Thrift Store

[muscle growth, reality rewrite]

The inside of the thrift store was bright and sparkling clean, so different from the dingy, rundown exterior. “It smells… nice in here…” Waylon mumbled as he looked around.

His best friend, Tanner, elbowed him. “No shit, right? I figured it would smell like a fucking locker room in here!”

“I curate my shop pretty well,” said a deep voice from behind the counter. “Only the finest items end up here. Nothing musty or filthy.” A burly man stood up, wiping his hands with a cloth. “Sorry for surprising you,” he said with a smile and wink. “I was just dusting some of my display shelves.” He gestured to the glass cases below the counter. Jewelry sparkled beneath fluorescent lights. The big man gestured toward an array of ornate watches. “Can I interest you in a new timepiece?”

Tanner approached the counter, but Waylon hung back. He had expected some shriveled old witch running the thrift store, not someone who looked like he could bench press a truck! The man was balding with only a smattering of dark black hair on the sides, but he had a thick mustache and wide, beefy shoulders. His shirt was skin tight, showing a powerfully-built physique rippling underneath. He had a back so wide he couldn’t put his arms fully down–he was one of those guys.

“I’m Jim,” the owner said with a wink, stroking his moustache as Tanner gawked at a ruby-encrusted pocket-watch. “Take a look around. Let me know if you need help finding anything.”

“You have any… weightlifting stuff?” Waylon asked. Guys like Jim had always fascinated Waylon in a way that both intrigued him and made him anxious.

Jim shrugged. Good god, his head looked so small on top of all those muscles! “Yeah, out back, I’ve got a lot of odds and ends. A lot of my weightlifting buddies unload some of their old clothes and equipment here.”

“Gross, ‘clothes’?” Tanner said, rolling his eyes. He glanced back at Waylon, who was slowly meandering in the direction Jim had thumbed. Tanner fell in step beside him.

“Dude, I’m sure he cleans them all,” Waylon hissed back.

“There’s a dressing room out back too,” Jim shouted. When he threw an arm in the direction he was referring to, Waylon’s eyes locked onto its thickness and ropey veins. This man was unlike anything he’d ever seen before–but all he wanted was to stare at him forever.

“Dude, what’s with that guy?” Tanner whispered. “He’s, like, our combined ages…”

Waylon nodded. He and Tanner were each 21, and Jim looked to be in his forties, so it wasn’t a bad assumption. “Yeah, he’s our combined weights, too,” he said.

“I bet he eats kittens whole,” Tanner snickered. Waylon bristled at Tanner’s mockery of the big man, but he didn’t want Tanner to know how he felt.

“Dude, check it out!” Tanner said, running up to a large dumbbell plopped in the center of the thrift shop floor. “This thing says it’s a hundred pounds!” He reached down to lift it, struggled, then walked away. “You try to lift that!”

“No chance,” Waylon said, approaching the racks of clothing. He held up a zippered maroon tracksuit. “Good god!” he said, holding it up. It seemed twice as wide as his body was. “Who’s supposed to wear this thing?”

“Wow! Check out these silky little panties!” Tanner said, yanking a tiny scrap of orange material off a pile of similar garments. It looked like only a suggestion of clothing, just a large triangle of fabric connected to a smaller triangle by two skimpy straps.

“Is that… for dudes to wear?” Waylon asked. Had he sounded mocking enough, or had he given away that he had more than a passing interest in the big bodies that had slipped on these tiny scraps of colorful cloth?

“There’s regular clothes back here,” Tanner said as he headed for a few aisles of hanging pants and shirts. “Let’s see if they have anything good.”

But as Tanner walked away, Waylon’s hand reached into the pile and snatched the first set of trunks he could find. They were lime green and felt satiny in his hands. He crammed it into his pocket, hoping Jim wouldn’t think he was shoplifting.

“No shit, these jeans are actually pretty nice!” Tanner said, snatching some designer denim from the rack. “Aw, damn,” he muttered as he held them against his body. “My big ass is never going to fit into these. You can have them.” He shoved them into Waylon’s arms. “This shirt would look good on you too,” he said, tossing over a maroon polo.

Waylon nodded; he agreed he would look good in those clothes, but it was the purloined trunks in his pocket he wanted to see on his body. “I’ll go try them on,” he said.

“Dude, the tag says those jeans are only 8 dollars!” Tanner said. “Just buy them anyway! They’re practically free.”

Waylon wasn’t listening. He pulled open the door and shuffled in with his outfit, making sure to slide the lock shut behind him. He held up the green trunks and, despite firmly deciding he wouldn’t do it, buried his face in them. They smelled clean, like detergent, if not slightly musty.

“Dude, how do the jeans look?” Tanner shouted from the other side of the door.

“Uh… kinda tight…” Waylon said. Good god, he wished his friend would give him some space for one SECOND! “But maybe a good kind of tight? Give me a second to see how I feel about them.”

“I found some cool shorts,” Tanner said. “I might get ‘em.” Then he went away, thankfully.

Waylon stripped out of his pants and shirt, feeling awkwardly pale and scrawny in the harsh dressing room light. The neon-colored trunks only made his unsunned skin look even more stark. The trunks themselves were too big, he found as he stepped into them. Not only was he lacking the equipment to fill the basket up front, but the waist was a good six-inches too big around. He chuckled as he closed his eyes and imagined being the size it would take to be able to wear the trunks.

Before he opened his eyes, he felt the fabric suddenly squeezing against him–not uncomfortably tight, but a snug fit–as if they’d shrink-wrapped to his body. His eyes snapped opened, shocked, but the dressing room looked different. It was too small! He suddenly felt cramped, the walls up against his shoulders with barely enough room to turn around. He started as he saw an unfamiliar man before him–a MASSIVE guy, a bodybuilder with FANTASTICALLY huge proportions, bulging and rippling all over, in lime-green trunks…

Waylon wasn’t looking at a man; he was staring in the mirror. He raised a hand, and the humongous freak raised his thick, vein-dissected paw, waving it in sync with Waylon’s movements. He looked down, shocked that he couldn’t see the floor past a shelf of broad pectoral meat. “Ohmygosh,” he gasped as he reached up and grabbed the big muscle tits. Good god, they were HUGE mounds of flesh! He gawked at the man in the mirror, who looked like he’d been injecting steroids since he was a teenager. But then again, he couldn’t have been that much older, looking at his smooth skin and his face.

“Holy shit…” Waylon gasped, leaning in. It was his face, although it looked a little sharper, more angular, with a sharper jaw and pronounced cheekbones. The slack jawed expression he saw reflected back at him looked absurd on the behemoth’s face, but Waylon couldn’t collect himself. All at once, the weight of his new body hit him… God, he felt so HEAVY! Moving felt so slow. He stomped a foot down and flinched when he heard the room shake.

He was so thick, so massive, every inch of him bulging, the muscles in his hyperdeveloped body fighting each other for space every time he moved. But good god, did he look great in the lime-green trunks! They complemented his now bronzed skin perfectly.

“How’s it going in there big guy?” Tanner said.

“I, uh…” Waylon began.

“Dude, I guarantee you those things aren’t going to fit,” Tanner said. I doubt there’s anything in here that’ll fit you! You’re too fucking big!”

Too big? Since when was hundred-pound Waylon Denton “too big” for anything?! He looked down at the jeans and shirt that no longer had any hope of fitting anywhere on his massive frame now. As he bent over to grab his shoes, his big pecs hit the wall. He grunted and backed up, his massive glutes hitting the door so hard it popped open. “Damn–DAMN!”

Waylon threw one big hand over his bulging groin, holding the other against the deep cleavage between his two meaty chest melons as if that was enough modesty. Tanner laughed and shook his head. It felt better to be out of that cramped area, where he could widen his stance. His thighs were just too massive; they needed space!

“I hope that guy out front isn’t pissed at you for breaking his door!” Tanner said, flicking one of Waylon’s exposed nipples. The big man twitched, but found himself too big to back away; his huge ass hit the mirror hard. Luckily, it didn’t break. Waylon suddenly had a flash–the idea that he was always breaking things because he was so big. The concept of “always” made his head hurt. He’d only been this size for all of three minutes! How was he remembering life as this big-bodied monster?

“Jesus, you can’t walk out of here only wearing your trunks,” Tanner said, shaking his head. “What happened to the clothes you wore in here?”

Waylon looked down to find tags had appeared on the garments he’d stripped out of. “I… I dunno…”

Tanner shook his head. “Where would you be without me, ya big dummy?” He reached out and jiggled one of Waylon’s enormous jugs. The big pec bounced twice. It felt kind of… good. “I’ll find something here. That guy out front said his lifting buddies donated here, right?”

Waylon was shocked as Tanner walked away with his clothes and shoes, returning them to the store as if they’d always been there. The only thing that seemed to belong to him was the teeny-tiny undies he wore. As he shifted his massive weight from one big foot to the next, he watched his quad muscles wobbling and flexing. The trunks rubbed against his crack in a way that soothed him. He almost didn’t want it to stop.

“Okay, I found the only shoes here that are in your size,” Tanner said, handing over a pair of cowboy boots. “And you’re lucky, there just happened to be a 5XL shirt, although you may not like what it says.”

Waylon felt dizzy. Maybe the blood flow to all these thick, juicy muscles didn’t leave enough for his brain! He flexed his expansive feet, wiggling the plump toes. The sensation of the worn carpet beneath his soles was uncomfortable. He dropped the cowboy boots and slid his feet into him.

He’d had his doubts, since his feet were just as bulky as every other part of him, but the shoes fit perfectly! Waylon clomped around a bit in the shoes, enjoying the resounding thunk as they hit the floor. “Well, ah reckon…” he began, speaking with a thick Southern drawl. “Well, ah’ll be… this ain’t how ah talk!”

He glanced into the mirror; the beast wearing his face looked terrified. He clutched at his throat, starting to panic. “Ah cain’t… ah mean, ah cain’t… Tan-ner!” Every word felt like it had an extra syllable as it spilled from his mouth like molasses.

“What’s the problem, hayseed?” Tanner said, peeking around the corner of a nearby aisle. “You gonna try on that shirt or what?”

“Ah guess ah can,” Waylon said. His anxiety was fading. Somehow, his new accent just felt right… He had a flash of growing up on a farm, carrying bales of hay from a young age. If it weren’t for farm work, he wouldn’t have ended up so danged BIG! (Of course, heavy lifting and lots of growth hormones helped…) “It ain’t exactly decent to be struttin’ around with my titties hangin’ out,” Waylon chuckled as he slid the shirt on.

The shirt was a midriff, ending just above the top of his rippling eight-pack. He hadn’t read it until it was stretched tightly across his mammoth chest: “I’m with stupid!” with an arrow pointing up.

“Ah don’t… ah mean, ah don’t know why anybody’d…” He blinked. A numbness was settling into his brain. He gasped as he realized whole chunks of knowledge were vanishing–his extensive knowledge of Latin and German, three years of studying Engineering, and memories of a bookshelf full of literature all vanished from his brain. His thoughts felt slow and clumsy, just like his speech did. He put a hand to his temple…

“Mah head,” he moaned. Tanner emerged again, this time with a cap.

“Buddy, I really did try to find you some pants… Wait, what’s the matter?”

“Tanner, ah… ah don’t think ah know how to drive!” he stammered. He had no awareness of exactly what ideas had vanished from his brain, but he knew there was emptiness where he once had plenty. “Ah don’t remember how to… how to…”

Tanner cocked his head to his side, staring up at the 6’5” bodybuilding phenom. “Bro, all you really know how to do is lift and eat. Oh, and you know a ton about steroids. What the hell else do you NEED to know?”

The heart pounding in Waylon’s massive chest started to slow as he realized that Tanner was right. His life was all about being huge and getting huger. What else did he need to know? “Ah cain’t reckon why ah was all worried just a second ago,” Waylon said, his mouth twisting into a smile that made the vacant look in his eyes seem extra dopey. “Ah guess ah just got confused is all.” As he chuckled, his pecs–squeezed tightly by his snug abs-revealing shirt, bounced heavily.

“Well, I found this cap,” Tanner said. “But you may have to walk out of here with your cock and ass hanging out, because there’s no way we’re putting all that meat in any of the garments kicking around here.”

“Ha!” Waylon chuckled. “What the fuck is a ‘garment’? Ah swear, Tanner, you’re too much sometimes…” Tanner slid the cap on Waylon’s head without asking. Waylon blinked as he watched the orange tag hanging from the cap vanish. He looked down and realized there wasn’t a single tag on anything he was wearing. Was it all his? Had he really owned all of this and hadn’t remembered? Man, he sure was forgetful sometimes.

The letters on the cap–a “theta” and a “mu” he suddenly knew–were the name of his house. He was one of the mighty Theta brothers, originally known as the “rich stuffy” house on campus until big Waylon showed up and started teaching the guys how to put on muscle. Sure, nobody in the house was as big as he was, but a lot of the brothers had put on a ton of size. Now they were known as the “roid” house, and Waylon was their unofficial mascot.

“Ah guess we gotta get back to the house, right?” Waylon said as his fingers went up to twist the nipples poking through his skimpy shirt.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Tanner said. “Big party tonight. You gonna get drunk and let people do bodyshots off your muscles again?”

Waylon chuckled. “Yeah, maybe,” he said, heading toward the front of the store, his wide shoulders knocking things over as he advanced.

“Hey, is this for sale?” Waylon said, reaching down and plucking a hundred pound dumbbell off the floor like it was nothing. He curled it a few times. Jim, behind the counter, whistled loudly.

“I always think of that as Thor’s Hammer,” Jim said. “You can lift it, it belongs to you.”

Waylon winked at Jim as he walked by. He was built pretty nice, for an older guy, even though he was still only half Waylon’s size. Maybe he would stop by later, without Tanner, and ask Jim if he wanted to be his cute little muscle teddy bear later on.

“I can’t believe the only thing we found in there was a giant dumbbell,” Tanner said as he opened the door for Waylon, who had to turn sideways and squeeze his bulky frame through.

“You talkin’ about me, or THIS?” Waylon said, holding the heavy weight overhead with ease.

“Well, both, to be honest,” Tanner said with a wink.