Transform: Muscle City 20
by AKA
“So Carl turned you into the handsome man I see before me, and you turned Trevor.”
“Technically, I turned Trevor after Billy kind of fucked him crazy.”
“I did not fuck him crazy,” the ex-teacher protested. “I just...wasn’t paying attention.”
“So you fucked him crazy.” Carl just smiled.
“What does that even mean?” Magnus asked, brushing back his long cascade of straight bright red hair. “How does one fuck someone else crazy? I take it you mean that literally.” He looked at Trevor. “You seem all right to me.”
“Oh, he’s fine, now,” Carl agreed. “That’s because I initiated him.”
“You know this all sounds completely insane, right?”
“Besides the fact that the three of us are standing here looking like this, you mean?”
“Yes, obviously, besides that.” They were inside the diner again, and Magnus was receiving an explanation about how they came to be here, and what they were intending to do. As far as he could manage, there was an abandoned city some distance back along the highway that was filled up with dozens if not hundreds more of men like these three, who all looked like them, and were just as handsome and just as big and just as strong as they were - and even more naked. Billy had some weird mission or destiny or something so he and his boyfriend, Carl, had set out to fulfill that destiny by bringing back even more men to repopulate the city and make it into some perfect naked male muscle haven.
Carl frowned. “This coming from a dude who can kiss you and look into your soul and heal the pain living inside there.”
Then Magnus frowned, too. “I think you’re overstating the basic….”
Carl looked at Billy and hiked his thumb at the small young man. “Did this dude not just kiss you and heal your soul?”
“Yes,” Billy said, softly, “he did.”
“Okay then,” Carl said, as if that settled matters.
“I don’t...All I do is...you….”
“Yeah, exactly,” Carl answered nodding. “Anyway, yeah, that’s all it takes.”
“Can we go back to the fucked crazy part? That sounds interesting.”
Trevor sighed. “They said I was sex drunk.”
“That’s a thing?” Magnus asked, showing interest.
Trevor nodded. “Billy here was a bit overzealous when we got together that first time.” Billy was about to object, but Trevor spoke over him. “I don’t think Billy knows how not to fully love another man, and Billy has a lot of love to give.”
“I’ve noticed,” agreed Magnus.
“I don’t think he knew what his affect on men like me was.”
Carl huffed out a laugh. “Oh, hell, Billy didn’t know what his affect on men like me was,” he said, looking at his lover with pure affection. “My man Billy here is a love tank. He’ll hit you with both barrels and fill you up to overflowing.”
“Guys,” Billy said, “you can shut up now.” He was clearly embarrassed.
“No, I wanna hear about getting sex drunk,” Magnus asked. “It sounds fun!”
“It’s fun up until the point when your brain shuts down and you’re giddy and lost in a haze of pure pleasure. It’s not unpleasant, but you’re sort of knocked out by him.”
“And then what?”
Carl looked at Magnus. “And then it was up to me to clear his head. When you’re sex drunk on someone, you can become addicted to them.”
“Like a drug?”
Carl nodded. “Just like a drug.”
“I wanted Billy and nothing but Billy,” Trevor explained. “I was obsessed with him. With being with him. Of climbing that mountain of pure love again and feeling the sensation of Billy surrounding you, and inside you, and loving you.”
“The Full Billy,” Carl said, nodding.
“Guys, really, shut up.” Billy’s handsome face was coloring and he looked distinctly uncomfortable.
“It’s a compliment!” Trevor said. Carl nodded an agreement.
“So….” Magnus prodded.
Trevor continued in his lovely Aussie accent. “It’s like chemical or something. It’s like a drug. I don’t know what it is or where it came from. I guess it’s something that can happen when they don’t...we don’t...filter ourselves or something. When we open the valve fully and pour out every last drop of power on someone. We can overwhelm them.”
“But you seem fine now.”
“I am! I’m great!” He brought his arm up and made his muscles swell into mind-bending power.
“And then what happened?”
“Carl happened,” Billy said. “Apparently the only cure for becoming addicted to us is to become one of us. So Carl and Trevor had some quality time together.”
“He sucked my dick,” Carl clarified.
“I did,” Trevor verified. “And I was very good.”
“Fuck, Trev, you were amazing!”
“And then…?”
“And then, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, bigger better Trevor!” Carl said, laughing. “And if I may say so, I do some damn fine work.” He looked his brother up and down and nodded.
“What’s it feel like?” Magnus asked Trevor.
“Like...nothing else in the world. Like the most perfect sex and the most perfect pleasure and the most perfect power infusing your body all at once. You feel...alive. You feel super strong and super sexy and super...everything. Words alone can’t really describe it.”
“And what happens to the guy doing it?” he asked Carl.
“It’s nearly the same from my perspective,” he said. “You’ll never feel more alive, more powerful, more pure and perfect than when you’re watching some dude swelling up with muscle as you blast everything inside you into him, pushing him to become stronger and more powerful and bigger and more beautiful. You feel every inch of his growth, every molecule of power. It’s better than fucking. It’s better than anything!”
He looked at Billy, but the handsome man just shrugged, saying, “I’ve...never done it.”
“Never?”
“Oh, he’s done it with guys who were already initiated and he made them even bigger. He’s like a craftsman of muscle or something. He can turn a guy from a handsome devil into a super stud-muffin without thinking about it, but, yeah, he’s never taken a regular dude and...fucked muscle into him.”
“This is the craziest fucking thing I ever heard of! And none of you know how you’re doing it or why it’s happening?”
Carl shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even care anymore.” He raised his arms and made his copious muscle bloom. “I just fucking love it.”
“You were inside here,” Billy said, tapping his handsome head. “Did it feel different?”
“It always feels different,” Magnus said simply. “Everyone is different.”
“But, I mean….”
“I know what you mean.” Magnus sighed as he closed his eyes, traveling back to memories that were not his own and emotions he shared with another human being. “Maybe. It’s hard to say.” He opened his eyes and looked at Billy. “You were...more powerful, more deep, than anyone I’ve been with.”
“Deep?” Carl asked. “Billy?”
Magnus’s mouth quirked into a sideways grimace. “Billy loves truly. He doesn’t know how - or doesn’t want to - hold back from it. Love can be frightening in its power. It can overwhelm. It can be painful. Most people experience love up to a certain point and back away. Billy fucking runs headlong up to that cliff and jumps as far off it as he can. He surrenders to love, and welcomes it, and it pours out of him like lava from an erupting volcano.”
“That sounds about right,” Carl agreed, moving his hand along his lover’s wide, muscular back before grabbing his ass. “That’s what I’ve always felt.”
“But, everyone…” Billy said, and Magnus was shaking his head.
“No, everyone doesn’t. You’re fearless in the face of love. You let it pour from you - or gush from you - to everyone around. That’s rare. That’s unique. People often think love has to be parceled out, as if it’s in short supply or they’ll run out of it. You understand that love is boundless and endless and as powerful as you allow it to be.”
Billy’s head was spinning from the words Magnus was saying. “I think I’m pretty ordinary.”
Magnus nearly laughed out loud as the most beautiful, most powerful, most loving person he had ever encountered stood naked before him and tried to explain how ordinary he was. “I know,” Magnus said. “I know you do.”
“So,” Carl announced loudly, clapping his hands, “we’ve established that Billy is an amazing fountain of unending love, but that doesn’t answer the big, naked question.”
“Which is?” Magnus asked.
“Do you want to join our party?” Carl walked forward, towering over the slim little man with the bright red hair and laid his heavy, muscular arm across Magnus’s shoulders. “What you see before you is a sample of what awaits you in Muscle Club, my man Magnus. Here we have Billy, with his unending love and fucking fuckable butt, and there’s Trevor, looking all kinds of amazing like some copper god dipped in handsome juice, and then of course there’s me, dripping with charm and sex and, I’m sure I don’t need to point out, an unmissable innocence and lack of ego.” Magnus laughed despite himself. It was really, really easy to like Carl. “You’ve been inside us, so you know we’re nice guys. But we have a strict policy, my man Magnus. We will never initiate someone unless they ask us first.”
“Present company excepted,” Trevor added.
“Yes, well, you would have asked if you could think anything besides how fucking sexy my boyfriend is, after he put the full Billy on you.”
“I said I was sorry,” Billy protested, earnestly.
“Yes, yes,” Trevor nodded, “and you didn’t know your own strength.”
“Well...I didn’t,” he said, looking like a sad puppy.
Trevor went over and kissed him. “I’m just yanking your chain, which is incredibly yankable,” he said, reaching down and grabbing hold of Billy’s fat prick. “I love being with you. I’ve loved every moment. If I would have had the wherewithal to ask, I would have. I don’t regret a single moment.”
“He speaks the truth,” Magnus verified.
“And what about you?” Carl asked again.
“I’m...not sure.”
“I understand,” Billy said immediately.
“No, not...I don’t have doubts that it would be fucking amazing. I mean, looking at you dudes and having experienced what it’s like inside there, even a little, I know that it would be incredible. But…”
“But?” Carl asked.
“There’s someone….”
“Someone?”
“I...love someone. And I’m not sure he’ll….”
“If the someone you love is a he, there’s absolutely no problem.”
“I’m not sure.”
“There’s a surefire way to find out,” Carl said.
“How?” Magus wondered.
“Ask him, dummy!”
“So, just walk up to Fergus and….”
“Fergus?”
“Yeah.”
“His name is Fergus?” Carl asked, his brow furrowed.
“Yes.”
“Magnus...and Fergus?”
The small flame-haired young man shrugged. “We don’t always choose whom we love.”
“Present company accepted,” Carl announced, looking pointedly at the man he had pursued non-stop for months. Billy blushed, and it made Carl’s ponderous cock twitch.
“Anyway, you’re suggesting I walk up to him and say, in short, ‘hey, buddy, you want to come with me and get over-inflated with muscular power and grow a second dick and develop special sexual mental gymnastics like making other guys cum by thinking at them and then move to a city filled with naked, hyper-sexed, super-powered, incredibly beautiful dudes who all look like a cross between Adonis, Apollo and Zeus who do nothing but fuck each other all day long?’”
“We do other stuff,” Carl complained.
“Who’s over-inflated?” Trevor asked.
“And I think you’re mixing your mythology a bit,” Billy observed.
“My point is….”
“We get your point,” Billy said, placing his large, warm, strong hand on Magnus’s shoulder. “You know your friend better than we do, obviously. But I still think you should just ask him, regardless of how you phrase it.”
“We’ll come along to provide moral support!” Carl said, brightly. “Plus, you know, proof.”
“Proof.” Magnus had to laugh, looking at the three men before him and wondering how Fergus would react.
“Totally dude,” Carl said, nodding. “It’s surprising how effective showing another guy your secondary cock can be!”
They piled into Trevor’s truck, again, with Billy at the wheel and Magnus beside him providing directions. Carl and Trevor made good use of the spare time by providing a little sexual release and the sounds of slurping and moaning and grunting were echoing through the cabin.
“So, it never stops?” Magnus asked, trying studiously to avoid looking at the two huge men in the backseat happily going down on each other and pumping endless loads of cream from their over-burdened balls.
“It never stops,” Billy acknowledged.
Magnus looked down at Billy crotch. “You seem okay,” he observed.
“We can control it when we need to, but if there’s no need to….” He shrugged and looked into the rearview mirror where his lover winked at him, an obviously satisfied grin on his sensuous lips.
“And you can just go and go and go?”
He nodded. “We can just go and go and go.”
“And very often do!” Carl offered. He shifted his hips, thrusting them upwards and pumping an exceptionally fat gush of cream into Trevor’s audibly gulping mouth. “It feels soooooo good,” he said with a growl. Then Trevor was up and they were kissing passionately, silencing the very talkative peach-fuzz-headed man for the time being.
“Tell me about Fergus,” Billy suggested.
“Fergus?”
“How did you meet him? What’s he like?”
“Met him at a club. Skinny white boy. Hips like lubricated pistons. Big blue eyes. Milky white skin. Thin as a rail.”
“How long…?”
“We’re not exclusive. We’re both bi, and it didn’t make sense to us to limit our natural instincts.”
“Fuckin’ A!” cheered Carl, needlessly.
Magnus scowled. “Ignore him,” Billy advised.
“That’s like trying to ignore the elephant in the room.”
“With two trunks!” Carl agreed, before trumpeting like a pachyderm in heat.
“Fergus?” Billy prompted again.
“Anyway, I saw him and thought, ‘god damn, who is this walking fuck machine?’ I mean, just watching this dude dance you could tell that he was gonna be a demon in the sack. Like, purely uninhibited and couldn’t give a fuck what anyone else thought.”
“So naturally it was love at first sight.”
“Lust, anyway,” Magnus explained. “And as I had suspected, the man has some definite skill, fuck-wise. And, much like I suspect of our noisy friend in the backseat, he’ll try and do anything, and I mean anything.”
“A...colorful repertoire?”
“He’s a rainbow of sexual activities, for sure.”
“But that’s the lust part,” Billy said. “What makes you love him?”
Magnus looked over at Billy and narrowed his gaze. “You’re very good,” he said.
“At what?”
“Understanding about love.”
Billy shrugged and hiked his thumb over his broad shoulder. “I had an excellent teacher.”
“Fuckin’ A!” Carl said again, before Trevor’s lips were on his mouth.
“I fell in love with him because he’s fearless, he’s honest, he’s open and he’s totally himself. There are no filters or hidden agendas with Fergus.”
“And with your talents….”
Magnus nodded. “I’d never met someone like him before. He was...Fergus. He was all Fergus, 100% Fergus, and he didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. He was a force of nature, and so self confident! It was like the guy leaks charisma out his ass.” He looked out the windshield. “Right here, then a quick left down that alley.”
“Interesting neighborhood.”
“Did I mention he’s an artist?” He smiled. “His stuff is sick.”
It was, indeed, an ‘interesting neighborhood.’ The three Muscle Clubbers climbed out of the truck after pulling on the same rather comically small collections of clothing. If it had not been broad daylight, they may have elected not to wear anything at all, but Billy thought it prudent to be better safe than sorry.
They parked in front of what looked to be an abandoned warehouse in a part of this city away from anything resembling habitable housing. Train tracks ran behind the building, though they looked abandoned, too, and there was no sound of traffic or people or even barking dogs.
“Fergus lives here?”
“Squats here would be a more accurate phrase,” Magnus admitted. “No one lives here. But there’s running water and electricity, so it’s more or less habitable.”
“Less,” Carl said, frowning, “not more. Fuck, I thought Muscle City was desolate.”
“Harsh,” Billy said, feigning hurt.
“I kind of like it,” Trevor admitted. “It has a raw, industrial taste. Looks like the skeleton of a city.”
“Oh, you and Fergus are going to get along just fine,” Magnus said, brushing back his bright red hair.
There was a sudden, loud, metallic bang and then someone nearby yelled out, quite loudly and quite clearly: “Fuck!”
“That’ll be Fergus!” Magnus said cheerfully.
The warehouse didn’t have doors so much as rusted openings along its side. The interior was a shadowed cavern, with sunlight streaming down in harsh angles through more holes in the roof. It stretched the entire block along the alley, and at the far end they could see some activity taking place, with a small, pale figure moving around rather animatedly.
“Fergus, I presume?” Billy asked.
Magnus nodded. “Making art,” he explained. The four of them strode through the shadow and light, three colossuses and a flame-haired muse. The Muscle Club members stood seven feet high and a yard wide, literally head and shoulders above Magnus. Billy and Carl were back in their too-small jeans and shirts, while all Trevor had that he could not fit into was a pair of black biking shorts that clung so tightly to him that he might as well have been naked anyway. His cock, a fat shank, was like a swollen sausage tucked along his hip, and there was no hiding its contours and features. Billy’s jeans rode so low on his hips that his pubic bush was all but revealed and half his ass was hanging out, and Carl looked like some backwoods porn dream in Daisy Dukes and a half-shirt that barely came to his dark, prominent nipples.
Magnus called out as they came closer. “Fergus! Hey! Fergus!” More banging and slamming and metallic crashing echoed back, so Magnus cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled loudly, “Ankou!”
Carl frowned and looked at Billy, mouthing ‘Ankou?’ but Billy only shrugged. As if hearing the silent conversation, Magnus said, “Ankou is the Breten personification of death.” He turned and looked up at the three men behind him. “Did I mention that Fergus tends to be a little dramatic?”
A shaven head popped up and looked over. Then the slim figure stood up and was obviously staring at his new guests. “The fuck?” he asked. For a small, slim figure, his voice sounded absurdly deep and resonant.
“Hey, Ferg,” Magnus said.
“Booji?” he asked, using Magnus’s nickname.
“What’s up?” he asked, striding closer. “This is Billy, Carl and Trevor.” Each man nodded in turn, smiling brightly.
To Fergus, it looked as though his friend and lover had just materialized out of the blue and brought three Norse gods dressed like assholes into his place. “Uh, hello?” He had a huffing blowtorch in one hand and heavy gloves on. His upper body was uncovered and slick with sweat, and as Magnus had reported he looked as if he had not an ounce of fat on him. He wasn’t muscular, but he was wiry and sleek and it was easy to see definition of his muscles, such as they were.
He looked more like a dancer than an athlete, and maybe that was the most accurate definition of him, yet.
“You making shit?” Magnus asked.
“Whoa whoa whoa, buddy boy.” He waved his blowtorch at the trio. “You can’t waltz in here accompanied by the Three Stooges and not expect some questions. Number one, of course, is why are they dressed like refugees from Diana Ross’s nightmare?”
“I like him,” Trevor announced.
“He does have a certain...charm,” Carl agreed.
Billy was looking down at himself and frowning. “Diana Ross’s nightmare?” he said softly.
“Kisses first,” Magnus said. Then he walked up and kissed his boyfriend on the mouth, though Fergus’s eyes never stopped looking at the three gigantic, muscular men behind the small, red-haired empath. Then Magnus observed, “Jesus, you smell rank.”
“You never complained before.”
“That’s because I was the one making you smell rank.”
“You’re changing the subject again,” Fergus said.
“He’s a bright one,” Trevor observed.
“Always dangerous,” Carl said, smiling.
Fergus walked right up to them and circled around them. “Well, you look fucking ridiculous.” Then he was standing back before them with his arms folded over his small chest. “Take those fucking clothes off.” The trio looked at each other. “Shy boys, huh? No problem.” Suddenly, and quickly, Fergus was stripping himself of his skinny jeans and stood naked before them, wearing only the heavy gloves on his hands.
“Told you he was shameless,” Magnus said.
“Drop ‘em, boys. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Jesus,” Carl said, “you don’t fuck around do you?”
“Oh, I fuck around plenty. Why do you think I want to see you naked?”
“Yeah,” Carl said, pulling his button-fly open, “he’s gonna fit in just fine.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Magnus advised, watching the stripshow with a grin. It took a few minutes for the bigger guys to manage their huge bodies from their tight outfits, but then they stood there as if ready for inspection.
“Jesus,” the small, pale man observed, “that’s some heavy weaponry you’re all toting around. I mean, I’ve seen some big guys before but you gentlemen are loaded for all out warfare.” He shifted his eyes upwards and scanned each of their heavily muscled bodies in turn. “You dudes live at the gym or what?” He approached Carl and poked one of his pecs, then tweaked his nipple playfully.
“Careful,” Carl said. “You never know when those things are gonna go off.”
Fergus smiled evilly and intensified his manipulations of Carl’s two rubbery nubs, twisting and squeezing and rubbing them with obvious talent and glee. He looked down as he tortured Carl’s nips to watch the effect he was having on the man’s most glaring gauge of enjoyment, smiling with pleasure as he watched Carl’s pendulous cock swell and pulse. “Fuck, I didn’t think you could get any bigger.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing and you’re gonna see exactly how big I can get,” Carl warned.
“Love to,” Fergus replied.
“Take him serious, Ferg. You’re playing with fire, and in his case you’re playing with an inferno.”
Fergus looked up and winked. “That true, Peachfuzz?”
Carl grinned and nodded. “I can set your whole world on fire. Believe it.”
“Nice,” Fergus said, releasing the man’s nipples. Then he looked at Billy. “And you’d be the leader of this trio, would you not?”
“Why do you say…?” He looked over Fergus’s head at Magnus. “He’s not...?”
“Like me? No, he’s just a...talented observer of human nature.” Billy scowled uncertainly. “Power pours off you, Billy. Power of a very special and unique brand. You lead because you’re a leader, not because you make people follow you.”
“He speaks truth,” Fergus agreed. “Fuck, I feel like I want to follow you and I only met you!” Then he looked at Trevor. “And fuck me if you aren’t the sexiest pile of meat on two legs, Mister Bear!”
“I’ll take that a compliment.”
“How else would one take it?” He moved his hand over and down Trevor’s naked muscles, sending shivers through the huge man’s body. “Yes, you are trembling with desire, aren’t you?”
Carl looked at Magnus. “And this was the guy you didn’t think would fit in?”
Magnus shrugged, but then he asked, “Fergus, how would feel about looking like them?”
“Like them? Musclebound giants with delusions of godhood?”
“Delusions?” Carl asked.
“I guess it would depend on two things, if I were offered, that is.” He turned around. “Am I being offered?”
“You are. We are.”
He pivoted back again. “Interesting.”
“That doesn’t strike you as odd?” Billy asked.
“Not particularly. I assume you dudes are trumans?” He started to circle them again. “I did a piece about you guys. Made this big foam suit, had this hose attached at the crotch that I’d point at the audience and start spraying corn starch and water at them. Gallons of the stuff.”
“Sounds...intriguing?” Billy said.
Fergus laughed slightly. “They hated it, which means it was a success.”
“We don’t know if we’re trumans, but….”
“You got two cocks?” He looked down pointedly.
“Uh, well, yeah.”
Fergus nodded. “Trumans.” He then stood there and looked at them in silence. “Well?”
“Well...what?”
“Let’s see ‘em, then.”
“Oh!” Carl said, and he released his twin without preamble.
“Jesus,” Fergus repeated.
“What?” Carl said, looking down.
“It’s as big as the other one!”
“Well...yeah. What did you expect?”
“I dunno, but, I mean, that’s just being greedy, isn’t it?”
“Didn’t have much say in the matter. Besides, it was his fault,” he answered, nodding at Billy.
“You were the first?” Fergus asked.
Billy shook his head. “Only the first one with...twins.” He blushed. Both of Carl’s pricks throbbed with sudden desire.
Fergus noticed. “You and him, then?” he asked Carl.
“Does it show?”
“Only when your cocks throb in his direction.” He clapped his hands together. “Whoa! Real life motherfucking trumans! Nice catch, Magnus!”
“I didn’t catch them, they sort of...fell into my lap.” He stood next to Fergus and they looked across at the other three men. It was a study in contrasts, as the two slight, slim, small young men stood dwarfed before three huge, muscular, perfectly proportioned hunks bulging with power and sex. The differences were almost comical. “So what do you think?”
“It's an interesting offer.”
“If you’re up for it,” Billy said. “We’d be happy to have you join us.”
“And what’s in for me?”
“You’re joking, right?” Carl asked.
But Fergus shook his head. “From where I’m standing, I’m a pretty happy guy. I get to do whatever I want to. I get to do it with whomever I want to. I’m free. I’m safe. I’m healthy. I mean, yeah, you guys are big, but so what? You walked in here looking like refugees from the worst-stocked Goodwill on the planet, you’re hanging with my bud Magnus who, let’s face it, isn’t the B.M.O.C. around here, and I get the distinct impression that you’re all hiding out like you’re ashamed of something. So why the fuck would I want to be you?”
“Wow,” Trevor said.
Billy pursed his lips and nodded. “You have several valid points.”
“No he fucking doesn’t!” Carl retorted. “You want to know why you want to be one of us?” Fergus folded his arms and shrugged. “Do you really want to know?”
“Carl,” Billy said, warningly.
“No, no. He’s wondering what we’ve got going on. So I just want to satisfy his curiosity.”
“Careful, Carl,” Trevor advised. “Don’t go making him sex crazy.”
That certainly got Fergus’s attention. “What’s this now?”
“He’s not going to….”
Carl narrowed his eyes, smiled, and unleashed a whale-sized tug on Fergus’s body, sending out a wave of sexual bliss so powerful that it was nearly visible in the shadowed warehouse between them. He unleashed the full essence of his prodigious sexual capacity at the small, slim man, and he held nothing back.
To be sure, being tugged wasn’t the same as being fucked. Tugging someone grew stronger with familiarity, as the initiator grew to know the target of his passion.
But Carl didn’t hold anything back. He had been challenged, hadn’t he? Not only that, he had the distinct impression that he’d just been severely dissed as well.
So he opened fire on the slim naked dude standing before him so nonchalantly.
With both barrels.
And something unexpected and entirely surprising happened.
Fergus began to grow.
Carl said, “Oops.”