Gamorelin

Mike met Emma for the first time in her office, which was huge and sterile. Emma was the one to go to for gear. This was what Carlos had told him, anyway. The truth was that Mike hated Carlos—for being tall, namely, but also for his easy confidence in the face of inferior accomplishments. Emma was tall too. She wore a lab coat that swished around her thick ankles.

She explained to Mike the potential side effects. Paranoia, rage, melancholy, decline in cognitive function. Then: “If you’re not careful, you may experience shrinkage of the testicles, severe erectile dysfunction, and gynecomastia, among other changes to your sexual characteristics. I know a thing or two about that, and trust me—it can be harrowing if you don’t want it,” she said and laughed mirthlessly.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m a trans woman. I’m also injecting exogenous hormones into myself. It’s how I got into this practice. It’s an ethical thing. People should be able to express themselves, change their body however they want, without having to go through some hospital that ignores its patients in favor of right-wing donors. Even bodybuilders like yourself. It’s not like I need the money—I’m a surgeon—so you’re getting all of this at a hefty discount. It’s a side hustle—and quite an illegal one at that. So don’t spread this around.”

“All of this” was a regimen of Gamorelin, a popular new anabolic steroid that purported to achieve the same results as Trenbolone et al. without the devastating consequences one might associate with them.

Emma was altogether quite beautiful, he supposed, and in many ways his “type.” It made him nervous, a little, to know she was trans. Not that he was transphobic. It was just something extra, that added a little thrill. 

Emma plunged the needle into his quadricep.

***

The gym, for Mike, was always and had always been an exercise in masochism. He could admit this to himself, in a sort of wordless way. As an angsty teen, the masochism manifested in the form of cutting. A razor blade in the bathroom, often along his upper thigh, where boxers could cover the scars. Occasionally he’d bring in a lemon slice to squeeze over the gaping wound, which he always thought looked yonic. He remembered telling a school counselor that he wanted to “carve a cunt into himself.”

In college, the masochism became an excess of pre-made Negronis, which were the least palatable vessel for alcohol. He laid out rows of them in plastic cups every weekend and drank as quickly as he could between gags. He wasn’t after the euphoric buzz, but the sickening comedown the morning after. He lay in bed, nauseous but refusing to puke, agonizing over every mistake he had ever made.

Having matured sufficiently, now it was the gym. He lifted without any concessions to vanity; the only goal was devotion. Three reps of ten. Ten milligrams of creatine. The terrible gasp of failure, over and over. Protein oatmeal in the morning, chicken breast with broccoli for lunch, and New York Strips with sweet potatoes for dinner. Eight full hours of dreamless sleep to promote testosterone levels.

***

Gamorelin was known at this time to be a typical anabolic, widely regarded as “safer” than its alternatives. An American pharmaceutical company following advancements from an Israeli brand, synthesized the compound and tested it on little capuchin monkeys at a lab in Virginia until its efficacy was clinically proven. And indeed it was efficacious: the capuchins bulked up to such a level that they began scaring the researchers—the hypertrophied monkeys became strong enough to bend the bars of their enclosures—who quit the experiment as soon as they could.

Photos of the ‘roided-out primates could be found in sleazy corners of bodybuilding forums. Mike had seen plenty. The striation and definition were such that they looked more like pygmy gorillas than miniature monkeys. Mike was after this simian aspect, this muscle-bound brainlessness. He wanted the bellies of his muscles to bulge, like little pins all throughout his body, squirming wormlike at all times.

***

He began to feel kaiju-esque, swinging the weight back and forth with rageful abandon. He added inches at a time to his triceps and deltoids, his quads and glutes. The Bosnian immigrant Sveta Kurjak, whom Mike had always ogled to induce motivation in himself, remarked on the gains he’d made, at which he felt heat rising to his cheeks.

At his next appointment with Emma, as he lay upon her doctor’s table, she brushed her forearm against his quadricep, whereupon Mike developed a semi-erection. Seeing this, Emma giggled a little and plunged the syringe into him.

Here was rage, like she’d pillaged his village and stolen his wife and sold his children into slavery. He felt like he might hit her, but he bit his lip and it subsided, or at least moved to someplace in his body that no longer had access to the outside world.

He drove to the gym. He hit legs. He did four plates on a Smith machine squat. One more rep would be a personal record. As he pushed through the pain associated with achieving his goals, he felt like he was becoming a ghost, disintegrating into a million little particles. And as he lay panting beside the rack—he had always seen these machines as torture racks—it felt for a second like life might be okay. Then he got home and all the wrath had returned, and he spent the night before his laptop screen as usual.

***

The most pronounced effect of Gamorelin was on his libido. The warnings had proven accurate: it was akin to a second puberty. Every woman and most men on the street became in his mind mannequins for pornographic fantasies. He had an erection perhaps forty percent of the time. His consumption of actual pornography, too, skyrocketed. He sorted by category: lesbian and BDSM, at first, then more “esoteric” fetishes. Finally, he landed on various genderbending fantasies: he watched videos of women (sometimes men, though less often) telling him all the ways he would be better off in a skirt, better off shaved, better off letting hundreds of men ejaculate onto his face, into his rectum.

Pornography, in this way, became a nighttime meditation. Into this he channeled his hate and rage, all the atavistic feuding to which his hormonal profile was now so conducive.

If Mike was honest with himself, really honest, the way he only was at around 1 or 2 AM on a Sunday night after he had taken his allotted zero-sugar marijuana edible, he might admit that Carlos was the same as Sveta Kurjak. He’d had male friends before, like Jack Mesquite, with whom he had used to load frog carcasses with firecrackers in the fifth grade. Carlos was not like that.

He often thought about Carlos when he masturbated, even after he started seeing Emma. Carlos was five foot nine, just tall enough to be impressive to him. Mike imagined himself in the receptive position, being weakened and finally overpowered. He would be transformed. He would be like putty, soft and slick.

***

The next time Mike saw Emma she said, “Listen, Mike, I’ve enjoyed our little sessions. I’ve admired your progress. I like the way you think about things—I like your dedication. I was wondering . . . would you wanna get dinner tonight? My treat. I know a great cocktail place uptown.”

He started to sweat profusely. “Oh, um,” he said.

“Oh, shit, sorry, never mind. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“No, no,” he said. “I’d love to go. I’ve just—never been asked out before.”

“Really? Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ll pick you up around eight?”

Mike nodded sheepishly. She injected the usual Gamorelin.

Then Mike went to the gym and hit a ruthless albeit somewhat inefficient pull day, went home, took a shower, shaved his face and pubic hair—he’d become thirty percent more hirsute since the regime had begun—and masturbated into a tissue. Then he sat before his apartment’s front door, sweating enough to nullify the shower.

When he got the knock, Emma appeared in a tight red dress with matching lipstick. They walked wordlessly to Emma’s fancy SUV, and she drove them with a kind of ferocity and verve that frightened Mike at first, to the cocktail place she’d mentioned. Mike drank only water while Emma made it through three gin doubles. The conversation began to flow. They told each other jokes. Then Emma was altogether too drunk to drive home, so they took a cab.

Other than that first time, though, she always drove, always paid for dinner when they went out. She bought Mike many filet mignons, which fit nicely within his macronutrient goals. Mike, who hadn’t had many girlfriends, was baffled by the whole ordeal.

“Why do you like me?” he asked Emma. It was their fourth date at a fine dining place after the waiter had poured them a glass each from a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. “I mean really. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I can’t imagine it.”

“I like the shape of you. You just keep growing. I’ve always been into that. And you’re nice. I’ve been with bodybuilding types, and often they’re arrogant, full of themselves. Which can be fun at first, but it fades so quickly. I’m a strong person, but I can’t handle those brick-wall men. You’re not like that. You have weakness. In a word, you’re passive.” She sipped her wine, and after a moment of silence they went back to their jokes and innuendoes.

As the dates went on, Mike decided he wasn’t offended, being thought of in this way. In previous relationships he had felt paralyzed when asked to make a decision. Emma knew who she was and what she liked. She always had a plan. She wielded her scalpels and syringes with a deft confidence that brought a stirring to Mike’s groin.

***

Sex had always frightened Mike. There was his fateful “first time,” at twenty years old, where he’d squirmed and wriggled his way through it. With Emma, it was a similar story. He shivered and whimpered when their clothes came off. His penis proved uncooperative; the process of intimacy was laborious and altogether fairly unpleasurable. Emma seemed to shudder in a happy but unsatisfied sort of way. They slept together two or three times a week thereafter. It felt like going through the motions.

***

Soon there were major and unexpected side effects. Not the listed ones, either. Not the gynecomastia and impotence, at least not outside their tolerable ranges. Here were strange scaly spots up and down the sides of his torso. Big, non-muscular bubbles like purulent frogs’ cheeks in odd locations. He called up Emma and explained his scenario. She suggested he come over immediately.

He showed up, appearing a little “medieval,” she said. “But this doesn’t seem like a big deal,” she went on, and slid her fingertip across one of the patches of affected skin.

“Not a big deal?” Mike whined. “Look at me. I’m gross.”

“You’re on enough gear to mog Adonis, and you look like it. Minus these little splotches.”

He paced back and forth for a few moments. “Where did you get that stuff? This could be some poorly-sourced garbage, synthesized inexpertly in, I don’t know, someone’s basement.”

“Look, Mike, relax—this chemical is pharmaceutical-grade. I have a connection at the lab where they make it. I’ve literally overseen its production.”

“You could be lying.” He got up close to her. He grimaced in such a way as to appear apelike, though the truth was that, even if he succeeded, his expression was far more bonobo than gorilla.

“Lying?” Emma averted her gaze. “You think I would lie to you? You think I’d lie to you about what I’m putting into your body? I can’t believe you could even entertain that idea, Mike. I take pride in my commitment to medical ethics. I especially wouldn’t breach them when I’m helping someone . . . someone I love.”

Mike saw petite tears sliding down her cheeks. This was the first time he’d seen her cry. It was also the first time she’d professed to loving him. Together these elements constituted Emma’s first and only foray into weakness. He didn’t know what to make of it. He retreated slightly.

She looked up at him, red-eyed and sniffling.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said. “And I love you, too.”

She smiled exasperatedly. They went to Emma’s place and attempted to have sex for twenty-five minutes. Even after fifteen milligrams of tadalafil, Mike decided he was incapable of erection, at which point he enthusiastically, albeit clumsily, gave Emma fellatio. He managed in the end, late into the cloudless night, to make her whine and writhe.

***

The changes continued, accelerating in pace and severity. He checked the mirror most mornings to discover that the strange pustules had spread, creating a kind of stony appearance across his triceps, deltoids, and latissimus muscles. They were especially bad around his breasts. The gynecomastia was now outside its tolerable range. It got to such a point that he needed to wear a binding shirt that pressed the fatty pads above his pectorals back against his bulging ribcage. And when he took it off, his breasts dangled obscenely.

He stared at his silhouette in the overbright morning light reflected in the bathroom mirror. It was an hourglass now. His genitals had shrunk. His quadriceps concealed them. He wondered why this didn’t distress him more. He told Emma about it, and she assured him, of course, that this was within a certain “margin of error” in terms of the drug’s efficacy. Perhaps in the winter he could slow down the dosage. He worried that by then he would be monstrous.

If he ever wanted to return to normal, whatever that meant, he would need surgeries: scalpels making slits through which all this slimy tissue would flow in a chunky slurry. Emma, meanwhile, saw no problems. She swore that he was only getting more attractive.

“I’m afraid of getting surgery,” he said. “I’m afraid of general anesthesia. Of taking a nap I can’t wake up from. Just being . . . under . . . forever.”

“It’s not so bad,” Emma said, massaging his upper arm. “I’ve had plenty of surgeries at this point, and I’ve been better off because of them. I don’t regret anything. If anything, it’s empowering to change yourself. You could get surgery easily—I’d help.”

“You’d perform the surgery on me?”

“What? Jesus, no, don’t be crazy. But I know people.”

Mike nodded. He didn’t think he would stop the Gamorelin, though he couldn’t place the source of his reluctance. Something was comfortable in it. The regular injection from Emma. In his most secret fantasies he had a huge, terrible longing for Emma to operate on him: to be on the table before her, open at last.

***

In the morning, after an hour of cuddling and a couple abortive attempts at sex, Emma said it was time to check his levels. She drove them to her office and swabbed the crook of his elbow with an alcohol pad. During this he reflected on the fact that it was the opposite of a bicep curl.

Emma jabbed him and they watched the vial grow redder. “If only your cock could fill with blood this quick,” she said slyly. Mike felt that he ought to be offended, that he ought to experience the icy pain of insecurity. It would hardly be an alien thought, after all. Instead, he simply blushed. Emma capped the vial and went to test it in the lab.

Mike stared blankly at the office door. After a few moments there was a rough sort of knock and then Carlos stepped through. “Oh, hey, Mike,” he said. “Is Emma here?”

“She just stepped out. I’m in the middle of an appointment with her.”

“I’ll come back later . . . She’s a little kooky, isn’t she?”

“Kooky how?”

“She’s always pushing strange chemicals on me. I’m sure she’s done it to you, too. I’m not gonna let this lady experiment on me, y’know? Just give me the Tren, bitch!” Carlos paused and then smiled at him. “You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?”

“What? Why, how—”

“It’s okay. I have, too. I don’t think it’s gay or whatever, but then again, it’s not the same as pussy, right?” He chuckled jovially.

Mike considered for a moment whether he’d be able to beat Carlos to death with his bare hands. He imagined the spatter of blood and brain staining the austere white floor. He imagined the pinkish mixture of cerebral fluid and so much viscera into which Emma would step. She would look up at a dripping Mike and grin broadly and call him good. But in the end he only said, “Good to see you, Carlos.”

“Yeah, you’re looking great these days, Mike. Huge!” And he went away.

When Emma returned, she explained that the number of nanograms of testosterone per deciliter in his blood was many, many times the amount a typical male might have. “That’s typical of anabolics. But what’s a little stranger,” she continued, “is that your estrogen level is also substantially above the average level for women. At this point, it’s like you’re beyond biological sex. You have an endocrine system that, conceivably, no one on the history of this planet has. You have hormones from the future, Mike.”

***

By November, he had moved into Emma’s townhouse. He rarely left. Emma had an extensive gym in her basement, and she didn’t charge him rent. He worked out and cooked and cleaned. His body had ballooned to 350 pounds. His boobs grew droopier daily. The Gamorelin-induced pustules now stretched along his spine like hackles. They caused searing pain whenever he got frustrated.

From his vantage at the window by the sink, fifteen feet above the sidewalk, he watched the small people walking to work. He listened to the news playing on the TV in the living room. A lab break in Virginia, the same lab where they’d tested Gamorelin on capuchins.

During sex, Emma would say things like, “You look fucking simian!” between less coherent expressions of pleasure, and indeed, these days they had sex. Somehow, resigning himself to flaccidity had done well to take the edge off of lovemaking.

He put some plates away. He dried a bowl or two. He saw men in suits and children in school uniforms on the street. Then he saw the beginnings of a commotion below. People began to gather around what looked like rottweilers tussling by a fire hydrant. But they weren’t rottweilers, Mike realized with a giddy thrill—they were the capuchins from those old bodybuilding forums, the ones in the late stages of Gamorelin treatment, as bumpy and busty as him.

They fought each other and shrieked at each impact of one thickened limb against another. Snow had begun to fall. No one made any attempt to stop the monkeys. Passersby formed a circle as if watching busking dancers. Snowflakes fell against the window, making the scene take on a dreamy blur.

Red started to spatter the whitening concrete. Soon the capuchins were more matted blood than fur, more red than the unhealthy ochre they were before. One of them fell belly-first to the ground, and the other was on top instantly, slamming its fist into the fallen one’s cranium.

Everyone watched with placid contentment. Once shards of skull had scattered into the road, the victor capuchin began to eat the defeated opponent. It ate beyond what seemed feasible, more mass than one could picture fitting in its little stomach. Mike stood there with a plate in his hand, achingly alone, until there was nothing but a toy-sized skeleton.