It's a Monster

"I love him too, you know!" I said louder than I'd intended. "And what do you mean "loved me?"

"Beth, if you loved him half as much as you seem to think you did, you never would have done what you did with us," he said. "And Galan might be a pretty boy, but he ain't no wimp. You know how them bitches have always been picking on you. The men around here were picking on Galan far worse. Galan keeps hitting them where it counts. He keeps outselling them and hitting them in the pocketbook . He has been stealing their accounts and just making them look stupid. You wouldn't believe the way they pick on him. But unlike some people, he never caved. So with that in mind, he ain't the kind of guy who's going to put up with cheating whore as a girlfriend."

I started crying. Galan was everything to me. I couldn't lose him.

"And do yourself a favor, Beth," he said. "Be really careful who you trust. Despite what she did for you this morning, Glory, is not your friend. Before you started working in the lab, here, she was always trying to hook Galan up with her daughter. With you out of the way ... "

I left the office and went back to the lab. I thought that the familiar surroundings and concentrating on the experimental formula we were working on would take my mind off of things. There was recalling nothing else I could do. The ball was in Galan's court.

I already knew what to expect. Galan had two levels of anger. Level one was when he spoke in extremely polite phrases as if we were strangers. He also made sure not to even brush against me while we were in bed. It hurt badly because I was so used to him wrapping his arms around me and making me feel safe and secure.

I had only seen level two once during all of our time together. Level two was a full on silent treatment and Galan sleeping on the couch. I cried my eyes out and wasn't able to sleep at all. But I had a feeling that I'd be getting a level two tonight.

I dropped several vials of chemicals over the next two hours. I also messed up the mix rate for a couple of experiments. My mind simply wasn't on my work. I told my supervisor and she agreed that I should just go home.

I had no idea where Galan had gone. I was sure that he'd gone out to see a few of his customers. Galan was great with his customers and driving his car from one appointment to another gave him a chance to think and clear his mind. Sooner or later Galan would decide that he needed to hear my side of the story. All I could do is wait until he did.

I drove home and took the elevator to our floor. During the drive home, I'd come up with all sorts of ideas. I could make Galan's favorite dinner. I could also put on once of those movies that he was always trying to get me to watch. Galan and I we're both sci fi nuts, but we had different tastes.

We both loved Star Wars and Lord of the rings, but after that we sharply separated in our tastes. Where I loved vampires and horror, Galan was more into Highlander and sword and sorcery tales. If one of those Highlander movies was on our flatscreen when he came in, Galan would have to watch it. I would start making faces and he would try to explain what was going on and why it wasn't stupid.

I had a smile on my face as I put my key in the lock. Galan and I had rarely ever been able to finish a movie in one sitting. If you put the two of us on a couch together we would invariably end up having sex.

As soon as I stepped into the apartment, I knew that something was wrong. It took me a few moments to realize what it was. All of Galan's personal stuff and a lot of his clothing was missing.

I went into the room we used as an office. My desktop computer was there, but Galan's was gone. His laptop, his iPad and his playstation 4 were gone too.

Most of his suits were gone. Galan had at least seven or eight different suits. As a salesman he had to dress well when calling on customers.

His running clothes and running shoes were gone too. Galan had been very thorough. He had taken everything he'd need to be away from home for a good period of time. I just plopped down on the sofa and cried.

Somehow, I don't know when, I fell asleep. When I awoke, it was even worse. I felt empty. It was as if a part of me was missing. I took a couple of days off from work, to get my head on straight. I thought about it over and over again and realized that I had made a mistake. I'm a human being and a young one at that. I have never claimed to be a perfect woman. I was very wrong. I was willing to admit that.

But Galan needed to understand that what happened, never happened because I didn't love him. It never happened because I wanted to join those men in disrespecting him. It was simply a way for me to get away from the torment I faced every day at work.

I'm sure that Galan would probably have told me to talk to someone at work about being harrassed. Or he would have told me to just suck it up and beat them at their own game the way he does. But I'm not as strong as he is. And as far as going and complaining to someone about being harrassed ... I'm a grown woman. It would seem silly for me to go crying to someone in HR because I was being bullied or because women were being mean to me.

I knew that Galan and I could work things out if he would just give me the chance to talk about it.

* * * * * *

Galan

I woke up the morning after my life fell apart. I immediately started moving. I had plenty of things to do that day. And I was dead set on returning to work the next day.

I got my iPad and started looking for apartments to rent. I called on several of them and made arrangements to see them. Of the eight apartments I went to see, only three of them were available for immediate occupancy. Of those three, there was only one that I would consider living in.

I was just about to write the landlord a check, when one of the tenants came in. I smiled at her and she returned it and then remembered what she had come in for. She'd come in to complain about her car being damaged and broken into in the building's parking structure.

I was out of there before he could answer her. I had visions of my Mustang , up on blocks, with her rims, stereo, nav system, exhaust system and catalytic converters gone. It was back to the drawing board on terms of finding a place to stay.

By that time, the day was halfway over. I knew I had to just go back to the hotel and start looking again. Living out of the hotel, would be okay short term, but in the long run it was far too expensive.

My phone rang and I looked at the screen to see who was calling me.

"Hey Glory," I said.

"How are you?" she asked. "How's Beth?"

"Glory, please don't ask me about that woman," I said sharply. "We're done!"

"You're kidding, right?" she said.

"Not a bit," I told her.

"It all makes sense now," she said. "So that's why she was so hysterical yesterday. She called in today, she's taking the week off."

"Not my problem or my business anymore," I said. "Maybe you should tell, Todd, Brent and Craig. I have to find a new place to live."

"Why do you need a new place to live?" she asked.

"Glory, you're the smartest person I know," I said. "Get with the program. Beth and I were engaged. We lived together. We are no longer engaged, so one of us has to move out."

"I might know of a place," she said. "It's not an apartment, though. It's a house. A friend of mine is looking for a housemate to share a house. You'd have full kitchen privileges, your own bathroom and full run of the house. You'd have to share the cleaning and chores, but more than likely you'd only have to do the guy stuff. You know like taking out the trash, mowing the yard, light home repairs."

"That actually sounds like fun," I said. "What's his name?"

"Uhm, Galan, he's a she. But she's old enough to be your mother. So you don't have to worry about her hitting on you," she said.

"Well it isn't what I'm looking for, but it sounds good," I said. "Do you have the address or a phone number for her?"

She gave me an address and told me to stop by the place at about seven that evening.

I went back to the hotel and looked at a few more listings just in case the place that Glory suggested didn't work out.

My phone rang and I didn't recognize the number, so I answered it.

"Hey Buddy, we need to talk," said a voice that was familiar, yet I couldn't put a name to it.

"I think we should talk face to face about what happened yesterday and how we should handle it," he continued. That was all I needed for my brain to fire up, and make the connection.

"How did you get my number Brent," I said flatly.

"When can we talk?" he asked, ignoring my question.

His behavior was typical Brent. And it was one of the reasons that he would never be more than a mediocre salesman. The only thing that was important to Brent was Brent. He seemed incapable of listening to anyone else or of trying to see the other person's needs or points. His usual strategy was to try to convince them that what he wanted was the best possible option.

"I have no intention of talking to you. So if you have something to say, just say it. As soon as we're done here I'm blocking your number. So talk," I said.

"Galan, we're coworkers. We have to get along for the good of the company," he said. "Anyway, I wanted to offer you a deal, this way we both win. How about if I could get the other guys to all agree that no one needs to know about the little incident from yesterday? We just write it off and forget about it. No harm no foul. My friends and I don't have to walk around feeling bad about it, and you and Beth just pretend it never happened. You two go ahead and get married and everyone is happy."

"You never do anything out of the goodness of your heart," I said. "What is all of this magnanimity going to cost me?"

"Nothing," he said. "I just want you to back off and sell a few less orders over the next month and ..."

"Fuck you Brent," I said. "I've already handled things. I broke up with Beth. Anyone who would let a scumbag like you touch her is not someone I want to marry. I had decided to do nothing about what happened except for breaking up with her, but since you've called me, I think I may have to bite the bullet and go to either HR or the old man about it."

"But Galan, you can't do that," he whined. "Come on buddy, it wasn't my fault. She was just giving that fat pussy away. She sashayed around the place showing off those big old titties all the time. I don't even like fat girls. Nobody could have resisted her."

Even his voice sounded like he was smirking.

"In a way, I did you a favor," he said. "I showed you what kind of woman she really is." I hung up on him.

I thought about what he'd said though. And it made me realize that I needed to know why this had happened. I also needed to know how long it had been going on for. I'd been so blinded by love that I'd truly had no idea that Beth had been cheating on me.

I puttered around the hotel for a few hours and then headed over to the address that Glory had given me. It was a really nice house. It was a split-level ranch in a comfy suburb. It wasn't a mansion. However, it wasn't too far from it.

I rang the doorbell and waited for a few moments. And then I got the second biggest shock in recent memory.

Glory answered the door.

"Hi," I said. "Did you come over to mediate things between me and the owner?"

She smiled back. "Galan, I am the owner," she said. She gave me a tour of the place. She showed me where my room was. She also showed me the kitchen, the laundry room, and the rest of the house. I liked it. It had a homey feeling to it.

She made coffee, and we talked about why she wanted to take in a boarder. It turned out that Glory couldn't stand living alone. She'd lived with her husband and daughter until they divorced. Then she'd lived with her daughter until the daughter graduated from college. Then there had been a few friends of her daughter, until the last of them had graduated a few months ago.

Glory had been thinking about putting an ad in the paper until she talked to me. I would actually be her first male boarder, but she and I had such a good relationship that she was sure it would work.

Over the next few days, I moved my stuff in after work, until I was finally settled in.

Work, became the problem. It seemed like no matter where I was in the building, either Beth or the assholes she had fucked would show up and want to talk.

Finally on Friday, I agreed to sit down and talk with Beth.

"Galan, Baby, I've missed you so much," she blubbered. "You have no idea how much I've ..."

"Beth, can we just get to the point," I said. "How long were you cheating on me? Why did you do it? I really thought we had something special."

"We did ... We do," she said. "Galan, I didn't think of it as cheating on you. And it didn't start that way. Todd has a fetish. He likes big tits and..."

"Most guys do," I said.

"Well the women around here and most of the guys too were always picking on me," she said. "You know giving me the evil eye and making jokes about my weight. And Todd told me he could make that all stop if I let him look at my tits. So I figured it was only looking, it couldn't hurt anything. But then Brent caught us one day. And you know Brent wasn't going to settle for just looking. And I couldn't let you find out because I was sure you'd dump me, and now you know the whole story. It had been going on for about three months."

"Beth thanks for telling me," I said. "I guess I'm better off knowing..."

"So now that you know, you can understand that it wasn't my fault," she said. " ... You can see that, right?"

"Beth why does fault even matter," I asked. "In the end, the result is still the same. Okay maybe you were a victim. Maybe Todd and the others somehow took advantage of you or blackmailed you. Maybe you were just an innocent lamb, alone in the woods with predators about. Maybe they preyed on your weakness and your lack of confidence and your negative self-image..."

"Yes, Baby, that's exactly what they did," she said excitedly.

"And it was only sex, right? With them, there was no love involved. It wasn't like what we do, right?" I asked. She nodded.

"So in the end, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't affect or take anything away from what we had, right?" I asked sounding hopeful.

"Right as rain, Honey," she said. "I love you Galan."

"Wrong as hell," I said, quietly. "And I love you too. But it does matter. And it does affect us. It did take something away from us. You shared the most intimate thing that two people can do with a bunch of assholes that don't care about you at all. So how special can it really be, if you give it to just anybody?"

"But it's different," she said.

"I'm sorry but it really isn't," I said. "And then there's the matter of trust. You've already broken my heart once. I can't give you a chance to do it again. I'm sorry Beth, but this is good-bye."

I walked away from her feeling worse than I had ever in life.

* * * * * *

Beth

The talk didn't go the way I'd hoped it would. There was no way it could have gone worse. I was losing the best part of my life. For the past few years ... Hell for most of my life Galan was the best thing ever to happen to me.

With Galan out of my life, I was just another sad, depressed fat girl. For the first week or two, the pain was so bad that I could barely function. I watched the parking lot from my lab constantly, trying to see when Galan was in the building, just so I could get a glimpse of him.

For the first two weeks or so, I could see that Galan was off kilter just as much as I was. In fact, it was as if everyone around the company was watching and waiting for something to change. Little by little things went back to a semblance of normalcy. At least, it did for most people. However, I would never consider things normal until I got Galan back.

One of the things I hated most was watching the women at work start to take runs at him. It was almost funny. They would flounce themselves over near where he was standing or sitting and then begin to accentuate what they thought was their best feature.

Carmella fluffed out her long pretty hair. Galan didn't notice. Elaine stuck out her chest. Galan didn't notice. Marie pretended she had a run in her panty hose. Galan never noticed. And Sarah stopped in front of his desk and bent over. None of them got anywhere with him. That made me happy.

I began to watch Galan at work to see who was successful with him and who he interacted with. It actually gave me hope. Galan didn't really speak to anyone. He spoke only to the old man, which was what we called the owner of the company. And he spoke to Gloria, the office manager. Gloria was in her fifties. She was a pretty woman, but she was old enough to be Galan's mom.

That told me a few things. The first thing it told me was that Galan was still getting over me. He hadn't taken up with anyone else because to him, I wasn't easily replaced.

I needed to do something to accentuate all the things he loved about me. Perhaps, if I was a better version of me, Galan would give me another chance. I started staying later in the lab. I wanted to modify one of the company's diet pills. Galan loved everything about me. He loved my face and everyone always told me how pretty my face was anyway. He loved my hair. He loved my tits and my ass. If I could target just the fatty areas around my gut, he wouldn't be able to resist me.

As I worked on my formula, what I wanted began to change. Most diet pills are amphetamines. They speed up your metabolism and help you burn fat a little bit better than normal. I took that as a base and began to add a few more substances. I added steroids. Steroids do more than make men bigger. They build muscle and strengthen bones. They also make the body more readily able to accept rapid changes in body structure. To counteract the masculine effects of the steroids, so I could avoid looking like a female bodybuilder, I added several different estrogen compounds.

By ramping up my estrogen, I would remain feminine in both attitude and body shape. To supercharge all the other compounds, I added HGH. I had several different versions of the formula ready by the end of September. I took a few weeks to test them all on lab animals. All of my tests looked promising, but out of the five versions of the formula I tested, only two of them caused the mice I was using as test subjects to lose any weight.

And it was a strange way to lose weight. I almost didn't notice it at first because it was a very temporary loss. The fluctuation in body mass lasted only minutes. With further modification to the formula, I could prolong the effects but only up to approximately thirty minutes. I was missing something.

I also noticed that the mice had glossier coats and better overall health, but only for the thirty-minute period. I continued to experiment, tweaking, and modifying the formula with different hormones and amino acids as a kicker.

After being apart for more than six weeks, I began to hear grumbling from many different sources. None of them actually spoke to me, but from over hearing conversations on several different subjects.

I heard several of the salesmen, including Brent, whining about the fact that the old man had decided to appoint a sales manager. The new manager would be in charge of all of sales and would be chosen from the ranks of our current sales associates.

The men were very sure that Galan had the job nailed down by virtue of his sales. Galan had always been a great salesman but since our breakup, he had been on a tear.

During September, Galan had nearly doubled his sales and since no one was even close to him. It made some of the other sales people look as if they were barely working.