Mark

It was late when Mark squeezed out the last few reps on the pec deck. He pushed himself harder than usual and his chest was on fire. His veins surged, pumping fresh blood into his aching muscles, slowly quelling the burn. Mark stripped off his sweat soaked tank top, looked in the mirror across from him and flexed his beefy pectorals hard.

“Not bad for an old man,” Mark thought to himself. His muscular torso was fully pumped from the intense workout and he looked bigger than ever.

Mark was a few months shy of his thirtieth birthday but he still worked out hard and the results showed. He had been packing on muscle steadily since he started working out as a high school wrestler and his lean muscular body was the envy of every other guy at the gym.

Mark stood up and flexed in front of the mirrored wall for a few minutes, systematically working through each muscle group. He finished his flexing routine with an impressive double bicep pose that brought a wry smile to his face.

“Wow!” Mark thought to himself as he slowly scanned his magnificent reflection in the mirror.

Streams of sweat ran down Mark’s well developed chest and worked their way through the crevices of his chiseled muscular abdomen. He held the pose for a moment longer, savoring his muscular reflection in the mirror. Mark’s gaze turned hypnotic when it was drawn to a drop of water that dangled precariously from his rather large left nipple. Mark snickered to himself as thoughts of his high school gym class suddenly flooded his head. Mark closed his eyes and vividly remembered the incessant teasing he endured about the size of his nipples as if it happened yesterday rather than fifteen years ago.

“Mark, the skinny kid with big nipples” The words still brought a twinge of pain to Mark’s face.

Mark had been embarrassed to take off his shirt in the gym locker room and dreaded hearing the word “skins” when the gym teacher pointed in his direction before the start of some team sport or another. The careless teasing of his fellow students was the reason Mark started working out in the first place. The more the other kids teased him the harder Mark worked out and the bigger his body grew. By his senior year of high school, the rest of Mark’s body had caught up to his large nipples. The kids that had once teased him when he was a freshman just stared with envy at his incredibly muscular young body. And Mark’s perfectly muscled torso, large nipples and all, was always fully exposed for envious classmates to gawk at because Mark never wore a shirt during wrestling practice or in gym class in his senior year of high school.

Mark opened his eyes. The drop of perspiration had fallen from his left nipple and took with it the painful memories of his youth. Mark had certainly grown into his nipples and they were now two beautiful exclamation points drawing one’s full attention to Mark’s thickly muscled pecs.

Mark relaxed his body, moved closer to the mirrored wall and looked at his right eye. It was still swollen and red but looked a lot better than it did the night before. Mark didn’t remember much of the fight other than he was sucker punched in the face. He did remember, however, that when it was all over he was still standing and the guy who punched him and his buddy were both laid out cold in the parking lot of the bar. Even with his black eye, Mark was sure he looked considerable better than the two guys that he had brawled.

Mark looked around the gym and saw no one else around. Saving himself a trip to the locker room he pulled off his shorts and briefs in the weight room and threw them into his gym bag, He felt a bit odd standing in the middle of the weight room completely naked and quickly slipped into his bathing suit and then headed for the pool. Mark hated doing cardio but forced himself to swim fifty laps in the pool every other day, convinced swimming was the least objectionable of the aerobic options.

Mark pushed open the door of the pool room and was startled to see someone else there. He thought all the gym rats had gone home by then. He didn’t recognize the other guy as a regular from the gym, but he did look vaguely familiar and he was wearing swim trunks so Mark didn’t give it another thought. Mark gave the other man an obligatory nod and an unenthusiastic “hey” and quickly turned he gaze, not wanting to engage in a conversation. Mark wanted to do his laps and go home.

Mark started his pre-swim stretching routine as usual. With his two hands clenched together, his arms reached for the ceiling and he slowly moved his torso from side to side. Mark slowly pulled back his elbows and stretched his broad chest. His pectorals still ached from his intense workout earlier but the stretch felt good.

With his elbows pulled all the way back, Mark suddenly felt two arms grab him from behind. The man he nodded to just minutes before had quickly weaved his arms under Mark’s and had both hands clenched tightly behind Mark’s neck.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Mark shouted as his struggled to free his arms from the vice-like full nelson hold.

Mark’s attacker said nothing as he secured his grip behind Mark’s neck and then spun him around violently. Mark knew instantly he was in trouble when he saw the second man walking quickly towards him. The man, dressed in jeans and a black tank top, had two black and swollen eyes and his left arm was in a cast.

“Damn! The guys front last night.” Mark suddenly remembered as he struggled to free his two arms from the iron grip of the man behind him.

“Remember me?” the man with the battered face asked in a monotone.

“Yea, I remember you. Take your best shot.” Mark answered defiantly and flexed his abs hard, anticipating a few solid punches to his gut.

Mark had been in a several fights before and knew he could take a few good shots to the belly without much problem. He suspected the guy grabbing him from behind was getting tired and thought it was only a matter of time before he would have both of these thugs unconscious on the pool room floor.

But a look of terror quickly filled Mark’s face as the man standing in front of him pulled a knife from his back pocket. Mark struggled wildly to free his arms but the man holding him from behind would not relent and instead pulled Mark’s upper body back even further, fully exposing Mark’s abdomen to the man standing a few feet in front of him.

The man that Mark had beaten severely the night before suddenly cocked back his arm, lurched forward, and viciously rammed the knife into Mark’s rock hard gut.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” Mark yelled out widely and instinctively flexed his abdominals hard as the six inch blade ripped into his muscular belly and was driven completely into his gut.

The man wielding the knife pulled the blade out of Mark’s stomach and stepped back.

“How did you like my best shot?” the man asked sarcastically. “Here’s a few more for you.”

The attacker stepped forward and brutally stabbed Mark in the belly several more times. Each thrust of the knife completely buried the blade in Mark’s fully flexed abs.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

“Uuuuuhhhhhh!”

Uuunnnhhh!”

“Ahhh!”

“Uhhh!!!”

“Aaaahhh!” Mark’s booming yells of agony echoed in the tiled pool room.

Mark’s upper body snapped forward each time the knife was rammed into his gut but the man grabbing him from behind pulled Mark back each time, giving his attacker’s blade an easy target.

The man with the knife shoved the blade into Mark’s belly one last time and left the knife stuck in Mark’s gut. The man behind Mark finally released his hold and Mark’s arms fell down to his sides. Mark staggered forward and groaned; his right hand grabbed the knife that was still stuck in his belly and his left hand covered the stab wounds in his abdomen, which had begun to bleed profusely.

Mark struggled to stay on his feet but the man behind him pushed him forward and Mark fell into the pool and was fully submerged. The water quickly turned red and Mark was soon floating face down in the pool, blood still pouring from the stab wounds in his belly. Mark was dead.

The two men stood at the edge of the pool staring at Mark’s body for a few minutes and then quickly left the gym, the man in swim trunks pulling a shirt on as he went out the door.