Riding Heavy: Chapter 1, Tungsten.

(Disclaimer: Any acts of transformation, expansion, or mental altercation have been consented to by the owners of the characters affected. Any acts depicted are meant as explorations of the fetishistic psyche, hold artistic merit, and are compliant with the TOS of Patreon).

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I did it on a whim. When he approached, his shadow loomed over me, and I admit that my thirst corrupted my judgement. He was at least seven feet tall, fat as the goodyear blimp, and smelled of fresh pumped gasoline. His skin was a patina of bronze, tanned from the time he spent under the sun on the back a motorcycle. He rode the machine with such power and authority, that it felt like he could control it by willpower alone. That if he willed it, it would soar into the sky, and the world would have no choice but to conform and fulfil his wish. I wasn’t in love, but I was in lust. This god of the road asked me to join his riders - not a gang, he stressed, but a brotherhood - out on the open road. He said he knew I would fit right in.

Tungsten. That was his name. It wasn’t the name his parents gave him, but he considered it a truer reflection of who he was than what was printed on his birth certificate. He didn’t explain exactly how he got it, or who gave it to him, but it was clearly important to him. He said that he didn’t mind it being shortened to Tung however, which I thought was cute.

It was a fun coincidence that “Tung,” in Swedish, roughly translated into “heavy.” He liked that, and so most people called him Tung informally.

Tung wasn’t quite what someone would think of aesthetically when the word “biker” came to mind. He wore plenty of leather, black... shiny pleather, specifically - Tung had a strong stance on not supporting the leather industry, which I found a bit contrary against his love of loud bikes and the fossil fuels that powered them. His gleaming black leather outfit, pleather even, amounted to a pair of skin-tight shorts redolent of a Roman gladiator’s subligaria. A thick belt, with a thicker white-silver buckle crafted to look like a zeppelin dug deep into his belly. Leg and arm straps which wrapped around his beastly thick thighs and biceps, spiked and deadly... and a harness.

Oh, god. The harness. It was basically a few brave strips of black material which came down from his shoulders, mounting his spiked shoulder pads. A short strap laid across the shelf of his chest before plunging down through his cleavage, and connected to a metal ring over his belly that led to another two straps coming around his love handles from his back. He had such full moobs. They were wide, plentiful, and he was clearly proud of them; but they also looked resilient, tough, like if someone threw a punch at them the attacker would either break their knuckle on impact, or their fist would bounce off. I don’t know why that’s what I thought of as an example, but I had to distract myself from the overwhelming urge to fantasize about riding that moon-bounce of a barrel chest.

“What do you want in life, little buddy?” He asked with his smoky tone of voice. The cadence he spoke with had an earthy, flowing quality to it. A verbal river that encouraged you to float lazily down the conversational stream, safe and warm. I felt compelled to answer truthfully, it felt like I could tell him anything and he would sit there on the edge of his motorcycle and listen intently. Like I was the only person on the planet beside him.

I looked around, like the answer to his question could be found in the fading electronic hum of the diner’s lightning bolt sign. “I don’t know, that’s sort of a broad question to spring on someone you’ve just met, don’t you think?” I smiled awkwardly, apologizing for my inability to provide anything other than my own uncertainty.

Tung rubbed his wide chin. It was stubbly like his shaven head and criss-crossed with small cuts that faded to a pale flesh tone where they had scarred over. I wondered if they were shaving cuts, or something else, but didn’t have the courage to ask. I was simply happy to stare at his face. It had a strongness to it. His horseshoe moustache was pressed on by either side by red and plump wind beaten cheeks, matching the fullness of the double chin that bounced while he massaged it in thought. Fitting to his life as a biker, I thought his double chin resembled a taut, inflated tyre.

“I don’t believe that’s true,” Tung said to me, after a long pause. He had such gentle brown eyes for a man that looked like he had just finished crushing the skulls of his enemies, dressed for the set of Mad Max. “No one comes this far out without meaning to,” he said, referring to the arid northern area everyone just referred to as ‘The Roads.’ “Either you’re running from someone or something, or you’re the most clueless sightseeing tourist I’ve seen in donkey’s years.”

“Maybe I’m a tumbleweed enthusiast,” I replied and laughed awkwardly at my own joke.

“A tumbleweed enthusiast who doesn’t take shit from anyone,” he said pointedly, referring to the incident which sparked his interest in talking to me.

It wasn’t anything special, I thought. We were sitting in the same diner, the Greasy Thunderbolt, a few miles past the border into The Roads. I was fat – not as fat as Tung – but still noticeably round. My hair was dyed a dark blue, and I had painted nails to match it. I was used to the comments about my weight and the way I presented myself, they were usually hushed, and spoken in passing. Funny looks were common.

Then a half-cut biker, stinking of bitter and alcohol, slapped his hands on my table while I was finishing up a burger that lived up to the diner’s name. He was barely focusing on me while he spoke, his slurs just tumbled out of him like a leaky cask. I pretended not to see him at first, but that made him focus, that made him see me and his words grew sharper. He systematically worked through his list of things wrong with me: My hair, my nails, my apparent lifestyle – I was gay, he didn’t know that, he probably didn’t care and just assumed – my face, my walk, my voice. I grew more and more frustrated, until I pushed him hard and stood up.

“What, you gonna hit me you fat fairy? You’re gonna die if you keep stuffing yourself like a pig, y’slob. Lose some weeeeeeeight,” he hiccupped and staggered. He put his bottle of beer down on the counter behind him, and I saw the fry cook ducking down behind the service window to avoid getting involved.

“Fuck you,” I said, the words exploding out of me. I wanted to hit him, I really did, but I didn’t know the first thing about fighting. What if he had a weapon on him, or a knife? My anxiety was kept in check by adrenaline flowing the wrong way into fight instead of flight for once. “So what if I’m fat? Maybe I like being big, maybe I wish I was a little bigger so I could crush you. Lose some weight? Why don’t you lose some of that liver damage you fucking drunk?”

He stepped towards me, grabbing his bottle with clear intent to use it.

Fight left me; flight took control. Shit, shit, shit. I’m a twenty-four-year-old man who’s never been in a fight in his life. No, that time in primary school didn’t count. The closest I’ve been to any sort of actual combat is wrestling in gay porn. And even that would probably bruise me. I clenched my teeth and stood my ground, only because my legs were reduced to jelly, and standing upright took all my effort.

“Maybe this’ll knock some pounds off your fat a—” the drunk didn’t get to finish his sentence. On account of the gigantic fist implanted in his face. His expression went lax, and I saw everything happen in slow motion. A tooth wiggled free and ejected from his mouth, leaving dots of blood as a farewell to his gums. His eye bulged and nearly popped out of its socket, flanked by a trail of what I hoped were tears and not smatterings of eye-jelly. And his hat, an ugly old thing with a badly drawn pinup model posing on the brim, was crushed by the impact.

The drunk flew across the diner, landing in an awkward heap by the back entrance.

I looked up at the hulk who saved me from a bottle to the face. He still had a cigar between his teeth, and was poised to go for another blow if the drunk got up. He did, but he took one look at the eyes behind the smoking cigar and raised his hands in apology. “Woah woah woah, I didn’t aint even know he was one of your boys Big T, I promise!”

The man named Big T loomed over me. I thought I was fat, but he was an iron balloon with the force of a piston behind one bunch. His expression softened when he looked down at me, and I felt strange in the chest. Like if my heart could go any faster, it would, and pump right out of my chest and across the floor. “Sorry about that big guy,” he said, and I assumed he was being ironic. “It gets pretty rough around here for solo riders. You want me to take the trash outside?”

I shook my head. “No, he’s just drunk.”

Big T frowned. “That’s not an excuse,” he looked me over. “You’re not a rider, are you?”

“I’m not,” I rubbed my elbow with one hand and retreated into myself.

“… step outside with me for a second, will ya?”

I looked at the drunk negotiating with the formerly absentee frycook for some ice to put over his eye. “Alright, better than being in here. What’s your name?”

He smiled. “Tungsten.”