Kingsbury Harbor, ch. 10: A Night at the Cove (Patreon)

Ben woke in motion, not springing out of a dream but slowly stumbling down a moonlit street.  He thought he must be dreaming when he looked down and saw that he was still in his boxers, but he felt confusingly awake.  Everything was vivid and intense as in the waking world.  The pavement was rough against the soles of his bare feet and the night breeze was warm against his exposed skin.  The empty lane, with its darkened storefronts obscured by a thin blanket of fog, would have looked right at home in a dream, but with each step Ben became terrifyingly convinced he was awake after all.  

He had no idea how he made it downtown.  The clocktower in the square read two forty seven, which meant nearly five hours had passed since he’d climbed into bed at his house on the far side of Kingsbury.  He’d never gone sleepwalking once in his forty years, but even now he wasn’t sure that was the right word for what was happening.  He was wide awake, yet he couldn’t stop his slow, steady pace.  He vaguely recalled walking in his dream, following a droning, bone-shaking hum that called to him from the sea.  He didn’t remember what he’d been doing in his dream when he heard the call, or what would happen once he arrived at the source, just the overwhelming urge to go to it.  Now, awake and in motion, he still felt that same impulse.  

He knew it was crazy.  Groggy and confused or not, Ben was well aware that he was walking through the middle of town in nothing but his underwear, and he blushed at the thought of someone looking out their window and seeing him as he passed.  His prominent pecs and broad shoulders stood on display, the light dusting of auburn hair that coated the solid mounds thinning to a slim trail as it ran down his flat stomach and disappeared beneath the waist of his low-riding underwear.  His arms were thickly muscled, as were his meaty thighs, but despite being proud of how well he’d maintained his lean, athletic build over the years, the modest middle-aged man was mortified at the thought of walking around so exposed.  The thin, knit fabric of his loose boxers wedged between his ample, muscled cheeks and did nothing to obscure the long, fat cock and heavy balls bouncing against the front with each step.  He tried to tell himself it wasn’t all that different than wearing his trunks at the beach, but that did nothing to quell his growing embarrassment.  When he went to the beach he knew he was going to be putting his trunks on and had time to prepare himself; he didn’t suddenly appear mostly naked in public with no warning.  The longer he was awake, the more concerned Ben became.  He tried to force himself to stop, a layer of sweat breaking out on his muscled frame as he strained and fought against the overwhelming urge to keep walking.  

Ben managed to slow his pace and had almost brought himself to a halt when the sound from his dream called again.  Closer now to the water’s edge, the cry was deafening in the waking world, nearly knocking Ben off his feet and causing his vision to go white as his senses were overloaded.  He groaned, the thunderous din punching through to his very core, vibrating his body on what felt like a molecular level.  Blinking rapidly as his vision cleared he wondered how anyone could possibly sleep through such a colossal sound, but he was grateful that they did when he looked down at the rigid cock that was tenting his boxers.  He tried to cover himself but his arms wouldn’t move, though his humiliation quickly became an afterthought when he saw where he was.  When the sound had caused his vision to go white he’d lost another chunk of time, and instead of lumbering through the middle of town he was stumbling through a gnarled patch of live oaks near the shore.  

He also wasn’t alone.  Ben gasped when he heard a nearby branch snap and turned to see another figure staggering along in a daze.  It was Connor, a young man he knew from the kitchen at the Clamshell Diner.  They didn’t know each other all that well, but they talked regularly in the mornings when Ben would stop for breakfast on the way to his office.  Connor always seemed nice enough, though the burly line cook was a bit too rough around the edges for Ben’s liking.  He remembered what it was like to be in his early twenties and tried not to judge too harshly, but Connor only ever talked about lifting weights or fishing, with an occasional peppering of crude bedroom exploits.   

So when his aching cock pulsed at the sight of the beefy young man, Ben was further confused.  Though he thought of himself as entirely straight he could acknowledge when another man was good looking, but Connor’s stocky, brawny build, buzzed scalp, and rugged, pug face had never struck him as such.  Now, looking at the young bruiser in nothing but his tented briefs, Ben’s eyes were glued to the thick, wide shaft outlined against the light grey fabric.  His mouth watered as he watched Connor’s thick frame shift and bounce as he stumbled along, searching his young friend’s face for any sign of awareness like his own.  If it was there Ben couldn’t find it, nor could he call out as they pierced the treeline and found themselves in a small cove.  

A handful of men were already on the beach, and a few others popped out of the forest until Ben counted a total of twelve, not including the shrouded figure at the water’s edge.  The moon hung bright and full above the horizon, bathing the scene in a pale blue light that caused their exposed skin to glow.  Rolling waves that looked like cracked, aged leather crashed ashore, and Ben told himself it was just his dazed eyes playing tricks on him, and that the water wasn’t actually parting around the robed figure.  Looking down the cove, he saw the other men were all in various states of aroused exposure like himself.  Only one had on pajama bottoms, and a few were completely naked, but all were obviously hard as they stood like statues facing the sea.  

The crowd came in all shapes and sizes, and Ben recognized two more of them, Dave and Owen, both standing next to each other at the far end of the group.  Dave owned a small electronics repair shop in town, and Ben wondered how the balding, heavy-set man would feel if he knew he was in public with his thick cock poking out of his briefs.  The same went for Owen, a blonde, athletic thirty-something who Ben knew from the gym.  The toned man looked oblivious as the rest as he stood with a glassy-eyed stare and an impressively long rod sticking out through the fly of his boxer-briefs.  Like with Connor, Ben felt his stomach flutter and his cock throb while he surveyed the varying builds and ages of the men around him, their appearance not seeming to matter at all as his body ached confusingly at the sight of them.  His hands tingled at the thought of their masculine bodies against his palms, his addled mind awash with images of himself wrapped in their arms.  

The figure began speaking before Ben could wrap his head around any of it.  He couldn’t tell if they were a man or a woman, and, listening to the gurgling, guttural sounds spewing out of the deep hood that obscured their face, he quickly began to wonder if they were human at all.  They turned their back to the crowd, the gold, geometric figure embroidered on the back of their emerald robe flashing in the moonlight as they waved their arms towards the sea.  The figure’s discordant, repeating chant reached a fever pitch, the choking sound of their horrible speech making Ben feel nauseous.  He tried not to listen, but the words caused the confusing longing in his body to grow, to the point where he was clenching his jaw, his cock oozing steadily.  

At first, he thought the loud gurgle was more of the figure’s hideous voice.  The bubbling sound was hard to separate from the steady crashing of the waves, but as the chanting continued, Ben saw the surface of the water start to churn just offshore.  The ocean roiled and bubbled, rising up to an impossible height before separating and spilling away like a waterfall.  If his mouth and vocal chords hadn’t been frozen, Ben would have screamed at the massive, gelatinous creature rising up from the dark ocean.  It looked like a colossal jellyfish, its translucent bulk glowing blue as it obscured the moon, its dangling tendrils whipping alarmingly close to dry land as it hovered.  The blob-like entity was already impossibly large, and it seemed to grow larger as it swayed back and forth in time with the figure’s chanting.  

Ben wished he could look away, or that he could at least be as oblivious as the others.  He could feel the thing’s unseen eyes on the group, coating them like an invisible film as they stood helpless before it.  He braced himself when the chanting came to an abrupt halt, but nothing could prepare him for the unleashed explosion of sound.  The creature was the source of the impelling noise that called them all together, its unfiltered cry obliterating Ben’s awareness.  

For a time, the middle-aged man knew nothing.  He floated in a dark, quiet void, little more than a slight scrap of awareness desperately clinging to its own existence.  Ben had no sense of his physical self, just a numb yearning to escape the blinding emptiness.  He flailed and fought against oblivion’s pull, clawing his way instinctively back to the surface.  He knew he was headed in the right direction when he felt a dull throb pulse through him.  A throb meant a body, and a body meant release if he could find it.  He kept climbing, his awareness expanding to encompass the sensation of his tense, flexing muscle as he clung to something hard and warm.  

Touch was followed by sound, a chorus of grunting moans hitting Ben’s ears as his nose flared to life and he filled his nostrils with a deep, musky scent.  The unfamiliar odor connected to his tongue, making him aware of the salty taste and the large object gliding back and forth across it as it filled his mouth.  Ben grunted triumphantly and forced his eyes open, his addled mind slow in reconnecting the confusing sensory input.  

He was on his knees, blinking against Connor’s stomach, the young man’s trim bush tickling his nose as a thick cock was worked in and out of his mouth.  Ben clutched instinctively, his eyes going wide as he felt the pair of meaty, solid cheeks against his palms.  Instead of pulling away he squeezed harder when the ecstasy caught up with him, the young man’s muscled frame causing him to swoon.  

More than the fact that he suddenly found himself blowing another man, it was that very swoon, and the stumbling step he took, that brought the true horror of his situation to Ben’s attention.  When he swayed he felt the sand under his feet, not against his knees, but he knew that couldn’t be possible.  If he really was standing at dick-level with the 5’8” Connor, it would mean he’d somehow lost half his height.  

Thinking he was just still in a daze, Ben looked down and felt a piece of himself break at the sight of his shrunken body.  He let out a horrified hum around Connor’s invading cock when he saw the shortened legs and thin, waifish build where his athletic, six-foot frame should have been.  Looking back up, that cry of horror turned to one of lust when he saw an inflated wall of muscle towering over him.  The burly young man hadn’t simply stolen his height but his muscle as well, packing on so much bulk he looked practically immobile.  His arms hung at an awkward angle, and Ben could just barely see a portion of Connor’s full, round face beyond his jutting slab of a chest.  

Acting on the same instinct that had pulled him from the brink of oblivion, Ben grabbed on to the pieces of himself that he could now feel flowing into the younger man.  It was a force of will more than body, and whether it was due to his older age or something else altogether, he was able to not only stop the stream but reverse it, taking back his stolen essence.  A tide of bliss washed over him as he felt his body inflate, Connor’s fat cock falling out of his mouth as he started to regain his height.  He felt the younger man’s body dwindle in his arms, their mouths instinctively locking while they writhed in irresistible lust.  

Ben grunted at the surge of virility and strength that shot through him.  He wasn’t just absorbing Connor’s physical essence; he was taking parts of the younger man’s personality as well.  They were so entwined that Ben didn’t know where he stopped and Connor began.  Was he a middle-aged man with an MBA who worked in an office, or a rugged young meathead who worked in a kitchen?  Did he try to maintain a lean, proportional body, or did he want to get as big as possible?  Did the tidy, well-furnished house belong to him, or was the small, messy apartment his home?  It was overwhelming.  The entirety of their lives was laid bare and mingled together just as their bodies.  Ben groaned ecstatically when Connor turned in his arms and impaled his muscled globes on his oozing member, feeling both sensations at the same time.  He didn’t know if he was the handsome, lantern-jawed one with the hairy chest or the smooth, beefy young man, or if it even mattered.   They were one being, a writhing mass of connected memories and muscle.  The thing that was Connor and Ben had no idea how long they were joined in ecstasy.  Time was as meaningless as identity.  All that mattered was their bliss.  

And then the sound roared once more, the vibration causing their unified existence to fracture.  The man who used to be Ben tried to cling to the young man who used to be Connor, but the pull was inexorable.  They were ripped apart, with no control over where the pieces went.  Ben felt memories that should have been his slip away, just as thoughts that felt strange and foreign remained.  He no longer remembered going to school, but he did remember spending countless hours hefting weights.  His office job seemed just as foreign, but he didn’t remember working in a kitchen either.  It was as if some pieces had been taken by something else altogether, leaving the pair to sort out what remained.  

As he blinked, his vision once more returning to a separate body, Ben thought that Connor should have looked younger as the other man pulled himself off a cock that looked too short and too wide.  When the other man turned, Ben found himself looking at a face that was sharper and less blunted, with the weathered skin of a man who looked to be in his early thirties and a scalp that was no longer buzzed but that had short, cropped brown hair.  He had a body that matched, his build looking less beefy and more chiseled than Ben remembered, with a long, thick cock that seemed strangely familiar.  

Looking down at himself, Ben couldn’t be sure that the stocky, beefy frame hadn’t been his all along.  A part of him felt that he and Connor shouldn’t have been the same height, but he could be no more certain of that than he could of his lumpy muscle gut and meaty thighs.  When he reached up and felt his face, the round, full cheeks and smooth, youthful skin didn’t seem right, nor did his beefy arms, but the look of pure lust in Connor’s eyes made him feel that everything was exactly as it should have been.  

As the two got their bearings, they saw what remained of the others doing the same around them.  No one looked like the men who’d originally arrived.  Ben vaguely remembered the mismatched group, but they’d been nothing like the striking strangers slowly coming out of their shared trance.  There were men who were far too short next to men who were far too tall, and men who were twice as wide as their now skinny companions.  The men who had been Dave and Owen seemed to split the difference, both of them looking thick and beefy, with matching, receding hairlines where originally one had been heavy-set and older while the other had been younger and athletic.  

A part of Ben knew the same thing had happened to him and Connor.  He’d somehow become younger, taking on a broader, beefy frame, while the other man had grown older and more lean, though it hadn’t been an even split.  He saw traces of his own features in the other man’s face, just as he knew he bore more of Connor’s original appearance as well.  

What none of them saw were the hooded figure or the monstrous creature.  Both had vanished at some point, taking any sort of explanation with them.  Already their involvement was fading like a half-remembered dream, and as the horizon began to brighten with the threat of sunrise the group picked up the scraps of their clothing and staggered away.  Not knowing what else to do, Ben let Connor take him by the hand and lead them both away from the shore, back to whatever new life was waiting for them.