Don't Look Now (vignette) (Patreon)

There’s no harm in looking, right?  Taking in the eye candy and appreciating the fruits of that fit young man’s efforts at the gym...a glance from across the room never hurt anyone, did it?  I miss those days, the carefree time when I could check a guy out in line at the grocery store and not have to worry about what was going to happen if my eyes lingered just a bit too long.  But ever since I ran into those wide-eyed horrors, and after what they did to me, it’s a luxury I no longer possess.  If you see me staring, it’s already too late.  

It happens fast, a part of the curse for me but undoubtedly a blessing for whoever’s in my sights.  I still don’t know how it feels when it happens.  I tried to stare at my reflection once just to see if it would work but came up empty, and the guys are in no position to tell me after it all goes down.  To them, nothing happened.  In the blink of an eye they simply go from existing as one version of themselves to another, without any knowledge that they’d ever been any different.  The rest of the world reacted accordingly, quickly adjusting to the abrupt redefinition as the previous version of the person winked out of existence as if they’d never been there in the first place.  

Given how some of the men turned out it was another blessing.  No one was left mangled or in pain, at least not yet, but I seriously doubt that the strapping, six-two wall of muscle would be thrilled at suddenly finding himself half that size.  Or maybe he’d only wind up a few inches shorter but lithe and slender.  Or maybe the opposite, and he’d bulk up another seventy pounds and gain five inches in height.  Or maybe he’d keep his height and muscles but swap out whatever hung between his powerful thighs for something completely different.  It was always random.  Though I acted as the catalyst for whatever was happening, I didn’t have any control over it.  

I tried so hard at first.  Every time I felt the tingling rush up my spine I would try and hold it back, and when that didn’t work I would try and at least direct the changes.  I would focus on specific elements, trying to force the strange energies in a controlled direction.  It failed every time.  I was a loaded gun and someone else’s finger was on the trigger.  I could feel it being pulled, but I could no more prevent what was about to happen anymore than the barrel could choose to stop the bullet.   I was as helpless as the men being erased and rewritten; the only difference being that I knew what was happening.  Or at least I knew something WAS happening.  I still don’t know how any of this is actually possible, or what the things are that did this to me.  I just saw one of them one day, and since then nothing has been the same.  

I went out for a walk.  It was a pleasant, early summer evening and I wanted was some fresh air, so I left my house and headed down the street, following the same route I always did.  It was a trip I’d made a hundred times, only that night I ran into one of them.  I’d just turned onto the third block over when I saw a man standing on the opposite corner.  He was entirely non-descript in his baggy shorts and frumpy t-shirt, looking like any other middle aged resident of the neighborhood.  I didn’t pay any attention to him at all until I noticed that he wasn’t moving.  At all.  He wasn’t just standing in one spot; his entire body seemed rigid, like a utility pole.  Even the trees around him displayed more movement in the light breeze than the stranger did as he stood rigid and lifeless.  

I shouldn’t have looked.  I still wonder if any of this would be happening if I’d kept my eyes on the ground and didn’t take that second glance.  As soon as I did I found the man looking directly at me with his horribly oversized eyes.  I didn’t see his head turn, nor did the rest of his body show any signs of movement, but those bulging, saucer eyes were suddenly fixed on me.  The rest of his average, weathered face bore standard human features.  Chin, lips, nose, ears - all where they should be.  It was only his massive, unblinking eyes that were warped, taking up an impossible amount of space as they followed my rapidly retreating figure down the sidewalk.  

I didn’t sleep at all that night, unable to rid myself of the man’s haunting gaze.  I kept seeing his expressionless face and those bulbous orbs every time I closed my eyes.  I felt like he was still watching me.  I was so convinced of his presence that I was afraid to look out the window for fear of seeing him.  When I saw someone else with those same eyes the following morning, I thought I was going crazy.  I was on my way to the office, walking down a bustling sidewalk and nearly running into the woman.  Like the man the night before she stood erect and unmoving in the middle of the sidewalk, the crowd parting around her like a river and seemingly unaware of her presence.  I apparently didn’t have the same instinct to avoid her as everyone else and stopped just short of impact, close enough to see the gaping pupils and multicolored irises.  I stammered out an apology but she remained silent, watching me dart off in the same detached manner as the man had the previous evening.  

I started seeing them everywhere after that.  They popped up on the sidewalk, in the elevator, and even on the floor of my office.  When I looked out the window I could see them several floors below, stationary objects in the roiling sea of the city, all looking in my direction.  I discreetly asked a coworker if they could see them as well, and while they could, to everyone else they were just normal people.  They weren’t standing and staring, they were going about everyday activities in an unremarkable manner.  

I let it drop after that, feeling trapped as the wide-eyed strangers appeared to be closing in.  I convinced myself I was just overworked, that a few days off and a good night’s sleep was all I needed.  At a fit, healthy thirty-three I wasn’t entirely burnt out yet, but I still put in more hours than I probably needed to.  It would all be fine after some rest and relaxation, so I called it an early day and tried not to look at anyone as I hurried home.  

There were three of them waiting for me in my living room.  I still remember the stomach-sinking dread when I turned the corner and saw them standing like statues in the middle of the room.  I think I cried out but they were as silent as they were motionless, staring with those terrible eyes.  I had enough time to note their otherwise average appearance, the non-descript clothes and the average builds, before they were suddenly around me.  Which isn’t to say that they moved.  One moment I was standing in the doorway and the next I was in the middle of the room, without any rush of air or other sensation of travel.  Stuck in the middle of that horrifying Their unblinking eyes weighed down on me like a physical force, the last thing I remember before coming to in my bed an hour later.  

I haven’t seen them since.  The ones that had been inside my house were gone by the time I woke up and a few quick glances out my windows confirmed that the ones I’d seen lingering on my street were absent as well.  I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping in the moment that I’d been correct about simply needing a good night sleep.  I felt better than I had all day, even more so after doing a thorough search of the house and confirming that it, and the street outside, were still empty after another hour had passed.  

I chalked it up to stress and went back to the window, this time to enjoy the view of my neighbor, Mark, and his friend playing catch in Mark’s backyard.  The young jock was shirtless as always, his tanned skin glistening with sweat beneath the dark, wiry hairs that coated his impressive pecs and tight stomach.  His sculpted arms flexed and the perky bubble in his loose gym shorts bounced as he twisted with each nimble toss.  It was a sight I never got tired of.  I considered myself fortunate to have such a handsome, strapping young man who liked to wear so little living next door, and it was even better when he had company.  His friend was similarly built, though slightly taller, with a smooth, pale frame that plucked the ball from the air with athletic ease.  

When it all started happening that first time, I had no idea I was the one responsible.  I was so busy being a voyeur I barely noticed the rush of energy up my spine, and once the changes started I was too stunned to think of anything at all.  

They hit Mark first.  I remember staring at him, wondering what looked off as his trimmed, chocolate fade began to lengthen.  The wavy locks extended, falling down to cover part of his face in a lopsided angle cut.  At first I thought his hair had just been messed up by a gust of wind until I saw the young man’s handsome features begin to change.  Even from my vantage point I could see his already prominent cheekbones sharpen as his lips grew full and pouting, the stubble disappearing from his face as his nose softened.  The changes spread down from there, the hair disappearing from his torso while the muscle shifted and changed.  I watched Mark’s protruding pecs deflate to a pair of small, chiseled mounds, his beefy arms shrinking to become lean and toned with significantly smaller biceps.  The young man’s impressive abs remained as ripped as ever, his waist looking even tighter as his lower half began to fill out.  The perky bubble that had been bouncing beneath his gym shorts grew large and round, seeming to pack on the size that had been stripped from his torso.  That growth became all the more apparent when his shorts changed like the rest of him, the mesh fabric drawing up his now-hairless thighs to settle as a pair of small, terry cloth trunks that showed off an impressively stuffed bulge.  

I didn’t know what I was seeing.  In a matter of moments my neighbor somehow went from a handsome jock to a pretty twunk.  He was still well built, his now-smooth body a roadmap of solid definition, but the muscles had shifted and rearranged, taking his proportionate, tapering torso and leaving him lithe and bottom heavy.  The changes to his hair and clothes suggested a transformation that went deeper than the physical, and I watched his whole body language change: shoulders were drawn, his back was arched, and he seemed to stand with one hip jutted out to the side.  

My attention was so focused on Mark that I almost missed his friend rocketing towards the other end of the spectrum.  While my neighbor was thinning and tightening, his friend was expanding.  The young jock’s athletic body had shot up a handful of inches and had packed on a layer of thick, bulky muscle.  His shoulders were broad and round, his pecs a meaty slab wedged between them, while a set of burly pistons hung next to the curvy muscle gut that had replaced his flat washboard.  Unlike Mark the man’s shorts didn’t seem to have changed, but they were every bit as tight stretched around the pair of tree trunks that had become his thighs.  He’d grown into a beefy wall of muscle, the rest of his features changing just as dramatically.  The face that had been young and handsome became blunt and weathered, his thick, sandy hair now a short, thinning buzz cut, and where Mark looked to have regressed a few years, his friend seemed to be creeping in on middle age.  

I thought I was losing my mind as I watched the inflated man toss the ball towards Mark, his nimble new arms flailing and fumbling the catch like it was his first time ever making the attempt.  His supple new bottom nearly bounced out of his shorts as he stumbled, and even from my vantage point I could see his plumped lips pursing in an exaggerated pout.  The scene only grew more bizarre when his friend lumbered over and wrapped his thick new arms around the shrunken Mark, leaning down to plant a long, deep kiss.  I was given a full view of the cheeks that threatened to spill out when Mark’s friend reached down and gripped the supple mounds, pushing the back of the small shorts down.  

They writhed in each other’s arms for a few minutes before breaking off the kiss and hurrying inside, hand-in-hand.  I remember how nauseous and shaky I felt standing at the window and staring into the empty yard.  It was something I’d seen every day for years, yet suddenly it felt like I was looking at it for the first time.  It may have looked the same on the surface, but like the men who’d just scampered inside, it wasn’t the same one that had been there before.  I stared at it until a loud bellow pulled me away.  The sound startled me so much I nearly fell to the ground, and it grew ever louder as I followed it upstairs to the source.  

It was so loud I thought something had found its way into my house once again.  It was all the more jarring since I live in a quiet part of town, a neighborhood that’s an old, working class jumble of small Cape Cods with postage stamp lawns that sit relatively close to each other.  The houses are sturdy, dating back to the forties when solid materials were still used and things were built to last, and in all my years of living there I’d never had a neighbor’s TV bleed through or heard any other sounds unless it was people out in their yards.  

So to hear two people fucking so loud they sounded like they were actually in my house was a significant shift.  My legs shook as I climbed the stairs, and I had to grip the railing when I reached the top and looked out my window to see the altered men vigorously going at each other in Mark’s bedroom.  The blinds were up, his window was open, and there was nothing obscuring the view of his lean new frame on all fours while the brawny beast that his friend had become plowed into him.  

We were only separated by the twelve feet of my driveway.  I was practically in the room with them.  I could see Mark’s inflated cheeks bouncing wildly, his shrunken, defined biceps flexing as he held himself upright.  I’d never seen him naked before, but the long, rigid cock slapping up against his abs looked absolutely massive.  His friend was just as impressive, a bucking, rolling wall of muscle that worked his fat, stout cock with expert precision.  

Their altered faces were masks of ecstasy as they moaned and whimpered, and I wasn’t sure if they were even aware that the window was open until Mark looked in my direction and grinned.  His pretty new face was half covered by his altered hair as he winked at me, maintaining eye contact while he slammed his plump rear against his friend.  My initial thoughts about their age were confirmed now that I could see Mark’s face, which couldn’t have been more than twenty, while his smug friend looked easily twice that as he grinned in my direction.  

I didn’t know what to do.  I was so shell shocked by what I’d seen and by what was happening that I just stood there, watching Mark’s full, soft mouth tremble, his eyes going wide with each of his friend’s thrusts.  They didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by me watching, and I’ve since learned that it’s part of the process.  Once changed, the men have an almost overwhelming desire to be seen and to show off whatever it was about them that changed.  Mark never liked to wear much, but now he prances around the yard in little more than his tiny briefs, and even less  inside from what I see through the ever-open windows, while Jeff, his former-friend-turned-partner as I came to learn, spills out of billowy muscle shirts and plastered on gym shorts.  

Whatever their lives were before they seem happy enough now, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself to ease the guilt.  I don’t know how eager the old Mark would have been to post videos of himself with his legs hoisted onto Jeff’s shoulders, his pretty face twisted by pleasure as his friend thrusts into him.  I know for a fact my friend Dean wouldn’t have been thrilled to find his eager cock swapped out for an equally eager pussy, now lounging around his house in panties instead of boxers, nor would Steve have been excited to have his toned pecs inflate to a pair of large, supple breasts, though you’d never be able to tell by the way the wiry man showed them off.  

Or maybe they would.  Maybe all of these changes were sparked by hidden desires within each of the men.  Maybe deep down that 6’4” wall of shredded muscle really wanted to be a short, chubby cub.  I have no way of knowing for sure one way or the other, and at least thinking that they might helps me sleep at night.  

I still don’t know if this will ever go away.  I don’t know if I’ll wake up one morning and things will be back to normal.  I hope so, for everyone’s sake.  But until then, if you see a stranger standing on the street with eyes that are a little too big, keep your head down and don’t look back.