Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:54:45 -0600
From: Tags
Subject: Muscle Boy Island

MUSCLE BOY ISLAND

(Ld Guitarist)
Conclusion by Tags, f/k/a Solo3.

I originally found this unfinished story on a web site maintained by
Silocondog.  The author of the beginning of this story, "Lead Guitarist,"
invited suggestions and comments.  Attempts to reach him at the internet
address posted for Lead Guitarist brought nothing but error messages and
frustration.  So, I took the liberty of writing a conclusion for this
story.  I have also altered certain aspects of LG's beginning.  However, I
feel I have left enough of Lead Guitarist's original story intact that its
essence survives.  When I first read this story, I was somewhat dis-
appointed that it had not been finished.  I'd really gotten into the plot
and I would like to have seen where LG was going to take these characters.
In my opinion, LG's story was about more than just casual sex.  Before
deciding to write my own conclusion for this story, I made repeated
attempts to contact the author at the e- mail address posted with the
original version of his uncompleted story.  I got no- where.  But after
posting this version with a different introduction, wherein I mentioned my
interest in communicating with Lead Guitarist, the webmaster of web site
where this story was originally posted, Silicondog, put him in touch with
me and we exchanged e-mails about this and some of his other stories.  It
was a very interesting dialogue.  Interestingly, Lead Guitarist's concept
for his conclu- sion included a character very similar to Jared in the
conclusion of this version, although in Lead Guitarist's planned conclusion
the role of this character was not as prominent as is Jared's in this
version.  There were a number of conceptual dif- ferences between Lead
Guitarist's concepts for a conclusion and mine.

I guess I'm just a sucker for anything about physically strong and
attractive people with tender hearts and souls.  Given LG's invitation to
submit suggestions, since, initially, I had been unable to find him, I
decided to take the liberty of revising and completing this story, myself.
If you're looking for "muscle-sex," beyond LG's, you will be disappointed.
I've added only four additional incidents where there is any sex at all and
in none of these is the sex more than merely incidental to the overall
story line.

The point in the story where LG's work ends and mine begins is clearly
indicated.  On the web site where I first discovered LG's story, I noticed
other stories where the beginning was drafted by one writer and the
conclusion by another, so this sort of thing seems to be common.

My thanks to the webmaster for maintaining this site.

- Tags, formerly known as Solo3

(I am a frequent irc-chat user, hanging out most often in the #gaymuscle
chat channel.)

Disclaimer: This story contains descriptions of sexual acts involving boys
in their late teens, all of them over age 18.  If this type of material is
illegal in your area, or if you are under 18, please stop reading now and
delete this file from your computer.  If you are not interested in stories
involving sex with teenage boys over 18, stop reading now.

"Muscle Boy Island" is a fantasy that involves a group of three teenage
boys and one twenty-year-old who have been genetically engineered for
superhuman strength and muscular development.

The tropical sun rises swiftly; Tom Henderson knew that even though the sky
was only just paling over the east beach, the morning's heat would soon
become blis- tering.  His boys would suffer no ill effects from a heavy
workout out in swelter- ing weather, not even the slightest discomfort.
Their phenomenal physical condi- tioning and their bio-engineered genes
took them way beyond the limitations of ordinary human beings.  He himself
found it oppressive just to supervise.  So he wanted his boys to eat their
breakfast and get going on the day's workout before it became intolerable
for him, and that meant he had to impose summer hours and wake the boys
early.  Tom quietly turned the knob and eased the door open. The flood of
light from the hall entered the dark room, its beam widening as the door
opened further. This was Tom's first highlight of the day: watching the
boys wake up.

First the light illuminated the bed of eighteen-year-old Jack Tyler. The
boy was lying on his belly, embracing his pillow, with his blond head
turned away from the door. The blanket had slid off the boy's torso, just
barely covering his young ass and legs, leaving bare the hard, cabled
muscularity of his tanned back. The gentle curve of the teen's spine was
exposed, and Tom let his eyes follow it from the downward slope of Jack's
hard body bubble buttocks into the hollow at his slender waist, and from
there up again between the shoulder blades.  He had strong, thick, rippling
muscle flanking his spine so that his vertebrae nestled into a valley of
boy-sinew.  To Tom it was wonderfully beautiful and he paused for a
delicious moment, enjoying the view of Jack's young, taut muscles as the
boy breathed the even breath of sleep.

Tom pushed the door open wider.  Now the light beam found the bed of Ricky
Addison. Ricky was nineteen, with raven-black hair and olive skin. He lay
on his back with his arms under his pillow, propping up his head, and his
angelic boy- face, relaxed in slumber, looked so beautiful that Tom felt
his heart speed with pleasure as he gazed from the doorway.  Ricky's
blanket was in disarray around his slim hips, exposing the top of the tiny,
narrow-sided blue bikini briefs he wore.  Tom felt his cock twitch in his
pants. He lovingly studied Ricky's belly, beautifully flat, uncommonly long
and slim, with exceptionally sharply-defined ripples of abdominal muscle
gently rising and falling with the sleeping adoles- cent's breathing.
Tom's eyes moved up Ricky's torso, up the sharp rise under the breastbone
where belly met chest.  Ricky's ribcage was scaled in beautiful, ideal
proportion to the rest of his body, and Tom could see the clearly outlined
ribs in the beam of soft light from the hall.  Where Ricky's chest differed
from a normal teenage boy's was in the muscle development.  Ricky's
muscularity was remark- able.  While athletic, well-developed 18-year olds
are not uncommon, Ricky's body was in a class apart.  Thick, hard,
perfectly curved mounds of pectoral mus- cle rose from his chest, looking
particularly dense just under the collarbone and stretching the young
boy-skin taut over the promising strength. Ricky's lats were also sharply
defined, cut and spreading from his ribs.  The combination of the young,
cute face and late adolescent-boy frame with swollen, dangerously- powerful
muscles made the boy an erotic icon, fascinating to Tom.  The man stood in
the doorway, forgetting to move for a moment, as he took in the remark-
able sight of this young, gorgeous body.

At last Tom widened the door opening again. Now the light played over the
su- pine form of nineteen-year-old Alex Tempest, also lying on his back,
whose darkly-tanned skin contrasted so wonderfully with his sun-whitened
mane of long silky hair that Tom almost gasped, even though he had closely
observed Alex every day of the boy's life.  The blanket was drawn all the
way up to Alex's thick neck, hiding his terrifically muscular body, and his
knees were drawn up a little, making a tent of the blanket.  Then Tom
noticed that Alex was not asleep. His eyes were open, glittering their
piercing blue even in the half-light of the bed- room.  Tom was about to
speak but Alex, with a wide, bright grin, signed him into silence, then
smoothly and quickly pulled the blanket away. His lean, powerful body was
clothed only in the skimpiest of dirty white bikini briefs, styled to be
almost as revealing as a thong.  The sides were tugged high on his hips but
the front of the waistband plunged down towards the boy's crotch, making a
tiny nar- row V of fabric containing Alex's young penis and balls.  This
morning the boy had a serious erection, his seven-inch hard dick straining
against the brief, tenting it out, stretching the waistband and leg holes
away from his skin. Alex grinned, proud of his manhood.  He spun and sat up
on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor and knees spread apart, with his
hands on his thighs.  He kept his eyes on Tom as he pushed hard on his
thighs, flexing all the muscles of his torso.  His pecs arched out from his
young mannish ribcage, bulging powerfully. He sucked in his belly, tensing
the hard, ridged abs. The whole pose focused Tom's attention on young
Alex's straining cock, the tiny bikini doing its best to contain the boy's
erection, but it was stretched so tight, outlining the rock-hard penis so
clearly, that it was a hopeless cause.  Alex gave Tom a wide, beautiful
teen-boy grin.

"Later," Tom whispered. "After your workout."

Tom opened the door the rest of the way.  Now the light fell on the body of
Eric Silverthorne, the oldest of the group at twenty.  During the night he
had thrown his blanket aside and now he slept uncovered, sprawled royally
across the bed.  Like the other boys, Eric's only garment was a tiny bikini
brief, yellow in his case.  Though the sleeping youth was not erect, he had
an exceptionally large flaccid penis and big balls, too, and the package
bulged out the front of his brief.  Tom gazed for a moment Eric's manhood
made Tom's mouth water.  Now Tom took in Eric's body.

The young man was a masterpiece.  He was six feet two inches tall, and as
he lay his long torso and long legs seemed to have been arranged by an
artist.  His skin was tanned darkly, but since he had no fat at all it
seemed extraordinarily thin, vacuumed tightly over his astonishing muscles.
The light network of veins could be seen spreading over his body just
beneath the skin, giving the impression that this young body just throbbed
with life.  His calves swelled out like diamonds of boy-muscle.  His thighs
seemed sculpted from marble, the shape of the big mus- cles contoured and
defined even though the boy was completely relaxed.  His thighs tightened
at the top into hips that were slim and narrow, almost too narrow, the
beauty of his hips accentuated by the skimpy briefs he wore.  Those narrow
hips extended up into a slender, equally narrow waist and abdominal area
just rip- pling with taut, trained muscle, perfectly formed and drawing
Tom's eyes further on up young Eric's incredible physique.  Next was the
chest, Eric's smooth, beau- tifully clear skin etched out muscular
development that was nothing short of phe- nomenal.  His lightly marked
nipples highlighted bulging, liquid-steel pecs chis- eled and etched of
incredible young muscle, developed to an unheard-of peak of perfection.
Eric's armpits were unusually deep because of the bulging pecs and the
strong, rippling lats that spread from his upper back. The boy's arms,
relaxed across the bed bulged with deeply cut, rock hard, living muscle;
even asleep, Eric's arms seemed to possess enormous strength.  Lastly,
Tom's eyes settled lov- ingly on Eric's young-innocent face.  Framed by
long, thick brown hair streaked with an astonishing natural gold, forming a
luxurious rich flame across the pillow, this boy's tanned, clean,
unblemished face carried a beauty so pure, so startling, that Tom felt that
he was in the presence of something truly divine. The face was narrow, as
befits a slim body, but the high, prominent cheekbones preserved an utterly
guileless boyishness, even though he had grown into young manhood, now.
The long eyelashes were the same gold as the streaks in the hair, the pert
nose made the face a touch elfin, magical, and the perfect full lips framed
a wide mouth that bore a slight smile even in the bliss of sleep.  The
beautiful face, younger, more innocent than Eric's twenty years, together
with the phenomenal muscle development, way beyond that of even the best
developed physique one might expect of someone his age, made for a visually
intoxicating combination.  All told, Tom thought there had never been a
human form that seemed more cre- ated for action, for pure boy-life, for
play, adventure, innocent joy and the expres- sion of human potential than
young Eric Silverthorne.

"Let him sleep," said Alex, gently smiling at Tom. "He and I played late
last night."

Tom grinned. "So what? You're awake."

"I know.  But I'm always awake."

Young Jack rolled over, awakened by the talking.  He rubbed his eyes, his
healthy young muscles swelling and rippling like oil under his skin.  "Hi,
Tom. Is it six al- ready?" His soft tenor was clear and wonderfully
musical.

"Yeah, guy. Sun's up and I've got breakfast ready.  Time to get up."

Jack sat up, naked but for his tiny orange briefs, and smiled.  Suddenly he
snatched up his pillow and flung it hard at Ricky.  The down missile struck
the sleeping boy in the bare belly.

"Ooof!" Ricky gasped, instantly awake.

"What the -"

 - and then he became aware that Jack was already laughing, and he scowled
and threw the pillow back.

"Easy, guys!  You know better than that." said Tom firmly.  "With your
super- strength, you'll shred those pillows.  Come on, let's just get
going."

He walked over to Eric's bed and touched the boy gently on the
shoulder. "Come on, Eric. Wake up."  Eric stirred, his fluid muscles
coiling and flowing smoothly, and at last he opened his eyes. This was
another moment Tom had been waiting for. Eric's eyes were large and
seemingly almost luminous, the iris the same deep, rich brown as his hair,
and streaked with the same eerie gold as well.  The gold streaks radiated
from the pupils, turning his eyes into stars. The effect was one of
unearthly, mesmerizing beauty.

"OK, Tom," he smiled, his voice a soft near-whisper. "I'm awake."

But Tom hesitated, still bending over the boy, trying to preserve the
moment and the recognition of Eric's beauty just a little longer.  Eric's
smile widened, for Tom always did this, and he gestured with his hand for
Tom to leave him room.  Tom straightened and Eric sat up.

The other three boys were now standing.  Alex, ever the showoff, was
stretching, standing with his feet apart and his hands high over his head,
arching his back with the rear of his tiny briefs caught up between his
solid, clenched, hard but- tocks, leaving his ass nearly naked, and that
young-boy erection still struggling to rip its way out of the straining
briefs in front.  Both Jack and Ricky were staring at Alex's erection,
giggling a little but clearly fascinated, and Tom noticed that their cocks
were hardening in their briefs as well.

"Come on, guys," Tom said.  "No playing around until after the workout.
You know that.  By the way, Doc Vanderhaeghe's coming back this afternoon."

The boys cheered.

"All riiiight!" Jack enthused.  "Is he bringing us our new tennis rackets?"

"I'm sure he's doing his best.  You know you guys need special rackets.
Balls, too.  They've got to be specially made."

"We know all that," said Eric.  "But he's always managed that stuff real
well."

"And you should be grateful to him.  He's a very busy man and he's got a
lot on his mind.  He puts himself out for you guys a lot because he thinks
the world of you.  All of you.  Anyway, he's coming back this afternoon and
that means that after your workout you swim and shower and wear clean
briefs.  Understood?"

The boys nodded, chastened for a moment.  Tom didn't want them in a down
mood, so he brightened:

"Now, who's hungry?"

He knew the answer already.  These boys were always hungry; the amount of
physical exercise they got, along with the incredible amount of muscle they
all possessed, combined with the natural appetites of active teenage boys,
required an awful lot of "fuel."  The sunny, youthful exuberance of voices
that answered him made him grin, filled his heart with joy, and made him
think for the millionth time that he had the best job in the world.

Tom Henderson was a forty-three year old research assistant in physiology
and biochemistry. His accomplishments were astonishing: he had earned his
Ph.D. at the age of twenty-one, he had received many academic awards and
was among the youngest ever Fellows of the National Society of Science, and
his reputation was such that he could have headed any research organization
in his field in the world, but he had chosen, at the age of twenty-three to
work as a mere assistant to a true legend.  Those twenty years ago,
Dr. Anton Vanderhaeghe had offered him the job.

Dr. Vanderhaeghe was forty-five years old when he chose early
semi-retirement from the greatest career in modern science.  He had won two
Nobel Prizes out- right, one in medicine and one in biochemistry, and had
founded the most suc- cessful genetic-engineering company in the world:
Antonics, Inc.  He was a bil- lionaire many times over by the age of forty,
and, being unmarried and unat- tached, he began to look for something
interesting to do with his life.

He had always been interested in the rather arbitrary limitations of the
human physiology, and he thought that with an advanced enough conception of
the ge- netics and biochemistry involved, these limitations might perhaps
be transcended.  He decided to embark on the most ambitious research
project of his life: an inves- tigation into the limits of human physical
strength he called Project Hercules.

He knew that the research would not be popular among his colleagues because
he was using human subjects, and it would also not be popular among the
general public because they would assume that he was a eugenicist
attempting to breed a master race.  Well, he was using human subjects -
there was no way around that - but he was no eugenicist.  He was a pure
scientist, carrying out the research for the sheer excitement of gaining
greater understanding of the processes that govern nature.  He bought an
island, a place just north and a little east of Indonesia; it provided him
with perhaps thirty square miles in which a very famous man could indulge
in very private activities.  On this island, which he named "Ponce de
Leon," after the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon, who sought the fountain of
youth, he erected a self-contained laboratory and living area in which he
could experi- ment.  He had many failures, followed many blind alleys, and
spent a great deal of money without much success, until he hit upon what he
believed was the solution to his problem.  He deduced that if he slightly
modified a particular sequence of genetic structures in a human zygote and
bathed the growing fetus in a complex and changing modified amniotic fluid,
he could produce a child with a remarkable capacity to build highly
efficient muscle.  And so, with the help of some care- fully-selected sperm
and egg donor "parents," he "engineered" the fetus that be- came Eric
Silverthorne.  The baby's surname, had no real significance and nothing to
do with the sperm and egg donors.  It was strictly a whimsy of Dr. Vander-
haeghe's.  Upon the child's birth he noticed the strange-looking eyes and
hair and realized that he had gotten the amniotic fluid slightly wrong.  He
hired Tom Henderson to help him adjust it, and also to help him raise the
boys they were cre- ating.  Before they "conceived" Alex Tempest, the two
scientists arrived at the correct mixture and all three of the other boys
they "cultivated" were of normal appearance. For a time Dr. Vanderhaeghe
was worried that Eric would become a hideous-looking freak as he grew
older, but the opposite proved to be the case.  The unusual environment the
embryo developed in had caused the baby to grow into what both he and Tom
regarded as the most startlingly beautiful creature on Earth.

Tom, of course, was gay, and Dr. Vanderhaeghe had known that when he hired
him.  But Vanderhaeghe figured that a gay man would become far more
emotion- ally involved with the children as they grew than any "normal"
employee and so would care for them and spend time with them to a greater
extent, and that could only benefit growing kids.  The Doctor had been
correct, as he usually was. Tom loved his young charges passionately, never
took a vacation or even asked for a raise ("I'm in Paradise - the Garden of
Eden," he once told Dr. Vanderhaeghe, "and I'd have to be crazy to want to
be anywhere else, even for a moment") and the boys loved him as they would
love a slightly dorky but much-trusted older brother.

Now the boys left their bedroom to go to breakfast, and Tom followed.  They
all lived in a small, modern house amid a long lawn and a lane of palm
trees that sloped down to the beach and the sea, and just above the beach
there was a deck with a thatched cover.  This was where Tom usually served
breakfast.

The walk down to the beach always afforded Tom the opportunity to "examine
the gluteal development" (as he like to think of it) of the boys.  All four
had perfect, strong, smoothly-curved buttocks that flexed sensuously under
the tight fabric of their bikinis, their briefs clinging to the
muscle-swell of the boys' butts as they walked.  Jack, did not appear to
notice that the right side of the rear of his tiny bi- kini had completely
wedged between his buttocks and his right glute was entirely naked.  If he
did notice, he certainly didn't seem to mind, and Tom loved to watch the
beautifully-shaped muscle work as the boy walked.

"Hey, Jackie," Alex chuckled. "You got a half-wedgie!"

Jack grinned, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps not, and looked over his
shoulder at the older boy. He clawed the fabric out from between his
cheeks.

"Jack, Alex! Not Jackie! Jackie's a girl's name!"

"I get to call you whatever I want 'cause you had a wedgie."

Tom smiled. Alex always enjoyed inventing games and making up rules on the
spot. Playing along, he said, "And I get to call you whatever I want,
Sandra, be- cause you have a stiffie!"

"Yup! And so do you, I bet!"

The long sun-blond hair flew, glittering in the dawn, as Alex spun around
to face Tom, flaunting his bikini-covered erection.

Tom had to concede that.  He was usually erect whenever he was around the
boys, and that meant his libido got a constant workout, for he was around
the boys al- most all the time.

"Of course I do," he said. "But mine doesn't show.  I wear baggy pants."

This reminded Tom that boys had rarely worn conventional clothing here on
Ponce de Leon. They had all lived nearly their entire lives on this
tropical island, and clothing just wasn't necessary.  The boys were not
nudists, though when they got randy they often stripped entirely bare, but
their routine wardrobes consisted of their minuscule bikini briefs.  They
liked the briefs.  They were comfortable, sleek, and very, very sexy.  Body
building contestants wore briefs that were al- most as skimpy as those the
boys wore, and both Tom and Dr. Vanderhaeghe wanted to ensure that all the
boys were constantly aware of their muscle and strength.  Having the boys
wear bodybuilder's briefs helped reinforce the point.  And it had worked.
Even back in their pre-teens, these boys had phenomenal muscular
development.  Unlike normal pre-adolescent boys, they had the body- pride
and physical self-assurance of superbly developed teen aged athletes, only,
even as youngsters, they each had much more highly developed muscularity
than any teenager on earth.

There were infrequent trips for the boys off island.  Reluctant as they
both were to take the risk, Tom and Dr. Vanderhaeghe agreed that they owed
the boys the op- portunity to see and experience some of the world beyond
Ponce de Leon Island.  Satellite TV, the internet, books and Tom's rigorous
and devoted tutoring could only do so much.  On these rare occasions,
normal-appearing but specially tai- lored clothing, to accommodate and
conceal the boys' phenomenal muscularity, was provided.  Dr. Vanderhaeghe
and Tom prudently decided that discretion was essential.  Before departure
in a corporate jet, the boys were briefed by Tom that nothing should be
done to attract attention to themselves or their extraordinary strength and
abilities.  Tom never particularly enjoyed these trips.  From departure to
return, he fought the nagging worry that something would go wrong and that
the secret of Project Hercules would be compromised.

Tom himself was a large, powerful man at six foot four and two hundred and
fifty pounds of muscle.  He had been a weight lifter in college as well as
a football player, and for most of his life he had never had to take a back
seat to anyone in the strength department. But he remembered the serious
bruises he had taken from these boys when as toddlers they threw tantrums,
and how he had worn hockey pads and other protection during those years
purely as a matter of survival. Then there had come that day when Eric was
seven, and he and Tom had a quarrel over something trivial, and in a rage
Eric had lifted Tom over his head and threw him against the wall. The
resulting concussion was serious enough that Dr. Vander- haeghe had sent
Tom to a hospital on the mainland for a few days.  Eric had felt such
remorse that he wept almost non-stop until Tom returned and forgave him.
But from that point on the boys, particularly Eric, were conscious that
their strength far exceeded that of either Tom or of Dr. Vanderhaeghe. Eric
subtly adopted the role of enforcer of Tom's rules, keeping the younger
boys in line when the adults were incapable of doing so. Tom often wondered
what would have happened in the past few years had the beautiful muscle-boy
not matured so quickly.

"Hey, Sandra! Give me a ride!"

Young Ricky grinned as he leapt easily onto Alex's shoulders, his bare feet
cool on the round, powerful deltoids. He stood straight, absolutely sure of
his balance, and proudly flexed his amazing biceps in the morning sun. The
muscles just popped from his arms, melon-sized, straining knots of sinew,
steel-hard muscles gleaming, sculpted, throbbing with super-boy-strength.

"Don't call me Sandra, you little twit!" Alex laughed.

The boys were the same age, had, in fact, been born within days of each
other, but Alex was slightly bigger, standing six feet to Ricky's five ten
and a half. Now Alex gripped Ricky's ankles in his powerful fists and
easily lifted the smaller boy off his shoulders. His deltoids and pecs
surged up into powerful swells of muscle.  With a sudden burst of his young
strength he hurled Ricky forward, and the boy in blue briefs landed
somersaulting twenty feet away, laughing as he stood to face Alex.  Alex
had broken into a run, mock-charging Ricky, and suddenly both Eric and Jack
joined in and all the boys were laughing, tumbling, wrestling and run- ning
down the grassy slope to the beach.

For all the prodigious muscle they carried, the boys moved with the light,
sinewy grace of panthers - their young strength translated to agility,
quickness, balance, and the freedom of not being quite as burdened by
gravity as even the most ath- letic among normal boys. When they ran, their
strides were long; when they leapt, their young bodies arced high, almost
soaring as though they knew a freedom de- nied to ordinary humans. Tom
could not hope to keep up, and all the boys were waiting on the deck,
already downing large glasses of freshly-squeezed juice, by the time he
arrived there.

Tom had prepared them a light breakfast - they always ate lightly before a
work- out - of fish and fruit. The boys downed it all with all the speed of
hungry, playful teenagers, clamored for more (which Tom denied them.

"You can have a big lunch," he smiled) and after recovering from their
disap- pointment (which only took seconds), they set off to their outdoor
gym for the morning workout.

The gym consisted of weight machines and free weights set up on a concrete
plat- form, the surface of which was left rough so that the boys' bare feet
would not slip as they trained. The boys never wore shoes here - and the
soles of their feet were as tough as rhino-hide from the concrete, the
beach sand, the stone and earth of the paths over the island, and the raw
jungle that covered eighty percent of the is- land. A close examination of
the equipment, however, would reveal something unusual and, to an
uninformed observer, perhaps a little unnerving.  None of the weights were
standard sizes. Everything was, by conventional standards, too heavy - much
too heavy. The big plates, instead of being a standard forty-five pounds,
were enormous masses of steel weighing two hundred and fifty pounds
each. They were sixteen inches in diameter and more than four inches
thick. There were also 150 pound plates, 100 pound plates, 50 LB plates,
and standard sizes from there on down. The 100 pound and fifty pound plates
were an odd size: rather than being large-diameter plates, the hundreds
were only nine inches in di- ameter, over five and a half inches thick, and
the fifties were only eight inches in diameter, and a little more than
three and a half inches thick. The reason for this was that these plates
were used almost exclusively on dumbbells.

Tom spent a few minutes cleaning up after breakfast before he joined the
boys at the gym. Part of his job was to supervise their workouts, manage
their schedules and watch that they didn't spend too much time fooling
around and goofing off.  But over the years Eric had developed an excellent
understanding of their unusual physiology and how to exercise to maximize
their strength, and he had also be- come a very good coach, motivating the
other boys effectively. Tom trusted the boy to make sure his younger
friends stuck to the straight and narrow.

So the boys were alone at the gym for a time. Eric was making sure each boy
was doing the assigned workout.

"OK, Jack," he said, walking over to the eighteen-year-old and smiling at
him.  "Know what you're doing today?"

"Arms and chest! My favorite!"

"Right. Arms first - you won't need a spotter. What routine are you doing?"

"One arm curls."

"Yeah, but how much and how many?"

"I wanna do six hundred for three sets of eight!"

"Bet you can't. You're supposed to be doing five hundred - right?"

"But I can DO five hundred! It's time to up the weight!"

Young Jack flexed his right bicep proudly, holding it right in Eric's face.

"See? Nineteen inches!"

 The muscle swelled amazingly large and peaked for an eighteen-year-old.
Jack stood only five foot eight and was ripped to the bone, not an ounce of
fat any- where on his powerful young body, and biceps that looked that
full, round, and packed with strength when so clearly etched from pure,
solid boy-muscle justified his pride.

Eric laughed.

"Eighteen, maybe. After pumping and on your best day!"

"No! Nineteen!"

Jack grinned slyly. His penis began stiffening in his tiny bikini. Showing
off his muscles turned him on, and he wanted some of Eric's attention right
now. The two boys were standing close, almost chest to chest, and Eric
reached down and gently cupped Jack's brief-clad crotch in his hand and
gave it a little squeeze. Jack's eyes widened .  His face lit up with
pleasure.

"Tell you what," Eric said. "Do your arm workout. When you're pumped we'll
measure that bicep and if it's nineteen inches, I promise I'll take care of
this outta control troublemaker down here. Deal?"

"Deal!" Jack began loading a pair of dumbbells with five hundred pounds
each.

Eric grinned widely to himself as he turned away.  Nineteen inches or not,
he just knew that Jack's "troublemaker" would get well taken care of.

Ricky was spotting Alex, who was doing bench presses. While the blond boy
lay on the bench, Ricky stood by his head, hands lightly touching the
loaded bar, ready to help if needed. The height of the bench and Ricky's
position were such that his young brief-clad sex package was mere inches
above Alex's eyes. "Jeez, Rick, you're turning me on," said Alex as he took
his grip on the bar.  His cock just never seemed to soften; he was as erect
now as he had been when Tom awak- ened the boys, and as before, his penis
forced the scant bikini he wore to tent up, stretching the waistband away
from the skin.

At this mere suggestion of his own sexiness, young Ricky's cock began to
swell as well.  He snickered, feeling the slight friction of the skin of
his penis against the fabric as he got bigger.  His penis was pointing
down, and his developing erection was becoming uncomfortable, bulging the
thin bikini outwards.  Alex took a hand off the bar and reached up through
one of the leg-openings in Ricky's trunks and straightened his penis up for
him.  "Mmmmm," Ricky moaned, the pleasure dis- tracting him from the bar as
well.

Eric came over. "Come on, guys, there'll be time for that later."

He counted the plates on the bar Alex was about to lift.

"You're doing twenty-six hundred? Hey, good going!"

He patted Alex affectionately on the chest, feeling those thick, shapely,
growing boy-muscles tighten and bulge under his hand.  Alex grinned at him,
then looked longingly at the large, soft mass packed into young Eric's
trunks.  Eric's fat young penis was nearly five and a half inches long
soft, more than nine erect, and his balls were large and full. The brief
trunks he wore struggled to lift his penis and balls up and forwards,
presenting them as a big, proud mass of pure boy that sagged the
brief-pouch heavily, dragging the front of the waist down. Alex reached out
and cupped Eric's brief-pouch in his hand appreciatively.

"What's the matter, Eric? You're not hard."

The truth was that Eric was really trying not to think about sex. He was
irresisti- bly attracted to all of the other boys, their flexing, straining
muscles were the ul- timate fantasy to him.  He could turn himself on
easily just by flexing his own muscles.  But he knew that, as the eldest of
them, he had responsibilities, and first among these was ensuring that the
daily workout was completed properly.

"I have an idea," he said.  "Why don't we, just for today, put another two
hundred pounds on this bar and see if you can do your three sets of eight
with that. OK?"

Twenty-eight hundred pounds for three sets was more than Alex had ever done
before. His best bench press was 3,700 pounds for one rep, and it had taken
a great deal out of him. His goal was to reach a two-ton bench press before
his twentieth birthday. That would beat even Eric, who had not managed two
tons until the month after he turned twenty.

Alex loved a challenge, particularly a challenge to his strength, and more
particu- larly a challenge to his strength that came from Eric.  He knew
that Eric had only proposed the challenge in order to get Alex's mind off
sex for a time, but that did- n't bother him - he was more than willing to
play along.

"You're on!" he agreed.

Eric and Ricky each easily lifted another hundred-pound plate and added it
to the bar. The sheer mass of the steel at each end of the bar caused the
bar to bend alarmingly.  The weight was ready.

Alex took a few quick breaths to charge his blood with oxygen.  Ricky took
up his position standing by Alex's head.  This time Alex ignored Ricky's
hard young-boy cock. With a grunt, he raised the bar off the supports and
lowered it to his chest.  Now he began to press. Hard rep followed hard
rep, the youngster's pecs arching into bulging humps of incredibly-powerful
muscle at full extension. The first four reps came almost easily, as Alex,
delighting in the exercise of his young muscular power, rammed them out
almost too quickly. He slowed noticeably for the fifth rep, and the sixth,
and ground the seventh and eighth out with a grimace of grow- ing
pain. That first set had set his bulging,, supercharged pecs on
fire. Already he had begun to sweat, and the sweat lent a glowing sheen to
his naked skin stretched taut over the throbbing muscles of his chest. He
lay on the bench with the huge weight on the supports for thirty seconds,
breathing hard. Then he seized the bar again and once more lowered it to
his chest. The reps came slowly, forced out by sheer boy-strength, swollen
pecs protesting. Three. Four. Five. A pause as Alex gasped a couple of
breaths. Six. Blood-swollen veins began to jump into sharp re- lief on his
mighty young chest, arms, shoulders.  Seven.  The striated muscles ached,
engorged with blood and power.  Another pause for three quick breaths.
Then, slowly, young face tightened into a grimace of pain and pure effort,
Alex forced the immense bar from his chest inch by struggling inch, until
at last he managed to rest it on the support again.  He was breathing hard,
knowing that he was working his chest like he never had before.

"Great, Alex!" said Eric. "I'm really surprised! But you still have one
more set to do."

"I know," the blond muscle-boy gasped. Sweat drenched his white-blond hair,
plastering strands to his forehead.

"I'm ready any time," said Ricky. "Just nod if you need help."

Once more Alex gripped the bar and lowered it to his aching, swollen chest
mus- cles. He forced out a rep, pecs exploding into pumped, straining
bulges of sheer boy-muscle. Sweat was running off the mighty swells of his
chest, pooling in the valley of his breastbone, dripping from his skin to
the concrete. Another, tortu- ously slow rep. Eric's eyes were wide, and at
last his big young penis began to stiffen in his bikini. Alex's muscles,
the young power of his physique, was turning him on!

"Come on, Alex!" he said. "Another!"

Alex shut his eyes, focusing every iota of his tremendous strength on the
bar. The deep, searing pain in his pecs crowded everything out of his
mind. Even his al- most-constant erection softened as his body drew the
blood to his tortured chest.  He forced up a third rep.

"Look at those muscles!" Eric said to Ricky. Ricky nodded: He had noticed,
too.  Alex's chest was bulging bigger than either of them had ever seen it,
and the sight of the beautiful muscles straining their strength to the very
limit was tremen- dously exciting to them both.

"One more, Alex!" said Eric.

"Come on, Alex. You can do it," Ricky encouraged.

Alex's throbbing pecs burst into swollen engines of muscle, bloated with
blood, pride, and sheer strength. He forced up again, driving his power
against the re- lentless weight of the bar, nothing in his mind but pain
and will, but he knew that he could not make it. He gave a tight nod and
felt the load lighten some as young Ricky took some of the weight, and
between them they set the bar on the support.

"I'm done," Alex gasped. "I can't do it yet."

Eric helped him to sit up. "You did great!" he smiled, taking Alex's
bulging shoulders in his hands.  "Look at your pecs! Wow!"

Alex grinned and flexed a quick chest pose. His pecs jutted out, bulging
from his ribs like thick masses of steel, the boy-nipples slightly darker
than they were nor- mally because of the blood-rush and the sheen of
sweat. The sweat drenched his bikini and the fabric clung wetly to his
again-stiff penis.

"Hey, Eric," he said softly, gazing at the older boy's groin. "Your trick
didn't work."

Eric's big cock was practically tearing its way through his trunks, rock
hard and stretching the material to the very limit. Alex was right; he had
become so turned on that he found himself willing to forego the workout and
indulge in a little sex play with his muscular young friends.

"Hey, Eric!" Jack ran over, tape measure in hand. While Alex was working
his chest with the huge 2800-pound barbell, young Jack had been pumping his
teen boy-super-biceps with set after set of 550-pound one-arm curls. Now
his arms were pumped, flushed with blood, and his biceps were as big and
peaked as they had ever been. "Measure 'em!"

Eric laughed, then his eyes widened a little as he saw the sheer
muscularity of the eighteen-year-old's arms. "OK, Jack." He took the tape
and stretched it around Jack's flexed, bulging biceps. The measurement was
over 18.9 inches, but not quite nineteen. "Almost, Jack! But not quite."

Jack flexed harder, his cute blond-framed face reddening with the effort he
was expending. His arm swelled just slightly, the rock-hard hyper efficient
muscle a jutting knot of superhuman power.

"Come on .... come on .... ," he breathed through his gritted teeth.

"Great, Jack! That's it!"

Eric saw the tape hit nineteen just momentarily, and that was good
enough. He gave the boy a high-five, then reached under Jack's crotch and
hoisted him high in the air.

"Wooo!" Jack exulted. "That tickles!" His cock was iron-bar stiff in his
briefs.

Eric lowered the boy until he could kiss Jack's cock through his
briefs. "Mmmmm ... Tasty!"

"Looks like fun!" said Ricky, and he reached between Alex's legs to do the
same thing. His swollen bicep bulged as he lifted the sweating super-boy to
mouth level and began eagerly sucking that ever-stiff young dick through
the sweat-drenched bikini. Alex's briefs were white and thin, and wet they
were practically transpar- ent, the hard penis a deep red through the sheer
fabric.

Alex was in heaven. His young cock had been straining for release all
morning.  "Hold it!" he said.  Ricky looked up at him.  Alex then reached
down and gripped Ricky's forearm in his left hand, and using the powerful
arm as a support, he lifted himself off Ricky's hand and quickly, easily
moved into a one-armed handstand, his body inverted, legs in the air, and
his whole weight supported by Ricky's arm- strength. With his right hand
Alex nimbly slipped his wet briefs off and dropped them to the floor. Now
he was entirely naked, and with a smooth motion he re- turned his
glistening, sweaty body to its previous position, sitting on Ricky's hand,
only now his cock stuck straight out towards, Ricky's mouth, and Ricky lost
no time in raising Alex's boy-cock to his lips and sucking.

Jack swung his legs over Eric's shoulders so that Eric's beautiful face was
buried in his crotch. This left Eric's hands free, and he reached up to the
waistband of Jack's bikini trunks and suggestively began tugging down.
Jack took the hint, and after placing his hands on Eric's head for support
he quickly, acrobatically raised his agile, hard body up, stripping himself
out of his briefs in a smooth gymnastic move.  Jack let the tiny garment
fall as Eric accepted his now-naked young dick in his mouth as the smaller
boy swung himself back into position.  The young penis was so hard it
seemed to vibrate, exciting the salt sweat and the heat of the blood-
engorged boy cock caressed and wrestled by Eric's tongue. Eric could feel
the rhythmic flexing and bulging of the amazing muscles in young Jack's
thighs as the boy fucked his face, and his hands kneaded Jack's muscular
naked boy-buttocks.

Off to one side of the gym there was a large wrestling mat, and,
momentarily lift- ing Jack from his shoulders so that he could see, Eric
went over to it and lay down. At last he could strip off his
penis-stretched briefs, and it was a great relief to him to finally let his
big, throbbing hairless dick and balls swing loose. Imme- diately he and
Jack began to sixty-nine, their bulging, muscular bodies rippling as waves
of sexual pleasure surged through them.

"Go to the mat, Rick!" Alex said. "It's orgy time!"

Now all the boys were on the mat. Ricky left and grabbed a large container
of baby oil from a cabinet, stripped off his own briefs, and yelled: "Here
it comes!"  Then he poured the oil liberally all over the squirming bodies
of his friends and then all over himself.

The wrestling mat was now a writhing mass of young, ripped, bulging
boy-muscle gleaming with oil, sweat and the sun's heat. Hard, throbbing
young cocks slipped between thighs, lips, and buttocks, strong young hands
tried to grip greasy dicks, hands felt up rippling boy-muscle bulging and
surging and sliding away again.  The tan-lines the boys had from wearing
only their minuscule briefs in the sun looked incredibly erotic; they
seemed to define and highlight the boys' tight, mus- cled asses and their
rampant, uncontrollable penises.

Jack's body suddenly stiffened, all his muscles clenched as he was seized a
power- ful muscle-boy orgasm.  His spasming dick ejected cum like a water
jet from a spigot turned to full open.  Although Eric gulped greedily, not
wanting to loose a drop, Jack's load was way too much for him.  Cum
exploded out of Eric's mouth into Jack's crotch.  The hot jizm streamed
from Eric's chin down to his steel slab pecs, rolling down his rippled abs
into his own crotch. The sensations Jack felt spreading from his hot,
spasming dick through his abdomen and thighs and chest made him feel as
though his penis were the pleasure center of the entire universe.  He
shuddered for almost thirty seconds in the most intense physical pleasure
he was able to experience, then slowly relaxed into a slightly dazed bliss
amid the churning greasy muscled boy-bodies writhing against and around
him.

Somewhere along the line Alex had found Eric's big, trembling penis
glistening with oil, and as the eldest boy groaned in ecstasy the young
blond was just jacking him off.  Then Eric screamed "Aaaah!" as his muscles
suddenly tightened, burst- ing into bold, bulging knots of sinew and his
spasming dick spewed huge, long spurts of sweet white cum twenty feet
straight into the air, falling back onto the boys and blending with the
sweat and oil as the young bodies coiled amongst themselves. Like the other
three boys, Eric's big balls held a huge amount of cum and he kept spewing
for almost a minute, now straight up, now into Alex's face, into Ricky's
hair, Jack's tight young ass, everywhere. While he came, both Alex and
Ricky experienced their own orgasms, cum streaming high into the air and
raining down in slimy torrents all over them. Gradually they settled down,
all ly- ing in the oil and cum and sweat, feeling their mighty young-boy
hearts pound in their chests and the blood pumping through their
extraordinary muscles.

"Looks like fun," said Tom. He had arrived just in time to see the last
couple of minutes of the boys sex play, and rather than disturb them he had
just watched, his own dick almost painfully hard in his pants.

"Hi, Tom," said Eric, still sprawled among sprawled, oiled, naked
boys. "I'm sorry about the workout. We'll do a hard one later today, OK?"

"Don't worry about it."

Something in Tom's voice made Eric glance at him - the tone was serious and
slightly distracted.  Something must be wrong. "What's going on?" he asked
as he stood up.

"Look at this." Tom passed him a towel to wipe his hands with, and then a
sheet of paper.  "What is it?" asked Ricky as he stood as well.

"I printed off an e-mail I just got from Doc Vanderhaeghe a couple of
minutes ago.  He's on the plane now - he'll be here in an hour."

"Holy shit! We gotta clean up!" Alex sprang to his feet, nearly slipping on
the oil.  Jack was close behind.

Eric read the e-mail aloud. "Tom: We have a problem. There's been a couple
of break-ins at my office here at Antonics during the past couple of
weeks. Some files have been stolen.  This morning I received a message from
a man named Elias Wright - I may have told you about him, he was my lawyer
when I first started Antonics. I fired him because I found he was
dishonest.  He seems to have gotten involved in international dirty work.
He has taken these files and some other information and figured out all
about Project Hercules and wants to black- mail me.  I have refused to pay
him.

"I do not trust this man. He bears a grudge and has gotten involved with
some very shady people who are capable of anything. I believe it is
possible that you and the boys are in some danger.  I am returning early.
Please watch out for strange aircraft in the area and seal up all of the
sensitive research. And please, as you love them, keep the boys safe.  I'll
see you soon."

"Let's get back up to the house and get you guys cleaned up," said
Tom. "I'll take care of the papers.  Keep watching and listening for
strange planes."

In a sober mood the boys showered and donned clean briefs. When they were
done they found Tom at the computer.

"Whatcha doing?" asked Ricky as he stood behind the scientist.

"Looking up info on Elias Wright.  Look at this. Twenty years ago the guy
tried to screw Doc Vanderhaeghe out of millions. Got off on a
technicality."

"What kind of technicality?" asked Jack.

"Never mind - I'll tell you later. Here's something.  Seems Wright has
started run- ning illegal businesses for the fascist Eastern European
"Republic" of Mulvia- Everinia.  Drugs and weapons.  He supports mercenary
armies.  Jeez, this is bad shit."

"Did you take care of your research?"  Eric asked.

"Yes.  It's all in the safe and alarmed. If that safe is broken into, the
contents are destroyed.  I think the material's OK."

Tom looked away from the computer.  All four boys were clean, freshly
scrubbed, and their hair meticulously brushed.  Each was clad in clean
briefs.  They stood close together; Alex and Ricky had their arms around
Eric's waist, Jack was hug- ging Alex, and Eric had one hand around Ricky's
shoulders and one on Tom's shoulder.  They were together because they were
concerned, and to Tom they looked like the physical manifestation of a good
family: They were not brothers biologically but they were closer than
brothers.

"I think it's going to be OK, guys," Tom said reassuringly.  "The Doc'll be
here in a few minutes and we'll all be together.  Then we'll know what to
do."

The aviation-band radio at the desk suddenly crackled to life. "Gulfstream
four seven tango delta to de Leon radio..." It was Dr. Vanderhaeghe, and
his voice sounded strained.

Tom picked up the mike. "Four seven tango delta, this is de Leon...  Tom
here, Doc. Go ahead."

"Are the boys OK?"

Tom was alarmed at the sound of the Doc's voice.

"Sure. They're fine - they're right here."  He held up the mike with the
talk button down.

"Hi, Doc!" the boys chorused.

"Hi, guys. God, it's good to hear your voices.  I'll see you soon ... Tom,
listen very carefully.  Wright is trying to kill me.  A bomb went off at my
house outside Sunnyvale, California yesterday morning.  Missed me by one
minute.  The bomb squad found a device at my office capable of killing
everyone in the building - that's four hundred people, Tom."

"But Doc - why?"

"Obvious. They know something about the boys - I don't know how much. The
boys have genetics that are worth billions to certain governments and
Wright is trying to cash in.  Imagine a place like Mulvia-Everinia breeding
an army of su- permen.  Covert and deadly with no need of elaborate
weapons.  Frightening."

"But they'd need you. Why try to kill you?"

"They don't need me.  Tom, I'm too famous.  If I disappear without
explanation, there'd be an international outcry.  The only way to deal with
me is to kill me and blame it on someone else. They need YOU, Tom - you
know as much about this project as I do and probably more.  You'd be the
valuable one."

"Me? But -"

"Tom, please shut up!  I might not make it.  We're coming in low, under
radar, but I have reason to think they have intercept planes somewhere in
the vicinity and we aren't sure where they are! Listen.  If I don't make
it, destroy all the research.  De- stroy it.  I know it's hard, but you'll
be able to put it back together. And for God's sake protect the boys!  If
Wright and his gang get their hands on the boys ... well, I can't guarantee
what they'll do, but vivisection is not out of the question. Just hide. All
of you .... Boys, are you there?"

"Yes." "We're here."

"One at a time, please. I want to hear you ... one by one. Jack?"

"Doc?  Why is this happening?"  Jack's voice was shaking.

"I don't know, son. I don't know ... I just want to hold you ... Ricky?"

"I'm here, Doc."

"Good boy. Ricky, if I never see you again ... I want you to know I love
you.  I know I never said it enough ..."

"I love you too, Doc! Please come home!  I -"

"I know, Ricky...  Alex?"

"Doc? Doc, are you all right?" Alex was on the verge of tears.

"For now, son. I'm fine.  We'll be fine - just keep believing that!  You
have so much love, Alex - I admire you so much ... Eric?"

"Yes, Doc? I'm here."

"Eric ... I don't know what to say ... you're so beautiful ... Oh, God!
Tom!  Tom, they're here! Destroy the research!  Destroy the -" The
transmission ended in the short, piercing shriek of an air-to-air missile,
then the empty hiss of desolation

They cried. Jack's tears came first, Eric wept the most, Tom cursed under
his breath.  He would cry later.  He stood and wrapped his arms around the
boys and they gathered to embrace him, their nearly naked bodies warm under
his hands and their tears soaking his clothes. He held them for several
minutes, thinking hard as a good man must think when disaster strikes.

"Guys," he murmured at last. "Come on, guys. We have things to do."

The boys said nothing as Tom released them.  He gestured for the to have a
seat on the desk.  They all sprung lightly to the desktop and faced him,
ready for in- structions.

Tom said soberly.  "Doc Vanderhaeghe is undoubtedly dead.  Maybe a missile
from an interceptor jet, and we have to assume the worst. I know how hard
it is to take, but we can deal with our feelings later.  Right now I have
to do what Doc said - destroy all the records about the research, all those
records he and I have made of you kids since you were conceived.  Doc was
right: that research is worth billions - YOU guys are worth billions just
for the genetic material they could take from your bodies.  I'm worth
billions because of how much I know.  Those bastards are going to come
after us and it's going to be soon."

"Tom?"  Jack asked.

"Yeah, guy?"

"What's `vivisection?' Doc said `vivisection,' what is it?"

"That's when they take you apart while you're still alive so they can study
you.  I believe Doc: those guys who killed him will learn about you any way
they can.  That might mean strapping you down to a lab table and cutting
you to pieces to find out how you got to be so strong.  But we're not going
to let them do that.  I can't let them do that.  I just can't."

Tom hesitated, his control of his emotions slipping a bit.

"Tom. We need to know what to do.  What do we do now?"

Eric spoke softly, knowing how hard it was for Tom and wanting to make it
as easy for him as he could by keeping his attention focused.

"Here's the problem,"

Tom mastered himself.  He gripped Eric's muscled thigh in his hand.

"Thanks, Eric. Here's the problem.  The Doc's plane was only a half hour
from here.  He was shot down by a military jet.  We have to assume that
jet, and maybe other aircraft, are on their way here now.  They'll be here
in minutes.  They're going to spot the airfield and land there, then come
here right away hoping to find us and the records.  Just a sec." Tom tapped
a few keystrokes on the desk com- puter, then collapsed in a chair.
"That's it.  The computer records are gone now and the vault incinerator is
activated.  The paper and the backups in the vault will be destroyed if
they so much as touch this computer or the vault door." His face tightened
into a grimace. "Damn it. Damn them. Oh, Jesus, guys, I'm so sorry -" and
he choked his tears back, struggling.

"That stuff is your whole life, Tom," Alex said half-wonderingly.  "You
just trashed it - I mean, I'm sorry, too - I didn't mean -" He stumbled,
unsure of what to say.

"Shut up, Alex!" Eric hissed, hitting the boy hard on the thigh.

"No, Alex." Tom was under control now. "That stuff is - was - not my whole
life.  You guys - all of you guys: Eric, Alex, Ricky, Jack - you guys are
my whole life.  The records don't matter. YOU matter.  More than anything.
I want you to know that.  I want you to believe that."  He stood up.  "We
have to hide now.  They can't possibly have accurate charts for this whole
island and nobody knows it better than we do.  Than you guys do, I mean.
There isn't a square inch of this place you haven't crawled over since you
were born.  That's our advantage for now.  That'll gain us some time to see
who shows up and how well they're equipped.  Damn," he said, wiping his
face with his sleeve.  "We have no weapons on this island at all."

"Umm, Tom?" Eric spoke up, a little hesitantly.

"What?"

"We have weapons."

"Where? What do you mean?"

Eric flexed his biceps. Muscle - superhuman, incredibly well-developed
muscle - just burst from the young man's arms. Peaked and massive, the
jagged knots of swollen sinew seemed to throb with strength.

"You always said we were stronger than anybody else. By a lot, you said. We
can beat these guys.  Whoever they are.  We're stronger than they are."

"Yeah!" Alex and Ricky chorused.

They flexed as well, and so did Jack, and an eruption of boy-muscle seemed
to crowd Tom's vision.

Tom sighed.  "No, guys," he said after a moment.  "I know you're strong.
I'm strong, and you're all many times stronger than I am.  But you're just
not strong enough.  I mean, these guys'll have guns.  Do you know what that
means?  One bullet could kill any of you, muscle or no muscle. They'll have
grenades, gas, who knows?  We don't know what they have.  But they can beat
muscle strength - even yours."

"No way!" Alex cried.  "We won't get shot!  We'll beat them!"

"Alex," said Tom gently.  "Do you know why a bullet is such an effective
weapon?"

The boy stopped, made uncertain by Tom's tone.  "No. What do you mean?"

"Nobody cares what happens to a bullet. If it misses, who cares?  Nobody
goes looking for it.  If it hits, who cares?  It's done its job and nobody
needs it any- more.  Nobody goes looking for it. It's expendable.  All good
weapons are.  Good weapons are weapons you don't care about.  But you -"he
reached out and took Alex's muscled young shoulders in his big hands - "I
care about you.  Eric and Ricky and Jack care about you.  You're not
expendable.  No matter how strong you are, we can't risk you. Any of you."
He released Alex's shoulders.  "We've wasted too much time. Let's get out
of here and get lost."

Seventeen minutes later Tom and the four suntanned, almost-naked muscleboys
were squatting low in the long grass on what they called Mount Arnold, one
of the highest points on the island and one which commanded a view of both
the lab area, the east beach where the boys had eaten their breakfast, and
the airstrip, a thin gray line in the northwest, that was beginning to
shimmer in the growing heat of the day.

"We'll stay here," said Tom. "If nothing happens in the next hour, we'll
assume they aren't coming by air.  They'll be attempting a landing on the
beach. That will be bad because we won't have any idea when they're coming
and they can bring anything they want - vehicles, artillery pieces,
anything - if they're coming by sea."

Their backs were to the jungle only meters away.  If they were spotted,
they knew they could simply melt into the thick green darkness where
detection from the air would be virtually impossible.  From there they
could lose themselves in thirty square miles of island.

Tom was scanning the seaward horizon with binoculars, searching for any
sign of planes, boats, or anything else alarming.  There was nothing,
nothing for several minutes, and Tom was beginning to feel slightly foolish
for leading the boys away from the compound when there didn't appear to be
anything wrong.  He kept re- playing the radio conversation with
Dr. Vanderhaeghe back in his head, reliving the chill and the sudden
emptiness he had felt when his old friend's voice had been cut off.  That
steeled his resolve.

Suddenly the screaming of a jet engine assaulted their ears from
behind. Tom and the boys spun around to see a jump-jet, similar in design
and function to the US/UK harrier.  Alex immediately identified it as a
Soviet-built YaK-38 forger.  It flew overhead just over the treetops, using
its hover engine to move very slowly, as if the black warbird were looking
for something.  It turned a full 360 almost di- rectly overhead, then
smoothly, powerfully moved off down the mountainside to- wards the beach
and the compound.

"Holy jumpin' -" Ricky exclaimed.  His deep brown eyes were huge with
excite- ment.

Tom gripped his shoulder hard, knowing that the boy was on the verge of
spring- ing up out of the grass for a better view.  "Stay down!" he
commanded.  "He's hunting us!"

Hunting was a well-chosen word; it brought home to the boys that this
frightening aircraft was actually a high-tech weapon of devastating
destructive power.  They all stayed low, their attention fixed on the
forger, until they saw the plane circle once over the airstrip and then,
amazingly, climb high and shoot off westwards, disappearing in moments over
the horizon.

"He gave up!"  Jack said wonderingly.

"No he didn't."  Tom stood up, stretching his legs.  "He was scouting.  I
bet he was estimating the length of our airstrip.  We'll see another plane
- a bigger one with a lot of men - landing there before long."

"Tom?" Eric said quietly.

"Yes?"

"What happens when they get here?"

"I expect they'll bring equipment.  You saw the file on Elias Wright.  He's
got mercenary soldiers working for him.  They'll have guns, night-vision
goggles, listening devices, anything that'll help them find us. Maybe
dogs."

"But what happens?  How long do they stay?"

"Until they find us."

"Then we have to take them out.  We'll have to fight them."  Eric's tone
was cer- tain.

"I told you already that we can't risk you ."

"But there's no choice.  We don't fight them, they'll just keep looking
until they find us.  Then what?"

Tom had been hoping against all logic that the invaders would just go away
and leave him and the boys in peace forever; it took this beautiful,
incredibly muscular youth with the eerily gold-streaked hair to force him
to accept the inevitable.

"Maybe we could try to make them believe we aren't on the island - no.
Damn.  They would have intercepted the radio contact we had with Doc. They
know we're here. OK, guys, you win." He faced all four of them.  "I'm no
tactics expert, but it seems to me right now that the safest place, and the
one they're not likely to think of right away, is up in these trees back
here.  I've seen how you guys can climb - you're like monkeys.  Or rockets,
whatever.  I say we get up in the trees and wait for them to show up. Once
they're here and wondering where we've gone, we can see how many of them
there are and what to do about things. Agreed?"

The boys nodded.  Ricky spoke up: "But what about you, Tom?  I mean, you
can't climb like us. And wouldn't it be dangerous for you up there?"

Tom knew what Ricky was talking about.  The boys' unusual genetics and
their treatment during their fetal stages had resulted in their bones being
much tougher than those of normal humans, and this, combined with their
phenomenal, hyper- efficient muscle tissue, made the boys able to withstand
falls from great heights without suffering serious injury.  There had been
many cases when the boys were younger when they had fallen from over 100
feet and had gotten up and walked away, bruised and embarrassed, but whole.
Tom, of course, did not have the physical toughness of the boys and so the
treetops would be a far more dangerous place for him.

"I know!" said Alex.  "There's all that rope in the tool shed.  We'll make
a harness for you.  I'll go get it!"  With that the boy sprang off, his
powerful legs driving him faster than any normal human could run.

"Alex! Wait! I'll go!"  Tom shouted after him.

"Tom," Eric took the man's arm and turned him around.  "Tom, it's all
right.  Let us help.  You know Alex can move faster than you can.  Let him
get the rope.  If they show up while he's gone, he can take care of himself
better than you can.  Let us help, Tom.  We can do this kind of stuff. OK?"

Tom nodded. "All right, guys.  It's just so hard for me ... I'm trying to
protect you.  You understand that, right?"

"Sure," said Jack and gave Tom a big warm hug.  "We love you, too.  But
Eric's right.  We're strong.  Let us use our strength to help get us out of
this mess.  It's all we're got."

Tom enfolded young Jack's body in a tight embrace.  His hands caressed the
boy's muscles, feeling their flexing hardness, their steel-cable
strength. Jack's skin was boy-smooth, like silk stretched taut over living
steel but warm - all the boys had unusually high body temperatures, for
their metabolisms operated at such a high rate.  Jesus, Tom thought,
they're right.  I'm almost useless to them as far as this situation goes.
I can't help them - I need their help, myself.

His hands strayed down Jack's back, gripping the young man's, slim waist,
feeling the luscious curve inward of his lower spine flanked by the full,
thick, and trained cords of sinew, then slid further downwards, along the
outward swell of the boy's bottom, over the briefs, until he was cupping
Jack's muscled ass cheeks in his hands. God, it felt good. Hard,
boy-smooth, its curves both molded of pure boy muscularity.  At eighteen,
in truth, Jack was still only a boy, and for all his muscle he had a very
trim and sexy build.  Lovingly, Tom cupped Jack's hard bottom in his big
hands. The shower had left the boy dry and clean, and the thin fabric of
the tight bikini the boy wore slid easily over his skin. Tom gently rubbed
the boy's buttocks.  Jack was tensing those muscles a little to in eager
response to Tom's touch.  The muscles were hard, flexed, their shape
unyielding as Tom groped his hand over them. Tom felt the heavenly young
curves where Jack's buttocks flowed into his upper thighs - these were
muscle-curves.  Most eighteen-year- olds, unless they are fat, have fairly
bony-looking bodies: their long adolescent- skeletons supporting muscles
that are thin, stringy, and shapeless - the weak and flaccid muscles of the
modern unfit adolescent.  Jack's muscles had shape, curve, sculpture to
them.  They were real muscle, genetically virtually perfect and built
through years of training into strong, bold, finely-tuned machines - their
forms linking together at the joints and creating a living symphony of
curvature that was unmistakably, youthfully sexual, and so proudly male,
like a young boy wolf cub eager to prove his mettle on the hunt.

At this moment, Jack was unconscious of his animal grace and limber young
sinew as he hugged Tom close; he merely enjoyed the man's caress, trembling
with pleasure, trying to grind his stiffening dick into Tom's crotch. Tom's
own pe- nis had sprung into full size and hardness as he stroked Jack's
lean hard body.  He knew he had no time for this, but he also knew that he
might have very few op- portunities left, and for the life of him he could
not think of anything else he could do at the moment to improve their
situation, so he abandoned himself to the sheer pleasure of holding,
touching, caressing this young muscle boy.  He let his fingers gradually
slip along the exposed skin of Jack's buttocks to the edge of the bikini's
leg hole, and let them slide gently under the stretch fabric.  Now his hand
glided across warm, smooth boy-skin, and he searched, probing, easing his
fingers into the hot crack between Jack's ass cheeks, feeling the boy
deliberately relax the gluteal muscles to allow his fingers in, feeling the
sudden shiver of desire course through the young, warm boy-body, feeling
the his embrace tighten with the ex- pectation of sexual bliss, and feeling
as much as hearing the young voice begin a low moan that rose with the
breathing into the wonderful, sweet music of his erotic enchantment.

Tom tenderly kissed Jack's forehead, allowing his lips to warm themselves
against the boy's beautiful face. And suddenly he felt a crashing,
tumultuous love for this boy: all the love he had felt through all the
years of Jack's life came in a rush, filling his soul and his heart so much
that he could not keep back the tears.  But these were tears of joy - the
joy a man feels when he knows he has been given a gift so great that it is
worth far, far more than his own life, and that his lot had be- come
nothing but the struggle to be worthy of this gift, and in that moment Tom
knew absolutely, knew bone-deep, what he had always believed of himself:
that if today it happened that he would be called on to lay down his life
that this boy might live, that he would do so, gladly and without
hesitation or remorse or a moment's regret.  And this knowledge made him
feel free and utterly clean.  So now he gripped Jack tightly, trying to
transmit through his kiss the scale of his love for the boy, so that Jack
might know that there was such a love in the world and might remember it
later on, whenever he might need to.  But Jack, of course, already knew.
He had felt this kind of love himself, and now he lifted his young head and
met Tom's gaze, and gave his gentle man-friend a smile filled with all the
peace and happiness in his soul, a smile that reflected Tom's own love
back, and that sent a silent but genuine thanks.

"Let me go now," he murmured. "I have to go climb a tree."

Scant minutes later Alex arrived at the tool shed. The old lock on the door
had fallen into disuse ever since Jack had become old enough to trust with
the tools, and so the boy was able to enter without a key.  He glanced
around, seeing all the familiar gear as if in a new light: the lawnmower,
gardening tools, reinforced wheelbarrows - the boys were responsible for
the maintenance of the compound, and their strength allowed them to do a
great deal of work in a short time.  As they had grown older, they had made
the compound more of a home.  They had ex- panded the garden, the lawn,
built the tennis court, even resurfaced the airstrip with the strength of
their own muscles.  Everything had been done under Tom's direction, and he
had a talent for turning even the most backbreaking, sweaty work into games
which all the boys played enthusiastically.

The 500 foot length of 1/4 inch nylon rope was neatly coiled and hanging on
a nail in the wall up near the ceiling. Alex simply sprang up, grabbed the
rope off the nail and bounced off the wall to the floor in a single quick,
easy motion.  It made a bulky mass, so he found a burlap sack - a tent bag
- to carry it in and made for the door.

Then he thought of one more thing, something he wanted to recover from the
house. He had no idea what the mercenaries would do to the compound once
they arrived, but in case they were going to do something destructive, he
wanted to take some memories ...

Once inside the house, he found the family photo albums on the bookshelf in
the living room. He knew he had to get the rope back to Tom and get up into
the trees with the other boys, but a quick look wouldn't hurt. He opened
one of the albums and found himself in a world of happier days.  Here was a
beautiful picture of Ricky, when he was about six, curled up asleep on
Tom's chest as Tom lay in a hammock, gently stroking the young boy's naked
back ... here a picture taken three years ago, of Eric, amazingly muscled
in his tiny briefs, his powerful erec- tion tenting the front, standing
with Jack's legs wrapped around his waist, Jack totally nude and the boys
hugging each other playfully... here a fairly recent pic- ture of Alex
himself, maybe seventeen years old, getting out of the shower with a
lecherous grin on his face and his stiff penis thrust out proudly ... here
a picture taken earlier this year, of the boys attempting to make the
world's biggest choco- late cake for Tom's birthday, and getting icing all
over their almost-naked bodies, and laughing uncontrollably, and as he
looked at the picture, Alex began to chuckle -

"Still not enough!" said Ricky.  The mixing bowl was already overflowing
with the thick sweet chocolate icing.

"We need another bowl," Jack pointed out. Alex brought one.

The morning sun was blazing through the kitchen's deck door as the four
muscle- boys mixed ingredients, trying to follow a recipe.  It wasn't
working very well, but they were past caring.  They were all hot from their
morning workout, their in- credible muscles pumped and popping with raw
strength, and as they worked in their skimpy sweaty briefs they were
getting hornier and hornier.

Alex stuck his finger into one of the icing bowls, brought it out, and
licked it.  "Mmmm," he said. "This is great!"

"If you keep tasting it there won't be any for Tom's cake," Eric said.

"Don't say that until you try it, Eric. Here - have a taste."

Alex brought out another finger full and Eric licked it off.  "That is
good, Alex."

"Have another lick."  This time Alex took a finger full of icing and slowly
spread it over his left nipple.

Eric gazed, fascinated, at Alex's beautiful thick chest.  Alex's pecs
bulged with ripped muscle... muscle built to an eye-popping peak of
strength and pure teen- boy perfection. The slight flexing and straining of
the boy's pecs with his breath- ing turned Eric on, and the older lad's big
penis grew to its full, throbbing hard size in his obscenely-tiny posing
briefs.

"Gotcha!" Alex said as he glanced at Eric's massive cock bulging through
the thin fabric.  He performed a bodybuilder's chest pose, fists just under
his ribs and pecs erupting to awesome size and strength.  He twisted
slightly to present his choco- late-covered nipple towards Eric.

Eric reached out and lifted Alex's muscle-packed body by the waist,
bringing Alex's nipple to his mouth.  Eagerly, passionately, he licked the
sweet icing from the sweaty young skin, then tasted the salty sweat and the
hot, super hard muscle bulging against his tongue.

"Mmmm," he breathed as his tongue described circles over Alex's throbbing
pec- toral muscle.

Alex picked up one of the bowls of icing.  He pushed Eric's head away and,
still caught in Eric's powerful grip, he began drawing designs all over his
own chest and stomach with the sweet icing.  As he moved his hands his body
tensed and flexed: ripped muscle surged and relaxed under the hot,
glistening, flesh, the de- signs in chocolate emphasizing the shape and
muscle-sculpture of Alex's marvel- ous torso.  His skin was so smooth,
young, perfect, and yet stretched so tightly over the coils and slabs of
his awesome muscles that he seemed about to burst with latent power, with
the raw, rippling young strength that his body could barely contain. He
ended with a long line of icing leading straight down his belly to the
waistband of his briefs, pointing the way to his quivering, straining young
dick.  Both he and Eric giggled like a couple of kids as this went on.

"Check it out!" Ricky said to Jack as they watched the other two boys get
even hornier.  Their dicks grew to full erection in their briefs,
stretching the material of the tiny garments right to the maximum.  Ricky
flexed his biceps. "Put some icing on my muscles!"

Jack took a handful of icing and gazed a moment, as if he were a master
artist, at Ricky's superhuman body.  The nineteen-year-old boy had built
his body to a de- gree that was nothing short of stupendous: lithe and lean
and packed with incredi- ble muscle, muscle like steel cables bulging in
swollen knots of sheer strength, young biceps exploding into peaked masses
of raw sinew bursting from his arms ... not the bulky, near-shapeless lumps
of muscle seen on steroid-freak adult bodybuilders, but rather, young,
sculptured muscle, jaw-droppingly huge on a boy Ricky's age, bulging with
the sleek, perfect form and strength of flourishing youth, gleeful,
exuberant and indomitable.  As Ricky stood in his posing briefs, flexing
his unbelievable young muscles, he seemed to be the image of invincible
youth: an adolescent boy so strong, so muscular, so unstoppably young and
irre- sistibly boyish that he oozed raw eroticism, randiness, pure teen-boy
sex.

Jack's penis was so stiff it ached as he painted Ricky's arms, shoulders,
and chest with the icing, highlighting the muscular development and
sexiness of Ricky's physique.  Ricky changed his poses, flexing harder to
swell his pumped, gleaming muscles to their fullest glory, his own dick
straining to burst with lust. "Hurry up!" he laughed. "I gotta do you,
too!"

With that, Jack simply grabbed a handful of icing and shoved it down the
front of Ricky's posing briefs, slathering it all over the flexing boy's
rock-stiff dick and balls and everywhere ... and then, laughing
uncontrollably, Ricky abandoned his posing and did the same to Jack. Both
boys suddenly bear-hugged each other, grinding their chocolate-covered
groins together, smearing the icing all over their bodies and humping,
rubbing, bucking their hips like the hot young supercharged males they
were.  Their hands and mouths were all over each other's bodies, feel- ing
the flexing muscles tremble with the passion of sex, tongues tasting sweet
muscle, pumped boyhood, young hearts pounding with excitement and brains
seething with lust...

Suddenly Jack just grabbed Ricky's bikini and with a mighty jerk, ripped it
from the boy's body.  Ricky's chocolate-covered red swollen penis popped
free and Jack wrestled him to the floor.  As he lay on top of him, Jack
sucked that sweet cock madly, squirming his body all over Ricky's right
there on the kitchen floor, aching for sexual release.

"Oh, boy," Eric breathed as he glanced down at Jack and Ricky.

"We just gotta -" -he didn't bother finishing the sentence.  He simply tore
Jack's briefs off, gazed lovingly at the eighteenten-year-old's tight,
muscled naked ass, and began smearing icing all over those tempting bare
young-boy buttocks.  He slipped off his briefs, letting his massive smooth
erect cock swing loose, and went to work on Jack's perfect young bubble ass
with his tongue.

Young Alex, his dick practically ripping its way through his bikini briefs,
could not stand it any more. He reared back and flexed his tremendous,
beautiful mus- cles, letting out a Tarzan yell, then grabbed his own bikini
and tore it off. He rubbed a handful of creamy sweet icing all over his
raging cock, and another handful between Eric's flexing, grinding,
squirming young butt-cheeks.  Eric groaned, relaxing enough to let Alex's
hand in to lubricate his young manhole with icing. Then, without another
thought, Alex sprawled his body over Eric and began fucking the older
muscle boy like a rutting sex-mad animal.  Eric's ass- muscles gripped
Alex's super hard boy-cock hard as Alex rammed his hips against Eric's
butt.  The friction was intense, the sex hot and hard and young: Alex
grunted quick breaths as he fucked Eric, his hands gripping and massaging
Eric's phenomenal muscles, skin against hot skin, sweat and sweet chocolate
every- where, and Eric squirmed his hips around in rhythm to maximize both
his own and Alex's raw sexual ecstasy.

At the same time, Eric had his face buried in Jack's young man-ass.  As his
own ass was being fucked madly by Alex, he was sensually playing his tongue
over Jack's icing-smeared anus, licking away the icing, tasting the sugar
sweetness as he tasted the clean boy-musk of the eighteen-year-old's body,
rubbing his face against the beautiful, irresistibly erotic buttocks
wriggling and flexing and relax- ing against him ... Eric was in
heaven. His hands were all over Jack's steely, writhing physique, feeling
the muscles throb with strength and pulse-quickening lust under the boy's
smooth young skin, his face was busy with Jack's sexy sweet ass, and his
own ass was getting worked over by the insatiable, sex-mad Alex!  Eric's
big dick throbbed, huge and almost ready to explode with the pressure of
the cum building in his balls without even being touched. Eric's whole
being was brought to the brink of a massive orgasm: his heart was pounding,
his muscles were pumped and bulging as he squirmed in pleasure, his skin
was pouring sweat, and his cock was so close to bursting that he thought a
mere touch would set off a geyser of hot pumping cum...

And Jack was being brought higher into sexual heaven than he had ever
been. He had Ricky's hot, pulsing penis in his mouth, Eric's tongue in his
ass, and Ricky had somehow found Jack's own stiff dick with his mouth and
was eagerly sucking him. Jack could feel his whole body vibrate with
unleashed sex - he was so turned on he had utterly forgotten where he
was. He just loved the feel of Ricky's dick in his mouth, his own dick in
Ricky's, Eric's expert mouth in his ass and hands groping his muscles, and
the sheer seething passion of his body as he gave in completely to
limitless sexual bliss.

All four boys were moaning, grunting with the action, their tenor voices a
song of lust. Suddenly Ricky's whole body tensed as orgasm gripped him; he
shuddered, bucked savagely, bouncing the pile of boys draped over him high
in the air and gasped as they fell back, and writhed as he ground out every
last iota of pleasure from his cumming. As he was subsiding he felt Jack
get off as well, the slick, sweet boy stiff and gripping and groaning and
cumming ... And then Alex let out a long, loud cry of sheer erotic climax
and jammed his hard raw young dick hard into Eric's hot ass one last time,
gasping and groaning as Eric expertly milked his dick with his powerful,
agile sphincter muscles ...

At last Alex popped himself free of Eric's ass and rolled Eric over onto
the floor.  The three younger boys now stood over Eric, the only one who
had yet to cum, and flexed their pumped, sweat-wet muscles as sensually as
they could over him, giving him a supremely erotic show of pure naked boy
muscle. At long last Eric's mighty young fuck pole erupted with a huge
blast of boy cum straight into the air, plastering the ceiling and falling
back into the icing bowls and over the younger muscleboys and all over
everything - spurt after white, creamy spurt of hot young cum squirted from
Eric's red penis; it was the last ingredient, the ultimate ingredi- ent for
lucky Tom's birthday cake ...

Alex stuck a finger into one of the icing bowls and brought out a blob of
icing and muscle boy cum. "Mmmm," he said as he licked his finger clean.
"This is the best ever ...."

Alex was jacking himself off in the living room as he gazed at the picture,
re- membering.  He rubbed his hot steel dick through the fabric of his tiny
white posing briefs, relishing the feeling of sex pleasure as he brought
himself to a quick orgasm.  He felt the shudders, the heat, the flush and
explosion of muscle boy ec- stasy, producing a raging torrent of cum in
long hot ropes of jizz bursting from Alex's raging, red dick - oh, man,
that was great!

He turned the page in the photo album.  There was a picture taken last
Christmas, showing all four boys sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes
shining with joy as they gazed up at Doc Vanderhaeghe.  Doc was wearing a
Santa cap and beard and was presenting the boys their gifts. The kindness
and gentleness in his wrinkled face tugged Alex's young heart, and his love
for the old man - his "father" - who was now dead overwhelmed him.  He
could not keep back the tears as he leaned over the picture, and he simply
had to turn himself over completely to his grief.  Tears fell to the
picture and ran over the plastic protector as he wept - and so great was
his grief that he lost track of time ...

With the world coming down around his ears, here was Alex grieving and
remi- niscing about "old times," such as they are for an 18 year old.  At
the sound of a distant but clearly approaching aircraft, he was wrenched
out of his reverie, be- rating himself for being so irresponsible, for
loosing focus on the task at hand.  If anything happened to Tom or the
other boys because he had tarried here, jacking off amid their happy
memories, he would never forgive himself.