Power Tie 4 (mm mc musc)
by SS and Aardvark
Copyright SS & Aardvark © 2011, all rights reserved, etc.
A dog-eared copy of Newsweek was plopped back onto the waiting room table, and a small, slim man dressed in a shirt, tie and cardigan stood up. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled, but his mannerisms betrayed him: he was nervous, and a little embarrassed.
The nurse looked at the patient. So this was Romeo Bennett. She had been expecting a black man—she’d gone to high school with a Romeo who was African-American—but the man she was looking at was porcelain-skinned. He stood an inch shy of six feet but was unable to cut any sort of figure due to his narrow, bony frame. The nurse observed that the woman next to Romeo was very pretty, a beautiful brunette with a sweet, open face and tan skin. They made for an interesting couple.
The wife’s whisper was as discreet as possible. “Do you want me to go back with you?”
Romeo shook his head no and squeezed her hand, wordlessly. Their wedding rings rubbed together. “Don’t be nervous,” she said with a smile. “It’ll be fine.”
As they walked down the corridor toward the exam room, the nurse tried to make conversation. Not being new to the field, she recognized Romeo’s behaviors and sympathized deeply. “That your wife out there?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes darting up to hers for a millisecond. “Madeline.” Not Juliet, his tone seemed to say.
“She’s beautiful.”
She saw him grin, a hint of pride. A man like him knew he was lucky to have a wife like her. “She is, isn’t she?”
The nurse didn’t want to start asking the medical questions yet. She tried to put Romeo’s mind on other things as he sat down in the room and she organized her paperwork. “How did you two meet?”
“Friends set us up. I’m a museum curator and Madeline really loves art, she majored in Art History, so they connected us and we…well, we got along fine.” He was subdued and quiet—she was beginning to think that he might just be a quiet man—but she could hear the love in his voice.
“How long have you been married?”
“Four years this August.”
The clipboard came out and the pen clicked. “And how long have you been trying to conceive?”
His eyes darkened and his head bowed. “Almost ten months, now.”
“Do you have any sexually transmitted-”
“No,” Romeo interrupted, shaking his head. “No.”
“Have you had any surgeries, and do you smoke, drink or use drugs?”
“I broke my arm in junior high and had my wisdom teeth out when I was sixteen, but that’s it when it comes to surgery. I don’t do drugs or any of that, I had a few cigarettes but that was almost fifteen years ago. I guess I have a glass of wine with dinner every now and then…”
“Okay,” she said, her pen scribbling. “That’s all good then.” She held up a small plastic canister. “We need you to produce a specimen that we can analyze while you talk to the doctor.”
He took it reluctantly. “Okay.”
“He’ll be with you shortly,” she said with her best comforting smile, and her hand rested on the door handle before she turned around. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get the name Romeo?”
“Ironic, right?” He gave a sad smile and she shook her head, not wanting to embarrass him further. “My father was a Shakespearean actor and Mom was a librarian, and they wanted a name from one of his plays. Mom liked Romeo’s passion and youth.” He paused and looked down. “I don’t know why they didn’t just name me William.”
“Hey, it’s better than Tybalt or Mercutio,” she cracked, and Romeo was clearly taken aback. He never expected people to know the play. “I was a theater major in college before I decided I needed to make a living,” she said, sensing his surprise. “Romeo’s a beautiful name. Your father’s a Shakespearean actor, your mom’s a librarian and you’re a museum curator? Your family sounds fascinating.” Romeo nodded in thanks, and the nurse opened the door. “It should just be a few minutes. There are some magazines in the corner if you need to, you know, get yourself going.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
Romeo glanced over at the pile of magazines on the table, their covers discreetly masked in cellophane, but their number of centerfolds making their contents clear enough. Holding the plastic container in one hand, idly he riffled through the pages with the other. One after another, the airbrushed faces of models tried to seduce him with their vacant gazes, but he found that each one of them seemed more or less the same. No curves. Big breasts, skinny, vapid.
Closing the magazines, he sighed, leaning against the wall. He knew he'd have to focus a bit to get his mind to work. Madeline had told him it didn't mean anything, not being able to conceive. She still loved him. He wanted children, and so did she. And, if the doctor couldn't do anything about it, they'd adopt.
But it had been a while since he'd last cum without Madeline's help. And she did, indeed, help quite a bit. He'd grown accustomed to not masturbating during the day, saving himself for one good blast before bedtime, with Madeline there to give flesh to his fantasies.
And now he had to conjure a fantasy without her, in a doctor's office. A doctor he was seeing specifically because he was—
—No, not impotent. That couldn't be it. Could it? He and Madeline still smoldered for one another. "Youth and passion," as his name suggested, had not left either of them. Clearly, something was still working down there with his hormones. It's just that he couldn't get his wife pregnant...
So for a moment he forgot the reason he and his wife were here. He thought back to his wedding night with Madeline, how his slim frame had managed with considerable difficulty to carry her through the door of their honeymoon suite, and how grateful he was that she'd opted for a wedding gown that didn't have a train for him to trip over. Valiantly he tried to sweep her over to the couch, pretending that she was as light as a feather, while she laughed—both of them laughed—at the way the romance of the moment made nothing else matter.
Then he started imagining her on the bed below him, straddling her, bending over her to plant that first gentle kiss on her lips. Then on her breasts, as he unzipped the back of her gown and felt her fingertips undoing the studs of his tuxedo shirt.
It was only a few minutes before the canister was full.
Romeo plopped back against the wall, his staccato gasps the only noise in the small room. His breath began to slow and he whipped his finger across his brow to clear the beads of sweat that had accumulated. After capping the sample, he loosened his tie and opened his collar, exposing more of his pencil-thin neck.
It was no surprise that he had to wait a good five to ten minutes before another nurse knocked on the door gingerly. After all, they wanted to give him plenty of time instead of risking more embarrassment. He almost said “come in” before realizing the potential pun, so instead he said “Yes?”
He gave the nurse his seed—this was all so strange—and then was left alone again, waiting for the doctor. Instead of looking at pornography, Romeo navigated his gaze around the room. The décor was hip, with vintage movie posters lined up on one of the walls and exposed brick on another. Normally, the architecture and cinematic history would have indulged Romeo’s curatorial sensibilities, but he was so glum that he just looked at his surroundings with sad eyes.
His Blackberry buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. The BBM was from Madeline. “With the doctor yet?”
His thumb was typing the ‘o’ in “No” when the door opened.
The office’s trendy aesthetic had been enough of a tipoff for Romeo to be expecting a younger doctor. But the man who walked through the doorway radiated more than just youth. He looked to be in his early 30s, and had obviously spent most of those years building his body into an unbelievable size. Even his white doctor’s coat was somehow able to show off his vast strength: a thick neck nestled inside a white tab collar and perfectly-knotted blue tie, giant arms bulging within their sleeves, and a beautifully broad chest that looked like the face of a mountain, ready to be scaled. All the muscle was strapped to a long-legged six-foot-four frame.
As if his body wasn’t enough, the doctor was just impossibly handsome. Romeo had never seen a man that looked like this. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he had a square jaw that looked to have been created with a hammer and chisel, and dusted with a few hours worth of lustrous yellow shadow. His nose, cheeks and chin were as precise and perfect as the rest of him, and his pink lips were cracked into a friendly, pearly-white smile.
The doctor spoke too quickly for Romeo to feel bitterness or intimidation. “Mr. Bennett, I’m Dr. Nelson Zadravecz, pleased to meet you.”
“Hi, Romeo Bennett.” Their hands shook—or more specifically, Romeo’s hand was shaken by Nelson’s. The doctor’s hand completely contained the patient’s.
Romeo noticed from a closer distance that the doctor wasn't just an exemplary model of masculinity, but he also seemed to take undue pride in his clothing. His white lab coat stretched over his pecs and biceps, his tab collar allowing the blue silk of his tie to blossom out. The tie was a solid, plain royal blue, but something about its thick, lustrous texture suggested that, for all its simplicity, the doctor chose it for its quality. This tie was no cheap adornment, and the way the doctor had carefully knotted it showed that he knew how to dress. Similarly, the fine blue stripes in the doctor's elegant shirt presented a fine contrast to his crisp white collar and cuffs, while complementing the tie with a subtle background.
As Doctor Zadravecz took his hand back and flipped a page of his clipboard, Romeo saw a pair of fine enamel cufflinks catching the light. "So, Mr. Bennett, the nurse tells me you and your wife have been trying to conceive for 10 months."
As Romeo and the doctor sat back down, Romeo nodded. "Yes, that's correct."
The doctor crossed his legs, displaying a pair of pinstripe trousers and highly polished black wingtips. "Hm. Your medical history seems fine." Flipping another page, Nelson added with a wry grin, "And it seems like all your plumbing is working."
Romeo smiled uncomfortably. "Um, yes."
But Nelson sensed that his attempt at a joke didn't elicit the response he had hoped, so his handsome smile assumed a more tender quality. "Has anyone else in your family had trouble conceiving, Mr. Bennett?"
Romeo was about to nod when his mind raced to a salient example: "I did have an uncle. He passed away a few years ago. He was married for over thirty years, but never had a kid."
"Do you know whether they ever used birth control or any other means of contraception?"
"No. We always assumed it was their choice, you know, not to have kids. But maybe…" Romeo trailed off pensively.
The doctor nodded, jotting a note. "It's possible that he might have been infertile. But until the analysis of your semen comes back—" Romeo smirked slightly at that wording— "we can't be too certain. Has your wife been tested for infertility?"
"Yes. She came in last month."
"And—?"
"She's fine." Romeo kneaded his hands on his lap. "That seems to suggest that the problem's on my end."
The doctor nodded once more, checking a box somewhere on his clipboard. "You've indicated here that you and your wife are frequently intimate. And it seems that you have no trouble maintaining an erection, so ED is unlikely." With a small sigh, he looked at Romeo very carefully: something in the doctor's demeanor suggested that he was preparing Romeo for an announcement: "My guess—and this is not a diagnosis—my guess at the moment is that you might be suffering from some form of hereditary infertility."
Romeo gulped. He had dreaded that verdict. But the doctor raised his hand:
"Now, before we go off in that route, I just want you to understand that nothing's certain until that analysis comes back from the lab. It'll probably be about two weeks. And that's an awfully long time to be in suspense."
Romeo nodded, tugging his tie another inch loose. The elegantly dressed doctor adjusted one of his crisp white cuffs, his handsome smile suggesting that he was about to change the subject to a gentler subject matter. "It must be stressful, for you and Madeline both."
“I feel like a failure as a husband,” Romeo said, his raw honesty bursting through. “Real men get their wives pregnant, and I can’t do that, and it just makes me so—” he choked and his voice caught in his throat as he tried to get a handle on his emotions.
“Embarrassed,” the doctor finished for him.
“Yes, that word. Madeline would be such an amazing mother, and I’m letting her down. I’m failing her. She’s handling it so well…better than me, even. I’m really torn up about it. And I love her so much. I love holding her in my arms, and I’d love to hold a little mixture of us in my arms too. She wants a baby so badly, and so do I, I mean, children are the embodiment of a couple’s love, right? At one point, my parents, and your parents, loved each other so much that they mixed themselves together and made us.”
“That’s a beautiful way of putting it.”
“I’ve thought about this a lot,” Romeo said, trying to sniffle as subtly as possible. He knew the doctor was able to fill in the blanks. The wounded masculine pride, the fear that his wife would leave. Dr. Zadravecz had seen it all before.
“Romeo, our male dignity is very fragile. Once we lose our pride, it’s very, very difficult to get back. I’m not saying there isn’t a physical component to your problem, but we can only work on that once the sample comes back from the lab. However, we can start with your emotions today. Now, promise not to laugh?”
Romeo straightened up with curiosity, and nodded. “Uh, yes, I promise.”
The doctor stood up and turned around. Romeo saw a cabinet open but was distracted by the visible muscles in Nelson’s V-shaped back, rippling through his shirt and coat. Romeo wondered if his doctor had ever had fertility issues of his own. Surely not. A man of that caliber would never have problems like—stop, Romeo scolded himself. This isn’t high school anymore, and they were equals, Romeo and Nelson.
But right as he told himself that, he noticed a picture on the counter of Dr. Zadravecz playing in a pile of leaves with an adorable little toddler boy, and Romeo felt another pang of jealousy.
“Red, blue or purple?”
Romeo was rocketed back to the moment. “Excuse me?”
Nelson produced three long, white boxes. He placed them on the counter, next to the picture of him and his son, and removed all the lids, revealing three gorgeous solid-colored ties. Red, blue and purple.
Sensing his patient’s confusion, Nelson began to explain. “Romeo, a tie is a phallic symbol. It is empowering. I assume you own a suit?”
“Umm, yes, I do. Several in fact.”
“So you know how wearing one makes you feel! You stand taller. The shape of your body is greatly enhanced.” Nelson put his feet at shoulder width and puffed his chest out. “See, I’m actually 125 pounds, but this shirt and tie makes me seem much larger.”
Romeo managed a good-natured laugh, and Nelson was pleased to see his patient loosen up a little, so he continued. “But seriously, it’s an immediate boost in your confidence, right? I believe that we men are in better moods when we’re dressed well. So, building on that idea, I want you to take your wife—Madeline, is it? —take Madeline out to a very, very nice dinner. I want you to wear your absolute best suit, the one that makes you feel on top of the world. Keep right in the present over the evening. During dinner, don’t worry about the sex that’s coming later. During sex, don’t worry about if it will result in a pregnancy. Just focus on your wife, show her how special she is to you, and tell her how much you love her. Pretty easy stuff. I think you’ll be surprised how wonderful the evening can make you feel.” Nelson smiled, and Romeo’s lips turned upward, although he didn’t show any teeth. “Now,” the doctor asked, “Red, blue, or purple?”
Romeo looked at the ties. “Can I touch them?”
“Of course,” Nelson said, extending his hand outward in a gesture of showmanship. Romeo stood and ran his fingers over each of the three ties. He didn’t like the texture of the purple tie: the raised paisley pattern felt rather gaudy against his fingertips. The blue was nice with its rich medallion pattern, but Romeo didn’t like the idea of choosing a blue tie. It was a moody color, making him think of smoky jazz clubs, foggy evenings and hard liquor.
But the red…oh, the red was perfect. The color of love and lust. Passion. Its fine basketweave of red on black looked solid from a distance, and lent it a texture so silky and so lush that Romeo practically expected his fingers to dip right through it. The tie broadcast virility, strength, sex. Romeo adored it. “Red,” he said without hesitation.
“Excellent choice."
To say that Romeo fondled the silk might sound like an exaggeration, but to say that he simply held the tie would likewise fail to capture what he began to feel. Something about its sensual texture filled him with such confidence that it almost aroused him. Turning it over, he noticed on the back a label that read "Shaw's & Son's."
"Isn't this from that old menstore that's been open downtown for years?"
"Indeed. Shaw’s & Sons. It's one of my favorite places."
Romeo knew it was irrational, but something about wearing one of this doctor's ties, from this doctor's favorite menstore, at this doctor's own recommendation, made him wonder whether he'd be given just a little whiff of this man's virility. But of course it made no sense that a simple strip of silk could accomplish so many things.
"This tie must've cost a fortune. I mean, look how heavy it feels."
"Well, it IS a sevenfold tie. They produce the thickest knots around."
As it was, Romeo hardly ever wore a tie, let alone one as thick and luxurious as this. Tugging his own tie off, he looped the red tie around his neck, fastening his top button.
The doctor stepped forward, adjusting the tie's length. "You have to give yourself a bit more room to tie this one, since the silk's so thick."
Romeo nodded—he wasn't about to be lectured on how to tie a tie, especially by a man for whom he was already suppressing jealousy. But, as Romeo went through the motions of knotting a double-Windsor, he realized that the doctor was, indeed, stepping quite far out of his way to make Romeo feel better about this whole situation.
The doctor's handsome smile radiated across his features—across the room, in fact—when Romeo produced a broad, triangular knot with a perfect dimple. It was a knot that seemed to bulge beneath Romeo's neck.
It was, in fact, a knot whose shape could best be described as "muscular."
“Looks wonderful. Red is definitely your color. Don’t you want to save it for your date, though?”
Romeo looked down at the adornment around his neck. He really loved the tie—wearing it made him feel strangely masculine, like it was an extension of his own manhood. But the doctor was right, it was definitely a “special occasion” tie, and besides, it didn’t really go with his cardigan. So, with an agreeing nod, he unknotted the double-Windsor and carefully placed the tie back in its box.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Bennett,” Nelson said with a crushing handshake, so powerful that it was as if he was unaware of his own strength. “I hope I’ve helped a little today, and that I can be even more of service when your test results come in. Feel free to schedule your follow-up with Karen out at the desk.”
As Romeo was walking out the door with the tie box securely in his hand, the doctor stopped him once more. “Oh, and be sure to tell me how your date goes. I can’t wait to hear all about it.” Nelson’s Cheshire-cat grin seemed a little odd to Romeo, but he dismissed it as more jealousy. Even the doctor’s teeth were perfect…it just wasn’t fair.
***
“White shirt or blue?” Romeo held up two hangers for Madeline’s inspection. She poked her head out of the bathroom, eyelash curler in hand, and looked at the garments.
“What color is your tie again?”
“Red.”
“White then. I think a red tie on that shade of blue would make you look like you were wearing an American flag. Plus I just really love that shirt, it’s your nicest one.” Madeline’s last reason went wisely unsaid: to her best recollection, the white shirt was the only one Romeo owned that really fit his neck and shoulders. It didn’t matter since he rarely buttoned the collars of his shirts, but when he did, there was a gap between his neck and the collar, usually large enough to wriggle a finger inside. Madeline smiled as she saw the collar snugly embrace Romeo’s thin neck. She turned her attention back to her makeup mirror, but peripherally saw Romeo knotting his tie with extreme care. It took him three tries to get it perfect.
“Zip me?”
Romeo shrugged his suit jacket onto his shoulders and walked into the bathroom to do his husbandly duty. He tugged up on the zipper and the dress closed beautifully around his wife’s small waist. When the pull reached the top, he leaned forward and put a small kiss on the back of Madeline’s neck. She smiled, turned around and placed her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. “That really is a beautiful tie,” she said, drawing a manicured finger across the red fabric. “Makes you even more handsome. I wish my doctor gave ME accessories.”
“I don’t expect it to be a common thing,” Romeo said with a smirk. Their lips met in a quick little peck. “I’m glad we’re doing this.”
“Going out?”
“Yeah. You deserve it.”
They walked out of their brownstone hand-in-hand, Madeline’s heels clacking on the stone steps outside. She always wore kitten heels since regular stilettos put her above Romeo’s height—he had never asked her to downsize, but she did anyway.
Romeo’s hand was in the air for a cab. “Really warm out tonight, huh?”
“I hadn’t noticed, but my arms are bare and you’re in a wool suit,” she replied, noticing drops of perspiration collecting on his forehead. “Why didn’t you shave, babe?”
“I did,” he responded, putting his hand up to his cheek. The barbs he felt surprised him—they were short, barely noticeable, but definitely present. “Weird,” he muttered. “I must need new blades.”
A moment passed while the two waited for their cab, Madeline gently clutching his forearm and remarking to herself how hard Romeo's sinews suddenly felt.
And as the taxi pulled up, Romeo remarked to himself that he had no reason to be sweating so much. His back was clinging to his shirt already, the crisp white fabric beginning to tug at his chest. Opening the door for his wife, he belied his discomfort with a courtly smile. As Madeline returned the smile and turned to step into the cab, Romeo hurriedly wiped his face with a handkerchief, hoping she wouldn’t see. He was surprised at how damp the cloth was after just one pass across his face. He had a separate handkerchief— a silk one—nodding from his breast pocket. "One for show and one for blow," as his father would say to him.
"Lemongrass, please. Down on Market Street."
The two held one another's hands as the cab set off, Madeline alternating between glancing out the window and gazing upon her slim, handsomely attired husband. This, she thought, was by far the most romantic thing he had done all year. And it seemed spontaneous in a way, deciding to head out for a date strictly on a doctor's advice. It certainly struck her as unexpected.
But as the facades of the downtown historic district passed by, Romeo's thoughts were nowhere near as tranquil.
Why on earth didn't he wear an undershirt? He tried to maintain his composure as his sweat rolled down his sides, soaking freely into his dress shirt, causing his pits to stick to the lining of his suit jacket. Maybe if he just kept the suit jacket on, Madeline wouldn't notice?
Hoping that Madeline would think he was straightening the deep red tie, he reached up and adjusted the knot, unbuttoning his collar behind the lustrous silk. If he just kept his tie straight for the rest of the evening, maybe Madeline wouldn't see. Droplets of sweat slid down his chin as his neck swelled, straining against his collar almost painfully.
He felt her hand squeeze his, and she gently guided his arm around her shoulders as she snuggled up next to him. Romeo panicked for a moment, afraid she would feel the damp cloth underneath his suit jacket, but Madeline didn’t comment on it if she did. He cracked the window of the cab and felt the breeze whoosh onto his forehead, and it was glorious. “Keep right in the present,” he could hear Nelson saying, and Romeo scolded himself for forgetting the night’s true purpose. As a means of penance, he turned his head and deeply kissed his wife, slipping his tongue inside her mouth and rubbing his nose against hers.
She leaned back with a smile. “That’s not like you.”
“I love you,” he panted, and his tone of voice surprised even him. He sounded lusty, his words tinged with animalistic desire. Almost a growl. It made Madeline laugh a little. “I love you too, honey,” she said, but he could hear a perplexed angle to her tone. He needed to reassure her, he told himself, make her feel at ease. So he put his hand on her neck, pulled her in and gave her a kiss that was meant to be tender but wound up being even rougher than the last.
“I…sorry, I don’t know why I keep doing that,” he said, still sounding oversexed. “I just love you. I want to show you that I love you. I don’t do it enough, I don’t say it enough.”
She put a hand on his forehead and wiped off the slick of sweat. “You are burning up,” she said with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? Let’s go back home and watch a movie, we can go out another—”
“No! No, I’m fine, I’m just a little hot,” he assured her, despite her very skeptical look burning into him. “I’m fine,” he insisted as he toweled off his face once more. “Honestly, babe, I’ll be pissed off if we don’t do this tonight, okay?”
“Okay.”
By the time they were stepping onto the pavement, Romeo had started wondering if he’d blacked out and somehow showered in his dress shirt. He could feel the fabric matted onto his smooth body, and heard the suit jacket make suction noises as he moved his arms, pulling the wet material apart before it was pressed back together again. As he reached his arm out to slip the cab driver a cash tip, he heard the seams of his jacket groan, and when he slammed the door and saw his reflection in the translucent windows of the taxi, it took him a moment to recognize himself. His neck looked thicker, firmer, and running up out of his too-tight collar was a cord of muscle that Romeo swore he’d never seen on himself before. It was like he was looking at a more athletic version of himself, a jockier twin brother who had maybe done some wrestling in high school…
He could also see Madeline standing behind him, so he shook free of all these strange thoughts and turned around to grasp her hand. At first, his grip was too strong, just like his doctor’s handshake…like he wasn’t accustomed to his own power.
She leaned in close to his chest and inhaled deeply. “You smell divine, oh my God, what are you wearing? Is that new?”
As though bashful for his rather lusty behavior a moment ago in the cab—and certainly self-conscious now that his wife had pointed it out—his grin was awkwardly flattered. "Um, no, sweetie. It's just that aftershave you got me last Christmas."
She raised an eyebrow. "The Ralph Lauren?"
He nodded, buttoning his jacket—hoping that his sweat-stained shirt would be covered—and taking her hand, with what was still perhaps too firm of a grip. "You like it?"
"Absolutely." Was it fresh grass? Mountains? Sea spray? Madeline couldn't quite place what the scent reminded her of, but whatever it was she adored it, and could imagine herself drinking it in all evening. She also started wondering whether her husband had mentioned hitting the gym anytime recently: she swore she could see biceps swelling through the sleeves of his suit, and suddenly found it extremely attractive that she could see his chest through his thin dress shirt.
And, as he stepped aside to open the door for her, she smiled—it was the same smile that had attracted him to her to begin with—as the evening light played on that lustrous red tie.
--------
Riding horses on the beach. That's the image that her husband's new scent conjured to mind. Madeline wasn't sure how her brain made this connection, but she was more than content to stick with it while Romeo pulled out her chair for her.
And, as she slipped her lace shawl off, Romeo found himself overtaken with the sight of his wife in this elegant black dress. His eyes darted immediately to her neckline, catching sight of her cleavage, and causing his cock to throb. And it was automatic, instinctual; he reached around her shoulders, gathering folds of the elegant black lace and slowly pulling them down her arms as he bent around the chair and laid a full, wet kiss on her neck.
Madeline laughed, pecking his cheek. She relished the way his dark, masculine stubble brushed her lips: she could get used to this rugged new look of his.
He was about to lavish an equally lusty kiss on the other side of her neck when she took his chin and guided his lips to hers, making this second kiss a brief one. "Save it for the bedroom, Romeo."
Opening his eyes, his features—his jaw a little squarer than Madeline remembered a moment ago—Romeo smirked naughtily. He liked it when his wife pronounced his name with the same tone as the word "loverboy."
The waiter passed out the menus while he sat across from his wife, unbuttoning his jacket but keeping it on. His sweat, after all, was continuing to bathe his torso beneath his shirt, and slide down his legs—thighs and calves, both of which seemed to be stretching against his suit trousers way more tightly than he recalled when he sat in the cab. Even the waist felt tighter than it once had; Romeo gave a quick pinch to his stomach to make sure he wasn’t gaining fat, but he couldn’t gather any skin in between his fingers. It felt like the wet fabric was stuck to a rock wall. Was that the swoosh of an oblique that he felt?
“That jacket really broadens you out.”
He looked up, having honestly not even heard her. Romeo’s thoughts were blazing fast, flipping between the strange sensations his body was providing, and thoughts of making love to his wife. “Hm?”
“Your shoulders.” She placed her palms about three feet apart from each other in an indicative gesture. “You look really…big.”
“Me, big,” he chortled with a smile. “Yeah, I know everyone said you married me for my body.”
“Oh, absolutely,” she said, once again noticing the dense shadow on his face, and his rakishly messy hair. They just didn’t seem right to her. They were foreign…Romeo had never been able to pull off that sexy just-woke-up look. And yet here he was, turning her on with it.
As he watched his wife casually take a sip of wine, Romeo felt her heeled foot gently rub up and down his leg, and he suddenly felt like a junior high schoolboy.
The foot was going up and down, but Romeo felt like he was just going…up. Madeline’s foot was rubbing against not fabric, but his sock, and when Romeo looked down, he saw that he now had nearly an inch-and-a-half of his black socks visible.
The socks, the pants, the jacket, the shirt…
Oh no, the shirt.
There had been a body-painting pictorial in one of those stupid porno mags that he’d seen at Dr. Zadravecz’s practice. Romeo’s white dress shirt reminded him of those: not only was it completely soaked with his sweat, but it was stuck to his body so tightly that he could see everything, as if the shirt wasn’t even there at all. His nipples, his abs—abs! him!—the divide between his pecs…this was all wrong. He pulled his jacket together and tried to cover as much of his shirt as possible.
Madeline, meanwhile, broke into a coquettish smile, the ball of her foot continuing to caress his socked calf, relishing how incredibly hard it was.
His enormous chest swelled in a deep breath, straining at the seams of his already skin-tight shirt. Just relax, he told himself. Everything will be fine.
Perhaps that was what he needed: he suddenly could feel the sweating die down, and, while his shirt and suit were still wringing with it, the tightening sensation eased slightly, as though his clothing were warping out of shape to accommodate his body.
Taking Madeline's hand, he gently pressed his lips to it. Madeline was less than secret about relishing the sensation of his stubble against her fingertips. She could tell by that glimmer in his eyes that every last fiber of his being—every last thrumming, hard, newly muscled sinew of his growing body—lusted for her.
"I love you," he purred.
She smiled, admiring the way his deep brown curls were beginning to grow out. "I love you, too."
--------
Romeo swore he never knew he had such resolve in him.
Between chocolate, wine, sweating, the tight discomfort of his clothes, and pure, sheer lust for his wife in that elegant dress of hers—even on his best behavior, he lavished wet kisses on her hand every few minutes through most of the meal, and had to keep his napkin carefully placed on his lap so as to hide the tent his throbbing erection was pitching in his trousers.
But now the cab had come, and, slightly tipsy—he wasn't sure whether the alcohol did that, or the strange new infatuation he felt for his wife—he held the car door open. Unable to button his jacket, he couldn't conceal his still sweat-soaked shirt, nor the way its buttons buckled, threatening to burst open over the pecs and abs onto which it seemed so tightly stretched. It was clear by now that his collar was open behind his tie: his neck had grown so thick that it had pushed the collar open, leaving the tight knot snug against his Adam's apple.
Rrrrrrrip.
Tipsy as well, Madeline giggled. "Uh-oh."
As he sat in the cab, the inseams of both of his trousers had torn across thighs as hard and wide as marble columns. "Man," he grumbled in his new baritone voice, "that was my best suit."
"We can get it repaired, dear." To the cab driver: "328 Highcourt, please."
As though prompted again by this reminder of his growth, the tightening sensation continued now in his muscles: they apparently were starting to swell again, and the sweat, predictably, welled out of his every pore.
Madeline, meanwhile, rested her fingers on his arm, admiring how hard, thick, and powerful it felt. His brown hair was certainly longer than she had remembered at the beginning of the evening, and, not exactly caring how this change was being brought about—she was certain it was supernatural—she instead occupied herself with playing with one of her husband's swarthy ringlets, which now hung to the nape of his neck.
“Ow.” His hand had been resting on her thigh, rubbing up and down, but his grip was progressively getting stronger and as his fingers dug into her skin, she flinched. He pulled away apologetically and looked down at his hands, becoming increasingly nervous due to their sudden increase in size. Big masculine hands that looked so…so…
Romeo couldn’t think of the right word, because Madeline slipped her hand onto his and he saw that her entire hand was nearly contained by his palm alone. He closed his fingers around her hand and shut his eyes, breathing in deeply—so deeply that parenthetical spaces appeared between the buttons on his shirt and he could feel a draft hit his exposed skin. He quickly hunched forward to avoid bursting through his shirt—it was a miracle that he hadn’t already—but then he felt the extreme strain of the back of his jacket, struggling just as mightily to stay put around his new breadth.
Madeline could see the tendons of Romeo’s jaw through the wiry silk of his thick stubble, locked furiously in place. His teeth were grinding together, his eyes burning into the back of the seat in front of him. The lights whizzing by outside made beautiful reflections on his sparkling wet skin.
“I just want you to know,” he rumbled, his voice commanding and deep and so sensual, “that it is taking every single ounce of my willpower to not make love to you right here in the back of this cab.”
“Please do not,” they heard the cabbie’s accented voice pipe up from the front seat.
“We won’t,” Madeline said sweetly. As she leaned forward so the driver could hear her, Romeo saw the light catching the top of her breasts, and he had no choice but to wrap his hands around her waist and his lips around hers, as if he were eating an exotic dessert. He felt her arms hook underneath his and one of her hands latch onto his full, thick curls. He growled with a sort of joy—and split the back of his jacket open.
“Dammit,” he cursed softly next to her ear, his voice drenched with horny lust. “I…Maddy…” He pulled away, and she could see the whites of his eyes. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he finally admitted, acknowledging what they’d both been wondering for the past few minutes.
Madeline ran her hands up into the plush whiskers, her fingers tracing the aquiline ridges of his jaw, and she was about to respond when the cab driver announced, “Here it is, 328.”
Per Madeline’s command, the driver got an extremely generous tip. As she was helped out of the cab, she couldn’t help but notice her husband’s large hand resting much lower on her body than was normal, giving him a nice handful of her derriere. Right as she was starting to think that he hadn’t realized where he was caressing, she felt a pinch on her bottom and squealed, reflexively swatting him in the chest. Her hand bounced off like she’d smacked the side of a building. “You’re so bad,” she yelped, and she looked up to see his brilliant white teeth smiling in the most boyish of grins, like a high school boy getting his first grab.
The grin faded as he peeled off his suit jacket and saw the damage. “This can’t be repaired,” he sighed dejectedly, his voice even richer than before. “It’d be pointless.” Madeline listened to the complaints being mumbled behind her all the way up into their home and kitchen. “I’ll just have to…to…to…to…to…”
Hearing some worry in his voice, Madeline turned around and saw Romeo standing next to their kitchen island, his jacket thrown onto one of the bar stools. His large hands were resting on either side of his stomach, and he was looking down, frozen, at himself. She saw him in the light and was noticing just how large he was when she saw what Romeo was seeing: his shirt, one button opening at a time without being touched, as if a pair of invisible fingers were undressing him. The fourth button, then the fifth, then the sixth, each opening exposing more of the hot, sweaty flesh underneath. “M-Maddy…”
He gasped and she saw his hands shoot backward as the shirt began to wrench itself off his wriggling body, the sleeves pulling off his arms as if they’d been launched. He thrashed and shouted, and the positioning of his body—arms straight back, chest puffed out—gave Madeline a full view of his proud pectorals, bulging massively outward, their impressive shape cresting downward from his collarbone and placing beautiful nipples directly at the bottom of the two round muscles. The jutting pecs looked like a shelf that he could display his museum pieces on. She stared, awestruck, and he looked down too once he could control his arms again, as the shirt fluttered to the floor.
Romeo was rendered speechless from the sight of his upper body. All he could think to do was grab the tie that was still tight around his neck. With a tug, he pulled it out from between his right and left pectorals, where it had managed to become wedged.
Lopsided, the tie hung, dripping with the sweat of the magnificent pecs against which it rested. Madeline's mind flashed to a dozen images she'd seen on a hunk-a-month calendar, or the rugged characters flexing on the covers of the Men's Health magazines she'd glance at with every gym visit: but her husband, swelling before her now, easily outdid them all.
Catching sight of himself in the satin finish on the front of the fridge, he could only see a fuzzy, tremendous tan "V" that described his torso, topped by broad shoulders, massive traps, and biceps whose contours even the blurred reflection couldn't hide. Confused, aroused, amazed—he stared, transfixed, his fists starting to ball themselves up so that the knotted power of his biceps cast shadows over his forearms in the kitchen light.
A few feet away, Madeline stared likewise in awe at the behemoth her husband had become, immediately wondering what lay beneath his suit trousers, which now stretched like spandex across his quads and thighs. As though in response to her thought, the top button of his trousers simply popped open, his belt sliding out of its loops while his zipper parted itself in front of—
—"Oh. My. God."
Madeline couldn't believe it. His manhood. It was freakish, the way it reared out, as his trousers simply slid over his colossal thighs, tumbling past his knees. His underwear was gone—apparently, it had dissolved into a film of sweat glossing his balls. The package swinging in between Romeo’s thighs was easily the size of her head.
Unable to keep his lust in check a moment longer, Romeo took a step towards her, his feet ripping his suit trousers in half like tissue. His dark curls spilling in sweaty ringlets over his shoulders, he reached out a hand, just barely touching her fingers. His gaze suggested that he wanted to ravish her right there, but that every fiber of his willpower held him back, out of fear that he might harm his wife with his newfound strength.
So she stepped toward him, letting his massive arm curl around the small of her back. His biceps bulged. She felt her feet leave the floor, one of her high heels slipping off as he lifted her with the crook of his arm, and locked lips with her.
Something in his loins answered the sensation of her lips enfolding his. His testicles began to tingle. Veins traced their paths across his powerful physique. His muscles bulged out even larger than before, while the animal of his lust commanded him to take her to bed.
All too easily he swept her up into his arms, his enormous feet bursting out of his socks and shoes as he carried her up the stairs.
Ridiculous, the tie dangled over one of his shoulders, barely reaching across one of his delts. She cupped one of her hands around the shoulder muscle and closed her eyes, pretending it was a bowling ball. That was exactly what it felt like: one bowling ball stacked on top of another, his delts and biceps mammoth in their power.
Her eyes opened back up as she felt him laying her on their bed—it was a miracle they’d made it that far, instead of just doing it right on the kitchen counter. He aggressively yanked off her clothes, pulled on her hair, kissed her neck and shoulders…she looked down at the back of his head and saw the tangled mass of curly hair, his traps and lats exploding out of his back in different variations of triangular shapes.
“Babe,” she said softly, hearing the noises his kisses made on her skin. He was leaning more into her, pressing her further back into the bed, panting so hard he sounded like an animal. She wrapped one arm around his back and placed her other palm on the side of his face, which pulsed with lively heat. “Babe, stop.”
He looked up, gorgeous and dreamy, like a grown-up high school jock on the cover of a Harlequin novel. His eyebrows were heavy and expressive, and the sharpness of his cheeks poked into her palm as she rubbed sweat from his face. “Romeo, I…” She paused and saw his face flood with emotions. “I can’t, I, I made a vow,” she stammered, “It feels like I’m cheating, you’re not supposed to be like this…this is wrong. I’m just looking at your body, and it’s…it’s like an affair of the heart, I…”
Romeo’s head was still tipped forward into his wife’s naked shoulder, covering it in sweat. His breathing was heavy and labored, but she knew he had heard her. He leaned his head up and planted a delicate kiss next to her ear, and whispered into it. “My name…my name is Romeo Hayes Bennett, and you’re Madeline Elizabeth Bennett. You love Pride and Prejudice so you were so excited when you married me, because of my last name going with your middle. We got married…” He huffed out a breath and slowly ran a rough hand up her side, which made her shudder with pleasure. “…we got married in August, and you looked so beautiful that it made me nervous. My parents love you and your mom likes me but your dad isn’t too crazy about me,” he said with a little laugh, and she laughed too. “Our second date we were going to go to an art show but we couldn’t find the place so we just started walking, and talking, and then we sat on a bench in the Park and before we knew it, it had been three hours, and I…” His breath ran out, and she felt his whiskers rub against her shoulder as he nuzzled his head in the crook of her neck. “I knew I’d walk with you anywhere after that,” he whispered. “I’ll walk anywhere with you.”
He wrapped his hand around hers and held it up to his face, placing his other hand on her cheek in a mirrored position. His eyes were as large as could be, beautiful and shiny. “I’ll walk anywhere with you.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “I will, I will.” Another kiss. “It’s me.” Kiss. “It’s me.”
Madeline put a hand on each side of Romeo’s chest and rubbed up and down, feeling the slight give of the muscle, the incredible slope of his pecs. She didn’t know bodies could actually look like this, she’d figured they were mostly products of flattering lighting and photo editing, but this body…the channels of his abs, the perfect shape of his nipples, the mountain range that his shoulders resembled…peak, valley, peak…
And then that damn tie, still wrapped around his neck. She touched the knot and he put his hand over hers, then brought it up to his mouth and kissed it with passion, indicating that his switch to tenderness had done nothing to diminish his sexual craving. She embraced his head and kissed his lips—his pretty, pretty lips—and felt him push her down into the soft folds of their bed. His big hands ran up her sides again and she knew he was about to enter, but having seen that baseball bat of a cock, she suddenly got nervous. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered as she stared up into his face. His long curls hung down like a curtain around their heads, and he smiled with a lusty tenderness. “I would never.”
Her legs intertwined around his as he began to hold her: despite their unknown strength, they found their way to all of the most tender, sensitive places on her body, blindly gliding there as only a husband knew how to do. Years of practice suddenly went from a rehearsal of pleasures to something new, untried, exotic. As his powerful hands caressed her, she began to realize that her husband had become a whole new creature, yet still remained the man she loved.
And that was when the bedframe began to thud against the wall--gently, slowly at first, and then louder. Rocking beneath his prodigious weight, the whole bed began to creak. Her moans mingled with laughs; his kisses grew wetter on her breasts. Her hands glided over his lats, relishing their firm curves; his massive biceps bulged as he folded them around her.
Growing accustomed to his newfound size, he was already in her, finding his familiar way, forgetting the condoms in the drawer on the bedside table. He and his wife had obviously discussed children many times before, and certainly made a point of enjoying the "practice" of making them. And now, as he slid back and forth through her, his stallion testicles swelled with one last pang of growth.
“Ooof,” he groaned, his fingers suddenly digging into the sheets. His back arched and he reared upward, giving Madeline the astonishing view of his body; she couldn’t resist running her hands up his flawless stomach and across his nipples. He grabbed her right hand with his left and clutched it up against his racing heart. Romeo’s face was crimson, his pores welling anew with sweat. He thrust instinctively, hoping to rid himself of the odd stirring in his balls. Romeo rocked onto knee, then the other, thinking that maybe he’d strained one of his groin muscles—until he realized that the shooting sensations were within his sack.
Madeline’s back arched too, more dramatically, she gasped for breath as he began pumping his hips violently. His groans sounded slightly pained even as he shoved his hands between her thighs and spread them further apart, plunging himself deeper. “CHRIST,” she shrieked, feeling his energy pulsing within her. Those enormous, steel arms clutched her lower back and pulled her up even as he kept fucking her. His balls continued to tremble as if they were vibrating from within, but he had never felt such an extreme connection to his own manhood before, and it revitalized Romeo in such a way that he suddenly felt a completely reborn man.
“I wanna turn you inside out,” he purred into her ear, and she moaned loudly, to her own surprise. Nothing Romeo had said to her had ever turned her on that much. He was so sexually aware of himself now, and somehow so much more in tune with his body, even though it was new to the both of them. She felt his teeth nibbling on her earlobe, and in between her thighs, she could feel his balls explode with the most intense heat.
Something was changing, changed, had changed: the transformation was complete.
--------
Madeline woke up as she was being ravished with long kisses all over her body. She opened up her eyes and saw her husband’s face pressed right into hers, the irises of his boyishly sparkling eyes taking up most of her vision.
“Good morning, gorgeous wife,” he said playfully, and as he pulled away, she noticed that he had shaved off his whiskers while she had been asleep. It took her a few hazy seconds to piece everything together, but he saw her eyes register recognition, and her mouth fell open.
“Romeo…” she breathed, staring at his face, all cheekbones and jaw and chin, a living tribute to testosterone and masculinity. “Oh Romeo…” His lips curled into a precious smile, his face flooding with warmth. Despite his unbridled manliness, there was something so fresh and youthful about him now. Nobody was going to believe him when he started spouting academics. He wasn’t stuffy anymore, or curatorial; he was just so powerfully handsome that it took her breath away, and gave him the confidence to showcase his sense of humor and fun-loving spirit. Romeo looked mischievous…and proud. Very, very proud.
“You took off the tie,” she said softly, her hand rubbing across his pecs, and he nodded. “This is permanent,” the beautiful baritone intoned.
“Permanent,” she parroted, a little shocked.
“We’re gonna have babies,” he said, kissing her in between sentences, “and they’re gonna look like me, and they’re gonna look like you, and we’re…we’re gonna make a family. We’re going to raise a beautiful family. The Bennetts. The Bennetts…that’ll look good on a doormat, right? Or a mailbox.” He pulled back and looked into her eyes, and the newly-boyish smile once again formed on his face. “I wanna show you something.”
He jumped up and bounded across the room, and she giggled at his enthusiasm, barely noticing his nakedness except for a brief glance at his perfect ass, and also the way his long tresses were wrapped up with one of her hair ties.
“Look at this,” he said, grabbing a striped shirt out of his closet. He stuffed his arms into the sleeves, which almost immediately shredded down both sides, his biceps blasting through. He stood up straight and allowed his back to flare out, which tore the shirt open over his spine. Despite all the tears, he still couldn’t button a single button, not even the very bottom one. She enjoyed watching him strain, it made his muscle flex all the more, and she finally laughed. “Babe, don’t destroy any more shirts.” She saw his face and had to ask with a sigh, “How many did you do before I woke up?”
“Just one. Well, uh, no. Two before, so…three,” he sheepishly admitted as he bowed his head, fiddling with the hem of the ripped-up shirt and quietly adding, “It’s just really fun.”
She started laughing. “I’m not gonna ‘mom’ you, but you’re such a boy sometimes.”
He grinned from ear-to-ear when she said it. Looking down at the shirt awkwardly hugging the rocky curves of his body, Romeo had a thought. “When…if we have a boy, what if he’s a little jock? I dunno how to raise a jock! For God’s sake, I grew up in museums and theaters, I don’t know anything about sports…” He trailed off, still grinning, and she smiled too, pulling the comforter back over her. “You’ll learn,” she said, “that’s what children do, they make us see the world differently, and we learn while they learn.”
He shook off the tattered shirt and crawled back into bed, wrapping himself around her. She rested her head on his shoulder.
“Do I make you feel safe?”
“Yes,” she responded, rubbing his arms.
“Oh,” he breathed out, “I’m so grateful for that. For this.”
--------
The shriek from the bathroom startled poor Romeo at first, until it keened into a squeal of delight.
"Honey! Romeo! Come look!"
He was out of the kitchen in a flash, having to duck the threshold of the door along the way, and sidle through the bathroom door to keep his pecs from brushing against the sides. In her shift, Madeline stood triumphant over the sink, her hair tousled in her excitement.
Romeo had had his hair trimmed after the transformation: a sort of layered buzzcut suggesting militaristic discipline coupled with masculine elegance. Unbuttoned shirts, like the one he wore today open to his navel, were becoming more comfortable for him, now that he'd found a few outlet stores that carried his size. Madeline would only ask him to button up when in public--but even then only up to the third button. Any higher and it could get uncomfortable, although he was going to be having shirts and suits made soon.
Romeo saw what Madeline held in her hand. His powerful hands gently clasped her shoulders: three weeks since the transformation, accustomed to his strength now, he no longer had to worry about hurting her.
Madeline stared at the piece of plastic in her hand. A pink plus sign appeared on it. She relished the sensation of Romeo's stubbly, clefted chin nuzzling her neck.
Her eyes glowed. "I'm pregnant." She put the stick on the counter and her head snapped up as the awareness sank in. “I’m pregnant!” Madeline turned and looked up at Romeo, giving another girly scream, and he yelled back ecstatically. She jumped up and he caught her, her arms around his head and her legs around his torso, and they spun around the bathroom in an overjoyed dance. They couldn’t stop saying that they loved each other, couldn’t stop kissing each other.
--------
No sooner was the table vacant, than a woman sat at one of the chairs, claiming it. “Quick! He’s coming!”
Another woman, her coworker, scooped up the latte the barista had made for her: it took every ounce of balance in her frame to dash across the sidewalk to her friend’s table, not spilling it.
“No—sit on the other side of the café table. He’s coming from that way.”
The coworker rolled her eyes, shuffling her seat to the other side of the table. This side gave both women a view of the sidewalk leading to the park. “So, where’s the man-sandwich?”
The first woman couldn’t help it: she tittered. “Ooo, you’ll know him when you see him. There’s just no missing this guy.”
Her coworker sipped her latte. “If there’s no missing him, then why haven’t I seen him until nooooo—”
Her jaw going slack, she paused mid-syllable.
“Oh. My. God.”
The first woman giggled. “He’s just kind of awesome, isn’t he? Just a little?”
“Does he always wear his shirt that far open?”
“Yep!” The first woman sipped her coffee. “He just yanks off his tie and pops his shirt right open.”
“I love it. So European. And he’s soooooo pretty. That face! Does he have a single flaw? There must be something horrible about him…is his voice super-high or something?”
Another titter, growing into a chuckle. “No, I heard him talk once, it practically takes your clothes off for you.”
“My god. His—what’re they called? His—”
“His pecs, you mean?”
“Yes, those things. They’re like bowling balls. They’re falling out of his shirt.”
“I know!” The first woman practically squirmed with delight. “Again, awesome. Just like I said.”
“And his arms! Look—he’s rolling up his sleeves!”
The first woman beamed. “I know! He always does that too!”
“And he walks this way every day for lunch?”
“Mm hm.” The first coworker fluttered her eyelashes at him, though he was quite too far away to notice.
“Please. Tell me he’s—single? Is he single?”
The first woman sighed. “No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because his wife’s right over there. She’s the one with the stroller.”
The coworker frowned. “Oh. A stroller.”
The colossal man bent down to lavish a deep, wet kiss on his wife—a little too passionate for a casual, lunchtime encounter.
The coworker’s jaw once more went slack. “…I’m going to need some ice water after this.”
The man’s massive arms embraced the woman fully, his hands wandering freely down her back.
“Or a cold shower,” remarked the coworker.
“He’s reaching into the stroller now.”
“With a hubby like that, I’m surprised she’s only got one baby.”
It was amazing, how such a gigantic man could handle the tiniest of infants with perfect grace, covering the happy little face with soft pecks before whisking the baby right up to his shoulder, where the starry-eyed child enjoyed what was very close to a bird’s eye view of the park and the sidewalk café.
And that was also when a mild breeze rustled the trees, and stirred the long cardigan the woman wore, revealing her belly.
“Oh—never mind. I think she’s got baby number two on the way already. Oh god, I think my ovaries are gonna explode from jealousy.”
“Geez—those two waste no time.”
The first woman smirked. “Why would you?” Her smirk grew tempered with a wistful smile. “Why would you?”
The coworker looked at her friend, puzzled. “Why would you what?”
Cradling the infant in the massive cushion of his forearms and biceps, the muscular hunk bent down and kissed his wife once more. As she received the kiss—she had to stand up on her toes—her cheeks glowed.
“Waste time,” said the friend. “There’s no reason to waste time. Life’s too short.”