A  Gymnast's  Awakening
By Kophic
A gymnast discovers her true strength and what it can do for her outside of the gym when confronted.


Kelly liked to think she was an average girl, but she knew in many ways she
wasn't. As she walked out the front door this morning, everything seemed
normal. But by the time she was to fall asleep tonight, her outlook on life
would be different.

She grew up most of her life with just her mother. No brothers or sisters, and
her father left them when she was still an infant. Her mother was a good
person, she always put Kelly first. While they didn't grow up poor, they
didn't have a lot. Her mother worked a full time job and had several other
part time jobs to pay for the mortgage on their small house, and to pay for
Kelly's gymnastics.

Kelly had just graduated High school. Her days now consisted of going to the
local community college each morning for 4 hours, followed by going to her old
gym and coaching. She still practices gymnastics with the higher level girls
at the gym, just she no longer competes. She is very shy and some of her
friends say she even seems to lack a little self esteem, but no one knows why.
She did pretty well in school, never got in trouble, and is a great athlete.
Part of her problem, however, is she was always "second best".

In her family, her grades were always 'second best' to her cousin Madeline.
While she had a great relationship with her mom, she always seemed to come
'second' to her mother's work. Even at gymnastics she did very well in
competitions, but was always the 'second best' girl at her gym. She was very
talented, smart, and athletic, and she pushed herself to become better, but
was always afraid to 'show off' her abilities too much. She was afraid that if
she showed any confidence, someone would knock her confidence back down by
telling her she was 'almost good enough', but not quite the best.

It was snowing lightly outside, so she put her bag on top of the car while she
bundled up her jacket. She paused for a moment, looking around to make sure no
one else was outside. Despite her being so beautiful, she went out of her way
to not show off her looks. Something as small as having a neighbor see her
easily lift her 25+lb bag of books and place it on the roof her car is
something she didn't want to happen. In the summer she almost always wore
jeans or one-size-too-big pants, and a loose fitting top. In the winter, she
would wear multiple layers of clothing. The one thing she was not second best
at in gymnastics was how strong she was, and she looked it. She wasn't sure
how to react to the attention she would get from it, so she hid it at all
costs.

She was about 5'3 inches tall with long blond hair. Most people would guess at
first glance she weighed about 105-110 lbs, but she was closer to 130, and it
was just about ALL muscle. Her calf muscles were bigger than any of the other
girls at school, even the runners. Her thighs and butt had so much muscle that
it made buying jeans a day long task. She would have to buy loose fitting
jeans that were 2 sizes to big in the waste just so the legs would be large
enough for her to fit her powerful thighs into.. Then her mom would have to
alter the waste to make them fit. Finding a blouse or top to fit was sometimes
even harder. She had a tiny waste with so little fat that her six pack abs
showed when she wasn't even flexing. Her arms, chest , back, and shoulders
held so much muscle that it looked like her shoulders were more than twice the
width of her waste and hips. Sometimes she would try on a top at a store and
barely be able to fit her arms through the sleeves?and if she moved to
quickly, she could felt the fibers of the shirt starting to stretch or tear
against the overwhelming size and power of her shoulders. The only thing on
her entire body that was soft was her chest. Her chest seemed to finally stop
growing, half way between a C and D cup. She wore a 36D bra though, despite
her small size, the size of her chest and the width of her upper body muscle
dictated she wear a size that large.

Yet Kelly was torn about her appearance. She didn't want to be viewed as a
'freak' by outsiders, but she liked how she looked. A day did not go by that
when she was changing or getting out of the shower, she didn't pose a few
times in the mirror, checking out the size and definition of her muscles. If
no one else was home, she would even sometimes just feel her own bicep?slowly
flexing it and feeling it form a rock hard ball, raising up the hand she was
feeling it with until it grew almost to the size of a tennis ball under her
skin.

So for Kelly, the trip to school and then to work at her gymnastics center is
what her life is like now, 5 days a week. Her day seemed normal, just like any
other, until about 8pm when she had only an hour left at work.

The gym is busy throughout the day with children of all ages practicing, but
by 7pm, most everyone leaves except for the competitive girls team. Tonight,
it was just the 5 girls on the team, herself, and one other coach left (Agnes
a 51 year old lady, who has been coaching gymanstics there for over 25 years).
The girls know what they need to do during normal practice sessions, so if
someone comes into the gym, Kelly usually goes to meet them at the front desk.

Close to 8pm, the buzzer sounded that someone had walked in the front door.
Kelly left the girls in Agnes's watch and went to the counter. It was a man in
his late 20s, maybe early 30's, who wanted information about some of the
classes they offered. As the conversation went on, she found out he had a
young daughter who he wanted to start in gymnastics, and he really didn't know
much about it. Kelly answered his questions about the gym one by one, and even
started telling him about what gymnastics was like as a sport. She let him
know that she still does gymanstics herself and was even on the competitive
team at that gym for years.

Then the question came that started the whole chain of events for the night.
He stated he was worried that if a girl become good at gymnastics, would being
too thin or getting an eating disorder be possible? Kelly thought either this
guy has no idea at all about gymnastics, or he was reading stories about
gymnastics from 25 years ago. So she told him "not at all, certainly at our
gym no one is like that, and if we saw something like that, we would talk to
the parents right away." Then she told him to look out the window behind the
desks at the team practicing, saying "those girls are the current girls on our
competitive team, and you can see they are all very healthy looking". That led
to more questions.

He said to her "Wow, I didn't think girls in gymnastics would be like that,
they look kinda strong for girls." Now Kelly was a little nervous that he
might embarrass her by noticing her build. She wanted to give him information,
and she loved talking about gymnastics, but she didn't want anyone, let alone
a stranger, notice she how built she was. Rather than risk him focusing on
her, she decide to call in Emily, the youngest girl on the team that was on
the floor. She called out "Emily, can you come here a moment". When she got
behind the desk, she told her "show your arm muscle". Emily was only 12 years
old, but in very good shape. You could see her six pack abs a bit through her
practice outfit. Emily smiled and quickly flexed her right arm. A muscle
popped up that, while not a full ball shape, was definitely noticeable and
probably bigger than most girls 3-4 years older than her. Kelly dismissed
Emily back to the floor and said to the man while almost laughing "yeah, that
is what gymantics can do for you." She would have called over Amy, Kelly's
younger cousin who was also a gymnast, and may have actually been stronger
than Kelly herself at that age, but Amy wasn't at gymnastics today.

Then Kelly got a little more uncomfortable by what he asked next "So if the
girls get like that, do they stay that way, I mean, even though you don't
compete anymore, are you still like that too?" Kelly become uncomfortable
becuase she was embarrassed. What she didn't realize is as she was getting
embarrassed, she was taking her long sleeves by her hand and nervously pulling
them up and down to expose her forearms. The man looked down at them and said
"I'm just asking, because you look like you are stronger than I am." If only
he knew just how strong she was, she thought. Her exposed forearms where
thick, and at every movement of her hands the muscles on them grew and rippled
for the eye to see, with even some of her veins showing.

Kelly nervously rolled her sleeves back down when she realized what she was
doing. She blushed with embarassment , and gave a quick smile. She then
noticed he wasn't looking at her forearms anymore, or even her face when she
talked, but appeared to be looking at her neck. Kelly's back and shoulders
were so developed from her time at gymnastics, that her traps visibly stuck up
from the sides of her neck almost a couple inches. She also has a visible vein
that showd in her neck whenever she was nervous or excited. At this point,
Kelly calmly took a step back and said "let me get you a brochure and some
paperwork on the gym, and if you have any other questions you can give us a
call. She handed him the paperwork and said she had to get back in the gym.

Her Heart was racing. "Why do I let that stuff get me so worried?" she
wondered. Well it was over now, back to the class.

Class ended about 30 minutes later, all the girls left, and Agnes walked up to
Kelly. "Do you want me to lock up tonight" Agnes asked? "No, I'll take care of
it, I want to just do some stretching in the gym anyway to calm my nerves, I
had a tough day" Kelly responded. Agnes left, and Kelly went into the gym. She
wasn't supposed to do any actually 'gymnastics' when no one else was there,
but she took a few tumbling runs to get some of her nervous energy out. By
9:45, she was locking up and going out the front door.

The parking lot was well lit as she walked outside. The full moon gave enough
light to notice there was a car parked right next to hers. She didn't think
anything of it other than "with the whole parking lot, why does someone always
have to park next to me."

She got to her car, and heard someone say something to her. She turned around
and it was the guy who was asking her questions in the gym earlier. "What is
he doing out here now?" she thought. She was getting genuinely worried, he
walked up to her and started talking "I just had to ask you, did you play any
other sports besides gymnastics at all?" Nervously she said quickly "no just
gymnastics" as she reached for her keys to get in her car. He came closer and
said "I just couldn't get over how strong you looked, on you is it just your
forearms and shoulders, or did you get like that all over" she replied with a
now VERY nervous smile "no, all over." He then said something she didn't quite
remember, because she was startled, as he talked, he actually reached over and
squeezed her bicep through her jacket sleeve. A million thoughts seemed to go
through her head all at once, so quickly that she didn't recognize any of them
"did he lie about his daughter as a way to get to me?", "does he want to rob
me and he is sizing her me?" "Just what does he want?"

Probably 3-4 seconds later, he took his hand off her arm. Kelly wasn't sure
why was taking it away? if her was going to feel her other arm, or what he was
doing, but for a split second, she imagined he was reaching back at her again.
She was not scared, but startled and confused, and she went to push him away.
Was it the adrenaline running through her? or just the amazing power and
strength her muscles gave her? but the push slammed him pretty hard against
his own car.

The man looked a bit startled, and maybe he was just going to apologize, or
maybe he was gathering himself after being surprised. But he got his balance
back and stood up. Kelly didn't wait to see if he was going to walk away or
apologize, something inside of her made her push him back. But this time it
was harder. This time his body flew back and made a loud crashing noise as it
hit the cold metal of the car door, putting a dent in it. She seemed to be
able to throw him back like he was nothing more than a big doll.

He winced in pain and fell to the ground. Kelly didn't want to take a chance
that he might fight back. She came up to him and pushed him to the ground, and
punched toward his face. Boom, she felt her hand hurt when she hit the side of
his face, but almost right away some blood started coming from his mouth. He
started squirming under her, but she just kept throwing punches at his face.
He tried to cover his face with his arms, so some of the punches he blocked,
but for the next 8-10 seconds, her powerful arms wailed away at him. Her fists
only connected with is face a few times, and even then not fully, but by the
time she stopped, he had a dazed look in his eyes and blood was all around his
mouth and his nose.

Kelly wasn't sure what just happened, but she decided to get up and run for
her car. She took one step, and he leaned over from his lying position and
said 'wait' and grabbed her around her ankle. She turned to him?wow, she did
give him quite a beating as his face was pretty messed up. Once again, she
didn't wait for an explanation from him, she just wanted to get away. She
pulled her foot away from his grasp, and, using all the power in her thighs,
stomped down on his face. His face wasn't' even against the ground, as he was
leaning forward, but the blow was so hard that his body went limp to the
ground and blood exploded from his face. She almost thought she heard or felt
a crunching sound as her foot met his head.

Kelly got in her car and drove away, as she was driving away, she looked
toward him, he was still lying on the ground. What she could see of his face
was covered in bright red blood. The snow that was left on the ground was also
covered in red.

The next day, she woke up and went downstairs to turn on the TV before
showering. About 5 minutes into the news, a story came about a man brutally
beaten and left in a parking lot between the grocery warehouse and a
gymnastics center late last night. The police said there was no video
survelience of the beating and no evidence of a weapon used. The man was in a
local hospital, officials thinking he suffered a concussion along with several
lacerations and possible broken bones in his face. The police are asking for
any help in identifiying the "man" responsible for the beating.

Kelly was glad he was OK, at least being cared for in a hospital. She was also
hoping that he wouldn't identify her as the one who did it (although deep down
she thought he wouldn't.) She also had another feeling..it was a feeling of
pride that she was able to defend herself, but more than that. She liked the
feeling of power. She liked knowing what she was able to do with her muscles
outside of gymnastics.

She went upstairs and got in the shower. She did a few more poses then in the
mirror. Her biceps looked just a little bit bigger. Her 6 pack stomach looked
more like it was an 8 pack. Her shoulders looked as wide as ever, with 2 round
balls of muscle sticking out from where her shoulders ended. "I tried to hide
this for so long, but why?"

She flexed her entire body one more time and thought to herself "that guy
really had it coming?and I wonder what I could do with this body if I really
tried?"

To be continued?