It took all my strength to move Christian's arm off my body. It was practically crushing my shoulders with its weight, and was every bit as unyielding as it looked. For a moment, terror raced through my veins. We hadn't... had we? Christian obliged my frantic curiosity by rolling over in his sleep. The bed creaked with the shifting of his weight.

He was not noticeably bigger than before, but the sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window cast the beauty of his enhanced body into radiant relief. His hair was thrown into disarray by his tossing during the night, so several Asian-black locks struck across his brow. They were lustrous in the daylight. His cheeks were high and sharply-defined, their hollows framing his straight nose and those blemishless lips. The squaring of his jaw was framed by his thick neck, which like the rest of his musculature was a study of light and shadow.

His pectorals were twin mountains, bare as a child's except for the lightest coating of down about his quarter-sized nipples. On a normal physique, the nipples might have been too large. They were pushed into proportion by the sheer mass of his chest. Golden light could not penetrate wholly into the valleys of shadow formed by the muscles' size. Other shadows taunted my eye, too. Each burgeoning biceps was delineated by a trailing river of veins, bulging out of the skin even though Christian was doing anything other than flexing. I found one of my fingers tracing over the perfect horseshoe of his triceps, and watched in amusement as goosebumps echoed out from the point of contact. His abs tensed involuntarily, eight square-shaped peaks bordered by the jagged ridges of accompanying serratus muscles.

My modest eyes avoided for a moment the bulge in his boxers. They were still crisp and white, as if he had not slept in them. Maybe he starched them. The snowy hue lay in definite contrast to his delicate golden tan of his abdomen and tree trunk quads. With all of that muscle packing his too-small boxers, Christian's mammoth organ had no place to go but forward. Soft, it pressed against the fabric and left nothing to the imagination.

"Like what you see?" He was grinning at me, but clearly half-awake.

I smiled back, momentarily taken with discomfort. The smile on his face faltered and fell. I couldn't really say that I wasn't gay. After all, I had just been admiring his dick. Instead, I opted for complete candor.

"You know I do. It's just a little hard—a bit difficult," I corrected myself, "to think of other things with all that's going on."

He nodded, and the smile returned. It was not so certain as before, but the expression looked genuine. Christian had a face that could make anything look genuine.

"I know," Christian offered. "Well. I guess I know. I don't know as much as I thought I used to. You've really fucked my worldview, you know."

I forced a laugh. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I've been having such a good time doing it, too."

He sighed, folding his arms behind his head. I could have spent days admiring the flexion of his forearms, biceps, and triceps as he bent his arms. I wished that I had time. I wished that I had control of this entire situation. My lack of control had suffused my dreams and resting thoughts during the previous night. Bodies entwining, growing larger, consuming what little sense of self and pride I had left these days.

Christian shook his dark-haired head and stared up at the ceiling. As if he knew my thoughts, he said, "I know you wish you could do something to stop all of this, Dane. But you're not a superhero. You're just a guy thrown into a really messed up situation. You might as well make the best of it."

I looked at him, and my hormones took things from there. I scaled Christian's magnificent physique and maneuvered my arms around him, feeling the dense hardness of his shoulders and triceps beneath my hands, the painfully wonderful valleys formed by his pectorals beneath mine. My entire weight barely depressed them at all. And speaking of hardness, I got a very distinct feel of something stirring in his boxers. There was an answering reaction from my own desperate cock. He smelled of musk and sex and everything I wanted. Everything I needed.

My lips found Christian's. His mouth was wet and hot, the kiss fervent with need from both sides. I felt my member stiffen even more, if that were possible, and I started into his eyes. I saw only innocence, despite his lust. Somewhere inside my head, something broke.

I pushed away and looked down at Christian. A curious look bloomed in his eyes at the sudden break of our kiss. His lips parted as if to speak, but I rolled off him and back onto the bed. Sweat dotted my skin, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. The heat of the air was closing in on me, making me ill.

"This can't happen right now," I exploded. "It's not me, Christian. This isn't me. You don't know the real Dane Jackson. If—"

He saved me the trouble of explaining by holding up a hand. "I understand. You've got to get through this. Your mind's not yours, you're not even really gay. Once you get through with Phil... then, maybe—"

"Yeah. Maybe."

All was silence except for the shifting of the covers beneath us and the pounding of my heart. I'd hurt him; that I could tell from his body language, the way he wouldn't quite look at me as I looked at his too-perfect features. The hurt I felt emanating from him warred with my own shame at the situation: I had almost used a person—no, a friend—to fullfil my pleasures without regard to consequence. Putting it that way, was I really that different from Phil after all?

I sighed. "I don't know if you really understand why we can't do this."

"I think I do. You don't feel for me what I feel for you."

My heart almost stopped.

"That's not true, Christian. I want you so bad. I want you in, on, under, over me. I just can't be sure if this is Dane Jackson talking or whatever Phil made out of me. You said that I can't control this situation, but it's worse than that. I don't even have control over myself. Before Phil changed me, I know I never wanted to bone guys. Cheerleaders and Catholic schoolgirls, yeah, but not the quarterback down the hall. And now I think I—I don't fucking know."

Christian shook his head, throwing his black locks into disarray. "Look. I think... Dane, I'm in too deep. I want you, and you can't want me right now. So I think we should just—I think you should just go."

It stung more than I thought it would. I nodded, climbed out of the bed, and, with my face burning scarlet as if I had been slapped physically rather than emotionally, began pulling on my clothing. I could feel Christian's grey eyes boring into my back as I walked out of the room without another word.

*****

It was quiet back in my dorm room, and I was alone with the masculine scent of Phil's sweat, muscles, and semen. I absently wondered who Phil had gotten to replace the door. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered to me for a few seconds. It felt like I was losing everything, and Phil was getting all that I had been given. But that wasn't it at all. I knew that I had been given some gifts—height, good looks, masculinity—and that Phil was draining those all away. But I had worked hard to be me, and he was stealing that too.

I wasn't the Dane Jackson of old any more. I was what Phil had made me, and it was time to start acting like it. He had given me the capacity for acts that the old Dane never would have considered. The line had to be drawn, and it would be drawn here. I had to stop treating this like a roller coaster ride and start playing it like a chessboard.

With resolution driving my body, I strode to the nightstand next to my broken bed and picked up the phone. I dialed. Listened. Liam's voice sounded on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Liam. This is Dane. We need to end this. Now."

There was a pause. "Come up to my office, Dane. I think I might have good news."

"It better be very good."

I hung up the phone, turned, and—for the second time today—my heart stopped. Phil's voice echoed from the doorway.

"Well, well, well. What *is* the little man doing?" •