Muscle Maturity Ch. 01

**This story was written with input from curl4ever, who has a good library of similarly-themed stories right here on Literotica. Check them out!**

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"And so," I said, concluding my speech, "we are very proud indeed to be at the forefront when it comes to helping the next generation of STEM talent - that's all of you here today. To this end, our Institute is pleased to have selected your school as one of 20 across the country to receive our $100,000 Youth Development Grant. We want to recognize the efforts of all your dedicated teachers to prepare you for educational and career success in a rapidly changing global environment."

The faces before me - all female - shone with rapt attention, or so I fancied. Here were 50 of the state's best and brightest young students who would go on very soon to do degrees in life sciences, civil engineering, computer programming, conservation biology, and much more besides. I liked to think that my job involved helping them in no small way.

Well, I had spouted enough cliches for now, I thought. "So without further ado," I said with a smile, "let me officially present this symbolic cheque to your teacher representative, Mrs... Nope, sorry, I'm sorry about that, Ms. Judith Harrell!" I had misread the somewhat squiggly handwriting on the card I'd been given.

The teacher in question stepped up onto the podium, beaming, as the students applauded. She flashed me a broad smile, and with her eyes managed to convey that she hadn't been offended by my error. Or so I imagined.

We shook hands, and she had a surprisingly firm grip, which I appreciated. Perhaps I'm a bit of a traditionalist, but whether it's a man or woman I was shaking hands with, I prefer not to feel as though I was shaking a limp rag in my hand.

Afterwards, as we were all milling around at the buffet table, she came up to me and we struck up a conversation.

"Dr. Jay Johnson? I just want to say again how much we all appreciate what your Institute is doing for us, especially for the girls."

"It's very much our pleasure, Ms. Harrell, and I'm very sorry about my mistake earlier..."

She laughed, very pleasantly I thought - openly, honestly, without artifice. "Oh, don't worry about that, Dr. Johnson. Please, call me Judith."

"Very gracious of you, Judith. And please... call me Jay."

We shook hands again, and once more I noticed she had a very firm grip... I had to mentally stop myself from thinking "for a woman". All of a sudden I found myself wondering what her physique looked like, underneath that formal blazer of hers. She was a very handsome woman, I thought: high-cut auburn hair and a firm jawline. She looked a little over 40, with only a hint of crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, probably from smiling.

But she was saying something. "This grant is especially meaningful to our school, as you may know. Many of our students who will benefit come from some of the most underrepresented groups. I think the Institute is sending a good, strong signal here to the country at large. Or we hope, anyway," she laughed again, "that people are taking some notice at least! But I believe they are."

"I do believe so as well, Judith. I know at the very least my immediate superior in the Institute, a certain Dr. Ashwani Rai, believes so as well. She has been tremendously supportive of this scheme. I think we can all make a difference in our own ways here, and I do think the biggest difference," I told her, looking her in the eye, "is made by you classroom practitioners, on the ground so to speak. I don't think I was ever cut out for pedagogy, so I suppose that's why I went into the research side of things. But I have the greatest admiration for teachers like you."

I hoped that I wasn't coming across as condescending or patronizing, but she apparently didn't think so - I came away with a coffee date the next week. It turned out that we lived just about an hour away from each other, so it was not that difficult to find a good meeting place. And so it was that one week afterwards Judith and I were sitting in a café, while I was going on in my rambling way - very tedious no doubt - about my line of work.

"The thing that a lot of people don't realize," I was saying, "when they talk about promoting STEM, is that it isn't just a matter of getting the pipeline stuffed with students! It isn't a flat pipeline, you see, but a vertical one. All too many students fail to actually get to the top of it - it requires consistent, patient application of effort. That's a key reason why we're seeing such dropout rates along the way. We need more disciplined mentoring..."

If she was bored, she was doing a great job of hiding it, that's all I can say.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of the waitresses was having a problem - the trolley she was pushing had gotten wedged in the doorway, somehow. The door wasn't fully open. She was yanking hard, in a way that could have caused her some back injury, but the trolley wasn't budging.

"Sorry, excuse me for a bit, Judith... Here, young lady, please, allow me..."

The waitress looked a bit dubious and gave me a skeptical sidelong glance, but stood aside.

I was wearing work clothes and shoes, but this wasn't anything I couldn't handle. After I'd braced myself properly and gotten a good grip, I managed to dislodge the trolley with a single jerk, and nary a twinge anywhere in my body.

"Gee, thanks!" the waitress gushed. I smiled, gave a mock bow, and returned to my table.

Judith was smiling at me, with her head tilted sideways. "That was pretty impressive."

"You mean, 'for an old guy', don't you?" I quipped as I sat down opposite her.

"No, I mean it. You've got good technique. I mean, you know how to move. Do you go to the gym much?"

Do I! I thought.

"Well," I said with a chuckle, "I don't go out to a commercial gym as such. But I do lift, if you know what I mean. I've got a sort of home gym setup in my basement."

"Really! That's doubly impressive, then. I used to do a bit of powerlifting, you know. But that was many, many years ago, I'm afraid. In high school," she said, laughing self-deprecatingly.

"But that's amazing! I've never done anything like that. So you'd know much more about lifting than I do, then."

"Oh no, I'd hardly say that! Like I said, it was just for a while, in high school. I know the basics. How good technique translates to everyday life, that sort of thing. But I haven't spent much time in the gym since then."

She was wearing a simple work blouse, but I could see that she did have a good build - nicely broad shoulders that sloped down into firm fleshy upper arms. She looked like a natural lifter, and I told her as much.

"That's very nice of you to say. I suppose I've always been rather husky. Definitely no bikini model!"

"Well, it depends what you wear a bikini for!" I blurted out, and then my face reddened. "Um, I mean..."

But she didn't seem offended. She leaned in, her eyes twinkling. "What would I wear one for, pray tell?"

I gulped, unable to look away. "Well, really, I just meant... if it were worn for, say, a bodybuilding competition..."

"Bodybuilding!" She laughed. "What an interesting idea. I like the way you think, Jay. I'm not sure I've ever dieted that seriously though. They do that, don't they, bodybuilders I mean?"

"Well, sure... they need to do a lot of very disciplined things, to get enough definition to go up on stage, and then they can't really maintain that level of body fat for long..."

I stopped rambling then, because she was lightly tracing my upper arm with a finger. "Well, you would definitely know about all that, I think. Ever competed before?"

"What? Oh! No, no... I've never been one. I just know things from hearsay, and internet forums, and such."

"Really? You could have fooled me." She was gently caressing my arm now, through my shirt fabric, feeling up my muscle tone. "Mm. Not bad. Not bad at all. Looks like your home gym is doing you a lot of good."

I tugged at my collar, feeling flushed all of a sudden. "Well, I try my best," I said modestly. "What about you? I suppose you've been too busy to work out?"

"There's a Planet Fitness not so far away. But that's too pricey for my taste. As for the other gyms..." She frowned. "Well... let's just say the environment isn't exactly... conducive for women."

"I think I know what you mean," I said. "You get those... 'gym bros', I think people call them. Loud, rowdy, disrespectful, inconsiderate..."

"And lewd," she said with a grimace. "Back in high school, I got plenty of insults about looking too masculine, but I could just ignore those mouth-breathers. In a gym, though..." she rolled her eyes and shuddered.

"Well, that takes the cake," I said, suddenly furious, but I strove to remain calm on the outside. "Doesn't that just. Those young fools had no idea what it means to appreciate strength and dedication in women, clearly. And I definitely understand about the kind of... prurient schmucks you can encounter in gyms."

"Nice way of putting it," she said, laughing. I was really enjoying the way she laughed.

"But of course," I hastily added, "most of the lifters I know from online forums aren't creeps in the least. It only takes a few bad apples to spoil the barrel, after all. The guys I know are knowledgeable, helpful, encouraging... I wish you could meet some of them."

"Like you, you mean? Maybe if I had someone to guide me along in the gym, I could really get into it again. You know? A workout buddy. Or a coach."

"Well..." This was it, Jay, I told myself. Time to throw the dice. I coughed, and said, "if you like, and if it's not too inconvenient for you, I could show you my home setup."

"I'd love that. I'm free this weekend."

Just like that?

"Great! Perfect!"

"Should I come in my workout gear? I'd have to dig up my sports bras. I wonder if they still fit," she chuckled.

We made the arrangements. She would come over, and we would work out together in my basement, just the two of us. It would be a great Saturday afternoon.

Provided I didn't mess anything up!

**

She looked fabulous in a tank top and yoga pants. It was all I could do not to stare.

"So here, you can see I've put up some safety chains this way..."

"That's ingenious! I don't think an MIT graduate could do better!" she quipped, as she examined the suspended barbell.

"Well, I'm very leery of getting injured again, so I do have to take certain precautions."

"I really love what you've done here. This is perfect. All the important equipment in one place, and the privacy too." She smiled at me. "Well done, you."

I smiled modestly and lowered my gaze, feeling like a schoolboy all over again.

"So, Mr. Muscle Man!" She wrapped her towel around the back of her neck. "What shall we begin with?"

I had to laugh at that sobriquet. "Well, we can do a full body routine today, if you like? Just to get you back into the swing of things. Unless you have any preferences, any routine of your own?"

"No, full body sounds great."

We did our warm-up stretches together, and I could no longer stop myself from staring outright. She was naturally beefy, and had sturdy strong-looking limbs. Her high-school powerlifting must have given her a good foundation - or was it her genes that made her suited for lifting in the first place? In any case, it put me in a rather ill temper to think of the immature mockery she said she endured. "Masculine", indeed!

"So, what's the verdict? Not too out of shape for a woman pushing 50, right?"

"I'm sorry," I spluttered. "Didn't mean to stare..."

"Don't worry about it." She was smiling as she arched her back, stretching like a cat on the floor. Her pose had her thrusting her chest out at me, and I could see the top of her cleavage.

Truthfully, I told her, "You look fabulous. I can see you must've been quite the powerlifter." I would never have guessed her age, if she hadn't just more or less disclosed it.

"Oh, I did ok," she said with a modest wave of her hand. "Pretty average, actually. Well... now let's see what the old girl's got left in her!"

As it turned out, that was quite a lot.

We started out with some basic high-bar squats. I loaded up the bar for 90lbs, and did 10 steady parallel squats, for a warm-up set. "Not bad," she commented approvingly. "That's good form. I should learn from you."

I went behind her to spot, quite unnecessarily as it turned out, because she took that same weight and did 10 easy reps of her own, with strict form. "Nicely done. You made that weight look negligible," I said, as she racked the bar.

"Thanks. Guess I remember something after all, from the old days!"

We put it up to 135lbs, and again did a set of 10 each. She matched me rep for rep. We were both beginning to work up a bit of a sweat. Perhaps the pheromones were already permeating the air, because she came to stand really close to me - I was taller by only half a head - and rubbed her thigh against mine on the outside.

"Mm. I love a man with good, solid legs."

"And I like women like you, with good solid muscle of your own," I replied, boldly. And why not? All the signals were positive, so far.

She laughed, and flexed her arm, looking a bit skeptical. "I wouldn't say I had much."

Almost on impulse I grabbed hold of that luscious, thick upper arm in front of me, and squeezed gently. "Feels great to me."

"Mostly fat, I'm sure."

"Not at all. See? Barely any wobbling. And besides..." My hand moved over to her fleshy shoulder, and my other hand went up to fondle her other arm. She sighed, and moved even closer. "A little fat is perfectly natural, and sexy." I suddenly realized she was not wearing anything underneath her tank top - it was one of those with built-in support for the breasts, but she was close enough that I could look down and see.

She looked straight up at me, with arm still flexed, and said softly, "I'm not being too forward, am I?"

I shook my head. "Not to me."

Privately I reflected that this was how mature adults went about it. If mutual desire was evident, why should there be any beating around the bush? Leave the elaborate courtship rituals and "relationship drama" to younger people blessed with more energy than good sense. At our age, people like Judith and I knew that if both parties wanted something, they should simply go for it, with consent and understanding.

"So I take it you like your women strong, like your coffee?" She grinned. "Husky, even?"

"Strong is right. And you can be as muscular as you want to be... though of course... I do like more of it."

"Then let's see about putting some more on me, shall we?" she laughed, and winked. I gulped - my throat had suddenly gone dry. Did she know she was having this effect on me with what she was saying?

After composing myself, I went under the bar - 180lbs, but I stopped at 8 reps. That was about as much as I could manage at the moment, and I had no interest in straining myself with 3 or 1 rep maxes just then. Already the effort was making me break out in perspiration all over.

Then Judith asked me for a spot, which I was only too glad to give. As it happened, she needed very little of it. I got a close-up view of the beads of sweat on her upper back as she went down, and up again, 180lbs wobbling only slightly across the back of her neck. Slowly and steadily she pumped out the squats, and my forearms were clamped only lightly around her midriff, just under her rib cage.

It was only on the fourth rep that she began to slow down, grunting slightly. "Come on, you got this, Judith," I said automatically. Her back muscles tensed, and she straightened up authoritatively. To my delight she took in another big breath, and went down again - many others would have simply given up then, and failed to do that one last rep for the real progress. Clearly, Judith knew what it meant to train.

She stopped halfway up, and began groaning, shaking a little all over. That was when I braced her with my forearms, just a bit, and applied a tiny touch of assistance. Slowly she finished the rep, not stopping until she stood, straight and proud, before stepping forward to rack the barbell. Then she turned around, chuckling ruefully and breathlessly; she was bathed in sweat and slumping from exertion.

"Almost didn't make that one."

"You did great. You went the distance."

"Needed a little help from you." Our faces were very close. She reached out and cupped my glutes. Reflexively I clenched them. "Mmm. Good tight buns."

Our crotches were gently rubbing together now, through the fabric. I felt sure she could feel the bulge of my erection against her mound. She wasn't shying away. We were so close that I could see the individual droplets of sweat studding the skin above her upper lip, and feel her hot breath on my mouth.

We shared a slow, deep kiss, without urgency. I was luxuriating in the feeling of her thick, firm body against mine, and I definitely enjoyed how she was kneading my buttocks while grinding against my pelvis in slow circles.

After a while she broke the kiss, panting slightly. "Mmm. I like a strong man with good legs."

I responded by grabbing hold of her shoulders and giving them a good hard squeeze. She chuckled, and flexed her arms.

"You like these guns?"

"Like 'em? Love 'em!"

"We aren't being very disciplined right now, are we, with our workout?" she commented archly. Her biceps pulsed as she tensed and relaxed.

"I guess not. Do you want to carry on as planned?"

"I suppose."

She stepped back and exclaimed theatrically, "Phew! I'm working up quite a sweat. Mind if I cool down a little?" With that, she stripped off her top in one fluid motion.

Her soft, natural breasts bounced free. I stood transfixed as she arched her back and stretched, putting her naked torso on full display for me. Her full-bodied figure was lush. Strong. Her shoulders were round and broad, and she had a natural taper in her upper back that was visible from the front, especially when she posed like this. Her thick luscious thighs were already bulging through the fabric of her yoga pants, testimony to the pump she had gotten from doing those squats. A small roll of fat spilled over the top of those pants, but taken as a whole they didn't detract from her sexiness; on the contrary, they enhanced it.

Judith was a woman. A mature, confident, strong woman.

And she was right here, in my basement gym, topless, stretching and flexing.

She looked down at my crotch, and grinned. I coughed a little awkwardly - I had a very obvious tentpole going.

"I'm sorry for being such a tease. Would you... like to keep training? Or perhaps..."

"Nothing to be sorry about." That "perhaps" was just so tantalizing... "What do you have in mind, Judith?"

She was playful now - she strutted over to stand in front of me, so close that I could see the beads of sweat on her bare skin, dotting her all over. Reaching down, she brushed her fingers lightly across my growing bulge.

"Want me to take care of that for you?"

I must have been smiling like a Cheshire cat. "Wouldn't say no."

She cocked her head to one side. "Shall we play a game, Dr. Johnson? Earn your happy ending."

"How do you mean?"

She explained. We would have a little competition, with deadlifts. I would pick a weight, and do as many as I could. She would pick another weight, and do as many as she could. We would calculate the total volume of work done.

"If you lift more than me, I'll give you a blowjob. If not... you'll have to eat me out." She winked. "Hope you're good at it."

"I have been known to be quite a cunning linguist, at times," I told her, with a straight face. She laughed.

I gestured. "Are you... doing this topless?"

"You don't mind, do you?"