Interactive: Make It A Double, ch. 14 (Patreon)

“Two of you in one day...lucky me,” Hank spat when Ben walked in.  The older man leaned against the bar, not bothering to hide his annoyance.   “Get lost like your fruity bouncer?”  

Ben smiled and took up a stool, ignoring the glares from the older men on either side.  They were of an average, middle-aged type, with jeans and baggy t-shirts covering their unremarkable, dumpy builds.  That was the Sullivan’s crowd; older straight guys griping about their wives and the world that was rapidly leaving them behind.  There were a few younger men peppered throughout but they were simply the next generation in training, learning the appropriate ways to act and carry themselves from the dinosaurs about to go extinct around them.  

“Nah, just thought I’d come in for a drink,” Ben said, his smile never wavering.  

Hanks expression darkened as he fixed the younger, smaller man with a menacing stare.  He leaned in close, his voice dropping.  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m gonna make this real easy for both of us.  We don’t serve your kind here.  Our bars are next to each other.  That’s it.  That doesn’t mean we’re neighbors.  We’re not friends.  You keep your fags over in your place and there won’t be trouble.  Stick your noses where they don’t belong and they’re liable to get hurt.”  

It was the reaction Ben hoped for.  He was deviating from his plan of not seeking people out this time, so he felt like he needed a reason.  If he’d walked in and Hank had been friendly, things might have gone differently.  It was a slim chance, he knew, but one that he felt obligated to provide.  Instead, the gruff older man had behaved exactly the way Ben figured he would, making him responsible for what was about to happen.  

“Not too crowded in here,” Ben said, ignoring Hank’s threat as he looked around the bar.  There was a man on either side, another at the far end, and about ten more scattered around the rest of the building.  Like a pack of dogs picking up on the alpha’s body language, all eyes had turned in his direction when they sensed Hank’s anger.  “Surprising since we’re so busy next door...you’re kinda bringing down the vibe in the neighborhood.”  

Hank’s wide, rough hand balled into a meaty fist on the bar.  “You really don’t wanna push this…” 

“I do, though,” Ben sighed.  “You guys have been dicks to us for years.  Years.  We’ve never done anything but be good neighbors, yet you go out of your way to have your bouncer harass us, you encourage these assholes to give us a hard time,” he motioned to the increasingly agitated men around him, “and you act like you own the block.  Meanwhile we’re bursting at the seams and you’re...not.”  He gave Hank a smug grin and casually spread the book open in front of him.  “Since you don’t need the space it only seems fair to let us have it as payment for putting up with your bullshit for so long.”  

There was a tense, silent moment before the crimson anger melted from Hank’s face.  The older man shook his head and laughed, the men on either side of Ben following suit.  “I know you freaks like to party but you gotta lay off the drugs, kid.  Comin’ in here high as a kite...that’s the kinda thing I’m sure the city’d like to hear about.” 

Ben kept writing even as he looked up, his hand gliding across the page as if being guided by an outside force.  “I’m just saying, Mark didn’t seem to mind.”  

Ben’s smile grew as Hank’s faded, the red-faced fury creeping back up the older man’s thick neck.  His stunned eyes went wide and his jaw fell open at the sudden realization that the scantily clad, bottom heavy young man he’d chased out earlier had been his former protege.  “That was...Mark?  But he’s not...I was just talking to him before and he didn’t look like…” He shook his head, trying to reconcile the strange new memories of the glittery, disproportionate doorman hanging out in tiny underwear with the straight jock he’d always known.  

Ben shrugged.  “Crazy, right?  Don’t worry, he’s much happier where he’s at.”  

“You did that?”  Hank whispered as he pulled back from the bar.  He had enough life experience to bite down on his rage in the face of something truly threatening until he had a better understanding of what was going on.  “How?  You...you can’t leave him like that.  He could be a punk, but he doesn’t deserve that.”  

“Deserve?  It’s not a punishment.  I told you...he’s happy.  Just ask these guys.”  

Hank gasped and paled, his voice drying up in his throat while reality warped in front of him.  He watched Al, the man on Ben’s left, lose twenty five years in the blink of an eye.  The balding, slightly pudgy man seemed to ripple, his thinning hair filling out into a stylish, golden yellow fade above a face that lost all of its weathered wrinkles.  Al’s furrowed brow settled into a smooth, flawless forehead above bright, sparkling eyes, his beakish nose withdrawing to a cute button above full, pouting lips.  His double chin vanished with the rest of his excess weight, leaving a sharp, dimpled jawline that accentuated his youthful new features.  The now-younger man’s baggy t-shirt disappeared altogether, showing off a tanned, hairless torso that bulged with muscular definition.  Shoulders became broad and round above a tapering, shredded waist, with impressively muscled arms hanging off either side.  And while it was hard to see from his seated position, When Al stood the age regressed pretty boy would show off a perky bubble filling out the back of his tiny pink khaki shorts.  

The altered blonde blinked a few times before turning to look past Ben at his friend who had been similarly changed.  The other man had started as a heavyset redhead with a thick beard and rapidly spreading male pattern baldness setting in.  Now he was a ripped, shirtless ginger with a trimmed beard and a smattering of wiry hair that coated his sculpted pecs before trailing down a ripped set of abs and disappearing into equally tiny, yellow shorts.  “Oh my god, Mikey, are you drinking beer?” The new Al chirped, an exaggerated look of horror on his young face.  “Girl, we’re 23 now.  That’s practically dead.  You better watch it.”  

The bearded ginger shook his head, looking confused at the bottle in his hand.  “Uh, you’re one to talk Mr. Brown Liquor,” he sassed, nodding at the glass of whiskey in front of Al before putting a hand on Ben’s thigh.  “Sorry handsome, we’re being so rude right now oh my god,” he said, rolling his eyes as he slipped around to go sit next to his altered friend.  The two sculpted young men giggled and leaned into each other, their bare, chiseled torsos flexing with the slightest movement.  “Excuse me,” Mike waved at Hank, “can we get two vodka sodas please?”  

The older man opened and closed his mouth repeatedly without speaking, unable to take his eyes off the warped caricatures his friends had become.  

“You can look all you want Daddy but drinks will let you touch,” Al purred, reaching across the bar to put a smooth hand on top of Hank’s rough mitt.  

“I think they ordered some drinks,” Ben said flatly.  

“Ri...right…” Hank stammered.  The burly man’s hands shook as he fumbled with a pair of glasses, coating the bar in a puddle of vodka as he struggled to pour the drinks.  

“Thaaaaaaank you,” Mike sang as he took the drinks.  He and Al scampered off to the other side of the room, each with a hand glued to the other’s perky bubble as they went.  

“See?  Look how happy they are,” Ben said as the two young hunks began writhing together, holding their drinks off to the side as they swayed their hips to the nonexistent music and pressed the front of their small, stuffed shorts into each other.  

Hank’s pale skin had taken on a sickly green tint as he watched the two muscled young men paw and kiss at each other.  “I...I’ve known both of them for going on three decades,” he said in a soft, shaking voice.  “Al’s forty eight...Mike’s fifty two.  Al has a wife and kids….Mike’s divorced, never remarried.  He was in the army...works as a foreman...Al’s a supervisor down at the plant...they’re not...they can’t…” The older man was mumbling to himself, as if repeating the facts of how things should be would undo what he’d just witnessed.  

“What about the sad sack at the end of the bar?” Ben asked, nodding to the man sitting by himself at the far end.  He looked slightly younger than Al had been, with a beefy build and short, salt and pepper hair.  Unlike Hank, he seemed oblivious to what just happened as he calmly nursed his beer.  

Hank shook his head.  “Jerry?  No, come on, he doesn’t hurt anyone!  You can’t ju…” The older man sagged against the bar as another wave of changes washed over one of his customers.  Jerry’s hair turned a dark, obsidian black before receding to a short buzz cut that accentuated his brooding features.  The newly young man’s sharp cheeks and strong jaw were covered in a matching layer of stubble beneath his prominent nose that drew attention to his plump, soft lips.  Unlike the other two men Jerry’s shirt didn’t disappear, but it did take on a radically different appearance.  The baggy t-shirt stayed loose, falling off to the side as the neck was cut wide and the sleeves disappeared, taking most of the sides with them.  The bottom drew up, stopping halfway between Jerry’s pecs and navel as a revealing, cut-off muscle shirt.  The neon green fabric popped against his shredded, olive skin and matched the bright sneakers on his feet.  In between was a pair of small, white mesh shorts that showed off each of his ample globes as well as the thick, heavy bulge pressing out between his wide, solid thighs.  The stocky hunk hopped off his stool and sauntered over to Al and Mike, his muscled, barely covered bubble swaying with each step.  

“See?  How could you not want everyone to have fun like that,” Ben asked as he and Hank watched Jerry start dancing with the other two similarly aged men.  “Why don’t we spread the joy?”  

“No!”  Hank’s cry was already too late.  Like a crashing wave, he watched the changes sweep over the rest of the crowd.  In a matter of moments, guys he’d known for decades were turned into complete strangers.  Average, middle aged men went from gruff and quiet to ripped and cheerful in the blink of an eye.  Baggy jeans and generic shirts were replaced by tight, revealing shorts or vanished altogether to show off the chiseled bodies attached to the grinning young faces.  What had been a quiet, dour bar was now a room filled with loud laughter and dramatic cries as the young, muscled crowd danced and pawed at each other.  

Hank was holding on to consciousness by a thread.  “Please...you can’t do that to them…” he begged.  “They had lives!  You can’t just take that away!”  

“I didn’t take anything...I just changed it,” Ben said, as if it should have been obvious.  “Don’t worry, they all have rich, full lives.  Hell, they’re probably better off than they were.  You don’t hang out in a place like this if things are going well, you know?  I bet most of those guys would have jumped at the chance to be young, built and beautiful.”  

“But not a fag,” Hank barked before he could stop himself.  

“You’d be surprised,” Ben laughed.  “Youth and beauty and all the sex they want?  I don’t think they’d really care who it’s with.  But why are we arguing?  You’re about to find out.”  

“Oh god...” Hank moaned.  He backed away, yelping as his bare skin made contact with the wall behind him.  The older man blushed when he looked down to find his jeans and button down gone, replaced by a pair of lycra shorts smaller than his underwear.  His beefy, hairy body was on display in its unaltered glory, a final glimpse of what was to come.  “You can’t!  You caaaaAAHHHH…!”  

Like the others, it happened fast.  A waterfall of changes cascaded over Hank’s burly, rugged frame, filling out the short, thin hair into a shaggy, chocolate mop while the years melted away.  His weathered, wrinkled face was replaced by a square-jawed, all American boy-next-door with bright green eyes and a charming smile.  The dense forest of hair on his burly torso faded to a trimmed dusting as tight, precision crafted muscle replaced sagging flesh.  Hank’s shelf of a chest remained just as prominent, looming even larger above his tight, tapering new waist.  The bulge in the front of his tiny shorts seemed to grow as the body around it shrank and reshaped into a set of sturdy, ripped quads with plump, muscled globes filling out the formerly empty rear.  The once-older man’s powerful arms were still huge, but instead of looking like beefy logs they showed off the hulking muscle lurking under the tight skin.  

“...AAaaahhhhhhh oh honey, how long have you been sitting here without a drink?!” the new Hank cried.  A confused look passed across his handsome young face when he first heard his voice, but it didn’t last.  “Sorry...I’m a little distracted by the crowd tonight,” he winked, nodding over at the sea of dancing muscle.  What little clothing the men had been wearing seemed to be making its way off already.  

“View behind the bar isn’t so bad either,” Ben said as Hank turned to pour him a drink.  The altered man flexed his lycra covered cheeks and gave them a giggling shake.  

“I know I’m new, but are you supposed to hit on the employees,” he asked, flashing a coy smile when he turned back around.  From a distance Hank looked every bit the all american jock, until he opened his mouth or made a dramatic wave with his hands.  “I’m hoping the answer’s yes.”  

Ben couldn’t help but smile at the way Hank traced his hands down along his shredded obliques to his low riding shorts, cupping his heavy bulge.  He doubted that the older version of Hank would appreciate the surge of hormones coursing through his new, twenty one year old body.  “Consider it a bonus,” Ben winked.  “I’ll send Mark and Zack over to help out...I’m guessing it’s going to be a busy night in here.”  

It was more than a guess.  He’d left it so that anytime one of Hank’s former regulars walked in they’d automatically be changed to match the rest of the crowd.  By the end of the night it would be hard to tell where Trunks ended and the old Sullivan’s began.  

The now-younger Hank licked his lips and sighed as he watched the group of fit, partying young men across the room.  His thick rod was twitching and hardening in his shorts, but he didn’t seem to notice.  “If they all look like that, I can’t wait.”  

“Same here,” Ben said, raising his glass in a toast.  

***** I'm happy that everyone has enjoyed this one, and we could keep doing this forever, but I think it's time to wrap things up for now.  For the last chapter, vote how you'd like it to end. *****