Catfished (Part 2)

[Just a quick warning: some of you aren't a fan of the fates that befall some of my characters when I'm in a particularly devilish mood. Sometimes innocent big guys end up with truly tragic fates! This is one of those times--but I want to reaffirm that this chapter is simply meant to establish Cole as the "big bad" of the story, AND that NO TINY MEN are actually harmed in the making of this story. They're indestructible!]

Clint craned his neck up at the marquee, scanning the nearest movie times. “Uh, two tickets for… the uh…”

“The new Fast and the Furious movie?” the purple-haired teen behind the counter said with a smirk.

Clint chuckled. He stroked his beard and shrugged. “Is it that obvious?” he said. He was wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off, plus aviator sunglasses, and above all else he was built like a mac truck. Of course he wanted to see the meathead action flick.

Back when he played football in college, that kind of thing used to bother him. “Why does everyone assume I’m just a big dumb guy?” he’d protest (and back then, he was even bigger–well over 300 pounds, dominating the offensive line). Now, in his thirties, running his own construction company, he had leaned into his role. Waitresses always knew he ordered the beer, or the steak. Valets had no doubt it was his Chevy truck in the lot. Even the biggest muscle heads at the gym would give him a nod as he walked in.

Now that he owned his own construction company (that practically ran itself), who cared if people thought he was all brawn, no brains?

He found his Joey in the food court of all places. The prettyboy blonde sat before a tray piled high with burgers, fries, and several slices of pizza. Two frothy milkshakes sat aside the tray, both on Joey’s side of the table. Clint chuckled as he approached.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” he said as he sat across from him, waving the tickets in the air. “Is Joey Van Oss going to treat himself to a cheat meal of all things? You’ve really changed since we’ve dated.”

Joey smirked, flashing his deep dimples and his bright blue eyes, and brandished a french fry. “I eat clean all the time,” he said. “One cheat meal won’t hurt.”

“That looks like ten cheat meals,” Clint said. Joey slid two of the burgers across the table to Clint, pulling the rest of the tray closer to himself. Clint chuckled. “You bring your dairy pills?” he asked.

Joey patted his front jeans pocket. Clint’s eyes scanned the ripped blonde’s flawless body. Of course, with Joey’s freakish metabolism, he’d probably finish all that food and end up with two extra abs on top of the eight he already had.

“I was thinking,” Joey said as he scooped some whipped cream off the top of his milkshake with two fingers. “I was thinking about retiring from modeling.”

Clint whistled and leaned back in his chair. It groaned under his bulk.

“You said your career was just taking off,” Clint said. He failed to add that Joey’s career was the reason they’d ended things, but he knew the thought hung in the air between both of them.

“It was,” Joey said. “And it did. I just finished a national campaign, and… I want more.”

“What kind of more?”

“Like going back to college more,” Joey said.

“How are you going to make a living?” Clint asked. His first impulse was to invite Joey back into his condo to live rent-free, but he tried to remind himself that the hunky blonde was no longer his to take care of.

“I’m going back to personal training,” Joey said. “I have a big following on my instagram, and I’ve been posting some fitness videos, generating some buzz. I think it’ll be a nice change.”

“You really hate modeling that much?” Clint said.

“I’m more than a pretty face,” Joey said.

“Well, I think modeling was more about your pecs and abs, wasn’t it?”

Joey rolled his eyes, tossing a french fry across the table. Clint slapped it away.

“I think that’s great,” Clint said. “I’m looking to take care of some of this,” he said, slapping his thick midsection. “You think you could help?”

Joey blushed. “You know that stuff looks great on you,” he said, looking away. He handed another burger across the table. “In fact, eat this. Maybe make a little more of it.” Their fingers touched. For a moment, neither of them breathed.

“Movie starts in fifteen,” Clint said, unable to deal with the tension. Joey nodded. “I’ll wolf this down,” he said.

“We can be late,” Clint said. “I don’t care about the previews.”

“Liar,” Joey said with a grin. “You hate missing the previews.”

In the darkness of the theater, Clint had to resist the urge to put his arm around Joey. God, damn… he just looked so damned beautiful. Clint couldn’t help but imagining the muscled man totally naked… the two of them intertwined, their thick, musky sweat mixing together in a pool beneath them as Joey rode Clint’s huge cock…

His reverie was interrupted by a kick to the back of his seat. Clint spun around. Some goateed punk, stinking of weed, sloppily crunched some popcorn behind him. Clint waited for an apology. When he didn’t get one, he looked over to Joey, who hadn’t noticed. He relaxed in his seat.

A trailer started. “Isn’t that the huge stud from that Jack Reacher show?” Joey asked as a hulking actor strutted into frame.

Before Clint could respond, the punk behind them tossed a handful of popcorn at the screen. “Fuckin A, start the movie already!” he shouted. Clint brushed the popcorn off his shirt, then stood up, folding his arms.

“Yo, sit down, you fuckin ape!” the punk said, unphased by Clint’s size.

“Pretty sure I didn’t pay twenty bucks to be irritated by you for two hours,” Clint said. He put both of his powerful arms on the back of his seat and leaned forward.

“You guys fucking kidding me?” the punk said. He shook his head. “Why don’t you sit back down before you have a SERIOUS problem.”

Joey stood now, his rippling body stretching his tight polo shirt to its limits. He crossed his own arms, making his torso bulge.

“Look, if you don’t want to get dragged out here by your skinny fucking neck, you’ll shut the fuck up,” Joey said. “My boyfriend here didn’t eat much dinner and he gets really fucking cranky when he’s hungry.”

The punk looked at both of them, smiled, and held up both of his hands. “All right, all right,” he said, slinking lower in his seat. Joey and Clint sat back down.

“That was a mistake,” Joey said.

“I don’t think so. Punk had it coming,” Clint responded.

“No, the boyfriend thing,” Joey said. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“I didn’t mind,” Clint said. The two stared at each other for a moment.

Neither one of them saw the punk stand up, flexing his hands. His fingers started to emanate a shadowy energy. He thrust his hands forward into the two larger men’s backs. Clint and Joey were frozen for a second, unable to do anything but stare at each other in shock as the dark energy subsumed their bodies. When he pulled his hands back, now curled into fists, the two men looked very different.

“What… what movie did we buy tickets to?” Clinton–buck-toothed and overweight with a bowtie–said, adjusting his glasses. He reached into the front pocket of his button-down shirt and pulled out the stubs. “Joseph… Joseph! We’re in the wrong theater!”

“I knew something was amiss!” Joseph–scrawny and rat-faced with greasy, unkempt hair–said, taking a puff off his inhaler. “What is this, that racing-explosion-toxic-masculinity movie?” The two nerdy men stood up, looking around awkwardly as they started to sidestepped toward the aisle.

“I’m so sorry,” Clinton said. “I guess my mind is on other things,” he said.

“Would you two shut the fuck up?” the punk said, his fists held close against his chest. The awkward couple hustled out of the theater sheepishly. “Nice to meet you, bitches,” he whispered into his clutched hands. “My name’s Cole. You belong to me now.”

*

Back at his car, Cole locked the door and scanned the rest of the parking garage. No one was around. “All right, let’s take a look at my new buddies.” He reached into his pockets and tossed the two tiny men onto the passenger seat. “It’s funny, you guys don’t look quite as tough as you did back in the theater.”

Clint hopped to his feet, thrusting out his barrel chest as he stood between Joey and the giant looming over them. “What the fuck did you do to us?” he screamed. Cole just laughed at his high-pitched voice. It never failed to amuse him when he heard them talk tiny for the first time.

With one finger, he poked Clint hard, knocking the shrunken brute down. He rolled across the seat, bouncing a bit. Joey ran to him, helping him up. “Just… just tell us what you want!” Joey said.

“What I wanted was to watch that fucking movie,” Cole said. His two captives didn’t seem to be paying attention to him, so he slammed his hand down on the seat. The bounceback sent the two miniaturized studs into the air. They bounced a few times, then crawled back to each other.

“What are your names?”

“Fuck you!” Clint said.

“I’m Joey, he’s Clint,” Joey said, putting a hand on his grizzly ex-boyfriend’s tensed trap muscle.

Cole started his car. “You, big guy,” he said, scooping up Clint with ease. “You know how to drive stick?” He took a hit off his weed pen, letting out a billowing cloud that swallowed the little guy up. After Cole was satisfied that Clint had inhaled enough, he shoved him into his pants. “And you, blondie,” he said, grabbing Joey. He exhaled a cloud of THC at Joey, too, before tossing shoving the ripped blonde man into the Gatorade bottle in the cup holder. Joey found himself floating in the neon blue liquid. Cole screwed the cap on tight.

Every time he felt Clint wriggle, he would slap a hand down on his crotch, grinding him in hard. At red lights he would pick up the Gatorade bottle and shake it hard. When he got back to his apartment, he grabbed the Gatorade bottle and hustled up the back stairs to his door. The lock always stuck, so he had to hit the door with his shoulder as he turned the key.

His apartment stunk of weed and mildew. He slammed the door, jogged past his sink full of dishes to his living room where he flicked on the light and turned on the TV. A bunch of half-deflated helium balloons, one made of Mylar with HAPPY BIRTHDAY written on it, floated in mid-air, gently nudged around the room by the sluggish ceiling fan. On his coffee table was an empty aquarium. He dug the beefy one out of his pants and tossed him into the aquarium, to be joined a moment later by the Gatorade-drenched underwear model-looking one.

“I already forgot your names,” Cole said as he squatted down before them. The two of them stumbled around, dizzied by the trip and the amount of narcotics in their veins.

“Let us go!” Joey yelled as Clint dry-heaved next to him.

“See, here’s the neat thing,” Cole explained. “You’re not really here. You’re still out there, in the world, living your lives. You’re just a couple of weak, effeminate dorks now.” The two tiny men stared at each other, struggling to comprehend what their gigantic booming captor was saying to them. “What YOU two are is just the embodiment of all that muscle and toughness and testosterone and… what was the phrase the nerdy you said at the theater? ‘Toxic masculinity.’ You’re not even a real person.”

Joey and Clint looked at each other, then back up at them.

“We may be small,” Clint said, doubling his fists, “but we’re still fucking real!”

“Did you notice you can’t be hurt?” Cole asked them. “You, blondie, isn’t it weird you didn’t drown in that gatorade?” He grabbed Clint, pinching the brawny man’s thick chest between his thumb and forefinger. Clint let out a yelp as Cole effortlessly lifted him up in the air. “Watch!”

Joey screamed as Cole opened his fist. Clint flailed his beefy arms as he plummeted down, hitting the ground hard. Cole stomped a foot down a moment after Clint landed. Joey screamed again, falling to his knees.

Cole moved his foot away and plucked a shocked, but unharmed, Clint from the ground, dropping him back in the aquarium. “You guys are my toys now. And if you really hate it here, don’t worry! You’re still out there in the world–just now, you’re getting bullied by REAL alphas while all you really want is a good book to read and some trigonometry to do.”

Cole grabbed a grimy tapestry from the floor and held it up over the aquarium. “I want to fuck with you guys, but I had a whole night planned,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “I was gonna see that movie, then I was gonna get wasted… so you’ll have to wait until I’m home to play. But you two are a couple, right? You can just fuck while I’m gone. You can still do that. You’d be surprised how horny you get now that all that masculine desire is squashed into such a tiny package.”

The two men stared at each other. Despite their dire situation, both of them were rock hard. Cole tossed the tapestry over the top of the aquarium, then headed for the door.

*

Cole practically burst through his door, stumbling as he reentered hours after he’d left. He slammed the door shut, locked the deadbolt and the chain, and walked in a zig-zag to his living room. He had a burrito in his hand.

“Fuck!” he said as he looked at the aquarium. “Almost forgot about you guys! Fuck, I’m hammered…” He yanked the tapestry off the aquarium and looked down at his two little prisoners. Their powerful little bodies were intertwined. Cole laughed as he watched them scurry to the back of their aquarium.

“Guys! Look! I got another one.” He held up the foil-wrapped burrito half. “Oh wait, that’s not him,” he said. He jammed a hand into his tight jeans, pulling out another squirming man. “You guys, meet Dylan! He was a bouncer at a bar. Big tough guy thought he could toss me out.” He dropped the tiny man into the aquarium.

He was a head shorter than Clint and Joey but nearly as wide as the two of them put together. He was shaven-headed, powerfully built and covered with tattoos. “Look at him! He’s the kind of guy who’s so big he has to waddle.”

“You’re a fucking psycho!” Clint yelled up at him. Dylan looked at the two other men, then up at Cole, who reached down with fluttery fingers to tickle him. Dylan couldn’t escape, and the massive fingertips knocked him down, teasing his nude body.

“Nah, see, this guy, Dylan, HE is the fucking psycho,” Cole said. “Or at least, he was. I guess he likes to bring rowdy patrons out back to the alley, where there’s no cameras and no witnesses while he beats the bag out of them. He used to be a fucking tank, man! He would have pulverized me. I’m not a big guy! It’s not like I could have even put up a fight against a roid-freak like him. At least, that’s what he thought.”

He took another hit off his weed pen and exhaled it into the aquarium. “See, Dylan’s different now. He’s so shy that he pees when he’s overwhelmed in public. He wet his pants when I dragged him back into the club. All that music, all those people, it was too much for the little guy. Oh, did I say he’s barely five feet tall now? Skinny as a rail, too. It’s funny, these magic fingers of mine stole all those years of the gym and replaced them with… I dunno, probably something dorky, like painting pewter figurines or some shit.”

Cole grabbed Dylan in one hand and Joey in the other, holding them close to each other. “Joey, buddy, you wouldn’t believe what happened when the other bouncers–his former friends!--saw him They tossed him out too! They called him ‘piss-pants’ and everything. It was awesome.”

Joey and Dylan didn’t say anything. “Guys, isn’t that, like, poetic or something? Isn’t it funny or, like, satisfying?”

None of the tiny men responded.

“You fuckers,” he said. “You really need to work to get on my good side. I mean, I’m a fucking giant to you! I’m in charge! Your whole existence is decided by me!”

He regarded the two men in his hands. “See, I think you two are a way better couple than blondie and Captain Caveman are,” he said. He dropped Joey into the aquarium and snatched up Clint in his hand. “Oh, wait, maybe you two are! Roidhead and Mr. Brick-shithouse here. One’s furry, one’s hairless, both of them are too overgrown for their own good.” Each of the two men tried to press the other away with their powerful little arms as Cole tried to push them together. “Funny, that I’d even use the term ‘overgrown’ for you little guys, right?”

Cole turned from the aquarium and grabbed the weeks-old balloon bouquet. “I’ve got it,” he said. “I know how to make you guys do what I want. I always hate how I have to break them in…but here it is.”

He untied the balloons, pulling a single strand (attached to an oblong blue balloon) and pointing along the three shrunken captives. “Okay, so… two of you are going to be boyfriends and the odd man out is going to have to find a new place to live. Any volunteers?”

“You’re fucking crazy!” Dylan yelled. Cole’s huge hand darted toward him. Dylan tried to run, but his legs, thickened by decades of heavy squats and large amounts of steroids, were too bulky to move him very quickly. He was snatched up easily.

“No!” Joey said. “Don’t! Don’t do it!” he begged. “Let them be the couple together. I’ll be just yours! I promise!”

Cole smirked. He had the balloon string looped, about to slip Dylan’s foot through it, but Joey’s outburst entertained him.

“You think…” Cole said, starting to laugh. He let the balloon string slip through his fingers. As it lazily floated away, he had to fumble to reclaim it. “You think I want, what, a sexy little toy? Is that what you think, blondie?”

Joey strutted forward, flexing his lean muscular body. He put his hands behind his head and bounced his pecs, flexing his abs. “Look! You know you want this.”

Cole laughed. “Not in the least, little guy. But I admire your pluckiness. Get over here.” He tossed Dylan down and reached for Joey.

Clint charged, full-speed, across the aquarium, tackling Cole’s hand with all his might. Rather than hurting the giant, all he did was deliver himself into the grasping hand. “Wow,” Cole said, raising Clint to his face. “Tough to the very end, hunh?”

Clint swung his fists, kicking and spitting. Cole winked, grasping Clint by his foot and dangling him upside down. “Ever wonder what would happen if I flushed your little immortal ass down the toilet?” he said. Still, Clint swung at him. “Fuck. I’m too nice a guy. I could teach you a fucking miserable ass lesson. I could make your life an actual hell.” He slipped Clint’s foot through the balloon string.

“NO!” Joey screamed.

“Say goodbye to your man! And cuddle up to that no-neck freak. You two are going to get to know each other VERY well–until I get bored of you.”

Cole walked to the window, throwing it open. He shoved the balloon out first, then let Clint go, waving as Clint floated lazily away. He watched as the balloon floated out, carried over the nearby rooftops by a warm updraft. It took several minutes for it to disappear from sight.

Joey had dissolved into a pile, sobbing and crying. Dylan actually held the blonde man to him, comforting him with a thick hand on his shoulder. Cole stared into the aquarium, his smile fading. “Fuck, guys. Seriously. Why are you crying? He can’t be hurt. Worst case he’ll end up in a birds’ nest, but it’s not like they can do anything to him.”

His words had no effect on the tiny men. Cole rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Fuck. I’m bored now. I shouldn’t have let that other guy go.” He reached into the aquarium and grabbed the two miniature men, one in each hand, and walked across his filthy apartment to his bedroom. He opened his closet door and pulled a hanging chain. When the light buzzed on, he surveyed several rows of glass cases. Dozens of tiny men stared back at him.

“I still want you two to be a couple,” Cole said, pulling out his keychain and unlocking an empty glass case at eye level. “So get to know each other for now. If this doesn’t work, there’s a Navy Seal I bet Blondie will get along with, and a UFC fighter who Mr. No-Neck can at least wrestle if he doesn’t fall in love with him.”

He slammed the glass case shut and locked it. “Goodnight boys,” he said casually as he pulled the chain and slammed the closet door shut.