As Tony came in to the locker room for gym class he saw Donnie standing naked on the scale, shaking his head. Tony went over to inspect his handy work and find out how Donnie felt about his startling growth spurt, beyond the grin that hadn’t left his face since the first morning. “Hey Donnie, how ya doing bud?” said Tony as he approached Donnie from behind, admiring the way Donnie’s broadening shoulders and back high lighted his still trim waist and cute butt. “Oh. Hi Tony… I’m doing great I guess,” said Donnie, suppressing a giggle as he stepped off the scale and turned to face Tony. “I just can’t believe I’ve grown this much, this fast,” continued Donnie, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah, puberty will do that to ya,” Tony said. Tony took the opportunity to check out Donnie’s front side. If Donnie’s backside was good, his front was awesome. Gone were any signs of the androgyny of childhood. Donnie was a vision of the ideal of male youth at the brink of manhood. He was lean and muscular but without bulk. A body designed to move, to run, to play, to explore, to take joy in its masculinity. “And it looks very good on ya,” Tony said. Donnie blushed and the increased blood flow caused his cock to start to plump a bit. This embarrassed Donnie causing the blush to deepen, extending across most of his body, and bringing this penis to a nearly full erection. Donny quickly turned and headed back to his locker to don his gym clothes and cover himself. Tony grinned and followed Donnie to his locker, which was on Tony’s way to his own locker, saying “I noticed ya in the hall and it looks like you need to consider getting some new threads.”

Donnie’s persistent smile quickly changed to a frown. “Yeah, I know but I sort of like the tighter look now that I’ve got some muscle to show off,” Donnie half grinned for a second and continued in a whisper with an expression of concern on his face, “I’m nearly six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than I was a couple weeks ago. Every morning when I look in the mirror I’m bigger and my folks are starting to see it too and it scares them. My dad has been out of work for almost a year now and even the cheap sneakers I had to buy last week hurt. But I had to buy them because my toes ripped through the old pair that I got at the start of the school year. Like my pants and shirts, we had bought them big so I would be just starting to grow into them now. I wasn’t supposed to be out growing them until summer and we got them at a thrift store to start with. Why did I have to start growing now?” Tony lost his grin too and Donnie continued. “And the way I’ve been eating for the last couple of weeks… I eat more than my mom, dad and little brother put together, and I’m still hungry most of the time. Oh, I know my folks are happy to see me finally starting to shoot up and Howie, my little brother, thinks its neat to have a big brother he can actually look up to,” a grin flickered across Donnie’s face. “Your folks did it to him too? ‘Howard the Duck’ worth. Have they no shame?” Tony chuckled. “I guess not,” laughed Donnie as the grin returned to his face.

Tony was again disturbed that his attempt to grant a deserving individual their heart’s desire again had side effects that he hadn’t foreseen. Why do most things I do to try to help people backfire on me or on the people I want to help? Why does this have to be so complicated? Even the things that seemed to have worked out had losers. Tony recalled that in the time line with fat Mike, Travis had been a wrestler and roughed Tony up. That had lead to Travis’s jaw being broken by Hossler when newly bulked up Brian and Shane had saved Tony from Travis. In the new time line with muscular Mick, Travis had never made the wrestling team and Mick had replaced him. Without the focus and discipline that wrestling had given him Travis had become the fat kid, gotten into pushing drugs and wouldn’t be getting out of Juvenal Hall until he turned 18. Yes, Travis had been an asshole and Mike deserved a break; but did Travis deserve what happened to him in either time line? Tony shook his head, he wanted to make things right for Travis and get Donnie’s family back on their feet; but the idea that he might make things worse had Tony paralyzed. __________________________________________________ ___________

In his office, Lucifer Saint and Deez watched Tony in the Looking Glass. “You’re right Deez, young Mr. Canton is the best candidate we have had in sometime. Now that he is beginning to understand the full nature of his power, he will need someone to talk to and be supportive until he finds a way to integrate it into his being, or he decides he’ll never be able to handle it. In that case we will need to start the search again. But if we do start over I think you will have help. Deez smiled, nodded solemnly and crossed the room to the elevator. •