Post by Grisha on Sept 15, 2022 21:37:25 GMT -8
NPL: 87,226
Mr. Spatzleburg sat back in his chair with his back to the rest of his office. His eyes were squinted in thoughtful, cartoonish lines as he gazed outside his sky window. The sun was shining between the glass towers, and it was a beautiful blue day. It was another day where Muscle Fuel could have made more money, which was what he spent his life contemplating. How could his business make more? He hadn’t had any commercial muses bite him; Perry Milton had been leaving them alone; and there hadn’t been any fitness expos. He steepled his fingers and hummed to himself. Between his forehead and fingers, metaphorical electricity was crackling. He couldn’t imagine a month where nothing was happening in South City. There had to be something!
It’s that time of year again folks. Get out your dancing shoes for the hottest competition in town has finally returned to South City! The South City~MAMBA~.
Slowly, Stefan’s chair whirled around. He stared at his flatscreen, watching highlights from last year’s dance competition.
Hundreds from around the world gather every year to compete—in the heat! Mambo, Cha-cha, breakdancing, samba, jive—every competitor brings their unique spin on the art of dance! Competitors can register on…
Stefan had already pulled the website up on his computer. He scowled at his monitor while his blue eyes darted left and right over every line of text. There were words that stood out to him. Hundreds. The World. Everyone would be watching this, which meant money. His mouth curled into a frightening, overjoyed smile, and he slammed his index finger down on his phone.
“Diane, send in Judy!”
“Yes, Sir!”
Judy was in her boss’s office in a flash. Her arms were at her sides as she bowed until she was parallel to the floor.
“Mr. Spatzleburg, Sir. You summoned?” she began.
Stefan mischievously laughed from behind his creepy smile. Timidly, Judy lifted her head, seeing her boss’s eyes peeking at her from just over the table. She frightfully stepped back and hugged herself, having the awkward feeling of being probed. The blond man darted around her in a whirlwind, his hand grasping his chin as he scrutinized her proportions.
“Hm, hm, hm, yes. Yes, I can see it working out nicely,” he thought aloud.
“Um, Sir. What is this about?”
Stefan stopped in a blur of wheat in front of her. His back was to her as he stared out his window once more, gazing into the shining, glorious light of opportunity—“And grasping it!” He snatched at the sun, grasping it in his fist.
Judy gave her boss a blank and confused look. What was he talking about?
Stefan whirled with his fist still clutched above him. He faced his disturbed employee and pointed a sharp index finger at her, “YOU are going to compete in a dance competition.”
Judy’s eyes shrank and her jaw dropped. “H-Huh!?”
He then added with a cool grin, “And you’ll be doing it with Grisha.”
Judy snickered hard before she burst into laughter. She fanned at her boss. “Grisha? You can’t be serious. That would be a disaster!”
As she continued to laugh, she didn’t see her boss laughing with her. He was wearing his money smile, and soon her laughter devolved into pathetic whimpers. She sank to her stocking-covered knees and desperately crawled toward him. “No, no, please. You can’t be serious. I-I can do it. Just…just let me find a dancing coach. I can just dance with the instructor, and I’ll work hard. I’ll win you whatever you want.”
Stefan said nothing. Judy grasped his pants legs and begged, “Please, boss! Anyone but Grisha. You and I know he can’t dance. He’s so heavy-footed and slow!”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen Grisha dance. If he can learn his A, B, Cs, then he can dance! You two have spent lots of time together. The best dancers trust each other. You trust Grisha, don’t you?”
Judy’s eyes narrowed, her right brow twitching with irritation. Stefan leaned down and playfully teased, “Don’t you~?”
Judy released his pants, rose to her heeled feet, and patted any dust from her pencil skirt. She wasn’t going to answer him. She folded her hands over her lap and sighed long, loud, and hard, her shoulders sulking. “You won’t let me say ‘no.’”
“Nope!” Stefan agreed.
Judy sighed again in exasperation. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to him…what if he refuses?”
Stefan tapped his chin. “Hm…Grisha isn’t difficult to convince. Just promise him food or something.”
Judy turned about-face and sauntered for the door. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She stopped before she reached the door. “You better start looking for a replacement. If he stomps on my feet, I’m done for.”
Stefan flicked his wrist at her. “You’ll be fi~ine~!”
Muscle Fuel Gym
The glass doors opened, and Judy was immediately assaulted by the odors of rubber, steel, and musk. Rock music was playing overhead and everywhere she looked, she saw some muscle-inflated lunkheads lifting weights while wearing their tiny tank tops. One of them had their plastic barbie girl with him, wearing skin-tight leggings that left nothing to the imagination. Judy hugged herself once more. She hadn’t been in a Muscle Fuel Gym in a while and she took note to remind Stefan that they needed a dress code.
Grisha wasn’t anywhere in the public area of the gym. He was not only a celebrity, but he was a martial artist who required specialized weights. Judy entered an employee’s only door, which led her through a locker room. In the back of the room, there was a reinforced door. She grasped the handle and pushed against it with her shoulder to open the heavy door. She felt the breeze of the pressure escaping and found Grisha standing before a rack of barbells. Each barbell was made from a different material of unnatural mass, and some of the barbells were electronically capable of exceeding tons.
The large Saiyan was watching her enter through the mirror he was facing. He was bicep curling some electronic weights, his chest rising and falling with his controlled breaths. He was wearing a white Muscle Fuel shirt. The short sleeves were in tatters about his swollen delts, and while the sleeves were ruined, Judy was pleased to see the rest of his shirt held up. It didn’t cling to him like a smedium.
Judy strode over to Grisha with purpose and stopped next to him. She looked up at the Saiyan as he glanced at her from the corners of his eyes.
“Ahem, can I have a moment?” she asked. “Mr. Spatzleburg has another task for us.”
Grisha rolled his eyes as he continued to curl. “Pfft, another commercial…”
Judy reached out in time to unintentionally grasp his bicep as she felt the rock-hard muscle swell into a peak beneath it. It was so big, she thought, her fingers resisting the urge to grope. “Not a commercial,” she reassured him. “Something worse…”
She had the Saiyan’s undivided attention. He was already giving her a dirty look as though she was about to say something to piss him off. Judy smiled sheepishly and patted his arm. “I-I haven’t even told you yet.”
“My face is ready.”
Judy sighed and dropped her hand. She finally revealed, “Mr. Spatzleburg wants us to compete in a um…”
Compete? Grisha’s brows rose with excitement. He held up the weights like clenched fists. “In a fight?”
Judy narrowed her eyes at him. “Me? Fight? Really Grisha?”
Grisha lowered his fists and grumbled, “You right.”
“He wants us to compete in a dance competition.”
Grisha’s face went completely blank.
“A dance competition,” she repeated. His expression didn’t change. “You know…dancing?”
“I am…” the giant scratched the back of his head with the barbell. “Not good at dancing. Lena always dances and try make me. I am terrible.”
Judy tilted her head. “But you have danced before, right?”
Grisha immediately turned his big wall of a back to her as he resumed curling. Judy poked her head around his hip. “Oh, Grisha~”
The Saiyan continued to turn his back to her as she tried to step in front of him. “You have to tell me about the dancing! Did you dance back at your home village?”
“No!” Grisha growled.
“Oh come on, there’s no way out of it. We have to compete.”
“No compete.”
“You have to. Mr. Spatzleburg is going to enter us in the competition.”
Grisha stopped exercising and returned the barbells to the rack. He then headed straight for the door, and Judy knew what he planned to do. He was going to roar and fuss in Stefan’s office. He never got anywhere with it, but it always made her look bad whenever he went over her head to make demands from Stefan. She scowled and shouted, “Stefan said if you refused, then you could eat wherever you wanted!”
The Saiyan pushed through the door and replied, “I already do.”
Judy blinked. She hadn’t expected that response. Usually, the food promise always worked, but they had apparently spoiled him too much! She raced after him into the Employee locker room. “Wait! But there’s some place you haven’t tried yet!”
He ignored her.
“Uh! Um!” she panicked. Hurry Judy; hurry! You’re losing him.
“World’s Largest Burrito!” she exclaimed.
Grisha stopped in front of the Employees Only exit and gazed suspiciously back at her. “What?”
“The World’s Largest Burrito! I saw an ad for it the other day.” She reached into her pocket to retrieve her cell phone. Grisha approached her. Good; she had his attention. She searched away on her phone. Please don’t be a myth; please don’t be a myth!
She searched for the burrito on Ogle and was surprised when she found pictures of one. Judy stared at the image in horror and disbelief, while Grisha was tilting his head, trying to see around her. She lowered her phone and tucked it back into her jacket. “Well, I guess I lied. If food won’t convince you, then I guess you’ll have to go complain to Stefan.”
Grisha didn’t stop staring at Judy. His nostrils wiggled as he sniffed the air, and then she watched his bottom lip turn up. He was unconvinced. He reached into his pants pocket to retrieve his phone. Judy tensed when she saw him remove his own phone. Grisha wasn’t tech-savvy. He couldn’t find the desktop if it were in front of him. He gave her an unsettling grin and she steeled herself. She wasn’t going to let him see her sweat.
Grisha touched his phone’s screen and it resounded with the microphone ping. Judy felt her heart skip as she watched Grisha’s lips part.
Bur-GLARY!
Bing! Retrieving searches for burglary!
The Saiyan glared at her.
Bur-BRIGHT.
Bing! Retrieving searches for bright!
Baring his teeth in anger at Judy, Grisha turned his back to her.
BUR-BURY!
BUR-BERRY!
BUR-BURGER!
Grinding his teeth in anger, Grisha pressed his hand to her face as she kept trying to get closer and closer to throw off his search.
BURNS! BRING! BRONCO!
He grasped her face to silence her and angrily screamed, RRRR! BURRITOOOOOOOH!
The gym-goers paused as they thought they had heard someone scream burrito. What a strange word to shout.
Bing! Retrieving searches for burrito!
Grisha grinned victoriously, and then his expression dropped when the search showed regular-sized burritos. Judy was hammering her fist upon his hand, and the Saiyan released her. She angrily kicked his leg, “Jerk! You could have smothered me!”
The Saiyan was ignoring her. He was scrolling through all the burrito pictures until his eyes widened at the sight of one. He clicked on the image of a burrito so large it needed a few tables to rest on, and the employees were hidden behind its girth. Judy crept over to the Saiyan and peeked at the screen he was gawking at.
Damn! He found it! she thought. Judy scoffed and fanned her hand. “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet Grisha. It’s fake.”
A broad, gluttonous grin stretched on Grisha’s face. He knew she was lying. It was why she tried to stop him in the first place. “Okay, for this. I do,” he said.
Judy frowned and refused, “Absolutely not! Stefan won’t approve of it. You know he won’t. Besides, you can’t eat that thing! Look at it! You’ll die!”
Grisha chuckled and patted his stomach. “I can eat anything,” he said with unwavering confidence.
“Burrito, or no dance.”
Judy narrowed her eyes at him and soon they were both in Stefan’s office. The Muscle Fuel boss was lounged in his chair with his feet kicked up on his desk. “Sure why not,” he agreed.
“What!?” Judy shouted.
Grisha thrust his fists into the air.
“But on one condition. You compete first, and then you can go eat it. I don’t want all those pounds getting in the way of competition.”
Grisha rested his hands upon his hips and sighed. “All right.”
Judy continued to try and convince Stefan it was a bad idea. “Sir, please. Do you know how bad we’ll look if Grisha goes to that restaurant and makes a big slob of himself?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone has managed to eat it yet. If Grisha’s the first, then that only makes him even more famous.”
Grisha tried not to drool thinking about it. “Grisha will be first!” he cheered.
Judy pressed her hands to her face. This was a nightmare. At least the dancing was first. She could tolerate learning to dance rather than watching Grisha trying to eat a burrito the size of a baby whale.
Oh kamisama, just help me get through the dance, she prayed. She bowed to Stefan and made a disgusted face at the floor. “It’s decided then, Sir. Grisha and I will compete in the dance competition, and then afterward, he can go eat that horrid burrito.”
Stefan nodded. “Great! I don’t expect you two to win, but if you do, great!”
Grisha was grinning away, and she knew he was only excited about the burrito. Dance classes are going to wipe that smile right off your face, she thought irritably.
WC: 2,376/4,000