At 10:47pm the mobile phone beeped at me. It was a message from The Beast.

"Hey there, can you bring in that Homicide Book for me tomorrow? Cheers! TB."

I had workout session/hour of pain scheduled with The Beast the next day and the book he was referring to was the impeccable Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon. (If you haven't read this book, go and buy it now and do so.) I texted back that I hadn't finished with it and he could jolly well wait until I had.

Bad move.

There was a brief pause and then the phone beeped again. I picked it up and read The Beast missive:

"Bring me something to read or I will train you until you crap yourself!! TB."

Given that my brother/trainer/drill sergeant - or The Beast, as he shall be known - has trained me to the point where I almost finished one of his sessions staggering from the rowing machine with a mouth filled with vomit, I'm tempted to take this as more than an idle threat. Like the best - read:sadistic - personal trainers, The Beast has a refined understanding of the human body. He's not just a trainer. He's a dietician. He's a physio therapist. He's a masseuse. He knows how just how much food, physical exertion and dedication is required to sculpt a body so it looks like it was carved from marble. He understands the pyschological mindset needed to initiate such a change - and that each individual needs to reach that state on their own (it can't be taught or enforced). He can clearly see the line between pushing yourself to get results and pushing yourself too far.

So he knows how to make you crap yourself.

Hell, five years ago when I was a regular gym monkey myself, my brother noted that my water intake was low, and so he decreed that I should drink at least two litres a day. "Nothing wrong with that," I thought, "more water will probably be good for me." Of course, the day before I started drinking down H20 by the gallon, The Beast took me through a work-out which targetted the legs with a series of squats, lunges, curls, extentions and other ghastly exercises that left them feeling like Indian Rubber by the end of it. I think at one point I yelled, "Ok! I'll talk! I'll talk!", which he responded to by telling me to shut up and hurling a stress ball into my head. The next day my legs felt as though I was trying to wade through quick drying cement and I was hobbling around the office like an invalid.

This would have been fine in itself if I hadn't been chugging down gallons of water. You see, a body - and in particular a bladder - needs time to adjust to a massive change in the in the volume of water it gets on a day to day basis. So it wasn't long before I was creaking between the toilet and my desk every five minutes. It was only after my third trip to the bathroom that my mind slowly started to piece together a scenario based on the things I knew about my dear brother, The Beast:

1. I need the loo a lot right now.
2. The reason I need the loo is because The Beast told me to drink lots of water.
3. I can barely move.
4. I can barely move because The Beast beasted my legs yesterday.
5. The Beast knows I'll be in a lot of pain and barely able to move.
6. He also knows my bladder won't be able to contend with the vast amounts of water he's instructed me to drink for quite some time.

All this evidence pointed to only one scenario, and I felt both outraged and stupid when as the pieces fell into place. It was obvious! He was trying to make me wet myself at my desk!! The bastard! The fact that my suspicions could be written off as paranoid delusion only convinced me further. After all, plausible deniability is the fuel that drives most of The Beast's mischievous schemes.

In light of this past experience, you can see why I packed King Suckerman by George Pelecanos into my bag ahead of my next session with The Beast. He'd almost made me piss myself - making me take a dump in my pants would be child's play.

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Days without cigarettes: 35
Days without alcohol: 10