Smokin' New Life (musc tf)
by kdumd
Part 1
Billy was about as stereotypical a nerd as you could possibly imagine. Entering his first year at the university, he was tall, about 6'1", but skinnier than a post with rampant full body acne and hair so greasy it soaked through his pillowcases. He was here on a full-ride scholarship to be a computer programming major, and all he was hoping for was that when he got to his dorm on move-in day, his roommate and he would have something--ANYTHING--in common.
Not so much.
Nick was a polar opposite in every way. Also tall, but erupting with muscle obviously built and honed over years of weight training (and maybe some extra help from a chemical or two). Perfect Mediterranean-olive skin with a shaved head and two large diamond stud earrings made Nick look like most women's--and many men's--dream come true.
When Billy walked into his room for the first time, his heart sank upon seeing Nick, already moved in and sitting at his computer shirtless with his giant hands down his mesh shorts. Billy thought he could smell something odd but couldn't quite place it. He dropped his bags on the floor, only partially on purpose, and awkwardly made a step towards Nick to introduce himself. Nick, for his part, was very warm and inviting to his new roommate.
"Yo, man," Nick said, extending a hand, "what's up? I'm Nick, good to meet you, bro."
Billy tried to return the handshake, but it wasn't the simple extension of hands he was used it; it was a full-motion hand-lock with a man-hug at the end, the kind he had seen the jocks and thugs at his old high school do for years. Billy's try fell flat, and Nick had to laugh. Still speechless, Nick had to prompt Billy to give up his own identity.
"Oh, right," Billy stammered, "B-Billy. I'm Billy."
"Sweet, dude. Yo, this shit's gonna be TIGHT." Looking out onto the quad and the mass of students roaming on the quad in the hot summer sun, he said longingly, "I mean, look at all these girls..."
Billy still stood motionless. He wasn't gay, he was sure of that, but there was something positively arresting about Nick that had rendered him deaf, dumb and blind. And he still coudn't figure out what that smell was.
Eventually Nick threw on a white wife beater and some sneakers and left to join the growing party in the quad, which freed up Billy's motor system to begin actually functioning again. He unpacked all of his clothes, mostly old second-hand t-shirts and tight jeans. He set up his computer, homemade of course, and all of the peripherals that went with it. If nothing else, he'd be able to amuse himself, he thought.
Later that night, as Billy was finally settling in and starting to recover from the apparent trauma of meeting Nick, his new roommate came in from the shower and dressed more formally than he had before. As he put on the seemingly painted-on polo shirt that conformed to his muscles like a wetsuit, Nick look at Billy and tried to be a good roommate.
"Yo, Billy dude, come out with us tonight."
"I, um," (great, Billy thought, the stammering again) "I don't..."
"Dude, get dressed, we're going. Right now. Come on. Hurry up, my boys are waiting for us. They're expecting you."
Billy sighed, got up from his desk and put on the nicest looking casual clothes he could, a comically too-large button-down shirt and some shorts, with white socks that ran halfway up his calf. Nick took one look and chuckled. "Dude, we gotta take care of this."
Billy didn't think anything off that seemingly off-hand comment. Nick and Billy left their dorm and made their way to an off-campus house where a handful of Nick's buddies were living. As they walked up to the house, Billy could smell that odd smell again, the one from his room at move-in time.
Walking inside, he could see what was causing it. About 15 guys, all of them as devastatingly handsome and masterfully built as Nick, smoking large brown cigars. Clouds of smoke hovered at the ceilings, and the once faint odor was now a potent stench. Billy coughed as soon as he stepped over the threshhold; he had never even touched a lit cigarette, let alone smoked a cigar. He immediately regretted his decision to come out with Nick.
A number of the guys came over to introduce themselves, giving Billy the same handshake he had failed to execute properly with Nick. Luckily he did it enough times that he learned the technique, but that was hardly enough to keep him from feeling like a stranger in this world.
"Hey man, you wanna try?" Nick asked, referencing his newly lit stogie.
"Oh, um, I've never..." Billy managed.
"You've NEVER?" Nick and one of his boys, Travis, said in unison. "Fuck, dude, someone get this kid a cigar. One of the black ones." Travis turned to Billy. "Not everyone gets the black ones. We like you, so we want to show you."
Billy was still overwhelmed, but had to admit he was a bit flattered. Another guy, Bryan, walked over with the jet black cigar, which Nick took from him, cut and lit for Billy.
"Here you go, dude," Nick said.
Billy took the cigar hesitantly, studying it for a long time before beginning to move his trembling hands up to his mouth. He put the cigar in his mouth, never taking his eyes off the burning end, and meekly pulled a draw of smoke into his mouth.
All of the guys in the room hooted and cheered. Billy couldn't figure out why.
"Welcome to the family, man," Nick said, patting Billy on his back.
Billy had no idea just how loaded a statement that was.
Part 2
After one hit on the "special" cigar Bryan had given him, Billy's head was spinning. He hacked and coughed the first time the acrid smoke got even remotely close to his lungs, eliciting mild laughter from the rest of the guys. Nick, his roommate, Travis and Bryan, along with a handful of the other guys, talked him through his virgin cigar experience.
In truth, Billy really liked it. His stomach and throat didn't quite as much, but Billy was excited that he was becoming a part of something bigger than himself. He had never really had many friends growing up, at least not that weren't exactly like him--nerdy and without much self-confidence. He spent the rest of the night loosening up and getting to know the guys, even in spite of his typically reserved nature.
When midnight had long come and gone, Nick, still clutching a stogie between his pearly white teeth, put his arm around Billy's shoulder and began to lead him out of the house. "C'mon, bro, you got a big day tomorrow." Billy had NO idea what Nick was talking about, but kept his bewilderment to himself.
The walk home across campus was uneventful, and both guys settled in and passed out, Nick in nothing but pink boxers. Billy put on an old science olympiad t-shirt, some pajama pants and crawled into his bed, head still swimming from all of the nicotine and smoke.
During the night, Billy had a really bizarre dream. He saw himself, but from the outside. He was...different, somehow. Physically. But the combination of the cigar smoke and the beer or two he downed at the house made his memory fuzzy.
When Billy awoke in the morning, he rolled over and felt something odd. He put his hand to his cheek and encountered dense, short stubble. "What the fuck?" he thought, since he had never been able to grow more than a smattering of wispy peachfuzz before. His hands moved to his hair, and that was different too. It was much shorter than he was used to, and didn't at all feel like the oily, sweaty mop he had grown up with.
This was enough to prompt Billy to jump out of bed and rush for the bathroom he and Nick shared with the kids next door. When he flipped on the light and looked in the mirror, his heart stopped. This wasn't him. It was a stranger.
This guy had a jet black buzz cut, arresting green eyes and two day stubble that Billy had dreamed of maybe SOMEDAY having. This guy had legitimate muscle, pecs and abs and bis that came in stark contrast to the rail-thin, slightly flabby frame Billy knew. This guy looked like a swimmer; Billy remembered looking like a starving refugee.
Billy darted back into his room and shouted for Nick to wake up. "Dude," he yelled, though not quite the word he was reaching for. "Nick, fuckin' wake up man!" His confusion continued to deepen as he tried to rouse his friend.
Nick eventually rolled over and opened his eyes. "Yo, bro, look at you! Told you it was gonna be a big day!" Nick stood up out of bed, morning wood tenting his pink boxers to an obscene degree. "So what do you think, man?"
"You knew about this?" Billy said, his voice resonating a lot deeper and smoother than the high-pitched trembles he remembered. "What the fuck is going on here, bro?"
"It's like we said, kid," Nick said, circling Billy and examining the changes, "you're one of us now."
Part 3
"One of who, dude?" Billy asked, his mind racing with a thousand questions.
"Call us whatever you want," Nick said, now taking a more authoritative tone than he ever had before. "All of us were like you once. Some of us were fat, some thin, some ugly, some REALLY ugly. A couple of us--Travis and Bryan and me--grew up together. One day, we thought it would be badass to go buy some cigars. Problem was, we were only 17, so we couldn't just go to a gas station or some shit.
"We had all seen this little hole in the wall tobacco shop in the historic district, and I'm not kidding when I say hole in the wall. The place looked like it hadn't been touched in decades, but the old man came in to work every day. Nobody ever went in, nobody ever left. But we were tryin' to be cool, so we went in.
"We looked around for a while, and then saw these really sweet cigars hidden in a corner. Black ones, looked to be pretty old. We brought them to the old man, he shook his head like he knew something we didn't, but we took them anyway. Later that night we smoked 'em up, all coughing and shit like you did. And the next morning, we were all different.
"Seems there's something in those stogies that changes people. And the more we smoked, the more we changed. So we went back and bought every last one the guy had, hundreds of them, maybe a thousand. We shared 'em with our friends, and now we're sharing with you, bro."
Billy couldn't begin to comprehend what he had just been told. His mind was a chaotic mess. He felt like there was a battle being waged, and whatever was going on, he was definitely not the same as he used to be.
"Fuck dude," Billy said, surprising even himself. "Fuckin' sweet, bro, thanks!" He gave Nick the very same handshake he fumbled the day before, but now it felt like he'd done it a million times.
"Alright, dude, let's go outside. It's a nice day." Billy looked around, and realized none of his old clothes would fit his new, ripped body. "Oh it's ok, man, take these." Nick tossed him a plain white t-shirt and some cargo shorts that hung below his waistline, exposing his swimmer's muscles to an extreme degree.
On his way out, Nick grabbed two cigars and a lighter, one black stogie and one brown. Billy was puzzled. "Yo, how come you guys don't smoke the black ones anymore?"
"Dude, if we smoke those anymore, we're gonna turn into fucking leather daddies." Both guys laughed, picturing that hypothetical situation.
Nick and Billy went out on the quad and lit the stogies. Guys didn't tend to sit out in the summer sun and smoke cigars at this university, so students walking by gave them a good amount of dirty looks. By now, Billy was handling the cigar like he had been a lifelong smoker. No one would ever have guessed it was only his second one ever.
"Alright dude, you need a nap if you want to see what happens next," Nick said when they were finished. The guys went inside, closed their door and stripped down to their boxers. Both guys passed out fairly quickly, and within minutes, Billy was having the same incomprehensible dream he had the night before. And still he couldn't remember it.
When Billy woke up, he felt something odd on his pillow again. This time, he could see it: his hair had fallen out. Jet black stubs were everywhere. He reached for his face and the stubble there was gone too.
Now he was worried. He had heard Nick mention that smoking too many of the magic cigars could turn him into a bear, but it couldn't happen after only two, could it?
Not even close. When Billy walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, he was even more shocked than he was before. His once milky-white skin was now a chocolate brown, and the hair on his pillow used to belong to a head that was now smooth and bald. His facial hair and most of his body hair was gone, while his nose and lips had enlarged to about twice their original size.
His musculature, previously a swimmer-like build, was even larger than before. Now, he resembled something more like an amateur bodybuilder. He had no way to know for sure, but Billy guessed he had to weigh at least 220 pounds.
"What da fuck, yo?" Billy said, though not intentionally. He had spoken that line as if he had grown up with black people all his life. Like he was one. Like he was now.
Just like earlier in the day, he went back into his room and woke Nick. "SHIT! Dude! You're a fuckin' thug, bro, sweet!" Billy was even more confused than he had been before. "Dude, we never know what these things are gonna do, but fuck man, nothing like this ever happened before!"
Billy was speechless. What had he gotten himself into?
Part 4
Billy couldn't get over what had taken place in the last two days. He had gone from skinny, pimply nerd to buff, handsome swimmer to, finally, a jacked black thug. Trying to comprehend the changes, he could tell his mind was being rewritten, like the computer code he used to be able to manipulate so well. Now, he wasn't even sure he could figure out how to check his email. Which, truth be told, didn't really bother him all that much.
Nick, his stud of a roommate and the source of his transformation, examined the new Billy with a mix of awestruck surprise and rampant excitment. "Dude," he said, out of breath, "this is fuckin' sweet. You might wanna think about giving it a rest on the black stogies now, though."
"Fo' sho'," Billy said. The words, the vocal inflection--it all felt so natural now. Like he was born with it.
"We gotta get you some new shit, though, man," Nick said, rushing to get himself dressed. Chess club t-shirts and busted old sneakers wouldn't look right on the body of a nubian adonis.
The guys left their dorm and made their way downtown. In the interim, Billy dressed himself in a wife beater and some mesh shorts he borrowed from Nick. But he knew that wouldn't do. Since Nick, in addition to being drop dead gorgeous and horny as a mountain goat, was apparently loaded, Billy's roommate graciously offered to take care of whatever new stuff he wanted.
As they neared the shopping district, a thought crossed Nick's mind. "Yo man," he said, "are you sure Billy's the right name for you? I mean, I don't know many fuckin' thugs named Billy." Then again, he didn't know many fuckin' thugs.
"For real, yo. I've been thinking about that too...what about DeShaun?"
Nick pondered it, and smiled, shaking his head up and down. "Yeah man, DeShaun, fuck yeah," he said, slapping DeShaun's hand forcefully. They made their way to a store that specialized in urban clothing, and something in the new programming of DeShaun's mind told him exactly what to get.
An hour and about a thousand bucks later, DeShaun walked away with piles of clothes, shoes and other accessories. Basketball jerseys, fitted caps, do rags, Timberlands--you name it, he bought it. He couldn't wait to get home to change and really absorb himself in his new life.
On the way, the guys decided to stop by the house and show the rest of the cigar boys how Billy had become DeShaun. Most of the guys were there, smoking on the brown, non-magic cigars. When Nick walked in, Travis immediately asked him who his new friend was.
"Yo, man, this G used to be Billy. Dudes, meet DeShaun." The guys were stunned. They, too, had never seen anyone completely change race from the magic stogies. They were about as excited as Nick had been. DeShaun took the opportunity to change while he was there, ditching his temporary threads for a more traditional urban look. Everything matched perfectly. Red fitted cap with a dead flat brim, black do rag underneath, oversized red t-shirt with a platinum chain hanging down below the mountains of his new pecs. Dark, hugely baggy jeans hung right above his crotch, and the outfit topped off with pristine new Timberlands. Now this felt right.
Once he had changed his clothes, he returned to the main room and a thought occured to him: why just smoke tobacco when you can use cigars for so much more? "Yo man," he said to Nick, "y'all got any weed up in here?"
Nick laughed. "Yeah, dude," he said as he reached into the very back of a drawer and pulled out a bag of about two ounces. "Enjoy, bro."
Like he had done it a thousand times before, DeShaun took one of the brown cigars and cut it lengthwise, spilling out most of the tobacco and leaving only the wrapper. He took the weed and filled the wrapper, licked it and closed it shut. He then took a lighter, lit it, and inhaled.
Within minutes, his head was swimming. Though his mind may have been used to the idea of getting high by virtue of its new programming, his body certainly wasn't. All the same, he smoked the blunt all the way to its end, and within a half hour he was toasted.
DeShaun and Nick spent most of the rest of the at the cigar house before taking all of their wares home and passing out for the night.
Just before he fell asleep, clad in nothing but white boxers that proved a stark contrast to his dark skin, DeShaun thought to himself, "Yo, we got all these boys up in this dorm...wonder if they ever smoked before."
Part 5
After leaving his life as Billy behind, DeShaun spent several weeks getting to know the rest of the cigar guys. He learned about their former lives, and many of them had stories similar to his. Travis, who looked like he belonged in an Abercrombie and Fitch ad, used to be Timmy, pushing 300 pounds as a high school senior. Bryan had been Bobby, a kid so clumsy both socially and physically, he literally and figuratively fell flat on his face day in and day out. Now, Bryan had the body of a pro linebacker.
DeShaun knew there were plenty of guys on campus who could benefit from the life change as he had. Where Billy had been shy, reserved and generally unattractive, DeShaun was confident, sexy and had a way of getting along with people, especially hot girls. He decided it would be his mission to transform as many of the unlucky kids at the university as he could.
One night, as he was getting ready to go out, decking himself out in as fashionable an outfit as he had, DeShaun got Nick to help him go around to the rest of his dorm floor and invite some of the less-than-perfect kids to the cigar house. Once they were there, DeShaun would bring them the black cigars and welcome them to their new realities.
Part of him wondered if this wasn't some really sick, twisted fantasy gone horribly wrong. But all he had to do was think back to who he used to be, and knew he was doing the right thing for these guys.
Just before midnight, Nick and DeShaun assembled their group and left the dorm. In tow were John, a former track athlete who'd let himself go; Steve, a pudgy kid who could barely bring himself to look a girl in the eye; Chip, a mama's boy who called home four times a day; and Greg, a positively fat man gaining even more weight thanks to his college meal plan.
They arrived at the house and led the boys inside, and watched as they reacted to the scene of hunky guys smoking cigars in much the same way DeShaun, then Billy, had. When the pleasantries had been completed, DeShaun brought them each a black cigar and helped them light them. He and Nick watched anxiously as they began to smoke the mystical stogies, all of them coughing, and Chip looking like he wanted to vomit.
Right as they were finishing, Nick had an idea. "Yo dude," he whispered to DeShaun, "since it takes two cigars to get the best results, why don't we just give them another one now, speed up the process a bit?" DeShaun smiled and nodded, locking arms with Nick in affirmation.
They presented Steve, Chip, John and Greg with their second black stogies and let them light them for themselves. By the time they were finished all four boys were exhausted, and asked Travis, who ran the house, if they could crash there. Travis agreed, and all four boys passed out on the floor of the living room.
Since DeShaun knew all of his changes had taken place overnight while he slept, he was excited to be able to watch his new bros make their changes. He settled in on the couch, smoking on a blunt and waiting impatiently for the transformations to begin.
Several minutes after the kids fell asleep, DeShaun noticed Greg's body trembling. "Aw yeah bro," he said to no one in particular, "here it goes." Greg, the monster of an 18-year-old, was losing fat at a rate impossible by any other means. Once all the fat had melted away, DeShaun gazed as the loose skin reformed itself and turned a golden brown. Greg's shoulder length blonde hair shortened to a buzz cut and turned jet black, much the same as Billy's intermediate form. Greg's facial features rearranged until the formerly plain boy was clearly becoming a Hispanic man.
Now was the most extreme part. Greg's body, stripped of all its former padding, began to inflate, only now in muscle instead of lard. His pecs ballooned out, the nipples eventually pointing straight down. His biceps grew to baseball size and kept on going, and DeShaun watched intently as Greg's lats pushed his ever expanding arms outward from his body. Abs began to poke through his midsection, first a weak four but quickly morphing into a shredded eight pack of washboard muscle. His stick legs exploded with mass, diamond shaped calves offsetting thick hams of Greg's thighs. Where Greg had just minutes earlier been a cow, he had become a Latin bull.
"Damn, yo," DeShaun said, toking on his second blunt of the night. Chip was next. His body most closely resembled Billy's original form, gaunt and acne-ridden. That wouldn't last long. Muscle exploded all over the frame, though not quite as extremely as Greg had. His forearms now were thicker than his legs had been before, and his traps pointed the way from his broad shoulders to his square-jawed face. Stubble grew in all over, a dirty blonde color, which would go nicely with the sky blue eyes he would discover in the morning. Chip's hair lightened to an almost bleached shade, spiked in the front and nearly shaved on the sides. The sheltered child had become the California surfer.
As Chip finished his transformation, Steve's began. Steve had been fat as well, but not nearly the tub of goo that Greg had been. His love handles receded, exposing y-shaped muscles that led seductively from his midsection to his crotch. Abs, arms, chest all grew out until Steve had a body that could win him a bodybuilding contest. As he slept, probably dreaming the same bizarre dreams DeShaun had, his massive pecs heaved up and down with every breath. The round face became strong and severe, a goatee shaping up in dark brown. All of Steve's hair fell out, and he was completely bald as Nick and DeShaun were.
"A'ight, dude, this is what I wanted," DeShaun said, knowing there was only one more change to be made. John still looked like he was relatively in shape, but his unremarkable features obviously weren't winning him much attention from the ladies. That wouldn't last long. He, just like the others, ballooned with new muscle, surpassing even the levels Greg and Steve had. He was huge, positively freaky, and completely shredded. Vascular forearms led the way to 24" biceps, accompanied by doorway-wide shoulders and a neck that looked like it had muscle on top of muscle. His legs, already toned from years of running, exploded into machine-like pistons of muscle and sinew, his thighs so wide he wouldn't be able to walk without swinging back and forth. Finally, as his body finished inflating, his skin changed color to a light tan, not as dark as the now-Hispanic Greg but certainly not pasty white as it had been. His eyelids flipped themselves inside out, and his cheekbones became more pronounced. His hair turned midnight black and formed into a flat top, and all semblance of facial hair disappeared. John (though maybe Jin was more appropriate) was now a Chinese muscle god, outweighing the others by a mile.
DeShaun looked over his new bros and exhaled a long stream of marijuana smoke. Finishing a third blunt, he laughed silently to himself as the sun came up outside. "Good fuckin' night, y'all."
Part 6
When the new cigar boys woke up in the morning, shocked is not the word you would use to describe their reactions. They were beyond stunned, each one taking turns looking at his new self in the mirror. John, now a Chinese muscle freak, could barely believe his eyes. "Dude," he whispered, flexing muscles he didn't know existed.
Greg, formerly an obese slob, was now a Hispanic--Puerto Rican, perhaps?--killer. "Dios mio," he said, surprised by the language he was speaking. He had no prior experience with Spanish (he'd taken French in high school), but the words were coming out like he was native speaker, complete with a sultry accent. He was happy to note he could still speak English.
Chip, once a weakling, was now a jacked surfer dude. "Fuckin' rad, bro," he said, California accent sweetening the phrase. Steve looked like he belonged more in the military than a small liberal arts college, examining the way the light reflected off his shiny bald head, offset nicely by the thick, dark goatee he had developed.
DeShaun swaggered into the room where they had slept, laughing lightly. "'Sup y'all? Like what you see?" All four guys were too engrossed by their new bodies--and minds--to notice DeShaun talking to them.
"How did this happen?" one of them said.
"The cigars, bro," DeShaun said, clutching a cigar (it was too early for weed) in his teeth. "The black ones do some crazy shit. I guess y'all learned that." He stood behind them and asked, "So, y'all got anyone you want to help out like we helped you?"
The guys considered the thought, and got really excited at the prospect of helping change the lives of other less-than-perfect guys like they had been. They all nodded, and DeShaun motioned for them to follow him. They had work to do--but not before some shopping.
All four guys got new clothes, which they sorely needed because their old ones didn't come close to fitting anymore. John, who did indeed choose to change his name to Jin, opted for a simple black wife beater with mesh shorts and white sneakers, but got his ears pierced with diamond studs. Chip chose a Billibong outfit and ended up looking like a catolog model any company would die to sign. Steve went with a simple outfit as well, a white shirt and jeans. Greg, who had decided Juan would be his new name, decided to model himself after DeShaun, picking out an urban wardrobe similar to his benefactor's.
After leaving the clothing stores, the guys mets up with the rest of the cigar brothers at a nearby tattoo parlor. Nick greeted each of them at the door. "Come on in, bros. We're gonna get something special." One by one all of the guys, now numbering about three dozen, took their turns getting a black cigar inked onto their massive right shoulders. Some of them weren't satisfied and made appointments to come back for more ink.
Once the ink was taken care of, the group split up again, and DeShaun and Nick returned with the new initiates to their dorm. They got more than a few curious looks on the way. After all, there did seem to be a massive influx of heavily muscled, gorgeous men on campus.
Each of the new guys identified a friend they thought would benefit from the magic smoke and invited them to the house that night. Juan chose his roommate, Kyle, a sickly kid who spent much of his time worrying about his health, even though he was in good shape overall. Jin brought his study partner, Tom, a black guy who didn't buy into the hip hop culture that DeShaun personified. Steve chose Kevin, a short kid with undistinguished features, while Chip escorted his longtime friend Bobby, who actually wrestled in high school in a low weight class.
When they all arrived at the cigar house, Chip, Steve, Jin and Juan brought the black cigars to each of their "pledges". They were hesitant, as everyone was before their change, but eventually settled in and smoked them down. They took their second stogies without question and seemed to enjoy themselves.
All four of the boys crashed in the same room their "big brothers" had the night before, and the guys watched them as they slept. Tom was the first to change. He had been black before, but now his skin's dark color faded somewhat an olive shade darker than Nick's. His hair stayed black, but became smooth and long, growing out to his shoulders. His facial features realigned somewhat, and very soon it was clear he was now of Middle Eastern origin. His body followed suit, inflating with powerful new muscle from neck to calves, doubling in weight from 120 to 240 pounds. Tom now looked like he could compete with the best of the world's bodybuilders.
Kevin was next. His torso and legs lengthened, increasing his height from 5'2" to just under 7'. His facial features didn't change too much, but his jawline strengthened, his crooked nose repaired itself and he grew a narrow, perfectly manicured chinstrap beard. To go along with all that height, Kevin grew muscles that didn't make him look necessarily freaky, but gave him the build of a basketball center that could give Shaq a game in the paint.
Now it was Kyle's turn. Juan's roommate, a hypochondriac to the nth degree, was quickly turning into a solid column of muscle. His light brown hair darkened slightly, and soon appeared a three-day growth of stubble. His upper body muscles blew up drastically, leaving somewhat asymmetrical legs. But it was the curious bump in his lower lip that gave away his new station in life. Kyle was soon a baseball player, complete with a giant lipper of tobacco and arms strong enough to belt 70 homers out of the yard every season.
Finally, Bobby made his transformation. The onetime wrestler would remain a wrestler, but the new Bobby wouldn't be grappling on any high school gymnasium mats. This guy belonged under the hot lights of the pro wrestling circuit. He was quickly bald, with trap muscles so obscenely large his neck seemed to disappear. Pecs and biceps followed suit; there was enough raw strength in his upper body to tear most normal men to shreds. His legs, too, exploded with new muscle, and he'd surely have to adjust his gait when he awoke in the morning.
Their changes complete, Jin, Juan, Steve and Chip stoked the last ends of their cigars in satisfaction, proud to have been able to help out their less fortunate friends.
Part 7
In a little over a week, the university had lost nine geeks and gained nine heartbreakers. Whatever it was about the mystical black cigars that turned smokers into stunningly handsome alpha males also seemed to have a way of making the rest of society oblivious to the changes. Which was good, because at the rate guys were being converted, there wouldn't be many more non-convertees left.
The four latest initiates to the brotherhood were as excited by their new identities as they could be, looking themselves over in the mirror for hours that first morning. Tom, once black and now Arab, abandoned his name in favor of one more suited to his heritage, Ahmed. Kevin and Kyle opted to keep their names, while Bobby went with an alternate form in Rob.
Kyle spit a gob of tobacco juice into a Gatorade bottle as he flexed his grapefruit-sized biceps. "Fuckin' amazing, man, just fuckin' amazing. Can't wait to get in the cages and take some swings with these motherfuckers."
The rest of the boys were similarly eager to get on with their new lives. Nick and DeShaun, now seemingly the den mothers to each successive set of new studs, took them to the tattoo parlor to get their black cigars on their shoulders. DeShaun took the liberty of getting a handful of other work done, including his name in an old English font across his sprawling back. He also traded in his modestly-sized earrings for an excessively large--and excessively priced--set of diamond studs set in platinum. Ahmed and Rob also got their ears pierced, while Kyle and Kevin knew their futures in pro sports would make keeping piercings difficult.
Several weeks passed with no new boys taking part in the ritual that had changed the lives of so many outcasts thus far. Each of the guys, all 30-some of them, made their way quickly through the ranks of the hottest girls (and, in some cases, guys) on campus, and fielded more than a handful of questions about their cigar smoking habits and the curious, large tattoos on their meaty shoulders. It seemed the fascination with cigars was catching on all over campus, as completely random guys could suddenly be seen walking around the grounds with cigars of varying shapes and sizes. It would seem stogie smoking was quickly becoming the next big thing.
About a month after his change, Kyle was leaving baseball practice when a thought struck him. He had walked onto the team with ridiculous ease thanks to strength that made him among the most feared hitters in the NCAA. He stuffed about a half a pouch's worth of Red Man chew into his cheek and began to juice it up when it occurred to him: this baseball team was TERRIBLE.
But nothing a little more muscle couldn't fix.
"Oh fuck yeah," he said, unleashing a stream of brownish spit onto the sidewalk below. "This is gonna be fuckin' awesome." All it would take would be a few IMs to his buddies on the team and there'd be a party at the cigar house tonight.
Sure enough, later that evening, about 15 of the baseball players showed up to the house, pausing at the door, not sure to make of the thick white cloud of cigar smoke that hung ominously from the ceiling. Kyle was waiting for them at the door, holding an old wooden box full of big black stogies. He passed one out to each guy and helped them light them. It was clear a few of them had smoked their fair share of cigars in the past, but it was just as clear that many of them had not.
After a hard night of boozing and smoking, the baseball team dispersed to their various rooms across campus. Kyle knew he'd be seeing them at practice the next day, and he was sure they wouldn't be the same.
Evening came and morning followed, the next day.
Kyle was lacing up his cleats in the locker room, working on his third dip of the day. Spitting every minute or so into a water bottle, he anxiously awaited the rest of the team's arrival. He had gotten there way early so he could be sure he'd get to see them all walk in.
"DUDE!" came the shout from the back door. Kyle turned around to see a 6'5" hunk of Italian meat, complete with a full-on Jersey shore blowout. "What HAPPENED to us?" Kyle just smiled and spittled away.
One by one the rest of the players came into the locker room. The compact, nimble shortstop now had the build of a Greek powerlifter. One of the pitchers, just yesterday lanky and tall, was just as tall but about three times as wide, with blacker than midnight skin and an Afro that would have made John Shaft jealous. The catcher, once pudgy and slow, was now a Finnish Olympic-caliber swimmer.
"What's up, bros? You guys have fun last night?" Kyle said, still smiling, still spitting. All 15 of them encircled him, barraging him with questions, like school children gone to meet Santa Claus.
"Yo, guys, calm down. Let's just go out and practice, and then we'll take a little field trip on the way home."
The tattoo parlor was expecting good business that night.
Part 8
The baseball coach wasn't too thrilled with the fact that most of his players were all of sudden smoking cigars like chimneys, but they were winning, and that was all that mattered. Kyle, for his part, was a god among men, a supernova surrounded by stars, all of them with bodies most men would kill for.
One day Kyle was walking home from a game--a win, naturally--when his cell phone rang. It was DeShaun. He spit a line of chaw juice into the grass and flipped the phone open. "'Sup, buddy?"
"Yo, K, we got a new shorty coming over here tonight, make sure you're here."
"Sweet, dude! Fuck yeah, I wouldn't miss it. Peace bro." He closed the phone and smiled. No matter how many times it happened, he'd never get tired of seeing a -4 become a 10.
After he showered and changed, he made his way over the house. He was late, so he fired up his stogie as soon as he left the dorm so he'd be on pace with everyone else when he got there. The cigar fad that had been sweeping campus weeks earlier was now firmly entrenched, as guys and girls could now be seen at all times of day with stogies clenched between their teeth.
Jin and Jose were closest to the door when Kyle finally got there. They greeted him and pointed to that evening's "subject".
"Nice kid," Jose said in a lilting Hispanic accent, "but real shy. No confidence."
"Well," Kyle said, exhaling a stream of smoke through his nose, "I think that'll change." He considered the boy. His name, Kyle would later learn, was Matt. He was small, about 5'6" 115 soaking wet, with a completely average set of facial and body features. Kyle could see why the kid wouldn't have any confidence.
The night went as they usually do, and by the end Matt had enjoyed his requisite two black cigars and slept restlessly on a couch in the common room. Nick, DeShaun, Kyle and a handful of others had stayed around to watch Matt's transformation. "Never gets old, bro," Nick said to no one in particular.
Just like clockwork, Matt's scrawny body was suddenly wracked with activity, though Matt just kept sleeping and dreaming a chaotic dream. DeShaun pointed to Matt's chest, as it was the first thing to change. It began flat as a board, pale and home to nipples so small, calling them mosquito bites would be a gross overstatement. Very quickly, though, it looked as if layers of padding were being slipped underneath his skin, and before long Matt's chest was so big he wouldn't be able to see his feet in the morning.
The rest of his upper body quickly followed suit. Non-existent biceps appeared and expanded to softball size, with forearms thicker than anyone in the house besides Kyle, the baseball phenom. Abs materialized and quickly defined themselves as solid bricks of muscle, separated by deep canyons.
Matt's legs were next, the calves more than tripling in size and forming the perfect shape of a diamond. His thighs blew up like an explosion had gone off inside of them, and before long they were big enough that when Matt stood up in the morning, the hams would be touching.
Finally, something had to be done about Matt's face. Shortly, it was all taken care of. His nose and lips plumped up, while his ghastly white skin was very soon a rich, deep brown. But even as his hair shortened to a thin layer of wiry black fuzz, it was clear he wasn't of African origin. No, this was clearly Caribbean--Dominican, to be precise.
When it was done, Matt rolled over in his sleep, revealing an obscenely large, firm ass. Nick, DeShaun and Kyle all smiled and nodded as they finished off their stogies. "Wait 'til he wakes up," Nick said. "That shy little kid is gonna be one cocky motherfucker." And with a body like that, who wouldn't be?
Part 9
Matt slept lightly on the floor of the strange house where he'd just been partying. All night long he dreamed of things he couldn't comprehend, a man undergoing some kind of change. Something made him think he was that man, but he couldn't quite piece it together.
His eyes fluttered open when a beam of sunlight hit them straight on from between a set of blinds. "Jesucristo, es...que?" Something was wrong. He didn't speak Spanish. He wasn't Hispanic. "En qué la cogida va?" What the FUCK was going on?
"Hola, hermano," came a voice from the next room. It was Jose, puffing on a huge cigar. "English?"
"Si...yes, sorry," Matt said, struggling to make his English thoughts come out as English words. "Bro, what happened?"
Jose smiled broadly, indicating his cigar. "These, man. The black ones anyway. That's how I got this way."
"Dios mio..." Matt said breathlessly. He made his way to the mirror and couldn't believe what he saw. Instead of the average white kid he was growing into, he saw what he initially thought was a black man, but he quickly realized that his newfound native tongue placed him in the Caribbean. "This is...this is...awesome."
Matt spent a good couple of minutes flexing his new, gigantic muscles, observing peaks and valleys he never could have dreamed of cultivating. His granite block-sized pecs heaved massively with every breath, engorged veins forming a vascular roadmap all over his arms and legs.
"Alright, Mateo--is that cool, Mateo?--let's peace out, we got somewhere to go," Jose said.
"Cool," Mateo said, pausing. "Wait, bro. I need some clothes. And can I get a smoke?" Jose handed him one of his own outfits, though Mateo was significantly larger than he was, so the shirt and track pants clung to his body like plastic wrap. Jose also pulled a stogie of a size similar to his own out of his pocket and gave it to Mateo, whose new instincts enabled him to prepare and light the cigar like an expert.
Clutching their cigars between their sparking white teeth, Jose and Mateo made their way to that same tattoo shop. Mateo got his initiation tattoo on his shoulder, just like everyone else had, and decided to get another one while he was there, his new name in large letters across his sprawling back.
Jose then took Mateo shopping for a new wardrobe, and the Dominican hustler began his new life as happily as his brothers had before him.
A few months passed at the university, and muscular stogie-smoking hunks continued to appear seemingly at random. One afternoon, DeShaun and Nick sat in their dorm room smoking small black and mild cigars (as a result of the overwhelming popularity of cigar smoking, the university had taken steps to install special ventilation systems to allow guys to smoke in their rooms) when Nick got a phone call. It was someone at the house. Something was wrong.
When Nick flipped his phone shut, DeShaun walked over to him. "What's the problem, bro?"
"We're running low on the black stogies, man. REAL low. We've got like ten left."
DeShaun exhaled a cloud of sweet smoke and thought carefully. "Well, let's just hit up that shop y'all got 'em from in the first place. They gotta have more."
"Worth a shot," Nick said. The two men got dressed and made their way downtown, to a side street just off the main drag, to the little hole in the wall tobacco shop Nick had visited a whole lifetime ago.
"Yo, man," Nick said heavily as he crossed the threshold, "last time I was here I wasn't nothing. Fuckin' nothin', dude." He explored the place. It didn't seem to have changed at all.
Just like before, the old man was sitting in a corner behind the counter, oblivious to what was going on. Nick made his way to the spot where he had found the cigars years before, but nothing was there. He began to panic.
"Yo man," he called out to the shopkeeper, "what happened to the black cigars?"
"You boys bought every last one," he said, his voice wracked with age. "But I have something else you might be interested in." He reached under the counter and pulled out a large, seemingly heavy box and placed it on the desk. "Take a look, tell me what you think."
Nick walked over to the counter, DeShaun just behind him. He opened the top of the box and saw nothing but black rolls.
"Dip? You want us to buy a case of dip?" He chuckled. "Yo, Kyle might like this shit, but..."
"You wanted more of the special cigars, did you not?" the old man said accusatorily. "Well believe me, son, this is special dip." He sliced open the plastic wrapping on one of the logs, opened a tin and pinched a small wad of the...white? The tobacco was white? Nick had never seen anything like it before. The man held it in front of him. "Here," he said, "see for yourself."
Nick was concerned. If this was anything like the cigars, he'd change somehow. But he remembered what would happen if he had ever smoked another one: he'd become a hairy, overmuscled bear of a man. What would this dip do to him after he'd already transformed so much?
"It won't do the same as a third cigar, if that's what's bothering you," the old man said softly. Nick eyed him suspiciously. There was definitely something off about this guy.
Impulsively, Nick grabbed the dip from the man and shoved it into his lower lip. He immediately felt a rush.
"Just watch," the old man said to DeShaun.
Almost instantaneously, Nick's body began to spasm. Then it froze in place, but started reforming. Nick's olive complexion lightened to a traditional Caucasian white, but with a decent tan. His already well-muscled body inflated even more, putting him easly over 250 pounds. Previously bald, dirty blonde hair grew quickly out of his scalp, becoming a wavy mass of unruly locks that came down to about his ears. His eyes, meanwhile, became a midnight blue, while his jaw squared to hypermasculine proportions. Day-old brown stubble grew in all over his face, but not his neck.
Most curiously of all, his cigar tattoo on his now meatier shoulder changed as well, as if part of a cartoon animation. Soon enough, the image became clear: it was Nick's new face, complete with hair and stubble, and most prominently, a gigantic lipper of magic dip protruding from his lower lip.
"Holy SHIT," DeShaun said, not quite comprehending all of the changes his best friend was experiencing.
When it was finally over, Nick shook off the haze of transformation and spit about a 1/4 cup of blackish brown spit onto the floor. He turned to face DeShaun and began to speak.
"Dang son," he said, his voice thick with a Texas accent. "I'm fixin' to go, I'm plum tuckered out."
Whatever just happened, DeShaun had walked into the store with a homeboy...and would leave with a cowboy.
To be continued in Dippin' New Life...