Interactive: Climbing the Ladder, ch. 10 (Patreon)

Eric and Shawn froze as the door swung open.  Given the timing, and the topic of discussion, their stomachs dropped.  They knew something they shouldn’t, even if they didn’t have all the details, and they expected management to come after them at any moment.  When they saw Cayden standing in the doorway it should have been a relief, but one look at the stocky man’s ill-fitting clothes made it anything but.  

“He...hey guys,” the short, burly man stammered, an expression of strained calm on his face.  “Is...is something weird gooohhh shit!  Eric?”  

“Get in here,” Shawn hissed, darting over to pull Cayden inside and slam the door shut.  As soon as he was next to his friend he was able to confirm what the baggy looking clothes suggested.  As with the day before, Cayden was significantly shorter than he had been just that morning.  Shawn was sure of it.  He’d spent enough time with the hairy jock in his arms to know that Cayden’s eyes shouldn’t be looking him square in the middle of his chest, and he’d seen how perfectly fitted the shorter man’s clothes had been that morning.  Now the formerly tight chinos pooled at his ankles, while the sleeves of his shirt stretched well past his wrists.  

The brawny brunette appeared torn between recognizing just how skewed his new perspective was, and staring at Eric’s inflated frame.  His eyes kept darting back and forth between Shawn’s sculpted pecs and the beefy ginger’s stuffed, snug briefs.  “Someone please tell me what’s going on,” he croaked in a hoarse whisper, swaying on his feet.  

“Whoa, easy, just breathe,” Shawn said as calmly as he could, trying to ignore the sensation of his exposed, rigid pole digging into Cayden’s torso as he caught the other man and guided him over to the bed.  

“Have you seen it out there?  Everyone’s huge!” Cayden cried, before looking down at himself.  “Except for me, apparently…” 

“I...WE...know,” Shawn said, motioning to Eric.  “It happened this afternoon.  Some...thing...fuck, I don’t know what, tore through the building and guys started ballooning up.  You saw all those jacked dudes, right?  Some went that route, others ended up like Eric.”  

“But...but how?!”  Cayden looked at his draping sleeves in disgust before literally tearing the shirt from his broad torso.  Without the oversized top the stocky wrestler’s proportions looked the same, there were just less of them.  “And what the fuck’s happening to me?!”  

“No clue,” Eric said, his deepened voice rumbling around the small room.  “I was just telling Shawn that this place has always been weird, but things have been extra strange lately.  There have always been weird looking guys popping up around here, but never something like this…” 

Shawn nodded.  “It’s not just the Tower...it’s this whole damn campus.  Remember when we went for a run?  How big the woods felt?  And whatever...else...was out there?  I never said anything, but the same thing happened when I got called into Benton’s office.  It should have just been a short walk to the other side of the building, but...it was weird.  Like it kept going and going.  I felt like I was walking forever, and then all of a sudden it just snapped back and I was there.”  He sighed and looked down at his exposed cock poking out of his bright bikinis, still not making a move to cover himself.  “And then there’s this.”  

Cayden was pale as he sat on the edge of the bed, his feet no longer reaching the floor.  “We’ve...we’ve gotta get outta here…” 

Eric gave a short laugh and shook his head on his missing neck.  “You think they’ll just let us leave?”  

“But they can’t force us to stay, can they?”  Cayden hopped off the bed, his too-large pants riding precariously low on his hips.  “Maybe if we leave we’ll go back to normal?”  

“Or we’ll be stuck like this,” Shawn said.  “We don’t know enough about what’s happening.”  

“I know fucking plenty!  Look at us, dude!  I’ve gotta be barely five feet tall at this point.  That’s nine inches.  Gone!  You’re still the same...it’s me and Eric that’re…” 

“The same?!” Shawn barked, cutting Cayden off.  “I know it doesn’t look like it on the outside, but I am very much NOT the same.  I was never hard all day before this.  I never dressed...never WANTED to dress like this.  It’s not just a wardrobe thing, man.  It fucking hurts.  Covering up feels like I’m suffocating.  It’s all I can do all day not to fucking strip out of my clothes and start jerk…” 

“Guys, we’re all getting hosed here,” Eric interrupted, stepping forward and putting a meaty hand on Shawn and Cayden.  “But we HAVE to stay calm.  We have to.  You think I want to be the calm one?  I can’t even see my feet over these fuckin’ pecs and this gut.  All I know is that if we have any chance of figuring this out, we can’t turn on each other.  It’s not a competition.”  

“You’re right...you’re right…” Cayden sighed, shaking his head and looking up at the other two.  “This is just… a lot.”  

Shawn nodded and took a deep breath to steady his frayed nerves.  “So what do we do?”  

**********

Duncan was more furious than ever as he trudged through the halls.  All around him were men who’d ballooned with muscle, but unlike himself the extra growth only magnified their handsome features.  They were chiseled, lantern-jawed adonises while he was left as a freakishly large brute, and it didn’t help the situation that his misshapen body was still naked beneath the illusion that Benton wove for him.  As the men he passed all stared, thanks again to whatever strange forces his boss controlled, Duncan was painfully aware that they were seeing his lumpy, exaggerated muscle and limp, monstrous cock in all its exposed glory; their brains just didn’t realize it.  

But he knew, and that humiliation was a smouldering ember burning a hole in his muscled gut as he threw the door to his room open and turned himself sideways to pass through it.  He hated that he’d been used, that he was still being used, but there was nothing he could do about it.  He believed Benton when the older man told him there was no getting his old body back, which left the former pretty-boy with no other option than to see this through.  Any chance Duncan had at salvaging things could only be accomplished by playing along and waiting for his opening.  He knew one would come; he just needed to be ready to seize it when it did.  

So after he’d fucked Benton, while Taylor/Mike embarrassingly fisted his now-eager backside, Duncan had happily agreed to bring the small brass sphere with him back to the Tower.  He’d been instructed to open it once he made it to his room, with Benton explaining that it would help calm things down.  The backlash that left him in his current state had rippled through the building, apparently disrupting the careful balance that kept people unaware of their behavior and sometimes changing appearance.  Whatever was inside, Duncan’s bottom-heavy boss had assured him that he wouldn’t be affected, but, after walking through the veritable sea of chiseled perfection, the enlarged hulk wasn’t sure how to feel about that.  

He sighed and set the softball-sized object on the kitchen counter, the efficiency apartment feeling smaller than ever.  Benton had promised his new wardrobe would be ready, and at the moment Duncan was more interested in the bag sitting on his bed than in opening the sphere.  He said he’d do it; he didn’t say he’d do it immediately.  

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Duncan growled as he pulled the laundry bag open and dumped its contents on his bed.  He’d been expecting a larger version of his previous wardrobe; slacks and chinos and dress shirts, only significantly bigger.  What he found instead was a pile of bright, stretchy lycra.  There were small shorts, revealing tank-tops and even a few singlets, but nothing that even approached the giant’s former look.  Duncan knew the shiny fabric would be plastered on him like a second skin, and he blushed when he thought about what his mammoth cock would look like outlined beneath the clinging material for all to see.  He might as well have stayed naked.  

“Just add it to the list,” he said calmly, refusing to let himself lose control.  He wanted to rage around the room, putting his new muscle to use as he destroyed the place.  He wanted to tear the building down with his bare hands and then move on to the next until there was nothing of HB&L left.  But Duncan knew that was a futile endeavor.  He already looked like a mindless brute; it wouldn’t take much for upper management to actually make him one.  

He did as he was told instead, forgetting about the humiliating new wardrobe as he unscrewed the two halves of the tarnished brass sphere.  There was a loud buzzing as soon as they came apart, as if he’d unleashed a cloud of insects into his room, but he saw nothing.  The buzzing grew in volume until it was almost painful before spreading out through the walls and floors of the Tower.  Duncan could hear it receding into the distance, and soon the simmering giant was left with nothing but the sound of his own pounding heart and thoughts of revenge.  

**********

“What...were we just talking about?”  Shawn shook his head and blinked at Eric and Cayden.  Their conversation had been interrupted by something, and all three of them had completely lost their trains of thought.  

“I...have no idea,” Eric laughed, shrugging his massive new shoulders.  The hand on Cayden’s back slid up to tousle the short wrestler’s hair as the beefy ginger’s stuffed briefs began to twitch.  “Was it about how you’ve been holding out by not bringing this cute little stud over to hang out before now?”  

Cayden smiled bashfully, his eyes blazing with hunger as he stared at Eric’s imposing bulk.  “I don’t know, man, but clearly I’ve been missing out,” he said, stepping forward and running a small hand along the edges of the redhead’s bulging muscle gut, the tips of his stubby fingers just barely slipping beneath the elastic of Eric’s straining briefs.  

Shawn didn’t think any of that sounded right.  He felt anxious and on edge, and something in his brain told him the others should as well.  The reappearance of Cayden’s easy going attitude seemed as out of place as Eric’s sudden flirtation, but if that was true he didn’t know why he’d be standing with his hand hovering just inches away from his aching cock.  

“Maybe it was about how the laundry service in this place keeps fucking up,” Shawn said as he stepped forward and sent Cayden’s baggy pants to his friend’s ankles.  He tugged the loose briefs down on a whim, figuring he was doing his stocky little friend a favor.  

“Hey!” Cayden laughed, feigning, but clearly not, upset about standing naked in front of Eric.  His stout cock was already hard and pointing in the larger man’s direction.  “But yeah, this place keeps screwing up.  Mine are too big, and these look a little snug,” he said, slipping his hands fully into Eric’s briefs and tugging them down.  

That was all it took.  Without another word, Eric reached down and scooped the hairy little muscle man up in his arms, dropping them both down onto the bed opposite Shawn, who was casually tugging away as he watched.  The handsome, dark haired hunk positioned himself on the free bed, stroking his oozing cock and toying with a pert nipple as if he was watching a porn on his laptop.  

It was a porn like nothing he’d ever seen before.  Cayden’s stocky physique was a study in contrasts, at once looking powerful and firm as he flexed and moved, but also small and fragile against Eric’s burly build.  The short stud was like a living teddy bear as he crawled and writhed over the ginger giant, the stout cock that looked so impressive on his little body seeming pathetically small in the reality of Eric’s meaty hand.  

Whatever they’d been so recently concerned about was clearly forgotten as both men wore expressions of pure bliss.  Eric’s deep, booming moans mixed with Cayden’s somewhat squeaky whimpers as he bounced the short wrestler on his lap.  Cayden’s stocky, stubby legs were too short to comfortably straddle the grunting redhead’s wide midsection, so he’d been impaled while sitting on Eric’s thick thighs instead, his wide eyes locked with Shawn’s as his insides were battered by the bigger man’s wide rod.  

The stroking stud across the room was just as overcome.  He’d already blown once while watching his friend’s furry pecs bounce up and down from the force of Eric’s thrusting, and he was well on his way to a second explosion as his eyes traveled back and forth between Cayden’s mask of ecstatic shock and Eric’s smug grin.  The hulking ginger’s head loomed above Cayden’s as the smaller man writhed on his lap, his eyes glued to Shawn’s squirming, pumping body.  

The solo hunk tried desperately to hold onto any sense of what they’d been discussing.  It felt important.  Urgent.  But at the moment his head was too full of debasing desires to focus on much else.  As Cayden and Eric watched, he began sucking slowly on the fingers of his free hand, his soft, full lips wrapping around them like they were working an eager cock, before sliding them down his washboard abs to disappear between his perky cheeks.  His whimpers grew as loud as his friends’ as a surge of lust shot through him at the knowledge that they were watching him finger his tight hole while he jerked off for them.  In that moment, he would have done anything.  Nothing was too embarrassing or humiliating.  Quite the opposite, as Shawn’s athletic body was rocked by wave after wave of bliss as he heard himself whimpering pathetically.  

The small voice in his head was still there, telling him something was terribly wrong, but it would have to wait.  

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I wanted to check in with everyone and see how you’re all feeling about this one before we go any further.  There’s still a ton of story left to tell…we’ve put these guys through the wringer and set up a good jumping off point for the next phase, but this felt like a natural place to pause and I don’t want to drag it out if people are getting bored.  This world ended up being waaaaaay bigger than anticipated.  

I’m also more than happy to keep it going if everyone’s still digging it!  Like I said, there’s a whole lotta story left to tell.  However the voting turns out, rest assured that these guys’ stories will be finished either as another interactive down the road, or as standalone chapters.  

As always, whichever way you vote, thanks for reading and for the support!