I'll hit the body roulette. I'm 28 years old. I'm a personal trainer. I have a pretty good sense of physicality and I'm ACE and ISSA certified. I've competed in bodybuilding, Classic Physique. Not professional, but it's a hobby.
I'd hit the roulette because I've pushed my body far and it's always good to see what my clients feel. I'm 5'11", 215lbs, brown hair. .
The arcade is the last place where a personal trainer would think of spending time. Twenty-eight years old, ACE and ISSA certifications, bodybuilding competitions in the Classic Physique category. One meter eighty, ninety-seven kilos of sculpted muscles, brown hair. He has pushed his body beyond every limit. Now he is curious to try what his clients feel when they rely on him.
He approaches the machine. A new challenge. A different experience.
The instant after, time runs over him like an avalanche.
Twenty-eight, thirty-five, forty, fifty. The years pass in a few seconds, but it isn’t normal aging. It is a maturation. A becoming something more.
The first thing he feels is the beard. The groomed one, the athlete’s beard, begins to grow, to thicken. It becomes a full, dense beard, mixed with brown and gray. It covers the jaw, the chin, the cheeks. From a mature man. From a bear.
The hair. The brown hair lightens, mixing with gray and white. Still thick, still full, but marked by time.
The muscles do not disappear, they transform. They become fuller, more massive, more… soft. Underneath, the structure is still that of a bodybuilder, but covered, softened. The chest widens, the pecs remain enormous, but now a layer of gray and white hair covers them. Thick, dense, warm.
The belly. A belly begins to form. Not flabby, not loose. Solid, full, a bear belly. Covered with gray hair that comes down from the chest, that wraps around it, that makes it warm and inviting.
The shoulders remain wide, the deltoids full. The arms remain big, the biceps still evident, but covered with gray hair, softened by time. The veins still show, but among the hair.
The weight. Ninety-seven kilos become one hundred ten, one hundred fifteen. All mass, all presence, all bear.
The shirt he is wearing, a simple work shirt, begins to tighten. The buttons stretch over the hairy chest. One after another, they give way. They pop. The shirt opens wide, revealing what is underneath.
The enormous chest, covered with gray and white hair. The soft but solid belly, also hairy. The muscles that can be glimpsed beneath the fur. A bear torso, warm, inviting, powerfully masculine.
And then, between his lips, something appears. A cigar. Unlit, but present. Balanced between the lips, among the hairs of the gray beard. From a man who has lived. From an experienced man. From someone who has seen many things.
He looks at himself in the reflection of the machine. The man he sees is no longer the twenty-eight-year-old personal trainer, sculpted and defined. He is someone else. A man of fifty, maybe more. A bear. Gray beard, salt-and-pepper hair, hairy chest coming out of the open shirt, soft warm belly, cigar in his mouth.
He touches himself. The hands, still strong, still those of someone who has lifted weights for years, now sink into the hairy chest. They feel the gray hair, thick, soft. They feel the muscles underneath, still present, still hard, but covered, softened. They move down, touching the belly, full, warm, covered with hair.
The cigar. He moves it from one side of his mouth to the other with an instinctive gesture, from habit. He feels the taste of dry tobacco, the smell that already begins to soak into his beard.
The sweat. Under the open shirt, on the hairy chest, a light sweat begins to form. Warm, dampening the hair, making it cling, making it shine. It runs down toward the belly, slipping among the hairs.
The smell. New. Deep. Musky, warm, with a note of tobacco and experience. A smell of a man who has lived, of a bear, of someone who knows what he wants and how to take it.
He looks at his hands. More wrinkled, more marked, but still strong. Hands that have guided, that have lifted, that have touched. Hands that know what to do.
He adjusts the open shirt, but it is useless to close it. The buttons are gone, the chest is there, exposed. The gray hair, the belly, everything on display.
He thinks about his clients. The ones he trained, the ones he pushed beyond their limits. Now he would look at them differently. With more experience. With more calm. With more desire to touch, to feel, to guide.
The cigar. He removes it from his mouth, looks at it. Then he puts it back.
He smiles. A slow, confident smile, like a bear. Like a man who knows how to wait. Like a man who knows how to take.
The arcade around him is silent. He stands there, the open shirt over his hairy chest, the cigar in his mouth, the eyes that have seen thirty more years.
Outside, the world is waiting for him. And he is ready to live it, calmly, with experience, with all the warm presence of a bear.
