Superiority Complex (PART 1)

Bart slowly bit into his granola bar and took a look around the parking lot before slumping forward, his head against the steering wheel. Lunch break never seemed long enough. His phone lit up with his ex-wife’s number, but he quickly declined the call. It had been a bad enough day without her picking a fight with him. She already got most of his money; what more did she want?

Bart sat up as he heard some conversation across the parking lot. His eyes lit up as he watched three of his coworkers strutting back into work with their to-go boxes in hand. They all liked to lunch at Martine’s, a fancy restaurant downtown. It would be nice, Bart thought, to have enough money to eat out everyday--nicer still to be able to eat steaks and mashed potatoes for lunch everyday while still maintaining a fit physique, like all the guys at their office seemed to.

Gnawing back the last bite of granola bar, Bart trudged back into work. Two steps across the threshold of the office, Bart got pelted in the face with a manila envelope.

“Hey Bart my man,” said Trevor, who stretched from his office chair, his thick biceps threatening to bust through the sleeves of his well-tailored dress shirt. “Gotta have that next-dayed to my client. You on that my bro?” Trevor winked at him, then turned back to his computer before getting a response.

Bart stooped to get the envelope before coming eye-to-eye with a pair of massive legs clad in tight-fittening dress slacks. Bart’s eyes centered on the massive bulge packed behind the silky material. “Yo! Bart!” Bart’s eyes traveled up the well-dressed muscular frame of Calvin, the assistant supervisor. “Seems the boss man wants to see you. He’s got something for you. Oh--and… you have chocolate or something on your cheek.” Calvin winked at Bart and shot fingerguns, causing his pecs to bounce in his salmon shirt.

Bart knocked on his boss’ door before walking in. “Clint?” Bart asked as he walked into the posh office.

Clint wheeled around in his leather chair. He motioned for Bart to sit, then continued jabbering into his headset as if Bart wasn’t there. Bart had a seat, unable to ignore how much better this chair felt than the rickety old seat he sat in all day.

Clicking off his headset, Clint spun around to face Bart. “Yo, Bart, here’s the thing. I hate to do this to you, buddy, but we’re gonna need you to stay late today. File system needs to be reorganized. My guys have been getting sloppy out there.”

Bart sighed and nodded. Clint hopped out of his chair and walked to a pull-up bar bolted into the wall behind his chair. “You don’t mind if I do a few pullups, do you? Gotta maintain a pump or else I start to get restless.” Clint took off his suit coat revealing just how wide and bulky his torso was. As he busted out rep after rep, Bart couldn’t ignore the rippling back muscles beneath the smooth cream-colored shirt.

“Anyway,” Clint said, “I just wanted to add that we here at Benton-Weasley really appreciate you being such a good sport about the demotion. Must have really stung to go from being the assistant-supervisor of the whole office down to being everyone’s errand boy.” He grunted as he hit his fiftieth rep. “But you get it, right? Have to put aces in places, and Calvin is just more suited to the work.”

Bart eyed the manila envelope in his hands. “Is that all? I’ve got a lot to do this afternoon,” he said weakly.

Clint dropped to the floor, his mass making the whole room shake. His angular face shone lightly with fresh sweat. “Nah, we’re good. Thanks for all your hard work my guy!”

It was 7:30 when Bart finally clocked out. “At least the traffic isn’t as bad at this hour,” he consoled himself as he turned to pull into his driveway. He sighed as he noticed his son’s Chevy Silverado parked in his assigned spot. “Damn. Street parking it is, I guess.”

Bart was shocked to find Jerry, his landlord, waiting for him in the hallway just outside his apartment. “Bart, buddy,” Jerry said. He had a wrench in his hands and wore only overalls, his muscular torso spattered with grime. “Bad plumbing issue in your place. Took all day to unclog the pipes, but… you’re good now! That son of yours is taking shits almost as big as he is.”

“Well,” Bart said sadly, “comes with being the father of a competitive bodybuilder.”

“Hell, don’t I know it,” big Jerry said, shrugging his thick shoulders. “Back in my competition days, I used to eat like a horse in my bulk phases. Only way to put on mass! Thank god your kid is taking all of my advice to heart. He’s gonna be an animal once he steps on stage.”

“So… is the clog… fixed?” Bart asked, one hand on his doorknob.

“Yeah. Pricey maneuver, but I’ll just tack it on to your rent for the month.”

Bart’s eyes went wide. “How pricey are we talking?”

Jerry smiled and put a beefy hand on Bart’s shoulders. “Don’t sweat it, buddy. You know I wouldn’t put you into a bad financial situation if I could avoid it. I promise, I did the repair in the most cost effective way possible.”

Bart choked on his first breath of air in his home. The whole place smelled like a locker room. Derrick, his son, had left freshly sodden workout gear strewn about the kitchen, no doubt stripping out of his sweat-soaked attire as made his way from the front door to the bathroom. Bart gathered the sopping clothes piece by piece. He was shocked to find Derrick sitting on the couch in just a jockstrap, chugging a protein shake as he massaged his own huge pectoral muscle.

“Derrick, c’mon,” Bart said, holding up the wet bundle. “I can’t be picking up after you, especially not after the kind of day I had…”

“Sorry dad,” Derrick said. He was focused on his phone, on which a video of a bodybuilding competition was playing. “I was toast after today’s lift. Massive chest day. Barely had enough energy to get into the shower. Just trying to recharge now.”

Bart opened his mouth to continue to complain, but he hadn’t the strength. He needed food. After tossing Derrick’s filthy gear into the hamper, he opened the fridge to find a single onion, a bottle of ketchup, and several of Derrick’s tupperware containers packed with protein and carbs.

“I left some meatloaf in here,” Bart said to Derrick. “You didn’t eat it, did you?”

“Hell no, man!” Derrick said from the other room. “I’ve been clean bulking. But Jerry was hungry so I told him to help himself. Least we can do after he got our pipes running again.”

Luckily, Bart had a spare granola bar hidden in his nightstand. He ate it under the covers with the lights off, listening to the sounds of Derrick counting out reps as he “blasted abs” for his evening workout. He heard his phone buzzing on the nightstand and glanced at it, expecting another angry voicemail from his ex. Instead, he saw an e-mail.

“Tired of being the smallest guy around? Try ZeusFitness!” Probably just some clickbait ad, Bart thought, prepared to close the screen. His eyes fell upon the ad’s final claim: “Free trial! Your appointment is waiting!”

*

Bart was shocked to find that this ZeusFitness gym was only two blocks away from the office. “Must be new,” he thought, sure he had passed this street before and never noticed the well-lit windows with photos of absurdly massive men lifting insane cartoonishly large dumbbells.

Two steps through the door, he knew he was in the wrong place. There was grunting and loud smashing in all directions. Men the size of buffalo stomped around in tight spandex, their hairless, tan bodies flexing and bulging as they heaved enormous piles of metal plates. Bart watched a bull of a man strut by and estimated that the brute’s left leg was the size of Bart’s entire body.

“You new here?” said an apeish man behind the front desk in a deep voice. “I’m Chet. You receive one of our free trials?”

Bart considered turning to run as he saw the godlike man eyeing him up and down. Then he shrugged. It’s not like he was a stranger to being the smallest guy in a room.

“So, what are your goals?” the big man said as he chomped on some gum. As he typed into the computer, his huge veiny forearms flexed and twitched.

“Uh, I’m looking to, uh…”

“Your options are MASS, POWER, or AESTHETICS.”

Bart considered the three. Power sounded nice, finally giving him the ability to control his own life--although mass, in the right quantity and shape, made the back of his neck tingle.

“Too bad I can’t pick all three,” Bart said sheepishly.

“Oh, you can,” Chet said with a wink. “I’ll sign you up for the premium package.”

“That sounds expensive,” Bart said, feeling a pit in his stomach.

“Free trial, my friend,” Chet said.

After signing him up, Chet waved Bart along. As soon as he stepped out onto the gym floor, Bart felt at risk for being squashed. “Maybe I’ll just do a little on day one,” he said, scanning the dumbbell racks. The smallest one was 45 pounds. Maybe there was a beginner room, he mused.

“New member? Come with me,” said a gravelly voice behind him. Bart never even got a chance to see who was speaking. Strong hands grabbed him and he felt himself yanked into the air.

*

Each of the three men standing before Bart were larger than all of his officemates squashed into one. Derrick would have looked puny next to them! No way would Jerry try to push these monsters around.

“Don’t be scared,” said the blonde beauty of the three, his boyish good looks contrasting with his freakish size. He was wearing purple spandex, but somehow it looked macho hugging his gigantic frame. “Just an entrance interview. I’m Tad.”

The bald goliath stroked his thick black moustache before continuing. “I’m Able. You’re probably wondering what brought you here.” He wore a leopard-print suit with only one shoulder-strap, like a caveman.

The third giant, with curly brown hair and a weathered face like a boxer, stepped toward Bart. “I’m Steven. And you’re probably wondering what you’re doing here.” Steven wore a pair of white posing trunks that looked tiny on his massive, imposing form. Bart couldn’t help but eye the massive package barely contained within them.

The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed above them. Bart noticed the doorway behind Steven. Was that the room they brought him through? It seemed impossible these enormous guys--easily 6’5” tall and at least 350 pounds each--had been able to get through the doorway without having to stoop and squeeze.

“Bart,” Steven began, “you submitted your DNA for testing a year ago, correct?”

Bart was confused. “To Lineage.com, just to find out my ethnic makeup. Turns out I’m 96% Northwestern European,” Bart said, shifting in his chair.

“Well, your DNA sent up some flags in our system. Turns out you’re a candidate for an exclusive process. If you’re willing to be one of our test subjects…”

Bart winced, and Steven raised a hand. “Before you answer, let me just show you our before pictures.”

Able chuckled and Tad rolled his eyes as a screen lowered down behind them. Suddenly, three images appeared: a shrimpy blonde man in an ill-fitting suit; a portly bald man with an overgrown moustache and a pot-belly; and a curly-haired man wearing enormous, coke-bottle-thick glasses. Bart immediately deduced that each of these photos was supposed to represent one of the beasts before him, but it seemed impossible. The guys in the photos were small wimps--just like Bart!

Steven produced a syringe with a glowing orange fluid inside. “This is the key to our program here. See, the gym out there is just a front--just a place where guys who have gotten huge thanks to our system to go and put their size and strength to the test. But all of those guys were no bigger than you are now when they started, and they didn’t get big lifting weights.”

Bart’s first instinct was to deny all of this as impossible--and the idea of injecting a mysterious substance to be wildly unsafe--but truly… he wanted what these men were offering.

Without a word, Bart presented his arm for the injection. “I’ll do it,” he said without needing any further info.

Steven chuckled. “Perfect, but that’s not how we do it.” He lifted Bart effortlessly with one hand and slung him over as if he were about to burp him. Bart just stared down at the rippling muscular back he was draped over as he felt his shorts getting tugged down. Not only was the sensation of the dense musculature intoxicating, but the idea of having all these muscles for himself had his head swimming. He barely realized when the needle had pierced his flabby buttocks.

After the shot, Bart stood there, feeling himself tingling. “How long… how long until it… works?” he said shakily.

“See for yourself,” Able said, plucking Bart’s tee-shirt from his body. Bart was shocked to see abs--an actual six-pack!--and a toned chest where flabby man-boobs had been a moment before.

“See,” Steven continued, adjusting his huge posers-clad bulge (which was as big as a basketball). “Since mass can’t be created out of nothing, your body is absorbing its gains from others.”

“Except you can’t steal everything from someone who’s taken the formula,” Tad added. “The core of our mass, what we’ve absorbed, is locked in for good. You’re just absorbing the few extra pounds our bodies have put on naturally. A couple pounds of muscle off me is nothing, but on you it’s a massive change.”

“In other words,” Able said, hitting a double-biceps pose. “You’re tapping a dry well. You can hang out at this gym and you’ll naturally leech off whatever they’ve got in excess, but if you want to really add some size, you need to get out there and start leeching.”

“This last part’s hard to explain,” Steven said, strutting around Bart and assessing his sudden gains. “The formula seems to work best on those with a… how should we say… superiority complex.”

“But with you around, they won’t be superior for long!” Able chuckled.

Bart looked down at his physique. He looked like an athlete--like he was getting ready for a triathlon. But it wasn’t enough; he wanted to be as big as Steven.... No, bigger! “I don’t get what’s in it for you guys…”

“You just wear this gym’s gear and get our name out here,” Tad said, tossing Bart a ZeusFitness brand stringer-tank. Bart held up the absurdly enormous garment: XXXXL, it hung down past his knees and could have fit three of him within it. “Don’t worry, buddy, you’ll fit into that soon enough. But massive, muscular men make way better billboards.”

It didn’t make sense. It was all happening so fast. But Bart couldn’t deny his progress already. Throwing the huge tank top over his shoulder, he headed for the door while the three monsters behind him cheered him on.