Unearthed (full story) (Patreon)

*** This started as a vignette last month, but I was finally able to finish the second half. ***

Eric told himself it was now or never.  He knew Ted was home, and, more importantly, that his neighbor was alone at the moment, an increasingly rare occurrence over the preceding weeks.  He’d just watched the nearly-naked hunk strut inside after leisurely mowing his lawn in nothing but a pair of shorts so small they bordered on obscene.  The bright little trunks left nothing to the imagination, clinging to the muscled mounds of Ted’s perfectly ample rear while accentuating what looked like a fist wedged in the front.  They rode so low on the other man’s pinched waist that the full majesty of his ripped abs was on display, the shredded washboard looking perfectly at home beneath his prominent pecs and between his sculpted arms.  Even his mostly-bare legs were captivating, the meaty quads and rocky calves flexing in tantalizing fashion as he strolled along behind the lawnmower.  Given his attire, the bronze, full-body tan made sense, and it brought out the sun-kissed peppering of golden strands mixed in with the waves of tan in his thick, full scalp.  The expression on his improbably symmetrical face had been one of absolute confidence the whole time, not fueled by arrogance or exhibitionism, but contentment.  Ted didn’t seem to have a care in the world, and with his perfect body, enviable looks, and modest home, it was easy to understand why.

The only problem was that none of it made sense.  Eric had lived next to Ted on their quiet cul-de-sac for nearly two decades.  A month ago, his neighbor looked every bit the mid-40s suburbanite that he was, with his thinning hair, paunchy build, and unremarkable face.  For as long as Eric had known him, Ted had always existed squarely in the middle of the spectrum, neither noticeably ugly nor strikingly handsome.  He had an average job wearing average clothes and engaged in average hobbies.  Even when he and Sarah had divorced a few years earlier, Ted hadn’t spiraled into a wifeless, mid-life crisis the way Eric had when he’d gone through his own separation.  There were no regrettable purchases or desperate makeovers, just business-as-usual.  His neighbor had always been as level-headed as his appearance suggested, his personality equally free from the wild swings absent in the rest of his life.

Eric had actually been concerned when Ted disappeared for a week.  Living directly next to each other, and being the two bachelors on the street, they’d grown a bit closer over the last few years.  If one of them was going out of town they always gave the other a heads up so they could keep an eye on the place and get the mail, and Eric was worried when all signs of life abruptly ceased.  He’d texted and got no response, and he’d even let himself in with his spare key just to make sure everything was okay, only to find no sign of his friend.  Ted’s car was still in the garage, food was in the refrigerator, dirty dishes were in the sink, but the other man had seemingly vanished.  After getting no response to calls, texts or emails, and after double checking with a few of the other neighbors on the street, Eric had been about to reach out to the authorities when Ted, the “new” Ted, suddenly reappeared.

To say that his altered appearance and disinterest in clothing made a splash on their quiet little corner of the world would be an understatement.  The first time he saw him, Eric didn’t even realize it was his neighbor until they were standing face-to-face.  He’d hurried over when he saw what appeared to be a hunky young man lounging on Ted’s back deck one morning, hoping to get an update on his friend, and was halfway through introducing himself when he realized who it actually was.  After staring for a few stunned, silent moments Eric was able to recognize bits of Ted’s features beneath the wide-jawed, razor-cheeked perfection, but he still hadn’t fully accepted it.  He didn’t believe the story about his friend “going away for a procedure”, no one on the street really did.  There was no possible way the other man could have undergone such an extensive change so quickly, let alone without any lingering signs.  And since he only ever wore the bare minimum anymore, those cosmetic scars would have been plenty obvious.  Eric had been so caught off guard that he hadn’t thought to question any of it in the moment, though a text thread immediately began circulating between him and the other guys on the street.  Everyone had a theory, but mostly they were annoyed at the way their wives now took whatever opportunity they could to cross Ted’s path.

They all wanted Eric to go dig for the details.  The two of them were closest, they all said, and if anyone could get the real scoop it would be him.  But there was something about Ted’s new demeanor that made Eric want to keep his distance.  On the surface, his neighbor was friendlier and more welcoming than ever.  There was a warmth to his presence that hadn’t been there before, a seemingly genuine desire for connection.  It was obvious in his eyes, and in his open body language when he spoke, but it wasn’t until the guys began to drop off the thread one-by-one, and when Eric would see them coming and going, that he realized the true source of his discomfort.  It wasn’t Ted making him uncomfortable; it was the confusing, insidious desire he suddenly felt towards the other man.

At first, Eric thought his eyes lingered out of curiosity, out of a need to figure out what really happened to his friend.  Of course he thought about him all the time, he told himself, it was only natural.  After such a shocking change, how could anyone not sit and wonder about it?  How could anyone not want to see such striking perfection in all its glory?  How could anyone’s mouth not water at the thought of the pointlessly obscured log lurking between Ted’s now-muscled thighs?  He clearly wasn’t alone in his thoughts as the discussion on the shared text thread began to take an unfamiliar turn.  The guys started “joking” about how hot he’d become, but after several exchanges about how great Ted’s ass was, it didn’t seem like a joke at all.  Especially after the dreams started.

The first featured Terry, a dark-skinned hunk in his mid-thirties who, up until Ted’s dramatic transformation, had been the best looking guy on the street.  Despite his two kids, Terry’s athletic build hadn’t reached full dad-bod proportions yet, stubbornly clinging to the final remains of his youthful, lean definition.  It wasn’t uncommon for Eric to look out his front windows and see the other man across the street, mowing his yard without a shirt or washing the cars in his swim trunks, which is how he told himself his slumbering brain was able to render his neighbor’s bare torso in such vivid detail.  Terry’s firm rear, meaty thighs, and fat, heavy cock, though, should have been a mystery.

Yet Eric had no doubt he’d seen the other man’s naked flesh in the dream as it actually was, just as he’d looked down at his own exposed frame.  He’d been so focused on the sight of Terry eagerly blowing Ted in his neighbor’s perfectly replicated living room that it took several moments for him to realize he wasn’t simply a passive observer.  Even in the dream, Eric remembered feeling a flush of embarrassment when he saw his own bare, burly torso, and the fat, stout cock he busily tugged on while watching the other two.  The flustered, middle-aged man had never done anything like it.  He’d never thought he’d wanted to.  Going all the way back to his younger, more in-shape college days, Eric had always been modest about his body.  He’d never been the most fit guy in a room, a fact that had only become more entrenched as he’d aged.  After his divorce he’d gone through a prolonged fitness period, which resulted in his olive-hued frame packing on a noticeable amount of muscle, but barely any definition.  He had a firm, but prominent stomach, heavy pecs that looked good in a t-shirt but were far from chiseled, and a set of arms that garnered the occasional compliment.  His legs were thick and sturdy, he had an ample bubble, and his weathered features bordered on ruggedly handsome instead of rough around the edges.  With the dusting of silky, salt-and-pepper fur across his bulky torso, Eric gave off a firmly masculine vibe that was neither showy nor exaggerated.  He always thought of himself as passably average, certainly not as someone confident enough to strip down at a neighbor’s house for group sex.

But, night after night, that’s exactly what he did.  Sometimes he was the center of attention, either blowing Ted or, even more confusing, bouncing on the other man’s luscious cock, and other times he was just a witness.  It wasn’t long until the scenarios began to invade his waking thoughts, causing Eric to jerk off, alone for the moment, to images of not just Ted but all the guys on the street.  When they’d pass in the real world he could barely look at them, his stomach fluttering as his guilty features flushed, an expression he began to see mirrored back at him.  A part of him wanted to take the plunge and ask the guys on the text thread if any of them were also having strange dreams, but it quickly became a moot point.

It was only a day after Terry stopped responding to the group that Eric saw the handsome stud leaving Ted’s house at night.  On the surface it was an unremarkable occurrence, they went over to each other’s houses all the time, but there was something about it that Eric couldn’t place until later, when he was jerking off in bed to thoughts of Terry and Ted together.  It had been a walk of shame, a post-coital skittering hopefully unobserved by prying eyes.  The same walk was subsequently repeated on successive nights by Sam, Bill, and then Dave, and Eric eventually had to pinch himself one evening to prove that he wasn’t dreaming when he happened to look out his window and saw his fantasies playing out in the real world.

The curtains in Ted’s back windows, visible only from the acres of forest their street butted up against or from the corner of Eric’s kitchen, were parted just enough to give the stunned man a glimpse of Alan’s heavy, naked frame bent over against his neighbor’s dining room table.  Behind, Ted hammered into the bald, bouncing bull, causing the older man’s excess flesh to shake and ripple.

It was a jarring sight.  Fantasy and dreams were one thing, but being presented with the actual reality of his ostensibly straight neighbors going at it made Eric’s head spin.  Alan was nearly sixty.  He’d been married to his wife for decades in a seemingly happy marriage.  They had three adult children who visited often.  Not once in all of the years he’d known him had Alan ever given Eric the slightest impression that he might be gay.  Yet there he was, a look of genuine, undeniable ecstasy on his wrinkled face as he was taken by the perfect specimen who’d replaced his neighbor.

Though, to be fair, Eric had never devoted much mental energy to thoughts of other men until recently, but that didn’t stop him from going hard in an instant.  He fumbled his pants open on the spot, feeling embarrassed and dirty, but mostly incredibly aroused, as he jerked off while watching.  He kept switching his imagined POV, finding the thought of taking the older, heavyset hunk just as arousing as being on the receiving end of Ted’s perfect cock.  Though his neighbor was objectively the better looking of the two, it didn’t seem to matter.  Eric wanted to bury his face between Alan’s chunky thighs and swallow the short, fat cock between them just as much as he wanted to feel Ted’s chiseled perfection against his palms.  As far as his lust-fueled thoughts were concerned, there was absolutely no difference between them, just as there were no differences between Ted and Sam, or Dave, or Terry, or Bill.  Over the next few nights, Eric managed to witness them all in various encounters, even catching himself looking forward to the possibility throughout the day.

Eric had been trying to keep his distance, and he guessed that Ted sensed his hesitation.  Other than a few waves and short bursts of awkward small talk, they hadn’t interacted much since his neighbor’s miraculous return.  Ted never pushed, but Eric could feel the other man’s eyes on him whenever they were around each other, a sensation that lingered long after they’d parted.  He started to wonder if the innocuously parted curtains hadn’t been left that way on purpose, and whether or not Ted had not-so-subtly been inviting him along the entire time.

There was only one way to find out.  Eric’s hands shook as he slid open his back door and stepped outside, the astringent scent of freshly cut grass filling his nostrils as he trotted from his backyard to Ted’s.  The evening air was still warm, the sun just setting beyond the patch of shadowed forest that loomed like a wall behind their houses.  Eric thought he saw a worn path leading through the grass from Ted’s back door to the treeline, but he told himself it was just a trick of the fading light as he nervously stepped up onto his neighbor’s deck.  His heart raced as he started to knock, but then stopped, instead sliding open the door and letting himself in the way he always had.

“Ted?  Cool if I come in?”  Eric hesitated on the threshold, the short pause agonizing until a friendly voice called from upstairs.

“Absolutely!  I’ll be right down.  Grab us a couple beers out of the fridge.”

Though he’d spent countless hours inside, Eric felt like he was stepping into a stranger’s house.  Nothing looked different at all on the surface, but the atmosphere was entirely foreign.  Before, Eric would have been able to tell it was Ted’s house if he woke up blindfolded inside.  Now, though he looked at familiar furniture and familiar decorations, he had to keep telling himself it really was his friend’s house.  It could have been because of who he’d seen having their brains fucked out on said furniture that made it all seem different, but he tried to keep those thoughts from his already-twitching cock.  Eric was slightly consoled to find the same cheap beer waiting in the other man’s refrigerator, but that fleeting familiarity was slapped away when he turned to see Ted sauntering into the kitchen.

The other man’s wavy, sandy hair was damp from a recent shower, his perfect physique clad only in a pair of small, cotton shorts.  The heather material was tissue thin, making it immediately apparent that Ted wore nothing underneath as his cock bounced visibly just south of the low-riding waist.  “How’ve you been, man? I wondered when you’d finally drag yourself over,” Ted said, his tone cheerful and casual as he plucked one of the cans from Eric’s stunned hands and cracked it open.  He took a long pull, letting his friend get an unobstructed view of his flexing arm and tapering torso.

The dark-haired man swallowed hard, using the beer as an excuse to look away.  He absently fumbled with the tab, having to struggle to find his voice.  “Yeah, sorry about that.  I’ll be honest, Ted.  This…this is a lot,” he stammered, hating the way he blushed when he looked back up at his friend’s warm smile.  He actually shivered when Ted reached out and squeezed his shoulder, knowing full well that the other man felt it happen.

“I know.  Really, I do.  That’s why I’ve been giving you some space.  I’m glad you finally found your way back, though. I’ve missed you,” he grinned before taking another sip.

Eric hated the absence when Ted’s hand left his shoulder.  “Okay, can we just talk about the elephant in the room?  I mean…what the fuck, man?!  What happened?  And don’t give me that bullshit about you going away for a ‘procedure’ either.  Be honest.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Ted said, his smile going sympathetic.  “Seriously.  I know how fucking crazy that sounds, right?  This,” he gestured down to himself, “shouldn’t be possible.  It just shouldn’t.  I was a dumpy forty five year old…maybe after a year in the gym and some major cosmetic surgery I could pull off something close, but not in a week.  At least not a week here.”

“Then where?!  You just up and vanished.  I came over to check on you and it was pretty clear you left in a hurry,” Eric said, his eyes still traveling up and down Ted’s strapping frame despite the other man no longer gesturing at himself.

“I didn’t know I was leaving either,” Ted shrugged, his pecs bouncing with the motion.  “I didn’t know it could do that.  I didn’t even know a week had passed until I stumbled out of the woods.  To me it felt like minutes.”

Eric’s eyes narrowed, his head spinning as he tried to keep up.  Nothing Ted said made sense in the first place, and the overwhelming attraction was making it even harder to focus.  “The woods?  You mean THOSE woods,” he said, pointing at the trees through his friend’s kitchen window.

Ted nodded.  “I found…something…out there.  Something big and old and powerful.  I went for a walk a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying to explore some new areas of the forest back there, and I actually tripped over it.  I thought it was just a rock at first, but then I saw the markings.  I went back with a trowel and tried to dig it up, but the damn thing just kept going.  And going.  I’ve uncovered a solid ten feet so far and there’s still no sign of the bottom.  Just more of those columns twisting in on themselves like a…what do you call it?  A helix?  The DNA stuff.”

“But…what is it?”  Eric couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He knew his friend liked to hike through the dense acres that bordered their neighborhood, but the thought of something supernatural lurking in the middle of their bland, suburban paradise was ridiculous.

“It LOOKS like a statue or a monument of some kind…it’s covered in all sorts of crazy symbols that might be writing?  But I think it’s really a door,” Ted nodded, his gaze going distant for a moment.  “One second I was in the woods at night…that’s when it wants you to come see it…and the next I was somewhere else.”

Eric shook his head.  “Wait, wait, wait…so you’re saying you found a magic statue buried in the woods that turned you into some pretty-boy hunk?”

“It wasn’t the statue that did it.  It’s what’s on the other side that did,” Ted grinned, raising an eyebrow.  “But I’m glad you think I’m pretty.”

Eric’s face went crimson as he felt his cock surge to life.  He knew the outline of the rigid organ was obvious, and he knew Ted was well aware of its presence, but he made no move to cover himself.  “I mean…it’s not that I really…you’re just…” he sputtered, the moment he’d simultaneously longed for and dreaded finally arriving.

Ted’s voice was calm and comforting as he reached out and squeezed the dark-haired man’s bulge through his jeans.  “It’s okay, man.  I think you’re pretty too.”

Eric could only give a stunned, quiet whimper as the expected impulse to pull away never arrived.  Instead, he stood and gawked at Ted while the other man slowly undid his fly and reached into his tented boxer-briefs to fish his stout, aching cock free.  He gasped at the sensation of his friend’s strong hand tugging on the throbbing organ, feeling like he should be doing something, or at least saying something, but not knowing what.  “Oh…oh fuck…” he managed to mumble, his eyes wide.

“Nice to finally see the big guy,” Ted chuckled, giving the wide pole a bounce before slipping his hands up under Eric’s t-shirt.  “I could see you workin’ it while you watched me and the guys in here.  I take it you enjoyed the show?”

“I…I knew you…did that on purpose…” Eric stammered, letting out a groan when Ted tweaked his nipples.

The impossible blonde smirked as he kneaded his friend’s furry chest.  “Only the best for my bud,” he purred before tearing Eric’s t-shirt free in one explosive motion.

The virile display sent a fresh throb through the bigger man’s bulky frame, reminding him that Ted’s acquired muscle wasn’t just for show.  He thought back to the way his friend took the others, the way he held them down and hammered into them, realizing that he’d never wanted anything so badly.  “But…the…the others…why did they…?  They’re not…you’re not…hell, I’M not…”

“Yet here you are,” Ted purred again, giving his friend’s log another tug before sending the other man’s pants and underwear to his ankles.

Eric’s chest heaved as he found himself living out his dreams.  He was naked and hard in Ted’s house, about to cross a threshold of desire he’d never even thought possible until recently.  He was on the way to his knees before he realized he was even moving, taking Ted’s pointless shorts with him and eagerly nuzzling the beautiful, twitching hose they contained.  Eric felt like he should be embarrassed at the way he whimpered and clung to his friend’s granite globes while nursing on the rapidly hardening organ, but it was as if the other man’s presence prevented the humiliation from taking root.  Just being near Ted was like standing, or kneeling, in a divine light, a cleansing glow that made it impossible to feel anything but content.  Eric didn’t care that he had another man’s cock hitting the back of his throat because it was Ted’s cock.  They weren’t just any balls that he lapped at and sucked into his mouth, they were his friend’s.  Though, at the moment, the dazed man knew he’d willingly blow whoever Ted wanted him to.

“I thought you’d be good at this,” Ted sighed, his fingers stroking through the kneeling man’s thinning hair.  “You’ve got such soft, full lips…does it feel as nice for you?”

Eric nodded, his stomach fluttering at the compliment.  “Never thought I’d like it…never thought I’d want to,” he moaned between long, lingering licks.  “Now it’s ALL I can think about.”

Ted smiled.  “Not just with me, right?  Bet you’ve thought about getting every cock on the street in that handsome mouth of yours.”  He laughed at his friend’s shocked expression and gently stroked his cheek.  “It’s okay.  They have too.  It…I…have that effect on people.  And soon, so will you.”

Eric paused, his lips just away from Ted’s spit-sick rod.  “What?”

“The door!  That’s what I’ve been trying to show you…that’s why I’ve wanted you to come over here so bad.  I can take you to it.  Through it.  You can have this too.  The other guys are welcome to come over and have some fun, but it’s always been me and you, man.  If I’m going to share the real deal with someone, who else would I choose?”

Eric’s question was cut off when Ted gave him a rough shove onto his ass.  The dark-haired man was already rolling over onto all fours on instinct, his desire for an explanation far outweighed by his desire to have his friend inside him.  He braced himself for pain when he felt Ted drape himself across his back, but there was only bliss as the long, slick rod slowly pushed inside.  Eric could hear himself howling, could feel his spasming frame trying to thrash ecstatically if not for Ted’s powerful arms holding him in place.  Until recently he’d never once given serious thought to what penetration would be like, to how the experience of having another man inside him would actually feel, but even if he’d spent years in mental preparation it wouldn’t have come close to the reality.  The other man’s holy illumination burned even brighter as it lit him up from the inside, melting away everything but submission.  As he writhed against Ted’s perfect pecs, wrapped in his friend’s powerful embrace, Eric knew for the first time what it meant to be accepted unconditionally.  He experienced a kind of bliss that was pure and unblemished, an encompassing sense of safety that was almost better than the erotic tides wracking his furry frame.  Ted’s rhythmically rolling hips were giving him a gift unlike any he’d ever received before, and if his friend was to be believed, it was a gift he could soon grant to others himself.

“Do you want it?”  Ted’s voice was a low rumble as he leaned in close, his hips slowing to a percussive thrusting.

It wasn’t even a question.  “Yes!” Eric roared, his untouched cock feeling like it was about to explode off his body.  “YES!”  The penetrated man heard himself sputter out a grunting, desperate moan as he finally came, but the sound registered at a distance.  Something had broken loose inside him and he was drifting off with it, the spurting eruptions releasing everything that had once been the man he knew.  The Eric who’d entered the house - straight, hesitant, modest - was now a sticky puddle on the floor, and the Eric who remained was ready to become whatever Ted wanted him to be.

“There he is,” the beautiful blonde whispered, leaning over and clutching his friend’s broad, furry body as he unloaded into him.  “You still with me?”

Eric blinked and gasped, not wanting the sensation of the other man’s warm fluid hitting his insides to ever stop.  He hated the feeling of it trickling down a meaty thigh when Ted pulled out, wanting to keep it all for himself.  “That was…that was incredible…” he finally sputtered.  There was no longer any internal attempt at lingering embarrassment or anxiety when he rolled over onto his leaking rear and gazed up at his friend.  Now, under Ted’s piercing gaze, all Eric felt was content as the other man stared at his bulkier body.

“You weren’t so bad either, stud,” the sculpted blonde grinned as he pulled the dazed man to his feet.  He reached down and kneaded Eric’s softening equipment, his other hand stroking along the furry pecs.  “Always guessed you’d be a big shooter.”

Instead of feeling mortified at being complimented over the size of a load that was fueled by another man’s cock inside him, all Eric did was flash a bashful grin.  “Kinda hard not to be, all things considered,” he shrugged.  When Ted leaned in for another kiss he wrapped his arms around him and held on as if the blonde was a life preserver, feeling adrift while their tongues mingled.  By the time they broke off the kiss he was already starting to go hard again, filled with a kind of virility he hadn’t felt in years.  “So, uh, do we go out to the woods now?”

Ted looked back over a broad shoulder at the growing dark beyond the nearby window, the very same window that his friend had watched him through.  The sky was black, but the stars had yet to appear overhead.  “Still too early,” Ted said, shaking his head.  He took a step back, his pretty mouth twisting into a smirk.  “Just means we get to have more fun while we wait.  You got to watch me through here,” he said, nodding towards the window, “but I never got to watch you.  Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

It took a moment for the implication to sink in, but when Ted’s request finally registered, all Eric did was smile again as he began groping himself.  One hand drifted up to begin kneading a plump, furry pec, while the other reached down to start stroking along his already-eager cock.  The dark-haired hunk was fully aware that he was moaning and jerking himself off in an erotic display for another man, but all he felt was thrilled.

“Just as good as I thought it would be,” Ted purred after a few minutes.  He stepped back over and put his hands on top of Eric’s, joining along before gently pulling them away.  “I can’t let the original go without taking it for a spin first.”

“FFFffffuuuuuuuccckkkk,” Eric hissed when Ted dropped to his knees and swallowed him whole.  It felt wrong to have such a perfect specimen kneeling in front of his bulky, unrefined frame, but, at the same time, he’d never felt anything like it.  Ted’s soft lips, warm mouth and strong tongue working his cock was like all the sex he’d ever had occurring simultaneously.  Eric spasmed and sputtered and whimpered, flexing his ample cheeks against his friend’s hands as he was held helplessly in place by the blissful mouth.  A part of him couldn’t believe that he hadn’t cum already, but a bigger part of him knew that Ted didn’t want him to yet, so he wouldn’t.  Instead, he’d stand there for as long as it took, losing all sense of self, time, and space, letting himself be reduced to a whimpering, slack-jawed seed of ecstasy.

When Ted finally pulled his lips away and guided them over to the couch, Eric was only slightly aware.  At some point it occurred to him that he’d started looking at the other man’s perfect pecs and perfect face as opposed to the top of his friend’s perfect head, his hands clinging to Ted’s thighs as his friend writhed on his lap.  He was hit with that same sense of wrongness, that it was blasphemy to enter such a holy vessel with his pudgy, profane poker, but it’s what Ted wanted.  When the other man’s copious eruption finally splashed all over his chest and face it was like being baptized, his own rapturous cry making his throat raw when his overworked organ was finally given permission to unload into the muscled grail.

“Now I think we’re ready to take a walk in the woods,” Ted sighed, lingering on Eric’s lap as the other man softened inside him.  “What do you say, big guy?”

Eric nodded and let himself be pulled off the couch, too dazed to do anything other than stumble along when Ted took him by the hand and led him out the door.  There was a small flash of anxiety at the thought of strolling naked and covered in cum through the yard, but the sliver of Eric that still cared in the first place knew he would’ve been the only one who could’ve seen them.  Regardless, the sensation was short lived, and once they’d crossed the tree line all the brawny man could think about was how good it felt to have the warm night air against all of his skin at once.  He hadn’t been naked in public in decades, a fact he instantly regretted.  Walking hand in hand with Ted, their bare bodies bathed in the dappled starlight that punched through the cancopy, was like walking through paradise.  He felt light and free and unburdened, not anxious about the coming events but eager.

“And here we are.”  Even before Ted came to a halt, Eric had been able to feel a strange hum vibrating from the darkness ahead of him, an illumination that wasn’t a kind of light leading the way.  “Can you feel it?”

Eric nodded, marveling at how the forest around them seemed to glow with a crimson light that he knew wasn’t actually there.  He was seeing with something other than his eyes, a perspective he’d never experienced until standing in front of the twisting stone spire.  “This is wild,” he said with a dazed laugh, the forest floor surging like a tide beneath his feet.  He could feel himself being pulled towards the ruddy glow, but he held tight to his friend’s hand.  “What…what happens now?”

Ted’s smile was warm as he let go and gave Eric a gentle shove.  “See you soon.”

It was the last thing Eric heard before he was sent tumbling head over heels through a kaleidoscopic void.  Swirling masses of color and light that were actually neither blurred past as he hurtled through dimensions, his mind struggling to piece together what it saw.  It was a futile task, and one that became moot when Eric’s overloaded vision ceased functioning altogether.  Darkness overtook him, blotting out the psychedelic visions as if someone had draped a blanket over him.

But there was no him.  He wasn’t seeing anything because there were no eyes with which to see, no brain to process the input.  In the course of his journey, as he’d been buffeted through the cosmos, his old self had been chipped away and worn down like an ice cube swirling in a glass.  He’d melted away to nothing, only that wasn’t right either as the thing that had been Eric could still think.  He still conceived of something that could possibly be considered “him.”  He remembered.  He hoped.  He longed.  He was on a journey, sent by something beautiful to become something beautiful.

And then there was light.  Sound.  Sensation.  Eric hovered in front of a blazing sun, watching its crimson light solidify around the seed of self that he knew to be him.  Sculpted, granite pecs dusted with raven hair settled above a tight washboard.  On either side, powerful, perfect arms sprouted from broad shoulders while sturdy, striated legs stretched down to form the foundation of his lower half.  Muscled globes sprouted from the back while a pendulous cock and matching balls dangled low in front.  Moving with an instinct he’d never possessed before, Eric was able to push his perspective free from the budding body and see himself as he was becoming, with his beautiful, brooding features and thick, jet-black hair.  He looked twenty years younger, but even as he had the thought he knew it no longer applied.  He wasn’t bound by anything so mundane as time anymore, just as the comely new trappings no longer constituted who, or what, he really was.  He was that bodiless essence inside, the piece of the blazing sun that was ready to spread its light into dark corners.  His body was nothing but the vessel, the lantern around the flame that allowed it to travel.

And travel it did.  Eric once again soared through reality, only where his previous flight had been a careening tumble, now he was a precision instrument.  He flew like an arrow, basking in the warmth he carried inside until he felt a familiar forest floor against his naked body.  He blinked and stretched as if he’d simply woken up from a nap, already sensing Ted standing nearby without having to see him.  He could feel his friend and perceive through the other man’s senses the way he could with his own, and he could already feel the other men in the neighborhood, as well as those in the surrounding area, like little points of light rippling off into the distance.

Ted’s smile was still just as warm as when he’d sent his friend away.  “Welcome back,” he said, watching like a mother deer as Eric stumbled upright on his altered legs.

“Kinda undersold it,” the dark-haired Adonis laughed, taking in his chiseled new frame.  His undistilled cosmic awareness was rapidly fading to a dull conviction, though his sense of purpose remained, as did his connection to Ted and the illuminated monolith.  He flexed an enlarged arm and gave his twitching, ten-inch rod a tug, not once thinking about whether he should cover himself.

“How would I even begin to describe that?”  Ted wrapped his arms around Eric’s tightened waist and leaned in for a kiss, his hands drifting down to squeeze the enlarged cheeks.  “These feel nice.”

“It ALL feels nice,” Eric sighed, flexing the ample mounds.  Other than his olive skin and wiry dusting, he could have passed for Ted’s twin.  “How long was I gone?”

“One week, almost to the minute.”  The blonde laughed at Eric’s surprised look and gave him another quick peck.  “I know.  Feels like minutes and years all at once.”

The dark-haired hunk nodded, his smile fading.  “I…I didn’t want to leave it…”

“You didn’t,” Ted cooed, running a finger down the deepened valley separating his friend’s furry mounds.  “It’s always inside.”  Eric’s grin returned at the thought, the glowing ember at his core seeming to surge in response.  “See?”

“You felt that,” Eric asked, realizing it was a foolish question even as the words left his mouth.  “Of course you did.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Ted shrugged.  “Since I knew what to expect, I took the liberty of redoing your wardrobe while you were gone.”

“Oh.  Right.  Clothes,” Eric said, sounding as if he struggled with the concept.

Ted winked and gave his friend’s inflated cock a tug.  “You’ll get used to that, too.  Don’t worry, though…with both of us here it shouldn’t matter for long.”

Eric nodded again, the faint points of light that represented the other men in the surrounding area glowing brighter in his brain.  He thought back to all the encounters he’d witnessed, no longer confused but excited to spread their glow as far and wide as possible.  “Let’s get to work.”