The Giant of Bright Tower, Chapter 6

(a few months later)

“And that’s time, and that’s fall break. Remember, don’t slack off too much. We have test 3 the end of the week we return. And trust me when I say that this is the one that bites most of you freshman in the ass.”

The class seemed to roll their eyes in unison as well as peeling out of the lecture hall in record time. As it was Friday afternoon, they were probably rushing to their first drink of the weekend. Actually, I thought I saw a girl take an unusual sip from her water bottle on her way out the door, and wondered if the weekend hadn’t already begun.

I closed his laptop, and had begun putting my stuff away when my teacher sense began to tingle. I looked up to see a student approaching, one or two smaller students having to side step into the seats so he could walk down the aisle unobstructed. Maybe it was my years as a university professor that I can instantly spot a football player, or if there was some great casting director in the sky who just designed them all that way. Big and black, with shortly cropped hair, he moved gracefully down the aisle despite his enormous bulk. He placed his huge shoes carefully on the short staircase up to the podium and smiled warmly as he came to tower over me.

“Hey professor Steve.”
 “Hi, what can I do for ya? And remind me of you name, please”

“I’m Victor Darmen,” he extended his hand. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

I extended my hand to be enveloped by his, “It nice to officially meet you too, and…you’re saying that because I think I have a memory of me asking for your name when you asked a question. Was that this week?”

“Last month.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Its ok,” he waved it off, “My ‘Ready for College’ info session schooled us on the fact we’d be taking classes with a hundred students so we shouldn’t expect the professor to ever learn our name.”

“They have those classes?” I slid my laptop into my backpack, “Huh, useful. So,” I slung it over my shoulder, “What can I help you with?”

“Well, I’m having a little trouble understanding this new stuff. The book doesn’t cover the material very well.”

I took a deep breath in, reminded myself he was a freshman, and let it out slowly. “Victor, did you read the syllabus?”

“Sure did.”

I heard the lie. It was a lie I was all too familiar with; the one that drove me crazy each and every semester. Maybe it was new self-confidence that comes with achieving a new level of bioengineering. Maybe it was due to the fact there was a man in my life who showed me what being ‘top dog’ really means.  Or maybe it was because Victor was just another sexy football player in the endless rotating door of this class who never set foot in the science building again.

Whatever it was, I decided to push.

I took two steps forward and looked up straight into his face. Clearly, he had very little life experience with this ever happening and hastily stepped back.

“Victor…did you read the syllabus?”

He actually gulped, “Yes I-”

My hand flew up and my index finger perched on his lips, which instantly stopped moving. “We’re going to try this one more time,” I said in a tone that felt so alien, but powerful. “Victor. Did you read the syllabus?”

Victor stood very still. I felt like I had my hand against a balancing boulder, and I was just holding it there. I had the power to keep it from falling, but I also had the power to give it just a little shove. Keep still or push, it was all up to me.

Victor broke eye contact. “I…skimmed it?”

I felt myself smile. “That’s more like it. And if you had read it,” My hand moved down to his chest. His very firm, very muscled chest. “You would have seen that under the resource section, I have recommended an excellent YouTube video that covers,” I lightly jabbed his chest with my finger, “Just. What. You. Are. Having. Trouble. With.”

He grinned sheepishly “I…guess I’ll have to check that out.”

“Good freshman.” I brushed past him, and I think we were both surprised when he stepped aside for me. “Now, have a nice break, watch that video, and read the syllabus, the one that I wrote specifically for freshmen who need to pass chemistry 101, in its entirety.” I hopped down the podium steps. “And after break, I may feel like checking to make sure you’ve done your homework by asking you to explain it to the whole class. Got it?” I took a few steps in silence, “Got it!?”

“Got it Steve.”

“That’s Professor Steve!” I called back.

“Got it Professor Steve.”

I burst into the hallway on a rush of adrenaline. That felt good, that felt sooooo good. Maybe there really was something to being big, to being able to feel this way all the time. I mean, even though I tell each and every student on the first day that my syllabus will help them get through the class, I have to deal with questions like that every week. If I could just hold them in the palm of my hand like that and have their undivided attention, maybe it will finally sink in.

“Listen up Bitches,” I practiced aloud as I walked out the building, “You wanna pass my class, read my damn syllabus. I know y’all new to college, and you wanna do college things, but in the end you need to pass your classes or ya time here’s gonna be shorter than you think. Follow what I wrote down and you’ll be fine. Ask me questions about things that I already wrote down, and trust me when I say that I’ll make SURE your time here is shorter than you think.”

I chuckled as I unlocked my car. I thought back to Victor, the look on his face when I stepped up to him. He must have thought it funny, something half his size jabbing him in the chest.

I paused with my keys in my hand, remembering. That was his cellphone in his pants pocket that I had felt when I brushed past him, right? They make them all sizes these days, not just tiny ones but big ones, right?

I shook my head, stopping that train of thought before it even left the station. First, I was happy with my career and did not want it ruined by something so terribly cliché. Second, that was definitely a cellphone in his pocket, with a big, hard cover protecting it. Third, I started up my car, I no longer had to fantasize about football players anymore.

Bubba’s truck was in my driveway as I pulled up. I grinned and shook my head. He was getting antsy, which was turning into more frequent abuses of the spare key I had lent him. I opened the door to a waft of cooking smells.

“Hi Honey, I’m home.” I called setting down my backpack on its usual chair by the door, “Don’t tell me you’re in a frilly apron and carrying a gin and tonic?”

“Alcohol interferes with muscle growth,” came a voice from my kitchen, “And you know damn well what I’m wearing.”

I walked into the kitchen to see Bubba in his blanket-sized apron and nothing else bending over in front of the oven. He certainly had to bend a long way down to reach my oven.

“Nice view.”

“Yep,” Bubba shifted his position, and his enormous backside moved accordingly, “Hey, while I’m checking on the chicken, can you check on the hams?”

I had actually looked around the kitchen before I got the joke and grinned. Walking behind him, I reached out and squeezed his cheeks.

“Feeling full and heavy,” I squeezed my way around in circles. “Good, good,” I cupped each from the bottom and lifted, “Yep, I’d say these are done.”

Bubba gently bumped be backwards with his hips and straighten up with a tray of hot chicken in his mitts. “So are these. Move boy, hot chicken coming through.” He set the tray down and tossed the oven mitts aside. Sweat trickled down his forehead from his white crew-cut, and he raised a hand to wipe it off.

“So boy, how are the children?” He scratched at his goatee, “Still skipping class to do drugs and sex?”

“They were eager to get out of class today,” I washed my hands at the sink, “And I think they may be getting smarter about hiding alcohol on campus. Or maybe it’s easier than I think, and I was just always focused on school instead of partying.”

Bubba saddled up beside me with a dish towel and took a pot off the dish rack to dry it. His gut was once again large enough that he had to stand farther back from the counter than me, “Yeah, kids always think they’re the first to discover all that, Let’em learn their lessons the hard way.”

“Oh, but you should have seen me with this football player,” I dried my hands on another dish towel and sat down at my corner of the table. “He came up after class to ask me a question, and I channeled you.”

“What’cha mean?”

“I calmly got right in his face and asked him if he read my syllabus. I knew he was lying, then when he started to say yes he had, I put my finger on his lips.” Bubba placed a huge plate of chicken on the table, closer to his side. In fact, most of dinner was on his side of the table. “You should have seen him, like a deer in the head lights. I told him to read my syllabus, he said yes, I called him a good freshman, and then I brushed past him and walked out of there like a boss.”

Bubba laughed. “Jeeze, how do your balls fit in your pants? Must be the size of watermelons.”

I laughed back. I picked up my fork while Bubba started digging in. I ate in relaxing silence while watching Bubba devour his dinner. I’ve noticed that while he eats a lot and very quickly, he does not make a mess. It’s almost like he doesn’t want to miss a single crumb.

“Oh,” Bubba cleared his throat, “I meant to tell you, I hit my weight goal.”

My eyes opened wide. “You did? Wow. You said you didn’t think you’d make it until next weekend?”

“When the goal is eating and putting on weight, never underestimate me.” Bubba smile was brimming, “This means we get to try again.”

I took another bite of my fork, “I’ll get your stats tomorrow for myself, but yes if you have enough body fat, then I feel comfortable trying again.”

Bubba danced a little in his seat, and there was an ominous creek from the chair beneath him. We both froze, made eye contact, and at the same time burst out laughing. I wiped a tear from my eye.

“If you break, you buy it, mister.”

Bubba had calmed back down as well. “oh ho, is that so?” He had a playful look in his eye. “Daddy can break whatever he wants,” He pulled the apron off him and tossed it behind him, “Boy, come over here.”

I got up. Bubba gestured that he wanted me to stand behind him. I stood behind him and he held up a plate of homemade sweet potato fries. “Feed daddy.”

I took the plate. First, I grabbed a bottle of ketchup and squeezed a generous pile on the plate, which made Bubba smile. I dipped a fry in the ketchup, and then held it in front of Bubba mouth. He made a gulp at it, then relaxed his head against my chest. I could feel his jaw muscles moving as he chewed, and I brought another fry to his lips. While I fed him, Bubba was kneading and rubbing his gut. He never said anything when my serum burned through his bodyfat the first time, but I could tell that he had missed it badly.

I moved to his left side and kneeled. I kissed and caressed his belly; I wanted him to know I had missed it too. Bubba’s left hand slipped down the back of my shirt and held me close to him. With my left hand, I grabbed a piece of chicken and held it to his lips. He snatched that up as well, and his right hand moved down beneath the table. I held his glass of water up to him so he could clear his throat, and then more chicken. He chewed with his eyes closed, his right hand moving faster and faster. After throwing another chicken in, I had an idea. I grabbed the salt shaker and shook some out into a puddle of chicken grease on the plate. As Bubba began squeezing me tighter against his gut, I smeared my hand through the puddle and shoved it into his mouth. He gagged for a second, then began sucking furiously. His cheeks sucked in with enough force that I through he may pull my whole hand in. Then, he squeezed me into his side; moaning and freezing in place with my fingers almost down his throat. He stayed like that for a minute, shuddering every couple seconds, then slowly relaxed his whole body.

I stood up and went to the sink to wash off my hands. “How’d that feel, same?”

There was a moment before Bubba’s reply, “Yeah, same. They feel stronger. And uh,” he glanced under the table, “Yep, huge spatter.”

I washed my hands, thinking. Even though I had given him the anti-serium, Bubba still says that his libido never went back to normal. He’s been going through tissue as fast as any teenage boy. I was worried this may be a permanent effect, and what may happen when he’s injected again. When I shared my thoughts with Bubba, he just grinned.

“Okay,” I turned around, “Let’s get cleaned up. We have a big day tomorrow.”