Chapter 1
The day was starting out badly.
I tripped over both the empty bottles of beer and boxes of wine by my bed... It was a long couple of nights alright? I was having a good lord I can't believe im admitting this, a crissis of consience.
Yeah I was shocked too.
It's like Jimmny mother fucking cricket has been whispering in my ear.
After talking to Deana at the Waterloo and realizing that I did have some pretty intense feelings for Gino I further realized what a nightmare I had made for myslef.
Her I am Dr. Frankenstien and all I want to do in life is get it on with my monster and settle down with a couple of vietnamese war orphans. Yeah I'm living in wonderland. That's the funny thing with all this, even though everyone else is oblivious to all my tampering...I'm not and it never really bothered me before...but the closer I get to Gino and the amourously closer he gets to me, I realize that something has changed.
All this magical transformation has underscored one of my own. The bottom line being this is defenently the end. I've got to move out and get on with my life. I mean this was fun but now every time Gino gives me puppy dog moon eyes I feel like a heal. Every time I see Red and Hank I wander if their love is the true incomparable kind they believe it is or is it just the ramifications of a witty spell I cast with Eric's alarm clock.
Last night was when I had finally had enough heineken to tell Gino I was moving out. He took it lest then well, at first he pouted and then he raved and finally he just left the room in stony silence.
But it's for the best he'll see. He has no clue all the shit I've done and no one wants to date Freddy kruger man.
I'm like the I dream of Jeanie from hell. You let me into your house and I don't grant your wishes I make your nightmares reality and then make you love it. I am such an unbelievable bastard.
So I've been drinking, like it comes as any surprise, I'm the king of vice man. I've been literally trying to drown myself in alcohol and moody black women. I have the Blues so I've been listening to the blues. Over and over again, Billy, Nina, Sarah, If she's black lived during the 40's and been done wrong, she's on my multichange CD player...as a matter of fact I must have gotten a real load on after the altercation with Gino because I could vaguely make out the skipping of one of my favorite CD's as I was about to head to the kitchen. As I liastened to the scratching of the beautiful song I rolled my eyes heaven word and marveled once again at God's unbelievable sense of humur.
"I put a spell on you..." nina Simone crooned behind me.
"and now your mine." She skipped
"and now your mine"
"And now your mine."
I kicked the Cd player
And it skipped again "You Can't stop the things I do...
"I ain't lying..."
"I ain't lying..."
"I ain't Lying..."
But I was.
And fuck Nina for telling me about it. So I quite maturely punched the CD player until it shut up. It must have been skipping since I fell asleep. That's' strange. I waded through layers of messy clothes until I finally found the damn door.
I wandered to the kitchen in my sweat pants only to find that Red had found the milk I hidden in the crisper and devoured both it and an entire box of my cap'n crunch. Not only had he eaten my breakfast he had managed to make one huge ass mess in the process. I purveyed the fridge for anything resembling animal vegetable or mineral. Found a lot of minerals, however little to no Animal nor vegetable..unless you consider the fuzz growing on whatever was living at the back of the freezer...but it seemed to be moving so it could have been on or the other.
Oh, well it's not like I had anything planned for the day except research. I could easily run across the street grab a bag of cheeto's and start trying to translate these ridiculously long French astrological calculations back into their original latin. It's one thing to translate one language into your native tongue but trying to translate your 4th language into a dead language made my head swim. Hey, but that's why I'm a child genius. I know the generally excepted term is Geek but I do prefer child genius.
I was still debating on weather or not I should scrape the fuzz of the back of the freezer and scrape it on some toast when the phone rang, "College Boy Taxidermy, You snuff 'em we stuff 'em."
"....Damien I wish you wouldn't answer the phone like that, people from work might be calling me."
"Gino Why are you calling the house phone? I swear if your calling me from your cell to tell me to bring your god damn coffee to you while your in the shower again...I'm going to bring you the coffee and a plugged in blow driver." I grumbled. "I'm not your god damn house boy you know."
He chuckled a little on the other side of the line. "Now there's a mental picture."
"Pig," I snapped as I lit a cigarette.
"I'm not in the house anyway smart ass, Look I had to go out of town this morning my boss cancelled out on this convention and had me go in his place." He explained.
....House to myself....
red's at work....
Brian's probably still tied up over at Forman and mark's, literally...
I was officially home alone, I paused and put both hands up to my face in mock shock, AHHH! "Okay Gino, when are you coming back?"
"Not for three or four days..." he said and trailed off
"You'll be there when I get back right, you own't leave without at least a goodbye..."
He was so sincere so genuine that it almost completey took me aback, "sure gino, I'll be here for you man" I said with the same sincerety. It's a tone of voice I don't really use....I think normal people call it honesty
"Good." He said happily.
"Is their anything else cause I'm about twenty minutes late for my morning Japanese anime cartoons and if you miss the first half you totally don't ever catch up."
He paused and in the silence of that pause I realized I had just set myself up for the inevitable favor that was coming, "There is one thing....I had such little notice that I left a couple of things undone at the gym..."
"What type of things?" I asked cautiously.
"Well I have to do the day edit's so the staff get's payed....If someone doesn't file the paperwork...no one on staff's gonna eat for a week. And it would be really great if you could..."
"Go into your office do the paperwork and file it for you." I continued finishing his sentence.
"Yeah!"
"No!"
"Aw, c'mon it's only a little math, you are good at math right."
"Yes Gino I'm taking quantum theory and advanced algebraic theorem, I can multiply wage times rate, however I don't want to be around all those vapid little gym rats that hang out at that glorified bath house you call a gym."
"Please Damien, you know I wouldn't ask if it weren't killer important." He begged.
Their was just something about this man that when he was pleading like a little boy that drove me nuts...well to be honest everything about this man drove me nuts. It's gotta be the italian thing...gotta be..."Alright but you gotta swear they're not going to make me move weights or rearrange machines you know how I feel about physical labor."
He laughed a big chested hearty laugh. "don't worry baby, just crunching numbers not Abs."
"Fine, but you owe me."
"...Oh I'm sure I'll find some way to pay you back, ...somehow." His hot italian baritone dripped with suggestion and sent chills up my spine...what was it with this man?
"Alright Don Juan you got what you wanted now go back to your conference.":
"One more thing D,..."
"I AM NOT DOING YOUR LAUNDRY! Now get off my phone you mook." I snapped
"No not that, it's just I ahh...." There was an uncharacteristic anxiousness in his voice, "I...uhm...er.... Left a protein shake in the fridge before I left."
"Uh-huh" I answered.
"Whatever you do, do not drink it." He demanded.
"Gino why would I drink that concrete you.."
"JUST don't drink it!" He Ordered.
"Alright, " I answered taken aback..."Look if I'm going to go DO YOUR WORK, I have to go shower and get dressed. Call me later and I'll tell you how it went."
"Thanks again Damien...I really appreciate it. I know I can always count on you. I don't know what I'm going to do when you..."
I answered him softly and quietly kind of embarrassed, "We talked about this already Gino...I've got to go it's for everyone's own good."
Their was silence again and he finished in a hurt tone, "Fine. Call me later." And then the son of a bitch hung up on me. He hung up like a spoiled brat. Well fuck him then.
I tramped up stairs and hoped in the shower.
I stepped out of the shower and began to dry off. Why would a guy like Gino want me anyway. I mean he had to be at the least 240lbs and 6 and half feet of tone muscled Italian beauty? And what was I? At my 5'11 and a buck 60 I was hardly the kind of guy you'd see such a paragon of gorgeousness chasing after.
I assessed myself in the bathroom mirror as I dryed the wetness out of my dark bangs. I'm mean I'm not saying I should have be ringing a cathedral bell and terrorizing all of paris.
I was cute. But that was it. I'm cute.
Not sexy. Not handsome. Cute.
Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to be cute?
My features are a little angular so it makes my face a little elivated above pretty. I have a pug nose that just exacerbates the cuteness. But when talking about how I look it always goes back to my eyes. In all honesty I know what my best feature is and if we're going to ignore my simply spectacular ass, it's my eyes. The first thing a drunken guy at a party says to me when he clumsily hits on me is, "Why do you hide such pretty eyess behind all that hair?" and then they proceed to push my bangs away from my face like it's the end of "the Fucking Way we were"
I continued to towel of my compact 20 year old body. On a good day I was a little bit of an ambercrombie boy, pretty and solidly biult. On a bad day I was the evil twin of an Abercrombie boy. I was a cute guy, I could afford to be picky and proud, but iw as no where near gino's level. He was porn star material. I was strictly catalogue work.
I mean I'm not shallow, I'm just practical.
I put on a pair of baggy dark cord's and one of my shirts with flames on the color, hooked up my wallet chain and slicked my hair down. All black and shiney. I don't usualy over do the Addams family influence in my wardrobe this much but the Dark Skaterboy look tends to frighten the gym bunnies into leaving me alone.
I popped on the Shades and was ready to go.
However my stomach started grumbling again. I remembered that I still hadn't eaten. I rushed down stairs again and once more began the fuzz at the back of the fridge debate. That's when I spied the blender full of grey liquid. Most have been Gino's protein shake. It didn't look to appetizing but then again the Fuzz kept shaking back and forth every time I went to examine it, as it were saying, "I'll cut cha man, I'll cut cha!"
So you don't want to share your go damn food with me but you'll have me be your little errand boy huh Guido? Whatever.
I grabbed the blender and instead of pouring it in a glass as my first reaction suggested, I drank the slop right out of the blender the way I had seen Gino do a million times. To say that it was disgusting would perhps offend all things that were glad to be called disgusting. I'm going to stop doing arbitrarily petty things all together based soley on the fact that that protein shake was the most horrible thing I've ever put passed my lips and that includes the night in high school when I was actually talked into bed by a girl. It was fucking foul man. I would have spit it out but by the time I was running out the door I didn't want to kill the flowers on the lawn.
I jumped in the car and was off to the Gym.
I tripped over both the empty bottles of beer and boxes of wine by my bed... It was a long couple of nights alright? I was having a good lord I can't believe im admitting this, a crissis of consience.
Yeah I was shocked too.
It's like Jimmny mother fucking cricket has been whispering in my ear.
After talking to Deana at the Waterloo and realizing that I did have some pretty intense feelings for Gino I further realized what a nightmare I had made for myslef.
Her I am Dr. Frankenstien and all I want to do in life is get it on with my monster and settle down with a couple of vietnamese war orphans. Yeah I'm living in wonderland. That's the funny thing with all this, even though everyone else is oblivious to all my tampering...I'm not and it never really bothered me before...but the closer I get to Gino and the amourously closer he gets to me, I realize that something has changed.
All this magical transformation has underscored one of my own. The bottom line being this is defenently the end. I've got to move out and get on with my life. I mean this was fun but now every time Gino gives me puppy dog moon eyes I feel like a heal. Every time I see Red and Hank I wander if their love is the true incomparable kind they believe it is or is it just the ramifications of a witty spell I cast with Eric's alarm clock.
Last night was when I had finally had enough heineken to tell Gino I was moving out. He took it lest then well, at first he pouted and then he raved and finally he just left the room in stony silence.
But it's for the best he'll see. He has no clue all the shit I've done and no one wants to date Freddy kruger man.
I'm like the I dream of Jeanie from hell. You let me into your house and I don't grant your wishes I make your nightmares reality and then make you love it. I am such an unbelievable bastard.
So I've been drinking, like it comes as any surprise, I'm the king of vice man. I've been literally trying to drown myself in alcohol and moody black women. I have the Blues so I've been listening to the blues. Over and over again, Billy, Nina, Sarah, If she's black lived during the 40's and been done wrong, she's on my multichange CD player...as a matter of fact I must have gotten a real load on after the altercation with Gino because I could vaguely make out the skipping of one of my favorite CD's as I was about to head to the kitchen. As I liastened to the scratching of the beautiful song I rolled my eyes heaven word and marveled once again at God's unbelievable sense of humur.
"I put a spell on you..." nina Simone crooned behind me.
"and now your mine." She skipped
"and now your mine"
"And now your mine."
I kicked the Cd player
And it skipped again "You Can't stop the things I do...
"I ain't lying..."
"I ain't lying..."
"I ain't Lying..."
But I was.
And fuck Nina for telling me about it. So I quite maturely punched the CD player until it shut up. It must have been skipping since I fell asleep. That's' strange. I waded through layers of messy clothes until I finally found the damn door.
I wandered to the kitchen in my sweat pants only to find that Red had found the milk I hidden in the crisper and devoured both it and an entire box of my cap'n crunch. Not only had he eaten my breakfast he had managed to make one huge ass mess in the process. I purveyed the fridge for anything resembling animal vegetable or mineral. Found a lot of minerals, however little to no Animal nor vegetable..unless you consider the fuzz growing on whatever was living at the back of the freezer...but it seemed to be moving so it could have been on or the other.
Oh, well it's not like I had anything planned for the day except research. I could easily run across the street grab a bag of cheeto's and start trying to translate these ridiculously long French astrological calculations back into their original latin. It's one thing to translate one language into your native tongue but trying to translate your 4th language into a dead language made my head swim. Hey, but that's why I'm a child genius. I know the generally excepted term is Geek but I do prefer child genius.
I was still debating on weather or not I should scrape the fuzz of the back of the freezer and scrape it on some toast when the phone rang, "College Boy Taxidermy, You snuff 'em we stuff 'em."
"....Damien I wish you wouldn't answer the phone like that, people from work might be calling me."
"Gino Why are you calling the house phone? I swear if your calling me from your cell to tell me to bring your god damn coffee to you while your in the shower again...I'm going to bring you the coffee and a plugged in blow driver." I grumbled. "I'm not your god damn house boy you know."
He chuckled a little on the other side of the line. "Now there's a mental picture."
"Pig," I snapped as I lit a cigarette.
"I'm not in the house anyway smart ass, Look I had to go out of town this morning my boss cancelled out on this convention and had me go in his place." He explained.
....House to myself....
red's at work....
Brian's probably still tied up over at Forman and mark's, literally...
I was officially home alone, I paused and put both hands up to my face in mock shock, AHHH! "Okay Gino, when are you coming back?"
"Not for three or four days..." he said and trailed off
"You'll be there when I get back right, you own't leave without at least a goodbye..."
He was so sincere so genuine that it almost completey took me aback, "sure gino, I'll be here for you man" I said with the same sincerety. It's a tone of voice I don't really use....I think normal people call it honesty
"Good." He said happily.
"Is their anything else cause I'm about twenty minutes late for my morning Japanese anime cartoons and if you miss the first half you totally don't ever catch up."
He paused and in the silence of that pause I realized I had just set myself up for the inevitable favor that was coming, "There is one thing....I had such little notice that I left a couple of things undone at the gym..."
"What type of things?" I asked cautiously.
"Well I have to do the day edit's so the staff get's payed....If someone doesn't file the paperwork...no one on staff's gonna eat for a week. And it would be really great if you could..."
"Go into your office do the paperwork and file it for you." I continued finishing his sentence.
"Yeah!"
"No!"
"Aw, c'mon it's only a little math, you are good at math right."
"Yes Gino I'm taking quantum theory and advanced algebraic theorem, I can multiply wage times rate, however I don't want to be around all those vapid little gym rats that hang out at that glorified bath house you call a gym."
"Please Damien, you know I wouldn't ask if it weren't killer important." He begged.
Their was just something about this man that when he was pleading like a little boy that drove me nuts...well to be honest everything about this man drove me nuts. It's gotta be the italian thing...gotta be..."Alright but you gotta swear they're not going to make me move weights or rearrange machines you know how I feel about physical labor."
He laughed a big chested hearty laugh. "don't worry baby, just crunching numbers not Abs."
"Fine, but you owe me."
"...Oh I'm sure I'll find some way to pay you back, ...somehow." His hot italian baritone dripped with suggestion and sent chills up my spine...what was it with this man?
"Alright Don Juan you got what you wanted now go back to your conference.":
"One more thing D,..."
"I AM NOT DOING YOUR LAUNDRY! Now get off my phone you mook." I snapped
"No not that, it's just I ahh...." There was an uncharacteristic anxiousness in his voice, "I...uhm...er.... Left a protein shake in the fridge before I left."
"Uh-huh" I answered.
"Whatever you do, do not drink it." He demanded.
"Gino why would I drink that concrete you.."
"JUST don't drink it!" He Ordered.
"Alright, " I answered taken aback..."Look if I'm going to go DO YOUR WORK, I have to go shower and get dressed. Call me later and I'll tell you how it went."
"Thanks again Damien...I really appreciate it. I know I can always count on you. I don't know what I'm going to do when you..."
I answered him softly and quietly kind of embarrassed, "We talked about this already Gino...I've got to go it's for everyone's own good."
Their was silence again and he finished in a hurt tone, "Fine. Call me later." And then the son of a bitch hung up on me. He hung up like a spoiled brat. Well fuck him then.
I tramped up stairs and hoped in the shower.
I stepped out of the shower and began to dry off. Why would a guy like Gino want me anyway. I mean he had to be at the least 240lbs and 6 and half feet of tone muscled Italian beauty? And what was I? At my 5'11 and a buck 60 I was hardly the kind of guy you'd see such a paragon of gorgeousness chasing after.
I assessed myself in the bathroom mirror as I dryed the wetness out of my dark bangs. I'm mean I'm not saying I should have be ringing a cathedral bell and terrorizing all of paris.
I was cute. But that was it. I'm cute.
Not sexy. Not handsome. Cute.
Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to be cute?
My features are a little angular so it makes my face a little elivated above pretty. I have a pug nose that just exacerbates the cuteness. But when talking about how I look it always goes back to my eyes. In all honesty I know what my best feature is and if we're going to ignore my simply spectacular ass, it's my eyes. The first thing a drunken guy at a party says to me when he clumsily hits on me is, "Why do you hide such pretty eyess behind all that hair?" and then they proceed to push my bangs away from my face like it's the end of "the Fucking Way we were"
I continued to towel of my compact 20 year old body. On a good day I was a little bit of an ambercrombie boy, pretty and solidly biult. On a bad day I was the evil twin of an Abercrombie boy. I was a cute guy, I could afford to be picky and proud, but iw as no where near gino's level. He was porn star material. I was strictly catalogue work.
I mean I'm not shallow, I'm just practical.
I put on a pair of baggy dark cord's and one of my shirts with flames on the color, hooked up my wallet chain and slicked my hair down. All black and shiney. I don't usualy over do the Addams family influence in my wardrobe this much but the Dark Skaterboy look tends to frighten the gym bunnies into leaving me alone.
I popped on the Shades and was ready to go.
However my stomach started grumbling again. I remembered that I still hadn't eaten. I rushed down stairs again and once more began the fuzz at the back of the fridge debate. That's when I spied the blender full of grey liquid. Most have been Gino's protein shake. It didn't look to appetizing but then again the Fuzz kept shaking back and forth every time I went to examine it, as it were saying, "I'll cut cha man, I'll cut cha!"
So you don't want to share your go damn food with me but you'll have me be your little errand boy huh Guido? Whatever.
I grabbed the blender and instead of pouring it in a glass as my first reaction suggested, I drank the slop right out of the blender the way I had seen Gino do a million times. To say that it was disgusting would perhps offend all things that were glad to be called disgusting. I'm going to stop doing arbitrarily petty things all together based soley on the fact that that protein shake was the most horrible thing I've ever put passed my lips and that includes the night in high school when I was actually talked into bed by a girl. It was fucking foul man. I would have spit it out but by the time I was running out the door I didn't want to kill the flowers on the lawn.
I jumped in the car and was off to the Gym.
I felt funny from jump. The shake was not sitting well with me at all, the entire way to the gym all I did was shift uncomfortably in my car. It just felt you know...wrong. And when I got there it wasn't much better. I was cutting my best lightening bolt swath of mysterious presence as I crossed the gym lobby floor when the overtly perky receptionist stopped me.
"Excuse me errr... sir are you a member..."
I tipped my glasses and regarded her with a cool stare. "No," and continued walking
"Sir...SIR!" she kept saying as I breezed my way passed her desk and into the gym.
I was bearly beyond the glass doors when I could inwardly feel all the little spandex clad cats arching their backs, showing their claws and hissing at me. The contrast between myself and the gym clientele was obvious. As far as the eye could see were various tank tops, shorts, and jogging pants in every conceivable shade of the rainbow from fire engine red to lavender and here I was clothed in shiny black. I must have looked like the wicked witch in munchkin land.
Once I was in the safety of Gino's office I began to relax. My fists unclenched and I relaxed my jaw. I hate being out of an environment I can control. I absolutely hate it. I know that's sounds very Martha Stewart Fanatical but it's just one of my little idiosyncratic ways. The Office was typical Gino. That is it was very cute yet masculine. It had a heavy red theme and seemed more suitable for the interior of some Austin Power's Scene with it's mod motif and furniture. He had probably let one of the little gym bunnies who followed him around like he was a God redecorate it for him.
I slumped into his comfy chair, took one look at the payroll files he had on his desk and fell face first onto the glass table top. I quickly reconsidered grabbed my leather bomber jacket and used it as a makehshift pillow. I was happily snoozing the morning away when I was unceremoniously disturbed by pure evil in biker shorts.
"Gino I just had this great idea and had to ....oh my gawd! How'd you get in here?"
I propped my head up just enough to look at him through one squinted eye. "A rather novel idea Eddie, I used the door. The concepts a little difficult and might elude you... You just grab and pull."
Eddie looked at me from behind a beatific face twisted into a shallow grimace, "I thought people had to say your name three times and spin in a circle or something."
I lazily propped my head up on my elbows and regarded him with an uninterested smirk, Eddie stood before me in all his exercised- over worked out- glory. He wore a pair of baggy nylon pants and a tank top that was so tight I could actually see the beginning of stubble on his shaved chest through the fabric. He was all in Yellow and brown which set off his glorious tan and dyed hair. He looked like every Circuit magazine I had ever discarded at parties. God could a man's skin stretch more erotically over the grapefruits of his delts...
"Eddie it's obvious Gino isn't here so why don't you go back to your glorified line dancing for queens, huh?" Now in all honesty there really wasn't any reason for Eddie and I to have this very open hostility for each other. I mean in all honesty I had made him everything he was today....literally.
But then again Magic can only do so much. It can only accentuate or emphasis qualities already inherent in the subject. It's like that fundamental law of physics madigc can neither create nor destroy...just augment and change...
So when I cast my little hex on Eddie it might have changed his physicality and his subsequent sexual orientation but the Core of Eddie was still the same old Egocentric prick. Only now he was gorgeous and shallow. So he was basically the most vile of combinations, so terrible that just the thought brought my eyes wide with terror- the perfect mix of Quarterback and head cheerleader.
Not to say that I'm some kind of angel by any means and regardless of our past Eddie and I would fundamentally never get along based only on the personality conflicts...but there was one other thing....
"So like Where is GINO, morticia?"
There it was. Eddie knew about the strange relationship Gino and I had been sharing. By all rights Eddie was right to be Jealous even offended. I mean here he was the single most gorgeous gay man in the tri-county area. And I'm not just saying that, the mother fucker has a sash, And the only man who's his equal wants nothing to do with him. Who does he want? The odd little skaterboy with a penchant for the occult. If I were eddie I'd be just as angry.
I couldn't help myself but smirk, "Oh didn't you hear? He ran off to fire island with that bodybuilding champion who was in town last week,"
The look of horror on Eddie's face was exquisite. "NO!"
I laughed "alright he didn't he's just away on buisness and left me to mind the shop, so if you don't mind I've got a busy day of enforcing Gay stereotypes about gyms, spandex and vanity ahead of me so..." I made the condescending "dismissal motion with my hands.
Have you ever seen really attractive people get furious? It's strangely compelling. "I should have known you were here. On my way to work all the pets in the neighborhood were running in circles and the bums were talking backwards." He moved to leave, but turned instead, "Ya know what you are Damien?"
I had that sick feeling of uneasy confrontation. I had only meant to antagonize the little Gym rat but now I think I had got myself right into an all out fight with a Gym Panther and he was about to treat me like one of the slow Unattractive Gazelle's. "No I don't Eddie, I pay a therapist 80 bucks a session so she'll tell me. now I have a lot of..."
"You're Pathetic."
"listen here you stodgy little queen don't think for one second think just cause we both suck dick doesn't mean I won't kick the living..."
"Oh really?" He said and flexed one of his well rounded biceps until it erupted in an erotic display of every crevice of his arm, bulging bigger then most men's thighs. "This isn't just for show bitch."
"Whatever," I was feeling sicker. I usually excel at confrontation but for some reason I was backing down.
"No I think I want to say this, You come in here act like your better then the rest of us with your fucking snotty attitude and condescending glare. You think your better then the rest of us just because you read old books and think deep fucking thoughts. And we're just all beneath you because all we think about is looking good and getting laid." He put both hands down in front of me on the desk, hunching down with a glare of disgust. The particular pose made his lats flare and made his already enormous pecs look like they were going to burst through the tank top. I was feeling sicker and more uncomfortable but the fucking weirdest thing of all...I was getting hard.
"Yeah you pegged me Eddie that's exactly how I think. You should have a radio call in show or something." I said offhandedly and tried to pretend I was examining the pay roll edits more closely.
"I know your type, and if Gino doesn't see it I sure as hell do. You're an envious little bitch. You wish you could look like us. You see big gorgeous guys like me and the boys from the gym shirtless on the dance floor and you wish you could take off your god damn Poke'mon T-shirt and dance with us. Face it Damien you're a fat girl."
"What?" I almost spat at him.
"Oh your not fat babe, your just not one of the pretty girls. And because the pretty girl's won't let you play their reindeer games you have to pretend your just to good for them with all your intelligence and intellectual strife. But in the end your just another Fat girl wishin she could be prom queen." He ahd now worked himself around the desk and was right in front of me. I stood and faced him angrier then I'd ever been yet still feeling so strange I couldn't answer him. "I know what you think when you see my and Gino's big muscled bodies stretching against the fabric of are shirts, our every movemnet popping huge bulges in our clothes..." He got closer to me, "It's not the self righteous irritation you pretend..." he pout his hand on my shoulder and the other took a firm pat to the erection in my groin, "it's a bulge of your own babe." He licked the side of my face, and turned for the door. His ridiculously large bubble but sashayed away tauntingly. "You're just too insecure to admit it."
And then I was alone.
It wasn't until about five minutes later that I actually got it together to respond...."what a slut..."
"Excuse me errr... sir are you a member..."
I tipped my glasses and regarded her with a cool stare. "No," and continued walking
"Sir...SIR!" she kept saying as I breezed my way passed her desk and into the gym.
I was bearly beyond the glass doors when I could inwardly feel all the little spandex clad cats arching their backs, showing their claws and hissing at me. The contrast between myself and the gym clientele was obvious. As far as the eye could see were various tank tops, shorts, and jogging pants in every conceivable shade of the rainbow from fire engine red to lavender and here I was clothed in shiny black. I must have looked like the wicked witch in munchkin land.
Once I was in the safety of Gino's office I began to relax. My fists unclenched and I relaxed my jaw. I hate being out of an environment I can control. I absolutely hate it. I know that's sounds very Martha Stewart Fanatical but it's just one of my little idiosyncratic ways. The Office was typical Gino. That is it was very cute yet masculine. It had a heavy red theme and seemed more suitable for the interior of some Austin Power's Scene with it's mod motif and furniture. He had probably let one of the little gym bunnies who followed him around like he was a God redecorate it for him.
I slumped into his comfy chair, took one look at the payroll files he had on his desk and fell face first onto the glass table top. I quickly reconsidered grabbed my leather bomber jacket and used it as a makehshift pillow. I was happily snoozing the morning away when I was unceremoniously disturbed by pure evil in biker shorts.
"Gino I just had this great idea and had to ....oh my gawd! How'd you get in here?"
I propped my head up just enough to look at him through one squinted eye. "A rather novel idea Eddie, I used the door. The concepts a little difficult and might elude you... You just grab and pull."
Eddie looked at me from behind a beatific face twisted into a shallow grimace, "I thought people had to say your name three times and spin in a circle or something."
I lazily propped my head up on my elbows and regarded him with an uninterested smirk, Eddie stood before me in all his exercised- over worked out- glory. He wore a pair of baggy nylon pants and a tank top that was so tight I could actually see the beginning of stubble on his shaved chest through the fabric. He was all in Yellow and brown which set off his glorious tan and dyed hair. He looked like every Circuit magazine I had ever discarded at parties. God could a man's skin stretch more erotically over the grapefruits of his delts...
"Eddie it's obvious Gino isn't here so why don't you go back to your glorified line dancing for queens, huh?" Now in all honesty there really wasn't any reason for Eddie and I to have this very open hostility for each other. I mean in all honesty I had made him everything he was today....literally.
But then again Magic can only do so much. It can only accentuate or emphasis qualities already inherent in the subject. It's like that fundamental law of physics madigc can neither create nor destroy...just augment and change...
So when I cast my little hex on Eddie it might have changed his physicality and his subsequent sexual orientation but the Core of Eddie was still the same old Egocentric prick. Only now he was gorgeous and shallow. So he was basically the most vile of combinations, so terrible that just the thought brought my eyes wide with terror- the perfect mix of Quarterback and head cheerleader.
Not to say that I'm some kind of angel by any means and regardless of our past Eddie and I would fundamentally never get along based only on the personality conflicts...but there was one other thing....
"So like Where is GINO, morticia?"
There it was. Eddie knew about the strange relationship Gino and I had been sharing. By all rights Eddie was right to be Jealous even offended. I mean here he was the single most gorgeous gay man in the tri-county area. And I'm not just saying that, the mother fucker has a sash, And the only man who's his equal wants nothing to do with him. Who does he want? The odd little skaterboy with a penchant for the occult. If I were eddie I'd be just as angry.
I couldn't help myself but smirk, "Oh didn't you hear? He ran off to fire island with that bodybuilding champion who was in town last week,"
The look of horror on Eddie's face was exquisite. "NO!"
I laughed "alright he didn't he's just away on buisness and left me to mind the shop, so if you don't mind I've got a busy day of enforcing Gay stereotypes about gyms, spandex and vanity ahead of me so..." I made the condescending "dismissal motion with my hands.
Have you ever seen really attractive people get furious? It's strangely compelling. "I should have known you were here. On my way to work all the pets in the neighborhood were running in circles and the bums were talking backwards." He moved to leave, but turned instead, "Ya know what you are Damien?"
I had that sick feeling of uneasy confrontation. I had only meant to antagonize the little Gym rat but now I think I had got myself right into an all out fight with a Gym Panther and he was about to treat me like one of the slow Unattractive Gazelle's. "No I don't Eddie, I pay a therapist 80 bucks a session so she'll tell me. now I have a lot of..."
"You're Pathetic."
"listen here you stodgy little queen don't think for one second think just cause we both suck dick doesn't mean I won't kick the living..."
"Oh really?" He said and flexed one of his well rounded biceps until it erupted in an erotic display of every crevice of his arm, bulging bigger then most men's thighs. "This isn't just for show bitch."
"Whatever," I was feeling sicker. I usually excel at confrontation but for some reason I was backing down.
"No I think I want to say this, You come in here act like your better then the rest of us with your fucking snotty attitude and condescending glare. You think your better then the rest of us just because you read old books and think deep fucking thoughts. And we're just all beneath you because all we think about is looking good and getting laid." He put both hands down in front of me on the desk, hunching down with a glare of disgust. The particular pose made his lats flare and made his already enormous pecs look like they were going to burst through the tank top. I was feeling sicker and more uncomfortable but the fucking weirdest thing of all...I was getting hard.
"Yeah you pegged me Eddie that's exactly how I think. You should have a radio call in show or something." I said offhandedly and tried to pretend I was examining the pay roll edits more closely.
"I know your type, and if Gino doesn't see it I sure as hell do. You're an envious little bitch. You wish you could look like us. You see big gorgeous guys like me and the boys from the gym shirtless on the dance floor and you wish you could take off your god damn Poke'mon T-shirt and dance with us. Face it Damien you're a fat girl."
"What?" I almost spat at him.
"Oh your not fat babe, your just not one of the pretty girls. And because the pretty girl's won't let you play their reindeer games you have to pretend your just to good for them with all your intelligence and intellectual strife. But in the end your just another Fat girl wishin she could be prom queen." He ahd now worked himself around the desk and was right in front of me. I stood and faced him angrier then I'd ever been yet still feeling so strange I couldn't answer him. "I know what you think when you see my and Gino's big muscled bodies stretching against the fabric of are shirts, our every movemnet popping huge bulges in our clothes..." He got closer to me, "It's not the self righteous irritation you pretend..." he pout his hand on my shoulder and the other took a firm pat to the erection in my groin, "it's a bulge of your own babe." He licked the side of my face, and turned for the door. His ridiculously large bubble but sashayed away tauntingly. "You're just too insecure to admit it."
And then I was alone.
It wasn't until about five minutes later that I actually got it together to respond...."what a slut..."
Chapter 2
Damein awoke groggily from his cat nap, the numbers and paperwork still undone underneath his sweat soaked brow and elbows. Why was he sweating so hard? He must have had a nightmare while he was sleeping...but he didn't remember it...just short little snippets of have seen images and fractured dream images. He shook his head clearing the fog from his eyes, sending his long bangs swooping around his cheeks. All he could remember was dancing....Dancing with Gino through a throng of people....Yeah...and everyone was there...David and Gabe...Red and Hank...Even Mark and Forman with Brian close at their heels...and still others the boys from the Gym...and the guys from the Waterloo were singing in the background and then suddenly....Now he remembered they weren't dancing anymore Gino was strangling him not holding him. And the guys were cheering. Gino's face changed from the charming grin to the angry leer he had first had....All the men were as they were before any of Damien's tampering and they were mad as hell and they were...
"...Going to kill you!"
"What!" Damien yelled loudly as he turned from his contemplation.
"I said," Answered back Kenny the personal trainer who was basically Gino's right hand man. "Gino's going to Kill you if you don't finish that pay roll." He said with a smile.
"oh I'm sorry I must have dosed off..." Damien answered rubbing his temples agonizingly.
"It's alright little dude I know you'll get it done, I was just breaking your balls..." He said reassuringly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Damien asked angrily.
"It's an expression, it's means I'm jerking your chain...getting your goat...ya know ridin you...," He paused with a sincere smile and then said, "jeez I never even noticed how, sexual the euphemisms for teasing, were." He laughed.
"No that's not what I meant...What do you mean "little guy"" Damien asked obstinately.
"Uhm...nothing dude I was just..."
"You were just commenting on my little out of shape slacker boy body." Damein spat back as he flopped back in the chair and began to rub his temples even harder.
Kenny looked at him with an honest concern and came around to lay a light and comforting hand on his shoulder. "Is there something wrong Damien?"
"No."
"Because if there is...I'd be glad to help you out...I mean you've done so much for me already," Kenny'e eyes were wide with gratitude...he and mark were SOOOOO happy.
"I really don't need to be reminded of that right now, kenny...." Damien muttered.
Kenny assessed the young man sitting with his head in his hands and answered very carefully, "You know Damien you're a very cute kid." He said, "and I know eddie was in here earlier..." Damien's head shot up and his eyes looked like two bright blue daggers. "C'mon dude the whole gym could practically here you two cat fighting. They almost had to turn the speakers up in the cardio room the way you two were going at it."
"Yeah I bet everyone got a real good laugh at the gym rat and the drama queen going at it." Damien laughed.
Kenny considered, "no the general consensus is that Gino's straight friend was going to beat the shit out of Eddie later in the parking lot..." He laughed.
"Who's Gino's straight friend...?" Damien asked confused.
Kenny looked at him for a long time obviously stunned at what he saw was an absurd question. "well you dude..."
Damein gave a startled blink like someone having cold water thrown in his face, "me? Straight? Why the fuck would anyone think that?"
Kenny looked at him with a realy blank stare, "Dude How could they think you're straight? How could they not? Every time you come in this gym you look about as happy as the queen of hearts with a garden full of white roses, scowling at everything in a tank top. You go out to gay clubs with gino...don't dance with ANYONE and then avoid his obvious passes all night. We all just assumed you were a straight boy."
Damien was obviously floored by the statement. "Wow."
"so your not straight?" Kenny asked unassuredly.
Damien gave him a flat ice blue stare, "dude I'm out like a deaf kid playing musical chairs."
Kenny let out a deep laugh and smiled, "well you'd never know it from the way you act, I mean granted you are a little over dramatic but the way you dress and walk around like all the boys around here make your teach grate sure sends the wrong message."
"It's not an act, they all do make my teeth grate..." Damien answered sullenly and then the rest of Kenny's statement sunk in...."Hey! What do you mean over dramatic and what exactly is wrong with the way I dress?" He said standing and emphasizing every point with a pointed finger and twitch of his head.
"Nothing dude." Kenny answered.
"you know just because I don't have one of the Prime cut Gym bodies that you boys are sporting doesn't make me any less "Gay" then you carbon copy muscle boys and quite frankly I don't feel the need to adhere to the ridiculous stereo-type of the overtly muscular gay boy running around in a tank top and nothing else." He yelled.
"I didn't say there was."
"And further more, I do not feel the need to...pardon me?" Damien stalled realizing he was defending himself against nothing.
"Damien don't let Eddie get to you. He's just one of those gay guys with a certain idea of how people, especially those with the predilection to suck dick, should look." Kenny tried to assure him.
"I see, thanks ever so much for the advice Kenny, I'll just get back to my intellectual work since that is apparently all I'm fit to do." He sneered dismissing him with the hand that wasn't rubbing his temples.
Kenny gave him a frustrated look and grabbed his elbow, "c'mere a minute storm cloud."
"Kenny I'm realy alright I appreciate it I really do ...it's just..." Damien answered as Kenny pulled him out of the office chair.
Kenny's more powerful Trainer body easily tossed Damien's light weight frame out of the office with little effort. "No but's, just move." He said good naturedly.
Kenny spared him the embarrassment of being dragged across the Gym floor and just let Damien take up a silent following act. They passed by the juice bar where Tony gave Kenny a friendly nod and then abruptly made the sign of the cross when he saw Damien. Damien looked the ultra goreous Puerto Rican muscle boy dead in his luminous brown eyes, smiled to himself and focused his mind for a brief second. The blender in front of Tony Suddenly Jumped to life on it's own spilling protein shake all over his immaculate white Tommy Hilfiger Jump Suit. His rippling mocha muscles were now dripping mocha protien. "Aww shit!" he cursed.
They continued through the Gym passing different muscle boys in various states of undress. "you'd think this Gym was on the Equator the way these guys dress," Damien mused.
Kenny swung his head around, "they work out a lot Damien. Is it so wrong that they want to show off all their hard work. I mean dude these guys arent stupid, they no youth and beauty aren't going to last forever so why should they waste and cover it up while they have it?"
Damien looked at him quizzically and then seem prepared to respond in some acidic statement but instead considered the statement and went back to rubbing his temple.
They finally reached one of the back studio's and Kenny flipped on the light and shut the door. The room was a stark white and covered in mirrors with only a ballet bar to break up the reflective surface. Damien saw four mirror images of himself and the Hunky red headed trainer. "Wow Kenny, thanks I've never seen a dance studio before....now can I get back to my nap?"
"In a minute, now Damien..." He pushed the younger man closer to the mirrors until he stood directly in front of his reflection, "tell me what you see."
"I see myself," Damien answered brushing the question off.
"of course you do, but I said tell me WHAT you see not WHO."
Damien's eyes grew distant for a minute and he answered truthfully surprising even himself, "I see a kid with black hair...he's kinda thin, wearing a baggy shirt and a pair of dark pants." He answered.
"What else do you see?" Kenny asked.
"You."
"You know what I see? I see a kid with a lot of potential." Kenny said with a good natured pat on Damien's shoulder.
"Uh huh, whatever jane fonda."
"No dude it's my job and you can look down on it as much as you like or at least pretend to, but I don't think what Eddie said to you this morning would bother you so much if it didn't hit a cord. Damien you are a gorgeous kid, you just need to start seeing yourself as a man. Not gay, not a kid, but as just another man. And be a little more comfortable with your body dude, not so uptight and serious."
Damien seemed to ignore him, cocking his head slightly and looking at his reflection.
"If you want some help getting in shape, I'd be gald to train you, no charge. If you just stop hiding those broad shoulders behind those baggy button down pattern shirts and start working out, you could have one massive upper body ..."
Kenny droned on mentioning workouts he could do to build up his uper body and how he might want to buy smaller size clothing, not rely on skeens of fabric to cover him up. But Damien just stared at his reflection.
"...I think you also might be covering yourself up with all that hair in your eyes and the baggy clothes because your uncomfortable feeling attractive...because your still uncomfortable with your own sexuality ....and I know this might sound like psycho babble but years in this field has taught me a couple things, guys like you generally have a bad attitude about muscle boys for two reasons: either they want to date one or they want to be one. And I've seen the way you brush off Gino on a regular basis so I know it's not issue number one....It's just something to think about." He said with a sweet little pat on the butt before exiting the quiet studio.
Damein stared at the kid in front of him, The too baggy jeans cresting down his leg in waterfall of denim. The large shirt drowning his torso in flame and fabric. The dark black hiar hiding everything bu the glint of blue steel from his eyes. "they think I'm straight," he muttered.
"After taking each one of these ultra alpha male straight men and through slight of hand making them into easy going queers they think I'm the straight one?" He grabbed his bangs and pulled them up against his head, exposing his sharp chin and broad jawline. "me? afraid to be gay?" but then he thought about it, whenever they were out in public Gino had no problem wearing only a tank top that said "porn King", were as he had to have at least three layers of Skater clothes to feel comfortable. Looking back all the guys he lived with and associated with were attractive comfortable Gay men, sure they were that way because Damien forcibly made them that way, but against that back drop of Prime perfect unashamed sexuality he must have looked like the straightest slacker kid ever.
SO what was So different about the guys now? What was so changed that he now seemed to be the one holding back...I mean I've always been comfortable with being gay,...it was never an issue...but then again that's not what Kenny had said..."your uncomfortable with you Sexuality."
Damien steeled his jaw and took of his shirt to reveal his pale, thin torso. He had the slight almost emaciated frame of a teenage boy wich was fine but at 20 one would have hoped all that milk would have payed off by now. "maybe that's the problem," damein thought. "I mean I came out but..." He looked at his lean frame with the ribs obviously sticking out..."but I didn't come UP." Eddie's taunting word of "you're a fat girl Damien..." echoed in his ears as the pounding in his head got worse.
Damein put his head down and held his throbbing head for another second but when his eyes raised to the mirror again they were not the serene blue of contemplation but the grey blue of a calm before a storm. "say good bye to Sandra Dee boys..." he said to himself.
He raised both of his bare arms to the side and closed his eyes.
He stood motionless like that for a few minutes and then one by one the track lights of the studio blew like popping balloons until he was alone in the dark with only the shadows cast from the doorway and windows for light. In the dark the reflective surface of the mirrors seemed to run like water. The glass merging and rippling like an unquiet stream, gushing around Damein's scarecrow like form stock still in the center of the room. His blue eyes glowed an Iridescent saphire and he stared into the mirror and for the first time in his life Damien Cast a spell on himself.
Magic's a funny thing. He had been using it to help everyone around him thinking that would be enough he had never used it for himself. He had always thought that that would be selfish...until now.
He looked at the reflection in the churning waters of the mirror's surface until he saw the image he wanted to have reflected back, "Mirror, Mirror running fast, merging water in liquid glass, My truest wish I long to see, reflected back," He paused taking a strangled breath and quickly exhaling in fear. He clenched his fists and looked into his own grey ice eyes with quiet intensity.... " and into me." The water -mirror began to churn like a whirl pool and the mirror boy's dark countenance lit up with bright illumination from his own set of crystal blue eyes.
I want to be a muscle boy. Damien finally admited to himself.
The boy in the mirror smiled and grew. First the chest began to expand growing larger. The back flared out untill the shoulders sat on top of two large shelf like Lats, then his chest puffed up filling with muscle, the pec's jutting out firmly like two large breast plates made of ivory flesh. The shoulders rounded into well defined globes of muscle on either side of a wide neck framed by the bow of impressive traps. The already thin waist tapered and defined itself into a thin layer of pleasant belly flesh over a half visible 6 pack.
The boy smiled at Damien and dropped his pants revealing a pair of baggy boxers that quickly began to fill with the girth of of his expanding thighs. The lightly covered legs erupted into two tear shaped tree trunks that ended in huge Diamond shaped calves. His glutes pushed out at the back exaggerating his already thin waist further by the size of the muscled ass.
Damien looked at the dark reflection, "My, my my...."
The boy in the mirror smiled back and blew him a kiss as his size seemed to fluctuate and resettle itself two inches taller then Damien. The Shoulders and frame expanded as well with a sudden readiness. Damien stood stunned as the image's frame changed. No longer was it muscle on Damien's slight Frame but someone elses frame altogether. The shoulder's spread wide and proud giving the look of a jock frat kid with too much gym time on his hands. The hieght and the wider frame made the boy...no the man... look like the Super man Version of Damien. The jaw expanded from the sharp angle to an impressively broad masculine Jaw line that looked like it was carved out of ivory.
Damien considered the unsolicited changes and laughed a second, "That's nice but I don't want to seem ostentatious...." Waving his hands in an attempt to reform the first image.
Instead to his surprise however the mirror man gave him a condesending look and shook his hand in a "oh no." way.
Damien began backing away from the mirror in sudden fear.
The mirror image pushed the long line of bangs away from his broad face and when his hand came down the long length of pretective facial covering that Damien had sported since the age of 13 was gone. In it's place was a spiky crew cut with jagged gelled bangs. The man flicked the tip of one short jagged bang edge and a whole strand turned electric blue.
"now wait just a sec..." The man ignored Damien and made a disgusted face as he looked down at his round muscular marble body. Slowly the ivory pale skin that Damein had spent so many afternoons in university libraries cultivating began to shimmer with healthy first rosey then deep rich brown flesh. Every muscle glowed with intense virility as it was painted with the healthy brown of a beach bum or volley ball champ. The effect on the body was amazing. With just a little color the whole body seemed bigger, more sensual and mature.
He stared in awe at the man before him. 6'2 and a definite 220 lbs the man was half bouncer, half dancer. He was a mix of crazy extremes. He had a frat boys shoulders and facial features, a body builders chest and arms...and the kind of powerful aquiline legs and ass one would find on a male dancer. He was exotically compelling.
"hold on...I didn't do any of that..."
"Brilliant kiddo- I can see all those student loans have really payed off, " the man in the mirror laughed.
"Who are you...?" Damien stammered
"Isn't it obvious? I'm your subconscious. I'm every little fantasy you ever had rolled into one very well presented package." He said smiling.
He looked at the man with his porn star dimensions, "That's a bit overboard I only intended to..."
"Do a half assed job! That's why I took over." The man snapped back. "look kid you've got great imagination but a very small, " He smiled padding the well packed boxers, "err...initatiative. Anything worth doing is worth doing the whole way. And believe me kiddo when I'm done we're going to be very worth doing." He smiled.
Damien had had enough of this. he ignored my perverted image and began to work a dismissal spell, this entire thing had been a terrible idea.
"Just what do you think your doing?" the mirror asked him. Only now the mirror me wasn't using Damien's quiet sarcastic tone. it was a broader, deeper much more mature intimidating bass, that dripped with an arch masculine rasp. "I'm not done yet." He stated.
"oh but I think you are..."
"Not quite Harry Potter, I've sat back for too long while you hid behind, those books, your intellect and your insecurities and now that I'm out...." He laughed a proud pointed chuckle, "I'm coming out!"
Just as Damien went to throw up his slim hands, the mirror man's wide muscular arms went wide showcasing the definition in his lumpy triceps. The wide pec's expanded into two large wings of meat across his chest. "You might have a mind for magic and now it's time to get a body just as magical, kiddo."
Was the room getting smaller?
...NO!
no he was being dragged closer to the mirror.
"what the hell!?!" There have been few time in life when he was genuinely scared. Right now he was clawing at the air like a terrified child.
"You just don't get it do you? You act like this is a bad thing..." He smiled. He snapped his fingers and began making his own way toward the surface of the Mirror. The snap of his hand sent heavy black shadows racing from his finger tips up his heavy ape like forarms. They settled in wide arcs of dark ink on his shoulders and left arm. Wide jagged designs of tribal markings adorned the heavy shoulders and accentuated the large softball shaped bicep.
"oh jesus dude Tattoo's are for white trash..."
"That's just what you told yourself because you knew you didn't have bod to pull it off baby... but I do." He answered. "and if your upset about the tattoo's...". He traced his thumb all the way down to his naval to reveal a belly button ring.
"Aww Come on man you look like a stupid boy toy..." Damien spat, trying to cling to the air as he came face to face with the Hyde that was his Id.
"Exactly, because underneath all that high talking intelligence your just like any gay boy your age handsome. You wanna look good and get laid. I'm just glad your finally ready to admit it." He massaged the flesh of his ass with the back of his hands. The wide expanse of shoulder muscles flexed with every move of his palms. "I mean it's not like you havent done this before right? Think of how much fun it's going to be to experience your special little gifts first hand..." that tone was unpleasant.
"look this is fun and all but I'd like to get out of the twilight zone. I think I've finally crossed that line from over active imagination into insanity."
The man looked down at him as Damine look up at him threw his bangs. Our Identical slightly angular crystal eyes met anf he fixed me with a wicked grin, "your about to cross align alright that's for damn sure." And then his heavy arms reached out from the watery depths of the mirror and pulled Damien with horrible force forward into his own spell.
"...Going to kill you!"
"What!" Damien yelled loudly as he turned from his contemplation.
"I said," Answered back Kenny the personal trainer who was basically Gino's right hand man. "Gino's going to Kill you if you don't finish that pay roll." He said with a smile.
"oh I'm sorry I must have dosed off..." Damien answered rubbing his temples agonizingly.
"It's alright little dude I know you'll get it done, I was just breaking your balls..." He said reassuringly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Damien asked angrily.
"It's an expression, it's means I'm jerking your chain...getting your goat...ya know ridin you...," He paused with a sincere smile and then said, "jeez I never even noticed how, sexual the euphemisms for teasing, were." He laughed.
"No that's not what I meant...What do you mean "little guy"" Damien asked obstinately.
"Uhm...nothing dude I was just..."
"You were just commenting on my little out of shape slacker boy body." Damein spat back as he flopped back in the chair and began to rub his temples even harder.
Kenny looked at him with an honest concern and came around to lay a light and comforting hand on his shoulder. "Is there something wrong Damien?"
"No."
"Because if there is...I'd be glad to help you out...I mean you've done so much for me already," Kenny'e eyes were wide with gratitude...he and mark were SOOOOO happy.
"I really don't need to be reminded of that right now, kenny...." Damien muttered.
Kenny assessed the young man sitting with his head in his hands and answered very carefully, "You know Damien you're a very cute kid." He said, "and I know eddie was in here earlier..." Damien's head shot up and his eyes looked like two bright blue daggers. "C'mon dude the whole gym could practically here you two cat fighting. They almost had to turn the speakers up in the cardio room the way you two were going at it."
"Yeah I bet everyone got a real good laugh at the gym rat and the drama queen going at it." Damien laughed.
Kenny considered, "no the general consensus is that Gino's straight friend was going to beat the shit out of Eddie later in the parking lot..." He laughed.
"Who's Gino's straight friend...?" Damien asked confused.
Kenny looked at him for a long time obviously stunned at what he saw was an absurd question. "well you dude..."
Damein gave a startled blink like someone having cold water thrown in his face, "me? Straight? Why the fuck would anyone think that?"
Kenny looked at him with a realy blank stare, "Dude How could they think you're straight? How could they not? Every time you come in this gym you look about as happy as the queen of hearts with a garden full of white roses, scowling at everything in a tank top. You go out to gay clubs with gino...don't dance with ANYONE and then avoid his obvious passes all night. We all just assumed you were a straight boy."
Damien was obviously floored by the statement. "Wow."
"so your not straight?" Kenny asked unassuredly.
Damien gave him a flat ice blue stare, "dude I'm out like a deaf kid playing musical chairs."
Kenny let out a deep laugh and smiled, "well you'd never know it from the way you act, I mean granted you are a little over dramatic but the way you dress and walk around like all the boys around here make your teach grate sure sends the wrong message."
"It's not an act, they all do make my teeth grate..." Damien answered sullenly and then the rest of Kenny's statement sunk in...."Hey! What do you mean over dramatic and what exactly is wrong with the way I dress?" He said standing and emphasizing every point with a pointed finger and twitch of his head.
"Nothing dude." Kenny answered.
"you know just because I don't have one of the Prime cut Gym bodies that you boys are sporting doesn't make me any less "Gay" then you carbon copy muscle boys and quite frankly I don't feel the need to adhere to the ridiculous stereo-type of the overtly muscular gay boy running around in a tank top and nothing else." He yelled.
"I didn't say there was."
"And further more, I do not feel the need to...pardon me?" Damien stalled realizing he was defending himself against nothing.
"Damien don't let Eddie get to you. He's just one of those gay guys with a certain idea of how people, especially those with the predilection to suck dick, should look." Kenny tried to assure him.
"I see, thanks ever so much for the advice Kenny, I'll just get back to my intellectual work since that is apparently all I'm fit to do." He sneered dismissing him with the hand that wasn't rubbing his temples.
Kenny gave him a frustrated look and grabbed his elbow, "c'mere a minute storm cloud."
"Kenny I'm realy alright I appreciate it I really do ...it's just..." Damien answered as Kenny pulled him out of the office chair.
Kenny's more powerful Trainer body easily tossed Damien's light weight frame out of the office with little effort. "No but's, just move." He said good naturedly.
Kenny spared him the embarrassment of being dragged across the Gym floor and just let Damien take up a silent following act. They passed by the juice bar where Tony gave Kenny a friendly nod and then abruptly made the sign of the cross when he saw Damien. Damien looked the ultra goreous Puerto Rican muscle boy dead in his luminous brown eyes, smiled to himself and focused his mind for a brief second. The blender in front of Tony Suddenly Jumped to life on it's own spilling protein shake all over his immaculate white Tommy Hilfiger Jump Suit. His rippling mocha muscles were now dripping mocha protien. "Aww shit!" he cursed.
They continued through the Gym passing different muscle boys in various states of undress. "you'd think this Gym was on the Equator the way these guys dress," Damien mused.
Kenny swung his head around, "they work out a lot Damien. Is it so wrong that they want to show off all their hard work. I mean dude these guys arent stupid, they no youth and beauty aren't going to last forever so why should they waste and cover it up while they have it?"
Damien looked at him quizzically and then seem prepared to respond in some acidic statement but instead considered the statement and went back to rubbing his temple.
They finally reached one of the back studio's and Kenny flipped on the light and shut the door. The room was a stark white and covered in mirrors with only a ballet bar to break up the reflective surface. Damien saw four mirror images of himself and the Hunky red headed trainer. "Wow Kenny, thanks I've never seen a dance studio before....now can I get back to my nap?"
"In a minute, now Damien..." He pushed the younger man closer to the mirrors until he stood directly in front of his reflection, "tell me what you see."
"I see myself," Damien answered brushing the question off.
"of course you do, but I said tell me WHAT you see not WHO."
Damien's eyes grew distant for a minute and he answered truthfully surprising even himself, "I see a kid with black hair...he's kinda thin, wearing a baggy shirt and a pair of dark pants." He answered.
"What else do you see?" Kenny asked.
"You."
"You know what I see? I see a kid with a lot of potential." Kenny said with a good natured pat on Damien's shoulder.
"Uh huh, whatever jane fonda."
"No dude it's my job and you can look down on it as much as you like or at least pretend to, but I don't think what Eddie said to you this morning would bother you so much if it didn't hit a cord. Damien you are a gorgeous kid, you just need to start seeing yourself as a man. Not gay, not a kid, but as just another man. And be a little more comfortable with your body dude, not so uptight and serious."
Damien seemed to ignore him, cocking his head slightly and looking at his reflection.
"If you want some help getting in shape, I'd be gald to train you, no charge. If you just stop hiding those broad shoulders behind those baggy button down pattern shirts and start working out, you could have one massive upper body ..."
Kenny droned on mentioning workouts he could do to build up his uper body and how he might want to buy smaller size clothing, not rely on skeens of fabric to cover him up. But Damien just stared at his reflection.
"...I think you also might be covering yourself up with all that hair in your eyes and the baggy clothes because your uncomfortable feeling attractive...because your still uncomfortable with your own sexuality ....and I know this might sound like psycho babble but years in this field has taught me a couple things, guys like you generally have a bad attitude about muscle boys for two reasons: either they want to date one or they want to be one. And I've seen the way you brush off Gino on a regular basis so I know it's not issue number one....It's just something to think about." He said with a sweet little pat on the butt before exiting the quiet studio.
Damein stared at the kid in front of him, The too baggy jeans cresting down his leg in waterfall of denim. The large shirt drowning his torso in flame and fabric. The dark black hiar hiding everything bu the glint of blue steel from his eyes. "they think I'm straight," he muttered.
"After taking each one of these ultra alpha male straight men and through slight of hand making them into easy going queers they think I'm the straight one?" He grabbed his bangs and pulled them up against his head, exposing his sharp chin and broad jawline. "me? afraid to be gay?" but then he thought about it, whenever they were out in public Gino had no problem wearing only a tank top that said "porn King", were as he had to have at least three layers of Skater clothes to feel comfortable. Looking back all the guys he lived with and associated with were attractive comfortable Gay men, sure they were that way because Damien forcibly made them that way, but against that back drop of Prime perfect unashamed sexuality he must have looked like the straightest slacker kid ever.
SO what was So different about the guys now? What was so changed that he now seemed to be the one holding back...I mean I've always been comfortable with being gay,...it was never an issue...but then again that's not what Kenny had said..."your uncomfortable with you Sexuality."
Damien steeled his jaw and took of his shirt to reveal his pale, thin torso. He had the slight almost emaciated frame of a teenage boy wich was fine but at 20 one would have hoped all that milk would have payed off by now. "maybe that's the problem," damein thought. "I mean I came out but..." He looked at his lean frame with the ribs obviously sticking out..."but I didn't come UP." Eddie's taunting word of "you're a fat girl Damien..." echoed in his ears as the pounding in his head got worse.
Damein put his head down and held his throbbing head for another second but when his eyes raised to the mirror again they were not the serene blue of contemplation but the grey blue of a calm before a storm. "say good bye to Sandra Dee boys..." he said to himself.
He raised both of his bare arms to the side and closed his eyes.
He stood motionless like that for a few minutes and then one by one the track lights of the studio blew like popping balloons until he was alone in the dark with only the shadows cast from the doorway and windows for light. In the dark the reflective surface of the mirrors seemed to run like water. The glass merging and rippling like an unquiet stream, gushing around Damein's scarecrow like form stock still in the center of the room. His blue eyes glowed an Iridescent saphire and he stared into the mirror and for the first time in his life Damien Cast a spell on himself.
Magic's a funny thing. He had been using it to help everyone around him thinking that would be enough he had never used it for himself. He had always thought that that would be selfish...until now.
He looked at the reflection in the churning waters of the mirror's surface until he saw the image he wanted to have reflected back, "Mirror, Mirror running fast, merging water in liquid glass, My truest wish I long to see, reflected back," He paused taking a strangled breath and quickly exhaling in fear. He clenched his fists and looked into his own grey ice eyes with quiet intensity.... " and into me." The water -mirror began to churn like a whirl pool and the mirror boy's dark countenance lit up with bright illumination from his own set of crystal blue eyes.
I want to be a muscle boy. Damien finally admited to himself.
The boy in the mirror smiled and grew. First the chest began to expand growing larger. The back flared out untill the shoulders sat on top of two large shelf like Lats, then his chest puffed up filling with muscle, the pec's jutting out firmly like two large breast plates made of ivory flesh. The shoulders rounded into well defined globes of muscle on either side of a wide neck framed by the bow of impressive traps. The already thin waist tapered and defined itself into a thin layer of pleasant belly flesh over a half visible 6 pack.
The boy smiled at Damien and dropped his pants revealing a pair of baggy boxers that quickly began to fill with the girth of of his expanding thighs. The lightly covered legs erupted into two tear shaped tree trunks that ended in huge Diamond shaped calves. His glutes pushed out at the back exaggerating his already thin waist further by the size of the muscled ass.
Damien looked at the dark reflection, "My, my my...."
The boy in the mirror smiled back and blew him a kiss as his size seemed to fluctuate and resettle itself two inches taller then Damien. The Shoulders and frame expanded as well with a sudden readiness. Damien stood stunned as the image's frame changed. No longer was it muscle on Damien's slight Frame but someone elses frame altogether. The shoulder's spread wide and proud giving the look of a jock frat kid with too much gym time on his hands. The hieght and the wider frame made the boy...no the man... look like the Super man Version of Damien. The jaw expanded from the sharp angle to an impressively broad masculine Jaw line that looked like it was carved out of ivory.
Damien considered the unsolicited changes and laughed a second, "That's nice but I don't want to seem ostentatious...." Waving his hands in an attempt to reform the first image.
Instead to his surprise however the mirror man gave him a condesending look and shook his hand in a "oh no." way.
Damien began backing away from the mirror in sudden fear.
The mirror image pushed the long line of bangs away from his broad face and when his hand came down the long length of pretective facial covering that Damien had sported since the age of 13 was gone. In it's place was a spiky crew cut with jagged gelled bangs. The man flicked the tip of one short jagged bang edge and a whole strand turned electric blue.
"now wait just a sec..." The man ignored Damien and made a disgusted face as he looked down at his round muscular marble body. Slowly the ivory pale skin that Damein had spent so many afternoons in university libraries cultivating began to shimmer with healthy first rosey then deep rich brown flesh. Every muscle glowed with intense virility as it was painted with the healthy brown of a beach bum or volley ball champ. The effect on the body was amazing. With just a little color the whole body seemed bigger, more sensual and mature.
He stared in awe at the man before him. 6'2 and a definite 220 lbs the man was half bouncer, half dancer. He was a mix of crazy extremes. He had a frat boys shoulders and facial features, a body builders chest and arms...and the kind of powerful aquiline legs and ass one would find on a male dancer. He was exotically compelling.
"hold on...I didn't do any of that..."
"Brilliant kiddo- I can see all those student loans have really payed off, " the man in the mirror laughed.
"Who are you...?" Damien stammered
"Isn't it obvious? I'm your subconscious. I'm every little fantasy you ever had rolled into one very well presented package." He said smiling.
He looked at the man with his porn star dimensions, "That's a bit overboard I only intended to..."
"Do a half assed job! That's why I took over." The man snapped back. "look kid you've got great imagination but a very small, " He smiled padding the well packed boxers, "err...initatiative. Anything worth doing is worth doing the whole way. And believe me kiddo when I'm done we're going to be very worth doing." He smiled.
Damien had had enough of this. he ignored my perverted image and began to work a dismissal spell, this entire thing had been a terrible idea.
"Just what do you think your doing?" the mirror asked him. Only now the mirror me wasn't using Damien's quiet sarcastic tone. it was a broader, deeper much more mature intimidating bass, that dripped with an arch masculine rasp. "I'm not done yet." He stated.
"oh but I think you are..."
"Not quite Harry Potter, I've sat back for too long while you hid behind, those books, your intellect and your insecurities and now that I'm out...." He laughed a proud pointed chuckle, "I'm coming out!"
Just as Damien went to throw up his slim hands, the mirror man's wide muscular arms went wide showcasing the definition in his lumpy triceps. The wide pec's expanded into two large wings of meat across his chest. "You might have a mind for magic and now it's time to get a body just as magical, kiddo."
Was the room getting smaller?
...NO!
no he was being dragged closer to the mirror.
"what the hell!?!" There have been few time in life when he was genuinely scared. Right now he was clawing at the air like a terrified child.
"You just don't get it do you? You act like this is a bad thing..." He smiled. He snapped his fingers and began making his own way toward the surface of the Mirror. The snap of his hand sent heavy black shadows racing from his finger tips up his heavy ape like forarms. They settled in wide arcs of dark ink on his shoulders and left arm. Wide jagged designs of tribal markings adorned the heavy shoulders and accentuated the large softball shaped bicep.
"oh jesus dude Tattoo's are for white trash..."
"That's just what you told yourself because you knew you didn't have bod to pull it off baby... but I do." He answered. "and if your upset about the tattoo's...". He traced his thumb all the way down to his naval to reveal a belly button ring.
"Aww Come on man you look like a stupid boy toy..." Damien spat, trying to cling to the air as he came face to face with the Hyde that was his Id.
"Exactly, because underneath all that high talking intelligence your just like any gay boy your age handsome. You wanna look good and get laid. I'm just glad your finally ready to admit it." He massaged the flesh of his ass with the back of his hands. The wide expanse of shoulder muscles flexed with every move of his palms. "I mean it's not like you havent done this before right? Think of how much fun it's going to be to experience your special little gifts first hand..." that tone was unpleasant.
"look this is fun and all but I'd like to get out of the twilight zone. I think I've finally crossed that line from over active imagination into insanity."
The man looked down at him as Damine look up at him threw his bangs. Our Identical slightly angular crystal eyes met anf he fixed me with a wicked grin, "your about to cross align alright that's for damn sure." And then his heavy arms reached out from the watery depths of the mirror and pulled Damien with horrible force forward into his own spell.
Their was the sound of both a huge crash and water spilling everywhere.
Chapter 2
I grabbed my head and steadied my gaze until I could stand.
The studio floor was so wet the water was up to my god damn calves. Thank God I had a pair of No Fear Shorts on. They were the baggy style I usually work out in so they were only mildly soaked around the shimmery cuffs. I looked around in amazement as I realized that all the wall mirrors in the studio were gone. Just like fucking gone man! How bizarre is that? I had a vague memory of coming up here to work some of my Mumbo Jumbo but I didn't really recall any one particularly irking me today... I just wrote it off quickly as weird and waded my way to the door.
As soon as I had exited the aquatic dance studio I noticed that my pants were dripping wet and for some reason I wasnt wearing a shirt. What the hell had I been doing? Jesus. This was worse then when I was in high school and drinking heavily. Well whatever I had been doinb I certainly couldn't wander around the gym looking like tom Hanks in "Cast away."
I suddenly had a brilliant idea and hig tailed it to the locker room. By some miracle I managed to avoid everyone I knew and most of the gym patrons. I made my way to the staff lockers and found Gino's locker. I could just borrow some of his clothes, they'd be baggy but they'd be better then....And then I noticed the locker right next to Gino's. It had the name Damien on it...but I didn't....
Why was I going to use Gino's clothes? I know I came here to do paperwork, but that doesn't mean I should be sitting around in my street clothes at the gym? I'll just throw on some of my workout gear....my work out gear? Why did that seem weird? Oh well. I opened the locker and grabbed some clothes and a pair of high tech running shoes. I slipped into a pair of No Fear Shorts that shimmered incandescent red and a wifebeater. The running shoes were black slip on's with red highlights. I remember I had bought them because they had good grip on the tread mills downstairs...but when had I done that....that's strange I can't really remember. I stepped away from my locker and over to the big mirror to inspect myself.
Yep their I was. I know it's really tacky to admit to yourself how good looking you are so I wouldn't say I looked hot (Which I did) but I certainly was striking. The tight white matierial of the undershirt showed the narrowness of my waist while it exposed my road muscular shoulders. My tan made me look even bigger then I was behind the white clothe and my wide pec's strained against the fabric when I moved. All in all it was a nice effect. Yeah yeah I know gay boys and tank tops...but whatever man, no one ever mentions Girls and sports bra's do they? My tattoo glinted menacingly in the reflection but with a quick smile the whole bad boy effect was lost. Alright I look fine time to go face the world....
"Hey Tall Dark and witty you feeling better?" I heard Kenny ask from behind me. I turned around and saw the older man leaning against the wall watching me appraise my intimidating young reflection.
"Yeah I do," I said with another smile, and then rubbed my head, "but for the life of me I can't remember what was wrong with me...ha...."
Kenny straightened up and considered what I said. Even though was about ten years older then me Kenny could still turn heads. I almost got a little hard while I watched him. His rugged good looks were offset by his light red hair. He wa wearing a tight red t shirt that made his already wide back look massive and his jogging pants were just enough to suggest the power and girth of his thighs, "You know what," he said honestly. "I can't remember either."
I shrugged my big shoulders making my tattoo dance, "Neither do i...It must have been really important."
He gave me that comforting older man smile and said, "be careful you don't want to be as bad as the other boys with their drama queen routines. Mark gets five calls a day from Tony and Eddie about everything from bad haircuts to too spicy chinese." He said reffering to his devoted boyfriend and his boyfriend's group of friends. I smiled thinking about ultra put together Kenny and big dumb Mark. Mark was such a sweet guy now but God was he dumb. Which was probably exactly what Kenny needed a gorgeous well intentioned mass of muscle that was totally dependant on him. Nice for Kenny but I'd hate to be Mark in that situation...I winced suddenly when I realized that I was the one who had put Mark in that particular position....oh well he had one the East Coast Heavy weight class last month...at least he was getting a trophy or something out of the deal.
"you okay D? looks like your stomach just turned on you."
"oh no Kenny I'm fine I just remembered that I have all that paperwork to do...I'lll talk to you later okay, maybe we'll work out together if you get a minute. I've been meaning to blast my chest."
Kenny laughed and patted me on the back, "guys your age man, they all want those barrel chest, no matter how much I tell you, Tony and Eddie that your muscles aren'ts developed enough for that kind of growth you still..."
"Ken, your lapsing into trainer speak, I can no longer understand you...." I smiled and waved goodbye as I returned to Gino's office.
I sat plopped down and kicked my feet onto the desk top accidentally knocking a bunch of things to the floor. I mentally cursed at myself for beig so clumsy. Jeez you'd think I wasn't used to being careful because of my size. But I've always been such a big guy I was used to being careful...wasn't I?
I bent over and picked up the discarded items from the floor. Pencils, paper's and a picture frame. I picked up the frame and was pleasantly surprised to find a picture of me and the other roommates with a caption underneath that read, "the boys". It must have been taken one night at the Waterloo when we were all their. I couldn't really place what night but that wasn't that odd I mean we're always their and I'm usually far to inebriated to remember anything much less flashing camera's. It was actually a really cute picture. Their was Red and Hank in the background looking for all the world like two uninterested guys out for a beer,with their button down shirts and kahki's. they looked almost identical except for Red's huge form and ..ugh..that hair. I had been begging him to cut it but he flat out refused and Hank was such a lovesick puppy that he actually told red he liked it.
Gino was in the middle sporting his usual wide grin. His massive Italian body seemed to be busting out of his Red fireman tank top. His olive skin glistened with sweat and his hair was matted to his forehead. He had one heavy Arm around Brian, who was wearing a white t-shirt and Jeans. Classic. I'm sure Forman and Mark weren't far away or maybe this one of those nights the Brian snuck out on his own. Gino's other rested adoringly on my shoulder....I shook my head the picture seemed to blur for a second it seemed like Gino was reaching down to put a hand on my slim arm....And then there I was standing proudly shoulder to shoulder with the lummox wearing blue sleeveless shirt....
"Hey he must've known we were coming" A light masculine voice said from behind me.
"yeah he's already in position." Another laughed.
I turned around quickly as Eddie and Tony giggled their way into the room. "afternoon girl's," I said as I stood up.
"oh no don't get up because of us," tony jeered in his thick hispanic lilt, "I was just enjoyin the view. Although your ass doesn't have enough meat on it for me Chico...you got White boy ass..."
",,,and you need some ghetto in your Booty, I know tony. I know." The three of us laughed and they sat down across from me.
Eddie was blonde tan perfection and Tony was the swarthy dark compliment to it. both their bodies burst in beautiful well formed round perfection from their clothes and they both regarded me from behind flirtasiouc long lashes. I would probably be as hard as a rock if didn't know where the two of them had been, I mean it's fine to be friends with the party Sluts, you just don't want to trade fluids with them.
"I had the best idea." Eddie announced in his typical bubble headed style.
"save it you might need it later." I answered reflexively.
I dodged the stapler he launched at my head as he continued, "I thought it would be great if the three of us went out tonight." He said smiling the self satisfied grin of young white youth.
"You guys go out everynight? What's so special about me tagging along?" I asked as I looked over the figures in front of me.
Tony jumped in quickly noticing that Eddie was loosing my attention, "because boo- what's it they say that get's people trippin' oh I got it- "when the at's away the mice'll play"."
I looked up at the seductive muscle boys, "and what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"It mean's ASSHOLE, Gino's gone and this the perfect opportunity for the mouse to get some play." Eddie snapped as he fixed his hair in the reflection of the desk.
"that doesn't mean anything, I perfectly able to go out even when Gino's here."
There was a long pause and they both stared at me patiently as if I had just announced that I could fly. "whatever," I said dismissing it.
"C'mon! eddie whined. "whenever we see you out your always attached to a bar stool..." eddie started.
"...Or 240 lbs of Italian beef, This is your opportunity to have a good time OUR way." Tony finished.
"I don't know..." I begged off, which is when they pounce.
Eddie got up and began to rub my shoulders and Tony leaned down to look me in the eyes and give me a pout, "Look we need another hot guy to complete this whole Charlies angel vibe we got's goin on," he said splitting his sensual lips into an inviting smile. Eddie's munipulation of my shoulder's was starting to make my better judgment slip.
"I dunno..." I said continuing to back slide.
"Look Damien You need some vanity time while Gino's gone, just to make sure you still got it,I mean you don't spend all that time working out just to impress the other boys at the library do you?" Eddie sneered...
Well that was True.
"alright but I have to finish this work..."
"huh?" they said in unison.
"I have to finish crunching these numbers and then..."
they both were already on their way out having gotten what they wanted. As they left Tony said, "Whatever man, But that's all you. I don't know how you can even concentrate on that triflin shit."
Eddie Laughed making his big pec's bounce, "yeah guys our age are in their Sexual prime. I don't know about you but, I cant concentrate on anything except sex for like 5 minutes."
Tony returned his laugh "Now you know that's True!"
The door shut as he said it and my head kinda felt really fuzzy. I shook the sudden fog from my mind. Those guys are such hoes man. I thought to myself.
I went back to the pages of Budgets and pay rates, but my mind didn't stay their long. For some reason I couldn't keep my mind off of how Tony's Luscious Puerto-rican ass Jumped up and down strainging against the fabric of his running shorts. I bet he wear's a thong. I could just imagine those big melon's of carmal flesh seperated by only a sliver of cloth and his slim muscled mocha thighs wrapped around my neck. His tight calves twisting around my shoulders....the silk and granite flesh of those masculine legs pressing against my ears....
Damn!
Focus Damien.
I started to return to my work but for some reason all I good focus my mind on was the idea of hard bodies gyrating on a dance floor with all eyes on me.
I grabbed my bomber jacket, threw the ridiculous busy work to the floor and ran off after the two muscle boys.
The studio floor was so wet the water was up to my god damn calves. Thank God I had a pair of No Fear Shorts on. They were the baggy style I usually work out in so they were only mildly soaked around the shimmery cuffs. I looked around in amazement as I realized that all the wall mirrors in the studio were gone. Just like fucking gone man! How bizarre is that? I had a vague memory of coming up here to work some of my Mumbo Jumbo but I didn't really recall any one particularly irking me today... I just wrote it off quickly as weird and waded my way to the door.
As soon as I had exited the aquatic dance studio I noticed that my pants were dripping wet and for some reason I wasnt wearing a shirt. What the hell had I been doing? Jesus. This was worse then when I was in high school and drinking heavily. Well whatever I had been doinb I certainly couldn't wander around the gym looking like tom Hanks in "Cast away."
I suddenly had a brilliant idea and hig tailed it to the locker room. By some miracle I managed to avoid everyone I knew and most of the gym patrons. I made my way to the staff lockers and found Gino's locker. I could just borrow some of his clothes, they'd be baggy but they'd be better then....And then I noticed the locker right next to Gino's. It had the name Damien on it...but I didn't....
Why was I going to use Gino's clothes? I know I came here to do paperwork, but that doesn't mean I should be sitting around in my street clothes at the gym? I'll just throw on some of my workout gear....my work out gear? Why did that seem weird? Oh well. I opened the locker and grabbed some clothes and a pair of high tech running shoes. I slipped into a pair of No Fear Shorts that shimmered incandescent red and a wifebeater. The running shoes were black slip on's with red highlights. I remember I had bought them because they had good grip on the tread mills downstairs...but when had I done that....that's strange I can't really remember. I stepped away from my locker and over to the big mirror to inspect myself.
Yep their I was. I know it's really tacky to admit to yourself how good looking you are so I wouldn't say I looked hot (Which I did) but I certainly was striking. The tight white matierial of the undershirt showed the narrowness of my waist while it exposed my road muscular shoulders. My tan made me look even bigger then I was behind the white clothe and my wide pec's strained against the fabric when I moved. All in all it was a nice effect. Yeah yeah I know gay boys and tank tops...but whatever man, no one ever mentions Girls and sports bra's do they? My tattoo glinted menacingly in the reflection but with a quick smile the whole bad boy effect was lost. Alright I look fine time to go face the world....
"Hey Tall Dark and witty you feeling better?" I heard Kenny ask from behind me. I turned around and saw the older man leaning against the wall watching me appraise my intimidating young reflection.
"Yeah I do," I said with another smile, and then rubbed my head, "but for the life of me I can't remember what was wrong with me...ha...."
Kenny straightened up and considered what I said. Even though was about ten years older then me Kenny could still turn heads. I almost got a little hard while I watched him. His rugged good looks were offset by his light red hair. He wa wearing a tight red t shirt that made his already wide back look massive and his jogging pants were just enough to suggest the power and girth of his thighs, "You know what," he said honestly. "I can't remember either."
I shrugged my big shoulders making my tattoo dance, "Neither do i...It must have been really important."
He gave me that comforting older man smile and said, "be careful you don't want to be as bad as the other boys with their drama queen routines. Mark gets five calls a day from Tony and Eddie about everything from bad haircuts to too spicy chinese." He said reffering to his devoted boyfriend and his boyfriend's group of friends. I smiled thinking about ultra put together Kenny and big dumb Mark. Mark was such a sweet guy now but God was he dumb. Which was probably exactly what Kenny needed a gorgeous well intentioned mass of muscle that was totally dependant on him. Nice for Kenny but I'd hate to be Mark in that situation...I winced suddenly when I realized that I was the one who had put Mark in that particular position....oh well he had one the East Coast Heavy weight class last month...at least he was getting a trophy or something out of the deal.
"you okay D? looks like your stomach just turned on you."
"oh no Kenny I'm fine I just remembered that I have all that paperwork to do...I'lll talk to you later okay, maybe we'll work out together if you get a minute. I've been meaning to blast my chest."
Kenny laughed and patted me on the back, "guys your age man, they all want those barrel chest, no matter how much I tell you, Tony and Eddie that your muscles aren'ts developed enough for that kind of growth you still..."
"Ken, your lapsing into trainer speak, I can no longer understand you...." I smiled and waved goodbye as I returned to Gino's office.
I sat plopped down and kicked my feet onto the desk top accidentally knocking a bunch of things to the floor. I mentally cursed at myself for beig so clumsy. Jeez you'd think I wasn't used to being careful because of my size. But I've always been such a big guy I was used to being careful...wasn't I?
I bent over and picked up the discarded items from the floor. Pencils, paper's and a picture frame. I picked up the frame and was pleasantly surprised to find a picture of me and the other roommates with a caption underneath that read, "the boys". It must have been taken one night at the Waterloo when we were all their. I couldn't really place what night but that wasn't that odd I mean we're always their and I'm usually far to inebriated to remember anything much less flashing camera's. It was actually a really cute picture. Their was Red and Hank in the background looking for all the world like two uninterested guys out for a beer,with their button down shirts and kahki's. they looked almost identical except for Red's huge form and ..ugh..that hair. I had been begging him to cut it but he flat out refused and Hank was such a lovesick puppy that he actually told red he liked it.
Gino was in the middle sporting his usual wide grin. His massive Italian body seemed to be busting out of his Red fireman tank top. His olive skin glistened with sweat and his hair was matted to his forehead. He had one heavy Arm around Brian, who was wearing a white t-shirt and Jeans. Classic. I'm sure Forman and Mark weren't far away or maybe this one of those nights the Brian snuck out on his own. Gino's other rested adoringly on my shoulder....I shook my head the picture seemed to blur for a second it seemed like Gino was reaching down to put a hand on my slim arm....And then there I was standing proudly shoulder to shoulder with the lummox wearing blue sleeveless shirt....
"Hey he must've known we were coming" A light masculine voice said from behind me.
"yeah he's already in position." Another laughed.
I turned around quickly as Eddie and Tony giggled their way into the room. "afternoon girl's," I said as I stood up.
"oh no don't get up because of us," tony jeered in his thick hispanic lilt, "I was just enjoyin the view. Although your ass doesn't have enough meat on it for me Chico...you got White boy ass..."
",,,and you need some ghetto in your Booty, I know tony. I know." The three of us laughed and they sat down across from me.
Eddie was blonde tan perfection and Tony was the swarthy dark compliment to it. both their bodies burst in beautiful well formed round perfection from their clothes and they both regarded me from behind flirtasiouc long lashes. I would probably be as hard as a rock if didn't know where the two of them had been, I mean it's fine to be friends with the party Sluts, you just don't want to trade fluids with them.
"I had the best idea." Eddie announced in his typical bubble headed style.
"save it you might need it later." I answered reflexively.
I dodged the stapler he launched at my head as he continued, "I thought it would be great if the three of us went out tonight." He said smiling the self satisfied grin of young white youth.
"You guys go out everynight? What's so special about me tagging along?" I asked as I looked over the figures in front of me.
Tony jumped in quickly noticing that Eddie was loosing my attention, "because boo- what's it they say that get's people trippin' oh I got it- "when the at's away the mice'll play"."
I looked up at the seductive muscle boys, "and what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"It mean's ASSHOLE, Gino's gone and this the perfect opportunity for the mouse to get some play." Eddie snapped as he fixed his hair in the reflection of the desk.
"that doesn't mean anything, I perfectly able to go out even when Gino's here."
There was a long pause and they both stared at me patiently as if I had just announced that I could fly. "whatever," I said dismissing it.
"C'mon! eddie whined. "whenever we see you out your always attached to a bar stool..." eddie started.
"...Or 240 lbs of Italian beef, This is your opportunity to have a good time OUR way." Tony finished.
"I don't know..." I begged off, which is when they pounce.
Eddie got up and began to rub my shoulders and Tony leaned down to look me in the eyes and give me a pout, "Look we need another hot guy to complete this whole Charlies angel vibe we got's goin on," he said splitting his sensual lips into an inviting smile. Eddie's munipulation of my shoulder's was starting to make my better judgment slip.
"I dunno..." I said continuing to back slide.
"Look Damien You need some vanity time while Gino's gone, just to make sure you still got it,I mean you don't spend all that time working out just to impress the other boys at the library do you?" Eddie sneered...
Well that was True.
"alright but I have to finish this work..."
"huh?" they said in unison.
"I have to finish crunching these numbers and then..."
they both were already on their way out having gotten what they wanted. As they left Tony said, "Whatever man, But that's all you. I don't know how you can even concentrate on that triflin shit."
Eddie Laughed making his big pec's bounce, "yeah guys our age are in their Sexual prime. I don't know about you but, I cant concentrate on anything except sex for like 5 minutes."
Tony returned his laugh "Now you know that's True!"
The door shut as he said it and my head kinda felt really fuzzy. I shook the sudden fog from my mind. Those guys are such hoes man. I thought to myself.
I went back to the pages of Budgets and pay rates, but my mind didn't stay their long. For some reason I couldn't keep my mind off of how Tony's Luscious Puerto-rican ass Jumped up and down strainging against the fabric of his running shorts. I bet he wear's a thong. I could just imagine those big melon's of carmal flesh seperated by only a sliver of cloth and his slim muscled mocha thighs wrapped around my neck. His tight calves twisting around my shoulders....the silk and granite flesh of those masculine legs pressing against my ears....
Damn!
Focus Damien.
I started to return to my work but for some reason all I good focus my mind on was the idea of hard bodies gyrating on a dance floor with all eyes on me.
I grabbed my bomber jacket, threw the ridiculous busy work to the floor and ran off after the two muscle boys.
The music was a thunder clap of a thousand different vibrations. The air itself shook with the intensity of the hard pounding trance rhythm of the club. It was this sound that greeted the three young men as they sauntered like proud and hungry tigers onto the club floor. Eddie was wearing his best pair of jeans wich were of course a three hundered dollar pair of already used and written on faded denim. Damien thought for that much money he should have just left his niece with a marker and a pile of dirt alone in a room with a pair of Jordache. His short was of course Abercrombie and Finch, a tight sleeveless number that miraculously somehow made him look less like a flaming queen and more like your average twentysomething.
Tony opted foe the Janet Jackson look. His dark rimmed yes were hidden behind some thick grey, and he wore midnight denim from head to toe.
Damein opted for the more mature look with a cut-off shirt and rave pants...alright so we all kind of looked like twentysomethings trying to regain lost youth.
We Danced all night and the more attention I got the better I liked It. There was nothing but me and all that attnetion. But something was missing. I couldn't place it. I was out. I looked good. Was having fun. But...still nothing. These men couldn't get me hard. They were useless.....What was wrong with me.
I turned to Eddie and told him I was ready to go, out of bordom, he gave me an irritated look, and paused from his intense gyrating dancing "c'mon Damien stop being such a cock block' you know your just a horny slut like the rest of us"
I barely heard tony in the back ground yell, "True that!"
I felt my whole center of gravity change for a second and suddenly I wasn't wearing my rave pants and ripped t- I was shirtless with a pair of low riding jeans that showed off the band of my gleaming white... jock strap! Holy shit! What were those on my nipples...rings holy fuck what was...
And then it was there, there was a large mans hand on the width of my cock covered in denim and I could feel his rigid staff pressed roughly against the crest of mass. His hot sweat hands fumbled across the spce of mass and I leaned back into his thrusting hips hungrily.
I danced like that from man to man for what seemed like hours. Letting them touch me, feel me, own me.
Man after man groped and pulled at me. thrust their tongues in my hungry mouth, fondled my cock while I laughed stupidly high on the euphoria of ther attnention. I don't know how long I was passed along through the club like a humpy party favor but it all didn't break until I found myself on my muscled hand and knees getting ready to go down on this circle of guys like a circus seal...
And then there was a commotion in the crowd. Gino came running through with Gabe close at his heals.
"what the hell is going on?" he yelled.
"I thought you were on business. "I replied Saucily.
"I got a call that I had to handle some here." And he gave Gabe a knowing look, there was a rat.
"yaeah so I'm out having fun..." Damein answered.
Gino grabbed him and spun him around, "look I don't know what kind of game you are playing here, but you just can't walk in and change someone's life and act like nothing happened....there stuff between us and if..."
"Gino" Damein whispered al little frightened..."You're hurting me...."
Gino gave him a dark look, "Yeah well you've been hurting me for a long time. You avoid my attention, you run off with these guys..." he was getting redder and redder, "You won't even kiss me but your ready to go poro on this dance floor for a bunch of nameless party cocks? What the fuck is wrong with you. Why won't you just admit the truth!"
"what do you want from me..." Damien yelped...
"I want the truth," he demanded...
"You can't handle the truth!" I roared back.
"No mother fucker YOU CAN'T"
Damien laughed and shouted angrily...""I PUT A SPELL ON YOU!" And then it seemed like there was a crash of lightening and a thunder clap inside Damien's mind and he fell to the floor...
In the dim lights of his fading consiounce he could here gino say "that's all I needed to hear, baby..."
Everyone around them turned but Gino just ignored them and lead Damien off the floor
Tony opted foe the Janet Jackson look. His dark rimmed yes were hidden behind some thick grey, and he wore midnight denim from head to toe.
Damein opted for the more mature look with a cut-off shirt and rave pants...alright so we all kind of looked like twentysomethings trying to regain lost youth.
We Danced all night and the more attention I got the better I liked It. There was nothing but me and all that attnetion. But something was missing. I couldn't place it. I was out. I looked good. Was having fun. But...still nothing. These men couldn't get me hard. They were useless.....What was wrong with me.
I turned to Eddie and told him I was ready to go, out of bordom, he gave me an irritated look, and paused from his intense gyrating dancing "c'mon Damien stop being such a cock block' you know your just a horny slut like the rest of us"
I barely heard tony in the back ground yell, "True that!"
I felt my whole center of gravity change for a second and suddenly I wasn't wearing my rave pants and ripped t- I was shirtless with a pair of low riding jeans that showed off the band of my gleaming white... jock strap! Holy shit! What were those on my nipples...rings holy fuck what was...
And then it was there, there was a large mans hand on the width of my cock covered in denim and I could feel his rigid staff pressed roughly against the crest of mass. His hot sweat hands fumbled across the spce of mass and I leaned back into his thrusting hips hungrily.
I danced like that from man to man for what seemed like hours. Letting them touch me, feel me, own me.
Man after man groped and pulled at me. thrust their tongues in my hungry mouth, fondled my cock while I laughed stupidly high on the euphoria of ther attnention. I don't know how long I was passed along through the club like a humpy party favor but it all didn't break until I found myself on my muscled hand and knees getting ready to go down on this circle of guys like a circus seal...
And then there was a commotion in the crowd. Gino came running through with Gabe close at his heals.
"what the hell is going on?" he yelled.
"I thought you were on business. "I replied Saucily.
"I got a call that I had to handle some here." And he gave Gabe a knowing look, there was a rat.
"yaeah so I'm out having fun..." Damein answered.
Gino grabbed him and spun him around, "look I don't know what kind of game you are playing here, but you just can't walk in and change someone's life and act like nothing happened....there stuff between us and if..."
"Gino" Damein whispered al little frightened..."You're hurting me...."
Gino gave him a dark look, "Yeah well you've been hurting me for a long time. You avoid my attention, you run off with these guys..." he was getting redder and redder, "You won't even kiss me but your ready to go poro on this dance floor for a bunch of nameless party cocks? What the fuck is wrong with you. Why won't you just admit the truth!"
"what do you want from me..." Damien yelped...
"I want the truth," he demanded...
"You can't handle the truth!" I roared back.
"No mother fucker YOU CAN'T"
Damien laughed and shouted angrily...""I PUT A SPELL ON YOU!" And then it seemed like there was a crash of lightening and a thunder clap inside Damien's mind and he fell to the floor...
In the dim lights of his fading consiounce he could here gino say "that's all I needed to hear, baby..."
Everyone around them turned but Gino just ignored them and lead Damien off the floor
Chapter 3
"My head kind of hurts" Dmaien said as he swayed back and forth for a few minutes. Gino Held him steady. "My Head hurts real bad dude."
"I'll bet it does." Gino replied calmly.
"What happened to me...."
Gino looked down at him with his benign smile "Nothing dude It's just that spell I cast on you got a little tangled up. It's no big deal man...It all worked out for the best- Your fine. Barely a scratch on you."
"The What you did on who?" Damein asked shaking His head.
"Well your probably not going to like this but uhm.... I have somethin real big I have to tell you baby and uhm....it ain't gonna be easy to take- I put a spell on you," he said shyly holding onto the sides of his baggy jeans like a chastised Child.
"What...." Damien stuttered...
"Well I Kind of went through some of your things and I found this potion spell...that would make the person who drank it see the truth...... But I guess I did it wrong...cause it wasn't supposed to change you..." he fumbled.
It all suddenly began to make sense. "Kenny's pep talk my transformation into the ultimate me... and then the deterioration from there...everyone had been telling me what they saw as the truth..." Damein muttered as his head spun toward clarity
"I'll bet it does." Gino replied calmly.
"What happened to me...."
Gino looked down at him with his benign smile "Nothing dude It's just that spell I cast on you got a little tangled up. It's no big deal man...It all worked out for the best- Your fine. Barely a scratch on you."
"The What you did on who?" Damein asked shaking His head.
"Well your probably not going to like this but uhm.... I have somethin real big I have to tell you baby and uhm....it ain't gonna be easy to take- I put a spell on you," he said shyly holding onto the sides of his baggy jeans like a chastised Child.
"What...." Damien stuttered...
"Well I Kind of went through some of your things and I found this potion spell...that would make the person who drank it see the truth...... But I guess I did it wrong...cause it wasn't supposed to change you..." he fumbled.
It all suddenly began to make sense. "Kenny's pep talk my transformation into the ultimate me... and then the deterioration from there...everyone had been telling me what they saw as the truth..." Damein muttered as his head spun toward clarity
...and the spell made me believe them. Instead of finding my own truth. Or maybe the Spell made me realize that even my truth wasn't the real thing, just my skewed perspective of it... like looking at something through a kaleidoscope and trying to make out the shape of an object.
"you see," he continued slowly, "I wanted you to realize you loved me...you kept running from me all the time, I just thought if you could admit it to yourself then you could get rid of all your guilt about the magic thing and we could..." he trailed off."
"Oh shit." Damein mumbled trying to make the swimming in his head stop.
And then the moment stopped and he saw the truth but not the way Gino had intended.
"Oh shit." Damein mumbled trying to make the swimming in his head stop.
And then the moment stopped and he saw the truth but not the way Gino had intended.
His eys seemed to grow a thousand times wider and the blue widened until it was two sparkling pools of black crowned with the barest hint of my blue grey...
I was feeling the full affect of the spell...I could see the truth...all of it.
Somewhere beyond logical thought and between my reality and everyone elses there was the Truth...that I loved Gino...I don't think I was in love with him. But I think it was sa close as I had really ever come to it...
And looking back into those two big pools of his I realized he loved me too...
And then the real truth hit me and I shook so hard I thought I was going to die. Gino grabbed me hard to steady me and I could feel the contents of my stomach heave inside of me in the revulsion at my own revelation.
I was feeling the full affect of the spell...I could see the truth...all of it.
Somewhere beyond logical thought and between my reality and everyone elses there was the Truth...that I loved Gino...I don't think I was in love with him. But I think it was sa close as I had really ever come to it...
And looking back into those two big pools of his I realized he loved me too...
And then the real truth hit me and I shook so hard I thought I was going to die. Gino grabbed me hard to steady me and I could feel the contents of my stomach heave inside of me in the revulsion at my own revelation.
He clutched my shaking hands in his big Paw, "But everything's going to be fine now, because im here and We're going to work through this...I'm sorry," he almost begged.
He was such a good man.
Such a loving, honest and dedicated man.
I Saw the Truth.
And I knew I could no longer tell myself anymore lies. And the moment began again...
Such a loving, honest and dedicated man.
I Saw the Truth.
And I knew I could no longer tell myself anymore lies. And the moment began again...
Damien put one big hand on Gino's chest affectionately and rubbed the inside of shaking Italian Mit with his finger tips wistfully. "You're one of the best men I've ever known Gino...Your Kind, confidant, intelligent and sometimes I look in those big eyes and I see so much of what's good in human kind it hurts..." he dropped both hands and clutched them tightly at his sides. "But I can't stay here with you...like this...."
"What!" Gino Yelled. "I said I was sorry, please Damein I never meant to..."
"But I did!" he answered back sadly with his head down. "I did all this, all this magic all this manipulation...I was arrogant and wrong." He looked up quietly at Gino's stressed almost red rimmed eyes, "and now I have to put it right."
"no! I know all about what you did, how you changed me and Eric and Brian and all the others and I don't care! Do ya here me I don't! I'd much rather stay this way, I'm happy as a gay man, we all are...we've all been able to find love and happiness...I wouldn't be the kind, intelligent example of humanity that you say I am if it wouldn't have been for you..." He yelled angrily.
Damien's crystal eyes blazed iridescent blue rage and he grabbed Gino's arm..."Yes you would have, don't ever underestimate yourself...the way I underestimated you. It's been three years Gino...Three years..You could have grown so much in those three years...except I moved in and pushed you with my hocus pocus and all my self absorbed pseudo-help."
"So you're just going to make us all straight again huh?" he barked.
Damien laughed a little..."No I'm just going to put the control back in everyone's hands...The only Choice I have is to give you all back the choice. I think most of you all would have realized your belligerent ignorance about us queers was because of your own Homo-erogenous issues...and given time you would have realized it yourself...it was wrong of me to steal that from you all because I felt that I knew better."
Gino paused for a second and then looked up with a blank expression, "But I think I'm in love with you."
"I know...and I know I'm in love with you...but I'll never be able to trust it...because at the back of my mind it will always just be another spell.... And maybe you could live with me, knowing all of this... but after tonight I can't live with myself."
"There's nothing I can say?" he asked sadly.
"No...just goodbye I suppose...but it's not like either of us will remember it."
"Alright then..." Gino took one big hand and grabbed Damien by his waist and pulled him close up tight until their foreheads touched and they stood angled into each other's eyes. "I don't care how much you wave a fucking magic wand...I won't ever forget this..." he stroked Damien's cheek with one leathery thumb and pressed his lips firmly into the other man's waiting mouth. One huge arm grabbed him and held him tight as the other held the smaller man's jaw with a shaking hand. Gino pressed his entire wait into Damien as Damien gave himself up to the heroic embrace. Gino Held Damien as if he were trying with his mammoth hulking form to some how shield him from the terrible choice he had made.
The kissed lasted both moments and years, each man absorbing all he could of the others presence until finally Damein slipped from Gino's grasp like water.
He stood back and watched as two tears steamed down the dimpled olive skinned cheeks...
Damien smiled a long tragic sigh and gave the big lout one last beaming chin up smile. "Thank you."
Gino looked up startled..."for what?"
"For Helping me find myself...I started out on this whole little errand thinking all was going to do was teach a bunch of straight jocks a lesson by making them into gay wet dreams...but I didn't realize that they were people...not concepts; the jocks and the wet dreams... I was wrong. I thought all along it was about changing all of you...but it was really about changing myself not just physically," he said as he watched with facinatio at the movements of his muscled arm, "But mentally too, if I had it all to do again...I might have done it differently......Goodbye Gino........" he convulsed in a long shudder of pain... "goodbye..."
His hands swooped up like lightening and the air seemed to crackle with unseen energy. Damien closed his eyes and pictured his room in his mind, the piles of magic texts, his notebooks and all his varies arcane equipment. A memory of a far off world accord to him...of the young boy who quietly read his thick books while the other kids laughed and carried on during High school lit. Class. He saw the timid younger version of him quietly isolated reading dusty old fiction and dreaming away the day when he would be able to teach all these kids a lesson.
"From Shakespeare to Necromancy...what a leap," he said sadly. "Sorry pal...you'll thank me later."
But the memory did more then make him realize the error of his intentions it made him remember the perfect spell to break all his enchantments...
"This Rough magic
I here abjure, and when I have required
Some heavenly music...which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for. I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper then did ever plummet sound" He paused for a moment thinking of Gino's tear rimmed eyes...and then steadied himself.
"I'll drown my book..."
In the far reaches of Damein's mind's eye he struck a match and dropped it onto the dusty tomes. They lit up like fireworks at the break of dawn. The world lurched beneath him and his vision became a carousel like view of swirling colors in a maelstrom around him. As the fire blazed he lost his tenuous control on the energy he had invoked and gave himself up onto the tempest.
* * * "What!" Gino Yelled. "I said I was sorry, please Damein I never meant to..."
"But I did!" he answered back sadly with his head down. "I did all this, all this magic all this manipulation...I was arrogant and wrong." He looked up quietly at Gino's stressed almost red rimmed eyes, "and now I have to put it right."
"no! I know all about what you did, how you changed me and Eric and Brian and all the others and I don't care! Do ya here me I don't! I'd much rather stay this way, I'm happy as a gay man, we all are...we've all been able to find love and happiness...I wouldn't be the kind, intelligent example of humanity that you say I am if it wouldn't have been for you..." He yelled angrily.
Damien's crystal eyes blazed iridescent blue rage and he grabbed Gino's arm..."Yes you would have, don't ever underestimate yourself...the way I underestimated you. It's been three years Gino...Three years..You could have grown so much in those three years...except I moved in and pushed you with my hocus pocus and all my self absorbed pseudo-help."
"So you're just going to make us all straight again huh?" he barked.
Damien laughed a little..."No I'm just going to put the control back in everyone's hands...The only Choice I have is to give you all back the choice. I think most of you all would have realized your belligerent ignorance about us queers was because of your own Homo-erogenous issues...and given time you would have realized it yourself...it was wrong of me to steal that from you all because I felt that I knew better."
Gino paused for a second and then looked up with a blank expression, "But I think I'm in love with you."
"I know...and I know I'm in love with you...but I'll never be able to trust it...because at the back of my mind it will always just be another spell.... And maybe you could live with me, knowing all of this... but after tonight I can't live with myself."
"There's nothing I can say?" he asked sadly.
"No...just goodbye I suppose...but it's not like either of us will remember it."
"Alright then..." Gino took one big hand and grabbed Damien by his waist and pulled him close up tight until their foreheads touched and they stood angled into each other's eyes. "I don't care how much you wave a fucking magic wand...I won't ever forget this..." he stroked Damien's cheek with one leathery thumb and pressed his lips firmly into the other man's waiting mouth. One huge arm grabbed him and held him tight as the other held the smaller man's jaw with a shaking hand. Gino pressed his entire wait into Damien as Damien gave himself up to the heroic embrace. Gino Held Damien as if he were trying with his mammoth hulking form to some how shield him from the terrible choice he had made.
The kissed lasted both moments and years, each man absorbing all he could of the others presence until finally Damein slipped from Gino's grasp like water.
He stood back and watched as two tears steamed down the dimpled olive skinned cheeks...
Damien smiled a long tragic sigh and gave the big lout one last beaming chin up smile. "Thank you."
Gino looked up startled..."for what?"
"For Helping me find myself...I started out on this whole little errand thinking all was going to do was teach a bunch of straight jocks a lesson by making them into gay wet dreams...but I didn't realize that they were people...not concepts; the jocks and the wet dreams... I was wrong. I thought all along it was about changing all of you...but it was really about changing myself not just physically," he said as he watched with facinatio at the movements of his muscled arm, "But mentally too, if I had it all to do again...I might have done it differently......Goodbye Gino........" he convulsed in a long shudder of pain... "goodbye..."
His hands swooped up like lightening and the air seemed to crackle with unseen energy. Damien closed his eyes and pictured his room in his mind, the piles of magic texts, his notebooks and all his varies arcane equipment. A memory of a far off world accord to him...of the young boy who quietly read his thick books while the other kids laughed and carried on during High school lit. Class. He saw the timid younger version of him quietly isolated reading dusty old fiction and dreaming away the day when he would be able to teach all these kids a lesson.
"From Shakespeare to Necromancy...what a leap," he said sadly. "Sorry pal...you'll thank me later."
But the memory did more then make him realize the error of his intentions it made him remember the perfect spell to break all his enchantments...
"This Rough magic
I here abjure, and when I have required
Some heavenly music...which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for. I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper then did ever plummet sound" He paused for a moment thinking of Gino's tear rimmed eyes...and then steadied himself.
"I'll drown my book..."
In the far reaches of Damein's mind's eye he struck a match and dropped it onto the dusty tomes. They lit up like fireworks at the break of dawn. The world lurched beneath him and his vision became a carousel like view of swirling colors in a maelstrom around him. As the fire blazed he lost his tenuous control on the energy he had invoked and gave himself up onto the tempest.
As the books blazed in the background he could see Red and hank crawling into their large bed both tired and talking about their day. They both paused as they reached for their identical bedside lamps and suddenly turned to each other, "Eric...," Hank asked using Red's real name for the first time, "Yeah,"
"Do you ever wander what it would have been like if we would have never met"
Eric paused considering the question, "Yeah but then I usually start shivering and thanking God I know you're waiting for me at home...." Hank smiled and rolled closer to him.
The room blurred for a second and when the vision cleared it was still Red and hank in their bed but now it was a much nicer room with better furniture and antiques. The two men in the bed were still both hairy bodybuilder's but Red's face was no longer the exaggerated masculinity of the trucker he was. No, Eric's clean-cut looks replaced them and he finally had a decent haircut. His crewcut was short and neat.
"What time do you have to work," hank mumbled, as Eric attacked him with hungry lips.
"Same as usual 6am...Gotta get to the office before Patricia or she won't let it go all day." Eric smiled.
"You make a good team," hank pointed out.
"I know but we make a better one." And with that the vision swirled into a tumble of blankets and hairy muscular legs...
"Do you ever wander what it would have been like if we would have never met"
Eric paused considering the question, "Yeah but then I usually start shivering and thanking God I know you're waiting for me at home...." Hank smiled and rolled closer to him.
The room blurred for a second and when the vision cleared it was still Red and hank in their bed but now it was a much nicer room with better furniture and antiques. The two men in the bed were still both hairy bodybuilder's but Red's face was no longer the exaggerated masculinity of the trucker he was. No, Eric's clean-cut looks replaced them and he finally had a decent haircut. His crewcut was short and neat.
"What time do you have to work," hank mumbled, as Eric attacked him with hungry lips.
"Same as usual 6am...Gotta get to the office before Patricia or she won't let it go all day." Eric smiled.
"You make a good team," hank pointed out.
"I know but we make a better one." And with that the vision swirled into a tumble of blankets and hairy muscular legs...
Damien smiled to himself a quick quiet smile, "So Eric decided to keep hank but return to the Office...I would never have guessed...At least he fixed that God damn hair..."
Again he tumbled through the kaleidoscope of color, now he was in Gabriel and David's Salon. Gabriel was busy cutting David's already tight hair into a close fade. "Just sit still will you!"
"I can't," Dave's rich voice boomed back, "You keep rubbing up against me." He pinched the smaller Latin man on his big ass to emphasis his point.
"Ya so I guess you like my Ass beta then Gotie's"
"Who?"
"You know Gottie my ex-girlfriend."
"oh her..." Gabe paused and put down the shaver..."Do you still think about her often?"
"Not really. Every now and again..."
"Oh..."
David pulled gabe's lithe frame into the crook of his massive spread thighs and stroked his arm, "just because I regret something doesn't mean I'd change a damn thing...It's a shame what happened between all of us...but she would have just got hurt in the long run. Let her find some man to really love her... the way I found one to love me..."
They kissed.
"I can't," Dave's rich voice boomed back, "You keep rubbing up against me." He pinched the smaller Latin man on his big ass to emphasis his point.
"Ya so I guess you like my Ass beta then Gotie's"
"Who?"
"You know Gottie my ex-girlfriend."
"oh her..." Gabe paused and put down the shaver..."Do you still think about her often?"
"Not really. Every now and again..."
"Oh..."
David pulled gabe's lithe frame into the crook of his massive spread thighs and stroked his arm, "just because I regret something doesn't mean I'd change a damn thing...It's a shame what happened between all of us...but she would have just got hurt in the long run. Let her find some man to really love her... the way I found one to love me..."
They kissed.
The room switched to a dirty kitchen. To large frames hulked beside the kitchen cabinets in the shadows... they were large and naked and the sounds of heavy passion rung through the air like the barks of wild animals.
Their was a crash...the sound of a dish breaking and then..."goddammit." That was Forman's voice...Brian's Football coach.
"Ya know what we need around her'a? Mark's tough Alabama accent questioned back.
"a slaveboy?" Forman offered...
"No you pig!"
"hey you're the cop!"
"Shut-up coach we need a dishwasha so's we don have all these damn dirty dishes around." Mark snapped back,
"oh...that makes sense... but I'd still like a slaveboy..."
"That's disgusting Forman, now shut up and turn around...already...."
Their was a crash...the sound of a dish breaking and then..."goddammit." That was Forman's voice...Brian's Football coach.
"Ya know what we need around her'a? Mark's tough Alabama accent questioned back.
"a slaveboy?" Forman offered...
"No you pig!"
"hey you're the cop!"
"Shut-up coach we need a dishwasha so's we don have all these damn dirty dishes around." Mark snapped back,
"oh...that makes sense... but I'd still like a slaveboy..."
"That's disgusting Forman, now shut up and turn around...already...."
Damien shook his head as the scene changed again the motion making him mildly seasick..."what was going on? Where was Brian wasn't that his scenario...shouldn't he be with Forman and Mark...or maybe the spell worked the way Damien intended and Brian had decided to return to his old life.... Good for him.
The crowded dance floor of the waterloo came into frame and Damien could see the boys from the gym clustered in a laughing circle. They looked at each other with their glasses raised. Jarod was sporting a broad smile as he hugged Eddie's giggling frame hard to his Jean and leather encased body.
Mark, Tony and Kenny fell on top of each other with laughter and from the crowd of men Deana strode with a confidant smile. "I told you that's what the Tattoo says and that what the tattoo said!"
Tony laughed the hardest and the longest as he patted Deana's back; "Good work Deana!"
"What does it say" mark questioned tearing himself away from his lover Kenny's eyes.
"neva you mind connan, that's a secret between me and half the population of this city." Deana answered back.
Tony laughed and gave her a pat on the head, "Now Deana you may play that tramp riff with everybody else but we know the real deal."
Deana gave a sweet little smile "shhhh don't give away all my secrets...but half the city has seen that tattoo on my ass," she turned quickly to Mark and explained, "I decided to moon channel 12 at the last pride parade." They all giggled.
"You know what I think," Jarod's heavy voice intoned as he rubbed eddie's adorant shoulders.
"what?" Eddie asked.
"I think you should get my name tatooed on your thigh." Jarod said leering.
Eddie nodded his head dumbly, "Yeah you're right and after that I should let you brand me with a hot iron...maybe something tasteful like "pussyboy" or "cockholster"." Eddie Gave Jarod an irritated smack on his big leg.
The bigger man smiled and leaned into Jarod with his huge hairy chest and gave the smaller man a tender squeeze, "it was just a thought."
"Look baby," Eddie said turning around suggestively with one of his eyes crooked, "I can deal with a little rope burn and you ripping most of my clothes to shreds every time you get a hard on...but the first time you even think of putting a collar on me you're going to find out how significantly worse this bitch's bite is then his bark."
"Point taken." Jarod laughed and pulled Eddie into a tight kiss.
Kenny looked up from their revere of looking in each others eyes and turned to look at the crowd. "uhm I'm glad you guys are all here, since you all are our closest friends and we want to share this with you."
They all looked at Kenny and Mark intently. Both were dressed in crisp J. Crew shirts and slacks that hugged their frames like wet clothe. Kenny in his dark navy button down that made his excellent figure look devastatingly debonair and Mark in his big white turtle neck that made him seem almost impossibly more huge. "we just want you all to know so that you don't find out from anyone else but..."
"HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT ROCK!" Eddie exclaimed pulling up one of Mark's massive paws to showcase the large emerald set in a wide band of platinum.
Kenny then exposed the same ring on his own hand but garnished with a large ruby.
"We just decided to do it for us...it's not like we're going to have a ceremony on the beach or anything...it's just so we both know that..." Kenny fumbled embarrassed
"We're together...for life." Mark finished putting one massive arm around his lover and giving him a confidant look in the eye.
"That's great." Eddie and jarod intoned at the same time.
"Hell yeah!" Tony shouted.
"AWWW You're his Lobster!" Deana cheered.
"Huh?" they all said turning to her confusedly
"Well you see lobsters mate for life and on this episode of friends Phoebe......."
Mark, Tony and Kenny fell on top of each other with laughter and from the crowd of men Deana strode with a confidant smile. "I told you that's what the Tattoo says and that what the tattoo said!"
Tony laughed the hardest and the longest as he patted Deana's back; "Good work Deana!"
"What does it say" mark questioned tearing himself away from his lover Kenny's eyes.
"neva you mind connan, that's a secret between me and half the population of this city." Deana answered back.
Tony laughed and gave her a pat on the head, "Now Deana you may play that tramp riff with everybody else but we know the real deal."
Deana gave a sweet little smile "shhhh don't give away all my secrets...but half the city has seen that tattoo on my ass," she turned quickly to Mark and explained, "I decided to moon channel 12 at the last pride parade." They all giggled.
"You know what I think," Jarod's heavy voice intoned as he rubbed eddie's adorant shoulders.
"what?" Eddie asked.
"I think you should get my name tatooed on your thigh." Jarod said leering.
Eddie nodded his head dumbly, "Yeah you're right and after that I should let you brand me with a hot iron...maybe something tasteful like "pussyboy" or "cockholster"." Eddie Gave Jarod an irritated smack on his big leg.
The bigger man smiled and leaned into Jarod with his huge hairy chest and gave the smaller man a tender squeeze, "it was just a thought."
"Look baby," Eddie said turning around suggestively with one of his eyes crooked, "I can deal with a little rope burn and you ripping most of my clothes to shreds every time you get a hard on...but the first time you even think of putting a collar on me you're going to find out how significantly worse this bitch's bite is then his bark."
"Point taken." Jarod laughed and pulled Eddie into a tight kiss.
Kenny looked up from their revere of looking in each others eyes and turned to look at the crowd. "uhm I'm glad you guys are all here, since you all are our closest friends and we want to share this with you."
They all looked at Kenny and Mark intently. Both were dressed in crisp J. Crew shirts and slacks that hugged their frames like wet clothe. Kenny in his dark navy button down that made his excellent figure look devastatingly debonair and Mark in his big white turtle neck that made him seem almost impossibly more huge. "we just want you all to know so that you don't find out from anyone else but..."
"HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT ROCK!" Eddie exclaimed pulling up one of Mark's massive paws to showcase the large emerald set in a wide band of platinum.
Kenny then exposed the same ring on his own hand but garnished with a large ruby.
"We just decided to do it for us...it's not like we're going to have a ceremony on the beach or anything...it's just so we both know that..." Kenny fumbled embarrassed
"We're together...for life." Mark finished putting one massive arm around his lover and giving him a confidant look in the eye.
"That's great." Eddie and jarod intoned at the same time.
"Hell yeah!" Tony shouted.
"AWWW You're his Lobster!" Deana cheered.
"Huh?" they all said turning to her confusedly
"Well you see lobsters mate for life and on this episode of friends Phoebe......."
Love, Friends and a place to hang out...maybe all this wasn't so misguided...
And again the world was spinning beyond his control his view coming in and out of scenes until settling on a busy television set with people running everywhere and camera's rolling on a highly lit stage. On the stage four extremely atrative young men sat in almost identicle outfits of denim and polo shirts answering questions posed by an overtly perky woman in far too much pastel
"...and you all don't feel that your openness about your homosexuality is going to hurt your career?" the woman asked happily as if she asked them for their favorite cookie recipe.
The tall dark haired one seemed to pull forward and answer the question before the other four men had a chance. "well you see Gayle, We're trying to help young gay men more then we are trying to gain acceptance in the music industry..."
The woman looked confused an expression she was probably accustomed to. "I don't quite get your...point."
"you see young men today are taught through the mainstream media and the Gay community itself is that the only way you can be accepted and feel good about yourself is if you party all the time take a lot of drugs and sleep around and do everything you can to achieve that."
The young blonde man sitting next to the very intelligent and verbal slim brunette cleared his throat and the tall man automaticly differed to the cute little guy, "their's a lot more to being a man in the gay community and we want to expose the enxt generation of young men to those positives instead of re-inforcing negative body and lifestyle images. We're all not drag queens, porn kings and drug addicts...and you don't have to be either." He looked to the dark haired companion and gave his neck a familiar almost affectionate squeeze..."there's a lot more to being gay then that."
The other three men agreed in a loud chorus.
The perky pants suit returned her gaze to stage right and looked directly into one of the lens aimed at her, "Well there you have it the 5 out and proud members of "U'VE Got MALE" on their recent success and on their lives! Don't miss their live performance of their latest single after we come back from this short...."
"...and you all don't feel that your openness about your homosexuality is going to hurt your career?" the woman asked happily as if she asked them for their favorite cookie recipe.
The tall dark haired one seemed to pull forward and answer the question before the other four men had a chance. "well you see Gayle, We're trying to help young gay men more then we are trying to gain acceptance in the music industry..."
The woman looked confused an expression she was probably accustomed to. "I don't quite get your...point."
"you see young men today are taught through the mainstream media and the Gay community itself is that the only way you can be accepted and feel good about yourself is if you party all the time take a lot of drugs and sleep around and do everything you can to achieve that."
The young blonde man sitting next to the very intelligent and verbal slim brunette cleared his throat and the tall man automaticly differed to the cute little guy, "their's a lot more to being a man in the gay community and we want to expose the enxt generation of young men to those positives instead of re-inforcing negative body and lifestyle images. We're all not drag queens, porn kings and drug addicts...and you don't have to be either." He looked to the dark haired companion and gave his neck a familiar almost affectionate squeeze..."there's a lot more to being gay then that."
The other three men agreed in a loud chorus.
The perky pants suit returned her gaze to stage right and looked directly into one of the lens aimed at her, "Well there you have it the 5 out and proud members of "U'VE Got MALE" on their recent success and on their lives! Don't miss their live performance of their latest single after we come back from this short...."
Spinning and more spinning, The scene was gone the colors began to blur into a hot white nonsense that pulled Damien an all sides. His head began to throb and for a moment he was sure he saw two men in a rowboat pass by and a rooster perched on a white picket fence zing passed his head.
The terrible vortex pulled tighter and tighter untill their was nothing left but tension and white light. Damien became so intrenched in the storm of energy he could no longer tell where it began and where he ended.
And then nothing.
Just black and Damien alone.
Nothingness everywhere.
A void so large to cast shadows on every part of his body but so small that he felt completely isolated in the emptiness.
"Well this sure as hell isn't kansas....FUCK!" he sweared.
"I thought you had decided to for go all those Gay Stereotypes from now on..." an urbane voice asked from behind him in the fathoms of darkness.
"that's not a gay comment anyone who just experienced that would have made a Dorothy reference man." He answered back automatically.
He could make out the vague figure of a man advancing toward him at a slow stroll, "Point taken," the man agreed in a good natured tone.
"uhm...not that I don't love the minimalist motif but uhm where am I?" Damien asked with mild fright.
The figure continued it's Sunday stroll toward him almost close enough to make out the face, "I think the better Question is... where aren't you?"
"Oh christ this is going to end up one like one of those irritating Chaos theory discussions about infinity and the non-existence of time as a linear structure isn't it." Damien whined.
"no," the figure answered back, "That's just my evasive and mystical way of telling you nothing and also politely telling you not to ask again."
"ah I get it, thanx for the honesty, I appreciate the truth."
"I'd hope so after all that you've been through." And then the figure stepped into the light and damien jolted back in shock.
"Brian!" Before him stood the college jock who he had changed into a happy leather boy. But now it seemed like a different Brian more mature and intelligent. He wore a simple t-shirt and jeans that hugged his athletic beefy form.
"not exactly,' the man said with a smile.
Damien Crouched down in a tight huddle unable to recognize what was going on. "What's going on..." he bayed unable to process the entire situation.
"Well that's another one of those complicated questions dude, but if you really want the answer..." The Brian figure answered speculatively.
"I think I deserve one." Damien demanded.
"yeah I suppose you do." The other man laughed, "you see Damien..." Damien's head shot up because the voice had changed and suddenly mark stood before him but as he was originally, mousey brown hair, glasses and all. "We had to test cha pal." Mark leaned down and patted Damien's shoulder.
"mark..." Damien groaned, "now I'm really confused."
"bare with me here killer. I'm not Mark either...or I was...but that's not the point...okay here we go and pay attention because if I have to repeat it, you'll really be confused. " The figure that looked like Mark raised it's hand and pointed toward a space in the inky blackness. The dark cleared and then their was a clear picture of Damien with all his books on the occult and magic, studying diligently and putting his knowledge of his Art to use. "ya see Chief you were a child prodigy from the beginning and even though the majority of people think magic is something produced Via blue screen and computer animation by george lucas, you and I know it's something quite different."
Then mark looked down at Damien, "And we both know how dangerous that kind of power is...and in the wrong hands...well I don't have to tell you."
- The scene changed again and Damein studying became Damien having a drink with his friend's Stacey and mark over what seemed like aeons ago...
"It's just not Fair" Mark whined into his beer, "They're Assholes!"
"Yes, Yes they are," the image of me replied
"It's Ok Mark you can stay with me till you find a place," Stacey said as she gave him a big hug. It was a Kodak moment.
"They were all my friends, but when they found out I was gay... They all went crazy. Gino through me against the wall and Brian was ready to kick my ass."
"So they kicked you out? I guess that means they'll be looking for a new roommate?" I asked him.
Both Stacey and Mark stared at the me in the scene in horror. "I'm not looking for a better deal on the rent. I just think someone ought to teach your buddies a well deserved lesson."
Stacey said worriedly, "What are you gonna do Damien."
"What good is being a major in ancient religious philosophy with a focus on the occult, if you can't put it in to practical use?" the dark smile I gave her made me shiver.
"What are ya gonna do, put a curse on them?"
I put my long black coat on and left the table, and saw Stacey call after me, "Or turn em into frogs"
I opened the door to the bar and turned around and met her eyes, with my ice blue "not... frogs..."-
The terrible vortex pulled tighter and tighter untill their was nothing left but tension and white light. Damien became so intrenched in the storm of energy he could no longer tell where it began and where he ended.
And then nothing.
Just black and Damien alone.
Nothingness everywhere.
A void so large to cast shadows on every part of his body but so small that he felt completely isolated in the emptiness.
"Well this sure as hell isn't kansas....FUCK!" he sweared.
"I thought you had decided to for go all those Gay Stereotypes from now on..." an urbane voice asked from behind him in the fathoms of darkness.
"that's not a gay comment anyone who just experienced that would have made a Dorothy reference man." He answered back automatically.
He could make out the vague figure of a man advancing toward him at a slow stroll, "Point taken," the man agreed in a good natured tone.
"uhm...not that I don't love the minimalist motif but uhm where am I?" Damien asked with mild fright.
The figure continued it's Sunday stroll toward him almost close enough to make out the face, "I think the better Question is... where aren't you?"
"Oh christ this is going to end up one like one of those irritating Chaos theory discussions about infinity and the non-existence of time as a linear structure isn't it." Damien whined.
"no," the figure answered back, "That's just my evasive and mystical way of telling you nothing and also politely telling you not to ask again."
"ah I get it, thanx for the honesty, I appreciate the truth."
"I'd hope so after all that you've been through." And then the figure stepped into the light and damien jolted back in shock.
"Brian!" Before him stood the college jock who he had changed into a happy leather boy. But now it seemed like a different Brian more mature and intelligent. He wore a simple t-shirt and jeans that hugged his athletic beefy form.
"not exactly,' the man said with a smile.
Damien Crouched down in a tight huddle unable to recognize what was going on. "What's going on..." he bayed unable to process the entire situation.
"Well that's another one of those complicated questions dude, but if you really want the answer..." The Brian figure answered speculatively.
"I think I deserve one." Damien demanded.
"yeah I suppose you do." The other man laughed, "you see Damien..." Damien's head shot up because the voice had changed and suddenly mark stood before him but as he was originally, mousey brown hair, glasses and all. "We had to test cha pal." Mark leaned down and patted Damien's shoulder.
"mark..." Damien groaned, "now I'm really confused."
"bare with me here killer. I'm not Mark either...or I was...but that's not the point...okay here we go and pay attention because if I have to repeat it, you'll really be confused. " The figure that looked like Mark raised it's hand and pointed toward a space in the inky blackness. The dark cleared and then their was a clear picture of Damien with all his books on the occult and magic, studying diligently and putting his knowledge of his Art to use. "ya see Chief you were a child prodigy from the beginning and even though the majority of people think magic is something produced Via blue screen and computer animation by george lucas, you and I know it's something quite different."
Then mark looked down at Damien, "And we both know how dangerous that kind of power is...and in the wrong hands...well I don't have to tell you."
- The scene changed again and Damein studying became Damien having a drink with his friend's Stacey and mark over what seemed like aeons ago...
"It's just not Fair" Mark whined into his beer, "They're Assholes!"
"Yes, Yes they are," the image of me replied
"It's Ok Mark you can stay with me till you find a place," Stacey said as she gave him a big hug. It was a Kodak moment.
"They were all my friends, but when they found out I was gay... They all went crazy. Gino through me against the wall and Brian was ready to kick my ass."
"So they kicked you out? I guess that means they'll be looking for a new roommate?" I asked him.
Both Stacey and Mark stared at the me in the scene in horror. "I'm not looking for a better deal on the rent. I just think someone ought to teach your buddies a well deserved lesson."
Stacey said worriedly, "What are you gonna do Damien."
"What good is being a major in ancient religious philosophy with a focus on the occult, if you can't put it in to practical use?" the dark smile I gave her made me shiver.
"What are ya gonna do, put a curse on them?"
I put my long black coat on and left the table, and saw Stacey call after me, "Or turn em into frogs"
I opened the door to the bar and turned around and met her eyes, with my ice blue "not... frogs..."-
"and so your test began...We wanted to see how you'd play out the little scenario..." the figure answered back but now it was Stacy's light sweet tone. I looked up and their stood my old friend with her sweet defiant glare.
"and of course your repressed desperate libido went automatically for..."
"and of course your repressed desperate libido went automatically for..."
-the scene changed to the house I had so come to love, Gino strolled in all pissed off. His dark hair was matted under his ball cap, and he looked messy like he was rolling around. He wore a big parka but had it hung open wide so as to let the wife-beater T-shirt that hugged his muscled torso be exposed. His big somewhat hairy pec's were tightly encased in the thin white cotton and his gold name chain, glittered against his sweaty olive skin. I squinted at his bulging chest and could just make out the imprint of his very big round nipples, and began to get hard. I looked at his big baggy jeans and absently wandered what kind of legs he had. Probably big muscled thighs covered with dark leg hair, and even those wide jeans couldn't hide his obvious spectacular bubble but. The band of his boxers peaked ostentatiously over his belt and I thought how sad it was that he wore those and not something more erotic. I thought about how big his cock was and what it would be like to suck on that big Italian meat, listen to his big masculine voice beg for more, beg to be fucked. The baggy boxers and baggy jeans however awkwardly called attention to the massive erection that was making a circus tent on his crouch.-
"You went right to that like Catnip" The stacey figure laughed.
Then the Scene Changed as Gino did. He went from hard as nails mean as Itlain thug to totally shaved peroxide club boy blonde. He saw Gino giving head to some gorgeous man at the gym, and then returning in the ostentatious pair of red lycra boots...
"Oh God, I'm such a pig..." Damien groaned.
"moderately yes," stacey answered back.
"and then of course their was, Gabe and David." And then stacey was Allanna with her long braids caressing her shoulders " I thought your little hex on them was particularly cute..."
He watched as Gabe and David turned from hard ghetto players to two loving compassionate men completely devoted to each other.
Damine looked back at Allanna finally making a very important connection, "Hey if you...whoever you are were pretending to be all these people this entire time then...how did...I mean... did everything happen..or was it all a...I mean you couldn't be both...is stacey... I mean....area alll those..."
Allanna looked at him with irritation and bemusement, "What an articulate little guy you are, jeez Regis Philbin doesn't have a lick on you mr. Vocabulary. No all of it was real and I really didn't actually become these people...I just kind of borrowed them to keep an eye on you and to further the test from time to time..."
Then Hank's booming voice echoed in his ears "You know, I think it might have been with Eric that you started to go to far..." Hank's big hand waved in front of the image mirror, and he saw Eric descend from everything he was to everything he hated.
"but it think some of your best work might have been those corporate sharks that were giving your heart throb such a hard time." Now the figure was no longer Hank's burly masculine frame but Kenny's muscled lithe athletic form. He watched each of the four offenders change from thirty something jaded miserable martini bar barracuda's into carefree fun loving club and gym kids.
"I didn't really understand the whole Club thing though," the figure admitted in Deana's bawdy bravado, "but then I realized you were trying to help not only those boys but that sweet girl to." The boys of Rancid freshened up before his eyes into the crisp clean good hearted young men that they could have been.
Deana looked at Damien's floundering form before her, "It was quite amazing...with each test you both passed and failed. You would use your powers to subvert someone elses destiny but you always gave them a silver lining never letting them be beyond happiness. In your own twisted machiavellian way you managed to give all of them true love. You made Gabe and David realize that they're friendship was way more then platonic. You lead Eric to Hank...the true love he would have never found on his own. Gave Eddie to Jarod, Mark to Kenny and tony..." Deana laughed to herself a little, "I don't think tony is ever going to be ready to pair...off even if he was gay or even straight but that remains to be seen..."
"I don't get any of this..."
"It's magic dimwit." Deana Spat. "We can't allow any idiot who can read a book on Elemental invocation and spell casting to go running around like halfcocked." She let out an uncomfortable cough, "so to speak, anyway Once you demonstrate enough knowledge and Art to bring you to our attention we set up a period of testing...to make sure you were worthy to proceed to the next step. It's pretty interesting that all your successes are failures as well. But it was the real test that you failed."
"hey I didn't force Gino to love me I broke that spell!" Damien retorted defensively...
"yes and had that been the only part of your test you would have passed. but that wasn't all of your test, that however may just be what saved your sorry ass in the end."
"Hey wait a minute" Damien answered back, looking Deana in her lovely over done sparkled eye shadowed eyes. "What about Brian? I did some horrible stuff to Brian...and to mark to..."
Deana gave him a shadowy mysterious grin, and then with a forboding look said, "or at least you thought you did.." she paused, "this is where things get really murky...this is another one of those things if I repeat, won't make any sense...you see Damien technically you are Brian...or at least you could have been Brian..." Deana began to taper off...
"WHAT?" Damien snapped. "me and Brian yeah right we are nothing alike..."
"Really describe Brian in three words."
Damien thought about it, "Arrogant, narrow minded and mean."
"Now think of how you started this whole thing.... How you were when you moved into that house and what you had planned for those poor boys before you even got to know them.... You were Arrogant to think it was your place to teach them a lesson, narrow minded belieiving you were right and making no attempt to find out the motivations beneath their actions and mean well... you set out to break Gino's heart, make Eric into everything he hated and then Brian...poor Collared and humiliated Brian...."
"Hey I had good intentions! I only wanted to let them walk a mile in someone else's shoes." He sad sitting up and beginning to defend himself against the character attack.
"Which paved your way to hell nicely. Did it ever occur to you in your narrow minded queer way that perhaps underneath all these men were actually gay and trying to come to terms with it. And that Mark's ostentatious flamboyance made them uncomfortable not because of the simple "I Hate Fags because That's Gross" but was instead "I Hate Fags cause I think I might be one." Deana said patiently.
"oh shit...You gotta be kidding."
Deana gave him a long steady look and then soundly smacked him on an up sweep across his head. "You've changed Men Physically and mentally, rearranged time, undid it all and are now conversing with a mysterious shape shifting precsence in a limbo like space beyond reality AND NOW YOU GET IT TOGETHER TO HAVE DISBELIEF ISSUES!!!"
Damien rubbed his aching head, "sorry..."
"These guys would have probably come to these conclusions on their own given time but you interfered..." she gave him as soft pleasant look then.... "however instead of the egomaniacal punishment you seemed to want to give them you've shown all these men what they're gay side looks like and helped them evolve to a deeper sense of love and selfrespect..."
"Oh wow... are you oprah? Because only Oprah talks with all that sentimental deeper love and self respect gibbirish and I've always had this sneaking suspision that God was a wise black woman..." He asked the figure.
"there's the acidic smart ass I've come to know and love" the buxom apparition said sweetly and then kicked him firmly in the ass with one pointed shoe. He yelped and she sighed contentedly, But since you sought to show all these supposedly "straight" men what they're gay doppelgangers looked like... we gave you a little peek at what your straight side looks like."
And then the figure was again Brian, There stood in all his glory Mr. Athlete. His hard one muscle and thickly built body stared back at Damien's own.
They stood their, now looking for all the would like two sides of the same coin. Damein had all but forgot the spell he had cast long ago in front of the mirrors. But now he was startled at how much the body he had made for himself with Magic and force of will was the body that Brian had made over years of high school sports, college athletics' and intense training... Brian's Broad Shoulders spanned the impressive width of Damien's new body's. Brian's heavy chest protruded just as far. It was eery.
"you see this is how all your characteristics in a strait man's body would have manifested themselves...." He flexed one brawny football bicep, "instead of fearing for team sports because of your weight or because of fear of the more aggressive other boys you would have funneled all that impressive energy into an athletic career that would have made you into an Athletic powerhouse. You would have excelled at sports in puberty instead of hiding behind your intellect and subsequently never cultivated the intellect that eventually would have made you the man you are today..."
"So if I hadn't been gay I would have..." Damein trailed off startled at how his improved face and heavy jaw line were even identicle to Brian's.
"you would have probably had a very nice run on a local college ball team and eventually settled down to breed with a nice young like minded woman however you were an insecure gay boy who hid instead in books... just turns out you found the right books..." Brian said with a knowing look.
Damein considered the probability that born under different circumstances he could see how his personality would have mirrored Brian's own. "oh christ that's a disturbing thought."
Damien looked at Gino for a minute, in startled silence. "Is it really? Because the only way Gino could love you is if you had both qualities."
"What?" he asked stunned to see Brian suddenly become the man he thought he had seen for the last time...when he gave him up.
"Don't be niave you knew yourself that Gino wasn't going to go in for some little drama queen looking to make trouble with the big chip on his shoulder" Gino looked at him with soft eyes, "you knew Gino deserved better then you kiddo...So you changed yourself into the MAN that you thought deserved his love. Both mentally and Physically..." Gino faded into Brian again. Damien almost reflexively reached out to the dissolving form of the big Italian man he had somehow fallen in love with..."With Brian's body and dedication to physical superiority, combined with the heart and intelligence of Damien you were finally able to admit your love for him. That's the only way it would have worked..."
"No," Damien admitted..."even in the perfect body...I still would have never been able to trust Gino's love for me...I would have always worried that it was my Magic that made him gay and that had made him love me......"
Brian Gave him a hard look "And that's why you're here right now..." he paused his expression growing dark..."you see, had you been fool enough to try and keep Gino...left all the spells together and admitted fault in none of your magics..." the threat in his tone of voice was clear...something bad could have happened...something very bad.
Damien looked down and scuffed one big foot. "wow so I guess I pass your test...lucky me."
"Don't get ahead of yourself there Chief," Brian warned. "you forget about me? Yeah I'm the version of yourself that you pierced, collared and sent to have dildo's shoved up his ass for the remainder of his college career." Now Brian stood before him the way Damien had made him. All his football muscle and girth packed tightly into a restraining harness and leather codpiece. His nipples rudely dissected with big hoops and his face an open book of mindless sexual adoration.
"Oh that..." Damien admitted embarrassingly.
"yeah that..." Brian answered back, fidgeting uncomfortably in his leather knee high boots. "It's interesting that everyone else got redemption in your magic except for yourself." He mused, trying comically to pull the leather thong that exposed his big thighs.
Damein shook his head in embarrassment at his own actions, "yeah life's full of little ironies."
"so again you both passed and failed...however since you decided to make such a valiant sacrifice and give up everything you selfishly wanted in the spirit of truth and love..." the figure that looked like Brian grimaced..."I really didn't mean that to sound so hallmark..." he shrugged brushing it off... "we offer you a choice, You can resume your life as Damien Vaughn mild mannered college student before you ever heard of Gino, Eric, The Waterloo any of it, with no memory what so ever or you could accept your punishment and go on to the next step after your sentence is served."
Damien considered it... he could go back to the way things were without ever finding Gino, and just be himself the way he was before the whole damned fiasco...or he could..."hey what's the punishment?"
Brian smiled at him, "Well since you sentenced Brian to training and service you'll have to accept the same punishment..."
Damien thought about it for a second and thought about the options, "look I really want to continue learning and all," but he looked up at Brian's leather clad form, the wrist bands the sexual objectification. "but I've read enough bad porn to have big reservations concerning anything that might require; a sling, a cross or a fist going where no fist should go..." He stuttered.
Brian gave him a long suffering look and then gave him the slam back handed slap that he had when he was Deana causing Stars to swim across his vision. "OW!"
"PAY ATTENTION! Yeah we're going to send you to some masochist so you can be degraded, humiliated and completely objectified. THIS IS THE KIND OF THINKING THAT WE ARE TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM!" he yelled irritably.
"okay" Damein muttered rubbing the throbbing lump on his head, "so what does service and training mean..."
the Brian figure paused a moment regaining control of his temper, "All I can tell you is you'll be given an opportunity to use your special skills to benefit others and in the time it takes you to do that you'll learn enough to move onto the next level..." he said mysteriously.
Damien gave him a hard look, "that's another one of those vague answers meant to derail me from asking any further questions on the subject isn't it?"
Brian gave him a quizzical look then threw his hands in the air in triumph, "He can be taught!"
Damien rolled his eyes, "thanx..." He gave it some more thought...old life, punishment? Old life, Punishment? He weighed the options.
He could just go back to being himself, happy and content or he could...
Damien had never been one to admit he was wrong nor was he ever able to stomache any kind of chastisement, when the nuns in school hit him with a ruler he'd stick them with a compass...
And then with terrible certainty he made the only choice he really could, "bring on the Penance" He whispered.
"Done!" Brian answered with a crisp approving nod, and the his figure shimmered and receded back into the shadows of the inky blackness that surrounded them both "You haven Chosen Wisely, you have passed the final test! Good work Apprentice."
"huh?" Damien called after the shrinking figure.
"The Last test was to accept your Punishment, after this time of reflection, service and teaching you will be able to advance to the next level..." the disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"Hey wait!" Damien yelled into the quickly shrinking void "WHat would have would have happened if I chose wrong?"
The shrinking stopped for a moment and Damien could here the voice as if it was right next to him, "then you would have surely failed... Having failed two and passed just one... and your fate would have mirrored your failure..." Damien's mind suddenly became filled with the possibility of what could have been his fate...
Then the Scene Changed as Gino did. He went from hard as nails mean as Itlain thug to totally shaved peroxide club boy blonde. He saw Gino giving head to some gorgeous man at the gym, and then returning in the ostentatious pair of red lycra boots...
"Oh God, I'm such a pig..." Damien groaned.
"moderately yes," stacey answered back.
"and then of course their was, Gabe and David." And then stacey was Allanna with her long braids caressing her shoulders " I thought your little hex on them was particularly cute..."
He watched as Gabe and David turned from hard ghetto players to two loving compassionate men completely devoted to each other.
Damine looked back at Allanna finally making a very important connection, "Hey if you...whoever you are were pretending to be all these people this entire time then...how did...I mean... did everything happen..or was it all a...I mean you couldn't be both...is stacey... I mean....area alll those..."
Allanna looked at him with irritation and bemusement, "What an articulate little guy you are, jeez Regis Philbin doesn't have a lick on you mr. Vocabulary. No all of it was real and I really didn't actually become these people...I just kind of borrowed them to keep an eye on you and to further the test from time to time..."
Then Hank's booming voice echoed in his ears "You know, I think it might have been with Eric that you started to go to far..." Hank's big hand waved in front of the image mirror, and he saw Eric descend from everything he was to everything he hated.
"but it think some of your best work might have been those corporate sharks that were giving your heart throb such a hard time." Now the figure was no longer Hank's burly masculine frame but Kenny's muscled lithe athletic form. He watched each of the four offenders change from thirty something jaded miserable martini bar barracuda's into carefree fun loving club and gym kids.
"I didn't really understand the whole Club thing though," the figure admitted in Deana's bawdy bravado, "but then I realized you were trying to help not only those boys but that sweet girl to." The boys of Rancid freshened up before his eyes into the crisp clean good hearted young men that they could have been.
Deana looked at Damien's floundering form before her, "It was quite amazing...with each test you both passed and failed. You would use your powers to subvert someone elses destiny but you always gave them a silver lining never letting them be beyond happiness. In your own twisted machiavellian way you managed to give all of them true love. You made Gabe and David realize that they're friendship was way more then platonic. You lead Eric to Hank...the true love he would have never found on his own. Gave Eddie to Jarod, Mark to Kenny and tony..." Deana laughed to herself a little, "I don't think tony is ever going to be ready to pair...off even if he was gay or even straight but that remains to be seen..."
"I don't get any of this..."
"It's magic dimwit." Deana Spat. "We can't allow any idiot who can read a book on Elemental invocation and spell casting to go running around like halfcocked." She let out an uncomfortable cough, "so to speak, anyway Once you demonstrate enough knowledge and Art to bring you to our attention we set up a period of testing...to make sure you were worthy to proceed to the next step. It's pretty interesting that all your successes are failures as well. But it was the real test that you failed."
"hey I didn't force Gino to love me I broke that spell!" Damien retorted defensively...
"yes and had that been the only part of your test you would have passed. but that wasn't all of your test, that however may just be what saved your sorry ass in the end."
"Hey wait a minute" Damien answered back, looking Deana in her lovely over done sparkled eye shadowed eyes. "What about Brian? I did some horrible stuff to Brian...and to mark to..."
Deana gave him a shadowy mysterious grin, and then with a forboding look said, "or at least you thought you did.." she paused, "this is where things get really murky...this is another one of those things if I repeat, won't make any sense...you see Damien technically you are Brian...or at least you could have been Brian..." Deana began to taper off...
"WHAT?" Damien snapped. "me and Brian yeah right we are nothing alike..."
"Really describe Brian in three words."
Damien thought about it, "Arrogant, narrow minded and mean."
"Now think of how you started this whole thing.... How you were when you moved into that house and what you had planned for those poor boys before you even got to know them.... You were Arrogant to think it was your place to teach them a lesson, narrow minded belieiving you were right and making no attempt to find out the motivations beneath their actions and mean well... you set out to break Gino's heart, make Eric into everything he hated and then Brian...poor Collared and humiliated Brian...."
"Hey I had good intentions! I only wanted to let them walk a mile in someone else's shoes." He sad sitting up and beginning to defend himself against the character attack.
"Which paved your way to hell nicely. Did it ever occur to you in your narrow minded queer way that perhaps underneath all these men were actually gay and trying to come to terms with it. And that Mark's ostentatious flamboyance made them uncomfortable not because of the simple "I Hate Fags because That's Gross" but was instead "I Hate Fags cause I think I might be one." Deana said patiently.
"oh shit...You gotta be kidding."
Deana gave him a long steady look and then soundly smacked him on an up sweep across his head. "You've changed Men Physically and mentally, rearranged time, undid it all and are now conversing with a mysterious shape shifting precsence in a limbo like space beyond reality AND NOW YOU GET IT TOGETHER TO HAVE DISBELIEF ISSUES!!!"
Damien rubbed his aching head, "sorry..."
"These guys would have probably come to these conclusions on their own given time but you interfered..." she gave him as soft pleasant look then.... "however instead of the egomaniacal punishment you seemed to want to give them you've shown all these men what they're gay side looks like and helped them evolve to a deeper sense of love and selfrespect..."
"Oh wow... are you oprah? Because only Oprah talks with all that sentimental deeper love and self respect gibbirish and I've always had this sneaking suspision that God was a wise black woman..." He asked the figure.
"there's the acidic smart ass I've come to know and love" the buxom apparition said sweetly and then kicked him firmly in the ass with one pointed shoe. He yelped and she sighed contentedly, But since you sought to show all these supposedly "straight" men what they're gay doppelgangers looked like... we gave you a little peek at what your straight side looks like."
And then the figure was again Brian, There stood in all his glory Mr. Athlete. His hard one muscle and thickly built body stared back at Damien's own.
They stood their, now looking for all the would like two sides of the same coin. Damein had all but forgot the spell he had cast long ago in front of the mirrors. But now he was startled at how much the body he had made for himself with Magic and force of will was the body that Brian had made over years of high school sports, college athletics' and intense training... Brian's Broad Shoulders spanned the impressive width of Damien's new body's. Brian's heavy chest protruded just as far. It was eery.
"you see this is how all your characteristics in a strait man's body would have manifested themselves...." He flexed one brawny football bicep, "instead of fearing for team sports because of your weight or because of fear of the more aggressive other boys you would have funneled all that impressive energy into an athletic career that would have made you into an Athletic powerhouse. You would have excelled at sports in puberty instead of hiding behind your intellect and subsequently never cultivated the intellect that eventually would have made you the man you are today..."
"So if I hadn't been gay I would have..." Damein trailed off startled at how his improved face and heavy jaw line were even identicle to Brian's.
"you would have probably had a very nice run on a local college ball team and eventually settled down to breed with a nice young like minded woman however you were an insecure gay boy who hid instead in books... just turns out you found the right books..." Brian said with a knowing look.
Damein considered the probability that born under different circumstances he could see how his personality would have mirrored Brian's own. "oh christ that's a disturbing thought."
Damien looked at Gino for a minute, in startled silence. "Is it really? Because the only way Gino could love you is if you had both qualities."
"What?" he asked stunned to see Brian suddenly become the man he thought he had seen for the last time...when he gave him up.
"Don't be niave you knew yourself that Gino wasn't going to go in for some little drama queen looking to make trouble with the big chip on his shoulder" Gino looked at him with soft eyes, "you knew Gino deserved better then you kiddo...So you changed yourself into the MAN that you thought deserved his love. Both mentally and Physically..." Gino faded into Brian again. Damien almost reflexively reached out to the dissolving form of the big Italian man he had somehow fallen in love with..."With Brian's body and dedication to physical superiority, combined with the heart and intelligence of Damien you were finally able to admit your love for him. That's the only way it would have worked..."
"No," Damien admitted..."even in the perfect body...I still would have never been able to trust Gino's love for me...I would have always worried that it was my Magic that made him gay and that had made him love me......"
Brian Gave him a hard look "And that's why you're here right now..." he paused his expression growing dark..."you see, had you been fool enough to try and keep Gino...left all the spells together and admitted fault in none of your magics..." the threat in his tone of voice was clear...something bad could have happened...something very bad.
Damien looked down and scuffed one big foot. "wow so I guess I pass your test...lucky me."
"Don't get ahead of yourself there Chief," Brian warned. "you forget about me? Yeah I'm the version of yourself that you pierced, collared and sent to have dildo's shoved up his ass for the remainder of his college career." Now Brian stood before him the way Damien had made him. All his football muscle and girth packed tightly into a restraining harness and leather codpiece. His nipples rudely dissected with big hoops and his face an open book of mindless sexual adoration.
"Oh that..." Damien admitted embarrassingly.
"yeah that..." Brian answered back, fidgeting uncomfortably in his leather knee high boots. "It's interesting that everyone else got redemption in your magic except for yourself." He mused, trying comically to pull the leather thong that exposed his big thighs.
Damein shook his head in embarrassment at his own actions, "yeah life's full of little ironies."
"so again you both passed and failed...however since you decided to make such a valiant sacrifice and give up everything you selfishly wanted in the spirit of truth and love..." the figure that looked like Brian grimaced..."I really didn't mean that to sound so hallmark..." he shrugged brushing it off... "we offer you a choice, You can resume your life as Damien Vaughn mild mannered college student before you ever heard of Gino, Eric, The Waterloo any of it, with no memory what so ever or you could accept your punishment and go on to the next step after your sentence is served."
Damien considered it... he could go back to the way things were without ever finding Gino, and just be himself the way he was before the whole damned fiasco...or he could..."hey what's the punishment?"
Brian smiled at him, "Well since you sentenced Brian to training and service you'll have to accept the same punishment..."
Damien thought about it for a second and thought about the options, "look I really want to continue learning and all," but he looked up at Brian's leather clad form, the wrist bands the sexual objectification. "but I've read enough bad porn to have big reservations concerning anything that might require; a sling, a cross or a fist going where no fist should go..." He stuttered.
Brian gave him a long suffering look and then gave him the slam back handed slap that he had when he was Deana causing Stars to swim across his vision. "OW!"
"PAY ATTENTION! Yeah we're going to send you to some masochist so you can be degraded, humiliated and completely objectified. THIS IS THE KIND OF THINKING THAT WE ARE TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM!" he yelled irritably.
"okay" Damein muttered rubbing the throbbing lump on his head, "so what does service and training mean..."
the Brian figure paused a moment regaining control of his temper, "All I can tell you is you'll be given an opportunity to use your special skills to benefit others and in the time it takes you to do that you'll learn enough to move onto the next level..." he said mysteriously.
Damien gave him a hard look, "that's another one of those vague answers meant to derail me from asking any further questions on the subject isn't it?"
Brian gave him a quizzical look then threw his hands in the air in triumph, "He can be taught!"
Damien rolled his eyes, "thanx..." He gave it some more thought...old life, punishment? Old life, Punishment? He weighed the options.
He could just go back to being himself, happy and content or he could...
Damien had never been one to admit he was wrong nor was he ever able to stomache any kind of chastisement, when the nuns in school hit him with a ruler he'd stick them with a compass...
And then with terrible certainty he made the only choice he really could, "bring on the Penance" He whispered.
"Done!" Brian answered with a crisp approving nod, and the his figure shimmered and receded back into the shadows of the inky blackness that surrounded them both "You haven Chosen Wisely, you have passed the final test! Good work Apprentice."
"huh?" Damien called after the shrinking figure.
"The Last test was to accept your Punishment, after this time of reflection, service and teaching you will be able to advance to the next level..." the disembodied voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"Hey wait!" Damien yelled into the quickly shrinking void "WHat would have would have happened if I chose wrong?"
The shrinking stopped for a moment and Damien could here the voice as if it was right next to him, "then you would have surely failed... Having failed two and passed just one... and your fate would have mirrored your failure..." Damien's mind suddenly became filled with the possibility of what could have been his fate...
Their he was Damien Vaughn only his name wasn't damine no it was Jonathon... johnathon shamrock Collegiate super Star and intellectual ellitest...What a terrible combination...he had all the Arrogance of Brian with none of the Benign qualities of stupidity. He was adored and cruel in return... A wizard at finance and in school... a money hungry Brat with the biceps to make no one question him. He had his pick of the finest pussy at the school and he used the bubble headed bitch's like holsters to keep his cock and disposed of them just as easily...
"I would have been straight!" Damien backed away repulsed.
"Oh yes, we couldn't have let you return to your life with your Magics could we? Think about how dangerous that would be? So we would have had to take away the one thing that made you special and separate enough from humanity."
Damien was startled "so it was my queer quotient that lead me to magic?"
The Void seemed to laugh at the comment, "Of course, Apprentice, there's more to the "fairy" comment then you know... As I've been trying to show you everything happens for a reason. When a man is cursed or as you now see it, blessed enough to seek another man for comfort it is a great gift in it's own... and should never be forced on an unwanting or unready man."
"wow.' Was all Damien could answer. Then he considered a minute, "Hey I don't see how that would have been a punishment for me! I see how it would punish just about everyone else but i seem to make out like one miserable Hell on Wheel's prick bandit."
"Oh it might seem that way, but you see that choice would have left you suseptible to the charms of another kind of magic... Practical Magic... and you would have been enslaved and made over by one of the practicioners of that crude art...and he would have reshaped you body and mind and he would have done nothing but degrade you and you would have loved him for it..."
Damien saw a glimpse of that possibility and shuddered violently at the prospect. With one last terrified breath he yelled into the collapsing darkness... "HEY YOU NEVER TOLD ME WHO YOU WERE!!!"
"You have seen me a thousand times and touched me a hundred but you have yet to know me...but you will if you complete the tasks that have been set for you..."
and as the Void disappeared around and into him filling his mind with nothing but blank white light he screamed, "THAT'S JUST ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE FUCKING EVASIVE GOD DAMN NON-ANSWERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSss...........s...........sssssss...."
"Oh yes, we couldn't have let you return to your life with your Magics could we? Think about how dangerous that would be? So we would have had to take away the one thing that made you special and separate enough from humanity."
Damien was startled "so it was my queer quotient that lead me to magic?"
The Void seemed to laugh at the comment, "Of course, Apprentice, there's more to the "fairy" comment then you know... As I've been trying to show you everything happens for a reason. When a man is cursed or as you now see it, blessed enough to seek another man for comfort it is a great gift in it's own... and should never be forced on an unwanting or unready man."
"wow.' Was all Damien could answer. Then he considered a minute, "Hey I don't see how that would have been a punishment for me! I see how it would punish just about everyone else but i seem to make out like one miserable Hell on Wheel's prick bandit."
"Oh it might seem that way, but you see that choice would have left you suseptible to the charms of another kind of magic... Practical Magic... and you would have been enslaved and made over by one of the practicioners of that crude art...and he would have reshaped you body and mind and he would have done nothing but degrade you and you would have loved him for it..."
Damien saw a glimpse of that possibility and shuddered violently at the prospect. With one last terrified breath he yelled into the collapsing darkness... "HEY YOU NEVER TOLD ME WHO YOU WERE!!!"
"You have seen me a thousand times and touched me a hundred but you have yet to know me...but you will if you complete the tasks that have been set for you..."
and as the Void disappeared around and into him filling his mind with nothing but blank white light he screamed, "THAT'S JUST ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE FUCKING EVASIVE GOD DAMN NON-ANSWERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSss...........s...........sssssss...."
In the barrenness of endless white that remained After Damien's brilliant departure a large male figure stood up and sighed.
From seemingly out of nowhere another equally large form strolled over to the first at an idle almost bored gait. He chewed absently on a peanut butter sandwich "So how's the new... Apprentice..." he paused long enough to make the italic's signals with his hands to show his contempt at the term, "coming along."
The first one stood up solemnly and Answered "The Force is strong in this one."
The second figure subsequently threw the peanut butter sandwich at his companion, "You are one gigantic dork, you know that!"
"No I'm not!'
"Oh Yeah? What's with this whole mysterious figure bullshit? And the limbo? Huh? You just couldn't take the guy out to a cup of coffee or a beer? I find people take this sort of thing much better over a beer."
The first large Figure brushed himself off insulted, "some of us Justin take this a little more seriously then others, alright?"
Justin gave his friend a skeptical look as they both padded off toward the light, "You know what that needed? That needed a giant head and a man behind a curtain!"
"Shuddup."
"No," Justin continued, "And instead of testing the little bastard you should have just put on a pink gown and simply asked, "are you a good witch or a bad witch?""
"shuddup."
The continued bickering good naturedly untill they were gone and there was only white.
From seemingly out of nowhere another equally large form strolled over to the first at an idle almost bored gait. He chewed absently on a peanut butter sandwich "So how's the new... Apprentice..." he paused long enough to make the italic's signals with his hands to show his contempt at the term, "coming along."
The first one stood up solemnly and Answered "The Force is strong in this one."
The second figure subsequently threw the peanut butter sandwich at his companion, "You are one gigantic dork, you know that!"
"No I'm not!'
"Oh Yeah? What's with this whole mysterious figure bullshit? And the limbo? Huh? You just couldn't take the guy out to a cup of coffee or a beer? I find people take this sort of thing much better over a beer."
The first large Figure brushed himself off insulted, "some of us Justin take this a little more seriously then others, alright?"
Justin gave his friend a skeptical look as they both padded off toward the light, "You know what that needed? That needed a giant head and a man behind a curtain!"
"Shuddup."
"No," Justin continued, "And instead of testing the little bastard you should have just put on a pink gown and simply asked, "are you a good witch or a bad witch?""
"shuddup."
The continued bickering good naturedly untill they were gone and there was only white.
Epilogue
I was a little nervous at first to say the least. I mean I knew he wasn't going to recognize me. I was prepared for that, it was just I didn't know how I was going to react when I saw him. I had been playing the scene out in my head for days, each time with a different tone of voice or inflection, but now that I was standing once again in front of the 84th st. Gym door I found myself unable to think of one thing to say to him.
He wouldn't remember me at all as far as he's concerned I'm just another stranger off the street but i... I remember... and I guess that's part of the punishment that I've been given...it's gotta be cause damn does it hurt...oh well...here goes...
I walked through the black doors of the 64th st gym and said a polite hello to the receptionist, the cute Punky girl took my name and pointed me to the Member Services are at the back.
I walked passed men bustling in and out of the gym in various states of being, shy overweight college guys covering up every inch of their bodies with cloth and layers...Preening peacock muscle boys unable to pull themselves from the trap of the mirror.........I shuddered for a moment...I could have been either one of those extremes...I mentally checked off a couple of particularly needy souls for further examination...like tagging struggling beavers and releasing them back to the wild...
There wass one in particular, medium build... pugdy and completely oblivious to his surroundings and then another italian looking muscle boy who seemed to be checking himself out for about 45 minutes from every angle...My fingers twitched behind the strap of my backpack, These two didn't know it but over the next week they were going to have the uncontrolable desire to start working out with a very special very particular trainer...
I stopped at the big Door to the office I remembered so well and stepped through it. For a moment I expected to be greeted with the big happy dawg hug I had always gotten when I arrived there...but all I got was a confused look from a mass of olive skinned muscle.
"Can I help you...?" Gino asked me cautiously.
"No." I answered plainly, then smiled and added "But I might be able to help you."
He smiled and leaned his huge weight back into the back of the chair, spreading his lat's in a way that made an eagle's windspan look menial. "Oh really," he said with a seductive sceptisism.
"Yeah," I answered, "I came over from the university, the proffesor I'm working for right now told me you were looking to fill one of your trainer positions."
He considered me for a moment and then nodded with a friendly smile, "alright what's your background."
I laughed a little thinking about the question..."well that's a little difficult to explain...I'm a psyche and Sports Therapy major," he seemed confused...so was I when I was told that, "My theory is that your Physicality is directly related to your Psychology and Vise Versa." It wasn't a lie per say, that was my actual cover while I was doing my Penance. I just always said "And I'm going to use ancient sorcery to help people better themselves..." Quietly under my breath.
See.
No lie.
Alright? What do you want me to do, walk in and say "hi I'm Samantha From Bewitched and if I twitch my nose just right I can make you walk on the ceiling?" Yeah I'd be in a Jacket that zippers in the back quicker then you can say Sabrina the Teenage Acid Addict.
"wow," He said really interested now, "that's a suprisingly enlightened idea coming from..." he trailed off leaving it up in the air.
I smiled, now used to the reaction, "coming from someone like me huh?"
Yeah that's the other thing. Not only do I have to constantly have to recite that Psyche and Sports riff I have to do it looking like the way I do now.
I glanced over Gino's shoulder to the Art Deco mirror behind his head and looked at my face and was stunned to see the new me looking back all over again. The combination of myself with the Brian version of myself was quite interesting. It also made me look like a dumb straight boy body builder. Turns out, Brian's athletic dedication and Damien's thristy ambition equaled one heavily muscled bruiser. My Dark spikey hair was cut close to my skull in a tight roman style, and my face was terribly handsome in a very masculine way. My jaw was so strong it could almost be called a lantern jaw and no matter how much I tried I could never get rid of this five o'clock shadow...
My slightly almond eyes still shined benaeath my dark angular eyebrows but they were a little more inset because I had that strong brow that made Brian always seem so male aggressive...Now picture all that on top of about 235 lbs of muscle. On my 6'2 foot frame. Yeah I look like that Van Diesal guy from that Car movie with black hair. It also makes people assume that I'm quite stupid. And now I have a very thuggish manner that makes people think I am very straight and very stupid.
It's strange how people equate all that muscle and masculninty with well...ridiculous stupidity...It's another irony and part of my punishment. Not that I mind at all ....
I Can't tell you how much time I spent Jerking off in front of a mirror. It's very mesmerizing to watch you biceps bounce up and down and you traps contract, as your pec's bounce to the rhythm of your hand....
Yeah I said I did it a lot!
Like you wouldn't!
So sufficed to say, I guess standing their in my Tight t-shirt with the Sleeves ripped off and my baggy nylon Jogging pants, I looked less then colligiate.
"No," gino said knocking my gaze from the mirror, "I was just surprised that your this ensightful at your age."
"well," I answered back slowly, "I just began apprentic... I mean studying with this really great teather and he's showing me a whole new way to look at the world."
Gino gave me a farway look "jeez... I remember being your age...three years ago..." he laughed a big hard chuckle..."Yeah I had just given up my Mechanic Job, gone back to school...I thought I knew it all..." his expression changed to one of irritation, "I was such a fucking prick."
This is what I wanted to know, and here the big lovable Teddy Bear offered it, "then How did you end up working here at the uhm, err..." trailing off.
"At the Gayest gym in the city?" He said smiling. "Well I left school, started bouncing and one night after a real bad fight with the chick I was dating I met the dancer Justin. He was a real normal guy who just payed his bills dancing at a club...we got to know each other...and well..." He left the rest up in the air. "there's a lot more to the story..."
"I'll bet."
"but don't get any ideas...I might work here in the emerald city and have expiremented but I think I'm sticking to chicks for awhile...gay guys are just so..."
I smiled sadly, "shallow and manipulative?"
"All of em except that first guy, in my expiereince anyway, well enough about me...Dude I just realized I don't even know your name."
"Ah oh I'm Sorry it's Gavin, Gavin Emauhnd." He looked at me and for a second I thought he didn't believe me.
"that's a really unique name" He said standing and extending his hand.
"I'm sure you'll find I'm a very unique man." He smiled and eyed me as we shook hands.
"well it's nice to meet you Gavin."
"You to Gino."
He looked at me intently for a second and asked, "Hey how did you know my name?"
Dammit I would never had made it as a spy...I fumbled for a moment, "the...err... name plate on your desk...I mean I know I look like a well groomed gorilla but I can read."
He laughed again, "Yeah I can totally relate man. I'll tell you but come back tomorrow I'll give you a tour and we'll set you up to take clients?"
I grabbed my backpack elated "Thanx Gino, I really appreciate the opportunity."
"Geez, Gavin, I don't know what it is about you but I feel like I've known you my whole life..." Gino said with that same hunky but kind of goofy smile.
I felt a little stab and smiled back completely hiding anything I was thinking..."Well Maybe I Put a Spell on you."
He laughed a short appreciative chuckle and I walked out the door with a big grin.
I sighed a heavy sigh feeling my massive pecs eave underneath the fabric, as I shut the door, oh well...that wasn't as bad as I thought it was... He still broke my heart but I have other things that I had to get done... First of all I had to get back to class for my adolescent psyche presentation and then report back to Justin and work out.
He wouldn't remember me at all as far as he's concerned I'm just another stranger off the street but i... I remember... and I guess that's part of the punishment that I've been given...it's gotta be cause damn does it hurt...oh well...here goes...
I walked through the black doors of the 64th st gym and said a polite hello to the receptionist, the cute Punky girl took my name and pointed me to the Member Services are at the back.
I walked passed men bustling in and out of the gym in various states of being, shy overweight college guys covering up every inch of their bodies with cloth and layers...Preening peacock muscle boys unable to pull themselves from the trap of the mirror.........I shuddered for a moment...I could have been either one of those extremes...I mentally checked off a couple of particularly needy souls for further examination...like tagging struggling beavers and releasing them back to the wild...
There wass one in particular, medium build... pugdy and completely oblivious to his surroundings and then another italian looking muscle boy who seemed to be checking himself out for about 45 minutes from every angle...My fingers twitched behind the strap of my backpack, These two didn't know it but over the next week they were going to have the uncontrolable desire to start working out with a very special very particular trainer...
I stopped at the big Door to the office I remembered so well and stepped through it. For a moment I expected to be greeted with the big happy dawg hug I had always gotten when I arrived there...but all I got was a confused look from a mass of olive skinned muscle.
"Can I help you...?" Gino asked me cautiously.
"No." I answered plainly, then smiled and added "But I might be able to help you."
He smiled and leaned his huge weight back into the back of the chair, spreading his lat's in a way that made an eagle's windspan look menial. "Oh really," he said with a seductive sceptisism.
"Yeah," I answered, "I came over from the university, the proffesor I'm working for right now told me you were looking to fill one of your trainer positions."
He considered me for a moment and then nodded with a friendly smile, "alright what's your background."
I laughed a little thinking about the question..."well that's a little difficult to explain...I'm a psyche and Sports Therapy major," he seemed confused...so was I when I was told that, "My theory is that your Physicality is directly related to your Psychology and Vise Versa." It wasn't a lie per say, that was my actual cover while I was doing my Penance. I just always said "And I'm going to use ancient sorcery to help people better themselves..." Quietly under my breath.
See.
No lie.
Alright? What do you want me to do, walk in and say "hi I'm Samantha From Bewitched and if I twitch my nose just right I can make you walk on the ceiling?" Yeah I'd be in a Jacket that zippers in the back quicker then you can say Sabrina the Teenage Acid Addict.
"wow," He said really interested now, "that's a suprisingly enlightened idea coming from..." he trailed off leaving it up in the air.
I smiled, now used to the reaction, "coming from someone like me huh?"
Yeah that's the other thing. Not only do I have to constantly have to recite that Psyche and Sports riff I have to do it looking like the way I do now.
I glanced over Gino's shoulder to the Art Deco mirror behind his head and looked at my face and was stunned to see the new me looking back all over again. The combination of myself with the Brian version of myself was quite interesting. It also made me look like a dumb straight boy body builder. Turns out, Brian's athletic dedication and Damien's thristy ambition equaled one heavily muscled bruiser. My Dark spikey hair was cut close to my skull in a tight roman style, and my face was terribly handsome in a very masculine way. My jaw was so strong it could almost be called a lantern jaw and no matter how much I tried I could never get rid of this five o'clock shadow...
My slightly almond eyes still shined benaeath my dark angular eyebrows but they were a little more inset because I had that strong brow that made Brian always seem so male aggressive...Now picture all that on top of about 235 lbs of muscle. On my 6'2 foot frame. Yeah I look like that Van Diesal guy from that Car movie with black hair. It also makes people assume that I'm quite stupid. And now I have a very thuggish manner that makes people think I am very straight and very stupid.
It's strange how people equate all that muscle and masculninty with well...ridiculous stupidity...It's another irony and part of my punishment. Not that I mind at all ....
I Can't tell you how much time I spent Jerking off in front of a mirror. It's very mesmerizing to watch you biceps bounce up and down and you traps contract, as your pec's bounce to the rhythm of your hand....
Yeah I said I did it a lot!
Like you wouldn't!
So sufficed to say, I guess standing their in my Tight t-shirt with the Sleeves ripped off and my baggy nylon Jogging pants, I looked less then colligiate.
"No," gino said knocking my gaze from the mirror, "I was just surprised that your this ensightful at your age."
"well," I answered back slowly, "I just began apprentic... I mean studying with this really great teather and he's showing me a whole new way to look at the world."
Gino gave me a farway look "jeez... I remember being your age...three years ago..." he laughed a big hard chuckle..."Yeah I had just given up my Mechanic Job, gone back to school...I thought I knew it all..." his expression changed to one of irritation, "I was such a fucking prick."
This is what I wanted to know, and here the big lovable Teddy Bear offered it, "then How did you end up working here at the uhm, err..." trailing off.
"At the Gayest gym in the city?" He said smiling. "Well I left school, started bouncing and one night after a real bad fight with the chick I was dating I met the dancer Justin. He was a real normal guy who just payed his bills dancing at a club...we got to know each other...and well..." He left the rest up in the air. "there's a lot more to the story..."
"I'll bet."
"but don't get any ideas...I might work here in the emerald city and have expiremented but I think I'm sticking to chicks for awhile...gay guys are just so..."
I smiled sadly, "shallow and manipulative?"
"All of em except that first guy, in my expiereince anyway, well enough about me...Dude I just realized I don't even know your name."
"Ah oh I'm Sorry it's Gavin, Gavin Emauhnd." He looked at me and for a second I thought he didn't believe me.
"that's a really unique name" He said standing and extending his hand.
"I'm sure you'll find I'm a very unique man." He smiled and eyed me as we shook hands.
"well it's nice to meet you Gavin."
"You to Gino."
He looked at me intently for a second and asked, "Hey how did you know my name?"
Dammit I would never had made it as a spy...I fumbled for a moment, "the...err... name plate on your desk...I mean I know I look like a well groomed gorilla but I can read."
He laughed again, "Yeah I can totally relate man. I'll tell you but come back tomorrow I'll give you a tour and we'll set you up to take clients?"
I grabbed my backpack elated "Thanx Gino, I really appreciate the opportunity."
"Geez, Gavin, I don't know what it is about you but I feel like I've known you my whole life..." Gino said with that same hunky but kind of goofy smile.
I felt a little stab and smiled back completely hiding anything I was thinking..."Well Maybe I Put a Spell on you."
He laughed a short appreciative chuckle and I walked out the door with a big grin.
I sighed a heavy sigh feeling my massive pecs eave underneath the fabric, as I shut the door, oh well...that wasn't as bad as I thought it was... He still broke my heart but I have other things that I had to get done... First of all I had to get back to class for my adolescent psyche presentation and then report back to Justin and work out.
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