———Published August 12th, 2024———
The moment he felt the coolness of the alcohol wipe Brad’s mood perked up. He flicked the last air bubble out of the syringe and his entire body relaxed.
The needle broke through the skin and “ahhhhhh, that’s the stuff.”
He took the needle out with a pluck and disinfected it before placing it back in the case where he held the rest of his gear. He walked out of the stall with a smile split across his face.
He washed his hands, looked at himself in the mirror, then opened the bathroom door.
Fluorescent lights rained down amid the sounds of weights clinking. Brad breathed in the smell of sweat and disinfectant. This was Apex Fitness—one of the most popular bodybuilding gyms in the city. And Brad was currently the biggest guy there. He strutted across the floor feeling like he could kill any man and fuck any girl in the place. He looked around his domain and saw a girl by the squat racks wearing tight pink spandex workout shorts.
“Damn baby got a dumpy,” he said to himself.
Someone waved to him. It was his friend Henry—a tall, ripped black man wearing neon short shorts. They slapped 5.
“Hey playa how’s that stuff working out?”
“Amazing bro, bout to go hit some bench.”
“Far out.”
Brad had no idea why Henry talked like he was from the ‘70s. But he was the only guy he knew who could get legit gear. So as far as Brad was concerned he could speak Dutch if he wanted.
“I’m just warming up, I’ll see you over there,” Henry said with a nod of his head towards the bench station by the squat racks.
Brad swaggered that way and saw the girl in pink bent over doing some tricep extensions. She had one leg hiked up on a bench and her shorts practically wrapped inside her.
The longer he stared the more he felt an animal rage spread up his legs and through his body threatening to jettison out of the top of his head. He turned his head left and saw a skinny kid nearby trying to hoist a medicine ball almost as big as he was.
“Fucking nerd.” Brad said to no one in particular. “I could fucking tear his head off.”
Brad looked down and noticed his fists were clenched white. He relaxed them and looked up. The girl had finished her set and was heading to the opposite side of the gym towards the locker rooms. Her pink hips swayed with every step. Brad walked over to his favorite bench, threw on a set of 45’s, and got to work.
He grunted with every rep.
By the time Brad was on his final set Henry and a small crowd of others stood around cheering. Sweat dripped down Brad’s headphones as he hoisted a clean 3 plates into the air. He did it 3 more times. He reracked, stood up, and yelled. The boys slapped him on the back and said things like “fuck yeah bro”. Henry said “groovy.”
Brad looked around the gym trying to find the girl in the pink shorts. But she was nowhere to be seen. Just random pencilnecks dotting the gym and his boys circled around him basking in the testosterone sweat.
On his drive home Brad couldn’t get those pink shorts or the girl attached to them out of his head. The way she folded her shorts at the bottom so her ass jutted like a shelf. The way her hips curved into a tiny, sucked-in waist. The way her sports bra outlined her generous cleavage.
The more he thought about her the more he could feel his own gym shorts tighten.
He tried to push her from his mind and think of his new PR—315 for 4 on the bench. “Fuck yeah,” he said, then honked his horn and flipped someone off.
But his mind kept wandering back to those pink shorts and thoughts of what kind of underwear she might be wearing underneath. He honked his horn again and swerved around a car to run a red light.
“Fuck these nerds.”
15 minutes later he was in his kitchen chugging a protein shake. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, walked to his room, and began masturbating furiously to the most hardcore porn he’d ever seen.
He grunted with every stroke.
A week later Brad approached Henry who was finishing up a set of bicep curls in the corner of the gym. With every rep his bicep vein bulged out of the skin as if it was threatening to poke someone’s eye out.
“What’s up cool cat?”
“Hey bro, just seeing what’s good with the stuff.”
“I can dig it. Bad news though, I’ll be out till next week. Supply line got messed up, something about some cats in China getting busted.”
“Fucking chinks.”
“Hey, hey, cool it.”
Henry dropped the dumbbells and looked at Brad wide eyed. Henry had seen Brad pick on the pencilnecks from time to time. But Henry wrote that off as playful hazing and bros being bros. This racism thing on the other hand, was something that Henry could not dig. He was starting to rethink how well he knew Brad after all.
Even Brad was shocked at hearing the words that had left his mouth. He tried to recover as best he could.
“My bad bro, I didn’t mean it. I just really need some stuff. I’m almost out.”
Henry paused for a moment trying to decide whether Brad’s outburst was a Freudian slip or just some passing roid rage.
“I feel ya. Well, I got some other stuff from a new cat in the city. I only got a few sample bottles but I hear it’s the bees knees. If you want to try some you can have it for a discount. Just let me know how it turns out.”
Brad was desperate. But he didn’t want to be the guinea pig for some sketchy untested shit. Yes, he was a juiced up gym bro. But at that point he maintained at least some sense of caution.
“For sure, I’m good for now bro. I got a little bit left, just let me know when you restock.”
“Right on brotha man.”
Brad walked over to the squat racks and on the way he saw the girl in pink shorts—now wearing an aquamarine set—walking out of the gym’s front doors.
“Fuck it,” Brad said, “leg days for pussies, it’s time to bench.”
On the way home while waiting at a red light, Brad opened the black case where he kept his gear. He could tell by how much was left in the bottle that he had enough for two more day’s worth of injections. Then he’d be out. He rubbed the smooth glass bottle between his fingertips.
He hadn’t run out of gear since he started blasting full-time 6 months ago. He’d done a few cycles before that. But 6 months ago his girlfriend had left him for a bigger guy. And ever since, he’d been very serious about becoming the biggest and strongest guy anywhere he went.
The light turned green and he honked his horn.
“Fucking go faggit.”
For the next few days Brad kept himself to half doses so he could make his supply last. But before long he was completely dry.
“What’s good?” He asked Henry next time he saw him at the gym.
“The cat said just a few more days.”
A few days turned into a week. And by then, the symptoms had started to kick in. At first it was small things. Brad wasn’t sleeping well. He was tired. His lifts felt sticky and he stopped hitting PRs.
But soon it got bad enough that he had to take a few days off from his job of door-to-door solar sales so he could lay in bed and eat ice cream all day. It wasn’t until his boss called him and told him to get his ass out there that he went back to work.
Brad drove his Ford F-150 to a newly-built neighborhood where he was almost guaranteed to make some sales. He was anxious on the drive over. He was sweating and had to pee constantly. But at the same time his mouth and eyes were bone dry. His head hurt and he could hardly think. And worse of all his mood had swung wildly all morning.
He honked his horn and stuck his middle finger out of the window as he swerved on the highway shoulder to pass a Prius.
15 minutes later the Ford pulled up to the neighborhood and parked in the guest lot. Brad looked out the window and struggled to get the motivation just to get out of the car. If it wasn’t for his boss blowing up his phone that morning, he probably would just go home, jerk off and binge Netflix.
He sighed, grabbed his clipboard, and walked to the closest house.
Knock, knock.
When he was injecting every day, Brad always approached leads feeling like the top chook. He’d knock on the door, flirt with the housewife, make the offer, and if they said yes he could make anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 commission depending on the size of the install.
Today, however, he felt very different. He was sweating and fidgeting and going over lines in his head as he waited for the door to open.
The door opened and a southern gentleman stared at Brad.
“Whudoo you want?”
Brad stared at the man who couldn’t have been older than 50. The man looked at the logo on Brad’s shirt then his clipboard. Brad tried to speak but his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.
“You tryin’ ta sell me somethin’? Go on get out, we don’t want none of that round here.”
Finally the glue in Brad’s mouth loosened enough for him to speak.
“Sir if you just have a moment, I wanted to let you know about the mandate in this area that is going…”
“I doon’t give a rat’s ass about no mandate, I said get off my property.”
He slammed the door.
“Fuck this,” Brad said walking back to his truck. He got in, pulled out his phone, and called Henry.
“Hey man, you around? I want to try that new stuff.”
30 minutes later, Brad found himself standing outside Henry’s apartment building with a bottle of the new stuff in his pocket. It was Brad’s first time seeing Henry’s place. It was extremely nice and Brad told him so.
“You must have a lot more customers than just me to afford this place.”
“Yessir, I serve people all over the city. Paying for all those gym memberships is cutting into my profits. But hey, gotta meet customers somewhere.”
Brad noticed that Henry had dropped the ‘70s slang. Guess he felt more himself at home.
“So has the drought been hurting you then?”
“Naw, it’s good. I got some high-rollers that pay premium for the small amount of Test I get. Bodybuilders and strongmen and a few internet influencers. They’re willing to pay top dollar for the shit. I’m making almost as much now selling to 1/10th of the client base than I was before.”
Brad’s knuckles tightened white and a pang of anger hit him. “The fucker,” he thought. “He’s been holding out on me this whole time.” But Brad felt too weak and lethargic to say anything about it. Plus he knew Henry was his only shot at scoring anything at all, so he had to play nice.
Henry opened a cabinet that was against the wall and entered the combination on a small safe that was inside. He grabbed something from the safe and started walking towards Brad on the couch.
“I’ve been selling some of this new stuff too. People have been liking it a lot. One guy said he put on 5 pounds of lean in just his first few weeks of using it. Here you are.”
Henry extended a single vial towards Brad. Brad took it.
“Metandienone,” Brad said reading the label. “Sounds scientific.”
A week later Brad was driving his Ford back to the neighborhood where the southern gentleman lived as the sun rays dashed across the freeway concrete. He’d been returning to the neighborhood all week and had made a few sales racking up about $12,000 in commission.
“Welcome to the Jungle” played on the radio as he cruised between lanes not bothering to so much as look at his lane change indicator.
As Axl Rose hit the chorus, Brad passed under one of those street signs that can be programmed to display different text. This one read:
Don’t drive high—it’s against the law.
“Fuck,” he said to the empty cabin. “I forgot my shot.”
He pulled over crossing two lanes without looking and came to a stop on the shoulder of the freeway. He grabbed the black case from under his seat and got out his syringe, his bottle of D-bol, and his alcohol wipes. He pulled his pants to the side and stuck the needle into the flesh of his hip.
He pushed down the plunger and almost immediately got a bad feeling in his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He coughed and coughed. But no matter what he did he couldn’t catch his breath. He thought he was going to die.
It felt like the asthma attacks he used to have as a kid only worse. For a second he thought his heart might be exploding from the roids. His pulse raced and his vision spun in circles.
15 minutes later he was still wheezing. But slowly he was beginning to feel better. He was about to put his stuff away and drive to the neighborhood when he saw lights flashing behind him.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” he quickly buttoned his pants, put his stuff back in the case, and put the case under the seat.
The cop knocked on his window and Brad rolled it down.
“Good morning officer,” he said, trying to regain his breath. From the way he looked at him, Brad could tell the cop knew something was up.
“You know it’s not safe pulling over on the side of the freeway like this. What are you doing over here anyway?”
“Uhh, yes officer,” wheeze, “I know, it’s just,” wheeze, “I think I’m having an asthma attack.”
The cop looked at him suspiciously. But after hearing the sincerity in Brad’s wheezing he asked if he needed an amb-u-lance; pronouncing each syllable like Brad was dumb or deaf.
“No, it’s getting better,” wheeze, “just give me a minute or two.”
The officer gave Brad a minute or two by running his plates, taking his license and registration, and checking his identity for warrants. By the time that was done, Brad was breathing normally again and the D-bol was flowing through his veins.
“Drive safe now, be sure to get up to speed before merging on the highway.”
Brad put his Ford into gear and drove away peeking at his rear view mirror.
“That was close. Definitely not going to be doing anything like that again. I’m only injecting when I know it’s private.”
By the time Brad got to the neighborhood he’d almost forgotten about the cough and the interaction with the cop. All that remained was a vague feeling that he’d gotten away with something. That feeling plus the nicotine gum he was chewing had him flying by the time he parked in the guest lot.
He got out of his car and looked at the street, mentally marking which houses he had left to hit. There were only a few he hadn’t visited yet. So he decided to do something bold. He was going to knock on the southern gentleman’s door and try to sell him. What did he have to lose? Almost as soon as he had made up his mind, he found himself knocking.
This time he wasn’t going over lines in his head. This time he chewed his gum and waited.
“Hi there hunny, what can I do for you?”
To Brad’s surprise the southern gentleman didn’t answer. And in his place was a 40-something woman. Even more surprisingly to Brad, she was hot. Not as hot as the girl in pink at the gym. But Brad could tell she kept in great shape. She had curvy hips and a thin waist. And a big bosom peeking out from her shirt that Brad could see himself taking a nap in.
“Oh hello there young lady,” Brad said, completely throwing out the script he was supposed to use. “I’m looking for the homeowner, is your mother around?”
“Oh very funny,” she said, “I’m the homeowner of course.”
“Well then,” Brad said, “Would it be rude if I invited myself in?”
Mary Sue was a good christian woman. She never did drugs. Never drank too much wine unlike the others in her book club. And never ever thought about cheating on her husband.
But something about this Brad boy touched her differently. She didn’t know if it was his thick neck towering over her head. His biceps sticking out through his shirt sleeves. Or the way his chest ballooned out, almost bowling her over with its masculinity.
No Mary Sue never ever thought about another man when she was with her Billy. But that didn’t mean she was totally happy either. After all, Billy was a good christian man and for him sex was simply God’s way of giving humans the means to procreate.
Forget sex, Billy hadn’t so much as given Mary Sue a back rub in the last 10 years.
No Mary Sue had never ever thought about cheating on her husband. Which is why she was more surprised than anyone to find herself face down in a pillow with her 46 year old bare ass in the air and a juiced up gym boy dripping sweat down her back.
No, Mary Sue had never ever thought about cheating on her husband. But somehow it happened anyway.
With a vicious grunt Brad came in Mary Sue and slapped her ass for good measure. They laid there a sticky sweaty mess. And with Brad’s manhood leaking out of her, Mary Sue suddenly felt guilt. Then shame. Then fear. She looked at the clock sitting on her husband’s nightstand.
“My husband will be home soon, get out and never come back.”
Mary Sue grabbed Brad’s clothes and threw it at him before picking up her panties. She hoped she’d have enough time to shower and clean up. But first she had to get this hunk of muscle meat out.
“Hurry up,” she said as he slowly got out of bed, “this was a huge mistake.” She shoved him towards the door.
The sun glinted in Brad’s eyes as he walked out the front door. His shirt was sticky with sweat and his briefs were sticky with everything. He popped a nicotine gum in his mouth and walked to his car.
As he turned the key, he saw the southern gentleman pull into his driveway and moments later exit his car and walk towards Brad. Brad rolled the window down.
“Evening, sir.”
“Don’t evening, sir me, whaddaru doing? I told you not to come back around here.”
“Just visiting some of my customers in the neighborhood. In fact, your wife made the good decision of signing you up for our top plan. There’s a copy of the contract on your kitchen table, but here’s another for your records.”
Brad handed him a stack of stapled papers and drove away.
“Fucking cuck,” he said as he watched the guy’s face change in the rear view mirror as he looked at the contract. “I showed his old lady a helluva time. He’ll be tasting me on her for weeks.”
Brad took the rest of the day off and hit the gym. He hit a new PR on the bench and stood up ready to hi-five his bros. Only to remember that none of his boys were here and the gym was practically empty. That’s the cost of working out in the middle of the day.
He went home and slammed a protein shake in his kitchen. He took off his shirt and shorts and walked towards the shower.
But before he even made it to the bathroom the image of a 46-year old bare ass and some hot pink shorts flashed through his mind. He felt heat in his midsection that rose through his chest. It was so intense it almost hurt.
He went to his room and masturbated. At first thinking of granny bare ass and missus pink shorts. But eventually the images grew stale and he turned to some very hardcore porn.
Things went on this way for a few weeks. Brad kept picking up bottles of the new stuff. Beating PRs in the gym. And growing in size.
Everytime he looked in the mirror he looked more jacked. But the bigger he got the more he wanted to grow.
It wasn’t just Brad that was growing though. He noticed that Henry was quickly growing a stash of luxury goods too.
First it was a fancy watch Henry wore to the gym. Then a new car. Then once when Brad went over to his apartment Henry was showing off his brand new flat screen TV.
“Look at how clear this fucker is. Just wait til football season when you can come over and watch a game.”
“The piece of shit is holding out on me.” Brad thought as he sat on the couch gritting his teeth. “Sure this D-bol stuff is great, but it’s way more expensive than Test.” He wanted to say something to Henry to call him out on his bullshit. But he shoved the thoughts down and forked over the cash. It’s not like Brad was broke. And at this point anything was better than nothing.
Brad thought things would go on like this forever. Him blasting up, hitting PRs, rawdogging randos on Tinder or jerking off to pornstars with giant, fake titties. But then one day Henry texted him back saying everything was completely dry and would be for weeks.
Brad was pissed. He couldn’t believe it. He knew Henry had a stash in his little safe. That’s how he was affording his new car, his new TV, even his new girlfriend that was always hanging off his hip. So why the fuck wasn’t he selling anything to Brad.
“I’ll pay you top dollar bro, whatever you want” Brad texted.
“Sorry man, not today.”
“Fuck that nigger,” Brad yelled punching the wall of his bedroom leaving a gaping hole where his fist was moments ago.
“It’s not about the stuff. I can quit whenever.” Brad’s sickness lied to him. “It’s about that fucker holding out on me. After all the times I’ve bought from him. All the customers I sent his way. I even helped him pull that hoe the night we went to the bar together.”
Brad picked up a chair and flung it to the other side of the room. Then he took out the case where he held his gear and looked at the vial sitting in his thick hand. “3 more days this will last, then I’ll be out.” He set the vial back in the case. “Fuck Henry, there’s gotta be someone else in stock. Tonight I’ll chill. Tomorrow I’ll figure out where to get more.”
That night Brad rolled a fat spliff and sat down with a bowl of popcorn to watch a movie. He had texted a Tinder match earlier that night telling her to come over. But she had texted back some excuse about a friend who just broke up and needed a crying shoulder.
“Lying hoe, she was ugly anyway.”
Brad flipped through the movies until he found one that looked interesting—”The Italian Job”.
“Sounds like a sex act,” Brad said laughing at his own joke. He pressed play, took a drag of the spliff, and laid back.
On the surface, Brad had nothing in common with these characters. They were criminals who lived and died by their ability to steal and heist. But the longer he watched, the more he felt a connection. He cringed during the opening when the villain turned on the main characters. He clapped when the “good guys” got together to plan their revenge.
Maybe it was the roids, maybe it was the anger, or maybe it was the spliff smoke in the air—but in a weird way, Brad felt like he and these characters had lived parallel lives. He felt like he knew exactly what they were going through. And when the movie was done and he was lost in a haze of weed smoke, he came to a decision.
“That fuckers gonna pay.” He said to no one in particular. “I’m gonna get what’s mine.”
And as he laid his head down on his pillow that night, his thoughts already swam with how he’d do it. How he’d rob Henry and have all the stash to call his own.
To be continued…
Next time on “Juiced”:
Brad plans a heist to liberate some much-needed roids from Henry. But when he gets more than he bargained for, who does he turn to for help? Tune in next time to find out…