We started with some boxing skills. I knew Jake was a 'big guy' and physically able to be very aggressive whilst I could not find the ability not to drop my hands and utter the stupid words 'are you alright' every time our sparring included one of my better punches.
When I say I knew that Jake was a 'big' guy, we worked out in a huge, treble sized garage and for this November just gone, through to that fateful New Year's Day, I had never seen Jake's body during our four times a week training sessions.
The garages were cold, with a few broken little windows in their three sets of doors which hardly kept out anything, including the rain. We could press out reps for an hour before starting on the speed skills and sparring for another hour with an almost manic frenzy but we would never strip down to chest flesh. I would end up in a tee shirt but Jake was like a Russian doll with a number of hoodies that would be gradually discarded, all bar the last one which was longer than any of the others and never rode up during any routine. The cold and damp was never considered but it was always there keeping us clothed.
Two years in the bank and its consequent inactivity resulted in demotion at my Rugby Club (to the seconds) and had left my spring heeled hips led hard body to degenerate enough that a late Saturday night early Sunday morning conquest was more 'you'll do' that any sort of 'whoar' factor. I though that I still looked like the guys who had won the World Cup - the ladies apparently did not.
That supposed (actually once there) speed and the fact that I ran Jake's business account were how we had met. Having accepted his first big commission cheque for his new business one late August Thursday had been followed up with my nearly running into him that same evening. I was shirtless and in my shorts on a path out of town, trying to get some setting suntan on my ever pasty body having made a conscious decision to be as ripped as I could after a really bad Saturday night the week before. Jake was ... in hoodies and tracksuit bottoms.
'I didn't know you worked out?', he said as he pulled his walkman earphones out before pushing himself up from the grass. He had just missed a bush when he fell after our 'slight' collision.
'We don't get to tell our customers anything about ourselves, like gossip - it causes a queue', I replied, 'And anyway this is just a start as I've early signs of a large spare tyre.'
Jake's glance at my big clasp of flesh was quick then back to my face.
'You look like you are putting some effort in', he said, slipping back his hood fully off his head, 'That was all my fault. I just do head down slow stuff.'
I put my hand to my chest and swept aside a river of sweat. It was the same physical action three months later when after probably our sixth or seventh session we were stood again just a couple of feet apart when we made our first pact.
'This is getting serious', said Jake as he looked me up and down. His words came with a mist from the cold air of the training room but when I followed his gaze, my front was getting much more impressive, much more muscle just a millimetre or two underneath the completely soaked tee shirt than stuck tight to my flesh. MY move to wipe myself once again led to my sweat appearing just as water does on rain soaked grass when you tread on it. Jake leaned across to me and we hugged.
'That was so good', he said moving out of our damp embrace with a laugh, 'You should try out for the next wet shirt thing they have at Maxims on Ladies night.'
'Your girlfriend runs that place doesn't she?, I asked, slipping off my shirt before wiping myself down with my towel.
'She's mine when she wants to be - and no she doesn't run that place - but yes, she does.'
'What do you mean?', I asked.
'She has boyfriends in town, the guys who actually own the place. I go in there about 10 minutes before it closes to pick her up - when she calls me. To be honest, I like being less than committed. I don't have the money to support her as she would want to be and with the business, I can work all the hours I need and know that I can still have fun - hate clubs anyway.', said my new long term training partner.
From the collision that August evening, we had made arrangements to start training the following week. That had been forgotten immediately when I was suddenly summoned to cover a heart attack at the northern Market branch, a move that meant two hours traveling a day for the next two months, and thus no time to train. I got bigger.
I think it was Halloween when Jake arrived at my counter with another big cheque, an even bigger grin and a map of how to find the 'training shed' as he liked to describe it.
'This is good money', I remarked.
'Its good and they want more, a whole new campaign', replied Jake, 'Only trouble is I need to spend what's coming in on a new car - her indoors wants me to get something sporty!'
'You need to pay yourself something before you splash out', I replied.
'You on for starting tonight - we can give it a go for a couple of weeks and see how things happen?', asked Jake as he pushed his paying in book back into his coat pocket, 'You look like you could do with it.'
I sucked in my belly and pushed myself upright in my chair to remove my paunch from view - 'Yeah, I can make it tonight.'
So started things, training myself harder than I had ever done before. It was just three nights a week then four and that first embrace was at the end of a special four session week which had seen us both devote ourselves physically to breaking all barriers that our bodies had presented.
The following week had ended up being too much that we both had decided on a two easy, two tough sessions and twice a week we ended up falling into each others arms at the end, noticing the changes, an embrace of respect for commitment.
'Hard man', said Jake mid December, his left hand on the back of my neck, his right on my waist. I was now back in the firsts, the best player in a team that was unfortunately going down, just a handful of points (the lack of them) from being relegated by January.
'You've never said why, why you want to train like this' - my one hand was leaving the cloth which enclosed an arm I really knew was power of some magnitude.
'I want to fight. Actually I don't really want to fight but I want to learn how to fight so that if I had to, I could', stated Jake, ' ... Actually I just want to know my limits.'
'You do all the teaching', I replied, still not aware of how Jake presented what we did each week.
'Its all quality stuff - I do loads of preparation and the stuff we've been working on is all things I learnt on a couple of courses - at University I was into everything - Taekwando, Aikido, Judo. I got really really thin. It keeps me sane whilst I am studying (like back then) and like working now.
'I've got pride in what I am becoming - and Melanie doesn't mind (by the way I have taken your advice on the car). At Uni I was too committed, too thin - I was weak. I like the adrenaline rush we get and I want to raise the skills stuff. You hit hard and I can take it - and when I clock you, you are strong enough and hard enough ...
'Can I be honest?', I interrupted.
'You don't like hitting me and you don't like being hit?', responded Jake, his face an accepting one.
'You hit me hard enough that's its still OK but you could ...'
Jake regripped the back of my neck, 'I know what you mean - I want to try some new stuff in the new year. What are you doing between Christmas and going back to work?'
'I'm going back home, to see my Mum and Dad?', I replied.
'Oh - I am going to shut over the holidays and I want to do something with this place - I need some storage as well - just wondered if you could give us a hand?', said Jake moving back to his kit bag to put away his mitts.
'Is there anything we can do before Christmas?', I asked.
'No, that's OK ... but you are going to have a surprise when you get back. You finish on Christmas Eve and you're off then?
I nodded.
'Well we can start again on New Year's Day - good sweat out. You don't like the kicks stuff really either?'
We had tried some kick boxing routines the week before only for me to really bruise a hand defending myself. I didn't realise that some of that training was part of what made that return to training a life changing experience.
'I don't think my build is right for it', I said displaying sureptiously my sprinters hips which were unable to hit head high targets without snapping a hamstring.
'You just wait', said Jake as he flicked off some of the lights and grabbed his bag, ready to go.
I went away back up North with no idea of where things were going to go until 4pm that very warm New Year's Day afternoon (warm for January!) when I turned off from the alley and through small gate into the garage yard. What had been faded green painted and really rotting wood was replaced by three steel doors, each fitted with a substantial lock. The new doors were dark blue, freshly painted.
I had hardly moved when the middle one sprung open leaving me almost blinded by the glare from inside.
'Come on in', said Jake.
Crouching down, even though the door was almost open to head height, I walked into the now white room and gazed around. Jake slammed the door behind me. He had been busy.
What was previously broken paint on the floors was now a thick dark red surface. All the walls had been patched and repainted in purest white. At one end of the garages was a brand new weights stack, bench and pull up bar. The other end was now partly covered by some racking, just what Jake's business needed. I was standing on a huge mat, something that was a good three inches thick and at least 16 by 16. It was grey and newly re-covered.
'Wow', I stuttered, 'You have been busy.'
'It was my Christmas present to myself, my bonus. Its all second hand but I've stripped it down and repainted it. I started on Boxing day! Got fed up of the telly.'
'When did you finish - this afternoon?', I responded, bewildered by how much had changed and guilty that I had not helped.
'Nope - yesterday. And I've introduced some home comforts', Jake pointed to the far wall which was now part covered by a section of a fitted kitchen. Next to it was a stand alone shower, with no curtain but set into a little well which once was for oil and chemical rinsing. I followed his eyes as they went to the two electric heaters pushing out a significant warmth across the revamped training facility.
An hour later, we had completed our usual weights routines.
'You got a half an hour you can add to tonight?', asked Jake as he opened up one of the kitchen cupboard doors to reveal a small TV set sitting on top of a video player.
'This is what I want to try.'
Jake pressed the play button and stood back a pace as I watched the first few minutes of the tape.
It was American Cage fighting and this was an edited demonstration of 'ground and pound' with perhaps six matches showing a throw, then very quickly a beating for the person on their back with the eventual winner applying fists of fury to their opponent's head. I turned to Jake to talk
'Just keep watching!', he said
I did as I was told and my gaze was soon taken by a longer clip, actually three rounds of five minutes. This time, a larger stronger fighter was making the throws but never able to pin his opponent, to make a strike. This was physical chess and the smaller man was hardly touched by a fist accelerating into damage mode.
'How come?', I asked.
'This guy is special. His strength and his speed are incredible. He's low in the weights, the bigger guys is pushing to go up a weight so he is much stronger - don't think the little guy can't hit though. The big guy knows that and you should have noticed that he is trying things that no-one else you've seen has done just to get hold of him to hit him.
'I can deal with having to control the hit when we box because neither of us wants to hurt each other. Some of this stuff is just as skillful - just as physical - very aerobic. These guys have incredible strength and we can mix the control of the grappling with splits on the gloves. What do you think?, Jake was sitting back on the bar on the bench with his hands to his sides, on the cold steel of the bar, his hands gently trying to wring the metal
'The sparring is never what you want it to be - that's my side of things that is the problem', I replied,' This is not as aerobic - or is it.?'
'The push we give each other is why this is working out. To get the grappling right, we need to learn lots of basic drills', replied the man who had changed forever my philosophy on where I could go physically. He walked over to the kitchen units and opened up a drawer to pull out a number of folders. Opening one up there were stills taken from the video, perfectly displayed in sections -
'I've enough here for about three weeks - stuff we can learn - and grouped together, we can do one set tonight and then have a bit of a match. On Tuesday we can do some more, repeat on these and then use what we have learnt for something competitive. Do this stuff for a couple of months then I want you to start sprinting with me - I want to have that athleticism you have but this stuff really is part way there.'
'OK', I said, 'Where do we start ... and I don't have to work tomorrow so as long as it takes is the answer about time?'
We started by learning how to push each other away. I tucked my shirt into my gym pants whilst Jake actually revealed an almost skin tight thermal top from under his hoodies. It was just as physical as much of our sparring.
'Now for a throw!', said Jake as he stepped right up to me, his arms encircling mine then gripping tight around me, 'You Ok?'
I did not answer. My face was against his, my cheek pressing against his button ears, my nose taking in his scent from his hair. I could feel his eyelid flicking against mine, his frame tensing against my chest. I pulled my head back enough to have his black eyebrow fill my vision, then his brush like inch long crown above his temple as I looked up.
When we had practiced the kicks, a month before, we had been clinched ready to try and insert a knee into each other's sides. Then there had been heavy headguards keep us apart. Now I was touching his skin.
I was in the air, turning my back to the ground. Then came my frame my thudding into the mat with his body trying to crush mine just a split second later and in a moment after that he was pushing up between my legs to achieve the mount position.
One hour later, I had learnt the same throws as Jake, we could both offer a basic defense to being placed in the position of having our brains beaten out and we could bridge properly to throw each other away onto the mat. It had been the most physical hour of any we had spent in the past two months.
'OK, are you ready?, said Jake as I crouched down to get some breath.
'You want to compete?', was my reply, looking up as my friend stretched back to ease the tension in his shoulders.
I stood up.
'Take off your shirt', said Jake, reaching hands crossed to the bottom of his now very baggy top, rippled across his body. He stared at me.
I looked back at Jake for perhaps a second and he did not move so I put one hand behind my head and pulled off my top. As the cotton came over my head, Jake did the same, his uncrossed arms revealing his body with an understated arrogance . I threw my shirt to the side to which Jake did the same. We stood looking each other up and down.
'You've no idea what sort of shape you've become', said Jake, his words warm and genuine, 'You always had the power in your hips but look at your abs and your arms.'
His eyes started on my chest then moved over my slightly distended belly, now tight and ridged.
I glanced down then back to the body in front of me, the muscle and bone that I was to take on. I had never bettered 5ft 10 whilst Jake was perhaps four inches taller. He face was round, not feminine but from there on down, his physique was geometry all triangles. The neck made its way out to shoulders that again were slanted to banana covered shoulders. There were tapered yet still bulging biceps to long forearms, everywhere muscles that were long, prominent and aesthetic.
He was smooth across his body, all angles and blocks covered by skin that curved across him, not stretched by zero boody fat. His chest dominated his torso, cropped triangles of rock looking slabs perhaps a foot long set above eight framed abs muscle sections to a waist that was already heading out to Jake's hips before the stomach disappeared into his gym pants. I did not stare but both of us knew that we were looking at each other. It was a phsyical assessment that was intimate in repsect.
Jake raised his hands up to shoulder level and turned his palms towards me, flicking his fingers to beckon me. I looked with an unconscious dart of a glance at the bushy outcrop of hair under his arms and walked forward. The slabs of chest flesh fluttered then floated on his ribs, dancing in front of my eyes.
For possibly two or three minutes, neither of could grip each other to make a throw, hands slipping off bloated and wet skin. The it happened.
My hands gripped behind Jake's back, with one of his arms locked against his body. This effort made my chest puff up to its maximum girth whilst Jake's efforts to escape did the same to his width. As I then turned my body, it was chest against chest, and I had never felt so much power or so powerful. Our nipples were pressed against each others, his ribs grating against mine. A second later, I was caught between his legs and my face slapped into his chest - I had thrown Jake onto his back.
Jake was trying to push me away whilst I took breath. My eye was barely an inch from his nipple and I just could not but look. It was slightly bitch like, a raised up point still soft but not as the cone of the coin like area that surrounded the peak. I studied the little indentations, the flecked white dimples on the brown skin. That second or so was over as in response to Jake I pushed into him. That pushed me, rather my mouth, across the nipple and whilst there was no intent, I savored that fleeting touch, how I savored it.
Pushing up and through Jake's attempts to remove me from covering him, I now sat on his chest and he gave in. I raised my arms to clench my biceps and went as if to kiss one arm whilst making sure my pecs were brazen over my friend-
'What about my chest and shoulders - pretty good for a short arse!', I said triumphantly.
Jake's hand moved up to my waist - '1-0' he whispered before thrusting his hips up in a perfect bridge to throw me onto my back.
The next ten minutes was my struggle to escape a grounding from Jake. It was the hardest fight I had ever undertaken, to try to remove myself from Jake's grasp but to go avail. What it was though was our bodies being as strictly intimate as any lovers. Time on time his hands pressed into me, his face into my armpit or into my chest, or to my neck. I came to respect every muscle on his upper body, to know where there were marks on his skin, where his veins bulged and where his sweat pooled from or gathered.
I could only marvel in the pump of his body when he resisted my escape attempts, a sensuous grip that made my mind so numb. Time on time, sometimes for a minute perhaps I buried my face into his body or to his side. I saw the sweat escaping his skin and I knew his every tiny hair on his body - and the day of his armpits filled my nose.
'One more?', gasped Jake from his seat on the mat, his look straight into my eyes from under eyebrows dripping with pale liquid.
'I'm just going to get rid of these', I replied, undoing the tie on my gym pants to reveal my rugby shorts. The gym pants were stretched to destruction and half hanging from my hips.
'I can't join you this week', laughed Jake. He pulled down the edge of his pants to show his tan line and the edge of his pubic hair, 'Its commando!'
I laughed and moved to stand over him, offering my hand so that he could stand up. I saw him looking at my arm, then my chest as my muscles tensed to support his weight. I consciously pushed my shoulders back to look more impressive - I don't know why.
We were both exhausted. The walls glistened to recognise our efforts. If Jake had a weakness it was his endurance. From the moment I managed to get an arm onto his back and my leg behind his, I knew I could take him down. He was dropping to his back, but he was ready and in my mind, my slow motion gaze of his torso was preparing me for him to twist away. I landed over him but with his legs and arms pushing me back. His foot caught my side, on the band of my shorts. I was pushing at his arms and his his grip as my shorts slipped down onto my thighs, their tie cord snapped.
I landed on my knees, between his open legs. I stopped, I froze, and was reaching down and ready to roll away.
'You've one chance -- or I am going to finish this', muttered Jake,' Forget your cock -- we've all got one. Just ...'
Jake was not going to escape, he was too tired, but I wanted to challenge his words and I completely forgot my embarrassment. Now nearly naked I could slip through his weakened leg grip. My groin was now crushed against his abdomen, a shaft that was part gorged but not erect, my balls flaccid and soft, spread into his belly. As we struggled my private flesh against the softening steel of his belly. Until I was sitting across his chest, my sensuous skin against his body was all that occupied my mind whilst the rest of my body completed its physical task.
Jake tapped his hand on the mat. I rolled away, my shorts tying my ankles together underneath my hips, my shaft just exposed between my thighs but my balls held between legs. Jake stood up and offered my his hand. I took it and stood up without thinking of pulling up my shorts from the floor. We stood facing each other and smiled before I reached down and did cover myself by pulling up my shorts to the edges of my hips and holding on with one hand.
'My shorts nearly broke my ankles', was my joke to break any tension. My mind was only full of the split second of my breathing out with my shaft nestled between his chest muscles, the glancing touch of by scrotum against his skin as I had pushed away.
Jake offered his hand again and we clasped our fingers to pull ourselves together, only our hands preventing us being chest to chest. It was Jake who let go of my hand and with both hands he grasped me by the forearms.
'That was fuckin brilliant!', whispered Jake, My head moved forward and next to his. Our temples touched then my nose went down to his neck where I could smell my friend, smell everything. We were spent and when did fall into each other's arms it was softness against softness, fluttering breath against the warmest skin, a rumble of muscles, hip bones touching.
'You've bought your towel?', said Jake.
'What...?' was my response.
'I can see your stuff in your bag' - Jake was looking across my shoulder to where I did have a change of clothes.
'I've put the hot water on - you don't need to go to the Spa afterwards.'
I looked at the clock. It was half eleven and tonight had been nearly three hours of a test. The Spa had been closed for hours.
Moments later I was standing naked in the completely open shower. Jake sat on the bench perhaps eight feet away, leaning back against the wall. He had replaced a hoodie over his top. As I soaped myself across my torso, we talked and I did not think that Jake was looking at my bloated and sometimes bruised muscles. As I moved to my groin, we still talked and I did not hide myself in anyway. I did not mind if he was looking. When my eyes were full of shampoo I wanted him to be looking.
Ten minutes later, our places were swapped and I could take in his body, and his shaft which he soaped up just as I had for him. From his sack to his chest was in front of me and we talked and I watched his face with half my gaze, to his body with the other part of my vision. His black pubic hair was wetted down and flecked with snowy white soak. His shaft flicked out and back between hand and hip. I was watching his mouth and his fingers spread across his chest, brushing over his nipple then away. They, the pair, were still conical with buttons as ends. All of him, the long and lithe hips covered in more black hairs, it was bloated muscles which I had touched with my body.
Twenty minutes later we were walking down the alley, talking about the weekend to come. MY eyes only recalled his belly with its muscles going from ridges to mounds as he breathed in and out, his skin tight then soft. I could see his few torso hairs and the flattened stream of flecks of black just above his pants line.
Copyright 2004 DT