Acing the Test- Part 1/2

Not sure why I made the introduction to this story so long, but I'm apparently having fun. It's not a traditional two-part series though, so I won't make you wait as long. The rest of the story will drop on Friday, and you'll see the material that inspired this idea then...

Pulling into the parking lot, the building in front of me looked like every other medical office that I’d ever been to, and with the amount of physical therapy that I’d been to over the years, I’d seen quite a few. I could already see Danny’s truck in the parking lot, and I pulled into the space beside him. He was still sitting in the driver’s seat, and even though I couldn’t hear him, I knew that he was talking to his girlfriend. He’d started dating a girl that had just moved here from Italy, and now Danny was talking with his hands more and more whenever the two spoke. No one was really sure if he noticed that he was doing it.

Looking my way, he gave an earnest wave and wrapped up his call, and we got out to walk in together. The office that we were going to was in a business park, and since most people were returning from lunch now, the courtyard area was packed with people looking at us.

On my own, I had come to terms with the fact that I received stares everywhere I went. I’d been getting them ever since I started getting serious about being a bodybuilder about a decade ago. I was a massive beast of a man, and I’d worked for years to get here. So let them stare.

When Danny and I went places together though, it was over. Men and women would walk up to ask to feel our muscles or take photos, and we usually obliged. No one would work this hard if they weren’t a little narcissistic. Every photo taken inflated our egos a bit more.

As the air conditioning washed over us, we took in the sight of the lobby covered in plastic sheeting, and I wandered if we’d made a mistake.

“Danny, Sam- come on in!”

A man in a white lab coat appeared out of one of the doors off the lobby, and I recognized him from the Zoom call last week.

“Everything okay in here?”

He ushered us into the office as he told us about the renovations that were happening throughout the building.

“That last storm caused some roof damage, so we just decided to make lemonade out of lemons and go ahead and start the big renovation that we’ve been wanting. A lot of the rooms are out of commission, but this one is totally completed.”

Inside, the walls were freshly painted, and the ceiling wasn’t one of those awful drop ceilings that are always in every other doctor’s office. We sat down in chairs that were far too comfortable and listened as the man in front of us talked all about the new supplement that we were trying out.

“How much science do you remember from school?”

“I played football at a school that valued athleticism over academics, so let’s assume nothing.”

He turned to me next, and I tried my best to redeem our pairing.

“I have a degree in kinesiology, but I focused on physical therapy. So, if you’re about to mention anything harder than what I learned in a general chemistry class, then I’m lost.”

Smiling at me, he ignored Danny as he began to list how this supplement would help the body absorb greater percentages of the protein that we ate.

“And what are the side effects?”

“That’s what you’ll be helping us with in this final stage of the trial. The patients in the first two rounds mentioned occasional headaches in the morning, but acetaminophen cleared those up in about 95% of cases at regular doses.”

“So, we’re going to possibly see muscle growth in exchange for a few headaches?”

“Minimal muscle growth- this will be more effective in men that aren’t necessarily of your… stature.” He was checking us out, but again, we were used to it. “You’re helping diversify our sample, and we’re very grateful. The main benefits for both of you will simply be the paycheck for participating.”

The very hefty paycheck. Big enough to pay for the airfare and lodging for my next competition.

“Let’s do it.”

Danny was in immediate agreement, and I honestly had no reservations either. Normally, we were approached by companies that wanted to promise us growth that only steroids could accomplish, so this was refreshing.

After signing a few release forms, a nurse came into the office and started pulling equipment out of one of the cabinets.

“Okay men, you can go ahead and undress down to your underwear.”

“I’m not wearing underwear.”

“Wait, are we not going to be in separate rooms?”

Danny and I spoke at the same time, and after I processed what he said, I certainly wanted to know the answer to my question.

“Due to the renovation, we are short on space right now, unfortunately.”

“Eh, nothing we haven’t seen in a locker room before.”

Again, with no hesitation, Danny pulled off his shirt and casually pushed his shorts to the ground, stepping out of them to be totally naked aside from his shoes. There was not an inch of shame on him, and I guess I needed to pretend that I was ready to do the same thing.

Again, I was used to getting on stage at competitions wearing nothing but posers, so I’m not sure why my brain was saying that this was weird. Carefully pulling off my clothes, I folded my shirt and shorts and laid those on the chair behind me. Danny just left his on the carpet.

“Okay, Cristian here will handle all of your testing- I’m going to run grab your first round of supplements, and I’ll be right back.”

Cristian was facing us now for the first time, and he was drop dead gorgeous. Tanned skin and a faint stubble lined his perfect jawline, and I wandered what he’d look like if he was wearing my outfit. I had on nothing but a pair of white briefs right now, and they were feeling tighter than they had this morning.

“Okay gentleman, before you start the trial, we need to set a baseline of information. We’ll be taking a blood draw, a urine sample, and a semen sample. After today, you’ll come in once more in four weeks for a formative check, and then at the end of the eight weeks, we’ll run another full panel.”

“Sounds good.”

“Did you say a semen sample?”  

“I certainly did. We’re going to be compared to traditional steroids in media, and we want to back up that our supplements have no effect on sperm count. I will leave two sample cups, and here is a sanitized tablet for each of you as well. There are several genres of videos loaded onto them, and we have sanitized headphones.”

Danny was nodding along with all of this as if it was normal, and I had to be the voice of reason.

“Okay, we definitely have to have different rooms for this, right?”

As an answer, Cristian simply pulled in a rolling partition from the hallway that looked like a bed sheet attached to the frame of a rolling whiteboard. As he placed it between the chairs, I could clearly see Danny framed by the fluorescent lights on the other side, and he was plopping down into the chair and putting in the wired headphones.

“Don’t you think we should lead up to this?”

“Most people prefer to start here instead of doing this after being poked by needles.”

And then, he was out the door, and I could hear Danny laughing as he started reading off some of the sample titles.

Looking to my right, I tried to ignore him, and that’s when I realized that he had chosen the chair next to the wall, leaving me with the one next to the open door. The open door that I was almost about to walk out of before remembering the very hefty paycheck.

I was about to jerk off right beside my best friend…