Matt joined Knightley's body-building gym the day he lost the audition.

It was bizarre, unfathomable, wild. How could the casting director prefer that bear of a man, Will Powers, over himself? Sure, Will had the muscled chest and arms of a crime-fighting hero, but Matt had the charm and the heartthrob's face. How could it be? He resolved right then and there to become the muscled action hero the directors apparently wanted.

But when he saw the dingy little gym with its small room of worn equipment and the sign reading Cumworthy Oversized Chests - Knightley, he did have a moment's misgivings. His manager Celeste had given him a list of every gym in the city, marked with the only information he needed: how quickly he could get results. He had arrived with two questions. How could Knightley's website guarantee results twice as quickly as any other gym? And most puzzlingly, why was his website emblazoned COC-K?

Well, there was the one, answered.

"Whoa there, I can answer that for you."

Matt jumped.

"My name is. . . Horace Knightley, proprietor of this property," he answered, unbothered. "Personal trainer of would-be bodybuilders. And the secret to our 100% guaranteed results is. . . me." His expression didn't change, yet he somehow sneered as he looked Matt up-and-down, and Matt bristled. Insulting and simultaneously energizing.

"I'm no would-be anything," Matt retorted. "I'll show you, you smarmy little shit."

Horace smiled at the confrontational response. "Just the aggressive opening we like to see."


The daily workouts started harmlessly enough: a hundred sit-ups, a hundred push-ups, a hundred squats, and a 10k run. "This is, like, so boring?" Matt complained. The next day, his workout room was fitted with a TV set to the Steel Samurai, and Horace spent the entire session complimenting Will's silver-painted abs.

Point taken. Matt gritted his teeth and glowered.

Each session was followed by a protein shake. "This isn't refreshing at all," Matt complained, gagging. "This is gross!"

But even Matt had to admit it was working. His muscles were visibly larger within the month. By month three, he was as bulky as Will Powers himself.

And he was about to stop there, except when he went to Horace to say thank you for your services—Celeste's old-fogey wording, not his own—Horace looked him up and down with a vaguely dissatisfied air and said, "Whoa there, you're a quitter?"

"What?" Matt gaped at him.

"Are you going to pull your pieces back now that the king is on the run?" Horace expounded, as if it cleared up anything. So Matt stayed, and Matt grew.

By month six, he was as stocky as a bull and almost as wide, and Horace was beginning to look at him different. Proudly. No, that wasn't quite right—appreciatively.

"Admit it," Matt said, catching the gleam in Horace's eye. "I'm your best client."

Horace said nothing, simply handed him another protein cocktail. Matt reached out to take it, and the way their fingers brushed and the shadows fell over Horace's face—a shudder ran through him, lust and unease and apprehension all together.

He glanced down at the shake, suddenly uncertain. But Horace was watching, and Matt wasn't a pussy. He drank it down.


The bigger Matt got, the harder it became to move. Nine months into his treatment, his muscles had grown agonizingly large. He could close his hands before him: just enough to grab hold of his daily protein shakes. He struggled to sit, to stand, to fit into his chauffeured limo. Some mornings, he struggled to roll himself out of bed.

"Move in with me," Horace suggested. "Auditions are in three months. You've developed all your pieces. It's time to strike." And the way he drew out the word developed, and the way he stroked Matt's muscles with his hand slow and trailing, it was everything Matt wanted. After that, Horace planned every minute of every day.

Horace rolled Matt out of bed in the mornings and gave him sponge baths while he stood, stark naked. And as he passed the washcloth over each curve and dip of Matt's bulging muscles, he lingered over them. "These precious pieces," he said, breathlessly. "My master strategy."

That left Matt stone cold. "Wait, wait, wait," he said. "Your master strategy? Dude. I thought we had something!"

"Shut your trap," Horace snapped, pinching Matt sharply. "You drink your shakes and look pretty, capisce?"

"Ow, ow, ow!" Matt whined. "Okay! Fine, geez!"

"I'm glad we have an understanding," Horace sniffed. "Hey now, don't take it personally," he added.

"It's cool, none taken," Matt replied coolly. And if his bangs covered the gleam in his scarred eye, that was Horace's loss.


It was the last night before the Steel Samurai season two audition. "What's this?" Horace asked, walking into their shared kitchen.

"Tequila shots! Just a little thank you for everything! Soon, the world will be breathing this refreshing breeze!"

These days, Matt smelled more like stale pondwater than a spring breeze, but Horace kept that thought to himself. "In the grand scheme, what's a spare pawn?" He mused. "A necessary sacrifice, that is all."

Slowly, clumsily, Matt handed Horace a shot glass. "Oh, I get it! A. . . pawn sacrifice because it's. . . expensive, right?"

"Something like that."

Matt hated when Horace talked in stupid chess metaphors. He couldn't make heads or tails of it. Horace was smarter than him, they both knew it. "Dude, cut it out," he grumbled. "You make me feel like I'm the pawn when you talk like this, a dumb pawn seeing my dumb little corner of the board, and missing the big picture."

"Well, now you're getting it, little pussy boy."

And Matt would always be losing for as long as he played by Horace's rules on Horace's board.

"Say, what's in this anyway?"

Tonight, Matt made the rules.


Horace groggily awoke, crushed in Matt's bed, hips pinned and aching under Matt's body. In his year as his client, Matt had grown from a pawn to a queen. His muscles were now so large he resembled an balloon suit more than a man: beautiful to look at, and powerful too. Horace flailed, trying to shove Matt's enormous bulk off of him.

"I don't think so, dude," Matt said. Slowly, torturously, he lowered himself down the rest of his way, his chest pressing down over Horace's face. Horace gasped for breath, desperately sucking in the thin little trickle of air leaking in between Matt's sweat-drenched abs, grown as bulky as the rest of him.

He screamed, and Matt's body muffled the sound. Matt smirked.

"Enjoy my Cumworthy Oversized Chest, Knightley."