CAFE Blues 3 (musc)
by Jaypat
You’ve got to wonder how large a part lust plays in world events. I mean, I’m no hero. I’ve never really given much thought to ending world suffering. I’ve always been kind of busy worrying about how to stay out of cafeteria trashcans or being better at Halo than Nigel, you know, important things. But now, I was suddenly considering giving up the most valuable thing I owned, my growth juice, to help make the world a better place. And why would I even entertain a thought like this? It was simple. I was addicted to Skyler Spooner, the most perfect human being in the universe. I couldn’t get enough of him. Just standing next to him was making me dizzy with joy. If you’ve never experienced something like this, I guess it would be pretty hard to understand. Hell, even if you have experienced something like this, it’s still hard to understand. But somehow understanding doesn’t seem so important when your brain is overdosing on endorphins, and making big decisions is almost impossible.
“So, what do you say?” asked Sky.
A couple of seconds passed before I realized I ought to say something. “Ahhhh…,” I said. That was articulate.
“I can see this is a tough decision,” said Sky. “So, why don’t you come down to CAFE with me and meet the guys. When you see the work we’re doing, maybe it will help make up your mind.”
“Café? You guys meet at, like, Starbucks?”
“No, “he answered. “But everybody says that.” He put his hand on my shoulder. Oh my God, he was touching me. I literally felt a current run from his hand into my body. It was the most amazing sensation. I never wanted it to end.
“Our group’s name is CAFE. It stands for Cures Are For Everyone.” In retrospect it seems like kind of a stupid name, but at that point I wouldn’t have cared if it was called Ralph.
“So, will you come?”
Was he kidding? If he’d said, “Let’s go to Iraq,” I’d’ve bought the plane tickets. “Sure,” I said. And that’s how I found myself on a bus with Sky heading for Christian Young Occidental College, where this organization was headquartered. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to give up my grow juice, but I was getting to spend a lot of time with Sky and I decided I wouldn’t worry about any big choices until I had to.
In the mean time, I got to listen to Sky talk, and boy did he like to talk. He told me all about the evil drug companies and how they had all these cures for diseases like Cancer and AIDS locked away in some vault. But it was more profitable to sell treatments rather than cures, because you can only sell a cure once but treatments can be sold time and time again over a lifetime. CAFE, he said, was dedicated to getting those cures out to the people. It sounded good to me. But to be fair, if he had recited the recipe for liver and onions, that would have sounded pretty good to me, too.
I was so busy looking into his eyes as they glistened with passion and listening to the dulcet tones of his voice, I almost didn’t notice we were getting off the bus until it pulled away. He led me quickly across the brown lawns of the campus and down behind what looked like an old deserted house. One of the basement windows had been propped open and we headed straight for it.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“CAFE headquarters,” answered Sky, pointing toward the open window.
“Doesn’t it have a door?” I asked.
“CAFE isn’t exactly sanctioned by the college,” said Sky. “We have to be creative in appropriating resources.”
“Hunh?”
“We set up in the basement of a vacant frat house.”
“Oh.” I was beginning to have doubts about this. What was I getting myself into? But one look at Sky’s beautiful, earnest face and I found myself slipping in through a basement window after him. But instead of the cobwebs and dampness I had expected, the place was immaculately clean and fitted out like some kind of lab. It seemed empty, but it looked like someone was running an experiment on one of the benches. Suddenly a head popped up from behind the bench where it had obviously been hiding.
“Jeeze, Sky, you scared the crap out of me!” it said.
“Sorry, Shepard,” said Sky.
Shepard stood up and I got my first good look at him. He was a good looking guy in his early twenties with sandy brown hair, a ruddy complexion, and two-day stubble that really agreed with him. There was something about him though… He seemed out of place in such a dorky setting.
“Who the hell is this?” asked Shepard. I can only guess he was talking about me.
“This is Colin,” said Sky. “He’s ok.”
Wow, he said I was ok. Maybe he likes me.
“Jeeze,” said Shepard, muttering to himself. “We let one kid in, and suddenly we’re crawling with them.” The he turned to Sky. “What are you, baby sitting?”
Ok, suddenly I didn’t like Shepard very much.
“I’m not a kid,” said Sky, “and neither is Colin. He’s fifteen.”
Shepard looked me up and down the way a doctor does.
“Growth hormone deficiency?” he asked me.
I nodded. “But it’s not treatable,” I said. He raised his eyebrows. I had a feeling I was suddenly interesting to him.
“Oh ho ho,” he said as he came trotting over to us. “Our junior member did good. Sky knows growth hormone deficiencies are of particular interest to me.”
“They are?” Suddenly I had the feeling that Sky hadn’t told me everything. That maybe there was something else going on here, something I didn’t know about.
Sky must have seen the expression on my face because suddenly he put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Sky said. “Everything’s cool.” I looked up at him and even though I still had my doubts, I knew I wasn’t going to go anywhere, especially while he was looking into my eyes and his hand was resting on my shoulder.
“Would you take off your shirt for me?” asked Shepard.
“What?” I asked, snapping back to reality. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“It’s ok,” said Sky. “Shepard is a med student. His interest is purely professional.”
What about your interest? I almost asked him, but that might be moving a little too fast.
“Ok,” I said, despite my own misgivings. I generally didn’t like taking off my shirt in public. My build was very slight. My limbs and torso were smooth and straight except where my ribs stuck out. I had tried building a little muscle once, but my hormone deficiency made it impossible. I took off my jacket and removed the red race car shirt. It was cold in the room and I was breaking out in goose pimples all over. Shepard was looking at me in a strange way. I felt kind of like a lab rat.
“Hmmm,” he said. “You are exceptionally puny.”
“Excuse me?” He might be a medical student, but his bedside manner sucked.
“There’s practically no muscular development at all. You almost have the body of a prepubescent boy.”
I started to get a little red in the face. “Yeah? Well, there are one or two important differences,” I said, liking Shepard less and less.
“I did say almost,” said Shepard with a slight smile. I started to wonder if he was making fun of me. “
“Thank you,” said Shepard. “You can put your shirt back on.” I wasted no time complying, and as I did I heard Shepard say to Sky, “Good work, kiddo. They’re going to find him irresistible.”
What was going on here? “Who’s going to find me what?” I asked.
“Come over here, Colin,” said Shepard and let me show you what I’m working on. The fact that he avoided answering my question was not lost on me. Shepard was definitely a little cagey, but I followed him over to the lab bench, and I got a closer look at the experiment on top of it. It was an unconscious guinea pig. It seemed to be breathing rapidly and there were tubes running in and out of it and through this machine.
“This is Giggles,” said Shepard. “One of our sympathizers snuck him out of the RxAll Pharmaceutical labs. Giggles has been inoculated with the cure for Lithuanian Diphtheria.”
“Lithu whata?”
“Lithuanian Diphtheria is a mutation of Diphtheria that has been ravaging the children of Lithuania. It is resistant to the normal vaccination, but RxAll has developed a cure. The only problem is Lithuania is a poor country and RxAll couldn’t possibly turn a profit there. So, they’re going to wait until it spreads to a country with deeper pockets, before they come forward with the drug.”
“What does all this have to do with me?”
“I just wanted to show you how important our work is and explain how you could be as important to us as Giggles.”
Oh boy. I looked down at the guinea pig. It was breathing rapidly and really didn’t look too healthy. I was pretty sure I didn’t trust Shepard, so I didn’t think I’d be jumping at the chance to be another Giggles.
“What are you doing to… ah… Giggles?”
“We’re filtering the cure out of his blood.”
“Is he going to die?”
“No, no. We filter the blood and then replace it. It should be fine, just like it was before it ever received the cure.”
“You mean it’s going to die of Literary Dipithus?”
“Lithuanian Diphtheria. No. As I said, it was the cure. The disease is gone. Only the cure is left.”
“Isn’t Shepard brilliant?” said Sky. Something in his voice sent alarm bells going off in my head. I looked over at him and was horrified at his expression. I recognized it because it was the exact same expression I’d been wearing for the last couple of hours. Oh my God, Sky was stuck on Shepard! Now I really didn’t like the guy.
Then Sky proceeded to tell Shepard what I had just bought from his brother. His voice was a little breathless. He reminded me of a dog who had just fetched his master a stick. I might have found the whole thing really depressing, but I noticed with some satisfaction that Shepard seemed to be completely oblivious to how Sky felt about him, either that or he didn’t care. In fact, he was almost treating Sky the way I treated Nigel when he wanted to hang out with me and my friends. He seemed a little annoyed.
“Sky, Sky, Sky,” said Shepard, “The substance you brother sells is not the kind of thing we’re looking for. It’s really just another treatment and we’re only interested in cures.” Sky’s face fell. I could see this was a tremendous blow to him. He must have really thought he had a slam dunk here. I wanted to say something to make him feel better, but I didn’t know what. But there was a dark inner part of me that was doing a dance of joy. Shepard was rejecting Sky big time. Maybe I had a chance.
“But your heart’s in the right place, Sky,” continued Shepard, “and someday when you’re all grown up, you will be a great addition to CAFE.”
Oooo. That had to hurt. And looking at Sky, I could see it did. Poor Sky. I knew exactly what he was going through. How could that asshole treat God’s most perfect creature like that. And what could Sky possibly see in that old man? He had to be well into his twenties! But then I started looking at Shepard in a new way. I saw his handsome features and his tall strong body and I realized I had nothing on him. He was an attractive young man in his prime and I was a stunted shrimp. I started to get depressed, but then I got more determined to grow than ever. If that’s what Sky wanted, then that’s what I would become. There had to be some way I could grow. There had to be. And I guessed I would start with Charles’s grow juice.
“You see,” said Shepard, addressing me, “that substance you bought from Sky’s brother will help you develop your muscles while you’re on it, but as soon as you stop taking it, the effects will fade and before long you’ll be right back where you started.”
Wow. Now it was my turn to get upset. This meant Charles’s juice was next to useless. Next year, he’d be off at college and I’d have no way of getting any more. I’d be a shrimp again, probably a shrimp who had ticked off a lot of jocks while he was big. Things would be even worse.
“If you want a permanent solution to your condition,” Shepard continued, “your best bet is to join with us.”
“I don’t understand. How can Lipus Dipus help me?”
“Lithuanian Diphtheria. And it can’t. I’m talking about another project of ours.”
“Benz’s Project?” asked Sky.
“Benz? Who’s that?” Suddenly I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I turned and had to stifle a shout. Slowly gliding out of a shadowy corner was one of the most grotesque sights I’d ever seen. It was this wizened, shriveled creature. It looked human—or at least like it used to be. It wasn’t very large, maybe even a little smaller than me, and it was sitting—no, not sitting—it was held in a seated position by a series of braces, and attached to this high tech wheel chair. It was all wrinkled, completely hairless, and its skin looked raw and red. Its head was tilted in an unnatural angle and specks of drool were leaking from its mouth.
“What is it?” I gasped.
“It’s Benz,” said Sky.
“Our founder,” added Shepard. “He had a condition similar to yours. He took an experimental treatment, and needless to say, it didn’t work.”
“It left him with three types of Muscular Dystrophy, a bone wasting disease, and a really bad headache,” said Sky.
“As an interesting side note,” said Shepard, sounding a little too detached, “we have more chance of curing the MD and the bone disease, then we do the headache. Modern science still isn’t sure what causes them.”
What the fuck were these guys talking about? This thing…Benz… was fucking scary looking. He used to be like me? Is this what they wanted me for? To experiment on? To make me like that? No way. No fucking way! “I think I want to go now,” I said.
“Wait,” said Sky, “Hear the rest of it.”
“I’ve heard all I want to!” I said.
“Benz hasn’t got long to live,” said Shepard.
“Tell me something that isn’t fucking obvious.”
“We can save him but we need your help,” said Shepard.
“You need help all right, Shepard, psychiatric help, ‘cause you’re fucking crazy!”
“We need you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m allergic to shriveling!”
“No, you misunderstand,” said Shepard. “The drug companies have a proven cure for Benz. We just need your help to get it.”
I stole another glance at pale, sickly, dribbling Benz. “How can I put this gently? FUCK NO!”
“Well, ok,” said Shepard. “If you really want to go through the rest of your life as a shrimp, go ahead.”
Like I had a choice… Wait a minute. “What do you mean?”
“Cobalt Pharmaceuticals—” started Shepard.
“That’s the company my dad works for,” injected Sky.
“Cobalt operates a low key clinic right down town,” said Shepard.
“It’s for human trials,” said Sky. “But not everything they’re testing has been exactly approved yet.”
“That’s why Sky’s brother’s little extra curricular activities have them so upset. That stuff you bought isn’t supposed to be out of the lab yet.”
“But they’ve been testing it at the clinic,” said Sky, “along with a bunch of other stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?” I asked.
Shepard walked over to a fridge and opened it up. There, amongst what had to be two cases worth of Sam Adams, was a small blue bottle. He held it up and shook it. “Stuff like this,” he said. “Sky lifted us a sample from his dad’s home lab so we could see if it would help Benz.”
“It couldn’t have done much good,” I said, stealing another glance at the crippled, slobbering gnome.
“No,” sighed Shepard. “Benz’s condition is too advanced, but it’ll probably work on you. And, as it so happens, I have one dose left. Interested?”
“I don’t know. What will it do to me?”
“I thought that was obvious. I could give you a long scientific explanation you wouldn’t understand anyway, but it’ll be quicker just to say it’ll make you grow—not too much, but then this is just one dose. You want to try it? No obligation. Think of it as a free sample.”
I looked at the blue bottle he held in his hand. Could it really make me grow? It was almost too much to hope for. I looked over at Benz. I sure as hell didn’t want to wind up like him. But then I looked at Sky and saw the way he was looking at Shepard and I made up my mind. “I’ll try it.”
“Take off your jacket,” said Shepard. I did and I watched him fill a syringe. My heart started beating faster. Could this really work? I held out my arm, shaking ever so slightly as Shepard swabbed my arm and then injected me.
I waited expectantly.
“You can drop your arm,” said Shepard.
“Oh.” I hadn’t realized I was still holding it out in front of me. I let it fall to my side, gently rubbing the spot where the needle had penetrated my skin. It was a little tender. There was a slight bluish bruise. “Is something going to happen?” I asked.
Suddenly every muscle in my body contracted. It wasn’t painful but it was pretty scary. I doubled over and then fell to the floor, and then my muscles jerked me into a fetal position, and I started shaking. I had no control over my body whatsoever. I tried to call out but it was all I could do to breath.
“Oh my God, what’s happening to him? Is he ok?” I heard Sky ask.
“He’s having a very strong reaction,” said Shepard. “But he should be ok.”
Should be?!!!! Fuck!
Then, all at once, I felt my self getting fucking turned on. Of all the times and places! But there it was, that wonderful tingling, right down in my groin area, and it was getting more intense. I could feel my dick get rock hard. It was painful the way it was constricted by my underwear and pants. But at the same time, it felt real good. And the feeling seemed to be spreading, moving down into my legs and up into my stomach. And as it did, I could feel all my contracted muscles getting harder and balling up. It was a fantastic sensation if not a little bizarre. In a couple of seconds, it had traveled all over me, and I lay there shaking in an almost orgasmic frenzy. Then I felt this sharp pain in my bones, first in my legs, then shooting up my arms and then all over my body. It was excruciating, but when mixed with the pleasure spread throughout the rest of my body, it created an erotic sensation beyond description. It got more and more intense and then suddenly I was cumming. I came and I came and I came, and just when I thought it would never end, it did. The sensations went away and my muscles relaxed. I lay there on the floor panting, completely spent.
When I looked up, Sky was kneeling next to me.
“Are you ok?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said, sitting up. Wow. He was really worried about me. I could see it in his face. The whole fit/frenzy thing had been totally worth it just to see that expression. “I’m just a little exhausted.” And I was. I felt like I could sleep for a week. “What happened to me?”
“You had a particularly strong reaction,” said Sky. “I’ll understand if you want to use the bathroom, you know, to clean yourself up.”
He must have been referring to my mega orgasm. I looked down at my crotch. I could feel I was soaking down there, but it hadn’t seeped through to my pants yet. “You knew about that?” I asked Shepard. “You could have warned me.”
He shrugged. “Side effects,” he said.
That was one hell of a side effect. He could probably sell that stuff based on the side effect alone. “Where’s the bathroom,” I said standing up. Woah. The room was spinning. If Sky hadn’t grabbed my arm to steady me, I might have fallen over.
“Down the hall on the left,” said Shepard, seeming remarkably unconcerned.
“You going to be able to make it?” asked Sky. I nodded.
“The dizziness will pass fairly quickly,” said Shepard
I gestured to Sky that I was ok and he let go of me. I briefly thought about stumbling again just so he’d grab me again, but I knew I only had a few seconds before my pants got stained, so instead I made my way to the small bathroom. Once inside I quickly dropped my pants and stepped out of my underwear. I was a mess. I didn’t know I had that much cum in me. As I was cleaning myself off, I suddenly noticed my leg; it looked different. It took me a second to realize what it was. I could see my thigh muscles. They weren’t huge or anything. Hell, they were barely there at all, but I could see them. Usually my legs were nothing but slender poles, but now they actually had a slight shape to them. Wow.
I lost no time. I pulled off my shirt, and looked in the small mirror above the sink. The same thing had happened to my upper body. My shoulders were taking on a definite globular shape, I had small bumps on my upper arms and my chest had a slight swell to it. Holy crap! It was happening! I was growing!
Suddenly I was flexing like a maniac. I could actually feel my new muscles, like small balls of hard rubber under my skin. It felt fucking amazing. I tried every bodybuilding pose I’d ever seen or heard of. The way I was going at it, you’d think I was Schwarzenegger or the Rock, instead of a slightly lumpy runt. But I didn’t care. I loved each and every one of those lumps. When you’ve been dying of thirst in a desert, even a muddy puddle is a miracle.
I don’t know how long I was in the bathroom, but suddenly I heard a knock on the door, and a voice from the other side. “Are you alright?” It was Sky. Fuck! I didn’t want him to catch me like this. What would he think?
“Yeah,” I said quickly pulling up my pants. I didn’t know what to do with my soaking underwear so I just dropped them in the small waste basket. I pulled on my shirt and opened the door. Sky was standing there. I was in awe. He was better at just standing there than anyone I had ever seen. He looked relieved to see me.
“I was beginning to worry,” he said.
“Really?” I said. My stomach fluttered and then rumbled.
“You sure you’re ok?”
“Yeah, just tired… and hungry, really hungry.” And even as I said it I could feel this enormous hunger exploding inside me. “Do you think there’s any food around here?”
“Probably,” said Sky. “Come on,” he said, and I followed him back to the lab. As I was walking, I felt a little weird. I was almost dizzy but not quite. It was something else, but I couldn’t figure out what.
Shepard was over by Giggles, but he looked up when we came in.
“You got any food?” I asked. I know it wasn’t really polite but my stomach was cramping with hunger.
“Yeah, I bet you’re hungry,” he said.
“Another side effect?”
“Not this time. You’re body used all of its energy reserves to pull off that little growth spurt. You’ll need to replace them.” Shepard opened the fridge again and pulled out a pizza box. I couldn’t help peering past him to see if he had another one of those little blue bottles in there. It didn’t look like he did. He tossed the box on a table and opened it. There was half a pizza inside. I didn’t wait to be asked. It was gone in about thirty seconds. I was still hungry but the cramps were gone.
“Let’s have a look at you,” said Shepard. He pulled out a stethoscope and I removed my shirt—not nearly as reluctantly as before.
“Looks like you put on a little weight,” he said. “Not quite so exceptionally puny anymore.”
“Gee, thanks a lot.”
He listened to my heart and had me take a couple of deep breaths. Then he had me stand up and used a measuring tape to take my height. “Five, one,” he said.
“Seriously?” I gasped. That was it! That was the almost-dizzy feeling! I was viewing the world from a little higher up! “You mean I grew an entire inch?”
“If you were five feet even before, you did.”
“Holy crap! That stuff is great!”
“And there’s only one place where you can get any more,” said Shepard “So what do you say? Will you help us?”
Of course I was going to help them, and I think Shepard knew I would when he gave me the shot. He was a manipulative bastard, but even knowing that, I was still going to fall right in line with his plan. I knew it was probably stupid and that I’d more than likely get caught, but I was hooked now. I mean Sky just asking me would probably have been enough, but now I had grown an entire inch. And the chance to grow even more was absolutely impossible to ignore. “Just tell me where this clinic is and when I have to be there.”
Shepard grinned. “Great. First we’ll need to forge you a referral.”
“A referral?”
“They only take patients that are discreetly referred to them by a short list of specialists,” said Shepard. “It’s all done on line, so it’ll be easier to fix than Florida elections. All you have to do is show up tomorrow morning and be admitted. They allow visitors; so, on Thanksgiving, I’ll come by posing as your brother. Once I’m in, I should be able to find their lab and maybe even the vault, the mother load. That’s where the cure for Benz will be.”
“What about me?”
“All you have to do,” said Shepard, “is sit back, relax and let them grow you.”
Now that was a deal I could live with.