Sheldon hit the ground hard, painfully jolting his forearm. He blinked up at his attacker, trying to focus while reaching for his glasses.

“Looking for these, fatty four eyes?” Leon taunted, holding up the glasses he’d snatched off Sheldon’s face before shoving him. Leon was no slim figure himself, but he topped Sheldon’s stout 5’6” by a solid 6”. He tossed the expensive glasses on the ground and stomped on them. “Oops,” he said with a sneer. Greg, his companion in bullying, roared with laughter. Greg was shorter and slimmer than Leon, the beta of their bullying pack.

“Please leave me alone,” Sheldon implored. His instincts were all wrong for this situation; he didn’t realize his pleading fed their sadistic pleasure and over-inflated egos.

“Please, please,” Greg mocked, laughing.

“I dunno,” said Leon appraisingly. “What do you think? Should we leave him alone?”

“Nah, let’s stomp this twirp!” Greg shouted.

“Actually, I think you should leave him alone,” a husky female voice imposed on their fun. Leon and Greg whirled to face the intruder.

“What the fuck?” Leon growled. “Fuck off, bitch, we’re playing here.”

“I can see that,” the newcomer said. “But I must ask you to leave.”

All Sheldon could make out was three blurry bodies. The newcomer’s blur towered over the two bullies, tall and lean and imposing. He couldn’t see what happened next. He heard “fucking bitch!” Blurs moved and flesh and bones collided with loud cracks and crunches, grunts and screams and finally silence.

Sheldon closed his eyes and choked back tears, anticipating the pain that was about to come. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the girl, wishing she hadn’t interfered, “I’m not worth it.”

“Don’t say that,” the husky-voiced giant said from above. Sheldon opened his eyes and squinted up at the towering Amazon in shock. A blurry hand reached down and he took it. His hand was tiny in her huge grip. Her long fingers grasped his hand with impossible strength and she easily hauled up his bulk with one arm. Her bulging forearm writhed with ropy, steel-hard muscles under pale skin and big blue veins. “Here,” the Amazon said, handing him his broken glasses. “Are you ok?”

Sheldon looked at his expensive broken lenses in dismay. “I think so,” he said. He carefully wrapped the broken glasses and pulled his old backup pair out of his backpack. It was an older prescription but would have to do for now. He looked up at the tall girl and blinked. “Oh wow,” he said.

The young Amazon towered over him. He blinked up at her broad muscular shoulders. Her long neck bulged with vascular muscles. She looked down with concern in her dark brown eyes. Her long face, big jaw, too-large mouth and big teeth gave her a horsey look. Straight jet-black hair framed her pale face. She was not traditionally pretty but to Sheldon she looked like a goddess.

Sheldon’s elbow twinged and he winced. “May I?” The big girl asked, reaching out to his arm. Sheldon held out his elbow. She grasped it firmly in long fingers that wrapped all the way around his skinny elbow with length to spare. She gently squeezed.

“Ouch!” Sheldon exclaimed, wincing and trying to jerk away.

The big girl released his elbow. “Sorry,” she said. “I think you should have that looked at. Let’s go see the school nurse.”

Sheldon nodded. “Good idea.” He smiled shyly up at the towering Amazon. “I’m Sheldon Westfield. Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

The Amazon took Sheldon’s hand in her huge grip. “Dena Shepherd,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Sheldon.”

Pained grunts and moans came from the two bullies writhing on the ground. “What did you do to them?”

She glanced at the two defeated bullies, then back at Sheldon. “I probably bruised their ribs. I gave the bigger one a good crack on the jaw.”

“Leon,” Sheldon supplied.

Dena inclined her head in acknowledgement. “I don’t like violence but I don’t like bullies either.” She directed her voice at the two moaning figures on the ground. “I suggest you two pick yourselves up and see a doctor.”

Dena accompanied Sheldon to the nurse’s office. “Thanks again, Dena. You’re new here, right?”

Dena nodded. “Just transferred last week.” She hesitated. “I don’t know too many people yet. Just the varsity teams so far. I played volleyball and basketball at my last school, and was on the karate, swim, and free climbing teams.”

“I bet they all want you! You’re really strong! You laid out Leon and Greg like they were nothing!” Sheldon said in admiration.

Dena grunted, not looking too happy. “I know, I’m a freak. I’m six-eight and long-limbed so I have a lot of leverage.”

“Holy smokes! You’re more than a foot taller than me! And your muscles are huge!” He suddenly looked sheepish and shy. “Err, sorry,” he mumbled.

Dena looked at him strangely. “Yeah, tall and muscular, a real Amazon, that’s what they tell me. See you ‘round, Sheldon. Hope your arm is ok.”

Sheldon watched her walk away. “Shit,” he said to himself. “Real nice job, geek.” He sighed and went in to the nurse to have his elbow checked out.

“On belay?”

“Belay on.”

“Climbing!”

“Climb on.”

Dena launched herself up the climbing wall with a confidence and animal grace that was at once beautiful and terrifyingly competent. Her long limbs easily crossed gaps that challenged shorter climbers. She hurtled up to the first outcropping. Without slowing down she grabbed a tiny hold on the underside, swung into the air held up only by her fingertips, her huge bicep bulging and rock hard as she held herself suspended with one flexed arm. She did a quick one-armed pull-up with her fingertips and reached her other impossibly long arm over the lip. She blindly grabbed a hold and used her swinging momentum to hurl herself over the lip and into a crouch on the steep top-side. Without hesitation she continued straight up the most challenging ascent on the wall. She was going so fast her climbing partner was having trouble taking in the rope’s slack fast enough to keep up.

She repeated her breath-taking performance on the next overhang and again on the final one, each more challenging than the last, neither slowing her down at all. She tagged the top and clung for a moment like a wiry long-limbed spider, ropy vascular muscles taut and bulging under her pale skin.

“On belay?” she called down.

“Belay on,” came the awed reply.

“Rappelling!”

“Rappel on.”

Dena skipped down the wall in long, powerful arcs. A moment later she gracefully landed on the balls of her feet. She smiled down at her climbing partner. “Thanks!”

“Holy Moses,” Bobbi Jo said, laughing. “Girl, that was the most impressive climb I’ve ever seen! I don’t think you even need me spotting at all!”

“Safety first!” Dena replied with a grin.

Bobbi Jo was classically beautiful, a six foot two inch blonde with an athletic yet also curvaceous figure that was often and admiringly described as willowy. With her towering height, broad shoulders, and the intimidatingly large and well-defined muscles of a super-jock, the extremely buxom blonde Amazon was not used to feeling tiny in front of another person. Yet in sheer size and strength she had to admit Dena had her out-classed by miles, which thrilled her just a little bit even as she felt a tiny stab of jealousy. Dena was so cut and vascular her veiny pale skin looked blue and translucent over the long, ropy, rock-hard bulging muscles popping and writhing beneath. The blonde beauty shook her head. “You’re amazing. I don’t even know if you’re human! You are coming for varsity tryouts tomorrow, right? You have to join the team!” Bobbi Jo was captain of the basketball team as well as an avid rower, straight-A honors student, and vice president of the student association.

“I’m coming.” Dena tilted her head at the climbing wall. “Your turn?”

Bobbi Jo grinned. “You bet!”

Bobbi Jo was a superbly competent climber in her own right, and though lacking Dena’s reach, speed, and freight train-like unstoppable power, she was graceful and formidably strong. Her big biceps and quads popped as she powered her curvy figure up the difficult ascent. As Dena anchored the climb, she admired the powerful blonde’s gorgeous long hair, broad shoulders, muscular back, trim waist, and round firm spandex-clad butt.

“You’re a beautiful climber,” Dena said after Bobbi Jo rappelled back down. They unhooked their harnesses and began packing up the equipment.

“Thank you,” Bobbi Jo said, genuinely flattered. “Nothing compared to you, though!”

“I’m just big and strong,” Dena demurred. “You’re so beautiful and graceful.”

“Well you looked pretty gosh-darned graceful yourself as you dominated this wall!” Bobbi Jo said, reaching up to give the giant girl a friendly slap on her rock-hard shoulder. Dena giggled, pleased and flattered. “See you at tryouts tomorrow. Don’t be late!”

“Not so tough now that you don’t have your ugly-ass freak-show girlfriend to protect you!”

Dena overheard a familiar voice. It was Leon, the bully she’d defeated a few days ago. She stopped and cocked her head to listen, curious.

“You guys are jerks and losers! AAAGH! Oww!”

That voice definitely belonged to Sheldon, the little nerd they had been bullying.

“Did you hear that, Greg? Jerks AND losers! Then how come we’re on the football team, and you’re just a weak pathetic fat loser can’t get a date, huh?”

“You’re third string! Connor would never let you losers bring down the team!”

Connor was the captain of the football team, and unlike Leon and Greg, he was a straight A student and a genuinely nice guy who would never tolerate bullying if he knew about it. He was also supermodel supergirl Bobbi Jo’s lucky boyfriend.

“We’ll show you third string!” Leon snarled, throwing a punch.

Sheldon yelped in pain but held his own. “You show me third string every time you play!”

Dena smiled to herself at Sheldon’s wise-ass response. He was going to get his ass stomped, but the little nerd had spirit.

Dena felt conflicted about her last encounter with the pair of bullies. She didn’t like committing violence. It was the last resort of the stupid and incompetent. Also, quickly beating them up obviously hadn’t worked. She’d spent a lot of time on regretful what-ifs thinking about what she should have done instead. She followed the voices, then stepped around a corner and in sight of the two bullies.

“Hey, here comes your freaky-ass ‘boyfriend’ now! Get lost you ugly tranny bitch or we’re gonna fuck you up!” Greg covered his obvious fear with a mind-numbingly stupid bluff. He held up a weapon, a field hockey stick. Leon had a baseball bat he was slapping into his left palm.

Dena focused on the weapons as the immediate threat and ignored the insults. As a large, freakishly strong, horse-faced woman she’d heard much worse, and much more creative, invectives. The insults still hurt; Dena was a teenager and didn’t yet have the mental armor of a fully mature adult. But she was used to insults; plenty of male egos were bruised when they realized they could never be half as strong as Dena, and they lashed out.

“You ok, Sheldon?” she asked without taking her eyes off the bullies. She was stalling for time while she calculated the safest way to disarm them.

“I’ll live,” Sheldon said, putting a brave face on despite the pain in his ribs from Leon’s punch. “Dena, they’ve got weapons,” he whispered.

“I see that,” she said grimly.

“I wish you hadn’t come. They just would’a roughed me up a little, now I don’t know what they’re gonna do.”

“It’ll be ok.”

“It ain’t gonna be ok, dyke bitch!” Leon growled menacingly.

“Tranny or dyke, make up your mind, which is it?” Dena asked casually, relaxing her body as she focused.

Greg covered his fear with aggression and stepped forward, raising the hockey stick threateningly. “You sucker-punched us last time, bitch, but it ain’t gonna happen–ack!”

Because of her size and strength, people always underestimated how unbelievably FAST Dena also was. Most people don’t expect an attack mid-sentence, so as quick as a lightning bolt she’d thrown herself forward into Greg’s threatening stance. She yanked the hockey stick out of his grip before he could react. Then she shattered the fiberglass stick over her granite-hard quads, doubled up the broken halves, and shattered it again. She tossed aside the pieces and turned to face Leon, who had time to back up and raise the bat.

This was the most dangerous moment of the fight. Instinctively calculating the angles, Dena knew she was going to get hit. She thought quickly about the most effective way to turn that to her advantage. “One shot,” she growled as Leon was about to swing.

“What?” He hesitated, surprised and wary. He was careful to stay out of Dena’s considerable striking distance.

Dena stood up to her full six feet eight inch height. She put her big hands on her narrow hips and flexed her broad shoulders. Big steely shoulder and arm muscles flexed and rippled under her pale thin skin. Her deep six-pack abs were clearly defined under her tight-fitting tank top. “You get one shot at me with that bat.” Dena managed to sound a lot more confident than she felt.

Leon grunted and shifted the bat, considering Dena’s offer. Could she really be giving him a free shot? Could she be that stupid? The big ugly bitch was strong, sure, but even she couldn’t take a hit from the bat… could she?

Leon was surprisingly quick for his size, but compared to Dena he may as well have moved in slow motion. He telegraphed his strike even as he lunged forward, confident that his powerful swing of the bat would catch the bitch’s arm or rib and shatter a bone or two. He had made a grave miscalculation.

Dena stepped into and under his swing. Leon had instinctively swung too high because of Dena’s towering height, which she had counted on. She dropped into a crouch, as quick as a snake. Still, it was a close miss; wind from the bat ruffled her hair as it whiffed overhead. Dena knew she had to act now because Leon would not make the same mistake again. She reached up her big right hand and grabbed the bat near the base where Leon gripped it, at the slowest point with the least leverage. She carefully caught the bat and decelerated it. If she had just let the bat smack into her hand it would have shattered her fingers, so she let her grip give slightly to bring the bat to a stop.

The sudden deceleration jerked the bat in Leon’s grip. He was caught off-balance from his aborted lunge. “What the fuck?” he growled, scared now. He tugged on the bat, but now it was brawn against brawn, and in a contest of strength he was completely outmatched. Dena yanked the bat from Leon’s grip with no more difficulty than if he were a child.

Dena held the bat horizontally in front of her heaving chest, big thick pectoral muscles rippling as she flexed. Her long, ropy, rock-hard deltoids and biceps bulged with power. The bat bowed and creaked. All three boys were rooted to their spots, transfixed by the unimaginable strength they were witnessing. With an angry grunt of exertion Dena snapped the wooden bat in half. She tossed the sticks aside and turned to the two terrified bullies.

“What do you weigh?” She demanded of Greg.

“Um, about one sixty,” he said in an uncertain voice.

“And you?” She snarled at Leon.

“Two hundred. Why?” He asked aggressively.

“I’m six feet eight inches tall and weigh two hundred sixty-five pounds of pure muscle. I can do a hundred pull-ups and hang off the edge of a cliff for half an hour.” She glowered at the bully boys, her cold-eyed expression grim and terrible and terrifying. “And you two have PISSED. ME. OFF.” Quick as a flash her huge hand whipped out and grabbed Greg by the belt.

“Hey!” He squawked.

Dena ignored his protest. With her legs spread in a power stance she focused all her strength on her left arm. Slowly she curled her hand up. She lifted Greg to his tip toes and kept lifting. Greg looked down in terror, his face white as a sheet.

“No way,” Sheldon breathed in admiration.

“No way!” Leon gasped in shock.

Slowly and inexorably Greg’s feet left the ground, and continued to go up, and up, and up. Dena dangled him by his belt at her chest level for a moment, then lifted higher so she could look up at him. “Way,” she said with a proud, evil grin.

She turned to Leon. “Oh fuck no,” he said, turning to run. He made it about two inches before Dena snatched him by the belt.

With a look of intense concentration, Dena willed her huge powerful muscles to rise to her demands. She curled Leon’s bulk until he was raised to his tip toes. Slowly and carefully Dena lifted him off the ground, one inch, two inches, her big long arms trembling, her huge rock-hard biceps expanding and hardening with pure power, rivers of blue veins pumping angry blood under thin pale skin.

Six inches Leon rose, a foot, easier now as Dena had better leverage to lift him. He passed her thick chest, which was rippling with angry veins and deep hard pectoral cleavage, and rose up above her broad powerful bulging deltoids.

Dena stood like a towering supergirl, her long lean body taut with straining muscles as she held two men more than six feet off the ground. She grunted through her clenched jaw, her long limbs quivering with effort, but she held the pose for ten long silent seconds. Finally she hissed, “If you bully anyone ever again I will find out and I will make you very, very sorry. You do not want to find out what I am capable of doing to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes!” squeaked Greg.

Dena’s biceps surged with even more power as she shook Leon like a kitten, as if his two hundred pound bulk was inconsequential. Her strength had never failed her before, and her muscles once again fulfilled the commands of her iron will. “Do you believe me?” she demanded.

“Y-yes!” Leon sounded genuinely frightened.

“I don’t believe you,” Dena growled. “You’ll go right back to your bullying ways. I think you need a demonstration.”

“Oh god please no,” Greg pleaded, but Dena was already lifting him higher. She carefully aimed and hurled him with one arm. He sailed through the air and hit the wall with a bone-jarring whomp, then fell onto a stack of gym mats.

Leon was significantly heavier than his sycophant, so Dena grabbed his shirt and heaved him overhead with both arms. He squealed and cried out in terror at the ground more than eight feet below him. He couldn’t believe the power of this Amazon! Her rage was directed at him and he felt true fear.

Dena hurled the bully at the wall, where, with the added momentum of his heavier weight, he smashed even harder than Greg. Leon crashed to the mat on top of the smaller bully.

“Ouch! Um, Leon? I think you wet your pants, dude,” Greg squeaked.

A clearly visible wet stain ran down Leon’s jeans as he stood on shaky legs.

“Not a word,” Dena commanded with an icy glare. “Now, run!” The two bullies took off like they’d been shot out of a cannon.

Dena turned back to Sheldon, who looked up at her towering muscle-bulging figure in equal parts awe and fear. She cocked a smile at him. “It’s not smart to taunt bullies who are bigger than you,” she said.

Sheldon found his voice. “Probably not. But there’s always a bigger bully!”

Dena’s face fell. Sheldon looked horrified as he realized what he’d said. “No, I didn’t mean, um I mean thank you so much, again!”

“Try not to get in trouble again. I can’t be everywhere. Sometimes I have to ‘bully’ other people.” She shot Sheldon a withering, angry glare. Before he could find his words and explain she left with an angry prowling lope of her impossibly long legs.

Sheldon watched her tall muscular figure disappear, helpless again. He couldn’t seem to say anything right.

“Hey, Dena, wait up!”

Dena slowed her long-legged walk and let Sheldon catch up. She was silent as he walked beside her.

Sheldon swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He was intensely aware of her proximity. It was exciting and intimidating and a little terrifying for him.

“The other day, that came out wrong. Thank you, really, for helping me. I just meant that I’m short and fat and nerdy, and insecure dickheads like Leon and Greg have bullied me all my life. I didn’t mean you’re a bully, you’re not!”

“I know that, Sheldon,” Dena said quietly.

“You do?” Sheldon asked, startled.

“Sure. I realized later. Of course you didn’t mean to call me a bully. That wouldn’t make sense.” Dena looked away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry I over-reacted.”

“Wow, um, yeah, ok. So you’re not mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you.”

They walked together in silence for a while. After a few minutes, Sheldon said enthusiastically, “That was unbelievable! You fought two big dudes with weapons, didn’t get hit once, and won without even throwing a punch!”

“I was there.”

“Haha, yeah. You learned how to fight like that in karate?”

“Karate taught me how not to fight.”

“Just like Karate Kid!”

Dena stifled a laugh. “Karate is about discipline and self-control. What I did the first time, I was surprised, that was me losing control of the situation. And it wasn’t effective. I didn’t stop Leon and Greg, I just aggravated them into escalating the problem. I failed.”

“What about last time?”

“That was karate.”

“Throwing people is karate?”

Dena couldn’t contain her laugh this time. Her laugh was deep, throaty, and thrilling. “Well, maybe a little. Controlling the situation is karate. If I beat them up again, they would have needed revenge. It’s an escalating cycle of violence. Instead I let them imagine what I COULD do to them. Their own imaginations work against them now.”

“Wow,” Sheldon said quietly, thinking. “That’s some next-level mind-games right there.”

“Thank you,” Dena said with a giggle. They walked in silence a while. Sheldon didn’t seem to have a destination. Dena wondered what more he wanted to talk about.

“Congratulations on the varsity tryouts, by the way. I heard all the team captains are fighting over you, and the coaches are trying to reorganize practice schedules to fit you on all the teams.”

“How’d you hear that?” Dena asked curiously.

Sheldon winked up at her. “I know EVERYTHING,” he whispered dramatically.

Dena laughed again. “You’re funny, Sheldon,” she said.

“Just one of the many services I offer,” he said with a bow.

After a few more minutes of walking, Sheldon said hesitantly, “I know you’re going to be really busy and all, but I was wondering, if when you have some time, would you mind showing me how to climb? I mean I climbed trees and stuff growing up, but I mean really climb, like you. I wouldn’t mind getting in better shape and it looks like fun.”

“You were watching me?” Dena asked, surprised.

“Yeah, a little,” Sheldon said shyly. “I watched your tryouts too. You’re amazing!”

Dena didn’t know what to think about this. She’d never had an admirer before. People respected her size and strength, or were challenged by it, but nobody would want to be a freak like her, she thought. “Thank you,” she finally said. “I can teach you.”

“This is going to hurt,” Dena warned.

Sheldon looked apprehensive. “Ok,” he said.

Dena had taken Sheldon on his first climb on the climbing wall. He was very chubby, looking short and chunky in the harness, but he was determined. He made it half way up the beginner ascent before his muscles gave out. He’d tried three times, and now he stood on trembling legs, sucking down water and shaking his knotted muscles.

“You used muscles you never thought of. Tomorrow you’ll feel a little sore. On Thursday your body will feel like it’s on fire.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Dena grinned. “It’ll get better though. You’ll see. It’s a good pain.”

Sheldon made a face. “‘Good pain,’” he repeated, curling his fingers into air quotes. “You jocks are all the same. I changed my mind, you really are a bully!”

“Jerk!” Dena said, playfully punching Sheldon on the shoulder. He winced. With her huge muscles and big steely fist even a gentle tap was enough to numb his sore arm. “Think you’re up for anchoring me?”

Sheldon looked doubtful. “I don’t know. I don’t want to drop you. No offense, but you’re a lot heavier than me.”

Dena giggled and smiled down at the little nerd. Her smile was warm and earnest and lit up her otherwise plain long face. “None taken. Don’t worry, we’ll anchor you here. Besides, I won’t fall,” she said it as a statement of fact, not sounding proud or cocky.

Once Sheldon was anchored to the floor with a strong thick strap, Dena showed him how to tighten and slacken the line. “The equipment does all the work,” she assured him. “It takes skill, not strength. If you’re using too much muscle you’re doing it wrong. If I fall the rope will tighten with a jerk, and you’ll get a sharp tug on you and your anchor point, but we’ll both be fine.”

“Ok, I think I’m ready,” Sheldon said.

Dena smiled down at her little admirer. She was normally modest by nature, not given to intentionally showing off, though with her enormous strength and exceptional physical skills she was sometimes accused of doing so. However, something about Sheldon’s frank admiration made her want to give him a little show. “Want to see something a little harder?”

“Yeah!” Sheldon enthused. He had no idea what she meant but he was up for seeing whatever incredible feats she could perform.

Dena grinned and sauntered over to the climbing wall, feeling a little cocky. Sheldon admired her long athletic frame. Muscles popped out of her thin skin even when she was relaxed. Thick ribbed obliques swept wide ridges around her sides. Her butt was carved from granite, two hard boulders that looked like a normal girl’s butt had the fat sucked out and replaced with muscle. Thick marble-cut hamstrings and diamond-hard striated calves powered her toward the expert section of the wall.

“On belay?” she called as she walked.

Sheldon double-checked his grip and stance just as she’d taught him. His heart pounded in excitement and trepidation. “Belay on.”

“Climbing!”

“Climb on!”

Without breaking stride she leaped up the wall and reached her incredibly long left arm up to grab a handhold ten feet off the ground. She did a one-armed pull-up and suspended herself while she crossed her ankles. She reached up her right arm and began to ascend using only her arms. Her huge biceps and deltoids almost popped out of her thin pale skin. Her reach was so long she easily crossed stretches that a normal climber would have needed toe-holds for. She came to the first overhang and monkeyed over it while still keeping her ankles crossed.

Eventually she came to a gap longer than even her reach. Without slowing down she launched herself straight up the wall in a burst of pull-up power and easily grabbed the next hold. Over the second overhang, higher and higher, smooth and strong and steady, her body a finely tuned and immensely powerful machine hurling her two hundred sixty-five pounds of ripped muscle up the wall with arm strength alone.

No normal human could do something like this, but Dena was freakishly strong. Even Sheldon was surprised, but then he thought since Dena can hold a full-sized man in the air with each hand, she can do anything.

Over the third and hardest overhang without slowing down, then Dena tagged the top. She was breathing hard and grinning fiercely with exertion, her huge popping muscles burning with glorious strength as she gripped the top, still with her ankles crossed. Then she dropped her left hand down two feet, planted it against the wall, and slowly extended her arms out. She pointed her toes and held herself straight out, perpendicular to the wall, steel-hard arms trembling with might.

Sheldon stared up in slack-jawed awe. Even he realized he was witnessing an incredible feat. Could she possibly be showing off just for him? he wondered. Could she sense how incredibly sexy he found her and her immense height and her boundless strength and her gorgeous steel-hard Amazonian body?

Dena held herself out at the end of her long, trembling arms, her huge hands and long strong fingers crushing the wall as she held her six foot eight, two hundred sixty five pound muscle-bulging body perfectly still in the air.

“On belay?” she called down to the frozen gaping-mouthed Sheldon.

As if in a trance, he tightened the belay line. “Belay on,” he called up with a weak trembling voice.

“Rappelling!”

“Rappel on.” Almost a whisper.

Dena quickly descended and dropped lightly to the floor on the balls of her big feet. She walked over to Sheldon with almost a cocky strut. Her pale skin was flushed and glowing with a slight sheen of sweat. Sheldon stood face to thick-muscled heaving chest with the giant Amazon. He gazed up at her while she looked down at him, panting, lips slightly parted.

Sheldon looked up at Dena’s towering frame with equal parts admiration and apprehension. Her short black athletic halter top left little to the imagination, showing her big popping biceps, huge steely flexed traps and deltoids on her broad shoulders, and the top of big bulging pectorals. Big blue veins cut jagged ridges popping out of her pale thin skin. Her pectorals were so big and cut they formed a line of visible cleavage at the top with clearly defined little muscular ridges leading inside. Even her long neck was veiny and muscular. Her bare stomach was cut from marble, pale skin over rock-hard washboard abs, each massive bulging block of her six pack thick and deeply defined like her skin was vacuum-sealed over bricks. Thick veins popped out below her abs. The top of the deeply cut V between her abs and shredded obliques led down to tight hip-hugging form-fitting shorts. Farther down her unbelievably long legs bulged with hyper-defined, dry and shredded vascular muscles. Her quads and adductors looked like they could crush a boulder and her diamond-shaped, diamond-hard calves looked sharp enough to cut glass.

Now or never, Sheldon told himself, heart racing, mouth dry, forcing himself to croak the word, “Dena?”

“Yes?” Her voice low and husky, unconsciously drawing closer to Sheldon’s sweet shy terrified expression.

“Dena–”

“Hey y’all!” Bobbi Jo sauntered over to the pair. She clapped. “I thought you were impressive before, but girl that was something else!” Her enthusiasm and admiration were warm and genuine. “You’re like some sort of supergirl, for real!”

Dena blushed and drew back from Sheldon. “You saw that?” she asked, embarrassed.

“You bet I did!” She turned to Sheldon and beamed her killer smile down at him. She topped him by eight inches so he barely came up to her long elegant neck, eye-level to her broad muscular shoulders. He gallantly kept eye contact with the voluptuous blonde Amazon and avoided ogling the vast inviting cleavage popping out of her sports halter top. “Hi Sheldon!”

“Hey Bobbi Jo,” he said with a happy grin.

“You know each other?” Dena asked, startled.

“Everybody knows Sheldon!” Bobbi Jo exclaimed. “He won the state math Olympiad last year!”

Dena looked at Sheldon with respect. “Really?” she asked. Sheldon looked pleased and flustered.

“Yeah! He’s like a super genius!” Bobbi Jo exclaimed. “Hey, y’all mind if I take a turn?”

“Sure,” Dena said, handing her the belay line. “Think you can anchor again, Sheldon?”

He nodded. “I think so. I could use the practice. If you don’t mind, Bobbi Jo.”

Dena and Sheldon watched Bobbi Jo’s athletic, curvaceous figure power-climb the expert wall. She tagged the top and rappelled down, rejoining the two. Her stupendous chest was heaving with the exertion and excitement of the climb. Her cobblestone six-pack abs, while not as deeply cut as Dena’s, were defined and hard, rippling as she breathed. “Thanks, Sheldon!” she said.

The small nerd smiled and nodded. “Sure, Bobbi Jo. This is fun! No wonder you love it.”

Dena gathered up her and Sheldon’s harnesses while Bobbi Jo clambered her long muscular frame out of hers. Dena went to pack their equipment away and sign out.

Bobbi Jo tossed her long flowing blonde hair as she leaned in conspiratorially to Sheldon. “I’m sorry I interrupted, I didn’t realize until too late,” Bobbi Jo whispered.

“That’s ok,” Sheldon whispered back. “Was I that obvious?”

Bobbi Jo laughed. “Yes, Sheldon! Men always are.” Dena started to head over, looking suspiciously at the whispering pair. “Ask her. Don’t chicken out!” Bobbi Jo looked up at the towering Amazon as Dena approached. “Later, y’all!” she said brightly, shouldering her harness and sauntering away.

“What was that all about?” Dena asked.

Sheldon looked uneasy and embarrassed. “Um, Dena? You know the Homecoming Dance coming up on Saturday?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Uh, I mean, I was wondering, are you going?”

Dena shrugged. “Probably. It’s a big team thing. Why?”

“Um, would you want to, I dunno, maybe go with me?”

It was the night before the Homecoming dance. Sheldon pushed his chair back from the role-playing game with a yawn. “Sorry to cut and run, gentlemen,” he said. “I want to get some sleep tonight.” The clock showed midnight but the Friday night gaming sessions often ran until dawn.

“We already started late because you wanted to go to the stupid Homecoming basketball game,” Pete complained. He was a small, slim nerd with an encyclopedic knowledge of fantasy and gaming lore. “Since when do we go to sports games, anyway?”

“Since Sheldon got a date with his Amazon crush,” DeShawn teased. He was big and jolly, the alpha nerd of their small group. It was his house they played at. “Besides, tell me you didn’t like watching a bunch of hot girls running around in short shorts! Especially Bobbi Jo, I could watch her all night!”

“I like Tanya, she’s so beautiful,” Ning said quietly. He was the fourth member of their gaming group, small and shy.

“Oh ho someone’s got jungle fever!” DeShawn teased.

“That’s racist,” Sheldon said with a laugh. “You’re a racist!”

“Shaddup cracker, everyone knows negroes can’t be racist!”

“I don’t like a girl who can beat me up,” Pete complained.

“That’s every girl, dweebazoid!”

“Shut up! Why do you like her? Dena looks like a man!”

The group instantly got quiet, their boisterous banter snuffed. “Not cool, dude,” DeShawn said.

Pete reddened. “I’m sorry Sheldon. I didn’t mean that,” he said.

Sheldon shrugged. “DeShawn is right, she’s an Amazon. I don’t care what you think, I think she’s beautiful. I don’t know why she said yes to a weak little chubby nerd like me, but I’m gonna take her to the dance and no matter how it turns out, I’ll always have that!”

The nerd gathering broke up shortly after that. As they were leaving, Ning tapped Sheldon on the shoulder. He was even shorter than Sheldon, five feet one inch with a scrawny build and huge thick glasses. “I’d like to go too,” Ning said.

“Sure. The more the merrier. You want to come with Dena and me?” Sheldon asked.

Ning shook his head. His parents were very strict. “I can’t go before. But I can meet you there.” He hesitated. Sheldon’s success had given him hope. “Do you think I can ask Tanya to dance?”

Sheldon smiled. “I don’t see why not. I don’t think she has a boyfriend. Do you want me to see what I can find out from Dena?”

Ning nodded quickly. “I’d like that a lot. Thanks Sheldon,” he blurted, then bolted inside to sleepover at DeShawn’s.

---

A few hours earlier Dena chugged a bottle of water. She was breathing hard and pouring sweat, her pale skin red and blotchy. To Sheldon she looked amazing, like a Greek sporting goddess. It was the Homecoming game and they were up 64-40 in the third quarter against one of the top high schools in the state. She glanced up at her biggest fan where he sat with his quartet of nerds. She smiled and waved, then jogged back onto the court.

Bobbi Jo was a technically skilled player and took her job as team captain very seriously. The girls all trained hard and were highly skilled, as were their opponents, and the court was filled with tall muscular girls ranging from five feet eight inches to the foot taller Dena at a towering six feet eight inches. Without Dena the opposing teams would have been evenly matched and made a close game, but Dena was a force of nature that made the home team unbeatable. With her height and elongated reach she was a natural center, displacing Tanya, who was now the power forward. Tanya was also a superb athlete and impossibly beautiful, a buxom ebony-skinned Amazon, six feet three inches tall with long slender limbs that were deceptively powerful.

The opposing center was Cheryl, a burly six foot four inch bruiser of a woman, puffing hard as she faced the unstoppable Dena. Cheryl had never encountered a woman taller and more muscular than herself on the court before.

Pete was bored, but DeShawn, Ning, and Sheldon’s eyes were riveted on the spectacle, not caring so much about the mechanics of the sport (though they did take an academic interest in that), but more in the way of teenage boys flush with raging hormones staring at ten Amazons running, jumping, bouncing, and sweating. DeShawn was glued to Bobbi Jo’s massive bouncing globes, though he took time to appreciate Cheryl’s substantial curves as well. Even the roomy athletic tank top uniforms couldn’t diminish Bobbi Jo’s enormous chest. Ning admired Tanya’s tall athletic grace while occasionally doing research into the sport on his phone in order to keep up with the strategies and action. (Later in life Ning would make a killing at fantasy sports.) Sheldon admired all the women but he was especially awestruck by Dena, and he flushed with pleasure and a surge of hormones whenever she looked up or waved at him. The tank top worked in her favor, showing off her broad muscular shoulders and the long ropy muscles of her steel-hard climber arms.

Dena reached her incredibly long arms to block a shot from the other team’s shooting guard. Tanya caught the ball and shot it down the court to Bobbi Jo, who took a shot but tipped off the point guard’s reaching fingers as the smaller girl leapt surprisingly high. Cheryl caught the rebound and saw her chance, twisting around Tanya, who had taken temporary guard. Cheryl took off down the court in a burst of raw speed and power.

Cheryl didn’t whip her head around fast enough to get a complete awareness of the court, so she missed Dena closing in on her blind side. She crashed full speed into the huge Amazon. It felt like ramming into a brick wall as their bodies collided with a thunderclap of hard muscular flesh. Cheryl bounced off Dena and sprawled to the floor as the ref’s whistle blew.

Cheryl shook her head in a daze. She’d never felt anything like that. She was built like a Mack truck, but Dena was an Abrams tank! Now Cheryl knew what other girls felt when they bounced off her. She blinked and looked up to find Dena’s big hand reaching down to her. She clasped Dena’s muscular forearm, feeling the corded muscles like steel cables under veiny pale skin. Dena hauled the two hundred twenty pound muscular athlete to her feet without visible effort.

“Holy shit, girl, you came out of nowhere!” Cheryl exclaimed.

“I’m sorry,” Dena said softly.

Cheryl shook her head and grinned. “Don’t be. My foul shot now!” She took off to take her free throw.

The final score was 84-70. The visitors mounted a valiant fourth quarter comeback on Cheryl’s tireless efforts, her big muscular body pumping down the court like a machine, but Dena’s long legs and arms seemed to be everywhere. “Good game,” Cheryl said when she shook Dena’s hand at the end of the game, and meant it. She’d never had so much fun losing before.

After the game she hunted down the gigantic Amazon before she headed to the locker room. “Hey,” she called to Dena. Dena turned around and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Damn this girl was gorgeous, Cheryl thought, feeling a bit short and squat next to her towering, tautly muscular frame. “I’m Cheryl,” she said, holding out her hand.

Dena shook it again. “Dena,” she said. “You’re really good.”

Cheryl laughed. “I know! If it wasn’t for you we would have won!”

Dena shrugged and suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Maybe,” she said.

“Definitely. You’re unbelievable! Hey, so I’m just gonna ask, you want to hang out, go grab a coffee or something?”

Dena’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she said. “Um, I’m sorry, I’m not gay.”

Cheryl laughed. “That’s ok. Nobody’s perfect,” she said with a good-natured grin. She shook her head sadly. “Besides, the good ones never are.”

I’ve gone from never being asked out before to twice in one week, Dena thought in wonder. What was going on? The truth was she didn’t know if she was gay, or straight, or what she was really. “Hey wait,” she called out. Cheryl turned back in surprise. “Um, I’ve got something, like a date, I don’t know if it’s anything,” Dena said. “But maybe, if that doesn’t work out?”

Cheryl grinned and winked. “You got it, babe,” she said. “Give me a call!”

“I don’t have your number.”

Cheryl’s grin turned impish. “Tanya does,” she said with a laugh, and disappeared.

Dena stared unhappily at her reflection in the vanity mirror. She knew she was not pretty, but tonight was the Homecoming dance and she felt particularly ugly. She was supposed to go to Bobbi Jo’s house to prepare with some other girls from the basketball team, but she felt shy and terrified. They were all so pretty, especially Bobbi Jo, who was radiantly beautiful.

When Sheldon had asked her to the dance, she froze, taken completely by surprise. Dena watched his face fall in crushing disappointment when he misinterpreted her silence as rejection. He started to backpedal and stammer out an apology, but Dena recovered from her shock and saved him from embarrassing himself too badly. She’d said yes on impulse, partly because she didn’t enjoy watching his disappointment and embarrassment, and partly because she wanted to. If she was being brutally honest with herself (which she usually was), she’d also said yes because she was flattered both by his proposition and by his disappointed reaction when he thought she was saying no. She was curious, and nobody had ever asked her on a date before. Besides, she thought there was something charming and even cute about Sheldon. She liked how he’d stood up to his bullies even when he had no chance, and she’d had a lot of fun teaching him how to climb.

Yesterday he had come up to her after school before the homecoming game. “You sadist,” he’d said with a groan. “You didn’t tell me day 3 was even worse than day 2.” He was still recovering from their climbing session.

“I guess you’re really out of shape,” Dena said, then immediately regretted it. But Sheldon didn’t seem to take offense. He smiled and shrugged.

“Guess so,” he’d said lightly. “But you’ll fix that, right?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” Dena tried to explain.

Sheldon laughed. “No, you’re right, I am out of shape! Too much gaming and snacks, not enough exercise!”

Dena smiled shyly. “Do you want to try climbing again?”

“Heck yeah!” he said enthusiastically.

Then he came to her Homecoming game and cheered her on. She’d felt unstoppable after their win, Sheldon’s cheering, and Cheryl’s surprising (though not entirely unwelcome) proposition.

Now in her room she was filled with insecurity and doubt. There was a knock on her door. “Can I come in?” her father asked.

Mr. Shepherd was a big man at six feet six inches. But even he felt small next to his giant Amazon daughter. Dena was a mutant, not in the X-Men sense (though her size and strength bordered on superhuman), but she was unusual in being taller than either of her parents, and she was genetically pre-disposed to extreme muscularity. Her father looked at Dena sitting in front of the mirror and at the expensive black dress lying on the bed. It had to be custom tailored for her unique size and slim yet muscular, broad-shouldered, V-tapered physique.

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” he asked gently.

Dena shrugged. “I don’t know,” she lied.

“Are you homesick? I’m sorry we had to move here and uproot you for your senior year.”

“I’m not,” Dena said fiercely, surprising her father. “I like it here. Everything about Pittsburgh just reminded me of Mom.” Her eyes glistened and her voice caught in a choke. “It’s just… Jefferson High was all I knew. This new school is… confusing.”

“How do you mean?”

Dena wiped her eyes and managed a smile for her dad. “Jefferson was like a cliche. Jocks and nerds and stoners didn’t talk to each other. Here, I don’t know, it’s just like everyone is more of a real person. There are bullies too, but also nerds can be popular. Jocks can be smart.”

“You’re smart,” her father said proudly. He had dropped out of high school to help earn money for his family, and he dreamed of more for his daughters. Dena worked hard at school and got straight A’s in advanced placement classes.

Dena smiled. “I think I can fit in here. Even the other girls on the varsity teams seem to like me. And I… I miss Mom less, somehow. Is that bad?”

“No, it’s not bad,” her father whispered.

“Besides,” Dena continued, “nobody ever asked me out before. Somebody told me once all the boys thought I was a lesbian, but I don’t know if that’s it. I think I’m just not pretty. No guy wants to date a freak.” She said this flatly, as if it were self-evidently true.

Her father was secretly relieved when Dena told him about Sheldon asking her to the dance. He had wondered if she was a lesbian, too. “Oh, baby girl,” he said fondly. He brushed her coal-black hair affectionately. “You’re beautiful, just like your mother.”

Dena looked skeptical. “Gina’s the pretty one, Dad, I know that,” referring to her younger sister Regina, already an athletic six feet tall and blossoming into a stunningly beautiful, willowy young woman. “Everyone says so. It’s not fair, she’s only 13 and already has boobs. I wish I had boobs.” She stared critically at her muscular chest.

“If you had big boobs you couldn’t wear this beautiful strapless dress,” her father pointed out. “Besides, you have some cleavage,” he said, nodding at the line between her full hard pectorals reflected in the vanity mirror.

Dena snorted. “That’s just muscle, Daddy. Don’t be silly. Boobs are supposed to be soft.” She punched herself in the chest, hard, making a loud crack with her huge steely fist and dense heavy pectoral muscle. “I’m not soft.”

“You’ll always be my smart, strong, beautiful baby girl,” her father said. “I bet this Sheldon guy thinks you’re pretty. Sounds like he has good taste. Maybe you’ll bring him by some time, if you want.”

Dena looked insecure and uncertain, and his heart broke for his daughter. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been wondering… I just think maybe he’s grateful.”

“Grateful?”

“Yeah… I saved him from some bullies and then gave him a climbing lesson. Maybe he just wanted to thank me.”

“That’s not how boys work, dummy!” Gina piped up from the doorway. She jumped onto Dena’s bed and bounced on her back, kicking her long coltish legs up in the air and giggling, delighted to know more about something than her older sister.

“Ok, know-it-all, how do boys work?”

“He wasn’t grateful. He’s totally into you! He was terrified you’d say no!”

Dena looked over her shoulder and glared at her sister. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How do you know?” she finally asked.

“Luanne told me!” Luanne was Bobbi Jo’s younger sister, in the same grade but almost a year older than Gina.

Dena got up and gathered up her dress. “Time for me to go,” she told her father and sister.

“Have fun!” Gina said, giggling.

“But not too much fun,” her father added.

Watching Bobbi Jo in her underwear, Dena was reminded that the Amazonian blonde dressed to minimize her chest. The huge bra cups were struggling to contain her enormous breasts. Dena had seen Bobbi Jo topless in the locker room and knew they were not only gigantic but impossibly perky, as if gravity dared not touch them. The statuesque blonde carried her tall frame and big bulging muscles with feminine grace and beauty. She looked like she stepped from the pages of a superheroine comic book. Dena felt a brief flash of jealousy, but it was impossible not to like Bobbi Jo despite her perfect everything.

Bobbi Jo’s house was huge and magazine catalog beautiful. She came from money Dena’s family could only dream of. She’d invited the basketball team to get ready with her. Twelve tall athletic girls crowded into her spacious bedroom. Dena couldn’t help but notice that even the flattest of them still at least had breasts. Dena and the buxom Tanya were the only girls taller than Bobbi Jo, and Dena was the only one more muscular.

“Come zip me up,” Bobbi Jo asked Dena, her arms pulled back to struggle with the zipper, arching her back and thrusting her enormous chest in the air. Dena zipped her up easily, the tight dress and tiny zipper no match for her raw strength. Bobbi Jo’s huge breasts were compressed into a deep line of cleavage, so tight in the dress they quivered and looked ready to leap up and knock her in the chin. “Now let me do you,” Bobbi Jo insisted.

Dena reluctantly unsnapped her bra. It was purely cosmetic with no fatty breast tissue to support. Her bare chest rippled with hard striated pectoral muscle. Her large nipples puffed out at the touch of the colder air currents in the room. She pulled her black dress up over her long pale muscular legs. It looked black as midnight against her milky pale skin and nicely complemented her short jet-black hair. It was positively slinky on her tall slim muscle-bulging figure, hugging and accentuating the curve of her small waist and the flat, taut brick work of her rock solid abs. Bobbi Jo zipped her up and the strapless dress clung to her like a second skin, subtly pushing in her chest muscles to enhance the line of her muscle cleavage and give the illusion of breasts.

“Nice,” Bobbi Jo said appreciatively, stepping back to take a look. “Good choice on you. You definitely have the figure to pull this off.”

Dena blushed. “You think so?” she mumbled.

“Definitely. Here, let’s get you dolled up.”

Dena let herself be pushed into the chair in front of the vanity. Tanya and Bobbi Jo smiled down at her, both so dazzlingly beautiful that Dena was more self-conscious than ever. She stared miserably at her long horsey face in the mirror, her frown pulling down her too-wide mouth.

“That won’t do!” Bobbi Jo exclaimed. “Dena, your smile is so pretty, give us that smile won’t you?”

Dena was sure Bobbi Jo was full of it but gamely pasted on a smile while the two girls fussed over her face with makeup. Bobbi Jo and Tanya were both skilled and subtle, not overdoing it, putting on a foundation that flattered Dena’s pale skin, then adding a few touches to highlight her cheekbones, some lipstick and eye shadow. They artfully fluffed and arranged her short black hair. When they pulled away Dena gazed in awe at her reflection. She still looked like herself, but a different version of her. Her mouth looked full and a little pouty instead of horsey, her lips fuller. Her dark brown eyes looked bigger and more dramatic against her pale skin. Her long face transformed from equine to elegant. Her coal-black hair framed and rounded her face, softening the harsher edges.

Tanya and Bobbi Jo looked at her proudly. “Do you like it?” Bobbi Jo asked.

“I look… pretty,” Dena whispered in surprise. “You made me pretty!”

Tanya giggled. Bobbi Jo grinned. “You ARE pretty, Dena! We just added an accent to what was already there!”

Dena was skeptical but grateful. “Thank you,” she said fervently.

“Now for the finishing touches?” Bobbi Jo held up a large pair of high-heeled black pumps.

“Those aren’t mine,” Dena said.

“They are now. It’s a present!”

Dena took the shoes and looked dolefully at the high heels. “You think I should wear heels tonight? Sheldon…”

“I know, he’s tiny,” Bobbi Jo said with a giggle. “Honestly, you’re the tallest person in the school, you can’t exactly hide your height! You already tower over everyone else, so why not heels? They’ll flatter you, I promise. You’ve got such beautiful calves and ankles, why not show them off a little? Trust me. I don’t think Sheldon will mind at all.”

Dena’s doubtful expression turned thoughtful. “Thank you,” she said again. “You’re so nice.”

Dena stepped into the shoes. They fit perfectly of course. She stood and practiced. Being three inches taller was different, but not bad, she admitted. The other girls looked at her in awe, happy for her, giving her smiles and thumbs up. She’d never felt so accepted before. Right there she fell in love with her new teammates.

She glanced down at her calves, which felt tight from the enforced flexing and balancing she had to do. The huge steely muscles popped out of her legs even more than usual, like shiny pale diamonds.

“What do you think?” she asked, running her big hands down her slinky tight strapless black dress, displaying her evening look.

“I think Sheldon is one lucky guy,” Bobbi Jo said enthusiastically. The other girls nodded, then turned back to their own preparations.

“Wow,” Dena breathed, looking at Sheldon in his suit. He’d cut his hair and combed it straight. His suit was a stylish dark grey over a white dress shirt and wide red striped tie.

Sheldon grinned self-consciously. He’d never expected to have this effect on an Amazonian goddess like Dena. “Wow yourself,” he said. “You’re so beautiful!”

Dena blushed at the compliment. She wished she had more in the way of breasts, but she was competitive by nature and proud of her strong muscular body. Tonight she did feel pretty in her black strapless shape-hugging dress and Bobbi Jo’s expert makeup. “Thank you,” she said, smiling shyly. “You don’t mind the heels?” She gestured at her feet and the three inch heels that boosted her already extreme height, so that she towered almost a full foot and a half over him. Her big muscular calves bulged and flexed as she turned her ankle to show off the heels. Thick veins snaked over her thin pale skin and powerful hard muscles.

Sheldon shook his head. “They’re great. They look really good on you.”

Dena and Sheldon rode to the dance in the back of Connor’s Range Rover. Bobbi Jo rode shotgun and playfully slapped away her boyfriend’s occasional attempts to fondle her big muscular thighs or huge boobs. The Homecoming football game last night had gone very well and Connor was in a good mood, happy that Bobbi Jo had come to watch their victory at the end of the game after her basketball win. He was sorry he missed watching her play, but such was the life of a varsity power couple: Connor was the quarterback of the football team and Bobbi Jo was the captain of the basketball team, and both roles were very demanding on their time.

At the dance Dena watched as Sheldon kept up a friendly chatter with everybody. The little nerd was gregarious and easily slipped between conversations in academics and pop culture and even sports, though for the latter she noticed he mostly kept the other parties talking. Dena was more reserved, naturally shy and slightly introverted, more comfortable powering her way through an opponent or up a cliff than in a prolonged conversation. She happily stayed on Sheldon’s arm and let him do most of the talking, even feeling a bit like eye candy as she noticed people shooting them (well, the admiration was mostly for Dena, really) admiring glances. It was a new feeling for her, and not entirely unpleasant.

They moved to the dance floor with the group of jocks. Dena had no formal dance training, but she was naturally athletic and highly coordinated, with a keen eye for physical movement. She quickly caught on to the graceful rhythms from Bobbi Jo and Tanya. She was supremely confident and powerfully physical in her tall muscular body, and she moved to the beat with the other girls in flowing, sexy gyrations.

Sheldon felt like he was in a land of giants, thrilled and excited but also nervous and scared of looking dumb. Sheldon dealt with fear by plunging in head-first, so he danced with more enthusiasm than skill. Bobbi Jo, Tanya, and Dena all took turns with him, delighted by his willingness to get out there and dance. Dena felt a flare of jealousy when Tanya looked at her and deliberately shoved Sheldon’s face deep into her huge breasts, but her jealousy faded into amusement at Tanya’s friendly, playful wink and Sheldon’s embarrassed flailing.

Eventually Sheldon had to take a break, breathless and dehydrated. Dena moved to sit with him and Ning until Bobbi Jo stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Need to go to the bathroom?” Bobbi Jo asked.

In the bathroom Dena consented to Bobbi Jo freshening her makeup. She had worked up a good sweat on the dance floor. “How’s it going?” Bobbi Jo asked.

“Good, I think? I’m not sure. This is my first date,” Dena replied.

Bobbi Jo grinned. “I’d say it’s going well then. You two look great.”

Dena blushed. “Thank you. You and Connor are a beautiful couple. I think you’ll be Homecoming king and queen.”

“I know, right?!”

“Hey, is Tanya…” Dena struggled to find words. Finally she said, “Cheryl from the game asked me out last night.”

“I bet she did!” Bobbi Jo said with a grin. “Yeah, she and Tanya have history, but Tanya is totally omnivorous if you know what I mean.” When Dena looked confused, Bobbi Jo laughed and said, “Tanya is a huge bisexual slut!” Dena laughed uncomfortably. “That’s how she describes herself, by the way,” Bobbi Jo continued. “Why, are you interested in Cheryl?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I like Sheldon, I want to see what happens. I’ve never… you know.” Bobbi Jo nodded sympathetically. “Do you think Tanya would dance with Sheldon’s friend Ning? I told Sheldon I would ask.”

“I don’t know,” Bobbi Jo said frankly. “But Ning should ask her. Tanya likes to be wanted, and she likes flattery.”

Dena laughed. “Thanks!”

Dena headed back into the dance room and sat next to Sheldon, who was deep in a nerd argument with Ning. She hesitantly took Sheldon’s hand. He squeezed her big, strong hand and smiled happily at her. She smiled back and turned to Ning. “Ask Tanya to dance,” she said.

Ning gulped and looked at his shoes, fidgeting nervously. “Hey,” Sheldon said to him. “Ask her!” Ning nodded quickly.

The music stopped and the lights came on. One of the students who did morning announcements took the stage to announce the results for Homecoming royalty. Bobbi Jo and Connor were crowned to much applause and nobody’s surprise. They looked very tall and athletic next to the average stature of the announcer. The couple were confident and happy and radiantly beautiful on stage, where they naturally belonged.

Dena watched Bobbi Jo get crowned Homecoming queen and felt proud for her beautiful new friend. After the crowning Dena’s body thrummed with nervous tension. She didn’t like sitting and was starting to feel claustrophobic in the hot, noisy, crowded gymnasium. “Hey, I’m gonna go outside for a bit,” she told Sheldon.

He looked sad but quickly covered it with a smile. “Oh, okay,” he said.

“You can come with me,” she said quietly.

“Okay!” he readily agreed. “We’ll be back, Ning!”

The little Asian nerd bobbed his head quickly, already lost in his cell phone. “Okay, bye,” he said.

Once outside, Dena eyed the gymnasium critically. The school was a solid New England compound of brick and stone buildings. There, she decided, spotting a route. She strode forward while Sheldon puffed next to her, struggling to keep up with her long-legged stride. “Come up to the roof with me?” she requested.

Sheldon eyed the building skeptically. He was still sore from the other day, and had just added the unfamiliar physical exertion of dancing on top of that. “Okay,” he agreed reluctantly, scared to try but unwilling to let Dena down.

“Free climbing can be dangerous, especially at night, but I think there’s enough light here,” Dena lectured, more comfortable in her element. “Since I’m the stronger climber, I’ll go first to map our ascent, and you follow where I go. Your reach is shorter than mine so I’ll look for finger and toe holds for you.”

Sheldon looked up and up at Dena’s towering height and her extraordinarily long and muscular arms and legs. “Okay,” he said with a grin, swallowing his fear. “I trust you.”

Dena felt a warm rush of affection towards the little nerd but didn’t know how to express it, so she clamped down her feelings and approached the building wall. She kicked off her heels, preparing to ascend barefoot. She eyed the wall professionally, then started up. She picked her way up slowly, careful to keep her reach down to levels Sheldon could manage. He grunted and strained as he pulled his fat little body up after her but didn’t complain. They got above the extended height of the first floor and then the second. One more floor to go, Sheldon puffing hard now, his sore muscles trembling.

Dena stopped near the top. “There’s no hold you can reach,” she announced. Sheldon groaned, anticipating a long hard climb down. “I have an idea. Climb up next to me.”

Sheldon awkwardly maneuvered his pudgy body over to Dena’s muscular Amazonian frame. She leaped past him, reached up high and gripped the roof ledge, much higher than Sheldon could reach. She reached her long right arm down until both her arms were completely stretched. She held out her hand. “I can pull you up,” she said. “I won’t drop you.”

Sheldon’s heart raced with excitement added to his fear as he looked at her muscle-bulging forearm, extra pale in the wan school lighting. She really is supergirl, he thought, trusting her completely. He reached up and gripped her big strong hand, then let go and wrapped his other hand around hers, clinging tight to her powerful fingers. She wrapped his hands in a tight, unbreakable grip and flexed her muscular, powerful arm, hauling his weight up as if he were a knapsack instead of a chubby nerd. She flexed her left arm and smoothly did a one-armed pull-up with both their weight. She was trembling with effort now, but lifted Sheldon with her right arm until he could grab the roof ledge.

Sheldon and Dena hauled themselves onto the roof, Sheldon gasping and laughing, Dena breathing hard and grinning, shaking out her long ropy muscles. She enjoyed the exertion and the challenge.

“Oh my god, that was incredible,” Sheldon gasped. “You’re so strong! You’re amazing!”

Dena was pleased, though she felt a little guilty for showing off like that. She was glad Sheldon appreciated it and didn’t think she was some sort of freak.

A haze of marijuana smoke drifted past them. The bullies Leon and Greg were smoking up on the roof. “Oh look it’s the freaks and the geeks,” Leon called out with a sneer. “Come on Greg, let’s get out of here before they narc on us.”

“You should run away, cowards!” Sheldon yelled after them, incensed.

Leon turned back. “Who you calling coward? You’re lucky you have that big ugly dyke protecting you. She probably mistook your tiny penis for a pussy, you pussy.”

“At least I’m not a remedial, third-string, loser wannabe with no future!” Sheldon yelled.

This hit home and Leon bristled. “Why you little punk,” he growled menacingly, taking a step toward them.

Dena automatically stepped forward. “Um Leon, let’s go,” Greg said nervously, eyeing Dena’s intimidating height and huge bulging muscles. She looks hot in that slinky dress, he thought to himself, but he would never admit it. He also remembered their last encounter, and felt more fear than Leon.

Leon was still angry but remembered how easily she made him piss his pants. He was a bully but not completely stupid. “Whatever. Freaks,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. He and Greg disappeared down through the roof access.

Dena and Sheldon found a spot to sit that looked out over the sparkling lights of the city. Dena sat quietly with Sheldon, lost in her own thoughts, replaying the encounter in her head. “Don’t listen to those losers,” Sheldon said in disgust, interrupting her self-reflection.

“You shouldn’t provoke them,” Dena said softly.

“I know. But I couldn’t just let them insult you like that!”

Dena smiled tightly. “I’ve been called worse,” she said in barely a whisper. “I don’t care what they say,” she continued, lying a little. “They’re right, though. I really am a freak. I know that.”

Sheldon reached over and took her huge, powerful hand in his small soft pudgy fingers. “No you’re not, Dena. You’re beautiful,” he said fervently. He squeezed her fist as tight as he could. It felt like squeezing a boulder.

“You really think so?” Dena asked in a small, quiet, insecure voice.

“Of course I do,” he said. “I can’t believe you agreed to come to the dance with me. I got a date with you! I’m so lucky! I never in a thousand years thought you’d say yes.”

Dena was silent for a moment, thinking that over. “Then why did you ask?”

“You know those movies where the guy wants to ask the girl on a date and never does, just keeps pining for her until it’s creepy? I didn’t want to be that guy.”

Dena smiled. “You’re not. You really wanted to ask me out that much? And you thought I’d say no? I don’t know if I would have done that. I think that’s pretty brave.”

“Thanks. So, why did you say yes?”

She shrugged. “You asked.” She knew that was inadequate, but it was hard for her to admit the real reason. So she took her cue from Sheldon’s brave, straightforward approach and said it anyway. “And… I like you.”

Holy cow, Sheldon thought, unable to believe this was happening. Just do it! he told himself, his heart hammering with nerves and fear. “Dena,” Sheldon squeezed her hand and hesitated, then plunged ahead, “can I kiss you?”

Dena looked down at Sheldon’s big eyes behind his thick glasses and saw his hopeful, scared expression. Her own dark eyes glistened in the dim city light. “Yes,” she whispered.

She lowered her mouth to his and he turned his face up to greet her. Slowly and awkwardly their lips pressed together, neither quite certain what they were doing. Gradually they did what came naturally. They closed their eyes and let their lips find a rhythm. The extended kiss grew deeper and hungrier as their dry mouths grew wetter.

Sheldon reached around Dena’s broad, hard shoulders and clutched her hard, flexing deltoid muscles as she clutched him back. He hesitantly thrust his tongue against her lips. Surprised, Dena parted her lips to accept his tongue, wrestling back with her own. Thus emboldened, Sheldon thrust with more enthusiasm, kissing Dena with gusto, clutching her immensely powerful body as hard as he could, as pleasure and warmth and hormones surged through him.

Dena tightened her embrace, pulling Sheldon’s small soft pudgy body into her hard-muscled chest. The chill of the night air through her strapless dress tented her big nipples into hard thimbles that dug painfully deep into his chest. Her biceps crushed into him like steel bands, coiling tighter and tighter until he struggled to breathe, but he was unwilling to break off his first kiss for such a petty reason as having the breath crushed out of him.

Finally Dena opened her eyes and released Sheldon, who drew in a deep shuddering breath and winced at the bruising pain her crushing embrace had dug into his sore muscles.

“I’m sorry!” Dena said in alarm, afraid that she’d unintentionally damaged him.

“Don’t be!” Sheldon reassured her quickly. “That was my first kiss!”

“Mine too,” Dena admitted.

“It was better than I ever dreamed,” Sheldon said, gazing deep into Dena’s eyes.

Dena smiled shyly. “Yeah. For me too.”

After sitting silently for a while, basking in each other’s company, warm and happy despite the chill fall air, Sheldon said, “I’d like the last slow dance with you. I’ve never done that.”

“Okay. Me neither. I’d like it, too.”

Dena and Sheldon got up and went to the edge they’d climbed over. They looked down the building. “Up seemed easier,” Sheldon said doubtfully.

“I can carry you on my back,” Dena offered hesitantly. “If you don’t mind. You don’t have to.”

“I’d love to!” When Dena cocked her head at him with a curious look, he said, “You know I like how strong you are, right?” Sheldon immediately looked chagrined. “I hope that didn’t come off as creepy or anything,” he mumbled.

“No, I already knew that,” Dena reassured him. “I’ve been showing off a little for you, actually.” Sheldon’s eyes widened in surprise. Dena’s lips quirked in a small smile. “I know you like it, but it’s still hard for me to believe. I don’t think… Guys don’t usually like women who are stronger than them.”

“Dena, you’re stronger than everybody!” Sheldon blurted. “And I love that about you!”

“Oh,” Dena said softly, taken aback by his enthusiasm. She was a little uncomfortable and even embarrassed. The emotional damage from years of feeling like a freak needed more than one evening to reverse. She needed time to sort out her feelings.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Sheldon said, picking up on her inner turmoil. He looked down in embarrassed shame.

He looked up when Dena wrapped her big hand around his shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. Gentle for her was still strong enough to painfully crush his shoulder.

“It’s okay.” Dena wanted to say she was glad he’d told her, but she couldn’t form the right words to express her feelings. Instead, she said, “Climb on, then.”

Sheldon clambered on to Dena’s muscular back. He wrapped his chubby arms around her strong neck. It felt like hugging a tree trunk. He wrapped his legs around her trim hard waist. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Dena’s eyes widened. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“Yes. Do you want me to get off? Err… I mean get down?”

“No. I’m flattered, I think,” Dena said, surprisingly pleased at the effect she had on Sheldon.

She climbed down with no difficulty, her hard bulging muscles working smoothly as she descended. She felt Sheldon digging into her back the whole way down. He was excited by her strength. She didn’t know how she felt about that.

He hopped down off her back once they were on the ground. Dena found her heels and slipped them back on, towering over Sheldon even more than normal with the added boost. They headed inside for the last few minutes of the Homecoming dance.

“We were looking for you!” Bobbi Jo said, running over to embrace Dena in a powerful hug between their two muscular Amazonian bodies. Her huge soft breasts crushed into Dena’s rock-solid chest.

“I wanted some air,” Dena said apologetically. “Congratulations, you and Connor look amazing and totally deserve to be King and Queen.”

Bobbi Jo giggled. “Thank you!” She leaned in and whispered in Dena’s ear, “He kissed you didn’t he?”

Dena nodded. Bobbi Jo squeezed her again and gathered the team and their boyfriends, girlfriends, or dance partners together for the final dance.

Ning had obviously worked up the courage to ask Tanya to dance. Tanya pulled Ning into her powerful embrace for the last dance. Heels boosted her already towering height, so she was just shy of a foot and a half taller than the tiny slim nerd. With her height and powerful, muscular athlete’s body she looked like a dark Amazonian goddess devouring her tiny prey as she pulled his small head into her huge breasts. His thick glasses disappeared into her warm, soft brown cleavage.

Dena watched Sheldon watching the other pair and wished she had breasts like Tanya so she could do that; she wondered if Sheldon liked when Tanya did that to him earlier. She sighed and embraced him in her long muscular arms; in her heels she was herself almost a full foot and a half taller than Sheldon’s five and a half foot height. She didn’t know if he wanted to be pulled to her chest or not, so she was surprised when he pulled her close. “Do you mind if I rest my cheek on your chest?” he asked shyly. Dena crushed his face to her big hard muscle-bulging chest and hugged him so tight she lifted him off the ground. She was so strong she hardly noticed his weight as he dangled in her arms, and he didn’t complain as his cheek rested half on her strapless dress and half directly against her thick, dense, hard pectoral muscle. He felt and heard her heart thrumming powerfully in her deeply muscled chest.

She let him back down to the floor and swayed with him through the last dance of the night, a saccharine-sweet slow pop number just old enough to be a “classic” to the young students.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asked when the song was almost over.

“Yes,” she whispered.

And they did.

It was a mild weekend in December, unseasonably warm. Dena and Bobbi Jo were at a remote climbing spot almost a two hour drive away. It was a technically challenging climb and Bobbi Jo wanted the practice, so she was up first placing their pitons, with Dena climbing behind.

Bobbi Jo was working hard, big strong muscles bulging as she searched the cliff for the next handhold. Dena privately admired Bobbi Jo’s full, muscular butt and long muscular legs. No woman should have curves that perfect. Dena tried not to stare too much, which was easy since the climb was challenging even for her. She had to pay close attention to their ascent. Even so, she was confused by the intensity of her physical attraction to Bobbi Jo. No doubt Bobbi Jo was breath-takingly beautiful, but Dena didn’t know her own sexuality. Could she be bisexual? She thought about Cheryl’s offer and Tanya’s legendarily voracious sexual appetite more than she cared to admit, imagining the big girls’ muscular athletic beautiful bodies writhing naked together, and imagining them in her own even bigger and more muscular arms.

Today, however, Dena wasn’t focused on her own feelings, nor on her possible attraction to her teammates and opponents. She could sense something was off with Bobbi Jo. Something was bothering her friend.

Bobbi Jo reached too far and her foot slipped. She grabbed hard on her handholds and held her body up, big biceps and deltoids flaring, arms trembling with the effort as she felt for a toehold.

The big blonde had been climbing fast and without her usual careful, measured approach. Dena was alarmed at Bobbi Jo’s recklessness. “Be careful,” she called up.

“Why? You’ll catch me. You can lift a two hundred pound man in one arm, I think you can handle me. You’re fucking supergirl,” Bobbi Jo spat bitterly.

Dena didn’t reply. She was hurt by Bobbi Jo’s unexpected viciousness. She was also startled and hurt that word had spread about what she’d done to Leon and Greg. She hadn’t thought Sheldon would blab about she’d done, but she hadn’t told him to keep it secret. Still, she was upset and disappointed.

They finished the rest of the brutal ascent with minimal chatter and rested at the top, breathing hard from the difficult climb. A cold wind started to blow. Bobbi Jo defiantly refused to cross her arms, letting the wind chill her skin into goosebumps.

“What’s wrong?” Dena finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

Bobbi Jo turned away. “Sheldon didn’t tell anyone. I knew that would bother you, which is why I said it. I’m sorry.”

Dena closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief. The thought that Sheldon was spreading that story around the school had bothered her more than she’d admitted to herself during the rest of the climb up. She wasn’t sure why, but she would have felt betrayed by him bringing all that unwanted attention to her. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Bobbi Jo chewed her full lip and explained, “Leon and Greg are having some sort of fight, I’ve heard. Anyway, Greg is really pissed off, so he’s been going around talking about how you made Leon piss his pants.” She turned back to Dena with a small guilty smile. “Sheldon wouldn’t do anything to embarrass you. He’s loyal to a fault. He always has been. You know that, right? He loves you, Dena. It’s obvious. Jesus, he fucking worships you.” She said the last part with a bitter laugh.

Dena was surpised that Bobbi Jo and Sheldon knew each other, and marveled that Sheldon had the respect of someone like Bobbi Jo. He was full of surprises. But she could think about that later. Right now, she watched her beautiful friend suffer and her heart broke for her. It wasn’t like Bobbi Jo to curse. She didn’t consider it proper or ladylike, and didn’t think it set a good example. She took her job as an athlete and role model very seriously. “What’s wrong, Bobbi Jo?” she asked again.

Bobbi Jo looked away. “Connor’s been cheating on me,” she whispered. Then she looked back at Dena to see her reaction.

“What?” Dena was startled. This was the last thing she expected to hear. How could Connor dare to cheat on Bobbi Jo? And why? Dena had never met a more beautiful, warm, yet intimidating woman than Bobbi Jo. She couldn’t imagine Connor, or anyone else, wanting to cheat on her. “Who is she?”

“It’s not a she.” Bobbi Jo laughed bitterly again and wiped her wet eyes. “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Funny thing, he’s one of Sheldon’s friends. Pete, that mouthy little nerd. He’s been sucking Connor off after practice.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m such an idiot. Everyone will know my boyfriend is gay. I’ll be a laughingstock!”

Dena was quiet a moment. “Are you more upset he cheated on you or that he humiliated you?” she asked.

That brought Bobbi Jo up short. She gave a small, surprised laugh and wiped her eyes. “You’re pretty sharp,” she said, eyeing Dena with new respect. “I think… Both. I love him. But I also love the idea of him. I loved being crowned at Homecoming with him. I thought I was going to be prom queen.” She barked out a laugh at herself. “Oh god, I’m so shallow!”

“You’re not,” Dena said. She wasn’t usually one to discuss her feelings, and nobody ever accused her of being chatty. But her friend was hurting, so she took her cue from Sheldon’s straightforward and brave honesty and blurted out, “You’re kind and brilliant and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. You’re my best friend, Bobbi Jo. I’ve never had a best friend before, but it’s funny, I feel like I’ve known you for years. Like you just fit, you know? I love you.”

Dena’s pale cheeks immediately turned bright in embarrassment. She couldn’t believe she’d just said that out loud.

Bobbi Jo stared at Dena in surprise. A smile slowly spread across her tear-streaked face. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed to hear that. I love you too, Dena.” She looked out over the beautiful forest below, the wind whipping her thick mane of long blonde hair. She looked like a Valkyrie on the cliff top.

After a few minutes of companionable silence she finally turned back to Dena. “Let’s talk about something else. How’s it going with your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know if Sheldon is my boyfriend,” Dena said, surprised but willing to change the subject.

“What do you mean?”

“He never said I’m his girlfriend. He hasn’t asked me.”

“But you hang out, right?”

Dena nodded. Sheldon was friendly at school, and had asked her to the movies a few times, and dinner once. She had said yes when she could, which wasn’t often. They went climbing on occasion, and Sheldon was getting much better. He could scale the beginner ascent and was more confident bouldering. He was eating better and climbing on his own, and his body was slowly changing from sedentary chub to a more muscular stockiness.

They were both busy, Dena especially so with multiple varsity teams, college applications, college recruiters, and a full course load of honors and advanced placement classes. They had very separate lives and she wondered what their status was, wondered if they were even a couple. She didn’t have experience in these things and was grateful to talk to Bobbi Jo about it.

Dena told most of this to Bobbi Jo. “I don’t know what we are,” she finished.

“Did you two do it?” Bobbi Jo asked bluntly.

“We…” Dena blushed. “We haven’t, you know.”

“What? Not ever?”

Dena shook her head. “He’s never tried to… um… you know.”

Bobbi Jo shook her head and laughed in disbelief. “Oral? Second base?” Dena shook her head again. “Anything?” Dena shrugged. Bobbi Jo made a disbelieving face. “What do you do together, then?” Without waiting for Dena to answer, she continued quietly, “Do you want to do more with him?”

Dena’s blush deepened. “Yes,” she admitted.

“Have you asked him to?”

Dena stared at the ground and fidgeted uncomfortably. “No,” she mumbled.

“Why the heck not?”

“I’m afraid he won’t want to. He hasn’t tried anything yet. Maybe…” Dena hesitated before voicing her worst fear. “I’m afraid it’s because I’m not pretty,” she whispered.

“That’s ridiculous,” Bobbi Jo said immediately, then regretted it when she saw the misery on Dena’s face. Her tone softened. “Dena, one, you are beautiful, you’re going to figure that out some day, and two, seriously, that little nerd worships you.”

“Then why won’t he touch me?” Dena pleaded.

Bobbi Jo gazed fondly at her huge friend. “Here, hold up your hand.” Dena did, looking puzzled. Bobbi Jo held her fingers up. She had big, strong, long-fingered hands, but they looked like a child’s hands next to Dena’s. “Look how much bigger than me you are. And you may have noticed that I’m not a small lady! I’m even bigger than Sheldon in comparison. So you’re like twice his size, easy. And look at you, you’re unbelievably strong, you look like you could rip a man’s arms off if he tried anything!”

“I wouldn’t!” Dena protested indignantly.

Bobbi Jo grinned wickedly. “I know. But you could!”

Dena considered this in her thoughtful, methodical way. “He’s afraid of me?” she finally asked in a hushed, miserable voice. “I would never hurt him!”

“I know. I’m sorry, I said it badly,” Bobbi Jo said apologetically. “I’m sure he’s not afraid of you, exactly, more like respectful. I’ve known Sheldon almost our whole lives. He’s always been a nerd, you know, and he’s never had a girlfriend before. I know he wants you to be his girlfriend. It’s obvious. So maybe he’s nervous. Maybe he thinks when the time is right you’ll tell him. So tell him already.”

“You really think so?”

Bobbi Jo squeezed Dena’s huge steel-hard hands. “Yeah, dummy, I do.” She looked up and up at Dena’s troubled face. The huge Amazon bit her lip in nervous thought.

“You really are beautiful, you know,” Bobbi Jo whispered. She reached up and hugged Dena as hard as she could. She wasn’t used to feeling so small with another woman, but it felt right with Dena somehow. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek on Dena’s powerful, muscular chest. “I’m glad you’re my friend. You’re a good person, Dena.”

Dena’s eyes widened in surprised as she looked down at Bobbi Jo. She wrapped her powerful arms around the beautiful, curvy blonde Amazon. “Thank you,” she whispered, taking comfort from Bobbi Jo’s embrace. Even in the midst of her own pain, Bobbi Jo was kind and generous. Melancholy tears welled up in Dena’s eyes. She was proud and happy to have Bobbi Jo as a friend, but her heart broke for what her friend was going through. “I’ll always be your friend, Bobbi Jo,” she whispered fiercely, clutching her close.

Dena and Sheldon sat on Dena’s couch watching a movie. The stars had aligned: it was a Saturday night, Dena had an early game that Sheldon had come to watch and cheer her on as they won, her father had to work late, and her sister Gina was going to a sleepover. Dena invited Sheldon over for a double feature of romantic comedy and science fiction.

Sheldon was applying early to MIT and other top academic universities. He was in high demand due to his perfect grades and fierce team leadership and individual performance in the national Math Olympiad. He was being considered for the international team.

Dena was in the middle of an unexpected growth spurt. Normally girls stopped growing by fifteen, maybe sixteen; it was late in life and very unusual for an eighteen year old girl to have her last growth spurt. Dena wasn’t happy about it; although she liked being big and strong, she didn’t like feeling like even more of a freak than she already did. She had gained an inch in height, growing to six feet nine inches tall. It was getting even harder to walk through doors, especially ones with shorter frames.

Where most girls her age were maturing and filling out into womanly curves, Dena was filling out her long ropy muscles with huge muscle mass, her muscular limbs bulging on her slim athletic frame. She’d gained over ten pounds, mostly muscle, putting her slightly over two hundred seventy-five pounds, and she was always hungry. She naturally had extremely, almost punishingly, low bodyfat, and now she was more muscular than ever. The extra muscle mass really popped under her pale blue-veined skin, making her look even more intimidating and dominating on the court.

It was college recruiting season. The school was dominating the state high school ladder, and the entire team was being actively recruited by top athletic colleges; none more so than Dena. Despite whispers that her body couldn’t possibly be natural, she’d passed all her drug tests. Freakishly big and strong, she was called, but not to her face. Recruiters openly discussed her chances of going on to the WNBA some day. It was a lot for the naturally reserved superjock, but she was competitive, driven, and determined.

Dena was also outgrowing her clothes again, which took her by surprise. At this rate she’d need a whole new wardrobe. She knew her father couldn’t afford to buy her all new outfits, especially with Gina hitting a growth spurt of her own, so she’d taken to shopping for fabric at thrift stores and altering her own clothes. Bobbi Jo was helping out too; she was a good seamstress and had a keen eye for fashion. Bobbi Jo wasn’t spending much time with her boyfriend Connor these days; they hadn’t quite broken up, but rather entered a strange and strained part of their relationship that Dena didn’t understand. Dena was grateful for the help but sad for her best friend’s rocky romance.

Dena lay her head down in Sheldon’s lap and wriggled into a comfortable position as the movie played. Sheldon was surprised at the affectionate move; Dena was normally shy, if not stand-offish, and they hadn’t gone farther than the occasional kiss. He hesitantly moved his hand down and stroked her soft silky black hair. “That’s nice,” she murmured. He looked at her bare muscular neck, a jagged network of thick blue veins under her pale skin. Her huge body seemed to throb with barely contained, raw muscular power.

He started to get a hard-on. Oh god please no, he thought, embarrassed, but Dena didn’t seem to mind. She reached for his hand and swallowed it in her enormous palm. Her grip was like a hot steel clamp around his tiny fist. She’s holding my whole hand like I’m a tiny doll, he thought, pulse racing.

Dena’s own heart pounded in her ears. She reminded herself of Bobbi Jo’s words, and trusted that the beautiful blonde knew a lot more about boys than she did. She was afraid of Sheldon’s reaction, but more afraid of not trying anything. She brought his hand down to her chest. She was wearing a plain gray sweatshirt, baggy at the waist and tight across her broad chest and shoulders. She pressed his little hand into her thick muscular chest.

Sheldon instantly tensed and his hand grew rigid in hers. Dena felt a wave of disappointment and rejection threatening to crush her and struggled to breathe. Please no, she thought, please don’t let me be wrong, followed quickly by a strong regret she didn’t have nice soft breasts.

“Can… can I feel you?” Sheldon asked quietly, hopefully.

For a long moment Dena lay silent and confused as her disappointment turned to hope. “Yes,” she finally whispered.

Sheldon awkwardly groped her steel-hard pectoral muscle. As he realized Dena wasn’t stopping him, but instead wriggling her giant body to give him better access, he grew bolder. Her chest felt as big and hard as a slab of marble under her sweatshirt. He moved his fingers down and found her big hard nipple, like a thimble poking out of the vast slab of hard chest muscle. He hesitated a moment before squeezing the hard nub.

Dena gasped and writhed urgently. “Yesss…” she hissed.

Encouraged, Sheldon tweaked her nipple, twisting and squeezing it harder and harder. Even with all his strength he couldn’t hurt her sensitive nipple, and the harder he twisted the more Dena’s immense body responded, arching her back and shoving her chest against his hand. She rubbed her soft black hair against his crotch, encouraging his throbbing erection.

Sheldon couldn’t believe he was groping this magnificent, beautiful goddess. He was determined to make her as happy as he could. He was in heaven on the couch working her up to a hot and heavy moaning and would happily play with her nipple for hours if that’s what she demanded of him.

Dena reached down and pulled up her sweatshirt, revealing her bare bra-less pale torso. She looked like a muscle anatomy chart, blue veins on pale skin over huge, bulging muscles that rippled in powerful waves. Her deeply defined abs led like a cobblestone road up to her full, thick, heavy pecs, which had a deep line of muscle cleavage between them. Obliques flared in thick ridges around her back and sides. Sheldon paused, gazing down in awe and lust.

“What?” Dena asked, suddenly shy and self-conscious. Had lifting her shirt been a mistake?

“You’re…” Sheldon was about to say amazing but changed his mind. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered in awe.

It was exactly what Dena needed to hear. She gripped the back of his head, pulled him down, and lunged up to crush her lips against his, kissing him urgently and passionately. Sheldon kissed back with equal ferocity, roaming his hand across her thick muscular chest and squeezing the marble-like slabs as hard as he could. He pulled hard on her big thick nipple and Dena gasped in pleasure. “Harder,” she insisted as they gasped for breath between kisses. “Harder. Harder!” He pulled and twisted with all his might but he was no match for her strength or incredible toughness, and Dena’s body warmed and shuddered with delicious pleasure. Her other hand plunged down into her pants. “Harder!” she shouted in ecstasy. “Harrrrderrrr ohh god ohhh!” She crushed his lips painfully hard, shoved her tongue deep down his throat, and threatened to crush his skull like an eggshell in her vice-like grip as an orgasm thundered through her body. She squirted hard as she furiously fingered herself, soaking right through her panties and jeans.

“Ow,” Sheldon gasped through his haze of pain. His boner throbbed harder than ever.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Dena repeated in a happy whisper over and over, hardly knowing what she was saying or doing. “Oh god thank you. Oh god,” she was laughing now.

“Did you… come?” Sheldon asked hesitantly, fascinated.

Dena laughed and gasped and nodded vigorously. “Yes. Yes. Oh yes,” she giggled. She looked down at the soaking crotch of her jeans. “Oops,” she said happily. She looked him deep in his eyes, her own warm brown eyes sparkling with mischief. “Come to my room,” she invited, panting with lust.

Sheldon gulped in excitement and nervousness. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Standing was awkward with his impediment, but he followed the giant Amazon upstairs, watching her hips sway on her long powerfully muscled legs as she walked, her broad athletic shoulders tapering to a slim hard waist. She turned at her doorway and smiled down at him, inviting him inside. At six feet nine inches she towered over him by fifteen inches and outweighed him by a solid one hundred twenty-five pounds of rock-hard muscle. Sheldon took a deep breath and entered her room. She followed him inside and closed the door.

Sheldon turned around to face Dena and was surprised by her big hand on his chest. With a hard shove that felt like a cannonball hitting his chest she sent him sprawling back on to her bed. He looked up and up and up at her gigantic body towering over him. She smiled down at him and he hesitantly smiled back, not sure what she was about to do.

Dena grabbed the bottom of her sweatshirt and pulled it up and over her head, tossing it aside and baring her hard muscle-bulging torso. Her pale skin gleamed in bright contrast to her coal-black hair. She hesitated a moment, then stripped off her jeans and socks, too. She looked down at Sheldon’s awe-struck expression, bit her lip uncertainly, then made her decision. She removed her soaked panties, pulling them down her incredibly long, exceedingly muscular legs and kicking them to the corner where they landed with a wet splat.

Sheldon had seen her stomach and bare arms and shoulders in her basketball jersey – and her legs, of course. But this was his first time seeing any girl completely naked in real life, much less an Amazonian muscle-goddess like Dena. She bulged everywhere. He stared up in wide-eyed wonder.

Dena suddenly felt very vulnerable. Standing nude in front of Sheldon was different than being casually naked around her teammates. She self-consciously placed an arm in front of her chest, wishing for the millionth time she had bigger breasts, and crossed her long legs. She looked down at the floor, again shy. Acutely aware of what she thought of as all her flaws, all her doubts came rushing back now that she was naked. Her face was too long, she wasn’t pretty, she was too pale, too muscular, too flat-chested; she was all hard, sharp angles, not curvy and soft “like a girl should be.” How could he think she was beautiful? Would he still, now that he saw her naked?

“Dena,” Sheldon whispered. She looked down at him nervously. He swallowed hard, looking lost and confused and every bit as nervous and scared as Dena was. “I don’t know what to do next,” he admitted.

Dena stared at Sheldon, surprised and relieved. He stared back at her. And with that one shared moment of absurdity, her fears and insecurities evaporated. She started to giggle. Then he laughed, and soon both of them were shaking with laughter. Dena sat down heavily next to him on the bed as she giggled. Even sitting she towered over him.

“What do you want to do?” she asked as their laughter died down.

“I want to kiss you again,” Sheldon said.

Dena leaned down and gently kissed him on the lips. He pulled back, licked his dry lips to moisten them, then leaned into her to kiss her again. “What else?” she asked in a low, husky voice.

“Can I feel your breasts again?” he asked hesitantly.

In response, Dena wrapped her long fingers around his smaller hand and brought it to her chest. After a moment of hesitation Sheldon stroked her warm, pale skin. He slowly explored her hard pectoral muscle before bringing his fingers to stroke gently at her big nipple. He looked up at her to check if what he was doing was okay with her. It was.

Dena took his other hand and put it on the inside of her muscular thigh. She started stroking herself with his hand, moving it closer to her wet, aroused pussy. He trailed his fingers through the finely-trimmed black fur of her bush.

Sheldon was surprised to feel how wet she was. His heart raced with arousal and nervousness; thrilled at the incredible reality that Dena was letting him explore her gorgeous, naked, Amazonian body; terrified he would do something wrong.

“Right there,” Dena whispered, guiding his fingers to her slick labia. She pushed his middle finger into her tight wet pussy. He surprised her by flicking her clit with his thumb. “Yesss,” she hissed. She pumped his finger in and out of her until he found her rhythm and started thrusting his finger on his own. She closed her eyes and pulled his face into her hard, unyielding, thickly-muscled chest. Her skin was hot against his cheek.

Growing bolder, Sheldon kissed her right breast while he fingered her and fondled her left breast and big, hard nipple. Her bulging pec muscles were solid and imposing under her hot, soft, milky white skin; her areolae like puffy pink targets on that strong, thickly-muscled chest. He gently took her big nipple into his mouth and licked the hard, fleshy nub. Dena ground her wet pussy into his hand with urgent, almost frantic, arousal.

Dena tangled her long fingers in Sheldon’s hair and crushed his face to her hard muscular tit. “Harder,” she gasped as she painfully ground his head. Her other hand crushed his wrist in her frighteningly strong grip until he felt pins and needles and thought his wrist bones were bending and grinding. He whimpered in pain.

“Sorry!” Dena squeaked softly, easing off on her bone-crunching grip.

“It’s okay,” Sheldon murmured into her nipple, continuing his kissing and licking. He pushed a second finger into her tight, wet pussy and fingered her as fast and hard as he could. She was so wet and slick, his fingers made squelching sounds as he fingered her. The strong scent of her arousal filled his nostrils with a heady promise of sexual delight. He could hardly believe this was real; that he was fondling and fingering this gigantic, powerful, muscular Amazon, turning her on so forcefully. Him! Nerdy, chubby little Sheldon giving a goddess like Dena such pleasure! It filled him with a warm rush of pride to accompany his arousal.

For her part, Dena couldn’t believe her seduction of Sheldon was working out so well. This was better than she’d dared fantasize. She was having trouble thinking straight with the pleasure surging through her giant, powerful, extremely aroused body. She panted and groaned as she felt her climax building.

Sheldon sensed her approaching orgasm. He thrust his fingers into her pussy with a fast frantic rhythm, and suckled hard on one of her big sensitive nipples while he pinched her other one.

Dena panted and groaned as she felt her climax building. She tried not to hurt Sheldon, but it was hard to think of his comfort in the heat of her passion; all she wanted to do was crush the sexy little nerd against her big powerful body and wrap him in her strong unstoppable muscles. She cradled his head in her muscular arm and urgently crushed him hard against her chest as she reached a gasping, shuddering, moaning crescendo.

“Ohhhh,” Dena moaned as she tensed up in orgasm. Her bicep smashed his face hard into her big smothering chest and her thighs involuntarily slammed together, crushing Sheldon’s hand and wrist in thick, hard, grinding muscle while her throbbing, gushing wet pussy clamped tight around his fingers.

“Wow,” she whispered, relaxing and easing off her powerful, crushing grip on Sheldon. She giggled. “Oh wow,” she repeated. She opened her eyes and looked down at Sheldon. She smiled at his awed, worshipful expression, feeling powerful and sexy.

“That’s twice now,” Dena said huskily, “you’ve gotten me all worked up! What can I do for you?” she asked in a low whisper dripping with promise. “Tell me and I’ll do anything you want,” she offered, with an emphasis on “anything.”

Despite the fact that this whole evening was her plan, she almost couldn’t believe her own boldness. She’d fantasized about an evening like this, but she’d never actually talked like this before. It was out of character for the normally reserved superjock; she felt like some sort of sex kitten, but she liked it. She felt powerful and beautiful, like she could do anything with Sheldon and it would be sexy and fun and wonderful… and he would love it.

Sheldon immediately blushed and stared at his feet. He was shy and embarrassed at the first request that had popped into his head.

“Tell me,” Dena ordered playfully. Sheldon squirmed. Now Dena was dying of curiosity. “Anything! Whatever it is I won’t get mad. I promise,” she said.

“Umm… there is something I’d like to do, but I don’t know if you’re going to like it.”

“Tell me,” Dena ordered again, apprehensive.

“I… I think it would be cool if… if you would pick me up,” Sheldon admitted reluctantly.

“‘Pick you up?’ What do you mean?”

Sheldon took a deep breath, steeling his courage and readying himself for humiliating rejection. “Umm… Lift me up. Like you did with Leon and Greg.”

“Oh.” Dena considered a moment. “That’s it? Why wouldn’t I like that?”

“I dunno. It’s a bit… weird, and I know you don’t like showing off like that.”

“I like it for you,” Dena said quietly. She bounced off the bed and loomed over Sheldon; a naked, gigantic, and intimidating Amazonian muscle goddess.

He looked up and gulped, excited and nervous. He had been so prepared for her to be angry – or, worse, disgusted – that he could hardly believe that she had instead agreed so readily and was really going to do this for him. She seemed playful, almost eager.

Dena grinned evilly down at Sheldon. She reached down with her muscular, powerful right arm and grabbed his belt. He was lighter than Greg the bully and she was much stronger than she was a few months ago, so she easily hauled him off the bed with one arm and held him dangling in front of her. “Like this…” she asked playfully, then lifted him higher until his head almost hit the ceiling. “Or like this?” She grinned up at him as she held him out with one bulging muscular arm, her other hand resting on her cocked hip, her feet planted firmly in a wide stance.

“This is so sexy,” Sheldon whispered in awe, his hard-on surging and making him light-headed. He reached out with trembling hands and felt Dena’s steely hard-muscled forearm, felt up her arm to her thick round bicep, which felt as hard as a boulder. He traced the big vein snaking over her bulging bicep. For some strange reason this moment of being lifted in the air, held aloft by the naked Amazon and dangling at the end of her trembling, powerful, muscular arm, felt more intimate and more deeply personal than fingering her. Dena seemed to feel it too; her cocky grin faded as she looked up at him with an expression somewhere between proud and nervous. She looked shy and hopeful… and devastatingly gorgeous. “You are so sexy,” Sheldon breathed.

Dena smiled and raised a dark eyebrow. “I’m naked, and you’re not,” she observed. With a flick of her powerful wrist, she lightly tossed him onto the bed, careful to make sure he landed safely. He bounced on her mattress.

“Clothes. Off. Now,” she growled. She smiled playfully, almost embarrassed, unsure of herself despite her boldly assertive order.

Sheldon blushed but didn’t argue. He wriggled out of his shirt and pants and socks. He hesitated before pulling off his boxers. “Everything,” Dena ordered. She frowned, worried; maybe she’d gone too far or done something off. Sex and boys sometimes seemed like a terrifying minefield to the eighteen year-old virgin. “What’s wrong?”

Sheldon pulled his boxers off and stood naked in front of her. He looked at them together in her wall mirror. The comparison was laughable. As usual, he dealt with his fear and insecurity by charging ahead. He took a deep breath, put his hands on his hips, and said with smiling bravado, “I just don’t know if you can handle all this!”

Dena smiled and felt a thrill at his cocky attitude. “I don’t know either,” she said playfully, “but I’m willing to find out!” She reached under his arms, clamped her huge hands and steely strong fingers around his chest and back, and lifted him into the air as easily as a child. They were eye-to-eye, and his feet dangled more than a foot off the floor. She brought him to her mouth and kissed him passionately. He responded and his hard-on throbbed against her rock-hard stomach, leaking pre-cum.

Dena was nervous being this aggressively sexual and dominant, but she was immensely powerful, and he seemed to honestly like her strength. “Sheldon,” she said hesitantly. “I want to try something.”

Sheldon’s nostrils flared with lust. “Yes, anything!” he breathed.

“Keep your body as straight as you can,” Dena warned. She kept hold of his right side in her left hand, then shifted her right hand grip to his left thigh. She turned his body horizontal, hoisted him into the air, and pressed him overhead, almost to the ceiling.

“Dena!? What are you…” Sheldon began to exclaim in surprise, but then he just groaned as Dena lowered his cock into her hot, wet mouth. “Ohhhh…”

Though she’d never given a blowjob before, her teammates talked in the locker room. She clamped her lips around his cock and pressed him up and down overhead. With her head tilted up, it was relatively easy to deep-throat him. She found it more fun than she expected, focusing on the challenge of taking him entirely inside her mouth and down her throat without gagging. She swallowed a lot, working up her saliva, tasting his salty pre-cum.

Sheldon was in heaven. He stared lustily at Dena’s huge muscles flexing as she worked him up and down, in and out, as tirelessly as a machine. Her lips and tongue and throat worked his sensitive shaft, close and tight, warm and wet. She lowered him all the way in, resting his balls on her lips, then slid her tongue out to wash over his balls.

“Oh my god,” Sheldon breathed, nearly hyperventilating in surprised lusty pleasure. “Dena, stop… Dena stop, I’m gonna cum I can’t stop oh I’m sorry…” Sheldon spasmed as he released deep into Dena’s throat.

His climax caught Dena by surprise, but she gamely swallowed and continued sucking his sensitive shaft. When he finished unloading spurts of cum into her mouth she pulled him out with a playful sucking slurp. She held him pressed overhead, looked him straight in the eye, licked her lips, and swallowed the last of his cum. She nuzzled his leaking cock head affectionately, licking the last drips out.

“Oh my god, Dena. Oh, wow. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Sheldon kept repeating in a daze.

“Don’t be. I wanted to do that. I have for a long time,” Dena said happily. “I’m glad you liked it.”

Sheldon laughed, comfortable in her hands; he knew she would never drop him. “Yeah, ‘liked it;’ that’s an understatement!”

Dena laughed and lowered him into a colossal crushing hug. Sheldon looked deep into her warm brown eyes and kissed her slowly, sensually. Dena’s own lust surged in response. “Now, lie down and let me do you,” Sheldon playfully ordered.

“Yes, sir!” Dena replied with a giggle. She obediently lowered Sheldon to the floor and lay back on her bed, opening her long muscular legs invitingly.

Sheldon knelt between Dena’s legs and looked in wonder down at her trimmed black bush and wet pink labia and clit. “What?” Dena asked nervously.

“This is my first time seeing a vagina in real life. Is there any part of you that isn’t sexy?” Sheldon asked in hushed awe. Dena quickly sat up, grabbed the back of his head, and mashed his face into her pussy.

If playing with her nipples and fingering her had set off a bomb in Dena’s pleasure center, Sheldon’s mouth on her clit was a nuclear detonation. Dena’s whole body tensed in orgasmic pleasure as he enthusiastically licked her. After only two minutes she was gushing copiously from her wet pussy, and some five minutes later thunderous orgasms crashed through her body. She arched her back and grabbed his head.

“Oh god don’t stop oh god oh god,” she moaned, grunting and crying out in pleasure. She crushed his face brutally hard into her clit and pussy, humping him up off the bed with powerful bucking thrusts. After a series of orgasms, Sheldon ran his tongue around her engorged pink labia and back to her clit, setting her off again. She slammed him into her pussy harder and harder, mashing him in deeper, clamping her steely huge-muscled thighs and big bone-crushingly powerful hand around his little skull and threatening to crack him open like an egg. “Yes yes YES!” she screamed. “Yeees!” she squeaked quietly at the peak of her most powerful orgasm yet, her magnificent body fully flexed and trembling with unrestrained orgasmic power.

Dena finally flopped down hard on her bed, panting and grunting. “Oh wow,” she repeated.

“Unngh,” Sheldon groaned from between her thighs.

“Oh my god, Sheldon! Are you okay?” Dena asked in a sudden rush of concern and worry. She was so strong and so out of control, what if she had accidentally hurt him?

“Unh huh huh,” Sheldon grunted. He stretched out his hand with his thumb held up. He peeled his face off her marble-hard, pale white thighs, now slick with her juices, and rolled to the side. “Peachy,” he said, smiling weakly up at her. “I would do that for hours,” he whispered happily. “Did you like it?”

Dena laughed. “‘Like it?’ That’s an understatement!” She smiled down at his wet dripping face. “Could you even breathe down there? I don’t think you’d survive for hours.”

“Probably not,” Sheldon agreed happily. “But what a way to go!”

Dena noticed Sheldon’s erection was back with a vengeance and hard as a rock. “Wow,” she said, wrapping her big fist around his cock. “Ready to go again?” She turned over and pulled a condom from a drawer in her nightstand. She giggled at Sheldon’s shocked expression. “I bought this for you,” she said. She wanted him to understand how special he was to her.

Sheldon gulped. “I’ve never…”

“I know. Neither have I.” She nodded when Sheldon’s eyes widened in surprise. “You really were my first kiss, Sheldon,” she whispered. “I’m a virgin, but I’m ready to go all the way with you tonight. I want to. But if you’re not ready yet that’s okay.”

Sheldon looked into her warm brown eyes. They were shining with barely contained emotion. His own feelings were an incomprehensible maelstrom, but he knew one thing. He definitely wanted her. “I’m ready,” he said in a terrified croak.

Dena ripped the condom wrapper open and skillfully unrolled the rubber onto his hard cock. “Girls do have slumber parties, you know. I’ve practiced on a banana,” she explained. She squeezed his cock and felt it throb in response. “This is much better than a banana!”

She lay back and opened her long legs again. She helped Sheldon get into position and coaxed him into her wet and ready pussy. “Slow,” she whispered, adjusting to the sensation as he penetrated her. “Ow ow… no, it’s ok; keep going, just go slow.”

Sheldon had never felt anything like this. Her tight, slick pussy felt amazing, crushing around his cock. “Wow,” he breathed, not believing he was finally having sex, and with a magnificent Amazon goddess beyond his wildest dreams! He pushed in ever so slowly, not wanting to hurt her, wanting this to last forever.

Finally he was all the way in. He pulled out a little. “Yesss,” Dena hissed. Her long, powerful legs wrapped around his hips like a steel vice. She pulled him back in urgently. He thrust back in – back and forth, in and out – delirious with pleasure. That pleasure soon mixed with pain as Dena’s powerful thighs crushed into his hips with bone-crunching strength. Her long steely fingers bit hard into his back, her nails raking across his flesh in a fiery trail.

“Ow,” he gasped in a haze of pain and orgasmic pleasure as Dena pummeled his helpless body like a toy boat caught in an ocean storm. Her huge, crushing, powerful body used his small body like a sex toy, grinding him for her own screaming, thunderous, torturous orgasms. Bliss and pain rammed together in Sheldon’s sex-addled brain and he lost himself in thrusting, timing himself to Dena’s crushing orgasmic spasms, sublimating his pleasure and pain to hers until he wasn’t sure where his needs ended and hers began.

Dena roughly grabbed Sheldon’s hair and slammed his face into her chest as she ground out a long, grunting, squealing orgasm. She crushed him to her rock-hard flexed pectorals and used her other hand to grab his ass in a flesh-bruising crushing grip and slam him deeper into her. She felt his body begin to spasm.

“Yes yes yes!” she cried as he burst forth and spewed into the condom. He was shaking and shuddering and crying with the intensity of his orgasm. Dena felt a final crescendo thunder through her body and crushed him in her steely embrace.

Dena loosened her grip a long few moments after their orgasms had passed, and they both lay gasping. Sheldon rolled off of Dena’s giant body. She gasped and went wide-eyed when she saw the bloody trails her nails had scratched across his back. “Does that hurt?”

“A little,” Sheldon admitted. In truth his body was on fire and his ribs and hips felt like he’d been through a hydraulic press… if the press could give universe-exploding sex.

“I’m sorry,” Dena whispered.

Sheldon grinned. “Don’t be, I’m not. I want to do that again!”

Dena smiled. “Okay,” she agreed readily.

Sheldon carefully pulled off the condom and tied it to prevent leaking. He snuggled into her strong bare shoulder and idly stroked the fingers of one hand across Dena’s rock-hard belly. She wrapped her steel-hard arm around him.

“You planned this?” he asked.

Dena “hmmm’d” into his hair. “Not exactly. This was way better than anything I planned.” She kissed his hair.

After a moment he spoke again. “Can I tell you something a little weird?”

“Sure, Sheldon,” Dena murmured happily. “Anything.”

“I… I liked when you were crushing my head. Maybe you could do it again sometime?” His hand trailed down over Dena’s slim hip to her thigh.

Dena smiled. “For sure. It’s called scissoring.” She laughed at Sheldon’s surprise. “What? I’m on varsity sports teams with a bunch of big Amazons, don’t you think we talk? You’re not the first guy who wants to be squeezed in a girl’s legs, you know. Just the first guy who wants to be squeezed in mine.”

“I bet you could squeeze harder than anyone. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” Sheldon said worshipfully, squeezing her hard muscular thigh. He suddenly grew self-conscious and took his hand away, worried that she wouldn’t like him obsessing over her muscles. “I like that about you. Sorry if that’s weird.”

“It’s a little weird, but I don’t mind. I… I’m kind of growing to like it. I like being strong and muscular. I work hard and I’m proud of that.” She took his hand and put it back on her hard thigh, flexing it for him. The muscle bulged under his hand and she used his fingers to stroke her pale skin. “And I’m glad you like it, too. Really. It’s just…” She hesitated.

“What?” Sheldon asked apprehensively, twisting around to look up at her.

Dena looked away shyly, her pale cheeks reddening. “I know I’m strong. But… I like it when you say I’m beautiful,” she admitted in a whisper. “I know that’s shallow. But, when you say it… I never thought I was pretty, but with you… I think you mean it.”

Sheldon reached up to cup her trembling cheek and looked deep in her vulnerable, hopeful eyes. “You’re more than pretty,” he said. “You’re beautiful!” He pulled her lips to his and kissed her passionately. He moved his hand down to her chiseled chest, groping her marble-hard slab of pectoral muscle. He ran his fingers sensually down the cleft of muscle cleavage between her pecs, then up again to stroke her large pink areola and hard pink nipple. He kissed her cheek, then slowly kissed down her long muscular neck, down her thick hard pecs, finally latching on to her hard nipple, kissing and suckling gently.

“Ohhh, you’re going to get me all worked-up again,” Dena hissed.

“That’s the idea,” Sheldon agreed. He continued kissing and sucking her big sensitive nipple and moved his hand down to her crotch. She involuntarily bucked up and mashed her soft bush into his hand. He groped farther down and slipped his finger into her slick, hot pussy, working it into her while his thumb stroked her hard sensitive clit.

Dena bucked and moaned beneath him as he kissed, licked, sucked, fondled, and fingered her to another orgasm. He pushed three fingers inside her, barely able to fit them in her tight, muscular pussy. She gripped him and clamped down on his fingers with terrifying ferocious power. Dena crushed his face to her chest with one unstoppably-powerful steel-muscled arm and threw her other arm around him in a dangerous embrace, raking her nails across his back, shredding his flesh and moaning and grunting and squeaking out her next series of orgasms.

In post-orgasmic glow she gazed down at her little lover, lying face-down across her. He looked like he’d had the shit beat out of him; bruised and red and raw, and covered in sweat from both of them, and with Dena’s powerful scent. “I’m sorry,” she murmured again as he winced. Blood oozed from the scratches on his shredded back.

“Battle wounds,” he said with a grin. “I’m so lucky to be with you, Dena. I’d do anything for you. Want me to go down on you again?”

Dena laughed, touched at his devotion and eagerness to please her. “Thank you, but I think we could use a little break! Let’s get cleaned up. And maybe a shower; we smell like a brothel!”

Sheldon took a deep breath and his cock stirred again, struggling back to life. “Yeah,” he agreed happily.

In the shower, Dena gently washed his back and applied some ointment to his scratches afterward.

“Oh,” she said in surprise as she saw his response. She took his hardening cock in her big hand and stroked it. “Again?” she asked playfully.

“It’s a little sensitive,” Sheldon hissed, closing his eyes and groaning.

“I’ll be truly gentle this time,” Dena promised as she wrapped her soft lips around his cock. She gave him a slow, sensual blowjob that weakened Sheldon’s entire body. He collapsed into Dena’s arms as she sucked his painfully sensitive cock to an almost unbelievably unbearable orgasm.

Sheldon looked up at Dena’s broad smile. She winked at him, licked the last drops off his cock, and ran her tongue sensually over her lips before swallowing.

“Wow,” Sheldon breathed. “That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I watch a lot of porn.” Dena stuck her tongue out at him and made a mock angry face. “I’m sorry; I don’t think I can move, but you look like you could go all night!”

Dena laughed. “I’m very happy,” she reassured him. She felt energized, sexy, and incredibly powerful. She felt a darkly dominating pleasure that she hadn’t known she possessed, fiercely proud that she had drained Sheldon to the verge of collapse. “We should get back to the movie,” she whispered. “Daddy will be suspicious if we don’t finish at least one of them!”

“Okay. I don’t remember what it was about,” Sheldon admitted sleepily.

“I don’t either,” Dena replied with a naughty giggle.

They dressed and returned to the living room couch. Sheldon fell asleep with his head in her lap during the movie, happier and more content than he could ever remember. Dena slowly stroked his hair and gazed down at him fondly. They would have to do this again. Many, many times!

“So as ‘x’ approaches infinity, I get… two pi?” Dena said hesitantly.

“Are you guessing it’s two pi? Or do you know for sure?” Mr. Melnik challenged her.

Quickly but deliberately, Dena worked through the equation in front of her again, double-checking that each step made sense. “I’m sure. It’s two pi.”

“Correct!” Mr. Melnik smiled broadly through his huge bushy beard. He was one of the most beloved teachers in the school and had been teaching Advanced Placement Calculus as long as the school had offered it. He was also immense, pushing three hundred pounds at only five feet eight inches tall, and could give Santa Claus a run for his money in the jolly fat man department. Just like everyone else at the school, he had to look way up at Dena.

But, unlike most other people at the school, he never patronized Dena. Nor underestimated her intellectual prowess because of her physical gifts. He pushed her, challenged her to do her best work, and kept her honest so she never let herself off the hook on her math homework. Mr. Melnik offered after-school tutoring sessions to all students, but this offer was rarely taken advantage of. However, Dena had been coming every week since her transfer. Math was her most difficult subject.

Dena stared down at her work doubtfully. “When you explain it, it all makes sense,” she said. “But I’m worried about the AP exam. I’m not sure I should have taken AP math. I’ve never been really good at it. It’s hard for me.”

Mr. Melnik nodded. “It’s hard for everyone, Dena. Mathematical thinking doesn’t come naturally to our squishy brains.”

Dena bit her lip in frustration and squeezed her big fist. “It’s not hard for Sheldon,” she said.

The math teacher grinned. “Sheldon struggles, too. But it’s true that he does seem to have a knack for it. He’s a bit of a special case. He also has something better than a gift for math. As an athlete, I think that you of all people, Dena, can understand.”

Dena raised her eyebrows in surprise and looked down at the math teacher sitting across from her. “What?”

“He doesn’t give up,” Mr. Melnik said. “And neither do you. That’s what all the great mathematicians have in common. Take this integral you just solved, Dena. That one problem represents thousands of years of the smartest people in history working on it. And now, because of all these tools that all of those brilliant people have thought up, you can solve this problem and a lot more too! But every single one of those tools had to be invented, through long hours of agonizing work. It takes hard work, Dena; almost everything worth doing does. I know you can do it, too. You’re brilliant and one of the hardest-working students I’ve ever seen. You’re in here with me every week working on your most difficult subject, and getting an A. I have no doubt you will do well on the exam. You can do anything you put your mind to.”

Dena smiled at Mr. Melnik’s earnest philosophy. She couldn’t help but be buoyed and persuaded by his honest enthusiasm. She finished a few more problems on her own, said goodbye, and left.

Dena walked to her locker to drop off her books and pick up her climbing gear. Tonight was a rare night off from practice, so she was meeting Bobbi Jo at the climbing wall. She thought back on what Mr. Melnik had said about Sheldon. It rang true with everything she knew about him. He didn’t give up and he always did his best. During one of their long, intimate chats he had confided in her how nervous he was when he took on the math team captainship, and how he studied every leadership book and website he could find for months to make himself worthy of the role. She smiled to herself, feeling a rush of affection and admiration for her diminutive, brilliant, supremely geeky boyfriend.

That warm affection turned to apprehension when she saw Leon coming down the hallway near her locker. She paused with her hand on her locker and watched the bully approach. She hesitated before speaking to him, but then thought of what Sheldon would do in this situation, and what Mr. Melnik would say about doing the hard thing. She made her decision.

“Hey, Leon,” she said just as he stalked past.

Leon turned to her in surprise. “Hey,” Dena said again, studying him. He forced himself to look up at her, which he obviously hated. It aggravated him that she was so much taller than him. The last few months hadn’t helped with that. Dena was growing at a ferocious pace and she’d added another inch in height and ten pounds in weight. She stood at six feet, ten inches and weighed an overwhelming two hundred eighty-five pounds of lean muscle. Even relaxed, standing with her long arm resting against her locker, her powerful muscles bulged and rippled under her pale skin.

Dena waited apprehensively. She was curious about what he would say, but also felt a twinge of dread. He might say something horrible.

Leon reluctantly craned his neck back to look Dena in the eye. His mouth was set in a grim, serious line. He looked like he had something to say, but he hesitated. “What do you want?” he finally asked.

There were a thousand mean things Dena wanted to say, but she knew that while destroying him would make her feel better, it wasn’t the right thing to do. She tried to think of something good, so she reached for the one good thing she knew about Leon: his friendship. “You should forgive Greg,” Dena blurted out.

Leon looked started. “What? Why?”

“He’s your best friend. You should forgive him.” Dena didn’t know if she should say more. She looked down at Leon, who seemed to be thinking it over.

“It’s none of your damn business, anyway,” Leon muttered.

“You’re right, it’s not,” Dena agreed. She thought that would be it, but to her surprise Leon stayed.

Leon finally cleared his throat and reluctantly spoke, as if the words caused him pain. “Thank you for not telling anyone what happened when… that day. You know. I never said it before, but that was decent of you.”

Dena nodded. She had never mentioned the incident to anyone. Not even after the school already knew. “You’re welcome,” she said softly. “I’m sorry it got out anyway.”

Leon watched her closely for any sign of sarcasm, but she seemed completely sincere. “Yeah, that jealous little fucker really… one little fight and Greg just had to go running his mouth all over school.”

This was the first time Dena had just talked to Leon like a person. He was still rough and unlikable, and she didn’t forget that he’d viciously attacked her and Sheldon. But she appreciated his blunt honesty, and his thanks seemed sincere. So she tried a little blunt honesty in return. “You’re an asshole, Leon, but so is he. Assholes have to stick together.”

Leon grunted. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “You’re probably right.” He barked out a surprisingly self-aware laugh. “I really hate that!”

Dena laughed in surprise. “I know,” she said between giggles. Even Leon cracked a smile. She finally stopped laughing. “I never told anyone what happened. Why do you hate me so much?” she asked.

“I don’t hate you,” Leon said. He shrugged at Dena’s raised eyebrow. “It’s your boyfriend. You’re just… in the way.”

Dena was stunned. “You hate Sheldon? Why?”

Leon’s look darkened. “You wouldn’t understand anyway,” he growled. Dena watched helplessly as he stalked away.

---

“On belay?”

“Belay on!”

“Climbing!”

“Climb on!”

Bobbi Jo began her final ascent. She was tired; there were limits to even her very muscular and strong body. She was a big strong Amazon but she was also heavy, with lots of very non-muscular curves. She simply wasn’t built with the frame of a natural climber like Dena, but she worked hard at it through sheer love of the ascent.

Dena admired her friend’s strength and grace as she watched Bobbi Jo’s careful ascent. She felt a twinge of jealousy – and maybe something else – at how damn good her gorgeous friend looked from behind as she climbed the wall, her big muscles rising and falling under smooth womanly curves, her big blonde hair bouncing rhythmically with her lunges.

When it was Bobbi Jo’s turn to anchor and Dena’s turn to climb she flew up the wall, then rappelled down, then quickly up again, in rapid ascents. She wasn’t trying to show Bobbi Jo up, but everything physical that Dena did was like showing off simply because of her overpowering athleticism.

Bobbi Jo was a good sport though, and suppressed her natural competitive instincts enough to feel happy for her big strong friend. There was something almost beyond reality when watching Dena. As if Bobbi Jo wasn’t watching a normal person, but some being of superhuman grace and strength, that took the sting out of Dena’s explosive, overwhelming, hypnotic power. Dena was nearly one hundred pounds heavier than Bobbi Jo but her climb looked effortless. Her body had grown almost superhumanly strong and her physique was becoming freakishly muscular. She looked like an anatomy chart, all bulging muscles and big blue veins under paper-thin pale skin.

Later in the locker room Dena and Bobbi Jo sat together in the sauna, enjoying a rare moment of relaxation in agreeable silence. Dena looked down at her powerful body. She was proud of her physique, but in the way of insecure teenagers she didn’t consider herself attractive. She knew she had long legs and a small waist with a V taper down her muscular back, but she could only think of the flaws in her body: her too-pale skin, her almost-nonexistent breasts, her too-large mouth.

“Hey,” Bobbi Jo said, surprising Dena out of a self-critical reverie by cupping her cheek and pulling her head down. Dena’s heart beat faster as, for a second, she thought Bobbi Jo was going to kiss her. Instead Bobbi Jo pulled her hand away and asked, “You remember Cheryl, the lesbian from Springfield?”

“Sure. Kind of hard to forget.”

Bobbi Jo giggled. “I know. Before I met you she was the biggest girl I’d ever seen! How tall are you now?”

Dena blushed. “Six-ten,” she admitted sheepishly.

“Hot.” Bobbi Jo grinned wolfishly.

“Shut up,” Dena muttered, looking away.

“I slept with her,” Bobbi Jo said casually.

“Who? Cheryl?” Dena asked in surprise.

Bobbi Jo nodded. “I hope you don’t mind. She offered, and I just thought… if Connor can have his gay fling… It sounds stupid now…” She trailed off into silence.

“Why would I mind?” Dena asked. In truth she felt a small twinge of jealousy she didn’t want to examine, but she wasn’t sure if she was jealous of Bobbi Jo or of Cheryl. Or both.

Bobbi Jo shrugged. “No reason.”

Dena wasn’t sure if Bobbi Jo wanted to talk about it. “How was it?” she asked uncertainly.

The beautiful blonde flashed an infectious grin. “Weird. And… fun,” she concluded. “I don’t think it’s for me though. I like dick too much. Almost as much as you!” she teased.

Dena blushed even more furiously. Somehow Bobbi Jo had wheedled details out of Dena that she couldn’t remember giving.

“You and Sheldon will come with Connor and me to prom, right?” Bobbi Jo asked. She knew her status with Connor confused Dena and made her uncomfortable, though her big friend tried to hide it. She envied Dena her uncomplicated relationship with the little nerd. Of course she should have known better; love is seldom uncomplicated.

“I… I don’t know if I’m going. If we’re going.”

“What?” Bobbi Jo asked in alarm. “What do you mean? You have to come!”

“I don’t know if he wants to go with me; he hasn’t asked me,” Dena said. She hadn’t realized how much it had been bothering her until she said it out loud to Bobbi Jo.

Bobbi Jo stared at Dena for a long moment before a grin slowly spread across her face. She giggled at first, then roared with laugher.

“What?” Dena demanded miserably.

“You… You two deserve each other!” Bobbi Jo gasped out. She looked at Dena’s forlorn expression and dissolved into uncontrollable giggles. “You’re both idiots!”

The end of senior year approached and prom night arrived. With a helpful prompt from Bobbi Jo, Sheldon asked Dena to be his date to the prom – and she, of course, accepted.

Dena’s unexpected growth spurt continued; she was now an astounding six feet eleven inches tall. In addition to her height she was packing on dense thick muscles at a furious rate and tipped the scale at nearly three hundred pounds.

She was still impossibly cut; her pale skin stretched tight over thick steely muscles. She was an unstoppable force on the court, and had earned a full athletic scholarship to UConn, one of the best women’s college basketball teams in the country. WNBA recruiters were watching her career closely. It was rare for them to pay attention to high school basketball, but they were eager to see how she made the transition to college ball. Dena was pleasantly surprised to learn her sometimes rival, and Bobbi Jo’s one-time lover, the enormously powerful Amazon lesbian Cheryl, was also recruited for UConn.

Sheldon was going to MIT, almost two hours away. With their busy schedules they would barely notice the long distance. Still, Dena wished they could be closer. Now that she’d awakened her ferocious sexuality, she burned hot and horny and wore out poor Sheldon whenever they could find time alone.

With her growth spurt Dena needed a new dress for prom. Bursting with pride at his daughter’s achievements, Mr. Shepherd had splurged and bought her a beautifully-tailored purple evening gown that looked glamorous. It cost him a month of overtime, but it was worth it to see his daughter happy. The shimmering dress shone splendidly on her pale skin.

Mr. Shepherd had grown fond of Sheldon; the little nerd made Dena happier than he’d seen her in a long time. Dena had blossomed from her previously lonely high school life.

There was never any question about Bobbi Jo. With her legacy status, her father’s generous donations, her spectacular grades, community service, and leadership on and off the court, Bobbi Jo was destined for Harvard. She and Connor had patched things up, but they both knew their relationship was drawing to a close and each were somewhat relieved. Connor was off to California to play football for Stanford. The unspoken agreement was that that would be the end.

The next year Tanya would be off to the south to play for Duke, another top tier team, though not as well-known as the phenomenally successful men’s team. Still, she was happy with the full ride scholarship she was getting, and happy that Ning would join her on an academic scholarship. To everyone’s immense surprise, Ning had asked Tanya to the prom and she had said yes. “He’s one kinky little nerd!” was all the pansexual Amazon beauty would say on the subject.

DeShawn would be going to MIT with Sheldon, and Pete was going to CalTech. All top tier academic schools, but they were sad to break up their nerdy gaming foursome.

Prom was held in the ballroom of an elegant old New England estate-turned-hotel. Dena pulled Sheldon aside and dragged him along looking for a private area to screw his brains out before Bobbi Jo and Connor became prom queen and king. Sheldon had shed some fat from climbing, and the extremely physical Dena had forced him to a generally higher level of activity (in and out of the bedsheets). Dena packed on the pounds of dense muscle in her ferocious growth spurt, so she was double his weight and he was helpless to resist her raging lust. He ran to keep up with her long-legged stride before she plucked him off the ground in impatient frustration. In her heels she was over seven feet tall, towering more than a foot and a half over Sheldon, and nearly three hundred pounds of solid bulging muscle eager to pound his helpless body into sexual oblivion.

She found a spot secluded enough to satisfy her, and held Sheldon out in front of her, his feet dangling in the air. Over the months she’d come to appreciate how much her demonstrations of superhuman strength turned him on, and now was no different, for though his face was screwed up in exasperation, his pants were tented out.

“Let me take care of that,” Dena growled. She held him up with one hand while with the other she unzipped his pants and pulled out his hard cock.

“Honestly, Dena; you’re insatiable, what am I going to – oh!” Sheldon was cut short by Dena’s huge arms lifting him straight over her head. His weight was inconsequential to her enormous strength and bulging steel-hard muscles. He reached down and wrapped his little hands around her thick bulging bicep, like warm stone in his grip. Dena grinned wolfishly and inhaled his cock, gobbling it down to the base and slurping on his balls. She greedily gobbled him deep down her throat, mixing sloppy sucking burbles with a low humming moan that Dena knew would drive him wild. She knew he was about to cum when his fingers clenched and dug into the pale skin of her rock-hard bicep. She drank down every drop and pulled him out of her mouth with a wet sucking slurp. A string of saliva snapped back to her lips and she licked it up with a devilish smile.

“Your turn,” she said huskily, setting him down. She reached under her gown and pulled her panties off, working them down her muscular legs with a quick shimmy. The musky overpowering smell of her arousal blasted Sheldon’s nose. She was very wet; things could get messy.

Just as Sheldon was about to drop to his knees to service her, Dena put a hand out to stop him. “Your tux is a rental and you don’t want to smell like me all night,” Dena said.

“Says who?” Sheldon demanded indignantly.

Dena grinned. “I am so wet right now,” she whispered. Sheldon grinned and grabbed her solid muscular hips. “Now get down there,” Dena ordered, shoving him to his knees and draping her long powerful legs over him.

She settled her dripping wet pussy on his face, and leaned back, eyes closed as he licked and sucked and fingered her to a body-shaking orgasm. She clutched the back of his head and crushed him relentlessly into her pussy, her long powerful fingers digging into his skull like a steely vice. Servicing Dena was sweet pain for Sheldon, a constant reminder of just how unbelievably powerful she was, and how lucky he was to have found her.

When she released him he gasped for breath. His face was drenched. Dena looked down at him with a goofy, satisfied grin. He turned away but was stopped by her powerful hand on his chest slamming him into the wall. “Oh no you don’t,” she hissed, grabbing his cock in her steely grip. “That got you going again I see.”

“I can’t help it. I love going down on you.”

Dena grinned. “Ditto,” she said, dropping to her knees in front of him. She pulled out his cock for the second time and urgently sucked him off. Sheldon watched her short, jet-black hair tossing as she bobbed on his cock, her bare broad muscular shoulders, flaring upper back, and enormous biceps writhing and flexing. The powerful suction of her delightfully hot, wet, and tight lips, tongue, and throat weakened his knees. He imagined all the wonderful and terrible things she was strong enough to do, and came with a hard thrust and loud groan. His knees buckled but Dena easily held him up. She pulled off, gently sucking him until his cock plopped out of her lips. She licked his cockhead slowly and sensually, gave it a lusty kiss, then zipped him back up.

“Oh my god,” Sheldon said hoarsely.

Dena kissed her way up his tuxedo until she got to his mouth. She kissed him slowly and sensuously, her wet lips lingering on his. “You taste like me,” she murmured into his lips. “That’s so hot.”

“Want me to go down on you again?” he asked.

Dena laughed. “Down boy! Later.” She winked at him. “I think we ought to get back to the ballroom.”

That was when the screaming started.

As prom started, both DeShawn and Pete watched the first dance. Pete wistfully pined after the huge football superjock Connor, fondly remembering their sneaky trysts. DeShawn watched Bobbi Jo just as lustily, covertly eyeing her spectacular curves and towering Amazonian body. She looked splendid in a slinky red gown that showed plenty of her deep cleavage and hugged her perfect round bottom.

“Well this blows,” Pete said.

“Yup. Pretty much the prom from hell.” Rumors had gotten around that Pete was gay, and he’d finally shamefully admitted it to his friends, who were very supportive. DeShawn punched Pete lightly on the shoulder. “There will be plenty of jocks in California,” DeShawn reassured him.

“Yeah,” Pete said wistfully. He turned to DeShawn. “Is it true what they say about black guys?”

DeShawn laughed. “You can’t suck my dick, Pete!”

Pete’s eyes twinkled with good humor. “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

“Be careful what you wish for. It’s true; once you go black you can’t go back!”

Pete turned to the dance floor and eyed Ning, dancing with his face solidly planted in Tanya’s borderline-obscene deep brown cleavage. “Certainly seems true for Ning,” he observed.

“Hey man, we can’t all peak in high school,” DeShawn said. “We’ll be alright.”

“I’ll miss you guys,” Pete said sadly. The two sat in silence and somberly watched the happy dancers.

As the prom king and queen announcements were readied, Ning finally pulled himself out of Tanya’s cleavage and returned to the nerd table. “Hey, guys. What’d I miss?” he asked as he plopped down, cheeks red, a giant smile plastered on his face. Pete made a disgusted face and DeShawn rolled his eyes.

“Having fun?” DeShawn asked.

Before Ning could reply came a shout of “Fire!” and the ballroom erupted into pandemonium.

---

By New England standards, the hotel was old and elegant. The ballroom was large, with a wooden dance floor and plenty of space for performers. At the opposite end of the room from the performers was a banquet and seating area. Above the banquet a balcony overlooked the dance floor and held more tables and chairs. Staircases gracefully curved down on either end of the balcony. Discreet doors connected the ballroom to the rest of the hotel; the suites, kitchens, old servant quarters and so on. Ornately carved antique shelves lined the room, holding trinkets and knickknacks of older eras.

Smoke tendrils curled into the ballroom from the hotel proper. “Fire!” someone yelled again, the call quickly taken up. Within moments a panicked stampede towards the exits began.

DeShawn, Pete, and Ning sat shocked as the reality settled in. “I have to find Tanya!” Ning suddenly shouted.

DeShawn looked at the increasing chaos and panic around him and quickly took charge. “Ning, go get Tanya. Pete, you’re with me. We have to get some of the football players to clear a path to the exits and get these people moving fast.”

Pete nodded, his face frightened and pale, but his courage bolstered by DeShawn’s confidence.

Sheldon and Dena burst into the ballroom. They looked disheveled and more than a little guilty. Sheldon saw his friends and immediately bee-lined to the nerd table, while Dena took off in search of Bobbi Jo.

“Sheldon! We’ve got to evacuate everyone!” DeShawn said urgently.

Sheldon nodded. “What’s the plan, Rogue Leader?”

They moved fast to recruit the biggest athletes they could find into evacuation duty. DeShawn found Connor first, who instantly grasped the situation once he shook off his shock. “With me!” Connor barked to his team. He ordered half the athletes around him to follow DeShawn. The team players were used to following directions and keeping cool under pressure. They made excellent impromptu fire marshals.

With the big jocks guiding the scared teenagers toward the exits, the crowd’s panic subsided and some semblance of normalcy returned. Chaperoning teachers joined the football players and marshaled the stragglers with ingrained authority.

Sheldon and Ning found Dena, Bobbi Jo, and Tanya. Everyone hurried towards the exits as the rapidly accelerating fire started to consume the ground floor.

Suddenly, Dena stopped, horrified, and grabbed Sheldon. “The balcony!” she pointed. Students and teachers who had been too slow to leave were blocked by flames licking at one of the staircases. They started to stampede towards the other staircase. The fire leaped towards that escape as well, blocking all egress and trapping a dozen people. The fire seemed to follow the crowd with greedy malevolence as it roared along lines of combustibles and air currents.

Sheldon looked around. “Bookshelf!” he shouted, pointing at one of the solid, heavy shelves.

Dena kicked off her heels and ran barefoot over to the giant shelf. She heaved the solid, heavy wood into the air with astonishing brute strength. Trinkets and pottery jostled off the shelves and smashed to the floor as she ran. She slammed the shelf down on the ballroom floor, then leaped on top and hurled herself to the balcony. Her huge muscles easily powered her up. Dena’s long body stretched out with her hands clutching the edge of the balcony railing and her outstretched toes braced on top of the solid display rack. Bobbi Jo and Tanya grabbed another heavy shelf and raced it over to support the first. “Go help the evacuation!” Bobbi Jo ordered Tanya, who nodded and ran to coordinate with Connor.

“Climb on,” Dena yelled to the nearest student on the balcony. The small girl stared blankly, terrified and on the verge of panic. “Climb on me!” Dena ordered urgently. “Use me like a ladder! Tell everyone!”

The girl stared at Dena, looked over at the smoke pouring up either staircase, then looked back at Dena. She hesitantly edged over to the balcony railing and looked down Dena’s long muscular frame and saw the shelf below. Understanding dawned on her face. “Hey, people! People! Follow me!” she turned and shouted at the trapped promgoers.

She turned back to Dena and slung one leg over the railing. “Are you sure about this?” she asked nervously.

“Yes! Come on!” Dena said. The girl nodded and awkwardly slid over the railing, no easy feat in her billowing prom dress. She wrapped her legs around Dena’s muscular torso like she was mounting a horse. She clambered down Dena’s long body and Bobbi Jo helped the girl down off the bookshelves.

“Run!” Bobbi Jo commanded. The girl ran.

Dena looked around and saw Sheldon wheeling a disabled student out of the building. She grinned with fierce pride and then turned back to the balcony. She adjusted her grip and told the next person to climb on.

Student after student, teacher after teacher climbed down Dena’s immensely powerful body and were helped to the ground by Bobbi Jo. Not all of them were as light or limber as the first girl, and by the time the balcony was clear Dena’s expensive dress was in tatters. Under any other circumstances she would have felt exposed and embarrassed, but there was no time for that now.

Bobbi Jo ran out with the last student. Dena did a pull-up on the railing and scanned the balcony to double-check one final time that it was empty. Just as she was satisfied, a door burst open across the ballroom. Mr. Melnik, the immensely fat, jolly, and beloved math teacher, rushed in. “Dena!” he called, spying her on top of the shelf. “Thank goodness I found you. This way!” He disappeared back the way he’d come.

Dena vaulted down from the shelf after the teacher and hit the ground running. The door led to an elegant old staircase once used by servants. Dena heard Mr. Melnik puffing up the stairs and gave chase, bursting onto the third floor.

The fire was racing through the building in uneven spurts, hungrily chasing fuel and oxygen. On the third floor the corridor was rapidly filling with smoke that stung Dena’s eyes and lungs. Mr. Melnik collapsed and Dena ran over to him. “In there,” he gasped, gesturing. Dena hauled his bulk along the corridor. He was coughing up smoke in horrible hacking spasms.

With an explosive rush, fire raced up the staircase they’d just left and cut off their escape. Dena felt the door the math teacher indicated. The handle was still cool but the door was locked. Dena backed up and with one powerful kick of her long thickly-muscled leg she shattered the heavy wooden door.

Dena found herself in one of the hotel’s guest rooms. She heard a whimpering coming from the closet just inside the hall door, next to the room’s small bathroom. The rest of the hotel room opened up beyond there. Dena immediately opened the louvered doors to the closet. Two small children, a boy and a girl, cowered inside; they held each other tight and stared at Dena with huge terrified eyes. They were petrified with fright.

“I heard them crying from the corridor, but they wouldn’t open the door,” Mr. Melnik gasped. He tore his white formal dress shirt off, ripped it in pieces, soaked them in the room’s sink, and handed them out to breathe through.

Dena looked down the corridor, which was rapidly filling with smoke and heat and flame. She ran into the room and threw open the window, which overlooked a deserted courtyard.

“Go!” Mr. Melnik yelled, his face a mask of terror as he watched the approaching fire. “Take the kids and get out of here!”

“I’ll come back for you,” Dena said.

The math teacher shook his head. He was pale with fear and looked like he might be sick. “There’s no time,” he rasped. “Dena, save them! Get out of here!”

Dena shook her head. “I will come back!” she promised. She turned to the kids. “I need you to climb onto my back and hang on tight, okay?”

Though they were terrified, the children nodded and climbed onto the giant Amazon, clinging to her bulging sweat-slicked neck and shoulders. Dena looked down the side of the building, calculating her route. She swung out of the window, clinging to the edge. The children on her back gasped in surprise. Quickly and methodically, Dena climbed down the building. Her muscles were sore and exhausted; her adrenaline surge sustained the incredible power she was exerting, but it wouldn’t last forever. She made it safely to the ground with the children and they slid off her back. “Go!” Dena shouted. “Find a grown-up!”

She turned back to the building and looked up. Smoke billowed out of the open window she had left. Dena set her mouth in a grim, determined line. Mr. Melnik didn’t have much time left.

Dena ran at the building. Just as she hurled herself up the side, a superheated steam pocket exploded inside the building, shooting a hail of wood and nails through a ground floor window. Shrapnel ripped through Dena’s hip, tearing through skin, muscle, nerves, and bone.

Dena slammed into the side of the building and clung tight, sick with pain. She struggled to lift her legs but they wouldn’t move. She couldn’t feel anything below her waist.

Tears leaked out of Dena’s smoke-stung eyes. She looked up. Fighting through a red and gray haze of agonizing pain, she moved one arm up, then the other. She began to climb.

Reach. Grab. Pull. Reach. Grab. Pull. Fear and pain were a muted backdrop. Dena’s world was fanatically focused on the only thing that mattered: the climb. She forgot why she was climbing. All she knew was she had to go higher.

Hell blazed around her. The side of the building grew hot. Windows exploded in showers of glass and geysers of flame.

Dena climbed with only her arms; her shattered hips and numb legs were useless dead weight. She hauled her nearly three hundred pound bulk up over and over again. When she couldn’t reach the next handhold she recklessly hurled herself through the air with a quick burst of pull-up power, grabbed for a handhold, and kept going. Her muscles burned. Her lungs boiled. Red seeped into the corners of her vision. She was a creature of pure muscle and adrenaline. Only the climb mattered.

She climbed three floors, hand over hand, her arms shaking and burning; she was barely conscious by the time she dragged herself through the window into the room with Mr. Melnik. He had put the mattress up against the broken doorway, but smoke curled around the edges and filled the ceiling. Mr. Melnik lay on the floor breathing through his wet shirt fragment. He was alive, but unconscious.

Dena crawled over to the fat teacher and stripped off his belt. She awkwardly wriggled her limp lower body around and maneuvered him so that his chubby arms reached over her shoulders and around her neck. Then she tied his wrists together with the belt. The belt had to be tight for this to work. He stirred, moaned, and passed out again.

His dead weight dragged her, slowed her down, threatened to overwhelm her, but Dena crawled to the window with grim determination as the mattress burst into flames behind her. She stopped to cough out a lungful of smoke, then pulled them up with her big biceps knotted and hard as steel, burning with exhaustion as she dragged them both over the window frame.

---

Sheldon helped evacuate students, teachers, and hotel guests as quickly as he could, coordinating with Connor, who was the nearest jock in charge. He ran back into the hotel with DeShawn and guided a couple of coughing students out of the smoke.

Leon and Greg came out, both reeking of marijuana. They looked at Sheldon with slightly less hostility than usual. Greg even mumbled, “Thanks,” as they stumbled to clear air and safety.

Sheldon was starting to worry about Dena. He hadn’t seen her since the ballroom balcony. She was the strongest, most level-headed, calmly competent person he knew, so he was confident she could take care of herself, but it worried him that she had disappeared and he hadn’t seen her leading anyone outside.

Two young kids raced through an archway on one side of the hotel yelling for attention.

“Hey, it’s okay kids, you’re safe now. What’s the matter?” Sheldon asked, leaning down to soothe them and guide them to safety.

“A giant lady saved us, but then she got hurt. I think she needs help!” the little girl said.

Sheldon went cold. Dena! he thought immediately. He made sure the kids were safe with DeShawn, then he dashed over to the archway the kids came from and ran through.

Leon and Greg watched him run off.

Just as he entered the smoke-filled courtyard, a wide set of double doors burst open in a billowing fireball of burning smoke that hurled Sheldon to the ground. Eyes and lungs stinging, flesh burning, he picked himself up and limped into the small courtyard. “Dena!” he cried between fits of coughing.

“Sheldon,” he heard a faint, rasping voice call from above. He looked up to see Dena clinging to a handhold in the middle of Dante’s own inferno. Mr. Melnik the math teacher was unconscious and slung on her back like a trussed pig. Her dress was torn to shreds. Her skin was red and starting to bubble. She was coughing terribly, shaking with pain and exhaustion, and her fingers were slipping. Blood poured from her hip and her legs dangled uselessly.

“Oh my god!” Sheldon dashed over as fast as he could. Heat pushed him back but he gritted his teeth and ignored the primal screams of self-preservation from his oldest, most animal instincts. “Jump!” he yelled as he ran. “I’ll break your fall!”

“What?”

Sheldon was now directly below Dena and staring up at her. “Land on me! I’ll break your fall!”

“Are you sure?”

Sheldon looked at Dena and Mr. Melnik dangling above him and gulped in fear. This was going to hurt. “I’m sure!” he shouted, feeling anything but. “Jump!”

Dena hesitated, and then the decision was made for her. For the first time in her life, Dena’s strength failed her. She lost her grip on the rapidly overheating building and plummeted.

Sheldon braced himself as six hundred pounds crashed down on him.

---

“Dena,” Sheldon whispered hoarsely, drifting back to consciousness. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder. “You’re not invincible after all.”

“Looks like it,” she whispered, forcing the words out through broken ribs and burning lungs. “Sorry, Sheldon. I’m only human.”

Sheldon coughed and laughed and winced in pain. “I had my doubts,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wish you were invincible.”

“Me… too…” she was fading.

“Dena. Dena!” Sheldon croaked insistently.

“Yes,” she whispered in a rapidly fading voice.

“I think you may have broken my bones,” he rasped through his damaged chest.

“I’m sorry, which ones?”

“All of them.”

Dena laughed and coughed up ash and blood. “You’re a funny boy, Sheldon. Funny… funny… funny…”

“Stay with me Dena!” Sheldon said fiercely. “I love you. I love you! You have to live, dammit! I love you!”

“I love you, too, Sheldon. My hero,” she whispered. “You’re the bravest man… I ever… met… love… love… you.”

Dena woke with a start and immediately began coughing. She tasted smoke. Her ribs hurt. Everything hurt.

“Hey there; take it easy, baby girl,” she heard her father’s voice. Rough hands held a glass of water to her lips and Dena drank gratefully.

She looked up through bleary, red-ringed eyes. “Daddy?” she asked in a quiet, rasping, cracked voice.

Mr. Shepherd’s eyes and cheeks were wet with tears. “I’m here, baby, I’m right here,” he crooned soothingly.

Dena turned her head and smiled. “Hey, Gina,” she whispered as her sister came into focus.

Gina’s eyes were wet. “You scared me, dummy,” she said with a catch in her voice.

Dena laughed, which turned into a long wet cough. “Sorry,” she finally said once the cough subsided. “Won’t happen again.”

“You scared all of us, baby girl,” her father said hoarsely.

“Hurts,” Dena mumbled. “Hurts to talk.” She looked down at her body, which was covered in casts and bandages. Pain was a constant presence, but it was a dull, vague pain, and her head felt funny. Thoughts came slowly. It took her a moment of puzzling over the multiple tubes coming into her arm to figure out that she must be doped up on pretty strong painkillers.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said after a few minutes of silence. Her father was startled; he thought she had gone back to sleep. “I ruined my dress.”

Mr. Shepherd choked back tears. “That’s okay, honey,” he whispered. “I’m just glad you’re going to be okay.”

“Okay,” Dena agreed vaguely. Then all of a sudden her thoughts sharpened. “Mr. Melnik?” she asked.

Dena was happy to see her father’s expression brighten with pride. “You saved him! He’s alive. Pretty burned up, in bad shape, but alive. You saved his life,” he repeated in wonder.

Dena smiled. Even her lips hurt.

“Hey baby girl. Sheldon has been asking about you. I know he’d love to see you. But only if you feel up to it.”

Dena nodded, relief flooding her as she realized Sheldon must be okay.

---

“Hey, look who’s awake, sleepyhead!” Sheldon rolled his wheelchair into Dena’s hospital room with a push on the joystick. His broken arms and legs were in casts, his ribs taped up, but he’d insisted that he was fine to visit.

Dena’s huge body lay broken and bandaged. The hospital staff had never seen anyone as big and muscular as her. It had taken four strong nurses just to move her. They had also rarely seen anyone as badly burned and still alive. She was wrapped like a mummy.

“Hey,” Dena croaked. Her throat and lungs were raw.

Sheldon grinned. “You have to get better fast. Everyone wants to see you, you know. Bobbi Jo, Tanya, every reporter in the whole world, just about.” His eyes twinkled with mischief. “The President.”

“Haha,” Dena said, thinking he was joking. Seeing Sheldon, her memories drifted back to the fire. “How many people died?” she finally rasped, her heart pounding.

“Nobody, Dena. Nobody died. You saved everyone! It’s all over the news. They’re calling it the Prom Night Miracle! You’re a hero!” Tears sprang into Sheldon’s eyes. “You’re my hero, Dena. I’m so glad you’re alive! I was so afraid…” he trailed off, unable to finish; he was so overwhelmed with emotion.

Dena lay quietly, stunned. After a moment she allowed herself a small, proud smile. “The courtyard… how did we get out?”

“You’ll never believe it. Leon and Greg pulled us all out just before the fire trucks and ambulances arrived.”

Dena laughed. “Really?”

“Yeah. You single-handedly saved like fifteen people, but they’re letting their heroism go to their heads. And those kids, and Mr. Melnik… wow. What you did…” Sheldon started to choke up.

Dena looked at Sheldon seriously. “You saved us, Sheldon.”

Sheldon looked down, suddenly embarrassed. “I guess,” he said.

“I remember what you said to me before I passed out.”

Sheldon tensed. “Yeah?”

Dena nodded. “Yeah. Sheldon,” he looked up apprehensively, “I love you.”

A big smile slowly spread across his face. “I love you too, Dena.”

“Worst prom ever?” Dena asked, settling back. She drifted back into an exhausted sleep.

Sheldon rolled his wheelchair to the bed and watched Dena’s steady, rhythmic breathing. He reached his fingers over and cradled her big, strong hand, tenderly stroking her bandages. “I don’t know about that,” he whispered.

THE END