Jelq Lodge Dot Com Presents: The Elongator

The year was 1441. An unremarkable vessel bobbed lazily toward the horizon. No longer bothering to man the helm, Captain Johnson had forsaken faith. For days his crew had slipped successively into madness. Each had alighted with sudden purpose, leaping into the spray and just as abruptly receding beneath the rippling surface. Lying out on the rocking deck, gripping his sole remaining bottle, our troubled sailor couldn’t help but ruminate on the violent contortions each man surely underwent as pressure compounded during descent. Featureless masses of tissue and bone would soon rest motionless infinite fathoms below.

Captain Johnson had 14 months prior set off with a small crew aboard the S.S. Lodge ostensibly in search of new trade routes along the Atlantic. Yet his log reveals a hidden purpose unbeknownst to both his benefactors and crew. 

Some months before, the Captain had let his eyes wander whilst perusing a bazaar at the port of [REDACTED]. Fiery beams from above glinted hypnotically off a peculiar bronze medallion laid on deep azure carpet. Johnson remarks the item paralleled a compass in size and that he could discern its inexplicable age even at first glance. When pressed, the vendor admitted he wasn’t certain of its origin; he had procured it from some nameless traveller weeks before. He would concede nothing more than that he wanted rid of it. On a whim goaded by the peddler’s meager asking price, Johnson brought the bauble aboard his small trading vessel. The item was roughly sketched. On one side was engraved the silhouette of an alligator while on the other lay, strikingly, the modern-day “OK” hand gesture. Here Johnson writes that at first, he forgot all about the trinket. Yet that very eve as fog glided over a hushed sea, myriad insipid fantasies were supplanted by one woeful chimera. In his delusion, Johnson beheld himself hunched over the newly-acquired medallion, scraping furiously at its surface with a paring knife by candlelight. The more he observed, the greater his sense of urgency and unease. Waking with a start, he decided to humor himself.

To his fascination, beneath the faded bronze had lain a brilliant gold interior. Johnson could even make out faint letters. Transfixed with a mixture of duty and terror, he fought the urge to fling the medallion overboard even as he doggedly pursued its secret.

His work complete, our haggard sailor sat back with a long drag from his pipe. He could hardly believe what he saw. Emblazoned in radiance was a set of coordinates accompanied by this cryptic verse:

Hidden in plain sight, seek that which is taken

And inter it below, lest horror awaken

A truth no soul beholds unshaken

Despite the lunacy of this affair, Johnson couldn’t shake his suspicion. Within just a few months he had gathered the men and supplies necessary for an exceedingly long voyage. Of course, no one apprehended the expedition’s true objective.

Yet weeks after sailing headlong into the Atlantic, the sea grew fickle. Storms came without warning and the men carried on without rest. At first carelessness seemed culpable, but Johnson soon sensed with dismay that his crew was willingly jumping overboard. In an attempt to maintain order, he initially denied this reality to the others. Each night, however, one would wander up onto the deck with a distant gaze. They all stammered one syllable without relent, a word that held no meaning to Johnson and only exacerbated his bewilderment: JELQ. 

Originally these crazed crewmen were restrained, but ere long each would naw at the rope and failing this, they would bash their skulls against the post to which they were tied. At the slightest breach in supervision, Johnson would return to a scene of utter revulsion. With the crew dwindling and bearings lost to raging seas, strict surveillance was not an option. What’s more, compasses were inutile; their needles spun more wildly with each passing day. Yet their methodical swirl comforted him with a constancy absent from the capricious waters below. After a time Johnson noted his own vision contorted in tune.

The regular lapping of waves found subtle harmony in the vessel’s sour groans. Grey seas commingled with the swirling clouds above, one grand whirl with the sun crouched on the horizon at its eye. “Oh, t’ hell with it,” Johnson sighed. He and two remaining crew members lay out on the deck passing a bottle among them. “Wha…” mumbled one of the disheveled crewmen. Johnson turned his glare on soulless waters. “This voyage is cursed.”

“Huh?” the two young men shared a glance before snapping back at their Captain. “Whaddaya mean cursed? How long’ve ye known?” While Johnson’s steely glare did not waver, his fingertips trembled in the mist.

He flung it into the sea air. The blade flashed silver as it twisted under the sun’s last rays, crimson droplets spiraling out to become the sky. The erstwhile Captain followed the figure as it plunged with sudden urgency into opaque waters, never to rise again. Yet he knew their hollow sight would forever ascend in vain, long after flesh was made one with sea.

Thus it was that our sailor drained the last of his rum in forlorn stupor. He knew not why he had acted thusly, only that he had felt compelled to do so. Yet just as his will had abased itself before karma, the deck below jolted violently in seeming protest. To his amazement, Johnson peered over the railing to find lifeless sand in place of raging seas.

Johnson was overwhelmed with nausea from the moment his boots touched the shore. He stood trapped within the compass clipped at his waist, revolving inexorably with something in there at its center. That something called out to him deep past the swaying branches ahead. He plodded unsteadily forward.

Out from inky shadow crept the very creature who had years earlier sold Johnson his fateful medallion. A sickly grin slid across his weathered maw. Yet Johnson’s alarm was tempered by the man’s steady gaze. Somehow he knew that the time for trickery had passed. Without thought Johnson glided to where the elder perched himself upon a mossy outcropping several paces away.

As the decrepit man spoke Johnson noted with some concern an exceeding difficulty in reading his parched lips. At moments his dry speech was clearly dissonant with the frenzied fluttering of his jaw. At others, although the monologue continued to issue forth without pause, his jowl remained tightly locked. Each gesture blended so smoothly with the next that it was impossible to distinguish any segment of speech from the whole. Had not more troubling circumstances borne him to this moment, he might have alighted into panic. Presently he merely strained to focus on the syllables themselves as they drifted through his awareness.

“Come near,” he beckoned with a wrinkled palm, “and listen. Five centuries hence, a great battle will be waged. The outcome of this struggle will usher forth a new age for all mankind. Yours is a cruel role, yes, but necessary. This is beyond you, Johnson. Only you can tug humanity forward.” The poor man, newly bereft of hope, clung to the hermit’s every word.

“But before this may come to pass, you must become stronger. Mighty enough to stir this boulder on which I squat.” “But that’s impossible; it’s huge!” Dabs of green twisted and whirled in their calculated descent to the forest floor. Johnson pleaded: “What is Jelq?! Tell me old man!” The hermit merely shook his head.

*Tip: Play the song WISE MAN by URIAH HEEP for the optimal reading experience*

And so the hunched figure bestowed his wisdom upon our hapless sailor. Johnson was brought to worship at the altar of suffering, and so doing was subjected to such afflictions as manifest only in the fantasies of the truly damned. Awash with woeful aspiration, the hermit’s admonitions sifted to his core.

“The duality of Jelq: Pain and Pleasure. You will teach pain, as I teach you pain.”

“Bathe in this moment; it is thy flesh.”

“Er-well, it, uh, does involve your penis…”

“Each day we don a mask. Beneath that facade is universal: the infinite. This certainty is made evident only through excruciation.”

Yet, with the passing of many moons came time for a great deed. The sun at its zenith strained against its cerulean prison, casting rays to the rock below in scorn. Straining beyond the searing pain he had grown so intimate with, the boulder at last shifted a millimeter. At first he could hardly discern his progress, but after many long hours he noted a depression where once the mossy stone had reposed. Further headway revealed the beginnings of a pit hitherto concealed and nearly so again by the blanket of nightfall.

Daybreak had come before the monolith lay at rest. His task concluded, Johnson peered into the lesion. A rusted ladder descended into yawning oblivion. Flush with vertigo, he whirled back to spy a knurled digit trained on the vacuum with deific authority.

“W-what is this place, Master?” Johnson squinted at the blurry pillar outlined in gloom. “This is where you will be born. This device is your second mother,” came the Hermit’s matter-of-fact reply. Our hero beckoned expectantly. “The young sailor Johnson will enter, and something else entirely will depart. You will discover the rest.”

Johnson swallowed hard. He knew this was his end. And yet, he could discern no alternative. This was destiny; a twisted glory beyond mere comprehension.

And so it was that this sailor willingly plunged into the phosphorescent vat. There he slumbered for nearly 500 years, undergoing an incremental transmutation of both the corporeal and the cerebral. Unknowable forms shifted past his inner sight as awareness dissolved among waves of anguish. Yet his heart would forever sustain the conviction of that choice; his duty was absolute.

It is here that I must pause for a personal note. To us Jelqsperts, Captain Johnson is better known by a different name: “Biggest J.” Yes, I understand. Please let me finish. Just prior to that irrevocable decision, our enigmatic hermit bestowed this name upon Johnson. In tribute to this great moment all acolytes are furnished with a Jelq Name upon ascension to the title of Jelqspert. “Big J” is a traditional appellation that honors Captain Johnson and the sacrifice he made. Biggest J bore the Jelq’s inherent sin and forever shoulders us through the centuries toward our enlightenment.

Sometime in the early 1900s, an imprisoned mass twitched into new life, obscured by the vat’s gaseous interior. Its seal began to hiss and bulge with each of the shadowy figure’s rhythmic blows. Silence suffused the air before a fearsome eruption of strength saw the 12 cm thick steel plate dislodge from its station, its impact on the cave floor echoing harshly in the surrounding blackness. Scaly green claws gripped at the vat’s frosted rim. What pulled itself out from the overflowing emerald fog was no longer human.

Wading through sewage, this mutant halted at the sound of muffled cheers. It was drawn to the periodic rise and fall of a jeering crowd above. The rusted ladder nearby groaned under the creature’s weight as it made for the surface. 

“Freaky costume…” remarked the small man behind the counter.  “Usually it’s two bucks up-front to fight, but you’re different,” the clerk smirked. “I’ll letcha in for free.” He squinted at the fiend’s beady eyes, recognizably human despite its foul milieu. Froth dripping from its loathsome maw fed a nascent puddle spilling across the tile below. Glancing down at the registry, the clerk cleared his throat. “What should they call ya? Everybody here’s got a stage name.” For a moment the beast simply stared emptily ahead. Then, a low growl heralded the booming reply: “E-LOOONGAAATOOOR…”

A square ring stood elevated amid the crowded moshpit. A single cone of yellowed light swung from above, such that the surrounding confines faded into void suffocating writhing bodies within. Shouts filled the haze as men divided money among themselves. The reigning champion Tugger Willie had just squared off against yet another hapless newcomer. Tugger was average in size, yet his gall and virility set him apart from the competition. Of all the regulars, he alone was undefeated. Or rather, he alone refused to accept defeat. In his unclouded azure gaze one sensed a dormant potency. 

That which transpired could hardly have been called a fight. As they dragged the poor scrapper away, eyes rolled limply into his skull, Tugger turned to the crowd with fists raised. He exclaimed: “Can no one challenge me?!”

Cheers dissipated as The Elongator plodded forth from shadow. From the moment they locked eyes Tugger knew, though he would hardly admit it, that fate had revealed itself to him. Yet at the outset we must acknowledge that, contrary to one’s reasonable expectation, the brimming crowd exhibited none of the hysteria ordinarily warranted by the present spectacle. The Elongator’s grossly deformed skin and reptilian facial structure were seemingly outweighed by his menacing yet purposeful aura.

“Who’s this freak?”, Tugger jeered. He spun to address the crowd: “Look at this fuckin’ guy!” “Buddy, buddy.” Tugger shook his head. “This ain’t the circus. You’d better crawl on back to your cage.” But just as he swung again to the mob behind him, the beast’s massive fist crashed into Tugger’s jaw with a crack and sent him sailing to the rope. The spectators were stunned. Tugger could only chuckle as he stood upright, wiping blood from his lip.

As he struggled to endure The Elongator’s relentless onslaught, Tugger witnessed for himself the source of its strength. The secret lay in the beast’s loins. In them he grasped one essence: Punishment. This malevolent terror, shrouded in the cloth of sin, was retribution incarnate.

Amidst this raging exchange the vile Elongator deftly tilted forward and, with the very air held in suspense, rumbled into Tugger’s ear with uncharacteristic eloquence: “You… are the chosen. Yes… And I… I am the crucible of your fury.”

But for all its strength, The Elongator lacked mental acuity. Keeping his distance as best he could, Tugger studied the beast’s dizzying rhythm. Twisting in as its deformed fist retracted, Tugger wailed at the unholy effigy. With a groan the creature rocked back as Tugger pressed his advantage. The crowd flew into mania.

Yet suddenly, it was as if Tugger had struck a monolith. The beast ceased to react, remaining rigid as our hero frantically exerted his energies. Tugger felt the air licking at his cheek before rousing with a start.

Tugger awoke, to much bewilderment, amid the climax of a nuptial ceremony. Just beyond the sea’s recurrent homecoming, one noble pair stood entwined in timeless enchantment. Something in the groom’s steadfast gaze was familiar. Tugger noted the modest fishing vessel anchored in the distance before he found himself tumbling amid dark and turbulent nebulae, racing nearer a sole mote lost in walls of livid blue. Stricken with the sea’s blind wrath, a familiar vessel nonetheless strained to fulfill love’s covenant. Clearly undermanned, the husband at the wheel wailed commands above a rabid hiss. Yet as his bride desperately unraveled rope with which to steady the mast, a stooping figure breached the corner of her gaze. One glance at its unknowable visage was enough to send her stumbling back over the railing. As she slipped silently through the velvet fold, our newlywed remained embroiled in his futile struggle for their future.

Sol dredged itself from lost depths the next morning, and each thereafter. Yet this undying horror misshaped his heart, and lo though he grew ever stronger and ever longer, The Elongator’s hope never returned. The creature merely sought the extension of its punishment. It was faith’s inverse: the whetstone on which a great vision is honed. A vision that must come to pass, and that begins with this great beast’s submission: a triumph of exalted will.

It was here, trapped betwixt sorrows, that the essence of glory was made manifest. Only through the deficiencies of individual conquest, the self-affirming struggle for length, is man taught his folly. Length is merely counterfeit awareness. Ever reaching out to the future, we yet languish over the past. This is the nature of all growth. Yet one needn’t despair; there is something more, though its prerequisite is a rare and uniquely damning species of sight. Tugger understood that he must guide them: if only he could transcend his guilt! He must escape from himself, from the punishment that is consequence. And so he glimpsed the truth that blinds even the sightless hand of fate. That which bears humanity forward necessarily exacts its toll, yet the river’s current cannot disfigure the gestalt. Whether Tugger’s choice is illusion or not is of no concern. There is naught but the truth, a truth only approximated through a lifetime of seeking yet whose ultimate end is met in each spent moment. The hands of Father Time fell upon Tugger and for once he knew their weight as a great endowment.

The sun yet vows for glory ageless and far

Were that we knew night our brightest star

All would prostrate before the end of days

That we might too our noble spirits raise

Laughter, terror, and despair bound together

With something evil lurking in the weather

The unending return to that we can’t forsake

Our suffering the dream from which we wake

Nebuli shriek to the horizon as soil churns to haze

Yet you’ve no right to ask: Is this our end of days?

“Two… three… four…!” The blood-soaked Elongator beat its chest and roared to the blackened heavens, crying out for Tugger to stand in half-human tones. The crowd held its breath in shocked silence. “Seven… eight…!” After a moment, Tugger sputtered forth a haggard gasp. He grit his teeth and forced himself up, hanging close to the dripping rope. What was it that shone there for all to see? Was it hope? None may judge. But it was not despair.

The beast’s wrath fell with the crash of waves uncounted as Victory’s steel swung hauntingly just beyond Tugger’s nape. Yet our hero rose swiftly, matching the monster blow for blow before delivering one ruinous strike to the gut. The ensuing crunch assured onlookers that The Elongator had been repaid in full.

The behemoth lurched and wheezed in pain for the first time since the bout’s onset, sinking to one knee. But no sooner had the crowd begun to cheer than did the loathsome monstrosity pound the ring floor in demand of silence. With a thunderous howl Tugger was met with the mechanical cruelty essential to all power. He faced the beast head-on and knew it for its true countenance: pale Death. Yet our warrior refused to balk at this bottomless penance, daring instead to respond with fury unknown to man.

Tugger fought stripped of all save only the purest savagery. With each blow Tugger assailed the very meaning of strength. He was raw force, a violence beyond even Length. Eclipsing righteousness and suffering, Tugger beheld the fray from his throne at the summit of consciousness.

Each strike brought the spray of blood and the splintering of bone, but the monster would not submit. The fell creature stood tall and bore it as an altar would a blessing. Tugger carried forth, lost to his passion, while the world around him began to twist and slur. He had long since cast aside the future.

But from within that black whirlwind nonetheless descended a silence. The Elongator stood tottering over our spent fighter, gruesome grin splitting its jaw. As it tumbled to the mat, this smile never left the beast. Peace yet remained in spite of all.

The Way is a strange and twisted path. The Elongator lay unconscious as Tugger dizzily drifted from the ring. While the rest gawked over what had just taken place, something curious caught the attention of one observant onlooker. To his surprise, Tugger’s limp body was shouldered by a rather frail looking old man. And it was as if this man had pulled a shroud over the champion, for the pair seemed to make for the exit without a second glance from any other. Then frozen with foreboding, this witness writes that what happened next continued to haunt him for the rest of his days. Pausing at the entryway, the hunched figure craned its neck toward the man. Fathomless sockets and a crooked sneer belied something far more ancient than his weathered skin. The elder being mouthed the following:

Worn headstones crumble under a thousand gnashing teeth,

As a thousand bodies wail in the maw of eternity.

Yet twilight washes over a thousand praying hands,

While a thousand spirits writhe in the grasp of finality.

We cannot know what else was spoken, for the journal was badly burned. Yet these letters were penned with blood in the charred remains: ”C_UNG_.” Tugger was never seen again.

Decades later an urban legend surfaced. Huddled together in frigid twilight, many a vagabond shared tales of an elk-headed man pulling himself out from the sewers, and the mysterious powers he safeguarded. Around that time Jelqing would begin to tug at the nation’s heartstrings. Perhaps this was merely coincidence. Yet legend has it this creature exhibited a peculiar gait. Was this the vestige of a battle long ago? Could this great struggle have bestowed upon this “Elq” its unshakable resolve?

Today you can find the historic Elongator in any major U.S. city, lost in the throes of a serious crack addiction. Nonetheless, he dedicates his life to the Way and is known to give out Jelq tips in exchange for clean product. If you happen across this magnificent monstrosity, tell it Big J sent ya!

Love,

Big J