Page 37 of Fling

‘We’re going to start with the foundation of all bodybuilding. The bench press,’ Rory said, putting a towel over a bench to mark his territory. ‘Now, some guys will tell you that squats and deadlifts are more important, but trust me, women care more about a big chest than big thighs. It’s the law of the jungle. And I’m the expert on jungle law. I’m the alpha.’

‘Calling yourself the alpha doesn’t sound like something an alpha would do,’ Colin said, trying to humble him. An impossible task.

Rory began stacking weight plates onto a steel barbell above the bench.

‘Watch my movements,’ he said, sitting down and gripping the barbell. ‘Arch your back. Arms shoulder-length apart. Firm grip on the bar. Bring it down to your chest slowly. Then slowly push it back up.’

Rory put the barbell back down on the rack and got up off the bench. ‘You’re up,’ he instructed.

Colin lay back on the bench and gripped the barbell. He knew the basics from college but he still wanted to make sure his form was correct.

‘OK, arch your back,’ Rory coached him. ‘Firm grip, lower the bar slowly. And push back up. Good. Now repeat eight times.’

Colin completed eight repetitions and didn’t feel very challenged.

‘Nice one. So that was thirty kilos, let’s try forty,’ Rory said, loading two more small plates.

‘That seemed kind of light though, can we double it?’ Colin asked.

‘Wow, OK, big man, let’s double it to sixty then,’ Rory said, adding the extra plates. Colin performed eight reps of sixty kilos with surprising ease. He felt a little resistance on the last rep but it was nothing too intense. But he most certainly felt the pump Rory had mentioned. He could feel the blood coursing through his chest and it made it look significantly bigger in the mirror.

‘OK, now that you’ve got a nice pump going, it’s time to take some pics. Take out your phone and get closer to the mirror. Close enough to the camera in the photo,’ Rory instructed.

Colin approached the mirror so that he could only see his body on screen. He sucked in his stomach, held his breath and took the photo. Rory leaned over to see it.

‘Straighten up, you have the posture of a question mark,’ Rory said, hyperbolic as always.

Colin straightened his spine and put his shoulders back.

‘Better,’ Rory said, examining him intensely. ‘But widen your frame a bit more. You want to make your upper body appear bigger than your waist. So stick out your lat muscles.’

‘Which ones are my lat muscles again?’ Colin said, clueless.

‘Your side muscles on your back, stick them out and widen your back.’

Colin widened his back and immediately saw a difference in his appearance. He had a far manlier frame just by changing that one thing. That, coupled with his new pump, made Colin appear quite attractive on his phone’s screen. He took a few photos in this position, feeling very happy with the result. He only hoped that Claire would feel the same.

Rory grabbed his phone and had a look at the photos.

‘Not bad, let’s just filter these.’

‘Why do they need to be filtered?’

‘Because your pasty Irish skin makes you look like a milk bottle. We need to make you look like you’ve seen the sun at least once in your life.’ Rory worked some kind of magic on Colin’s phone and he suddenly had a nice golden tan in the photo.

‘See, now Claire will think you’re just home from a two-week trip to Bali.’

Colin had no idea how Rory had done that on his phone but he wasn’t going to question it. Filtering a photo was an alien concept to him. He had no social media presence whatsoever so his self-image wasn’t something that ever crossed his mind. Plus, this was the first ‘dating’ app he had ever used and the idea of appearing attractive online was very new territory for him. But now that he saw his idealized self on the screen, he liked what he saw. It was like a mirror that reflected things not how they were, but rather how they could be.

‘These look great,’ Colin said. ‘I just hope Claire likes them.’

‘Oh she will. And they’ll give you the perfect opportunity to ask her to meet up this weekend.’

‘This weekend? Isn’t that a bit soon?’

‘With women, you have to strike when the iron is hot.’

‘But where should I take her? What if she says no?’ Colin panicked.

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