Shorter, Thicker, Heavier and Stronger
By B-36



Eric sat in his seat waiting for the bell to ring that would signal the
beginning of his AP physics class. Nerienne walked in and Eric's heart
immediately began to beat faster. Nerienne was new to the school and Eric had
had a crush on her ever since he saw her on the first day of school a few
weeks earlier. She was a short, beautiful girl with freakishly thick legs. Her
features were quintessentially Asian, broad, flat face, high cheekbones and a
deep epicanthic eyefold. Her thick, shiny black hair cascaded to her waist.
Eric, by contrast, was a tall, slim, WASPish looking white guy with sandy
blonde hair and blue eyes. Handsome and a star player on the varsity
basketball player, he was quite popular with the ladies. But at this moment,
he only had eyes for Nerienne. Not only was Nerienne beautiful, she was very
smart. While Eric struggled with physics, she seemed to know all the answers
to the questions the teacher posed. Her grasp of the material was uncanny.
Other guys were put off by Nerienne's gargantuan gams, but not Eric. Eric
wasn't attracted to girls with skinny chicken legs. And exceptionally thick
legs didn't bother him. Actually, he didn't care what a girl's legs looked
like as long as they weren't too thin. Besides, her legs weren't fat, just
ultra-thick.

Nerienne sat down in her seat across from him. She crossed her enormous legs,
looked at him and smiled. She waved at him girlishly. Eric smiled and waved
back. His heart was pounding now. But, he had a policy of playing it cool with
girls. He believed in never letting a girl know you like her until she let him
know she liked him.

AP physics was second period. After it came nutrition. He was sitting on a
bench chatting with a few teammates when suddenly he felt a tap on his
shoulder.

"AAAAAH!!!" He yelled, startled, and turned around. Nerienne was sitting
behind him.

"Did I startle you? I'm sorry!" She said sincerely.

"It's ok." His heart was pounding again.

"Your shoulder's pretty hard. You work out, huh?"

"Yeah."

"It shows." She tossed her her like she was in a shampoo commercial.

"Thanks."

"That was a very astute observation you made in class today."

"Thanks." Eric's heart was still pounding, but it would've stopped by now if
somebody other than Nerienne had startled him.

Eric and Nerienne chatted for the remainder of nutrition. He was certain she
was flirting with him. He looked at his watch. It was 1 minute till the bell
rang. The time had come.

"Nerienne..."

"Yeah?"

"Would you like to go to a movie with me Saturday night?"

"I thought you'd never ask." She said, grinning from ear to ear.

The bell rang and they both stood up. But there wasn't enough room between the
benches for both of them to get by. They playfully swung their hips back and
bumped into eachother. Nerienne knocked Eric off balance and he had to put his
hand on the table to keep from falling over. Nerienne walked off toward her
locker. Eric found the incident disconcerting. Eric's one shortcoming on the
basketball court was the fact that he wasn't very strong. And this girl who
was at least a foot shorter than he was had knocked him aside as if he were a
twig. It happened a lot under the backboard during games, but this time a girl
had done it. Then he remembered a lesson from physics class. It's easier to
knock over an object with a high center of gravity then a low one. Nerienne's
center of gravity was obviously much much lower than his. So he figured that
must be it.

They decided to eat dinner before going to the movie. Eric took Nerienne to a
nice little Italian restaurant that he knew.

"So, what do you like to do with your free time?" Asked Nerienne.

"I play a lot of sports, basketball mostly. What about you?"

"I read."

"You don't play any sports?"

"No."

"What about weightlifting?"

"No. I'm just not into physical activity."

"You need to be. Exercise is important for your health."

"You know, you're right. I should start exercising."

"Why don't I teach you to play basketball?"

"Sounds like a good idea."

The next day Eric took Nerienne to a basketball court. He decided to teach her
to shoot first. "Bend your knees and shoot with your legs. Your hand is just
there to guide the ball." He said. Nerienne followed his instructions and shot
the ball over the backboard. "You don't need to shoot the ball quite so hard."

Nerienne proceeded to amaze Eric with her range. She couldn't make a basket to
save her life. But, she could clear the backboard from half court. This girl
had power. "That's it for today." Said Eric. "Nerienne you need to work on
your touch. You shoot the ball too hard."

"I know. But I'm just starting out. I've never played basketball before."

There was a big physics test the following Friday. Nerienne invited Eric over
to her house to study. Eric went to Nerienne's house after basketball
practice. This would be the first time he had ever been there. Nerienne's
parents were divorced and she lived with her mom. Nerienne had an older sister
who was away at college. He rang the doorbell. Nerienne's mom answered the
door and Eric discovered where Nerienne got her physique from. Her mom was
built just like her, short with gigantic legs.

"Hi, you must be Eric." Said Nerienne's mom, smiling. "I'm Sonya, Nerienne's
mom." She stuck out a small hand and Eric shook it. Eric noticed that
Nerienne's mom had introduced herself as "Sonya" and not "Mrs. Poh." Some of
his friend's moms seemed to expect to be addressed by their surnames. This
irritated the hell out of Eric. It was as if they thought they were better
than he was just because they were older. Eric walked into the house. The
interior of the house bespoke affluence, wall to wall carpeting,
expensive-looking furniture, a big screen TV and a DVD player. Nerienne had
definitely had an upper middle class upbringing. It occurred to Eric that he
didn't know what her parents did for a living. He sat down in a plush,
comfortable easy chair.

"Would you like something to drink, Eric?" Asked Sonya. She had just a slight
accent.

"Um, Coke if you got it."

"Ice or no ice?"

"Ice please."

Sonya brought Eric a Coke in a clear tumbler. It had just the right amount of
ice. Sonya was a delight. Nerienne was a first generation Korean-American. She
was born in the United States and her parents were Korean immigrants. There
were a lot of Koreans at Eric's and Nerienne's school and they tended to be
very clannish, associating exclusively with other Koreans. Nerienne was the
exception to that rule. She cared nothing about the ethnicity of the people
with whom she associated. And it was obvious from the way Sonya treated Eric
that that was how she had raised her.

"You know, Sonya, I have to commend you on something. A lot of Koreans go to
my school, and they tend to hang out with only Koreans and I think it's
because their parents discourage them from hanging out with non- Koreans. But
you haven't done that and I applaude that."

"You know something, Eric? You're absolutely right. I chose to make this
country my home. To refuse to associate with the people who live here makes
absolutely no sense to me. My daughters were born in this country. They're
American in every sense of the word. They could both be President of the
United States some day. To discourage them from associating with other
Americans is even more ridiculous. A lot of Koreans do it. And I find it
absolutely stupid. If you don't want to associate with non- Koreans, why leave
Korea?"

Predictably, the study session was more of a tutorial than a study session.
Nerienne was extremely bright. She seemed to have everything going for her,
looks, brains, family. She certainly had a bright future. Nerienne was a
straight A student with a 1580 SAT. She had applied to all the most
prestigious colleges and there was no doubt she would be accepted to most, if
not all of them. The only chink in her armor was a lack of extracurricular
activities. But her 4.3 GPA and her SAT score more than made up for that. She
wanted to get a Ph.D. in molecular genetics. Eric had no doubt she would
succeed.

Eric was determined to get Nerienne to be more physically active. The next
sport he decided to teach her was tennis. They went to school tennis courts
after school.

"You need to keep your shoulder turned and your knees bent. Hit with your
legs, not your arm." Said Eric. He hit the ball to Nerienne and she hit it
back. The ball went over the fence and cleared the net of the court behind
Eric. Eric hit with Nerienne for half an hour and once again, he was amazed by
the girl's power. Control was not her strong suit. She barely got a ball in
the whole half hour. But her power was astounding.

"I think I need more practice." Said Nerienne.

"I'll say one thing for you Nerienne. You've got power."

"Well, you keep telling me to use my legs. I've got such strong legs that I've
got power in anything I use them in."

Eric got Nerienne a guest pass at his gym. It so happened that a dunk tank
body fat testing truck was at his gym that day. They decided to get body fat
tests. Eric sat in his swim trunks waiting for the technician to finish
talking to the person who had had his body fat tested before him. Nerienne
came out of the changing room in her blue bikini. He looked at her legs as she
waddled over to him. They were disproportionately thick compared to the rest
of her body. She seemed to carry the majority of her weight below her waist.

It was his turn to get his body fat tested. The technician weighed and
measured him. He was 6'2", 157. The dunk tank was a large tub filled with
water with an apparatus inside. "What you're going to do is submerge yourself
under the water while lying on top of the apparatus." Said the technician.
"So, get into the tub, grab onto the front bar and put your feet on the back
bar. Blow all the air out of your lungs and then submerge yourself. I'll tap
you on the shoulder when it's time to come up for air. You're going to do it
three times." Eric got into the tub, grabbed the front bar and put his feet on
the back bar. "Whenever you're ready." Said the technician. Eric took a deep
breath, blew all the air out of his lungs and submerged. After about 5
seconds, the technician tapped him on the shoulder. He did it two more times
and it was over. After a few minutes the printer printed up the results. He
was 12.7% body fat.

Then it was Nerienne's turn. The scale hadn't been set back to 0. She got on
the scale and the balance went up, indicating she was heavier than the last
person who'd been on it, which, of course, was Eric. The technician moved the
small weight up 2 lbs and the scale balanced. Nerienne was 5'1", 159. Eric got
that same disconcerted feeling that he'd gotten when Nerienne bumped him aside
between the lunch tables that day. It was disconcerting to be outweighed by
Nerienne, but not surprising. She carried so much weight in her legs. Eric was
muscular, but in a thin, wiry way.

They changed into their gym clothes in the changing room and went into the
gym. Eric showed the front desk his gym card and Nerienne showed her guest
pass. Eric went to the men's locker room to put his gym back in a locker.
Nerienne had no gym bag, so she just waited outside. Eric came out of the
locker room and they headed for the free weight area.

"I want to try that one." Said Nerienne, pointing to the leg press.

"The leg press? Okay." Said Eric.

Nerienne sat down on the leg press and Eric put two 45's on the sled. Nerienne
pushed it up like it was a feather. "That was way too light." She said. Eric
added more and more 45's and Nerienne continued pushing the sled up with ease.
Man, this girl was strong! She ended up leg pressing 945, 10 plates on each
side! And this was her first time doing the exercise! "Want to try?" Asked
Nerienne as she got off the leg press.\

"Nah." Replied Eric.

After taking Nerienne home, Eric went back to the gym. He had to see
something. He went to the leg press tried to leg press 945, like Nerienne had
done. He tried with all his strength, but the sled wouldn't budge. He ended up
having to yell for help. Dejected, he walked out of gym almost in tears.

What made it even worse was that, just as it wasn't surprising that she
outweighed him, it wasn't surprising that she could out-leg press him. Eric's
legs were corded and muscular, but they were like bumpy toothpicks compared to
Nerienne's. Nerienne had that power that came from raw genetics. It ran in her
family. Nerienne had inherited her gigantic legs from Sonya, and he was sure
Sonya could out-leg press him too. Nerienne was shorter, thicker, heavier and
stronger than he was. And he was going to have to get used to it.