The Housewife Changes, Part Seven - More women are empowered

In this episode, Sarah convinces a feminist that her way will work, she hosts a part, and finds a lover for Alanna Hussell


Sarah

After my day off for flying and family time, which I enjoyed immensely, I set
up a schedule for my diet and for working out that was even more ambitious
than any schedule I had followed before. I was eating six meals a day, all
rich in protein and complex carbohydrates. I was working out three sessions a
day, each one focusing on a major muscle group so I could really grow and not
leave any muscle group out of the fun. I found muscles I barely knew existed,
muscles that gave more amplitude to my butt, muscles that separated my biceps
and gave me that muscle on muscles look, and muscles that made my thighs look
even more tremendous than before.

Week by week I slowly gained size and definition. Each week I stepped on the
scale and was surprised to see how much weight I had gained. By the time my
six weeks were up I had ballooned to 272, more than twenty pounds more than I
had thought possible. My chest was so thick that when lying on my back under
the sheets, something I rarely needed to do because I generated so much heat,
the sheets were actually as high as they were when my husband lay erect
underneath those same sheets. The muscles swelled in my chest right up to my
neck and looked almost unnaturally huge, as if someone had hung a muscle suit
on top of my bone structure and somehow stretched a layer of skin on top. The
shoulders were monstrous, and the trapezius muscles gave me an unnatural look,
as if I was wearing shoulder pads that were too short to reach my deltoids.

I flexed my biceps for Richard, who measured them. "Twenty-four and a half
inches for each one," he said. "And no synthol and no steroids. You are a
miracle." He played with the swollen vein that draped over the muscle but
under the skin. Then he wrapped the tape around my waist. I had added a few
inches to that area, the product of increased dead lifts. (I was doing 600
pounds for reps by then.) Twenty-nine inches, but that was still significantly
smaller than the thirty-four inches of muscle that was filling my quadriceps,
so much muscle that my thighs made my twenty-one inch calves look small. I had
shoulders so wide I had to turn sideways to go through many doors, and in the
stalls of public bathrooms, I frequently spanned from wall to wall. I was
really proud of my achievements, and I had no doubt that I could have taken
them further, but I had made a deal with myself that at the end of six weeks I
would change my workout pattern in order to slim down, so that was what I did.

But not until after the event Richard and I had planned, a Women's Strength
Extravaganza. Richard and I decided we would sponsor a huge fundraiser for the
shelter, an arm-wrestling competition. We contacted some well-known strong
women to participate and to demonstrate strength, and we rented out a space.
We advertised it extensively, and we made it into a weekend event with
speakers and demonstrations. Of course, the climax of the event was going to
be the arm-wrestling competition in different weight classes and a series of
challenges to raise money. The final challenge was going to be me taking on
any and all challengers. For one hundred dollars, people could challenge me,
and if they win, they get $500.00; if they lose, they only lose their $100.00
entry fee. I figured we might call in a few other strong women to participate
in this part of the women's strength extravaganza, and certainly, there were
details that we still needed to work out.

Meanwhile, I made contact with several local women's shelters to discuss my
ideas. It was not easy to do, because the shelters themselves have to be hard
enough to find that the abusers can't find them easily. Initially I had to
meet with people at a neutral location, so I agreed to meet with one of the
women at a local coffee shop. I love coffee, and even though I have changed
from drinking mine with cream and sugar to drinking it black, I still enjoy
the process. The great national chains make a product that I usually enjoy,
but the local emporiums always have an ambience that I love, so we met at the
Starlight Café on Main Street two towns over.

Brittany was a few years older than me and looked something like a holdout
from the sixties. She had straight mousey brown hair parted in the middle, and
streaked with grey. She wore minimal make-up and steel rimmed glasses. She
wore blousy loose fitting clothing that hid any nuance in her figure.
Evidently, she was a product of the second wave of feminism that, because they
were fighting the notion that a woman's role in society was to please her man,
deemphasized their need to look young and pretty. Predictable she was as sharp
as a Cutco knife and missed no logical inconsistency in any of my ideas. She
would be a good ally, even if we were different.

"Your ideas have merit, Ms. Latella," she said, looking over the top of her
glasses that had settled at the end of her nose. "Clearly empowering women is
a big part of the answer to this issue. Women have to shed the idea that they
are worthless unless they are pretty. They have to emphasize their inherent
value as individuals. However, I am worried that by empowering them in a way
that emphasizes physicality we aren't playing in the ballpark of the enemy so
to speak."

"I see your argument. There is a danger people could misunderstand and think
we are trying to divide men and women and make them physical equals. I am not
suggesting that they will be able to overpower their men in order to protect
themselves. While this might happen in some instances, it is not the plan.
What I want to do is give women psychological confidence so they are less
likely to become victims, because women who have goals in their lives, goals
they can achieve through hard work, will have a better self-image and will be
less likely to become victims."

"There is a thin line between those two if you take your approach."

"True, but I believe that women who have self-confidence are inherently more
attractive to their partners, male or female, and if they get this confidence
through setting goals and reaching them in physical areas, so much the better;
they will be able to defend themselves better, will feel better and will look
better too."

"I don't like the emphasis on looks," she said. "It leads to all the problems.
Women who emphasize appearance are usually doing it for other people and are
more likely to be victimized. They are weak. That is why I chose not to dye my
hair. It is why I dress the way I do. This philosophy informs all my choices"

"But those are YOUR choices, right?" I had the impression that there was more
to her choices than I could tell from the surface impression. She had that
self-denying feminism of the sixties, but her childhood could have been no
earlier than the late eighties. She was a gen-Xer, not a baby boomer, so she
must have experienced some sort of trauma. "They are not forced upon you. That
choice gives you your empowerment." She hesitated a moment and answered.

"Y ... Yes"

"So you are empowered by those choices, the choice not to dress and make
yourself up for other people is your way of taking control. On the other end
of the spectrum, women who choose to be strong and beautiful because it makes
them feel good about themselves are also empowered. Women who choose it
because they want to get the attention of a man who pays no attention to them
otherwise are vulnerable, but women who do it for themselves are empowered. I
want women to get stronger and improve themselves for their own sakes, not for
other folks." She opened her mouth to argue, but came up with nothing.

"Hmm," she said. "I see your point. Beauty for its own sake is not the enemy.
Beauty for the sake of others can lead to emptiness and victimization."

"Yes," I agreed. "But it doesn't have to."

"In my experience, people who are obsessed with appearance are usually weak,
but perhaps that is changing. I have noticed among the younger feminists a
return to obsession with appearance without all the negative ramifications,
and then there is you. I have never met anyone quite like you. You are one of
the most strikingly beautiful women I have ever met, but you are clearly
strong, and I mean both physically and emotionally."She blushed in saying
this; I blushed too and smiled a thank you, and then she paused, thinking. "If
you want to raise money for a gym on one of the properties, I will give it my
support."

"What I was hoping for," I said "was to have a series of talks and
demonstrations for some of the folks who are survivors of abuse and for others
who are threatened with it still. If I come up with money for such a thing,
would you help identify people who might benefit from it and advertise it?"

"Certainly, that is something I can and will do." And with that we shook hands
and set up the specifics. I went home with the feeling that I had cleared a
major hurdle. I had not really thought of it from her point of view, but for
the feminists of the sixties, they had to fight the obsession with appearance
because back then it meant obsession with looking good for the men. While I
had no problem with that, because my man was awesome, I could see that looking
good for men in the abstract would lead to disempowerment. Underneath,
however, our goals were the same. Brittany was going to be an ally.

Brittany

I met the most remarkable woman today, Sarah Latella. She had called to
discuss building women's self-esteem through exercise programs and especially
weight training. She was especially interested in those women we deal with in
battered women's shelters. I had my doubts about her but agreed to hear her
out.

We met in the Starlight café. I arrived first and was staring out the window,
waiting for her, when I noticed a woman across the street. She was tall and
strikingly beautiful, so beautiful it took my breath away. Then she walked in
the café and looked around. "Brittany," she asked as she looked at me, and I
realized she was the person I was waiting to see.

"Ms. Latella," I said, and she nodded. "I'm Brittany, please sit down."

When she sat down, I realized she was not only tall but huge. She was built
like a football player. The muscles between the neck and the body rose up in a
way I have never seen, and beneath her shirt, I noticed that her chest was
almost as deep as it was wide, and not from fat. When she rolled up her
sleeves, I could tell her arms were very muscular. but still, she was entirely
feminine.

She proceeded to pitch me on the idea of empowering women through building
strength and building up their physiques with weight training. At first I
thought she was pitching me on some product to make women prettier and sexier;
she seemed to stand for everything I am against. However, soon she won me
over.

I began to realize that the way I have protected myself as a survivor has been
to deemphasize all the feminine qualities that I thought would attract men to
me. I have always thought that gave me power over them, but she convinced me
women can empower themselves by being strong. I realized, I could do so
myself.

I realize that looking at her may have colored my thoughts, and I realize it
is stupid to think I could look like her, but maybe I can try something
different. I wouldn't mind a little exercise and a little strength. This
Aphrodite who is built like Hercules has won me over. In fact, I am looking
forward to working with her on this project.

Sarah

I went home, excited from my conference with Brittany and eager to get to my
workout. I have become obsessed with my workout, so much so that if something
comes up to get in the way, I resent it, at least a little. I quickly jumped
into my workout clothes and went downstairs to the gym we have.

I told you before, it is an extensive gym for a home gym, and one thing it
includes that many home gyms probably do not is an adjustable cable crossover
machine with a lat pulldown unit on one side and a seated rowing machine on
the other. I love doing double biceps curls on that machine for very selfish
and narcissistic reasons. Doing them correctly and right in front of a mirror
is an incredible turn on, because my biceps grow to such huge proportions
while I curl, and I get to see it. If I were a man I would give myself an
erection. I usually do these after I have done the other biceps exercises. I
always start with preacher curls. I don't know why, but they seem to give me
the most bang for the buck. I put a forty-five, a twenty-five and two tens on
each end of the bar, so I start by doing as many curls as I can with a little
under 200 pounds; I do these carefully, because I don't use collars. This
enables me to do supersets more effectively, and, when I finish with the first
mini-set, I quickly remove a ten from each end. Then I repeat the exercise two
more times, removing the other ten before the third mini-set. After a short
rest during which I stretch, I repeat the whole thing again two more times.

By this time, my biceps are totally shot, but I do concentration curls, and
hammer curls with dumbbells, super-setting the concentration curls from 60 to
50 to 40 pounds on each arm. Then, finally, I do the bicep curls on the
adjustable crossover machine. By this time, the biceps are totally engorged in
blood and look even bigger than they will later on. Not only that, they show
incredible separation.The veins are pumping and stand out like a garden hose
under my skin. Even I am impressed. If I were at a gym, I am sure I would have
an audience including some men who would have to hide the bulge in their
shorts.

For triceps, I do overhead triceps extensions with dumbbells and supine
triceps extensions with dumbbells. After that, I attach weights to my waist
and to triceps dips, and finally, I do cable triceps extensions. Each of these
different exercises works the same muscle group in slightly different ways,
and I love the muscular horseshoe shaped triceps I end up with. The other
effect is to increase the upper arm measurement. Mine are twenty-four and a
half inches cold; I think they were even bigger right after I worked out. The
biceps may be the most noticeable muscle in the upper arm, but the arm
measurement increases tremendously if the triceps are bigger too. Mine have
gotten so big as to blot out the sun, and I love it.

Richard

I am so proud of my wife and her progress in making a difference to the women
who might have been victims of spouse abuse or at the very least serious
bullying in their homes. When one gets married, one assumes that the spouse
will be a support, but that isn't always the case. Some folks get married
because they think that is what is expected. Some get married without the
faintest idea how to converse with and live with another person. Some are so
selfish they can't give the support their partner might need. Marriage is a
tricky business, much trickier than driving a car. Yet there is no requirement
like "marriage ed required before marriage as there is drivers ed. before you
get to drive. The result is that many marriages end in divorce, or worse, they
end up in a cycle of abuse.

Sarah decided she had the ideas and the power to do something about it. She
began speaking engagements at various venues and gathered a set of contacts,
some of whom became friends. She brought a few of them to the house and
started to train them. One of them was the woman she had saved from the
deliveryman, Linda Johnson, I think. One was the woman who was one of the
administrators of the battered women's shelter, Brittany.

The result was a fair number of people began congregating around the house on
certain occasions. We decided it was time to have out Hawaiian Luau with the
Pina Coladas. We invited a significant number of people, some were friends,
some were new friends of my wife through the speaking engagements. We included
my sister and her awful husband, who doesn't exactly beat her, but who pushes
her around and uses his size to bully her into doing things she doesn't want
to do. Like many of the women who were abused, she feared if she left him it
was going to reflect badly on her. It would be a sign she could not keep her
husband happy.

The day arrived, and we began plying people with various drinks. We encouraged
the women who we believed needed it to drink Pina Coladas; if their spouses
chose the same drink, we gave them a different mix. Most of the men chose beer
or bourbon, so it wasn't a problem. The party was going nicely; the guests
plenty of food and drink, and the music system got a workout, and we watched
some silly videos on Youtube that got everyone laughing. Every once in a while
my wife would disappear downstairs with one or two of the female guests who,
when they returned to the party, had smug expressions on their faces and would
occasionally wander over to the mirror and flex for themselves as
surreptitiously as possible.

"So how do you think it's going? I asked as I sidled up next to her.

"Even better than I could have dreamed. It's almost as if the serum increases
it potency as it sits, I know that is impossible, but every woman I took
downstairs was able to lift considerably more than her previous max and do so
for reps. And God! Their physiques had improved. Some of them have been
working hard for the last six weeks and had made progress, but this sure sped
that progress up.

"Good. Now for the second part of our plan, the little arm-wrestling tourney.
You wanna start with that game of Twister as we talked about originally.

"Yep, that seems to be the way we can ease into the armwrestling."

So we played a game of Twister, actually a few games, because Sarah had bought
a second Twister board. As we expected, in the entanglements, there was some
jockeying for position and the women with their new strength often emerged
victorious. Some of the men were bent out of shape and started complaining, so
I said, "Let's have a more manly game. Anyone want an arm-wrestling
tournament?"

Many of the men grunted or shouted in assent, and we convinced everyone that
we would set up a tournament that included every guest. We would even have a
consolation tourney for those who lost in the first two rounds. Essentially,
it was a double elimination tournament, with each round being two out of
three.

In the first round, I was paired with Linda Johnson, the woman who Amazonika
had rescued. I was surprised how much of a fight she put up. It took me more
than thirty seconds to put her down in the first contest, and she held me for
longer than that in the second, actually pushing me back to within inches of
the table before I rallied. I winked at Sarah. Surprisingly to many of the
people, women won more than they lost in the first round. Some of the men
grumbled.

In the second round, I was paired with Linda's friend Brittany. The first
thing I noticed about her was she looked nothing like the description my wife
had given to me of her. Her light brown hair was cut in a very cute fashion
with blonde highlights, and she wore a tight fitting dress that was sleeveless
and accentuated her nice looking arms.

"Better watch out," she said. "Your wife has been training me well." And she
flexed for me. I was impressed.

We locked arms and she began to push me down. I must have looked a bit
flustered, because my wife said, "Come on, Richard, you can do better than
that." But the truth was I couldn't. I held her at bay for another fifteen
seconds and then pushed as hard as I could for about five. That brought her
arm up to perpendicular, but then she smiled and said. "You better get her to
train you too." And with a push, she put me down.

"How many Pina Colada's did you have?" I asked.

"Oh, they were so good I had four. Why? Do I look drunk?"

"No, I was just wondering. We are really proud of our recipe."

We switched to the left hand for the second round, but it was more of the
same. I had to go into the consolation round, and I won a few matches there
before losing to Alanna Hussell who had been invited as a friend, even though
she was not a current survivor of spousal abuse, and had taken advantage of
the Pina Coladas as well.

In the end, she fought her way to the finals the hard way, through double
elimination from the consolation bracket. The final involved two of my wife's
pet projects, Alanna and Brittany, My money was on Brittany, because I had
actually forced Alanna to a third game, but both of them looked incredibly
strong

Both the women defeated all the men they came up against, some in very quick
fashion. A few of the men were so embarrassed they grabbed with both hands and
lost anyway. Some of the men were turned on. A few of them lost to the wives
they were abusing at home, and they looked at the women with a new sense of
respect. All of those men credited Sarah's training sessions for their wives'
newfound strength and attractiveness. Some of them grabbed their wives' biceps
and said, "Flex for me babe." Various oohs and aahs would ensue. You could
tell they were impressed and turned on, and all of them encouraged their wives
to keep up the good work. Maybe this hair-brained scheme of Sarah's was going
to work.

The final match of the night pitted two strong women against each other,
Alanna and Brittany. (Sarah had judiciously stayed out of the competition.)
When they set up against each other, I saw a look of admiration from each of
them. Alanna is a very competitive woman, and she put up a fight, but Brittany
had been training very hard with my wife, and she had those four Pina Coladas.
As she fought with Alanna, her arm swelled quite a bit, and I could tell she
was no longer the mousy woman who was afraid of being physically attractive.
She was embracing it. Every body part was tight and muscular, and though she
was not huge, she probably packed a good 140 pounds on her 5'4" frame. She
took Alanna in two matches, but she had to fight hard in both of them. When
the two combatants had finished, they reached across the table and hugged each
other, and I could tell there was more to that hug than just congratulations.
Surreptitiously, the disappeared to the downstairs, ostensibly looking for
bathrooms.

So my wife had taken a stab in the dark and had guessed that Brittany was a
closet lesbian. That's probably why she invited Alanna to the party and gave
her some of the serum. I have to hand it to her, she had been right. Not only
was she a lesbian, she had impressed an attractive and athletic woman fifteen
years her junior.

I looked at Sarah and winked.

Alanna

I can't believe my luck. My new friend, wife of my boss, Sarah Latella,
invited me to a party a week ago, and tonight was the night. She plied me with
these awesome Pina Coladas and got me a bit woozy. Then she manipulates things
so there is a Twister game and an arm-wrestling tournament. In the twister
game I met this gorgeous woman named Brittany, blondish brown hair and a body
that is absolutely perfect, I mean perfect. She is not as big as Sarah, and
maybe she's not perfect, because nobody is perfect compared to Sarah, but
fuck, this woman is close to perfect. In Twister we get tangled up, and it's
all I can do not to just grab her and pull her down on top of me. Then I get
this distinct impression that she is feeling the same vibe. Just at that
moment, she pretends to slip and she grabs me, squeezing my butt as we fall to
the floor. "Sorry," she says. But I know she isn't.

Then we are paired in the final of the arm-wrestling competition. I knew she
had not lost, and I had when I slipped up and underestimated some guy in round
two. I look at her and I know I am done. I can't really concentrate on the
match, because I am watching her muscles bulge and that pretty little smile
and the twinkling eye. She takes me down twice, and I know she has taken not
only my arm down but my heart as well. I hugged her across the table, and we
both know we will be getting together before we know it. She winks and looks
at the door to the basement. She goes down, looking for a bathroom, and after
a safe amount of time, I sneak down there as well.

When I get there, she is stark naked on the weight bench, pushing up 250
pounds for reps. Then she adds more and repeats herself, I look at her arms
and chest, and they are not huge, but they are perfect. She could be on a
magazine cover. I approach her and she says, "I don't even know what I am
doing. I never knew until tonight that I was attracted to women. I guess I
repressed all my sexuality because of the way I had been treated, ... " But
before she can continue I grab her and kiss her hard on the lips. I break away
and look at her lovingly. "Shut Up," I said, "and kiss me some more."

My hands begin to explore her body and take my own clothes off simultaneously.
I reach behind her and grab her ass with both hands as she hops up and wraps
her legs around me. I lightly kiss her breasts and then the nape of her neck,
Then I go up and down her body which shivers with each kiss, even more so as I
approach erogenous zones. Then she begins to grab and caress; I can tell she
is unfamiliar with what to do, so I gently guide her, and we find our way over
to the couch. I peck her cheeks and she begins to lick my breasts and my
privates down below, and suddenly I am about to have a sexual seizure, she
eases off, naturally, as if she has been doing this all her life. We take
turns gratifying each other until we both reach orgasm at the same time.

I know this is the one. It is her first encounter with a woman, and it is the
first time I have ever met her, but I know this is my life partner. I look at
her and I say, "I don't want to spend another day of my life without you."

She looks at me and says, "I feel the same way, and I don't even know you. I
want to eat you up and digest you, so I can now every little thing about you."
We are both shaking now, that shivering shake you have, not when you are cold,
but when your emotions get the better of you and you shiver uncontrollably.
Then we hug. It's a hug of hunger and love and satisfaction. Then we make love
again and fall asleep in each other's arms, forgetting that we are at Sarah
and Richard's house. I think, somehow, they knew this was going to happen; in
fact, I think, somehow, they made it happen. I look at her again, smile, and
kiss her long and hard. Then, I kiss her again, long and sweetly. I have never
been this happy in my life, and I want to savor the moment.

(to be continued)