weights. Ryan removed the collars and slid on some of the heavy discs, then
replaced the collars and tightened the butterfly screws.
“There are now one hundred and fifty pounds on each side. I figure it’s about my
top. Can you lift that?”
“Not now.” She rose and moved gracefully toward him. Her body was in marvelous
condition, like a top fighter.
“But, if you called…on the Earth Mother, could you then?”
“Yes.” There wasn’t a hint of doubt in her voice as she looked at the equivalent
of the weight of two grown men on the smooth bar. “But you first, Ryan. Press
that above your head and…”
“And what?”
“Do it and see.”
“I don’t usually lift things with my cock sticking out like this,” he muttered,
stooping in front of the weights.
“Hanging out, Ryan,” she corrected, with a wicked smile.
Ryan waited, gathering his concentration, flexing his fingers around the cool
metal. He closed his eye, focusing all his energy on lifting the bar. Six deep,
slow breaths, then the explosive whoosh of effort. Feeling the strain at the
small of his back and across his chest and shoulders, he lifted the bar from the
rack. Ryan Cawdor didn’t look that heavily muscled, but his wiry body was in
excellent condition. A man didn’t get to ride and fight with the Trader for ten
years by being soft and flabby.
“Very good,” she said, clapping as the weights rose slowly but steadily to chest
level, then with an extra boost, above Ryan’s head. The tendons in his arms
stood out like cords as he held it there, his face suffused with blood. He
managed a wink at the girl before he lowered the bar to the floor with a thump.
“Now you,” he panted.
“Give me a minute to ready myself.”
Krysty began to take deep breaths, her breasts rising and falling as Ryan
watched with interest. Her legs were slightly apart, the triangle of brilliant
scarlet pubic hair masking her sex. The muscles across the front of her thighs
rippled and danced, and he could see the fluttering of her stomach. Her eyes
were closed, and her lips moved. In the silence he heard her whisper.
“Now, Mother of Earth, give me, I beg, the power to do that which is right. Let
me render no evil. Give your daughter the power, the power, the power…” she
chanted, the sound barely carrying to Ryan, three paces away. He stared at her
face, seeing it transformed into a mask of carved bone, the planes of her cheeks
shifted by an almost unbearable tension.
Krysty stepped to the bar and bent in front of it, her tumbling hair hiding the
weights for a moment. She gripped the bar with both hands and then straightened,
hefting it above her head in a single, flowing motion.
Ryan’s jaw dropped. He’d seen some amazing sights before, but nothing to compare
with the way the three-hundred-pound set of weights floated up. There was no
other word for it. Nor did the girl show any strain now that the deed was done.
She held it above her head, her eyes half-open, her mouth sagging, a thread of
spittle hanging from the corner of her lips, almost as if she’d fallen into a
trance.
“Thanks, Earth Mother,” she whispered, then let the weights fall to the floor
with a great crash. She staggered and nearly fell, putting her hand to her
forehead. But before he could help her, she had straightened, smiling.
“Krysty, are…?”
“I’m fine. Bit tired. Always am. Shouldn’t have done that. Showing off is not
what the power’s for.”
“It looked like it was no heavier than a fistful of air.”
“Yeah.”
“How much… heavier could you have lifted?”
She shook her head. “The power of the Earth Mother isn’t like that. It’s what I
want. If there were a buggy turned over on top of you, I could maybe lift it,
maybe not.”
They stood in silence, looking at each other. Krysty spoke first, eyes locked to
Ryan’s face.
“There. Now you know what sort of mutie I am.”
“Yeah. Now I know. But I think I knew before.”
“Now what?”