In 1998 I grew ever so enchanted with female bodybuilder Th-resa Bostick. She was one of the most beautiful muscular women I’d ever seen in my whole life. So for her, I drew what I consider to be one of the best portraits I’d ever drawn. Especially at that time. I was thrilled when it actually got her attention enough to respond to an email. Then after some back and forth she agreed to meet up the next time she visited Chicago.
Th-resa was the first female bodybuilder I’d ever met, and the experience made a lasting impression. I will never forget the absolute awe upon seeing her insane level of muscularity in person. I don’t know how to describe the feeling, but it’s like nothing else I feel in any other situation at all.
As it turned out, she was just about to embark on a quest to earn her pro card. She had many contests ahead to help get her there, and I was happy to volunteer my services as a photographer, web designer, artist, you name it. Whatever she needed, I wanted in.
I was dying for an adventure. I wanted to get in my car and travel. So I drove to DC where she lived at the time and we traveled across the southern quarter of the US to my first ever bodybuilding event.
– The 1998 Jan Tana Classic.
It was incredible. Overwhelming TO SAY THE LEAST. The experience of walking around in public with a jacked female bodybuilder takes some getting used to. Everyone stares. Men followed her around. I completely understood, despite how much I wanted to show her off, why she so often wanted to hide.
Frankly, we were so busy running around trying to keep on schedule, I hardly remember the Jan Tana contest itself. She came in 5th for the North American Heavyweight & 9th for the Nationals. A couple steps closer to the gold. It was stressful, but so much fun.
Then there was the convention the next day where we got to meet all the fbb celebs and take each other’s pictures with them! It was really an incredible weekend.
There were such high spirits afterwards that we all went out to a nightclub for drink & dance. Me. This skinny, artsy dude going into this nightclub with a group of female bodybuilders. But this wasn’t the sort of cool alternative dance club like I was used to. This place was a bit more “popular”. If I’d walked in here alone I would’ve been afraid. But when your group is all bodybuilders, and the biggest one is your girlfriend, I may have been a little too confident.
It was Th-resa and I, and some of her girlfriends, and then a few other bodybuilders we met up with. I had brought along my camera specifically to take pictures of us on the dancefloor. While we were all dancing I could see these two dudes watching us. We were hard to ignore, I’m sure. One of them was really staring me down too. I was kinda used to being stared down by guys like this. That’s what high school was for me. As well as clubs like this one. I couldn’t figure out what the specific reason was this time though. I figured prolly jealous.
Ftr, the guys in question don’t appear in any of these photos.
Then the one who’d been staring me down the hardest came up and stood close enough for me to hear him over the music, “We see what you’re doing and you better knock it off!”
I just ignored him and kept taking pictures of my friends who also weren’t paying attention. Then his buddy got between me and them trying to get their attention.
“HE’S TAKING PICTURES OF YOU! THIS GUY’S TAKING PICTURES OF YOU!”
But Th-resa and the rest were having too much fun, and too many drinks into the night as well.
Then it happened. The guy who had warned me, pushed me. He knocked my hand holding the camera, then with his forearm shoved me away from the group into some tables. When Th-resa saw this she snapped. With both hands to his chest, she pushed him hard to the floor on his ass, and stood over him, yellin’, “WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM!?!”
I had never seen her explode like this.
I ain’t lying’ when I say it’s probably the fuckin hottest thing anyone has ever done for me.
It was all bodybuilders in every direction after that. The dudes were exclaiming, “WE DIDN’T KNOW YOU GUYS KNEW HIM! I’M SORRY!! WE DIDN’T KNOW!!!”
I get rushed back to our table with big muscle women stationed on either side to comfort me and keep safe from further harm. Th-resa was somewhere out there scaring the shit out of the idiot. Next thing I know, she’s got him by the shirt bringing him over to apologize at our table.
“Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” He says.
I couldn’t even look at him. It was so awkward.
Not for the ladies though! They all had a blast. It was all they talked about that night, and the rest of the weekend. “You’ve got bodyguards! You can tell people you’ve got bodyguards now!” they teased.
After a couple more travels back & forth between Chicago & DC, the distance between us got the better. She’d go on without me to earn her pro card and completely dominate these events over the next 2 years.
- 1999 Jan Tana Amateur Grand Prix – 1st (HW & overall)
- 1999 NPC USA Championships – 1st (HW & overall)
- 2000 IFBB Jan Tana Pro Classic – 1st (HW)
When next we spoke a year or two after, she was excited to tell me of her success, and how she’d just found Jesus, while I in turn explained how I’d just lost him. We said our goodbyes on the phone and never spoke again.
I’m hoping this story finds her well and her memories are as fond as mine of that incredible time in my life. The time a female bodybuilder beatup a bully for me, thus cementing the fantasy into that part of my brain until the day I die.
