Big all over

“I can’t believe you’re talking to me.”

I got that line a lot but this time I was actually surprised.

“You’re the biggest guy in this gym,” I replied. “Who else would I be talking to?”

The gym was hardcore. No cardio equipment, little in the way of Hammer Strength machines, much less cables. Just benches, squat racks, deadlift stations, chalk, and dumbbells that went up to 200 pounds. Not bad for a no account burg somewhere between the Hudson and Lake Erie. It could have been Watertown or Elmira, Syracuse or Binghamton.

“No,” he said. “You are the biggest guy the gym!”

Turns out his name was Frank, just my age, 27, a couple of inches shorter than me at 5’10, and 275 pounds of bull-sized off-season muscle. Plus shaggy dark hair, piercing dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a full-beard. And you know how that gets my motor running!

I outweighed him by a good 60-70 pounds, all of it in the right places.

“You don’t compete?” he asked, incredulous.

I blushed, then shook my head.

“No time for it,” I said. “I’m always on the road.”

His jaw dropped.

“You’re on the road all the time and you have a body like this?!” he exclaimed.

I chuckled.

“I learned a long time ago to take my food with me,” I said. “I spend my weekends on food prep, then eat it all when I’m in the car. And I don’t care where I go, I’m almost always gonna find a gym like this one.”

And if I’m very, very lucky, I thought to myself, I’m gonna find a guy like you who can appreciate just what it takes to build a body like this one!

Frank shook his head again.

“Man, what a waste,” he said. “That body belongs on the stage!”

I grinned.

“You know, I really would like to do that someday,” I said. “But I don’t know a goddamned thing about posing!”

It was his turn to grin.

“As it turns out,” he said. “Not to brag or anything, but my last show in addition to winning overall I won best poser, too!”

Gotcha!

Actually, I already knew that. The first thing I do after I book a hotel is to find the most hardcore gym in town and then Google the gym name to see if it has produced any competitors. Frank’s popped up immediately. I was hoping he would be there.

“Maybe some time you could give me some posing tips,” I said.

Which was apparently all the invitation he needed. Next thing I knew we were headed back to his crappy two-bedroom apartment where he proceeded to undress and show me the mandatory poses. Fuck he was hot. Built like a brick shit house and furry as fuck. Wotta man! Then he invited me to do the same. When my clothes came off, I thought he was going to faint.

“So fucking huge,” he said, coming to stand before me.

My chest was nearly as wide as his shoulders, his quads were only a couple of inches bigger than my biceps. I let myself get hard. I didn’t think his eyes could get any bigger. I was wrong.

“Big All Over,” I pointed out.

He blushed and I thought, Uh, oh, he’s gonna throw me out.

But I was wrong.

“You know, I’m usually straight as an arrow,” he said. “But I have a thing for really big guys. Namely, guys who are bigger and better built than I am…”

I chuckled.

“Which is what, about 10-12 in the whole country?” I asked.

He giggled like a little boy.

“Naw, a lot more than that,” he said. “But even when I find them, well, you know. They’re all straight or they think they are.”

I inhaled and thumped my 68-inch with my hubcap-sized palm.

“Not me,” I declared, in my best fake unctuous voice. “100% Homo here!”

He laughed, then he got serious.

“So, would you, you know, be okay if I touched you?”

I moved. And whispered in his ear.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“I can’t believe you’re talking to me.”

We were at a bar in a not-so-podunk but not-so-special town somewhere between the Appalachians and the Ozarks, south of the Great Lakes and north of the Gulf Coast. It could have been Fort Wayne or Huntsville, Little Rock or Cedar Rapids. It was the only gay bar in town, however, and I stuck out like I sore thumb.

He had worked up the courage to come over and say “hi” to the newcomer (aka, “fresh meat”) and I was pleased to have him do so. A handsome daddy, past 40, tall at 6’2 or 6’3, broad-shouldered, beefy but well-cared-for body with broad shoulders, big pecs, and thick arms, just a hint of a gut, and, best of all, delicious brown curls peeking out of the top of his shirt, as well as down his beefy forearms, and a neatly trimmed full-beard that matched the slightly receding hair of top, again mostly brown with a few flecks of gray.

By that time we had been chatting for 15 minutes, having exchanged names (his was “James”), occupations (“realtor” him, “consultant” me), whether we were local (him “yes,” me “no”) and so forth.

“Why the hell not?” I asked him, although I knew the answer.

He waved his hands up, down and sideways.

“Look at you,” he replied. “This is (wherever it was), not West Hollywood or the Mr. Olympia contest.”

Bingo!

I chuckled.

“So you follow bodybuilding?”

He licked his lips.

“I do indeed and have done so since I was 12 years old,” he replied. “But I’ve never seen the likes of you, not in person anyway.”

I shrugged my shoulders, which has been likened to an avalanche or a landslide or a tsunami.

“I don’t compete,” I pointed out. “My job pays well enough that I can buy all the supplements and gym time I want without having to go through all of that rigamarole.”

The insane, 20 pounds-a-year growth curve I had been on since age 18 had continued. I had just turned 30 and now carried 400 pounds of mind-blowing muscle on my 6-foot frame. There were bigger men on the planet (Eddie Hall, Hapthor Bjornsson) but none of those guys had less than 10% bodyfat. All of it, that night, encased in a specially tailored form-fitting Henley that left nothing to the imagination and a pair of bespoke jeans designed to accommodate my gigantic legs and other assets.

If I had decided to compete, I would have demolished Phil Heath, Big Ramy, and all the rest. Ramy was the only one who came close. He was three inches shorter and in the off season porked up to 360 pounds, which – proportionately speaking was in the same ball park – but on stage he was just 315 pounds. And I pretty much stayed in the same shape all year round as he was on the posing dais.

“Why the hell not?” Jim asked.

I squeezed his big thick thigh with my Herculean right hand, causing his eyes to widen.

“People keep asking me that,” I said, thinking of Frank. “But there’s a simple answer: Posing trunks. I really can’t deal with posing trunks.”

He look puzzled.

“Besides, I like to see my fans up close and personal, not from six feet up with klieg lights blinding me,” I said.

I moved his hand to my crotch. He felt along the length and thickness of it, then jerked his hand back like it was on fire.

“Holy shit!” he said.

I winked.

“Now you know why they call me Big All Over.”

“You still haven’t told me why you’re talking to me, though,” he repeated as he was driving us to my hotel, my big hand resting on his shoulder.

I rolled my eyes.

“Which part of you have ‘Daddy-I’d-Like-to-Fuck’ written all over you do you not understand?” I asked, chuckling, and then added:

“You’re handsome, hot, hairy, which makes the Beast here get all hot and bothered because except for the ‘stache and a happy trail plus fuzz on my arms and legs, I am pretty much smooth as a Sphinx cat!”

Then I rolled my triceps so they blimped up and I thought he was gonna run off the road.

“Besides,” I continued. “It’s pretty fucking clear you’re totally into muscle and as I have been trying to intimate all evening I totally get off on having my muscles admired by hot guys!”

I couldn’t tell whether the sound he made was a moan or a groan or something else.

“You’re going to be on the ceiling before I’m through with you,” I said, massaging his thick neck with my big meat hook.

That sound again.

“Literally or figuratively?” he asked.

I chuckled.

“Whichever you want,” I replied. “You really think I’d have any trouble lifting you up there? I can do it with one hand, you know. For a lot of time, or a lot of time, if you catch my drift. Take your pick!”

He squirmed.

“No more talk,” he said. “Or I’m gonna blow!”

Not something you necessarily want to hear from the man whose hands are on the wheel.

“Just past the light on the right,” I pointed out.

The desk clerk gave the two of us the once over, quirked an eyebrow, and went back to filing her nails.

In the room, he stopped me.

“This is a silly question…”

I held up a finger.

“Pretend like I’m a librarian,” I said. “There are no silly questions.”

He gulped.

“Can I watch you take off your clothes?”

I made a strip-tease out of it. First my leather jacket, the one with enough material to upholster the backseat of a Buick. Then the Henley. He gasped as it rode up my midsection, revealing a smooth eight-pack that appeared to be chiseled out of granite.

“Shall I continue?”

He spluttered.

“Please don’t stop!”

I pulled the Henley up over my downwards facing nips, the tectonic plates of my pecs coming into view. His eyes darted frantically. The inches-thick overhang above my abs, the cavernous depth between right and left, the noticeable crevasse between the upper and lower.

“Jesus Christ!”

I paused.

“Are you sure you want me to continue?”

He whimpered.

I had to do my usual contortions to get it beyond my lats, around my delts, over my head, and off my arms. Glancing at his crotch, I saw that he was hard as a rock and no piker as far as his endowment was concerned. I unbuckled my belt, unzipped my pants, and let the Beast flop out. Soft, it’s nine inches long and six inches in circumference, about the same size as James’ when hard, and it wasn’t staying soft for long.

“Holy Fucking Shit,” he said. “What the hell am I going to do with that?”

I stretched, giving him a mind-blowing double-bi flex. At 34 inches, my arms were nearly as big as his waist. Then I reached down and pinched both of my nipples.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?”

I kicked off my Timbas and slid the jeans down over my ass, past my gigantic, 44-inch quads, and…

“I’m gonna need some help here,” I said, latching one hand onto his shoulder. “I always have a devil of a time getting past my calves.”

And there I stood, naked as jaybird, right in front of him. This close the height difference was obvious. I glanced up at him.

“From now on, I’m gonna call you ‘Big Jim,’ you tall motherfucker!”

He had the goodness to blush. So cute! I took each of his hands and put them on either side of my 48-inch wide shoulders.

“Now tell me what you feel.”

He shook his head.

“I’ve heard of yard wide shoulders,” he said, “but I never thought I’d be holding them.”

I grinned.

“They were a yard wide about a hundred pounds ago,” I purred. “Try four feet.”

His thumbs traced the angle and arch of my mountainous traps, pausing to measure the thumb-width distance between the top and my earlobes. Then it was back down my neck to the hollow at the base, across the clavicles and then down the pecs.

“Put your fingers in the crack,” I said.

He did and I squeezed. I thought he was going to spurt right then but somehow he maintained control.

“Do you like my abs?” I asked. “I like my abs. Like river rocks, don’t you think?”

His callused hands ran down each row, then traced my serratus and obliques.

“More like cobblestones,” he observed. “My thumb could get lost in the cracks.”

I nodded.

“Or your tongue.”

He sank to his knees, licking the treasure trail heading south from my navel, nuzzling my pubes with his nose, hefting the Beast as if it were a kielbasa or a truncheon. And then he explored the sweep of my quads, each four inches bigger than my waist. Reached around to feel the granite soccer globes comprising my ass. And traced the prominent veins in my football-sized calves.

Just as he started to take the Beast in his mouth, I lifted him up.

“It’s my turn now,” I said.

And I undressed him. Like he was my little boy home from school. First his jacket, then the buttons of his flannel shirt. As I pulled it from his jeans, I stuck my hand down his crotch.

“Careful, careful,” he whispered.

Then the belt, the zipper. His piece sprung free. And a mighty fine piece it was, too, a good 9x7, throbbing and leaking. I pushed his pants down the rest of the way, knelt and took him in my mouth. He came in seconds and I swallowed it down whole.

“Oh, Jeeze,” James said. “I’m sorry, it’s just, I’ve never…”

I put his hand on the Beast.

“Does this feel unhappy? I’m sure there’s more where that came from!”

For once I wasn’t in a hurry. I had just finished up my week on the road and had a week’s unplanned vacation scheduled. I could get back to Indy in my own good time. So we sucked and fucked, licked and nuzzled, nibbled and caressed, all night long. Likewise, we talked, which in a little more than a decade of exploring my sexuality had rarely occurred. Guys tended to be obsessed with my dick and, later on, my muscles. Sometimes so much so they were rendered speechless, unable to decide which to focus on.

But James was 40 and he had been around the block a few times. Married (to a woman) young and divorced quickly (“No, kids, thank God – I’m better suited to be a guncle”); A few short-term relationships with guys; A long-term relationship with Mark, the love of his life, that was ended after a seven years by a drunk driver (“I’m so very sorry…”); Single (widowed) for three years and just then coming to terms with what the future might hold…

In this case, I was the future, and I was holding him. When I left the next morning, he had my business card and my personal card, including my mailing address, home phone, cell phone, e-mail address, Facebook page, and Instagram account. Was I shy about handing that stuff out? No. Did anyone ever ask? No. Nor did James but I wanted him to have it, all of it.

“I’ll be back,” I said.

Over the next six months, I visited Cedar Rapids 10 times, each trip timed so that I would have a long weekend with James before I had to hit the road again. I learned a lot, including:

First, never go to Iowa City on a weekend in the Fall. It’s worse than Ann Arbor.

Second, Cedar Rapids had some surprisingly good restaurants.

Third, Iowa is actually a fairly compact state. Des Moines, smack dab in the middle, isn’t all that far away. (It has a kick-ass botanical garden, too!)

Fourth, James was quite the well-educated fellow. He earned a master’s degree in art history from the University of Iowa before he realized he was never going to get a job in the field and that if ever did he would wind up starving to death. Instead, he got his real estate license, did an MBA on the side, and became one of the most successful real estate brokers in Eastern Iowa.

Not bad for a farm boy from Winterset!

Fifth, he owned the best gym in Cedar Rapids.

“How did I not know this?!” I asked on my first return trip. “No wonder you are so knowledgeable about bodybuilding!”

I explained about my gym-scouting activities.

“Simple,” he replied.

Turns out the ownership was in the name of his company, Winterset Wayne Holdings (Wayne being James’ last name), not James Michael Wayne. I would have had to do more digging than usual to suss that out.

“And I was in meetings all day or I might have said ‘hello’ to you at the gym,” he added.

He wasn’t just the (mostly anonymous) owner, he was a regular.

“That explains your kick-ass build,” I said.

He rolled his eyes.

“Look who’s talking,” he replied. “Not the guy with the paunch.”

I pinched it. Really, it wasn’t much of a paunch.

“You know,” I said. “If you spent less time in meetings…”

Well, yes. If he spent less time in meetings and more time in the gym, he would have been a competitor. Then again, he might not have had the 5,000-square foot architect-designed lakehouse on 10 acres, or the lifetime investment portfolio moving towards seven-figures.

“You know,” he said on my last visit to Cedar Rapids.

“I know,” I replied.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. He wasn’t the only successful businessman.

“I have enough to live on until I figure out what comes next,” I said. “For a few years, if need be.”

He took my hand.

“Will you?”

The answer came without hesitation.

“I will.”

So if you happen to find yourself in Cedar Rapids someday feel free to stop by Urban Gorilla Gym and ask for ‘The Big Dude” – the front-desk staff and the trainers are all used to pointing people my way. Or asking them to stay put if I’m in the middle of a work out.

Of course, you might prefer to chat up my husband, Big Jim Wayne, the owner. He’s the 6’3, 300-pound hulk who has won the Master’s Olympia three years in a row, along with a couple of dozen state and regional championships to boot (he’s the reason we decided to build the trophy case!)

And if you do catch him, he will be tickled pink if you ask after “B.A.O.”

That’s right.

Big. All. Over.

Not many people know my nickname.

The ones who do are special