The Female Bodybuilder

'Can I give you a hand with those boxes?'

The upstairs flat had been let at last and Helga could see that the new tenant was a few years younger than herself. He was unloading boxes of books and computer equipment from a station wagon parked next to her BMW outside. Columns of air shimmered in the street in front of the block of flats. He was sweating profusely in the afternoon sun. Not very good-looking, she was thinking, noting the thin brown hair and underweight body.

He was making his way into the entrance hall to where she was standing; giving a brief greeting as he passed, carrying an older-style computer monitor up the stone stairs. He won't last very long in this heat, she thought.

Helga Lindblom had met Clayton Stephens the previous evening when he first drove up and they had introduced themselves in the driveway. 'Hello. I'm your neighbour on the floor below, she greeted, offering an ultra-firm handshake. She was the phys. ed. teacher at a nearby secondary college, she said and looked it. Helga was a woman of 5'5" and about 160 lbs. She had a stocky build but her weight was so evenly distributed that Clay would never have thought of her as fat. She looked to be in her late twenties. Her face was boyish and she wore no make-up. She had long blonde hair and heavy breasts under a plain white T-shirt. Obviously she didn't wear a bra. She did bodybuilding, she said, though there was nothing grotesque about her anywhere.

He told her he was working in an insurance office in the city. Now when he came downstairs, she asked again, 'Would you like some help with those boxes?'

Helga was a Nordic blonde who had won several body-building competitions; she'd even tried out for the Olympic Games, she was saying, but for a pulled hamstring at the last moment.

Exquisitely fair with gold-glistening hair, her sun-tanned body was long and strong in tight blue shorts and cotton blouse. A regular Juno, he thought, though there's nothing gross about her. She's a vibrant flame that dances. He averted his eyes - disturbed - the shadow between her breasts.

Style, poise and elegance, he mused, and an unforgettable body. Hardly likely to be interested in me, he told himself ruefully. For here was woman, woman at her best, an ample madam, gracefully proportioned, with a body shaped and refined. Her luminous dark eyes surveyed him with a queenly sort of pity and forbearance.

Clay had long accepted the fact that he didn't readily attract the general run of women. They more easily felt sorry for him. Apart from being gawky and odd-looking, he was a shy and ineffective lover. Girls were inclined to regard him a bit askance. There was no compensatory promise in his physique.

He will do anything I want, Helga told herself, watching him as he took another carton from his car and passed it to her. Clay felt over-awed, couldn't stop looking at her tanned body and muscular legs as she hoisted the box onto her shoulder, carrying it effortlessly up to his flat. He following, struggling with a suitcase.

Later as they relaxed in his flat with a cool drink, Helga asked if he played any sports.

'No,' he said. 'That's something I was never any good at.' From as early as his pre-teen years, he told her, it was obvious that sports and he did not get along. He was either too slow or not co-ordinated enough. 'Team after team would either cut me, or only allow me to play the minimum amount of time that was required. When teams were picked in gym class, I was almost always chosen last. Often at football practice, I was cast in the role of goal umpire, while other boys fought in the mud over a leather ball, all I had to do was wave two white flags whenever a goal was scored. I'm afraid I'll never be a sportsman.'

Helga smiled, said. 'We'll have to see about that.'

Clay laughed, and pointed to the cardboard boxes of books stacked on the floor of his living-room. 'As you can see, I'm a great reader and I do a bit of writing at nights.' He went on to say that he worked in a routine job in a city insurance office during the day. 'If you want a safe quiet life, become a clerk,' he quipped. She raised her eyes to his, and he looked deeply into her enveloping smile. Their gaze held for a moment then fell away. And because she lingered a little longer than he expected, he invited her out to dinner and a movie that evening.

Like the touch of a scorching flame, her lips brushing with his own as they stood outside her flat later that night. The warmth of that burning kiss lingering as he made his way upstairs.

During the next few days the desire to sleep with Helga Lindblom never gave Clay a moment's rest. The excitement that surged through him. She was in his blood, he felt. The longing for her.

She took it for granted he was coming into her flat a few nights later after they had come back from a nightclub. 'I hate sleeping alone,' she said meaningfully as she closed the door behind him

'Yes ma'am,' Clay laughed, and made a slight bow. 'I'm not quite ...'

Clay was cut-off in mid-sentence as Helga grabbed him and pressed him against her breasts. Her mouth moving down the line of his neck. His shoulder. Trembling under her touch, she held the length of his body pressed to hers. Any words he might be wanting to say were cut off by the crush of Helga's lips against his own. The kiss was forceful, aggressive. Clay had never expected to be taken forcefully by a woman. Somehow Helga had connected with a primitive desire that was buried deep inside him, a desire to be possessed. Helga then slid her hand down and undid his fly. Fondled him with practised ease. Her touch was a combination of both tough and gentle. The young man took a step back, conscious of her strength and that she was using her perfect body to control him.

She ordered him in a bossy tone as she bent him over the arm of a couch. This was her favourite position, she said. It gave her such a feeling of superiority. Helga pulled him hard against her, slid her hands down Clay's body. All that sensitive lover crap might be ok for other women, he thought. But Helga loved to be in control. There was A little of the Prussian about her. 'I like people who follow orders,' she said, smiling as she enjoyed the feeling of power over him.

With a fierce fire in her dark eyes, she spoke again. 'Get down on the floor, boy!' She ordered. 'On your back, boy!' Helga pushed Clay down onto his back and slid a long thigh across his chest. Her arms wrapping around him binding them together with an unbreakable lock. She was incredibly strong. She took him in a voracious kiss, then drove her fingernails deep into his back. She was on top. And in control.

Again she knelt down on top of him, her knees pinning his thighs to the rug. Thus she brought out the submissive in him until he was defenceless.

He had thought he would never let anyone use him like this. Helga was pressing her body against the helpless youth beneath her. It was enough to push him within an inch of the abyss.

Then to untangle from each other. Their sweat drenched bodies. Such a violent love session with a mighty Amazon. Then she gently stroked him, planting a tender kiss on his mouth. Helga was now looking down at the young man's thin body as he lay on the bed. He was not physically attractive. And He had completely no charm, she thought, but he had some queer quality, she couldn't quite define. Some hard nervous quality. Something that matched something in herself. As such he interested her.

And he - gazing up at the length of the woman. Her legs - twin towers of power above him. Such palpitating flesh. Her eyes bore into his as she sat down on the edge of the bed her legs wide apart: 'On your knees, Boy.' He squatted on the fluffy bedroom carpet his face against her inner thigh. Her movements soon told him what to do.

Later that evening, Clay found himself opening up to her as they sat together on the bed. Spoke his fears. Self-doubts. At the same time he was arguing within himself, should he surrender his self to the will of this woman?

Towards morning Helga told Clay that she only liked passive men, that she needed to be in charge, make the decisions. That everything would be fine between them providing he did not come the heavy male with her. 'I divorced a brute of a man two years ago. I don't want the strong male stuff again.' She paused a moment, then went on to say, 'Titus wanted me to give myself unreservedly to him. To sink my own personality, become submerged in him. So fired up with his male ego, he even struck me across the face on more than one occasion, if I challenged him in any way.'

No doubt I had wanted to be wanted, Clay thought to himself. I was netted and I liked it. Well, I did at first! Perhaps there was a touch of the female in me that wanted to be dominated. Or was it because being an unprepossessing man I had wanted Helga, an Alpha-plus woman so much. I was overwhelmed by her interest in me. I was prepared to play along with her and play the submissive role. Submission to a female body-builder!

As at the beginning Helga displayed a curious masculine detachedness to the whole affair. 'I'm fond of you, Clay,' she would tell him, but showed no other affection. And so he submitted to her. Held in those powerful arms he felt like a love doll.

Later, in the afternoon Helga went through her nude body pose routine in the living room of her flat. Her bare feet on the rough pile of the carpet. Clay soon realised that she was a bold brazen woman who liked showing it off. All body builders were narcissistic, he'd heard, and Helga was no exception. She enjoyed posing naked for effect.

Clay was staring at her in awe, and her smile revealed that she liked that. She accepted his worship as her due.

She was a beautifully made woman, and he sat mesmerised in a chair opposite her. Thrusting her breasts out, she delighted in showing off her body, to present her physique, her biceps and taut thighs, with her torso bare and the golden sheen of her skin was quite a turn-on. He took in the well-toned legs and arms, the narrow waist, and the thick blonde pubic patch at the apex of her thighs.

She began to flex and do the seven mandatory poses that were required for the next bodybuilding competition. She began gyrating her hips and then doing squats. Flaunting her nakedness in front of him. She pressed over backwards, providing a wonderful view of her 36"D cup breasts.

Watching her lower and raise herself made Clay catch his breath and his heartbeat pound, bringing out all the primal urges in him. He realised that she was putting on a special show just for him and he was enchanted. The way her calf muscles flexed and her thighs moved. She was presenting a larger than life reality. Finally her routine ended and she sat down beside him. She had a sort of acrid scent. Not unpleasant. As she leaned against him, she had become to the epitome of the perfect woman. And he had thought she would be forever unattainable.

But Helga was more than just a body. She wasn't just a woman with lovely legs and a studied elegance. He found her a challenge. In the evenings Helga would spend time reading and commenting on Clay's stories and poems. Frequently she would make constructive comments and he would rewrite. When one of his stories won an important prize, Helga said she thought he had a future. One night she told him: 'You must give up your day job, Clay. Concentrate on writing full time. I have money enough,' she said, 'to support us both for a year. And you could save rent money by moving down here with me.'

Initially Clay was reluctant to accept this offer, fearing it would make him too dependent on her. But after some considerable persuasion he agreed. After giving up his own tenancy agreement and moving down to Helga's flat, he was more or less happy with the arrangement at first. But as the weeks went by, he began to feel a loss of identity. So he would turn to writing for relief. Tried to lose himself in work. In words. A search for validation and self-identity through language,

Often Helga would break into his thoughts, seemingly inconsequentially. 'I do want a child in the not too distant future,' she would say, her voice taking on a low and throaty timbre. 'Best to be honest with you, Boy.' Then she went on without the slightest change of vocal inflection. 'Not of couse, if you're not interested, Clay, eventually I'd have to move on, have to find somebody else.' Helga never showed emotion. She was as self-contained as stone.

But Clay within himself feared that a child at this time would tie him completely to Helga and interfere with his work. 'I'm sorry if I have little enthusiasm for children,' he said. 'I don't dislike them, but I can't work up much interest in them at the moment. Perhaps in a few years I might feel differently. But for the present I've got to concentrate on getting my novel finished and published. Helga listened then chided him for his lack of concern for her needs. But their relationship continued for the rest of that year. Helga, being dominant, was the better lover. Gave much finesse and imagination to it. Clay was in abject surrender to her, offering that humility which a slave might offer a queen. Her kiss was like a bruise on his lips.

Clay was often puzzled by his feelings toward Helga. He hated it when she called him 'Boy' as it made him feel emasculated. He was unsure whether he loved her, and yet there was a pain and loneliness whenever she was at work during the day that surprised him. But many times he also felt trapped, caught like a wasp in a spider's web. Soon they began to quarrel. They even spent Christmas Day not speaking. That night Clay went down to the pub in the next street and when he got back home she had gone off to visit friends. I must break this umbilical cord, be more independent, he often thought to himself.

On top of it all he was not writing well. He had made several attempts at a pot-boiler of a novel. A spy thriller that never got off the ground. Clay even tried his hand at an abortive love-romance. Losing himself in a wilderness of words. Words placed clumsily on top of one another like stones.

Then another quarrel. 'There's a hard, opposing core in you, Clay, that I cannot mould.' She had said this on more than one occasion. He in masculine pique had refused to answer, refused to be drawn. She was an autocrat and liked getting her own way. They made love. She taking complete charge of him, whether he liked it or not. He swore at her and she slapped him across the face. He slammed the door as he went out. That meant another evening at the pub.

It was a hot January night. When he got back Helga had fallen asleep naked as she was accustomed to wearing nothing to bed in summer, the sheet was thrown back revealing a naked breast and the curve of a thigh. Clay undressed, went into the bathroom and made ready to slip into bed beside her. Her body now stretched out face downward on the bed. She stirred. He made love to her, sodomising her, over-riding her resisting will, her protests. My very selfhood has been at stake, he reasoned. I'll not relinquish my will to her again.

Later that night Clay felt he was like Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. But such is the labyrinth of loving. Helga now began to withdraw from him physically. She has set herself against me, he thought. Helga, reasoning within herself, thought, I must withhold myself within my own self. Rob him of his male power. And then she was saying to him, 'I am going off to Adelaide for a week or so.' Her mother was sick.

However, once she was gone, Clay began to feel trapped alone in her flat, and shut in by that other prison, his own self. I might at any moment splinter into all directions, he thought. By the bedevilled depths of my own nature! He had been vacuuming the carpet in Helga's living room when it suddenly struck him, I have become her house-wife. Or rather, house boy! Many have murdered those they love, he mused. This deadly Juno I have been living with - Helga - an eternal mother, provider of shelter, warmth, my bed and even my food. It was the sense of power it afforded her, he supposed.

Alone, Clay was very much at odds with himself. He was devoted to Helga, but she was too possessive and dictatorial. He was increasingly dissatisfied with being the passive partner in the relationship. This dark mood clung to him like the cobwebs of a nightmare. His emotions were rubbed raw. An all or nothing woman, no less. It is as though I am being stripped of my skin, he thought. It had all begun because she was eager and I was seized with the need to affirm my virility, he reflected. I am like an insect being drawn into a Venus fly trap. She'll devour me completely, if I let her.

Feeling such desolation within himself. Clay realised that he must break free from Helga Lindblom, or spend the rest of his life being managed. She treated him as a schoolboy. To be dictated to, or 'gated' because he had broken her rules. She was masterful, there was no arguing with her. I must look for another job and a flat of my own, he decided.

In the days that followed he was lucky enough to find another day time office job, but was not nearly so well paid. This meant problems in finding another suitable flat. So he moved temporarily into a single room in a hotel. But by the evenings the black devils were at him again. He could not bear the solitude of his room and went down to the bar for a drink.

Eventually Helga Lindblom returned to Melbourne after an absence of six weeks and telephoned Clay who was very pleased to hear from her. During the whole time Clay was on his own he hadn't meen able to get Helga out of his mind.

'I'll have to call in to your place soon to pick up my books and clothes that are still there ... ...'

'I've got a bit of news to tell you,' she quickly interrupted. There was an excited note in her voice. Clay had never known her to be so animated. 'I've just discovered I'm pregnant! But you needn't worry. I intend to have the baby alone,' She then went on to say, 'It's entirely my responsibility. During the whole time we were together I never took any precautions. So I'm not going to make any demands on you,' she said, her voice firm and decisive as usual. She didn't seem worried or upset at all, he thought. In fact, there was a strange sibylline calm about her. No doubt the new life that's feeding on her, he considered. But after she rang off, Clay realised how innerly lonely he had been.

'I want to share responsibility for the child,' Clay said later that afternoon as he stood in the doorway of her flat. He was conscious of her perfume, or was it shampoo. Whichever one, it was appealing.

'That won't be necessary,' Helga replied. 'You need to go on with your writing. A child will only hold you back.'

He had followed her into the living room and she was handing him a coffee, Helga and Clay stood confronting each other.

'I've reached a bit of a dead end, he said. 'I'll either have to start a new story or give up,' Clay admitted, accepting the cup from her outstretched hand. Settling himself on the couch.

Clay is delighted to find how pleased he is to see Helga again and is astonished when she asks bluntly: 'You didn't love me at all?' Her voice suddenly had an emotional quality that Clay had not heard before. Her face had now lost its paleness, and was slightly flushed.

Helga's question broke his resistance to her. This woman Helga has been my alter ego, has known my mind, he realised. And how she has mellowed, he thought. Quite a change in attitude.

'Look about that last night,' he said awkwardly. 'I'm sorry I was a bit rough with you, last time.'

She looked at him, smiled. 'Sometimes, I like it a bit rough.'

'Even when I sodomised you. And you protested.'

Helga looked at him a bit puzzled. 'Let's not talk about it. I'm not bothered about it.'