Laurie, Part I
by Chainer
spammed29@gmail.com

I slammed my textbook shut and shoved it into my backpack. God, that had 
been one of the most boring math classes I've ever had, and that was no 
small feat for my teacher. Leaving the room, I fished around in my pocket 
for my schedule. Now, with the start of the fourth and final quarter of my 
senior year of high school, my classes were once again making a chaotic 
shift; the ones I've had in the afternoon were jumping up to fill the 
morning blocks while those were pushed back to the newly-emptied afternoon 
slots.

Finding the schedule, I quickly scanned it to find out my next class: 
"Monday, Block 2, Phys. Ed." That's right, I suddenly remembered. My gym 
teacher had told us the fine way he was going to kick off the quarter: 
fitness testing. I longingly looked out a window, seeing a beautiful, yet 
cool April day. No chance of going outside now, I thought. We'll be stuck 
inside playing with treadmills.

I was knocked out of my thoughts when I realized that I had arrived at the 
ramp leading down to the changing room. I was almost late; descending 
quickly, I whipped off my clothes, grabbed on my new ones, and dashed up 
the stairs. I joined the group of people milling around the gym and 
scanned them for any sight of friendly faces, but found none. Although 
there were no friends, there were plenty of people I knew, and, to my 
greatest delight, plenty of girls.

In a short while, I was separated into my group of four people, two girls 
and another boy. I knew one of the girls and the guy to be good friends, 
but I had never seen the last girl before. She was a few inches shorter 
than me, around 5'7", and had her flowing brown hair tied back in a 
ponytail, reaching a length a few inches below her shoulders. I was 
startled by how pretty she looked--no excessive makeup and deep, brown 
eyes--but I didn't have much time, as we were starting our exercises. I 
stole another glance at her, wearing a gray, long-sleeved shirt along with 
full-length sweatpants. She wasn't fat, but neither was she skinny, 
looking to be around 130 pounds.

My group was being tested on pullups first, and I felt apprehensive, as I 
had never been much good at those. The boy and the girl I knew were 
talking with each other in a corner. I looked up at the bar, grabbed it, 
and proceeded to do five pullups in mediocre form, after which I couldn't 
keep ahold of the bar and was forced to drop. Rubbing my arms in 
exhaustion, I watched the pretty, unknown girl start her set.

To my amazement, she did four pullups easily, and continued for more. I 
kept counting--6, 10, 13, 14. At this point, she was slowing down a bit, 
and the arms of her shirt had slid down to her elbows. She hung on the 
bar, tired, for a few seconds. 

With renewed force, she continued with a few more pullups; by now, I had 
lost the exact count because I was busy looking at her forearms. With each 
pull, several veins were pushed out on each forearm as the muscle flexed, 
drawing clear, defined lines on the sides of her arms. They continued 
pumping until she finished the set, when she dropped off, to my great 
sadness hiding her arms behind her sleeve again. Overall, she must have 
done at least 18 pullups, with ease, more than 3 times what I had done 
with a great struggle. I was breathless.

I knew I had to have another glimpse of those forearms and any other 
muscles she may have. As I was contemplating approaching her, the bell 
rang--we would continue testing tomorrow. The class hurried off to the 
dressing rooms.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the rest of the day, until lunch, 
that is. I couldn't stop thinking about the girl--had I imagined those 
arms? I had to approach her somehow.

I dreamily strolled into the cafeteria, unpacking my lunch, and going to 
my regular seat outside. I preferred the fresh air as opposed to the 
filthy, crowded building. I started eating, accidentally looked up, and my 
breath stopped. The girl was sitting on a rock, eating, on the edge of the 
forest that marked the boundaries of the school campus. Most importantly, 
she was alone. I might never get a chance like this again, I thought.

I slowly walked over to her. She looked up, noticing me.

"Hi," I greeted her.

"Oh, hello. Didn't we meet in gym class? You look sort of familiar..." she 
responded.

"That's right," I introduced myself. I told her my name.

"I'm Laurie," she said. "So, how's your day been?" She was still wearing 
the same gray shirt and sweatpants that she had worn during gym class.

We started chatting about random aspects of school; All the while, I was 
busy looking at her arms. She had rolled her sleeves up to her elbows to 
eat lunch; I could see clear veins on the underside and top of her 
forearms, which didn't stand out quite as clearly now that they weren't 
flexed, but I could see the potential for the veined muscle to pop out.

I decided to steer the conversation towards strength. "How did gym go?"

"Oh, same old. It was fun, actually."

"How did you do so many pullups? You don't look that strong." Here was my 
typical half-insult, half-provoke that I often used to get girls to flex.

"I guess I've been training for a pretty long time. I've always been 
pretty active--I did gymnastics when I was younger and I still practice 
sometimes--and I decided to start training when I was 13. It would be 
pretty surprising if I couldn't do that many, wouldn't it?" Whoa, I 
thought. No wonder.

"Yeah, your arms look pretty good," I said. I didn't even realize that I 
was contradicting my previous statement.

She looked down at her forearms, and, as if noticing them for the first 
time in her life, made a fist with her hand. The stripes of muscle 
appeared at the sides again as her veins jumped. Her arm wasn't much 
thicker than mine-if thicker at all--but the muscle was clearly defined 
and very apparent.

"I bet you have nice muscles!" I exclaimed, doing my best to mask my 
intense interest.

"Sometimes people tell me that," she said. "Hey, wanna see?"

"Sure!"

At first she tried rolling up her sleeves to her shoulders, but they 
bunched up and wouldn't go much farther than her elbow. She made an "oh, 
well" face and slipped off her shirt. What I saw amazed me.

She was wearing a tanktop, which left all of her arm bare. Even as her arm 
was hanging down, there was a bulge at her biceps and her triceps were 
unbelievable. When she straightened her arm out to put her sandwich down, 
her triceps immediately contracted, drawing a clear, triangle-shaped bulge 
on the back of her arm. Not huge, but clear. Each bicep had a small vein 
running through the center, unflexed.

She straightened her arm out then in the air, making it parallel to the 
ground, and started flexing slowly. Her biceps rose, making a second, much 
smaller vein parallel to the first clear. I could see her previously soft 
and well-defined arms hardening in plain view. When the muscle reached its 
maximum peak, I felt it. It was rock-hard. I tried squeezing it, but only 
made a small depression. I felt the bottom of her flexed arm, which wasn't 
flexed since her arm was bent, but it was hard and I could clearly feel 
the muscle that was obviously there.

I took my hand off; she straightened her arm and then flexed again. She 
kept pumping in this manner about 5 times, the flex alternating between 
her triceps and biceps. Finally, she held the bicep flex for a few 
seconds, her arm shaking from the effort, her bicep reaching an even more 
well-defined peak than before. She was so absorbed in watching her muscle 
that she looked as though she had forgotten I was there. Then she let her 
arm drop.

"Whew! That was a workout," she said.

"That was amazing," I stuttered.

"I just like keeping my body in shape," answered Laurie. "I love the 
feeling that my body gets after a workout, be it running or lifting 
weights. At least the effort shows a bit!" she added modestly.

We continued sitting--she was eating, I was breathless. Suddenly, a 
mischievous smile crossed her face. "Stand up, let me do something." I did 
as she asked.

She came close to me. I saw her knees bend and felt her arms slip around 
my hips. Then, I felt a squeeze as her arms tightened, biceps bulging and 
stripes of muscle appearing on her shoulders. Her knees straightened and 
my feet left the ground. I couldn't believe it--I was being lifted off the 
ground by a girl who was 18, my age, and shorter than me. I felt the power 
in her arms, those years of work really showing their value. She held me 
in the air for quite some time, and then let me down. She looked a bit 
tired (although not much), one single bead of sweat gleaming on her 
forehead. Again, my glance went to those muscled arms, her triceps clearly 
seen, even from the front, and her biceps making a peak as she adjusted 
her hair.

I was about to ask her if she had strong legs, but the bell rang--she put 
on her shirt.

"Nice meeting you," she said. I responded with the same sentence.

She ran off towards her next class. I was wondering what her legs and abs 
looked like--they had remained concealed below her clothes--and I was 
looking forward to the next day more than ever.