THE HAND THAT SOCKED MR. GRADLE
By Mark (markknew742@aol.com)
The dangers of not checking your nanny's references.

PART 1

January 14 - Bart

My girlfriend thinks I need to start writing a journal.  What do
I know about writing, I said?  I'm a salesman, a manager, a
personal agent, an escort, not a writer.

You need to get in touch with your feelings, she said.  Do it for
me.

So I said I would.  I won't show it to her, but I'll do it.  And
I keep my word, so here I am.

What am I supposed to write?

I am Bart Gradle, age 45, a widower for the past two years.  I
started my career as a financial counselor, but I got out of that
job after few years.  I'm good with people.  They trust me,
because I am sincere and I try to look out for them.  When I was
young, my problem was that I was better at selling myself than
buying good investments for them.  I got a lot of clients. 
People shoveled so much money at me and I shoveled it back out
again.  Gold mines, shopping centers, whatever was hot.  I lost a
lot of money.  Got fired from my company.  Probably wrecked a few
lives while I was at it.  I didn't mean to hurt them.  I just
wasn't ready for all that responsibility.

There was this one family.  They were probably rich once.  How
they got to me, I don't know.  I think there were a lot of deaths
and a helpless widow came to me.  She started with a million
dollars or so.  When I was finished, she had less than $80,000. 
She was nice too, with two young girls.  I don't know what
happened to them, but I'll never forget her face when she came
in, waving that account statement wildly in my face.  Asking for
her money back.  She got me fired.  I deserved it, I guess.

I wonder if I'm doing the right thing.  This isn't supposed to be
True Confessions or anything.  At least I'm writing.


January 16 - Bart

I skipped a day.  I needed to think this thing over. Gwendolyn,
my girlfriend, is a very nice kid.  The first girl I've dated
since Marilyn died two years ago.  She's probably a little young
for me, but I can't say I've had many choices.  Two adolescents,
and a job that makes me travel a lot doesn't give me a lot of
time to chase women.  My son Don, who's seventeen, gives me a lot
of trouble.  The exact opposite of me.  Really shy, serious. 
Always locked up in his room.  I don't think he does drugs.  His
grades are good enough, and the money I send to my old school
will get him in there.  The rest is up to him.  Carol's only
twelve.  She's a complete mystery to me.  Really misses her Mom. 
I got a nanny for them, someone to be around when I was
traveling, but now she's leaving too.  She doesn't much like
Gwendolyn.  Sees her as competition probably.  I need to get
another nanny soon.  This would be the last, if she stays long
enough.  Maybe by then I'll be married again, or Carol will be
old enough to stay alone.

What else am I supposed to say?  Get in touch with my feelings? 
There's a lot I've never told people, but I guess I can write it
down.

Being a failure at your first job is no crime, at least if you
figure out what you want to do the next time.

Should I really put this down?  If anybody's reading this, they
better stop now!  (yeah, like that's going to help!)

After I got fired, I started hanging around this tennis camp.  A
guy I knew at school was a trainer there.  It turned out that a
lot of the students were there to be professionals.  The boys all
had agents.  That's how they got to the camp.  But the girls
mostly had their parents.  No professional help.  One day, I was
talking with one of them and he asked me if I would manage his
kid.  I looked at her on the court, knocking the hell off the
ball, blond hair shining in the sun.  The way her body moved
sharpened all my senses, but I must have kept it under control. 
I turned back to her Dad and said, sure, I've got experience. 
I'll take 10% of her earnings and for that, I'll book her in
tournaments, endorsements, manage her travel, the works.  He was
so relieved, he wanted to sign a contract right then and there. 
Of course, I didn't have one to give him, so I told him I never
did things hastily.  He should think it over, talk to his
daughter, ask me questions.  I'd be back in a couple of days if
he was still interested.

I walked away casually, then when I was out of sight, I ran to my
apartment, made a bunch of phone calls and got hold of a form
contract for professional representation.  I worked all the next
day, making changes, getting it typeset so it looked like I did a
hundred of them every year, and then calmly walked back to the
practice courts.  This time, both parents were there.  I took
them out to lunch, clinched the deal and was launched.

What got me so excited?  It wasn't just the money.  It was the
girl.  I'd always been turned on by athletic girls.  Can't say
why.  The same muscle on a guy is just flesh, but a solid bicep
on a girl gives me an instant hard on.  There I was that
afternoon, watching her hit the ball, broad shoulders whirling,
chest muscles flexing with her swing, firm legs pulsing as she
bounced up and down, impatiently waiting for the serve.  I can do
this and get paid for it?

The next months were an absolute blur.  Every night I studied
until two, three in the morning.  Contracts, leagues, travel,
amateur status, tournaments.  Soon I was the expert I'd sold
myself as and very soon I had a roster of tennis players I
represented.  The cash flow was minimal.  They weren't
professionals yet.  But the endorsements trickled in.  And then
some of the older girls who played on the pro circuit started
calling.  They heard about the service I provided.  I returned
calls.  I got my girls into slots others couldn't.  I was honest. 
I was nice.  And I was smart enough to leave the investments to a
guy I knew who was reliable and conservative.  Business exploded. 
Soon I added other sports, women's basketball, track and field,
even bodybuilding.  Except for tennis and golf, the girls didn't
earn much playing, but the ones who had the right looks or the
right image could rake in money other ways.  And I got my 10%.

Within a couple of years, I was earning in the six figures, and
it just went up from there.  I got married.  After a while
Marilyn and I had our kids and everything was great.  I kept my
private fantasies separate from my career.  Some people might
think that makes me kind of a sap, or lacking in nerve.  It just
seemed to be the right thing to do.  I had a responsibility to
them and it would have been wrong to take advantage of it.  I had
all the sexual stimulation I could handle just meeting the girls
and watching them compete.  All day I would feed off the
excitement of being with my clients, sublimating my energy into
the great service for which I was known.  

Marilyn was no slouch either; she had a great feminine body, but
they were a woman's curves, not the broad chest and round arms of
my secret fascination.  At night, when I was in town, I would get
my relief with Marilyn.  Did she suspect I was thinking of Cathy
or Sharon or Laura when I was with her?  I'll never know.  But
she always said I was the best husband she could have hoped for,
and she never turned away from me in bed.  I was the same way. 
Isn't that worth something?


January 25 - Bart

Gwendolyn and I had a fight last week.  She wanted to see my
journal.  Her idea was that I would write down the things I felt
but wasn't saying to her.  I said that was dumb.  If I had
something to say to her I would say it, not write it in a
notebook.  So what are you writing if it's not about me, she
asked.  I said it was personal.  She burst into tears,
complaining about my secret life.  What secret life, I said.  I'm
just doing what you asked me to do.  Then she started complaining
I never told her I loved her.  What could I say?  I loved
Marilyn.  I don't know if I could ever love anyone else.  Out of
the corner of my eye, I saw Carol watching us from her room. 
Gwendolyn stormed out, Carol closed the door.  I went downstairs
to work.

After a day or two I called Gwendolyn, but she gave me an
ultimatum.  Show me the journal or destroy it.  I refused on both
accounts.  That was the last time I spoke to her.

I didn't write for a week.  Now, today I am.  It's better than
talking to myself.  Even reading over what I've written is kind
of interesting.  My "secret fascination" seems more real.  

I hired another nanny this week too.  Funny name, Sue McVue, but
great application and references.  Made me wonder if she did it
herself.  Seems a bit overweight, five feet nine inches and one
hundred eighty pounds, but maybe that'll keep her from being a
party girl.  She arrives next week, assuming the references check
out.  It's a good thing.  I have a lot of travel next month.


January 25 - Sue

I'm on my way.  All the long years of preparation come down to
this.  


January 27 - Bart

I want to try to keep this up to date.  Without Gwendolyn, I have
a bit more time.  Not sure exactly what to say, though.

The current nanny offered to meet Sue at the airport and give her
some initial training while I'm gone.  The conversations with
Sue's previous employers went fine.  No doubt about her
intelligence, her sense of responsibility, her commitment to her
work.  Very shy about her body, but that's a personal thing.  I
certainly won't disturb her on that.  One mentioned that she
seemed to have no family.  That's sad.  I hope it works out.

February is a lull period for most of my clients, so I use it to
travel and meet with each of them personally, to talk about their
goals, what they can expect from the coming year, my perceptions
about their marketability.  They like it, and it helps me set my
priorities for the rest of the year.


February 2 - Bart

I talked with Sue on the phone today.  Either the previous nanny
was more observant than I thought, or Sue is a quick study, but I
sure was impressed by the details she'd picked up about the kids
and the house routine.  She's only a few years older than Don,
but she's miles more mature.  She already had a few ideas about
getting him out of his shell, and I told her to go ahead.  Carol
seems to like her.  I laid out all the rules about the car,
drinking, time off, etc. and she understood perfectly.  The one
odd thing was when I called back a few minutes later, Carol said
Sue was out at the health club.  So she must have called me from
there, but didn't mention it.  Not a problem, but curious. 
Actually, it could be that she's making some kind of fresh start. 
It would be good for her if she keeps it up.

I needed all my willpower this evening to stay the course.  Linda
Vaughn, one of my bodybuilders, came on to me at dinner.  I
should have seen it coming.  She was wearing this bright red,
strapless, sleeveless little dress, showing off all of her
gorgeous muscles.  Meeting her at the restaurant, she gave me her
usual killer handshake, and all dinner long, with every little
move she made I could see another muscle twitch into life.  She
knew she had my attention.  At one point she rested her hands
under the table and pumped up her biceps, again and again.  I
could have pretended not to look, but with every other guy in the
place eating her up in their heads, it wouldn't have been very
convincing.  So I was straight with her (sort of).

"What is it, Linda?  You looking for something else tonight?"  

"I thought you'd never ask.  Most men find me interesting, to say
the least.  You know, I'm all woman underneath."

"Linda, I have a policy.  I..."

"I know about that.  I also know your wife died two years ago,
and you're still not married.  I'm a grown woman.  I can make my
own decisions."

I looked at her.  Calm, confident, gorgeous.  The embodiment of
my fantasies.  She was right.  She was twenty three and fully in
charge of her life.

"I wouldn't doubt it for a minute Linda, and you have to
understand that I have to make mine too.  I can't mix business
with that kind of pleasure."  (Even when I'm dying to do it, I
added to myself.)

She looked livid.  "You're turning me down!?  You middle-aged
nobody!"  She went on, in a louder voice.  "What are you, a homo? 
Can you believe, this guy is turning *me* down?"  She stood up,
flexed muscles pushing her dress tighter against her skin.  She
picked up her chair (a heavy, comfortable upholstered chair I
should add) and threw it at me.  I ducked under the table. 
"Coward.  Homo!  We're quits!"

She stalked out, every eye in the restaurant following her, then
looking back to me.  There was nothing to say.  I just
acknowledged the stares, paid the bill, and came back here, to
write and eat my heart out.


February 5 - Bart

I had another long talk with Sue.  Brought me up to date on my
kids, the mail, etc.  She's trying to get Don into a coed sports
program, give him a new way to meet friends. She's also got Carol
in a self-defense course.  I said great, you've already had more
ideas than the old nanny.  She asked if there were any other
rules I hadn't told her about, like places in the house I didn't
want her to go.  I thanked her for asking, and said that my
office, my files, my computer and my bedroom were off limits. So
far, so good.

Linda called to apologize.  She said she understood why I turned
her down and felt awful about the public scene and wanted to make
it up to me, somehow.  I said there was really nothing she had to
do, but that I would certainly accept her apology (she brings in
a good income), so long as she respected the wall between my
professional and private lives.


February 6 - Sue

The arrangement is even better than I could have imagined.  He's
gone most of the time, traveling on his business.  His kids are
completely alienated.  Don is a pathetic excuse for a son, scared
of anything that talks, especially females.  I'll be able to
manage him without any problem.  Carol is different - bright,
missing her dead mom but very ambivalent about her relationship
with her father.  In short, she is a typical adolescent.  She
needs someone nearby who's strong and can point her in some new
directions, and being a woman outside her family will get me most
of the way there.  I bet she won't even realize how I manipulate
her.

I found all kinds of great stuff in his files.  So nice of him to
tell me where to look.  What a collection of pictures!  I can't
wait to get to phase two.


February 8 - Bart

What a day!  I met the next Mary Lou Retton, although I better
not tell Mary Lou - she'd fire me.  Joanie Hartz.  Such a little
spitfire.  Fourteen years old, blond, spunky, smart as all hell
with a wonderful voice too.  Where have they been hiding this
girl?  She's all self-taught, but I bet she's gold next year in
Atlanta.  I had to travel to a remote corner of Maryland to meet
her, and watched her work out in a dilapidated old school gym. 
But this girl flies through the air like she's supergirl, and
it's no wonder.  She looks like she's all leg and arm muscle, not
an ounce of fat, or bone either as far as I could see.  I could
have sworn that she danced on her fingers in the floor routine.

She was barely out of breath when she finished and walked over to
join her father and me.  I looked her over carefully, her
pronounced chest (not by virtue of any breast tissue, to be
sure), the thick arms and massive legs, and thought about how it
would feel to envelope that power in my own arms.  Would she use
her strength to hold me tighter, or push me away?  And if she
tried to push me away, who would prove the stronger?  I knew her
biceps would be firm, but how big would they get if she really
flexed them?  And how would she develop in the years to come?  I
could guarantee my ability to follow her closely, if I could only
sign her up.

(Of course, as I fantasized about this contest, she and her
father assumed I was just assessing her abilities and her
potential.  It was a good thing I was wearing my winter coat in
that unheated gym; otherwise, my other interests would have been
obvious and would have had to focus on other things.)

We sat down on the bleachers and discussed my standard
arrangements.  They accepted after a few questions.  Soon, I was
on my way, with a package of photos and amateur videos her father
had made.  They will do, until I have professional tapes made.

I spoke with Carol and then later with Sue.  Carol told me she
liked Sue a lot, although she sounds profoundly unattractive. 
Dark, unkempt hair, broad shoulders, thick arms and legs and very
fat.  Well, she's a nanny, not a date.  Carol likes the self-
defense course, and says Sue is very helpful with homework.  

I called Sue at the health club.  She seemed a little annoyed
that I called after hours, but hey, I have to find out how things
are going.  She says Don is going to the sport classes, but
doesn't know how he's doing there.  She also wanted to know where
I'd be this weekend, in case she had to reach me.  I told her the
name of my hotel in Baltimore, but not to worry, the kids knew
where to reach me and a neighbor during her time off.

Overall, this is turning out to be a good month.


February 12 - Bart

My hands are still trembling.  I never could have imagined a day
like today.  This could change my whole life.

The morning went well, business as usual.  Bringing two of my
tennis clients up to date on their accounts, telling one that her
rankings weren't progressing the way we'd hoped, but that she had
a good response in commercials and should hone her acting skills. 
There's always something you can do to help them, even when it's
a bit outside the usual job.

My afternoon was free, but it was a cold windy day and I decided
to stay inside.  The hotel was almost empty, and I went down to
the pool for a solitary swim.  I had just started my laps when I
happened to look up.  Standing over at one end was a tall redhead
in a form-fitting one piece suit. But what a fit!  An hourglass
figure like I'd never seen.  I broke my laps just to look at her. 
Her chest must have been over 45 inches, her waist less than half
that.  But that wasn't all.  Part of that 45 were powerful chest
muscles.  I looked down to her arms and saw the thickest, best
defined muscles I'd seen on any woman, then looked back to her
torso and realized I'd completely skipped over the most developed
set of shoulders I'd seen in almost twenty years of representing
swimmers.  She casually tucked her hair into a swimming cap, and
I saw the muscles in her arms explode into huge rounded peaks.
With that, she immediately went into a crouch at the side of the
pool and dived 15 feet over the water, swimming more than half
the length underwater, then barely breaking the surface as she
powered back and forth across the length of the pool.

Who is she, I wondered.  She's built as big or bigger than any
bodybuilder I knew (and I knew most of the successful ones), but
she has the grace of a dancer, the strokes of an Olympic swimmer
and the beauty of a model.  I watched in awe as her powerful arms
cut cleanly through the water and her legs propelled her swiftly
from side to side.  She switched to a butterfly and, incredibly,
stepped up her pace, the sweep of her arms lifting her out of the
water again and again.  How long could she keep up that stroke? 
She did several more laps, then switched to a backstroke, her
arms now twirling like windmills.  With her head out of the
water, she spotted me for the first time and stopped cold.  She
swam toward me.  I prayed she wouldn't look down and see the
powerful erection that pushed my trucks out.

"I'm sorry.  I must have disturbed your strokes.  I'm probably
taking up the whole pool."

"Oh, no, no.  It's great to watch you.  You're a fantastic
swimmer.  Do you compete?

"What do you think?"

"Actually, it wasn't a real question.  I know you don't.  I know
every major female athlete who competes in North America, and
I've never seen you before.  The real question is why you don't. 
No one would have a chance against you.  And the endorsements you
could get.  With your looks, you could make millions."

"You're very kind."

"It's not kindness.  I'm a professional.  I manage hundreds of
female athletes.  I know you could be a real star."

"I have my reasons.  I'm basically a private person.  I don't
like a lot of attention.  I thought the pool was empty; otherwise
I wouldn't have done all that.  I don't like to be seen as
showing off."

"Oh, don't worry about that.  I really enjoyed watching you."

She looked down and smiled.  "Yes, I can see that."  I blushed. 
"So is that what you get for your representation?"

Now I was both embarrassed, and angry.  "Certainly not!  I would
never take advantage of my clients, whether current or former. 
I've made that a firm policy."

She actually looked disappointed.  "Oh.  I'm sorry I offended
you.  Look, it's perfectly OK.  I take it as a compliment then. 
Let me make it up to you.  I need to finish my workout.  I'll buy
you a drink afterwards, OK?"

It didn't take me long to agree.  I tried to go back to my laps,
although between the hard on that wouldn't go away, and my
intense desire to follow her with my eyes, I cut a pretty poor
figure in the pool.  I was almost relieved when I felt her tap me
on the shoulder and ask me to join her in her room in an hour.

"I should tell you my name.  Clarissa Barnard."

"Bart Gradle."

Her eyebrows rose.  "Oh yes.  I have heard of you.  A few people
I know have told me to get in touch with you."  She put her
finger on my chest.  "Well, now I have.  See you later."

She left.  I made a feeble attempt to swim a couple more laps,
but my mind was racing.  Looking down at my shorts, I realized I
couldn't walk back to my room in that condition, or even get out
of the pool.  I forced myself to concentrate on the month's
scheduling, but that didn't help.  It just made me think of the
lithe young women I would soon be visiting.  So I tried to do my
billing in my head.  I love money, but it's not a sexual thing,
and soon I was presentable again.  Just to be sure, though, I
wrapped a towel around my trunks and hurried back to my room.

I was in such state of excitement that I had to put on my tie
three times before I got the knot right.  Exactly one hour after
her invitation, I knocked on her door.  I took one look at her
and practically collapsed.  In sharp contrast to my sport coat
and tie, she wore a short sleeve tennis dress, which barely
covered her ass.  It must have been specially made for her, with
her unbelievably wide shoulders, deep chest and tiny waist.  I
gazed at the thick biceps that flared out from the sleeve and the
leg muscles below the hem of her skirt.

"Looks like we got our signals crossed.  Should I change?"

"No, no.  I'm sorry.  I always wear these to see clients."

"So, you still think of me as a potential client.  That could be,
uh, restrictive for you."

I looked at her, not believing my ears.  Was she really coming on
to me?

"I don't have to."

"Well, then don't.  I'd prefer it that way.  You could always
change your mind about your rules later.  Now how about that
drink?  The hotel provides a nice assortment."  She directed me
to the living room of her suite.

"They sure do.  Scotch and soda would be nice."

"McLaren or Chivas?"

"They brought up McLaren?"

"It's my favorite.  I had to ask for it."

"I always drink McLaren, at least when I can get it.  I keep a
large supply at home."

"Well, that's one thing we have in common.  So, tell me about
yourself, Bart.  How did you get started in this business?"

My business was the last thing on my mind at that moment, but I
forced myself to give her a brief account of my agency practice,
who I represented, how successful I was.  She asked whether I
started it right out of school.  I said no, but that I didn't
think much about what I did before.  Why should I start talking
about my failures?

"It sounds like a great life."

"And yourself?  You must spend almost all of your time in
training?"

"Why?  Don't you think this kind of body comes naturally," she
teased.  "The truth is, I was blessed with pretty good genes, but
I work hard too.  My parents died when I was young and left me
with a large trust fund.  My guardians were very liberal with me. 
As a teenager, I won a few swimming meets and persuaded them to
build me an indoor pool, a workout room and more.  When I gained
control of more of the funds, I added a tennis court, more weight
equipment and hired a number of trainers.  I quickly developed
quite a physique, which made me a little self-conscious.  Men
didn't know how to react to me.  So instead of going to college,
I taught myself, mostly languages, literature and physical
education science.  It's been a lot of fun, although I get bit
lonely at times.  That's the price I pay for my privacy."

"What are you doing in Baltimore?"

"Just a whim.  I wanted to see the Wharf, taste some soft shell
crabs, although I think I'm too early for that."

I nodded.  I didn't really know what to say next.  Making small
talk, except with my clients, isn't easy for me, and I wasn't
sure why she had invited me up.  I saw her stand up, so I did
too, figuring that was my signal to leave.

"Well, thanks for the drink."

She walked quickly over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. 
"You weren't leaving already, were you?"

"I thought...."

She increased the pressure on my shoulder.  "Silly.  I was just
moving closer."  She moved her hand down my back.  "You're not
afraid of me, are you?"

"No, I..."

"I had the sense downstairs in the pool that you find my body at
least a little bit interesting."

I turned to face her, glancing down at her bicep, which was
slightly enlarged from the way she was holding her hand against
me.

I took a deep breath.  "You're right.  I find you the most
attractive woman I've ever known."

"Attractive?  Not beautiful?"

"I'm sorry Clarissa.  I'm not good with words. To me, you are the
most beautiful woman in the world.  I've always fantasized about
women with muscles, strong women, but I never imagined there
could be anyone who looks like you.  I'm overwhelmed."

She seemed to be delighted to hear what I said, although she
tried to hide it and looked down.  When she recovered, she said,
"Good.  Let me show you a little more."

I was dumbfounded.  She *was* coming on to me.  But why?  What
attraction would I have to someone like her?

"Is that a yes?"  I nodded dumbly.  "Good, then sit down and
watch.  Have another drink."  She walked over gracefully to the
bar, poured another scotch and handed it to me.  Then she moved
some furniture out of the way.

"I can tell that you like my arms.  I'm pretty proud of them.  I
work them really hard, and they gain size very easily.  I wanted
to have really thick, strong muscles, not just those shapely
peaks you see on women bodybuilders."

She held up her left arm, fingers pointed in a feminine way,
instead of the fist male bodybuilders make, and started to flex
her arm.  I couldn't believe the bulge that started to grow,
quickly filling up the sleeve.  She smiled at me, and then, with
a sudden burst, she tightened it all the way, tearing the fabric
of her dress all the way to her chest.  I gaped at the size of
her muscle.

"I know you've never seen anything like this before, not on any
woman or man, because I've never read about any man with a bicep
over 30 inches.  Want to feel it?"  I nodded, then realized I
should stand up and walk over to her.  She smiled indulgently.  I
put my hands around it and marveled at the density, the size, the
hardness.

"I have a surprise for you.  The right arm is two inches bigger." 
She held up that arm and quickly tore through the other sleeve. 
Her right bicep was even bigger, and had an extra peak on the
top.  Unable to control myself, I bent my head down to kiss it,
feel its warm hardness against my lips and then my tongue.

"You can play with them, but you can't eat them, they're mine,"
she joked.  I put one hand on each arm and tried to press down on
them with all of my weight.  Instead of depressing them, she
lifted me up, effortlessly, until my 175 pounds was being fully
supported by the iron hardness of her biceps.

Putting her hands around my waist, she picked me up higher and
tossed me back onto the couch.  "Now watch this."  She pulled her
elbows back and thrust out her chest, tearing the rest of the
dress to shreds and letting it slip to the floor.  She pulled
down a fabric bra, and out popped two enormous breasts.  Winking
at me (as if I needed a signal to pay close attention) she
tightened her chest muscles and I saw her breasts lift up, until
they pointed out like spikes.  Using just her chest muscles, she
bounced her breasts up and down, like she was jumping.  The she
tightened her stomach muscles.  Quickly, the slim, soft skin was
punctuated by rows of thick muscle.  

I was so enthralled that without realizing what I was doing, I
had stood up and walked back next to her and reached out to touch
her.  She slapped my arm away and shook her head.  "Not yet. 
I'll tell you when I'm ready.  Now see these legs?  Watch this." 
She bent her legs slightly, then jumped ten feet across the room,
onto the couch I had just vacated.  "You should have stayed where
you were.  Now, why don't you come here with me."

I eagerly went back to the couch.  Once I got within her arms'
range, she seized me and held me over her, licking her lips.  I
felt like a toy in her hands.  I wanted to lie against her,
nuzzle my head against her massive breasts, feel her enormous
arms, but she just suspended me in mid-air, looking me over.  I
reached down to touch her, but she shook her head.  "Be patient,
I just want to enjoy the moment first." I withdrew my hand. 
After a few more seconds, she lowered me on top of her.  I
couldn't believe how firm her whole body was, not at all like
Marilyn's.  I ran my hands up and down her arms and chest,
playing with her firm breasts and stomach, then slipped my hand
under her panties.  She was barely moist, so I fondled her,
slowly and gently at first, then faster, just as Marilyn had
liked.  She smiled but then sat up, carrying me up with her, and
walked over to the bed.

"You should be undressed too."  I quickly complied and soon we
lay together under the sheets.  She took my head in her hand and
pushed it down to her crotch.  "I like it much better with your
tongue," she instructed.  I hadn't done this with Marilyn, but I
wanted to please her, and started licking her cautiously.  "No,
no, further in, and harder, faster."  She pushed my head down
again and held it there.  I wasn't sure I liked it, but I went
along and soon felt her thrashing around.  I couldn't hold her
down - she was too strong, and the bucking of her pelvis kept
crashing painfully into my nose, but I persisted and soon the
escalation and subsiding of her moans told me she had come.  The
pressure of her hand relaxed and I eased my way back up to her
face to kiss her.

"Wait.  Wash your face first, and do it well.  I don't like to
taste myself."  I looked at her oddly.  I wasn't used to being
ordered around in bed but I got out.  "Hurry back."

Thoroughly washed, I came back.  "You're still wet.  Next time,
dry yourself too, OK?  Now, where were we?"  She reached down and
felt my painfully engorged cock.  "I can be a little selfish, I
guess, but I want to please you too.  Why don't you climb on top
of me.  You're in for a treat."  I did as she said.  She spread
her legs.  I reached down, and, seeing she was still wet, tried
to penetrate her, but I couldn't.

"What's the matter?  Is the little man not strong enough to open
my big heavy door?  Let me help."  She took my cock in her hands
and guided me inside.  I couldn't believe how tight she was.  I
looked at her, puzzled.  "No, I'm not a virgin, silly.  I just
have very strong muscles there.  See?"  She suddenly squeezed. 
The pressure felt incredibly good.  "Now, how does this feel?"  I
felt a rolling pressure now from her vaginal muscles, up and down
my cock.  I had never experienced such pleasure.  The combination
of the heat, the immersion inside her, the slippery warm caress
of my whole cock along with the localized heightened squeezes she
gave me was indescribable.  I tried to move up and down, but then
she clamped down inside.  "No, no.  Let me do it.  You just lie
there for the most spectacular orgasm you've even felt."  Why
should I argue?  I just looked at her eyes, signalling my
agreement, and let my hands get lost in the feel of those hard
round arms, while my mouth took in her breasts and my cock lay
buried in the dazzling tingling of her powerful cunt.  In two
minutes, I came.

"You were a little quick, dear.  Maybe next time you'll hold it
better."  I frowned.  "You look so sad.  Wasn't that the greatest
feeling you've ever had?"  I nodded.  "Well?"

I felt uneasy, but what could I say.  She had a dream body and
had just made love to me like no one ever had.  I don't think I
had even heard of anyone doing what she did.

She ran her hand down my arm.  "You know, I'd like it more if you
were a little more muscular."

"Clarissa.  I don't really understand this.  You picked me up. 
You tell me what to do.  Now you tell me you don't like my body. 
I don't understand why you started all this if you don't seem to
like anything I do or the way I look."

"Ooh I'm so sorry, baby.  Did I hurt your male pride?  Of course
I like you.  Why do think I took you to bed.  I just want to make
it even better next time.  Don't you believe in communication? 
I'm just being open about what I like, so you can please me more. 
Is there anything you would like me to do different?"

"I just don't like being told what to do in bed."

"But then how are you going to learn what I like?"

"I don't know.  It never seemed to be a problem with my wife."

"Your wife?  Are you married, Bart?  Why didn't you tell me that? 
Is there anything else I should know?"

"No, no.  My wife is dead.  She died two years ago."

"Oh.  Sorry.  Look, I'm just saying that it's better to talk
about these things, I mean, if we're going to know each other
better.  Or am I being too forward?"

"You are very forward.  Don't get offended.  I'm not used to it. 
I was with one woman for almost twenty years.  And I'm older than
you.  I'm used to doing things a little differently."

"Do you think I'm being too hard on you Bart?  We could just end
this right here, you know.  No hard feelings or anything. 
Really."

I looked at her.  How could I let the embodiment of all of my
fantasies go just like that?  I could show a little flexibility.

"I'd rather not.  Just give me a little time to get used to
this."

She thought a minute.  "OK.  Tell you what.  Come down to the
workout room with me.  I can show you a few things.  Build you up
a little.  I need to get some exercise anyway."

What I wanted to do most was to lie in her bed and run my hand
along her spectacular physique.  Either that or go to sleep.  But
I thought watching her work out would have its compensations too,
so I said yes.


I had to stop in my room to change my clothes, but I got down to
the hotel's weight room before Clarissa.  One guy in his twenties
was there, pounding away at the Nautilus machine.  I walked
around, looking at it.  Of course, the setup was familiar to me. 
Most of my clients did weight training.  But I had never used
one, golf, luggage carrying and pencil pushing being my chief
forms of exercise these days.  I pulled on a few cords and saw
his look of smug superiority as he watched me out of the corner
of his eye.

"You can't just look at it if you want to exercise."

I didn't want to start something with the guy.  "I don't know
much about these machines.  I'm waiting for a friend.  She's
going to show me a few routines."

I saw him laugh.  "Now I've seen everything.  You're gonna let
some girl show you how to lift weights?"  I didn't answer.  "Hey,
I'll show you."

Clarissa's arriving stopped him cold.  She was breathtaking,
wearing a tube top and shorts that covered less of her than her
underwear did.  Her round shoulders and peaked biceps easily
dwarfed the other guy's physique, and while Clarissa went to the
corner to chalk up her hands, he leaned over to me, saying, "if
that's your taste in girls, man, I don't know.  Maybe you oughta
try guys."  I glared at him, but Clarissa started doing warm-up
stretches.  As she pulled her arms back and thrust out her chest,
we both stared at her enormous pecs, bulging with muscle and
breast.

I prodded him with my elbow.  "Know any men who look like that?"

He shook his head and slipped out of the room.

"Come on Bart.  Are you going to work, or just make lewd comments
about me?  You need to stretch too."

"I'm not very flexible."

"Well, let's see.  Touch the floor, like this."  She bent over
and put her palms flat on the floor, holding the position for
twenty seconds.  I bent down, but my hands reached only down to
my ankles.  She snickered.  "You are stiff.  Well, work on it." 
She showed me a few more warm-ups, then moved to the machine.

"This is a pretty limited set-up, but it has the basics.  Now,
let's see your form."  She put the weight key in the middle of
the stack and showed me how to stand, arms spread straight out
from my shoulders, feet straight, weight evenly distributed.  I
gripped the bar and lifted.

"No, no.  Keep your back straight too.  Do ten."

I lifted the bar twice, then only halfway and dropped it.  She
seemed to be enjoying my failure, which pissed me off, so I
stepped away.

"Now watch my form, big guy."  She stepped up and keeping
perfectly straight, quickly did ten, twenty, thirty, forty, one
hundred lifts in rapid succession.  Her muscles barely seemed to
flex with the effort.  I started getting a little nervous.  Just
how strong was she?

"Ready for the next station?"

"I don't know."

"You're not quitting already?  I don't know, Bart.  You have to
make more of an effort."  While she was talking, she bent down to
move the key to the bottom of the stack and put her left hand in
the middle of the bar.  "Being strong takes work, you know.  You
can't just buy your muscle at Saks."  She started lifting the bar
with one hand, almost casually, while she talked.  I couldn't
believe it.  She was lifting over 300 pounds as easily as I
picked up the morning newspaper.  I saw her bicep pump up with
the effort, getting larger and larger.  She pretended not to
notice my intense gaze, and after twenty five repetitions, she
switched hands and did forty with her right.  

Now fully pumped up, she turned and walked toward me, snapping
her hips from side to side in a way that was both feminine and
very aggressive, and stopped directly in front of me to cut a
classic double biceps pose.  She put her tongue on her lips and
moved it in a slow circle.  Looking down at my crotch, she cooed,
"at least you aren't too old to have more than one of those a
day.  Tell me Bart, is it painful when it's trapped in your jock
strap like that?"  She dropped her hand down to my crotch and
pushed hard against me.  I didn't know whether to jump away or
let her go on, but she stopped and sighed.

"No time for that now.  I have to go.  But I want you to
practice.  I'll check up on you next time."

"Next time?  What?  I don't even know where you live."

"But I know where to find you.  Bye!"  With one hand, she pushed
me back toward the machines and then turned and walked away.  By
the time I had decided to follow she had disappeared into the
elevator.

If Gwendolyn could see me now, struggling at two in the morning
on a Saturday, make that Sunday, trying to figure out what's
going on in my head by writing in her journal, she'd die
laughing.  That is, if she had a sense of humor. 


February 19 - Bart

Sue seemed very upbeat about the kids.  Carol is very excited
about the martial arts program now and wants my permission to
spend afternoons at the gym.  I said OK, so long as her homework
doesn't suffer.  Don has already dropped out of his program, but
at least he's keeping up with school.  I told Sue I would be back
home in a few weeks.  She said not to worry.  They're getting
along well, although she needs some cash for household items. 
I'll send her a check.  I gave her my itinerary for the next two
and a half weeks, but it seems unnecessary.  Everything is under
control.

I'm feeling dangerously obsessed with Clarissa.  The hotel
completely stonewalled me on contacting her.  She must tip them
well.  I barely paid attention to my clients the past three days. 
Compared with Clarissa, they seem so, I don't know, so ordinary. 
I had no idea how large a part of my motivation was some kind of
sublimated sexual attraction.  I've got to concentrate better.

I tried to hit the exercise room in the hotels, but I'm already
feeling sore.  What's the point anyway.  I'm never going to match
Clarissa in anything.


February 22 - Bart

I can't believe it. For the first time in years, one of my
clients has fired me.  Of course, I admit my mind was elsewhere,
but I've worked so hard for her, gotten her endorsements, now a
movie role.  And she has the nerve to tell me she's quitting
sports and signing up with that Ovitz character at I.C.M.!  How
did he get to her?


March 1 - Bart

No word or sign from Clarissa.  It seems almost like it was a
dream.  I think all the time about that matchless body, those
prodigious muscles, the overwhelming power in her arms.  How
could she come in to my life just like that.  Will she return?

Something is wrong with Carol.  She sounds very agitated on the
phone.  She dropped or was expelled from her self-defense program
for being too aggressive.  That doesn't sound at all like her,
but she also says she's having problems with some of her teachers
and her friends are all dumb.  She says she doesn't care.  All
she wants to do now is work out.  Maybe she needs to get some of
the anger about losing her mother out of her system.  Sue thinks
the exercise will do her good and she'll keep an eye on her at
the gym.

Three more of my clients have dropped me, one without any
explanation.  I don't understand.  It's the ones I've done the
most for and who were bringing in a lot of money for me.  I ask
myself whether this distraction with Clarissa could be
responsible, but there's nothing I haven't done for them.  Is
someone providing a service I'm missing?  I've tried to reach
them, at least to tell me what went wrong, to help me with the
rest of the business, but they won't return my calls.  I'm just
going to have to work harder.


March 20 - Bart

Another unbelievable, unexplainable weekend with Clarissa.  I was
in St. Louis, East St. Louis that is, trying to sign up a girl
who could be the greatest black tennis star.  Better than that
Venus girl, who dropped me last week.  She seemed interested.  At
least she was willing to hear my pitch.

I was leaving her house, driving through a truly scary part of
town, when my tire blew.  I didn't want to stop, but I had no
choice, driving on the rim.  I tried calling for help on the car
phone, but of course there was no cell in the area.  Someone
probably stole the antenna.  So I got out to change the tire. 
Wouldn't you know that fifteen seconds after I get out, four guys
come up to me, wanting the keys.  I figure I'm gone, a perfect
end to a horrible month, when who do I see but Clarissa, driving
a Porsche.  Now what are the odds of that happening?  She pulls
over and gets out of the car.  What nerve she has.  She looks
incredible, even bigger than in my memories.  She's got on a
sleeveless dress, her arms look like a track star's legs grafted
on to her shoulders.

The guys don't know what to make of her, but one of them ambles
up to her and walks around, whistling.  "Hey, babe, you are a big
girl, now, aren't you?"  I figure they're distracted, now's the
time to fight, so I grab the tire iron and charge the group.  I
hit one of them hard on the arm, probably breaking it, and he
screams, but the others stop me and take the iron out of my hand.

"Good move, Bart," she says sarcastically.  She looks at the
group.  "Excuse my friend, but I want to take him with me.  You
can have his car."

Amazed, I say, "Clarissa.  That's a rented Cadillac.  I can't
just leave it to them."

The leader of the group looks at his friends.  "I think both
these strangers are operating under a delusion.  Homeboys, why
don't you take the keys to both of their cars.  Then we have a
score to settle with the white man and some fun to have with this
big white woman."

While they're holding me, one of them snatches the keys out of my
car and then walks toward Clarissa.

Clarissa folds her arms.  "Think carefully.  The next step you
take that way may be your last."

He doesn't even break stride.  Suddenly, Clarissa whirls around
and cartwheels over to cut him off.  Standing between him and her
car, she growls, steps into some kind of martial arts crouch and
then with lightening speed gets off an incredible punch to his
face, crushing his cheekbone and his nose up into his eye and
knocking him to the ground, unconscious, or dead for all I can
tell.  Barely looking back, she advances toward the others.  The
big one looks confused, and a bit worried, but pushes me to the
ground and taking the tire iron, stands his ground, brandishing
it against her.

"There's two of you left, plus a piece of metal in your hand.  Do
you think that's enough against me?"  She stands ready, hands in
front, elbows at her side, tensing her muscles.  The two look at
her, then one leaps forward and swings the iron.  Clarissa ducks
back, grabbing the iron as it passes her and then, planting her
feet, wrestles it out of his hand and with one motion uses it to
crush his skull.  The last one starts to back up, but she takes
the bar and flings it at him, like she's throwing a dart.  It
passes straight through his neck, beneath the Adams apple.  Blood
pours out and he drops, lifeless except for a few twitches.  The
fourth guy is crawling away, using his good arm.  Clarissa
dismisses him with a wave of his hand and takes me by the elbow
to her car.

"But wait.  What about my car?"

"I've had enough of this for now.  Do you want to wait for their
friends?  Or maybe the police?  I don't want to spend my weekend
in East St. Louis explaining this."  She lifts me up, throws me
into the car and closes the door.

"But my car.  They'll trace it to me anyway."

"You can deal with that later."  She revs up the engine and soon
we're doing eighty on the interstate.  She takes me to her hotel,
the Hyatt.  (With the way my business is going, I'm at the Motel
6, across town.)  As we go up to her room, I start asking
questions.

"What were you doing in East St. Louis, Clarissa?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?  How about you?  Were you seeing
Charlotta Montrachet?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"I make it my business to know what you're up to.  Having a tough
month I hear."

"Yes, but ..."

She backs me into the corner of the elevator, pushing me with her
powerful legs and chest.  Despite just killing three people, she
looks as cool and relaxed as if she'd been reading a book all
day.

"I feel like being close to you.  Shall we do it here, or
somewhere more private?"

The elevator stops and a couple get on.  I can see them staring
at Clarissa's broad back and her legs.  She ignores them and rubs
my upper arms and chest with her hand.

"You don't feel any different.  Aren't you working out like I
told you to?"

"Clarissa!  Not here.  I ...."

"Until you get stronger, Bart, you just won't have any say in the
matter."  She runs her hand up my arm and squeezed my bicep,
hard.  "No, it's just as soft and small as before."  With her
other hand she reached down to my crotch.  "At least he's hard. 
Do you like being treated like this Bart?  I think you do, and
this little guy agrees."  

I hear giggling from the couple who got on the elevator.  I put
my hand on Clarissa's and try, futilely, to pull her off.  The
other couple is silent, watching our contest.  Our floor comes
and goes, as does theirs.  I try to move away, but I'm cornered
in the small elevator and her hold is too tight.  She looks at
me, head back, chin set, challenging, and starts rubbing my
crotch with her hand in a vigorous, circular motion.  I realize
what she's doing and look at her in shock.

"No, Clarissa.  Don't."

She laughs.  "Can't help yourself, Bart?  Am I that appealing to
you?"  She moves her hand faster.  I try desperately to distract
myself, but all I see is Clarissa, her bulging forearm and bicep
twitching rhythmically with the motion of her arm, her pronounced
breasts shifting as she moves.  Her tiny waist flaring out to her
hips, rocking gently.  I close my eyes.  "Go ahead, Bart.  Close
them.  Now, undress me in your mind.  You know what I look like. 
You're powerless to stop me, aren't you?  You're even powerless
to stop yourself."  I feel the tension, the sensations building. 
I open my eyes.  Her face is bright, triumphant.  "Any second
now, Bart.  I can feel you pushing.  Oooh, look!  You're wet. 
And here we are.  Ground floor!"

I don't have to look down to see the dark stain on my khaki
pants.  She walks out of the elevator into the lobby and says in
a loud voice,  "Come on Bart.  Dinner time.  What are you waiting
for in there?"  There's no escape.  I dash out, cringing at the
stares of the hotel guests, and find a men's room.  I strip off
my pants and dump the whole thing in the sink, scrubbing out my
come.  Better to be all wet than just there.

Thirty minutes later, I emerge.  My pants are wrinkled, but dry
from the blower.  Clarissa is gone.  She'd never even checked in.


April 10 - Bart

I haven't had the heart to write.  Nothing is working.  I'm
working like a demon, but I've lost over half of my client base,
and those I've kept are all prospective or over the hill.  It's
like there's a whispering campaign against me.  I get funny looks
when I go to events.  No one will tell me what's wrong.  I must
be off.  I even bounced a check yesterday.  That shouldn't happen
with the way I have my accounts arranged.  After an hour of phone
calls, I got some credit, but where is my money?  Insurance won't
pay for my "abandoned" car, so I owe Avis the value of the Caddy.

I finally spent a week at home, for Carol's birthday.  Don is
more withdrawn than ever.  He couldn't have said more than five
words to me all week.  He looks so pale and thin, sitting in his
room, listening to that awful music.  Sue says it's a phase and I
should be grateful he's still on the honor roll at school.

Sue's a strange one.  I finally met her face to face.  She'll
hardly look me in the eye.  Enormously fat body, yet a nice face
and very broad shouldered.  Her hair is like a black bird's nest
and she buries herself in the baggiest, ugliest clothes, although
with that figure I guess I can understand it.  I can't imagine
what she does at the gym in her time off.  It certainly doesn't
show.

And poor Carol.  She seems so nervous, always fidgeting, jumping
at any noise.  I can sure see the effect of her time at the gym. 
She must be more muscular than most of her classmates, even the
boys.  How did this happen?  And why does she want to look that
way?  I think it was a little extreme for a thirteen year old,
but right now she says it's the only thing making her happy.  Sue
thinks I should just let her follow her interests, but I think
she's being too indulgent toward Carol.  And looking at the way
Sue keeps herself, I'm losing some of my confidence in her,
although she seemed so competent long distance.  I probably
shouldn't judge her so much on her appearance.

No word from Clarissa.


May 10 - Don

Does life always spiral downwards?  I keep looking back to some
golden age of my life and it seems like the further back I go,
the better things were.  I can remember having friends, and
family outings and fun.  Now, Dad's never home, and when he calls
he so distant, worrying about his business, about money.  He
jumps at the phone and then hangs up, completely deflated.

I hurt all over.


I think Dad's given up on his business.  I don't know why.  He
won't talk about it, although I guess I haven't exactly asked.  I
really don't understand what's going on.  I thought he loved what
he did.  He was always so enthusiastic, even though none of us
really wanted to hear about it.  Now I think he's working for
some drug company.  He'll be on the road more than ever, I guess. 
He certainly doesn't seem very happy.  None of us are.

The scariest thing is Carol, and what's happening to her. 
Everything is changing so fast.  I know I'm no help, but at least
I don't bother anyone else.  I'm sitting in my room, playing my
music, and she barges in, hands over her ears, yelling at me to
turn it down.  I tell her to piss off, in a friendly way I think,
and say she can just close the door.  She sets her teeth and then
walks across the room and yanks the power cord out.  That gets me
mad enough to get off the bed.  I tell her to plug it back in. 
She just sneers and says I should make her.  I know she's been
working out and taking some martial arts thing, but hey, she's my
13 year old sister.  I'm not going to take that from her.
So I go over to do it myself and push her out of the way.  I do
it, but she feels real solid, not like a girl.  I reach over to
plug it in when the next thing I know I'm flying across the room
onto my bed.  I look up and Carol's standing over me, looking
smug.

"Surprised, Donny?  Try to push me around now.  I'm ready for you
this time."

I reach back to clobber her, but she catches my arm and actually
holds it down.  I can't believe it.  Maybe she learned some kind
of judo trick to throw me, but is she stronger than me?  So I'm
straining to push up, while she's keeping me down and I start
getting nervous, like this can't be happening.  I figure maybe
gravity or something is giving her the edge, so I switch and
start pulling down instead of up and wrest my arm out of her
hand.  She still has this smart-ass look about her and it bugs me
to see her looking down at me like that, so I just kind of swing
myself up, slowly, and then grab both of her wrists, thinking
I'll make her punch herself.  But they feel thick, I think, and
then when I try to move her hands, she's strong enough to keep
her arms rigid.  I can't move them.

"I've been working out Donny.  Hard.  While you just lie here and
listen to that sick music.  Go on.  Feel my muscle.  See how
strong I've gotten."

I move my hand to her upper arm and there's a sizable, firm
muscle there, like a grown man, bigger than mine.  Then she
flexes it and I realize that wasn't even the whole thing.  Her
bicep fills up my whole hand.  She's bigger than I'd even
imagined!

"What are you doing, taking steroids or something?  That stuff's
really bad for you."

"Don't be stupid Donny.  This is just hard work.  I spend five
hours a day at the gym.  With Sue."

"Sue?  What does that tub of lard know about exercise?"

"A lot.  More than you."

"I bet."  I look at her closely.  "I don't know Carol.  Your face
looks funny.  You've got hair over your lip, and on the sides of
your face too.  And your voice is changed."

"So?  My body's going through some changes.  That's normal you
know.  I'm thirteen."

I shake my head.  "I don't think so.  Your skin's getting rough
too.  It doesn't look like acne to me."

"Are you calling me a liar?  I told you I'm not taking anything. 
You're the one who's always on drugs."

"I am not."

"Yes you are.  I know all about what you and Charlie did last
weekend.  And how you got the money to go to that disgusting
grunge show.  And your fancy stereo.  Maybe I'll just tell Sue."

"You do that and I'll tell Dad about your being on steroids."

"I'm not on steroids.  You're just jealous because I'm stronger
than you and I'm just your little sister.  Weakling!  Weakling!"

I was getting sick of listening to her stupid teasing voice. 
"That does it.  I'm going to call him now."  I start past her but
she sticks her arm out, blocking me.

"Can't get by!  Can't get by!"

I try to push her out of the way, but she holds her ground, then
I ram my shoulder into her side.  She staggers a little, but is
still standing, sticking her tongue out at me.  I can't believe
it. I think, 'I don't care she's a girl.  I've got to teach her a
lesson.'  So I rear back and really let her have it in the
stomach.  She doesn't do anything to stop me, but just tenses her
muscles and stops me, cold.

"Bastard!  You were really trying to hurt me.  Well, you had your
best shot.  Now, see how it feels, creepo brother."

She goes down into a crouch and tenses her hands, fingers
pointing at me, and starts jabbing her hands into my chest and
stomach.  I couldn't believe the pain.  I try to cover up, but
she always finds some part I'd left exposed.   Right, left,
right, left.  She must have hit me twenty times, cleanly.

"Had enough?  Ready to ask my forgiveness?"

I take one look at her face and for some stupid reason I just
spit at her, right in the eye.  That really enrages her.  She
just loses control.  No more of this martial arts stuff.  Now
she's pummeling me with her fists.  I could block her sometimes,
but that just means I take the force of her blows on my arms.  I
try to get her back, but even when I connect, it doesn't seem to
bother her much.  Then I land a lucky blow on her nose.  It
obviously stuns her.  Her eyebrows go up.  Then she reaches back
and hits me on the side of my head.  I must have blacked out. 
The next thing I know, I'm lying on the floor, two hours later.

I get up, go to the bathroom, barely able to walk.  My face is a
mess.  I can hardly open my mouth to drink, and my chest hurts
every time I breath.  My whole abdomen is tender.  I don't even
want to think about eating.  Maybe tomorrow.


May 21 - Bart

My children are dead.  My children are dead.  I stare at these
words.  I know they're true.  But how could this happen.  Carol,
beating up her own brother so badly that he hemorrhages and dies. 
Then finding him.  Hanging herself from the hall chandelier.  All
in two days.  My family is gone.  My life is over.


October 5 - Bart

My brother was good enough to let me have a spare room in his
country house for awhile.  I see him and his wife weekends.  The
rest of the time it is peaceful here.  Sue is paying me rent to
use the house.  I need the money until I sell it next month. 
After that, I don't know.

I still don't understand Don.  I read his diary.  I had no idea
he kept one.  Most of it is beyond me.  Fantasies about death,
violence, girls in his school. I destroyed most of it.  Kept the
page about his last day alive.  Writes a lot better than I do.

What happened to Carol?  The doctor said she had incredibly high
levels of male hormone in her system, but not the usual kind of
steroids.  Why was she taking them?  Why did she lie to Don about
it?  He knew.  How did she get them?  They think that's what made
her so edgy, so strange, so she must have been taking them for
months.

What a year.  In January, I was on top of the world.  Now, I have
nothing.  Amazing to find that someone systematically destroyed
my business, warned all my clients, and their parents, about my
"predilection" for athletic girls, saying I couldn't be trusted. 
But why did they believe some anonymous claim?  I would never
have done anything to harm them.

I'm embarrassed to say I still think about Clarissa, even after
what she did to me in St. Louis.  Saving my life, then
humiliating me.  I even thought I saw her, jogging down the
street past the house.  I read an article, from Variety, about
her two months ago.  Someone mailed it to me, probably because it
mentioned some of my former clients.  All of them in a Michael
Ovitz vehicle about Amazons taking over the earth, subjugating
all men.  Pamela Anderson as the Amazon queen, Clarissa as her
general.  My old clients as part of their striking force.  I
guess the same guy who bulked up Linda Hamilton will work on
Paula Anderson now.  Whatever he does, she'll look pretty small
next to Clarissa.

Clarissa.  Clarissa.  Where is my Clarissa?


Part 2


I had to stop in my room to change my clothes, but I got down to
the hotel's weight room before Clarissa.  One guy in his twenties
was there, pounding away at the Nautilus machine.  I walked
around, looking at it.  Of course, the setup was familiar to me. 
Most of my clients did weight training.  But I had never used
one, golf, luggage carrying and pencil pushing being my chief
forms of exercise these days.  I pulled on a few cords and saw
his look of smug superiority as he watched me out of the corner
of his eye.

"You can't just look at it if you want to exercise."

I didn't want to start something with the guy.  "I don't know
much about these machines.  I'm waiting for a friend.  She's
going to show me a few routines."

I saw him laugh.  "Now I've seen everything.  You're gonna let
some girl show you how to lift weights?"  I didn't answer.  "Hey,
I'll show you."

Clarissa's arriving stopped him cold.  She was breathtaking,
wearing a tube top and shorts that covered less of her than her
underwear did.  Her round shoulders and peaked biceps easily
dwarfed the other guy's physique, and while Clarissa went to the
corner to chalk up her hands, he leaned over to me, saying, "if
that's your taste in girls, man, I don't know.  Maybe you oughta
try guys."  I glared at him, but Clarissa started doing warm-up
stretches.  As she pulled her arms back and thrust out her chest,
we both stared at her enormous pecs, bulging with muscle and
breast.

I prodded him with my elbow.  "Know any men who look like that?"

He shook his head and slipped out of the room.

"Come on Bart.  Are you going to work, or just make lewd comments
about me?  You need to stretch too."

"I'm not very flexible."

"Well, let's see.  Touch the floor, like this."  She bent over
and put her palms flat on the floor, holding the position for
twenty seconds.  I bent down, but my hands reached only down to
my ankles.  She snickered.  "You are stiff.  Well, work on it." 
She showed me a few more warm-ups, then moved to the machine.

"This is a pretty limited set-up, but it has the basics.  Now,
let's see your form."  She put the weight key in the middle of
the stack and showed me how to stand, arms spread straight out
from my shoulders, feet straight, weight evenly distributed.  I
gripped the bar and lifted.

"No, no.  Keep your back straight too.  Do ten."

I lifted the bar twice, then only halfway and dropped it.  She
seemed to be enjoying my failure, which pissed me off, so I
stepped away.

"Now watch my form, big guy."  She stepped up and keeping
perfectly straight, quickly did ten, twenty, thirty, forty, one
hundred lifts in rapid succession.  Her muscles barely seemed to
flex with the effort.  I started getting a little nervous.  Just
how strong was she?

"Ready for the next station?"

"I don't know."

"You're not quitting already?  I don't know, Bart.  You have to
make more of an effort."  While she was talking, she bent down to
move the key to the bottom of the stack and put her left hand in
the middle of the bar.  "Being strong takes work, you know.  You
can't just buy your muscle at Saks."  She started lifting the bar
with one hand, almost casually, while she talked.  I couldn't
believe it.  She was lifting over 300 pounds as easily as I
picked up the morning newspaper.  I saw her bicep pump up with
the effort, getting larger and larger.  She pretended not to
notice my intense gaze, and after twenty five repetitions, she
switched hands and did forty with her right.  

Now fully pumped up, she turned and walked toward me, snapping
her hips from side to side in a way that was both feminine and
very aggressive, and stopped directly in front of me to cut a
classic double biceps pose.  She put her tongue on her lips and
moved it in a slow circle.  Looking down at my crotch, she cooed,
"at least you aren't too old to have more than one of those a
day.  Tell me Bart, is it painful when it's trapped in your jock
strap like that?"  She dropped her hand down to my crotch and
pushed hard against me.  I didn't know whether to jump away or
let her go on, but she stopped and sighed.

"No time for that now.  I have to go.  But I want you to
practice.  I'll check up on you next time."

"Next time?  What?  I don't even know where you live."

"But I know where to find you.  Bye!"  With one hand, she pushed
me back toward the machines and then turned and walked away.  By
the time I had decided to follow she had disappeared into the
elevator.

If Gwendolyn could see me now, struggling at two in the morning
on a Saturday, make that Sunday, trying to figure out what's
going on in my head by writing in her journal, she'd die
laughing.  That is, if she had a sense of humor. 


February 19 - Bart

Sue seemed very upbeat about the kids.  Carol is very excited
about the martial arts program now and wants my permission to
spend afternoons at the gym.  I said OK, so long as her homework
doesn't suffer.  Don has already dropped out of his program, but
at least he's keeping up with school.  I told Sue I would be back
home in a few weeks.  She said not to worry.  They're getting
along well, although she needs some cash for household items. 
I'll send her a check.  I gave her my itinerary for the next two
and a half weeks, but it seems unnecessary.  Everything is under
control.

I'm feeling dangerously obsessed with Clarissa.  The hotel
completely stonewalled me on contacting her.  She must tip them
well.  I barely paid attention to my clients the past three days. 
Compared with Clarissa, they seem so, I don't know, so ordinary. 
I had no idea how large a part of my motivation was some kind of
sublimated sexual attraction.  I've got to concentrate better.

I tried to hit the exercise room in the hotels, but I'm already
feeling sore.  What's the point anyway.  I'm never going to match
Clarissa in anything.


February 22 - Bart

I can't believe it. For the first time in years, one of my
clients has fired me.  Of course, I admit my mind was elsewhere,
but I've worked so hard for her, gotten her endorsements, now a
movie role.  And she has the nerve to tell me she's quitting
sports and signing up with that Ovitz character at I.C.M.!  How
did he get to her?


March 1 - Bart

No word or sign from Clarissa.  It seems almost like it was a
dream.  I think all the time about that matchless body, those
prodigious muscles, the overwhelming power in her arms.  How
could she come in to my life just like that.  Will she return?

Something is wrong with Carol.  She sounds very agitated on the
phone.  She dropped or was expelled from her self-defense program
for being too aggressive.  That doesn't sound at all like her,
but she also says she's having problems with some of her teachers
and her friends are all dumb.  She says she doesn't care.  All
she wants to do now is work out.  Maybe she needs to get some of
the anger about losing her mother out of her system.  Sue thinks
the exercise will do her good and she'll keep an eye on her at
the gym.

Three more of my clients have dropped me, one without any
explanation.  I don't understand.  It's the ones I've done the
most for and who were bringing in a lot of money for me.  I ask
myself whether this distraction with Clarissa could be
responsible, but there's nothing I haven't done for them.  Is
someone providing a service I'm missing?  I've tried to reach
them, at least to tell me what went wrong, to help me with the
rest of the business, but they won't return my calls.  I'm just
going to have to work harder.


March 20 - Bart

Another unbelievable, unexplainable weekend with Clarissa.  I was
in St. Louis, East St. Louis that is, trying to sign up a girl
who could be the greatest black tennis star.  Better than that
Venus girl, who dropped me last week.  She seemed interested.  At
least she was willing to hear my pitch.

I was leaving her house, driving through a truly scary part of
town, when my tire blew.  I didn't want to stop, but I had no
choice, driving on the rim.  I tried calling for help on the car
phone, but of course there was no cell in the area.  Someone
probably stole the antenna.  So I got out to change the tire. 
Wouldn't you know that fifteen seconds after I get out, four guys
come up to me, wanting the keys.  I figure I'm gone, a perfect
end to a horrible month, when who do I see but Clarissa, driving
a Porsche.  Now what are the odds of that happening?  She pulls
over and gets out of the car.  What nerve she has.  She looks
incredible, even bigger than in my memories.  She's got on a
sleeveless dress, her arms look like a track star's legs grafted
on to her shoulders.

The guys don't know what to make of her, but one of them ambles
up to her and walks around, whistling.  "Hey, babe, you are a big
girl, now, aren't you?"  I figure they're distracted, now's the
time to fight, so I grab the tire iron and charge the group.  I
hit one of them hard on the arm, probably breaking it, and he
screams, but the others stop me and take the iron out of my hand.

"Good move, Bart," she says sarcastically.  She looks at the
group.  "Excuse my friend, but I want to take him with me.  You
can have his car."

Amazed, I say, "Clarissa.  That's a rented Cadillac.  I can't
just leave it to them."

The leader of the group looks at his friends.  "I think both
these strangers are operating under a delusion.  Homeboys, why
don't you take the keys to both of their cars.  Then we have a
score to settle with the white man and some fun to have with this
big white woman."

While they're holding me, one of them snatches the keys out of my
car and then walks toward Clarissa.

Clarissa folds her arms.  "Think carefully.  The next step you
take that way may be your last."

He doesn't even break stride.  Suddenly, Clarissa whirls around
and cartwheels over to cut him off.  Standing between him and her
car, she growls, steps into some kind of martial arts crouch and
then with lightening speed gets off an incredible punch to his
face, crushing his cheekbone and his nose up into his eye and
knocking him to the ground, unconscious, or dead for all I can
tell.  Barely looking back, she advances toward the others.  The
big one looks confused, and a bit worried, but pushes me to the
ground and taking the tire iron, stands his ground, brandishing
it against her.

"There's two of you left, plus a piece of metal in your hand.  Do
you think that's enough against me?"  She stands ready, hands in
front, elbows at her side, tensing her muscles.  The two look at
her, then one leaps forward and swings the iron.  Clarissa ducks
back, grabbing the iron as it passes her and then, planting her
feet, wrestles it out of his hand and with one motion uses it to
crush his skull.  The last one starts to back up, but she takes
the bar and flings it at him, like she's throwing a dart.  It
passes straight through his neck, beneath the Adams apple.  Blood
pours out and he drops, lifeless except for a few twitches.  The
fourth guy is crawling away, using his good arm.  Clarissa
dismisses him with a wave of his hand and takes me by the elbow
to her car.

"But wait.  What about my car?"

"I've had enough of this for now.  Do you want to wait for their
friends?  Or maybe the police?  I don't want to spend my weekend
in East St. Louis explaining this."  She lifts me up, throws me
into the car and closes the door.

"But my car.  They'll trace it to me anyway."

"You can deal with that later."  She revs up the engine and soon
we're doing eighty on the interstate.  She takes me to her hotel,
the Hyatt.  (With the way my business is going, I'm at the Motel
6, across town.)  As we go up to her room, I start asking
questions.

"What were you doing in East St. Louis, Clarissa?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?  How about you?  Were you seeing
Charlotta Montrachet?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"I make it my business to know what you're up to.  Having a tough
month I hear."

"Yes, but ..."

She backs me into the corner of the elevator, pushing me with her
powerful legs and chest.  Despite just killing three people, she
looks as cool and relaxed as if she'd been reading a book all
day.

"I feel like being close to you.  Shall we do it here, or
somewhere more private?"

The elevator stops and a couple get on.  I can see them staring
at Clarissa's broad back and her legs.  She ignores them and rubs
my upper arms and chest with her hand.

"You don't feel any different.  Aren't you working out like I
told you to?"

"Clarissa!  Not here.  I ...."

"Until you get stronger, Bart, you just won't have any say in the
matter."  She runs her hand up my arm and squeezed my bicep,
hard.  "No, it's just as soft and small as before."  With her
other hand she reached down to my crotch.  "At least he's hard. 
Do you like being treated like this Bart?  I think you do, and
this little guy agrees."  

I hear giggling from the couple who got on the elevator.  I put
my hand on Clarissa's and try, futilely, to pull her off.  The
other couple is silent, watching our contest.  Our floor comes
and goes, as does theirs.  I try to move away, but I'm cornered
in the small elevator and her hold is too tight.  She looks at
me, head back, chin set, challenging, and starts rubbing my
crotch with her hand in a vigorous, circular motion.  I realize
what she's doing and look at her in shock.

"No, Clarissa.  Don't."

She laughs.  "Can't help yourself, Bart?  Am I that appealing to
you?"  She moves her hand faster.  I try desperately to distract
myself, but all I see is Clarissa, her bulging forearm and bicep
twitching rhythmically with the motion of her arm, her pronounced
breasts shifting as she moves.  Her tiny waist flaring out to her
hips, rocking gently.  I close my eyes.  "Go ahead, Bart.  Close
them.  Now, undress me in your mind.  You know what I look like. 
You're powerless to stop me, aren't you?  You're even powerless
to stop yourself."  I feel the tension, the sensations building. 
I open my eyes.  Her face is bright, triumphant.  "Any second
now, Bart.  I can feel you pushing.  Oooh, look!  You're wet. 
And here we are.  Ground floor!"

I don't have to look down to see the dark stain on my khaki
pants.  She walks out of the elevator into the lobby and says in
a loud voice,  "Come on Bart.  Dinner time.  What are you waiting
for in there?"  There's no escape.  I dash out, cringing at the
stares of the hotel guests, and find a men's room.  I strip off
my pants and dump the whole thing in the sink, scrubbing out my
come.  Better to be all wet than just there.

Thirty minutes later, I emerge.  My pants are wrinkled, but dry
from the blower.  Clarissa is gone.  She'd never even checked in.


April 10 - Bart

I haven't had the heart to write.  Nothing is working.  I'm
working like a demon, but I've lost over half of my client base,
and those I've kept are all prospective or over the hill.  It's
like there's a whispering campaign against me.  I get funny looks
when I go to events.  No one will tell me what's wrong.  I must
be off.  I even bounced a check yesterday.  That shouldn't happen
with the way I have my accounts arranged.  After an hour of phone
calls, I got some credit, but where is my money?  Insurance won't
pay for my "abandoned" car, so I owe Avis the value of the Caddy.

I finally spent a week at home, for Carol's birthday.  Don is
more withdrawn than ever.  He couldn't have said more than five
words to me all week.  He looks so pale and thin, sitting in his
room, listening to that awful music.  Sue says it's a phase and I
should be grateful he's still on the honor roll at school.

Sue's a strange one.  I finally met her face to face.  She'll
hardly look me in the eye.  Enormously fat body, yet a nice face
and very broad shouldered.  Her hair is like a black bird's nest
and she buries herself in the baggiest, ugliest clothes, although
with that figure I guess I can understand it.  I can't imagine
what she does at the gym in her time off.  It certainly doesn't
show.

And poor Carol.  She seems so nervous, always fidgeting, jumping
at any noise.  I can sure see the effect of her time at the gym. 
She must be more muscular than most of her classmates, even the
boys.  How did this happen?  And why does she want to look that
way?  I think it was a little extreme for a thirteen year old,
but right now she says it's the only thing making her happy.  Sue
thinks I should just let her follow her interests, but I think
she's being too indulgent toward Carol.  And looking at the way
Sue keeps herself, I'm losing some of my confidence in her,
although she seemed so competent long distance.  I probably
shouldn't judge her so much on her appearance.

No word from Clarissa.


May 10 - Don

Does life always spiral downwards?  I keep looking back to some
golden age of my life and it seems like the further back I go,
the better things were.  I can remember having friends, and
family outings and fun.  Now, Dad's never home, and when he calls
he so distant, worrying about his business, about money.  He
jumps at the phone and then hangs up, completely deflated.

I hurt all over.


I think Dad's given up on his business.  I don't know why.  He
won't talk about it, although I guess I haven't exactly asked.  I
really don't understand what's going on.  I thought he loved what
he did.  He was always so enthusiastic, even though none of us
really wanted to hear about it.  Now I think he's working for
some drug company.  He'll be on the road more than ever, I guess. 
He certainly doesn't seem very happy.  None of us are.

The scariest thing is Carol, and what's happening to her. 
Everything is changing so fast.  I know I'm no help, but at least
I don't bother anyone else.  I'm sitting in my room, playing my
music, and she barges in, hands over her ears, yelling at me to
turn it down.  I tell her to piss off, in a friendly way I think,
and say she can just close the door.  She sets her teeth and then
walks across the room and yanks the power cord out.  That gets me
mad enough to get off the bed.  I tell her to plug it back in. 
She just sneers and says I should make her.  I know she's been
working out and taking some martial arts thing, but hey, she's my
13 year old sister.  I'm not going to take that from her.
So I go over to do it myself and push her out of the way.  I do
it, but she feels real solid, not like a girl.  I reach over to
plug it in when the next thing I know I'm flying across the room
onto my bed.  I look up and Carol's standing over me, looking
smug.

"Surprised, Donny?  Try to push me around now.  I'm ready for you
this time."

I reach back to clobber her, but she catches my arm and actually
holds it down.  I can't believe it.  Maybe she learned some kind
of judo trick to throw me, but is she stronger than me?  So I'm
straining to push up, while she's keeping me down and I start
getting nervous, like this can't be happening.  I figure maybe
gravity or something is giving her the edge, so I switch and
start pulling down instead of up and wrest my arm out of her
hand.  She still has this smart-ass look about her and it bugs me
to see her looking down at me like that, so I just kind of swing
myself up, slowly, and then grab both of her wrists, thinking
I'll make her punch herself.  But they feel thick, I think, and
then when I try to move her hands, she's strong enough to keep
her arms rigid.  I can't move them.

"I've been working out Donny.  Hard.  While you just lie here and
listen to that sick music.  Go on.  Feel my muscle.  See how
strong I've gotten."

I move my hand to her upper arm and there's a sizable, firm
muscle there, like a grown man, bigger than mine.  Then she
flexes it and I realize that wasn't even the whole thing.  Her
bicep fills up my whole hand.  She's bigger than I'd even
imagined!

"What are you doing, taking steroids or something?  That stuff's
really bad for you."

"Don't be stupid Donny.  This is just hard work.  I spend five
hours a day at the gym.  With Sue."

"Sue?  What does that tub of lard know about exercise?"

"A lot.  More than you."

"I bet."  I look at her closely.  "I don't know Carol.  Your face
looks funny.  You've got hair over your lip, and on the sides of
your face too.  And your voice is changed."

"So?  My body's going through some changes.  That's normal you
know.  I'm thirteen."

I shake my head.  "I don't think so.  Your skin's getting rough
too.  It doesn't look like acne to me."

"Are you calling me a liar?  I told you I'm not taking anything. 
You're the one who's always on drugs."

"I am not."

"Yes you are.  I know all about what you and Charlie did last
weekend.  And how you got the money to go to that disgusting
grunge show.  And your fancy stereo.  Maybe I'll just tell Sue."

"You do that and I'll tell Dad about your being on steroids."

"I'm not on steroids.  You're just jealous because I'm stronger
than you and I'm just your little sister.  Weakling!  Weakling!"

I was getting sick of listening to her stupid teasing voice. 
"That does it.  I'm going to call him now."  I start past her but
she sticks her arm out, blocking me.

"Can't get by!  Can't get by!"

I try to push her out of the way, but she holds her ground, then
I ram my shoulder into her side.  She staggers a little, but is
still standing, sticking her tongue out at me.  I can't believe
it. I think, 'I don't care she's a girl.  I've got to teach her a
lesson.'  So I rear back and really let her have it in the
stomach.  She doesn't do anything to stop me, but just tenses her
muscles and stops me, cold.

"Bastard!  You were really trying to hurt me.  Well, you had your
best shot.  Now, see how it feels, creepo brother."

She goes down into a crouch and tenses her hands, fingers
pointing at me, and starts jabbing her hands into my chest and
stomach.  I couldn't believe the pain.  I try to cover up, but
she always finds some part I'd left exposed.   Right, left,
right, left.  She must have hit me twenty times, cleanly.

"Had enough?  Ready to ask my forgiveness?"

I take one look at her face and for some stupid reason I just
spit at her, right in the eye.  That really enrages her.  She
just loses control.  No more of this martial arts stuff.  Now
she's pummeling me with her fists.  I could block her sometimes,
but that just means I take the force of her blows on my arms.  I
try to get her back, but even when I connect, it doesn't seem to
bother her much.  Then I land a lucky blow on her nose.  It
obviously stuns her.  Her eyebrows go up.  Then she reaches back
and hits me on the side of my head.  I must have blacked out. 
The next thing I know, I'm lying on the floor, two hours later.

I get up, go to the bathroom, barely able to walk.  My face is a
mess.  I can hardly open my mouth to drink, and my chest hurts
every time I breath.  My whole abdomen is tender.  I don't even
want to think about eating.  Maybe tomorrow.


May 21 - Bart

My children are dead.  My children are dead.  I stare at these
words.  I know they're true.  But how could this happen.  Carol,
beating up her own brother so badly that he hemorrhages and dies. 
Then finding him.  Hanging herself from the hall chandelier.  All
in two days.  My family is gone.  My life is over.


October 5 - Bart

My brother was good enough to let me have a spare room in his
country house for awhile.  I see him and his wife weekends.  The
rest of the time it is peaceful here.  Sue is paying me rent to
use the house.  I need the money until I sell it next month. 
After that, I don't know.

I still don't understand Don.  I read his diary.  I had no idea
he kept one.  Most of it is beyond me.  Fantasies about death,
violence, girls in his school. I destroyed most of it.  Kept the
page about his last day alive.  Writes a lot better than I do.

What happened to Carol?  The doctor said she had incredibly high
levels of male hormone in her system, but not the usual kind of
steroids.  Why was she taking them?  Why did she lie to Don about
it?  He knew.  How did she get them?  They think that's what made
her so edgy, so strange, so she must have been taking them for
months.

What a year.  In January, I was on top of the world.  Now, I have
nothing.  Amazing to find that someone systematically destroyed
my business, warned all my clients, and their parents, about my
"predilection" for athletic girls, saying I couldn't be trusted. 
But why did they believe some anonymous claim?  I would never
have done anything to harm them.

I'm embarrassed to say I still think about Clarissa, even after
what she did to me in St. Louis.  Saving my life, then
humiliating me.  I even thought I saw her, jogging down the
street past the house.  I read an article, from Variety, about
her two months ago.  Someone mailed it to me, probably because it
mentioned some of my former clients.  All of them in a Michael
Ovitz vehicle about Amazons taking over the earth, subjugating
all men.  Pamela Anderson as the Amazon queen, Clarissa as her
general.  My old clients as part of their striking force.  I
guess the same guy who bulked up Linda Hamilton will work on
Paula Anderson now.  Whatever he does, she'll look pretty small
next to Clarissa.

Clarissa.  Clarissa.  Where is my Clarissa?


Part 3


October 31 - Clarissa

Revenge is so sweet.  So, so sweet.  And so total.  I have
destroyed him, wiped him off the face of the earth, for now and
forever.  I have his money, obliterated his family line, taken
his business and crushed it into nothingness.  And now, he too is
gone, but not before he saw it all, relived his defeat,
understood why, and how, every step of the way.  All as I had
planned, planned for so long.

Three days ago he returned, as I had asked.  Sue was there,
waiting for him in his office, surrounded by the best pictures
from his women's physique magazines, pasted all over the walls,
with the faces of  his old clients neatly spliced in over the
faces of those bodybuilders he masturbated over.  The look on his
face was priceless.  The shock, the slow realization, the
pitiful, useless, impotent anger.

"You!  You did it to me!"  He bellowed.  Sue just looked at him,
placidly, like a cow.

"Yes," she said.  "And it was so easy too.  I was surprised how
easy it all was."

"Why?  Why did you destroy my business?"

"Not just your business, Bart.  Your family too.  It was I who
fed Carol the hormones that pumped up her body and stoked her
emotions into an inferno of aggression.  Megadoses, Bart, every
day.  I who encouraged her to learn the blows that killed your
son.  I who pushed her to do the weight training that put the
force of a sledgehammer into those blows.  And I who left her
alone to find him, dead, to feel the remorse, by herself, and to
find the noose, ready-made, hanging from the chandelier, visible
from wherever she looked in the house."

'Your money too, Bart.  Awfully nice of you to let me withdraw
from your accounts.  You'd done very well, for awhile."

"I didn't give you my..."

"Oh, not intentionally, but you left a lot of information in your
files.  It didn't take me long to loot them.  I hid my trail
well, didn't I?  You've made me a very wealthy woman, for one so
young."

"You won't get away with this."

"Oh I will.  I've planned that too.  But I won't tell you how,
yet."

His anger boiled over.  He rushed at Sue, who took her massive
belly, readied herself, and used it tobounce him back against the
wall.

"I work out, Bart, as you know.  You want to try a fight to the
finish?  A fortyish, over the hill man versus his obese, yet
strangely strong nanny?  It's your chance for revenge Bart.  Make
it personal."

He was out of control.  I could see the emotions boil over.  He
nodded eagerly.

"OK.  Let's start.  No rules.  All is fair.  First to die,
loses."

Fists clenched, he waded in.  Sue let him get close, then seized
his shoulders and threw him down toward the door.  He tumbled
through it onto the floor, shaken but unhurt.  He stood up more
warily and returned to the fight, swinging hard at Sue's belly. 
He hit it squarely, his fist disappearing in the fabric of her
sweater.

"What is this, stuffing?  Where are you?"

Sue's response was to seize him again and flip him over her.  He
spun, landing on his bare desk, flat on his back.

"That hurt a little, didn't it?  To answer your first question,
yes, it's stuffing.  I won't answer the second, but there are two
answers.  You have to figure them out, before you die."

Sue reached in and casually pulled out some material from the
left side of her body, and now looked slightly ridiculous with a
lopsided barrel of a stomach, flattened on the left side.

"You're not fat."

Sue smiled, shaking her head, then reached back and unhooked a
vest behind her back and pulled off her sweater and her sweat
pants, then stepped out of more soft padding around her legs and
hips, revealing an elastic workout top and shorts underneath.

"This is impossible.  Your legs, your arms.  You're solid
muscle."

"Ever see a body like this before Bart?  Do I have to take off my
wig too?"

"Clarissa!"

"I've used that name. I have another one too, but first, we have
some fighting to do."  He looked at me in dumb horror.  "What's
wrong, big guy?  Don't you want to fight me?  Haven't you been
working out like I told you?  Not that it would matter.  You'd
never be able to catch up.  It took me years to develop like
this.  Years of work, plus some very special genes.  Even before
I started working out, why, I had more muscle when I was thirteen
than you do now.  I needed it too, to protect me from the
predators that descended on my family when we lost our money. 
Friendly uncles.  Dear, devoted cousins.  Mom died from the
strain.  My sister ran off to work in a brothel and died of
syphilis.  But I survived.  I was strong enough.  Have you
figured it out Bart?  Do you know who I am?"

He shook his head, panic-stricken, and ran out of the room.  I
followed, steadily.

"You won't get out Bart.  The doors and windows are locked.  The
phones are all disconnected.  You have to fight me."

He looked scared to death.  I stood calmly, hands on my hips,
just waiting to see what he'd do next.  He was paralyzed with
fear, and I wanted some action, so I dove forward and tackled
him, pinning him in a second.  I lay across his stomach,
balancing myself so that he could feel all of my weight.

"You're crushing me."

"I know.  I weigh a lot more than I said Sue weighed.  Almost
three hundred pounds of solid muscle.  I've been in training for
years, and once I started working for you I've done nothing for
the past ten months but prepare myself for this evening.  Weight
training, endurance, martial arts.  All unnecessary of course.  I
could have beaten you if I'd just sat around and eaten Bon Bons,
but with each pound of muscle I'd added, I thought about crushing
you that much faster.  First I thought I'd just punch your face
in like I did to that guy in East St. Louis.  Then maybe tearing
you apart.  But now I've thought of something simpler, and very,
very satisfying."

I rolled off him and lept to my feet and watched him get up
slowly, feeling his torso carefully.  Then he sprang at me with
his fist.  I let him hit me in the stomach as hard as he could. 
He screamed in agony as his wrist bent backwards against my rock
hard muscle.  I grabbed his arm and picked him up, dangling him
in the air, squeezing his forearm tighter and tighter, and then
tossed him into the kitchen.

He came out holding a kitchen knife.  I picked up a decorative
glass ball and pulled my arm back, ready to throw it.  "Drop that
knife Bart, or this ball goes through your face.  Want to take a
chance that I can't throw it hard and true enough to do that? 
Now walk out here and fight me like a man, pathetic creature that
you are."  He kept the knife and walked toward me.  I stood my
ground, then whipped my hand forward.  The ball streaked toward
his right shoulder, breaking it on contact, the knife shooting
out of his hand onto the floor.  He screamed and clutched his
shoulder.

"I lied, Bart.  That wasn't the way I wanted to kill you.  But
now you have to fight me with just one arm.  And you were right-
handed, weren't you?  I notice these things."  

I walked up to him, nose to nose.  "Hit me, big guy.  Do your
worst.  Now's your chance to fight me with one hand tied behind
your back."  He stepped back, warily and slapped another clumsy
punch against my hard stomach.  "I didn't even feel that.  You'd
better try another spot.  Try to find something soft, if you can
find anything."  He pounded on my breasts, but I just tensed my
pectoral muscles.  He looked at me in wonder.  "Not as soft as
you thought, eh?  They're soft and sweet to a lover, but the
muscle behind is as stony as any other on me."  I reached down
and grabbed him by the belt and lifted him in the air with one
arm.  "Remember these biceps Bart?  The ones you've been dreaming
about for the last nine months?  The ones you'd wanted to kiss
and cuddle?  Don't you want to see them now?  You know, there
even bigger, rounder, harder than they were before.  I've been
working them, especially for you.  Why look, you don't even weigh
enough to make them rise out of my arm?"  

I lifted him higher, extending my arm slightly above my head so
that his crotch was level with my face.  "My, my!  Look at that. 
Even as I get ready to kill you, you're still getting turned on. 
Just can't help yourself?  Good.  It's sapping your energy.  You
should be fighting for your life, but you're still thinking about
my body, the body I created to destroy you, not realizing it
would let me invade your mind as well as crush your body."

"Shall I jerk you off again, like at the hotel?  Make you all the
more relaxed and helpless?  That was great.  You were primed for
another fantasy weekend.  You couldn't believe I would do such a
thing to you.  And when the police found you at that little
fleabag motel, dragged you off to the station in East St. Louis
to explain the deaths of those three slimebags.  Too bad you
didn't have enough money to pay for the car.  Amazing how quickly
they cancel your credit, isn't it?"

I reached into his right pants pocket with my other hand and
fingered his penis roughly.  He squirmed to get away, but I
grabbed his dick tightly.  His right arm hung limply.  He reached
over with his left, uselessly, without any leverage, trying to
pull my hand out, gave up, then pushed against the arm holding
him and punched it.  I ignored him, except to tense my forearm,
letting him bruise his knuckles against the steel of my muscle,
while I ran my fingers up and down his cock, felt him close to
coming, then pulled my hand away and ripped his pants off
instead.  His cock flew out, desperate for my hand, or any
pressure at all to finish what I'd started, but I held him away,
grabbing onto his free hand.  "I caught you right on the edge,
didn't I?  Frustrated, Bart?"  He twisted, trying to get free,
but to no avail.  "You're caught like a fly in my web, and like a
cat plays with a mouse, I'll do the same until I'm ready to eat
you."

I opened my mouth, like I was going to bite off his cock, then
dropped him roughly to the floor.  He twisted his ankle and
groaned, then got up and limped away, toward his bedroom.  I
followed behind, letting him close the door and lock it.

"The windows are nailed shut Bart.  Just so you know.  And don't
think you can climb through with one good arm."  I heard him root
around the room, looking for something.  A weapon maybe.  I
wasn't concerned.  I'd been through every corner of the house. 
I'd already taken all the guns.

"Bart, have you figured it out yet?  Do you know who I am?"  He
didn't answer.  I was getting bored, so I kicked the door down. 
Bart turned around, startled.  He had put on another pair of
pants.  "Am I interrupting something?  Are you dressing to go
out?  You didn't answer me.  Now, have you figured out who I am?"

"You must be Betsey Daumont's daughter."

"Yes!  You got it!  Monique's my real name."

"Monique!  Listen, I've always regretted what happened.  My whole
life I wanted to make it up to you, but I couldn't find you.  I
didn't realize your mother died."

"Now Bart, you didn't really try very hard, did you?  There you
went, ever upward on your path of success, serving these little
girls by day while you dreamed of them at night.  Making money
hand over fist.  Keeping to your little code of ethics while in
your head you violated them every day and night.  And making
restitution?  You wanted to, but that was a little daydream too,
to keep your conscience clear.  That has a nice symmetry, doesn't
it?"

"It wasn't that way..."

"Quiet!  You make me sick.  And take off those pants!"  He shook
his head.  I walked over to him.  He was cornered.  I ripped them
to shreds, ripped his shirt off, leaving him naked, pathetic
before me.

"Please Clarissa, Monique, I mean.  Don't kill me.  You've
punished me enough.  Please.  My family.  My wealth.  My life. 
You've taken it all away.  Let me live out the rest of it
somewhere.  Please."

I smiled.  I liked to hear him beg.  But only for a moment.  It
got tiresome.  I raised my hand to strike him.

"You have so much ahead of you.  I heard about the movie.  You
can keep my money.  I won't come after you.  But murder?  You'd
risk it all for murder?"

I put my hand down.  "Oh, I forgot to tell you.  I don't want you
to get any satisfaction from the idea I might get caught.  I
mean, it might occur to you as you die, that I will be punished
for this act.  Just consider, Bart.  Sue McVue worked here, very
visibly for almost a year.  She will walk out later tonight, the
house in obvious disarray, your beaten body lying somewhere, with
evidence of embezzlement, etc.  Then she'll disappear. 
Completely.  Would you mistake Sue McVue for me?"

"There.  I've had my fun.  Goodbye Bart"

I put my hands under his neck and calmly crushed his collarbone.
Then as he fell, I cracked his vertebrae with the side of my
hand.  His eyes widened.  The pain must have been incredible.  He
lay there, immobilized, silent, but not dead.  That would take
awhile, I thought.

I left him, changed back into Sue's clothes, arranged the scene
as I had planned and ate some dinner.  I checked back upstairs. 
His eyes were glassy; he was pretty far gone.  I looked in his
bag, found his diary and the page from Don's.  A perfect coda to
my collection.  I left at midnight.

On to Hollywood.

THE END.