Renu-u

Chapter 1 - Obedience (part 1)

Rob Hendricks was a machine.

Every morning at precisely 4:15 AM, he popped out of bed like his whole-grain, zero-net-carb sprouted organic bread would from his toaster, downed a meticulously measured and mixed shake of pea protein, creatine, maca root, and raw egg whites, and launched into ninety minutes of free weights and resistance training followed by another hour and a half of cardio in the home gym he’d put together in his garage. There was no TV or stereo system–he got enough entertainment watching his own trek towards perfection in the many mirrors. (If he ever wanted to put another one in there, the only room left for it would be on the ceiling.)

He posted his daily lifts on GainstaGram with captions like ‘Discipline isn’t for everyone’. His followers—mostly fellow gymbros and a few hopeful beginners—ate it up. Occasionally, he’d film a short at the public gym, never missing the chance to pan over to someone else’s flabby back or soft midsection before flexing his own veined biceps with the smugness of a Roman god.

‘Skip leg day, eat junk, then wonder how it ends up back there in the trunk,’ he’d say, shaking his head as if the failure of other men was entirely his own problem to solve, one thumbs-up emoji at a time.

But lately, something was off.

Rob had been bulking—clean bulking—for months now. He was strict with his macros, militant with his sleep, and obsessive about his hydration. But no matter how precisely he followed the plan, his strength plateaued. Worse, he was tired. Not the good kind of tired, the kind you beat back with a shot of preworkout and three more sets. This was bone-deep, foggy exhaustion. (Or, at least, he called it exhaustion, so he wouldn’t have to call it a lapse in his motivation.)

He blamed hormones in the meat first, so he cut chicken breast. Then he blamed carbs, so he cut oatmeal. Then he thought maybe it was the pesticides in the air, and he got into a vicious shouting match, if it could be called a match when it was utterly one-sided, with his next-door neighbor while she was spraying her flowers. (He’d never stooped so low as to resort to steroids, but accusing him of roid rage in that moment would have been an easy mistake to make.)

It was as he left the 24-hour fitness center one day, sweat-soaked and too stuck in his own head to even bother snapping clips of any of the fatties making fools of themselves in there, that he came across HIM.

“Wait a minute,” said Rob. “You’re Leo Caprisky. Like, the actual, real-life Leo Caprisky.”

Leo Caprisky, who’d gone from Harvard dropout to billionaire in less than three years. Leo Caprisky, who’d written all the code for Mybrid from scratch.

Leo Caprisky, who now stood under the ‘NO LOITERING - NO SOLICITING’ sign posted on the wall of the gym in his sandals and socks, hands in the pockets of his ball shorts, with a backwards ball cap smushing down his unruly mop of brown hair. (Two different types of ball, just for clarification.)

Not that Rob kept tabs on tech bros, even famous ones. He only knew of Leo–and recognized him for his literally effortless fashion choices–because this one girl Jenny had made him sit through that biopic ‘The Society Pages’ when it first hit the movie theater at the mall. Yeah, she hadn’t gotten a second date out of him. He needed a gym girl who shared his priorities, not some bimbo who only cared about shopping and yakking and drinking.

“In the flesh,” said Leo, nodding, and for some reason, smirking.

“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Leo shrugged. “What does it look like? I’m loitering and soliciting, of course.”

Alright, Rob decided. He’d bite, if only because it was a while since he’d experienced anything close to this level of novelty. “What’s it you’re selling, huh? I don’t suppose Mybrid is breaking into the health and fitness market?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Leo, “I’m working on a product that will make diet and exercise struggles a thing of the past. I was hoping to unload some samples onto some of the unfortunate folks in there who are finding that their efforts aren’t paying off the way they wish.”

“Well…maybe I could try it out,” said Rob, after a pause. Leo scoffed.

“You? Come on. My product is for people who are having difficulties losing weight, not muscle-bound gods with body dysmorphia.”

“Hey!” snapped Rob, “I do not have body dys…THAT thing.”

“Just because you can’t pronounce it doesn’t mean you haven’t got–”

“And the last I heard, you’re a businessman, not a head-shrinker. So come on, why don’t we do some business? I’ll pay whatever it takes,” insisted Rob.

“Technically, I’d be paying you.”

“Wait, what?”

“That IS how a clinical trial works,” said Leo.

“A whadda-what, now?”

“And though I doubt whether I can give you the results you think you want, here, take my card. There’s my business email…we can fix an appointment for you to swing by the lab sometime.”

Rob took the business card and tucked it into a front pocket of his gym bag, and if Leo spoke like a man who knew when to leverage someone else’s inability to step back from a challenge, it went completely over Rob’s head.

***

“So…what is it?”

Leo’s lab was cleaner than Rob expected. Then again, his expectations were based around Leo’s chaotic dress sense, but clearly, that was less a result of not knowing how to dress himself and more one of being too much of a busy, important genius to be bothered with such trivial stuff. If there was something underlyingly sinister about the sparse setup, the graphs on transparent screens tracking variables he’d never even heard of, the samples in tubes bearing labels he couldn’t read, he ignored it. He supposed the average layman would be equally confused by the contents of his fridge back home.

“Technically, it’s a neural aroma synchronizer,” explained Leo, as Rob turned over in his hands the strange device the tech mogul had presented upon a work table, its label etched into what he thought was the back of it by machine: RENU-U. .

“And in English?”

“You plug it into your wall socket, and the air freshener it releases doubles as a recalibrator to your emotion and motivation. Moving forward, this could cure addiction, improve study habits…but this version is just for diets. If it works as intended, that is.”

“And if it doesn’t?” asked Rob.

“Well then,” said Leo, his amber eyes seeming momentarily to flash a more electric yellow, “at least it’ll make your house smell fancy. Shall we break out the paperwork?”

The paperwork, as it turned out, was more text than Rob cared to read, but Leo had pre-highlighted all the key sections about temporary mood elevation, appetite and craving recalibration, legal absolution…yeah, way too many big words. The real selling point for Rob was the compensation: he’d be getting 5 million a month. 5 million a month! Clearly, Leo had the sort of money he could wipe his ass with, and if a part of Rob felt guilty for accepting a shortcut, even if it was to kick him back on track, that number crushed that guilt under opportunity’s divine boot.

Five. Million. A month.

He plugged the device in as soon as he got home. There was a soft hum. Then, the scent hit him immediately: like vanilla and citrus and… something else. Something warm, buttery, spiced, deep, animal. Demanding.

And that’s when the lights flickered.

Well, okay, that’s not exactly accurate.

The lights didn’t do anything. Rob simply lost consciousness, collapsing onto the floor in a heap of muscle and sweat.

***

When Rob awoke, it was semi-dark outside the windows, the lights of the city bouncing off the bottoms of heavy gray clouds threatening to rain…and his stomach was twisting itself into knots, rumbling as if to issue a threat.

He sat up groggily, mouth dry, head thick, and then, like a monster, his stomach groaned again, a primal vibration that reverberated through his torso.

He staggered to the kitchen, bypassing all his prepped chicken-and-broccoli containers like they were moldy. No. For once, he didn’t think of macros, nor did he think of the bizarre way he’d woken up on the floor. He just needed real food. Flavor. Texture. Satisfaction.

He ended up making four eggs, a pile of toast, and a thick bowl of cheesy grits—leftover from a date gone wrong three weeks ago. He didn’t eat grits, but Sophie or whatever had wanted them in her hungover state (drunk bitches, right?) so he’d made a point to walk to the nearby grocery store and get her some. She hadn’t gotten a second date, either, but he’d kept the dry mix for ‘guests’. Tonight, he was the guest. The honored one.

He didn’t really watch TV, either. That he had one in the living room was simply a mark of his conformity to expectations of what a home should have, but tonight, he parked himself on the living room sofa and watched a sitcom while he ate like a man possessed. Not shoveling, just savoring. Slowly, with exaggerated chews and little grunts of pleasure he would’ve mocked in a weaker man, thinking to himself intermittently, ‘I should do this more,’ and ‘damn, that’s good’. He ate until he was warm. He ate until he was sleepy.

And then… he didn’t get up.

The couch pulled him in. Casting his shirt off over the armrest, he draped himself across it, remote in one hand, his bare stomach rising and falling gently with a solid, unfamiliar, but damn, pleasant fullness. His gut wasn’t stuffed—not really—but it was present in a way it had never been. Relaxed. Barely taut. Like it belonged to a man who had nothing to prove.

For the first time in years, Rob Hendricks didn’t want to lift a damn thing, Not a barbell. Not his legs. Not even the remote, after a while.

Instead, he let a rerun of Space Trek: Intrepid play in the background as he rubbed his belly absently, and oddly, relishing its slight bloat.

He traced a circle around his navel, thumb gliding over the faint new swell that pushed out his hard-earned abs. But this felt earned, too. Luxurious, indulgent, but earned.

And then he realized, with mild surprise, that his cock was hard in his sweatpants.

Not in a frantic, testosterone-fueled way…more just curious. Like his body was waking up to a new kind of pleasure—one he’d ignored for years in the name of discipline.

For a moment, he wanted to grab it and jack off, but then he thought of the cleanup, the energy it would take…

And the loneliness that would follow once his load was spent.

A new hunger stirred.

Shifting on the couch to negotiate around his full stomach, he grabbed his phone, opened a dating app he hadn’t used in months, and reactivated his profile.

He didn’t bother with a gym selfie this time.

Instead, he took a candid on the fly with the flash on. He added a new bio: ‘25 fit athletic guy looking for–’

No. Somehow, that felt disingenuous.

‘25 straight guy looking for a real conne–’

Okay, fuck that. Why lie?

‘25 M, seeking F, let’s have dinner and see what happens. I’ll buy.’

There.

By the end of the week, he was sure he’d have a slut to bang.