Fruiting Bodies, ch. 4 (Patreon)

“This is so wild,” Will said, prodding his soft midsection as it spilled around the edges of his tight trunks.  Instead of accentuating a firm, shredded build, the tiny swimwear bit and pinched into his meaty new frame, at least when he was small enough for the elastic bottoms to fit at all.  Though he shrank back down after each release, Will’s baseline level of simmering arousal prevented him from reverting to the sculpted physique he’d worked so hard to build, leaving him more “dad-bod” than “ripped jock.”  The former Adonis felt like he should be embarrassed by the excessive bulk, especially when he was at his thickest and roundest, but he couldn’t quite muster the emotion.  He was well aware that there would be no hiding his eager attractions going forward.  Instead of having to only conceal a rigid cock if he became aroused, now his whole body became engorged, making his lustful thoughts obvious to everyone.  It had become a whole-body experience, with the kinds of intense, encompassing releases that most people could only dream about.

“It’s not that I want you to be freaking out, but you seem oddly calm about this.  You both do.”  Dave watched Will’s fingers sink into the stomach where his friend’s washboard abs should have been, unsurprised that the other man was still just as charming and handsome regardless of his outward appearance.  The dark-skinned hunk took to the extra weight like he’d always had it, and over the course of the preceding afternoon and evening had started to display something resembling control over the odd transformation.  The same went for Tom, who’d managed to stop his lustful wailing though his body had yet to revert to its former state.  The burly jock had maintained the hulking, hung form he’d adopted when Will had stumbled out of the cave, his naked frame in no way helping the other man shrink back down.

Will gave a short laugh and shook his head.  “Believe me, I know.  It’s hard to explain…it just feels…good?  And I don’t mean in the obvious ways, either.  It feels right.  I’ve never felt anything even close to it before.  You all know I’m not religious, but this must be what it’s like when people talk about being part of something bigger.”

“You’ve both mentioned that,” Tyler nodded.  “Walk us through that part again.”

Tom shrugged his massive new shoulders.  “I don’t know what else to say.  I had an urge to go back in, and once I got that stuff all over me I became part of it.”

“Can you be a little more specific?  Part of what?”  Dave had a theory, but he didn’t want to say it out loud until the others confirmed it.  If he was correct, he didn’t even begin to know how to process the implications.  “Does it talk to you?  How do you know you’re ‘part’ of it?”

“It,” Will said, motioning to the small island through the window.  “I think we all experience it in a different way, but there’s definitely a connection.  Not in words, but in feelings.  There’s this wholeness…no other word for it.  It’s something I didn’t know I was missing until I suddenly found it.  It’s crazy.  I know this looks scary, but it’s really not.  It’s…I don’t know…comforting?  If I close my eyes I can sense its presence out there.”

“I don’t understand.  Do you mean the cave,” Tyler asked, looking over at Dave for help.

Tom shook his head.  “Uh-uh.  The thing inside the cave.  Underneath.  It’s everywhere,” the giant said, his deep voice going distant.  Will nodded next to him, his body swelling slightly.  “It’s under us right now, stretching out in every direction.”

“I think I get it.”  Dave sighed and leaned forward, rubbing the shock from his face before continuing.  “One of the largest organisms on the planet, if not the largest, is an Armillaria Ostoyae in Oregon,” he finally said, falling back in his chair.  He watched his friend’s eyes immediately land on his bare, toned torso but he didn’t see the point in trying to cover himself.  Even after the disastrous events, the compulsion to wear as little as possible remained as strong as ever.  “It’s a fungus that stretches for miles, and is upwards of eight thousand years old.  Just let that sink in.  A single, living organism whose size is gauged in miles and whose age is expressed in millenia.  There’s nothing else like it.  What we’ve discovered here, though, makes that look like an infant.  A fetus, even.  Who knows how far the roots of this place have grown over hundreds of millions of years?  The forest in that cave could also just be one facet of this thing.  Instead of miles, we’re potentially talking about a single entity that exists on a planetary scale.  Can you imagine the intellect that would develop over all that time?”

“Whoa, babe, hold on,” Tyler interrupted, reaching over to take Dave’s hand.  “Even if it’s big…are you implying that it’s, what?  Sentient?  Wouldn’t it still just be a giant old mushroom?”

Dave shook his head.  “At this scale, what does sentience look like?  Why doesn’t this show up on satellite imaging?  Why don’t any of our comms work right now?  Is it defending itself?  We know trees use fungal networks to communicate with each other, right?  Mother trees will actually react to defend their offspring if they come under attack.  Maybe that’s not conscious decision making in the way we’re used to thinking of it, but there’s still an exchange of information happening that sparks a behavior.  And that’s in a tree that might only be a few decades or maybe centuries old.  We’re talking about something that could have existed before the first tree ever sprouted on this planet.  What if the changes we’re seeing in Tom and Will are this thing’s way of communicating and responding?  Now that they’re carrying spores from the source, what if it’s ‘communicating’ with them on a cellular level?  They wouldn’t consciously know about it any more than when their t-cells go after a virus.  All they’d know is how they feel as a result.  If that data exchange happened automatically, or in the background, then…then…”  Dave broke off in a gasp, his eyes going wide.  He hopped up from his chair and darted out of the main cabin, clinging to the rail outside as a wave of nausea-inducing guilt washed over him.

Tyler followed quickly behind, rubbing Dave’s back as he searched his lover’s pale face for clues.  “What is it?  What just happened?  Are you okay?”

“You were right with what you said before.  We ARE all infected.  It’s already inside each of us to some degree.”  The wiry brunette took a deep breath, his voice shaking as he turned to look at Tyler.  He motioned for Tom and Will to stay inside when the altered pair started lumbering in their direction, not wanting them to hear what he had to say.  “Don’t you see?  WE were the first ones from the group to enter the cave.  Me and you.  We breathed it in and sparked up a conversation without even knowing it was happening.  That thing read us like a book and then it started talking back.”

“Hon, I still don’t get what you’re…”

“Attraction.  Lust.  Reproduction.  Our basic, primal urges.  It read them from the two of us and then started talking to EVERYONE in that same language.  Why else would a boat full of straight men suddenly become almost uncontrollably attracted to each other?  As far as it's concerned we’re all the same.  We even carried the spores out with us on our clothes and skin, so poor Auggie and Franco got sucked in without stepping one foot inside that place.  WE did this to them.”

Tyler opened and closed his mouth several times before finally finding the words.  “No.  That’s not…no.  Even if what you’re saying is true, we didn’t have anything to do with that.  Would you blame Will or Tom if we were suddenly interested in women?  That…thing…is responsible, not us.  And I still think that’s giving it too much credit.  Is photosynthesis a choice?  Is oxygenating our blood a choice?  They’re automatic impulses.  That thing doesn’t consciously know what it’s doing any more than your skin does when a wound heals.”  He reached out for Dave’s shoulders and gave a reassuring squeeze.  “How could we have possibly known that this was something we’d even need to worry about?  All we were supposed to do was find a cave full of mushrooms, not deal with unknown chemical agents and impossible biohazards.  So if we’re going to blame a person for what’s happening, let’s blame the one who clearly withheld some information when they sent us out here.”

Dave sighed, his stomach dropping when he looked down and saw Tyler’s thick cock rigid and outlined in the other man’s trunks.  It wasn’t a reaction he was used to having at such a sight but the inappropriate timing made him nervous, as did the fact that the blonde hunk seemed unaware.  “We have to find out.  Sentient or not we got the attention of SOMETHING down there, and I think it’s still talking.”

********************

Agustín looked at the cluster of vials and jars on the table, still unconvinced that it was a good idea to bring them aboard.  The four Americans had set up a mobile lab outside the cave entrance, and given the bizarre events so far he would have been much more comfortable with the samples remaining there instead of the makeshift lab on the yacht.  He didn’t understand what was happening or how any of it was possible, but it wasn’t the first time he and Franco had witnessed strange circumstances while working for Ethan.

It was the first time they’d been involved, though.  He knew better than to ask questions, that whatever the cave might do to them was probably better than what their employer would if angered, but that did little to ease his nerves.  While he’d been confusingly eager to take advantage of Tom’s current state, he still hadn’t wrapped his head around why he wanted to in the first place.  Or why he looked at Franco and the others with such unabated lust.  He felt out of control in a way he never had before, as if his very body was betraying him.  On a logical level he wanted to be afraid, or at the very least embarrassed, but the most he could muster was a dull anxiety.

It wasn’t that Agustín was shy about his tight, compact frame.  He was used to spending time in crowds wearing nothing but the revealing little trunks that accentuated his ample bottom and impressive endowment.  But he shouldn’t have been so comfortable parading around the boat in nothing but one of Tom’s draping muscle shirts.  He shouldn’t have been so unfazed by everyone seeing his rigid cock, or by the fact that everyone knew about what he and the brawny jock had done together.  He knew it had something to do with whatever it was they’d discovered on the small atoll, though whether or not any of it could be fixed, or if he even wanted it to be, was still beyond him.

“Goddamnit,” he grunted, adjusting the hardening log in his small trunks.  He’d just jerked off before leaving his cabin, but already he felt like he hadn’t cum in a month.  Just thinking back on his time with Tom’s altered frame, and how the bigger man’s heaping ass had felt pressed against his midsection, was almost enough to make him pop on its own.  The other man’s helpless, wailing whimpers still rang in his ears, and Agustín didn’t think he’d ever forget the sight of Tom’s little cock spurting on its own.

He tried to distract himself by inspecting the samples. They looked far less menacing once removed from the psychedelic nightmare that was the cave’s interior, little more than piles of dirt and fiber sitting in the bottom of a jar.   He had no desire to go inside and see the fungal jungle for himself, and it was hard for him to believe that such inconspicuous materials could possibly be responsible for the changes to Tom and Will.  But he’d seen it with his own eyes, and if the bits of conversation he’d overheard were correct, he and Franco were potentially already infected regardless.

“And what would you do, eh?” he asked aloud as he picked up one of the jars.  He gave it a light shake, looking for any indication that it wasn’t just a collection of dirt, but found none.  “Would you make me bigger like Tom?  Or bigger like Will?  With my luck you’d probably make me even shorter,” he laughed, gently setting the jar back down.  “You three look a bit more interesting,” he said, leaning down to look at a trio of jars that contained vibrant, candy colored lichen and mushrooms.  They were coated in swirls of orange, yellow and purple, with specks of black and cobalt blue peppered in the mix.  Despite the bright sunlight pouring in through the windows the cuttings seemed to glow, as if a small LED had been affixed to the underside of the lids.  The same went for the next jar over, which looked to be filled with a wispy, cotton-candy material.  The thin strands were a shock of fluorescent violet, their illumination pulsing slightly as Agustín watched.

He picked up the jar to get a closer look, time slowing to a crawl as he watched the lid fall off.  It had been placed on top but hadn’t actually been secured, or if it had, someone had since come through and loosened it.  That thought wouldn’t occur until later, though.  In the moment, Agustín jerked reflexively to try and grab it, causing the violet cotton ball to spill from the jar.  It hovered weightless for a seemingly endless second before gravitating towards the fumbling man’s bare torso like lint being pulled in by static.  He immediately went to swat it away, but as soon as it made contact with his chest the heat from his body caused it to melt, the purple sheen quickly seeping into his tanned skin.

“Oh no.  Oh no.  This is bad…this is very bad…” he stammered, his toned chest already starting to itch.

The first phase of the growth began before his hand even had a chance to make contact.  Agustín had always been naturally smooth, with only a sparse dusting of hair collected at the center of his chest, but that changed immediately after the strange substance soaked in.  Bright, silky filaments erupted through his skin all at once, joining with the wiry fur he’d already had until his modest pecs were covered in a thick carpet of purple and black.  As he watched the impossible pelt sprout across his chest Agustín feared that it would spread to cover the rest of him, but after a moment it looked as though the soft strands were content to remain where they’d grown.

“What the fuuuuck…” he muttered under his breath, eyes wide.  His heart raced as he reached up to give his follicular foes a tentative prod, feeling a stab of embarrassment pierce his shock.  Not only did he suddenly have a chest covered in hair thick enough to grab, it looked like he dyed it to draw even more attention.  “Oh!  Shit…that’s…wow…” he gasped, a pulse of pleasure throbbing through him on contact.  If he hadn’t already been hard his cock would have rocketed to attention at the slightest touch.  As it was, Agustín felt himself start to ache and ooze, his body responding to his brushing fingers the same way it did to his pumping fist.

Unsurprisingly a pressure was starting to build, but he realized too late that it came from an unfamiliar location.  Agustín pressed back instinctively when an unseen force pressed out against the hand on his chest, but there was nothing he could do to stop the inflation that followed.  In the time it took for him to draw a shocked breath, he watched his toned pecs inflate until they were a furry slab that jutted off his otherwise-lean body to an impossible degree.  Even without looking down he could feel the recently acquired hair brushing against the bottom of his chin, and when he finally did lower his head he was horrified to discover that his view of the rest of his body had been forever obscured.

This was made all the more alarming because Agustín was frantic to inspect the rest of himself.  A tingling sensation had broken out at his shoulders, lower back, and core, but as he felt his frame draw upright, his disproportionate mounds thrust forward when he settled into an arched-back posture, he realized that it was his body compensating to support the extra weight now hanging off his front.

“That…this can’t be me…” he stammered, his head spinning.  He caught a glimpse of his reflection and immediately wished he hadn’t.  The cresting mountains hung like hairy, muscular melons, making the rest of his compact frame look smaller by comparison even as his new posture accentuated his plump rear and impressive bulge.  “HOOOUUHHH!”  Agustín howled when he reached up again to gently prod the firm shelf, the sensation nearly bringing him to his knees.

“Agustín?  Is that you in…here…” Franco froze in the doorway, his jaw dropping at the sight of his top-heavy friend.  “Fuck!  What happened?  Are you okay?”

“I don’t…I don’t know!  One of the jars was open and I got this stuff on me and then this…this…happened…” the shorter man panted, equal parts relieved by his friend’s arrival and mortified at being seen in his current state.  A strange eagerness was thrown into the mix when Franco darted over and Agustín felt his ballooning chest draw towards the other man.

“Okay…okay…let’s not panic.  Does it hurt?” Franco asked, blinking down at his friend’s comically large muscle-tits.  He gave a sigh of relief when Agustín shook his head, grinning awkwardly as he looked at his own impressive pecs.  “That’s a start, at least.  Those things got huge, didn’t they?  We need to go tell the others what happened,” he said, unmoving.

“Ye…yeah…we should get help…” Agustín responded, equally rooted in place.  With Franco standing mere inches away, gazing down at his altered torso, getting help was suddenly the last thing he wanted to do.  He watched a glazed look fall over Franco’s eyes, barely resisting the urge to reach out and wrap his arms around the other man.  He didn’t know if he even could any more without his chest getting in the way, but the urge to try was potent.

Franco bit his lower lip as he stared, a hand absently reaching up.  “Where’d this purple come from,” he asked with a short laugh, the previous plan to get help already forgotten.  He brushed his fingers against the top of the multi-colored pelt before slipping them in deeper to squeeze the firm flesh underneath.

“OOOUUHHHHhhh!”  Agustín went up on his toes, his vision blurring from the unexpected surge of ecstasy.  Franco’s probing digits lit him up as if he was being jerked off, fingered and blowing someone at the same time.  Every pleasure receptor in his body seemed to have been rewired to focus on his altered chest, and it appeared to be equally successful at drawing the focus of others.  As his friend pawed at him, Agustín watched that glazed look on the other man’s sharp face grow stronger.

“Fuck…it’s so soft…feels good…” Franco muttered to himself, lowering his face towards the furry mountains.  “Smells good too…bet it tastes great…”

Agustín let out a shrill whimper, instinctively clutching his friend’s head against his chest.  There were no words.  All he could do was grunt and writhe as Franco worked his mouth all over the altered shelf, his kneading hands taking up the rest of the space.  Agustín had never felt anything like it.  Though he couldn’t see it, he could feel his untouched cock spraying and soaking through his trunks, but despite the frequent eruptions the bliss never diminished.  Agustín felt like he was being eaten out on a whole-body level, the overwhelming experience better than any fucking he’d ever given or, recently, received.

He didn’t resist when Franco guided them to the floor, only whimpered helplessly as he watched his friend’s long cock spring free when the other man shucked his trunks.  The sensation of a pair of strong thighs straddling his tight waist was incredible, and Agustín could literally feel his brain rewiring itself.  As Franco began thrusting through the deep, furry valley between his muscled balloons, the shorter man began to understand.  He could feel Tom and Will, and even Tyler and David to a lesser degree, in the main cabin.  They were bright points of warmth that paled in comparison to the raging furnace that was the cave, and as he writhed between Franco’s thighs, Agustín began to recognize the countless tendrils snaking off through the endless dark beneath the ocean’s floor.

He still didn’t fully understand what was happening, but as he gazed up at Franco’s blissed-out expression through the mask of cum his friend had blasted all over his face, Agustín knew he didn’t need to.  He was connected now, and that was all that mattered.  He knew why Tom and Will had seemed so calm about their transformations, just as he suddenly knew what each of the jars contained.

And as soon as his friend finally wore himself out, Agustín knew which one would suit Franco best.

******************

Voting Options

******************

While Franco is still in a daze, Agustín exposes him to a sample that…

Option 1: causes his body to grow sensitive, chiseled muscle which provides the pleasurable sensations his now-shrunken cock used to.

Option 2: inflates his toned rear into a set of hypersensitive pillows, mirroring the transformation Agustín went through but on his lower half.

Option 3: elongates his torso slightly, making him grow taller while providing room for the extra set of arms that sprout from his midsection.

Option 4: warps his tapering physique, causing his arms and legs to grow shorter while his cock and torso grow longer.