transformation Charlie

[dhalden]

Have your arms ever been so demolished that they're numb and screaming in pain at the same time? The muscles so intoxicatingly pumped that your skin is stretched to the point that it feels like it's about to tear apart? That was the sensation that plagued mine as Charlie and I strode to our cars. “See you at home,” he said, tossing me a quick wink as he ducked into his vehicle. It was not lost on me that he had yet again so flippantly referred to my house as his home. Our home. I grinned at the thought as I slipped in behind the steering wheel. I chugged down a recovery shake before my car ever left the parking lot, but by the time I got home, my stomach was painfully growling again. Time for more fuel. Juxtaposed with the welcome agony of my inflated arms, I marveled at the two rivaling sensations. Why had no one ever told me the human body could experience and withstand such sensations? I gritted my teeth and squeezed the steering wheel, flexing and forcing another painful influx of blood into my already painfully pumped biceps and triceps. If this is what it takes to be one of the big ones, I thought. Well, then I’ll gladly endure it.

 

The moment we arrived home, Charlie strode through the door and straight into the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Chicken or fish?”

 

“Surprise me,” I groaned, dropping onto the couch.

 

Fish it was—tilapia, with a heaping side of brown rice, asparagus, and a baked sweet potato. I ate mercilessly, devouring every speck of food on my plate. Across from me, Charlie did the same. Damn. Am I really matching his appetite? When we finished and were contentedly full, we retired to the living room again. I sank into my armchair while Charlie threw himself into the couch.

 

“You can have first shower,” I said, massaging my bloated stomach. “I need a minute.”

 

“I’ll be quick,” Charlie promised. Truthfully, I wasn't certain I was capable of lifting my arms to lather my body. I just needed time for my biceps and triceps to settle into effectiveness again. The savory post-workout burn had faded and was rapidly being replaced with a dull, throbbing ache that made me grimace. “Hey,” Charlie said, his head suddenly peering around the corner again. “Don't forget this.” He tossed me one of the small vials of recovery juice I had come to expect him to dole out after each workout. Miraculously, I caught it, my hands instinctively snatching it from the air…but not without a severely wincing in the process. Charlie disappeared into the bathroom again and I uncapped the vial, tossing back the bitter syrup within. Almost instantly, a warm and pleasant tingling sensation spread throughout my arms, dulling the throb. That’s the stuff, I thought. I had just started to drift off when something large and heavy swatted my leg. I snapped open my eyes to find a shirtless, glistening Charlie standing over me. I glanced down at the towel wrapped ever so limply around his waist. Not this again.

 

“Shower’s all yours,” he said, and offered a hand to held me up. I stumbled into the bathroom, grinning at the near-ticklish tingling that had flourished in my arms. “Measurements when you're done!” Charlie called as I closed the bathroom door behind me. With that thought in mind, I showered hastily, the ache in my biceps and triceps curiously melting away by the second and growing ever fuller of the odd tingling. I had only just finished rinsing off and was sweeping back the shower curtain when Charlie rapped on the door. “Coming in,” he said. I barely managed to slip into my boxers before he strode in, measuring tape in one hand and notebooks in the other. “You ready?” He was still wonderfully shirtless and though our workout had ended nearly an hour before, still impressively pumped. His eyes were sparkling and an excited, is-it-Christmas-yet sort of grin was plastered across his face. I shrugged. Do I have a choice? How can I say no to that smile? But now that the moment had come, I was admittedly apprehensive. What if it’s all in my mind? What if I haven’t grown as much as I thought? I certainly hadn't made the stunning developments that Charlie had, but then again that was like measuring a gold medalist against a high school athlete. Just because I wasn't there yet, didn't mean I wouldn't be eventually.

 

“Alright, big guy, let’s check them gains,” Charlie said, motioning toward the bathroom scale. I climbed on and held my breath, watching as the needle instantly shot past my previous 169bs. Okay. That’s good. I’ve put on some weight. The needle spun past 170, toward 175, and kept rising. My eyes grew wide as I watched it continue toward 180…185…190…

 

“193 pounds!” Charlie exclaimed. He gave me a congratulatory slap on the back, cleaning knocking me off the scale. 193 pounds? That…that can’t be right. I’m not…I’ve never been…I tried to quickly do the math in my head, but kept stumbling through disbelief. “That’s twenty-four pounds in two weeks!” Charlie said, as if reading my mind. “Jesus, man. You’re growing like a weed! Stand over here in front of the mirror, I want to check out the rest of you.”

 

In somewhat of a daze, I moved in front of the sink, watching as Charlie wrapped the tape around my waist, my legs, my arms, my chest, letting him operate my body like a mannequin. It was very much like getting measured for a tailored suit or costume…but one that you never dreamed would fit you. As he went along, Charlie hurriedly scrawled down my new measurements. It never occurred to me to look at them, I was too preoccupied with my own reflection. It was as if a shade had been lifted and I was seeing myself for the first time. Was that really me in the mirror? Where had the pudgy, soft-waist gone? When had it been replaced by a discernible six-pack? When had my flat chest developed into two distinct pecs? And...were those honest-to-God lats peeking out from beneath my arms?

 

“Fuck,” Charlie said beneath his breath when he was finished. He handed me the notebook.

 

Weight – 193lbs.

Height – 5’9”

Biceps – 15.75 inches

Chest – 42 inches

Waist – 33 inches

Thighs – 22 inches

Calves – 15.25 inches

 

I stared down at the numbers on the page. I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Waiting for my mind to transform from the hollow chamber echoing with disbelief that it was back into something that could make sense of what I was seeing. A little over in inch in my calves? More than two inches on my arms in two weeks? Three inches in my chest? I was new to the world of exercise, but even I knew these numbers seemed to good to be true. Yet…there they were. Plain as day. Charlie warmly laid his hands on my shoulders again. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he said. My eyes drifted back toward the mirror. There I stood, the most remarkably built I had ever been in my life, and there he stood behind me, every edge of him more jam-packed with muscle than I was, so large that his body was peeking out on all sides of mine. A thought finally surfaced in my mind: But I want more.

 

“My turn,” Charlie said. He nudged me out of the way as he turned and stepped up on the scale. As expected, the needle instantly flew past my newly cherished 193lbs, breaking the 200 mark, and continued inching higher. “Aww yeah, 222 pounds, baby!” He quickly stepped off the scale and tossed me the measuring tape. “My arms—do my arms first!” He cocked his arms into a double biceps pose. I nearly fainted at the sight of all that latent muscle suddenly swelling with size. His biceps were easily as large as grapefruit and perfectly peaked, uniformly rounded masses of muscle that could not have been more supremely formed if they were sculpted with a hammer and chisel. The sweep of his triceps were equally as stunning, deeply dipping downward in smooth curves. I eagerly pressed one end of the tape to the top of one his biceps, admiring its steely firmness, and pulled the tape down and under his triceps, and back around to the top again, inch after inch of the tape slipping away. I repeated the process with his other arm and was unsurprised to find that it measured precisely the same. “What’s it say?” Charlie demanded. I realized that he was not looking down at the tape, but was instead hungrily eyeing his own reflection in the mirror. “How big are they?”

 

I cleared my throat. “Twenty and a half inches.”

 

At first I wondered if he had heard me. His face didn’t change, as if he hadn’t registered what I had said. But then the next second his eyebrows pulled together and the corners of his mouth turned down. “Are you…are you sure?” he said. He exhaled stiffly and executed another double biceps pose. “Are you sure it didn’t say twenty-one inches?” He squeezed his fists tightly, the knuckles turning white as he forced as much size into his arms as he could muster. “Measure them again.” Confused though I may have been by his reaction, I gladly wrapped the tape around his bulging pythons again. The end of the tape cleanly came up against the 20.5” mark again…before slipping ever so slightly to 20.75”. I reported the new number to him.

 

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” I said as he clenched his jaw. “You look fucking amazing. I’d kill to have twenty inch arms.”

 

He flexed again, his nostrils flaring as he bit his lip. “Just…thought I was little bigger.”

 

He less than enthusiastically told me to go ahead with the rest of his measurements. Each was as strikingly noteworthy as I could imagine, but each seemed to disappoint him more and more. By the time we had finished, his shoulders were slumped and a dark shadow seemed to have passed over his typically bright face. Guess its true what they say. The bigger you get, the harder it is to make gains. He grudgingly looked over his final tally when I handed it to him, flipped the notebook closed, and trudged out of the bathroom. I couldn’t help but notice he was as wide as the door and had to turn his shoulders ever so slightly at tangle to pass through. He disappeared down the hall and I followed.

 

“You know, its funny,” he said as he approached his bedroom door. He stopped and looked back at me, halfheartedly curling and flexing his biceps again. “You say you’d kill for arms like these, but you know what? I’d give anything for some of your beginner’s luck. The best gains always come at the start.”

 

“You’re only less than half an inch away from twenty-one inch arms, Charlie.”

 

He shrugged. Even in the shadow of the unlit hall, I could tell that he was frowning. Even his typically sunbaked skin seemed less bronzed somehow. He wore a mask of disappointment. Fuck, gloom does not look good on a guy that big. An idea suddenly occurred to me.

 

“Hey, what’re you doing Friday night?” I asked. He shrugged again. “They’re having this Halloween dance at work Friday and evidently they’re short a couple of chaperones. My boss asked me to sub in, but I’m sure they could use a few more. Do you want to go with me?”

 

“To the dance?” he said hollowly.

 

My stomach dropped. “Oh, not like that,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean go with me, go with me. Just like…go as well. It’s lame, I know, but its not all bad. You get to dress up. Be someone else for a night. You could paint yourself green and go as the Incredible Hulk or something. Show off those guns. I guarantee you people will be impressed. Even if they are just twenty inches.”

 

He grinned faintly. “Twenty and three quarters inches.”

 

“Is that a yes?” I asked. The dark seemed to perceptibly lighten as a full smile grew on his face.

 

“Sure thing. Guess it could be fun to see how they do Halloween in California.” He paused and cocked any eyebrow toward me. “You guys don’t, like, bob for avocados here do you? Don’t forget I’m a Midwest boy at heart. Traditional to a detriment.”

 

“Whatever.” I playfully shoved him and, much to my surprise, he actually teetered toward his door.

 

“Careful,” he said, pushing me back. I tottered toward my own bedroom. “I didn’t help you get all those muscles just so you could use them to beat me up.”

[dhalden]

He hated working the holidays.

 

Of the many things he had learned working as an escort, it was that all people were freaks deep down. Some were simply freakier than others. But whereas he had to suck and fuck normal freaks on a near-daily basis, it was holidays that brought out the truly outrageous ones. It was a treat to themselves, he supposed, to let them unleash the unruly weirdo a few nights a year. And only these few nights. Because that was the only time he saw these people, these exceptionally strange customers: on the holidays. And Halloween was worst of all. Charlie glanced at his watch. He had to be at the high school in two hours. He’d have to make this a quick session to make certain he had time to slip into his costume. He smirked confidently as he remembered what he had looked like in it when he had tried it on the night before for the first time. He was the biggest and most jacked he had ever been in his life. But...still. He could look better. He flexed his bicep and massaged the large, muscled peak. Had he really not broken twenty-one inches yet? Even with all that magic syrup shit Tony had given him? Andy had packed on over twenty pounds of muscle like nothing with just a few vials. Why not him?

 

Suddenly he heard a key in the lock. He quickly lay back on the hotel bed and spread his trunk-like thighs wide so that his copious, jock-strapped package would be staring the customer straight in the eye. Twenty-one inches his arms may not be, but undeniably hung was he. I knew it’d be a freak, he thought as the woman entered. His first thought was that she was dressed as a dominatrix, given the amount of shiny black leather she was wearing. Some overworked and undersexed housewife who had invested too much time in Fifty Shades of Grey, he assumed. But as she shut the door behind her, he suddenly recognized her.

 

“Oh, just you,” he said, closing his legs.

 

“Puppy doesn't want to play?” Tony said. He looked her up and down again, perplexed by the tight, black leather and silver studs covering every inch of her from neck to ankle. He glanced at her hand.

 

“Is that…are you carrying a pimp cane?” he asked.

 

“It’s supposed to be ironic, you see,” she said. “Three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, I’m a pimp and no one knows it, and the one night of the year when I can actually dress like one, everyone will assume I’m just role-playing.”

 

“Whatever,” he growled. “So I don’t have any customers tonight then?”

 

“Think of it as a treat from one trick to another,” she said. He rolled his eyes and slid off the bed, but as he started to stand, she pushed him backward, her long, black-lacquered fingernails digging into his chest. “Not so fast. I didn’t say we didn’t have work matters to discuss.” She reached into one of the zippered pockets of her costume and withdrew two vials more vials of NPH-01, but as he extended his hand to receive them, she pulled them out of reach. “Where’s the rest of it going?”

 

He stared at her flatly. “What do you mean?”

 

“Don’t fuck with me,” she said. “You’re not drinking it all. You’re bigger, but you’re not big enough that you’ve been taking your all of your medicine like Mommy told you to. So you’re going to tell me where the rest of it is going. Are you selling it? Giving it away? Dumping it? You can either tell me or I can cut it out of you. Your choice.”

 

“So that shit is some sort of Miracle-Gro for muscles. I fucking knew it,” he said. “Look. I don’t know what you expect. I’ve been tossing back that shit for weeks and—” In one swift motion, she swung the cane up and pressed the end of it into the soft pocket at the base of his throat.

 

“You think this is a game, motherfucker?” she said icily. “You have no idea of the size of the scheme you’re a pawn in and the kind of people running it. You play this straight with me and I may save your ass, but if you dare try to fuck me over your ass is going to be dust.” She tossed the vials to him. “Drink them. Both. Now.” She kept the cane pinned to this throat as he picked the vials off the bed and uncapped and tossed back the contents, one by one. When he finished, she leaned in and planted a dry, stiff kiss on his cheek, leaving a black print behind. “Good dog.”

 

“None to go?” he asked, when she turned back to the door.

 

“Oh no, no, no, I think not,” she said. “You were a bad dog, so now Mommy has to watch you. And believe me, I am watching. You think I don’t know about that bookworm your living with? You think I haven’t noticed he’s looking more like you everyday?”

 

He watched the door close behind her.

 

“Fuck.”

[dhalden]

Officially, it was known as the West Cape High Halloween Spooktacular, but if you had your ear pressed to any of the conversations in the halls of West Cape High, you would have known the unofficial name was the Helloscream Dance. The student council and a few unfortunate students who had earned themselves afterschool detentions had spent the last few days leading up to the dance decorating the gymnasium. Orange, black, and purple streamers and balloons were strung from the rafters and nearly ever corner was draped with those hideous glow-in-the-dark faux spider webs. Not that you could make out much of these decorations, given the nauseating strobe lights frenetically popping all over the place. I arrived a full thirty minutes beforehand to set up the ticket table and photo booth and put in place any last minute decorations.

 

“Why hello, Mr. McFly,” a voice said behind me as I was setting out the last of the plates and napkins on the concession stand. A hand lowered a blood-red lollipop in front of my face. I grabbed it and turned to find Lynn standing before me—and gasped. She was wearing a skin-tight midnight-black dress that was cut exceptionally high on the sides and extraordinarily low in the front. Her dark hair was swept up and teased out in a bouffant-style and she had caked her face with white powder. “Did you come all the way back from 1985 just to dance with little ol’ me?”

 

“Who’re you supposed to be?” I blurted, my eyes glued on her rotund breasts.

 

She rolled her eyes. “Elvira, obviously.”

 

“Are you sure that’s…don’t you think Herb might have something to say about...” I nodded toward her chest. “About those pumpkins hanging out?”

 

“Herb loves the girls,” she said and bounced up and down, jiggling her great, milky boobs. “And besides, it’s dark in there. And I’m just a reserve chaperone. I won’t be out on the dance-floor. I’ll be outside stalking around and catching the softball team passing a joint around. Should be fun!”

 

I shook my head. Holy hell, she looks like the Bride of Fuck-me-stein. Lynn planted a kiss on my cheek, ruffled my hair, and disappeared into the dark of the gymnasium just as the first of the students arrived. My apprehension about her costume choice was quickly quelled by the variety of nearly equally suggestive costumes that streamed through the front door. Erotic kittens and busty witches entered arm-in-arm with Chippendale’s impersonators and open-shirted firemen. When did Halloween become all about sex? What happened to scary? What happened to dressing up like Danny and Sandy? As the last of the students arrived and hurried excitedly inside, I whipped out my phone to text Charlie. He had said he would meet me later after he stopped by his office to sign off on some paperwork. I wondered not for the first time if his “office” looked like the inside of one of the Regal Hilton Hotel suites. He texted back almost immediately, saying he was only five minutes away. I decided to duck into the gym to grab a cup of punch and a heaping plate of snacks. Though I had stuffed myself full of chicken and rice before I left, my perpetually ravenous stomach demanded more sustenance. As I nibbled on my small mountain of snacks, I gazed out over the dance floor.

 

“Hey, Mr. D!” a voice called from the crowd. I squinted and saw Luke Freeman standing a few feet away, grinding against a girl only half as tall as him. He was dressed as (what else?) a basketball player. “You’re rocking that lumberjack look!”

 

I smiled and waved halfheartedly. Idiot. Truthfully, the reason I had selected the flannel shirt, denim jacket, and heavy orange vest was that they were the only few things that still fit me on such short notice. In the few days that had passed since my last measuring session, I was certain I had grown even more. My shirts and pants went from enjoyably tight to uncomfortably snug. Moreover, though he had marginally cheered up, Charlie had still spent the better part of the week moping around the house. Though I was nowhere near as ripped as he was, I decided it was better to keep my gains under wraps for the time being.

 

Charlie clearly had a different idea.

 

I would never have noticed his grand entrance were it not for the dozens of faces that turned, one by one, toward the double doors of the gymnasium and the collective murmur that drowned out the base music pulsing over the speakers. My gaze followed theirs to the doors…and I gasped. Silhouetted against the fluorescent lights of the hallway, he looked like nothing more than a hulking shadow, but I had become so intimately familiar with his brawny bulk that I recognized him immediately. As the doors swung shut behind him and the flashing strobe lights washed over his body, I could not help but laugh as he made his way across the dance floor, the crowd parting around him. Every face followed, mouths agape, and eyes wide. Should I really have expected anything else? As he approached, I tried to take in the entirety of his costume. He had selected an XL orange t-shirt, the sleeves of which he had ripped cleanly off so that his huge arms were on full display, tan cargo shorts, and black leather boots that gave him a superfluous few inches in height, making him all the more imposing. Even in the sporadic darkness, I could see that he filled the shorts to bursting, especially in the front. I wondered how he had even managed to zip them up, they were so crowded with his massive thighs, thick cock, and hefty bull balls. Between him and Lynn, everyone’s going home happily tonight. A wide, jagged-tooth grinning face had been drawn onto his shirt with permanent marker.

 

“Sorry, I’m late,” he hollered over the music. “Hope my services weren’t needed!”

 

“You’re supposed to be a chaperone,” I called back. “Not a bouncer!”

 

He looked at me, grinned, and tossed up a striking double biceps pose. “I’m a jacked-o’-lantern!”

 

He’d be adorable if he weren’t so fucking hot. Can’t blame him though. If you’ve got it, you flaunt it. All of it evidently. I couldn’t help but grin as I motioned for him to lower his arms. Behind him, nearly every other head was turned our way, marveling at the superbly muscular hunk in their midst.

 

“Put those guns away. Don’t you know this is a school?” I said. He chuckled, dropped his arms, and followed me to a quieter corner.

 

“So what’re we supposed to do?” he wondered aloud. “Walk around with yardsticks and make sure everyone’s a foot apart at all times?”

 

“Just shut down any twerking you see, mostly.”

 

“Oh, so none of this?” he said. He brought his hands together at his waist and stared down at his chest as he flexed his pecs independently of one another, making them bounce in sync with the music. Somewhere in the crowd, someone wolf-whistled and called, “Take your shirt off!”

 

“Don’t take your shirt off,” I warned. Because if you do, I’ll have to go rub one out. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little more of that later though. “Do you want something to eat? There’s a concession stand over there. Nothing much, but there’s enough for a few plates full. Just don’t touch the punch.”

 

“Spiked?”

 

“Shitty.”

 

He laughed and started for the concession stand. I watched him effortlessly part the crowd again as he crossed the gymnasium. I wonder what its like to have people just move out of your way wherever you walk? Not that I could blame the students. They themselves weren’t even fully-grown and here was an exceptionally developed stud traipsing around among them, flaunting his muscles for them to feast their eyes on. How many of the young men staring at him in wonder would go on to be just as huge? For how many would this be the defining moment that inspired them to pick up a pair of dumbbells and never put them down? Not for the first time, I wondered how much time I had wasted with my nose buried in a book, how much bigger I could have been if I had made the gym my sanctuary, instead of the library. You’re only seven pounds away from two hundred pounds. You never thought you’d be that close, don’t forget that. I gritted my teeth. Only two hundred pounds. Half the football team is over two hundred pounds already and they’re not even seventeen. Two hundred is nothing. Three hundred’s the new two hundred. My eyes grew wide at the thought of walking around at three hundred pounds. What would that even look like? What would that feel like? I have to know.

 

Charlie returned with three plates of food to my one, swallowing handfuls of the snacks at a time. “It’s hot as hell in here, don’t you think?” he said suddenly. I turned to him. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. He wiped them away with his heavily muscled forearm. “This place got air-conditioning?”

 

We lapsed into silence as we scanned the dance floor. Every so often, I glanced furtively at Charlie and caught him bobbing his head along with the music and unconsciously bouncing his pecs some more. I wonder if I can do that? Given that it was dark, I decided to take my chances and surreptitiously flexed my pecs a few times, giving them both a warm-up. When they felt appropriately limber, I nonchalantly crossed my arms and tried flexing one at a time. It was awkward and I kept engaging parts of my shoulder, but eventually I got the hang of it. Hey, this is kind of fun. Live having extra hands to wave with or something. I glanced back at Charlie to see if he was still doing the same thing, but he was wiping his soaking forehead with a handful of napkins.

 

Before I could ask if he felt ill, my attention was torn away by a low chanting that began somewhere across the gymnasium. It grew louder and louder, a rousing bellow that drowned out the music: “COACH. COACH. COACH. COACH.” I glanced toward the opposite end of the gym toward the concession stand, where the recognizable faces of the football team were joining together, crowding around a figure that was even more identifiable, if only by his size. As he strode across the gym, the football team moved with him, clearing the crowd as he made his way to toward the DJ’s stage. Damn. I’m not the only one who’s been growing. Look at the size of him. Whereas I had packed on muscle, Rick had evidently packed on muscle and fat, the combination of which made him look like a freakish powerlifter. His barrel chest looked larger than ever, larger than Charlie’s even, exploding outward in every direction, but no wider than his inexorable stomach; between his incredibly high, sloping traps and the full, bushy beard he was sporting, his neck had become practically nonexistent. His hairy, ham hock-sized forearms swung like a sasquatch’s as he climbed up onto the stage, grabbing a microphone from the pathetically tiny DJ. He cleared his throat before speaking, a gravelly, wet sound that reverberated over the speakers.

 

“Listen up, people,” he said. “The game next Friday. It’s against Kingsfield.” A collection of boos and hisses filtered through the crowd. “Here’s the deal. You’d better be there and you’d better be dressed head to toe in green and gold, got it? I don’t want to see a speck of blue in those stands, understand?”

 

The crowd erupted in applause, with the football team rekindling their chant. Rick somehow crossed his incredibly thick forearms over his chest and grinned smugly out over the crowd. Look at that ass-hat up there acting like he’s surveying his domain. As his beady, black eyes gazed over the crowd, they drifted my way—and suddenly his arms dropped. I glanced up at Charlie. He stared straight back across the gymnasium, his perfectly sculpted jawline flexed, his green eyes flaring. Oh shit. Rick practically leapt from the stage like an ape bounding out of a tree and barreled through the crowd. Heads turn and bodies followed as he bullishly swept toward the corner where Charlie and I stood.

 

“What the hell is he doing here, Donovan?” he yelled, issuing a fat finger in Charlie’s direction. “He isn’t faculty! Get him the hell out of here!”

 

“He’s a chaperone,” I said flatly.

 

The music had died, leaving a ringing silence in the air. Someone swung the stage lights our direction.

 

“Chaperone my ass!” Rick yelled, spittle flying through the air. Beside me, I could practically feel Charlie bristle, as if the air around him were departing. I glanced toward him and suddenly saw why. His typically bronzed skin was red and growing redder by the second, sweat pouring down his temple. His heavy pecs were rising and falling and his nostrils flared. “Herb know about this bullshit?”

 

“There are students!” I hissed warningly, stepping between the two hulking men.

 

“COLLINS!” Rick barked. Herb’s squat, quaking figure stepped out of the crowd. “Call the police. We’ve got ourselves a trespasser on school property.”

 

“N-Now, Rick. I really don’t think—”

 

Rick suddenly advanced on the shaking Herb. “You ain’t gonna do it, Collins?”

 

Charlie took a single, decisive step in Rick’s direction. I could have sworn in that moment that I could not only hear, but essentially feel the rumbling growl rolling in Charlie’s chest. The next second it died, however, as a dark, voluptuous figure stepped out of the crowd.

 

“Is there a problem, Principal Collins?” Lynn said. All eyes turned toward her to take in her sensuous, illuminated form—all eyes, except Charlie’s. When I peered back at him, his eyes were still anchored to Rick, a fire blazing deep in those pools of green. “I’m sure that whatever it is, it can be settled away from these young, exuberant minds?”

 

Herb nodded fastidiously, while Rick just stared, his thin bottom lip hanging open. I glanced back to Lynn, who met my gaze and nodded in an I’ll-take-it-from-here sort of way. She crossed to Charlie and placed one hand on his shoulder, attempting to turn him away, but she may as well have laid a hand on a mountainside and expected the same result. He did not budge.

 

“Charlie,” I said softly. Something in his gaze broke and his eyes flicked toward me. He saw me standing there and his lips parted ever so slightly. Suddenly, he seemed to realize Lynn was standing there and he took her in, looking as taken back by the sight of her as the rest of us. This time when she took his wrist, he followed, the two of them slipping out the door to the back hallway. I wondered briefly if I should follow, when suddenly I felt a hot breathe, stinking breath on my neck.

 

“Don’t bring him around here again, fairy,” Rick growled. “This is all mine. You hear me?”

 

I spoke without turning. “Loud and clear, Coach.” He swept past me, his shoulder knocking me aside as he hurtled toward the double doors. Several members of the football team followed, but several more lingered behind, seemingly unsure. They glanced to me helplessly and I waved them off. “It’s okay, guys. I’m fine. Go check on him.”

 

I watched them go and then spun on my heel, hurrying through the nearest door, out into and across the lobby, and finally through the front doors. I stepped into the cool night and did not stop walking until I reached the parking lot. At my car, I stopped and kicked the headlight, shattering it. “Fuck,” I grumbled, staring down at the shards of glass littering the ground.

 

Some Halloween.

 

[Ro20316]

Tony is onto Charlie and now he wont let him have the formula on it's own that will mean a set back for Andrew and he is an intelligent man he will put two and two togetehr when Charlie doesnt bring him anymore of the vials and he starts seeing Charlie's gains.

[mario2007]

Charlie's going to need to find to cut Tony out of the equation.  Plus, somebody needs to teach the bitch some manners.

[Mdlftr]

D Halden has that rare gift as a writer  - to be convincingly sexy and funny:

 

                   Sorry, I’m late,” he hollered over the music. “Hope my services weren’t needed!”

 

                       “You’re supposed to be a chaperone,” I called back. “Not a bouncer!”

 

                   He looked at me, grinned, and tossed up a striking double biceps pose. “I’m a jacked-o’-lantern!”

 

Or our narrator's first pec bounce:

 

Every so often, I glanced furtively at Charlie and caught him bobbing his head along with the music and unconsciously bouncing his pecs some more. I wonder if I can do that? Given that it was dark, I decided to take my chances and surreptitiously flexed my pecs a few times, giving them both a warm-up. When they felt appropriately limber, I nonchalantly crossed my arms and tried flexing one at a time. It was awkward and I kept engaging parts of my shoulder, but eventually I got the hang of it. Hey, this is kind of fun. Live having extra hands to wave with or something. I

[Guest]

Easily the best muscle writing here on this site.  No contest.

[dhalden]

Looking to get the next installment up tomorrow!

[mario2007]

Yippee!!!

[dhalden]

A tall, looming shadow moved across the front lawn of 9142 Miranda Lane, crept up the front steps of the ranch-style, clapboard house and stopped at the front door. Beneath the orange glow of the porch light, Charlie Greene’s impressive size was fully illuminated. Had anyone happened to be strolling down the street they would most likely have been first startled, then impressed by the wide tapered back of this ostensible bodybuilder as he leaned forward and pressed one ear against the door. Given that they would have, in turn, most likely called the police to report an attempted burglary, it was fortunate that no one was ambling through this quaintest of suburbs of West Cape. Though that probably had more to do with the chilly night air than it did with the late hour.

 

Charlie withdrew his keys, careful not to let them jangle, and slipped a single brass key into the lock, ever so gently pulling back the deadbolt. Not that a simple deadbolt could have kept him from entering. He was ostensibly as wide as the door itself with impressively high, sloping traps that looked downright menacing in the sharp shadows the porch light cast. All it would have taken is a single ram from one of those mountainous shoulders to crack the door wide. Or a blow from one of his thick, trunk-like legs. Tonight, however, sneakiness was key and he ever so gently pushed open the door and peered inside. The glow of the television illuminated the living room within…particularly the unoccupied armchair opposite it. At the sight of the empty La-Z-Boy, Charlie released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and stepped inside. Good, Andy was in bed already. Charlie crept to the sofa and dropped onto it, groaning bearishly. The sofa groaned back beneath his weight and a faint grin formed at he corner of his mouth. He slipped his size thirteen sneakers off and their sour rank instantly rose in tendrils to his nostrils. They were practically brand new, he thought, and already they smelled like he'd had them for months. Not that he was surprised. His workouts the last few weeks had become increasingly more brutal, forcing him to sweat buckets. It practically ran in steady streams from his temples, beneath his arms, down his back. It was not uncommon for a trail of sweat drops to follow him like breadcrumbs throughout the gym.

 

At the thought of breadcrumbs, his rippled stomach growled, demanding sustenance. Powerless to its orders, he rose and lumbered into the kitchen. He popped open the refrigerator and grabbed one of the half dozen Tupperware containers full of rice, chicken, and broccoli within and tossed it in the microwave. There had been ten containers in the fridge this morning, he recalled, meaning Andy had wolfed down at least four of them throughout the day. Damn. The not-so-little-guy-anymore had really been putting it away lately. He himself had watched Andy shovel down an entire six-egg omelet, two slices of Ezekiel toast, four turkey sausages, a bowl of oatmeal, a bowl of cottage cheese, and a protein shake at breakfast. And that had been just his pre-workout. When they got back from the gym, he washed down three hard-boiled eggs, another bowl of oatmeal, and two bananas with nearly a half-gallon of milk. Charlie tried to imagine his formerly tiny roommate adding to that the four Tupperware containers worth of food over the course of the day. Fuck, even he would have found that filling, but as Charlie grabbed his own sixth meal of the day from the microwave, his eyes fell on evidence of even more food that Andy had put away. A pizza box lay on the table. He crossed to it and lifted the lid. Half of a Meat Lover’s Delight from Bürnt stared back.

 

“Jesus, Andy.”

 

Charlie plopped down at the table and tiredly began shoveling down his own meal. Along with the copious rivers of sweat he was producing, the new brutality of his workouts had left him proportionately exhausted as well. When he finished his last bite, he pushed the Tupperware container aside and slid one muscled arm across the table and rested his head on it. Just gonna take a quick breather, he thought. Then a shower.

 

The memory of a previous shower suddenly blossomed in his mind. It had been Halloween night. Damn did it seem forever ago, but holy hell had it been wild. From the cursory check-in with that bitch Tony at the Regal Hilton, to that adolescent slutacular that was the Halloween dance at Andy’s school, to that fucked up episode of growth with Andy’s friend that had followed: what a night it had been…

 

…because he was still seeing red over that fat asshole of a phys ed teacher who dared to try to be nearly as big as he was, Charlie had not seen where the voluptuous woman was leading him as they walked out of the gymnasium and down one of the long, winding halls of the high school. Suddenly they were passing through a door and into one of the classrooms that smelled vaguely like chemicals.

 

“Take a breather, muscle man,” the woman had said. “You're all red in your pretty little face.”

 

Through the rage burning in his mind, he filtered what she’d said down to one word: little. All his attention and anger snapped away from the door and to the Elvira impersonator standing before him. Who the hell does she think she is, he had thought. Who was she to call a man as jacked as him little?

 

“Lynn,” she said, as if reading his mind. She slinked toward him. He couldn't decide if she was blithely unaware of his fury or stupid enough to believe she could contain it somehow. She was a full head shorter than him, even in her heels, but she sidled up against him seemingly without a concern in the world, her huge breasts flattening against his own exceedingly developed chest. “All these muscles on one man tells me that you must be…Charlie.” He stared down at her, perplexed. Who was this woman? “Tell me, stud, are you as big down below as you are up top?”

 

He felt her small hand suddenly jostle his heavy balls through his shorts, her grip surprisingly firm and exact. Not that his huge, fat testicles were hard to find. They protruded obscenely up and outward by the lack of room in his shorts. What's more is that they felt like they'd been growing fatter and heavier all night long, ever since Tony had forced him to double dose that muscle growth shit, NPH-01. Not to be left out of the playful ministrations this strange woman was gifting his balls, his cock stirred angrily against her fingers, desperate for attention.

 

“Oh, so you are big all over,” she said. Her ruby red lips curled into a smile as she released his balls (“Ah!” he gasped as the cum within slushed about, redistributing and plumping his balls back up again) and slipped her hand past his waistband for direct access. But there simply was no more room to cram another appendage into those already packed shorts. “Alrighty then, the tried and true way it is,” she said and dropped to her knees. Her black-lacquered fingernails fumbled at his belt buckle and zipper. He knew this game well; hell, he was the fucking MVP of this game. He automatically stripped off his shirt. The air-conditioned chill of the classroom made him shiver and his pecs twitched involuntarily, his nipples becoming diamond-hard. He had not realized how hot he was, but now that his shirt was off, fuck was he burning up. The nexus of his body heat, however, was located lower and urgently demanding his attention. He looked down just in time to see the woman, this “Lynn”, pulling down his shorts. Their descent stopped abruptly, however, halted by his robust ass and even larger thighs.

 

“Forget ‘em,” he grunted. She glanced up at him, winked, and returned to his swelling crotch. The only remaining article of clothing between her and his raging erection (between ever increasing discomfort and the sweet release of spewing his cum down her throat, he thought) was this skimpy, overcrowded jockstrap. He wanted to reach down and rip it off with both hands, but all his years of professional fucking had taught him that anticipation was something to be savored, not circumvented. Instead, he curled his hands into white-knuckled fists that made the cords of muscle in his forearms swell impressively. Ever so gently, Lynn reached up and laid a hand on his maxed out jockstrap.

 

“So hot,” she said. His hungry dick swelled further, desperate for release from its confines and sensing that her hand alone could provide it. Evidently, she knew this too. She coyly withdrew her fingers and lowered her nose to the throbbing mound of detained cockflesh, nuzzling it. This bitch, he thought. Now she was just teasing him. His cock must have felt the same. It suddenly jumped, the whole rock-hard package ramming against her face and throwing her off. She snapped her head backward just in time, obviously surprised—and hurt. She glared up at him, anger in her own eyes now, fully aware she had just been on the receiving end of a cock thrust that could have gifted her a nose bleed had it been a little more squarely delivered. He stared back, smirked, and shrugged as if to say, “Don't mess with the bull if you don't want the horns.”

 

Sparks flared in her eyes and she scrambled back to her knees, ready to rise and storm out. Well fuck her then, he thought. But no, she approached his concrete erection once more and gripped his jockstrap with both hands, her fingernails cutting into his exquisitely carved waist. Illiac furrow, he reminded himself. Very few men could attain one as superlatively formed as his and he would be damned if he wasn’t proud of it. Suddenly, she was ripping his cock’s cruel prison-like pouch away. Free from its confines, his bloated dick flopped forward and, relishing the cool air on its red-hot skin, began swelling in earnest.

 

Flopped? He wasn’t hard yet? His surprise that he was incredibly still not yet fully erect was quickly consumed by the pleasant inrush of blood hurrying to remedy that fact. Damn he could practically feel the veins ballooning up. His balls, too, were taking advantage of their freedom. Already plump and heavy, they dropped and bounced weightily before doubling in size, their cum-making capacity kicking into overdrive. A deep, baritone moan of satisfaction rumbled in his chest at the sensation of his mighty dick and tangerine-sized balls simultaneously swelling larger than he had ever felt. And they were not alone in their growth. All over his body, he could feel a sensation he was intimately familiar with stretching his skin: the pump. He could have just as easily been standing in the center of the gym having completed a circuit of heavy lifts, his muscles were becoming so engorged. He flexed mightily, drawing his huge arms close to his body in a half-hearted most muscular pose, forcing more blood into his muscles.  His skin stretched tighter. Another intense flush of heat swept over his body and he panted as sweat began beading on his forehead. God, did he love being big. His head fell backward and his mouth lolled open as his large, strong hands roamed over his abs, drawing ever nearer to the urgently swelling pole between his legs—

 

“Hhnh!” Lynn’s cool, soft fingers suddenly squeezed his dick hard, instantly cutting off the influx of blood. His head snapped forward and he looked down, horrified and angry, to see his cockhead mushrooming obscenely and turning a lethal shade of purple. “The fuck—?”

 

“What do you want with Andy?” Lynn demanded.  She tightened her grip and he winced, both at her painful grip and the continued influx of blood backbuilding as it battled to edge its way into his voracious prick.

 

He gritted his teeth. “What're you talking—”

 

“I'll rip it off,” she said, tugging hard. “Don't lie to me!”

 

The bewilderment that her abrupt assault had sprang on him melted away. Who was she to threaten his dick? What goddamn right did she have to actually do it? A baritone growl rose in his throat and a dark shadow passed over his face. His nostrils flared, he inhaled deeply, and with every ounce of air he seemed to inflate further, his whole body visibly swelling. His pecs ballooned, his shoulders widened, and his stance shifted as his legs enlarged, pushing against one another. All over his body, his skin flushed an alarming red as more ember-hot blood circulated throughout to coax his muscles and tendons into new growth…including his cock.

 

“Ergh!” A mammoth influx of blood abruptly punched into his cock and his hips involuntarily bucked forward to accommodate it, instantly expanding his already distended dick and throwing off her grip. Before she could redouble her grasp, he took her by the shoulders, lifting her high into the air, and charged forward, pinning her against the wall. He leaned in until his nose was less than inch from her face and barred his teeth.

 

“Get your hands off me, asshole,” she said, her voice surprisingly even-toned. “Don't you know violence against women is gauche these days? And for your information, I'm your roommate’s best friend.”

 

Her words did not immediately register, as they fell on ears that were deafened by the roar of blood rushing through them and a mind preoccupied with the rapidly stiffening cock springing up from his crotch. Now freed from Lynn’s grip, blood cascaded freely into his already wrist-thick dick, spurring it to new length. What had she said about…roommate? He loosened his grip on her shoulders and her feet slid to the floor. He took a step backward and shook his head, trying to clear it of the single thought dominating it: that he needed that all-intoxicating release of the pump, in all of its forms. The pump of inflating muscle. Of pumping cum from his formidable prick. Pumping another person full of it.

 

“What do you want?” he growled.

 

“To know what you want with Andy,” she said, straightening her dress.

 

To match the sweat running freely down his temples, his stone-hard prick released a steady stream of precum. It flowed down and over the ridges of his swollen veins and drew to a dripping point between his heavy, throbbing balls. He needed to get off now, goddamn it. He gritted his teeth and flexed his arms mightily to stop himself from gripping his cock right then and there and jerking it to sweet release.

 

“The fuck are you talking about?”

 

“Bitch please. You might be pretty, but you’re not dumb, I can see it in your eyes,” she said. She glanced down at his cock and the steady drip of precum dribbling from his balls. “Boys and their toys,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Not enough blood in that big ol’ body of yours to power all those muscles, your dick, and your brain at the same time is there?”

 

A third wave of molten heat exploded within his core, flourishing across his skin, and with it yet another fresh incursion of blood. His skin was getting so tight, it was bound to rip soon. And oh fuck did he need to cum and cum soon. It was practically to the boiling point in his balls.

 

Lynn suddenly gripped his chin and directed his face to hers.  

 

“Listen up,” she said coldly. “I trust you about as far as I can throw you, bitch. And Andy’s about the last good thing in my shitty little life right now. So if you so much as make him frown, I swear to whatever higher power you believe in that I’ll cut this big ol’ prick of yours off and feed it to my Pomeranian. Got it?” She clutched his balls again and fresh, heavy flow of precum oozed from his cockhead. “Got it?”

 

Charlie bared his teeth. “Got it.”

 

“Good,” she said and slowly released her grip. For the second time, the molten cum within redistributed and his balls fattened. God they were so heavy now. So full of cum. His hand drifted unconsciously toward his crotch, needing to massage away the aching pleasure. She quickly batted it away. “Oh, no. I’ll take care of this. But first…”

 

“For fuck’s sake!”

 

His resolve snapped and his hands rocketed out, pushing her to her knees again and urgently shoving her face against his balls. Ever quick on the uptake, she instantly responded in kind, nuzzling his swollen testicles and flicking her tongue out to lap up the precum soaking them. At the sensation of her hot, wet tongue flicking over his cum-bloated balls, his enormously growing dick surged again. The skin felt so painfully stretched in every direction, he would be damned if his cock wasn’t growing along with the rest of him. He could feel it: his blood gushing ever onward and supplying every inch of him with nutrients to fuel his growth. He glanced down at her and smirked. Fuck look how big that thing was. He’d easily broken ten inches, there was no doubt about it. And what about the rest of him? His arms were about to explode. His traps felt full to bursting. And his pecs—had they ever been so bloated?

 

“Ohhhh yeah,” he moaned as her tongue massaged the divine crossroads where his cock met the space between his balls. She alternated between clockwise and counter-clockwise circles, all the while sliding her hand up and down his cock and evenly slicking it over with his precum. Damn, did she know how to work a dick.

 

“Hey, are you okay?” she said suddenly, removing her hand. “You’re burning up.”

 

“Fine,” he grunted. She shrugged and returned to work, ever so slowly easing her lips over the broad, blunt tip of his outrageously inflated dick. She suddenly withdrew again, touching her lips.

 

“Seriously though. You’re dick is, like, on fire. Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

His upper lip instinctively curled in anger, but…he had to admit that he was burning up. Dangerously hot, in fact. He bit his bottom lip and tensed every muscle in his body, trying to flex away the heat and excruciating stretch of his skin that this new, phenomenal pump had gifted him. But like tossing gasoline onto a blaze, the heat only amplified and the pump only doubled. His veins were shockingly prominent now, purple beneath his red-hot skin, and snaking over portions of his body he had never seen.

 

“Fuck!” he groaned, stomping his foot. His thighs and calves responded by swelling further.

 

“Jesus…” he heard Lynn whisper.

 

For lack of a better solution, he flexed again, throwing out his arms wide to relieve the pressure building in them. He must have looked like some sort of poor imitation of the Vitruvian man, over-muscled and sopping wet with sweat. Salty tears welled in the corners of his eyes and he glanced down to see his pecs visibly palpitating independent of his breathing. The striations in them would have been impressive were they not so frightening: each and every cord of muscle thumping agonizingly like the strings of some strummed instrument. Swell, shrink, swell, shrink. It was the same all over his body. His biceps. His abs. His quads. It was as if he was hooked up to some invisible electro-stimulation, but one that was located within his own body. And stuck in overdrive. The threads of his cargo shorts were softly popping as his already enormous legs developed into even huger proportions. His feet were becoming horrendously compressed within his boots, threatening to cut off the circulation in his toes were it not for the fact that his veins were now sending blood along at a terrifying rate.

 

“Goddamn it!” he said. The heat had evolved to include a burning itch just beneath his skin. He scratched madly all over his torso…or the portions he could reach. His arms had become so deliciously, so tremendously pumped that his flexibility was now inhibited. He could barely cock his arms at all, let alone raise them to alleviate the itching. “FUCK!”

 

“Over here—quick,” Lynn said suddenly. She hurried across the room and waved for him to follow. Through blurred, sweat-slicked vision he saw her raise a hand and curl it around a metal triangle dangling from a chain overhead. His wide, wild eyes desperately followed the chain to a showerhead and suddenly he realized. This was a chemistry classroom of some sort. Frantically he stumbled toward her, taking the most direct route: through the middle of the classroom. He effortlessly toppled desks as he went, his bowlegged gait edging them out of the way. The beakers perched atop each desk fell and shattered onto the tiled floor beneath his boots. Lynn backed away as he neared, pressing herself against the wall. The second he was within arm’s reach of the emergency shower, Charlie wrenched down hard on the pull-chain. The sound of the metal triangle snapping free and clattering to the floor was drowned out by the sudden hiss of the water as it poured from the showerhead. It splashed against his skin, divinely icy, and poured over the valleys of cuts his unbearably inflating muscles had formed.

 

“Uuuuhhhnnn,” he moaned. The effect was slow and alleviating, but not entirely sufficient: within minutes his skin gradually rolled back from it’s appalling shade of scarlet to his more normal tan, but his muscles did not shrink. If anything, they seemed to relish the hydration and looked even more supremely well formed beneath the glisten of the water. And his cock. Despite the rushing cold water, it remained stubbornly hard, demanding release before it would acquiesce to go soft. He reached down and began stroking the remarkably hot pole of cockflesh. It took surprisingly little time before the lips of his cockhead were floundering open and closed, signaling his impending load. When it came, it was powerful and plentiful. “Nhnn—nhnn—nhnn,” he grunted with each thick rope of cum as it splattered against the wall, bucking his hips. Fourteen shots in all. A new record. When he finished, he wearily planted one hand against the wall and dropped his chin into his pecs. The throbbing in them had slowed, but not yet vanished; he could still feel his chin rising and falling against them. Finally, after a full ten minutes, Lynn edged forward and tugged on the ruined pull-chain, stopping the flow of water.

 

“Should I call an ambulance?” she asked.

 

“No,” he said quickly. He raised his head tiredly, his blonde hair pasted wetly to his forehead. She stared back at him, visibly stunned. They stood in silence, the only sounds being those of the water dripping from his herculean body and the distant bass of music echoing down the hall from the gymnasium.

 

Lynn finally spoke. “What was that?”

 

“Allergic reaction…I think,” he panted. “Must’ve been something in the punch.”

 

She cocked an eyebrow at him and glanced down at the ruinous state of his cock. It had finally deflated, but was clearly larger (to him) than it had ever been before in a flaccid state, lying dormant over the waistband of his cargo shorts and jockstrap, which were now both wetly plastered on his huge thighs. His dick and balls had both undeniably grown, as had the rest of him. He could feel it. He was larger. Tony’s double-dose of NPH-01 might nearly have killed him but it had been successful, internal third-degree burns be damned. He sighed and stuffed his cock back into his shorts, but try as he might, he could not manage to button them again. He had simply outgrown them.

 

“You sure you don’t need me to call 911 or something?” Lynn offered again.

 

“I’m fine,” he said. He glanced around the room at the overturned desks and broken beakers.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “They’ll just assume it was some rowdy assholes from the dance.”

 

He nodded and lumbered to the front of the room again, collecting his shirt from the floor. He pulled it on and found it, too, to be painfully tight. He flexed gently, rolling his enormous huge shoulders around and popping threads until there was nearly enough room to accommodate his new size. How much did he weigh now? Two hundred and thirty pounds? Two hundred and forty?

 

He started for the door and stopped. “Can you not mention any of this to Andy?”

 

“Why not?” Lynn said. She had not moved from the opposite end of the room, but her cool, collected façade had returned and she eyed him suspiciously.

 

“You said you didn’t want me to do anything to hurt him right?” he said. She didn’t respond. “Getting him all worked up and concerned about me is borderline hurting him, don’t you think?”

 

She pursed her lips and looked him up and down.

 

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “But—”

 

“Charlie?”

 

He snapped awake. He glanced around instantly, groggily trying to ascertain his surroundings. A kitchen slowly formed before his eyes. Andy’s kitchen. Home. A gentle squeeze on his shoulder informed him that someone had planted a hand on one of his huge, rounded delts. He squinted and saw Andy’s concerned face staring down at him.

 

“You feeling okay?” Andy said.

 

Charlie frowned. “What time is it?”

 

“It’s five-thirty in the morning,” Andy said. “Did you sleep here all night?”

 

Charlie glanced around again. His empty Tupperware container and the pizza box he had discovered lay across the table from him. He’d fallen asleep, he suddenly realized, and slept soundly through the night. He shook his head again, trying to rid of it of the vestiges of the memory-turned-dream that had plagued him. What a night it had been indeed. But that had been nearly a month ago. It was November now. He glanced at Andy again. His usual, bespectacled face stared back, but it was different somehow, as was the body to which it was attached. Charlie slid back his chair for a clearer, more complete view of the benefactor that had become his personal experiment. As his vision finally solidified, the truth became clearer to Charlie now more than ever.

 

He was not the only one under this roof that had undergone a radical transformation.