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I think this one came out pretty well; Chapter 04 is not my favorite chapter of all the Sylph stories, but it’s not horrid, either.
{knock, knock, knock}
“Whup!”
{bump…CRUNCH!}
“Shoot! Every time… Be right there!”
There was the sound of heavy footsteps, then of something very big being dragged away from the door. Finally, the door swung inwards. Framed in the doorway was the most massive person Kalida had ever seen. The woman was neither tall nor fat, Kalida saw immediately, just unnaturally wide. Large breasts rested atop a pectoral shelf that appeared to be over a foot deep. Deltoids larger than basketballs were crowded against trapezius muscles that looked as if they had been drawn by an overenthusiastic geometer. Her triceps didn’t appear to be horseshoes; rather, it looked as if someone had decided that it would be less wasteful if they simply shoved the entire horse under her skin. In fact, all of her muscles appeared to be absurdly hypertrophied.
Tearing her gaze away from the woman’s body, Kalida looked into her face. The incongruity of such a youthful, delicate face on such an obviously powerful body was almost too great to comprehend. Her hair was a rich chestnut color, not extraordinarily thick, but not too thin, either. Her eyes were an interesting shade of watery green and very large set into a face that had the high cheekbones and aristocratic nose of a Tolkien elf. After staring openly for a few moments, Kalida found her voice. “Forgive me. I did not mean to be rude. I am Kalida, your neighbor.”
“No need to apologize,” the giant woman said. Her voice was rich and melodious- a low soprano or a high alto, Kalida guessed. “I’m Sylph. Won’t you come in?”
Sylph stepped back from the door and motioned for Kalida to enter the room. Kalida’s first impression of the room was that a very comfortable living space had just had a collision with a disastrous train wreck. The room itself was quite large, originally intended as a triple or possibly even a quad. Of course, given Sylph’s enormous physical presence, it made sense that it had been converted into a single. There was all of the usual furniture, but none of it was made to regulation specifications. Looking again, Kalida realized that wasn’t quite true. All of the standard furniture was present, but most of it was neatly stacked against the east wall. The exceptions were pieces that appeared to have been victims of a ruthless toddler with power tools.
For example, there was a bed against the west wall, but it was an obviously custom-made contraption, with extra-heavy bars and bracing, and thick lag-bolts securing the pieces so that it would take truly cataclysmic forces to so much as shift the frame. The mattress and box-spring were both king-size, and Kalida suspected that that barely made it wide enough for Sylph to sleep on comfortably. The original bed, while still in the room, had been separated into two distinct parts. The mattress was leaning against the east wall, while the frame appeared to have been bent into a letter ‘V.’ A spider’s web of cracks spread out from the nadir of the ‘V’-frame where the point had been embedded into the concrete floor by what appeared to be about six inches.
“Interesting sculpture,” she commented. “How did you get it into the floor? And isn’t the administration going to object?”
Sylph reddened slightly. “Sculpture? Oh, the bed. When you knocked I was in the process of moving it. You distracted me and I tripped over a box of my warm-up weights and fell on it.”
“You did all that,” Kalida indicated the twisted, mangled heap of steel, “by simply falling on it?”
“Well, I didn’t mean to,” Sylph grimaced.
Sylph looked a little embarrassed and quickly cast around for a new subject. “So, um… What brings you here?”
“Well, uh, a couple things. I noticed you came back to your room before they started serving dinner and you’ve been sort of cloistered in here ever since…”
“Yeah?”
“Well, they stopped serving dinner about an hour ago, and I made some pastitsio and some dolmathes. I thought you might like something to eat.”
“Hey, that’s really sweet of you,” Sylph said, looking genuinely pleased.
“Well, it’s over in my room- I’m just across the hall in one of the suites, and we have a pretty good kitchen. Why don’t you come on over and we can eat?”
“Sure. Would you mind waiting while I change into some clean clothes? I kind of ruined my dress earlier today, and I figured I couldn’t hurt it any worse moving furniture and stuff around, but I wouldn’t want to go anywhere in it, y’know?”
“Go ahead,” Kalida smiled, noticing for the first time what appeared to be oil-stains on Sylph’s shoulders and bosom. Sylph flashed another quick smile and quickly skinned out of her dress. If it was possible, Sylph seemed even larger now than she had when she was fully dressed. Sylph’s waist, Kalida realized, was actually larger around than Kalida’s entire torso, although it seemed almost waspish sandwiched between the dual pillars that were her legs and the monolithic superstructure of her chest.
Kalida watched as Sylph rummaged in her chest of drawers, eventually pulling out an enormous pair of very stretchy drawstring shorts and a vest that looked as if it could have served to cover the entire offensive line of NYU’s football team. Sylph sat on the edge of her bed and carefully pulled the shorts up over calves that more closely resembled full-grown steers, past her surprisingly dainty knees, and then gently, oh-so-gently stretched them to near-transparent thinness over her upper legs and butt. Standing once again, Sylph let out a deep breath and shrugged her arms into her vest. There was a slight popping sound as some of the threads around the armholes gave out, and Sylph looked despairingly at the overtaxed garment. “Looks like I’m going to need to insert another panel in the shoulders,” she mumbled as she tied the front together with a long leather thong.
Now dressed in clean clothes, Sylph joined Kalida and walked across the hall. Kalida’s suite was a bit larger than Sylph’s if you included all six living spaces, the small lounge area, the kitchen, and the dining area. There were no lights on, so Sylph waited in the hall until Kalida found the switch. Sylph was surprised to note how bare the entire area looked. “None of my roomies have arrived yet,” Kalida explained. “It gets a bit, um, lonely late at night.”
Sylph shook her head. “I imagine. I hate being in an unfamiliar place alone at night. It always seems so creepy.”
“Creepy?” Kalida asked. “Why that?”
Sylph laughed self-consciously, shrugged her shoulders. “Mom says it’s called achluophobia- an irrational fear of the dark. You probably think that’s pretty silly coming from me.” To her surprise, Kalida did not look in the least scornful, or even surprised. Instead, the emotions Sylph saw were those of sympathy and relief.
“Do you know,” she began weakly, “I thought I was going crazy the first time it happened to me. This fear doesn’t happen when I am at home, or when I am with a friend, but if I am alone, it can be very strong.”
Sylph found herself nodding as Kalida spoke. She remembered how her dad had given her Mr. Rickles and told her that the bear was a magic knight that would protect her from the night terrors when they moved into their new house. It was a silly story, of course, but she was six, and it got her through the first couple nights until she could become acclimatized to their new home. She knew her fear didn’t follow the typical pattern exactly, and it sounded as if Kalida’s phobia was very similar to her own.
Kalida shook her head. “Wow, that was uncomfortable. Let’s get some food on the table.” She went to the oven and pulled a large pan out. The slightly spicy aroma from the pastitsio filled the room with the scents of tomatoes and cinnamon. A second covered tray held the rolled grape leaves, which Kalida placed on the countertop.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Sylph asked.
“Sure. Can you go down the hall and get some ice? I thought we might have some iced tea with dinner.” Sylph nodded and headed down the hall to the ice machine.
Kensington Hall was one of the newest dorms on campus, and a number of incentives had been made available to students who chose to live there as part of the university’s way of promoting the chem-free lifestyle. Among the luxuries provided were hotel-style ice machines on every floor and brand-new high-capacity coke machines. When Sylph got to the small vending room, she saw that the workmen responsible for stocking and repairing the various machines had been through recently. This was apparent mainly because the new soda dispenser had been placed directly in front of the ice machine, completely blocking it.
Sighing, Sylph gently placed an arm on either side of the giant vending machine and squeezed lightly to get a secure grip. Squatting slightly, she lifted the half-ton box straight up and started to walk in over to a blank space on the wall. As she started walking, she felt the flat sides starting to slip in her grip, so she squeezed down slightly harder.
{krnk…sprang!}
{thud.}
{thud. thud.}
{thudthudthudthudthudthud.}
First one, then a couple more, then a torrent of Coke bottles issued forth from the vending bay, bouncing off Sylph’s knees and rolling around on the floor. With her vision completely blocked by the large dispensary, Sylph accidentally stepped on one of the loose bottles, mashing it flat and spraying the contents all over the room, but not before she completely lost her footing and went over on her back with a tremendous crash.
“I just can’t win,” Sylph grunted, still holding the Coke machine up over her body. Shifting the weight of the thousand-pound soda cooler, Sylph crunched her abs into a sit-up position, then brought her legs under her cross-legged. Finally, still with the giant box parallel to the floor, she stood straight up. There was another loud crunching noise, this time from the ceiling being compressed by roughly a foot. The overhead fluorescent lights exploded in a shower of sparks and the metal beams folded and accordioned, dropping broken plaster and dust in torrents. Sylph winced and slowly, carefully, set the Coke machine back on the floor to the side of the ice maker.
Looking at the ice maker, Sylph was chagrined to learn that there was a work order taped to its face. Looking over the work order, she discovered that the ice maker was due for maintenance because the blades which were supposed to chop the ice had malfunctioned, causing the machine to jam. The machine was still plugged in, though, and still connected to the building water supply, so Sylph guessed that there was probably still ice inside it. Examining the machine, Sylph figured she could probably get to the ice hopper easiest by stripping the top off it. The machine was not originally designed to be opened in this way, of course, but, at this point, that wasn’t really a huge concern. Digging her fingers into the metal side of the ice maker, Sylph carefully rolled it back as if she were opening a can of tinned meat, neatly tearing the metal apart from the front and back of the machine as she went.
Peering inside, she saw that the hopper was, indeed, full, but the ice had melted and refrozen into a giant lump. For anyone else, it would require either a long time with the power off or else a hammer and ice-pick to slowly and painstakingly remove the ice. Sylph grinned suddenly and cracked her knuckles. Balling her hand into a tight fist, Sylph plunged her arm deep through the mass of solid ice, causing the entire block to splinter. Taking her ice bucket, Sylph filled it from the shattered fragments left in the hopper. Setting down the bucket, she set about undoing the damage she had caused to the best of her ability- she flattened out the top of the ice maker, collected up the dropped soda bottles and set them next to the machine, and left a twenty dollar bill taped to the front of the Coke machine.
Returning to Kalida’s room with the ice, Sylph saw that Kalida had set everything on a low table in the lounge. “I noticed that you didn’t have any normal sized furniture in your room,” she explained, “and I figured the chairs in our dining room are pretty rickety, so I thought we might eat Asian-style.”
As they ate, Kalida and Sylph talked about a variety of subjects. Kalida mentioned that she knew Wade from high school- he was a few grades ahead of her- and had always had kind of a crush on him. Kalida was, apparently, a year older than Sylph, but had spent a year after graduating high school in Greece with her grandparents, thus putting them in the same class in college. Sylph mentioned that she was planning to major in visual arts and Kalida said that she was planning on studying dance, although she was concerned that she might not have the strength needed for modern dance.
“I can help you train, if you want,” Sylph offered. Kalida looked her up and down, obviously somewhat intimidated, and Sylph laughed lightly. “Don’t worry- I don’t think you could get as big as me if you wanted to. I have pretty exceptional genetics and I’ve been training since I was six years old.”
“Well, okay,” Kalida agreed, “but you have to promise not to kill me- I’m not superwoman, y’know.”
Sylph smiled gently. “Of course not. We’ll take it slow and easy at first. You’re probably stronger than you think you are, though.”
After they finished, Sylph helped Kalida clean up, then got ready to go back to her own room. Pausing at the door, she turned back to Kalida. “Um,” she began hesitantly, “I don’t suppose you’d like to come over to my room and spend the night, would you?”
Kalida paused in what she was doing and looked up at the much larger girl. Sylph reddened slightly, embarrassed. Finally, Kalida nodded decisively. “Sure. I’m glad you asked, really. Let me grab my covers and you can set up the spare bed so that we both have a place to sleep.”
Ya ever have one of those days? Today was one of those days… I went to work and got started on formalizing Sylph’s profile. As I chewed over the text that I’d written, I realized I’d made an error in every single picture I’d released to date. Specifically, I gave her green eyes in Chapter 04, and then, when I started making pictures, I turned them into a warm brown.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I like the brown eyes… but I thought it might be a wacky idea if her eyes were actually the right color, so I went ahead and changed them… and then I went and redid all the pictures I had of her, to date. In case you really just want to see the pretty pictures- they are pretty, right?- or if you want to laugh at me for my ham-handed writing technique, I’m reposting all the links to the chapters in my dA account:
Sylph 01 in Morning Routine
Sylph 02 in Moving Day
Sylph 03 in Meet and Greet
Sylph 04 in Slumber Party
sometime after the end of the established timeline, Sylph in Heroine Appreciation DayAnd, of course, the previously unreleased Sylph Profile Page
Sylph
Height: 5’6”
Weight: 2,150 lbs
Hair: Chestnut Brown
Eyes: Light Green
Ethnicity: Irish/Slavic mixAppearance:
Sylph is, quite simply, enormous. Although her height is only average, her massive physique tips the scale at over a ton of dense, solid muscle. Despite her anomalous musculature, Sylph’s face is still remarkably feminine, with surprisingly delicate features, a round face, and a slightly pointed chin that seems reminiscent of typical depictions of elves. Sylph’s size is such that all of her wardrobe has to be hand-tailored, leaving a lot of room for expansion, and even so she regularly flexes out of her clothes by accident. Sylph’s outfits tend to be quite rugged, made primarily of leather and denim, although she enjoys the feel of softer fabrics when she can afford them and get away with them.Personal Quote:
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?”
“I am NOT clumsy!”Background/History:
Sylph is the daughter of Bill, a modestly successful corporate lawyer, and Diane, a former amateur bodybuilder and current paramedic. Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, Sylph was something of an oddity; she attended public schools, but it was quite clear by the time she was six years old that Sylph was far from normal. Even in preschool, Sylph was strong, but as she entered school, it seemed as if her physical power grew exponentially.This was not, naturally, without complications. Despite Sylph’s good nature and generally cautious way of interacting with the world, her outsized proportions, weight, and strength meant that things often broke in her presence despite her best intentions, and the repair bills for a daughter who could accidentally trip and knock a pickup truck onto its side quickly became significant.
In an effort to help mitigate the accidental damage that his daughter caused, Bill introduced his daughter to his martial arts instructor, who insisted on teaching martial arts as an immersive way of life, requiring Sylph to become centered as well as skillful. Additionally, Sylph’s mother, Diana, helped her daughter refine her tactile awareness so that she was less prone to causing catastrophes in moments of distraction.
Neither method was entirely successful, and Sylph remained somewhat accident prone, especially as her physical size increased and her strength more than overmatched her growth. People who knew Sylph quickly came to dread the sound of her chagrined “Oops,” usually immediately following a symphony of destructive noises that sounded like a percussive symphony.
Middle school and high school were particularly difficult for the titanic teen, and she was often accused of being clumsy, inept, or uncoordinated. Unsurprisingly, Sylph developed something of an aversion to being called clumsy, and a nearly certain way to send her past her boiling point was to say or imply that her size made her dangerously or stupidly awkward.
As an escape from such taunts and, also, as a way to prove to herself that she actually wasn’t unreasonably ungainly, Sylph began turning her attention to artistic pursuits. She had always enjoyed drawing, and she had a good eye for detail, but once she hit middle school, she turned her attention to oils, watercolors, and sculpture. Her favorite subjects were fantasies, especially those that involved faeries and unicorns, and her skill was sufficient that, despite her fairly juvenile subject matter, she caught the eye of several professors and the New York University School of Art, and she was actively recruited into their program.
The larger body of New York University was not as overwhelmingly thrilled to have Sylph apply, largely because her size pretty much guaranteed that the University would have to make extensive accommodations in order to provide services. They were gearing up to reject Sylph’s application when Bill invoked the ADA and worked out a compromise that they were, reluctantly, forced to accept.
Personality:
Sylph often seems shy and a little uncertain, but much of this is because she is exceptionally wary of accidentally hurting anyone. While Sylph is not a true pacifist, she will always seek a nonviolent solution to any conflict in favor of using force, provided the opportunity is present or can be made available. Sylph is, in fact, very confident in her own abilities and, further, enjoys showing off when she thinks others will appreciate the show. She generally appears demure, but the frequency with which her activities leave her half-naked have led many to suspect that Sylph has more than a little bit of an exhibitionist streak to her.Powers/Abilities:
Sylph is an enormously powerful young woman in a world where there are very few metahumans to compete with her. As of the current timeline in the story, Sylph has actually outstripped even the out-sized weightroom equipment that her father and the best engineers at Boglyn construction could devise. She has proven capable of stabilizing the central building support for a five story building, although the exact amount of weight involved (and how it was distributed to her muscles) is something that is still under debate. It seems likely that Sylph can easily manage in excess of a thousand tons, and the actual upper limit seems to be increasing almost constantly.Sylph’s enormous strength is, fortunately, balanced by her tremendous agility; while she cannot achieve truly superhuman speeds, except as a function of the power her muscles can exert against the ground, her reaction time greatly exceeds even the best of natural athletes. With the benefit of adrenaline, Sylph is capable of reacting to and responding to emergencies while others are still barely registering their perception of the events; it is this uncanny level of perception and reactions that has, to date, allowed her to avoid causing injury to another human being either through accidental action or inaction. Unfortunately, these reactions seem to be, at best, spotty, only truly coming fully into effect when another living creature is endangered.
Finally, Sylph’s endurance also far exceeds natural human limitations. This, specifically, is limited to her physical durability and resistance to fatigue from physical exertions; it does nothing to prevent her from being overwhelmed by mental fatigue or just getting worn out from a long day. On the other hand, while it has never actually been tested, it seems quite likely that Sylph’s body is probably immune to most small arms and probably even some more powerful weapons, as her flesh necessarily has a density that far exceeds any natural human.
Sylph is an accomplished artist, with a keen eye for color and form. She is skilled in most visual media, and is becoming a talented photographer and sculptor.
Sylph has a solid background in technical drawing, architecture, and mechanical engineering. Again, she is not an expert, but she’s naturally talented, has further enhanced her skills through education, and is wise enough to seek help when she needs it.
Sylph has trained in martial arts, focusing on Tai Chi Chuan and Aikijujitsu. While she is not a master, she is certainly an exceptionally talented student and takes her studies seriously.
Weaknesses
Sylph breaks stuff. This is almost never intentional; it is simply the result of being a proverbial bull in a tissue-paper China shop. It is not that she is clumsy (see above— she is not); it is simply that, even at her most careful, she cannot always adjust her strength to the flimsiness of the world around her.Sylph is generally very even tempered, but she can be snide, bitchy, or downright rude when she’s out of sorts, and the reasons for her temper are as varied for her as they are for anyone. In particular, she hates it when people suggest that she has become clumsy, and she has been known to make poor decisions when goaded, although she almost always regrets it immediately thereafter.
Sylph has a strong sense of personal responsibility, and will always try to make good on any damages that she incurs as a result of accidents or misdeeds. That Sylph is not independently wealthy has meant that she’s needed to take on a full time job as a construction-site supervisor in addition to her classes and spending time as a coach for the NYU Violets Football team. This has, naturally, left her without much time for romance, and that combined with her unusual physique has left her a bit insecure about her romantic prospects.
And now, picking up where the story left off, we have Chapter 05 of the Sylph stories. Not sure if anyone (except AlexG) here actually likes these or not (he wheedled), so thanksies and feedbacks are wanted…
{knock, knock, knock!}
“huh?”
{snrk}
“just a…{yawn!}…second!”
{THUD!}
“OW! stoopid, frakkin’, ratzen, ratzlefratch!”
Finally, the door opened and Wade stood face-to-face with the young woman in the doorway. The only thing was, it wasn’t the woman he had expected to see. Leaning in the doorway was a darkly tanned woman with lustrous black hair and the second-most stunning figure Wade had ever seen. His mouth dropped open and he just barely managed to keep his tongue from rolling out as he tried to find words to say.
“Hey, Wade,” she dimpled at him, obviously unoffended. When he obviously didn’t recognize her, she continued. “I’m Khalida. Why don’t you come on in while I find the coffee?” She pulled the door open and stepped back into the room. Stepping in after her, Wade turned to close the door and was surprised at how difficult it was. The door must have weighed a hundred pounds, but she had handled it easily with one hand.
“Um, I’m here to see Sylph…” Wade managed after he got the door closed.
“I figured that out, silly,” Khalida chirped at him. “Sylph said she might run down to the grocery store this morning to get some breakfast stuff. I’m guessing she’ll be back soon.”
Khalida evidently found the box with the coffee and the coffeemaker in it. It was under another box, moderately large. Grabbing it with both hands, Khalida the second box off of the first with a light oomph, then turned to Wade. “Here,” she grunted, “hold this.”
Without thinking, Wade reached out his arms to grip the box from underneath. She let go and Wade suddenly felt as if his arms were being pulled out of his sockets. He overbalanced and crashed to the floor, startling Khalida and pinning his arms under the box. Her eyes went very wide and she squatted down to lift the box off his poor, abused arms. “Omigosh! Are you okay?” she asked.
“Nothing broken, I think,” Wade assayed cautiously as she set the box on the floor next to him. Wade considered the enigma in front of him as she went back to setting up the coffeemaker and preparing the coffee. It took him a few moments. When he was in high school, she would have been a few years younger than him. “Are you, by chance, Khalida Matsoukis?”
“I thought sure you didn’t recognize me!” she exclaimed, obviously delighted.
“Honestly?” Wade chuckled, “I didn’t. Last time I saw you, you were this grass-stained, skinny tomboy that always had scrapes on her knees and elbows. You’ve really changed a lot.”
A rhythmic thudding announced the arrival of the room’s primary occupant. Sylph filled the doorway the way only she could, her vast, mind-boggling size made accessible by the genuinely innocent and caring demeanor that wore it. She was wearing what appeared to be an over-stuffed custom-made backpack, easily large enough to be intended as the duffel for a very long-distance camping excursion. She was wearing a pair of workout shorts, Wade saw, already under more stress than they could possibly be expected to survive, a surprisingly loose fitted top that must have used as much fabric as a standard four-man tent, and matching bracelets and anklets. Her entire body was covered in a light sheen of sweat, which Wade found mildly surprising given that he had a pretty good idea of how strong she really was-or, at least, he thought he did.
“Hi Wade, Hey Khalida,” Sylph panted, “let me put the groceries away and I’ll help with breakfast.”
“Sure thing,” Khalida agreed. “Hey, do you think you could do something about your weights? I tripped over them getting the door.”
“Oh, sure. Are you okay?”
“Well, I banged my chin on one of your crates, but other than that, I’m fine.”
As they sat down to breakfast (Wade only drank coffee, as he had already eaten), they talked about the schedule for the day. Wade promised to help them both with getting registered for classes and to show them around campus. Khalida reminded Sylph that she had promised to help her in the gym, and Wade offered to tag along for emotional support.
Class registration proved to be fairly anti-climactic. There were a number of core classes that they had to take- English literature, a humanities course- and then they had the option to fill up the rest of their schedule with a couple of electives. Sylph chose a survey drawing course and an introductory dance course. Khalida managed to get assigned to the same humanities course and the same dance course, although she ended up in a different lit class. Her other class was a teaching methods class called Characteristics of Learners. Looking over their schedules, Wade indicated judicious approval. They weren’t going to have an easy time, but they had good professors. “And I should tell you,” he mentioned, “you have an outstanding TA in your Fundamentals of Drawing class.”
They looked at him curiously.
“Me,” he said, buffing his fingernails on his shirt.
Wade led them around the campus, stopping in the student union for lunch. As the three of them chatted over lunch, a number of young men sat nearby and whispered comments to each other. Khalida was obviously upset by this, but Sylph appeared to be used to it. “Just let it go, Khalida,” she muttered, “it’s kind of what I get for being me.”
Khalida scowled at this, and Wade raised one eyebrow. “Just because you’re used to it doesn’t make it right,” Khalida whispered fiercely as Wade got to his feet and ambled over to the other table.
Looking up, Sylph blanched. Wade was obviously in good shape, but the men at the next table were what she would have described as prime specimens. Wade stood there talking with them for a few minutes, and Sylph waited nervously, afraid that violence might break out at any moment. Sylph couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Wade gestured to her a couple of times and several of the scowling faces turned toward her before returning to their quiet huddle. After another minute, the smallest—least large?—of the men at the other table got up from his seat and came around the table. Wade smiled at him amiably and led him over to Sylph and Khalida.
“Ladies,” Wade began, “please allow me to introduce Mike Pendergast, quarterback of the NYU Violets.”
Mike stood a good six-foot-two and was clearly in very good shape. He was quite lean, Sylph realized, his baggy shirt and jeans hiding a body that was undoubtedly corded with lean muscle and whippet-fast.
“How do you do, ma’am,” he nodded first at Khalida, then at Sylph. His accent was honeyed molasses, deep and rich to match his skin.
“Um, okay,” Sylph replied, glancing at Wade for a cue. He was as inscrutable as a Cheshire cat, and she silently vowed to get even with him later.
“We-” he indicated the men at the other table “-couldn’t help but notice you when you came in. We represent the offensive line of the Violets. Do you know much about us?”
Sylph had to admit that she really didn’t.
“Well, that’s not really surprising. NYU hasn’t had a varsity football team since the sixties. That’s something we’d like to change, though. We’re not slouches, athletically, but, well, it’s kind of obvious to us that you’re way beyond us.”
Sylph blushed.
“We were hoping,” he rushed on, “that we could talk you into helping us train. If you’ve got the time, of course.”
Sylph nodded, having trouble finding her voice. Khalida looked dumbstruck. “Hey, that’s awesome,” she began, then paused, trying to gauge Sylph’s reaction.
“Sure,” Sylph managed at last. “We’re heading over to the gym after lunch. Why don’t you guys join us?”
Chapter 06 marks my first attempt at shirt ripping. Overall, I think I didn’t do too badly, although there are those who would certainly have done a more spectacular job of it.
“Just one more, Joe!”
“hih… hih… hih…”
“Oh. my. God.”
“spot…
“spot…
“SPOT!”
Todd tore his eyes away from the impossible woman who was edging her way into the weight room long enough to grab the bar and help Joe rack the weight.
“Jesus, Todd,” Joe panted, sitting up from the bench and looking at his friend, “what’s the deal?”
Todd, normally a glib and charming young man, couldn’t even find words, so he just pointed. Joe looked. She was what Joe would politely describe as gi-normous. And he would be very polite, because she was easily big enough and, from the look of her, strong enough to squash him to so much paté without even trying. There had been some rumors when most of the new weightroom equipment had been installed yesterday, but it obviously fell far short of the mark. Joe, a star wrestler and one of the best lifters at NYU, had looked at the immense weights being installed and shook his head. He had been certain that there was no one who could possibly require such huge, oversized plates and bars. He had assumed it was some sort of practical joke or something. Now, he wasn’t at all sure.
Sylph was a big girl. She hadn’t been properly weighed for years, now, but she guessed that she weighed in somewhere close to three-quarters of a ton. Over the years, this had provided her with some rather novel problems, notably that her weight was too compact and dense for her to stand or move above the foundation level of most residential buildings. Her shoulders were so wide that she had to go through most doors sideways if she could fit at all. There were several places she could no longer enter at all without causing structural damage to the buildings because her chest was also incredibly deep. It wasn’t just that she was big, though. She had to be about the most perfectly balanced mass of meat he had ever seen. No one muscle group stood out as more inhumanly developed than any other, certainly there were no muscle groups that looked as if they received insufficient attention on her magnificent, vibrant form. In fact, the only thing about her that might be considered less than ideal was her height. Granted, anyone that massive would be vertically challenged, but Sylph was actually wider across her shoulders than she was tall.
Having managed to slip into the room without too much difficulty-she’s had to suck in her chest, but that was par for the course-Sylph looked around, ambled lightly over to the open part of the mat and started stretching. She was amazingly flexible. Despite having far more muscle than any other five people on the planet, she was far from muscle-bound. It was true, of course, that she couldn’t reach fully across her chest with either hand, but she could do full splits and lay her head on the floor or either quad (her knees were a little out of her reach at this point) and she could reach over her enormous deltoids and nearly to the small of her back. She stretched thoroughly and began doing a slow floor routine to warm up.
As she moved with deceptive grace through her routine, Joe and Todd went back to their workouts. Joe shook his head. “Man, how does someone get that huge?” he muttered through his teeth at his best friend.
“Serious case of ‘roids?” Todd suggested. He was moderately horrified, although Joe seemed, surprisingly, almost mesmerized.
“I don’t think so,” Joe grunted, pushing out another rep. “Look at her again. Her skin’s flawless.” Todd looked. Joe was right. She didn’t even have freckles or teenage acne scars. As he was looking, another couple people entered the gym. He recognized Wade right away, but the girl who came in right after simply took his breath away.
The new girl was only a little taller than Sylph, but amazingly trim and tight. Todd realized right away that she was carrying a little muscle in that amazing package, but it was deceptive because she was so well proportioned over all, like an off-season Gioia Mavi, maybe not quite as big. Her long, black hair was pulled back in a pony tail and her workout togs looked relatively new. Her huge black eyes got even bigger as she stared around the gym until she spotted Sylph. Her face broke into a dazzling smile, then, and Todd thought he might die happy right there. She started towards the (much) bigger girl, and Todd was contentedly watching the generous sway of her butt when Wade’s voice snapped him back to reality.
“Hey, Todd- quit perving on my friends, would you?” Wade was a couple years ahead of Todd, having graduated two years ago, but they’d been friends on the basketball court, and he could easily get away with this sort of teasing.
“Why, you got claims on her?”
“Which one?”
“New girl, not the ‘roidazon.”
Wade frowned slightly. “Man, Todd, you can be such a jerk, sometimes.”
“What?” Todd looked at Wade and realized that he was actually upset. “What’d I say?”
Wade shook his head disgustedly. “The big girl over there is Sylph. She’s really nice, and it wouldn’t hurt you to try and see past surface appearances sometimes.” Todd opened his mouth to retort, but Wade continued without stopping. “The other girl is Kalida. We kind of grew up together, but I never really knew her that well.”
“Dude. Sorry. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you liked her,” Todd commented, nodding at Sylph again. Wade decided to let it go.
“Well, I’ll admit, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed…” Wade smiled.
“Like you could!” Wade shook his head and punched Todd on the arm.
“So you really know that other girl?”
“Yeah. We were at the opposite ends of our high school, but I kind of remember her. I think I actually tutored her in math a couple of times, but I don’t think she remembers me real well.”
“So… could you introduce us?” Todd included Joe in his question, and Joe got up from his bar and came over, shaking out his arms.
“I’ll make sure dipstick, here, keeps the filter on his brain/mouth connection,” Joe offered, “but I’d really like to meet them, too.”
At the other end of the gym, the girls greeted each other again and Sylph helped Kalida figure out how to stretch out for weight training. It was made a lot easier by Kalida’s natural grace and athleticism, but it was still pretty obvious to Sylph that Kalida had never really seriously seen the inside of a weight room. As they stretched out, Kalida kept looking over her shoulder at the men clustered by the bench press.
“Sylph,” she hissed, “they’re staring at us!”
Sylph glanced at them and grinned. “Of course they are. You, girl, are probably the most smoking hot example of womanhood that any of them have ever seen.”
Kalida blushed red clear to her roots. “I thought they were staring at you.”
“Oh, they were. Until you came in, that is. You’re what they call a showstopper!”
“Can’t you make them stop?” Kalida grimaced uncomfortably.
“I doubt it. I didn’t bring any burlap or sackcloth to cover you in,” Sylph teased. “You might as well get used to it. You’re studying dance, remember. What do you think is going to happen when you go out on stage?”
“That’s different!” Sylph cocked an eyebrow and Kalida deflated a bit. “You mean it doesn’t bother you at all?”
“To be looked at like a piece of meat on the rack? Of course it does, but that’s just the way men are. You either get used to it or you turn into a hermit. Didn’t you get this in high school, at all?”
“Not me. I was tall, but I really didn’t fill out until after I went to Greece. Mostly, I was just the knobby-kneed hockey player from room 3B.”
Sylph looked skeptical, but didn’t say anything as the men were on their way over.
Wade stepped forward, first, and made the introductions. “Joe, Todd, I’d like you to meet Sylph and Kalida. And vice versa,” he smiled. Todd reached forward to shake hands with both girls before turning his attention to Kalida.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” he began. “I think I may be inspired to use a really corny pickup line, but only if you say you don’t mind.”
Kalida blushed again and dimpled shyly at the tall young man. Todd wasn’t bad looking, with his sandy brown hair and lively blue eyes, and he had a way of talking and moving that just seemed able to disarm the most tense situation. “You can use it, but I’m bound to tell you no,” Kalida answered teasingly.
Todd gave a huge, comical sigh and immediately turned his charm on Sylph. “Can you talk to her, dear lady? I’m afraid her reticence has unmanned me utterly!”
Joe punched him on the shoulder and smirked. “Ignore the clown, Sylph. It’s good to meet you. What are you two coming to NYU for?”
“Well, she’s here for dance,” Sylph said, indicating Kalida, “and I’m studying visual arts.”
Joe gaped at her. “You didn’t get those,” he said, lightly touching Sylph’s mammoth bicep, “pushing a paintbrush.”
Sylph’s laugh was like the tinkle of tiny silver bells. “No,” she admitted, “I got these by pushing a lot of lead and iron around, the same way you did.”
After chatting for a few minutes, Sylph indicated that they ought to get back to their workouts.
“Um, I usually make dinner in my suite,” Kalida offered, “if you guys aren’t too busy, why don’t you stop by and we can talk more then.”
Joe and Todd exchanged glances. “I’d like to,” Joe admitted, “but I really can’t. My girlfriend is in town and I promised to have dinner with her and her friends.”
“Nothing stopping me, though,” Todd grinned sunnily. “I’ll be there.”
While they were talking, the NYU Violets they’d met at lunch came in and warmed up, then started over to the free weights. Sylph got both Wade and Kalida started on some simple exercises, demonstrating the proper way to handle the weights, then went over to greet the football players.
Kalida was somewhat surprised to discover that she was actually lifting heavier than Wade, but Wade didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all, so she decided to keep it up. For his part, Wade was impressed by how much Kalida could handle and handle well. He knew a lot of guys who couldn’t bench or curl nearly as much as Kalida was doing now. Wade knew that he could single rep most of the weights Kalida was doing, but that was about it. He watched, entranced, as her shapely arms clenched and tightened into visible biceps and triceps- not huge, but not exactly small, either, and, he was certain, very firm.
There was a shout from the squats rack, where one of the linemen had loaded a bar nearly full and then tried to lift it. He’d gotten it off the pegs- barely- but the weight had been probably a good two hundred pounds in excess of his best lift, and his spotter missed the grab. Fortunately, Sylph was standing nearby and quickly reached out with her left hand and snagged the falling bar with barely a quaver.
“What did you think you were doing?” she demanded, visibly upset.
His spotter, Mike Pendergast, the quarterback they’d met at lunch, answered for him as the lineman gulped air with wide eyes. “That’s Damon. He was trying to show off, of course.”
“What, for me?” Sylph looked disgusted, now. “I don’t even do curls with this weight anymore.”
Mike shook his head, sadly. “Some guys just want you to know they’re strong, you know? I think Damon’s kind of taken with you.”
“Oh, good grief. Look,” she called, raising the weight up high at the end of her arm, “I know none of you are as strong as me. Don’t work out to impress me, work out for yourselves.”
She racked the weight and began to walk away.
“Hey, wait a second,” Damon called after her. Sylph turned and waited. “Just how strong are you?”
“Honestly? I don’t really know anymore,” she shrugged. “They don’t really make commercial weights in tons.”
“Then how do you work out? And why?”
Sylph considered. “Mostly, these days, I work out to keep my flexibility and conditioning. I don’t really lift heavy for me very much, except in isolating specific muscles, and then I use those bad boys over there,” she explained, pointing at the enormous weights stacked in one corner of the room.
“Are you serious?”
“No one could lift those!”
“You gotta show us!”
Several of the other linemen had gathered around and were egging her on. Finally, Sylph sighed and walked over to a huge curl bar. She nodded. “Okay, but just once. Than y’all have to go back to your own workouts, okay?”
Wade nudged Kalida as Sylph started loading up the bar. He didn’t even try to guess how much weight was on it- it looked like more than a ton, and she kept adding more. The footballers were already impressed as they made out that the plates she was handling so easily weighed 500 pounds each, and she was up to six on a side. Setting the locks in place, Sylph looked around her and realized she had the attention of everybody in the gym, now.
“Okay. Everybody stand back. I’ve never actually tried this much before,” she said. A couple of the linemen nudged each other and looked curious or relieved as they wondered if Sylph’s prodigious musculature actually had a limit.
Sylph reached down and took a deep breath. She grabbed the bar in a palms-up grip and, panting now, straightened her legs. Her shorts, tight before, simply exploded as her glutes and quads went from huge, directly through mindblowing, and stopped squarely in the middle of oh-my-God, but Sylph didn’t stop. Slowly, with the bar bending nearly to the floor on each end, she stood up straight. Her top, which Wade thought had been loose before, suddenly became glued to her deltoids and lats, and her biceps instantly filled sleeves that could have made the waist band for an enormously fat woman’s dress. Eyes closed now, Sylph lifted the weight straight out in front of her, bracing with her left leg to keep from over balancing.
“Right or left?” she gasped, holding the weight straight out from her body in her quavering arms.
“What?” asked Damon.
“Right… or… left?” she gritted out between clenched teeth. Her trapezius muscles threatened to swallow her pretty head and her pecs seemed to add whole inches as she strained to keep the weight steady.
“Uh…” Damon hesitated, then shouted, “Left! Do the left!”
Ever so faintly, Sylph actually smiled. Shifting her grip, everybody heard it as her shirt began to split from the collar down to the small of her back. Next, she released her right arm and reached behind herself to help her maintain her balance. Finally, she slowly, agonizingly, curled the weight directly in front of her using only the strength of her left biceps. The sleeve on her left arm shredded and hung in loose tatters around an arm now grown to incomprehensible proportions. Bearing down, now sucking air in short, awkward gulps, Sylph began to strain once more. Her face became a mask of concentration, veins on her forehead standing out against her normally pretty face. The sound of ripping material sounded once again as her left shoulder expanded to absorb the insane pressures being applied against it. Turning her wrist and scowling, Sylph shook her head, flinging sweat in a wide arc. Finally, after what seemed like minutes with no movement, the weight began once more to shift. It moved up. Sylph roared, an amazingly loud sound coming from a woman who seemed to be at the very end of her endurance, and finally powered the bar straight up. Her entire chest blew up like an exploding bomb, blasting the remains of her shirt into little more then memories. Eyes open again, Sylph held the weight there while she caught her breath, then slowly, gently, brought the weight back down to the floor.
Slowly at first, then with growing intensity, the gym shook with the applause of the collected ballplayers and Sylph’s friends.
“Um, Kalida?” Sylph muttered.
“Yeah?” the smaller girl asked, still in shock.
“Do you think you could go back to my room for me?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
“I’m kind of nearly nekkid,” Sylph said, blushing, “and I didn’t bring any spare clothes.”
In an attempt to try and codify Sylph’s world a bit more, I’ve started creating profiles of the series-regulars. I posted Sylph’s Profile first, of course. Next of is Khalida Matsoukis, Sylph’s best friend.
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 155 lbs
Hair: Black
Eyes: Black
Ethnicity: Greek/MediterraneanAppearance:
Physically, Khalida is nearly flawless. Although she is a dancer and exceptionally skilled in both ballet and contemporary dance, she does not have the traditional dancer’s proportions, having, instead, a somewhat longer torso than average and, generally, a slightly thicker body. Khalida weighs a bit more than her lean, slender appearance would suggest to the untrained eye, mainly because she already has a fair amount of lean muscle on her physique. Khalida’s skin is a rich chestnut color, and she ordinarily wears makeup, skillfully applied, to enhance her already intense natural beauty.Personal Quote:
“All right, you two; do it right, this time, or I’ma whap the both of you!”Background/History:
Khalida grew up in the same town as Wade Thomas and attended school a few years behind him. Growing up, she had something of a crush on the older boy, but the attraction was, at the time, unrequited as Wade barely seemed even to notice her.As a child, Khalida was extremely curious about the physicality of her body and her parents encouraged her by putting her into private dance and gymnastics classes as soon as she was old enough. They also hired a personal trainer for her, and she proved to excel at most physical tasks.
Khalida was, in high school, something of a tomboy, and rarely bothered to spend much time on her appearance; as a result, few noticed just how beautiful she was beneath her skinned knees and grass-stained trousers. Added to that was the fact that Khalida preferred playing sports to being in the stands or cheerleading, and it is hardly surprising that she went until late in her junior year before an agent noticed her.
Khalida modeled and took additional private dance lessons throughout her senior year. At the end of her senior year, she was invited to give a dance recital overseas, in Greece, and stayed an additional six months learning about her family’s history. Upon her return from Greece, Khalida enrolled in the New York School of Art, majoring in dance and performance art.
Personality:
Khalida is cheerful and extroverted and generally likes hanging out with her friends. She has a bit of a competitive spirit, and enjoys pitting herself against difficult challenges, whether she proves capable of succeeding or not— although, to be fair, she prefers to win. She is fiercely loyal to her friends and will stand up for them and defend them even when they’re in the wrong, but she also won’t hesitate to tell them when they’re being stupid. Khalida has a fiery temper and will sometimes get in over her head as a result.Khalida suffers from achluophobia and finds it extremely difficult to adjust to being in the dark in an unfamiliar place, a trait she shares with her best friend, Sylph.
Powers/Abilities:
Khalida is an incredibly skilled dancer, capable of holding her own against the best in the world. She has been described as being someone who is so in control of her body that she seems to be actively dancing even when she is at rest, and no motion that she makes appears to be accidental (although, to be fair, she has been known to succumb to the Rube Goldberg effect that seems to surround her best friend, Sylph, like a field of pure entropy).Khalida is a good cook and specializes in Greek and Mediterranean food; she is a competent baker, although not spectacular. She is reasonably knowledgeable about the science of cooking, and can apply that knowledge to new dishes or culinary problems with little planning.
Khalida’s physical strength is very slightly in the superhuman range, making her considerably stronger than her physique would suggest. While she is nowhere close to Sylph’s power level, she is strong enough to deadlift about three-quarters of a ton without much difficulty. Because of her training as a dancer, she has tremendous endurance and can generally maintain her strength at near-peak levels for close to an hour at a time.
Khalida is a fairly average student, neither exceptionally gifted nor handicapped in any particular academic area. She is exceptionally socially aware and flourishes in classes that focus on creativity, charm, and charisma. She is less adept at deep academic enquiry, and is often inclined to base her thoughts and actions on gut instinct.
Chapter 07 is NSFW.
Naked boobs is NSFW, right? Sorry about that…
“Groan!”
{stre-e-e-etch!… shred!}
{pop! pop! pop!}
{crash!}
{tzing!… tinkle!}
{thip!… pff!}
{toink!… pok!}
“Ow!”
“Oops. Sorry, Kalida!”
Kalida sat rubbing the small bruise on her forehead from where the bottom button of Sylph’s overburdened blouse had just bounced off of it. That was hardly the worst of the damage, though. Sylph, in stretching out her arms, had inadvertently flexed her huge deltoids and triceps, literally blasting the tight sleeves into a cloudy memory of light blue thread and silk fabric. The buttons had popped off one after another, impacting individually with the overhead light (tinkle!- they’d need a new bulb and, quite probably, fixture to repair that,) Kalida’s favorite bolster pillow (there was now a hole going all the way through, cotton bunting having burst from the far side with tremendous force,) and Kalida’s forehead. Fortunately for Kalida, the last button had been under the least strain and the resultant bruise was merely painful and not lethal. Additionally, Sylph had, as she stretched, accidentally shoved Kalida’s entire bookshelf full of interpretations of various dancers and musical compositions. The oaken structure, fully a hundred fifty pounds when empty, and closer to four hundred pounds when loaded down two layers deep over five shelves, had been catapulted across the suite into the far wall where it exploded into kindling and loose papers.
Kalida was annoyed, of course, but one look at Sylph’s distressed countenance softened her heart. “I’m okay, Sylph, but… ow! Damn, couldn’t you give a girl a warning before your chest goes ballistic?”
“I’m really sorry, Kalida. I’m just so tired…” It was just getting on past 3:00 am the night of Kalida’s and Sylph’s first all-nighter. Kalida’s roommates, Jen and Bekka had already gone to their respective rooms, and Jodi was out somewhere with her boyfriend, but Kalida and Sylph had opted to stay up and work on their project for their Humanities in Western Culture class. At the same time, they’d agreed to help each other with their homework for dance and Sylph’s Fundamentals of Drawing class. They’d chosen to work in Kalida’s suite that night mainly because Kalida had a superior stereo, but Kalida was now wondering about the wisdom of that decision.
“What the heck happened here?!” Jen demanded from her doorway. Jen was a tall, statuesque blond, a field hockey player and a political science major. In the week that Kalida had known her, they’d initially been cool, and the temperature of their interactions had steadily decreased until, now, they were downright frigid.
“It’s nothing, Jen. We just had a little, um, stretching accident,” Kalida said, trying to head off the argument that Jen so clearly wanted to start.
“Nothing?! You blew up the ceiling light! There’s a hole into your room! I’m not paying for that, and I don’t think Bekka’s gonna want to put money down for your little accidents, either.”
Sylph sighed. “It’s not Kalida’s fault, Jen. I broke it, I’ll pay for it.” As usual, Sylph’s placating tones and congenial nature were more than enough to take the wind out of Jen’s sails.
“Well. All right, then,” she humphed, and returned to her room, shutting her door behind her.
“She’s right, you know,” Bekka said from the other side of the room. Unlike Jen, Bekka was openly friendly with both Kalida and her gigantic friend. “It’s not like I wouldn’t help out if I could, but I’m here on a scholarship and my parents are already paying all they can afford just to keep me here.”
Bekka was one of those rare girls who managed to combine bookish nerdiness with an ineffable sensuality that Kalida purely envied. She was neither overweight nor particularly athletic, but simply secreted femininity from her every pore like a powerful pheromone. And, Kalida noted enviously, she had huge boobs. Bekka came into the room and sat down with them.
“Look,” Sylph said, “we’re all a little strapped for cash, but we can come up with something. I’m going to go down to the Student Union tomorrow and see what they have available for student work. Maybe I can find a job to help pay for some of this stuff.”
“You ought to charge for all that time you put in helping out down at the gym,” Kalida remarked.
Sylph blushed a little. “I wouldn’t feel right about that. I help out there because I like doing it and I like the people I meet. I wouldn’t want to have to start charging my friends money…”
Bekka sniffed a little at that. “That’s a pretty naïve attitude, Sylph. Sweet, but naïve. You can’t just give away all your time like you do, or else people are going to start to think they’re entitled to your help, even when you have your own things to do.”
Sylph nodded slowly. “Well, I’ll think about it. But I’d rather find some other way…”
Kalida and Bekka looked at each other for a moment, then Bekka smiled mischievously. “How about…?”
“Oh, yeah!” Kalida exclaimed, eyes aglow.
“What?!” Sylph asked, bewildered.
“BIKINI CARWASH!” Bekka and Kalida yelped together, then collapsed in hysterical giggles.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding,” Sylph began shaking her head, “I don’t even own a bikini!” For some reason, this only made the two of them laugh harder.
Finally, gulping air in great, jagged swallows, Kalida managed, “But Sylph- you can sew!”
“Yeah! Kalida and I’ll help you pick out materials-”
“Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka-dot…” came a mocking, sing-song voice from the doorway.
“Jen!” All three immediately stopped laughing and straightened up, trying (and failing miserably) to look serious.
“As it happens,” Jen went on, “I think a bikini carwash is a great idea. But I don’t think the three of you could organize your way out of a paper bag, so I’ll help.”
All four looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“This,” Sylph remarked quietly to Kalida, “could be the start of a beautiful relationship…”
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