Muscle and Blood
By Merz	
Mark pays a price when he finds a new workout partner


She was everything he had hoped for when he answered the personal ad: "FBB
seeks MBB for hard work and mutual worship." He had followed up, they had
exchanged first names and agreed to meet at 24 Hour Fitness on a mid-week
evening. No commitments, neutral territory, a chance to judge the other person
to see how close they each came to expectations. He was confident she would be
impressed by his physique but was frankly skeptical about the chances of her
being anything special. He had been with a couple muscle honeys, but the good
ones were rare and should never have to rely on a personal ad for a meet-up.
But you never knew and it wouldn't cost him anything to find out since he was
already a member.

Mark Ross was five feet nine inches and two hundred five pounds of granite
muscle. Any woman would want to worship his body, he figured, since he spent
enough time doing so himself. He took a last look in the mirror at his
washboard abs and twitched a pec before pulling on his t-shirt and heading
from the locker room to the weights area. She'd wear black and he'd wear red
they had agreed, but then she added to her response that she hoped their
muscles would be enough to remove any doubt for either of them.

She was right. She left no room for doubt. She was doing pull ups when he
walked in, her back to him. The width of her lats would have captured his
attention no matter what color outfit she had on. If it had been pink instead
of black he would simply have changed targets and gone after this goddess
instead of the one he was scheduled for. She went down to full extension on
each rep, held it a moment, then smoothly pulled herself up to touch her chest
to the bar rather than be satisfied just getting her chin above it. Very
smooth, very powerful, very graceful.

"Hi, Selena. I'm Mark."

She finished that rep, lowered herself and did one more. No hurry. "Hi, Mark,"
as she topped the cycle, "great to meet you." She lowered herself to the floor
and turned to offer her hand while making an obvious appraisal of his body.
Just as he was doing of hers.

Incredible. The black t-shirt and shorts emphasized marble-white skin and pale
blonde hair. Her eyes were pale as well and seemed to shift colors between
yellow and reddish. Her nails were surprising long and meticulously filed. But
he barely noticed any of those details as he cataloged the proportions of the
muscle woman. Superbly rounded delts and biceps, thick chest with prominent
breasts, tight waist, gorgeously contoured legs, just a hint of vascularity
responding to her work on the chinning bar. He caught himself feeling giddy at
his luck, especially because her own inspection seemed to be pleasing her just
as much as his.

"Why don't we get better acquainted while we work," she purred at him. "You're
a regular here so how about if we go through your routine."

Mark worked his way through his chest and shoulder routine, concentrating on
maintaining a businesslike appearance to his adjustments of weights, settings
of machines, and recording of reps for each exercise. Selena followed his
lead, moving significant poundages without ever seeming to be really
straining. After an hour Mark was dripping with sweat while Selena looked as
cool as when he had first seen her. Their conversation during the workout had
come easily, and Selena had been quite complimentary of Mark's efforts and the
obvious effects as his muscles pumped up. After she had run a familiar hand
over his chest in admiration of the result of his third set of flies, he
decided to test boundaries by doing the same to her deltoids when she set down
the dumbbells she had been lifting. She tensed the shoulder in response and
met his eyes as he appraised how hard and smoothly round it was. Things were
going very well, he thought.

"You got anything going on later tonight? I usually turn in by eleven, but if
you're interested I have a good Chardonnay back at my place." Mark's hopes for
the evening had been to set a date for another session earlier some evening
with dinner scheduled afterwards. Things had gone so well he decided to try
for the invitation back to his apartment right away.

"I'd like that. As it happens I don't have anything scheduled tonight and
don't have to worry about getting up early tomorrow. Were you going to shower
now or back at your place?" Her implication couldn't have been more clear, and
he eagerly agreed with her that the shower could wait until later.

He knew it wasn't particularly good wine. He also knew that none of the women
he had shared wine with ever noticed as he led the evening from a single
glass, or maybe from the first toast, into his bedroom. Everything was moving
according to plan until Selena made her first clumsy movement of the night.
She waved a careless arm that knocked her glass over. The rim broke when it
hit the table, before Mark could reach to catch it. Her reach was quicker,
grabbing the stem of the glass and lifting it off the table. The jagged edge
caught Mark above the wrist and opened a gaping wound.

"Oh, my God! I am so sorry! Look what I've done!" Selena's cries of remorse
stopped the explosion of fury in Mark's mouth, and the firmness with which she
wrapped her napkin around the cut quickly covered up the damage. She made a
joke of licking the stream of blood that had run along his forearm. "Do you
have a bandage in your bathroom? Hold this tight and I'll get something to
wrap it up with."

She was naked when she came out with the roll of gauze. Her incredible body
was as athletic head to toe as he had imagined, with tight abs and well
defined pecs to match the long, sculpted arms and legs he had admired all
evening. Her breasts were better than he had dared imagine, full and firm. Her
pale Nordic beauty had him completely turned on as she firmly wrapped his arm
in layers of gauze. Then she led the way to his bedroom.

Mark was alone when he awoke at dawn. The last thing he remembered was
collapsing in exhaustion beneath Selena after the third time she had brought
him back to action. He felt weak and spent from all the exertion of the night.
A note on the kitchen table from Selena promised that she would pick him up at
his apartment the same night a week later, but that he couldn't see her before
then.

The weakness persisted all that day. He went to the gym as usual, but felt so
out of it that he went home early. His dreams were vivid and disturbing. He
dreamed that Selena awakened him from bed and led him into the late night
street. She drove his car a couple of miles to a warehouse district and led
him through a door. Inside he saw an empty gym littered with heavy barbells
and dumbbells, benches and racks, but no mirrors. Selena threw off the long
coat she had worn to show a tiny bikini that hid none of her muscular beauty,
and she slid off the robe she had wrapped around Mark. With no words she moved
through a series of lifts with enormous amounts, more than Mark's best lifts
at the same exercises. She wordlessly teased him, taunting him to try to show
his strength and then laughing when he couldn't match her. "I thought a big
strong man like you would have the juice to match me," she whispered. At last
she pulled him against her hard body and kissed him.

Mark slept late the next morning. Again he felt weak and called in sick. He
meant to change the dressing on his wrist but it looked so clean and fresh
that he decided to let it go another day. That night his dream again was vivid
and involved Selena. Again she pulled him from his bed and made a playful game
of arm wrestling him to submission. "You're getting weak," she whispered to
him. If you want to be in my league, you better get some help."

Next morning Mark felt a little better. When he removed the bandage from his
wrist the wound looked more jagged than he remembered, but didn't bleed
openly. He rewrapped it and went to work. He made some calls at lunch to see
if one of his buddies could score some steroids for him. He had an urge to
push his physique to the next level and figured he could use some help. His
workout went well that evening, but still not up to his usual.

In his dreams Selena came to him once more. When she stripped to the same
bikini he was astounded at how much more muscular she appeared. Her arms were
blasted to enormous proportions, as extreme for her size as any male
bodybuilder Mark had ever seen. In his fantasies one day he would have guns
like that. Her chest stressed her top with huge, rounded pecs, her nipples
pressed like thumbs against the thin fabric. The rest of her body was as
magnificent, and when she went through a posing routine Mark was as turned on
as he was intimidated by the power she radiated. She extended her massive,
vascular arm toward him as he lay in bed. At first he satisfied himself
stroking its hard contours but then let her draw him up towards her. It seemed
she was lifting his entire weight with one arm.

"How do you like my body now? You could have a body like this, but you'll need
help. It's a big commitment." Again she gave him a single kiss as she pressed
him against her iron body. He felt as weak as a child in her arms and didn't
try to stop from coming when she rubbed a bicep along his straining cock. She
lifted him effortlessly and laid him back in bed. He dreamed that she made
love to him just as she had the first night, with a mixture of gentleness and
flashes of power.

"Can you get the steroids?" That was the first thing he thought of when he
woke next morning. Selena had asked him that in his dream just before she left
him alone in his bed. That day he made sure that he could, and would have them
on hand next week when he was finally going to see Selena.

Mark had already been on his course of steroids for a couple days by the
evening he expected Selena at his apartment. She rang his bell at eight,
looking spectacular in a snug warm up outfit, carrying a gym bag he assumed
held a change of clothes she would put on the next morning...

"Ummm. You look even better than last time. You got a secret going?" she asked
coyly as she examined the tight sleeves of his t-shirt. "Show me more."

"You aren't a virgin about getting a little chemical boost are you?" He
slipped off his t-shirt and hit a biceps pose, then gripped her own thick,
solid arm to draw her into his confidence. "Maybe tried it yourself to get so
damn hot?" When she assured him she supported a controlled use of anabolics he
unwrapped the syringe he had already charged and left on his coffee table
wrapped in a towel. Sitting on his couch with his knees touching Selena's,
Mark slid the needle in. She gave a moan "Oooooo," that sounded more like
pleasure than the usual squeamishness he expected.

He shot the drug home, removed the needle and put it back on the white towel.
Her eyes were wide as she watched him clench his fist and work his arm. "What
does it feel like?" she asked. "Is it kind of a burning as it gets into the
bloodstream?" She put her hand on his beefy forearm where the vein still
pulsed.

"Feels a little weird, but no burning. Just the sting from the needle, I
guess. It takes a while for it to move from the muscle where you shoot it into
the bloodstream. You shoot into the muscle so it gets absorbed slowly and
moves all over your system instead of just concentrating in one part of the
blood."

"Work those arms. Really get it mixed in." She brought a towel from his
bathroom, twisted it like a rope, and held it out so he could do curls against
her resistance. "That's enough. Let me look."

Mark shook out and she grabbed his pumped up left arm. She ran her tongue
along the big vein and winked at him while she licked her lips. "This is going
to be so sweet," she purred, and then she slapped him.

Her open hand crashed against the side of Mark's face like a two by four,
knocking him to the ground. "What the fuck!" he exploded in disbelief. "What
was that for?" He jumped to his feet and felt the place her hand had landed
with such incredible force.

Selena smiled and peeled her shirt off to show her lean, muscular upper body
adorned by a skimpy sports bra. "What it's for is to make you want to fight
me, silly boy." Selena slapped him with equal force on the other side of his
face. This time Mark was a little more prepared so he didn't go down, but was
knocked against the wall. He shook his head and then leaped to grab the muscle
woman before her next assault. This couldn't be happening, he thought. I have
not just been hammered by this muscle goddess I was about to lead into the
sack.

She let him seize her arms roughly and try to force her down into a chair.
Then she let him see that he couldn't move her anywhere she didn't wish to go.
"The last thing you want, you bitch, is get in a fight with me!" Mark grunted
as he continued to grapple with his immovable attacker.

Selena looked amused by his efforts. She snatched her arms out of his grip and
gave him a push that sent him reeling backwards. "It's exactly what I want. I
want you to work, to pump that juice through your system and to get a good
adrenaline rush on top of it." She stepped forward quickly before Mark could
regain his balance. Her hands crushed into the muscles of his arms as she
grabbed him and tossed him bodily across the room. He crashed hard onto the
floor. "So get to work. You do know how to fight, don't you?" She waited while
he slowly got back to his feet.

Mark charged forward and tried again to overpower his smaller, well-muscled
attacker, but she easily countered his moves and shook or slapped his hands
away where ever he tried grabbing her. "You call that fighting, dear boy? You
must be able to do better than that." For the third time she gave him a quick
slap that rattled his teeth and spun him half around.

Mark came back with a roundhouse right that completely missed when Selena
leaned back two inches. "God, you are pathetic." Now she was laughing at him,
and flicked out a fist that nearly knocked the wind from him when it smashed
into his midsection. He doubled over and staggered back. "Oh, come on. I've
left you alone for three nights. You should have replaced what I took and
gotten your strength back by now. You're weak as a kitten."

Mark made a sudden dive for her, expecting to tackle her to the floor. Selena
met his rush and stopped him cold, sending a painful shock through his
powerful frame. Her next move took him completely by surprise as she deftly
tossed him over her shoulder by his arm, then ripped away the gauze bandage
taped over his wound. She studied it for a moment and then bit the barely
closed gash.

"Holy shit!" It really hurt and he tried to jerk his arm away. It didn't budge
in her hands and she kept her face down where she had bitten. Mark got more
frantic trying to get her off. He slugged the unyielding latisimus muscles of
her wide back and then her head to get her off but she acted like she didn't
notice.

Finally she put her hand on the bite and looked up, smiling. Mark nearly
fainted. His blood ringed her mouth and even showed on her teeth. "It really
doesn't burn when you put it in? God, it's like drinking fire to me."

Blood was seeping around her fingers where she applied crushing pressure. Mark
panicked seeing her grip was the only thing holding back the blood. He tried
again to get loose from her. But she just stood there smiling, bracing herself
against his best efforts to shove her off or jerk his arm free. She held him
with just the hand on the bite, the muscles in her tensed arm flexing so every
fiber showed. He slugged her arm to knock her off and it was hitting a piece
of wood. He slugged her chest and then her jaw but she seemed not even to feel
it.

"That's it. Really give me the adrenaline. And the juice." She jerked the arm
she still hadn't let go of and tumbled him flat on the floor. She put her face
back to the wound she had made. Sucking at it she drew a gusher of blood into
her mouth for several seconds while he struggled helplessly at her feet.

Despite his fighting harder than he have ever fought before, using all his
strength, she was handling the brawny man as if he was nothing. Selena's
incredible body, all her great muscles, was proving much more than he could
handle. She clamped her hand on the wound again and took a deep breath. She
threw her head back to take a big gulp of air and it looked like she was about
to howl at the moon as a single thread of blood ran down from the corner of
her mouth, down her neck and onto her powerful chest. She put a foot on his
chest and pinned him to the floor. As Selena watched his futile struggles her
eyes were the cruelest, coldest things Mark had ever seen. "You really are the
sweetest boy. Much too sweet to finish in just one night." Selena went for a
third long drink from his arm.

Mark had lost a lot of blood and was going into shock. His adrenaline rush had
drained out leaving him weaker and dizzy. "Adrenaline, steroids, and all that
sweet protein. God I love this cocktail," Selena gasped as she came up for
air. She dragged him across the room to where she could wrap his t- shirt so
tightly around the wound that his hand went numb. The fabric quickly turned
crimson but contained the flow as she finally released him.

"I can't imagine having to wait to see the effects of the juice. I may have
all the time in the world to build the body I'm after, but I never get tired
of seeing my muscles grow." Mark lay panting as Selena stood triumphantly over
him. For a second he thought his imagination made her seem to expand, but he
realized he was seeing the blood she had taken in spreading through her body.
Selena really was expanding before his eyes. She tensed her arms and he could
see veins erupt to the surface and each muscle swell. The skin on her upper
arms drew tight as the diameter increased by at least an inch and possibly
two. Formidable biceps became awe-inspiring balls of power. Her pecs and traps
grew as well when the warm blood Ð his blood Ð engorged the muscles and veins.

Selena bent to lift him off the floor and above her head. Mark had never felt
such power during a fight with any man, let alone a woman. She held him a
moment, then released him to crash to the floor. He looked up at her just in
time to see her fist about to crash against his jaw, the last thing he saw for
a while.

He was aware of being lifted from the backseat of a car and slung over a
powerful shoulder. His wits returned quickly as he was carried smoothly
through the shadows of an eerily familiar warehouse scene. Selena opened a
door, moved confidently forward and then laid him carefully on a soft, padded
surface. "Wakey, wakey, sleepy head. I didn't hit you that hard."

He heard muffled steps cross the floor and then fluorescent lights flickered
to life in the ceiling. It was the gym he had dreamt about, complete in every
detail. A weight bench with a bar he calculated at five hundred pounds
dominated the center of the room. The bar curved from the many plates loaded
on its ends. Other massive barbells and dumbbells littered the floor.

"See what you do for me, lover boy? See why I like hanging around with you?"
Selena paused at the weight bench and hoisted the bar off its rack and over
her head. Her body swelled with the effort of quickly pressing the weight four
or five times. She set it down next to Mark where he still lay on an exercise
mat. "Could you do that, even if I hadn't fed off a quart or two of your
blood? Would you like to be able to?"

"I'm going out for a while. When I get a good muscle fix like this I just have
to put it to use, to hunt just for the sake of hunting." She tensed her chest,
arms and abs, smiling at the resulting explosion of muscle. "I'll leave the
bar there to give you something to think about, something to dream about.
Don't try to leave." Selena turned abruptly and dashed out of the door into
the darkness.

Mark slowly pulled himself to his feet, cradling his wounded arm against his
chest. Just to prove to himself that there had been no trick involved his
stooped over the great barbell and gripped it with his good hand. It was as
immovable as it looked. He took a couple stumbling steps toward the door, then
found himself strangely unable to continue in that direction.

Instead he set off to explore the large room. It was just a square, concrete
box, a bathroom in one corner, and empty room the might have once been an
office in another. Among the litter of boxes and packing crates against the
back wall he found a board about three feet long, narrow enough at one end for
him to get a good grip and to swing forcefully. He nodded to himself, switched
off the overhead light and crept as close to the door as he could force
himself to get, and leaned against the wall, waiting.

He lost track of time as he stood in the darkness. His mind wandered back to
the events that had led him to this point, and he struggled to make any sense
out of what he had seen and what he had experienced this long night. Finally
he heard steps approaching the door opened.

Mark swung his crude club at the vague shadow in front of him. All his weight
was behind the effort and what was left of his strength. For what may have
been hours he had imagined the feeling and the sounds when he smashed his
tormentor's skull, and the relief of escaping. He had even rehearsed a story
if somehow he ran into any legal problems, not that he intended to hang around
waiting for cops. Just kill her and get to a hospital so his arm could get
properly stitched and he could get whatever shots were needed for the bite.

The club hesitated halfway to his target as if by some will of its own, then
jerked violently to the side. It fanned the air a foot away from Mark's
intended target. "Very good, sweet boy. Very good indeed." Selena jerked the
club out of his hands, cutting his palms on rough splinters. "I was afraid you
would be beyond putting up any resistance, and I do prefer a victim who makes
me work for it."

He still couldn't make out anything more than a vague shadow in the darkness,
but she grabbed his good arm and hurled him against the wall. "Let's put a
little light on the subject, shall we. For your benefit, not mine. Don't you
understand? I'm a creature of the dark and could see you perfectly well."

With a click Mark was nearly blinded by sudden white light. Selena blinked at
the glare just as he was doing. When he finally adjusted to the light his
sense of helplessness and terror returned full force.

Selena's muscles seemed less massive than right after sucking his blood. Now
she looked merely strong and extremely athletic, as when he had first met her.
Out of the class of any other woman he knew, but not as outrageous as only a
few hours before. On her perfect physique he saw scratches and smears of
blood, and her eyes looked even more cruel and wild than before.

"That wasn't bad. One guy first tried to fight and then ran so I could play
hunter. And three actually came after me, thinking they were the hunters and I
the prey. I really got to cut loose on them. The last one took a long time
dying. I didn't feed. I wanted to keep my appetite sharp."

She motioned Mark back to the middle of the room where he sat dumbly on the
weight bench. "You may not believe this, Mark, but I like you. I respect you.
So I'll give you the choice. If you die because I take your blood into myself,
you will cross over and join the undead. If you die some other way - and I
promise to make it quick and painless - you will simply be dead. Obviously
there is no way I can let you live, knowing what you do about me and my kind."

Selena stooped over the massive bar and boosted it smoothly to her waist
before replacing it on the bench rack next to Mark. "Think about it. Think
about having five times the strength you have now, more than anyone you have
ever met. And even better, after feeding you will increase the volume of blood
in your system so you will look every bit as powerful as you are. You saw me
that night after I had had my fill before I dropped in on you. I wanted you to
know how far we can go when we combine a full feeding with a solid muscle
foundation."

She ran her hand over her hard, rippling arm. "The downside, of course, is
needing to feed every night, to live only in the dark, and the loss of any
free will that might have led you to challenge or disobey me. I've fed off you
enough times that you're my slave already, and that's why you were unable to
attack me just now or to leave by the door I left unlocked for you."

Now she placed her hand on Mark's thick arm, measuring the muscles he had been
so proud of but that had proved utterly helpless to defend him against her
strength. "It's time to choose, Mark. The sun will be coming up in a couple
hours and I'll want to feed before I sleep."