dreamt of becoming strong and leapt out of bed, casting her eyes about, looking for things to lift.  When she saw nothing suitable in her bedroom, she threw on her robe and went downstairs to take an inventory of the objects in her house.  Her furniture, she decided, although heavy enough, was too awkward.  Hastily, she went to the basement.  Nothing but boxes full of old clothes and papers met her eye.  Discouraged, she sat on the stairs.  Leaning back on her elbows, she saw a water pipe fastened solidly to the floor joists.  “I can do chin-ups on that!” she exclaimed.

            Standing on the stairs, she reached up and grabbed the pipe with both hands.  She found she could pull herself up ten times with ease.  The springy feel of her now swollen biceps pleased her.  They feel even better than last night, she thought.  She pulled herself up ten times more.  It was more difficult, but she did it.  To her delight, her biceps were larger, and what was more, the veins in her forearms had filled with blood.  They reminded her of nightcrawlers.  I’ll do it three more times, she thought.  “One...two…three!”         

            The effort had made her warm, and she let her robe fall.  As she surveyed her arms, Elisabeth decided she was happier than she had been in a long time.  The thought occurred to her that she should take measurements of her limbs so she could track her progress, because by this time, even though she had only done a few pull-ups, she had determined she would become as muscled as her genes would allow.  There is a tape measure in the drawer of my father’s old workbench, she thought, and made her way past stacks of boxes.  She pulled the drawer open.  “There it is”, she said out loud.

            She measured her forearms, her upper arms, her chest, her waist, her hips, thighs, calves, and finally, her ankles, and recorded all the figures on a scrap of paper.  I will weigh myself as well, she thought, and having thought that, went upstairs to the bathroom scale.  I weigh exactly what I did in high school, she thought.  One hundred seventy pounds.

            As she stood there staring at the numbers on the scale, the idea of freedom came strong upon her.  “I will buy a muscle magazine today!” she exclaimed.  “And if anyone should see me…to hell with them!”  She was full of herself, and she liked it. 

            In her bedroom, freedom hit her with the force of a sledge.  I do not have to wear what Mother would want any longer, she thought, and having thought that, took a pair of scissors and cut off the legs of an old pair of slacks.  And after she had done that, she found one of her father’s old T-shirts she slept in.  This will do for a top, she thought.  “And I will not wear a long-sleeved blouse. And on my feet, I’ll wear my sandals, by God.  I am my own woman now, and I shall do as I please”, she declared. 

            She strode into the store with a spring in her step she hadn’t felt since she was a girl and made a bee-line for the magazine rack.  I’ll buy two or three, she thought.  I’ll look at what I please; now that Mother isn’t here to control me!   Having made her choices, she headed for the checkout line.  She feared the clerk would reproach her, half expecting him to say that her mother wouldn’t approve, but when she laid the magazines down, he simply scanned them and asked her “Paper or plastic, ma’am?”  He is absolutely unconcerned, she thought, and a new level of awareness crept upon her.              On the drive home, Elisabeth began to ask herself important questions.  What if Mother’s ideas about girls and women and muscle were unique to her?  What if I’ve labored under a great misconception all these years?  Should I have declared my independence from her long ago and moved away to live on my own; perhaps to marry, or if not to marry, to date, to kiss men, to give myself to strong handsome men?  

            Ah, well, she thought finally, it’s never too late.  After all, I’m not yet fifty! 

            At home, she sat on her sofa and opened the first magazine.  To her amazement, the table of contents indicated the magazine contained feature stories about muscle-building exercises for women as well as for men.  Elisabeth was enraptured.  This is what I want, she thought, as she leafed through page after page of photographs, many of which were of women flexing their muscles to bursting.  In her rapture, it seemed to Elisabeth that the women in the magazines (many of whom were, besides being heavily muscled, beautiful and exquisitely feminine as well) were brazenly defying her mother.  The idea that she might one day flaunt her own muscles came to Elisabeth.  “This is what I want!” she suddenly declared.  “This is what I will be!”  

            In her bed that night, her back against the headboard, magazines on her lap, she stared at pictures of muscles larger than she had ever imagined.  And as she stared at the glossy pictures, she felt her own muscles, and felt a warmth spreading through her loins.  “I’m not a bit sorry, Mother”, she said, as if the woman was there in the room with her.  “I like muscle, and I’m going to make my muscles as big as the ones I see here in these magazines and to hell with you!”  

            When the light was out, in her mind’s eye Elisabeth saw bulging biceps, bifurcated calves, and protuberant buttocks on parade.  The images excited her.  The warmth that had earlier spread through her loins grew more intense, and when she pleasured herself, she came more deeply and completely than she ever had before. 

            When it was over, she rolled on her side and felt good about herself.         

            When she awoke, Elisabeth’s arms were sore from the pull-ups she had done the day before, but it was a soreness that gave her pleasure.  Eagerly, she got her tape measure in hopes she would find that her biceps had grown overnight.  “Still a measly twelve inches”, she said, her voice full of discouragement.  Ah well, she thought philosophically, it will take time.  Undaunted, she leafed through the magazines again; compiling a training program she believed would give her what she wanted.  I will have muscular arms, she thought, and swelling calves.  I will have a deep chest, a slender waist, thirty-four inch hips, and powerful thighs…and I will weigh two hundred pounds!    

            When the flush of that excitement began to fade, Elisabeth realized the obvious: she did not belong to a gym, and had no weights at home.  But her mother, however unfairly she might have resented her daughter for being big-boned, had left her plenty of money.  “I will buy what I need with my inheritance!” she declared.  “Mother, I am going to spend money you left me to make me what you hated!  What delicious irony!” she laughed. 

            And so, with a sense of purpose she had never known before, the woman drew circles around pieces of equipment she saw advertised in the magazines.  A few hours and a dozen phone calls later, she suddenly realized how hungry she was.  It was eleven o’clock.  She had been so intent she had forgotten breakfast.  Hungry as she was, promises of delivery in less than a week’s time made her so nervous she had a hard time sitting still long enough to eat. 

            But she did, and having food in her belly calmed her, and as she sat having tea, dreaming about what she would become, she realized two things: she had no place to put the equipment except the basement, and once it arrived, she knew she could never carry it downstairs herself.   Thoughts of those things made her anxious.  I can clean the basement and make room myself, but who will help me get it downstairs?   “I must quiet myself”, she said.  “First I will make the basement ready.  While I am doing that, an idea about the second problem may occur to me.” 

            Hers was a large basement, underlying the whole of her large Victorian house.  After a half-day’s work, she had cleared a fifty by fifty-foot space by pushing the boxes against the walls.  And as she hoped, midway through the job a solution to the second problem had occurred to her.  Elisabeth’s neighbor to the south was a single man with whom she had only a nodding acquaintance, even though he had lived next door for twenty years.  It was he who popped into her mind as she wrestled with the boxes full of papers.  “He will be willing”, she puffed, brushing the dust from her hands.  “He has offered to help me with heavy lifting before when Mother and I were in need.  I will ask him when he comes home from work this afternoon.”    

            At four o’clock Elisabeth heard her neighbor’s car.  Peeking through the curtain, she saw him get out and start up his walk.  Elisabeth rushed out.  “Mr. Taylor” she cried, “do you have a moment?”  The man stopped in his tracks. 

            “Please call me Josiah, Elisabeth”, he said.  “After all, we’ve lived next door to each other for two decades!”  He laughed, and she was embarrassed at her unnecessary formality.    

            “Josiah”, she began, “I’m expecting a shipment of some heavy things by UPS sometime within the week and I was wondering if it wouldn’t be too…”

            “Too much trouble?” he interrupted, finishing her thought.  “I’d be glad to help you in any way I can, you know that.  After all, haven’t I indicated my willingness to be of service to you many times?”

            Elisabeth blushed, and didn’t know why.  She searched her mind frantically, and found the explanation.  I never noticed how handsome he is, she thought, and then asked herself why she hadn’t noticed that before.  Her answer came to her immediately.  It’s because I never allowed myself to look at him for more than a few seconds!  How blinded I’ve been!   

            “Are you OK?”

            “Yes”, she answered.  “I’m sorry; my mind was somewhere else for a moment, that’s all.”  Your mind, Elisabeth, she scolded, was not ‘somewhere else’…it was right here, perhaps more ‘right here’ than it ever has been.  Warmth spread through her loins.

            “Well, let me know when your things arrive, and I’ll be more than happy to help you, Elisabeth.”  And saying that, he turned and walked to his door.  “Oh!” he said, with his hand on the latch, “keep me in mind if you need anything…anything at all!”  Then he was inside.  His door clicked shut.

            Elisabeth felt as if she was about to faint.  With eyes downcast, she walked inside.  “What a fool I was for allowing Mother to control me so!” she exclaimed, standing in the living room where mother and daughter had spent so many lonely evenings together.  “I never even dated!  I felt guilty if I even so much as looked at a man, thinking that I was obliged to spend my life taking care of the old witch!”  And then she said the words she had dreamed of saying.  “I hate you, Mother!  I always did, and I always will!  And now that you are dead, I shall do as I damn well please!”

            The rest of the evening, Elisabeth’s mind was on her neighbor, Josiah Taylor.  He was on her mind as she lay in bed, fighting to sleep.  The memory of his manly shape, his hair, the way he held her gaze, the color of his skin, and thoughts of how he might smell pestered her.  Wonderments and questions came into her mind, and they awakened desire.  I wonder what he would think of me if he knew of my plans to develop my muscles.  Would he like that?  He may be strong himself, for all I know.  He is strong; at least he looks to be.  And he is big, like I remember my father being big.  I wonder if his arms are strong.  I would like to be held in his arms.  I would like to know him intimately…I would like that very much.

            For the first time in years, Elisabeth McClelland allowed herself to weep, longing to know Josiah Taylor as other women knew men.       

            Her melancholy was short-lived, and by the time the UPS truck pulled up three days later, Elisabeth’s enthusiasm for her ‘project’ as she had begun to call it in her mind, had regained its fever pitch.  Out of the house she bounded, nearly colliding with the UPS driver in her haste.  She was glad to see that the truck had a forklift on the back.  The driver unloaded the crates and moved them to the back door.  “That’s as far as I can go, ma’am”, he said.  “UPS doesn’t allow us to enter anyone’s house—even if it’s to help.” 

            “Its OK”, she said, “I have someone who will help me.”  The thought of Josiah helping her made her loins ache. 

            “What’s in them crates, anyway?  Weights?”

            “Yes”, Elisabeth answered, hesitating at first, but then, mindful of her new sense of freedom, “They’re for me.  I’m going to be a bodybuilder.”

            “Oh yeah?” was the driver’s response.  “Well, good for you!  A lot of my women friends lift weights and they say its done wonders for them.”  With that, he swung up into the high cab and drove off.  Mother, you couldn’t have been more wrong!   

            Elisabeth was surveying the stack of merchandise at her back door when she heard a man’s voice shout, “Hey!  Looks like your stuff got here early!”  It was Josiah, standing on his back porch, grinning.  “I’ll be over as soon as get out of this suit and tie!”  Warmth began to spread through the woman’s loins.

            In less than five minutes, Josiah was at Elisabeth’s side, reading the labels out loud.  “Weider, Hammerstrength, Everlast.”  He looked into the woman’s eyes.  “You know, Elisabeth, I always thought you had great potential for muscular development.”

            “You did?”

            “Yep.  It’s obvious.”

            “It is?”

            “Yeah.  Just look at you.  Anyone with two eyes can see your genetic endowment.  Broad shoulders, narrow waist, and naturally muscled arms and legs.  You’re just muscles waiting to happen!”   

            Elisabeth blushed.  “You seem to know a lot about bodybuilding.”

            “Well, I’ve been lifting for over thirty years.  A person’s bound to learn a thing or two in that time!” he laughed.  Hearing that, she took her first real look at her neighbor.  Even though they had been side by side for fifteen minutes or more, it was only then that Elisabeth realized he was wearing faded jean shorts, a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and tennis shoes.  As if she had been blind and then had suddenly been given sight, she saw the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, and the size of his arms.  Oh, my God, she thought, look at those arms!  His biceps are as big as softballs! 

            “Well then”, Josiah said.  “Let’s break open these crates and get your stuff inside.  Where you gonna put it?”

            “In the basement.”

            “Cool.  Let’s get started!”

            At seven o’clock, the job was done.  “Would you like some supper?” Elisabeth asked.

            “Sure.  Are you sure you feel like cooking?  We could go out…I’ll buy.”

            “It’s no trouble.  I can whip up something in a few minutes.  Do you like fish?” she asked.  “I’ve got some salmon fillets I can microwave.  It’ll only take a few…” and then she stopped, full of fear it was all going too fast, afraid she was pushing her freedom past its breaking point.  She wasn’t sure how to behave with a man, and she was exquisitely self-conscious.

            “I’m easy to please”, the man said.  “I never eat red meat anyway.  Sounds good to me.  Is there anything I can do?”

            “No”, she said.  She felt herself relaxing.  “Just make yourself comfortable.  Oh!” she exclaimed, “you probably want to wash up.  There’s a bathroom right around the corner.”  Josiah made man noises as he washed, and memories of her father flooded her mind. 

            Elisabeth never knew talking to a man could be so easy.  Within minutes after sitting down to supper, she was telling her neighbor about her new sense of freedom and about her ‘project’.  He listened attentively and asked how she had decided what kinds of exercises she should do for this and that muscle group.  She told him about the magazines she bought and how carefully she had studied the different programs offered in each.  He said he was impressed with her desire, and when he said ‘desire’, thoughts of wanting to know him came to her mind.

            Josiah said he would do the dishes.  “You deserve a rest”, he had said.  The woman watched him at the sink.  She studied every muscle from his shoulders to his wrists as he scrubbed and dried.  When he finished, he turned, leaned against the sink, folded his arms across his chest and asked, “Would you like me to be your personal trainer?  I’m certified.”

            She could only nod.  The thought of Josiah Taylor helping her develop her muscles made speech impossible. 

            “Do you mind if I work out with you as well?” he asked.  “I’m tired of going to the gym anyway—it’s a hassle—too many distractions.  For one thing, the music’s too loud, and I hate standing in line, waiting for somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing to finish a set on a machine I need to use.”  Elisabeth never heard a word.  She had been trying to imagine what Josiah would look like naked, and she was wet between her legs.  “Would you mind if I worked out with you?” he repeated.  “Hey!  Elisabeth!  Are you in there?”  He was passing his hand in front of her face.

            “Sorry”, she apologized.  “My mind was, uh, somewhere else, I guess.  I’m OK.”  She felt like an idiot.

            “I’ve heard that before!” he laughed.  “Anyway, back to the subject.  When do you want to start?”

            “Tomorrow afternoon.”

            “I’ll come over as soon as I change.  I’m looking forward to seeing your muscles grow, Elisabeth.”

            “Please call me ‘Elisa’” she said.  I’ve always wanted to be called ‘Elisa’, but Mother would never allow it. 

            “OK, Elisa.  See you tomorrow.”  He took her hand.  She felt its thickness and thought again of her father.

            “I’m looking forward to it, Josiah” she said, and she meant it.  Then he was out the door.

            That night as she lay in bed, fresh impressions of the muscular Josiah Taylor played in her mind.  Pleasuring herself had never been easier.   

 

 

End of Part One