The Personal Trainer
The Dynamo Fitness Center was the town of Hillford’s latest topic of gossip. It seemed to sprout like a weed, appearing out of nowhere overnight, bright neon lights shining to cast an inviting luminance. The steel structure rose mightily to well over one hundred feet, and stories from curious townspeople turned clients gleaned details of the high-tech insides, like stepping into something from a sci-fi movie, the contemporary exterior divergent from the cutting-edge belly of the beast.
Everyone talked about Dynamo in one fashion or another; mesmerized by its sheer brilliance, yet confused by there being only the one setup, no chains across the country or throughout the world. It was odd how only the one in Hillford existed, in such a small, faraway place on the map. But the naturally-driven curiosity about Dynamo’s sudden presence was outweighed by that of its owner, Elaine.
Details about Elaine were scarce, and even then, they were more crafted from speculation than revealed through conversation. Some clients suspected she was in her late twenties, slender frame with a cute bubble butt geared more towards her own demographic, but some of the older and more experienced clients she took on explained how she appeared to express more knowledge than she appeared, going so far as to offer workout advice to those most would think to impart to her instead. Adding to that — there was only Elaine. As big as the Dynamo Fitness Center was, it was only she who worked there, with no employees. All six floors of the establishment were operated solely by its curious, mysterious owner. The residents of Hillford never saw Elaine outside the towering building, only in and with clients, helping them become their best selves physically.
Before the week was out, over half of Hillford’s population had a membership at Dynamo, an odd fixation to be around the beautiful Elaine developing and spreading like a virus. Age, sexuality, none of that mattered. Those who cared enough had to be with Elaine, all developing a desire to workout or better themselves.
It was hard to rationalize how, but somehow Elaine looked even more beautiful on the eighth day since Dynamo was found. One of the newcomers, Darren, had gotten a stiffy just looking at her butt, cute leggings now so tight the material squeaked as she moved around the gym to observe her clients warming up.
“Great job, everyone! Keep it up!” God, even Elaine’s voice was perfect, her words spoken with such softness it almost felt like she was a mother cooing her children, spurring them on, injecting confidence. And it seemed to work; one of the clients on the verge of giving up smiled as he felt his spirits lifted by Elaine’s dulcet tones, now picking up his pace on the bike. It spread, and those around him found their energy redoubled, allowing them to push themselves harder, faster, and further. The forty-something-year-old mother yelled as she pushed herself with renewed vigour, a girl in her late teens cranking out ab crunches with rapid speed. “That’s it! Keep going!” Elaine cheered, smiling.
Darren found himself joining the renewed crowd. Where he was once tired from his time on the treadmill, energy had now found and filled him. He hadn’t ever felt this before, as if a rush of lightning had struck his entire body, its power now coursing through his veins. Fuck! Did everyone else feel the same way? It certainly looked like it. A woman at Darren’s side felt that same energy fill her, too. It was like a domino effect, a chain reaction; when one felt the odd, almost supernatural force swim over themselves, the people next to them would feel it as well.
Elaine moved to approach the woman, smiling as her technique was observed. “It’s Paula, isn’t it?”
The woman nodded between steps, cranking out what had to be her four-hundredth since she started. She had no idea how Elaine was privy to her name, yet somehow knew it.
“Well, Paula. I don’t think you’re pushing yourself hard enough at the speed you’re going. Let’s see what you can do about that.” Elaine grinned. There was something odd about that. The smile didn’t come across as sincere, but rather condescending. She maintained her observation of Paula’s efforts, motioning with her hand to urge the woman to press the button on the treadmill to go faster, neatly doubling her previous speed. But the cute smile faded when she caught Paula’s returning fatigue. “Oh no. Tired again, are we? That won’t do. Keep going!”
And with that, the disembodied torrent of energy returned, swimming over Paula to compel her into quickening her pace into running. The movements came swiftly, but Paula’s expression seemed to completely contradict the energy displayed in her otherwise enthusiastic performance.
“I want to stop.” Paula seemed confused. She wanted to stop, had to stop for a quick toilet break, but her body simply wouldn’t will it, no matter how hard she budged. It was as if she was firmly glued to the treadmill, her legs moving seemingly with minds of their own, cranking out step after step after step. “Why can’t I stop?”
“Because I won’t let you. Not yet anyway. We need to see some real effort from you first. So…keep going! Crank it up a notch.” Elaine glanced at the treadmill for the briefest of moments, then turned back to Paula with a tear rolling down her cheek. She needed to stop, but Elaine’s soft-spoken words had since driven her body to once again act independently from her mind. Her hand moved to the dashboard, once again cranking up the speed. “Good! Now keep at it!”
The energy coursed its way through the gym, moving to affect Paula again; she pushed through the running at a pace she hadn’t thought was achievable for a woman with her level of fitness.
Darren watched Elaine move to interact with clients. His mind must’ve been playing tricks on him. He was convinced — wholeheartedly so — that she was bigger since he last looked. That couldn’t make sense though, because he only just did that a few moments ago. But no, he knew Elaine was bigger. The shorts hugged her meaty quadriceps tighter than before, with slight rips starting to expose themselves at the side. It was just thick musculature previously, but now detailed striations were beginning to reveal themselves under the gym’s lighting. Even her steps were heavier.
“That’s it, Steve! Show those quads who’s boss!” Elaine scrutinized his form with as much prejudice as she had Paula’s, impressed by the forty-something-year-old father’s seemingly professional focus on the task at hand, pushing out leg extension after leg extension. His quads burned from the exercise, sweat trickling from his brow. He’d racked on almost triple his previous weight, coming close to a stop, to catch a quick breather. But Elaine wasn’t for letting it. “Nuh-uh! Not until I say you can stop.”
Darren watched Elaine express the same gesture with her hand, laid flat with the face of her palm pointed towards the ceiling, then raised upwards slowly. With that came Steve cranking out yet more steps, his face scrunching into a look of pain as the weight bore down on him, his legs moving involuntarily, independently from his line of thinking to stop and take a drink. But his legs forced themselves to keep going.
“That’s it! You won’t get that those legs you want if you don’t push yourself, you know.” Elaine didn’t even bother trying to hide her condescending tone that time. She made an effort with Paula, but with Steve, it was like she wanted him to know how arrogant she was. “Legs like mine, rather.”
Both Darren and Steve watched as Elaine pulled her leg out into a flex, presenting a quadricep which was, admittedly, modestly sized for a woman like her. Though both men weren’t quite sure what point Elaine was trying to make there. He was no bodybuilder, but Darren’s leg was still bigger than hers. It was almost cute how Elaine thought she was one-upping anyone.
“I know what you’re thinking. What’s a cute girl like me with a bubble butt like mine doing trying to show off, thinking she can outmuscle the biggest guy in the room?” Elaine smirked. It was a simple thing, but the way she did it was almost eerie, making Steve turn to look over his shoulder as a chill ran up his spine. “Uh-uh. Here, have a feel.”
Darren watched as Steve moved away from the treadmill, reaching out slowly towards Elaine’s leg His body shook, grunting and wincing as if trying to resist what his hand seemed otherwise enthusiastic to accomplish. And before he knew it, against his own will, Steve’s hand was rested firmly atop the younger woman’s thigh.
“Good. Now watch.”
And watch Steve did. Darren, too. He could see the small muscles in Elaine’s leg physically shift under the skin protecting it, as if readying to do something. Steve wasn’t quite sure how to react. As much as he wanted to resist putting his hand on her leg at the time, now he just….simply didn’t want to pull away. There was something utterly — otherworldly, even — hypnotic about watching the young woman’s leg move before growing right in front of his eyes.
The growth was slow, seemingly intentional so Steve could marvel at the freakish changes for longer. His eyes were crisscrossing from not knowing what to focus on most, the sheer growth as it happened in real-time or the distinctive striations as they came into focus, quickly overtaking Steve’s own. In time, coming with soft moans from her, Elaine’s thigh was easily bigger than Steve’s. And the growth didn’t look to slow anytime soon.
“Go on, have a feel. Give it a right good squeeze.”
Steve did exactly that, more so on account of a bizarre spontaneousness controlling him than a desire. His physical body clashed with his mind, watching his hand move to press down on Elaine’s quad. It didn’t even budge, it was so fucking hard. What the hell was going on? Both Steve and Darren knew the circumstances regarding Elaine were far from natural, seeing her body grow as it did.
Her smile returned, and with it the slow growth. Steve could see his fingers spread further and further apart as each new inch of muscle formed on Elaine’s quad. The cute, soft veins across the side bulged as they fattened and snaked to spread further up her leg to hide under her cute shorts.
Darren continued watching from behind. Whilst Steve’s focus was on her flexed swelling thigh, the other relaxed one slowly growing to mirror it, he could see her calves begin to share in the changes, too. They practically fattened threefold on account of how much mass was piled on so quickly. It didn’t make sense how Elaine’s body swelled with iron-forged she-meat, yet it happened anyway.
“Like what you see, Steve?” Elaine made a point of pumping her newly-enlarged quad a few times, goading its already impressive size to grow even more, adding inches at a time with each casual motion. It was only Steve and Darren who seemed to catch onto the young woman’s display of growth, with all the other clients far too busy focusing on their workouts to even notice. “Not so small now, is it?”
“No,” Steve answered mousily, not quite sure what else to say. He guessed those were the right words to choose, suspecting a display such as Elaine’s only anticipated such an answer. He looked at her meaty quad, his hand still clutching the powerful meat, but his palm didn’t cover even half its circumference.
“Wow. Thought you lost your voice there for a sec. Am I having that much of an effect on you?” Elaine looked at Steve cutely, positively touched by his comment. She pinched his cheek like a mother would her child. “Well, don’t go blowing your load just yet. I’m just getting started!”
Both Darren and Steve blinked, thinking the same thing: ‘What?’
“Alright everyone, that’s enough for a warm-up. Let’s start taking things seriously, shall we? I want you to all move to the weight machines now. Leg press, chest press. Whatever tickles your fancy.” Elaine clapped her hands together commandingly, watching with a grin as her horde of clients moved in perfect sync with one another like mindless zombies, shifting around to move into position at different machines. “Good. Now, remember, no pain, no gain. So crank those weights up as heavy as they go, okay?”
Darren and Steve watched as the horde moved to rack their respective machines up to their maximum weight without even hesitating, mindlessly complying with their trainer’s demand as though it were given by a Queen or some kind of ethereal goddess. Both newcomers knew the swarm of clients would struggle with all the weight bearing down on their bodies, but it didn’t look like they cared, trying with all their might to force out reps. Some struggled to complete just one but they kept trying anyway, an inexplicable need to do what Elaine commanded controlling them like puppets on strings.
“Perfect! Oh God, Here it comes!” Elaine could feel a sensation swing through her as her clients droned on with their motions coming in perfect sync with one another. From Darren and Steve’s perspective, it was odd to look at but Elaine saw it as a boon, the rewarding means to an end. She ran a hand down her arm and stopped close to her modest bicep and smiled as she watched it begin its fated growth, matching the pace of those doing bicep curls.
“Keep going, everyone! That’s it! Make your goddess bigger!”
His mind coming out of a disorientating fog, Darren understood what was going on, even in its otherworldly nature: with each of her clients’ reps, Elaine’s body grew bigger as if they were growing her through their workouts, slaving away at the machines like zombies.
Steve could see Elaine’s shoulders surge with growth, turning to see a small gathering of clients perform barbell overhead presses as if their lives depended on it. Steve moved to the group and tried shaking one of the clients out of her trance, but it had the opposite effect of making her go faster, which resulted in Elaine’s growth coming faster, too.
“MORE! MORE! FASTER!”
Darren turned to the group of clients doing leg presses at an unnatural pace, now inexplicably pushing past their own pain to crank out reps and make their trainer’s outrageous form even bigger, her legs puffing out obscenely like bloating slabs of meat, thick veins twitching like worms burrowed under skin. It was undoubtedly supernatural. All of it. And yet both Darren and Steve couldn’t help but wonder just how big was Elaine going to go. She was clearly controlling her clients into cranking out reps until she was satisfied, but where was the end to that? Did one even exist?
Elaine pulled into a crab flex. With it came a burst of expansion that allowed her whole frame to enlarge, bones shattering to make space, then rebuilding themselves stronger than ever, only to repeat the process over and over. Her cute bubble butt was no more, replaced with fatless, angular muscle strong enough to shatter rocks and flatten steel, its muscles pushing themselves to expand even further. God, she was powerful! Darren and Steve were now beginning to realize that, beginning to see the goddess before them.
“That’s right!” Elaine smirked watching both men fall to their knees before her in worship, literally kowtowing at her feet. They were wise to know their place now, as willing serfs to their all-powerful God who had a lust for nothing but more power, more size, which she was continuously served with through the constant mindlessness from her horde of clients turned thralls determined to see nothing but their goddess become even more godlike. Hunger came over them but they didn’t care. The only pangs they sought to serve were Hers.
“Good, little ones.” Elaine looked down at Darren and Steve, her thick pectorals almost blocking her line of vision as they continued to swell, creaking and squeaking as inches of meat were added with each rep from the horde, and her every gentle breath. That curious gesture she made with her hand came then, encouraging both men to stand upright, staring keenly into her eyes. “Now go join the others. Do your part in making me even bigger!”
And with that, Darren and Steve were no longer newcomers and became part of the slave-like horde resolute in making Elaine even more powerful. She just stood and watched, inches of muscle being packed on with each breath, her sportswear bursting asunder to reveal the bare skin underneath, creaking and squishing as it couldn’t keep up with the pace the horde was cranking out reps. But Elaine loved the pain as much as everything else now, seeing Darren and Steve move into position at the leg press machines, then crank out reps.
“YES! MORE! UUUHHH! MAKE YOUR GODDESS BIGGER! I WANT IT ALL!”
Elaine’s neck craned upwards toward the ceiling, the power coursing through her so much that it felt like an orgasm a thousandfold. Her eyes flashed like a blinding light, distracting the horde from their dutiful efforts to grow their Goddess before nothing but the light was present—
===
The next day, a resident of Hillford was returning from his business trip. He had plans that night: to go out for a meal with his family and watch TV together afterwards. Nothing but peace and caring were what he had planned, several gifts from his trip packaged neatly in the car’s back seat.
His car turned the corner just past Hillford’s welcoming sign presenting the population count. But the vehicle had come to a grinding halt, the tire almost bursting from the grind. Then the door was opened, creaking from its need for a replacement. Though the man was far too fixated on something else to care:
Emptiness. Not only had the Dynamo Fitness Center disappeared as though it had never existed at all, but the entirety of Hillford had gone with it. The town was now replaced with an empty miles-long stretch of land.
The man turned back to the town’s sign, making sure the summer heat from travelling hadn’t affected his mind. And that was when he saw it. The population count that had been etched in with chalk was wiped clean, erasing upwards of a thousand lives from existence. Like they never existed at all.
The man looked out at the empty plain in disbelief….