Crack the Code: Employee of the Month, pt. 1 (Patreon)

Brandon took a deep breath, his broad shoulders rising slowly with the inhalation.  He held it, his hands trembling and his heart thundering against his straining button-down as he thought about the changes to come.  Only a week into his thirties and he was about to have everything he’d ever wanted.  The endless wealth, a luxurious house, and a carefree lifestyle were all about to be his, with the added bonus of Seth to go with it all.  The older man had no idea how his life was about to change, but then again, how could he?  Even Brandon had a hard time believing any of it was possible, and he’d seen the results firsthand.

His thick cock throbbed as he thought back to the appointment, and how the two impossibly proportioned hunks had changed before his eyes.  They’d gone from a mismatched pair, one tall and giggly with an ass bigger than anything Brandon had ever seen, the other a short, gruff little ball of muscle who was hung like a horse, into a matched pair of athletic, conventionally attractive young men like himself.  All with the push of a button.  Their clothes had changed to match, but more impressive was the way Brandon’s memories shifted.  When the pair became a set of handsome, though comparatively average, tech bros, the memories of their other versions vanished as if they’d never existed.  Until they switched back, reversing roles as to who was short and beefy and who was tall and thicc, at which point the memories all came rushing back.

It was jarring and disorienting, an effect Brandon had no doubt was intentional considering the amount of money involved.  While his dreams were about to come true, achieving them had cost him literally everything.  He’d managed to build what most people would consider a small fortune in the almost-decade since graduating from college, and he’d worked for every penny.  Eighty-hour weeks in the office, month-long stretches where he only went home to sleep for a few hours before grinding right back, showering in the company gym and practically living at his desk.  The money had piled up, but that too had come with a cost as Brandon bounced from hook-up to hook-up instead of building actual relationships, and could only count coworkers as the closest thing to friends.  With it being on-site, working out in the company gym was the only hobby he had room for, but even that time was still spent meeting an unspoken requirement of the job.  Brandon knew he could use his athletic build and sharp, handsome features to his advantage, and as much as he enjoyed working out for its own sake, he maintained his chiseled build more out of necessity than anything.  He couldn’t even blow off steam by hefting weights the way he used to since his peers and competition were always around, making even the simple act of taking a shower part of the endless slog of work his life had become.

The grueling pace lessened as he rocketed up the corporate ladder, but the damage had been done, leaving the handsome brunette looking for a way out and willing to pay whatever price.  He’d liquidated his assets, emptied his accounts, and put up both his townhouse and six-figure car as collateral, though he wasn’t sure how that worked considering the changes to reality that were coming.  Would they still be his at all once the shift happened and he was living somewhere else?  Was that written into the altered code?  Or, as Brandon began to suspect, was it the act of sacrifice that made it important.  The real cost wasn’t a house or a car; it was submission.  It was a devastating price, but one Brandon was all too familiar with.  Short-term loss for long-term gain.  He’d lived his life by that rule, and while he’d grown sick of it, he could brace himself for one more hurdle.  Especially after the proof-of-concept he’d received.

As impressive as the meeting with the Code Breaker had been, Brandon needed more evidence.  Small though it might be, there was still a chance that it was all somehow smoke and mirrors, or confined to the room they were in.  As proof, Brandon had watched his chocolate hair go white, and then saw the change recreated in the photos on his phone and on social media, before returning to its normal shade.  It was stunning, but Brandon wasn’t going to be bringing Seth somewhere, the changes were going to be happening at a distance.  He couldn’t fully commit until he knew that proximity wasn’t an issue.

In the moment, he’d been terrified.  After witnessing the kind of power he’d just seen it had taken all of his iron-clad will to press the issue, but Brandon had learned how to bite down on his intimidation over the years.  This was the ultimate “big risk, big reward” situation, and meekness would get him nowhere.  The Code Breaker had simply smiled, a sight that sent a chill through him, and agreed to a complimentary display, his fingers flashing across the keyboard.  When Brandon asked what the other man had just done, all the Code Breaker did was tell him he’d find out when he made it back home.

Brandon knew he probably wouldn’t like the answer.  The young executive had never been remotely religious or superstitious, but he suddenly understood what it meant to make a deal with the devil.  There was no other word for it.  The whole process of mentally hitting rock bottom and drowning in desperation, only to have a miraculous solution suddenly appear in his inbox at the exact moment he reached the point where he was willing to do anything, had an air of divine intervention about it.

But there was nothing holy about the Code Breaker.  Though he looked to be about Brandon’s age, with a similar build and deceptively charming face, the other man radiated menace in a way the unnerved brunette had never felt before.  After countless hours in boardrooms with men and women who literally made the world move, after numerous handshakes with politicians and celebrities, Brandon thought he knew what it meant to stand in the presence of power.

The true experience was withering.  The fact that the young executive managed to keep himself together at all in the face of his own cosmic nothingness spoke to his determination and discipline.  His expression remained stoic, his handshake firm.  He’d treated it like any other high-stakes negotiation, not letting the full weight of it all register until he was back in his car.  His knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he’d driven away from the non-descript highrise, making it only a few miles before pulling into an empty parking lot and breaking down in hysterics.  He’d wept and laughed, cried and screamed like a man possessed.  He tore at his clothes, retching until his throat burned and there was nothing left in his stomach, unsure the whole time whether any of it, or anything around him, was real.  All he’d been seeking was a way out, and in the process he’d been given a glimpse of the fundamental nature of the universe.  It was too much.  Brandon’s head felt like it would split under the weight of this new knowledge, but there was no going back.  The only way out was through, and if he ever wanted anything resembling peace again he had no choice.  He’d already crossed a line by even attending the meeting, and there was still another waiting.

That became more evident than ever as soon as he made it back home and stumbled inside.  Waiting for him on his expansive dining room table was a slender crystal vase containing a perfect, crimson rose.  The floral aroma permeated the normally sterile air of his spacious townhouse to what should have been an impossible degree for a single flower, and when he picked up the piece of thick parchment that lay next to it Brandon read, in flourished cursive script, “As requested.”

A tingling at his waist immediately followed.  Brandon had dropped the note and tore his still-disheveled chinos open, his eyes going wide at the skimpy underwear that lay beneath.  Instead of the slate boxer-briefs he’d been wearing, he gawked at a pair of stuffed bikinis, the drab fabric replaced by a bright floral print.  He’d blushed as he stumbled out of his discarded pants in a daze, silently impressed by the way the revealing underwear accentuated his hefty bulge, perky rear, and tight waist, but dreading the implications.  Though he never wore that style, his exposed thighs and barely covered cheeks felt entirely natural, and when he’d looked back at the note he understood why.  New script had appeared where it previously ended, stating, “You wanted to see proof, and now you can.  Whenever you’re at home, or that locker room you spend so much time in, you’ll have a nice reminder that everyone can see.”

Brandon was still eager to forget the overwhelming sensation of dread that had followed.  His stomach dropped in roller-coaster fashion as he’d darted up the stairs to his bedroom, and he’d never felt so utterly helpless as when he’d first laid eyes on the altered surroundings.  There had been a total shift of the color palette, swapping out the masculine, charcoal walls and navy bedding for a light lavender and a comforter that looked like a field of wildflowers.  The sleek furniture was still as shiny and modern as ever, though now a light, powder blue instead of black, and Brandon could already see the changes to his wardrobe practically glowing inside his large walk-in closet.  Like his boxer-briefs, the shirts and pants that had previously been varying shades of black, navy, slate, and white were now a mass of pastels.  Pale pinks and purples hung next to light oranges and mint greens, and even the tattered shirt he was wearing had become a ruddy pink at some point.  When he finally mustered the nerve to open his dresser Brandon hadn’t been surprised to find that all of his underwear had been swapped for variations of the pair he wore, but he was surprised by his reaction to it all.

His initial reflex had been to throw it all away and replace it with items similar to the ones he’d lost, but by the time he was examining the changes to his now-pearlescent pink bathroom, that desire had fled.  He still knew that none of it was right, but at the same time he knew it was just how things were, meaning that while the identity crisis was still present, it was muted, preventing him from experiencing the full weight of his humiliation.  As a gay man in the cutthroat corporate world, Brandon had always tried to maintain a carefully calculated degree of masculinity.  His orientation wasn’t a secret, nor was it something he lied about, but he knew that his success meant fitting in with the rest of the alpha males around him.  He couldn’t be the bright flower that the Code Breaker seemed intent on making him, and it wasn’t something that he’d ever stopped to think much about until the issue had been forced.

Brandon messaged the Code Breaker immediately and told him they had a deal.  He didn’t know how to feel when told that he’d been put on the schedule for next month, and that he’d have to live with his current situation until that time.  He was thrilled at the prospect of finally reaching his goal, but the part of him that knew how things should be was mortified at spending the next month in whatever altered existence the Code Breaker had made for him.

That sense of humiliation only grew stronger over the following days.  The very next morning, Brandon braced himself as he slipped into a lilac muscle shirt and small, baby blue gym shorts, his rosy jockstrap just barely visible beneath the light fabric.  Even his hunter-green sneakers had become a deep rose-gold, but Brandon was helpless to do anything other than strut around the gym in front of his coworkers in the colorful outfit.  Despite his own embarrassment no one else seemed to notice, though Brandon did feel like he was getting the eye from more of his male colleagues than usual.  That theory was put to the test shortly after when he stepped out of the shower and sauntered around the locker room in nothing but a pair of rose printed bikinis.  It wasn’t uncommon for Brandon to linger shirtless as he liked to show off his toned pecs and ripped abs, and he enjoyed the view of the men around him, but he’d never spent so much time in front of so many people with so little on before.

As the note promised, that scenario replayed itself when Brandon was at home.  As soon as he’d stepped through the door he was hit with an overwhelming urge to strip, peeling out of his creamsicle polo and powder blue slacks before the door had finished shutting behind him.  Even when a few of the guys from the office came over to watch the game later that evening, Brandon still didn’t get dressed.  He’d managed to force himself into a small, pink tank-top, but no matter how much he screamed at himself to do otherwise, he’d casually greeted everyone with his lower half clad in nothing but the tiny underwear.

The parts of himself that knew better had been horrified.  These men weren’t his friends, they were his peers in upper management and potential competition.  They varied in age and shape, but the one thing they had in common was their relentless drive.  They hadn’t come over to watch a football game, not really, but to size each other up and keep their enemies close.  And yet their Brandon sat, his plump balls just barely visible whenever he shifted his legs the wrong way, and his firm cheeks wagging for everyone whenever he got up to refill a drink.

He’d been surprised that the others had taken such a jarring presentation in stride, with most of them simply smiling and shaking their heads as they’d looked him up and down.  It had been treated as a personality quirk and not glaringly inappropriate, a trait that carried over during the weeks that followed.  Brandon had quickly developed “The Rose” as a nickname, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut whenever someone said it to him.  As much as he wanted to rebel against it, he’d just smile and shrug, the same way they responded to him.

It was a constant reminder of the Code Breaker’s power, but the true demonstration came towards the end of the month during a remote call.  Brandon had logged on from home, realizing his mistake too late as he barely managed to force himself into a straining puce polo.  Pants were still out of the question, and he’d been mortified that just about everyone on the call seemed to know.  At one point someone made a joke about it, and before he could stop himself Brandon had hopped to his feet, showing off his floral bikini-briefs for everyone.  Brandon thought for sure that he’d be fired on the spot after watching his clearly-outlined cock wave around on screen for nearly fifty of his coworkers, including his boss, Seth, but everyone had just laughed in the polite way that people do when an odd person does something expectedly weird.

Now, after weeks of constant exposure and absent humiliation, Brandon was more than ready to move on.  A part of him had actually come to enjoy his uninhibited existence, but he’d enjoy the one with Seth even more.

He’d desired his boss, and his boss’s lifestyle, since the moment they’d met.  With a full head of jet-black hair, a body that was covered in expertly sculpted muscle, and a lantern-jawed face that could switch from handsome to intimidating in a flash, Seth was everything that Brandon lusted after.  He oozed masculinity, radiating a confident calm that made it clear why he was in charge just being in his presence.  He was stern but not aggressive, though Brandon knew his boss could go that route if needed, and more father than dictator, like some of the coaches he’d had in his younger years.  And though the dark-haired hunk had a decade on Brandon, Seth could actually pass for a few years younger.  He was in fantastic shape, his body wearing its superior build with the same confident ease as his personality.  The light peppering of raven hair that coated his olive skin was expertly manscaped, accentuating his muscle rather than obscuring it, and Brandon cherished the memories of their few encounters in the company gym.  Seth had his own fitness suite, but he liked to pop into the shared facilities every so often to fraternize with his staff, giving Brandon the agonizingly brief glimpses of his shredded frame.  Unlike the younger brunette Seth never actually exposed himself to his coworkers by using the locker room, but that didn’t stop Brandon from fantasizing about it almost daily.  Though if everything went according to plan, in just a few minutes his fantasies would become reality.