A New Start - Part 1 (Commission for Code-Shark101)

TAGS: Amazon/Mini-Giantess, Slice-Of-Life (ish), Animalistic Instincts

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She was staring at the letter for what felt like the thousandth time, yet no matter how often the canid read the words on it, she could never quite internalize them. Her very existence, denied in the form of a short missive, most of which was probably copy-pasted from similar lay-off communications, issued with such a blatant disregard for what it would do to her that, to some extent, she had to admire how little her former employers cared; one would assume that, after everything they’d done to her, they would at least have the courtesy to give her something personalized, or literally anything at all rather than a piece of paper and a farewell after slamming the door in her face. Instead, Ashly found herself at home, looking at the letter telling her that her services would no longer be required, not knowing what to do or where to turn now that both her source of income and the sole reason for being had been stripped away so unceremoniously. It would’ve been slightly more bearable had it not happened so suddenly as well; the decision came from so far up above the chain of command that most of those involved in the day-to-day running of the genemodding program were taken by surprise as much as Ashly herself was, with many even going so far as to try banding together to demand that funding not be cut, but to no avail. A two-week notice, after which the laboratory was shut down, everyone was sent home, and the wild dog around which the program was built sent away to find her own way in life, when the whole point of her being in the damned program to begin with was because she had nowhere else to go. Now left as an eight foot tall behemoth with the strength to rip steel in half if she bothered to try, very few (if any) qualifications and an employer that she couldn’t put in a resume, it felt as if the previous few years of her life had just been a complete waste; there was a hole there, one that she wouldn’t be able to explain beyond a very vague “I worked for the government”, which most folk probably wouldn’t even begin to believe given the way she looked: sure, the mismatched fur colours that looked like someone had taken an assortment of paint buckets and just splashed a roller on her after picking a random sequence of hues would be an indicator that something was off, but to go from there to assuming she’d been a guinea pig for a military genemodding project was… still quite a large leap, one that few would take even if they found it themselves. No, Ashly was convinced that she was doomed to unemployment for the foreseeable future, doomed to lacking any sort of direction in life as well, and the frustration that arose from this only made sure that this became a reality; in between her fuming at being sent packing and despairing over the fact that she had to build a new life from scratch, her mind was too busy being buried in misery to do anything about it, locking her in a self-fulfilling cycle that she only really broke free from when, one day, on a whim, she decided to hit the gym. The wild dog didn’t know why, but some part of her had remembered reading somewhere that physical exercise was an excellent way of offloading excess energy and finding some measure of inner peace through exhaustion; if nothing else, then at least she’d be fully capable of externalizing her anger by way of a punching bag. Plus, if nothing else, running herself ragged every day would help her fall asleep faster, which would do wonders for a sleeping schedule that had been broken beyond repair ever since she was sent home. Thus, after a short time looking up various options, Ashly picked a gym about two miles away from her home and phoned ahead, asking a series of questions regarding their “accessibility”, trying to make it clear that she was far larger than the average person, and would thus need some… special treatment, to put it lightly. The canid didn’t want to be too explicit, in part because she knew the staff wouldn’t believe her, in part because some small chunk of her brain kept telling her that it would be hilarious if she simply showed up relatively unannounced, as everyone’s reactions would surely be priceless; Ashly knew for a fact that, even after her best efforts, the people on the phone most likely only thought that she was about six foot something and built like a brickhouse, rather than an eight-foot super-soldier with a level of endurance high enough that she ran a significant risk of wearing down the gym equipment before she did her own body. Indeed, when the day came for her to walk over for her first day, Ashly did so on foot, having just then realized that she had neither a car nor a bus pass; plus, the two-mile walk should count as a good-enough warm-up, allowing her to just change and immediately get to work on reaching the gym proper. There were plenty of eyes on her as well along the way, and that was something the canine couldn’t help but admit was entirely on purpose; there would’ve been plenty of options for her to avoid drawing attention, ones that didn’t involve deliberately wearing shorts and a tight shirt in order to both expose as much of herself as possible and get keep her curves and muscle on full display. But she didn’t take them; why should she, when the point of going to the gym was to release the pent-up frustration that had been building inside of her ever since being sent home? Being able to look around herself and see so many people staring at her like she was some kind of alien creature was, to put it mildly, refreshing; it provided a certain semblance of satisfaction and power that just felt right amidst the constant annoyance and irritation, a little bit of a reminder of what it was like to live back in the program. It would never be the same, or at least Ashly assumed it wouldn’t, but it was something, and something was always better than nothing; the same could be said for when she arrived at the gym, the two miles having prepped her just as nicely as she thought they would have. The canid wasn’t tired, being used to far greater workouts, but already there was a healthy sheen to her fur as she’d begun to sweat, bringing out the colours in it when the sunlight glistened on the small liquid beads; the faces on everyone inside the establishment when she bent down and came through the front door were truly something to behold, especially since Ashly made sure to keep her steps light on the approach. She could’ve easily stomped her way there, but being able to sneak up on people had been part of her training, and seeing as she wasn’t going to need it for its intended purpose, she figured she might as well get some satisfaction out of it; for her, it was opening the door and looking down at a poor clerk who clearly wasn’t ready for someone like her to show up, flabbergasted at the sight and looking about ready to faint from fright at the sight of such a colossal canid, obviously come to bite their head off. When Ashly instead dropped her gym back and politely asked if her payment had gone through for the monthly subscription, the young man was left staring up at her, his brain trying to comprehend just what it had been told for a few moments before things clicked; he’d been the one to answer the phone, after all, and it was really just a case of him realizing that when their newest customer had said they were big, they weren’t so much exaggerating, as he’d originally thought, but underselling their true size. All he could do was mumble something about receipts before hiding his face behind a computer screen, tapping away on his keyboard while Ashly looked on, a toothy grin on her face; it felt surprisingly good to be able to have that much of an effect on people… so much so that she couldn’t wait until she could do it to all the gym rats currently staring at her from within the main workout area. Hell, just turning around after being given the go-ahead was the best experience she’d had in weeks; being able to wink at a bunch of wannabe bodybuilders, only to watch their shorts or jeans go suspiciously tight all of a sudden, brought her life, so much of it that she practically skipped and hopped her way down to the changing rooms. She certainly hummed; had to find some way to externalize what she was feeling at the time, even if Ashly had the impression that the upstairs had gone fully silent just so they could hear her, so they might know when she was approaching in order to start working out extra hard to impress the giantess come to bless their gym. Even if that wasn’t the case, her work had already begun, since just as long as she had some impact on those around her, then that was all that mattered; doubly so when the canid actually walked into the main room and picked one of the larger machines to sit down at, not even bothering to look back at anyone who so clearly was staring at her. She knew how many were doing so, yet it didn’t matter; the important part wasn’t the number of folks that she managed to turn the heads of, but the simple fact that she did, a victory for her as far as she was concerned… and one that she would experience on a regular basis as well. With nothing else better to do, and at the very least a hefty severance package provided by the military to keep her nice and quiet about her involvement, she had plenty of money to throw around, letting her keep her daily gym habits without much concern; it really was just the lack of anything more substantial to do that had left her feeling directionless, but as soon as she made a habit out of crashing through those doors and making her presence known in the loudest way possible, Ashly found that such concerns simply went away, vanishing into the aether as she tracked the many, many pairs of eyes eager to keep a close watch on her whenever she was exercising. There was, however, an exception to this, a single person who, no matter how much Ashly did her best to show off while trying to pretend she wasn’t, didn’t treat her any differently than they treated anyone else: a young man whose name she never learned, one of the personal trainers employed at the gym, and supposedly one of the best in the city as far as anyone was concerned. Reserved to a fault, enough so that most people didn’t even know what he was called, he was nonetheless extremely dedicated to his unique craft, more often than not spending hours at a time making sure that newcomers not only knew exactly how to use every single piece of equipment, but designing quick workout schedules for them so they wouldn’t immediately burn out trying to accomplish too much too quickly. He was exceedingly good at it as well, and the few titbits of information that Ashly could learn about him pointed towards the man being the main force responsible for bringing new clientele to the gym… which made it doubly odd that he never approached her even once. Perhaps he expected the canid to know her way around the gym, given her size, or maybe he was just baffled by her proportions and chose not to interfere, lest he be unable to control himself; still, no better way than for Ashly to check herself!

This was made slightly more difficult than she anticipated it by virtue of the young man being both unfailingly polite and extremely professional, though whether or not the latter was a put-upon, deliberately designed to mess with her head, or just the way the trainer acted in everyday life, was a mystery that Ashly genuinely couldn’t solve. The way that he acted around her, one might be forgiven for thinking that he just didn’t notice that she stood out from a crowd in a ludicrous fashion; he might as well be looking at a woman of just above-average height and build, rather than an eight-foot genetically modified mini-giantess with musculature powerful enough to utterly wreck any of the gym’s various pieces of equipment if she didn’t pull her punches while using them. It was disarming, in a way, and as much as Ashly had convinced herself that she should feel insulted by it, there was something about being treated with such perplexing nonchalance that spoke to her on a deeper level. She had been, ultimately, conditioned to accept that she wasn’t normal, and never would be; objectively speaking, she was still an eight-foot anthropomorphic wild dog in the middle of a crowd of completely ordinary humans, so for all intents and purposes, for the trainer to not react in any special way, then something had to be dreadfully wrong. He was the one acting strangely, not her, which wasn’t helped by the fact that he was, ultimately, never anything other than perfectly cordial and even downright helpful whenever she tried speaking with him; it wasn’t until Ashly gave up trying, and simply interacted with the man as if she would any other person, as if she wasn’t who she absolutely was, that progress took place… though, one could hardly call it “progress” when it was effectively just what could be expected from a working relationship. Ashly asked for tips on how to improve her exercise regimen, and the young man, who eventually introduced himself as Richard mid-conversation, wrote down her weight, height and other physical traits on a small notebook, not even flinching when he asked how much she could bench-press and the giant canid gave him a number that was at least two digits longer than the one denoting how much she herself weighed. Instead, he just nodded along, performing some quick mental calculations as he devised a personalized training plan, albeit one that he told her would have to wait until he was near a printer, as it would be “slightly longer than normal”. This, above all, broke Ashly completely; she left the gym that day with an expression of utmost disbelief, her brow furrowed and her mouth kept open, as she frantically tried to make any sense of the young man’s behavior. He couldn’t possibly be acting that way without it being deliberate, not when the whole rest of the gym, including the remainder of the staff itself, couldn’t help but keep staring at her whenever they were anywhere near; sure, the employees and regulars had gotten better at disguising it, but Ashly was still herself, making Richard’s complete lack of a reaction be something akin to a… challenge. Worst of all, the giantess couldn’t tell if it was her own head making her think like that or the genemodding designed to impart her with the “natural instincts” of a “super-predator”; it could very well be that she saw in this display of pretend-normalcy some kind of prey to be tackled and devoured, that the thin veneer of polite professionalism that Richard donned himself in was a piece of armor that deserved to be ripped off and chomped to pieces. For every word he gave her in a tone of voice that mixed equal parts detachment and disinterest, Ashly just found herself even more attracted to the idea of finally getting a reaction out of the guy, even if she had to go to less-than-savoury lengths in order to accomplish it; if nothing else, then at least she could be convinced, then, that she wasn’t crazy, and that Richard had been deliberately messing with her the whole time… this, however, did require her to prove that herself, and so her great work began. Tough, to call it “work” would be disingenuous, given that it amounted to very little beyond Ashly deliberately exposing herself in increasingly more outrageous ways. It began with her simply showing up at the gym with her equipment already on, eschewing the changing room entirely, but when that failed to produce any results, the canid instead resorted to buying entirely new sets, ones that were just a couple of sizes down: not enough to be genuinely uncomfortable, but enough to further show off her curves… which was saying something, given she hadn’t been trying to hide them in the first place. Ashly combined this with a much more direct and, at times, overtly flirtatious demeanour towards Richard, not only spending far more time with him than she technically needed to, but going so far as to make regular passing comments about his physical fitness, his endurance, his “stamina”, and whatever else her mind could come up with that was very likely more obvious than she thought it was. To his credit, at no point did the young man react in any way, not even the slightest twitch to give the wild dog something to latch onto, the slightest change in behavior that she could fantasize was actually him lowering his guard. In a way, Ashly would’ve preferred it if Richard just flat-out stonewalled her, rather than continuing to be as affable as a personal trainer was contractually obligated to be towards a customer; it made it difficult to gauge whether or not she was getting any closer, or worse, driving herself further away by pressing the subject when she should instead be letting rest… yet, at the same time, it was precisely this lack of a proper response that drove her mad, that all-but forced Ashly to keep trying to pierce through Richard’s impressive mental barriers, because they had to be a deliberate ploy on his end. Ever since she started coming to the gym in increasingly skimpy clothes, to the point where her tits threatened to overspill from her sports bra on multiple occasions, the sheer intensity of the lustful stares she was constantly on the receiving end of became even more ludicrous, yet that little twerp was just as impassive as ever; he’d look at her, in the shadow of her looming form, and rather than having his eyes widen or his legs shake, he’d just ask her if there was something she needed, or if the workout plan was bearing any fruit… and every single time, Ashly was like putty in his hands, all thoughts of physically dominating the man vanishing from her mind as she automatically responded to whatever question he posed, like a good little girl. That, too, pissed her off immensely, especially as she chose to believe that it was the result of the canid genes spliced into her; she hadn’t been that passive before, certainly not that desirous of a dominant male, so for someone like Richard to so effortless use the same kind of tricks one would expect to see in some terrible reality show about bad dog owners was something akin to embarrassing. Though, at the same time, there was something else about it that left Ashly’s cheeks a bright red whenever she devoted any time to thinking about it; she hadn’t ever been a sub before, but that was hardly thanks to a glut of opportunities to be in the role to begin with. Prior to enrolling with the genemodding program, her sex life had been… barren, to say the absolute least. There had been a lot of thoughts and feelings roiling around inside her head that Ashly had simply subsumed into the work she did with the military, thoughts and feelings that, bereft of anything to keep them in check, now freely roamed around, leaving her confused and angry at herself for not knowing how to handle them. The last thing she wanted was to go through puberty a second time, but that bastard of a personal trainer had somehow yanked her younger self back from the depths of self-enforced oblivion, turning an eight-foot giantess of a woman into a bashful little schoolgirl who couldn’t help but blush whenever she saw her crush looking in her general direction. And she wanted to hate that, but couldn’t; in all honesty, she had to admit that it was something she began looking forward to, as if it was her prize for being well-behaved (at least in her mind), especially since Richard refused to act in any other manner no matter how little she had on her, or how openly she told him that she wanted to jump his bones in just barely less direct terms. Unfortunately for Ashly, the same couldn’t be said for everyone else. As much as she had eyes only for the hot young personal trainer who refused to reciprocate her obvious attention, the rest of the gym’s regulars, as well as the staff, had begun to chafe underneath the strain of having someone like Ashly around; if, on one hand, she certainly did a lot to attract clientele, on the other, it wasn’t exactly the sort of clientele the owners were looking for. Similarly, while her choice of attire meant that she was technically clothed, it had begun veering far too close to outright indecency, to the point where the staff had received a few complaints over the course of Ashly’s attempted wooing. For there were those who saw the wild dog not as a giantess to be coveted, but as a shameless flirt who was ruining everyone else’s gym experience by not only hogging the attention of the best trainer the establishment had, but serving as a distraction whether or not she intended to; this came to a head when, one day, Ashly found herself taking a bath at the end of a workout when her ears perked up at the mention of her name: someone else was talking about her, judging by the hushed tones being used. Seeing as she preferred to use one of the private stalls, the large, open-area shower heads were left for everyone else, who that day just so happened to be a group of women around her age who thought that the canid couldn’t hear them when they began openly discussing just how much they found her behavior to be reprehensible.

“Have you seen the kind of shit she’s been wearing to the gym the past week?” one of them asked, with several others mumbling platitudes in agreement, “She might as well be naked!”

“You can see her nipples through the tops too,” another mused, bringing a blush to Ashly’s face when she looked down at her own tits, “and without sweat either; I swear, just look at her coming in, it’s like tissue paper.”

“And her ass is constantly hanging out too,” the first voice returned, “I think she thinks Richard will pay attention to her if she dresses like that, it’s pathetic.”

More mumbling, more agreement, and the blush on Ashly’s face was stronger than ever… as was the sense of desolation taking her over.

“I don’t know what she’s going for, he’s clearly not into her. You’d think she’d have learned to take a fucking clue after the millionth time he refused to play her game.”

“She’s just a dumb fucking brute, probably thinks she can drag him by the hair back to her place and ride his dick before throwing him out.”

Oh, how the laughter stung. Ashly had to bite her own tongue to keep herself from bursting into tears; hell, she deliberately held herself back in the shower, waiting for everyone else to leave before hurriedly putting her clothes back on and rushing out of the gym.