Offside

Steven Chase was a scary motherfucker.

It’s not that he was a really big guy—he was muscular, but not huge—and not because he was outwardly mean; he wasn’t. He was a tall and dark-haired man of maybe thirty with an Eastern European accent that I couldn’t quite place, but it definitely made me wonder if he was a descendant of Vlad the Impaler.

That was what I thought before I realized what he had planned for me.

He had a bunch of equipment all over the living room, some of which I had seen before. Danielle had me use a few of the items, and there was the one predominant one—a set of parallel bars—that Danielle had pointed out to me in the rehab center but said I wouldn’t be trying them out for a while. Steven didn’t agree with that, I guess.

He did, however, like needles.

“We will begin with your exercises,” he told me as Dad watched from the entryway. “After you have completed those, you will do them all again. There will be no change in the time from the first set to the second set. Then, if you admit you are tired or if it is just too hard for you, I have several ways to give you more incentive.”

My whole body tensed. I even felt my toes flex.

He opened up a case full of hypodermic needles.

“What is that?” I asked hesitantly.

“Adrenalin in this one.” Steven held up a needle. I shuddered a little. “This one contains testosterone.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked over to Dad.

“Really?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Dad said, “though it is the reason some whinier PTs don’t care for Steven’s work. Testosterone builds muscle. You need to build muscle so you can play again.”

“Wouldn’t there be some…um…side effects or something?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Dad said. “Maybe your dick will get bigger.”

They both thought that was pretty damn funny. I glared up at them from my chair.

“It can’t possibly be any bigger,” I snarked back at them. I wasn’t so sure I agreed with Dad about side effects, but he was leaning against the wall with his hands crossed over his chest, and arguing with him wouldn’t have bee

n advisable. He was definitely teetering on the edge.

The beginning of the session wasn’t unlike those I had been through with Danielle—hard and painful, and before it was done, I ended up with sweat pouring down my back. This was different though—we weren’t done.

“Keep going!” Steven yelled. He hadn’t just “spoken” since we started; he only yelled. “Ten more! And then ten more after that if you start slowing down!”

It wasn’t even the pain in my arms that bothered me—I’d done enough weightlifting to understand how that felt—but my side ached where the gash was, and it was becoming harder to breathe. Needless to say, I did slow down, and about sixteen more tries later, my arms gave out, and pain rippled through my torso. The small hand weights fell to the ground.

“Is this all you can do?” Steven asked, his voice filled with contempt. He picked up the weights and handed them back, one in each hand, but my right arm just dropped it again. He growled at me and then went over to his bag for a hypodermic needle.

“What is that?” I asked as I tried to sink back into the chair.

“We already went over this!” he screamed at me. “Adrenaline, so you can keep going and get the results you need! This is only your arms! Just wait until we get to your legs!”

Before I could protest, he jabbed the needle into the crook of my elbow and pushed down on the plunger.

Almost immediately, my heart began to pound.

My breath came in pants.

My head started to swim.

Steven put the weights back into my hands, and my fingers gripped them tightly, reflexively.

“Twenty more!” he commanded. “Now!”