Then something happened that Mr. Skeen was not completely sure was real. Biddy began to change. It was a slow expansion at first, an upward deformation, as though she was growing. Then the growth accelerated, and the cat lost its form, morphing plastically, until it was no longer a cat. It wasn't anything, it was a shifting un- creature, physically there and yet not there, seeming to take on and then just as quickly shed limbs, textures, and colors. Mr. Skeen was dumbstruck. It continued to grow and mutate until finally it began to look human. Its features continued to resolve, the eyes took on focus, the muscles defined themselves. The cat had transformed into a boy, a well-built, blond boy. It took a few seconds before he realized that standing in front of him was the captain of the wrestling team – it was Hal. One of the special ones, second only to Dan Hall...

"Hey, Mr. Skeen," Hal said, with a melting half-smile. He was wearing a school baseball cap and a jockstrap and nothing else, his skin lightly sheened with sweat, glinting in the half-light of the back of the equipment cage. He was built like the young Mark Wahlberg, all tight curves and hard bulges, with a smirk to match.

"H… H… Hal," Mr. Skeen stammered. He found that his cock was painfully hard in his neatly pressed khakis. The fact that he had just watched his dead cat transform before his eyes into one of the most beautiful boys in the school didn't even occur to him anymore; he was just awestruck, and incredibly aroused. This was closer than he'd ever been before to... his fantasy. This boy had never given him the time of day before, and now here he was, nearly naked before him. As though offering himself. Mr. Skeen felt himself sink to his knees.

"Surprised?" Hal asked. He crossed his wrists in front of his abdomen and made his arms and pecs leap out into tight-flexed relief. "Like what you see?"

"I... I..." Mr. Skeen couldn't think. His voice was a rasp.

"You want to touch it?" asked Hal. He stepped closer. "You like all this muscle?"

"Yes," Mr. Skeen managed, a whisper. The scent of teenage jock sweat emanating from this beautiful young Adonis was like a drug. His cock was painfully hard, felt on the verge of bursting. Finally... his dream was about to come true.

"Go ahead and try," Hal said, the same half-smile on his lips. Mr. Skeen reached up from his kneeling position to lay a hand on the boy's tight, ripped stomach. Before his hand was there he knew what it would feel like: a hard wall of warm, damp-skinned muscle, rippled with deeply-cut abdominals. His middle finger would settle into the deep center groove, the heel of his hand resting against the slight protrusion of the boy's tightly sprung navel. Then he would slide his hand upward...

But his fantasy of touching the boy was interrupted when, as he was just about to make contact, his hand stopped.

Mr. Skeen's eyes jumped up to Hal's. What was happening? His palm was, maybe, a quarter-inch from Hal's beautiful abs – he could feel the heat emanating from the muscle – but he could move it no closer. He tried again, more forcefully, to touch Hal, to no avail. It was as if there were an invisible barrier that prevented him from closing the final distance. Mr. Skeen moaned in frustration.

Hal looked down at him half-tenderly, half-mockingly. "Don't you know you can't touch the students, Mr. Skeen?" he asked. "Think of the scandal."

"No... please..." began Mr. Skeen. This was what he had wanted so badly, all his life, just some slow, tender time with the beautiful athletic bodies that paraded mercilessly in front of him all day. Was it so much to ask, when he was so close? He tried again to force his hand against Hal's stomach. Nothing. He could not touch. "Noooo..." he moaned, in despair. He felt humiliated, tears welling in his eyes. He saw himself, a pathetic balding middle-aged homosexual, kneeling on the floor before his idol, so close to his dream, so powerless to attain it... How much more could he prostrate himself? He would do anything... anything! Why must he always be denied?

"Anything?" Hal asked. It was as if he had heard Mr. Skeen's thoughts. But this did not seem important, or even unusual, under the circumstances.

"Anything," Mr. Skeen breathed. "It would make my life worth living again."

"Then I have a deal for you," Hal said. His smile broadened into a sparkling, sunny blond grin.

"A deal?" Mr. Skeen asked. He lowered his hand and looked up at Hal. Again he was stunned by the young man's incredible beauty, the totality of him, his incredible muscular, sexual presence. His eyes scanned from Hal's handsome face, down his perfect torso, and came to rest on the thickly-stuffed bulge of his jock pouch. He felt the saliva spurt in the back of his mouth. He was about to ask what kind of deal, and that's when he noticed it: the number printed in indelible ink on the waistband of Hal's jockstrap, in Mr. Skeen's own careful hand, was 666.

"Impossible," Mr. Skeen breathed. He looked up at Hal again. "The numbers only go up to – "

"Ah, but nothing's impossible, Mr. Skeen," Hal said, still smiling. And with that, Hal stepped back, and began to grow. •