[izdubarr]

Nothing was supposed to change.

That's what they told her.  Three months ago when Alison first heard that Sementex, the small biotech company she worked for was being bought out by the massive multinational company FMG pharmaceuticals.  Research programs that were approved were to continue, FMG was buying them out for their products and intellectual property after all, why would they cancel things?  Or so the story went.  Alison almost believed it.

But now, sitting in her new boss's waiting room, waiting to be summoned on the carpet, all sorts of dire predictions were running through her mind.

"Dr. Sullivan will see you now, Dr. Galloway," said the receptionist, Sandra Adams.  She was the type of woman who normally make Alison uncomfortable with herself, tall, blonde, and stunning, with a brilliant smile and a full, bombshell figure.  'They're probably fake' Alison thought to herself cattily.

Alison, in contrast to Sandra, was a mousy female academic. She was very tall, nearly 6 feet, but you'd never know it, as she hunched over a lot to conceal her height.  Her body was almost unnaturally thin – she weighed only 132 pounds, with a boyish, bony figure, and no breasts to speak of.  Her face was striking with sharp, high cheekbones and enormous green eyes, and she could have been beautiful, a tall, willowy model type, if she had worked at it, but Alison Galloway worked at the opposite.  Always afraid to show her femininity in the overwhelmingly male dominated world of scientific research, like many female scientists, Alison wore sloppy clothes and never any jewelry or makeup.  She wore large ugly glasses many years out of fashion, and had a bad habit of biting her nails until they hurt.  Her hair was thick and blonde, long, but uncared for and pulled back into a ponytail of frizz and split ends pretty much all the time.  When it wasn't, her hair looked like she cut it herself, with a uniform length everywhere, except at the bangs which were cut short to keep out of her eyes.

She often thought about that – the way she dressed and presented herself.  Dr. Alison Galloway was a incredibly intelligent woman, she knew she could be beautiful if she tried.  But somehow the security of being the plain, mousy woman held her tight.  She told herself that her colleagues would only take her seriously if she was as far from a sex object as possible.  She told herself that she refused to pander to societal ideals of how a woman should look.  She told herself that it was just too much trouble, and too shallow to spend time working at being beautiful.  But for all her confidence in herself professionally and scientifically, the sight of a magnificent stunner like Miss Adams provoked feelings of inadequacy, self consciousness and jealous anger in Alison.

But not today.  Today Alison hardly noticed her.  Today, her thoughts were buried in her work.  Alison had spent the last 6 years of her life, since graduate school, working on a compound to promote protein synthesis, and it was finally close to becoming a reality.  I would be a godsend to millions of people with muscular atrophying diseases and chronic wasting, helping their body synthesize more protein to the muscular structure.  She was hoping to apply for FDA approval for initial clinical trials on human subjects to determine toxicity, but the ABG buyout had put that project on hold.  Clinical trials were very expensive.  Alison wasn't going to stand for that.  She hunched into Michael Sullivan's office ready to fight for her life's work. 
Alison had never been a fighter, she had always ran from any confrontation, but today, over this, she was ready to fight hard.

Dr. Mike Sullivan was in the business of science.  He wasn't an old man, only 38, but it had been years since he'd been in a lab as anything other than a tourist.  Even back when he was an active researcher he spent far more of his time on connections and networking than solvents and assays.  His students used to joke that when Mike showed up at the lab they had to assign him an escort to make sure he didn't touch anything and mess it up.  It wasn't much of an exaggeration.  Nevertheless, he was a very smart man, and ambitious.

Now, at 38 Mike had his sights on VP research for FMG pharmaceuticals, a job that would make him rich beyond belief.  But to get to that lofty position, he needed to make the Sementex acquisition work.  Sementex had a lot of promising projects, but a lot of them were risky with a slim chance of paying off, and even if they did, a very long time horizon to profitability.  It was Mike's plan to pick the ones that could show a profit quickly and throw his support and resources behind them, and abandon the rest of the dogs to wither without any funding.  That way his baby Sementex would show up as a hugely lucrative acquisition in the short term and, with luck (and Mike's voice in their ears at every opportunity) his superiors would notice and promote him quickly before the pipeline dried up.

Speaking of dogs, Dr. Galloway was here.  God, what a mess she was, especially standing next to the exquisite Sandy Adams.  She should really at least get her hair done.  What is it about some women in science that they just didn't try?  Mike watched Sandra's fantastic breasts bounce slightly as she walked in.  He thought he was being discrete, but both women knew exactly what he was looking at.  Sandy gave him a short, dazzling smile, and Alison fumed inside.

"Dr. Galloway, take a seat please.  I've been looking over the specifics of your proposal to take your project to clinical testing, and I wanted to ask  you a few questions before I make my decision," Mike opened, never hinting that his mind was already made up.

"You're working on a project to promote protein synthesis in muscle tissue in humans.  This has the potential to be a blockbuster, the sports supplement possibilities are staggering…"

"I'm more concerned with the potential impact as a treatment against muscle wasting diseases, Dr. Sullivan," Alison interrupted.

"Yes, of course.  As I was saying I'm concerned about some of the particulars of the project.  Early animal testing seems to suggest that the product can only work on females, is that correct?"

"Yes, Dr. Sullivan.  Many pathways are involved in muscle hypertrophy in mammals.  The primary one is based on the male hormone testosterone, but for a number of reasons, that has proved difficult to manipulate.  We've had tremendous success, however, in manipulating another, secondary muscle growth pathway, based on female hormones, primarily estrogen but these pathways are essentially inactive in males.  The treatment works on stimulating the body's own muscle growth machinery, essentially tricking it into thinking you've just had a hard workout.  It's much more effective than working out though.  The problem with weight training to promote muscular hypertrophy is that you have to take 2 steps back to take 3 forward.  The training breaks down muscle fibers which the body then regrows bigger and stronger.  My treatment skips the first part, but mimics the chemical signals that cause the body to grow muscle.  In addition, the synthetic signals are many times stronger than those that come as a response to resistance training, and the results in animal studies are truly incredible."

"I see.  You've had some problems with fatalities in the rats, haven't you?"

"Yes, but we understand why that is now.  Simply put, the body can only handle so much mass, whether it's muscle or fat or whatever.  The rats that died were advanced subjects, their muscle mass had been increased to the point where they weighed many times what is normal, and their organs simply couldn't handle the increased mass.  However, when we set an end point earlier in the mass development we have no problems with fatalities, and in fact the rats emerge from the experiments in fantastic health by all traditional measures."

And you've made no real progress in stimulating the male pathways, correct?"

"No, we haven't.  After our breakthrough with females last year we've focused on that.  It is disappointing that this treatment will only be available to women, but it's still a significant step forward, I believe, in the management of muscle wasting diseases."

"Yes, I'm sure,"  He paused and looked over his file. 

"Dr. Galloway, allow me to be frank.  You'd like to be entering early human trials with this female muscle stimulant.  This is an extremely expensive undertaking, as you well know and will require a significant portion of Sementex's resources.  With that in mind, I'm afraid the numbers simply don't add up.  Even if everything works out perfectly, and you'll agree with me that never happens at this stage of a drug's development, after years and literally millions of dollars, FMG will be left with a product that has a limited market at best addressing only a small segment of muscle wasting diseases, and only in women.  Now if the product worked on both genders we'd be looking at significant revenues from the sports supplementation side but honestly, no one cares about women's sports and performance."

"But there are other potential uses as well, Dr. Sullivan," Alison interjected with a note of panic in her voice.  "As a treatment for anorexia, or to stave off sarcopenia to add years of productive life to millions of elderly women."

Mike closed the file folder on his desk.  "I'm afraid it's not enough to make it a good bet for us.  We're going to have to cancel your project.  You'll be reassigned to work in Dr. Peterson's lab.  He's working on a treatment for female sexual dysfunction, your experience in the female hormone pathways will prove invaluable there.  We want you to take the next few weeks to wrap up your work and clean out the lab, then you'll be assigned to Dr. Peterson permanently."

Alison was stunned.  Her mouth moved, but no words would come.  She knew she was going to have to fight to get a proper financing to move ahead with her work, but … shutting her down??  She'd never anticipated that.  This was her life's work!  How could they?  She wouldn't allow it!  Mousy Alison, for perhaps the first time in her life was shaking with rage.  And assigning her to work under Peterson?  Peterson was a moron and a pig, he was the joke of Sementex, and he was going to be her boss??

"You can't shut this project down, I won't allow it.  This is unacceptable!"  Alison ran out of the office holding back tears, striding past Sandra the receptionist and into the elevator.  She was frantic, hysterical, but she was also resolute.  They weren't going to shut her down!

She practically ran through her lab, tears streaming down her face.  Julie and Craig, her lab tech and postdoctoral assistant were working in the corner.  They were starting to synthesize treatment and placebo doses in anticipation of the clinical trials, and the sight of them working sent Alison off in a new bout of sobs.  She pushed past them into her private office and slammed the door shut.

Once inside Alison took a moment and calmed down a bit.  Panic and hysteria were replaced by resolve.  It wasn't going to end like this.  She grabbed a legal box from under the desk and began to pack up everything she could related to her work, pads, notebooks, stacks of papers, CDs everything she could find.  She went to the computer and copied all the research information on her hard drive onto her memory stick and tossed that in the box too.  Then she noticed the vials on her desk.  Craig must have been working hard, bless him.  On her desk were 12 vials, 6 doses of the treatment prepared for the never to happen clinical trials and 6 doses of the inhibitor.  Alison's treatment was self-sustaining.  Once taken the body would continue to synthesize protein into muscle at a hugely accelerated rate.  Since that process would eventually kill the patient, literally smothering them in their own tissue, an inhibitor was required to stop the action of the initial treatment.  She didn't think Craig would have been able to get 6 doses of each compound ready so quickly, but Craig often surprised her.  Evidently he left the vials on her desk to show her just how efficient he was.  Alison snatched the 12 vials up and tossed them on top of the box.  She then sat down at her computer and composed a brief email resigning from FMG, sent it off to Mike Sullivan and left her office.

A legal sized box full of paper is a heavy thing, and Alison wasn't very strong, but she managed to heft the box onto her hip and sort of throw/waddle it out the door of her office.  Once out in the lab she dropped it on the floor and called her staff over. 

"Well, I don't know how to say this, so I'll just come out and say it.  Bad news from Sullivan.  We're being shut down."  Alison put up her hand to stifle the inevitable questions from Craig and Julie. 

"It's over.  I've resigned effective immediately, you two are going to be reassigned to Dr. Peterson, I imagine.  Sullivan is going to send people down to clean out the lab soon, I'm sure.  Look, I'd like to answer your questions, but I .. I just can't right now"  Tears were welling up in Alison's eyes again.

"You can reach me at my gmail account, I'll be in touch in a couple of days to try to explain everything."

With that Alison waddled out of the lab, swinging the heavy box down the corridor.  She was crying again, tears streaming down her face, and the box was just too heavy, she needed to rest, but she really didn't want any more people than necessary to see her lugging the box out.  The ladies' room was just around the corner, fortunately, and Alison swung the box through the door, praying that the bathroom would be empty.

It was.  Alison dropped the box on the ground, panting and looked at herself in the mirror.  She wiped the tears from her eyes – fortunately she wasn't wearing any mascara to run and splashed water on her face.  It wasn't far to the parking lot, just a short break here and she could lug the heavy box to her car.

As she bent down to pick up the box again she noticed that the lid had been knocked off when she dropped it onto the bathroom floor, and she spotted the vials on top of the papers.  It was such a waste, such a shame.  Ten years of work had gone into those things, and now they'd never get tested.  She might as well pour the contents down the drain now.  Suddenly a thought jumped into Alison's mind.  They didn't have to go to waste…  It's a commandment of research that one should never test on themselves, but .. what other option was there?  The vials beckoned Alison.  What if they were toxic?  So what?  Life wasn't worth living without her life's work.  Quickly, before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, Alison grabbed one of the vials, filled the attached syringe and shot herself straight into the vein with her treatment.

She waited a few minutes.  Her arm burned at the site of the injection, but otherwise it was fine.  No immediate allergic reaction, no swelling or sign of initial toxicity.  Now she would just have to wait and see.  She tossed the used syringe back into the box, put the lid on and grunted as she again swung the heavy load down the corridor.  She had to stop 3 more times to rest before she got to her little Corolla station wagon in the parking lot, but she hefted the box into the back and drove off, hoping to never see Sementex again.  As she pulled out of the parking lot, Alison realized that she was absolutely starving.

She drove out of the parking lot, onto the feeder road and in 5 minutes was merging onto route 1.  The hunger pains were getting stronger now, she was hungrier than she'd ever been in her life, craving meat. Alison suspected that  this was the compound working.  The rats in the tests had displayed hugely increased appetites.  It was promoting protein synthesis, and calling on her nutritional system to provide it.  And she knew exactly where she wanted to eat.

[izdubarr]

Chapter 2:  more to come.

Ray's Hidden Ranch was just half a mile from the Sementex labs on route 1, she used to take her lab staff out there once or twice a year to reward them with a night out and a big feed.  It was a western style barbecue, steaks as big as your head, beans by the bucketful and vegetarians beware!  Her staff loved it, and even though it was a lot of meat for Alison to consume, she didn't mind taking them there, and enduring the jokes about eating her leftovers all week long.  But today, with her compound working on her, Ray's Hidden Ranch was the perfect place for Alison to enjoy an early meal.

"Afternoon ma'am", the waitress drawled in a patently fake Texas accent, after Alison had been seated.  Her name tag identified her as Holly.  She'd been working at Ray's for over a year since she graduated high school.  Holly was a short, pretty girl, with dark red hair and brown eyes.  She carried about 20 extra pounds, but most of it was in the right place, at least for those who liked their women a little thicker, a little rounder.  Ray was one of those men, and Holly had been his mistress since the week after she started.  She outlined the specials in a bored voice – 16 oz. sirloin, a chicken breast for those who are less hungry.

"What about that?", interrupted Alison, pointing to the poster on the wall.  Holly followed Alison's finger, chuckling.

"That's our big eater special ma'am, you probably don't want that.  It's a 100 ounce steak, 2 baked potatoes, salad, shrimp cocktail, big bowl of beans and some other trimmings for $100, but if you can finish it all it's free.  And you get your name and picture on that wall over there.".

"I'd like one of those"

"Ma'am that's a lot of food, are you sure?"

"I'm very hungry", responded Alison with a twinkle in her eye.

"Alright", responded Holly, with a look of amusement.  "There are some rules to the contest.  You must sit at the designated table in our dining room. You may not leave the table for any reason once the contest starts. No one may assist you in any way (such as cutting up your meal). You must complete the dinner in 1 hour.  If you can't do the meal in an hour, you ain't going get it done in 2 hours, believe me!  You may not share your meal even if you don't complete the dinner, like take it back to your table to be shared by any folks you may have invited to cheer you on.  But I guess you're alone today, right?  Oh, and if you get sick, the contest is over, period.  Follow me ma'am.  Oh, how would you like that done?"

"Rare, very rare.  I'm very hungry, if you could bring that out as soon as possible, at least the salad and beans, that would be fantastic.  Oh and could you bring me a big pitcher of water?  I'm parched."

Holly, shaking her head slightly, walked off to the kitchen.  She was back with a big bowl of beans and Alison's salad in a couple of minutes.  The steak took 10 more.  And half an hour after ordering the belt buster special, Alison was mopping the last of the juice up with a piece of bread.  The 100 oz steak was over 6 pounds of meat.  Add in the beans, potatoes, etc. and Alison figured she'd probably consumed at least 10 pounds of food in under half an hour.  Strangely her stomach didn't feel full, nor did it bulge with all that newly consumed food.  In fact, Alison didn't feel any different at all, she was still hungry.

Holly came out of the back to check on Alison and swore to herself when she noticed that the thin woman had actually finished her steak in less than half an hour.  Ray didn't like people eating for free, and he especially didn't like being scammed.  No way could that skinny chick have finished all that, she was playing games.  She hadn't left the table, but Holly was willing to bet she had gotten rid of the steak somehow.  She should have watched her closer.  Or maybe she was some sort of freak of nature, like the 120 pound Japanese guy that eats 50 hot dogs.  But nothing she could do about it now.  Time to congratulate the winner.

"Wow!  That didn't take you long!  The owner, Ray, likes to take the pictures of people who finish the belt buster, cause it doesn't happen very often!  Ray isn't here now though, he usually gets in around 1 in the afternoon, so I'll just take your name and get it put on that plaque over there, the wall of fame!  Will that be all Ma'am?  Or do you have room for desert?", Holly inquired mischievously.

"To tell you the truth", Alison replied, "I'm still a bit hungry.  Are there any rules about me ordering another belt buster?"

Oh, now this chick was pushing her luck.  "Excuse me?" Holly stammered out.

"Seriously", Alison replied.  "I'm still hungry.  I have a very fast metabolism, my mother always used to say I have a hollow leg.  I'd like another steak."

"Well, no one ever has ever ordered 2 of those, but I can't see any reason why we can't serve you another one.  Let me ask in the back."

Holly was back a few minutes later, after calling Ray at home.  He was on his way in, and gave his waitress instructions.  No one was scamming Ray Holmgren out of 2 free meals.

"Miss?  I talked to the owner and he says we'd be happy to serve you another belt buster, on the condition that if you can't finish the second, you'll have to pay for both.  If you finish the second too, well then both are free of course, and you'll be enshrined forever – we'll put your picture on the wall with big lights around it for beating the belt buster twice!"

"Oh, I don't need that", Alison responded, "Just something to eat.  Please make it rare again."

This time Holly watched her like a hawk as Alison devoured the meat.  She noticed that Alison wasn't as skinny as she first thought she had been.  She was wearing loose fitting clothes that hid her well, but they didn't billow around her as much as Holly first thought.  Girl actually looked like she had some chunk to her.  Well she'd have to, Holly thought to herself, to eat that much!

It took her longer to finish this time, almost using up a whole half hour, but Alison finished every bite as Holly watched in amazement.  No hiding food, no tricks, Holly was watching, this woman actually ate 2 100 ounce steaks in just over an hour!  As Alison was finishing the last of her steak, Ray walked in.

Ray Holmgren was a big man, six foot three, and about three hundred pounds.  He used to be a linebacker at Texas A and M back in the day.  He was now in his 40s and had lost his shape and developed a beer gut, but his arms and shoulders still carried the muscle of a division 1 college football player.  He knew it too.  Ray was extremely proud of his imposing physical stature, and would flare his lats out as he walked, pulling his arms away from his body to puff his muscles up as he walked into his Ranch House, his castle.

He'd owned his steak house for years now and only 8 people had EVER finished his belt buster special.  And they were all 300 pound men.  So what was this about a skinny little girl eating it twice?  What kind of shenanigans were going on?  Ray was going to get to the bottom of it.

"Well, is this the little lady who's eating me out of house and home?", Ray inquired, walking up to Alison's table just as she had finished her meal.

Alison looked up into Ray's face.  The second steak had filled her up, and she really had to go to the bathroom, but Holly had insisted that Alison could not leave the table until it was gone.  Although she still didn't feel bloated or full, her bra straps and underwear were cutting into her skin painfully, cutting off circulation.  She needed to get to the bathroom to try to fix it, but it looked like Ray wanted to talk.

"I'm Ray, the proprietor, and I have no idea where you put all that meat, darlin'.  You hiding some in that purse there?", Ray quipped, only half joking.

"Pleased to meet you Ray, but I really need to excuse myself."  Alison said, moving to get up.  Her body felt strange as she stood, like her limbs belonged to someone else.  She almost sat back down to steady herself.

Probably going to go throw up, thought Ray, but said nothing.

Alison lurched awkwardly down the hall to the bathroom, like someone who'd drank, rather than ate, too much.

A few seconds after Ray saw Alison disappear through the door to the ladies room he motioned to Holly.  "Go see what she's doing in there."

"You want me to spy on the lady in the bathroom?"

"Well I (ah) want to know if she's puking in there, yeah!"

Reluctantly Holly got up and trudged to the ladies room herself.

Ray's Ranch house wasn't exactly the kind of place that went to great effort to appoint itself with luxury bathrooms, but the privacy was exactly what Alison needed.  She slipped into a stall, closed the door behind her, and peed more than she'd ever peed in her life.  When she was done, she unbuttoned her blouse, which wasn't nearly as loose fitting as she remembered, and reached her arms behind her back to undo the catch on her bra, which was practically strangling her at this point.  She took off the blouse, pulled the bra off and then noticed the changes in herself.

The transformation was astonishing.  Skinny Alison was gone, replaced by a muscular beauty.  She wasn't bulky, but lithe and athletic, looking like she just stepped off the field at the Olympics.  She was sporting a substantial amount of muscle, not a bodybuilder by any means, but enough that her tone and definition were obvious.  It wasn't surprising, after all if the protein synthesis was working she had probably added 15 pounds of muscle to her frame in the last hour.  She ran her hands over her now six-pack abs amazed by their shape and hardness.  She couldn't resist flexing her biceps, and was surprised by the bulge that popped out in her arms.

Her self-examination was interrupted by the sound of Holly coming into the ladies' room.  Alison quickly slipped her blouse back on.  There was no way the bra was going to fit, but Alison hardly needed it, though her breasts did seem a bit fuller.  Perhaps a side-effect of the female hormonal pathways she used for the protein synthesis?  If so, it would be a welcome side effect.  Her blouse was still quite loose, but the polyester blend was heavy enough to keep her from getting arrested without a bra, but light enough that her small breasts poked sexily against it.  The blouse was starting to get tight across her back and shoulders, but was still pretty loose fitting overall.  Alison opened the stall door and exited, her skirt still distressingly tight across her formerly flat bottom, but there was nothing that could be done about that right now.  She was going to have to go shopping in the near future though.

"I'm sorry, miss.  He sent me in to watch you.  He thinks you're puking your dinner up right now.  No one your size has ever finished the gut buster, never mind twice!  I wouldn't ever have believed it.  You weren't… were you?  Barfing, I mean."  Alison stammered, speaking too quickly.  She was suddenly strangely intimidated by the tall woman in front of her.

"No, hardly .. Holly", replied Alison, reading the name off of Holly's tag.  She thought to herself for a second.  She knew she should just get out of there, jump in her car and drive off, avoid any kind of confrontation.  That was always her first instinct.  But Alison was feeling a surge of confidence and even pride for the first time in a long time.  She was enjoying the attention.

"It's just that I'm in training, pretty seriously too.  And I have to eat a tremendous amount of food to keep up with it.  Like thousands of calories a day,"  The lie was smoothly and confidently delivered, and Alison couldn't help smirking as she said it.

Holly nervously pulled a stick of lipstick from her purse and looked into the mirror as she applied it.

"That makes sense, I guess", she said, in between rolling her lips together.  It didn't really, but she had heard that athletes did eat a lot of food to keep their strength up.  "What are you in training for."

"Bodybuilding."  The word popped out of Alison's mouth without missing a beat.  She chuckled inside.  Alison Galloway pretending to be a bodybuilder.  That was a stretch!

"No way!"  Holly turned to Alison, done with her lipstick.  "Lady you're too skinny!"

"Well, I'm just starting out, to be honest."  It was honest too, damn it!  She certainly hadn't been anything like a bodybuilder yesterday!  "But I'm making great progress so far.  Here, let me show you."

Holly's heart sped up just a bit with excitement.  Alison rolled her sleeve up on her left arm and flexed for Holly.  Her bicep popped up again, and Holly's jaw dropped as she stared transfixed.  She slowly reached out her arm to touch Alison's pausing only to mutter, "May I?".

"Go ahead", replied Alison in a deep, confident voice.  She was enjoying this moment more than she would have ever guessed. 

Holly's arm cupped Alison's bicep gently.  It was warm, and the skin was soft, but underneath it was like marble, hard and solid. 

"Damn!  I never would have guessed you were built like that!  Girl, I'd KILL for an arm like that!"  Holly wasn't exaggerating much.  She'd always been fascinated with the look of muscular women, and wished she could look like them.  But she never had the willpower to work at it.  She'd joined a few gyms, but never lasted more than a month, mostly because she was confused by the exercise selection, and more than a little intimidated by all the fit, muscular people.

"It's easier than you think Holly",  Alison replied.  If only you knew how easy it was!  She didn't know where the next thing she spoke came from, but she heard herself offering, "If you'd like, maybe we can meet someday and I'll show you a few things in the gym."  Now where did that come from?  What the hell did Alison know about a gym?  Hopefully the 'someday' would save her. 

"Here's my card.  Give me a call sometime".

"Thanks, .. Alison.", Holly stammered still preoccupied from touching Alison's arm.  "I might do that!"

Alison angled past the still distracted Holly and out of the ladies room.  Holly followed her our a few seconds later.  Alison needed to get her coat and get out of Ray's, hopefully before Ray noticed and made trouble for her.  But no such luck, Ray was still sitting at the table where she had left her coat.

"Little lady, I don't know how, but I'm being scammed.  Nobody your side eats 2 belt busters, no way.  Now I don't know if you just puked your guts out, or got rid of the food some other way, but no way you finished the contest fair and square.  Ah'm gonna have to ask you to pay for your food."

Alison was about to object when Holly jumped in.  "She's legit Ray.  She's a bodybuilder, and needs to eat a lot to grow her muscles." 

"A bodybuilder??  A lady bodybuilder?  This skinny thing?"  Ray laughed his booming laugh "Haw Haw!!  Building up big strong muscles, are you darlin'?  Lemme see your big muscles!"

Alison was becoming angry now.  Yesterday this kind of confrontation would have probably sent her into a seizure, or at least left her crying.  But today it was just making her mad. 

"Listen, Ray, I followed the rules of the contest, and I'm going to be on my way."

"Sure thing, soon as you pay up,"  Ray was still chuckling to himself.  "Lady bodybuilders, what's this world coming to.  Hell, bodybuilding in general is pretty dumb.  I remember back when Ah was playing football, those bodybuilder guys in the gym.  The looked like Hercules, but they was all show and no go, weaklings each and every one of em."

"Care to see who's the weakling here, tough guy?"  Again the words slipped out of Alison's mouth before she even realized it.  It was like someone else was talking.  But they were out there.

"Haw! Haw! Haw! little lady, what you have in mind?  You wanna arm rassle or something?  Haw! Haw!"

"If it'll get me out of here, sure.  But I only will wrestle you on one condition.  If I win I walk out without having to pay.  And believe me I'm NEVER coming back."

"And if Ah win?"

"Well, then I guess I have to pay my bill."

"Deal!  Follow me out back."

'What the hell?', thought Alison to herself.  She had nothing to lose, Ray wasn't going to let her out without paying anyways. 

True to it's macho image, Ray's Ranch house did have a competition arm wrestling table in the back.  Sometimes some of the customers wanted to test their strength against each other, or against the owner.  Ray almost never lost.

Alison and Ray went to the back room and sat on opposite sides of the table, putting their elbows in the padded circles and grabbed the posts with their left hands.  Holly was playing referee, and held their hands together in the top position.  Secretly she was pulling for Alison, but she knew the girl had no chance.  Ray outweighed her by more than 100 pounds, and he was the arm wrestling king around the restaurant.  Alison had some nice muscle in her arm, for a girl, but she wasn't close to Ray.

Alison had never arm wrestled in her life, but then how hard could it be?  Push with all your might, pin Ray's arm.  Despite her obvious disadvantage compared to Ray, Alison's newfound confidence was telling her she could DO this!  She almost believed it.  Still she knew she was the serious underdog here.  Her only hope was a bit of deception.  Ray was clearly the show off type, and although the restaurant was empty at 3:30 in the afternoon, a few cooks and cleaners had gathered to watch the match.  She knew that Ray would be cocky, and wouldn't be able to help but show off.

When Holly pulled her hands away to signal the start of the match, Alison lurched her arm with sudden force, hoping to take Ray off guard.  She didn't use all her strength, only about half, but she was quicker than Ray, who was caught a bit off guard, and moved his arm about halfway down before he caught her.  With a grin on his face Ray pulled their arms back to the starting point, while Alison put up only a fraction of her strength into resisting.  Ray smiled and started joking with the staff as he pushed Alison's arm halfway down and then let up.  He was going to toy with her now, just as she thought he would.

"What's the matter, little lady?  Too hard on you?"

Ray let off the pressure and let Alison pull her arm back up.  He was clearly not exerting himself, talking and joking with the audience.  Alison, while also not expending her full strength, was pretending she was pushing for all she was worth.  Slowly Ray's arm went down as he teased her.

"Damn, you're making me work for this, darlin'.  Ah cain't stop you! Ah!  Mah arm!"  Ray joked as he let Alison push his arm most of the way down to the table. 

Ray's arm was getting close to the bottom.  Alison knew he'd pour on his strength any minute now and slam her down to her defeat.  But Ray didn't know how much Alison was holding back.  Suddenly she flexed her muscles tight and threw her weight into her arm, jerking Rays arm suddenly down to the table! 

But it wasn't enough.  Ray caught on, and put his whole strength into it, stopping Alison as his arm was hovering about half an inch above the table.  After that it was inevitable.  Ray was simply stronger.  Ray grit his teeth, his face went red and he poured all his strength into his arm and he slowly.. ever so slowly pushed Alison's arm back.  Back up to the top and over and down, pinning her arm a few minutes later.  When it was over both competitors arms felt like fire, but Ray was the winner.

Holly was amazed at how good a fight Alison had put up.  Ray won, Ray always won, but she hadn't seen him pushed like that since the Rutgers football team was down a few months back.  That girl was STRONG!

[KeithXZ]

This is really excellent izdubarr!  I'm really looking forward to reading more.

[Mr. G]

Like the first two chapters.

[scat]

I'm waiting the next part …
[move]                                                                                                                                                                          Excellent !![/move] [move]                                                                                                      Excellent !![/move] [move] Excellent !![/move]

[yaracyrrah80]

Woot!  More, more, more!

[gblock01]

A very impressive start. Can't wait to see the rest.

[Zespara Alathar]

A very nice start to this tale.  Good descriptions and it keeps a person glued to the tube as it were.  😉

It'd be nice if Holly followed up with Allison and get a few "pointers" (pun intended) from her.

Z

[Fonk]

This is incredible stuff. I'm itching to read more of Alison's adventures!

[lowcast2000]

Great story

[Author]

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