Flowing Like a River
#3 of Egg Nog & Chocolate
Author's Note: And here it is - with a bit of extra stuff from Charlie, the final part of the original Jordan Bear story, Flowing Like a River. Myle and Lynda, are, as usual, owned by Brahma Minotaur.
Flowing Like a River
by BlackWolfe Coyoten
As the cab let me off in front of Two Poles, I wondered if I'd see anyone I knew there. Lynda must have been by the place at least once to have their business card. She'd said something about dancers - maybe it was a dance club? I knew Lynda, Sasha, and Myle hit the local dance clubs fairly regularly.
I stepped up to the club with a bit of a spring in my step. This could work out, I decided. A night out, with or without the girls from the gym, would be good for me. There was a large male opossum by the door - a bouncer, I guess - who checked my ID and painted an H on the back of my paw, and then I was inside. In the door, it turned out there was a twenty dollar cover charge.
Since I'd paid for the cab out-of-pocket, that left thirty from my winnings. More than enough for some soda and... I sniffed the air. I didn't know night clubs had kitchens. There was the smell of barbecue, and a lot of hot, sweaty people.
Then I stepped into the club proper, and stopped short. A strip club. Lynda had set me up, the bit-- oh, my. The thought trailed off as soon as I noticed the dancer up on the center stage. "So that's why they call it 'Two Poles,'" I muttered.
The dancer was exquisite. About five foot six, not counting the ears, of cream colored, well-curved hare. Large, firm breasts above a narrow waist and wide hips. And there, there was the second pole, jutting out from above hir feminine sex. Two Poles was a hermaphrodite-themed strip club.
My jaw dropped, and a few people had to go around me to get to their seats. I wasn't sure if I was in Heaven or Hell, but judging from the way my own pole was reacting, I was definitely going to enjoy my stay. First, though, I had to find a seat before people noticed.
Embarrassed at both my reaction and my erection, I headed for one of the booths near the center stage, eyes locked on the dancer there. Shi was not only one of the sexiest beings I'd ever seen, male, female, or otherwise, shi looked like shi was having the time of hir life up there.
Tucked into a booth, concealing my erection beneath the table, I stared. I'm not sure how long I sat there, barely noticing anything but the dancer. My mouth was dry, but my chin was damp with drool. "Beautiful," I murmurred.
Normally, I have to admit, I go in for muscular types. Although shi wasn't that, the hare was definitely fit. I was in love. Or at least deeply in lust. I didn't even order a drink until hir set was finished - I couldn't bring myself to look away.
Eventually, like all things, hir time on stage came to an end. "Let's give it up," the announcer purred, "for Charlie!" Shi waved as shi headed off the stage, and blew a kiss out towards the audience. As soon as shi left the stage, my interest in the show started to wane. I took note of the svelte porcupine to follow hir act, but found my attention wandering.
I was just about to call it a night when my drink arrived. The waitress was cute - hard to make out in the dim light, but she was a tan-colored hare who could have been Charlie's sister. She handed me my Coke, then slid into the booth beside me. "So," she purred.
I coughed. This wasn't normal, was it? I didn't go to strip clubs, I didn't know. "Um," I managed.
"I saw you checking me out on stage." I took another look. Adjust the fur color for dimmer lighting, and... It didn't take a rocket scientist to understand this really was the dancer from before, sitting down beside me.
I did the only thing I could. I said "um" again.
Shi laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment," shi said, and flagged down one of the wait staff. "Vodka, straight," she chirped. "Thanks, Lise." Hir order taken care of, shi returned hir attention to me. "First time, huh?"
"Are you going to get in trouble for sitting here?" I looked around, wondering if maybe I was in some sort of reserved staff seating. "Am I?"
Shi laughed again. "I'd better not get in trouble," shi said. "I own half the place." Shi nodded towards the kitchen. "My partner handles food and drink, I handle entertainment."
"That's, um..." That's what? Nice? Fumbling for words, I looked up at the stage. The porcupine was still up there, grinding against the dance pole. Shi didn't have Charlie's enthusiasm. What shi did have was an impressive male member. Nice bust, stocky build without being chubby. In fact, shi was more my type than the hare was, but the bored way shi went through hir routine lost my interest quickly.
I turned my attention back to Charlie, who was watching the porcupine with a mixture of professional interest, and just plain interest. "Gods," shi muttered. "If shi didn't have probably the nicest cock I've seen in forever, I swear shi'd be fired. Where's the enthusiasm?"
I coughed. I had been thinking nearly the same thing. Lacking anything to say, I just shrugged.
"Not very talkative, are you?"
I shrugged again.
Shi peered at me closely. Hir eyes were enchanting, emeralds that glinted in the dim light of the club, but I couldn't make eye contact. The faux wood grain of the table became fascinating. I picked at it idly. Say something, you idiot! I tried - my jaw moved up and down, but nothing came out.
Charlie looked up at the stage again, and sighed, as the porcupine looked to be finishing hir set. "Right," shi said. "Well, I've got to go give Candice a talking-to. Stick around, would you?"
As shi left, long, honey-blonde hair rippling behind hir like a curtain, I just stared. As soon as shi was gone, my mind began to race. "What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?"
Lynda would know. Sasha, Myle, they would know. All I knew was that I was terrified. What if shi didn't like me? What if shi thought I was a freak? Shi'd already gone backstage. How soon would shi be back?
I was already outside before I realized what was happening. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, why I was running away. Did I leave a tip? Did I even pay for my drink? I checked my pockets. The thirty dollars was gone, I must have left it on the table.
I should have left a note. Something. But instead, I just bolted.
I paced back and forth in the parking lot for a few minutes. Go back in? Admit defeat and go home? How would I get home? Calling a cab would mean heading back inside. Forget that. I couldn't face hir again. Just walk.
It's only four miles, I told myself. A good half-hour run. I was still partially hard from watching the show. A run'll do you good. Just put one foot in front of the other. Go. Go now.
So I ran, hating myself for it the whole way. The anger helped. I was so busy hating myself I managed to make it in twenty minutes. One long, hot (and sweaty) bath later, I was asleep in bed, eager to get this night behind me and get on with a new day.
The next day was equally bizarre. There was a small crowd outside the gym, talking animatedly about something. One of them pointed, and I realized they had been talking about me. Was that a news van? Dear gods, what was going on now?
Ducking questions, hiding my head from the camera, I bolted into the gym. The reporter, thankfully, didn't follow. Inside the gym, I could finally relax. Too much of the outside world, I decided. Too many people I couldn't relate to. The stripper, the news... What I needed was a good, healthy workout.
I checked the calendar, was surprised to see I had a client in a half hour. "Ah well," I told myself. "I've got time to do some warm ups before I clock in." I looked around. Today, apart from work, would be a lower body day. Rather than waste precious workout time changing into my work clothes, I headed straight for the nearest vacant weight machine.
Some exercises are best done with free weights, in my opinion, but leg extensions are easiest with a machine. I set the machine up, sat down, and started working, careful to take it slow, when Lynda approached me in the middle of my set.
"Well, well," she practically purred. "If it isn't our local celebrity."
I frowned. "What's this about, anyway? I come in a little early, and the press is camping out in front of the gym?"
Lynda grinned. "You mean you didn't know? Arness got banned from the IFBB last night."
I blinked, workout forgotten. "You're kidding."
She shook her head. "Nope. It seems after you whupped his little rat tail, he went crying to some mage, trying to buff up for a rematch, and the mage turned him in."
I blinked. Cosmetic magic wasn't banned from use in bodybuilding in general, but Arness was in the natural category, which specifically forbade any enhancement. "You're kidding," I said.
She shook her head again, grin widening. "Yeah, apparently, he'd been to like eight mages in the last year. I dunno. You can ask the mage later, since you're going to be training her."
I laughed. "That's a hell of a coincidence," I said.
"Not really. She said she'd been looking for a good gym, and when this guy started bitching up and down about you beating him fair and square, she decided to check us out."
I nodded. "Makes sense, I guess." I looked up at the clock. "Well, until then, I've got another fifteen minutes to burn. Mind if I get back to my warm up?"
Lynda laughed and backed off, arms spread. "Hey, be my guest. You didn't have to stop on my account, you know."
I shook my head. Lynda, thankfully, was one-of-a-kind. I don't think the world could cope with two of her. We had enough problems with just the one.
After the extensions, I started on presses. I almost lost track of time, getting into the rhythm of my routine and thinking about poor David struggling to find work after his scandal. With barely a minute to spare to get changed and meet my client, I grabbed my bag and headed for my changing room.
I was surprised to find it occupied. It never occurred to me that there would be another hermaphrodite in the gym, but there shi was, toweling off. Shi was a looker, definitely. Warm, cream colored fur, a very nice rack, and a large, but not over-large peni...
I caught myself staring; prayed shi wouldn't look up. Right here, in my gym, toweling off in my changing room, was Charlie, the stripper from the night before. I dropped my bag, forgetting everything. Gods, shi was exquisite.
The sound of my gym bag hitting the tile floor caught hir attention, and shi looked up, startled. "Oh, my," shi said. "Hello again, Jordan."
Again, words failed me. I managed a sound, but it wasn't really intelligible.
She walked over to me, confident and comfortable in hir nudity. "I'm really looking forward to our session today," shi said, then glanced up and down, taking in my appearance. I hoped shi wouldn't be disappointed in me. As a trainer, I mean. Honest. "Oh, my," shi said again. "I take it back, that is the nicest cock I've seen in forever."
I blushed, immediately covered up - or tried to. I don't like to brag about myself - there's generally not much to brag about - but I have always been proud of my admittedly substantial maleness. Eighteen inches of eagerness throbbed at the attention it was getting. I was beginning to wonder if maybe a lot of my problems would seem less important if I just got laid. I was also beginning to wonder if Charlie would be amenable.
I choked that thought off rather harshly. Charlie was a client, dammit. "I, uh..." Quickly grabbing my gym bag off the floor, I headed for the shower, which was still steamy from Charlie having recently vacated it. "Um... be out in a minute," I managed.
Charlie laughed. "Thanks for the compliment," shi said, and kissed me on the cheek. "Take your time, I'll be on the stair climbers."
I won't bore you with the details of what I did in the shower to calm down. Suffice it to say, when I was done with my shower, I still needed a shower - but at least my shorts would fit.
A few minutes later, I found Charlie on the stair climber as shi'd promised, and, letting hir continue working out there, discussed hir plans. Like many females and hermaphrodites, shi wasn't looking to put on muscle, just trim a bit of fat. As it was, shi was off to a good start with the cardiovascular exercises. However...
"I'm thinking," I said, "you're probably going to want to do more upper body work."
Charlie frowned. "But..." Shi put hir paws on hir chest, drawing my attention back to hir firm bust. "I don't want to lose my babies."
I chuckled at the joke. "No, no, it's just that, as a hare, your lower body is inherently stronger than your upper body. Look at those thighs, Charlie." Indeed, look at those lovely, perfect, firm thighs. "Unless you want to add a bit more muscle to that already niceley developed pair of legs, you might want to ease off the lower body."
Shi nodded. "Okay... I don't mind toning up the midsection a bit, just... I really am concerned about losing too much weight in the chest region."
I nodded. "No problem, we can work around that," I said, then gave hir a stern look. "Now I want you to promise two things."
"Fire away."
"One, you will stick to the workout schedule we put together. We're doing this together for you, not for me. If you want to change it up, fine. But don't just abandon it."
"Got it."
"Two," I said, "if the power-monster rears its head, you let someone know."
Shi grinned and looked down at my groin. "Looks safe so far," shi quipped.
Blushing furiously, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed. "Not that," I said, irritated and embarrassed. "I meant, if you decide you want to go for strength training, it's best to talk to someone first, so you don't hurt yourself."
Shi laughed. "Okay, no worries there anyway. I've never been tempted in that particular regard." Shi looked me over. "Now, I've heard differently when it comes to you."
My fading embarrassment returned, full force. "Um."
"Is it true you broke a world record yesterday?"
I shook my head. "No, not by about forty pounds I didn't." I pondered this. "Actually, I kind of wonder if I can count that - do I qualify for the 'all natural' category if I'm that much stronger than I look? There's got to be some kind of magic involved."
Shi considered this. "Well," shi said after a moment, "I'd say you're a borderline case. You've got some kind of natural Talent that has to do with your strength, but from what I understand, you earned that strength through normal means."
I frowned. "Natural Talent?"
Shi nodded. "Yeah. It doesn't qualify as magical assistance, since it's innate, but there's something magical about you yourself that responds positively to strength training." Shi looked off to one side, thinking. "Come to think of it, I encountered a very similar talent - almost identical - when I was signing up for my membership here."
My curiosity was definitely piqued. "Oh? I kind of thought I was unique."
Shi grinned. "Don't worry," shi said. "You are. But that big tigress who signed me up, she's got some kind of natural Talent herself that's very similar to yours."
I blinked. "You mean Myle?" Myle had a natural talent, all right. I'd seen it less than a week before when she challenged me to the arm-wrestling match that had started all of this.
"Huh," I said. "Myle's got this thing where, if she reaches her limit in strength, she literally grows past it. It's... it's amazing, is what it is."
Charlie nodded. "I thought she looked familiar. She goes out dancing a lot, doesn't she?"
I shrugged. "I guess so. Her and Lynda and Sasha, yeah." I shook my head. "But that really doesn't have anything to do with me, and even less to do with your training. So let's get back to work."
"Yes, ma'am!" Charlie immediately doubled hir pace on the stair climber, then looked over hir shoulder at me. "But listen. I can tell you're not happy with your body," shi said. "I've seen it dozens of times, especially with other herms. I know you've got a Talent that you've barely even touched on, sure as I know anything - it's part of being a mage. If you really want to know what you're capable of, I'd think about that."
Charlie agreed to come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays for cardio work, and I agreed to think about what shi'd told me. Which is why, that night, I found myself sitting outside my beat-up old barn, dangling my feet in the ice cold river cutting through my property and thinking about what shi'd said.
"Well," I muttered, "Myle gets bigger when she pushes herself. What I wouldn't give to have that Talent."
I kicked a small wave of water towards the opposite shore. "When I reach my limits, just like anyone else, my body adapts to get stronger. How is that a natural Talent? And why don't I have the muscles to show for it?"
I'd asked Myle about her own Talent, the day I started my job, and she'd put it in bodybuilding terms. She described a wellspring of strength, and the "pumped" feeling from working out. But then, the imagery changed a little. "If I really push myself hard," she'd said, "then that wellspring overflows, and that's when I really start growing."
Was that what it was like for me? No, I realized. When I was working out, really into it, I realized I entered a kind of trance. I pictured a river, cutting its way deeper and deeper into the ground, widening its bed, but the stream never changed.
I looked down at my paws, soaking in the river through my land, and wondered about the river through my mind. "What if," I asked myself, "I were to change that?" I stood up, feeling a sort of "rightness" about the image. "What if I were to, say, raise the water level?" There was certainly plenty of room in the riverbed for more water, in the river I pictured.
Slowly, I pictured the water level rising, making its way up to the banks of the riverbed. As I did so, I felt a strange tickling sensation in my paws. Frowning at the interruption, I looked down, holding on to the image of flowing water slowly rising, and realized that my paws were, ever-so-slightly, widening on the rocky ground.
This was it! I took a moment to look over my body, grinning wildly. There was the definition I'd worked so hard for, slowly filling out my arms and legs. My limbs thickened and hardened, lengthening ever-so-slightly. The sensation was bizarre, but incredibly pleasant. I found myself getting aroused, but with nobody around to see it, I didn't care. It was finally working!
Not only was I getting the muscles I'd worked so hard for, I was getting taller, too, and my previously nonexistant bustline was straining against my tank top. This was what I'd wanted, what I'd dreamed of for years.
It was over all too soon. I leaned over the river, looking down at my reflection, and grinned at what I saw. A massive powerhouse of a bear looked up at me. Hir firm, D-cup bustline was nothing to sneer at, and hir tremendous muscles discouraged any attempt to do so. My penis, normally eighteen inches fully erect, seemed larger as well, but since I'd grown taller as well as more defined, I couldn't be sure how much.
Holy crap, I thought, I'm gorgeous! But... why did Myle get to outgrow buildings and all I got was a couple of lousy feet? That wasn't fair, was it? How did she do that?
At once, the answer came to me. "Overflow," I murmurred, lightly stroking my shaft as I pictured it. "Bigger, better, stronger." In my mind's eye, the river rushed on, rising past its banks, flooding my body with power, and that's when my growth really began.
I can't describe it, though I can try. It was like fire running through my veins, but it didn't hurt. It was like an orgasm that builds and builds and builds, never quite releasing even though you're sure you can't take another moment of it. I staggered with the force of it, falling back against my barn and crashing through the wall of it. I was easily as tall as the flimsy wooden building, about twenty-five feet, and still growing. Though I'd stopped becoming more developed at the point the "river" reached its banks, I couldn't help but feel better about the size of my muscles, since they were growing along with the rest of me.
Then, suffused with pleasure and power, I finally came, powerful limbs exploding through the walls of my barn as I did so. Seed arced overhead, I don't know how high up - it would help if I knew how tall I was. But I felt more than satiated. I felt... fulfilled.
Of course, I mused, it would help if I knew how to get back down. I decided that could wait. It had taken me too long to figure out how to get here in the first place: I might as well enjoy it.