Interactive: The Idol, Complete (Patreon)

“Oh my god, dude, I forgot how nice a real bed was,” Alex yawned as he stumbled sleepily into the living room.  He’d spent the past five months hiking and climbing his way through the Alaskan wilderness as part of a quarter-life crisis.  Most nights were spent on cold, hard dirt, so even the worn out mattress in Chris’s spare bedroom had felt luxurious.  

“You’re the one that insisted on living like a caveman for the past six months,” Chris said, pouring a cup of coffee for his friend.  “That beard really sells it.”  

Alex reached up and scratched at the brown clump of bushy, unruly hair on his cheeks.  “Think I should keep it?  Ladies like beards, right?”  

Chris laughed and handed him the mug.  “Not ones that make you look like a serial killer.”  

Alex just shrugged and took a pull from the steaming mug.  Other than his unkempt beard, there was plenty about the young man for people of either sex to enjoy.  He’d always kept in shape and had a naturally lean build, and the months out in the wilderness had only magnified that.  At first glance he might look skinny, until he flexed and his thin build was suddenly covered in steely, corded muscle.  His love of rock climbing had given him a set of broad shoulders and granite arms, with small but chiseled pecs between them.  The countless miles spent walking had melted away what little fat he’d had to begin with, leaving him with ripped abs and a set of toned, solid legs.  The tiny red boxer briefs he had on bulged out modestly in the front and contained a small set of rock-had globes in the back.  His tan skin was naturally smooth for the most part, barring a small patch on his chest and a slight trail down his abs, unless you counted his face.  Underneath the shaggy mop of chestnut brown hair and primitive beard was a handsome, sharp-featured face.  “A serial killer with great abs, though,” he said, flexing his washboard stomach.  

Chris rolled his eyes.  “You impress a lot of girls with those out in the woods?  Or is climbing not the only reason your forearms are so thick?”  

“Back when we lived on campus, how many times did I walk in on you jerking off again,” Alex laughed.  

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me, make sure you knock before you come into my room,” Chris said, grabbing the stuffed pouch of his grey briefs.  Unlike his wiry friend, Chris was covered in gym-sculpted muscle.  The 26 year old had always been athletic, and now that he was out of school and didn’t have the luxury of organized sports to keep him on track, he was religious about his workouts.  He had a broad build, with large, round shoulders, thick upper arms, bulging pecs, and a flat, firm stomach with cut obliques that drew the observer’s eyes directly to the stuffed, full pouch of his briefs.  Hour after hour at the squat rack left him with strong, powerful legs and a large, round bubble that strained against the thin cotton of his underwear.  Chris’s impressive muscle would have been covered in a coating of wiry hair, but he was zealous about keeping himself shaved smooth.  This included his boyishly cute babyface, with it’s short trimmed blonde hair and pale skin.   

“Thanks again for letting me crash here for a while, man.  I’m gonna start looking for work as soon as I get unpacked.”  

“Dude, please, you can stay as long as you need,” Chris said, his arm inflating as he reached up to scratch at his messy bed-head hair.  

“That reminds me!”  Alex hurried into his room and came back with a small bundle wrapped in an old t-shirt.  “I brought you something.  I know you like weird shit, so I figured this’d be right up your alley.  I found it in the mountains up there.  I made camp along a stream and boom, there it was, just sitting in the water.”  Alex unwrapped the bundle to reveal a stone carving of a short, squat figure.  The stone itself was speckled green and black, but Chris had no idea what the figure was supposed to be.  At first glance it looked like a toad, but the longer he looked it could have been a bird.  Or maybe a fish?  Or possibly all three.  

“Damn!  It’s certainly weird,” Chris said, whistling appreciatively as he turned the smooth stone idol over in his hands.  “You sure you don’t want to have this appraised?  It could be worth something.  Is it Alaskan Native?  Or another indigenous group?”  

“No clue, dude.  I just found it on the ground for you.”  

Chris held the idol close to his face to get a better look at the strange stone.  It was cold to the touch and didn’t seem to be getting any warmer the longer he held it.  “I don’t even know what kind of rock this is.”  

Alex laughed.  “Oh, ‘cause you’re a geologist now?  They teach a lot of that in your accounting classes?”  

“Fuuuuuck you,” Chris said, slapping at Alex’s slim, washboard stomach.  

“Seriously though, dude, you’d have loved it.  Super creepy.  I stopped in this little bootleg mining town at the base of the mountain.  Place hasn’t had an active mine since the early seventies...total ghost town except for a few holdouts and one store.  It was like the start of every monster movie ever...bunch’a old dudes sittin’ around the store immediately getting all weirded out when they hear I’m headed up the mountain.  They tried to warn me off with talk of sacred ground and disappearances being the real reason the mine shut down…”

“So of course you ignored them…”

“Of course!  You know I don’t believe in that shit.  I hiked up the mountain, it was absolutely gorgeous, and I found you a creepy souvenir.” 

Chris slowly put the idol down.  “So you brought me back a legit cursed relic?”

Alex shrugged.  “I’ve been carrying it for almost two months now and nothing’s happened, so I think the curse might be a wash at this point.” 

“Either way, thanks...I think…” Chris laughed and went to get dressed for work.  He left Alex in the apartment to get settled, and over the next few days the two friends caught up and fell into their old routine like they were back in college.  Alex shaved his unruly beard down to a manicured stubble and started pounding the pavement to find a job.  The strange idol was placed on a shelf in the living room and quickly became just another decoration.  

It wasn’t until the fourth day that Alex noticed the changes.  

He’d tossed and turned all night, unable to get comfortable.  He felt more stiff and sore than he had sleeping on the ground out in the woods.  He kept tugging at his boxer briefs all night, and when he finally got out of bed the next morning he saw why.  They looked like they were about a size and a half too small.  They bit into his legs and squished his package uncomfortably.  

“What the hell…” Alex yawned, struggling out of the tight underwear.  He tossed it aside and pulled out another pair only to find they fit the same.  “Fuck!”  He gave up after a third pair and waddled uncomfortably out of his room, the underwear pinching and squeezing his thighs and crotch. 

“You okay?”  Chris raised an eyebrow at the sight of Alex stumbling out of his room, tugging at his tight boxer briefs.  

“Yeah, I think I fucked up my laundry.  Or I’m gaining weight?  None of my shit fits this morning.”  

Chris looked his friend up and down.  “Dunno, man.  You DO look a little bigger, but you’re eating real food and not hiking several miles a day, so that’s gonna happen.”  He snapped the waistband of Alex’s too-tight underwear and pinched his friend’s side.  “You could stand to put some meat on anyway.  I gotta run or I’ll be late, but help yourself to whatever clothes of mine you need.”

As soon as Chris was gone Alex stripped down and headed for his friend’s room, stopping to check himself out in the full length mirror on the back of the door.  He definitely looked bigger.  He prodded himself all over, grateful at least that he didn’t feel any softer.  If anything, his muscles seemed larger.  His washboard stomach seemed a bit wider than he remembered, but was still just as ripped, and there was no denying that his lean legs had expanded.  He’d always had a sizeable gap between his toned thighs, but now his rounder quads drifted closer to each other.  When he turned to the side he saw that his pecs stood out a bit farther than they should have, and his tiny bubble butt had inflated.  When he broke into a double bicep pose, his arms were noticeably thicker.  

“What the hell is going on,” he laughed to himself, confused.  He’d been so busy looking for a job that he hadn’t been working out, so if anything he should have been slipping into worse shape, not better.  

He turned from the mirror and started rummaging through Chris’s drawers, feeling a sudden awkward thrill at the thought.  He was naked, in his friend’s room, digging through his underwear.  He pulled out a pair of light blue briefs and slid them on, shivering as they settled into place.  He looked at himself in the mirror again and couldn’t help but think about how much like his bulkier friend he was starting to look.  The thought made his cock twitch.  He ran a hand over the enlarged muscles on his torso, the thought that he was rock hard in his friend’s underwear, and in his friend’s room, was too much.  

Without knowing why, he laid back on Chris’s bed and fished his aching cock free of the borrowed briefs.  He folded an arm behind him, resting his head on the inflated bicep while he pumped with the other hand.  His enlarged ass flexed and relaxed over and over as he thrust into his hand.  Even his rigid cock was starting to feel thicker than it should.  Alex was so caught up in what he was doing that he didn’t hear the apartment door open.  

“Dude!”  Chris froze in the doorway to his room, staring down at Alex jerking off on his bed.  “What the fuck are you doing?!”  

Alex shot up on the bed, his increasingly buff body turning red from head to toe with embarrassment.  “Oh, oh god, dude, I’m so sorry!  I don’t know what I was…”

“Whoa, bud, chill out,” Chris laughed from the door.  He cocked his head and stared at Alex long enough to make the other man increasingly uncomfortable.  “Holy shit...you really ARE bigger,” Chris said, looking at the way Alex’s triceps popped as he supported himself on the bed.  His friend’s trim waist was wider, and his thighs pressed outwards more than they should as they squished against his bed.  

Momentarily forgetting the solid cock separating them, Alex flexed an expanded arm.  “I know!  That’s what I was trying to say this morning!  It’s like I’m bulking up somehow!”  He looked down at himself and remembered what he’d been in the middle of.  “Shit, sorry, I should put this away,” he laughed awkwardly.  

Chris waved it off.  “Whatever man, you caught me doing it enough, it’s about time I got a turn.”  He grinned from ear to ear at at Alex’s bashful squirming.  “Never thought I’d catch you doing it in my bed, or in my underwear.  That’s a little weird.”

Alex finally noticed his heart was racing.  He hadn’t even attempted to cover himself, and the more he looked up at Chris’s cocky smile, the more his thickened cock throbbed.  “Well if you really wanted to take a turn at catching you like I did, this is the place to do it.”  He tried to make it a joke, but his tone was nervous.  

“If you REALLY want to do it like I did, your form is all wrong.  You gotta get comfortable.  And you gotta ditch the underwear so you can get a good spread of the legs.”  Chris let the silence linger for a minute before continuing.  “Well?  Get to it!”  

“What?  You…” Alex’s stomach fluttered and his face burned, but he found himself scooting back on the bed so he could stretch out.  He leaned forward and pulled the briefs off before laying back, spread eagle, his aching cock pointing up at the ceiling.  

“There you go!  Give that a whirl.”  Alex’s hand trembled as he reached back down and started pumping under Chris’s watchful eye.  “How’s that?”  

“Be...better…” Alex stammered.  He had no idea why he was doing this.  

“You’ve gotta really get into it, man.  How many times did you find me just laying there?”  Alex thought back to the times he’d caught Chris’s naked frame bucking on his bed and groaned.  “You’ve got two hands...use ‘em!  Work those balls and get your hips into it.”  

Alex was flush with a mix of lust and humiliation when he reached down and started tugging and kneading his heavy orbs while pumping his hips into his stroking grip.  He could feel his new muscles flex, causing his body to move in ways it never did before.  Even the dick in his hand felt like a stranger’s, a thought that turned him on even more.  He was squirming and writhing vigorously, all while staring at Chris who continued to watch with a strange expression on his face and a growing tent in his dress pants.  

“Did you take a vow of silence or what,” Chris egged on.  “Let’s hear it.”  

This was too much.  Alex opened his mouth to protest.  “UUUhhhnnnnn….” he moaned loudly instead.  “Fuuuuuuuuuck yes….yes...oh fuck...oh fuck….ohhhh…” Alex felt himself losing control.  “Uhhnnn….unnnn….gonna….gonna fuckin’....cccuuuuuuuuuuuhhhnnn!”  His eyes locked with Chris, Alex exploded.  He rocketed stream after stream high into the air before it splattered across his expanding pecs.  

He was horrified at what he’d just done.  Yes, he’d walked in on Chris jerking off, but he’d never stayed to watch him finish, or given him pointers.  And he had no idea why he suddenly wished that he had, or why he got such a thrill at the idea of Chris watching him.  

“Chris...man...what the fuck did we just do…” he half laughed and half gasped.  

Chris just shrugged his broad shoulders and adjusted the solid lump in his pants.  “We?  Looked like you were doing all the work.  Just make sure you wash those sheets before I get back,” he laughed, turning away and going back into the other room.  “I came back to grab my work phone, I still gotta run.  Maybe “we” can do something when I get home.”  

Alex heard the door shut and sat on the edge of the bed, confused.  His thickened cock was softening between his widened thighs and trails of cum ran down his now-bulging pecs while he scratched his head with an inflated arm.  “We?  What the fuck does that mean,” he asked to the empty apartment.  

Alex spent the rest of the morning in a daze. He eventually pulled himself off Chris’s bed and stumbled back out into the apartment. His whole body felt heavier than it should and his bigger thighs threw off his gait. The foreign underwear wasn't helping either. Chris’s briefs were much smaller than the boxer briefs he was used to, and his cock still twitched when he thought about the fact that he was wearing his friend’s underwear. He tried to put on more of his own clothes but everything was officially too small. He actually shredded a tight t-shirt when he tried to force it on. It spread across his now-bulging pecs and widened stomach like a second skin and ripped down the back as soon as he moved his arms.  He started to go back into Chris’s room to grab more of his friend’s clothes, but got distracted by a text. 

“Hey man, I forgot to ask, since you're home can you tidy the place up a little?” The text from Chris read. “Dishes and vacuuming really need doing.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Alex responded before he'd even thought about it. It was weird that Chris was asking, but he WAS letting him stay there. Forgetting all about putting anything else on, he went into the kitchen and got started on the dishes.  

He kept getting distracted by the sight of his expanding chest and thickened forearms as he scrubbed.  Looking down at the sink, he could see less of it over his meaty new pecs and the dishes felt smaller than they should in his hands.  He kept bumping his muscled stomach against the counter, unused to how it now arched forward.  Alex had just finished the dishes when another text came through.  

“Hey dude, also throw my laundry in for me.”  

Alex was annoyed that this wasn’t even phrased as a question, but just responded with “will do!”  Somewhat reluctantly, he went back into his friend’s room to gather up his hamper and dirty clothes.  While picking up the scattered items on the floor, Alex hesitated over a pair of crumpled black briefs.  He recognized them as the ones Chris had on the previous day and, before he knew what he was doing, had them pressed against his face.  He inhaled deeply, relishing the musky, sweaty scent while he gnawed on an edge.    

“What the fuck?!”  Alex tore them away from his face, horrified by his actions.  His inflated body turned a mortified shade of purple as he stared at the fabric tingling against his palms.  He stuffed everything in the hamper and stormed off down the hall.  He tried not to think about it as he dumped his friend’s laundry into the washing machine.  

“Laundry day, huh?”  

Alex turned and saw a burly, hairy ginger standing in the doorway to the laundry room.  The broad young man looked to be about his and Chris’s age, maybe a bit younger based on the lack of wrinkles around his smiling eyes, with broad, hairy shoulders and thick, freckle-covered arms hanging out the sides of a tight tanktop.  A powerful chest covered in wiry red hairs stuck out the top and his sturdy lower half was covered in a pair of loose basketball shorts.  

“Oh, uh, hey,” Alex said, his eyes traveling up and down the other man’s powerful frame.  “Yeah, I’ve gotta throw this...in…” Alex’s stomach dropped when it finally occurred to him why the other man’s bushy red beard was split into a broad grin.  He’d been so caught off guard by his behavior that he’d taken off down the hall to the laundry room without putting anything else on.  It was his turn to watch the other man’s eyes travel up and down his own expanded frame and stuffed briefs.  “Shit!”  Alex turned bright red and laughed awkwardly.  “Sorry man, I’m totally out of it this morning…”

The big man just laughed and stuck out a wide hand.  “You Alex?  I’m Trent.”  

“Uh, yeah, nice to meet you,” Alex said, squirming slightly under Trent’s mischievous smile.  

“Chris said you’d be staying with him for a while.  It’s cool man, you can relax.  There’s only one other apartment on this floor and he’s cool,” Trent said, cocking his head.  “But if I looked like that I’d probably show it off too.”  

Alex blushed even harder, acutely aware of just how tight his briefs had gotten.  He was also experiencing a bit of whiplash at having gone from feeling huge in his expanding body to suddenly small next to the bearded hulk.  

Trent laughed loudly and clapped Alex on the shoulder.  “He said you were uptight.  I’m just fuckin’ with ya dude.  You want me to leave?”  

“No, no, sorry,” Alex said, feeling foolish and warming up to the other man.  “It’s just been a weird morning.”  

“Chris said you were out hiking for the last six months or something like that?”  

“Yeah, up through Canada and Alaska…” The two went about their laundry while Alex told Trent about his travels like they were old friends.  By the time they finally went their separate ways, Alex had forgotten all about his lack of clothes.  He reluctantly left the other man only after he promised to hang out with him and Chris later.  

When he got back to the apartment, there was another text.  

“Hit the bathroom too.”  

“Jesus, dude, I’m not your fuckin’ maid,” Alex sighed.  “Got it!” He responded, letting none of his annoyance show.  He pulled out the vacuum and ran it through the entire apartment, surprised at how easy it felt.  His newly-muscled arm pulled it back and forth like it weighed nothing.  He caught himself stumbling a few times, his expanding legs throwing his balance off.  

There was a nagging voice in his head that was telling him he should be more concerned about what was happening.  Logically he knew people didn’t just start piling on muscle, especially over the course of a day.  And then there was the incident with Chris catching him, and then catching himself huffing his friend’s underwear.  Just thinking about it made his cock swell.  Thoughts of Trent blended in, and Alex blushed at how much he’d enjoyed the other man eyeing his almost naked body.  He kneaded his stiff bulge, resisting the urge to go at it a second time that day, and headed for the bathroom.  

“Fuck!”  Alex froze as soon as he saw his reflection.  He looked like an entirely different person.  He hadn’t just put on a bit of muscle; he was officially built.  His wiry, lean body had puffed and solidified into a tapering V, and his friend’s briefs that were loose just a few hours ago were now stretched to capacity over his round, solid cheeks.  He understood why Trent had stared.  

“This...this can’t be happening…” Alex stammered, finally paying attention to the nagging voice.  He staggered out of the bathroom to find his phone, intending to call for help.  

Alex fumbled with his phone as he sent Chris a frantic text message.  His larger fingers felt sluggish and awkward hammering against a screen that felt too small in a widened grip.  He finally gave up and used the voice option.  

“Dude I think I need to go to the hospital or something I’m still getting bigger.” The words sounded even more bizarre out loud.  The few minutes of waiting for Chris to respond felt like hours.  

“Wtf do you mean you’re getting bigger?”  

Alex stood in front of the mirror, flexing a thick bicep to send Chris a picture.  “Look at this!”  

“Fuck! Holy shit man you’re jacked!  Does it hurt?  Do you feel okay?”  Chris’s messages came one after the other in a hurried string.  

“It doesn’t hurt.  I’m freaked the fuck out but I feel okay,” Alex managed to type back.  Now that he was stopping to think about it, he really did feel fine.  

“If you feel fine then I wouldn’t go to the hospital.  You’re just gonna sit there all night and pay out the ass for them to tell you you’re fine or send you to another doctor.”  Alex waited, the three dots on his screen telling him more was coming.  “I’m literally getting ready to leave as I type this.  Just sit tight and we’ll figure something out when I get back, cool?”  

Alex hesitated.  He still felt like he should go for help, but Chris made sense.  “Okay.  See you in a bit.”  As soon as he typed it, Alex remembered he hadn’t finished cleaning the bathroom.  Despite his fear over what was happening to his body, the growing young man’s heart started racing at the thought of not finishing before Chris got home.  He was bordering on desperate as he dropped to his hands and knees, his growing bubble wagging behind him while he scrubbed the floor, toilet and tub until both were spotless.  He stared at his bulging, heaving pecs as he wiped the mirror and panted at his reflection from the marathon cleaning session.  

“Fuck!  The laundry!”  Giving it no more thought than he had the first time, Alex bolted from the apartment in nothing but his tight briefs.  The thought of letting Chris down outweighed his embarrassment at being so exposed.  He made it back just before Chris arrived.  

“HOLY SHIT!”  Chris’s briefcase hit the floor almost as hard as his jaw when he saw the full extent of Alex’s changes.  “You’re...fuck, man, the pic didn’t do it justice.  Look at you!”  Alex stood bashfully while Chris came over and prodded at his enlarged body with wide eyes and gaping mouth.  For the first time in their decade of friendship, Alex was the bigger one and neither man knew how to respond.  “I get why you were freaked out now,” Chris said, finally stepping back.  He loosened his tie and made Alex turn in a circle and flex for him while he undid his shirt.  “Dude, how are you bigger than me now?!”  Chris pulled his shirt free and exposed his own built torso.  He flexed his meaty pecs and firm arms, marveling that Alex wasn’t just bigger; he was leaner.  His formerly lanky friend wasn’t just filling out with mass; he was somehow putting on precision-sculpted muscle.  Chris had been trying to get that lean for months, leaving him with a sculpted build that now took second place to his friend.  

“I dunno man,” Alex laughed awkwardly, trying not to stare at Chris’s bare chest.  “This feels real weird.”  He didn’t say why.  Alex didn’t know how to explain that even though he was now bigger than his friend, he felt smaller and more insecure than ever, especially as he watched Chris stare at his stuffed bulge.  

“Fuck, man!  Even this is bigger than me now?!”  Chris laughed as he suddenly reached over and tugged Alex’s briefs down, letting the other man’s longer, thicker package flop free.  

Alex blushed but didn’t try to cover himself.  “I mean, that’s not saying much…” 

“Hey now!” Chris slapped Alex’s rigid washboard and gave his friend a final look before turning away to look around the apartment.  

“I got everything done,” Alex said quickly, watching Chris’s inspecting eye roam around the room.  

“Good! This place needed…” Chris paused at the basket of his laundry on the couch.  “You didn’t fold it?”  

Alex felt his stomach drop.  “Oh, uh, no, I didn’t….I mean….I got distracted by…” he motioned down at himself, having a flash of awareness that something was increasingly wrong.  He was standing in a pair of his friend’s briefs that were pulled down around a set of thighs that were too big, with his dick hanging out, while being chastised for not folding Chris’s laundry that he’d done after cleaning his friend’s entire apartment.  He opened his mouth to protest, but instead only managed a weak apology.  “Do you want me to do it right now?”  

Chris clapped him on a broad shoulder and shook his head.  “Nah, you can do it later.  Just remember that for next time.  You can hang these up, though.”  Alex was too distracted by the sight of Chris pulling his slacks off to question what his friend meant by “next time.” His eyes were fixed to the way Chris’s briefs stretched tight across his friend’s firm cheeks as the other man picked up his discarded shirt and handed it to him.  Alex followed when Chris headed for his bedroom, turning a bright shade of red when he felt his still-exposed cock bounce against his thighs that were still bound by his pulled-down underwear.  With Chris’s shirt in one hand and pants in the other, he waddled into the other room and gave his friend a view of his exposed bubble while he hung the clothes.  It wasn’t until that was done that he finally pulled his underwear back into place.  “I don’t think you need a doctor, bud,” Chris said as he slid on a pair of form-fitting khaki shorts and a tight t-shirt.  “Right now I think you need some clothes that fit.  Let’s get you set up and then see how you feel in the morning.”  

Alex just nodded.  It wasn’t phrased as a question.  He took the shorts and shirt that Chris handed him without comment.  He knew his friend had things that were more in line with his basic tastes, and that would probably fit better, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.  He recognized the small green gym shorts.  Chris had them when they’d lived together years ago, and when his friend had been several sizes smaller.  They’d be a squeeze on the buff blonde now, and on Alex’s expanded frame they were stretched almost as tight as his boxer briefs would have been.  The shirt, a paper-thin, light blue tanktop that just barely reached the top of the shorts, wasn’t much better.  His broad pecs were almost entirely on display, and if he raised his arms he exposed his hairy new six-pack.  

He squeezed his feet into a pair of Chris’s bright cross-trainers to cap the outfit.  “Let me, uh, just grab my wallet,” Alex said, sounding confused that he was agreeing to leave the house looking like this.  

“Dude, don’t worry about it.  I got it.  You don’t have the money for this right now anyway.”  

Alex felt a flutter in his trim stomach at the thought of his friend looking out for him.  “Really? Oh man, that’s great!  I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, I promise.”  He was so distracted by his sudden gratitude that he forgot all about his embarrassment.  

It wasn’t until they were out on a crowded sidewalk and he saw his reflection in a store window, as well as the looks on people’s faces, that he had second thoughts.  He was handsome enough that he was used to getting checked out, but not like this.  Half of the looks were thirsty, and the other half were sneers at his bright, plastered on outfit.  Alex couldn’t help but notice that most of the thirsty glances were from men.   

His second thoughts grew when he saw where Chris was taking him.  Instead of just getting bigger versions of his standard clothes, Chris took him to a sporting-goods store.  Alex soon found himself staring at racks of spaghetti-strapped, open-sided muscle shirts and an array of mesh and nylon shorts.  Even as Chris started pulling out the brightest colors and most revealing styles, he couldn’t say no.  He couldn’t even protest when his friend wanted to follow him into the dressing room.  

“I’m paying for it, aren’t ?”  Chris said, pushing Alex along into the dressing room.  “Besides, I’m used to stuff this size.”  

Alex could only shrug and strip out of his borrowed outfit while Chris watched.  He was surprised as he went through his impromptu fashion show that even though these clothes were bigger, they were somehow MORE revealing.  The shirts left his torso entirely visible to anyone who looked at him from the side, and the scooping necks and tiny straps left his perky little nipples uncovered while his broad back spilled out from behind.  The bright shorts weren’t any better.  They weren’t skin-tight like the ones he’d had on, but “short” was a literal description.  These weren’t baggy, knee-length basketball shorts; they were snug, revealing, and barely traveled south of his thigh.  They accentuated and thrust forward his meatier package and left each of his solid, growing cheeks separated and outlined in back.  

“Yeah man, this stuff is waaay better,” Chris said approvingly.  

Alex turned in the mirror and squirmed under the loose, open muscle shirt.  The hot pink fabric popped against his tanned, olive skin tone and the wiry black hairs that coated his mostly-visible torso.  “It is?”  He sounded even more unsure as he tugged the lime green shorts as far down his widened quads as they’d go.  

“Here, try these and then we’ll call it for now.” 

“Okay,” Alex sighed and shrugged, taking yet another pair of tiny shorts from his friend.  They were a light powder blue like the shirt he’d had on, and like the shirt the material was incredibly thin.  He started to pull them on when he noticed the built in mesh.  “Oh...uh...these look like they…”

“Yeah dude, they’re jogging shorts.  You’ve worn them before,” Chris said, sounding annoyed by his friend’s hesitation.  

Alex quickly shucked his briefs at Chris’s tone and tried not to look at the well-muscled stranger in the mirror.  He told himself that thick, hanging package wasn’t his own, and he wasn’t really wearing a hot pink muscle shirt.  When he pulled the shorts on, he didn’t really have a huge bulge with his almost-visible cock outlined against the thin material.  Those weren’t actually the dimples of his ass poking out through the slit in the sides of the shorts.  

“Oh yeah, those are winners!”  Chris’s excited tone told him they actually were his, and he was suddenly glad.  “Just leave it on and we’ll pay for it on the way out.”  

Alex tried to wrap his head around the mix of excitement and humiliation he felt.  He’d been mortified at the look on the salesman’s face when he sat to try on a pair of shoes and his new shorts spread so much it looked like he didn’t have any pants on, but one word from Chris and he was back on cloud nine.  By the time they left Alex had gone from someone who wore drab colors and utilitarian clothes to a peacocking gym-bunny.  He had on neon orange running shoes, striped knee socks, his bright blue shorts, and the hot pink muscle shirt.  There was no way for him to go unnoticed.  The few remaining muscles that weren’t already on display were expertly accentuated by the bright garments.  

“Uh, thanks for all this,” he said, squirming against the feeling of the warm evening air on his heavier package as it reached in through the sides of the shorts.  “Like I said, I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”  

Chris grinned and squeezed Alex’s bare shoulder.  “About that….I’ve been thinking about jobs for you, and with your new growth spurt I think you should put that body to good use.”  

Alex shrugged his friend’s hand off his bowling ball shoulder.  “What...like manual labor?  Construction?  I don’t know how to do any of that stuff.”  He blushed when he saw the look on Chris’s face.  “No!  I’m not doing sex stuff, man!”  

“No, dude, not, like, turning tricks or anything.  I used to work with a guy who had a gig on the weekends as a dancer over at the Cage and he made a fuckin’ killing.  And he didn’t look half as good as you do now.”  

“You want me to be a stripper?”  Alex couldn’t believe he was even saying it out loud.  

“If the money’s there and you’ve got the body, why not?” 

“If the money’s so good why don’t you do it?”  

“Because I don’t NEED the money.  You do.”  

Alex wrestled with what his friend was saying.  “But...I’m not gay, and I can’t dance…” 

Chris waved it off and pulled out his phone.  “So?  Neither was the dude I worked with.  You’re not going to be in a music video, man.  People aren’t going to be watching your moves, they’re going to be watching this,” he said, slapping Alex’s firm bubble.  

“I don’t know man, this is a lot to think about…” 

“Look, there’s a club a few blocks from here that’s having an amateur night tonight.  Just give it a shot.  If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.  But you’ll never know otherwise.”  

“I...okay, I guess?”  Alex didn’t know why he was agreeing.  He didn’t actually want to go through with it, but the more Chris talked as they headed for the club, the harder it became to say no.  The whole day was starting to feel like a dream.  His body, his clothes, his behaviors; none of it felt real.  Now stripping?  Alex was almost dizzy from his head spinning.  

“Here we are!”  Chris’s eager voice was the opposite of what Alex was feeling.  He’d never even been IN a gay bar, let alone stripped in one.  But that didn’t stop him from following his friend into a place called the Stallion.  

“I...I don’t know about this,” Alex stammered.  As soon as they walked in, all eyes were on him. 

“Dude, you’ll do great.  These guys are checking you out already.  Just go up to the bar and say you want to sign up.”  

Alex sighed and did as he was told.  “Uh, hi,” he said to the shirtless young man behind the bar.  “Is this where I sign up for amateur night?”  

The young man’s lean, ripped torso was covered in tattoos that made his defined muscles pop and drew Alex’s eyes down to his tight jeans.  He looked Alex up and down in return with a crooked smirk.  “Sure is.  What’s your name?”  

Alex was aware of the heads around him turning to check him out.  He was leaning against the bar so that his perky, barely covered bubble was sticking out.  “Alex,” he said, trying to sound confident.

The bartender’s growing smile told him it didn’t work.  He patted the back of Alex’s hand and nodded towards the men staring at him.  “Don’t be nervous, honey, you’ll do just fine.  You’ll go on in ten after Billy.”  

Alex felt a bit shellshocked as he walked away from the bar.  He was committed now.  True, he could just run out the door, but he knew that wasn’t an option, not really.  

“All signed up?”  Chris was at the bar with a drink already in hand.  “I was watching these guys watching you...I think they’ll be falling all over themselves to see what’s under those shorts.”  

Alex blushed.  He never imagined himself in this situation.  “Great.  Just what...oh, shit!  Let me see one of the bags!”  

“What?”  

“My shorts...I don’t have anything on under them, remember?  Let me see some of the stuff we just bought so I’m not naked up there.  Hurry!  I’m on next.”  

“Here!  Just take this,” Chris said, shoving a wad at him.  Alex hurried into the bathroom to change, his stomach dropping when he saw the long urinal and two open stalls.  

“Shit…” he muttered under his breath.  He didn’t have time to hesitate.  The pumping music outside meant Billy was already starting.  He tried to act like he was just in a locker room as he stepped as far into a stall as he could and pulled his shorts off.  Without fail, as soon as the shorts were down the bathroom door opened.  

“Well heeeellllooooo!”  

Alex blushed and turned to see a pair of drunk, middle aged men gawking at him.  “Oh! Uh, sorry, I’m up next.  Last minute wardrobe change...this is my first time...”  Alex wanted to murder Chris when he finally looked at what his friend had handed him.  The bright red jockstrap wasn’t going to be much better than being naked.  Remembering that his dick was hanging out in front of the two men, he quickly pulled it on anyway.  

“Thanks for the early show,” one of the men said as he came over and snapped a five dollar bill into the jock’s waistband, the back of his hand brushing against the stuffed pouch.  “Glad to be your first customer.”  

“Uh, thanks,” Alex said, unsure of what he should feel.  Part of him felt a thrill at so obviously turning the men on with his body alone, but the flipside was that he felt like a piece of meat.  He didn’t even like going to straight strip clubs because so openly objectifying the women made him uncomfortable.  Now he was about to do that to himself.  

He had his shorts back on just as the music stopped.  The bartender motioned from across the room for him to take a spot next to the platform while Billy, a lean little blonde that was all ass and thighs, picked up his money.  The shorter man smiled at him encouragingly as Alex’s name was announced.  

It was a toss up for Alex which was louder, the music or his pounding heart.  He was all adrenaline as he stepped up on the platform and started wiggling and flexing.  The crowd seemed to surge around him and he found himself looking out into a sea of lustful, hungry faces.  He wouldn’t let himself focus on how embarrassed he was.  Instead, he focused on the music and moving in time with it.  It was almost hypnotic.  By the time he had his shirt off a few moments later it started to feel easy.  His new body was moving in ways his old one never did.  He wasn’t stiff and awkward like he’d always felt on the dance floor.  He was lithe and flexible, despite his added bulk.  He flexed his meaty new arms while he wiggled his hips and groped his bulging pecs.  He traced a finger along the dark, wiry hairs that ran down his abs and toyed with the waistband of his shorts, pulling it out and down to tease the crowd.  Already several bills were wedged inside and Alex discovered that he didn’t really mind the strange hands as much as he thought he would.  

He turned so that his back was to the crowd and slowly tugged the shorts down, revealing his firm globes bit by bit.  The crowd went wild when he kicked the shorts free and shook his cheeks in time with the music.  The hands and bills came in a frenzy then.  Alex was so caught up in what he was doing that he didn’t even care when one of the hands tugged the front of the jock down.  He knew he’d just flashed a room full of strangers, but all he did was snap it back into place and continue to bounce the bulging pouch around.  

When the song came to an end the crowd roared for him to continue.  His pecs glistened with beads of sweat that ran down his washboard stomach while he scooped up his money and discarded clothes.  There was a part of him that wanted to keep going.  

“See?  What’d I tell ya? Not so bad, right?”  Chris was beaming when Alex reemerged with his clothes on, a stack of bills in his hand.  

“That was actually pretty fun,” Alex said, his bashful grin stretching from ear to ear.  “And I made $150 bucks in like five minutes.”  

“Was that really your first time?”  The bartender came over to congratulate Alex on his performance.  “You were a natural up there.”  

Alex was almost as surprised as everyone else.  “Yep.  We just did this on a whim ‘cause I need a job…”

“Honey, you’re hired,” the bartender interrupted.  “Once word gets out we’ll have a line out the door if you keep that up.”  

Alex gave the man his info as one of many drinks came his way.  When it became clear that Chris wasn’t his boyfriend, there was practically a line of guys waiting to flirt with him.  The normally reserved Alex ate it up.  Young, old, fat, built; it didn’t matter.  He flirted right back and danced with anyone until Chris finally called it a night.  He left with a stack of phone numbers almost as tall as his money.  

“Okay, yeah, that was a good call,” Alex said as he leaned drunkenly into Chris on their walk home.  He wasn’t as drunk as he was letting on, but the alcohol was an excuse to have his arm around Chris’s broad shoulders.  

Chris just laughed, tightening his grip around Alex’s waist.  “I always knew under that uptight exterior you had a wilder side.”  

‘I know, right? It’s crazy...all of this...these muscles...the...the way I’m feeling...I just wish I knew why it was all…” 

“It seems to be working, so I’d just go with it,” Chris said as they made their way up the stairs to his apartment.  “I gotta admit, bro, even I thought you were sexy up there.”   

“Yeah?”  Alex grinned mischievously and pushed Chris down onto a chair when they were inside.  

“Hey!  What’re you…” 

“Put some music on,” Alex said, blaming the alcohol for his actions.  

Chris raised a confused eyebrow.  “What?”  

“This was your idea...if I’m a stripper now, I’d say you’ve earned a lap dance.”  

“Dude, you’re drunk,” Chris laughed, blushing.  

“So?  Come on...I need the practice.”

“Oookay…” Chris sighed, putting on some music and settling into the chair.   

Alex walked in a slow, steady circle around his seated friend, running a hand across Chris’s meaty pecs and along the back of his wide shoulders.  When he was back in front he raised his arms behind his head and flexed, licking his enlarged biceps while slowly writhing and dropping his hips.  He watched Chris’s expression change from an amused grin to something else altogether.  “Ah ah, no touching,” Alex chided when he felt Chris’s hand on one of his bulky quads.  He pulled the loose tanktop free before bending over to grab the bottom of his friend’s tight tshirt. He didn’t say anything, but Chris lifted his arms to let Alex pull it free.  

The dancing man felt his cock twitch at the sight of Chris’s bare, ripped torso.  He’d seen it thousands of times before, but it never made him feel like this.  He turned his back and straddled Chris’s lap, squatting down to press his back against his friend’s smooth skin and grind his ass into his lap.  

“Ho...holy shit dude…” Chris panted while Alex writhed his firm cheeks against his crotch.  His friend had his hands on his head, accentuating just how big his arms had become while his waist tapered to a fine point.  

“Like that?”  Alex had convinced himself that despite feeling stone sober, it was the booze and only the booze making him do this.  He was just on an adrenaline high; he didn’t really like the feeling of Chris’s cock hardening against him.  

“I don’t know if it’s weirder to say yes or no,” Chris laughed awkwardly.  “That ass is incredible.”  

In response, Alex stood just long enough to drop his shorts before letting his now bare cheeks resume their position.  

“Oh that’s just not fair,” Chris groaned.  He was painfully hard.  

Alex spun and dropped to his knees, his hands sliding into Chris’s shorts.  He ran his hands up his friend’s solid, furry thighs until his fingertips brushed the other man’s straining briefs.  Alex couldn’t stop himself.  He didn’t know if he even wanted to stop himself.  He pulled his hands free and had Chris’s shorts open in a flash.  There was a pause and a gasp from his friend when the next thing he knew, he had Chris’s pulsing, thick cock firmly in his lips.  

“Whoa...what’re you...jeeeeeesus….” Chris whined, equally surprised by Alex’s actions.  He’d been oblivious to his own change in attitude toward his friend and hadn’t realized how much he wanted this.  He’d never fooled around with a guy before, but he no longer viewed his friend the same way he viewed other guys.  Alex certainly looked the part.  Looking down, all Chris saw were broad shoulders, huge arms, and a slab of pecs.  Yet something about Alex made it so that this didn’t seem weird at all.  “Ohhh man...I’m...fuck...I’mmmmmmuuuuuhhhh!”  Chris exploded into Alex’s mouth, reeling from the intensity of it all.  He squirmed while Alex sucked him dry, not letting go until Chris’s long hose was mostly soft.  

Alex’s impressive chest heaved as he looked up from between Chris’s thighs and caught his breath.  “What...what did we just do?”  

“We’re just getting started,” Chris said, pulling Alex to his feet.  

“With whaaammppfff…” Alex was cut off when Chris grabbed the back of his head and pulled it towards him to press their lips together.  Alex’s mouth was invaded by his friend’s eager tongue while their solid bodies writhed together.  For Alex, it was the first time he really felt how big he’d become.  Chris had always towered over him.  Despite their same height, Chris had always been twice as thick as he had.  Now, somehow, Alex had the advantage.  It didn’t make sense.  It shouldn’t have been possible.  All of the day’s weirdness was culminating but he was too overcome to try and process anything.  Between his experience at the club and having just blown his friend, it was all he could do to keep his brain from shutting down.  He let his body take the lead instead.  

“Fuck, man, you ARE jacked,” Chris sighed, roughly kneading Alex’s recently acquired pecs.  He gazed into his friend’s confused eyes and reached down to grab Alex’s aching pole.  Alex searched Chris’s eyes for some spark of recognition that this was wrong, or at least weird.  All he saw was a growing hunger.  “Come on,” Chris said, pulling his friend along behind him to the bedroom.  

Alex gasped when Chris grabbed him and he scampered to keep up.  His friend’s rough hand on his enlarged tool felt fantastic.  He didn’t want him to let go, but he didn’t resist when Chris shoved him onto the bed.  He writhed as his friend fell on top of him, straddling his muscular frame with his own solid body.  He still didn’t understand.  He could blame his own strange behavior on whatever was happening to his body, but as far as he could see, Chris hadn’t changed.  He had no idea why his straight friend was suddenly so interested in him but he wasn’t going to complain.  Chris’s mouth traveled left Alex’s lips and traveled down his neck to linger on his pecs.  Chris’s tongue was warm and wet on the wiry hairs as it bathed every inch of the solid slabs.  “OOHHH!”  Alex spasmed when Chris roughly gnawed on one of his nipples, his hands digging into his friend’s firm cheeks.  

“You liked that?”  Chris’s grin was mischievous as he flexed his solid cheeks against Alex’s grasping fingers.  

“Ye...yeah,” Alex panted.  “It wassoohhh!”  Chris resumed his attack, harder this time.  Alex writhed underneath him.  This was nothing at all like the sex he’d had with women.  Chris was powerful and in control and he was putty in the other man’s strong hands.  Alex was always the aggressive one during sex and he never imagined that being on the receiving end could feel this good.  Just like he’d been ordering him around all day, his brawny friend was calling the shots, and looking up at Chris’s broad athletic build sent a thrill through him.  

Chris lifted his head from Alex’s chest and sat back on his legs, straddling Alex’s trim waist.  Alex squirmed between his powerful thighs, loving how the heavy, hardening cock and meaty balls felt on his hairy stomach. He was trying to read Chris’s expression.  His friend was gazing down at him with a cocky grin, but there was a strange look in his eyes.  “Why didn’t we ever do this before?”  Chris panted, rubbing his hands along Alex’s washboard abs.  

Alex laughed, squeezing Chris’s powerful thighs.  “I don’t even know why we’re doing it now.  Look at me, man.  How did I get jacked in a day?  And since when did you like guuuuhhhh!”  Alex trailed off into a groan when Chris reached back and grabbed his oozing cock again.  

“What’d I tell you earlier, dude?  It feels good, right?  Just relax and go with it.”  

Alex closed his eyes while Chris tugged, riding a wave of euphoria.  His friend was right.  Putting aside all the questions and impossibilities, he’d never felt better.  He was perfectly content to lay there between Chris’s legs and let his friend do whatever he wanted.  

What Chris wanted turned out to be a surprise.  Alex felt his friend let go of his rigid cock and slide further down.  When he felt the other man shifting his weight, Alex opened his eyes just in time to see Chris lower himself onto his positioned rod.  Alex could only gasp, his eyes bugging out of his skull at the intensity of the sensation.  

“NNNnnggg...fuck...fuck that hur...uuurr…” Chris’s face was a mask of pain as he lowered himself bit by bit.  Alex watched that expression gradually change as his friend worked himself down and grew accustomed to what he felt.  “Whoooaaaaa...haha….there it is…” Chris laughed, bucking when Alex’s thick cock hit a sweet spot.  

“Dude...what’re you...shit man...oh shit…” Alex clutched Chris’s thighs as his friend started working his hips and rocking back and forth.  The whole bed shook as they became a bucking mass of muscle.  

“Fuck man...fuuuuck yeah...come on...don’t just lay there…” Chris moaned, his fingers biting into Alex’s meaty pecs while the prone man started raising and lowering his hips to drive himself deeper into his friend’s eager hole.  Despite the fact that Chris was riding him, Alex couldn’t escape the feeling that his friend was still in charge.  He wasn’t fucking Chris, Chris was using his ass to fuck him.  The fact that the other man could still seem so controlling and in charge while bouncing up and down on his dick only made Alex squirm harder.  Chris’s flexing abs and arms were the picture of perfection.  He let go of one of Chris’s thighs and grabbed the oozing cock that was slapping up and down on his stomach, stroking it while his friend shimmied and squirmed.  “Ohhh shit man...I’m...I’mmmmmUUUNNNN!”  His fingers tensed on Alex’s chest and then the prone man felt a torrent of warm, sticky fluid spatter in thick spurts all over his chest.  

Alex groaned, loving how the rain of cum felt while being surprised that he hadn’t blown his own load yet.  He’d never had stamina like this before.  Chris’s tight hole and coltish frame felt better than anything he could remember, but he still hadn’t gone over.  

“Damn...you ARE a stud,” Chris panted.  “Get ready champ,” he said with a smug grin, leaning down and tweaking both of Alex’s nipples while bouncing with renewed vigor.  

Alex grunted as his world exploded into sparks of pleasure.  Chris’s firm cheeks were slapping against his legs in rapid fire succession.  The bed was slamming against the wall, the mattress shaking off the frame while the sheets tore loose.  Alex stared up at Chris wide-eyed while his friend flexed his arms behind his head and gyrated his hips in a circle, sending wave after wave of bliss through him.  Chris’s smooth, broad pecs glistened with sweat and his face never lost it’s smug, arrogant expression.  

It was staring at that cocky grin that finally pushed Alex over the edge.  He spasmed so hard he lifted Chris up off the bed when he arched his back and sprayed into the other man.  Chris held on and rode it out like Alex was a mechanical bull, not sliding off until his larger friend was a sweaty, panting lump underneath him.  

“That was...that was incredible…” Alex finally panted.  He looked over to his friend, but Chris was already fast asleep.  

That night, Alex dreamt of the mountains.  He was back in his old body, running as fast as he could down a forested mountain slope.  Even in the dream he noticed how much lighter and natural his old body felt.  It had only been a day since he’d started growing and already he was losing sight of how wrong the extra mass should feel.  This lean, wiry body was the one he should have, not that lumbering, hulkish one he’d grown.  

He didn’t have time to dwell on it.  Something huge was chasing him down the mountainside.  He didn’t dare look back for fear of losing his footing but he could hear it crashing through trees and underbrush.  The ground shook with each of its pounding footsteps.  No matter how fast he ran it kept getting closer and closer.  Eventually his luck ran out.  He hit a root and went tumbling end over end.  The thing was on him instantly.  Alex only caught a glimpse of it before being engulfed in darkness.  It was covered in scales and had a wide, frog-like mouth and squat body.  He heard the flap of huge, leathery wings as he felt himself lifted into the air and thrown into the void.  

“Aaaahh!”  Alex shot up in bed, his heavy new pecs bouncing with the motion.  He raised his meaty arms to rub the sleep from his face as he tried to piece together his disjointed thoughts.  It took a moment before he realized he was in Chris’s bed, not his.  But that was normal, wasn’t it?  Chris was gone, but he usually woke up first since Alex didn’t get home from the club until late most nights.  He kicked his thick legs over the edge and stretched, his heavy cock resting half-hard against a beefy thigh.  He felt anxious without knowing why.  Looking at the copious amounts of dried cum matting the hair of his chest and stomach he and Chris had clearly had a good night, it all just felt hazy. 

“You okay in there?”  He heard his friend call from the living room.  

He stood and stretched his brawny, naked body again, inspecting himself quickly.  He was relieved to see that he hadn’t grown any bigger, but then he wondered why he would even think that in the first place.  “Yeah, sorry,” he yawned, walking out into the other room.  “I just had a...night...mare…” he froze when he saw Trent sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee in his hand.  A part of his brain yelled at him that he shouldn’t be naked and half-hard in front of the other man, but the other part of Alex knew Trent had seen it all before, and then some.  

“Mornin’” the other man waved.  He had on a loose tank top and a pair of tight boxers stretched around his thick lower half.  His messy hair and stubble gave the impression that he’d just gotten out of bed.  It wasn’t uncommon for him to walk across the hall to their apartment for coffee.  The three of them practically lived together.  

“Guess we got a little loud last night,” Chris said, grinning proudly.  All he had on a was a pair of tiny red briefs as he sipped from a mug next to their neighbor.  

“Sorry,” Alex said bashfully, walking towards the two men instead of away from them to put something on.  

“It’s just hard not to get carried away with this big guy.”  Alex blushed when Chris reached down and grabbed his girthy cock in front of the other man.  

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Trent laughed.  “I’m not judging.  I know how loud I can get when I’m going at that back end,” he said, nodding towards Alex’s meaty globes.  

Alex just stood there while the men talked about him like he was nothing more than an object.  He somehow had memories of Trent’s thick tool filling him from behind, but at the same time he felt like he’d just met the other man.  As if reading his throughts, Trent reached over and squeezed one of Alex’s plump cheeks.  “Maybe you can wear that orange jock when you come over to clean and we can see how loud it gets this time?”  The other man’s hand on his ass made Alex’s cock twitch while he processed what he heard.  As crazy at it seemed, he knew his day job was cleaning for people, usually in nothing more than a tiny pair of underwear, if anything at all.  They weren’t really paying him to clean, after all.  

“I think we can make that happen,” Alex winked.  He didn’t know why the thought made him anxious.  He loved it.  Between that and his evening gig at the club, he spent most of his days in the buff.  It’s what he liked.  Wearing anything at all felt like a chore to him, and he loved using his impressive body to make money.  What he didn’t understand was why that felt so wrong all of a sudden.  

He left Chris and Trent to talk at the counter while he went to clean up the bedroom.  He knew how much Chris hated a messy apartment and it was his job to keep it clean.  On the way, he noticed the carved stone idol on the shelf.  He shivered, something about its frog like shape and wings filling him with dread.  He tried to remember where it came from.  Had he found it?  Why did he think of it as cursed?  For one brief instant it all made sense.  He should never have gone up that mountain, and he should never have brought the idol back with him.  He didn’t know why it kicked in when he was with Chris, but it clearly had.  He wanted to tell the other man what happened, but as quickly as they came, the thoughts flowed like water through his hands.  He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.  He couldn’t remember what he was about to say.  Alex wasn’t surprised by that.  His attention span for things not related to physical sensations was limited at best.  It’s why he lived with Chris.  His friend took care of him and told him what to do, which is what he needed.  He was content to let the other man do the thinking for him.  Alex scooped up the stained sheets and scattered laundry and headed for the laundry room.  

“Whoa!  Hey, you know the rules,” Chris said just before he opened the door.  “If you leave the apartment you at least need underwear, dude.  We don’t want another complaint.”  

Alex looked down at his still-naked body and felt a brief flash of horror at the thought of what he’d almost done.  It passed quickly.  “Fiiiiiiine,” he sighed dramatically and lumbered into the bedroom to pull a pair of briefs on.  This time when he passed he didn’t give the idol a second thought.