The Fickle Flex of Fate (Short Story) (Patreon)

The Fickle Flex of Fate

Written by: SteeleBlazer

I was excited for the great big bodybuilding championship. Winning it would be the big change I wanted in my life, and I knew—it was my fate to become a bodybuilding champion.

Or so I thought...

Turns out, fate can be fickle.

Anyway, the week of the competition drew near, and that same week a traveling carnival rolled into town. I thought it would be a fun little lark to go and get my fortune read. If I had known then what that fortune reading would have portended, it would’ve filled me with dread, and I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near that tent.

But I thought to myself, what do I have to lose?

It’ll be fun. Besides, I saw the gypsy fortune teller—and I really wanted to impress her with my muscles.

Maybe, I thought, it was fate—and that maybe she could be my date. I’d let her touch and feel my muscles as I flexed for her, let her know what true strength and power felt like… for a night at least, before I kicked her to the curb like all the other girls I dated.

But that’s just the fate of all the girls that I date.            And we all know sometimes fate can be cruel.

I remember stepping into her tent—the smell of incense, the shimmer of candlelight, the slow, knowing smile she gave me. The gypsy woman—what a babe! She was my kind of woman, and I knew meeting her just had to be fate’s decree. She couldn’t help but eye up my muscles, and I couldn’t help but maybe not-so-nonchalantly flex for her. Hey, if you got it, flaunt it—and I’m not fickle about flaunting my muscles!

Besides, they say fortune favors the bold—or, in my case, the buff—and let me tell you, by the way her eyes were looking at my hunky muscles, I knew this fortune teller favored me.

She shuffled the deck, and I watched the cards flick through her fingers like fate itself was dealing them.

The first card was Strength. You could say that card suited me just right! The second—The Lovers... and again, I thought it was my fate to have one truly wild and unforgettable weekend...

But then she turned over the last card. A skeleton. Death!!!

Only she said I wouldn’t die—no, my dream would. My biggest, greatest dream.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to flex and show her there wasn’t a chance in the world I’d lose that bodybuilding championship, that my dream wouldn’t die, that all her words and those cards were a lie, that I was the master of my own fate...

But before I could even finish my flex, a cold, dark feeling swept over me, like a shadow passing through my veins. I felt my biceps go soft beneath my skin, my chest deflate, my strength trickle away like sand through a glass.

And as I flexed, my muscles withered like raisins. Gone. Just gone.

I didn’t need to wonder where they went, though. Because right before my eyes, the gypsy woman was flexing—big, massive, championship-sized muscles. Her sleeves stretched, seams splitting, her bicep peak rising like a mountain of muscle that looked oddly right at home on her beautiful but now brawny figure, almost as if she was fated to have those great big muscles.

And that’s when I realized not just how fickle fate could be—but how cruel.

My dream of being a champion bodybuilder was dead and buried, all because I was touched by the fickle finger of fate.

And strange as it might seem, I kind of wanted to touch that fickle flexed biceps of hers. But I didn’t have the strength to admit it.

And now that my muscles are gone, and the carnival’s long left town, that’s something else that’s slipped through my fingers.

But I’ll always remember that flex of hers, and how strong and beautiful she looked.            It was the fickle flex of fate.