Joshua Miles - 1. The Invisible Man

Scott Henderson was seen as many things by many people.

His school yearbook described him as strong academically, athletic, swim team captain, popular among his peers and destined to succeed.

His parents saw him as the model son, only child and future graduate.

His male school peers saw him as the man to beat.

The girls at his school saw him as handsome, hunky, sexy and the boy they wanted to date.

On the other hand Joshua Miles, who was skinny, flat-chested but good academically, was not seen by anybody.

Joshua longed to be like Scott, athletic, muscular, popular, but above all...noticed.

Most nights he lay in bed with Scott’s image in his mind, superimposing his own face on Scott’s body. He wondered if it was all hard work or did Scott have a genetic advantage. He thought about attending a gym to build up his body and when he nervously asked his parents if they would buy him a gym membership, he was surprised when they agreed.

“We have been waiting for you to ask” replied his father “All the young men seem to be doing it these days. Not like my day when gyms were only for professional athletes or muscle heads, as we called them”

“You should keep in shape” added his mother “If you want to attract all the girls. They seem to place a lot of importance on a boy’s muscles these days”

“How do you know all this Mum?”

“I listen to the young girls at the hairdresser, it’s all they talk about some days”

“I didn’t know that, must be why some guys spend so much time doing push ups in the school yard. I even saw the boys next door doing chin ups on the clothes hoist. Mind you their Mum wasn’t impressed when she found out why her clothes line arms were bent”

“Well, I don’t recommend that, so your Dad and I will be happy to give you a gym membership as an early birthday present”

“Thanks, you two are the best. I’ll soon be bulging out of my T shirts, just like Scott”

“Who’s Scott” his mother asked.

“Oh...um...he’s a boy at school, super physique, swim team star and popular with everyone”

“Especially the girls” his father said with a wink

“Yes...the girls...of course, Dad”

“Don’t expect too much son, it won’t happen overnight”

“Sure Dad”

***

Joshua wasn’t a complete slouch when it came to exercise. He went everywhere on his bicycle and was really quite an experienced and proficient cyclist, although not competitively.

There were a few hills around his home area, which he usually avoided until one day he needed to go up the steepest of these, as there was no alternative route to the gym. He put his bike in low gear, but it was still an effort to pedal up the hill. He strained every muscle in his body and made it up the hill. When he stopped at the top, for a breather, he realised he had an erection. During the ride up, he had only thought of the hill, nothing that should bring on an erection. ‘Oh well I’m young and healthy; I suppose that happens’ he thought.

***

Joshua got signed up at the gym and on his first visit, looked around the store while waiting for his introductory interview, assessment and supervised training session. Among the huge array of gym related merchandise, such as clothing, shoes, books, videos and supplements; the tight fitting shorts caught his attention on a perfectly built, generously endowed mannequin. Joshua wondered if advertising his assets would be a worthwhile pursuit. Despite his shortcomings in other areas he could have amply filled the shorts. However the cost was beyond Joshua’s pocket money and he figured his parents would not shell out more, given that he already had many pairs of shorts suitable for exercise.

After a quick tour of the gym equipment, the instructor asked Joshua what his goals were.

“To look like... him” he replied, as he pointed to a pumped up hunk doing crunches while holding a huge weight on his chest.

The instructor held back a laugh as he told Joshua that would take many years of work and maybe he should set a more realistic goal to commence.

“How about I set out to look like this?” he asked as he scrolled through his phone and found a picture of Scott on the diving blocks at the pool.

“Ok, that’s more realistic”

Joshua was shown how to use the appropriate equipment to build his upper body, then settled in to do his reps.

***

A few days later he went to the gym and again found himself with an erection at the top of the hill. This time he concluded it must have something to do with the effort of cycling up hill.

The following day he cycled up the hill again, this time paying less attention to the effort of pedalling and more to how his body was reacting and noticed that he did feel randy while exerting the effort needed to push his bike up the hill. Every down stroke not only propelled the bike forward but also pumped more blood into his penis. At the top he stopped and thought ‘I feel fuckin’ fabulous. Who would have thought?’ Thereafter, he always went via the hills whenever he could.

***

After a few weeks of working out three times a week, Joshua complained that he couldn’t see any improvement in his body. He was told by the gym supervisor that buying a gym membership didn’t just add lean muscle to your body automatically. He had to do the work to achieve the results. Over the next few months Joshua’s gym visits became less frequent, he became disillusioned and concluded that he just didn’t have the genes to build muscle. Less frequent eventually became not attending at all.

Joshua then reckoned that his admiration of Scott’s body may be more than just the desire to look like him maybe it was something else. He was right of course, Joshua had an enormous crush on Scott and had he not been invisible to most of the world it would have been public knowledge as he was always following Scott and his group around the school and scuffling with others to get as close as possible to Scott in the classroom.

But all this was to no avail, as his efforts were either ignored or barely noticed.

Every girl Scott’s age was doing much the same as Joshua and none of them seemed to be any more successful. When Joshua noticed this, he saw it as a positive for him. He reasoned that if Scott was not paying attention to his female admirers then perhaps he was not into girls after all. To Joshua this meant there was just a glimmer of hope that he could be successful in his quest to become Scott’s boyfriend.

***

As he could not get Scott’s attention in other ways, he decided to write a card for Scott. By the time he had written down the words he was happy with, his waste paper bin was full of aborted attempts and he had only one spare card.

Happy with his effort, he then wrestled with the decision to sign it. He was too embarrassed to sign his name because he feared rejection, but reckoned not signing it was pointless. Scott was not going to respond to an anonymous admirer.

He then hit on the idea of a compromise. He would send an anonymous offering first, then when he had Scott’s interest he would follow up with a signed admission of his love.

He got to school early the next day so he could slip the card under the door of Scott’s locker and wait around the corridor to see his reaction.

Unfortunately Scott did not see the card as when Joshua slipped it under the locker door it went under all the other items in the locker.

Joshua watched every morning for a week but to no avail. This result called for Joshua to step up his approach. So the following day he went to school with another anonymous card and engineered bumping into Scott while he was at his locker, holding his books. The plan was to drop the card when Scott dropped his books, then walk away and wait for Scott to find it.

Attempt one was going well, the bump went off well, Scott’s books dropped, card dropped and apologies made by both parties. But as Joshua walked away, Scott caught up with him and said you must have dropped this, then put the unaddressed card on top of Joshua’s books and ran off to catch up with his mates.

‘Shit, you should have put his name on it’ Joshua chastised himself.

Attempt two went very differently. Joshua left it a week, so as not to be obvious and tried the accidental bump again. Scott was just unlocking his locker as Joshua approached for the accidental bump and card drop. Scott opened the door and.....

“You’re Joshua aren’t you?”

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I make it my business to know my fans”

“Thank you, and yes I am a big admirer of yours”

Scott then put his arm over Joshua’s shoulder and said “Let’s walk to class together”

“I’d love that. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, anything”

“Why haven’t you spoken to me before?”

“I don’t want the others to know I like you. It’s not personal but it would not be good for my reputation around here if they knew I was attracted to....”

“Me?” asked Joshua

“That also, but specifically a man”

“Oh, I get it. I’m not really out either, so we can keep each other’s secret for now”

“Good” replied Scott as he removed his arm from Joshua’s shoulders.

“Yes, wouldn’t do to walk into class like that”

Scott looked straight into Joshua’s eyes” then he heard another voice say “Josh, can you hear me?”

“Mmm” was all a groggy Joshua could reply” as he looked up to see Scott over him.

“Josh, it’s Miss Jones, can you hear me”

“Y e s” he replied slowly, without looking at the enquirer.

“You’re in the sick room, you’ve had a bump on the head and have been unconscious for ten minutes. How do you feel?”

“Um...ok I suppose”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Joshua turned his head away from Scott, counted and replied “Four?”

“Excellent”

Then Scott said “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you coming and opened my locker door straight into your head.

“That’s all right Scott, just so long as we are....” Joshua didn’t finish his sentence when he realised he must have been dreaming while unconscious.

Unfortunately he didn’t remember the best part of the situation. Scott picked him up in his strong arms and carried him to the sick room, like a Mills and Boon lover, after he fell to the floor.

***