Jock Itch

Sam Wagner was a swaggering jock when I first met him. He got under my skin then, and unfortunately even though he's no longer a swaggering jock, he still is under my skin.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. It was my Freshman year at State, and as luck would have it Sam was my assigned room mate. I later learned that all the jocks were paired with smart kids with the idea that they'd get their roomies to tutor them or more likely do their work for them. I was in all Sam's intro classes during the first term, and he made it clear that he expected me to take notes for him.

"You're not going to push me around, Sam!" I had told him.

He proceeded to beat the living crap out of me. When I had stopped sobbing, he grabbed me by the collar and explained the facts of life as he saw them.

"Okay, nerdling, here's the sitch. There are jocks and there are nerds. In this reality, the jocks are the masters, and the nerds live to serve them. I am a jock. You pathetic one are a nerd.

"You can be my homework flunky or you can be pulverized until you become my homework flunky. Need any more convincing?" he asked clenching his fist, and then in a mocking voice he added, "Or you can become a jock like me!" he laughed.

Then he dumped me back on the floor, and started to leave for a party. He paused at the door.

"I expect that report on Henry the Ape on my desk tomorrow morning, and make it different than your own report. Got it?"

"It's Henry the Eighth," I muttered angrily as I still whimpered.

"Whatever, just do it!" he ordered and slammed the door.

As luck would have it, my own studies beyond the Freshman required classes provided me with a solution to my problems. In my bio class, the professor was researching using retroviruses to introduce genetic material to correct damaged DNA. You know use a virus to carry the normal healthy gene for blood cells, and reprogram the sickle cell gene. Well, that research really is promising, but no results. Still he mentioned that they were looking at bacteria and fungi to try to introduce more complex genetic data.

He let slip the disastrous results that had gotten his lab shut down for at least a month. The test experiment had been to change the pigment from albino to black in rabbits. The fungus strain had converted the entire albino rabbit into fungus. Then the fungus had infected some of the black rabbits that were the control group and changed them white. It sounded horrific and incredible.

That's when I got the idea to infect Sam with that fungus. I'd then use the fungus that he changed into to turn myself into a jock. I had to break into the lab, and then hack the computer system. Thanks to the human genome project I knew just which genes to target for transference. Then when the fungus was ready, I spread it liberally between Sam's sheets. He always worked out just before coming home to sleep. He'd be sweaty and exhausted when climbed naked between his clean sheets. His body would be the perfect breeding ground for fungus. Oh, did I mention that one of my other duties was to wash his sheets daily.

In the morning, I walked tentatively over to the bed. There was a lump under the blanket. I took a breath and pulled back the sheet. I braced myself for a pair of fists in the face, but I needn't have worried. He was a mess, or rather it was a mess. The slimy grey transparent glob was still vaguely human shaped, it looked like really gross gelatin. I tapped it gently and the whole thing wobbled like cranberry jelly.

I confess I'd been up all night drinking and fretting about what might happen. So I wasn't exactly thinking clearly, when I stripped down to my bare skin and climbed into Sam's bed. The fungal goo oozed all around me encasing me in slime. I even swallowed a mouthful of the nasty goo.

The stuff must have contained halluncinogens, cause I actually thought I could hear Sam's terrified thoughts. Of course, I knew he had been digested by the fungus and was no longer sentient. At least that was what I thought I knew. The goo oozed into my ears, nose, and ever body crevice. I felt it working its way into my rectum. There was a sucking sound and it began to fill me. The cold goo was inside me. I opened my mouth to scream and it filled my mouth and lungs. I was helpless. I was entombed in the fungus. I thought I would die.

I was wrong, unfortunately.

When I regained consciousness, everything was normal, but everything was different. My room had been straightened up, and the fungal mess was gone. Sam's bed was freshly remade. I was walking across the room toward the bathroom door, or rather my body was walking. I had just awakened. I could feel the clothing on my body, but I didn't recall dressing. I could not command my body at all. It wouldn't stop it wouldn't turn. It opened the door, and I saw my reflection in the mirror. Or rather I saw Sam's reflection in the mirror.

"Oh, you're still with me, slime," Sam said with a smile. He had heard my thoughts. "Guess, you got it way wrong, nerd boy. Yep, it's me your jock room mate, or I guess, I'm really your jock itch room mate. That fungus you turned me into is really nasty, and yeah, your body looks like mine used to look with a few improvements," he said flexing his muscles. The pecs were definitely perkier.

"Anyway, your body is my meat puppet. I can access your thoughts the way you could look things up on the internet. So I won't need tutoring for any of my classes. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm still highly contagious. So I'm going to be getting under a lot guy's skins. Nothing as drastic as happened with you and me, but I imagine in a few months, most of the team will look like me." Sam grinned. It was weird feeling my cheek muscles pull my lips and bare my teeth when I was trying with all my heart to scream. Though I couldn't help thinking of how studly I looked now.

Sam laughed. He had heard my thought. I tried to hear his, but I only heard the sound of my heart beating.

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